Of Torture, Nightmares & Becoming

[Kamar Deythal]

He struggled weakly, the only thing he could do to keep from giving up. He couldn't remember his name. He couldn't remember how he got here. He couldn't remember where here was. He couldn't remember anything, except the pain. And even that was fleeting.

He was held down by chains, manacles wrapping his wrists and keeping his arms stretched above his head. His ankles were likewise shackled, the soles of his feet inches from the cold, stone floor. He was held vertically, and his shoulders all the way to his wrists screamed with fatigue and pain. The only thing keeping him from suffocating in this position were the manacles around his ankles. Barely.

Occasionally he would wake up lying down, though it was little better than his current position. His captors would torture him, using sharp implements to dig into sensitive areas hidden by bone and flesh. He had been tortured before, but this was worse. Much worse.

Long moments passed before he realized someone was standing before him. A blurry face looked back at him as he tried to focus, and an arm reached up towards him. He refused to flinch, refused to give whoever his captor was the satisfaction of seeing him break. He looked defiantly at whoever the blurry form was in front of him, though it looked little more than a worried frown. The hand reached his face, brushing lightly over his cheek before the tips of the fingers gripped the back of his neck where his skull met his spine. The thumb rubbed roughly over the stubble that had grown on his face, making a rasping noise that irritated his ears. The thumb turned and suddenly a thumb nail was digging into his cheek, slicing through skin. Still, he didn't flinch. This was nothing compared to what he had suffered before; what he even now suffered. He reminded himself it was only pain.

"You will be a strong one," a masculine voice rasped. "You are what we ... he ... looks for."

A coughing chuckle sounded as the thumbnail moved upwards, brushing his eyelashes and causing his eye to involuntarily flinch closed. The pad of the thumb pressed down on his eye, not enough to cause damage, but enough to hurt the ocular nerve behind his eye. He clamped his teeth shut to keep from gasping, but didn't move. It was another show of defiance.

The hand left his face, and playfully slapped him as another hoarse chuckle echoed through the room. The blurry figure moved away, and he was left to his own devices again.

But only for a moment. The nightmares began again. And they were worse.

[Belatucadrus]

Belatucadrus did not keep many captives in the catacombs below Kaledin manor. The ones he did keep, however, had a habit of remaining there for a long, long time until they either died or were used to fuel an experiment of one kind or another. The only captives who were held with the intent of eventual release alive were the ones who would later join the ranks of the battlemages, his personal eyes, ears and teeth that patrolled the city of Marn, embedded within their society.

Finding new members to draw into their ranks was not difficult. Plenty of people were of the cruel, manipulative nature who had magic and would use it for their own gains. Creating a larger army of them would be a simple matter of numbers. It was his personal selectiveness that kept their numbers few. Too many reckless battlemages patrolling the city would only sew dissent. If the force was kept elite, devoted, quick and small, nobody in Marn would know just how powerful they were. And nobody did truly know aside from Bela himself.

He knew what every single one of them was capable of in terms of combat and magic, but more importantly, he knew every one of their minds. Many of them were not native Marnians - they had life experience outside of that city and talents that they brought with them. This was why, when Moryldar told Bela about the stranger who called himself Dennison, a physically adept and magically inclined man who entered Marn on the hunt for a seemingly harmless witch, the vampire took an interest.

The vampire used informants scattered throughout Eyropa and Tian Xia to gather information about what was going on in the world. He tapped these same informants for information on the assassin but none of them came back with information on the name Dennison. It took time and pressure, which was hard to accomplish from the confines of his manor, with only messengers and a scrying mirror as a means of communication, to find out more. With them he found out who Lanya was - she had never hidden her identity from Moryldar - and with her as a link he found out that Dennison was, in fact, Kamar Deythal.

That was all there was. Nothing more about his history was known. That was something Bela had to extract himself the old fashioned way.

Catching him was not easy, but it was virtually impossible for anyone to evade capture in Thar Shaddin for long. The scryers probed him out, and Zhou Lei and Berne personally captured him and dragged him to the manor.

From there he was left to sit and rot like a ripe fruit in the basement. A diet of torment ensured his mind was kept working, a lack of sunlight made sure he didn't know how long it had been, barely enough food and more than a two week's time made sure he forgot himself.

The torture expert was a freakish little man who was using Kamar as a practice tool. He had replaced last torturer, whose death was, unfortunately for him, useful in Bela's plans. He poked and prodded, cut and twisted, burned and cut the parts of Kamar's body from head to toe that earned him the loudest screams and the most pained twitching. It was true what they said - the hands, feet and genitals were easily the most sensitive.

Magic so heavily weighed the air in the catacombs beneath Shim that Bela didn't need to do anything to ensure nightmares would twist the man's psyche. The place was so steeped in magic that an ordinary person would emerge mentally warped at the very least if left there long enough.

The vampire had little to do during this time. He slept, and at one point emerged to go slaughter some fools who did not understand his position in Shim. Eventually enough time passed that he felt Kamar was ready to receive his blessing and experience the ritual.

The metal door to Kamar's cell opened on rusty hinges. This time, rather than the short, crooked form of the torturer was a much taller figure with long hair and silky black clothes. The figure moved with confidence and grace, though all Kamar could see was its silhouette.

