Shadows Return

pick, but it was enough. One after the other, the tumblers clicked back. Alec pulled the hasp loose and unhooked the end of the chain.
    The sudden sound of clapping startled him so badly he dropped the lock and the file. Yhakobin stood in the open doorway, applauding him. Alec hadn’t heard him approach. The alchemist was dressed in a long, embroidered robe today, and had the short horseman’s crop tucked under one arm.
    “An excellent demonstration of your talents, Alec,” he said, stepping into the room, followed by the two guards.
    Alec grasped the loose end of the chain in both hands and tried to swing it at the men as they came for him, but they caught him and threw him to the floor. One sat on his back. The other yanked his feet up in the air and held them together tightly.
    “I guessed that you were clever, but never imagined you’d be this brash,” Yhakobin told him. “Under different circumstances, I’d reward such a performance. But alas.”
    The guards held him tighter as Yhakobin brought the crop down hard across the soles of Alec’s bare feet.
    The pain was unbelievable—far worse than the whipping he’d had before. The first stroke stole the breath from his lungs, and by the third he was screaming. He couldn’t keep count, but just when he thought he’d go mad from the pain it stopped.
    The men yanked him up to his knees and held him by the hair and arms. The alchemist tossed the crop aside, then went to one of the tables and picked up a tiny glass flask with a funnel-shaped mouth. Using this, he carefully collected the tears from Alec’s cheeks.
    Alec gritted his teeth, hating himself for his weakness and for being such a fool as to tip his hand so easily. Seregil would never have made such a blunder. He held very still, keeping his eyes averted until Yhakobin finished.
    “There, nothing wasted,” the alchemist murmured, corking the bottle and setting it aside. “It gives me no pleasure to discipline you. I do it for your own good. If you actually had escaped and were caught by the slave takers, even I could not save you from the axe man’s block. We have laws here, and they must be obeyed. I hope in time you will come to appreciate my leniency. Now, what have you to say to me, Alec?”
    Alec drew in a hitching breath and bowed his head. “I’m sorry I tried to get away. Thank you, Ilban, for your…kindness.”
    “Hmm. Someday I will begin punishing you for lying, but for now, that will do.”
    The men dragged Alec back to the anvil and secured his chain with a new, larger lock. At Yhakobin’s nod, one of them grasped Alec’s left wrist and jerked his hand up. Yhakobin produced the bodkin from his sleeve and pricked Alec’s finger again, as he had that day at the slave market. He performed the same procedure, collecting a droplet of blood and somehow igniting it. It licked up in a long tongue of dull red fire this time.
    The alchemist murmured something in his own tongue, sounding pleased, then went to a table near the forge and came back with a small lead triangle inscribed with symbols of some sort, and fixed with a small bail, like a pendant.
    “You will sit still while I do this.” Yhakobin pointed meaningfully at the whip, which lay in easy reach, then bent and affixed the triangle to Alec’s collar with some wire and a set of pliers.
    When that was done, he took a tall, thin flask from a row on a nearby shelf, broke the wax seal, and poured out some liquid into a silver beaker.
    “You will drink this. Every drop,” he ordered, holding it out to Alec.
    “What is it?” he demanded without thinking.
    Yhakobin slapped him, hard.
    Alec clamped his lips tight together and kept his eyes averted.
    “Drink.” The cup was thrust under his nose. The contents looked like plain water.
    “Please, Ilban, what is it?” Alec braced for another blow.
    “Don’t turn up your nose at it, boy. That is Tincture of Lead, and noblemen have paid a great deal for smaller doses than this.”
    “Why? Ilban,” he added hastily, still suspicious and not inclined to believe him. Who would pay to drink something as common as lead?
    “It is the first step of your purification. It drives out foul humors. Drink, Alec, or I will whip you again.”
    The alchemist held the cup to his lips and the man holding Alec’s head pulled it back by the hair, making it hard to keep his mouth shut. Yhakobin tipped some of the tincture between his parted lips and it seeped through his clenched teeth. It