Tugging his captive along behind him, Isiem left them to their sport.
The cellar Erevullo had spoken of was beneath the Long-Bottomed Lady, the largest of Crackspike's three ramshackle taverns. It was a cramped and dingy space, illumined by wobbly shafts of light that spilled through the tavern's floorboards. Barrels of beer and jars of white whisky crowded every available inch. A coating of sandy grit clouded the vessels, although the tavern always drank through its stock within days.
It was only on account of the liquor that the owners of the place had undertaken the trouble of digging a cellar and laying in a wooden floor. Spirits were unconscionably expensive in Crackspike, which had to import all its necessities across miles of hard road. The owners of the Long-Bottomed Lady wanted to protect their investment, and the easiest way to keep thirsty miners from stealing their beer was to sit on it.
Isiem wondered whether his work would dent their appetites. He doubted it. If anything, strix blood seemed to whet thirsts in Crackspike. And there would likely be a great deal of blood before he was done.
He wanted to begin gently, though. Confidences won through trust were worth more than secrets extracted through torture; the latter were often fragmentary and peppered with lies. Many Kuthites chose to rely on torture anyway, but Isiem valued effectiveness above piety.
The cellar had no chairs. He rolled two of the smaller barrels from their nooks, arranging them so that they faced one another across a short space. Touching the small clay talisman of a ziggurat in his pocket, Isiem murmured the words that would grant him the gift of tongues. He'd prepared the spell with the intention of questioning some of the miners whose Taldane was shaky, but it would serve as well with the strix.
"Speak to me," he said. The words had an odd, doubled echo as they left his lips. Isiem heard his own voice clearly, but just as clear were the stretched, shrill vowels and harsh plosives of the strix's tongue. He was never sure what the listener heard—but it hardly mattered, as long as he was understood. "What is your name?"
The strix gave him a hostile, unblinking stare. It did not sit on the barrel as Isiem did, but perched on top, its clawed toes grasping the wooden edge. In this light its eyes showed no iridescence; they were yellow as a hawk's. Faint striations of darker gold, converging in the center of each eye, expanded and contracted as it breathed.
"You should answer me." Isiem drew the holy symbol of Zon-Kuthon out from under his shirt and let it rest pointedly upon his chest. "Sooner or later, you must. And ‘later' will come at a cost."
"I am not afraid. Pain is nothing." The strix's voice had the same odd echo as his own: familiar human words twinned to piercing shrills and whistles only barely recognizable as speech. Its true voice seemed extraordinarily hoarse; judging from the chapped skin around the strix's lipless mouth and the sunken, bruised-looking circles around its eyes, that was a symptom of its recent hard use rather than the creature's natural tone.
It made the creature's bravado even more wearying. The strix would break. Under the ministrations of a Pangolais-trained torturer, all men broke. And all dwarves, and all orcs. A strix would be no different, however alien its appearance.
Isiem had had his fill of breaking brave rebels in Westcrown. It was tedious, the progression from braggadocio to stoicism to abject begging. Such men clung to loyalty and principle as though it were a raft that could save them. It never did, but the Nidalese wizard had long lost his taste for snapping their fingers to make them let go.
"I could show you otherwise very quickly," Isiem said, "but I will give you the chance to help yourself first. Again: what is your name?"
"Kirraak," the strix cried. Whether it was a name or a curse, the spell didn't translate it.
Isiem decided to accept it as a name. "Kirraak," he repeated, altering the sound to fit on a human tongue. "How were you captured?"
For a long time the strix did not answer. Its chest heaved with silent, desperate breaths. Then it cocked its head downward and veiled its eyes with semitransparent membranes that slid across them from the side, instead of lowering vertically like its true eyelids. "Stupidity. They left a hurt mule behind. I wanted it. Some of their dogs wanted it too. I was butchering the dead mule when the dogs came upon me from behind. They kept me from flying." The strix motioned toward one of the black wings hanging broken from its back. Up close, it smelled of dust and wild oily feathers and a rank undercurrent of infection. "I could not escape when the men came back to see what their dogs were quarreling over."
"And your companions?"
