by Andy Remic
“Yeah. I bet you will.”
Here, the cells were different. They weren’t so much cells, as had been witnessed on the lower three floors, than large, open rooms with a variety of chains and leather straps and buckles and wooden racks and devices. The first three rooms held terrible instruments of torture. Chairs with spikes, racks with spikes, and nails, and rusted blades, instruments to stretch a man, ripping his arms and legs free of their bloodied sockets, benches with nozzles for poisons and acids to direct into eyes and ears and anus; chairs to impale a woman through the quim with a curved cutting blade on a pendulum; all manners of torture were catered for. All the evil imaginings of a horde of insane pain-seekers and scream-merchants.
Kiki analysed it all with a low-level disgust, a snarl on her lips, a dangerous glint in her eye. “I don’t even dare to dream about the shit that’s gone on here, Dek. I don’t dare to dream.”
“There’s a nobility with a blade. Even in death. But this… this is sick. It reminds me of Zastarte.”
“Yeah, well, there’s a cunt who’s going to burn in the Chaos Halls, if we’re honest about it. Come on. Let’s get this prick tease finished, then get the fuck out of here. I feel sick to the core of my being.” She gave a narrow little smile. “Sick to the core of my cancerous heart.”
They moved down the rooms, each filled with a history of ancient depravity. It was halfway down the row of seventy cells that they stopped. From inside the next cell came the sound of rustling. And the sound of weeping.
Dek and Kiki shared a momentary glance.
“A woman?” mouthed Dek.
Kiki gave a quick shake of her head. “No. Something else.”
They came to the door. The chamber was in darkness. But streams of light came in, diagonally, from a shattered roof. Hardly enough to see by. But enough to see the prisoner. He, or she, or it, was staked out on a thick-beamed machine of black wood, tensioned iron bands like folded layers, and stone-block feet. The figure was strapped down with tight, thick leather straps, and brass buckles gleamed. Here, there was no rust, no decay, no entropy. Trays had been placed under the rack to catch the blood. A small brazier burned in the corner of the room, providing another source of dancing shadows.
With swords aloft, eyes scanning, Dek and Kiki entered the chamber, fully alert. They cleared the room like professionals, ignoring the obvious, focusing instead on the subliminal, until they were sure they were alone. Then Dek half guarded the portal, half stared in disbelief upon the figure strapped to the rack as Kiki moved forward, slowly, carefully, eyes wide, mouth open, and stopped abruptly before the mewling, weeping, tortured thing.
“You’re an elf rat,” she said, gently, words little more than an exhalation of disbelief. It was not a question, but a statement of fact.
It was naked, as far as anything which had skin reminiscent of bark and moss and grass could ever appear naked. It was tall, much taller than a human – over seven feet in height, with narrow bony limbs that hinted at being branches, covered in skin that hinted at being the corrugated bark of an ancient oak. The head was over-large for the body, with bright yellow eyes too large for the oval face, and hairless except for patches of beard, grey-green and tufted. Long fingers were like talons, with black fingernails sharp as razors at the end of every finger. The creature was twisted, irrelevant to the torture-rack on which it was broken, legs and arms of differing lengths, spine jutting out near the centre, its trunk twisted a little and not quite straight with the pelvis. The yellow eyes fixed on Kiki, and there was pleading in their depths, and a tongue the colour of heartwood slipped out and moistened lips that were black and rough and hard.
“You poor, poor thing,” said Kiki, stepping in close.
“Wait!” snapped Dek, in a strangled tone. He rushed over. “It’s a fucking elf rat.”
“I can see.” Kiki’s voice was stone.
“They’re poisoned,” said Dek.
“So we are led to believe in twisted children’s fantasy tales. How do you know? How do you really fucking know, Dek? This creature has been held here by Yoon. The bastard’s been torturing it for information; that much is obvious. So? The torturer wasn’t frightened of becoming infected – correct?”
“Go slow, Kiki. It’s not always what it seems.” Dek’s words were ominous. Kiki gave a swift nod.
She positioned herself. “You can hear me?”
Hands lifted, stopped by the leather straps. The head nodded, turned, eyes fixed on her eyes and they seemed… old. Ancient. Older than Time.
