The fire was burning, and it was a big one.

The twin flames of rumor and fear were burning brightly, and it was all the Church could do to keep the fire under control.

It had been a very long time indeed since anything approaching this level of bloodshed had occurred on native soil. Death was everywhere. On the streets. In the auction house. In the old slave cemetery. Bodies... and pieces of bodies... seemed to lay in every direction and around every corner. The death toll was... 'unofficial'... but there was not a soul in town who's own circle of friends, family, or business acquaintances were not left poorer by one or two.

People were afraid. Anger would come later, but for now, it was the stench of fear that threatened to overpower even the growing odor of the corpses. The Church tossed out its declarations of "isolated incident" and "situation under control" for hours on end... sometimes having to shout over the howls of frightened townspeople and the screams of women... and some men... who'd been driven just a little bit mad by the thought of human bones raining down from the sky. Were they speaking the truth? The priests themselves did not know. The sanctum hallways buzzed with whispers of the ancient slave-born evil that had come at least once before. Had it come again? Did the slaves once again have magic, even after all of the work the Church had done in the wreckage of the LAST...

...ohhh, but no. THAT was not a proper topic for discussion. Faith and Power protected the kingdom from evils of slave-magic. The Church was the Shield of the People. The slaves and their Dark Arts... if there were any who still dared practice it... were no match for the Order of the Illumitat... the Church of Light. The prayers of the righteous-

-had been spat back into their faces this day. What was never supposed to happen again, had indeed happened. And now, fear and rumor wove their own magic upon the people. The old stories crept from their hiding places and whispered into the ears of the fearful.

For the first time in a generation, the name "Ellis" did not summon images of grand island orchards, rich bastard heirs, or fine fighting gladiators... but rather of a single plantation and the horror that had transpired there over twenty years ago. The townspeople were talking about THAT again. And that was not good. Not for the Church. Not for the town. Not for anyone.

And so, as the priests worked to calm the people, and the town's guardians feverishly sought the female slave they believed to be responsible, a squirming uneasiness wormed its way through the city. Some feared the return of dark magic. Others feared the uncertainty. Still others feared the fear, and what it might cause their friends, neighbors, and owners to do.

Were the townsfolk not largely ignorant of what had transpired on Isle Ellis, then the situation would have been much worse.

From the guard tower Zachorion Nightrider could get a good look at the warrior woman's revenge. It was ugly. The woman and her golem had killed five guardsmen of house Ellis and three of Rhinestail's mercenaries in the first exchange. She had wounded two more guardsmen and killed another in a second encounter. But the people of Hawklinsville had faired even worse, loosing perhaps a dozen citizens to her initial attack. If the signature of the magic in the bones that had rained on Hawklinsville matched that in the splinters of wood from the golem, then she and her necromancer were also responsible for hundreds of additional deaths. Not doubt the church would want to conduct that test independently of Master Ellis.

The reports coming over the heliograph from the mainland confirmed that the woman had stirred up a hornet's nest. The church, the citizens and the gentry were outraged. Nightrider had no doubt that Captain Rhinestail would tell the authorities exactly what had occurred on the isle the moment he set foot on the mainland. The plague splinters from the golem were already causing trouble by killing marine life. For the moment, no one was allowed to leave the island for fear of spreading the plauge. Yet while the plague served as an excuse to keep people off the isle, it also put a spotlight on the isle as the origin of the magical plague.

Although the wind was gusting primarily towards the water, House Ellis had already lost over a score of field slaves to the plague carried by wind-born splinters from the golem. Outbreaks required instant action, as the disease was quite contagious. The overseers had moved the remaining slaves out of the orchards while alchemist Jallan studied the plague in his laboratory and worked on a cure. In spite of the heat, guardsmen were now wearing protective clothing. They had also covered the areas that had been showered with the greatest number of splinters with weighted sailcloth to keep the splinters from being picked up by the wind to claim yet more lives. There was talk of enlisting the help of an enchanter or priests of the church to dispel the magic contained in the splinters, but it was still too early to tell what master Ellis would do to cleanse his isle.

The gladiatorial practice arena was, of course, untouched by all of this. When the body of the female intruder was carried away, the gladiators filed back in and resumed their training as if nothing had happened. The crowd of spectators dispersed as quickly as they had arrived. Most of the slaves went about their tasks as if the alarms had never sounded. The guard patrols were doubled, and all off-island plantations and businesses had been placed on high alert. Ellis himself had vanished... vanished, but not retreated... back into his stronghold, along with his cadre of guards and attendants. Interestingly enough, the FIRST intruder... the speeder... was seen with him. Only he wasn't quite so fast now, confined to a wheeled chair powered only by the muscles of the aging overseer, Grady. The speeder's ridiculous blue cloak was gone, replaced a dark hooded robe that hid his face almost as well as the original. The man slumped weakly in his seat, his only motions being the occasional wince of pain whenever Grady jostled the chair... which Grady did as often as possible. The overseer seemed unusually happy as he wheeled his helpless charge out of the arena. The old man's smile was not a thing most slaves liked to see. Word on the island was that Grady had helped bring the villain down himself. As impossible as that seemed, it HAD been passed along by some reputable sources on the inside. Perhaps there was still some life left in the old man yet...

"You have no idea," Grady's sinister chuckle resonated through the corridor... along with the annoying metallic squeak from the wheels of Blaymore's chair. "...NO idea how happy you've made me. Oh, I'm not gonna say I've waited me whole life to get you under my thumbs again... because I haven't. Maybe that alchemist has... but me, I'd forgotten about you a loooong time ago. You and that girl. See... MOST slaves that make it to freedom are smart enough not to come back. I figured I'd seen the last of you two. But here you are! You turning up here like this... it's like... it's like a bloody BIRTHDAY gift when it isn't even my birthday! HA! Are you listening to me, BOY!?"

Grady rattled the chair to get his new plaything's attention. Michael's head rolled back, and his eyes stared blankly up at the overseer.

"There ye are," Grady smiled down at him. "You back with us now?"

Some distant twinge of emotion swam across Michael's face. His lips parted and he exhaled a slow, stale breath...

"...mmotherrrr..."

Grady didn't know if the boy was hallucinating or was trying to call him a particularly vulgar name. After a moment's consideration, he decided to assume the former.

"She sure could scream, couldn't she?" said Grady, smiling. "But you know what was better than makin her scream? Doing it with you and your sisters there watching. The looks on your faces... mmmmm... especially yours. When that old bitch fell you looked like you was gonna wither and die right there on the spot! ...kinda the same way you look right now, in fact."

Grady brought the wheelchair to a halt in the corridor, and leaned down to whisper in the slave's ear. "Are you there again, boy? You seein' it? You hearin' that whip whistle just before it kisses your mama's hide?..."

Grady paused to lean in closer. He made a low whisper in the back of his throat, then forced the air out through his teeth... using his tongue to shape the sound into an almost perfect imitation of a whip cutting through air-

"wwww-KAK!"

Michael whimpered. His head had been resting lazily on the back of the chair, but the sound snapped him upright-

"wwww-KAAK!" Grady repeated the cruel taunt. Moving his lips even closer to Michael's ear, he did it again, this time shouting at the top of his voice.

"WWW-KAK!"

Michael jerked in his chair. His hands and legs trembled involuntarily... igniting a painful jolt from his collar. Pain danced up and down his spine, slicing into the gaps between his vertebrae with the same cruel precision that the overseer's taunt had pierced his heart.

"MAMA NO-nnNNNGH!"

"Ya-HAAaa!!" Grady laughed, shaking the chair back and forth with such violence that he nearly tossed Michael out onto the floor. "HAHAAAAaaaa..."

Grady's rough laugh faded... first becoming the disappointed growl of an old man... and then a mere sigh of exasperation.

"-aahh, it's just not the same," he said. "Magic and fancy gadgets. BAH! Nothing can take the place of a good whip and a strong arm! You remember, boy? You've felt Grady's whip before, eh? You tell me now... these collars don't hold a candle to my artwork, do they..."

Grady hadn't expected his charge to respond, but Michael's trembling lips parted, and the captive slave exhaled a stuttering string of words in a low, hesitant whisper.

"...not.... afraid.... of you..."

"Oh?" said Grady. "And to that, I say-" He leaned down once more. "-BOOO!!"

Again, Michael stiffened. Again, the collar rewarded him with a jolt of hot agony. After a brief, choking scream, Michael sat mercifully still in the chair.

But Grady wasn't finished. Smiling, he whispered...

"You'll be getting a taste of that whip again soon, boy. Yes, indeed. You AND that sister you dragged back here. Made fools out of me, you did... all those years back. Nobody gets away. Nobody touches an overseer. But then you go runnin' off, and your sister slaughters some of my best men like cattle. I'll be takin' that out of both your hides before the week is out; I guarantee that. And maybe... juuuust maybe... heh... yes, I think we'll make it a family affair. You can sit in your chair and watch your sister take hers. I'll make her scream nice and loud for ya, too. Just like mama! I'll make her howl and beg! And you can just sit there and PISS yourself just like you did last time! How would you like that, eh boy? Eh?"

"...don't... touch-"

"Or WHAT, boy? Don't touch your sister or you'll do WHAT? Run away? You don't exactly have a history of being around when your sisters need protectin'. You DO know what happened to the other one, don't ya? Of course ya do.... heh... waste of good property, that was. And you coulda stopped it. But I guess you was too busy doin'... whatever it is that cowards do. Gonna protect this one even better? Eh? EH!?"

Grady shook the chair again. Michael groaned in reeling, dizzy pain.

"Pitiful," Grady growled. He shoved the chair forward and started walking behind it... pushing Michael along the corridor with sudden starts and jerks. "Almost not even worth my time..." Grady's voice trailed off in the distance leading to Jallan's lab. "...almost."

-------------

Two burly Ellis guards lifted Bethsaida by the thick metal belt they had locked around her waist and carried her into the corridors beneath the Arena. Shackles that forced her wrists to remain bent at nearly right angles to her arms had replaced her bracers. The shackles locked directly to the rear of the metal belt. A foot-long metal bar joined the shackles locked around her ankles to one another. A long steel rod ran down her back and connected the rear of her collar to her belt and the center of the rod that joined her ankles. This forced her to stand up straight by preventing her from bending her back or her knees. As the paralytic venom wore off, she would be able to walk with small shuffling steps or to take small straight-legged hops using only the muscles of her calves.

Nathaniel Ellis smiled wistfully as Bethsaida and the guards assigned to her joined him and his entourage outside the arena. In spite of the sand from the battle and the hardware that she wore, Bethsaida was the picture of beauty in rage. Master Ellis appreciated the anger that enslaved her mind every bit as much as he appreciated the delightful contours of her body.

Nathaniel's feline eyes swept over the warrior woman's figure. "Bethsaida, it is a pleasure to see you again."

Zade swam in and out of consciousness several times before she managed to grasp onto something... a name... a voice... and hold herself awake. She was paralyzed. And dizzy.

And beaten.

Her limbs (almost) shuddered at the slow ooze of memories dripping back into her thoughts. She'd been unconscious for... how long? She was moving, but not walking. Carried? Someone was talking. To her?

Someone had said her name. Her REAL name.

One eye was open almost enough to see. Blurs swarmed around her. Their buzzing became words...

...words that reeked with the stench of Ellis.

"...you..." she moaned. It was a question, not a curse... but it sounded more like the later than the former.

