Black Sun Light My Way

by Spurrier, Jo

  The water was drugged. Kell hadn’t bothered to so much as turn away as he measured the powder and mixed it in.

  ‘You don’t have the strength to resist me, boy,’ Kell said. ‘You’re not far from collapsing, and then I’ll just pour it down your throat anyway. You’re better off giving in and doing as I command.’

  The horrifying thing was that Isidro was beginning to agree with him. They were nearing the end of this wretched game — Kell had released the horses, turning their heads towards the water-hole where they’d camped last night and where Isidro had been forced to endure the fresh scent of water out of his reach.

  The place Kell had chosen to make his stand was the ruins of some ancient city, half-buried beneath wind-blown dust. At another time, Isidro would have wanted to know who’d lived here and what had happened to them, but right now he couldn’t care less for the crumbling remains. All his attention was focussed on that little wooden cup, and the pain in his arms and shoulders as Kell used the sigil to force him to raise the cup to his lips.

  Isidro’s skull was pounding. As his strength waned, his left hand crept closer to the cup, drifting like a shadow under the sinking sun. He could fight until his strength ran out, but Kell would win in the end. If he did use all his reserves in this futile battle, where would it leave him when Rasten and Sierra reached them? If he wanted to have any part in the final stand against Kell, he had to save his energy for a battle he could win.

  Intellectually, this was perfectly clear, but terror at the thought of what Kell would do once he was helpless spurred him to resist. As the sun beat down, soaking his shirt with precious moisture, Isidro knew he had no choice.

  Think of it this way, he told himself. Whatever happens while you’re unconscious, at least you won’t know about it. The thought struck him as funny, and if it was a sick kind of humour, after these long months of struggle it was the only comfort he had left.

  When Isidro finally relaxed his resistance, his hand shot forward so fast he nearly knocked the cup over. Kell grunted in surprise, and hastily snapped a shield over the cup to keep the contents from spilling.

  Isidro allowed himself a smile. Surprising Kell, even for a moment, was something he counted as a victory. There were so few of them that he savoured every one.

  He raised the cup to his lips. He did not intend to swallow, but his parched mouth and throat would not give up the water easily, and despite his best efforts a little trickled down his throat. The bitter taste made him gag and he tried to spit it out, but Kell still controlled him through the sigil and held him rigid. Isidro had the choice to swallow or choke. Kell had mixed the dosage strong, and the parched tissues of his mouth and throat absorbed it swiftly. Within moments Isidro felt the drug sending numbing tendrils through his mind. His thoughts grew slow and sluggish, and his vision narrowed until he felt as though he was viewing the world through a dark tunnel.

  A shadow fell over him, and he blinked up to see Kell standing above him, blocking out the sun. ‘I was going to let you have another cup to wash the taste from your mouth,’ Kell said. ‘Now you’ll just have to put up with it.’

  Isidro smiled again. ‘Liar,’ he said.

  When he came to his senses again, the world was cool and dim. A familiar scent tickled his nose and, as the hold of the drug weakened, he identified the smell he’d come to associate with caves and the underground — the odour of humidity and damp clay, and air that had gone a long time without being warmed by the sun.

  He was blindfolded, with hands and feet bound, each limb firmly anchored as he lay on his back on an earthen floor. But at least he wasn’t naked, and from what his senses told him Kell hadn’t practised any of his favourite violations. Of course. The Blood-Mage’s pleasure came from seeing his victim struggle; the unresisting body of a drugged captive offered no enticement.

  Or perhaps Kell had simply run out of time. Isidro heard him moving around, shuffling over the uneven floor, and felt lines of force spring up as he laid out a ritual circle and inscribed various marks and sigils into the earth.

  Issey? Issey, can you hear me? Sierra’s voice seemed unnaturally loud inside his head, and Isidro heard Kell go still to listen. He’d made contact with Sierra or Rasten often in the months since Kell had taken him prisoner, but they rarely spoke. Information was conveyed by letting one of them see through another’s eyes, or by scoring words into the dust on the ground, to make it harder for Kell to intercept.

