I have always been fascinated by the effect of pain. Not that I found any particular pleasure in dealing pain. No, that sort of fetish is base. Not worthy of an artist. Rather, I explore how the subject’s mind and body twist and mold themselves in incredible ways in response to pain. I have also found ways to control that twisting and molding, to make the subject into something that I can use. That is the true art. To create, as the commons call him, a dog-man. The perfect perpetrator of justice, for he has no conscience of his own. Only the need, bone-deep, to be found worthy in the eyes of his handler.
—From the personal notebooks of Aspidían, Grand Inquisitor of the Consistory
CHAPTER FIVE
A Deal with the Dog-manLlun awoke. His head throbbed as though separated from his body. He coul
