"Well, paladin—did Gird protect her?" The taller priest nudged the sobbing girl with his foot. Paks did not answer. She fought the black despair Liart sent, forcing herself to think of the king riding eastward, his squires around him. She would not have spent someone else's pain for that, but even so she did not repent the bargain. After a long pause, he asked, "Do you think he will protect you? Will you fight well, paladin of Gird, with your leg twisted like this? Or imagine your arm—your sword arm—drawn up with scars." He touched the hollow of her elbow, and her armpit; Paks shivered. "I see you do understand. We need not be in haste to show you, then." He turned to the guards. "Tie that one, and leave her; we will want her later."
"No," said Paks.
"No? You dare give orders here? Or are you agreeing that our Master has dominion?"
"I am not. I am telling you not to hurt her more—she has done you no harm."
"What of that? It amuses us—and teaches you to know your helplessness. You can save her only by accepting our Master as yours."
Paks prayed, trying to convey what healing she could across that space, as she had with Garris. But she had known Garris, touched him with healing before. This girl was a stranger. She felt a comforting touch on her own head, as if a firm but gentle hand cradled it for a moment, but nothing that let her suspect she had healed the girl. She could not see the girl's face, where she lay, but the sobs quieted, and the heaving back was still.
For some time after that, she was left hanging before the crowd; she noticed that it ebbed and flowed, and individuals came and left, to return after an interval. From time to time the priests came to her again, repetitions of the torments already begun. Once they tried to rouse the servant girl, and found her dead; they dragged her body aside. Paks could not be sure of the passage of time. Pain and thirst confused her. Whenever she fell into a doze, they roused her, until she longed for rest more than anything. Then the crowd thickened again.
The guards lit new lamps, and set pungent incense burning in a row of censors. The smoke swirled back and forth. Paks watched it, half-tranced by its intricate patterns that seemed to make pictures in the haze. She had managed not to listen to the priests' words, even reciting to herself the ten fingers of the Code of Gird. But now as they approached her again, her concentration wavered. Her belly knotted; her tongue seemed too large for her mouth. Two guards cut the thongs that held her wrists, and shoved. She fell forward, slamming into the floor with stunning force. She was just aware when they cut the ankle thongs and her feet thudded down.
The relief in her shoulders lasted only a few moments. Guards yanked her up by the arms and dragged her to the rough stone altar that centered the platform. They bound her again by wrist and ankles, with the rough-hewn stone rasping her lacerated back. The taller priest laid a single flat stone on her belly. He stood back, and the second priest laid another similar stone on her chest. Paks waited; the stones were uncomfortable, but not painful, except where they lay on the burns. She was too relieved to have her head supported at last, and the weight off her arms. Then returning blood seemed to dip her hands in fire for a few minutes. The priests called the crowd forward.
"We will show you a torment that lasts long only with strong sacrifices, such as this one," said the first. "We will add weight to those stones, a heavy link of chain at a time, until she can scarcely draw breath. Then time alone becomes the tormentor; in the end her breath will fail. And you will help. As you have given to the Master, so in your name will the links be added."
And each person who came by dropped a coin or so into a pot, naming the number; the guards fed a heavy chain from its coil onto the stones, link by link, one or two or three at a time, as the worshipper gave. One heavy man in a silk robe gave a large silver, and twelve links at once dropped onto Paks's chest.
The weight forced her back into the stone; before half the crowd had passed, she was finding it hard to breathe. When she tried to keep her chest expanded, they added links to the lower stone, forcing her to use chest wall as well for breath. Her sight dimmed; she let her eyes shut, concentrating on breath alone. She heard the priests' voices, but could not follow their words. No more links dropped. She struggled, fighting for every breath. Air rasped in and out of her throat. Cold water drenched her face; she choked on it, tried to cough, and could not. Before she quite passed out, they took off a few links. Then they watched as she struggled with that weight. When that, too, exhausted her, they removed a few more links.
She longed for rest, for sleep, but could not sleep with that weight; whenever she dozed, she could not breathe. Again, she had no idea how long this lasted; each painful breath seemed to be an hour away from another. She could hear the voices, hear the clank of metal as they played with her, taking off a link or so, and dropping it back on. She felt other pains, as the priests and worshippers prodded her, spit on her, and tried to provoke some reaction, but all that really mattered was air: the struggle to suck it in, the weight that forced it back out too soon.
* * *
As the torment continued, a part of her mind was aware of the differences between this and the earlier captivities she'd endured. That night in the Duke's cells, when she'd been so sunk in her own misery that she had not even imagined worse than Stammel's anger. The pain had been real, the fear overwhelming . . . but as the pain and fear of a child stung by a wasp is real. Lost in the moment, the child cannot imagine that the pain will end, or that any pain could be worse. The adult knows better; she pitied the child she had been, so miserable in the dark, alone and afraid, convinced that her chance to be a hero was lost forever. And how Korryn's punishment had shocked her with its cruelty! She had trembled for days at the thought that she might have been whipped and branded instead. Being stripped publicly had been bad enough.
