Jack saw no other prisoners, no exercise yards, no mess halls, nothing of the outside. He was ferried to the island prison in the lightless hold of an armored prison barge, led through a cyclopean maze of winding stone passages and massive iron doors, and then finally deposited in an oubliette four feet square and about fifteen feet deep, reached only through an iron trapdoor bolted and locked from outside. A grill of thick iron bars about a foot square in the center of the trapdoor provided the entrance for food, water, and a thin glimmer of yellow light. A similar grill in the center of the cell's cold stone floor served as the means by which his wastes exited.
And there he remained for some interminable time in the darkness, relieved only by the pale gleam of torchlight from some distant spot in the hallway above, and in the silence, sundered only by the unending dull thundering of the surf breaking against the prison's massive foundations. Neither condition showed the slightest fluctuation or variance; before he'd slept even once, Jack had lost track of whether an hour, a half-day, or even several days had passed. He tried talking to himself, singing, thinking up dirty jokes, challenging himself with mental puzzles, marching in place, and straining at the iron fetters that bound him, but ultimately the tedium overcame him, rising up like a dark and sinister flood, drowning him in despair and futility so that he simply slouched on the floor and gazed upward longingly at the light.
Jack had always imagined that any incarceration might be an arduous and exacting kind of adventure, an opportunity to survive a difficult experience and then escape from it in a particularly daring and skillful manner, the kind of experience that would only add to his fame and renown. What he had not expected was to be buried in a cold stone shaft and simply forgotten about. He hadn't expected to be alone, with nothing but the mocking half-light and the maddening reverberation of the distant surf to keep him company.
After he'd slept twice, he was awakened by a guard's passage. Jack leaped to his feet in excitement, amazed at how so common an occurrence as a human being walking by overhead could seem like the most entertaining break in the tedium. The small grill in the center of the trapdoor opened; a basket containing a flagon of water and some tough black bread was lowered on a length of twine.
"Remove the bread and the flagon," directed the voice from above. "You can keep the container until your next meal. You'll put the flagon in the basket, and it will be refilled. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Jack. "Listen, I would like to speak to-"
"One more word, and you'll miss your next meal. Two more, and you won't eat for three days. You are not to speak at all, unless asked to. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Jack.
He fidgeted and grimaced, desperate to say something, anything to keep the person above nearby, but he did not doubt for a moment that the jailer would do exactly what he said he would and skip him for the next few rounds.
"Good."
A shadow moved across the light above; the basket was abruptly drawn up again. Jack resigned himself to chewing on the tough bread and washing it down with the icy water, and considered whether or not he should begin a count of feedings by way of marking the time.
He slept again, awoke and spent a long time staring at the walls, and then the basket was lowered to him again. He received another chunk of coarse bread and a refill for his water flagon. The cycle repeated several more times. Jack wondered if strangling himself with his fetters might be preferable to eternal incarceration, and to divert his mind from such a grisly prospect, he began to hatch for his own fancy the most outrageous escape plots he could imagine.
"I could scale the cell walls chimney style, seeing as they have carelessly been left so close together," he mused. The shackles were unfortunately fixed to a heavy bolt in the cell floor, preventing him from climbing anywhere near the trapdoor above.
"I see that my jailers thought of that already," Jack muttered after trying the scheme. "Then perhaps I shall work at dislodging the grate below. I am a small fellow and may be able to fit through the opening and discover where the cell's wastes are discharged. Given that this place is built upon an artificial island, they are almost certainly emptied into the sea. It is a foul path indeed, but I am desperate and cannot be fastidious in these matters."
The bars were as thick as spear shaft and evidently anchored deeply in the stone walls. With the strength of an ogre he could not have pulled them loose.
"Very well, then. I did not care for that scheme, anyway. Instead, I shall remove these enchanted shackles, thus making available magical abilities that must surely suffice to free me from this dismal place."
The shackles were enchanted quite well. Hours of experimentation convinced him that he'd have to break most of the bones in his hands to free himself of the irons on his wrists. Broken hands, of course, would drastically inhibit his ability to work magic, and there was no way that his feet could be crushed or pulped enough to slip out of his ankle irons.
"Even if I could free myself that way, I would have two broken hands and two broken legs," Jack mused. "Beginning my escape in such a condition would not be advisable."
Before Jack had determined which of the unattractive options promised the best chance for escape within the next decade, he was interrupted by the approach of booted feet, a number of them, in the corridor above. The procession stopped above his cell; a moment later, the trapdoor was pulled open. Lanterns bright enough to make Jack shield his eyes shone down on him.
"Jack Ravenwild," stated one of the guards above. "You have been summoned to appear before the Lord High Magistrate to answer to charges of treason, murder, arson, conspiracy, assault, and various other crimes and misdemeanors."
The guards lowered a narrow ladder into the cell. Two climbed down and freed his fetters from the bolt in the wall, then escorted him back up to the hall. There he was chained securely, blindfolded and hooded, and finally manhandled through the prison's labyrinthine passageways and out into the open sea air. He could hear a boat scraping against the stone quay, rocking up and down in the soft swell.
"The prisoner is ready for transport," said one guard aloud.
"Put him in the boat," another replied. "Chain him securely. The Lady Mayor herself wanted this one tried and condemned speedily."
"Are we going to see him again?" asked the first guard.
"That's up to the Magistrate," said the boatman. "I suspect that you'll hold him for a day or two, and then he'll be put to death." Someone prodded Jack with a cudgel and shoved him down into the damp bilge of an open boat. His chains rattled and clanked as they were secured to the boat in some unseen manner.
"It seems," Jack muttered to himself, "that attending my own trial is the only opportunity I will have to leave this place."
Jack was transferred from the boat to a small, shuttered wagon that trundled through the streets. The normal bustle and commerce of the city was missing altogether. Jack guessed that the hour was very late, but he'd thought that he had felt weak sunshine through the heavy hood during his short voyage across the harbor in the prison scow. If the sun was up, then the quiet of the city was very peculiar. He shrugged and set the issue aside; he had far more important things to worry about.
The wagon halted, and Jack was dragged out and hauled up a steep flight of stone stairs. Heavy doors creaked open ahead of him, only to boom shut when he and his captors passed. The quality of the sounds changed-footfalls echoed, the mail of his escorts jingled shrilly. They were inside a large building, which he guessed must be Ravendark Castle, seat of the city hall and location of the city's High Court. In all the years he'd lived in the city of Raven's Bluff, Jack had never once set foot in the place. Suspicious guardsmen and nosy bureaucrats made it a bad place to visit, if one's chosen vocation was not entirely sanctioned by the civic authorities.