He was lying on his right side and his nose scented vomit, piss, blood, shit, and other less readily identifiable odors. In the semi-darkness, it still felt as if his left hand was whole - he could almost wiggle the fingers. But when he squinted and focused, there was only a stump. At that moment, he made a noise. It might have been a groan or an attempt to say something. Even he wasn’t sure. But the others noticed he was awake and again the warm, bitter liquid was forced down his throat. They weren’t yet ready for him to be awake.
Lamanar’s face swam across the vast sea of his mind’s eye, followed by Darrin’s. Dead, both of them. A similar fate had probably greeted Warburm and Brindig on their trip to Havenham. The ambush had been well planned. For some reason, he was still alive, although it wasn’t hard to guess why. The bounty was for him, not his companions. Then the return of unconsciousness brought relief, calm, and an end to such thoughts.
Words greeted Sorial upon his third awakening. “How you feeling?” They were spoken with a thick accent but weren’t difficult to understand - someone familiar with the language. For a moment, disorientation gripped Sorial then he realized he was in the same poorly lit place. His left arm was a deadweight, no longer sore. In fact, he couldn’t feel it at all. It might have been cut off at the shoulder. His head wound hurt and the humming, throbbing sensation had intensified. Comecomecome. It was hard to think, to concentrate. Thoughts were vaporous and he couldn’t hold them long enough to weave them into a coherent whole. He would have been hard pressed to say his name, where he was, or why he was there. He offered a feeble grunt, having already forgotten the question.
“Fuck. Dosed you with too much that time,” said the voice. The speaker was squatting nearby. Sorial squinted, trying to see better, but the effort defeated him. “Rest and sleep if you’s can. I’ll be back.” He barked some words in the unfamiliar language then was gone. Sorial closed his eyes; it was too taxing to keep them open. The vertigo nipping at him retreated.
He did his best to take stock of his situation. He was damaged but not dead. The numbness in his arm was troubling but an improvement over the pain. A spot above and behind his left ear was sore. Then there was the buzzing in his brain, what sounded like the repeated utterance of a plea to "come". It commanded his attention, making him dizzy and distracted. He wondered if it was the result of the head wound.
He assumed he was being held captive by the men who had attacked him. He might be in Havenham, although he could just as easily be elsewhere. The location made little difference at the moment. The stench argued that his body’s needs weren’t being attended to with much care by those to whom his well-being was entrusted.
Rising to a sitting position required an exceptional expenditure of effort, especially with only one functioning arm. His head spun and he would have vomited if his stomach wasn’t empty. As it was, he managed a few dry heaves. The he opened his eyes again.
He was in an unlit room. The meager illumination, coming through a grill in the door, showed that the walls were close; there wasn’t much room to move. His ears picked up distant voices and other noises. The air was cool and clammy. He assumed he was in a cell, probably underground. The climate of The Forbidden Lands wasn’t as brutal as to the north, but a chill like this could only be found in a cellar or dungeon.
Using his right hand, he probed his injured limb. It was dead to sensation, neither noticing nor responding to the touch of his fingers. The stump was a jagged mess, with burnt tar having been used to cap the end midway between elbow and wrist. There was soreness around his shoulder but nothing lower, where the arm was a dead weight. Sorial tried without success to move it. He sniffed and was relieved by the absence of putrefaction’s distinctive stench. At least the flesh wasn’t rotting. He supposed that was something, although he didn’t know whether he’d live long enough for it to matter.
Unwilling to risk getting to his feet in his weakened condition, he crawled a short distance to a cleaner patch of floor. With every passing moment, the fog in his mind dissipated; whatever sedative they had given him was wearing off. That didn’t stop him from dozing off again.
Sorial started awake when he heard the grind of stone on stone as the door to his cell was pulled open. He was in a sitting position with his back against a wall. The healthy light of multiple torches poured through the opening. A burly man dressed in animal skins and carrying a blazing brand entered, shutting the door behind him. “Now, you’re awake. Time for us ta get ta know each udder.” It was the voice from earlier.
