Tortured Silence

by Michael Clement

  Puking upside down sucks. My face was covered in a thick, soupy liquid that stunk and blurred my vision.

  “You Mordathi!” he shouted. “You have abandoned your heritage!”

  I could barely breathe. One of my ribs felt broken.

  Grabbing my goopy hair, he yanked me up to his face again.

  “Why did you do this?”

  “I chose the light.”

  - 34 -

  What else could I say? I certainly wasn’t going to tell my father that I had picked Hana instead of power. Mog would kill her if he knew that.

  Mog dropped me, letting my body sway back and forth. It was hard to track his features, but when I did, I saw something unusual.

  Mog was speechless.

  He looked at me like I was some sort of bug that he had never seen before. My father opened his mouth… and then closed it again.

  Turning, he began to pace.

  “That is… impossible,” he hissed. “You are my son… not her child.”

  Her child.

  I could almost hear the word… Amelia. It was right on the tip of his tongue.

  Her child.

  He was talking about my mother.

  Twisting and turning around me, I heard Mog begin to argue with himself out loud. “How could he pick the light? That is impossible. I would have seen the possibility.”

  Raising his hands in the air, my father shouted at the ceiling. “You bitch! You will not win!”

  I just stared at him in shock. My words had completely unhinged him. The white and gold robes slid back, exposing his arms.

  And, the runes carved into them.

  Deep red runes burned with a quiet fire on my father’s gray arms.

  And, suddenly, I realized the truth.

  Dad was as much a slave as the women who I had once Tamed. Someone had taken away his choices and made them theirs.

  “Who Tamed you?” I asked.

  Mog screeched and threw himself down by me so that his teeth snapped in my face.

  “No one Tamed me… boy,” he growled. I could smell enraged goblin on his breath. My father’s scent was hot and heavy, filled with anger and violence. He was oozing chaos magic through his very veins.

  And, for once, I didn’t care.

  “Was it Addisyn?”

  His growl never changed.

  I wracked my brain.

  “Gavin?”

  Nope. No reaction.

  “Charles.”

  Dad snapped his teeth close enough that I felt spittle pepper my eyes.

  Yep.

  Bingo.

  Then, I remembered my ally’s words… I am saving the King.

  Oba Shufen hadn’t been talking about me.

  Swallowing hard, I realized the truth. She had destroyed the Vanaken family for one simple reason. They had Tamed her King.

  My father.

  I nearly snorted in anger. I’ll be your Merlin. I could hear Oba Shufen telling me that she would be my aid, counselor, and advisor.

  What a load of shit.

  She had never been on my side. Sun had stuffed Mockery’s rib in my body, infected her daughter, and sent me into the lion’s den… just to save my father.

  “Never. Ever. Say his name again,” Mog growled in a tone that was so loud and powerful that I felt vibrations in my chest.

  Shit.

  Charle’s had Tamed Dad.

  And, when Charles was murdered by Lady Shufen. It had unhinged my father. His connection hadn’t been gracefully removed.

  It had been ripped apart.

  Mog turned away from me, talking to himself again.

  Looking around, I tried to figure out where I was and why Gavin had sent me here. He had told me that I’d have all the time that I needed to become powerful.

  And, who had taken father’s toy, whoever that was? Too much wasn’t adding up. Father had been on the stage in front of thousands of Race-Haters, and no one had booed him or yelled racial slurs. And, he had been dressed in a very ungoblin-like attire.

  The crowd had acted like he wasn’t a goblin.

  Had I pierced an illusionary veil around him, simply because I was his son? It was the only thing that made sense.

  The only one on the rock stage who knew that he was a goblin was Charles. They had snapped at one another, but Charles had seen through the illusion because he had created it.

  My body was still swaying from being hit.

  Looking around, I suddenly recognized one of the corpses.

  Mockery.

  I stared at her in shock. Her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling.

  Shit.

  Oh, Fucking. Shit!

  I had been hoping that she would swoop in and rescue me.

  Then… I saw what she had been holding. Her palm was open, facing up. And, in it was

  A marble.

  A blue shooter to be precise.

  - 35 -

  The world began to twist and swirl, as the rope began to rotate faster and faster. My vision blurred as the world took on the smeary colors of Mockery’s marble.

  I saw one flash of pink, and then I stopped twirling.

  Father was gone.