"I believe your rage adds a certain elemental mystique to your beauty, Bethsaida," Nathaniel said. "Yet, it is such a pity that you have returned. Your personality is entirely wrong for slavery. I had hoped you would find freedom and happiness after your escape and never return to bondage."

"...won't be for long..." Bethsaida drooled. "...you kill me.... or I kill you. Either way..."

The effort of speaking made her suddenly dizzy. Or perhaps it was the movement. The blurs of the guards became slightly more distinct, and she felt a brief twinge of pain somewhere along her spine. The paralysis would be weakening soon.

"...either way," she repeated, this time with more energy. "I won't be here long..."

"Nay, I have no wish to kill you, Bethsaida. I do not even wish to own you. Even when I was the inconsequential white-trash servant of Alchemist Jallan, my wish was that you would escape Percival Ellis, and so you did. I regret you wounded and killed so many men while making that escape, but I believe they gave you plenty of reason to do so. As it turns out, most of them would have been killed in the events that facilitated your escape anyway."

It took Zade's muddled mind a few dizzy seconds to figure out what Ellis was talking about. And even then, she wasn't sure. Chase had mentioned something before... something about an evil that had come to the plantation the night she escaped. A lot of people died... but Ellis, Jallan, and Overseer Grady were not among them.

"...I don't know what you're talking about," she sneered. She was telling the truth. She knew SOMETHING had happened, but she had no idea what. She did know one thing, however: "I escaped on my own. I sent your drunken overseers to hell. And then I did the same to your dogs. I'll do the same to you, too. But this time, there won't be anyone left to make up stories. You... anyone that protects you... and anyone still bearing the name of Ellis will die. Painfully. Unless, of course, you're smart enough to kill me while you have the chance."

"My drunken overseers?" Nathaniel asked dubiously as he and his entourage filed through the guardroom security checkpoint. A wheeled dolly was waiting and the two guards put Zade on it. One of them wheeled her down the tiled corridors more or less across the hall from Master Ellis, as they turned towards the laboratory complex.

"They were hardly mine," Ellis said. "I do not know if anyone has told you yet, but most of the members of my father's family, his guards and his staff were struck insane or killed by the events that facilitated your escape. The trauma rendered them unfit to run the estate. Not that Percival was ever fit in the first place," Nathaniel scoffed.

"It is ironic, but I, a mere bastard, became the patriarch of house Ellis largely due to the efforts of you and your benefactor. It is almost as if he spared me because he knew I had tried to help you in my own insignificant white-trash way. In any case, Hawthorne Ellis took over the running of the estate during the years just after you left. He was an able administrator. I became his assistant. Unfortunately he later decided to defend the family's honor against a gentleman who was handier with a sword than he was. When he died, my wreck of a father decided I was the only one fit to run the estate, a task that was certainly beyond him at that point. He could barely function due to the horrors he had faced on the night of your escape."

"Such a pity..." Sharp sarcasm dripped from Zade's lips. She tried to sound uninterested in what Ellis was saying... but that wasn't true. She wanted to know more. More about the killing and the horrors. It all sounded so... exquisite! Perhaps she would torture the rest of the story out of Ellis when she escaped. Whenever that was.

A door was opened and Ellis and his people entered a corridor that was lined with rooms devoted to the study of alchemy. A myriad of odors wafted down the hallway as if the alchemist were working overtime in an attempt to create some new potion. Nathaniel's group headed for an examination room.

"I realize your character will not allow you to accept the idea that you had help that night, and certainly your efforts were pivotal. No one could have escaped for you," Nathaniel said. "Let me assure you, however, you would never have escaped had you not had help. I had hoped you would make a clean getaway after the horrors that were heaped on you that day. The odds were good. The estate was understaffed because of Percival's bacchanal."

"A dark-skinned slave at night is very difficult to spot," Nathaniel observed. "Unfortunately, luck was not with you. I was sure my small contribution to your escape was all in vain when an overseer spotted you and sounded the alarm. At that point, I believed you would shortly be dog meat. I felt guilty for having done what I could for you since it appeared that your attempt at escape was about to end in death. You said you killed some dogs? Were they alive at the time you saw them?" Nathaniel Ellis asked.

"Alive enough..." Zade tried to move. She managed to wiggle a toe... but that wasn't quite enough to foster any plans of an escape. If she kept Ellis talking long enough... "-until they caught up with me."

"Do you remember how many dogs you actually fought?" Nathaniel asked.

"Two. Three..." Zade remembered the night. Her escape. Her mind snarled at the images as if they were real. Dogs. They had sent dogs after her. And now this fool was trying to convince her that he had HELPED her escape?!

"Did you ever wonder what happened to the rest of them? I assure you that Harriek loosed the entire pack to hunt you and they were not in the habit of straying far from one another. Some were simply faster runners than others were. I am sure they all pursued you because most of the pack returned looking decidedly different from when they had left. That part I saw myself," Nathaniel said.

"..." Zade wasn't quite sure what she was going to say. She had seen Harriek and his dogs hunt before... she knew that there were a lot more than three... so what DID happen to the others?

The question had simply never come up until now. But now that it HAD come up...

"...so what are you saying? That you helped me? Is that supposed to keep me from killing you the first chance I get? Huh?"

"I had nothing to do with reducing the number of dogs that pursued you. Your primary benefactor took care of that. After your recent actions in Hawklinsville I have no doubt that you would try to kill me if given the chance. If you were left to your own devices I am certain you would go on a murderous rampage until you succumbed to death yourself," Nathaniel said. "I am already aware that you have tried and succeeded to take more innocent lives in one stroke than the entire Ellis clan has been responsible for in my lifetime. Your mind was obviously damaged by the events of your childhood. I regret that, but at the time, my power to help you was very limited."

Zade surprised herself by making a fist. Her arm strained against her restraint... if only for a brief second. Good. Ellis's time was running out even faster than she had hoped...

"... you can't accept the fact that one of your slaves got away," she said. "So you make up lies to cover it up. Stories about monsters. Delusions about you helping me escape. None of it is going to save you, Ellis. If you're not smart enough to be rid of me while you have the chance, then your own stupidity will kill you just as sure as it did your dogs and overseers."

"I assure you I have stuck to the facts. You simply do not wish to hear them. As for killing you, I am afraid I could not kill you even if I wanted to, Bethsaida," Nathaniel said.

Further efforts to move proved futile, but Zade's eyesight and senses were rapidly emerging from the numbing fog to which the drugs had relegated them. Her nose and throat still tingled painfully from the gas the guards had used earlier. Her eyes burned. She blinked... swallowed... and began to look around. She couldn't move her neck to see all of the guards carrying her, and she couldn't tell if that was from the paralysis or some kind of restraint. The restraints she DID see were... strikingly sufficient. She'd need a lot more of her movement back before she could get out of them, but she wondered...

...would they hold a WOLF as securely as they held a human? Probably not, but she decided not to test that theory out just yet. Besides, changing from force of will alone was still beyond her. Or was it?

"You have succeeded at making yourself anathema throughout the kingdom," Nathaniel continued. "In a few minutes, I must compose a letter to send to the Church. The Church and the Crown will crush me like a bug if I fail to immediately report that I have captured you. You may have once seen Master Ellis as a dread and powerful figure, but the Church and the Crown see me, his successor, as a successful white-trash farmer and breeder of fighting slaves."

"You're all trash to me," Zade growled. She tried to summon up enough anger to trigger the beginnings of a change... which would force the rest of the poison out of her body. But her thoughts and emotions were like water... she could neither grasp nor control them. Her sharpened senses had returned, but the contents of her mind were still streaked and blurry.

"When they arrive they will push me aside like an inconsequential puppy before fighting over possession of you like two very large, very rabid dogs."

"I wonder how many of them I'll get to kill..." Zade snarled. "...on my way back to you."

"I felt that if your martial skills were sufficient, I might be able to convince them to delay your immediate execution in favor of an eventual death in the gladiatorial games. It is a long shot, but I believe I might convince them that the appeal of your slaughterous evil would draw crowds like nothing else, and the populous would get immense satisfaction from seeing you publicly defeated."

Zade jerked in her restraints, and a low but still human growl rumbled in her throat.

"I will not be entertainment! I am not your slave!"

"Since you were quite impressive in the arena and exhibited magical properties, I have decided to add minute samples of your tissue to my study on human traits," Nathaniel said.

A young male slave waited in the examination room. The room was set up much like the office of a leech with a table-like bed covered with fresh linens. A desk and various cabinets of medical supplies and equipment furnished the room. When they arrived the slave greeted them with a nod and began to push a small wheeled table toward them. The table was covered with a pristine white cloth. The slave parked the table beside Bethsaida and carefully folded the cloth back...

...revealing a meticulous arrangement of torture implements. Needles. Long, sharp, needles.

"Not going to turn me over without a round of torture, eh?" Zade chuckled. "You'll be disappointed."

"Rem here will be taking the samples using specialized syringes. You will feel little if any pain depending on how much paralytic venom you still have in your system. When we are done here, we will meet your brother Michael in Jallan's laboratory."

Michael.

The name was like ice down her spine. She'd forgotten him. She'd seen him at the arena, but hadn't remembered it until Ellis spoke the name.

That name.

Had Ellis captured him?

No, of course not. That wasn't possible. This was more treachery. Ellis was trying to... confuse her... somehow. But she HAD seen him.

"heh," Zade chuckled. "The man you've got... the man you THINK you've got... isn't my brother. Michael died a long time ago. What YOU'VE got is something else... something a lot more dangerous than me. And you're keeping us BOTH here under your nose? Heh... your Church and your Crown will find an island of corpses when they arrive. That, I can guarantee."

"Had the wind been in a different direction today I am sure this might already be an island of corpses. Jallan has already started working on a powerful magical disease-curing potion for the arcane plague contained in the splinters of your wooden golem. The wind-borne splinters have claimed the lives of over a dozen field slaves as well as several guardsmen," Nathaniel said.

"My heart bleeds for them," Zade snarled.

Rem began wiping spots on her belly with a folded cloth dipped in what smelled like alcohol. Then he plunged the first needle into her flesh. Zade felt nothing, but she hissed menacingly at the slave as he watched her blood fill up the tube at the end of the needle. Either Rem was deaf, or he felt nothing but the utmost confidence in the guard's ability to hold her. When the first syringe was full, he yanked it out, placed a tiny square of tape over the wound, and then immediately reached for the next needle on the tray... all without the slightest attention to Zade. Unintimidated, he continued until he had filled twelve syringes, taking less than three minutes to acquire Ellis's 'samples'.

"Splendid. Thank you Rem," Nathaniel said. "Now let us see how Jallan is doing on that cure."

The guards wheeled Zade back out into the hallway. They walked a short distance before entering another room.

The tables of Jallan's laboratory were crowded with beakers, retorts, small alcohol-fired torches and a plethora of other items of alchemical equipment, much of it currently in use. For a normal human, the smell of a hundred different boiling chemicals would have been moderately unpleasant. For a lycanthrope...

"GA-HK!"

Zade began to cough and squirm in her shackles as her sinuses revolted against the stench. It was like taking a breath of hot acid. Tears instantly blurred her eyesight to near-blindness.

Several voices rose at once... first, there was a startled, weak cry of:

"...Saida..."

Followed by a rowdy laugh which was quickly replaced by a worried: "Urrr...she's not sick, is she?"

