by Jean Johnson
A burning sensation seared outward from her hands, digging into every single tattoo inked into his skin. Fight it—no, don’t fight it—don’t resist, don’t resist, don’t . . . Menda’s damned Paintbrush, this hurts!
The agony ended, but the half-choked sensation remained. Lifting a hand to tug at the neckline of his vest, making sure it hadn’t somehow ridden up to press on the base of his throat, he realized the tattoos inked on his arm, his hand and fingers, now looked dull and faded. Like ordinary inked tattoos, not magic-linked ones.
The partially choked sensation continued unabated. Like a lump stuck low in his throat, only Krais felt it all over, weakening him. The initial horror of having his magic locked down, the power in his tattoos silenced melded into an ongoing, morale-lowering sense of shame.
It’s no more than I deserve, he reminded himself, focusing on his breathing to quell the panic at not being able to sense the ebb and flow of energies around him. I do deserve to suffer. I agreed to kill someone, for nothing more than profit and opportunity, and a petty touch of revenge for those Nightfallites daring to do successfully what Mendhi was supposed to do . . .
“Remember, Doma Pelai . . . make them pay for their failure,” Dagan’thio instructed.
“Puhon Gayn. Puhon Foren. Puhon Krais. Rise and follow me,” Doma Pelai stated, her words crisp, her tone cool. She did not acknowledge the Elder’s instruction.
“Where are you taking them?” Krais’ father asked her.
“Puhon Gayn is injured,” she pointed out, while Krais and his siblings rose. “I am taking all three to the Healers Hall so that each can be examined for physical damage. Disciplining, as you of course know but which the others may not recall, requires precisely applied physical punishments. I cannot be precise if I do not know their current health.”
Krais wobbled a little when he turned to follow her and his brothers . . . but not from the thought of being damaged. His calves felt a little tingly from being folded up for so long, that was all. Really. He was tough, he was strong, and he was going to get through this with his body and dignity intact.
Especially his dignity. Physical punishments would be a Netherhell for him, if the stuffy, strict Doma Pelai ever found out how his body now reacted to them.
* * *
* * *
Pelai was no Healer-mage. She had a tattoo for personal healing, knew a few basic spells, but that was about it. She could, however, read the runes floating up off each of the Puhon brothers’ bodies. Gayn’s troubled her. They also troubled the Healer examining him. While his brothers waited, Foren with hints of impatience in the way he twitched and rolled his eyes, Krais with remarkable patience, the Healer performed more tests on the youngest of the three Painted Warriors.
Finally, the man sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but your self-healing tattoo interacted poorly with the resetting of your arm. The bone has grown in a way that it now presses on the nerve. I could attempt to remove the excess bone growth, but even with the best of surgical magics, the risk is high that the nerve will be damaged further, even severed. Removing it also does not guarantee it won’t grow back.
“I would like permission to study this problem further, Doma,” Healer Brelik added, turning to Pelai. “I can give him a potion to deal with the pain, but that might interfere with his assigned disciplining. My recommendation would therefore be to give him a pain posset at night, so that he can sleep restfully, and perhaps a sling for part of the day.”
“I tried that,” Gayn muttered. “It puts pressure on the elbow and makes my arm hurt worse, or go entirely numb.”
“If the break is in your forearm but pressure at the elbow causes it to worsen . . . I may have missed something,” the Healer stated.
“So stop being incompetent and fix it!” the youngest of the three brothers snapped.
“Penitent Gayn, you will apologize to Healer Brelik for your rude demand,” Pelai ordered sternly. When he didn’t respond promply, she raised her hand, stiffened her fingers into a claw shape, and squeezed inward.
Gayn choked. Scraping at his throat, he glared at her, and managed to rasp, “I apologize for my rudeness!”
