At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.XIII.

St. Thyrmyn Prison,

City of Zion,

The Temple Lands,

Charisian Embassy,

Siddar City,

Republic of Siddarmark,

and Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s Office,

The Temple,

The Temple Lands.

The cell was small, dark, and cold. There was no light, only a dim trickle of pallid illumination spilling through the small, barred grate in the massive timber door. There was no bed, no furniture of any sort, only a thin layer of damp straw in one corner. There wasn’t even a bucket or a chamber pot in which a prisoner might relieve herself.

She huddled in the corner, naked, crouching in the straw, her knees drawn up under her chin and her left arm—the only one that still worked—wrapped around them while she folded in upon herself. It was very quiet, but not completely so, and the distant sounds that came to her—their faintness somehow perfected and distilled by the stillness—were horrible. The sounds of screams, for the most part, torn from throats on the other side of heavy doors or so far down the chill, stone corridors of this terrible place that they were faint with distance. And then there were the closer sounds. The sound of a cracked, crazed voice babbling unceasing nonsense. Another voice, pleading helplessly—hopelessly—for someone to listen, to understand that its owner hadn’t done whatever it was he’d been accused of. A voice that knew no one was listening, knew no one cared, but couldn’t stop pleading anyway.

She knew where she was. Everyone in Sondheimsborough knew about St. Thyrmyn’s, although only the truly foolish spoke about it. She’d known exactly where they were taking her and Alahnah from the instant they dragged them out of the shop into the snow and threw them into the closed carriage, and the knowledge had filled her with terror.

Alahnah had wept pleadingly, her pale face soaked with tears, begging to know what had happened to her cousin and her uncle, but of course no one had told her. Zhorzhet hadn’t wept, despite her terror and the anguish pulsing in her crippled elbow. She’d refused to give her captors that satisfaction. And she hadn’t said a single word, either, despite the monk who’d sat behind her holding the leather strap which had been fastened about her throat, ready to choke any sign of resistance into unconsciousness.

They’d chained both of them as well, of course, although that had scarcely been necessary in Zhorzhet’s case. There’d been no way she could have fought them after the damage they’d already done to her right arm. Besides, they’d been armed and armored. She’d been neither, and even if she’d been able to fight, there was no way she could have provoked them into killing her. Not when the under-priest clearly knew exactly what sort of prize he’d stumbled upon.

Alahnah had moaned, shrinking in upon herself, seeming to collapse before Zhorzhet’s eyes, when the carriage door opened on the courtyard of St. Thyrmyn Prison. She’d shaken her head frantically, bits and pieces of terrified protest spurting from her, but the priest who’d arrested them had only flung her from the carriage. She’d landed on her knees with brutal force, crying out in pain, then sprawled forward on her face, unable even to catch herself with her hands chained behind her, and a waiting agent inquisitor in the black gloves of an interrogator had jerked her back to her feet by her hair.

“Please, no!” she’d moaned, blood oozing from a split lip as he hauled her high on her toes. “It’s a mistake! It’s all a mistake!”

“Of course it is,” the interrogator had sneered. “And I’m sure we’ll get it all sorted out soon enough.”

He’d dragged her away, and the arresting under-priest had looked at the monk holding the strap about Zhorzhet’s neck.

“Be very careful with this one, Zherom,” he’d said. “She has a great deal to tell us, and I’m looking forward to hearing all of it. Be sure you don’t let her … slip away before Father Bahzwail’s had the chance to make her acquaintance.”

“Oh, no worry there, Father Mairydyth,” the monk had assured him. “I’ll get her delivered safe enough.”

“I’m sure you will,” the priest had said with a cold, cruel smile. Then he’d climbed down from the carriage himself and strode briskly across the courtyard without a single backwards glance, a man who was clearly eager to report his success to his superiors.

The monk watched him go, then twisted the strap hard enough to make Zhorzhet choke, her eyes widening as he cut off her air.

“Up you get, you murderous bitch,” he’d hissed in her ear, his mouth so close she felt his hot breath. “There’s a hot corner of hell for such as you, and you might’s well start the trip there now.”

