Chapter Five:

The further I went west, the greener the landscape became. I had forgotten what
the young grass under my bare feet felt like; what moistness could do to the
skin. My flesh was cracked, dry, and dirty. For once, my heart was not racing
to enjoy the cooling waters before death came to claim me, but was slow, and
rhythmic, and enjoying my surroundings.

Magnagora's hunters were out for my blood, along with Celest's. It was amazing
how they would work together to claim me. One side took me for a murderer, the
other as a traitor. I came to the conclusion that, if I were to be caught, I
would hope it would be Celest who found me first.

But this sudden freedom was liberating. I walked until I was too tired, and
found myself near Delport, on the Estrange River. Removing my old, dusty robes
and sandals, I set down my belongings and slowly entered the cold water. My
body adjusted rather quickly to the slightly swampy marsh as I lay on my back
in the shallow mud pits, soaking up the water and feeling the gentle aches and
pains in my skin float away with the current.

I swam around for a while, feeling the sands in my eyes and nose and mouth and
ears, and every crevice of my body, finally disintegrate, leaving me feeling
fresh and clean for the first time in years. I dreaded putting back on those
dusty robes, so I threw them into the river and waved goodbye as they floated
away from me.

With sandals and a pack, I was able to give a few gold sovereigns for a simple
pair of trousers and a tunic. The tunic was far too big for me, but it was
white and kept me cool in the summer sun, and the trousers were too long,
although I just needed to roll them up some to fit me. They wouldn't keep me
protected if I were to be found, but I didn't expect to stay alive if I was
found out.

The young Aslarans who sold me the trousers and tunic also provided me with a
tent. They explained numerous times how to build it and take it down, but as
soon as night time fell and I attempted to put it together, I was left with a
relatively flimsy lean-to against a tree. "Oh, well, it will do," I said to
myself. The tent was surprisingly warm, but I could not sleep very well. Every
twig that snapped, every bird that sang, and every doe that rustled woke me.
Not because I was afraid for my life, but simply because it was not the Engine
that rumbled beneath my body, constantly clacking in my mind. I could never
truly be a forest-lover.

Celest was my only option.

However, while I was slumbering, just before dawn, there came voices. My groggy
mind did not comprehend this fact until I remembered my situation, and though I
was covered in dewdrops and the humid dawn was just leading into an even more
humid day, my heart began to race as my lean-to was suddenly shaken and torn
apart.

"There he is!"

Instantly, there were shackles bounding my wrists and legs, and an archdemon
reached out and cut my side, releasing blood. When the red rivulets of my life
essence were noticed, they went into a frenzy. A sword was stuck into my left
foot, preventing me from running. Sickly feelings overcame me as the archdemon
slobbered on me with his hideous breath, his body darkening the area around me.
My head was slammed with someone else's shield, and then I was tortured.

"That's enough, before you kill him," the Warlord said. Although his body
blotted out the sun and cast darkness around him and upon everything he looked
at, it never ceased to amaze me how his armour glittered so impressively.

The sword was released from my foot and all but the shackles were removed from
my battered body. I had no way to defend myself; it was a wonder I even lived.
I was hoisted up in front of the Warlord, who gazed at me with his red eyes.
The scent of the undead clouded my vision and made me dizzy.

"Back to Magnagora for you, Martus. A disgrace like yourself deserves special
treatment," he smiled, his yellow teeth horrible against his cracked, undead
skin.

Chapter Six:

Despite the screams I uttered and the random tortures I received from the
Nihilist, I was dragged all the same to Magnagora, settled into the torturing
room. A ritual room, more like, located beneath the city. The runed walls were
splattered with blood and the floor caved in slightly towards a drain. I was
unsure if it was rust or dried blood that crusted the outline of the floor.

They stripped me of my belongings, calling in to the Geomancers. The Warlord
was not a witness to such crimes, not at first. These 'scholars' rendered me
naked and forced me to lay my tender skin upon a bed of iron spikes, where they
proceeded to commit their horrible experiments. A mugwump was neither as
delicate as a faeling, nor as rare as an angel, but a rarity amongst Geomancers
nonetheless. Therefore, I was subject to their curious minds and their less than
gentle fingers.

