Roth closed the gap between them and slammed his forehead into Quicken’s. “Then make it possible.”
Quicken staggered back, clasping his head. “But I haven’t the authority.” He shot a glance at his defeated captain, who looked as if she had just been fed a mouthful of sand. “None of us does.”
Roth growled as the final strands of patience appeared to snap. Cole thought he looked as though he were contemplating killing all three crews just to simplify things. The idea wasn’t entirely unreasonable as they had just dry-fired about a dozen high-powered weapons at him and his friends. Cole’s own munisica started stretching and he could feel the shroud creeping up his arms. Just as he felt the Rage would boil over into action, a voice cut through the dusty wind.
“That authority would be mine.” A figure limped towards them from between two ships. He was not wrapped in rusty leathers, but in elegant crimson finery that looked out of place in the bleak desert. His back was hunched and his face lined with the weight of countless cycles, yet his thick arms and broad shoulders suggested that he had not entirely forgotten the strength of his youth. He stepped in between the formations of sailors, who all fell to one knee as he passed. The shroud covered half the man’s face and he wore a crown made of the same amber material of the sailors’ weapons. In place of his left hand was a massive munisica-hammer larger than Cole’s chest.
The man’s boots crunched over the sand and he placed a hand on Roth’s shoulder. His grin nearly touched his ears as his eyes glistened. “There is no need to invoke the Trial of Honor, Bonebreaker. Both Morthain and this crown remain your trophies from the last time you challenged us.”
Excited whispers broke over the crews at the mention of ‘Bonebreaker.’ Roth ignored them, placing a clawed hand gently upon the old man’s shoulder. “King Auger, I wondered how many of your officers I would have to break before you showed your ugly face.”
The captain gasped, summoning her bladed hands and hair like a coiled snake. Seeing her imminent attack on Roth, King Auger moved his hammer-hand in front of her, blocking Roth from view. “Release it, Seive. You haven’t a clue who this man is. He could raze our city in an afternoon if it pleased him. Nearly did too when I was a lad.” He gave captain Seive a look that brought her back to her senses before turning back towards Roth. “So Bonebreaker, what will it be? Our women? Our riches? The city itself?”
“From the great King Auger? How about a hot meal and a warm bed?” He jerked his head towards Cole and the others: “For them too.”
“That I can do.” King Auger threw an arm around Roth’s shoulders, guiding him towards a small vessel between two of the corsairs. He pulled Roth close, speaking in quiet tone: “And don’t call me ‘King.’ Makes this old man feel a damned fool.”
Chapter 4
Metamorphosis
Talin could sense the fibers of his dreams running thin. He held onto the dregs, but they ran from him like water in his hands. He couldn’t quite remember why, but the idea of waking was repulsive and terrifying. He clutched at his dream, wringing out a few memories of his family at The Sill. Just as a smile pulled at his lips, crippling agony seared across his face, bringing him fully awake.
He was back in the hospital room. He’d named it that originally because he remembered being dragged to the hospital after his capture in Costas. Now, after being in the room for perhaps a week he decided to call it a workshop. He had only ever seen one wall in the room, but he could hear the squeaky doors whenever the Weeping Man entered, and the gritty sound the drawers made when he drew his tools. This room was in the hospital, though Talin was quite certain that no medicine had ever been practiced here. Not after what he’d been through. He tried recalling how many days he’d been strapped to the upright table with nothing but a wall to look at. Even the chronic beacon spells that Chiron had taught him wouldn’t work here. The only means of counting time was the progression of decay on his wounds. That, and the visits of the Weeping Man. After each time the Weeping Man worked on him, he brought Talin a mirror to show him what a wonderful job he’d done.
