Shadow Of The Mountain (42 page)

Tenlon nodded his head in agreement.                 

“Ah, yes. The Amorian academies of the Magi.” He whistled in awe, turning serious once more. “Powerful men, those Amorian Mages. I can understand why you’d want to pursue such a life.”

“I’m actually a scholarly mage,” Tenlon told him. “All my life I’ve wanted to…”

He trailed off, a seed of dread sprouting at the pit of his stomach. The man was casting some sort of spell on him, making him talk. He could feel the words already clawing at the base of his throat, screaming to be released.

“You always wanted to…what?” the Volrathi prompted, black eyes unblinking and gripping his gaze.

Tenlon licked his lips, throat dry. He had to break the trance. Do something! Anything! Just don’t…

“Dragons.” The word toppled out with incredible ease, weight lifting from his mind. “I’ve always…wanted to work with dragons.”

The wolf rose upright, his face lighting up bright as the afternoon sun. “Dragons?” he exclaimed with a smile. “Why, I’ve always wanted to work with dragons, too! How fortuitous to find ourselves here, two men of similar interests. Today is indeed turning into a fine day!”

Even as he spoke, Tenlon could feel unseen weights pressing down on his mind. The longer he tried to be quiet, the more painful the pressure became. He had learned of such spells. Only speech would relieve the pain, and even then only the truthful words this Magi desired to hear.

He had to act, to somehow break the spell. The man’s concentration had to be interrupted.

“How did you escape Goridai?” the wolf asked amiably, the pain of the spell increasing. Each syllable became a sizzling-hot iron plate stacked on top of his brain. “I thought that your army was surrounded. No quarter and cut-off heads and whatnot.”

“We were.” Tenlon couldn’t break the gaze they were locked in. It was mesmerizing.

He felt the whole story bubbling up inside to press against the lid, spitting and ready to spill out. First Mage Braiden, the egg, the ride through Killian Forest, he and Desik the only survivors.

Then would come the name of the ship, the
Lancer
, and the egg within.

He opened his mouth and the spell softened just a sliver in response of his intention to speak.

Sever the spell! Create a diversion! Fall over, faint, scream, slam your head into the table!
Anything, just don’t tell him!

For once in your life, damn it, grow a spine and a set of stones! Even if it’s just for a moment, at least pretend to have courage before this loathsome wretch!

Give yourself something to hold onto when it’s you strapped to the chair and the hot knives and pliers come out to twist and pull at your skin. Too many lives have been lost along the way for it to end here without a fight.

The Volrathi seemed to notice his struggle. “If you were surrounded,” he pressed on, “how did you escape? You must have ridden out from the--”

Tenlon’s hand darted out, slapping the wolf across the face harder than he’d ever hit anyone in his life.

The fleshy smack rang out sharp as whip in the storage room. The boot of the sitting Volrathi slid off the table, an expression of shock filling his face. It was probably similar to Tenlon’s own look of horrified disbelief.

He felt the spell’s pain vanish as a red handprint grew on the Magi’s cheek. The wolf’s jaw tightened and a narrow vein surfaced on the skin of his forehead. Tenlon felt himself start to tremble.

Wicked courage, he thought again. Here one instant and gone the next, leaving him alone to deal with its price.

The wind rose to a scream outside. The storm was nearly upon them.

The wolf slid the trunk to the middle of the table, carefully placing it in the exact center. Drumming his fingers across the top, he seemed to think over something as he stared the boy down.

His fingers came to a halt. “I was hoping,” he said, “that you would make this easy on yourself.”

His words carried no more pain. The wolf was changing tactics. Violence would be the logical choice. A slap in the face certainly wouldn’t have the most calming effect on him.

“Do you know what happened to the man out there? Tied to the chair?” He motioned behind them, to Darien in the living room.

Tenlon didn’t like the direction this was going.

“I know you tortured him,” he said quietly. “And then you murdered him.”

“We did indeed,” the wolf agreed with a sage nod. “But first we had a conversation. He knew things, things that I also wanted to know.”

Tenlon’s heart felt like it was trying to tunnel out of his chest with a hatchet. “And now I know something you want to know.”

The Magi waved his words off, as if to say:
not so fast, we have all the time in the world.

