"If you've got enough strength to complain about the taste, you've got enough to live through this," despite Marcy's bravado, tears still streamed down her face.
It took almost five minutes to get Henri inside with Marcy's help, and then send for a healer. By all rights, Alan should have stayed by him, but Marcy would do just as fine a job at keeping the fellow calm. Something dark was stirring in Alan's soul. Something he hadn't felt since meeting Elizabeth. He would find who had done this, he would get his wife back, and he would torture the ones who took her from him until they couldn't remember their own name. When he was with the guild, he'd dealt with foes aplenty, but few had been so brazen as to attack him on his own ground. This couldn't have been a random attack, out here on his own estate. Someone had to have targeted his wife specifically.
Alan was no sorcerer, no wizard, but in times like this magic was often the best solution. He needed to find Elizabeth, and quickly, and aside from spells, only a trained tracker could uncover what had happened. He wasn't a tracker either, and the only one in his old merry band who could do so was a full day's travel away. It would take a day to alert her, then a day for her to arrive, time Alan simply did not have. What he did have, though, was goods and trinkets gleaned from over three and a half decades of thievery. His private stash, collected from all the corners of the known world. The master thief unlocked the vault deep beneath his manor house, and began searching through things. He knew exactly what he needed, and in short order he had them out.
The reflection in the silver mirror almost shocked Alan. It shouldn't have. There was something murderous in his steely gaze, something he hadn't seen on his own features in a long time. Even the usurper's crisis hadn't made him feel the anger swelling within him that this action had. But he had to calm himself. One dextrous hand slipped forth to grip the side of the mirror, and the gray haired rogue took a few deep breaths. His broad chest heaved as he tried to calm his nerves, and once he was cold as ice again, he proceeded.
The scroll in hand wasn't particularly ancient. It had been penned maybe months before he had claimed it from the wizard's tower. And then it sat in a box for a decade, untouched, unused. But Alan knew what it would do. With steady hands he unscrolled the parchment, revealing the eldritch diagrams and words scribed upon it. The ink shimmered glistening black by the light of the lone lamp set on the table nearest. A wizard wrote such scrolls to invoke their power as needed, or to teach the contents to another lesser sorcerer. Like many items of enchantment, each scroll, each potion was imbued with a bit of their creator's essence. The healing potion from before had been granted to Alan by a friend. This scroll was much more powerful, and had been taken by force of arms. He had to be careful, as there would be only one chance. Slowly, cautiously he began to intone the words upon the scroll, relying on the power therein rather than any particular magic of his own.
As the arcane, difficult to pronounce syllables left his lips, magic hung heavy on the air. The diagrams seemed to burn themselves into his retinas, and then occasionally one would literally leap from the scroll's surface, only to flow toward the mirror before him. Each line of strange black lettering or drawing read from the page disappeared from it, leaving a somewhat charred discoloration in its wake. The surface of the mirror began to shift, began to cloud. When the last of the scroll was read, the air hung heavy and silent. For a long moment, it seemed nothing had happened.
After almost a full minute, the fog cleared from the mirror, but Alan was no longer looking at his own reflection. Rather the image within the polished silver depicted a dark chamber, lit by flickering candles, shining dancing shadows up along fine wood paneled walls. It was an upscale building, to be sure, with thick burgundy curtains drawn close. A gilded chandelier with crystal decor hung above, but what captured his attention were a delicate pair of feet.
The stockings were of fine ivory silk, of a sort that Elizabeth favored, and though one foot was still clad in a black suede shoe he'd bought her not more than two months past, the other was bared. Well kept toes curled within the silk, painted a soft red color that showed even through the otherwise opaque stocking. The stocking of that bared foot had a hole, torn just from the ankle upward, exposing a glimpse of her elegantly boned ankle, and her pale skin beneath. Those feet were in the air, toes pointed toward the ceiling, just as they bobbed back and forth at a frenetic pace. Back and forth, back and forth, parted at about a shoulder's width, those lovely feet continued to move, and the toes of the shoeless one alternately stretched and curled, clenching in counterpoint to that bobbing rhythm.
It didn't take a genius to guess what was happening, but what clues were visible in the mirror as to her surroundings were vague at best. An upscale building, perhaps a house? The curtains could be visible from the street, but weren't a common color. As distracting as the image before him was, Alan's mind set to work effectively examining the room to determine where it was. He had to be cold, ice cold, but he had to get more information as well. A moment of focusing on that mirror, and the image began to shift.
