by Markus Heitz
Even though she had been prewarned about what the monsters’ leader was going to do, she did not want to have to see her daughter’s severed fingers.
Her hands worked of their own accord, opening the knots in the string, unfolding the paper and lifting off the lid of the unadorned box.
Goda looked away as the smell of blood hit her nostrils. She bent slowly forward; her very eyes seemed afraid of what was in the container.
“Vraccas,” she groaned. Her fear grew stronger. The next parcel would contain Sanda’s forearm. And the orbit after that she would receive the upper arm. Then the fingers of the other hand. Bit by bit.
Her cruelly fertile imagination saw her mutilated daughter; soon there would be only a bloody torso and a head. Goda could hear her screams, her pleas, her sobs—because her mother was refusing to kill a dwarf she did not even believe to be the real Tungdil…
“I can’t,” she sobbed, throwing herself onto her knees before the shrine. “I can’t sacrifice my daughter like that, Vraccas. Not for the sake of some charlatan whose lies everyone else has fallen for.” She stared at the little statue. “I shall have to strike a deal with this enemy. I have no other choice…”
There was a loud knock at the door. “My lady! My lady! Come quick! A miracle!” came a soldier’s voice.
Goda wiped the tears from her face and opened the door.
“My lady, your daughter! She has come back and is waiting for you at the gate!” he enthused.
“My… daughter?” She looked at the table where the little box with the fingers lay. Then she hurried out, her head spinning, reeling from joy and shock. When she reached the southern gate at last, there was Sanda!
She was still wearing the chain-mail shirt, but it hung down on her limply and badly laced; her face showed severe bruising and the right sleeve was blood-soaked. Her dark hair hung lank and greasy. But Sanda was smiling.
“My daughter!” Goda took her in her arms and pressed her to her breast, her eyes shut. They remained in that tight embrace for several moments. “What has he done to you?” Goda stared anxiously into her daughter’s brown eyes.
Sanda avoided her gaze and her pupils flickered. “He beat me and humiliated me. It was a place just like Tungdil said the Black Abyss was,” she whispered and began to shake, hugging herself. “I never want to go there again,” she said out loud, looking at her mother. “I’d rather die.”
Goda was about to answer, when her eyes fell on the right arm. She was looking for the wound, but saw—a healthy arm with no fingers missing!
She forgot what she had been intending to say and snatched up the girl’s hand. “How is that possible, Sanda?” The digits were pink and tender as those of a newborn baby.
“He who bears many names cut them off,” she said in a faltering voice. “He grew me new ones in their place. It was dreadfully painful but not as painful as the other things he did to me.” She looked at her hand. “As the other things he did…” she repeated quietly, swaying on her feet.
Goda supported her. “Why did he let you go?”
“He didn’t let me go. I escaped,” said Sanda, her knees buckling under her. Goda sat her down on a bench and sent for water. “I escaped and I ran and ran, Mother. I ran and then I got lost but somehow I got away.” She looked at her hand. “Quick, give me a knife!” she cried, holding her hand outstretched. “Those are not my fingers! They are his! He made them grow there! They will obey his will!”
“Hush, my child.” Goda took her in her arms and rocked her as she had done with the infant Sanda. “You are back with us now.”
Sanda coughed. “They are his fingers. I touched the barrier and it opened up for me,” she said abstractedly. “Why else would the screen do that?” Then she gave a long shrill scream. “The evil is now part of me!” With untold strength she tore herself out of her mother’s embrace, grabbed an ax from a startled sentry and had chopped off the fingers before Goda could stop her. “There! I’ve done it!” Sanda trampled on the severed digits, while blood spurted out of the stumps on her hand.
“Vraccas, restore her mind!” cried a horrified Goda, holding her fast. The sentries helped her. They bandaged up the bleeding hand so that Sanda would not die from blood loss and carried the fainting girl up to her chamber. There, her mother undressed her and bathed her.
