Mists

[Adrian Kane]

Arikan

The pit in his stomach grew simply to dwell on Shayol Ghul. It was an experience infused with masochistic ecstasy. To be a man one moment, and the next reduced to a creature ripped apart more than simply being dead. To feel yourself begin cease to existent. To have your thread plucked from the pattern by the groping fingers of the Dark Lord, unsure if it would ever reform again. That was a true death few understood but all should truly fear. There was something lurking in the back of all humanity’s mind that once shown to the grave uttered a whisper that they should try again. That the next life was the one in which redemption would come, when what was deserved would finally be earned. That the next life would be riddled with less suffering and filled with more glory. That was the power of the Lord of the Grave. Death was not the end for Him unless He took the desire to unravel you. From there, if a man emerged reformed, he should know there truly was no purpose to it all: life, choice, pleasure, pain. In the end nothing waited but the long rot. If there was a purpose to the years of sucking air until the inevitable descended, it was his purpose. His needs. His fate.

Perhaps it was his time spent in Tel’aran’rhiod, where the pattern was nearer. Where all of life, reality, and alternate realities converged in the endlessness that was the Gaps that he should fear the chasm of such a doom. Perhaps it was Arikan’s splintered mind hovering above the fog of countless lives blurring together, but that was what he truly feared most: to cease existing.

“You’re right o’holy Inquisitor. Most never have the chance to see it, and most who do are never seen again,” he said, slow to respond. He stared at the questioner, eyes of stone, hatred billowing. What was the man waiting for? Always standing. Always looming. Arikan crunched his hair in his fingers, wracked with the anticipation of suspending the torture he knew should have come by now. "what is taking you so long? Can we bloody start—?”

Then a pin pierced the veil.

Arikan’s face lifted from the plane of his knees so that he may stare at the Inquisitor. No thoughts scattered behind those red-rimmed eyes. There was no resistance, only the glassy sickle of lamplight flashing in the cycle of blinks that followed. And he finally understood. Finally recognized what had been happening.

"Questioning. This whole time?” He said. Unaware the thought in his mind passed his lips at all.

"You've been questioning me this whole time.” He barely dared to say it aloud, fists balling. His own idiocy ripped his insides apart. Memory scrambled frantic across their previous discussions, clawing through every phrase, hoping to discern what he had revealed but the memories eluded him. But they were wisps of fog on a cold river. Unreachable. Not possible.

His expression darkened considerably. Their gentleman’s discussion was over. If the Lord of Souls wove a single fiber of a man's being to a cause, it was that there were no other options than obedience.

Or so he thought.

Unless he was tricked into answering every bloody question the Interrogator posed without even realizing it.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

This method had been far slower than his task masters may have liked, but he had gleaned many interesting bits of information. And, more importantly, the boy had survived this long. Byron knew how to cut a man to make him talk, but had never before needed to worry if the one under his knife lived. It was also something he was usually almost loathe to do; a rare emotion in his mind. Some things were just too foul to be done without some hesitation. It was one of the few markers he had to judge that he hadn't wandered too far from the Light.

But now the easy road was gone. Inquisitor Jeorune stared down at the boy with a knowing smile. A smile that seemed to hint that perhaps the boy had given up too much already. Could the boy trust his own memories of these past many conversations? What had been delusions and what had been real? "Not every Inquisitor needs knives and clamps, boy."

There was another room, not far removed from this cell with a table. Straps had been prepared, and now it was just a matter of getting the boy tied down; again, times like this would have been far easier if he had had help. A true Hand of the Light would have a retinue of Children to strong-arm the boy, but Inquisitor Jeorune would have to manage the task alone. But, with the boy weakened as he was, it would be easy enough. Without sleep or full meals, and still nursing the effects of past beatings, the boy wouldn't have the endurance to struggle long. "But, I think it is time now for us to...get down to business, yes? Shall you cooperate boy, or shall I have to bring you like a misbehaving dog?”

Arikan

Sweat.  Fear.  What were these things?  Did they exist or were they figments of an overwrought imagination?  Staring into the smile of one's enemy, and knowing he had best you, the question was rather provoking.  The frost of fear did indeed glaze his eyes, for what else had transpired he did not recognize, but he was not yet conquered.  Arikan forced a smile in return.  ”Not knives and clamps. No.  Only an Aes Sedai and poison, Sir Inquisitor." 

