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measured_wordsThis chapter only has two sections, and really only the econd part here is new. It is also adapted from an IRC log. I didn't actually write any of Lendrick's dialogue, although I did edit it a bit and filter everything though Hadyn's pov. Irc is an interesting tool, in this sense, but editing logs is a pain in the butt :p I am generally okay with writing other people's chatacters to a point, but for big scenes like this it can be more interesting to play it out and see where it goes on its own :) If anyone is interested in Lendrick and his adventures, Bart has put some bits of them up on the wiki over here. Rar!
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.
----------
Hadyn looked over the supplies still remaining on his workbench. He wasn’t even certain that Abe would allow him to bring anything at all, but it still had to be packed – the Loyalists were moving their base to some old fortress in the mountains north of the Ring. He’d been helping teleport people and things earlier in the day, but the hast of the move meant a lot of disorganization, so that he had some time to worry about his own things. Behind him, he heard Lendrick struggling to lift another box and stack it into place. His friend, also capable of casting the teleport spell, had been recalled to assist with the move also. It was good to see him again, especially when that woman, Sithra, was otherwise occupied. He was going to have to say something soon, though, and then Lendrick would want to know more… It wasn’t that Hadyn didn’t want to explain. He wanted someone to tell him it was okay, and his friend would do that… But was just Lendrick’s way – it didn’t make it true. He wanted to *believe* it would be alright. He was scared.
He snuck a glance back over his shoulder. The Half-Elf was setting the second box onto the first, helping slowly erase the traces of his existence here… “That's not going to the keep - make sure it is marked.”
Lendrick sat down on a crate. “Where else would it be going?”
“With me...” He tried to sound casual, fidgeting again with one of the beakers on the table. What if he needed them right away? He hated packing. He’d never accumulated so much *stuff* before.
Another stolen glance. Lendrick was marking the boxes in the pile with a piece of chalk. Hadyn couldn’t see his expression, but he could just about imagine.
“Where are you off to, then?” He sounded honestly surprised.
“Shiroeki.”
“Shiroeki?”
“The Imperial capital, yes.” He felt nervous and frustrated. Partly it was the situation. And the packing – so many *things*. He scowled. He didn’t mean to be so flippant – it just slipped out.
“Okay, that's not really what I meant by that, and you know it. Are you avoiding the question?”
And this was it. He could get Lendrick to leave. He hadn’t *really* needed the help packing. It was just so hard to talk about, even with someone he trusted. The Fear was always lurking, worse lately despite his refined regimen of self-medication. Speaking about things was supposed to be helpful, he was told, but it never seemed to work that way. And yet if he said nothing…. Who would know, or care, what had happened to him if he were never heard of again?
“I am,” he admitted eventually. He couldn’t quite face Lendrick’s honest concern, and remained staring down at the unsorted miscellany in front of him.
“Um... stop avoiding my question?”
“Research.”
“Hadyn... Why don't you sit down for a bit.” Lendrick pushed another crate over to make room. Hadyn declined, rearranging his implements for the millionth time. “You're my best friend. Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it.”
“Really?” Did he mean that, or just mean it at the moment?
“Of course really.”
“Hmm.” He couldn’t imagine that Lendrick didn’t have closer, more reliable friends, even discounting Sithra. Well, maybe there was hope on that front after all.
“What?”
It wasn’t worth getting into. He was just distracting himself. If he wanted to say anything, he just had to do it.
“Have you ever heard of the Quiet Sages?” His pulse quickened as soon as he said it, and somehow, a dried bloom of bitter haglia.
“Sure... Quite a prestigious group.” That was surprising – Hadyn hadn’t heard the name before Ishitaka had mentioned it. Of course, Lendrick was older, and had spent quite awhile at the University. He nodded. Lendrick continued. “Don't expect I'll ever be one of them, although I'd certainly try.”
“You're not Southern enough.” They were an exceedingly exclusive group from what he’d seen. “I only know of one non-southerner who was a member, and he is dead.” He considered revealing Sorathis’s membership, but wasn’t sure if Lendrick could keep the secret or not.
“Well there's hope then!”
