He started with his fists, punching Dormael until his mouth bled, and his lips were too swollen to speak. Then he’d drive his fist into Dormael’s stomach, expelling the air from his lungs. When Dormael went to suck in a breath, the man would stab him in the gut.
After that, he would go to work with the knife, lips pursed like a craftsman at a workbench. He cut Dormael across the stomach in long, slow lines. He stabbed him in the belly in quick, shallow punches. He dug the blade under Dormael’s skin, and flayed small sections from the tissue underneath.
The man cut, beat, and kicked Dormael until he was dizzy with the loss of blood. His hands began to go numb. His feet lost the strength to move, until all his weight was dangling by his wrists. His blood was splattered everywhere within the Greater Circle. It ran over his elbows and into his armpits, from his lips and eyes, from the stab wounds in his midsection.
When the torture stopped, Inera would come with her questions—all soft, cool hands, and kisses along his bloody chest. She whispered to him, rubbed him, and rubbed against him. He would have been horrified, but all he felt was pain and nausea.
When he wouldn’t answer, it would start all over again.
Dormael could feel his mind going fuzzy, his hurts fading into a buzz in the background of his thoughts. He could feel his chest filling with his own blood, making it harder and harder to breathe. He began to wheeze, spraying a wisp of his own blood over his lips. The world retreated behind a wall of pain.
Everything went silent. He realized that the beating, the stabbing, the cutting, had stopped. All he could hear was the sound of running water, and hushed conversation. He felt a cool hand on his cheek. He squinted through blurred vision.
Inera wiped blood from his face, thumbing it from under his eyes. Her expression was sad, as if he were a rabid beast that she was sorry she had to put down. In her other hand she held a small glass jar filled with what he thought was water—except there were tiny lights whirling around inside.
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked, slipping her bloodied fingers into her mouth and smiling as she tasted them. She took a deep breath, as if his blood were the most delicious ambrosia. “I can make it all stop. You want that, don’t you? To feel no more pain, to be whole again? I know you do. Just say it—say that you’ll pledge your life to me. Tell me that you will serve me, and be mine forever. Tell me what I wish to know. It wouldn’t be so bad, you know. We could lie under the stars again. We could be together again, Dormael. I know you want that as much as I do. I know that you want me again.”
She pressed her mouth to his chest, began giving him light kisses as if they were about to make love. Though desire was the furthest thing from his mind, Inera’s lips felt cool and wonderful against the heat of his tortured flesh. Every bit of him hurt, and her kisses stayed on his skin once her lips were gone, like cold fingerprints.
He knew he was dying. He welcomed it. No one would come for him. He’d been here for quite some time, unconscious, then being tortured. He’d gone through multiple rounds of the questioning, though he couldn’t remember just how many. A feeling of acceptance came over him, a strange sort of peace. He had revealed nothing to her—he’d screamed and cried and sobbed like a wounded beast, but he had told her nothing.
If he was to die here, then so be it. At least he’d won. She could kill him, but she’d never get what she wanted out of him. Release beckoned, and he let himself go deeper, listening to his laboring heart as he went. It faded into the background.
So mote it be, he thought. No one else would say the words for him, no one would speak over his pyre. No one would get the chance.
Inera was saying something again, but her voice was hazy and indistinct. Dormael’s vision faded to blackness, and he was floating. He felt weightless, cool, and comfortable. His pains were still there, somewhere in his consciousness, but they were unimportant. He could hear his heartbeat begin to stutter, failing in his last moments.
You are here. How have you come to this place again?
Dormael realized with a start that the alien presence he’d met in his dreams was with him in the darkness. The power touched his mind, and he felt that strange stretching sensation in his thoughts again, as if his mind was connected with eons of awareness. His consciousness felt like a piece of fabric being stretched to its limit.
I am dying, he thought, pushing the words out to the alien power.
No. Life still beats in your flesh. I can feel it.
