by John Marco
‘Go on,’ he said, pulling off her chains.
Mirage rubbed her wrists. ‘Where?’
‘Follow the path,’said her gaoler.
Mirage looked at him in confusion. Were they freeing her? Listening, she heard gentle noises just beyond the trees, but could see nothing behind their blossom-laden limbs.
‘Go,’ said the larger man impatiently. ‘We’ll wait here.’
Not understanding, Mirage took a cautious step along the cobblestones, trying to focus her stinging eyes. To her surprise, the guards did not follow. In the shadow of the tall prison, she could not believe such a quiet place existed, and as she went deeper into the trees she saw a clearing set among the grasses, with a table and two chairs – one occupied by Asher. The table had been set with fine porcelain and silverware. An urn of tea steamed in the breeze. Asher sat with his back to a servant, a man at rapt attention dressed smartly in a kitchen uniform. Bread and fruit and dainty sandwiches dotted the table, and Mirage, who had not seen food in days, gaped at it. She froze on the pretty pathway, watching incredulously as Asher tried to smile with his malformed mouth.
‘Sit,’ said the man. It was more like a request than an order. Asher gestured to the empty chair opposite him. He had removed his bloodstained apron, donning a clean, silky shirt and combing back his wild hair. His swollen face twisted in delight. To Mirage, he looked like a child sitting at the table, playing tea party. When she did not come closer, he began to pout. ‘Will you not sit?’ he asked. ‘I am sure you must be hungry.’
‘What . . . what is this?’ Mirage asked, massaging her frozen hands. She sneered at the man. ‘Now you taunt me? Your knife wasn’t enough?’
‘Sit,’ Asher repeated, losing his pleasant demeanour in an instant. ‘Or I will not share any of this with you.’
‘I don’t want any,’ spat Mirage.
‘Then you can go back to your cell and rot.’ Asher looked at her expectantly. ‘What’s that? You don’t want to go back to your cell? You’d rather sit out here and have a nice meal?’ His smirk grew intolerable. ‘That’s what I thought. Sit down, girl. Right now.’
Mirage inched closer to the table, terrified by Asher’s tactics. She was not free; she knew that already. She took her seat at the table, feeling ridiculously out of place with her torn clothes and dirty face. A shining plate sat empty in front of her. The servant standing behind Asher twitched, as if waiting to act. Mirage looked at all the food and the hot, delicious smelling tea. She could not help herself. Her mouth and stomach screamed for it.
‘Your eyes will adjust in a few minutes,’ said Asher, sitting straight as an icicle in his chair. Mirage, however, could barely keep herself erect. She fought against her weakness, trying hard to be the butcher’s equal.
‘Tell me why I’m here,’ she said, her voice scratchy.
‘To talk,’ replied Asher. ‘Tea?’
‘We have talked. We have done nothing but talk. If you mean to torture me, get on with it.’
Asher snapped his finger, bringing the servant to life. Soundlessly the man came to the table and poured tea into both their small cups. He selected an assortment of morsels from the platters, placing them on Mirage’s plate before gracefully withdrawing. Mirage fought to keep her eyes off the food, locking them on Asher.
‘Eat, please,’ said Asher. ‘I know you want to.’
‘Of course I want to, you bastard.’
‘There is no charge for it, girl. You may eat your fill and owe me nothing for it.’
Mirage laughed. ‘You’re so merciful.’
‘This place is my solace, pretty Mirage. I come here to escape the filth of my prison. Even I need to see the sun and listen to the birds sometimes. Does that surprise you?’
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk.’
Mirage groaned, maddened by his answer. ‘Tell me!’
Asher sipped at his tea, unperturbed by her outburst. During his interrogations, his patience had been boundless. When he worked, nothing shook his strange comportment. And he was working now, just as he worked when he sat on his stool in Mirage’s cell, spinning the knife through his fingers. This time, though, his implements were tea cups.
