This story is Part XII of the Series and is rated M for graphic scenes of sexuality, nudity and torture.
Volume 2, Part XII: Mostly Alive
Torio took the pen in her hand and began scrawling; she knew the Keep, knew its ins and out, from when Garius centered his operations there and when she was brought there later on; her lines were accurate to the last corner; haven't I always harped on security?
The entire layout was also completely backwards.
"The other map? The Scales." She kept her voice even, but her fingers shook slightly as she sketched. "Is that what this is all about? I'm sure the wizard you're so eager to kill knows something about that. I was merely a tool to get close to Orban." She made her voice slightly indignant...it wasn't particularly hard, at that.
There was a knock on the door and Keldrin went and answered it. He spoke quietly with the guard and then gingerly took something on his fingertip.
"Oh yes - the mage knows something about the map but unfortunately...given his current situation with Falathiel, he seems...unable to speak very much on it." He shook his head sadly. "They didn't get far at all in their conversation." He flung the locket onto the floor by Torio's feet. "Where is the map? Spare yourself from his fate." He smiled suddenly. "Actually - you seemed quite close to the wizard during Asrar's dinner. Tell me and save Sand from his fate." The cat o'nine tails were dangling from his hands.
Torio stared at the locket. The gem. Sand...
"I've told you; the wizard knows where the map is. I saw it once, in Orban's home, before he gave it to him. Not since. He might have even destroyed it by now." Every heartbeat seemed to seize painfully in her chest as she watched the cat'o'nine tails tap lightly against Keldrin's thigh.
Keldrin snorted derisively. "That I don't believe for a second. You're not one to place your trust in something as important as that map in somebody else's hands." He grabbed a thin vial of milky white liquid. "Do you know what this is, Miss Claven? I'm certain you used this quite a bit in your day. Guards!"
The guards moved over to either side of Torio, grabbing her arms and holding them firmly, lifting her up off the seat. Keldrin took Torio's chin roughly in his fingers, prying her mouth open and pouring a few drops on her tongue. He kicked the chair away and moved behind her, holding the cat o'nine tails in his hand. "Where is the map!" He snapped whip once, hard, across her back, tearing through her dress.
Sand closed his eyes. "I...I've hidden it." He could feel the blood draining from his face. He was playing a risky game but he knew of no other way out. "Please..." His voice cracked. "Let her go. She has nothing to do with this."
"Where," she hissed. She held up a hand, and one of the guards moved to the door. "Tell me," she said, soothingly. "Tell me and we'll let her be...back to Neverwinter with her tail between her legs." She smirked. "Just like you. Freedom for her and ultimate power...we can do it, little wizard, only Gweynn and these guards know that you're here..." Her eyes flickered for a moment, realizing her mistake, but she merely smiled smugly, confident in the chains around his wrists. "We can deliver, Sand. Now, will you provide?"
Sand spat out more of the blood from his mouth. His tongue was starting to swell from the bite and his voice was thick, foreign. "You promise a lot; how can I trust you to deliver?" His arms were shaking from the strain. But at least they had believed his bluff. "Proof of life. I want to know she's alive...show me Torio." He needed to get close to her, to touch her mind and see her, just in case it would be the last time he would ever be near her again...
Torio nearly choked on the serum as it trickled down her throat; she felt a protesting spasm along her spine as the neurotoxin seeped into her bloodstream, and then she bit off a cry as the whip lashed across her back; she could feel the leather thongs bite into her skin, dragging torn shreds of fabric through the skin of her back. "Gods," she gasped. "I don't know! I don't know where it is!"
Keldrin kneeled in front of her, checking her pupils. "Hmm. You might be telling the truth...but maybe I didn't get the dosage right." He poured another few drops into her mouth. "One more time, Miss Claven, and you'll have really convinced me." He cracked the whip diagonally across her back again, with speed and fury. "Oh my, I seem to have ruined your dress..." He pulled out a dagger and cut down the back of her dress, the point nicking her already bleeding skin here and there as he carelessly tore through the fabric. He pulled the bloody dress off her and gave it to one of the guards. "Give this to Falathiel. It might convince the wizard." He peered over Torio's shoulders, looking into her eyes. "These lashes will leave permanent scars, you know."
Torio felt tears sting her eyes as her body convulsed against the whip, and then she cried out, agonized frustrated and helpless as the dagger raked down her wounded back. "Luskan always seems to leave...permanent scars." Tears rolled down her cheeks, her back burning with a sharp, aching fire; she gasped when the dress was torn from her, the fabric pulling from her skin. "I don't know," she said, feeling a furious, maddening desire to spill every little secret in her head; she fought it back, but the truth was on her tongue. "By the gods I don't know, you twisted, sick piece of Hosttower filth..."