When the Inquisitor came for him, he met a mild struggle.  Arikan was far diminished compared to their previous encounter, but the mild price of energy was necessary.  Complete submission would touch the Inquisitor's suspicion.  It would have touched his, had their roles been reversed.  Thus he was dragged from his pigsty, vaguely aware of stone shedding the skin from his legs.  Yet on he clutched at everything the Inquisitor wore.  A teeth clenched resistance sharpened every grunt and curse to pass mindless lips.

Yet his eyes made purpose along the way.  It razored his brain to draw upon such focus, but he learned the distance from one hole to the next.  A torchlit passage.  Unfinished stone.  Low ceilings.  They were underground after all, and he knew the way out now.  It was a fitting tomb, for one of them was not to see daylight again, and Arikan did not intend it to be him. This was his last chance. There would be no escaping once the straps were tightened.

It happened fast.  That delicate moment when compliance escalated to fighting.  And he fought.  Fought for his life.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

The boy's struggles were about as pitiful as Inquisitor Jeorune would have expected. Half starved and sleep deprived as the boy was, these pitiful struggles would only further weaken the boy when the time came for a true struggle. The look in the boy's eyes was entirely gratifying to the Inquisitor; the boy was only now realizing how truly out-maneuvered he was, how entirely powerless he had become. The boy had once commanded armies and held the fate of Darkfriends and Black Ajah in his hand. And now, he had been babbling secrets and prophecies to the Hand of the Light without a single touch of a blade. And now, to know that the true ordeals were just beginning?

The boys roving hands wouldn't find any convenient short blades to be plucked from belt or sheath. The Inquisitor still had his sword, of course, as any old soldier surely would, but any blades he would need in the near future would be found in his satchel of tools that awaited within the room, awaiting their chance to put the boy's already questionable resolve to the test.

The boy's second wind, that sudden burst of motivation, might have surprised the Inquisitor. The boy shouldn't have had such energy left in him, after all. But Byron...had their roles been reversed, Byron could easily see himself making the same gambles. The ambush with the table leg would have been his greatest chance of escape. To over power his captor in one surprise strike. And if that had failed, to then play the part of the broken prisoner, too weak and confused to put up much resistance. To again lay in wait and bide his time for another chance of escape. A chance like this.

When the boy redoubled his efforts against Inquisitor Jeorune, the boy would find himself with a ready opponent. As the boy gained his feet, shoving against the Hand of the Light, the Inquisitor would stagger but not fall. Jeorune twisted about to face the boy, tugging violently at the boy's hair to try and wrench him off balance instead, and drove a mailed fist at the boys jaw. But the boy wasn't spent just yet. A flick of the boys arm managed to break Jeorune's grip on the his hair, allowing him to avoid the Inquisitor's first blow.

Jeorune had the advantage of a healthy and rested body, of greater depths of physical reserves. But the boy was motivated by the knowledge that death was a certain, and decidedly unpleasant, experience on the immediate horizon. With such motivation, the boy's attacks were an all or nothing gamble. Once again, it would quickly become obvious to the boy that Inquisitor Jeorune was more then just an arrogant torturer. He again refrained from going for his sword; he wanted the boy alive, after all. Tired and bruised was fine, as long as the boy still drew breath.

The boy had an impressive well of resolve left to him, more so then Byron would have expected of the boy. Channellers had a rather self-destructive tendency or relying on the One Power to solve their problems. But, the Asha’man actively sought to work past that short-sighted fault. They trained with swords and in more traditional concepts of melee combat. The Aes Sedai could learn a thing or two from them, in that regard. That the boy was so physically competent wasn't terribly surprising. Just the sheer level of it.

The display might have been rather magnificent if it weren't so...almost comically presented. A greased hair Hand of the Light in a hearty round of fisticuffs with a half starved naked man. There was probably a good tavern song in there somewhere. The fight lasted longer then Byron might have preferred, but every moment just helped to further weaken the boy, and to help reinforce that he simply could not stand up to Inquisitor Jeorune, no matter the conditions.

Unlike their first fight, the turn around wasn't a matter of gaining ground. The boy wasn't trying to escape, but rather to destroy the Inquisitor outright, to prevent the man from stopping the boy's escape at all. The Inquisitor's goal was to inflict pain, to drive the boy to his knees and beg for the Inquisitor to stop. To collapse and weep and whimper and grovel.

