Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  "Don't answer me. I don't really want to know." She turned to Dougal. "What do you plan to do with him?"

  Dougal stared at the dead hulk of his dragon. His face grew hard. "If Brian isn't lying, I'd hate to chance the death-vengeance of a true bard. The Pendragons rarely lie. Yet this human owes me blood. My land needs renewing. As you point out, he is an innocent as our world reckons such things."

  "Ah. You think of casting the Green Marriage."

  "So quick you are," he smiled. "He will die but live, bringing spring again to my lands and thwarting the curse. We think alike, you and I. Almost I wish we could be friends."

  "Our powers and our interests lie too far apart for that."

  "Maybe. Or maybe our differences would make us better partners." Pain sat in his eyes, and longing. Dougal blinked away the weakness and gestured at Brian. "Can he understand what is happening? Will you permit him to see and hear and care? He deserves it."

  "You are cruel, Dougal, love. And just. He brought the poor boy here. I'll let him care."

  Green Marriage, Brian heard, echoing through his thoughts. The sacrifice of an innocent. The land would swallow David, draw him into itself, destroy him by splitting his life into atoms of feeling and understanding scattered through the root and branch of its own life.

  It happened slowly. It happened with great pain. Moons from now, one with the Blood running in his veins would be able to talk to David through the touch of water and stone, the whisper of wind, the rattle of branch against woody branch in the stillness of the night.

  Gradually he would fade, as the grains of a sand-castle crumbled in the rising tide, fading as his soul spread thinner and thinner until he vanished into the murmur of unthinking life, as the molded sand returned to the featureless sweep of the beach.

  Brian's heart chilled at such a devious way of evading the death-curse of a bard. He screamed in the distant locked closet of his mind that Fiona allowed him, the small space that let him care. Guilt crashed down on him and threw the charges in his face. He had brought the boy here, unprotected, untaught, brought this sacrifice as a crutch for his own injuries. He should suffer and die, not David.

  He still owned a tiny fraction of himself. That fraction wailed with grief and remorse over David, over Maureen, and Jo, and even the simple hungers and desires of the dragon, so rare and beautiful and now so dead.

  Dougal grabbed David's arm, the arm of the injured elbow, and jerked him across the splintered trail to a clump of greenbriar. The boy moved woodenly, stumbling as his feet chased after his balance and barely caught it before falling into another step and then another.

  His last step failed to catch him, and he fell face-first into the briars, arms flopping loose at his sides. The briars tore at him, and he screamed as if their touch was acid.

  Tension and control seemed to flow back into his body, and he fought against the tangle, against the biting thorns and against the twisting, slithering vines that whipped around his arms and legs and throat and tied him like a bundle. Blood dripped from his bare skin and stained the cloth of his shirt and jeans where the vines touched him, as if each touch-point was a wound and the briars sucked his blood through hollow needles.

  He screamed, a harsh grating sound as if he tore the fabric of his lungs and forced it up his throat. Brian had heard such screams before, as men died in torment, and he’d never understood where they found the air to keep on so long.

  The green coils tightened on David, wrapping again and again around him until he barely jerked. Dougal or Fiona kept his chest free; kept his throat and tongue and mouth free enough to howl his agony. But the thorny fingers invaded his nose, his eyes, his ears, writhing inside his clothing until Brian knew with sickening clarity that they penetrated bowel and bladder as well and sucked at the fertility they found there.

  Brian pounded against the door of his closet, trying to escape, to regain his body, to find the use of hands to plug his ears and cover his eyes. The sight, the sound, the thought of David's torture reached into Brian and grabbed his gut and twisted. Fiona held him, dry-eyed, rigid, a spectator. She turned to him and smiled, showing teeth as sharp as any vampire's, and he knew she saw inside his hidden corner and loved what she saw there.

  Briars root where their canes touch fertile soil, where they bend down and meet the damp earth under matted leaves. The briars rooted in David's body.