“I suppose.” He could fairly hear the grin – he was letting himself be sidetracked again. “You'd trust them, then?”
“Well, their motivations are very clear. They can be trusted if you know what to expect.”
“Right.” Oh it sounded simple, didn’t it? He could taste the bitterness in his voice.
“How did you end up getting involved with these people, anyway? And what on Keth did you tell them to get their attention?”
“What I told them is not the issue.” No, what he’d told them, about the machine in the mountains, hardly seemed important at all now. It had all been up to Abe. It was frustrating and frightening to think of how naïve he’d been. He needed something to calm his nerves, so he lit a burner to make some tea.
“…Okay. Sorry.” Lendrick sounded contrite.
Had he been that snappish? Tea was definitely in order. He chose a few botanicals from the selection not yet packed, waving dismissively with a sprig of valerian. “Tea?”
“Sure.”
Another cup, this one with with more mundane ingredients. Where to begin ? Ishitaka? His polite confinement? “I made a contact here.”
“Clearly a prestigious one.”
“Not really. But he knew of more prestigious people – Sages.” He concentrated on his preparations, trying not to think about the future, and where everything was headed. “Volaris knew one of them, though not his association....We have just about exhausted the resource material that was salvaged from Exia. We need more – they have more.” He poured the water into the two cups once it came to a boil, adding a packet of powder to his own. “I knew of something that would interest them.”
This was the hard part. The dangerous part. He felt his heart catch in the back of his throat, and his hands were shaking when he picked up Lendrick’s cup to pass it to him.
“I'm really curious what this is. I promise I won't tell a soul.”
Curious. He felt suddenly trivialized, and overwhelmed. Lendrick seemed so sincere as he took his tea, and of course he was. And he wouldn’t let him stop now – that wasn’t his way. He didn’t let things lie. Hadyn had to go on, had to finish, though his throat felt dry.
“Their demonology expert,” he managed, “wants me in Shiroeki.” Tension building since the beginning of the conversation crept up his neck and threatened to bloom painfully in the back of his head. Hadyn stirred his tea with hasty violence and drank nearly half of it straightaway. It burned his mouth, and the pain just added to his frustration.
“To help find a cure for your affliction?”
“Ha!” He nearly choked. How could his friend be so naïve? “Wouldn't that be nice.” His fingers tightened around the handle of his teacup and he glared angrily at the wall in front of him. “She said if I didn't go she would have them *hunt me down and kill me*.”
“Ahhh…” Lendrick paused. Hadyn tried to reign in his emotions. The tea helped beat back The Fear, but it still seemed to press in around him. Lendrick didn’t really understand about The Fear – he probably just couldn’t comprehend something so overwhelimg, so driving. Good for him. “This is disconcerting,” he finished somewhat lamely.
“Yes! Look what she did!” Releasing the spell he’d been using to disguise his new deformity, Hadyn pulled back the sleeve. The scar and silver stained veins stood out against his yellowed skin. He turned to show a shocked looking Lendrick.
“Why would she do something like that?”
Hadyn shook his head, fumbling for an empty cocoon in his pouch of components. “She did it so that I can't just run away! She said that I'm tainted.” Finally, he found what he was looking for. His hands were still shaking – surely the tea should have had some effect by now, should it? – and curled his fingers around it. He needed to be calmer to concentrate before he could recast the spell, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking long enough to concentrate. “She gave me a charm to stop it spreading, but it is just a trick.
She wants to study me. I don't even know what she means by that. And I can't, I can't so it...”
“Do you want me to go there with you?”
The question caught him off guard. “Why?”
Lendrick cocked his head, pursing his lips together for a moment. “I feel like I ought to have words with her.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“You'll make her *angry*.” How could he possibly think that was a good idea? “And then... then she won't see the point in helping at all.”
“I'll be nice.”
“No, you won't! You might mean to but you'll say something wrong and she'll be mad and tell you to go away and then they'll just *kill me*!”
“Everyone assumes I always come bounding in and mess things up.”
That wasn’t what he meant… Everything was going wrong already. He couldn’t even explain, and why would he think that Lendrick would understand anything? “Things are *already* messed up. No, no one, no one is talking to her. No.” Teah materialized by his side, slinking out from a dark corner of the room to comfort him. Hadyn laid a hand on her flank.