It stood before its captive and reached up with a hand to raise Kamar's chin and look him in the eyes. Simultaneously, shadows, unseen in the darkness of the cell, eased the pressure and the pain the shackles exerted on his body by lifting him up. The way they cradled his body and limbs felt like being lifted up on air.

A voice cut the silence, soft and soothing. "Kamar Deythal."

[Kamar Deythal]

He stood before four figures, his wrists bound in front of him. The figures were shadowy and barely human-like, but he had the dreadful feeling he knew who they were.

The first stepped forward, solidifying into his older brother. A jagged wound gaped in his brother's stomach, guts held in only by the hand over the hole. His brother's mouth opened, and a single word came out.

"Samuel."

Flash.

He knew his name again, but he also knew that it wasn't the only name he used, and he knew that it wasn't the name he was born with. Samuel.

He and Darien were fighting, and everyone else was gone from the house. In a moment of severe anger, similar to their father's angry reactions, Samuel grabbed a knife from the kitchen table. His brother charged him, murder in both their young eyes, and for once, Samuel stood his ground.

Darien swung a fist, and Samuel managed to slip aside enough for the blow to just glance off his cheek. He refrained from swinging with the knife, for his brother had already corrected and was coming back at Samuel, fists swinging. Samuel ducked the first and stepped forward into his brother, standing up as he stabbed the knife into his brother's stomach. Darien's eyes widened as warm blooded poured over Samuel's hand. Samuel jerked the knife up again and twisted, and blood dripped from Darien's open mouth. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward as Samuel stepped away.

Flash.

He stood before three figures, his wrists bound in front of him. The figures were shadowy and barely human-like, but he had the dreadful feeling he knew who they were.

The first stepped forward, solidifying into a monk. The monk's head was caved in on the right near the back, obviously the cause of death. The monk's mouth moved, and a single word escaped his lips.

"Dennison."

Flash.

He knew his name again, but he also knew that it wasn't the only name he used, and he knew that it wasn't the name he was born with. Samuel Dennison.

He lay on a hard pallet that he used as his bed. The hardness of the pallet bothered his bruises and scrapes, but he ignored them. The monastery he stayed at tended towards the austere, and he was used to ignoring the pain of another beating. The monk who most often administered them said they were to keep him in his place, but Samuel knew that this monk didn't like him because he showed too much promise.

A knock sounded at the door. Samuel sat up and told the person to enter. Who should it be, but the very monk who had beaten him until he could hardly stand. Samuel glared, while trying not to glare. He was unsuccessful, as the monk asked if he needed another lesson. Samuel stood, anger and adrenaline masking the pain from his various bruises.

The monk smirked and stepped forward, sending a right roundhouse kick at Samuel's shin. Samuel stepped forward, leading with his left hand, taking the kick from the monk in the calf, where it stung, but was otherwise ineffectual. The monk backed into the doorway and brought his own right hand downward in a sweeping motion, knocking Samuel's strike away from his temple. The monk kicked with his left leg this time, aiming higher at Samuel's ribs. Samuel made no attempt to dodge or step back, instead stepping into the kick and trapping the monk's leg between ribs and arms.

The monk showed a momentary flash of surprise and panic as Samuel offered a half smile. The young monk-in-training had learned his lessons well, and stepped forward as he drove his left hand palm first into the monk's breadbasket. Instead of stepping back, Samuel continued to drive forward, hooking his left leg behind the inside ankle of the monk, tripping him up and driving the monk down towards the stone ground. The monk's head rebounded off the stone floor with a sickening thud, and blood suddenly appeared under his head, pooling in the cracks.

Flash.

He stood before two figures, his wrists bound in front of him. The figures were shadowy and barely human-like, but he had the dreadful feeling he knew who they were.

The first stepped forward, solidifying into the Shadow Mage, the head of an assassin's guild he used to be a part of. A dagger protruded from the Shadow Mage's chest, his dagger. The Shadow Mage's mouth opened, and a single word issued forth.

"Kamar."

Flash.

He knew his name again, but he also knew that it wasn't the only name he used. Samuel Dennison. Kamar.

He hid in the shadows in a great chamber lit by torchlight, watching the Shadow Mage sitting on his chair on the dais at the far end of the chamber, and his son, standing before it. The two were arguing again and neither had noticed him slip in and approach, to hide within feet of the two of them. They only argued like this about one thing: the mysterious Samuel. The Shadow Mage wouldn't even teach his son the ways of the Shadow Assassin, and yet he taught an unknown assassin, little more than a boy. No matter that Samuel showed promise, no matter that he was the best assassin in the guild, even after only being with them for a short period of time.

The Shadow Mage's son turned away, and torchlight flashed off the blade of a dagger. Kamar recognized the blade as his own, and the missing dagger was the reason he was waiting to speak with the Shadow Mage. He should have stepped forth then and there, but he was curious what the Shadow Mage's son planned on doing.

With shocking speed, the young man turned and planted the dagger into his father's heart. The Shadow Mage's mouth gaped open and he stared at his son in shock before slumping forward in his chair. His son stepped up on the dais and felt for his pulse, before turning and shouting.

