This story is a work of fiction. It contains crudities, references to violent and sadistic behaviour between adults and children, and expressions of physical violence between adult males. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental.
Warning: This chapter is not easy reading; most pages involve violence to a minor and its effects. This is likely to be the most graphically violent chapter in this saga.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the consent of the author.
My thanks to Rob for his editorial efforts. This saga would be even more incomprehensible without his patient, persistent, labour.
I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.
29 The Book and Volume of My Brain
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven.
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables, - meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain...
Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5, line 98 ff.
Evendal m'Alismogh hated what he had to do next. He paused and watched Aldul straighten, as though pulling together the shreds of his composure. He then spared a glance for Lialityne and turned back to resume questioning Hanikrest.
"When you went to Mausna, your cohort camped briefly outside of Kwo-eda proper, correct?"
"Yes." Both men had been fighting against the restraints since Tothofir first replied to the King. Even as Hanikrest answered, his muscles tensed and bunched in vain.
"Did you find any new victims there and then?"
"Victims? If any of the children I helped were victims, the fault is Tothofir's, not mine."
"How did you decide that?"
"I may scare kids, but no more so than the threat of a spanking or common whipping would. And I do not injure them, do not draw blood, that is what Tothofir likes."
The King was not about to let that delusion remain. "You fucked a seven-year-old, Hanikrest, and before that you had been buggering her. Can you tell Us truthfully that you never caused a child to bleed?"
Hanikrest said nothing. During the pause Evendal glanced fearfully at his son. Kri-estaul watched his father briefly, then turned to a haggard-looking Aldul. The Kwo-edan, ignorant of the child's scrutiny, declined his head, encouraging Evendal to continue.
"Because you are not the one deflowering a child, it does not follow that you do not hurt them. Your self-serving defence is simpleminded and specious. You did irreparable harm to every child you 'subdued.'"
"They wanted it."
Evendal ignored that refrain for the moment. "You and Tothofir have circulated allegations about His Highness, have you not? Fancies that We are but the latest fool snared by a spoiled roue of the Abacus and the Beast?"
"Of course," Hanikrest replied. "Though the Abacus would hardly have been a challenge for him, I cannot imagine the Most Wise Counsellor getting aroused by anything not made of Kul-stone. Still, after two years wearing his buttocks out for the Beast, 'His Highness' must be the most prized submissive in Osedys. If I ever got the opportunity, I know the sweetling would enjoy it as much as I would!"
"Scheming whelp of a hare and a dog!" Evendal m'Alismogh snarled.
Your acorns twine like acanthus,
Your fingers break in mid-reach,
If you come near Our son and heir,
If you act on your torpid speech.
The King turned. "How is it with you, my son?"
"What did you just do, Papa?"
"Guaranteed your safety from this dung-born weasel. Were he to move a finger-length closer to you, that finger would be useless to him."
"Oh. That is good." Kri-estaul's tone made it clear that he had felt no threat, a reaction of implicit trust not lost on Evendal.
"Tell me more of your time in Kwo-eda."
"Tothi and I had a bit of fun with a lamb there, yes. Is that what you mean?" Sweat trailed down the man's hairline.
"A lamb?"
"A sweet, happy child, bleating and wide-eyed over everything. Very friendly. I haven't thought about him in a long time."
Tothofir opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
Watching Aldul's bronzed face grow pale, Evendal felt nauseous. "You two buggered him? Why?"
Hanikrest answered. "Of course. He wanted it, the sexy little animal. Flirted with everyone at camp, smiled at Tothi and me." Aldul shook his head unsteadily at this assertion. "Well, I promised him a look at my old sword, and that's what he got. More than a look, too. He took to it like a fish to water."
Evendal had endured a surfeit of such drivel. "Who 'took to it?' Who?"
The reply did not emerge so readily. "I did. Your Majesty. Only I. But he wanted it, nonetheless."
"Oh? How do you know this? Did he ask you?"
"No. No one asks. That is just nonsense."
"Well, then how did you know he wanted it?"
"I could tell through the way he acted around me, the way he looked at me."
"You are sounding like a selfish adolescent. Hanikrest, look in Our eyes and tell Us who wanted it. You? The children?"
Foolishly, Hanikrest obeyed. "I. Only I. Every time. Stop this, Your Majesty. Please." Hanikrest's face had become frozen in a wide-eyed expression of surprise, while his mouth corrected his answer. Considering how the man had been speaking more freely than he would have in any mundane circumstance, Evendal thought it odd that he should only now show shock.
"No. We do not want to hear that particular lie again, Hanikrest. More importantly, We do not want you to hide behind that lie. The thought that your victims desire your attack, want you to subdue them, is henceforth like a jellyfish in the waters of your mind: transparent and ungraspable. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"So you recall your assault in the province of Kwo-eda well?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Did the Kwo-edan signal in any way that he enjoyed your attentions?"
"No. No, Your Dread Majesty."
"And why have you said that he did?"
"I don't kn... It is what we told him repeatedly. What I used to tell myself with my first few conquests. To make him the one responsible for my fucking him. When a submissive child is told something by an adult with power and authority, even so obvious a lie, it gives the assertion authority, belief."
"Again. Tell Us, who enjoyed the boy's deflowering and prolonged rape?"
"Tothofir and I. Halatwyn, Phausinef..."
"Never mind listing them again." The King's glow waxed brighter. "Why did you assault a child of your hosts?"
"Because he... Because I wanted it." Hanikrest tried punching his own arms to distract his mind, hoping to silence himself.
"Yes. Because you wanted what?"
"Supremacy. Control over him. He was so afraid, so helpless, and I had made him that way. I enjoyed him and he could not stop me. He begged and pleaded in fear of me for bells and bells."
