Ethine Ch. 02

Ethine's heart was racing, tears stinging her eyes. It made no sense. The knight with the green eyes, the Unseelie knight - here. Looking for her. How? Why? Her first instinct had been her brother, but he'd said that he hadn't sent him? So, why had he come? For her? It didn't seem possible. Watching him walk away had been horrible - she'd felt abandoned, had felt like screaming after him, pleading with him to get her out right there and then. A more rational part of her knew he couldn't, knew she had to be patient - but she was so scared, so alone. Of course that rational part of herself had realised something else even as she'd watched him walk away - she wasn't really alone, not any longer, someone had come for her after all. Despite her surroundings she'd felt her heart lift.

As he'd disappeared from sight she'd realised something else - just having him here had changed everything. Somehow his presence seemed to diminish the scale of her problems. Then there was that soft, tender look in his eyes - like nothing bad could happen to her while he was around. She looked at her fingers, she could still feel the touch of his hand. His fingers - hard, calloused from training with the sword -- had been so soft on hers, gentle. For the first time in a long time she felt herself smile.

Once the guards had gone the fay gathered around her, whispering hopefully amongst themselves.

"Who was your knight-errant?" Turiel whispered, awake now, the others pressing close - hope as contagious now as fear had been earlier.

Carefully she shared the food he had given her, passing it out as evenly as she could amongst her fellow prisoners. They gobbled it hungrily, only a bite each but the warmth of the fire apples' intoxicating sweetness flowed through their starved bodies; the farbread - sweet, sticky, designed for long journeys, for hardship on the trail - working magic on her and the other prisoners half-starved on gruel.

Ethine shrugged, licking sticky juice from the fingers he'd held. "My knight-errant? I'm not sure - I don't know his name," she said shyly. "Don't know his name?" whispered one, chuckling. "He certainly knows yours..."

"Ethine, girl, that man is sweeter on you than this fire apple?" said Elderbany, chuckling like rumbling thunder. Ethine giggled with her, the juice of the apple making her silly.

Athinas, the troll, laughed lightly, an alien sound in the prison. "Sweet isn't the word I'd use," she added, her big ears red with the effects of the apple.

Ethine found herself laughing along with them, her heart pounding fit to burst. Her knight-errant?

Her happiness was brief.

Even before the effects of the food had gone, Thorn, vanilla suited, returned with his two colourful cronies, both still in red and yellow - his elegant, handsome face sneering at them as he looked through the bars of the cage. She wasn't surprised when she was chosen, she had known that it had to be soon, too many others had already been through the ordeal.

Without preamble the two fay took hold of her arms - grinding their hard fingers into her soft flesh until she whimpered in pain, frog-marching her along the corridor. They followed the path her knight-errant had used, toward the only exit from the prison. Behind her she could feel the imprisoned fay watching her helplessly from the cage. Thorn led and she was dragged in his wake - along the corridor, past the guardroom with its musty smells, to a small door at the end. On the way they passed a set of narrow stone stairs leading up to a banded wooden door, from beyond which she thought that she could hear the sound of music playing, of singing. She noted it as a possible escape route.

They passed to the side of the staircase, through a thick wooden door and into a further corridor. This one was paved with rough stone slabs, the sconces more permanent bowls of coals - the light brighter, less inclined to flicker into shadow. At the end of this corridor they reached a further short staircase and passed up two small steps through an arch into a better appointed part of the Court. Here the light source was indeterminate - the corridor lit with an even warm glow - and the floor was carpeted, warm beneath her feet. After a few paces they stopped outside an unremarkable wooden door and Thorn knocked gently, waiting until he heard a summons before entering.

The room inside was a simple study, a writing bureau open on the wall just beyond the door. On the facing wall Ethine could see a bookcase that took up its entire surface. A matching bookcase occupied the wall to the left of the door making the room cramped, its smell was the smell of old books and dust. Bare by comparison, the remaining wall held only a large but simple, dark portrait of a male fay with malign features.

The male fay depicted on the painting sat at the desk, a book open before him, a pen set to one side. His long grey hair was tied back in a pony tail, held with a silver ring, his pearl grey suit elegant with its matching shirt and tie -- but his angular face held no warmth, his storm grey eyes as cold as the winter.