Lendrick nodded, holding up his hands in placation. “As you wish.” It didn’t sound as though he’d completely give up on the idea. “Teah, what are your thoughts on all this?”
~You know I will look out for you, Hadyn.~ She spoke in a calming tone. Like Lendrick, she clearly meant what she said, and yet…
“She says she'll take care of me. But she doesn't understand.”
“Teah, is that true? I think you understand more than Hadyn's letting on.” His friend looked down to meet the cat’s intelligent golden eyes.
“Rowr.” ~What does he expect?~
Lendrick looked up at him pointedly. “Uh-huh.”
“She can't speak.”
“I took three years of cat back in college. That was a yes.”
Hadyn scowled. “She *doesn't* understand.” Teah declined to comment – she knew better. Lendrick looked at him reproachfully. “And neither do you.” He turned back to his workbench, but the unsorted good there offered no solutions to his problems.
“Ahh, I see.” His friend sighed behind him. “Hadyn... What is it that I'm not understanding?”
“There isn't anything you can do!” He closed his eyes.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm no Quiet Sage, but I'm resourceful.” Lendrick paused, but he had nothing to rejoin with. He just wanted this to be over. “Look, I don't have any delusions about being able to go toe-to-toe with the Quiet Sages, but sometimes you just have to be clever and lucky.”
Clever and lucky turned so quickly to desperation and stupid mistakes. Hadn’t he been paying attention? This wasn’t something he could fight. He couldn’t fight the headache anymore – he hadn’t been yelling had he? Hopefully everyone else was too busy to have been paying any attention… But Hadyn had little hope left, and quieted his voice, just in case. “She said I represented a danger to all of Keth. I don't know if she was lying.”
Another sigh. “Hadyn, that's ludicrous.”
“You weren't there!” The woman was impossible to read, and whether or not the claim was ludicrous, the threat had not been insincere. The pain that had wracked his body from the cut of her blade, demonstrating his taint, had been real enough.
“Nevertheless. I can sound all wise and serious too, but that doesn't make me right. ‘I am High Magus Lendrick, and I declare the sky to be green.’”
“You weren't there.”
There was a sight pause. “I suppose not.” He was just changing tactics… what did he hope to accomplish? What had he hoped to accomplish himself by telling Lendrick any of this? “Consider her possible motivations, though. She could be laying on a guilt trip. Scare you into thinking you'll destroy the world, and you'll be more compliant.”
He had considered that. That was why he’d said, straight off, that he wasn’t sure if she were serious. But he wasn’t willing to bet his life on it. “I thought the Sages were trustworthy types who just wanted to protect people. Surely they wouldn't stoop to such tactics.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“Like I said, know their motivations and you can predict them to some extent.”
“But I don't! I don't know anything about hr, or what she wants with me.”
“I'm going to guess they want to learn about you.” He sounded so infuriatingly patient.
“I just want to be left alone.” He couldn’t even imagine a world where he didn’t have to hide from someone or something, and just be left to make his own decisions.
“People don't stumble in here from the outer planes very often.”
“But she doesn't even know.” She couldn’t. What ever had told her about the demon could’t have also told her that could it? No. “How would they know?”
“That would just interest them all the more.” Lendrick came and stood beside him leaning forward against the table to see his face. “Think of it this way. Curing you isn't going to be their primary motivation. But on the other hand, if anyone can figure it out, it's them. So guard your information and give them reason to help you.”
He’d already thought of that. It had been one of the motivations for approaching them in the first place. Of course he’d thought of that, but now they were threatening his life. “What if I just left?”
“Left for where?”
“Anywhere.” He couldn’t planeshift on his own, perhaps, but he knew the spell.
“Hadyn, not to be a downer, but if anybody could hunt you down and kill you, it's them. Your best bet here is to be at least somewhat compliant.”
“They wouldn't follow me off Keth.” He was fairly sure of that. Fairly. But it would mean never coming back.
“Can you get off of Keth?”
“Yes.” It was a complicated spell, but he was certainly capable of it.
