Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

Arc 3: Chapter 25: Flicker

Far into the timeless hell of the Bell Ward’s underbelly, a door opened.

They were implements of torture themselves, the dungeon’s doors. Each opened resentfully, with squealing wails that seemed to echo through the halls forever. If I had managed to find a rare period of thoughtless sleep, one without nightmares, the opening of one of those iron-hinged monsters would drag me back into the filthy cell.

More than the sound itself was what it promised. Each time men came, they dragged one of the other prisoners away. I could hear them, their pleas and their sobs. They always returned silent, if they returned at all.

Eventually, I’d be the one taken away. It had happened several times already. I had no way to tell how long I’d been in the dark, and my interviews with the Presider were far enough between as to be useless for determining the passage of time.

He’d used water the first time, boiling and freezing. The second time he’d broken the fingers of my left hand, and only the left.

He’d asked me where the rest of the Table hid, mostly, and who else I’d cooperated with in my role as Headsman. He seemed convinced I worked for some element among the lords — no doubt he still believed I took my orders from Rose.

I gave him nothing, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I broke. I am not immune to pain. No man is.

I heal fast. That in itself cursed me here, because it meant there was more they could do to me, without killing me.

They told me they’d captured Emma, and were torturing her as well. I knew they lied, that it was a tactic to make me talk to spare her if not myself, so I’d kept my silence. Even still, she featured in many of my worst nightmares. I imagined them torturing her, imagined Kross making devil’s bargains she’d be forced to accept.

Every time they took me into the Presider’s office, the threat of worse hung over the questions. Oraise was a patient man, and I knew he hadn’t even started. He’d promised months of this.

Lias never came.

There were other prisoners in the dungeon, though the number rose or dropped on occasion. I knew some from the sounds they made, learning to recognize their voices. I wondered which of them was the elder from the slums, if any of them were. I suspected him to already be dead.

I lay in the dark, feeling a dead man.

And in the dark, she whispered into my dreams. The demon. Those were the worst of my nightmares, because her will lay behind them.

In the distant labyrinth of suffering and fanaticism beneath Rose Malin, an iron door screamed. It almost masked the screams of the one they took away.

It had been a long time since they’d taken me. On my cot, I closed my eyes and waited. I imagined escape, and tried to keep as much of my strength as I could.

I waited for something to change.

***

Many days later, the dungeon’s door screamed. I woke from a dream, and it took me several minutes to convince myself I was still intact. I’d had a dream of scuttling things eating me, carrying my pieces far and wide.

Heavy, impatient boots stomped down the hall outside my cell. Water splashed — parts of the dungeon were still flooded from the recent bout of rain. About a third of my own cell had been filled with inch-deep water. Everything stank of piss and mold. I heard a whimper from one of the other cells.

Another door opened, one of the cells. Taking someone else, then. I closed my eyes, settling back against the damp wall. I listened — in the darkness, my senses grew more keen. My blessings had been doubly a curse in this forsaken place, in that regard.

“Hold her,” a familiar voice said. One of the priorguard who regularly visited my cell, usually to bring food or change the pot. Sometimes to drag me away for questions.

The prisoner, a woman who’d been here nearly as long as me, let out a shriek. I heard a heavy thump, one of the guards spat out a savage curse, and then came a heavy crack. The sound of a body falling limp, a splash of water.

“Bitch had a rock!” A voice I didn’t know, younger.

“Told you to watch out for that,” the first priorguard said. “She dead?”

A moment’s pause. “Yeah. Neck’s broken. Good swing, eh? Shame, though...”

The first priorguard growled angrily. “We’re the priorguard, not some back-fief militia. Have some class.”

"Right, right, all class down here." The younger let out a dry laugh. "What you think's going on above, got everyone in a scuff?"

“Don't know. Let’s get this done quick.” I could hear the disgust in the older guard’s voice, but another emotion overrode it. Impatience?

No. Fear.

They opened another cell, and this time I heard a blade slide out of its sheath. There was a brief cry of alarm, then another thump.

I sat up straighter against the cold wall, tensing. When a third door opened, closer to my cell, I knew I wasn’t imagining it.

They were killing the prisoners. Why?

In the far distance, I heard another shout, and a door slamming shut. Several heavy boots stomping, running, and—

A distant scream.

“Shit.” The older guard again. “We’re running out of time.”

