It was cold and he hurt. The rage had passed along with the intruders whose voices he heard as unintelligible chatter and whose faces he saw through a tunneling vision. They had left the chains on his wrists, the cuffs just loose enough to fit over the metal bracelets beneath, but not enough to fit over the joints of his thumbs. His hands were sore and bloody from his trying. He sat exhausted, the foot of chain resting over his knee, his hands on either side of his leg. The darkness was palatable. He hated it. He recalled a place of great darkness in flashes of memory. A place of great pain and of himself sometimes the victim, more often the victimizer. He could not quite recall why or where or who. The who bothered him the most -- the realization that there were things about himself that he could not remember the first rational thought that had crossed his mind since he'd discovered himself in this dark, cold world. And that came only after hours alone with nothing to do but think in the eight by eight by eight cell. He had paced it a thousand times, shoulder against the wall to feel his way. Eyes straining in the darkness.
It seemed to him that he ought to have been able to banish the dark and the cold. All it took was a word. But that word was illusive. He sat in his corner and pondered, pulling at his hair in consternation when his memory would not cooperate with the immediate wants of his mind. It was only when he stopped thinking and dozed fitfully that the invocation came to him. He murmured it, wanting the power, needing the confirmation that he had some control over this situation. Eyes half closed, he finished the last word and waited for light and heat to flare and the latter did occur, but not as expected. A burning began at his wrists. A bone deep heat that turned rapidly painful, like liquid glass being forced through his veins. It traveled up his arms with the pumping blood and he cried out, sprawling backwards, shaking out his wrists in efforts to stop it. Through his heart it surged, a white hot searing pain that liked to rip that frantic muscle apart, then up the massive veins of his neck and into his skull. He screamed, slammed his head against the floor in a blind effort to shut off the agony. He ripped at the bracelets at his wrists, nails gouging into the flesh of his palms and the inside of his arms. They wouldn't move. They would not even turn on his wrists, almost as if they had been grafted into place.
Then the pain subsided and gradually faded to be replaced by cold made more chilling by the recent burning of his blood. Inside his mind, after-images flashed. Faces, places, exhalations of power. A androgynous, beautiful face grafted into the hulking body of a monster, mouth opened in rage. At him? Angry at him? Because he had betrayed it when he had been made to complement it? He curled in a ball and tried to shut those confusing images away, because they did not help him discover self, only made self more obscure and bewildering.
Yoko marched right past the Basilica guards at the doors to the temple. Doors that were usually open to one and all, but this day were closed, keeping the general public from the house of the High God. The bodies of the faithful were laid out in final rest, their families and friends looking over them in respected privacy. The Prophet himself would say words of eulogy before the burial tomorrow.
The guards tried to halt her, but she was not alone in her mission. Three Dragon guard walked at her back. Linden and two of his cronies. The confrontation of separate guard factions might have turned belligerent if Yoko had waited for them to sort it out themselves. She bypassed the problem by breezing past them while they raised hackles at each other, her arms full of blankets and a warm pot of food swinging from her hand.
"We're going to the cellar to see him. Get captain Sinakha if you want." She announced firmly and the guards had no choice but to scurry off in search of their captain. Her own escort crowded about her protectively when mourners turned their eyes to her in growing antagonism. Whispering that she was in liege with the devil in the temple dungeon.
She was down the stairs and to the first sub-basement level when the stomp of boots alerted her that someone in authority had been alerted. She was almost relieved to see it wasn't Sinakha himself, he spooked her, but one of his lieutenants, who was red faced and offended at her intrusion with armed guard into temple domain.
"My lady, you have no authority to go down there. His holiness has not given permission. You will have to petition his holiness or captain Sinakha if you wish to see the --- prisoner."
"I will not. He will not stay in that cell with no blanket or even proper clothing. And have you bothered to feed him?" At the man's blank look she lifted her chin disgustedly. "And you call yourselves men of the church? Animals are treated better. If you wish to come with whatever men you choose, then fine. Come. Make certain we don't spirit him away, if that's what you're afraid of. But I am going down there and I will see him warm and with food."
