Chapter 4. The Bird Cage
Magic had been his only lover for some time. Even before his soul was stolen, wrung from his tissues like spoiled sap, he could feel it taking the place of all the love he bestowed upon others. It wanted his full attention, and would suffer no rivals. It fed off of him like a parasite, but he was not an altogether unwilling host. Truth be told he was immensely gifted in the realm of sorcery and enjoyed to the point of obsession bending the limits of reality as a child enjoys bending his toys into all kinds of curious shapes, and designs, only he possessed unimaginable insight into every atom of the toys he manipulated. With his soul gone it had become his only source of pleasure, as
it was the single thing left able to evoke such a response from so hollow a breast. It is strange how we often are only able to derive happiness from the thing that took it away. But now something was different. Something inside him had changed, awakened.
It was night outside, but in the mage's underground catacombs in was always night. He was sitting in his laboratory, a room that seemed to shake with a foul pulse. As he did not sleep, he frequently spent the dark hours locked away in that throbbing den, studying, concocting potions, and fashioning spells a feat that few would find less then impossible, but the mage was a true genius of his murderous craft, he was an artist. But that night the words would not shape, the combustions would not materialize, try as he might the pictures he formed in his mind would not come into focus, his fingers were sweating and trembling unable to create the proper motions. Always his head was filled with images of her. The raven-haired woman, the black eyed Bhaalspawn, she was a fever raging through his minds eye. He saw her face everywhere, every sound was her voice, and her name was every word in every book. He had gone to her cell that morning not to give her the wine, but to look at her, to drink her in like a tonic. Then he had taken her away for another lesson, and he had hurt her, he had shone her things that no mortal eyes should see. When he left again she was weeping and each exclamation of remorse was like a dagger in his chest. He had dug his fingernails into his arm until it bled to try and ease the pain, to try to regain his former numbness. Now he felt strange maybe sad, but he did not recognize it, up until her arrival he had felt nothing but brief torrid outbursts of anger, but now this, this sensation that left him stranded and weak and trembling, he did understand it. It was the first time.
At last exasperated, he ceased his attempts at spell casting, and threw himself heavily into a chair, one of his clammy hands pressing hard against his forehead as if to crush it.
"Thorn, Thorn it is not such a beautiful name. It is simple, and harsh, a woman's name should always be florid. Mina, Esperanza..." But he choked on his words it was all a lie. He knew that Thorn was the most beautiful name he had ever heard in his life, the most beautiful word, the most beautiful sound ever to grace his tongue. The hollow man had not felt anything like he did then in so long, almost to the point of forgetting. It was as if he had been set on fire with a thousand flaming knifes, and he writhed in his seat from the pleasure and the pain. Almost against his will he pictured her alabaster neck, the bare, shapely leg that trailed out of a tear in her robe while he watched her sleeping in the cell earlier that day, the delicate contours of the hard white hand he had held, her firm body resting in his arms, pressed against his chest, the sound and heat of her breath on his face. His blood was ablaze. In a tumultuous current of fury he sprung from his chair like a cat determined to bring this madness to an end.
Thorn crouched wretchedly in the dark. Her body and mind felt spent, drained as if they had been dashed against a hard surface. She was frightened to find that she would cease to breath and would have to will herself to begin again, biting her knuckle, reminding her flesh that it was not yet cold. Time had stopped, and as she waited in the tangible stillness she tried to fathom how long she had been locked away beneath the earth with this mad man. It had to have been at least a year. She wondered if her sister and friends were dead yet, or if they lay in wait like her in some darksome, dreadful hole, trying to breath. A picture show was running through her head. Again and again she saw the people he had tortured in front of her, the sizzle and bubble of fat and blood, cold slick bone against her skin. Thorn knew she would fall apart if she did not escape.
"Imoen! Imoen! Jahiera! Minsc! Khalide!" They were desperate cries. Then she remembered the body those men carried the night they were ensnared, it had had a broken neck. One of them was dead. Had Khalide been murdered? Had she had failed to protect Jahiera contrary to everything she had promised? Would she ever know?
Suddenly, the vibrations of feet moving rapidly over stone quivered in her marrow. Sitting up, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, her mind hung on the edge of an abyss as she anticipated with trepidation who the alien noises might belong to. When he finally did reach her cell, and clapped on the lights his face had blanched, and the veins bulged vigorously making him look more distorted then ever. He lunged forward, and Thorn felt herself shatter as his hand closed aground her bicep like an iron trap. Then she was being dragged along the slippery floor.
"What are you doing? What are you doing?" She entreated shrilly, but he was unresponsive save for an increase in pressure of his grip on her arm. Eventually they came to a large empty space where the air was thin and flowed in wide currents. Compartments of rusty metal like monstrous birdcages hung from the ceiling, some with the mutilated remains of corpses still inside. The suspended jails' rusty gore stained limbs tore a pit in Thorn's stomach. She stopped trying when he dragged her to an empty enclosure and thrust her in. She slumped against the bars and closed her eyes letting herself forget to breath.
