Twelve

Good evening, Anders. My name is Splitting Headache and tonight I have the pleasure of being your host.

Anders sat up, dry-heaving, and scrambled to rest against the nearest wall, which happened to be a slimy, cold thing apparently made of razor-sharp rocks. Templars always were big on hospitality. This was a familiar feeling, the empty, dizzying effect of being drained of his magic abilities. He could sense two Templars waiting just outside his cell, their concentration giving him a constant, throbbing headache.

You're a cockface, Alistair Theirin, and I will set your head on fire if it's the last thing I do.

Anders wouldn't want to be in the King's shiny boots when the Commander found out about this. If the Commander found out. In the chilling damp, Anders began to shiver. She would find out. She must. They could only ply her with brandy and boring conversation for so long before she found a way to leave. And then… Then what? They could have emptied his room, planted a false note, or just informed her that he had run away unexpectedly.

It really wouldn't break with his pattern, would it? He was always running from something – commitment, mages, Templars… It wouldn't be much of a stretch for him to simply… leave.

But Tavia knew him better than that. Of course she did. She would find him and her wrath would be unforgettable. If she was still alive. Maybe that was why they had separated her from Anders. Together, they were formidable, warrior and mage, killer and healer – but apart, they were far less likely to put up a fight. A few skilled Templars later and…

Anders banged his head back against the wall. This was not good. Not good at all. Anders had escaped and been apprehended seven times. He knew what it felt like to be taken into custody. This didn't feel like those other times. There was a watchfulness, a cruelty, an efficiency that chilled him to the bone.

It was either the fear that made him shake or the fact that they had stripped him naked. Humiliating, to be tossed into a dank cell with nothing but your waning dignity to keep you warm. Anders clasped his hands together and pulled his knees up tight to his chest. There was nothing to do but wait. Without his powers he was helpless, he would have to anticipate the moment when they slipped up. They always did. At least Tavia would have time to discover his disappearance and track him down. There was always a cursory trial before these executions, just to make sure the paperwork was in order and they were "justified."

It wasn't long before Anders had a visitor. He didn't recognize the Templar that stooped into his cell, but that didn't matter. One Templar was exactly like any other. Bullies, all of them, coldblooded killers with absolutely unshakeable disdain for mages. The hatred was branded into their brains right alongside the notion of righteousness. Righteousness. Right. Anders was pretty sure he had more righteousness in his little finger. The gray-headed Templar that stared at him now was built like a bull, all shoulders and bulk. Even in the darkness, Anders could make out the magenta kilt and silver breastplate of the Templars. His stomach did a back-flip.

"Stand up."

Anders did so, deciding that compliance was likely to merit him at least a little compassion.

"I'm sure this is all some big misunderstanding…"

Anders gasped. The Templar had punched him in the stomach, hard, with his armored fist. He coughed and sputtered and wondered briefly if his lungs had flown out through his mouth. The Templar waited until Anders had recovered to smash him across the face with a crushing backhand. Anders fell back against the wall, begging for mercy with his eyes. He could feel the blood running down his nose and over his chin. One of his molars had come loose.

"You have Templar blood on your hands, mage. That doesn't wash off."

The Templar smiled, showing him a ragged row of yellow teeth. Then he hit him again, this time in the chest. Anders tried to keep his balance but he was soon knocked to the ground. The Templar kicked him in the ribs over and over again until Anders began to lose consciousness. The cell became water, swimming in front of his eyes, mingling with the pain until he felt like one gigantic bruise. At least one rib was cracked, he could feel the tell-tale throbbing tenderness in his middle.

The Templar grabbed him by the hair and yanked him to the feet. Anders heard the tearing sound and hoped he would at least have a few strands left…

A vision blurred in front of his eyes. It was the one time he had been really, truly frightened of Tavia. They were in the Blackmarsh, cornered in a charred, burned out hovel. Tavia miscalculated and a werewolf slipped by. He came for Anders, swiping a clawed hand across Anders's shoulder. Tavia was furious with herself. She flew into a rage. Her helmet landed on the ground and she tackled the werewolf, sitting on its chest and beating it until its head was an indistinguishable stump of fur and blood. All that because he got a bad scratch… Maybe she really did care for him… Maybe she…

"Wake up."

He had drifted. The Templar wasn't going to let him. Crack. Anders reeled back, taking the head butt from the bull-Templar right in the forehead.

Tavia, I'm here. Please. Mercy.

The world went black and blue to the sound of his blood splashing on the stones.

