All of my stratagems have failed. If we rely upon Harik and Lutigan to fight our war, Cheg-Cheg will destroy us all. The Veil will never be lifted, and we’ll die as demented, degenerate creatures. Well, to the hells with that! Krak certainly did not sire me on that chintzy tart he found out in the Void just for me to hand over my life uncontested. I heap filth upon capitulation! Instead, I shall conquer.
I wish this damned weed would get out of my nose.
Sakaj wiggled her nostrils to dislodge the aggravating strand of aquatic life. Amazingly, it worked.
Perhaps that’s a good omen. Or perhaps I just have nostrils of godly might. Either way… the Freak is still the key. Perhaps it’s still too hypothetical for her to care. I could present her with a greater pending disaster. Show her a few burned babies and disemboweled puppies. That would get her attention. Wouldn’t it?
It gags me to even think it, but what if Fingit was correct? Was my plan too complicated? I could set the Freak aside for another time and work with that which is closer at hand. The Murderer has been mutilated. If I touch the Farmer, Harik will be bleating to Krak before I’ve drawn my third breath. That leaves the Nub, whom Fingit betrayed. Can I trick the Nub into calling on me?
The possibly mystical pool in which Sakaj lay measured just a few feet deep. She exerted all her divine powers of concentration, as well as her incipient panic, to perceive the window onto the world of man. After a long, grinding effort, she heard the voice of that ridiculous torturer. The torture hadn’t yet reached its climax.
Louze was saying, “Talking about your leg, then, and your miraculous recovery—I can’t nearly believe you are so tough, even using magic. Honestly, you haven’t shown me much in the way of being tough-skinned. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, of course.” Louze whirled the crosspiece and smacked the Nub in the crotch. Even at the bottom of a pond on another world, Sakaj heard the young man groan. “You’re not anything more than human, I don’t think.” He dragged the end of the crosspiece over the young man’s intact nipple and murmured, “Hmm?”
After a pause, Louze sighed. “Well, to hell with that shit for now. Let’s talk about military matters. What do you think? Would that be good?” The Nub’s head drooped, and Louze slapped his face with the iron crosspiece. “How big is that army following along behind you? Is it dragging war engines? How many archers? How many whores? How much food and oil and arrows?”
Desh sighed and then spat blood, his head still drooping. “I don’t know any of that.”
Sakaj attempted to insinuate herself into the Nub’s mind. It required astounding effort, particularly since she had to accomplish it unnoticed. It was like placing a flower on your lover’s pillow without waking him, except that instead of gripping it in your delicate fingers, you must deposit it from the jaws of a slobbering hound that’s strapped to your arm.
“Tell him,” Sakaj mumbled to the Nub beneath his consciousness. “Tell him Sakaj’s name.”
The Nub hauled his face up toward his torturer. One eye was swelled shut, blood dripped from his mouth, and bruises stood in patchwork on the rest of his face. He hissed, “Fingit, Krak, and Sakaj will eat your rotting liver, Louze. They’ll dangle your entrails for the dogs in hell.”
“Fingit, Krak, and who?” Louze stepped back and stared at the Nub.
Only the near obliteration of all her limbs prevented Sakaj from dancing around like a deranged blowfly. The Nub had spoken the name of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was an invitation for Sakaj to sweep into the world of man, claim everything she coveted, steal all the power she could transport, and destroy every other thing she wished to destroy.
Sakaj gathered her power and wrapped it inside the malice she bore for mankind and everything that might deny her glory—especially Fingit. She held Louze and the Nub and the rotting building in her mind down to the tiniest detail. She willed herself into the world of man and then experienced a complete failure to shift herself even an inch out of that murky pond.
“No!” Sakaj shrieked. That was a mistake, and she swallowed a sizable quantity of nasty pond water. Rarely had she been called to the world of man, and this time the Veil had prevented her from answering.
Damn the Veil nine times nine! May it be swallowed by the unending chasms! May whoever created it… ah. Well, shit.
Louze leaned toward the Nub, and Sakaj strained to hear the man’s whispers. “Ah, you poor little fellow. Your suffering has just about ended. But there’s no mercy or hope for you today. Soon—maybe tonight or tomorrow or maybe in an hour—I’ll come for you, and I will break, cut out, or tear away things you can never get back. You’re going to tell me every secret, even the teeny tiniest. And when I’ve taken it all, then I’ll set you free.” He stepped back. “If you hadn’t sneaked into Lord Reth’s stronghold, I wouldn’t have had to do all this horrible shit to you. Makes me a little sad for both of us.”
Sakaj closed her eyes and tried to array all the players and variables against each other in various combinations. Perhaps the Nub will liberate himself yet. I cannot see any way in which he might accomplish it, but I assume it’s possible in some theoretical fashion. If he does, I must arrange matters so that he will call to me. With my subtle guidance, perhaps he will extricate himself. Then I shall suck the boy as dry as a beetle’s husk before Fingit looks up from playing with his fingers. In the meantime, I should not like to return home just to be obliterated by Krak, yet Fingit will certainly bring Krak here soon anyway. I’ll wait
