by Dragonlance
More movement, to his right. Figures slunk into view … four of them, or more. In his near-blindness, it was hard to tell. They were oily creatures, with flesh like something left over in a fisherman’s net, tentacles squirming on their faces. And the eyes … the empty, white eyes.…
Crawling Maws. He’d heard Hult mention them, back on the beach. And from what had been said, the Maws were in league with the people they sought, the Faceless. Their minds rooted through his own, as supple as the cilia covering their mouths. They touched every notion that came to him.
It knows of us.
And the woman.
There were others with it. They seek the Hooded One.
It is as the Master said. When the child is born, our enemies will come.
Yes.…
Eldako swallowed. He knew what he had to do. If they could read his mind, he had to keep them away from … certain things, or the others would be in jeopardy. There was no overcoming them, not this many, but he could build walls. Block off his thoughts. He shut his eyes again, not pushing back, but simply keeping his mind blank, as empty as a summer sky.
It was harder than it seemed. They knew what he was doing before he even started, and used his own mind against him. They dredged up painful memories: the death of his mother, battles he’d lost, his own regret that he would likely never see the Green again. Those moments played out as if they were fresh, happening all over again. He bit his lip, focusing on nothing, and the recollections tore to wisps and faded away.
They tried other things. He’d accidentally given them the simplest visions of his companions, and now he saw them again, hurt, dying—their blood pouring down the steps of a great black pyramid somewhere deep in these woods. But it wasn’t his companions, not really; there were obvious differences. Shedara’s hair, not quite right. Hult, half a head taller than Forlo. Forlo’s face untroubled by thoughts of Essana. It wasn’t his friends, but imposters, half-formed creations of his mind and the Maws’. Again he thought of emptiness, and the vision vanished.
The alien minds stilled, and Eldako let himself smile. He had played a game with the other children of his clan, when he was just a boy, trying to be the last of his group to think of a golden dragon. It was a game he usually won—not by actively thinking of other things, but by thinking of nothing at all. He used that discipline now, knowing the Maws had relented only for the moment—another attack would come.
When it did, it didn’t matter how prepared he was—they overwhelmed him all the same. The Maws all hit him at the same time, six different minds pounding at his own, their thought-voices as loud as if they were shouting in his ear. He choked, his scarred face twisting as he tried to shut the voices out, but it was no good. Bit by bit, the Maws wore away at the nothingness. It tattered and tore, leaving bare his thoughts. More flashes of white pain followed, and Eldako had to fight back the urge to vomit. Tears slid from his good eye, down into his hair. He bit his tongue, tasted blood.…
The images came. Hult and Chovuk, held captive by his clan. His father, agreeing to send him with the Uigan. The Tiger’s horde, sweeping across the Tiderun, only to be consumed by the sudden, voracious wave. Shadow-fiends at Coldhope, and in Armach-nesti. The emperor of the minotaurs, dying. Panak. The Wyrm-namer. The kender. The Teacher’s headless corpse. Gloomwing, bearing down on him, his jaws yawning wide.…
“No!” Eldako cried, his back arching as the Crawling Maws ripped his mind wide open.
Without warning, four of the six voices vanished—one suddenly, with a cry of pain, the other three silently pulling out, distracted by something nearby. He heard the thrum of bowstrings, and the ring of steel. Voices, too. Many were strange, speaking a birdlike language he didn’t know. Three he recognized, however. Three were his friends.
Stop them! shouted one of the Maws that remained in his brain.
They are everywhere, said another. The cha’asii—
Humans, also. They are too strong. They are protected. I can slow them, but—
Eldako fought the Maws as best he could, pushing back against the invisible hands that held him down. He couldn’t shake them off—not entirely—but he got back some control over his own body, enough to roll over and look toward the commotion. As he did, a head spun past, turning end over end, twitching tentacles spreading wide. It trailed ropes of white blood that spattered the ferns. One of the Maws collapsed where it had been standing, falling first to its knees, then sideways onto the ground. Behind the toppling body, he saw Hult, whipping his sword around as he finished the killing stroke. The Uigan’s tattooed face was twisted into a look of disgust, spattered with pale ichor. He let out a ferocious battle cry, then staggered back as one of the other monsters pointed at him. One hand flew to his head, his mouth gaping in pain. The Maw twitched his tentacles, and Hult flew backward into a tree.
