Dogs of War - Silk's Tale
#7 of Dogs of War
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This story is licensed under the Creative Commons
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© 2008 by Noisy Bob All Rights Reserved
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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The world this story is set in is the one of Onyx Tao's excellent story series Cold Blood (don't throw a fit, it's all open license and Tao's a great guy!) and is set into the timeline at around about chapter 3 - Green Fields - but is to be considered non-canonical, being purely a fanwork. If you enjoyed this then go check out Cold Blood which as of the writing of this is up to it's 13th chapter, I guarantee you won't be dissapointed.
Silk made a poor slave.
It wasn't his fault, it was just the way he was born, he had tried to be good but for some reason things just never worked out right for him. His old master had prized him greatly for his silver hair, so unusual, and angelic face but it was clear to all that there was something just very wrong about young Silk. He was always flawlessly polite and well mannered, as expected of a pleasure slave bred in the well-renowned Tarshesis stud in Vargelt, but he just repulsed people for no rational reason. That was fine by Silk, he liked to be alone, what he couldn't stand was his Masters son, a thuggish youth not yet old enough to enter the war college at Maragore and not fully grown, being only a foot taller than Silk himself, who delighted in tormenting him at every opportunity when he thought his father wasn't looking. He bore the taunts without the slightest protest, words were just words afterall, even the humiliating rituals he was forced to go through didn't faze him, he was beyond having an ego worth shaming so they meant little to him, but when the abuse became physical, when he had to hide the bruises from sight lest his Master find out, for that would cause such an unnecessary fuss and Silk hated fuss, something had began to crumble inside him. Or rather, something had been set loose, like he had traded some small and wholesome part of himself away in return for something vast and corrupt.
One day his Masters son had bullied him into stealing the key to the wine cellar, he had felt simply awful about the betrayal but what choice did he have? The cellars were expansive and a few bottles going missing would never be noticed for years.
"So you actually did it?" the Masters son had said "I knew you were no good all along, slave."
"I'm sorry, young Master?" said Silk, sensing something more malicious than normal in the voice of the minotaur youth.
"I'll be sure to tell father about you stealing from him," he said nonchalantly "after i've had a few of the choice bottles, of course, and you shall tell father you took them." he said, placing the key in the lock and opening the cellar.
Silk had stood dumbfounded for a few seconds, paralysed by indescision, if he told the lie then he would surely be terribly punished, if he told the truth then he might not escape punishment even then, he had stolen the key, and the treatment from Masters son would undoutably grow worse still. It was likely he wouldn't be belived in any case, when his father was around the Masters son was always the very picture of a dutiful and honourable son.
There was another option though...
He picked up the heavy brass coalscuttle from beside a nearby fireplace, that master wouldn't have magical heater panels in the house, and followed the Masters son into the cellar. The minotaur youth turned on the stairs as he entered, only to see Silk swing the coalscuttle over his head to connect with the unprotected spot between his horns. His eyes fogged as he fell over backwards and tumbled down the stairs, making a sickening crunching sound when he finally hit the floor at the bottom, lying spreadeagled among a cascade of coal-lumps in the rectangle of light emanating from the doorway. Silk set the scuttle down and slowly descended the steps. He wasn't sure how long he had stood looking at the body of his Masters son before he had bent down to feel his jowels for a pulse, there wasn't one.
"Oh dear me, now why did I do that?" he said quietly to himself "I'm sure I hadn't meant to, it just sort of...happened."
He stared at the body for a while longer, after a bit he got the coal-scoop and brushed up the pieces of loose coal, replacing them back in the scuttle. Afterwards he had dragged the body into the darkest corner of the cellar and dumped it into one of the massive barrels of brandy called 'Tun's', watching it slowly sink to the bottom. There was nothing else for it, he had thought as he mopped up the patch of blood on the cellar floor using a little clear spirit to make sure it left no mark, he would have to run away. Theft had got him into this, it seemed only right that stealing himself would have to be the only way to get out of it. It was such terrible dishonour, running away, but then he doubted he really had very much honour left after...murdering...his masters son, even if he hadn't meant it, so no big loss there, human honour came from dutiful obedience and honesty, he had been neither obedient or honest. With no honour to hold him back there was little fear in the life of a stray, if he stayed then he'd be executed anyway.