She’d twisted, choking, fighting involuntarily for air as he strangled her, and he’d pulled her to her feet by the strap, then dragged her down the steep carriage steps and into the prison. At least he’d been forced to let her breathe along the way, but that hadn’t been a kindness. Indeed, the kindest thing he could have done would have been to strangle her to death, and she knew it. But he hadn’t. He’d only dragged her along endless corridors until, finally, he’d turned her over to another interrogator—a thick-shouldered, hulking giant of a man with blunt, hard features and merciless eyes.

“I’ll take her, Brother Zherom,” he’d said, and his voice had seemed to come from some underground cavern. It wasn’t all that deep, but it was deadly cold, the voice of a man who no longer possessed any human emotions, and its emptiness was far more terrifying than any leering cruelty could have been.

“And welcome to her,” Brother Zherom had said, passing over the strap. Then he’d reached out, capturing Zhorzhet’s face between the thumb and fingers of his right hand, forcing her head around to face him, and he’d smiled.

“Don’t reckon I’ll be seeing you again … before the Punishment,” he’d told her. “Might, though. There’s more’n one way t’ question a heretic bitch.” He’d leaned forward and licked her forehead, slowly and gloatingly, then straightened. “Won’t be so pretty by the time you hit the fire.”

She’d only stared at him mutely, and he’d laughed, then tossed her head aside, turned, and walked away.

And then she’d been taken to her cell, but her new captor had paused at the door.

“You’re one of the priority prisoners,” he’d told her. “Understand you’ve already tried to kill yourself once.” He’d shaken his head and spat contemptuously on the stone floor. “Don’t know what your rush is. You’ll see Shan-wei soon enough! But we can’t have you trying again, and I’ve seen people hang themselves with things you’d never’ve thought they could.” He’d smiled coldly. “Don’t think you’ll be doing that, though.”

And then he’d stripped her naked, there in the cell doorway, before he’d removed her manacles and flung her into it, and she’d been wrong about his absence of emotion. There’d been more than enough leering cruelty in his eyes—in his groping hands—as he reduced her to fragile, naked vulnerability, and she’d never believed for a moment it was only to keep her from hanging herself with the hem of her chemise.

Then he’d laughed once, the door had crashed shut behind her, and he’d walked away, leaving her to the cold and the fear … and the despair.

* * *

“You sent for me, My Lord?”

Father Bahzwail Hahpyr crossed the office quickly and bent to kiss the ruby-set ring Bishop Inquisitor Bahltahzyr Vekko extended across his desk.

“Yes, I did. Be seated. I think you’ll be here a while.”

“Of course, My Lord.”

Hahpyr settled into his usual chair, his expression attentive. He and the bishop inquisitor were old colleagues, although he was little more than half Vekko’s age. He was broad-shouldered, with dark hair and eyes, and a thin purse-like slit of a mouth, whereas Vekko was in his late seventies, with a frail, ascetic appearance. The white-haired, gray-eyed prelate looked like everyone’s favorite grandfather with his full, snow-white beard. Until one looked deeply into those eyes of his and saw the curious … flatness lurking just below their surface like an opaque wall.

Bahltahzyr Vekko had been one of Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s closest supporters for decades. Indeed, he’d been Clyntahn’s mentor back in the Grand Inquisitor’s seminary days. The student had long since outpaced the master, of course, yet he remained one of Clyntahn’s closest confidants, and he’d played a major role in shaping the Grand Inquisitor’s vision of Mother Church’s future. In his more honest moments, Vekko acknowledged to himself that he would have lacked the iron nerve to embrace Clyntahn’s strategy for achieving that vision, and he’d actually advised against his old protégé’s … proactive attitude towards the Out Islands. Then again, he’d often thought his own caution was a failing in a true son of Mother Church. A servant of God with the steely spine of a Zhaspahr Clyntahn came along far too rarely, and Vekko could only thank Schuler—and envy them—when they did.

He knew he himself would never have dared to goad the Out Islanders to deliberately provoke a jihad, and there were times, especially when news from the battlefront was bad, when that timorousness of his made it difficult to sleep, worrying about the future. He’d never said as much to Clyntahn, but he knew the Grand Inquisitor had never imagined tiny, distant Charis could possibly survive the initial attack. Neither had Vekko, for that matter, and the fact that it had surely demonstrated Clyntahn had been right from the start. It could never have happened if Shan-wei hadn’t been their secret mistress all along! And if there were times when his faith wavered, when it seemed the accursed weapons with which she’d gifted her minions must prove unstoppable, a little prayer always reassured him with the comforting knowledge that God would not permit Himself to be defeated. And the truth was that the ferocity of the Jihad—the stern measures required to meet its demands—had only further strengthened the Inquisition’s position. Once the Jihad ended in God’s inevitable victory, the Grand Inquisitor’s control of Mother Church—and all of God’s world—would be unbreakable.

