The Halfling girl shrugged, causing her shaggy brown hair to tremble at her shoulders.
"It's all so much- and so godawful fast. He's just hashing through it all," she admitted, as though she were explaining away something minor that was wrong with her.
The silvery haired Human reached out his hand to pat the girl, but when she shrunk away from him and into the stone wall, he took a step back and nodded. She extended an arm down the stairs, then turned and nearly flew up the stone steps beyond the Human. He turned over his shoulder to watch her go, sighed deeply, then turned back to step down through the crude, cold stone arch that separated the basement cells from the levels above it. A hallway of empty cells, all clean and ending in an open door on the right side, greeted him. The place reeked of all the worst fluids that any living being had to offer, but to all appearances, no living soul had so much as received a paper cut anywhere near the area. In the last cell, short, sharp movements in the semi-darkness caught the Human's attention. As he squinted, he made out a stooped back, very familiar sweat-slicked, pony-tailed hair and a battered rake. A low, determined muttering came from the creature, as though the looker-on had interrupted an intense discussion. Struck by the Halfling's perception, the watcher leaned just inside the arch and put the back of his head on the stone with a bitter chuckle. A full ten minutes of silence passed between the observer and the observed before the latter finally stopped moving and stood straight up.
"How long you gonna warm the stone, Luvec?"
"Halfling waif's got you pegged, Pohatkon," the silver haired Human sighed. "The real question is how long are you going to keep to this burrow of yours."
Hawk-sharp brown eyes nearly glowed with indignation, then dimmed into frustration as he turned back to tossing hay. "Well, I'm not hiding from all the new responsibilities, if that's what you think. Made up the posting changes easy enough. Wife hates the move, but the kids seemed to have already known half the guttersnipes down there anyway. Goddamned Council's a joke. They deliberate on simple decisions so long that I told them that they could just send me down their proposals after they were done biting each other's tails. And unraveling the bullshittery that Nithraz caused or was putting up with- I dropped the charges against Leatherface, since- orders or no orders, monk or drunk- he did the entire town a favor by cleaning out the Stingers, and luckily managed to live to tell the tale. I just turned one of the Raven Queen's shamblers out of here. He's not the Reaver, I don't care what the hell our dearest Lady Mimsa puts out of her goddamned gob. Spiderspit's been in twice, because of her and those accursed pageant clowns that sniff up Dresan's ass- I just barely got him off the noose this time."
"You know he's not the Reaver?" Luvec asked, walking back toward the cell where Pohatkon was working. "Absolutely sure? I'd heard in the market that he was caught doing blood rituals outside of the temple to Lolth."
"The Reaver uses a knife," Pohatkon stated strongly, standing straight again. "A carved silver one, that MacSairlen said he saw pop up out of a man's head and fly straight up in the air. I remember that much. So this boy's a monk initiate. Knows magic enough to kill a man while kneeling at prayer, but he's no damn good with a blade," Pohatkon chuckled. "Even I disarmed him. To boot, Leatherface goes, 'Nyet' soon's he sees him go by- apparently, that means 'no.' Ranclyffe says he's got worms in his head, but I believe him on that one."
Luvec resisted the urge to poke at the fresh hay with the toe of his shoe. "You gonna let him go on to Cormyr?"
"He can't stay here. Not with a disease like that. According to Ranclyffe, the one worm gets in your head, then begins replacing your brains with its spawn. You get some headaches, you puke a bit, nothing so bad as to put a good soldier down. But before you know it, two boys playing in the street could turn into dangerous monsters from the depths- and you would attack them as though they really were." The man shook his head with a sigh. "The thing's docile as a bloody puppy, most the time. Can't put anybody in the cell with him, though- Nithraz found that out the hard way." Pohatkon picked up the rake and moved past Luvec and into the room with the open door. Luvec followed him, only to be surprised by the source of the smell- the well-used hall of grotesque torture instruments, complete with chamber pots that had been left to fester in the corners of the place.
"Dear gods, Sakoda-" the silver haired Human began, pinching his face up.
"Ser Sadist, at your service- and everyone else's," the high captain sighed deeply, completely ignoring the smells and the sights of remains still on some of the instruments. "Frankly, the more I talk to him, the less I think he's sick, but Ranclyffe says that's the trouble with the worms- they don't eat everything. There's a lot of him in there, or so she says- and truly, I just don't want to cross her on that one. In case she's right. I can't put the whole town guard at risk, just because he's the politest handbag I've yet had the pleasure to turn thumbscrews on."