Then how—, he began, but something wrenched him from that peaceful darkness. He felt an odd pull against his consciousness, as if the presence were trying to hold on to him while something else, something far away, pulled him from its grasp. His head spun.
Dormael coughed, spluttered, and choked. He felt the pain slam back into him as he awakened. Inera was forcing water into his mouth from a jar, spilling it over his face and into his throat. He felt something enter his mouth from the jar, like he’d swallowed a bug made of electric flame.
Dormael went rigid as every muscle in his body stiffened. The chain snapped back and forth as his body was wracked with spasms, the clatter filling the room. He felt as if lightning were crawling over his skin, into his wounds, leaving a tingling sensation behind. His heart beat in his ears with a vengeance.
He felt his wounds knitting together, his skin and muscle and innards twisting back into place with an unnatural tingle. Dormael’s wits cleared as he sucked in a chestful of air. He could almost taste the stench of the room—sewage, blood, sweat, and rust. His pain faded and his muscles went slack, leaving him feeling oddly refreshed.
Dormael stared open-mouthed at Inera. She smiled, one side of her mouth ticking up with a knowing expression. Turning, she glided back to the table and set the glass jar atop it. When she turned back to regard him, the triumph in her expression made him want to scream.
“Now,” she said. “Where is the armlet?”
**
Bethany watched Shawna as the woman slipped in and out of her opponent’s reach like a cat, easily knocking aside attacks and making attacks of her own. Bethany held her own knife, stroking the flat side of the blade with her thumb. She sat on the edge of a fountain, drawn deep within her cloak. Thunder rumbled overhead as the students on the Bruising Stretch continued their lessons—though most of them were watching Shawna.
That was why it had been so easy to give the boy Dormael had sent with her the slip. He had been staring at Shawna, watching her spin and fight. Bethany had only turned a corner—it had been the easiest thing in the world. The boy had been nice, and she hoped he didn’t get in trouble.
But it was his own stupid fault—Bethany had put forth little effort to ditch him.
Shawna had seen her earlier in the day, but Bethany had ducked out of sight not long after. She felt safer watching from a distance. Big people had so many concerns at eye level that it was easy to get lost beneath their gaze. They rarely looked down.
The Conclave grounds spread out around her, manicured rows of grass and stone, bushes and fountains. The Bruising Stretch was a vast area covered with paving stones, twin armories at the end, and a covered gazebo for resting. The Conclave Proper rose up behind her, the vast tower stark against the overcast sky. Thunder cracked the day again, and Bethany could smell the storm brewing, like a quickening in the air.
She watched a group of Initiates walk by, trailing in a single file behind an old woman who was speaking at length in matter-of-fact tones. They all wore blue tunics, and lately some of them had taken to wearing bands of color on their arms. These children, though, were younger even than her. She wondered if she would be like them, in a class with others like them.
Was Dormael going to leave her alone here?
She wondered if she would make any friends. Would she still be able to steal into the dining hall whenever she wanted, and grab something from the cooks? Would she be made to do scullery duty?
The thought of washing out pots wasn’t pleasant, but she thought s
he could handle it. Grease and soap and threatening ladles were a far sight better than what she had seen. Besides—it would probably be easy to ditch scullery duty. After all, big people never looked down.
Bethany wondered again if she would make any friends. Something inside of her ached for a friend. Something else, though, told her it was useless.
She closed her eyes then, and opened her Kai. Bethany knew she wasn’t supposed to, she had been forbidden to do it when she was all alone. She couldn’t help it.
The world sang when she was listening through her Kai.
The grass had its own music, which harmonized with the wind and the bushes. The endless clanging of steel-on-steel, and clacking of practice swords, filled the world with a beat. The thunder above her sounded as if it should shake the entire world—maybe it did. Bethany closed her eyes and let her Kai sing to her in low tones, floating on a bubble of peace.
She had never dreamed such a thing would be possible. She never thought that she would come to a place like this, where higher concerns existed than what you were going to eat the next day, or where you could sleep without someone stealing your stuff, or trying other things. Nastier things.
