Darkspell

  In her vision-trance she tried to cry out and wake him, but no sound came. She swooped down and grabbed his shoulders, but her incorporeal touch couldn’t shake him awake. Just as the two men pounced, she darted away and stood on the other side of the fire as the Hawks bound and taunted their prisoner. She saw the Hawks stride off, leaving their prisoner alone. All at once she heard Nevyn’s voice in her mind—speaking through her mind.

  “Call upon the Light and forswear the Darkness.”

  Sarcyn must have heard. He writhed, flopping against his bonds, looking this way and that.

  “Call upon the Light and forswear the Darkness.”

  Sarcyn looked right at Jill. She could see his eyes narrow as he peered at her; what he could see, she of course could not tell. Since her mind and Nevyn’s were so intertwined, it felt to her that she was weeping real tears over the prisoner as he lay trembling before her, but the grief, she knew, was Nevyn’s.

  “Call upon the Light.”

  For a long moment Sarcyn stared her way, then wept, his lips moving though she could not decipher what he might have been saying. She glanced round and saw the Hawks, returning with laden horses. Nevyn had apparently seen them, too.

  “Come back now!” His voice rang loud in her mind. “They have the power to see you if they should look your way with the second sight. Think of me, child. Come back to the room.”

  She pictured him, the room; suddenly her eyes were open, and she was looking into the fire. Nevyn was no longer touching her. She got up, stretching a peculiar stiffness away.

  “I never dreamed they’d be following Alastyr along like that,” Nevyn said. “I’ve got to work fast if I’m going to pull our apprentice out of this particular trap.”

  “What? Why do you want to save him, after all the foul deeds he’s done?”

  “He’ll pay for those crimes, sure enough, but under the laws.”

  “But he’s the most hateful swine I’ve ever—”

  Nevyn held up his hand flat for silence.

  “Why don’t you go down to the great hall and your Rhodry? I’ve got some hard thinking to do.”

  As soon as Jill left, Nevyn resumed his restless pacing while he considered what was to be done. He was determined to save Sarcyn from the Hawks more for the good of the kingdom than for that of the apprentice. If he died cursing and screaming under torture, his hatred and pain would fill his next life, making him a twisted threat to everyone around him. And after all, if he pitied Camdel, somewhere in his soul lay a spark of decency that might be fanned to a purging fire.

  “If we can pull him out, anyway,” Nevyn remarked to the fat yellow gnome, who was basking by the fire. “Doubtless they’re heading for Bardek. I wonder how they’ll smuggle him onto a ship. Probably a large chest or suchlike would do.”

  The gnome scratched his stomach thoughtfully. Nevyn considered asking Blaen to send a warband after them, but the Hawks had a long head start. Besides, since they were dweomer-trained, they would see the pursuit and be able to hide quite effectively. I could ride with the warband, though, he reminded himself, if we can catch up. It was going to be slow going for the Hawks, after all, as they picked their way through the mountains.

  The mountains. Nevyn chuckled to himself while he knelt down by the fire to contact the one dweomer-master in the kingdom who could help him now.

  After the Hawks tended their horses, they returned to the campfire. Sarcyn lay unmoving and listened to them talk until he finally puzzled out their names. Dekanny was the taller, the one with the yellowish-brown eyes that bespoke some Anmurdio blood in his veins, while the other, who also seemed to be in charge, was Karlupo. Once they’d eaten, Dekanny knelt down beside Sarcyn and grabbed his wrists to haul his arms up over his head, then pulled up his shirt until it covered his face, blinding him. He lay still, summoning his will and listening to the Hawk humming to himself while he did something at the fire. Finally he came back.

  “I’m holding a dagger. I heated it.”

  Sarcyn braced himself with every ounce of his will. Dekanny giggled like a girl, then laid the heated steel on Sarcyn’s right nipple. Although the pain seared into his very heart, he made no sound.

  “I’m turning it over now, little one.”

  The pain bit into his left nipple. He fought to choke back the scream that bubbled up from his throat. Suddenly he felt his bowels gush and empty.

