The Sword Of Angels eog-3

by John Marco

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ she said again, her voice breaking. ‘This is madness. I swear. .’

  Unmoved, Corvalos Chane ignored her pleas. He moved with urgency, and in time took her to a rounded turret overlooking the courtyard. A bank of dingy windows afforded a perfect view of the yard. Though they had not climbed any stairs, the turret stood above ground level, low but imperious. A figure waited near the windows, his body draped in plain grey clothes with an apron wrapped around his mid-section, the kind a butcher might wear. His back turned toward them, he nevertheless raised a hand to bid them forward as he stared intently out the windows, studying the newly arrived prisoners.

  ‘I saw you come in,’ he said, still not turning. Dread-filled, Mirage watched him, his features obscured in shadows. ‘What have you brought me?’

  ‘A special captive,’ Chane replied. He pushed Mirage forward. She wobbled on her toes, managing to remain upright. At last the man at the window turned to face them. The first thing Mirage noticed were the blood stains on his apron. The white cloth was soaked with gore. He stepped out of the shadows to reveal his frightful face. The eyes, too far apart, leapt with intrigue when he sighted Mirage. His bent nose leaned to one side and the curve of his mouth turned up in an unnatural grimace. Long, stringy hair writhed down across his bulbous forehead, white like snow. Deep ruts ran down along both cheeks, the scars of some long ago injury. Mirage stared at him, mesmerized by his manic eyes and deformaties. His feet stepped gingerly across the floor as he approached her.

  ‘A gift,’ he said. ‘For me?’

  Mirage shifted back on her chained feet. The man’s blood-caked hand reached to take her collar.

  ‘Oooh, don’t fall now,’ he cooed, pulling her closer. He cocked his head, inspecting her. A little pink tongue ran across his lips. ‘Beautiful. What is your name, pretty lady?’

  Mirage shook under his leer, too afraid to reply. The man put his ear closer to her mouth.

  ‘What’s that? Speak up, child.’

  ‘Mirage,’ she managed, forcing herself.

  ‘Mirage?’ The man’s permanent grimace twisted into a smile. ‘What an exotic name. You are Norvan?’

  ‘She is from Jador,’ said Chane. ‘I found her in Liiria. She knows Baron Glass.’

  ‘Really? Now that is interesting. Allow me to introduce myself, pretty Mirage. My name is Asher, and this is my church. I am the lord high god of this keep. I am your master, your saviour, and your only hope. Be warned — if you displease me. .’ Asher put his hands together as if in prayer. ‘It will be unpleasant for you.’

  ‘Asher, enough,’ said Chane. ‘You’re scaring her.’

  The gaoler raised his heavy brow. ‘Forgive me, pretty Mirage. I have the face for this work, don’t you think?’ He turned toward Chane. ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘She wasn’t with the others,’ Chane replied. ‘I followed her myself, from the library at Koth. She spoke of Baron Glass openly. They’re friends.’

  Asher looked at Mirage. ‘You admit this?’

  Mirage didn’t know what to say. Deciding it better not to lie, she nodded.

  ‘There is no way for her to deny it, Asher. I saw her, as did hundreds of others. She’s from Jador, as I said. That means she knows about Glass, and probably his plans. Find out for me.’

  ‘Don’t leave me here!’ begged Mirage.

  Chane sighed, as though he didn’t like the idea of abandoning her, either. ‘You can make this easier on yourself, girl. If you tell us what you know about Baron Glass and his plans, I can spare you from this place.’

  ‘Oh no, please,’ said Asher. ‘Don’t yield so easily, child. We’ll have fun!’

  ‘I don’t know anything!’ Mirage cried.

  Chane said, ‘Baron Glass has plans for Reec. What are they?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Chane, can’t you see the girl is exhausted?’ said Asher. ‘She needs rest. Leave her with me a little while.’

  Mirage looked pleadingly at Corvalos Chane. ‘Please don’t. .’

  Asher glanced hopefully between them, wiping his hands on his dirty apron. ‘You’re wasting my time, Chane. I have a lot of work to do tonight.’

