by Jack Conner
“No!” Baleron shouted. “Don’t give me to him! Let your Spiders eat me, I don’t care. Take me yourself!”
She laughed. It was now a soft and beautiful sound that filled him with love for her.
“Another time,” she said.
Once more she became a massive spider. Not looking back, she ascended her gleaming thread into the misty heavens, leaving Baleron and Throgmar alone. At her absence, Baleron felt suddenly empty—drained.
“YOU HAVE HAD YOUR REVENGE,” said the Worm. “NOW I WILL HAVE MINE.”
Chapter 18
The Spiders freed them. Baleron invited the Spiders to eat him while they could. “Look how tasty I am!” he cried, pinching the skin of his cheek. “Look at this flesh! So succulent!” They ignored him.
Grim-faced, Throgmar snatched the prince in a mighty talon and left the mountains for the black skies above. Baleron was glad to be rid of that gloomy place, but he shuddered at the thought of what terrors Throgmar had in mind for him. The Leviathan held him tight, but the prince’s armor protected him from the worst of it. Throgmar said little as he flew save occasionally to growl and curse Baleron under his breath.
The prince knew better than to plead for his life, though he realized he no longer wanted to die. Until now he hadn’t cared whether his quest for vengeance led to his death or not, but somewhere along the way, he wasn’t quite sure where, that had changed. Just the same, he feared what would happen should he live. The Wolf wasn’t done with him, and Baleron didn’t want to live long enough to further the Enemy’s designs more than he already had.
If he died in Oslog, would his soul be drawn to Gilgaroth—and, if so, would he be reunited with Rolenya’s soul in the eternal fires of Illistriv, the Second Hell?
He longed for it.
Rauglir—that terrible, wretched creature—had done one thing right: he’d shown the prince just how much he loved Rolenya, the real Rolenya.
Baleron thought of her as Worthrick Mountain loomed ahead. Throgmar’s great wings beat steadily, and his long bloated body rippled like that of an obese serpent through the air. His eyes glittered in hate. He said nothing as he landed on the snowy slope before the opening into the mountain, casting Baleron roughly upon the new-fallen snow that covered the melted slag made by the Worm’s fires hours before.
Gasping, the prince dragged himself to his feet, wobbling unsteadily. The igrith’s poisons still flowed in him.
“WE WILL PAY RESPECTS TO FELESTRATA,” said the dragon.
With an iron-hard fingernail, Throgmar flicked Baleron forward into the tunnel, and the prince flew through the air. He crashed against the cave wall and fell in a heap. He picked himself up, but more shakily this time.
“Bastard!”
Throgmar lowered his horned, whiskered, tusked and crested head—grayish hairs sprouting from around the crest and along his jaws and from his chin and below his nose, giving the illusion of a mustache and wispy beard. Smoke belched from his fanged maw and his twin nostrils.
“MURDERER,” he hissed.
He spat another column of flame at the prince. It smashed Baleron backwards and melted the snow that wind had blown inside, but it did no other harm save to knock Baleron around, and lay bruises on top of bruises and new scars on top of old.
Even more pained this time, the prince picked himself up, groaning.
“Do your worst,” he said, but his words sounded bolder than he felt. He felt as if he could topple over at any second. The exultation of revenge had left him, and he was weary and drained and full of supernatural venom.
Throgmar snorted flame. “I NEED NO INVITATION.”
He slithered forward and flicked the prince through the air again, and Baleron landed with a crunch in the middle of the large chamber where he’d slain Felestrata.
Coughing and aching, he rose to his feet yet again and turned to see the high-licking green flame still illuminating the cavern. Beside the fire stretched the long, sinewy form of the she-Worm. Her scales reflected the light strangely. It made Baleron think of sunlight on water, but this sun was green, and the water had scales. Red blood leaked from her mouth, and her body was utterly lifeless.
Black shadows danced on green walls.
“SHE COULD HAVE HAD LIFE EVERLASTING,” spoke Throgmar from behind him. “CAN YOU IMAGINE THE ENORMITY OF YOUR CRIME? CAN YOU IMAGINE STEALING ETERNITY?”
“I can—because I did,” snapped the prince, though inside he burned with shame. “Can you imagine spelling the doom of the world? Because that’s what you did!” Baleron lifted his visor and spat a bloody wad at the dragon’s clawed feet. “Darkspawn,” he cursed.
The Worm’s eyes blazed and fire wreathed his mouth.
“That’s right,” Baleron urged him. He put a hand on his visor, drawing attention to the fact that it was up, that his face was vulnerable. “Go ahead. Burn me alive. It’s the only way this can end.”
