Episode 6:
Death by Fire

N EEKIN WAS STRETCHED UPON THE HARD-PACKED EARTH, blind to her surroundings because her shirt had been pulled up over her face and arms, leaving her naked body exposed to the moonlight. She was pinned down by withered, robed men she had barely glimpsed, and a warm liquid had been poured over her breasts and belly and thighs.

A liquid whose scent named it as oil.

She began to shriek uncontrollably, and though her arms and legs were pinned, she began to buck and writhe. She felt the man who had stood between her yawning thighs rise up, presumably stepping back. Suddenly her right foot came free -- ironically, the oil itself making her supple body hard to hold. She kicked out blindly in the direction of the man who had held her leg and was rewarded by a dull impact against her sole. She twisted her hips and scissored her free leg across the one still pinned, again being rewarded with the feel of cloth and flesh. Both legs freed, she swung her legs up over her head and kicked out, knocking the third man from her arms.

Instantly she was rolling to her feet, wrenching off her shirt as she went.

She crouched in the moonlight, her jutting breasts heaving with frantic breaths, her nude body glistening seductively. Around her stood a half dozen figures, none particularly tall, all dressed in ragged, hooded robes, almost as though she had stumbled upon a colony of lepers. The faces inside the robes were hidden by darkness.

At the opposite side of the tight, naturally formed amphitheatre, she glimpsed another cluster of robed bodies, among them, the mute man who she and her companions had come a-hunting. He too was a prisoner. He too glistened with flammable oil.

She shuddered, reminded of her own predicament.

She looked around, trying to espy which wall afforded the easiest climb out of this nightmare.

Suddenly, illumination blazed across this hollow sunken in the earth -- and the nightmare became one of abject terror. One of the figures brandished a newly lit torch. Neekin choked back a sob of horror as he began to approach her, holding forth the flaming stick like a magic wand. Neekin backed up a step or two, then looked at her hands and arms. They, along with her head, were the only parts of her not a gleam with flammable oil.

Could she fend him off, and not risk the flame, or even a spark, touching the rest of her?

She looked about frantically, seeking her sword, or some other weapon she could improvise. There was nothing. Then, as if the Spirits had taken pity on her -- she tripped and sprawled upon the earth, her legs flying open. Then Neekin espied what she had tripped over. A loose chunk of shale rock jutted from the dirt. In an instant, she was upon it, wrenching it from the moist earth that claimed it. She launched it at the hooded man, and it struck him in the face, sending him tumbling back, his torch pinwheeling from his open hand.

Another robed figure darted for it, but Neekin launched herself like a cat, colliding with the man and knocking him away from his goal. She made to grab the torch herself, but instantly his hands were about her, pulling her back down. As she struggled, she glimpsed another robed figure start for the fallen torch. She kicked out at it, but not to touch it, her feet slick with the oil. Instead, she kicked repeatedly at the wet, loose earth before it, raining mud upon the sputtering flame.

Just as the robed figure grabbed the torch, its fire went dark.

The hooded man stared dumbly at the smouldering stick in his hand as Neekin knifed her elbow into the man holding her down. His grip went slack, and Neekin pulled free, once more gaining her feet.

She had won no advtantage, she knew, merely maintained an unenviable status quo. She was still naked, drenched in oil, surrounded by madmen intent on burning her alive. Somewhere on this small cay were Alombo and the others of the shore party. She had hoped her screams, the sounds of struggle, would bring them. So far, it had not.

Moving on the balls of her feet, slinking back and fourth like a nude dancer channeling a macabre tune, Neekin attempted to keep a suitable distance between herself and the robed men who attempted to encircle her. But there was too little manuevering room for her to keep that up for long.

Suddenly, another torch flared to life. And another. And another. Till the whole hollow was ablaze with snapping light, retreating shadows flittering illusively about the edges of the pit.

Neekin sucked in a breath between white teeth. The faces of the men were hidden by their mouldering hoods, but the torches cast off fragments of light, like a fire spitting embers. The eyes of some of the men caught the light -- and burned an unnatural crimson.

Whatever lurked within those robes was not fully human.

Neekin looked about, seeking a break in the phalanx surrounding her, seeking a route up. There was no longer time to seek a good path, with ideal handholds. She must race for the wall and prey to the Spirits that there would be handholds she could use.