"Lord Sorrow, another prisoner for you to inspect," Thorn said, nodding his head briefly in respect.

To one side she noticed a black sword in a rack, its presence seeming to suck light from the room. Just looking at it made her eyes hurt.

Sorrow looked over at her, his eyes hard, boring into her, roving over her body - undressing her; dissecting her, even. There was nothing of lust or desire in it -- it was more akin to an appreciation of livestock or of some possession whose value remains undetermined. Despite herself, she shivered - his gaze was cruel, malicious, calculating.

"Are you the one responsible for kidnapping us?" she said, surprising herself with her sudden boldness, her voice steady though her heart beat in her chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. She felt the pressure on her arms increase as she spoke.

Sorrow inclined his head, his face momentarily surprised that she had had the courage to address him. "Yes," he said simply, his voice hard. "I am."

"Why?"

Sorrow smiled. "I am going to trade you, you and the other prisoners, in return for the use of some rather special knights." As he spoke his delicate fingers rolled the pen back and forth on the top of his desk.

"But... Trade us? To whom?" she said, her mind racing - could she use this information, would it help?

For a moment he looked at her, his face blank, then he beckoned to the men holding her and she was forced into the room, her arms pinioned behind her. With her helpless before him he reached out, his fingers slowly, cruelly, squeezing her cheeks, forcing her mouth open - examining her teeth as if she were an animal for sale. His hands, she noticed, were crowned by long, pointed fingernails.

"I am going to trade you to Hafgan, the Witch Queen," he said, releasing his hold on her.

For a moment Ethine struggled to make sense of what he'd said: Hafgan the Witch Queen, Hafgan the Hag. If mortal parents scared their children with tales of witches in the forest, fay children were scared with tales of Hafgan the Hag, the queen of witches. But Hafgan was only a legend, a storybook character. She looked at him closely, his face held no trace of humour - it was clear that Sorrow believed every word of what he said. And fay couldn't lie. But if she was real...

"No," she hissed, suddenly frightened again. "You can't!"

"I assure you that I can," he said, smiling. "In fact, I think you'll find that there is very little that I can't do to you."

As if to prove his point his hand slid onto her blouse - his thumb slipping into the gap between the buttons on the front, stroking her nipple beneath the fabric.

"Stop it," she said, flinching away from him - prompting the guards to twist her arms painfully, wrenching them up behind her back - making her gasp in pain - holding her still.

After a while her nipple hardened involuntarily, her body's automatic reaction a million miles from her mind's fear and loathing.

"Yes, good. Excellent," he said at last, apparently satisfied with her body's reaction. Then to Thorn: "Ensure that Memory records her name."

With that he turned away from her as if he had entirely forgotten that she had ever existed, his hand taking up the pen he had set down on being disturbed.

She was dragged quickly from the room - the guards gripping her almost as eager to be out of his presence as she was, she thought. Still held helplessly between them she was forced back along the corridor - back into the less salubrious part of the Court - only a short distance this time before she was thrust into a further chamber. This one was lit with more torches - the orange light flickering off the low ceiling, strange apparatus hung about its walls and placed about the floor.

It was clear that this was the torture chamber to which the other prisoners had been brought. The atmosphere was too warm, stuffy, and the room itself seemed to exude an oppressive, sickening feeling like a miasma - as if the memory of the horror, of the pain experienced by past visitors had somehow impressed itself into the very stones. Her stomach churned, her skin tingling - icy fingers running up her spine.

The words of the fay knight - her fay knight - returned to her.

Stay safe, stay alive - whatever happens, whatever you have to do - just stay alive.

It was little enough, no more than a crumb of comfort, but she clung to it like a drowning man to a float. She could do this. She would survive. He would come for her, he'd promised. She just had to endure as the other prisoners had done.

She turned about in the middle of the chamber, rubbing her arms where the guards had hurt her.

"Welcome, welcome," said a new voice, a fox faced man dressed in a tweed jacket and waistcoat appearing from the shadows. "I'm Memory." He bowed slightly. "Now, don't worry I'll not be hurting you...I'm just here to record your name when you give it, which you will I'm certain. Not many choose death these days." He chuckled slightly at that.

