by Adam Watson
“Is that supposed to scare me?” The General smiled before continuing. Solus Bal himself probably wouldn’t scare you sea-hag.
“Back then, killing made me feel better in the moment, but I soon learned that it was a mistake … death didn’t always get me what I wanted … or what I needed. Death was their release, but it was my loss. I was left with nothing but a corpse.” Ingrid could almost feel heat coming of the General’s intense gaze. "And do you know what the problem with a corpse is Ingrid?" The cleric blinked but did not answer. "It won't answer your questions."
Is this fool going to kill me or is he going to stand there stating the obvious all day? In her mind, Ingrid knew all five of them were dead whether they told him what he wanted to know or not. And he will use the others to get the information out of me. He thinks I will break when I start to hear their screams. She knew that wouldn’t happen; perhaps the girls would scream and cry and beg for mercy, perhaps the girls would curse her heartless soul before they died, but no matter what, she knew she would not reveal how to find the Oracle.
If she had the chance she would have cut all their throats; her own included. At least it would be a quick death. She knew that none of them would have a quick death, they were only alive now because the General needed them to find the Oracle. How he shielded them from Tempus was a mystery, but somehow he had. She knew that if she had use of her full powers, they would not be sitting there, and the General would be dead, but she didn’t have use of her powers - any of them.
Yes, she knew how to find the Oracle, in fact, they all had the power to find her; it was actually quite simple for anyone who had performed the proper Tempurian rites. Luckily or unluckily for the girls, the exact incantation of the location spell was privileged information. The Oracle was the most valued member of the Tempurian Order, her safety was an utmost priority, and the fewer people who knew her exact whereabouts, the safer she would be. Novices were never taught the location spell. No doubt for situations like this.
Ingrid assessed the situation. No-one had given the General any useful information yet, and as long as they were all together, she was confident she could keep it that way. She had an iron will and was resolute beyond measure; she knew she was strong enough to withstand his pain and that she would sacrifice them all before she would ever let the Creed know where the Oracle was. There was too much at stake, not only would they kill the spiritual leader of her own order, they would unleash their god Solus Bal into the world and threaten the destruction of the human race. She could not and would not allow that to happen - no matter what this fool did to them.
“And what makes you think I will give you the answers you seek?” she replied. The General’s gaze intensified, he wanted to ensure she knew that he was serious about his next statement.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Oh, but I do. I can choose to tell you, or I can choose to die.” The General pointed his finger and pushed it into her cheek.
“You may have had an unbreakable will once, Witch, but just how strong are you now that you are shielded from your god? Divinity can’t help you here, and without the help of a god, you are just like every other pathetic human that ever existed … you will break.”
“We’ll see,” the old woman scoffed defiantly.
“The harlots of Tempus are well known for their mind training, and I know that you will be more resistant to torture than normal humans, but just how much can you endure?”
“I can endure until death. Does that answer your question?” The General smirked and pressed his finger in even harder before continuing.
“I also know that you will frustrate me with your resistance and cause me to lash out, killing either you or one of your little friends here.” Ingrid blinked but did not answer; the girls looked over with slight alarm in their eyes. “But I don’t want to be left in a room full of corpses that aren’t answering my questions, Ingrid.” Despite the dire situation she found herself in, Ingrid could almost appreciate the General’s dry humour - but only on the inside. “There’s too much at stake, but don’t worry, I have just the man for the task at hand.” The General’s eyes flared, seemingly to burn through the pupils of Ingrid’s eyes as he stared into them.
She couldn’t say why, but all of a sudden, a feeling of dread descended upon her. Had he truly found a way to break her? For the first time in fifty years, doubt filled her mind.
“There are worse things than death, Witch,” the General whispered. “As you are about to find out.” The serious tone of the General sent a cold chill straight through Ingrid’s frail body. Fear crept into her mind unbidden, panic reared its ugly head. She had to keep control, but there was no doubt the General meant what he said. So, this is the end of the road. This is how it will end.
Thoughts of Tempus, thoughts of her order and thoughts of those she loved flooded into her mind and with them came peace and serenity; she knew what she had to do. The rules had changed, thoughts of escape left her mind. Survival was no longer an option. This would be her final battle and her hardest. She knew she wouldn't make it out of this alive, but these demons, they didn’t want her to die. Instead, they would make her suffer, they would take her to the brink of death, only to bring her back again. They would never let her sleep, never let her rest; they would bring to her only pain.
Ingrid looked ahead, there were two male Drakhar entering the room. She could feel her heart beating faster as they approached; sweat beaded on her forehead. One of them was young and would be considered very attractive in the eyes of the Drakhar. He had a menacing smile on his face and a look of malice in his eyes; eyes that glowed with a blooded hue and shone with anticipation, but he wasn’t the one that caused the fear inside of her.
Ingrid already knew that this young Drakhar was weak and could not break her. She knew that he was a fool to come here and that if he tried to dominate her; she would melt his mind. He was a boy who thought he was strong, but she would show him just how weak he really was.
No, she would have nothing to fear from that one, but it was the other one that filled her with dread. It was the other one that made her want to flee, to run and scream into the night.
