Fable - Ask The Boogeyman

[Zana]

15 years ago

Where are we going?

​

The tired ten year old rubbed at her eyes as she stumbled after Sloan. In the middle of the night her Mentor had slipped into her dorm and quietly woken her with a nudge of her magic. With a finger to her lips she had helped bundle Zana up into a thick wool and fur coat and her winter boots before taking her out into the frigid winter night. This wasn't entirely unusual; sometimes Sloan would wake her at odd hours and take her on some sort of training in an attempt to harness her visions so she hadn't complained. She had dutifully climbed onto the horses saddle and dozed content in Sloan's arms; it was best to get her rest if this was indeed another foray into the realms of her magic.

But they hadn't gone to the usual places outside of the city walls where they could practise in freedom and without worry. When she awoke she had been lifted from the saddle and then without a word Sloan had turned and walked down a rundown street. The young girl could just make out the lapping of the water nearby which told her they were close to the docks but other than that she wasn't sure where they were going. She wanted to ask but it had been drilled into her from a young age that questions were dangerous. Instead she hurried after Sloan, not wanting to be left alone.

She stumbled now and then, her feet and mind tired and she was making sloppy mistakes. Zana took a breath and tried to be better, tried to keep up. She was beginning to shiver and not just with the cold.

Soon they came to a house. Nothing about it seemed out of place upon the street. And yet.... and yet there was a feeling of dread. It was the type of feeling she got before a Vision when something bad was about to happen. She took a step back, her beautiful eyes growing round in her young face.

"Sloan..." it was a whispered warning and a plead. But the woman either didn't hear her or didn't care and entered. Zana swallowed and followed. They didn't even pause in the living space but moved instead to a wooden door which led them down beneath the docks. Another tunnel. They paused to light a torch and then they were striding forward again straight towards a set of heavy oak doors.

Her steps became more reluctant as they drew closer.

"Where are we going?" there was nothing she could do to keep the fear from her voice.

 

[Sloan]

She did care. She cared too much she'd been told, and Sloan tried to block the child from her mind rather than let her feel her own dread as she walked her down the tunnel. "Hush Zana." she bid the child in a whisper, her jaw clenching at the girl's question.. "It's just some training." she answered softly and continued toward the large oak doors. She felt sick, she had avoided Brackard as much as she could over the past five years but she'd been unable to escape some of his training sessions and interrogations and his methods had grown considerably more brutal.

Sloan faltered and paused, staring ahead at the door. She noticed how loud her pulse had been and she drew in a breath and let it out slowly before turning and dropping to a knee to face the girl, a hand reaching to her pretty face with a soft frown. "Listen to me.. Remember your training so far, yes? Do exactly as he says, please don't argue, don't ask questions. The sooner we get this done the sooner we go home and I'll take you riding tomorrow.. Alright?" she attempted a warm smile and dragged her thumb across the child's cheek.

She stood then, tearing herself away from her and continued on the path toward the door, rapping it gently with her knuckles, and waiting.

 

[Brackard Cain]

A man who barely fit within the confine of the ceiling opened the door. He was a lump of fat, muscle and gristle. He looked as if ten bar fighters could have punched him all night and barely injured him. There was ogre in his blood.

"Hmm," he went.

"Host, let them in," snapped a voice far too familiar to Sloan. It was also very different. None of the warmth there, clipped and precise.

The half ogre stepped aside, as far as his bulk would allow and waved the two in.

At the end of the corridor was an open door. One that would be closed behind them. The room was almost empty. Bare stone walls and no windows. A single table and two backless stools. One table. One broke man on the other side of it.

He looked up at them both. Something in his expression hardened when he looked at Sloan. A flash of shame and then nothing.

"This is the girl?" he asked the table, gaze low.

