Archive of Our Own ^beta

Light shone from the walls, the ceiling, the tiles underfoot. The walls hummed with a steady vibration, as if they housed enormous clockwork mechanisms, as if they stretched tight around the arteries of some distant giant's heart.

Under other circumstances, such a sound -- so steady, so constant, so true -- might have been soothing. Under other circumstances, one might have fallen asleep to such a sound, despite the light, as if one were a babe on a mother's breast.

But this tower was no lullaby, and Kain did not sleep.

He watched tiny winged shapes move across the walls. At times, the faeries found a crevice and slid within, and then there was a distant crackle of static discharges and burning flesh. Sometimes, they emerged again, their tiny wings blackened and burnt, their faces transfixed in crazed grins. They clung to his sleeves, and he was forever brushing bits of faerie wing out of Rosa's hair.

She did not flinch when he touched her. He did not know if he wished that she would, or not.

He had never been one to enjoy sleep -- he could not easily slip into such abandon, such surrender -- and even in his adolescence, he had slept grudgingly, two or three hours at a time. Later, his men would whisper admiringly of his self-control, his strength, his ability to plan and march and fight without respite. Kain did nothing to quell these rumors. It was good for his men to admire him, and it was true that he did not need sleep as much as other men did. There were too many things to do, and too few hours in the day. He would sleep in his grave, and not before.

He had said such things, then. Cecil had laughed at such things, then.

Kain leaned against the wall and watched Rosa sleep. In the phosphorescent light of the walls, her fair hair was tinted with flickering blues and greens, as if she were a woman drowned underwater. She breathed softly and steadily, and there was no hint of her dreams across her blank face.

Along her right cheekbone, a bruise was slowly surfacing.

And still she would not flinch.

"You do not understand," Kain whispered. "You wonder why I have done this thing. You wonder how I could restrain you, how I could hurt you."

Rosa did not stir. A dying faerie, sparkling with ill-drunk electricity, scurried across the toe of his boot.

"You do not yet realize that I do these things for your own good. You do not understand the broader purpose, the wider plan. You are as a child reaching for a candle's flame. You must be saved from ruin."

The tower thrummed around him. Kain ran a finger along the line of his rough jaw. He had not shaved in some time.

"You could not understand. Just know that I do all this for your own good."

Just know that it hurts me more than it hurts you. Just know that I love you. Just know that I will save you.

These lines, or lines like them, ran through his head often. At times, he wondered if they were really his own words -- or were they echoes of something he had heard? He could not remember. It was difficult for him to concentrate.

The call, when it came, was soft at first. Kain could feel it in the back of his teeth, in the joints of his thumb, along the base of his heel.

He closed his eyes as it rose in intensity and pitch. There was nothing to be gained by resisting -- and yet he resisted. There was something awful and painful and distressingly pleasurable about resisting. Resisting the call felt like pulling the scabbed skin away from an unhealed wound, or curving his spine back a degree too far, or pressing the base of his hands against his closed eyes until his stomach buckled in nausea.

The compulsion rose. Kain gritted his teeth and his muscles knotted with pain and pleasure until finally he could bear no more.

He straightened from the wall and immediately the pain lessened and dropped away -- which, he knew, would last only so long as he put one foot in front of another, like the obedient dog he was, obediently coming to heel. Any thought of resistance, any hesitation, and the pain would return.

Kain knew this, and still he paused and turned to look at Rosa one last time.

She breathed slowly and steadily, and Kain knew the pulse at her neck and wrist and ankle was as steady and true and sweet as a metronome. Her heart knew no hesitations, no doubts, no hiccups.

Pain blossomed in his chest, and Kain wheeled around. His footsteps, and the thrum of the tower, and the rustle of burnt faerie wings, were the only sound that could be heard as he stalked down corridor after corridor.

He found Golbez examining a crystal globe partially submerged in the side of a wall. The light from the walls gleamed against the man's dark armor.

"You are slow, my dear," Golbez said.

Kain said nothing. Around him, the tower trembled.