“This is Vakka.” He pointed to the massive Volrathi sitting next to him, then to the other in the doorway with the misshapen shoulder and arm. “And that is Nelkin.”

Tenlon glanced around and saw Nelkin’s hollow black eyes staring at him, face void of emotion. His abnormal arm hung low, yellow fingers stretching from the sleeves of a grimy tunic past his knee.

“They are charged with my protection, these two,” the wolf told him. “They’ve been with me since I was a boy. It is considered a great privilege to protect someone with my gifts, and they are both skilled beyond measure. I’ve never met two swordsmen with more speed or strength in all my life. Songs are sung of these two in our drinking halls.”

“I tell you this not to boast of their talents,” he continued solemnly, “for warriors of their caliber require no such praise. Each solitary breath they take is in defiance of the great men they’ve faced in combat. Hundreds have died at their feet. They live to fight, to cut men apart and shower their souls in the screams of death.”

Tenlon looked at Vakka, his face remaining impassive.

“I wish you to know these things because you are not alone in this city. There is a man with you, with dark red hair and colored paintings on his arm. You think he will come to save you, but he will not. You think he is strong, but he is nothing more than a still-breathing carcass. If he survived my explosion—which I doubt—he will search for you, and die when he finds you. Vakka and Nelkin will kill him. You have my word on that. There is no reason for you not to tell us what we want to know. One man cannot face these two and survive. Take me to the egg, and they will bring no harm to your friend when he comes.”

Tenlon knew then that Desik was alive, and if he was alive, he would be on his way here. He had to keep these men talking. Desik would need more time.

“If my man came here,” he asked bitterly. “Why wouldn’t you kill him?”

“Because he fights with the blade, and nothing is more sacred to our warriors than combat. I would never rob them of that.”

“Now,” the wolf said, standing upright once more, his bright demeanor returning. “While indeed they are great men, my two wardens also maintain a deep well of creativity. Isn’t that right, Vakka?”

Vakka agreed with a nod.

“Do you know what happened to Darien’s eyes?” the wolf asked.

“No,” Tenlon answered. He didn’t want to know.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. As I said before, they are quite the creative pair. It all started…” He trailed off, pulling the chest closer to him once more, stretching his arms out to lean against it.

Tenlon was well aware by now that it held some instrument of torture, perhaps even the very tools that would kill him.

The wolf let out a frustrated breath. “Nelkin? How did this all start again?”

“We were on our way here.” Nelkin’s voice rolled over Tenlon from behind like an overloaded wagon.

“Yes!” the slim Volrathi cried out. “The ride over! Ah, such sweet memories. Anyway, we were riding for Ebnan and Nelkin wondered aloud…” The wolf paused in thought again. “What did you wonder aloud, Nelkin?”

“If the flame of a candle could burn a man to death.”

Tenlon’s legs felt like they might give out.

“Yes again! That’s what it was! You’ve always been the colloquial one, Nelkin. You’re a poet. I’ve been telling you for years, haven’t I?
Can the flame of a candle burn a man to death?
” He walked around the table to stand before Tenlon, letting the words sink in.

“And he was not speaking of a candle setting a man on fire or burning his house down while he sleeps.” The wolf picked up his pipe and tapped the ashes out. “But a lone flame upon skin, a searing scalpel of heat. The blistering paintbrush of a true artist.”

Tenlon looked away from the man, closing his eyes.

“Brace the head and tip them over,” the wolf whispered. “Feed him to the flame, and watch the eyes turn to black-cherry syrup.”

Tenlon saw Darien’s empty black eye sockets again. They had burned right through his skull with candles, through the eyelids, through the eyes, into his brain. How could anyone do such a thing? How long would it take to kill him, even after the eyes were lost?

When he looked again, the wolf had lifted the lid of the trunk with a quiet creak. Reaching inside, he removed a single long-stemmed candle of white and held it between them, examining it.

“This will be your candle,” he said reverently, slowly turning it in his hands. “Only, Vakka thinks it can burn through your chest cavity until the flame reaches your heart. He wants to have a mirror on the floor for you to watch. Do you think it possible? Not the mirror, of course, but to burn through your chest?”

The question appeared to be serious, but Tenlon didn’t answer. He wouldn’t allow his mind to venture into such dark territory until there was no other choice.