Talin’s heart quickened. He’d been awake for nearly a minute now and the Weeping Man would be back soon. He seemed to know when Talin was sleeping, and usually came back as soon as he woke. Another minute passed. He strained against the bonds on his head, trying to look to either side. He would have tried pulling with his arms and legs, but they were long past useful to him and starting to smell sweet with rot. Perhaps the Weeping Man was already in the room? No, he couldn’t be. Talin could hear his blubbering sobs from down the hallway before he even entered the room. The man never stopped crying, except for when he brought out his mirror to show Talin the parts he’d cut off, bent, crushed, or otherwise mutilated. The Weeping Man’s countenance was as pitiful as it was repugnant. While he looked like a middle-aged man long gone to seed, his expressions and mannerisms were that of a hapless child who simply didn’t know better. He had begun to pity the Weeping Man in these revealing moments. His round, too-close eyes begged for Talin’s approval whenever he brought out the mirror. It reminded him of when his son would show a craft he made in school.
No. He could not think of those things now. He must put thoughts of his family in the depths of his subself, locked in his treasure chest where only he had the key. It was the same place he kept the knowledge of his unit, The Sill, and every memory he cherished. He was here for a reason. He was here to defy the Three. Sooner or later he would be tortured to the point where his mind would break. He mustn’t have his treasures when that happened. If he were to deny them, he could no longer be who he was. He would have to become something else. Talin did allow himself one candle of hope, however; he clung to the possibility that at least one of the other units had been successful. There were at least a half dozen other strike-teams from The Sill. Surely one of them had been successful in disrupting the Devotion. He and his unit were merely casualties in the war, a price they all paid willingly. In this room Talin lived through nightmares that would have broken even the strongest soul. Throughout his time in the workshop Talin remained resolute, never faltering, for the contents of his treasure chest were worth it all. His training had prepared him for much worse than what the Weeping Man had done. He welcomed the pain. Talin would die whole, even if his body wasn’t.
There were footsteps coming from the hallway. Talin set upon his rituals. He studied the wall, a key facet of his new identity. He traced his eyes over the faults in the stonework, the peeling paint, and each new stain made by the Weeping Man’s labors. The steps grew closer. He checked his arms and legs. Still no sensation. That fact gave him a sense of pride and control, for he had severed the nerves with a quiet spell halfway through his first session with the Weeping Man. The footsteps were at the door now, but something was off. It sounded as if there were more than one person coming down the hall. Several people in fact. One set of the footsteps was quick and shuffling, as though they belonged to a child. The loudest of the group had a hard clacking that echoed into the workshop.
The door screeched open behind Talin’s back.
A man coughed, his voice muffled: “My word, the stench in here. He’s not dead is he?”
“No, Father Kreed,” said a sullen voice that could only belong to the Weeping Man.
Talin’s candle of hope flickered and sputtered.
Kreed coughed again, shoes tapping further into the workshop. “Well, get him turned around then so I can have a look at the boy. Why the hell do you have him up against the wall like a damned child in a time-out? Do you not see how odd that is? Even without eyes I can see it.”
The weeping man started his usual, shivering whimper, but cut it short as he waddled across the room. Talin’s eyes stretched as wide as they would go as he spun on the spot, bringing the rest of the shop into view. He saw a man in a flawless white suit, but he kept turning until he faced the wall again, spinning round and round. The Weeping Man spun him again and again, a childish giggle sneaking in between his
feathery sobs.
“What are you doing? Bring him around to face me!” Kreed’s voice rose, derisive and impatient. “That will do, that will do. Yes I see the table swivels quite nicely, now back away from the boy and stand over there, you sweaty little freak. A little farther if you would. Thank you. I swear Florien, your cellar-dwellers make a routine out of becoming the queerest people I see all week.”
Talin stopped spinning, as did the room a moment later. Standing before him like a dove in a sewer was Kreed. A silken scarf was pulled tight over his eyes, stained with soot and blood over the sockets. On one side of Kreed stood a man dressed in sterile surgeon’s attire. An Underkin wearing dark-blue wrappings and a gaunt visage skulked at his other side.
Kreed’s hands flew over a mouth of broken teeth: “What in the world did you do to him?” He scanned over Talin as though he could see through the tainted scarf.
The Weeping Man stopped weeping. He twisted the hem of his ruddy smock, revealing a shiny gut with long black hair clinging to the skin. An involuntary twitch jerked his head to the side as he jibbered to no one.
