Free Unholy by Richard Lee Byers Page B

been stocky, as his kind often was, hunger had whittled that quality away. He lay atop the torture rack wirh his arms pulled up behind him. To Malark Springhill, who fancied he might know more about how to destroy the human body than anyone else in Thay, its tradition of sophisticated cruelty notwithstanding, it was clear that the torture had already dislocated the prisoner’s shoulders, and that his knee, hip, and elbow joints had also started to come apart.
    Still, the Rashemi had yet to provide any answers. It was an impressive display of defiance.
    Malark turned the winch another eighth of a rotation. The prisoner gave a strangled cry, and something in his lower body tore audibly. The sweaty, bare-chested torturer, speckled with little scars where embers had burned him, tried not to look as if he resented an amateur usurping his function.
    Malark leaned over to look the prisoner in the face. “I want the names of your fellow rebels.”
    The Rashemi croaked an obscenity.
    Malark twisted the windlass a little farther, eliciting a gasp. “I know you’ve had contact with Bareris Anskuld. Tell me how to find him.”
    Although it didn’t really matter if he did. Over the course of the past ninety years, Bareris and Mirror had done more than any of the other malcontents left in the realm to hamper Szass Tarn’s government, but even so, their efforts hadn’t amounted to much. Still, Malark had been Bareris’s friend, and given the chance, he would gladly rescue the bard from the vileness that was undeath.
    That final iota of stretching had evidently rendered the captive incapable of verbal defiance, but, panting, he shook his head and clenched his jaw shut. Closed his eyes too, as though blocking out the sight of his tormentors and the dank, shadowy, torchlit dungeon would make his situation less real.
    Malark wondered if one of the spells he’d mastered under Szass Tarn’s tutelage would loosen the Rashemi’s tongue, then decided he didn’t care. It didn’t really matter if he unmasked a few more impotent rebels, either. In truth, the success of such efforts had never mattered, only maintaining the appearance that the ruler of Thay was preoccupied with the same sort of trivia as the average tyrant, and with the Dread Rings completed, even that necessity had all but reached an end.
    So why not let this hero perish with his spirit unbroken, his secrets preserved? Why not grant him that greatest of all treasures, a perfect death?
    Malark turned the wheel. “Talk!” he snarled, meanwhile silently urging, Don’t. You only have to hold out a little longer.
    “Master—” the torturer began.
    Malark turned the wheel. “Talk!” Up and down the length
    of the rebel’s body, joints cracked and popped as they pulled apart.
    “Master!” the torturer persisted. “With all respect, you’re giving him too much too fast!”
    Doing his best to look as if the Rashemi’s recalcitrance had angered him, Malark kept on twisting the winch. “Talk, curse you! Talk, talk, talk!”
    The prisoner’s spine snapped.
    Malark rounded on the torturer. “What just happened?”
    Once again, the fellow made a visible effort to cloak his irritation in subservience. “I’m sorry, Your Omnipotence, but his back broke. For what it’s worth, he might live a little while longer, maybe even a day, and he won’t enjoy it. But he can’t talk anymore.” He hesitated. “I tried to warn you.”
    “Damn it!” Still pretending to be furious, Malark ended the prisoner’s ordeal by chopping his forehead with the blade of his hand. The blow broke the man’s skull and drove scraps of bone into the brain within.
    The torturer sighed. “And now he won’t even suffer.”
    An impish urge took hold of Malark, and he glared at the other man. “This rebel possessed vital information, and now we’ll never learn it. Szass Tam will hear of your incompetence!”
    The torturer paled. Swallowed. “Master,” he stammered, “I beg you, forgive my