Stalking Darkness

39

Hands. Hands on him, touching, seeking, tormenting.

Alec wrapped his arms around his knees, curling tightly in the darkness of the tiny cabin as he fought to block out the memory of being touched and wishing he still had Thero for company. He'd seen no sign of the young wizard since that first night on board the Kormados.

Mardus and his people were subtle in their methods; in all the terrible time since his capture they hadn't once broken the skin, or drawn so much as a drop of blood. But inside he hurt.

Oh, yes. He hurt very much.

The dyrmagnos Irtuk Beshar, a walking nightmare, had straddled him with her withered hams, flaking fingers scrabbling over him in a grotesque parody of lust as she ripped her way into his mind, raping the memories from him. She'd kissed him afterward, thrusting a tongue like a ragged strip of moldy leather against his clenched teeth.

The necromancer, Vargul Ashnazai, assisted her in these interrogations and Alec soon came to fear him on a deeper level than he did the dyrmagnos or Mardus.

The former carried out her hallucinatory tortures with zest, but as soon as she'd finished,

Alec seemed to cease to exist in her mind. Mardus was more difficult to read. It was he who directed the tortures and put the questions to Alec, his eyes flat and soulless, his voice as gentle as a father's as he named the next obscenity to be carried out.

Otherwise, however, he treated Alec with a peculiar mix of distance and solicitude that bordered on courtliness. In the worst moments of torment,

Alec sometimes caught himself inexplicably looking to Mardus for rescue.

Ashnazai was different. In the presence of others, the necromancer maintained an impassive demeanor.

Left alone with Alec, the searing hatred spilled out like acid.

"You and your vile companion cost me great status that night in Wolde," he'd hissed in Alec's ear as the boy lay trembling in the darkness after one of the dyrmagnos' assaults. "At first I thought only of killing you, but now, you see, I am given by the Beautiful One to relish my revenge."

And relish it he did, until Alec came to dread the sight of him more than any of the others.

Ashnazai's attacks left no marks, drew no blood. Instead, he salted his spells with lurid descriptions of the murders he'd helped carry out at the Cockerel.

"It's a pity you didn't arrive earlier that night," he told Alec. "The old woman never said a word, but how that foolish son begged. And the girl! She stayed proud right up until they hacked off the old bitch's head, then she screamed, those great breasts of hers heaving. The men wanted to take her right there on the bloody floor—"

Held silent and immobile by the magic, Alec could only shudder as Ashnazai passed a clammy hand over his chest, then traced a hard line down his breastbone. "Did you ever take her on that floor, boy? No? Ah, well, I suppose other things happened there, eh? But then, snik, snik, snik, like so we had the heads off for the mantel decoration.

I must say, your reaction was all that I'd have hoped for. I nearly added your head to the collection, but then I thought of a more—how would you say?"

The necromancer traced the line down Alec's chest a second time with a look of almost dreamy pleasure.

"A more satisfying revenge. You shall pay for the difficulties you made, and be of great use."

The implication was clear enough. Thinking of the bodies Micum and Seregil had seen, with their chests split open, ribs pulled back on either side like wings, Alec wished they had killed him that first night.

The rounds of torture continued for several days and when they'd finished with him, Alec finally understood why Nysander had told Seregil and him so little. They wrung everything from him, though it was nothing more than the fragment of the prophecy.

"There now. Well done, Alec," Mardus said, smiling down at him when the dyrmagnos had finished. "But your Guardian is dead, this mysterious band of four he spoke of sundered, broken. Poor Seregil. Even if he did desert you in the end, he must be feeling a bit guilty at having brought such destruction down on so many of his friends."

Torn loose from any shred of hope or pride, Alec could only turn his face away and weep.

After the torture ceased, the soldiers became Alec's chief source of daily misery. Among them were Mardus' captain, Tildus, and the men-at-arms who'd bullied him in Wolde. With Seregil's training to guide him, he looked for a weak link among them, a man with some fatal streak of sympathy, but Mardus had chosen his personal guard with care.

A harsh, brutal lot, they'd crowded to the grate to listen when he was tortured. Now they were the ones who dragged him above for the daily airings on deck that Mardus insisted upon. They stood over him at meals, sniggered when he begged for a pail to relieve himself. Few of them spoke any Skalan, but they managed to get their crude jests and insults across.

A few of them made free with their hands, too, and laughed when he lashed out at them.

The worst among them was a hairy, muscular brute called Gossol. During the brief struggle at the Cockerel the night of his capture, Alec had smashed him in the mouth with the hilt of his sword and broken off the man's front teeth. Gossol held a grudge over it and made a special effort to torment him at every opportunity.