 

[Zana]

Zana could only nod mutely, her ringlets bouncing forward with the motion, as Sloan spoke and caressed her cheek. She trusted Sloan entirely - perhaps it was a weakness - but for the child it was the only thing that kept her sane through the torments of the Academy. She didn't want to let her down, so she would be strong. Slowly she took a deep breath in and then out, her little body shuddering slightly. This wouldn't be the first person who had wanted to see her talents in action; she just had to see what they wanted and then she could go.

The girl worried at her lip. If only it were as simple as that.

A hulking mass of man greeted them after Sloan knocked and Zana took an instinctive but small step behind Sloan. She hadn't thought half-breeds were allowed in the city and her eyes were as wide as saucers as she watched him inspect them before moving aside at the command of a voice. The voice that had her hands turning clammy.

She kept close to Sloan as they walked inside, almost pressing her back against the door to keep as much distance as possible between her and the doorman, before her gaze turned to the owner of the voice like ice. He didn't look particularly imposing but it was the way he looked at her Mentor that stopped her from relaxing entirely. Zana clasped her mittened hands in front of her and dipped her chin a little to her chest in the mark of respect she had been taught to greet all with.

 

[Sloan]

A hand swept behind her to find Zana's shoulder, keeping her there as she stood between the child and the ogre, responding to his 'hmm' with a slight scowl, her lips parting to speak before she heard Brackard's voice and her shoulders tensed.. "In you come.." she ushered the child, eyeing the large half breed as they passed him..

Sloan's golden hues fell on the broken man and she held his gaze for a moment before her brow furrowed and she lost her nerve, her eyes falling to the floor as she nodded and brought Zana in front of her. She gripped the girl's shoulders with a comforting squeeze and held her close to her, finding the confidence to find the man's face again. She nodded once and lifted her chin with a fierceness, sending the message that she was protective of the girl and hesitant to hand her over.. Not that she really had a choice.

"This is Zana.." she confirmed, giving her a name other than 'girl' and trying not to let her voice betray emotion, for she had many.

 

[Brackard Cain]

"Hello there Zana," said Brackard. He didn't want to do this in front of Sloan. It had to be done.

He had been given a second chance after his great shame. Brackard was a fraction of the man he had been, the one Sloan had fallen for. Yet Inquisitor Cullen had found ways for him to do vital work for the cause of the house.

This was important. Dreadlord could be exceptionally dangerous to themselves.

"Why don't you sit down and tell me about your abilities?" he offered.

 

[Zana]

Zana glanced up at Sloan whose hands were a little tight against her shoulders. It was unnerving. Sloan was never so tense. She was strong, powerful, deadly. She was who Zana wanted to be when she grew up and graduated. But the atmosphere between her and this man was making her uncomfortable and more than scared. When he spoke her eyes moved back to him and then one of the backless chairs before back to Sloan as if to ask if she had to. Swallowing the lump in her throat she dragged herself over to one.

It was definitely designed for an adult rather than a child and she had to push herself up onto it. Her feet swung twice then she caught herself and sat with her back straight and her hands clasped neatly in her lap.

"I am a competent telekinetic and can move objects up to a weight of 1,000kg and in a five mile radius for varying amounts of time - dependent on the weight," her voice was crystal clear and concise like she were reciting the information. "I can.." her voice wavered a little and she looked to Sloan. Was it a test? She had been told never to tell anyone about her visions but Sloan had told her to answer truthfully all of the mans questions. She kicked her feet once more in a nervous tick. "I can... see... things that might happen in the future. Sometimes," her voice grew quieter and she lowered her gaze.

 

[Sloan]

Sloan gave Zana a light nod and forced a smile, reluctantly let go of her to allow her to sit. She'd been prepared to argue should she be asked to leave, but she wasn't and so she folded her arms and watched the interaction between the two. She had to make a conscious effort to keep her mind to herself, she was nervous, but she hoped her presence would ensure Brackard would treat the girl kindly.

Zana's answer would normally have made her laugh, or at least smirk, so professionally put for a ten year old. But Sloan didn't dare crack a smile, and she gave another nod to prompt her to tell Brackard about all of her gifts.