  They cased him in green. The roots ate into him until a green man lay still on the forest floor, a shape woven of living wicker. The screaming finally stopped.

  Brian hunched over his stomach, and Fiona let him vomit. Then the fog returned, even in his hidden closet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The cell measured eight feet by ten feet, Maureen guessed. She was a shade over five-two and couldn't quite lie the length of her prison twice. It worked out to five paces plus turning space, anyway, with the shackles on her legs. Call it five hundred lengths to the mile. She did ten miles one day, five thousand lengths, and blistered both her feet with the constant turning.

  Then they took her boots away, "to prevent an infection." The bastards had taken her clothes away, too, "for cleaning." That seemed like weeks ago.

  So she ruled eighty square feet, more or less. She shared it with one iron bunk hanging from iron chains set into the stone wall, one iron-sheathed door with a peephole just about big enough to put her hand through, and one electric light high overhead that must be powered by the solar panels she'd glimpsed when they carried her in. She also owned one stinking hole in the floor that she only used when she was about to burst because it required squatting in full view of the peephole, and they never gave her any toilet paper.

  Stone paving covered the floor, ninety-seven random-sized rectangles, and the prime number bothered her. She thought she'd prefer a smoother number, maybe ninety-six. Eight times twelve, or four times twenty-four, so many ways to factor it: ninety-six would be a satisfying number. Either that, or the sixty-four squares of a chess board.

  In some perverse way, all this macho rapist shit was better than living with the endless fears of paranoia. Dougal and Padric were real, here and now. She could kill the slimeballs, if she could just figure out a way. They weren't Buddy Johnson, always giving her the finger from behind the protection of her nightmares, always lurking in the shadows and vanishing when she tried to pin him down.

  She smiled grimly to herself and settled deeper into the dissociation that was the only good thing insanity had ever done for her. All these things were happening to that other woman, over there. The dissociation helped Maureen hide within her head, helped her wait and study and scheme.

  Meanwhile, numbers and mental chess games comforted her. They kept an elemental purity that didn't change with the whims of her jailers.

  She had saved the counting of each wall for next week. She could spend a day on each one, counting and recounting the patterns of dressed stone masonry that looked like any classic dungeon complete with the rusty iron staples and hanging chains that should have held a shackled skeleton, forgotten. She hadn't even tried gouging out the mortar with her own irons: that would be a waste of time and energy. Maybe she'd save that for next week, too.

  She wondered if weeks held any meaning. They had taken her watch right at the first, and there wasn't a window to give her hints to day or night. The light dimmed on an unknown schedule but never went completely dark. Sometimes she felt as if her life had been twisted onto one of those endless loops she'd made in geometry class in high school.

  All her meals were identical, and their timing didn't seem to have any relationship to the light. No clue there. All Padric ever gave her was small fragments of brown bread and hard yellow cheese and a cup of murky, flat-tasting water--about what she'd eat for a light snack at home. She didn't need that hole in the floor much; nothing was left over when her gut got done with the crumbs.

  The cold iron ate at her wrists and ankles, gnawing red sores when she paced. Dougal worried about them, during his i
nfrequent visits--asked her not to hurt herself, not to scar herself. He healed them with a touch, whenever she held still enough for him to touch her. Padric was her real jailer, and he only sneered at her. Whatever fear her curse had laid on him was now dead and buried. He'd seen how weak she was, unable to back up her words with action.

  She shivered. She took the coarse wool blanket off her bunk and wrapped it around her shoulders, huddling her warmth to herself. The fabric scratched her bare skin, itchy and crawling with her own filth. The stone cell was far too cold for a bra and panties, but Padric refused to give her back her jeans and shirt. He told her she could wear a dress like a proper woman or wear nothing at all like the whore she was.

  Dougal and Padric played good-cop, bad-cop. She'd read enough stories to know the routine. One cop beats the poor slob senseless with a rubber hose, the other one comes in and screams bloody murder at his partner and gives the suspect a cup of coffee or a shot of booze from a smuggled pocket flask and wants to be a friend. Repeat and vary, as needed.

