Part XI: Acta non Verba

Torio smoothed the high collar of her dress down; apparently she didhave clothing that covered her from neck to toe. The back of the dress, however, was another story; she was afraid to bend over for fear of flashing the curves of a few lower extremities. She sighed in irritation.

There was something more important on her mind, regardless. Nevalle had nearly tortured information out of her the previous night, information that she didn't have. He had ordered her to acquire it.

The guards were supposed to be moving the assassin to the basement as she readied herself. She stepped out into the hallway, her heels clacking ominously against the flagstones; in the shallow pockets of her skirt was a vial, and hidden beneath her dress, strapped to her thigh, was a tiny boot-knife.

With Nevalle's near-successful attempt to twist her into knots the night before still ringing clearly in her head, she was half hoping she'd need to use it as she breezed past Mephasm and pushed open the door to one of the many back storerooms to the basement. The assassin was shackled to the far wall, the guard that had brought her down standing off to one side.

"Watch the door," she said sharply, and the guard left. She smiled at the assassin. "Hello, darling," she said silkily, shutting the door behind the retreating man's back. "You and I are going to have a little chat."

The assassin eyed the woman that had come in but made no move to tug on the shackles. She knew they were secure; she'd heard the definitive click. Half a week in the stockade had left her sore, tired, and filthy - though they did feed her and water her like clockwork.

But it would take more than a few intimidation tactics to break her. She spat at the woman, reaching deep into her parched throat and expelling the spittle as far as she could. Her eyes flashed angrily; as far as she was concerned - the conversation was over before it had even begun.

Torio sidestepped the weak spray of spittle, sighing long-sufferingly. "Come now," she said soothingly. "We're civilized women, are we not?" She placed her hands on her hips, eyeing the girl. "I've only a few questions for you, and then you can go; why make this hard on yourself?"

She briefly considered the irony of forcing information out of someone after having briefly escaped such a fate herself. The gods must laugh at us sometimes. She asked, smoothly, "Why did Garius send you here?"

The captured rogue lifted her head, impressed the woman was barely fazed. "I know who you are, you kept Luskan bitch. You turned when faced with death - you're weak. Pathetic!" She laughed. "You know they won't let me go - just as how they're never going to let you go. You think serving Nasher loyally will earn you your freedom? You will never be free again."

Torio eyed the girl coolly. "Pardon me if I don't take the advice of a woman in shackles." She slid a hand into her pocket and removed the vial; the clear, slightly foggy liquid swirled against the glass sides as she lovingly fingered the corked top, her manicured nails scratching across its surface. "Perhaps you'll see, by the time we're done, that freedom starts with telling the truth." She brought her face close enough to the assassin's so that she could still be heard, whispering, "Why did Garius send you here?"

The assassin laughed again. "I have resigned myself to my fate; you still struggle Torio Claven. That's why you're down here questioning me. You're but a pawn and you know it. That elf you spend time with - oh yes I've seen you with him, sneaking into his room after dark and then back to your room before the sun rises like a whipped spaniel - do you think he really cares about you? He's too good for you."

She lunged suddenly, her teeth bared, and attempted to bite Torio.

Torio's hand snapped up, clamping around the girl's jaw with a painful slap! as the assassin lunged forward like a piranha on the scent. The words stung, as much as she hated to admit it; she gripped hard, letting her nails dig in to the assassin's flesh...

"...never lose your temper; you are in control, and emotional spectacles only weaken you in their eyes..."

She almost flinched at Garius' old words echoing through her head, but her face remained calm, schooled. "Well," she said calmly, a dark light in her eyes. "It appears that you know a bit more than you've let on, my girl." Her free hand popped the cork from the vial, a thin stream of effervescence rising from the surface of the liquid. "Let us hope it's not toomuch." She tilted the vial and let a trickle of the fluid drip into the girl's mouth, her fingers pressing in on her cheeks and holding the assassin's mouth open.

As she felt the liquid drop into her mouth, the assassin began struggling in earnest, trying to spit the foul potion back up. She tried wrenching her face from the other woman's clawed hands and only succeeded in getting deep welts across her cheeks. She gasped then coughed as the liquid dripped into the back of her throat. There was a strange tugging sensation in her head, like a seductive voice encouraging her to just tell the Luskan a little bit. A little bit and she'd go away... "Garius sent me here to kill Nevalle. Or did that fact escape your pretty, empty head, Claven?"

