The High Theocrat lounged back in her living chair. The humans that were bound and moulded to form it mewled softly when the spines and acute contours of her attire sc.r.a.ped against their hardened skin.

She looked at the view screen and saw the unconscious form of the slavegirl Theresa. As her eyes wandered across her limp form, her hand slowly wandered down between her legs. She brushed aside her cruel thong and her fingers start to slowly stroke her p.u.s.s.y. She was already wet with desire and her libido was now at a fervid peak with the added visual stimulation.

Suddenly, she stood up, tore off the garment, and grabbed a nearby slave about the neck. The girl had been slotted into a small box-like construction that was set on tiny wheels. Her body was folded over so that her arms and legs were contained within, leaving her back presented as a horizontal footrest. With her limbs strapped sternly inside, not only could she be exploited as a place to put up one's boots, but also her pert rear could be ravished with toys and lashed with venom and all the hapless prisoner could do was squeal. However, in her current lascivious mood, the High Theocrat had plans for the other end of the pinioned creature. A stern posture collar extended the woman's face forward, and this kept her lips at just the right height.

The girl's wheels squeaked and she was towed in as the High Theocrat dropped back down. A warm breath issued against her inner thighs and the slave obediently started to lap at her humid s.e.x.

The image of Theresa was once more concentrated upon and her fingers sank into the living armrests. The pleasure of the c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s was conjuring vivid and richly rewarding fantasies and scenarios.

Oh, how she would make that slave suffer. It was going to prove a luscious treat to make her holler. The thrill of abusing, tricking, tormenting, and manipulating her and yet all the while know the truth behind the actions. Everything she did to the woman would be reciprocated, she was sure of that.

Slaves did not run from their estates, and yet this one had. Intrigued, she had watched her being whipped through the streets and seen the fires of rebellion and budding perversity in her. The sight of her, straining to make it to the Temple, and then the look Theresa had given when cowering at her feet had presented her with the opportunity she had been waiting for.

"Bite my c.l.i.t, slave," she ordered.

The girl had done this before and knew what her Mistress wanted. The High Theocrat gave a yelp, ground her teeth, and clutched her armrests harder. Being a deity of torment was not enough for her anymore. She had pushed the boundaries, explored deeper than any other, now she wanted to taste the forbidden fruit. Theresa would know fear, terror, be brutalised and almost ruined, but if she could last through it, then what a surprise she would discover waiting for her at the other end of her journey. Everything was going according to plan.

The d.a.m.ning sound of shackles being snapped shut upon her wrists preceded a pressurised hiss when the padded inner surface inflated automatically and pressed itself firmly to the joints. The drop of her body onto these anchors roused her senses slightly and drew Theresa from lost depths.

Hanging by the manacles, her body was slack and adorned with the pernicious ill.u.s.trations of Dregakk attention. With a maximum effort, she tried to look and find out where she was.

The scene was blurry and was little more than a haze of swirling colour and obscure shapes because her senses were still scrambled and overwhelmed by loitering sensation.

Blinking, squinting, and trying to make her eyes obey and grant her sight, the insane collage of random patterns slowly rose through layers of clarity. The loose hues were pulled in and trapped within firm lines.

Huddled forms spa.r.s.ely lit the room. The humans and aliens were bound into tight compacted b.a.l.l.s and fixed to the wall on the end of a short horizontal pole that held them out into the air. Tight transparent hoods covered their heads, distorting their features and keeping a feeding tube plunged deep into their maws.

The feeble glow that revealed the interior through hints and subtle clues of silhouette was emanating from their very bodies. It seemed as though their very skins had been imbued with a slight luminescent quality, a product of Dregakk pseudo-science. The trait even extended to the humans, showing that it was no innate attribute of an enslaved extra-terrestrial breed, but an imparted, manufactured quality.

An overhead beam was marked with equally s.p.a.ced sets of dangling manacles, and upon this line hung numerous other slaves in addition to Theresa. All shared one thing in common and this was the fact that they had suffered terribly under the recent ministrations of their tyrants. The humans and aliens were limp and livid with misery, their wounds treated to a token kiss of benign rays before they were hung upon the shackles like slabs of meat in a freezer.

