by T. A. Miles
“Our actions only enabled you and the other men here to perform your duty, Lars.” Merran clapped the man on the shoulder by way of leaving.
From the study, he headed directly for the stables to collect Erschal and Onyx. He only needed to take them as far as the courtyard. From there, he would be Reaching back to the Seminary to report the success of the mission and what the cost of that success had been. He had hopes to reclaim their losses and he knew he would have at least one supporter in that hope, one whose voice held much sway at the Seminary. A mission into Morenne would be approved.
I’ll find you, Korsten. Wait for me. Look to Analee for strength. She’ll never leave you. She’ll carry you to us if it comes to that, but please, don’t let it come to that. Endure a little longer, for Ashwin’s sake if not mine.
Korsten discovered true helplessness in the company of his enemies. He was beaten and humiliated, defeated so utterly it left him numb. A moment came when he tried to fight it, but his captors were too many and too much on him. The very first thing one of them did to him was strike him with a closed fist. The assault left his lip and chin bleeding. He would rather that they all had done that. He resisted what the next man had himself set on, but that resulted in some of the others wailing on him savagely. Still, he preferred that to what would come and continued to struggle, especially as they freed his wrists from the manacles overhead. He hoped to work a spell, but the men kept his hands separated and occupied as they dragged him down and got him into a position that accommodated their lustful companion.
Beside himself in his distress and humiliation, Korsten shouted at them and cursed them, challenging them. He encouraged them to hit him, hoping they would be so offended with his attacks on their manhood that they would be distracted from trying to prove it to him through other methods. Success was meager and short-lived. They beat their prisoner near to unconscious and proceeded with their pleasures regardless.
Korsten didn’t know how long he’d been on the floor, pinned beneath the weight of others. He’d stopped hearing their cheers and groans by now. He had almost stopped feeling what they were doing to him. He stared through half-closed eyes at a particular space of the wall nearest to him, where a red butterfly hovered just outside of the light cast by a single torch. Though he had stopped panicking, Analee flitted about in evident distress. She’d scarcely landed for a moment at a time before she was back to dancing about, as helpless as her bond mate.
Don’t fret over me, Analee. It was my decision to ambush the Morenne troops and to leave the relative safety of the keep in doing so. It’s my choice not to speak to them. It’s my…. The man currently on top of Korsten increased his efforts without warning, sending shooting pains up and down Korsten’s body, making him gasp audibly. His rapist was on the verge of peaking and determined not to let his victim spoil it for him by impersonating a corpse. The last thing Korsten wanted to do was satisfy him, but the pain was too sudden. Shocked out of his numb state, Korsten couldn’t compensate for the intrusion. Each savage thrust forced a sound out of him. The man seemed pleased with that and he was even more pleased with the climax he had reached, that humiliated Korsten like none of the others had so far. Hurtled back into anger over exhaustion and resignation, Korsten screamed obscenities at the man who’d just violated him, who was rising off him, chuckling with satisfaction between breaths.
Tears were streaming down Korsten’s flushed face. He wasn’t even sure where he’d heard some of the curses he was spouting. He only knew he’d never felt hatred so purely in his life. It was enough that he wanted to kill the man and all of his accomplices. He wanted to torture them before they died. He wanted them to know that it was him killing them.
Korsten’s protests and threats amused his captors more than anything. They began to laugh so hard that they became lax in what they were doing and in Korsten’s rage, he managed to take advantage. Jerking his feet loose, he rolled over and kicked the man still standing above him, hard enough to see to it that the man wouldn’t be sticking himself inside of anyone for a very long time, if ever again. Evidence of the injury in the man’s face and with his actions as he staggered away from Korsten and dropped onto all fours almost made Korsten smile. The others instantly set about removing that smile from the mage’s face. Feet and fists were flying at him from all sides, hitting their marks in most instances. Korsten couldn’t see straight when his jailers finally dragged him up off the floor and put him back in chains. The room spun around him. It felt worse when he closed his eyes.
