Weapon of Pain (Weapon of Flesh Series Book 5)

by Chris A. Jackson

  “Okay, let me put it another way. What do you get out of this? You’re doing all the work just so she can take the guildmaster’s ring and become your master. Why do you help her?”

  “Lakshmi and I have been close associates for a very long time.”

  At least he’s listening.

  The soft whisk of steel on a whetstone reached Mya’s ear. She shivered and tried to keep her voice steady. “You’d be better off earning the good will of the Grandmaster than helping the Master Inquisitor become guildmaster. I can offer you more than she can.”

  “No, you can’t.” He peered over his shoulder at her, his face set in hard lines. “And you’re not Grandmaster.” He went back to work.

  “Do you really buy into this plan of Hoseph’s? You think you can control the next emperor with only one of his three sons, and not even the eldest?”

  “You know nothing of our plans.”

  “I know that Hoseph’s using the guild to do his dirty work for him.” Mya let that hang for a moment, but Kittal didn’t answer. “Are you so used to following orders without question that you’ll follow anyone’s orders, even if they’re not an assassin…not guild?”

  “What goes on in the upper echelons of the guild doesn’t concern me. Truly, I don’t care.”

  “Really?” Mya injected disbelief into her tone. “Wouldn’t you rather work for someone who allows you to develop your expertise as you see fit rather than just telling you exactly what to do?”

  Kittal ceased his sharpening for a second, but it was enough for Mya to know that her words had struck true. She dared to hope…

  “You don’t understand, and I’m not going to explain it to you.” Kittal turned to her, and Mya saw what he’d been working on—the skinning device, gleaming, spotless, and newly sharpened. “Now be quiet or I’ll have Berta gag you.”

  Berta moved over and started washing the dried blood from Mya’s wound. In a voice tinged with awe, she said, “The previous excision is completely gone, Master.”

  Kittal came over to look at Mya’s leg, brushing his fingers over her renewed skin. Mya suppressed a shudder.

  “Yes…and the remaining runes have migrated to fill the void. This will present a problem as we progress. Each graft will yield fewer runes as they’re thinned out. We’ll have to work much more quickly toward the end. I just hope she can withstand having such extensive surgery over a short period of time.”

  “Well, if the magic heals her so rapidly, she should—”

  “Not her!” Kittal gestured dismissively toward Mya. “I meant Lakshmi. She’s…fragile. The unguent you developed will promote growth of the grafts, but there’s trauma to consider. If we’re lucky, the runes we’ve already transferred will further enhance healing.”

  “Do you think she will survive to the end?” Berta indicated Mya with a nod.

  “We’ll make sure she does. If she dies, her skin dies. We have no way of knowing what the removal of the runes will do to her, so we’ll have to keep a close eye on her condition.”

  Mya did not like where this conversation was going, but she knew better than to voice any impotent objection. Knowledge, however unpleasant, was power, and right now, she needed anything she could get.

  Kittal turned back to the instruments and chemicals. Berta continued to scrub Mya and the table. Their eyes met for a brief moment, but the woman quickly looked away.

  After a while, Kittal opened the door, stopping halfway through. “Get plenty of rest tonight, Berta. If the graft is a success, we’ll be busy tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  The door closed, and the two of them were alone. Mya watched Berta work. Her hands were deft and not ungentle. She’d made no progress speaking to Kittal, but…

  “He treats you like a slave, doesn’t he?” Mya asked.

  Berta didn’t answer, didn’t even look at her. She hurriedly toweled Mya dry and whirled away, dimming the glow crystals and tucking away a few more items before she left the room. The lock clicked home, and her footsteps receded down the corridor.

  “Well, that didn’t work.”

  Mya lay alone in the chill gloom—bound and betrayed—with nothing but her own morbid thoughts. She closed her eyes against the welling despair, desperately clinging to her one thin shred of hope.

  They’re looking for me. Hurry, Dee… I don’t have long…

  Dee steeled himself as his carriage pulled up in front of Tawny’s Maritime Victuals. Telling Paxal about Mya’s capture wouldn’t be easy.

  If he doesn’t just kill me.