The queue patiently awaited entry into a box that ran from floor to ceiling. A set of featureless double doors providing entry, and a set on the other side allowed exit. The overhead beam continued through the mysterious interior to emerge on the other side and loop back round to feed the start of the line.

With a hydraulic purr, the panes of metal on the box swung outward and the solid jaws accepted a new victim into a belated interior. The woman they accepted possessed a deathly paleness, with black tiger strip markings across her hide that were either tattoos, or the natural patterns of her alien heritage. As she turned, her short fuzzy tail became visible, and the blunted claws tipping foot and finger. The alien tigress fought weakly and mewled as the manacles shuffled along to carry everyone on the suspended carousel one place nearer to the chamber. The doors whined shut and locked with a series of deep, heavy clunks.

A generator muttered privately to itself and vague hints of green flashes seeped through the few meagre c.h.i.n.ks in the cell to strobe light the chamber. An agonised wail poured forth and flowed through the bleak night of the room to terrify the awaiting captives.

On and on went the signal of the woman's distress and it barely paused to draw breath. Amongst her cries, the merciless sc.r.a.ping crackle of electrical forks skulked in the hidden recesses of the awful noise.

The sound stopped and the doors on the other side parted. The woman emerged and her skin trailed thin tendrils of steam. Her wounds were gone, but her breathing was shallow and uneven from the rigours of her medical attention.

The shackles carried her out, and another body was hauled within. The kicking legs of the male in no way stopped or even postponed his entrance and the doors shut.

His roars of strain and attempted break out turned to howls of suffering when the caustic curative licked his form.

Theresa's trepidation continued to well each time she was moved a step closer. The countdown to her own treatment left her chagrin at her imminent arrival in the box.

The chamber swallowed another, and another, leaving her with one place left. Pawing at her shackles, the line of healed beings was limp on the other side and she watched while the doors swung wide and drew in the male directly before her. The interior was awash with the heavy scent of fevered sweat and a pungent cloying stink that stung her nostrils. The inside seemed barren, but any close scrutiny was denied when the doors slammed shut and locked. Then the screams began. Her proximity to them made Theresa weep with worry. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks while she sought to drag her wrists to freedom and escape this fate.

After an eternity of the awful solo, the man was removed via the opposite side. His body was slack and laced with glistening beads of sweat. The interior beckoned with malevolent glee, opening its metal mouth wide to swallow her. With a soft jerk, the manacles were drawn along the beam and carried her into the box and the shadowy depths.

The doors whirred with slow movement, gently closing before slamming shut with a d.a.m.ning clang. The interior locks fastened tight and the sound of the generator building in strength issued from all around her, causing her to grizzle in despairing alarm. Her bowels slackened in terror, but she was a beast denied sustenance and the meagre intake she had acquired during her escape was beyond reach.

The bleak interior was impenetrable to her sight. The absence of even the faintest trickle of illumination created a cold oblivion that deprived her of senses and left only her ragged hesitant breath as company.

The shadows were shredded when jagged forked arcs of viridescent energy launched from the walls, floor, and ceiling. They reached out to lap at her body, and the searing kiss of the energy while it poured through her made Theresa livid with agony. The pain was unbelievably intense and the horror it imbued was peculiar, considering the healing nature of the lightning because the energy still caused swift regeneration. Her bruises vanished, her welts were erased, and the scratches disappeared. The machine restored her skin to an unblemished sheet while she wailed and shrieked, tugging at her bonds, trying to break free. Kicking out, her bare feet rang against the solid cell but the bruising blows unnoticed because of the ferocity with which the healing process was being conducted.

Each second was an eternity of purgatory while the emerald bolts dragged time out and left her only with her screams, and even these sounds were unable to express the full fervour of the ordeal. Her breaths came in gasping s.n.a.t.c.hes before she was forced to spend them on new yowls. Her lungs were plagued with starvation when they were unable to feed themselves as her mind demanded only wails.

