torture.
At those times, it was all he could do not to scream.
I won't give them the satisfaction, he told himself. I'll let them pull me apart before I whimper like a child. And when I rip in half, I will find a way to return from the grave and track down that alu. Aliisza will regret her audacity. So help me, she will.
Vhok's mind drifted off into some pain-filled haze, so it was a moment before he realized that something had changed. Light shone down from above. Fiery red light. Flame.
He tried to peer up, but the glow was too bright, and he winced and blinked.
Vhok felt himself rise. He was being pulled up, and the chains jerked and bounced as whatever mechanism that controlled his ascent ratcheted. The jarring tugs sent new pain through him. For a moment, he truly did fear he might rip in half.
He ascended from the shaft into a dimly lit room-though it was more than bright enough for his light-starved eyes-dangling from a wooden derrick. He blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust. He felt motion, sensed someone attaching something to the chains on his legs. Then there was blessed relief as the weight came off. He could not help the groan that escaped his lips.
The derrick swung wide of the pit. Vhok's arms were freed, and he fell to the stone floor like a rag doll. He lay there for long moments, writhing from the pins and needles in his joints as his blood flow returned. Screams echoed in the chamber. Some were still muffled, as though buried, but others were loud, harsh, as though someone very near him suffered immeasurably.
A wet splat accompanied an object tossed near his face. When he managed to focus his gaze, he saw a waterskin, though of what kind of skin, he did not want to speculate. He reached for the container and uncapped it. He drank greedily, letting the water spill down his chin. Before he had even half sated himself, the skin was taken from him and his own clothes were tossed down at his feet.
'Get up,' a harsh voice commanded. 'Dress yourself. Lord Axithar wishes to speak with you.'
Vhok fumbled to put the clothes on, wondering who-or what-Lord Axithar was. They didn't return everything. Only his breeches, shirt, and boots. His armor, cape, and his equipment remained missing.
By the time Vhok was dressed and upright, his vision had returned to normal. He surveyed his surroundings.
One of the ram-headed demons watched over him, though Vhok was unsure if he had met this one before. The beast twirled its oversized spear-headed ranseur, waiting for him to finish. Other figures moved in the dimness of the chamber. He glanced at them and saw that he stood in the middle of a chamber of torture, built of the same stone blocks that had formed his pit-and that was, indeed, where he had been-and the cambion got the sense that he was in the bowels of some great fortress.
A bariaur thrashed within an iron frame nearby, its horned head and fists pinned within one set of stocks, all four of its hoofed feet similarly trapped at floor level. A group of demons, small imps with gray skin and oversized ears, poked and prodded the thing with sharpened iron rods. Dozens of trickles of blood seeped from puncture wounds, and the creature howled in anguish.
Against the closest wall, two dwarves with filth-matted dark hair crouched in cages too small for them. The first prison dangled from a length of chain perhaps two feet above a fire pit filled with glowing coals. The dwarf within panted as he pushed against the wall with his hands, trying to keep himself swaying and not lingering over the searing heat. The second one had his arms thrust through the top, clinging to the iron ring set into the stone ceiling where the chain was attached. He held both his own weight and that of the cage, which rested upon his stout shoulders, up away from a bed of coals. His arms shook from the strain of keeping himself aloft.
'Kill me,' the one in the lower cage pleaded. 'For the love of Moradin, do not let them roast me!'
Vhok smirked. He spied the waterskin clutched in his guard's free hand.
'May I?' he asked, pointing to the drink.
The demon grimaced but tossed Vhok the skin. The cambion made a show of uncapping the container and tipping his head back, letting the water pour into his mouth. A bit of it trickled down his chin. He swallowed and smiled at the dwarf. 'You wouldn't happen to be from Sundabar, would you?' he asked.
The prisoner gaped at Vhok wide-eyed, forgetting for a moment to keep his swinging motion up. His blistered feet and buttocks began to smoke. He screamed in agony and fumbled to get himself moving again. In his panic, he could not get a good rhythm going, and his screaming increased.
The ram-demon yanked the empty waterskin out of Vhok's hands, turned, and led him out of the small room. 'Come,' it grumbled.
They ascended a large stone staircase, leaving behind the anguished cries of the prisoners. The ram-headed fiend led Vhok through a stout iron door and into a hall. The gloomy, smoke-filled passage led to another staircase, and then another. They climbed up and up, passing other demons along the way, some of them the lowly craven dretches that served as the bulk of the abyssal forces, others loftier, more cunning species. At one point, they passed three mariliths going the opposite direction, but none were Vhissilka.
The pair passed through another, larger door. A howling wind assaulted them, a hot, fetid gale that lashed at Vhok's clothes and hair. It carried upon it the stink of sulfur and death. A gray sky roiled above, and Vhok could not tell whether it was filled with low-hanging clouds or heavy black smoke. The underside of the seething haze glowed red-orange in places, and once, Vhok spotted a winged creature in silhouette against the burning light.
He and his guard came to a large balcony. The platform, made of lustrous black stone, clung to the side of a lofty tower. A narrow, arched walkway led from it to a similar porch ahead. Both spires rose from a massive sprawling castle, all of it constructed from the same glossy stone. The two crossed, and Vhok peered over the wall to the ground below.
The land, a broken surface of jutting, jagged rock interspersed with thick, thorny brambles and fields of gravel, was crisscrossed with deep crevasses. Orange light flared from within those trenches, and smoke poured from them, whisked away by the wind. In the flat spaces between the shards of protruding glasslike stone, swarms of creatures moved, shuffling together into groups. Larger demons herded the smaller ones, often with a slash of whip or weapon.
An army was assembling. A massive one. Vhok could see it happening as far as his vision would take him.
'Where are we?' he said to his escort. 'Is this the Abyss?'
The ram-headed guard cast a glance back at Vhok and smirked. 'Shut up and keep walking, cambion.'
They reached the far side of the causeway and passed through another door. Once in the interior again, the roar of the wind vanished. Vhok's guard led him down one last, grand hallway. Prisoners lined it, creatures from every corner of the world and perhaps beyond. Each had been positioned within an alcove, impaled upon a slender shaft from back to front and angled slightly upward, so that the spike held the being aloft in a roughly standing position. Some dangled motionless, perhaps already dead, but others still squirmed and cried out for succor. None could slip free of their confinements.
Better them than me, Vhok thought. Unless…
A moment of panic passed through the cambion, and he was on the verge of turning and dashing away, back to the balcony outside, when the guard turned and faced a massive door of black. The guard pushed the portal open and led Vhok into a chamber that glowed with the fires of a dozen braziers. A roiling pit of magma bubbled in the center. Numerous other creatures moved through the large room, perhaps attending to some important business or other, but Vhok hardly noticed them. All of his attention was drawn to the lone, towering figure near the pit.
A great horned demon with a ferocious, almost bestial face and terrible gaze stood there, its black, batlike wings spread wide. Flames licked up and down its red skin and its fingers clutched a massive sword with a glowing, fiery blade. In its other hand, the towering demon idly flicked a whip that had tongues of flame snaking along it.
A balor.
Consciousness returned to Kael. The faint tinkling of water splashed somewhere nearby. Confusion and disconcerting fear hit him as he opened his eyes. He did not remember where he was or how he had come to be there. Drawing on his military training, he took a deep, calming breath and examined his surroundings.
