Mists

[Adrian Kane]

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

Questioners worked in blood and pain. They sought to break a man in body and mind quickly. It was a rare man indeed who could last more than a few days under their brutal attentions. Most often, either the mind or the body failed in the process, leaving either a hollow shell or a dead man. And most often, even should one submit and do as the Questioner wished, the answer was still death. Just a quicker one.

But Byron despised such tactics. It was rare he had to practice such things of course, but when he did, he sought information, not forced confessions. Pain and blood would get him answers swiftly, surely, but more often it was more a matter of the target of his attentions trying to give him whatever they thought he wanted. Information would be inflated or entirely false. No, far better to wear the mind down and trick them into wanting to help him. It was a longer process; days became weeks usually. Start small, with simple tasks and admissions. And each time the bearer of the information he sought conceded on some small task or piece of information, the next would become easier.

Do not make yourself a monster; but rather a disappointed father figure or possible friend. Punishments would, of course, be brutal, yet the punisher should seem displeased with having to give them. Rewards should be simple things; nicer food, a clean blanket, a chance to clean oneself. Things that the target needed to stay healthy anyways, but seeded in a manner to seem a wonderful reward. The target could not survive the treatment on gruel alone, curling up naked and dirty every night, but if maintaining the target's health through 'rewards' obscured the truth and made the target work harder to earn more of the 'rewards.' A tedious process and investment of time.

"Have you ever thought that this is simply your punishment for failing the Dark One, boy? That perhaps you have fallen so far that you are no longer worthy of his attention at all? That perhaps there is no plans for you to return to the fold at all. The Dark One is not known for being forgiving." He did not say it to be spiteful, but to encourage thought on the matter. To discreetly weaken resolve, to plant seeds of doubt were simply hopeful side effects.

He did not treat the boy's acceptance of the task of binding his ankle and cleaning the room as any sort of victory. They were both a necessary task, and there was no one else to do it. The room was all the boy had any sort of control over, and was the one at fault for the mess to begin with. But of course, it was just the first of what would hopefully be many steps in wearing the boy's resistance away and shaking him of whatever terrible indoctrination or philosophies that had led him down so dark a path. As the boy would work, Inquisitor Jeorune would bring in a fresh bucket of water to replace the first when it became too soiled to be of use.

Another, empty bucket was provided to collect bits of wood or waste that could be easily removed from the floor, to save the water buckets from becoming soiled too quickly. He did nothing else to help, however. Simply provided the tools needed to do the job properly. If the boy kept his manners, he might even be provided with some soap to help alleviate the smell that clung to the room even before the mess had been made.

Arikan

The knots of disuse clogging every joint began to work themselves out.  Not the relief of a much needed stretch after a long stint in one position, but close enough.  The first despised touch of the brush to his grasp was like the discovery of a newfound brick, for he held it beneath his study and contemplated the weapon it might become in his hands.  The handle was solid, and if overturned, and taken to the temple, could daze a man… if not drop him to his knees.  The bucket likewise.  Small, but reinforced.  Either in creative and experienced hands, both were useful tools. 

He held it as such, limbs as heavy as his face, and dared the Hand to meet his eyes.  Wanted him to know what possibilities cloaked his thoughts for he would not begin the work until finding satisfaction with the acknowledgement: in that he could, but chose not, to confront him a second time.  In the end, the Questioner maintained the upper hand, and Arikan knew his fate would leave him in worse shape than he already was.  Pick your battle ground, as the saying went and he needed time to recuperate.  While no man had the luxury to choose his every battle, selecting the time and place for the contest won many an overwhelmed foe a sizable advantage.

It felt blisteringly good to move, and he went through the first bucket of water without acknowledgement for its replacement.  Blood returned to his hands unlike it had when they'd taken their fury out on the table.  He must have appeared quite the fool. Buck-skinned naked, hallow, bruised and swollen and slimed with mud and shit scrubbing the floor on hands and knees like a Blight-damned slave. The dislocated shoulder he babied at the beginning, but even that side eventually transitioned to plucking up splinters of worthless wood some time later.  The monotony of productivity seemed to move him on, and memory of stern rejection dulled as order and cleanliness grew.  His roots, after all thrived on organization, the common vein living throughout every charge, task, and order his hands fulfilled.  The key to Arikan’s abundant success the last two-hundred years. 

Shaken from the focus on the task at hand, both the external chore and the internal drive toward physical work, had the questions ceased with the first, Arikan might have responded an unhesitant ’yes.’  But the subsequent ones drove too far to the point, and chased the admission away beyond silent reaction into analytical consideration.  Instead he answered only with the sounds of harsher bristles scraping across stone and did not look up. The floor became his kingdom.

