From Across the Clouded Range (66 page)

Jaret spit blood. He tried to hit the
man’s grubby shoes, but he was already walking away.

The way he was stretched against the
wall strained Jaret’s ribs so that he could barely see for
squinting against the pain. His shoulder felt like they were being
dislocated, and his hands were getting cold from lack of blood.
Lost in misery, he did not even see the Emperor step into his
cell.

“
I always knew that you
smelled, Jaret,” Nabim’s high, nasal voice announced his arrival,
“but this is terrible.” The little man had a scarf held to his nose
as he entered. Jaret could smell the sickly sweet perfume from
where he sat ten feet away.

Jaret kept his eyes diverted as Nabim
sauntered into the room, focusing instead on the Emperor’s
voluminous gowns followed closely by the hem of a black
robe.

“
Jaret,” Nabim spoke with
mock disappointment, “have you forgotten your manners? Will you not
even say hello when old friends stop to visit?”

Nabim covered the few steps between
them, grabbed Jaret’s face, and pulled it around to look him in the
eye. “Look at me, you sack of . . . .”

Jaret spit the blood from his broken
teeth into the Emperor’s eye, cutting off his words. Nabim pulled
back reflexively, letting Jaret’s head fall. He retreated to the
succor of his henchman and wiped the blood from his eye into a red
streak that marred the rouge on his cheek.

Jaret tried to kick him with his
chained feet, but they were capable of little more than flailing.
The monstrous guard ended his rebellion a second later. The big man
planted his foot in Jaret's stomach and cracked his head against
the wall sending him into delirium. Another blow landed across his
face leaving his eye swelling shut.

“
Stop that! I need him
alive, you idiot.” Nabim scolded the guard like a child, and the
huge man shrank back until he almost looked the part.

“
They told me you still
had some fight left.” Nabim was visibly agitated but kept his tone
conversational. “I have to say, I was secretly hoping that you were
not broken. That will make it so much more enjoyable when you are,
and trust me, you will be broken. One way or another, I will see to
that.” The sniveling little man tried to sound ominous then broke
into a twittering laugh.

Jaret looked up at the Emperor. He was
keeping his distance now – a large stain of red scarred the length
of this cheek. He spent some time adjusting his robes as he sat on
an ornate chair that three servants carried in and placed behind
him.

“
So Warlord Rammeriz.”
Nabim clapped his hand over his mouth in mock surprise. “I’m sorry.
It must be an old habit. I can’t very well call the man who
assassinated the Emperor by the title of his most senior defender,
now can I?” He chuckled. “I guess I will have to call you
Traitor
Rammeriz, or
Rammeriz
the Assassin
. Those seem
far
more fitting.”

"I should have let Yuelle
kill you in the throne room,” Nabim sneered. “He wanted to be rid
of you and your sniveling cowardice then and there, but I am
convinced that you can still be useful, that the traitor, the
assassin can still help. It is very nice of you. First you remove
my brother from the throne, kill his entire family – and trust me,
they are
all
dead
now – and pave my way to the throne. Then you take the blame for
every one of the Empire’s problems, leaving me as the savior. You
truly are a very useful fellow.”

Jaret tried to adjust himself so that
he could look defiantly into the Emperor’s eyes. The wall and his
myriad injuries made it into a pathetic display that earned nothing
more than a chuckle from Nabim.

“
But how can I be of
service to my Emperor, you ask?” Nabim said as if they were discuss
the plan over tea. “Well, I am sure you have guessed by now that
you are to stand trial. You will be found guilty of treason, of
course. You will take the blame for every problem the Empire faces.
I may even find a way to blame you for the drought. By the end,
even your friend the Xi Valati will call for your execution. But my
infinite mercy will prevail. Despite the fact that you killed my
poor brother, whom I so deeply loved, I will spare your life. I
will spare you so that you can live out your days caged in the
center of Sal Danar like the lower-class animal you are. Women and
children will spit on you as they pass. Men will throw stones
through the bars of your cage. They will hate you like no other,
and while they are busy hating you, they will love me. You, Traitor
Rammeriz, will kindly take the blame for all of the Empire’s
failures and serve as a public display of what happens to those who
betray the Order, to those who rise too far, who don’t know their
place." Nabim let out a hearty laugh of triumph.

