The Warlord's Domain

by Peter Morwood

  "Aldric, we're in trouble," said Kyrin's voice, sounding frightened as she began to explain exactly what the trouble was.

  He listened to the words without really hearing them, trying instead to track the swirling world and make some sense of it. Although he had passed into something more like deep sleep within two hours of Doern's cudgel-blow, the brain-rattling effects of the impact required rather more time than just a night's sleep before he shook them off. Shook off, indeed, was scarcely the proper word, since Aldric knew from past experience that if he tried to shake off even a speck of dust tickling his face, he would regret the sudden movement for a long time afterward. Only the name Voord managed to pierce the purple fog filling his mind. It was a name he knew from… Dizziness or not, his eyes snapped open.

  "Say that again; the last part, about Voord." Aldric didn't want to hear it, because that would mean it had to be true and wasn't just another part of the foul fever-dreams that were troubling his sleep.

  "What I said was, Voord has somehow become the Grand Warlord. And he's the one who had us both arrested." She looked over at him again, lying quite flat and still as if posing for the carven effigy on a tomb-lid. After the arrest, Kagh' Ernvakh troopers had searched them both. They had found three small knives on Aldric: one strapped to his left wrist, a second down his boot and the last—a tiny push-dirk—hung from two loops at the back of his tunic collar. After that, they had taken away all outer garments made of fabric thick enough to hide a blade. For the first time in her memory Aldric was in total black, without the touches of white or silver or of polished metal which had been his—conscious or otherwise—nods in the direction of melodramatic dress. That somber uniformity of non-color, and the blow against his head, gave his face the bone-white pallor of someone two days dead.

  Aldric closed his eyes again and this time not just through sickness, unless it was a sickness of the spirit. Without the life and movement granted by those eyes, his face became that of a corpse; it was an image and a premonition that made Kyrin shiver.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Sorry? For what?"

  "For coming here. For getting involved when you wanted me safe. I'm sorry for all of it. But I told you: where you go, I go. To the end of all things."

  The fetters clinked as Aldric moved his hand slightly, dismissing the matter. He smiled wanly up at the ceiling and shook his head, both sadly and with pride that anyone should think him worthy of such love, then lay quite still and shivered as that head-shake brought the nausea quivering back into his stomach.

  "I know how much you want to hurt him, Commander, and I know how much he deserves to be hurt. But what I cannot understand is why you would do anything so dangerous as putting his sword in with him. Putting it into him would be—"

  "Too quick, Tagen."

  Woydach Voord finished his breakfast, a syrup of white poppies in brandy and a piece of bread, then pushed the cup aside while his mouth twisted at the taste of the stuff on which he had been living for what felt like years. He looked enviously at Tagen's mug of beer and at the fried blood-sausage on his plate. Voord's nostrils twitched; there was thyme in it. All forbidden now, he thought. One more reason not to stay here longer than I have to …

  "Much too quick—although I appreciate the irony of it all. And I have another use for Talvalin. What do you think that he would do if he got loose, knowing who I am and what I've done to him and his in the past few years?"

  "Sir, he'd try to kill you!"

  "And do you think that he'd succeed?"

  "Not while you're under my protection. Otherwise… almost certainly. Except that you can't die of wounds anymore; they only hurt you."

  "They always hurt me, Tagen."

  "I wish that I could do something to help, Commander— but all I know is killing."

  Voord looked at him for a long, silent moment. "You could help me, Tagen," he said, "by not killing."

  "Sir… ?" The big man was confused; it was as peculiar a request as Commander Voord had made of him in all the years that they had known one another, and Voord was well aware of it. "Not killing, sir? I… I don't understand."

  Voord had hoped, uselessly it seemed, that Tagen would take his meaning straight away. Evidently not; the leaving-alive of an enemy until that enemy has done what no friend could was far too subtle for this particular kortagor of Guards. As well expect an arrow to understand why it must remain in the quiver.