As the gaoler assessed his prisoner’s condition, Sorial studied him in turn. He was tall with a wide girth and legs like small tree trunks. His arms were those of a blacksmith - corded and powerful. Head, face, chest, and arms - exposed areas of skin were blanketed with thick, coarse black hair. Ice-cold blue eyes shone from the caverns of his sockets, buried under enormous, shaggy brows.
Sorial took a moment to observe his injured arm, now that there was light to see it by. To his relief, it looked normal except at the stump, where the flesh was an ugly red around the seared tar.
Seeing the direction of Sorial’s gaze, the man remarked, “They botched it. Cut it with a dull blade then nearly killed you wit’ the cauterization. Bloody savages. Don’t matter how many times you tell them a thing, they don’t do it right. That’s one thing I miss about the militia. Discipline.”
Sorial said nothing. His eyes were held by the grotesque sight of his crippled arm, made all the more unreal by his inability to feel anything. It didn’t seem to be a part of him.
“In case you’re wondering why you’re alive, which I would be in your position, it’s because there’s a price on your head. More’n the head, actually. You’re worth ten times more alive and mostly intact than dead. I’ll get my gold from my old commander either way, but I see no reason to piss away nine-tenths of it by killing you. Stupid waste, that’d be. Problem is, even though I got a long history with the man who’s paying and don’t doubt the depths of his pouch, it may take a while before someone arrives ta collect you - he ain’t exactly nearby - and I don’t know how long you’re gonna last with an arm that’s as likely as not ta start festering. I could cut the whole thing off and heal the new wound properly but you’d probably die of shock.
“Your friends, as I ’spect you already know, are dead. No profit keeping them alive - just more mouths ta feed. My hunters tell me one of ’em was near as dead anyway. The bounty is for you, not anyone else.”
As he was speaking, the man hung the torch in a sconce, freeing both hands. He appeared unarmed but Sorial recognized someone of his strength would be as deadly without a blade as most warriors were with one. The meaty fists were cudgels of flesh.
The room was as plain and functional. Small with stone walls and a bare floor, the only features to mar the monotony of its construction were the door and two sconces, one to either side of the exit. The stalls in the stable of The Wayfarer’s Comfort were more spacious.
“Guess we should wash you down and clean up in here a little. I don’t mind getting dirty when I work but I prefer blood ta shit. It’s the smell. The women never want ta share your furs when you stink of shit. Not that they got a choice. If I tell ’em, they do it.
“Let’s understand each other.” The man absentmindedly scratched at his beard, a habitual gesture. “I got the power of life and death over you, least until that arm putrefies. The bounty is mine ta claim or reject, although my old commander wouldn’t like ta hear me talk that way. I’m an expert at what I do. Extracting information is as much an art as a skill. It requires great patience and understanding of how far a body can be pushed. I was an interrogator for five years in Basingham before I left for Obis ta join the military and see the world. I can cause exquisite pain and keep you in a state of delirious agony for days and weeks without killing you.
“There’s a reason Maraman wants you alive - wants it so much he’s willing ta offer such a fucking insane amount that no sane man would think of killing you
. And the bounty specifies that your tongue gotta be intact, which means you got words he wants ta hear. There’s some great secret here, something he didn’t tell me afore he dispatched me ta this patch of dirt. You’re gonna tell him what he wants to hear. But first you’ll tell me. One way or t’other, I’ll know what you know. After that, you’ll be his and he can do with you as he chooses.”
“Maraman?” Sorial’s voice sounded harsh in his ears, and the effort of speaking the name flayed the raw skin of his parched throat.
“You’re familiar with him.” It wasn’t a question. “I suspected as much. He ain’t one ta offer sums of that sort for strangers and he’s been obsessed by you for a while. First he wanted you dead. Wanted it bad. Then he changed his mind. I dunno why; he didn't confide in me. Secretive fucker, he is. Anyway, he thought there was a chance you’d be headed here, ta Havenham, so he sent me as his ‘agent’ in case. Now, just tell me who you are, how you know him, and what you’ll say ta him, and we can finish up with little messiness. These are easy things for you. Why not give ’em up freely instead of having them ripped from your lips in blood and pain?”