The Songmaster watched the man's pupils shrink, as the extent of his helplessness began to register again, as answers Hanikrest had never admitted to himself emerged from his mouth. "Tell Us again. Why do you rape children?"
"Because I want to. Because I can. Nothing is sweeter than having someone look up into my eyes and plead for their life with everything they have and are. It makes me feel so potent." Panic replaced surprise in Hanikrest's expression.
"Who has died of your assaults?"
"I do not know, Your Majesty. The boy we had in Kwo-eda was our wildest prank..."
"Prank?" Aldul barked.
"Our sloppiest work. But so sweet! A tiny bit of a brat, lovely tight hole and a real hardy screamer. Delicious."
Evendal m'Alismogh's eyes burned, giving the walls a burnished brassy look and making the day sky showing through the window seem overcast. "How many soldiers were participants then?"
"Ten, Your Majesty."
Aldul, stiffly immobile, made a noise of protest too much like a whimper. The King looked to his friend, who stood with Bruddbana's help and walked unsteadily around the bed. At a signal from his liege, the solid Guard joined the Kwo-edan.
Evendal shut his eyes briefly, restoring the proper light values to the room, took a deep breath and, when he opened dimmer eyes, proceeded on. "How many were Thronelanders?"
"Four, including myself and Tothi."
"Do the other two Thronelanders yet live?"
"No, Your Majesty. They died at Mausna."
Evendal and Bruddbana heard Aldul's breathed "Good."
"And what of the other six rapists?"
"What of them, Your Majesty?"
"Do you recall whence they came?"
Hanikrest nodded. "Yes. Three from Donnath-luin, two from Arkedda, one from Alta-edda."
"Know you whether any of them survived Mausna?"
"Two of the Donnati intended to flee at the beginning of the first battle. Other than that, I do not know."
Evendal turned and hazarded a glance at Aldul. He stood, looking smaller than usual, clearly waiting for the King's eyes to stray his way. He nodded his acquiescence to what he knew was next, then turned his melancholy gaze on a wide-awake Kri-estaul.
"Tell Us what you executed on the Kwo-edan's person."
"I forced him to suck my cock. To take it down his throat. At knifepoint. I came down his throat and kept myself there until his face grew blue and red. Just to scare him and enjoy the fear in his eyes. So he knew I had the power of death over him. I had him eat out my soiled bum, and thank me for the gifts. I fucked him. I was not his first, Tothi was, but I wanted to make it unforgettable for him. I did."
"What did you do?"
"I had his arms bound from the top of the tent centre post and had another soldier hold his sword point against the little cock-tease's chest while I fucked him. If he couldn't take my thrusts without a lot of moving, it was his misfortune."
"Did he succeed in avoiding the blade?"
Hanikrest stuffed his fist in his mouth. At a look from the King, the hand, tendons straining, lowered. "Not completely. I made certain of that."
"What else did you do to the Kwo-edan child?"
"Toward morning I pissed on his face. When he didn't react, I decided he was either dead or close to dead. By then I was too squiffed to dare bend down and see if he was still breathing."
Sygkorrin intruded. "You did more to him than you have mentioned so far, Hanikrest. What did you tell the child?"
Hanikrest, aside from a darting of the eyes, gave no sign that he had heard.
"You shall answer Her Eminence, and truthfully!"
"Nothing, Your Maj... That we knew where his father stood in the lines and we could knife the man in the confusion of battle so none would know but him and us. That his sister had come by the tents earlier, just that morning, and we had asked her to come back the next morning -- that we would have a surprise for her. I told him I wanted to show her the same sword he was sheathing. When he pleaded with us to stop, I told him I could just as easily kill the girl as fuck her unless he started liking everything we did to him. He could not even think clearly by then, but he knew what I wanted. When he begged 'swyve me,' he made up in desperation what he lacked in believability. At different times in the night I or one of my fellows promised to take him with us to use between skirmishes. He didn't know any better. He believed it all."
"What became of the Kwo-edan boy, Hanikrest?"
To the King's surprise, water flooded the man's sun-wrinkled eyes and slipped down the bridge of his nose. "If I were to guess, he died. Fucked to death, he died happy." The gleeful tone of voice was totally at odds with the sorrow on the man's face.
"Whence the tears, Hanikrest?"
"To convince you of my remorse." Hanikrest paused, again surprised at his own admission. "I do not understand what is happening here. How you can force such gibberish... us to tell you all we have done, though it means our death? I am scared... and furious! I want to say how much I regret what I have done!"
The High Priestess looked from Hanikrest to the King in surprise.
"We know you want to say that," Evendal replied cynically, lifting an eyebrow. "Is it so?"
The man shook his head in the affirmative. "I regret... I regret that you found out about them. I wish I had never touched whichever tattler confessed."
"Rabbit-loving, heartless scorpion," Aldul muttered, gripping the bed. Bruddbana moved to touch his shoulder, but thought better of the gesture.
Again Evendal asked, looking directly at the man, "What became of the Kwo-edan, Hanikrest?"
"I do not know and do not care. If he did not die, I would be much surprised."
Evendal nodded. "Look at the man to Our left, behind Us. Do you recognise him?"
"I am not cer... yes, Your Majesty. I beg mercy, Your Majesty."
"Of course you do. How old was he?"
"I did not care, but if I were to guess... he had eight years. Just the age I like."
Aldul choked. Evendal and Sygkorrin turned to him quickly. Twelve," Aldul rasped. "I had twelve years. Just. And small for my age!"
"Why did you rape him? Why attack any of them?" Sygkorrin asked, reacting to the sight of her priest's misery.
"Because I feel better when someone else feels horrid. I want them to feel helpless, useless because of me. Then I feel powerful, important. Their minds can encompass nothing but fear of me and what I might do. They can do nothing but hope I permit them to survive." He began to sob again.
"What does that make you?"
