“I’ve no idea,” Minox said. “Untrained. Uncircled.”
“Incredible. You have no idea what you have here. It’s as if a blind toddler scribbled wildly and wrote all the plays of Darren Whit.”
“Take off the shackle and I’ll show you what I can do,” Minox said.
“The fact that the shackle stops you at all shows me how unworthy you are.”
“Maybe so,” Minox said. “But this will not end with me. This city will stand up against you.”
“You are a fool,” Senek said. “I wish you knew how easily this city has fallen into our pocket.”
“The corruption may be deep,” Minox said. “But I will fight you to my end. And so will so many others. Whatever your evil, you will not succeed. This I promise you.”
“Very bold, very foolish words.”
“You’re wasting time, Ithaniel,” Crenaxin said. “Mister Welling here does not care one bit about what you think.”
“Fine,” Senek said. “Gurond! Put him in place.”
The giant Gurond picked Minox up and put him in a spot on the machine beneath one of the jade statues, and forced Minox’s hand into the hole designed for the spike.
To Minox’s horror, his hand shifted and flowed, like water, to fit into the hole perfectly. Like he was a key that just unlocked something. The gears of the machine began to move. Magical energy began to pour out of Minox, like he had never experienced before in his life. Flooding and rushing, more than he could ever hope to control.
The power to destroy the city.
It was too much, more than he could bear, and all he could do was look around, hoping to see something that he could use, something he could do, that would sabotage the plans of Ithaniel Senek and the Brotherhood.
The room was full of members of the Brotherhood, both the robed men and the transformed grotesques. Easily a hundred of them, if not more.
“Stop, please!”
Lin Shartien, the mage reporter from The Veracity Press, also in mage shackles. Had she come down with Dayne? Where was he? Had he truly been turned by the dark power of Crenaxin?
And if Crenaxin could do that, and the machine was to give him the power of the Nine . . . what did that mean for Maradaine?
Minox looked up. In the brass cages, several children had been bound, and Maresh Niol, Veracity’s artist, was shackled to a platform.
The magical energy was whirling through the machine, through Minox, out of the children, up onto the platform. Into Maresh. Magic and more, things Minox had no name for.
I still have my mind, Minox thought. I will find a way.
But as the magic curled and coalesced around Maresh Niol, Minox realized he was almost out of time.
Maresh screamed, with a voice that was in no way human.
“Yes!” Senek shouted. “It’s working!”
“The worthy vessel!” Crenaxin said. “It can be done!”
Purple smoke erupted from one side of the room. Then the other. Then a burst of sickly yellow smoke erupted around Gurond.
Minox looked up in time to see a flash of crimson race by, and the crack of wood against bone. The magical energy flooding through Minox suddenly stopped, leaving him breathless and drained.
But still, a smile came.
Veranix Calbert—the Thorn—was standing over Senek, cloak flowing, staff in hand.
“Gentlemen,” he said, his voice echoing through the chamber. “You’re all out of bed after curfew, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to issue demerits.”
Dayne took Asti out of the encampment, through the side hallways to the cells. Dayne remembered having gone down here before with Crenaxin; he remembered being happy about that. He could still feel that, and it repulsed him.
“Rynax,” he said. “How did you stay free from Crenaxin?”
“Honestly, I’m not, entirely,” Asti said. “I mean, I’m in control of myself, but . . .”
“I don’t understand.”
Asti paused. “I’ve already had my brain shattered by Poasian telepaths, who . . . put something in my head that was designed to serve the Brotherhood.”
“What?” Dayne asked.
“But I’ve got it . . . locked away, kept in place by the other broken part of my brain. I’m shattered. And I’ve . . . I’ve learned how to live with being shattered because . . . what choice do I have?”
“How?” Dayne asked. “How do you do that?”
“Day to day, hour to hour,” Asti said. “It’s still a part of you, isn’t it?”
Dayne wasn’t sure. He remembered being the man that Crenaxin turned him into, wanting to serve the Brotherhood, fulfill their destiny through the tap and becoming grand, worthy vessels of the Nine. He had no desire for those things now, no secret wish to be back to being that man. But still, the memory was there with him.
“There’s going to be anger,” Asti said. “I don’t know if that’ll help, but I use it.”
They came upon a closed gate. When they came before, Crenaxin called to the faithful, who opened it from somewhere else. But there were no controls here. “Maybe I can—” Dayne grabbed hold of the bars, straining to pull it open. The steel bars didn’t budge. “I can’t get through here.”
“Fortunately, I’m much smaller,” Asti said. He climbed up the gate to an opening on the top and squeezed his small frame through it. He pointed down the hallway, to the several sets of doors. “All kids? Any guards?”
“There were faithful . . . zealots in those two rooms,” Dayne whispered, pointing to the first two. “Then the children chained up in the next two.”
Asti nodded. “Like I said, there’s going to be anger. And I use it.”
“Asti,” Dayne didn’t want to yell. “What are you going to do?”
Asti went to the first door, placing his hand on it, and then listened at it for a moment. He stepped back for a moment, and then exploded with a violent kick that knocked the door open, drew out two knives, and jumped into the room.
The door slammed shut.
Sounds of a fight echoed through the hall. Blows and punches and shouts. The door on the other side of the hallway opened up and two
