Wizard's First Rule (97 page)

The first day with her wasn’t over, and already Richard knew he would do almost anything she said. She had weeks left to train him. If he could have willed himself to die on the spot, he would have done it. The worst thing was knowing she was right; there was nothing he could do to stop her. He was at her mercy, and he didn’t think she had a shred of it.

“I understand, Mistress Denna. I believe you.” Her pleasant smile made him need to think of how pretty her braid was.

“Good. Now, take off your shirt.” Her smile widened at the puzzled look on his face, and the way he started unbuttoning his shirt nonetheless. She held the Agiel in front of his eyes. “It’s time to teach you all the things the Agiel can do. If you leave your shirt on, it will be covered in blood, and I won’t be able to find a fresh spot on you. You are going to see why the outfit I wear is this color.”

He pulled his shirttail out. He was breathing hard, in a near panic. “But Mistress Denna, what have I done wrong?”

She cupped a hand to the side of his face with mock concern. “Why, don’t you know?” He shook his head, swallowing back the lump in his throat. “You have let yourself be captured by a Mord-Sith. You should have killed all my men with your sword. I think you could have done it. You were very impressive, as far as you went. Then you should have used your knife or your bare hands to kill me, while I was vulnerable, before I had control of your magic. You should have never given me the chance to take control of the magic from you. You should have never tried to use it against me.”

“But why must you use the Agiel on me, now.”

She laughed. “Because I want you to learn. Learn that I can do whatever I want, and there is no way for you to stop me. You must learn that you are totally helpless, and that if you enjoy any time without pain, it is only because I choose it. Not you.” The smile left her face. She went to the table, returned with manacles held with a length of chain. “Now. You have a problem that annoys me. You keep falling down. We are going to fix that. Put these on.”

She threw them at him. He struggled to control his breathing as he latched each iron band to a shaking wrist. Denna dragged the chair over to a beam, made him stand under it. She stood on the chair to hook the chain to an iron peg.

“Stretch up. It doesn’t reach yet.” He had to stand on his toes and stretch before she could get it hooked. “There.” She smiled. “Now we won’t have any more problems with you falling down.”

Richard hung from the chain, trying to control his terror, the iron bands digging into his wrists because of his own weight. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop her before, but this was different. It amplified his helplessness, made him all the more aware that there was no way for him to fight back. Denna pulled on her gloves, walked around him several times, tapping the Agiel against her hand, prolonging his anxiety.

If only he had been killed trying to stop Darken Rahl—that was a price he had been prepared to pay. This was different. This was death without dying. Living death. He was not even to be allowed the dignity of fighting back. He knew what the Agiel felt like; he didn’t need her to show him anymore. She was only doing this to take away his pride, his self-respect. To break him.

Denna tapped the Agiel against his chest and back as she continued walking around him. Each touch of it was like a dagger knifing into him. Each touch made him cry out in pain and twist on the chain; and he knew she hadn’t even really begun yet. The first day was still not over, and there would be many more to come. He cried at his helplessness.

Richard imagined his sense of self, his dignity, as a living thing, saw it in his mind. He imagined a room. A room that was impervious to anything, to any harm. He put his dignity, his self-respect, into that room, and locked the door. No one would have a key to that door. Not Denna, not Darken Rahl. Only him. He would endure what was to come, for as long as it was to come, without his dignity. He would do what he had to, and someday he would unlock the door, and be himself again, even if it was only in death. But for now, he would be her slave. For now. But not always. Someday, it would end.

Denna took his face in both her hands and kissed him, hard. Hard enough to make his cut lip throb and sting. She seemed to enjoy the kiss more when she was sure it hurt him. She took her face from his, her eyes wide with delight. “Shall we begin, my pet?” she whispered.

“Please, Mistress Denna,” he whispered, “don’t do this.”

