Chapter 25

‘It’s alive.’

The words were spoken in answer to the pained groan that escaped my lips as I realised the same thing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be, for the creature had not been kind to me. All I wanted to do was sleep, but now that my mind had stirred, the pain found its way in and made that all but impossible. My noise was clear, so I feigned sleep as best I could and tried to concentrate on the scents and sounds around me.

It didn’t take a very deep breath to know that I was once more in the grip of wizards. The bitter, burnt spice odour of their magic was thick here, competing only with the oily stench of necromancy. That taint was more than just physical though and I forced myself to push through it, to try and sift out the smells it blanketed like a layer of oil upon cleaner water beneath. Men and women shared this space, at least two score of them, all afraid and several bleeding. There was food too, which cheered me despite the wounds oozing blood across my limbs and torso. The scent of the wizards strengthened as they approached me.

A staff cracked down across my face and dispelled any pretence of sleep as I lurched upwards, straining against the bonds that held me.

‘So it is,’ said a new voice to my right. He seemed tall from where I lay strapped to what I guessed was a repurposed table, and aside from having a pointed beard he was otherwise unremarkable as men went. He was wearing blue robes, the material shimmering in the cold light that filled the chamber. ‘But then it was always resilient.’

Eight other wizards stood around me, forming a rough circle, at least half of whom were tainted with necromancy. No others wore blue or purple robes, which made the Pointy Beard the most senior of them. I frowned as the import of his words finally penetrated my fogged mind.

‘Do you remember me now, Beast?’ he asked, leaning on his ebon staff as he looked down at me.

There was something familiar about his scent but I couldn’t place it, nor did I have any particular desire to do so. I didn’t bother replying other than to sigh wearily for I was heartily sick and tired of men and everything that went with them.

‘I think that’s a no,’ said another of the wizards, prompting a round of laughter from the others.

‘You killed my brother,’ said Blue Robes, shooting a glare at whoever had spoken. ‘And I’m going to enjoy making you suffer until my Master arrives to take possession of you once more.’

‘You all look the same,’ I said, my voice thick. ‘Tell me, did he scream?’

He cursed and lashed out with his staff, catching my jaw a solid blow but doing little real damage.

‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

‘Brave words,’ he hissed. ‘For something that howled so piteously under our spells.’

A piece of the puzzle fell into place for me. ‘So you were at the university.’

‘Correct,’ he said, baring his teeth in an unconvincing smile. ‘And I would hear your screams again.’

‘There’s no time for these games. Leave it. It’s not going anywhere and we have to complete the next binding in this cycle.’

It was the same man who’d spoken before, and Blue Robes looked as if he were going to lash out again but took a step back, his knuckles white as he gripped his staff.

‘Watch and learn, Beast. Your fate will be far worse than theirs.’ He turned and walked away, followed in short order by the other wizards, their murmured conversations too faint for me to make sense of, but then I had more pressing concerns than their mediocre spellcraft, including breaking free of whatever held me on this table.

I took a breath to calm my thoughts and then set about testing which parts of me hurt the most, something made harder by the strap holding my head down. Most of what I felt was painful but superficial, being scrapes and tears from the many disjointed mouths and clawed hands embedded in the spider-creature’s malformed body. I was fortunate in that these had all been of human stock and so relatively blunt in isolation. The idea of my flesh being swallowed and part of that abomination was more sickening than the actual injuries, most of which had already stopped bleeding. The puncture wounds along my side were another matter. The pain of those was a steady throb, and I could hear the steady patter of my blood hitting the floor beneath me.

One positive was that I could no longer feel the spirits attacking me, but when I reached for my sorcery I found only a lifeless void waiting for me. I’d felt something like it before when Fronsac had toyed with the aftermath of the runic ward I had triggered, and it was no great leap of imagination to think that the wizards had set such a thing upon me now too. If Blue Robes had been at the University when I escaped, then he would have no doubt how dangerous I could be.

