No, he thought, I must garner endowments from my would-be enemies.
Almost as an afterthought he said, "There shall be no more harvesting of the small folk for a time. The horde has enough meat for now."
The captain seemed surprised. "You ll spare them, show them mercy? Don t they present a danger?"
"Letting them live is not the same as showing mercy," Despair explained patiently. "I ll want prisoners, lithe women to give endowments of grace, cunning men to lend me their wit. I ll need folk with strong vision and hearing. But most of all, I ll want those with great beauty and those with fine voices."
"My lord?" the captain asked, for he was as yet untrained in the art of stripping endowments from his enemies.
"There are tens of millions of small folk scattered across the earth," Despair explained. "They outnumber us, and so, as you say, they present a danger.
"But I will force them to love me. I will command their devotion."
The captain of the guard nodded. He d do Despair s bidding, but there was still no understanding in his eyes.
That did not matter. In time, the dull creature would comprehend what Despair was plotting. The captain turned away, to carry the message.
"Ah, one last thing," Despair said. "Tell them to set apart the strongest of the small folk alive, along with the smiths and jewelers. We can use them to work the mines by daylight and make our forcibles. Thus our slaves shall forge their own collars."
"Yes, Great One," the captain said, and he rushed from the parapet.
Despair stood beneath stars a moment longer, wishing for them, his heart still heavy with alarm. He could not tell when the attack would take place. Tomorrow, the day after?
It had been almost a full day since the Knight Eternal Vulgnash had brought Fallion Orden to the keep. The young wizard should have had time to heal.
Despair told his guards, "Take me to the dungeons, to the Black Cell."
And they began the journey down the winding stairs and into the labyrinth.
The labyrinth had not gotten its name by chance. Most of the wyrmlings in Rugassa had only a cursory knowledge of their surroundings. They had sleeping quarters, a place to work, and perhaps a nearby arena or alehouse to furnish some diversions. That is all that a person really needs in life, Lord Despair believed. The wyrmlings were functional, productive. They did not need to know what existed beyond their cramped lives.
So few of them knew what existed upon the surface. They were told horror stories of a bright sun that would burn out their eyes, or of fierce creatures that could swallow wyrmlings whole. Of all these enemies, mankind was always held to be the greatest threat.
Thus, the wyrmling lords were not seen as slave masters, but as saviors.
Now with the great change there was unrest in the warrens. Some wyrmlings had bound with their shadow selves from Fallion s world. They knew not to trust the wyrmling catechisms, and many of them were trying to escape.
But how could they leave the labyrinth if they could not find a door out?
Even now, Despair s servants were spreading misinformation so that the "bound" wyrmlings would fall into traps. Those who were caught-well, the battles in the arenas for the next few weeks promised to be quite entertaining. There is something especially exhilarating in watching a comrade fight for his life.
Yet some of the bound wyrmlings escaped.
After half an hour, Despair reached the Black Cell. Vulgnash sat on the floor next to the young wizard. The room was cold as death.
When Vulgnash heard his master coming, he leapt to attention, fanning his red wings out wide. The jailors hurried to open the door, letting Despair into the cell.
"How is our young friend?" Despair asked.
"Not well," Vulgnash replied. "His wound became infected. I burned away the pus, and had to use a tong to pull a shard of metal, a broken sword, from his torso. It would be well if our wizard slept, but with the endowments of pain that he has taken, he cries out and writhes in his sleep. There is no escape from his torment.
"So I have taken to keeping him cold, so close to death that he knows nothing. I m giving him time to heal."
"Warm him," Despair said. "Let him feel his torment for a while. Bring him to a stupor."
"Great Wyrm," Vulgnash said, bowing a bit and cringing, "he is too close to death."
"He is young and strong. I have known him through many lifetimes. This one can resist death well. Revive him, just a little."
Vulgnash stood above Fallion for a moment, with his left hand raised, palm downward, and unleashed a wave of warmth. It hit Lord Despair like a blast of hot wind from the desert.