"You always- were one to- ugh- pick your battles," Luvec managed, his eyes finding no comforting place to rest. "Did you have to leave that one hanging upside down?"
"Eh?" Pohatkon said absently, following Luvec's revolted gaze to a prisoner who'd been hung upside down by two hooks in his pelvic bone and allowed to remain. It seemed that his mouth had also been somehow mutilated, although with all the flies swarming him, it was hard to tell. "Oh, him. Well, he shouldn't have tried to sell his wife to slavers. You think he's bad off, you should see her- poor thing's abed a week now. Can't go to market or cook all beat up like that, so my daughter and I brought her some food. I thought hoisting this bastard up by his prick-box would be a nice touch- lady had a good laugh at it yesterday. Did my heart good to see her at least try to smile, even with most of her mouth still swollen."
Luvec gave up and closed his eyes, but could only maintain that for a few moments, since the lazy buzzing all around him irked him deeply. "This is-"
"Useful," Pohatkon insisted, raising a finger. "It's all about results. My job is- or, now I suppose part of it is- to make most living creatures uneasy from the moment they get in the door. The rest are why I have spikes and screws." Chuckling at Luvec's revolted look, he turned to check on the long needles that rested on a small table on the other side of a closed coffin. "I'm not a monster, you know. Any time he tells me who his slaver contact was, he's free to go. And I do turn him right side up once or twice per hour- depends on when I think he's losing consciousness. I'm very attentive that way."
"High Captain Sakoda?" the Halfling female asked, peeking around the corner with an arm full of paper.
"Thank you, Gwen; read them," Pohatkon commanded, moving toward the coffin and opening it to reveal flesh that had been entrenched between the spikes within. With a short sigh, he began calmly scraping off the fly eggs with a small knife. The Halfling gagged, but Pohatkon didn't even bother to turn around. "If you're going to vomit, use the bucket on the left side of the rack. Muck in there could do with some freshening."
"Dear gods-" Luvec began.
"I doubt any one of them will listen to you, down here," Pohatkon pointed out in a flat voice that Luvec couldn't quite place. "Take your time, girl- try covering your face, until you can stand the smell."
"Edict number five hundred seventy four," the Halfling began, putting the cloth of her tunic over her nose and mouth and squinting her eyes nearly shut to prevent flies from getting at her. " 'The public stoning of suspected witches without due process and trial. Insomuch as-' "
"Skip down to where Mimsa gets to the point," Pohatkon counseled, flicking the eggs into a convenient chamber pot and moving on to another piece of stuck flesh. "Bloody flowery bitch."
The Halfling giggled quietly- much to Luvec's surprise- as she skimmed the document. "Um... oh, here... 'Therefore, all suspected Shadovar witches must be reported to the nearest guard, who will at once bodily apprehend the woman-' "
"Ranclyffe must have been teaching," Pohatkon interjected acridly. "She'd never have stood for that."
" 'and bring her to the Mage's Quarter council member for judgement. Should the woman be found in any way guilty, she shall be burned immediately. All parties caught in the act of stoning a suspected practitioner of Shadovar magic shall be put in irons at sunrise and imprisoned for no less than four days-' "
"Imprisoned?" Pohatkon echoed immediately, standing away from the spikes of his instrument and straightening himself. "The woman- and apparently, the edict's offenders can only be women- can be bodily dragged off at any godless hour to be burned immediately if Mimsa's in any way convinced that she should be, but the person caught preparing to stone her is merely imprisoned for four days? And unlike the poor woman, they get to sleep through the night! Mimsa's not protecting the city, she's getting rid of competition- where the hell is she right now?"
"Um..." the Halfling frowned for a few moments, then shrugged. "Gimago might know. Should I-"
"You know what? Let's deal with it later." Pohatkon wiped the knife on a cloth that sat on a long wooden table in the center of the room, then moved to the other side of the room to attend to the gears of the rack. "Don't sit on that chair, Luvec, it's spiked. Give me another one."
The Halfling female nodded, which caused her twisted knot of brown hair to bob and shudder behind her, then shuffled the paper in her arms. "Addition to act number ninety two, 'The Protection of Registered Coven Members against Persecution.' "
"They must have added the Raven folk," Luvec murmured, still looking back at the cloth-covered chair that he didn't have the heart to inspect.
" 'In addition to the registered gatherings of religious magic workers, practicing coven members and students of good standing enumerated-' "
"Why bother reading Mimsa's drivel from the beginning!" Pohatkon exclaimed. "Just give me the juicy bits."