A large hand clamped down on his jaw and a bearded face took up all view. That face was every bit as red as Korsten’s, but the rage seen there was more potent. Korsten could feel it pulsating through the man’s fingertips as he squeezed his jaw mercilessly. “I should castrate you for that, my lovely, but I think I’m going to be hungry later on.” He grinned deviously through his anger. “Bet you taste as sweet as you moan. Yeah … I’ll bet you do. And if you try pissin’ in my mouth, I’ll snip it off with my teeth. You got that, you little—”
Korsten gathered what saliva he had left after days without water and spat it in the man’s face. “Hell take you, you filthy Morennish pig!”
Fresh anger lit in the man’s eyes. His gripping hand transferred from Korsten’s face to his throat. “Son of a whore, I’ll….”
“That’s enough!” someone said. The voice was familiar, but no more welcome than death. As the man who might have been inclined to deliver death to Korsten backed away, the cruel youth from before stepped into view. He looked Korsten over and smiled, then instructed the others to leave. When they were gone, he said, “What an unsightly mess they’ve made of you. I’d let you bathe yourself, but … well, I’m sure you understand the restrictions I must put on you.”
Korsten didn’t look at the possessed youth, but at a space of the wall behind him.
“Quiet again?” the young man said. “We can keep you here for a very long time, you know. I wonder how long it will take these men to get bored with you?” He came closer and slipped a handkerchief from his sleeve. Dabbing gently at the corner of Korsten’s bleeding mouth, he said, “Wouldn’t you rather have a pleasant chat with me? I’ll have dinner prepared for you. Of course, I can’t unbind your hands, but that’s no concern. I’ll feed you myself. I’ll take care of your injuries, too.” He let his hand drop onto Korsten’s chest. “I’ll take the very best care of you. I’ll nurse you back to perfect health and beauty. You’ll be flawless again. And then, once you’ve shared a few little secrets with me, I’ll take the suppressing enchantment off the poison I will have fed you, and you’ll be dead in a matter of seconds. It won’t hurt a bit, and you’ll still be beautiful … and all of your suffering will be over.”
Korsten felt the glimmer of interest in his own eyes when he glanced at the young-looking demon. He didn’t want what was being offered, but it gave him an idea. With all that had happened, he’d completely forgotten about his sword. It was still inside him, he could feel it. He knew better than to think his captors would give him half the chance to do anything with it if he revealed it to them, but he didn’t have to reveal it to them. He could move it through his body like he did before. He could bring it to his heart and kill himself. All of this would end. Analee could take what mattered back to the Seminary.
It wasn’t as if he had a hope of being rescued. No one knew where he was. He didn’t even know where he was. Somewhere in Morenne, he suspected, but there must have been dozens of places in the borderlands alone where they could hide a prisoner. Korsten’s only regret would be that he wasn’t able to warn Ashwin of Morenne teaming with the Vadryn.
Ashwin…. The thought stopped there. Overwhelmed finally by pain and exhaustion, Korsten let go of consciousness.
“That is not possible, Merran, and you know it.”
“You would have me leave him there, in the hands of the enemy?” Merran was beside himself with disbelief. He want
ed to shout, but he didn’t dare unless he wanted to become irrational in the eyes of his audience. Unable to stand still, he paced.
“I would have you calm yourself and think rationally, as you have always done in the past,” Ashwin said, far too calmly. “I know you care for him. Know that you are not the only one who does. This turn of events grieves me as well and threatens to steal my resolve, but I know that my emotions will not recover him.”
That was all Merran was willing to hear. He wheeled on the Mage-Superior, raising his voice enough for it to echo in the hall. “Nor will your hesitation! He’s alive, Ashwin! They’re keeping him alive, else Analee would have been back by now. I can only imagine what manner of torture he is being put through while he guards us and the Seminary. He’ll die for secrets he didn’t want in the first place!”
“That is his duty, I’ll remind you,” someone else said.