Finally, there was a tired and slightly slurred:

"Sensitive nose is all. The wolfhounds do the same kind of thing when they come in here. Jallan looked Bethsaida over. "But she's no dog," Jallan cackled.

Her nose, eyes, and throat were still twitching... but her ears worked perfectly. She recognized the voices even after years of trying to erase them from her memory. The last was Jallan, the Alchemist. The second was Grady the Murderer. And the first was NOT Blaymore the Assassin. It was Michael, her brother. The Coward.

"NNNNN!" Zade strained against the restraints, as if trying to snap the sturdy metal with sheer willpower. Her muscles flared back to life... but her control over them was still sluggish and clumsy. "RRRRRR!"

The guards quickly removed her from the dolly and held her between them. She tried to yank her wrist out of the manacles behind her, but all she succeeded in doing was scraping off a fair amount of her own skin.

As her eyes began to clear, Zade saw Michael and Grady on the other side of the room, where Jallan fluttered quickly back and forth between the rows of bottles. Michael was wearing a collar much like the one she had on and was shackled and strapped very securely to a wheeled chair. He looked drugged.

Grady leered back at her, smiling. He hadn't changed. He was older, smaller, and weaker... but the man himself still radiated cruelty from his eyes like light form twin lanterns. His was not the lusty, carnal glare that the OTHER overseers held for their charges. No, his was something more sinister... even from eyes that were yellowed with age.

And, just like years passed, a coil of black leather hung from his belt like a tamed viper, ready to strike.

"Well, well," Grady said, smile widening. His fingers stroked the leather of his whip. He looked as if he were going to approach, but he glanced at Ellis and... when Ellis didn't acknowledge the look... decided to stay where he was.

Grady was here. Jallan was here. And Ellis...

...all here.

She wanted to kill them so bad she could taste it.

As the guards finished putting Zade on her feet, Nathaniel glanced at a cabinet and turned to Zade. "I am curious, do you remember how many of Percival's comrades were conscious when you killed them?"

This time, when Zade looked at Ellis, a spark of fresh rage glinted in her eyes.

"Why?" Zade hissed through clenched teeth. "Want to know if they saw it coming? Some did. You will."

"I am just curious how drunk they were at that time. You see Percival sent his thugs to visit the laboratory earlier that night. They were already under the influence when I saw them. Let me ask you this; a minute or two before you killed them were any of them sufficiently sober to notice you were walking around with a knife?" Nathaniel asked.

"No."

"Was anyone sober enough to raise his voice loudly enough to alert the estate guards?" Nathaniel asked.

Zade's eyes narrowed to slits.

"Why do you care?" She hissed with suspicion.

"Was anyone sober enough to stand and face off against you?" Nathaniel asked.

Zade didn't answer. She glanced at Grady and then, reluctantly, at Michael... as if they had some answer for the implication Ellis was trying to make. When her eyes returned to Ellis, she only exhaled in a slow, almost-growl... while silently twisting her wrists back and forth in the manacles.

"You have probably been to parties where alcohol was served. Did their degree of insensibility ever strike you as unusual?" Nathaniel asked.

"What are you getting out of this?" she sneered. Blood from her wrists began to fall to the floor behind her in ever-larger droplets. "These questions..."

"Relax, Bethsaida, your manacles have no sharp edges, yet you are pulling on your wrists so hard they are bleeding." Nathaniel opened a drawer and took out a thick silk strap used for securing unwilling subjects to Jallan's tables. "Guardsman, wrap one end of this strap around each of her arms under and over the elbow and tie each end in place. Then cinch the buckle in the middle of the strap to pull her elbows close together. If she cannot pull her elbows outwards then she will have very little leverage with which to pull her wrists off her arms. I do not wish her to suffer any unnecessary pain or damage. We will deliver her to the church or the crown in as pristine a condition as possible," Nathaniel said.

Her first attempt at escape foiled, Zade could only clench her fists and glare silently as the guards carried out their orders... tying her limbs to relieve her of what little freedom of motion she had. When the paralysis wore completely away, she would STILL be motionless.

Nathaniel returned his gaze to Bethsaida. "Today you have returned with powerful necromantic magic. There are few tales of slave magic of that caliber. My guess is that the magic you brought is from the same spell caster who helped you escape years ago. Why do you find it difficult to accept that the same man helping you today also helped you in the past?"

Because he wasn't there, Bethsaida thought... and almost said aloud. But those four words would only confirm information that Ellis may have only guessed at... that she had, in fact, had help getting here. N'Doki had provided her with magic when he sent her here. She didn't want to take his 'gifts'.... but at the time it didn't appear that she'd had a choice. Ellis knew none of that. But even though she didn't ASK for the magic, giving away N'Doki's... and, by association, December's... secrets wasn't something she was going to be tricked into quite so easily.

"Typical..." Zade said calmly. She had tightened her arms when the guards were adding the silk straps to her bonds. Now that the men had stepped back, she relaxed her forearms, giving herself a few fractions of an inch play in the straps. Unfortunately, she couldn't do anything with it just yet. The silk cloth was still too tight, and her arms still had no leverage. "There was magic... so I must have had help. Why? Because I'm a woman? A slave? Or both? The power is mine. You've seen it, and you'll see it again. I'm here to destroy you... This island. The town. Everything. I have the power to do it, too,... even tied up like this."

Zade's eyes narrowed.

"...but that would be too easy. YOU have to suffer. And for that, I won't use magic. I'll use my hands."

"Oh, and what does a bitch like you know about suffering, eh!" Grady barked from across the room. He stormed toward her, hand grasping his whip. "What I TEACH you, that's what! Let me touch her up, Mister Ellis! Just a few lashes... remind her of the proper RESPECT due to her superiors! Tell the guards to stand her up nice and straight... so I can hobble her back down again! JUST like her mama!"

"...I'll kill you..." Michael mumbled. His eyes followed Grady... but lagged slightly behind the overseer, as if he were afraid to look directly at him. "...you touch her..."

Nathaniel's voice took on an ominous tone as he repeated himself. "I do not wish her to suffer any unnecessary pain or damage. We will deliver her to the church or the crown in as pristine a condition as possible. That is an order that should not be necessary for me to repeat Mister Grady. You do not understand people. You could never break Bethsaida with torture. You could only kill her. She will never develop respect, however you can take great satisfaction from one thing."

"And what's that?" Grady grumbled.

"You are Bethsaida's roll model," Nathaniel said. "She has become The Overseer. She is more like you than most sons are like their fathers. Just look at the way she dresses. Remember her choice of weapons in the arena and consider her attitudes. She lumps all whites together into one hated class and all Ellises into one hated enemy. She finds it impossible to admit that she had help from me in drowning my half brother's unseemly bacchanal, just as you would find it impossible to admit having had any sort of important help from a slave."

Loud disagreement rose to Grady's lips, but went no further. Eyes burning, he mumbled only to himself as he stepped back among the rows of smoking beakers and bubbling flasks. He turned suddenly to Michael and Jallan-

"What are YOU lookin' at!"

Neither getting nor expecting an answer, the overseer folded his arms across his chest and stood in a rigid, almost military stance. His lips still hovered on the verge of speaking... but he didn't dare. Instead, he glared at Zade...

...and the look she returned to him was a mirror image of his own hatred. Reflected... amplified... and directed straight back at him as if by magic. In that moment, even with Zade unarmed and in chains, the words of Nathaniel Ellis were manifested so clearly that it was as if the scene had been acted out on his command.

Grady was looking at himself.

And he was not the only one to see it. Michael looked from his sister to his tormenter... weak, bloodshot eyes dragged from the former to the latter and back again. The two looked nothing alike, and yet... they were identical.

"...no..." Michael muttered. "...what... what magic is this?"

But there was no magic. Only the truth of the slavemaster's words. Grady and Zade were like twins staring at each other from across the room.

Nathaniel turned his head and smiled. "You see it Michael, do you not? If you traded your soul for hatred, you would know no fear. Hatred gives you power and all it asks in return is that you give up your free will. It is the same bargain offered by any good slave master."

Nathaniel turned back. "Bethsaida, I am curious. Does the line of work you went into involve extorting labor or money from innocent people through violence?"

Zade took her eyes from Grady slowly and reluctantly. Her muscles bulged as she strained unsuccessfully at her bonds... but she wasn't even aware that she was doing it. Through clenched teeth, she hissed:

"I kill people like you. And I am nothing like HIM."

Nathaniel studied Bethsaida carefully. "Ah, how unfortunate for my assessment of you. I must have been mistaken. If you simply kill for a living, you must be an assassin, a mercenary or a soldier in some king's army. Unless you came from a country that practiced some colorblind form of slavery where you could be an overseer, I would have guessed you were a prison warden or perhaps a sheriff for some despotic nobleman? Hmmm, or how about an enforcer for a crime lord?"

Zade's eyes narrowed. How much did this man know? Was he just guessing, or had she been set up? The idea seemed implausible... but if Ellis knew as much as he seemed to, then perhaps she and Blaymore had been LURED into coming here. Certainly Blaymore's arrival had to have been expected... or else he wouldn't have been captured.

Unless he was in on it...

A slow smile crept across Nathaniel's lips. "Yes, an enforcer, that would have been perfect for you, Bethsaida. And when some merchant in your charge was late with a payment or tried to fight back, you would exhibit the same righteous indignation that Grady does when a slave affronts him. No doubt, you would feel it was your sacred duty to teach the offender proper respect for his superiors with the business end of your whip." Nathaniel chuckled. "But of course that would have been much too perfect. You really would be *just* like Grady if that were the case."

"You talk too much," Zade sneered... a comment which earned a muffled '...hmph!' from Grady. "...especially for someone who has no idea what they're talking about."

"It is such a pity that my theory did not hold up. We might have come up with so many parallels. Can anyone think of any others?"

"This is nonsense!" Grady huffed... his own eyes narrowing to match Zade's expression almost perfectly. "She's a slave! PROPERTY! Just because she dresses up and carries a whip don't make her an overseer! If you want me to PROVE it then just let me have her! Gimme an hour and I'll have her squealing like-"

"I'm already going to kill you." Zade growled. "Every word you say just makes your death worse."

"Ya hear that, Mr. Ellis! More threats! From a SLAVE!" Grady advanced again... but only a few steps. The authority of his employer still kept him in check... just as the chains binding Zade was keeping HER rage at bay. The tension across the room was so high that someone walking between Zade and Grady risked being sliced in half.

"What are YOU looking at?" Zade snarled at Grady, her muscles clenching against her bonds. "Did I give you permission to look at me?"

On the other side of the room, Michael began to shake. His limbs trembled so badly that his restraining collar activated, sending a spark down his spine and coaxing a childish scream from his throat.

"SHUT HIM UP!" Grady shouted. "What the hell's wrong with him NOW!?"

"What have you done to him?!" Zade demanded... as if she were not in chains surrounded by guards.

Ellis' voice was like the calm in the eye of a storm. "That, 'permission to look at me,' line you just shouted, Bethsaida, is one Grady has used for years. This whole scene too closely resembles the scene of the death of Michael's mother. In any case, Michael began to tremble after you used Mister Grady's line. This brought him a jolt from his collar, which is set to react to any sudden movements on his part. You see Michael is much too dangerous when speeded so I have had to take certain precautions."