Jaret could not seem to get his eyes
away from the stone floor of the cell even as the image of that
floor began to blur. He fought to restrain his emotions, but it was
no use. Nabim had just described a punishment far worse than death
could ever be. Not only would he be slurred forever in the
chronicles of history, not only would his pain continue for years,
but it would be magnified by the horror of seeing the people hate
him, of seeing the lies become truth. He would not be able to hide
from the manacles of history in the darkness of death; he would
have to live with their cold embrace. It was a punishment that no
man should ever have to face.

Seeing the tears run down Jaret’s
cheeks sent Nabim into a frenzy. He clasped Jaret’s chin and yanked
it up so their eyes locked. "Tears from you, Traitor Rammeriz? I
thought you prided yourself on being too strong for emotion? Well,
you can save the tears for your trial. Save them for those who
might feel sympathy for a monster like you. You will receive none
here!” Nabim was foaming at the mouth by the end and finished by
slamming Jaret’s head back onto the wall of the cell.

The blow stunned Jaret, and his head
hung limp. Nabim paused and made contemplative sounds before he
grabbed Jaret’s chin again. “A few tears will not be enough, to
convince me that you are broken, if that is your thought? It will
not save you from the torture I have planned, will not save you
from my new guards." Nabim’s face twisted in dreadful glee at the
mention of Jaret’s torture. “Yuelle brought the guards with him.
They are quite marvelous creatures. I am sure that you will find
them just as fascinating as I do. The only problem,” Nabim hissed
through clenched teeth as he dug his fingers into Jaret’s ribs, “is
that they will take care of this as well.”

The probing fingers sent spikes of
pain through Jaret. His eyes pressed shut, but he suppressed the
wails that threatened to break through his locked jaw – he would
not give this little man the satisfaction of hearing him
scream.

When Jaret thought he might faint from
the pain, Nabim took his fingers from his ribs and stepped back
toward his chair. “It is all for the best,” he said nonchalantly.
“It can’t appear that you have been tortured when you stand trial.
There can be no doubt about your guilt, no possible claims of
tampering. It will have to be inscrutable.” Nabim paused in thought
then turned to the black robe at his side. No part of the man
wearing that robe showed. It might as well have been a garment held
up by wires for all the evidence that a person actually occupied
it. “Are you sure your creatures can do what is needed?”

The little man cleared his
throat somewhere in the voluminous hood and raised his head so that
the lamp light reflecting off the wall showed in his dark eyes.
“Though I regret exposing them to this, the Curava Deilei Tuhar’za
are ideally suited for this task, my lord. The general will appear
to be in perfect health when his trial begins. That much I can
guarantee.” Yuelle’s words were soft and sweet, high-pitched and
effeminate just as Jaret remembered from the throne room. And the
words were spoken with the same strange language that Jaret did not
know but could understand. Over the past several days, he had
convinced himself that it had been an illusion of his shattered
mind. To hear it again was almost more than he could handle.
What is he? Where did Nabim find him? And what is
he planning?

Jaret expected Nabim to laugh at the
prospect of his torture, but he just looked down at his
silk-shrouded arm and shuttered. “I can only imagine,” he whispered
and turned somewhat pale. Finally, he pulled himself out of his
shock and cast a final wicked glance at Jaret. “Very well, Yuelle.
I give him to your creatures. They have ten days to break him.
Come. We have much to do and have already wasted too much time on
this worthless traitor.” With that, the Emperor rose from his chair
and marched from the room with his servants scrambling to retrieve
the heavy chair and follow.

