Chapter 5
In Which I Have Been Cruelly Robbed of My Consciousness, In Which That Bastard Has Laboriously Delivered My Large and Muscular Body to Whatever Shitty Room This Might Be When I Could So Easily Have Walked, and In Which, Dare I Say It, I Am Beginning to Doubt My Own Sexual Appeal.
Alright, so the mad sorcerer did not want to sleep with me.
My clothes had been swapped at some point during my unconsciousness, though I couldn’t imagine he’d done it himself.
Not with those frail, anemic hands; I’d be too heavy to manipulate.
Possibly a construct had changed me, pulling on fresh pants with its evil wooden claws.
They fit loosely, and the metallic stain over one hip made me suspicious as to their origins.
“Did you pull these off a corpse?” I shouted to the empty room. “Why did you take off my moderately clean things and put me in unclean things?”
At least I had a shirt again. The fabric felt cheap, but I couldn’t complain given the reprieve from my prophesied death.
“Might I suggest a wealthier corpse next time?” I guess I could complain. The wooden cot was unbearably hard, so I hopped to my feet, turning anxiety into motion.
Pacing the featureless room, the absence of pain struck me.
My knee felt sore, yes, but not with the shooting agony that had left it trembling and weak throughout my escape.
Ignoring the panic that fluttered through my gut, I felt curiously refreshed.
Even my bowels felt taken care of. Had that excessively thin man healed me with magic?
I couldn’t help a smile. This so-called ‘mad sorcerer’ might not be so bad, even if he had dressed me in corpse clothes for no discernible reason.
Still, I couldn’t compliment the man on his accommodations. Only a slim beam of light, falling through a window slit, kept the room from darkness. Outside, impenetrable fog coated the grounds.
“Is breakfast a possibility at all?” I called to nobody, then started as a previously unseen door slammed open. A wooden arm emerged from the doorway, beckoning. Packing my fear into a little box at the back of my head, I followed.
Our footsteps echoed in the corridor. I’d hoped to learn more about the sorcerer from his household decorations, perhaps pass a painting or relic I could drop into conversation later—like, ‘Oh your favourite lancer is Sir Bartimaeus, mine too, let’s pour some grog’—but dust buried the ancient furniture, and the walls were plain stone.
All in all, the castle interior looked as shitty and dismal as its master.
Distracted by my observations, I smacked into something hard: the construct, which had stopped at an entrance. “Sorry,” I said, backstepping hurriedly. “Do I go in there, then?”
No response. Hesitantly, I squeezed past the wooden beast through the open door. I’d barely entered when the creature came after me. I whirled, shielding myself with my hands, a memory flashing of Sir Galahad’s face torn to a red soup.
“Relax,” commanded a voice from the corner as the beast curled its talons around my shoulders and shoved backward, forcing me to trip over my own feet until I hit the rear wall. “I had them adjusted while you slept. They should fit as though tailored . . . just like my cloak.”
I failed to understand, until the construct pulled my arm up and, with a clink, closed cold metal around my wrist. An experimental tug produced the rattle of chains.
The construct maneuvered my other arm into the same indignity and—needing someone to protest to—I scoured the dimly lit room for the sorcerer.
Merulo stood under the dancing shadow of a wall-mounted torch, witch-light burning in his stone eye. He looked simultaneously pleased and annoyed.
A creak sounded as the wooden construct bent, pressing metal around my ankles, and leaving me jailed against the stone. Alright, so the sorcerer hadn’t liked my comment about his cloak. Well, noted. I’d be stingier with my compliments in the future.
“Why am I wearing poor people clothes?” I asked, trying for some class solidarity. He lived in a castle, I was a lord’s son, I reckoned we could get along.
The sorcerer looked away, clearly uncomfortable, which only piqued my interest. “It’s a bit saucy, isn’t it?” I pressed, giving him a smile. “Stripping me while I was laid out flat? At least let me be conscious so I can enjoy it.”
“Oh, shut up,” said the sorcerer, but he still looked ill at ease. “This doesn’t usually happen, but the command word caused your body to slacken too . . . completely.”
I cocked my head, not understanding.
“You shat yourself,” said the sorcerer.
“Ah.” Extending my awareness, I tried to mentally examine my rear. It didn’t feel especially crusty, nor had there been an odour.
“The constructs”—Merulo cleared his throat—“attended to you.”
