"I know I've seen that scrawny woman before, but I can't place her," Centiv said. "She's not a member of our guild, though perhaps she should be, given her resistance to my spell."
"What she should be is grateful I chose to waste that domination spell on her instead of blasting her and her meddlesome friends to ashes." Khondar punched his fist into his other palm. "Now we lose another day before I can get answers!"
Centiv said, "Then that's another day in which we find more folk to rally to our cause-freeing knowledge for the guild from the grasping hands of private mages like the Blackstaff."
"Yes, yes, of course," Ten-Rings said, as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. The chamber they entered was merely another nondescript cellar by all appearances. The elder nodded to his son, who used the staff he carried to tap three stones in succession at one corner of the ceiling. In response, a secret door slid open, the walls and floor unfolding into yet another secret stair. Screams pierced the air.
"That's the only part I hate." Centiv shuddered. "I know we're doing all this for the city's good, but do we really need to torture her to get the answers we need?"
"Unfortunately, we do, lad." Khondar sighed. "Samark and all the Blackstaffs keep secrets they should share with the guilds, the "Lords, and others. It's how they maintain their mystique, their stranglehold on power-they keep their secrets, even when it harms the City around them.
"We do this only because this woman, like too many, would rather maintain the way things have always been done." Ten-Rings sneered. "She wants our fair city to stay under the control of the money-grubbing merchant classes and foreign interests. Wizard rulers would never allow Sembian shades to infiltrate the palace. We'll restore things to right, son. We will. We'll clean up this city. All we need are the keys to the tower and its magic. The sooner that outlander bitch gives them up, the sooner her pain will end."
Ten-Rings exited the stair into a tiny chamber only as wide as a staff's length. Set into the wall facing them was a small niche holding a handful of tomes and beneath it a number of vials in a wooden box. He snatched up a vial as he stormed through the open doorway to the left of the stair. A pair of doors lined the hallway on both sides, and all the noise came from the nearest room on Khondar's right.
The woman lay strapped to a rough wooden table, bound spread-eagled with each hand and foot bound to a corner of the table. Her clothes were whole, though rent to expose her limbs and her midriff. Blood dripped or dried on nearly every exposed bit of skin. A large metal clamp encircled her right knee, bending it unnaturally to one side. Obscene black bruising and bleeding around a clamp at her left hip showed that her interrogator had also shattered that bone in his ministrations. Numerous cuts along her arms, legs, and stomach had long since scabbed over. Her face held half-healed bruises days old, and her lower lip was a mass of scabs. She lay senseless, breathing heavily but irregularly, and her eyes were closed. Her short dark hair lay matted to her head with sweat and grime. Blood-both dried and otherwisecoated the table beneath her.
The man standing over her shoved a dirty rag into the pulsing wound on her left forearm as he withdrew a nail, sighing as he did so.
"Has she told you anything, Granek?" Khondar asked, and the man whirled around. Granek was short, stripped to the waist, and covered with hair, dirt, and blood. His graying hair hung loose and long, its receding hairline making it look like his hair slipped to the back of his head. The eye patch over his right eye failed to cover the two scars that crossed his forehead, temple, and upper cheek. He dropped the nail and hammer onto a side table and wiped the blood from his hands onto a rough leather apron and breeches he wore. Granek shook his head and went to a water bucket, raising the dipper to his lips.
"The lass has spirit, aye," Granek said after wiping his mouth with his forearm. "As we'd planned, she had two days to heal before we went at her again this morning. All she's given me are screams and a few insults directed at me mam. Oh, and a few for you as well, Khondar."
"Address him as Guildmaster, dog!" Centiv snapped "Show some respect!"
Granek glared at the younger man and said, "You need me, and I still need to be paid. Gold gets you my respect, as I've done more for you than you've for me. Besides, we're all out on the plank together here. Show some manners yourself, lad."
Centiv's fingers crackled with energy and he began mouthing a spell, but Ten-Rings rested a hand over his fingers and said, "Enough. You should not be so easily baited." He then turned his attention to Granek, and said, "And you should not presume to be more important than you are, hireling, or you shall find out how adept I am at doing magically what you do mechanically. Now, give her this, so we might talk." He handed the vial through the bars to Granek, who snatched it away with anger.
Granek stalked to the woman's side, muttering, "Waste of a good potion, ask me." He opened her mouth, but stopped as Ten-Rings cleared his throat.
"Maybe you should remove the clamps to allow her to heal?" said Ten-Rings. "We already know how well she screams, and don't need to hear it for this discussion."
Granek frowned and tucked the vial into a pouch. He removed the clamp from her left hip, and she groaned. Even Centiv shuddered as Granek removed the knee clamp and her leg moved like its bones were no more than gravel in a bag. Granek retrieved the vial and poured its contents into her mouth, manipulating her throat to force her to swallow. He then pulled the rag out of her forearm, which made blood flow freely again.
Within moments, the blood stopped flowing and the woman's old and new bruises faded beneath her dark skin. She shed the scab on her lip as-that wound healed, and her hip and knee returned to their normal positions. Her indigo-colored eyes darted open and she snapped her head up to stare at Granek, then beyond the bars at Centiv and Ten-Rings.
"Does that feel better, Vajra?" said Granek.
"I'd thank you for healing me, but I know you don't do it for my sake. We've danced this dance before, Khondar," Vajra said. "I won't give you the knowledge you seek."
Ten-Rings sighed and said, "To think you came to this city to join my guild-"
"Your guild?" she laughed. "Does the Watchful Order know they're your personal servants?"
"Better that than lackeys of the Blackstaff," he said.
Centiv added, "Or whores of the same."
"Centiv"-Vajra shook her head-"so much power stunted by sycophantic adulation. Thirty years here and still no life without Father?"
Centiv's knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists.
"You wizards are all the same-all talk, no action," Granek said. He leaned onto Vajra's recently healed knee, and she inhaled sharply and grimaced. Granek cackled. "Just 'cause you're healed don't mean you're healthy. So tell us what we want to know. Tell us how to enter Blackstaff Tower safely."
She opened cobalt blue eyes and stared past Granek at Khondar. "Ye only need courage and a Blackstaff. Dare ye pick one up?"
"Tell me what the books are for," Ten-Rings said, "and we'll stop the pain. Grant us entry into the tower, and we'll end this once and for all."
Vajra laughed a deep laugh, and then opened wine purple eyes to stare at Centiv. "Why did your father bring you here from Sundabar, Centiv? Did he need a scribe? Or were you just his only child to swallow every lie?"
"Keep this up and you'll part with your life, Vajra Safahr," Ten-Rings whispered. "We saw the Blackstaffs death give you an influx of power. Who's to say that power won't transfer to one of us upon your death?"