No, the advantage was only in position, not surprise, and Mya would never have agreed to it.
The torture was real. She was in pain. And he was the cause of it.
He moved into the room, every step calculated, every breath held for a heartbeat while he listened and looked for any clue of attack. All was quiet save for Mya’s labored breathing. No one hid in the twisted machinery.
He moved to the slab where she lay.
She was splayed like a sacrificial lamb, stripped and bound at elbow, wrist, knee and ankle with padded iron. Unfortunately for Mya, she and he were about the same size; the bonds fit her very well indeed. There was no room to struggle, and she hadn’t the immunity to pain that had allowed him to wrench free of the restraints.
He stood less than a step from her and took a moment to examine both her condition and the iron bands that held her. The restraining bands were held in place with black iron pins, not locks. He could free her in seconds. The wounds were quite real, and a tray bearing the implements that had inflicted them lay nearby. The blood on the tools was dry, but just barely. Where it had pooled beneath her was still moist to the touch. Scarcely a finger could he have placed upon her without touching some type of injury. Her face, neck and arms were lined with parallel grooves, her legs cut in patterns that followed the lines of the muscles. One cut had been cauterized when it bled too freely. Breathing itself was a torture, he could see, for both her abdomen and torso were crisscrossed with shallow trenches of crimson. Her chest fluttered with every breath, the muscles between each rib having been teased apart to expose the nerves. The Grandfather was very skilled to have inflicted so much damage and not killed her.
Despite the restraints, her clenched hands strained, struggling for freedom. He knew that feeling, that helplessness.
“Mya,” he whispered, laying a hand over her mouth to prevent any noise.
Her eyes flung open, then widened even further as she recognized that he was not the Grandfather. She jerked away from him, fighting the bonds, her cries of fear muffled against his palm.
“Mya, be still! You must be quiet! I’m not here for you, just the Grandfather.” She seemed to calm at this, which honestly surprised him. Did she fear him so much? “Quietly now. He may be listening from another room. You must tell me where he is; then I will release you. Do you understand?”
She nodded frantically, and he eased his hand away.
“Why? Why come here? He’ll kill you!” Her voice was strange, husky, probably hoarse from screaming.
“You know why. I’m here to kill him, and he knows it.” He placed a hand on her brow, trying to avoid the cuts. “Now, where is he?”
“I don’t know. I passed out. When I came to, he was gone.” Her eyes flickered to the door, pupils wide with fear. “He could come back any second!”
“I’m here for him, Mya. I’m going to kill him. When I do, we’ll both be free.”
“No, Lad. We won’t be free.” Her eyes were strange, the lids lolling closed whenever she wasn’t looking right at him. Her pupils weren’t tracking his movements. “I’m sorry, Lad. He won’t let me go. He made me...”
“What, Mya? He made you what?”
“He made me put it on. I thought I wanted it, but I don’t. Now I’m trapped, and he’ll never let me go.”
“What? Put what on? What are you talking about, Mya?” She was acting strangely, even for one who had been tortured. It was almost as if...
He gripped her face, forcing her mouth open. One sniff told him she’d taken opium, a strong narcotic that would dull even the most intense pain. That meant...
He leapt back from her and scanned the room quickly, but there was still no one there. It was a trap, but how...?
“The ring,” Mya said as both of her hands opened wide, releasing two small glass spheres to fall to the hard stone floor.
He saw the motion out of the corner of his eye and dove to catch one of the spheres, but the other struck the floor and shattered. He sprang away, sprinting for the door, but it was already closing. It slammed well before he reached it, and a silvery light shimmered around its perimeter. Magic. He was trapped.
Heedless, he slammed into the door as hard as he could. The room reverberated with the impact and pain lanced through his shoulder, but the magically bound door held. It was useless. Escape was impossible.
He turned back to Mya, but her form was already obscured by a billowing cloud of vapor released by the shattered sphere. The cloud would expand to fill the entire room, and he could already tell from Mya’s slow, steady breathing that the gas would render him unconscious.
He had to think of something! There had to be a way out!
He looked at the door, then at the advancing cloud of vapor. He had about ten more breaths before he would be engulfed by the narcotic gas. He sat down, struggling to calm his mind through the fear. He breathed as deeply and as rapidly as he could for nine breaths, then held it. He let the cloud engulf him while he slipped into a meditative trance. He slowed his heart, slowed his blood in his veins, slowed his mind...
The vapor tingled on his skin as the cloud swallowed him up. He struggled to fight the effect, struggled to shunt blood away from his skin where the narcotic was invading him. Slowly, he began to lose the battle. Numbness invaded his limbs, then his mind, and finally darkness engulfed him.
Chapter XXVII
Wiggen watched the sliver of sunlight migrate across the floor, just as she had watched the moonlight hours before. She’d not slept. Instead, she sat wrapped in her blankets, thinking of the one she loved and trying to keep hope alive in her heart. It almost struck her as funny that one such as she, scarred and tainted by violence, should be in such a position. How could she fall in love? And even more a mystery, how could someone love her?