"Precautions!" Grady grumbled... clearly focusing on the last of Ellis's words in an effort to ignore the first. "HA! Didn't need no fancy magic the FIRST time he showed his face in here! That brother of yours is about as threatenin' as a fresh-spanked baby, and it wasn't no MAGIC that made him that way! It's RESPECT! The RESPECT I'll be teachin' you if you don't act proper!"

"...and this is the fool you compare me too..." Zade growled. She'd given up trying to pull her hands free... she lacked the leverage, even though she had more than enough will. "...first it was magical demons that helped me escape. And now I'm an overseer. I'll tell you what, Ellis... you let me go, and I'll kill you as an act of mercy. You're insane. You and that THING over there..." Zade glared at Grady, who glared right back at her. "Insane."

"Demons?" Nathaniel asked dubiously. "That was not it at all, Bethsaida, and I believe you must already know it. As soon as the guild enchanter arrives to compare the magic in your golem to that in the crushed carapace of the scorpion that I saved from the past, he will be able to prove you are working with the same necromancer now as you were then. You no doubt already know that on the night of your escape an eerie fog was raised around the estate to obscure vision, but Harriek's dogs did most of the actual fighting. They had been killed and reanimated. They were assisted by a hoard of bantika and various powerful spells thrown by a man who identified himself as legend's most powerful slave sorcerer. Yet why do I bother recounting those events to you? Has N'Doki not told you exactly how he attacked the estate during your escape?"

At the mention of the name, a stifling silence descended on the laboratory as if summoned by the darkest magics. Three syllables... one word... spoken almost as if it meant nothing... yet imbued with the power to strike Zade dumb in both word and thought. Even her thoughts slowed to a halt. For several long seconds, she could neither speak nor think... she could only hang uncomfortably from her bonds, twisting in the icy stillness that had replaced her boiling rage.

N'Doki. The necromancer.

It was HIS power that had brought her here. It had been HIS magic that she'd unleashed upon the town and upon Ellis's guards.... and what a terrible magic it had been.

Too terrible.

Even in a town such as Montfort, such power was difficult to come by, and was CERTAINLY not to be casually thrust upon someone who had not even asked for it. But that was exactly what he had done. He had used her drive for vengeance to fulfill out his OWN.

But WHY!?

N'Doki was so twisted... physically... by his own power that he was barely recognizable as a living human, yet he still bore the dark skin of a slave. Had he been here...?

Of course he had. The last of Ellis's words finally broke through the block of stunned denial... and she realized the full impact of what he had said.

N'Doki had rescued her.

No... she had rescued herself. But he HAD saved her life, giving her the opportunity to earn her freedom. Ellis had been right, Harriek never hunted without a full compliment of dogs. If it hadn't been for...

N'Doki

...the pack would have surely caught her and torn her apart in the woods. But they hadn't. Because of N'Doki, the dogs never reached her. Because of N'Doki... she was still alive.

But... but...

..but why? WHY!?!

The instinct was old and unused for almost a decade, but when summoned, it came just as strong as it had the last time. Zade's eyes looked past the leering Grady and sought her brother. Surely HE must have known... he HAD to have known..

He always knew EVERYTHING!

But Michael's eyes stared weakly back at her... his expression of pitiful helplessness now merged with something else. His face almost begged... not for help or freedom... but for an explanation. Now it was Zade that was looking into a mirror.

"I-..." she stammered, speaking to Michael... to Ellis... to herself... and yet saying absolutely nothing. "I..."

"I tried to trace the line of N'doki, but slave records being what they are it was impossible for me to do so. Tell me, was your mother a blood relation of his?" Nathaniel asked.

Zade could only blink blankly at him. He had asked her a question... but she had no idea of the answer. Her heart screamed 'no'... but could it be? How OLD was N'Doki? Where was he born? Where had he been enslaved? She knew the answer. Here. Why else would he send such horrible magics if not to punish those who had hurt HIM years... decades?.... centuries?... ago.

He had been a slave, yes. But he had been a slave HERE. Right Here...

Was THAT the reason he chose HER to carry his power across the miles? Is that the reason he used his power to help her escape!? Was she... blood? Her AND Michael?!

Madness, Zade thought. She shook her head in rejection of a fact that she could neither affirm nor deny. She had known her mother. Her father was but a memory. But beyond them... grandparents... distant ancestors...

Was N'DOKI among them? Dammit, how OLD WAS HE!?!

How could something so.... so... EVIL...

Across the room, Michael was again mirroring her thoughts... only HE was too weak to resist the anguished groan that Zade stifled in her throat.

"He lies..." Michael moaned. "He... LIES! HE LIES, Bethsaida! Don't Listen To HIM!! He is a DEMON and he LIES!!!"

"HA!" Grady the overseer pounced on the moment like a savage jungle cat. "HA-HAAAAaaa, LOOK at 'em squirm! BOTH of 'em! Looks like you touched a bit of somethin' there, eh, Ellis!"

Now it was Michael who strained at his bonds. But the struggle was shamefully brief.

"...he lies..." the assassin moaned as his head fell limp against his chest.

"I don't care!" Zade prodded the embers of her rage, trying to re-ignite the fire that had blazed so furiously earlier. Her eyes traveled from Grady to Ellis and back again. "I don't care WHAT you say or what you do-!"

"Oh, you'll be carin' soon enough!" said Grady.

"SHUT UP!" Zade spat.

"Seeing you with Grady I am beginning to think I know who your father was. Thankfully that is something I may confirm or refute through alchemical means," Nathaniel observed.

"Wha-a-a-AT!?!" Now it was Grady's turn to be stunned into silence. His silence, however, lasted only a second. "Wh-wh- DAMMIT, ELLIS! You KNOW I never touched any of your daddy's animals! NEVER! What are you trying to SAY here!?!"

"I know who my father was," Zade's teeth ground together as she hissed through them. "And it was NOT him!"

"It occurs to me that you are not in a very good position to judge whom your father was, Bethsaida. You were not around to witness your own conception. If you were Grady's child, do you honestly believe your mother would have told you or the other slaves? You would have been quite the outcast is she had," Nathaniel deduced.

Nathaniel glanced at Alchemist Jallan then turned to Grady. "Mister Grady, You are really the only person who knows if you could be Bethsaida's father. I am well aware of your opinion concerning the unattractiveness of slave-women and although you are notably brutal at times, I have not observed rape to be part of your usual repertoire." Nathaniel paused. "Yet rape is not the only way a black woman can get pregnant."

The Overseer's eyes became wide with shock and wild, almost insane denial.

"Wha... Are you sayin' that ME and...." He pointed at Zade. "-and HER mother?! Are you--"

Grady stopped short of calling his employer a lying, crazy bastard, but the words dangled almost visibly from his tongue.

But, as amusing as the display was, Zade herself was too dismayed at what Ellis had ALREADY said. The slavemaster clearly had a talent for insult and innuendo, even with his own employees.

"NEVER!" Grady repeated... his denial so loud that it rattled a nearby set of glass tubes.

"Then you will be _happy_ to submit to a test to prove what you say is true." Fortunately, I already have the relevant samples from Bethsaida. Nathaniel stepped over to the wall and pulled a talking tube to his mouth. "Rem, please bring a sampling kit to room J-11... Thank you."

"Y...you're serious?" said Grady as the slave that had 'sampled' Zade earlier arrived bearing a second tray of needles. Ellis took the relevant samples from Mister Grady himself using only two needles for the simple test instead of the twelve he had used on Bethsaida.

"Thank you Mister Grady; that should be more than sufficient," Master Ellis said. "I am sure we will find that Bethsaida is not related to you other than having taken you as a role model. However, after her astonishing performance in the arena, it is important that I know as much detail about her makeup as possible."

Grady rubbed the small marks on his skin with unveiled distaste. He looked like a man in desperate need of something to pummel...

Nathaniel turned to Zade. "It is a pity I cannot test your connection with N'Doki as easily, yet even if you are related to him it is quite possible that you could be his great-great-great-great grandchild. His legend has troubled this kingdom for centuries. Such relationships are much more difficult to check for than simple paternity."

"It doesn't matter," Zade said with uncharacteristic evenness. "Say what you want, it won't change your future. Except maybe for the worse."

Zade spoke boldly, but she had yet to find a way out of her chains. She'd been tugging and twisting silently while Ellis had been plunging needles into Grady's gut, but even though the last of the paralysis was wearing off, she still lacked the leverage to apply any amount of returning strength. Transforming into a lupine form might...

No.

If Ellis knew about N'Doki, then he probably knew she was a werewolf as well. Perhaps he even WANTED her to transform... maybe that was what this entire episode was about: Placing her and Grady in the same room and goading them until she transformed and tore him apart. Grady was old and had perhaps reached the end of his usefulness. Ellis clearly had no respect for him. Maybe a live demonstration of a real werewolf was worth losing the old man's services.

But even if Ellis DIDN'T know, Zade couldn't transform at will. She'd been trying for the past few minutes, but thoughts of N'Doki's black blood flowing in her veins cooled her rage with a festering blanket of disgust. For him to have manipulated her into coming here was one thing... but for him to have been manipulating her for YEARS!?

And Blaymore was in no condition to help her. Ellis had somehow robbed her brother of his mind AND his speed. The way he looked at her now... it was like looking back through time at the weak, frightened little boy she had grown up with. Blaymore was gone, replaced by the sickly slave boy Michael. She could hope for him to come to his senses...

...just as, years ago, she had hoped that he'd use his power to free her and her sister. Would history repeat itself? Zade wouldn't give it the chance. She kept her thoughts of escape and her thoughts of Michael in two separate portions of her mind... never mixing the two even for a moment. She'd done that once before, and once had been more than enough.

One at a time, Zade examined and dismissed her options for escape.... eventually leaving her with only one. One that she had even less control over than her own lycanthropy.

Would he come for her? When she didn't return to Montfort, would he send help... or come himself to break her free of whatever plans Ellis had in store for her?

The thought of Eric Hood carving a silent, bloody trail through Ellis's island made her smile...

...but she knew it would never happen. December would not invest his resources retrieving someone who had allowed themselves to be captured so easily. Not for a mere employee. And if she were MORE than a mere employee? If...?

The smile faded from Zade's lips, and she hung limp in her bonds. She was caught. She had begged N'Doki to send her into a trap, and now both she AND Michael were prisoners. There would be a chance to escape... of that, she was sure. But that chance was not here... was not now. When it presented itself, she would be ready. But for now...

There was nothing to do but wait.











---

"This has been an intriguing reunion but I must attend to my letter to the authorities." Nathaniel said. "I would like to send the letter via ship, but with the plague and the danger of being perceived as tardy, I will be obliged to send the message to the mainland via the signal lights. I mustn't keep the Church and state waiting or I shall be in no better shape than the lowliest of my slaves."

Nathaniel turned to Michael, "My sincerest apologies, Michael, for bringing back memories that were better left undisturbed. I shall send someone to take you back to your cell and help you relax. I find it perplexing that you did not turn out to be even more hateful than your sister is. You cannot possibly be a good man if you came from such an evil past." Nathaniel shook his blonde mane to underscore his confusion and then began to stride out of the room. His entourage followed. He pointed to Bethsaida as he left, "Guards, escort our new guest to her cell. I have work to attend to."

Michael could only watch helplessly as Ellis gave the order to take Zade to a cell. Ellis and the remainder of his entourage left the laboratory to its master... Alchemist Jallan... who mumbled and hummed drinking songs as he continued his work.

Had Jallen been alone in the laboratory, Michael may have attempted an escape, or, at the very least, tried to talk Jallan into letting him go. But Jallan was not alone.

