the Raven in Yani’s mind let out a satisfied caw and Yani remembered how Diyar had once let a curious Mirayan priest mindsearch him.
“Don’t do it,” Yani had warned. “He’ll tell the Mirayans our secrets and they’ll use them against us.”
Diyar had just smiled at her.
“Have faith in the life spirit,” he had said. He had known a lot more about Tari magic than her. Diyar had not been surprised when, after the mindsearch, the Mirayan priest had gone into a religious trance in which he claimed to have seen the face of Mir. Nor was he surprised when the priest left his ambitious path upwards through the clerical hierarchy to live the life of a lone forest hermit.
“To touch a Tari’s mind is to touch the life spirit,” he had said simply. The Mirayans never sent anyone to mindsearch a Tari ever again.
Night came and still the carriage thundered onwards stopping only to change horses. Sometimes the road was very bad and they were thrown around. Daria must have been saving her strength for she did nothing to soften their ride and when the time came to light lamps in the carriage, she did not use her own power but lit the feeble little mage lights that you could buy in any market. They filled the carriage with a sickly white glow which made things even more nightmarish. Yani was exhausted. She had had no food and only a little water all the day. She feigned sleep, but tension kept her alert. Beneath her eyelids she watched Daria, hoping for an opportunity.
But even though she, too, must have been exhausted, the accursed mage did not sleep. Instead she took a vial from a chest beneath the seat and drank from it. For a few minutes afterward she shuddered. When she lifted her head again, her face was sharp and hard and her eyes glittered. With hands and face twitching wildly, she leapt feverishly upon Yani and laughing shrilly, pinched and poked and slapped her. It was not the beating itself, but Daria’s malice and enjoyment of Yani’s pain that made it horrible.
With breathless speed she asked Yani all the questions she had asked during the day but she did not wait for a reply before she hit her and shouted that she was lying. Then, as suddenly as she had pounced, Daria lost interest in Yani. She took a little cage full of sleepy butterflies from under the seat and shook the cage until they awoke and fluttered around.
“So beautiful,” she cooed before she took them out one by one and pulled them slowly apart, giggling the whole time. Then bored with that, she set upon Yani again. The night seemed to go on for ever.
In the grey light of dawn the carriage slowed, changed direction and after a few moments stopped. Daria sprang up and flung aside the window curtain.
“We’re here,” she cried, as if they were two children returning home. “Safe at last.” She turned on Yani.
“Now we shall see some fun.”
Iron usually burned the skin of mages, but if it bothered Daria, she ignored it. She grabbed Yani by the neck manacle, hauled her out of the carriage and threw her on the ground so easily she must have used magical strength to do it.
Rough male laughter rang out. Yani estimated that there were about ten men in Daria’s troop of guards and she tensed with dread, but no one touched her. The men were probably as exhausted as she was. She dragged herself up. The ground here was wet and muddy rather than hard and nothing was broken. Above them a stone building towered against the grey dawn sky and Daria was scampering up a huge flight of stone stairs towards a big brass door flanked by two smoking torches.
“Bring her!” she shouted.
The building was some kind of fortified manor house, built of crumbling grey stone. Inside was a great hall, lit by torches and a large log fire, where frightened looking servant girls, most of them little more than children, scurried here and there, passing out cups of hot wine. Yani tensed her spine, ready to be attacked by the seven or so men who had followed her up the stairs guffawing and making ribald remarks. But the two who flanked her simply dragged her through the hall and down a long corridor into a large private room, decorated with flags and shields and swords. If only she could get hold of one of those swords.
Daria was standing in front of another big fire. Oh shit! She was drinking from another vial. Did the creature never rest?
The men shoved her into the centre of the room and left with a speed that indicated fear. They obviously knew all about these vials. A table and a set of chairs dominated the room so Yani sat down on one of the chairs, forced her limbs to relax and rest and checked the room over for weak points.
Daria’s brocade gown glistened in the fire light as she leant against the mantelpiece shuddering, but all too soon she was standing before Yani, swaying slightly, her eyes hard and glittering.
“Get up,” she snarled.
As Yani stood nervously before her, there came a frisson of magic, and the torn and filthy gown that she had been wearing since Ishtak suddenly fell in heap around her, leaving her standing naked and barefoot in the centre of the room. Was it the ease of Daria’s power or just the cold that made the goose flesh stand up on Yani’s skin?
“My, my!” said Daria, looking her over intently. “What a lot of scars. You have led an adventurous... What the hell’s this!” she said suddenly, for her pacing had taken her round behind Yani where she could see the black raven wings that were tattooed upon Yani’s shoulders and back.
“Tribal marks,” lied Yani.
“How barbaric,” sneered Daria. Yani could feel her hot breath on her back as she smoothed her hands over the tattoos. Could Daria feel the power in them? No way of knowing.
“These shouldn’t be too hard to cut out,” said Daria, after a moment. “Or shall we flay them off? Ah! Choices, choices!” Her hands slid off Yani’s back. She swung her round to face her.
“Tell me why my brother wants you!”
“I don’t know,” snapped Yani, without looking Daria in the eye. She needed Daria to mindsearch her, but she couldn’t be too eager for it. She needed to convince Daria that no amount of torture would make her tell the truth and that was going to be hard going. Yani set her teeth.
“I think you do know,” said Daria. “I think he’s using you as bait. Who’s coming for you, Meat?” She stroked Yani’s face. “Who?”
Yani screamed as a powerful shot of magic lanced through her.
“You’re going to tell me,” hissed Daria, seizing her by the throat and squeezing. “Who is following? Your father? Your brother?”
“No! Nobody! Nobody! I swear.”
Magic juddered through her again. Daria squeezed her throat as she pushed her face into Yani’s.
“Or is it some big meaty lover who’s going to ride you till you scream with pleasure, hey?”
Magic pain again.
“No,” screamed Yani. “No one will come! I swear it! Please. Just kill me!”
“Pah! Useless lying bitch.”
Daria seized Yani’s head and pressed her fingers to her skull in mindsearch position. Yani squeezed her eyes shut so that her triumph would not show. Daria’s mind came into hers like a blow from an iron bar, a painful violation. Yani forced herself relax, to reach out for the life spirit. It was there as it always was.
A great light burst forth in Yani’s mind, momentarily blinding her. She heard Daria let out a terrible shriek and then excruciatingly, she felt Daria’s presence rip out of her mind. As her vision cleared she saw that Daria was lying on the floor staring in horror. Seizing her chance Yani took a punch at her. To her surprise the dazed mage did not react and Yani knocked her unconscious, enjoying it more than a Tari should. That fixed Daria.
Pulling on her filthy gown and shoes, Yani quickly searched Daria’s unconscious body. No sign of anything as useful as a manacle key. She could hear the men talking and laughing down the hall and dared not stay longer. Daria would wake up soon and since she was a mage, there