“And what's waiting for you there?” He wasn’t asking because he was expecting an answer. Lendrick did know him, afterall.
“Nothing.” More running, more and different enemies. His own people would be able to track him more easily if he left the protection of Keth and its inner planes. He felt drained and tired. Maybe it was just the tea kicking in, finally. “I don't know.” He hoped he didn’t sound too defeated.
“Yes you do. These Sages... They have their own interests at heart, but there's no reason those interests can't coincide with yours.”
“Maybe.” How could it sound so easy and feel so difficult? “I know all that. I understand it.” Lendrick nodded in response. The anxiety was abating somewhat, but the headache remained, and Hadyn rubbed his temples. “I need to lie down before they come looking for us again.”
“Sorry to stress you out.” He stepped back, giving Hadyn more space.
“It's not you. It really isn't.” Lendrick was trying to help. He just couldn’t, and he wasn’t the kind of person who could accept that easily.
“Just understand that you can call on me whenever, okay? I'll be there in a blink.”
“Okay.”
“And don't understimate me. I'm friends with a god, after all.” Lendrick grinned. He considered himself a priest of Exia’s city spirit – one of the reasons he’d taken the invasion so hard. Maybe this meant that he still had some contact with his patron? But he wasn’t the only one with divine contacts, in any case.
“So am I.” He had Piove, who was at least somewhat on his side. “Mostly.” Her father, Vethsryn, was a weather spirit, and though his domain was fairly localized other wind spirits flocked to his daughter. She was also quite powerful in her own right, and had access to innate magics. If only she were slightly less volatile… “Kind of a goddess, anyway.”
“Ahh…” Lendrick has met Piove, but she hadn’t made a great first impression. Possibly because she’d been dedicated at that particular point in time to having Hadyn killed. It was a complicated relationship, that mostly functioned because of Piove’s limited attention span. “She's an interesting one. Good to have on your side.”
He sighed. “If she knew about this she'd want to kill me again.” Just one more complication. He wasn’t honestly sure how she would react, but it was best to prepare for the worst. Lendrick nodded sympathetically. “I'll see you later.”
“Get some sleep. I'll try and Keep Volaris and Kyla occupied.”
“Thanks.”
His friend grinned as he took his leave from the lab. “All in a day's work.”
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.
----------
Hadyn looked over the supplies still remaining on his workbench. He wasn’t even certain that Abe would allow him to bring anything at all, but it still had to be packed – the Loyalists were moving their base to some old fortress in the mountains north of the Ring. He’d been helping teleport people and things earlier in the day, but the hast of the move meant a lot of disorganization, so that he had some time to worry about his own things. Behind him, he heard Lendrick struggling to lift another box and stack it into place. His friend, also capable of casting the teleport spell, had been recalled to assist with the move also. It was good to see him again, especially when that woman, Sithra, was otherwise occupied. He was going to have to say something soon, though, and then Lendrick would want to know more… It wasn’t that Hadyn didn’t want to explain. He wanted someone to tell him it was okay, and his friend would do that… But was just Lendrick’s way – it didn’t make it true. He wanted to *believe* it would be alright. He was scared.
He snuck a glance back over his shoulder. The Half-Elf was setting the second box onto the first, helping slowly erase the traces of his existence here… “That's not going to the keep - make sure it is marked.”
Lendrick sat down on a crate. “Where else would it be going?”
“With me...” He tried to sound casual, fidgeting again with one of the beakers on the table. What if he needed them right away? He hated packing. He’d never accumulated so much *stuff* before.
Another stolen glance. Lendrick was marking the boxes in the pile with a piece of chalk. Hadyn couldn’t see his expression, but he could just about imagine.
“Where are you off to, then?” He sounded honestly surprised.
“Shiroeki.”
“Shiroeki?”
“The Imperial capital, yes.” He felt nervous and frustrated. Partly it was the situation. And the packing – so many *things*. He scowled. He didn’t mean to be so flippant – it just slipped out.
“Okay, that's not really what I meant by that, and you know it. Are you avoiding the question?”
