Braoin saw strings.

They streamed from somewhere above, dangling before his eyes. Black and shining in reflected firelight, they rustled in the slightest breeze and hung before him, just out of reach.

Not that he could move his hands to try to touch them. He felt like immovable sludge, thick and heavy and still. He lay on his belly, his head balanced upright on his chin, his muscles lax and uncooperative. He blinked and time strung away from him, fading to a dark river.

When he dragged his eyes open again the black strings had disappeared and his view had changed.

His head rested on its side and he stared at his right hand—at least it looked like his right hand, with paint on his knuckles as he remembered, but it lay slumped on a board like a dead slab of meat. Beyond it he saw only shifting darkness. He took a breath, determined to stay awake, and tried to move his fingers. One finger, the smallest, twitched, but the rest remained still.

Goddess, I've never been this drunk, he thought, letting his eyes fall closed again as he tried to think. He remembered eating supper with his aunt's family, but he'd had to leave before sunset, had to get home early because . . .

The dark! His eyes blinked open. His paint-stained right hand and his bare wrist and forearm lay still; there was no reaction when he tried again to move his fingers. He could not lift his head nor move his legs, which hung free beneath his hips. His nude upper body lay chest-down on a hard, scratchy surface, his arms were bare, and his back and shoulders felt cold. Braoin could tell from the breeze on his toes and testicles that he no longer wore his boots, or his pants.

No, no, no! Desperate to move, he forced a twitch through his dead fingers. A spasm gripped his hand, flipping it off the board like a fish out of a bucket.

"Waking, eh," a man's voice whispered from the dark. "Was afeared of that. Quit yer kicking if ye know what's good for ye."

"Let me go, please," Braoin said, his tongue thick. It sounded like "Eh ee ogh, eeh."

A sigh. "Talking ain't gonna make it no better." Fingers gripped Braoin's left ankle, then pain sliced around it, holding it fast, as the man tied him tight.

Braoin pleaded in nonsense syllables while the man moved on to fasten his right foot.

"Shh. He's coming."

Something moved far behind Braoin, something big and lumbering. "Don't talk to it," a second voice said with a low, threatening growl.

A mumbled apology, then Braoin heard steps hurry away.

He heard nothing for a long time, nothing but the rhythmic rush of blood in his ears. Try as he might, he could not move, and he saw only a long length of board leading into the dark.

A thick-bellied man in black robes walked into Braoin's line of sight. He reached down and lifted Braoin's escaped hand, slamming it on the board.

Braoin swallowed and tried to plead, but only terrified guttural whines escaped his throat.

Fat fingers wrapped black twine around the board and Braoin's wrist, holding his hand still and tying it tight. The man muttered a curse then walked toward Braoin's head.

Braoin cried out and tried to shake his head. Please, I'll do anything. I just want to go home.

The man grabbed Braoin's hair and yanked his head, wrenching it upright. "No, please." Braoin scrunched his eyes shut.

"Quiet! We're not allowed to play here." The man moved to the left, tying that hand as well, then he leaned close and whispered, dragging a finger up Braoin's bare arm, "Soon, though. I do so love to play, especially with lads like you. And I have the perfect place. Quiet and . . ." the fingertip moved across his bare shoulders and gouged into his spine as it scratched down toward his buttocks, ". . . private. Just you and me and the dark."

Held tight, Braoin prayed. He looked at the curtain of shining black strings hanging over the dais before him, and noticed slippered feet poking through. "Please," he said in his garbled, dead-tongue voice, raising his eyes and struggling to see the observer sitting above him. "Please let me go. I don't want to die. For Goddess' sake, I'm only seventee—"

Copyright © 2005 by Tamara Siler Jones