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As promised here is the first chapter in my book. Feel free to leave comments on what you thought. I'll try to reply as soon as I can!
Enjoy. This chapter was 2 and a half years in the making. ;)

1

How a No Good, Very Bad, Terrible Thief Became Very Good, Really Sweet, and Overwhelmingly Willing To Help the King

 

 

 

 

Aster the Terrible

Oh what a world!

          I was at the height of my reign of plunder. Everyone who said my name spoke it with fear or with fury. I was a thief. A pirate on dry land. Even the pirates who sail the Seas of Mondorlan couldn’t compare to my horrible plunders.

          I was a silent whisper slinking through the Four Kingdoms stealing everything I could lay a finger on. Kings, queens, merchants all tried to catch me and failed. I was surely the man who could not be caught. I avoided them for so long I should have known my luck would eventually wear off.

Aster the Terrible, my name, plagued the noblemen of the Four Kingdoms well into the depths of the night. They all knew what I could do and they all hated me for it because they knew how impossible I was to catch.

           The underground prison is dark, dank, and smells faintly of rotting feet. The only light comes from the torches in brackets every ten feet down the cellblock. The flickering light casts odd, dim shadows on everything and can seriously mess with a man’s eyes if he let them. The walls are made of heavy gray stones carefully piled on each other and cemented together—nothing can be wedged between the stones, nothing can dig around them.

The doors on the cells are barely wide enough for a regular man. They’re made of iron bars. No amount of rust, or scraping, or kicking, can break them. The lock on the door is a padlock, roughly the size of my fist and made for a special key and that key alone. Nothing can pick it. Just as well. There’s nothing in the cell beyond me, bad memories, and a moldy pile of straw that has been my sorry excuse of a bed for the past nine months and fourteen days.

          It drives me crazy to think about the freedom I once had. It has died. The pompous and snotty Prince Maffio stole it the day he stuck the key into the lock on my shackles. He ended my reign of plunder, and won our two-year feud.

          That day when I was caught is listed among the most horrible moments of my life. It’s up there (or maybe I should down there, since it wasn’t very uplifting) with the two times that I bumped into the Secret Keeper. I got away from the Secret Keeper. I wasn’t so lucky in getting away from Maffio and the Nansterdome version of ‘justice.’

The memories of that day burn with a kind of scorn that time won’t soothe. Nor will my mind let them be; reviewing them day in and day out trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong. It’s simple really. My best friend sailed me down the river for a sack of gold. Why my mind can’t leave that fact be, I don’t know. I’ve gone over that sickening day in June hundreds of times. I can’t seem to change it, or accept that it happened, despite the fact that I’ve been rotting in prison since.

          I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised. Jackalton Mahoney was always a bit flighty. But I find it mildly amusing that he worked so hard to convince his father to not leave me to die after my first run-in with the Secret Keeper only to land me in this deathtrap prison ten years later. I still can’t figure out why he did it. I can’t really blame him. I probably would have done the same thing to him.

          What makes me the angriest is the thought of what he’s doing with my loot. I stole enough riches to equal a small fortune. Little bits and pieces building up over eight years, all from different parts of the Four Kingdoms. I’m probably the only thief who can say I’ve stolen at least some small trinket from each crown castle—Nansterdomian, Illfildellian, Karkruffian, and Silverdalian.

          Jackalton has probably taken all eight years worth of my loot and bought himself a nice little estate. He’s living in glutton while I sit here and starve in the prison he landed me in. I hope he’s caught in his lies. Someone has to catch him eventually, right? I’d laugh myself unconscious if he got paraded down here.

          So far I haven’t had anything to laugh about, except to laugh at myself and my own stupidity at trying to think up ways of escaping. I stopped hoping for some kind of miracle to allow me to escape. But I’ve still spent plenty of long hours dreaming about escaping this prison and my death sentence that looms in the future about five years from now.

 The chances of escape are extremely slim. That’s what the lower dungeons in each of the Four Kingdom’s crown castles were designed for. The dungeons have been used a bit more now that the feuds between the Four Kingdoms have grown bitter.

So here I am, Aster the Terrible, the man who could not be caught stuck in this dull prison with no escape. The only time that I’ll be let out of this dreary cell will be the day in five years and some months that I won’t come back. The day that I’m going to get hung for my crimes. Apparently I had enough of them stacked up to land me in prison for five years. The only thing Prince Snotty was good at, making sure none of my crimes went unnoticed.