  ‘You may answer her, slave,’ Kell said. ‘She’s been trying to reach you for the last hour.’

  Sirri … Isidro began.

  It won’t be long now, Sierra said. We’re coming, Issey.

  I don’t even know where I am …

  Rasten says the ruined city is called Bharandot. There’s nothing but rubble left above ground, but there are all kinds of cellars and tunnels underneath. He says Blood-Mages have been using the place as a bolthole for centuries. The Akharians believe the place is cursed, because the mages leave traps to discourage treasure-hunters. It was night above ground, and Sierra and Rasten were at the water-hole, a good hour’s ride from the ruins. Rasten crouched at the water’s edge, drinking from cupped hands, while Sierra tipped her head back to watch the stars’ slow turn. The constellations were familiar, but the dry and arid land was utterly unlike the mists and pine forests of home. Issey, I’m sorry for all I’ve put you through. When this is over, I’ll make it up to you, I swear.

  Sierra, Isidro began, struggling to understand why she said all this in front of Kell. Sirri, I —

  Before he could finish, Kell loosed his power and completed the circle. The thread of connection with Sierra was cut like a fishing line severed with the sweep of a knife.

  ‘Touching,’ Kell said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Have I told you, slave, what I intend to do with those two? Rasten will become a eunuch; he’s proved himself unworthy of the privilege of walking as a man. As for the wench, she will come to understand her place. I’ll do to her as I should have done long ago. She’ll lose her hands and her eyes, and if that fails to tame her … I had a boy once who came to bore me, so I had Rasten hammer a nail into his skull. He was obedient after that, albeit with a tendency to drool.’

  Isidro heard Kell’s weight shift, and a moment later he felt the knobbed end of Kell’s cane press against his right wrist. He’d come a long way since midwinter — it didn’t hurt at first, but as the pressure increased the poorly healed bones began to ache, and then to throb, and finally grew to a needle-sharp pain that made Isidro grit his teeth and quicken his breath.

  ‘And after that I shall need a new apprentice,’ Kell said. ‘It’s a pity you’re such a worthless cripple, or I’d be tempted to take you on. It would be pleasant to have an intelligent student for once. Perhaps I’ll keep you around until a likely candidate appears — if they can defeat you, I’ll take them on.’ As the pain grew, Isidro felt the choking power send creeping tendrils into his flesh. They fastened like leeches, draining his strength and feeding it to Kell. Delphine had told him that Blood-Mages sought to do artificially what Sympaths could do naturally, and now he felt he truly understood. Sierra’s ability to deaden pain had always felt wrong to him, unnatural and thoroughly unpleasant, but he could overlook that fact when the benefits were so great. What Kell did now was wholly different. The threads fastened to him with a hundred tiny mouths, biting, chewing and sucking down the energy aroused by the pain. It took all his will not to struggle helplessly against them like a beast caught in a snare. It was the creatures that panicked and fought who strangled in the noose. He needed to be rational if he was to have any chance of working his way free.

  Kell ground the knob of the cane harder into the bones. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘do you still crave revenge on Rasten for making a woman out of you? How does that old saying go, turn-about is fair play? Have you ever fucked a man, slave? I know your tastes lie elsewhere, but what would it take to tempt you? Would you do it for the privilege of taking the boy�
��s balls? How about for five minutes alone with Sierra? You can kiss her, beat her or fuck her, I don’t care, but afterwards I promise you she will go under the knife.

  ‘I have work to do, so I’ll let you think on the matter, but make sure you consider your options well. Apprentice.’ Kell removed the cane, fumbled in his clothing for a moment and then threw something down onto Isidro’s chest. There was power bound up within it, and Isidro recognised it even through the muffling effect of his shirt. It was the blasting-stone he’d swallowed back in the ranges, and kept in his stomach ever since. With a low chuckle, Kell moved away, taking with him the other half of the enchantment he’d used to keep Isidro near him on this long journey west. As he stepped through the barriers he had erected around Isidro, the device clamped around Isidro’s left wrist stirred into life and sent an icy spear shooting up his arm and through his shoulder before it began to bite into his chest.

