Syalin knew this one. ‘Enjoyment is not mine to experience solely. It can only be experienced vicariously through the Emperor. If he derives pleasure or enjoyment through whatever I can
give him, then my enjoyment is equal in part to his, though my senses are but a crude facsimile when compared to his own.’
‘Word perfect.’ She was sneering again. ‘Now follow me.’
She led her through several corridors, past one of the trainee quarters of the Remorseless Guard, who stared lasciviously at her, making their usual crude comments. (This was an almost daily
ritual and she was not allowed to try and conceal herself from them.) At last they reached their destination, though she was in some part of the building she was not familiar with. Kherat led her
through a dark iron-bound door into a circular chamber, poorly lit and bare save for what appeared to be a double-hinged trapdoor at its centre.
Kherat looked at her. ‘Curious?’
As Syalin watched she strode over to the door, next to which stood a substantial lever. Tugging at it, the doors fell open. Syalin pressed forward and saw that underneath them was a dark pit at
the bottom of which lay some churning, viscous liquid the fumes from which burned her eyes. Kherat operated the lever again, causing the doors to shut once more.
‘It is a concentrated acid,’ she said gleefully. ‘Fall in that and your flesh will dissolve from your bones, your eyeballs will liquefy and when you scream the fumes alone will
melt your lungs. There is a no more agonising way to die. Now, stand on the door.’
Syalin hesitated. ‘Overseer Kherat. Did you say...?’
‘Stand on it!’ Kherat struck her hard on the cheek. Technically, such punishment was forbidden; the skin of a Strekha had to remain pure and unblemished in case the Emperor wanted
her that night. But both women knew that, as she had spent the evening before with him, he would not be wanting her again for a while. The overseers knew exactly when and how to punish their
trainees, and seemed to take great pleasure in doing so.
Breathing hard, Syalin stepped on to the door. It held firm, causing her to sigh with relief. Kherat came over to her, holding something in each hand.
‘Take these.’
Syalin did so. They were two weights with iron handles attached to a length of chain that ran from both of them, to disappear through holes in the stone floor.
‘Stand straight and hold your arms out to your sides.’ After Syalin had obeyed she spoke again. ‘These chains are part of a mechanism. If either weight touches the door at your
feet it will open and you will drop into the pit. Keep your arms outstretched, or I myself will pull this lever and again you will drop into the pit.’
Syalin felt a sickly fear chew the inside of her stomach. ‘For how long should I do this, Overseer Kherat?’
‘For as long as I say, for as long as a Strekha should be able to endure. Now, keep your arms outstretched!’
She did so, counting the time in her head. She tried remembering the lessons they had taught her, to keep breathing deeply and block out the pain, for her arms had started to burn. She stared
ahead of her, Kherat stood close by the lever, a wicked look in her eyes.
She endured for an age but at last her arms started to shake. What had seemed like insubstantial weights at first now felt like two great boulders pulling at her shoulders, tearing at her
muscles, dragging her arms down to her sides.
‘Arms outstretched!’ ordered Kherat. Syalin tried, but it was hard. So hard. Her limbs shook and every sinew, every inch, of her arms was burning like a fire was running up and down
their length. Sweat poured over her face, which twisted with the effort and the agony.
‘Overseer Kherat,’ she gasped. Her voice choked as she begged. ‘Please.’
‘Please?’ Kherat’s voice thundered in her temper. ‘A Strekha never says please to anyone. She is above all other men except one; she needs no charity and she would never
use such a word to plead with the Emperor! You are a disgrace, girl! A whining little worm! A fawning little toad!’
She could hold on no longer. The weights fell from her nerveless hands on to the door. Anticipating what was to come, she curled into a ball, wrapping her torn, protesting arms around her legs
and screamed. A pure, shrill, high-pitched scream of a young girl in the grip of a naked terror as she could almost feel the plunge into the pit and the smell of smoking flesh as it was burned from
her body. It was a scream that lasted a long time as if, merely by enacting it, her death throes would somehow be eased, her agonies diminished. And then she was silent.
