Revelation (33 page)

I ignored the metal dish of food—meat, none too fresh—but pulled the cup close and managed to raise my head to drink. I spat out the first mouthful. Never had I tasted drink so foul. But it had no ill effect, so I kept it close and, as soon as I could steel myself, tried again. My thirst muted, I slipped into a painful stupor, only to be kicked awake before I could gain any benefit from it.

“Garaz do tsiet, Yddrass.”
And they began it all again.

 

In an eternity of darkness, I was subjected to every horror of nightmare. I was drowned fifty times, consumed by dark fire fifty more. Between beatings that left me pulp and lashings that left me in shreds, I lay in a huddled knot and wished for death. They knew each nerve ending to scald with burning oil and each tender bit of flesh to pierce with iron spikes. From my deep-buried fears they drew images of snakes and entombed me with a thousand of them. And they discovered my horror of mutilation and made sure I knew every form it could take. Once I lay for what seemed an entire day believing that both my arms had been severed at the shoulder. Sometimes I believed that they actually did the things I felt, but healed me or reversed the damage after, so they could have the pleasure of doing it all again. Sometimes I was convinced it was all illusion, grotesque visions punctuated by enough reality to linger until the next time. I never knew the truth of the matter. The only surety was that every fiber of my body was in agony every moment of those endless days.

They tried to invade my soul as well. At the beginning of each session I would feel one or the other of them pawing at the door, hunting for the way inside. “
Seggae llydna
.” Speak your name. It was the only fight I won, yet I knew it was only a matter of time until they had their way with me in that, too. But for the time they had to be content to remain close by as the day’s work was done, licking at the scraps of my pain and despair like cats in a milking stall. I did not scream or beg for mercy. Though they hungered for it, and things might have gone easier if I had given them their fill, my long years of practice would not allow me to feed a demon’s lust. But when I was left alone, I buried my mouth on my filthy, bloody arms and sobbed in muffled agony. I craved one moment’s peace. One glimpse of light.

I was fed regularly—raw, rancid meat. Perhaps it was not real, or perhaps my senses were merely deceived into thinking it the worst filth I could imagine. But at least I had been accustomed to eating whatever came when I was a slave. Though I longed to die, stubborn instinct would not allow me to hurry it along, so I ate enough to keep myself alive.

Never was there light. Never was there warmth. Never was there a word that was not hatred or vengeance. Day or night had no meaning, nor did hours, or weeks, or months. After a time I could not even remember what to wish for . . . only for an end to what was. Of course I tried to use my melydda to make a light, to weave some protection. But I could not summon power, and any attempt drew the demons down on me in frenzy.

Early on, in the brief hours of respite when my tormentors were otherwise occupied, I tried to crawl away, for the place where I was kept was not a cell with walls. Each time I worked for hours, scarcely able to drag myself along, hoping that I would find something to touch, to feel, to hear, or that at least I would not die in their hands. But I arrived nowhere except where I had always been, and my jailers had no difficulty finding me. Their first cold touch, just behind my eyes, was the worst of all.

Desperate to find some reason to keep breathing, I tried to fill my mind with images of those I loved. But I could not conjure their faces, and the fading echoes of their voices were more painful than the bodily torment I endured.
Prophecies will not shield you from the law if you come back tainted this time . . . Sometimes you cannot bear to see the ugly truth of something you believed was good . . . I thought we might learn from each other, but I don’t care to learn what you have to teach . . . I see no reason to contradict the saying of the Council. Your Warden’s commission is revoked. Your oath is void.
No comfort in those voices.

The one thing that prevented my complete disintegration was the remembrance of Fiona, somewhere back in the world of light, her small, stubborn face set in the mysterious trance of an Aife, doggedly weaving her lifeline in a sleeping Balthar’s soul. For one hour of every day, there was the possibility of escape. I had no idea how to reach for it, or whether I would ever have the strength or ability to use it, but the possibility was enough. No one in the world—not Aleksander, not Ysanne, not Catrin—no one would I trust the way I trusted stubborn, relentless Fiona. She would be there, and one day I would find a way to use her gift. Until then, I would just have to survive.

 

I was dizzy and sick from another wicked beating, curled up in a ball, trying to steel myself to eat the disgusting mess they had left for me, when I felt the creeping touch of demon fingers. “Leave me alone. You’ve had your fun for a while.” It certainly wouldn’t stop them—I didn’t think they understood anything I said—but it gave me heart to know I could still put words together. Two of them pulled me to my feet and backed me to a cold iron post, which seemed to manifest itself whenever they had need of it. The third demon bound my hands to it.

Though I never saw my three jailers, I had learned to tell them apart by their voices, their touch, and their pleasures. One was the most vicious, always inventing new torments and always the most disappointed when I did not give him what he wanted in return. I thought of him as Jack-Willow—a nasty character who appeared in many Ezzarian children’s stories. One of the three I named Gyyfud, because he reminded me of a boy I had known in my youth who had burned down his parents’ home by playing with fire. The demon Gyyfud had the same dangerous habit, only it was my hands and feet he liked burning. The third demon I thought of as Boresh, for he reminded me of a household official in the palace in Capharna. His delights, too, were always degrading and obscene.

“You’ll get nothing from me. Nothing.” But of course they would. Eventually they would.

“Yddrass . . .” It was a new voice. Higher. Tinny sounding. The visitor was astonished at my presence, and I had to endure his nasty investigation of my substance.

