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The Terrible Here and the Terrible Now

Waves as monuments. Vast and cold, brutal, and ugly. Waves washing over all sound and sight and sense. Waves leaving you breathless. Waves leaving you gasping. Unstoppable, agonising waves.

“And how do you raise the sea dragons, Meas Gilbryn?”

As the waves withdraw, the tempest eases, the agony flows away and leaves behind a thousand other little pains. Her wrists and ankles, where the ropes hold her on the chair, the skin rubbed raw by straining against twisted cords. The gnaw of hunger in her belly, the rasp in her throat from screaming, the ache in her feet from toes broken and never reset correctly. The sharp catch of the clothes on her back against the scars left by the whipping cord.

The throb of a tooth in the back of her mouth going bad, one they are yet to notice. She takes a little comfort in that. That one little pain is hers, one little pain they could exploit but have not. Not yet. One day they will, no doubt about that. They are as fastidious in her pain as they are in their care of her. But today it is a small victory that she will claim over her tormentor.

“I do not know how to raise a sea dragon.”

A sigh. Meas opens her eyes to see the hagpriest sat before her on a stool. She is beautiful, this girl. Her brown eyes clear, dark skin unblemished and shining in the light coming through the barred window. Her white robe remains – miraculously, given her profession – free of blood or stain as she places the glowing iron back in the brazier. Meas smells her own flesh burning. It makes her mouth water with hunger, even as the pain from the burns sears across her nerves.

They burn her on the back of the calf. It is as if they do not want their cruel work to be immediately apparent.

“This could all stop, Meas, you only have to tell the truth.”

She has been telling them the truth for weeks, but they do not believe her. So she starts in the same place. The same place they always start.

“My title is shipwife. And if my mother wants my secrets, then tell her to come and ask for them.”

Laughter at that. Always laughter.

“You are not important enough to bring powerful people down here,” says her torturer. She stands, walks to the back of the small, clean white room and opens a cupboard. “You should know I am the very least of my order, the most inconsequential of novices. I am all you are deemed worth, I am afraid.” She takes a moment, staring at the shelves, choosing from the instruments stored there. Eventually settling on a roll of variskcloth which shifts in her arms and clinks with the sound of tools hidden within. Meas’s heart starts to beat faster as the hagpriest returns to sit opposite her.

“I know I am important,” says Meas, sweat starts on her brow, “and I know my mother comes down, for I hear you talking outside the room to her. I hear you, no matter how low you keep your voices.” She was so sure.

The hagpriest smiles and places the roll of variskcloth on a small table by the brazier.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, Shipwife Meas, but that is simply another of my order. I am told your mother has never so much as mentioned coming down here.” She stares at Meas. “Or mentioned you.”

Something small but important breaks within her at that. She has been so sure. But in the hagpriest’s words is the ring of truth.

“Now, Shipwife Meas, let us look to your hands.” The hagpriest’s hands are gentle when they touch her, soft, so unlike Meas’s own, hardened by years at sea. But they are also strong as she forces Meas to uncurl her fingers from the fists she has balled them into. “The nails have grown back remarkably well,” says the hagpriest. “Sometimes, after they have been ripped from the nail bed, they grow back malformed, or not at all. But you are strong.” She lets go of Meas’s hand and turns to her table, unrolls the variskcloth to reveal the tools within. Sets of pliers of various sizes with strange jaws and beaks, although Meas is far more familiar with them than she had ever wished to be. The hagpriest picks over them, first taking one out and inspecting it, then another. “It is sad for you, that you hold such an important secret. And sad for me also, I suppose. I must be careful with you, oh so careful, and we must take our time. Were your secrets less important, our relationship would be far more agreeable.” She clacks a pair of pliers together in front of Meas’s face.

Open. Shut.

Open. Shut.

“By which I mean short, for you, Shipwife. Oh, agonising, indeed, far more agonising than anything I have yet put you through. But you would thank me when I brought out the knife that would send you to the Hag, if that is your fate.” She puts the pliers back. Takes out another, smaller pair.

Open. Shut.

Open. Shut.

She turns to Meas. “They often do thank me, you know. Women and men have so many secrets, and they become a burden. I allow them release from their burdens. And I allow the pain to end.” She forces Meas’s hand open again and places the pliers around the end of the nail on Meas’s longest finger. A gradually rising pressure in the nail bed. “They cry, Meas. They thank me and they cry with joy when I end them.” More pressure; not pain, not yet. Just the promise of it. “Now, tell me, how do you raise the arakeesians, Meas Gilbryn?”

Meas stares into the eyes of her torturer, finds no pity there. Worse, she is sure what the torturer believes she feels for Meas is compassion. That she thinks she is a woman doing an important job, no matter how unpleasant it may be. And she really, genuinely, pities Meas. That she thinks it a shame that Meas’s end could not be quick, if agonising. The pressure and the pain in her nail builds and builds. And she knows, as she has known so many times before, that she can bear it no longer.

“I cannot raise keyshans.” Words like shame, burning her throat as if poisonous. Bringing tears and choking sobs with them. “It is my deckkeeper, Joron Twiner. The gullaime name him Caller and he sings the keyshans up from their sleep.”

The hagpriest staring into her eyes.

“The same lies, Meas, they do not become more truthful just because you repeat them. But I admire your strength. We will find your deckkeeper, do not worry, and I will speak with him.” Meas steels herself, ready for the rip and the agony. Instead the pressure falls away. “I think, sweet Meas,” says the hagpriest, and she strokes her cheek, “that we are done for today. You are tired, and you need to rest. Think about today, and what may come in our future. Think about secrets and what you can share to end your pain.” She rolls up her tools, walks over to the cupboard and replaces the roll. “I will have the seaguard come, take you back to your rooms. I have had a bath drawn for you.” She turns, walks back to Meas and then she changes, from gentle to hard. Grabs Meas’s face, pushes her head back so she looks up at the hagpriest through tears of shame. “You are a handsome woman, you know? You are very fine looking.” She leans in close. “I am hoping,” she whispers, “that if I ask nicely enough, they will let me take one of your eyes.”

The hagpriest lets go, walks away, leaving Meas alone with two opposite thoughts warring in her mind:

Joron, where are you? You said you would come, and Joron, stay away. Whatever you do, you must not let them take you.