The other man staggered and then teleported to avoid the second attack. He knew he wouldn’t survive a second strike. He began teleporting at random, hoping time would offer him a chance, but the warden already knew it was hopeless.
Tyrion began to raise a fog, one that went beyond the merely physical; a strange mixture of aythar and water vapor that rendered the area within it difficult to sense. He had long ago named it ‘mind fog’. Its practical result was that it obscured magesight just as effectively as it blocked eyesight. It had originally been one of his solutions for dealing with the invisibility of Prathion mages, but it had interesting applications in many other situations.
In this case it prompted the warden to panic. Unable to sense his surroundings, the Mordan mage would be teleporting blind. Sooner or later he would make a fatal mistake.
The one unbending rule of combat was movement. Everyone who had survived more than a few matches knew that. If you stayed in one place for too long, you were dead. The warden knew that Tyrion’s first action after raising the fog would have been to move. The wildling could be almost anywhere by now. The only place he wouldn’t be was the spot he started. It was also the one place he wouldn’t expect the warden to teleport to.
The rule of movement went hand in hand with another important rule of survival. Be unpredictable. The warden teleported to the position where he had last seen Tyrion standing before he had raised the fog. He would wait there, conserving his aythar and preparing a powerful counterstrike. When the wildling wandered close enough for him to sense, he would be ready.
Unfortunately for him, Tyrion was still standing there.
Aythar flared at the speed of thought as the tattoos on Tyrion’s arm lit with sudden power, sheathing his arm in a razor sharp blade of magical energy. The warden’s shield utterly failed to stop it and the blade took his right arm off at the elbow before continuing to cut a deep gash through his belly. He stared at Tyrion in horror before slowly dropping to his knees.
Tyrion sealed the stump of the warden’s arm before blood loss could rob the man of consciousness.
“Why?” asked the warden weakly, looking up at the man who had slain him.
“Do you know how many Mordan mages I have killed?” asked Tyrion.
“No,” whispered the warden.
“Neither do I,” responded Tyrion, “but you will answer my questions before you join them.” The fog continued to swirl through the arena, blocking the view of any spectators.
“I will answer nothing,” said the warden, looking down at his ruined midsection. “I am already dead.”
Tyrion smiled, “I can keep you alive for quite some time. The manner of your death could be painless, or…” He reached down to push his hand through the gash in the man’s stomach, wrenching the wound wider, and starting to pull out his entrails. “…it could be very unpleasant.”
***
A long scream pierced the fog before being replaced by empty silence. Dalleth stood beside the other two She’Har and waited in frustration. The fog had spoiled his enjoyment of the match.
“You should have forbidden him to do this,” complained the Mordan She’Har. “We can’t tell what’s happening in there.”
Lyralliantha’s lips quirked into a half-smile for a moment, “It won’t last too long.”
In contradiction to her words, the silence, as well as the fog, lasted for several interminable minutes, before finally dissipating. When the air cleared they could see Tyrion kneeling over the warden he had encountered in the hut. It appeared to be over, except for the final blow.
Tyrion’s arm lit up with focused power once more as he stared down at his fallen opponent. “My final gift to you…” he said, in a voice just loud enough to be heard. “…freedom.” His arm moved, and the blade touched the warden’s throat in a motion that was almost delicate. The spellwoven slave collar there vanished, disintegrating at the touch of the blade.
The She’Har slave collars were linked to their slaves in such a way that their proper owners could order their death at any time. They were also designed to kill the wearer if they were destroyed. The warden lost consciousness almost instantly, even though Tyrion’s blade barely nicked the skin of his throat. He was dead within seconds.
Tyrion watched the entire process with intense focus, waiting until the warden was completely gone before standing up and walking back toward Lyralliantha and the other She’Har.
The girl, his daughter, watched his approach with barely suppressed fear.
Dalleth wasn’t paying attention. The moment the collar had been destroyed he had turned to Lyralliantha, “How did he do that? I had heard rumors, but…”
“That information was not part of our agreement,” she responded lightly. “Perhaps we can discuss it when I return to collect Tyrion tomorrow.”
***
The girl huddled at the far end of the room. She was still cold, still naked, and most definitely still afraid. It didn’t help much that the man who had, until just recently, been torturing her was now replaced by a different man, one who had killed her previous tormentor. She knew nothing of his motivations, but the events of the past few days had made her wary of trusting anyone.
He watched her with cold eyes, studying her intently, but he said nothing.
Eventually she could stand it no longer, and anxiety overcame her fear. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Who was your mother?” asked the stranger.
That was the last question she expected, but she answered quickly. Her captors had been quick to punish any hesitation. “Emily Banks.”
The man sighed, “Then you are Haley, correct?”
She nodded, wondering how he had known. Until now, no one had seemed to care what her name was. Looking at the man’s intense gaze, she became even more aware of her nakedness. Hunching forward she hugged herself with her arms, hiding her chest.