He had entered the room with a purpose, his demeanour was cold and hard. He didn't look like a normal Drakhar; he was a maggoty husk, a mutation. His horns were twisted and melted, his face was gashed. One cheek had been gouged and burnt, and his eyes didn't glow crimson red like other Drakhar. Instead, they were dead, and as black as the night.
"Ingrid, allow me to introduce to you, the only sentient ‘twisted’ alive in the world today.” The old woman looked on with horror. “Once an age, the Curse of Wotan fails to destroy its host completely. The handful of Drakhar who can survive the torment with their mind intact, in some ways, become more powerful - such is the case with Volantis. The curse has plagued his body with a great malady, but his mind and mental prowess surpass that of any other Drakhar in history, and now it will be his task to get me want I need.”
Ingrid was in shock, just looking at Volantis made her want to scream and shut her eyes tight. It wasn’t the fact that he was deformed and vile, there was something unnatural, something dark; he had the kind of power that sent fear straight into hearts of mortal men and women.
Ingrid tried to calm her mind, and again she thought of Tempus, the Tempurian Order and of those she loved the most. The thoughts brought with them a peace and a clarity that drove the darkness away from her mind.
This was it, her final test had begun. She knew that there were only two choices left: to die telling them everything they wanted to know or to die giving them nothing, and even though the Drakhar wanted to keep her alive and make her suffer - she was determined to not to let that happen.
In her lifetime, she had undergone the most intense mind training the Tempurian Order could offer. She had overcome every obstacle in her way, she had overcome everyone who had challenged her; she was strong, her father had made her that way. She would give them noth
ing - except for a corpse that wouldn’t answer their questions.
“Good evening my dear,” rasped the malformed husk. “My name is Volantis … it’s such a pleasure to meet you.” She could see crooked, haphazard and rotting teeth as he smiled at her - it made her want to repel backwards and runaway. “Look into my eyes dear, and tell me what you see.”
Ingrid looked into the dark pools of despair. She saw only death and emptiness, a void where the soul had been ripped from the body; a pain, a torment, and looking into that place she had a realisation. She began to scream, louder than she had ever screamed before; louder than she had screamed in fifty years. It was an unnatural noise that came from her mouth, but it was her voice, and it filled her with dread.
***
General Vuko Vlad examined the scene before him. There were now four corpses in the room with him; three of them still bound to their chairs. It saddened him, but at the same time it made him happy. A thin, black line slowly formed across his face, and his eyes smouldered their infernal gaze. Yes, the apprentice was gone, but who cared about that when he had the keys to Solus Bal in his hands?
He looked down at the body of Volantis's young apprentice, who now lay limp and sprawled out across the floor. His name was Darrius, and he had been a ruggedly handsome ladies’ man once. Now he was dead, a corpse on the floor, and it had been his arrogance that led him there.
His dark-grey skin was now a ghostly white, and a thick black coagulation ran from his mouth. The light in his eyes had died at the exact moment that he did; now they were as dark and lifeless as his master's. Vuko didn’t care about this Drakhar’s lifeless body. The death of this handsome, young fool was well deserved - although now the word handsome no longer applied.
He could feel the eyes of the two younglings watching him as he examined the scene; he could smell their fear. They aren’t so stoic now, are they? He couldn’t blame them though, not after what they had witnessed, but in a way, they were the lucky ones. They still lived and had come out of this ordeal relatively unscathed - the same could not be said for their companions.
The other youngling had multiple stab wounds, and her throat was slit. One more dead human was hardly a great loss to the General, even one this young, but it was such a waste. The human race has brought this upon itself, he thought. If they had just kept to themselves and been content with what they had it would never have come to this.
Humans never seemed to be happy with what they had and always sought more. He believed this greed drove them to ever expand. He believed the new gods brought this greed to the world.
The new gods ... the so called ‘Gods of Light’. Seeking to purge the world of darkness, they turned this expansive greed into a holy war and an annihilation of the dark races. Vuko slowly nodded to himself, if it were a holy war they wanted, he would give them a holy war to end all wars - literally. He had given up hope of a peaceful co-existence a long time ago. They would only turn on us again. In his mind, only one thing would end the scourge permanently - total and complete genocide.
Vuko now moved his eyes to the old hag. Ingrid. There was more sorrow in his heart for this one than he had for most of his own men. For such a frail and physically weak person, she had shown remarkable mental strength and unrelenting willpower. In fact, her determination was so great she died giving them no useful information at all; which in itself was a tremendous feat considering the raw arcane power that Volantis possessed. He should have been able to prevent that with ease, but he could not. Even in death, she has won her battle. That was something he could respect.
He stepped forward to examine her more closely. There was something extraordinary about this particular Tempurian Witch. Her eyes were open but glazed with death. The same thick, black coagulation that filled the apprentice's mouth filled hers too. Where had it come from? And what was it? It wasn't blood, but he was certain it should have been. It came from the ether and killed them both. How was it possible when she was cut off from Tempus? Something wasn’t right.