Yuelle stood for a moment longer,
watching Jaret silently. He tilted his head one way then the other,
but Jaret could see no expression through the shadows of the hood
and could not imagine what the little man was thinking. Finally, he
waved off whatever he was considering and turned. As he walked from
the room, he mumbled to himself.

When he was out of the door, the
guards followed but did not bother to close or lock the door. They
simply left it standing open, like a taunting reminder of his
captivity. Chained to the wall, there was not a thing Jaret could
do but stare longingly at the opening.

That taunting ended a few minutes
later as a sauntering form that could only be one of the Emperor’s
new “guards” appeared in the doorway. Jaret’s head snapped up at
the sight of the interloper, but he could not believe the vision
before him. He shook his head, thinking that he had drifted into
nightmare or become delusional, but the delusion did not disappear
or fade. It simply leaned against the frame of the door, enjoying
the way its victim lolled.

When Nabim had talked about creatures,
Jaret had thought he meant men so cruel-hearted as to no longer
deserve the moniker of humanity, but the thing standing in his door
was no man. It was like nothing that Jaret had ever seen. He had
seen men disfigured by war, disease, and defects of birth, but even
with those possibilities, he could not call this thing human. It
was about the size of a man. It had arms and legs like a man. A
head came up from its shoulders. It even wore a man's clothes, but
covering its body where the clothes did not reach and across its
exposed chest was a thick layer of short, bristling, shiny-black
fur denser than the hair of any man could be. The fur covered the
creature from head to foot so that no patch of skin was exposed,
but it was the thing’s face not its fur that kept it from being
human.

Its face was not broken by a nose or
ears. The entire surface was left to beady eyes and a gaping maw.
The solid black eyes were no larger than small buttons and almost
indistinguishable from the fur except that they sparkled in the
light of the lamp it carried. Defining the thing’s only other
feature, thin lips split into a maniacal grin that stretched well
past where its ears should be and revealed rows of small needles
that glistened in the shimmering light.

When Jaret had spent several long
minutes studying the thing in disbelief, it ambled toward him with
a grace that reminded him of a dancer then squatted in front of
him, studying him with its expressionless eyes. The sight of
himself in those eyes sent a shiver through Jaret that he could not
restrain. Seeing it, the creature’s smile widened to a toothy grin
that wrapped around its head. "I am glad to see that you are
frightened, human.” It used the same strange language as Nabim’s
henchman, but it spoke with a hissing lisp, and its voice was as
oily as its fur. “I so enjoy fear and have not seen nearly enough
of it these long ages.” The thing reached out one of its hands and
caressed Jaret’s cheek. The coarse fur had a rank smell that made
him pull away in revulsion.

It laughed in a spidery
sort of way, but its voice was surprisingly airy, smooth, and
seductive like that of a lover whispering passionately to the
object of his affection. "I already know your name, Jaret Rammeriz.
You have been much the subject of discussion with the Emperor, but
I do not think that you know me. I am called Thagas'kiula of the
Curava Deilei Tuhar’za. I think that we will get to know one
another well, but I have always thought that introductions are
important. That way you will know whom
to
beg for mercy
." The creature’s voice
slipped from sweetness to a grating hiss slurred by the enormity of
the crevice that uttered the sounds.

The radical change startled Jaret, and
the creature responded with an evil grin that showed its teeth.
"You are a strong one. I am glad that they have not broken you. It
is so much more fun for me that way."

The thing’s face drew closer to Jaret,
and it breathed heavily on him. Its breath smelled like honeyed
milk that had gone sour, a combination of foul pestilence and
sickly sweetness. Jaret could not help but to turn away from the
black eyes and horrifying rows of teeth until his cheek was pressed
against the cold wall.

Thagas'kiula threw backs his head and
let out a laugh that echoed off the walls like the maniacal cackle
of the devil himself. When the ghastly laughter finally ended, it
turned on Jaret with such intensity that he wished the laughter
would continue. "Let your treatments begin."