Dark Legion (43 page)

“I'll release it as I pour it down your throat,” Innis said.

I shrugged. He held the beaker to my mouth, and I swallowed once. Innis really wasn't very good. Perhaps I was a lousy teacher. Only a small portion of the beaker was necessary. While I was immune to it, I suspected that had its limits. If I consumed too much, there was a real possibility of me shaking myself to death.

I held the poison in my mouth when I felt the strap loosen on my arm. His own mouth was open too, most people just could not help themselves, like mothers, who when feeding their children opened their own mouths to coax their children into doing the same.

I spat the mouthful of poison at Innis, covering his face, his mouth, and eyes. Innis leapt back, dropping the beaker in the process. It hit the floor and shattered, and my laugh did not sound too dissimilar. This time, my laugh was not put on, but it was maniacal. I could not believe that trick had worked. Two twisted madmen in two different torture chambers with the same poison. I loved that magic liquid.

Innis spun on me. “You bastard! You stupid bastard! You know you're as dead as me,” Innis screamed.

“Afraid not,” I said. “I am an assassin, and trained to consume my own poisons. Sad to say, for you at least, that I am quite immune to it.”

His nostrils flared, and I was sure his eyeballs actually protruded from those deep sockets. He ran to the wall and retrieved a cleaver, took one more step, then his legs gave way beneath him. I laughed a little more, then settled down and cleared my throat.

“Tell me, Innis, does the emperor have a vault in this palace? One that actually contains treasure?”

Innis lay flat on the ground. He could lift his head from the floor but could not prop himself up in any way. His face twisted as he tried to fight off the poison's primary effect, being the inability to lie. “Yes,” Innis blurted out.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Beneath his bed.”

“He fits it all under his bed? How?”

“Hidden chamber. Under his bed,” Innis said.

“You know this for certain?”

“No… Rumors.”

A chamber beneath his bed. Excellent. I wrestled my right arm out of the leather strap, and as I untied my left, I glanced back at Innis. “Slaves were caught when they tried to escape. How many?”

“Three.”

“What? Three slaves?”

“Three slaves,” Innis said.

“You're sure that's how many were caught?”

“Yes.”

Laughter shook my body, and if felt as though my heart would burst from relief. If only three had been caught, then the rest had either given up on the attempt or gotten away. “Farewell, Innis,” I said as a spasm took hold of him, then another. “Enjoy the hells. You deserve each other.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Crooked Eagle

 

The torture chamber shared many similarities with the one I knew so well. The one thing I wished it did not share was a door that locked only from the outside. Alas, it did, so I found myself watching the corridor of cells from the narrow slot of a window, with Innis shaking himself to death behind me. “One for the one who waits,” I said in offering to Svyn. I cast a glance at Innis. He was big, sure, but not all who had claws were lions, and you should never fight a lion unless you were one yourself.

From my angle, the cells appeared to be empty except for one, where I assumed my friends were kept. There were two guards stationed outside it, at any rate. I had to find a way out, but the how of it escaped me. I pondered all sorts of preposterous ideas, going as far as to arrange some of the torture implements to see if I could manufacture a tool to reach through the slot and somehow unlock the thing.

My planning was interrupted by the sound of boots on stone, with the occasional scrape of metal. I returned to my narrow window to see Solas and his armored Inquisitors walking past. Solas slowed for a moment, and I ducked down as he looked my way. I held a hand to my mouth, and screamed, directing the sound to the back of the room. The sounds that came from a tortured man were hard to replicate, but it was a fair impression of such a scream. I peeked around the corner and saw a smile played on his face. Then he continued on until he reached the guarded cell. The Inquisitors once more had their swords outstretched, pointing into the cell.

“Comfortable, I see,” Solas said.

“Fuck off.” That would be Neysa.

Solas laughed. “Don't worry, you won't be here long. I have something special in mind for you, girl. You like fire, so you will go out in a blaze. As for you…” he said, looking to the side, presumably at Marcus. “You are in luck. Tomorrow is Gallows Day. Many will come to see the so-called rebel leader swing from a rope.”

Solas smiled. A tall red banner decorated the wall behind him, depicting the swooping eagle of the empire. Standing with his hands on his hips, Solas mirrored the eagle, his arms like the eagle's wings and his prominent nose the beak. I screamed again, figuring it was time for another one.

“Sounds like your friend is enjoying his time with my torturer.” Solas said, then turned to the guards. “One of the brothers will bring you down a bottle of the elixir shortly. Make sure she drinks it. Don't waste a drop.” The guards saluted, and Solas turned and continued down the corridor without another word, his dogs trailing behind him.

The guards relaxed when he passed out of sight, and smiled into the cell. “We'll need to get Arnold and Len to help us hold the big one,” one guard said to the other. Arnold and Len were the brutish jailers who had helped me into my chair earlier. “I doubt he'll stand back while we force that drink down her throat.”

“We may not need to force it down,” the other said.

“I'm not drinking it,” Neysa said. “I will not let you block my magic again.”

The guards looked at each other, then laughed. “Block it? The emperor has bigger plans than that, girl.”

The second guard hit the first on the shoulder. “You can't speak of it.”

“Who is she going to tell? So, you know the mercury absorbs your power. What you don't realize is that the emperor plans on extracting the mercury from you, and with it, your magic. It's used to make those disgusting evil weapons for the Dark Legion.”

“Pffft, you only say that because he's not giving any to you,” the second guard said.

