The Kindly One

XXII. The Rescue

Benedikt knew he was a dead man when he heard the door creak open. It wasn't morning, at least not as far as he could tell. That meant someone was coming to put a knife in him before he could have his say at the trial...not that he would be having much of a say at all without his tongue. He shifted slightly, the chains that Iona had broken replaced by a fresh set, sunk deep into the wall so that they would not so easily come apart. He could hear a familiar voice speaking, one of his chief tormentors. Prochazka, Master of Malice, was not a particularly charming man. He was without question Zdenek's favorite torturer when Nicol Kysely was unavailable. Benedikt didn't know the man's first name, nor did he care to. He had always found the fat little goblin of a man repulsive and now his presence was a hateful one.

"Here he is, Cermak." The wicked, rotund creature known as the Master of Malice opened the door, allowing a rail thin but thick-lipped man in. Cermak seemed friendly, almost solicitous in his expression, but those bright green eyes hid an empty heart. His grey hair was swept across his head in a wave and his hands were clean and soft from the life of an academic devoted to the more bookish, secretive sort of alchemy that flourished in Zaeylael catering to the various needs of the nobles.

Benedikt's lip curled. So they sent the poisoner. Must not want it to look bad, not that they could hide the mistreatment. Or Zdenek wants it to be agonizing beyond what Prochazka can do. He lifted his head up and glared balefully at the two men. He'd met Cermak before, a fellow northerner. It wasn't until he'd learned the man's profession that their association left a sour taste in his mouth.

"Smile, Hustovi," Cermak said genially as he started mixing something in a mortar and pestle. It made a wet grinding sound and smelled of something decayed or rotting. Benedikt thought he could see something dark in the pestle, but that could have just been the shadows with the poor light. "A little security, just in case your little friends do manage to get you released through Královna Vrana's good will."

The wounded nobleman glowered more intensely, prompting a laugh from Prochazka. "What, you didn't think the High Král would let you walk away? You're a dangerous beast, Hustovi. Too dangerous." If the Master of Malice had a cardinal sin, it was his own tongue. He liked to bait, liked to taunt, liked to let loose little slivers of words that worked their way under the skin only to fester in the soul.

Benedikt saw the shadows in the hallway between the torches flicker, like something large but very fast and very quiet moving towards them. He strained to hear or make out more than the shape of a man approaching, suddenly ignoring the two men. It was quiet except for their jeers for a long moment. Moment after moment stretched on as he stared into the shadows, doubting his own vision. Perhaps he had simply been down here too long. They said that the dungeons could rob a man of his mind. Benedikt had just always assumed it would take longer than this.

Maybe five minutes later, there was a flutter of movement in the darkness just behind Prochazka. The man suddenly jerked back, his hands coming up to his throat as his face went red. There was a distinct line across his throat, as if some kind of clear thread was being pulled so tight around his throat that it was cutting into the skin, perhaps a garotte that had no color. Whatever was doing so was strong: he was hauled upwards, his feet kicking and struggling but now a good six inches above the floor as he danced like a man at the end of a hangman's noose.

Cermak whirled around and opened his mouth to shout. Something lunged out of the shadows before he could scream, an almost formless black figure even in the dull torchlight that grabbed him by his face and slammed him against the stone with a sickening sound, a wet crunch that seemed impossibly loud to Benedikt. How had the guards not heard? Where were the guards?

Suddenly, Benedikt felt the fear come back instead of anger. The two shapes before him looked like men dressed in black robes and cowls, like mourning monks, but they didn't move like men. They padded towards him like cats, one of them stepping over the twitching body of Prochazka as the last little bit of life faded out of him. The absolute silence of the room struck the Leyan noble. All he could hear was the sound of his own uneven, ragged breathing. Not theirs. They didn't make a sound.