by Curtis, Greg
For the moment though he had only one new prisoner who needed to be locked away. All the others had either died or been brought to heel by him. This one though had been neither. For some reason his magic had no effect on Varrious.
“How can you resist me?”
Terellion was curious as he kept pushing his will against Varrious' and finding only a solid wall through which his will could not break. But he was more than just curious – he was angry. The man was in some way completely resistant to his magic, and that could not be borne. No one should be able to resist him! Least of all this foul traitor.
“My master prepared me for you.”
The miserable thrall laughed at him. Though why he was laughing Terellion didn't know. Not when he was chained and guarded. Not when they were in the dungeon and there was torture equipment all around. He should know better.
“Somehow I doubt that. He might have prepared you for White Tail – but not me. After all, if he had known about me, five hundred of your fellow thralls wouldn't even now be completely under my spell.”
And they were. It had been a long and tiring day since the discovery of the betrayal, but he had taken away the demon king's thralls and his army already. At least all of them that had been in the city. And the rest would follow. Of course it had been a crude thing. He hadn't had the time to think about subtlety or trying to keep others from finding out what he could do. He had just broken them all, and now their loyalty was his.
“They were only vassals. Thralls of no matter.” The demon king's first thrall stared at his fingers suddenly, as if the dirt under the nails was somehow more important than him. It was a calculated insult.
“And you?”
“The same.”
Did he really just say that? Terellion wondered for a moment if he'd heard him correctly. And then he thought the man might be trying to fool him. To present himself as being less important and therefore less knowledgeable than he was in the hope that the torture would be shorter. That Terellion would kill him more quickly. But he wouldn't. Even if Varrious knew nothing at all, his torture would continue through to the end. The man should have known better. If he knew anything at all about Terellion as he should, he should have known that he had no mercy. Mercy was for the weak. The man had no hope. Chaining him up in his own dungeon under the temple should have been Varrious' first clue that he was doomed. He had no allies. No fellow thralls to help him. No one to run to. He had no safety. The second should have been that his current guards had not long before been his own guards. Terellion had made them his servants.
“Your loyalty to your master I suppose is commendable. But I will break you. You know that. If you won't simply give yourself to me, I'll do it the traditional way. Maybe it'll be more fun.” Terellion smiled at him as he said it, and was rewarded with at least a little fear. But only a little. Not nearly enough.
“Loyalty!” Varrious spat in the floor in disgust. “You think I have any loyalty to Xin? That any of us do? How stupid are you?”
“We obey because we have no choice. Xin owns us. We know only what he wants us to know. We do only what he tells us to do. So all of this –” he gestured around the room “– is completely useless. Like your manhood!”
Terellion's anger suddenly raged out of control when the man threw in that last barb. He shouldn't have said it. It was one thing to laugh secretly at him behind his back. But to openly mock him? That was something else entirely.
“Chain him up!”
Instantly the guards connected his manacled hands up to the chains, and then started winching him into the air. The thralls' dungeon was well equipped for an interrogation. And as they did so they finally got a reaction from Varrious. He started cursing them – for their stupidity of all things. He started struggling too, fighting against the restraints, but soon gave up. They were far too strong and he was far too weak. Soon he even stopped cursing his former guards. It was at about the same time his feet started hanging in the air, six inches above the stone floor. The pain of the iron manacles digging into his wrists was probably already bad, and it would grow far worse in time.
“Still feeling so confidant? So brave?” Terellion mocked him.
“What? And you think this is my first time in a dungeon? My first time being tortured?”
Varrious could be just as mocking. Even hanging in chains waiting to be tortured. It seemed odd to Terellion. If the man had been imprisoned and tortured before, why was he still alive? Terellion certainly had no plans of letting him live. Only of making him scream until the end.
“All right then. Since I can't tell you what you want to know, I'll tell you what you never wanted to hear:”
“We are like you. Fools who made a deal with Xin. Dark deals. I know your stupid sages say we do it for power or some such nonsense. But we don't. No one's that stupid. No one except you that is.”
“Usually it's desperation. It was for me. I was in a dungeon much like this one. Being tortured for theft. Soon to be dead. And so I made the deal. I learned the incantations and the blood runes from the others. I took his mark on me. I gave the demon king my soul and he granted me my freedom. Or so I thought. I gained freedom from my prison but with it a new master.”
“That was fifteen years ago. Since then never has a day gone by since then that I haven't felt Xin's commands laid on me. Never has a day gone by where I haven't obeyed them – no matter how terrible. I have no choice. To disobey is to suffer torment far worse than anything you can do to me.”
