The Dead God's Due (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 1) (12 page)

“Or what? What will you
do?”

Caelwen shook his head and
sighed. “I will follow my orders and obey the law.” He
gently placed a hand on Aiul’s shoulder. “Listen to me.
I am not your enemy.”

Aiul stiffened at Caelwen’s
touch, and stepped away.
Don’t touch me, you thug. This
blood is all your fault.
“I want to speak to her.”

Caelwen seemed confused for a
moment, then nodded as he grasped Aiul’s meaning. “Tasinalta?
I doubt she will see you. She is in bed.”

“Why do you think she
called my name in her time of trouble? She will see me. Tell her.”

Caelwen nodded. “You
should clean up.” He cocked his head to the side, considering,
and shrugged. “Then again, perhaps not. She has odd tastes.”

For the second time that night,
Kariana found herself in the unusual situation of having a gentleman
visitor in her private chambers. Not that she didn’t have many
a visitor there for various debaucheries, but typically they were
slaves and commoners. Most of the Housed men seemed to take little
interest in her, no doubt because her power intimidated them.

This one, however, was special
in any number of ways. Unlike Caelwen, the cold, cruel creature,
Aiul was warm and inviting, kind, funny, appreciative. He was, in
fact, everything a woman might want, save for
obedient
.
What a pity. If he did as he was told, he could be the consort of an
Empress. But, then, he had always resented authority. Perhaps that
was what had always drawn her to him. He was safe, and yet there was
the sense that if he was pushed too far, he was capable of almost
anything.

“Aiul,” she said
softly as he entered and closed the door behind him. “It’s
been a long time.” She let her eyes hover on him. She had
always liked his body, but his hands were magical, a surgeon’s
hands, sensitive, dexterous, and strong. She couldn’t help but
smile at the traces of blood still on them. She found it quite
erotic.

He smiled and ducked his head
sheepishly. “It has. It’s good to see you again,
Kariana. I’m sorry it’s under such dire circumstances.”

“Oh, the situation you’ve
dealt with is minor. We can always find more guards.” The
smile left his face as quickly as it had come. Why was he so damned
mercurial?

“I suppose that’s
true enough.”

“I have a bigger
problem,” she sighed. She turned her face away and angled her
shoulder, offering him a view down the front of her nightgown, but
he was oblivious. He always had been, the fool. “I’ve
captured a scouting party of Southlanders.”

Aiul looked confused for long
moments, then raised both eyebrows as he made the connections. “Mei!
Are you serious?”

She looked at him, carefully
forming her expression into a mask of solemnity, hoping her eyes
appeared as wide and doe-like as possible, and nodded. “They
are fearsome brutes.”

“Aye. I’ve just
seen their handiwork. What will you do with them?”

She said nothing for long
moments, drawing things out, letting his curiosity peak before
feeding it. “I must know their true intentions. And I will
need your help.”

Again, it took him a moment to
put it together, but when he did, his face darkened with anger, and
he shook his head vehemently. “I’ll have no part of
that! I am a healer!”

“And I want you to heal.”

“To keep men alive while
you torture them! I won’t do it.”

He was so terribly sexy when he
was moralizing, and yet she knew his weaknesses, as well. Hero,
healer, the need to dry tears and ease pain, these were his soft
spots. She had long ago learned to cry whenever she liked. She wept
for him, and he came to her, took her in his arms as she knew he
would. She buried her face against his chest and delivered an
admirably believable series of sobs.

“I have no
choice
,
Aiul!” she said at last. “You saw what those monsters
can do!”

“I did.” He
swallowed, hard. She was getting to him.

“Can you imagine an army
of them tearing through our streets? Can you imagine them having
their way with your new wife? We
must
find out what they know!”

She felt him nod against her.
“Very well, then. I will help you.” She smiled against
his chest, knowing he could not see. He was hers, at least for this
matter. And before long, perhaps in all respects, and his new wife
be damned.

“Will you stay with me
tonight, Aiul?” she whispered.

He shifted uncomfortably
against her. “I am married now, Kariana.”

A stab of anger and jealousy
ripped through her mind. He should have been hers! The child his
commoner bitch wife carried should have been in
her
belly instead. Was it not proper that Amrath and Tasinal should be
together? Was it not what was always supposed to be, since they were
children? He
was
hers! She had seen him first!

