[Set several days after Perrin Mayce's assistant, William, is murdered.]


Fillip Menagrem woke from a brief, uneasy sleep and peered cautiously
around his cell deep with the Tower Guard's holdings. Tight muscles
loosened slightly when he realized that Denlira still hadn't appeared,
which now made two full days. Had she finally tired of tormenting him?

Slowly he sat up and noted that a tray of food had already been set
inside, and a determined rumble reminded him that he hadn't touched much
food of late.

Stiffly Fillip eased himself from the bed, and ran his hand through
tangled brown hair.

The food didn't smell half bad as he carried the tray back to the cot, and
spooned up some of the broth.

Again he carefully peered around the room - waiting to see if the cold and
stench would herald Denlira's arrival. He shuddered at the memory of how
her spirit could now take solid form and how bold she had gotten in her
touch; the room was always filled with a charnel house stench when she
came, and her eye sockets were always eternally empty.

A reminder.

She would not let him forget.

But maybe she had tired and went on to where ever ghosts went.

~Better not to think of her,~ Fillip told himself, scratching at the
healing knife wounds on his nose. Carefully he grinned. ~Bastard did
themselves in when he cut me! Got me a mis-trial!!~

He took another spoonful of soup, and softly chuckled. ~They aren't going
to waste any effort trying me again....Netit Vanit, secretary or not to
that "royal envoy" Ournel, wasn't that well loved.....and some little
whore isn't worth standing on principal for...Not worth taking me to
Bleckner to try.~ While Denlira never had sold herself he found it far
easier to believe his own lies than to remember he had murdered a girl who
once loved him true.

After finishing a decent lunch he set the tray down on the floor and laid
back down. ~Just as well catch up on more sleep,~  he decided, ~Sometime
soon they'll just decide to let me out.....probably tell me to get
out of town. But I'll do that happily....Montfort's a grease pit in
hell. Not worth my efforts......~

Menagrem sank into a dreamless sleep, but slowly....oh so slowly....the
hint of decaying meat reached his nostrils. Wended its way through his
sleeping mind.

"No," he murmured as he recognized the stench, and began to wake to the
feel of icy lips on his mouth.

Nails scratched at his eyelids until he opened his eyes and peered up into
Denlira's pale face. If not for her empty sockets she nearly appeared
alive - almost pretty, but now she wasn't smiling. Her expression was
petulant.

"I don't want them to take you away from me," she said, stroking his hair
back from his face; leaning nearer as he tried to cringe back further into
the mattress.

"Ah...ah.....go away...."

"I wanted them to give you to me," she said, "But I've been listening to
them all talking - and they were talking about taking you away to
Bleckner!!...And ...and I have to stay here ....You killed me
here....... .

"You love me," he whimpered.

"Oh I do. I do," she cried, grasping hard at his face, digging her nails
in until blood ran, "And I wanted you to have a grand hanging so we could
be together forever!! So everyone could watch you kick and squirm!!"

"Please Denlira," he whispered in a voice thick with terror, "I'm
sorry....."

"Not really you aren't," she said, "I'm going to have to teach you about
being sorry......" She grasped his shoulders tightly. "But I've thought of
a way for us to be together...I have so much to teach you......"

"Please......."

Denlira dragged Fillip off the bed and into her embrace.

His screams filled the cell as her essence sank into his body.

As she let him relive......again and again .....each of the many cruelties
he had inflicted on her, particularly the night he murdered
her.....particularly what it felt like to be in a hidden grave mutilated
and alone.

_______________

When Guardsman Mikels returned for the tray (the guards had grown far too
used to Menagrem's screams - and they had learned that not even the
Guardian could stop Denlira's spirit) he found the prisoner drooling in a
corner. Staring sightlessly at something beyond the walls.

After a few attempts to rouse Fillip Menagrem the Guardsman called for
healers to come take the prisoner down to the prison hospital; there
seemed little left to do.