Tanys shuddered, struggling against the feverish passion of the Daima's touch. The Daima pressed her hand between Tanys's breasts pushing her back down onto the table, scattering books and papers. She looked down at Tanys with a gloating smirk.
"I think we have a little time to play yet," the Daima said. She stripped off her dress over her head and tossed it aside. Naked, she straddled Tanys's leg and ground her wet sex against Tanys's knee. She reached out and dragged her fingernails down the sides of Tanys's chest, leaving pink trails on Tanys's skin. Her hands converged on the dark, curly hairs between Tanys's legs, grasping and tugging at them. Her right hand turned and slipped down, cupping Tanys's sex. Tanys shivered as the Daima's middle finger probed, and slid inside.
The Daima's breath came faster as she leaned close, dangling her small breasts above Tanys's stomach. The fingers of her right hand worked in and out, three of them inside Tanys now. Her left hand took Tanys's right breast, kneading and tweaking the puffy nipple between her fingertips.
Tanys's cheeks flushed with shame. She turned her head to see the girl Lysette, sealed forever in the hellish column of flesh. The blind girl lifted her head, as though looking directly at Tanys, and her lips moved softly, a silent plea.
The Daima seized Tanys by the hair, turning her face to look at her. The ghast woman's eyes gleamed with the fever of madness as she leaned close. "Fuck me now, slave!" she hissed in Tanys's face.
Tanys brought the tip of the dagger in her right hand to the corner of the Daima's suddenly very wide left eye. "Fuck you," Tanys said.
The Daima tried to pull away, but Tanys grabbed her by the hair with her left hand as they moved together to rise from the table. Tanys spun her around, pushing her face down on the table, her rump pinned between the edge of the table and Tanys's hips.
Tanys pressed the Daima's face against the table as she shifted her grip on the dagger, bringing the black knife up between the girl's legs. The Daima yelped as the dagger's cold steel parted the pink lips of her nethers. "Would you like it here?" Tanys asked, "Or here." She twisted the blade and dragged it upward until the very tip of the blade pushed into the girl's puckered anus.
"What are you doing?" the Daima screamed, her body trembling with rage or fear.
Tanys pushed her face harder against the table, her head slipping to the side as a stack of papers shifted beneath her. "I'm getting out of here," Tanys said, "as soon as you show me where my friends are."
"You fool!" the Daima cried, "There is no escape from this island! I alone have spared you the fate your friends have already suffered. They are dead, Tanys, dead!"
"I don't believe you," Tanys said. She grabbed a handful of the Daima's hair and twisted her head around to see her face. "You're going to show me where they are!"
The Daima's face twisted in horror. "You don't know what you are asking! It would be better if you let me kill you right now, far better than what waits for you outside my door!"
Tanys released her grip on the girl's hair, pressing the dagger into the small of the Daima's back as she stooped to pick up the leather apron from the floor. She draped it across the Daima's back and then sliced the cord laces from the apron. Tanys leaned across the Daima's back, pinning her against the table. She pulled the woman's hands together behind her back and bound her wrists with the cord.
"Please," the Daima begged, "it's not too late! Tanys, please, I forgive you. Just forget this madness, and we can pretend that it never happened."
"Save your breath," Tanys said, snatching the other dagger from the table top.
The Daima rolled onto her elbow, looking up at Tanys with tears in her eyes. "You don't know," she sobbed, "You don't know what's out there... what he will do to you... to me. Please, Tanys! Stay here with me... I can take care of you."
"Like you took care of her?" Tanys hissed, pointing her blade toward the hanging body of the girl Lysette.
"She... she will live forever," the Daima said, "She is beautiful and perfect. She wants for nothing!"
"You fucking monster!" Tanys shouted, "Can't you see what you did to that poor girl?"
"She is perfected in this," the Daima said, "She is free!"
"No!" Tanys said, "She is not free... but I will free her."
The Daima's eyes went wide. She shook her head violently. "No, Tanys! Please don't hurt her, please!" The ghast woman tried to rise, but Tanys shoved her down again.
Tanys spun on her heel and strode toward the flesh-encrusted column at the center of the room.