  Tossing a coin to the driver, he strode to the building. The air above the chimneys wavered with heat, and when Dee passed through the open double doors, the torrid air seemed to suck all his energy away. Breathing hurt, and his head swam for a moment.

  “Help ya, sir?” A red-faced woman hurried forward, wiping her hands on her flour-dusted apron.

  Dee supposed this was Tawny. He’d only been here a couple of times, and only at night, so he’d never met the woman. “Pardon, ma’am, but I need to speak to Paxal.”

  She tossed her head toward the rickety stairway. “Upstairs.”

  Dee started for the stairs, but stopped as a shout rang out.

  “Master Dee!” Nestor grinned at him from behind a low table piled high with biscuits. Twigs, Nails, and Gimp were there, too, packing the biscuits firmly into barrels. Digger emerged from a back room carrying a sack of flour, and little Kit looked up from where she was placing rounds of dough onto a baking sheet. They all dropped what they were doing and ran out to greet him.

  The baker’s face turned even redder. “Here now, you can’t just be runnin’ off to—”

  “Stay here,” Dee said, waving them back to their work. “I’ve just got to talk to Pax.”

  “What’s wrong, Master Dee?” Digger’s eyes searched his face anxiously.

  Dee realized that his grim expression must have given him away. “You’ll learn everything soon enough.” He climbed the stairs, fatigue and dread dragging at his legs, and rapped on the door to the loft.

  “Knock knock?” Knock opened the door, and her broad flat face broke into a tusky grin. “Knock!”

  “Hello, Knock. I need to—”

  Paxal crossed to the door, stopping short as he spied Dee’s face. “Dee? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Mya.” Dee stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “She’s been taken.”

  “Taken?” Paxal stared at him, the veins in his neck throbbing faster. “What do you mean, taken?”

  “The people opposing her took her, Pax. That’s all I know right now. She’s not dead, as far as we know, so there’s a—”

  Paxal’s gnarled old hands clenched into fists. "This is the second time you’ve come to me with bad news about Mya.”

  “And I wish it was her bringing you news they’d taken me, Pax, but I can’t change what happened. I need help if I’m going to get her back.”

  “You mean if we’re going to get her back,” the old innkeeper growled.

  “Yes, we.”

  “Knock!” The squat girl’s eyes flicked fretfully between Dee and Paxal.

  “Yes, Knock, that includes you all.” He looked back to Paxal imploringly. “I need the kids. I know they’re working, but—”

  “To hell with the work!” The fire in Paxal’s eyes rivaled the ovens downstairs. “Knock, start packin’ up!”

  “Knock!” The girl scuttled off and began gathering their sparse belongings.

  Paxal flung open the door and yelled down, “Kids, get up here!”

  “Wh— What? Get back to work, you!” Tawny’s shrill commands hurt Dee’s ears. “What are you thinkin’, old man? We contracted—”

  “We’re leaving!” Pax bellowed. “No arguments!”

  Feet pounded up the steps amid the woman’s curses. The urchins swarmed into the room.

  “What’s up?” Digger asked, his eyes wide with worry.

  Dee sighed. “Mya’s in troub
le. I need you all to start asking your friends questions.”

  “Ain’t got no friends, but there’s kids enough on the streets. Just tell us where and what to ask.” Digger pulled a pitted dagger from under his flour-dusted shirt. “And how bad you want answers.”

  “Money’ll work better’n cuttin’ ’em,” Kit said, her tiny face pinched into a sour expression. “A few coppers here and there, and street kids’ll sell you their mothers!”

  “Good.” Heaving a deep breath, Dee looked down into their expectant faces. “Here’s what I need you to do…”

  Hoseph prowled the archives beneath the temple of Demia. Over the years, he’d spent untold hours amidst these books and scrolls, reading, learning, sometimes just browsing. But over the last few weeks, he’d focused his search, looking for answers to one particular problem.

  Does my pain derive from my talisman? He peered at the small silver skull. Or perhaps from time spent in the Sphere of Shadow?

