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~~*~~
6
Captured
Captured
~~*~~
HE
DREAMED he was stretched wide on a rack, his arms and legs pulling free of
their sockets. He screamed, but could not move.
>>7<<
His
back ached; he could not feel his hips or butt. His head throbbed like it had
been hit repeatedly with a hammer.
He
couldn't seem to be able to pull himself to full consciousness, as though
something was holding him under. He fought against it, and had some success: he
could sense the light of day above him as he struggled, could sense it getting
closer and closer ... But then that thing, whatever it was, would press down on
him and force him back under, where he'd lose himself again and pass back into
unconsciousness. He could sense that pressure poking into his mind like an ice
pick, and he fought it. But it could not poke through, as it clearly wanted to,
and when he was submerged again it could not try at all, as though his mind was
too far under to reach and jab at. He got the sense that whatever was trying to
harm him was incompetent at it, but desperate, like its life depended on
getting through. He'd come out of it in even more pain than before, hazy and
confused, and try to go back.
Was
he dead? Had he been judged for his life and was now being tortured for all
eternity in Damnation? That's what it felt like.
He
made one last push for light, and, fitfully shaking his head, opened his eyes.
He
blinked, focusing ...
Light
… yellow light—an oil lamp. It hung on a wall past cold black bars and lit only
a small volume of the space he was in. The rest was cast in shadow.
He
tried to move and found he couldn't. He looked up left, right. His wrists were
bound to chains above his head.
Wall
… wooden … damp. He was sitting against it. He gazed down and discovered he had
a beard, one long enough to itch his chest when his chin dropped. He still wore
his dead (fake) Emasculatem.
It
smelled faintly of death in here, of cold metal and rot.
He
was still naked, as he had been those last terrifying moments aboard his
singleship.
His
legs …
His
ankles were bound as well, and spread wide. But his legs ... weren't broken,
weren't shattered.
They'd
healed somehow while he was unconscious.
It
was apparent he had been out a long time.
How
long?
Where
was he?
The
last thing he remembered was being on the back of a gigantic Keeper. He was
trying to reach the mainmast of his tipped ship. His legs and ankles were
broken; he was trying to get to the sails when the monster shifted during its
battle with another, mutant Keeper, sending the Selaki careening towards him.
That
was it. He couldn't remember more than that, try as he might.
Now
he was here—wherever "here" was.
Bootsteps
and muffled voices sounded out above him.
He
could also feel the entire structure he was in rock back and forth very gently,
as though riding calm seas.
"Shit,”
he murmured. “Shit.”
Somehow
he'd survived the titanic battle between the Keepers. He'd survived—only to be
captured by the Imperials.
~~*~~
He
wasn't hungry, and his thirst wasn't so urgent that he noticed it immediately.
He'd been fed, then, while he was unconscious. Which meant the Imperials had at
least one Healer aboard, one skilled enough to get him to eat and drink while
he was out. Which meant they wanted him alive and healthy.
Why?
He
stared at his unbroken legs, spread wide and bound by heavy chains. He gazed at
the inert Emasculatem against his chest, barely visible at the very bottom of
his sight. He looked up, above him.
The
chains were part of an elaborate construction, a crisscrossing mishmash of more
chains and wooden rigging and pulleys. He located the end of another chain, one
with a big grip. It hung in the gloom near the ceiling, ominously.
Torture?
Was he going to be tortured?
Then
why Heal him?
In
the gloom to the left, beyond the bars of his particular cell, he spied more
cells, more bars. They appeared unoccupied. As far as he could tell they didn't
come with the elaborate rigging found in his.
To
the right was bare floor; along that wall hung various tools. There was a cast
iron stove, black, complete with a silver metal soot stack to funnel smoke out.
The stove appeared unused, cold.
He
considered the hopelessness of his situation.
He
thought of the Selaki. The Imperials
would have boarded her and searched her thoroughly. (He guessed that the sea
paper and other damning effects were safe; the Selaki had many impossible-to-find storage spaces deliberately
built into her.) Once that task was complete, they'd destroy her.
Or—they
would try to.
He
swore under his breath.
He
still didn't know why his captors had Healed him. But why they had kept him
alive was no longer in doubt.
~~*~~
The
Imperial sailor descended stairs that led down from the open hatch to Anurag's
far left some hours later. He held a wooden bowl in one hand and keys in the
other. He opened the cell and squatted between his legs.