"I'm sorry, girl," Tanys said, raising her blade to strike.
Lysette's face suddenly lifted, her milky eyes snapping open. Tanys staggered as a wave of energy passed through her body, a stunning pulse of despair that sent her reeling backward away from the pillar.
Tanys blinked, choking back the rising gorge in her throat. She looked at the imprisoned girl, bound forever in glistening resin. Lysette did not want to die.
The blind girl bared her teeth and let out an insane, clicking hiss. Tanys reversed her grip on one of her daggers, preparing to throw it, but, as she felt the ants swarm over her body, she knew it was too late.
Hundreds of tiny mandibles sank into Tanys's naked flesh as the ants climbed her. They locked their bodies together and twisted her body around until she felt her spine would snap. The ants pried her fingers open with their black jaws, and the daggers fell from her grip as they lifted Tanys's body from the floor.
She was on her back now, upon a carpet of living, biting things. She strained, unable to resist as they spread her arms and legs. They sank their fangs into her most vulnerable places, and she screamed in the agony of a thousand tiny cuts. More swarmed into her open mouth, locking her tongue between pinching jaws. Only her eyes were spared, free to look at the Daima who stood over her now with a look of wild triumph on her face.
"You see! You see now, you bitch!" the Daima howled, "She is beautiful!"
The Daima yanked her hands apart, holding them before her with the ends of the cord dangling from her wrists as warrior ants cut the leather bindings away. The ghast woman stooped to pick up Tanys's daggers and hurled them each in turn across the room.
"You dare to spurn my mercy!" the Daima shouted, "You unworthy bitch! I'm going to make you suffer for that. You are going to suffer a great deal before I let them finish you."
Tanys howled with rage and pain, the ants holding her tongue sinking their fangs deeper as she tried to speak.
The Daima's eyes went to the door. "Get this piece of filth out of here!" she shouted, "Take her to the table."
The living carpet moved beneath her, carrying her through the doorway into the main chamber. The swarm moved up the side of the Daima's work table, lifting Tanys inside a cage of black, chitinous bodies. Her eyes turned to the vorgul, still standing, obediently, at the foot of the table. The creature lifted its head toward the Daima, awaiting orders.
The Daima, still naked, closed the door to Lysette's chamber behind her. She walked to where Tanys lay, stretched across the table, looking down at her in disgust. "Turn her," she said.
The swarm moved, rotating Tanys's body to pull her lengthwise upon the table. The ants crawled over the unmoving body of the vorgul to place Tanys's ankles on either side of the enslaved beast.
"After how you repaid me for saving you from the teeth of this little beast the first time," the Daima said, stroking the vorgul's fur, "I'm inclined to let him have another go at you."
She walked forward, drawing her hand up between Tanys's legs. The ants parted to allow her fingers to probe between the folds of Tanys's womanhood.
Tanys whimpered as the Daima splayed her fingers, spreading her open and exposing her most delicate flesh.
“Come have a taste, my pet,” the Daima whispered.
Tanys heaved against the living restraints that held her, but the web of insects encasing her body only tightened its grip. She gasped for breath as the sheath of ants constricted around her torso, tiny legs and hooked mandi
bles like pinpricks in her swollen breasts.
“Oh, you must see this,” the Daima said. With a gesture of her hand, the ants lifted Tanys’s head, bending her at the waist until she was nearly sitting upright on the table. She looked down in horror as the vorgul moved between her legs, sniffing the scent of her.
Tanys tried to cry out, even to beg for mercy, but her efforts to speak earned only the taste of blood in her mouth as the ants held her tongue. The vorgul let out a whining growl as it opened its mouth to bare its teeth.
The Daima leaned close, breathing heavily as she ran her fingers, damp with Tanys’s musk, across her prisoner’s trembling lips. “I remember how sweet you are, Tanys. I think the vorgul is going to enjoy his supper.”
Tanys groaned with rage, her lungs heaving. She shut her eyes, unable to look at the gloating flesh-witch any longer. Her body spasmed as the vorgul’s tongue darted out, its tip flicking against the pink bud of her sex.