‘Mmm, that’s good,’ he sighed, smacking his lips as he set down his cup. ‘Nice and warm. The prison gets so cold. Sometimes I can’t stand being down in those cells. Mirage, have some tea. It will warm you.’
Mirage felt her body start to tremble.
‘Eat,’ said Asher. ‘I can wait.’
Still Mirage did not touch her food. With some satisfaction, she watched annoyance cross Asher’s face.
‘Will you eat if I command it?’ asked the prison lord. ‘Perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps you have been in my charge too long already. You have lost every bit of yourself, is that it? In truth I do not care if you eat or starve. I will eat and be happy, and you will still be miserable. And hungry.’
‘I am still my own, Asher,’ gasped Mirage. ‘I am not an animal. I can make my own decisions.’
Amused, Asher lifted his tea cup. ‘Decide, then,’ he said, and began to slowly sip, studying her.
It made no sense to Mirage, none of it. Why should she return to her hole with her stomach empty? To survive Asher’s hellish prison, she needed strength, she decided. Her eyes lowered to her plate, spying a delicate tart. It had probably taken an artisan to create it, but Mirage picked it up and shoved it in her mouth with no more regard than she might have a grape. Its flavour exploded on her tongue. Instead of savouring it, she reached for another, swallowing the first without chewing and chasing it with its twin. Crumbs and bits of fruit fell from her chin as she devoured the treats. Unable to stop, she drowned in the tide of hunger and despair, looking up only briefly to see Asher’s satisfied grin. Asher’s peculiar face – scarred as hers had been – seemed almost lustful as he watched her. The tea cup in his hand shivered slightly, not going to his lips but rather hovering just beyond his mouth. Swallowing hard, Mirage picked up her own tea cup and drank, ignoring the heat of the liquid as she tried to quench her enormous thirst. Though most of it fell down her chin, she drained the cup and hurriedly reached for the urn, grunting for the servant to move off as he tried to pour it for her. The tea sloshed over the rim and onto the linen table cloth as she poured, then lifted the cup with both hands to her mouth. Gasping and drinking at the same time, Mirage finally set the cup down and fell back in her chair, covering her mouth. She stared at Asher, almost in tears.
‘I want more,’ she groaned.
‘Eat,’ crooned Asher. He seemed astonished by her hunger, even entertained. ‘This is your chance now.’
Mirage took his meaning. Thinking of more endless hours of depravation, she filled her mouth with the breads and cheeses and beautifully made sandwiches, sating her hunger as quickly as she could, swallowing in chunks so big they hurt her throat going down. Ignoring Asher, she ate and ate, clearing her plate more than once until at last her bloated stomach could hold no more. A sickening gorged feeling swept over her, making her forehead break out in sweat. Asher noticed the change in her at once.
‘If you’re going to vomit, please, do so out of my sight.’
‘I’m not,’ said Mirage, taking deep breaths. She wondered if she should be grateful for the food, but the thought of thanking Asher turned her stomach even more. ‘I’m done now,’ she said, pushing aside her plate. Suddenly all she wanted was sleep.
‘You have an appetite for such a petite girl,’ Asher remarked. He had not touched a crumb of food himself, a fact that surprised Mirage.
‘You didn’t bring me out here for a meal,’ she said. ‘Why, then?’
‘You are wrong, Mirage. I wanted you to see how things might be if you co-operated. There’s no reason for you to live like a rat in that filthy cell. You can be clean and warm, and well fed. All you have to do is tell me what I want to know.’
‘I’ve told you everything already.’
‘No,’ said Asher. ‘Oh, I
admit you’ve told me a great deal. It’s all been fascinating, truly. But you’re hiding something, pretty Mirage.’
‘No,’ Mirage insisted. ‘There’s nothing more. How many times are you going to ask me the same things?’
‘I have not even begun to question you, girl.’
Mirage looked at him across the table. ‘What, then?’
‘Tell me more about Baron Glass,’ said Asher. ‘Tell me why he came to Liiria.’
It was the same, maddening line of inquiry. Mirage sighed, miserable to have to endure it once again. ‘He came to protect Liiria against Jazana Carr. You know that already.’