On the morning of Alec's sixth day aboard, Gossol showed up alone to escort him above. One look was enough to make Alec brace for trouble.

"Come you, man child," Gossol ordered in broken Skalan. The stumps of his broken front teeth showed as he leered slyly and held up a cloak, the only garment Alec was allowed except for his clout.

Alec understood. He'd have to go get it.

"Come quick, not seshka Mardus keep wait," Gossol chided.

"Toss it here," Alec said, holding out his hand.

Gossol's grin widened dangerously. Leaning against the door frame, he gave the cloak a taunting shake. "No. You come, man child. Now."

Getting to his feet, Alec cautiously reached for the cloak. Gossol snatched it away and laughed as Alec jumped back.

"What? You afraid of Gossol, little man child?"

He offered the cloak, pulled it back again with a sneer, then advanced on Alec, backing him into the narrow space between the bunk and the wall. "You be afraid, good. You break mouth of Gossol. Think whores like this mouth now? Eh? You know whore, I think." Gossol made a lewd gesture.

"Whores don't like this broken mouth. Maybe you like, eh?"

Shoving Alec back against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of him, he pinned him there with the weight of his body and kissed him savagely on the mouth.

Alec struggled furiously, but Gossol held him fast with one hand and ran the other up Alec's belly to his nipple and gave it a vicious twist.

With a snarl, Alec gave up trying to push the heavy man off and instead bit him on the lip.

Gossol pulled away and drew back his fist, but Alec beat him to the punch. The moment his arms were free, he drove his fist into the startled guard's face and felt the satisfying crunch of bone as Gossol's nose splintered.

Maddened, he grappled with Alec again, throwing him back onto the hard bunk and locking a hand around his windpipe. As Alec fought for breath he heard someone else storm in, cursing in Plenimaran.

Tildus dragged the enraged soldier off and struck him hard across the jaw before pushing him into the arms of the other soldiers waiting at the door.

"Hell damn little bastard fool!" Tildus shouted, seeing blood on Alec's face and chest.

He barked an order to another soldier in the companionway, then rounded on Alec again. "If any of this is, yours, you dead as Gossol. No good if damaged. Mardus slice you up like an eel, eat your rezhari for dinner!"

Someone fetched a bucket of water and a rag and Tildus set about sponging the blood off Alec and looking for wounds.

As the guards pulled him this way and that, Alec considered what the captain had just let slip; Mardus wanted him with a whole skin, no blood spilled. That explained why they'd tortured him in the manner they had, but not why it was necessary.

When Tildus had finished, he pushed Alec back onto the bunk and threw him the cloak, really lucky bastard today. No cuts."

"Very lucky indeed."

Looking past Tildus and the guards, Alec saw Mardus standing in the doorway with Vargul

Ashnazai.

"There has been some unpleasantness, I understand," Mardus continued, giving Tildus an ominous look.

The captain rattled off a terse reckoning in his own tongue. Mardus answered curtly in the same, and motioned to the necromancer.

Smiling thinly, Vargul Ashnazai made his own inspection of Alec. "The boy remains unblemished, my lord."

"I'm glad to hear it. It would have been a great pity to have him come so close to our destination and then go to waste. Come, Alec, walk with me. There's something I think you'll enjoy."

Alec doubted it, but there was no choice but to obey.

Under close guard, he followed Mardus above.

It was an achingly beautiful day. The sky arched over the rolling sea like a deep blue bowl. The ship cut through the white-capped waves, her striped sails filled by a sweet following wind that sang through the yards and seemed to cleanse some of the stench of captivity from his skin.

A large square of white canvas had been nailed to the deck just below the forward battle platform.

Irtuk Beshar knelt at the center of it in an attitude of meditation, her hideous hands curled on her knees.

For the first time, Alec saw how most of the sailors and marines gave her a wide berth. Those who had to pass her kept their distance and averted their eyes.

This was also the first time he'd been able to observe her with any detachment. As usual, she wore rich, elaborate robes that contrasted hideously with her scabrous head and hands. A few wisps of long dark hair still clung to her scalp, and over it she wore a sort of veil fashioned from tiny gold chains and beads.

Kneeling there in the bright sunshine, she looked as fragile as the dried carapace of a locust, but Alec knew better all too well. In the Oreska museum he'd seen the hands of another dyrmagnos, who'd been hacked to pieces and scattered. Even after a century, those hands still moved. Looking down at the small figure still meditating in front of him, Alec shuddered, wondering what the true extent of her power was.

Captain Tildus shouted something in Plenimaran and a contingent of marines lined up in two ranks flanking the square of canvas. A few sailors drifted over, but not many. Mardus nodded to Alec's guards and they moved him in front of the soldiers to the left.