  “What a stink! I’ll turn you over and mark your cheeks for that.”

  “No you won’t!” Karlupo said from nearby. “You’ve done enough for one night. He’s got to be in decent shape when he reaches home, because the masters will want him to last as long as possible.”

  “Ah, he can heal on the ship.”

  “I said enough.”

  Then the world spun round, and Sarcyn fainted. He woke in the middle of the night to find himself still lying in his own excrement. They’d pulled his shirt down, and the rough linen chafed on his burns, which oozed some sort of liquid. He lay awake for a long time, fighting to keep from moaning, before he fainted again.

  In the morning they kicked him awake and hauled him up to a sitting position. Karlupo had made barley porridge in a small kettle and brought a bowl over.

  “I’ll untie your hands so you can eat,” he said. “But if you cause the slightest trouble, Dekanny will get some pleasure out of you before we ride.”

  Sarcyn turned his head away. He was determined to starve and weaken himself so that he’d die more quickly under the torture.

  “You’re going to eat,” Karlupo snapped.

  When he still refused, they knelt down on either side of him. Dekanny pried his jaws open while Karlupo shoveled in a spoonful. The stuff gagged him so badly that he had to swallow it out of sheer reflex. They fed him the whole bowl, and the humiliation hurt as much as his burns.

  Yet once they were on horseback, the pain took over. The motion of the horse made his shirt rub on the raw burns, and in the hot sun he sweated, adding salt to the friction until he could think of nothing but dying and putting an end to the pain. About midmorning his bound wrists began to swell, making the thong cut into the puffy flesh. By the time they stopped for the noon meal, his lower lip hurt, too. He realized that in fighting the pain, he’d chewed it open.

  “Are you going to eat, little one?” Karlupo said. “Or do you want us to feed you again?”

  “I’ll eat.”

  Karlupo untied his hands and stood over him with a drawn sword while he ate beef jerky and hardtack. Then it was back on the horses again, and more agony.

  By then they were well into the mountains and following a narrow track that twisted through enormous boulders. Every now and then they forded a fast-rushing stream or rode by a cracked and crumbling cliff. Sarcyn barely noticed what they passed. He had a new discomfort to add to his pain: riding all day in his damp and filthy brigga was making his thighs and buttocks chafe raw. Eventually Dekanny dropped back to ride next to him.

  “Soon we’ll be making camp. I’ll have a few minutes to play with you again. I want you to make a choice. I can either put the heated blade in your armpits, or in the small of your back—twice, of course. Tonight you tell me which one you want.”

  With that he dropped back to take up the rear guard and let Karlupo have the lead. Sarcyn trembled beyond all his will to stop. He knew exactly what Dekanny was doing. If he didn’t choose, of course, he would get both tortures, but if he chose, he would be taking the first step in collaborating with his tormentor. They wanted him to begin to surrender his will, to become a partner in his own pain until at last there would be a dreadful, almost sexual complicity between the giver of pain and the receiver of it.

  “Dekanny!” he called out. “I won’t choose.”

  From behind came only a girlish giggle of excitement. They rode into a rocky defile, topped with scrub and brush. Once, when Sarcyn looked up, one of the bushes seemed to turn into a face. Hastily he looked away. If he became delirious, he would lose his will to resist
. He concentrated on his breathing and tried to put his mind far away from his aching, throbbing body, while the shadows grew ever deeper and the night grew inexorably closer.

  Two hours before sunset they camped in a valley so narrow that it was more a cleft between two hills. Sarcyn sat on the ground and watched every move Dekanny made as the two Hawks set up camp and gave the horses extra rations of oats to compensate for the lack of grass. Soon, very soon, he would feel the hot blade four times.

  “Let him eat first,” Karlupo said finally. “He won’t be able to get anything down when you’re done with him.”

  “Very well. I’ll let him rest between each mark, too.”