  "Talvalin," said Voord, slowly and carefully so that his meaning was quite clear, "must remain alive until after he has killed me."

  "What?" Tagen came out of his chair so hard and so fast that beer and sausage both went flying. The clatter attracted accusing stares from all across the Food-Hall for the half-second needed to recognize who had made the noise—and who was sitting with him. After that the only thing that it attracted was servants to clean up the mess and to replenish Tagen's plate.

  "After you are certain I am dead, you can kill him as slowly and in whatever way you wish."

  "Commander, are you drunk? Or would you rather I called a physician?"

  "No to both. I haven't been well drunk in over a month; I don't dare for fear I fall and do myself yet another irreparable mischief, and I'm sick of the constant need for a physician within call. Do you understand me at last, Tagen? Do you begin to realize how my days are no longer anything to live, but just to be endured? Do you?"

  Tagen sat very still; what he knew and what he understood was that when Voord's voice took on that particular shrillness, it was safer to be somewhere else—and he had nowhere else to go. As Voord watched him, he could see a kind of comprehension beginning to form in the big man's mind as he tried to relate the Commander's trouble to the sort of life he led himself.

  Not to take a woman now and then, because her bites and scratches would never go away; not to ride a horse for fear of the broken limb that wouldn't heal or the broken neck that would leave you still alive but useless; not even to fight someone for the joy of it in case they killed you and you didn't die… He broke off his nervous, submissive stare at the table, straightened his back and looked at Voord instead. "Yes, my lord Woydach" he said, using the new and proper title for the first time, "I understand completely." He rose, saluted and walked away.

  Voord watched him go, wondering just how much Tagen really understood at all. Had he been fully convinced of that understanding he might have asked the big man—the only person in the whole world whom he could trust—to take Talvalin's sword and do the necessary killing himself. But only if he could have been sure…

  Because if the sword alone couldn't do it, then the spellstone certainly could. Voord recalled the thrill of mingled shock and pleasure he had felt when he discovered barely half an hour ago that someone—Talvalin most likely—had put the two together into what should be a single, supremely potent weapon. And tomorrow, the twentieth day of the twelfth month, was the beginning of the Feast of the Fires of Winter, when night and darkness were at their most powerful. By the twenty-first, the Solstice itself, he would know if his planning had been successful—or more hopefully that success would be manifest in his knowing nothing anymore. Now that Tagen had been dealt with—and it had been both easier and much more difficult than he had expected—there remained only the prime mover: Aldric Talvalin himself.

  His own reflection, his image in a smoking mirror. That was one of the many, many reasons why Voord hated the young Alban so very much. Mirror-reversed from right to left though it might be, and invisible to others, Voord could see it. What Aldric Talvalin was, Voord Ebanesj might well have been… except that he was not.

  They were most alike in one very particular characteristic, the one that was most useful to Voord now. Give either sufficient reason to do so, and they would rip the world apart to gain requital for an injury. Voord's methods were crookedly subtle, but Aldric Talvalin could be just as implacable and far more savagely direct in avenging any violation of his personal honor-codes. It was a matter confirmed by writt
en records, both here in the Empire and most likely in Alba as well. That vengeful streak was a quality of which Voord approved, though he himself had never let something so abstract and valueless as honor control the way he acted.

  There was just one risk: that if Talvalin guessed how he was being manipulated, and that killing his enemy would not be vengeance but a kindness and a gift, then he would be just stubborn enough to withhold the final cut. Therefore he would have to be brought to such a white heat of hatred that the risk did not exist.

  Voord reconsidered the word violation, and liked it.

  Aldric and Kyrin had learned at last where that other door led to, and Kyrin's worst terrors were made manifest in the white-tiled room beyond. Some of the equipment there was so elaborate that they could only guess at operating principles, but the function of each and every device was invariably plain enough. They had been designed and built solely to bring pain, or to hold securely while the pain was brought by someone else.

  They sat on opposite sides of the room, leather straps around their wrists and ankles holding them in wooden chairs that were far more ordinary than the ugly, ominous metal seats which squatted empty here and there.

