The heavy door swung open, and Caius Cincius Livianus strode into the small room, followed by three burly men and an anemic pock-faced man in a black robe.
“Let’s see how cute your answers are now.” He glanced at the mage, who gave him a curt nod. “What is your name?”
Max smiled. “Smith.”
The supreme governor started and turned to look at his mage, who frowned and nodded slowly, indicating Max had told the truth.
“Well then, where do you live, Mr. Smith?” the governor asked through gritted teeth.
The smile on Max’s face never wavered. “North Carolina.”
The governor’s eyes bugged out of his head slightly, and he turned red as the mage winced and nodded.
“Can you open a gateway to another world?”
“Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on,” Max replied.
Stepping forward, rage on his face, the supreme governor kicked Max in the side, just below his ribs.
Max grunted with pain. “You kick like a girl, your governorship.” He spat a wad of phlegm and blood. “Actually, I have a female friend who kicks much, much harder than that.”
Beside the governor, the mage nodded.
“Take him to the rack,” the supreme governor rasped, and the three brawny men unchained Max’s arms and legs.
Max, for his own part, immediately went as limp as a boned fish, knowing quite well that dragging ninety kilograms of limp weight was anything but easy, even for three men. They must have grunted and dragged for fifteen minutes before they finally reached the rack, set in the lowest room of the dank, smelly dungeon. Max’s feet had bumped several rats on his way down the long, slippery stone stairs.
The erstwhile jailors puffed for several minutes before they began the job of lifting Max onto the waiting rack. The most important thing Max had noted on his limp trip down the stairs was the fact that while the cells and the door to the torture chamber were warded against magic spells, the rack itself was not. Max thought for a moment then made a casual gesture with his left hand, smiling at the runespell he’d just created. After he’d spoken the words for earth and water, the glowing runespell vanished as it activated. The human jailors, finished strapping him to the rack, turned and left. A tall, heavily muscled man entered the dismal chamber, clad in a tight leather jerkin, pants of the same material, and a half mask that covered the head, eyes, and nose. He stood staring down at Max through slightly off-center eyeholes and gave him what he obviously thought of as a cruel smile. His teeth were brown and he needed a shave. The entire setup could have been taken from a cheaply done twelfth-grade play, and he wondered for a moment if he should feel insulted. The dried blood he’d seen on the floor of the chamber had looked real enough, however.
“You will willingly answer the supreme governor’s questions when I’m done with you,” the torturer growled.
Max groaned at the theatrics. “But I answered the governor’s questions… well, most of them. Ask the mage if you don’t believe me. He was a tall, pockmarked fellow with a black robe and squinty little eyes like a rat and a raspy, nasally voice. He looked like he needed a good steak for dinner.”
“Yer talking about Timien Deville, the high mage.”
“That’s the best you can do for a high mage?” Max sighed. If they wanted theatrics, he would give them theatrics. “He’s the one. Ask him.”
“You will answer all of the governor’s questions,” the torturer repeated.
“Well…” Max mused, “the governor did ask if his mistress was being indiscreet. I told him that she was seeing a tall man who had a penchant for black leather and cheap masks.”
“What? That’s a lie!” the man in black bellowed.
“Funny, the governor didn’t think so. Can we get on with this? The conversation is starting to bore me.”
The man started to put tension on Max’s limbs.
“Oh, by the way, I believe that the supreme governor wishes me to perform some service for him, so you might consider that before pulling my arms from their sockets.”
The torturer increased the tension on Max’s arms and legs in a slow, professional manner that spoke of years of experience racking victims, and Max gave deep pain-filled sobs at each increase in tautness. In actuality, the spell Max had cast took up most of the strain, and what was left, Max was able to endure. He knew in his heart that he would have succumbed to the rack had he been unaided. Finally, the torturer, bathed in sweat from a surprisingly hard day’s work, called in his assistants to drag Max back to his cell for the night.
Lenora flitted to the windowsill just as soon as the cell door shut and locked. Her look to Max was sympathetic. “Was it a very bad day?”
“Moderately. Would you have any more water?”
“Right here.” Her small form landed on his chest, and again, she poured the water into his waiting mouth. Corking the water bottle, she reached into another pouch and removed a small two-centimeter brown cube. “Oewaelle prepared this for you. Open up.”
Max opened his mouth with some hesitation, and Lenora popped the morsel in.
“Blood sausage!” he gasped after he swallowed the food. He could feel the refreshing energy spread out through his body. “Not fresh, but as good as any rare steak. How did…” He suddenly remembered her smile when they’d first met, and the sight of her fangs. If anyone knew what he needed to stay alive, Oewaelle would. After another sip of water, he chuckled. “Tell Oewaelle thank you,” he said as Lenora ferried the empty waterskin back to the windowsill. “How are the rest of the group?”
