All Darkness Met by Glen Cook

horses are ready. I had some things thrown together for you.”
    “Thank you, Jarl. Michael?”
    “Sir?”
    “Good luck.”
    Ragnarson left the pale young man in deep thought. “Jarl, I’ve changed my mind. You know what’s happening with me and the Queen?”
    “I’ve heard enough.”
    “Yeah. Well. There’s not much point my hiding it now. But don’t quote me. Understand?”
    “Of course.”
    “Does it suggest any problems?”
    “A thousand. What scares me is what might happen if she doesn’t make it. Your witch-man friend sounded.... They say she had trouble with the first one.”
    “Yeah. Here’s what I want. All capital troops but the Vorgrebergers and Queen’s Own confined to barracks starting tomorrow, before what’s happening leaks. And right now have Colonel Oryon report to me ready to travel. I’ll keep one serpent in my pocket by taking him along. Oh. Put the provinces on alert. Militia on standby. Border guards to maximum readiness. Valther can drop hints about an intelligence coup. It’ll distract questions about the confinement to barracks. Got it?”
    “It’s done.”
    It was well past dawn before three men and a boy rode eastward.
     

EIGHT: The Prisoner
    The pain never ended.
    The whispers, the gentle evils in his ears, went on and on and on.
    He was stubborn. So damned stubborn that yielding in order to gain surcease never occurred to him.
    He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who had captured him. He didn’t know why. Pain was the extent of his knowledge. The man in black, the man in the mask, was his only clue. They wouldn’t tell him a thing. They just asked. If they spoke at all.
    At first they had questioned him about Bragi and Haroun. He had told them nothing. He couldn’t have. He didn’t know anything. They had been separated too long.
    He wakened. Sounds....
    The Man in the Mask had returned.
    “Woe!” Mocker muttered, slumping lower against floor and wall. It would be rough this time. They hadn’t visited for weeks.
    But there were just four of them this round. He was thankful for little favors.
    Each bore a torch. Mocker watched with hooded eyes as the assistants placed theirs in sconces beyond his reach, one on each wall. The Man in the Mask fixed his above the door.
    Mask closed the door. Of course. Not because Mocker might escape. He didn’t order it locked from without. He simply closed it so his prisoner wouldn’t get the idea there was a world beyond that slab of iron.
    Mocker’s world was twelve by twelve by twelve, black stone, without windows. Furniture? Chains.
    There were no sanitary facilities.
    Having to endure his own wastes was good-for his captors’ designs.
    The most distressing thing was the Mask’s silence. Invariably he just stood before the door, statuelike, while his assistants demonstrated their pain-mastery.
    This time they had given him too long to recover, and hadn’t brought enough muscle.
    He exploded.
    He tripped the nearest, drove stiffened fingers into the man’s throat. He screamed, “Hai!” in bloodthirsty exultation. Cartilage gave way. He made a claw, yanked with all his remaining strength.
    One was dead. But three were left.
    He hoped they would get mad enough to kill him.
    Death was all he had to live for.
    He scrambled away, bounced up, threw a foot at the crotch of the Man in the Mask.
    The others stopped him. They were no off-the-street amateurs. They put him down and took him apart.
    There had been so much pain, so often, that he didn’t care. It had gone on so long that he no longer feared it. Only two things mattered anymore. Hurting back, and getting them to kill him.
    They didn’t get mad. They never did, though this was the worst he had done them. They remained pure business.
    Once they had beaten him, they rolled him onto his belly and bound his wrists behind him. Then they pulled his elbows together. He groaned, writhed, sank his teeth into a bare ankle.
    The blood taste was pure pleasure.
    He tasted