She was gone.
But then she was taken out of the sweet embrace and Ember started sprinting to the shore. Arriving in less than a second, the Sorceress gave her chest compressions and breathed new life into her lungs, filling it up so that the water would be expelled.
Remi spit the water out and groaned as her head flopped over into the sand. The memories started flooding back, and she glanced up at Ember with recognition and hatred.
“You let me die,” Remi whispered.
Ember shook her head. “Not all the way. I took you to the brink. How was it?”
“It…it felt nice.”
“Good. Because what comes next won’t be. I swore that I would break you and I mean it. I’m going to bring you close to death several times a day, and you’ll start losing your mind. Eventually, you will beg me to kill you. You’ll accept death happily.”
“I won’t,” Remi whispered. She couldn’t even look at Ember.
“That’s what they all say,” Ember said to her. Then she walked over to the end of the rope and began dragging Remi right back toward the ocean.
Chapter 45 – Who Am I?
“Did you know that you were created as a joke?” Ember whispered into her ear. Remi didn’t respond. She stared off into space, doing her best not to listen or pay attention to the world around her. Giving it any validation would only make her cry. She was cold from the constant trips under water. She hadn’t eaten in a couple days and her throat was parched. Several times she considered drinking from the ocean but she had already consumed enough involuntarily.
“I’m being serious,” Ember said, standing up to walk around Remi who was laying on her back in the sand. “We knew that people would come looking for us once the war between Paragon and Cimmerian began. Some idiot would want to confirm whether we were real or not so we all met up—for the first time in years—and we talked about ways to get the people off our back. One of the Sorcerers was laughing and we wanted to know what was so funny. He said that we should create weapons that the humans can use. We all had a good laugh because we recognized how stupid the notion was—that we would create weapons that could be used against us one day. But we went through with it because we wanted to see how the people would respond. It was hilarious. They treated the weapons like they were game changers.”
“But we are,” Remi said, not looking at Ember.
“What’s that?” Ember chuckled.
“We are game changers. The actual weapons that you can hold in your hands aren’t, but we—the human weapons—we’re not jokes. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be as strong as we were. I think that even if everyone intended for us to be jokes, it didn’t end up that way. The Sorcerers all had the same idea. They would create us as contingency plans, so that the other Sorcerers could be blindsided if need be. Where’s your weapon now, Ember?”
“Shut up,” Ember spat. “That doesn’t matter.”
“Uh-huh,” Remi replied. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“You sound like you got some strength back,” Ember said, raising her nose up at Remi. “We’ll have to take care of that.”
“I could go for a swim.”
“Oh no,” Ember chuckled. “I have other plans for you. That’s the thing about torture. Even though it continues to hurt, on some undiscernible level, the victim starts getting used to it. I don’t want that. I want you constantly worried about what’s coming next.”
Remi didn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought,” Ember huffed. She reached down and grabbed a fistful of Remi’s hair. “Hold on tight. I have somewhere to take you.”
Remi blinked, and in the next second she was surrounded by the familiar. It didn’t dawn on her at first, but eventually the memories began to pop up like weeds in a garden. One by one, her senses explained to her where she was. The earthy smell. The body odor—a mix of sweat and mud riding the crisp breeze. Her cheek rubbed up against the jagged pebbles underneath her, and she could hear voices in the distance—voices that spoke of concepts and stories that she heard many times throughout her life.
Ember lifted her up by her hair without mercy, causing her to cry out in pain and close her eyes.
“You might not want to make too much noise,” Ember whispered ominously in her ear. “Unless my plan backfired, and you’re actually a lot more excited to be here than I thought. Open your eyes, Remi. You’re home.”
Home.
The word forced her eyelids to snap open and she took in the horror that was once her life. The familiar archway, now split in two at the top and dangling from several rusty bolts and nails. The worn down houses where they slept. They lacked in insulation and sometimes they were colder than the outside.
She could see the furry creatures that would sneak into her people’s knapsacks and store houses at night for a snack. They scurried through the grass like mice and kept their bodies low like snakes. Her body shuddered. Not at the cold, but at the familiar face that walked past her, only several yards away. He didn’t turn to look at her, and she prayed that he wouldn’t as he strode forward. She dared not move, and soon he was gone. But she didn’t feel any better.
If she and Ember stood there long enough, someone would eventually see them. And then the parties would be formed to retrieve her, and she wasn’t sure if the Sorceress wouldn’t mind giving up her possession.
“It’s quaint,” Ember whispered. “It’s a wonder why you ever left.”
“Take me back,” Remi said, and Ember lifted her a foot higher, yanking at the roots of her hair. Remi wanted to scream, but the fear of her hometown seeing her was worse than the suffering.
“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Ember seethed. “But I’m not done with you yet. Unless you’re ready to give me what I want.”
“What’s that?” Remi cried.
“Where is Alicia? Where is the dragon?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have an idea of where she might go. You found her once.”
“I thought you were—” Remi stopped talking for fear of how Ember might retaliate.
“No comebacks?” Ember scoffed. “Interesting. But it still won’t save you. Where is she?”
“I won’t say,” Remi swallowed. “I can’t betray her.”