Of course, first that victory had to be attained.

“I have a special charge for you, Father,” the bishop inquisitor said, sitting back in his chair. “Father Mairydyth’s brought us an unexpected prize.”

“Indeed, My Lord?”

Hahpyr raised his eyebrows—in question, not surprise. As St. Thyrmyn’s senior interrogator, he was accustomed to being handed “special charges,” and his record of success was unbroken. There was a reason he taught all of the senior courses in interrogation technique, and many of the Inquisition’s most successful agents interrogator had interned under him.

“Indeed.” Vekko nodded, his normally kindly expression stern. “The Grand Inquisitor’s made it clear that we need our best interrogator on this one. And you’ll have to be careful, mind you! If she dies under the Question, Vicar Zhaspahr will be … most unhappy. Is that understood?”

“Of course, My Lord,” Hahpyr murmured. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d allowed a “special charge” to elude God’s searchers in death.

“Very well. I know I can trust your intelligence is much as your efficiency, Bahzwail, but I want to be very clear with you about the needs of this particular interrogation, because its outcome is particularly vital to the Jihad. This isn’t a simple heretic or seditionist—this is an outright rebel against God Himself, a true servant of Shan-wei and Kau-yung.”

“I understand, My Lord.”

“In that case, the first thing to consider—”

* * *

She never knew how much time had passed before the door opened again—abruptly, without warning—and far brighter light streamed in through it. A man in a cassock and priest’s cap stood silhouetted against the brightness, and her darkness-accustomed eyes blinked painfully against the light.

The faceless shape stood gazing down at her, the golden ring of an upper-priest glittering on one hand, then stepped back.

“Bring her,” he said curtly, and two black-gloved inquisitors dragged her to her feet.

She thought about struggling. Every instinct cried out to fight desperately, but no resistance could help her now, and she refused to give them the satisfaction of beating her into submission. And so she walked between them, her head high, gazing directly in front of her and trying not to shiver in her nakedness.

It was a long walk … and it ended in a chamber filled with devices fit to fill the strongest heart with terror. She recognized many of them; others she had no name for, but it didn’t matter. She knew what they were for.

Her captors dragged her across to a heavy wooden chair. They slammed her down in it and strapped her wrists and ankles to its arms and heavy front legs. Then she coughed as another strap went around her throat, yanking her head back against the rough timber of the chair back.

“Leave us,” the upper-priest said, and his assistants sketched Langhorne’s scepter in silent salute and disappeared, still without speaking a single word.

She sat there, still staring straight in front of her, and he settled onto a stool, sitting to one side, out of her line of vision unless she turned her head to look at him. He said nothing. He only sat there—a silent, predatory, looming presence. The silence stretched out interminably, until she felt her good wrist beginning to turn against its strap, struggling involuntarily as the terrible tension piled slowly higher and higher within her. She tried to make her hand be still, but she couldn’t—she literally couldn’t—and she closed her eyes, lips moving in silent prayer.

“So, this is what the ‘Fist of God’ looks like.”

The cold, cutting voice came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that she twitched in surprise. Her head started to turn automatically in the upper-priest’s direction, but she stopped it in time, and he chuckled.

“Not very impressive, once you drag the scum out of the shadows,” he continued. “You and your employer are going to tell me everything you know—everything you’ve ever known. Did you know that?”

She said nothing, only clenched her teeth while she continued to pray for strength.

“It’s amazing how predictable heretics are,” the upper-priest mused. “So brave while they hide in the dark like scorpions, waiting to sting the Faithful. But once you drag them into the light, not so brave. Oh, they pretend—at first. In the end, though, it’s always the same. Shan-wei’s promises won’t help you here. Nothing will help you here, except true and sincere repentence and penance. Is there anything you’d care to confess now? I always prefer to give my charges the opportunity to confess and recant before the … unpleasantness begins.”

She closed her eyes again.