  And, instead of a room, I was suspended over a swamp. Cypress trees blocked out the sun. My legs were still tied up with rope. Water lapped underneath my arms as they hung down. I could almost touch it if I tried.

  “Why are you here?”

  The rope turned, and I saw Hana kneeling on a tree root. Her knees were almost touching the water. She looked old and tired.

  “Hana?” I asked.

  “Where have you been?” she said with a long, drawn-out sigh. “We looked for you everywhere, but you just disappeared.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she ignored me.

  “Mog killed her,” she muttered. “Then, everything fell apart.”

  Brynn. She had to be talking about…

  “Mary was next. He slit her throat and laughed as she bled out.”

  Moaning, she sat down on the log and let her feet dangle in the water.

  “I came here to die,” she said. Pointing up at a tree, Hana added. “Just like Taesa.”

  A skeleton was nailed to the scraggly tree, upside down.

  “Taesa put up a fight, but Oba was too strong. She nailed her to the tree for being disobedient.”

  Then, Hana held open her palm.

  In it was Mockery’s spider.

  “Nibbles… is hungry,” she whispered.

  Then the pink light snapped in my eyes, blinding me again.

  --M--

  I don’t remember when I started screaming.

  It was probably after Hana put Nibbles in my pants. So far, I had seen every one of the women that I had called my wives being ripped to shreds, strangled, lit on fire, and even stoned to death.

  The cycle of death kept revolving, from one woman to the next. Each time, I was forced to watch them die in different ways.

  Shutting my eyes didn’t help.

  The women… my lovers… just cut off my eyelids.

  I had to watch. Otherwise, things got so much worse.

  After a thousand, thousand deaths… I became numb. The pink light kept flashing, almost like a strobe of insanity. Its pulses drove me mad.

  I screamed for centuries before I found myself hanging from a tree limb, high in the air. In front of me, I could see the Earth and the other nine worlds that made up the Core. They spread out before me like fruit hanging from a tree that was surrounded by darkness, stars, and constellations. The sheer beauty of the view stopped the insanity that was bubbling through my soul.

  “The Manawars must never be allowed to return.”

  The voice whispered in my ear. Annoying and pestering me until I turned and looked at the small female pixie that was sitting on a squirrel next to my face.

  “They were evil,” she whispered. “They must never come again.”

  The squirrel tittered at her.

  Smiling, the pixie nodded.

/>   “Did you hear me?” she asked, poking at my eyelids.

  Annoyed, I rasped, “What is a Manawar?”

  Or, at least I tried. My throat was so dry and sore from screaming that I barely made sense. But, somehow, she understood me.

  “They are the descendants of Pandora,” she said, looking sad.

  Then, she smiled.

  “Did you know that a woman’s box is slang for her pussy?”

  The change in the subject made me shake my head.

  “There never was a wooden chest,” she giggled. “Pandora’s escaped evil was nothing more than her infected children scattering over the nine worlds.”

  Laughing and twisting in a pirouette, the pixie said, “The Manawars were her firstborn before she became infected with Chaos. She gave them terrible gifts.”

  Poking my nose, she said, “Magic flowed through their veins… your veins… like fire.”

  Crossing her arms, the little woman fanned her wings. Blue dust drifted down off of her, making the squirrel sneeze.

  “Sorry,” she told the furry rat.

  Continuing her story, she said, “Instead of capturing--and healing--their young siblings, your ancestors burned them. And, so did their descendants in an ever-widening spiral of death and homicide.”

  A flash drew my attention away from them. In the distance, I saw planet after planet began to burn and smolder. In the distance, I heard men, women, and children shrieking in agony as the flesh was melted off their bones. The aroma of cooking meat filled my mind…

  And made my mouth water.

  “You are disgusting,” she snapped. “Even after Isha sacrificed herself, you are still a goblin at heart.”

  “I am not a Manawar,” I rasped. That remark was quickly followed by, “Do you have any water?”

  Licking my blood-covered lips, I looked at the little pixie.

  Snorting, she said, “The only water that I will give you… goblin... is the water that flows from between my legs.”

  Climbing off of the squirrel, she sauntered along the tree branch. Then, she climbed up my arm.

  Standing on my shoulder, she cocked her hips.

  “Still, thirsty?”

  Sighing, I looked away from her.

  I wasn’t that thirsty… yet.

  “Look to your right,” she prompted.

  Obeying, I glanced right and then turned my face farther.

  Dozens of skeletons hung from the massive tree branch next to me. Some hung by two legs, others by only one. Several hung from two arms as well.