“What of it?” she
whispered, not quite able to keep the acid from her voice. “Who
pays attention to such things?”

“I do.”

Of course, the hero did, the
surgeon, the good and decent fool. “Then tell her I commanded
it. I have that right.”

Aiul was motionless for long
moments. He cleared his throat before he spoke. “Then command
me.”

Kariana ground her teeth in
rage. Not by his will, then. Not yet, anyway. “I command you,”
she whispered. “Stay.”

It was well past two in the
morning as Aiul made his way through darkened, misty streets toward
the prison, his thin frame huddled in a long, black robe. Frozen
breath poured from beneath his hood as he half walked, half ran, his
long legs not carrying him fast enough for his comfort. His boots
clicked on the cobblestones, seeming loud in his ears, the only
other sound besides his steady breathing.

The route was indirect, taking
him through several less than respectable areas of the undercity,
but he had been instructed to adhere to it specifically, to avoid
attracting attention. The streetlamps along the way were all
conveniently unlit, which only added to his discomfort. The few
people he might encounter were likely to be both hostile and
emboldened by the darkness. The first time he had made the journey,
nearly a week before, he had been unarmed, and had it not been for
his skill in running, it might well have been his last. The
following night, he had fetched his old mace, the one he had used
for training as a youth, when he fancied that he might someday
become a warrior. That dream was long gone, but the skill remained,
and the second trip had been unhealthy for several would be muggers.
Since then, they had given the tall, hooded figure a wide berth when
he passed.

The one advantage of making
this journey at night was that Caelwen was long gone by the time he
arrived at the prison. The Captain knew well what was going on, and
though he said not a word in objection, Aiul knew all the same that
Caelwen was furious that his promises to the Southlanders had been
overruled. He would follow the law, as he always did, so Aiul had no
fear of being attacked. It was just that stare, that cold, blue gaze
of unswerving, uncompromising judgment. It was like ice growing over
his heart. Anything to avoid it was preferable.

So much for doing no harm. He
cursed silently as he walked on, furious at having been fool enough
to let himself become involved in this misadventure. Kariana was
rapidly approaching madness due to sleep deprivation and substance
abuse. There were pills to sleep, pills to prevent sleep, pills to
be happy, pills to heighten sexual pleasure, the list went on and
on. And she wondered why he would never have considered her for a
wife!

When she was not jamming sharp
instruments into the prisoner, she was jamming them into herself,
injecting Mei knew what sort of noxious potions. At other times she
wept uncontrollably, demanding he stay with her and console her.
This, perhaps, was more troubling than all the rest. She was simply
not the same woman he had known in his youth. Where the hell had she
learned to torture? More importantly,
why
?
She had always been indulgent and impulsive. Her wild abandon was
half the reason Aiul had been fond of her in the past. But now, she
was cruel as well, and frightened, paranoid. She was not Kariana
anymore. The crown had changed her. She was Tasinalta, now, and his
pity for her had changed, as well. It had become genuine fear.

He had, perhaps wrongly, kept
things from Lara, feeling it would simply upset her for no good
reason. Commoners took sexual fidelity quite seriously in marriage.
And yet, Kariana had the right to command him. It was a tradition
centuries old. There was nothing he or Lara could say or do about it
without making themselves look terribly backward. And yet, the
secret weighted upon him. He could barely look Lara in the eye. She
knew something was wrong, that he left every night, and yet she had
demanded no answers.
Yet.

Aiul arrived at the prison and
descended the long flight of stairs into the deepest parts, beyond
the sections where the stone walls were composed of actual blocks,
and into the area that had been tunneled into the native granite,
fully fifty feet beneath the streets above. It was a dismal place,
the final destination of damned souls. The aesthetics of the place
had had been carefully considered when Tasinal had commissioned it
eons ago. Amrath himself had contributed greatly to the project,
both as architect and consultant on the psychological effects. The
design was insidious. From the seamless walls of unyielding stone;
to the arrangement of sewers for maximum stench; to the deliberate
acoustics that shaped and channeled sound so that screams echoed on
and on; it was carefully calculated to douse the fire in a man’s
heart, crush the life from his soul, and leave him a pliable husk, a
wretch for whom even death would be a blessing. Just being here,
even as a free man, was enough to make Aiul feel ill. He could only
imagine what it would be like to be an occupant.

