The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Burning Phoenix (19 page)

Sirion, though, Legion was to keep alive, at
least for a little while longer. This was the one fact that
troubled him. Alithea - Asotos - would not take kindly to the
girl’s demise, not yet. His gentle but warning words still echoed
in Legion’s ears. “Sirion was the last of my pleasured gifts in the
days before the evil done to us. She still holds a place in my
heart… for the moment. It would pain me so to see disaster befall
her. Her life is very, very valuable to me. I’m sure you will be
gentle with my treasure.”

Legion dare not kill this creature, at least
not yet. She was a tough one, though, with a strong will to
survive. She could take a lot more punishment before her desire to
live surrendered itself up to death.

Legion rubbed his clean shaven chin,
pondering. He smiled. All that was needed at the Prisoner Exchange
was Sirion’s living flesh, her mind and soul being of little value.
There were ways those could be tortured and ruined without further
harming the body. That would certainly give him some solace,
considering all the time and effort he had invested in breaking
this troublesome nuisance. No one resisted him and got away
alive!

Pushing down with his hands on his knees as
he leaned forward and stood, he grinned at the thought of making
the woman suffer excruciatingly before her head became an empty
tomb of forgotten memories.

Walking over to Sirion, Legion looked down,
his charming tone sending a shiver through the woman’s body. “I so
much want this to end well for both of us. Now if my little sister
isn’t a good girl, I may have to hand her over to some of the
uncouth men in the camp.” Sirion silently lay there as if asleep,
only the twitch of an eyelid revealing her dread of such a
torturous event. Not obtaining desired results, Legion shook his
head. “You look so abhorrent, I doubt any man would want you, but
now the beasts?” Sirion stirred this time, visions of recent
violations burning painfully in her mind.

Legion smiled. “Well, well, I do think
another ride or two with the horses might humble that rebellious
spirit of yours, that is, of course, after an hour or so with the
dogs. Your passionate moans were so arousing during your last
interlude with them.”

Sirion cried out, weeping pitiably in
anguish as she extended a hand seeking mercy, “No! No! Please!”

Laughing, Legion reassured her, “Don’t
worry, they will be muzzled this time… maybe.”

“No! Please don’t do such a thing! Not
again! Please!” Sirion sobbed.

Bending low over her, Legion hissed. “Then
on your knees
and
pledge your allegiance
to the
rightful ruler
of this universe
.”

Sirion’s terror-stricken eyes flew open,
filled with desperate hope. She had been forced to watch other
women prisoners suffer similarly, either unto death or until they
renounced their mother and offered up oaths of loyalty to Asotos.
Few had surrendered to Legion’s demands and had suffered wretched
deaths. Ah, but the ones who had relented… either death came
swiftly or the tortures were halted and they were removed from the
torture chambers.

Using all her strength, Sirion rolled onto
her knees and laboriously pushed herself up and back until she was
sitting, staring up at Legion. For the longest time she did not
move, her eyes fixed on his.

Legion soon became impatient. “Hurry up now,
or I’ll call the guards to fetch the dogs! You know what to do.
Make it quick. I’ve not got the day to wait upon your
confessions!”

Sirion’s lips quivered in trepidation. So
easy it would be to confess Asotos as her lord and king. Why, had
he not been as much for so many countless eons, at least in action
if not in title? It was such a little thing. Mother would
understand. She was always so kind and sympathetic. There were
limits to a person’s endurance, her endurance. Mother would
understand.

A sudden struggle arose within Sirion’s
breast. It was as if two armies were warring against each other
seeking control over the moment. Sounds of voices echoed in her
head, one group attempting to out-shout the other.

There came screams of, “Give glory to your
new Master and let us all live! Serve the Master and let us live!”
and others, more saintly, calm, calling out, “What is death but
another journey through time and space, and pain but a tortured
companion while in the flesh? Do not fear the tempestuous road, for
it is short and journey’s end peaceful.”

On and on the voices argued, Sirion’s
multitudinous thoughts stampeding through her harrowed mind. She
didn’t know what to do, but do something she must, for Legion would
waste little more time waiting.