“It’s… it’s okay, we’re going to cut you down. This shit will stop for you, can you understand me?”
Again, the creature nodded, and Kiki realised she was scrunching up her nose at the stench. It was shit, but mixed with rotting old leaves, the aroma of the compost pile. The stink of dead things left too long without burial.
Kiki stepped forward, drawing her knife, and sawed slowly through the leather bonds around the creature’s ankles. The leather came away wet, with blood, or sweat, she did not know. The long, angular legs kicked for a moment, freed, then were still. Kiki busied herself with the wrist restraints, and finally a thick band of leather around the creature’s neck. She had to get in close for that. She could smell its breath: intimate, like rotten old earth freshly dug up. And see the teeth. White and grey, curved slightly, like thorns. She took care with the neck leather, no need to cut the creature’s throat with her hurried razor strokes. When it was free, she stood back, and it did not move, although its large yellow eyes followed her.
“You can get down. You are released,” said Kiki.
For a long time the elf rat did not move, and then it toppled from the rack and squatted on hands and knees, coughing up vomit, sharp claws raking the iron floor of the cell. Then, gradually, its head lifted and it fixed on Kiki, and then Dek, as if memorising their faces: imprinting them to an eternal root memory buried deep in soil and rock and Time.
“I thought nobody would ever come,” it said, and its voice was gentle, like the whispering of trees in a strong breeze: leaves brushing against one another, sibilant and gentle and mesmeric.
“It was a coincidence, believe me,” said Kiki.
“Nothing in this life is coincidence; all roots lead to the heartwood.” The creature gave a grim smile. “You are of Vagandrak?” It was flexing its long fingers, looking down at its black claws, and Kiki knew enough about body language to take several steps back, sword lifting a little, involuntarily, so she had a defence of solid iron between them.
The elf rat smiled, as if sensing her sudden change of mood.
“As you say,” snapped Dek, stepping in. “What we need to know, is if you’re friend or foe. Shall I cut your fucking head free right now, or let you live? You were imprisoned here, and we’ve freed you, whatever fucking race you are.” He spat on the ground. “I reckon that means you owe us.”
The elf rat considered this and rose to its feet, weirdly, smoothly, jacking itself up as if the muscles were hydraulic. It towered over Kiki and Dek, and looked down at them, still flexing long black talons.
“I apologise. One forgets one’s manners when strapped to a torture implement and forced to endure…” it calculated, “more than a whole year of indignity and torture.” It forced a smile to its bark face, which looked wrong, and bared its thorn-like teeth. “I am Sameska. As you say. An elf rat. A part of your legends, I do believe. A part of your dark mythology.”
“Yoon imprisoned you?” said Kiki.
The elf rat tilted its head slightly, and gave a long, slow, lazy blink. “I do not know this Yoon. My bane has been the white-haired demons. The fucking krazanz.” It spat, and rolled its head lazily, as if releasing tension from strung-out, tensioned neck muscles. Then it gave a little moan, and dropped to its knees, and collapsed on its chest, and lay there, whimpering.
Kiki rushed forward. Dek was more restrained.
Kiki knelt, touched the elf rat. “You are injured?”
“I am
less than whole,” the creature managed, simpering. “They have done their worst to me. Burned me, cut me, sent energies pulsing through my heartwood. They seek answers, but I do not have the questions.”
“Can you walk?”
“No.”
There came a subtle feeling, then, to Kiki. A trembling. As Shamathe, she understood the energies involved. The balance of earth and soil and fire and water. “Help me,” she said, glancing up at Dek, and together they stooped and lifted the wounded, degraded, tortured elf rat. It whimpered. He whimpered. Legs scrabbled, and they half-carried the feeble creature onto the crumbling iron walkway – away from the torture cell.
“How did you get here?” said Dek, lowering his shoulder.
“I was a scout,” said Sameska. “For my people, in Zalazar, beyond the White Lion Mountains. I was watching the army. But I didn’t realise they had their experts watching me. They crept around me. Hunted me. Captured me. And then it became… a whirlwind. And then an eternity.” The creature stumbled into silence.