"Murder! The upstart has murdered the head of our guild! He has murdered my father!"

Kamar sunk further into the shadows, and using an ability now ingrained within him, stepped through the shadows, leaving nothing in the corner where he once stood.

Flash.

He hung from manacles around his wrists before an indistinct figure, his ankles bound in similar manacles. The figure was shadowy and barely human-like, but he had the dreadful feeling he knew who it was.

The figure stepped forward, only it's silhouette showing it as human, and gripped his chin, lifting his face to look into his eyes. The pain from the manacles at his wrists and ankles abated somewhat as he suddenly seemed to float. A shadowy mouth opened, and two words slipped out.

"Kamar Deythal."

He knew his name again. He knew how he had gotten here. And he knew that there were things required of him, or he would never leave this cell ... alive.

In a last show of defiance, Kamar forced his cracked and dry throat to work, and croaked through his customary half-smirk, "At your service."

[Belatucadrus]

The vampire smiled at Kamar. He was honestly pleased with the response he'd gotten. For a man who was always seen as sinister and cruel, for all that his attire and his features lived up to that reputation, Belatucadrus' smile was, at the very least, genuine.

Kamar's handling of the torture was something the vampire had been observing closely since his arrival. Always unseen and out of sight, he was present for much of what happened but did not involve himself directly. Instead, he studied Kamar's reactions for clues and questioned the scryers about what they could tell him of his mind. They saw many of the same dreams and relayed them to Belatucadrus in their strange, childlike ways. Either imitating voices or describing what they could glean from various perspectives.

While the days passed, he developed a clearer understanding of who he was dealing with. Kamar's response lived up to his expectations.

"You have been through this before." The vampire spoke while lifting up his other hand, from which dangled a set of keys, hung on a ring pinched between the claws on his thumb and forefinger. "You know that this is purposeful. I will not waste your time."

He did not speak down to Kamar in the expected, dehumanizing manner one would expect from a torturer. The vampire's tone was formal. All was business between them.

Releasing his chin, now that Kamar's own strength and pride were more than enough to keep his head held high, the vampire chose one of several keys and unlocked the shackle restraining Kamar's right wrist. Once released, the shadows did the rest of the work. Bela showed no outward sign that he was in control of them.

"Do not attempt to use magic with the shadows or I will have them crush you."

The shackle holding Kamar's right wrist up came off soon after, at which point the vampire stepped back and looked at him. He remained suspended and restrained by the shadows, although they were infinitely more pleasant than the shackles had been. It was still hard to see anything in the dim light.

"Do you know who I am, Kamar?"

[Kamar Deythal]

Still relatively helpless, Kamar simply watched the shadowy shape before him. He appreciated the fact that his torturer would speak to him in what amounted to a civilized manner, reminding him of nothing so much as a man seeking a business relationship. The fact remained, however, that Kamar was a prisoner to this man. Any relationship he entered into would be forced upon him, no matter how civil the person in front of him was currently.

Kamar's head remained up after Bela's hand left his chin, a small, defiant smirk lifting one corner of his mouth. His eyes watched the keys as Bela began searching through them, then watched as the manacle on his right wrist was released. Instead of being able to use that arm, he felt like he was still held. It was softer and easier on his skin and arm than the manacle, and upon closer inspection, he saw what looked like a tendril of shadow wrapping his wrist, where no shadow would normally be. The process was repeated with his left wrist, though the manacles around his ankles remained.

"Do not attempt to use magic with the shadows or I will have them crush you."

Kamar's eyebrow lifted slightly. This one could control shadows, it appeared, and admitting it to Kamar, while a warning, was also giving the assassin more information to work with. He filed the tidbit away for future consideration.

Kamar continued to look calmly at the shadowy figure in front of him as it asked the assassin if he knew who it was. He quickly calculated. If he was still in Thar Shaddin, there was really only one person with the power and means to bring him in and keep him here.

Without a hint of question in his voice, Kamar spoke confidently. "You would be ... Belatucadrus."

[Belatucadrus]

The figure before him seemed satisfied with the answer. He gave a sound of affirmation that was deep and carried with it an unmistakably seductive potential.

"Mmm."

This time, however, the vampire did not smile. He saw something behind the answer - a hint of an inflection, something in the tone, something in Kamar's eyes. The defiance Kamar displayed on the surface was not just a show. He had defiance in him, and the vampire could see it. Words were one thing, true thoughts another.

He was going to have to do more.

The vampire reached up to touch Kamar's face again, this time with both hands, and placed his fingers behind the man's jawline on either side such that his palms faced either cheek. A set of talons barely pierced the skin where they touched although they did not hurt. It was a feeling like cold stone or metal, and it began to dig in through the flesh and behind the bone.

Bela smiled, enjoying himself, eager to see Kamar's reaction.

"You ask yourself why you're here. And you say; because he needs me for something." As the vampire spoke, he pushed the fingers in deeper. By this point they had dug in so deeply that they stopped at the hinge of bone that held his jaw in place. "You think to yourself: he would have killed me if he needed me for something."

