“I suppose,” she said to the demon, as she walked away without looking back, “we'd better do something about finding you a name.”
CHAPTER 64
Loclon tossed and turned on the hard ground as the nightmare took him again. It haunted him in his dreams and he lived it in his waking moments. It never left him. It never gave him a moment's respite.
It had begun as they left the Citadel. He was expecting to be smuggled into the Karien camp and treated like a hero - until they took the fortress and slaughtered everyone in it. But Mistress Heaner, her thug Lork and the chillingly beautiful boy Alladan had kept on going. They had not stopped until they reached Brodenvale, and then they had bundled him onto a small river boat and sailed downriver to Bordertown. When they reached the port town they stayed only long enough to arrange another boat, and before he could raise an objection, he found himself heading for the Isle of Slarn.
It hadn't been too bad at first. The island was dank and miserable, and the priests were a strange bunch, but they tended his malnourished body and helped him regain his strength and even began talking of letting him travel to Yarnarrow.
He had done the Overlord a great service, the priests assured him, and his reward was waiting for him.
For a time, he had foolishly believed their promises - until he remembered that for the followers of the Overlord, the rewards for service were not to be found in this life, but the next.
His first escape attempt had been treated as an unfortunate misunderstanding. His second earnt him a savage whipping. His third and last attempt had almost succeeded. It would have, had not the island begun to tremble as if in the grip of an earthquake, and the priests suddenly gone mad.
Something drastic had happened.
Loclon had been at the back of the Karien chapel for the Restday dawn service, waiting for the chance to slip out the door, when the staff belonging to the priest conducting the service had flared with light, and a wave of intense pleasure had washed over the congregation like a warm breeze. It took hold of him for an instant and held him in a thrall. There was a promise of so much in that wave. A hint of joy. A breath of sexual fantasy. A promise of paradise. Even a glimpse of the other gods. It had taken his breath away.
It had almost destroyed the priests.
They had fled the chapel and run towards the cavern where their sacred rock was hidden, howling with terror at whatever it was that it was doing. It only lasted for a few moments, then the feeling had faded abruptly and Loclon shook his head to clear it and bolted for the door.
His original plan had been to head for the small dock near the keep, but with the priests running everywhere like lunatics, he discovered that route no longer open to him. So he ran the other way, pulled himself over the wall that faced the leeward side of the island, cursing as he fell down the long drop on the other side, and ran until he collapsed onto the boggy ground. He was terrified, and at the limit of his endurance, expecting to hear the priests coming after him, not really believing he had succeeded in getting clear of them.
It was then that the nightmare truly began.
* * *
They found him that evening, shivering and exhausted, and in the darkness he could not make out their faces. They were not priests. All he knew was that someone wrapped a blanket around him and someone else thrust a cup of cool water in his hands. He drank it greedily and grasped at the mouldy bread they offered him. They led him through the darkness to a rough hut so close to the shore that he could hear the waves crashing below him as he fell into a fitful sleep.
At some time during the night he woke to find a body pressed against his, warm and young and unmistakably female. He smiled to himself, thinking that before he left this place, he might have some fun. If he was careful, and didn't leave any marks, they would not know he had hurt her until after he had gone. With a smile and a contented sigh, Loclon pulled the girl closer and went back to sleep.
With daylight came the horror.
He had opened his eyes slowly, enjoying the feel of the naked body pressed against him. He ran his hand over her small breasts and her slender hips and then over her belly, reaching down between her thighs to pull her legs apart. He felt something sticky against his hand and cursed. He pulled his hand away and held it up to the light.
It was not blood on his fingers - it was pus.
He screamed, leaping from the rough pallet as the girl turned over. She was grotesque. Her face was ruined, half of it eaten away by the disease that devoured a person from the inside out. Her whole left side was covered with open sores that wept pus, and a clear sticky fluid that stained the rough sheets beneath her.
“Please...” the girl cried, tears streaming from her one good eye. Her pathetic cries made him want to vomit; the idea that he had touched her made him want to die.
He had leapt the wall into the colony of Malik's Curse sufferers.
Loclon screamed again, and he kept on screaming until a big man with a huge fist and half his face eaten away by the Curse burst into the hut and knocked him out cold.
* * *
He had been in hiding ever since. He avoided the small settlement and its disgusting inhabitants, sneaking in at night to find whatever scraps of food he could scavenge. The others knew he was out there, and the grotesque girl from the hut sometimes left scraps for him, perhaps in an attempt to coax him back into her bed. She had been quite pretty once, he supposed, but now she was just a husk that was being slowly consumed by a disease that had no cure. A disease that ate at the extremities and left the body covered in ulcers, and ate through one's internal organs until there was nothing left and the victim died an agonisingly painful death.
He peeled off his ragged clothes and checked his body every day, looking for some sign that he had contracted the disease, but so far he showed no symptoms. All he could do was prowl the island looking for a way off.
There was none.
It was the reason the victims of Malik's Curse were confined here.
He made one attempt to get back into the Karien compound, but the wall, which had been so easy to clamber over from the inside, was much steeper on the leeward side. A deep, empty moat surrounded it that made it impossible to climb without a rope. There was no rope to be had. So he had returned to his prowling, scavenging existence and gone back to trying to find another way off the island.