The doors had not opened. She still lay upon them curled up into a ball. Slowly she uncoiled herself and stood before Kherat who was wearing the broadest, cruellest smile.
‘Enough of you die taking blackroot,’ she said. ‘Throwing more lives away needlessly is an expense no one can afford.’ She slapped her again, casually, as if doing such a
thing was a complete boredom to her. ‘I never want to hear you beg again. Now, to your cell. I think you can spend a little longer with the orb tomorrow.’
She was drifting again. To do such a thing was unconscionable, even once, but of late so many memories, memories she had thought long locked away and buried, had been returning
that she felt it beginning to affect her duties. She looked about her. Her charge, the Baron, was sitting in the great hall, glumly looking straight ahead. He had just dismissed a messenger and it
was just the two of them and a few servants waiting patiently in the wall alcoves. There was no one else here.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked pensively.
‘Did you not hear him?’ Morgan replied.
‘A little,’ Syalin lied. ‘I am not sure I understood it all, though.’
Morgan grunted. ‘No matter. It is no more than I expected anyway. Come with me; I need to see the mage.’
She knew the way and so walked slightly ahead of him, noting with a grim satisfaction the way the chambermaids and kitchen scullions that they approached darted into side rooms or down stairs
rather than stand and wait for them to pass.
It was easy to tell the girl’s room now, for two mailed knights stood outside it constantly. She had been told they were here to guard the girl, to keep her separate from the ordinary
folk. Back in Koze there was a similar system – the mages there dwelt in great temples in the heart of the most hostile jungles. Any escape and they would die in days. Their faces were
branded and, if they did have to fight with the army or travel to the cities, they were often chained or kept naked. Hostility to those with such powers was universal, so it seemed. She always had
a little sympathy for them herself; being mistrusted for just being what you are seemed harsh in her eyes, though on a couple of occasions she had been sent to kill them, two escapees who had
somehow survived long enough to reach a city. One was little more than a boy, clad in just a loincloth. He had tried a spell on her, but the metal of her armour dissipated it easily. She had done
it quickly as he lay cowering before her; he had felt nothing, or rather that was what she had hoped.
Another involuntary memory. She was beginning to think her brain was of little more use than a sponge. Still, they were here now. She rapped on the door and turned to Morgan. ‘Shall I come
in with you?’
‘No. You stay here. I will not be long.’
Cheris was sitting at her dresser, looking out of the window whose broad sill sported a crest of brilliant white snow. Somebody else wrapped up in her thoughts.
‘Oh hello, Morgan,’ she said quietly. ‘Sorry – hello, Baron, I mean.’
‘Morgan will do. It is what I am happiest with.’
‘As you wish. Where is your bodyguard?’
‘Outside.’
‘How are you finding her?’
He walked over and stood next to her. ‘It is strange. Take away the issue of her questionable sanity and her predisposition towards cold-blooded murder and she seems quite a sweet girl
really.’
Cheris smiled. ‘You may be right there. We have talked a couple of times and she just seems terribly ... sad somehow, rather than just menacing, if you understand me.’
‘I do. I seem to be drawn to sad people these days or why would I be here.’
She shrugged. ‘You know my history. It is not something I can just shake off. And now the knights are here, I can barely undress on my own any more.’
‘I would have thought there was little privacy on the island.’
‘There is, but I was getting used to it here and rather enjoying it, too.’
Morgan looked sympathetic. ‘I am sorry. It was not I who sent for them; they just arrived with your friend.’
‘I know, I know. I am not grumbling; it is the law, after all. Anyway, they have given me some good news; someone I travelled here with, a squire named Roland, I had feared him dead, but
it turns out he returned to the capital shortly after I arrived here. He was a nice boy and I am pleased that he did not get caught up in all this.’
‘Lucky might be a better word,’ Morgan replied. ‘Anyway, I have some news of my own and thought it best to tell you straight away.’
She craned her delicate white neck and looked directly up at him. ‘Yes?’
‘Trask is on his way, with nearly three thousand men and their siege machines.’
She felt her face burning. Her eyes bored into Morgan with the intensity of fire.
