I heard a woman’s soft weeping as I twirled in the darkness. I didn’t understand where I was or what was happening, just that I hurt. I hurt so bad I was reduced to a thing, a child and called out for my mummy. I heard a woman’s voice call a name and it took me a long time to understand she was calling me.
“Raven. Raven. Wake up. Oh gods, are you alive, Raven? I can hear you moaning and breathing. Raven?”
Soft hands traveled up my legs to my waist, up my chest and to my face. To my arms strung overhead. “Oh my gods,” she murmured. “Raven, what has he done to you?”
I didn’t answer, it was the Master’s voice, soothing, pleasant even baritone. No way to hear the evil it concealed. “Your Majesty. My little black crow is hanging from his wrists because he displeased me. Although he managed to kill General Gracchus and finally kidnap you, he also managed to tell both Random and Merlin my plans; get himself nearly killed and captured. He needed to be punished.”
“You fiend! What did you do to him?” Her hands explored my body, found no clothing left to hide the marks of burns, lashes, cuts and bruises.
“I gave him ten Kisses of Death,” the Master shrugged. “And because I no longer have need of him, I let the Thrid have him. It seems his stay in Amber has toughened him, he’s still alive.”
Her hands were covered in both blood and tissue. “It’s a toss up whether he lives or dies,” the Master said carelessly. “Since he brought you to me, I no longer need him.”
“You make the King of the Courts an enemy at great peril,” she stated. Urine spattered the floor beneath me. The smell was rank and she moaned. “Cut him down. Please. Let me tend him. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I don’t want anything from you, Your Majesty. It’s Random and Merlin I would do business with.”
“Webster, treat Raven and Merlin will give you anything to save him,” she came back her voice breaking. I hung near her head, blood pooling beneath me, my body chilling as my consciousness faded. The pain became a distant monster that howled just out of my reach, when it became dominant, my awareness of it became all consuming.
“I no longer need the boy. Let him rot.” He said coldly.
“Please,” she begged. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“You’ll do that anyway,” he returned but his hands were at my wrists. He smelled of soap and fresh linen. When he released me, I fell to the floor at his feet, unable to feel my own hands and arms. He whispered in my ears. “I let the Thrid have you, Blackbird. Even now, their poison runs through your guts.” He left us alone.
“What does that mean, Raven?” She tugged me into her lap and tried to wash my wounds. When her fingers found the blood at my backside, her keening was awful to hear and she rocked me in her arms as she understood that those creatures had raped me. I begged her to kill me, it would be more humane than to let the poison from those vile creatures eat me from the inside out. “Random will come for us,” she swore. “Merlin and Corwin, too. We’ll save you, Raven.”
“There is no cure, Lady. It is like the bite of a basilisk. Better to die before it grows worse.” I tucked my head into her breast and let the darkness fill me.
***
Steen entered the room and held a flask to my lips. I drank weakly and more water spilled than went down my throat. “Corbel,” he said and pulled me up to lean me against the wall. I looked around; the walls were paneled, not stone and there was a rug under me. The Master had not had me thrown into his prison cells from which no one ever emerged alive. Someone had pulled a sheet around me and it was red and splotchy pink. Stuck to me as if glued on to my skin.
“The Queen?” I mumbled searching for her. “Steen, where is the Queen?”
“The Master has her in the Tower, Corbel. In comfort with a serving maid to see to her welfare. She is being treated as befits her station. What can I do to aid you?” His blue eyes looked drawn and worried. I marveled that he had enough courage to even offer to help me.
“Nothing. The Master has withdrawn his favor from me, Steen and the Thrid have fucked me. I’m poisoned and will die hence in great agony. Will you bring my blades so I may make a clean and merciful end?” I kept my gaze steady on him and he dropped his and sobbed.
“He said you would ask and I was to deny you, Corbel.” He looked over his shoulder at the door. “You’re in the room off the guards armory and he’s told the Thrid where you are and to enjoy you with his compliments.”
I keened, my hands scrabbling at him. “Please. Oh gods, please, Steen! Bring me a blade, a piece of glass, a rope! Anything so I can end this torment!” I begged, crying. If the Master’s Thrids took me one after the other, my mind would die long before my body went.
“I can’t, Corbel. He would know and my life would be next. I’m not as brave as you.” He put the flask to my lips again but I could no longer swallow. He bolted away from me leaving me alone.
I unwound the sheet and it was no easy task to remove the cloth stuck to my bloody flesh. As carefully as my swollen hands could, I peeled it off and tore open the wounds. My teeth ripped the material into strips and my clumsy hands braided those into a thin rope. When I tried to stand, my body betrayed me, unable to climb higher than my knees.
In all the room, there was nothing I could drape the noose over or through to either strangle myself or break my neck. When I tried to stand, I simply fell over and as I came to, the Master was seated before me, a pleased smile on his countenance. “What would you do for me so you would live, my Blackbird?”