The heat s effect upon Fallion was instantaneous. The young wizard gasped in pain as he neared consciousness, then lay groaning, huddled in a fetal position.
Despair stepped forward, used the toe of his boot to roll Fallion onto his back.
Lord Despair had lived through millions of lifetimes upon millions of worlds, and deep was his lore. The fleeting folk of this world had no idea who they were dealing with.
He spat upon Fallion s dirty forehead, anointing him with his own inner water. Then he leaned forward and peered into a drop of spittle, using it as a lens, and let his focus go deep, through flesh and bone, into Fallion s mind, and from there into his dreams.
Fallion imagined himself to be in his bedroom, far across the sea. The room was small and cluttered, with a pair of cots against each wall. It was dark in the room, blackest night. A chest of drawers leaned against the far wall, covered in sand-colored rangit furs. A collection of animal skulls adorned the top of the bureau-weasels and burrow bears, a dire wolf and a fossilized toth. These were all lit by the thinnest rays of starlight.
Fallion shouted to his brother Jaz, "You left the window open again! It s freezing."
Sure enough, as if conjured by Fallion s outburst, bits of snow began to swirl through an open window above the chest of drawers; tiny flakes of ice sifted into the bedroom, blanketing the skulls and furs.
Fallion was suffering various pains in his arms and legs, the pains he had taken upon him in his endowment ceremony. He was in so much pain, he could not understand why. His mind was muddy, his thoughts unclear. He wondered if he had been hurt.
"Jaz, come close the window," Fallion begged, nearly weeping tears of frustration.
With a mental push, Despair entered the dream.
He darkened the room, so that it was pitch black, even the thin starlight fading into gray.
He chose a form, the form of someone that Fallion loved: a girl, he saw in Fallion s mind-his foster sister Rhianna.
She entered the room shyly, as if coming to a tryst.
"Fallion," she asked. "Are you awake?" She tiptoed across the room and closed the window.
"Rhianna?" Fallion asked. "What happened? I m hurt. I m hurting everywhere."
"Don t you remember?" Despair asked in Rhianna s soft voice. "You fell. You slipped down a rocky slope and hit your head." In a pitying tone she asked, "Wake up, sweet one. We have much to do today."
"Wha-?" Fallion begged. "Wha?"
"The binding of worlds," Rhianna begged. "Remember? You promised to tell me how it was done. You said that it was so hard. You asked for my help."
Fallion moaned and tried to look around. But the thin light and his own pain defeated him. He peered at Rhianna for all of half a second before his eyes rolled up, showing only the whites, and he turned his head away in defeat.
"The binding of worlds," Rhianna begged. "You promised. You said that you would show me how? So much depends on us!"
"Wha?" Fallion cried out in real life, not in his dreams. He made a gagging sound. His voice was thick from disuse, or perhaps from lack of water.
"Would you like a drink?" Rhianna asked in Fallion s dream. "I have some sweet wine."
"Please," Fallion begged.
Rhianna reached out, and in the way of dreams, a purple flask appeared in her hands. She took it to Fallion, sat on the bed beside
him, and let him sip. He peered into her eyes longingly, and Despair ratcheted up Rhianna s scent, so that the sweet smell of her hair mingled with the sweet wine, each lending the other potency. She leaned close to Fallion, forcing him to become aware of her curves, her desire.
Lord Despair leaned back, his focus drifting between Fallion s dream and the real world.
He wanted Fallion s thoughts to clear, and needed to free him from some of the pain. He reached out and placed a finger upon each side of Fallion s back, just below the first vertebra, placing pressure in a way that had been learned on many worlds. By pinching the nerve he dulled Fallion s pain.
Nor did he want Fallion to think too clearly, so with his left hand he placed a thumb upon Fallion s carotid artery, just enough to slow the flow of blood to Fallion s brain. The lack of oxygen would soon leave Fallion s head spinning.
