The Inquisition (Summoner, #2)(3)
‘I will allow you one more question, then I must take you to the courtroom. Take your time, so the paralysis can wear off. I don’t want to have to carry you there.’
Fletcher’s mind flashed to his friends, to Berdon, and to the state of the war. But he had no way of knowing if the stranger would have the answers he sought. Did they know each other? He pictured the other summoners that he had met at Vocans, but none of them had a hoarse voice. Could it be Tarquin, playing a cruel trick on him? One thing was for sure: his opponent would keep the upper hand as long as he remained anonymous.
‘Who. Are. You?’ Fletcher asked, forcing each word out through numbed lips.
The fact that he could speak at all meant that Rubens had pricked him with only a low dose of venom. He still had a fighting chance.
‘Haven’t you worked it out yet?’ the stranger rasped. ‘That is disappointing. I thought you would have guessed by now. Still, I do look quite different than when we last spoke, so you are hardly to blame.’
The figure crouched again, leaning forward until Fletcher’s vision was filled with the dark confines of his hood. Slowly, the man pulled it back, revealing his face.
‘Recognise me now, Fletcher?’ Didric hissed.
2
Didric leered with a lopsided smile, leaning back so his face would catch the light. The right side was waxy and mottled red, with the edge of his lip burned away to reveal a flash of white teeth. His eyebrows and lashes were gone, leaving him with a wide-eyed appearance, as if he were constantly alarmed. Patches of his scalp were almost bald, covered only by a sparse scattering of hair that pushed through the melted flesh beneath.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Didric said, stroking the ruined skin with a long, tapered finger. ‘The night you did this to me, my father paid through the nose for a summoner to be brought in to perform the healing spell. Lord Faversham, as a matter of fact. Funny that he was unknowingly cleaning up his own son’s mess, wouldn’t you agree?’
Fletcher was dumbstruck, though whether it was the paralysis, or shock, he didn’t know. How had Didric heard about Fletcher’s supposed relationship to the Favershams? A lot had changed in a year.
‘In truth, I should probably thank you,’ Didric said, brushing the long hair on the unburned side of his head to cover the melted scalp. ‘You are the reason for both the best and the worst things that have happened to me this past year.’
‘How?’ Fletcher choked, watching Rubens crawl on to Didric’s chest. Didric wasn’t a summoner … was someone else controlling the Mite, to trick him?
‘It’s all thanks to you, Fletcher.’ Didric gave him a lopsided smile and flared a wyrdlight into existence, casting the room in electric blue light. ‘It is a phenomenon that has occurred only once before in recorded history, though legends of it have always pervaded the summoning world. A magical attack that brings the victim close to death will occasionally pass the gift on to them. Something about the way the demon’s mana interacts with the body. Your Salamander’s flames may have charred my vocal cords and ruined my face, but they imparted a priceless gift as well. For that, I thank you.’
‘There’s no way.’ Fletcher’s mind reeled from the implication.
‘It is true,’ Didric stated, stroking Rubens’s carapace. ‘It happened with another noble family, centuries ago, in a sibling argument gone wrong. Manticore venom, straight into the younger brother’s bloodstream. A lethal dose that should have killed him. Instead, he inherited the gift.’
Didric grinned at the horror on Fletcher’s face. He was enjoying this.
‘Come, it is time for your trial. Don’t worry, you’ll be back in your squalid hole soon enough. I can’t wait to lock you back in here and throw away the key.’
Fletcher staggered to his feet, swaying slightly as his muscles shivered and tensed from the venom. A trial … justice, finally? He felt the faintest glimmer of hope, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.
He pointed his tattooed palm at the straw, where Ignatius was hiding. The pentacle on his skin burned violet, and the demon dissolved into threads of white light that glided into his hand. It was best to keep the demon infused within him, so nobody could separate them. He didn’t want to imagine being imprisoned without his little companion.
‘You first,’ Didric said, jerking the pistol towards the open doorway.
Fletcher stumbled out of the cell. For a moment he delighted in his newfound freedom, enjoying the feeling of walking more than a few paces in one direction. Then the cold tip of the pistol’s muzzle was pressed into the back of his neck.
‘Try not to make any sudden movements. I wouldn’t want to blow your head off before the fun begins,’ Didric snarled, as they walked down a long, stony corridor. Doors identical to Fletcher’s own cell were embedded in the walls. It was deathly quiet, the silence broken only by the echo of their footsteps.
Didric halted him at a staircase also built into the wall. On either side, the corridor stretched for hundreds of feet, before disappearing into gloomy darkness.
‘We keep the most dangerous prisoners here, people like you – rebels, murderers, rapists. The king pays us handsomely to keep them here, against the cost of a bucket of water and one meal a day. It’s a beautiful thing.’
Fletcher shuddered, imagining what it would be like being alone in the cell, with no Ignatius, books or spells to keep himself sane, and the knowledge that he would never leave there again. He felt a flash of pity for the lost souls trapped inside, horrendous though their crimes might be. Then he realised that he could very well be joining them soon, forever entombed in the deep bowels of the earth. Icy tendrils of fear gripped his heart.