“It wasn’t me.” It almost sounded true. It couldn’t have been me. “I don’t know.”

Snorri shrugged. “Calm down. I’m not one of your Roma Inquisitors. Just thought it might be useful with Goggle there.” He pointed his knife at Meegan.

I looked at my hands and wondered. It’s often said that cowards make the best torturers. Cowards have good imaginations, imaginations that torment them with all the worst stuff of nightmare, all the horrors that could befall them. This provides an excellent arsenal when it comes to inflicting misery on others. And their final qualification is that they understand the fears of their victim better than the victim does himself.

All this might be true, but I’ve always found myself too scared that somehow, some way, any victim of mine might escape, turn the tables, and work the same horrors on me. Basically the cowards who make good torturers are less cowardly than me. Even so, Meegan did need some encouragement and I needed to understand what had happened with the corpse-man. Snorri had mentioned the Roma Inquisitors, without doubt the most accomplished torturers in the Broken Empire. If I wanted to avoid discussing “my witchcraft” with those monsters, then I would be best advised to understand it myself so as to be rid of it as quickly as feasible and to be able to hide it as effectively as possible.

Meegan had an ugly-looking cut on his arm, just below the shoulder. Some edge of the rock had ripped through his padded jerkin and chewed on into his flesh. I reached out towards it. Always start with a weak point.

“Myltorc! Myltorcdammu!” He chewed at the gag trying to get the words out.

I have to admit a small thrill at having the upper hand after what seemed like weeks of nothing but running, sleeping in ditches, and being terrified. Here at last was a foe I could handle.

“Oh, you’ll talk all right!” I used the menacing voice I used to scare my younger cousins with when they were small enough to push around. “You’ll talk.” And I slapped my palm to his wound, willing him to burn!

The results were . . . underwhelming. At first I felt nothing but the decidedly unpleasant squishiness of his injury as he writhed and jerked beneath my touch. I had to press hard to keep him from twisting away. At least it seemed to be hurting him, but that turned out to be more by way of anticipation than anything else, and he quieted down soon enough. I tried harder. Who knows what working magic is supposed to feel like? In the games we used to play in the palace, the sorcerer—always Martus, by dint of being the eldest brother—cast his spells with a strained face, as if constipated, squeezing his reluctant magic into the world through a small . . . well, you get the picture. Lacking any better instruction, I put into practice what I’d learned as a child. I crouched there on the mountain, one hand on my hopefully terrified victim, my face constipated with the awesome power I was straining to release.