Emuel screamed as he arched his back, the startling sound echoing through the dank chamber. Reaching out with his right hand, he found the tube that connected to Fitch’s chest and pulled.
“Criminal scum!”
Ignacio’s forehead bounced off the wall, but before he could fall the man grabbed him by the hair and threw his head forward again.
“Vermin!”
Ignacio thought that this time his head made a curiously hollow sound as it cracked against stone. He’d quite like to sleep now; he was awfully tired and someone was calling his Ice cold water splashed across his face and, for a moment, Ignacio thought that he had fallen asleep while on duty on the top deck. But he wasn’t on the Llothriall, he was in a Final Faith prison, and the man who had thrown him repeatedly against the wall was standing over him — a bucket in his left hand, his right held out before him.
“Come on, get up. It doesn’t have to be like this, you know.”
“Really?” Ignacio said. “Because it would be nice if you stopped hurting me now.”
“And the pain will end, Ignacio, when you accept the Lord of All into your heart.”
“Oh, gods! No, no, no, no, no! Please, let this not be happening. I had enough of this shit as a child.”
“He will welcome you in, if you put your trust in Him. The Lord of All has need of people like you.”
“Listen, I have encountered the power of the Lord first hand, and, believe me, He’s not the all-loving god you seem to think He is.”
“Oh, but we know that, Ignacio. However, the fact remains that you are an apostate, and you now have a simple choice before you.” The man turned away and fumbled with something that sounded heavy and metallic. When he turned around, he was holding a pair of iron pincers. “You can repent of your sins, commit yourself to the Lord of All and join the Order of the Swords of Dawn, or I can pull your fingernails out, one by one, very very slowly.”
For a while, Ignacio endured the pain. He had been interrogated and tortured before, and he doubted that the Faith could do anything worse to him than the various port authorities he had run up against in the past.
He was wrong. The man of faith worked him with consummate skill and it wasn’t long until Ignacio was screaming for mercy.
And when he was shown the love and compassion of the Lord of All, when he was offered His forgiveness and sanctuary, Ignacio gladly took it.
For a moment, Yuri merely looked on in horror at the hissing air tube and his suffocating master. Then he quickly wheeled Querilous away from Emuel and fumbled with the pipe, trying to slot it back into the connection. By the time the breathing apparatus was re-attached, Querilous was a pale blue. Yuri looked at his master, horror overwhelming him at the thought he might be dead, until, with a shudder, Fitch came round. His eyes rolled madly for a while until they fixed on the eunuch, who was half out of his chair, his left hand still bound.
“Yuri, wheel me in close.”
“What are you going to do, Querilous?” Emuel laughed. “You’re nothing but a helpless cripple, with an idiot for an assistant.”
The idiot of an assistant was stronger than he looked; the blow that connected with Emuel’s head knocked him out cold.
“I had a feeling this interrogation was going to be pointless,” Querilous said.
The door to the chamber opened and Katherine Makennon swept into the room. She didn’t have any of her usual retinue with her. Querilous was especially pleased to note the absence of Jakub Freel, who had somehow managed to wheedle his way into the inner circles of the Faith.
Querilous’s assistant dropped to his knees and averted his eyes as the Anointed Lord came towards them.
“You are dismissed,” Makennon said.
“Anointed One, without meaning to question your wisdom,” Querilous said, “I am somewhat at a disadvantage without Yuri’s aid.”
“I do apologise. For some reason I keep forgetting about the extent of your… condition.”
“May I ask what brings you this far below Scholten?”
“I think, Querilous, that we need to employ a different tactic in our hunt for the fugitives. Have our two prisoners been adequately broken?”
Querilous looked at the unconscious form of Emuel and smiled. “I believe so. And the radicalisation of Ignacio is proceeding according to plan.”
“Then there is a sorcerer who may be able to help us. Although he is getting on in years, he’s one of the most powerful practitioners of magic known to the Faith. What is more, he has offered to give up his life in order to perform one last, overwhelming rite.”
The manipulator said nothing for a moment. The only sound was the hiss and wheeze of his breathing regulator as he stared at the Anointed One.
“What of Brother Sequilious?”
“He is sadly no longer with us. I do somewhat regret my punishment of him. But we all have our off days, do we not?”
Querilous wheezed in agreement.
“You have two days to prepare the prisoners. After that time they will be departing for the Drakengrat mountains with a contingent of the Order of the Swords of Dawn. We will have our fugitives, Querilous, and more importantly we will have Silus Morlader. The Final Faith could certainly use a man of his talents, in these uncertain times.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The inhabitants of the desert settlement surrounded them; reaching for their clothes, stroking their hair, tugging at their hands, all as they chattered in a staccato, high-pitched language. A finger prodded Silus painfully in his side and he slapped the hand away, only for another to tug at his shirt. It wasn’t that these people were being aggressive — that much was obvious from their expressions of happy curiosity — they just hadn’t seen folk quite like the ragged crew of the Llothriall before.
There was a commotion towards the back of the tumult and a metal staff rose above the heads of the crowd, sweeping from side to side as it approached. A path was cleared. The man wielding the staff was a little taller than most, and his white hair was cropped close to his scalp. Like those that surrounded him, his skin was pale and flawless, although there was something about his eyes that was disconcerting, and when he came to the head of the crowd Silus realised what it was: the man’s pupils were silver.
The crowd fell silent as the silver-eyed man looked at the crew, holding the staff out to each in turn. Dunsany looked ready to meet it with his sword, but a glance from Silus told him to be calm.
“We mean no harm,” Silus said, stepping forwards. “We find ourselves somewhat lost and were hoping you could help.”
As Silus spoke the man adjusted the rings running down the middle of the staff, each one inscribed with a symbol.
“What is this place called?” Silus persisted. “Are you” — another ring clicked into place — “native to this-”
The staff began to hum.
“I apologise for the delay,” the man said. “Though your words are not entirely unknown, it took me a time to configure the correct combination. Please, follow.”
The man turned and started to head towards the centre of the settlement. Silus stared after him for a moment before following, the rest of the crew following him hesitantly.
As they made their way through the crowd, Silus noticed the girl who had led them to this place looking at them with a kind of awe. She held up her pet and smiled, and he waved at her. She bashfully ducked back into the crowd and darted away.
Silus was grateful for the respite from the sun when they stepped into the shadows cast by the settlement’s houses. The dwellings that surrounded them seemed to have been sculpted from the sand on which they sat. A few rose a foot or so higher than their neighbours, and a few had domed rather than flat roofs, but otherwise they were very similar. However, rising above them all, Silus could just see the summit of something remarkable.