‘But then he went to her. He joined her.’
‘That’s right.’
‘They were lovers. Tell me about that.’
‘I don’t know anything more.’
‘Baron Glass must be a man of vast appetites. He cared for you as well as the Diamond Queen.’
‘We had no relationship. Not beyond our friendship.’
‘But he wanted more. Do you think that’s why he turned back to Jazana Carr? Because you shunned him, pretty Mirage?’
Mirage looked down at her empty plate. She had never considered that possibility. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you love him?’
‘No.’
‘Why are you protecting him? He left you for another woman. He betrayed you and your friends in Liiria, left you to die so that he could overrun you at the library with the Diamond Queen’s hordes.’
‘He didn’t know I was there.’ Mirage felt her neck tighten under Asher’s barrage. ‘Not until after the library fell.’
‘But you went back to him. Corvalos Chane saw you with him.’
‘Because I had nowhere else to go! I’ve told you this already.’
‘Tell me,’ said Asher, ‘about the magic of Grimhold.’
Mirage looked up from her plate into Asher’s laughing eyes, seized by a chill. ‘What?’
Asher set down his tea cup. ‘I wonder – did you really think we didn’t know about it? You’ve been gone far too long, child. Everyone has heard about the Seekers and the magic of Mount Believer. And King Raxor has been thorough. He knows where to place his spies. And not just Corvalos Chane, though he was the first to tell us about the armour.’
Mirage fought to calm herself, to sort through her racing mind. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You do, you do,’ Asher assured her. ‘The Devil’s Armour. We know about it. Chane spent enough time in the library to hear about it and its power. We know that Baron Glass possesses it.’
He was baiting her. Mirage avoided his hooks. ‘Yes. I heard the same.’
Asher chuckled. ‘That’s it? Nothing more?’
Mirage shrugged. ‘The Devil’s Armour. It came from Grimhold. That’s all.’
‘You know so much. I can see it all over your face. Do you think you’ve done a good job of hiding it from me, all your secrets? You are a child, Mirage. Every time you speak I can see the secrets struggling to get out. Tell me about the Devil’s Armour.’
‘I can’t. I don’t know anything.’
‘You’re protecting a man who crawled into the arms of another woman. A man who killed your friends at the library.’
‘I’m not protecting him,’ Mirage insisted. She felt hot suddenly, her cheeks blooming with colour. All she wanted was to flee. ‘I swear, I don’t know about the magic. Baron Glass has the armour. They say it’s very powerful and ancient. I never saw it or saw him wear it. That’s the truth.’
‘I’ve had my whole life to cultivate patience, pretty Mirage.’
‘So hurt me, then! Stop threatening me and do it.’ Mirage stared at him, her lip curling up hatefully. ‘You can make me scream with your little knife, Asher. But you haven’t. Why not?’
Asher smiled his sick smile. ‘I have enjoyed talking to you. You have been like a breath of fresh air in this putrid place. I’ve shown you courtesy, because it pleases me to do so. But believe me when I tell you this – I will burn out your eyeballs and skin you alive before I let you keep lying to me. I will hang your pelt over my hearth before I ever believe you know nothing about the Devil’s Armour.’
The threat jolted Mirage. Her mind froze. Unable to speak, she simply stared at Asher.
‘It’s your choice, child. You may sit here and enjoy the sunlight and good food and tell me all you know, or you may go back to your cell and await me there. If you tell me what you’re hiding, I promise you an easy time. If you do not, I promise you hell.’
Terror rose in Mirage. Her breathing quickened.
‘You are right,’ Asher went on. ‘I have my knife, and I am not afraid to use it. Do not think for a moment that I would hesitate to do so.’
Mirage thought very hard, but all her options seemed dismal. There was so much she could confess, so much that would satisfy her captor. He would reward her for her information, surely. She would be spared his knife. And all for the simple cost of betraying Grimhold.
