“I want his Hunger held helpless as well, until such time as I return to release him.”
“WHICH PENITENCE PROTOCOL SHALL HE SUFFER, WARDEN?”
There were several that could be inflicted on the inmates of the prison. Some were bound in darkness. Some in torment. Some in simple confinement. The various Wardens of Demonreach had tinkered with the cells for a very, very long time. Some of the protocols had been developed before civilization had been more than a few collections of huts and fires in the darkness, and they were not kind.
There was one prisoner held below in a kind of unique stasis, something that could most closely be considered sleep, though he could also awaken and perform limited communications for short periods of time. It was, as best as I could understand, the only protocol with sanitysaving sleep built into it.
The prison had never been meant for something as frail and nearly mortal as my brother.
Thomas made a soft, ugly little sound, as if only his utter exhaustion was holding him back from screaming in pain.
“Contemplation,” I responded quietly. “He is to be shielded from any communication with other prisoners not enduring the same protocol. Give me the crystal.”
The great spirit bowed again. When it straightened, a shard of crystal about the length of a socket wrench, like quartz but pulsing with a quiet green light, lay shimmering upon the earth.
I lowered my brother to the ground. He groaned as I settled him down. The grey in his eyes had faded again, as his Hunger apparently renewed its assault on his life force. He had slowly begun to show signs of helpless agony as whatever palliative energy Lara had given him began to fade.
“Hey, man,” I said. “Can you hear me?”
He might have focused his eyes on me for a second. Only sounds of pain came out of his mouth.
“Look,” I said quietly. I drew a pocketknife I’d stuffed in my suit pants before leaving and used the needle point to pink the pad of flesh between thumb and forefinger. After a second, droplets of blood welled up, and I smeared the blade of the pocketknife over them, staining its length with a shade of scarlet just a little too pale to be human. “I can keep your demon from hurting you. Keep you alive. But going in will be rough.”
One of his ruined hands landed on my arm. He squeezed weakly. It was barely there, but it was there. He’d heard me.
“Part of the process of being taken into the cells is …” I took a deep breath. “You suffer the pain you’ve inflicted on others,” I said. “It was meant to get through to the most alien of beings, why they were being imprisoned. It’s not fair. It’s not meant for people. It could hurt you. But if I don’t do it, you’re going to die.”
My brother forced his eyes open and tried to find me. “J … J …”
“Justine,” I said. “I know. I’m on it.”
He sobbed. That was all he had left in him.
I stood away from him, leaving him within the light of the crystal. Alfred loomed over Thomas. “YOU HAVE THE CAGE. YOU HAVE THE BLOOD. DRAW THE CIRCLE AND SPEAK THE WORDS, WARDEN.”
My instincts twitched. I looked back over my shoulder.
Freydis stood at the very edge of the dock, staring up the slope at me. Even as I watched, she turned and rushed back to the ship, leaping up onto the deck and vanishing into the hold.
There wasn’t much time. My brother was fading, being devoured by his own demon.
I rose and drew in my will, while I used my staff to gouge a circle into the earth around my brother. Once that was done, I bent over, touched the little trench with my fingers, and raised the circle by unleashing a tiny amount of energy into it. It snapped up in an invisible screen around my fallen brother and began to gather and focus magical energy.
Then I raised the pocketknife overhead in one hand.
“Bound be Thomas Raith,” I hissed. I felt resistance against my will begin to rise, the reluctance of this world to open a passage to another. “Bound be my wounded brother,” I growled, forcing my will into my voice, making it ring from the stones and trees and water. “Fallen warrior, father-to-be, I name him bound, consigned to thee.”
I heard a brief cry from behind me.
I released my will with the third repetition of the binding.