She searched her mind for an argument. “I have to eat and bathe and use the chamber pot or things will get really unpleasant. What if I give you my word I won’t try to escape? What if I promise to wait until Paxon has a chance to come get me?”
Arcannen gave her a long, searching look and shrugged. “Not that I think you would keep your word for one minute, but you have a point about personal hygiene. Maybe we can reach a compromise.”
He agreed to give her back her clothes and release all the chains but one clamped about her ankle, which would allow her to move about without leaving the room. Food and drink and water with which to bathe would be supplied. Guards would stand watch, but only come in to bring what she needed to eat and wash. She would give her word to stay put until he heard something from her brother.
She agreed readily—although he was right in supposing she didn’t for one minute intend to keep her word about not trying to escape. He knew it, and she knew it. That wasn’t how this game was played. If he wasn’t putting her into the pleasure stalls or otherwise misusing her, he must consider her well-being important enough not to risk causing her harm.
“Of course, if you misbehave after enjoying my generosity of spirit, I will have to change the way I do things. Your living conditions could take a change for the worse rather quickly.”
“What is it about that old sword?” she asked, ignoring him as he waited for her response to his threat. “Why is it so important to you?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t your brother tell you? He didn’t, I see. So why should I? Ask him when you see him. Ask him why he thinks I have gone to all this trouble to get hold of it. There’s a mystery for you to solve, Chrysallin-of-the-many-questions. Why didn’t I just steal it from you in the first place and have done with it? You don’t have the faintest idea, do you?”
“No,” she admitted.
He grinned wickedly. “If you change your mind about working here, just let the guards know. One of them will be in shortly to bring you clean clothes and release you from your chains. Behave yourself when he does.”
Then he patted her arm, rose from the bed, and went out the door, locking it behind him.
He did not go far. Just down the hall and around the corner. Mischa was waiting in the shadows of an alcove leading to an outside balcony, eyes glittering with anticipation. “Is it done?”
He nodded. “I will tell the guard to bring her clothes and release her chains. All but the one that secures her ankle. Not that it will hold her for long. She will be out of it inside an hour. That girl is smart and determined. Are you sure this will work?”
“She is a better subject with those qualities than if she were slow-witted. She will be molded as you intend. She will become what you wish. A week’s time, no more. Do you leave for Arishaig?”
“Tonight. Make sure you intercept her. Take her where you wish, but take her quickly.” He paused. “And Mischa. Don’t underestimate her.”
The smile Mischa gave him was chilling. “She is no match for me, Arcannen. And you should know that I never underestimate anyone. So don’t forget the terms of our agreement. I would be sad if you did, but you would be even sadder.”
He stared at her a moment. “Threats now, is it? Just be certain you keep your end of the bargain.”
Then he turned from her and continued on his way.
Arcannen had barely finished closing the door before Chrysallin was thinking of ways to escape. A single ankle chain and a lock on the door: Free herself of those and she was on her way home. The sorcerer was so smug, so convinced of his superiority over a fifteen-year-old girl that he believed her cowed. Or at least, he was convinced she would be unable to outwit him. Well, he was in for a surprise. She had no intention of waiting around for Paxon to come get her. She would be out of here and off to find him long before coming for her was necessary.
She lay back, thinking of Arcannen’s face when he found her gone, imagining his rage. It made her want to laugh. It was too bad she couldn’t be there to see it. But she brushed these images aside, reminding herself she wasn’t free yet and that there were still obstacles to be overcome before she could take time to enjoy fantasies of Arcannen’s unhappiness.
It wasn’t long before the door opened again and a guard appeared with her clothes. He dumped them at the foot of her bed, released the locks and chains that bound her wrists—leaving the ankle chain in place—and departed without a word. She sat up and spent several minutes massaging her wrists, then slipped out from under the sheets and started to dress. Right away, she faced a problem. With a chain and cuff still fastened about her ankle, she couldn’t put on her pants. Instead, she had to settle for slipping into her tunic and tying the sheet about her waist to use as a makeshift skirt.
Then she sat back down on the bed and felt carefully along the waistband of her pants until she found the tiny metal pick. Long and straight except where it curved at one end, it was a tool she always carried with her. Picking locks of one sort or another had become something of a specialty, although in this case it was more important than usual. Arcannen had left the lights on, so boosting her ankle and chain onto the bed provided her with enough light to pick the lock. It took her less than five minutes to free herself. Discarding the sheet, she pulled on her pants and boots, tucked the pick back into her waistband, and walked over to the door.
She stood there listening for a time, then carefully tried the handle.
Locked.
She looked around the room. What she needed was a weapon, but there wasn’t anything at hand that would serve the purpose. She thought momentarily about the chain that had secured her ankle, but it was linked to a ring in the floor—and besides, it was too heavy for her to wield effectively. What she needed was some sort of club.
She looked around. There was not a stick of furniture in the room save for the bed, and the frame was metal.
Her jaw tightened.
She was not giving up.
Walking back to the door, she put her ear against the frame and listened through the crack. Nothing. She waited a moment, and then she knocked and called out, “Hey, can you come here a minute? I need help!”
