Forsaken by Shadows 51: Sheared Pride

~16. Sheared Pride~

Torafein

Time was the rhythm of sanity in lightless caverns. Losing a sense of it was the first step toward unraveling, so Torafein marked the cycles with pain. When Crysla was taken, a new day began. When he was taken, that day had ended. 

By his count, he was on the fourth day of captivity. His flesh had been ribboned, the bones of both hands smashed one by one, his wrists rubbed raw from his chains. Unlike Crysla, who was healed to perfection after every interrogation, Torafein was given just enough healing to keep his heart beating and his head thinking. He supposed, despite Ivory’s snide claim not to care for Lolth’s opinions on women, someone cared enough to treat Crysla with deference they thought he didn’t deserve. 

Good. So long as it meant Crysla found relief, he’d take their favoritism. Pain was no stranger to Torafein. His nerves had been calloused over long years of blood service. Pain was temporary, fleeting. Endurable. 

Yet pain was not his current torment. 

“Stop squirming,” Mindra hissed, yanking his head back with what little hair he had left. She scraped a razor over his scalp, somehow managing to simultaneously cut, tear, and rip another lock free from his head. Blood mixed with the silver strands collecting like writhing snakes at his feet. 

Chains bound his body so thoroughly he could hardly move, anchoring him to stone floor of Toloruel’s makeshift torture chamber. Instruments Torafein had never seen and could only guess the purpose of lined the rough cavern walls, a sadistically impressive sight. Either Toloruel was extremely creative, or the art had evolved in the centuries since Torafein had made active study of the practice. 

Regardless, he would have chosen any of those tools over what Mindra was doing to him now. 

His head lolled forward again and his tormentor snarled another curse, snapping it back as her razor stripped away his pride. Toloruel stood before him, looking on with an impassive expression, and the szarkai, hidden beneath his grey clothes and demon mask, sat still and cross-legged by the entrance. Ivory had yet to move or speak for the entire session. 

Another row of his hair came free, and Torafein’s humiliation welled. He hadn’t even known the pride still lived within him, and it seemed a shameful thing to be wretched over. It was only hair, hair that he thought little of other than to wash and brush on occasion so that his wife wouldn’t give him that look. 

But to a drow living outside of Launa, there was no such thing as just hair. Hair was a symbol of status, with everything from the length to the cut announcing to the world who you were and how far you had fallen. Nobles wore their tresses long and luscious, as though wreathed in spider silk, while mercenaries chose strange and asymmetrical styles to mock the system. Commoners could grow out their strands so long as they kept it trimmed and styled differently, but only slaves and prisoners had their heads shaved.

With every slice of Mindra’s blade, a new crack appeared on the shell encasing his heart. From within leaked molten fury and abject horror. She didn’t just cut away his hair, she debased him for the world to see. 

But it was just hair. No one in Launa measured a man by his hair. No one in the Sanctuary cared. Many of the drow citizens cut their hair on purpose, as Rismyn had, out of defiance for the life they had once lived. 

But Torafein’s life was split in two. One that was real, in Launa, where it wouldn’t matter, and one that was fake, where he covered himself in lies and deceit as thoroughly as Ivory covered his alabaster skin, teaching murderers better ways to kill, all for the purpose of finding the few who begged for an out. 

Some lies weren't so easy to let go of. Menzoberranzan still had its grip on him. His anguish over his hair was proof of it. In Launa he was a Guide, a husband, and a father. In Menzoberranzan, he was prince, a son of the second highest House in the city, and though he loathed most of his family, and though he spent as little time in the Xarrin manor as possible when on his tours, his dignity was raked away with every pass of Mindra’s razor. 

“There,” she crooned, finally stepping away to admire her work. “What do you think, brother?”

“Properly loathsome,” Toloruel said, without inflection.

If Torafein had had the strength, he would have lunged against the chains, just for the sake of appearing vicious. But he did not, and gravity hung his head when defiance failed him. 

Mindra crouched, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look up at her. “I’ve made you appear as you are. Blood-traitor. Apostate. Blasphemer. Don’t worry, I’ll find you a mirror so you can see for yourself.” 

Torafein just looked at her, marveling, despite his misery, at how eyes so familiar could be bent so cruelly. Toloruel had similar eyes, the same grape-blood color, but there was a deadness to his gaze where Mindra’s and Rismyn’s held spark. It made him different, somehow, though the color and shape were the same. 

Maybe it was the bloodloss, or the remnants of his pride scattered at his feet, but Torafein couldn’t help it. He laughed, a strangled, wheezing sound. 

Mindra glared, digging her taloned nails into his flesh. “And what’s so funny?” 

“Your eyes,” he said, wincing as blood dribbled from her grip. “They’re the same as his. Same color. Same zeal. I think I remember you now. You raised him, didn’t you?” 

The priestess’ expression flitted from anger to confusion to surprise, apparently just as poor at hiding her emotions as Rismyn was. Maybe that’s where he learned it. “What are you talking about?” 

“Yes, you raised him,” Torafein said, though it ached to speak. “I know what it does to a woman when she nurtures a child, even if it is only her brother, not her own son. You loved him once. Maybe not for long, before you remembered you were supposed to hate. But for a brief time, you loved him. Maybe you still do.” 

Surprise became shock, then outrage, as Mindra’s lovely face twisted. She slapped him with the back of her hand, hard enough that his jaw throbbed. “How dare you! I am not infected with your sickness.” 