* * *
Loclon tossed restlessly and then sat up, unsure what had wakened him. He looked around in the darkness but could see nothing, so he scrambled on his hands and knees to the entrance of the small cave where he sheltered and looked out over the rocky beach. He saw a figure standing in the moonlight on the beach and scuttled out to get a closer look. Whoever it was, it appeared to be a woman, but he could not make out her identity from this distance. A bubble of excitement began to build in him.
The figure saw him stumbling across the beach and began to walk towards him. He raised his hand in greeting, certain that he had been rescued. The woman was tall and walked with an easy grace that showed no hint of the wasting disease. She was not one of them.
“Hello, Loclon.”
He froze at the sound of her voice as she stepped closer.
“R'shiel!”
“You sound surprised, Captain. You should have known I'd come for you.”
He studied her warily. She must have been drawing on her power - her eyes burned black as the night surrounding them. Her hair had grown out and was almost on her shoulders, ruffled gently by the sea breeze. It took him a while to work out what else was different about her. It wasn't her quiet air of confidence, or the power that radiated from her.
It was her lack of fear.
Loclon cautiously took a step back from her. “You've come for me?”
“Did you doubt that I would?”
Hope flared in him as he realised rescue was at hand. She would take him from this place. He would probably be dragged back to the Citadel in chains, but that was better than being here. Better than a s
low, lingering death while he was eaten alive by his own body. He could escape eventually. Either along the way or once they got to the Citadel. It didn't really matter.
He nodded and held out his hands to her. “I'll come quietly. I won't resist.”
R'shiel studied him for a moment and then smiled. It chilled him to the core.
“Death told me once that evil is its own reward, Loclon. I understand what he meant now.”
“What are you talking about? I'm surrendering to you. Take me!”
“I don't want your surrender.”
“Then what do you want?” he screamed desperately.
“Vengeance,” she said softly.
“Then take it! Take me away from here! Take me back to the Citadel! Put me on trial! I'll confess. I'll tell them everything I did to you. They'll hang me R'shiel, you know that. Rape is a capital offence. You can stand there and watch me swing! You can gloat over my corpse! Take me back! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” He was blubbering and didn't care.
“No, I don't think so, Loclon.”
She turned away from him and began to walk back along the shore. The waves shone with phosphorescence as they slapped at the pebbly beach. He fell to his knees, sobbing with despair.
“You can't leave me here! Have mercy!”
She stopped and looked over her shoulder, her black eyes reflecting the shimmering waves. “Mercy?”
“Please, R'shiel. Take me back with you. I'll do whatever you want. I'll suffer as much as you want. Just get me off this damned island before the disease gets me!”
R'shiel stood there watching him on his knees, begging her for mercy. She had done this to him before. She had made him grovel like this at the Grimfield and once they were gone from this place, he would make her pay for that insult, too. But for now...
She was wavering. He could tell. She walked back towards him. Hope burned bright in his eyes. She was part Harshini, wasn't she? They were supposed to be unable to kill. Deep down, she didn't have what it took to make the killing stroke. That he was alive at all was proof of that. She'd been raised by the Sisterhood. She believed all that stuff about law and honour. She would not be able to turn her back on him.
But when he saw her face, he realised how wrong he was. There was no mercy in those alien black eyes. No pity. No compassion.
Nothing but cold, unrelenting contempt.
“I came here to send you to hell,” she said. “But I don't have to, do I? You're already there.”
He wasn't sure how to answer her; he wasn't even sure what she meant. She just stood there, staring at him with those alien black eyes...
Then the itching started. It was barely noticeable at first. He was too consumed by his fear of her to pay attention to it. It began in his fingertips, a niggling, annoying sensation that barely even distracted him. He rubbed his hands against his tattered trousers to relieve it, but it simply made the itching worse.
R'shiel didn't move.
The itching spread up his left arm. He scratched at it with his right hand and discovered his arm covered in small hard lumps. He tore his eyes from R'shiel and glanced down. The lumps were growing larger. As he watched, one of the lumps on his forearm began to develop a puss-filled head. The itching progressed beyond annoying into true pain. The lumps were spreading. He could feel them forming on his back and across his belly. His trousers chaffed as the sores began to form in his groin. His face was swelling with them, too. He tore at his clothing as another sore erupted, the burning itching growing more and more relentless; his breath came in gasps as he realised what was happening to him. The sores kept spreading.
“No!” he panted, as he tore at his own flesh in a futile attempt to relieve the burning. “No! No!... Noooo!”
R'shiel stood there watching him.
“What have you done to me?” he wailed. “Make it stop! Don't do this to me! Not this! Kill me if you must, R'shiel, but not like this! Let me die like a man!”
That evoked a reaction from her. She laughed.
“Like a man, Loclon?”
“Stop it, R'shiel! Please. I beg you!”
“It takes years to die from Malik's Curse, did you know that?” she asked in a conversational tone. “Of course, a few years being slowly devoured by your own body doesn't seem sufficient to repay all you've done, but it will have to do, I suppose.”