He crept into his Masters chambers and placed the key back in its place before leaving, taking a cold-weather cape and a small kitchen knife for good measure. It was good that he had, it rained heavily that night and the cloak was hs only protection as he huddled in the back doorway of a blacksmiths, down an alleyway and shielded from view. He shivvered terribly until he drifted off into sleep. He awoke being roughly shaken, he looked around fearful and bleary-eyed until tears washed his vision clear and he saw that he was surrounded by minotaurs, three of them; two leaning on their heavy oak spears behind a third who was kneeling over him and shaking him with one hand, the other resting on the hilt of his sword.
"Wake up, human. Where's your master?" he barked, when Silk didn't answer he stood up and smirked "Stray, eh?"
One of the other minotaurs raised his spear and put it to Silks chest but the first one brushed it aside.
"Sir?" he inquired.
"Look at him; perfect form, rare pelt colouration, pretty too, this one's show-quality for sure."
It was true, if Silk was proud of anything then it was that. He was a work of art, a testament to the genius and patient study of his breeder who had carefully selected desireable traits from already-fine slaves over no less than thirty generations to reach the point he represented, he was the culmination of a lifes work, a masterpiece capable of winning any show in the land and beyond. In truth, he was more likely to win outside Manticore territory, there were far more fitness tests involved in manticore showings and while he wasn't unhealthy by any stretch of the imagination he couldn't match up to some of the Kurgani for pure physical strength. In comparison he had been designed for poise, grace and a boyish appeal that would stay with him well into adulthood. He remembered the old master of the Tarshesis stud, Jastillus was his name if memory served, clucking over him as a child, poking and prodding, testing his reflexes or teaching him a new and fiendishly difficult posture, always with a comment on what a bother it was to get his silver hair to breed true and lamentations on how it would probably be lost when he was bred from, "All my hard work undone in an instant" he would say.
"But sir, all strays are to be put down on sight." protested the spear-holder.
"Bah, what's the harm if I take him in? He'll do no mischief then." said the first minotaur, a commander of sorts, thought silk, they must be Justicars.
"He might be mad, or a witch, dangerous."
"Enough, i'm taking this one."
"But Sir!"
"I said Enough! This one's mine now and that's final, do you have any objections to that?" snarled the commanding minotaur at the spear-holder, who took a step back and bowed his head, silent.
"Didn't think so." said the commander.
Silk was brought to a townhouse by the big commander, on the inside he was ecstatic, strays never got a second chance like this! He could hide anonymously as the property of another master, no-one would ever think to look for him here. His exultation was short-lived however.
Only moments after being shoved through the door he was taken to the bedroom, the commander made a great show of tearing off his clothes as he lay pinned to the bed, the red-dyed linen tunic and trousers shredded easily between the big males powerful fingers. It wasn't that he hadn't been fucked before, his old master used to bring Silk to his bed quite often, it was the purpose he was bred for, and it wasn't that he didn't enjoy it, he really did, but this time something was different.
Some inner voice nagged him with barely-heard words as he lay half-crushed beneath the body of the minotaur who had taken him in and was now thrusting deep into his innermost self, panting exuberantly at the pleasure of getting to have his way with a slave the like of which his salary wouldn't have allowed him to buy in any less than a good century of penny-pinching. Almost without thinking, Silk slid one hand beneath the remains of his torn clothes and felt for the handle of the kitchen knife.
"Oh dear me, now why did I do that?" he said a while later as he washed the blood from his hands in the bathroom sink "And after he had been so nice to me too, what a terrible ingrate I am."
It hadn't felt like he had done anything at all, his hand had just rested on the handle of the knife and then...and then he was straddling a gory mess that vaguely resembled a minotaur, bloody up to the elbows, knife in hand. The first words that had come to his mind were "Bother, now I have to move again". He didn't know why he was so calm, he had murdered no less than two masters, it was unthinkable, were he even to consider being in his current situation it would have left him catatonic from fear just a day ago, what had changed? The very fact that he was so calm became a new sort of worry in it's own right.
