Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: hutch@ibeam.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Subject: [MG] Kadrys: The Price of Freedom Message-ID: Keywords: a skirmish is joined. References: Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 04:29:03 GMT [ADMIN] This is posted for Andrea Evans. Dasham and Kadrys appeared in the centre of a windowless room, carved out of the dark-grey bedrock. In his company, she found herself appreciating its decor anew. She watched as he looked unsuccessfully for a way out; his eyes flicking round the room, from the multipurpose altar (useful, but the guttering was a devil to keep clean) to the bell jars, to the rack of tri-D recordings of her more interesting researches, to the vivisection table and its latest occupant. She grinned at the familiar, welcoming ambience. Homey. She gestured expansively round the room, as proud as any goodwife showing off her country cottage. "Do you like it?" she smiled at Kadrys, who neither moved nor spoke a word in reply. He simply stood, taut as a strung wire, but totally still. Dasham tsked and snapped her fingers, and the pressure of the containment spell she held him with, loosened. Just enough to allow him to inhale, let his jaw move. "...Lovely," Kadrys drawled. "Now I really should be leaving," he added in elaborately casual tones. "'Raelf is expecting me back, and I'm sure he'd be worried if I was late. Worried enough to think twice about fulfilling any contracts." Dasham chuckled. "But your little doxy told me that 'Raelf was outside, fighting some creature or other. I think he'll be busy for quite a while." She dropped the smile as abruptly as a mask. "And even if he isn't, I _strenuously_ suggest that you mention _nothing_ of what will happen to you here, not to him or Kardia or anyone else. Because if you did, then, as you say, they'd probably think of a way to renege on my contract. And if that happened I'd be _exceptionally_ angry. Angrier than I've ever been in my life. Even angrier than I was at my old teacher, and you saw what happened to _him_. Except that now I'd have absolutely nothing at all left to lose. I would commit _all_ of my abilities, all of the Guild resources, to _destroying_ them both. Maybe 'Raelf could survive that. Just maybe. But do you really think for an instant that Kardia could?" Silence. "I think you see my point. The only way you will save her is with that silence." A long pause, then a single, curt nod. Dasham smiled to herself. 'Good. Just as I suspected. He's too much of a calculating bastard himself to mistake my attitude for bluff. He'll keep quiet now. And that makes him _mine_. Mine to use, just as I want.' She stretched, languid as a cat. "It's getting a bit boring, maintaining that containment spell. I think I'll let the room take over. That's what labour-saving devices are for, wouldn't you say? Besides, I'll have _much_ more interesting things to do than personally making sure you stay put." She lifted her hands, and the pressure wave clutching Kadrys lifted his body, slammed him hard against the far wall. Dasham pulled a crystal rod out of an elephant-foot umbrella stand, touched a spot on the floor. A pentagram flared whitely on the stone behind him, and Kadrys was drawn into the wall by its power, his limbs spreadeagled into its four lower points, his head in its topmost apex. Miniature threads of lightning, slow white worms of electricity, crawled and twisted along the surface of his skin, netting him, pinning him flat against the wall. Another specimen. Dasham nodded to herself and dropped the rod back among the thick bundle of its fellows. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them, an odd gesture reminiscent of an old teacher starting a day's lessons. "Now, the first thing that strikes me is that your _friend_ Kardia didn't show up as having any Talent at all, until we removed that shawl of hers. Maybe she wove you something out of a similar fabric. Silly me, I forgot to ask her. But I can't have you holding out on me, hiding any little skills, now can I?" She muttered {Heisenberg/Adams: Sartoria = x + 1m}, and Kadrys' clothes vanished instantly, reappearing in midair about a pace in front of him. For a moment they even held their shape, before collapsing in a heap. Dasham eyed him leisurely up and down. Slowly, a leer twisted one corner of her mouth. "Well, no _magic_, fortunately, but quite a bit of hidden talent in _other_ areas..." she laughed. Then, the laughter trailed into silence, and the smile faded from her lips. Dasham moved, stalking toward him like a lioness closing on her