The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (15 page)

"Take a deep breath. This may be the last
time you feel fresh air in your lungs," she warned.

Myranda's eyes adjusted and she took in her
surroundings. She was in a courtyard kept meticulously free from
snow, surrounded by a low, sturdy wall. Filling the courtyard was
row after row of soldiers. They bore general issue armor that
seemed crude in comparison to that worn by the Elites. Not a face
could be seen, each hidden behind a visor or mask. At the center
was a square stone building that seemed a bit small to warrant such
defenses. She was being led inside. The doors were pulled open by
the two guards stationed beside them.

Inside was pure darkness, not the merest
flicker of light could be seen. Eyes that had only just adjusted to
the light were faced with the task of penetrating the darkness
again. A faint glow that Myranda soon found to originate in the gem
of her collar was the first thing she was able to see. The pale
blue light did little more than transform the darkness into a
collection of ill defined shapes.

"Close your eyes," Trigorah ordered.

Myranda swiftly obeyed. There came the
familiar hiss and sizzle of a torch being lit. Carefully the girl
opened her eyes. The dancing yellow light revealed a scene she
wished had remained hidden. The whole of the interior was a single
large room with only the occasional pillar. The walls were lined
with bars, divided into dozens of different cells, all empty. They
approached an arched doorway that led to a set of stairs leading
downward.

The stairs led down only one floor. The next
staircase was at the far end of the floor. In this way it was
impossible to move quickly up or down. Each floor had to be
traversed in its entirety to reach the next. As she was escorted
downward in just this fashion, descending further and further into
the ground, some of the cells began to show occupants. She glimpsed
at the people locked away. With each new floor she found herself
feeling that she had seen these faces before. Some seemed to show a
look of recognition themselves. A few showed something far stronger
than recognition. In the short time that the torch illuminated
their faces, these individuals shifted from shock to anger and
hatred. She left at least one person on each floor screaming for
her blood. With their cries echoing in her ears, she shut her eyes
tight and allowed herself to be led onward. Finally she came to a
floor that brought no new cries. She opened her eyes.

It must have been the bottom floor, deep
below the surface. While this place was as large as the other
floors, there were no cells. In fact, it was practically empty. All
that could be seen was a pair of chairs, a pile of chains, a table,
and the interrogator. It was he, Arden. From the looks of it, he
hadn't changed from the ravaged armor he had worn when they last
met. His halberd was in the corner of the room, far outside the
sphere of light cast by the torch, but betrayed by a glow identical
to the one from her collar. The look of clarity and intellect that
had appeared fleetingly during their last encounter was now a
permanent fixture on his face. Myranda's arrival added a look of
pleased amusement to the collection of out of place
expressions.

"Finally managed to bring her in, have you?
Splendid. And the sword?" he asked.

"They were not carrying it. In the interest
of timely and secure retrieval, I believe the best course of action
is to pay the ransom," Trigorah recommended.

"Well of course it is. Had we gotten the
payment to them before one of the other squads had shown up and
spoiled things we would have been saved a considerable amount of
time," he said.

"And lives," she added.

"Lives are cheap, time is precious," Arden
said without a hint of humor. "Now, when I have spent some of that
precious commodity with our first prize, you and I shall look into
the acquisition of our second. Go, and leave the bag, and if that
staff is hers, leave that too. The brute work is aside, this is a
time for skill."

General Teloran slammed the door upon
leaving. Only Arden and Myranda remained in the room. He flashed a
rather incomplete smile at her.

"Have a seat," he said. "Relax."

Myranda sat.

"I am afraid that I may not be able to relax
with you around. Not since you tried to kill me," she said.

"I do apologize for that. Couldn't quite
place the face. It is a good thing your former captors wrestled me
off of you. My colleagues would have been quite perturbed if I had
killed you before I had determined your usefulness. Now, to that
end," he said, snatching up her bag before sitting across from her
and leaning forward. "Let us have a look at you."

Oddly, he closed his eyes as he said this.
After a few moments he nodded thoughtfully.

"Respectably skilled wizard. Mainly elemental
with a fair dose of the healer's art and a smattering of the
esoteric. Not anything special, but respectable," he said. He began
to remove objects from the bag and place them on the table.

"Who told you that?" she asked.