Falathiel narrowed her eyes considering...
A knock on the door. She twitched her head, and one of the guards opened it. Keldrin's guard entered, a familiar bundle of dark blue cloth bunched in his hands. Falathiel took it wordlessly, a slight smile on her lips. "What's this?" She held it up, shaking out the folds of the dress; small droplets of blood splattered on the floor as the strips of cloth remaining where the back of the gown once had been whipped wetly through the air. "It appears our lady has lost her gown; I hear she has a tendency for that, doesn't she?" Seeming to make up her mind, she balled up the dress, tossing it vehemently at Sand's face.
He recognized the blue dress right away and when she unfurled it and Sand saw the tattered, torn condition - the blood dripping down... The sticky, wet dress was tossed at him and he could feel that the fabric was still warmed from her body. "You fiends! What have you done to her?" He strained and struggled, his energy renewed. "I'll kill you all, every last one of you. I will fry you from the inside out!"
"Get him down," she snapped sharply to the guards. "Keep the chains on his wrists." She waited until the guards had Sand slung between them, and then she turned, marching out of the room and heading down the long hall, striding purposefully towards the far door with Sand being dragged behind her.
The stone floor was scraping against his feet, leaving a small trail of blood behind. Every step down the hall and the itching feeling in his mind grew bigger.
Torio, please, please be alive... The door at the end of the hall was thrown open and he was hauled into the room.
Keldrin stepped in front of Torio again and kneeled. He wiped the tears from her cheeks gently. "Hush, Miss Claven. I believe you now, don't be upset." He stroked her hair lovingly. "Shh don't cry." He cradled her head against his shoulder, a mockery of a tender embrace.
Oh gods...Torio...What have they done to you? Sand heart lurched, when he saw the scene before him. Torio, bloodied, crying and being held by that Luskan dirt... "Let her go," Sand said lowly, threateningly to the man holding her. "Or by the gods..."
Keldrin laughed and pulled her even closer. "Or by the gods what? You'll give me angry looks?" He turned to Torio. "He's protective of you, isn't he? How do you feel about him?"
She struggled against him, but she felt his fingers dig into her back, and she cried out, her knees buckling. The pull on her mind tugged, yanked, cajoled, and she shut her eyes against the tears rolling down her cheeks, her jaw set fiercely in anger and shame at her weakness. "I love him," she gasped out. "Nothing matters without him; he saved my life, my soul...he gives me something worth living for, worth living well for." She panted for breath, her head hanging forward under the weight of the nagging pressure of the serum. She had never, ever, dared to even think these thoughts before but now suddenly they were spilling forward onto her tongue from somewhere. And damn all Luskan to Cania, they were the truth. "I love his mind, his words...both sharp and soft...I had forgotten how to laugh, but he reminded me..."
Tears fell in earnest from her eyes, no longer simply from the sting of her back. She felt open, exposed...and not merely because of her bare skin or the ripped flesh on her back. Her mind was pushing a torrent of words at her, demanding she say everything, spill everything, and she fought it, her teeth gritting painfully with the effort. "You rot in the hells," she hissed, looking up at Falathiel, her eyes burning with hatred. "You touch him, and I will destroy you..."
Falathial laughed. "Will you? Oh, she's got spirit, she does...I don't think you've been hard enough on the ambassador, Keldrin." She smiled at the human briefly before placing her booted foot on the back of Sand's neck and thrusting down; Sand fell forward onto the floor, her foot pressing against his throat. "Now, I've shown her to you, wizard...where. is. the. map?"
The boot was pressing on his neck, threatening his airway but it wasn't that that caused Sand to lose his breath a moment.
She loved him. And what more, the words were pouring out unabashedly from her mouth, like the tears in her eyes. Torio seemed to be fighting the words every inch of the way, her honesty likely being driven from her from her cruel mistreatment. Sand could, from his vantage point on the ground, see blood droplets falling steady down from her body.
She loved him.
Sand had never asked for her love, never expected it. He had been happy enough with her company and the fact that she had stopped trying to kill him. But now... He stared at her defeated form. Even if he had ever been anticipating this confession from her, he had never wanted it like this. Not like this. Never like this.
He reached out tentatively with his mind to hers, and then pulled back sharply. Her mind felt like a delicate crystal, clear and transparent, delicate and ready to be shattered.
