by Greg Curtis
“Does he still live?”
“Yes. He is gravely injured, and may die of his wounds in time. But as of this morning he still lives.” Y’aris had made sure of that when he had realised he would need him. Though he too was irked by the man. Too often he had argued against him in the court, and too often he had won. And more than that he had not only endured his inquisitor’s most terrible punishments, he had laughed at them, unsettling his loyal soldiers. Finell was right in that one thing at least. The utra should die. There was just no justice in letting him live. But there was no choice either.
Y’aris didn’t like it, but when he had spoken to his master and advised him of his troubles, there had been only one solution given. Sue for peace and regroup. It was a defeat, but it didn’t have to be the end. And at least his master was feeding on the souls of so many for once. He was not likely to forgive him for disobedience. Finell had to sue for peace, and from that moment on the annoying envoy had become his best hope.
But just because the envoy had to live for the moment, it didn’t mean that he had to keep living. Just long enough to wed, to disgrace the high lord’s cousin, to turn Finell’s family against him, and to bring peace to the land. But when he went home. When the war was ended. Then his value would be ended. And there were ways to make sure that he lived not too many more months. Ways that would leave his realm in disarray. And ways that the high lord would also enjoy hearing when he whispered them into his ear. And when he did, Finell would be ready to forgive him any failure.
And in that moment a council of gloom became one of pure sunshine.
Chapter Thirty.
He was dreaming, though what he dreamed he didn’t know. What Iros did know was that he was at peace. And he didn’t want to leave that peace. So he let the bangs and thumps go away as they always did. But the voice. When he heard it, something about it refused to go away so easily. Maybe because he knew whose voice it was and he hated the speaker with all his heart.
“Wake him up!” Iros heard the high lord screaming, and for a moment it seemed to bring some part of him back to life. A part of him that hated and raged. But it wasn’t much of him, there wasn’t much of him left, and it couldn’t keep him awake for long. The endless buckets of water, shaking and slapping didn’t help either. But then being dragged from his cell, across the grass from the stone dungeon to the Royal Chamber and dumped unceremoniously on the hard wooden floor hadn’t really woken him either. So what use would a little water be? Nothing could seem to rouse him.
Yet as he lay there like a corpse, a part of him was finally working again. A part of him that could listen at least. A part of him that could even take joy in the sound of hysteria in the high lord’s screaming as he ordered the servants about, demanding that they do the impossible. He gathered that things were not going the high lord’s way. That was good. If he could have laughed he would have. If he could have stood up and plunged a dagger in the foul high lord’s heart he would have.
“Filthy utra.” Naturally Finell soon resorted to insults. He had never been sparing of them even before the war. And so it came as no surprise to Iros when he started abusing him for everything from being born to messing up the polished wood of his royal chambers with his blood. In fact it was almost soothing. Familiar.
“Does he live?”
“For a while.” Iros recognised the sinister tones of Y’aris, instantly and knew a terrible need to slay him on the spot. He was a man who spoke like death, and who had brought it to so many innocents. He was the man who had thrown him in the dungeon and killed his friends. Iros truly hated him, even in his darkness. He would have slain him where he stood if he could only have moved. But he couldn’t do even that little. Despite the best efforts of the inquisitors and their endless buckets of brine the demon Corpus had taken hold of his body and it no longer obeyed him. Soon Corpus would take his life as well.
Still as the priests claimed so often, for each of the nine hells there was also a divine, and maybe Duran Timos, the god of fate and chance was with him as well. Because even as he lay there racked with disease and dying, he was also somehow awake to hear what was being said. He should have been dead long ago. He knew that. No one should have survived what he had endured. But not only was he still somehow breathing, he was awake. That seemed unlikely enough in itself, but to add to the unlikely chance, he knew that something important was being discussed. Something he had to try and pay attention to. The high lord and his war chief both there, both there for him. That had to be important. As did making certain that whatever dark plans they plotted, were told to the right people before he passed. So maybe someone from above was helping him, just a little. After all, even if he didn’t have a lot of time for the Divines, that didn’t mean they might not have some purpose for him.
“Send for the healers then. We will need him to live a while longer yet.”
“And send for my cousin.” Finell almost shrieked the last and Iros wondered why. Was the high lord’s cousin in desperate trouble? And which one? But did it really matter?
As he lay there and someone kept throwing water over him, the high lord became silent again and Iros started losing interest. He didn’t want to and he knew he had to keep listening. But the call of the quiet was too strong for him and it started dragging him away again. If only Finell would say something, anything to help him hold back the darkness. But he didn’t, and soon the darkness was welcoming him once more.
All he could hope for was that sooner or later it would release him again, if only so he could hear what he needed to, and make certain that his king heard it too. Anything to ruin Finell’s foul plans. Anything to see him hang.
