Part 8 (2/2)
”And lives,” she added.
”Lives are cheap, time is precious,” Arden said without a hint of humor. ”Now, when I have spent some of that precious commodity with our first prize, you and I shall look into the acquisition of our second. Go, and leave the bag, and if that staff is hers, leave that too. The brute work is aside, this is a time for skill.”
General Teloran slammed the door upon leaving. Only Arden and Myranda remained in the room. He flashed a rather incomplete smile at her.
”Have a seat,” he said. ”Relax.”
Myranda sat.
”I am afraid that I may not be able to relax with you around. Not since you tried to kill me,” she said.
”I do apologize for that. Couldn't quite place the face. It is a good thing your former captors wrestled me off of you. My colleagues would have been quite perturbed if I had killed you before I had determined your usefulness. Now, to that end,” he said, s.n.a.t.c.hing up her bag before sitting across from her and leaning forward. ”Let us have a look at you.”
Oddly, he closed his eyes as he said this. After a few moments he nodded thoughtfully.
”Respectably skilled wizard. Mainly elemental with a fair dose of the healer's art and a smattering of the esoteric. Not anything special, but respectable,” he said. He began to remove objects from the bag and place them on the table.
”Who told you that?” she asked.
”No one. I can see it. I can smell it, I can even taste it. You've got a good, dense aura about you, and the spirits seem to like you. They pay particular attention to you. With some experience you could be a force to be reckoned with, as your little display at the mines would indicate. I'll have to see about getting you a better collar,” he said.
”Listen, never mind all of that! You can untie me, and there is no need for this collar. I know what you want, and I want to help you,” Myranda said.
”Do you, now?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and putting down the dagger from her bag. ”This should be quite interesting. Tell me, what is it that we want?”
”You want to find the Chosen! This war is destroying the world and you know that the Chosen are beginning to appear to bring it to an end. You want to find them and a.s.semble them so that all of the fighting can come to an end,” she said.
”That is . . . one interpretation of our cause. Now, why do I want you, I wonder?” he asked.
”Because, I have a part in this, in the prophesy!” she said.
”You are Chosen?” he asked, eyebrows raised once again.
”No, but I can find them,” she said.
”The Chosen will find each other,” he corrected.
”No, the prophesy is changing, I have heard the spirits speak of it with my own ears,” she said.
”You don't hear spirits with your ears,” he said.
”They were speaking through a prophet,” she said.
”All of the prophets north of the battlefront are in the employ of the Alliance Army. You couldn't have been listening to a prophet, and even if you had, we would have heard it as well,” he retorted, finally losing interest in her and returning to his rummaging through her bag.
”Well he wasn't . . . Listen, why are we arguing? We want the same thing!” she urged.
He ignored her plea, placing bandages and vials on the table one after the other, shaking his head in amused wonder at the labels as he read each one.
”Such flawed little mechanisms you are,” he mused quietly.
”Untie me and I will show you! I have the Mark, the Mark of the Chosen, on my left palm,” she said.
”Oh, yes, I am keenly aware of that little fact. The hands stay tied,” he said. He had come to the book she had taken from Lain's shelves.
”Doesn't that prove something? Doesn't that prove I have some higher purpose?” she asked urgently.
”Perhaps. That is yet to be determined,” he answered distantly.
”Can you read any of that?” Myranda asked, suddenly hopeful that at least one answer might be discovered.
”Yes. All of it. It will be quite immediately useful to me, I think,” he said.
”There is a page, just past the middle of the book, that has a single line crossed out. Find it! Tell me what it says!” she demanded.
”Though I am not in the habit of doing favors for my prisoners, I don't think I will need to flip to the page to tell you what it says,” he said.
”What do you mean?” she asked.
”It will say, 'Pay us the full price and you may keep her. The sword will be given to the courier upon payment. You can deliver the gold to the following location.' Directions follow, would you care to hear them?” he asked.
”Why would it say that?” she asked, confused.
”That is what every other page says,” he said, holding the book up to her nose.
Both pages that she could see, and apparently all of those that she couldn't, bore the message he had read on an otherwise blank page, written in plain Northern, in Desmeres' hand. He must have taken the book she had stolen and swapped it for this one.
”I am curious, but that will not last long, I a.s.sure you. All will be determined in a moment,” he said, standing and stepping behind her.
”What are you doing?” she asked.
”I am about to begin interrogating,” he stated.
”But why? I will tell you anything you want to know!” she said.
”I don't know everything I want to know from you yet,” he replied.
”Then I will tell you everything I know!” she said.
”You don't know everything you know,” he stated.
Myranda's confusion briefly surpa.s.sed her fear, and it showed on her face.
”There is a plethora of information you have that you would just push aside as something I don't need to know, not to mention the facts that you know both halves of but you've never been bright enough to piece together. I shall have all of them by the time we are through. Since you are so eager to cooperate, all I ask is that you do not resist,” he said, sitting before her again.
Myranda closed her eyes. She repeated to herself in her mind the reasons that she trusted the Alliance Army, the reasons they needed her, and the reasons she needed them. The short list of a.s.sumptions that had led her into their hands had been quite compelling and convincing when she'd first composed it. In the past few hours she had come to find it severely lacking. This monster of a man, a man in the employ of the Alliance, had made a disturbingly effective attempt on her life when they last met, and now she was to willingly submit herself to an interrogation at his hands! All based on an optimistic a.s.sumption! She resigned that certainly this had been a mistake, but there was no going back now. Desperately she scoured her mind for some thought to calm herself. As she felt the hulking man's fingers touch lightly to her temples, she finally settled upon something Desmeres had said. Things could be worse. That Epidime fiend he spoke of could be the one interrogating her.
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