That meant that until I could remove it, I would have to rely on my wits and physical prowess to break free, find Tatyana, and then kill them all. How hard could that be?

I strained against the restraints as I tried to see more of the chamber. My night vision had retracted, but they had set enough of their white lanterns here that it wasn’t really necessary. The chamber was an irregular shape and, aside from the floor and a column that had been carved with complex geometrical patterns, largely unworked by human hands. Scores of glittering spindles hung from the ceiling like an inverted stone forest above us, but as pretty as they were, it was the wooden cage pressed against the far wall that my gaze was drawn to. Several wizards were clustered in front of it, and as I watched they dragged two squirming figures from the cage, the armoured figures before it moving aside, the pale light within their visors identifying them as powerful ghouls. They moved away but I had reached the very limits of the restraint on my head and lost sight of them.

Their wailing lasted a while longer, and rose to screams. I had heard enough screams in my time to know that these were born of terror rather than pain. That changed once the wizards began their spellcasting, the unintelligible but insidious chant echoing through the cave far longer and louder than it should have, the miasma of dark magic that stained the air thickening by the moment until I could almost see the gleam of it even without my sorcery.

I was working on moving my left arm to a position where I could apply some leverage to the manacle on my wrist when their spell coalesced. I held still as the screams peaked to something positively inhuman and abruptly ended.

I listened as several men approached and gagged as they drew close. They were still saturated with the dark magic, the metaphysical stench of it lodging my throat like a dry, un-chewed meal while the life-sapping chill of the negative energy tried to pull the very life from my flesh. How they were still alive and able to manipulate such power was a complete mystery.

‘You feel it, don’t you?’ said Blue Robes. ‘The power.’

I hid my curiosity beneath a veneer of boredom. ‘A dancing bear in a fancy robe is still just another dancing bear.’

‘I could pull the life out of you right now and there’d be nothing you could do to stop me.’ His grip on his staff changed, his bloodied fingertips finding a pair of intricately carved symbols upon it, and a moment later the unearthly chill that clung to him sharpened considerably. He leaned the staff towards me and I couldn’t help but gasp as that cold knifed into me as cleanly as any spear. His eyes narrowed as it pushed deeper. ‘I could take it all.’

I swallowed the panic that wanted me to buck and writhe under his touch and forced myself to lay there unmoving.

‘It takes more than a trinket to make you a wizard, little bear.’

The deathly shimmer around the staff faded and the cold receded with it, leaving behind a hollow ache. Blue Robes loomed over me, pale lips drawn back from butter coloured teeth.

‘Brave words,’ he said, reaching down and poking a finger into one of the seeping wounds on my side. ‘But you can only fool yourself for so long.’

‘Andros,’ said a voice from somewhere behind my head. ‘If he is here, do we need to keep the woman or can we use her?’

Andros. The sound of his name woke a memory, one of my blood dripping into the sawdust while Navar’s voice exhorted him to strike again, faster and with smaller gestures. I saw him then, those same lips pulled into the same sneer, his scent charged with an almost sexual bloodlust as he loosed spell after spell into me. He’d worn green robes then. I looked up at him as the memory receded, and I didn’t need to see into his mind that he knew I’d heard his name and remembered him.

‘No names, you idiot,’ he snarled at the man behind me. He took a deep breath and released it slowly before looking at me again. ‘But I suppose it makes no difference now. Don’t go anywhere, we’ve got quite the show in store for you.’

So they did have Tatyana. At least I had got that right. I forced my head to the side as far as I could, enough to watch Andros directing two of the other wizards to fetch her from the cage. From the shouts and the flash of magic within the cage that followed it seemed that there was still some fight left within her, albeit that she was limp and still when they eventually carried her out and bade the ghouls shut the door once more.