“Well, I didn’t really think there would be,” he said calmly. “Not yet. But one thing we both have is plenty of time. Of course, ultimately, I have far more of it than you do, but I’m willing to invest however much of it is necessary to … show you the error of your ways. So why don’t I just let you sit here and think about it for a bit? Oh, and perhaps you’d like a little company while you do that.”

The stool scraped as he got off it and walked to the chamber door. Her eyes popped open again, against her will, and his path carried him into her field of vision and she saw him clearly at last. He paused and smiled at her—a dark-haired, dark-eyed man, broad shouldered and perhaps four inches taller than she was—and she closed her eyes again, quickly.

“Bring her in,” she heard him say, and her hands clenched into helpless fists as she heard someone else whimpering hopelessly. Metal grated, clashed, and clicked, and then a hand twisted in her hair.

“I really must insist you open your eyes,” the upper-priest told her. She only squeezed them more tightly together—and then someone shrieked in raw agony. “If you don’t open them, I’m afraid we’ll have to hurt her again,” the inquisitor said calmly, and the shriek sounded again, more desperate and agonized even then before.

Zhorzhet’s eyes jerked open, and she moaned involuntarily—not in fear, but in horror and grief—as she saw Alahnah Bahrns.

The younger woman was as naked as she was, but she’d been brutally beaten. She hung from chained wrists, welted and bleeding, her skin marked with at least a dozen deep, angry, serum-oozing burns where glowing irons—like the one in the hand of the hooded interrogator standing beside her—had touched. She was no more than half-conscious, and all the fingers on both hands were obviously broken.

“She didn’t have a great deal to tell us,” the upper-priest said. “I’m afraid it took some time for us to be fully satisfied of that, though.”

He nodded to the hooded interrogator, and the other man gripped Alahnah’s hair, jerking her head up, showing Zhorzhet the eye that was swollen totally shut, the bloody, broken mouth. He held her that way for several seconds, until the upper-priest nodded, then opened his hand contemptuously and let her head fall limply forward once more.

“At first, she insisted it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding, of course,” the upper-priest told Zhorzhet conversationally. “That she knew nothing at all about your accursed organization. But after we’d reasoned with her for a bit, she understood how important to the soul confession is. She admitted you’d recruited her for the ‘Fist of God,’ although from how few facts she could tell us, she’s obviously a new recruit. Still, I think it might be … instructional for both of you to spend a little time together before I get down to reasoning with you.”

He released his hold on her hair, and then he and the masked inquisitor simply walked away and left them.

* * *

“We have to do something.” Aivah Pahrsahn’s voice was tight, over-controlled. “We all know what they must be doing to them right this moment.” She closed her eyes, her face wrung with pain. “That’s terrible enough, but—God help me—what they know is even worse.” She shook her head. “If they break—when they break; they’re only human—they can do terrible damage.”

“Forgive me,” Nahrmahn Baytz said gently over the com link, “but the actual damage they can do is limited. You set up your organization too carefully for that, Nynian.”

“If you’re talking about details of other cells, you’re probably right, Nahrmahn,” Merlin said grimly. “But both Marzho and Zhorzhet know a great deal about general procedures, and Marzho, especially, had to know Nynian’s overall strategy. At the very least, the information they have can give Rayno and Clyntahn a much better look inside how Helm Cleaver’s organized. Not only that, Marzho definitely does know Nynian used to be Ahnzhelyk Phonda, and God only knows what Rayno’s investigators could do with that bit of information! I don’t think any of us will ever make the mistake of thinking they’re incompetent, whatever else they may be, and they’ve got the manpower and the resources to investigate every single person who ever interacted with Ahnzhelyk. There’s no way of telling where that might lead.” He shook his head. “And if the Inquisition goes ahead and announces it’s captured agents of the ‘Fist of God’ and produces them for the Punishment, it may go a long way towards undermining the aura of … inevitability Helm Cleaver’s been building.”

“Ahnzhelyk’s not the only thing Marzho knows about that could cause serious damage, either.” Aivah’s voice was equally grim. “You’re right, she does know I used to be Ahnzhelyk, but she also knows ‘Barcor’ used to be a Temple Guardsman … and that he’s a shop owner in Zion. She doesn’t know his real name, or what sort of shop, but that’s enough to lead the Inquisition to Ahrloh Mahkbyth—especially if they put that information together with the fact that it was Ahnzhelyk who helped build his initial clientele—and if we lose Ahrloh, we lose the head of Helm Cleaver’s action arm in Zion.”

