by SL Figuhr
A low grinding noise woke Mica. He lay against a wall. Slowly and carefully, he stood as the door swung inward. Though he’d adjusted to no light, but still, he was for all intents and purposes blind without it. He listened to the steps of the two men as they entered his cell.
He used the sound to aim his kicks, and what he could remember of their height. He clocked one of the men before the second man clubbed him over the head, knocking him out.
When Mica could focus again, pain swam in brightly colored streamers before his eyes, and he was strapped down in the chair. The sibilant voice of the burned man spoke.
“You have damaged my slave. This displeases me greatly.”
The man paced in front of Mica as if in thought, then whirled and demanded, “Why do you heal as you do?”
The immortal let the silence stretch and lengthen.
“You will answer my questions, or I will punish you.”
Mica refused to answer, secure in the fact the man in front of him couldn’t harm him without angering his master and receiving punishment in return.
“Perhaps you think I won’t dare? Do not let the words of my master make you foolish. I would dare anything for the secret of what you are.”
Still the immortal said nothing, merely looked at the man before him.
“Very well. You have been warned. Don, Jon, the right hand, open it flat upon the chair arm.”
The men shuffled over, and even though Mica held his fist clenched tight, his strength was no match for the two before him. They pried his hand open and the burned man came over with a hammer and a nail.
“No!” Mica yelled, trying to jerk free, but the leather strap prevented him from moving his arm.
The pain was sharp and immediate. The immortal did his best to ride it out. When his vision cleared enough for him to see again, he looked for his tormentor.
The man was holding a dagger to the base of his pinky, and even with the light amount of pressure, Mica could tell the blade was very sharp.
“What, what are you doing?” The Immortal hated the whiney tone of his voice.
“The truth, please. Why are you as you are? Why are you still not hurt?”
“I don’t...” He had to stop and lick dry lips. “I don’t understand the question.”
The blade pressed enough to bring blood welling up. “I think you do. Quit stalling.”
Mica’s brain raced frantically; if he told, he might never get out, but if he bargained...
“Need you think about your reply?” the man asked, pressed harder.
“Wait! Wait! I’m just, I, it’s been so long, I don’t... I can’t... I’m not sure anymore how it happened.” Mica stalled.
The man waited, dagger held in a steady hand, ready to finish cutting. “How long?” he said flatly. It wasn’t a question.
“Years, centuries.”
The man hesitated, then sheathed the knife and sat behind a table, parchment and pen and inkwell before him. “How many centuries exactly?” He dipped the quill into some ink.
Mica didn’t need a written record of what he was, but the more interested the man in his story, the better. He would play Scheherazade if it delayed pain.
“At least, as best I can recall, pre-cataclysm. Over...over 5,000 years ago.”
The man’s head snapped up sharply, his gaze narrowed. “How did it happen?”
“That’s the part I have trouble recalling, it’s been so long.”
“You’ll have to do better,” he was sternly told.
“I’m trying!” Mica snapped. “I have a lot of memories to sift through.”
“I would think something so momentous would not be an event easily forgotten,” his tormenter replied.
“It was not a happy, or pleasant occasion. Just give me a bit to think. I haven’t had to remember back that far for, well, forever.”
The scarred man scowled. “Very well. But my patience is not infinite. I needn’t remind you what will happen if you lie?” He picked up a goblet and took a sip, watching Mica.
Mica briefly closed his eyes; perhaps a half-truth would be acceptable. It wasn’t like the man before him could verify any of the information. “I don’t remember when I became an immortal, or how. After I had been half-crushed by a falling tree, I noticed wounds I received healed faster.”
“What type of wounds? Where were they and how severe?” the man asked.
“My, my lower half had been crushed—both my legs, and my pelvic area,” Mica replied.
“How did you get back to your...dwelling?”
“I was with a team of loggers; they loaded me onto a cart, took me to the local medical man. He was the one who said I would be dead after a few days. He could do no more than give me something to dull the pain until the end came.”
“So they were fatal wounds?” The man dipped his quill in more ink and finished his writing.
“It is what I can remember him saying. But after a few days I woke and saw the wounds were reduced, less severe than they should have been.”
“Interesting,” the interrogator said, making a notation. “What did the medical man say when he saw you?”
“He was not around. The hut was empty when I woke. I didn’t see anyone for days after. I lay there until I noticed my legs had healed enough for me to get up and walk.”
“And what happened to the medical man and the others who were logging?”
“I don’t know. The place looked like it had been raided and abandoned. I surmise rival loggers.”
“Hrm.” The man recorded Mica’s answers.He scrutinized the man strapped down before him, finishing his drink. He walked around the table, standing before Mica, toyed with the dagger he had taken from its sheath on his belt.
“You know, I think you’re a liar,” his captor remarked conversationally. “I wonder: if I were to ask you the same questions days from now, would you give me the same answers?”
“Why would I lie?” Mica just barely kept from shouting.
“I once asked Lord Nicky, after he had consented to make me his apprentice, how he came to be what he was. He only would tell me bits and pieces, as a reward for learning some particularly difficult task he had set me,” the man mused.