"Untie me." The strix lifted its head and held its arms out, showing him its rope-chafed wrists. The coarse hemp was spotted with blood, red as Isiem's own. "Untie me, and I will say."
Kirraak tensed as Isiem drew a small knife to cut its bonds. The muscles at the bases of its wings flexed, and it crouched slightly, gathering its strength. Isiem noted its tension but continued sawing at the rope.
He wasn't surprised when the strix attacked. He was surprised at how fast it was. Isiem was already ducking away when Kirraak snapped the last few strands between its wrists, but he barely had time to put a barrel between them before the strix seized a nearby bottle of brandy and hurled it at his head. The bottle shattered on the wall inches away, raining liquor and glass shards. One splinter nicked Isiem's chin, another his cheek.
"Krevaar!" the strix screamed. "I tell you nothing!"
Isiem didn't waste his breath on a reply. He shielded his eyes and dodged behind a second barrel. Another bottle hurtled past, clipping the side of his head, but the strix itself did not come. Glancing back, Isiem realized that the strix's wings gave him the advantage in this confined space; Kirraak flinched every time the wounded appendages struck anything, and the creature could hardly move without smacking its massive wings into a wall or keg.
It had fashioned a crude sort of knife from the remains of a broken bottle, though, and Isiem guessed that might prove more lethal than its ineptly thrown missiles. If the strix got close enough to use it.
He kicked a wine rack toward his adversary, sending bottles tumbling everywhere. Two of them slammed into Kirraak's infected wounds, eliciting an ear-splitting shriek and causing the strix to drop its improvised blade.
Isiem seized the chance. Thrusting a hand in the strix's direction, he chanted quickly, nearly tripping over the familiar words in his haste. Magic gathered in him like lightning and lanced out, surrounding the strix in a crackling black halo. Needles of dark energy stabbed into Kirraak.
The strix collapsed, keening in agony. Its makeshift knife cracked under its body, cutting into the creature's arm and chest, but it hardly seemed to notice this insult compared to the wracking pain of Isiem's spell. As the strix's shrieks gave way to whimpers, and then into insensible sobs, Isiem straightened and brushed the glass flinders from his hair.
"You should have answered my questions," he told the strix without rancor. He had not, of course, really expected that Kirraak would. The rebels in Westcrown seldom did; why would a strix be any different? This was just another step in their dance, predictable and inevitable.
Kirraak made no answer. Isiem hadn't expected one. He picked through the shattered glass and liquor pooled around the semiconscious strix, selecting several of the longest, smoothest fragments and laying them atop a nearby barrel. He was careful to arrange them where the shafts of wintry sunlight made them glint in the cellar's gloom.
When he had all the shards he needed, Isiem retied the crippled strix's arms and tossed the rope over a rafter, hoisting Kirraak up onto its clawed toes. Standing in that partly suspended position wouldn't hurt immediately, but in a few minutes it would start to ache, and in an hour or so it would become unbearable.
As an afterthought, and as a courtesy to the Long-Bottomed Lady's guests, Isiem gagged the strix with the wine-sodden remnants of a burlap sack. Then he started another, simpler incantation, and passed a pale hand over the stained rips in his robe. The torn threads knitted back together; the stain
s faded from the cloth. In moments there was no evidence of his prisoner's defiance.
The illusion of infallibility was crucial to the fear a skillful torturer inspired. Nothing his victims did could be seen to hurt him, or even interrupt his plans. Everything that happened in his domain had to serve his purpose. The strix's struggles, the shattered bottles, the wasted brandy—all of it, as far as the world would ever know, was part of Isiem's designs.
Isiem picked up a sliver of glass and drove it through the joint of the strix's infected wing. Pus and dark blood spurted out. Kirraak screamed again, weakly; its head jerked up once and fell back down, limp.
Coldly Isiem took a second sliver of glass from the barrel and held it poised, waiting for the strix's eyes to flutter open again.
Everything had its purpose.
∗ ∗ ∗
"Why did you let it fight back?" Oreseis asked.