"Ah... yes, the Raven Queen's coven is here," the Halfling smirked, swatting a fly away from her eyes. "Along with the Psions of Zuoken, the- oh, um- the Blighted Ones of Incabulos-"
"That'll end well," Luvec quipped, rolling his eyes.
"And the coven of Pyremius."
Pohatkon moved away from the rack, but paused mid-stride at this pronouncement. "She won't let the Firebirds settle here without getting tailed by guards, but she brings back the goddamned coven of Pyremius?"
"At least they'll be registered this time," the Halfling replied with another shrug. "It's a risk, but Cormyr would probably put them in the middle of the sea on a boat without oars, and Sembia would sell them cheaply up to Thultanthar for dissection."
"They should have considered their options more carefully," Luvec groaned. "In this town, they'll be vivisected."
"That'd be a sight to see," Pohatkon noted thoughtfully as he finished his cross to a low burning brazier and the ash-and-burn covered body strapped into a chair right behind it. In a small cage on a stool to the right side of the chair were six jumpy mice. Chunks of hair were missing from the body in the chair, as though it were dropping out due to disease. "Alright, I'll register the Pyremius nutters, just to see which one of us gets to slice into one of them first- me, or Semnemac. Leave that one on the table for my seal. Another."
The Halfling shuffled the papers so that the one that she had to remember rested between two fingers at the bottom of the pile. Pohatkon meanwhile produced a bit of bread and cheese from a pouch hanging over his belt and calmly introduced it into the suddenly noisy cage. "Inquiry number one hundred fifty eight, 'Non-payment of Noble Taxes. The following nobles ain't paying their share: Illance, Bristlebur, Gai-' "
"Hold on, hold on," Luvec urged, prompting Pohatkon to pause in his feeding of the rodents. "Illance is dead- the house collapsed on itself because of a fire in the basement. Bristlebur isn't noble. The man's a bloody good harper, but he's not a noble."
"Nobility's changed, is the trouble," Pohatkon sighed. "There aren't titles earned by blood; just titles earned by gold. That would be the Stonemuncher's fault. Also, he's sending me an inquiry why?"
The Halfling skimmed the paper briefly, then shrugged. "It reads more like a summons to me; I don't know why he didn't just draft an arrest order."
"Do nobles get arrest orders?" Luvec asked, noticing that the body strapped into the chair before Pohatkon seemed to move slightly at the sound of the mice.
"If they didn't before, they're going to start now," Pohatkon sighed, standing straight and rubbing his hands together to get crumbs off them. "I'm not sending guardsmen to basically go and politely ask the nobles to open their dupe record books. They'll be arrested and properly dealt with until the real books come out."
"That- person- is still alive, isn't it?" Luvec managed, realizing with some sinking feeling that he couldn't tell which gender the person might be.
"Yes," Pohatkon replied, walking back over to the table and picking up an instrument that resembled a pear attached to a thick metal handle. "Yes, he is. Although in a few minutes, I'm certain he won't want to be."
The high captain picked up a pair of tongs, then pulled a lever on the instrument back, and the pear opened to reveal a wire mesh that also opened with a key screw at the side. When the Human walked over to the brazier before the body and calmly placed a single red coal inside the wire mesh, Luvec felt a dread clamp down on his gut.
"What did he do?"
The Halfling, who hadn't been fazed by Pohatkon's agonizingly slow movement as he first closed the mesh, then the pear shaped covering, turned to answer- almost brightly. "He's one of the Dark Quarter survivors. He-"
"Wait, wait," Pohatkon interrupted, walking around the man while gazing at the instrument in his hands. "Let the gent himself speak. That is, if he has something to say?"
At first, the prisoner merely whimpered, but when Pohatkon suddenly ripped the strap around his chest off and kicked the chair out from under him, the whimpers became open mouthed cries. Waving the hand with the tongs, the torturer dismissed the Halfling female- who wasn't slow about moving out.
"Gwen, you'd better- ha, she's gone. Well, now we can talk like men," Pohatkon breathed, rolling the man over with a foot, then planting the foot on the bruised back. The rounded bottom of the pear came close to the prisoner's backside, flipping the loinscloth that had laid over it up so that Pohatkon had easy access. "It's worse once it's inside. Once it's inside, I start opening it. And when it opens, your shithole gets introduced to the tender, warm kiss of Asmodeus."
