Carol Berg - Breath and Bone

“Did you forget your leash?” I said bitterly. “You own me now.”

“I’ve not forgotten.” Leaning in deceptive ease against the door, he tossed a fist-sized pouch across the room. It landed heavily in my lap. The smell near set me howling. “Because you lied to me, I think we must restructure our agreement slightly. I want you to work your nasty little enchantment this afternoon.”

A stray wind gust snapped my hair, stinging against my cheek. “But it’s not time yet. If I do it between times…”

“…your need will grow stronger and demand to be serviced more often. Alas, that’s true.” He cocked his head. “But it only accelerates a condition that exists in you already. Do it now, or Jakome will introduce our young friend to the doulon.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Iero’s holy name, Gildas. You would not…”

But whyever would I imagine that he would balk at this depravity? No one would ever fault Gildas de Pontia for failure of insight. His very posture, so like a strutting rooster, told me he knew that of all the torments he might promise, this one I could not abide.

Rage and hatred only fueled the need lurking in my veins. I struggled to form a plan. To attack him. To delay. To run. But each solution would forfeit lives more important than mine. One more doulon would not kill me, only embed the craving deeper. What did he plan that called for so strong a control of me?

“You lied to me, as well. You’ve Ronila to take you into Aeginea. Why do you need me?”

“So the clever sorcerer has guessed the crone’s name,” he said. For one moment I glimpsed the true man—greedy, prideful, jealous—the man who had grown up shamed by his poor and ignorant family. Then he slipped on his smiling mask again. “Let’s say I enjoy watching you grovel. Do it now, Valen. And don’t think to throttle me or toss the bag through the windows. Without my password, Jakome will not open this door. When he informs Sila, you will bleed out your remaining life in ways most unpleasant. And then he’ll see that Jullian loses his soul to this perversion.” He shrugged and screwed up his mouth in distaste. “You must understand, I intend to live in this world on my own terms or none, and you are necessary to my plan. Do as I say, and Sila will not know the ugly truth about the abomination she has chosen to…plow her fields. We shall merely proceed with our bargain as before.”

I knew well the determination to find something better than the life one was born to. Not even Voushanti would be so dangerous a foe as Gildas. I wanted to tear out the blackguard’s heart.

Hands shaking, I set out the needle, mirror, and thread and spilled out a pile of hard black seeds beside them. I was a doulon slave already. Gildas and Jakome had but fed tinder to the coals that Saverian had warned would ever burn in me. To do it once more…truly it could not make ridding myself of the doulon’s yoke worse than what I’d gone through after twelve years’ enslavement. I just needed to retain as much sense as possible. Control it. And before they could force me to do this a third time, Jullian and I would be away from here.

Gildas watched from the doorway. Using my arm to shield the work from the wind, I crushed the seeds with the bottom of the wooden cup. I tried not to inhale as I worked, but by the time they were powder, my heart was galloping. I dragged the lamp close.

“Wait,” he said. “Before you begin, double that amount.”

I stared at the pile of seeds in horror. Double…never had I known any doulon slave who used so much at once. “Fires of Deunor, Gildas, you’ll leave me no mind! I’ve told you I’ll do as you wish.”

“I want this leash secure.” Why would he doubt? Unless Ronila had told him something…

I recalled his anxious glances into the corner when he took me to Sila’s room…his annoyance that Sila was late for the meeting. He had known Ronila was there. The old woman had not contradicted his pronouncement about Danae males and their need for pain, though she had grown up in Aeginea and knew better.

I poured out more seeds, crushed them, imagining each as one of Gildas’s bones.

Ronila had no use for Sila’s vision of regeneration and neither did Gildas. At least for the moment, they were allies.

I pricked my finger with the silver needle. It was not so insulting a discomfort as Jakome’s knife, but the pain of this exercise ran much deeper than my skin. I would give much to believe that the remasti had given me a higher tolerance for the perverse enchantment.

My blood dripped into the crushed nivat, the scents mingling. Desire crept upward from my toes, inward from my fingers. “Gildas, please…” My voice was already hoarse with need.

“Remember, I’ve watched you do this. I’ll know if you don’t complete it correctly.”

I held the little mirror glass upright, angled so that I could see the fumes rise. Between two fingers of the alter hand, I gripped the length of linen thread, dangling the end into the sodden little heap. Gildas would expect that. But he didn’t know why I used the thread. Thus he didn’t stop me when my last two fingers made contact with the mound. To touch the paste as it heated drew off some of its potency, spreading the infusion over the preparation time. A small difference only, but perhaps enough to keep me sane. I released magic to flow through my fingers and down the thread.

My gaze fixed on the ensorcelled mirror, as the otherwise invisible fumes rose from the bubbling black paste. Wind doused Gildas’s lamp and threatened the shielded table lamp. Sweat dribbled down my cheeks, down my spine, as dark fire prickled my hidden fingers and surged up my arm. The locks snapped on the door.

Ought to look. Ought to listen…to refine the lock spell. Ought to stop… But I had gone too far. Even when the damnable mirror glass reflected the ruddy young face and the widening eyes of Ardran blue, I could not stop.

“Your protector is occupied for the moment, lad,” said Gildas. “Did you not know of his little problem?”

“What does he, Brother? Is it some pureblood magic?” Innocent still.

Had I owned a mind or conscience just then, I would have wept at Jullian’s wondering stare. As it was, my arm quivered with the doulon’s burning, and all I could think was, Please, gods, make it hurt more.

Gildas chuckled. “I’m sure he’ll explain when he’s done. Tell him that Malena’s forked blade can seal the spell, if he can but wait till nightfall to soothe all his lusts together. Then the priestess and I will both be happy.”

His voice swelled in my ear. “You will be my slave, halfbreed, and I will not be a kind master.”

Whispers and laughs faded. Friends…concerns…dangers faded. The world faded. Eventually the fumes ceased their rising, and I let the mirror glass fall. As my fingers scooped the hot paste onto my greedy tongue, my other hand groped about the table as if it had a mind of its own. Glass will cut…hot oil will burn. I needed pain.

The doulon itself carved paths of agony from eyes to heart to limbs. My vision blurred. My back spasmed as if an Aurellian torturer had hung me from his hook and dragged me behind his chariot. Every nerve stretched taut and snapped like drawn bowstrings, launching nets that encompassed every part and portion of my body.

Not enough. Not enough. Gods…I did not want to be this thing.

I swept my arm across the table. The lamp crashed to the floor; the oil pooled and flared. The black paste clogged my gullet, slid downward, and seared my empty stomach. Still the enchantment would not resolve, but kept building…waiting. I choked and gasped and shook, hammered my fists on the table, then gripped its edge as if to snap the oaken plank in twain. I needed more.