Meanwhile the man glared at her with what resembled hatred, but upon observation it might be noted that there was something ravenous about his gaze.
"You have put a spell of enchantment upon me haven't you?"
But Thorn did not hear him she was slipping into the tide of her circulatory system.
"Answer me."
Still she sat unresponsive. He began to chant the incantations of the Horrid Wilting Spell, he would make her bloodless lips red with poison air. But when the final word of the hex was about to leave his lips he faltered, and the magic dissipated altogether. He saw her through the bars her head so gentle so lovely, reclined, eyes shut, at peace, wholly removed from the world. He tried to remember what sleep felt like, and the fire returned to his blood. He tried to remember and he reached for her.
What gave them away was the explosion. One of black shrouded intruders had missed something. His perception had failed him. There was a crimson pool he never found until it was too late. It had taken one mistake, and then a million intricate mechanisms of both magical and scientific make had combusted. His body was lifted some eight meters into the air and hurled like an eggshell against the far wall by an enormous, rolling belch of yellow fire and sparks. Then there was the noise to consider. Whosoever resided in that area clapped their hands against their ears in agony as a bang like the roar of contained thunder impaled their ears and made their skin leap from their flesh. The corridor immediately filled with smoke. There was an interminable period of total quiet. Then the fighting started. The rapid pounding of weighty footsteps rumbled louder and louder like an avalanche until it shook the place of the disturbance. The presence of something large and menacing filled the room. Deep guttural battle cries arose from unseen giants, the hiss and breeze of arrows, and the fray erupted. Men fought creatures many times their match in height and girth, fists the size of boulders crushed squealing, scrambling people into bloody pulp. The resounding clank of steel against steel riddled the air like hideous, cackling laughter. Glowing missiles of magic shot in all directions. The atmosphere was impregnated with the infectious stench of fear and frenzy, and all was hidden in an impenetrable wall of smoke.
The first to die in the ensuing combat was all but forgotten. Lying oblivious where he fell shattered from the rough impact of the wall. I say he was almost forgotten because a little pink haired mage remembered him all to well, and it was not a wall he had hit, but a stout row of iron bars that formed the cell in which she had lived the past two days. This was the sister this was Imoen. She had been sleeping on the moldy hay when her acute senses alerted her to the presence of others in the hall. Her highly sensitive ears picked up the slightest tremor of footsteps somewhere not far in front of her. Creeping forward as silently as the pause between thoughts she peered into the seemingly opaque blackness when she thought she saw an even deeper shade in the shape of a man sneaking along the passageway, then several more. She shook her head to make sure she wasn't still asleep, when she heard a dry click, and then an ear shattering blast like a sweltering, heavy hand thrust her against the wall several yards back. Simultaneously she saw the body of the unfortunate instigator of the disturbance smash against her cell bars with a sickening crack. The force of the blow jarred her head and back against the stone barrier, and a rain of whizzing splinters of wood and steel whined in her ears and showered around her like a hale of missiles, burying themselves in the rock just inches from her body. She screamed but nobody could hear it. Then the fighting had begun, and with a throbbing head, and imploding lungs, Imoen finally crawled from where she had crumpled, this was her only chance. She reached where the man lay. His hand had come to rest just inside her cell (fortunately still intact.) A gold ring glinted invitingly upon one blistered finger. The little band of metal was hot, but shielding her fingers with a piece of her cloak she managed to pry it from the smoking digit. Cautiously she stood and felt around the door for the lock. She began to pry at the keyhole with the little gem. Stray arrows brushed her cheek affectionately before they struck the walls behind her. The girl flinched trying to use her training to remain absolutely coolheaded, and concentrated even in the heat of a mêlée. The air was thin in her lungs, she was gasping for breath partially from the acrid smelling smoke that smothered her nostrils, and eyes, and partially from the heavy fear that stung her flesh like venomous needles and made her skin grow cold and clammy like a fish. She murmured under her breath as she worked.
"Over, under...under, twist...no, left! Right...right...push... twist, twist! Oh come on damn you!" She felt the metal gears give beneath her skilled, sweaty fingers, and she breathed a sigh of relief, which was quickly stifled as the colossal torso of a stone golem collided with the bars making the entire confines shake violently and causing her to nearly lose her footing, and her stomach. Scrambling on all fours she made her way through the gray haze hoping against hope not to be noticed or accidentally skewered by a drifting arrow or wayward sword.
The man whose name was never spoken touched the steel cage. Thorn was still unconscious. In her head she could see Imoen and Jahiera cuddled up with her in a sleeping bag. She could feel the warmth of their bodies along her own and the sweet veil of their hair across her face, she was safe.