Each of his thumbs pressed up against the sides of Kamar's mouth. The same ebony claws dug in, and the skin parted like red blossoms opening up to the sun. It barely hurt at all, but the vampire made sure he could feel exactly what was happening.

"No. Not because I need you. Because I want you."

Slowly, the vampire pushed his thumbs up along Kamar's cheeks, making his mouth wider and wider, until eventually thumbs met forefingers and the flesh was ready to fall down. There was no blood, though it felt ready to gush.

"And when I can't have what I want, Kamar, I destroy it."

He pulled back against the jaw he held in his hands. It did not want to give at first. Tendons, muscles, and the bones held it in place. But he kept pulling, and where it snagged, he used his claws to slice away the offending tissue. The shadows lashed around his neck and forehead, holding him still so he couldn't struggle.

Eventually, the lower jaw came completely free. Belatucadrus held the oozing thing in one hand, and then lifted it up so that Kamar could see his own lower teeth glistening in the dim lighting before him. The vampire did not seem bothered by the sight before him. Neither what he held in his hand, nor the gaping, fleshy hole that was once his prisoner's mouth were anything but spectacles to be studied.

Shadows rushed to fill the hole, writhing over the tongue and muffling sounds coming from his throat.

Belatucadrus smiled, and then waited, observing. Minutes passed that felt like eternity. The passing of time didn't bother him as it would a normal person. He could stand and stare for as long as it took to see what he wanted. The relative silence was as sickening in its perversion as the surgery he'd just done.

His servants worked with pain, but pain was ineffective on trained minds. He rarely resorted to pain.

Orange light appeared in the doorway behind the vampire, flickering and wavering. It was a woman holding a candle. Barely clothed in straps of leather and veils, her skin glowed perfectly in the light. Long red curls cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Her proportions were perfect; the ideal figure. Her face, seductive green eyes and deep red lips, matched the rest. She was nothing short of beautiful, and she walked up beside the vampire with the painfully bright candle at eye level.

For the first time, Kamar could see his captor clearly. Bela was a sinister looking man with pale skin and long black hair, yet his features were so perfectly modeled as to make him look handsome.

The servant looked from Kamar, unrepulsed by what she saw there, and then to her master. He withdrew the ring of keys again and held them out for her.

"Care for him." Said the vampire, who then turned on his heels and walked out of the chamber, carrying his fleshy trophy with him. The door closed behind him, and the red haired beauty got on her knees to remove the shackles from Kamar's ankles. Slowly, the shadows receded.

[Kamar Deythal]

Something in the shapeless features, the set of the face, the body language that even a vampire of uncountable years couldn't quite hide, warned Kamar.

He didn't know what was about to happen, but he knew it was going to be bad.

Bela's hands caught and held his face, almost caressing as the palms fully cupped his cheeks. His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as he frowned, feeling the sensation of Bela's fingers digging into his flesh, but more at the absence of pain. Pain, he understood. This feeling without pain was unlike any torture he had ever felt. And it was torture.

Kamar re-focused his mind, ignoring the feeling of his jaw muscles being severed to focus with a single-minded determination solely on what was coming from Bela's mouth. He rolled each word through his mind several times, until the words held almost no meaning for him, while shutting out the sensations Bela was causing.

"You ask yourself why you're here. And you say; because he needs me for something." As the vampire spoke, he pushed the fingers in deeper. By this point they had dug in so deeply that they stopped at the hinge of bone that held his jaw in place. "You think to yourself: he would have killed me if he needed me for something."

Twin explosions of muted pain marked the point where Bela's thumbnails sliced through the corners of Kamar's mouth. His mind rebelled, but years of discipline helped Kamar pull his mind back from the brink of insanity. It wasn't the first time he had nearly slipped into the boundaries of madness, and he doubted it would be the last.

"No. Not because I need you. Because I want you."

"And when I can't have what I want, Kamar, I destroy it."

And now it was down to it. Mutilation or destruction. Kamar realized he had somehow found himself in a situation where he wouldn't be able to escape through magic, force of will, or using his tricky mind. He was stuck, and that realization itself nearly broke him.

Then Bela began pulling on his jaw.

Kamar's head involuntarily jerked before it was held steady by the shadows. He could do nothing but stare at the featureless face before him, listening to bone grind on bone as his jaw slowly separated, listening to tendons and cartilage snap and crackle when it was simply parting for Bela's surgically sharp nails.

And then he was staring at his own jaw, glinting red and white in the minimal light in the room. He tried to speak, to make a noise, but the shadows crawled into his mouth and kept him near silent, only a grunt escaping him.

Silence followed, as Kamar refused to give Bela the satisfaction of hearing him whimper. All of his considerable will was bent towards that one end, and as the minutes passed, it was all he thought about. Let him think he's won. Play at being his lapdog, like the rest of the curs running around this forsaken land. This dog will still have teeth, he thought, using a mental trick he had been taught at the monastery to prevent people with the power from reading his mind.

A woman entered, beautiful as most people would count, but Kamar was too far gone to think of her as anything other than another slave to Bela's wishes. As the light revealed more and more of Bela's face, Kamar looked on, torn between fascination and disgust. Bela's face might have been handsome, but the nearly perfect set to his features was alien and disturbing to Kamar's elven side. Even his human side recoiled at the sight.

