Yder had beat him to the palace.
'It is not true!' Malik screamed. 'Whatever the prince says, it is all a terrible lie!'
For once, his curse did not compel him to say more, and the whispering quieted. A strange sloshing sounded beside him. Malik opened his eyes and saw white fire in his brain. He closed them again, and the fire went away.
'Why do you torment me like this?'
He tried to turn toward the sloshing and found his head held motionless by a strap across his brow.
'I have done nothing wrong!'
'Oh, but you have, Seraph,' hissed a cold voice-a familiar cold voice. 'You have stolen from the Hidden One.'
'Stolen?' Malik cried. 'What have I stolen… aside from a few dozen coins from the pockets of worshipers in my own temple?'
'The worshipers themselves,' the voice said. 'You have stolen the Lady's faithful.'
Malik was greatly relieved to recognize the voices as Prince Yder*s. If Yder was doing the speaking, then they would not be in the Palace Most High, and it could not be Telamont Tanthul who had ordered the terrible punishment
A pair of cold fingertips pulled Malik’s eyelids open. The brilliant fire returned, but this time the white fire was only a silver light as blinding as the sun, and there was a chasmal darkness in the center-with two blazing eyes and a heart of cooling embers.
'The Lady is angry, Malik.'
As Yder spoke, Malik's eyes grew accustomed to the pain, and he discerned a pair of huge hooked horns crowning the head of the dark figure above him.
'In-d-deed,' Malik stammered. 'I can see that for myself… though in truth I must say she does not look very ladylike to me.'
This caused a strange murmur of gasps and chuckles to spread outward behind Yder. There followed a moment of silence, and Malik had the sense that his captor had turned away to glare at his followers.
'Make a joke of your own god if you wish, little man,' Yder said, 'but when you make fun of the Hidden One, it is the Lady who laughs.'
The prince's fingers pressed down until Malik thought his eyeballs would burst
'Who was joking?' Malik cried.
The murmur that followed this was even louder than the first. Yder*s hand came away from Malik's head.
'Silence!'
The command was muffled, as though the prince had turned his back when he spoke it. Malik blinked the spots from his eyes and again found himself staring at the dark figure overhead. It was a ghastly demon as large as Aris and as black as night itself, with long curving talons at the end of outstretched arms.
Yder returned his attention to Malik and said, 'Mock the Hidden One again, and I shall pull your brains out by your own antlers.'
The prince grabbed Malik by one of his horns, and a dark hand appeared on the hooked horn of the figure overhead.
Malik bit his own cheek, lest he cry out in astonishment and give the prince an excuse to do as he threatened. The monster above was certainly his own shadow, but that gave him no hint of relief. Melegaunt Tanthul had once summoned the wretched being to serve as a guard, and the accursed thing had made clear it would like nothing better than throttling Malik with its own hands.
'You are learning, Seraph,' Yder said. 'Perhaps this will not be as difficult as I feared.'
'Not difficult would be good,' Malik agreed. 'I am a captive in the temple of Shar the Ni-?'
Yder struck him a blow that returned his thoughts to their muddled state.
'Do not speak the Hidden One's name!'
'I am only trying to be certain,' Malik complained. 'How do you expect to convert me, if you will not tell me who it is I am to worship?'
For the first time, Yder's face came into view. He was wearing the black skullcap and purple mask of the high priest.
'You would convert?' he asked.
Malik’s chest began to grow cold and tight, as it had when Fzoul Chembryl had asked a similar question in the hidden temple of Iyachtu Xvim. At the time, he had been weak from torture and assured only of a life of impoverishment in servitude to a mad god, and nothing would have pleased him more than to find protection in the church of some other deity. But that had been before he understood how impossible it was for him to betray the One, and before he had established what promised to be-in addition to the altar that would give Cyric control over the Shadow Weave-the wealthiest temple in all Faer?n.
'Convert?'
The tightness in Malik's breast became a smashing weight. The heart beating-slurping-in his chest was not his own, but a rotting mass of curd that, in a fit of the deranged genius of the mad god, the One had plucked from his own body and traded for Malik's mortal-though far healthier-heart. Since that day, the mere thought of betraying Cyric brought crushing agony. It was all Malik could do to continue speaking.
'Certainly I will convert.' His chest felt as though someone was standing on it. 'I will convert you and all of your followers to the Church of Cyric, the One and All!'
The weight vanished.
Yder’s fist came from nowhere, catching Malik in the side of the mouth. Two teeth came loose and got caught in his throat. Malik began to choke.
'Trifle with me all you wish,' Yder said. 'The goddess relishes your blood on her altar.'
Malik’s only answer was a cough. He grew dizzy from lack of breath, and the world started to close in around him. He fought to stay conscious, summoning his anger by imagining his wealth in the hands of Prince Yder and his filthy Sharists.
'Nothing to say?'
Yder struck him again, and Malik's mouth grew so full of blood that it bubbled over his lips and spilled down his cheeks onto Shar's altar.
'That is good, Seraph,' Yder said. 'You are learning to please the Lady.'
Unable to do anything else, Malik stared at the monstrous shadow hanging above him. A purple crescent appeared where the traitorous thing's mouth should have been-a smile. It thought he was going to choke to death.
Malik continued to cough.
'You will convert, Seraph,' Yder said. 'All you control is how long it takes.'
'The Hidden One rules all,' said someone behind the prince.
A chorus of whispers filled the chamber as Shar's worshipers repeated the paean. Had he not been so busy coughing and choking, Malik would have laughed. He might die upon Shar's altar or even rot upon it, but he would never convert. That was the one thing he did not control at all.
Malik's vision narrowed to a black tunnel, then went completely black. Yder's voice came to him from far away, demanding that he pay attention and not insult the Hidden One by closing his eyes upon her. The prince's cold fingertips settled on his eyelids and pulled them open, and that was the last thing Malik felt before sinking into a soft bed of unconsciousness.
The next thing was the heel of a large hand slamming him between the shoulders, and the icy fingers of another one dangling him upside down by his ankle.
'Breathe, you craven little ranag!'
The hand struck Malik again. The teeth upon which he had been choking flew from his lips, along with a mouthful of blood and bitter-tasting bile. He started to gasp and cough at the same time, two conflicting actions that left him helplessly hiccupping for breath.
'Did you really think you could escape that easily?' Yder demanded. 'The Hidden One will not be deprived of her pleasure.'
Malik opened his eyes and was blinded by the same painful radiance as when he had returned to
