me, of destroying me. How is she any different? How could I have expected her to be any different? ‘Look at you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Not even human any more-do you not care about your appearance, about how you want me to see you when I come here?’
‘You’re right,’ she said in a grating voice, ‘I should have waited until you arrived, until you came close. Then voided all over you. I’m sorry. I’m afraid my bowels are in bad shape right now-the muscles are weakening, inevitably.’
‘You’ll not haunt me, woman, your soul is too useless-
the Abyss will sweep it away, I’m sure. Besides, I won’t kill you for a long while yet-’
‘I don’t think it’s up to you any more, Tanal Yathvanar.’
‘It’s all up to me!’ he shrieked. ‘All of it!’
He stalked over to her and began unshackling her arms, then her legs. She lost consciousness before he had freed her second wrist, and slid into a heap that almost snapped both her legs before he managed to work the manacles from her battered, torn ankles.
She weighed almost nothing, and he was able to move quickly, up twenty or so stairs, until he reached a side passage. The slimy cobble floor underfoot gradually sloped downward as he shambled along, the woman over one shoulder, the lantern swinging from his free hand. Rats scurried from his path, out to the sides where deep, narrow gutters had been cut by an almost constant flow of runoff.
Eventually, the drip of dark water from the curved ceiling overhead became a veritable rain. The droplets revived Janath momentarily, enough for her to moan, then cough for a half-dozen strides-he was thankful when she swooned once more, and the feeble clawing on his back ceased.
And now came the stench. Disappeared? Oh no, they are here. All of them. All the ones Karos lnvictad didn’t like, didn’t need, wanted out of the way.
Into the first of the huge domed chambers with its stone walkway encircling a deep well, in which white-shelled crabs clambered amidst bones. This well was entirely filled, which is what had forced the opening of another, then another and another-there were so many of them, down here beneath the river.
Arriving at the last of the chambers, Tanal set her down, where he shackled one of her legs to the wall. On either side of her, she had company, although neither victim was alive. He stepped back as she stirred once more.
‘This is temporary,’ he said. ‘You won’t be joining your friends beside you. When I return-and it won’t be long-
I will move you again. To a new cell, known to no-one but me. Where I will teach you to love me. You’ll see, Janath Anar. I am not the monster you believe me to be. Karos Invictad is the monster-he has twisted me, he has made me into what I am. But Karos Invictad is not a god. Not immortal. Not… infallible. As we shall all discover. He thinks I want her, that whore of the Emperor’s-that dirty, fallen bitch. He could not be more wrong. Oh, there’s so much to do now, but I promise I won’t be gone long. You’ll see, my love…’
She awoke to the sound of his footfalls, dwindling, then lost to the trickle and drip of water. It was dark, and cold, colder than it had ever been before-she was somewhere else now, some other crypt, but the same nightmare.
She lifted a hand-as best she could-and wiped at her face. Her hand came away slick with slime. Yet… the chains, they’re gone. She struggled to draw her limbs inward, then almost immediately heard the rattle of iron links snaking across stone. Ah, not completely.
And now pain arrived, in every joint, piercing fire. Ligaments and tendons, stretched for so long, now began contracting like burning ropes-oh, Errant take me-
Her eyes flickered open once more, and with returning consciousness she became aware of savage hunger, coiling in her shrunken stomach. Watery waste trickled loose.
There was no point in weeping. No point in wondering which of them was madder-him for his base appetites and senseless cruelty, or her for clinging so to this remnant of a life. A battle of wills, yet profoundly unequal-she knew that in her heart, had known it all along.
The succession of grand lectures she had devised in her mind all proved hollow conceits, their taste too bitter to bear. He had defeated her, because his were weapons without reason-and so 1 answered with my own madness. I thought it would work. Instead, I ended up surrendering all that 1 had that was of any worth.
And so now, the cold of death stealing over me, I can only dream of becoming a vengeful ghost, eager to torment the one who tormented me, eager to be to him as he was to me. Believing that such a balance was just, was righteous.
Madness. To give in kind is to be in kind.
So now, let me leave here, for ever gone-
And she felt that madness reach out to her, an embrace that would sweep away her sense of self, her knowledge of who she had been, once, that proud, smug academic with her pristine intellect ordering and reordering the world. Until even practicality was a quaint notion, not even worthy of discourse, because the world outside wasn’t worth reaching out to, not really-besides, it was sullied, wasn’t it? By men like Tanal Yathvanar and Karos Invictad-the ones who revelled in the filth they made, because only the stench of excess could reach through to their numbed senses-
– as it reaches through to mine. Listen! He returns, step by hesitant step-
A calloused hand settled on her brow.
Janath Anar opened her eyes.
Faint light, coming from every direction. Warm light, gentle as a breath. Looming above her was a face. Old, lined and weathered, with eyes deep as the seas, even as tears made them glisten.
She felt the chain being dragged close. Then the old man tugged with one hand and the links parted like rotted reeds. He reached down, then, and lifted her effortlessly.
Abyss, yours is such a gentle face…
Darkness, once more.
Beneath the bed of the river, below silts almost a storey thick, rested the remains of almost sixteen thousand citizens of Letheras. Their bones filled ancient wells that had been drilled before the river’s arrival-before the drainage course from the far eastern mountains changed cataclysmically, making the serpent lash its tail, the torrent carving a new channel, one that inundated a nascent city countless millennia ago.
Letherii engineers centuries past had stumbled upon these submerged constructs, wondering at the humped corridors and the domed chambers, wondering at the huge, deep wells with their clear, cold water. And baffled to explain how such tunnels remained more or less dry, the cut channels seeming to absorb water like runners of sponge.
No records existed any more recounting these discoveries-the tunnels and chambers and wells were lost knowledge to all but a chosen few. And of the existence of parallel passages, the hidden doors in the walls of corridors, and the hundreds of lesser tombs, not even those few were aware. Certain secrets belonged exclusively to the gods.
The Elder God carried the starved, brutalized woman into one of those side passages, the cantilevered door swinging shut noiselessly behind him. In his mind there was recrimination, a seething torrent of anger at himself. He had not imagined the full extent of depravity and slaughter conducted by the Patriotists, and he was sorely tempted to awaken himself, unleashing his fullest wrath upon these unmitigated sadists.
Of course, that would lead to unwarranted attention, which would no doubt result in yet greater slaughter, and one that made no distinction between those who deserved death and those who did not. This was the curse of power, after all.
As, he well knew, Karos Invictad would soon discover.
You fool, Invigilator. Who has turned his deadly regard upon you? Deadly, oh my, yes indeed., Though few might comprehend that, given the modestly handsome, thoroughly benign features surrounding that face.
Even so, Karos Invictad. Tehol Beddict has decided that you must go.
And I almost pity you.