“I'll... kill myself before... I let this thing... eat me alive,” he gasped, unable to stop scratching at the spreading sores.
“No, Loclon, you won't kill yourself. For one thing, you're too big a coward, and for another, I won't let you.”
“How are you... going to... stop me?”
“Magic.”
R'shiel turned and walked away, until eventually she was swallowed by the darkness. She didn't look back.
I'll kill myself, he decided silently. I won't die this way. He staggered to his feet and turned towards the ocean. That's all it will take. Just wade into the water and let the sea take me.
The salt water stung the sores on his legs as he splashed into the foam. He plunged into the sea until it was waist high, then suddenly found he could go no further. He wanted to live, he realised with despair. Even though he had consciously made the decision to die, there was another voice in his mind that wouldn't let him. He found himself unable to take another step.
Loclon staggered back to the beach and threw himself down on the sand, rubbing against the grains to ease the itching, but the sand merely aggravated his already inflamed skin. He was sobbing with frustration. He couldn't relieve the itching. He couldn't stop the pain. He couldn't even die...
A hand reached for him and hope flared bright for a fleeting moment! He knew she couldn't walk away from him! She had to come back! This was just a game, she was just tormenting him for revenge...
“Mister?” the voice said gently. “It's all right, Mister. The itching goes away after a few days...”
He looked up to find the girl from the settlement with her pathetic smile and her ruined face staring down at him, her eyes filled with pity.
Loclon's howl of despair echoed across the empty beach.
Then he forced himself up and looked around urgently, but it was as if R'shiel had never even been here. There was no sign of her.
Not even footprints in the sand.
_____
Glossary
Medalon
Affiana — Innkeeper in Testra. Brak's great-great grand niece.
B'thrim Snowbuilder — Villager from Haven. Elder sister of J'nel.
Basel — Sergeant of the Defenders stationed on the southern border.
Bek — Prisoner at the Grimfield. Sentenced to five years for arson.
Belda — Sister of the Blade at the Grimfield.
Bereth — Former Sister of the Blade. Now a pagan.
Crisabelle Cortanen — Wife of Wilem Cortanen, Commandant of the Defenders.
Davydd Tailorson — Lieutenant of the Defenders attached to the Intelligence Corps.
Dayan Jenga — Quartermaster of the Defenders stationed in Bordertown. Younger brother of the Lord Defender.
Denjon — Captain of the Defenders.
Draco — First Spear of the Sister and ceremonial bodyguard.
Fohli — Corporal of the Defenders in the Grimfield.
Francil Asharen — Sister of the Blade. Member of the Quorum. Longest standing member. Mistress of the Citadel.
Garet Warner — Commandant of the Defenders. Head of Defender Intelligence and second most senior officer in the Defenders.
Gawn — Captain of the Defenders posted to the southern border.
Georj Drake — Captain of the Defenders. Tarja's best friend.
Ghari Rodak — Rebel Lieutenant. Brother of Mandah.
Gwenell — Physic. Sister of the Blade in charge of the Sisterhood's Infirmary at the Citadel.
Harith Nortarn — Sister of the Blade. Member of the Quorum. Mistress of Sisterhood.
Heaner — Mistress of the most notorious brothel in the
Citadel.
Hella — Joyhinia's maid at the Citadel.
Herve Rodak — A Rebel from Testra. Mandah and Ghari's cousin.
J'nel Snowbuilder — Died in Haven from complications of childbirth without naming the father of her child.
Jacomina Larosse — Sister of the Blade. Member of the Quorum. Mistress of Enlightenment.
Joyhinia Tenragan — First Sister of the Sisters of the Blade following Mahina's impeachment.
Junee Riverson — Probate at the Citadel.
Khira — Pagan Rebel and Physic in the Grimfield.
Kilene — Probate at the Citadel.
Korgan — Deceased. Former Lord Defender. Rumoured to be Tarja's father.
Lenk — Corporal of the Defenders at the Grimfield.
L'rin — Innkeeper of the Inn of the Hopeless in the Grimfield.
Loclon — Wain Loclon. Lieutenant of the Defenders and Champion of the Arena. Promoted to Captain following the Purge.
Louhina Farcron — Sister of the Blade. Appointed to the Quorum following Joyhinia's elevation to First Sister.
Lycren — Sergeant of the Defenders in the Grimfield.
Mahina Cortanen — First Sister. Mother of Wilem.
Mandah Rodak — Formerly a novice and now a pagan rebel from Medalon. Elder sister of Ghari.
Marielle — Prisoner at the Grimfield, sentenced with R'shiel.
Marta — Probate at the Citadel.
Mysekis — Captain of the Defenders stationed in the Grimfield.
Nheal Alcarnen — Captain of the Defenders.
Padric — Pagan rebel.
Palin Jenga — Lord Defender. Commander in Chief of the Defenders. Brother of Dayan Jenga and rumoured to be R'shiel's father.
Peny — Court'esa working for Mistress Heaner.
Prozlan — Sister of the Blade stationed at the Grimfield, responsible for discipline among the female prisoners.
R'shiel — Probate. Daughter of the First Sister.
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