And from that she had gone to a soldier's endurance, learning to stave off pain and fear with anger and defiance, linking hope to vengeance. That righteous anger served well against Siniava, or seemed to, when she avenged her friends' deaths. Yet in Kolobia, that same anger betrayed her to deep evil. She remembered too well that mood, black rage edged with madness, so much less innocent than the panic of the beaten recruit. Under it had been the same fears the child had, disguised but not controlled, a willingness to deal the pain she suffered.
Again, as so often before, her mind filled with the vision of her childhood dream, the bright figure in shining mail, mounted on a prancing horse and waving a sword. It flickered in and out of her sight, shifting in tides of pain and weakness, as it had flickered in her mind's eye these several years. Now she could see its shadow, the dark nest of fears which had brought it to life. Helplessness, humiliation, pain, a lonely death, and nothing after—she had feared these, and made of that fear a dream of power, of freedom, of untouchable strength and courage. She would never suffer that, because she would be the hero, the one with the sword, the one who was above such suffering.
And here she was, bound helpless before enemies who enjoyed her pain, an example, as they said, of Liart's power. An example to teach more fear, more hatred, proof that the dream of glory had been false: no power, no bright sword or prancing horse, no protection, even for herself.
But the image of her dream steadied, and did not fade. No one whole wanted to be hurt, wanted to be the victim of such cruelty as held her now. Her fears were as common as a taste for salt or honey, as healthy as the desire for comfort, for love. So much she had learned from the Kuakgan. Now, at last, she accepted her right to share those fears: she did not have to deny them, only master herself.
And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish—power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision—however partial it had been in those days—was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life—as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors—the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or th
e way the Kuakgan talked of the grove's interlacing trees. There below were the dream's roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream's images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them.
She did not know herself when these thoughts linked at last, forming the final pattern, bringing up into her mind the self she had become. It was then as if several selves were present, mysteriously separate and conjoined. Trapped inside her body was the same child she had been, feeling each new torment as a wave of intolerable pain, each ragged scream as a fresh humiliation. The seasoned soldier watched with pity as her body gave way to exhaustion and pain as any body would, feeling no shame at the sight or sound or smell of it, for this was something that could happen to anyone, and she had never inflicted it on others. And someone else, someone newer, refused the soldier's tactics of defiance, anger, vengeance, and looked into her own fear to find the link to those around her, to find the way to reach those frightened tormentors, the ones not already lost to evil.
In the rare respites, when the priests stopped to harangue the crowd and revive her for more torture, she felt curiously untroubled. Not free of pain, nor free of fear, but free of the need to react to that fear in all the old ways. She had no anger left, no hatred, no desire for vengeance, nothing but pity for those who must find such vile amusements, who had no better hope, or no courage to withdraw. It would all happen to her—all the things she'd feared, every violation of body, everything she'd taken up the sword to prevent—and she consented. Not because it was right: it was never right. Not because she deserved it: no one deserved such violation. But because she could consent, being what she was, and by consenting destroy its power over her and others, proving in her own body that fear's power came from fear, that greater power could from the same dark roots find another way to the light.
This quietness, this consent, formed a still pool in the center of that violent place. At first, only the priests noticed, and flung themselves into a frenzy of violence against it. But it was not brittle steel to break, or crystal to shatter, but a strength fluid and yet immovable, unmarred by the broken rhythm of her breath, or even by her screams. The quietness spread, from gray eyes that held no hatred for those who spat at her face or tasted her blood, from a voice that could scream in pain yet mouth no curses after, that spoke, between screams, in a steady confirmation of all good.
Those watching could not deny the wounds: they had seen them being dealt: they had helped deal them. They could not deny the sight of blood, the smell of it, the sticky feel of it, the salt taste on too many tongues. They could not deny the stink of burnt flesh, the sight of scabbed and crusted wounds, the dead servant girl, the boy's back striped and bleeding. This was not the quietness of inviolable protection, for she suffered all that was done to her. They had seen a virgin raped, a soldier's scars mocked and redrawn in fresh blood. They had heard a paladin scream, as the priests promised.
And yet she did not hate, and yet she did not fear, and yet she said, when she had breath to speak, that the High Lord's justice would rule in the end. The priests shouted threats, promised more torments, blustered and postured: the silence spread, as a pool rises silently above a new-broken spring when the dry season ends.
One by one the crowd fell still, or joined the mockery with less eagerness. She was so small, after all, broken like that . . . they could think of sisters, cousins, friends they had known, who might be where she was, if she were not there. They had thought it would be satisfying to see a paladin, one of the proud and powerful, brought low. But they knew her story, from the year that cruel rumor spread the tale of her cowardice. She was only a peasant girl, born into poverty. What did it prove to shame a sheepfarmer's daughter who had known shame already? Some among them had been soldiers, and recognized the scars of a common soldier who has seen hard service. They felt no braver for breaking a soldier's scarred hands. And those who had first laughed to see a virgin raped—and even those who had joined in eagerly—now looked from the dead servant girl to the other, and found something pitiful in both, something shameful in themselves, that they could take pleasure in such pain. She was no threat to them—why had they ever thought she was a threat? Paladins never threatened the helpless. The threat was elsewhere, in those who wore Liart's horned circle, who flourished the barbed whips and the heated chains.