The chamber and her own naked body were robbed of the glowing aura of light as the lightning ceased abruptly. Theresa dropped back and hung loose upon her shackles, her head lolling back, her body and hair damp with a cold perspiration. It was then that she noticed the loss of her nipple rings. In the process of stripping, the Holy Order had cut the hoops and dragged out the lingering remnants of her status as a filly to the Thaine household. The regenerative tongues of force had sealed even the holes that had been cruelly punched, granting a relief, but also a gnawing worry that perhaps they were intending to repeat the incident.

The locks opposite her jumped back and let the doors swing open and Theresa be ferried out by the automated systems. The room was already alive with activity but the haze of her brain only kept aware by the ma.s.sive rushes of adrenaline still coursing through her veins.

Members of the Holy Order were taking down various slaves and fastening them to upright slabs. The amazon fanatics each wore their usual psychotic and scanty attire, with wild cascades of brightly coloured hair. They wore cloaks formed from the tanned skin of a single human or alien form whose silent petrified death shriek was still carved deep into the peeled skin. Those slaves fully strapped down simply had their slabs toppled but the metallic palettes stopped suddenly and flipped up to hang in the air at waist height, borne horizontally like stretchers. Nothing held them up save for a faint luminescent haze beneath, like a heat haze that rippled the air slightly. Pushed with ease, the captives glided out of the chamber with the attending females.

A frugally clad woman stepped before Theresa. A thong of spiked black leather and a strapless bra of the same spa.r.s.ely covered her body. One arm was sheathed into an opera glove that had the fingers removed and the outside was laced with random stubby spines. The other limb bore intricate tattoos that flowed down in curling patterns to encompa.s.s several lines of Phed Dregakk script. Thigh boots of the same dark hide clutched tightly about her legs. They were embellished with dagger heels and had spikes around the knee and toe. Her mane of mauve locks tumbled down over her cloak of human skin to her rear and the wild bloom was fixed in places with clasps and ornate clips so that it did not cover her saturnine features. The woman's elfin countenance was corrupted by a diabolic att.i.tude.

Mauve fingernails, sharpened to wicked points, reached up and set the shackles loose. The inflated balloon interior shrunk back as Theresa fell from her perch and crumpled into a heap. The woman acted without any consideration and hauled Theresa up by her hair. She pushed her to an awaiting slab as though she were not even animate, let alone sentient.

The thick slab spat out metal hoops. The bands reached over and locked into irrevocable position. With a whiplash snap, they hauled back and gripped firmly, pinning Theresa into a rigid stance with her legs and arms parted a short distance. The ribbons were fixed above and below her joints, at elbow and knee, wrist and ankle, upper arm and thigh. A pair of cross bands at her chest hugged close and made her croak as others locked to her throat and brow, their tightness making the act of swallowing difficult. Her waist was hauled into a tight clinch that compressed her unbearably but her frame was too enfeebled to resist, and too comprehensively restrained to even move.

Clawing at the metal, unable to find a seam or join to prise open, she could only dwell in helpless immobility as the slat was pushed at the top and then fell fall. Her head plummeted back and made her gasp in fright. Her feet were thrown into the air as the slab settled upon its invisible cushion and the metal pressed to her back to support her while thrumming slightly with toil.

The woman clapped her hands to the end and ferried Theresa out. Her voice was still unable to work thanks to Dregakk surgery, leaving her mute and unable to solicit a reprieve or mercy.

Staring up, she watched the vaulted ceiling pa.s.sing by. The steady row of spread-eagled incandescent captives became something akin to a visual metronome with one ghastly visage of sorrow following after another. The translucent hoods carried in the feeding tubes as transparent straps kept them splayed to the ceiling, naked and radiant. The faint shudders and grimaces from the fresh human prisoners suggested that the process of generating light was not a painless one.

The walls in the corners of her vision were afflicted with statues and seraphic depictions of the G.o.ddess of torture the Dregakk worshipped and the devout symbols were embellished with slaves to augment their fidelity to the anonymous deity. The weighty monuments of stone and metal were crafted from various plundered minerals and were borne atop bound and struggling serviles who had arrays of lethal barbed spikes beneath them to prove that should they wilt in their task, they would perish slowly and painfully from such weakness. Other images chose incorporate the victims and the G.o.ddess could be seen crushing them under her heels, impaling an orifice on a rod or her arm, or holding them splayed and in pain with a petrified grip.