The third cell they opened belonged to an old man who’d been taken for questions more times than most. I didn’t think they tortured him, or at least not often — he always seemed calm when they took him away, even chatted with the guard on occasion.

I began to sidle along the wall, avoiding the water so as not to make a sound. I navigated my way carefully to the door along the room’s perimeter, jaw clenched against the spikes of agony in my left leg. I kept my weight off it, using the wall at my back to compensate, and made slow progress.

The old prisoner started to say something, some question — asking what was happening, probably. The priorguard didn’t let him finish. I heard a sharp crack, probably a bludgeon bringing the old man to the ground, then a brief struggle, some gasps and grunts.

They choked him to death, rather than using a blade.

“You done?” I heard the cold anger in the first guard’s voice.

“Not going to wet my cutter with holy blood, am I? Old cunt was a preost, yeah?”

They came to my cell then.

“Gotta be quick with this one,” the older guard said. “Dangerous bastard.”

“Oh yeah? How so?”

“Apparently some kind of sorcerer, and a soldier on top. The Knight-Confessor says he shouldn’t be able to do any tricks in his condition, but let’s not indulge ourselves, aye?”

“…Right.” The younger guard sounded nervous, now.

I heard them put the key in, begin to turn the latch. Before the door opened, another set of boots padded down the hall, and a voice called out.

“Stop!” A woman’s voice.

The latch stopped turning partway.

“Sister,” the older priorguard said, impatient. “What is it? We were told to do this fast.”

“They need you above,” the newcomer said. “Now. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“…By yourself?” I heard the skepticism in the priorguard’s voice.

“You think me incapable?” The third snapped. “There is no time for this.”

The older guard grunted. I heard one of them, maybe the younger, shift a step and disturb a puddle.

“Where’s your veil, sister? And what’s that you got there?”

“Brother Eryn, there’s no time for this. I have been instructed to—”

Something fell into the water with a loud sploosh.

“She’s weaving!” The younger guard. I heard him lunge, a sudden splash, a grunt. Metal skidded off stone.

I heard the low, musical hum of aura, and then a man choking. Feet scrabbled, disturbing water.

“Stay back, Eryn.” The woman’s voice was hard now.

“What is this?” The older priorguard demanded in a tight voice.

“This isn’t a discussion. You want to live? I’ll let you leave, but you must do it now.”

I heard the silence as the older priorguard considered, and made his choice. A heavy boot came down, air whistled as a weapon swung—

I heard something break, the sound not unlike a piece of wood snapping. Another long silence followed, punctuated by the occasional distant shout. Those had grown less frequent.

The latch began to turn again. By now I’d made it to the wall next to the door. My vision swam, but I managed to focus well enough to tense as the door began to open.

They’d bound my hands together with iron manacles connected by a short chain. I lifted my hands cautiously so the chain wouldn’t rattle, slowing baring my teeth in a silent snarl.

When the door opened halfway, I rammed against it, using its mass to slam the person beginning to step through. She grunted, slipped on the slick floor.

I heard the hum of aura again, but it was too late. I grabbed her by the collar of her robe and yanked her into the room, getting her under me. We both toppled onto the ground. A brief struggle, which I ended by grabbing the priorguard by the hair and smacking the back of her skull against the stone floor, once, hard.

The face of a young woman blinked up at me, stunned. She still wore the black priorguard uniform, but without the tight cowl or rectangular veil. She’d dropped her lantern, and its beam fell on her sweat-beaded face.

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She wasn’t much older than Emma — maybe twenty, and had stern features, pale and lightly freckled. Her hair was wheat blond, her eyes clear and blue.

“Lisette,” I growled, my voice raw from dehydration and worse. I clasped my hands together, not worrying about whether the chain rattled now, and lifted my hands above my head.

“W-wait!” The former novice cried, bringing her hands up to shield her face — or one, anyway. I’d pinned one of her arms with my knee, so she couldn’t use her Art. “I’m here to get you out!”

I glared down at her. Endless nights of torture and despair had stoked something dark in me, and it urged me to slam my iron-bound fists down and break her skull for helping put me here.

“Why?” My voice emerged as a bare whisper.

“No…” she flinched as I let out an almost bestial growl. “I don’t have time for all the details. I don’t work for either the Knight-Confessor or the Presider. I’m a spy, and I’ve been ordered to free you by my superiors.”

