rules, rather than the collective group?'
'Some might say so,' Cullossax admitted.
'The catechisms say, Men exist to serve the empire,' the girl said. 'But it seems to me that the emperor s teachings lead us to serve only him.'
Cullossax knew blasphemy when he heard it. He answered in catechisms: ' Each serves society to the best of his ability, the emperor as well as the least serf,' Cullossax reasoned. ' By serving the emperor, we serve the great wyrm that resides within him, and if we are worthy, we shall be rewarded. Live worthily, and a wyrm may someday enter you, granting you a portion of its immortality.'
The child seemed to think for a long time.
Cullossax could not bother with her any longer. This was a busy time. There had been a great battle to the south, and the troops would begin to arrive any day. Once all of the reports had been made, Cullossax would be assigned to deal with those who had not distinguished themselves in battle. He would need to sharpen many of his skinning knives, so that he could remove portions of flesh from those who were not valiant. With the flesh, he would braid whips, and then lash the backs of those that he had skinned.
And then there were people like this girl-people who had somehow gained memories of another life, and who now sought to escape the horde. The tormentors had to make examples of them.
Cullossax reached under his collar, pulled out a talisman that showed his badge of office: a bloody red fist. The law required him to display it before administering torture.
'What do you think your torment should be?' Cullossax asked.
Trembling almost beyond control, the girl turned her head slowly, peered up at Cullossax. 'Doesn t a person have the right to protect himself from society?'
It was a question that Cullossax had never considered. It was a childish question, undeserving of consideration. 'No,' he answered.
Cullossax would normally have administered a beating then, perhaps broken a few bones. But he suspected that it would do no good. 'If I hurt you enough, will you listen to your dogmatist? Will you internalize his teachings?'
The girl looked down, the wyrmling gesture for no.
'Then you leave me no choice,' the tormentor said.
He should have strangled the child then. He should have done it in front of the others, so that they could see firsthand the penalty for disobedience.
But somehow he wanted to spare the girl that indignity. 'Come with me,' he said. 'Your flesh will become food for your fellows.'
Cullossax reached down, unlocked the manacle at the girl s foot, and pulled her free from the iron rung in the floor.
The girl did not fight. She did not pull away or strike back. She did not try to run. Instead, she gathered up her courage and followed, as Cullossax held firmly to her wrist.
I would rather die than live here, her actions seemed to say.
Cullossax was willing to oblige.
He escorted the girl from the room. Her fellows jeered as she left, heaping abuse upon her, as was proper.
And once the two were free of the classroom, the girl walked with a lighter step, as if glad that she would meet her demise.
'Where are we going?' the child asked.
Cullossax did not know the girl s name, did not want to know her name.
'To the harvesters.' In wyrmling society, the weak, the sickly, and the mentally deficient were often put to use this way. Certain glands would be harvested-the adrenals, the pineal, and others-to make extracts that were used in battle. Then the bodies were harvested for meat, bone, skin, and hair. Nothing went to waste. True, Rugassa s hunters roved far and wide to supply the horde with food, but their efforts were never enough.
'Will it hurt?'
'I think,' Cullossax said honestly, 'that death is never kind. Still, I will show you what leniency I can.'
It was not easy to make such promises. As a tormentor, Cullossax was required to dole out the punishments required by law without regard to compassion or compromise.
That seemed to answer all of her questions, and Cullossax led the girl now effortlessly down the winding corridors, through labyrinthine passages lit only by glow worms. Few of the passages were marked, but Cullossax had memorized the twists and turns long ago. Along the way, they passed through crowded corridors in the merchant district where vendors hawked trinkets carved from bones and vestments sewn from wyrmling leather. And near the arena, which was empty at the moment, they passed through lonely tunnels where the only sound was their footsteps echoing from the stone walls. Fire crickets leapt up near their feet, emitting red flashes of light, like living sparks. Once, he spotted a young boy with a bag of pale glow worms, affixing one to each wall, to keep the labyrinth lighted.
Cullossax wondered at his own reasons for wanting to show her compassion. It was high summer, and in a few weeks he would go into musth. Already he felt the edginess, the arousal, and the beginnings of the mad rage that assailed him at this time of year. The girl was desirable enough, though she was too young to go into heat.
The girl s face was blank as she walked toward her execution. Cullossax had seen that look so often before.
'What are you thinking about?' he asked, knowing that it was easier if he kept them talking.
'There are so many worlds,' she said, her voice filled with wonder. 'Two worlds have combined, and when they did, two of my shadow selves became one. It s like having lived two lifetimes.' She fell silent for a second, then asked, 'Have you ever seen the stars?' Most wyrmlings in the labyrinth would never have been topside.
'Yes,' he answered, 'once.'
'My grandmother was the village wise woman at my home in Inkarra,' the girl said. 'She told me that every star is but a shadow of the One True Star, and each of them has a shadow world that spins around it, and that there are a million million shadow worlds.'
'Hah,' Cullossax said, intrigued. He had never heard of such a thing. The very strangeness of such a cosmology drew his interest.
'So think,' the girl said. 'Two worlds combined, and when they did, it is like two pieces of me came together, making a larger whole. I feel stronger than ever before, more alive and complete. Here in the wyrmling horde, I was driven and cunning. But on the other world, I was learning to be wise, to take joy in life.' She gave him a moment to think, then asked, 'What if there are other pieces of me out there? What if I have a million million shadow selves, and all of them combined into one person in a single breath? What would I be like? What things would I know? It would be like having lived a billion lifetimes all at once. Perhaps on a few thousand worlds, I might have learned perfect self-discipline, and on others I might have spent lifetimes studying how to make peace among warring nations. And if I were combined into one, imagine how whole all of those shadow selves would become.'
The thought was staggering. Cullossax could not imagine such a thing. 'They say a wizard combined the worlds,' Cullossax said. 'They say he is in the dungeon now.'
And I wish that I had the honor of being his tormentor, Cullossax thought.
'Perhaps we should be helping him,' the girl suggested. 'He has the power to bind all of the worlds into one.'
What good would that do me? Cullossax wondered. Perhaps I have no other selves on other worlds.
He was lost in thought when she struck. It happened so fast, she almost killed him. One instant she was walking blithely along, and the next moment she pulled a dagger from her sleeve and lunged-aiming for his eye.
But his great height worked against her. Cullossax dodged backward, and the dagger nicked him below the eye. Blood sprang from the wound, as if he cried tears of blood.
Fast as a mantis taking a cave cricket, she struck again, this time aiming for his throat. He raised an arm to block her swing. She twisted to the side and brought the dagger up to his kidney. It was a maneuver he d learned as a youth, and he was ready for her. He reached down and caught her arm, then slammed her into a wall.
The vicious creature screamed and leapt at him, her thumbs aimed at his eyes. He brought up a knee that