She backed away from him looking about for an escape route. Thorn and his two friends had positioned themselves near the door, blocking what she guessed was the only exit. The room wasn't big enough to conceal any other exits but she couldn't help looking. Memory had taken a seat near the wall, scratching his ear, all the while watching her.

"Don't worry, Tinklethwaite will be along shortly," he said. Then, when she didn't react: "It's a joke, you see. His name, Tinklethwaite. He's a torturer but he has the silliest name, do you see?"

Somehow Ethine failed to see the humour.

She searched the walls - there were plenty of unpleasant looking instruments hanging within reach, maybe she could grab one and force her way free? She glanced over at Thorn to see him smiling at her knowingly - obviously hoping that she would do just that. She sighed and crossed her arms over her thin shirt. Perhaps waiting was the worst part.

Moments later the door opened and Thorn and his friends moved aside to let a small goblin with yellow skin into the room, shutting the door again after him. Tinklethwaite, she presumed. He looked her over from the door and she noticed that the left side of his face was disfigured, burnt - his left eye milky white to the right's glinting black.

"What do you think, Mister Tinklethwaite?" said Memory after a moment. "The whip first?"

"Mm. Maybe, just to soften her up. She's a pretty one - I think the pear."

"Ah. I haven't seen the pear used for a while." Memory turned to speak to her. "You are privileged."

She glared at him. "Whatever you do, I'll not forget you," she said, but her words sounded hollow even to her. Memory chuckled softly.

Maybe waiting wasn't going to be the worst part after all.

Tinklethwaite moved around the room with familiar competence, picking up items, setting them down. He lifted a finely crafted metal object worked in silver - exactly like a narrow pear mounted on a screw, she thought. For a while he examined it, turning the screw in its base so that the object's thick end opened up like a flower blooming. Ethine shivered, unable to tear her eyes from the thing but unable to fathom its use.

Apparently satisfied he set it down, moving to a chain hanging near the wall, unhitching it from a peg. With small, clawed hands he tugged on it, rolling it over a pulley on the roof with a rattling sound. Gradually a pair of leather coated manacles dropped from the ceiling to the centre of the room.

"Okay, put your wrists in here," he said, his voice coarse, sibilant, as if the injury to his face had affected his voice too. He held the harness up for her, the twin cuffs gaping open.

"Are you mad? I'm not putting my hands in there," she said, backing away, her heart pounding in sudden fear.

Tinklethwaite gestured and the fay in the bright yellow suit walked quickly into the room.

"Do as your told, bitch!" he said, punching her hard in the stomach. Her breath exploded from her body in one mad rush. She dropped to her knees, gasping in pain, her vision swimming. He grabbed her hair, pulling her head back so he could stare into her face. "It'll be easier in the end."

Before she could get her breath back enough to speak, let alone struggle, he and the red-suited fay had taken her hands and dragged her to her feet. They held her steady while Tinklethwaite tightened the manacles around her wrists. Then the chain was pulled and the cuffs rose so that she was pulled up onto her tiptoes, whimpering slightly in fear.

Tinklethwaite pulled a long whip, like a lengthy riding crop, from the wall flexing it slightly. Dissatisfied he dipped it into a bucket of water, feeling it until he was satisfied that it had reached the correct state. Ethine spun helplessly in space, before him, her feet only just in contact with the floor, her long toes struggling for purchase. When he was ready Tinklethwaite approached her, steadying her slightly to stop her swaying. With leathery hands he started to unbutton her shirt from the bottom up.

Ethine recoiled, trying to swing away from him, his hands gripping her shirt. "No, don't! Get off me!" she shouted, her toes scrabbling for purchase.

"Hm. I'm trying to..." he started.

She kicked him with all her strength, her small bare foot striking into his soft gut. He grunted loudly and she felt a certain pleasure when he crumpled to the floor, obviously winded.

It was short lived.

Yellow-suit punched her again, his fist slamming into her lower back so that she mewled in pain - black spots dancing in front of her eyes, the room fading at the edges. She tasted vomit and blood - coughing on the sour taste, spitting it onto the floor, gasping for breath.