Joining the religious paraphernalia were terrible trophies, both inanimate and alive. Flags, banners, pictures of fallen cities and worlds, stuffed remains of creatures and species rendered extinct by the reaving of the Phed Dregakk. Living specimens were locked in bondage, fed through tubes, their eyes vacant and hollow, the prolonged imprisonment having long since reduced their minds to ribbons, especially since the religious sect had imposed arbitrary torture upon them in addition to the rigours of perpetual bondage. Rings pierced them, pipes and wires afflicted them with voltage nips; they were a.s.sailed with caustic substances, crushed and compressed, stretched and demeaned, made to suffer as they served to represent their plundered races via life long woe. A large number of humans were placed in such travail with eyes filled with tears as they shuddered in their excruciating distress. Their voices had been repressed by surgery so that only morose moans and gurgles emerged.

Doors parted and allowed her into some manner of lift. The solid chamber was carried up at speed through numerous levels. Her flight into the sky continued for several minutes, attesting to extreme alt.i.tude.

Leaving the chamber and walking down a corridor, a portal slithered aside at their approach. This let the two batrachian creatures tied horizontally upon it to gain rest. Their wrists were shackled to the leading edge, their feet to the wall, so that when the door was closed they were racked terribly, and only while it was left open could they find some measure of mercy. The aliens were dropped to the floor so they hung like scaled hammocks from the restraints. The smell of compacted crowds and acc.u.mulated terror drifted out from the room to dance in Theresa's nostrils.

Theresa was moved into a ma.s.sive hall where the ceiling was painted with detailed scenes via religious frescoes. Hanging slaves were once more inserted to provide a realistic element and measure of genuine suffering to the portrait of homage.

A flickering light was being cast throughout the room by several large braziers, and by ghastly parodies of torches. Formed from a humanoid slave semi-immersed in the wall, the torso of the living lights emerged bound and held along an angled pole. Spiked collars ensnared their throats, and their shaven heads radiated a sinister orange hue. Their lips were sealed upon their feeding tubes and their expressions were doleful.

Theresa looked wide-eyed about her, the sight being one that struck new fear into her. Where the high walls were not ejecting a sentient light fitting, they were filled to capacity with hundreds of ordered slots stacked a dozen or so stories high. Each was about a metre and a half square, and each had a cage placed inside. The cages were slightly smaller than the alcoves to allow an easy fit, and were comprised of a solid metal frame with dense barbed mesh running across the sides of the rigid cube while the roof and floor were made of solid sheets. Within these tiny cells were people, human beings held in heinous captivity. The inmates were silent, causing the colossal court to exist in a tentative silence, indicating that the quiet was enforced somehow, and that the breaking of this cardinal rule carried extremely harsh consequences.

Her trolley was delivered to a platform in the middle of the room, where the arm of a large crane lay folded in readiness. Its articulated fingers were clutched into a fist and of a size befit to reach up and take down the required cages. The metal was carved with strange patterns and ornate devilish designs so that it seemed to grow from the floor and resemble a huge living alien arm rather than a mere machine.

A booth beside it held members of the Order. The women were working command consoles, inputting data, and causing cages to sink deeper into the alcoves or return into them. The constant flurries of motion revealed the intricate network that lay hidden beyond the walls, the chutes taking slaves to and fro, delivering them to wherever they were needed in the huge cathedral of pious sadism.

"I have a new arrival. An escapee from the House Thaine plantation," announced the woman responsible for bringing her here. Her voice was silken and dreadful.

"Do they want her back?" replied a pink haired female, her ears dotted with many rings. Metallic cups covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, with slender chains reaching out around her body, and three from each spine armed dish reached to her spiked solid collar. Fluted shoulder guards extended from the band at her throat and these fanged additions held her dark skinned cloak.

"No. She is to be allocated as a standard subject."

"Who can blame them? Get one human to do something stupid and all the others are bound to join in," commented a woman from further away.

"Very well, just leave her here, we'll process her and put her in storage."

