Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

Part 2.5

    It had never occured to Davretor to speak so frankly and so much about himself.
The more he did, the more he realised there was nothing there. All his associates had been transient, his soldiers, his employers, his life. All just featureless markers on the side of an empty road. The name though... he should have a name. Everyone else had a name.
    "You guys all have names right?" His eyes had finally adjusted to light again, several sessions had already passed. He was being fed regularly, often what he requested, and his cell was a touch more cozey seeing as there was a bed, a grate in the floor, and scribbled marks and arcana he could only assume were to help contain him. That room did have a strange calming effect on him, perhaps it was just that he was loathe to return to the oubliette.
    The masked inquistor had stopped thumbing through his notes, there were eight of them, and they had set up a laboratory of books, scrolls, bubbling pots, noxious incenses, rings of powder and salt, and runes... everywhere runes, just how much belief had been thrust blindly and wilfully into this nonsense? Such ritual, ceremony and reverance, such fear... but only the one wore a mask to conceal his identity, or perhaps some malady of the skin. Davretor had caught him pawing at the flesh under his sweeping, crimson robes a couple of times, an idle twitch, or perhaps a tell.
    "All men have secrets, all men have sins, all men have names- even ones they give themselves." the last part seemed to be aimed specifically at Davretor.
    "You still think I can remember it?" They had been in a bit of a rut the last few days, a waltz of denial anger and amnesia. The consensus had been that Davretor was concealing his identity to protect his family. A bargaining chip a shrewd man would keep hidden, however, Davretor had no recollection of any familial ties, and even less of a grasp on his name. Confessors and zealots could be such an obstinately untrusting lot except when it came to their god
    "Who was your god anyway? Have I heard of him?"
    "That shouldn't concern you,"
    "I should certainly think that it would if I'm expected to be burned as a heretic in his name..."
    "Studied. And you're no more a heretic than I a priest. We're just men. Serving a greater power than our selves.".His ornate hand guard traced over Davretor's cheek.
    "We're not so different you and I-" Davretor burst out laughing, he couldn't get through the preposterous implications of the harlequin cliche. He was a literate man. As a false-noble, he had been introduced to popular literature and the cheap parlor tricks of mentalists at parties and theatre.
    This whole gentle study, and series of sympathetic charades was just another ploy to loosen his tongue.
    Davretor was suddenly made accutely aware of how cold, strong, and sharp the delicately ivy inlaid gauntlet actually was as it clamped over his face and eyes, the mask came an inch from his ear and he could feel the rattle and anger behind the unfeeling metal face
    "Then perhaps its time I accelerate our study" He disdainfully flung Davretor's head to the side, leaving five deep scratches in his face, one coming quite close to his left eye.
    With such marked cruelty and anger, Davretor knew that was to be his last chance to make this a pleasant campfire and story time. What the assembled inquisitors did not know, was that there was nothing more to tell... that was the problem with their methods and their assumptions. In the coming days and nights of screams and rent flesh, it would appear to them that Davretor was withholding some precious gem of a secret, some budding understanding of daemonology or arcane mischief he wanted all to himself. The secret to caging the monster, to leashing the unthinkable horror within.
    Despite his pleas to the contrary.
    By the third night, he was a broken, bleeding mess of sores and cringing madness.
    By the eigth, he had resorted to every defense a coward had. False confessions, bargains, admissions of the most trivial indiscretions.
    By the twelfth night he couldn't even comprehend that it mattered not. This wasn't about what he knew, what he could make up, what he could recall.
    This wasn't about stopping the pain, the random ruthless beatings, lashings, and scalding, the dunking, the pins, the pliers, the wedges, the screws.
    It wasn't about knowledge or study.
    It was about threshholds, power, and to a lesser extent, gateways.
    Seeing how big of a hole they could poke into a man's soul, and if their charms and murmors of an eldritch protector could contain that which they feared.
    This was much more a test of their faith, bravery, methods, and belief.
    At what cost? These men certainly weren't concerned for the soul or sanity of the blank slate before them. It occurred more naturally than slaughtering a sheep for supper, or pulling lint from an otherwise clean garment. This first must be measured.
    What cost?