That evening, Bane and Grem ate a hearty beef stew in the common room, and Mirra dined on steamed vegetables. The patrons barely glanced at the newcomers.
After dinner, while the men enjoyed good nutty ale, a nearby disagreement grew loud, and they could not help overhearing it. Three burly woodsmen glared at each other across a table as their argument flared. Their well-worn leather jerkins revealed muscular tanned arms, and their craggy faces were lean and stubbled.
"He deserves it, I tell you!" one shouted.
The man opposite him thumped the table. "He's a woodsman, lived here all his life. It's lies!"
The third man said, "There's too much proof, Jorn. He's guilty. We all like him, but we can't have him carrying on like that."
"Tomorrow he hangs, and good riddance!" The irate man stormed out, kicking over a chair on his way.
When the maid came to refill Bane's tankard, he nodded at the remaining woodsmen and asked, "Do you know what that was all about?"
The girl smiled coquettishly. "Aye, they're on about the woodsman they've accused of consorting with evil."
"Really? What did he do?"
"They say he spoke to a demon some days ago. Another man saw it, and now they're going to hang him."
Bane frowned. "Is he from the hills?"
"Aye, a woodsman born and bred."
"Did he once have a wife?"
The girl, who was no more than Mirra's age, puffed out her lips. "Ooh, now you're going back a bit. Twenty or so years ago, he had one, I heard, but she vanished. Now he's accused of murdering her, too."
The girl fluttered her lashes at Bane. "You know what? You kind of look like him. He's a handsome devil, too." She giggled, and when Bane did not return her smile, pouted and flounced off.
Bane turned to Mirra. "It is my father. It must be. This is the Black Lord's revenge."
"Then we will save him."
"I wonder why the demon did not just kill him?"
"The main thing is that he is still alive."
Bane nodded. "We have to get him out, tonight."
Grem leant across the table. "I'll do it for you."
"I will come too."
The mercenary shook his head, looking a little embarrassed. "No, better if you don't. You haven't got a sword, and you're not used to sneaking about. I'd rather try to bust him out without raising a ruckus. That way we make a clean getaway and no one gets hurt."
Bane considered. "If you think you can do it, then all right."
"Easy as pissing on a tortoise. These are just country folk."
When the maid returned to top up their tankards again, Bane asked, "This man who is going to hang, where are they keeping him?"
"Why do you ask?"
He shrugged. "I would just like to know he is securely locked away."
"Oh, don't worry, they've got him in the mill house, chained up and behind bars."
"Do you know his name?"
"Oh, aye, it's Mithran."
Bane nodded, and she left with swinging hips.
They finished their drinks and retired to their rooms to await a later hour, when few people would be abroad.
At around midnight, Grem came to Bane's room. His face was smeared with soot, and several daggers, a length of twine, and a short club were stowed about his person, in addition to his sword. Bane eyed the mercenary's arsenal, raising his brows.
Grem smiled. "Just precautions. Hopefully I'll only need the club."
"Be careful," Mirra said.
"I'll be back soon, with him."
Grem slipped out, and Bane sat on a bed. "This makes me wish I still had power."
"No, you do not need it."
"I am useless without it. I must learn how to use a sword. Perhaps Grem will teach me."
"Yes, do that, but do not use the power again."
He sighed, rubbing his brow. "If I can avoid it, I will not. It is just that I am so used to having it..."
"You feel naked without it."
"Yes. For four years I have been invincible, untouchable, and men ran from me in fear. That part was quite enjoyable, actually," he mused.
"Will it be difficult to prevent yourself from summoning it if a dangerous situation arises?"
He shook his head. "It will just be tempting."
"But you do still have some powers, do you not?"
"Yes, but they are not really defensive."
"What are they?" she asked.
"I can command the elements, that is all."
"That is not such a small thing."
"Compared to the dark power it is nothing."
Mirra hesitated, loath to ask him questions he did not wish to answer, but filled with a deep longing to know more about him, as she had done from the moment she met him. Even now he remained a mystery for the most part, and the only way she would truly understand him was to question him about his past. Now they had time to talk, and it seemed like a good time to ask.
"Will you ever tell me what they did to you when you were a child?"
Bane looked away. "I will if you ask me."
"But you do not wish to."
"No. You would not enjoy the tale, and I would not enjoy the telling of it."
She studied his profile. "Ellese said you were tortured."
"You could call it that, I suppose."
"What would you call it?"
"A great deal of suffering, interspersed by periods of profound misery, which I came to think of as normality."
Mirra shook her head. "How could you ever think such a thing?"
"Because compared to the pain, the lack of it was the closest thing to pleasure I knew."
She went over to kneel before him. "Just tell me one thing that they did to you."
"Why do you wish to know this?"
"Because Ellese says that what they did to you made you what you were, and I want to understand it too."
He gazed down at her. "Will it help you, to understand why I did what I did to you?"
"Yes."