“That’s fine,” Ember said, shrugging her shoulders and removing her grip from Remi’s hair at the same time. Remi fell onto her side and rolled onto her belly. The wind was knocked out of her as her ear hit the ground, and she was starting to get dizzy.
“THERE’S FOOD!” Ember shouted at the top of her lungs toward the town. Remi’s eyes widened in horror as the sounds of creaking doors swung open. She glanced up at the Sorceress with pleading eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ember spat at her. “You brought this on yourself. This is your last chance to tell me where Alicia is. Otherwise, I’m leaving you here. I don’t have time to torture you and I have a better chance at finding her if I set out now. So what will it be?”
“I won’t,” Remi said through the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her voice cracked as she tried to move her right arm to propel herself onto her feet, but she had already forgotten about her predicament. She had no hands…she had no legs.
“Then you can stay here…right back where you started. What did you accomplish, Remi? Huh? Where did that mouth of yours get you? Nowhere. You’ve had friends die or betray you. You’ve been ridiculed and made fun of, and what was it all for? You don’t even have arms and legs. You look like a spinning top that’s too fat on one side.”
“I’m stronger,” Remi whispered.
“Keep telling yourself that, and then say it again a few months from now when all that rich, nutritious air you’ve been breathing in in Paragon wears off. When you haven’t eaten in days, and your hair starts falling out again.”
“I’ll be okay,” Remi said low.
Ember shook her head. “No…no, you won’t.”
Ember disappeared from Remi’s voice, runni
ng off so fast that it sent her hair flying upwards and her body rolling onto her back. Remi grit her teeth. She wouldn’t make a sound, no matter how close they got. They might not see her if she stayed down low enough.
But could she survive without their help?
What choice did she have?
“You heard that, right?’ she heard a middle-aged man say as the sound of several footsteps crunching in the grass got closer. She slowed her breathing as they began to spread out, encompassing her unintentionally.
“Hey, hey!” a young girl cried as she leapt up and down. “It’s in the grass! I see it, I see it!”
“Quit that yapping, girl,” the middle-aged man said. “It might be a predator.”
“It’s not going anywhere,” an elderly woman replied. “It has no feets.” She paused as she examined Remi from a distance. “Or hands.”
“I’ll go in,” a voice replied. Remi froze as she recognized the man that had spoken. It sounded like her former physician, not that the title meant much in her hometown. She felt a pair of calloused hands clutch her shoulders and then harshly flip her over so that her identity was revealed to all. The crowd broke out in gasps.
Remi swallowed hard as her eyes met theirs. While hers were quivering in horror, theirs were in wonder, examining her as if she was a rare, exotic animal.
“She’s beautiful,” the young girl replied—someone that Remi didn’t recognize.
“Her hair is so soft,” the middle-aged man said, running his dirty fingers through her strands. “It smells like…I don’t even know what it smells like.”
“Should we call for the others, Franklin?” the doctor asked.
“No,” Franklin—the middle-aged man replied. “They’ll want to eat her.”
“Is that what we’re not doing?”
“Not yet. I want to know more.”
“That’s a highly unusual thing to say,” the doctor chuckled. “You’ve been hanging around me too long.”
“Besides,” Franklin whispered, leaning his face in closer to Remi’s. “There’s not much we can take without outright killing her. Whoever maimed her must have been insane.”
“Or this girl did something worthy of such a punishment.”
“I want to eat her still,” the young girl replied. “She looks delicious.”
“Cease your rumblings,” the doctor replied. “Our hunger isn’t that voracious.”
“Says you,” the girl pouted.
“Haven’t seen an animal in a month,” Franklin sighed, scratching his head. “We might as well take her back to the town.”
“I’m not going,” Remi said adamantly, scaring the three in front of her. They all leapt back and put their hands to their mouths as Remi grit her teeth. “You can’t take me there.”
“Hey…” the doctor whispered to himself. “Don’t I know you from somewhere? Something seems familiar.”
Remi clenched her jaw. This was her best chance at staying away from that awful place.
“I’m Remi,” she replied, to the gasp of the doctor. “I used to live here.”
“You were a patient of mine,” the doctor said, examining her from head to hip. “What happened to you? You look like you’ve gained some vitality, but at the same time…your limbs. Was it the Quietus? Did he kidnap you?”
Remi’s mind raced as she thought of what facts to omit and relay. “I was on my own for a while,” she decided upon. “But I came across a brute that did this to me after I escaped his grasp.” She didn’t want to sully the memory of Kace, but she couldn’t outright say that she had run away either. She was sure that Ember was treating this all as one big test, but Remi also needed a contingency plan just in case.
The fact of the matter was that she may never get her limbs back—artificial or otherwise. Unless the technical capabilities and wealth of her town had vastly improved recently, she knew that they wouldn’t even want to waste the resources on her, let alone take the time to craft new limbs. She didn’t want to face the possible truth: she may be on her own, and the town she had left behind…may become her new and permanent home.
“Your hair is so beautiful,” the young girl said. “You couldn’t have survived in the wild. You were living in luxury, weren’t you?”
“The girl’s right,” Franklin said. “Where have you been all this time…really?”