  Finally, Chane turned and walked away. ‘Find out what you can,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I will be at Castle Hes.’

  The dark hall swallowed him, and as it did the man named Asher sidled closer to Mirage. The deformed flesh of his eyelids closed incompletely as he blinked. ‘I’ll call my gaolers, have them make a place for you,’ he said. Then he pulled at her bindings. ‘Let’s get these chains off you. I want you to be comfortable.’

  Only a single lamp swatted back the blackness. Just outside Mirage’s cell, the lamp light wavered as the oil burned away, threatening to leave the hall completely dark. Mirage watched the flame, concentrating on it, gleaning sanity from its feeble warmth. She had arrived at the keep hours ago, dumped into the cell by one of Asher’s rough gaolers. Free of her chains, she had been given water and bread and a pot in which to relieve herself, and that was all. The bars of her freezing chamber rattled as a breeze moved through the dark corridor. Amid the darkness, she could hear the distant shrieks of others like herself, screaming somewhere in the enormous prison, their cries echoing forever through the labyrinthine halls. Mirage wrapped her arms around her shoulders, fighting to keep warm. So far, Asher had left her alone, but she knew the reprieve would be short. She had seen hunger in his eyes, a kind of warped lust that frightened her. Beneath his misshapen flesh he was not like other men, content to merely leer.

  Mirage braced herself for the morning, sure of the torture it would bring. She had already told the Reecians all she really knew. She had confessed her friendship with Baron Glass, and in truth she did not know his plans. The secret of the Akari, though, she could never confess, because deep in her soul she was still an Inhuman — one of Minikin’s beloved — and would never betray that trust. But Mirage did not know what kind of torments Asher would deal her, or if she was strong enough to resist them. Under his skilled torture she might crack like an eggshell, she told herself.

  ‘Pride,’ she muttered. ‘Stupid, stupid pride.’

  How clear it was to her now that pride had brought her to this place. How much better her life would have been, if only she had listened to Minikin’s warnings. In Grimhold she had been safe. Now she was trapped in the most unsafe place a woman could imagine, surrounded by bars in a foreign land, in the clutches of a mad and lustful monster. She closed her eyes, wishing someone — anyone — might find her. She called to her Akari, Kirsil. The spirit lilted across her brain, young and as frightened as her host. Together they had already tried to summon help, but Kirsil was not like Sarlvarian, so old and strong, and they were too far away from Jador to make any kind of contact. Even the realm of the dead was off-limits to callow Kirsil. Still, Mirage took comfort in the spirit’s presence. As long as the Akari remained, she would not be completely alone.

  Alarmed, Mirage opened her eyes as she suddenly heard footfalls approach. The pit of her stomach lurched. She leaned forward, trying to hide and see down the corridor at the same time. The light from the bare flame stirred in the breeze. Mirage held her breath as the footfalls drew nearer. The outline of Asher appeared before the bars.

  ‘Good evening.’

  His voice trembled with delight. His malformed face remained in shadow. In his hand he held a wooden stool. The pockets of his butcher’s apron bulged with unseen tools. With his free hand he produced a key from his apron, using it to open the padlock on the iron bars. He worked gingerly, as if he’d done the manoeuvre a thousand times, then opened the cell door. When he was inside he placed the stool on the floor, closed the gate behind him and once more locked it closed. Mirage watched, shaking, as Asher took a seat on the stool, staring at her in the dim light. With the lamp behind him, she could barely see his poisoned features.

  ‘Mirage.’

  He crooned the name, and the sound of it brought a sm
ile to his ravaged face. Resting his hands on his dirty apron, he relaxed. Mirage noted the oily stains on his garb, the shining blood of new victims. Gore crusted his fingernails. His shoulders slumped slightly.

  ‘I’ve been busy tonight,’ he said wearily. ‘I did not mean to keep you waiting so long.’

  Should she speak? Mirage didn’t want to plead. That was what he craved.

