A Tale of Revenge Ch. 09-10

When the woman finished weaving the magic, Evo took the mesh of power from her hands and came over towards Anna again. She struggled in her bonds, truly scared of what might come. What would he make her do once he had control? The thought was too terrifying.

Evo's face spread into a nasty smile as he carefully laid the spell over her head and body as if it were a blanket. The marks glowed and shifted, drawing in towards her skin. She felt them like dry, slippery fish all over her. The spell molded itself to her form, drawing in further, pressing in. Anna's heart raced and her breath caught. This was it. He'd control her and place her in his little collection. Her mind whirred in panic as the spell burned brightly against her body. How many of them were there? How many people did he keep as slaves to his whims, controlling them, using their magic? How would he use her?

And then all thought ceased. The spell raced across her skin feeling like ghostly drops against her, it began to ache in the roots of her hair and the base of her teeth. What was this? Her eyes flew to Evo's face, which had lost its confident look. Oh gods, it was going wrong again. Anna's neck snapped back and her head hit the wall painfully. Her back went rigid and it felt as though bright, snapping fire was moving up and down her spine at high speeds. She whimpered in pain as her jaw was locked tight, her body felt as though it would snap.

"Get it off of her," Evo's voice cut through her misery.

Anna's body relaxed again as the woman began gathering the spell as if it were wayward threads back into her hands. She was crushing the runes under her fingertips as she went, destroying the spell as well. When it was done, Anna looked at her. The woman had a lovely full face with deep tanned skin and pale green eyes that stood out against her darker coloring. Her voluminous curls were a deep brown and swayed around her shoulders in a great cloud of hair. Anna could see, as she had with Marek, the deep sadness in those eyes. But there was something else, a haunted pain that held a spark of fire.

"Thank you," she whispered. The woman looked as though she wanted to say something but she was already turning away, back to where Evo was cursing into yet another book.

Anna shivered again, suddenly much colder than she had been before. She looked down at her skirts and realized she had released her bladder as the spell had released its grip on her body.

The next few hours saw four more attempts to bring Anna under control and to access the power inside of her. Each time was a complete failure but to Anna's relief none were as painful as the first two had been, until the last. During that spell Anna finally slipped into blessed darkness only to be shocked out of it by a bucket of water being dumped over her head. She gasped and sputtered as another was thrown in her face and her raging eyes found Orlith before her again, empty buckets hanging from his fingertips.

He cocked his head to the side and gave her a hungry look that made her want to crawl into the wall and disappear. The more miserable and weak she looked the more he looked at her like a predator who had only just begun to toy with its prey.

"Still nothing?" he said to Evo who was banging around the room again. The older man gave him no more response than an exasperated sigh.

"Come here," Evo snapped. Orlith looked over his shoulder and then back at Anna. He gave her a meaningful look and then moved out of her way so she could see the pair on the far side of the fire. Evo had sat down in a large wooden chair, throwing his long arms over the armrests haphazardly. His legs were planted wide as the woman came to stand between them. Anna's stomach dropped.No, no, no, no.

"We haven't been doing well today have we?" Evo's voice was mocking. Anna was thoroughly nauseated at the site of him placing his hands on the woman's legs and drawing her in further. "Answer me, pet."

"No, master, we haven't done well," Anna could hear the soft accent in her voice but couldn't place it. The woman was staring stonily over his head.

"Look at me, dear," Evo said. Her head dropped immediately to comply and her face softened into a coy smile though her eyes still burned with a far different emotion. "Why don't you make it up to me?" his hands groped her body, pulling her dress down so that her full bosom spilled out from her laces. He reached up and plucked at the dark nipples as the woman slowly sank to her knees between his legs.

Anna looked away. It was too horrible. She could see the woman fighting behind her eyes and yet he forced lustful groans from her throat as the room filled with wet sucking sounds. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could block her ears somehow. Then Orlith's fingers sank into her hair and Anna stiffened at the sudden contact. For a moment it was almost like a gentle stroking of her hair, his fingers moving soothingly in her tangled hair. And then he gripped it painfully, ripping some from the roots as she grunted in pain.