Then Bela handed the keys to the young woman, and turned on his heel. The woman bent to unlock the ankle shackles, and Kamar slowly stepped down as the shadows released their hold on ankles, head, neck, throat and mouth. With the realization that he was relatively free, and that the instrument of his bizarre torture was gone, Kamar lost his focus. A shadow of pain around where his jaw used to be was the only thing he could feel. The rest of him felt numbness.

The woman stood up before him, ignoring the gaping hole where his lower jaw used to be, and the droplets of blood that dripped from it to run down his naked body. Kamar stared at her uncomprehendingly as his mind fought to assimilate all that had happened in the last half hour.

Darkness flickered at the corners of his eyes, and suddenly Kamar felt like he was falling. He was unconscious before the real fall began, and the young woman, though slender, was strong enough to catch the likewise slender half-elf and settle him gently to the floor.

With a put out sigh, the young woman sat next to Kamar's prone form and patiently awaited his return to consciousness.

[Kamar Deythal]

His return to consciousness was slow and forced. He struggled against the wall of blackness, pushing it back as his sub-conscious fought the unreality of his entire situation. His mind threatened to crack, but held, forced to remain sane by Kamar's sheer force of will.

A shape moved in the blackness before his face as he groaned aloud. The groan sounded funny to his own ears, but for the moment he could not piece together why it should be so.

The delicate touch of a hand brushing back his hair, grown long and curling at the front, caused his eyes to open. They immediately shut again to open to slits, his sensitive eyes shifting to normal sight as the torchlight seared them.

The face before him was the young woman who had remained after Belatucadrus had left. He groaned again, and attempted to ask how long he had been unconscious. All that came out was something that sounded similar to the words, but was altogether too full of air. Remembrance of his missing lower jaw came crashing back, and his shaking hand lifted to his face, running lightly across the loose skin and dried, crusted blood at the base of his upper jaw. He looked to the woman, who did not look at him with pity or disgust, and concentrated on forming words.

"How ... long?" he managed to whistle, forming the words more with his throat than with his mostly useless tongue, which hung down like a panting dog's.

The woman shrugged nonchalantly, her hand resting casually on Kamar's thigh as if it belonged there. He didn't attempt to disavow her of the idea, but instead awaited her response.

"It could have been a few hours, perhaps five or six. Torture will often leave the body in need of rest, and the master... well, it is not surprising you were unconscious for as long as you were," she replied, her voice soft and playful despite the gravity of the words. She affected a pout, and ran a finger along the cheek bone below his eye playfully. "However, it means we have less time for some of life's more... enjoyable activities. Perhaps it will help to regain your spirits. The master rewards well, even after he has shown his darker side."

She spoke in the educated tones of the upper class, and her breasts lifted as she drew in breath, nearly coming out of her tight blouse. She managed to turn the words she was speaking into something near erotic, and Kamar frowned at her. She smiled and licked her upper lip, then leaned forward to whisper in Kamar's ear.

"I'm part of your reward, good sir, and I'd appreciate it if you could help me out of these tight clothes. I find myself almost breathless with anticipation," she cooed into his ear. Her hand moved up his hard-muscled thigh to grasp the softness of him, enticing him towards fullness. At the same time, her tongue flicked out and licked at his nearly lobeless ear.

It had been a few years since Kamar had been with a woman, his work often taking up too much of his time to allow him to dabble in the mundane joys of everyday life. As such, he found himself responding to her touch, even despite the horrors of the past weeks. He was quickly hard, and she continued to toy with him, whispering in his ear some of the things she would do to him, and what he could do to her.

Dexterously, Kamar undid the buttons on the front of the woman's blouse and continued to strip her as she began using her own hands to good advantage. Within moments, they were laying together, naked on the hard floor of the torture chamber, ignoring everything but each other.

Kamar found a temporary reprieve from the horrors behind him, putting them out of his mind. The woman ignored the disfiguration of his missing jaw as if it wasn't there, and for hours, the two of them were lost in each other.

[Belatucadrus]

Belatucadrus allowed Kamar and Suela as much time alone together as he felt they needed. She was a good woman who took the same kind of pride and caring in her job as a good nurse would. Bela loved her as he did all his children. The two of them had shared many nights of physical intimacy as well. He worried that one day he would send her down to care for one of his more psychotic prisoners, and she would end up dead.

It was an unfortunate risk.

Kamar's jaw sat submerged in a bowl of bloody liquid on Bela's desk in his study, on the ground floor of the manor. It was necessary to keep it from drying up and being damaged beyond reuse. He intended to replace the part to Kamar in good time, as a reward for good behavior if he chose to turn around his rebellious attitude.

It was also a good piece of insurance. Should Kamar try to escape, he would be a freak for the rest of his life; unable to speak or even feed on anything but mash. It was not taken for the purpose of insurance, but as Bela sat in his study, quill in hand, writing in one of his journals, he realized the usefulness of such a tactic.