He found some clothes and cut them down to size, buckling a belt down almost to the last hole to hold up the minotaur-sized trousers. The streets were empty enough at night that it was easy to get away without anyone noticing. For the second time in one night he had become a stray, it was almost funny. Almost.
Avoiding the Justicars over the next week had been difficult, they were good at their job and immaculately thourough but an inkling sense had always led him away from their patrols to safety as though he just knew what direction they would go. The inkling, he had no other name for it, led him to other things as well; virtually untouched pieces of food left in the table scraps thrown out of restaurants, a long-unused toolshed to shelter from the rain, a huddled group of other strays hiding under a bridge who shared their meager fire with him...they served as the perfect distraction to get away when the Justicars arrived abruptly one night.
It was after eight days, eight days of repeating the cycle of run-hide-scavenge-eat, that he got an inkling stronger than any he had felt before, a burning, nagging, urge pulling him in the direction of...of...he didn't quite know where except it was close to the center of the city. That was dangerous, too many eyes in the city center ad his patchwork attire was a clear indication he was masterless, he'd be seized by the Justicars in an instant. No, it was too risky, the inkling must be wrong this time, he decided.
But it didn't abate, it just got stronger the more he tried to ignore it until all he could do was pace back and forth in frustration, it was like a pressure building inside his skull that he knew would be remedied if he just gave in to the urge.
"Fine." he said at last, following the urge had never done him wrong yet, there was no reason to suppose it would now. He'd just go allong with it until it got too dangerous, he told himself.As suspected, the closer he got to the center of Kurga the more people there were but also the number of convenient hiding places also grew. Kurga was built to be easily defensible, it's winding alleys and streets were a maze designed to confuse and disorient any potential attacker who managed to get past the formidable Kurgani-built walls, not an easy task in itself.
Anyone not intimately familiar with the city layout was doomed to waste their time walking in circles, Silk was glad he had taken shopping duty so often, it was a chance to be on his own and stay out of the way of...of the masters son, Kurga had no secrets for him.
He siezed an opportunity to mingle in with a group of farm-slaves who were bringing cartloads of produce to market from the outlying farmsteads, they were dressed a bit more uniformely than him but were straw-dusted and shabby enough that nobody would notice providing he kept his hood up to disguise that he looked nothing like a farm hand.
Closer now, he knew where the inkling was leading him - the Arena. It was a colossus, a Kurgani-built ring of rust coloured stone rising some two hundred feet into the air, easily the largest building in the city, with a dome of enmeshed steel struts covering the top like a birdcage; the frame that the acrobats performed on to entertain the crowd before, between and during the fights, currently unused. The sight of it gave him chills, but that was where he had to go.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the carts passed by the Arena, he had so far attracted a few glances from passers on the street but none of them had been suspicious. He glanced around himself and, finding no unwanted attention, broke off from the group and headed straight for one of the Arena's side entrances, that little voice in the back of his mind telling him that if he tried to sneak about he would only attract unwanted attention, he had to look like he belonged there so he kept his head raised and walked purposefully.
The corridors of the Arena were deathly silent besides his own padding footsteps, the walls were lined with crates and barrels of all descriptions so kept close to the sides in case anyone happened to come his way. The tugging sensation drew him further down the tunnel and through some side passages, into the bowels of the Arena. Chains and winches for controling the portcullises and trap doors hung everywhere and the distant roars and snarls of arena animals and monsters brought down from the mountains occasionally broke the silence, he realised that they were coming from under his feet, the beasts being kept below the Arena where they could be released through the trap doors or brought up on the central raiser.
Pale yellow light illuminated an arched doorway set in one wall, from inside he could hear the muffled sounds of conversation, minotaur voices. This romm was the epicenter, the place he was drawn to, he could feel it instinctively, but it was far too dangerous to enter now and something held him back. Abruptly the doorhandle rattled and oaken door swung open, Silk hesitated for a moment before ducking behind a trio of barrels filled with preserved meat. His instincts proved correct; from out of the door no less than a half-dozen minotaurs dressed in the black leathers and steel plate of the hunters league filed out and went off in seperate directions, their muttered discussion apparently on business matters. He kept hidden until they had all left out of sight and sidled up to the doorway, the light still glowing from within. He could feel a presence from within, something oppressive, heavy, primal in some way.