“Stop that,” he ordered.
Haley flinched, but ignored his command. A sinking feeling came over her. She knew what he must want. Her previous tormentor, the one he had slain, had already violated her once, though he had used only his fingers.
“You’re broadcasting your vulnerability. Keep your head up and your shoulders back,” said the stranger. “Forget about being naked, that means nothing here. Showing strength, or weakness, that is all that matters.”
She glanced at him in surprise. The man hadn’t come any closer. Who is he? Why does he look familiar? “I’m cold,” she replied. “It’s hard not to cover myself.”
“I brought a blanket, but after I’m done you won’t need it. Let me show you how to warm yourself first.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“Close your eyes. It will help you focus. Then imagine yourself with a thin layer of warm air around you. You will need to visualize it carefully before you put your will into it. Go slowly or you might burn yourself. I frequently put a shield around the air, to make it easier to maintain, but if you do that around the She’Har, they’ll take exception to it,” he explained.
“Shield? She’Har?” she responded. The words confused her almost as much as the strange descriptions.
He waved her questions away. “Forget those things, I’ll explain them afterward. For now, focus on creating a layer of warm air around yourself.”
She tried, and the room began to heat up.
“No. Stop,” he commanded. “Your effort is unfocused. While it may be nice to heat the entire room, it’s a waste of energy. It will also be far too inefficient when you go outside. Watch me.”
She opened her eyes to stare at him intently.
“Not like that. Close your eyes. Use your magesight to watch what I do. Your eyes will only distract you,” he told her.
Magesight? She guessed he was referring to the strange new visions she had recently been afflicted with. Rather than ask, she did as he said, watching him only with her mind. After a minute, she understood what he had intended, although her own effort at replicating
it was much sloppier and diffuse.
“I think you’re getting the hang of it,” he noted.
Haley nodded, “I thought I’d never be warm again. They took my clothes several days ago.”
He was staring at her again, studying her face carefully. “You have your mother’s hair, but your eyes…”
She looked down, hooking her hair up over one ear self-consciously. “People always say that.”
He seemed curious, “What do they say, Haley?”
The stranger’s continuing use of her name was disconcerting, but she couldn’t help the feeling that he wasn’t really a stranger. He knew too much about her home, though she wasn’t sure how. “They say I have my mother’s looks, but the demon’s eyes.”
She looked up again, and her blue eyes locked on his.
He smiled, “That’s a sad way of putting it. I would have said you have your grandparent’s eyes; both Alan and Helen have blue eyes like yours.”
Haley was certain then. The stranger’s eyes were so much like her own, and now he had given the names of her grandparents—the people who had raised her. He might be—no he had to be her father, Daniel Tennick, the gods-cursed man who had raped her mother and driven her to suicide. The monster who had fathered over a dozen children before being chased from Colne by the forest gods themselves, but not before he had set fire to the town itself.
At least, that’s what the townsfolk said.
Her grandparents had told her different things about their son—about her father. They had told her of a young man frightened by a gift he hadn’t understood. A man who had made mistakes before being enslaved by cruel beings who were not fit to be called gods at all. And now she was trapped with him.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” she began, “You’re Daniel, my…” She let the sentence trail away. It was just too strange to say aloud.
He nodded, “That used to be my name, but I don’t deserve to be called a father. My name is Tyrion now.”
Haley couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth, but no words would come forth. It closed while her mind struggled to present something to her other than a blank void. There were a million questions, but she could not give utterance to any of them. Fear and surprise, had robbed her of the ability to communicate.
Tyrion waited patiently, wondering if she would curse him when the shock wore off. Eventually her lips moved again, and a few halting words emerged.
“Did you really…? Why did you do…?” She stopped, afraid to accuse him. After a moment she started with a simple statement, “I have a lot of half-siblings.”
“You’re afraid to ask me if I raped her, or the others? You want to know how much is true?” he asked bluntly.
Haley nodded without looking at him. His answer was not what she had expected.
“I did. I can make no excuse for that.”
“Why did you want to hurt them?”
Tyrion stared up at the ceiling. “I didn’t. I can’t excuse what I did, but I didn’t consider the fact that I was hurting them. Deep down I think I knew, but I wasn’t fully conscious of it. They weren’t either, at least not until later.”
His answer confused her. “How could they not know? Are you saying you didn’t force them?”
“No,” he responded. “I coerced them. I used magic to alter their feelings, overwhelming them with a passion that they thought was of their own making.”
“Then you seduced them, but you didn’t actually rape them,” said Haley.
He could see her youth and naiveté trying to put a more positive light on his past actions, but Tyrion had come too far to try and cover his sin with such a thin veil. “It was rape, Haley. I didn’t hurt them physically, but the lack of a choice is not the same as choosing. I am certain that if they had been in control of themselves, none of them would have lain with me. I regret it now, but I cannot pretend it was not an evil act.”
