Murtagh

Images of the courtyard floated before Murtagh’s eyes; it was difficult to tell which part of himself was in the dungeon beneath the temple and which part was above, lying on the flagstones. Thorn was in pain equal to his own, and somehow the strength of their shared torment had overcome the stifling resistance of the vorgethan and the Breath.

Recognition came from Thorn, and relief and affection. Regret too, and confusion, for all was a blurred haze….

***

Twice more Murtagh saw Alín standing by the door of the cell. The woman seemed increasingly troubled, and she spoke to him in a voice that sounded as if at the end of a great tunnel….

She gave him food. That much he remembered. Solid food, and he was grateful to eat something other than the slop the cultists had forced into him. But solid or not, the food still burned with the hated taste of brandy.

***

Bachel bent low over Murtagh, her distorted, half-hidden face gilded with garish adornment by the light of the copper brazier. He could smell the sweat on her skin and feel the heat of her breath.

“You will serve me, and through me, Azlagûr,” she whispered. “If I cannot have your obedience sworn of your own tongue, I shall have it by other means. In the end, you will bow before me, my son, and do my bidding in these, the end of days.”

“Never,” Murtagh managed to croak.

“No being is meant for never. Not even Azlagûr. We are creatures of change. Be so now, Kingkiller. Change. Become!”

The witch raised her arms, and her draconic aspect strengthened until it seemed as if he were staring into the eyes of a great, fiery beast. She cried out in a voice not her own, and he felt the forces of magic swirling about him. Down swung her arm. She dashed a vial against the floor, and a clinging cloud of Breath enveloped him. Then her claws dug into his torn flesh with fresh savagery, and Murtagh shouted with such violence that his voice broke and blood filled his throat.

Through Thorn’s eyes, he saw heavy-browed Grieve swing an iron lash, and the dragon roared with mirrored torment.

Up and down lost all meaning. Reason and logic abandoned Murtagh—and Thorn too—leaving only feeling, and what they felt was unbearable.

What could not continue…did not.

Murtagh broke. He felt it, he knew it, but in the moment, he did not care. All he wanted was for the pain to cease. He could not swear fealty to Bachel, that was beyond him, but he could no longer keep fighting.

So he stopped.

He gave up, and his mind retreated from the horrors of the situation, and a strange shell of passivity formed around him, numbing his emotions, dulling his thoughts. What he was shrank until it nearly vanished.

He could feel a sense of triumph radiating from Bachel. But he did not care. It did not matter.

None of it did. Only that the pain had stopped.

And it had. For Thorn had given up also, and the two of them lay in their respective places—chained and fettered—and waited to be told what to do.

CHAPTER XVIII Without Flaw

Murtagh stood unmoving before Bachel’s high-backed, fur-strewn throne. Above, the rustles and whispered caws of hidden crows echoed off the stones of the shadowed ceiling: a constant accompaniment to the doings below.

Murtagh stared without seeing as cultists stripped him of his clothes. All of his wounds had been attended to; where Bachel had inflicted her tortures upon him, his skin was again smooth and seamless.

From her raised seat, the witch watched with an impassive gaze over the rim of a dented brass goblet. Grieve stood beside her, stone-faced.

“Turn about, my son,” she said.

He did.

By the middle of the chamber sat Thorn, wings furled, shoulders hunched high and tense. No shackles bound his scaled limbs, yet he did not stir.

“Stop.”

Murtagh stood with his back to Bachel, eyes fixed upon the pale beams of sunlight that crept in about the edges of the distant doorway. The mosaic floor was cold against his feet. He shivered, but it was a reflex; no thought accompanied the movement.

“A most unsightly scar lies upon him, Grieve.”

“Verily, Speaker.”

“I wonder, ought I remove this blight from him? He is to be our shining paragon, after all. Our faultless champion. Our king of kings.”

Murtagh’s lips twitched, but he could not speak.

“If you so wish, Speaker.”

“Hmm.” A slosh of wine in the goblet as the witch took a sip. “No, I think not. It is good for him to remember that he is not without flaw. And that he is not all-powerful.”

“Very wise, my Lady.”

Thorn’s limbs trembled, and the slightest sound escaped his throat.

“Turn now and face me, my son.”

He did.

The witch leaned forward in her seat. “You are as you deserve to be, Kingkiller. Never forget that. Your father’s hate marks you, and I shall not be the one to lift that burden. Not until you bring yourself to accept Azlagûr, myself, and the Draumar as your family. For that we are, and we love you more than you know.” She looked then to Grieve. “See to it that he is well fitted. After all, he is our most honored son.”