Kell's Legend

metal.
    Anukis looked about. The floor was steel, ridged for grip, and sporting channels no-doubt to carry away blood and the water used to sluice out the honey from the tortured. The walls were black iron, rusted in patches, the ceiling brass and set with tiny squares to allow entry for distant daylight.
    Anukis stood, testing her body, checking how much damage had been done. The vachine had beat her; oh,how they enjoyed their sport, slamming the impure with fists and boots, but no teeth—no, Vashell had not allowed them to rip her apart with fangs and claws.
    Not yet, anyway.
    Anukis endured her savage beating; it lasted maybe an hour. She recognised it had gone on long after he had lost consciousness. Slowly, now, she checked her way through her bones, searching for breaks; there was a mild fracture in her left shoulder blade, and she winced as she rolled it, ignoring the torn and protesting muscles, the impact bruises, but going deep, analysing the pain within. One finger was snapped, on her left hand—ironically, her wedding ring finger. I suppose Vashell won’t be asking me to marry him anymore, she thought, and felt a hysterical giggle welling in her breast which she quashed savagely. No. Not here. You cannot lose your mind here. Because to lose your mind is to…
    Die.
    Such a simple word. An effortless concept. The natural order of all things: to live, and to die. Only the vachine were different, for they had introduced a third state with their hybrid watchmaking technology…as created by her grandfather, and refined, accelerated and implemented by her father Kradek-ka. It was a state of life which was partially removed from life; not death, no, not exactly. But only a sidestep away from the long dark journey.
    Anukis realised two ribs were cracked, and she bit her tongue against the pain as she shifted her weight. She ran her hands over her naked, pale skin, up and down her legs, over her hips and belly, stroking herflanks, searching for tears in flesh and damage to muscle and tendon within. Finally, satisfied, Anukis walked around her cell, hands tracing contours on the walls and pausing, occasionally, at odd-shaped slots and sockets. These were for the mobile torture devices of the Engineers and Cardinals. She had heard of such things; but never witnessed. With a cold chill she grasped her position, and understood with clarity that her opportunity might come sooner than she realised.
    Anukis moved to the cell door for analysis. It was brass, thick and very, very heavy, a solid slab with only a hand-sized portal through which to feed prisoners. Anu’s fingers traced the join between door and the metal wall—it was precise, as befitted a religion and culture of engineers and metal craftsmen.
    As she stood, she heard a lock mechanism whirr and took a hurried step back. The door swung inwards, silently, and a figure was outlined. It was the athletic figure of Vashell, the light source behind him, his features hidden in darkness and shadow.
    “Have you come to gloat, bastard?”
    His fist lashed out, slamming Anukis’s face and dropping her to the floor. He stepped forward, and his boot smashed her face, stamped on her chest, and as she lay, stunned, bleeding, he stamped on her head.
    Vashell pulled off a pair of gloves and moved, sitting on her bed, reclining a little, hands clasped around one armoured knee. He smiled, his brass fangs poking over his lower lip, and his eyes were dark, oil-filled, glittering first with resentment, then with amusement at Anukis’s pain.
    She lay, wheezing, head spinning, and it took many minutes for the effects of the blows to subside. Finally, she sat up, coughed up blood which ran down her breasts and pooled in her lap, in her crotch, an ersatz moon-bleeding.
    “Ten years ago we played in my father’s garden,” he said. “We ran through the long grass, and you giggled, and your hair shone in the winter sun. We walked down to the river, sat watching the savage fast waters filled with ice-melt from beneath the Black Pikes; and I held you, and you told me you loved me, and that one day we would be together.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.”
    “Your memories are twisted, Vashell. It didn’t happen like that.” She coughed, holding her breast, blood staining her chin like a horror puppet. “You chased me. I struggled. I asked for you to leave me alone!”
    “Liar!” he surged to his feet, face contorted into a vachine snarl. Inside his mouth, gears stepped and wheels