Here, no one did the nastier things. This place felt like a different world. Bethany knew the slums existed in the city—she’d seen the faces on the day they had arrived, dragging Dormael in a horse cart. Hungry, distant faces hovering at waist-level, flitting like ghosts through the crowds. Shawna hadn’t seen them, and neither had D’Jenn. Big people never looked down, but Bethany always knew where to look.
You learn where to look, or you starve.
She used to huddle outside a tavern during the wintertime, listening to an old blind man tell stories at the window. Bethany suspected that the old man knew that she was listening to his stories, because he always sat at the window, even when it was too cold to have it open. He would leave his plate close to the edge of the sill, and never raised a ruckus when she picked something from it that she figured he wouldn’t miss. He just went on telling his stories, and never looked down.
He was blind, anyway—he couldn’t have seen her if he’d wanted to.
One night, the old man wasn’t there anymore, and he never showed up again.
The stories he told, though, were always wonderful tales of magic and monsters. He told of old heroes, pirates, and adventure. In the old man’s stories, there was always a cave that was home to some dreadful, man-eating creature which guarded a horde of treasure, or a magical castle full of evil spells and traps. Bethany had always thought that she’d never even get the chance to see a real wizard.
She never thought she’d be one.
Bethany was enjoying her time in the Conclave, this short period where no one knew what to do with her. She was expected to start training soon, she knew that, but since they’d been here, she had been in a sort of limbo. No one was looking for her, so it was easy to go where she wanted. Big people never knew where to look.
In her time in the Conclave, she’d explored most of the upper floors looking for evil magical traps. She’d flitted past classrooms full of attentive students, the teachers either blind to her presence, or unconcerned. She had found areas in the tower where huge tapestries hung, large enough for her to take fifteen steps from one end to the other. There were floors polished so black that they looked like a mirror, and places where flowing script was written into the very walls, inlaid with silver, brass, and gold. There were high, quiet balconies that jutted out of the Conclave Proper as if they had grown from it, where wind whipped across the platform, and there was nothing to hold onto. There were close places, places that always held a gathering of one sort or another, students bustling back and forth through a cloud of conversation. Bethany had moved through it all unseen—or, at least, unnoticed.
Thunder cracked across the sky, this time even louder than before. Bethany could smell the rain coming, and her Kai tingled with excitement at the coming storm. The first patters of rainfall began to splash into the paving stones, filling her nose with the smell of rock and water. She pulled her hood up and sheathed her dagger, rising from the edge of the fountain. Bethany had spent a hundred nights out in the rain, and she had no wish to repeat the experience today.
Shawna was occupied, and she knew Dormael had left the Conclave to go into the city. Bethany had watched Allen and D’Jenn trot across the courtyard earlier, her new uncle carrying more weapons than Bethany could name. She took a deep breath, and decided to run by the dining hall and steal a sweet-bread cake.
After that, she would do more exploring. She’d overheard a few of the Initiates talking about the tunnels underneath the Conclave, and that there was supposed to be a labyrinth full of magical items. Bethany had found a few ways into the Conclave basements already, but had neglected to venture into the darkened corridors. Today was a fine day to explore.
Smiling, she scampered toward the dining hall, staying where most people never bothered to look.
**
Dormael wasn’t sure how long his torture had gone on.
Inera had taken him to the brink of death over and over again, and brought him back with that jar of swirling lights. During his lucid moments, he had the presence of mind to wonder what kind of magic she’d used on him, but soon his thoughts would again devolve into pain and despair. He knew that she was breaking him, conditioning his mind to believe that she was the only thing that could make the pain stop, could heal him and bring him back to health. The knowledge of it didn’t help—he could feel his resolve slipping away. Each time she came to him, crooning to him and placing light kisses over his body, he had to fight not to beg her for respite.
If he didn’t get out of here soon, he would break.