He reached down to examine her face, it was as dry and wrinkled as a sun-kissed prune. He briefly wondered what she would have looked like when she was young. Beautiful perhaps? It was hard to believe that she could have ever been beautiful, but she must have been young once, either way, human beauty never interested Vuko, and it didn't matter anyway - it wasn’t her looks that impressed him so.
“Ingrid,” he whispered half to himself and half to the corpse. “You died a true warrior.” He wondered if she would have found that a compliment or would she just have sneered at him in contempt. “You fought bravely right to the end, fighting powers far greater than your own. You revealed to us nothing, nothing but our own weaknesses. Our arrogance caused us to underestimate your will. You have bested us old woman and died with great honour, but your friends have betrayed you and revealed to us everything. You deserve better than this.”
“My Lord,” interrupted Volantis. “This one would make a good ally.” The General turned to the pale white husk of a Drakhar and already knew where this conversation was heading.
“This one killed your apprentice Volantis, why would you want to conserve her?” The interrogator looked over to the dead apprentice sprawled out upon the floor; if Volantis hadn’t been afflicted by the ‘Curse of Wotan’ his eyes would have lit up the room. Instead, only the cold, hard gaze of death greeted the dead Drakhar’s body.
“I never liked him anyway,” he rasped, and the General smiled. It was just like Volantis to say something like that, he had opposed the idea of an apprentice from the beginning.
No-one could blame Volantis for the death of his apprentice when it was clear that the old woman had killed him, but had Volantis known this would be the outcome when he let the apprentice interrogate first? Vuko suspected the answer was yes - not that he cared. Volantis’s methods may have ended with the death of his apprentice and some of the prisoners during the interrogation, but he had extracted the answers that Vuko had needed – that was all that really mattered.
"I’m planning on making a trip to the Shadowlands anyway, preserve her body and prepare it for travel … and make sure it lasts Volantis. Her body can't afford to decay anymore; it is frail enough as it is."
"It will be done, My Lord." Volantis bowed so low that he almost touched the floor.
"And prepare yourself too, for you will be coming with us." Volantis sighed, he hated travel. If the General himself was going to visit the Dark Queen then something big was going to happen, and he had a good idea of what that something might be - war.
War was bad news for Volantis, war would mean the General would start asking more of him. It would mean that he would be pulled away from his studies and be forced to do more personal things for the General. It would mean more interrogations, more questionings, more tortures and more suffering. Volantis looked up toward the ceiling, there was human blood splattered on it. Well, maybe it's not all bad, he thought.
Vuko Vlad moved onto the fourth and final corpse, Sarna; as serene in death, as she was in life - there was not a mark on her. The great betrayer. Her death was still a mystery. Is it really possible to die of shame? Before today he would have doubted such a concept, but what other cause could there be?
He thought back to the events that had led up to this scene. On the first day, Volantis had talked to all five of the prisoners. First Ingrid, then Sarna and then the three younglings in turn. He didn’t question them directly, only talking about everyday things to begin with; like whether or not they were comfortable and how they were feeling, that sort of thing. The witches were pleasant enough, but at the same time, there was a repulsion in them, and a fear - an unnatural fear.
Then there was the fight between Volantis and his apprentice, Darrius. The young apprentice claimed that his master was holding him back from his true potential by not allowing him access into the minds of the veterans. Volantis had yelled loudly and with great emphasis that Darrius was not ready for an undertaking of such strong minds. Da
rrius pushed his master to the ground. “She’s just an old woman,” he had spat with an arrogance that only the young and inexperienced could possess - an arrogance that ultimately led the apprentice to his death.
He had stood in front of the old woman, his hands reaching out before him as he entered a trance that would allow him to take control of her mind. At first, it seemed as though it was working, the woman convulsed and shuddered as if resisting. Darrius had a huge smile on his face like it was an easier task than he could possibly have imagined, but Darrius was a fool.
He began to laugh, it was a snickering at first, followed by small bouts of giggling. Soon the giggling turned into laughter, the laughter got louder and louder and louder until he began to scream.
He had cackled like a madman, as his mind began to melt. He had scratched at his face as if things were crawling beneath his skin. He had thrashed about, crying out for it to stop and that was when the blackness began to flow out from his mouth.
He screamed more and more, but now the screams had changed from screams of madness to screams of pain. In the end, he had begged for death like a true coward screaming 'KILL ME!'
Vuko had rarely witnessed such weakness in his realm. The blatant pleading, the submission – it was so quick, so overwhelming, watching it unravel had come to him like a slap across the face. Vuko knew that he would endure a thousand deaths before he found himself begging for his life. The ease with which she had done it shook him to the core, and he was not a man to be shaken easily.
Even as Darrius had thrashed and convulsed on the ground in excruciating pain, bleeding from the eyes and begging for mercy, Ingrid had watched on solemnly; a look of victory in her eyes.
Vuko wasn’t sure what had shocked him more - the fact that she had destroyed the apprentice so easily, overloading his mind and bringing him into meltdown or the smug, self-satisfied look of victory in her eyes. She had no fear, it was like she knew from the start that it was always going to end that way. Vuko realised that he had underestimated the old witch, and it disturbed him greatly.