  Not all were empty; one held the clerk from The Two Towers, or what the past two hours had left of him. No questions had been asked, none of the babbled confessions to various petty crimes had been paid any heed, for that was not the function of this particular exercise in cruelty. Before it had begun, the gloved and aproned chief torturer had studied both of them dispassionately as they were strapped down and informed them that Voord had ordered an entertainment for their benefit. "I am Giorl," she had said. "The Woydach orders me to show you what it is that I do." And she had said nothing more, but had shown them far more graphically than any words.

  It was sufficiently appalling to learn that what they were witnessing should be done to another human being merely to impress them; the revelation that the principal architect of this fleshly dissolution was a woman came close to unmanning Aldric entirely. It was grotesque beyond belief; torturers were hooded, hairy, subhuman brutes, not a pleasant-faced woman who looked more as if she should have been at home with her children than here putting a near-surgical skill to this perverted use.

  "Enough," said Voord's voice from the door. "Finish with him."

  The woman Giorl glanced over her shoulder as if to ensure the identity of the speaker, then nodded. "As you command," she said, and extinguished what life remained with a single incision underneath where her Subject's right ear had been. "The rest of you, clean up," she said to her assistants, stripping off her stained gloves and dropping them into a waiting hand. "My lord, if you no longer need me I'd like to go home. Until she regains her strength I want to be close to my daughter."

  Aldric and Kyrin gaped at one another across the room as this ultimate obscenity sank in. That the woman should do this was bad enough, but that she should then wash off the blood and slime and go home to a child with the smell of someone's excised guts still warm in her nostrils…

  "All right, Giorl. And thank you for coming here at such short notice." Voord gave her a perfunctory salute. "How is the child, anyway?"

  "Improving. Whoever did the surgery lacked finesse, but I'd have thanked a pork-butcher for doing it then, just so long as it was done. Good day, my lord."

  "Just one last thing, Giorl…"

  She hesitated, watching him, waiting for whatever was in his mind this time. Voord moved aside so that the exit was clear and inclined his head a little, manners as polite as any Jouvaine courtier.

  "The rest of this is all for me. Don't come back until you're called—do you understand me?"

  Giorl glanced at her recent and most definitely captive audience, then back at Voord, Her face was devoid of all expression. "My lord, as always, my understanding of your wishes is quite perfect." She bowed, brushed past him and was gone.

  Voord watched her go, appreciating the delicacy of her snub, then gestured with both hands so that the four Bodyguard troopers behind him came into the interrogation room. "Take them out of those chairs," he said, "and put them back to bed." He was immediately conscious of the effect his choice of words was having on the two prisoners, and augmented it with a slow, lecherous smile at Kyrin as he reached out to cup her chin in the claw of his left hand. She spat at him, then flinched in anticipation of a slap as the hand jerked back from her face. Instead Voord merely patted her cheek in light reproof of unladylike behavior, although Kyrin would have preferred the slap; there was something dreadfully promissory about this uncharacteristic gentleness, and she had seen what had been done to Kathur—an employee rather than an enemy—for far less reason.

  "This is between you and me, Voord," said Aldric, trying to keep his voice quiet and reasoned while at the same time struggling uselessly against the buckled straps that held him down. "Let her go. She has nothing to do with either of us."

  "Oh, but she does. You love her. When I hurt her, I'll hurt you, and when she's been all used up, why then I'll still have you. I am the master here—time you both began to learn it."

  "Then you'd best learn this as well." Kyrin and Voord both recognized the terrible calmness with which Aldric spoke, but only Voord was truly pleased to hear it. "The whole of this world isn't big enough to hide in. There'll be nowhere far enough for you to run."

  "Fine, stirring words, Aldric Talvalin—but slightly misplaced, considering your present position. Get them into their cell."