For a while she hung there, her chest heaving, spitting blood and vomit from her mouth. Yellow-suit ripped her shirt open, his eyes flashing, sending the buttons springing about the room and leaving her naked chest - her small, flat breasts with their pink nipples, exposed.

Tinklethwaite approached her again, a little warily this time, though she hadn't recovered enough from the last blow to do anything but gasp for breath and dribble. He pressed his ear to her chest, listening to her heartbeat. Apparently satisfied he picked up his whip once more, his black eye glinting with real malice.

Ethine whimpered slightly.

The whip whirred through the air as he swung it, the blow landing across her back like a streak of fire slicing into her flesh. She gasped with the pain, hissing through her teeth.

"Now, we need to know your true name," Tinklethwaite said, his voice harsh. "I'm going to continue to hurt you until you tell us what it is."

The whip sliced into her bare thigh, drawing a thin scream from her, her eyes filling with tears. She twisted helplessly in the harness, unable to see where the next blow would land.

"When you tell us what your true name is, I will stop hurting you."

Across her exposed stomach, cracking with fearsome force. She really screamed this time, an anguished sound torn unwillingly from her.

"Once we have your name we will test you...make sure that you've told us the truth."

Cracking across her back, screaming with pain - the shock making her whole body shudder - she tasted more blood, oozing from her lip. Had she bitten it?

"After that, we'll let you go back to your friends."

Slicing into her calf, drawing blood, the pain indescribable - burning, cutting, shivering through her.

In the end it was his presence, her knight-errant, that made the difference. If she hadn't believed that someone was coming for her she would have given in, would have told them her true name. Even as she had been hung from the manacles, she had known what she had to do. It was simple really, she had to hold out long enough to convince them that she had been broken, that their pain had taken her spirit - then she had to tell them a name, any name.

After that, she knew, would come the tricky part - the test. But she knew to steel herself, to show no feeling, to obey without question.

When they had whipped her, she had endured - screaming as if her lungs would burst, the pain like fire slicing into her skin, her whole body sweating, and thrashing, blood running along her skin. Then, when they had held her down - forced her open, forcing that evil contraption between her legs - she had endured. Had endured the feeling of it opening inside her - the pain beyond any description - all the while focusing on his presence, the hope he represented, believing in him as she had never believed in herself.

Finally she had told them a name - had screamed it in their faces - her abused body sobbing, gasping, sweating in pain such as she'd never imagined existed. It had satisfied them, the pain had stopped but not the ordeal.

As they let her up, gasping and sobbing weakly, her body shuddering as the pain receded, she had remembered her brother's words when he had described the Unseelie Court - they wish that you be made of ice. That was what she wished for when they tested her - deliberately degraded her - forcing her by the power of her false name to do things she would - no, could never have done willingly. Made of ice. She wished she was made of ice.

But it was more than that. She believed in something now, something imminent. Someone had searched for her - had promised that he would come for her. Promised, with his words and with his soft, gentle eyes. She would endure. She could be ice if that was what it took. Ice.

Finally they had been satisfied at her subjugation, her humiliation and had dragged her back to the cage - dumping her semi-naked amongst the other prisoners. She had crawled straight to the toilet, whimpering, vomiting - spitting the taste of them from her mouth as she could never spit the memory. She felt Turiel holding her and she leaned into her, sobbing, the pixie's hand stroking her hair.

"Don't worry, he'll come for you," she whispered. "You can leave all this, get away...hold onto that, just hold onto that."

And, crying in the dark, Ethine had nodded, her mouth thick with the taste of vomit and blood and semen - knowing that she wasn't worth it, not now, not ever.

****** The knight hammered on the door.

Gilraen groaned rolling over on the bed, his head hanging off the side where Calan had dumped him. Calan lay on the floor, his feet splayed near the door.

"Come on, get up. Thorn wants to see you."

Somehow the two of them managed to drag themselves upright, Gilraen looking a touch green, swaying a little on his feet. Calan less unsure of his feet but contriving to look a little bleary eyed. He had expected this summons, had kept his wits about him in expectation. A faerie cannot lie, but Calan was past master at bending the truth. He was going to need it, he felt.