"How goes our little hostage?" Golbez asked.

"She sleeps," Kain said.

"How fortunate," Golbez says. "Do you envy her?"

Kain considered this question. There were things that he envied about Rosa. The way that she laughed. The way that she held a tea cup. The long line of her neck. Her musk of crushed violets and copper.

At last, he says, "I do not envy her sleep."

Golbez chuckled and reached out to touch the crystal globe with one long finger.

"Are they coming?" Kain asked.

"Oh yes. How could they not? How could they leave their fair lady to our tender mercies? That would not be chivalrous. That would not be noble. How could they sleep at night under the weight of such dishonor?"

Kain said nothing. His eyes felt dry and gritty.

Golbez turned his head. "Oh yes, they come. And how will you greet them when they come knocking on our front door?"

Kain flexed his left hand. "They will not pass."

Golbez ran his hands across the crystal globe, and it pulsed quietly in response. "I see. Tell me, Kain, do the bonds of servitude sit heavily upon you?"

Kain blinked slowly. "I have ever been an obedient hound."

"Have you?"

"Oh yes," Kain said "I swore allegiance to my king, and I never questioned him. He told me where to throw my lance, and I threw it. I was the most loyal hound, the most servile hound. But...never enough. I was never quite good enough."

"Ahhhh," Golbez said, and his fingers danced across the globe. "Sibling rivalry. How quaint."

Kain shrugged. "Perhaps."

"And is this what you dreamed of? All those childish nights, lying in bed and thinking of the future? What did you dream?"

"I do not remember my dreams, Golbez."

"And now, my dear? What do you dream of now?"

"Didn't you hear me the first time?" Kain asked impatiently. "I do not sleep. I do not envy sleep."

"Ah, yes. Yes," Golbez said, and then he hummed to himself as his hands stroked the crystal globe.

Kain waited.

At last, Golbez seemed satisfied with his globe, and he turned to face Kain fully. Beneath his inky helmet, Golbez's pale eyes reflected the light.

"Are you loyal, Kain?"

Kain straightened. "Can you doubt it? After all I have done? Have I not proven my obedience?"

"And yet you resent it," Golbez said. "You resist it. You stretch your leash to its very limits."

"I have sworn an oath to Baron," Kain said. "and my king has placed his faith in you. So long as I serve Baron, I serve you."

"And yet," Golbez said, "and yet there is the little matter of the compulsion."

Kain closed his eyes. His mouth was dry.

"You have never asked me about it, my dear."

"I'm sure...I'm sure you think it's necessary," Kain said. "After Cecil deserted Baron. After you had seen the possibilities of betrayal. I'm sure...you thought I needed a leash."

"Is that what I thought?" Golbez's voice was cool and soft.

"I'm sure...I do not understand the broader purpose. You believe that you do these things for my own good. You believe that I am a child..."

"I see," Golbez said. "And would you be here without the leash, my dear? If I lifted the compulsion, would you still be a servile hound?"

No. I would free Rosa and find Cecil and beg for his forgiveness and abase myself before him.

Yes. I would never abandon my allegiance to Baron. I swore an oath, and I abide by it.

But what Kain said in truth was: "I do not know."

The pain threaded its way through his chest for his temerity and defiance, but Kain ignored it. He steadily regarded Golbez, who regarded him in turn.

"Such an honest hound," Golbez said. "Honest even at the expense of suffering."

"I do not suffer," Kain said. "I do what I must. Your leash merely hurries me along the paths that I would have likely chosen on my own."

"Yes," Golbez said, and he averted his eyes. "That is what makes it a well-wrought curse."

The tower was constantly full of light, and Kain did not sleep, but still he automatically divided the hours between "day" and "night." It was a force of habit. Cecil would have laughed.

It was night when the call came and Kain stalked through the halls of the towers and could not find Golbez. He was not in his usual locales; he was nowhere unusual as well. And even as Kain searched, the pain rose and rose and rose.

Finally, Kain pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and followed the drumbeat of his pain.

