It was the next morning. Too much dried slime clung to my fur in too many places. My sense of smell was dulled by the constant assault of stench, but I certainly reeked like the beast I resembled.

The door opened and two inquisitors entered. They brought no breakfast, just a waterskin. After I had emptied it, the first inquisitor tied my hands together behind my back. As I could hardly imagine a worse place to be, I cooperated, presenting my forelegs and then letting them tie my hind legs. I squeezed through the door hole into a darker corridor on the other side and then followed the tug on my leash.

We turned left and right a little erratically. Or maybe the layout was designed to confuse any enemies who ever made it this far. Then we climbed some stairs. I had to jump, alternating between fore and hind legs like a rabbit, as the ropes were too short for proper steps. Maybe not originally intended but very humiliating nevertheless. Eventually, we reached normal rooms, clean brightly lit corridors with windows to the courtyard and on the wall between them hung tapestries depicting events I could not figure out. And it was busy. Many blue clerics rushed past us without a second glance and we passed even more inquisitors wearing black robes and blue belts. More inquisitors than I had ever seen guards at Krenburg Castle; almost as many as there had been soldiers in the army camp where I first awoke.

I had to hobble up two more flights of stairs. After another long corridor with windows showing the sea far down, we entered a room in a corner tower. The shutters were closed and black curtains were drawn across the windows. A cleric sat between the curtains, flanked by two inquisitors. This cleric was different, less ascetic, but plump in all the wrong places, someone who withered before books. And he wore a black headband, the first cleric who was not an inquisitor to wear something more than the blue cowl. The two inquisitors to his sides also wore these headbands.

My inquisitors tied the rope that held my forelegs together to the left front leg of a massive chair, which also had all sorts of restraints and screamed torture chair with every fibre of the massive wood it was made of. There were no bloodstains or sharp instruments in sight, at least for the moment. Not that this comforted me in any way. After tying the rope for the hind legs to another leg of the chair, the inquisitors who had brought me here quickly retreated and closed the only door.

It was dark as night with the shutters closed. A single candle burned behind the seated cleric, obscuring the faces of the cleric and the two inquisitors in the shadows of their robes even when they looked up. It was like one of those bad interrogation films, only transplanted to the Dark Ages. Unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the setting.

The two inquisitors also retreated from the cleric as far back as they could. Then the cleric began to sing, though it was the most horrible song I had ever heard. It screamed of dark rituals. Then I saw soul threads slowly leaving him, he was weaving soul magic with his own soul. With each repetition of his scratching chant, the soul threads became more substantial, first threads and then solid strands of soul. And then he changed his scratching chant and the soul strands reached out to me like tentacles.

He could not control them well, they moved erratically. But they were clearly aimed at me, no doubt. Uninvited soul magic was not a good thing. I tried to free my hands or paws but to no avail.

He was still singing his inhuman chant, and the soul strands grew thicker while their light dimmed. Now they were so solid that I could not see through them anymore. Still, the cleric struggled to control them. Finally, the thickest strand came at me. I dodged it, which seemed to surprise the cleric and the inquisitors. The strand actually hit the wall and shuddered to a stop.

The cleric tried again, this time aiming lower. The massive soul strand slowly turned. I panicked, trying to break the ropes or move the chair but I was too tightly bound to a chair that was too solid. Then I roared as if to scare away wolves, but the cleric continued his chant unperturbed. The thickest of the strands, now almost a soul tow, picked up speed and was about to hit me chest-high.

I did not wait for it to hit me. Seeing how solid it looked and how it had hit the wall before, I opened my mouth and indeed, I had caught something in my fangs. I threw my head back and the soul strand tightened. The chanting of the clerics changed to a gurgling sound, which I took as a good sign. The other soul strands flailed aimlessly around the room. The cleric threw his arms in the air in desperation, while I stood up on my forelegs to sit on my hind legs and pull the soul strand I had in my mouth as far back as my ropes would allow. One inquisitor came out of his corner but was hit by a soul strand and collapsed screaming. The other tried to retreat further, cowering and shivering in his corner. That gave me a new incentive, I stretched my forelegs out a bit more, the bindings cutting off the circulation but I could throw my head further back to pull on the soul strand as much as I could. Now the cleric screamed too and I saw the semicircle of his soul emerge from his chest, a pale brown hemisphere with many black scars. The cleric moved his hands in front of him, but they passed through his soul without any resistance. In his panic, he began to flail left and right on his chair, causing the black scars to flake off his soul, making it brighter and illuminating the room. I tried to bite the soul strand a little closer to the cleric - and succeeded, pulled and exposed even more of his soul. More black scars flaked off his soul. Together with the now almost unscarred soul, the soul strands also changed colour to a brighter yellow and became less substantial again. Soon, I could no longer hold the large strand in my mouth, it just blew through my fangs. The vapour-like soul strands coiled back to their panicked owner. His soul was slowly sinking back into his chest and the last remaining soul threads were still spooling back into it. As they disappeared, the room fell into total darkness, the candle having been extinguished by the wild magic.