By such small degrees the crowd's mood changed, shifting back in sudden fear when the priests turned their weapons on individuals chosen not quite at random, but slowly, inexorably, turning away from the praise of cruelty to some vague sympathy with suffering. Glass by glass, as the torches burned down and were replaced again and again, as the day passed into night and another day, and another night and day, one and another of those watching came slowly and without intent to a new vision of the world.
* * *
Of all this, Paks was hardly aware. At best, she knew what she must do, and why, but those moments seemed few. Pain followed pain in sickening procession; at times even her new insight failed, leaving her adrift in self-disgust or despair. For the most part she concentrated on refusing anger and hatred, accepting the pain as a necessary part of something chosen long before. When they broke her hands, each bone a separate torment, she struggled against her old fear of crippling. She had clung to the hope that if she lived, she would still be whole, able to fight. But she knew better, knew from having lived through it that she was more than a hand to hold a sword. She could live, being Gird's paladin, with no more than breath, or die whole, of old age, and be nothing at all. The difference lay in her, was her, was what she had become: no one but she could change it. The rapes, that she had feared before as both violation and torment wholly unknown, were then nothing but physical pain, no worse than others. She lost nothing, for she had had nothing, had never invested herself in that, or hoped for that kind of pleasure. It seemed to her that Alyanya came in a dream, and comforted her, but dream, vision, and reality were by then too nearly mixed for clear memory.
Then they held her up once more for the crowd to see. The chamber was crowded with worshippers who had come to see the end of the spectacle. At the priests' command the guards threw her to the floor.
"Will you admit that our Master commands your obedience?" asked one of the priests, nudging her face with the toe of his boot.
"I am Gird's," said Paks, forcing the words out. Her voice was clearer than she would have thought possible.
"You are meat. You are the sacrifice our Master demanded." The priest's voice was cold. "If you will not acknowledge our Master, the stones are heating for you." Paks said nothing. "Do you want to be a helpless cripple?" he demanded.
"No," she said. "But I do want to be Gird's paladin." Again she felt the lightest touch on her head, and a soothing haze came between her and her pain.
The priest snorted. "Gird's paladin! A bloody rag too stupid to know the truth! Then you will suffer it all, paladin of Gird, just as you wish."
Pain exploded in her legs as the burning stones were dropped in the hollow of both knees, and her legs bound tightly around them. She clenched her fists, forgetting the broken bones until too late. The pain was sickening, impossible; she retched, trying not to scream.
"And now, paladin? Where is your lord's protection now?" The priests hauled her up by both arms, forcing weight on her knees.
"The High Lord has dominion," gasped Paks. "Gird has upheld me here; I have not failed." She felt herself falling, and willed to fall into that darkness.
* * *
The guards held a bloody wreck between them. The crowd smelled burnt flesh, and shivered, not hearing the priests' final lecture. What had she meant, "I have not failed"? The paladin's head hung down, slack against her chest, the brand of Liart dark on her forehead. Then the priests gestured, and the guards
turned her around. The taller priest cut the cords around her legs, and her feet thumped down. With tongs, the priest yanked the stones from their place, ragged bits of skin clinging to them. The hall stank of it. The paladin did not move, or cry out; she might have been dead. For an instant, no one moved or spoke.
Then those in front saw, and did not believe, but recoiled even in disbelief against those behind. For the burnt bloody holes where the rocks had been disappeared, as a wave swept across lines on sand erases them, gone without mark or scar. At the movement, the priests turned, saw, and gaped in equal disbelief. One by one, other wounds healed, changing in the sight of those watching to unmarked skin. Finger by finger, her misshapen hands regained their natural shape. With a cry, the two guards dropped her, flinging themselves back. One of the priests cursed, and raised his whip, but when he swung, it recoiled from her and snagged his own armor. The other drew a notched dagger, and stabbed, but his blade twisted aside. She lay untouched, unmoving.
Now turmoil filled the hall: those behind wanting to see what had happened, those in front frantic to escape the wrath of Gird they were sure would come. The priests called other guards, who yanked her upright, head still lolling—now all could see that Liart's black brand no longer centered her forehead. Instead, a silver circle gleamed there, as if inset in the bone itself. At that, the priests of Liart shrank away, their masked faces averted from the High Lord's holy symbol. The terrified guards would have dropped her, but the priests screamed obscenities louder even than the crowds' noise, and sent them away with her, out the same entrance through which they'd brought her earlier. And then they drove the crowd away, in a rage that could not disguise their own fear.
Chaos scurried through the warrens of the Thieves Guild, panic and disruption, as those who had seen tried to convince those who had not, and those who would not listen tried to find someone to believe. Some fled to the streets: black night, icy cold with a sweeping wind, and patrols of cold-eyed Royal Guards sent them back into the familiar warrens, even more afraid. Factions clashed; old quarrels erupted in steel and strangling cord. Those who had arranged to take the paladin's body outside the city walls wrapped her in a heavy cloak and carried her gingerly, carefully not looking to see if that healing miracle continued, eager to get this terror out of their domain.