The Broken World Book One - Children of Another God (15 page)

"Come on, you
dirty yellow bastard!" Jashon snarled. "You'll not escape me. I
have two whole days to torture you, so make it easy on yourself.
Defend the city, and you'll receive healing and comforts."

"No Wish."
Blood bubbled in Chanter's throat, and he swallowed.

"You're wasting
your time," said Tranton, who had worked his way to the front of
the throng. "We should fetch our weapons from the armoury now that
we can no longer escape."

Jashon's scowl
deepened. "We'd never have made it to the gates before they were
closed, anyway. Go and get your weapon if you wish, I'm going to
make this bastard co-operate. Just tell me what 'no wish'
means."

Tranton smiled.
"He means that he doesn't owe you anything. You haven't done
anything for him, so he has no gratitude, and therefore he won't
grant you a wish."

"I'm not asking
for a bloody wish! I'll make him beg for mercy first, then, when he
agrees to help, he'll get his damned healing."

"It won't
work."

"He doesn't
know what suffering is yet."

"Oh, I think he
may have a fair idea."

For the next
two hours, Jashon strived to prove what suffering was to the Mujar.
He drove spikes into Chanter's flesh, then pulled out his finger
and toenails. The Mujar watched his tormentor with hate-filled
eyes, and the crowd dwindled as its members lost interest and went
to collect their weapons. Another two hours passed while Jashon
twisted the Mujar's broken limbs, pinched his flesh in iron
instruments and cut off fingers, toes, ears and skin. Tranton, one
of the few who remained, shook his head in constant assertion of
his original verdict.

By the time the
lanterns spluttered from lack of oil, Jashon wiped sweat from his
forehead, his thin face twisted with frustration and anger. Rising,
he went to the door with jerky strides and paused there to glare at
Chanter.

"Tomorrow I'll
carry on, Mujar. You will agree in the end."

Tranton
grunted, and Chanter turned his head away, closed his eyes and
called down sleep's sweet dark curtain as the Lowmen left.

Talsy woke,
cold and stiff, as the faint streaks of dawn lightened the sky.
Shivering, she pulled her jacket closer, her arm throbbing. A pair
of little red eyes in the darkness caught her attention, and she
stared at them with a twinge of fear. From their size and spacing,
they were rat's eyes, and she wondered why such a timid creature
would stare at her so boldly. As she groped for a rock to hurl at
the animal, it darted towards her. Talsy recoiled, trying to pull
her legs out of its way and scramble to her feet. Tiny claws
scratched her ankle, and a vision slammed her back against the wall
like a red hot-spike through her brain.

A dingy, drab
room with black beams and a grey wooden ceiling filled her mind. A
crowd of men, dressed in robes of various shades of dirt, from
almost white to nearly brown, stared down at her. They had leering,
hard-eyed faces, and she sensed excruciating pain and helpless
imprisonment mingled with the metallic smell of blood, all dulled
by cold.

Talsy slumped
as the vision faded, her heart pounding. For a moment, she had
shared Chanter's mind, sensed his pain and seen his surroundings.
The rat had brought her a plea for help. He was badly injured, held
captive by the pitiless men who tortured him. She frowned,
recalling the image. Almost all the men wore belts of woven blue
cord, the badge of a doctor. Rising, she set off down the deserted
street in search of a doctor, or the place where doctors
congregated, somewhere they would hold a Mujar.

The next day,
Jashon kept his promise to torture the Mujar, devised new methods
and tried any that his peers suggested. He laid gold on the Mujar's
skin and rubbed salt into his massive wounds, followed by every
imaginable poison and finally acid. The unman groaned and sometimes
cried out, and Jashon slapped him awake whenever he seemed liable
to slide away into oblivion. Through it all, his reply remained the
same, and by the afternoon Jashon was at his wit's end. Tranton
perched on a table and mocked his friend.

"I told you,
you're wasting your time."

"Shut up!"
Jashon snarled, angered by Tranton's superior smile. "I haven't
given up yet."

"Well, you
should." Tranton sighed and stroked his dirty beard. "You can't
make a Mujar do anything he doesn't wish to do."