“He’s already made plans to quietly disappear for a few five-days,” Nahrmahn told her. “He’s spread the alert through your organization in Zion—and composed a message for you, as well, although obviously he expects it to take five-days to reach you. In the meantime, he’s been ‘called away on business,’ leaving that assistant of his, Myllyr, to mind the shop. It’s an innocuous enough excuse that he can always come back if there’s no sign that they suspect him. In the meantime, he’ll be safely out of the Inquisition’s reach.”

“That’s all well and good, Nahrmahn,” Sharleyan’s com voice said somberly. “And believe me, from a cold-blooded, strategic perspective, I’m deeply relieved to hear it. But completely aside from the damage their knowledge could do if the Inquisition gains it—and Merlin and Nynian are right; even if all they get is a better understanding of how Helm Cleaver’s organized, they’ll be far more dangerous—there’s what we know is happening to them right now.”

“I know,” Merlin acknowledged, his sapphire eyes dark, his mouth a hard line. “I’ve met both of them—I know them. If I could do anything to get either of them out of St. Thyrmyn’s, I damned well would, Sharley. But we can’t. The prison’s too close to those frigging power sources under the Temple for Nimue or me to stage a seijin jailbreak, and nothing else could possibly work. Helm Cleaver sure as hell can’t break them out!”

“That’s true.” Cayleb’s face was bleak, far older than his actual years. “But there are other forms of escape—like the one we’d’ve given Gwylym, if we’d only been able to figure out how.”

“I know what I’d like to do,” Nimue Chwaeriau said harshly. “You’re right, Merlin—we can’t rescue them. But if they’re so eager to call you and me demons, I say we visit a little demonic vengeance on them.”

“What do you mean?” Merlin asked, and the image Owl had projected into Merlin’s vision showed her teeth.

“I mean we strap a two-thousand-kilo smart bomb onto one of the recon skimmers and drop it right down St. Thyrmyn’s damned chimney!” she snarled. “We program it to use only optical guidance systems, so it’s completely passive, without a damned thing for any sensors in the Temple to see coming, and we blow the entire prison to hell! At the very least, we spare Zhorzhet and Marzho a horrible death—yes, and every other poor bastard in the place, too. But just as important, I think it’s time we gave these sick sons-of-bitches a little of Dialydd Mab’s medicine closer to home. Let Clyntahn and Rayno try to explain why their precious Inquisition’s just been hit by what has to be one of Langhorne’s own Rakurai right in the middle of Zion!”

Agreement rumbled over the com, but Merlin shook his head.

“That could be a good idea,” he said. “It could also be a very bad one, though. For instance, we couldn’t possibly do that with a black powder bomb, and anything more advanced than that might very well cross some parameter in a threat file somewhere. We don’t know whether or not there’s anything under the Temple that would be capable of recognizing high explosives residue when it sees it, and the prison’s so close anything like that would have to get a sniff of the dust. Even if that weren’t true, the law of unanticipated consquences worries me, because we don’t know how Clyntahn and Rayno would spin that kind of an explosion. I’m inclined to think you’re right, Nimue—a lot of people would think that it had to be a Rakurai strike, and that would almost have to be a good thing from our perspective. But there are other ways it could shake out. He might argue that it’s clear proof we really are demons, for instance, and the people who’re already inclined to believe him—and there are a hell of a lot of those people, even now—would probably accept that it was just that. Unless we’re prepared to hit other targets the same way—a lot of other targets—he’ll probably proclaim that we can’t because the ‘Archangels’ have intervened to stop us, and I don’t think we could do that without killing a hell of a lot of innocent people along the way. And from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, we couldn’t be positive, even with the heaviest bomb one of the skimmers could lift, that we’d kill Zhorzhet and Marzho.” His expression was unflinching. “Trust me, if I could be positive of that—positive we’d be sparing them the Question and the Punishment—I’d be a lot more inclined to say damn the consequences, and pull the trigger!”

