measured_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
measured_words) wrote2006-09-18 10:57 pm
measured_words) wrote2006-09-18 10:57 pm
Shadows 4.1
I finished it yesterday and typed it today. Sonce I need collaboration for the next bit, I've actually been working on bits for an *original* story today, though I haven't made great progress. I'll keep going with that tomorrow, I expect, and maybe the rest of the week. And if I get stuck I'll work on typing up and polishing another original I finished a while ago (like last year or so ;). Please feel free to correct my French. I mean Elven ;)
Also also this series could use its own icon, I reckon. That or I need a generic 'gaming story' icon. Anyone?
This chapter contains scenes of pretty graphic violence, so if you are disturbed by that sort of thing, you may want to pass.
Shadows 4
The light reflecting off the ocean was warm but the water itself refreshing. He floated listlessly on his back. Lirain, his cousin, splashed around nearby with her daughter. Their laughter was muted by the waves, but it made him smile. Back on shore, Lirain’s husband Argus was cooking fish for their lunch, and the smell drifted out on the breeze. The family visited so seldom – five years, and Issa was already so much bigger. It was the human blood, of course. The child had her mother’s green eyes but her ears were hardly pointed at all. It had been hard enough watching Lirain grow up so much faster when they were both younger – not so long ago for him, maybe. Now it just saddened him if he thought about it, do he didn’t.
The sky was a perfect blue with just a few wispy clouds drifting aimlessly through the openness , promising the good behaviour of their kin. He closed his eyes. This was the life. Why not just stay floating here forever? A day away from the boats was cause for celebration in itself, nevermind the company. And Lirain and Argus were always so full of stories: the city, the people there, new things they’d done. Lirain had a way of making the most mundane things sound fascinating.
But even his city dreams seemed far away today. The sheltered bay waters were as gentle as a lover’s arms. He could hear someone calling his name, but it couldn’t be important. The bay was safe – no sharks or storms. He paddled backwards away from the sound, unable to imagine anything that could lure him inland at this point. He listened instead for other laughing voices and, noting their absence, opened his eyes.
A shadow passed across the sky, revealing its lies. Bay and island were both gone, the open grey water around him was cold and turbulent. He struggled to keep his head above the waves and the bitter water out of his mouth.
Some voice or instinct deep commanded deep inside his mind.
“Wake Up.”
Matteo opened his eyes, alert. He was bound, chained to the wall in one of the cells where he’d seen the masks caged earlier. The door was open and advancing towards him was a large man in the same red robes he’d followed here the previous evening. He was armed with a wavy-bladed dagger.
“You lose.” It was a woman who spoke, and not to Matteo. She stood behind the man, in the shadow of the doorway, similarly garbed. Her fine angular features proclaimed satisfaction and her long orange-red braid swung like a pendulum as she stepped forward. “I’ll take things from here then, Geron.”
She wasn’t armed, but somehow he could not take any comfort from that fact.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The elf was the more interesting of their prisoners. Geron had identified him as the spy he’d seen fleeing the compound that morning – spy and saboteur, considering what he’d done to Father Francis’s supplies. He was likely the one who had given warning of their attack, and turned what she’d already considered an ill-conceived plan into a disaster. Too many ‘Crimson Casualties’, Saviya thought bitterly. A little chaos, a few captured enemies – some guards and a servant girl with poor timing. Her efforts to dominate that one soldier hadn’t led anywhere productive in the end, although the incarceration of the loyalist Leaders, temporary as it was like to be, had certainly facilitated their escape. The spy might at least be induced to provide them with useful information.
He was pretty enough in the somewhat androgynous Elven fashion. Brown hair, green eyes (of course), on the shortish side – it was hard to judge when he was hanging from the wall mounts. He was still dressed. He was still partly dressed in festival garb, though they’d relieved him of a number of interesting items: a pair of well crafted daggers, gloves of dexterity (which she’d quickly claimed for herself), and an amulet that seemed to protect against certain kinds of magical detection. It was something to investigate when they had more time and resources. With Francis dead and his supplies destroyed they couldn’t even replace the lost Masks from their recent captures. There was nothing left but to harvest what was of use and dispose of the rest. Geron would interrogate them first, not because they knew anything of value, but because their deaths would serve to soften up the elf.
