Two turns of the hall brought them to a wooden door. The door opened to a stone room with a brazier full of glowing coals and a wooden slab table ๏ฌtted with iron manacles.
The sight struck him with shocking force. It was horribly similar to how the Hall of the Soothsayer had appeared when Galbatorix had forced him to torture Nasuada therein. Every part of Murtaghโs being rebelled at what lay before him. He rejected, repudiated, and forswore both past and future, and for a second, the searing ๏ฌre of recognition burned away the e๏ฌects of the vorgethan.
No!ย He dug in his heels and twisted in his captorsโ hands in a futile attempt to break free. Desperate, he bent and bit the hand of one man. The cultist yelled as hot blood pulsed into Murtaghโs mouth.
The men slammed him against the table, and stars ๏ฌashed across his vision as his head hit the wood. He continued to struggle even as they forced the manacles about his wrists and ankles.
โNo,โ he growled, barely audible.
The cultists ignored him. They withdrew to the corners of the room and stood at attention, the one man cradling his hand as blood dripped from the teeth marks Murtagh had left in his ๏ฌesh.
Again, Murtagh tried to use magic. Again, he failed.
The door swung open, andโwith a rush of air as from a beat of giant wingsโBachel strode in. The witch wore a long, black, high-collared robe
with gold stitching along the cu๏ฌs. From her brow rose a matching headdress, sti๏ฌ and splayed, made of netted threads adorned with pearls and the polished skulls of crows. The dark backdrop of the headdress framed her angular face, as in a carefully painted portrait. But unlike in most portraits, a mask covered the upper half of her face, and it seemed to blend into her skin and grant the witch a strange, draconic aspect, as if the shape of a dragon were somehow imposed over her body, as a glamour or an illusion.
It was more than a simple trick; Murtagh couldย feelย an additional presence in the room, a sti๏ฌing, inhuman force for which Bachel was merely the vessel.
The e๏ฌect of the mask was the same asโฆasโฆHe struggled to remember. Then it came to him: Captain Wren. The same as the masks the captain kept in his study, and it seemed to Murtagh they must have come from the same place. Perhaps Wren had given the Draumar the mask. Or perhaps they gave him his masks.
Either way, Bachel had taken on a terrifying, outsized appearance, and every sound and movement she made acquired a heightened reality, as if he lay before a god made ๏ฌesh.
As disorienting and intimidating as the experience was, that wasnโt the worst of it. Not for him. For the mask reminded him, more than anything, of when Galbatorix had ordered him to wear a half mask of his own while interrogating Nasuada. Why exactly, Murtagh had never known, but he suspected the king wanted to force distance between Nasuada and him, that she might take no comfort in any look or expression of his, and he might more easily assume the role of torturer.
Murtagh had hated the blasted thing.
โWelcome, Kingkiller.โ The witchโs words resonated as if from the peaks of the mountains: a supernatural sound that in no way resembled the voice of a human or elf.
She advanced upon the table, and Murtagh saw she wore jewelry on her hands: for each ๏ฌnger an onyx claw ๏ฌxed to a setting of carved gold. The claws were sharp, and he sti๏ฌened as she traced them across the curve of his shoulder. Even through his shirt, they scratched him.
With an e๏ฌort of will, he forced himself to say: โWhat doโฆdo you want, witch?โ
โI wantย you.โ She smiled, and beneath the mask, her teeth showed with feral hunger.
โNever.โ
โYou will bow to me, Kingkiller, and you will serve me and the one I in turn serve.โ Her eyes glowed with honeyed light. โAnd you will be richly rewarded for helping to forge our fearsome future. No longer a princeling but a king ๏ฌt to rule the world.โ
Her oversized, dragon-like bearing was crushing to be near, and Murtagh faltered before the force of it, faltered and felt diminished. โNo,โ he said, but the word seemed pitifully weak.
โA king,โ she whispered, leaning down so he could feel her breath on his ear. โA king such as the world needs, and I your priestess, and we shall bring long-delayed vengeance to this corrupted land.โ
He shook his head, trying to block out her insidious voice. A trial was coming, he knew, and it was going to test him to the utmost.
โโฆWhy?โ
The witch straightened, as tall and distant as a cruel-faced statue. โWe are the devotees of Azlagรปr the Devourer. Azlagรปr the Firstborn. Azlagรปr the Dreamer. He who sleeps and whose sleeping mind weaves the warp and weft of the waking world. But the sleeper grows restless, Kingkiller, and we are His eyes and ears and hands. By our doing, we shall ready the world for His dread arrival. Those who serve Azlagรปr, those who well please Himโthose He shall elevate above all others and grant to them power. Power such as has not existed in the world since the days of old, when magic was wild and unbound and the Grey Folk were yet primitives clawing their way out of the muck.โ
She bent toward him again, her expression terrible, and he thought to see ๏ฌames leaping in her eyes and blood dripping from her onyx claws. โJoin me, Kingkiller. Join me of your own accord. All that you wish will be yours if you but have faith.โ
โNever,โ he gasped. The air seemed heated, and he found it di๏ฌcult to breathe. He felt as if he were choking.