“I think those are valid points.” Maikel Staynair’s voice was somber, heavy with grief. “And I think we should also bear in mind that whatever we do—or don’t do—hasty decisions may have serious implications for the future. Merlin’s right that the notion of unleashing ‘Rakurai’—especially in Zion—is something we should consider very carefully before we act. And before we do, we should be very clear on when and where any of those future strikes might be in order. Particularly since we can’t strike the Temple itself. As I understand it, that ‘armorplast’ covering it would stop almost any bomb we could throw at it?”

“That’s true,” Cayleb acknowledged heavily. “Mind you, I’m fully in favor of Nimue’s bomb if that’s the best possibility we can come up with, but you and Merlin are right. That sort of escalation could take us places we don’t want to go … and we can’t be positive it would save our people from the Question. I think we have to be careful our desperation to do something doesn’t lead us into doing exactly the wrong thing.”

Nimue looked rebellious, but she settled back in her chair in her Manchyr chamber without further argument.

For the moment, at least.

“The prison’s just over the line into Sondheimsborough from Templesborough, right on the edge of the safety zone you established, Merlin,” Nahrmahn said after a moment. “Could we get a SNARC remote into it safely?”

“I don’t want to actually see what they’re doing to them, Nahrmahn!” Aivah said harshly.

“I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, and shook his head, his expression gentle. “To be honest, monitoring their questioning so we know what may have been gotten out of them would be of critical importance, but I wouldn’t expect anyone except Owl and me to actually view any of the take from the sensors. That wasn’t what I had in mind, though—not really.”

“Then what were you thinking about?” Merlin asked.

“I was thinking about the sabotage function.” Nahrmahn’s image frowned. “I remember something you said a long time ago, Merlin—something about the remotes’ incendiary capability and how it could have been used to eliminate … someone.”

The pause before the pronoun was barely noticeable, but Merlin understood it perfectly. And he also understood why, with Irys part of the conversation, the deceased Prince of Emerald didn’t want to explain that the candidate for assassination in question had been her father.

“I remember the conversation,” he said out loud. “You’re thinking about penetrating St. Thyrmyn’s, finding them, maneuvering a couple of the incendiaries into their ear canals, and setting them off.”

Aivah looked at him with a horrified expression, and he reached out and took her hand in his.

“It would be quick,” he told her quietly. “Very quick, especially compared to what they’re already facing. In fact, it would almost certainly be faster and less painful than Nimue’s bomb.”

She stared at him for a long moment. Then she nodded, and a single tear trickled down her cheek.

“Unfortunately, Commander Athrawes,” Owl’s avatar said, “I compute that the prison in question is too close to the Temple.”

“Why?” Cayleb asked. “We’ve sent remotes in closer than that before.”

“Yes, we have, your majesty,” the AI replied. “In all of those instances, however, the remote has been placed as a parasite on some individual or vehicle passing through the zone we wished to scan. It has been set for purely passive mode, and the telemetry channels have been deactivated until it leaves the dangerous proximity to the Temple once more.”

“I see where he’s going, Cayleb,” Merlin said. The emperor looked across the study at him, and he shrugged heavily. “Placing the remotes accurately enough to do the job would require two-way communication. We’d have to actually steer them into place, which would be a ticklish maneuver at the best of times, and we’d have to be able to see where they needed to go while we were doing it.” He shook his head. “Those remotes are pretty damned stealthy, but I’m afraid there’s no way we could guarantee a telemetry link that close to the Temple wouldn’t be detected.”

“Oh God,” Aivah whispered, and her pale face seemed to crumple, as if the dashing of Nahrmahn’s suggestion had destroyed her final hope.

Merlin released her hand, to put his arm about her and drew her head down against his chest. She pressed her cheek into his breastplate, and one hand stroked her hair gently. They sat that way for several seconds, and then that hand paused and Merlin’s eyes narrowed.

“What?” Cayleb asked sharply. Merlin looked at him, and the emperor twitched his head impatiently. “I know that expression, Merlin—I’ve seen it often enough! So out with it.”

Aivah sat up, brushed the palm of one hand quickly across her wet face, and looked at him intently from eyes which held a fragile gleam of hope.

“Have you thought of something?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “and even if I have, it’s not something we’ll be able to do instantly. But if it works,” in that moment, his smile was Dialydd Mab’s, “it should provide Clyntahn and Rayno with all the ‘demonic vengeance’ you could possibly hope for, Nimue.”

* * *

Zhorzhet Styvynsyn shivered uncontrollably and licked cracked and broken lips.

