A Girl and Her Monster (Rune Breaker) (3 page)

Gloating. That's what it was. He had managed to strike a bargain to get free of his bonds, and in the process, managed to shake off the inconvenient 'master' that came with it. If she weren't watching the world swirl and fade because of it, she might be proud of him for killing someone who enslaved him.

“Your only hope now is to order me to heal you.” He said, hand still on her head. “Just think the command and you will not die, Miss Taylin”

Taylin didn't know if it was the blood loss or the nausea that made her stomach roll at that. Probably both, plus a slowly kindling anger. How dare he give her that choice: become one of the things she'd tried so hard to escape, or perish just hours after making herself free.

The last of her strength was dedicated to reaching up and brushing his hand aside. She would die a good death after all.

***

Warmth flooded her. The afterlife? It made sense. The closest to this combination of physical and spiritual warmth flowing through her were the times that a sympathetic or, more commonly, efficiency-minded taskmaster deigned to use combat healing to get her back into battle or to work.

What she was feeling now was greater than the sum of all those instances combined. A river of light and warmth enfolding her body, dulling the sharp edges of her hurts, gently tugging her torn flesh into proper shape. It infused every tissue and every thought. Comparing that to what she felt before was the difference between a single rain drop and a deluge.

Her scattered thoughts chained together again, regaining the shape of coherency. Perhaps she shouldn't have feared death. Here she felt peace, comfort and pleasure that she'd never known in the mines or on the ships. It was as close to joy as she'd ever dared seek.

And then her hands began to itch. And the muscles in her back knotted.

No!

It couldn't be happening here, even in death. Not even in the afterlife could she escape the things the hailene had put inside her.

This time, there was so much strength behind her limbs that when she struck out, Ru turned a quarter circle before his balance failed him and he felt into a stunned heap on his side. Surprise and irritation filled the link as the green-black light that had enveloped her dissipated.

She gasped at the residual ecstasy from the healing before remembering the itching. A quick glance revealed that the very first little patches of scales were showing on her skin. She willed them away. Only then did she remember Ru.

“I'm sorry.” She said quickly, reaching over to help him up. Though he neither accepted, nor fought; she quickly had him sitting up again. “I didn't know what was happening. I thought I was dead and...”

Horror dawned on her. “Oh no. I ended up ordering you to heal me, didn't I?”

Surprise was quickly transforming into confusion and curiosity in the link, but only within a sizable nest of irritation.

“You did not, Miss Taylin.”.

It was her turn to be surprised. “Why? If I died, then you would be free.” For some reason, that irritated him even more.

“I would not have been free.” He said, his face still bereft of emotion. “In the event you die or relinquish the link, the containment spells will be reinstated within thirty hours, during which time, I will be compelled to find or construct with my power a place such as this to wait for my next master.”

“Oh.” She said flatly. “So you think it's better to...,” She felt sick at the word, “serve me than be imprisoned again.”

Ru didn't even think about it. “I'm not so certain. My half-oblivion existence while contained is a torment, but you seem averse to exercising my abilities, even when your life depends on it. If this is the case, one is the same as the other for me.”

There was no way that he was going to make her feel guilty for not ordering him around. But knowing the choices: being bound to someone or being sealed in isolation, she felt for him. Evidently, he sensed that in her and it made him even more annoyed.

“Then why did you heal me?” She asked.

“Because I cannot allow harm to come to you.” He said and once again got to his feet.

She did the same, after finding the sword on the floor beside her and taking it up. It never hurt to have a weapon about you, even a ruined one. “But you said it would allow you to let me bleed out.”

Ru turned from her and glided over to the fallen door, contemplating it intensely. “The link allows me to lie unless ordered not to.”

There was the smugness again. He'd tried to trick her into giving him an order. The little flame of anger she felt when she thought he was mocking her in death lit again, but it was prevented from burning over.

