R. Salvatore - Bastion of Darkness

She awakened nearly an hour later, one eye closed, the taste of warm blood thick on her lips. The zombies remained, standing impassively, seeming more garish statues than animated creatures. Rhiannon thought to speak to them again, but wisely reconsidered and held her tongue. These things, she realized, were mere automatons, incapable of independent thought. Her last words had spurred them to beat her, and so if she spoke again, she would likely get the same brutal treatment. It made sense to the young woman. She was in Talas-dun, she knew that beyond doubt, for she had indeed seen the black castle just before the last time she lost consciousness. Yes, she clearly remembered that darkened blur on the edges of her vision, all the darker still for the evil that brooded there. She was in Talas-dun, and these zombies, these guards, were pawns of either Thalasi or Mitchell. Neither of them would want her talking, spellcasting perhaps, and so the orders to the zombies had likely been simple and explicit.

She held silent, just hung against the wall, and soon the realization of her various pains nearly overwhelmed her. Her head hurt, and her face ached with its fresh bruises. Her stomach growled for lack of food-how long had it been since she had taken a decent meal, or any food at all?

But her wrists, her poor wrists, proved the most agonizing of all! She dared to glance up at them, to see lines of dark, dried blood ringing them just under the shackles, and she recognized that if she shifted in the least, those scabs would reopen.

And so she hung there, for hours, until she drifted off to something akin to sleep, but not nearly restful enough to be called so. She hung there, and she fought the delirium and the awful boredom, and the more awful helplessness. Had they put her down in this dungeon to starve? she had to wonder as time passed into irrelevance, just one long aching black pain, a complete emptiness.

And all the while, the zombies simply stood there, rotting, smelling, unblinking, and drawing no breath.

Rhiannon didn’t know how long had passed-a few days at least-when at last she heard a commotion outside of her immediate chamber, somewhere along the low corridor. Her relief remained, even when the source of that commotion, Mitchell and Thalasi, walked into the dungeon.

“You live still?” Thalasi asked, his expression showing that he was amused. “Ah, but that is the curse of the blessed wizards, my dear, for you shall not die, shall hang here in empty torment through all the years, through all eternity.”

“I could kill her,” Mitchell remarked, for no better reason, Rhiannon supposed, than to boast. She knew that he wouldn’t kill her, wouldn’t so easily alleviate her suffering.

She tried to reply to them, but could barely move her parched lips.

Thalasi laughed heartily. “Consider this your reward for your actions on the field near to the Four Bridges,” he said. “Yes, Rhiannon, daughter of Brielle, I know who you are, and I know what you did. Naughty child.”

Now the words did come, the discomfort stolen by the sheer revulsion welling in Rhiannon’s throat. “Ye did it yerself,” she rasped, ending with a hacking, dry, and dusty cough. “Ye reached too far. Took too much. And so ye breaked it. Ye-” She stopped, gasped, as a cold, invisible hand clamped about her throat. The zombies, too, moved to attack, but Thalasi waved his black staff and stopped them.

Rhiannon felt most keenly the power of that staff, and noted Mitchell’s wince as it was presented. She knew then the importance of the item, and the power, for in this time of weakened magic, that staff alone brought the Black Warlock such strength. Her concerns quickly became more immediate, though, as that awful cold hand squeezed tight, cutting off her air, strangling her.

Then it was gone, leaving the young witch gasping. She looked at her two adversaries, and understood that Thalasi, with that staff, had been responsible.

“I had thought to make you comfortable,” the Black Warlock said to her. “To pamper you with finery and luxury.”

Rhiannon spat at him.

“But there it is,” the Black Warlock continued without missing a beat, smiling widely at her disrespect. “That trademark stubbornness, so much like your mother. You would not appreciate my hospitality. No indeed. Not you, the daughter of Brielle. You would do as she would do, act as she would act, and plot against me, every second.”

Rhiannon’s crystal blue eyes narrowed.

“So you hang here, forever and more,” Thalasi said with a laugh. “Know that my pets-” He indicated the zombies. “-are close at hand, and with orders to beat you into unconsciousness every time you move, every time you utter a single sound.”

“And know that I will be about, as well,” the wraith added, moving so close to Rhiannon that she could feel the deathly cold that clung to the horrid creature’s gray body. “And I can do worse things than beat upon you, I promise.”

Rhiannon didn’t doubt that, not in the least, but while her expression was one of deep despair, her mind worked furiously for some solution. She would not give up, would never give up, no matter the pain, the hunger, the weakness, the cold.

She would find a way to hurt these two, some way, any way, before she left this life.

“The zombies will lead us out of the mountains,” Thalasi explained to Mitchell later on, when the two were alone-except for an insignificant talon guard-in the throne room. “Tens of thousands of zombies, and skeletons, too, who have lain in the cold ground for decades, even centuries, but who will rise again to my call. A sea of undead will lead us, to the river and beyond the river, and those who do not flee in terror, who do not yield to the power of Thalasi, will soon enough only add to our ranks.”

The wraith said nothing, just stared and wondered at where Hollis Mitchell might fit into these grandiose plans. Mitchell understood the depth of the Staff of Death, its true power, and he did not doubt that Thalasi could raise and control this sea of undead monsters, especially since zombies and skeletons, unlike the wraith, were unthinking and unquestioning animations, mere extensions of the staff and the Black Warlock who held it. But where did that leave Mitchell?

“You will not lead them,” Thalasi said suddenly, as if reading the wraith’s thoughts-and that, too, seemed a distinct possibility to the wraith, given the staff’s connection to him. “For you, I have other plans.”

The flames that were Mitchell’s eyes simmered.

“You will not disagree,” Thalasi promised. “For I offer to you your greatest wishes.”

“Then you will kill yourself,” Mitchell replied sarcastically.

Thalasi laughed that notion away, taking no offense. “I shall allow you to go out independently, to find Belexus, to find Ardaz, to find Brielle, and to do as you will with them, to torment them, to destroy them, perhaps to kill them-then raise them as undead under our control if we can find a way to facilitate such a thing.”

Suddenly the flames in Mitchell’s eyes reflected more intrigue than anger.

“You shall be my assassin,” Thalasi said with a laugh. “And none in all the world can stand against you.”

Mitchell was no fool and understood that Thalasi was deflecting him, distracting him to prevent him from finding some way to gain greater control over the undead soldiers. Mitchell understood, too, that he and Thalasi were bound by an unholy alliance indeed, one that would not hold when their common enemies were no more. But the wraith could accept that for now; there were greater enemies in the wide world yet to be slain, Belexus Backavar principal among them.

It was an offer the wraith could not refuse.