“Well, seeing as you flung a ‘shit-yourself’ spell at me, that seems warranted.” I peered at him, wondering if another round of my ‘verbal abuse’ technique was in order. It had worked marvellously on Glenda, with the negligible side effect of making me feel like scum.
His face darkened, stone eye flashing, and I decided to change tactics. “Thanks for patching me up, my lord, that was a nice surprise.” I tried to flex my body in a healthy, grateful way, but mostly succeeded in jangling the chains.
“Well,” he said, stepping closer and casting a significant look at me. “If your claim was truthful and not some desperate fabrication, any injury that endangers your life may also threaten mine.”
It suddenly seemed of immense importance that I recall what, precisely, I’d said to that scythe-wielding construct. No doubt some of it had been embellishment and half-truth, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Obviously, a truth spell is in order,” the sorcerer drawled, and my stomach dropped into my nether regions.
His spidery white hand disappeared into the dark interior of his cloak, emerging with something small and sparkling.
A geode, with roughened rock on the outside and crystalline beauty in its exposed core.
Someone had hacked the purple stone into a strange shape, its curls and loops somehow malevolent.
Merulo brought the geode to his lips and whispered something soft and slimy, raising a blue glow that spilled across its surface like fluid. Approaching my chained form, he shoved the precious rock under his armpit and, in a shock of contact, began unbuttoning my shirt.
I watched silently, enjoying the slow reveal of my chest hairs until, roughly, he yanked my shirt up and over my left shoulder. Retrieving the geode, he stamped it into my chest. The rush of cold energy made me gasp; it felt like the icy twin to a cattle-brand.
It was a seal, I realized. He’d pressed a spell onto me.
“And now,” Merulo spat, teeth bared and face too close, “you will tell me of this prophecy.”
I flushed. His breath, warm and odourless, was decidedly more pleasant than Glenda’s seaweed-scented emittances. Did I enjoy being strung up like this, the constrained helplessness of my position, the cool shackles on my skin? Every day, we learn something new.
“Well, my lord, it’s like I told the construct,” I said, praying half-truths were permissible.
“Our Elders performed a something-or-other ritual with ‘the last dragon heart,’ and in the resulting vision of the future, several steps were detailed. The person who, uh, disclosed this to me described them as ‘ingredients in a recipe.’ Every requirement has been fulfilled but the last one.” At this I raised my eyebrows, feeding the drama.
“My death. And the outcome, once it’s all wrapped up, is said to be your defeat.
” I made deliberate eye contact, my confidence growing as the spell failed to compel the full truth. “They win, my lord. But only if I die.”
“And that’s all there is? Nothing more?” Merulo asked, his voice a deadly silk.
“Nope!” I said, then gagged.
The sorcerer leaned closer, grabbing my chin with a slender hand. His grip tightened, clearly trying for uncomfortable pressure, but he lacked the strength to make it anything but sensual. Could he feel my pulse, thundering beneath my skin?
“It seems,” he purred, and I focused on the rich darkness of his human eye, “that you are withholding information from me.”
“I am,” I tried to deny.
With an animalistic noise, he shoved my head back against the stone, clenching his hand around the stubble of my throat. His body pressed close enough for me to feel its heat. The smell of pungent herbs and burnt wood overloaded my senses.
I let out a little sound of something that wasn’t fear.
The mad sorcerer froze so completely that he resembled one of his constructs. With agonizing slowness, his gaze traveled downward. “Are you . . . What is wrong with you?” He leaped backward, nearly tripping over his own robe. “How could you possibly be erect right now?”
I jingled my chains helplessly, knowing any words that left me would be compelled truthfulness.
“Well listen, Merulo, you’re an extremely powerful man, and here I am all, you know .
. .” I tugged my restraints in demonstration.
“Seems like you could have your way, and little ol’ powerless me, what am I to do but take it? ”
His face twisted into something that even an optimist like me would struggle to read as lust.
“If it’s an issue of consent, I absolutely do consent,” I clarified.
“It is not an issue of consent,” he hissed, rubbing his hands, as if the brief contact had made them dirty. “I mean, not that I would violate someone’s . . . but that’s not . . . I don’t want . . . I am INTERROGATING you!”
It killed the mood, if I was being honest, and I was magically obligated to be honest at the time.
Recognizing his loss of control, Merulo beat a tactical retreat. He stormed from the cell, yanking the wooden door shut behind him, leaving me alone under the torchlight with nothing but my thoughts.