Of course he'd thought of it.  Considering his ill fortune, analyzing the path that led him here was a massive labyrinth of possibilities.  The most recent flooded first.  His guard had been high at first, but successful evasion of retaliation eventually lowered it.  Perhaps leading to the current situation.  More than one of his officers were captured alive outside Tar Valon. Perhaps they gleaned more insight into his habits than he intended to reveal. Thus could explain the White Tower hounds finding his scent when others failed.  Lairona.  The Black Ajah lamb he'd sacrificed as a mastermind, both in Tel’aran’rhiod and the waking world of their allies, might have given her killers any number of insights into his weaknesses. Not that he revealed any to her, but never was there another soul, beyond the Great Lord, with such insight into his character.  He had bonded her, after all, to control her and know instantly if she should betray him.  One such killer was practically within arm's reach now.  Perhaps Corele pulled more strings than he'd thought possible for a dead woman.  Her presence now was no inconsequential accident.

He slammed the brush into the water, sloshing the surface up and over the rim carelessly.  The less likely options rushed unbidden through his mind.  The Chosen's unconcerned impatience driving a terrible, penetrating stake.  Unworthy even of exporting assassins to end him.  His knowledge was outdated.  Codes and locations beyond their schedules was changed multiple times over.  Anyone whom he might approach to rebuild the empire immediately tracked down and eliminated, solely for their allegiance to him.  A wise chore.  Take an emperor away from his subjects and he is but another man with an inflated title.  Arikan could hardly blame the intelligence in such an act, despite the endless string of frustrations he met in every emptied city. 

Of all the unlikely reasons to be here.  The quietest of doubts was a faint whisper.  Unavowed.  Uncredited. 
"If I were to be ended, He has but wish it," he repeated to himself as much as to the Hand.
 
The pledge was a poor reinforcement for the cracks in his concrete resolve. Soon after, finished with the chore, he sat back and inspected the outcome with the same scrutiny of excellence he demanded of any inferior's work.  No matter how minimal.  Satisfied, or perhaps simply done, he chucked the brush across the stone.  It skidded end over end toward where the Hand watched, until halted by its collision with a bucket.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

Inquisitor Jeorune let silence reign for a time, letting the boy stew over the doubts his previous question had caused. He still hadn't decided if it were all an act on the part of the boy, or if he were indeed slipping. If it were an act, then this would take far longer than he hoped. And if the lad were slipping, was loosing some traces of confidence, then he had held out longer than could be expected. Considering how long the boy had been on the run, how far he had fallen, it was indeed quite the gradual decline.

As the boy finally collapsed back against the wall to survey the task, Inquisitor Jeorune moved the last of the buckets and the discarded brush back to the hallway and returning with the boy's breakfast. Similar to the boy's supper, it was simple and uninspiring. But it was food, and it would be filling. And more importantly, it was with a smaller dose than the last time. The tray was handed to the boy under the same terms as the previous time. The only addition was a single apple, the 'reward' for the morning's chores being done so well.

"I am curious, boy. Curious why you swore such fell oaths, why you sold yourself to the Dark One.” It would be the first step towards learning the secrets Lythia Sedai wished to know. By opening such a dialogue early in their time together, it would help blend and lead into the more direct questions that would come later, would make him more open to the topic as time went on. If approached too soon, the boy would either cast lies or simply clam up and rebuild his walls. Better to draw him out more slowly.

The boy was intelligent, and educated it seemed. That might have been more a result of the length of his life however, rather than the actual origins. The boy was a Channeler, and they were rather long lived. Plenty of time to find new skills and change one's beliefs. Had the boy been high born as his accent hinted? Tearan, it seemed, judging from the tone and inflections. There were few physical cues to place the boy, but again, the length of the boy's life might had washed those away. A perfectionist, judging from the quality of the cleaning. Or simply used to such menial tasks...which seemed unlikely. Again, a Channeler. The male ones seemed to use the One Power for every task possible.

Arikan

A tray this time.  The same slop and bread as before, but Arikan immediately tipped the bowl to his lips, continued absence of flatware only vaguely perceived.  Warmth perfused every limb from the inside out, relieved a stomach of empty pain and soothed the innate worry of starvation for yet another agonizing day.  The drained bowl soon fell limply from his fingers, replaced by the apple afterward for agnostic study. As if he was trying to decide if it was real or a decoy.