Sanda’s body showed that she had been tortured. Goda wept tears of fury and hate. “For this I shall put him to death so slowly that it takes him a whole cycle to die,” she vowed. “What he deals out to others he shall suffer himself.” As she dried her daughter’s arms—she was brought up short. There was a mark on the inside of the left upper arm. She had never noticed it before. It was not a result of the torture she had endured. It was the size of a fingernail, red. It looked as if it had grown there.
Instinctively Goda recoiled and studied the dwarf-girl with different eyes. She started to doubt that it was really her own daughter. Had their enemy sent a copy, a clone? The same as he had done with Tungdil?
“Vraccas, rid me of my suspicions,” she prayed in sudden despair. “I’m sure she will always have had this mark but please let me remember having seen it before.” Still holding the towel she rested her hands in her lap and watched her daughter closely. She noted other peculiarities. Was the chin always so soft? Were the cheekbones not normally a little higher? And what about the nose? Even the shape of the eyebrows seemed suspect.
“No,” she said. “It is my daughter! It really is!” Goda dried Sanda’s shoulders and covered them with the sheet. “It is her. I’m not going to succumb to a trick. The enemy is trying to make me doubt her, wanting to sow distrust.” She took a deep breath and stood up to go to the guards to hear what had been happening in the plain by the Black Ravine. She had to force herself to place a farewell kiss on her daughter’s brow.
Girdlegard,
Former Queendom of Sangpur,
Southwest,
Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle
Ireheart woke up and opened his eyes.
Above him the stars glinted; around him he could hear quiet snores, and then the crunch of sand. This came from Slîn’s boots; the fourthling was on watch, striding up and down. The two Zhadár who shared the guard duty made no sound when they walked.
Apart from that the camp was silent.
What woke me? Ireheart was surprised. While he was pondering, the stars appeared to be growing brighter. Now they were as bright as the sun by day, but they gave off no warmth. What’s…? He sat up.
Day seemed to have dawned.
Their surroundings showed up clear and distinct; he could even see Slîn relieving himself over at the rock; he was writing his name in the sand with dwarf-water. That was easy enough if you had a short name, of course, but it didn’t ever work with Ireheart’s. And if you wanted to put the family name as well, you’d have to drink an awful lot.
He rubbed his eyes but it was still bright, even though the sun had not yet risen. When he looked at his hands he saw a black liquid on his fingertips! It had come from rubbing his eyes.
He was suddenly frightened. What is happening? Is this place cursed?
He got up and Slîn looked over at him at once. Ireheart acknowledged him with a gesture and went over to ask if he had noticed anything strange.
He could see the fourthling clearly. He could discern every single ripple in the sand at his feet and could hear the slightest of noises, even the very grains of sand as they were shifted by the breeze. But Ireheart knew perfectly well that his hearing was not good. All that noisy clanging and battering in battles had taken their toll and in recent cycles he had been having trouble with the higher-pitched tones.
But tonight it was different.
After two paces he was overcome with thirst; the need was so strong that it could not wait until after he had talked to Slîn. So he turned on his heel and went back to where he had been lying, to collect his flask.
Ireheart drank and drank and drank, but the thirst could not be slaked. Water seemed to inc
rease his need rather than quench it!
Out of breath from drinking so fast, he tossed the flask aside and took hold of Balyndar’s. There was not enough coming out for his liking, so he took his knife to the pouch, forcing the last drop down his burning gullet.
In a fury he chucked the empty leather to the ground. Vraccas, what is wrong with me? He was already stretching his hand out for the next soldier’s drinking vessel. As he lifted his hand he felt a sharp pain in his wrist.
A scorpion had been hiding under the flask and had defended itself with its sting. Ireheart stamped on the insect and drew out his knife to open the wound and suck out the poison.
But when he looked at his arm he saw the wound was glowing yellow! There was a shimmer surrounding the sting; he could feel the heat coursing up his arm, and then the glow died away.
Ireheart sat down on the sand. Have I just healed myself from the poison? Or was that a miracle sent by Vraccas?
Thirst flamed up once more, torturing him. He clutched at his throat with both hands to try to soothe his discomfort. Then he stuffed a handful of sand in his mouth to stop the burning sensation. It did not work.
