Chapter 5: Swaying

Nisa tells Cairn to leave. An order he surprisingly obeys at once. Then Nisa tells me to fetch a bucket of water and clean myself up. There’s remarkably little blood. My buttocks sting from the three parallel welts, but the flesh isn’t broken. It’s the blow between my legs which is the most in need of soothing. Unfortunately it’s the wound neither of us can reach at all. I detect Nisa’s magic probing the area around my cunt and I sense her invisible healing touch. It’s an act of kindness that I shan’t forget.

“You did well,” praises Nisa. “The swaying has worked. Maeve will be pleased with your progress. We might both be rewarded for today’s results if you can maintain this behaviour.”

I don’t follow what Nisa means by swaying. I’ve been abused, degraded, and humiliated. My worst enemy has seen me debase myself before his lash. What’s worse, I’ll probably want a repeat of the experience before my training is over. I’m helpless and at Maeve’s mercy. I’m losing my resolve to resist.

Food and water arrive a short while later. Nisa allows me to rest and use the chamber pot. More physical exercises conclude the day’s training. I don’t even think of resisting when Nisa demands that I kneel and bow before her when the day’s training is done.

I’m rewarded by being locked in the cage rather than the box. As a special treat I’m given a thin mattress, although I’m warned that the privilege may be removed tomorrow if I backslide in my training. I lie down and count my few blessings. I’m free of the iron box. Maeve and Nisa seem pleased with my progress. And thanks to Cairn’s whip I’ve experienced the most sensational orgasm I could imagine. I fall into a contented sleep.

It’s dark when I wake. Something is wrong. My earlier contentment is replaced with a feeling of disgust. I realise that none of my feelings when I entered this cage were really mine. Nisa managed to find an opening into my source of magic while I was distracted by my primal urges and Cairn’s whip. She’s implanted some alien thoughts and beliefs into my mind. Only a few for the moment, but as each day passes, she’ll widen that opening until Maeve can come along and force her entire set of values and beliefs into my mind. I must find a way to prevent it. But how? I didn’t detect Nisa’s violation of my mind at the time. She only needs to use that spray again and I’ll be equally helpless. Cairn’s presence was only needed to distract me and prove to Nisa that she had succeeded in her attack. Had I been myself, then I’d never have thanked Cairn for his brutal treatment of my body.

I reach into my source of power. There’s a tiny amount of new power there, but not enough to be useful. I try to locate the weak point where Nisa broke through my defences. Although I sense Nisa’s invasion, there’s no sign of where she entered. Invading another Fae’s source of power is something I’ve never experienced before, although Rowan has talked about it from time to time. It’s his stories that provide me with what little knowledge I have on the subject.

I lie there unable to go back to sleep. I must find a way to resist. I mustn’t let Maeve defeat me. Once I’m in her thrall, then the wyrdkeys are as good as hers. I’m a living wyrdkey hunter. Some unique portion of my power enables me to track the wyrdkeys. I was given that power by some divine force for the sole purpose of crafting a new lock for the wyrdkeys. A lock to what is anybody’s guess. According to legend, doing so will render the wyrdkeys harmless, banish Erawan and his dark hordes forever, and kill me. I’ve no problem with the first two parts of my divine mission, but the last part hardly excites me.

The annex where my cage is located is kept lit by six flaming torches around the walls. Fire. My birthright. I mentally reach out to touch the flames of the nearest torch. A silly act, really. If my real hand touched the torch, then the flames would burn me as much as they would anybody else. It’s wildfire which is special. Supernatural fire. It’s a gift and a curse. Even Maeve fears wildfire, but she needs control over it though me. Wildfire is what Erawan’s demons are unable to resist. I exhausted my magical powers by destroying wave after wave of Erawan’s hordes in Eyllwe. Only then did Maeve make her move.

I mentally play with the torch. Not for any real purpose. Just an act to distract me from my predicament. The flame flickers when I probe it’s appearance. A coincidence perhaps, but it reassures me that in time I won’t be this helpless slave. I imagine blowing out the torch. To my surprise the torch struggles for a while before resuming its normal glow. Another coincidence? Probably. It can’t be my influence. That’s something which should be impossible while I’m wearing all this iron.

The next morning Nisa arrives with my breakfast. A more substantial meal than previously. It’s probably intended as a reward for my good progress yesterday. Nisa has me complete my ablutions before commencing today’s training. She has me lie down as she did yesterday. I sense her magic probing. This time it is clearly focussed on the exposed part of my face. I feel a slight surge of power and realise that she’s reopened the tiny invisible channel which she succeeded in opening yesterday. I focus on what is happening. It’s a clever trick. She is using my own power’s need for renewal to force open a wide enough channel into my mind. It’s through the opening that she can influence my values and beliefs. My own power is being made to betray me. The tiny trickle of power Nisa is feeding into my own source is tricking it into widening the channel in search of a stronger flow of new power.

Suddenly I sense a link between our minds. Strangely its a two-way link, suggesting that I could influence Nisa’s mind as much as she can influence mine. Does she realise this? Has she made a mistake through her ignorance of my rare ability to detect probing magic? I try touching her mind. I’m a complete novice at this and I don’t want to alert her to my presence. I can’t detect what Nisa is doing inside my mind, even though I know she’s at work. At first I limit my intrusion to examining the structure of what I mentally see through the link. To comprehend what I sense, I perceive her mind like a huge library of books. Ordered in some fashion, but in what way is beyond my understanding. I also see what I can only describe as an untidy pile of books blocking access to some of the others. Somehow I sense that this untidy pile represents the thoughts and beliefs imposed by Maeve on Nisa’s mind. I mentally pick one of the imaginary books from the pile and examine it. I lack the skill to interpret its contents, but it has a feeling of wrongness. My reaction to the wrongness is to want to destroy it. A flicker of wildfire created by my mind reduces the imaginary book to ash. Fortunately, Nisa doesn’t seem to notice. I retreat from exploring her mind further and focus on trying to protect mine.