Lenora sat on the stone sill, crossing her legs tailor fashion. Somewhere along the way, she’d managed to find new clothing and looked the classical nixie in her short brown jumper over short blue shorts. “About as well as can be expected. Oewaelle and two other mages opened gateways to different safeholds, and Bexley Landing has returned to its abandoned status. There was some problem in the north, and Shyilia had to go home and take care of that. Your team with the young elf Wynn went with Oewaelle to Sloobork. Xia is the same.” Lenora frowned. “Although, when it came time to remove her bloody clothes, Oewaelle discovered that the spear wound passing in Xia’s back and out of her chest had already begun to heal.” She shot Max a tentative smile. “Oewaelle let me stay and watch because she knew you would want to know. Xia should wake in another three to four days.”
Max sagged back into the moldy straw. “Good. You should go now, and come back tomorrow if you can with more food and water. As far as they are concerned, I have to hold out for another two days before I give up. If I don’t hold out for at least that long, they will get suspicious.”
Lenora turned to leave but paused, looking over her shoulder. “Be very careful in this game you are playing. It may be charades to you, but to them, it’s played in deadly earnest.”
From his crude bed, Max craned his head to look at the window. “That’s the way the game has been played throughout the ages, little one, with your life and the lives of those you care about always at stake. I should get some sleep now, if I can.”
“Good night, Max,” Lenora whispered, then she was gone.
“Wakey, wakey!” the guard called as he jerked Max off his pallet by a wrist, binding one numb hand to the other. “Time for yer therapy.” The man chortled as he pulled Max through the doorway with his heels dragging the floor. A second guard grabbed Max’s other arm, while a third took him by the rope belt.
Max, for his part, hung like a leaf of wilted lettuce, smiling inwardly at the mumbling and complaining guards. Things were going quite well until one of the impromptu porters slipped on a mold-covered stair and fell, his feet going out from under him completely. Max’s head struck the granite step in a blast of pain and flashing lights. Flipping top to bottom, he bounced down another step, his bound arms unable to shield him. His head stru
ck the stone stairwell with a glancing blow, and he tasted his own blood as he bit his tongue. Tumbling backward, he lost consciousness when he hit the third stair with the back of his skull.
“…and what the hell did you do to him?” Max vaguely head the torturer’s voice yell.
His head pounded, and his stomach felt like he was riding a roller coaster. He had no desire to even open his eyes.
“Did he try to escape?”
“Ahhh...” The guard sounded frightened, and for good reason. “No, yer honor. I slipped on a patch of mold, and we dropped him down the flight of stairs.”
“And you never noticed the blood dripping from his head afterward?”
“We thought that if’n yer was torturin’ him anyway, it wouldn’t like matter.”
The torturer hissed in anger. “The supreme governor himself wanted this prisoner to answer certain questions. I was told not to damage him in any way, and now you do this.” There was a long pause. “Guards!” the torturer yelled, making Max wince at the loud sound.
He heard an opening door.
“Take these three incompetents away. I will rack them to death at my leisure, and go find the doctor and bring him here.”
There was the sound of a sharp scuffle, a heavy blow followed by a sob of despair, then silence.
After a moment or two, a soft voice murmured, “I am so screwed.”
Sometime later, Max heard the torture room door open, and a nasally voice asked, “What is the meaning of this? I am a busy man.”
“You’re going to be busier,” the torturer growled in an unsympathetic voice. “This is a special prisoner the supreme governor needs to answer certain questions. The idiots bringing him here dropped him down a flight of stairs. He’d better not die, or we will both be without jobs, and without our heads.”
Max felt gentle hands touch his head, open his eyes one by one, then set his head gently back on the floor. “His head is broken,” the so-called doctor declared.
“And that means what to me, exactly?”
“If he gets dropped or bumped or racked, he will die—and you will get no answers.”
“What do I do now?” There was a desperate note in the torturer’s voice.
Max heard the doctor sigh. “You can do what you will, but I would put him in a warm room with a good bed and give him food and water. In two weeks, you should be able to resume your entertainment.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” the torturer said in a small voice.
Max heard the door open and close again.
“What the bloody hell am I going to do?” Max heard the man say in a frightened voice.
Max opened a single eye, wincing at the stab of pain from the light of the single smoky torch. “Maybe we can help each other,” Max whispered. He was shocked to find that a whisper was all he was able project.
“What?” the torturer swung around, staring down at Max lying on the floor.
“I said, perhaps we can help each other,” Max whispered. “I can’t take any racking in my condition, or I will die, and then you will die, and then the three idiots who dropped me down the stairs will die.”
“Those three will die before the sun sets,” the torturer snarled, “but please continue.”
“Whatever… put me in the room the doctor was speaking of, and maybe get someone to clean me up and feed me. Tomorrow, tell the supreme governor that I will answer all his questions to the best of my ability, but the racking was physically draining to me, and I need to recuperate first, before I answer his questions. You get to keep on living, and I don’t have any more sessions on the rack, or worse yet… the stairs.” Max opened his other eye and was disturbed to see duplicates of everything swirling about the torchlit room. He swallowed to keep from throwing up the little food he’d gotten from Lenora.
The torturer pulled off his mask, sighed, and looked down at Max. “You have a deal. Just make sure that you keep your end of the bargain, or I’ll have you down here so fast it will make your head spin.”