Back on the ships, she'd seen some her brothers and sisters, fellow ang'hailene, give in to who and what they were completely. They had become more like dogs than the hounds were; ready and joyful in the pursuit of their masters' goals. They reported dutifully all dissent and unrest; even killing their own if it was even suggested it would please the overseers and taskmasters.

Before it was broken, the sword in her hand had put an end to three like that. She felt no joy in it, even as she knew that they would have killed her gladly if they were only a bit stronger or more skilled than she was.

Somehow though, Ru didn't fit that. He tried to get her to issue an order, yes. But he made no secret that he didn't like her. It seemed that every word or thought of hers bit at him like a case of fleas he wasn't allowed to scratch. So what was it that made him attempt that gambit?

When she looked back at him, he had become an ogre; all gray-brown flab over hulking muscle. Without ceremony, he bent and worked stubby fingers under the collapsed frame off the door and with only a small effort creasing his hairy brow, lifted it back into place. Then with only a gesture, he worked some form of magic to make the stone around it whole again.

“Why are you doing that?” She asked quietly. The acoustics of the dome made it carry.

He glanced back at her and the ogre melted into the human shape she assumed was his base form. “Because I have done nothing for over one hundred and fifty years, Ms. Taylin.” He said. “A simple spell could have done. And really, there is no need to make repairs to this place. But I can, therefore I am.”

Taylin frowned. He'd been closed up in that... thing for three times as long as she'd even been alive. Almost as long as it was even possible for her to
be
alive. For her, it was her entire adolescence. For a human, if he truly was human, it was two entire lifetimes.

Reading her thoughts, Ru replied as he went about testing the door. “I've been sealed for longer periods than that. By the bonds of these spells, I've outlived civilizations you have not even heard of; so thoroughly were they wiped from this world. The designer knew the torment simple boredom can inflict.”

Taylin slipped the truncated sword into her belt. It wouldn't be needed for a time at least. “Is that why you tried to force me into giving you an order?”

“Partially.” He said stoically. The swirl of emotion and thought in the link stilled. Was he blocking it somehow? “Miss Taylin, the thing you must understand is that I would rather be a weapon than nothing.”

She chewed her lip. Others she had known shared that attitude as well. The work became everything to them, no matter what it was. That could at least be respected, not like the sycophantic slaves. Yet when the idea of rebellion would come about, they were useless, unable to imagine anything but the work. That Ru did not fit either.

“There are other options.” She suggested. “We could simply walk out of here and go our separate ways. You would be free to do as you please, free from me as long as I live.”

“Heh.” Ru laughed harshly. She couldn't tell what was behind it with the link clouded, but it didn't sound cruel. Just a laugh from someone who didn't engage in such a thing in a genuine way very often. “You think that you're more clever than the architects of these bonds?”

It wasn't the first time she'd been called clever. 'Taylin' actually meant 'clever girl' in the speech the hailene. She remembered being called Pele, which meant the same thing in Vishnari: the common tongue of the empire the hailene were at war with, though she couldn't recall by whom.

'Clever girl' were the last words of her former Sky-captain. He'd forgotten that she was proof against fire in the course of punishing her for being too clever for his tastes and she'd used the spell he intended to harm her with to melt the rune-covered collar on her neck that compelled against violent retribution. If he hadn't paused to mock her, he probably could have stopped her from kicking her discarded sword off the planks and into her hands. After that, nothing could have stopped his fate. She was too good a swordswoman to lose to a weaker foe in close quarters.

But she remembered being called Pele before, vaguely. And then it had not been said in cruel tones, but proud, soft ones...

Taylin brushed the thoughts aside. A dream from her childhood, remembered as if it were fact.

She was suddenly aware of curiosity and a hint of blood-lust in the link. She looked up to see Ru staring at her. He'd evidently seized upon the memory of the Sky-captain’s death, but even more obvious was the fact that he'd noticed her drift off for some appreciable amount of time.

“It won't work?” She asked.