As she was about to cry out, another voice,
almost imperceptible amongst the numbing din of the others, softly
reminded her, “Do not worry the future, for only the moment have
you mastery over. Do what is right with your heart and permit the
Fates to choose your path. Set your sails and allow the winds to
direct your course.”

Sirion quietly sighed, one last spasm of
remorseful dread shivering down her spine. She looked toward the
floor, shaking her head. “No. No. I shall not betray all that is
right and surrender what is good to shame and evil.”

Legion screamed in rage, grabbing her by the
arms and yanking her up hard and slamming her repeatedly against
the prison wall
. “You Bitch! Worthless little bitch! You think
you can best me?! I’ll make you wish you were dead, over and over,
before I’m finished with you!”

Sirion’s mind was confused, she being nearly
knocked senseless, but Legion’s threats were clearly understood.
With what little strength remained in her voice, she answered, “I
already wish I were dead… and you with me.”

Cursing in out-of-control madness, Legion
began to savagely pummel the woman, his fists repeatedly smashing
two giant, raw wounds upon Sirion’s chest. Legion’s new, ornately
tooled leather shoulder purse trimmed in thin strips of curly
golden hair, filled with talismans and mummified trophies, bounced
on its silver chain as he worked his violence on her. The leather
of the purse was once the very skin covering Sirion’s breasts, the
areolas and nipples now positioned and dyed so as to appear like
eyes looking out from the front of the cover flap.

Before Sirion could fall back to the floor,
Legion clasped hold of her face, fingers spread, his thumb driven
deep into a socket, severely bruising one of her eyes. He smashed
her head into the wall, holding her there, leaning close, seething
with anger, hissing, “I do so wish I had the days needed to bring
you to a finish as I’d like, but an hour or two is all there is for
it. In that time, I will slowly remove from your mind all that is
yours, one tiny memory after another, until all that remains is a
skeletal ghost of yourself. I only need your flesh this day - flesh
filled with morbid fear - and that is all that will exist!”

Legion intended to do this to Sirion anyway,
her confession of fealty only something for his gloating ego. Way
too much effort had gone into breaking this deplorable creature to
just hand her over to his brother should she have surrendered to
the moment. Alithea would have never known Legion’s real intent was
to only deliver up to him a body of flesh from the very beginning.
Indeed, he had only called for Sirion to give a loyal cry to
Alithea rather than himself just in case someone else was
listening. No need risking oneself for foolish glory...

Reefing Sirion around, Legion shoved her
into a corner and slammed her down onto a torture stool, pushing
her head back and locking her into a neck ring that was bolted to
the wall. The stool’s spike tore up through Sirion’s flesh, sending
a shockwave of burning distress up through her belly, exploding
into a blinding ache in her head.

(Author’s Note:
A torture stool, Roman
stool, or better known as an ‘inquisition stool’, was a small,
backless chair with a large spike of wood or metal about a
handbreadth in height sticking up through the bottom of the stool.
Used primarily for interrogations, it was designed to force the
victim to painfully sit erect while being physically questioned, or
else suffer excruciating agony. A bout upon the stool often led to
the person’s eventual death.
)

Legion retrieved a valise from the opposite
corner of the cell, pausing to admire his handiwork before
returning. Sirion looked a fright, appearing more like a living
abomination drawn up during some unspeakable nightmare than a once
dreamily beautiful woman, a bloody and bruised head shorn of its
hair, ears torn away by angry beasts, smashed mouth with shattered
teeth, blinded in one eye, scars, cuts, and lacerations too
numerous to mention, some fingers and toes taken to make amulets
from, as well as her breasts cut away and loins scalped to create
Legion’s new purse. Heaped upon these atrocities were the rapes,
tortures, deplorable living conditions - the girl having to live in
her own filth - and the forced starvation. Sirion’s appearance was
more that of a tattered scarecrow than any living being.

Legion grinned, pleased with himself. Few
had received this much extreme torment and survived, but he had
known the level of this woman’s endurance. True, he had pushed the
limit, risked her death, but in the end had won the contest.
Satisfied, he decided to deliver this one final insult, to kill her
mind so that only a living shell of a person, an empty house, would
be returned to the approaching rescuers.