"I- I- took payment- for p-protection," the man stammered, his voice wavering on the edge of prepubescent-like cracking. "Valuables, money."
"And when they didn't have any money?" Pohatkon prompted tenderly, as though he were reminding a small child of a forgotten toy. He swung the arm holding the implement slightly, inhaling the smell of the warming metal with a strange, distant pleasure that printed itself plainly on his face.
"Then- I- demanded sex."
Pohatkon dropped his arm so that the bottom of the pear was inches away from the man's behind.
"From?"
The man began crying, which brought a vicious smile to Pohatkon's face. He gently touched the back of one of the man's thighs with the bottom of the pear.
"Oops."
"Oh gods!" the man exclaimed in a sob, gulping in the foul air and choking on it almost immediately. "The children! I took their children- please, please, don't put it in there!"
Pohatkon exhaled slowly, like a newlywed relishing the last flickers of good love making. "I'm happy to oblige, you know. I am. But you have to tell me what I want to know first. That's the deal. You give me the names of the guardsmen who were in on your game, and you go free- or you go in a few more days... maybe weeks, if I like you... as free as you can, with your hair cut to shags, your asshole burned out and your guts chewed through by panicked mice. It's up to you how long this goes on, my friend."
"I... I can't," the man whined. "It was secret, hush-hush, nobody helped me. Nobody knew."
"If it was so hush-hush, so secret and private, I still wouldn't know about it," Pohatkon soothed. "Those families would have tried to keep their own safe by not breathing a word. But that's not what happened, is it?"
The pear-shaped device was waved about a quarter inch away from the back of the man's thighs, prompting small whimpers and actual tears. Luvec stared at the man- whom he could no longer consider a victim- as Pohatkon quietly threatened some of the most delicate flesh he had.
"If you turn your head just a bit, you'll see that chair I asked my friend not to sit on. The last person who had the honor sang about you like a well-trained bird. Of course, you don't know who snitched, so I'll just describe the person for you. He walks with a cane, must have a cushion to sit down upon, is missing two nails from his right hand, and the tip of his tongue has a burn hole. Through it. The awl took a while to warm up, but it was worth it- that man is blessed with a truly enchanting scream. I'd bring him by to visit, but we promised each other that we'd do our best to never cross each others' paths again. So I'll just let you... hmm... imagine what a red-hot awl and a chair lined with spikes can do to a man for now. We can chat again once I've shown my former comrade here the door."
And with that, Pohatkon kicked the man back over, replaced the chair and put him back in it, then put the strap back around his chest and arms. There was a momentary quiet that was punctuated only by the creaking of thick rope and a few soft, embarrassed sniffs.
"Ser Sadist indeed," the silver haired Human nodded, at a loss for pity. "You earned the title, and not entirely without reason. But you can't bring every crooked guardsman down here, and the Dark Quarter certainly didn't eat them all. You need more efficient methods- you need help."
Pohatkon stopped and turned to the noticeably pale Luvec. The silver haired male looked somehow much older- more fragile than normal. Pohatkon blamed himself immediately, but found himself at a verbal impasse.
"Help?" he asked limply, not sure of the answer he would receive.
"With putting paid to all this bullshittery, once and for all," Luvec finally managed, thoughts beginning to file neatly in his head. "The pirating, the traded favors, the useless laws, the secret plots and hoarded tax money- you'll need a hand. And someone logical at the other end of it. When last I was a guardsman, it was about getting the physical presence of Sembia- and the Shade Enclave- out of our borders. Now, it's not so simple. It's about sorting through our own, taking out the trash, putting light to where all the damned underhanded, shadowy plots are. You'll need someone to hold the torches."
"So thinks the crown of Cormyr," Pohatkon noted. "I got a missive- said they were sending MacSairlen back to serve as Lord Captain."
"Is that so?"
"They were sending him to Nithraz. Cormites didn't have their sons and brothers die here to let Sembia swallow us back up, so they likely would have sent the whole of the guard, if MacSairlen had said it was needed. Tusk-mouth's dead though, and nobody's asked me my opinion on it yet." Pohatkon put his hands on Luvec's shoulders for a few moments, then decided against embracing him. Forcibly turning him around, he began marching the swordsman toward the fresh air and light that sometimes made his skin crawl worse than any sight in his gory playground. "You can think these edicts through with me. And I could use someone who can teach these sword wielders how not to get disarmed by a boy of ten years. Come get your crest on before it rusts away to nothing, you fowlhearted old crone."
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