Within the Gates of Mehket

Chapter One:

Mikhail looked warily at the woman that now stands over him, his body restrained within the torturer's rack that seemed to be her preferred tool of restraint. She barely acknowledges his presence beneath her. This unnerves him, and he wasn't sure if this interrogator would withhold her hand from causing death. Either way, since his capture within the city of Mehket, his fate had been anything but secure.

Suddenly the woman turns her attention to him. "Let me assure you," she begins, "that I intend to find out exactly what you are doing in our lands. There is no question of you holding out for long, as my Laran will have the truth out of you even after your death. I am Mihram of Clan Ashkaska, chief interrogator of the Witch Queen, and no one holds out on me for very long." With this she walks over to a sturdy wooden bench that was stained with all manner of bodily fluids from past interrogations, and lets her gaze wander over the tools before her.

"You see," she continued, "I enjoy my work down here, and aim to stretch this out as long as I possibly can before you either faint, die, or tell me everything with the breath still in your lungs." She selects what appears to be a serrated corkscrew and slowly walks over to where he is strapped down. With a kick of a lever the rack splits open, forcing his legs apart. His eyes widen in fear.

"I see you are already wondering what exactly I am going to do with this implement," she says as she looks over his naked form. "It is a rather interesting piece of equipment, and it has many painful applications."

Mihram turns the implement over so that the torchlight dances over it before Mikhail's eyes. "For example, I could use it to pierce your brain through your ear, causing a very slow and agonising death as I extract every last piece of information from you with my Laran. I could strip your mind and body of all secrets with my Laran alone, but I am a hands-on kind of girl." She lets the thought sink into Mikhail as she examines his physiology further, finding where his weaknesses lie. "Personally, I prefer to start with something less fatal."

Mihram places the tip of the screw on Mikhail's perineum and slowly applies pressure to it as she turns it clockwise. The torture chamber is briefly filled with Mikhail's screams, and then it all goes silent.

"What a pity," Mihram says to herself, "he fainted."

Ashkaska Mihram wipes the blood from the screw and looks down at Mikhail's comatose form. He had given up all his secrets without much of a struggle. Mihram had just picked his mind clean as soon as his psychic barriers were removed with the judicious application of pain and sexual arousal.

"Take him away," she says to two guards loitering by the door to the chamber, "and put him in the deepest oubliette you can find. I must go to the Witch Queen directly to report what I have discovered from him." With that the guards pick him up off of the rack and carry him between them out of the chamber.

Mihram watches them leave and then turns her attentions to her attire. She would have to change before presenting herself to Lucretia Borgir, the Witch Queen. Without a second glance back into the torture chamber she leaves for her own chambers.

Mikhail slowly returns to consciousness, only to find himself unceremoniously dumped by two large guards into an oubliette somewhere within the bowels of Mehket. The floor is cold and hard, and he could hear the faint scratching of rats in the darkness. The air is still and foetid, which meant that he was deep within the bowels of the mountain that Mehket sits upon and within. He reaches down to where the interrogator had used the implement on him earlier, and winches as a jolt of pain confirms to him exactly what Mihram had done to him. Then Mikhail blacks out once more.

Mihram reaches her chambers and is greeted by one of her many slaves. The slightly built teenage girl bows low in deference as she passes, and Mihram cannot help but notice with pleasure the slight shiver of fear that the girl gives at her passing. "Follow me. I need to get cleaned up and changed," she commands the slave, and the poor girl follows her into the bedchamber at a safe distance.

The Witch Queen sits upon her throne watching the Court before her. The Harpies are gathered to one side, whispering amongst themselves as another poor supplicant from within her kingdom prostrates himself before her feet. Lucretia yawns as he attempts to go through all the formal greetings expected of him, and it is only the faint amusement at his struggles that saves him from her more vicious attentions. It is enough that the Harpies are making his job extremely difficult with their barbed comments upon his attire and manner. She then dismisses his claim offhandedly, and the crestfallen supplicant grovels and scrapes as he leaves the foot of the dais.

Then Lucretia looks up from this pathetic sight and notices Ashkaska Mihram standing before her with a concerned look on her face. "What is it, cousin?" she asks. "You know you may speak freely before me." The Harpies make mock gasps of surprise at the impropriety of this, but they knew that Ashkaska Mihram was the last person they'd want to piss off, being chief interrogator and the Witch Queen's cousin by blood. Once the Harpies had quietened down Mihram speaks.

"I've come to report upon my interrogation of the prisoner you sent me this morning, and I would rather do it in private, My Lady." The Witch Queen looks at her, and the room falls silent. Even the Harpies of the Court cease their incessant twittering. Mihram stands there with a passive expression upon her features, awaiting the Witch Queen's decision.

"Court is now closed for a private session," Lucretia Borgir announces. The Harpies hiss their disapproval at Mihram before withdrawing with the other court flunkies from the chamber, but the Witch Queen's word is law, and they were not going to be privy to whatever was going to be discussed between them. Only the Grand Vizier remains, and he is sworn to the utmost secrecy.

Mikhail is awoken by the noise of the hatch above him being opened. He squints as the light from outside the oubliette streams in, temporarily blinding him.