Kiki and Dek spent the best part of ten minutes escorting the wounded, tortured creature down the rickety iron steps, shaking and trembling, whining sometimes in a voice that was half skittering, wind-blown leaves, half creak of thick timbers. It was a truly bizarre experience, and several times their eyes met behind the tortured beast, which towered over them by a good head, and yet seemed to weigh so little, like chopped kindling.
Finally, as they descended the final steps, they heard raised voices, and as they reached the stone floor they found Narnok, Trista and Zastarte arguing over the cringing figure of Yoon near the portal by which they’d entered. Yoon had yet more marks on his face, and a bloody lip, and it was immediately apparent Narnok had not forgiven him for the earlier strangulation whilst in the midst of battle. Zastarte looked calm and cool as ever, with only the fact that his white ruffs were stained with dirt a sign he’d been removed from his natural existence of parties, wine, drugs and easy-to-seduce women. Trista, on the other hand, had a hard look in her eye and a hand on the hilt of her narrow sword. She looked like a woman not about to take any shit, even from a huge axeman like Narnok.
As Kiki and Dek approached with the limping creature, Sameska, draped heavily across both their shoulders, the others looked up and their words froze in the air like so much dragon smoke. As they got closer, so Yoon’s arm raised, finger pointing a long, painted, cracked digit at the creature. “No!” he wailed. “Noooo, you cannot set it free, it will poison us all!”
At the same time, Sameska focused on Yoon’s face through his obvious waves of pain, and suddenly started to back-peddle as if attempting to get away. To flee. “Not him, not him! He is my torturer, the bringer of pain and death! He has taunted me, burned and stuck blades in my flesh these last long months. The others are bad, but him, that bastard, he is a purity of evil!”
The Iron Wolves looked from one to the other, and Dek and Kiki fought the elf rat until it sat back, suddenly, on its rump. Yoon was grappling, as if for a blade, but there was no blade there and he howled again, a primal fear in his eyes. Then his head snapped to Kiki, his gaze burning into her. “You fucking fool, do you even understand what you’re dealing with here? This is a fucking elf rat! It will poison you, bring decay and terrible disease and death to us all!”
“Ha!” boomed Narnok, scowling. “What horse shit. The elf rats are nothing but dark shadows in children’s stories, dreamt up to put the fear of the gods into their happy, terrified little hearts.”
“If that’s the case,” snarled Yoon, head flailing wildly, finger jabbing at the creature, “then what the fuck is that?”
They all stared at the creature sitting on the floor making a soft whining sound. He stared right back. Then spoke softly. With a great gentility, despite the warped features, the apparent blend of elf and the forest which, presumably, had spawned it, “Do not listen to the mad king,” said Sameska. He gave a little shake of his head. “I am no danger to you. No danger to you at all. There is no poison in me. If there was, how could your… king spend many months at my flesh with a blade, and not become infected? No. He seeks to learn my secrets; the secrets of Zalazar. Because he wants our wealth.” The elf rat spat on the stone floor of the prison – of the torture chamber, which had held him incarcerated for long, bleak, pain-filled months.
Kiki met Dek’s gaze, then Narnok, Trista and Zastarte. “We should leave here.”
“I bloody agree!” rumbled Narnok, hefting his axe. “It’s giving me the creeps. Right down my spine.” He shuddered. “We should never have come.”
“No.” Kiki gave a shake of her head, hair bobbing. “We’ve learned something valuable. Not only is this bastard,” she kicked Yoon, and he yelped, “into shit so deep we’d need a mineshaft to probe his decadent mind, but there’s other business afoot in Vagandrak. Other games being played.” She glanced at Sameska. “But let’s get out of here first. I feel like I need a hot bath.”
They travelled long corridors of stone, trod through vast caverns formed by ancient volcanic pressure. Rock gleamed with damp, as if the underground passages suffered night-sweats of fear. Only, finally, when they collapsed in exhaustion and Zastarte set up first watch, did the Iron Wolves fall into dreamless sleeps, motionless as cadavers. Yoon, on the other hand, was tossing and turning on his narrow strip of blanket. His lips murmured constantly, and his hair was lank with sweat and old oil.
