“What about Tian?” Elianas called out.
“Tian!” Teroux shouted.
There was no answer.
Tristan muttered, “Tian will have been taken somewhere else.”
“Why?” Teroux demanded from the dark.
“You saw him?” Elianas asked.
“I saw him,” Tristan confirmed. His tone was expressionless.
“Who?” Teighlar hollered.
“You saw who brought us here?” Teroux demanded. “Who was it, damn hell?”
Tristan was silent, perhaps debating whether to answer or not, and thus Elianas thought it through as well. Was it wise to reveal they knew who their captor was? Naming someone set him or her free, after all. Worse, where lay the wisdom in setting Teroux off?
“Tris?” Elianas called out.
“I would not speak his name here. It gifts him supremacy.
Elianas gritted his teeth. “Agreed.” They needed to avoid their gaoler becoming himself as long as possible.
Soft laughter sounded from somewhere. “I have no such compunction, however.”
“Who is that?” Teroux demanded. “Show yourself!”
“Your nemesis, young Valla, your unholy judge and executioner.” More laughter followed.
Further away Teighlar swore; he recognised the voice. “Man, this will be bad. He has no conscience.”
“Who are you?” Teroux shouted. “Who is that?”
No one answered him, not even their captor.
Silence returned to the dungeon. The darkness intensified.
Only Teroux sought to break it, but he went unanswered.
Elianas particularly realised how much danger they were in, the danger he was in.
A SHADOW ENTERED THE cell, a presence solid and menacing.
It brought with it light. Candle stubs lit at each end of the row of cells, although the prisoners could not see them to know the source of light. The resultant glow was faint, more about shadow than actual illumination, but at least the impenetrable black was banished.
The shadow had no face as it shifted past the cells.
Teighlar and Tristan did not move or speak, but Teroux screamed, “Let us out!”
He was ignored.
“Quiet, Teroux,” Tristan admonished.
Elianas moved cautiously, hearing the tell-tale sounds of approach. No sword, no weapon of any kind remained with him, but hands used properly could achieve similar harm. He was prepared to break every bone in his hands to kill this creature.
Laughter reverberated, delighted, anticipatory laughter.
Elianas cell door banged open, shuddering heavy intent through the space.
He surged forward only to be flung against the far wall. Chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and tightened. More chain enveloped his waist and moments later he was lifted off the filthy floor to hang suspended and spread-eagled.
More laughter followed, extremely self-satisfied.
“You will not have water. You will not be fed. If you want to piss, you do it where you hang. You will hang there until something changes. And you will answer every question I put to you, Danae.”
“Fuck off,” Elianas said. Already their gaoler had revealed his name, as word of power, had no influence in this space. It was his first mistake.
“We shall see how long your attitude lasts. Please, be contrary. I enjoy a challenge.”
The cell door slammed and the presence moved away.
A word of power had no impact here, he ruminated. Enlightening as that was, it was also goddamn useless information. He could not access even a grain of sorcery in this containment.
“Who are you?” Teroux shouted. “You will pay for this!”
“You should thank me for saving you from Excelsior, imbecile,” the shadow snarled. Laughter followed almost immediately. “That world went up in smoke and flame, a giant fireball. They all died, but I saved you from that fate.”
Teroux was too astonished to respond.
Laughing, their gaoler moved on.
The silence of absence arrived.
“Elianas?” Tristan called out a few moments later.
“Still here and in one piece. Did he tie you up?”
“He ignored us.” There was something fatalistic in Tristan’s tone. He understood it was not about any of them, this imprisonment, or not as much. This was about the dark man and his punishment.
“Excelsior is gone?” Teighlar muttered. “How dare he?”
Tristan sighed. “The universe believes us dead. Worlds will soon bow to Beacon’s demands.”
“What about Torrullin?” Teroux whispered.
No one answered, for no one knew what happened to Torrullin.
This incarceration was personal, Elianas mused. He would hold out, no matter what it took. That clown would not receive satisfaction from him. He hung his head forward. Already an ache grew in his arms and legs, bands of fire about his waist. He hoped the creature would limit his interrogation to questions, even torture. Not the other.
All gods hear me.
Not that.
“WHAT ARE YOU MOST afraid of?”
The question was slithering manipulation, and Elianas glared at his tormentor and did not otherwise respond. Only one man had the right to ask that of him, and it was not this creature.
He suffered a lash of a knotted whip, his abdomen hollowing away from the terrible sting, but he made no sound.
“What are you most afraid of, dark man? Answer or we shall be at this a long, long time.” The whip whistled in warning. “Answer!”
Elianas raked his tormentor with his gaze, disdain clear in his dark eyes. He said nothing.
“You require some incentive, I see.”
The whip lifted and fell repeatedly and his tunic was swiftly in tatters, his blood dripping to the cell floor.
“Once more. What are you most afraid of?” Shallow breaths, the result of exertion, accompanied the question.
Elianas spit blood. Fuck him. “Spiders.”