It led him over catwalks, under tunnels, and up ladders. It led him, deeper and deeper, into the heart of the tower.

And then it led him to a blank wall.

Kain regarded the wall impassively. Pain throbbed in every finger and toe. He took a step forward and touched the wall. It sang with the familiar vibrations of the tower.

Kain pressed his forehead against the wall and felt the wall pulse through him, down through his chest and his hips and his heels. And then he ran his fingers along the edges of the wall until he felt the hidden groove along the side of one panel. He pressed the indentation, and there was a hissing sound as part of the wall slid away.

It was dark within the walls of the tower. There were no light panels here, no light, but the tower still drummed around him in ceaseless noise.

Kain stepped unerringly forward into the darkness and followed his pain.

He heard someone breathing in little shallow gasps of pain. Kain knelt and reached out to touch the cloth of a cape, the links of chainmail.

"Golbez."

There was no response for some time, until at least, weakly and distantly, he heard the other man say, "...Kain."

"Are you injured?"

Golbez said nothing.

Kain was very still in the darkness.

It was evident. He could... Something had happened. Golbez was weak now. He would not put up a fight. Kain could put his hands to the other man's throat and... It was dark and cool around him. It was an opportunity. He was very careful not to think about the opportunity itself; his thoughts slid around the thought itself like shoals of fish around a stone in the river. He would not touch it directly.

There would be no noise. There would be no struggle. And then he could turn around and walk out of this tower. He would bring Rosa with him. And when he untied her bonds, she would look up at him through her eyelashes, and she would say--

His thoughts flitted away like wary fish.

And when they left the tower, they would find Cecil waiting for them.

His wandering hands traced the lines of the man's arm, along his shoulder, to his neck. Golbez was trembling. The pulse at his throat beat wildly and erratically.

And when they left the tower, they would leave behind all this pain, all this struggle -- and yet another broken oath.

Beneath his hand, Golbez made a low, gutteral noise of pain. Kain felt the sound vibrate through the other man's throat.

Kain exhaled. He lowered his head and leaned close to the other man's ear and whispered, "I could kill you now, you know."

The pain hit him like a hammer to the head. It rattled his teeth and contorted his muscles and burned along his veins, and he could not entirely suppress the groan of agony that rose from him. He wept helplessly, and his stomach twisted within him.

The other man shifted slightly. "I know," he said. "You could. But you won't."

Kain concentrated on breathing slowly and deliberately -- in and out, in and out -- until the pain receded and the dots disappeared from his vision.

"No," he said. "I won't."

The darkness drummed around them as Kain picked up Golbez carefully. The other man shuddered again as Kain slung him around his shoulders.

Kain started walking back the way he had come through the darkness and the drums. Far ahead of him, the distant gleam of the open panel and the lights of the tower beckoned him like a low-hanging star.

Once they were out in the open and the light, Kain slowly lowered Golbez to the ground.

"What can I do?" he asked. "Must I seek help? Must I do magic?"

Golbez weakly pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Wait," he whispered. "Just wait. I just need...a moment."

Kain watched him carefully.

"Why did you come, Kain?" Golbez's voice was low and strange.

"You called me," Kain said.

"Were there words? Did you hear words?"

Kain shook his head. "Just...just the pain. No words."

Golbez nodded slowly. "Do you ever hear words?"

Kain thought about the strange, slightly alien litanies that ran through his head at times. "No," he lied.

"I see."

Kain crouched beside him. "What has happened here, Golbez?"

The other man coughed weakly. "You are not the only one who must...test the limits of a leash, Kain."

"I do not understand."

"You will never understand ," Golbez said wearily as he slowly rose to his feet. "You are as a child." He passed a hand before his face, and Kain thought he heard him whisper something. And then Golbez said, "It is over now. Go back to our little hostage, my dear. I no longer require your assistance."

Kain watched him go. He thought about what he had heard Golbez whisper over the sound of the tower and the rhythm of a furious heart. The words had been familiar.

Just know that I will save you.