Chapter Thirty One.
Summoned from her home at short notice, without her father there to give her permission to leave, Sophelia was understandably nervous. Things like this just did not happen. And it had been weeks since she had left the family home. Weeks of gardening and lessons. Simply leaving its confines without her father’s permission was shocking enough. But then to walk into the Royal Chamber and immediately be confronted by the sight of a dead body on the floor, that was too much. It took all of her practiced restraint not to simply scream in horror at the sight.
“Why is there a naked corpse on the floor?” Sophelia was shocked by the sight of the human’s bloody corpse lying on the floor of the Royal Chamber. If he was even human. The damage that had been inflicted upon his body was so great as to make even that uncertain. All she could really tell was that he was bigger than an elf and smaller than a troll. It seemed more than just wrong somehow. It seemed a violation of all that was decent. All that was of her people. Whoever he had been he should be resting under the good soil as was proper, not lying on the floor in a lake of stinking blood.
“The envoy is standing at his proper station.” Finell laughed a little under his breath, apparently finding something in the thought amusing. Sophelia didn’t find it so pleasant though, and she to restrain herself from crying out in shock. Not least because she knew the man even if she hadn’t recognised him until her cousin had named him. But how could she have recognised him? When he looked like that? It was difficult enough to even recognise him as human. And that was wrong.
Iros Lord of Drake. He wasn’t an elf, but he was of some station among his people, and he did normally speak with a considered tongue. Until that one unfortunate day when he had embarrassed himself. He also showed deference for proper customs. That was rare among his people. Rare among the low born as well. He should have been accorded some respect at least. Not just dumped on a cold wooden floor in front of the high lord.
Maybe she also knew a twinge of shame for his fate. It was her family that had done this to him after all. Finell was of House Vora. And she knew a larger portion of guilt for her having added to his suffering in that dark prison. Time had passed slowly in the house, and she had slowly grown to realise that he was not the cause of all the suffering. He was just an innocent. One of so many. He should not have been t
reated so appallingly. No one should.
The memory of her visit to the prison and most especially all the screams she had heard as she was led to his cell, was suddenly with her again. That place was a monstrous evil, and something that should never have been allowed on elven soil. But Finell of House Vora was the one who had created it. And it was at his bidding that she was here. But it wasn’t something that she could raise with her cousin. Not least because he didn’t know that she had been there. And Y’aris could never know that some few of his watchmen had taken silver to let her in. Their punishment would be harsh. She kept her voice calm and her face relaxed as she had been taught.
“So you finally killed him cousin. And now what? You wish to sit there and gloat at his demise? Does this truly seem worthy to you?”
“Who said he is dead cousin? He has a duty to perform yet, and I will not let him die until it is done.” And despite it being the worst sort of insanity, her cousin started laughing some more, and not under his breath.
“Mother be praised!” Sophelia was shocked as she turned back to look at him. He couldn’t be alive. No one could look like that and still live. Yet her cousin might be crazed, almost certainly in sooth, but he didn’t lie. Surely he knew, surely someone had told him that he lived. A healer maybe. Because Finell would never have touched him himself.
She knew her duty and Sophelia immediately went to the envoy. He was a noble and an innocent and if by some miracle he still lived, he should be tended to. Soonest.
She pressed her fingers to his throat as her teachers had shown her, and despite it seeming impossible, she found a pulse. It was weak and slow, and it surely shouldn’t have been there at all. But it was there.
His wounds were bad, but more than that, they were everywhere. There was not an inch of his skin below the head that was not cut and torn by the inquisitor’s whip. And much of that had then been burnt by the branding iron. Cruelty and evil were written large across his skin. But there was more. They had pulled out his finger nails, his toe nails as well. And the marks of the chains across his wrists and ankles were torn deep into his flesh. The souls of his feet were burnt black from the branding irons as were the palms of his hands.
Worst of all he smelled. The demons of fever and corruption attacked his flesh, and if he lived still, it surely wouldn’t be for long.
“Healers!” She called for them, knowing that if there was ever a man who needed their help it was Iros of Drake. But even if they came, she knew it might still be too late. Far too late.
And maybe it was too late for her as well. She had visited him in the prison, she had seen him then, seen much of the terrible damage that had been done to him, and she had said nothing. She had done nothing. She had even blamed him for what could never have been his fault. Some of the last words he might ever hear were of her calling him a liar and a savage. And he was neither of those things.
But her crimes had started long before that. Long days of being locked away in her house had given her time to think on that. She had not protested when Finell had put forwards his plan to open the old stone mountain as a prison. She should have. Elves needed no prisons. But it had seemed like a small thing at the time, and there had been questions of trade to concern herself with. Then when he had hired dozens of men at arms to act as guards and inquisitors in his new prison, she had still said nothing. It had been the foolishness of a young royal she had thought. A strange whim, nothing more.