Then Forlo was there, cursing in the minotaur tongue as he raised his sword above Hult’s tormentor. The Maw whirled, extending a bony finger, but Forlo’s sword snapped around, taking the creature’s arm off at the elbow. A hideous shriek filled Eldako’s head, pain seeping from the maimed creature’s mind into his own. He grunted, trying to stem the agony.
The prisoner! cried the Maw’s mind-voice. They have come for him. Get him out, before—
Forlo brought his sword down again, on top of the Maw’s bulbous head. Its skull shattered like an egg, scattering slime in all directions. The monster sat down hard, its legs jerking as the last echoes of life faded from its body.
The Maw’s companions had heard its death-cry, and now their bony hands grabbed Eldako and hauled him to his feet. Their thoughts bored into his mind, forming a compulsion he tried to resist. He couldn’t, though; together, the two creatures were too strong.
RUN.
Eldako had been a fine runner, before. Now, though, he was tired and in pain, and he didn’t want to follow the Maws’ orders anyway. He moved like a string-puppet, jerking about and lurching away from Forlo and Hult. The Maws fell in beside him, one cold hand on each of his arms, coaxing him, cajoling him, forcing him to obey. When he got his coordination back, he began to gather speed. Behind, Forlo and Hult were yelling, their swords singing against unseen foes. The cha’asii loosed volley after volley at the Maws.
Another cry tore through his mind, and one of the voices left his head. His captors’ numbers were dwindling—but he was sprinting faster, the shakiness leaving his stride. Running hurt him, hurt deeply, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t disobey the commands. The Maws filled his brain, drove out all thoughts but those aimed at flight. They drove him on, faster, leaving the fight behind. Eldako had the horrible feeling that, no matter how much his body protested, no matter what damage it did, they would keep driving him.
They would break him, if it came to it. He kept trying to fight, but the creatures were too strong. He might tear the soles of his feet to ribbons, snap an ankle, rip muscles and snap tendons, and still he would keep fleeing, driven by their cold, passionless thoughts.
A shadow rose in front of them, a dozen paces away. The Maws flinched in surprise, trying to change Eldako’s course, but too late. In a single, fluid motion, the figure drew something from its belt, cocked back its arm, and threw.
The knife whistled as it spun through the air. It struck the Maw to Eldako’s right, plunging deep into one of its staring eyes. The creature made a wild, gibbering sound in his brain, then it stumbled and fell, its claws ripping bloody furrows in his arm as it lost its grip. Its mind slipped away from his—
And then there was only one. And Eldako felt stronger.
With a roar of pent-up fury, Eldako shoved the final Maw’s thoughts out of his brain. It squealed and struggled, but he got rid of it just the same. He didn’t waste a moment, coming to a halt in mid stride, then spinning and hammering the edge of his good hand into the creature’s tentacled mouth. The Maw made a wet, pulpy sound, and he grabbed hold of the quivering cilia and slammed the monster into the trunk of a tree. Tiny, awful, needlel
ike things bit at his hand—the creature’s jaws, or teeth, or whatever nightmare lay beneath the tentacles.
He barely noticed. His anger was too great. Still bellowing, he pounded the Maw against the tree, again and again until the back of its head was a white, seeping ruin. The fiend went limp, all save its tentacles, which squirmed in his torn and bloody hand. Finally he let go, and the creature crumpled in a heap and lay still.
Silence returned to the jungle. The battle was over. Eldako turned, his arm slick to the elbow, and stared at the shadow who had saved him. Shedara stepped forward, moonlight softening her face.
It did no such favors for his own, by the way she bit her lip. The horror in her eyes told him all he needed to know. She hesitated. He held out his dripping hand, the one he’d used to slaughter the Maw.