Hanikrest answered between gasps for air. "Remembered." The answer was absurd, and credible.
Evendal shook his head. "Not here. It makes you t'bo. Why do you cry now?"
"You make me... I sound like some petty and bitter weaselly coward. I never thought of myself as anything but a good man. Tough but well-intentioned."
Evendal nodded after his initial astonishment. With Hanikrest having successfully deluded himself that he was training children to submit to authority and that he was 'awakening' their sexual character, the most vital rationalisation was an inevitability.
"A good man, aside from your delusion of helping children by fucking, terrifying, and demoralising them?"
Hanikrest grimaced. "Yes, Your Majesty. My friends and my neighbours all know me well enough that they trust me in their homes and with their valuables. I have never stolen nor felt the urge to steal. I have always been ready to help when asked. I have hidden people sought by Polgern's Guard, who would otherwise have gone to the stonefields and died. Tothofir and I have listed children as our apprentices -- for the Shipwrights -- whom we did not dare allow near a blade lest they hurt themselves. My home has always been open to those dispossessed by either lord, so that I have many hoghenhyne.(92) Senneh-rien and Tothofir made me nathlil for both their children, as has one of my neighbours."
Every single word spoken rang true, as did the sense that Hanikrest had not had an ulterior motive in those acts of civil defiance. The accumulation of Hanikrest's kudos would support anyone's positive self-perception. The idea of this man as default guardian of anyone's children knotted Evendal's gut.
"Hanikrest, We do not challenge that you are a man of many good qualities and virtues. That is not in question. No doubt your thoughts and desires toward benevolence have always exceeded your actions." The man nodded in relief at being understood.
"Though We have asked the question many times, in truth We do not need to know why you enjoy inflicting terror and violent dominance on children. Why you have given this element in your character such import, why you have nurtured urges many good citizens have felt but do not harbour, is irrelevant. All that matters to Us is that you have done so, and persistently act on them, without true guilt or remorse. Whatever good you do or have done is not relevant to the harm you embody and cherish. Do you imagine Justice holds scales on which one's good and evil deeds are weighed against each other? That is not Justice! It shows no respect for the wronged or for the community."
"You condemn me for feelings, thoughts, and urges that every man has felt or thought?" Hanikrest protested desperately.
"No, foolish man. We condemn you for acting on those thoughts, for most deliberately and joyfully harbouring the ship of manic cruelty in your heart. For worshipping the fancies you created and cherished in your mind and offering children as sacrifices for them, instead of sacrificing your moist delusions for the children."
Sygkorrin heatedly concurred. "You knew the evil of what you did even as you preyed on your fellows. Had you truly believed your behaviour to be honest, you would have proudly and naively divulged your practises to the parents of the children you injured."
"Yes," Evendal decided. "Enough from you for the moment.
"Now We ask Tothofir. Why?"
Tothofir had had plenty of time to recognise the futility of claiming anything like ignorance. "Because I wanted it," he snarled.
"You had women and men travelling with you who were willing to bed you?"
"Of course."
"Then why rape and terrify a naive and trusting boy?"
As Sygkorrin, Kri-estaul, and Aldul squinted, Evendal's eyes flared for a fourth time during the interrogations. The golden blaze from his orbs bleached Tothofir's face. Only the detainee's own eyes and hair remained dark, almost black, in their contrast to the reflection off his skin.
"That is why. Everyone could have those whores, and did. But this was dangerous, sweet. It made me feel good. The boy was a soldier's best consolation. The panic in his eyes when Hanikrest trussed him up was nice, but as we waited for nightfall it occurred to me what an opportunity this slug was. No one would know who had done him. I didn't have to concern myself with what might show. When he understood what we wanted him for, he began to squirm and struggle. One or two times I let him think he might escape, just to make breaking him that much more satisfying. Powerful. He got me the most excited I have ever been. The trails of blood I pulled from him were sweeter than honey. That excited me again and again, it was all I could do not to lick the whip. But whenever he shrieked in pain, I was adamant. It was glorious!"
A poorly muffled sob from behind him broke Evendal's dazed paralysis, the effect of hearing such disjointed bloodlust conveyed so avidly.
"Halt!" he snapped and leapt out of his chair to rush around the bed. Once there, Evendal slowly approached an insensible Aldul, who had buried his head in the curve of Bruddbana's shoulder.
"So, you like whippings?" Evendal m'Alismogh queried Tothofir, his voice cracking with fury and sorrow. "M'em'sreta, eh tsali!"(93)
Tothofir fell forward, sprawling and gasping as he twisted and wriggled on his stomach in soundless agony.
Bruddbana held still, his arms stopped short in the act of embracing the weeping man who clutched at him. He looked to his liege in uncertainty, wanting to complete the gesture but fearful of adding to his counterpart's misery.
Evendal stared at the small, thin-fingered hand that gripped Bruddbana's arm and considered. At a loss himself, and unable to think of a move not fraught with foul associations, Evendal kissed the exposed hand. A pause and, when no bad reaction ensued, the King placed another light kiss on the tensely gripping fingers, and then another, a pause and again yet another gentle touch of the lips. Kri-estaul, watching, giggled in remembrance.
"M'Alismogh?" Aldul finally whispered.
"Here, my friend. Right here."
"You missed a finger."
Evendal grinned through a sob. "Too... too bad."
Aldul turned around to adjudge the King's attitude toward him. "I'm... Forgive me for..."
"Don't! But I owe you an apology. For not keeping you right beside me, for not thinking soberly of how much you could endure."
"Not much, it would seem. I find it difficult to be in the same room."
The King did not reply immediately.
In the lull, Aldul glanced uncomfortably up at the Guard at his side. "My thanks for your forbearance with my distress."
