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sky had been ordered to kill him on the spot. They'd had a little argument about it while
he lay there bound and hooded and helpless. One of them had been in favor of carrying
out their orders as stated, but the rest had overruled him.
Thank the winds for temptation, and those unable to resist it.
He had heard them talking, every word; they might have been under the impression
that he couldn't understand them, rather than thinking that he was like a falcon and
would "go to sleep" when deprived of light. It seemed he was very useful to these mages,
and a source of much profit. My blood and feathers and the talon bits too, I
suppose are valuable, but only when taken from a living creature; and therefore I am
more valuable alive than dead. I doubt their employer knows of this little trade on the
side.
Why bits of him should be useful to a mage, he had no notion but then again, this
situation was frighteningly similar to a rumor circulating about human mages who were
capturing nonhumans and "sacrificing" them. What if there were human mages who were
capturing nonhumans, but using bits of them for magic? The idea would have made him
sick, if he'd had the leisure to be sick.
Do they do this to their own kind, I wonder? Or is this reserved for "lower
creatures"? They were so indifferent to the amount of pain and damage they inflicted as
they collected their trophies that he could well imagine they were not above kidnapping
fellow humans and treating them the same way.
Which might account for the rumors of nonhumans who captured humans and
sacrificed them... and would certainly account for the expertise with which he'd been
trussed up.
Why was it that humans were inclined to spawn both the best "saints" and the worst
villains among their numbers? Was it just that humans were inclined to the extremes?
His mind was wandering, ignoring his urgent need to find a way out of his bindings and
escape, and meandering down philosophical paths that had nothing to do with what he
wanted it to think about.
How long have I been here? He wasn't certain. They never took off the hood, and
although they hadn't been feeding him, he had "heard" the music of magic near him
several times, as if they were nourishing him that way instead of by conventional means.
He wasn't thirsty or hungry, at any rate, which was different from his captivity at the
hands of Padrik's men.
But closed inside the hood, with his body racked with pain, there was no way of telling
how much time had passed. It could have been hours... or days.
There was an escape open to him; a realm of illusion and hallucination that would at
least take him out of his pain and current fear. All he had to do would be to give in to the
beckoning, grinning specter of madness, as he had when the Church had held him, and
I will not go mad. I will not lose heart.
Nightingale was out there, somewhere; he sensed her, a tugging in his soul that
actually had a physical direction. She was as racked with grief for his loss as he was with
pain, but she had not given up to despair. Yet. He could not tell what she was doing, but
he knew that much at least
She is trying to find me, trying to find a way to free me. I must believe that. She has
those damned Deliambrens to help her, and maybe more help than that. She must
come; she will come. But it was hard to hold on to hope when his strength drained away
steadily.
I have made some difference in the world, he told himself defiantly. I have redeemed
myself and I have had love. Even if I die
No, that was the way of despair! He shied away from the thought with violence. I will
not die! he shouted against the darkness. I will not! I will fight every step of the way,
with everything at my command!
Which at the moment was not a great deal....
Voices, muffled by a wall, grew nearer. They were coming again. He waited, wild with
rage at his own helplessness, as a door opened and two men entered, still talking.
" probably another week or so," one was saying. "I don't know how these creatures
replace blood loss, but we're draining him fairly quickly."
He felt hands fumbling at his restraints. This time they didn't seem to have brought
any of their bravos with them. Could he ?
He tried to lash out at them as they freed his arms, tried to leap to his feet. If I can
injure one, the other will run and I can hold the injured one and make him take off the
hood
Visions of escape flashed across his mind.
He flung out his taloned hands with a strength only slightly less than that of an
unfledged eyas; he got as far as his knees before he threw himself off balance and tumbled
in an ungainly sprawl across some hard surface.
The men both laughed, as he sought for a reservoir of strength and found it empty. "I
see what you mean," said the other. "Still we can't keep him around for too long, or our
client is going to hear about the new artifacts in the market and is going to wonder where
all those vials of blood and feathers are coming from."
"He gave us permission to take what we wanted " the first man argued.
"But you don't get fresh blood from a week-old corpse," the other reminded him.
Artifacts, T'fyrr thought miserably, as the two men threw him on his stomach, pinned
his wing and arms effortlessly, and plucked another handful of secondary feathers. I am
nothing to them but an object, to be used at their pleasure. They harvest me as if I were
a berry patch.
Each feather, as it was pulled, invoked a stab of exquisite pain; he squawked
involuntarily as his tormenters extracted them. Finally they left him alone.
They were only after feathers this time, not blood. Just as well, every talon ached
where they had cut each one to the quick to collect blood. Now I know how human [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]