He stared into space for several minutes, lost in thought. "I do not remember much of what happened to me, which is probably a mercy. Many of my memories are indistinct. They make little sense. I recall being trapped in rock, it seemed like a very long time, unable to move, hardly able to breathe. Probably an earth demon's idea of fun. Many times fire demons burnt me or air demons denied me air, but that was when I was older. When I was very young, it was the droges who enjoyed punishing me, even though I had done nothing to deserve it. They would make up reasons, invent lies about things I had done, and when I denied it, they called me a liar.
"I spent most of my time avoiding them, but I had to emerge from my hiding places to eat the food they left for me, and they would be lying in wait. Then I would be punished for hiding. Ellese was wrong when she said that none of the pain I endured was punishment. It was all punishment, but it was undeserved. I took out my anger on whatever I found that was weaker than me, small crawling things that hid in the nooks and crannies. I must have killed hundreds of those things. I do not even know what they were. It just felt good, to do to something else what had been done to me. Does that help you?"
Mirra nodded, her eyes stinging. "It does. But undeserved punishment is abuse, not punishment."
"I suppose so, only they wanted me to think they had reasons for doing it, I suppose."
"And those were the times of great suffering?"
"No, those were the times of profound misery." He leant forward and took her hands, meeting her gaze. "If you ask me I will tell you of the suffering, but... I do not want to cause you pain, and I fear it will if I tell you."
"I cannot imagine anyone being able to endure more than that."
"They only stopped short of doing me serious injury, and, since I had no concept of a better life, I had to accept it."
"How did they punish you?"
Bane released her hands and stood up, stepping around her to walk over to the window and gaze out at the stars. She turned to watch him, b
iting her lip.
"Illusions," he said in a dead voice. "Demons are masters of illusion. Many of those who tormented me were demons disguised as droges. The droges would only whip or hit me, that was real, but the demons did far worse. I know how it feels to have my tongue burnt out. They did that many times, for lying. I know how it feels to have all my teeth pulled out. That they did because I once bit the droge who was beating me. Illusions of pain are as bad as the real thing. I thought it was real, and parts of it were, like holding me down and forcing my mouth open when they pulled out my teeth. I know how it feels to burn in a lava sea; they threw me in often enough. I know how it feels to be flayed. They did that too."
"Everything you did to your victims," Mirra said.
He turned, frowning. "Yes, and at first it puzzled me that they did not survive like I did. They died quite quickly, and their suffering ended, but mine did not. I was not injured, except by the beatings, though not badly enough to leave scars. My pain always ended when I lost consciousness, and when I woke, whatever they had burnt away or cut off was restored."
"What did Arkonen tell you about why you were punished so much?"
"He told me to grow strong and fight back. He said I could only end my pain when I could defend myself, and the only way to do that was to master the dark power."
"Did you ask him to stop them?"
Bane snorted. "To ask for help was to ask for a great deal of scorn, ridicule and contempt. What was I, a weak puling maid? A dirty, cowardly human? The Black Lord's son did not need help."
"So you did ask him."
"Once."
Mirra's eyes overflowed, and she stifled a sob. He went over to her and pulled her to her feet, making her sit on the bed. Gripping her arms, he gave her a little shake.
"This is what I did not want."
"I am all right, really." She wiped her eyes. "Tell me about the suffering."
"Mirra..."
"Please."
He sighed, sitting beside her. "One instance only."
"Yes."
"The suffering was to make me stronger. Each time I was warned of it and prepared for it. I would have quite a long time to think about what was going to happen to me before they did it. Again, it was mostly illusions, although at times I suffered bruises and minor burns. The first and least of them was when they crucified me."
She stared at him in horror, shaking her head. "How...?"
"They nailed me to a wall with demon spears. Through my hands, feet and belly, then they left me there for a very long time, hanging above a lava sea. I do not know which was worse, the pain of the spears or the burning."
"They did everything to you that they wanted you to do to people."
He nodded. "Yes. And while I hung there, they taunted me. 'Does it hurt, Bane? Do you want to weep like a woman? Why do you not scream, Bane? Perhaps that will make you feel better, to howl like a cowardly human’.”
"What did you do?"
"I told them that one day I would make them pay. One day, when I had the power. They laughed and told me that day would not come, for I was weak, not worthy to be the Black Lord's son. He was a god, and what was I? No, I was not human, but I bled like they did, and I felt pain like they did because I had a weak mortal body."
"How old were you?"
"I am not certain. There is no concept of time in the Underworld, but I know I was sixteen when Arkonen cut the runes, for he told me so. I was probably about twelve or thirteen."
Mirra turned and hugged him, wishing she could undo what had been done to him somehow, strip away the terrible memories that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He held her a little awkwardly, stroking her hair.
"Now do you understand me?"
"Yes. A little better."
"And you pity me."
She looked up at him. "You were just a child. There is no shame in it."