And this was it. He could get Lendrick to leave. He hadn’t *really* needed the help packing. It was just so hard to talk about, even with someone he trusted. The Fear was always lurking, worse lately despite his refined regimen of self-medication. Speaking about things was supposed to be helpful, he was told, but it never seemed to work that way. And yet if he said nothing…. Who would know, or care, what had happened to him if he were never heard of again?
“I am,” he admitted eventually. He couldn’t quite face Lendrick’s honest concern, and remained staring down at the unsorted miscellany in front of him.
“Um... stop avoiding my question?”
“Research.”
“Hadyn... Why don't you sit down for a bit.” Lendrick pushed another crate over to make room. Hadyn declined, rearranging his implements for the millionth time. “You're my best friend. Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it.”
“Really?” Did he mean that, or just mean it at the moment?
“Of course really.”
“Hmm.” He couldn’t imagine that Lendrick didn’t have closer, more reliable friends, even discounting Sithra. Well, maybe there was hope on that front after all.
“What?”
It wasn’t worth getting into. He was just distracting himself. If he wanted to say anything, he just had to do it.
“Have you ever heard of the Quiet Sages?” His pulse quickened as soon as he said it, and somehow, a dried bloom of bitter haglia.
“Sure... Quite a prestigious group.” That was surprising – Hadyn hadn’t heard the name before Ishitaka had mentioned it. Of course, Lendrick was older, and had spent quite awhile at the University. He nodded. Lendrick continued. “Don't expect I'll ever be one of them, although I'd certainly try.”
“You're not Southern enough.” They were an exceedingly exclusive group from what he’d seen. “I only know of one non-southerner who was a member, and he is dead.” He considered revealing Sorathis’s membership, but wasn’t sure if Lendrick could keep the secret or not.
“Well there's hope then!”
“I suppose.” He could fairly hear the grin – he was letting himself be sidetracked again. “You'd trust them, then?”
“Well, their motivations are very clear. They can be trusted if you know what to expect.”
“Right.” Oh it sounded simple, didn’t it? He could taste the bitterness in his voice.
“How did you end up getting involved with these people, anyway? And what on Keth did you tell them to get their attention?”
“What I told them is not the issue.” No, what he’d told them, about the machine in the mountains, hardly seemed important at all now. It had all been up to Abe. It was frustrating and frightening to think of how naïve he’d been. He needed something to calm his nerves, so he lit a burner to make some tea.
“…Okay. Sorry.” Lendrick sounded contrite.
Had he been that snappish? Tea was definitely in order. He chose a few botanicals from the selection not yet packed, waving dismissively with a sprig of valerian. “Tea?”
“Sure.”
Another cup, this one with with more mundane ingredients. Where to begin ? Ishitaka? His polite confinement? “I made a contact here.”
“Clearly a prestigious one.”
“Not really. But he knew of more prestigious people – Sages.” He concentrated on his preparations, trying not to think about the future, and where everything was headed. “Volaris knew one of them, though not his association....We have just about exhausted the resource material that was salvaged from Exia. We need more – they have more.” He poured the water into the two cups once it came to a boil, adding a packet of powder to his own. “I knew of something that would interest them.”
This was the hard part. The dangerous part. He felt his heart catch in the back of his throat, and his hands were shaking when he picked up Lendrick’s cup to pass it to him.
“I'm really curious what this is. I promise I won't tell a soul.”
Curious. He felt suddenly trivialized, and overwhelmed. Lendrick seemed so sincere as he took his tea, and of course he was. And he wouldn’t let him stop now – that wasn’t his way. He didn’t let things lie. Hadyn had to go on, had to finish, though his throat felt dry.
“Their demonology expert,” he managed, “wants me in Shiroeki.” Tension building since the beginning of the conversation crept up his neck and threatened to bloom painfully in the back of his head. Hadyn stirred his tea with hasty violence and drank nearly half of it straightaway. It burned his mouth, and the pain just added to his frustration.
“To help find a cure for your affliction?”
“Ha!” He nearly choked. How could his friend be so naïve? “Wouldn't that be nice.” His fingers tightened around the handle of his teacup and he glared angrily at the wall in front of him. “She said if I didn't go she would have them *hunt me down and kill me*.”