There was no response. She waited a few minutes and then tried again. Still no response. Good enough.
Retrieving the pick from her waistband, she began working it around in the keyhole. It was harder going this time, the lock larger and less easily maneuvered. But in the end it gave a familiar snick and released.
Pocketing the lock pick, she gently twisted the handle and felt the latch give. Standing where she was, with the door partially cracked, she listened for sounds of someone waiting outside. When she heard nothing, she opened the door farther and took a cautious peek outside, looking first one way and then the other down a long hall. She was not anywhere she had been before. She was not anywhere she recognized. If she was back in Dark House, as she assumed, she had been taken to a different part of the building than where she had been kept before. This area was shadowy and empty feeling, as if no one was anywhere about.
Still, she took her time before she stepped from the room into the hallway and began edging her way carefully along the wall, stopping often to listen for the sounds of movement or voices. But everything was still. She had chosen to turn left, but she had no idea what way she should be going. She needed some sort of indicator to give her a sense of direction so she could figure out how to get free of the building.
When she reached the end of the hallway, she was facing a wall. No stairway led either up or down. She turned around in frustration, her fears heightening, and retraced her steps, working her way toward the other end of the corridor, forcing herself to keep her pace slow and steady. This time, she found that the hallway bent to the left, and in the dimness cast by the passage lights she could just catch sight of stairs leading down.
She was just starting ahead again—freedom in sight—when a door opened in front of her and an old woman emerged. The woman was bent and worn looking, dr
essed in a skirt and blouse that were stained and old, a scarf tying back her long gray hair, and high-top boots on her feet. She was hauling a bucket and mop, and she carried a collection of rags under one withered arm.
A cleaning woman, Chrys thought, freezing in place. Too late to go back or try to hide. She waited for the old woman to turn the other way, to not notice she was there.
Instead, the old woman turned directly toward her and froze. For long moments, the two just stared at each other.
Then Chrysallin raised a finger to her lips in a universally recognizable plea for silence. The old woman watched her, then nodded in agreement. Chrys moved in front, heading for the stairway. As she angled past, the old woman beckoned her to step close.
Leaning in, the other whispered, “There are guards at the bottom of the stairs. If you want out, there is a better way.”
Chrys hesitated, then nodded. “Can you show me?” she whispered back.
The old woman nodded and wordlessly led her back the way she had come to a door she had already passed, opening it onto a hidden set of narrow steps. Motioning for her to follow, she led Chrys down three flights of stairs into a cellar crammed with boxes and smelling of damp and mildew. What light there was came from slits cut into the stone of the foundation walls, almost at ceiling height, and covered over with a heavy, diffuse glass.
The old woman led her across the cellar floor, winding through the stacks of boxes, avoiding places were water had pooled and cracks in the floor had opened. Once or twice, Chrysallin thought she saw movement in the shadows—quick and furtive. Rats. She stayed close to the old woman, her guide through this gloomy country she did not know. It took them a long time to reach the far end, and then they were at an old ironbound wooden door recessed deep in the stone of the wall. The old woman stopped there, released a series of locks and latches, and pulled the door open to the outside.
Chrys peered past the woman’s stooped shoulders to a twilight in which stars were just beginning to come out in a darkening sky. In front of her, steps led upward to a street lined with houses and streetlamps. She could hear the distant sounds of voices and the movement of carriages and horses.
She could smell the fresh air of the city. She could taste her freedom.
She turned to the old woman who was watching her through rheumy eyes, hands clutched to her breast like a supplicant. “Go on, now,” she hissed. “Run!”
Chrysallin almost bolted, but then she hesitated. “Will you tell me your name?”
The old woman smiled. “It’s Mischa.”
FOURTEEN
EXPECTATIONS DANCED THROUGH CHRYSALLIN’S MIND AS SHE fled Dark House and Arcannen for places unknown but infinitely safer. She ran through the twilight and darkness toward freedom, thinking at first only to put distance between herself and her captors but then realizing a plan was necessary. Afoot, she could never hope to escape. She needed an airship in which to fly to her brother at Paranor. She needed to find the airfield she had found with Jayet the last time she was here.
It was not as difficult as she had imagined it would be. She remembered the route easily enough, and she found the landmarks that would guide her on her way. She tracked them successfully, one after the other, taking care to remain clear of crowds and unfriendly places, doing what she could to make herself invisible to those she passed. At first, her running drew unwanted attention, and so she slowed to a fast walk in places where there were crowds. But soon she was far enough outside the heart of the city that only a handful of other people appeared, and she broke into a run once more.
She was in sight of the airfield when the men came out of the shadows between buildings on both sides, and she was trapped. They swarmed over her, bearing her to the ground, pinning her arms and legs. She was tall and strong for a fifteen-year-old girl, and she was not easily taken. But in the end, she was taken nevertheless.