At the bottom of the long
stairs, he entered the guard post. It was a small area, more of a
bulge in the corridor than an actual room, with a single, heavy iron
door at the end. Still, it was large enough to hold a table and a
few chairs, and leave enough room to allow the normal complement of
six guards to fight, if need be. Aiul doubted that there had ever
been reason for them to do so, certainly not in his lifetime. Most
who found themselves here were generally not in a condition to ever
give anyone any trouble again.

The guards ignored him, as they
had every time he had come, continuing their card games and
conversations as if he did not exist. He took a key from the wall
and unlocked the heavy door, then walked through and closed it
behind him. As he entered the cell block, he heard the click of the
mechanism as the guards secured the door, and felt a chill run
through him at the thought of being locked away in that terrible
place.

There were no bars here,
because bars allowed in light, and light was hope. The cells were
little more than holes blocked with the same heavy iron doors that
separated the cell block from the guard post. The prisoners spent
most of their lives in darkness and filth, rarely seeing another
living creature. Aiul ground his teeth as he passed, steeling
himself against revulsion at the sheer inhumanity of the place. He
was grateful that he could not actually see the horrors that lay
behind the doors, but he could still smell the stench, and hear the
occasional cough, moan, or sob from the unseen wretches, and it
moved him in ways he could not truly explain. He only knew he did
not want to be moved in such a manner, and so he hurried,

He made his way down the block,
at last reaching the interrogation room. It, too, had a door of
iron, and he used his key to let himself into the large room beyond.
It was little different from any of the other cells, its walls all
seamless granite. In the center of the place stood a table filled
with various implements of torture.

Kariana, her black tresses
pulled back into a tight bun, stood nearby, tiny, pale, and haughty,
her violet eyes locked on her victim and smoldering with barely
contained rage. In her long, milk white fingers, she held a bloody,
metallic instrument, and was applying it to the prisoner’s
chest with great vigor. Aiul felt almost ill at the sight. How had
they come to this?

The prisoner hung in chains,
jaw clenched,teeth bared in struggle, silent but for the occasional
gasp. Blood and spittle dripped from his chin. His muscles rippled
as he struggled against his bonds, resolute even in the face of
impossible odds. It had been nearly a week of nightly torture for
him. The bright red welts on his almost black skin vied for
attention against the dark bruises left by clubs and boots. But
still he resisted. For all her effort, Kariana had yet to even draw
a true cry of agony from him, much less any information.

“It’s good you have
arrived,” she said to Aiul, not bothering to face him as she
spoke, instead keeping her eyes locked with her prisoner’s.
Hatred radiated from both tormentor and prisoner like heat. Aiul
could almost see the air between them distort with the blistering
emotion.

“I should have a look at
him now,” Aiul offered.

Kariana gave the prisoner a
cuff to the head, sending sweat and blood flying, and stepped back,
gesturing in mock deference for Aiul to come closer. “By all
means.”

Aiul approached the prisoner,
refusing to meet the man’s baleful stare as he busied himself
examining the various wounds Kariana had inflicted. He struggled to
keep his hands from trembling, trying to summon the steadiness he
had so often taken pride in, had used to execute the most meticulous
of surgeries so many times in the past. But that was to heal. This
perversion of his skills, this preserving of life to prolong
torture, seemed a misuse of his gifts, a blasphemy that his hands
recognized, and they refused to cooperate.

As he fumbled through his
examination, he felt fear rise within him. Six days, this man had
endured Kariana’s depredations, and yet he had not broken.
Aiul could not conceive of the sort of resolve, the well of inner
strength that would carry a man through such a nightmare.

“Look at me,” the
prisoner rasped through cracked, bloody lips.

Kariana’s ears perked up
at the sound of the prisoner’s voice. Aiul said nothing,
fearful that he would upset some plan she had.

“I said look at me!”
the prisoner demanded. “I would see the face of my enemy!”