"But -- the Prophet is not here now. He left instructions that no one was to ---"
"Did he leave you instructions to starve him? Or see him freeze?"
The guard blinked at her. She jerked her head to indicate the passage ahead of them. "Escort me to him, then. I am under your protection."
That confused him enough to get him moving in the desired direction even before he could properly think about what he was doing, but by then, with her Dragon Guard crowding behind him, he had little choice but to see it through. She knew very well Angelo was not at the temple. It was why she had chosen this time to gather her allies and make her assault. She had seen him ride into the palace to confer with Larz. She could only imagine what they were talking about. The same thing everyone was talking about. Dark Schneider's unusual ability to cheat lasting death. They most certainly were not willing to have her input on the subject any more. Linden had confided to her that the Dragon guard was under strict order to keep her away from the king's future meetings concerning the unholy wizard in the Prophet's keeping. And she could fume about it all she liked, Linden had bluntly told her, but he wasn't breaking the king's direct orders. So she settled on something that had not yet been banned. She would have never gotten this far by herself, but with the authority of the Dragon guard behind her, she could bluff her way in to see Schneider.
The Basilica lieutenant looked through the grate on the cell door first, holding up his lantern to make certain no ambush awaited before unlocking it. He and his man went in first, clubs at ready. Linden slipped in front of her to assure himself it was safe before ushering her forward. The look on his face was surprise and dismay when he saw Schneider in his corner. This was most definitely not the grand, arrogant wizard they had known. This was a wary, feral creature that crouched in a dark corner, hair tangled and matted, lips pulled back in a warning snarl at their intrusion. In his crouch, his fingertips touched the floor, and she noted that he was still chained.
"Why haven't the chains been removed?" she demanded quietly.
"Who wants to get close enough to take 'em off?" the Basilica guard replied. She narrowed her eyes in anger and stepped forward. The guard stepped with her as a whole unit. Schneider growled and tensed.
"Stop. All of you. Just stay back and don't move. Let me."
They most certainly did not wish to heed her words, her own escort being chiefly upset with her request. She turned and fixed Linden with a steely gaze and he reluctantly nodded. She took a deep breath for courage and slowly moved forward. He did not leap at her. His muscles remained tensed and his eyes were narrow slits of black rimmed blue, fixed unerringly upon her. Four feet from him, and she felt she had gone as close as she dared. She knelt, carefully sitting the pot beside her and unfolding the thick blanket, taken from her own bed, and laying it between them. There was a simple tunic and trousers and soft boots to protect his feet from the rough stone of the floor. She laid all of these atop the blanket, pressing the folds out of the top layer with her hand, full of nerves. He stared at her unceasingly the whole time. Goddess, he is like an animal, she thought. Like a scared, dangerous animal that doesn't know whether it should attack or not. Please let him not.
She reached for the pot of food. Rice balls mixed with chunks of meat. Finger food. Linden had advised against anything that required utensils, rightly figuring that the Basilica guard would have fits if she tried to bring a knife into the cell. She lifted the clay top and the aroma drifted into the cold little cubical. She saw his eyes shift minutely, to what she held and back to her. She smiled and offered it. He didn't move. So she sat it on the floor next to the clothing and blanket and leaned forward to push it towards him. He lifted his hands, reached out towards her. She heard her guards start to move and whispered.
"Stay."
Amazingly enough they heeded her. Schneider's eyes flicked past her, gauged whether they would come at him or not, and dismissed them. His fingers grazed her hair and behind the tangled, too long bangs of his own, she saw a wonderment in his eyes.
"Oh, Rushie." She whispered and lifted a hand to touch him. It was too forward. He jerked back, eyes reverting to hard suspicion. She looked down from them, to his wrists, where she had noted the crimson of blood. Under the cuffs were the metal bracelets she had noted earlier and around them he had mauled himself as though trying to remove them. Those bracelets had not been with him when they had put him in the ground. She was certain of that.
"Yoko." Linden had had enough. His voice was tense with impatience to have her away from a potential threat. "It's time to leave."