She sat once again in the horrible wooden chair, fastened in place, waiting for them to hurt her again, and felt the spirit—the faith—which had sustained her so far flickering, fading. Guttering towards extinction as it slipped from her desperate fingers.

So far, she’d told them nothing, and she clung to that knowledge, to that fierce determination. But that determination was beginning to fail, to crumble under the unceasing assault—under the pain, the hopelessness, the degradation. The carefully metered beatings, the rapes.

Alahnah had died, screaming, under the Question in front of her, begging her to tell the interrogators anything she knew to stop them from hurting her. Zhorzhet had sobbed, twisting in the chair, fighting her bonds, blinded by tears, but somehow—somehow—she’d held her silence while she watched her friend die.

She’d screamed herself, often enough, over the endless, terrible hours since Alahnah’s death—begged them to stop hurting her when the red hot needles were used, when the fingernails and toenails were ripped away. But even as they made her beg, made her plead, she’d refused to speak the words that might actually have made them stop.

Yet she knew her defiance was nearing its end. Alahnah wasn’t the only innocent they’d Questioned in front of her, and agony wasn’t the only torture they’d used upon her. They’d left her in that accursed chair, keeping her awake endlessly, dousing her with buckets of icy water whenever she started to nod off—or touching her with a white-hot iron, just for a change. They’d taken turns hammering her with questions, again and again—leaning close, screaming in her face, threatening her … and then hurting her horribly to prove their threats were real. They’d held her head under water until she was two-thirds drowned, mocked and degraded her. She’d refused to eat, tried to starve herself to death, and they’d force-fed her, cramming the food down her throat through a tube. And always—always—they’d come back to the pain. The pain she’d discovered they could inflict forever, in so many different ways, without allowing her to escape into death.

And soon, all too soon, they’d return to do that again. They’d promised her, and they’d left the brazier and the irons glowing ready in it to remind her.

Please, God, she thought. Oh, please. Let me die. Let it end. I’ve fought—really I have—but I’m only mortal. I’m not an angel, not a seijin, I’m only me, and I can’t fight forever. I just … can’t. So please, please let me die.

Tears trickled down her filthy, bruised face as she sat in the chair, staring at the irons, waiting, but there was no answer.

* * *

No one ever saw the small, carefully programmed autonomous remotes that crept in through St. Thyrmyn Prison’s barred windows, crawled quietly down its chimney flues, flowed under its doors. They were tiny, no bigger than the insects they were disguised to resemble, and they radiated no detectable emission signature. They only made their way to selected points, chosen from the most painstaking analysis of the prison’s layout Owl’s satellite imagery had allowed. And once they reached those points, they simply dissolved into inert, unremarkable dust and, in the process, released their cargoes.

The nanites which rose from those disintegrated remotes were still smaller, microscopic, their programmed lifetimes measured in less than a single Safeholdian day before they, too, became no more than dust. Yet there were millions of them, and they drifted upwards, freed from confinement, spreading in every direction. It took hours—far more hours than any member of the inner circle could have wished, just as it had taken too many days simply to design and fabricate them in the first place—but they spread inexorably, sifting into every nook and cranny, until they’d infiltrated the entire volume of that brooding, dreadful prison, found every living thing within those walls of horror.

And then they activated.

* * *

Zhorzhet’s eyes widened and she strained desperately, futilely, against her bonds as she heard Father Bahzwail’s terrifyingly familiar stride coming down the corridor towards the torture chamber once again. She heard herself whimpering, hated the weakness, knew that all too soon the whimpers would once again become raw-throated shrieks.

The upper-priest appeared in the arched doorway, smiling at her, drawing the black gloves onto his hands.

“Well, I see you’ve been expecting me,” he said chattily, crossing to stand beside the glowing irons. He stroked one insulating wooden handle, polished and smooth from years of use, with a slow, gloating fingertip, and his eyes were colder than a Zion winter. “Now, where did we stop last time, hmmm?” He drew an iron from the brazier, waving its glowing tip in a slow, thoughtful circle while he pursed contemplative lips. “Let me see, let me see.…”

She moaned, but then the Schuelerite blinked. He lowered the iron and raised his other hand to his forehead, and he looked … puzzled somehow.

