started work on his skull. Lakhyri prised open his jaw and used a tong to pull out his tongue. Sigil-headed pins were pressed into his gums and the roof of his mouth, and lines of silver sliced and melted into his tongue and lips. A shower of gold enveloped all that he could see as they laboured on his eyes, pricking and cutting, delicate strokes that were each an eternal torture he had to endure.
He thought that his torment would be ending soon as they reclothed him with his flesh, but the cessation of pain was all too brief. They branded and carved, stitched him back together with hair-thin wires upon which gleamed even tinier runes. Nails and rivets, their tips similarly etched, heads moulded in impossibly fine zodiacal emblems, reattached muscle to bone, tendon to joint. Every finger and toe, strung back together like the parts of a puppet.
They wrapped his skin across him, covering the grotesque beauty of their handiwork, using molten wax and stitches of hair to reattach his outer shell. Still they were not done. Upon his newly reapplied skin, they cut yet more symbols and patterns, down to every fingertip. They slid his fingernails and toenails back into place, now carved with swirling devices. With knife and needle, they scarred and tattooed, covering every part of Erlaan, each prick feeling like a sword thrust through him.
And then they stopped.
The agony became pain, became an ache, and then subsided.
Lakhyri held him down with his bony fingertips on his brow again. Erlaan still could not move, not the least twitching of an eyelid or the wiggling of a toe.
'It is not yet over,' whispered the High Brother. 'All we have done is to make you ready to receive the gifts of the eulanui. Now comes the hardest part.'
Terror filled Erlaan. Tears welled in his scarred eyes at the thought that all he had endured had not been the worst.
The pain came again, forced into Erlaan through Lakhyri's fingertips, as if they delved into his brain. He felt the sheen of energy pouring over him, channelling down the lines and sigils like rivulets of water down a mountainside. Where they passed, the streams of energy left agony in their wake. They soaked through skin, drawn down into muscle by the devices wrought upon them; and through muscle into organ and bone.
Flesh bubbled, contorted, expanded. Bones lengthened and strengthened, pushing his flesh apart from the inside. Erlaan felt as if he were being ripped apart from within, unable to contain his elongating skeleton.
And then organs and flesh writhed with their own power, adding to a pain that was already too much to bear. His heart hammered, beating like a clap of thunder. He drew in a breath, a gale forced into his expanding lungs. Muscle bulged, testing the sutures in his skin, before it too was forced to change by the power of the Temple, cracking and hardening, like the crust on a lava flow, splintering and reforming constantly as Erlaan's muscles continued their distorted growth.
Life, true life, returned with a last implosion of power and pain.
Erlaan hurled himself from the slab of the Last Corpse, howling and shrieking, the last adjustments of his body settling into place. He roared, baring teeth like an ailur's. He opened eyes that were slit-pupiled and golden, and saw a world of startling colour and texture. He unclenched his fists, uncoiling fingers with extra knuckles, each digit tipped with sharpened bronze.
Panting, knotted chest heaving with effort, Erlaan pushed himself to his feet, his skin rustling like dead leaves. Around him, the desiccated corpses of the sacrifices were crumbling into whirls of dust, each a tiny storm of particles, until they too were gone, every last part of their energy flowing into the reformed beast that had been Erlaan.
'We are done.'
Lakhyri's voice, once so heartless, so monotonous, was a harmony of notes, more touching than any music Erlaan had heard. The Temple blazed with rainbows of light, dancing from every surface like a sheen on oil. Erlaan moved his hand, feeling the touch of the air on every fibre of his fingers, the tiniest breeze as obvious as a fold in cloth.
Erlaan laughed to see and hear and feel the world as it really was.
Ersuan Border
Midsummer, 211th year of Askh
I
Streamers of cloud clung to the Altes Hills, lit by the warm glow of the rising sun. The mountains reared just over the horizon, bright to dawnwards, shrouded in shadow to duskwards. As Ullsaard's small troop broke camp, the king looked coldwards, knowing Magilnada lay nestled at the foot of those peaks, though he could not see the city.
The thought of it made him fume. He had expected Anglhan to skim off a few taxes, perhaps aggrandise himself a little; this betrayal went far beyond anything Ullsaard could tolerate. The king's feelings went beyond resentment at the man's ingratitude, into a deep well of anger fuelled by personal loathing. Anglhan's alliance with Aegenuis was almost understandable; Ullsaard was well aware that he had turned on the previous king. That was, he had painfully learnt, the simple facts of power and politics. But to hold Ullsaard's family hostage, to threaten the lives of his wives, made the matter personal.
He wondered if Allenya was aware of the danger she was in. Was she being held prisoner, or was she blissfully going about her normal life, ignorant of the knife that Anglhan held to her throat? Ullsaard was thankful for one small mercy; his mother, Pretaa, had left Magilnada to return to her home in Enair. At least she was beyond Anglhan's reach.
And there was the matter of Noran. Ullsaard felt enough guilt on behalf of his friend without any need for further burden.
'Are you ready, king?'
Ullsaard turned his attention to the legionnaires around him, their tents packed away, the fire smothered. He realised he had been staring coldwards for quite some time.
'We'll get the bastards, won't we?' asked one of the soldiers.
Ullsaard looked coldwards again, picturing the walled city sitting at the base of the cliff. In his mind's eyes he saw the Hill of Chieftains and the governor's palace; Anglhan within, pleased with himself for his manoeuvring, doubtlessly plotting his betrayal of Aegenuis.
The former governor had every right to be smug. Anglhan held the one thing that could keep Ullsaard in check, dragging tight like the reins of an ailur. Ullsaard had not the first idea how he was going to change the balance of power. Anglhan had seen how easy the city had fallen to infiltration before and would have agents scouring every visitor for signs of subterfuge. A full-scale attack was out of the question. The merest hint of a legion approaching the city would spell death for Allenya and the others.
For the moment, Ullsaard was powerless, but he knew that there was no such thing as a sure guarantee. The situation would change, and when it did Ullsaard would find a way to even the score.
'Yes,' said the king. 'We'll be getting the bastards.'
II
The hotwards reaches of the Magilnadan Gap were dominated by heavily wooded hills, heaping upon each other until they became the shoulders and ridges of the Lidean Mountains. The dawnwards extent of the forests marked the edge of the Free Country, running along the Saol River. Ullsaard had no idea how closely Anglhan and his allies were watching the roads and rivers into Ersua, but had to assume the worst.