โSo be it. I shall have you either way, for Iย amย the avatar of Azlagรปr, andย Heย cannot be denied.โ
And Bachel swiped her claws across his chest. Sparks ๏ฌew from the sharpened onyx tips as they struck his wards, and Murtagh grew weak as the spells consumed his strength in an attempt to protect him.
Her expression hardened, and her glamoured face was fearsome to behold. With a deliberate motion, she placed her claws in a circle over his heart and pressed downward with ever-increasing force. The tips of her claws began to glow red, and Murtagh grew dizzy and breathless.
His wards could have protected him foreverโฆif heโd had the energy to power them. But he didnโt. Sustaining the spells felt like trying to hold a boulder in his outstretched hands; the weight was overwhelming, and in an instantโto keep from killing himโthe wards failed, and Bachelโs claws sank into the meat of his chest.
Murtagh sti๏ฌened and cried out. โโฆhow?โ he managed to gasp.
โThe might of Azlagรปr is greater than you can imagine, Kingkiller. He willย notย be denied.โ And the witchโs mind assaulted Murtaghโs with a torrent of black thoughts, quick and grasping.
He had not the fortitude to hold her at bay. Not then. So he tried a di๏ฌerent approach, one more dangerous, but no less e๏ฌective. He bent like a reed in the wind and allowed Bachelโs consciousness to ๏ฌow around his own. Wherever and whenever she attempted to grasp one of his thoughts, he slipped sideways and turned his attention elsewhere. His distraction became a defense, and with it, he repeatedly foiled Bachel.
The witch did not give up. She had resources he didnโt, and every time a thought or memory ๏ฌickered through his mind, she learned a little more about him.
โAhhh!โ
Her claws cut bloody stripes across his chest, and Murtagh arched his back. He pulled on the iron cu๏ฌs and tried to break them, but they were too
thick and too well secured.
Pain focused his mind, and the witch used that to pin his consciousness in place, to hold it and corral it as she sought to subjugate him to her will. But even drugged, Murtagh knew this game. He had played it with Galbatorix more times than he cared to remember, and he knew how to bend and twist and escape her grasp.
Nasuada too had played the game withย himย during her time in the Hall of the Soothsayer. And sheโ๏ฌerce, proud, strongโhad never broken. The thought gave him a small measure of hope.
Still, evading the witchโs mental grip was exhausting work, similar in e๏ฌort to physically wrestling, and compounded in di๏ฌculty by the hurts Bachel in๏ฌicted upon him.
โI have no desire to dis๏ฌgure you, Kingkiller,โ she said, and shook a drop of blood from her onyx claws. The bead glistened in the light of the brazier as it fell, a perfect polished orb of deepest vermilion. โBut it requires very little to cause agonies that will drive even an elf mad.โ
She pressed the tip of a claw against one of the scratches on his chest, and the point of the claw found a nerve, and electric ๏ฌre shot across his torso and up his neck.
He fought to keep his face still. The more he grimaced, the worse the pain seemed. When, after an eternity of su๏ฌering, Bachel lifted the claw, he gasped. โDo you wantโฆmeโฆmad?โ
โIf mad is what I can have, then mad is what I shall take. You are a useful tool either way, Kingkiller, but my preference would be to have you as you are, whole and handsome and ๏ฌt to ๏ฌght an army.โ She laughed, and it was a disconcerting sound, emanating as it did from the draconic shadow that enveloped her. โBut I think you would be most entertaining mad. You are the one who must choose, Kingkiller. Join the Draumar. Joinย me, and serve our dread master Azlagรปr as have those who came before us.โ
โโฆNever.โ
โTsk, tsk, tsk. So repetitive. So boring. You must think of more creative answers, my wayward child. Do not force me to chastise you, though chastise you I shall, for thine own good.โ
She lifted her clawed hand again, and he forced himself to say, fast as he could: โD-doesโฆAzlagรปr speak to you?โ
A secret smile formed on Bachelโs face, and her claws paused in the air. โIn a way. He speaks to all of us, Kingkiller, even you, if you but have the ears and eyes to understand. When you dream, those are Azlagรปrโs dreams, and by them we understand His will. As His priestess, as His Speaker, He sends dreams to me most particularly, and I share them with my people, and I interpret for them the dreams that they have. This is how we receive Azlagรปrโs wisdom.โ
โTo what end?โ
โThat we bring about the destruction of this era and the beginning of another. That we remake the world through ๏ฌre and blood and bring to fruition prophecies and plans that span millennia. Do you not understand, Kingkiller? We are the instruments of Fate.ย Weย have been chosen to set the pattern of history, and by it, we shall have recompense beyond mortal imagining.โ
Then Bachelโs claws again descended, and Murtagh again gave voice to his pain.
Deep in his mind, he felt a matching agony from Thorn, and the feeling heightened his torment, for he could not help the one who mattered most to him.