Grady had remained behind as well.

The old overseer's evil gaze had followed the guards when they'd taken Zade away, but he remained behind. He stood quietly in the room as Ellis's footsteps faded down the hallway, but as soon as they were out of earshot, he whirled on his heels and descended on Michael like a starving beast.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKIN AT, BOY!? DID YOU FIND THAT AMUSING? EH!?"

Grady grabbed Michael by the shoulders, and only the tightness of the prisoner's restraints prevented him from shaking Michael back and forth like a doll.

"DON'T let that give you any ideas, boy! Ellis was just TESTING MY LOYALTY! I sure as HELL won't take such disrespect from the likes of YOU! And I'll take even LESS of it from your sister, I don't care WHAT Ellis says! She's gonna get what's comin' to her, and it's gonna-"

Michael didn't hear a word Grady was saying. Or at least, he didn't hear what Grady was saying NOW. Michael's ears were hearing the sounds and words of over a decade ago. The first words of Grady's enraged shouts had once again sent him reeling into the past...

-the whip was coming down again... and again.... His mother was trying not to scream... trying to hold it in. But she couldn't. Grady's whip sliced the flesh from her back... again... again... until she looked up at her children and SCREAMED-

Michael's mouth opened, but he was too horrified to speak. He drew back from the imaginary scene, pressing himself against the unyielding chair.

"DAMMIT, HE'S NOT EVEN LISTENIN' TA ME!" Grady snarled. "What the hell kinda drugs did you put in this boy, Jallan!"

"Just slow potion, but that shouldn't change his behavior like this. Maybe he's just high on life, haha!" Jallan laughed.

"Heh," Grady spat. Then he literally spat into Michael's face and smiled at the slight tremble from the captive. "ALL these years and he's STILL a scared little boy! Your SISTER'S grown up to be more of a man than you are, hasn't she? Hasn't she, boy?"

Grady tapped Michael's trembling cheek with the back of his hand. It wasn't quite a slap... but it wasn't gentle, either.

"She made a helluva mess gettin' in here. She gave Ellis's guards a real fight, and even put on a fair show against a gladiator. Those slaves is trained to fight from birth... and maybe from a little bit before then, too. Damned entertaining, it was. And you? What did YOU do for YOUR grand entrance? Ya ran fast. You're good at that, aren't ya, boy? Runnin? That's what you do best, isn't it? Run away and leave your sister to die. Take a few years to gather up the courage to come back... but wasn't really courage, was it, boy... 'cause when ya came back, ya came doin' the same thing ya did when you left... Running. Faster than anybody else. So fast that ya thought nobody could ever touch ya. You never planned on FIGHTIN' nobody when ya came here, did ya? The thought of slowin' down to FACE somebody like a man... like a REAL man, in a REAL fight... never even crossed your mind, did it? Ya wanna know why?"

Grady leaned down so that his face took up Michael's entire field of vision.

"-Because you're STILL just a scared little boy! Ya never STOPPED bein' one! Ya never GREW UP... never became a REAL man. Fancy weapons and a little bit a magic... a fancy blue coat to scare ignorant folks... but underneath it all, you're still a FRIGHTENED LITTLE SLAVE... TREMBLIN' at the thought of another lash from my whip!"

And Michael WAS trembling. He couldn't stop. Even when the collar began jolting him with painful reminders of his helplesness, he couldn't force his limbs to stop shaking. Nor could he stop Grady's words from eating into his soul like some venomous acid. Michael's thoughts were still locked in that distant cage... trapped in a little boy's body, watching his mother being tortured to death. The actual events had taken only a few minutes, but the terrible memories dragged on... and on... and on...

"Mamma, no-"
WHA-KASH!
"...uuunnnnnnnnnghh!!...."
WHA-KASH!
"DAMMIT, PERCIVAL! STAND HER UP!!"
WHA-KASH!
"She's dead."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

...over... and over.... and over again. He was trapped. Trapped in the past with his mother and his sisters... with the people he was too frightened to help. The people he'd left behind... left behind to die, and worse. He'd failed them once, and now he was living it all over again. Perhaps he could break free if he tried... but he couldn't TRY! Michael was only vaguely aware of where his body was, and every time he looked THROUGH the memories at what his eyes were actually seeing, his mind recoiled from the hideous face of the overseer hovering above him. When he listened past the crack of the whip, all he heard was the hiss of Grady's words oozing into his ears... into his soul... and every syllable only thrust him further and further back into the past... into the fear...

...into the shame.

"...mama..." Michael moaned. He heard his own voice twice... once in the past, and once in the present. They sounded the same. Gods help him... they sounded exactly the same.

"I know how ta get your attention, boy," Grady smiled down at him. The demonic face receded for a second, then re-appeared... along with something else. Something black... and smooth...

Grady waved the whip before Michael's staring eyes, and he laughed when the boy's eyes followed the strap of murderous leather back and forth.

...Michael saw it twice. TWO whips. One killing his mother in the past. The other taunting him. Years separated the two weapons, yet they were both wielded by the same man... with the same face... the same voice... and the same evil gleam in his wide, bloodshot eyes.

Grady touched Michael's face with the coiled whip.

Michael jerked, and the restraining collar shocked him.

Grady tapped him again, this time slapping him with the leather.

"NNN!" Michael moaned. For an instant, he was back... fully in the present-

The whip!

THE WHIP!

-and then he was gone again.

Grady stepped back and, without unfurling the whip, slapped Michael hard across the cheek-

WHAP!

This time it was Grady that jerked. The old strength was returning...

WHAP!

...it felt good...

WHAP!
WHAP!

Michael let out a high-pitched squeal. His face began to bleed. Grady had hit him so hard that the smooth leather had torn his skin. In his mind, Michael was feeling the lashes that had killed his mother... but some part of him knew that it was not the same. Kenyari had been whipped TO DEATH. Her suffering had been much, much worse. But at least she died before Bethsaida and Sellie had been taken away... before he had deserted them... before he left them to be tortured and raped....

KA-WHAP!

"HA!" Grady barked. "FELT that one, didn't ya! Here's another one ya won't ignore!"

Instead of hitting him again immediately, Grady took another step back and unfurled his whip. The weapon's full, horrifying length drew Michael's eyes like a magnet.

"Heh, Heh, Heh," Grady chuckled as he drew his arm back-

Alchemist Jallan stopped humming another in a long line of drinking songs and looked up from his work. "You know Grady, I am a creative genius but even I cannot fathom how in hell's name you think you're going to explain to Nathaniel how whipping Michael was supposed to relax him. Would you mind letting me in on your little secret?"

Grady froze... whip poised and lips curled back... an expression of equal parts malice and joy clinging to his aging skull like a tight-fitting mask. For a moment, only his eyes moved... darting from his whip, to Michael, and back again.

"...ehhh...eh-heh..." Grady grunted as his stance and expression both melted into something slightly less malicious. But only slightly. When he turned to face Jallan, Grady was smiling the smile of a man who'd been caught doing something that he had no business doing. "...aaahhh, yeah, well, ahhh..." Grady stuttered. He'd lost control of himself for a moment... so much so that he'd forgotten all about the alchemist until Jallan interrupted him. Now he needed to explain himself before the old bottle-washer ran yapping to Ellis. "Was just givin' the boy a good scare, that's all."

"Yeah, on the mainland you have the latitude to run things a little more like the way Matt Ellis ran them in the old days. Here on Isle Ellis things are different. Here, Captain, the collar has replaced the whip and the slaves will look you in the eye when they talk to you."

"That's the problem with you and Ellis and this new way of doin' things... not enough fear! Know what happens when a slave doesn't fear his masters? They turn into problems. Bloody problems. Like this boy's sister! SHE didn't catch my whip nearly enough in the old days, and NOW look at her, eh? But THIS one... THIS one knows his place? Oh, he may have forgotten it for a minute or two... but as soon as he came back and caught a look at the old Overseer, he fell right back into line. You saw that for yourself! Think ELLIS can have that effect on a slave that's been runnin' free for ten years? HEH! I doubt it!"

"No, I suppose not, but Nathaniel doesn't keep slaves with discipline problems here, Grady," Jallan said. "The slaves that run this isle are the best and brightest of House Ellis. The younger ones are so goddamned smart it would make you sick. I have to be three times as creative as I was in the old days just to keep up with my lab technicians or they make me feel like a relic without even trying."

Grady coiled his whip and returned it to his belt.

"...my talents is wasted here anyway. THIS one isn't a problem, is he?" Grady turned back to Michael. The sinister edge crept back into the overseer's voice. "Ohh, no, not little Michael. He's as calm as a kitten."

Grady grabbed Michael's jaw and held his head still while he leaned down. Then he whispered, so that only the slave could hear...

"...but I think yer sister in need of my best, personal touch. I'll make her scream for me, Michael... scream just like mama. You hear me in there, boy?"

Grady made a loose fist and gently knocked on Michael's forehead. Michael was listening. He had heard every word.

"Too bad you was such a coward back then, eh? What happened then.... what's happenin' now... what's about to happen ta yer sister... It's all yer fault, boy. And ya know what ya can do about it? Eh?..."

Grady leaned closer.

"...absolutely nothin."

Grady stood up straight, winked at Jallan, and walked out of the lab. A few seconds after he was gone, the eerie sound of gruff but happy whistling echoed down the hallway.

---

The cell was cold.

Small. Hard, and mostly featureless... It was like being locked away inside her own soul. Or rather, in the place where it used to be.

Two of the walls were solid metal. The third would have been solid if it weren't for the tiny circular hole... less than two inches in diameter... that allowed the chain attached to her waist to feed out of the cell to some unknown destination. The fourth wall... the one opposite the one with the hole... held the door. It, too, was solid. No bars.
Where there would ordinarily have been a barred window for the guards to look through, there was something else.

A mirror.

The ceiling was likewise completely mirrored.

Zade wasn't stupid enough to think that she could break the 'glass' to facilitate escape. They probably weren't even real mirrors... most likely some kind of illusion with some very real bars (or more solid metal) behind them.

The floor was solid, with a raised rectangular platform for a bed, and a second, lower platform for the only other thing that prisoners needed to do besides sleep. Neither looked promising as a means of escape.

In fact, the more she studied her surroundings, the more she realized that escape was going to be extremely difficult. This Ellis knew a thing or two about keeping prisoners.

The mirrors were the biggest problems. She had no doubt that there was someone on the other side looking in... but with only a mirror on her side, she had no idea when she was being watched and when she wasn't. There was no guarantee of privacy... no way she could know when it was safe to try something. Even the ATTEMPT to slip out of her chains might bring guards, if someone happened to be looking when she tried it.

Of course, that wouldn't stop her from trying. It just meant that when she did make her move there would be no time to stop and think. She'd have to have everything planned and ready to execute before she took action.

But that brought her to the other impediments between her and freedom.

Her feet were still bound in metal shackles with a 12-inch chain between them. The metal and construction were serious. She wouldn't be breaking it. Nor would she be slipping the shackles easily... or quickly.

They'd placed a metal belt around her waist. It, too, was serious. There was no keyhole in it... no fastening mechanism that she could see... nor any detectable seams. Its only feature was the attachment-point for the chain that fed through the rear wall. The metal collar around her neck wasn't attached to anything, but it doubtless served some function... probably only to be revealed once she tried to escape.

As long as it didn't explode, she didn't care.