Just how many people had the idea to infiltrate the Priory before me? I wondered.

In the distance, I heard another shout. It cut off very suddenly. “What’s going on?” I asked. My voice, long out of use, came more easily the more I spoke.

“The Priory is under attack,” she said. “I don’t know by who. The Presider ordered all the prisoners executed. in case it’s some other faction in the theocracy, or in the Accord. So they couldn’t tell anyone else what’s been going on down here.”

Covering their tracks. If the Inquisition hadn’t gained enough power to kidnap and interrogate people with official sanctions, it made sense.

“But you’re not here to kill me,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“No. As I said, it’s complicated. If you want out of here, you’re going to have to trust me.” She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves, and spoke more calmly. “During your last session with the Presider, I understand they cut the tendons in your left leg. I can heal those, so you can walk. Your hand too.”

Outside the cell, everything had gone unsettlingly quiet. I stared into the adept’s blue eyes for a long moment, trying to see the trap. There was always a trap.

I sensed no deceit in her. That didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Even still, she was right about one thing — I couldn’t walk out of here under my own power, or fight for shit with a broken hand.

Even still, it might be safer to kill her. I considered doing it. But I managed to get ahold of my rage, my fear and the sight of the open doorway compelling me to flee and not look back, and let my weight off her.

“You try anything,” I said in a low voice, “and I will kill you.”

Lisette got up, stopping in a half crouch. Her hair was in disarray, and her robe had gotten in the rank water so it almost seemed to fuse with the floor. She nodded, her jaw clenched tight.

She’d changed in the year since I’d last properly seen her. I remembered a mildly pretty girl, world-weary, prickly and dour. That, at least, hadn’t changed. She looked leaner now, sharper, the nervousness I recalled when she’d been Doctor Olliard’s apprentice replaced by a grim focus. She’d cut her hair short, fashioning it into a conservative bob.

No telling how she’d gotten here, into this city and tangled up in all of this. I didn’t much care for her story just then, in any case.

She had me sit on the ground. I let out a hiss when she grabbed my ankle. My skin was raw and covered in damp grime and blood. I’d lost weight, and it shocked me to see how tightly my own skin clung to muscle and bone. I hadn’t paid it much mind, until now.

I focused my attention on the adept, wary of treachery. It had taken much of my dwindled strength just to get to the door and subdue her, so it wasn’t difficult to keep still.

Even still, I prepared for the worst.

Lisette’s eyelids half closed, so her sky-blue irises turned into narrow slivers. I watched the faint telltale of yellow in them, like bands of sunlight on a clear sky, brighten. Her long fingers worked, their tips pressing together and parting several times, almost like some nervous tic.

Then, before my eyes, yellow light began to form between the young woman’s fingertips. The light condensed, taking shape as nearly solid yellow threads which emitted a faint glow. More appeared as Lisette’s hands moved, wrapping around the topmost joints of each finger, forming a complex net between them cat’s cradle style.

“You got better,” I muttered. “You used to need real strings as a focus.”

Without opening her eyes, she replied. “I've had a lot of practice. Now hold still.”

She began to work, weaving golden threads of aura into my flesh, using them like a physik’s sutures. It hurt for a while, but after several minutes the pain began to lessen. She ran her fingers along my maimed leg, binding skin and sinew back together, repairing muscle. The golden threads replaced some of my missing muscle, where the questioners had snipped it out.

She worked at the fingers of my left hand then. and that was even less pleasant. I grit my teeth, but kept quiet through the process. Lisette rebroke my fingers, as they’d started to heal crooked, acting with quick, brutal gentleness, creating more golden threads to sew through my joints.

If I thought I’d grown numb to pain, her quick surgery proved me wrong.

When done, I flexed the fingers of my left hand. It hurt, but they worked.

“Try not to move them,” Lisette said. “They’re not truly healed, only… reinforced, I suppose. The aura should speed the process, but it isn’t full proof.”

I stared at the soft glow around my left hand, marveling. I had never seen an Art both so refined and so tangible. I’d watched adepts create blades capable of cleaving through solid stone, or imbue arrows with enough force to pummel through rows of soldiers, but powerful phantasms usually only lasted moments before losing their strength.

I’d been impressed by Lisette’s magic the first time I’d met her. Now, I felt more than a little afraid of it.