“It's pathetic really. I took his mark to escape torture and death. And every day since then I've suffered far worse from the one who “saved” me. But you'll discover that for yourself soon enough.”
“He'll discover it first! I closed the gate. And as for his mark?” Terellion raised his hand to show the blackened skin where it had been. He had had it burnt off, as had every wizard in the city. As would each and every wizard when they arrived in Lion's Crest. “Erased forever.”
“And you think it's that easy?” Varrious spat at him. “You'll find out. I'd guess you've warded yourselves as well. But no ward will protect you forever. Not from Xin. And your treachery has angered him. Make no mistake. For a demon there is no greater crime than breaking a deal. He will hunt you down as no other. And you will spend your last in Tartarus.”
“My treachery?!” That angered Terellion. Even more than everything else. In fact it set his blood boiling. “He betrayed us! He gave us nothing but lies!”
If he hadn't been yelling before he was then. Yelling so loud that it hurt and that the spittle fairly flew out of his mouth. There was simply no other way to express the rage he felt for the demon king for his deception.
“He gave you exactly what you asked for. To the last letter. You wanted the six great answers and you got them. It's not his fault that you were too stupid to realise they were never meant for mortals. That is your failure! You were blinded by your arrogance and your hunger for what you could never have. Your foul perversions. And you truly imagined you could make a deal with the king of demons and not have to pay the price? Pathetic! The village idiot would know better!”
“I do know better!” Terellion thundered at him. “My armies are coming home. My soldiers will defend me. My wizards too. And if any of Xin's people get in the way they will be slaughtered! If he leaves them alone on the other hand, they will leave his people alone. Think you can tell your master that?”
“With the gate shut and no altars nearby, I can tell him nothing. But it won't matter. There is absolutely nothing you can do any more that will matter to Xin. You've broken your deal with him. He will make no other with you. Not even one of a cease fire. Xin will do as Xin will do. And no one in this realm or Tartarus will stop him.”
“If Xin commands it our armies and his thralls will attack. All of us. There will be no quarter given. And he will not care that the last of the Circle will die. He will survive your deaths – he is too strong to be killed by the binding – and you are ne
ver to be trusted. Never to be listened to.”
Varrious sounded calm, almost resigned to his fate. Even though what he was saying was madness. If nothing else the demon king would want to act to preserve his thralls and his armies. They were the source of his food. And Xin was always and ever about food. Still, Terellion thought, he would warn his wizards to be wary. Just in case the demon king was truly crazed.
“Your wards will fail, sooner or later. And when they do he will have you and you will suffer a worse fate than anything you can imagine. Worse than anything even you have done. And there is nothing I can tell you that will save you. Nothing that can protect you from him. Nothing that can even bring you mercy from his wrath. You are doomed.”
“You first!” Terellion screamed at him. He had heard enough. He was in no mood for any more of the prisoner's bluster and bile. Especially when he was speaking gibberish. More so if he wasn't. Because if he wasn't then there was absolutely nothing that the man could do for him. “Guards, start with the feet! The burning pokers I think. I want to hear screaming! I want to hear his screaming all the way back in my castle!”
“And Varrious.” He stared directly into the man's eyes while the guards dropped the brands into the braziers to heat them up. “You have no idea at all how imaginative I can be!”
Chapter Forty Four
The thunder was roaring softly in the distance, and the sound of the rain outside mostly drowned it out. Every now and then there was a flash of light through the window as lightning struck somewhere far away. But Harl was warm and dry in his home, safe in his bed. Comfortable too. When Nyma had arrived early that morning he had swiftly decided that the rest of the day would be better spent in bed with her. It was a decision he had come to many times before and one he had never had cause to regret. He didn't regret it this time either. Not even when he knew that in the morning she would be off somewhere else on her travels while he would have to work twice as hard for twice as long to catch up on the work he'd forgone today.
“You know you could stay longer.” He murmured it into her ear, before he kissed it and made her smile.
“And then neither of us would do our duty.”
She was right, even if he wished she wasn't. They both had duties to carry out. But while she was right, she wasn't exactly objecting to the idea Harl noticed.
“Surely the war can carry on without us for a few days? Your sister seems to have everything in hand. And Dina will protect her. Besides, you're supposed to be protecting me.”
“From your bed?”
“I can't think of a better place! And you can guard me night and day!”
“I'm not sure that I have the stamina.” She giggled into his chest.