Bruddbana locked gazes with the Kwo-edan. "Forbearance? Are we not friends? If I thought it would help and if I thought you could endure it I would hold you until you knew in your very marrow that you were safe. If the hands, heads, and pizzles off those two dastards would comfort you, they would be yours before your next breath. Ierwbae had... has Metthendoenn, I have Falrija, His Highness and His Majesty help each other. But whom do you have to turn to for the comforting of your heart?"
The Kwo-edan kept his gaze, struggling against embarrassment. "People like you, like Evendal and Kri-estaul, like my Lady Sygkorrin. I am not comfortable with more."
Evendal knew where to lay the blame for that. "Aldul, forgive me for not being gentle. I get the impression that what you cannot endure, what you most fear, is that the chronicling of your passion will greatly alter how we perceive you, how we treat with you."
Aldul indeed froze momentarily. "How can it not?" The look he threw Evendal revealed a weariness born of experience.
"'Tis true," the King concurred. "Our opinion will change. It will be strengthened. As you have since you first ran into the darkness after me, I ask you to trust me now, in this. Will you?"
"You don't need to ask. You trusted me then also, and without reason."
"This will not get any easier," the King warned.
"No," Aldul agreed. "Let us return to it."
Evendal rounded the bed and stopped at the head. "How is it with you, sweetling?"
"Well," Kri-estaul replied. "This is not as confusing to me as other times you've talked to bad people. But what of Uncle Aldul? He really did get hurt like I did?"
"Yes, my son. Very much like you were hurt and lied to."
"Oh," was all Kri-estaul said.
"Tsalem eyat," M'Alismogh commanded, once he returned to his seat. Tothofir untensed, limp and exhausted and breathing in sodden gasps. No marks or blood showed.
"Tell Us what you effected upon him."
"I took him. I was his first. We wrapped a thick cloth around his face. I wanted to hear him, but did not want to alert the entire camp. You see, I take their virginity and when I am through I let Hani have his fun. Well, we got him into our tent, got him..."
"Who got him to your tent and how?"
"Hani did. He never has told me how he manages to get them to walk right in on their own. Then Hani tied his hands and I went for his mouth. He fought with his feet and legs and squealed for a long time. Because he bit me, I decided he needed a swift lesson in the rules of the game."
"This is not some fireside tale! This is a recounting of your perfidy, a reprise of the amazing and unexpected victory of two muscle-hardened men over a completely defenceless child," Evendal snapped scornfully.
"We stripped him, laid him out on the exposed rock that served as the tent floor and I took a few of the leather straps our armour was bound in -- they had tin tips on their ends -- and flogged him as a warm-up. First face up, then face down. That was a unique delight."
Detecting movement, Evendal shifted about. Bruddbana, standing behind Aldul, draped his arm slowly and carefully around him, ready to move away at the slightest pressure. To both King and Guard's relief, the Kwo-edan suffered the touch, the gesture of safekeeping.
"What do you mean? Speak plainly!"
"The shocks from his whipping caused him to gouge himself against the lava rock and granite and mica. I would flog his back and legs, and it would scour and score his chest and face and genitals."
"I would think that that would make him less... alluring, attractive."
Tothofir shook his head. "Not to me, but Hani thought so also. When he got me to stop, we took the little morsel to a mineral pool to revive him. We had to do that a few times, the spineless brat."
"Your commander did not notice? Did no one hear or see?"
"Our commander was busy that night, first entertaining some Kwo-edan functionaries, and then later entertaining a few of the camp whores. The only ones who noticed wanted a piece of the boy."
"We get the idea, Tothofir. What did you do next?"
"I had hammered in a few extra pitons when we set up our tent. Hani and I bound the kid's wrists and ankles to them with differing lengths of hemp. We didn't want him dead from blood loss before the fun really began, so Hani put a bit of oilcloth under him. Then I whipped his ass and asshole for a few passes and then fucked him. Even with the blood to wet him down, he was so tight and tense it hurt my cock entering him. It was indescribable.
"The smell of his blood and faeces really got to me! The sight of his blood almost black on my cock made me dizzy, I thought my head would burst. I remember punching into him for what felt like a bell. And afterwards! I whipped him to tighten him back up again, and to pay him back for fighting me."
"Stay!" Evendal cried out, wondering if he would need the chamber pot to throw up into. When the urge passed, he resumed. "You cannot convince me that you did all this in silence."
"What? No. I let him know what I expected of him. So did Hani. And what he could expect if he disobeyed or disappointed me. Hanikrest had had his eye on the punk for a day or two, had seen him and a sister hanging onto his father -- who was some guild-master. Hani proved he knew the father on sight and threatened to kill the man, unless we were obeyed utterly."
"So Hanikrest told Us. What else did you do to him? We cannot imagine you being content with deflowering a child, then leaving him solely to others."
"'Tis true. I had him again and again. Watching him struggle while my comrades buggered him, seeing the blood and slime and terror, he got me hard three times that night all on his own. While Hanikrest peddled the boy's sweetness to our fellows, the boy entertained me with his feet. I would alternate using a harmless piton and the edge of my knife on the bottoms of his feet and in between his toes. Since he could not move all that much, he never knew when I used my blade and when I did not. One time I thought to use his nipples like candlewicks.
"Halfway through the night's customers, the puling brat began to weaken, stopped responding to the men swyving him. So I woke him up by cutting under his fingernails when he looked to be flagging, and breaking one of his fingers each time that, toward the end, my slicing failed to work."
After a breath, and a moment's consideration, Sygkorrin spoke up, starting with a simple question having an obvious answer. "Tothofir, do those whom you deflower want it?"
Like his friend, Tothofir also had tears streaking his face, but born of physical pain. Unable to summon an eye flow at will, Tothofir resorted to the expedient of clenching his fists until his jagged nails punctured the skin. Evendal ignored both the blood and the effect. Also like his friend, Tothofir failed to respond to the woman.
