Lord of the Black Tower: A Mega-Omnibus (5-book epic fantasy box set)

by Jack Conner

  She found him in the dark and laid her head against his chest. By this time he’d located a sharp stone and had sawed through most of his ropes. When his hands were free, he freed hers, then held her tightly.

  “I’m glad you’re with me,” she whispered.

  “I’m not.”

  She didn’t laugh. “If you weren’t here, Bal, I’d go mad. I know I would.”

  “Oh, you handled Ungier much better than I did.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then: “When the caravan was attacked and I was waiting, hiding at the temple, I thought you were dead, Bal. I was so scared. I just knew those beasts had gotten you. And when I saw you there, coming out of the smoke, it was like a dream ...”

  “I wish we could wake up from it.”

  She let out a breath. “Me, too.”

  Suddenly all his despair rose up in him, and he had to clench his jaws to resist a sob. How could it have come to this? He should have been bedding wayward ladies in Glorifel and dueling their noble husbands, and Rolenya should be practicing the Song of Beginning. Instead she was to become a whore and he a slave. He wanted to rage, to scream, to bash his skull against the stones.

  She kissed his cheek. “It will be all right,” she said.

  Unable to speak, he laid down, feeling fetid hay beneath. Somewhere a rat skittered.

  Rolenya gathered his head and put it in her lap. She must have sensed his hopelessness, as she stroked his hair and began to sing. Her singing began low at first, then it rose higher, and higher, and he saw shining cities and fair vistas laid before him. He smiled drowsily. It was almost as if he could feel the stonework around him shrinking back from the sound of her voice, as if something in her were anathema to the very nature of this place.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, some sort of light lit the age-stained stone walls.

  He gasped.

  For, just faintly, as if a white candle burned from within her, Rolenya was glowing.

  BOOK II

  INTO THE FLAME

  Chapter 7

  In the highest spire of Gulrothrog, Ungier knelt before the altar of Gilgaroth. He bowed before the great stone wolf head that loomed above the black stone block. Twisted stained-glass windows let in purplish light that washed across the gilded pillars and his leathery gray flesh. Hundreds of dripping red candles added their own light to the room. Gilgaroth possessed innumerable strongholds, and in each stood a temple to him. So it was even in Gulrothrog, where Ungier had in the main replaced the worship of Gilgaroth and Mogra with the worship of himself. Yet not even he neglected to maintain a temple to the Lord of the Second Hell.

  The Borchstog who would be sacrificed lay upon the stone bed of the altar. He did not resist, did not even open his eyes, as Ungier held up a curved knife and drew it across his throat. Black blood jetted high into the warm air. The Borchstog shuddered, gurgled, and died.

  With effort, Ungier restrained himself from partaking of the fountain of blood. Soon it subsided, and he breathed easier.

  The Borchstog’s soul, like a wisp of black smoke, was drawn up from his corpse to the stone mouth of the Wolf statue, disappearing down its throat. It could not be seen by mortal eyes, but Ungier watched in awe, marveling at the power of his sire.

  “My Lord Gilgaroth, please take this sacrifice with my deepest love and reverence,” he said. “With this one’s death, my force is diminished and Yours is increased. Let this be a sign of my devotion. Come, Father. Speak to me, if You would.”

  For a moment, nothing happened, and Ungier feared Gilgaroth would not respond. Then, suddenly, the Wolf’s eyes blazed with real fire and smoke rose up from the stone throat to wreathe the statue’s head.

  “You have called Me,” said the Wolf, and though the stone jaws did not move, Ungier heard the voice clearly in his mind.

  “Yes, my Sire.” Ungier’s own voice quavered at the import of the news he would give. He took the risk of raising his head to meet his father’s burning eyes. “First, let me thank You for at last confiding in me. It’s reaped a fine harvest.”

  “Tell me,” the voice boomed, and the windows rattled.

  Ungier smiled. Suddenly he was important to his father. “By utilizing the stone You gave me, I was at last able to locate Itherin in time for my forces to strike.” He paused. “It has taken three years, but my glarumri have slain her.”

  Gilgaroth’s eyes blazed. “So then, the time has come.”