The injection of food suddenly reminded his body of man's physical limitations as adrenaline leaked from every pore like blood, but the fruit-laden hand sank to his side half-eaten.  The back of his hair hit the weeping wall and he rested.  The light was no bother now, the taskmaster no distraction; to sleep; quickly becoming a necessity.  For a life leaping in and out of tel'aran'rhiod, nights his mind worked while his body lay vulnerable was an accustomed chore.  It should be easy to drift those gentle waters, but the Hand's dear questions churned them, and the waters turned to a shore lined with resentment.  His eyes opened, finding the grip on the unfinished apple tightening. The juice dripped between his fingers.

"Why?  You considering joining the club?” Amusement tugged one corner of his mouth moments before the apple obliterated the rest of a vacant smile.  The flavor was overwhelming, like biting into the morning dew. The core was perched between tainted fingers, but bites later he abandoned it in the bowl half consumed.  The fill of food after so long without conceived new pangs nearly as powerful as what the sustenance sought to relieve. He put a hand across his abdomen, holding back the bile threatening to bubble up. 

By then, however, the embers of apathy were stoked, and Arikan's guard was nearing the end of its shift.  A convoluted question, buried by the reign of centuries.  Why, indeed?  Disdain dripped away, and flat weariness replied, automatic.
"It made sense,” was his only response.

The crawl back to the pallet was an exhausting navigation through a newly descended fog.  Welts from their encounters loomed larger than they ought; the shoulder anchored on fraying ropes, the ankle throbbing indiscriminate.  He thought of the puncture in the Hand's arm, and gazed weakly in its direction.  Unknowing now how he'd managed the strength to forge a weapon at all, nor attack a fully armored Child, then manage to gain the brief ground he had.  Even with an opponent being only an Inquisitor. 

Eyes burning equally open and as they did closed, he stared thoughtlessly at the shadow-peppered ceiling.  Childhood was a burden. So long ago he barely remembered, but what he did know was for a mind constantly cloaked by wrongdoing, the unease was relieved the day a dark thread of purpose needled its way in.  The day he swore soul-crushing vows had been glorious. 
"I needed to,” he added. Explanation escaped unbidden, but no grimace followed: clemency was too luxurious a taxation at the moment.  The food swirled, and his skin twitched with hair-raising tension once more: driving the whip of insomnia for a second time.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

The boy's initial quip was expected of course. A sign that boy still had his wits about him, however blunted by exhaustion and the concoction in his food he might be. The lethargic movement from leaning against to the wall to sprawling on the simple sleeping wasn't terribly worrying either. The boy was exhausted from lack of rest, extent of injuries, and more labour than he had likely done since being left to rot in this cell. Coupled with a fully belly, the lack of energy was to be expected. The reasons given, as short and detail lacking as they were, however, was somewhat surprising. Not that it showed on Inquisitor Jeorune's face.

Byron had dealt with a few Darkfriends in his time; he had asked most their reasons for swearing to the Dark One, and found them each and all to be fools for it. Power, wealth, excitement, even a bet once amongst village friends. Each and every one had been selfish or a fool, and had paid for it dearly. None had said things such things as that they had needed to do it. The boy whom had done so on a bet had been the closest; but in his case, it was more that he had been forced to the tasks after having sworn, not that he had needed to swear to begin with. He had had honest regrets, but his foolishness was condemning. The Creator forgives, but Byron had had a task to fulfill and the what information that idiot young man had was too important to relent.

Inquisitor Jeorune crossed to the abandoned tray, collecting it and moving it to the hallway. The lamp was checked briefly, to assure oil and wick would last, and returned to watching the boy, standing as not to be silhouetted by the light, to let the glow continue to reach the boy. "A need for power? A desire for glory? Did you wish to impress a girl with ill-begotten titles and lands that would so surely be yours for such dark oaths? I am hoping a more interesting truth from you boy.”

Arikan

He tried to recall the first desire to impress a pretty face, but nothing came to mind. Surely it would have been near to the age of dark vows. The void was unsurprising, really, stoking such fires of dying memories across one's life was generally associated with holding such moments in high regards. No faces were worthy of the effort. The weeks surrounding the greatest moment of his life were painfully clear, however. A moment of resignation to never fade; the details etched in time with diamond-edge precision.