But she knew it was real. She could feel it. It was different than anything she’d ever experienced. It made her want to laugh and cry at the same time; it was like beautiful music and a pain deep within, like a song and salt in a wound. She knew that the pain was simply his absence, and that he hadn’t come back to her yet.
As the patch of light moved inch by relentless inch, and she remained alone, the pain began to overwhelm the joy; the music began to fade behind the ache.
She recalled the first time she saw him, standing in the kitchen, filthy and skinny as a starved rat with a whole side of beef balanced on his shoulder. And there was that quizzical look on his face, all curiosity, not a malicious thought in him. That, she realized, was what she’d fallen in love with; not the strength or that he had saved her from those thugs. It was his innocence, the honesty that comes only with frank curiosity bereft of avarice or any hidden motive. He was the first person she’d ever met who wanted to know her for what she was, good and bad, strengths and flaws. He didn’t want to change her, didn’t want to make her something more or take something from her that she didn’t have to give. And he’d helped her with her own pain, not because he expected something back, some payment for his effort, but because he could. He was an honest and good soul, and she loved him for that.
The wedge of sunlight became thinner and thinner as it approached the wall into which the window was set, much as her hope became slimmer with every passing minute. She willed it to stop, wished time would halt in wait for his return. But time, and love, and pain do not wait, it seemed. Then the wedge of sunlight vanished completely. It was highsun. It was time.
He wasn’t coming back.
She found herself standing without remembering having stood. The meager pile of belongings—the food, a skin of water, the blankets and her dress—looked alien to her. She wasn’t hungry. After drinking some water, more because she knew she should rather than from thirst, she got dressed. Two of the blankets she folded neatly and draped over her arm. The rest she piled back in the trunk.
It was more difficult than she remembered, crawling through the furnace vent to the damper that led to the alley and outside, but she made it after resting only twice
. There were people about, but the alley was not well traveled, and her egress from the furnace vent went unseen. She tucked her bundle over her arm, draped her hair down over her distinctive scar and started walking north toward the more familiar neighborhoods of Eastmarket and the Tap and Kettle.
At least she would see her father again before they arrested her, though it really didn’t matter any more.
Nothing really mattered any more.
Lad awakened as he never had before in his life—in pain.
It pierced through the haze that fogged his mind and numbed his limbs, bringing him to a groggy wakefulness that allowed him to perceive his surroundings as if through a thick, smothering blanket. The pain was sharp but not deep, a recurrent prick upon his chest. It was not the ache of his burns, to which he’d grown accustomed; in fact, that discomfort was much less than it had been. His head hurt somewhat as well, but that really didn’t bother him as much as the continuous stabbing on his chest.
He rolled his head to the side, weak against the lingering fingers of numbing narcotic, and tried to brush away the bothersome pain. He could not lift his arm. He tried the other, but it, too, would not answer his commands. He tried to sit up, but that action was denied him as well by a restraining pressure on his arms and legs. Then the pain suddenly stopped.
“He’s moving too much. I can’t work with him moving like this.”
The voice was unfamiliar, but as Lad struggled to open his eyes, he heard another that was all too easy to recognize.
“The drug is wearing off.”
He forced his eyes open and redoubled his struggles. The Grandfather simply smiled down at him and chuckled in cold amusement. The bearded man standing next to him was unfamiliar; rings glittered from each finger and he wore elaborate robes of purple satin embroidered with golden symbols along the collar and cuffs. He held a small pot and a needle in his ink-stained hands. This left little doubt in Lad’s mind as to what the pain had been.
“He should calm down when he realizes he can’t break free.”
Lad glared at the Grandfather and surged up against his bonds. They were the same that had recently bound Mya, and he could still smell the sweet tang of her blood in the air. The bands of iron on his arms and legs were as tight as ever, and, unfortunately, he no longer possessed the immunity to pain that had allowed him to wrench free. As he pulled against the bands, pain lanced through his wrist and shoulder. His struggles subsided.
“See? He cannot escape. You may resume, Master Vonlith.”
“Very well.” The wizard moved forward, dipping his needle into the pot of ink. But as he leaned forward to press the needle into Lad’s flesh, his robe draped over Lad’s bound wrist. Lad deftly grabbed a handful of the thick material and lurched up, aiming a vicious bite at the wizard’s wrist.
“Gaa!” Vonlith cried out, jerking away just enough that Lad’s teeth clamped down on his sleeve instead of his flesh. Ink spilled from the pot, spattering both the robes and Lad’s torso. “Get this filthy beast off me!”
The Grandfather snatched a handful of Lad’s hair and jerked the wizard’s sleeve out of his mouth, tearing off a sizable patch of velvet, which Lad promptly spat out. He retained a grip upon the robes with his hand, however, regardless of how the man strained to free himself.
“Make him let go of me!” the man squawked, tugging at the fabric.
The Grandfather slammed Lad’s head back down onto the stone slab, and pain lanced through his skull. He bit back a cry of shock.
“Let him go, boy!” the Grandfather growled, cuffing him hard across the face. His ears rang with the blow. “Now!”