No... scratch that. An exploding collar wouldn't bother her one bit. She'd be dead, of course... but that was fine. She knew when she left that there would likely be no return trip to Montfort. She didn't want to die. She wanted to go back... wanted to see HIM again. Wanted to... she had no idea what else she wanted to do. But even when she'd asked December's permission to leave, she knew that, with the amount of killing she planned on doing, her return was not guaranteed. Mercenary work was one thing. But wholesale slaughter...

Zade smiled at the words. Wholesale slaughter.

It had a nice ring to it... the kind of ring that wouldn't be forgotten no matter what her eventual fate. Was her job done? No, but she'd done quite enough to make them think about their own evil. She and N'Doki-

Zade winced at the name. She hadn't been thinking about N'Doki, but there he was... popping up in her thoughts like an unweighted corpse in a shallow river. He'd used her. That much was clear... but what of the rest? What of that nonsense that Ellis was saying before? Was any of THAT true? SOMETHING had happened on the plantation after her escape. Was that something N'Doki? Had he secretly helped her escape? Why? So she could come here years later and die in this cell? Or did he have something else in mind? Was he coming to rescue her (again)?

Surely not. If he had intended to come here all along, then there would have been no reason to send her in the first place. What if-

The confusion was too distracting. She put it away for later... and later was on the other side of that cell door.

The guards had subjected her to the most thorough search she'd ever had before throwing her in here. From the looks of it, the cell and her bonds were impassible... and she didn't have any more tricks stashed away. But they HAD made a mistake. Two mistakes, in fact.

First was leaving her hands free. Not exactly a mistake, but rather poor judgment... or an over-inflated sense of their own security.

Second was not realizing that death was a perfectly acceptable option for her. She'd die happy if she could take Ellis and Grady with her to hell, but if she couldn't accomplish that... fine. She'd just wait there for them to find their own way down.

And this assumed that they knew about her lycanthropy. Perhaps THAT was what the collar was for. But if it wasn't... if they DIDN'T know... then that was Mistake #3.

Now it was time to weave those into some kind of viable escape, one that could be executed even if the guards were watching her right now.

Zade stood up.

Let's give them something to look at, She thought.

Until now, Zade had been sitting motionless in the center of the cell, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She'd made no attempt to touch the walls or examine anything closely since they'd put her in, but that approach wasn't going to get her very far.

She walked over to the hole where the chain fed out of the cell. The chain was thick, and there wasn't enough room to even get one of her fingertips through the annular hole. She knelt down and tried to look through it... she saw nothing but darkness. She grabbed the chain and swung it back and forth... listening closely as she did.

Metal grated against metal, and she heard the jingle of the chain's links filtering through the opening. It was attached to something on the other end. She could push the individual links back through the opening... but that served no useful purpose. Not yet, anyway. She would study this more later.

Zade placed her hand on the wall. She didn't try to punch, scratch, or damage it... she just touched it. Then she leaned in closer and sniffed the metal.

It was an odd alloy. She hadn't encountered it before. She walked along the wall, dragging her fingertips along the surface as she did.

No seams. The wall was as solid as it looked. In fact, all FOUR walls... and the floor, as well... seemed to be fashioned of the same piece of metal, as if someone had taken a gigantic cube and hollowed it out. Magic was clearly involved in its construction. Zade wondered why Ellis would spend so much gold and effort to create such a thing. Certainly not for ordinary prisoners.


That meant that Ellis was expecting extra-ordinary ones.

Something about that thought disturbed her. Disturbed her deeply. But she couldn't tell exactly why, and it wasn't relevant, so she moved on.

After some cautious touching and thumping, Zade concluded that the walls weren't COVERED with metal, but were actually made of the same alloy throughout their entire thickness. She didn't know how thick they were, but then she had no intention of trying to claw her way out. If it came to THAT, then she'd be more efficient gnawing off her own feet.

But HOWEVER she got out of her restraints, getting free of the cell was the next step. She knew that the door in front of her was one of a pair of identical doors separated by a short hallway, but she hadn't had a chance to study either when the guards had carried her in. She walked toward it-

-and suddenly came up short. The chain behind her was tight... extended to its full length, or at least as much of it as they were willing to give her. Measuring from the rear wall, she was a little more than 3/4 of the distance to the door. The chain kept her from going any further.

That was unexpected.

Smart, but unexpected.

She was just wondering whether this was the chain's full intended length, or if it could be let out further by some unseen mechanism when she caught a sound from outside.

It may have been a voice, but solid metal walls turned it into little more than a brief muffled echo. She strained to hear more. She couldn't make out any words, but the string of sounds ended in something that was definitely a shout: Human. Male. Identity unknown. Zade thought for a moment that Ellis was coming to pay her a personal visit, but then Nathanial Ellis didn't seem to be the shouting type. Who was it, then? Blaymore? No. If the assassin was free then there wouldn't have been a conversation, a shout, or any sound at all other than the 'thud' of a body... or pieces of one... hitting the floor.

Zade stood motionless in her cell... waiting.

She felt a faint vibration in the chain, and then heard a low, grinding sound from beyond the walls. An instant later, the chain began pulling her toward the cell's rear wall. Zade watched the metal links disappear one at a time through the tiny hole in the wall. She resisted only for a moment, then gave in, allowing the chain to pull her across the cell. She didn't want to waste her strength fighting some inanimate force when... if her guess was right... there'd be a real enemy involved soon enough.

The chain continued to shorten until there was only about two feet between Zade's back and the wall. The area of the cell that she now had access to was reduced to almost nothing.

Zade folded her arms across her chest and waited.

A door opened. The outer door. She heard something move into the hallway, and the outer door closed with a deep metallic clang... followed by a series of metallic clicks.

Then the inner door lifted out of place, pulling away from the floor and rising into the wall above it. Zade noticed that the door's bottom edge was actually a razor-sharp blade. She chuckled... wondering how many potential escapes had been spoiled by THAT nasty surprise.

The mild amusement died a quick death when she caught her first glimpse of her visitor: dusty leather boots that that she had seen mere hours before in the alchemist's lab.

Grady.

Zade became aware of the chain holding her back. It grew tighter as she strained unconsciously against it. As the door finished it's ascent, the metal links were the only thing keeping Zade from flying across the room and sinking her fingers deep into the slavemaster's throat. Her fingers clenched and released almost rhythmically... rehearsing.

"Well, well now... what do we have in here?" Grady chuckled. He smiled at her as if honestly pleased to see her again. His fingers played lazily along the coiled length of the whip hanging from his hip. "The caged beast yanking at her chains. I always knew you people were animals."

Zade realized that she was growling. She stopped.

...and only then realized that Grady had not come alone.

Michael was still slumped in the odd wheeled chair, which Grady had parked just inside the closed outer door. Zade's brother peered into her cell with a child-like mixture of curiosity and terror.

This wasn't Michael.

Zade's head shook imperceptibly at the thought. This was not Michael... or rather it WAS Michael. But it was not Blaymore. Her brother was sitting in that chair with a look of abject terror on his face. But BLAYMORE was somewhere else. Somewhere where he couldn't help either one of them.

Gods, what did Ellis do to you? Zade wondered.

Grady continued smiling at her for a moment, but Zade saw his eyes going over her body... studying her restraints to verify they were still secure. When he'd satisfied himself, his smile widened. He stepped back and took hold of the handles on Michael's chair.

"Look who I brought for you," the old man hissed as he wheeled Blaymor-... Michael... into the room. "I'm conducting a regular family reunion here. All we need is mom... ohhh, that's right. She's DEAD! HA-HA-HH..." Grady's laugh ended in a single cough. The old man cleared his throat, swallowed something back down, and then kept right on chuckling. "...yeah, I remember like it was yesterday. My whip was a bit too much for the old witch. Died right there on the floor like a dog. Ahhh, the good old days... LOCK IT DOWN!" Grady shouted the last into the hallway behind him. Michael flinched in his chair... then flinched again when the inner door dropped into place, sealing him and Grady in the cell with Zade.

"What do you want?" Zade hissed.

"I'm here for the same reason as everyone else on this island.... Business." At the last word, all trace of false joviality vanished from the overseer's face. The smile on his lips and the twinkle in his eyes became hard and cruel, like the walls of the cell they occupied. "There's some unfinished business between you and me, girl."

"If you mean me killing you, then yes. You're right."

"Now ya see... that's what I mean." Grady parked Michael's chair against the wall next to the door, taking great care to position the chair so that its prisoner would have a perfect view of both Zade and himself. "All this talk of yours... thaaaats the business that brings me here this evenin'...." Grady took a few bold but slow steps further into the cell, well past the invisible line where Zade would have been upon him had her chain not been shortened. He stopped just short of the center of the room, placed his hands on his hips, and fixed Zade with his harshest glare.

Had Zade still been a child, the sight would have sent her into spasms of panic. Here was The Overseer.... not AN overseer, but THE Overseer... standing before her with a whip on his hip and the devil in his eyes. Despite the years that had worn down his once-impressive figure, cruelty still beamed from the man like heat from a bonfire... or a funeral pyre.

Zade was not impressed. She wondered how the old man could still look so dangerous even when he clearly was not... but that was all. She hoped she could pull that off when SHE was his age.

"See, there's certain ideas... certain thoughts... that a slave shouldn't come into the habit of carrying around in their little shriveled brains. Talkin' back to a white man is one. Killin' masters and overseers is another. Now Ellis is a good man. He's smart. He's gone through hell ta earn his respect, unlike some people who are just born with it. But he don't know slaves and he don't know discipline. That's MY job. Back in my day, a slave wouldn't even THINK about sayin' the things you've said. Disrespectin' your master? Threatening your overseer? Ohhh, no, no, no that'll never do."

"Ellis isn't my master," Zade hissed. "And you aren't an overseer. You're a joke... and not even a good one."

"Then there's the matter of those men ya killed years ago. My men. They was out of line and due for a hell of a punishment... but not by you. So not only are you an uppity slave who don't know her place... not only are you a runaway... but you're a murderer ta boot. Ellis says he wants you alive when the priests get here, and I can respect that. But I can't respect lettin' you off this island without a taste of what you got coming. A taste of what you earned-"

"You still man enough to give it to me?" Zade taunted. "Tell me... are the slaves still afraid of you, Grady, or do they snicker behind your back... giggling at the weak old man who still thinks he's-"

Grady's hand had been hovering near his whip, not touching the leather handle. But as the final syllables of Zade's taunt left her lips, the old man's hand jerked downward, and his arm became a blur as he snatched the weapon free and unfurled the black coils. The force of the single, powerful motion raced like lightning down the whip's length-

wwwwwWW-

-until the freshly salted tip bit into the air less than an inch from Zade's left eye.

-KAK!

The sharp, evil sound reverberated around the small cell. Michael yelped and jerked in his chair... then stiffened as if something had struck him.

Zade didn't move.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did I forget to flinch?"

"Oh, you think you're funny!?" Now it was Grady who hissed and growled like a beast. "You think you're FUNNY!?"

The whip came at her face again, and this time Zade knew it wasn't a bluff. She jerked her head back, which was exactly what Grady had expected her to do.

wwwW-KASH!
"unGH!!"

The perfectly-aimed strike kissed her left cheek, leaving a blossom of red pain to mark its passing. Instinctively Zade turned her head-

wwwW-KASH!