“Careful, sister,” Toloruel warned. Not for Torafein’s sake, but her own. Of the trio, Mindra was far more likely to share secrets Torafein could use. She let her emotions lead her mouth, and seemed to have an innate need for everyone to know how smart and in control she was. It made for easy gleaning if Torafein could just pull the right levers. 

In the heat of her temper, Mindra whirled to pour her wrath on Toloruel, but froze when Ivory moved, the pale elf stiffening slightly. The motion was subtle, unassuming, but it caught the attention of both Tear siblings, who forgot their brewing quarrel. 

“There is a ship,” said the szarkai. 

Torafein blinked, his head spinning as his mind considered losing consciousness. No, not now. Not when they were sharing valuable information in his hearing. 

“What kind of ship?” Mindra asked. 

And where? Torafein had strained his hearing for hours, and not once had he heard a trickle of the Lirdvin, which would have oriented his location and given him an idea of how to get home. 

“A merchant vessel, or so it appears,” Ivory said. “It flies the flag of Sschindylryn.” 

“We should take it,” Mindra said, a hungry look in her eyes. “They must be going to trade with the heathens. They can get us inside.” 

Yes, do. The moment they failed the harbormaster’s interview in the light of the Orb of Truth, they’d be dead, and this threat would be ended. 

Toloruel laughed, a derisive, mocking sound. 

“What?” Mindra snapped. 

“If you court death, by all means, attack a merchant vessel,” Toloruel said. “I will enjoy watching.” 

Mindra bared her teeth. “Are you afraid of a few coin-mongers?” 

“Toloruel is right,” Ivory said. “No merchant travels without a small army to guard their wares. We would be sorely outnumbered.”

“We were outnumbered when we took our prisoners,” Mindra insisted, staunchly refusing to listen to the sound counsel of men far better trained than herself. Torafein relished her inexperience, a tool he could exploit when the time was right.  

“We had the advantage of surprise then,” Toloruel explained, a mocking condescension in his tone. “And Ivory’s magic snare which threw the company into confusion long enough to trim down their ranks. This is different.” 

Torafein listened with rapt attention. In the four days he’d been captive, they had never spoken so freely in front of him. The appearance of the ship, wherever it was, seemed to have distracted them from his presence. He willed them to go on, tracking every word and attaching it to what he and Crysla had already guessed. 

There were only three of them. He and Crysla had thought so, since they never saw anyone else, but it was a comfort to know they were right. If he could just get word to Launa somehow, they could send the full might of the Militia after them. Mindra and her boys wouldn’t stand a chance. Not against four hundred trained soldiers. 

But even as he rested in the knowledge, his hope was destroyed.

“Just say the word, Mindra,” Ivory said. “My infantry stands at the ready. We can take your ship and expand our search in a matter of moments.” 

Well. That changed things. 

“No,” Mindra said, the word cracking like the whip she wore on her belt. “Not until we have a city to siege. I don’t need anymore men to feed.” 

Fear cooled the fire of Torafein’s wrath, but it didn’t smother it completely. A siege was only dangerous for Launa if the siegers managed to break through the wall. Between the farming cavern and the river, the enchanted light by which they grew their own food, and the small herds of rothé and flocks of diatryma, the Sanctuary could survive isolation from the world for a long, long time. 

Still, their city was only so big. He didn’t know how large the infantry Ivory offered was, but he knew House Tear’s personal army rivaled their Militia, and that was just one House. What would happen to Launa if Mindra formed an alliance with other Houses? His imagination teased him with images of the walls fallen, of lightning rending the enchanted sky, like a House raid on an insurmountable scale. 

Ivory inhaled sharply, then his body uncoiled from the stiff position he had been sitting in. “They have a wizard,” he said, his hand going to his mask as his shoulders slumped. “A powerful one. My spell has been unraveled. I have lost the sight.” 

Mindra swore and pounded her fist on the rock wall. “Then get up and go after it!” 

Neither man moved. They just looked at her, and Mindra cursed again, her anger a physical force that contorted her body.

“Well!?”

“It would be wasted effort,” Toloruel said, as cool as Mindra was hot. 

“And why is that?” 

“By the time we got there,” Ivory explained, “the ship would be long gone, and you of all people should know how fruitless following the river has been.” 

Mindra roared with wordless hate and rounded on Torafein, advancing upon him. “Tell me where your serpents brood,” she spat, loosing the snake-headed whip from her belt. “Now. I will not ask twice.”

Torafein looked at her as blankly as the men who failed to jump at her command. Did she think to threaten him with a whip? The kind that had been used against him since his youth? Compared to his hair on the ground, or Toloruel’s far more meticulous blood-letting, the hissing snakes were child’s play. He’d learned to endure that pain before he was old enough to study at Melee-Magthere. 

His silence must have been answer enough. The whip crashed down on his back and shoulders, lashing again and again, tearing apart what was left of his sinew. Torafein didn’t hold back the cries of agony. Pain needed some way to escape. Mindra’s torture was crude and reckless, and while effective in causing him misery, did nothing but further his resolve to keep his secrets to himself. 

His daughter would never know the lash of a snake-headed whip. His son would never feel its bite. Mindra could flay him all she wanted, but she wouldn’t get her hands on the people he loved. 

And when he awoke,ifhe awoke, he would pick apart their careless chatter, and together with Crysla, they would plan.

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