"Look at her," Orlith whispered in her ear. Anna felt sick. The weakness in her body called out to her to comply but her disgust and anger required her to fight a bit longer. Orlith's other hand slid around her throat, again in a mockery of a tender gesture. His fingertips played lightly over the strained muscles as he held her head back until they came to rest in the hollow of her throat. He began to press in there and Anna felt the radiating pain and then panic as her airway was compressed. Her eyes flew open as her breath became trapped. She looked up into Orlith's serene face as he held her, twisting ineffectively in her chains as her vision blurred. And she gave in, her body too weak to fight any longer. Her eyes went to the woman at the far side of the fire and his death grip eased though never left entirely.

She tried to watch dispassionately as the woman was forced to worship Evo's cock. The gangly man held great handfuls of her rich brown hair as he forced her down, again and again. She tried to imagine the woman was doing it of her own free will, that she was making those sounds of her own volition, anything to try and strip away some of the horror she was witnessing. Orlith's hand squeezed threateningly as she closed her eyes to try to hold in tears and she hated herself for opening them again. Her tears began to make their way down her cheeks, hot against her water-chilled skin.

Evo shouted obscenities at the woman he was violating as he jerked his hips against her mouth until he found completion. And then Orlith's hands were gone and the man was moving away without a second look. Anna could see his self-satisfaction in his stride. She stoked her hatred against him. It was all she had to hold onto. She bowed her head, closing her eyes and trying to shut out the others in the room. Orlith and Evo were repulsive but more than anything Anna couldn't bear to look at the woman there with them. She was too afraid that she might soon find herself in the same position.

How long could she hold out? Her body was worn out, her energy depleted and her spirits were failing her. Her magic was still locked in her chest by the icy cage placed there by the magic in her collar. It made her feel cold and disconnected from herself on top of all the other pain she had suffered that day. But it was impossible just to give up. She could not be enslaved to this man. No, she would have to keep fighting them, no matter what new pain they visited upon her head. She would resist them to the last and she prayed whatever power was keeping him from succeeding continued to thwart him.

"Go sit in the corner till I tell you otherwise," Evo snapped from the far side of the fire. Anna steadied her breath and she heard the woman move quickly away from the man.

Orlith's soft murmur came from over near the door. Anna still couldn't make out what he said. Luckily Evo was not so discrete. "Well tomorrow we may try your way. I still have at least one more thing but I'm tapped out for the time being. Send up the boy on your way out."

Anna shuddered in her chains. Not another one surely. How many people did this man have chained to be sent to him at any moment? Her head was filled with terrible images of endless lines of people chained with their collars and kept waiting in a room forever until he asked for them. She could see herself there, broken and defeated, placed among his sick collection.

The door creaked open and she braved a look up at the far side of the room. There stood a boy, no more than thirteen with a collar around his neck and wide dark eyes staring back at her. She could see he already knew about her. There was a longing in his look, a moment of hope before Evo called him over and his body was no longer his own.

Evo reached his hand out and grasped the boy's hand tightly; his long pale fingers wrapped around the boy's dark brown ones like a snake coiling around its prey. Without a word Anna watched as the boy grew weaker, his posture collapsed and his body shuddered. All the while Evo grew stronger, more upright, the shadows beneath his eyes disappeared and he looked well rested. When he finally let go, the boy was kneeling and panting with shallow breaths, those bright dark eyes were glazed and stared out to nothing.

Anna's anger grew like a fire inside her. She had looked into the souls of wretched, horrible men over the past several months but even then Evo's depravity surprised her. Rape and murder seemed so much simpler in comparison to the total imprisonment and continual, unrelenting violation of their will. She watched as he pushed the stumbling youth out of the door and closed it behind them. As soon as the door shut, the fire went out and Anna was cast into complete darkness.

She took deep breaths to try and calm down but she found herself overwhelmed. She was trapped in a room with a sorcerer who enslaved others, used their magic and bodies as if they were no more than toys or tools. And all the while they were trapped inside themselves, unable to resist his commands. And he wanted to do the same to her, turn her into some magical puppet he could abuse as he saw fit.

