Shuli Go Stories Vol. 3: The Stories They Tell

Part 7

Time, like all other aspects of conscious thought, became warped and stretched in Lian's mind while she remained frozen: but based on the comments of passing guards, she understood it was two days later when Wong returned to see her again, this time with Prefect Tai at his side.

The torture of being frozen in place was not exactly what Lian had expected. There was pain, to be sure, but it was the dull ache of pressure points where the cage met her body. Granted, those pains were amplified into maddening proportions by her body's immobility, the unceasing nature of the pain, and her mind's resolute focus on them, but they were not the kind of pains one expected in a torture chamber of a man as powerful as the Prefect of Liangyong. After the first day Lian realized she was not even that hungry – the freezing placed the victim into a physical state very similar to Shuli Go meditation, the fuel of the body preserved and most other processes slowed down.

The greater torture was entirely mental. Unlike Shuli Go meditation, the Curse of the Living Stone kept the mind unaffected, forcing it to turn over and over itself in unending cycles of suffering. It was impossible to sleep with the amplified pains and the inability of the body to shift in any way. For two full days, all Lian could do was to look forward to Tai's visit, and the chance that they would unfreeze her in order to ask her questions. If she did not have that to look forward to, she was sure she would eventually go insane, locked in stasis and never able to move freely again. Given the choice between obeying Wong and being trapped in her own mind, Lian could start to see the appeal of Wong.

As far as torture went, it was fairly ingenious. The point of torture was never to change a victim's body, but their mind. This achieved that goal without mutilation, or even the screams of the victims. Lian saw that the people An had found were not physically drained, but mentally destroyed. Their pallid forms were not lacking blood but the mental energy to run their bodies efficiently. Prefect Tai did not want immortality, he wanted an army that would do his bidding. Men and women spread across important posts around the Empire, awaiting his instructions or facing a slow descent into insanity in a body that will take years to die.

Tai was a very dangerous man. And Lian had underestimated him. Zu too. Everyone had.

"So," Tai said after two days of Lian's suffering, his voice loud enough Lian knew he was close to her, looking at her. Despite that presence and his danger, her head was filled with excitement at the thought that Wong would free her, even if for a second, to respond to his question. "Who do we actually have here?"

"Suono shen," Wong said, and a flood of relief came over Lian as her body came alive and the pain dissipated. She quickly readjusted her legs to take the pressure away from where the cage had been pressing against her. She opened her eyes, just slightly, but they had not seen light in two days and even the small torches of Tai's guards burned her eyes, causing them to water all over again. She could not hold back an audible gasp of pain, nor the sigh of relief. It was the most exquisite feeling after two days of immobility to move her fingers again, to control her own breathing, and stretch her tight muscles. She could see why the men who had grabbed her had been so willing to do Wong's bidding. He was both torturer and savior.

"Well," Tai continued, "who are you, really?"

Lian looked him in the eye, but said nothing.

"Oh, that's right. You know what it is Wong does down here. You know about his book. And so you probably know that he can't lock you up if you're far away, without your real name. So you're not likely to give it, because you think you may get out one day and you want to keep your freedom."

Tai then approached Lian's cage and brought his face close to the bars. He was close enough she could reach out and throttle him in seconds, but she knew it would be useless if Wong froze her.