I was speechless. I had nothing left to give him, nothing I wanted and since he no longer wanted me, had no reason to remain alive. His eyes were alive and fairly dancing with excitement as he drank in my pain and despair.
“Master, without you, I have no purpose in this existence, no reason to live. You have taken my blood, sweat, fear, hopes and dreams. Even my memories and sense of self. Without you, I am nothing. End me now and let me rot in peace. This is all I can ask of you, not for mercy for I deserve none nor expect any. You have taught me that. As a tool that has served you, I ask only that you put this broken and useless tool aside and seek another.”
He clapped his hands. “Oh, what a performance, my black bird of despair.” He leaned into my face. “Do you remember I spelled you with the Death Abeyance Conjuration? It is still upon you. Unfortunately, I never learned how to reverse it. Which means you can’t die. Suffer to the point of death but are unable to step one inch beyond. Which brings me some interesting experiments I can enact upon you. Your suffering...excites me, Corbel. I find myself quite aroused by your torment.”
He dropped his clothes and his body was lean and powerful, his erection a sight I averted my eyes from. “Master,” I pleaded and crawled away from him but he followed, tormenting me with every word as he described what he had and would do to me. “Master,” I said as I rolled onto my back and stared into his gray eyes. “If you fuck me now, the poison from the Thrids will enter you, too.”
He stopped dead and regarded my broken body. “Yes, there is that. However, my black bird, I lied. I never let them do more than beat you and taste your blood. So, I can finally taste your forbidden fruit as I have dreamed about these last two years.”
“Master, please,” I begged him, tears running down my cheeks. “Don’t do this to me.”
“How can you stop me?” he advanced on me and touched my face, cupping my chin with both hands and dragging me forward so that his lips touched mine. He tasted me and I tasted the corruption of his evil and the staleness of cigarette smoke. “Bite me and I will whip the hide off your back, Corbel,” he threatened. “Turn over.” He reinforced his command by flipping me on my stomach and I shrieked as I kicked at him. He held me down with his body, his sweat sliding against my flesh like the slime of a snail. I fought him, fought until the very air in my lungs was gone, every muscle stretched to the breaking point and when I could fight no more, I went away in my head and did not wake until someone threw cold water in my face.
Steen was the first face I saw when I opened my eyes and he was wiping a soft wet cloth across my back. I was lying on the table in the Still Room on top of a soft towel with my head turned towards the door and my arms hanging off the edge. I groaned, a soft hiss and he stopped stroking. “Corbel?” he asked in surprise. “You’re awake?”
My first words made no sense and he asked me to repeat them. I swallowed and licked my lips, my mouth and tongue were sore, there were teeth marks on top of my lip. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” he asked carefully.
“Where am I?”
“The Still room. Master Lucian carried you here three days ago. I’ve been taking care of you since then.” He studied me very carefully as his hands trailed down my back towards my buttocks. I lunged as he touched me, screamed and flailed at him yet he held me down with no effort. “Corbel, easy,” he soothed. “I am not going to hurt you, or...touch you anywhere like that.”
“What did he do to me?” I wailed. “Did he let the Thrid fuck me or didn’t he? It’s all mixed up in my head, I don’t remember anything past him beating me.”
“You’ve been raving out of your head for the last three days, Corbel. Master Lucian has had me taking care of you since. He’s been coming to see you every day, has ordered us to feed you and see to your health. He even called a healer for you.”
“Why?”
“Because he told us you are his new bed toy,” Steen whispered and I stared at him in horror. I tried to get up, my aim to dive through the window for I knew the fall from six stories up would smash my head to mush and even his magic could not bring me back from that. Steen saw my intent in my face and tied my wrists to the table legs, apologizing as he did so. “The Master warned us you would try to kill yourself. Corbel, think, if you were to succeed, it would be our lives too. I can give you yarrow root, the Herb Woman said it would blank your memories so whatever he does to you will be forgotten and he won’t know you took it.”
“I would rather die,” I sobbed. “I swear by the Unicorn, he will not take me again.”
Steen shook his head. “The more you fight, the more he enjoys it, Corbel. I watched him, the moment you stopped resisting, he became impotent and only beat you until his arm grew too tired to continue and then he let the Thrid Captain beat you.”
“He made you watch?” I was aghast, trembling with the shame of it.
“He made all of us watch, even the Queen, she fainted, Corbel and he made her stay conscious the whole time. She will kill the Master if she can, I saw true hatred in her eyes.
I paused, confused. Was I the only one who knew Vialle was blind? If so, I wondered if I could use that to aid in her escape. Trembling, I took out the idea of planning to rescue her and cursed myself for a suicidal fool with no chance in hell of succeeding, but without it, I had no other reason to keep breathing.