And old, he felt, inestimably old.
"No need to hide, little spider, come out of your web and meet me." came a voice from within, Silk's breath froze in his throat, hoping that it wasn't addressing him.
"Yes, you." the voice said again in the rich baritone chords of a minotaur, treacle-sweet and just as black.
Silk swallowed hard and plucked up enough courage to glance just around the corner of the doorway, no turning back now.
Sitting at a table in the room was a minotaur with hazel-coloured fur and short horns, clearly not a Manticore clansman, incredibly handsome and dressed modestly in grassy-green, a deck of cards sat on the table at his right hand. Silk vaguely remembered seeing him before somewhere, he was...yes, he was the business-owner who contracted the hunters, Mallear Lycaili, his Master had hired him to find black mountain bears for a pit-fight as part of sealing an important deal.
"Don't stand on ceremony, little one, I never could stand such things; come in, I won't hurt you." he said, Silk, seeing no other alternative, crept out into he full light of the doorway. The minotaur terrified him, his mind screamed 'run' but his body seemed disinclined.
"Come on..." said the minotaur jovially, like a man trying to coax a kitten out of it's hiding place "sit down."
He jestured at the chair opposite from him at the table and Silk crept hesitantly in.
"Now." said the minotaur, not sounding so jovial any more. Silk hurried up to the table and took the seat, there had been a dangerous edge that crept into Mallears voice. When he looked up at the hazel mnotaurs face it had softened again, he stared with bated breath into those massive black eyes until...a glint of metal flickered accross his features, just for a second before vanishing again. It was probably just a hallucination but he was sure he got the impression of a...
"-Mask." he whispered, the wrd passing his lips unbidden.
Mallear looked suprised for a moment but his features soon melted into impassivity "So, you saw through my illusion, impressive." he said, taking a card from the top of the pack and holding it up in front of his face "To be expected though, the Ace of Winds." he flipped the card around to face Silk, it showed a swirling vortex with it's eye at the cards center, the number one in greek in the middle of the eye.
"Sir, I don't-" he started.
"It means you are to be a great mind-mage, a seer of the unseen." explained Mallear, placing the card down on the table, face-up and taking another card from the pack.
"A...a mage, sir? Me?"
"Indeed, and a great fortune you happened to catch my eye before that of the witch hunters, else your talents would have been wasted as a lens." he said, placing a second card down that depicted a minotaur with multicoloured diamond-patterns dotting its fur, a skull in one hand and a scepter in the other "The comedian, you will be a subtle one, the best kind." he said, approvingly.
I...i'm sorry sir but I really have to get back to my Master." lied Silk, desperate for any excuse to get away from the strange Minotaur.
"Oh? I doubt he'll want you back now that he's found his son's corpse." said the Hazel minotaur, casually, taking another card from the deck. Silk's blood ran cold.
"H-How did you-" he stammered.
"Dear boy, it was my spells that brought you here, it was they who kept you safe, it was they who gave you the strength to-"
"-to murder?" said Silk, he didn't know why he said it, he would never have normally thought of cutting off a minotaur mid-sentance.
"Yes." said Mallear, simply, placing down another card "The Moon, you will be a potent mage indeed, though curses may always haunt you."
"You made me murder my own masters son?" Silk was shaking now with grief and anger at the way the hazel minotaur had stated it so matter-of-factly.
"Not quite, I used no coercion, such magics require much more time than I had. Tell me, how did you feel after you crushed that boy's hollow skull? Or after you gutted that wretch of a justicar?"
"I didn't feel anything." Silk said, horrified at how true it was.
"Indeed, the spell I placed on you was not a coercion, it was a Catharsis charm."
"A what?"
"Coercion creates inclinations where there were none before, modifies memories, it is a sophisticated and complex process and also very difficult. A Catharsis by comparison is very simple, all it does is bring buried inclinations to the surface and intensifies them." said Mallear, taking another card.
"But I didn't want to...I never..." stamemred Silk, desperately.
"Ah, but you did, else the charm would not have worked. Part of you wanted to see that boy as a limp corpse, dead by your hand, the same for the justicar who's touch you secretly resented." he said "It may not have been a large part, not something you would ever dream of acting on, not even somethin you would normally notice against the background hum of your thoughts, but it was there all right. Ah, The Spider, your power will come from the connections between people and events."