When I found myself staring blankly at a white ceiling, blood gushing from
wounds on every part of my body, that was when Lady Raziela's face floated in
my vision. Her unconditional love, the gentle scent of her garden wafting in my
nostrils, fanning the iron scent of my blood away; driving the pain away.

I was moved, surprisingly tenderly, to a flat steel bed, wrists clasped down
with cold iron. My vision swam, but my hearing was perfect. I heard rustling
robes, and what I imagined were four feet walking about the room.

One of the masked Geomancers said, "Do they wish for him to be cleaned up? His
appearance may not be suitable."

"Don't spew such foulness, Iraveo. The Warlord, his wife, and her consort wish
to see the work we have done." The Viscanti Geomancer cackled in my direction
as she prepared a set of tools in the corner of the room. Her purple-skin was
just coming in to focus, but her face was hidden. Her sharp horns rose from her
head, and her hair was twirled around them intricately.

"You are right, Archmage. I am sorry."

I heard a sharp slap, and the mask of the first Geomancer clattered on the
floor beside me. His face was gnarled and torn, as if he had been offered as a
meal but taken away halfway through the course; his blistered skin was more red
than I imagine it normally would have been, and the thought occurred to me that
he was blushing. He scrambled to fix his mask over his ruined face, and I heard
a deep laughter from somewhere.

The masked Geomancer turned his ornate disguise to look straight at me, and the
paused look he gave me felt like a lifetime. But I know, I know that the
Viscanti Geomancer turned around without hesitation and stuck an iron sliver
into my leg, causing my laughter to end abruptly and begin fresh with screaming
pain, turning back to her work and humming quietly as if nothing were out of the
ordinary. I did not laugh because of what the Geomancer, Iraveo, looked like,
but that he decided he could not love himself enough to go without the mask.

Her humming stopped and I heard the clacking of hooves and then armour.

"Sh," the Archmage hissed. "Here they come. Prepare, protege."

Slight movement was heard, and then silence until the door burst open.
Immediately the chatter of outside drowned the silence inside of the room. My
vision had returned, although it was still slightly blurry, and I saw the
Warlord enter with his petite Viscanti wife, and beside her, her consort, who
was dressed in deep crimson robes, the hood pulled far over his head. The rest
of the city followed suit to witness this spectacle, shoving and using rank as
power to step upfront. I heard more than one person use their father's name as
weight to move forward.

Their infinite wisdom was only matched by their infinite greed, which indeed
did blind them.

And then silence took them over again. A few masked Magnagorans stood in the
crowd, but they hovered in the back, also rejected of the love that everyone
deserves.

It was then that the Warlord and his dear wife approached me, looking down at
me with disdain.

Such noble breeding they both had received, to be wasted on people like this.

"Did you receive your punishment serenely?" the Warlord asked of me. His wife's
yellow eyes glittered down at me, and a ghostly smile was printed on her thin
lips that were painted with ruby.

"Too good for an answer?" his hasty wife said. She grabbed the robed consort at
her side, shoving him towards me and ripping his hood back so roughly that I
heard the seam rip.

That will cost a pretty sovereign to mend, was my first thought.

That is the Warlord's wife's sister, was my second. It was here where I
discovered Orra's true self, and his relation to the Warlord, and especially
why I was enduring such a fate. He was not only the lover of the most powerful
woman in Magnagora, but he was also her brother.

The sound of their laughter certainly haunted me, and I fought all I could,
thinking of Raziela and remembering the things I had forgotten. It was, without
a doubt, the most trying time of my life, tottering between the sane and the
mad.

The Geomancers used every utensil and torture device they had ever invented in
front of Magnagora that night. When dawn finally came, the rosy-fingered light
seeping red through the cracks of the door, bearing wind and sand, they finally
stopped. My body was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, broken, damaged in every
possible way. I no longer possessed a thriving physical self, but instead, a
mind and a soul, basking in the love of Raziela, attempting to love the horrid
creatures around me. Trying with all my heart to love them and accept them.

Eventually, I did.

Near the end, Iraveo's hand slipped a fraction too deeply, and my life essence
drained more than planned. No doubt he would pay for such clumsiness later.
But, death claimed me either way and I prayed for salvation, listening to the
sisters closely and thankful that they did not cut my life's thread short, for
I still had redemption from Celest to seek. I still had to make things right.
This meant returning to Celest, whether or not they wanted me.