Torio held the vial back, eyeing the girl closely; her pupils had dilated a mere fraction. "Come now, you know what I mean. Whydid Garius send you here? Why is Nevalle suddenly a target of interest to him?" She shook the girl's face lightly. "Don't tell me that the Master of the Fifth Tower has resorted to relying on cutpurses and half-cocked assassins in my absence."

The drug was tugging at her mind. The assassin hissed lowly, "Nevalle is Nasher's most important aid. With him gone, all efforts of resistance will be in disarray." The pressure on her thoughts eased and the assassin snarled, "With you gone we have accomplished more in weeks than you ever did in months." She twisted her head around again and tried sinking her teeth into Torio's hand.

Torio hissed as the assassin's teeth sink into her hand, pulling it back sharply before swinging back into a ricocheting slap, knocking the girl's head sideways. "Don't be foolish," she snapped. "Have you learned nothingin Garius' service?"

She inhaled deeply, calming herself, before reaching out once more. This time her small, slender fingers clasped around the assassin's throat, finding the small bunched nerves at the base of her jawline. She mulled for a moment, applying a slow, steady pressure to the highly sensitive area, waiting for the pain to become unbearable. Nevalle was an obvious target for anyone, but it didn't make sense; Garius had expended too much energy in attempting to kill the twins. "Why Nevalle? Why not the twin Knight Captains?"

The rogue gasped as the Luskan began applying pressure. She choked out the words. "Torture tactics. You ...you must be getting desperate. Tell me Claven, does your little elf like it rough too?" The salty tears were beginning to form behind her eyelids and she weakly pulled against the chains. She tried working her jaws and easing the pain, but the other woman had a vise-like grip on her. Red spots were beginning to appear in front of her eyes... "Because...because killing the Knight Captains would only mean the fall of the Keep... Killing Nevalle would mean the fall of Neverwinter...strike at the head of the serpent..."

Torio's eyes narrowed into slits. There was no denying that the girl knew about the nature of her relationship with Sand. And no one else could know about Sand, or Nasher's wrath would fall on their heads harder than a collapsing Keep, and the result would be just as lethal.

"I would be careful with what you say about the wizard," she said, her voice low and dangerous. "I would hate for you to make yourself utterly expendable." She gave the assassin's throat a cruel squeeze before letting her go, drawing her hand back. "Now...let us try to be civilized once more, shall we?" She held up the vial, tapping a finger against the side. "How did you know exactlywhere the Knight's room was?"

The prisoner sagged in her chains when Torio let her go, taking deep gulping breaths. She eyed the vial before saying flatly, "If you kill me, Garius will bring me back as a shadow, more powerful than before, and I'll come for my revenge." She took another ragged breath. "I'll kill you fifty times over. Or..." Her voice took on a sly edge despite its hoarseness. "Maybe I'll kill the elf, suck out his soul and make him scream for you to hear. How does that sound? That's a promise - from me to you, Claven."

She closed her eyes, blinking away the embarrassing tears that had formed. Her shoulders were burning. "The tiefling. Sneaking in there night after night. Like you, dog. Everybody sneaks around in this godsforsaken Keep."

Torio frowned thoughtfully for a moment, watching the girl as she hung there. It's too easy to get into this Keep...what are the guards doing? She must have been watching for days to see any sort of pattern in what Neeshka was doing.

...or in what I was doing...

She was not one to soften at future threats of violence from chained prisoners; she'd heard most of them before. But the mental image the girl conjured up was unpleasant, and her eyes glittered coldly as she stepped forward. "And are you the only shadow I should be wary of, my little boot-licking cur, or are there others? How many of you has Garius shucked under his crooked little wing?"

The assassin snorted. "You think Garius gives me numbers? I'm not his secretary, wench, though I'm sure you did that job admirably." She stared to Torio defiantly.

Torio suddenly had a decision to make. The assassin seemed to know little else. And yet she knew exactly too much about a topic that needed to be kept secret at all costs.

Nevalle might get suspicious, but he would have other things to worry about; she had enough to give him a thorough report, as well as multiple recommendations on how to lay a sterner hand on the sentries. If Garius' people could walk right up to the Keep and spy on it for days without getting caught...

Who else could be spying on them? A thorough search of any entry points, as well, and maybe questioning some of the Duty Corporals on how they're patrolling the walls...