Throgmar trembled in rage, but he wrestled himself under control and his fires died. He closed his mouth and it twisted into an evil smile.
“OH NO,” he said. “YOUR PUNISHMENT WILL BE MUCH MORE SEVERE THAN DEATH. I WILL HAVE YOU TORTURED FOR YEARS—FOR EONS.”
“You’ll have me tortured? You won’t do it yourself?”
“NO.”
“Why not?”
“BECAUSE I WOULD KILL YOU. YOU WOULD ANGER ME, AS YOU JUST DID, AND I WOULD ROAST YOU TO A CINDER. SO ... I WILL TAKE YOU TO HIM. MY FATHER. GILGAROTH.”
“No!”
“YES. HE WILL TEND TO YOUR TORTURE. IT IS WHERE HIS GREATEST TALENTS LIE. BESIDES, HE WILL WANT USE OF YOU EVENTUALLY, AS PART OF HIS PLAN, SO WHY NOT GIFT YOU TO HIM NOW AND HAVE HIS GRATITUDE? I WILL COME, FROM TIME TO TIME, AND OVERSEE YOUR PAIN, TO AID IN YOUR PUNISHMENT. MY ONLY HOPE IS THAT MY SIRE FINDS A WAY TO EXTEND YOUR LIFE SO THAT I MAY ENJOY YOUR TORMENT FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS TO COME. I HOPE YOU KEEP YOUR SANITY LONGER THAN THEY USUALLY DO. THEY GO MAD SO QUICKLY, IN MY FATHER’S CARE. I HOPE THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN TO YOU. IT WOULD BE FAR LESS SATISFYING.”
Baleron heard the finality in the dragon’s raspy voice and knew there was no way to talk his way out of this. In despair, he turned his back on Throgmar, not wanting the Betrayer to see his face, and it was then that the body of Felestrata did a strange thing.
Her great flickering form shifted, became wavy and indistinct, and suddenly was no more; in its place was the comparatively tiny body of a young woman—a human woman—unclad and lying in the same position as the dragon’s body had. The woman, like the dragon, was quite dead. Blood leaked from her mouth.
Throgmar sucked in a breath. “WHAT IS THIS?” He strode forwards, nearly crushing the prince in his haste to investigate.
Baleron dodged and made his own way forward. “What could it be?” he asked, half to himself. “A shapeshifter?”
As the details of the woman became clearer, shock rippled through him and he shook his head in confusion and incomprehension, blinking his eyes as though the image might change yet again.
It was Rolenya. The dead dragon had become a dead Rolenya.
Rolenya!
He rushed to her, knelt beside her, cradled her dark head on his lap. Her beautiful face, framed by black hair, looked unnaturally serene. Stroking her hair, tears welled up in him, and he wept bitterly.
“How can it be?” he asked.
Throgmar shrugged off his own confusion, or seemed to. He prodded the body gently, studying it.
“Get away from her, you monster!”
The dragon merely shot him a glance, then returned his attention to Rolenya/Felestrata.
“A TRICK,” he said. “BUT WHY?”
Baleron didn’t have an answer for him.
The Worm snorted and seemed to put the matter out of his mind. His manner suggested he felt that what could not be understood must not be dwelt upon.
He reached out a claw and snapped Baleron’s visor back down. His head lunged forwards and clamped down on the prince, seizing Baleron in his malodorous mouth.
Baleron tried to fight him, but the dragon’s jaws were too strong.
Throgmar left the body, and the mystery surrounding it, and quit the chamber for the night outside. Snow slashed the air and piled up around his feet. He leapt into the air, leaving Worthrick Mountain and the rest of the range behind. He ascended the skies, rising above the clouds so that no snow touched them.
Then he began breathing fire.
Baleron, pinned by the dragon’s huge sharp teeth, could not move, could not wriggle free or even reach the Fanged Blade for assistance. Throgmar blew fire across him, and he screamed. The heat was terrible and scalding, yet the armor wouldn’t let it kill him or even disfigure him. He cried out in anguish, over and over, and if Throgmar heard the sounds he delighted in them as he bore his catch ever closer to Krogbur.
They reached the tower on the second day.
Throgmar passed through the scaly moat of his circling kindred and landed on the highest terrace, right below the layer of dark clouds that blotted out the heavens. He opened his mouth and deposited a reeling Baleron on the cold hard surface of the platform.
Woozy and only semi-conscious, Baleron tried to rise but couldn’t find the strength. He was only vaguely aware that the fires had stopped. For the past two days his whole world had been fire.