Her mind flashed back to the look the boy had given her when he came in. Anna realized the boy had looked at her with hope, that somehow her resistance to the collar might mean freedom for him. But how could she free him if she couldn't even keep herself together? And what of the woman and Marek? She had to do something, to find out how to get this infernal collar off of them all. And she would, she decided. She could take the pain and trust her magic was not so easily controlled. And she would find a way out of this.

Her spirits thus lifted, Anna turned her attention back to her present situation. Her body screamed from being in the same position for so long. Her hands had long since lost sensation as they were held above her head for so many hours. She twisted in her bonds again, trying to find a more comfortable position and found that she had enough slack in the chains to be able to turn around to face the wall and stand up. Unfortunately it meant she had to twist her wrists in the cuffs, which meant injuring the torn skin there further. She called out softly as the metal moved over the cuts and bruises from the day. Her hands ached as the blood started to move back into her extremities. She muffled the sound of pain as the pins and needles began in earnest.

"Are you alright?" a voice came through the darkness. Anna yelped and jumped, her entire body tingling in fear. She turned towards the sound. The woman! Evo had left her sitting in the corner and Anna had likewise forgotten her presence.

"Yes," Anna answered cautiously. Was she left here on purpose? Was this how Evo would try to get answers from her? It seemed unlikely. Anna had been able to tell all day that the woman hated the sorcerer. She wouldn't likely be colluding with him. "No," she said a bit more honestly. "Is he controlling you now, too?" She tried to keep the quiver of fear out of her voice but failed.

"I'm trapped sitting here until he commands me otherwise but my mind is my own. He can force us to speak but not what we say. It's only at the very beginning that he can trick you into answering his questions." Her voice was soft and melodic with a purring accent Anna had never heard before.

"What's your name?" Anna asked. She realized throughout the entire day she had never heard Evo call her by name.

"Serena," she said it with soft vowels and a trill in the 'r' that Anna could never hope to imitate.

"Do you know what day it is? I don't know how long I've—I mean I don't know where—or who—I just..." Anna was suddenly overwhelmed. She had so many questions and her exhausted mind could not formulate them into anything resembling coherent thoughts. She hoped Dev was far from here, hopefully he listened to her for once. She put her forehead against the cool stones in front of her. Her body hurt terribly and the ice at her core seemed to chill her bones.

"It's alright," Serena's voice was calm. Anna had the impression she was not the first of Evo's acquisitions that this woman had comforted. Is that what she was now? An acquisition? She shuddered. "You're in the palace in the north tower. I don't know when you arrived but you were not in this room two days ago so it must be fairly recent. You find yourself in the unhappy situation of being under the power of a most evil man and in a palace full of wickedness."

"What's going to happen to me?" Anna's voice was very small. She felt so foolish asking this woman, who was subjugated herself, such a selfish question but she couldn't help it.

"I don't know," there was a prolonged silence. "I don't know why the collar is not affecting you as it has the rest of us."

"How many?"

"There are seven."

Anna's tired mind still felt a moment behind each bit of information but the sick feeling inside her grew into full-blooded anger again and helped to focus her attention a bit more. Serena sounded resigned rather than angry though her voice still held the slightest promise of a fight left in her.

"And the northerner?"

"I know little of him. He appears from time to time but he serves the king and thus our paths seldom overlap."

Anna shivered again thinking of the man's face as he stared at her. He seemed the type to be able to keep any and all information about himself quiet.

"What is the collar meant to do?" She had to understand it if she was going to get it off of her.

"It's meant to provide its architect with control over the body of the wearer as well as access to the magic within us. He can compel us to use our magic as he sees fit and we have no choice but to comply."

"Why not just take the magic and be done with it?" Anna wondered. If he could drain the boy's energy could he not just steal the magic wholesale?

"Magic is not a separate entity from those who wield it. It is as much a part of us as our flesh. And just like a limb when severed, the magic cannot survive if detached from the whole." The woman paused. "But yours is not like this, is it?"

