Weapon of Flesh (49 page)

“He’s moving too much.  I can’t work with him moving like this.”

The voice was unfamiliar, but as Lad struggled to open his eyes, he heard another that was all too easy to recognize.

“The drug is wearing off.”

He forced his eyes open and redoubled his struggles.  The Grandfather simply smiled down at him and chuckled in cold amusement.  The bearded man standing next to him was unfamiliar; rings glittered from each finger and he wore elaborate robes of purple satin embroidered with golden symbols along the collar and cuffs.  He held a small pot and a needle in his ink-stained hands.  This left little doubt in Lad’s mind as to what the pain had been.

“He should calm down when he realizes he can’t break free.”

Lad glared at the Grandfather and surged up against his bonds.  They were the same that had recently bound Mya, and he could still smell the sweet tang of her blood in the air.  The bands of iron on his arms and legs were as tight as ever, and, unfortunately, he no longer possessed the immunity to pain that had allowed him to wrench free.  As he pulled against the bands, pain lanced through his wrist and shoulder.  His struggles subsided.

“See?  He cannot escape.  You may resume, Master Vonlith.”

“Very well.”  The wizard moved forward, dipping his needle into the pot of ink.  But as he leaned forward to press the needle into Lad’s flesh, his robe draped over Lad’s bound wrist.  Lad deftly grabbed a handful of the thick material and lurched up, aiming a vicious bite at the wizard’s wrist.

“Gaa!” Vonlith cried out, jerking away just enough that Lad’s teeth clamped down on his sleeve instead of his flesh.  Ink spilled from the pot, spattering both the robes and Lad’s torso.  “Get this filthy beast off me!”

The Grandfather snatched a handful of Lad’s hair and jerked the wizard’s sleeve out of his mouth, tearing off a sizable patch of velvet, which Lad promptly spat out.  He retained a grip upon the robes with his hand, however, regardless of how the man strained to free himself.

“Make him let go of me!” the man squawked, tugging at the fabric.

The Grandfather slammed Lad’s head back down onto the stone slab, and pain lanced through his skull.  He bit back a cry of shock.

“Let him go, boy!” the Grandfather growled, cuffing him hard across the face.  His ears rang with the blow.  “Now!”

“I will not be your slave again!” Lad yelled in his face, true hatred edging his words.  The Grandfather just sneered down at him.

“Yes... You... Will!” the ancient assassin growled through a rictus grin of triumph, slamming Lad’s head back against the unyielding stone with every word.  At the second impact, Lad’s grip slackened involuntarily.  At the third, darkness welled up and dimmed his vision.

When Lad came to next, he felt something cold against his neck.  It was iron.  A new restraint had been added.  He also felt the continuous punctuating pinpricks of the wizard’s needle etching magic into his flesh.  He rolled his head from side to side, trying to clear the haze of pain and nausea.

“Don’t...  please...” he mumbled, struggling to open his eyes.  The pricks of the needle stopped.  When he finally managed to regain his senses and opened his eyes, the wizard Vonlith was watching him with some trepidation.  He had replaced his damaged robes with new ones, slightly less elaborate but the same shade of purple violet.  He placed the needle in the pot of ink and looked across the table, past Lad.

“I cannot work if he will not hold still.  He should either be drugged or otherwise rendered motionless.”

“I will see to it.”

Lad turned groggily toward the new voice.  It was another he recognized, but looking at her told him that something in his erstwhile adversary had changed drastically.  She wore a dark robe of crimson silk edged with black.  Her hair flowed down her shoulders freely, where it was usually tied back out of the way.  Thin pink scars crisscrossed her skin wherever it showed.  The wounds that had so effectively fooled Lad into thinking the Grandfather had tortured her had been healed.  He wondered how such grievous cuts had been healed so quickly until he remembered his own lost ability.  It must have been magic.