Grady blessed the other cheek with his whip. Zade felt a thin trickle of blood trace the outline of her jaw. Her fists tightened. She threw herself forward, snarling and straining at her restraints.

wwwwW-KASH!

Grady drew a perfectly straight line down Zade's forehead. Zade backed up as far as she could and then threw herself forward... only to have the thick chain yank her back again with such force that she hit her head on the wall behind her.

Grady paused to look at her.

"Don't go knockin' yourself out, now," He said with a frown. "There's no enjoyment in whippin an unconscious slave. But then, this isn't entirely ABOUT you... isn't it, boy?" He turned to Michael, who'd watched the proceedings silently by the door.

Michael quickly lowered his eyes so as not to catch The Overseer's gaze.

"There's a good boy," said Grady. "But don't go closin' those eyes... I brought you here to WATCH, not sit there with your eyes closed."

Michael muttered something under his breath. Grady must not have heard it, but Zade heard the words clearly:

"...I'm not afraid of you..." he had said. Everyone in the room... including Michael himself... knew he was lying.

"What was that, boy?" Grady barked. "I said OPEN those eyes! Look at your sister!"

"What have you done to him!" Zade spat.

"Heh... nothing," The Overseer replied. "And that, I swear to you, is the absolute truth. He came here, got one look at me, and did THAT to HIMSELF!"

Grady pointed at the hump of shivering flesh in the chair by the door. Michael raised his eyes and forced himself to see past Grady and look at Zade.

"Michael, get up!" Zade shouted at him. "Get up! That chair can't hold you... GET UP!"

Michael shifted under the blanket that covered his lower body. Zade had no idea what kind of magic or machinery held her brother to the flimsy chair, but she knew that it would not hold him unless he wanted it to. Blaymore had made a career of escaping dungeons, prisons, tombs, traps, and labyrinths both magical and mundane. There was no way he could be trapped here... in that chair OR on this island. But for some reason, HE didn't know that!

"Michael! Get Up!"

Michael stirred on the chair. Zade saw the muscles of his arms tighten in preparation for-

wwwww-KASH!

"SIT DOWN!"

Grady's whip danced across Michael's face. The spasm of pain sent a bolt of motion through Michael's body... after which he stiffened like a statue and let out the most ungodly scream that Zade had ever heard from her brother's throat... even when he was a sickly little boy. The scream ended in a groan as he sluumped weak and motionless in the chair.

"MICHA-" Zade began.

"SHUT UP!!"

wwww-KASH!

Zade drew back in shock and pain. She'd been expecting a strike to the face, but she HADN'T expected Grady to split the tip of her tongue with the whip!

Damn, he was good!

Blood oozed out of Zade's mouth as she glared at her attacker. All of her wounds were beginning to heal, but the blood on her skin concealed the mending skin.

"My apologies if those first few weren't up to my usual standards," said Grady with a sly smile. "My whipping arm has been a bit tight lately. But don't you worry; it's good and loosened up now... like a few of your teeth will be if you try to talk your brother out of that chair again. The only sounds you're allowed to make in my presence... are screams."

"Won't scream for you..." Zade said. The bloody numbness in her mouth mangled the words, but they were still understandable.

"Oh yes," Grady said, smiling. "You will. Either that, or you'll wish you had when you had the chance!"

wwww-KASH!

"UNGH!"

Zade's lower lip exploded like a leech under a boot.

"SAIDA!" Michael shouted. But it was not the shout of a man who was about to perform some heroic act. It was the shout of a man who had resigned himself to watch another's suffering, completely powerless to do anything to stop it.

"Scream!" Grady commanded. "Or each hit gets worse than the one before!"

www-KSSH!

"Scream, bitch!"

-KSSSH!

"...UNNGH! I'll kill y-"

"THAT'S not a scream!"

wwww-KSSH!

The old man's arm drove up and down... back and forth like a piston as he rained strikes upon her face, neck and chest. The first few were only for the pain, but, true to his word, Grady made each strike worse than the last. Soon his whip was peeling skin from her body and flinging drops of her blood onto the cell walls. But even as the pain grew, Zade chocked back even the grunts of shock that she had let pass her bleeding lips in the beginning. By the fifteenth stroke she was totally silent, glaring back through the serpentine haze of Grady's whip and meeting his eyes with a silent promise of bloody, savage murder.

"SCREAM!" the Overseer growled.

"...more..." she hissed.

"What? WHAT was THAT!?"

"...hit, me harder..." Zade said. Her lips twitched, but she kept them... or what was left of them... straight and tight. She was not going to smile at him. She was not going to show him the fangs jutting from her gums.

wwww-KASH!

He would see them soon enough.

wwwww-KSSH!

Just a little more...

-KSSSH!

...a little more pain...

wwwww-KSSSSH

...a little more rage....

"Yes!" Zade growled, her throat began to tighten. "You want me to scream for you? Then stop kissing me with that whip and HIT me! Do you need me to show you HOW!?"

"You- I- RRR- B-" Grady thin lips bubbled with spittle, but the words he wanted to shout back at her only stumbled over themselves. Instead, he spoke with his whip... taking a single step back and building up all the strength his body could muster. "You'll never see those priests, BITCH! You'll never see 'em because I'll have your EYES IN MY POCKETS!!"

"Ut!"

Grady glared at his arm for halting an instant before he had intended and then he felt the cold drop of sweat trickle down his back as it dawned on him whose sharp utterance had cut him off.

"Here you are, Michael," Nathaniel Ellis said with the precision of a bit of straw slipping unobtrusively through an oak beam in the midst of a tornado. "My girl went to your cell to give you that massage I promised but found you absent. Naturally it troubles me when my orders are not carried out. A captain formerly in my service told me that a man in my position should never tolerate insubordination."

Zade took an almost involuntary step backward when Ellis spoke. She'd been so focused on the old man that his employer and another slave had entered the room almost unnoticed, slipping in behind Grady and Michael without so much as a sound. Zade's rage retreated to a dull simmer... not because she hated Ellis less than Grady, but because she wanted very much to see what the former was going to do to the latter. Having two enemies destroy each other was almost as good as killing them both herself.

Nathaniel turned. "Ashieka, please take Michael to his appointment. There is a problem here that requires my attention," Ellis said, his voice ominously calm.

"Yes Massa." Ashika said glancing at Bethsaida before wheeling Michael into the short hallway and disappearing as the inner door to the cell slid into place.

"Former captain, Sir?" Grady stammered, his arm still frozen in space.

"In spite of your age, Mister Grady, it is astonishing how well you have maintained your powers of deduction. In the barest instant you realized that you were the man whom I quoted. I find it perplexing that age has affected your memory far more profoundly than your powers of reason. Tell me mister Grady, does this ring a bell?" Nathaniel asked. "'I do not wish her to suffer any unnecessary pain or damage. We will deliver her to the church or the crown in as pristine a condition as possible.'

"I... I was... well, yes that does sound a bit familiar, but-"

"It should. It is the third time that I have said it." Nathaniel cleared his throat. "I must assume that age is affecting your memory. Otherwise you would not have dreamed of disobeying a direct order, let alone one that I went to the trouble of repeating twice. Nevertheless, mister Grady, you are patently guilty of insubordination. When you retired, I had been planning to allow you to keep the head overseer's house on the plantation along with a generous pension for your long years of service. How thoughtful of you to have saved me the expense." Ellis smiled pleasantly.

"Now let's not be rash, Mr. Ellis!" Grady blurted. His fearsome whip curled on the floor at his feet like a large, dead snake. He looked at Ellis, but pointed at Zade. "This woman is a murderer... and I'm not talkin about the slaves she killed on this island, either! I'm talkin about the good, WHITE men she killed on the plantation when she escaped. My men! Your family's men! Not to mention whatever part she played in what came afterward. There's a blood debt that needs ta be paid here, Mr. Ellis! This is a matter of justice and punishment... not just some old man disobeyin' an order!"

"Mister Grady, I am reminded that you tell your new recruits at the plantation that there are no excuses for countermanding an order unless the life of a white citizen or an overseer is endangered or in situations where the circumstances have changed so much that the order is patently obsolete. Obviously the circumstances have changed very little since I twice issued the order. Was Bethsaida currently in a position to endanger your life or the life of another citizen, Mister Grady?"

"Not at the moment, but who knows what she'll do given half a chance! She's spilled white blood, Mr. Ellis. Once a slave has gotten a taste of a white man's blood, there's no reformin' 'em! They'll always be lookin for a chance to spill more. Hell, that's the very reason she came back here, isn't it? She's a killer and she has to be dealt with-"

"There is no question that Bethsaida is a murderer, but that does not excuse insubordination. Your emotions have run away with your reason. You have utterly failed a simple test of your loyalty."

"Eh? Test? You KNOW I'm loyal to the Ellis name! Always have been-"

"You seem to have grasped a small part of the enormity of Bethsaida's crimes but you fail to see the big picture. Bethsaida is not just a murderer, Mister Grady, If we confirm that she triggered the rain of bones then she is a *mass* murderer, a criminal so heinous that she is untouchable by the likes of you and I. She is the property of the crown. You were tampering with evidence. Do you have any idea what the penalty for willful destruction of royal property is, or for wanton obstruction of a royal investigation of high crimes?"

"Th- That'd be death, sir," Grady replied.

"Indeed." Nathaniel said. "You are guilty not only of insubordination, but of a serious lapse of good judgment. You realize that priests and guild mages can use magic to detect any falsehood. I am just glad I caught you before you did any lasting damage that I would have been obliged to explain to the crown without benefit of subterfuge. You are free to leave me if you want to, but if you wish me to keep you in my employ, mister Grady, you will have to face the same sort of punishment as any overseer under your command would face for insubordination. This is the second such incident on your record. I had hoped the reminder you have on your belly would serve to prevent any possibility of reoccurrence."

Grady's hand rose to his stomach, and his fingers traced the scar hidden beneath his shirt. Zade studied the Overseer as he squirmed in his master's presence.

It was delicious.

"Your temper, Mister Grady, can be counted on to be your worst enemy."

"Well I was just... I was..." Grady stammered.

"For a second count, the punishment must be both painful and humiliating. As a favor to you and because you must have respect in order to perform your duties, I will refrain from holding a public punishment at the plantation as is the custom.

Grady stiffled a wince. Zade wondered if it was 'public' or the 'punishment' that had gotten to him.

"I believe a severe whipping such as the one you administered to Overseer Roberts should prove sufficient. Of course you are free to go now Mister Grady, if you would rather leave my employ."

"I won't be... I won't be leavin ya, Mr. Ellis," Grady said softly. "Not unless ya won't have me." Then the Overseer stiffened and stood tall, addressing Ellis like a soldier speaking to an officer. "If'n you really think what I done needs ta be punished, then I'll submit ta that."

Nathaniel succinctly nodded his approval then called out. "Guards, I need two strong men, two pairs of long manacles and a spare coif," Nathaniel stated. Mister Grady, toss me that whip and remove your shirt.

In less than a minute two burly young slaves entered dressed in the chain mail of guardsmen. One of them handed Master Ellis two pair of shackles and a spare coif. Ellis shackled each of Grady's wrists to the wrist of a different guardsman and motioned the guardsmen to pull Grady's arms in opposite directions so that he was held between the two young men by the four-foot long chains connecting the shackles. Next Nathaniel put the chain mail coif on backwards over Grady's head. When Ellis was done Grady stood in front of the closed inner door staring at the mirrored window through the links of the chain mail coif. His back was exposed to the inside of the cell. Grady looked at his shackled form, then lowered his head slowly.