The journals he wrote were in a strange script known only to him and a handful of other people on Pal Tahrenor. A dying language he brought with him from his homeland far in northeastern Eyropa. Shelves filled with such journals lined one wall of his study. Half of them over a century old, they were full of notes nobody but Bela would ever read. His experiences with Kamar filled the last few pages of his current journal.

Many of the battlemages had entire books devoted to their psyches.

The following night, Bela awoke to Suela's gentle touch on his cheek. The look on her face expressed to him that her part in Kamar's conversion was finished. Ever submissive to him, passive to the core, she didn't ask what she wondered to herself. Bela knew what she wanted to know, though, and offered an answer to her anyway.

"If he cooperates," was all he said.

She nodded and understood, and then smiled at him. "He will," she replied.

The vampire entered Kamar's cell later that night wearing clean clothes that were absent of the stains from their ad hoc surgery. There was no look of disdain on his face, only the same desensitized gaze that the red-haired woman had had. Bela did not bring up the jaw, nor did he bring up Suela.

"It's time I gave you my offer in full, Kamar. You're here because I have an offer to make you much more than you are. To join a select group of individuals on this world. But for this to come to fruition we must reach an understanding, you and I. I must be convinced, and I must have certain assurances. Your personal rewards will come later.

Come. I have something for you to see."

The vampire waited for Kamar to gather himself while standing just outside the door. There were a few candles here and there in the hallway, but he kept things abnormally dark. The walls were made of stone and it was cold and damp enough to suggest that they were well underground. It smelled like candles, moldy wood, and blood.

Various rooms lined the hallway he led Kamar down. Most of the doors were closed, a few were open to reveal similar, empty cells as the one he was in. One of the rooms, from which emanated the smell of blood and raw meat, was much larger. It was too dark to see everything in there, but there was a table in the center, with arches of metal and chains strung around it.

Light came from their destination, which was one of the last rooms at the end of the hall. That hall in turn vanished into a set of downward stairs. Whatever was down below remained completely unlit.

The room was warmer and less damp than the others, possibly because it had more candles in it - six of them, three on each side. They were shielded with waxed paper to prevent the bright light from shining directly in the vampire's eyes.

The walls of the room were lined with runes and geometrical designs that were chiseled into the the stone. Some of it looked like it might be writing, and the rest were probably astrological signs of some kind. It didn't take an expert to know that this room served a magical purpose.

In the center of the room on a fat stone pedestal was a bronze urn. To one side of this urn was a small dish, also made of bronze, and to the other was a fine knife etched with the kinds of runes that resembled the writing on the walls.

[Kamar Deythal]

Kamar pretended to be asleep as the girl left. The hours had passed quickly, and the girl was good at what she did. But it all came back to the torture Kamar had endured over the previous days, weeks ... however long it had been ... and the fact that he was still a prisoner.

He had finally given into the bleak oblivion of exhaustion, and slept the sleep of the dead, or at least the damned who knew what was waiting for them in the afterlife, if one believed in such drivel.

The door closed quietly behind the girl as she left. Kamar knew it hadn't been long since he had given in to that exhaustion, perhaps an hour, maybe less. He could still feel it eating away at the edges of his consciousness, inviting him back into the healing sleep. He fought it off and stood. Unashamed of his nakedness, he glanced around his cell, searching for anything that might aid him in escaping his latest prison. When they had left him alone, they had cleaned out anything that might help him, and there wasn't so much as a scrap of cloth to cover himself with.

Shrugging slightly and smirking at his newest predicament, Kamar moved to a corner of the cell. Such was his exhaustion that he didn't even try the door, simply assuming it was locked. There was no way he could pick the lock without lockpicks or a similar metal implement, and there was nothing to be found in the cell with him. Curling up in the corner to keep what heat remained to him, he closed his eyes. The cold stone leeched the heat from him, but he concentrated on ignoring it and going back into his sleep.

Hours passed as Kamar slept, dreaming of things he had dreamed, remembering the tortures he had been subjected to over the last days. It didn't haunt him the way it did some people, but he used it to fuel his anger and passion to survive where hundreds, thousands, millions had died before him.

The sound of the door opening brought Kamar quickly to his feet. He leaned casually against the wall, as if he had been waiting for someone instead of sleeping a mere moment before. He was still tired, but rested enough to remain on his feet for some time. He had been through similar situations before, and his willpower had almost always kept him going where others would have given in.

Kamar dipped his head in greeting to Bela as the supposed vampire stood in the doorway, but said nothing. In fact, he couldn't have said much anyways, other than grunts that would be barely distinguishable as words.

Bela spoke, and Kamar nodded where appropriate. He had assumed there was an offer going to be made, but he found it odd that Bela would torture him before even making the offer. He supposed it was a good way to show people what would happen to them if they didn't accept the offer.

As Bela turned in the doorway and began walking, expecting Kamar to follow, Kamar stood for a moment, then shrugged to no one in particular. Having nothing better to do, Kamar followed, still naked for the moment.

He entered the room a moment after Bela did, and took in the strange display of items. His eyes narrowed, for he recognized ritualistic paraphernalia, and this room and the items it contained was definitely that.