prey, making her intention explicit in every line of her body, in the merciless heat of her stare. She stopped, standing right before him, no more than a foot away. She shrugged her shoulders and her robes unravelled at the seams, fell piece by piece to the floor. Kadrys' eyes flickered with momentary surprise. She made sure that she was standing too close for him to see her hands, notice the way her fingers stiffened, curving slowly into claws. Suddenly, her hands moved in a blurring underarm arc, struck and clenched with all her strength. Kadrys hissed, his fangs bared in a grimace of unexpected agony. Dasham stepped away, freeing her hands with a final wrench. Her long sharp fingernails had not been lacquered, but now they were stained red anyway. She raised her hands to her face, and lingeringly licked them clean. "Lesson one," she purred. "Don't expect me to be nice." She selected a flask in delicate magenta glass, filled with her most potent formula. As she unsealed it, the scent of its contents rose, rich and spicy. She poured some into her palm, waited until the last traces of his injuries had disappeared, then stepped in close to him. Once more she reached out, cupping a palmful of the rare oil. Again, her hands worked, this time for a much longer period. Longer than she had expected. But at last he gave another low hiss, a strangely similar grimace twisting his face. Once more, she stepped away, licking the oil from her hands. "Lesson two," she purred. "Don't expect me to be nasty." Kadrys gave her a flinty black stare that more than repaid her for the one she had given him when he entered the Guild hall. "Look, let's just drop the lesson charade, shall we?" he snapped. "A woman in your position'd have access to plenty of toys, without picking me. This is about more than just some rough play, isn't it." He nodded grimly into the moment of silence. "Yes, I remember the little rematch you mentioned, with your old master. He used you because he wanted to live forever. And that's why you're using me: to find out how I've survived as long as I have." He sighed with annoyance. "Well none of this was needed! Tell me, Dasham, has the thought of _asking_ instead of _taking_ ever crossed your mind? You'd save yourself a lot of effort. If you'd asked me back there in the hall, I'd've told you what I could. Not that there's that much to tell. There's no magic tricks, no Big Secret. Just a sense of balance between the extremes, commonsense, emotional proportion. A willingness to accept what life dishes out, when you can't change it. And a lot of luck. Summon that truthfire again if you don't believe me." Dasham gave him a slow, ambiguous smile. "That's all very interesting, but there's a lot more information than that in your memory. Information I could _use_." She grinned sarcastically, "...And don't even _think_ of tempting me to break in after it. You'd have too many memories for an intruder to deal with." She ran her hands through her hair, sighed. "It's all too frustrating. And I'm not used to being frustrated. Whenever I am, I like to - _work_ it out of my system." She paused, assessing him with a long glance. "I always find," she resumed, speaking now in a strange purring parody of a teacher's didactic words, "that education is a good way to relieve stress. Particularly when it's mutual education. I'm going to learn something about who I am and what I like." She stepped closer to him, smiled lecherously, "And you're going to learn a thing or two yourself..." --- Time is a subjective thing. An eternity can pass in an instant. An eyeblink can extend into forever. So, time passed. How much time? Who can tell? How can the passage of time be measured? In events. Experiences. Images. --- Dasham sat, still naked, on the floor, staring intently into the depths of Kadrys' eyes. Her fingers tangled themselves in the black silk of his hair. Her head lowered, her mouth opened, and her lips claimed his in a slow, passionate kiss. Her tongue thrust into his mouth, probing teasingly at the cruel sharpness of his fangs. She broke the kiss, came up for air. Sitting back, she let Kadrys' head just rest gently in her lap. She stroked his hair softly away from his brow. A brooding look as her eyes met his again, and a long, long sigh: a dry, weary sound. "Well, lover, I suppose that answers my question. I guess it just doesn't do it for me anymore..." She looked up, staring across the room to where the rest of Kadrys' body still hung, dripping, in the pentagram. --- Dasham settled his head on the raw, oozing stump of his neck, watching with clinical interest as the butchered