He hesitated, playing with a lock of her hair. "Perhaps one day I will not be offended by it, and from you I will accept it, but I do not want it. Now you know why I hated you so much for not feeling pain. That seemed so unfair. And then when you did feel it, I did not like to inflict it on you, and that seemed doubly unfair."
"Your whole life has been unfair."
"It was all I knew. Now you know a little of it too, and that must be a hard for you. That is why I did not want to tell you."
She smiled, stroking his cheek. "I am glad you told me."
"Now you know why your gentleness was so strange to me. I did not understand it, for I had not experienced it before. You puzzled me greatly, and that angered me."
"Knowing what you suffered, it amazes me that you are capable of gentleness."
"Only because I learnt it from you." He paused, gazing down at her. "But I am also still capable of inflicting a great deal of pain on others, without remorse or compassion. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, though it troubles me. But so long as you do not, there is no harm in it. Your mind is wounded by your suffering, but in time perhaps that too will heal."
"There will always be scars."
Mirra tightened her hold on him and pressed her cheek to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. His tension communicated itself to her, but she ignored it, determined to give him all the affection he could stand, until he got used to it. She wondered how Ellese had contended with his suffering for eighteen years, even though she could only watch it in her glass. How it must have hurt her to see a child be so cruelly tortured.
Sensing Bane's tension increasing, she released him. There were times, when his mood was more relaxed, when he found it easier to accept her affection, but this was not one of them. By asking him to tell her about his past, she had trespassed on his privacy and made him relive his pain. By offering to answer her questions, however, he had opened a fragile window into his past, and she sensed it was a privilege she should take great care not to abuse. Nevertheless, she resolved to ask him to tell her of every instance of torture he had suffered, over time, so he could come to terms with it.
Bane rose to his feet, and she reclined on the bed and watched him stand by the window, then pace around the room like a caged tiger. One mystery about him plagued her. She had never seen him remove his wrist guards. Deciding that since he was already disturbed, now may be a good time to find out why he never took them off, she sat up.
"Bane, come here."
Bane stopped pacing and glanced at her, then walked over and sat beside her. Mirra took his hand and turned his arm to expose the laces on the underside of his wrist, tugging at the knot that bound them. A glance at his face found him frowning, then he placed his other hand on hers, stopping her.
"I would rather you did not do that."
"I know. But I want to know what you are hiding. Is that too much to ask?"
He paused, frowning at the wrist guard. "Will it suffice to tell you there are scars there, and I do not know what purpose they serve, nor how they came to be there?"
"I would like to see them."
Bane hesitated, then removed his hand, and she unlaced the wrist guard and pulled it off. Two thin scars encircled his wrist, and between them were angular scars that she recognised as runes. These were different from the ones on his chest, however, and she ran her fingers over them with a puzzled frown.
"You know nothing about these?"
"No."
"Then you were too young to remember."
He inclined his head, gazing at the scars. "In all likelihood."
"And you cannot decipher them now?"
"No."
She removed the other wrist guard and studied the scars on his left wrist, which were identical to the ones on the right. "Why do you hide them?"
He shrugged and shook his head, then looked away.
"Do you have any other scars like these?"
"I think so."
"Where?"
Bane reached up and pulled aside his hair, exposing the nape of his neck, where three more rune scars marked his skin. Mirra noted t
hat they were different from the ones on his wrists.
"How did you know about these?"
"I can feel them."
"And you did not ask Arkonen about them?"
Bane let his hair cover the scars again. "No."
"You just accepted them, as you did everything he did to you."
"Yes."
"Have you ever seen these runes anywhere else?"
He nodded. "They were on the walls of the chamber in which I was kept as a small child."
"What possible reason could there be to cut runes into the skin of an infant?"
"I do not know."
She gazed at the scars on his wrists. "But then, you were no ordinary baby..."
"What do you mean?"
"You were a god child. Perhaps these were to bind you, so you could not escape. Perhaps without them, you could have?"
"I never had any wish to escape. The Underworld was my home."
Mirra stroked his wrist. "And you can think of no reason for them?"
"No." Bane raised his other hand and turned it, examining the scars.
"Can you activate them, like the ones on your chest?"
"No."
"But you are ashamed of them."
Bane replaced the guard on his left wrist and pulled the laces tight. "I hate them."
Sensing that he was growing weary of her curiosity, she leant back against the pillows. He stood up and strapped on the other wrist guard as he walked over to the window. She longed to know the reason for the scars, but since even he could not tell her, it seemed her curiosity was doomed. How many other humiliating rituals had the Black Lord practised on him, and why? She thought about what she had learnt while Bane paced the room, ignoring her pleas for him to get some sleep. The pad of his feet kept her awake for a while, but she dozed off eventually. When he shook her awake, the sky had started to lighten.
"It is almost dawn, and Grem has not returned. Something must have happened to him."
Mirra sat up, knuckling her eyes. "What are you going to do?"
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