Though I relished any novelty as evidence that time had not abandoned me, I was not at all excited to have someone new come to visit. Only once had any but my three jailers entered my prison. On the second or third day of my captivity, a soft-voiced visitor had come and stripped away my clothes, then taught Boresh in mortifying detail how to inflict the most private indignities upon a human man. Visitors were dangerous.

Jack-Willow babbled at this new visitor without stopping, and it came to me that he was boasting—showing me off. I had no way to estimate demon intelligence, but I didn’t think his proud display accomplished what he intended. The visitor stole me.

Perhaps for an hour after the two had left, I lay in the throbbing stupor that passed for sleep. A cold appendage twined itself about my neck, and before I could protest, a fist-sized lump of nothing was lodged in my throat. Amid furtive whisperings, I was dragged away, a very long way, and deposited somewhere else. That is, I assumed it was another place, though it was truly no different at all. Absolute darkness. Bitter cold. It smelled like a charnel pit. Or perhaps that was just my own stink.

“Yddrass,”
said the one with the tinny voice.
“Seggae llydna!”

“No.” I shook my aching head. I would not yield my name. Not yet.

“Dol fysgarra, Yddrass?”
I had no idea what that one meant.
“Garaz do tsiet.”
They yelled these things many times, pounding me to the floor after each repetition as if the blows might make me understand, then prodding me to stand up again. Eventually it was impossible for me to rise, and they had to stop.

“So you’ve won your point, whatever it was,” I said as soon as I got breath enough to speak. My face was pressed against the quite solid floor. “But I only came here to ask a few questions. I want to find one of the Nevai.”

“Nevai!” They found great hilarity in that. Stomped on my hands and kicked me in the face while they laughed. I thought perhaps they were the Nevai.

These fellows were not so inventive as Jack-Willow, but they seemed to quite enjoy every minute of their activities. Their particular pleasure was to hold mock combats, to flatten me while I was holding a weapon—no matter that it was impossible for me to do anything with it. “
Dol fysgarra, Yddrass
?” And so the misery continued as before.

After I had been with the second group as long as with the first—weeks, months, a year?—I began to lose my memory. My head was never clear, and my thoughts drifted away before I could catch them. To concentrate on the mental exercises I had used to keep some semblance of sanity became impossible. I never truly slept anymore; everything hurt too much. But I was never really awake, either. I could no longer remember what evidence had convinced me to come to this place. Something about a dream. A picture, a blur of colors. Something I needed to know, but I couldn’t think what it was. I lay in the dark and laughed at that, as I throbbed and ached and bled. Who would step into the mouth of a shengar because of a picture? Who would surrender his soul because of a dream? Only a madman. I had a vague remembrance that in some time long past, friends had judged me mad. They must have been right. But it worried me more that it took me a very long while to name the colors in the picture.

 

I stood up as quickly as possible. Getting up was painful, but you paid a price if you weren’t quick about it. Ham-fist hated it when you didn’t get up right away. He was the leader of my third set of captors. I wasn’t sure when his group had taken me. I knew only that I once woke up hanging by my wrists with different voices whispering in the dark.

Ham-fist was very strict. He commanded his henchman with as much zeal as he battered his prisoner. But on this particular occasion, he sounded nervous. Perhaps I was about to be claimed by someone new. Someone unfamiliar stood close by in the dark—someone who didn’t smell bad, which was very unusual.

“Hyssad!”
This new one spoke softly, but with altogether more substance to his voice, as if perhaps there were a physical body behind it. If so, I pitied him. Physical bodies were dreadful things . . . useless things . . . always so much pain . . . hungry, thirsty, stinking . . . forever . . .

“Dego zha nevit!”
The words were unknown to me. Though I had come to understand a few brutally simple commands, I still knew very little of the demon language. Within the soul of a possessed victim, demons spoke in the tongue of the victim. Only when he had killed the demon’s physical manifestation was a Warden forced to bargain in the demon tongue. But I could hear that Ham-fist was very angry. He didn’t like being told to leave. Demons hated the word “hyssad.” But the newcomer stood his ground, and soon my jailer was gone. Silently as always. I had never gotten used to the absence of footsteps. It kept me jumpy all the time, for I could never hear them coming. I never knew when or from which direction the next blow would come.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy meeting someone who could order Ham-fist around. Chances were he wouldn’t like Wardens, either. I shrank into as small a space as I could, and wrapped my arms over my head. Best to be prepared. I wished they would leave my head alone. I didn’t like being so muddled.

“I won’t hurt you.”

At first I couldn’t figure out what made the comment seem so strange. A moment passed before I realized not only were the sentiments unusual, they were expressed in words that made sense—Ezzarian words. When a warm hand took a firm grip on my arm, I almost came out of my skin. A normal human hand. I thought it might burn a mark into my flesh.

After a moment’s hesitation, I reached out and felt the solid muscular arm connected to the hand. “Who?” My voice shook, for suddenly I was trembling with the cold, with weakness, with fear and despair and a deluge of emotions let loose by four words and one touch. I had lived for so long in the dark.

“A survivor. How long since you took up with this lot, lad?”

“Don’t know. Forever.” My teeth were chattering.

“I don’t doubt it seems so. Here”—he helped me sit down—“careful of your eyes.”

I was too slow. A searing pain split my head as a sun bloomed in front of my face. I buried my face in my arms and suppressed a moan.

“Oh, hang it all, I’m sorry.” The flame beyond my eyelids dimmed. “Now, try again. Slow. For certain true, they keep it pitch down here.”

I could see little but brilliant whiteness. My eyes were watering so badly, it was no use keeping them open. For a few moments I had to enjoy the change in brightness through my eyelids.