Mica had a feeling he wasn’t going to like where the confidence was going.
“His story, you see, would change. Oh, not the significant parts, but the details, as if he couldn’t remember what he had said from one telling to the next.”
The dagger’s edge came to rest back at the base of Mica’s pinky, and pressed. The cut, which had been healing, slowly oozed blood again.
“You can understand how I would view your tale as just an interesting fiction you are making up for my benefit. I have no doubt it may contain some small kernel of truth, but I am not looking for pretty lies.”
“Why the hell did you ask me?” Mica gritted out.
“So you should know what happens when I am lied to,” the man replied and brought his full weight down on the knife.
Mica felt the blade slide through his flesh and muscle and grate on the bone of his finger. He screamed long and loud. Where his pinky finger had been, was now a stump. He could not tell if the skin had healed over the wound already or not.
“Why, oh why did you do that?” Mica could not help sobbing.
He screamed as the nail was pounded out of his hand, came to, lolling in the iron grip of the two men. His torturer held up the severed finger so the immortal could see it as he directed his slaves,
“Take him to his cell. When you are ready to tell me the truth, we shall talk again.”
“When your Master finds out what you have done, I hope he kills you,” Mica managed to grind out around the pain.
The man bent and whispered in Mica’s ear, “He may be too late to help you by the time he does show up. For every meeting where you do not tell me what I want to know, I shall cut another piece off. It would excite me to see a limbless torso with a head.”
Mica knew he was screami
ng in horror before lapsing into semi-consciousness. Mica knew the finger could never be re-attached. He had seen an immortal lose a limb once. The man had forever been without a leg. The assistants half-dragged him moaning to a cell and, dumping him on the floor, went back to the torture chamber. Mica lay where he had fallen and shivered.
How was he to tell the truth? If he recanted now, the man might cut more pieces off because of the immortal’s lies; but if he didn’t tell the truth, it was certain he would lose more body parts. Mica was doomed either way. It was only a matter of how many parts he was going to lose before he was rescued, if he ever was.
Just the thought made him nauseous. “No! I will not despair!” Mica told himself. To despair was to invite madness. He would have to plan his escape, he would have to break their hold once in the torture chamber.
The man had a feeling there would only be one chance to attempt escape. Mica lay on the floor, and tried to meditate on what he had seen of the chamber. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.
* * *
The streets were wet, and the pavement glistened as Mica walked in the gloaming, melancholy. He had just broken up with his girlfriend, and even though he knew it was coming, the parting was still bittersweet. The streetlights had halos of light around them. People hurried, some trying to get to vehicles or subway to go home, others to dinner and drinks.
He envied them, their brief lives, and wondered if he had truly made the right choice all those long years ago. He stopped at a corner with a crowd of people, waiting for the light to change, and let himself be carried along in the tide, idly glancing at the store fronts as he walked. Several times, he was sent dazzling smiles from women passing in the crowd, and once, a man.
Mica wanted to be alone, yet he didn’t, and he toyed with the idea of calling a friend, or maybe his brother. He kept walking uptown as dusk turned into night. Still he aimlessly wandered the streets as the night wore on. Up ahead, he thought he saw someone he knew coming out of an expensive and popular restaurant.
He stopped abruptly in surprise, and was bumped and cursed by a few people. It was Illyria, not in any of her regular flashy-couture clothes, but rather business chic with a smart bag. Her companion looked like a slick businessman or lawyer.
Mica moved closer, and saw a glossy black Rolls Royce Phantom, the extended wheelbase, with a chauffeur holding the door. He watched as she parted with the man, already engrossed in the phone in the few steps she took to the car.
He couldn’t help himself, even though he despised how she had tormented Devon—she was still someone you could confide in without the information being used against you. Mainly, he mentally corrected himself, as long as you weren’t an enemy and she wasn’t gunning for you. He started over to her, calling out her name. An eyebrow raised when she saw who hailed her, though she gave a dazzling smile. Her hair wasn’t in its usual curling mass down her back but tamed in a sleek French twist.
“Bonjour, Mica, to what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”
“New look?”
“Even party girls must work from time to time,” she said with an amused glance. “And what have you been up too?”
He hesitated, not sure how to frame his request. Sometimes she made him feel to ask anything of her was akin to asking for a favor, and she would and did often collect on them.
He shrugged and gave a smile, not realizing how sad and bitter it was. “Just enjoying the nice spring evening, you?”
She gave him a piercing stare as the phone in her hand dinged with an annoying rapidity which spoke of incoming messages.
“I am heading to another interest of mine, one I think you might like. If you wish, ride with me and stay as my guest. I can have my driver take you home when you want.”
She named a spot he was unfamiliar with. Mica told himself it was reconnaissance, know thy enemy and all. They got in the limo, and before it had even pulled away from the curb, she was busy with her phone. He stared out the smoked windows as the city slid by, the dings and beeps of her cell a background noise to the otherwise silent space.