He turned his gaze on Bela, his eyes still narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, then realized he didn't have a mouth per se. He ignored the pangs of hunger from not having eaten since his lower jaw had been separated from his head, and waved to Bela, then himself, then the room around them. It was clear from his motions and his disturbed look that he was wondering what all of this was about.

[Belatucadrus]

Kamar's curiosity was both obvious and a common reaction. "This place, like so much that you have already encountered, is a creation of mine. Though I'm not deserving of much of the credit. Much of the raw skills required for its construction are beyond my earthly mind. A superbly eclectic mix of various magics native to the region. This is the place where battlemages are born."

Bela smiled to his guest and spoke in a calm, explanatory tone. "Yes, Kamar, they work for me and this is why I summoned you. You have so many of the qualities I look for and your potential remains almost entirely untapped. Chasing an innocent witch around for petty change and the gratitude of some degenerate aristocrat is not something you'll be doing again."

The room emanated magical energies so strongly that only a few moments in it began to affect the mind of anyone within. Runes began to shift and swim along the walls, imperceptibly at first from the corner of the eye, but soon with the speed of oozing tar. So weak was the barrier between the astral and physical realm that things of the imagination forced themselves to the surface of the mind. It was an eerie effect that grew stronger by the minute. Whether or not it affected the vampire was unclear. If it did, he hid it well.

"There is a problem with the type of individual most suited to do my work. I can only bribe you so far with your self interests, but I require assurance of your loyalty beyond what standard methods can provide."

Madness threatened to ravage Kamar's mind if the room continued to affect him at the same rate as it was. Not only were the runes flowing along the walls like a raver of syrup, they began to seem as though they were alive. The feeling was inexplicable. They had no eyes or living features, but they were somehow watching. They whispered the words that were written on the walls to him. It was in an ancient language, but he could understand what they were saying. They were promising him secrets, pleasures, and power if only he would give in to his greed and lust.

"Fascinating, isn't it? The whispering becomes nerve wracking after a while. I left a girl in here for a week and she killed herself by driving her head against the walls. I would use it for interrogations, if only it wouldn't turn them so incoherent."

The vampire reached past Kamar and closed the door, latching it shut afterward.

"Now then." He slowly walked to the table on which the urn rested. "As a battlemage you would have access to power and freedom like you have never known. You would be entrusted, as one of mine, with knowledge men kill and die for. I will give you a choice. You may die, or you may agree to serve me as one of my chosen. Not much of a choice, I know. Unfortunately releasing you is no longer an option."

[Kamar Deythal]

Kamar listened to Bela even through the runes on the walls began to run together like so much thick molasses. They spoke to him of the power he had already looked for, and though never a greedy person, he wanted that power. He knew he had potential for more than he could currently do, but had been too busy working to find someone who could or would train him properly.

Now was his chance. His weakened mind rebelled as the runes seemed to speak to him, a low and constant drone that was just quiet enough for him to continue to hear Bela. It was Bela's voice that became the rock in the river, holding Kamar's drowning mind above water.

He followed Bela to the table, staggering barely less then a practiced drunk. His usual grace was still there, but his steps were forced, and it showed in his gait. Before he knew it, he was at the table.

Tearing his gaze from the wall long enough to look Bela in the eyes, Kamar nodded once to let him know he was ready for whatever was to come next. His own eyes glimmered with excitement and no small amount of madness as his mind threatened to release it's hold on sanity, but there was no fear showing.

Kamar was prepared to lose even himself to gain the power which he had sought for so long. Soon it would be his. He was ready to begin.

Power.

His.

[Belatucadrus]

To say that Bela's nature was either evil or sadistic was no more accurate than to suggest he was neither of those things. The man was a palimpsest that had been written and rewritten a hundred times over the centuries. It might be possible, for those who didn't know him, to mistake the air that Bela carried himself with for false bravado. He kept what he knew and what he was capable of hidden behind a thick veneer of nearly effete politeness and social grace. One of the advantages of this was that it often shocked people to see just what he could do to them without blinking. Too many people who learned that lesson died as a result.

Nobody who did not know cruelty could be responsible for the room Kamar was in. Nobody who was unfamiliar with perversity could be so numb to what was in there. It was thus far the best evidence of what lay beneath the vampire's surface that could be provided without a vulgar display of inhumanity. Being in the room meant sharing a dark secret with the vampire. People had died in that room. Many people. All because of him.

The instant Kamar communicated his complacency, the walls changed their tune. They stopped whispering about promises of power and began to cry in pain, carrying with those screams and moans the feelings of suffering of dozens who perished in that room before him. The perversion of it lay in how good it felt. There was a visceral, sexual tinge to the voices. Their promises were no longer that he would obtain power through cruelty, but that the cruelty itself was enjoyable, carnally gratifying.

There was no turning back. Not now.

The vampire spoke some words in the same language written on the walls, and the room began to throb with different energy. Kamar could understand those words despite not knowing the language, because they were echoed in Eyropan for him.

"Hidden eyes of Nuua Gle, I open you. Bring your slumber to this world and bear witness to what the awakened see. Bind this man's life to every drop of his blood. Bring forth the flesh of my sacrifices that I may unite our pact and leave you to rest."