His tormentor laughed. “A lie, but one I can work with. Thank you for playing.” He backed out of the dim space. The door clanged shut and a key turned metallically.
Footsteps faded away.
Moments later spiders crept from every niche. Big, hairy, scary creatures that scuttled along every surface faster than the eye could track.
Teroux screamed first and the sound of beating could be heard. Tristan swore at the top of his voice and Teighlar was not far behind. Even the bravest man could not long abide spiders, particularly a host of them.
Elianas watched them come without a sound. They would get to him soon using the chains from the ceiling and walls, but he would not allow the pervert any gratification.
As swearing and stomping and shouts and slaps filled the dungeon space, he waited. Then they were on him. Hairy legs tracked over his face and tried to get into his mouth. Spikes scratched across the slices in his chest and stomach. He kept his eyes and mouth tightly closed and breathed through the assault at his nose, and inside he screamed.
He screamed revenge.
“WHAT ARE YOU MOST afraid of?”
Elianas was limp. Every nerve screeched agony as his wrists and ankles took his body weight. Blood had congealed on his chest and stomach, drying in rust streaks across the chains around his middle. He entire being cried for release and every thought was now filled with the need for water.
How long? He could no longer judge the passage of time.
“What are you most afraid of?”
Dull eyes looked up. “Snakes.”
A great peal of laughter reverberated in the small space. “Very well, have it your way.”
Moments after the presence left, snakes invaded the dungeons.
Teroux was hysterical in his fear. Tristan and Teighlar were soundless, knowing silence and lack of movement was their best defence.
Elianas did not even feel them slither over him, although he arched once convulsively when one sank fangs into his
upper arm.
“HE LEECHES ELIANAS’ energy,” Teighlar murmured. “He weakens him.”
Tristan swore and retreated to the back of his filthy cell. He understood, after the conversation on Excelsior, that depleted energy was a dangerous state for Elianas. Too much, and the dark man would succumb, and clearly their gaoler knew of the likelihood.
He could not kill Elianas directly, but he could remove him from reality for an extended period.
How many days of coercion had already passed?
Where was Torrullin in this?
Never had Elianas needed him more.
“Tris?” Teroux whispered. “Are we going to die here?”
Tristan squeezed his eyes shut.
They might all be meeting their Makers soon, yes.
Chapter 33
Fear does not define you. Allowing fear to rule, however, will shape you into something dark.
~ Arun, Druid ~
Vacuum
ON THIS OCCASION Lowen would not wait in the background when he entered the void. Although he sensed many Valleur in the vicinity searching for their Vallorin and his queen, she would not be there when he emerged, the one who understood most. He was alone in this.
Torrullin discovered he missed her presence.
It was worse this time. Grief and suffering tore through him, lost souls crying out for succour, and he swiftly lost all sense of direction. Cries of sorrow were a physical weapon in nothingness and buffeted him from one space to another without a path and a point, and he realised he was lost.
To find the way out again was to first complete the journey. He hoped to all gods completion would alleviate the suffering as well.
Energy of this magnitude holds what he is together.
He needed to concentrate. He needed to find Alhazen’s unique signature. He had employed Elianas’ energy lines - akin to magical signature - in the past to track him; he would recognise it, if only the thinnest thread became available.
Cursing the fates for the arrival of rage, the kind of cold fury that would block what happened in the surrounds, he swerved deliberately to achieve mastery of position, as relative as it was in a void.
When the cries of suffering began to fade into the background, he knew he gradually gained control; he also understood he could not maintain it long.
Elianas was the master who understood and manipulated energy; his siphoned away fast. He concentrated, and gradually sifted through the noises until he discovered a strand of silence to aid him in his quest. When he had it, he found he was in control of movement also. It would not last, and thus he applied the power of absolute will and recall to find the one signature that would end this.
It was a mere spark in sightlessness, akin to flash of light behind closed eyelids when the brain fired unexpectedly.
He swooped in.
It vanished immediately, but he had pinpointed position and followed the direction indicated without further delay or questioning.
A lifetime later and on the edge of surrender, he broke through the sightless void of suffering into brilliant light.
It was the balance to a void. Dark there and light here, and as blinding. However, the illumination gifted him renewed strength and he soldiered forward, maintaining course now on instinct alone. He could see nothing.
Another lifetime later he fell through white blindness into a sphere of blue. Blindness dissipated and the nature of the vacuum altered around him. It no longer tore at him.
This was a buoyant space.
While it was not near the concept gravity, there were particles contained within a confined space here, the kind to offer a respite from the torment of terrible emptiness.
As his sight returned, the view was akin to a planet’s atmosphere, from outside in, without the interference of solid matter.
This was the place he sought. This blueness was where he would find those captured and trapped.
He could feel Elianas. His energy was a beacon.
Elianas was at the very edge of depletion.