Except for he forgot that one where I snitched a pie from some lady’s window. I doubt pointing that out to him would help my cause much. Prince Maffio would probably lob another ten years on me. He’s always prattling on about helping the poor and needy. He never does much except for imprison those who ‘torment’ the poor and needy meaning he should lock himself up. But I wouldn’t want him in my cellblock. He’d be one of those annoying neighbors that never shuts up no matter what you chuck at him.

I press my hands against my head trying to shut my last sight of Maffio out of it. I never realized how much memories can haunt you. I’d like a break from walking Memory Lane. I’d even take another run-in with the Secret Keeper to break the monotony.

The corner on the far side of my cell has become like a second home to me. It’s furthest from the door and what I deem as safe. The guards tend ignore you when they can’t see you. Sometimes I try to sleep, but it never comes easily. Other times I stare at the wall trying to convince myself that death by boredom is not the way to go.

I’m currently sitting with my back in the corner and my boots pressing against the opposite wall. I stare over my feet at the wall struggling to shove thoughts out of my head. Dreamy thoughts of escape, wringing Jackalton’s piggy neck, and food that looks like food and not like something that looks, smells, and tastes like yak upchuck. I think it’s time I grew up and smelled the burning bacon. I’m stuck.

As I’m grinding my backbone against the cell wall, I start to hear voices. It’s nothing distinct, far away, and very strange to hear. One of the first things that drove me crazy about this prison is how quiet it is. I was used to the never-ending voice of nature, having spent most of my life on the run. Stillness in the world outside this prison never means anything good.

I didn’t realize I’d gotten so used to the deadening silence until I hear the voices coming down the cellblock. They’re strange, almost foreign, like they’re speaking Karkruffian instead of the common tongue.

I start to hear the footsteps of the approaching party. Quite a few footsteps and among them there’s a pair that really sets itself apart from the others. Clunk, clomp. Like the owner of the feet is wearing two different kinds of shoes, one high-heeled the other flat, and is stumbling along with his flat-shoed companions.

The voices are getting closer. They don’t sound pleased to be here. Ah, probably a prison escort. I look up from my boots and through the cell bars wanting to see the doomed man they’re hauling down here. It’s very rare that a prisoner gets chucked into a cell near me. I’m kept in the furthest used cellblock before it comes too close to the unused torture chamber.

Clunk, clomp, clunk clomp.

I watch the flickering shadows as people walking down the cellblock. Trying to count the men walking down the cellblock proves difficult thanks to the torches. I can tell that there are at least five guards, and one man of rank approaching. As far as I can tell, they’re not dragging anyone. No shackled man to toss in this dull monotony today. But this only perks my curiosity further. If there’s no prisoner, why are they coming down here?

I expect them to walk on pass, but I hear the jingle of keys. The whole group stops at my cell door. Curiosity squelched. I no longer want to know what they’re doing. It hasn’t been five years. Only nine months! What are they doing here? Has Maffio finally convinced his father to hang me?

The lock clinks and jingles as the head guard slips the key inside. There’s an oily click and the lock is pulled free from the cell door. With a creak befitting a haunted house, the cell door is opened. A torch handed to the man of rank, illuminating him from top to bottom.

          My lips curl up in disgust as I look at him. He only has one leg. It’s clad in an expensive leather boot. The other is a plain wooden peg leg starting below his right knee. That’s new. He had a matching pair of feet the last time I saw him.

          I let my eyes slide up him from his peg leg, to the royal crest on his black silk vest, and on up to his clean-shaven face, a young face, he’d be in his late teens by now. A sneer crosses my face and I do absolutely nothing to get rid of it. This is the sniveling pup that spent so much time tracking me down and who was the one to eventually catch me. What does Snotty want now?

Prince Maffio’s blue eyes spark. He glares at me with the utmost disgust. His lips pucker as he says, “Aster the Terrible, the king has requested your help.”

 

Ah yes. Good things must come to an end. You can buy the rest of the book on Amazon.
Print copy here,
http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-Volume-1-Tayla-Durham/dp/1493540467/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1383931031&sr=1-1
Kindle here
http://www.amazon.com/Twisted-ebook/dp/B00FWT4BHW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383931031&sr=1-1&keywords=twisted+Tayla+durham

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Thanks so much! Tayla out. ;)