Isiem shrugged, spooning pork-flecked oat mush from the pot the Hellknights had brought up for them. To preserve their air of inhumanity, the Nidalese did not eat where anyone might see them; instead they requisitioned food from the Hellknights and sent their waste back the same way. The subterfuge worked well enough, but he could wish the Hellknights indulged in better fare. The Chelaxians subsisted on iron rations boiled in conjured water: oat mush, barley porridge, wheat gruel dotted with shreds of dried apples or rock-hard sausage. Practical, and perhaps good for discipline, but even by the standards of a Nidalese ascetic, a Hellknight's trail dinner was a sorry meal.
Still, he'd choked down worse. Isiem thrust his spoon into the gruel and sat on the side of his bed. "I always give them the chance to fight."
Oreseis had already finished his own meal. He sat with his spellbook propped up on bent knees, making a half-hearted pretense of studying the next day's magic. "But why?"
"So I can be justified in what comes after." Seeing that the other shadowcaller did not understand, Isiem sighed and set his spoon down. "By giving my captives a choice, I give them responsibility for what follows. If they choose to answer readily, they escape pain. If they choose defiance, they suffer for it ...but they know that it was their choice."
"How virtuous," Oreseis said, smirking.
"Maybe." Isiem swallowed a mouthful of gruel, trying not to taste it. The pork, somehow soggy and tough at the same time, actually made it worse. "But it is useful. Men who feel culpable for their own suffering are conflicted. Guilty, angry, distracted. Easier to break." He took another bite, wondering if Oreseis would believe the lie.
It was easier to break a man who felt he'd brought his own woes upon himself. But not precisely for the reasons he'd given.
The true reason Isiem gave them the chance to fight was because putting the choice on the victim—putting the fault on the victim—removed it from his own conscience. Framing the torture as the consequence of the victim's decision, rather than his own, absolved the torturer of guilt. And after Westcrown, Isiem could not work without that absolution.
Oreseis closed his book and stretched his legs. "Erevullo wants one of us to help his signifers enchant their devilstongue relay." Seeing Isiem's puzzlement, he added: "It's how they intend to communicate with Citadel Enferac while the passes are snowed in. Evidently their usual methods tend to get intercepted by strix spears."
"So I've been told. What's this relay?"
The younger shadowcaller shrugged. "I didn't see the thing clearly when they were unloading it, and of course its magic is unfinished, but it appears to be a brazier of gold and iron, set with rubies and black stones. Obsidian, maybe. I couldn't see clearly. Erevullo told me that they burn the tongues of devils in its flames, and thus carry their messages through Hell back to Citadel Enferac, where other braziers exist to receive the infernal words."
"Can anyone use it, or just diabolists? Does every relay communicate with every other? How much of a delay is there between sending a message and receiving one?"
Oreseis gave him an incredulous look. "How would I know? I've never used it. I haven't even seen it in any meaningful way. But obviously we should learn more."
"Yes." Isiem considered it for a moment. "Offer to assist the Hellknights with their relay. Learn what you can. The Umbral Court will be grateful for your report."
Oreseis tilted his head slightly, studying him. "You're the better wizard."
"Making you the less obvious spy."
"And the less adept one." The younger wizard's mouth twisted into an expression that was not quite grimace and not quite smile. "Don't mistake me. I'm honored that you offer me the opportunity. But should I miss some detail that you would have caught, the Umbral Court will be displeased with us both. I cannot imagine the relay is that simple, or Erevullo would not have asked us to help with it—nor would he be so cavalier about giving us the chance to study it."
"Or he wants us to take note of Citadel Enferac's efficiency," Isiem said pointedly, "so that we understand how valuable they are as allies and how dangerous as enemies. We could second-guess his motives for hours and it wouldn't matter. What matters is that we have the opportunity to learn more about this device, and you have the skill to study it without arousing suspicion." He softened his tone slightly. "You do have the skill, you know. The Umbral Court would not have tasked you with this assignment if you were lacking."
"Why won't you do it?"
Because I don't want to go back to Nidal. Knowing a secret valuable to either the Hellknights or the Umbral Court would give them a reason to hunt him down, and Isiem intended to offer them none. But what he said was: "Because I have a strix to break."