“I am the same person as before,” he said. “You needn’t fear me.”
Shame colored her face. Shaking her head, she stepped forward and cupped her hand to his cheek—the unscarred one, he noticed. At least it was something.
“I thought … I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“So did I.”
He tried to smile, but his lips wouldn’t obey. There was pain all over, in his face, his missing eye, his blistered arm: the Maws’ control over him had been holding back the full agony of his condition. Now, as the frenzy of the fight drained away, he found himself collapsing, the strength going out of his legs. Shedara caught him, helped lower him down. She bent over him, forcing herself to look at him. He could tell it wasn’t easy. This was what he loved about her, though—she was brave and had a stubborn streak a Fianawar dwarf would have envied. Trembling, she leaned in close and kissed his swollen, acid-ravaged lips.
“It’s all right now,” she told him. “I’m here.”
Chapter
28
THE TEMPLE OF AKH-TAZI, NERON
The Keeper was finally dying. Essana could hear it happening, a change in his rasping breath, a weakening in the rattle of the chains from which his broken body hung. She heard him gurgle, a nasty wet sound he made when he forgot he could no longer speak. He sucked in a breath, let it out in a wet hiss … and was silent.
She lay in the dark, bound by shackles, her hands resting on the loose skin of her belly, where the baby had been. “Azar?” she whispered.
He replied with a groan and another weak, reedy breath. The chains clattered. Essana sighed and shut her eyes—death would come for the Keeper, but at its own pace. The Brethren wanted him to linger; their magic held him here.
The hours drifted by. Azar stopped breathing again and again, and each time she prayed to Mislaxa—take him, take him, finally free him from his pain—but as with her son, the goddess never answered. Every time, just when she began to hope, the breathing started again. He whimpered with frustration: he was trying to die, but it wasn’t enough. He was as trapped as she was.
No, that wasn’t right. He might be in constant agony, unable to move, speak, or see, but they’d done far worse to her. He hadn’t carried another life for month upon month, only to have it wrested away at the moment of birth. He hadn’t begged and screamed to see his child, only to be pummeled into silence by the yaggol’s unfeeling minds. He didn’t have to live, day after day, with the knowledge that something terrible was happening to his son … something he had no power to stop. The Keeper couldn’t know that kind of anguish. Essana would have traded it for pain a hundred times worse than what he was enduring.
They had left her after the birth, spent and weak, drifting in and out of fever. They had not returned to the cell—not with food, not with water. She could sense the yaggol’s thoughts, lurking at the edge of her own, observing without caring. But the Brethren didn’t come. For all she knew, they had gone on to the Burning Sea, with her son and the Hooded One—but she didn’t think so. There was more to be done. She and the Keeper both had a part to play, still.
Finally, after the gods knew how long, she heard movement outside. Essana raised her head as the door creaked open and cold light spilled across the floor. She stared, waiting for a black-cloaked figure to enter—the Master or one of his brothers. But the one who stepped into view was not one of the Faceless.
This figure wore no hood; just a simple cassock of colorless linen. He was short, too—no taller than a kender. With the light from the hall behind it, she couldn’t make out any features—only that he was very thin, with long hair spilling down over his shoulders. But there was something in his bearing as he stepped through the doorway that was weirdly familiar. It was as if she were watching Barreth decades ago, as …
As a six-year-old boy.
Essana sat up, feeling cold all over. Ignoring the pain as the manacles tore at her wrists, she tried to reach out toward the figure, wanting to cry out his name. But she’d never given him a name. She’d never had the chance.
“My son!” she breathed.
The boy stepped back, afraid. Later, she would reflect on how frightening she must have seemed—a dirty, blood-smeared apparition, pale and gaunt, chained to the floor. To this child, who likely didn’t even know the word “mother,” she would be a more horrifying sight than the yaggol and the Faceless.