Without further exchange, Theresa's courier gave a merry wave and wandered off, leaving her to the attention of the pink maned female.

The keeper of this stark zoo walked around and exited the raised booth. She stepped beside Theresa and tapped her hand to the polished opaque face of the controlling platform. A section parted and a tray emerged with a gentle grace. From it, the woman removed an osmotic syringe.

"Ordinarily we don't bother with this, but seeing as you are a wicked little runaway, I think you deserve it," she said, and gave Theresa a dose of the accentuating agent.

The presence of her tight restraints made themselves feel all the more strict when the chemical started to take effect and sharpen the attention of her nerves. In the wake of this addition, an elaborate pistol-like device was selected. Taking it up, she cupped one of Theresa's b.r.e.a.s.t.s with a casual air of blase indifference and put the weapon to the upraised nipple. Straining against her bonds, Theresa tried to evade the imminent attack. The endeavour to try to have the nipple retract and avoid the obvious piercing was an impossible but desperately sought defence measure.

With a squeeze to the trigger, a lance of white heat bored through her teat, and with a click, a fat ring was shoved through and locked into place. A split second after the piercing, the blast wave of pain shot through her to make her muscles ripple and strive to break free. Her ribs heaved against the crushing cross formation of bonds and slowly the ardent effects dwindled.

Theresa panted in her misery. The pulsating gnaw in her nipple was sending aching fingers through the rest of her breast.

The other tip was taken up and she simply closed her eyes. Sobbing in her hopeless situation, another merry clunk struck her ears and cast her through a dizzying maelstrom. Her sight flickered with spots as she cried out to the limit of her lungs.

Rasping for new breath and quaking from the after-effects, Theresa's eyes flew wide when she felt the cold and open tips of the weapon brush her c.l.i.toris. Her weary eyelids flittered with alarm, and incoherent whinnying grumbles and neighs emerged from her throat with her frantic jeopardy. The soft click tore into her s.e.x, opening a hole through the extra sensitive nugget, and making her abdomen cavort within the restraints. An unprecedented level of torment raged within Theresa. Jerking and wailing, throwing herself at her bonds in a bid to get free and tug out the source of her woe, she did not even notice the addition of a ring to her nose. The septum was punctured and added to her level of suffering as her mouth creaked open into an impossible yowl. The shock was more than she could stand, but the drug in her system steadfastly refused to allow her refuge in a faint.

By exploiting her induced rictus, they slotted a frame within. The metal clamp kept her jaws wide as the level of her harrowing withdrew like a despised season. Theresa pushed her tongue to the frame and tried to force it out, but found that its small anchors had fixed firmly to her teeth and would not let go.

"Stick your tongue out," demanded the woman.

Theresa was momentarily too startled to respond because her attention was occupied with the pounding throb in her belly, b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and nose.

Flicking her hand to her rigid metal thong, the priestess flipped a small hatch and pressed a covert b.u.t.ton. The effect was to stir the intimate implant into renewed and accursed life.

Once more, her keening holler ripped through the quiet and filled the acoustically superb hall as she writhed in her bonds, her nervous system drowning under the prolific discharge of the tiny malediction. The device poured suffering into the nerve cl.u.s.ter that held it in place, making her entire form seem to dissolve amidst purgatory. No matter how many times she was subjected to this most terrible means of castigation, she could not even hope to cope with the results. How could such pain be cultivated without killing her? How could she keep standing this torture and surviving?

The shock continued way past the borders of mere discipline, and the gaoler continued to grant a brief reprieve before adding another burst of the shock. She was idly enjoying Theresa's pain as though it were a hearty meal.

Each time the shock ended, Theresa hurled her tongue out, only to have the woman renew the brutal treatment and leave the hapless slave a whimpering sh.e.l.l, one that was barely equipped with energy enough to breath.

Theresa's thoughts were numb when it finally came to an end.

"Extend your tongue," ordered the female, while reaching out and catching one of Theresa's tears. She examined the pearl as it hung from a spear tip of a nail before she flicked it away.