The cloaked silhouette stepped from the meager flame and Arikan threw a limp arm across his eyes. Taking some weight off the obscured heel became a priority next, although there was nothing against which to elevate the injury. Substandard splint aside, though babied as much as could be expected, the tingling toes below the sprain were fading expectantly into numbness. A pressure that would not relent until the swelling receded, unfortunately. Which might be days under proper care however many of those remained. He imagined sitting through an Inquisitor's legwork would be an exercise in endurance; an annoyance to abide at best for the most awkward of Questioners, a marathon to stomach for the more talented. He assumed this one was going to be the former. He had yet to even begin his interrogation.

Goading, yes, was the Hand's choice of replies, though unlikely in the way a Child of the Light intended. The comment rankled little, and Arikan exhaled in agreement. A fault line weakening the hardest of foundations were such contrite servants. When towers were constructed upon the backs of spineless servants, dynasties must remain vigilant. Rare was the find in another sworn servant willing to work selflessly as Arikan did for the Great Lord of the Dark. Pleasant was the promise of trusting an agreement to be carried out for the sake of greater goal without fear of alternative goals stumbling its well-planned execution.

Such allies were coveted, and it was such men Arikan fostered upon his steady rise to leadership; a grief on his part to find their holes in every city in which they remained, wise though the retribution was but none of them were as dedicated a servant as himself. Keep a coalition close; where power contained within a select, trusted few maintained reason to see you remain at the top. Maintaining authority was a philosophical horse to ride, not a cracked whip to keep the hoards away. Virtues the Chosen were lacking; excluding Nae’blis, perhaps. Such failings were likely why half of the Great Lord's ancients were corpses.

His tongue rolled lazily, arm across his eyes like a shield to the light. “Yeh not knowing yeh share of darksworn I’see.” The deterioration in his accent emerged, but perhaps his own ears were sensitive to a fault. It mattered little. The Hand was clearly not Tear-born. And Arikan was starting to care less bout keeping up the energy for haughty words.

Behind closed lids, consciousnesses receded for the moments following, but the steps toward the quieter parts of the mind fell as jagged crumbles. A disturbing warmth flushed otherwise clammy skin and his heart beat surer in his chest. Recognition arose.

Maddeningly alert, he shoved the hair from his forehead and glared, nearly ready to request they depart this infernal accelerando and get on with things. The bloody waiting was just as bad as the torture to come. “You are going to remain disappointed.”

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

Byron watched the boy closely. The boy was trying to favour his injuries; the work of cleaning the room had surely helped limber tired and tense muscles, a much needed bout of exercise to promote some small degree of health, but the stiffness of swelling and the pain of the injuries would always return. Perhaps in a day or two he would be so kind as to better splint the ankle, but for the moment he would let the boy stew in the reminders of his fallacies.

The slip in accent was certainly interesting; he had some doubts that the boy had originated from the lofty heights of nobility, and the Tearan gutter-trash he wavered towards sounded far more fitting. Of course, Byron had little belief that he was the only one about with a mind for accents, so while an interesting detail it was not used to build a complete picture just yet. Just another piece of the puzzle.

"So it was for petty gain then? I think, perhaps, I could have pictured you with a more lofty goal behind so poor a choice. Good intentions have led many a man astray when not paired with wisdom. Education, I have found, has little to do with it." The boy's reaction to the light was surely a side effect of the drugs, but being locked away in a dark cell for so long probably didn't help either. It was too bad the boy was such a risk; the whole dream walking thing made it too dangerous to 'reward' the boy with a brief walk out in fresh air and under the sky. No, the boy would remain trapped within this cell until Inquisitor Jeorune was through with him.

Arikan

Sleep escaped a second day, and blind awake as a result, Arikan tensed, his every muscle twinged, poised to strike.  At nothing.  Something; anything.  Hairs spiked the back of his neck.  That same bloody crawling sensation across his skin. The food was spiked with something. That was obvious, though he wasn’t sure what it was. The infusion of energy was the reaction of an overwrought body. Fingers ceased rolling upon one another and drummed the floor instead, tapping fleshy thuds, unnaturally energetic.  His mind raced with clarity too fast to process any of it: drinking from a waterfall of sensations until it seemed the Hand was rattling his words where before was gently spoken. 

The hum of the hollow earth closed them in when the fetid air clogged a shriveled throat, but a pacific rustle of a cloak snapped him back, finding not but benign scrapes of plate across leather unsuited for the apprehension; and then, nothing.  A stretch of silence more horrifying than the demonic symphony before the emptiness descended.  A flood of sheer nothingness settled around them as though the world indeed fell from the rotting Pattern leaving behind this one hole which was soon to disintegrate as well; Arikan and the Questioner along with it.  He became lost to the overload of it all and pushed his palms into his eyes.  Hoping to ease the strain, any of it.