Robin and Bertrand fetched the subjects. Saviya asked the questions herself, and let Geron ensure their cooperation. It didn’t matter that they’d long had an insider providing them with basic intelligence on Loyalist operations. While Geron worked, the other two ensured that the spy paid attention. For the most part he was well behaved, learning the price of his outbursts quickly when one cost the servant girl her fingers. The guards were somewhat more resistant, of course, but that only pleased their torturer. Geron lost his brother, Saul, in the attack and was happy to draw out what revenge he could extract for the moment. When he was through with each, she instructed him on which parts to keep and which he could dispose of in his own way.
There was no rush. She drew the process out over several days. The living were fed water twice daily, and the elf was kept gagged to further isolate him from his peers. They were caged nearby during the breaks between interrogation sessions so that he was fully exposed to their suffering.
The attack had cost them their spy (a fair trade on that account), as they had broken the terms of their agreement with his master. Or at least revealed their breach of trust – they’d been broken as soon as the cell had arrived in Shinkyo months before. But with no new information from that source and no new orders from Exia, they had little else to focus on. Saviya and Geron were technically of equal rank, but he allowed her to retain control for the moment. Apart from the four of them, the only ones remaining were the initiates, Dolores and Etaine, who’d been sent to serve father Francis’s more dubious whims and take care of the domestic requirements of the outfit. They were learning more quickly under her supervision, but there were still soft-hearted girls. She didn’t fully trust their resolve when it came to handling living prisoners, though Geron could enlist their aid in handling the dead.
Finally, it was Matteo Atremi’s turn. They’d learned his name from the others, as presumably he’d have given them something false. The others had also thoughtlessly divulged other interesting information while they were held together. Robin and Bertrand reported everything they overheard. The prisoners honestly had no idea why the elf was being given special treatment. One of the guards (Lorne cooper) had overheard a rumor that he’d been the one to warn of the attacks, but didn’t know if he’d done so in person. Savia doubted that, considering where and how they’d found him. Staying back to guard him and the other prisoner, only the servant at that point, probably saved Robin’s life. Bertrand was guarding the compound with the initiates.
The elf looked sufficiently haunted when they finally pulled him off the wall. His wrists were bloody from the manacles, and likely his attempts to escape them. Moving his arms after being suspended for so long was clearly painful – a good start. Geron seemed pleased. The spy’s eyes widened when shown the full array of instruments slected for his interrogation, some of which were much less mundane than those employed on previous days. Knives, pliers, fire and brands, graters, corers, syringes, wires, screws, hammers and vices. Geron had even set up a basic waterboard, to which he strapped the prisoner straightaway.
Saviya left the room as he began his work. She had no qualms about observing, but found that it left a stronger psychological impression when a subject knew that the person who could end their torment couldn’t even bother to be present to listen to their pleas. She cold actually hear him from the upper level, both the screams and the begging: “please,” first, then “non,” “assez,” “arête,” when his sense began to overload and he slipped back into his mother tongue. When she thought enough time had passed she arranged her robes, put on her most severe face, and headed downstairs.
Geron looked up with a grim look of pleasure as she entered. The elf’s hands and feet were swollen and bleeding. Half of his face matched, though she couldn’t tell if Geron had removed the eye or simply cut into or around it. There were cuts and burn marks on his chest as well, carefully placed near areas tester for their sensitivity before hand. He was whimpering most pathetically – perhaps a little too close to shock for her purposes. Her entrance had gone unremarked.
“Flip him.”
The torturer complied with a shrug and a grin, tipping the board backwards so that the spy’s head and upper torso plunged into the tub of salt water. He struggled uselessly to right himself or breathe, and Saviya turned to her peer.
“Is he ready?”
“So impatient, Sister Superior.” He glanced down at the thrashing elf. “He’s had some training but…” He shrugged and tipped the board back. Matteo gasped desperately for a moment before he was dunked backwards again. “…Elves are weak. He’s ready enough.”
Saviya nodded, and Geron righted their subject after another minute. She waited until he stopped coughing. His eyes were closed, but the right was running with blood and some other clearish fluid – not removed, then. “Your name is Matteo Atremi. You are a spy and a saboteur – an enemy of Exia. You will answer my questions.”
His voice was weak, and his breathing laboured.
“Que voulez-vous?” His good eye fluttered open..
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Elven.” She glanced across the table to see Geron already preparing one of the high pressure vices. “I hate the sound. One more word, one syllable of your native language and you will lose some of those pretty fingers.” Geron picked up one of his broken hands, placed the index finger between the clamps and tightened just enough to exert an uncomfortable pressure.