Her smile widened. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

Denna began showing him what the Agiel would do, how if she dragged it lightly across his flesh, it raised fluid-filled welts, and how if she pressed a little harder, they filled with blood. When she bore down, he could feel warm wetness on his sweaty skin. She could also make the exact same pain without leaving a mark. His teeth hurt from gritting them so hard. Sometimes she would stand behind him, waiting until he was off guard before she touched it to him. When she tired of that she made him close his eyes and keep them closed while she walked around him, pressing it against him or dragging it around his chest.

She would laugh when she succeeded in making him think it was coming, and he would brace for it, and it didn’t. One particularly sharp jab brought his eyes
open wide, giving her an excuse to use the glove. She made him beg for forgiveness for opening his eyes without being told to do so. His wrists bled from the manacles cutting into them. It was impossible to keep his weight off them.

His anger only got away from him once, when she pressed the Agiel into his armpit. She stood with a smirk, watching, while he twisted, trying to think of her hair. Since putting the Agiel there caused him to lose control of the anger, she concentrated on that area for a long time, but he didn’t make the same mistake twice. Since he didn’t bring on the pain of the magic again, she did it for him, only when she did it he couldn’t turn it off, no matter how hard he tried. He had to beg her to do it for him. Sometimes she would stand in front of him, watching him catch his breath. A few times, she pressed herself against him, hugging his chest, squeezing, the hardness of the leather making every wound it pressed against flare anew in pain.

Richard had no idea how long this torture lasted. Much of the time, he wasn’t aware of anything but the pain, as if it were a living thing, there with him. He was only aware that at some point, he knew he would do anything she said, no matter what it was, if only she would stop hurting him. He looked away from the Agiel. The mere glimpse of it made tears well up in his eyes. Denna was right about herself; she never tired or became bored with what she did. It seemed to constantly fascinate her, keep her amused, satisfied. The only thing that seemed to make her happier than hurting him was when he begged her to stop. He would have begged more, to make her happy, but most of the time he was incapable of talking. Simply breathing was almost more than he could handle.

He no longer tried to keep the pressure off his wrists, and hung limp, delirious. He thought she stopped for a while, but he hurt so much from what she had already done that he wasn’t sure. The sweat in his eyes was blinding him; the sweat running into the wounds caused them to burn.

When his head cleared somewhat, she returned, walking behind him. He braced for what he knew was coming. Instead, she grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his head back.

“Now, my pet, I’m going to show you something new. I’m going to show you how kind a mistress I really am.” She pulled his head back, hard, until the pain made him tense the muscles in his neck to resist the pressure. She put the Agiel against his throat. “Stop fighting me, or I won’t take it away.”

Blood was running into his mouth; he relaxed his neck muscles, allowing her to pull as hard as she wanted.

“Now, my pet, listen very carefully. I’m going to put the Agiel in your right ear.” Richard almost choked with fear. She jerked his head back to make him stop it. “It’s different from putting it anywhere else. It hurts a lot more. But you must do exactly as I say.” Her mouth was right by his ear; she whispered to him like a lover. “In the past, when I have had a sister Mord-Sith with me, we would both put our Agiel in the man’s ears at the same time. He would make a scream unlike any other. The sound of it is intoxicating. I get chills just thinking about it.”

“But, it would also kill him. We were never successful at using two Agiel at the same time in that particular way without killing him. We kept trying, but they always died. Be thankful I am your mistress; there are others who still try.”

“Thank you, Mistress Denna.” He wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for, but he didn’t want her to do whatever it was she had planned.

“Pay attention,” she whispered harshly. Her voice softened again. “When I do this, you must not move. If you move, it will damage things inside you. It won’t kill you, but it will cause irrevocable disability. Some men who move go blind, some are no longer able to move anything on one side of their body, some can’t talk anymore, or walk. But in all who move, something is spoiled. I want you fully functional. Mord-Sith who are more cruel than I don’t tell their pets not to move, they just do it without warning them. So you see? I am not so cruel as you thought. Still, only a few of the men I do it to are able to hold still. Even though I warn them, they still jerk, and then they are left impaired.”