“Mya...” he said, his throat dry as old parchment.  His head still swam with pain where it had been slammed against the stone.  “I... will not...”

“Be quiet.”  She held a small green crystal vial before his eyes.  Or were there two of them?  He was having trouble focusing.  “I’m going to pour this into your mouth, and you’re going to swallow it.  It will heal your injuries.  If you don’t swallow it, I will call the Grandfather, and he will make you drink it.  Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Will you drink it?”

“Why would I?  It will only keep me alive longer.”

She leaned forward until her face was close to his.  Her hair fell forward to tickle his bare skin as she said, “Think, Lad.  There is much life between your current condition and death, and it could be filled with more pain than you can imagine.  It is no longer your choice whether you live or die, but how much misery you endure while you live
is
your choice.  You do not want to go through what I have gone through.  Trust me.”

“Trust you?”  He tried to laugh at her, but found he could not muster the strength through the pounding in his skull.  “How can I trust you, Mya?  All you know is deceit.”

“I know the Grandfather.”  In that one admission he could hear how she had changed.  There was something more and something less to her voice.  “I’ve lain on that table and felt his blades part my flesh while he laughed, and even through the opium, I screamed.  If you want to experience the same without the benefit of having the pain blunted by drugs, then refuse to swallow this potion one more time.  I will not ask again.  Now open your mouth.”

Even through the fog of his injury he could hear the truth and the terror in her words.

Lad opened his mouth and swallowed the bitter liquid.

The rush of healing magic swept through him like a cleansing tide, washing away the nausea, blurred vision and pain.  His shoulder popped, and he felt the sinews knitting where he hadn’t even known they’d been torn.  His view of Mya sprang to crystal clarity, and he could see even more changes etched on her face.

“There.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“No.”  He looked her over, and she watched him do so.  There was something missing in her; something had been torn away or lost.  Though her stance and body language were as arrogant and self-assured as ever, her eyes showed a vacancy.  But this was not just the result of lying under the Grandfather’s knives; he knew her better than that.  There was something else that had caused her to give up hope on herself.  Then he saw the black ring on her finger, and he remembered her words as she lay flayed upon the table he now occupied.

“Becoming a slave is not hard,” he said, meeting that slack gaze.  “Living with it... that’s something else.”

“Irony?  From you?”  She let out a bark of scornful laughter.  “I don’t know what breaking those spells did for you, Lad, but I never expected it to turn you into a philosopher.”

“I
feel
now,” he said, letting his gaze slip off her.  He stared blankly at the domed ceiling.  “I love, I hate, I fear and I feel shame for the pain I have caused.  I don’t know how I lived not feeling these things, but now that I do, I don’t want to let them go.”  He nodded to the wizard.  “That’s what he’s here for, isn’t it?  He’s going to take all that away from me.”

“He’s going to put what spells he can back in place.  The bonding spells will be first, of course.  That will eliminate the need for these.”  She tapped the iron band around his neck with a fingernail.  “Then the healing, the pain block and the emotional block.”  She had a strange look on her face that told him there was more.

“What else?” he asked, directing the question to the wizard.  “What else are you going to do to me?”

“I was told to remove certain of your memories, young man,” he said, moving forward again, stirring the pot of ink with his needle.  “They are the source of this pain you are feeling, am I not correct?  You are better off without them.”

“It won’t matter,” he said, turning his head away from both of them.  He knew from experience that it would take days if not weeks to complete even one of the spells.  He also knew Wiggen would divulge everything he’d told her to the Captain of the Royal Guard when he did not return.  He had no idea the time of day, but he imagined it could not be much past midday.  The Royal Guard would storm the building, and they would all be killed.  “Nothing matters any more.”

He heard Mya turn and walk away, then felt the painful press of the needle and the familiar rush as ink and magic infused him.