They exchanged blows, but then Jeorune managed to strike one of the boys arms aside, allowing a swift jab into the boys floating ribs on his left side, mail-reinforced knuckles biting hard at the soft ribs there. Another flash of his arm to knock the boys arms away again, and another first drove forward into the boys torso, this time driving his knuckles into the boys right clavicle. The boy was good enough to roll with the punches, but the blow was aimed to fracture or even break that bone, to rend the boys arm useless.

The tide turned then; without the use of one arm, the boys defence was crippled. The Inquisitor caught the boys other arm, twisting the arm enough to force the boy to the side and drive him onto his toes for a brief moment, the boys arm pinned into the Inquisitors side, just long enough for Jeorune to drive a two-knuckled blow into the boys exposed armpit and ribs there. Next would be a violent stomp to the back of the boys closest knee, to drive him to the floor.

The blows that came next were cold and calculated, to extract the greatest pain without actually risking killing the boy. They were meant to thoroughly implant the realization that the boy was beaten, and all the while Inquisitor Jeorune would calmly recite those same blasted rules. "The rules are simple. Speak only when I address you. Ask permission to speak when I address you. You will address me only as Inquisitor. You will do anything you are told. You will only act when told. There shall be daily routines, and you shall do these without complaint or hesitation as you are told. You will make no excuse and tell no lie.”

“You have acted without permission, and so I have to punish you.”

Arikan

Tunnel vision.  If there was anything the black tower properly drilled, it was brutality.  Infliction without remorse.  Carnage without sickness.  To blank out all thought, grip death by the throat, and cow it into submission.  During the Farm's impressionable years, when an experienced dreadlord haunted their holy grounds, Darius Stowyn blended perfectly within that sea of boring black.  Because the first lesson his very first teacher instilled lasted nearly two-hundred years: focus the hate.  Dissipate all distraction.  Tunnel his vision.  Concentrate.  Wait.  For all his practical wisdom, Arikan recognized the ironic misfortune of his teacher's abrupt end, but such finality was the easiest way to take the man's place.  How the old graybeard would sneer now. 

The Inquisitor rallied immediately.  His prisoner had been broken, trembling, weak, and pitiful.  Yet this whitecloak anticipated the game like an expert.  But there was no time, no energy, no ability left to Arikan to wonder what that meant. 

For every attack he deflected, the next landed like the Inquisitor were playing with him, but he refused to lose ground.  The two men dug in their trenches and wailed on one another. Though most of the fleshy cries of pain came from Arikan's side of the war. He inflicted little to no damage in return. He fell into his own world as a result, refusing to back down, refusing to care.  This was no contest of rioting factions.  Arikan aimed for blood smeared on the walls, either his own, or the Questioner's.  Preferably the Questioner's.  It was all he saw.  It was all he cared about.  But he wasn’t going to the table alive. Not alive.

Somewhere in the stench of time, a sluggish throw was flung off-course and something immediately crunched inside.  A stabbing shock rippled from his side and knocked the wind from his lungs.  A moment, or maybe a lifetime later, his vision colored white as a bloated corpse when the collarbone snapped.  His entire chest thickened, and submersed in shock, he didn't breathe. The force of the downward blow knocked him nearly over.  In that split-second, there was no cry, no reaction until his overwhelmed mind was able to process the flash of pain that followed. 

In the surge of adrenaline burning his veins, one thought arose.  Move. Run.   

His mind roared with will. He tried to simply run. Or die trying, and it seemed likely now the blood on the walls would be his, but glimpsing a sliver of his gruesome future, it was better than the alternative. 

It was too late.  The Inquisitor caught him immediately and became the puppeteer. Arikan was forced beneath the riptide of his wailing.  Ribs, shock.  Arm, darkness.  Knee, floor. 

Instinct he would later loathe tried to get him away from what came next.  To crawl out of this hollow crypt rather than dig deeper into the dirt.  To reach out for something, to throw his hands up, anything to make the Inquisitor stop.  Or go ahead and die now.  Death was certain once cold buckles bit into his naked flesh, he couldn't calculate those consequences, only the moment. Only the instinct. 