flesh writhed like the lips of a sleeper, drew itself slowly together, rippled and sealed. She watched with particular intentness as his body shuddered, and his eyes became once more windows of his soul, rather than glazing lumps of gristle and jelly. She was especially fascinated by that first moment of profound shock. It was far more intriguing than the hatred that followed as soon as his eyes focused on her. She forced herself to meet that stare, show him what she felt. It was strangely difficult for her, now. "I wanted to - apologise." She wrung the last word out with an effort, glanced away. Her mouth set in a thin line as she made herself continue, her words coming faster, abrupt and harsh with agitation. "I wanted to tell you I didn't enjoy what I did. I would have once, but now I don't. I'm sorry." All at once she fell silent, staring at the spatters of blood on the floor. The low, bubbling chuckle, eerie and faint, dragged her eyes back to his face. "You're sorry. Well, hell, that makes it all just fine, doesn't it. It all never happened, right? All that blood's going to vanish off your hands and go straight back into my veins, is that it? Let me get this clear: you sawed my head off, just to see whether you'd get a _kick_ out of it or not? And telling me that, is supposed to make _up_ for it?" "No, damn it! You don't understand at all!" Dasham shouted, reflexively raising a hand that burst into flames. Then she grimaced, dropped her hand, and the fire vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "I had to _know_," she said, her anguish and confusion vivid on her face. "The old man was dead, but I didn't feel any better. I felt... Empty." She turned away and crossed her arms, almost hugging herself. "Just empty. I had to find out if lifting his geas made me - different. I had to do something he would have loved, something I used to like, and see if I still felt the same way about it. That's why I chose you. Not only because you were old. You were undead. You could survive it." She turned back and looked straight into his eyes. Her previous uncertainty had been replaced by a look of wonder, a strangely open expression, "...And because of you, I know now. I'm _not_ the person he tried to make me. I'm _free_." She picked the crystal rod out of the bundle, touched another invisible spot on the floor. The fire of the pentagram snapped out of existence and he dropped out of that sprawled stance, heaved an instinctive sigh of relief as the imposed tension visibly faded from his muscles. "I'm not going to keep you prisoner, not now..." she murmured, dropping the rod and taking a hesitant step toward him. "I wanted to - apologise more fully. You said earlier that I couldn't just put your blood back, and you were right." She stared at him, summoned her resolve. "...But I could give you some of mine." --- Kadrys froze. His first impulse was to roar with laughter, pound her with caustic derision, watch her wilt. He could almost hear his words, as clearly as if they were already echoing round the red-spattered room: 'You want WHAT? Ohhhyes it's always that with you, isn't it you selfish bitch! You want you want you want. Well I'll tell you what _I_ want! I want blood, you're right about _that_. After what you've done to me, I want to drain _somebody_ just about dry. Somebody. Anybody but _YOU_! I'd rather take the filthiest most stinking beggar, the scabbiest leper, I'd rather drink _rats_! ...Ohhhno, the only way I'd ever touch _you_ would be to drink your lifeblood, drain you to the last beat of your black heart. That, I _would_ like. Very _very_ much. Is that what you're offering? Somehow, I don't think so.' ...But he was held by the look in her eyes, something he had never thought to see in her: a reaching out, hesitant and timid as a whipped girl. He caught a distant echo of what her earlier life must have been, under such a master. The hatred writhed and clawed in him, fighting. But it weakened. From somewhere deep inside an answering trust, in that moment as hesitant, as scarred by the past as hers, rose in him, forced his lust for vengeance down. He drew a long, slow breath, his dark eyes inquiring. "You really mean that, don't you..." he murmured. Her own breathing caught, and her eyes widened a touch. She nodded. "Come here then." He held out a hand and Dasham took one step, then another, then flung herself into his arms. Her hands, still wet with his blood, closed across his back, and the warmth sank deep into his flesh as his pores opened to absorb it from her skin. He knotted a fist in her thick red hair, drew her head slowly back from where