  Guess who got the alleged perpetrator's confession? Next prisoner, they swapped roles.

  Of course, what Dougal wanted was her ass. She'd see him in hell, first. If only they'd let her sleep . . .

  The lock snapped behind her, and Padric filled the doorway, snarling. "Blanket stays on bed! You know rules!"

  He pointed toward the corner of the cell, the one with the hole in the floor. Bath time again, with a bucket of water that always felt like it came from the bottom end of a glacier. As usual, he carried some harsh soap, a scrap of towel, and a brush fit for scrubbing elephants. She was supposed to strip and wash, wash all over, while he watched.

  It was calculated humiliation, just like shitting and pissing in full view, like an animal. She wondered what would happen when her period started. At least that would give her a measure of time men couldn't steal.

  Padric could talk better than his ape-man impersonation. She'd overheard him, once. The whole fucking thing was an act, Dr. Frankenstein's Igor.

  She turned toward the corner, her shoulders slumped in submission, and then spun back using her chains as a flail. One link caught him across the cheek, and she saw a glint of blood before his fist smashed into her breast, setting it on fire. She staggered back against the wall, whimpering. Another fist in her gut drove the breath from her body and then a third blow caught her just as she started to gasp. The stone floor jolted her knees.

  He hit her with precise, scientific blows on nerves and muscles, using a sadistic sense of what hurt worst for a woman. He's an expert, her mind stuttered through the pain, a fucking virtuoso. Bastard must have trained under the Nazis or the KGB.

  Everything seemed calculated just short of permanent injury. Most of it wouldn't even leave bruises on the surface. Just deep, like on her kidneys, her liver, and her ovaries. She screamed, hoping there was somebody within hearing that wasn't part of the conspiracy.

  Thoughts vanished into the roar of pain.

  * * *

  She woke cold and naked and wet. Her underclothes lay in a stinking puddle, soiled. So that was what they meant, about getting the shit beaten out of you. She never knew it was literal. She hurt all over, not just the beating but raw skin that told her Padric had scrubbed her while she was unconscious. The idea of sleep pulled her so hard she closed her eyes again and ignored the pain, ignored the thoughts of what else he might have done. They weren't important enough.

  Sleep. Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, the death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast . . . . She drowsed with memories of Drama Club and the sense that if she didn't move, nothing would hurt. Where was good old Macduff when you really needed him, someone to kill this fake Scots Thane of Cawdor?

  "Wake up, you filthy bitch!"

  Ice-water slapped her again and soaked at her until she realized the cold flowed up from the puddle beneath her. She lay on the stone paving, and some of the pain was bruised skin caught between protruding bones and the floor. She'd never had much padding, and here she was losing weight. That was a hell of an idea for a diet. Next bestseller, The Torquemada Diet, guaranteed to slim you down or the Inquisition would know the reason why.

  "Get up and get dressed. The Master wants to see you."

  Maureen peeled one eye open and sorted out the blurry shadows into Padric leaning over her with a towel. "Go 'way. Le' me sleep."

  The towel cracked like a whip, and her ass caught fire. She rolled, groggily, and another snap lit pain in her right breast. She kept rolling until she cowered under the iron bunk, whimpering and shivering and curled into a ball with her butt pressed against the cold stone wall.

  "Get up and get dressed, I said! The Master invites you to dinner."

  "Fuck you," she muttered, but her mouth betrayed her by watering at the thought of food.

  "Eat with him or starve. Your choice."

  "Gimme back my clothes."

  Something green landed above her, and she focused on it. He'd pulled the thin mattress off the bunk to see her through the metal springs and strapping. Velvet. It was a velvet dress, green with golden trim. Damn thing would go well with her hair and skin.

  Not too good with bruises, though. Levi's and her white blouse would set those off better. She reached around the edge, tugged the dress down, and threw it into the filthy puddle in the corner. The cold gnawed at her: velvet was warm.