‘There is no doubt?’
‘None. My messenger knows him. He leads a collection of mercenaries, Arshumans and our own turncoats. They will move slowly but expect him here within the week.’
‘Within the week? Lissa’s blood.’ She looked back to her dresser.
‘There is time if you wish to leave. I can send you south to Calvannen, if you wish.’
She shook her head. ‘No, no I am not frightened of him; it is just that I have a plan and am wondering how to best put it into action.’
‘A plan? What sort of a plan?’
‘A plan to kill him, of course, I have been working on it a while.’
Morgan looked grave. ‘You had best tell me about it. Does it have something to do with your trip to the waterfall? I did not think you climbed all that way to admire the view. And the
knights tell me you are learning to ride, I wonder why that is? Do you need the exercise perhaps?’
She sighed dramatically. ‘Yes, it does have something to do with the trip to the falls. The city looks nicer from up there than it does from close up, almost pretty in fact. I will tell
you the truth then, but you may not like it.’
‘Just tell me. I will not rant or rave.’
Oh how he regretted those last words as he stood and listened while she calmly elucidated her proposed course of action to him. He noticed she kept her voice low so as no words could travel
beyond the door and also, as the alarm steadily rose within him, he realised how much she was trusting him. She must see him as a friend, he thought. He was flattered despite himself.
At last she finished, leaving Morgan wondering where to start.
‘But didn’t something like this kill the healer?’ he finally blurted out.
‘Oh I am not attempting what she did, not at all.’
‘That is reassuring.’
‘No. What I am trying to do is infinitely more dangerous.’
Morgan groaned. ‘You are not winning me over by saying such things.’
Cheris stood for the first time and came close to him. She was only slightly shorter and as she animatedly spoke he noticed the feverish excitement in her eyes.
‘Listen to me, Morgan. Anaya was a healer. Healing magic is subtle and nuanced, difficult in its own way and requiring a patience to master that I have never exhibited. But, with what
happened to her, she was trying to do something she had no familiarity with. She was not the Storm Queen. Elemental mastery is what I do; it is what I am. Granted it is on a scale I have never
attempted before but my mentor always used to tell me I had a power inside me held by few others and now, for the first time, I believe him.’
Morgan shook his head slowly. ‘Cheris, the lives of thousands of my people are at stake here.’
‘They will be fine. Such powers do not like travelling through or over walls of stone, it weakens them almost to their death. When Trask comes, keep them within the city and it will be
fine.’
Morgan’s insouciance continued. ‘And this damned book of yours?’
‘...Will be returned, once this is done. I will be punished by the knights, imprisoned on the island, never to leave it again, I imagine, but I must try. I cannot describe to you how I
feel every time I think of ... of what happened.’
‘But when you fought at Grest you brought an army down with a spell then. Why not use it again?’
‘It was too arbitrary. I need to direct the power this time, to target it to seek out this man. I need something with sentience, something I can control.’ He could see she was
practically pleading with him, her expressive eyes wide and earnest.
‘Can you guarantee that no one in the city will be hurt?’
‘Yes. I will use myself as bait if necessary. Make no mistake it will be desperate to kill me. Also, if all goes well, it could break the siege before it even begins.’
He sighed. ‘That would be fantastic, but the risk, especially for you, is colossal. Does this really mean so much to you?’
She nodded. ‘It does. I need to be able to sleep again without nightmares, to look at my face in the mirror once more. I did not need to tell you my intentions. I will be doing this
without you after all but I felt you deserved to know and your acceptance of my plan, however tacit, will mean a lot to me. Now you know my intent you can stop me, arrest me, tie me up, whatever
you wish, but I am begging you not to do so. I will get on my knees, if need be. To see this done I would happily offer myself to every man in the castle, that is how much it means; I cannot
continue to live without trying.’
Morgan swallowed. ‘Artorus help us all,’ he said quietly. He made to leave but stopped before opening the door. ‘Cheris.’
‘Yes?’
‘I cannot openly help you in this, but, when Trask arrives, a horse will be available to you if you so require it; and access out of the city – you will probably need that,
too.’