  Paging through yet another tome, he cringed at the theoretical drivel. The author obviously hadn’t ever visited any of the alternate spheres of existence. Serious scholarly work was much rarer. One didn’t travel to another sphere on a whim; some were hostile, requiring special protections just to survive.

  “Another dead end.” Disgusted, he placed the tome back on the shelf. Nowhere had he discovered any mention of symptoms such as his brought on by either sphere travel or use of a talisman. It was hopeless. He would have to endure.

  At least enduring was much easier now.

  Hoseph fished the bottle of elixir he’d stolen from Kittal from the pocket of his robe and examined it in the light. The meniscus wobbled halfway down the brown glass. He used it sparingly, but there would be many tasks ahead that would require travel through the Sphere of Shadow. He inspected the script on the label, but the characters meant nothing to him. Hoseph was a scholar of Demia, not alchemy.

  “May the Mistress of Death take them and their secrets to the afterlife!”

  He couldn’t ask Kittal for more without revealing his weakness, not to mention the theft of the first bottle, but to run out would be a catastrophe. There was only one thing to do. Sighing, Hoseph flipped out the silver skull and invoked Demia’s grace, passed through the Sphere of Shadow and on to Kittal’s secret hideaway.

  Hoseph materialized in the dark, staggered with the blinding pain, and brought the vial of elixir to his lips. One dash, a few drops, and the pain faded to only a memory. Calling forth a glow from his palm, he inspected the bottles and vials on the shelves, comparing their labels to the one in his hand. The search took time, but he had time and, more importantly, need.

  Here! Hoseph picked a similar bottle off a shelf and compared the labels. Not quite the same. He put it back and picked another. Yes…yes! A perfect match. Unfortunately, it was the only one like it remaining. If he took the last bottle, Kittal would know something had gone missing.

  Easy enough to remedy… Hoseph pulled the stopper from the full bottle and transferred half its volume to his own, then put the half-empty bottle back on the shelf. Nobody would be the wiser.

  Chapter XXII

  Mya lay utterly still on the slab. Not out of choice, but under the chemical compulsion of the Master Alchemist. With the scent of blood and antiseptic filling her head, she would have been thrashing and fighting every second, but Kittal had preempted her struggles with the application of a paralytic oil that rendered her muscles inert. She could breathe, speak, and scream, which she had done aplenty, but she couldn’t move. She stared at the ceiling and tried to ignore what Kittal and his Alchemists were doing.

  No pain… Mya felt only a tugging sensation and the warmth of blood oozing down her thigh.

  Eight strips of rune-etched skin had been taken from her so far. They now writhed and squirmed, each in their own jar of fluid. Two more jars waited.

  Dee’s looking for me…

  Though heartening at first, the mantra was becoming less comforting.

  In an effort to ignore the peculiar tugging of the peeling device, the scent of blood, and her own helplessness, Mya had been running one rescue scenario after another through her mind. As a Hunter, she knew that their chance of finding her decreased with every passing moment. The trail grew colder by the minute. Finding someone deliberately hidden was hard enough, especially in a city the size of Tsing…

  And Dee doesn’t know Tsing…The thought plunged her into despair until she forced it down with the reassurance that Embree and his people did know the city. They’d find her. After all, they’d found and rescued the two Tessifus boys, hadn’t they?

  Actually, I did most of the finding and rescuing… Despair threatened again.

  Something splashed, bringing her back to the horrific moment. Another strip of rune-etched flesh writhed in a jar of liquid. My runes…

  “One more,” Kittal said, turning back to the table, that evil peeling device in hand. “There, before the wound heals completely.”

  It hasn’t healed yet? Minor wounds like these usually healed instantly.

  A sudden twinge—a flash of both hot and cold together—snapped Mya’s attention from her musing. The pressure of the peeling device against her leg evolved into an ache that escalated to a throb and climaxed with a sharp sting.

  Pain…

  Mya had forgotten the sensation. The last physical pain she’d experienced was the prick of Vonlith’s needles as the runemage tattooed her. Their removal would undoubtedly be far more painful.

  Mya bit her lip, and the muscles of her leg twitched involuntarily.

  “She’s moving!” Kittal snapped. “More oil, or this graft will be ruined! Hurry!”