What happened after that was horrifying. She lost consciousness at one point while fighting to break free—a blow to the head delivered by one of her attackers that dropped her into a blackness in which she seemed to drift for a very long time. When she came awake, she was lying on a table in a darkened room, her arms and legs pinned in place by cuffs about her wrists that were pulled tight by ropes attached to rings set into the legs of the table. A sheet covered her, and her clothes were gone. Again. She was fuzzy-headed and oddly disoriented. She could barely make herself care about what was happening to her, although she was aware of her situation. She wondered who had her now. It had to be Arcannen and his minions, didn’t it?
She tried to see through the darkness beyond where she lay, sensing there was someone present, hidden back in the gloom. But she couldn’t make anything out. So she lay passively, having no other choice, waiting to see what would happen next.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Almost as soon as she resolved to be patient, a door opened and men in hoods and robes entered the room. Smokeless torches were ignited on poles set at both ends of the table on which she lay, providing illumination that reached no farther than her immediate surroundings. The men—four in all—placed themselves at the corners of the table. None of them spoke. They just stood silently, looking down at her.
“Begin,” said a muffled voice from the darkness.
They did. They went to work on her with callused hands, wooden clubs, metal implements, and vicious promises. They started with her feet and worked their way up her naked body. They left no part untouched. They were thorough and systematic in their efforts, and from the beginning it was clear they possessed neither sympathy nor compassion for her suffering. They hurt her every time they touched her. They hurt her in so many ways she lost count. She could not see what they were doing, and her inability to anticipate only added to her pain. She screamed and cried and begged them to stop, but nothing helped. It was as if they didn’t hear her. It was certain that they didn’t care. These were men who had done this before. They were men who enjoyed their work.
She passed out over and over, only to awaken in white-hot agony anew. The torture went on and on. The men paused several times to rest themselves, to drink from an aleskin, to throw water in her face, to wake her with slaps and harsh words, to rest arms grown weary with tightening and twisting and pressing and jamming. But mostly they kept at it. Time lost meaning for Chrysallin Leah. She pleaded for someone to tell her what was wanted. She begged to be told if this was punishment or an effort at persuasion. She gritted her teeth and tightened her muscles. She twisted and squirmed and hunched her body against what was being done to her.
She prayed after what must have been hours of suffering that she be allowed to die. Even death would be preferable to this.
When they finally stopped, backing away to admire their work perhaps, a tall figure stepped into view. Arcannen? But this was a woman, one she had never seen, her features arrogant and commanding, her posture rigid and upright. She was Elven, her hair gray, her face lined with age. She studied her captive for perhaps half a minute, made a few strange gestures, talked softly to herself as she did so, then turned and walked away.
Chrysallin was left alone then. The woman and the men departed, and the room was shrouded in darkness. They had thrown the sheet over her once more, and she could feel the blood seep into the cloth and glue it to her skin. Her pain was a red-hot scream that flooded through her. She saw into the darkness through a screen of red, and there was a coppery taste in her mouth. She was certain the bones of toes and fingers were broken, but couldn’t see them and was afraid to move them in any way that would let her know for sure. With this much pain, every brush against the tabletop was agony.
What was worse was the sense of defilement and emotional carnage. She was fifteen years old, and she had been subjected to things she had never imagined she would be forced to endure. Tears flowed down her cheeks at the thought of them. She was shaking with rage and pain and a terrible sense of loss.
Paxon would make them pay, she told herself. Paxon would d
o to them what they had done to her!
But how long would it be until Paxon reached her? How long before he could come to her rescue? All her plans of escape had vanished in the wake of the day’s punishment. She no longer believed she could get free without Paxon’s help; there was no other way. She had put herself in this situation the way she put herself in so many unfortunate situations—by overestimating her cleverness and skill, by reckless belief in her own ability to avoid anything. She had attempted to do what she had been told not to do, and now she was paying the price.
She thought for long minutes about the Elven woman who had watched it all. What did she have to do with Arcannen and her kidnapping? What did she have to do with any of this? She wanted something, but she seemed in no hurry to tell Chrysallin what it was. Today’s torture had been an object lesson in the nature of control. She was letting Chrys know that she didn’t care when she got what she wanted. What mattered was that Chrysallin understood her captor could have anything she wanted from her, anytime she desired it. What she wanted the Highland girl to know was that she was in complete control.
That Chrysallin’s life was in her hands.
They came for her again sometime later. She could not tell if it was day or night, but she thought it was a new day because she had slept and her pain had lessened marginally. They entered the room as before, the four men lighting the smokeless lamps at the head and foot of her table, and they ripped off the sheet without concern for the wounds that were torn open and the skin that was shredded. The woman slipped in while Chrysallin’s screams were dying into whimpers, and the girl didn’t even know she was there until she spoke.
“Begin,” she said.
They did. All over again. It was a virtual repeat of the previous day, the pain beginning in her toes and working its way up her legs to her torso, and from there to her arms and head. It was a long, relentless assault on her body and mind, and there were times when she was awake that she thought she would go mad. On this second day, she blacked out repeatedly, which forced them to find more creative ways to bring her awake again so they could continue. A few new adaptations were applied, most involving underarms and ears. Burns were added to the repertoire of tortures, some applied with iron rods, some with coals. New damage was inflicted. Chrysallin could smell her own flesh burning. She could smell the stench.