the table and landed on the tall bottle. If I am to die anyway ….
In one fluid motion, she caught the bottle about its neck, and flew at Sanouk with all the coiled fury of a provoked adder. With a surprised squawk, he flung himself outside of Nesaea’s swing, twisting away. The dense glass shattered against the stone wall, and she danced to one side, the dagger she had deftly plucked from his belt held in one hand, and in the other the bottle’s jagged remains.
Carnala wailed, bloodshot eyes rolling. Nesaea shoved the girl behind her, and whipped the wavy-bladed dagger under Sanouk’s nose. He leaped back, nimble as a dancer, and settled his feet in a relaxed stance. Unaccountably the brief, fearful surprise he had showed dissolved, replaced by amusement.
“Come any closer,” Nesaea warned, “and your place in the world will be the grave.”
“Indeed?” Sanouk drawled. He advanced, driving Nesaea and Carnala toward the stairwell. He smiled, prepared to utter some inanity, and Nesaea slashed the bottle at his eyes. Sanouk knocked it from her grasp, even as she raked the dagger across his face.
Lord Sanouk spun away, hands clutched to his face. Then, slowly, like a conjurer revealing a fine trick, he dropped them.
Nesaea shivered in dread at the impossibility before her. She had felt the steel slice his face to ribbons … but no wound marred his flesh, not even a pinprick of blood showed. He laughed at her shock, and the dagger fell from her nerveless fingers.
“You will understand my gift in time,” he said, all amusement gone. “Between then and now, I would prefer you were more docile.” His fist flashed, and Nesaea felt the blow only as a fleeting, thudding pain, then all the world passed beyond her sight….
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”
Those dark words swirled around her like living things, lighting upon her skin, defiling her flesh.
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”
The incantation echoed into oblivion, and Nesaea came around by increments, groggy, head pounding. She lay on some sort of table, its top molded around her body. Though she could not see it, she felt a pulsing, bulbous knot at her temple. What happened … where am I?
She blinked, thinking her eyes betrayed her, but without question a rough-hewn rock ceiling hovered a few paces above her. Spider webs and dust motes danced on hot currents rising from strange, silver-flamed torches ensconced around the grim chamber.
Chamber? she thought uncertainly. The last thing she remembered was coming under attack by plainsmen. “I will watch over you,” she heard the memory of herself say to someone … a man.
“I could ask for no greater comfort,” he had answered, with a breathless grin that quickened her pulse. Who …
… Rathe!
All came back in a rush—the battle, her capture along with Fira and Carnala, the slogging ride to Fortress Hilan.
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” came the dread incantation, spoken in a voice she now recognized: Lord Sanouk.
A creeping breath of ice teased her skin, and she knew that she had been disrobed. That concern became a mere curiosity when the torchlight lost a measure of its radiance. Nesaea sensed a presence rising below her, an upwelling of cold. Dread coated her bare skin in a greasy sweat—
Suddenly all went blacker than a starless night, and flashing horrors passed before her vision. Some suffocating substance poured down her throat, choking off her cries. Cold, jellied hands— dozens , scores —at once caressed and tormented her bare flesh, and a grinding voice filled her mind, stilling her heart. Hers was the torment of the beset and the ravaged, the countless victims of life’s follies and cruelties, all pressed into her being and made her own in a single instant—
Then a creature drifted above her, a devilish god of gangrenous flesh and goggling eyes, an abomination with the grotesque attributes of
In one fluid motion, she caught the bottle about its neck, and flew at Sanouk with all the coiled fury of a provoked adder. With a surprised squawk, he flung himself outside of Nesaea’s swing, twisting away. The dense glass shattered against the stone wall, and she danced to one side, the dagger she had deftly plucked from his belt held in one hand, and in the other the bottle’s jagged remains.
Carnala wailed, bloodshot eyes rolling. Nesaea shoved the girl behind her, and whipped the wavy-bladed dagger under Sanouk’s nose. He leaped back, nimble as a dancer, and settled his feet in a relaxed stance. Unaccountably the brief, fearful surprise he had showed dissolved, replaced by amusement.
“Come any closer,” Nesaea warned, “and your place in the world will be the grave.”
“Indeed?” Sanouk drawled. He advanced, driving Nesaea and Carnala toward the stairwell. He smiled, prepared to utter some inanity, and Nesaea slashed the bottle at his eyes. Sanouk knocked it from her grasp, even as she raked the dagger across his face.
Lord Sanouk spun away, hands clutched to his face. Then, slowly, like a conjurer revealing a fine trick, he dropped them.
Nesaea shivered in dread at the impossibility before her. She had felt the steel slice his face to ribbons … but no wound marred his flesh, not even a pinprick of blood showed. He laughed at her shock, and the dagger fell from her nerveless fingers.
“You will understand my gift in time,” he said, all amusement gone. “Between then and now, I would prefer you were more docile.” His fist flashed, and Nesaea felt the blow only as a fleeting, thudding pain, then all the world passed beyond her sight….
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”
Those dark words swirled around her like living things, lighting upon her skin, defiling her flesh.
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!”
The incantation echoed into oblivion, and Nesaea came around by increments, groggy, head pounding. She lay on some sort of table, its top molded around her body. Though she could not see it, she felt a pulsing, bulbous knot at her temple. What happened … where am I?
She blinked, thinking her eyes betrayed her, but without question a rough-hewn rock ceiling hovered a few paces above her. Spider webs and dust motes danced on hot currents rising from strange, silver-flamed torches ensconced around the grim chamber.
Chamber? she thought uncertainly. The last thing she remembered was coming under attack by plainsmen. “I will watch over you,” she heard the memory of herself say to someone … a man.
“I could ask for no greater comfort,” he had answered, with a breathless grin that quickened her pulse. Who …
… Rathe!
All came back in a rush—the battle, her capture along with Fira and Carnala, the slogging ride to Fortress Hilan.
“Yaazapa Gathul! El yettairath dakerr! Yaazapa Gathul!” came the dread incantation, spoken in a voice she now recognized: Lord Sanouk.
A creeping breath of ice teased her skin, and she knew that she had been disrobed. That concern became a mere curiosity when the torchlight lost a measure of its radiance. Nesaea sensed a presence rising below her, an upwelling of cold. Dread coated her bare skin in a greasy sweat—
Suddenly all went blacker than a starless night, and flashing horrors passed before her vision. Some suffocating substance poured down her throat, choking off her cries. Cold, jellied hands— dozens , scores —at once caressed and tormented her bare flesh, and a grinding voice filled her mind, stilling her heart. Hers was the torment of the beset and the ravaged, the countless victims of life’s follies and cruelties, all pressed into her being and made her own in a single instant—
Then a creature drifted above her, a devilish god of gangrenous flesh and goggling eyes, an abomination with the grotesque attributes of
Similar Books