"You also will honour the Archate with prompt and honest answers," Evendal demanded.
"Want it? No. Need it? Yes. They need someone who sees through their nonsense. A firm hand and a firmer cock, I say. Spare them your rod and you'll spoil the child."
"So," the King concluded, "had you less than fourteen years and got on my nerves or did not pay me the attention I wanted, I would have the right to attack you, indeed an obligation to bugger you? You truly believe every adult feels that way?"
Tothofir nodded.
"Such nonsense is the base of your assertions about Our son that brought you to Our attention. Base indeed. Why is the root of evil acts always arrogance coupling idiocy?"
"What evil acts?" the man responded.
M'Alismogh held Tothofir's gaze. "Do those whom you deflower want it?"
"No, of course not. If they do, I don't want them."
The King persisted, the light off his face still brilliant. "Do those whom you deflower need it?"
"They are annoying brats with needy prats..." Tothofir began paraphrasing an old rhyme, only to halt on his own as Evendal's luminescence seared into his almost pupilless eyes. "No, none of them do. But I want it. I want them to hurt!"
"Why?" Evendal asked. "Why did you enjoy hurting the Kwo-edan?" He felt dense, stupid, in asking again.
"I just did. He had no right to be happy when I was going into battle."
"And you rape your own daughter?" Sygkorrin demanded. "For what?"
"I explained. Only when the lot of them get me to where I want to take the paring knife to them. Or some nights, when I cannot wait, that's when I put her to bed. I keep a lot of rags around her room. I want so much to fuck her properly, she's sure to be tight, but I also want the little Noise-box to know what she's losing when I take her; she's not old enough to understand yet."
Evendal bent forward to peer at Tothofir. "You persist in your arrogance, foolish corpse. Again, why do you enjoy the pain of others?"
The voice that suddenly came out of Tothofir was hardly recognisable as his. What sounded like a pouting child, blind with a single-minded selfishness, higher toned and nasal, emerged from the solid, weather-beaten, middle-aged body. "Because they don't care about me. How I feel. My daughter used to come up to me when I came home from working the forests. I would be tired and furious and she would walk up to me wanting to be held and kissed, acting happy. How could she be happy when I felt like killing someone! She did not care what I wanted, how my day was. It was all about her! I get tongue-lashed by my overseer and she wants to show me some stupid wildflowers she picked! She knows better now. My wife used to tell me about everyone she spoke with during a day, everything they said to each other. Blerwm, blerwm, blerwm! Until I shut her up by making a habit of grudge-fucking and dry-buggering her when I first walked in. Now she keeps herself moist, her thoughts to herself, and her attention on me -- not the children."
Evendal shook his head, even as Sygkorrin did, from like thoughts of sympathy for the disillusioned Senneh-rien, who had doubtless thought his ardour stemmed from their being separated each day.
"Enough for the moment." Evendal shifted his bright metallic gaze. "Now do you know who sits before you, Tothofir?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Do you still feel good about the ruin you made of his boyhood?"
Tothofir ground his jaw.
"You will answer Us."
"I don't care. I don't care, Your Majesty. I got what I wanted then. There I was, about to be killed for all I knew. With little chance to refuse and nothing but the soldier's mite for pay or reward. And that spoiled, taunting chit, flaunting his freedom from any duty! I decided he would be my compensation."
"We have had a trying morning, Tothofir. Shall We take out Our frustration on you? Does that sound like a good idea?"
Tothofir stood.
Evendal m'Alismogh countered quickly.
You shall not move but as We will,
You cannot breathe but as We choose,
You both are Ours, to keep or kill,
Every right of man you now lose.
"You may speak as We address you," Evendal informed the living statues. "Again, Tothofir. Dealing with your obstinacy has been frustrating. Why should We refrain from taking a knotted rope and whipping you until you faint? Why?"
"Your Majesty, I am a citizen, a survivor of the worst battles in our history..."
"Didn't We make matters clear? Lialityne? List also that Tothofir agdha Tohenfys, adjudged a danger to Our home, is stricken of all liberties; of movement, of status, of name and identity. Let him be so marked: t'bo."
Shakily, the young woman obeyed while Evendal stared grimly at the rapist. "You were a citizen. Were. Now you are t'bo. As for your being a veteran of Mausna, the moment you touched the Kwo-edan boy with intent to ignore his well-being, you became a brigand, not a soldier. As an agent of the Thronelands, your liberties were circumscribed because the intent of the late King was the welfare of more than just Osedys, and you accompanied him specifically to ensure that. We recall clearly Our father setting down the regulae for his legions prior to leaving the city. So using your reason for assaulting the Kwo-edan boy, We have every right to whip and violate you. Is that not correct? Kneel, dastard! Are you ready 'for some fun?'"
"Evendal," Aldul whispered. The King turned around. "Stop, please."
"Aldul?" Evendal fought his voice's sudden tremor, his eyes waxing impossibly brighter. "He hurt you. He enjoyed hurting you. I want to strip him of his skin and throw him in a salt bin. Both of them!"
"I know." Aldul shivered and held fast to Bruddbana's arm. "But I have never wasted time on hoping or wishing for their degradation; and watching and listening to you now reminds me too much of them during that long night. Please stop."
"Oh, thunder and lightning! Whatever you need. Tell me. I just feel so powerless."
Aldul almost laughed, hearing that from the most powerful mortal he was ever likely to know; but it was true. "Only two wishes have I ever had toward the men who... who attacked me."
"Tell Us."
"One was that they never hurt anyone again, a child's wish, because they have hurt many since then. The other was that they had died. At Mausna."
"I can arrange for that second wish to be fulfilled now, if you want."
Aldul stared directly into Evendal's incandescent gaze.
"I cannot undo what they have done to people since Mausna. But I can compel them to a forced march to Mausna, into what is left of it, and to keep on walking through swamp until they run afoul of its denizens or until they drown."