He swayed and tipped sideways as the stars above his head swirled and circled.
Then the agony began.
Ireheart was well acquainted with the pain of burns; he had suffered sword injuries or arrow wounds; he knew how it felt to have a dislocated shoulder or a sprained ankle; he had known toothache and fever. If he put all those tortures together and multiplied them tenfold he was getting close to what he was now suddenly subjected to.
His breathing stopped and he could not move a muscle. His mind was drawn upwards to the stars and he felt he was floating like a layer of gold leaf in the warm air of the forge.
Then he tasted blood in his mouth and all around abruptly went dark.
Blinking, he saw the stars once more as tiny specks of light against the black firmament; next to him he saw a Zhadár stowing away his flask and smiling at him.
It’s that confounded crazy troublemaker! “It would have to be you,” muttered Ireheart, before he spat out a mouthful. He knew this taste well. It was that stuff that was apparently distilled elf water. “Did you just give me that Tion water?”
The crazy Zhadár bared his teeth and nodded. “It’s the only thing that helps when you’ve got the bad thirst,” he piped, in a high voice like a castrato. “It’s the only thing! One drop and the fire dies down.” He chuckled and laid his finger to his black lips. “Shhhh! We must not tell anyone that I gave you some of that. Barskalín would be furious. We haven’t got much of it and it’s the most precious thing we have.”
Ireheart waited. His thirst had actually gone. Sand scrunched between his teeth, but there was no more water left to rinse his mouth out with.
“It’ll keep you going for a few orbits. Then the thirst will return,” the Zhadár mouthed, giggling. “Do you notice how wonderful it makes life? The most obscure secrets of the universe make sense and it makes you as strong as a giant!” He stood up and made an exaggerated bow. “Ireheart, Ireheart. Soon you’ll be one of us. A little bit like us. Your soul has changed color and is starting to become as black as ours,” he fluted in his high-pitched tones, then adding in a bass note: “Soon!” He stepped back silently and rejoined his comrades, lying down on his blanket.
Ireheart found it impossible to get back to sleep.
He had been shown clearly that the liquid was not merely a herbal distillation, as he had at first hoped. Until now he had completely forgotten that he had helped himself from another’s flask. What did it all mean? And why, by Vraccas, had it taken so long to show the effects?
Tossing and turning on his blanket helped not a jot. He got up and went over to the Zhadár. “Oy, wake up,” he said, shaking him by the shoulder. “Tell me what’s happening to me.”
The Invisible’s eyes opened and a grin appeared on his face. “Come with me.” He bounded up, grabbed the dwarf by the sleeve and tugged him over to a gap in the rocks. “Nobody must see us,” he whispered. “It is forbidden to reveal our secrets.” He crouched down, pulling Ireheart down, too. “Elf blood, distilled and…”
“You told me that already… but is it the truth?” Ireheart interrupted angrily. “What is it doing to me and how does it change the color of my soul? Will I ever get to the eternal forge now? Will Vraccas admit me?”
“Perhaps not all of your soul,” the Zhadár conceded regretfully. “Vraccas may have to burn out the affected part and let the rest of you enter. If he is kindly disposed to you.”
“Listen… have you got a name?”
“Balodil,” said the Zhadár, the answer shooting out like an arrow.
“That’s nonsense. That’s the name the Scholar took when he went into the beasts’ realm of eternal terrors.”
“But it was mine first,” came the sulky response.
Ireheart’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so? Then tell me who gave you that name.”
Balodil said nothing but pointed silently at Tungdil as he slept.
“Of course,” groaned Ireheart. “Vraccas, what else do you have in store for me? A crazy Zhadár who pretends to be the Scholar’s son.”