The walls of his soon to be tomb were too thick to process the Inquisitor's rules.  Their fight was done, and this time, when Arikan clutched and clawed at the Inquisitor's dragging, the weakness was not fake. The desperation was very real. Heavy straps he was unable to fend off bit wrists and ankles like gnawing dogs until those clenching hands subsequently released him.  Fogged minutes later, roaring with fury too weak to show itself, his head rolled over in time to watch the Inquisitor straighten himself out.  Uniform perfect.  Armor untarnished.  Sword quiet.  And their eyes met.  He beheld nothing behind the globes of the Inquisitor’s stare. Just darkness and intent. The same streamed from his own.

Arikan moved; well, tried to move.  Only a few fingers twitched, but no wrist lifted from the table.  His heels scraped on the coarse surface slabbed beneath. His back could not arch.  He was wounded in every way possible with frustratingly minimal threat to life despite how hard he tried to get the Inquisitor to kill him. He was drained of all energy except to draw the next painful breath.  His faculty was empty as scorched stone.  And he was unable to contemplate anything except the identity of the man he'd failed to manipulate into killing him. 

When the Inquisitor left his prisoner alone, panic began to creep in, glad to keep him company.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

The boy would be left in the darkness for some time, left to his thoughts and worries and aches. When the Inquisitor returned next, it was to arrange his tools. Another table, lower and within clear view of where the boy was strapped down, was where the Inquisitor set down the satchel that had so often been in the background of their previous encounters. The straps were opened with care and the satchel was unfolded to reveal its contents once more. Knives and needles and hooks, barbs and clamps and spikes. Each item was tugged free of its bindings, examined and wiped clean with a gleaming white cloth. Then they were coated in oil and set to the flame of a candle, to purify and cleanse each tool, before being set onto length of clean cloth, where they would await their turn on the boy's body.

All the while, he hummed a quiet tune. Inquisitor Jeorune held no reservations of what would come next; the ends justified the means. And the boy no doubt deserved every pain and humiliation that had been, and would soon be, delivered upon him. The boy had chosen his allegiance, had taken these steps willingly if not knowingly. Not at first, perhaps. But the boy had never sought to return to the Light, and had seemingly held no reservations for his dark deeds.

Byron himself held no qualms over what was to happen next either. Indeed, the boy was a monster who walked willingly in the Shadow. One whom had brought death and pain to the Tower. He studied a wickedly curved needle. It was much like a fishing hook, save that the tip was rounded and dull rather then sharp, he thought, although far longer. The notes of the late Inquisitor indicated the proper usage of each of these tools; the man's notes were meticulous in that sense. Pierce the flesh of the stomach with one of its sister needles, and carefully insert this hook amidst the bowels. Dull as it was, it would not easily pierce those filth-filled organs, but would allow one to press and turn them about. A curious technique, and the dead man's notes indicated all sorts of dreadfully curious long-term uses of such. Notes of knots and placement of clamps.

He set the hook aside after it had been properly cleaned, the last of the tools to be inspected and tended to thus. A lantern sat on the same table, allowing the tools to be well lit and clearly seen, by both the Inquisitor and the boy, should he be so inclined. He continued to hum as he studied the boy; the mess of bruises and swellings and lacerations from the beating, fresh over the near faded bruises and scabbed wounds of past punishments.

The Inquisitor circled the table briefly, staring down at the boy as he did, as if planning a move in a game of stones. Where to cut first? Where to gouge and pierce the boy's flesh. Byron was curious how this would go. He had spent many nights studying the Inquisitor's notes, familiarizing himself with the techniques and practices described within. Would the Brown Ajah be interested in such a book? He could perhaps arrange for it to appear in the Tower Library's grasp some day. Perhaps the Yellows could find a use for it? The diagrams within were quite detailed regarding anatomy. It was almost a work of art, if the topic weren't so dark.

Most men Byron had put to the question were not near so important as the likes of the boy had been. Most had been Darkfriends, but they had been low on the ladder, so to speak. Simple, common folk who had for whatever fool reason sworn to the Dark One. Those had always been short and simple things; most had broken quickly and under far cruder methods than what Byron had at his disposal now. Break a few fingers, twist a knife in a man's guts enough, and most divulged whatever secrets it was that he had sought at the time. But this would require more, and he was quite interested to broaden his array of skills.

He circled the table and returned to his tools. He deigned not to waste time speaking with the boy, or even to answer him should the boy try to speak. A dozen slender pins were selected first, and he turned to the boy, looming over the bound Dread Lord with the pins neatly arrayed between two fingers. A dozen in all, with one held pinched between two fingers as he studied its length. Then he met the boy's gaze for a long moment, as the needles were laid on the table's edge, far enough away that the boy's squirming would not knock them to the floor. All were set down but the one he had between thumb and finger, and his free hand pressed down heavily against the boy's hip and thigh. The needles were long and fairly sturdy things for their size and the first was carefully pressed into the flesh of the boy's inner thigh till it pressed to the bone, piercing through layers of skin and fat and muscle.