In his dream, Rhianna poured her sweet wine down Fallion s throat. Fallion opened his mouth like a robin s chick, hoping for a worm. Rhianna fulfilled the lad s needs.
When the flask was empty, Fallion lay moaning from ghost pains. He had taken endowments of compassion, and now his Dedicates were in the torture chambers, receiving torments on Fallion s behalf. Some had been put into crystal cages. Others had been dismembered, losing hands or toes or worse.
Despair gloated.
The boy had the nerve to thank me for giving those endowments, Despair thought. I wonder how he enjoyed feeling bits of flesh ripped from his body.
Despair knew that those who suffered such acts of mayhem agonized most of all. It was not the physical pain that tormented them so much as the mental anguish, a sense of being un-whole for the rest of their lives.
The tormentors had been ordered to strip certain prisoners of various body parts, until Fallion imagined himself to be only a stump of a person.
Let him thank me then, Despair thought, a small smile forming on his lips.
"Why are you smiling?" Fallion asked Rhianna in his dream. The stupefied boy s head had begun to reel, and he imagined that the wine was dulling his pain.
"I smile because I love you so," Rhianna said softly. "Now, my love," she whispered, "about the binding of worlds. You promised, remember? You promised to tell me how it was done?"
Of course no such promise had been tendered, but the unconscious mind does not track such things well. Besides, Fallion s head was reeling, and Lord Despair was counting upon Fallion s stupor to aid in the deception.
"What?" Fallion cried, still wincing and shaking from unseen ailments.
"The binding of worlds? How did you do it?"
"It s… it s easy," Fallion said. "So easy, once you see it."
That shocked Despair right out of the dream.
It was easy to bind the worlds?
Despair had always imagined that it was complex, that it would require great cunning, followed by lengthy preparation and exhaustive steps-major magical routines that were broken into dozens of subroutines. He had tried every easy solution, but the truth was that the Seals of Creation baffled him in their complexity.
He dove back into the dream.
"Yes, yes," Rhianna said. "I know that it s easy for you. You ve said that before. But you re wiser than you give yourself credit for-much wiser.
"Come," Rhianna begged, "to the Seal. Come show me how it is done."
And in the way of dreams, she took his hand in the darkness and led him outside the front door of his father s cabin.
There in the yard, in the clear spot where the chickens scratched in the grass by day, beneath a white gum tree, the Seal of the Inferno lay upon the ground, a great circle of ghostly green flames dancing upon the lawn.
Blinking in surprise, Fallion stared at it.
Fallion swallowed, opened his mouth, and started to speak.
Despair leaned forward, straining to hear, lest he miss a single syllable.
"I… something s wrong. There s something wrong here." He peered at the Seal as if studying it.
Despair had made the Seal the way that he remembered it. But in his dream, Fallion stumbled around the thing, peering at flames, listening to the hiss and roar that they created, as if baffled.
"Things are out of place," he said, confused.
"Perhaps a few," Rhianna said. "Show me how to bind the world."
Fallion stammered, "You just-you…"
He wetted his tongue, then frowned in concentration for an instant-an instant too long. He whirled and peered at Rhianna, the light of dancing fires shining in his eyes, and peered not at the girl, but into her soul.
So powerful was Fallion s gift that Lord Despair was laid naked.
Suddenly Fallion s eyes flew open and he peered at Despair, his glazed eyes focusing on him, and shouted, "No!"
I almost had him, Despair realized. For a moment, I had him. But the opportunity had passed.
Despair turned and nodded to Vulgnash; the Knight Eternal stretched forth his hand, drawing the heat from the room until Fallion curled up again in a fetal position, his teeth chattering and every muscle trembling from cold, as he plummeted into a deep, deep slumber.
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Areth Sul Urstone watched the whole scene unfold, sickened and horrified at what Despair was plotting.