Outside the rain began, soft at first but quickly growing into a hammering tumult that thrashed the thin roof above them.

“Unfortunately our time has been cut short,” the wolf said apologetically. He reached for the gray cloak that hung over the back of his chair and spun it over his shoulders, pulling the hood up. “More of my men are nearing the city and there are concerns I must deal with beyond this little side project. I will return shortly and we will chat again, but for now I leave you in the very capable hands of Vakka and Nelkin.”

All Tenlon could see were Darien’s eyes, black and empty pits of horror. He would beg for death, he realized, but they wouldn’t grant it to him. These men weren’t the merciful type.

“What do you want to know?” Tenlon asked suddenly of his own free volition. No spell was needed for him to speak now. He was ready to say whatever was needed, so long as he wasn’t left alone with the two men. “I’m ready to talk. I‘ll tell you everything.”

The wolf smiled, resting the candle upright on the table. “The questions will come later,” he whispered, hand curling around the back of Tenlon’s neck, gripping him tight. “But you struck me in the face, and disobedient boys must be sent to their room.”

Nelkin came in from behind. The giant gathered him up in his clammy, elongated arm, lifting him above the table. Tenlon shrieked as mighty hands pushed his head and torso into the trunk. He shouldn’t have fit, but the combined strength and pressure of the Volrathi swordsmen bent his body until the lid could shut, his ankle twisting painfully. Before they closed the clasps, he heard the wolf direct one more order before leaving.

“Give the boy a bath.”

Tenlon felt his trunk slide off the table and splash upside-down into the fetid bathwater. He bobbed like a cork for a terrifying heartbeat, and then the trunk slowly began to fill.

***

He hadn’t an inch to move. Even his screams seemed to take up space. His trunk filled, covering his face first before the rest of his body in the cold muck. He held his breath until his lungs burned with fire and his thoughts dashed from one place to another in flashes of white.

He saw his mother, then his room at Iralic. There was Darkfire, Desik, and Graille. Draxakis soared above him, and then the foothills before the flatlands spread open and distant. Green islands of men against a black ocean of evil. The sun setting against the mountains. The Light of Serra glowing so bright it burned his skin. Kreiden’s sword flashing from his horse, the ocean slamming against the cliffs—all of it in bursts of brilliance.

Then, just before his lungs split apart, his trunk was lifted from the bath and dropped to the tabletop. The water slowly drained and when the coughing subsided, he screamed.

Again, they moved him to the water.

Upside down he sank and once more the flashes of life and death came to him. Lungs burning, mind screaming, they would pull him back out to repeat the whole cycle, though each time he thought it would be his last.

Over and over this happened, too many times to count.

Desik. Draxakis. The cliffs. Mother. Darkfire. Flatlands. Mountains.

Burning. Darkness. Death.

If by some cruel fate, Tenlon thought finally, I am released from this torture and given a second chance, I will make the most of it. I will not sit at the foot of the hills to watch the battle. I will find the strength to fight.

His mind went places, became lost. The pain melted to nothingness…

“As months turned to years, the Danaki mystics worked with the black dragon, building his strength with increasingly sadistic sacrifices and spells. Ancient books of magic were used, but the minds of the mystics soon twisted to insanity. The beast grew exponentially, faster than any thought possible. Within a few seasons it was a fully matured black, though had yet to release its first breath of dragonfire. Mir-Saad, the Danaki people named him…Shadow Wind.

“Disappearing for vast stretches of time, one morning Mir-Saad returned with the limp carcass of Kra-and clutched in his mighty grip. It is said they did battle amidst the dunes and rocky canyons for six days, and on the seventh Mir-Saad ended Kra-and’s reign
—
not with flame but tooth and claw, muscle and valor.”

“The black dragon didn’t breathe fire, did he?” Tenlon asked.

The man smiled but continued on. “Dropping his mother’s body in the center of the city, the Danaki people rejoiced. Their plan had worked. Shadow Wind had killed Man Hunter. Feasts and joyous revelry were plentiful during those early days, and for a time all was well. Kra-and was dead and the desert was safe once more. Long abandoned trade routes were reopened and the Danaki people could again flourish within the realm.