Theresa forced her tongue through the jaws of the device. The organ was stolid and barely able to respond but it emerged to the limits of her ability and was suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed. The apparatus snapped firm and strangled it in a tight hold that wrung the flesh through heartless metal fists. She believed that they were going to rip it out and her fears locked on the possibility that such a mutilation was a possible reason for the quiet of the hall.

Untroubled by Theresa's choking groans, the female took the gun, changed the setting on the side, and locked a stud into the soft meat. The act made Theresa sob and cry out when the last adornment to her visage served to further crack her dignity.

With rough movements, the appliance of capture was removed and it hauled painfully at her pierced tongue in the process.

In its place came a pair of small discs that the woman placed on either side of Theresa's larynx. The small devices muttered soft beeps and warmth started to spread through her throat. As the mysterious work of these creations continued, the woman took up a short stave. The handle was coated in thick plastic and the tip was a hollow metal rectangle. Into this frame she slotted symbols from the Dregakk language, creating a serial number, her origin, and her name so that it read 'Three six nine Q Q, Human, Theresa'. Once this had been compiled, the identification brand was thrust into the column of dancing flames that was the heart of a brazier and deserted there so it could gather heat. The sight of it slowly mustering a glow was matched by a similar welling of dread in Theresa as she watched it, eyes fixated on the imminent ordeal of branding.

A soft merry chirp from the devices at her neck declared that they had finished their singular task and the female removed them. She set them back on the tray and placed a firm grip around the brand. The tip emerged from the leaping amber and yellow bonfire. The metal was now an incandescent white - gifted with an intense heat, the purpose of which was blatantly obvious. The chamber of healing had removed every trace of damage to her, and had also erased the branding she had received once captured by the Dregakk back on Earth. The memory seemed so distant now, almost part of a different life. The thought of Earth was far and hazy, as though a half remembered dream she had forgotten to clarify upon awakening.

Theresa braced herself, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth. Her breath devolved into shaking pants when the aura of heat p.r.i.c.kled her upper arm just below the restraint. The warmth continued to spread the closer it got, and with a shove, the brand was pressed firmly to her skin to push in the flesh while the muscle flicked and bucked and Theresa's pain-drenched squawk tore through the air. The hiss of sizzling skin reached through the monotone wail, and the scent of her own burning hide made her stomach turn over as it stealthily entered her nostrils. A tug withdrew the instrument and let her drop into a weeping fit. The pain conspired with the thought of her homeworld because the substantial recollection of anything from it was lost because of her trials at the hands of this despicable race. The atrocities had pushed anything else prior to them from her mind, leaving her only with distinct memories of her various sessions of training. They had stolen her past and her only dream of happiness and salvation. It was a violation more heinous than any d.i.l.d.o or brutal toy could have wrought on her.

With her arm boiling with internal mayhem, the scorched skin stamped with a pulse more rapid and potent than her true one. Theresa quivered in shock while the enhanced imprint left her incoherent.

"Say something, slave," testified the woman.

When she did not notice the words, the woman flicked Theresa's nipples. The tips flashed with internal havoc at the coa.r.s.e treatment so soon after the installation of these adornments.

Theresa was momentarily stunned at the thought of speaking again. She had not been able to utter a genuine word since she was condemned to life as filly. Save for one brief period where Morschka had granted her a temporary voice through which to betray Pelakh's affair and thus condemn herself to the brutal nightly gang rape of the barracks.

Opening her mouth, she tried to form words. Her recollection on how to speak was dusty from not being used. Only Dregakk words entered her mind because English was now a tongue she was forbidden use of, and her forsaking of it left her with only lost half memories concerning her native language.

A flick to the control caused the implant to start a new chapter in its toil. It made her shriek under a brief kiss, and words of imploring followed the act of encouragement.

"Please, stop, I'm speaking, I'm speaking, Mistress," she burbled. The addition of a t.i.tle to any sentence was now second nature, an immediate response imprinted on her mind by the clarity of whip and heinous tragedy.

"Send me down a cage," announced the female, addressing her fellow workers.

The ma.s.sive arm lifted up with a smooth majesty and reached into the air. The fist unfurled and took hold of cage near the roof of the hall. After ferrying down the small box, it was deposited by her slat and the restraints suddenly sprang back into their hidden dwellings with a whiplash snap. Theresa was freed but there was nowhere to run, all she could do was obey.