“Paragon,” the doctor said. He started nodding as if saying the word aloud confirmed it. “Yes, that’s the only place in which she could heal like this. I remember when she was born. I didn’t even think she was going to survive her first year. She did, but not without a string of health attacks and close calls. For her to look so full and vibrant…it could only be due to Paragon’s atmosphere.”
“What does that mean for us?” Franklin asked. “Does this help us at all?”
“She might be able to tell us how to break in, get some quality food for once.”
Franklin scoffed at him. “Even if she had such knowledge, what are the odds that we can form a group big enough to make the trek and survive? Making it to Paragon alone will test our limits, let alone breaking in.”
“We’re certainly not going to try Cimmerian again,” the doctor said darkly.
“We should leave this place anyways,” the young girl spoke up. “I’m hungry. I’d rather live in the woods at this point.”
“Let’s at least move her away from here,” Franklin said. “She’s so close to the entrance that I’m afraid someone will think we’re hoarding.” He reached down, wrapped his hands around Rem’s waist and lifted her up like a swaddled baby. He threw her over his shoulder and kept a hand on the center of her back to keep her steady.
“Come with me,” the doctor said, heading out to the left toward the thick of a forest. Remi could hear a strange voice calling out in the distance and she suspected that the other groups had given up and decided to return home.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the young girl suddenly yanked a few strands of hair from her scalp. Remi yelped as the young girl popped the hair into her mouth and then immediately spat them out.
“What are you doing?” Franklin asked. He couldn’t see what was happening, but he could feel the tension.
“Her hair smells so good that I thought it would taste good too.”
“You’re stupid,” Franklin muttered as the doctor cleared his throat, trying to stifle a laugh. “Where are we headed exactly, doctor?”
“Just a little further,” he said as their faces became overshadowed by the canopy of branches above. The trees were so close to one another that Remi’s head bumped up against the bark and the three townspeople had to resort to walking in a line.
“You have a cabin or something?” the young girl asked, but the doctor acted like he didn’t hear her.
“If we’re just getting clear of the others, then here is fine,” Franklin said.
“Not exactly,” the doctor said. “There’s too much brush. Don’t we need more room?”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. It just seems like it will be uncomfortable where we are now.”
“You’re the one that took us this way,” Franklin grunted, throwing Remi to the ground like a sack. Remi coughed as her head hit the surface. Did he forget that she was a person?
“What’s wrong with you?” the doctor asked, scowling at him.
“I should be asking that,” Franklin growled. “Where are you taking us? There are no clearings this way. Unless you’ve got a tree house or something, it seems like you’re taking us into a trap!”
“Our failed attempts at Cimmerian has made you paranoid.”
“No, just cautious.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No,” the young girl huffed. “You’re being weird.”
“Look,” the doctor said, pointing to Remi. “She’s trying to get away! We have to subdue her. I have some rope.” He rummaged into his thick coat’s inside pockets as Franklin and the young girl did their best to watch Remi in t
he dark.
“I don’t think she’s moving,” Franklin replied as he turned toward the doctor. He was met with a dagger thrust right into his heart. “Cam?” he gasped as he fell over backwards and fell onto his back. The young girl didn’t scream. She turned around and began to run away, but the doctor was already upon her. He grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her back with uncanny strength. Once she was in reach, he pulled her again and she stumbled onto her feet. The doctor let go as she tried to regain her balance, but he had already grabbed a large rock from the ground and slammed it across the back of her head. She fell face first in the grass and began twitching as the doctor leaned one hand up against the tree to his left and coughed.
“So tired,” he said as he coughed once more. He breathed heavily as he looked down at Remi. “I have to do what I have to do. Sorry.”
“You killed them.”
“Not the girl,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if her mental faculties have been compromised.”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“Trade,” he said. “Don’t worry. I won’t eat you. I’m not that far gone. I tell you, the people in that town have no vision. They think that consuming one another is the answer, but they forget that such an atrocity only fills you for one meal. By trading slaves to Cimmerian, I can get food that can keep me full for months if I ration it right.”
“So I’m to be traded?”
“I’ve done it better. Don’t worry, it’s a painless transaction, though…I’m not sure how much I’ll get for you. I really hope I didn’t hit that girl too hard.”
“Well,” Remi sighed. “Whatever you decide is best.”
“What?” the doctor scoffed, stepping over Franklin’s body and crouching down to see Remi’s face better. “Wait, so you don’t care what happens to you?”
“Whatever happens, I’ll survive. I know that much.”
“The Cimmerians might kill you. I don’t think that’s surviving.”
“I mean mentally,” she said, staring directly into his eyes. “I don’t know if you’re a minion of Ember’s or not, but either way, it doesn’t matter. I won’t break. I don’t think she realizes just how far down I’ve spiraled. She thinks that physical pain is the same as mental. It’s not. I’ve mastered steeling my resolve a while ago. If she wants to break me, it’s not going to be through torture or slavery. She wants me? She’ll have to get my heart, and I have no idea how she’s going to do that unless I allow something to first come into it.”
The Complete Seven Sorcerers Trilogy Page 43