The
bowl was half full of thick gruel or something similar.
"Open
your mouth," ordered the sailor in Gyssian, dead eyes staring.
Anurag
kept his mouth closed. A tense minute passed as the men stared at each other.
The
soldier stood, bowl in hand, and exited the cell, locking it behind him and
marching back up the stairs a moment later. The hatch swung closed with a loud boom!
Here it comes, thought Anurag.
~~*~~
He
thought of Transforming as a means of escape, but immediately vetoed the
notion. It might get him out of the
chains, but he couldn't be sure. Even if it worked, then what? He'd still be
locked in this cell, and there was no guarantee that his Transformed self
wouldn't be seriously injured. This was, after all, a relatively small,
confined space, and his shark Transform was quite large.
Hours
passed.
His
shoulders were in agony, as were his upper hips, back, and legs. Hunger
competed now with pain for his attention, and his parched throat and swollen
tongue yearned for water.
To
distract himself he thought of home, and his mother, and Orion.
More
than anything else in the world, he was fighting for them. Despite the prickly
relationship he had with his mom, one that had always been so since he could
remember, he loved her very deeply. The source of the prickliness was easy to
trace, easy to see. It was because they were so much alike in their
stubbornness, in their concentrated willfulness. She had given him her
headstrong worldview, and Anurag had taken it and made it his own. The many
battles that ensued were inevitable.
And
Orion ... Anurag smiled as his nephew's face came into his mind's eye. Orion. A
great, great kid, he thought. Honest. True. Full of life and mischief and
wide-eyed adventure. He too was stubborn and willful, but he possessed traits neither
his grandmother nor he had ever mastered: that of gentle courteousness and
affability. Orion didn't get his way by brute force. He got his way with a
brilliant, disarming smile and by somehow getting you to think that what you
want is what he wants, even though moments before you were quite opposed to it.
Anurag's
smile faded.
Life
and mischief and wide-eyed adventure: qualities the Imperium loathed and
systematically eradicated.
He
thought of Brinkley and Tal, then of Dohbdy and the Poets. The Imperium would
investigate the slaughter of their own, and then they’d send soldiers into the
mountains on a quest for answers and bloody vengeance. They'd bring a new demon
with them, one they would unleash into those valleys and upon the Poets
themselves, should any be found.
Dohbdy's
ueto had a sprig of Antarctic
Cottonwood. They were probably invisible now to anyone who wasn't part of their
small tribe. But what of the rest of the Poets? There were tens of thousands in
the mountains north of Anthtree, and they were all in mortal danger. Like it or
not, the woman Elder was right. He had imperiled them even more than they
already were. The only thing the Poets as a whole had on their side at this
point was time: it would take at least three months for new Tracluse to arrive
in Anthtree.
He
thought of demons killing demons, and wondered how that could happen. It seemed
incredible to him, impossible.
He
thought of the Selaki again. He
reasoned that Imperials were aboard her right now, and were following the Gourei and La Argentina (Cunoc).
They had to be.
They'll
moor his ship in some big port in Neptonius or August, and the Imperium will
take it apart, plank by plank. Or they'll give it their very best. And in so
doing they'll likely discover a secret (secrets!) that he swore to protect with
his life.
He
wondered which ship he was on.
He'll
find out soon enough, he thought.
Some
hours later the hatch swung open again. Down the stairs came a Dreamcatcher and
a sailor. The sailor was holding a bullwhip.
~~*~~
The
Dreamcatcher glided to the outside corner of the cell and inserted a key into a
padlock, one Anurag hadn't noticed. The cell didn't open as it had earlier, a
door swinging open, but slid open, the entire front of it. The bar assembly was
on a track. The Dreamcatcher pushed the bars open, which rattled and clanged
noisily, while the sailor, whip in hand, stood motionless by the oil lamp.
The
Dreamcatcher loomed over Anurag, came to a stop between his legs.
—Your vessel,— it asked in an emotionless
male Voice. —Why can't we destroy it?—
The
life lessons of his headstrong mother ...
He
spat to his side and growled in the Coastal Tongue: "I don't fill my mouth
with Gyssian shit."
Speaking
a foreign language within earshot of an Imperial representative or military
officer was punishable by (of course) death.
The
Dreamcatcher stood still for a few seconds more, coldly contemplating him.
It
backed out of the cell. It motioned the sailor to come forward.