Another soon formed, the same room, but from a different angle. This one included a gilded headboard, and to those bars a pair of hands were cuffed. There was no sign of the long sleeves Elizabeth favored, but the glint of gold rings on one hand confirmed the owner of those hands. The wedding ring itself was distinct, gold serpents twined together, with a diamond shining between their coils. Her long nails had been chipped, and at last one was broken, signs that she had put up a fight. The cuffs about her delicate wrists were thick, leather reinforced with metal, and with heavy locks. There was red chafing about her wrists already. Those slender fingers laced together, both hands gripped one of the bars of the headboard, a white knuckled grasp for dear life. And then there was a glimpse of the floor beyond, hard wood without carpeting. Something began to nag at Alan's mind. Something familiar.
The next image was of her torso, bared, with no sign of her blouse or corset. Her slender back was perfectly arched, her flat belly taut. A man's hands were settled there just at the small of her back, forcing her upward, gripping her hard enough to leave marks where his fingers and thumbs pressed against her skin. Those ripe, full breasts he so adored quaked and jiggled with the shock of rhythmic impacts, even as they rose and fell with gasped breaths. It was the same rhythm those feet had been moving in before, a sharp upward sway, then a jiggle as they settled back into place, only to be rocketed upward again. That soft, pale flesh was marked with hand prints, as if someone had targeted those lovely swells with sharp slaps. Rosy, expressive nipples stood at full attention, peaked, though whether it was from desire or torment one could hardly tell.
Her pale skin was dusted with a sheen of perspiration, but more unwholesomely, a drying whitish residue was spattered across her belly and across her cleavage, the slowly dripping spend of men before her, giving hint to how long the scene had been going on. As distressing as the old thief found the image, the most shocking part had nothing to do with the sight of his wife's body, shifting on those crimson sheets, held in such a delicious arch. No, it had to do with what he saw beyond. A fireplace, a mantle, and above that a strange portrait mounted just in view.
Even though only the lower half could be seen in the mirror, it was distinct enough that Alan knew, without a doubt, what it depicted. A black rat wearing a crown, overseeing a court of rats dressed in finery, like some mockery of a royal retinue. It was a painting hung in his old guild-house, a mansion on the south side of town. Rage began to boil through his veins, and Alan turned from the image. How dare they, those men he'd raised from rags to wealth, and Devron especially, whom he'd granted leadership of the guild to on his retirement. The betrayal hit him almost as hard as seeing his wife so abused. Alan began to rummage through the chests and stands within the vault. He would kill them all for this.
The gray haired rogue ransacked his own vault, picking up items, trinkets he thought he might need in the upcoming conflict. So preoccupied was he that he hadn't noticed the final change in the image, not until it was almost too late. With weapons in hand, he was moving for the sleek black leather armor he once wore, dark as night and twice as sinister. And then he caught sight of the mirror and what it displayed. It brought him to a sudden halt.
Her blonde curls were laid about the pillow, radiant as a halo in the dim light of the room. Her beautiful green eyes were wide with rage, pain, and glimmered with tears. Her features, so used to displaying a ready smile and an easy laugh were instead twisted with rage. The little makeup Elizabeth wore ran in dark rivulets, from her own tears and the drying, dripping white ooze that coated much of her face. Her jaws were held open by a peculiar metal gag, forcing her teeth to part and her lips wide. Those lips were red and swollen, bruised and kept apart in a constant 'o'. Even as Alan watched, her neck arched as she shuddered in unwilling climax. The constant stimulation was taking its toll on her will. Still, her eyes only hardened thereafter, gazing up at the man above her with murderous intent.
He didn't recognize the man, but it was clear that some faces would have changed in the years since he retired. Alan didn't have to recognize him to see what he was doing, however. Hands gripped smooth, supple thighs that had once been his alone, and those stockinged legs were forced over his shoulders, feet left to point at the ceiling. He was clearly buried to the hilt within her, but that bouncing of her feet, the rippling of her breasts had stopped. Slowly, the man in the mirror pulled out of Elizabeth, leaving her gaping in his wake. Alan could tell the man had been far from the first to claim her, and her overfilled body oozed onto those fine sheets. Another pair of hands grasped her stockinged legs, holding them up, keeping them parted, and as the next fellow positioned himself between Elizabeth's thighs, the mirror went dark, showing only Alan's own deadly features in dim reflection. The magic of the scroll had expired.
