Days became weeks and weeks months. Prince Zymaan and Grimald Nightleaf rotted in the Citadel of Hate, home to the Lady of Pain. It was a wretched place where hope did not enter. Those who were held there either died in the chair or left wishing they had. Nobody leave the Citadel of Hate unchanged.
They took their turns, one by one, Prince Zymaan, Grimald Nightleaf and the other prisoners, feeding the Lady of Pain their life essence, extracted from them each in the most excruciating of ways, only to leave them unharmed so it could happen again from the start.
There are only so many times a person can be vivisected before they lose their minds.
Grimald Nightleaf was losing his mind. He had reached his end. His limits had been blasted through and all that remained was a shell that somehow refused to stop breathing even when he held his breath as long as he could.
Every moment in the cells was torture. He learned to dread the sounds of the doors opening and the guards coming. The seeming randomness of the selection. And then one of the prisoners being dragged off, clubbed as many times as necessary to gain compliance. The Lady of Pain did not seem to care if they arrived unconscious. She entered their minds and woke them up and drained their life, enjoying fear and agony like sauces on meat.
——-
Grimald Nightleaf found himself talking from time to time with a frail humanoid-looking man who had long devil ears and three toed feet like a bird. This man had forgotten his own name, so long had been his time in the Citadel of Hate, but he did remember a few things every now and again. The things he remembered amazed Grim.
One day he remembered that he had “tucked away some stones in a pocket shadow because those goddam guards will even take away worthless pebbles if a man has somehow grown attached to them… They took my stones once… had to carve ‘em again… I was so mad…”
What Grim observed, however, was that this man retrieved a set of carved stones, like dice with runes, from nowhere. He reached into nothing and then had them in his hand.
He used the stones to cast fortunes and tell stories and play games. Soon Grim agreed that these ordinary stones had value. They helped to pass the time.
When the guards came about, the devil-eared man would “tuck the stones away” and make them disappear. Grim asked how he did that, but the man denied having done anything. After seeing it many times, Grim begged the man to tell him about it, but he would not.
“Sworn to secrecy,” he said. “But taught by the best.” He giggled about this.
Grimald played the player instead of the game. “Who taught you how to do that?” Grim asked, hoping this angle of inquiry would yield better results.
At first the devilish man would not answer. He did not answer after many askings. But eventually he did answer.
“Morgan,” he said, his eyes very proud of this secret.
Grim’s mouth dropped. “You mean, Morgan of…”
“Queen Vlaakith and Morgan, yes,” he pronounced. “The very one. He was a Soul Drinker before he was with her, you know?”
From there, their secrets came out quickly. It turned out they both were Soul Drinkers, and more than twenty years ago Morgan taught the devil-man how to use pocket shadows to hide things.
Morgan, it was known, had created thousands of pocket shadows around him in which he carried thousands of weapons and equipment from all ages of time. The Dragon, as he was also known. A man who in fact required no weapons at all to ply his terrible trade.
——-
Grim called him Equinox, in part because the devil-man liked the name, and in part because Grim found him to be equal parts night and day. He could be caring and kind in this pit of despair, but he could also become angry and violent. He was, after all, an assassin, or at least at one time he had been.
With nothing else to do, Grim dedicated himself to the excavation of Equinox’s mind through incessant and repeated questioning. It turned out to be a worthwhile undertaking.
One day, after much probing, Equinox finally told Grim a secret about Morgan which Grim knew immediately was supposed to have died in this place and was extraordinarily dangerous to hear. It was probably why Equinox was here. A secret the mere knowing of which would have gotten him killed at family dinner with Alandra de Winter (as she then was), Morgan and the Abomination at ThunderRock when Alandra’s pseudo-dragon Absinthe licked his mind.
A secret that would change everything if it got out.
Grim tore away at the open but damaged seam in Equinox’s mind and discovered more.
But just then the guards burst in and selected him, and once again Grim found himself in the chair, feeling like he was going to die.
[Private email to Grim – owed but not yet written]