She remained silent, stoic and standing, fingers lacing together behind her back as she watched.

 

[Brackard Cain]

"I can... see... things that might happen in the future. Sometimes," her voice grew quieter and she lowered her gaze.

"Sometimes," Brackard echoed. "And what do you mean by that?"

There was no hint of the direction he was turning their questions to. He was a man of relative wealth, or had been. No one in his family had felt particularly charitable after his was too badly injured to continue his commission. He had, however, been show how to read and write. An aspect of his privilege. And he had a nicely detailed report on Zana in one of the drawers of his desk.

 

[Zana]

Another glance to Sloan before dragging her eyes back.

"I can't control it," the words were hesitant. It was the lack of control that frustrated everyone - including Zana at times. "They come mostly when I sleep - like a bad dream - but it can also happen when I see something, or touch something - or someone. Then it's like..." she scrunched up her little nose, "Like a doorway into a vision with that at the centre of it," there was no exact science she had found as of yet. The girl resisted the urge to fidget and instead watched what he was doing with the open curiosity of a child even though there was a hint of the wariness in her tone reflected in her gaze.

 

[Sloan]

Sloan offered another reassuring nod as the child found her gaze again and she listened to her speak. Her fingers fidgeted behind her back.

Brackard knew all of this from the reports.. Sloan's jaw clenched and she looked at him with a soft frown trying to gauge his reaction and slip into his mind. Sloan couldn't hear thoughts, that had been a gift only shared with her brother, and her mind had been quiet for five years now. She still wasn't used to it. She could feel emotions however, and Brackard's emotions overwhelmed her at times. She hoped he wouldn't notice, but her golden gaze lingered on him for a long moment..

 

[Brackard Cain]

"If you touch something?" he asked, again rhetorically. He smiled. Several teeth had been knocked out in his last battle. One of the teeth in the middle at the bottom refused to take a peg, leaving an ugly gap.

He felt Sloan's eyes upon him. Brackard didn't want to see her expression, didn't want to know what she saw in him now.

"I have this," he said slowly. There was the soft hiss of a well fitted drawer. Then he laid down a bloodied knife on the table. "Do you see anything from it? It was used in a killing."

If she didn't, there was always the thumb screw from the same drawer to see if trauma would trigger her abilities.

 

[Zana]

The man was smiling but it didn't feel warm. It was like the smile her tutors gave her when they knew she would be a disappointment but they had to just pretend to give her the benefit of the doubt to begin with. Her palms were a little sweaty as she rubbed them against her breeches and glanced to the object Bracken had produced. She took a breath and leaned forward.

Her fingers brushed over the metal delicately at first as if she were afraid it might bite her, before she wrapped her small hand around the hilt and pulled it into her lap. For a moment there was nothing and then a light brush against her senses. She had once described it to Sloan like a sneeze that built and irritated your nose. The worst feeling was when you really wanted to actually sneeze and then it left you.

Like it did in that moment.

She let out a soft sigh and shook her head, returning the knife to the table.

"No, I'm sorry."

 

[Sloan]

Sloan felt herself fidgeting. It wasn't like her, but her fingers sought the bottom of her shirt to pull at as some part of her mind tried to occupy itself. Her head tilted as she watched Brackard take out the blade and set it down, and she continued to stare between the two, hoping the girl would perform as well as she could and she could get her home unscathed.

She tensed as the child picked up the blade, and she gave a mental nudge, encouraging her to focus. Her eyes closed when she heard the word 'no' however, and her gaze fell to the ground. She reached out to Brackard then, not with words, but to brush against his subconscious with a mute plea to let her try again.

 

[Brackard Cain]

Sloan was met with a stone wall as he felt her. He expunged all thoughts from his mind. There was a path he was on now and there were just a few people left who could have pulled him from it. She was one of them. Brackard would never be a man again, but he could be a useful member of the house. He had a part to play and she would never accept that.

