She had heard a snapping sound, the crunching of bones in his neck.
And now she was staring up at Fallion, and with the same ferocity, wanted to bore the knowledge of her love into him.
He turned at the sound of her startled voice.
She stared into his eyes, and memories came flooding back-her bargain with Shadoath, the torturous touch of the forcible, her time spent as Oohtooroo, loving her master with a fierceness beyond man’s ability to understand.
She knew that she was in some Dedicates’ Keep. Fallion stood nearby in the darkness, only the candlelight revealing his shape.
Sweat poured down his forehead and broke out upon his arm. He trembled, his whole body shaking, as if he had been standing for hours, or might stand thus forever.
“Do it, if you must,” Rhianna whispered.
Fallion gasped, as if to cry out, but managed to hold his pain inside.
Carefully, Rhianna climbed to her elbows and peered at the children still sleeping nearby, innocent children by the dozens, and she understood his predicament.
“And if you can’t do it,” Rhianna whispered, “then I’ll do it for you.”
Reaching up, she gently unclasped his fingers from the hilt of his knife, and took the blade into her own hand. There was a little girl nearby, a child with blond hair and a pinched face. Her skin was leathery and wrinkled, for she had granted an endowment of glamour.
Silently, Rhianna whispered to herself: By the Glories, let her feel no pain.
Rhianna raised the knife overhead.
This is how I will serve Fallion, she thought. This is how I will prove my love. She let the knife plunge.
“No!” Fallion screamed and pulled on her wrist, spoiling her aim. The blade buried itself in a straw mattress.
For what seemed an eternity, Fallion had stood above Rhianna, unable to strike either her or the boy beside her. Part of his mind knew that this was a trap.
Shadoath had taken endowments from babes, knowing that he could not cut them down.
Sweat had broken out on his forehead; his hand trembled and would not strike; his mind raced down a thousand paths, seeking an alternative. Time stopped, and the earth ceased its course through the heavens. Rhianna awoke and bade him to give her his knife.
And in despair, Fallion reached out and felt the heat of a dozen candles, and the life-warmth of hundreds of bodies. As his rage grew, he wanted nothing more than to cease to exist.
Serve me, the fire whispered. Take them all.
Let the fire come, he told himself. Let it take me, eat away my soul, and take these others with me.
It would all be so easy to burst into flame, to feed his own rage, let it blossom into an inferno.
He exhaled, and smoke issued from his throat, even as Rhianna raised the knife, preparing to strike.
Sacrifice to me, Fire whispered.
He had grabbed her hand as it fell, wrested the blade, and just stood for a moment as it sat buried in the straw.
“Let go,” Rhianna said, “you’re burning me!”
She peered at him, and Fallion could see himself reflected in her pupils. There was a brightness in his eyes, a hidden fire about to be unleashed.
He peered around the room.
There’s something I’m missing, he thought. There has to be a way out of this. All that I need to do is see!
Instantly, the candles around the room blazed, as if responding to his need. Fallion keenly felt the heat of the room, conscious of how hidden flames played through the bodies of the children, how their own life heat was exhaled in every precious breath.
He peered closely at the children before him, and as in the prison, it suddenly seemed that their flesh fell away, exposing the faint undulating lights of their tiny souls. Blue lights were everywhere, like rafts of luminous jellyfish in the summer seas.
All that he had to do was look.
There was a brightness in them, a brightness in each and every child.
They are all Bright Ones, he realized.
Shadoath took for her Dedicates only the best.
Rhianna was trying to pull away from him and at the same time grabbing for the knife. He saw her flesh and bones in a vague outline, saw warm tears streaming from her eyes.
“If you won’t kill them, I have to do it myself!” she shouted. Grabbing the knife, she went after the nearest girl.
Then he spotted it: there beneath her flesh, a shadow attached to the back of her spirit, a dark parasite that fed upon her.
A locus! he realized.
He had never seen one so close.
She raised the knife, and Fallion shouted, “Rhianna, you have a locus.”
She turned to him, her face a mask of terror and disbelief.
“We must kill them,” she said, shaking. “Help me.”
“Is that what you think?” Fallion said. “Or is it the locus speaking?”
Rhianna trembled, and with great difficulty threw down the blade.
Fallion peered at the locus, saw it there. It was obviously alive. It had a form, vaguely shaped like a worm or leech, and where the leech’s abdomen should have been, it latched on to Rhianna’s spirit.
Fallion saw movement at that point, as if some attachment on the locus were tearing into her, doing mortal damage to Rhianna’s soul. But the whole creature was wrapped in shadow, and he could not see it clearly.
More light. I need more light to see by.
There were torches in sconces on the wall. Fallion reached above Rhianna’s bed, grabbing the nearest torch, and at his touch it burst into flame.
He raised it high and held it above Rhianna, willing it to brighten, but as if in response, the locus wrapped itself in deeper shadows, as if seeking to hide.
More light, he told himself. Let the earth blaze.
The torch blazed in his hand, and all around the room, other torches burst into flame.
Feed the flames, a voice whispered in the back of Fallion’s mind.
He drew heat from the torches, thin coils that raced through the atmosphere, until his own flesh felt hot to the touch. He let the heat escape from every pore in the form of light, so that at first he glowed warmly, and then began to blaze.
He was in a rage and felt as if at any moment his skin would take fire like parchment, and when it happened, he would destroy this place, let it all burn.
Yes, a voice whispered, that’s what I need.
Rhianna staggered back, tripped, and fell to the floor.
“Stay back. You’re getting hot!” Rhianna said.
Fallion struggled to maintain control. He fought the urge to burst into flame. But he knew that he had to do something. There are many powers among flameweavers, Smoker had said. Not all of them are evil.
Rhianna’s voice softened, and she pleaded, “Fallion, help me kill the Dedicates.”
Then Fallion understood! Suddenly he let the heat out of him in a gush of radiance. Brilliance washed through the room, light bleeding from his every pore.
Rhianna gasped, and her face seemed to go white, all colors washed away. She held up her hand as if to keep from going blind, and the whole room blazed.
“Now let me see you!” Fallion commanded the locus, and the light shining from him smote the creature, revealing it in every sickly detail.
It trembled and shook, seeking to escape, and as the light flowed through Fallion, it seemed as if pure knowledge came with it.
