CHAPTER NINETEEN #2
“I think there must be more Darkness in you than you want to admit,” Maur continued.
“It’s doubtless one of the gifts you gained when I engineered your birth.
You should thank me, Ellysetta, because without that gift, you’d be just another of those useless Fey females, as helpless as a rose without thorns.
Instead, you’re strong, powerful. More like me than you care to admit. ”
She gave him a baleful glare and remained silent.
She wanted to tell him he was a liar, but she couldn’t.
No matter how vile his claims, they contained at least a grain of truth.
She was different from other Fey women. She could kill without destroying herself.
Not only that, she could enjoy it. She remembered Kreppes, and the grim satisfaction, the barbarous thrill, of gutting her enemy, hearing his scream, feeling the hot spew of his blood upon her flesh.
There had to be something in her, some hardness, some Darkness, some bit of evil that spawned such a dreadful trait and such macabre joy.
One thing was certain. That core of Darkness hiding inside her must never be released—not for her parents’ sake. Not for anyone else’s sake either.
“If you think your stoicism has saved them even a moment of pain, think again,” Maur said, misinterpreting her continued silence.
“They will suffer for a long, long time for their part in keeping you away from me all these years.” He leaned back to the pipe leading to both rooms, and said, “Summon the healer. When she’s done, begin again. ”
He nodded to the guards holding Ellysetta’s chains and turned towards the exit.
A hard shove from behind sent Ellysetta stumbling after him.
They went down four more levels, until they reached the bottom of Boura Fell.
A long, dark corridor, narrower than the ones above, stretched into the shadows in both directions.
Vadim Maur turned right and led the way to the very end of the corridor.
There, next to a shuttered opening that reeked of refuse, a dark, narrow tunnel curved off to the left.
The Mage took a torch from a stand bolted to the wall and lit it on one of the sconce lights.
As he led Ellysetta and her guards into the tunnel, the damp, narrow, black walls closed in around them. A terrible rotting smell made her shudder. The place smelled like death.
“Perhaps for ancient Fey you’ve never known, who long ago accepted their fate, you can stay strong,” the High Mage said as they walked.
The tunnel twisted back around to the right, and the awful stench grew stronger.
“But what about someone you love more dearly? Someone more fragile, more helpless? I think you will find it much more difficult to let them suffer.”
The tunnel opened up to a gaping black maw of a chamber. A black stone promontory, railed with twisting vines of sel’dor, extended out over the abyss. The air was cold and dank, thick with the odor of putrefaction.
The Mage raised his torch to a shallow gutter overhead.
Light flared as whatever the gutter contained caught fire, and flame raced along the gutter’s path, into the blackness.
The gaping maw was a dark pit, and even before the fire concluded its circuit and fully illuminated the floor of the pit half a tairen length below, Ellysetta knew what was coming.
She’d seen it before, in her nightmares.
She gripped the sel’dor railing, uncaring of the hot burn of the hated metal on her flesh.
Her sisters sat huddled together in the midst of the dark, stinking pit, tethered by chains in the center of a nest of bones and other rotting scraps.
The sudden brightness of the flames made them look up, shielding their eyes with their hands.
She wanted to scream the twins’ names. She wanted to throw herself on her knees and beg the High Mage for mercy, just as she had in her dream.
She dared do neither. She knew why he’d brought her, knew that no matter what she did, Lillis and Lorelle were doomed.
If she refused to accept a sixth Mark, Lillis and Lorelle would die.
If she did accept the Mark, Vadim Maur would own her soul; and he would use her to enslave her sisters.
They would become those Azrahn-eyed imps of Darkness from her nightmares, their souls bound to evil.
Oh, gods, gods. Why have you done this? They are innocent. They are children!
She didn’t think she had the strength to stand firm. Her sisters were the children she’d loved and cared for all her life, twin beacons of Light in a life full of fear and self-doubt.
“Will you not call to them, Ellysetta?” the Mage prodded. “Will you not tell them everything will be all right? I know you feel their fear.”
She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out. Aiyah, she sensed their fear. It burned worse than the sel’dor that pierced her flesh. She could not even spin a simple Spirit weave to whisper of her love and beg their forgiveness for bringing them into such danger.
