“So, lucky for you, I have had success. Unlucky for you, I no longer possess the ability to experiment with those types of runes. So, it looks like your time here, 257, isn’t going to end with an extra ability. It will, however, end with me getting what I want. And that, 257, is information.”
With that, Alois stopped talking and started cutting. Small, shallow slices to start, across his chest and arms, each cut precise, each location predetermined to elicit a certain level of pain. The Earth Mage panted and gasped, small cries sometimes escaping his lips as sweat poured from his brow.
All the while, Alois never asked a single question.
When there were more than one hundred small cuts on the prisoner’s body, Alois stopped and stepped back, opting for a longer knife.
“Lore says that blood holds magical powers and properties, it’s a well-known fact. Sometimes our blood sings with our power. Acolytes in the temples use their blood to Bond Mages and Vessels or Awaken someone’s power. But we actually confirmed its existence in our experiments. In unAwakened individuals, the magic in their blood was more potent than in Awakened Mages and Vessels. So, I started manipulating the sensory inputs that certain unAwakened Mages received, hoping to stimulate a response in their blood.”
“Lex, for example, got the same treatment you’re getting now—an intense amount of pain that varied from low to high, which actually built his tolerance for it, funny enough. Then, almost immediately after, he received intense doses of pleasure. You enjoyed that part of it, didn’t you, Lex?” I could no longer tell if Alois was simply talking to himself, or if there was a purpose to his monologue.
Alois didn’t wait for Lex’s answer before he turned to me. “I have this all written down, Rohak. Perhaps your new pet would like to look at my notes? If she is who you say she is, I’m sure she’d find themcaptivating.” He turned back to the Earth Mage before adding, “Perhaps she’ll even help me perfect them.”
I involuntarily shuddered at the thought of Faylinn helping Alois with these experiments, or even being around Alois when he was likethis.
“Aren’t . . . aren’t you going to ask me any questions?” the Earth Mage panted.
Alois stilled and cocked his head at him. “No. You wouldn’t answer them even if I did. No, 257, I won’t. Because there’s another way to ascertain the truth from my prisoners. See, not only did we discover that blood held magic, I discovered that I alone can discern the truth from that magic. I’m not just a Truthsayer, I’m thelastTruthsayer. Like your precious Matriarch has her own special abilities as the last true descendant of Solace, so I have unique powers as the last true descendant of Kaos.” Alois ran his tongue over the blood beading on a cut on the Mage’s chest. His eyes closed, his eyes flicking against the back of his eyelids.
He moaned slightly. “And your blood is going to tell meallof your secrets, 257.”
The Earth Mage doubled his efforts to escape, writhing in his straps and pleading uselessly with Alois. The darkness was back in my friend’s eyes. Once he had a taste of the truth in someone’s blood, he was crazed until he had the full truth, which often meant spilling all their blood.
Alois reared back his hand that held the knife and plunged it into the prisoner’s arm. A scream rendered from the Earth Mage as Alois wrenched the knife from his arm and pressed his mouth to the cut, sucking the blood out.
On and on this went until the blood dripped continuously onto the floor, creating small puddles over the already stained stone. Alois stopped cutting with precision after the first two or three stabs, and simply started plunging the knife into any and all available flesh. The Earth Mage’s screams mingled with the slurping noise of Alois sucking the blood into his mouth and the sound of the knife piercing the Mage’s flesh, sometimes scraping bone.
Blood cascaded obscenely down Alois’ chin and soaked his black tunic and pants. There was wayward spray on his forehead and in his hair, and it slowly seemed like every inch of his body would be covered in the Earth Mage’s blood.
Eventually, mercifully, the Earth Mage lost consciousness. Alois, drunk off the bloodlust and truths he witnessed, was unaware. At some point, hours later, I dismissed Lex and his Vessels. They didn’t need to see any more of this, and Lex needed to sleep. He, thankfully, had used the Earth Mage’s pain to refill the reserves he expended earlier inthe night.
He, Sasori, and Ilyas slipped soundlessly from the room while I stayed with my back against the wall, watching my friend slowly descend into madness.
Once the blood congealed on the floor and the rivulets stopped cascading from the countless wounds, Alois came out of the bloodlust. The Mage was clearly dead, all the truths Alois was going to wring from him were spent.
Alois dropped the knife and it clattered to the ground, covered in blood like everything else in the room. He bent over, hands on his knees and panted.
“Fuck,” he muttered before collapsing to the floor. I moved quickly, my boots making wet splashing sounds as I waded through the pools of blood.
“Did you get what you needed?” I asked as I supported his back so he wouldn’t fall into the gore.
He shook his head. “No, not everything.”
I swore.
“All of that, Alois. All of that and we didn’t even get the information we needed?” I was tense and disappointed—both in the lack of information and that my closest friend had to debase himself so fully to try and gather that information.
“I don’t know what to say, Rohak,” he panted, “she’s got some sort of . . . block on their memories. Like she’s holding them hostage in Solace, the one godsforsaken place I can’t access. The only things I was able to get were snippets of conversations or his personal thoughts, which were obviously skewed. He was a heathen, Rohak. A crazed lunatic. He cut some man’s throat in front of his daughter for fun.”
I gave him a shrewd look, but my back stiffened slightly.
He’s talking about Faylinn and her father.
“No faces, no names, no FUCKING location.” He rested his head back on my shoulder. “Sometimes I wonder what we’re even doing this for anymore, Rohak. We take three steps forward and fifteen back.”
I held my friend close, his breaths evening out. If I didn’t get him up and moving soon, we’d be sleeping here, and that was not acceptable.
“It’s worth it, Alois. It has to be. This is bigger than us, bigger than her. You know that, I know that. We’ll get what we need eventually.” He didn’tsay anything else as I hoisted him from the ground, bracing his arm around my shoulders as I walked him from the blood-soaked room.
