Piercing eyes

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I jumped into my grave, and asked him to fill it right then. He laughed and laughed.

Then he told me that the prisoners already knew that they were getting a new toy, and that he'd hate to let them down. In fact, he was looking forward to watching. He took me back to the cell.

He stripped me of my prison clothes and left me naked. That was how I would enter the jail, he told me, but I had a couple of visitors first, and he wanted me to look my best, such as it was, for them.

The first visitor was a healer. He looked me over, and commented in surprise that I didn't have the pox. I asked him to give me something to make me die.

He looked shocked and said that he was a healer, and wouldn't do that. I told him I knew better, that I had been a healer's apprentice.

He looked at me with contempt - "a healer, and now a seedie? You deserve every minute of what happens to you." He left.

I crawled into the corner and wept. Perhaps I did deserve it, but I was so afraid.

My second visitor was a frontier soldier. He wore the uniform - fur and leather, dark face, hard eyes, and he walked the frontier soldier's walk. I had seen enough of them.

He looked at me. "Sit in the seat."

What, naked? But what did I care; I sat in the seat. Whatever this was, it was going to be bad.

"I offer you a choice. A chance."

I looked at him. How did this make sense? Would it give me life? Would it get me seed?

"I am taking a squad of men into the mountains, to The Dragon's Backbone, for winter, to guard the passes against the enemy. They get lonely and cold up there. You can come with us for winter, look after the squad."

I looked at him. Winter? Whore? In the mountains? What about seed? I'd heard about The Dragon's Backbone, they were a forbidding range of mountains on the far side of the kingdom.

In winter they'd be cold, so cold. Yes, I was sure that whoring was what he wanted from me. "Will I get seed?" I asked.

"No." he said, decisively. "If you try to do that, I will kill you."

"But I won't even survive tonight." I could feel the raging desire - I had missed last night.

"It's six days travel on horseback into the mountains. You cannot travel without it. I would give it to you until then."

I leapt up to kiss him, to hug him, to - I don't know what. Seed!

"I know you will come, for those six days. But then there will be no more seed. And I will hold you to your choice."

Yes, yes, what did I care. Anything.

He made me swear to my bargain - winter with his squad and no seed - on the patron of the healers, Heroclynius.

Healer - he knew I was a healer?

"Oh yes, I know who you are."

"But I will die with no seed"

"No. You will go insane for a week or so, and you will always have a desire for it. But you can survive."

Oh, seed, for six days, then I would see. But there was no choice, here and now, jail or six days of seed. Death, or the Dragon's Backbone.

I had always wanted to see the mountains, I told myself.

The jailer reluctantly gave me a prison uniform, and signed me out under the supervision of Caption Ulf. I was still a prisoner, but now the captain was my captor. The jailer told me the rules.

The captain owned me, body and soul, like a dog. He could do anything he wanted with me, except let me go, until my six months were up. The jailer gave the captain a bag with some chains and manacles in it.

The captain made me carry the bag. "Come." he said. I followed him out into the street.

We walked down the main street of the city. I could feel the eyes watching me. Everyone on the street was looking at me. I felt like something the dog dragged in.

I stuck close to the captain, as if somehow that would make me smaller.

He took me to down to the magician's quarter, to a door with a small notice on it that said "Wiz. Dulath Ironhand." The captain knocked, and a young boy opened the door. "Captain Ulf, I have an appointment with the wizard", the captain said.

The young boy gestured for us to follow him in, and led us into a dark room with a single table and a bench seat. We sat on the bench, and then the wizard walked in.

I recognised him at once. He had visited Tom several times over the last year, but I had not known anything about him, except that he was always overdressed and wearing flashy jewellery.

"I'd like you to look at this young girl", the Captain said. "Her story is not unusual - she is a seedie, someone gave her the seed to entrap her. I'd like to know if she is or was subject to some curse too."

The wizard looked me over. Then he pulled out his wand and said words in a language I didn't understand. I felt weird, as if someone had walked through me.

There was a silence. The captain said, "It seems very likely to me that there is a curse. If you can't help me I'll have to wait to see the high wizard.

"It seemed to me that there was a distinct menace in the way this was said. The wizard, who had been about to say something, changed his mind, and looked at the captain.

"So you're that Captain Ulf?" he asked. The captain nodded. The wizard considered this for a short time, and then said in a resigned voice, "I can help.

She is under a curse to strengthen the effect of the seed, both the desire and the vagueness."