Vargul Ashnazai went below through a different hatchway. While he was gone, guards brought up another prisoner and stood with him opposite

Alec.

It was Thero.

Alec's relief at seeing him was short-lived, however. The young wizard's face was as vacant as before beneath the iron bands of the branks, and there was the gleam of madness in his wide, staring eyes. A grizzled man in nondescript robes stood just behind him; another necromancer, he guessed.

Ashnazai returned, followed by two marines carrying a large chest on carrying poles. The box and poles were both covered with gold and unfamiliar symbols. This was set down in front of the dyrmagnos. As the others began chanting, Ashnazai opened the chest and lifted out a crystal diadem that glittered in the sunlight.

"Behold the Crown," he intoned reverently, placing it on the canvas before Irtuk Beshar.

The sight of it wrenched at Alec's heart. This was the mysterious object Seregil had risked his life to find for Nysander.

Ashnazai next lifted out a bowl made of crudely fired clay and placed it inside the circlet. "Behold the Cup!"

Last came a loop of golden wire on which had been strung a number of wooden disks. "Behold the Eyes of Seriamaius!"

Alec let out an involuntary gasp as the dyrmagnos began placing them, one by one, inside the cup.

Mardus turned to Alec. "You recognize those, I'm sure. Just think, if the two of you hadn't stolen one, you and poor Thero would not be standing here now. All those lives lost, all that destruction, Alec, because of that one impetuous act. Ah, but

I'm forgetting that it was Seregil who committed the actual theft. That's what you told Irtuk Beshar, that you simply helped. But it all comes out the same in the end, doesn't it. Here you are with me, and there he is, safely back in Rhiminee, no doubt thinking himself very lucky. Can you still be loyal to this faithless friend of yours?"

"Yes." Alec met Mardus' gaze levelly in a show of bravado he didn't feel. Past Mardus, past the ship's rail and out over the wide sea he could see the tiny dot of an island on the horizon, too far away to be of any use.

Just like Seregil.

A wave of longing rolled over Alec, bringing the sting of tears to his eyes. All those days with Seregil taken for granted the memory of them made him ache as he stood stranded among these enemies.

The dyrmagnos placed her withered hands over the crown for a moment, then called out harshly in her own tongue.

There was a scuffling sound from belowdecks, followed by a terrified cry. A moment later Gossol was hauled on deck by several soldiers. Bootless and stripped to the waist, he looked around wildly at the gathering before him. When he saw the dyrmagnos, however, he went ashen, his great barrel chest heaving in voiceless terror.

"We were debating the choice of victim, but you have spared us the tiresome inconvenience of a lottery," Mardus informed Alec pleasantly.

"This is only a preliminary sacrifice, of course. The blood of this ignorant lump has neither the power nor purity of, say, a half Aurenfaie boy or an Oreska wizard, but it's sufficient for our purposes today."

"That's why I'm still alive?" Alec managed, his voice scarcely more than a dry croak.

"Certainly," Mardus assured him, as if promising him some gift. "You and Thero are being reserved for the supreme moment. The power of your blood, Alec! The long years sacrificed. Yours will be deaths of highest honor. You should pay careful attention to this ceremony. Yours will be very much the same."

Gossol was thrown down on his back and held by four marines marked apart from their fellows by white headbands.

A fifth man knelt holding a gag across the condemned man's mouth.

In the midst of his fear, Gossol suddenly locked eyes with Alec and shot him a look of pure hatred. The power of it tightened Alec's throat and he quickly averted his eyes, hating the guilt washing through him.

As the incomprehensible chanting went on, he looked instead at Thero, trying to guess what was going on in the wizard's addled mind. Thero stood motionless, locked mute by whatever magicks the necromancers had placed over him. Only the spasmodic twitching of his fingers clutching the front of his cloak suggested that he comprehended anything around him.

Irtuk spoke again and the second necromancer lifted something from where she sat. As he passed it to Ashnazai, Alec saw it was a strange axlike weapon. The heavy, curving head had been chipped out of black obsidian and bound onto an iron haft. Despite its obvious weight, Vargul Ashnazai raised it above his head with practiced ease. With no other paean than Gossol's strangled scream, he struck and the black blade cleaved open the doomed man's breastbone as neatly as a wood cutter would split an oak stave.

Alec turned his head quickly, squeezing his eyes shut until his head throbbed. But he could not escape the sounds that followed. Gossol's screams rose to a squeal before they choked off to a gurgle. There was the dry-stick sounds of bones breaking, and the wet suck of a carcass being opened. Eyes still closed, Alec remembered the feel of Vargul

Ashnazai's cold finger tracing a line down his bare chest.

He suddenly felt very light. Opening his eyes, he saw the sanded planks of the deck rushing up to meet him.