“I know your will is draining away, my love,” Inera said, swaying toward him with the jar. “Saying the words would be so easy. Serve me, Dormael. I will show you the ways to true power, and together we might be strong enough to challenge him!” She ran her fingers over his chest, tracing lines in the blood that was covering his naked skin. Her mouth was bloody from the kisses she’d been giving him, still blazing like cold fire over his chest.
“Just kill me,” he uttered, forcing the words out through the blood in his mouth. “I’ll never serve you, Inera. If there’s anything left of you in there, just kill me.”
“You’re wrong, Dormael. You will serve me. You will beg to serve me!”
“No,” was all he could get out before he descended into a fit of shallow coughing.
Inera hissed and turned back to the table, setting the jar down on its worn, wooden surface. She took a deep breath and sighed, bowing her head. Dormael could see the muscles in her shoulders working beneath her pale skin. Her back, too, was riddled with those strange scars.
“This is taking too long,” she said, reaching into the jar and grasping one of those strange lights in her fist. “We’ll just have to do this the other way—the harder way. I’d hoped to have you by my side, Dormael, instead of at my feet.” She whirled toward him, stalking forward and slamming her hand against his mouth, forcing the light inside.
Dormael swallowed on reflex. The fire ran through his muscles again, his stomach heaving as his body wove itself back together, like a scarf unraveling in reverse. It made Dormael want to empty his stomach every time, even though there had been nothing on his stomach since the firewine at the Headless Dancer.
Inera moved to the wall before him, holding what looked like a piece of thin charcoal, and began scrawling on the stone. She drew a large circle on the wall, and began to scrawl glyphs around it. He didn’t recognize the working, though he knew how to construct all the types of the Greater and Lesser Circles.
“If you won’t agree to help me, love, then I’ll just have to force you to do it,” she said, speaking through her teeth as she drew in angry, sharp strokes. “I had hoped that you would take your rightful place, but if you insist on being obstinate, I am forced to see you turned.”
Turned?
/> “What are you doing, Inera?” he asked, suspicion reaching cold fingers up his back.
“There are ways, dear Dormael, to force you to my will. My master taught me many things, secrets beyond the ken of what you and yours are willing to learn. Old things, ancient spells of power. You will see, my love—you will see very soon.” Her eyes were alight with rage, her mouth pulled in a tight line across her pallid face.
In a flash, he understood. He was suddenly filled with cold, overpowering dread. Something inside of him had suspected. The woman he’d once loved looked like a corpse. Jureus had shown no outer signs of necromancy—no scars, no pallid skin, no white hair—and he had been the first necromancer Dormael had seen up close. Jureus, though, had been a boy.
Inera, he realized, must be higher in the necromantic pecking order. Her master must be the same shadowy figure that had spoken to Jureus in the camp. A new disgust welled up inside of him as he looked at her, imagining the woman he’d shared so many close nights with eating human flesh, relishing in abhorrence. He wanted to vomit all over again.
“You’ve become one of them,” he said. “You’re working with the vilth.” The words had been meant as an accusation, but they sounded more like an admission of defeat as they escaped his mouth. Some part of his heart—forgotten in the years since he’d seen her—ripped open again and started to bleed.
“Yes,” she replied, her eyes showing no remorse.
“You’ve eaten human flesh. Sacrificed people to your god.”
Inera shook her head, favoring him with a silvery peal of chilling laughter.
“That, and so much more, my love,” she smiled. “You’re about to see.”
She pulled a little black dagger from her belt and slashed her palm, squeezing the gray flesh so that it started to bleed. Dormael watched in morbid fascination as she chanted, speaking a language he’d never heard, and began tossing her blood over the Circle on the wall. The men in the room shuffled away from her, trying to put distance between themselves and the wall. Inera threw her arms out, raising the dagger to the ceiling, and her blood began to smoke. It hissed and turned into black vapor, wisping away into nothing.
The Knife in the Dark (The Seven Signs Book 2) Page 28