It was too much for Silk to take in, he hung his head and wept freely. When this stranger had told him that his crimes had been magically influenced it had felt like a great weight being lifted from him, allowed him to find something he could blame, but it turned out that even still they were his own fault.
"Oh, stop that, it's pathetic." sneered Mallear "I'm giving you an opportunity few humans ever get, to be a true mage. Or would you rather spend the rest of your life as a lens, having your soul raped to focus the spells of some wretch who lacks the skill to stand on their power alone?"
"I never..."
"What?"
"I never wanted anything, at all. Ever." said Silk, softly.
"What on earth are you talking about?" snapped Mallear
"Just that, i've never wanted anything...for myself anyway, just to make master happy, that's all."
Mallear was silent for some seconds but Silk could feel his eyes boring into the top of his head.
"My, what a sickening little slave you are, I won't allow such weakness in an apprentice of mine so grow some conviction before I beat some into you." he said at last, jeering and mocking in tone.
Silk looked up, shocked at the harshness of Mallears words, and wiped the tears from his eyes.
"Why are you doing this?"
"You are a valuable asset, with the fortune to be born with a gift that few possess. When I saw you in your Masters home I could feel you beginning to fill with magic, swelling to bursting point, I knew you would be to potent to let go to waste so I wove a few enchantments around you. To keep you hidden from the witch hunters, to keep you safe from harm and most importantly to bring you to me when your gifts had gestated." said Mallear in a hypnotic sing-song "And a good thing too, mages have grown weak, lazy, too dependent on lenses to focus their power when they should rely on themselves alone, to mage-lock a talent like yours would be like watering pigs with hundred-year aged wine."
Mallear reached for the cards again but accidentally toppled the deck, they skidded accross the table, one doing a somersalt and landing on top of the four cards he had already laid out.
"Damnation." he spat, gathering the cards back into a deck, he picked up the one that had landed on top of his array last and raised it to his eyes.
"Hmmm, the reversed Champion of Flames." he said wistfully "Probably nothing."
He returned the card to the deck and gathered up the array cards to return them to the deck. A squeak of the chair being pushed out broke the silence as Mallear rose to his hooves. There was a rushing sound and an itching, flesh-crawling sensation that washed over Silk, making him shudder, and the door slammed shut and locked itself.
"First, it's time for you to get a handle on your gifts before we can begin your...education." said Mallear, who rose a hand to point at the center of Silk's chest, bracing his arm by gripping it at the elbow with his other hand.
"What are you going to do?"
Mallear smiled a humourless smile "Most mages are trained by lensing, but as I have said, I consider thepractise to encourage laziness, fortunately I have found another way."
"Another...way?" said Silk, perplexed.
"Yes, it is called Scourging and will not be nearly so gentle as lensing. Gird yourself."
Silks eyes went wide as the blast of magic ripped into him, tearing away at something inside him like a pack of wolves, he felt like he was being ripped to shreds by a thousand claws. A scream stuck in his throat.
And he felt his magic.
That was the source of the pain, Mallears own magic attacking his, but now he could defend himself from it. Reflexively he drew his magic tight around him, condensing it into a tight ball that Mallears magic savaged but could only scratch, not tear.
Mallears magic abruptly ceased it's assault, Silk slowly opened his screwed-tight eyes to see that Mallears face had been replaced by a mask of polished steel, hs fashionably modest clothes had transformed into a billowing robe.
"Good, you have developed some degree of control, something of a thoughtless animal response but as good as can be expected the first time." he said, his voice echoing eerily from the resonance of the mask.
Silk slid off the chair and gripped the rim of the table to steady himself as his legs tried to fold underneath him when he put weight on them.
"First time? But I can feel it already." he protested weakly.
"Ah, but you have yet to develop the spiritual scar tissue repeated Scourging engenders, with out it you are inferior to a lensing-trained mage, and that will not do."
"So, how many times does this...Scourging have to be done."
Mallear chuckled as the lamps that lit the room began to dim to nothingness, plunging the room into darkness.
"Why, as many times as necessary...my pet."