Dragons wheeled about the Black Tower in their lethal screen, watching the two on the platform. Other Worms lounged on the thousands of terraces that sprouted from Krogbur, while more hung from the beams and ramparts, a dragon metropolis. How many had been brought over from Illistriv? And of the true dragons present, Baleron wondered how many were the Leviathan’s sons and daughters. Throgmar had claimed to be in Gilgaroth’s original brood of three; did that mean he’d sired a third of all that had come after? Still dizzy, Baleron could not hold the thought.
Footsteps.
Baleron craned his neck around to see the Dark One himself, Gilgaroth son of Lorg-jilaad, the Great Wolf, the Shadow the Smiles, the Devourer ... he strode down the long black stairs Baleron had seen before, his footsteps resounding loudly but hollowly, and Baleron could feel each footfall in his bones.
Gilgaroth stopped at the base of the stairs, surveying Throgmar and his catch. Then, black capes swirling, eyes blazing from the living shadow that hid his features, he marched onto the terrace and thumped his sorcerous staff.
“SIRE,” Throgmar said, his head dipping in a tiny bow, though Baleron could see his distaste.
“Son,” replied the Dark Lord. “You bear a gift.”
“YES—AND NO. THIS HUMAN ... MURDERED FELESTRATA. DO NOT PRETEND TO BE INNOCENT IN THIS; YOU LOVE TO SEE MY PAIN TOO MUCH FOR ME TO BELIEVE OTHERWISE, AND THERE WAS SOMETHING ... STRANGE ... ABOUT THE BODY. IT BORE YOUR STAMP.” He paused, collecting his thoughts. “BUT IN THE END IT WAS THIS MAN THAT SLEW HER. I WANT HIM ... PUNISHED. YOU OWE ME, FATHER. BROTHER. I FIRED GLORIFEL AND DESTROYED THE CASTLE, WEAKENING THE CITY’S LEADERSHIP EVEN AS YOUR AGENTS OPENED THE GATE. UNGIER WAS ATTACKING EVEN AS I LEFT.”
“No!” gasped Baleron, but they ignored him.
“NOW I ASK YOU FOR SOMETHING,” Throgmar continued. “I HAVE NEVER ASKED ANYTHING OF YOU BEFORE, BUT I ASK THIS: MAKE BALERON IMMORTAL AND TORTURE HIM FOREVER. IF YOU DO, I WILL BE YOUR TOOL.”
Gilgaroth inclined his head. “If it pleases your vanity to have me do you this favor, then consider it granted. I have been torturing Baleron here for years, and I will not stop now. I will not make him immortal, however. That is not of my design. Go, son, return to your hole. Await my bidding. It will not be long in coming.”
“FAREWELL FOR NOW, PRINCE,” Throgmar told Baleron. “I WILL BE BACK TO VISIT YOU.”
Baleron tore off his helm. “I enjoyed killing her! I’d do it again if I could, but this time I’d do it slower!” He laughed sadistically, wildly.
Throgmar scowled, but he did not take the bait, though smoke steamed from his scaly nostrils.
“YOU ARE PATHETIC.”
“You’re an overgrown grass snake!”
Throgmar bellowed angrily. His face ticked in rage.
“Enough!” snapped Gilgaroth. “You two are infants, and now I will have to separate you. Throgmar, go!”
The Worm sneered, turned his back on them both, and took wing. He flew through the moat and away.
“Good riddance,” Baleron spat after him.
He turned his gaze to the black, towering figure of Gilgaroth. Rain lashed the terrace and ran in rivulets down the Omkaroggen’s spiked helm and bladed armor, what Baleron could see of it through the swirling darkness that shrouded him. His eyes glowed with hellfire, the only part of his true self that was visible.
He and Baleron regarded each other, and thunder rumbled across the tower. Lightning flickered down, and its harsh light reflected off the Dark One’s wet and shiny carapace. Baleron shuddered, and it wasn’t due to the gusts of freezing wind. Inside his helmet he was hot and panting from his days of fire, and the metallic sound of the raindrops plinking off his armor filled his ears.
“Ah, Baleron,” said Gilgaroth, breaking the silence. “It has been too long since we’ve last met.”
“Not long enough,” Baleron said, thinking: So it WAS him in the Aragst!
Suddenly, Baleron made his decision. Without another word, he rolled toward the edge of the terrace, meaning to fling himself off it and spin away down into the abyss ...
Gilgaroth reached out a clawed hand and, although he didn’t touch Baleron, Baleron stopped, long rain-filled inches from the edge.