she'd buried her face in his shoulder. His head dropped to her neck, as swift as a striking snake. The sudden force was brutal, but the moan that escaped Dasham's open mouth was not a response to pain. --- Ecstasy. Fangs buried in flesh. Life, flooding and filling everything. A shared extremity of sensation, laying one mind open to the other's embrace. Darkness. And somewhere, a faint, invisible current of sardonic amusement. *** Well, it seems you finally managed to get inside my head... *** Dasham blinked and looked around, unsuccesfully trying to see him. "Where are you?" *** All around you. You're in my mind, remember. Where you wanted to be. In a manner of speaking, anyway. *** Dasham sent a pulse out, trying to find any memory traces. She frowned, perplexed. It was like shining a torch into the night sky and expecting to see the same circle of lit objects you see when using the torch in a room. *** That won't work. I'm insulating you from my memories. You'd still need my help if you wanted to come back in one piece from what's out there. And I'm not about to give it. Some things should be private. I'm sure you wouldn't like me taking a wander through your memories. And besides, what I said earlier was true, about there not being any easy answers, any big secrets to survival. You know it's true. We're close enough now, that neither of us can get away with lies. *** Dasham nodded. "So it really is what you said. Emotional balance, commonsense, acceptance." *** And luck. *** She grinned. "And, as you say, luck." She widened the grin, into another expression he had never expected to see on her. A smile. Expressive not of sarcasm, agression, bitterness or lust. Just happiness. Happiness at what she had learned, that she was now truly no-one's slave. That she was free to be herself, to heal herself of the last scars of her old master's influence. Kadrys could feel her sense of how strange the expression was for her. He let her know his certainty that soon that particular smile would come naturally to her. Again, she murmured, "I owe you for that knowledge." *** You've already paid. *** She nodded, stretching and relaxing. The feeling of her newfound mental and emotional freedom, was in this place a tangible thing, a lifting of an intolerable burden. After a moment she sobered a little, sighed. "You said earlier that privacy was important. I couldn't agree more. I haven't tried to break yours again. I... I need to know you won't tell anyone what happened. I need to come to terms with who I am now, and I'd rather nobody knew how badly I treated you. If they knew that, they'd never believe I've changed." *** All right. I'm glad your reasons have changed so much. *** Dasham could feel him preparing to release his hold on her mind. "Thanks for that. And for being in the wrong place at the wrong time," she smiled ruefully. *** When Kardia wakes, have a quiet talk with her. You two have a lot in common. I think you could get along. *** A tang of irony underlying the words. Dasham frowned a little. "That Kardia." She shook her head, looked around her at the enclosing darkness. "She doesn't know what she's missing!" Silence. *** Yes, she does. *** --- The darkness disappeared and the room swam back into focus as Kadrys raised his head from Dasham's throat. As he dressed, she watched him distantly through the afterglow, noting that the angular, starved look he had shown since her - experiment, was reduced but not quite gone. She guessed that he had taken less from her than he had lost. It made sense: she felt quite languid, but no worse than that. He finished dressing and glanced intently around the room, evidently probing with all his senses for signs of a doorway masked by illusion. She grinned a little, muttering "There are no physical entrances here. The only way in or out is by teleport." He arched an eyebrow at this, but remained silent. She added, "Is there anywhere in particular you want to go?" He considered. "Just outside the front doors will be fine. I feel like a walk at the moment." She nodded and concentrated. It took quite an effort for her to summon the mana to 'port him out. --- In the quiet, cold hour before dawn, the Inn's front door opened without a sound, and Kadrys slipped into the taproom's familiar warmth. He resumed his usual seat, stared into the flames in silence. Something in his downcast features as he sat with his chin cupped in his palm; something in the wide, empty fixation of his eyes, was very much the same as it had been during the darkest moments of his recent imprisonment. The only thing missing was the wound. The external wound.