Sameska, who was on the opposite side of the chamber, pretended to sleep. In reality, he was elf rat and barely needed it. But he knew it would make his human companions nervous if he sat on his haunches, big yellow eyes staring at them, so he huddled under a blanket provided by the one with the kind eyes. The female. Kiki. Kikellya Mandasayard. I know you. Have spoken to you through soil and ash, through stone and dust, through bark and sap. He smiled slowly, in his fake sleep, and for the first time in months summoned the quests. They crept, slowly, from the palms of one hand, and began a tentative crawl across the stone floor of the cavern. Sameska took his time, after all, he didn’t want to alert the bastard on watch known as Zastarte. Now, there is a man with evil eyes. The eyes of a torturer. I know you well. Sameska shuddered with a moment of bitterness. In Zalazar, to carry out such behaviours against a fellow elf rat would be to summon instant death. But then, it would never happen. How can you treat your fellow people in such a way? How can you have such disregard for the history and development of your species?
The quests inched along the rocky ground. Zastarte stood and stamped his feet, rolling his neck and shoulders to ease tension. He glanced sharply to Sameska who froze, the quests nothing more than string-thick roots of dark crimson against the black rock. Very hard to distinguish. Almost impossible, he knew.
Zastarte went back to his theatrical stamping of feet and blowing into hands, and Sameska noticed the man’s continual glances at the hard, bitter woman, the one with the golden curls and harsh, unforgiving manner. Trista, they called her. Trista of the Iron Wolves.
Eventually, the quests reached their goal. Yoon turned in his sleep, making a snorting sound, dark curls tumbling over his face. The quests crept through his hair with all the gentility of a lover’s tender strokes, until they reached the top of his skull. Then they eased through skin, and through the bone, and gently, into the brain within.
Yoon jerked, but the quests had already administered a local anaesthetic via the teeth in their heads, and then triggered a series of nerves in the brain which allowed Yoon to sink into a relaxed state of unconsciousness. They moved deeper, easing through tissue and causing the minimal amount of damage.
Then, they stopped.
Feelers sprung from each head, narrow strands almost invisible to the human eye, which spread out through brain tissue, searching.
Back under his blanket, Sameska gave a narrow smile. A nod of the head.
And slowly, the quests began a retreat towards their master.
“Now, I understand,” he whispered.
She stoo
d in a forest. Mist curled across a blanket of dead pine needles. Her heart beat a tattoo of panic in her chest. She was unarmed. Naked, without her weapons. She glanced up, sweat on her brow and caressing her top lip, salt in her mouth, fear in her breast and with quivering fingers. Where was she? Why was she alone? Confusion smashed her like a helve blow from behind.
She blinked.
There were five shapes up ahead. Tall, just shimmering black shapes in the woodland gloom, their limbs slightly distorted, their heads kinked to one side as if listening for something.
“We have followed you for an eternity,” said one of the figures, the voice beautiful, musical, and a part of the forest.
“You are in our dreams,” said another.
“Until we kill you,” said a third.
“But… you are in my dreams,” she whispered, words barely more than an exhalation of fear.
“Not so.”
One figure stepped forward. It was a woman. Tall, lithe, powerful. She looked vaguely human, but her eyes were like black glass, the expression on her face one of hate and arrogance. “Fucking human,” said the woman, striding towards her. Her movements seemed to drift, like smoke, as if her eyes weren’t working properly.
“What do you want?” she said, but the smoke shifted, reappeared closer, shifted again. The figure rang out a peal of brittle laughter, cold and cruel.
“I am Sileath,” said the figure. The words came from all directions and none. “And I am here to kill you.”
She blinked. And Sileath was there. Close as a lover.
“Welcome to Hell,” said Sileath, and slammed the curved blade into Kiki’s chest and she was falling, and she was drowning: drowning and choking in an ocean of her own blood.
THE BLEAK
The storm rolled in from the oceans to the north and east. It ploughed over the mountains from all points of the compass. It cast giant shadows over the Crystal Sea, the Elf Rat Lands and the Plague Lands to the southwest. Winter’s onslaught had arrived, pushing forward, violating the skies, with towering storm fronts driving across Vagandrak in its entirety and depositing snow, and sleet, and bringing the bitterest cold winds the country had experienced in a century.