Wiggen walked into the courtyard of the
Tap and Kettle
like she’d done a thousand times before.  Two guardsmen stationed in the courtyard gaped at her, but she ignored them.  As she passed, they fell in behind her, their hard boots scuffing the cobbles with every step.  She went to the kitchen door out of habit and entered.  The guards were through the door behind her before it could close.

“Good Gods!  Wiggen!”  Forbish dropped a tin of scones and rushed to smother her in his beefy embrace.  “Gods, girl, but you gave me a scare.  I was beside myself!”  He pushed her to arms length, his hands enveloping her shoulders in a grip that was so desperate it was painful.

She tried to smile, but couldn’t.  “I’m sorry,” she said, forcing down the wailing cry of anguish that had been building in her all morning.

Then another hand enveloped her arm, and she heard the guardsman say, “And I’m sorry, Miss, but we’ve got to take you in.”

“Like hell you will!” Forbish snapped, releasing her and slapping the guard’s hand away.  He stepped between his daughter and the two guards with a quickness that she didn’t think his bulk could have managed.

“Sir, please.  We’ve got our orders.  She’s to be taken in for questioning.”

“I know you’ve got your damned orders, and I know who gave them to you!”  Forbish folded his arms and glared at the armed men, defying them with sheer determination.  “You try to take my daughter from me again, and there’s gonna be a fight, Boy!  You can just send a runner to get Captain Norwood and bring him here.”

“Father, I --”

“No, Wiggen,” he said firmly, keeping his eyes on the two guardsmen, who were now exchanging dubious glances.  “You’re staying here.”

They’d been ordered to take her in, but they looked reluctant to do so by main force.  They appeared confident that they, perhaps with some aid from the four additional guardsmen stationed in the inn’s common room, could overcome one plump innkeeper, but they also knew that their captain had spent a good bit of time sitting and drinking ale with this same innkeeper.  Harming a friend of the Captain Norwood, even in the act of carrying out one of his orders, was not a good idea.

“We’ll have to call the sergeant,” the senior of the two said, turning to his companion.  “Go get him.”

“That’ll be fine,” Forbish said.  “He’s right out in the common room having a nice hot lunch.”

The other guard left, while Forbish and the first one stared at one another, both refusing to move.  After all Wiggen had been through, the confrontation seemed utterly silly.  She could care less whether they took her in and questioned her, or questioned her here.  It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

She turned away from the two stubborn men and bent to pick up the dropped tin of scones.  Two had rolled off the sheet and would have to be thrown out, but the others were fine.  She gripped the hot metal using the blankets in her hands as a hot mitt and dumped the rest of the scones on the cooling rack with a practiced flip.  Then she put the blankets aside, greased the sheet with a bit of butter and started dolloping batter into neat rows.  She worked mechanically, without thought, without concern for what was happening right behind her, even though it concerned her directly.

When she had put the tray in the oven and moved the one that was half done to the upper rack, four more guardsmen entered the kitchen, along with Josie and two young boys about twelve years old looking as eager as spring colts.  She ignored them all, a formidable task, since the kitchen was now full to bursting.

“Now, Master Forbish,” the sergeant began, placing his huge fists on his hips and glaring his worst.  “You know we’ve got to take the girl in.  Captain Norwood’s given his orders, and we’ve got to see to ’em.  He’s got more’n a few questions for her, and we’ve got to have answers.”

“Norwood can get his answers here,” Forbish fired back, not budging an inch.

Wiggen scooped up the two fallen scones and tossed them in the bin, stirred the soup to keep it from scorching and began cleaning up the kneading board.

“She’s not safe here!  That killer could slip in here come night and --”

“She’s as safe here as she was in your barracks, Sergeant!”

Wiggen scoured the board with boiling water from the kettle and dried it with a towel, then measured and poured flour and milk into the mixing bowl. 

“Near a dozen of the Duke’s finest guardsmen died tryin’ to protect her, Innkeeper,” the sergeant growled, wagging a finger under Forbish’s nose.  “A little more respect from you, if you please!”