Aldul stood quiet, considering. When he spoke he surprised both Evendal and Sygkorrin. "There was more."
"More?" The Priestess did not understand.
"Tell His Majesty of my hobbles," the Kwo-edan demanded of his former captors. The men knelt in silence. "Hanikrest?"
Unlike Sygkorrin, Evendal was afraid he did understand. "Tell Us!"
Fierce-eyed, the Thronelander responded. "A simple Y-shape made of wire-reinforced oiled leather with a buckled loop at the end of each arm."
"To what purpose?"
"Every time the boy struggled, pulling with his legs, he tightened the loops, the fixed tongue of each buckle dropped into an eyelet further up the loops."
"Cutting off blood flow."
Hanikrest nodded. "And if the loops are set against a child's knees, even greater pain and damage happens."
Evendal m'Alismogh glared at the man. "Reword that more honestly!" he commanded.
Shaking, Hanikrest complied. "And since I set the loops taut against this Aldul's knees, I caused great agony and lasting damage. Mercy, Your Majesty!"
"Mercy, Hanikrest, is for the repentant. Not for the remorseful or regretful, and not for those who are merely fearful of consequence. Tell Us, Hanikrest. If you now had the freedom that you gave yourself on the eve of Mausna, and had a child in your power, would you do unto that child as you did to this man behind Us?"
"No, Your Majesty," Hanikrest affirmed, then added, "I have thought up more exciting methods since then. Less messy."
"And thus do you condemn yourself, Hanikrest. We need not ask that question of your comrade. He has already told Us his answer, being under fewer delusions than you and more clearly disdainful of anyone other than himself.
"Has Tothofir been your only collaborator in Osedys?"
"No. I had another friend. But he died recently."
"Even so, you will name him to Us."
"Hren-hallekh."
"The name sounds familiar," Evendal cudgelled his memory. "Oh, yes, the conspirator and former Scrivener. How many children did you terrorise through his aid?"
"Three. His son Markandeial, and two who were never named to me."
"What else did you inflict on the Kwo-edan?"
"Not... nothing, Your Majesty."
Evendal thought the hesitation odd. "What are you deliberately not telling Us?"
"Forgive me, Your Majesty! I pointed out the Mastersinger of Kwo-eda to Tothofir."
M'Alismogh turned to where Sygkorrin sat quietly. She stood and calmly made her way around the bed. "And what eventuated from that, Tothofir?"
"I had the son and the father."
Evendal blinked, not certain he had heard correctly. "You did what?"
"I took the son's ass that night. And a few sennights later, the father's."
"You will explain."
Tothofir's eyes were wild, and he had begun to sweat again. "Hanikrest had singled the fool out for me, in case we needed to actually make good on our threats. I thought no more of it until I saw him near the battle lines. He was helping provide arrows for a group of archers, and I was holding an infantry line. The fighting had been crazy, rough, and with hardly any sense or order. So when I saw this milquetoast without a scratch on him, my cock decided I should fix that. The Nikraan horde obliged me with a feint right where he had ended up. In the melee I coshed him over the head, covered his upper body in my cloak and ripped the war kilt off him. He struggled, but at first he was too weak and dazed to do more than get me excited. One of my shield mates saw what I was about and smiled, he thought I was giving it to one of those Nikraan! Which was just what I had hoped anyone would think.
"Even though where I was had calmed down briefly, the battle lines never held for long. Everything around me was so wild and dangerous I couldn't enjoy the fuck. I hardly remember it. When I finished up, I waved Hani over, which was dumb of me; he got bashed on the helmet and fell. I was so riled I went at the savage that knocked him out. After I gutted him, I pulled Hani back to a safe hole. I looked around and saw the old pussy-man stagger to his feet, still covered in my cloak. Some fools must have thought he was Nikraan, because he got hit with three arrows and went down again. When I checked on Hani, his helm wasn't even dented..."
"Enough!"
Movement from behind again drew Evendal's attention. Aldul reeled toward the table, shadowed by Bruddbana, to regurgitate into Kri-estaul's krater. Such were his tremors that he could not contain the chyme within the bowl. The Guard, one arm around the smaller unfortunate, reached out with the other arm and steadied the bowl.
"Neither of you fools may move from there, nor may you utter a sound," Evendal reiterated as he and Sygkorrin stood and joined the Kwo-edan.
Aldul wiped his lips with the back of his hand and stared into the dish with a glassy-eyed expression. After two deep breaths he straightened up. Whatever passed inside his head showed not at all on his face. "Bruddbana?" His voice came out steady, light.
The Guard took a step back, again sharing gazes with the man who had, for a short time, been his chief irritant. "I would be happy to..."
"No. 'Tis for me to do. Please."
"As you will. Have you ever?"
"No, but..."
"Shh. That's fine. Two important details. You have to use a great deal of power, if you want to do it cleanly. And you must not hold it in too tight a grip, unless you want it to jump out of your hands."
Aldul nodded.
Bruddbana untied his sword. "With Your Majesty's permission?"
His mind full of misgivings, Evendal waved for them to continue. "Are you cert...? Never mind. I did not ask that. Hielbrae? Occlude His Highness, please."
The Guard obeyed, much to Kri-estaul's dismay.
"No! Let me see! The scum should die! Let me see!"
"Not yet, Your Highness," Aldul whispered gently.
Bruddbana extracted his sword and handed it hilt first to Aldul. The Kwo-edan raised his eyebrows at the weight, hefted it a few times experimentally, then walked around the bed.
"Aldul," Sygkorrin remonstrated, "this has never been our way."