Richard couldn’t hold back from crying. “Please, Mistress Denna, please don’t do it, please.”

He could feel the breath of her smile. She ran her wet tongue into his ear, kissed it. “But I want to, my pet. Don’t forget, hold still, don’t move.”

Richard clenched his teeth, but nothing could have prepared him for it. His head felt as if it had been turned to glass and shattered into a thousand pieces. His fingernails cut into his palms. All sense of time shattered apart with everything else. He was in a wasteland of agony with no beginning, no end. Every nerve in his body seared with razor-sharp, burning misery. He had no idea how long she held the Agiel there, but when she took it away, his screams echoed from the stone walls.

When he finally went limp, she kissed his ear and whispered breathlessly in it. “That was a simply delightful scream, my pet. I’ve never heard one better. Except a scream in death, of course. You did very well, my pet, you never moved an inch.” She kissed his neck tenderly, then his ear again. “Shall we try the other side?”

Richard sagged in the shackles. He couldn’t even cry. She pulled his head back harder as she moved to the other side of him.

When she was finally finished with him, and unhooked the chain, he collapsed to the floor. He didn’t think himself capable of moving, but when she motioned him up with the Agiel, the mere sight of it made him do as she wanted.

“That’s all for today, my pet.” Richard thought he might die of joy. “I’m going to go get some sleep. Today was only a part day; tomorrow we will get in a full day of training. You will find a full day more painful.”

Richard was too exhausted to care about tomorrow. He wanted only to lie down. Even the stone floor would feel like the best bed he had ever slept in. He looked at it longingly.

Denna brought the chair over, took the chain that hung from his collar, and hooked it over the iron peg in the beam. He watched in confusion, too weary to try to figure out her intent. When finished, she walked toward the door. Richard realized there wasn’t enough slack to allow him to lie down.

“Mistress Denna, how am I to sleep?”

She turned, gave him a condescending smile. “Sleep? I don’t recall telling you that you were allowed to sleep. Sleep is a privilege you earn. You have not earned it. Don’t you remember this morning, when you had that nasty vision of killing me
with your sword? Don’t you remember I told you that you would be sorry you did it? Good night, my pet.”

She started to leave, but turned back. “And if you have any thoughts of simply pulling the chain off the peg and letting the pain make you pass out, I wouldn’t try it if I were you. I changed the magic. It will not allow you to pass out anymore. If you pull the chain off, or fall down accidentally, and that pulls it off, I will not be here to help you. You will be all alone, for the night, with the pain. Think about that, if you get sleepy.”

She turned on her heels and left, taking the torch with her.

Richard stood in the dark, crying. After a time, he forced himself to stop, and thought of Kahlan. That was something pleasant Denna couldn’t take away from him. At least not tonight. He made himself feel good by thinking of how she was safe, and had people to protect her. Zedd, and Chase, and soon Michael’s army. He envisioned her where she must be, at a camp somewhere, right now, with Siddin and Rachel, taking care of them, telling them stories, making them laugh.

He smiled at the vision of her in his mind. He savored the memory of her kiss, the feel of her against him. Even if he wasn’t with her, she could still make him smile, make him happy. What happened to him didn’t matter. She was safe. That was all that counted. Kahlan, and Zedd, and Chase, were safe, and they had the last box. Darken Rahl was going to die, and Kahlan was going to live.

After it was over, what did it matter what happened to him? He might as well be dead. Denna, or Darken Rahl, would see to that. He had only to endure the pain until then. He could do that. What did it matter? Nothing Denna could do could match the pain of knowing that he couldn’t be with Kahlan. The woman he loved. The woman he loved, who would choose another.

He was glad he was going to be dead before then. Maybe he could do something to hurry it along; it certainly didn’t take much to make Denna angry. If he moved the next time she put the Agiel in his ear, he would be permanently impaired; then maybe he would be of no use to her. Maybe she would kill him then. He had never felt so alone in his life.

“I love you, Kahlan,” he whispered into the dark.