"There, that coif should prevent any stray shots from endangering your neck or eyes, although the back of your head is exposed instead of your face."

"Aye, sir," Grady said softly.

Nathaniel coiled Grady's whip and looked from one guardsman to another and flexed his arm. "It is a pity I never developed any skill with weapons. This should be a proper whipping, yet I lack the prowess." Nathaniel slowly turned towards Bethsaida and raised an eyebrow.

Zade's mind smiled at Ellis, but her face remained a hard and bloody frown. Her skin still burned from the Overseer's whip, even though her wounds were already pulling closed. The whip that had caused those wounds now dangled from Nathaniel Ellis's hand just a few feet away.

What would she do if she had it in her hand right now? She certainly couldn't whip her way out of her shackles... but the thought of ripping strips of flesh off of Grady's back sparked an almost orgasmic surge through her.

She smiled in spite of herself. The smile was a sinister, evil thing. Coated with a thick coat of her own blood, Zade's lips crawled slowly across her face, her mouth widening until it split down the middle, revealing a row of bloody teeth... some of which were sharper than they should have been.

"I won't stop until he's dead," she said in a low, breathy sigh that did nothing to mask her eagerness.

"Eh?" said a suddenly agitated Grady. "What's going on?""

Ellis turned to Bethsaida. "Death is not an option for this offense but you need not concern yourself with that," Nathaniel said as he handed a gold watch to the larger of the two guardsmen.

"Guardsmen, the maximum time allowed is to be seventeen minutes as that is the amount of time Mister Grady was in violation of his orders. Should the whipping begin to endanger Mister Grady's life you must pull Grady away before the allotted time runs out. Also I do not want word of what transpires here to leave this room, understood?" Master Ellis asked.

"Sir yes sir! The guardsmen said in unison without so much as an instant's hesitation.

Nathaniel succinctly nodded his approval to the guards and turned back to Bethsaida. "The whipping should be both sound and humiliating. I believe your participation is the perfect solution to both of those contingencies."

Nathaniel stepped up on one of the bed platforms and tossed the whip to Bethsaida. As he sat down against the wall to watch he allowed himself a slight smile.

The whip felt alive in Zade's hand. Not quite like an extension of her body... but close. It was an extension of GRADY'S body. Using it on him would be like whipping him with his own manhood.

Zade chuckled as she ran the whip through her fingers, using the sinister laugh to mask the fact that she was measuring the whip's exact length and comparing it to the distance Ellis was from her. No, she couldn't reach him. That was a shame. But he would get his later. Perhaps MUCH later, but it would still be sooner than he expected. But for now... as her employer would say... there was an opportunity to be exploited.

wwww-KASSSH!

Grady jumped as the very first strike drew a bloody line down his back. Zade was tempted to pause and savor her first taste of the Overseer's pain-

ww-KSSSH!

But the sight of that first thin wound-

wwww-KSSSH!

-sparked something inside her-

WWW-KASSSH!

-that she could not stop until she had torn four more gashes into his flesh.

W-KASSH!

"AAGHNnn!" Grady's jaws clamped shut, stifling his shout of pain. He twisted away, almost as if trying to tear himself free of the guards that held him, but even in his prime he could not have matched the strength of either of the young men holding him.

"HOLD still!"

WWWW-KASSH!

"AG!"

Now.... now Zade paused. She looked at the bloody marks on the Overseer's back, and her heart beat faster. The sight of it... the MEANING of it! Her breaths came in shallow pants as she raised the whip again-

wwww-KASH!

"NNNGH!"

The new mark.... long and bold... cut across two of the others in tight, sultry curve. It drew the marks around it into focus-

www-KSSSH!

-accentuated by the tiny mark she added down Grady's left shoulder. But that bloody kiss couldn't possibly have hurt enough, so she added-

wwwwww-KASSH!

"GAAAAh-DAMMIT, YOU BITCH!" Grady roared.

"Bitch?" Zade raised her whipping arm... but then her eyes widened as she took in the shape on Grady's back. "You haven't SEEN BITCH YET!"

wwww-KASSH!

"NNNNRGH! That's Enough!" Grady shouted.

...yes...

www-KASH!
ww-KSSH!

"Ellis, STOP thi-"

WWWW-KAAASH!

"GAAH! STOP this!"

"NO!" Zade barked. "I'm not FINISHED yet!"

WW-KAASSSSH!

The latest strike threw the old man forward with such force that the guards had to yank him back onto his feet...

...and right into the next punishing kiss.

WWW-Kasssh!

"Nnn!"

"HOLD him STILL, DAMMIT!" Zade's voice was a guttural growl. "I'm WORKING here!"

Ww-KSSH!

"AGH- Ellis!" Grady tried to turn and face his employer. "This is ENOUGH!

Ellis said nothing. He sat motionless on the 'bed,' entranced as he watched Bethsaida do her work. Apparently he took no pleasure from The Overseer's pain seeing it only as a means to some other end, perhaps that of assessing of Bethsaida's skill with the whip.

The same could not be said of Zade. Her pleasure was overt and absolute. Her mind was so focused on the whip in her hand and the bloody pattern she was carving onto the Overseer's back that everything else had ceased to exist. She did not see the walls around her. Didn't feel the shackles on her feet, or hear the restraining chain rattling with each move she made. Nathanial Ellis was just a sound that Grady shouted, and not a motionless shape watching her like a hawk from just out of her whip's reach. And the two slaves holding Grady up only existed to the extent that they weren't keeping her target... her canvas... as still as they should have been.

"HOLD HIM!" Zade growled as she unleashed another strike... one that she knew was going to knock the old man off balance. It did, and the guards yanked him upright once more. She paused again... studying the mark she'd just made, then expanding her focus to take in the rest of the agony that she had painted onto the Overseer's back.

Grady huffed and stifled a groan... turning it into a somewhat defiant grunt.

"...tired yerself out?" He said. The old man's voice was weak, but still hard and cold.

Zade said nothing. Her head tilted to one side, and then the other... studying the as-yet unmarked skin around and between the marks she had already made...

"Mmmm, no," she said almost calmly. "...I think I'm ready to get started now."

ww-KASH!

"A!" Grady jerked sideways as the whip bit him between the shoulders. "Nnnngh..."

Zade took a deep breath... and began.

www-KSSSH
wwwww-KASH!

Zade assaulted the Overseer's bare back with a passion born of years of hatred, and a skill that the Overseer himself couldn't summon on the best of his younger days. Grady... born free and white... couldn't even conceive of the REASON why Zade was as good as she was. Why she had trained and fought so hard to become a darker, fiercer, BETTER version of the very thing she hated. Better than merciless. Better than sadistic.

It all was for this very moment. A moment she had yearned for since childhood. A moment that LIVED in the empty place where her soul should have been.

The whip... HER whip, now... danced back and forth in the air like a living thing. The blows came so fast that the old man couldn't get a full breath in before the next bolt of pain seared what little intact skin remained on his back. She could kill him. She could end the weak old man's life so easily, Ellis and his 'rules' be damned! But no... this wasn't about death. Not now. Not yet. And somewhere between the sixteenth and seventeenth blows, it stopped being about pain as well. The old man's agony... and his weakening, unheeded cries for Ellis to stop this madness... were just a means to an end. The end was Vengeance, and Vengeance would not be satisfied with her just whipping him to death. Not just that... not JUST that...

She had to make him PAY. She had to MARK him the way that he had marked her soul... her family... her life and everything in it. He would die soon enough... he would feel pain before then... but, more important than either of those things, Grady would WEAR her fury on his back like a brand... the mark of his own sadistic villainy! AND hers! A mark carved in his flesh by the villain that he himself created!

And so as the allotted time ran out, Zade struck faster. Fiercer. Grady screamed... the Overseer SCREAMED as the whip ravaged him. Zade sneered at his agony. The old fool had no reason to scream! Some of the strikes were enough to knock him down, while others were barely enough to bruise his skin, But NONE of them was as hard as he deserved!

www-KASH!

Zade carved another mark... this one thin and almost delicate... amid the cluster of bloody wounds on Grady's skin.

www-KASH!

...this one just a bruise-

WWWW-KASSSH!

"AAARRGGGH!" Grady screamed again as more blood flowed.

"YES!" Zade's howl of triumph matched the Overseer's shout. Almost...

www-KASH!
Wwww-KSSSH!

...almost...

"Ellis, it's done!!" Grady spat. He was barely strong enough to stand, yet he still tried to pull himself away from the guards.

"Two minutes, Captain Grady," The guardsman with the watch said.

www-KASH!

"ELLIS!"

"HA!" Zade barked. "YES!"

www-KASH!

Almost done!

wwwwwwww-KSSH!

The scars...

www-KSSSH!

The SCARS would tell the tale!

www-KsssH!

On and on it went...

ww-KSSH!

Zade marked the seconds with bolts of pain and splatters of blood-

wwww-KASH!

"DAMN YOU, ELLIS!"

KSSS!
www-KSSSH!
wwwww-KASH!

The guardsman glanced at the watch in his hand. "Fifteen Seconds... ten ... five ... time! Reel it tight!" In unison he and the other guard tugged Grady against the inner door of the cell while guards outside reeled Bethsaida smartly in so that the back of her belt clanked against the back wall of the cell.

As Bethsaida attempted to get enough range from the whip to kiss Grady one last time the guards stepped in. One of them caught the tip of the whip around his mailed arm and tugged. There was a brief struggle but it quickly ended when the other guardsman assisted his comrade.

"Task completed, Master Ellis," The guardsman said as he restored the whip to its former owner.

Nathaniel unfolded his body and stood up as if he had just awakened from a catnap. "Splendid, thank you guardsmen and Congratulations Captain Grady. Your rank and its associated privileges are restored. I trust the ordeal was up to your own stringent standards for punishment."

Grady was too weak from pain and shame to even lift his head. His first steps after the guards released him almost dropped him onto the floor. For a few moments he stood stooped over with his hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the cell floor. He rested, shaking his head every few breaths as if in disbelief. Finally, just before he attempted to stand, he glanced upward at the mirrored cieling...

...and caught sight of his own back.

"GAH!" He blurted. The shock of what he saw sent him stumbling violently of balance, almost knocking his head into a wall.

Zade's loud, boisterous laughter filled the cell as Grady... now standing upright... twisted and turned in a futile attempt to see with his own two eyes what MUST have been a mere illusion of the mirror.

"What is this!!?" the old man protested.

Nathaniel turned to Bethsaida. "And Bethsaida, Such craft! I had no idea you did portraiture. You are obviously a woman of great passion. It is such a pity that your passion is fixated on hatred, when it could as easily be directed towards artistic creativity or even love."

"Hatred IS my art," Zade said with a sarcastic sneer of a smile. "I don't think your overseer appreciates it, though."

"AAAAAA!" Grady screamed. He had reached around to touch his ruined back... to feel the shape of his wounds with his fingers. The fingertips came away bloody, but the scream was not from pain. As he looked up at the cieling, he realized that the wounds were exactly as they appeared. Zade had indeed forged a work of art in his flesh. Using his own whip, the slave-woman had carved a crude, but clearly recognizable FACE onto his back!

A FACE!

"WHAT IS THIS!?!?" Grady repeated, still clawing at his already torn flesh.

"Her name was Kenyari," Zade said coldly. "You killed her."

[To (not) Be Continued](?)