Pulling up a small chair, Legion sat down in
front of Sirion. Opening the valise, he removed from it a slender,
hand-held tool having a long needlelike probe at its end. Musing,
he explained, “This, my dear little one, is an exquisite boring
machine. I shall pass its end up your nose and into your cranial
cavity. Then, with this smallest of viewing sensors mounted at its
end, I will search out your memory centers and abolish them one by
one with the machine’s tiny cutter.”

He laughed. “Your thoughts and recall, all
your lovers and companions, your adventures, everything that was
you, will gradually fade from your consciousness, like a million
candles being slowly extinguished one by one until all that remains
is but a single flame, that of
fear
…
morbid
…
dreaded fear
...” He laughed again.

Sirion did not react, at least on the
outside. Her heart raced with panic, constantly having to remind
herself that the Web of the Minds would hold her true self until
the day Mother would return it to a new body. She dared not even
imagine the agony such an operation would induce. Besides, what
could she do to stop it? Her strength was exhausted, the fastened
collar all that was holding her head up and keeping her sitting.
The one satisfaction she felt was that Legion would not hear any
screams or pleadings for mercy this time, the woman having no
energy to waste upon them.

Legion placed the viewer over an eye and
adjusted its focus. Pushing a tiny button, the machine sprang to
life, its minute motor nearly inaudible. Slowly and deliberately,
he lifted the probe up to Sirion’s face. “Do you wish to see the
weapon of your demise? Its sight and sound and the way it feels
when tearing away your thoughts will be the only thing you will
forever remember.”

Suddenly Sirion gasped, her head snapping up
as she opened her good eye. From a garish, grinning mouth a hideous
voice, as though come from the nether world, hissed,
“It has
come! The destroyer of demons and maker of nightmares wakes. From
its lair, it waits upon the moment to seek the flesh of the one
murdering it, to drink the demon’s blood. Arise! Arise! Oh father
of gorgons, deliver the flesh of ruler and slave to your daughters
so that they may feed upon the living dead. So shall become the
fate of the king of Memphis… It wakes!”
At that Sirion, began
to cackle in a most hideous way.

Legion bolted backward in his chair,
dropping the boring machine. Without bothering to pick up his
valise, the man jumped up and hurried from the cell, not stopping
until he was some distance from the prison car.

* * *

A cloud of choking dust consumed Jonathan
when half a dozen flankers galloped past to take up position north
of the main caravan body. His lungs revolted at the infusion of
filthy air, sending the man into a coughing fit that only gradually
subsided. Covering his mouth with a kerchief, he followed the
horses with his eyes, watching the ever-growing dust storm left in
their wake, observing others who were victimized by the dirt as was
he.

Jonathan shook his head. This was certainly
an evil land… well, at least a very unfriendly place. Every step
made by man or beast in these powdery talc beds filled the air with
reddish-green clouds of blinding, intolerable dust. Breathing a
sigh of relief upon considering he was on the windward side of the
van, Jonathan felt pity for the others riding further off to his
right. At least he was saved the continual onslaught of these
manmade dust storms that those in the center columns and opposite
flank must suffer.

As his eyes wandered over the distant riders
he cast his gaze upon Lowenah. Oh, how beautiful, Lowenah, sitting
tall and straight, proud.
No, majestic!
Yes, that was it,
majestic. Riding bareback, her flesh naked as the back of the
horse, except for the sheerest of silken capes that did little more
than accent her golden, flowing tresses that fell like mystic
waterfalls over the woman’s shoulders and down her back.

Proud and determined, yes! Lowenah’s
piercing eyes and set jaw, her hand held high holding the reins - a
warrior priestess – no, a warrior goddess! Jonathan sighed,
troubled in soul and heart. He could not tear his gaze away from
this most dazzling of universal beauties. His ardor rose in
passionate desire and then as quickly subsided while his heart sang
out with the rapturous joy of a blind man seeing his first sunrise.
Jonathan soon found himself struggling with countless emotions
racing and roiling within. Lowenah was certainly a witch, master of
bewitching powers.