  An assistant dampened a cloth with the sweet-smelling oil and rubbed it along Mya’s leg. Her twitch died, but the sting remained. A cool hand touched her wrist.

  “Master, I think she’s in pain. Her breathing’s fast, and her heart’s racing.” Berta picked a bottle off a shelf and popped the cork, a cloth in her other hand. The scent of the doping drug leached into the air. “Shall I—”

  “No, Berta.” Kittal glanced at Mya, his eyes narrow and hard. “We’re almost done. Besides, she broke my arm and dislocated my shoulder yesterday. Payback only seems fair.”

  The oil may have paralyzed Mya’s body, but it didn’t affect her speech. “You want payback? How about I wind your intestines around a stake in a pit of hungry rats?”

  “Brave words for someone in your position.” Kittal tapped her restraints. “Brave, or foolish.”

  “I’m going to kill you for this, you know. You’re committing atrocities against your own guild, and you’ll die for it.”

  “Ignore her,” he instructed, redirecting his efforts to the device in his hands. The crank turned, and skin parted from flesh with the sound of tearing silk.

  Mya clenched her teeth as he worked. The pain intensified, luring unwelcome memories out from the dark corners of her mind. Pain induced fear, and Mya had spent a lifetime running from fear.

  And now I can’t even run.

  Mya was panting by the time Kittal finished and the immediate pain vanished. Turning her head, she stared at the ten jars, watched her severed runes glow and dance. She’d once thought that the runes made her a monster. If so, should she thank Kittal for giving her back her humanity?

  No, Dee made me feel human again. Losing her runes merely made her vulnerable.

  "Berta,” Kittal was drying his hands, “clean up here and get a bite to eat. You two, decant preservative solution into ten more jars. I want everyone back here in two hours. We’ll transplant what we have onto Lakshmi, then take more grafts.” Kittal left, followed by the two younger Alchemists.

  Ten more… Mya’s heart raced. She couldn’t take ten more…

  Berta drew two buckets of water and placed them beside Mya’s table. Rolling up her sleeves, she proceeded to wash Mya and the table both, scrubbing up the dried blood with a rough sponge and warm, soapy water. As she worked, the paralyzing oil was was
hed away.

  Mya clenched and relaxed her hands, envisioning them around Kittal’s throat.

  Berta stumbled back from her, eyes wide on Mya’s flexing hands, fear clear on her face.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Mya said.

  The woman turned away and emptied her bucket without answering.

  Mya tried a different tack. “You’re Berta, right?”

  Berta returned with a towel and began drying Mya, her lips pressed tightly together.

  Mya watched her work for a moment, efficient and thorough. The Alchemist had noticed when Mya was in pain during the procedure, recognized the symptoms, and had started to use the anesthetic before Kittal stopped her. Maybe…

  “I’m going to die here. I’d at least like to know who’s killing me.”

  The woman snapped her eyes to Mya’s, her mouth a drawn in a defiant frown. “I’m not killing you. I’m just following orders.” She went back to her work.

  “Orders…” Mya considered the woman carefully. “Kittal said that you developed the unguent you’re using on Lakshmi.”

  The woman’s eyes flicked to hers, then away.

  “You’re obviously skilled in the healing arts. What I’d like to know is why someone like you is doing this.”

  Berta stopped for a moment, then continued with renewed vigor, but it was enough to tell Mya that her comment had struck a nerve. If she could make Berta feel guilty about what was happening to her, maybe she could coerce her into helping.

  “How long…” Mya cleared her throat, unsure if she wanted an answer to this, but hoping to at least provoke sympathy. “I mean…how many more times will it take?”

  “I don’t know.” Berta looked up and down Mya’s body. “Kittal’s taken maybe a tenth of your runes, but the yield will diminish as we progress.”

  “A tenth…” Mya shivered and bit down against the sob that wanted to escape her throat. That meant at least a ninety more times Kittal’s device would cut into her, ninety more strips of skin would squiggle in the jars. And the pain, she knew, would get worse. Today she’d been able to bear it, but when the pain-blocking runes were finally all gone, and her healing runes as well…