5
THE HUNTERS
Every soul, from the greatest warrior to the smallest child, has immense worth in the sight of the Great Wyrm. The Great Wyrm has made us stewards over each other, and that is why we must never let our fellows escape.
— From the Wyrmling Catechism
Cullossax had felt anxious throughout the evening. He d known that he would be missed, and that eventually his fellow tormentors would come looking for him.
Often he had to fight the impulse during the day to flee out into the light.
At last, when the shadows grew long enough to indicate that the day was almost gone, Cullossax bade farewell to the lowly guards, took an iron javelin, and ran after the girl, giving chase.
Her path was easy to follow.
The girl had headed into the forest, witless with terror and blinded by light. With every step her heels had gouged into the thick humus that lay like a blanket under the pines.
Cullossax had seldom been outside the fortress, but he had been taught a bit about tracking, for it was a skill that tormentors were called upon to use even within the labyrinth.
The air was fresh, and soon the forest filled with night sounds-the scurrying of mice among the remains of leaves, the buzz of insects, the querulous peeps of birds, the songs of crickets and cicadas.
The air smelled sweet. Cullossax could not recall the last time he d tasted fresh air.
The stars came out, blinding points of light so silver-bright that they left an afterimage when he squinted up at them.
Soon, he knew, he would have hunters on his trail, but Cullossax felt resigned to his fate, happy. He was no stranger to death. He d dealt it out time and time again, and had always known that his turn would come.
With a light heart, Cullossax ran, chasing after a girl, heading for a land that might be no more than a child s dream…
After long hours, Cullossax still plunged through the pine forest, lost in the chase. His heart pounded a steady rhythm as his legs stretched wide. Greasy sweat streamed down his forehead and face, and stained his tunic with a V down his back. His thirst made him wish for pools of water.
But his mind barely registered these things, for his eyes followed the torn sod in the starlight where his quarry had run.
Unthinking, he leapt over a fallen fir tree, and ducked beneath the boughs of another. In the brush to his right, he heard the snort of a stag. He stood for a moment, heart racing, as he wondered what the sound might portend. He had been outside the fortress only twice in his life, and then not for more than a night. He knew little about wild creatures. Then the stag went bounding away, and he saw it between the trees.
His stomach growled at the thought of fresh flesh.
He could no
t let himself be distracted. With every long stride, he knew that he drew closer to the girl. She was young and small, and would not be able to keep up this pace forever.
But in the back of his mind, Cullossax worried. He was hunting, but by now he would also be hunted. He should have checked in with his master hours ago. He would be missed, and eventually the story of what had happened would unravel.
The best of his own kind would hound him. No one could exact vengeance like a tormentor of the Bloody Fist. The punishment exercised upon one of their own kind, one who had shamed them and brought their reputation into question, would be harsh indeed.
In Rugassa, torture was not just a science, it was an art. Cullossax pondered long and hard, but was certain that he could not imagine what they would do to him.
They would torture him in public, of course, and the tormentors would vie for the honor of inflicting the most horrific insults upon his body.
In time they would let him die. That at least was certain. It was not a question of how long Cullossax would live, but a question of how long he would suffer before they let him die.
He wondered which of the torturers would come after him, and that gave him pause. There were stories of a new kind of magic in Rugassa. The emperor s elite troops had been drawing attributes from the lowest of the slaves-strength, speed, bloodlust. These new warriors could run faster than a common man, and longer.
Cullossax wondered what he would do if he had to face such a warrior.
And then there was Vulgnash himself. Cullossax had taken food from a Knight Eternal.
That kind of insult was unheard of.
Cullossax only hoped that Vulgnash could not be spared to lead the chase.
For most of the night Cullossax ran through hills, through a land of seemingly endless forests. Sometimes he had scrambled up hills where aspen trees spread their white branches in the moonlight, gleaming like bones, and other times he descended into vales filled with oak and ash.
But always there was the forest, and Cullossax hoped that if Vulgnash gave chase, the trees might hide him from above.
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