  She glared out at Padric from her hole, baring her teeth. Something warmed, deep in her belly, at the sight of a ragged scab and bruise across his left cheek. At least she'd given him that much back.

  "Then you go to him naked," he growled. "Save time when he beds you."

  He reached under the bunk and grabbed her wrist, jerking until she banged her head on the iron frame. By the time the stars cleared, her butt was dragging across the stone flooring of the corridor outside. The rough edges and surface sandpapered skin off her ass.

  Something roared and then formed words. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  Maureen shook pain out of her eyes and found Dougal looming over her. Something cracked like a rifle shot, and her arms dropped to the floor. Another crack and she saw the short whip flash across Padric's face. A savage joy boiled up in her belly as the whip sounded again and again, driving Padric down into a cowering huddle.

  "How dare you treat my lady like this?"

  "She refused to come, Master," Padric whimpered.

  "Of course she refused to come, you idiot! Are you too stupid to see she's naked?"

  Padric kept his head covered and muttered to the floor. Dougal hit him again, the whip drawing a line of blood across the protecting forearms.

  "Speak up, fool!"

  "She refused the dress you sent her," Padric spat. "She threw it in her own filth."

  "Then . . . get . . . her . . . the . . . clothes . . . she . . . wants!" Dougal punctuated each word with a blow of the whip.

  Padric scuttled away down the corridor like a frightened crab. "She demands those man-things she wore when she came here."

  "Then bring them before I take every inch of skin off your miserable carcass!"

  Dougal reached down as if to soothe her, and Maureen twisted away from him, huddling against the wall. She didn't even try to cover her breasts and crotch: modesty was the least of her problems, right now. Besides, she had the perverse idea that if he raped her, she'd win at least a moral victory. She wouldn't have surrendered.

  Padric scuttled back, cringing, blood oozing from whip-cuts across his face and arms. He carried her jeans, her shirt, and clean underwear draped over one arm. His other hand held a dry towel.

  Dougal flicked his whip again, pointing. "And get those stupid chains off her, you idiot! All we need is the iron rings, to control her Power until she learns how to do that for herself. She's the Lady of this castle now! Act like it!"

  Locks
clicked and the chains rattled to the floor. Maureen snatched up her clothing and turned her back to the men, mopping herself dry and regaining some poise along with her pants. It was amazing how helpless nakedness made her feel. She'd always wondered why people thought it was sexy.

  Padric followed like a humbled ghost as Dougal led her down the hall. He opened the door and waved her into a large room, dark like a cavern and lit with candles. It felt warm and smelled like heaven: a bakery with charbroiled steaks and flowers. She lost the petty details when her eyes locked on a long table.

  Standing roast of beef. Potatoes. Steaming rolls. Sweet peas. Her stomach wrenched, and she nearly drooled down her shirt at the thought of food, hot food, good food, endless quantities of food. Wine, red wine sparkled in crystal goblets.

  She grabbed the wine and gulped it, eyes closed in bliss. God, she'd needed a drink. She didn't even care if they'd drugged it. The fire of the wine sent golden warmth through her body and splashed a rosy glow over the room. It ironed the kinks out of her bones and made the bruises seem less urgent. It even made Dougal look good for an instant.

  He smiled and refilled her glass. Wine. Would booze, by any other name, smell half as sweet?

  A plate materialized in front of her, a slab of roast and potatoes swimming with butter, and her hunger took control of her body. She didn't eat, she inhaled. In mere seconds, her plate gleamed as if she'd licked it clean of every scrap and drop of red meat-juice. Maybe she had. She couldn't remember. All she knew was that she'd only stopped when her stomach couldn't take another swallow without puking.

  She had a knife in her hand, a sharp knife only slightly greasy from the roast as if she'd even licked that in her frenzy. Where was Padric? He was out of range in the shadows. She turned to Dougal, across the table, and her head swam for an instant. Wine. Several glasses of wine, starting on an empty stomach.