Later, when she had come to see the envoy, when she had walked through those dark, damp tunnels lit only by a few torches, she had heard the screaming. So much screaming, so much weeping, so many voices. And she had not said anything. She had not even asked who they were. All those prisoners, where had they come from? Who were their families? Their houses? Did they know of their loved ones’ fates? But she had not asked. She had not spoken out. And now lying on the floor in front of her, was the true price of her silence paid by another. He was her shame.
“Healers!” She screamed again, worried when no one had come. Worried more when she heard Finell laughing, while his black robed advisor calmly told her that they had been sent for. But if they had been sent for then why weren’t they here? And why was he smiling? Like a spider?
Now there she knew stood an evil creature.
Chapter Thirty Two.
A woman’s voice woke Iros once more, or at least the part of him that could listen. The rest of him remained in the peaceful darkness, free at least of pain. And warm too. There was something warm covering him. A blanket maybe. But he was less concerned with that than he was with what was being said. His family had always said he was a curious child, and he knew the voices.
“This is monstrous evil!”
“What you have done to this man. What you have done to all those others in that accursed prison of yours. It is not of our people. It is of darkness.”
“Tell me cousin. Is there nothing left of you save anger? Is there nothing of goodness? Nothing of our family? Nothing of House Vora?” Iros recognised the woman. He knew her voice, a little. And he knew her house.
“Silence Sophelia!” Finell was angry and for once not with him. Not that Iros really cared as he lay there, listening. He didn’t care about much at all. He was in a comfortable place, the pain had eased and the blackness was soothing somehow.
“We are losing this war. These filthy utra come closer every day with their accursed cannon. Towns and cities fall. The people are routed. The forests burn. Our people are in danger. And some of us have conspired with the enemy, assuring our defeat. We need to know who they are and what they’ve done.” Actually they were losing because Finell was a poor leader and Y’aris had no grasp of strategy. At least that was Iros’ thought on the matter. But he was really just glad to hear them admit that they were losing. It felt good somehow.
“No one conspires! We lose because you called a war you shouldn’t have, and Y’aris is inept! Stop blaming others for your own failings!” By the Divines she was blunt, and Iros liked that. He liked it a lot. That someone could speak so to Finell was a blessing. But he hated the thought that she would be punished for speaking the truth. And she would be. Finell had no concept of decency.
There was silence for a while after that. A long while. And Iros could just imagine that Finell was sitting there perched on his throne, reeling as he tried to accept that someone had said such things to him. He must look absolutely devastated. Iros wished he could open his eyes to see.
Eventually though, he had to start talking again. Finell loved to speak.
“Still cousin the time has come for peace.”
“Praise the Mother!” Sophelia sounded relieved, and Iros knew that was a mistake. He didn’t know what it would be, but he knew that something bad was coming for her. Finell could never let her get away with what she’d said. But lying there half dead he had no way of warning her.
“We must sue for peace before it is too late. And we must make sacrifices.” But not him. Never him. Iros knew that. He would have yelled it at the jumped up little lord if he could have, and damned be the impropriety. Finell would never willingly pay the price himself. Not even for his own mistakes. Especially not for them. But instead all Iros could do was lie there, face down on the floor in darkness, listening and bleeding.
“And by we you mean everyone else but you, cousin. A war you started but will not answer for.” Sophelia at least understood Finell’s evil heart as she hurled her accusation at him. Maybe she even understood something of the true darkness of her lord’s soul. It would be about time that someone did. But the only thing that mattered was what he expected her to sacrifice.
“And a war that we would have won had not Y’aris failed.” Sophelia hurled the accusation at her cousin, anger in her words. Naturally Finell heard only the part about himself, and he swiftly defended himself as he always did, by blaming someone else.
“These utra would be gone from our world, driven all the way back to the seas, their towns and cities burned
for their treacherous attacks upon us, and the great forests in time would once more grow proud. But instead Y’aris’ armies have fallen one by one and our forests burn.” Y’aris said nothing he noticed. If he was even in the chamber Iros didn’t know. But what he did know was that failing the high lord was treason as far as Finell was concerned. And he dealt harshly with treason. Y’aris’ days were probably numbered. Iros could feel quite happy about that. The High Commander of the Royal Watch was likely the one who had given the order to kill his staff and burn the mission. And he was the one who had abducted him. He could be very happy if the elf suffered a little. Or a lot.
“Stop blaming Y’aris’ ineptitude! There should never have been a war in the first place! You should have called for justice to be done! Not war!” Sophelia wasn’t about to let him off so easily, and Iros had to wonder if she had any idea just how dangerous a game it was that she was playing.