She centered her thoughts within, and then pushed out in a desperate search for Ghodn’s mind, but she could not sense the big cat anywhere. She felt the vorgul's hot breath on her skin as it spread its jaws to bite, and her mind snapped instantly to focus on the creature.
Her thoughts crashed into the creature's mind like a wave of primal fear. The vorgul screamed, pulling away in terror, as Tanys's terror rushed into the simple brain of the beast, filling it with paralyzing dread. As with the mental link she had shared with Ghodn, Tanys could feel the creature's mind as a pulpy mass of instinct and self. With the vorgul, though, she encountered no tough outer skin of resistance to hinder the link. She felt as well the coiling tendrils of domination, emanating from the worm creature latched onto the base of the vorgul's skull. The same parasitic enslavement that robbed the vorgul of its will opened the door for Tanys to do the same.
The vorgul whined, its claws scratching at the table top as Tanys battled the worm for control of the furred beast. The worm centered its will on the vorgul's hunger, willing its jaws apart, filling its simple brain with the desire to feed.
Tanys struggled, unable to fight against this ancient need. She pushed her will into the pounding heart of the enslaved beast, pouring all of her panic into the small, throbbing organ.
Its teeth closed upon her, the tips pressing into the soft pink flesh of her sex. Tanys screamed in the only way she still could, pouring her mind-shattering fear into the very heart of the beast that was trying to eat her.
The vorgul fell dead to the table, its heart burst.
Tanys gasped, her body slick with sweat and her breasts heaving.
"What did you do?" the Daima said, her face blank with astonishment.
Tanys glared at her, pulling her lips back over her teeth in a wordless snarl.
The Daima stared down at the dead vorgul, then looked at Tanys. "How did you do that?" she demanded.
She was about to speak again when the door of the main chamber slid open.
"What is going on in here?" a man's voice sounded from the doorway.
Tanys saw a tall, almost skeletally thin, ghast stride into the room, flanked by two armed guards. The ants covering the floor scurried clear, baring the floor before him. The man's long silver hair spilled down over his tight-fitting clothing of white silk. He bore no weapon but a simple black cane of twisted wood, topped with a single red gem. His immaculate boots and coat gleamed as white as his shirt and trousers. His lean face, as pale as any ghast's, had the appearance of polished alabaster, a stylized icon of a stern and callous god.
His guards each wore the black silk and warlock steel armor of Gerridaan bloodguards. Each one carried a sword of enchanted steel, drawn and ready, in a two-handed grip.
The Daima fell to her knees. "Master Vriene!" she cried, "I have captured this intruder. I was preparing her for you."
Vriene curled his lip in disgust. "Spare me the lies, Vecca," he said, "How long have you been keeping this from me?"
The Daima said nothing, lowering her head to the floor and trembling.
"Get your filthy pets off of her, or I burn them off!" Vriene said.
"Release her!" the Daima hissed.
The ants spilled from Tanys's body like water, and she spat two crushed bodies from her mouth. Tanys drew her knees up protectively and wiped her lips with the back of her wrist. She looked down at her shaking hand. Little tremors of pain shot through her body from the countless tiny bites in her skin.
Vriene studied her. "A faeblood," he said.
Tanys looked at him, keeping her silence.
"You lack control," he said, his colorless eyes narrowed, "I heard you from two floors down. Then again, that is probably all that saved you from whatever sick fantasy Vecca had dreamed up for you."
The Daima knelt, still on the floor, refusing to look at them.
Tanys's weighed her options. If anything, Ghasts were vain creatures. "Teach me then," she said, "Teach me control."
Vriene laughed, his expression delighted. He looked at one of his bloodguards. "I like this one!" he said.
"My name is Tanys," she said, "and I have served under Lord Carathan, a mage of the Gerridaan."
Vriene's eyes widened. "Carathan? I know him," he said. He gave her an evil smirk. "and, knowing him, I can guess what positions you served him under."
Tanys blushed. "I am his bloodguard!" she said.
Vriene smiled. "He must be very confident of his power to send his bodyguard so far afield."
"She is a runaway, Master Vriene!" the Daima said, still not daring to look up, "She is nothing more than another castaway from the latest wreck."