“You understand?”
The subject winced and nodded.
“Say it.”
“Ysss.” It was barely a word, just air forced between tightly clenched teeth. Geron tightened the vice. “Yes! I understand.” A little stronger that time.
“Good. Very good, Matteo. I think we can work well together, don’t you?”
He muttered something too quiet for her to discern. She frowned. The vice tightened several more turns. The skin torn and, under the screams there may have ben a slight cracking sound as the knuckle bones split.
Saviya waited. “What did you say?”
“Please.” He rolled his head over to see her better. Geron had cut some pieces of his ears as well, it seemed. “Don’t. Don’t kill me.”
“No?” She laughed.
“Promise. Promise me.”
“Oh. I don’t believe you are in a position to be exacting any promises, Matteo.”
He reached out to her, his movement limited both by the cords that bound him tightly to the board and the general condition of his limbs. “Anything. I’ll give…tell… anything.”
She took hold of his broken hand, squeezing lightly. “Of course you will.” She shot Geron an amused smile. He tightened the vice to closing. When he opened it again, there was nothing left of the digit save for some torn skin and a smear of pasted muscle and splintered bone. Saviya was intrigued to note that ht never tried to escape her grip, only screamed and even squeezed back. “What will you tell us, Matteo?”
“Promise. First. Your word.”
She wondered what delusion he was operating under that made him think she could be bound by any such oath. “No.” She couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Geron tightened the vice around the next finger and gave it a few turns for good measure.
“I won’t die like this,” he hissed. “I’ll just go. Let go… Aux havres-“ Another finger crushed, and more screaming for his transgression. She wondered if he could do it. Elves didn’t die of old age. They just, well…. They went away, and she wasn’t sure where, or how. Geron looked curious. She wasn’t positive it was a bluff, and didn’t want to give him such an easy out. Once he’d settled down again, she patted the hand she held.
“Very well then, Matteo. I promise.”
And he told her everything. By the end of the session, she decided that she would even keep her word, after a fashion. She gave Geron a few specific instructions, including one to keep the elf alive. Well, more or less. As she was leaving, her associate was reaching for his tongs and an appropriate knife. The screaming stopped shortly thereafter, but Geron’s work continued for hours.
Savia went to report to her superiors.
Also also this series could use its own icon, I reckon. That or I need a generic 'gaming story' icon. Anyone?
This chapter contains scenes of pretty graphic violence, so if you are disturbed by that sort of thing, you may want to pass.
Shadows 4
The light reflecting off the ocean was warm but the water itself refreshing. He floated listlessly on his back. Lirain, his cousin, splashed around nearby with her daughter. Their laughter was muted by the waves, but it made him smile. Back on shore, Lirain’s husband Argus was cooking fish for their lunch, and the smell drifted out on the breeze. The family visited so seldom – five years, and Issa was already so much bigger. It was the human blood, of course. The child had her mother’s green eyes but her ears were hardly pointed at all. It had been hard enough watching Lirain grow up so much faster when they were both younger – not so long ago for him, maybe. Now it just saddened him if he thought about it, do he didn’t.
The sky was a perfect blue with just a few wispy clouds drifting aimlessly through the openness , promising the good behaviour of their kin. He closed his eyes. This was the life. Why not just stay floating here forever? A day away from the boats was cause for celebration in itself, nevermind the company. And Lirain and Argus were always so full of stories: the city, the people there, new things they’d done. Lirain had a way of making the most mundane things sound fascinating.
But even his city dreams seemed far away today. The sheltered bay waters were as gentle as a lover’s arms. He could hear someone calling his name, but it couldn’t be important. The bay was safe – no sharks or storms. He paddled backwards away from the sound, unable to imagine anything that could lure him inland at this point. He listened instead for other laughing voices and, noting their absence, opened his eyes.
A shadow passed across the sky, revealing its lies. Bay and island were both gone, the open grey water around him was cold and turbulent. He struggled to keep his head above the waves and the bitter water out of his mouth.
Some voice or instinct deep commanded deep inside his mind.
“Wake Up.”
Matteo opened his eyes, alert. He was bound, chained to the wall in one of the cells where he’d seen the masks caged earlier. The door was open and advancing towards him was a large man in the same red robes he’d followed here the previous evening. He was armed with a wavy-bladed dagger.