  One hung from only a single arm.

  Why hadn’t she freed herself? I wondered.

  “Amelia was tired,” the pixie pointed out. “She came here to die.”

  My mother.

  I looked at her skeleton, and tears poured down my face. I had always wondered where she had gone after she left me in the streets.

  All of their skeletons should have fallen apart after the flesh had been picked free. Two ravens sat amongst them, watching me with hungry minds... But something, maybe magic, held their bones together.

  “They are all trapped here until the old becomes new,” she told me. “After you die, the cycle will end. And, the Manawars will be snuffed out like a candle made from corpse wax.”

  In the distance, the worlds changed again. Turning back to them, I saw darkness flow over each planet, devouring one at a time. Nuclear explosions blossomed here and there, adding to the flames and destruction. Like a snuffed candle, fumes wisped up from the smoldering darkness polluting the grandeur of the universe.

  Breathing deeply, I smelled what I had forsaken.

  “The Dark,” I whispered. “It is the birth of the Eternal Darkness.”

  Gavin had given me time, he said.

  “Yes,” she replied. “You are seeing its squawling beginning.”

  From this distance, I watched as it grew colder on some worlds and hotter on others. The Frost Giants stumbled out of their dead worlds and began feeding on the flesh of the living. Trolls and Ogres followed them, hungry for the meat that was harvested from the screaming masses as light and heat disappeared from their universe.

  “The Manawars were meant to be the light in the darkness,” she said. “But, instead, they became something much worse. Their flaming ovens devoured everything that wasn’t perfection in their eyes.”

  Looking deep into my soul, she said, “They would have burned you… halfbreed. You and your dirty, filthy finger loving whores.”

  The Church of the Flames.

  I could almost hear the connection popping into life in my head. Pandora’s grandchildren had continued their death and inquisition of the supernatural races by perverting the religion of life itself.

  “What is your name?” I asked the annoying little woman. I was tired of having a conversation with a stranger.

  “Hiala,” she said with a smile.

  Then, she added. “I always eat the eyes first, before the crows get them.”

  Hiala watched my expression. Then she laughed. “They squish in my mouth like juicy grapes.”

  - 36 -

  I needed to change the subject before she ate my eyes.

  “Will the Darkness ever depart?”

  Hiala squished her nose, making her scowl.

  “Only Surtar, the Fiery One, can burn it away, and his time has not yet come.”

  Rotating, I saw that a vast sheath of Earth was not covered by darkness. Everywhere else, only pockets of light remained.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Shambhala,” she answered. Hiala moved closer, looking deep into my eye. “I especially like the brown eyes. They taste like dark chocolate.”

  Hiala licked her lips, exposing teeth that were more fangs and incisors than molars.

  “Why is Shambhala not covered by the Darkness?” I asked, trying to move my head a bit away from the hungry one.

  Sighing, Hiala glanced at the Earth.

  “The Dragons of China serve the flames of light. They despise the Darkness. Only their light or Surtar’s drive back the Darkness.”

  A particularly bright area was exposed for a second.

  “That was the Shining Staircase,” she said with a smile. “It leads to Panikkar, home of the Burning Throne.”

  Instantly, I thought about Blister.

  “Yes,” she replied, reading my thoughts. “He wrote about the home of the Manawar family.”

  Moving, Hiala climbed up onto my nose.

  Tapping her chin, she first peered at my right eye, and then the left. “Choices, choices,” she murmured.

  It was hard to focus with her so close to my eyes.

  “I chose the light,” I said to distract her again.

  She sat down on my nose and scowled.

  “I don’t care,” she piped up. “I’m hungry.”

  “Let me help,” I prompted.

  Where had that thought come from? Mulling it over, I ignored Hiala.

  Did I want to help?

  I had turned my back on becoming a Malignant. But, did that mean that I wanted to stand against them, and the Darkness, the Chaos, that they served?

  Shutting my eyes, I tried to remember what the Mage had looked like.

  Blue robes.

  A happy smile.

  And, women surrounded him. They were smiling as well.

  Hana was smiling.

  Hiala poked my closed left eyelid. I fought to not open it, as she caressed the skin.

  “That dream will cost you,” she pointed out. “It would be easier if you just opened your eyes… and let me feast.”

  Her little hand began to pry at my eyelid, yanking on its edge.

  “What will it cost?” I asked, twisting my face away from her.