“Ahhh…” Lendrick paused. Hadyn tried to reign in his emotions. The tea helped beat back The Fear, but it still seemed to press in around him. Lendrick didn’t really understand about The Fear – he probably just couldn’t comprehend something so overwhelimg, so driving. Good for him. “This is disconcerting,” he finished somewhat lamely.
“Yes! Look what she did!” Releasing the spell he’d been using to disguise his new deformity, Hadyn pulled back the sleeve. The scar and silver stained veins stood out against his yellowed skin. He turned to show a shocked looking Lendrick.
“Why would she do something like that?”
Hadyn shook his head, fumbling for an empty cocoon in his pouch of components. “She did it so that I can't just run away! She said that I'm tainted.” Finally, he found what he was looking for. His hands were still shaking – surely the tea should have had some effect by now, should it? – and curled his fingers around it. He needed to be calmer to concentrate before he could recast the spell, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking long enough to concentrate. “She gave me a charm to stop it spreading, but it is just a trick.
She wants to study me. I don't even know what she means by that. And I can't, I can't so it...”
“Do you want me to go there with you?”
The question caught him off guard. “Why?”
Lendrick cocked his head, pursing his lips together for a moment. “I feel like I ought to have words with her.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“You'll make her *angry*.” How could he possibly think that was a good idea? “And then... then she won't see the point in helping at all.”
“I'll be nice.”
“No, you won't! You might mean to but you'll say something wrong and she'll be mad and tell you to go away and then they'll just *kill me*!”
“Everyone assumes I always come bounding in and mess things up.”
That wasn’t what he meant… Everything was going wrong already. He couldn’t even explain, and why would he think that Lendrick would understand anything? “Things are *already* messed up. No, no one, no one is talking to her. No.” Teah materialized by his side, slinking out from a dark corner of the room to comfort him. Hadyn laid a hand on her flank.
Lendrick nodded, holding up his hands in placation. “As you wish.” It didn’t sound as though he’d completely give up on the idea. “Teah, what are your thoughts on all this?”
~You know I will look out for you, Hadyn.~ She spoke in a calming tone. Like Lendrick, she clearly meant what she said, and yet…
“She says she'll take care of me. But she doesn't understand.”
“Teah, is that true? I think you understand more than Hadyn's letting on.” His friend looked down to meet the cat’s intelligent golden eyes.
“Rowr.” ~What does he expect?~
Lendrick looked up at him pointedly. “Uh-huh.”
“She can't speak.”
“I took three years of cat back in college. That was a yes.”
Hadyn scowled. “She *doesn't* understand.” Teah declined to comment – she knew better. Lendrick looked at him reproachfully. “And neither do you.” He turned back to his workbench, but the unsorted good there offered no solutions to his problems.
“Ahh, I see.” His friend sighed behind him. “Hadyn... What is it that I'm not understanding?”
“There isn't anything you can do!” He closed his eyes.
“Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm no Quiet Sage, but I'm resourceful.” Lendrick paused, but he had nothing to rejoin with. He just wanted this to be over. “Look, I don't have any delusions about being able to go toe-to-toe with the Quiet Sages, but sometimes you just have to be clever and lucky.”
Clever and lucky turned so quickly to desperation and stupid mistakes. Hadn’t he been paying attention? This wasn’t something he could fight. He couldn’t fight the headache anymore – he hadn’t been yelling had he? Hopefully everyone else was too busy to have been paying any attention… But Hadyn had little hope left, and quieted his voice, just in case. “She said I represented a danger to all of Keth. I don't know if she was lying.”
Another sigh. “Hadyn, that's ludicrous.”
“You weren't there!” The woman was impossible to read, and whether or not the claim was ludicrous, the threat had not been insincere. The pain that had wracked his body from the cut of her blade, demonstrating his taint, had been real enough.
“Nevertheless. I can sound all wise and serious too, but that doesn't make me right. ‘I am High Magus Lendrick, and I declare the sky to be green.’”
“You weren't there.”
There was a sight pause. “I suppose not.” He was just changing tactics… what did he hope to accomplish? What had he hoped to accomplish himself by telling Lendrick any of this? “Consider her possible motivations, though. She could be laying on a guilt trip. Scare you into thinking you'll destroy the world, and you'll be more compliant.”
