Merulo stood under the dancing shadow of a wall-mounted torch, witch-light burning in his stone eye. He looked simultaneously pleased and annoyed.
A creak sounded as the wooden construct bent, pressing metal around my ankles, and leaving me jailed against the stone. Alright, so the sorcerer hadn’t liked my comment about his cloak. Well, noted. I’d be stingier with my compliments in the future.
“Why am I wearing poor people clothes?” I asked, trying for some class solidarity. He lived in a castle, I was a lord’s son, I reckoned we could get along.
The sorcerer looked away, clearly uncomfortable, which only piqued my interest. “It’s a bit saucy, isn’t it?” I pressed, giving him a smile. “Stripping me while I was laid out flat? At least let me be conscious so I can enjoy it.”
“Oh, shut up,” said the sorcerer, but he still looked ill at ease. “This doesn’t usually happen, but the command word caused your body to slacken too . . . completely.”
I cocked my head, not understanding.
“You shat yourself,” said the sorcerer.
“Ah.” Extending my awareness, I tried to mentally examine my rear. It didn’t feel especially crusty, nor had there been an odour.
“The constructs”—Merulo cleared his throat—“attended to you.”
“Well, seeing as you flung a ‘shit-yourself’ spell at me, that seems warranted.” I peered at him, wondering if another round of my ‘verbal abuse’ technique was in order. It had worked marvellously on Glenda, with the negligible side effect of making me feel like scum.
His face darkened, stone eye flashing, and I decided to change tactics. “Thanks for patching me up, my lord, that was a nice surprise.” I tried to flex my body in a healthy, grateful way, but mostly succeeded in jangling the chains.
“Well,” he said, stepping closer and casting a significant look at me. “If your claim was truthful and not some desperate fabrication, any injury that endangers your life may also threaten mine.”
It suddenly seemed of immense importance that I recall what, precisely, I’d said to that scythe-wielding construct. No doubt some of it had been embellishment and half-truth, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Obviously, a truth spell is in order,” the sorcerer drawled, and my stomach dropped into my nether regions. His spidery white hand disappeared into the dark interior of his cloak,emerging with something small and sparkling. A geode, with roughened rock on the outside and crystalline beauty in its exposed core. Someone had hacked the purple stone into a strange shape, its curls and loops somehow malevolent.
Merulo brought the geode to his lips and whispered something soft and slimy, raising a blue glow that spilled across its surface like fluid. Approaching my chained form, he shoved the precious rock under his armpit and, in a shock of contact, began unbuttoning my shirt.
I watched silently, enjoying the slow reveal of my chest hairs until, roughly, he yanked my shirt up and over my left shoulder. Retrieving the geode, he stamped it into my chest. The rush of cold energy made me gasp; it felt like the icy twin to a cattle-brand.
It was a seal, I realized. He’d pressed a spell onto me.
“And now,” Merulo spat, teeth bared and face too close, “you will tell me of this prophecy.”
I flushed. His breath, warm and odourless, was decidedly more pleasant than Glenda’s seaweed-scented emittances. Did I enjoy being strung up like this, the constrained helplessness of my position, the cool shackles on my skin? Every day, we learn something new.
“Well, my lord, it’s like I told the construct,” I said, praying half-truths were permissible. “Our Elders performed a something-or-other ritual with ‘the last dragon heart,’ and in the resulting vision of the future, several steps were detailed. The person who, uh, disclosed this to me described them as ‘ingredients in a recipe.’ Every requirement has been fulfilled but the last one.” At this I raised my eyebrows, feeding the drama. “My death. And the outcome, once it’s allwrapped up, is said to be your defeat.” I made deliberate eye contact, my confidence growing as the spell failed to compel the full truth. “They win, my lord. But only if I die.”
“And that’s all there is? Nothing more?” Merulo asked, his voice a deadly silk.
“Nope!” I said, then gagged.
The sorcerer leaned closer, grabbing my chin with a slender hand. His grip tightened, clearly trying for uncomfortable pressure, but he lacked the strength to make it anything but sensual. Could he feel my pulse, thundering beneath my skin?
“It seems,” he purred, and I focused on the rich darkness of his human eye, “that you are withholding information from me.”
“I am,” I tried to deny.
With an animalistic noise, he shoved my head back against the stone, clenching his hand around the stubble of my throat. His body pressed close enough for me to feel its heat. The smell of pungent herbs and burnt wood overloaded my senses.
I let out a little sound of something that wasn’t fear.
The mad sorcerer froze so completely that he resembled one of his constructs. With agonizing slowness, his gaze traveled downward. “Are you . . . What iswrongwith you?” He leaped backward, nearly tripping over his own robe. “How could you possibly be erect right now?”
I jingled my chains helplessly, knowing any words that left me would be compelled truthfulness. “Well listen, Merulo, you’re an extremely powerful man, and here I am all, you know . . .” I tugged my restraints in demonstration. “Seems like you could have your way, and little ol’ powerless me, what am I to do but take it?”
His face twisted into something that even an optimist like me would struggle to read as lust.