Her eyes flicked back to the girl, glaring at her defiantly. Could she risk it?

At all costs...

"One of the many things I did admirably," she said calmly, reaching out and running her hand against the girl's cheek, almost pityingly, "was to always survive questioning." She wrenched the girl's head back, and in one, quick movement, emptied the contents of the vial in its entirety down her throat.

The assassin choked as the fluid poured itself down her throat. She tried coughing violently, heaving her stomach in hopes of vomiting up the burning liquid but the days of being held in the stockades had left her in a weakened state. The serum seemed to a burn a whole in her mind and she felt totally open to the world. Her mouth began working against her will...

"He's bought out half the thieves in Neverwinter, I swear it, all of us that didn't want to work for Axle. He gave us so much gold and the jobs were so easy, too easy..." There was a painful twist in her abdomen and she jerked in her chains. "I hate you so much Torio Claven. None of us could ever measure up to you. He hates you now though - he has a special place for you when his army destroys this Keep. You'll be chained here for all time..."

The poison was destroying the nerves in her legs and they twitched and convulsed even as the assassin continued to speak uncontrollably, "I'll be back for your elf though. Garius will let me have that - you're not the only one he taught of torture. I'll give him an eternity of pain and make you listen..."

Her arms were burning and shaking. All her thoughts were coming up as she thought them. "Killing the Knight was supposed to be so easy. The Keep is so poorly defended it is amazing you aren't overrun by goblins. You're all going to die, you know that don't you? Why are you resisting - you can't win..."

The poison was seeping into her beating heart; with each pulse it spread upwards into her brain. There was a loud rushing, windy noise in her ears. She was vaguely aware her entire body was seizing in its chains, thrashing in her death throes. It was going so dark. The world was turning gray and narrow and there was no light at the end of the tunnel as it had been often said - but for one final lucid moment, she looked at Torio. "Oh gods, I'm so scared..."

Najwa, assassin for Garius, thief of Neverwinter, gave one last breath and died.

Torio slipped the empty phial into her pocket. "Aren't we all," she said quietly. She stared at the dead girl for a moment, her last threats sending clutching chills down her spine.

"Guard!"

The door behind her opened.

"Fetch the gith, and remove this...nothing...to outside the walls. Have the cleric purify the corpse; there's a possibility it will turn come evening." She turned pushing past the guard's startled expression. "Once she is done, burn it."

She strode past Mephasm once again, who clucked his tongue at her approvingly. She ignored him; the basement stairs seemed to stretch on forever, and each step seemed to weigh her down until she could hardly lift one heeled foot in front of the other; and then somehow, miraculously, she was back in the hallway adjacent to the throne room, exiting the doorway and striding back towards her chambers, her shoulders thrown back in their usual way, as if every step she took conquered a flagstone.

She pushed the door to her room open, seating herself at her desk. She spread a clean roll of parchment in front of her and dipped her quill in the ink bottle.

I'll give him an eternity of pain and make you listen...

Shutting her eyes and allowing herself the luxury of a ragged, indrawn breath, she placed the quill to parchment and began to write, her hand as steady as a rock.

Nevalle seemed indifferent towards Torio's news that the assassin was dead, when she brought her report to him hours later. Her eyes were dry from staring down into the parchment, her fingertips ink-stained and blackened. Blackened better than bloodied.

Technically she hadn't escaped that, either.

She passed one of the high parapets that walled in the narrow walkways outside of the Keep's windows, and paused for a moment, stepping outside. A fire was smoldering down to its inevitable demise far on the courtyard's grounds; she didn't want to think of what was burning in it. The twin Knight Captains were bickering playfully outside of the tavern below her, and she watched them for the barest of moments; safe in their heroism, their duty, their honorable intent; did they even know what it took to stay alive in these times? Did they know what others around them had to do in order to keep them safe?

As she turned to head back into the Keep, towards her chambers and more likely than not Sand's eventual embrace, she knew she would go to sleep easily when the time came for it tonight, if anyone could be said to rest easily in these times. Her dreams would remain relatively untroubled, her head resting lightly on the pillow, able to sleep the sleep of the innocent while bearing the scarlet stained hands of a murderer.

The thought was more troubling than anything her guilty conscience could have whispered to her.

Sleep well, Ambassador.

FIN

Volume 1