Dark Heart by Russell Kirkpatrick

of course she could not understand what he was saying. Torve hoped she could see that this was not his will, but he doubted she understood anything beyond her pain.
    Eventually she seemed to find numbness, an acceptance that she was going to die, and Torve supposed he was grateful. He wished he could change places with her, so that tonight might see his death.
    ‘Bah,’ Dryman muttered. ‘She will be of no further use to us. We have learned all we can. End her, Torve, while I consider how best to spend the rest of the evening.’
    How could he resist the command? As he took her bloodied head between his hands, he cursed his ancestors and the three thousand years of breeding ensuring an Omeran’s absolute obedience to his or her master. He braced himself, then twisted his hands sharply. The woman’s neck broke, a merciful sound in a night drenched with suffering.
    And more to come.
    Torve could hear other cries from amid the ruins, some strong, others failing. He laid the woman tenderly on the ground and watered her face with his tears.
    Evidently his master decided he had risked enough in the city. On the way back to the hill, however, they found a young lad frog-hunting by moonlight. He afforded Dryman much more gratification than had the woman, but much less information. Not only did the lad only speak the northern tongue, Dryman made Torve force a stick between his teeth to limit the sound he made. But at this point his master was not seeking information. Torve had often observed this in their experiments beneath the Talamaq Palace. Children pleased him, because they didn’t know when to lose hope.
    With patience and skill developed over decades of research, Dryman brought the boy to the door of death, made him look through, and read his body for signs of what he saw there. The Emperor had always been good at this. Through the door, and back. Through, and back. Watching all the time for any hint, any chink in the power of death, any way to cheat the darkness awaiting them all.
    ‘There!’ Dryman said. ‘Watch the muscles relax. Is that knowledge of the coming freedom from pain, I wonder, or joy at what he’s seen awaiting him? Can the keeper of the door be bought or bribed? Does Death’s Herald see all, or can his eye be blinded? I have to know!’
    ‘What will it matter, if you are able to wrest the secret of immortality from the Undying Man? Master, why must we continue this research?’
    ‘Because I will it!’ Dryman snarled, and his face, as he turned it towards Torve, glowed with an inhuman light. ‘Because I do not live like other men, and I should not be forced to die like them!’
    ‘You have power,’ Torve said gently. ‘Must you also live forever?’
    ‘How can one have power when death but awaits its chance to end it? True power can only belong to an immortal.’
    Torve felt the life drain from the boy lying broken between them, but said nothing, continuing instead to distract his master.
    ‘And when I die? You will train another Omeran, no doubt, to replace me?’
    ‘Who knows? I may decide you should remain by my side forever. Would that not be a fitting reward, Torve, for your unflagging devotion?’
    Torve knew his master would be watching, but could not stop himself shuddering. Doing this forever? He could imagine nothing worse.
    ‘Ah, Torve, he has slipped away from us while we talked. Fool! Why did you not pay attention?’
    Torve ignored the man’s ravings. If you haven’t learned much tonight, master, I have. You are vulnerable when absorbed by your research. Watch out: one day my Lenares will catch you and kill you herself. And the moment you’re dead, I will be free.
    Torve finished his Defiance, his body shaking with the effort. The vigorous exercises were traditional among the Omeran, and had evolved over thousands of years into a way to suppress hatred and rage, to allow them to channel their emotions productively in the service of their masters. A defiance of all that had