He had considered that. That was why he’d said, straight off, that he wasn’t sure if she were serious. But he wasn’t willing to bet his life on it. “I thought the Sages were trustworthy types who just wanted to protect people. Surely they wouldn't stoop to such tactics.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“Like I said, know their motivations and you can predict them to some extent.”
“But I don't! I don't know anything about hr, or what she wants with me.”
“I'm going to guess they want to learn about you.” He sounded so infuriatingly patient.
“I just want to be left alone.” He couldn’t even imagine a world where he didn’t have to hide from someone or something, and just be left to make his own decisions.
“People don't stumble in here from the outer planes very often.”
“But she doesn't even know.” She couldn’t. What ever had told her about the demon could’t have also told her that could it? No. “How would they know?”
“That would just interest them all the more.” Lendrick came and stood beside him leaning forward against the table to see his face. “Think of it this way. Curing you isn't going to be their primary motivation. But on the other hand, if anyone can figure it out, it's them. So guard your information and give them reason to help you.”
He’d already thought of that. It had been one of the motivations for approaching them in the first place. Of course he’d thought of that, but now they were threatening his life. “What if I just left?”
“Left for where?”
“Anywhere.” He couldn’t planeshift on his own, perhaps, but he knew the spell.
“Hadyn, not to be a downer, but if anybody could hunt you down and kill you, it's them. Your best bet here is to be at least somewhat compliant.”
“They wouldn't follow me off Keth.” He was fairly sure of that. Fairly. But it would mean never coming back.
“Can you get off of Keth?”
“Yes.” It was a complicated spell, but he was certainly capable of it.
“And what's waiting for you there?” He wasn’t asking because he was expecting an answer. Lendrick did know him, afterall.
“Nothing.” More running, more and different enemies. His own people would be able to track him more easily if he left the protection of Keth and its inner planes. He felt drained and tired. Maybe it was just the tea kicking in, finally. “I don't know.” He hoped he didn’t sound too defeated.
“Yes you do. These Sages... They have their own interests at heart, but there's no reason those interests can't coincide with yours.”
“Maybe.” How could it sound so easy and feel so difficult? “I know all that. I understand it.” Lendrick nodded in response. The anxiety was abating somewhat, but the headache remained, and Hadyn rubbed his temples. “I need to lie down before they come looking for us again.”
“Sorry to stress you out.” He stepped back, giving Hadyn more space.
“It's not you. It really isn't.” Lendrick was trying to help. He just couldn’t, and he wasn’t the kind of person who could accept that easily.
“Just understand that you can call on me whenever, okay? I'll be there in a blink.”
“Okay.”
“And don't understimate me. I'm friends with a god, after all.” Lendrick grinned. He considered himself a priest of Exia’s city spirit – one of the reasons he’d taken the invasion so hard. Maybe this meant that he still had some contact with his patron? But he wasn’t the only one with divine contacts, in any case.
“So am I.” He had Piove, who was at least somewhat on his side. “Mostly.” Her father, Vethsryn, was a weather spirit, and though his domain was fairly localized other wind spirits flocked to his daughter. She was also quite powerful in her own right, and had access to innate magics. If only she were slightly less volatile… “Kind of a goddess, anyway.”
“Ahh…” Lendrick has met Piove, but she hadn’t made a great first impression. Possibly because she’d been dedicated at that particular point in time to having Hadyn killed. It was a complicated relationship, that mostly functioned because of Piove’s limited attention span. “She's an interesting one. Good to have on your side.”
He sighed. “If she knew about this she'd want to kill me again.” Just one more complication. He wasn’t honestly sure how she would react, but it was best to prepare for the worst. Lendrick nodded sympathetically. “I'll see you later.”
“Get some sleep. I'll try and Keep Volaris and Kyla occupied.”
“Thanks.”
His friend grinned as he took his leave from the lab. “All in a day's work.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 04:41 pm (UTC)But I am still reading.
t!
no subject
Date: 2006-09-28 04:35 am (UTC)Glad it didn't put you off too much though ;D