She nodded, pushing to her feet, careful to make no sudden movements that might sit Schneider off. She back into the company of guards, and with visible relief, they left the cell and locked the door behind them, the lieutenant muttering all the while that the Prophet would most certainly hear of this infraction.
Yoko and Linden had lunch in a little restaurant on the wharf that overlooked the river that curved through Meta-Rikan's western side. Three years ago the city had stopped at the rivers edge, the water a natural defense against attackers. With the growth in population it had expanded to the other shore and bridges had been built to span the distance. They had fresh fish baked in flavorful thyma leaves and onion rolls with rice. She was paying, the least she could do to assuage her guilt over more than likely getting Linden into trouble over the incident at the temple.
"So what's the worst they can do?" she inquired timidly, picking at the remaining flesh clinging to the bones of fish.
"Oh, some unsavory duty more than likely." He seemed less disturbed over the prospect than she, which cheered her somewhat, but did not remove the sinking feeling that she was fast reaching the limits of what she could do. There was a certain point where people would stop doing her favors -- or she would become too conscious bound to ask. She needed Linden not in trouble. He was her best source in the Dragon Guard and him demoted or placed somewhere that he might not be able to help her if she truly needed it would serve neither of them.
"I'll go talk to the Prophet and tell him it was solely my responsibility."
"You have no authority over the Dragon Guard, Yoko. There's no way we're going to escape censure just because you decide to be noble. Let it fall where it may."
"No. Angelo listens to me, sometimes. He might be persuaded."
Linden sniffed. "When he looks at you, he's thinking about more than the salvation of your soul. Be wary of him, Yoko."
She blushed, embarrassed to discover that someone other than herself had noted the uncomfortably intense way the Prophet had at looking at her.
"He's the Prophet." She said, attempting to make light of it. "What will he do, ravish me behind the shrine in the temple?"
Linden shook his head darkly. "Just be careful."
"Yoko."
The voice was stern and brimming with disapproval. Yoko froze, with her hand on the handle of her door. Father stood at the outer doors of the dormitory, looking displeased. She forced a smile and lifted her head inquiringly.
"Yes?"
"What did you do?"
"Do? When?" She had not meant to be evasive, but the words slipped out anyway. She winced at the tightening of his mouth and the beetling of his thick brows.
"You will be required to account for yourself, young lady. The Prophet is quite perturbed. The king is hearing his complaint this moment."
She drew a breath, a swell of righteous anger making her brazen. "Well, he can hear my complaint while he's at it. The Prophet was certainly making no efforts to see Rush --- Schneider fed or clothed."
"I suggest you hold that argument, but swath it in a layer of respect and tell it to the both of them. They've requested your presence."
"Oh." The courage faltered. "I thought the King didn't want my input."
"You seem determined to change his mind. Come along."
Three powerful, stern faces stared her down when the finely carved door to king Larz's study closed behind her and Geo Note. Larz and Angelo sat by the fire, wine in the king's hand, the Prophet sipping tea. Father urged her to a place before them and moved to stand near the Prophet's chair. She shifted uncomfortably, hiding her hands behind her back like a guilty child.
"You appropriated my Dragon Guard for the express purpose of forcing your way past his Holiness' security." Larz did not waste time with pleasantries. "You ignored his strict orders and endangered yourself, his guard, my Dragon's all on a whim."
"A whim?" She blurted. "You saw that box they put him in. It's freezing and he'd not even a blanket. And they hadn't fed him. Since when do we treat people so?"
"Yoko!" Geo Note reprimanded her for yelling at their king. Angelo lifted a hand.
"I am willing to forgive a compassionate heart, your majesty, and truly I feel Yoko was moved by compassion. I fear more for her own safety when her compassion moves her to endanger herself."
"I am not in danger from him! He would never hurt me. Father you know that."
"Did he not strike out at you? Do you not bear the hint of a bruise on your cheek?"
Reflexively she lifted a hand to her cheek, where indeed the faint purple splotching of a bruise where Schneider had hit her remained.