"No one. I can see it. I can smell it, I can
even taste it. You've got a good, dense aura about you, and the
spirits seem to like you. They pay particular attention to you.
With some experience you could be a force to be reckoned with, as
your little display at the mines would indicate. I'll have to see
about getting you a better collar," he said.

"Listen, never mind all of that! You can
untie me, and there is no need for this collar. I know what you
want, and I want to help you," Myranda said.

"Do you, now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow
and putting down the dagger from her bag. "This should be quite
interesting. Tell me, what is it that we want?"

"You want to find the Chosen! This war is
destroying the world and you know that the Chosen are beginning to
appear to bring it to an end. You want to find them and assemble
them so that all of the fighting can come to an end," she said.

"That is . . . one interpretation of our
cause. Now, why do I want
you
, I wonder?" he asked.

"Because, I have a part in this, in the
prophesy!" she said.

"You are Chosen?" he asked, eyebrows raised
once again.

"No, but I can find them," she said.

"The Chosen will find each other," he
corrected.

"No, the prophesy is changing, I have heard
the spirits speak of it with my own ears," she said.

"You don't hear spirits with your ears," he
said.

"They were speaking through a prophet," she
said.

"All of the prophets north of the battlefront
are in the employ of the Alliance Army. You couldn't have been
listening to a prophet, and even if you had, we would have heard it
as well," he retorted, finally losing interest in her and returning
to his rummaging through her bag.

"Well he wasn't . . . Listen, why are we
arguing? We want the same thing!" she urged.

He ignored her plea, placing bandages and
vials on the table one after the other, shaking his head in amused
wonder at the labels as he read each one.

"Such flawed little mechanisms you are," he
mused quietly.

"Untie me and I will show you! I have the
Mark, the Mark of the Chosen, on my left palm," she said.

"Oh, yes, I am keenly aware of that little
fact. The hands stay tied," he said. He had come to the book she
had taken from Lain's shelves.

"Doesn't that prove something? Doesn't that
prove I have some higher purpose?" she asked urgently.

"Perhaps. That is yet to be determined," he
answered distantly.

"Can you read any of that?" Myranda asked,
suddenly hopeful that at least one answer might be discovered.

"Yes. All of it. It will be quite immediately
useful to me, I think," he said.

"There is a page, just past the middle of the
book, that has a single line crossed out. Find it! Tell me what it
says!" she demanded.

"Though I am not in the habit of doing favors
for my prisoners, I don't think I will need to flip to the page to
tell you what it says," he said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It will say, 'Pay us the full price and you
may keep her. The sword will be given to the courier upon payment.
You can deliver the gold to the following location.' Directions
follow, would you care to hear them?" he asked.

"Why would it say that?" she asked,
confused.

"That is what every other page says," he
said, holding the book up to her nose.

Both pages that she could see, and apparently
all of those that she couldn't, bore the message he had read on an
otherwise blank page, written in plain Northern, in Desmeres' hand.
He must have taken the book she had stolen and swapped it for this
one.

"I am curious, but that will not last long, I
assure you. All will be determined in a moment," he said, standing
and stepping behind her.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I am about to begin interrogating," he
stated.

"But why? I will tell you anything you want
to know!" she said.

"I don't know everything I want to know from
you yet," he replied.

"Then I will tell you everything I know!" she
said.

"You don't
know
everything you know,"
he stated.

Myranda's confusion briefly surpassed her
fear, and it showed on her face.

"There is a plethora of information you have
that you would just push aside as something I don't need to know,
not to mention the facts that you know both halves of but you've
never been bright enough to piece together. I shall have all of
them by the time we are through. Since you are so eager to
cooperate, all I ask is that you do not resist," he said, sitting
before her again.

Myranda closed her eyes. She repeated to
herself in her mind the reasons that she trusted the Alliance Army,
the reasons they needed her, and the reasons she needed them. The
short list of assumptions that had led her into their hands had
been quite compelling and convincing when she'd first composed it.
In the past few hours she had come to find it severely lacking.
This monster of a man, a man in the employ of the Alliance, had
made a disturbingly effective attempt on her life when they last
met, and now she was to willingly submit herself to an
interrogation at his hands! All based on an optimistic assumption!
She resigned that certainly this had been a mistake, but there was
no going back now. Desperately she scoured her mind for some
thought to calm herself. As she felt the hulking man's fingers
touch lightly to her temples, she finally settled upon something
Desmeres had said. Things could be worse. That Epidime fiend he
spoke of could be the one interrogating her.