Pelai eased her grip on his magic. This was the other reason why she as second-rank was the best choice of Disciplinarian for all three brothers. She had the strength to control their magics. Goddess-assisted, of course. Personally, she hated that choke-squeezed sensation of her magics being suppressed, sympathized with those who were assigned some sort of magic-throttling penance, but it was useful for moments like this.
“Discipline includes our thoughts and our words as well as our deeds,” she reminded the youngest Puhon. He gave her an unhappy look, but managed to jerk his head in a nod. “Healer Brelik, those pain potions you suggested for the evenings will be quite acceptable. If you have a version that will keep his mind alert for the daytime, he may have a small supply of that as well.”
She caught sight of a confused frown from Krais, but did not elaborate on her kindness. It might be normal under some circumstances for preexisting pain to be a part of an ongoing punishment, but unceasing pain could drive someone mad. Punishment was not meant to be synonymous with torture.
Brelik made a note in his patient logbook and nodded. “Let me know where you’ll be housing them—I’ll presume not in the Domo’thio’s residence?”
“One of the west lake cottages,” Pelai replied. “I believe there are five available at the moment. I haven’t looked at the schedule in a few days.”
“ . . . You haven’t? Oh, right. Tipa’thia—I tutored Robyn in potions ages ago,” he added at Pelai’s arched brow. “She hasn’t said anything personal about her patient, of course, but I know she was assigned because her specialty these days is is stabilizing deterioration in magical energies.”
“So she’s healing the elderly?” Foren asked, his tone slightly scornful. “Why don’t you just say so?”
“People can lose their magic from a variety of reasons,” Brelik enlightened the middle brother, moving to the side of the examination room where some of the most commonly used potions were stored. “I heard of an interesting case of a song mage not too long ago who lost his powers along with his vocal cords from a battle-flung curse. Something out of Garama, probably.”
“Garama?” Krais asked, curious. Like his middle brother, Foren, he sat on the bench set at an angle to the padded exam table, having already had his own health examined by runespell. “That sounds familiar.”
“It’s one of the little kingdoms on the coast of Aiar to the northeast of here, across the ocean. Their Patron is the God of Music and Songs,” Pelai told him. Garama had song mages called harpers, and one of the prophecies regarding the demon invasion included a line involving a harper.
Foren nodded and touched Krais’ forearm. “Yeah, that was the kingdom of the priest who decided at the last minute to go back through the Darkhana Portal to get home, the one who actually got off Dakim Orest’s ship just before they pulled the gangplank.”
“Oh, right,” Gayn agreed, distracted for a few moments from his pain. “I remember him. We were about to board our own ship on the other side of the dock. He said he was more afraid of getting seasick than he was of the Dark, if I recall correctly.”
“He said it rather loudly, so I’m not surprised we all remember it,” Krais retorted.
“Here you go. Use this glass measuring cup for the contents of the gray-glazed bottle. For someone of your size . . . just one dose at the second to the top line per night, no more than an hour before you go to bed,” Brelik stated. “And no more than one dose every twelve hours at most. This blue-glazed bottle—think the blue of the sky as in daytime—you can have after eight hours have passed from the previous one, no more than twice a day, and no closer than four hours before you take the nighttime potion. It’s best taken on a full stomach. My recommendation is to take the first dose—the same
amount—after you have broken your fast, and again after you have eaten your lunch. But not after supper. Any more than that and you’ll get into trouble.”
“What kind of trouble? Will he become groggy?” Pelai asked.
“That, yes, particularly if the potions get crossed . . . but also a potential for unexpected diarrhea,” the healer stated bluntly. “The daytime potion contains tincture of the pink pincushion flower among its incredients. When mixed with a few other things, it helps soothe nerve-damage pain, but there’s always a side effect from that family of plants.”
“Thank you, Healer Brelik,” Pelai stated. “Puhon brothers, rise and follow me.”
Krais gestured for his younger brothers to go first. He lingered just long enough to whisper something at the healer, something Pelai didn’t catch. “Puhon Krais, are you injured?”