  Isidro held out for as long as he could, but in the end he couldn’t keep from screaming.

  ‘This is the place,’ Rasten said, looking over the low stone wall, partially buried by drifting sand.

  Sierra looked back with a toss of her head, glancing towards the entrance they’d passed. It was clear where Kell had taken Isidro underground — the prints of men and horses alike remained in the soft earth — but Rasten refused to let her get close. The passage was strewn with traps and trip-wires, he said.

  Kell’s horses had arrived at the water-hole as they woke from a few hours’ sleep. At the ruins, they turned their mounts loose the same way, hoping they, too, would retreat to the water and fresh grass rather than wander onto the arid plains. If they needed them again once this was over, at least they would know where the beasts could be found.

  It was early morning, with the stars winking out as the day crept in. Sierra unhooked the water-skin from her shoulder and took a swig before passing it to Rasten. He did the same, tasting the mineral salts of the spring. He looked up at Sierra as he worked the leather stopper back into the horn spout, watching to see if she noticed how his hands shook, but she seemed as cold and distant as the stars themselves.

  He’d finally admitted it to himself as they’d lain down last night — he was afraid. He was terrified. What if he froze again, and Kell’s conditioning made him cringe and submit as he always had? Rasten wasn’t afraid of dying, but the spectre of failure had haunted him since the night they had broken loose. If Sierra died it would all be over; he could never defeat Kell on his own. If Isidro died she might well go mad with guilt and grief. But even if all went well, even if Kell was destroyed and all three of his victims survived, what then?

  These few months of travelling with Sierra had been a revelation. It wasn’t the first time Rasten had been out of his master’s crippling reach — following her trail in the winter still lingered in his mind as the happiest and most free he’d ever been, even with Angessovar guarding his loyalty and Kell’s constant reminders that he was still in control. But these months since she had opened a volcano beneath the old sorcerer’s feet had been like nothing he’d ever experienced.

  No, Rasten corrected himself. He’d lived like this before, he just couldn’t remember it. He’d blocked it out as a loss too painful to contemplate. He’d had a family once, people who loved him and whom he’d loved in return, people who didn’t cringe away from his gaze or recoil from his touch.

  Rasten had slowly learnt how to function without the constant demands of Kell’s lust for power and pain. After a while Sierra had stopped always watching him from the corner of her eye, and she no longer went rigid with tension when he lay down beside her. He’d learnt to be grateful when she handed him food she’d prepared with her own hands. At first, this life had felt terrifyingly unfamiliar, governed by rules he couldn’t comprehend and full of traps he didn’t recognise, pitfalls and dangers that seemed to loom out of nowhere. It was so foreign that he couldn’t articulate why he felt so threatened or so afraid …

  Sierra had treated him far better than he deserved. Though overwhelmed and full of panic herself, she had grown gentle and patient, leaving him in peace when he went off on some incoherent rage, keeping bread and meat warm for when he regained control of himself and came back to their meagre shelter.

  The intimacy between them had been another revelation. Rasten still remembered the night of Cam’s escape, when she had shown him that Kell’s teachings were not the only way, that it was possible to have pleasure without pain. He’d scorned her lesson then, but now that the worst had come to pass and he no longer needed to be on guard at every moment, Rasten had begun to think it over. He tried to imagine what kind of a man he would have become if the dungeons hadn’t made his world harsh and small. He had racked his memory, those dim hazy images that were all that remained of his family, trying to recall how a man showed affection, how he displayed love. His greatest triumph came the first time Sierra returned his hesitant touch, wrapping her small hand around his wrist in a circlet of warmth when he’d come to help her with some camp chore.