Zhorzhet didn’t notice. Not at first. But then she felt something, even through her shivering terror. She didn’t know what it was, but she’d never felt anything like it. It didn’t hurt—not really, and certainly not compared to the terrible, terrible things that happened in this dreadful chamber. But it felt so … strange. And then a gentle lassitude flowed into her—shockingly soothing after so much pain, so much terror. A soft, gray veil seemed to slip between her and the anguish throbbing through her body, and she gasped in unspeakable gratitude as she allowed herself to relax into its comfort. She had no idea what it was, how long it would last, but she knew it was the finger of God Himself. That He’d reached into her horrible, endless nightmare, to give her at least this brief moment of surcease. Her scabbed lips moved in a silent prayer of thanks and her head began to spin. No, it wasn’t her head. The entire torture chamber—the whole world—was spinning around her, and she was spiraling down, down, down, as if the sleep she’d been denied so long was creeping up upon her at last. As if.…

* * *

“What did you say?”

Zhaspahr Clyntahn stared across his desk at Wyllym Rayno, and for the first time the archbishop could ever remember, the Grand Inquisitor’s florid face was paper white.

Of course, his own wasn’t much better.

“Father Allayn’s personally confirmed it, Your Grace,” he said, wondering how his voice could sound so … normal.

“Everyone? Everyone?” Clyntahn demanded in a tone which desperately wanted the answer to be no.

“Everyone,” Rayno replied heavily. “Every prisoner, every interrogator, every guard, Bishop Inquisitor Bahltahzyr, every member of his staff—anyone who was inside St. Thyrmyn’s. All dead.”

“But no one outside the prison?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“But … how?” The question came out almost in a whisper, and something very like terror burned in Clyntahn’s eyes.

“We don’t know, Your Grace.” Rayno closed his eyes for a moment, then raised one hand in a helpless gesture. “We have our own healers—members of the Order we can trust, not Pasqualates—examining the bodies even now. And as soon as they’ve finished, we’ll dispose of them in the prison crematorium.”

Clynthan nodded in understanding. The gesture was almost spastic. It would be far from the first time the crematorium on the prison’s grounds had been used to hide the Inquisition’s secrets. If it turned out that a prisoner wasn’t suitable for public execution for whatever reason, it was simplest to just make sure they disappeared forever.

But it had never concealed a “secret” like this one.

“W-what have they found? The healers?” he asked now.

“Nothing, Your Grace,” Rayno said heavily. “Just nothing at all. There are no wounds, no signs of violence, no indications of any known disease, no evidence any of them even sought assistance, assuming they had time for that. It’s as if one moment they were walking around, going about their normal duties. And the next, they … they just died, Your Grace. Just died and dropped right where they stood. One of the lay brothers actually collapsed across the threshold as he stepped out of the prison. That was what drew the outside guards’ attention so quickly.”

“Oh, Sweet Schueler.” This time, it truly was a whisper, and Clyntahn’s hand shook as he gripped his pectoral scepter. “Pasquale preserve us.”

Rayno nodded, signing himself quickly with the scepter, and his eyes were dark as they met the Grand Inquisitor’s.

How did they do it? his brain demanded of itself. How could they do it?

He never doubted that it had to have been the false seijins—no, the demons who pretended to be seijins!—but how?

There’s nothing like this in the records—not in The Testimonies, not in the Book of Chihiro, and not in the Inquisition’s secret files. Nothing! Never. Not at Shan-wei’s hands or during the War Against the Fallen. Not even Grimaldi accomplished anything like this after his fall!

He tried to push that thought from him, to concentrate on how the Inquisition must deal with this. At least it had happened at St. Thyrmyn’s. With only a little good fortune, they could conceal it from the rest of Mother Church and her children, at least for a time. Pretend it had never happened—deny it had, if the false seijins and their allies spread the story. But he knew, and the Grand Inquisitor knew, and eventually more and more of their inquisitors would hear whispers, rumors, about what had truly happened. St. Thyrmyn’s was too central to the Inquisition, too vital a nexus for its operations, for the secret not to leak at least among the senior members of their own order. And once that happened, it would inevitably spread still farther. When it did, when they could no longer simply deny it, how did they address it, explain it?

He had no idea, but worrying about that was vastly preferable to facing the far more terrifying question beating in the back of his brain.

If the heretics’ demon allies could do this, what else could they do?