What had they done to her? He looked at Keldrin and then noticed a small vial filled with milky white fluid. Hemlock truth serum. They were slowly killing her, both in body and mind, and getting their information.
Sand saw red a moment and then forced himself down. "Heal her and let her go and I'll show you where I've hidden it."
Keldrin snorted. "I've been perfectly judicious in my attentions to Miss Claven, Falathial." He waved the map under her nose. "I have a schematic of their precious Crossroad Keep, we have a very interesting and entertaining admission of love, of all things, from her and the truth serum will still be working a while yet. Plenty of time for me to pump her for information; though-" Here he looked at Sand. "I wouldn't mind pumping her for something else."
"Falathiel, may I suggest that you haven't broken your prisoner yet? Look at him, still trying to negotiate! He should learn he is in no position to ask anything of us." He gave Sand a quick kick on the ribs. "Wizard, don't tell me you enjoy this torture?"
Sand gritted his teeth at the burst of pain on his chest. At least with Falathiel, the pain had been magical and brief. But now it was physical and lingering. He tried giving Torio a reassuring look, writhing slightly on the floor from the ache. "Since I've started my relationship with the dear girl here, I have come to redefine pain and torture."
Falathiel glared down at Sand's form. "We will heal her when I have the Scales of the Sphinx in my hands, you miserable dog." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment. "Keldrin, I tire of this; the girl is obviously a distraction for him." She pressed down harder with her boot, grinding her heel against the nape of Sand's neck where the top of his spine hit. She bent down, sinking her fingers into Sand's hair, and yanked his head back up off the floor, twisting her foot viciously. She could hear the pop! as the wizard's shoulder blade snapped under her weight, and she cruelly kicked down. "You wish to negotiate, wizard? How about this for terms? You show me the map, or my lovely friend Keldrin shoves your little ariik gem down our lady Claven's throat? I've never seen a human explode to ash from the inside out, it could be quite interesting to watch."
Sand cried out in pain when Falathiel broke his shoulder. His vision was a swimming haze in front of him, black spots beginning to appear at the edge of his vision. He struggled to maintain consciousness, his breathing halting and ragged. He was so afraid...
And with a start, he realized he was not afraid for himself, but for Torio. He could see Keldrin threatening Torio and the finger of his hands twitched, wanting to cast a spell but feeling totally helpless in this condition. His mind was racing through the furious throbbing of his shoulder. Think, Sand, think! There was no way he could fight them both here like this but if he could get Keldrin and Falathiel separated...
"All right - I hid the map between some loose bricks of some house in some alleyway. I don't know the streets here but I can lead you to it."
Torio attempted a wriggling lunge as she heard Sand's bone snap. She realized with a sinking feeling that the truth serum revealed...among other things… that she really didn't know enough information to be useful. She always suspected she would die young, considering her profession...
But not here. Not in front of him. And her tongue still felt constricted and tight, writhing against her silence; she could blurt out anything, the word to activate the Scales, the fact that her map was a fake, the names of all her secret contacts that fed her and Neverwinter information.
She daren't speak; her thoughts were crowding her, clamoring to be spoken aloud. Her hands were still untied, and she worked one free as she struggled against Keldrin's grip, practically snarling as she bashed her fist across the man's face.
Keldrin reeled back from the blow to his face, the blood gushing from his nose. "You...bitch!" He swung back with the whip, the leather straps catching her across the front. "Guards, hold her tighter or I'll have your heads too!" He grabbed her around the throat, lifting her up slightly off the ground and then pulled her naked hips forward to his groin, rubbing himself between her legs. "Don't make me do it. Don't make me do it and make your elf watch. You know I would - and brag about it all over the Hosttower how I took Ambassador Claven. Maybe that would bring them all down to see you for their turns too."
Torio cried out, agonized and desperate, feeling the whip slash across her stomach. She choked as Keldrin's hands closed around her throat...she felt the guards yank her hands behind her back, holding them. "Find a rope, Private, and make it snappy! Tie her arms again." One of the guards ran from the room. She cringed when she felt her hips yank forward, his cruel fingers digging into her flesh, and she shut her eyes.
Her head was beginning to cloud over thickly; how much serum had he given her? She remembered the assassin's twitching body, her own hand pouring the vile potion down her throat...she could feel the nerves in her spine beginning to prickle with pain. "I'm going to die," she choked out, truthfully, "if you don't give me the antidote." Her voice was gutteral, unfamiliar in her own ears. "And dead is not useful." And she needed to be able to lie, very soon, or else...