Merran glanced at the mage entering the hall and forced himself to be calm again. “Forgive me, Lord Eisleth, but his duty to the Magehood is misplaced. All it’s done is take from him the merciful end he’s long been wishing for.”
“That is no longer his desire,” Ashwin said, as if he knew. He looked at Merran directly. His expression was both sad and disappointed. “And while he did not ask to come here, he has come to think of this place as home and the people he has come to know here are as dear to him as family. You’re right, Merran. He will not betray us. He will die protecting us.” The blond mage finally lowered his gaze, adding, “We cannot allow it. You’re right about that also, but at this time there’s very little we can do. We don’t know precisely where he’s been taken. A mission into Morenne would be suicide for any mage that went and while it’s a risk you’re eager to take, Merran, it’s foolish and it will accomplish nothing.”
“The odds have thus far been in Korsten’s favor,” Eisleth pointed out. “I believe that he will find a way back to us, as he has before.”
Ashwin nodded and said softly, “That is my belief as well.”
“What if he’s barely conscious?” Merran argued. “What if he’s being kept barely conscious?”
“We can do nothing but wait,” Ashwin enforced, glaring now. “Don’t fool yourself into believing that you are the only one afraid for him.”
“I know better,” Merran admitted, firmly matching his superior’s gaze. “I know that you’re in love with him and yet failing to prove it.” In Ashwin’s tactful silence, Merran added, “Don’t bother yourself. I know it’s a burden resurrecting emotions after centuries letting them fade. I’m going to Morenne.”
“You are going nowhere.”
“You cannot stop me!”
Merran didn’t even see the spell Ashwin had cast, he worked it so fast. He found himself falling suddenly to his knees, utterly drained, scarcely able to hold himself up. He felt weaker somehow, helpless as he hadn’t been in a very long time … not since he was mortal. It didn’t take him long to figure out that his magic had been neutralized.
“You are going to stay,” Ashwin told him in a tone that was firm now, perhaps even dangerous. The look in his green eyes was unyielding, unfamiliar to Merran. “Until I deem you rational again, you are not going to step foot outside of these walls. You will wait here, Mage-Adept Merran, with the rest of us. You will grieve here, with the rest of us, for the loss we face.”
Eisleth took his leave in the next moment, as quietly as he had come, and Ashwin said privately to Merran. “I apologize, but you leave me with very little choice while you insist on behaving so irrationally. I’ll advise you also never to use my personal feelings toward anyone or anything as leverage again. That is not the way to make me hear you.”
“You’ve gone deaf these days,” Merran said by way of Ashwin’s leaving, which halted the Mage-Superior in his tracks.
Ashwin waited just a moment, as if to give Merran the opportunity to say more, then calmly left the room.
After leaving Merran, Ashwin proceeded directly to the lily garden, to the vine that had stemmed of Adrea’s premature death. He had loved her deeply, as he had loved Sharlotte … as he had loved his first wife. And yet, as much as he recalled that love, he scarcely recalled the woman, the mother of his children, all of who had scattered to the wind, like so many seeds, oblivious to the fate of the individual who’d spawned them. Lerissa was a result of one such seed, the only one that had come back around to him. And now she was gone, too. He missed her. He missed each of the individuals he had come to love and lost. And Korsten…. He missed him before losing him.
Ashwin frowned at the flower hanging before him. Adrea, why did you send him to me? I know you better than to think that you had it in mind to console me with pieces of you. He isn’t so like you anyway. And you knew me well enough to know that I am not the type of person who seeks to replace what is lost. I always seek new growth, so as not to stagnate or smother the old. How else does one survive over millennia?
Or did you think I wouldn’t after you? But you had to choose an inheritor. Is that why you chose him? Because he was so very different from you?
It feels different, Adrea. I feel different. Ashwin lifted one hand to his brow, as if he could touch and calm the ache just beginning to swell there. I’m too old to be confused like this, but there’s no one like you to provide me answers anymore. And you always had answers, love. You were constantly trying to prove to me that I’m not as wise as I think I am. Well, if it pleases you, I know now that I am not so very wise at all, but rather one of the more ignorant creatures alive in this world. How can an empath know so very little about people … and about himself as well?
