Bounty (8 page)

Twirling the feather in his fingers, Godren focused on its blurring fronds. “She was pretty much a standard old crone,” he said. “Wrinkly, gray-haired. But not hunched so much as crouched. And she had icy blue eyes, very sharp. Evident streaks of unbecoming veins. Perfectly unremarkable nose. Does that help any?”

“
It could. Thank you for trying. I do appreciate it,” she said dryly.

“
Anything to make you happy,” Godren said absently, playing ignorantly along.
I shouldn’t have said that,
he thought, but there was no help for it now. Hopefully she wouldn’t take him too seriously – but she probably wouldn’t, because she could probably see right through him. She wasn’t stupid.

Suddenly her eyes shifted and her dry little smirk slipped, as if something in the room had caught her attention and she wasn’t thrilled by what she saw there.

But there was nothing there.

Then her eyes landed back on him. “He’s gone.”

“
My lady?”

“
Our prisoner is on the loose.”

“
What?” Godren unconsciously stopped twirling the feather, for a moment not comprehending.

“
The boy.”

To that, Godren had no reply. Part of him was alarmed, another part daring to hope that something miraculous and unorthodox had set the boy free. “He got out?” he asked softly, treading carefully.

Mastodon stood swiftly, coming out from behind her desk – something Godren had never seen before. He watched her stride past, wondering if he should still be sitting there…

“
Where are you going?” he asked.

“
To consult with my miserable staff,” she replied over her shoulder. When she got to the doors, she stopped and faced him. “Godren,” she said gravely.

He looked at her.

“
Bring him back.”

Then she was gone, leaving it to him. Godren stared after her, suddenly sapped of focus and filled with paralyzing dread.
No,
he finally had the composure to think.
No, not me.
He sat there, unmoving, staring at the closed doors without seeing them. A sense of pain clenched him at the idea, darkening the shadow of dread that fell with the anticipation. He couldn’t act. If Mastodon only knew what she had asked of him. Not that she would have cared, but still, she couldn’t know…

To be aware of the abuse going on around him was bad enough. To be a
witness
to these things, gritting his teeth and averting his eyes, was enough to slowly squeeze the life out of his soul. To be responsible for it…

He would never be able to look in a mirror again. He would never be able to close his eyes, for fear of seeing the monster that lurked inside him.

But how could he ignore Mastodon’s orders? He recalled the way she had become aware of the boy’s escape, as if she had found the information in the emptiness of the room. There was a ghost present. An unseen servant of Godren’s mistress, watching him procrastinating instead of jumping up to fulfill Mastodon’s wishes. He couldn’t have this getting back to her.

“
Where do I be
gin
?” he muttered to himself for the ghost’s benefit, giving an excuse for his lack of response. Then he forced himself out of the chair and strode toward the door – bitterly, sickly, regretting every step he took. Each step felt heavy, cruel, as if already contributing to the task ahead.

The corridors of the Underworld went by in a dark blur, Godren’s mind aswarm with overshadowing burdens. He knew them well enough to travel them without putting thought into navigation, and he absently passed them by.

So he didn’t notice the figure lurking past the mouth of an adjoining corridor, watching darkly as he strode by. Ossen burned dark holes into Godren’s passing back with those smoldering eyes as he watched after him, a significant ring of keys hanging from his grasp.

*

Every step, he felt further trapped, more deeply caught in Mastodon’s services. A strange lump rose in his throat when he wouldn’t even let himself try to convince his feet to cease. He felt helpless as he cruelly denied himself the chance to do the right thing. He felt utterly controlled, and he resented that with a passion, but would not allow himself to consider mastering an alternative.

So he strode on with heavy resignation, but then faced the reality of the quandary he had voiced as an excuse to the ghost, back in Mastodon’s study. Where did he begin his chase? After all, it was more of a search. He wasn’t any ace tracker, and he didn’t even know how much time had elapsed since the boy’s escape. He could be anywhere by now. He wouldn’t exactly be keen on sticking around, and he was undoubtedly a quick little squirt. He would be making a beeline for the edge of the Ruins – that much was obvious enough. The problem lay in determining which direction he had gone. And that, Godren realized, was not something he was going to figure out.

What does Mastodon expect me to do? Track him over stone?
He ground his teeth in general aversion to the situation, wondering if she would make a habit of asking the impossible and expecting him to conjure up a way to fulfill it. He had rather gotten the short end of this deal, he thought; she decided what would please her, and attaining it was his problem.

The breeze shifted as he stumbled upon a crossing alley, distracting him. A gentle current of air had been propelling him along, coming from behind, until it suddenly spilled into the perpendicular lane before him and turned left down the new path.

Natural breezes didn’t just…do that, did they? Godren paused there, trying to put his finger on the significance hovering before him on the altering breeze. It bothered him, and he paid attention to that.

When he made no move to continue, still stuck on wondering what was happening with the current, an insubstantial formation flowed into existence before him, shaped from the uncanny breeze. It had the vague implications of a human form, but it was blurred, only partially formed, and the only distinct thing about it was the ghostly hand that materialized to point in the direction the breeze was traveling. It hovered there, billowing without further transformation, and Godren realized what it must mean.

The ghost in Mastodon’s study had paid heed to his question, and was now aiding him in his search. Or perhaps it wasn’t the same one anymore, but he was clearly being directed by one or more of them, and who was he to refuse the help?