Keldrin nodded. "Isn't that the truth, Miss Claven. Isn't that the truth." He sighed. "Let's get your mind off of your impending death. Who are your contacts? What missions have you compromised?"
Sand's pained whimpering floated through the air, tight and ragged. Falathiel's voice soon followed. "Pick him up," she said mildly. Her guards moved forward, pulling Sand upwards without regard to his broken shoulder, and with a twitch of her head, she turned, walking out the door. The guards followed, dragging Sand, as she called over her shoulder, "Try to keep her mostly alive, Keldrin, until we get back, won't you?"
Sand hissed in agony when he was hauled to his feet, his arm hanging limply at his side. He clenched his jaw, fighting to stay coherent. He just needed to get outside the room, away from Keldrin, away from Torio so he could just concentrate...
The hallway stretched before him and Sand closed his eyes, muttering the incantation, quickly, quietly, hoping the guards wouldn't catch on to what he was doing. He was casting Time Stop - a spell which luckily only had a verbal component. Sand felt the familiar stretching and compressing of the material world around him and then when he opened his eyes, everybody was frozen in place.
He didn't know how much time he had. He wriggled himself free from the guards' grasp, falling to the ground. Ignoring the sharp, shooting pain of his shoulder, he leaned over and began untying the cords around his ankles. His fingers felt so clumsy and slow, the ropes around his wrist hampering his movements, the seconds seeming to take eternity. Finally he was free and kicked the cords away from him. He hobbled back into the room, the feeling returning to his legs and feet. He scooped up the locket with the ariik gem and then stood before Torio.
He didn't need to study her to see her pained, desperate expression. Her face had taken on a strange, waxy pallor and her pupils were unnaturally wide. She was dying, from the inside out and his insides twisted, spurring him on. Sand rushed over to the table where the sharp instruments were laid out for display. Picking up a knife, he began sawing through the ropes that held his wrists tight. The hempen cords began splitting until the bindings fell away. He dashed back to Torio, painfully aware of the time draining away, each second taking away a chance at freedom.
He pried her body out of Keldrin's grasp and then stood a moment, eyeing the cruel Luskan. Time Stop had certain restrictions, including the inability to harm others or target others with spells...
But not objects.
He cast Explosive Rune on the map of Crossroad Keep in the man's hand. He was almost sorry he would not be witness to the man's surprising and violent end. Sand was rapidly beginning to exhaust his spell list but he needed just a few others to get them out. He cast Bull's Strength on himself and half carried, half dragged Torio into the hallway. He pulled one of the guards cloak from his shoulders and wrapped it around her. He nearly made it to the end of the hall when he felt the spell giving out, fading...and then it was over.
Torio felt her mouth opening, names and locations and contacts pushing up past her throat...
...and then there was a strange, rushing, fuzzy moment where things seemed to press together...
...And then she was suddenly face down over someone's shoulder, a roughly hewn cloak covering her; she could feel it beginning to stick to her as the blood seeped into the cloth. She heard a furious roar, the sound of shifting, confused feet...and a massive explosion that shook the hallway around them. She had no idea what had happened. She didn't care. They were running, running away...
"Map," she gasped out painfully, and she felt Sand's direction shift; they were in a smaller room; she could see Sand's clothing and wands and other small artifacts scattered everywhere across the floor. He bent down, reaching for a belt...a belt?
Suddenly, voices could be heard shouting behind them down the hallway in the aftermath of the blast. "Get them!"
Sand carried Torio and the map back into the long hallway, seeing the 4 guards (2 of whom were charred nicely from the Explosive Rune) and Falathiel starting to run their way. He could only assume that Keldrin was dead. The Elven female was brandishing the wand in his direction, her eyes shining menacingly with an odd light. "Block your ears, dear girl." He didn't have his component pouch and his spells were limited to those without material aspects...
They had wanted to make them scream, hadn't they?
Sand cast Wail of the Banshee and then turned with Torio, running out of the tower. A supernatural scream shook the air of the tower and one by one their pursuers dropped to the ground, writhing, screaming, dying…
Torio shut her eyes, her head pounding with the jostling as Sand ran. There was a flight of stairs...she felt light headed and woozy, her mind slipping into unconsciousness. The heated prickling along her spine was growing more intense, spreading up her neck and down into her legs. But they were almost free...free, free, free…
And then Sand suddenly stopped.
"You've made a bit of a mess upstairs, haven't you?" She recognized that voice...