Another presence entered the room then, more powerful than any of the others. In the air before the vampire appeared a roughly rectangular sheet of something wrinkly and fleshy in colour. He plucked it from the air, which shimmered and eventually released it with a wavering like ripples in water. The human parchment was placed on the pedestal before him.

"Place your hand over the urn." He ordered in Eyropan, and waited for Kamar to comply.

With Kamar's hand in place, he gripped it in icy fingers that felt like metal, twisted it so it faced palm-upward, and squeezed until it hurt.

The pain felt good.

He took up the knife on the side of the table and began to cut off the tip of Kamar's index finger. Sharp as a scalpel, it took the flesh off easily, with less of the pleasurable pain than his grip caused. The vampire removed the tip of flesh and placed it into the small bronze dish that lay on the pedestal beside the urn. He then turned Kamar's hand so that the blood dripped from his finger into the urn itself. A shift in the pressure on his wrist made the blood flow freely, and he held it there until a small pool had formed in the urn.

Releasing his hand, he reached down and pushed the human parchment in Kamar's direction.

"Sign your name," he said. He wanted it in blood.

[Kamar Deythal]

The change from whispers of power to an almost sexually visceral shower of cries of pain, reminding him of the joy he already got from his own cruelty. Being as he already enjoyed his own cruelty almost to a point of sexual release made him stand his ground in the room better than most normal people would in his stead.

All things equal, however, any battlemage who had stood in his place wouldn't be considered normal, so Kamar's stoicism hidden behind what would have been his customary smirk if he still had his bottom jaw wouldn't likely be new to Bela.

Kamar listened to Bela's incantation, then followed his instructions to put his left hand on the urn. He didn't flinch when Bela cut away the tip of his index finger, but he was glad he had chosen his left hand instead of his main sword hand. He didn't know if Bela would have the finger healed right away, so it would be better that the pain and awkwardness would be in his left hand at a later date.

He watched as the blood pooled in the bottom of the urn, a process that took minutes. As he watched, he listened to the cries around him, listened to the pain of others who had stood in this room and taken this test, or failed this test and been killed. Or even those who had displeased Bela in some way and had been brought in here to die.

Then Bela was holding out the human looking parchment to him, the one he had pulled from the very air minutes ago.

Sign your name.

Kamar complied, instinctively knowing that Bela would want it in blood. He was almost as good writing with is left hand as his right, something he had learned was because he used both hands when fighting. He signed his name at the bottom of the paper, a slightly more shaky version of his signature due to the torture he had been through and using his left hand.

He stepped back from the 'paper' and looked to Bela, but before he could wonder what would come next, his left leg gave out on him. He fell to his knee, keeping his eyes on Bela, but cursing the torture that had left him this weak. He needed rest and to heal, and even his considerable willpower was flagging as he waited for whatever was to happen now.

Kamar fought waves of blackness, knowing that to fall unconscious in this room would mean his death. He concentrated on Bela, waiting for the vampire to continue.

[Belatucadrus]

Bela's eyes followed the parchment as it was pushed back to him. Now, with the signature in place, the most important part of the ceremony was over. Kamar's life was soon to be bound to the parchment, with the force of one of the most powerful spiritual entities that anyone this side of Pal Tahrenor knew about backing the arrangement. Nobody, not Bela and certainly not anyone he could recruit as a battlemage, could come close to matching the force of the contract Kamar had just signed.

The runes on the walls continued their ethereal glowing and throbbing. Magic hung so thick in the air anyone could taste it, and the voices that screamed into Kamar's mind waxed and waned. They seemed to be defeated by the act of his signing, resigned to their abyss and helpless to influence the machinations of the physical world from whence they came.

When Kamar signed that parchment, they had no more hope to call him away, if that was indeed what they were trying to do. They were either defeated, or satiated. It was difficult to tell. So many thoughts and emotions clouded things beyond any clear message. The stronger presence, the one ruling over them all, was amused. It took as much pleasure in their screams as Kamar had, if not more.

"Take his flesh." The vampire said again in the strange language.

He held up the brass bowl in which the tip of Kamar's finger's sat. Smoke began to rise from the bowl, and with it came the unmistakable stench of burning flesh. Its contents bubbled and sizzled, and the vampires face twisted in a grimace as he held the thing in his hand which became blisteringly hot on its own. He didn't release the thing, but held it in the air forcefully until nothing remained in the bowl but ashes. It had been so hot that the vampire's fingers, too, had burned badly through his leather gloves.

Tapping the contents of the bowl into the urn, it too began to boil. He recited. "Take his blood as my offering."

Red smoke arose from the urn, twisting around itself in the air and forming various images that resembled faces until it was gone. The urn was empty, but the stench lingered. Gradually, the voices subsided until they became whispers again.

Bela turned and looked at Kamar, who was on one knee and struggling to stay conscious. The vampire smiled back at him, and smoke in Eyropan. "It is done, Kamar. You look strained. I will see you have another few nights with Suela before you are ready to venture outside again."

He stepped towards the kneeling Kamar, and reached out with a clawed finger to run the pad of his finger over the drying tissue where his jaw had once been attached. "And I will give you your jaw back. You've done well."