“I will not be your slave again!” Lad yelled in his face, true hatred edging his words. The Grandfather just sneered down at him.
“Yes... You... Will!” the ancient assassin growled through a rictus grin of triumph, slamming Lad’s head back against the unyielding stone with every word. At the second impact, Lad’s grip slackened involuntarily. At the third, darkness welled up and dimmed his vision.
When Lad came to next, he felt something cold against his neck. It was iron. A new restraint had been added. He also felt the continuous punctuating pinpricks of the wizard’s needle etching magic into his flesh. He rolled his head from side to side, trying to clear the haze of pain and nausea.
“Don’t... please...” he mumbled, struggling to open his eyes. The pricks of the needle stopped. When he finally managed to regain his senses and opened his eyes, the wizard Vonlith was watching him with some trepidation. He had replaced his damaged robes with new ones, slightly less elaborate but the same shade of purple violet. He placed the needle in the pot of ink and looked across the table, past Lad.
“I cannot work if he will not hold still. He should either be drugged or otherwise rendered motionless.”
“I will see to it.”
Lad turned groggily toward the new voice. It was another he recognized, but looking at her told him that something in his erstwhile adversary had changed drastically. She wore a dark robe of crimson silk edged with black. Her hair flowed down her shoulders freely, where it was usually tied back out of the way. Thin pink scars crisscrossed her skin wherever it showed. The wounds that had so effectively fooled Lad into thinking the Grandfather had tortured her had been healed. He wondered how such grievous cuts had been healed so quickly until he remembered his own lost ability. It must have been magic.
“Mya...” he said, his throat dry as old parchment. His head still swam with pain where it had been slammed against the stone. “I... will not...”
“Be quiet.” She held a small green crystal vial before his eyes. Or were there two of them? He was having trouble focusing. “I’m going to pour this into your mouth, and you’re going to swallow it. It will heal your injuries. If you don’t swallow it, I will call the Grandfather, and he will make you drink it. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Will you drink it?”
“Why would I? It will only keep me alive longer.”
She leaned forward until her face was close to his. Her hair fell forward to tickle his bare skin as she said, “Think, Lad. There is much life between your current condition and death, and it could be filled with more pain than you can imagine. It is no longer your choice whether you live or die, but how much misery you endure while you live is your choice. You do not want to go through what I have gone through. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” He tried to laugh at her, but found he could not muster the strength through the pounding in his skull. “How can I trust you, Mya? All you know is deceit.”
“I know the Grandfather.” In that one admission he could hear how she had changed. There was something more and something less to her voice. “I’ve lain on that table and felt his blades part my flesh while he laughed, and even through the opium, I screamed. If you want to experience the same without the benefit of having the pain blunted by drugs, then refuse to swallow this potion one more time. I will not ask again. Now open your mouth.”
Even through the fog of his injury he could hear the truth and the terror in her words.
Lad opened his mouth and swallowed the bitter liquid.
The rush of healing magic swept through him like a cleansing tide, washing away the nausea, blurred vision and pain. His shoulder popped, and he felt the sinews knitting where he hadn’t even known they’d been torn. His view of Mya sprang to crystal clarity, and he could see even more changes etched on her face.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No.” He looked her over, and she watched him do so. There was something missing in her; something had been torn away or lost. Though her stance and body language were as arrogant and self-assured as ever, her eyes showed a vacancy. But this was not just the result of lying under the Grandfather’s knives; he knew her better than that. There was something else that had caused her to give up hope on herself. Then he saw the black ring on her finger, and he remembered her words as she lay flayed upon the table h
e now occupied.
“Becoming a slave is not hard,” he said, meeting that slack gaze. “Living with it... that’s something else.”
“Irony? From you?” She let out a bark of scornful laughter. “I don’t know what breaking those spells did for you, Lad, but I never expected it to turn you into a philosopher.”
“I feel now,” he said, letting his gaze slip off her. He stared blankly at the domed ceiling. “I love, I hate, I fear and I feel shame for the pain I have caused. I don’t know how I lived not feeling these things, but now that I do, I don’t want to let them go.” He nodded to the wizard. “That’s what he’s here for, isn’t it? He’s going to take all that away from me.”
“He’s going to put what spells he can back in place. The bonding spells will be first, of course. That will eliminate the need for these.” She tapped the iron band around his neck with a fingernail. “Then the healing, the pain block and the emotional block.” She had a strange look on her face that told him there was more.
“What else?” he asked, directing the question to the wizard. “What else are you going to do to me?”
“I was told to remove certain of your memories, young man,” he said, moving forward again, stirring the pot of ink with his needle. “They are the source of this pain you are feeling, am I not correct? You are better off without them.”
“It won’t matter,” he said, turning his head away from both of them. He knew from experience that it would take days if not weeks to complete even one of the spells. He also knew Wiggen would divulge everything he’d told her to the Captain of the Royal Guard when he did not return. He had no idea the time of day, but he imagined it could not be much past midday. The Royal Guard would storm the building, and they would all be killed. “Nothing matters any more.”
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