The Goblets Immortal, Beth Overmyer [novels to read for beginners .txt] 📗

next day ran on much like the previous one: long and tedious. Only this time he saw neither Dewhurst nor Slaíne, and the cook was replaced with a confused-looking scullery maid who barely regarded Aidan. Aidan ate burnt toast and a cold sausage, explored Pulls, searched his stash in Nothingness for something that might aid him, and came up with schemes that he immediately gave up because he knew they were futile. If only he could think straight. He’d never felt so powerless and so foggy-headed, and he knew why: iron.

On the fifth morning of his captivity, Aidan woke up to five men standing over him, the repulsion of iron in their grasps. One man sat on his chest, one sat down on his legs, and the other two bled him. Aidan did not resist as they had apparently feared he would. He couldn’t escape or think clearly enough to Dismiss the blood, so what was the point of fighting them? Once they’d gotten what they wanted, the men cleaned up his arm, bandaged the spot, and left with the iron chalice of crimson.

Dizzy and lightheaded, Aidan lay there, willing himself not to throw up his breakfast. Two hours later, the scullery maid from the previous day came down with a tray of food: cold cornmeal mush, a fatty hunk of braised beef, and two small carrots. While Aidan ate, he attempted to make casual conversation with the girl, though she seemed more interested in watching the ceiling than answering his roundabout questions. After he’d finished the food, and drained the cup of water, she took the tray and its contents and made her way up the stairs.

When she had left, a maid came down and emptied the chamber pot, much to Aidan’s relief; it had been full and sitting there for two days now. She did not even give Aidan a glance, but finished her task as quickly as she could manage. When she returned half an hour later with the pot empty and scrubbed out, Aidan tried a different tack than he had with the scullery maid. “Thank you,” he murmured, but she ignored him still.

The remainder of the week wore on like this. Every other day, Aidan was bled. Every morning and afternoon and evening, meals were brought and cleared, and he was cleaned up after. It was like being a guest in a very perverted inn, one that charged in pints of blood.

It was on the morning of the eleventh day that Aidan felt Dewhurst’s Pull overhead. Aidan was still lightheaded from being bled, and was recovering on the stinking mass of blankets. Flies buzzed around his prone, unwashed form, but he did not bat them away. He was growing weaker. Every day he felt it. Not only was he losing blood, he was losing muscle. He was not being fed enough to maintain what body fat and muscle he had, and the iron was certainly not helping. In short, Aidan knew himself to be on a slow, exhausting path to being bled to death. But Dewhurst’s Pull meant something was happening. Maybe he would come down into the dungeon, and that would give Aidan a chance to try one of his most desperate ploys on the man: tell him everything and hope he’d be set free. Even as he considered it, Aidan knew it to be futile.

As he lay his head back down, shouts were taken up overhead. Slaíne’s Pull returned, and jerked him to an upright sitting position. Dewhurst was livid about something, and Slaíne was shouting something back. There were scuffling sounds overhead, and it sounded like someone had hit the floor with a thud. “Slaíne,” Aidan groaned, shaking his head.

There were more shouts, and Dewhurst’s Pull headed for the set of stairs leading down into the dungeon, Slaíne’s Pull quick on his heels, flanked by two guards. “He’d just better ruddy well tell me,” Dewhurst was bellowing as he thundered down the stairs.

“He don’t have it, or else he’d a’given it to you,” Slaíne spat.

“Don’t mouth off at me, fool girl.” As Dewhurst entered with a lit candle in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, he looked at Aidan, who thought the man’s head might explode, it was so red. “Where are the blasted maps?”

Aidan blinked. “The Goblet maps? I gave them to you.”

“You gave me back all of my papers, but the two maps in my possession you have withheld. Where are they?”

Perplexed, Aidan closed his eyes and felt in Nothingness for paper and oilskin. There was nothing made of those materials in his cache, so he opened his eyes and shook his head. “There’s nothing there.”

Dewhurst swore and stalked closer to where Aidan was sitting. “Those are my maps. I need those maps. You will give them to me at once.”

Despite himself, Aidan’s voice rose as well. “I told you I gave you everything back. I don’t have your blasted maps.”

“Liar.” Without warning, Dewhurst turned to Slaíne and backhanded her.

“Leave her out of this,” Aidan warned.

She tumbled to the floor, and only then did she look at Aidan. Both of Slaíne’s eyes were black, and her lip had been split open.

“Are you all right?”

Slaíne nodded once and looked away, as if ashamed. She didn’t flinch as Dewhurst kicked her in the ribs.

“Don’t. Touch. Her.” Now Aidan was on his feet, preparing to Summon the silver sword and have done with this once and for all, consequences be hanged.

The two guards reached for their own iron weapons.

“It ain’t worth it, sir,” Slaíne said.

“Silence, both of you. I need to think.” Dewhurst had taken a few steps back from Aidan, whom he seemed to regret visiting. He paced back and forth, the color that had filled his face draining. “I need those maps. They’re – they’re mine. I need them.”

He’s lying. Yes, Aidan was certain of it. “Who are you holding the maps for?” Aidan asked after weighing those words carefully.

Dewhurst stopped pacing and looked at Aidan as if he