Worse, he began to be drawn towards the Dark One, who held out his hand toward him. Baleron screamed. Gilgaroth loomed darkly, huge and mountainous. He must be twenty-five feet tall or more.
Pulled by some unseen force, Baleron was jerked from the floor and dangled in the air, the Beast’s armored hand about his throat, or what would fit of it. Baleron struggled futilely, his own hands wrapping about Gilgaroth’s gauntlet and trying to pry the armored forefinger and thumb from around his neck, but it was impossible.
“Your life is mine,” said Gilgaroth. “So is your death.”
He flung Baleron down to the floor, where Baleron gasped for breath, groaning: in the fall he’d sprained something in his leg.
Glaring up at the towering figure, he said, “Tell me something. Why did Felestrata change into Rolenya?”
For a moment, the Dark One stayed silent, and Baleron was on the point of believing his question ignored when Gilgaroth said, “Revenge is a sword with no handle; you cannot wield it without getting cut yourself.”
He flicked his wrist, and a gaggle of Borchstogs emerged from the interior of the tower and surrounded Baleron, their eyes greedy, their hands clenching and unclenching.
“Bastard!” Baleron shouted at the Dark One.
Rain hissed of Gilgaroth’s armor. “I have a promise to keep.”
He wheeled about and marched once more up the stairs. The Borchstogs seized Baleron roughly and carried him away into darkness.
They bore him deep into the fetid bowels of the tower, stripped him of everything, even Shelir’s charm, and flung him into a dark pit, where they left him. He missed Rondthril immediately, as without it he felt even more naked than he was. He explored the walls of the pit with his fingertips—smooth and sturdy, unlike those at Gulrothrog.
And he was not alone.
Scorpions and other creatures crept out of their holes and bit and stung him, and no matter how many he stomped and crushed, more seemed to find him. It was dank and dark here in this hole, the walls slimy, and the only noises his labored breathing and the scuttling of his attackers. Sometimes he screamed when something with particularly strong venom found him, and his screams seemed to echo forever.
Throgmar had done this to him. How he hated that Worm. Someday ...
Of course, it was as much his fault as the dragon’s, really. He’d been so consumed by the need for revenge that he hadn’t cared about his own fate. So here he was, and he deserved it. He’d killed Felestrata. He had w
ielded the sword and been bloodied, just as Gilgaroth had said.
Very well, he decided. He’d face it like a man.
He stayed in the pit for several days. There was plenty of moisture on the walls for him to lick, and for sustenance he had but to grab a handful of bugs and vermin. So much for royal dignity.
The first day, he raged up at his captors and beat at the walls, and his voice grew hoarse from yelling. But after he made his resolution to face his punishment head on, a strange sort of apathy overcame him. He endured the stings and bites stoically, hardly registering them.
Perhaps seeing this, the Borchstogs hauled him up from the dank well on the third day and chained him up in one of the torture chambers, his feet bound to the floor and his hands to the ceiling so that he hung suspended in between like an animal carcass about to be flayed.
The largest Borchstog, over seven feet tall, black as tar, red eyes alight, neared Baleron, studying him, breathing in the prince’s stench, staring him in the eyes, and letting the prince do the same for him.
“Roschk ul Ravast,” breathed the Borchstog.
“Roschk ul Ravast!” said the others.
Baleron waited. He’d been tortured before. Grimly, he wondered how Oslogon techniques of the Art would differ from Oksilon practices.
The only sound in the chamber came from the breathing of its occupants. In the hot, stifling air, even the Borchstogs sweated, their black flesh glistening.
“I am Ghrozm,” said the leader in Havensril, wanting to make sure he was understood. He was so close Baleron could feel (and smell) the Borchstog’s breath on his face.
“I’m Baleron,” the prince said, smiling, his voice light. “Well met.”
Ghrozm ignored the flippancy. This was important to him. He wanted to be heard. “I am priest,” he said. “Sacred calling is Art. Yes. When hear ul Ravast come Krogbur, we hold ... “ He struggled. “Competition! Yes. Hold competition. Who has honor to bring Art Most Sacred, ul Undracost, to Great Savior.” His chest swelled proudly. “It ... is I. I, Ghrozm. Twenty-two did I kill. Some knew I a hundred, two hundred, year. But with own hands did slay them I. Aye, bathed in their blood did Ghrozm. Wrapped their entrails about me like covered in serpents.” He smiled hideously. “All for this. All ... for ... you.” Then, lowly, worshipfully, red eyes gleaming, he said, “Roschk ul Ravast!”