Soulrender

Drip.
Kane waited patiently, surrounded by the cold, clammy stones of this underground chamber. Deep underground. The dank gray stones waited patiently too, their mortar yellowing with age as they slowly lose the ages-long battle against the creeping mold and mildew that spread across the walls and ceiling, filling the cracks, gnawing away at the mortar until it will inevitably grind the room down to a pile of rubble and dust and decay.
Drip.
Kane had knelt at the edge of the slowly spreading pool for forty hours now. He had chosen his spot well; the crimson pool hadn’t quite reached him, and now it was evident that it never would. He could no longer feel his knees. For that matter, he could no longer feel his legs from his knees down at all. From his hips to his knees his thighs felt as though they were on fire, his tormented muscles writhing and squirming in an agony of aches and pains and cramps. He could certainly feel that all too well.
Drip.
Forty hours. Forty long and torturous hours. Kneeling. An eternal agony of stiffness and pain. And hunger. He knew he was being tested. He had been tested like this before. He knew his life hung in the balance. Food could wait. Pain could be endured.
Drip.
He listened to that sound. The only sound in the dank stone chamber, beyond the faint sibilant hiss of the flickering torch in the hall behind him, was the sound of the dripping. At first, so many long hours ago, the dripping had really been a small flood, pouring onto the grimy stone floor with a loud, continuous sloppy splatter. But that had soon tapered to a tiny stream, then dwindled to a trickle, then nearly stopped altogether, leaving just the occasional...
Drip.
Kane hadn’t heard the flood, nor had he heard the stream or the trickle. The throat-tearing screams of the tortured young woman had drowned out all other noises. She hadn’t screamed long. The human throat can only take so much. Screams like that damaged a throat. Soon, she was just moaning and gasping hoarsely, occasionally coughing or gagging on the blood that ran from her ragged throat and drained into her raw, spent lungs. Still, it had been long before Kane’s ears had stopped ringing from all her caterwauling.
Drip.
At least his legs had not been hurting then. Not yet. His ordeal had only just begun. He had been able to enjoy her torment undistracted by cramping, tormented muscles. He had enjoyed her pain. Oh yes, very much. Now, nearly forty hours later, kneeling on cramped, agonized legs that hurt so bad he would gladly saw them off with his own hands, just to be rid of the pain, Kane reflected that the only sound since the screaming had stopped, since his ears had stopped ringing, was the constant and steady Drip.
Drip.
He endured his hunger. He endured his agony. Kane suffered patiently. To do anything else would mean an unimaginable death far more horrible than his present misery. A slow, lingering death that would make him long to return to this meager suffering.
Drip.
He watched as his master absently stroked the loop of living intestine between his thumb and forefinger as his gaze stared off at some distant image only he could see. The Master’s lips moved in continuous silent motion, his voice an inaudible whisper. The Master’s body was here, in this room. But his spirit was elsewhere. Somewhere horrible. Yet, his hand still stroked the gut. Had been stroking and rubbing and fondling the girl’s intestine since the ritual began. For forty hours the master’s hand had not broken contact with that sinewy strand of bloody intestine. He watched as a drop of blood ran from the ropy intestine, down his master’s thumb, further down the back of his master’s hand, then hung, slowly growing, expanding, bulging, until finally its own weight overcame its sticky viscosity and it fell, adding its substance to the congealing pool of blood. Breaking the steady rhythm.
Drip. Plop.
He dropped his gaze to the dark crimson pool of blood, thickening and congealing on the stone floor. There was a skin forming around the edges, puckering and wrinkling as it dried. The smell was nauseating, a foul odor of blood and sweat and fear. A fetor of decay and urine and feces.
Drip.
Kane allowed his eyes to travel to the victim. Too bad she was unconscious. Unconscious, she was oblivious to her torment. Oblivious to the way her jaw had been dislocated and distended, making room for the small cobbler’s hammer that had driven the nails that now held her bewitching sorceress tongue pinned firmly to the roof of her mouth. Oblivious to the way her tortured and broken fingers bent in every possible direction, her hands like a pair of limp, boneless gloves dangling haphazardly from her mutilated wrists. Oblivious to the way the cords binding her to the large wooden x-frame cut so deeply into her wrists that her bent and broken hands had turned blue and black and soon would fall off, even now only held in place by the exposed and drying ligaments connecting the gleaming white bones of her wrist. Oblivious to the way her entrails hung in sagging loops, pulled out from the carefully placed gash in her belly. Oblivious to the way the last of her precious crimson blood dangled, then dripped, from the sagging cords of her intestine into the dark, congealing, decomposing blood pool on the floor.
Drip.
His master knew how to deal with a sorceress, how to control her, how to keep her from wiggling her magic fingers or spouting charms or curses from her bewitching tongue. How to keep her from casting her spells. Sorceresses can’t cast spells with broken fingers. Sorceresses can’t cast spells with their tongues tacked to the roof of their mouths. The master always had a way with such women. Kane envied his master’s way with women.
Drip.
She looked so pale. There couldn’t be enough blood left in her whole body to fill a wine goblet. Her unconscious eyes lolled loosely in their sockets. A pink trail of bloody saliva drooled from her bloodless blue lips to her pale breasts. Once she had been pretty. Oh, so pretty. His gaze lingered on her breasts. Once they were full of life, bouncy and alluring. He had desired her the way a man desires a woman. He recalled bringing her here, recalled how he’d let his hands play over the soft lively curves of her flesh, only restraining his urges for fear of displeasing his master. Now her breasts lay flat and limp, drained of health. Drained of blood. Drained of nearly all life. Just like the rest of her.
Drip.
She had glared at him then, her eyes burning into him from above her gag. She had thought she would be raped. He would have, too. She deserved it. But the master had wanted her unspoiled. So he had allowed himself to grope, to fondle, to pinch, to lick, even to taste. He had elated at the soft feel of her and at the tang of her sweat. She would linger in his fantasies for many weeks to come. He had looked into her hateful eyes and relished the fury of her glare. She had thought she would be raped.
Drip.
Now he looked into her vacant eyes. Soulless eyes. Yes, she had been raped. But not the way she had feared.
Drip.
Her rape had been much, much worse.
Drip.
“Kane. Attend me.”
His master’s voice startled Kane out of his reverie.