“They considered every contingency, Miss Taylin.” He said with a nod. “Otherwise, I could abandon an unconscious master to their fate. If I don't witness a threat of harm, and am not informed of it by my master, the link cannot compel me to action. Therefore, if I separate myself willingly from my master by too great a distance, the retribution engine is initialized.”

Either by anticipating her next question, or simply by plucking it from her mind, he added: “It is a method of punishment; wracking pain and paralysis as well as disorientation and a cancellation of my powers.” He carefully let a feeling of finality into the link. The matter was closed as far as he was concerned.

Taylin respected that and changed the subject. “You're skilled in magic. Why didn't you use it against the hounds until the end?”

Whatever method he used to cloud the link stopped doing so in order for her to feel the amusement he next felt at the question. “Why did I lift the door instead of levitate it? I care not for efficiency or expediency. The point has been impressed upon me that I am eternal.”

He flexed his spindly arms and studied his closed fists. The sleeves of his robe obliged him by subtly dissolving until his arms were exposed to the elbow. “Therefore, I feel no compulsion not to embrace the feeling of power coursing through these veins, the pride of tension in my back, or the satisfaction of my own teeth and claws bringing oblivion to those that oppose me.”

“I'm sorry.” Taylin said in a small voice, as he stood there, apparently lost in his own dramatics.

“What?” He asked flippantly.

“For what happened to you. However it happened. And for... being in control of you. Is there really no other option?” She furrowed her brow, trying hard to communicate her sincerity to him in the same way he broadcast his own emotions to her.

What she got was another wave of confusion and a feeling of being off balance. That was swallowed once again by his frustration, seemingly his dominant emotion.

He continued to stare at his fists. They weren't impressive in human form. Not by a long shot. But he looked at them as if intending to use them to punch through a mountain. “There is always the option of actually making use of me, Miss Taylin.”

“No. There isn't.”

“Why not?” He snarled, his frustration mounting. “If you had found an iron cask and a jinni inside, you would not have hesitated to beseech him for wishes. If you knew a spell to bind a lord of devils, there would be no morality preventing you from forcing a beneficial bargain.”

Without even thinking, she put her hand on her sword's pommel, a classic intimidation tactic when dealing with enemy prisoners. “I don't want a slave.” She said firmly. “You've seen some of my memories, I can tell. Would you like to see more? Will that convince you?”

“I do not care, Miss Taylin.” He made sure she felt his apathy. “But perhaps you would like to recollect your one hundred and seven predecessors. Behold the greatness they attained through me, see their empires carved out and the centuries of their legacy. Would that convince you?”

Taylin sighed. “You simply don't understand. I don't want an empire, or riches, or greatness. I just want to live my life my own way: free. I want a home, friends, a life without war and slavery.”

Ru straightened his back. “And you think that will be allowed you? I
have
seen your memories. The ones that stirred in any event; and the ones that you dredged up at this very moment. You former masters are making war with the entire world and spitting in the faces of the gods to do it.”

He folded his arms, allowing the sleeves to regenerate. “If they have their way, there won't be peace in this world in a human lifespan. Not until they conquer the whole of their enemy. Which I shall remind you is the entire world.” A new emotion slithered into Taylin's mind from the link; slick, elusive and suggestive. She couldn't guess at what it was. She never felt it herself, that was certain.

“But...” His voice dropped an octave. “You now have in your hands a weapon. A means to exact revenge upon them; to end their ambitions of conquest in flame and darkness. Each and every one of them will lament at what they've done to you as the crows come to peck at the corpse of every great work they've created. Everything that is them shall be ground away to dust. Wet in their blood and tears, and fired into a shape of your own design.”

It was clear in the link that he was quiet proud of the picture he presented and expected her to respond in kind. But Taylin recoiled in revulsion from it, actually taking several steps back from him.

“No!” She shouted, flinching from nightmares that existed only in her mind's eye and Ru's words. “That isn't what I want! I don't want revenge or to grind away at anyone. I only want what I said. Peace. A life. And... and if that's impossible now, I'd rather sleep a thousand years until this world... this life is a crumbling nightmare known only as ancient history.”