"Ah." Oreseis nodded. "That need not delay you long. There is a quicker way. Quicker, and holier."
"Oh?"
The younger shadowcaller stood, put his spellbook away, and retrieved something else from his pack: a round object, about the size of his hand, muffled in black velvet.
He held the nightglass up, still veiled. "Send one to the shadow, and he will give us all his kin. Another nation under Zon-Kuthon."
Chapter Fourteen
Flames
That night he dreamed of Pangolais.
Once more Isiem walked among its black-leaved shadows. Birds perched in the trees: crows and ravens of enormous size, strangely motionless. Bone tables filled the great square, as they did during the Festival of Night's Return, but instead of white-spiced dumplings and radishes cut into translucent flowers, the tables held living people. Each one was partially flayed and held in place by spiked chains.
His mother was among them, and his little brother Theron, who hadn't aged a day since Isiem left Crosspine. Next to them were Ascaros, Helis, Dirakah—the living and the dead, faithful and apostate, bound together in silent suffering.
Among them walked men and women in faceless gray cowls. Isiem, too, wore a hooded robe, and he carried a flensing knife in one hand and a chain in the other. He knew, somehow, that it was his duty to finish flaying the victims and bind them more tightly to their altars—and they were altars, not mere tables; all of this was a feast laid out for Zon-Kuthon—but he cringed from doing it.
He wasn't the only one to have such qualms. Other hooded figures let their knives slip in purposeful accidents, angling their blades to cut the captives' chains from their flesh ...and the moment they did, the chains struck up at them like steely serpents, sinking barbed fangs into the would-be benefactors' arms and legs.
Screaming and kicking, the torturers were dragged off their feet. They were not pulled down to the altars, but simply held immobile, as if in offering to someone else. Their hoods fell back to show their faces, and Isiem saw that all their eyes were raw red pits. Crows' food.
The birds in the trees took flight, and the rush of their ebon wings filled the air like thunder. Isiem heard the hungry birds shrieking as they circled overhead, waiting to dive. Lifting a hand to shield his own eyes with his sleeve, he tried to take cover behind one of the altars.
A chain stopped him. It lashed around his elbow and climbed to his
wrist, crossing his palm with sharpened steel. Blood trickled from the punctures, and suddenly the living chain wrapped around Isiem's arm wasn't a chain at all, but the fleshy tongue of a Joyful Thing, lapping greedily at the blood it drew. It held him down and away, preventing him from taking shelter behind the altar.
Isiem screamed. The crows echoed his cry, mocking his pain in a hundred avian croaks and shrieks, and then they poured down in a whirlwind of black feathers. The chains struck at them, too, spearing the birds midflight and binding them alongside the Nidalese to serve as new dishes in the same savage feast. Ebon feathers filled Isiem's vision, and pain—crows' beaks or chains' barbs, he didn't know, couldn't see—stabbed his every limb.
He sat up. Sweat dappled his brow and dampened his sheets. The crows' hunger still echoed in his ears.
Isiem wiped the perspiration from his face and stood, his chest heaving. He could still hear the crows—and as the nightmare's grogginess faded, he realized that the screeches were not an echo of his dream. They were coming from outside. The hollow boom of an explosion sounded an instant later, and then the faraway thud of a body, or bodies, falling to the earth.
He went to the window, pulling the dusty drape aside. Firelight twinkled from Crackspike's solitary street—more light than could be accounted for by taverns' lanterns and miners' torches.
The town was burning.
Curtains of flame swung across the Desert Rose's windows. The Long-Bottomed Lady was an inferno. The sap-filled wood burned like firecrackers, spitting and popping loudly. Smoke flooded the street and rose from the buildings in a great black shroud, suffocating the stars.
Amid it all, people scrambled and panicked and wept, watching their friends and livelihoods devoured by the blaze. One of the Long-Bottomed Lady's owners stood alone outside his tavern, throwing buckets of sand uselessly into the fire's maw. On the other side of the street, a drunk man fought to saddle a white-eyed horse, and got his head kicked in for his trouble. He fell into the smoke, twitching, and the horse bolted into the night.
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