Sorial, however, wasn’t properly processing the man’s words. The casual revelation that the man hunting him had been named by Lamanar as his true father…the implications were stunning. But if Maraman now wanted him alive, why had he tried on two previous occasions to kill him? Or was he being hunted by more than one group?
The man sighed, frustrated by Sorial’s loss of focus. “You want me ta think you’re too weak ta speak. I’ve given you four days ta recover, which is more’n I give most prisoners - not that we get many. City men don’t come this far south into The Forbidden Lands. Where you from? Vantok, maybe Basingham? So let’s start with that. Where’s your home? And why’d you leave? I want your name as well. Make it a fake one if you like, it won’t make a difference ta me. Just don’t lie about the important things. That’d make me very angry.”
Comecomecome. Damn, the buzzing was making it hard to concentrate. That and coming to terms with the revelation about Maraman. His father knew what he was, or at least what he had the potential to be. His gaoler didn’t. There was no telling how this man might react if Sorial claimed to be a potential wizard searching for a portal to unleash his latent abilities. He might laugh and think him insane. Or he might believe him, which would be worse. Yet to stray far from the truth could open up his story to inconsistencies that his fuzzy mind and memory might be unable to explain.
The man became impatient after only a brief silence. “How uncivil of me. Living among savages for so long, I’ve forgot the genteel manners you city dwellers find important.” This was said with equal parts contempt and sarcasm. “I ain’t introduced meself. Name’s Langashin. Or at least it used ta be. Here, we go by titles. For me, that’d be ‘Guv’nor’. This settlement’s too small for me to be ‘King.’ Since you and me’ll be on a first-name basis during your stay, you can call me Langashin. And this,” he withdrew a nasty-looking instrument from a compartment in his fur vest, “Is my devoted companion. She ain’t got no name ta go with her excessive appetite.”
Langashin’s move was so sudden and precise that Sorial didn’t register the weapon’s bite until after it had happened. The implement, with its razor-sharp, wafer-thin blade, sliced through the flesh and muscle of Sorial’s numb upper arm, leaving behind a scarlet trail oozing droplets of blood. The big man loomed over his prisoner, a nasty expression contorting his features.
“You don’t feel that. The bark-salve from the mediveen tree has deadened all sensation in that arm, else you’d be in agony. Wounds like you suffered take weeks to fix themselves if’n they don’t fester. But perhaps the time has come for you ta get back whatever use your arm can provide. I’ll instruct your keeper ta stop applications of the treatment. The next time my loving companion sings, her song will touch a part of your body that’ll feel it. It’s pointless for her caresses ta go unnoticed. Maraman only demands an intact tongue.” He paused, allowing Sorial to digest his words. “Now, who are you, where’re you from, and why are you here? Three simple questions. You shouldn’t have ta think about how ta answer them.”
The difficulty would be weaving a tale that was believable enough for Langashin to accept but close enough to the truth that Sorial wouldn’t get tripped up in his web of lies. The best was to start was with an honest foundation. “My name is Sorial of Vantok. My companions and I were sent into The Forbidden Lands by King Azarak and Prelate Ferguson.”
The audacity of the claim nonplussed Langashin. He regained his composure quickly, however. “August names. Even here, far from civilization, I recognize them. Last I was in Vantok, Azarak was a young prince but Ferguson was an old man. The gods must smile on him for his body ta remain hale. I’m encouraged ta believe you since only an idiot would make such a claim if it wasn’t true. Of course, we don’t know each other well enough yet for me to say whether or not you’re an idiot. Are you one?”
Sorial didn’t answer. It didn’t seem as though a response was required or desired.
Langashin disagreed. “Tsk. Tsk. Such a simple question.” He stooped, bringing his face within inches of Sorial’s. His breath reeked of strong spices and carrion. He raised the knife-like implement with theatrical slowness, making sure his victim could see it, then employed it with a flick of his wrist. It plunged two inches up Sorial’s right nostril, then sliced through the side of his nose, causing a spray of blood that spattered Langashin’s face as fully as it did his victim’s. Sorial let out a cry, instinctively raising his hand to his ruined face.
