Michael Stackpole - At the Queen_s command

Owen hesitated. He recalled the dream, when he was so cold. She had come with a thick blanket. She had laid it over him, then crawled beneath it. She held him, whispering that everything would be fine.

Bethany.

"That was not my wife." Owen struggled along several more steps. "It was a woman I met in Mystria. Another friend."

"I understand, sir."

"Not that sort of friend. She is a lovely young woman, is Bethany."

The pasmorte nodded. "It is a beautiful name."

"True, but we must never speak it aloud again." Owen glanced toward the door. "Your master is an evil man. If he suspects, he will find a way to harm her. I will not let that happen. Promise me."

"As best I am able, Captain." The dead man shook his head. "I would have no harm come to your friend."

Owen shivered again. He was fooling himself if he thought du Malphias did not already know about Bethany, about everything. Owen couldn't remember what he'd revealed under torture, but he'd have given anything up to stop it. He tried lying, repeatedly, and even kept one lie alive over three sessions, but finally broke down and admitted it had been a lie. All he'd done was purchase time and earn himself the thaumaturgical shackling.

I must escape. He labored under no illusion that his escape would protect his friends and his nation against du Malphias. The man was evil in ways beyond human comprehension, and incredibly powerful. The way he had assaulted Owen, the way he'd tortured him, implied depths of magick skill Owen had never even imagined could exist.

"To escape, Quarante-neuf, I will need your help."

"I do not know what I can do."

"I will need food and clothing. And I will need nails. Four nails, no, six. Maybe a dozen. Iron nails." Owen shuffled around to look at Quarante-neuf. "Can you get those things for me?"

The pasmorte considered for a moment, then nodded. "The Laureate has me under a compulsion to keep you safe."

"Then how can you can watch him torture me?"

"I am also constrained from harming him." Quarante-neuf shook his head. "It does not mean I cannot hate him. I just cannot harm him."

Owen nodded. "If you gather these things for me, you will be making me safe. Distancing me from du Malphias will keep him safe."

"Thank you, sir." The pasmorte smiled. "It shall please me to be of service to you both."

Quarante-neuf was good to his word. He collected everything Owen requested and concealed it somewhere in the fortress. He did not tell Owen where, so Owen could not reveal the location of the cache under torture.

As Owen identified new needs, he worded his requests carefully. "I would feel much safer if…" prefaced all of them. When Quarante-neuf told him of his success, Owen always thanked him with, "I feel much safer now."

The nails trickled in. Owen hid them inside the leather sleeves, sliding them between the shackle and his skin. It pleased him to carry the keys to his escape at all times and that du Malphias never noticed. When Owen was alone he'd pull one out and sharpen it against the cell's stone floor. He worked it until it was needle sharp, then started on another.

Du Malphias refrained from more torture, though he hardly became civil. He allowed Quarante-neuf to bring Owen out for some fresh air. He took great delight in the pain the hobbling caused. He seemed largely unconcerned about where Owen traveled, though Owen had no doubt that du Malphias catalogued every step.

The Laureate had taken to revising the fortress yet again, but his pasmortes worked with only a fraction of the industry they had previously exhibited. Du Malphias had begun the construction of a stone wall inside the north palisade wall. He offset it by four yards and was filling the space between the walls with smaller stones and debris. While cannon could destroy the outer wooden wall easily, the rubble would flow down to seal the breach immediately. Any troops trying to race in would find themselves at the bottom of a gravel slope staring up at soldiers on a stone wall.

And, clearly, if he had the time, du Malphias would replace the palisade wall with stone, forcing his enemies to expend more time and brimstone to bring it down.

Owen limped over to where du Malphias stood. "Do you know why they have slowed?"

The Laureate half-closed his eyes. "I have my theories."

"And you shall be testing them?"

"I may." He waved a hand toward a tattered crew dragging a large rock along. "It is their metabolism. When I first began my experiments, I chose the vampyr model-a creature that would feed on blood. Alas, they did not work well. Aside from an annoying tendency to scintillate in daylight, the vampyr created a logistical nightmare. In nature, a predator must consume forty times its own weight to sustain itself. The vampyr, then, would require a small city to make an army viable.

"The pasmortes, on the other hand, have a greatly reduced metabolism. They need to be fed very little, but it takes them a long time to process what they have consumed to repair themselves. Just keeping their muscles warm enough to function uses up most all of their energy. Thus they cannot repair themselves, so they move more slowly, have much less energy, and eventually break down."

"I see."

"Do you? What do you see, Captain Strake?" The Laureate smiled. "Is this place any less of a killing ground? Hardly. And lest you make a fearful mistake, you must remember that, as with the hardly lamented Monsieur Ilsavont, my pasmortes are capable of using muskets and cannon. Were Norisle to present an army to me here, even now, I could destroy it. And next spring, when I am reinforced with a more conventional force, your people will not be able to take this fortress."

He studied Owen's face for a moment. "You do not believe me."

"I believe this is a formidable fortress." Owen winced as he straightened up. "What I do not believe is that any fortress is unconquerable."

"Do you believe your God will smash this place? Or will He merely employ one of your generals as His agent to do so?" The Tharyngian laughed. "Ah, the shock on your face. If your God existed, would He not smite me for my insolence?"

"God moves in mysterious ways."

"Always the excuse when He fails you." Du Malphias clasped his hands at the small of his back. "This is what I find curious about you Norillians. You cling to superstition when it has clearly ceased to be of service. Tell me, Captain, were you motivated in war to do things because you feared Perdition?"

"No."

"Neither were our people. Aside from hopeful prayers before an attack, and the mournful petitions of the mortally wounded, God could easily be removed from warfare. For every man who claims he survived by a miracle, I can show you hundreds for whom a miracle failed to materialize. Shot and shell seem curiously indiscriminate when it comes to whom they kill."

"Perhaps God has a greater purpose which we cannot fathom."

"Another excuse. I would have thought better of you, Captain. You mouth platitudes which, I am certain, you do not believe." Du Malphias smiled cruelly. "So, I propose a test."

Owen's flesh puckered. "I am not a theologian."

"Nor am I, so we are well matched. You see that post over there?"

Forty yards uphill a post had been sunk into the ground. "Yes."

"Run to it. If your God speeds you before two of my pasmortes catch you, you are free to go. I swear this by your God." The Tharyngian shrugged. "If you fail, that is the end of you and this insipid notion of a God."

Du Malphias almost looks bored. "You can't be serious."

"But I am." Du Malphias yawned against the back of his hand, then nodded at a pair of pasmortes hauling on a stone. "You and you, kill him."

Two of the pastorates dropped their rope and began to shuffle toward Owen. One fell forward onto all fours and began to lope. Their jaws hung open, then snapped shut with solid clicks.