Faith of the Fallen

The outer door closed and the apartment was finally empty of everyone but Nicci and the emperor. She stood erect, head held high, arms at her sides, relishing the quiet of the place. The splendor meant little to her, but quiet was a luxury she had come to appreciate, even if it was selfish.

In the tents there was always the noise of the army pressed close around.

Here, it was quiet. She glanced around the spacious and elaborately decorated outer room, contemplating the idea that Jagang would have acquired the taste for such places. Perhaps he, too, simply wanted quiet.

She turned back to the inner room. He was just inside, waiting, watching her, a muscled mass of fury coiled in rage.

She strode directly up to him. "You wished to see me, Excellency?"

Nicci felt a stunning pain as the back of his beefy hand whipped across her face. The blow spun her around. Her knees hit the floor. He yanked her to her feet by her hair. The second time, she clouted the wall before crashing to the floor again. Stupefying pain throbbed through her face. When she had her bearings, she got her legs under her and stood before him again.

The third time, she took a freestanding candelabrum down with her. Candles tumbled and rolled across the floor. A long wisp °f sheer curtain she had snatched as she grabbed for support ripped away and drifted down over her as she and an upturned table slammed to the floor. Glass shattered. Metal clattered as small items bounded away.

She was dizzy and stunned, her vision faltering. Her eyes felt as if they might have burst, her jaw as if it had been shattered, her neck as if the muscles had ripped.. Nicci lay sprawled on the floor, savoring the strident waves of pain, wallowing 'n the rare sensation of feeling.

She saw blood splattered across the light fringe of the carpet beneath her and across the warns glow of wooden flooring. She heard Jagang yelling something at her, but she couldn't make out the words over the ringing in her ears. With a shaky arm pushed herself up onto her hip. Blood warmed her fingers when she touched them to her mouth. She relished the hurt. It had been so long since she had felt anything, except for that too brief moment with the Mord-Sith.

This was a glorious wash of agony.

Jagang's brutality was able to reach down into the abyss, not only because of the cruelty itself, but because she knew she need not suffer it.

He, too, knew that she was here by her choice, not his. That only intensified his anger, and thus, her sensations.

His rage seemed lethal. She merely noted the fact that she very probably wouldn't leave the room alive. She would probably not get to learn Sister Lidmila's spells. Nicci simply waited to discover what fate had already decided for her.

The room's spinning finally slowed enough for her to once more make it to her feet. She pulled herself up straight before the silent brawny form of Emperor Jagang. His shaved head reflected points of light from some of the lamps. His only facial hair was a two-inch braid of mustache growing above each corner of his mouth, and another in the center under his lower lip. The gold ring through his left nostril and its thin gold chain running to another ring in his left ear glimmered in the mellow lamplight. Except for a heavy ring on each finger, he was without the plundered assortment of royal chains and jewels he usually wore around his neck. The rings glistened with her blood.

He was bare-chested, but unlike his head, his chest was covered in coarse hair. His muscles bulged, their tendons standing out as he flexed his fists. He had the neck of a bull, and his temperament was worse.

Nicci, half a head shy of his height, stood before him, waiting, looking into the eyes she used to see in her nightmares. They were a murky gray, without whites, and clouded over with sullen, dusky shapes that stole across a surface of inky obscurity. Even though they had no evident iris and pupil-nothing but seeming dark voids where a normal person had eyes-she never had any doubt whatsoever as to when he was looking at her.

They were the eyes of a dream walker. A dream walker denied access to her mind. Now, she understood why.

"Well?" He growled. He threw up his hands. "Cry! Yell! Scream! Beg!

Argue make excuses! Don't just stand there!"

Nicci swallowed back the sharp taste of blood as she gazed placidly into his scarlet glare.

"Please be specific, Excellency, as to which one you would prefer, how long I should carry on, and if I should end it of my own accord, or wait for you to beat me into unconsciousness."

He lunged at her with a howl of fury. He seized her throat in his massive fist to hold her as he struck her. Her knees buckled, but he held her up until she was able to steady herself.

He released her throat with a shove. "I want to know why you did that to Kadar!"

She offered only a bloody smile to his anger.

He wrenched her arm behind her back and pulled her hard against him.

"Why would you do such a thing! Why?"