She paused for a minute, absorbing his words before speaking again, “They said she was—that my mother, Emily, that she was in love with you. That she killed herself, not for shame, but because of a broken heart.”
His chest tightened. “That’s the sort of thing people tell a child to paint things in a better light. She was obsessed with me, Haley, because of what I did to her. We were friends before that, but afterward—I’m sure shame had as much to do with it as any affection she may have felt for me.”
“Why am I here?” she asked, giving vent to the building, hopeless frustration that the fear and terror of the last few days had instilled in her. “Why is this happening? I never did anything terrible like that. I didn’t hurt anyone. What did I do to deserve this?”
“It’s going to get worse,” he cautioned.
“Why?! This isn’t fair,” angry tears began to slip down her cheeks. “I’m not like you!”
“Because of your power—the power you inherited from me. This world isn’t fair. It’s full of evil and suffering. The creatures who own you now have no understanding of kindness or compassion. The other humans here, their slaves, are worse than animals. They have been raised on cruelty and torture.”
She looked at him with wet eyes, but a tiny spark of hope remained in them. “Are you going to help me escape? Will you take me home?”
He shook his head, “I cannot.” Touching the spell-woven collar at his neck he then motioned to her own throat. “These prevent our escape. If you go too far without their permission, you will die. If they decide you are being disobedient, they can simply order your death.”
“Can’t you use magic to remove it?”
“I can, but it would still kill me. Nothing you can do yet will even damage it.”
“Then what is the point of this? You should just kill me,” she returned.
“No. I cannot stop them, but I can help you. I can give you what I never had when I first came here.”
“What?”
“Knowledge.” He stepped toward her, moved by the surge of emotions in his heart.
She shrank back and he stopped, reminded of her fear of him.
“When I was first taken, I was alone, frightened, and ignorant. No one talked to me. I knew nothing, and I barely survived that first year. Now I have some small amount of hope. I have bargained for twenty-four hours, to teach you what I can. With luck it will be enough to keep you alive. I will show you…”
“Why only twenty-four hours?” she interrupted.
“The Grove that owns you is different than the one that owns me. They are competitors. They are reluctant to let me have much time with you, for fear I will weaken or kill you,” he explained.
“But why? You’re my father, why would you hurt me?” she said, aghast.
“The She’Har, the forest-gods, they don’t think like us. They don’t understand familial bonds, just loyalty to the Grove. The Mordan have claimed you, while the Illeniel Grove owns me. That is enough to make them cautious,” he explained.
“None of this makes sense,” she exclaimed.
“I will teach you as much as I can. They will force you to fight. I will show you how to make a shield, how to defend yourself, how to kill…”
“No! I won’t fight, I won’t kill for them. They can’t make…”
“You will!” he interrupted. “You will kill, or you will die.”
“I can’t do it. I’m not a fighter. I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” she argued stubbornly.
Seeing her, listening to her, Tyrion felt his anger growing. His years struggling to survive, and the torture that had gone with it, had taught him otherwise. He wanted to help her. The girl standing before him now was his own flesh and blood. She had even been raised by his own parents. He cared for her, yet the words coming from her now were nothing but weak complaints. She might as well beg for death.
His hand itched, and he felt his shoulders tense. He wanted to strike the words from her mouth. Teach her pain, teach her anger, before they teach her fear and death.
It took an act of willpower to restrain himself. That was
not how I was raised. Why would I hit her? Those thoughts were not enough. He was no longer Daniel Tennick. That person was too soft, he couldn’t help her. But Tyrion could.
“Say what you like,” he said after a moment. “I will teach, and you will learn. First you must learn to create a shield around yourself.”
“I’m not going to—ow!” her sentence ended in a sudden shout.
“A shield will prevent me from doing that. You will learn, or I will continue and the pain will grow more intense and powerful each time,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you understand me?”
Haley stared at him, her face suddenly pale. Sweat was starting from her brow, and her eyes had changed. Where there had been defiance, now there was fear. She nodded.
“Good. Your mind,” he tapped his temple, “is the most effective defense, as well as weapon, that you have. You must train your imagination. To create a shield, you have to visualize a barrier between you and the rest of the world. It can be any shape or form, close against the skin or farther away, like a bubble. Try to create one, close your eyes…”
Chapter 4
Tyrion worked with her for hours, until one of the nameless appeared to bring food, a small tray with two bowls. The nameless were human slaves who had been deemed unworthy of fighting in the arena. The She’Har only granted a slave a name once they had been blooded, killing their first opponent.
The young man who entered was thin and awkward. Like all the humans living in Sabortrea he was a mage, but in Tyrion’s magesight he appeared to be a very weak one. It was no wonder he had been relegated to his role as an errand boy. Tyrion stepped in front of him before he could withdraw after delivering the food.
“I need you to take a message for me,” he told the man.
The nameless one kept his eyes on the ground, mumbling a response that was too soft to be heard.