A dozen riders materialized out of the wasteland near the swamp and surrounded the two Stepsons; none had faces; all had glowing pure-white eyes. They fought as best they could with mortal weapons, but ropes of spitting power came round them and blue sparks bit them and their flesh sizzled through their linen chitons and, unhorsed, they were dragged along behind the riders until they no longer knew where they were or what was happening to them or even felt the pain. The last thing Niko remembered, before he awoke bound to a tree in some featureless grove, was the wagon ahead stopping, and his horse, on its own trying to win the day. The big black had climbed the mount of the rider who dragged Niko on a tether, and he'd seen the valiant beast's thick jowls pierced through by arrows glowing blue with magic, seen his horse falter, jaws gaping, then fall as he was dragged away.
Now he struggled, helpless in his bonds, trying to clear his vision and will his pain away.
Before him he saw figures, a bonfire limning silhouettes. Among them, as consciousness came full upon him and he began to wish he'd never waked, was Tamzen, struggling in grisly embraces and wailing out his name, and the other girls, and Janni, spreadeagled, staked out on the ground, his mouth open, screaming at the sky. 'Ah,' he heard, 'Nikodemos. So kind of you to join us.' Then a woman's face swam before him, beautiful, though that just made it worse. It was the Nisibisi witch and she was smiling, itself an awful sign. A score of minions ringed her, creatures roused from graves, and two with ophidian eyes and lipless mouths whose skins had a greenish cast.
She began to tell him softly the things she wished to know. For a time he only shook his head and closed his ears and tried to flee his flesh. If he could retire his mind to his rest-place, he could ignore it all; the pain, the screams which split the night; he would know none of what occurred here, and die without the shame of capitulation: she'd kill him anyway, when she was done. So he counted determinedly backward, eyes squeezed shut, envisioning the runes which would save him. But Tamzen's screams, her sobs to him for help, and Janni's animal anguish kept interfering, and he could not reach the quiet place and stay: he kept being dragged back by the sounds.
Still, when she asked him questions he only stared back at her in silence: Tempus's plans and state of mind were things he knew little of; he couldn't have stopped this if he'd wanted to; he didn't know enough. But when at length, knowing it, he closed his eyes again, she came up close and pried them open, impaling his lids with wooden splinters so that he would see what made Janni cry.
They had staked the Stepson over a wild creature's burrow - a badger, he later saw, when it had gnawed and clawed its way to freedom - and were smoking the rodent out by setting fire to its tunnel. When Janni's stomach began to show the outline of the animal within, Niko, capitulating, told all he knew and made up more besides.
By then the girls had long since been silenced.
All he heard was the witch's voice; all he remembered was the horror of her eyes and the message she bade him give to Tempus, and when he had repeated it, she pulled the splinters from his lids ... The darkness she allowed him became complete, and he found a danker rest-place than meditation's quiet cave.
In Roxane's 'manor house' commotion raged; slaves went running and men cried orders, and in the court the caravan was being readied to make away.
She herself sat petulant and wroth, among the brocades of her study and the implements other craft: water and fire and earth and air, and minerals and plants, and a globe sculpted from high peaks clay with precious stones inset.
A wave of hand would serve to load these in her wagon. The house spells' undoing would take much less than that - a finger's wave, a word unsaid, and all would be no more than it appeared: rickety and threadbare. But the evening's errors and all the work she'd done to amend them had drained her strength.
She sat, and Niko, in a corner, propped up but not awake, breathed raspingly: another error - those damn snakes took everything too literally, as well as being incapable of following simple orders to their completion.
The snakes she'd sent out, charmed to look like Stepsons, should have found the children in the streets; as Niko and Janni, their disguises were complete. But a vampire bitch, a cursed and accursed third-rater possessed of meagre spells, had chanced upon the quarry and taken it home. Then she'd had to change all plans and make the wagon and send the snakes to retrieve the bait - the girls alone, the boys were expendable - and snakes were not up to fooling women grown and knowledgeable of spells. Ischade had given up her female prizes, rather than confront Nisibisi magic, pretending for her own sake that she believed the 'Stepsons' who came to claim Tamzen and her friends.
Had Roxane not been leaving town this evening, she'd have had to wipe the vampire's soul - or at least her memory - away.
So she took the snakes out once more from their baskets and held their heads up to her face. Tongues darted out and reptilian eyes pled mercy, but Roxane had forgotten mercy long ago. And strength was what she needed, which in part these had helped to drain away. Holding them high she picked herself up and, speaking words of power, took them both and cast them in the blazing hearth. The flames roared up and snakes writhed in agony and roasted. When they were done she fetched them out with silver tongs and ate their tails and heads.
Thus fortified, she turned to Niko, still hiding mind and soul in his precious mental refuge, a version of it she'd altered when her magic saw it. This place of peace and perfect relaxation, a cave behind the meadow of his mind, had a ghost in it, a friend who loved him. In its guise she'd spoken long to him and gained his spirit's trust. He was hers, now, as her lover-lord had promised; all things he learned she'd know as soon as he. None of it he'd remember, just go about his business of war and death. Through him she'd herd Tempus whither she willed and through him she'd know the Riddler's every plan.
For Nikodemos, the Nisibisi bondservant, had never shed his brand or slipped his chains: though her lover had freed his body, deep within his soul a string was tied. Any time, her lord could pull it; and she, too, now, had it twined around her pinky.
He remembered none of what occurred after his interrogation in the grove; he recalled just what she pleased and nothing more. Oh, he'd think he'd dreamed delirious nightmares, as he sweated now to feel her touch.
She woke him with a tap upon his eyes and told him what he was: her pawn, her tool, even that he would not recall their little talk or coming here. And she warned him of undeads, and shrivelled his soul when she showed him, in her mirror-eyes, what Tamzen and her friends could be, should he even remember what passed between them here.
Then she put her pleasure by and touched the bruised and battered face: one more thing she took from him, to show his spirit who was slave and who was master. She had him service her and took strength from his swollen mouth and then, with a laugh, made him forget it all.
Then she sent her servant forth, unwitting, the extra satisfaction - gleaned from knowing that his spirit knew, and deep within him cried and struggled giving the whole endeavour spice.