  ‘I have a whole prison of people like you to deal with now,’ he continued. ‘I wish I had a twin to share the work with, but alas there is only me. I suppose this interview could have waited till the morning, but I wanted to see you. You’re so. .’ He searched for the word. ‘Stimulating.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Mirage asked.

  ‘Talk,’ replied Asher. He grinned, a peculiar expression for someone soaked in blood. ‘So many of the women they brought from Liiria are cows. They’ve spent their lives with mercenaries, eating swill and sleeping on straw. But not you. You’re very beautiful, Mirage. Tell me — how did you come about such a name?’

  ‘It was given to me,’ said Mirage guardedly.

  ‘Of course it was. By your parents?’

  Mirage hesitated. She knew answering his questions would be like walking a tightrope. ‘No. In Jador.’

  ‘But you are not from Jador, not originally. You do not have the dark skin of a Jadori woman. So you are from the northern lands?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you found yourself in Jador.’

  Mirage nodded. The lord of the prison relaxed, oblivious to the moans rattling the corridor. His head cocked a little as he looked at her, admiring her with his wild eyes, the lids of which sagged with deformity. The scars on his cheeks reminded her of her own.

  ‘Corvalos Chane thinks much of you,’ said Asher. ‘To have brought you here on his own; you should feel honoured. He is the right hand of Raxor, our king. He would not waste his time with you if he was not sure your skull held secrets. Do you know why he brought you to me, Mirage?’

  ‘Don’t make me answer that,’ Mirage implored. ‘I already told you what I know.’

  ‘Stand up.’

  Shaken by the order, Mirage got slowly to her feet. She stood before the torturer, her hands at her sides, and could not look at him.

  ‘Do not look away,’ he ordered. ‘Look at me always. Your eyes will tell me if you lie or not. Now answer me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me why Chane brought you to me.’

  Mirage swallowed hard. ‘To be questioned.’

  ‘You could have been questioned by anyone. Chane could have questioned you. He brought you to me because I am the best at what I do. I have a gift, you see. Look at all these people on my apron!’ Asher proudly pulled at the garment, showing off its numerous stains. ‘I learned a lot tonight.’

  The sickening boast turned Mirage’s legs to rubber. As she began to waver, she steeled herself.

  ‘I think you are insane,’ she said, ‘to hurt people the way you do.’

  ‘We all have to make a living, pretty Mirage. That is my answer when someone looks at me the way you do, with such disdain. Do you know, all of Raxor’s men think they are my better. Even Chane, that miserable cutthroat. Why? Because what I do is distasteful? Someone has to bash in the sheep’s brains before the mutton can be served.’

  It was a demented argument. Mirage forced herself not to look away.

  ‘You want to torture me,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop you, because you’ll never listen to reason, will you?’

  ‘I want the entire truth,’ replied Asher. ‘Please do not make the mistake so many others have about me. We do not choose our gifts in life, girl. Mine were thrust upon me, just as beauty was thrust upon you.’ He leaned closer, examining her face and the curves of her figure. ‘What is it like to be so lovely? In my work, I do not see many pretty young women. It’s my face, you see. They shun me. I want to know what it’s like for you. So easy, I’d wager.’

  Mirage didn’t know how to answer the odd question. Mere months ago, she had been as scarred and damaged as Asher.

  ‘Would I be here if I weren’t beautiful to you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if Chane would have paid enough attention to you.’ Asher laughed, delighted at the irony. ‘You see? Beauty is a curse sometimes.’

  His laughter angered Mirage. ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  Asher stopped chuckling. ‘There was a woman brought in with you, a little one from Norvor. Dark hair. Do you remember her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Asher inspected his apron, found the appropriate bloodstain, and pointed at it. Mirage blanched as her bravado drained away.

  ‘I have a favourite knife to use on people like her,’ said Asher. He reached into the pockets of his apron and took out a thin knife with a long, hooked blade. ‘You would be amazed at how long someone can live if you use the right tool. I asked her what she was doing in Liiria. She was the whore of a mercenary named Devyn. It was the usual, tiresome questions. She told me nothing useful.’ Asher held the knife close to his face, turning it so that Mirage could see its fine edge. ‘She didn’t look anything like you, Mirage. She was ugly, like me. I did her a kindness by killing her.’

