VAROSIANS
Laren was not sure if it was the effect of the travel device that Torq had used to transport her and Melry from his tent up in the pass to some distant valley, or his all-too-obvious enjoyment of beating her that was making her see double and her ears ring. She’d fallen to her knees in meadow grass near a pond that gleamed in the moonlight. The sonorous croaking of bullfrogs and the other chirps and squeaks of pond creatures were backdrop to her disorientation.
Torq casually kicked her in the ribs and she toppled over, unable to use her bound hands to stop herself. The pain darkened the world around her. Somewhere, seemingly far off, Melry shouted angrily at their captors. Her Melry, her girl, so full of fire. She’d fought hard when they brought her to Torq’s tent and scored some impressive hits and blackened an eye or two before they managed to restrain her. She’d been trained well by the arms master in Selium, but it had not been enough. So far they hadn’t hurt her badly. They seemed mindful of her appearance. They had not taken the same care with Laren, though she was surprised they hadn’t done worse.
It was tempting to just rest in the grass and breathe deeply of the earthy scent of the meadow, to listen to the chorusing of frogs, but she could not show weakness. She could not for Melry’s sake, or for that of her Riders. By sheer will, she forced herself back onto her knees, repressing a scream at the pain to her ribs. Back in Oxbridge, she’d thought herself too old for sleeping on the ground, and now this. She laughed. It was a harsh, raspy sound.
“What’s so funny, Witch?” Torq demanded.
Two of him stood over her, and she squinted at him through blood dripping into her eyes. When she didn’t answer, he cuffed her.
“Leave her alone!” Melry shouted.
“I’m tired of the girl’s voice,” Torq said. “Gag her.”
Melry’s protests were cut short.
“Let her go,” Laren whispered. “You’ve got me, let her go.” It took a great deal of concentration to speak.
“Oh, it’s not that easy,” he replied.
Of course it wasn’t. They were using Melry to keep her compliant.
“Why not just kill me?”
Torq knelt beside her. “Because, Red Witch, I have something much more satisfying in mind. Have you not wondered what happened to the remnants of Deija after you murdered defenseless men writhing in sickness?”
She had in fact wondered. She’d never been satisfied that they’d been fully defeated, and it gnawed at her as the years passed, but less so as the danger of Blackveil arose. It turned out he required no prompting to tell her.
“We journeyed,” he said. “We journeyed across the lands and across the Western Sea. Travel is good. You meet new people, make new friends, engage in trade.”
As he boasted about all the places he’d been to and the people he’d met, she picked at the thread that held a button to the cuff of her coat. She pried and plucked despite fingers benumbed by bonds that were too tight.
“It is a big world,” he was saying. “So much more to be explored.”
“Then maybe you should go,” she mumbled.
Torq laughed. “Maybe I should. Oh, look. My friends have arrived.”
To Laren’s surprise, her sight had cleared enough that she no longer saw two of everything, though her vision remained blurred around the edges. A caravan of riders and pack animals was moving toward them and included two highly ornamented carriages. Only as the carriages drew closer could she discern the complex symbols among the decorations.
“Varosians?” she said in incredulity. Varos lay across the Western Sea and was a kingdom that did not welcome outsiders, nor did its sovereign seem to allow its citizens to venture outside. Zachary had sent embassies in an attempt to develop relations between the two countries, but they were turned back.
The caravan came to a halt. Someone was helped out of the carriage and guided to Torq by a servant bearing a lantern. The newcomer halted before Torq. He was a small, middle-aged man attired in long silk robes so finely embroidered it clouded her mind. He wore an odd, tall cap. He and Torq bowed to one another in greeting as was the custom among Varosians. Then he turned to Laren.
“This is it?” he asked with a heavy accent.
“As promised,” Torq replied. “The Red Witch.”
The man walked around her once, twice, as if assessing livestock. As it turned out, that was precisely what he was doing. “It does not look like much,” he said. “It is old.”
Old? He was probably older than she.
“You said His Excellency was interested in function,” Torq said, “not youth or beauty.”
Laren shook her head to make sure she had heard him correctly.
“One naturally desires all the best attributes,” the Varosian said. “Still, its unusual hair color may be amusing to His Excellency.”
Torq was selling her to be a slave? A concubine?
The little man peered down at her. “Does it speak?”
“Yes, she does,” Laren said.
“It was not asked directly. It will be trained in appropriate conduct in the court of His Excellency.”
“Like the—”
Torq struck her across the face, and once more she was lying in the grass, her cheek stinging.
“Its tongue is offensive,” the Varosian said. “His Excellency may wish to cut it out.”
Torq grabbed her by the collar and hauled her back onto her knees. “You hear that? Speak only when you’ve been told.”
“I am Tol Asmerand,” the Varosian told her. “I serve His Excellency, King Farrad Vir of Varos as finder of rare objects for his collections.” He then turned to Torq. “I require a demonstration.”
“As you wish,” Torq said.
Tol Asmerand gazed speculatively at her. “I will speak truth or a falsehood. It will tell me if I lie.”
“I certainly will not,” she replied, but things were beginning to make more sense. Tol Asmerand didn’t want her for her body, but for her special ability.
Torq did not hit her this time, but he grasped her chin. “If you do not cooperate, we will hurt your daughter bad.”
Melry was dragged into the lantern light. Even trussed and gagged as she was, she struggled. One of Torq’s men put a knife to her throat. Laren’s spirits sank.
“If I were to say,” Tol Asmerand said, “that the production of grain was up three kersats in Varos this summer, would I be lying or telling the truth.”
False, Laren’s ability told her. “True,” she said with as little inflection as she could.
Torq and Tol Asmerand gazed at one another.
