VI
Coldness. The chill of night, of darkness without reprieve, hidden from the moon, from the natural passing of time. He swung suspended in the cage; he never claimed it as 'his'; such possessions were meaningless, his captor taught. Nothing mattered. His tunic, bloodied and torn, was a mere afterthought, a comfort blanket to be stripped from him and returned when it no longer mattered. The days and nights under the knife meant nothing; keys to a lock, his blocked potential. Pain called out to it, to the shadow hidden in his depths, the monster that awaited, the monster he hadn't known was there. Bhaal. Bhaal's shade, the Lord of Murder wanting to return, a seed birthed within him.
He had learnt the hard way. At first, he refused to believe. Then later, he saw the futility. Sometimes drugged, sometimes clear, he experienced visions, was shown visions. Visions birthed from words, from magic, from dreams, from reality. He was shown his soul, reflected back at him, the truth of what he was. A dead god's spawn. He saw the value of a soul, was shown it, learnt it. The dead continued to mouth, the living selling their souls, their life-energy taken, stolen. A condemned, desperate man bartered his soul to whatever god offered salvation, here or in whatever plane he travelled to; there were many desperate men. Their eyes, frenzied, wild, cursed uselessly; the masked one paid no heed, and cast his magics as they were held in man-sized bell-jars. The spell was always the same. A parting of soul from the body.
Guilt was an irrelevance; something that his captor broke down. Simple truth, not taunts, that had his potential been unlocked, his power would have stopped this, had he the will to use it. He did not, and until he had, the masked one would do as he pleased.