“You lose.” It was a woman who spoke, and not to Matteo. She stood behind the man, in the shadow of the doorway, similarly garbed. Her fine angular features proclaimed satisfaction and her long orange-red braid swung like a pendulum as she stepped forward. “I’ll take things from here then, Geron.”
She wasn’t armed, but somehow he could not take any comfort from that fact.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The elf was the more interesting of their prisoners. Geron had identified him as the spy he’d seen fleeing the compound that morning – spy and saboteur, considering what he’d done to Father Francis’s supplies. He was likely the one who had given warning of their attack, and turned what she’d already considered an ill-conceived plan into a disaster. Too many ‘Crimson Casualties’, Saviya thought bitterly. A little chaos, a few captured enemies – some guards and a servant girl with poor timing. Her efforts to dominate that one soldier hadn’t led anywhere productive in the end, although the incarceration of the loyalist Leaders, temporary as it was like to be, had certainly facilitated their escape. The spy might at least be induced to provide them with useful information.
He was pretty enough in the somewhat androgynous Elven fashion. Brown hair, green eyes (of course), on the shortish side – it was hard to judge when he was hanging from the wall mounts. He was still dressed. He was still partly dressed in festival garb, though they’d relieved him of a number of interesting items: a pair of well crafted daggers, gloves of dexterity (which she’d quickly claimed for herself), and an amulet that seemed to protect against certain kinds of magical detection. It was something to investigate when they had more time and resources. With Francis dead and his supplies destroyed they couldn’t even replace the lost Masks from their recent captures. There was nothing left but to harvest what was of use and dispose of the rest. Geron would interrogate them first, not because they knew anything of value, but because their deaths would serve to soften up the elf.
Robin and Bertrand fetched the subjects. Saviya asked the questions herself, and let Geron ensure their cooperation. It didn’t matter that they’d long had an insider providing them with basic intelligence on Loyalist operations. While Geron worked, the other two ensured that the spy paid attention. For the most part he was well behaved, learning the price of his outbursts quickly when one cost the servant girl her fingers. The guards were somewhat more resistant, of course, but that only pleased their torturer. Geron lost his brother, Saul, in the attack and was happy to draw out what revenge he could extract for the moment. When he was through with each, she instructed him on which parts to keep and which he could dispose of in his own way.
There was no rush. She drew the process out over several days. The living were fed water twice daily, and the elf was kept gagged to further isolate him from his peers. They were caged nearby during the breaks between interrogation sessions so that he was fully exposed to their suffering.
The attack had cost them their spy (a fair trade on that account), as they had broken the terms of their agreement with his master. Or at least revealed their breach of trust – they’d been broken as soon as the cell had arrived in Shinkyo months before. But with no new information from that source and no new orders from Exia, they had little else to focus on. Saviya and Geron were technically of equal rank, but he allowed her to retain control for the moment. Apart from the four of them, the only ones remaining were the initiates, Dolores and Etaine, who’d been sent to serve father Francis’s more dubious whims and take care of the domestic requirements of the outfit. They were learning more quickly under her supervision, but there were still soft-hearted girls. She didn’t fully trust their resolve when it came to handling living prisoners, though Geron could enlist their aid in handling the dead.
Finally, it was Matteo Atremi’s turn. They’d learned his name from the others, as presumably he’d have given them something false. The others had also thoughtlessly divulged other interesting information while they were held together. Robin and Bertrand reported everything they overheard. The prisoners honestly had no idea why the elf was being given special treatment. One of the guards (Lorne cooper) had overheard a rumor that he’d been the one to warn of the attacks, but didn’t know if he’d done so in person. Savia doubted that, considering where and how they’d found him. Staying back to guard him and the other prisoner, only the servant at that point, probably saved Robin’s life. Bertrand was guarding the compound with the initiates.
The elf looked sufficiently haunted when they finally pulled him off the wall. His wrists were bloody from the manacles, and likely his attempts to escape them. Moving his arms after being suspended for so long was clearly painful – a good start. Geron seemed pleased. The spy’s eyes widened when shown the full array of instruments slected for his interrogation, some of which were much less mundane than those employed on previous days. Knives, pliers, fire and brands, graters, corers, syringes, wires, screws, hammers and vices. Geron had even set up a basic waterboard, to which he strapped the prisoner straightaway.