  Sarcyn bit his bleeding lip and stared at the ground as if he could reduce the whole world to this little patch of rock. All at once he heard Dekanny shriek. He looked up to see the Hawk staggering with an arrow in his left shoulder and a swarm of men pouring into the valley. Short they were, about five feet tall at most, but massively built and armed as warriors. Their long axes swung efficiently, twice, three times, and Karlupo lay dead with his head knocked off his shoulders and both legs cut off at the knees. Although Dekanny tried to run, a great ax slashed up from below and drove deep into his crotch. Screaming, he fell, to have his throat slit neatly with the barest edge of a blade. The warriors smiled at each other and gathered round to look at the corpses. Only then did Sarcyn realize that none of them had uttered a sound during the unequal battle.

  Taking off his pot helm, one of the warriors strode over to Sarcyn. He had a lined, tanned face, a thick gray beard, and bushy black eyebrows.

  “You speak Deverry speak?”

  “I do.”

  “Good. I speak Deverry speak. Not good good, but I speak. Others speak good good, back inside. Talk then. I Jorl. You stand up?”

  “I don’t know if I can. Here, good Jorl. I don’t understand this. Who are you?”

  “Mountain people. No worry, lad. We rescue. You safe.”

  Sarcyn let his head slump forward and wept, the tears pouring like a child’s while Jorl cut his hands free with a tiny dagger.

  It took several dwarves to get Sarcyn back into the saddle. They collected the other mounts, then set off on foot, leading the apprentice along. Although he was dimly trying to figure out why they’d rescue him, it took most of his will and attention just to stay mounted. Finally, as the twilight was growing gray, they marched down a narrow valley and straight toward a cliff. As they came closer, Sarcyn heard a grinding sound.

  “Oh, by the gods!”

  A huge door was slowly opening in the cliff face. Just as they reached it, it held steady and open. When Jorl led his party into a high, square-cut tunnel, other men came forward carrying lanterns and speaking in a language that Sarcyn had never heard before. He glanced back to see the door slowly being winched shut behind him. The sight of the disappearing crack of twilight made his head swim. Suddenly hands reached up and grabbed him to lower him gently down. Jorl’s face leaned over him.

  “We get litter. Carry you.”

  Sarcyn wanted to thank him, but the swimmy darkness enveloped him.

  When he woke, he was lying on a narrow pallet in a pitch-dark chamber. At first he panicked, because there was not a crack or shimmer of light, not even the variations of darkness as in a normal nighttime chamber. Gradually he became aware that he was clean, naked under a soft blanket, and that his burns throbbed only slightly. His broken lip, too, had been smeared with some pleasant-smelling salve. In a few minutes a door opened with a burst of light. A fellow who was about four feet tall walked in, holding up a lantern.

  “The Wildfolk said you were awake,” he announced. “Can you eat?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ll bring you somewhat, then.”

  He set the lantern down on a little table near the door, then went out, shutting the door behind him. Sarcyn heard the sound of a heavy bar being dropped on the outside. So he was a prisoner, if a well-treated one. Although the room was only about ten feet on a side and carved out of the living rock of the mountain, it was far from being a cell. On the floor was a solid red carpet, and beside the pallet and the table there was a squarish chair with a high back and cushioned seat that looked as if it would be quite comfortable for someone with very short legs. Near the door, discreetly covered with a square of cloth, sat a chamber pot, and next to it were his clothes, washed, dried, and carefully folded.

  Moving slowly, because his head was still light, he got up and dressed. He was not surprised to find that his sword was nowhere to be seen. He was just finishing when the fellow returned, bearing a wooden tray with two bowls on it.

  “Do you like mushrooms?”

  “I do.”

  “Good.” He set the tray down on the table. “All the movables are a bit small for you, aren’t they? Well, you won’t be here long.”

  “Can you tell me where I’ll be going?”

  He paused, head tilted as he considered, then shrugged and went to the door. He held it a bit open so that Sarcyn could see the two heavily armed soldiers on guard before he spoke.

  “The Master of the Aethyr’s coming to fetch you.”