Langashin carelessly wiped away Sorial’s blood with the back of his hand. “Curious things, noses. They bleed easily and hurt like hell. You’ll be uncomfortable for weeks when the snot oozes out. But it’s only a minor thing, ’specially when you consider what else I could’ve done. The cock bleeds just as much and is a lot more useful. Pissing without one ain’t fun.
“Hopefully, you’re learning the rules. Don’t lie. Don’t hesitate. And never refuse ta answer. Now, let’s try again. Are you an idiot?”
“No.” At the moment, it felt like the wrong response. The cut to his nose hurt out of proportion with its severity. The blood flow was lessening but the sting would linger. It was disfiguring but not life-threatening.
“Good to know. I hope you ain’t lying ta me. So let’s assume you were sent by Azarak and Ferguson, the kings o’ the secular and sacred, ta infiltrate my poor domain. Why would they do such a thing? Are they planning an invasion?” His smirk, barely visible through the thick tangle of a beard, was without mirth. There was cruelty in his eyes, almost as if he wished Sorial would misspeak so he could deliver another of his precise cuts.
“No invasion.” The idea was preposterous. “We were sent to discover whether Havenham’s got an active wizard’s portal.” It was the truth, if not the whole truth. As close as Sorial was willing to get.
Langashin straightened and regarded his prisoner with amazement. He didn’t scoff or respond with derision, accepting the explanation without question. Sorial couldn’t predict what Langashin would do with the information.
Hand once again scratching at his beard, the big man considered. Finally, having reached a decision, he nodded to himself. “You’re dirty and you smell. Let’s get you cleaned up and give you something ta drink so your voice don’t fail. Next time I come, you’re going ta need it ta talk, scream, or both.”
* * *
The passage of time in the dungeon had little meaning for Sorial. He remembered a story about a man who had been imprisoned for one year but emerged thinking he had spent his entire lifetime in a cell. Sorial could empathize. Shut away from the sun with no companionship other than silent gaolers and his interrogator, he could easily lose all sense of time. Four days? It might have been four weeks or four seasons.
The feeble light to which he was exposed varied only when one of the torches in the outside corridor guttered out. Shortly after Langashin departed, a co
uple of unkempt and humorless men came to cut away Sorial’s filthy clothing, douse him with cold water, and splash several bucketfulls on the most offensive areas of the floor. He was left shivering, wet, and naked but not appreciably cleaner.
At some point, he was brought a mug of water and a bowl of something that might have been gruel. It smelled rancid and Sorial couldn’t force more than a thimbleful down. He drained the mug and would have done so with a second had it been offered. The fact that it was tepid and tasted of pond scum didn’t provoke even a moment’s hesitation.
Langashin was right about the numbness in his left arm being promoted by a salve. Without its continued application, feeling returned gradually. If he concentrated, he could move the limb. There was pain and itching, and the new cut was almost as uncomfortable as the stump. Sorial was concerned about corruption but, unless he wanted to use precious water to wash it, there was little he could do.
The rhythmic pulsing in his head continued its insistent demand of comecomecome. In a strange way, it was soothing - if he concentrated on it, it had a calming effect. He wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation but an instinct suggested it might have something to do with his proximity to an active portal. He didn’t know how he knew that; he just did. Being close, however, was as useless as being a half-continent away, especially considering his current circumstances.
Eventually, Langashin returned, as was inevitable. He entered the cell while Sorial was dozing. He sniffed the air with disdain. “I thought they were supposed ta clean you up and wash this cell down. Didn’t do a very good job on either count. It stinks worse’n a privy pit. When I’m done today, I’ll have ’em come back. There’ll be some new blood to wipe away.”
If that was meant to intimidate Sorial, it didn’t succeed. He had already steeled himself to expect far worse than during his previous interrogation. It didn’t matter whether or not he told the truth. Langashin liked imparting pain too much to avoid it altogether.
The Last Whisper of the Gods Page 42