The others would soon follow; he had studied the Inquisitor's notes quite thoroughly on this, careful to note the location of important veins and arteries. The more the boy would squirm, the more the muscle would catch and tug at the needles, pulling them deeper or scraping them against muscle and sinew. The more the boy squirmed, the more pain they would inflict.

He would work on the boy for some many hours that first day, with long pauses between to allow the boy to calm and recover slightly. Buckets of water would be cast across his body, and thin gruel and water forced upon him if need be, in small amounts to avoid vomiting. And all the while, he would refuse to speak to the boy or answer his questions or pleas. He seemed more interested in seeing how far he could push the boy before he would pass out. Questions would come later, when the boy better understood what the Inquisitor could and would do to him to get answers.

Some hours later, with Byron's mind rife with a better understanding of what all the tools and blades and such could do, he turned away from the boy, removing the last of the invading pieces of metal from the boy's body and returning to the lower table. He continued to hum the entire time, wandering between various tunes the entire time. He began to clean and inspect the tools that had been used that day, the cloth they were arrayed across stained red.

Arikan

The following silence pounded the eardrums.  Or maybe it was the heavy pulse of the blood in his own head.  Alone, desperate and driven by thoughtless instinct, he strained every wounded limb for freedom once more.  A roar overtook his entire shoulder when he heaved against the broken collarbone, but he bit through the pain and pulled with every scrap of intent he had. It was futile. The straps gripping the limbs were secure, inescapable as his very skin, but he would never stop trying. Just, that moment, as he sank back, he needed to think.

As he lay, he curled bloody fingernails into his own palm, furious at the failure to operate his own limbs.  Furious at twice the failure to capitalize on decent chances at escape.  That he'd let down his guard in Tear, that security turned to comfort which turned to capture.  That he'd let Lairona betray him, the catalyst that started this whole violent descent from glory. All that, but it wasn’t over yet. Not while he breathed.

The shield boxed him in.  Invisible as black ice, but smooth and solid, undented, unwarped as he stretched out to graze his soul along its surface, seeking some ripple he'd overlooked before.  The exploration was frantic at first. Desperate and sweeping. But soon, studying the shield became the ticking of the clock; the count by which he passed the wasteland of time.  Breathing slowed. Steadied. The shield and air. Both taunted. Both ached indescribable, but the search gave him focus, and his body sank soon into a cadaverous weight he could not control.  His mind calmed… he felt like sinking… Like topping the horizon on a clear morning to behold the city he favored most after months of hazy travel by horseback.  Though the night was power for the runners of darkness, there was a sense of beauty in a cold, crisp sunrise he thought.  A splay of orderly tents, the gleam of steel, the whip of a rippling cloak; the retraction of a fearful hand, the narrowing of suspicious eyes, the haunt of a cowering face.  The imagery blurred and focused. Sinking…

…Focus slid from his grasp altogether, and a sort of comfort took top pedestal.  He pulled the reigns and studied the city of his birth from the saddle, glad for the narrow streak of shade provided by a cap against the glare.  Already in the early morning sunrise, droplets pooled on the back of his neck.  A sticky warmth crept up, and the padding of his coat felt heavy as a horse-blanket on his back.  The sun meanwhile overtook the width of the River Erinin and turned those deep waters to a gemstone blue, and early rays cut through the shape of the distant city alongside.  Atop spires and along the outer wall his eyes briefly studied banners he knew by heart.  And far in the distance the mountainous shadow of the Stone of Tear gleamed brightly in the sunrise as it towered directly above the river. 

Horse and rider sat unnaturally still, staring.  Warring feelings for the three-crescents rippling in the air above and hatred for what the Stone harbored inside clenched his stomach with conflict.  High Lord Emorian frequently walked those halls, accessing the heart of it for purposes unknown to the Council, but none broke the courage to question him about it.  Since the first moment he beheld the crystal sword, Arikan could not ignore the lure of callandor. Glowing faint in the innermost chamber, it waited out of reach; out of touch yet pulsing with power, hinting at temptation.  He tried many times to claim it. Yet that frustrating chamber drew his desire every day he remained in the city, every day he left it behind, and every day since.

