breathing passages. It was barely more than a trickle, but Will was forced to inhale it, and instantly he was overcome by a sudden sensation of drowning. His limbs thrashing involuntarily, he tried to draw himself up, but Cavillex's two helpers held him tightly in place. Choking, his attempts to breathe were crushed by an overwhelming feeling of water filling his lungs and of slow suffocation. Darkness closed around his vision and stars flashed across his mind.
When he thought he was about to die, the water flow stopped. Coughing and spluttering, he sucked in a huge gulp of air. His vision cleared to reveal Cavillex an inch away from his face.
'This is just the beginning,' he said.
Retreating, Cavillex filled the jug from another source out of Will's sight with a meticulous, slow pouring. Will tried to respond angrily, but his throat was raw from his rasping breath, and the residue of the water in his lungs and nasal passages made him choke once more.
Hanging over Will again, Cavillex said, 'Once more, before I begin my questions. To soften you.' He poured again.
This time the flow was faster, the water gushing down Will's nose and filling his airways in an instant. He choked, thrashed, could not draw a breath of air as the sensation of the water flooding his lungs magnified.
I'm dying, he thought. It was the only conscious notion before the involuntary responses to drowning took over: a wild panic rising from the heart of him, lashing everything from his head beyond the darkness of death rushing in from all sides. Frantically, he fought, but his captors maintained their grip with ease. A fire consumed his chest. His throat was a solid block through which no air could pass. His brain fizzed and winked out.
When he came round, the chair had been set vertically once more. Uncontrollable convulsions gripped him briefly as his mind fought with the belief that it had died, and the acute sensation of water filling his lungs to capacity. Every time Will recalled it, panic surged through him; the experience had embedded it deep in his mind, beyond his control.
His heart thundered so hard the blood in his ears muffled every sound, and it took him a second or two to realise Cavillex was speaking. 'I am told that is what it feels like to drown. You should thank me. I have given you knowledge that few men have: of the dark landscape beyond the edge of death.'
'Free me and I will give you an experience beyond that,' Will rasped through his raw throat.
'Where is the Shield?' Cavillex asked.
Will didn't respond. Shuddering, he filled his lungs with air and clung on to the memory of breathing.
The chair was upended roughly, and this time his head did slam on the boards. The water gushed onto his face a moment later.
After his ordeal, his consciousness returned in a flood and his furious reaction threw the chair to one side so that he slammed hard onto the floor. His captors left him there.
'What do you know of Dartmoor?' Cavillex asked.
Wrong-footed by the question, Will fought through the sensations of drowning that still washed through him. 'Dartmoor?'
'What happened there?'
'I have heard tell of that wild place in the west, but I have never been there.'
'What happened there!' Cavillex's voice cracked with emotion. For someone who had maintained his equilibrium from their first meeting, his loss of control was shocking.
'Hunting?' Will ventured. His mind raced to draw connections. Why was Cavillex interested in Dartmoor? What had happened there?
Before he could conclude his thoughts, the chair was flipped over again and the water flooded into his breathing passages with a force he had not experienced before. This time he blacked out quickly.
Cavillex roughly shook him awake. Will could see in his captor's drawn features that he had expected success much quicker.
'How do we break the defences that keep us from exerting our will over your land?' he asked.
'You will have to ask Doctor Dee that.'
Taking a step back, Cavillex looked into the street below as he steadied himself. 'You know you will not survive this hour. For the remainder of your brief life, there will only be a cascade of pain and suffering, tearing your mind into ribbons. Save yourself. Seek salvation. Tell me what I need to know and you will be spared that misery. I will end your life in an instant. You have my word.'
'God gave us memories for when the world gets too harsh. I have much to remember,' Will replied.
'Very well.'
Will waited for the chair to be upturned again, but instead Cavillex nodded to one of his associates who ventured to the back of the room and returned with another silver tray. Cavillex placed it on the floor in the moonlight where Will could see it. Lined up across it was a row of cruel instruments, so strange that their use was barely imaginable. Will saw gleaming blades, tongs, bands, screws, needles, and clamps.
'The question remains: what makes a man?' Cavillex reflected. 'We shall find out. Blood and gristle and meat and bone. This part fits that part. But where in that jumble of raw, bloody mass is the glimmer that thinks and feels? Or is it all just an illusion? Are men mere puppets made of meat that imagine themselves something more? Have you told yourself a lie for so long in your stories and mythologies that you have come to believe it?'
Turning his back to Will, he studied the tray of instruments, waving his slim fingers in the air over them until he decided on his selection.
'We have existed on the edge of your world for a long, long time,' he con tinued. 'Over the ages, we have probed the mysteries of this existence, plumbed the depths of life, climbed the peaks of experience. We have come to understand the minds of mortals with the eye of an artist. Like wizards, we can conjure miracles from the base stuff of your being. We can distil the finest evocation of pain from the mist of your lives. We have learned to draw out suffering in minute increments, each one blossoming like flowers into something beautiful and delicate.' He turned back to Will and revealed what he held in his hand. 'Once you have gained our attention, your time here is over.'
'Get on with it,' Will said. He focused his mind on the information about jenny with which Cavillex had taunted him. In it, he found hope, and strength.
He woke to find his captors sluicing the blood from the floor with a bucket of water. His body was a symphony of pain, his thoughts floating in and out of the rhythm. He had lost track of how long Cavillex had been working on him, but he knew he had not answered a question, and he had not given up Nathaniel. He would stay true to his vow to the end. That could be a long time coming, he knew. True to his words, Cavillex was an expert in drawing out suffering, building then releasing the pressure only to build it again. Survival was no longer an option. It had come down to a battle of wills, as Will had always known it would.
'What makes a man?' he said to Cavillex. 'Defiance in the face of brutality and oppression.'
'The Spaniard was right, you know. You think you are the hero in this play? You are not.'
Will spat a mouthful of blood. 'There are no heroes.'
'You will tell me what I need to know.'
Will sighed. 'Let us dispense with this chat. You already torture me with your words. Boredom is your greatest weapon.'
Nonchalantly, Cavillex selected another tool from the tray. Gritting his teeth, Will steeled himself.
Through the window came the distant sound of voices. Briefly, Cavillex hesitated, then continued towards Will as he considered which new part of his body to assault. The noise continued to draw closer, a crowd, shouting angrily. Hazy from the pain, Will couldn't make out the words.
The crowd washed up against the building, their voices so loud Will couldn't hear Cavillex's quiet words. Somewhere below them a window shat tered. Objects clattered against the side of the house. Puzzlement briefly crossed Cavillex's face, and he turned back to the window. Will watched his body stiffen as he studied the scene in the street below.
'It appears you have gained the attention of the good people of Edinburgh,' Will said wryly.
A rain of missiles rattled against the wall, and a steady boom echoed from the front door as the crowd attempted to break it down. When Cavillex turned to Will, his expression was cold and murderous.
'Does it serve your purpose to stand and fight?' Will asked. 'Or will you melt into the mist as you always do?'
Thoughts crossed Cavillex's face, all of them unreadable. He looked to his assistants and nodded.
