Wardley reached into his bag and clamped iron shackles over her wrists. They were heavier than Dinah had anticipated. “You look a mess,” he informed her. Dinah had been purposely careless as she walked and crawled through the tunnels. Her dress was caked with mud. She had soot from the flame smeared across her face and she had let her clean hair run against the tunnel wall. She looked like a commoner, more than a commoner, a criminal. They hadn’t been alone down in the tunnels—Wardley had identified rat and mongoose droppings, as well as a few more with which he wasn’t familiar.
Dinah gave a shudder in the cold, wet air. “I’m ready.”
Wardley drew his eyes to her face and Dinah saw a fear that matched her own. “We stay together, no matter what happens. You brought your crown?”
Dinah nodded and patted her bag. “Just in case things go wrong.” She wrapped her freezing hand around his. The chains gave a slight jangle.
“Here we go,” said Wardley. He gave a hard grunt, and the chain mail on his fist broke the aged lock on the door. It fell to the ground with a loud clang. Together they took a deep breath and stepped inside.
The temperature change was immediate and severe. Whereas before they had been freezing, Dinah was soon covered in sweat. The air was thick, humid, and filthy. Pillars of black smoke rose up from below them. They appeared to be in a giant cocoon—a spiraling black tower, wider at the bottom and consistently narrowing toward the top. They were looking out across a wide chasm filled with heavy, dangling chains that twisted down from the cone’s point. On either side of them stretched endless cells embedded in the circumference of the tower, one after another, smaller and smaller the higher they went. The smell was inhumane, and Dinah gave a loud retch, unable to control herself, followed by another and another. Urine, sweat, human waste, and blood, all mingled together in the thick air.
Wardley bent over her. “Are you going to be alright?”
“I’m your prisoner!” Dinah quietly reminded him in between heaves.
Wardley stood up. “Right. C’mon then.” He gave a yank of her chain and Dinah followed along behind him as they circled their way higher and higher into the tower. High-pitched screams of pain echoed up from below, and Dinah fought the urge to clap her hands over her ears. Wardley yanked her chains so that she walked closer beside him.
“They torture prisoners on the floor of the tower, but the smallest cells are at the top. The worst criminals are kept in the top cells, so that after their torture sessions, they have to crawl back up the spiral until they can rest.” He shook his head. “The crawl is its own form of torture.”
Dinah’s eyes rested with pity upon an old man in a cell they passed, sitting on the floor in his own waste, licking the black slimy wall. He turned as they walked by. Dinah gave him a sad smile from under her hood. Without warning, the man lunged at her from inside the cell, and managed to grab the edge of her cloak. He pulled her violently against the bars, shaking her back and forth as he reached out to grope her.
“The hearts, the hearts, I love my hearts!”
Dinah felt his rotten breath splash across her face, and she fought another rising wave of nausea. Wardley drew his sword and raised it above the man’s gnarled hand. “You will let go of her or you will lose a limb today.”
The prisoner laughed in Dinah’s face. “Lose a limb, lose a limb, we all will lose our limbs and heads today. . . .”
“Quizzer, let that prisoner go!” boomed a very loud voice from behind them. The man let go of Dinah with a final shake of his head and sunk back into his celled cave, hissing, “I’ll be watching you, my dark-eyed Queen, yes I will!”
Dinah stepped back in shock. They turned. A fat man, larger than even her father, waddled up before them. His Club uniform—a thin white tunic overlaid with a gray breastplate and gray wool cape held in place by a club clasp—stretched out to fit his massive girth. Over his breastplate, the Club symbol was encompassed by a much larger skull. She had seen this symbol in a book once or twice; this man was a torturer. Dinah looked at the ground. She felt a slight twitch of fear ripple up Wardley’s hand and through her chains.
“Thank you for your aid. I’m to take this filthy wench to the Women’s Tower, but we must have taken a wrong turn. I apologize.”
A man’s shrill scream circled up from below, followed by pleading whimpers. A tear leaked from Dinah’s eye, cutting a clean line through the dirt on her face. Without warning, the man reached out and struck her hard across the face. The blow took Dinah’s breath away and she fell to the ground. Wardley looked stunned, unsure what to do.
“Who are you to have sympathy for that man? He is no longer a man. Once you enter the Black Towers, you become a part of them. You belong to the towers and to the Club Cards. You are the dirt under our feet, the waste in our privy, a slave to the tree. Do not weep for that man, for he deserves what he is getting. His screams say that he is thankful for the King’s justice, thankful to repay his debt to Wonderland. Soon your screams will say the same thing.”
Dinah stared at the ground.
“Where did you say you were taking her, boy?”