Foundation's Mistress

35. The Lady Narelle

Ostrakos is a blueprint: an example of how the world of Asperia could live if she were truly free...

Excerpt: The Memoirs of The Confessor, 1 SSA.

Adya rolled on the uncomfortable cold stone floor in the dark. Like most of the surfaces in Ostrakos, it was damp with moisture, a function of water seepage; and she had discovered that this was likely due to gradual leakage from an underground water source at the far end of the canyon, proximate to where Toby's vault was housed. Not for the last time during the days and hours that passed in the darkness, Adya pleaded with the Gods to flood the canyon, to wash everything away - her, Toby, and all of the threat represented by the seat of Ostrakos. This could be her legacy, she reflected: to see the death of the place, and to see Saburra safe from the grip of a tyrant. Although she had no idea of whether the ordinary folk of Ostrakos had bought in to the Confessor's obsessions, she would prefer not to take the chance. If only she could have wielded her Focal again, even just for an instant. In her mind's eye she played out the scenario: Toby relenting and permitting her to mend the reservoir, only to scream as Adya shattered the reservoir wall, the floodwaters washing him down the tunnel, drowning him, Thull and all the rest of them.

Sleep deprived and shivering, she tried to lie still, attempting to embrace the discomfort. If she could somehow accept it, rendering it ordinary, her mind would settle, and she would fall asleep.

Time passed slowly in a dark cell. She thought it was her fourth day down there, but she could not be sure. It would certainly be her fourth if her assumption about the meals was correct - she thought they were feeding her one meal per day. Her growling stomach couldn't be wrong.

She desperately wanted it all to be over. The discomfort, the cold, the damp, the weariness, the stench of her own piss and shit. On the spectrum of suffering, it seemed she had gone through enough. She didn't have the stomach for anything more. The pain that Toby had promised, the torture that he would bring... she was unable to face it. She could not. Perhaps she would lose consciousness before he began to inflict the pain. Gods, yes. Perhaps she should beg him for death straight away.

But she knew he would not be merciful. There was nothing to be done about that. Not now. Whatever kindness, whatever grace she had shown him would never be recognised as such. The well was poisoned. Every act of her love was meaningless in his eyes. By his calculation, every virtue of hers was an act of proud condescension - not to be valued, but despised.

She could not possibly learn the moral lesson he wished her to learn. Or, to put it another way, she could not show him what he wanted to see without undergoing extreme pain. He was hell-bent on inscribing the lessons on her body - she would pay the ultimate price for his fanaticism.

And so, deep in the dark, she resolved to give him his show, to permit him his moment. She would shriek, panic, beg for mercy. By breaking so easily, perhaps she would end it quickly. Or perhaps she would not. Perhaps he would savour her screams.

Deep in the dark, such reflections caused her to weep bitterly.

As the hours passed, she had cause to consider the length and breadth of her life. She had achieved so little, she who had been destined to become great, to follow in the footsteps of her mistress Cassia. She had Formed many things, but not enough. Not enough to save her people. Not enough to protect them from violence and tyranny.

At one point, when she was deep in her reverie, the cell door opened, letting in a tiny beam of light - one which had crept in at an odd angle, a miniscule reflection of the light from the canyon beyond the entrance to the cells. As small as the shaft of light was, it had a near-blinding effect: she shied away from it. After having been in the dark for hours and hours, it felt as if it had seared the back part of her head. She lay there on the stone, blinking.