The King's Justice by Stephen R. Donaldson

ritual, innocence must be voluntarily taken. If one of my men did the deed for me, the effect of the outcome would be lessened.
    â€œNow I do not need your willingness. It has no further use. For the fulfillment of my promise, you are merely an implement. By choice or not, you suffice.”
    Haul Varder screams his rage and fear, but Sought no longer heeds him. The gaze with which the priest regards Black suggests that the old man is amazed to come so near his goal, but Sought knows only his own eagerness. After so many years of toil, so many victims, so much extreme deprivation, so much arcane study, he now stands in the perfect place for his purpose,and has been given the perfect tools to achieve his ends. No hierophant has ever accomplished what he attempts here. He finds that he must take a moment to calm himself so that his hands will not tremble.
    From hidden pockets, he draws out a delicate knife of aching keenness and a small vessel shaped like a trough slightly curved. Pressing the vessel to Black’s flesh, he sets his blade to an inlay below Black’s collarbone. With extreme care, he cuts to remove the silver. Black’s blood he collects in his vessel.
    This is a pain with which Black has long and extensive experience. He accepted it during his shaping. He does not accept it now. Howling hoarsely, he twists as much as he can from side to side, playing the part of a man who squirms in a wasted effort to escape excruciation. Yet his demonstrated agony is a charade. He uses it to disguise the way he invokes the inlays of his palms, the way he strains to free his right arm from its bonds. He knows that he will not break the rope. He has never had such strength. Yet with time and effort, a bolt hammered into stone may be worked loose.
    If Sought and the guards do not recognize what he strives to do—
    From the place where the bolt enters the wall comes a small sifting of grit, nothing more.
    With one thin bar of silver removed, the old man sets his vessel aside. He confronts Haul Varder. Vexed by the wheelwright’s screams and curses, Sought gestures to his guards. One man steps forward to gag Haul Varder’s mouth. The gag is driven sodeep that Varder retches. He can scarcely breathe. He cannot scream, though his gaze is white terror.
    Satisfied, Sought finds a place among Haul Varder’s ribs, a place unlike the inlay’s location in Black’s chest. He opens a substantial flap of Varder’s skin, inserts the silver, then settles the flap over it. Responding to Sought’s nod, another guard uses a leather-hook and twine to sew shut the wound so that the inlay will not shift.
    As his servant treats the wheelwright, Sought returns to Black.
    Briefly the hierophant considers his task. When he has made his choice, he slashes with his knife again and again at Black’s sigil of command, taking care only to catch Black’s blood in his vessel. He does not stop until the sigil is marred beyond use or name. Then he proceeds to remove another inlay from Black’s chest.
    During these cuts, Black continues his raw-throated howls, his twisting, his show of anguish. The slight flexing of his elbow allowed by his bonds does not enable him to exert much force, but he does what he can. And he does not only pull. He jerks upward, downward.
    The drift of grit from the place where the bolt enters the stone is not enough.
    When the second of Black’s inlays has been imposed on Haul Varder, this time deep in the man’s belly, and the wound has been sewn shut, Sought begins to draw cuts on the wheelwright’s flesh. Some are symbols and whorls that Black recognizes. Others form patterns unfamiliar to him. Soon Haul Varder’s torsois a sheen of sweat and blood, his beard is a mute cry for help, and his eyes flutter on the edge of unconsciousness.
    For the moment, the old man is content with his work. A sign to his guards brings one of them to remove the gag from Haul