“Look at him!” Kreed jabbed a finger at Talin’s legs, somehow seeing through the white scarf over his eyes. “His fucking legs are hanging on by the sinew! What in the world possessed you to do this?” He paused, holding up his palm to silence the Weeping Man. “No, never mind, I don’t care to hear the answer at this point. I’m already upset and if I hear that crying-giggling thing again I’m going to be very upset.” Kreed stepped closer and picked up a piece of Talin’s hands that was still attached. His voice shook with worry: “The decay looks to be a few days along at the very least. Florien, could you…?”
The man in surgeon’s clothes shook his head. He spoke in a bored, tired voice: “Sir, the arms and legs look a little over a week along. There’s no saving them, not without a donor. The rest can be patched up easily enough, however.” He hissed after walking around to inspect Talin’s left side, jabbing a question at the Weeping Man. “Would it be foolishly optimistic to ask if you still have the patient’s buccal?”
The Weeping Man’s eyes darted from Florien to the floor. His lower lip quivered as his eyes rounded with childish confusion and worry. He obviously had no idea what he was being asked.
“His jowl, the cheek!” Florien huffed. “What did you do with it?”
The Weeping Man resumed his fluttery weeping.
Florien sighed. He ran a gloved hand through his hair and gazed at the ceiling, as though searching for patience in the harsh lights and rusty pipes.
A twisting, contradicting mixture of emotions swam through Talin, momentarily dulling the perpetual agony that wracked him. He felt a strange sense of relief and danger with Kreed’s appearance. Why would Kreed care that Talin had been tortured and broken? It was no worse than what Kreed had done to the rest of the unit before he put them up in the Towers. In spite of his feelings of enmity toward the man, he couldn’t help but feel his candle of hope burn a little brighter. It sounded as if Kreed wanted to help him. Perhaps he would be healed enough to bring his Wisdom back to his aid. He could escape, or at least end his own life before he could be of any use to them.
“Stop pestering the man, Florien. He’s obviously not prepared for an interrogation.” Kreed strode over to one of the cabinets and began rummaging through the clunky drawers. He hummed softly, clicking his tongue as he searched for something. “You know, I try to be a good leader, I really do. I listen to my people, no matter how trivial and arbitrary their concerns may be. I can’t please everyone of course. Habbad here can attest to my failures firsthand, but for the most part they are taken care of.”
The Underkin inclined his head, the lines on his wrinkled face darkening as his eyes widened with apprehension. “Yes, Father Kreed. We are taken care of.”
Kreed hummed in affirmation before continuing, “I build them universities, hospitals, stadiums, markets, provide jobs, whatever they desire. It pleases me to please them, it truly does. Even the Underkin were living like little princes before the Devotion. After I passed the labor laws some of them even had jobs in the upper districts. Florien, you regularly patronize a small bakery on the border, do you not?”
“That is correct, Sir,” Florien said, holding his hands behind his back as he continued to inventory Talin’s wounds.
“How very generous of you. I wish our fellow Aenerians were as open-minded.” Kreed pushed the drawer shut but it wouldn’t close all the way. He grunted with frustration, throwing a leg back and slamming the drawer with all his weight. “Damn…thing…won’t…there we are. I’ll have a word with the hospital staff about the clutter down here.” He moved on to the next drawer, delving a little more carefully through its contents. “I’ll pat myself on the back a bit and admit that we have quite a nice little society here. I saw no need to ruin such harmony, even when the barrier came down with the arrival of the human. Did we go looking for trouble? No. We didn’t go marching over to the Dark Side and cast the first stone. Certainly not! It was the Dark Ones who drew first blood, decimating an entire company of Domina who were just trying to retrieve the Human for me. Even then we were content to leave well enough alone and forgive ancient grudges. Ah! Here we are.” Kreed reached deep into the drawer and pulled out a short, serrated tool mounted on a wooden dowel.
Talin had seen that tool before. It had been used on him during his second session with the Weeping Man. His breath ran away from him as he desperately studied every detail of the ceiling.