“ . . . No, Doma,” he replied, breaking off his conversation.
“Then come when you are commanded,” she reminded him.
“Yes, Doma.”
* * *
* * *
Six cottages stood available, not the five Pelai had originally thought, according to the facilities list. Unfortunately, all six that were currently empty were designed for a single disciplinary pairing only; all the rest were full. Even the ones that could accommodate up to four weakly-powered penitents and a domo or doma were currently occupied. If all she had the room to do was to discipline one person . . . and she didn’t really need most of the equipment and furniture most other Disciplinarians might think to use . . .
Netherhells and ink splatters . . . if between the lack of room in the cottages available and my upcoming duties as Guardian . . . I might as well bring that one brother home with me. Make whichever one I pick clean the sandbox for my cat, tidy the books I sometimes leave lying out, scrub and condition my leathers until clean and shiny, do the floor scrubbing, all the chores that I hate . . .
The chores she could have passed off onto someone else, except she didn’t want a servant in her life. Every week, worshipful sorts who wanted to do that sort of thing came to the public gardens to offer themselves in submissive service—true submissives, not judgment-assigned penitents. They worked for a week, or for a month, sometimes even permanently if they got along just fine with their domo or doma, and just . . . no. To her, taking care of someone else, assigning them tasks and chores, was work. She got enough of that as a Disciplinarian.
Pelai studied the list of facilities currently occupied, and by whom. She wondered why Doma Belaria always insisted on having extra space for her disciplining sessions, and barely refrained from rolling her eyes. As Third Disciplinarian, the doma took advantage of her high rank rather often, though at least she wasn’t a Partisan on top of everything else.
Well, at least it’s a legitimate excuse to pass off two of the brothers to the others. Returning the chart to its place on the counter, she picked up the one with the list of available Disciplinarians. Ah, Netherhell . . . Seems like a lot of mages have been naughty this month, with all the larger cottages filled and the roster short a few spares . . .
Seven names sat on the list of those currently available. All the others seemed to be assigned either to hunting down rogue mages and Painted Warriors, or to disciplining the ones that had been caught and judged. Three, Pelai knew as Partisan cronies of Dagan’thio. She would not hand off the Elder Disciplinarian’s sons to any of them. Of the remaining four, based on conversations she had held with them, three were neutral, either espousing opinions that swayed both ways or refusing to speculate either way. Only one of the seven currently available had privately agreed with her that a severe punishment for the Puhon brothers would be idiotic.
Gayn. Doma Dulette gets Gayn. She’ll be careful of his injured arm. Foren . . . I guess of the three neutrals . . . Domo Anso. He’s got some Partisan leanings, but he’s in his late fifties, and he has always been an adherent to the rules. I just have to stress to him that the harsh punishments Dagan’thio wants are illegal because his wishes as their father are not to be indulged . . .
“Puhon brothers, rise and follow,” she commanded, taking the writing board in her hand, the one with the list of available versus occupied Disciplinarians, as well as a pencil. Standing up from the bench she had allowed them to occupy, all three males followed her through the scribal offices. Gayn, followed by Foren, followed by Krais . . . like ducklings waddling after their mother, save she was nearly the same age as the eldest.
Dulette she found first, since she knew the doma liked to practice her techniques in the mornings, reserving disciplining for later in the day. The woman was young for a senior Disciplinarian, just twenty-five, and she liked to plait her long, dark brown curls in the shape of flowers. That delicate style contrasted with the firm strokes of the cane in her hands on the practice dummy. All three Puhon brothers flinched from the hard blows on the back of the realistic illusion of a man bound to a whipping board . . . an illusion which did not cry out in pain, but which did appear to raise a welt that quickly beaded with drops of blood.
“Puhon brothers. Kneel on the practice mat, knees on the felt, toes on the floor,” Pelai directed, pointing off to the wrestling mats where the thick wool felt, stitched to reed mats, met the wooden floor. They obeyed without protest, but she lingered long enough to make sure each one took his place, watching them flinch from the loud thwack of the other doma’s cane.