  He looked sad suddenly, like a little boy with a broken toy. The madness on his face ebbed a little, replaced by something like shame.

  ‘I wish Chane hadn’t brought you to me,’ he said. ‘You don’t belong in this butcher’s shop. That’s what this place is, you know. I kill cows here. But you’re not a cow, Mirage. You are a beautiful butterfly.’

  Asher touched his face, brushing the narrow blade against his uneven cheek.

  ‘I’ve seen you looking at me. You don’t realize how you stare, do you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ groped Mirage. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘I’ve been stared at all of my life.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Asher shrugged. ‘It isn’t your fault. You couldn’t know what it’s like to be me.’

  How little you know, thought Mirage. Instead she asked, ‘What happened to you?’

  Asher shrugged. ‘Who knows what happens in the womb of a whore? My mother was a drunken slut. She was diseased, a gift from all the men she bedded. I was born like this — that was her gift to me.’ He laughed. ‘Can you imagine such a woman? A bitch.’

  ‘And the scars?’

  ‘Beatings. I told you, my mother had many men. One of them favoured a horsebrush.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Stop saying that,’ spat Asher. ‘Your pity won’t save you.’ His face softened. ‘But I do regret this. I want you to know that. I’m going to get the truth out of you, Mirage. All of it, everything you know about Baron Glass, even things you’ve forgotten. It will be like magic!’

  The knife held against his haunting face made Mirage wither. Her mind ran with images of blood and her own mangled body. So far she had been strong. Now, though, she could not be strong. Faced with Asher and his cherished knife, she crumbled.

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ she moaned, dropping to her knees. ‘I swear to heaven, I don’t know.’

  She could not look at him any more. She faced the floor as tears overcame her, shaking and hating herself for it. Asher rose from his stool, watching her. He said nothing, letting her sob. Unable to control herself, Mirage dropped lower to the floor, like a frightened house cat. She glanced up, waiting for the torturer to fall on her, to feel the slice of his hook blade. He glared at her, completely unemotional, then buried the blade of his knife upright into the seat of the stool.

  ‘I will leave this here to argue with you,’ he said.

  Then, to Mirage’s great relief, he unlocked the padlock to her cell, let himself out, and closed and locked the gate behind him. He spared her one last, longing look before disappearing down the dark corridor.

  Choked with tears, Mirage stared at the knife protruding from the stool. Unable to move, she could not avert her eyes from it. She
knew it wasn’t mercy she had witnessed. Asher would return, and when he did he would bring his lustful appetite with him. It might be an hour or a day. Either way, it would be an eternity.

  7

  To Gilwyn, the world was like an ocean, black and featureless. He felt its tug. He struggled to awaken. His eyes fluttered open to the darkness of the ocean, but the ocean was like space, cold and completely without end. He could not feel his body, but he did feel afraid, and he knew that he was somewhere immortal, trapped in a place of magic where he should not be able to tread. His eyes — if indeed they were eyes — studied the darkness. He gazed down to glimpse his hands, but although he felt them moving they were nowhere to be found.

  Gilwyn fought to remember. He could not recall his last conscious thoughts, and he considered that he was sleeping, and that he had been asleep for a very long time. He knew his name, and he knew his mission, and it all came suddenly back to him, how he had fled across the desert, being chased by Aztar’s men.

  And then?

  He could not remember.

  ‘Hello?’ he called. He felt a presence in the darkness, straining to reach him. A familiar tremor coursed across his disembodied mind. ‘Ruana?’

  He had only to speak her name, and she was there. Ruana’s sweet face shimmered in the darkness near him, shining with relief. Her hand reached out but did not touch him.

  ‘Gilwyn, you are alive.’

  Puzzled, Gilwyn felt himself shrug. ‘Ruana, where am I? What is this place?’

  ‘Gilwyn, you must go back,’ said Ruana. ‘You are alive.’

  ‘Go back? Where? I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here?’