James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

Looking suddenly unsure about his choice, Treon shrank away when the Gathul threw back its head, obsidian fangs masticating around spiteful laughter. Rathe shuddered, for behind those glinting teeth reality had no meaning. As if seen from a great distance, waited a plane of cracked reddish stone and lakes of thick, bubbling black fluid. Beneath a sky of roiling green fire, emaciated figures sheathed in flaking parchment skin capered madly in a horrific parody of dance. Faintly, he could hear their tormented wails, their begging for respite.

The god dissolved into a billowing mass blacker than ten sins, obscuring the vision. Gathul fell upon a screaming Treon, enveloping him.

Rathe scuttled back, sickened as that vaporous form wrapped tight about the captain, at first clinging like a second skin, then pressing inward. Treon’s struggles went on far longer than Rathe cared to watch, but he was helpless to look away.

By increments, Treon’s flailing ceased, his screams died, and his limbs folded and snapped with grisly crunching sounds, until nothing remained save a shrinking ebon ball. Rathe shivered with dread. He had despised Treon, but no man deserved such a terrible fate.

When smaller than the tip of his little finger, the tiny sphere that had been Gathul vanished with a resounding clap of thunder, and an invisible force buffeted Rathe.

After silence fell again, he opened his eyes and found that the entombed captives had toppled from their now open prisons.

Rathe shot a glance at a groaning, stuporous Sanouk. Where he would not have condemned Treon to such a monstrous sentence as Gathul had delivered upon him, Sanouk was another matter. The Lord of Hilan had knowingly and willingly subjected his sacrifices to unimaginable torments. For such evil, he had earned a slow, agonizing death.

With some effort, Rathe gained his feet, intending to set upon Sanouk, but then Nesaea was before him, her shivering arms thrown around his neck, clutching him tight. They held each other until the wretched sounds of agony, terror and madness intruded upon their reunion.

“We must help them,” Nesaea said in a hoarse voice.

“You need rest,” Rathe protested, glancing again at Sanouk, a bloody and beaten wreck. By all appearances, he was not going anywhere.

Nesaea rested her hands on Rathe’s chest. “Sanouk poisoned me, but now that I am free, I find that my torments have mostly run their course. For some of these others, that is not so.” Whatever she had suffered, she pushed aside, and helped Rathe see to the others.

Where Nesaea went to free the gagging woman with the noose around her neck, Rathe moved to the burning girl. Smoking and charred, she stared at him from lidless eyes. There was nothing he could do, save hold her. She shook violently in his arms, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Trying to speak, her eyes glazed, and her spirit fled.

Shaken, Rathe moved away and saw to the drowning boy, who lay on his back, coughing. When his pale blue eyes rolled toward Rathe, some measure of their fear evaporated. “The Scorpion!” he gasped, as if he had been waiting for Rathe to show himself.

“I have been called that,” Rathe said, sensing that the boy would not tolerate a denial. “You need to rest.”

“Father says I am fierce as a wolf,” the boy said.

“I would judge that you are even fiercer.”

On the far side of the chamber, a man began howling, his arms wrapped around his head. Others who had been imprisoned curled on the ground in tight, protective balls. Before Rathe could go to them, a bloody hand fell on his wrist. He faced the old eyeless man, every inch of his flesh sliced to ribbons. Like the burned girl, his tomb had kept him alive, where he should have perished quickly. Now freed, his time was short.

“I am Undai,” the dying man whispered. “It is I who awakened the god Gathul from its timeless slumber … I who sought its blessings.”

Rathe considered the confession, and knew it should anger him that so many had suffered for one fool’s desires, but looking upon the piteous wretch, he could find only remorse in his heart. Such foolish endeavors were the way of men, to seek easier paths to their wants. As long as men strode the world, limited only by their malleable integrity, such seeking and its consequences would never end.

“Rest easy,” Rathe said, knowing Undai had but moments to live.

Undai’s grip tightened. “You must destroy this place. Break the altar, seal the doorway. Ask after my home-a hovel in the woods beyond the village-and burn all that lies within. No one must ever find my secrets. No one!”

“I will do as you ask,” Rathe promised, despite knowing that in providing one barrier to forbidden fruits, another, somewhere else, would eventually be torn down.

“I … I am sorry,” Undai wheezed, chest hitching as he breathed his last.

A flash of movement drew Rathe’s eye to the open doorway. He glanced at the empty spot where Sanouk had been and cursed.

“You must capture him,” Nesaea called, rushing near.

“I must kill him,” Rathe amended, rising to his feet. He hesitated. “What of these others?”

“Only time and care can heal those yet tormented by the memory of their suffering.”

“I will send others to help,” Rathe said, turning toward the doorway.

Nesaea caught his arm, bleary eyes appraising his nakedness. “Unless you mean to fight as a savage of the western hill country, you need clothing-we all do.”

Rathe glanced down at himself. Dirty, scraped, bruised and bloody as he was, there was still no question that he wore not a stich of clothing. Of his own garb and Sanouk’s, there was no sign. He took up Sanouk’s sword, and gave Nesaea a grin. “Steel is all I need.” His grin broadened as his looked her over. “After a proper scrubbing, I’d rather you remain as you are.”

She slapped him, gently, but her return smile did not light her eyes. “Cut his demon’s heart from his chest.”

He kissed her brow, then ran from the chamber.

It took longer than he wished to escape the catacombs. With all that had happened, with his pains and weakness growing at every step, the map he had constructed in his mind proved fractured. If not for the few torches lighting the way, he might have been lost for hours. Had Sanouk been wise, he would have cast down those torches, but it seemed the lord’s only thoughts were for escape.

In time, Rathe found a long flight of steps. He took them up two at a time. Fury gave him strength, as much as his joy at finding Nesaea alive. At the top of the stairs, he came to a locked door. After several crashing blows with his shoulder, the bolt holding it closed ripped out of the doorpost and slammed open against the adjacent wall.

“Woman!” he roared, halting a servant scurrying down a long corridor. She spun and stared, mouth formed into a delicate circle of shock. “Gather clothing to cover a dozen people, and take it below. Mind you follow the torches,” he warned, thinking of his own troubles with escaping, “or you will become lost.”

“We are under attack,” the woman squeaked, twisting her hands together at her waist. She was young of face, with tired hazel eyes, but old and worn of body.

Rathe stalked forward, hand flexing the hilt of the sword, gaze fierce. She cowered, too caught by fear to dash away. He hated that he must put fear into her, but knew it was necessary in order to focus her mind on helping others, rather than herself.

“Take your fellows with you,” he said when he loomed over her. “Have them bring food and water, enough to last a day or two. Stay in the catacombs until I, or one of my men, return. You will be safe there.”

She fairly quivered before him, tears streaming from her closed eyes. He abruptly relented, and placed a calming hand on her shoulder. She flinched at his touch. “Did you see Lord Sanouk?”