Seconds later he sensed the presence of Shadow Wings. His wings. By all gods. Here? How? He could smell them, hear them, knew them. These were the wings he released to seal away the danger of Digilan unleashed. Wings he wrapped around a remnant realm to tidy away the horror of confronting the dead body of his son.
Torrullin swayed in the blueness, utterly undone in a single moment. Was this Digilan in a different guise? He drew a shuddering breath, searing lungs and tissue and atom.
Did his wings of power serve to aid in the resurrection of a dead Warlock? Had his haste to be done, to escape Digilan, returned life where life was undeserving?
By all gods, if so, Elianas had already suffered the kind of torture envisioned only in nightmares.
Elsewhere
TIANOMAN PACED THE CHAMBER, glancing at Aislinn on occasion. His wife slept and he was glad for her, but could not find that kind of oblivion himself. He needed answers and none were forthcoming.
Perhaps he should think the questions. Needing Aislinn had brought her to him; perhaps questions could beget answers in the same manner.
Where am I?
He halted at the window as he asked it and a vision of a blue sphere hanging in a void was shown him. He was right. The grey watery vista had been a device to obscure sense of place.
Gods. Where was this? It felt like nowhere. A place for the lost and the damned.
Why am I here?
There was no vision this time, but a feeling of warmth stole over him, a feeling of love, a protective shield.
His expression and thoughts emptied instantly. He knew with absolute clarity who had kidnapped him and then brought him his wife as a gift.
All gods.
Dungeon
“WHAT ARE YOU MOST afraid of?”
Snakebites adorned Elianas’ legs, dripping blood and venom. New lash marks were scored into his back and arms. His clothes were ruined threads and he had surrendered to the need to piss. The smell of urine hung stale in the air.
He did not move. He could not.
A hand pulled his head up by yanking at his hair. “I asked, what are you most afraid of?” Spittle flew at him.
Lips cracked as he opened them. “Nothing.”
A slap sounded, two, three, and his head snapped back and forth.
“How long can you last, Elianas?”
“Forever.”
A feral smile sat on the messianic face leering up at him. “That is not quite true, is it? I am very aware you need die to maintain energy.”
Elianas blinked, although the movement lanced needles of agony into his skull. How could he know? “That is far away.”
Laughter followed, and a punch in the gut. “An age away, I hear, but energy depleted this swiftly might bring on the result I seek now, not so? Start answering questions, Danae, or we may be at that point soon. Dare you test me to that limit?”
Elianas swung wildly on the chains as another punch rocked him into renewed torment. New fires raged through him. He bit down literally to control it, and blood flowed from his mouth.
“I have nothing to tell you.”
“Pity.” There was a trace of frustration in that tone now.
Good.
Then he was alone. His tormentor strode away with anger clear in his tread.
Excellent.
Nothing changed this time, however.
“Elianas?” Tristan called out.
He did not have the strength to answer.
Teighlar’s murmured, “That fuck is taking it all out on him. He cannot talk, Tristan. He cannot have much left. I am amazed he has lasted this long.”
“He will pay,” Tristan ground out.
Teroux said, “We need to get out of here.”
“No shit,” Teighlar said dryly, his voice echoing along the dark passage, cell to cell.
“Elianas,” Tristan called out again. “Just hold out a little longer. He is coming, you know he is.”
The dark man hun
g from chains and prayed for that with every fibre of his being.
Then it did change.
He had said nothing, and nothing gaped and yawned at his feet. The floor dropped away and hurricane strength vacuum dragged at his feet, pulling, pulling, pulling, at him. Wind screeched through the dungeon, drowning his screams as both his arms dislocated and ligaments tore in his legs. The others called out, but he could not hear.
It went on for hours.
Utter agony. Terrible suffering.
Then blissful oblivion took him.
Chapter 34
Your blood is also your signature, and carries a greater truth than your unique fingerprint is able to.
~ Forensic Essay – Beacon ~
Dungeon
“ELIANAS!” TRISTAN CALLED out for the umpteenth time, hoping for reaction.
“He must be unconscious,” Teighlar said.
“Who is doing this?” Teroux demanded. “Enough now! Tell me or I demand it of … of …”
Clearly their captor had decided to change the nature of the game, for abruptly voice assumed form. The shadowy creature that had moved through swiftly before, intent only on tormenting the dark man further in, now possessed presence and solidity. That presence filled the dubious light that was the space beyond the bars of Teroux’s cell.
It was time to know his face.
“I am doing this.”
Teroux scuttled to his feet and rushed at the bars. “Who the fuck are …” Then he froze. “Samuel?”
“Oh, jeez,” Tristan groaned in the cell next to him.
“No, Teroux Valla, son of Tannil. I am not Samuel. I am Tymall.”
“You will die here!” Teighlar shouted.
“Fuck you, Emperor,” Tymall murmured, watching Teroux.
Teroux stared at him in the gloom. He had not seen Tymall before, but the man was the image of Samuel, surrogate father. Fear beyond that already experienced in this place slithered into his gut. He wanted to puke terror, it was that palpable.
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