Dalibor Tower
Crowley stood, fingers linked together atop his head, staring into the column of wan light from above. Trapped in an oubliette. His heart hammered, ice washed through his gut. It was a nightmare made real. The opening high above, designed specifically to thwart escape, mocked him with its brightness.
He took a deep breath. He wouldn’t rot down here. At worst he would have to yell for help like a recalcitrant child and keep yelling until he was hoarse. Eventually some official employee would hear, they would come and help him out. But he would be in a lot of trouble, maybe even arrested. And then where would that leave Rose. He couldn’t allow that to happen.
He turned to the walls, curving slowly up to the exit. Maybe he was fit and strong enough, his military regime of fitness maintained, at least to some degree. He certainly wasn’t the wasted prisoner who might have been thrown into this dungeon in days past. He found a wall with what appeared to be the widest trails of mortar and began to scratch it out, make a hand hold. He got a toe into one mortar course, reached up and wedged his fingers into the highest he could reach, and hauled. The stone was hard, sharp edges scraping at the skin of his fingers, dragging against his nails. His muscles strained as he pulled and managed to get a meter or so off the ground. He reached up again, scraped a patch of sandy mortar free and pulled again. Teeth gritted, grunting with the effort, he gained another meter. He allowed himself a moment’s congratulation, ignored the nagging thought of how he might get across the ceiling even if he scaled the wall, and slipped.
He yelped, skin barking off one knee and each fingertip as he slid down. He gouged his hands in and managed to arrest the fall. Two meters up, one back. This would take a while.
He glanced down, the flagstone floor still insultingly close, and began to climb again. He made it up another couple of meters, then craned his neck to see back over his shoulder. Could he get high enough, then brace his legs against the wall and push back, leap across the space to grab the edge of the hole high above?
His brow creased in concentration, and despair. Who did he think he was? Spider-Man? Regardless, he pushed on, reached up for another handhold, and fell.
For a moment he seemed weightless, then air rushed past, whipping at his hair and jacket, and the hard stone floor slammed into his back. The breath was hammered from his lungs, his bones flexed and flesh howled as he curled into a fetal ball and groaned. He dragged air into his battered body, squinted against the hurt and dragged air in again. He let his panic settle as he mentally searched for any specific pain, any broken bones.
Bloody idiot, he thought to himself. Could have smashed your stupid skull.
He might be less use to Rose if he were arrested, but he’d be no use to her at all if he was dead. He climbed slowly to his feet, testing every limb, thankful he wasn’t more than bruised. Lucky. Frowning, he scoured the dungeon, looking for anything else. A trapdoor, a bricked up entrance to some other tunnel that he could maybe clear with enough time and some improvised tools. Anything. But there was nothing to be found.
Accepting his fate, he walked back to the middle of the space and looked up through the light to the hole high above. He would have to call for help after all. Maybe he could tell them that he’d been intrigued by the grill covering the oubliette and had leaned on it for a better look inside and it had given way. But that was clearly not the case, given its position from where he had removed it earlier. So maybe he should tell them he had lifted it aside for a better look, but fallen in like a clumsy fool. Then how would he explain his lack of injuries from a fall that far onto stone? But there was no rope in evidence after all, nothing to show his premeditation in accessing the dungeon. Perhaps they would believe he had been both uncommonly foolish and lucky.
He jumped as a shadow appeared above, a human shape in silhouette blocking out most of the light. “Hey,” a voice called down. “Need a lift?”