Eric Flint - The Shadow of the Lion

"Come on!" Katerina barked. "Get in. You can hold the parcel. Just get in! We've got to get away from here!"

The boy jumped into the boat and cast loose hastily.

Katerina pushed off. With skill, she turned the gondola and sent it gliding away from the embassy.

Breathing a prayer she looked back. And nearly dropped the oar. It was hardly surprising really, with all the noise they'd made and the goings-on over at the embassy. But at the Casa Brunelli, the doors leading onto the upper-floor balcony were thrust open, flooding the balcony with light. She saw him clearly. The same slight red-haired man. The same single forbidding line of dark eyebrows. He was staring at them. Katerina would swear the expression on his face was one of triumph.

She shivered. And the shiver had nothing at all to do with her wet clothes.

Benito felt for his dry jacket. He was shivering. It was partly the cold and partly the fright. The boathook, bobbing in the canal behind them, had barely scratched his thigh. Hell. He loved thrills. It was the best part of being a roof-climber. But this was deep dark water. She could have her parcel. Then he'd be off. He wanted no part of this woman and her business. Fortunately, they'd part ways in a few hundred yards and he would never have to see her again. She'd never be any part of his world. He could look after himself, but he didn't want Marco involved with someone like this girl.

The monster was dragged away from its feeding by a shrill of command from its master. The master's servant, rather, through which Chernobog usually spoke and gave commands.

Emerging from the darkness of its feed?snarling, reluctant?the monster's world began to take on a semblance of color. Insofar, at least, as various shades of gray could be called "color." After a time, red streaks began to appear in the mist. Those were not real, however?simply reflections of the monster's own rage.

The sight of those scarlet flashes brought courage. Again the monster snarled, and this time with bellowing fury rather than frustration. The clump of gray that was the form of the master's servant seemed to waver, as if she were cowering in terror.

The monster's moment of pleasure was fleeting. In an instant, the master himself billowed through the mist, an eddy of gray so dark it was almost ebon.

Silence, beast! Do not challenge me.

Again, red streaks came into the mist. But these were like blazing bolts of lightning, overwhelming the monster's own fury as easily as a flooding river flushes aside a child's pond. For just a fleeting instant, the monster thought to catch sight of Chernobog behind the shadows and the mist. The master was terrifying?huge, and tusked, and horned, and taloned. Scaled like a dragon, bestriding a broken earth like a behemoth.

One of the scarlet flashes curled through the mist like a snake, and struck the monster's flank. Agony speared through it. The monster whimpered. Broken words pleading forgiveness tried to issue from lips that had once, long ago, had the semblance of human ones.

But that semblance was too ancient, now, too far gone. The words would not come any longer. Not over lips that were no more than a gash; not shaped by an ox-thick tongue writhing in a mouth that was more like an eel's gullet than a man's palate and throat.

Again, the spearing agony. The monster wailed. Wailing, it could manage?as could any beast.

Some part of the monster retained enough intelligence to think, if not speak, a protest. I was a god once!

"Only the shadow of one," came the sneering voice of Chernobog's servant?as if she were anything but a shadow herself. "And he isn't much of a god anyway, which is why he crouches at Great Chernobog's side. Wearing his master's leash."

The servant drifted forward, now fearless. For a moment, the monster sensed a vaguely female form coalescing, stooping. It felt another flash of rage?but a quickly suppressed one. She dared to inspect its feed!

"Not much left," she purred, jeering. "But then, I imagine the old monk's soul was mostly gristle anyway."

The form straightened and moved back into the mist. The gray of the shadow servant merged at the edges into the gray mist that surrounded the monster everywhere. Only a vague fluttering was left to indicate her shape.

The monster recognized the pattern. Chernobog would now speak himself, using the servant's voice.

"You have done well, beast."

The monster's momentary relief was immediately shredded by another scarlet lash coming through the mist, ripping into its flank like an axe. Gray-black blood spurted from a wound that was insubstantial?healing almost in the instant it was formed?but agonizing for all that. The monster wailed again, and again, crouching in terror.

"Which is why I punish you so lightly for your insolence."

The servant's vague form was replaced by another of those horrifying forward surges in the surrounding mist. The ebony billow that was Chernobog himself, threatening to take full and visible shape.

Do not forget your place, beast. I allow you to be powerful, at my convenience. I could as easily make you a worm, for my dining pleasure.

For a moment, the monster caught another glimpse of Chernobog on that broken landscape. Hunching, this time, over a mound of squirming souls. Much like worms, they looked; especially as they disappeared into the maw that devoured them, a few spilling out of the gigantic jaws onto the charred-black soil.

Another image flashed through the monster's mind. Itself?himself, then?held down by Chernobog's enormous limbs while the master tore out his manhood with that same maw and left the monster a bleeding, neutered ruin. Less than a eunuch, who had once been a god.

The monster was now completely cowed. Its heavy brow was lowered, the muzzle that had once been like a man's pressed into its chest. Oddly enough, perhaps, the chest itself was still hairless?quite unlike the shaggy limbs and the heavy spine that protruded like a ridge, covered with a long and stringy mane of hair.

At another time, the memory of what that hairless chest had once signified might have brought anguish. Now, the monster had no thoughts beyond submission.

"Good." The monster felt relief at hearing the servant's voice instead of Chernobog's own. As much as the monster hated and resented taking orders from one who was even less than it was…

Nothing was a terrifying as Chernobog, unshadowed.

"Good," its master repeated. "Your recent task also. It was well done, beast. The priest burned very nicely. Though I believe you wavered once, before this shadow restored your courage."

The monster whined. The master was unfair! A holy symbol held by such as that one?encased in steel?was a thing of great power. The master knew that. Such a fearsome one should never have been allowed?!

Silence.

The monster's thoughts fled. After a moment, the master spoke again. Thankfully, through his shadow voice.

"No matter. As elsewhere, this servant has her uses. And now the way is cleared for the creature Sachs."

The gray mist swirled and billowed. From experience, the monster knew that Chernobog was retreating into his own counsel. It managed to restrain any overt sign of relief. The master would know its thoughts, of course, since Chernobog had taken its soul. But… so long as the monster maintained all visible signs of docility, it would not be punished.

Not much, at least.

How long it was before the master spoke again, the monster knew not. In that mist-shrouded place where it was kept?caged, for all intents and purposes?time had little meaning.

The servant's voice rippled with the master's own amusement. It was an odd sound?as if a torrent in a cavern were being heard through an echoing chamber far distant. Raw and unrestrained male power, channeled through the pleasant modulations of a female throat.