And Merran … I wonder if he’ll ever forgive me? In the moment that I neutralized him, I didn’t care. I was sure afterward that I acted for his own protection, but now I’m not so certain it wasn’t jealousy. Maybe I should admit that I’ve been regretting my decision to send them on assignment together since it was made. Maybe I made that decision to prove to myself that I wasn’t jealous, even though Korsten wasn’t ready.
Ashwin lowered his hand, sighing very softly. Adrea, I don’t know. I … just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know you would have the answers, dearest. I wish I could hear them, but as Merran says, I’ve gone deaf these days. I can’t hear anyone recently. Not even myself.
“Ashwin.”
Upon hearing his name, he glanced over his shoulder at Eisleth, inviting him to speak further with that simple gesture. He didn’t really feel that he would have much of a head for discussion at the moment. There were many recent learnings to be distressed over; Korsten’s capture the worst, but not the most surprising. He and Eisleth had both been witness to the return of a soul-keeper, one belonging to a mage who had abandoned the Seminary long before either Korsten or Merran’s predecessors had even been Apprentices. They had lost mages over the centuries, for many reasons, and it seemed they would continue to lose them … at a far greater pace than they would recover them.
“We knew that Ecland left with betrayal on his mind,” Eisleth pointed out. Of course, it was no surprise that he knew the pattern of Ashwin’s thoughts by now.
“Yes, I know,” Ashwin replied. “Still, I was not expecting this; to learn now, so long after he’d gone, that he would be conspiring with the Vadryn.”
“There are some who will forever view our endeavor as a failure. They will abandon us, and seek to save themselves, in whatever ways they find preferable.”
“Preferable to what?” Ashwin shook his head, contemplating the lengths their former colleague would have had to gone through in order to preserve his longevity, the fact that he would have become no better than the Vadryn in his methods. “Preferable to what is right, to what is honorable and decent … and humane?”
“Human tendencies are what they are,” Eisleth offered. “The time and resources magehood provides does not erase them. Each of us will always be who we are.”
&nbs
p; Ashwin was not in the mood for acknowledging that. Eisleth always appeared so unaffected. He was a marvel to witness sometimes. “Do you believe that Ecland helped the demon find Renmyr Camirey?” he asked instead.
Eisleth posed a more important question. “Do you believe that the demon which found Renmyr Camirey is the same beast?”
Ashwin hesitated to answer. He knew that the demon Merran had discovered in Haddowyn was an ancient source. He knew from Merran’s reports and from what he had gleaned through Korsten. Whether or not it was the same demon who led the siege against Vassenleigh over half a century ago….
“You’ve felt its signature,” Eisleth said. And perhaps because he felt Ashwin needed to recall clearer, he lifted his hand to Ashwin’s brow, and let his Healing remove the burdensome cloud of pain forming behind it. “You’ve felt it through your student, haven’t you?”
Ashwin looked at the other man, who would always be his reflection, who would always be with him to remind him of everything, and to let him forget nothing. He supposed it had been Eisleth’s duty from the start, from the very moments of their births. Of all of his family’s faces, Eisleth’s was the only he still knew well. He wondered if it would have even been possible for the face of his twin to fade from memory, regardless of their roles at the Seminary, given that it was his own face as well. Finally, in answer to his brother’s suspicions, he said, quietly, “It is the same beast.”
“ … ain’t goin’ well, I heard.”
Korsten awoke to the sound of voices, and to twinges of pain teasing every muscle in his body. It would worsen as consciousness fully resumed, if his jailers caught onto the fact and decided they weren’t finished with their prisoner.
“No, it isn’t. If Red in there doesn’t speak, Lord Alsaide is going to get a visit from the Master. Trust me when I say none of us want that.”
“Oh, I trust ya, Vel. I heard ‘nough stories ‘bout that one.”