But she did, he knew that. And soon he thought, he would again too. He was tired, but never that tired. And for some reason he felt like a youth with her, filled with the vitality and joy only they knew. Still, maybe not just yet. So he settled for kissing some more of her and letting his eyes close over a little. He needed to recover a little strength.
“And where are you off to this time?” He asked but he wasn't actually so curious about where she was going as he was about when she'd be back.
“Glass River, then Vardania. But I'll ride fast.”
He gathered that she understood exactly what his concerns were. Probably because he'd complained like an old woman when she'd headed back to Inel Ison before. Even though she'd ridden like the wind and taken all the back roads she'd been gone a month. That was far too long in his opinion. And he wasn't looking forward to the next time she made that journey. But it was her duty and he knew he could not interfere with it. She would not allow that. Better to talk of other things.
“So your family are vintners?”
He had been surprised by that though he didn't quite know why. Maybe it was because it seemed like such a peaceful background for her to come from. Somehow he just couldn't imagine her treading the grapes or harvesting the vines.
“They make the best honeyed wine in Ilendigo. You'd like it. It tastes of summer.”
“Maybe.” He doubted it though. He wasn't really a great lover of wine. His tastes ran far more to the ales and meads. And Vittus made a really good malted ale that was so thick and foamy it was almost like eating a meal. Then in winter when the snow was heavy, he brewed a concoction he called ice ale that was so potent a single drink could lay a man low. Harl had enjoyed a few drinks of the deadly concoction – and regretted it the following day. Each time.
“Your father was a mason?”
Harl was a little surprised that she asked – she didn't generally pry into that part of his life. But he was more surprised that it didn't hurt the way he would have expected it to. He didn't like to speak of his family. He didn't like to remember them. Because whenever he did, all he could remember was that dark day in Lion's Crest. They day they had all perished. The day he had lost them. But something had changed, and for the first time in five long years he found the words within him, wanting to come forth.
“Eliron of Granite, master mason. There was nothing he couldn't build out of stone. Any stone. He loved it. He loved my mother Sueris too. When he met her he promised her a house and he built it for her as a wedding present. I was the first born and when it was discovered that I had magic they were overjoyed. And they had a daughter after me, Sirena, and she had a gift of her own – a wonderful gift – a voice of pure song. She could charm the birds from the trees when she sang.”
Nyma probably thought that he was exaggerating, but he wasn't. Many times he had seen his sister sitting outside singing while the nearby sparrows and finches hopped around on the grass beside her. It was a good memory. As was the one of her naming day, something he could barely recall since he'd been only a child at the time. But just then he remembered it once more. His parents stepping forward proudly before the priestess of Hera and their friends and naming their daughter Sirena on the day she turned one year old. That had been also been good day. It had been a long time since he'd been able to enjoy any good memories of those days.
“You'd have liked them I think. They were good people. Hard working, honest and generous with a smile.” It was true. But it was probably true of most families. True of most of those who had died in Lion's Crest. And in the rest of the five kingdoms.
“I'm sure. And I'm sure you'll like mine. As long as you don't try to kill any more of them!”
She giggled into his chest once more and he had to admit it was a little amusing. But he did have to wonder if she wasn't saying something else. Something about meeting her family. Was it time to do that? He didn't know. He didn't know that much of dryad customs. But he knew he cared for her, a lot. And maybe it was more than that. It had been so long since he had known a woman that he wasn't sure. It could all simply be him imagining that this was more than it was. He really didn't know what this was. He only knew that he liked it. And that he wanted it to continue.
“And what do they know of me?” He knew they did know of him. When Nyma had returned home she had visited with her family and he gathered he would have been discussed. Dryads were never private about such things.
“Enough. They know what they need to.”
“They're not … disappointed?” That worried him.
“Why would they be disappointed? I'm not.”
Harl was glad when he heard her say that, but still he worried. He knew he wasn't the ideal husband for a woman. He wasn't the young man he had once been. He was no longer filled with a future and a happy heart. He might never be that carefree young man again.
A sudden roar from outside stopped him from making a fool of himself by asking something foolish, and he was grateful for it.
“That thunder sounded close.”
“It's not thunder. That's the griffins. They've been staying nearby lately.” He knew their roar quite well these days. He just wasn't quite sure why they were staying so close to him. After he'd crafted the bow he'd thought they would leave. And they had for a t
ime. But then after the fury had attacked him they'd returned. Maybe that was something he should have mentioned.
“You have griffins nearby?” Nyma stared at him intently.
“Just a few.” Then Harl thought for a bit, and wondered if he should tell her the rest. Or if he should wait until she found out for herself and got upset. “And a unicorn.”