Aldul stopped to stare back at his High Priestess, Bruddbana's blade resting like a club on his shoulder. "Do you seriously think I care?" Without preamble, he turned back and walked in front of Tothofir. He lifted the sword off his shoulder, holding it in a firm grip, hilt up. With a frown of concentration, he carefully judged its placement and angle, and then only lightly helped the weight of the sword drop its point into the malefactor's lap.
The contempt in Tothofir's face gave way to shock, followed quickly enough by pain. No sound emerged, as per Evendal m'Alismogh's command, though blood and other fluids seeped through the torn garments and onto the floor. For several breaths Aldul stood impassive, watching Tothofir try to twist in his agony. The burly fighter eventually managed to stare up at the priest and mouth the words, "Kill me." Aldul moved not at all, the sword point still fixing the ruin of the man's genitals to the floor.
In his own time, the Kwo-edan dragged the blade tip across the floor, and only then chose to lift it. He moved in front of Hanikrest. The terrified man did not wait on anyone, but released his bladder unaided. Aldul stayed his hand until Hanikrest opened his mouth, then pushed the soiled sword in, clumsily ripping at the man's face. Unable to move away and unwilling to fall backwards, the second malefactor froze as Aldul regained control of the blade.
When Hanikrest gagged, desperate to keep from moving yet needing to release the blood clogging his throat, Aldul asked, "Tothofir, have you anyone who will mourn your dying?"
The big man, hunched over, muscles in protest over the pain and still pulsing blood, paid no attention to the query. So Aldul swept the sword over to Tothofir and prodded his groin.
"Have you anyone who will mourn your dying?"
Tothofir shook his head frantically as he wept.
"And what of you, Hanikrest? Have you anyone who will mourn that you no longer live?"
His awareness centred on the sword, a kneeling Hanikrest shook his head, scattering blood droplets from his now much widened mouth.
"That has been through your own choices," Aldul adjudged.
The King and the Priestess stood and watched with a mixture of awe, anxiety, and sorrow as Aldul stepped behind Hanikrest: awe at Aldul's sudden ruthlessness, anxiety and sorrow at what they expected would ensue later. With an impassivity Evendal would never have credited, the Kwo-edan traced up the man's spine with Bruddbana's weapon, ignoring the snagging of cloth as it dragged along. The expression on Aldul's face still gave no hint of what he might be feeling. He rested the blade against the back of Hanikrest's tensed neck.
Unable to speak, Hanikrest lifted up his hands, palms forward, in a gesture of submission, of supplication.
"Are you begging me for something?" Aldul asked gently, and pulled the sword back. Hanikrest nodded vigorously. "Evendal, if you would?"
"You may speak, Hanikrest," m'Alismogh commanded.
"Please! Please! Don't let him hurt me like that! Please! Mansuetude! Mercy, Your Majesty!"
Evendal shook his head. "We defer to Aldul of Kwo-eda's wishes in this. Entirely."
Again Aldul rested the tip of the blade against Hanikrest's neck. "I am here, Hanikrest. Do you have something you wish to ask of me?"
With no hesitation or thought for the irony, Hanikrest continued to plead. "Please! Forgive me! Don't hurt me! I repent! I repent! Don't!"
"Ass up off your heels!" Aldul demanded. Hanikrest obeyed, and the Kwo-edan set the sword against the man's coccyx. "Ask me again!"
"Please! Forgive me! Please! Don't hurt me! No! No! I repent! I repent! Don't! I repent!"
"Again!" Aldul insisted, intent, no longer seeing the sweating and trembly man before him.
Sygkorrin had been frowning with worry, but the expression shifted slightly into disapproval. Evendal simply waited, worried only for his friend, while Kri-estaul watched in anticipation of Justice as he understood it, wanting the bad man to just shut up.
Aldul shook his head. "No." He took a breath and released it, untensing as he did. Signalled by the flat of the blade tapping his shoulder, Hanikrest resumed kneeling. "I feel nothing but sick to my stomach and scared and profoundly, unalterably, angry." He moved around briefly to Hanikrest's side and wedged the blade against the malefactor's privates.
Hanikrest yelped. Pinning the cloth showed the man's arousal.
"Unlike you, you disgusting baby-fucker! Hielbrae? Continue to occlude His Highness, please."
With a glance toward Evendal, the Guard complied.
"Hanikrest. Look up at me."
Stinking of sweat and fear, the man complied.
With little real effort, Aldul pierced a spot just beneath Hanikrest's navel and ripped down and around in an arc. As with Tothofir, Aldul wedged the sword tip within abdominal muscle until it was stopped by the floor, and then dragged the blade forward.
The wounded man opened his mouth wider to scream, but could not keep enough breath for more than weak, panted shrieks. He moved to double over but stopped quickly as his shoulder touched the sword, afraid to add any more pain to the agony of his emasculation.
Evendal raised his voice. "Aldul, do you care how they die?"
The Kwo-edan looked at the mutely weeping wrecks hunched before the King. "Yes." He turned to the Lord of the Thronelands. "Your Majesty?" Life and death was still the King's prerogative.
Evendal nodded his permission.
Aldul raised the sword and swung it down as though he wanted to hammer it into the ground. Hanikrest's body stopped writhing as his separated head did a half roll, halted by the lightly bleeding nose. To Aldul's brief befuddlement, at first very little blood escaped from the carcass or the head.
The decapitation hit Evendal ald'Menam as a brief, short clash of dissonant chords, swiftly passed. He wanted to comfort his friend, but knew that what Aldul was about might best serve as comfort.
Unthinking, Hielbrae stepped aside to help with the dead body, giving the Prince the view he had wanted.
Kri-estaul stared sombrely at the ruins before him. "But that one is still alive?" he asked of Tothofir.
Aldul waved the Guard back.
Projecting indifference where he hoped for calm, Evendal answered simply. "Yes, he yet lives."
"He should be buggered," the child announced. "Skewered."
"Yes," Aldul concurred, rousing. "Up, Tothi."
