Star Wars_ The Old Republic_ Revan - Drew Karpyshyn [58]
In the servants’ wing he paused at the large wooden door and tested the handle, expecting it to be locked. To his surprise, it turned silently in his hand. Was Sechel expecting someone? Or was he merely so confident in his position as Nyriss’s favorite that he believed himself safe?
Scourge entered the room, silently locking the door behind him, then crept through the darkness to the bed where Sechel lay sleeping beneath the covers. Reaching out, he placed his gloved hand firmly over Sechel’s mouth.
Sechel woke with a start, thrashing and loosing muffled cries into Scourge’s palm. The Sith Lord pressed down harder and leaned in close.
“Cry out for help and you’re dead,” he whispered in Sechel’s ear. “Do you understand?”
Feeling the adviser nod, Scourge slowly drew his hand away.
“Lord Scourge?” Sechel asked softly. “Is that you? It’s hard to see in the dark.”
“No light,” Scourge warned, knowing someone might see the glow from beneath the door and decide to investigate.
“I trust your mission went well,” Sechel said. Scourge couldn’t see the expression on the adviser’s face, but he detected the faintest tremor in his voice.
“You’re going to answer my questions,” Scourge said.
“Of course, my lord,” Sechel replied, reverting to the fawning, ingratiating tone he’d adopted at their first meeting.
“Meekness will not save you tonight,” Scourge said. “The truth is your only hope of surviving this interrogation.”
He pulled a short, sharp blade from his belt and pressed it against Sechel’s cheek. “My first question is a simple one: Has Nyriss been using me?”
“My lord, why would you think—mmph!”
Scourge jammed his hand over Sechel’s mouth, cutting off his words. Then he drew the edge of his blade slowly along the base of one of the fleshy tendrils dangling from Sechel’s cheek.
The smaller man screamed in agony, but his cries were swallowed up in Scourge’s glove. Scourge kept a steady pressure on the blade so that the fine edge sliced cleanly through the tendril, severing it. Blood began to weep from the wound.
Scourge waited until Sechel’s spasms had stopped before he pulled his hand away. To his credit, Sechel was smart enough to limit further reaction to a soft whimper.
“When I ask a question, I want a direct and immediate answer,” Scourge said. “So I will ask again: Is Nyriss using me?”
“Of course she is,” Sechel mumbled. “She uses everybody.”
“Was Darth Xedrix really working with the human separatists?”
“Yes.”
Scourge analyzed the response, focusing on the tone, pitch, and inflection. Sechel was speaking the truth.
“Did Xedrix actually try to kill Nyriss?”
When Sechel hesitated, Scourge responded by slamming his hand over his mouth again. Ignoring the muffled pleas, he lowered his blade to the adviser’s face and severed another tendril.
“Next time I take an eye,” he said once Sechel had recovered from the pain. “Remember, direct and immediate answers.”
Lying took thought and effort. It took time. Forcing a subject to answer quickly was a simple but effective tool.
He removed his hand again, ready to slash Sechel’s throat if he cried out for help. Again, the adviser had the survival instinct to hold his tongue.
“Again: Did Xedrix actually try to kill Nyriss?”
“No.”
The answer was spoken sullenly and resentfully, but Scourge could sense the truth behind the attitude.
“Who hired the assassins?”
“Nyriss did. She wanted to draw suspicion away from herself.”
“Suspicion? Suspicion of what?”
“Ask her yourself!” Sechel spat.
Scourge sighed and clamped his hand over Sechel’s mouth yet again. But before he could bring the blade to bear, the door swung open with such force it nearly broke free from its hinges.
Darth Nyriss stood on the other side, framed by the light of the hallway’s glow lamps.