“Split them up. Don’t let them talk to one another,” Arthur said, gesturing to the two as they reached the hallway where individual rooms lay. “Have the wounds looked into. We don’t want them dying on us right now, do we?”
Once he confirmed his orders were going to be taken, he gestured for the one that Yao Jing held to be brought into the room alone. “Tie him to the chair, but don’t make it too tight. Then let’s get something to wake him up. Also, tea and snacks.”
Yao Jing had just finished dumping the man onto the chair when Arthur uttered his last request. Surprised, Yao Jing looked back over his shoulder at Arthur. That was when the prisoner made his move, surging out of his chair in an attempt to escape.
Too bad for him, he was still rather beaten and tired. Yao Jing pushed him back down into the chair firmly and wrapped a rope around his arms. Within moments, the man was fully tied.
“Well, we won’t need anything to wake him now, will we?” Arthur said, smiling at the prisoner. The man blanched at first, probably because Arthur’s burnt face and damaged eye looked positively dreadful. He just hoped he was not blind. He could have washed up, made himself presentable. But not yet.
Once he recovered, the prisoner glared back, and Arthur could not help but note how thin his eyebrows were. It made him look like he was in a perpetual state of startlement.
“What’s your name?”
Silence.
“Do you want tea? A snack?” Arthur asked. “If you make a promise not to try to escape for the duration of our conversation, we’ll free a hand so you can feed yourself.”
“And let you poison me?” the man snorted.
“Why bother? I don’t know enough about poisons to carefully regulate a poison to, you know, make you tell the truth or torture you. And if I wanted to kill you, I could just have done it earlier.” Arthur tapped the table. “I’m not as incompetent as whoever sent you.”
The man growled.
“You certainly didn’t bother getting enough people,” Arthur said. His face felt tight with dried blood, so he took the water flask from his side and poured the liquid into his hand. He washed his face a little, carefully peeling at the gummed-up blood until his eye was clear. He hissed and growled as he did so, but eventually he had left a mess on the table and his face was clear. “Now, that’s better.” Grinning savagely, he added, “Sorry. It was bothering me.”
More silence.
“Huh. I guess they didn’t blind me.” Squinting with one eye and then the other, Arthur nodded to himself. “Don’t want to think about the scars I’m going to get, but maybe those will go away.
“If I’d been blinded, then I’d be pissed.”
A slight shift in the chair, a pressing of lips together to mark impatience.
Arthur ignored it. He leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter what happened. If I’d been injured or killed, things might have been different. I wasn’t. And we are here.”
Silence again, this time more sullen.
“Now, let me be clear. I’m not going to try to torture, beat, or otherwise harm you. I don’t believe in that shit and, of course, we’re in the beginner village so stuff like that is anathema. Of course, we have more leeway inside this building,” Arthur waved his hand around. “But I’d rather not push it.
“Can you imagine the kind of reputation we’d get, if you and your pal were left screaming your head off?”
Still no answer.
“Well, as the boss, I have to think about things like that.” Another long shrug. “I am here mostly to talk. I’m really not that interested in you. You’re not important, in the overall scheme of things. Who hired you on the other hand . . . that’s more interesting.”
Still, the man refused to speak.
“Now, I could keep talking like a monologuing villain. And if you keep quiet like this, I’ll start feeling like one. Even if I’m not cutting you apart with a laser.” A long pause, then Arthur rubbed his chin. “I wonder if I could even find a laser here. Is there some Tower equivalent of a laser? Some technique?”
This brought a tightening of the lips in the man. However, the answer came from Yao Jing.
“No lasers. But the Sun Phoenix from Iran can use fire. It go whoosh, just like a laser.”
“Whoosh?”
“Maybe zwing?”
“I remember those videos. It was more izzshhh-ooosh.”
“Yeah, but maybe more ssssshhhh.”
Arthur rubbed his chin. “You sure? I remember more zzzzz.”