Dulette paused her practice, her hazel eyes flicking from Pelai to the Puhon brothers and back. “You wished to speak with me, Doma Pelai?”
“As you may have heard”—as if they hadn’t heard Dagan’thio’s rants on the subject over the last half-year—“the Puhon brothers need disciplining. They have been judged in need of two months of disciplining for their failure to follow through on the Hierarchy’s command to acquire a Living Host for Mendhi’s glory. The Elder Disciplinarian is related to all three, and for the sake of his honor must not be involved in any aspect whatsoever of their penance.
“I have determined that the lack of suitable facilities for handling three penitents at once. Between that and my impending other duties, I am choosing to assign each brother to a specific Disciplinarian. Your honor is strong, and your conscience is clear. I am assigning Puhon Gayn to you.”
Doma Dulette glanced toward the kneeling brothers, seen in profile from their current angle. Foren and Gayn snuck little peeks their way in return, but Krais merely knelt facing forward. “Have you fully assessed him yet?”
“Partially. Their magics are suppressed and they have had a Healer’s evaluation . . . which is why I am assigning Gayn to you,” Pelai added under her breath. “Gayn’s right arm has permanent nerve damage, from the elbow to the fingertips; he suffers a mixture of a near-constant ache, occasional numbness, and infrequent stabbing or burning sensations. He has been assigned a pain potion to take in the evenings and a mental clarity elixir at the morning and midday meals. If you wish to assign the pain potion alone more often . . . I would not object. The Elder Disciplinarian’s objections do not matter.”
Dulette nodded slowly. “How harsh should I be?”
“Two months is a long time. He does have an attitude problem, so I suggest starting out stern, but not truly harsh, and only punish actual infractions committed in your presence,” Pelai said. “Assign him light duties otherwise. Both he and Foren passed all but the Goddess’ trial, so if you need to take on another penitent for disciplining, he should at least be more of an assistant than a hindrance in that task.
“Knowing what I do of his personality . . . make him clean up after you,” she added dryly. “He has more than his share of his father’s arrogance, and that needs to be disciplined out of him with a little more humility.”
Dulette’s mouth twitched up on one side. “Oh, to be able to beat it free from the source . . .” The younger doma cleared her throat. “Very well. I will take over the suppression of Puhon Gayn�
�s powers, and assess and apply the best way for him to learn how to uphold the true honor of Mendhi.”
Pelai nodded. “Thank you, Doma Dulette. Now . . . do you happen to know where Domo Anso might be found at this time of day?”
“I believe I heard him mention a trip to the Library—specifically, the Index Hall,” Dulette clarified when Pelai rolled her eyes. “He got into an argument yesterday with Domo Galen about how many different locations the Thelaiza Technique is shelved in, depending upon what categories it’s been considered a part of for archiving. Galen thinks it’s just eight, Anso thinks it’s thirteen. It’s early, but he and Galen could be there already.”
Pelai frowned at that. “If they have that much free time to argue such a trivial matter during their working hours, I will be happy to give them both some real work.”
“Not one of the Puhon brothers, I trust?” Dulette muttered under her breath, glancing their way. “Galen is a Partisan, remember. And why Anso?”
“Unfortunately, there’s no one else supporting Dagan’thio’s honor instead of his pride who is currently available,” Pelai admitted, lifting the writing board and its schedule. “And yes, I know about Galen. I’ll set him to researching something more useful if he and Anso want to spend that much time in the stacks.”
Dulette nodded. Her young brow furrowed in thought. “How is Tipa’thia doing? Will that interfere with your duties?”
“Not good, but she should be okay soon. And it won’t be a problem if you take on Gayn for me,” Pelai said. She checked the schedule on her portable writing board again, and nodded. “Domo Letif is due to end his current disciplining session in five days. I can reassign Foren to him then.”