‘The guards are waiting, Mirage,’ said Asher. ‘You want to be safe and happy.’ He leaned across the table. ‘Don’t you?’
His tongue was almost out of his mouth as he spoke, waiting to lick her tears. But Mirage did not cry. Summoning the last of her courage, she rose from the chair and turned from Asher’s table, walking back toward the cobblestone path and the waiting prison guards.
Hours passed, and day slipped slowly into night. Back inside her filthy cell, Mirage awaited Asher. She sat as she always did, with her back against the cold wall and her bare feet on the rough floor, her knees tucked like a child against her bosom, wrapping herself for warmth. In the hours since she had seen Asher, not a single guard had come to harass her. Instead, she had all the quiet she needed to think and wonder what Asher would do to her.
Why, she wondered, had he waited so long? She had expected her torture days ago. She stared at the little stool Asher used, sitting forlorn in the corner of her cell, the thin blade of his cherished knife sticking like an arrow from its seat. She could have used the weapon, she supposed, and tried to fight her way out of the prison, but she had always thought that a stupid idea. Asher had purposefully left his knife within her grasp to taunt her, abundantly confidant in her inability to use it. The guards, she knew, would have snapped her like a twig anyway.
‘Why?’ she seethed. ‘Because he enjoys seeing me suffer.’
That was why he had waited so long, when he could have hung her in chains and skinned her days ago. Asher was just a cruel little boy, pulling the wings off butterflies. Not too quickly, or they would die and spoil his fun. But now he was ready. And Mirage was afraid.
She closed her eyes, listening to the distant noises in the dungeon. She had got very good at blocking out the screams, but she heard them now, moaning like wind that never died. Were they enemies of Reec, all of them? Was she? Perhaps. She had admitted her friendship with Baron Glass, and that was enough to condemn her.
‘Then I will die,’ she whispered. She searched her mind for her Akari. ‘Kirsil, will I see you when I die?’
It was a question she had always wondered. All the Inhumans did. Minikin had never told then what would happen when they died, or if there would be life for them at all after death. It was simply too important a mystery, Minikin had explained, and not for any of them to know. Now, though, her sweet Akari Kirsil answered with sincerity.
‘I think so.’
The answer satisfied Mirage. An accepting calm settled over her. She smiled.
Hours more went by unnoticed. Exhausted from fear, Mirage felt her head begin to totter downward. Her eyelids grew too heavy to keep open, shutting slowly in a flutter. She slept, though just on the surface of sleep, still faintly aware of every sound and the impending footfalls of her captor. Asher’s deformed face twisted through her dreams. She realized with disgust that his would be the last fact she would see before she died. Not Lukien’s or Minikin’s or any other of the Inhumans she had left behind.
‘You are awake,’ said the man. ‘Good.’
She recognized his voice at once. ‘Chane . . .’
Corvalos Chane had a key in his hand which he expertly used to open her locked cell. As he moved to reveal the light behind him, his stony features came into relief. He looked at her as he unlocked the tumbler and pulled the bars open. There was no smile on his weathered face, only an expression of satisfaction. Stepping into the cell, he tossed the cloak and boots at her naked feet.
‘Dress yourself,’ he said. ‘We’re going.’
Hes the Serene, capital of Reec, spread out around Mirage like a sleeping dragon, twinkling with candlelight and still as a grave. Homes and businesses along the avenues had shut their doors hours ago, and the squat towers of the city brooded over the streets. Fading moonlight carpeted the cobblestones and brown, wooden structures, and the breeze stirred unlocked shutters as it tumbled down the lane. Mirage shivered in her cloak, burying her face in the fur lining. Corvalos Chane’s broad chest pressed against her back as they rode, warming her. Their horse trotted slowly along the empty avenue, making lonely music as its hooves struck the paving stones. Up ahead, the two towers of Castle Hes beckoned, hanging over the city from their grassy green hill. In the silence of the city, time stretched like syrup. The lateness of the hour had put all of Hes to sleep, as though the capital had fallen under a peaceful spell.