"Try once more for me," he said. His tongue was the traitor. His hand was already reaching for the drawer when he spoke.

In this life, there was no room for sympathy.

"We will try something to focus your mind if not," he added. The drawer hissed as it was opened. The snake just beyond reach, giving a final warning.

Sloan Zana

 

[Zana]

Zana visibly stiffened when the draw opened.

She didn't dare look at Sloan though she could feel her like a weighted blanket in the back of her mind. Slowly she took the knife and ran it through her hands again slowly. She closed her eyes and concentrated hard, reaching for the magic she knew dwelt within her. She tried to make herself feel as though she were falling asleep but when that didn't work she dug her nails into her palms and hoped a little pain might spark it.

A flicker.

"A... a woman," her brows pulled down. The images were so faint and fuzzy she dug her nails in a little harder. "They're in a ... a bar... she's talking to someone. They're arguing. There's a rabbit on the wall," then it faded and she opened her eyes, the white mists faded from her eyes as she looked between the two hopefully.

 

[Sloan]

She could feel that barrier of his, and it unnerved her even more. Brackard wasn't one to give second chances, but she hoped that in the child's case, or at least for Sloan's sake, that he'd make an exception for Zana.

The something that he spoke of to focus the child's mind caused Sloan to bite on her lip. A physical betrayal of her emotions that was extraordinarily out of character. She hoped her nervousness wouldn't be felt by the child, she tried to hide it and let her focus.

Her eyes closed, she knew the child was hurting herself, she could feel the sharp twinges of pain and her brow furrowed as she listened to Zana's answer, and waited, hoping to hear that drawer close...

 

[Brackard Cain]

"A rabbit on the wall?" Brackard mused quietly. His hand returned from the draw. A small device of blackened iron. Two curved bars held together by a screw.

"I need you to focus on the man in the bar, provide me more. And I'm going to need...your ring finger. In here now."

His hand trembled as he leaned across the table. It had nothing to do with fear. They often trembled of their own accord. Often the shaking would take his whole body. He didn't apply it to the thumb. Her hands were delicate and whilst he had no intention of breaking a finger there was always the change of an accident.

"This is going to hurt and we will find out if that helps the vision."

There was no encouragement on his face, neither did he appear to take pleasure from this. He had a job to do and with this he needed to find a purpose once more.

 

[Zana]

Zana's hands began to shake when the device was pulled from the draw of the table and he held it out towards her. Despite that she tried to keep her face stoic like Sloan had taught her and she raised her eyes to meet Brackards solemnly across the table. There was a resignation there way beyond the years she had lived. It had been by fluke another trainer had discovered that pain sharpened her visions but nobody had mentioned it since. She had simply assumed they thought the trauma of them were enough to inflict on a child but now she saw they were simply waiting for the professionals.

Her fingers flexed on the knife and her gaze slid around the room briefly like a trapped animal looking for a way out. Would Sloan bar her path to the door? She looked at her mentor pleadingly even as she offered her hand to Brackard and swallowed past the lump in her throat.

"Okay," her words were a whisper and she looked down at the knife was more. Now she had been in the vision once she knew the slight nuance of feeling she needed to try and get back to it again. Too many people had handled it though, there were a thousand other messages and futures that whispered from the cold steel.

"W-What do you need to know about him?" perhaps having more of a focus would help. Asking another question also distracted her from the feeling of him putting her slender finger into the trap.

 

[Sloan]

Sloan looked up as Brackard asked for Zana's ring finger and she paled slightly. She didn't speak, but instead tried to dig past that stone wall he put up, a plea, an apology, a reminder that this wasn't who he was or had to be.

Please don't.. I love this girl.

Sloan had endured a lot over her years, she was strong willed, her resolve was almost unshakable. But this, she wasn't sure she could handle, this pitched her pulse to frantic. Above all, Sloan was a woman of duty, she knew of nothing else but doing her job and doing it well, but right now troubling thoughts of rebellion rushed through her mind and she considered what would happen if she stepped in. She couldn't step in..