  The guards carried out his command with all the swift economy of movement that comes with long practice. Both Aldric and Kyrin gained the negligible satisfaction of landing a few telling blows with fists and feet, but against men wearing half-armor and heavy leathers it was mostly wasted effort. The order executed, all four soldiers saluted and left the cell without needing to be dismissed. There was a distinct impression that Voord had told them in advance that he was to be left alone, which to Kyrin's mind meant only one thing. The bed beneath her felt more like a torture-rack with every passing second, and as she stared at Voord like a rabbit confronted by a weasel it took all her force of will not to be sick.

  "Well now," said Voord, folding his arms and leaning back against the door, "this is cozy."

  Aldric, flung unceremoniously face-downward on his pallet and chained that way by the one guardsman who had taken knuckles in the face rather than on the helmet, said something venomous that was muffled by the crumpled bedding and then coughed as dust caught at his throat.

  Voord stared at him. "I don't know why you want me to go to Hell, Aldric; this is Hell enough. Except that all of it's for you. I can't begin to explain how long I've waited to offer you just this sort of hospitality. And I can't begin to explain how much of a thorn you've been in my flesh these past years. First Duergar—" —Aldric choked on another cough and stared in disbelief—"then the Geruaths, and finally Princess Marevna. Oh yes, I was involved in all of those, and every time you blundered in and ruined subtle plans you sometimes didn't even know existed. I could forgive a little if you were a true opponent—but not when your interference was driven by nothing more than your pretty personal motives! Father of Fires, that a stratagem three years in the making should come to nothing because of some sword-swinging Alban lout who hadn't the grace to be killed with the rest of his clan of bloody barbarians!"

  Voord's voice had risen almost to a yell, but stopped just short of it as he shook his head and pulled himself back under control. There were flecks of spittle on his lips, and his face was red. "But then, I can attend to that unfinished business at my own pace now," he said more quitely, panting slightly. "And in my own fashion. Slowly… slowly and with imagination."

  He looked briefly at Kyrin, caught her staring at the gilt wires twisted through the flesh above his eye and below his chin, and straightened up so that the metal strands glinted in the light of the lanterns. "You wonder about these?" he said in response to a question no one had dared to utter. "Another memento. Your lover is very goo
d at causing pain. Even I could learn from him—and he will learn from me." He walked over to one side of Aldric's bed and stood there for a long while, staring. Then he reached down with his crippled hand and stroked it slowly and gently down the entire length of Aldric's spine.

  His free hand pressed against the back of Aldric's head, pushing his face down into the pillows for a long and choking moment before releasing him to gasp for air. "The learning starts now." Voord spoke with an Alban accent which had not been there before, a careful, deliberate simulation of someone else's voice from long ago and far away. He could as easily have handed over one or both of them to Giorl the torturer, but his subtle mind with its fondness for equally subtle stratagems had seized on this as being far more effective.

  The Woydach gazed at him through hooded, unreadable eyes, and though nothing could be taken from Voord's still features, the manner in which he now spoke was enough to set Aldric's skin crawling as the more brutal threat had been unable to do. It was too… He crushed the memory at once, but still wasn't quick enough.

  It was too familiar…

  "Yes, indeed," said Voord, and smiled. "Welcome to your nightmare."

  * * * *

  It was over. Voord was gone, the cell door slammed shut and locked behind him, but not so soon that the laughter from outside hadn't drifted in. All that remained was pain, and shame, and the feeling of being unclean.

  And the tears on Kyrin's face that said how much she understood…

  Chapter Ten

  "Why did you do it? Why not just give both of them to the torturer?" Tagen was intrigued by what he had watched through the spy-hole in the cell's outer door, so much so that just this once he had set aside all the respect he had for Voord and gone straight to the point with his questions.

  Voord sipped at another cup of the brandy-and-poppy tincture, no longer caring about the taste. His exertions of the morning had strained several of the wired wounds, so that the flesh had been cut like cheese and several wires were beginning to unravel. There was another session with Giorl in the offing, and while he didn't relish the prospect he no longer cared very much. Not when he felt so pleased with himself. Voord was glowing.