  In the previous few weeks, Rasten had come to hope that if she could forgive him, if she could look past all the things he’d done, then perhaps he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life a monster. Perhaps he could leave his past behind, and forge a new path through this unfamiliar territory. Rasten doubted he could do it alone, but with someone to guide him and share the triumphs and failures, maybe he could make himself into a new man. He’d thought the chance of destroying his master would be all he’d need to find courage for this final battle, but in the last few weeks he’d realised that was untrue. Death wasn’t enough to light a fire in his heart and fortify his spirit — that required hope. And now that he’d found it Rasten clung to it with both hands, like a drowning man clutches a line.

  And like a drowning man, he feared his grip would falter. Part of him, some cold deep part that understood nothing could ever make up for the horrors he’d committed, that chill and distant part knew Sierra was only using him. They were warriors together, true, standing shoulder to shoulder on a battlefield, and that created a connection that would always endure … but her heart lay with the man chained and screaming underground, the man Rasten had maimed and raped, a man who had been drawn so deeply into this mess that he was now as damaged as they were.

  So even while he clung to hope, Rasten felt a knot of fear deep within him, like the seed of a strangler vine that on sprouting would consume its host. Once this was over, and if they all survived, Sierra would make a choice.

  Rasten knew she would not choose him.

  ‘Rasten?’

  He raised his eyes to find her watching him, her gaze guarded and wary, her lips pursed above her pointed chin. She was beautiful, and always would be. No matter what else happened, she had saved him, and nothing could alter that.

  Rasten stood and dusted his hands against his trousers. ‘We cut down from here, about a hundred paces, give or take.’ He could sense the threads of power Kell had woven through the caverns, and by cutting a tunnel straight down they would evade his traps. They had power enough — they’d fed from each other before leaving the camp, raising as much as they could from pleasure untainted by pain. There was no use weakening themselves with injuries before it was necessary, and power could be raised in the space of heartbeats with those means. ‘Are you ready, Sirri?’

  ‘Let’s get on with it,’ she said.

  Pain was a curious thing. At its worst, it drove all thought from one’s head, consuming the mind so completely that there was no room in one’s skull for anything else. Having his arm broken had been a pain like that, so overwhelming and oppressive that everything that happened in that tent afterwards had been viewed through a haze of agony that made it all seem dim and unimportant.

  The effect of Kell’s device in the darkness of the ruins had felt that way at first, but after a time it seemed to Isidro that his nerves grew deadened, like a loud noise leaves one’s hearing dulled. When pain is not all-encompassing it cease
s to be a cause of paralysis and instead becomes a source of motivation.

  Isidro turned his attention to the threads of power, lying against his skin like leaden bands, that bound him to the earthen floor. He concentrated on the energy wrapped into the insubstantial cords, coming to understand the taste of it, the rhythm of it humming through the lines. Once he attuned himself to it and understood just how it had been made, he could find the key that held it together, grasp hold of the energy wound into the restraints, and draw it into himself.

  The first of the bonds vanished with a crackling sound and a flash of heat.

  It took too long, far too long, chewing up time he could not afford to waste, but there was no alternative — Isidro pried Kell’s net apart strand by strand. When he was able to sit up, his head was swimming and his throat felt dry enough to crack.

  The chamber was small, barely big enough for Isidro to lie outstretched, and it seemed perfectly sealed, with four walls built from the same worn and weathered stone. There was an almost-empty water-skin sitting against one wall beside a bundle of stale griddlecakes, and Isidro’s old lantern-stone hung from a notch in the stone to illuminate it all.

  With the device around his wrist still making half his body burn and throb, Isidro gingerly picked up the blasting-stone. He could only hope one of the walls was an illusion. If Kell truly had constructed stone walls to contain him, then this single blasting-stone would not be enough to break out. Perhaps he could construct more, if he could focus through the pain enough to turn a handful of loose sand into stones capable of holding an enchantment, and then create the enchantment itself.

  As he considered, Isidro’s eye fell on the food and water. His thirst was overwhelming, Kell must know that. Why leave him the means to slake it? There seemed only one plausible reason — Kell had set another trap.