He barely recognized the Hand's speech for the question it was.  Spoken vibrations tapped against lax eardrums, the mind behind them dulled to lesser capacity than before.  He cringed at the deficits within, both able to recognize what prisoned him from controlling his own physical functions, heart racing, nerves tense, and sleep elusive, but yet remained unable to react as he should.  There was no escaping what coursed in your own veins, infused so soon after a meal, except to open them up and let what was within pour away. 

But such was never an option: suicide.  A haunting, phantasmic illusion to chase: an end he could not bring upon himself no matter how extreme the soul begged for its freedom.  There was only the will to serve, and death was a poor conduit to service. Even if he had a knife at the wrist, he was certain he’d never be able to draw it open. The Great Lord’s connection wouldn’t abide it.

Sheer effort wrung words from the compromised mind.  A tone depleted of its will to demonstrate the lofts of high born logic for the Hand's unjustified benefit and be as plain as possible.  What fraying threads were left to his command was born from the need to grasp the only variable left to control: resisting the Hand's fist-clenching provocation until the bitter end.  If it would only approach, he might be grateful.   

"Yeh pray to yer Creator, Hand?  D'you worship him?  How d'you know the one yeh call Creator is Light?  Because someone told yeh this is so?  What fatherly love has he bestowed upon you, hm?" 

"Who is you to say the quality of my intentions?  Astray from what do you so describe?  The Light?" Such inexplicable unintelligence. 

"Light and darkness, what either is these things but puppets we choose to animate?  To bow to the Light is to bow to its champion.  A terror, yes?  For one is not without the other, yes?  Do you bend knee to the Dragon?”  Of course not.

"The Great Lord I serve is majesty and power: a redemption to whom all mortals fall short, including your hero.  All men wallow blindly except those of us saved from the illusion of your Light.  I told you, to serve is my need, because a sort of sense, a peace, is what to serve is." An unfathomable delight; transient those fulfillment-wrought moments of peace remain, only to dissolve into the next ambitious cycle. 

"I am on the right side of the war.  For my intention is to see humanity's empty soul come to know my harmony.  Why should you dream to halt such a noble cause as this?”  A distant part of his conscience, a reflection of a reflection, sincerely wanted to know.

Byron / Inquisitor Jeorune

Inquisitor Jeorune frowned down at the boy and watched the boy seem to struggle with himself. Likely an effect of the drugs. The boy's tone and speech were of the Tearan gutters; he was beginning to accept the likelihood that the boy had started his days living on the streets. Thus, the desire to change one's fate and climb the social ladder was the plausible reason behind the boy swearing those foul oaths. To right the injustices put upon him as a boy, to cast down those that thought they were better then him, to have power and control, etc. Understandable reasons, but poorly executed.

"I do not pray to the Creator. Nor do I worship Him. He does not ask that of us.” He crossed the room slowly, moving in a calm stride much like an instructor before a class. "Nor do I worship the Dragon.” There was a hint of bitter resignation in the statement of that title. Inquisitor Jeorune, as well as most of the Children, had had to accept that the Dragon had been reborn. The Last Battle was drawing close, and there was simply no room to deny that fact.

"I choose to follow the Light, because while humans are petty and violent, and capable of terrible acts...as a whole, they are good and simple creatures. Capable of terrible things, but also capable of wonders. The armies of the Light are made of simple men seeking to protect families and loved ones. And the armies of the Shadow? Beasts and monsters, that feast on the flesh of man. You surely know of the Trolloc Wars. Of the atrocities committed by the forces of your...being of majesty and power, as you put it.” He moved towards the door, and lifted the lantern from where it hung.

"You may think your goals noble. But what of your fellows? What of your foul god's armies of Trollocs and monsters? The Forsaken, who seek to release those creatures in the cities and farmlands? The armies of the Light fight and die to protect their livelihoods. The armies of the Shadow fight for power and to feast.” He took a step into the hallway and glanced back at the boy, holding the lantern higher so the light could reach him in his bed of dirty straw. "If you behave yourself, you will be allowed to bathe tomorrow.”

Then he shut the door and walked away to give the boy some hours of rest. He would return repeatedly throughout the day and night, occasionally to feed the boy, each meal tainted with the drug. The questions of philosophy and belief would continue, each time seeking to poke holes into the boy's beliefs, to cast light onto the unpleasant realities the boy seemed unwilling to think on. He sought to undermine the boy's core self, and meanwhile make sure he was in good health of body before more physical attentions could be paid on the boy's body.