*back*

The great hall was huge, the biggest single room that Kell had ever seen, and she'd been to the university near her home town for studies. The hall here was decorated in 'early hideous' and treated with 'gore-splattered' colors. It might have been spirited at one point, but the music coming from the corner was being made by a group of terrified looking bards who seemed about ready to drop.

Kell offered no resistance, as the guards tossed her before a wide table. The smell of food made her mouth water, but the stench in her mind's-nose and the backlash of taste from those standing behind that table made her want to gag.

She hesitated, but raised her face to the men behind the table. Four younger ones, and one tall, hugely imposing adult stood there, attentive and curious. The gazes of the younger men were dwelling upon Kell's shabby bodice, but she still had an attractive figure if not one in clean condition. The adult however, looked her over and a familiar, horrifying grin spread across his thick lips.

"Master Carnos," said the Lord to this dark mage, "I seem to have a spare ... creature."

"I seem to have a need for just such a thing," the Master announced. His voice was gravel across slate, deep but so sharp that it hurt Kell to even hear him. His proximity and his foul aura threatened to overcome her entirely.

"Then I believe we have both solved certain problems, in one easy step." The Lord said, almost happily. As he turned to Weyland, he added, "thank you for locating this little waif again, Weyland. You should help yourself to the mutton - it's quite well spiced."

Kell fell to her knees, as two of the younger men approached around the table, and began appraising her as though she were a hog or piece of furniture. She glanced at Weyland - the look of horror on his face was edged with pity and sorrow, and for a moment she had a flash of what his aura really looked like.

Though he was dangerously angry, Weyland didn't dare challenge either his Lord or the Master present. His dark aura was a remarkably deep shade of violet-blue, and Kell fought for another sense off him: over the din of real food and half-imagined stench, she tasted a smooth leather-cream from him.

Then she was dragged outside into a carriage which Master Carnos had arrived in, and bound to it with a heavy chain - which had clearly been used for such things in the past.

***

The ride to Master Carnos' keep was comfortable only in theory. The temperature outside was chilled with the early spring weather, here and there were patches of leftover snow. Inside, somehow, there was a rich warm feeling as though they were all beside a large hearth. The pits of hell might have held more comfort, though.

The chain that bound Kell was magically tight, a little too snug around her wrist. One hand was left free, and with it she pushed back her dirty hair from her face. She somehow found the courage to look at Carnos fully, and found that she was staring into a hateful but crafty visage indeed.

"You shall do nicely," he iterated. He seemed very pleased that his little venture to the Castle had yeilded such a catch. Kell still had no idea why he was so plesed, but she knew it could only be worse than her home had been.

For several hours they traveled, the huge black horses drawing this large carriage never seemed to tire and Kell sensed something odd about them as well as everything else about this bunch.

"Your horses are enchanted?" She finally said, her voice scratchy from disuse recently.

"Yes, indeed they are." Carnos answered, "you are quite observant. That will help. I do so hate it when my test subjects are not articulate."

Kell went blindly cold at that. She couldn't say even one more word, the entire long journey.

Two days worth of travel, stopping at locales which obviously were well used, and Kell sank into a deep fearful depression. What did he mean, really? Could he be just toying with her? They just needed a servant or something, right? She could work as hard as the next cook or ...

"No," she breathed, as they exited the carriage. The huge looming keep that she was brought out before was something she'd only ever seen in nightmarish stories.

Bolec Keep, she thought. It was a thing out of a book she'd only dared to open once. Darkness poured from the tall slit-windows, as though light was reversed there. She realized that it was her magical Sight that showed her this: she could hardly even see the real keep standing there. Its bones and skin of stone and wrought iron were plainly visible as enchanted time and time again. Its windows would have been beautifully crafted stained glass things - stained with what, Kell wondered.

It had two spires, north-west and south-east, and one in the center which was twice as high. If the main bulk of the squared off Keep was fairly tame in shape and design, these spires were something dripped down from terrible skies, molten metal twisted by a demonic hand.

That was not her Sight - that was how they actually looked, with points that crept toward the sky as though to pierce it.