Kreed held the tool up to the light as if checking it for imperfections. With a little nod and grin, he tossed the tool back and forth in between his hands as he approached Talin. “My father was a terrific leader. He knew how to make a point in such a beautifully simple manner that there was no room for misinterpretation. I- oh for heaven’s sake.” Bouncing off of Kreed’s fingers, the tool clanged to the stone floor. “Habbad, be a good lad and grab that for me, thank you son. Eyesight is a bit diminished at the moment.” Kreed turned back towards Talin, who found the ceiling less interesting by the second.
Kreed secured the tool in one hand, reaching for Talin’s face with the other as he stared through the white scarf. He ran his fingers over Talin’s hair, tugging at the straps that cut into his forehead. “My father was a genius. He knew how to make his intentions crystal clear to even the plainest of minds.” There was a quick snip and Talin’s head came free from its bonds. “I do my best to emulate him, which is why I choose my words with utmost care when I give orders. That way when I say, ‘secure the prisoner in the hospital,’ I should expect to find said prisoner whole and healthy when I go to talk to him. I should not find said prisoner mangled and spoiled with half his face removed.” Kreed’s blind eyes moved over Talin’s wounds, and he shook his head as his face fell in a disappointed frown. “Florien, give the boy something for the pain would you?”
Florien approached Talin, plunging his hand into the front pocket of his gown. “Will you swallow these pills or are you going to spit them back out at me?” It sounded as if he didn’t care what the answer was.
Talin remained silent. He’d nearly finished counting how many bolts were in the room, a task made much easier now that his head was free to move around.
“I thought as much.” Florien snapped his fingers at the Underkin. “Turn these to powder.”
The Underkin pointed a single tiny finger, touching the pills in Florien’s white-gloved hand, producing several tiny pops.
“Thank you, Habbad,” Florien said. He then brought his cupped hand up to Talin’s ruined face and blew the powder into his mouth and open wounds.
Talin coughed, stifling a moan. The powder stung with vivid, brilliant flashes before a dull haze filled his mind. The foggy indifference quickly spread to the rest of his body, giving Talin a deep peace and well-deserved reprieve from the torture.
Florien blew more of the powder here and there, wherever he found open flesh. “The patient is sedated, Sir,” Florien said. He drew
his gloved fingers to his mouth and neatly cleaned the rest of the powder off with his tongue. He paused, looking self-conscious as he removed the gloves and set to washing his hands in the corner sink.
“Thank you, Florien. Hopefully that takes a bit of the sting off for the boy. Don’t you fret my boy, we’ll patch you up in no time at all,” Kreed said. His tone was polite and bubbly as he walked backwards, bumping into the workbench next to the Weeping Man. Chuckling at his own clumsiness, he ran his palms down the front of his jacket and straightened the lapels on his snowy suit. “You see how that worked? I gave an order, a very simple one, and it was carried out to the letter. A simple order, followed simply by the execution. Order, execution. Order, execution.” Kreed then turned his blind gaze and broken grin to the Weeping Man.
“Yes, Father Kreed,” said the weeping man, who nodded like an enthusiastic child.
Kreed’s arm whipped about, smacking the tool into the Weeping Man’s throat. Florien swore, sloshing water over the floor as the Underkin cried out in alarm. Talin stopped his inventory of all the brown items in the room, looking instead at the slow crimson trickle that came from the Weeping Man’s neck. Kreed took his hand from the tool and scratched his fingernails lovingly along the Weeping Man’s jaw as he withdrew. The Weeping Man drew a shaking, filthy hand to his throat, his look of confusion quickly blooming to panic as he tried to draw a breath, instead producing an odd whistling sound. He wrapped his chubby fingers around the wooden handle and slid the tool from its warm sheath. Air rushed in and out of the hole as the Weeping Man fell to his knees, eyes bulging and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. His fingers scrabbled over the wound as he gave a squelching, liquid scream. His wooden fingernails pulled and clawed at the hole, catching and snapping the thing wider. The Weeping Man bucked on the floor, looking like a panicked child who swam out into the deep end for the first time. He threw a bloody hand up and grabbed Kreed’s leg, his face pleading for the mercy that his voice was no longer capable of asking for.
Saving The Dark Side Book 2: The Harbingers Page 7