He followed the breeze without further dithering. After that, he trusted the altering current without waiting for the ghosts to materialize and manually direct him. He picked up his pace, and let himself be blown through the Ruins after his prey. It wasn’t long before he caught up to the fleeing boy, and bore down on him like some flying demon with a dark, strange wind at his unnatural heels.

How terrifying I must look,
he thought as the escaped prisoner threw a wild glance over his scrawny shoulder at the sound of the wind – the breeze had strengthened, becoming oddly visible in roiling snatches, like it was stirring up scraps of some substance that was settled in the alleys. It really seemed to propel him now, too, pushing him forward with unnatural speed.

Godren meant to just seize the boy by the shoulder and bring him to a stop when he reached him, but his supernatural momentum blasted into his quarry and knocked him flat instead, and Godren careened in alarm: a failed attempt to stop. He only lurched to the ground and spun across the alley as well, and realized distantly he would have to establish better control with this method of travel in the future.

Bracing himself against the ground, Godren put a stop to his tumbling and fought to regain his breath, sprawled out on the pavement. A flicker of desperate movement at the corner of his eye sent him scrambling up, and he clamped a hand around the aspiring escape artist’s arm.

“
Not so fast, you,” he dissuaded the boy, holding him through his struggle to get loose.

“
Let me go!” the boy cried, kicking at Godren’s shins.

“
Hey, hey, hey,” Godren objected, twisting the boy easily around so he couldn’t continue. “Cool it.”

“
You can’t take me back! I’m not going! I don’t want the rack, or the coals, or the lashes!” he bellowed hysterically, beginning to sob.

A wave of disturbance went through Godren at those words, and he instinctively imagined Ossen’s brutal threats. How could he take this boy back? How could he
ever
go through with it?

“
You’re the one who suggested they protect me instead, and look at you!” the boy shouted in Godren’s face. “Forcing me right back so they can punish me!”

Shut up,
Godren willed, wishing the boy would stop making this more difficult.
Shut up, just shut up, shut up.

“
They’ll torture me. They’ll cut out my tongue and then punish me ’cause I can’t tell them what they want to know!”

“
Then
cooperate
,” Godren snapped vehemently, finally provoked by the warring voices tearing him apart inside. “Don’t
give
them an excuse to hurt you! For the gods’
sake
, just tell them what they want to know,” he ordered, but knew he was pleading as much as anything. But with that he towed the boy back down the alley, closing the matter.

The boy sobbed a few more times as he was dragged back toward the nightmare he had so recently dared to hope he’d escaped. But then he grew quiet and walked without being a burden, and Godren wondered at his sudden grasp on composure. Was he being brave? Or was he just in a state of shock?

Godren clenched his jaw and shut his eyes briefly, looking away before he opened them again. He wanted to shout at himself for what he was doing, but somehow put up a wall that kept the conviction of his disapproval on the other side. He could feel it, but couldn’t be moved by it. As much as he argued with himself, he couldn’t be swayed.

At Kane’s entrance to the Underworld, Kane glanced for a moment at the boy, then at Godren, looking for something. Godren glared dully back, making some unvoiced point, and Kane settled back into a comfortable stance. Godren pulled the boy through the arch, and down below the ground. Feeling utterly low, inhuman, he thrust the boy into Bastin’s possession as soon as he encountered him, unable to deliver his charge to the dungeon himself.

On his way out, he passed Ossen in the hallway. He was just beginning to truly feel the weight of what he’d done, hurrying his stride to leave it behind before he broke down and grieved. Ossen smiled maliciously at him, and with a wave of furious insight, Godren realized the boy’s escape had been no mistake. Ossen had seen Godren's reaction to the boy’s initial capture; it would not be unlike him at all to spring a disloyal lock if it meant paining his rival to be sent after the escaped prisoner whom he only had sympathy for. Godren wondered if Ossen saw through him more than Mastodon did. It was suddenly clear that Ossen was spitefully pitted against him, and that he would latch onto any sign of pain Godren let slip, going right to the innocent source and doing his worst. He was going to destroy Godren from the inside out, since he was forbidden to touch him as an ally, and the only way Godren could defy him would be by taking his punishing orders without showing how they affected him. That would be worse than anything. Being responsible for something was one thing. Not accepting responsibility for it was another, something he wasn’t sure that he could do and still live with himself. His defiance might prove to unravel everything he stood for just as much as letting it happen by Ossen’s ruthless hand.

9:
B
lackmail Support

H
is fate seemed inevitable, one way or another. Wracked in despair both for himself and the boy he had dragged back into cruel hands, Godren shut himself away from the world and grieved as he realized the seeds of his inner downfall had been irrevocably planted.

It wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish in the Underworld – shutting yourself away from the rest of the world. Godren banished himself to the dark, pressing his fingertips to his temples and bowing his head over his lap. His breath came in ragged intakes as he struggled to bear the awful feeling tearing him apart inside. The seeds of his downfall left festering holes in his soul – he could feel them; deep, black, and already spreading decay. They were painfully raw, too, pulsing with a deep agony that went clear through him. Waiting to grow, the seeds ate at him, taunting wounds that would never fully heal. No matter what.

He wasn’t even the kind that could surrender to denial in order to block out the inwardly fatal things he didn’t want to see. He was too honest with himself, too prone to deep thinking and being aware of himself.

He was doomed to live with himself, to live with the raw reality of what he was, however bad it got. How cruel it would be to survive through the shame, the guilt, the regret – the overall inhuman responsibility that would weigh on his shoulders and darken his shadow.

Deliver me from this,
he begged the gods, rocking back and forth.
Give me an avenue out.