The
sailor reached for the ominous-looking handle hanging near the ceiling and
tugged downward. The assembly instantly came to life with a loud clanging and
grinding of flywheels and chains. Anurag found himself rising off his butt, his
arms spreading wide, his legs spreading wider. The motion by itself was
torture, and he couldn't keep the bellow of pain from tearing out of his
throat.
The
sailor locked the assembly—Anurag couldn't see how that was achieved—then let
the end of the whip, a mishmashed ball of rusty nails, drop to the floor.
He
gave the whip a quick underhand, and the end of it flew off the floor and bit
into Anurag’s hanging testicles.
The
scream that pealed from the back of his throat didn't seem real. Neither did
the pain. He gawked down: his genitals were spouting blood. He looked up in
time to see the sailor crack the whip again. The end snapped into his face,
into his right eye, blinding him instantly.
And
so it went. He passed into shock: he abstractedly heard himself shrieking and
thrashing, the thick chains rattling; he watched with a deathly detached interest
with his one good eye as the bullwhip tore whole chunks of his person from him.
The whip eventually found the good eye, and then he was completely blind.
He
thought he would pass out from the pain. But, horribly, he didn't. When the
torture finally stopped he hung there less a man than ragged, torn flesh over a
large pool of his own blood, groaning incoherently. He could not hear himself:
the whip had tagged both of his ears … but he could feel the vibration of pain
resound through his chest and die at the ends of his exposed and frayed nerves.
There
was a sudden release, and he felt himself splash down on his ass against the
cold wall.
Sometime
later someone touched his forehead. He felt relief flood through him, from his
head down to his toes. It was such a powerful, profound sense of allayment that
he could not keep himself from crying out in joy. At its bottom was
unconsciousness. He fell into it as off a cliff.
~~*~~
His
own breathing woke him. He was snorting and gasping for air. He couldn't help his
chin from falling into his chest, which cut off his windpipe.
He
looked around.
He
could just make out the outline of his toes. He glanced at his legs, at his
genitals, then at his chest. All Healed. Only the thinnest of scars remained to
mark the torture.
Eyesight
... hearing ... Healed.
Despair
threatened to crush him. He closed his eyes.
Torture
the prisoner, then Heal him.
This
could go on forever.
And
he was powerless to stop it.
He
wasn't hungry. Nor was he thirsty.
Take
care of the prisoner. Then bring him within an inch of death. Repeat. It won't
be long before he tells us anything we want to know, before he goes insane with
fear.
Then
we'll kill him.
So
this was how he was going to spend his last days.
He
couldn't keep the tears from welling up, couldn't keep himself from blubbering
a hopeless prayer, over and over again:
"Please, no. Not like this ...
not like this ... I'm not ready ... please, I'm not ready ..."
~~*~~
He
glared at the chains about his wrists and ankles.
He
thought again about Transforming.
"Active
..." he hissed, "... active aecxal
claim. Active ... active ... too close ... way too close ..."
Eyes
clenched, he recited his training:
"Distance
... and ... and acceleration and ... and
... mass—mass!—voids an active aecxal claim. Distance. Acceleration.
Goddamnit! And mass! God-DAMNIT!"
He
growled and shook against his constraints.
"Distance!
Distance! I need distance!
AAAARGH!"
But
distance was the one thing he did not have in this cell.
He
recited the formula:
"Two
thirds by the inverse square of the ... the ... distance ... distance! ... Two thirds ... inverse
square ... critical values dependent on mass of Transformed self ... and
acceleration ... vector ... vector ... the vector ... GODDAMNIT!"
His
shark mass ... would it overwhelm the locks?
The
cell was very well designed. Its bars were solid and thick. The locks wouldn't
have been an afterthought.
Even
so, how could he find the room to achieve the necessary acceleration? And even
if he broke free, what then? What could he achieve against a thousand Tracluse
and a hundred demons?
"Son of a bitch! AAAAAAARGH!"
He
couldn't keep panic from bubbling up in his chest, into his neck, then to his
forehead, where it nested like a swarm of shimmer wasps. He couldn't keep from
trembling and sweating, or the nausea that washed through him in random, sickly
waves.
There
was no escape.
~~*~~
He
saw—felt, more like—dawn break. He heard the increasingly frequent noises of
Tracluse above him. He heard muffled orders being shouted, and he could feel
the ship come alive around him.
Sometime
later a sailor descended the stairs and relit the oil lamp. He carried no whip.