A commotion at
the door heralded the entrance of a tall man followed by a gaggle
of grey-robed advisors and four guards in bright red and gold
livery. The newcomer's purple cloak swept the floor with a
gold-trimmed edge, and his grey silk shirt peeped from a waistcoat
with a white fur lining. Well-tailored black trousers and dark
brown boots completed his ensemble. Iron-grey hair receded from his
high temples, his steel-grey eyes glinted and his hooked nose hung
over a thin-lipped mouth.

"Governor."
Jashon bowed, straightening his robes. Tranton tried to groom his
straggly beard while the others tidied themselves as best they
could. The governor frowned at the mangled Mujar.

"I've heard
what you're trying to do here, Doctor Durb, and commend you for
your efforts. I take it you are still unsuccessful?"

Jashon bowed.
"Yes, Your Grace, but I haven't given up yet."

"What haven't
you tried?"

Jashon
hesitated. "We'll think of more things to try, Your Grace."

Cusak nodded.
"It looks like you've been doing a good job."

Jashon preened,
and Tranton shook his head.

The governor
leant over the Mujar. "What would you say if I offered you half the
wealth in the city's coffers, Mujar? You would be the wealthiest
man in the city, able to buy anything you wished; food, wine,
women, a house, anything at all. Never ending comforts, the respect
and gratitude of all the Truemen in this city, exemption from the
Pit and protection from any harm?"

The Mujar shook
his head. "No."

Cusak scowled.
"You will never be offered such an opportunity again. Prove that
Mujar are good for something."

"No."

Cusak
straightened. "You're a fool, as we have always known. Useless
Mujar scum." He turned away, and Jashon hurried after him as he
strode to the door.

"I won't stop
trying, Your Grace."

Cusak nodded.
"I think you're wasting your time, doctor."

"May I ask when
the Black Riders will be here?"

"Tomorrow."

The crowd of
advisors swallowed the governor up, and he left without a backward
glance. Jashon turned back to his victim, fear compounding his
frustration.

"Get chains and
pulleys, we're going to tear this bastard apart," he snarled.

Talsy's tired
feet dragged along the hard street, which had worn her soft shoes
almost through. Twice, she had been forced to run from street
thugs, and she scanned the road ahead for danger. Her swollen,
throbbing arm drained her energy and made her queasy, and all she
wanted was to lie down and rest. The people she had asked for
directions had chased her off, probably thinking her a beggar
looking for free care, of which there was none. At the end of the
street was a square with a fountain that had several stone drinking
basins around it.

Talsy leant
against a basin and sipped the water that ran into it from the
copper spigot. It tasted brackish and dead, with none of the sweet
wild taste of a forest stream. Gingerly she unwrapped her arm,
revealing a broad red area with a yellow line in the middle of it.
Red streaks ran from it up to her shoulder. She washed it, then
splashed her face and scrubbed some of the grime off her exposed
parts.

Becoming aware
of a presence behind her, she turned to find a kindly eyed woman
there. The matron smiled, then glanced at the septic cut on Talsy's
arm.

"You should get
that seen to, young miss."

"I don't know
where to go."

The woman
pointed down the street. "Just around the next corner there's a
medical college. Someone there will help you. Have you money?"

Talsy nodded,
astonished to be shown kindness in this city where no one seemed to
care. The woman smiled again and cupped her hands to drink from the
spigot. Talsy thanked her and headed down the street, wrapping her
arm again. Around the next corner was a grey building with black
beams protruding from its walls and a painting of a grey-bearded
man in a white robe and blue belt hanging outside the open door.
She trotted into a white corridor with grubby marks on the walls
and opened the closest door to peer into a room full of desks and
chairs. As she turned away, a young man emerged from a door further
down the passage and approached her.

"Can I help
you?" he enquired.

"Yes, I'm
looking for a Mujar. I know he's here. Where is he?"

The man looked
amazed. "How would you know that?"

"I just do,"
she said. "Where is he?"

"Now, just a
minute. You can't barge in here and demand to see the
prisoner."

Talsy pulled a
sharp slither of wood from her jacket pocket, a weapon she had
acquired in the gutter for protection. She pressed it to his gut
and glared at him. "Take me to him, now!"