“He can't extract it,” Neysa said. “It gets absorbed by the organs.”

The guards laughed again. “Oh, but he can. By burning you until you are nothing but ash. Ash… and mercury.”

I heard a rustling in their cell. “You're right,” the second guard said. “Better get Len and Arnold. The big fellow looks like he'll make things difficult.”

The first guard smiled. “While we are holding her down… might as well have some fun.”

“The Beloved doesn't approve of that.”

“You gonna tell him?” the first asked.

“No… But Len and Arnold—”

“— Len and Arnold can have their turn. And Kal, too, if he gets back in time. Where is that lazy bastard anyway? He went to the privy half an hour ago.”

 

I went back to my planning, arranged and rearranged tools more frantically, but it was no use. Few would fit through the narrow slot, and nothing I could think of would turn a key, even if it was still in the door. Next I tried to think of a way to fashion a weapon, perhaps a dart of some kind, but that met a similar end.

 

“There he is,” I heard a guard say. “Kal, you bastard, what have you got?”

“Help me with this, you shits,” another voice boomed down the corridor. I looked through the slot to see another man, presumably Kal, carrying a barrel. “Found this abandoned, so I confiscated it.”

“Good man,” the guard said, clasping him on the shoulder.

“Took me a while to find these,” Kal said, untying a small sack from his belt. He took out a tankard, dangled it, his finger through the handle.

“Let's get into it then, before someone finds us,” the guard said. He snatched the tankard and held it beneath the tap, turning it. Nothing came out. It wouldn't. The barrel did not contain any ale. It was painted red, with “Last Resort” stenciled on the side.

“Nothing's coming out,” the guard said. “Tap's busted.”

“You have to kick it,” I heard Marcus say.

The guard looked into the cell for a long moment, then shrugged and did just so. I heard the click, ran from the door, and hid behind the metal chair.

Boom!

The floor shook beneath me, and though I had my fingers pressed into my ears, the sound was still deafening. And more than the sound, the force unleashed by the blast pressed against my chest, stole my breath, and made me dizzy. When the blast subsided, I stood to my feet but came close to falling, so I sat in the chair instead. My head spun, making me feel sick, and I tilted it back to rest against the cool metal with my eyes closed.

 

A shadow fell across my eyelids a minute or two later, followed by the sound of keys clinking together. Metal scraped against the lock, was pulled away and inserted again. This repeated three times before I heard the bolt slide back, and the door opened.

“Gods,” Marcus said, and ran to me. I opened my eyes and smiled. “You're alright!” he said with surprise.

“Of course I am,” I said and leapt to my feet, stumbled, and was caught by Marcus. Neysa ran over, hugging me tight and tracing a finger down my face. I appreciated the gesture, but it hurt more than it comforted.

“You're loose?” Marcus asked. “They didn't strap you to the chair?”

“Of course they did.”

“Then how did you get out? And what happened to that monster?” he asked looking over his shoulder at Innis.

“I killed him, obviously. But that's a story for another time.”

“Agreed,” Marcus said. “Let's get out of the palace.”

“No,” I said as I stretched and winced at the pain in my chest. With the rest of the pain raking my body, from both explosions, the rough handling by the jailers, from Solas smashing his head into my face, and from the thumbscrew, I'd forgotten about the nail embedded in my chest. It felt as though my body was made of pain, and the nail just a small part of it. I reached down, drew it out slowly, and looked at the blackened nail before tossing it over my shoulder. My friends stared at me, their mouths agape.

“What do you mean, ‘no,'” Neysa yelled when she snapped out of her trance.

I looked at her calmly. “I am not leaving empty-handed.”

“The vault is empty, Saul,” Neysa said, using that tone she reserved for the stupid.

“That one is. But Innis here told me of another,” I said, kicking the corpse. “The real one. We just have to find the emperor's room.” I retrieved my satchel from a shelf on the wall and pulled on my coat as I walked to the door. “Come,” I said over my shoulder. My friends still stood were they were. “We'll have company real soon. That was an awfully loud explosion. Come.”

 

The corridor was a mess of stone, mortar, and pieces of human. We paused to allow Marcus to belt on one of the dead guards' swords, and I noticed something curious. The tall imperial banner was askew, blown aside in the explosion, and a blackness showed along one edge. I pulled it to the side. Behind the banner was a dark passage. When I let it go, it fell back in place to cover the opening.

“The hells?” Neysa asked.

“Come,” I said, and made my way into darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

A Step in the Right Direction

 

We were lost. Again. The hidden ways of the palace were a labyrinth of dusty, cobweb-ridden, and often narrow passages. Though I had the plans of the palace in hand, they were of little use. With no obvious landmarks, it was hard to know where we were, on the plans or otherwise, with only the occasional peephole giving us a fix on our position. Our progress was further hampered by modifications not shown on the plans.

The exit points shown on the plans were now walled off, but exiting was not on the agenda. We heard large groups running past us repeatedly on the other side of the wall. The search was on, but with how little use these passages showed, I thought it unlikely that their existence was well known.

 

We sat on the dust-covered floor of a dead end, the latest of many, with plans scattered between us. Neysa's ball of hot light sat above, and I sweated beneath its onslaught. The passages were oppressive, the air old and stale, and I thought I could feel the weight of the stone around us pressing on my spirit. Cobwebs stuck to my face, neck, and arms and had me slapping at imaginary spiders.

 

“We have to double back to this point here,” I said, pointing at one of the plans.