"Get in, slave," muttered the woman, and after tapping the lock control on the opposite side to the fat hinges, the bolts retracted and the solid lid of the tiny prison was lifted back to expose the floor and mesh walls that would become her home. There was no point resisting, she would only be horribly punished for it, and so Theresa hauled herself from the hovering palette. Her legs wobbled beneath her until she dropped hands to the cage to steady herself. Lifting a leg, she slotted it in, and with a strain started to fold herself into the tight crouch that was the only permitted pose of the toothed pen. Her motions were deemed to slow, and with a shove, the woman's strength forced her down and into a crooked ball. When the guiding hand fled, it dragged its nails first. These opened a row of four light scratches down her back and made Theresa flex with a croak of new despair at the continuing spite of this race.

The hatch was thrown down with a clang of imprecation and the locks set themselves automatically. The control mechanism was a vast distance of mere centimetres out of her reach.

"You will be held here until you are required for use. You will not speak; you will not cause a disturbance. If you fail in either of these rules, the cage itself will chastise you. If you habitually transgress, you will be allocated as furniture, or sentenced to death by public torture at the next Holy Ma.s.s. Do you understand, ape creature?"

"Yes, Mistress," whimpered Theresa from her lowly position.

Her fingers reached out and placed their tips to the mesh. Her mind was weighing the possibilities. She could not brook the notion of facing the nightmare demise she had seen at the Temple, and life as an inanimate object, coc.o.o.ned and helpless, would be worse than the capricious torture of the Dregakk. Nevertheless, how much darker were the deeds of the Order over the household she had lived in? By comparison, would existence as a light bulb or decoration be preferable, even when weighed against the risk of being displayed as a torture victim for the Order who would then show off ability and devotion to a monstrous deity.

Clawed fingers took hold of her cell and with a lurch, she was thrown up into the air. Her belly sank when she was swiftly borne high and slipped back into her awaiting vacant spot.

The interior was bathed in shadow. The lights at the base of the hall failed to reach her level and this was a merciful consideration for it meant she did not gain a true and detailed view of the agonised ornaments dangling before her. The forms were held on rings and constricting nooses that punished any movement of the victim while they hung in perpetual torment, their heads lost within hoods. Only their eyes remained visible. The blinking tear-filled orbs flickered within the depths.

These ambiguous forms served to further devote her to evading this fate. They dedicated her to serving the wishes of the Order with a graphic display of the consequences permanently held before her.

Sitting in her cell, she turned from feeling her rings and brand and idly traced the metal barbs on the fence. The wicked teeth spiralled about the wire to form the semblance of woven brambles. Held in her tiny box room, she listened to the cages coming and going, the women far below continuing to orchestrate the shipment and dispersal of the slaves. The hours drowsily dawdled by, and the boredom persuaded Theresa to curl up and gain some much needed sleep.

A click from the wall caught her waning attention, and glancing up she spied a small tube emerging through her cage from the wall. The feeding tube offered her long denied sustenance that she could not resist. Her tortures, her escape, the starvation of her sentence in the male barracks, all of it had left her greatly weakened. Grabbing the thin straw, she suckled maniacally upon it to draw out the thick paste and gulp it down. The rancid tang made her taste buds recoil in nausea. The dreadful flavour was beyond even that imbued to the nutrient paste in the Thaine household. Regardless, she sated herself with all that the gaolers were permitting and drew more heavily at the tube when it stopped. Theresa tried to drag out even the most minute extra portion, but the flow had been stemmed and her task was futile. Her ongoing attempts were curbed when the pipe began to retreat. She clutched at it, trying to keep it in reach, but its slick surface slid through her fingers and vanished. Clenching her fists, she readied to vent her fury, but quelled it, lest her outrage be deemed a disturbance worthy of correction.

Theresa huddled back to the floor, closed her eyes, and tried to relax. She felt better for having eaten and her mind was adorned with an afterglow of feeding. Exhaustion arose in the wake of hunger and grabbed her mind before dragging her down into a deep slumber. However, the dreamless coma was scented with a dreadful foreboding.