  He stepped out, slamming the heavy door shut just as Sarcyn leaped for it more in terror than in a rational attempt to escape. He slammed into it and leaned there spread-eagled, listening to the sound of the dropping bar, then began to sob in near-soundless gulps. Finally he pulled himself away and began to pace round and round the room. Up near the high ceiling was an opening that had to be an air vent, but it was only a foot square, far too small to squeeze through. Maybe he could pretend to be ill, then overpower his keeper—but there were the guards. Maybe he could withdraw his aura, slip out—if they ever opened the door again before Nevyn arrived. Or he could summon Wildfolk to create a distraction; maybe he could even get one to lift the bar on the door.

  All at once he stopped pacing as a thought went through him like an arrow: he didn’t want to escape. He sat down very slowly on the floor near the table and considered it again and again: he had no desire to be free. He was weary, exhausted in his very soul, far too tired to run, and if he escaped, he would be always running, from Nevyn, from the law, from the Hawks, from the terror of his own memories, running, always running, always lying, always on guard.

  “The deer on a hunting preserve have more peace, truly.”

  He smiled, a bitter, twisted smile, at his own words. So he was going to die. Nevyn would turn him over to the gwerbret, no doubt, and he would be killed. It was better than being in the hand of the Hawks, of course. At the worst he’d be broken on the wheel, but he’d seen and heard enough of Blaen to know that most likely he’d be given a merciful hanging. He felt a certain perverse pleasure, too, in realizing that all the crucial facts he’d gathered would die with him. The Old One would never know about Rhodry’s mixed blood. When he smiled at the thought, he realized that he’d hated the Old One for years, hated them all, every dark master and apprentice and Hawk that ever he’d met, hated them as, indeed, they must have hated him. Well, he’d be rid of them now.

  When he held up his hands, he half expected to find them shaking, but they were perfectly steady. He wanted to die. He saw, suddenly, that his inevitable death would be not an execution, but an assisted suicide. For years he’d felt like an empty, hollow farce of a man; now the thin, false shell he presented to the world would collapse and be swallowed up by the void inside him. The long weariness would be over. He smiled again, and as he did, he felt a warm calm envelop him, as if he floated in a hot perfumed bath, as if he floated a few inches off the floor, so light and calm and safe did he feel now that he wanted to die. No one would ever force him to go against his own will again; no one would ever hurt him again. Still smiling, he drew over the tray of food. He was perfectly calm and very hungry.

  By the time he finished eating, the calm had become a weariness so deep that he could no longer hold up his head. He lay down on his stomach, pillowed his head on folded arms, and w
atched the shadows thrown along the floor by the lantern. At times he floated out of his body, then slid back, moving back and forth between the etheric and the physical without any conscious effort or control. He was out of the body, in fact, when the cell door opened and Nevyn strode in, accompanied by the dwarf who’d brought the food. Even though Sarcyn had never seen the old man before, he knew that he was facing the Master of the Aethyr by his aura, a near-blinding blaze of pale-gold light.

  “Worms and slimes!” the dwarf snapped. “Is he dead?”

  “I doubt it.” Nevyn knelt down by Sarcyn’s body and laid a hand on the back of his neck. “He’s not, but in a trance.”

  All at once Sarcyn felt the blue light swirl around him. He felt as if his body were sucking at him; no matter how hard he fought, it pulled him down the silver cord until at last he heard a rushy hiss and a click. With a grunt he opened his eyes and saw Nevyn leaning over him.

  “Good,” the dwarf said. “Well, I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  Sarcyn stared down at the floor until he heard the door slamming shut; then, very slowly, he turned his head and looked at his adversary. It seemed that he should say something, some cry of defiance, perhaps, or make the simple remark that he was ready and willing to die, but he was weary again, and no words came. For what seemed like a long time Nevyn simply looked at him.

  “I arranged your rescue,” Nevyn said at last. “Did they tell you?”

  “They did. Rescue or another trap?”

  “You young dolt! What do you think I’m going to do, torture you or suchlike?”

  “I’m sure you’ve no need for anything so crude.”