David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

“Are you certain of this?”

Catherine grinned. “Would you like to ask my dear beloved Matthew that question?”

Darkness was Aullienna’s only companion, and it was a poor one at that. It whispered evil into her ears whenever she felt a glimmer of hope, suffocating her though she lay in open space. Her cell was kept dark at all times, even when food was brought to her. Those who brought it were formless in the black, invisible demons offering her disgusting slop. Every noise she heard was haunting, from the skittering of rats to the sound of footsteps tramping the soil above her head. With not even the faintest light to meet her keen elven eyes, her mind created the scenes for her, and each one was horrific. Monsters with tentacles whipping around them, hounds with fangs dripping blood and saliva, shadowy phantasms whose presence would make her shiver in her skin; each nightmare was worse than the last. It became nearly impossible to tell when she was dreaming or awake.

Yet the thoughts of her loved ones were far worse than the monsters in her mind. They came to her in waves: her nursemaid, Noni, with a knife popping out of her skull; Aaromar with an arrow through his eye; her mother’s face, bleeding and covered in bruises; Kindren, her love and betrothed, whose fingers had been sliced off by Aully’s wicked brother. Kindren’s fingers. She felt around the dirt floor of the cellar that was now her prison until they fell on a swathed clump of rolled fabric. She held the fabric close to her, beneath her chin, and felt the knucklebones of the fingers inside. The thing reeked of decay and was slimy to the touch, but she dealt with the stench and discomfort until her stomach inevitably cramped. Please, Celestia, help me stay strong, she pleaded with the darkness. Give me the strength to fight.

This time, just as most others, she received no answer.

The stench of the rotting fingers became too much, and Aully gently placed them down beside her. Not that the smell improved much. She’d been forced to both relieve her bladder and defecate right there on the floor. The whole place smelled wretched, of sweat and shit and piss and death itself. She didn’t think she could ever get used to the reek.

A wave of dizziness hit her, and Aully curled into a ball. She felt bile in the back of her throat and gagged on it. Sensations such as these had been happening more and more often of late. She assumed it had something to do with whatever it was Carskel was feeding her. But in a way, she didn’t mind the discomfort. When she vomited, at least it was clear to her that she was awake.

A sound reached her ears-a real sound, the creak of a door being opened, footsteps moving slowly down the darkened hall. She lifted her head from her arms, and her stomach cramped once more. She reached blindly into the black, desperate for sustenance. It didn’t matter if what she was being fed was killing her. She needed to eat.

The footsteps ceased a few feet in front of her, and for a few languishing moments there was no sound at all. “Aullienna?” a voice asked. It spoke in a muddled whisper, and she couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

She croaked out a reply, her constricted throat not giving enough breath for words.

“There you are,” the whispering voice said.

A flame struck, filling her world with wonderful light. At first Aully recoiled from it, but then she lurched forward, reaching for the source of the illumination like an elf lusting for water after a week in the desert. But her hands never found the light. Instead, they rapped hard against the wooden planks that held her prisoner.

She sat back and drew her knees to her chest, gazing at the flickering light through the gap in the boards. The light revealed her accommodations-a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot room surrounded by earthen walls on three sides. The cellar had once been used to store wine and tobacco, but now it stored only her. The dirt floor was covered with her bodily waste instead of skins and broad leaves. It was disgusting, but given that she could see for the first time in a long, long while, there was a part of her that found it beautiful nonetheless.

“Oh Aully, look at you. I’m so sorry.”

She squinted and inched along the slatted wall. Grabbing one of the boards, she pulled herself up and gazed through one of the lower gaps. The light was so bright out there in the passage that it seemed almost as bright as the stars in the heavens. The source of the light was high up, held in the hands of an immensely tall, shadowy being.

“Celestia?” she whispered. Tears formed in her eyes.

The form squatted down, and a hand touched hers. Three fingers and a thumb squeezed her palm. Aully squinted, trying to make her eyes adjust. Eventually her vision cleared and she saw the face of her Uncle Detrick staring back at her.

“Not Celestia,” she grumbled. Her hand slipped out of his, and she slid down the boards until she lay flat on the soiled ground once more.

“Aully, please,” her uncle said, pleading. His voice rose. “Sit up. Talk to me.”

Aully groused, inaudible to her own ears.

“What was that? Aully, I couldn’t hear you.”

She lifted her head. “Go away, Uncle.” Her voice was rasping and weak.

Shuffling came from the other side of the boards, and soon the light assaulted her face once more. Detrick was kneeling now, looking at her through the bottom slat. She simply stared back at him, her mind blank. Her uncle opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. He reached beneath the boards, feeling the opposite side with the fingers of the hand Carskel had mangled, his mouth curving into a grimace of concentration. The thick boards were positioned in even intervals, with a seven-inch gap between each one. Detrick worked his way up, touching each board, steadily moving the light away from her as he rose.

“Bring it back,” she whispered.

“Bring what back?”

“The light. Please.”

Once more Detrick knelt down, and the wonderful light bathed her again. Aully tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure if she knew how to anymore.

“Carvings on the boards,” her uncle said. “Magical wards.”

“I know,” Aully said. She’d realized that the first time she’d tried to cast a spell. Her wicked brother had placed the same sort of protective net around the cellar that existed inside her father’s old study.

“How long has it been?” she asked. Despite the coldness she felt toward her uncle, he was still alive, and carried both voice and light. She had to keep him there, keep him talking.

Detrick sighed. “Twenty-eight days,” he said, the disgust plain in his voice.

Twenty-eight days.

“Where is Kindren?” she asked meekly.

Her uncle went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “He is a bastard, Aully, a sick bastard who will do anything to get his way. I should have known from the start with that one. I almost told your father when first I laid eyes on him as a screaming babe that he should toss the hideous thing into the Corinth and be done with.” He looked away. “I never did,” he said, “but I wish I had.”

“Kindren,” she whispered again. “Where is Kindren?”

Detrick blinked at her and reached through the gap. She shuffled away from his grasp. Her uncle sighed and leaned back.

“Kindren is safe,” he said. “He is in my chambers within Briar Hall. Your brother left him in my care.”

“His hand,” Aully sobbed, more to herself than to her uncle.

“I know,” said Detrick. “He was feverish for days after Carskel dumped him on me. I burned and bled the stumps of his fingers, but infection took root. For quite a while I thought I might lose him, so high was his fever. But your betrothed is a strong one, Aully. He pulled through.” Her uncle lifted his own mangled hand, gazing at the stub where his discarded finger had once been, and a solemn smile crossed his face. “We have bonded through our mutual disfigurement.”