Now, though, his reaction made her heart ache. She reached out her hands. “Please, it’s all right. I won’t hurt you.…”
He shook his head, shrank back into the doorway. She begged him with her eyes. No. Don’t leave me alone here.…
Then he was gone, out the door again, feet pattering down the hall, the door left ajar behind him. Essana stared at the empty opening, eyes stinging, too parched for tears. She hadn’t even gotten a good look at his face. All she had were questions.
How had he grown so old? She hadn’t given birth more than a few weeks ago, by her reckoning. The Brethren had done something, made him age faster.
She bowed her head, defeated. “You bastards,” she breathed. “You’re robbing him of his childhood. Stealing his life.”
“Perceptive,” said a voice from the door, thick with disdain.
Looking up, she saw him. The Master stood where her son had been, peering down at her, hands folded in his sleeves. Two yaggol lurked behind him. She felt their minds slither over hers, ready to defile her at a gesture from their lord.
“We have no use for children, you see,” he said. “The Faceless Emperor will not enter this world in a brat’s body. Our magic will keep aging him until he is grown … perhaps twenty years old.
“Of course, his wits will still be those of a babe, but that is little matter.” The cloaked shoulders rose and fell. “He is a vessel only—the mind doesn’t matter at all. Once Maladar emerges from the statue, the body will be his. And with the power of the Faceless Emperor, the boy will stop aging altogether. He may lose his childhood, but neither will he know old age. You should be glad, my lady—your son will live forever.”
He bowed slightly and turned to go. Essana watched, a chasm yawning in her belly, too stunned to reply. As he laid his hand upon the door, though, he turned and glanced back at her, eyes flashing from the depths of his cowl.
“A pity that you will not be around much longer to watch him grow.”
She lunged—and was met with a white-hot explosion, deep in her brain. She flopped down again, retching, her insides a twisting knot. The yaggol regarded her through the entrance, their tentacles waving; then the door thudded shut again. Darkness filled the room.
She stared toward the doorway, wishing the boy would come back—that she could behold her son again. But that time had passed. The next time she saw him, he would be older. She would never know him as a child.
Sleep came, in time. Even in dreams, her son never showed his face.
More time passed. It seemed like days. The Keeper slid toward death repeatedly, only to revive before the gods could claim him. His groans were the only human contact Essana had. She felt her sanity fraying, her thoughts dwelling on the child, wanting to hear his voice, hold him in her arms … everything the
Brethren had denied her. She dreamed he might return to her, pity her, try to set her free.
It was folly. Her son wouldn’t know pity. With the Master for a father, he would learn only cruelty, deceit, wickedness—and that hurt worse than anything. When the Faceless were done with him, her son would be as evil as they were.
And then Maladar would take him, and he wouldn’t be anything. He would be gone, swallowed up, like the flame of a candle thrown into a bonfire. She could do nothing to stop it. She even gave up praying. Either she was beyond the gods’ power or they simply didn’t care. It came to the same thing.
In time, the door opened again. Essana tried to turn toward the opening. She could barely move now, her muscles atrophied by hunger, her mind fuzzy with thirst. The deprivation would have killed most by now, even the strongest minotaur; only the Brethren’s magic held her here. After several excruciating attempts, she managed to face the door. She hoped it would be the boy again, but it wasn’t. Six yaggol stood there, and with them was one of the Faceless, the Watcher. He stepped in, the tentacled aberrations crowding around him.
“What is it?” she asked. “What more do you want?”
The Watcher shook his head. “Not you, my lady. Not this time.”
He pointed across the room, toward the curtain. Four of the yaggol walked to where the Keeper hung. The others kept their eyes on Essana, ready to seize her mind. She fought to keep her thoughts calm, not to give them a reason.
“What are you going to do with him?” she asked.
“What should have been done long ago,” the Watcher answered. “He will pay the price for his treachery.”
She watched him walk up to the curtain. With a swift jerk, he ripped the fabric down.
Essana cried out, trying to turn away. She was too weak, however, and though she squeezed her eyes shut, it was too late. The image of what hung in that alcove had burned into her mind. She knew she would see it for the rest of her life—however long that was.