He startled, but nothing external explained the sudden arousal.  His eyes flew to a point in the darkness though there was nothing to mark it, but toward which all his attention was now directed.  It moved, very slightly.  A darkness conceivably, or inconceivably, darker than the absence of light surrounding.  Arikan heard a low, distinct swish of movement like the sheen of a velvet cloak swept across stone. Barely perceptible footsteps.  Approaching slowly closer.  There was no visible aura to reveal whether the specter be man, beast, or something in between, but it felt as though the very walls cried syrupy tears, pleading for the chance to bow their shadowy might before the master that walked among them.  A shudder of doubt flecked his brain, and he shivered. In that moment, he questioned his very sanity. 

Arikan lay skeletally still as a sweep of fingers gently brushed the hair away from his brow, and there upon a cold whisper caressed his mind.  Arikan dared not move; dared not breathe.  Then the force circled like a cold current of air, and in the pitch blackness Arikan's eyes followed, glued despite every instinct in him urging that he should look away.  The presence again scratched the air with explanation, menace billowing.

Arikan's stolen breath caged itself in his chest as much in shock now as it did during the horror of previous moments.  Then the presence dissipated like a yawning comet swallowed behind the arc of the world, and Arikan's eyes cast a harried search around.  Then, suddenly, he felt a tug on those boiled leather straps like an afterthought and each fell away from his skin altogether.  He was released?  But warning blazed across his mind; a nightmarish chasm of questions choked him in place.  Was this some test?  Some probe into the purity of his commission with offers and taunts?  And who was stretching the bonds of his loyalty?  Was the Great Lord of the Dark fully free to walk the world? 

Then a faint sound carried into the darkness from some great distance, like a wave crashing against a distant cliff.  The sound took shape; a pleasant tune Arikan found it. A siren calling him back…

That, finally, was when he opened his eyes to the tangible world, and he frantically searched the surroundings of reality. The room was as it was the last time his silvery eyes beheld it, but the walls were illuminated in torchlight not weeping for the god of the dark.  The security of his bonds were ironclad as before.  He was still shackled to a table, and every inch of him ached.

I was sleeping, he thought hesitantly, as though focusing too strongly on the glimmer of reality might make it untrue after all.  Darkness. I was sleeping?  Or hallucinating.  Or passed out. He swallowed, though there was no moisture in his throat to force down.  Tension he'd held tight as bones suddenly melted beneath the flames and fiercer memory boiled upward from deep in his gut. No, he was sure he had been dreaming.

Then he heard the song. The tune from the dream finally took form. The very same voice that tugged him back to consciousness issued a steady stream, and Arikan rolled his face toward it. The Inquisitor was there, unfurling a script of tools, whistling as he did. He shivered to think that’s what stirred him awake. Despite his brush with the divine, Arikan was mortal still, and his eyes quickly followed the righteous placement of every silvery edge and careful testing of every gleaming point.  First through quenching flame then to reverent distribution on that oh so nearby cloth.  The man handled each item surgically — fondly, artfully; and Arikan found the elegant ritual disgusting. How was this to start? He swallowed dryly, watching.

They met one another's gaze.  While the foreground was set by a grueling display of what was to come, Arikan would not flee from facing it.  His all too human eyes followed the Inquisitor's wolf-like circling, both taut with challenge and narrowed by hatred; this was what he requested all along.  He did not speak as the butcher examined the cut of meat he was soon to dissect, but every hair on his body flinched when the first needle pierced. He grunted. Hide and sinew quivered involuntarily up and down his thigh but soon fell motionless when he realized the exquisite consequences of struggling. At that very moment, it wasn’t bad, tolerable even, but that was soon to change. The needle gouged to bone, and Arikan was flung past what he could endure in silence. He'd seen metal pulled from bone before, and heard the screams of men who endured it.  Now it was his turn.  So the screaming began.

Hours later, a few droplets of precious water seasoned his lips with life.  A bucket of cold slammed afterwards, pink streams dripping away the black blobs up and down his body. The cold tide shivered after the heat of so much violating, and he tried to shift, what much as he could while strung to the slab--but his skin was stuck to the table, adhered by the sludge of his own sweat and congealed blood until he managed to peel a gruesome layer away.  It felt like the skin peeled from the body of a snake. He grew light-headed, and his eyes sank with exhaustion. The respite was savored. He didn’t speak. Nor could he if he tried. His swollen tongue greedily lapped every drop of water given him by the Inquisitor's cradling hands. 