Her full lips pulled back from her white teeth in a feral snarl, her ill-matched eyes blazing with animal rage, Neekin prepared to make the attempt.

"Halt!" came a female voice, both soft and yet commanding, half-whispered, half-shouted. The paradox of it confounding, Neekin looked about, seeing the ragged figures halting as though ensorcelled. After a moment, she turned and looked up.

A figure stood at the lip of the hollow, peering down upon them.

Neekin squintted, making out only a smear of a silhouette against the moonlight.

"Who are you, wench?" demanded the voice.

"I am Neekin," she said, attempting to sound defiant, though her heart pounded against her ribs.

The mysterious figure stood stilly for a moment. Then she said, "You are not of the other, are you?"

Neekin stared, working her pink tongue over her lips as she tried to fathom the meaning of the query. "What?" Then she glanced across at the man she had been hunting -- the man always in shadow, the silent man. Then she understood the question. "Him? No. I've come hunting him."

"Then you pursue his master, Charwan Kan?"

Neekin looked up, startled to hear that name spoken. Although that had been their assumption, this was the first true confirmation she had that the silent man worked for the illusive Charwan Kan. "Aye," said Neekin. "We pursue him for raiding the coasts many leagues from here."

"Charwan Kan has many enemies."

Neekin hesitated, unsure whether to push the question. Then she said, "Including you?"

The woman upon the lip of the hollow laughed, her voice both musical and eerily sibillant. Ignoring the question, the woman said, "Charwan Kan dabbles in darkest magicks and trucks with the most foul of nether beasts. He has studied with the sorcerers of Manoori, but even they threw him out in disgust and would see him dead."

Neekin recalled the burning Manoori vessel they had come upon. (see chapter two ~ the ed.)

Something hissed beside her, and she spun about -- but there was nothing there. She looked back up, but the mysterious woman was gone. Around her, the robed wretches continued to stand, unmoving. There was the sigh of a wind, but it sounded like it came from far, far away.

"You're quite a beauty, aren't you, wench?"

Neekin whirled and took a startled step back. The woman was now standing but a couple of paces away. Neekin hesitated, her momentary sense of relief, as the torch bearers were called off, dissipating as she was reminded of just how far this cay was from the lands she knew. She did not see how the woman could have climbed down without her knowing.

Though now, at least, she could see her clearer. She was not unattractive, though perhaps more handsome with middle age than truly beautiful, with raven hair that flowed and shimmered about her head. Her robe blossomed widely out at the hips, like an umbrella, in a style that was not unlike the dresses worn by court ladies in some of the Eastern kingdoms. But this was weirdly stitched, and of a verdant hue Neekin had not seen before.

Seeing her dress just reminded Neekin of how fully naked she was, and of how the oil made her body sheen. She recognized the hungry look in the woman's eyes -- Neekin had seen that look directed at her by many men, and, indeed, more than a few women. It made her more conscious of her nakedness, her femininity.

"What of him?" Neekin asked, her voice sounding huskier than she had intended.

The cay's mysterious mistress glanced absently at the figure held, seeming without resistance, between more of her followers. "Oh, him," she said, and gestured arcanely with one hand. A torch was raised and, before Neekin could scream out, the man erupted into a paroxysm of flame. Neekin clutched her face, horrified. Though she had been prepared to kill him herself, this grisly, cold-blooded execution repulsed her sense of honour.

The man staggered about, flames whipping about him like a golden cloak on a windy day. He let out a hollow groan, yet it was a far cry from the blood curdling scream of agony Neekin had expected. Nor did he flail or race about. Instead, he just stumbled a few steps, then abruptly his knees gave out from under him, and he collapsed. Sprawled upon the ground, flames still dancing over him, he resembled more a campfire than a human being.

Neekin gaped at the other woman, eyes wide with horror.

The woman shrugged, seeing Neekin's expression. "That would have been your fate, if your kicking and screaming had not revealed you to be something other than the men who sail with Charwan Kan. What your fate will be, though, is still undecided."

And the woman began to approach...

Go forward to Episode 7: Escape into Danger

Go back to Episode 5:  The Cay of Terror