“You were so brave, watching your parents suffer so nobly on your behalf. But will you be so brave now, watching your sisters eaten alive? Hearing their shrieks of pain and terror?”
Ellysetta’s head whipped around, her jaw going lax. Eaten alive?
The Mage leaned over the railing and raised his voice. “Your sister Ellysetta is here, little ones. Beg her to save you. She can, you know. All she has to do is give me what I want, and you will be released from the pit.”
The rumbling screech of metal echoed in the pit as unseen gates opened.
Then came the scrabble of claws against stone… and the bloodcurdling howls of the darrokken.
“The High Mage sent me with food for the prisoner.” Melliandra clutched the handle of the food cart in both hands.
The guard standing beside the door examined her with cold eyes. “I received no such order,” he declared, and his meaty fingers tightened around the spiked staff in his grip. “The healer just left, but the High Mage usually saves food until the prisoners are returned to their cells.”
Melliandra kept her expression blank and unemotional.
“The High Mage is entertaining a special guest. He wants these two strong enough to survive a long time.” When the guard still showed no sign of stepping aside, she added, “Or I can return to the kitchens and inform my mistress that you kept me from fulfilling the Great One’s commands.
I’m sure he will understand why his orders were overridden. ”
As she expected, just the hint of an ill report to the High Mage was enough to give the guard pause. His brows furrowed and he poked the tip of his staff in the direction of her cart.
“Lift the cloth on that tray.”
Melliandra obeyed, revealing two bowls of fatted porridge, a pitcher of water, and a hammered-metal goblet. Simple fare. Nothing out of the ordinary for a prisoner.
After a brief inspection, the guard grunted and stepped aside. “Go on then, but be quick about it.”
She murmured an assent and pushed the cart through the doorway.
Lord Shan, silent and still as the dead, lay strapped to the table at the center of the room. Pools of blood glistened on the dark stone floor and still dripped from the table, but Melliandra could see no obvious wounds. The healer had done her job well.
Vadim Maur’s new torture master stood beside a table set with a variety of knives, hooks, and vises. Tools of the torturer’s trade. He was sharpening his curved disemboweling knife. At the sight of Melliandra, he scowled. “What do you want? The healer has come and gone. Get out.”
“Master Maur commanded me to feed the prisoner,” she said. “He wants him kept strong, to make him last longer.”
After some grumbling about interruptions, the new torture master set down his implements and moved aside.
Melliandra pushed her cart towards the table. She flicked a quick, searching glance around the room, noting the three guards who stood in the corners of the stone chamber, barbed sel’dor pikestaffs in hand. Four armed men. Worse than she’d hoped for.
“He can’t eat like that.” She gestured to the sel’dor straps that kept the Fey immobilized on the table. “He needs his hands to feed himself.”
The torture master snorted. “I know what happened to Goram, and I’ve heard all the tales about how Lord Death can gut a man with his little finger. Feed him yourself. Because he stays where he lies, bound and strapped.”
Melliandra ground her teeth. There was no way even Lord Death could defeat four armed men while restrained so securely he could barely move a finger.
“I’m not putting my fingers in his mouth.
He’d bite them off for sure! Just one hand,” she pressed.
“Surely between the four of you, you could skewer him if he so much as twitches.” When they still didn’t budge, she offered a bribe few umagi could resist. “I’ll bring you all hot stew from the Mage Hall kitchens for a week. ”
That did the trick. With a muttered oath, the torture master unhooked a ring of keys from his belt and tossed them to one of the guards.
“Left arm only. The rest of you, look sharp. If he moves, spit him like a roast pig.” He narrowed his eyes at Melliandra.
“I like extra meat in my stew. Don’t forget. ”
“Won’t,” she vowed.
Two of the guards held the barbed points of their pikes pressed against the Fey’s throat while the third unlocked the restraining straps at his left wrist and elbow and jumped back.
Melliandra watched their twitchy nervousness with a curious mix of satisfaction and trepidation.
They feared him so much. She only hoped Lord Death’s abilities lived up to his reputation.
The Fey flexed his arm with slow deliberation, curling and uncurling his fingers to return circulation, rotating his wrist, elbow, and shoulder. All the while, his slitted green gaze made careful note of the guards’ reactions and the shifts in their location.