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

The ladle was returned to the bucket of drinking water, kept just far enough from where the boy was strapped down that he could see it, if he so chose to turn his head that way. The boy's last meal had been a few hours before, and it was time to get back to work. The tools were laid out once more, on a fresh, white cloth, once more sterilized and arranged with undue care. He still never graced the boy with so much as a word, and he casually inspected the boy's injuries and the marks from their first session. The Inquisitor was most intrigued for how well the boy's body had held together so far; surely an undeserved blessing of the power these monsters had stolen from the Creator.

Byron was of course more curious than he would ever let on, of course. Just how far could a Channeler be pushed before things like infection was an issue? Before the exhaustion and stress prevented his body from knitting itself together any more? He had never been tasked to chase Black Ajah or Darkfriend wildings. And even if he had been, he would never have been able to give the such intimate attention; he would have relied on poison or a knife or a crossbow quarrel from a safe distance. Far more efficient that way.

Inquisitor Jeorune took up his tools once more. Today, he started with more pins, two inches long. The boy's left hand was taken firmly, the fingers pinned down to the table, keeping the fingernails exposed as the first of the needles was lined up. Byron wondered absently how far Merayin and Elseen had traveled in this time? Altara, perhaps? With the escort he had arranged for them, he doubted they would run into much trouble there, or even in Murandy; few bandits were willing to fall upon a band that was more armed men then soft merchant staff. And as far as he understood, the Seanchan still hadn't managed to solidify their hold on northern Altara.

What would he do with those three when he returned to the Tower? Elsae, he suspected, would be far more understanding of the situation than Elseen had been. He had some very strange suspicions about those girls. They hadn't looked much like their father. Of course, he was a poor mind for guessing the ages of children, or of anyone really (Light alone knew his exact age, but he gathered himself to be in his mid to late twenties perhaps?), but the girls seemed too old for Merayin's husband to have been the father, surely. Unless she had wed almost the day he had left, of course. He had attacked this interesting puzzle in the recent past, but was too busy with his tasks to ponder it too deeply.

He finished with the first five of those pins and stepped back to study the boy. It was a rather unimaginative opening to the day's activities, but it simply meant they could move into more interesting waters later. "Awake now, yes boy? Good.” The pins were left where they were, firmly pressed beneath the boy's finger nails. The more he would struggle and thrash and make fists, the more they would move and dig and tear. Much like the pins in the thigh before, they were meant that the boy's own resistance would directly cause him pain. It would give him one more thing he would need to focus on to keep from hurting himself, to help prevent him from simply retreating into his own mind. An anchor of sorts, to keep him in the moment.

"You are well aware the rules by now, I am sure. I ask you a question. You answer me, truthfully. The more you lie, the more pain you shall know.” For a long time, the questions were rote and simple and constantly circling; simple details of name and place of birth, of names and places that might have seemed entirely pointless in the grand scheme of things. But they were traps against lies; the Inquisitor had a memory like a steel box, and his mind was fresh and lacking in the distractions the boy was made to suffer through.

He never struck on the first lie; to do so would have tipped the boy off to what was happening too soon. But eventually the fallacies would be repeated to the boy; you said one thing, then another. The details have changed. You said there were three, not two. Whatever was offered and caught was then turned back on the boy in punishment. Starting with the boy's foot. More pins, then pliers to pull broken nails away. He would move onto something different after the foot though; he did not wish to over due this one type of punishment, after all.

Eventually, the questions moved onto more interesting topics; means of troop movements of Trolloc forces; what he knew of their spawning grounds, the forging of their equipment. These were things the boy might not even have known, himself, details that may have been below the cares of a Dreadlord in his prime. The more accurate answers he received, the more obscure the questions would become, and any time the boy could not answer, he was punished. This was meant to frustrate the boy and confuse him, to tear at his attention and make him more open to respond when given topics he had answers too.

"When a traitor to the Light swears to the Dark One, how is he made known to you? Do Darkfriends travel to Shayol Ghul to swear? Do Channelers?” The questions seemed eager to find ways of finding Darkfriends, of knowing how they may be marked or coerced into revealing themselves. Exactly the sorts of things an Inquisitor would be interested in knowing, surely.