The Lost Labyrinth

II

Knox's ribs and chest felt as bruised as he could ever remember. His stomach too, from the punch he'd taken. His heart felt worn as perished rubber, and his throat and nostrils were chafed raw, as though sand-papered from within. He turned to one side, spat out watery mucous that ran feebly past the gag and down the side of his mouth. Time was blurring, his mind was playing tricks. He wasn't sure how many sessions of this torture he'd already endured. Four? Five?

'Ah,' said Mikhail. 'Rejoined us, I see.' He was holding the hand-towel down by his side, still wet, but twisted in a gentle spiral, as though he'd just wrung it out.

Knox shivered with Pavlovian tremors. 'What do you want?' he asked. But the gag rendered it into an incomprehensible moan.

Mikhail flapped out the hand-towel and then folded it in half, ready to lay once more over Knox's face. 'Hold his head,' he told Davit.

'Please,' wept Knox. 'No more.'

'He's ready to talk,' said Davit.

'Lift his feet,' Mikhail told Zaal.

'Please,' said Knox. 'I beg you.'

Mikhail set the folded towel back over Knox's face, turning his world dark. His heart started racing, he could hear footsteps going round and around, deliberately building his apprehension. 'Do you know what the function of torture is, Zaal?' asked Mikhail.

'To get information, sir?'

'No,' said Mikhail. 'Information is the fruit of torture. It's not the function.'

'I'm not sure I understand, sir.'

'Mankind is self-aware, Zaal. It's what separates us from the animals. Our minds are distinct from our bodies, our thoughts from our words. If you like, we're each puppeteers pulling our own strings. During ordinary interrogations, that gap is still there, that distance between mind and body. It allows people like Mr Knox here to consider their answers, to say whatever they believe is to their greatest benefit. The function of torture is to eradicate that gap, so that the subject's thoughts are no longer distinct from their words.'

'To turn people back into animals?'

'Exactly, Zaal. Very well put. The trouble is, of course, that you need a certain level of pain to eradicate that gap; but people can't talk under that level of pain. It's not physically possible. You therefore have to relieve the pain to conduct the actual interrogation. And as soon as you relieve the pain, that gap can grow again, your subject regains a little control over their own strings. So the true purpose of torture is to eliminate that gap for good, and we do that with dread. Not suffering itself, but the anticipation of it. Watch.' Knox's feet began to rise, he heard the swill of water, he bucked and kicked and screamed. 'See,' said Mikhail. 'I'm not doing anything to him at all. All I'm doing is lifting up his feet. But right now he'll tell me just exactly what I want to know.' He removed the towel then reached behind Knox's head and loosened the gag. 'Won't you, Mr Knox?'

'Yes,' wept Knox.

'So what am I after?'

'The fleece. You want the golden fleece.'

'Because you have it, don't you?' And he folded the towel and made to place it over his face once more.

'Yes,' screamed Knox. 'I have it! I have it! I have it!'

'You see,' said Mikhail. 'That's how torture works.'