Key To Chains

Black elves hold me prisoner deep within the earth. It is a world of death and hate.

I miss the sun. Here in these caverns there is only darkness. Even my thoughts are not my own.

I do not know where my master leads me now. We leave the city behind and plunge into the tunnels curving around it like a viper around its prey. I do not look back at the great expanse of buildings filling the great hole in the center of the earth.

Perhaps I am to be quietly murdered.

Some of the places we pass seem half familiar to me. Perhaps I passed them in the past when my capturers dragged me away from the sun into the gloom as their slave. For a moment I think perhaps I will be freed. But I must be mistaken. No prisoner of the black elves lives to see the sun again. Freedom is a sweet memory.

It seems unbelievable I am where I am; at the mouth of a cave looking out at a world I thought never to see again. My black elf master cannot speak my language nor I his but he pushes me toward the sun. His eyes are pleading.

I know he will be killed by his people for what he has done for me. I do not want that for him when every black elf but him has hurt me.

I give him my hand. He cannot see in the light but I will guide him until he can, as he guided me in the darkness.

He is not my master now. He is my friend.

We take the step together into freedom.