 I used the distraction to try to worm my right arm into a better position. That whole side of my body was stiffening and throbbing where the creature had clubbed and punctured me, but the finger he’d poked into me had reminded me that I was bleeding. And that same blood was pooling on the table, making the wood slick under me. Slick enough to reduce the friction and effort that stretching and moving my arm required. I flexed and relaxed the muscles across my shoulder and back, the motion slowly drawing the blood in under me, giving the little extra movement I needed to move my wrist into position.

I glanced back to the wizards but they were busy strapping the now naked Tatyana to a similar sort of table. She looked gaunt, her ribs pressing against her skin and her hips standing out enough to cast their own shadows across the hollow of her gut. The healing had taken its toll on her, but the bloody mouth on the one wizard who’d had to fetch her was testament to the strength of her will.

I took a breath, then clenched my fist and began bending my wrist upwards. The manacle felt immovable at first, and indeed I would have struggled at the best of times to bend the curved iron out of shape, but the nails that anchored it to the table were another matter entirely. Once the first shifted, the next became that little bit easier. I kept watching the wizards while I worked on the nails, and while Andros occasionally looked over at me, he gave no sign that he saw anything untoward. The final nail on the manacle squeaked loose as they began dragging Tatyana’s table towards me.

They lifted the table with a chorus of grunts and let it fall forward, the impact and tightening of the restraints that held her splayed to it jolting Tatyana awake. She moaned and shook her head, which now almost looked too big for her starved body, and finally looked up and saw me.

‘You’re alive,’ she croaked. Her gaze dipped towards what had to by now be a pool of blood under my table, then back up. ‘I think.’

‘I’ve come to save you,’ I said, which made her cackle.

‘How touching,’ said Andros. ‘You made a friend. It almost seems a shame to kill her in front of you, but with you here she has become quite expendable.’

‘Touch her and you’ll wish you were never born.’

‘You mean like this?’ He stepped forward and punched her squarely on the side of the jaw, whipping her head back to thud against the table. Blood spilled from her mouth as it fell back to hang unmoving between her shoulders. He shook his hand and stared at me. ‘Well? Come on.’

‘You’re going to regret that.’

‘Oh shut up, you ridiculous, pointless creature,’ he snapped, voice rising. ‘You can do nothing but watch, and even that is at my sufferance.’ He took a step closer. ‘And you will watch. Look away or say anything and I will take your eyes. Do you understand?’

A thousand curses waited behind my teeth, but I kept them firmly clenched and the fire in my breast subdued. The terrible truth of it was that for now there was nothing I could do, not without endangering both of us. Once upon a time the idea of quashing the rage that demanded I tear him limb from limb would have been impossible to comprehend, let alone accept without a murmur.

‘I understand,’ I said, and if threatening tones could kill, his soul would have fled his body there and then.

‘Good boy.’ Now he turned to the other wizards who had gathered to watch. ‘Prepare her. She will be the soul anchor.’

‘It’s too soon. She’s too weak,’ said one from somewhere to my left.

‘Only physically,’ Andros replied, slipping a hand under her chin and lifting her head. ‘The spark within her burns steadily. See? She is already healing.’

Now it was my turn to stare, for it was true. The bleeding had stopped, and her jaw was straight again. Which meant that she was still somehow drawing energy from me, something that Andros and his rabble had not yet connected with me. Which meant whatever spell was blocking the flow of my sorcery was one-directional, and not a complete block. It was a weakness, even if I didn’t yet know how to exploit it.

I watched in silence as two wizards came forward and began wiping the blood and dirt from her body with little gentleness. It did serve to rouse her though and she was soon shouting and spitting at them like a trapped wolf, and even managed to land a decent bite as they strapped her head back like mine was.

Her cursing fell silent as three others came forward, all wearing robes of a purple so deep to appear almost black and shot through with silver thread that glimmered and shone too brightly to merely be reflecting the light. They were chanting as they approached her, and I recognised the sound of it as being whatever had preceded the piteous screaming of their earlier spellcasting.

‘Oh sweet Drogah, not that, not that,’ said Tatyana, the venom in her voice replaced by fear for the first time.