Anna went silent. She had unknowingly betrayed her inexperience with magic and her lack of understanding of its nature. Something told her that the character of her magic was not something she wanted Evo to know about.

"I won't reveal your secrets," Serena said. "I would never do anything to aid him. We should be glad, at least, of his pride which keeps him from drawing the same conclusions I have."

"What do you mean?" Anna asked, shifting to sit again. While standing had restored circulation to her limbs, she found she lacked the energy to maintain the posture for much longer.

"Magic is simply the power of nature amplified and filtered through those of us who can access it. We exist on a spectrum from those who possess a large amount of this power to those who seem to simply have knacks for something and even they don't realize it is due to a power beyond what the human body can offer. With this power comes certain gifts depending on the individual—some of us can heal, some can make things grow and so on. But as with all things in nature, there are those who tend towards darker paths. Evo is a parasite whose power is especially apt at feeding off those around him. Yours is not like ours somehow—though I can't begin to imagine where its origin might be—and thus Evo's attempts have been for naught because he has begun with a faulty premise."

"How long has he been doing this? Why has no one stopped him?" Anna couldn't imagine that in a country with no slavery and a functioning judicial system, a man would be permitted to live and work within the castle with a troupe of slaves at his disposal.

"He's clever and ambitious. He knew he could provide the king some of the stability he was seeking by offering up a group of individuals with power, whose gifts could be used to secure the throne. Those of us with identifiable talents are so few and far between that it would be an unprecedented advantage if we could be made to comply.

"Ten years ago he brought me here, under the pretenses of teaching me more in the ways of magic. He used me to design the first of these collars, leading me to believe we were creating chains for a criminal who possessed magic and could not be contained. The gift of these chains was to convince the king that he should employ us here. It wasn't until he closed the collar on my neck that I realized what the real offering was meant to be: a bevy of magical slaves who have no choice but to bend to the king's wishes and to Evo's will.

"It may seem to you that this is a fairly overwrought plan when we could simply be hired or coerced. But the real aim is even more profane. He has promised the king a weapon that will win any war, somehow using those of us who serve as conduits for magic in a way that we would never agree to under our own will. It may cost us our very lives if he ever completes it."

Because of the complete darkness in the room, the silence that fell after Serena had finished her story felt more oppressive than it would have otherwise. Here, immobilized and miserable, Anna had no choice but to stare into the black and let the truth of this depravity sink in to the fullest extent. She went from denial to disgust and back to anger faster than she thought possible. Her hands clenched in rage and she barely felt the pain as she unconsciously tugged at the chains. She had to get out of these binds.

"How do I get it off?" she said through clenched teeth.

"I have tried to imagine it many times but his influence keeps me from trying. The spell is intertwined with our souls," came the sad reply. "There is no way for us to remove it."

"There must be some way. If you built the first one, shouldn't there have been something in the spell that would undo what was done? Does not all magic have to find a balance?"

Serena's laugh was joyless, as though she'd forgotten how to do it properly. "I see you are not ignorant in the ways of magic, but no, we did not build the chains to be balanced, and being young and ignorant I did not know that it was not the way of our gifts. There are weak points in the spell but they are small and it would take time and immense power to pull it apart without killing the wearer."

Anna fell silent. There must be some way. She recalled the different spells Evo had performed today in his attempts to reach the magic at her core. She considered the magic of the collar that encased her own power, barring her from using it. The book did not offer any information that might be useful especially considering that now she had irrefutable proof that the magic she possessed did not adhere to the same rules as others. Could sheer force of will achieve anything? She turned her focus inward, not to access but to observe. The icy core around her magic was always shifting, seeking a way in. She drew closer to the spell, watching the interwoven runes that made it up slide across each other. Between them she could sense flashes of her magic though she could not feel it beyond the wall of the spell. She called out to it in her mind, seeking some entry between the moving symbols. At first nothing, and then the slightest wisp of magic crept out towards her. In the flush of success, Anna threw herself towards it, hoping to grasp it before the collar's spell cut her off again. But she was too slow, or the foreign magic too strong, and as soon as it appeared, her magic seemed to be sucked down into the swirling icy spell.