Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind [319]
He no longer tried to keep the pressure off his wrists, and hung limp, delirious. He thought she stopped for a while, but he hurt so much from what she had already done that he wasn’t sure. The sweat in his eyes was blinding him; the sweat running into the wounds caused them to burn.
When his head cleared somewhat, she returned, walking behind him. He braced for what he knew was coming. Instead, she grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked his head back.
“Now, my pet, I’m going to show you something new. I’m going to show you how kind a mistress I really am.” She pulled his head back, hard, until the pain made him tense the muscles in his neck to resist the pressure. She put the Aigel against his throat. “Stop fighting me, or I won’t take it away.”
Blood was running into his mouth; he relaxed his neck muscles, allowing her to pull as hard as she wanted.
“Now, my pet, listen very carefully. I’m going to put the Agiel in your right ear.” Richard almost choked with fear. She jerked his head back to make him stop it. “It’s different from putting it anywhere else. It hurts a lot more. But you must do exactly as I say.” Her mouth was right by his ear; she whispered to him like a lover. “In the past, when I have had a sister Mord-Sith with me, we would both put our Agiel in the man’s ears at the same time. He would make a scream unlike any other. The sound of it is intoxicating. I get chills just thinking about it.”
“But, it would also kill him. We were never successful at using two Agiel at the same time in that particular way without killing him. We kept trying, but they always died. Be thankful I am your mistress; there are others who still try.”
“Thank you, Mistress Denna.” He wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for, but he didn’t want her to do whatever it was she had planned.
“Pay attention,” she whispered harshly. Her voice softened again. “When I do this, you must not move. If you move, it will damage things inside you. It won’t kill you, but it will cause irrevocable disability. Some men who move go blind, some are no longer able to move anything on one side of their body, some can’t talk anymore, or walk. But in all who move, something is spoiled. I want you fully functional. Mord-Sith who are more cruel than I don’t tell their pets not to move, they just do it without warning them. So you see? I am not so cruel as you thought. Still, only a few of the men I do it to are able to hold still. Even though I warn them, they still jerk, and then they are left impaired.”
Richard couldn’t hold back from crying. “Please, Mistress Denna, please don’t do it, please.”
He could feel the breath of her smile. She ran her wet tongue into his ear, kissed it. “But I want to, my pet. Don’t forget, hold still, don’t move.”
Richard clenched his teeth, but nothing could have prepared him for it. His head felt as if it had been turned to glass and shattered into a thousand pieces. His fingernails cut into his palms. All sense of time shattered apart with everything else. He was in a wasteland of agony with no beginning, no end. Every nerve in his body seared with razor-sharp, burning misery. He had no idea how long she held the Agiel there, but when she took it away, his screams echoed from the stone walls.
When he finally went limp, she kissed his ear and whispered breathlessly in it. “That was a simply delightful scream, my pet. I’ve never heard one better. Except a scream in death, of course. You did very well, my pet, you never moved an inch.” She kissed his neck tenderly, then his ear again. “Shall we try the other side?”
Richard