Saviya left the room as he began his work. She had no qualms about observing, but found that it left a stronger psychological impression when a subject knew that the person who could end their torment couldn’t even bother to be present to listen to their pleas. She cold actually hear him from the upper level, both the screams and the begging: “please,” first, then “non,” “assez,” “arête,” when his sense began to overload and he slipped back into his mother tongue. When she thought enough time had passed she arranged her robes, put on her most severe face, and headed downstairs.
Geron looked up with a grim look of pleasure as she entered. The elf’s hands and feet were swollen and bleeding. Half of his face matched, though she couldn’t tell if Geron had removed the eye or simply cut into or around it. There were cuts and burn marks on his chest as well, carefully placed near areas tester for their sensitivity before hand. He was whimpering most pathetically – perhaps a little too close to shock for her purposes. Her entrance had gone unremarked.
“Flip him.”
The torturer complied with a shrug and a grin, tipping the board backwards so that the spy’s head and upper torso plunged into the tub of salt water. He struggled uselessly to right himself or breathe, and Saviya turned to her peer.
“Is he ready?”
“So impatient, Sister Superior.” He glanced down at the thrashing elf. “He’s had some training but…” He shrugged and tipped the board back. Matteo gasped desperately for a moment before he was dunked backwards again. “…Elves are weak. He’s ready enough.”
Saviya nodded, and Geron righted their subject after another minute. She waited until he stopped coughing. His eyes were closed, but the right was running with blood and some other clearish fluid – not removed, then. “Your name is Matteo Atremi. You are a spy and a saboteur – an enemy of Exia. You will answer my questions.”
His voice was weak, and his breathing laboured.
“Que voulez-vous?” His good eye fluttered open..
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Elven.” She glanced across the table to see Geron already preparing one of the high pressure vices. “I hate the sound. One more word, one syllable of your native language and you will lose some of those pretty fingers.” Geron picked up one of his broken hands, placed the index finger between the clamps and tightened just enough to exert an uncomfortable pressure.
“You understand?”
The subject winced and nodded.
“Say it.”
“Ysss.” It was barely a word, just air forced between tightly clenched teeth. Geron tightened the vice. “Yes! I understand.” A little stronger that time.
“Good. Very good, Matteo. I think we can work well together, don’t you?”
He muttered something too quiet for her to discern. She frowned. The vice tightened several more turns. The skin torn and, under the screams there may have ben a slight cracking sound as the knuckle bones split.
Saviya waited. “What did you say?”
“Please.” He rolled his head over to see her better. Geron had cut some pieces of his ears as well, it seemed. “Don’t. Don’t kill me.”
“No?” She laughed.
“Promise. Promise me.”
“Oh. I don’t believe you are in a position to be exacting any promises, Matteo.”
He reached out to her, his movement limited both by the cords that bound him tightly to the board and the general condition of his limbs. “Anything. I’ll give…tell… anything.”
She took hold of his broken hand, squeezing lightly. “Of course you will.” She shot Geron an amused smile. He tightened the vice to closing. When he opened it again, there was nothing left of the digit save for some torn skin and a smear of pasted muscle and splintered bone. Saviya was intrigued to note that ht never tried to escape her grip, only screamed and even squeezed back. “What will you tell us, Matteo?”
“Promise. First. Your word.”
She wondered what delusion he was operating under that made him think she could be bound by any such oath. “No.” She couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice. Geron tightened the vice around the next finger and gave it a few turns for good measure.
“I won’t die like this,” he hissed. “I’ll just go. Let go… Aux havres-“ Another finger crushed, and more screaming for his transgression. She wondered if he could do it. Elves didn’t die of old age. They just, well…. They went away, and she wasn’t sure where, or how. Geron looked curious. She wasn’t positive it was a bluff, and didn’t want to give him such an easy out. Once he’d settled down again, she patted the hand she held.
“Very well then, Matteo. I promise.”
And he told her everything. By the end of the session, she decided that she would even keep her word, after a fashion. She gave Geron a few specific instructions, including one to keep the elf alive. Well, more or less. As she was leaving, her associate was reaching for his tongs and an appropriate knife. The screaming stopped shortly thereafter, but Geron’s work continued for hours.
Savia went to report to her superiors.
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Thanks, by the way, for continuing to read this, and comment regularly. I hope you're enjoying the story :)
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