She helped me stand then, which took some doing. I found my balance soon enough, and felt clearer. Her magic thrummed through me, finding an accord with my own inner fire, the two strengthening one another. Soon enough, I could stand on my own, and felt a bit more clear headed.

I wasn’t even close to properly healed — I knew, deep down, I was in a very bad way.

“How long have I been down here?” I asked. I still struggled to lift my voice above a hoarse whisper.

“Three weeks,” Lisette said.

I swallowed that statement, digested it, and squared my shoulders. “Alright.”

“Stay close,” she said. “As I said, I don’t know who’s attacking us… I’m going to get you out of here, but you need to trust me.”

She produced a key then, and unlocked my manacles. I rubbed at my wrist as they clattered to the floor. I considered that a moment, and started to let my guard slip just a little.

“Lead on, then.” I had no intention of letting her get behind me, and out of my sight.

She led me out into a dark, water-logged hall smelling of mildew and fear. Two bodies lay on the floor, both with twisted limbs and broken necks. An image flashed through my mind — of Lisette’s threads entwined around the men’s throats, contorting them until something gave. I averted my eyes.

“Here,” Lisette said. She set the lantern down on a dry spot of floor, then grabbed a bundle wrapped in thick brown cloth from near the bodies. I recalled the sound of something falling before she’d killed the other priorguard.

“It’s all I could retrieve,” she said, handing it to me. “I thought you’d need it.”

I took it, letting the cloth fall away. I narrowed my eyes as I lifted Faen Orgis into the air. An odd mixture of emotions went through me — relief, chiefly, but apprehension and resentment as well.

I really couldn’t be free of the thing. If anything, though, it convinced me Lisette wasn’t representative of some hostile ploy.

I might actually live, I thought. I buried the bittersweet realization and rested my axe on one shoulder, turning to Lisette. “There was a medallion and a ring with my belongings,” I said. “Did you—”

The look on her face answered me well enough. I fell quiet, accepting the loss.

“This way,” the adept said, tearing her own gaze from the bodies. She looked more than a little pale. She squinted into the dark, lifting the small lantern she carried to aim its dull beam into the subterranean gloom. She might have a powerful Art, but she was otherwise an ordinary human, and could not see in the dark.

She led me through a winding series of dank corridors, and for a time only the sound of our furtive steps, breathing, and the dripping stones above accompanied us. Everything else had fallen eerily silent.

“You don’t know who’s attacking?” I said.

Lisette glanced back. She stood a bit ahead, holding the lantern aloft to illuminate the corridor ahead. “No. It started about an hour ago — I have orders to get you out of here.”

“Orders from who?”

She turned her eyes forward. “A faction that opposes the Priory’s rise in influence. That’s all I will say for now.”

I stopped, preparing to demand more answers. Before I could speak, one of the doors nearby suddenly jumped, causing both of us to tense. Lisette let out a hiss of surprise and fell back against the opposite wall, holding her lantern up like a shield. I tightened my grip on the staff, instinctively putting myself between her and the potential threat.

The doors along this hall weren’t the same as the ones in my block. They weren’t siege doors with reinforced frames, and had small windows barred with iron.

A face appeared in that little window. In the yellow light of Lisette’s lantern, I saw an old man’s features, haggard and dirty. He had eyes too large for his face, blue and ordinary save for their size and the slight yellow tint to the sclera. His hair was filthy and matted like mine, hanging limp from a balding pate.

He blinked into the light, clearly having not felt its touch for a long time. “You, please.” His voice sounded hoarse as my own, at least to my ears. “Please, just tell me what’s going on.”

I glanced at Lisette. She’d led me down a different route than the guards usually dragged me for interrogations — probably the only reason this prisoner had been spared from the two thugs and their purge.

“Inquisition’s under attack,” I said.

The old man’s too-big eyes went to Lisette, taking in her priorguard uniform. They reminded me of a reptile’s eyes — they didn’t blink. “Please,” he croaked. “Don’t leave me here to starve. If…” he swallowed, his neck bobbing. “If you must abandon this place, at least make it quick for me.”

Lisette’s voice hissed behind me. “We don’t have time.”

I ignored her, stepping up to the bars. The old man cringed away from me, retreating into the dark. The way he moved was strange, and his eyes seemed to shine like a cat’s in the dark.

“What’s your name, grandfather?”

“I am called Parn,” the prisoner said quietly.