Evidently her
wild eyes, grim mouth and obvious desperation daunted the youth,
who raised his hands and turned away. Talsy gripped his robe to
prevent him from running and held her makeshift weapon next to his
kidneys. He headed down the corridor and opened a door near the
end, descended a flight of steps and opened another door. They
entered a room that many lanterns lighted, where tables stood in
rows, covered with strange paraphernalia and shiny instruments.
Cages held rats and rabbits, and a group of men occupied the far
corner, some leaning or sitting on the tables.

Talsy shoved
the youth forward, and he approached the group. A few of its
members glanced around, one an elderly reprobate with a disgusting
yellow beard.

"Where is he?"
she demanded.

Her hostage
pointed at the group. "On the floor."

Releasing him,
she pushed through the doctors to stare at what lay on the floor.
At first she was not sure what it was, for its resemblance to a man
was minimal. A pool of brown blood surrounded a twisted creature
stretched between chains. Coils of gut lay snarled beside it, and
the wet gleam of exposed organs poked from torn skin and bloody
cavities. Her heart hammered with horror, and she longed for this
to be some cruel joke. As if sensing her presence, he turned his
head and opened his eyes.

"Chanter!"
Talsy whispered hoarsely. Pain shot through her heart and her bile
rose, then the room spun and went black.

Two doctors
caught the girl and lowered her to the ground. Jashon turned and
raised a brow at the student who had brought her in.

"She seemed to
know him, sir," he said. "Demanded that I bring her here and
threatened me with a sharp stick."

Jashon smiled.
"A sharp stick, eh? How courageous our students are these days. Tie
her up." Turning back to his victim, he sighed. "If you were
Trueman I'd have the answer to my dilemma, for then you might feel
something for this girl and co-operate for her sake, if not your
own. But you're Mujar scum, unfeeling, uncaring, and no doubt would
not lift a finger to help her."

The Mujar
glared at him.

"I thought not.
So, let's continue."

Chanter's soft
groans dragged Talsy back to consciousness. She raised her head,
and found her hands bound behind her back and her feet tied. The
doctors stood around their victim, who was mercifully out of sight.
The sounds of his agony cut through her, and she shouted, "Stop it!
Stop it! Leave him alone!"

A hatchet-faced
man with hard brown eyes straightened and turned to her. Talsy
hated him on sight.

"Ah, you're
awake." He sniggered. "Our little bandit. I believe you know this
yellow scum. Maybe we have you to thank for bringing him into the
city. From a clan, are you?"

"No," she
denied. "I am his clan."

"A one-woman
clan." The doctor glanced around and laughed. "You must be quite a
woman, little girl."

Talsy realised
that she must be careful of what she said and leashed her emotions.
At least Chanter had stopped groaning.

"Let him go,"
she ordered.

"Or what?"

She had no
answer for that, and asked, "Why are you torturing him?"

The doctor
shook his head in a condescending manner and leant on a table.
"Well, to begin with we merely wished to dissect him, but having
done that, we decided to make him protect the city from the Black
Riders."

"He won't do
it."

The man with
the revolting yellow beard giggled. "Seems everyone knows that
except Jashon."

Jashon snarled,
"Shut up, Tranton. He can't take much more of this."

"He can," Talsy
retorted. "Obviously you don't understand Mujar, do you?"

Jashon thumped
the table. "Why is everyone such a damned expert on Mujar?"

"I've lived
with him. I know how he thinks, and he'll never be forced into
doing something."

Jashon glared
at her. "And I suppose you know how to make him do it?"

She shrugged.
"Not exactly. Untie me and I'll tell you."

At Jashon's
nod, a doctor untied her. She stood up, nursing her wounded arm,
and forced a smile. "Now you can pay me ten silver coins."

Jashon laughed,
but Tranton eyed her in a calculating manner. He pulled a purse off
Jashon's belt and held it out of reach when Jashon turned to
him.

"The governor
offered that bastard half the city's silver to protect us," Tranton
said. "If you find a way to do it, he'll doubtless reward you."

Jashon shot her
a scowl. "What if it's a trick? She looks like a beggar to me."