Kell fainted.

***

She cursed herself for being so weak. For when Kell woke, she was bound in a small room. It was dark, smelled awful from urine and death and stink of sweat. Horrid things had happened in this small cell. She could only imagine what of those things would be happening to her.

Any illusion of her becoming some kind of house servant were destroyed when the door to the cell opened. Carnos and two of his silent attendant sons stood there.

"Come along," he said, holding out his hand. A great, meaty thing with an armored finger - or was it a replacement done in magical-mechanics? Kell tried to resist taking his hand, but whatever power this man held, it included that which told her she would be best off taking the offered hand.

His grip was harder than iron, and cold. The metal almost seared her, it was so cold. "Give her that," Carnos said, of a tall pewter pitcher.

There was water in it, but Kell wasn't sure whether she was meant to drink it or wash with it. She stood trembling, staring into the water's wobbly reflection. There were too many ripples to see the younger of the two sons approach.

"Do whatever you will with it, it's all you're getting for a while. I'd wash up a bit, myself," he said, picking at the edge of her cloak which was stained badly with grass and dirt. His own hand was manicured carefully, but his fingers showed signs of being burnt or scarred - whatever he did in his spare time or perhaps punishments from his hulking father?

Kell tried to drink, lowering her head to the water and splashing a lot of it onto herself in the process. The other son laughed, quietly. He became silent when his father glared at him.

"That is to be refilled for you, whenever it is empty. But don't get the idea that you could do anything else with it." Carnos said. "You will be fed once per day. We hardly want you to wind up starved to death before you are of no further use."

"What is it that you'll be doing with me, then?" Kell finally asked.

With a broad, ugly smile showing even and large teeth, Carnos said, "you're to be our test subject for magical experiments."

"Our curse-catcher," said the second son, and this time he was not silenced by his father.

***

Kell screamed but her voice was cut off by a hand over her mouth. Carnos didn't care much for her voice, even though his sons delighted in it. The knife that he used to bleed her was horrific in its design: curved like a trough, pointed at one end that spread out into a bit of a spoon where blood pooled and was collected into a vial beyond.

She had to admit, though, that this particular device was the least of her worries. Every time they collected her blood, there would be something else later on that would come back to hurt her. Sometimes only emotionally, indirectly, but usually it was a curse that would be tracked directly back through her blood.

This time, apparently, they were learning how to make some kind of homunculus, using scrapings from her skin, bits from her hair, urine and blood, as well as spit and other such things that they regularly collected.

Kell was moved back and forth from her cell to one of several places. An operating theater, a dank dungeon, a summoning circle. She was kept alive by the food she got - even though it wasn't much, it wasn't slop meant for an animal. It wasn't the prime cut of anything either, but at least they had cooks who knew what they were doing. She tried to keep herself clean, especially after events like the casting-tests, and ...

She had realized after the second time that one of Carnos' sons had 'bedded' her, not to try cleaning herself completely. They wanted her to concieve. For whatever reason, she was made to comply.

She learned several months later, when they dragged her into the operating theater, that they intended to use this unborn child for some ritual. Kell didn't stop screaming for more than a day, and then, only because Carnos stood in the doorway of her cell and cast a silence spell over her.

Nine months, she guessed, was how long she'd been there. Endless sessions with one or more of the brothers and Carnos left her skin mushroom white and crossed with small, deep scars. After her first couple tries at cleaning her clothing, they simply took those away from her and cast a 'warmth' spell on her cell.

There was something so deeply ironic about this, that Kell would think about it and laugh. These horrific people liked their creature comforts, and they didn't even deny them to their curse-catcher...

Another five months of this, another half-formed child stolen from her abused womb, and Kell had gone into a kind of shivering torpor. It was after she learned that the painful abortion she'd had last month had supplied the 'family' with enough energy to summon a rather important demon.

That jolted her back to reality. She sobbed into her hands, as she remembered why she'd run away from home in the first place. Her parents thought they could seek power and fame by summoning such a demon as that.

With her as the sacrifice.

*next*