"Where did you hear that word?" Evendal asked his son softly.
Kri-estaul's eyes widened. His lips opened, only to quiver as his expression turned anxious. "From... I heard it from..."
"Nisakh," Evendal concluded. Kri-estaul nodded, worried. "That is where you learned 'scum' too. Isn't it?" Again the boy nodded. "Do you know what 'skewered' means?"
"Well," Kri-estaul began, and then stopped, stymied. "Well, I know it's something really bad and nasty, 'cause Nisakh often promised to skewer me when he got angry or his pee-stick got big."
Aldul braced himself behind an unresponsive Tothofir. "Tothofir, you will attend." The overwhelmed and pain-focused man did not respond. "Iksiliran?"
The Guard moved from the doorway, took out his own sword, and jabbed Tothofir where his genitals had been ripped.
Once he recovered, Tothofir glared up in his misery with a splotched face and flooded eyes.
"Get on your hands and knees!"
The unfortunate tried to refuse, but no sound emerged. Threatened again by Iksiliran's weapon, Tothofir raised one knee in obedience, but the pain that resulted proved too great for him to continue; he collapsed back down again.
Evendal stood and assisted Iksiliran in yanking Tothofir up onto his knees and holding the dead weight upright until the disoriented man recovered enough presence of mind to stretch out his arms.
"He will buckle quickly, of course," Iksiliran huffed.
M'Alismogh shook his head.
No, he won't falter, you shall see,
Unto his last extremity
This attitude shall he keep,
Though he faint or wail or weep.
Hielbrae returned to his position.
"Papa! I cannot see what you are doing!" Kri-estaul complained.
Evendal almost smiled, straightening up. "That is well."
"Papa!"
Legs spaced shoulder-width apart, Aldul lifted the back of Tothofir's tunic, ripped the trews and skin open with the sword, levelled its point against his goal, and shoved hard. The sounds were varied, their combination as nauseating as the fluids that first spewed, then trickled out.
Evendal m'Alismogh's compulsions(94) held. Mouth wide and tongue protruding, Tothofir's head shot backward so forcefully that Evendal expected it to hit against his spine. No expression but surprise showed; the violation went beyond the capacity of the face to register. Blood soaked the criminal's quivering legs and buttocks.
Aldul manipulated the blade past the hipbones but was halted by a loss of leverage. He stepped closer, got a better grip on the sword imbedded in Tothofir, and shoved a second time. It moved more easily. The hand guard stopped his progress.
Evendal m'Alismogh glared at the pain-wracked perpetrator. "We would hear from you, now," he singsonged.
Tothofir tried to bellow, but could only pant and mewl. Soon enough, air and blood puffed out of his mouth.
Evendal reeled in reaction as he began to hear instruments piling discord into his ears, building in volume. He stumbled for his chair and sat down quickly as the 'music' intensified. At the point where he felt certain an ocean wave sought entry through his ears, the sudden silence startled him.
When he became aware of his surroundings again, Evendal noted with alarm that Aldul had fallen atop the corpse. Bruddbana and Hielbrae approached to help.
"I am not decrepit!" the Kwo-edan mumbled in weary protest, then bit his lip as he struggled to stand.
The King glanced at Tothofir. "That," Evendal explained, "is what is meant by 'skewer,' son."
"Ewww! Yech!"
"Exactly," Evendal replied in agreement.
Bruddbana carefully took Aldul's elbow and guided him to the chair beside his King. Once he had the Kwo-edan seated, the Guard pulled out a heavy bedcover from the chest and draped it over him.
"Stay put," Bruddbana ordered sternly. "Get warm again. You did it."
"I... I..." Aldul stared at the two corpses and their effluvia. "Thunders, what a mess!"
"It sure stinks!" Kri-estaul confirmed.
Evendal decided that the question he most wanted to ask, 'How is it with you?' was one Aldul was not ready to answer. "Do you care about their disposition?"
"No," Aldul answered softly. He turned a lost, sad gaze upon his friend. "They killed him. It doesn't matter that others fired the arrows. Tothofir killed my father."
"Yes." Evendal moved his chair flush beside Aldul's.
"I eventually reconciled to the thought of my father's being killed in battle, or in the disaster. I knew that, while he couldn't wield a sword, he would do what came to him to help his fellows. But... dishonoured! Brutalised! Killed by those he helped because of the mischief of one heartless, senseless mockery of a man!"
Aldul fell silent as Iksiliran and Bruddbana summoned stewards and Guard to dispose of the carcasses. The Kwo-edan watched the proceedings, absently rubbing his legs just above the knees from time to time. As Mulienhas and another Guard hauled the tarpaulin with the remains of Tothofir out the door, Aldul whispered, "I never sought anyone's death but my own before now. What am I?"
Evendal answered swiftly, "A good man. My friend, always." Behind him, the King heard his son mumble, "My uncle. Please don't be sad."
In the same instant, Sygkorrin responded, "My ear and voice here. My choice."
Aldul looked to Sygkorrin. "Even after this?"
The Archate hierophant nodded. "Of course. And 'this' only confirms my opinion. You are where you belong."
Aldul began to chuckle, a reaction neither leader anticipated. Seeing the good-natured confusion on their faces, Aldul explained in between huffs, "I came up here expecting to spend my days with a constantly changing number of Kri-estauls and Nier-lleses. 'Twas all the challenge I thought awaited me -- the chance for a quiet life in a busy place. Ha!"
"We live in interesting times," Sygkorrin observed wryly.
Evendal thought that a brilliant understatement.
(92) Any stranger who lodged three nights or more at a man's house in a decennary...his host became responsible for his acts as for those of his servant.
(93) Not easy to translate sensibly. "This, this one, you continue to do - in silence." Basically, 'do it from yourself to yourself, in silence."
(94) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geas