* * *

They were moving him. Somebody had dressed him in a simple white robe. It caught on his wounds. He knew that sort of robe. It was the crappy, itchy shift they gave the condemned. Maybe they were taking him to trial. If a judge saw the state of his face he might get mercy, or at least the Templar would be censured for unnecessary force.

Fat chance.

He heard water trickling, like a river. He hadn't noticed the river going near Fort Drakon. They must have taken him in the night and removed him from the castle. That certainly didn't help his chances of being discovered. Maybe this was a secret Templar gulag, reserved for only their most hated apostates. Anders trembled, weak and starving and tired of retching nothing but bile. The Templars manhandled him to a small dinghy in the moat. He noticed there were at least four surrounding him at all times.

Anders had taken down one at a time or two, but four was a challenge, especially when he was hurting all over.

The memory of Tavia beating the living hell out of a werewolf visited him again. He imagined her ripping the helmets off these fiends and bashing their smiles in with her sword. Maker, let it be so. He would be a good boy from now on. No more dirty daydreams, no more wank blankets… Just please, don't let him die in a disgusting dungeon surrounded by Templars.

They paddled down the moat and the motion of the boat made him sick again. His stomach had long ago emptied out. He'd spent the night vomiting up his fancy dinner, his gut forced into a series of sharp spasms from the beating. They wouldn't let him rinse his mouth or clean the blood from his face. The sour, nauseating smell of vomit clung to his mouth and tongue.

Oh Commander, if only you could see me now. If you thought I was pretty before…

The moat wound around two gates and then dumped them out into a vault. The ceiling arched, high and dotted with grates. Brackish water trickled down from the vents above, drumming on the stone floor of the cellar. A platform had been erected in the center of the vault but it was unfinished. Even now, workers were piling wooden boards and sorting nails. The Templars climbed out of the boat, hauling Anders with them, scraping his arm pits with their metal gauntlets.

They brought him to a small cell in the far corner and locked him inside. Two Templars stood guard. He recognized the voice of the bull-Templar as he conversed with a peer outside the cell. He waved his hand toward the wooden platform and nodded. Then he removed his helmet and marched back over to Anders.

"Well, mage, how do you like it?" He gestured to the platform again. The workers began hammering, fitting boards together to make a small box. "Sorry for the noise, but you probably wouldn't sleep much anyway. It should be done by the morrow. Remind me to take your measurements." The Templar fit his hands around his own neck. "Wouldn't want you slipping free again, would we?"

Anders stared. He wasn't going to give this pig the satisfaction of his misery.

"Oh Anders, I know what you're thinking. But she'll come for me! She'll save me!" He mimicked a high, feminine voice. "I assure you, she won't. There are just so many parties to attend, people to meet, hands to shake… You'll be long dead before she even knows you're gone."

"I'm going to enjoy watching you die," Anders whispered.

"Likewise, Anders. Likewise."

Anders spat. It was involuntary, an instinct. He regretted it at once. The bull-Templar was on him, reaching through the cell bars and slamming Anders forward. Then his fingers were wrapping around Anders ear. He screamed, shrieked, watching through watery eyes as the Templar brought his hand away, Anders's bloody earring in his grasp.

The Templar clicked his tongue. "Don't spit, mage. Only dogs spit."

He held up the little gold hoop to his own ear. It left a smear of blood behind. "What do you think? Hm? No, you're right. Not my style. Maybe my wife will want it."

You make me sick.

"Night, night," the Templar cooed, laughing as he walked away, disappearing down a winding corridor.

It was one insult after another. His ear burned. He could feel the scratchy shift growing sticky and wet where the blood dripped from the tear. That gold hoop had been a gift from Tavia. She found an ancient one in the keep and offered it to him. She never wore earrings, many elves didn't. And now that Templar's sow of a wife would get her hands on it. Beyond the beatings and the bruising and the empty stomach, that hurt worst of all. They took his powers, his magic, his pride and then they took Tavia's gift.

He wouldn't cry. That would mean he had given up. But he wasn't giving up and so he wouldn't cry. His eyes stung, but that was just from the pain.

Anders turned his attention to the platform, where the carpenters were hard at work. Wasn't there a bard's story like this? A power-mad king locking his lover away, letting her watch as the laborers built the machine of her doom? In that version there was no savior, no miraculous eleventh hour rescue. Nobody came for her. The carpenters build their frame and the hangman hung his noose and the innocent lover went to her death, swinging like a wind chime in a gale.