“My head is already spinning. Unless you want to do me further damage, I suggest you send for two strong men with a stretcher.”
Chuckling to himself, the torturer left the room, locking the door behind him. Max wasted no time in removing the simple spell he’d placed on the rack, just before he passed out.
He was barely aware of soft gentle hands tending his wounds and washing him, but he did remember drinking, the fresh taste of clean water light and invigorating. The thick gruel they fed him filled his stomach but did nothing to fuel his battered vampiric body. On the morning of the third day after his impromptu trip down the stairs, Max woke and sat up in a clean bed. The crisp linen and flowers on his bedside table struck a decidedly odd note, but it was more pleasant than waking bound on moldy straw. He smiled as he noticed the scent of lilac in the room. There was a soft click, and the door opened on silent hinges to admit a pretty young girl of eighteen, he guessed, with hair the color of honey. She stepped into his room, smiling shyly.
“Good morning, my lord.” Her voice was soft and surprisingly refined. “It is good to see thee awake and come to thy senses once more. The doctor was most concerned.” As the young woman reached out to touch his forehead with a soft hand, Max could see the rhythmic pulsing of her carotid artery. He quickly quashed the sudden raging desire to drag her into his bed and drain her young body dry. She looked at him with lovely hazel eyes, unaware of her peril. “Art thou hungry, my lord? I was told to provide whatever thou shouldst desire.”
Oh lordy! Max thought, ripping his eyes from the girl. “I’d like a half kilogram of rare steak and a tankard of strong ale. Ale and red meat build up the blood.” He gave the girl a closed-mouth smile, not wanting to scare her off with the sight of his hunger-enlarged fangs.
“As you wish, my lord.” Her smile was playful, and both her curtsey and décolletage were low, leaving Max with no question in his mind that she was offering him more than just food for his breakfast. He mused as he looked at the closed door. First, they tried strong-arm tactics to get what they wanted, and now, they were trying food and sex. After being beaten senseless on the stairs, Max nearly succumbed to the food and sex.
The sun was setting, and Max, dressed in a long brown monk’s robe, with clean smallclothes and sandals that fit his feet, was sitting in a comfortable high-backed chair, staring through the barred window. With a half kilogram of red meat under his belt, he almost felt back to normal. Had he wanted to escape, the iron bars would not have slowed him. The door swung open unannounced, and two burly guards entered, followed by the supreme governor and his pet wizard. Max stood and turned, the hood of the robe pulled low over his face to make his expression more difficult to see. The subtle attempt at intimidation was not very effective, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances. He gave the man a short bow.
“Governor, thank you for the room and food.”
The pudgy man looked at Max without expression. “Are you an apprentice mage of the blue robe, and can you open a gateway to another world?”
This is it. No more negotiating. “I am not a certified mage of the blue robe, but I can and have opened gateways to another world.”
The black-robed mage stepped forward. “There are seven gateways to the alternate Aeyaqar.” The pedantic irritating voice rasped. “They are: Esos, Raikela, Sliasosune, Euticcica, Griyeidux, Bequis and Mozis. What can you tell me about them?”
Max stared at the pockmarked man. “I’ve been through two different gateways, and I know the appropriate runes but not the names you just told me. Of the gateways, two are in lands that are little more than armed camps. Your army would be decimated.”
The supreme governor blinked.
“Another one is in a war zone, and that is the one I’ve used twice, only because I’m familiar with the area and know how to
blend in. Even then, I was nearly killed. Two of the others are located remotely in deserts, with no food or water and inhospitable conditions. One, however, is in the wilderness, and strikes at rich industrial countries could be launched from there. I’ve also been through that gateway twice, without trouble. The last gateway was lost when the continent it was located on sank beneath the ocean.”
The mage turned to the supreme governor. “He is telling the truth, with no deception.”
Max bit his lip and plowed on. “It is winter now at the remote gateway, and I advise that you wait a few months for more clement weather. I also advise that you appoint another general to lead in your stead. A personage of your importance should not take unnecessary risks.”
The supreme governor’s smile was cruel. “A little chilly weather won’t hurt my people, and I will lead them myself. The honor will be mine when I set claim to that world.” His chest puffed out, and Max looked down, hiding his grin in the hood of his robe. Dealing with the supreme governor was like dealing with an idiotic high school bully. “Since you are the linchpin of the entire operation,” the supreme governor continued, “we will wait three more days before we travel to the city of Fashenor, where the gateway and my army of conquest is waiting.”
Max looked up. “Won’t that leave defense forces depleted in this land? What about goblins and such things?”
“It really doesn’t matter, Mr. Smith. This land has nothing that interests me, and I will build my kingdom in a new land.”
The word delusional popped into Max’s mind. He had to stop this madman cold, or the world of Aeyaqar was well and truly screwed.
“An excellent idea, majesty. How may I help?” Max suddenly wanted to throw up, but he’d lied before on operations, and he was sure that he would have to lie again.
Destiny of the Vampire (Adventures of the Vampire Book 1) Page 20