"The circumstances were different. He was startled. He's not himself."
"No. He's not." Angelo agreed. "He was a thing of darkness before this -- but now, after a sojourn in hell -- I fear he is a harbinger of evil. It is a bad omen, his return to this world. A terrible prophecy of dark times to come if we are not vigilant in our faith."
"The world was ever more peaceful without Schneider in it." Larz commented. "I would imagine even his disciples would agree to that."
His disciples? It occurred to her suddenly that she had been searching Meta-Rikan for support, while the greatest allies she might have were the Lords of Havoc. "Well," she said calmly. "That might be. Why not send and ask them? They certainly should have some opinion of the matter."
Larz smiled at her with a look that clearly revealed he knew what she was thinking.
"Not just yet. I'd prefer to have the matter resolved without having the three of them attempting to strike down the city walls and decide the matter for us."
She took a frustrated breath. "Then that brings to mind the question; what's to prevent Schneider from doing it himself once he comes to his senses and takes offense at his treatment at the hands of his Holiness? Has anyone thought of that, yet?"
"My dear, the High God has the power to quell even the most demonic of powers. Believe me when I tell you the evil is bound by the faith of the holy."
"How?" She pictured the cell and the door outside it in her mind's eye, trying to recall if there had been runes of binding engraved in the stone. She remembered nothing. She could not recollect sensing any great magic and she was particularly receptive at picking up on that sort of thing. The one thing that had seemed out of place and unfamiliar were the bands on his wrists and the gouges in his flesh around them, as if he had been mad to get them off.
"The bracelets?" she said.
Angelo smiled at her, impressed at her alacrity. "Holy wards. Very old relics from the following of the High God across the sea. Very powerful. No demonic power will pass beyond their wards. His magic is bound. It is only the temptation of his presence that will endanger us. As long as he is here, in this mortal plane, to work his mischief, then all the pious are in danger."
"He is not without supporters." Larz said. "As Yoko has pointed out, if word reaches Gara, Nei and Kall-Su, then all of that might be a mute point."
"You can't hide it from them." Yoko cried.
"Men are dead because of him." Larz reminded her.
"And the world is still in one piece because of him too." She snapped back. The king lifted a dark brow at her tone, but she was too frustrated to back down.
"And what do you propose?" Larz asked her.
She couldn't come up with an answer.
"Shall I assign you the task of going to the families of those dead men and explaining that there will be no justice?" He asked.
"I don't know." She shook her head. "He was wild. Mad. You said it yourself. He did not do it on purpose."
"No, if he had done it on purpose half the city would be smoking ruins." Larz remarked. "So we ask ourselves, is it better to have a mad Dark Schneider on the loose or a sane one with evil intent creating chaos in a world that has just recovered some of it's sanity?"
"That's only if you believe what the Prophet says about him. He's not some evil fetch from hell. I know it."
"If only we had your faith." Angelo said gently. She wanted to smack the benevolent smile off his face. How could he look so angelically pure and sit there casting accusations of demonic conspiracy at Rushie? And the King was listening. The King was so attuned to the Prophet's words she might as well have been talking gibberish. Even Father seemed swayed. And the only people that could help her were so far away as to be unattainable.
"But you don't." She said quietly, thinking. Desperately thinking of what she might do gain time and access to Schneider. She had to appear to bend to their way of thinking most of all. Has quell their fears of her doing something foolhardy and stupid. "And maybe I have too much faith. But he was better, when I brought him the food and the blankets. Perhaps we'll know more if his rational returns. If I could talk to him -- if you could talk to him, then we could discover if the Prophet is right. I think perhaps, If I could see him again, if I could make him remember me -- then it might benefit us all."
"No." Father said firmly, but the Prophet held up a hand.
"Perhaps it might not be a terrible notion. Perhaps it would serve us better if he were sane enough to declare his allegiance."
He owes allegiance to no one. Yoko thought, but did not say. Be it hell or heaven.
But that was okay, if Angelo thought he might get such a vow from Schneider, as long as she could get in that cell to see him.