He was trembling. Try as he might he could not bring himself to harm her, rather he felt an overpowering desire to stroke her hair and feel the heat of her skin against his lips. He could barely contain himself, and things might have gone ill for Thorn if not at that very moment a flesh golem large as a tree had not galloped into the room. It trained its black lifeless eyes on the Mage who in turn mastered himself, and listened.
"More intruders have entered the complex Master." It's zombie voice sent a chill through the woman deep enough to cause her to awake and watch the discourse.
Her captors face was fixed upon receiving the news.
"They attack sooner they we expected. Come I will deal with them." With that word the mage cast dimension door and their forms were swallowed up in a ring of dazzling light.
Thorn was alone. A blur of malformed thoughts swam through her head. Who were these intruders? Had they come to save them or would they simply be slaughtered with all the rest? Was she going to die? The answer to the last query seemed the most apparent to her, and she collapsed on the floor of her prison exhausted.
"I'm sorry Khalide, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, please..." Then the comfort of the dark took her again. While she lay inert a man clad all in brown fled into the room. His eyes were wild with panic, his breathing was elevated and sweat stained his shirt and pants. However he ran too slowly. A flickering ball of magic like a flamboyant meteorite was in hot pursuit. It closed in, and with a single unearthly wail it caught him. He exploded into a pile of sparkling dust, and gory limbs. The latter objects bounced along the floor for a time like children's toys. Thorn saw none of it.
Suddenly she felt two hands pawing her, and she curled her body into the tiniest ball she could create, knowing it was the mage again come to finish her off.
"Wake up you. Wake up! Come on, we have to get out of here!" The urgent voice that stroked her ears however did not belong to the heartless reptile, but to a young woman. Thorn sat up and was rewarded with the instant recognition of her sister Imoen. She pressed her rescuer to her breast. Who can accurately describe the feelings that passed between them then? They thought they were dead, they thought they had seen the last of each other. Their hearts ignited in a whirlwind of love and relief, and misery. Thorn breathed in the lilac smell of her sibling's fine hair, stroking it again and again as if to ascertain its existence. They both feared that this was only some deep night fever dream that would fade as soon as the sickness receded. Thorn kissed her tresses, her shoulders, cheeks, then held her again, and began to weep. Raw, violent storms of sorrow, the kinds that shake, and rattle the organs like a hurricane of the body.
"Imoen! God, God, God! God help me! I have my Imoen!" These joyous exclamations were punctuated with piercing sobs. Throughout the gale of blissful grief Imoen said not a word, but clutched her black eyed sister to her like a crucifix until it had waned for both of them.
Thorn held her at arms length as they continued to sit together united on the cold floor of their single cage. Her sister looked older then she had remembered her. Those wild flower blue eyes were now speckled with shards of gray and ringed with dark, tired circles. The rosy blush that used to be so quick to rise to the extremities of her body was not present now, instead her skin appeared almost ashen, sickly. In addition when Thorn had embraced her she felt the sharp angles of bones beginning to poke through the cloak. Her cheeks were hollow, and her pink hair was limp, and dirty, but she smiled cheerily.
"How do I look?"
"Beautiful." And Thorn meant it.
"You do too, but so sleepy. What has he done to you? I swear if he hurt you in any way I'll be back to give him the last spanking he'll ever have."
Thorn laughed, but closed her lips over the willful sound. It tasted and rang unnaturally in such a dismal place.
"But what has he done to you? Where were you all this time? I asked, but he wouldn't tell me."
Imoen grimaced.
"You don't want to know. It was horrible, he...he showed me things."
She was right Thorn didn't want to know at that moment, and Imoen didn't really want to tell.
"Come on we should get moving for now. Who knows when..." Thorn struggled inwardly, "When he will return. Have you seen the others?"
"We were separated, I have no idea where they could be. Probably anywhere in this ridiculous hole, who's idea was it to dig a pit with so much floor space? You couldn't possibly keep it all tidy. Though I suppose if you..."
"Imoen!" Thorn hissed stepping out of the swinging impound and pulling her sister after her. "I promise you, if we get out of here alive we'll have a long and serious discussion about just that, but for now we must search." Her words were stern, but secretly Thorn grinned to find that Imoen was still her same jokester self.
"I'm gonna hold you to that." Her companion responded with mock seriousness.
They forged into the gloom.
Thank you, to my second reviewer offshoreecho. I'm glad you love Irenicus's character though I warn you. In my version of this tale his emotions begin to be restored to him, but he has been so corrupted and has lived without them for so long that they ultimately bring his undoing, and many others as well.
Read and Review people. Thanx.
By the way when I say that the "rusty gore stained limbs of the suspended jail tore a pit in Thorn's stomach." I didn't mean that literally I meant it figuratively.