David Farland - Sons of the Oak

Sometime as he chanted, he reached into the sleeve of his robe and brought out a forcible, a tiny branding iron no thicker than a nail, about the length of his hand. The forcible was cast from blood metal, and so was the color of dried blood, rough and granular. At its tip was forged a single rune.

The facilitator held the forcible out, spread over one palm, as if to display it to Rhianna.

He wants me to get used to it, Rhianna thought. He doesn’t want me to be afraid of it, and indeed, a moment later, still singing the incantation, he brushed it against the back of her arm for a long moment.

Shadoath was sitting behind Rhianna, and she whispered, “Now, child, look into the ape’s eyes, and give yourself to her. Will yourself to her.”

Rhianna tried to obey, but it was hard. She was frightened. She had heard that giving endowments was painful, and now the facilitator placed the forcible to her forehead.

“Will it hurt?” Rhianna asked, panic shooting through her. She suddenly clenched her knees together, afraid that she might pee.

“Only a little,” Shadoath assured her, “only for a moment.”

The facilitator held the forcible against her skin for a long minute, singing faster and more frantically. His voice was like a distant drum, pounding and pounding on the edge of her consciousness.

The forcible began to grow warm, and Rhianna could see the metal heating up, glowing red like tongs in a forge. She smelled a strange metallic smoke, and then it began to burn.

She heard her skin sizzling, and there was a light as the forcible glowed white-hot. But she felt surprisingly little pain. It was as if the forcible flared so quickly that it merely fried the nerves off of her head, and mercifully, the facilitator chose that moment to remove it.

He waved the white-hot forcible in the air, and an afterglow followed it, but mystically seemed to hang in the air between them.

It’s like a snake, Rhianna thought, a snake made out of light.

Its head was at the tip of the forcible, but its tail extended back to some point inside Rhianna’s forehead.

There was a dull ache between Rhianna’s eyes, a pulling sensation, as if the contents of her skull were being drawn out.

The facilitator sang and waved the forcible in the air, peering at the snake of light, seeming to judge its heft and thickness.

He turned to the sea ape, and the ape just peered curiously at the glowing forcible. He plunged the tip of it into the hair between her breasts, and the sea ape peered down, her mouth open in dull wonder.

The facilitator sang louder and louder, more frantically. There was a yanking sensation between Rhianna’s eyes, and then she saw it: a bright actinic flash traveling through the pale pipeline of light.

The facilitator cried out in triumph. The air stank of burning hair and scorched flesh as the forcible went white-hot.

Rhianna felt a pain blossom, one that started between her eyes but that shot to the back of her skull. It was as if her skull were suddenly shrinking to the size of a walnut, and everything inside would gush out.

Just when Rhianna realized that the pain was greater than anything she had ever hoped to bear, it suddenly intensified a hundredfold, and an endless cry was torn from her throat.

Rhianna collapsed, and as she did, she found herself staring down at her own body, watching herself collapse. She flared her broad nostrils, sniffing, and got up and paced about on her knuckles, too energized and too alarmed to sit any longer.

Rhianna was the sea ape.

Twice more the torturer came and went. But the hulking, hooded brute never turned to look Fallion’s way.

But the time will come when he will look my way, Fallion thought.

No food or water appeared.

Jaz had grown weary of asking for it, and both times that the torturer passed by, Fallion saw that his brother only hung limp now, barely alive.

Fallion knew that torturers liked to soften their victims, to withhold nourishment before putting them to pain. It weakened their wills, weakened their resistance. A man who could withstand the burning tongs often could not withstand the eroding weakness brought on by hunger.

Or maybe the torturer won’t come at all, Fallion wondered. Maybe they’ve forgotten about us, and they’ll just leave us here hanging on the wall until the rats gnaw the flesh from our bones.

Jaz woke later that day. He did not speak. Only hung on the wall, sobbing.

Fallion mustered enough energy to sing him a lullaby that their mother had taught him.

“Hush, little child, don’t you weep.

The shadows grow long and it’s time for sleep.

Tomorrow we’ll run in the fields,

And wade in the streams,

But now it’s time for dreams.

Hush, little child, don’t you weep.

The shadows grow long and it’s time for sleep.”

Fallion wondered at the words. His father had warned him to run, that the ends of the Earth were not far enough. Borenson had promised the children meadows to play in, and hills to climb. In Landesfallen they were to enjoy their childhood, put their fears behind them.

It’s all a lie, he realized. They’ve got nothing to give.

Or maybe we did something wrong? Fallion thought. Maybe I didn’t understand the message?

Fallion tried to remember the message, but his mind wouldn’t work.

“Jaz,” Fallion croaked after a long time. Jaz held silent, and Fallion wondered if he had fallen back to sleep when finally an answer came.

“What?”

“What were the last words that Father said when he was dying?”

Jaz stayed silent for a long time, then grunted, “He said, something about… ‘Return a blessing for every blow…’ ”

The words seemed to strike Fallion like a mallet. He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten those last words. They’d seemed like only the rants of a dying man, the idle chatter of one who was fading from consciousness.

“Learn to love the greedy as well as the generous, the poor as much as the rich, the evil as well as the kind.” The words seemed to resound, rising up from his memory. His father had said something like that when Fallion was small, a babe of two or three, cuddling in his father’s arms. He’d been talking about his own personal credo, the guidelines that he’d chosen to live his life by. But Fallion didn’t remember that last, “A blessing for every blow.”

Could his father possibly mean that literally? Was he supposed to show kindness to those who now kept him in chains?

Fallion had nothing else to do but ponder this.

And fortunately, it was only a few hours later that a visitor came to the cell again.

Fallion had drifted into a half sleep, and woke to keys rattling in a lock, and a squeaking door.

A girl was opening their cell, a young girl perhaps a couple of years older than he, pretty, with raven hair.

She held a candle in one hand, and had set a silver jug on the ground while she carefully tried the keys.

Fallion thought that he recognized her, though he’d never seen her before. He managed a groan, and the girl looked up, startled, almost guiltily.

Yes, he recognized her dark eyes, the hair falling down around her pale face.

“You!” she said in surprise. “I know you! You’re from that dream!”

Fallion peered at her, and the world seemed to somehow tilt askew.

“Yes,” Fallion said. “You were in the cage.”

And she’d begged him to set her free.

She peered at him, trembling lightly, and Fallion realized why she had come.

Here is my tormentor, he thought.