“He dropped me into the river when we were crossing on the bridge,” said Balodil resentfully. “I can remember how the current took hold of me and dragged me under. I couldn’t breathe. Some time later I woke up. I was with some humans. They fed me and made me work for them but then they sold me and I escaped when the älfar invaded.” He told his story quickly and without a pause. “I ran all the way to the caves of Toboribor. I lived there for many, many cycles. That’s all. I survived from orbit to orbit by stealing from the outlying farms. Until Barskalín found me and took me off to join the Zhadár.” He grinned, raising his arms and flexing his muscles. “I’m the strongest of all of them.” Balodil pointed back to Tungdil. “It was him that dropped me in the water. Even if he used to look different. I recognized him straightaway.”
Ireheart could hardly believe what he was hearing. A chilling story; abstruse enough to be true? It could all be a pack of lies. Did Tungdil maybe tell him about losing his son?
He shook his head. Very few people knew the story of Tungdil and Balyndis’s first child: The effect on Tungdil of the child’s loss had nearly driven him mad with alcohol and grief. And after all the cycles that had passed in the meantime. There were so many other tales that could be told.
Ireheart looked at Balodil and tried to spot similarities between him and Tungdil or, indeed, Balyndis. He saw no resemblance and was angry with himself for giving any credence to the words of a crazy Zhadár. “Whatever… Balodil: Just tell me what I can do about all this.”
The Zhadár glanced furtively back over his shoulder. “You have the curse of the elves on you now.”
“You don’t mean to say you used their blood for this revolting stuff?”
“Yes, we did. We found the last of the elves and took them prisoner…”
“I thought the älfar had eliminated all the pointy-ears?”
“No, they didn’t get all of them. We finished the task off. All except two. They cursed us all and anyone who would partake of the drink. If anyone can free you from the stain on your soul it will be one of the two elves still alive.” Balodil cocked an ear. “I must get back to the others. Barskalín has woken up. If I’m away too long he’ll think something’s wrong.” He put his hands on Ireheart’s shoulders. “Swear you’ll not betray me. Nobody must know that we spared the lives of two of the elves. Not until all the älfar have been wiped out.” The grip on his shoulders was painful.
“All right, I swear, for Vraccas’s sake.”
Balodil released him and disappeared into the shadows.
“What do I do when the thirst comes back?” Ireheart asked in a muffled whisper.
“I’ll be there and I’ll help you slake your thirst,” came the answer out of the dark.
He sighed. “Vraccas, whenever I think it can’t get a
ny worse, you have a surprise in store for me,” he grumbled. “My soul is besmirched, I have an elf curse on me and the only pointy-ears who might be able to help me—well, no one knows where they are or if they’re even still around.” He fiddled with his trousers, preparing to give some dwarf-water to the desert. “Oh, and let’s not forget the monsters of the Black Abyss. And Lot-Ionan, who we have to defeat but mustn’t kill. All the usual suspects for a dwarf like me to contend with. Anyone would think it was some marketplace bard coming up with this tale. Perhaps you’ve got a pet storyteller, Vraccas, giving you ideas.” He directed his dwarf-water to describe at least the first letter of his name in the sand.
He was not surprised in the slightest to note that his stream ran black as ink before it trickled away between the grains of sand.
XXV
Girdlegard,
Former Queendom of Sangpur,
Southwest,
Spring, 6492nd Solar Cycle
They left the belt of sand behind them, marched through fields of boulders, traversed valleys and skirted ravines in which, numberless cycles earlier, vast rivers had run. Now they were met only with dust, stones and the occasional bleached skeleton.
This stretch of the Sangpur desert appealed to Ireheart because it resembled his old habitat with its soaring rock walls, its chasms, its echoes, its subterranean passages, here cut by racing water and not by dwarf-hand. The landscape had something primeval to it. I could almost start to like it here if it weren’t hotter than the inside of a maniac’s forge.
Today they were making their way through a labyrinth of sunken walkways in which Franek, at the head of the company with Tungdil and Barskalín, kept getting lost. It was only thanks to the dwarves that they ever found their way out again. One of the Zhadár climbed up high to get a better view and pointed them in the right direction for the east.
“Our water supplies are running out. We should have got to the village you told us about three orbits ago,” said Tungdil. “If we don’t reach it tomorrow, you’re for the chop, famulus, for having tricked us. I think you’re taking us round in circles hoping we die of thirst.”