"Of course she is, you fool!" Vriene snapped, "Still, you thought she was important enough to try to hide from me."
"Forgive me, Master Vriene," the Daima pleaded, "I meant no disrespect. I only..."
"Shut up, Vecca," Vriene said. He rolled his cane between his fingers, looking at Tanys as though deciding her fate.
Tanys straightened her legs, swinging them over the edge of the table. She slid down, her breasts bouncing as her feet hit the floor.
Vriene's bloodguards lifted their swords in warning, but Tanys lifted her hands in submission. She took two steps toward Vriene and knelt on one knee before him. Tanys bowed her head.
"Teach me to control the power within me, Master," she said.
Vriene waited a moment before speaking. "And what do you offer me in return?" he asked.
Tanys hesitated, calming her emotions. She raised her eyes to meet his. "Whatever you require of me," she said.
Vriene's smile became a merry laugh. "Well then," he said, "Done!”
Vriene lifted his cane to his lips and blew a puff of air across the red jewel that formed the cane’s head. A wave of power washed over Tanys’s body like a hot desert wind. She swooned momentarily, her eyes fluttering as disjointed images of pain and passion flickered in her mind.
A moment later, Tanys shook her thoughts clear and realized that her wounds were gone. No mark of the ants’ jaws remained upon her skin. She ran her hands across her bare arms and chest, looking up at Vriene in amazement.
“A clever trick, don’t you think?” the Ghast sorcerer said with a wink.
“Thank you,” Tanys said.
Vriene chuckled. “They always thank me the first time I do that,” he said. He looked around the room, frowning. “Do you ever clean this place, Vecca? It smells like death’s chamber pot in here.”
Tanys looked down at Vecca, still prostrate on the floor. She though she could hear the Ghast woman’s teeth grinding.
“Well, then, my new student,” Vriene said, tucking his cane under one arm, “Let’s find you something to wear.”
Tanys got to her feet. She started to follow Vriene toward the door. “Wait,” she said.
Vriene turned back, one eyebrow arched.
“She has my daggers,” Tanys said, “two of them, in the other room. They were gifts from my Lord Carathan. I would not lose them.”
Vriene lifted his chin toward th
e Daima. “You heard her, Vecca. Go and fetch them.”
Vecca got to her feet, her face twisted with shame and rage. She spared one sideways glare at Tanys, but hurried to obey her master. She opened the door to the other chamber and disappeared within. She emerged, a few moments later with Tanys’s black daggers in hand.
Tanys stepped toward her, but one of Vriene’s bloodguards cut her off, taking the blades from Vecca’s hands. The soldier then held them out for Vriene to see.
Vriene raised his eyebrows. “Lovely weapons,” he said, “Take them and have them polished for Lord Carathan’s bloodguard… and my new pupil.” He smiled and turned to walk to the door of the room.
Tanys shared one final hate-filled look with Vecca as she followed Vriene to the door.
Vriene paused at the threshold and spoke again, “There is still the matter of your punishment, Vecca,” he said, “I’ll see you at dinner tonight. You should probably wear something that doesn’t show stains.”
“Yes, Master Vriene,” Vecca said, her voice shaking, as Tanys stepped into the cool shadows of the outer hall, and the door slid shut behind her.
Chapter 4
Tanys shivered in the chill air of the stone bedchamber. Shadows danced in the light of a flickering oil lamp that burned with a violet flame. Cobwebs and dust covered the unmade bed and the small table near the door. She turned to look at the ghast bloodguard, but the man had already rolled shut the stone disk that served as the chamber's door. Tanys ran her hands over the smooth surface of the door, finding no way to open it from the inside. She pressed her forehead against the cool stone and closed her eyes.
"Ghodn," she whispered, "where are you?"
She pushed her thoughts outward, searching for her link with the tiger, but only a great black wall awaited her beyond the bounds of her own mind. She drew back only cold thoughts and images of despair, taking shelter again inside herself.
She looked around the room, finding little of any use. Beneath the table, she found a stained copper pot and a pile of rags. She dragged it out and squatted to relieve the pressure in her bladder.
The Isle of Torment Page 5