The look on Zana's face was enough to break her heart, she couldn't help but project the emotion she felt, as hard as she tried to lock it in it was too much for her to bear and she forced her gaze downward and closed her eyes tightly, forcing herself to endure..

 

[Brackard Cain]

"This will not hurt much," he told her, "not at first."

Her ring finger had to be lifted above the others to slip the metal device over it. Brackard slowly turned the screw. It wasn't well oiled. Each turn was a creak that filled the hushed silence.

"I want you to focus on his appearance. His age, his hair, his eyes."

The cold kiss of metal because a tight press. It was uncomfortable, cutting off enough circulation to make her fingertip feel prickly.

"Try now," he said, almost kindly. Yet within a few seconds of her starting he was going to give the screw a sudden turn, administering a jolt of pain. One that wouldn't go away.

 

[Zana]

Every creak was another spike of fear through her heart and made her pulse jump. She wriggled her other fingers once her ring finger was in the lock. The nail was already beginning to pale showing the pressure on it.

"Okay," an acceptance of the pain, of the order, of the necessity of it all. This was what Dreadlords were for. If she could get better then this wouldn't have to happen. It was a tiny bit of resolve but it was resolve nevertheless and she clung to it like a drowning child would a piece of driftwood. She curled her hand about the knife once more and tried to focus her --

Zana yelped as the pain shot up her arm like a hot rod, her arm twisting in an effort to try and get away from it. The white mists seized her eyes and the vision ran again, clearer this time.

It was a man sitting at the table opposite the assassin. He was angry, she had failed. But what was worse was she had been caught. He was berating her, glancing this way and that. The light caught his face for a moment...

"Old," because everyone was old to a child of 10. "Older than you," the mists had left her eyes and they flicked to him warily as the pain still thundered up her arm. "He has one white eye, it is scarred. Dark hair with streaks of grey. There was a signet ring with a coiled serpent on it."

 

[Sloan]

Sloan visibly flinched at Zana's yelp in pain and her fists clenched by her sides, she forced herself to look up, her glassy eyes staring directly at Brackard, into him, needing him to go no further. She could feel that the child was still in pain, and Sloan tried to push past her own emotions and invoke a sense of calm to let the girl know she was there. It would do nothing for the pain...She could do nothing for her pain.

She stared between the two as Zana answered, and she dared to speak up now, a single step taken toward the two.. "Is that enough? Do you have what you need?.." she frowned with a look of desperation at the man behind the desk.

 

[Brackard Cain]

Even leaning across the table like this brought a spasm to the muscles at the base of his spine. Nothing had healed properly after that day, after having an elf cut him down and having a horse roll across his body.

A single twist removed the pressure from Zana's finger and he sat back down. He tried not to let the relief show.

Brackard might have lost his scruples, but he was not a wasteful man. This young girl could be the stepping stone on his way to gaining more favour with the house. She was exactly what he needed. What his house needed to solve this trouble.

"Very good," he said plainly, as if he hadnt just pained the child to test her. "You may go, but pack your things. We are travelling at first light."

Zana Sloan

 

[Zana]

Zana couldn't help snatching her hand back from the contraption when it was free and rubbing her throbbing finger tenderly. She wouldn't cry or whimper though; that was not the Dreadlord way. Even if she wanted to. She wallowed the lump of tears in her throat and lowered her eyes. However, when he spoke about joining him on some sort of trip her eyes flicked up in a mix of horror and dread to Sloan. Did she truly have to go? Another student would have been over the moon. She thought of the others in her class like Kor who was desperate already to get out on the field and prove his strength but Zana...

Zana wanted to be like Sloan.

And Sloan went on missions. She rubbed her finger again and then nodded meekly.

"Yes sir," the small child clambered down from the stool and made her way back over to her Mentor.