The limo wound further uptown, before slowing and double-parking in front of one of the city’s newest hot spots. By the time the man came around to open the door, she had dipped into her bag and had brought out a VIP pass and employee ID. The pass she gave to him to wear around his neck, and he silently cursed her as they slid out of the car.
She put on a pair of expensive sunglasses, and he pasted a bland expression on his face as they bypassed the line of hopefuls waiting to get in.
It was much, much later when Mica, slightly drunk now on expensive scotch, followed her into her multi-level penthouse in one of the city’s most desirable buildings. The pad was quiet, with the smell of rarified air all such places had. He followed her into the living room, and saw the city spread out before him like a sparkling jewel.
He was busy admiring the view and didn’t notice when she went to a hidden bar and brought out another bottle and a glass, and a crystal bucket of ice.
“What is wrong, Mica?” She sat on one of the couches, delicate feet tucked underneath her, her fashionable, very expensive high heels lying on the rug.
He left off examining the city and plopped down at the other end of the sofa, noticing the bottle contained a very nice scotch.
“No matter what, you always treat your guests like royalty.” He savored the single-malt, one he had been able to afford only once.
She remained quiet, waiting for him, her phone on her lap, her head propped on one hand, elbow on the back of the couch. How could you talk about the eternal loneliness which came with being an immortal with someone who hadn’t even lived a century yet?
“You would not understand,” was what he said.
“Because you think me so young?” she asked, just a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “I promise I shall listen only.”
He gave her a jaded look, savored another sip before speaking. “Yes, you are young. It’s not just the way you look and dress. Have you lived a century yet?” He knew he was insulting her, he remembered when he was a new-made immortal; questions like that from older immortals had always irked him.
She seemed to take it in stride as if expecting it, her eyes never leaving his face. “If your problem deals with this age, I can be of some assistance.”
He snorted and muttered into his glass, “It’s a problem no matter what the age or time-period.”
Her eyebrow quirked up. “Disappointed in love, Mica? I would not have believed it of you. I am sure I shall be as jaded as you, wondering why I cannot find loooove, twuuuu loooove.” She snickered.
Was she making fun of him? It was a reference with which he was unfamiliar. He set his glass down with a snap, and made to get up.
“No, no, no!” she protested. “I am sorry. You must admit though, that the romantic love the human race talks about today does not exist and has never existed. It is something created by troubadours, Hollywood, the diamond people and the wedding industry to brainwash the masses into thinking they can find it.”
He thumped back down. “It doesn’t seem to have taken you long to become cynical.”
“You know I’m right. The most we can hope for is someone who makes us want to be better versions of ourselves, someone who will be there no matter what curveballs life throws us.”
“It took me centuries to discover the love they sang about was bullshit. Do you know how many times I’ve found someone who could be called my true love? Just once, and she died in my arms.”
“Why should it bother you if you’ve been abandoned by some woman who couldn’t appreciate the real you? Why not just enjoy what was, for however long it was?”
“You’ll see, should you live more than a century or two, how tiring, how exhausting, how disheartening it is to be forever searching, always saying good-bye.”
The laughter faded from her eyes, and she suddenly looked much older, much wearier, than her apparent age of thirty years. “Perhaps if we ever lear
n to trust each other, I shall tell you just how long I have lived, how many lives and loves lost to time.” Anguish crossed her face before smoothing out to its young mask.
“Perhaps,” he replied noncommittally and sat back with his drink, content for the moment to be with a person who understood after all.
* * *
Mica woke with a start, the dream, no, even that didn’t seem right, fading from his mind. It had the feel of an event he had lived a long time ago. Why was Illyria, Her Grace, the Duchess, in it? It wasn’t something he needed to dwell upon—it wouldn’t free him.
Chapter Seven
Colin woke to silence, darkness, the smell of old blood, mold, and cold. Tentatively he flexed fingers and toes, before testing the rest of his limbs. He was unbound. A fading ache all through his body brought back memories of being beaten with cudgels. Colin sat up, patting himself down. His captors had taken his belt and pouches but left him his boots and clothes.
The man felt around the stone floor and only encountered flags. Carefully he turned over onto hands and knees, slowly crawled, feeling the floor, the air around him.
“Mica!” he hissed, waiting for an answer.
“Mica! If you’re awake, answer me!” None came.
Did it mean his brother was bound and gagged? Was he in the same space? Was he even alive? Colin kept crawling until he bumped into something wooden. He felt the object, hands tracing the outline of a crude human shape, a brief touch of metal bars. Upright, he kept one hand on the unknown object and probed the floor in front of him.
More cold stone, rough underfoot. His hands busy sweeping about his body as he slowly moved forward. He came across more wood, what felt like rough rope, and icy metal chains. He didn’t like what he was feeling. Colin didn’t know how long it took him to make his way around the room. Eventually, he felt the outlines of what had to be hinges and a door.
He tested the handle, it turned easily, and opened inward. Faint tendrils of light appeared, and when the door was fully open, he saw a lantern hanging from a hook on the wall. He took it up, unsure how much oil was left in the well. The Immortal knew he needed to get out of whatever prison he was in, find his brother. Curiosity, however, overcame him.