As she thought, a peculiar, somewhat
familiar, and terrible sensation was beginning to stir in her mind.
It was a subtle pressure that she’d often felt when her mind was at
its bleakest. She could not describe it, but somehow she knew that
this was far stronger than she had ever felt before. The source
seemed to be the fingers at her temples. They were not moving at
all, and yet she could feel them digging deeper and deeper. It felt
as though they were pressing in not on her skin, but her mind. She
began to repeat her mantra more intently. At least it isn't
Epidime. At least it isn't Epidime. The sensation grew. At least it
isn't Epidime. Where had she felt this before? At least it isn't
Epidime. Slowly she realized that there was not one voice chanting
in her mind, but two . . . two of her own.

Like a flash of lighting, the burning fear of
realization swept through her. The other voice, she'd been haunted
by her own voice in her mind before. That was the sensation, the
feeling she recognized. It was an intruder in her own mind. Why?
How? Her racing mind was further muddled by the second voice.
Before long she couldn't tell her own thoughts from those of this
intruder. Finally she silenced them all. She did her best to do the
mental equivalent of closing her eyes and covering her ears.
Silence . . . Stillness . . . At least it isn't Epidime. The
thought was not hers.

"You!" she cried, eyes opened. "You
are
Epidime! You were the one who hounded me every time I
was stretched to the limit, whenever my spirit nearly gave out! You
were the one who tried to push me to the edge."

She shook his hands away and tried to stand.
He grasped her shoulder, wrenched it painfully, and forced her to
the seat again. She made a desperate attempt to cast a spell only
to be instantly and painfully reminded of the restraint on her
neck. With his free hand, her mysterious captor summoned the
halberd to him. Once within his grip the gem mounted in its blade
shone brightly. Immediately the sensation in her mind intensified.
It was almost too much to bear. She shut her eyes tightly again and
turned the full power of her mind to the task of keeping the
intruder out. The restraint about her neck flared again. She pulled
back, gathering her strength deeper within her mind. The burning at
her neck decreased, but still tore at her. She retreated farther
and farther into her own mind, hiding from this foreign presence.
Myranda found that if she pulled all of her strength deep, she
could avoid the effect of the collar and still keep the dark,
infiltrating force at bay. It was a monumental effort, every bit as
taxing as any of the trials she’d faced in Entwell. Time passed,
though how much was impossible to say. Her mind screamed for
relief. As she felt her efforts waver, she began to think to
herself in an attempt to keep her mind sharp.

"This was a mistake. I should have known
better," she thought, feeling a sudden intense impulse to open her
eyes. A brief attempt nearly led her to lose focus. "Keep your eyes
shut, Myranda, keep your mind focused. What was I thinking? The
Army has brought me nothing but trouble for my entire life. Why did
I think I could trust them? Was my assumption that they would help
me even my own? Did he somehow force me into this leap of faith?
But he agreed when I said that he wanted the Chosen so that the war
could be brought to an end. Maybe there is still hope. Perhaps this
is a test of my loyalty. Perhaps I should give in, I have nothing
to hide . . . No! Remember what Desmeres said. Epidime is not to be
trusted under any circumstance. He might be one of them, those
creatures, like the cloaks that attacked me. But then, Desmeres has
lied to me before . . . or has he? No! He was always honest. He
wouldn't have warned me about Epidime unless he knew that meeting
him could cost me my life. I must resist. Is he weakening? No, no,
just keep him out. Don't stop until he does, Myranda, don't take a
chance . . . Why do I think he is bad? Desmeres said to watch out
for him, but did he say he was bad? No. This man may be reasonable.
After all, he could have killed us all if he is as strong as he
seems. And he did let me go on his own. He could have easily
strangled me to death, but he let go. I wish I could see what is
going on. That feeling . . . he has tried this so many times from
afar. Trying to warn me. Why didn't I listen? Now I resist. I
should just let him into my mind. That would bring this torture to
an end. I want to see what is going on. He is an intelligence
officer in the Alliance Army. He has been one since the start of
the war. He knows what happened to my father. I must see what is
going on. There is no reason to keep my eyes closed."