Aiul looked toward Kariana, and
she nodded. He lowered his hood and let his long, pale blonde hair
fail on his shoulders. He stared sadly into the proud, dark eyes of
his patient, trying to say without words that this was not his will.

“You are a coward,”
the prisoner announced.

“So you would speak, now,
dog?” Kariana called out. She folded her arms across her chest
and smiled.

“Tell her,” the
prisoner said.

Aiul looked at Kariana, and
shook his head with a scowl. The prisoner was dying, and there was
nothing he could do.

“So you would confess,
and die easily?” she asked, magnanimous in victory.

The prisoner chuckled, then
coughed and spit blood. “Call it what you like,” he
said. “I prefer to think of it as taking your comfort with me
as I depart to join Ilaweh.”

“Enough games,”
Kariana snarled. She pushed Aiul aside and stood before the prisoner
again. “Who are you and why have you come?”

“You think it will
change, somehow, if you ask again? I am Yazid Valerian, servant of
Ilaweh, soldier of the Xanthian Empire, and herald of your doom,”
he said with a ghastly, bloody toothed grin.

Kariana’s face grew dark
with rage, and she gave the man another cuff to the head, but his
grin remained.

“You fear me, bitch,”
he said. “As you should.”

Kariana ground her teeth,
momentarily speechless. Aiul could see her losing control, and
considered speaking up, but thought the better of it. Six days had
taken their toll on her, as well, and Aiul had no intention of
making himself a target.

Kariana’s face twisted in
uncontrolled rage, and her voice cracked as she shrieked, “How
dare
you speak to
me so! I am the blood of
Tasinal
!”

The prisoner’s eyes
widened in brief shock, but he quickly mastered himself, hiding his
emotion within a mask of contempt. “Then it is you we have
come to destroy,” he spat.

Kariana’s eyes bulged as
she struggled to master her emotion. She, too, realized she had lost
the initiative. She was no longer in control of the situation.

“I can make it infinitely
worse, if I don’t need to worry about your survival,”
she said in a low, husky voice. “As I said before, you might
die an easier death if you cooperate.”

“Aye,” the prisoner
agreed. “I might die an old man in my bed, too, full of
regret. Life is sharp and painful. It’s not something a
cringing lapdog like you can ever understand.”

“You’re a fool,”
Kariana hissed. “A madman, a talking ape with delusions of
grandeur. Even a beast fears death!”

The prisoner chuckled at this.
“I see, now. You, too, are a slave. Slave to fear, slave to
birth, slave to tradition and public opinion. There was never a
moment in your life not planned out for you, was there?”

“I do as I will!”
she shouted. “I am
empress
!”

“You want me dead, yet
you cringe in fear that killing me without breaking me would be
unseemly. You lack even the freedom to choose to spare me. You dare
not. It would make you seem weak. No choices for you at all, just
decorum and precedent.”

“Sophistry!” she
cried.

“Yours. Not mine.”

Kariana’s eyes flared
with madness, and she surged toward the prisoner, an incoherent
shriek of fury on her lips. Steel glinted in the torchlight as she
grabbed a knife from the table and buried it in the prisoner’s
throat. Blood gushed and sprayed from the wound as the Southlander
vented a gurgling, bloody wheeze that Aiul realized, to his horror,
was laughter. The Southlander grinned up at Kariana, pleased with
his victory, which only drove her to new heights of rage. She
stabbed at him over and over, until Aiul could bear it no longer.
“Kariana,
please!
It’s
over!”

Kariana stood over the corpse
for long moments, dripping blade in hand, chest heaving, eyes
clouded with madness, regarding her victim. Aiul raised a hand and
ran it down his face, uncertain what to say.

Without warning, Kariana
swooned and collapsed to one knee, her eyes dull and unfocused.

“Kariana!” For the
moment, the grimness of the current situation fled his mind. He ran
to her, settling on a knee himself, and tilted her face upward
toward the light. Her eyes seemed to react well enough, so a stroke
seemed unlikely.
Who could know what’s going on? She’s
pumped full of Mei knows what. For all I know, she’s dead
already.
“Kariana?” he said, softly, trying to reach
her.

She moaned and fell forward
into his arms, limp. She was feverish and trembling. “Mei!”
Her body shook with her sobs as if she were convulsing.