“Why are you here?”

The eyes did blink now, their lambency momentarily flickering in the dark of the cell. “I was an apothecary from the low city, before the veils put me down here. They accused me of witchcraft, and other things. I…” I heard him swallow again. “I do not know how long I’ve been here.”

I took a deep breath and said, “Stand back.”

“What are you doing?” Lisette demanded, as I grabbed Faen Orgis in both hands and took a step back.

“I’m not going to leave him to die,” I said without turning, measuring my swing. Besides, I added quietly, he’s the whole reason I’m here.

I swung, and the sharp crack of wood splitting shot through the hall like a shout. I ripped the axe free, then swung again without hesitation.

I felt unbelievably weak. I cursed, already beaded with sweat, and swung again.

“Stop!” Lisette sighed heavily. “Let me get it.”

I glared back at her, annoyed at the interruption. It had felt good to hit something, to feel like I could affect anything.

Then I saw the key in her hand, and inwardly winced. “Ah. Right.”

She scurried forward and unlocked the door. When it opened, the changeling stepped out into the hall tentatively, as though afraid of some trick. I empathized with him.

He was small, walked with a stiff gait, and looked human save for his odd eyes. He wore rags similar to my own, though he’d been in them long enough they’d started to rot in the damp environs.

“I don’t understand,” he said weakly, glancing again at Lisette.

“I’ll explain later,” I said. “If you want to get out of here, follow us.”

Lisette’s jaw clenched and unclenched in a nervous rhythm. “We must hurry!” She insisted, turning. “I have no idea how—”

She fell abruptly silent as we both heard a sound ahead. A heavy noise of impact, like a body falling down a flight of stairs. Thump-thump-thump, then a wet crack. Then silence.

Lisette took a step back. Her face beaded with moisture — not all of it from the dripping ceiling.

“Get behind me,” I said, moving before she did. I got in front of the adept, putting myself between her and the hall ahead. “And dim that lantern.”

“But—”

“It’s not helping me,” I said.

Lisette hesitated a moment longer, then slid the lantern’s hood down so the corridor fell into darkness.

“Where are all the guards?” Parn asked quietly.

“Hush,” I murmured. I stepped forward a bit more, squinting into the dark.

Without the mundane light, the aura in my eyes brightened as I poured my concentration into them. I focused, and the hall ahead cleared into pale, crisp clarity.

Or, that was what I’d expected. A distance of perhaps fifteen feet or so became clear, and I could make out the outline of the corridor a ways beyond, but it seemed too dim. The further distance of the hall remained in impenetrable black.

My aura had been weakened from three weeks of malnutrition and injury, the inner furnace of power cooled down to mere embers.

Shit. If I had to fight in this condition…

Movement drew my attention. The hall ended in a flight of stairs, which I couldn’t see the top of.

A limp form lay at the bottom of those stairs. That’s what we’d heard fall, I guessed. I caught a glimpse of twisted limbs and a bent neck — dead in the tumble. I turned my attention up, and took another step forward.

Then froze as the hall filled with the sound of a manic chuckle.

“Whoopsie!” A light, whimsical voice giggled.

The body at the bottom of the stairs climbed to its feet. It did so with a faint crackling sound, like it had to rearrange brittle bones in order to make the right shape to support its own weight.

It was a man. A large one, with pallid skin and a bulbous, sagging belly. He was naked, hairy, covered in grime and half-dried blood, his skin gleaming with an oily shean. He had no light to see by, but his eyes fixed on me.

Blind eyes, milky and pale. Yet, somehow, I knew they could still see. His lips peeled back into an impossibly wide grin, revealing too many teeth.

“Ah, good.” He had an oddly high voice, completely at odds with his appearance. “There are still more!”

“Alken…” Lisette could hear the man, or the thing shaped like a man, but couldn’t see him as I could with her lantern shut.

“Stay back,” I said, taking a step back myself. “When I tell you to, run.”

“…What is it?” She asked, her voice tight with fear.

An old fear, and an old hate, bubbled up in me. I forgot all the pain, the weakness, the piteous sense of hopeless, powerless failure which had accompanied me through my incarceration.

I could hear my own heart pounding in my head. The dulled fire in me flickered, stoked by the surge of emotion, of rage, I felt.

The scars over my left eye burned. I bared my teeth and lifted my axe.

“It’s a demon.”