“I would give a good curry for internet connection,” Yao Jing said. “Uh, wait. Nope. I’m eating the curry.”
“Only if it’s really good,” Arthur said. “Like there’s one in Klang . . .”
“Which one? And nah, I know better one in SS2.”
“Oh, you mean near the Paramount Theatre? The curry chee cheong fun?”
“That one? It’s just okay, lah. The boss died, and his replacement . . . I dunno, lah. Not the same anymore. The curry laksa better there.”
“Oh, yeah, so good.”
“Are you people insane!” roared the prisoner.
“No need to shout, we can hear you, lah,” Yao Jing said, disapprovingly.
“You’re arguing about what—noises and food?!”
“Well, of course. We’re Malaysian,” Arthur said. “Which hawker do you like for curry?”
“I don’t like curry,” the man spat.
Arthur and Yao Jing hissed, staring at the man as though he was an alien creature.
“Why aren’t you interrogating me?” the prisoner said.
“I did. I asked you your name. You didn’t give it,” Arthur said. “I also told you what I wanted to know.”
“Then you stopped asking me!”
“Would it help?” Arthur said, cocking his head to the side. “Would you tell me?”
“Of course not!”
“Then, let’s talk curry.” Arthur paused. “Or not curry in your case. What do you like to eat?”
“You’re insane.”
“Well, yeah. Ascender. Tower climber.” He gestured at the world around, to his damaged face. “We’re in a magical Tower that rips us apart to transport us somewhere. We might not even be real anymore, just computer programs or close approximations. And I’m running on adrenaline and other chemicals just to stay awake. If I wasn’t insane, I’d be pinning your hand down and chopping your fingers off, one by one.”
“We could be souls,” Yao Jing pointed out.
“Right, reborn souls.” Arthur snorted. “Or aliens or robots or just deluded. Of course we’re insane. Why else would we be here?”
“I’m not insane,” the prisoner said.
Arthur nodded exaggeratedly. “Sure, sure.”
Beside him, Yao Jing had raised a finger and spun it around his head mockingly. Of course, he had not moved far away enough that the prisoner could not see him, so his teasing had the other man growling.
“Anyway. Insane or not. Here we are. And you won’t tell me who sent you. So we might as well spend the time chatting about something pleasant.”
“Don’t you have something better to do?” the prisoner growled.
“Of course I do. Why do you think I’m hiding here?” Before Arthur could continue, the door opened. Drinks and snacks were laid on the table between them and Arthur stood up, snagging a small cookie as he headed for the door.
“Anyway, eat up. I’m going to talk to your friend, see if he tells me anything. Then, if you don’t, we’ll just keep you here. Awake. Listening to us talk about food.” Arthur tapped his nose. “It’s weird to say, but all this burnt flesh? Reminds me of siu yuk. So I’m going to go eat for sure. And we’ll have a new person come in all the time. Keep you awake and busy. We got the beggars here; they’ll be able to help.”
“What?”
“Oh, that’s my torture. Someone constantly talking to you, never letting you cultivate. Keeping you waiting and underpowered.” He grinned. “For weeks. Months. Maybe even years.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Can. Will.” Before the man could continue protesting, Arthur stepped the rest of the way out, closing the door after him. Then a moment later he opened it, poking his head around the door and added, “Doing so. Right now. Tah!”
Then he shut the door again before the man could burst out shouting. Smirking to himself, he spun around and almost jumped out of his skin when he spotted Mel staring at him.
“Was there a point to all that?”
“A lot!” Arthur said. “I learned that Yao Jing has no taste in food. And that given enough nonsense, our friend will break.” He rubbed his chin. “Also, we’ve talked long enough that I can now go talk to the other one and see what they have to say.”
“Bluff?”
“Yup,” Arthur said. “Torture isn’t the way to go. Unless you want to. No. No, we won’t. So, we talk.”
Mel frowned, then shrugged. “I guess we can always pull fingers off later.”
“Sometimes, you scare me.”
“Awww. That’s sweet of you to say so.”