My eyes were still adjusting when the cleric shouted something guttural and ran out of the room, falling over the fallen inquisitor. The other inquisitor trailed the soul-magic cleric closely, probably calling for help, which arrived only moments later. The last remaining inquisitor stood up, trembling, and gave a brief report to the arriving force. Now ten inquisitors approached me as if I were a fire-breathing dragon and not a squirrel-taur securely tied to the chair. They stopped three paces away and waited. Soon more inquisitors came, fourteen of them, shoulder to shoulder, forming a semicircle around me, wall to wall in the small tower room.

Only then did every second of them approach me while their comrades pointed their swords at the back of their comrades in front of them.

The euphoria of my victory was gone. I sat motionless, more frightened than they were.

They tied a second rope to my hands, forelegs and hind legs. In this way, six inquisitors handled me like a string puppet. We climbed two more flights of stairs and walked down a long corridor. Then we waited in a room with no windows and a single door but with rings to tie my ropes to the wall. Imprisoning visitors seemed to be a common occurrence in this sacred palace.

* * *

We had to wait a long time. Still, there was ventilation in this room, and with it, my sense of smell returned. Not that it told me much, too many people had passed through this room. But one stood out, for it was not like the others: The stench of death, an unpleasant reminder of that dark dungeon. Not lingering on me, no, but the death had passed through this room many times.

I could also hear a lot of activity and agitated conversations in the next room, despite the thick stone wall. I wished I could understand Loma.

Finally, the tallest cleric I had ever seen entered the room and nodded for the inquisitors to follow him, and of course, I had to follow them. The stench of death grew stronger with each step and became overwhelming as we entered the next room. Even though all the shutters were open and the morning breeze blew the smell of the sea through the room, it was so strong that I almost gagged. In the outer corner, with windows on either side, stood a small person wearing a blue cowl, the source of the stench. The cape was pulled back, revealing the face of a drug-addicted terminal-cancer geriatric. This must be the Nuncipal. Even the others must have noticed his stench of death. Obviously, he was clinging to life by sheer force of will.

His ruined face was still capable of parodies of human expression, like a crooked smile. Then he spoke with a surprisingly solid voice, considering his appearance. And he spoke Kren, fluently and much better than I did. "Welcome, Countess Kiara. Congratulations, I underestimated you twice. Not many people have managed that."

It took me a long time to get the meaning of that, unprepared as I was. Finally, I replied, "Greetings, Nuncipal, I not understanding."

He still held his smile. "You came and tried to infiltrate. Mage Tarik thought you would not come, so I blame him." He looked straight at me. His left eye was grey, but it still seemed to look straight into my soul. "And then you defeated Brother Handupal, displaying an aptitude for soul magic. But I am sorry, there are more pressing matters. I will spare you the suspense."

He had not done any obvious ssignalling yet the door opened behind me and Tarik was brought in by two inquisitors. "Tarik!" I called in surprise and was immediately reminded that I was on a leash.

"Kiara, you shouldn't be here!" The inquisitors also blocked any further approach from his side.

The nuncipal turned to Tarik, but deliberately spoke in Kren. "Your creation, I am glad to have her here. Now, are you ready? Right now?"

"Never ready, merging living humans is wrong. The Soul will disagree."

"She is the still living proof that this is not true." Then he switched to Kwal, not Loma. For someone practically dead, his mind was sharp. The exchange became heated on Tarik's side, the nuncipal showing no emotion. And then the tall cleric drew his dagger. He approached me with all fourteen of the inquisitors from before who were fixing my shoulder and even my face. The nuncipal was still talking to Tarik. And then I screamed as they began to cut off my right ear, the most sensitive and easily accessible part of my body. I think they went deliberately slow, letting me struggle as much as they needed to convince Tarik. I raged with pain and fought back, but there were just too many inquisitors. Everything went black before my eyes and I collapsed.