“I suspect it is attempting to deceive us,” the Varosian said.
“Cut the girl,” Torq ordered his men.
“No!” Laren cried.
Tol Asmerand held up a hand. “There is a more definitive way to judge.” He withdrew a small vial from his belt pouch, as well as a pair of fine tweezers. “Hold its head steady.”
Torq grabbed her head. When she struggled, he booted her in the ribs again. It left her in so much pain she could not breathe or move. He seized her head once more and held it steady in an iron grip. Tol Asmerand stepped closer and dipped his tweezers into the vial. He pulled out a long and wriggling insect with many undulating legs and dangled it before her eyes. Sharp claw parts near the thing’s head snapped at her.
“An Ekedian centipede,” he said. “Very rare, and very useful.” He directed Torq to tilt her head so that one of her ears was facing upward.
She struggled as he bent over her with the dangling centipede. The tiny legs feathered against her neck. She fought with all she had, but Torq was too strong. She felt the thing crawl into her ear and she squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden agony.
“Now, again,” Tol Asmerand said. “If I were to say that the production of grain was up three kersats in Varos this summer, would I be lying or telling the truth?”
Laren looked dazedly at him, her mind fogged, and revolted by the thing that was deep in her ear distorting sound and piercing her head with needle-sharp pain. Warm blood dribbled from her ear down her neck and soaked into her collar.
“Answer,” Torq said, “or we cut your daughter.”
Laren gazed at Melry as if through a tunnel. Tears trailed down her daughter’s cheeks.
“Truth,” Laren whispered. Her vision went white with pain and she screamed.
“Ah,” Tol Asmerand said.
“What happened?” Torq asked.
“The Ekedian centipede is sensitive to etheric impulses. If the gift is subverted by the gifted, the centipede becomes distressed and injects venom into the subject. It is very painful as you can see. The prisoner purposely gave me a wrong answer and the centipede reacted accordingly.”
“Like a fail-safe,” Torq murmured.
“Observe.” Tol Asmerand turned back to Laren. “If I were to say the border of Gaska Province is defined by the Rind River to the east, would I be speaking true or false.”
False, Laren’s ability told her.
“Tru—” Her answer turned into another scream, the pain so potent she wanted to bash her head against the nearest rock. Torq restrained her from doing just that. This time the pain did not abate. “False!” she shouted. “False!” Now it settled and quickly faded away. She slumped in exhaustion.
Tol Asmerand then tested her with a series of questions. This time she answered as her ability indicated and avoided the centipede’s wrath.
“It has learned to use its gift more wisely,” Tol Asmerand was telling Torq, “and will please King Farrad Vir. Now, as for your fee, we are being more than generous.”
False, her ability told her. Might she use the Varosian’s lie to turn the two against one another? “He is lying to you,” she told Torq. “He is underpaying the true value of your finding me.”
Torq laughed. “Perhaps. But don’t you understand? It is not about the fee. It is about selling you into slavery. You see, on my travels I heard how all the kings of Varos used to have truth-tellers in their courts as a way of keeping the upper hand over their subjects, knowing when they were lying—using them the same way King Zachary uses you. And naturally, because no others in the Western Sea possessed such, the kings of Varos could brag about having something special the others did not.”
“Zachary does not use me.”
“No? How about Queen Isen?”
She did not dare answer. It cut too close to the truth.
“In any case,” Torq continued, “I wondered what it would be worth to King Farrad Vir to have a truth-teller of his own. The kingdom has been without one for nearly three hundred years. He was very interested to learn I could provide him with one.
“And you know what? It is so much more satisfying to sell you than to just kill you. You lose your freedom and position—no more colonel. You have that thing in your head for the rest of your life now, and you will find that Varos is a very different place than here. Women are not people. They must rely on protectors—fathers, husbands, sons, masters—to exist at all. Who will protect you? I can only imagine how unpleasant it will be for a foreign female slave.”
Tol Asmerand removed a small disk from his pouch. It was about the size of a coin, and in fact it looked like new copper. He leaned down and pressed it against her neck.
“What the—?” It burned and she could smell her own flesh cooking beneath the disk. The agony was short-lived, but she could still feel the sting of it.
“The disk is now melted into your skin,” Torq said. “It is a Varosian brand. You are now the property of King Farrad Vir.”
Tol Asmerand handed Torq a purse that jingled with coins. Two husky men in livery of an exotic sort that marked them as Varosian came and lifted Laren to her feet.
“One more thing,” Torq said. “Or maybe two. We will tear apart any of your Greenies who come into our possession—you can count on it. Even better, I am taking your daughter back to camp. I am sure my men will find a way to make use of her.”
“No!” Laren lunged and fought and kicked, but the Varosians held on to her and started to drag her toward one of the carriages.
“Momma!” came Melry’s muffled cry through her gag as Torq’s men pulled her away.
“Melry!” Laren lunged again, but her neck burned. She cried out, and only the grip of the Varosian guards prevented her from collapsing to the ground. “Melry,” she sobbed.
“Silence,” Tol Asmerand said.
“No, you—” Again, the burning on her neck, this time long and intense.
“I will teach, and it will obey,” Tol Asmerand said. “It will serve King Farrad Vir well. All else is pain. As for the daughter, it will be forgotten in due time.”
“No—”
She did not know how he caused the brand to burn, but he did, until she screamed and lay limp and near unconscious in the arms of the guards. Tol Asmerand stepped away to speak to someone in one of the carriages. She felt the button dangling from her cuff. She snapped it off and dropped it into the grass.
One of the guards jabbed her where Torq had kicked her in the ribs, and finally she blacked out, even as Melry could still be heard calling for her mother.