Read The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) for Free Online

shabby. His sudden feeling of clarity and strength lasted only a moment before the pain and the fever returned.
    Tallison stepped forward again and gave a derisive laugh. “Well, magician, you’re not so grand and powerful now, are you? How does it feel, Callistares, to be caged like an animal? Are your muscles screaming for release and your bones pushing their way through your flesh to escape their confinement?” He looked down at the maggots crawling over his prisoners flesh and gave another bark of laughter. “I see the vermin have already started to eat you alive, Callistares, but that is only the start. You stink of filth and rot and shortly other larger vermin will gnaw on your living flesh.” He prodded the slave with the toe of his boot. “You, attach ropes to the bottom of the cage so that the gnawers have an easy way to reach their next meal.”
    Rothers looked up and wrung his hands pathetically. “Yes, master, and master, may I have some feverbain for the prisoner?” Tallison scowled down at him so Rothers hurried on. “His fever is high and he is likely to die before the gnawers have had chance to eat more than his toes.”
    Tallison laughed and roughly pulled Nyte forward by her arm. “See, girl, even this useless cur has learnt that to prolonged pain and suffering is to praise Talis. I have taught him that as I will teach you. Now use your knife and make the magician scream and make it last a long time so that Talis may look down on you with joy.”
    Nyte moved forward so that she stood directly in front of Jonderill. He could see the look of anger and hatred in her eyes and something else too that could have been curiosity but before he could capture what it meant it had gone. She pulled her knife and placed its tip beneath his eye, so close that it pulled down his lower eyelid. Jonderill froze, not even daring to breathe.
    “I could take your eye magician but then you wouldn’t be able to see what else I can do to you.” She moved the blade slowly down his face, creasing the skin but not cutting it, the coldness of the steel against his burning skin and the fear of what she intended to do to him making him shiver. The blade passed by his throat and rested against the hollow of his hunched shoulders. Nyte looked him in the eyes, smiled savagely and pressed the blade forwards.
    Jonderill gritted his teeth against the pain of the blade’s pressure but the tearing of his skin and muscle never came as his robe held back the tip of the blade preventing it reaching his flesh. For a moment she looked startled and afraid and then the anger returned. With a snarl of frustration she whipped the blade back and drove it into his unprotected forearm, twisting it to expose muscle and bone. Jonderill screamed and Tallison clapped his hands in glee.
    When the light penetrated his darkness once more he opened his eyes slowly, praying that he was just waking from some terrible nightmare instead of being in the middle of it. The moment the pain hit him he knew his prayer hadn’t been answered. He was still burning with fever and the agony of his missing hands was almost unbearable, but a new hurt had been added. Barely able to move his head he did his best to look down at where the girl had stabbed him, the wound throbbing as erratically as the beating of his heart. Someone had wiped the blood away and had stitched the wound together with big, clumsy stitches. The flesh held together and would eventually heal but it would leave an ugly scar. He laughed to himself almost hysterically; an ugly scar was not going to be a problem for a living, rotting corpse.
    Another bubble of hysterical laughter formed as he noticed that the knife blade had cut his kingsward scar in two. Perhaps it was symbolic of leaving his old life behind, or perhaps it was a lucky knife thrust; he had always wanted the scar to be obliterated. He closed his eyes again and forced down the hysteria and concentrated on the sounds in the dark room.