"It took seven guards just to subdue him."

Iriah stopped midstep on the stone staircase, worn smooth and bowed in the middle from the passage of so many feet.

"Seven men?" She asked as she turned back around to see him. The Irrakam guard were welled trained, the fact it took so many disturbed her.

He nodded, eyes as black as the night sky regarding her curiously. "Aye, seven. But the strangest of all is that before he lost it, everyone the guards questioned said he was looking for passage to Astaka and none would help him."

Of course no one would help him. A foreigner asking for directions to one of the most reclusive tribes in Fallien? He'd be laughed at and ignored.

Turning back to the winding, stone passage, Iriah held the lantern high in front of her, trying to chase away the deep darkness. In truth, the glowing glass orb that swung from her outstretched hand only illuminated ten feet into the oppressive, soupy blackness that pressed in on her like an ocean of water.

She'd been to many places within Irrakam, and as the Ambassador of Astaka, she had seen many areas inside the city that would otherwise be off-limits to most citizens. Still, the jails were the one place she'd never ventured before. Never had a desire to, and still didn't quite want to be here now. It smelled of rot and decay, hopelessness and despair. She could feel the imprint of those strong emotions within the stone itself, blackened by years grime and soot from a hundred or a thousand torches. The Ahketamikan could only wonder at what would happen should she actually lay her hands upon that stone and feel all that trapped energy, all that emotion flow into her. It would be overwhelming to say the least.

"We've kept him away from the other prisoners for fear he may attack them." The guards voice echoed down after her, bouncing off the tight confines of the stone and distorting it to sound like a dozen voices coming from below. "When I heard that you were passing through the city--"

"You couldn't wait to dump your problem on me." Iriah finished for him.

Perhaps it was not entirely true and more than a little on the hasrh side. The Irrakam guard were not equipped to deal with those possessed by spirits, but she was. Still, it aggravated her.

He said nothing more and as Iriah rounded the next bend she could see a faint glow coming from below her. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, the Ahketamikan found herself in a small, rectangular room illuminated by two torches set in the opposite wall. A guard lounged in the corner, leaning back in his chair, feet propped up on the table. He briefly glanced at her, nodded as the Captain came up behind her and went back to whittling away at same scrap piece of wood. Small chips and shavings covered the stained and scarred surface of the wooden table before him, which leaned slightly to one side.

Once down below, the oppressive emotions became a living thing, like a film that covered the whole area, making it hazy and hard to see. She shook her head to clear it, but could not dispel the shadows, nor the ghost-like figure of a man as he walked right by her and down the hall to her right.

The dead did not look like ghosts to her, or what people normally thought ghosts would look like. They appeared solid and whole and she could touch them as if they were. But that figure was not a soul, and was perhaps a more true definition of a ghost. It was just a mass of energy that could not feel, hear or see, that could do nothing but repeat itself over and over again. A memory, an imprint of a life long since passed.

Walking ahead of her now, Iriah followed the Captain down the same hall the figure had taken. The right side was nothing but solid stone, but bars lined the other. The rooms were nothing more than cages, small and cramped, the floors covered in rotting straw. She could barely see into them, the darkness too thick for her eyes to pierce. Torches burned brightly down this corridor as well, but the smell of smoke was quickly overrun by that of human waste, refuse, and unwashed bodies.

She grimaced and tried breathing through her mouth, but it did little to alleviate the acrid stench. "Just how many people do you have down here?"

"Just him. This section has not been used since the war."

Iriah paused as she heard sniffling coming from within one of the cells. She turned and raised the lantern high above her head. The pathetic light did little to chase away all the shadows, but it allowed her to peer into the tiny room. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the corner, a dark pile of rags shifting slightly in the light; light that pierced right through to the filth covered floor before.

There was far more than just him down here.

She sighed, quicksilver eyes watching the pathetic mound shiver and whimper on the ground. Residuals were hard to deal with and this place was rampant with them. She'd have to recommend Gereint send someone out to contain the situation. There was not much she could do at the moment, for once, Iriah needed to focus on the living rather than the dead.

Turning back, she found the Captain regarding her, face lined with uncertainly, eyes shadowed. She was used to being regarded oddly and misunderstood, even her fellow Fallenian's thought the Ahketamikan's were strange and best left alone.

The residual of the guard came up behind him, then walked right through the man, paying him no mind. Iriah watched him shiver and saw a strand of energy shift off his body and into that of the ghost.

This one had to go immediately.

He'd begun to feed off others, soon enough he would become sentient and be nothing more than a menace.

As he moved to walk passed her, her hand lashed out lightning quick and buried itself deep into the cold of his body. Pain lanced up her arm, every muscle within her clenching and spasming as energy travelled from him and into her. Grasping the threads within him, she pulled, and ripped her hand free. He dissipated before her eyes, without so much as a glance or acknowledgement of her presence.

Releasing the death grip of her fingers, Iriah dropped the threads to the ground and watched them wither and fade. She quickly tucked her right hand and arm into the material of her shawl, trying to hide the swollen, red skin and the blisters on her palm from where the energy had raced into her body.

When she looked up, the Captain's face had paled slightly. He swallowed when she made eye contact with him and quickly looked away. Not even a thank you passed his lips. Though she doubted he'd ever know she may have just saved his life and she was not one to tell him.

Iriah did what she did because it was her job. She'd given up trying to make people understand the things she saw a long time ago.

A moment of silence passed between them before he turned, feet shuffling on the stones, and continued to lead her down.

"How long have you had him down here?" She asked.

"Four days now," his voice sounded strained, "though he was pretty out of it for the first one."

At some point, the Captain turned and headed to the left. Iriah followed him down another corridor with more cells; cells that only looked empty to him. In the third one, she saw the figure of a man slumped up against the bars, the material of his shirt knotted around his neck and through the cage that held him. She saw his face, swollen and purple, eyes bulging out of his head, a second before she turned away.

It amazed her how much pain one building could contain.

When she turned back, the Captain stood in a doorway, lantern in hand waiting on her.

She paused just outside the threshold.

"As I told you earlier, we really didn't know how to handle his case." He didn't quite meet the molten silver of her gaze. "It was obvious he did not mean to cause the damage himself, but we decided jail would be the safest place for him."

"Of course you did." She stated coolly.

She saw the change in body language as he tensed. She could only wonder at what kind of caustic remark he wanted to make to her, wonder, but not really care.

Pushing passed him, Iriah entered the small chamber. Her eyes had just enough time to take in a solitary figure illuminated in the flickering orange light before her head exploded in pain.

She dropped the lantern on the ground, the sound of the shattering glass barely audible above the cacophany that screamed within her mind. Her fingers clung to the side of the head, digging into the soft skin around her temples, pushing against her skull, as if in an effort to rip the noise out. The insistent voice, ripping her apart like the blade of a knife. Somewhere deep inside, in a place she wished didn't exist, Abhrapatha battered herself against the walls of her cage, screaming to get free. And Iriah felt the mortar cracking.