He turned and departed without looking at him. The hatch swung closed moments
later.
He
couldn't help the thought: It's coming
again soon.
He
knew that's what his torturers wanted him to think.
He
knew they wanted him to feel the terror of anticipation, and he felt helpless
to fight it.
But
fight it he did. He fought against the chains spreading him wide. He snarled
and spat like a trapped animal. He wanted to bellow his defiance, but knew
that's what they wanted. They wanted to hear him yell, because that would be a
sure sign that he was defeated, that fear owned him, his will, his spirit.
It
took everything in him to keep from doing so. He bit down until his chin
quavered, his teeth bared, his eyes screwed shut. Sweat poured out of him. He
pissed himself, and it was then that he noticed that the floor was spotlessly
clean of the blood he had spilled earlier, as though it was going to be
inspected later. Shortly after he discovered the grating of the circular drain
between his spread feet.
Someone
had put serious thought into the design and construction of this contraption.
How
many others had met their ends here?
He
forced his breaths over and against blind panic: In! two, three, four, five! ... Out! two, three, four, five! ... He
kept his mouth closed and his growls as quiet as he could.
Black
rage mixed with a furious thirst for enemy blood. He imagined himself feasting
on perverted Imperial meat, and to hell with the consequences. They no longer
mattered. He knew now how to cure himself afterward.
In! two, three, four, five! ... Out!
two, three, four, five! ...
What
was probably an hour later the hatch opened, and the Dreamcatcher and sailor
descended. The bullwhip was coiled neatly about the sailor's forearm, the rusty
ball of nails at its end hanging prominently. Glaring at it, Anurag realized
then it wasn't rusty.
It
was dried blood.
After
unlocking the cell, the Dreamcatcher moved aside, and the sailor came forward
and pulled down on the handle, raising him once again off the floor, spread and
prone.
—Why can't we destroy your vessel?—
demanded the monster over his cries.
Anurag
snorted and spat, hitting the bright-red beast dead-on in its lightless eye.
—Do not let him go unconscious,— the
Dreamcatcher ordered the sailor, who appeared eager to get to work. —I will return momentarily with the Healer.—
The
Dreamcatcher marched up the stairs and out of sight.
The
sailor approached menacingly. He raised the ball of blood-encrusted nails to
Anurag’s nose.
"You
won't last," he snarled in Gyssian, dead eyes staring. "No one does.
Soon you will be crazy. Healed and crazy. Tell us what we want to know right
now and I'll drop this whip and come back with my sword. It'll be quick. Just a
quick cut here—"
He
grabbed him by his hair, pulling his head back, and dragged the ball across his
Adam's apple, cutting his windpipe open. He was suddenly sucking air through
his gushing neck—
—"and
it'll all be over."
What
Anurag remembered of the following hours would be pushed to the very back of
his mind, lodged there forever as a reminder of why he chose to be a warrior
for a kingdom of right and light.
The
sailor showed no restraint as he had the first time. He whipped wildly,
angrily, joyfully, his blood-spattered smile gruesome, his laughs and taunts
echoing through the half-light of the prison. The Dreamcatcher, standing
impassively to the side, would occasionally order him to stop, and the Healer,
a tall, dark sailor with long, bony fingers, would Heal him, at least enough to
keep him alive, where the sailor would then resume his whipping. Anurag would
lose his eyesight, his hearing, the flesh of his cheeks, only to have them
return, fresh nerves waiting. He'd have his throat cut, or see his genitals
thrashed from his person, only to watch them grow back, or feel hot blood stop
spurting from under his chin. Once or twice the end of the whip would get stuck
in his ribs, and the torturer, yanking with both hands, would pull a rib free.
The Healer would work quickly then to keep him alive. Those injuries took time
to Heal, and he hung there like a side of beef, head down, drooling.
He
was jibbering without thought now, without awareness that he was, as though the
nails had punctured the treasure chest of his deepest secrets, which now came
spilling out of him, garbled and out of order, mixed and precious.
He
remembered yelling his name near the end as a final defense to a world that
willingly lived and breathed and died under Imperial rule:
"I am Anurag de Bouchard!
ANURAG DE BOUCHARD!"
The
whipping stopped.
The
assembly released, and he fell and hit the wall.
The
Healer touched him.
Unconsciousness like a warm, welcoming, fathomless whirlpool waited, and he tripped headlong into it.>>7<<
~~*~~
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