  * * *

  Baleron grunted as the barbed whip of an overseer bit into the tender flesh of his back, but the prince had grown used to such pain over the months and years of his imprisonment and he did not cry out. He did not drop his pickaxe. Instead, sweat flying from his hair, blood coursing down his broad, scarred back, he kept hacking into the rock wall of the mine, side by side with the other slaves of Gulrothrog. They numbered in the tens of thousands, and their ranks were quite diverse; dwarves, elves, men, giants and others labored alongside each other in the flame-lit hell deep within the mountain. Hectic shadows danced along the stone walls. Screams and shouts echoed endlessly. The stench of sulfur pervaded everything.

  The path leading to the wall Baleron toiled at overlooked a glowing chasm, at the bottom of which ran a magma river. The boiling blood of Oksil flowed down the channel to empty into the great sea of fire in the very heart of the volcano. The river threw red light up the chasm walls, and from time to time a laughing Borchstog would hurl a slave screaming into its fiery depths.

  The Borchstog that had whipped Baleron made its way down the line, shouting and meting out punishment to those it wanted to bleed. He was Ghroq, and he’d been the overseer of Baleron’s group for a month now, by Baleron’s reckoning, though it was hard to tell for certain. Ghroq was one of the cruelest overseers Baleron had worked under, and he’d worked under many.

  Every time the demon passed, Baleron ground his teeth together and held his pickaxe just a bit more tightly. The wooden shaft dug into his palms, leaving splinters under his calluses. He waited. Soon, he knew, the time would come.

  When it did, he was ready.

  Ghroq focused on a slave to Baleron’s left, an old man with hollow eyes and a bent back. His name was Aran, and Baleron had grown to know him well over the past three years. Aran had been the patriarch of the House of Geihem and hailed from Riengard in southern Felgrad. He had been leading a party in pursuit of Borchstog marauders when a larger party had ambushed them. Most of Aran’s men had been slain, but he had been taken, though he often complained that he wished he hadn’t been.

  His feeble efforts with his pickaxe seemed to amuse Ghroq, who laughed and barked insults.

  “You’re pathetic,” he said. The amused glint in his eyes turned to one of cruelty.

  His triple-pronged whip suddenly curled around Aran’s legs and dragged them out from under him. Aran screamed. Ghroq pulled him over the rocky ground onto the pathway overlooking the fiery gorge, and there Ghroq kicked him, brutal strikes in the spine and ribs. His whip struck down.

  Baleron knew what would happen next. He’d seen it too often. Ghroq would beat Aran, breaking his body like a sack of twigs until he could not scream for the blood in his mouth, then hurl him into the river of fire.

  “No!” Aran wailed. “Don’t—please!”

  Enough. Gripping his pickaxe, Baleron leapt down to the path and embedded his blade in the overseer’s skull.

  Ghroq jerked, his whip-arm half raised, his expression locked in malicious glee. A drop of saliva ran down from his open mouth. He died without even knowing death was near. With a grunt, Baleron ripped his pickaxe free and shoved Ghroq’s corpse out over the lip of the chasm. It fell, end over end, toward the glowing river.

  Borchstog shouts rose up. The other overseers converged on Baleron.

  “Go!” he snapped at Aran. “Back to the wall!” The old man, still on the ground, just looked up at him blankly. “Go! Go, or they’ll kill you!”

  Aran nodded once. “Thank you.”

/>   He shuffled off toward the wall just as the overseers arrived, and Baleron sank under their whips and fists. Pain burned throughout his body, but finally a chain-wrapped fist struck the back of his head and he knew no more.

  He woke, dizzy, to find himself hanging from the chasm wall, suspended over the stream of magma. Chains about his wrists and ankles bound him to iron rings set in the rock. Blearily, he tried to make sense of the situation. He heard a buzzing in his ears. How much damage had they done to him? He experimented by puffing out his cheeks. Winced. He probed his mouth, finding a loose molar. He spat it out. A trail of blood followed it to the red river below. His face must be a lumpy nightmare, he realized. He flexed his legs and arms. His back. He was whole. Battered and bruised, but whole.

  Their beating had been no worse than usual, though never before had they hung him over the fire. They must be getting frustrated with him. Would they take him again to their rooms of torture?

  Baleron did not know how long he stayed on the wall. As he hung there staring down into the gorge, watching drips of his blood from his forehead and elsewhere fall half a mile down to fry in the depths, he passed in and out of consciousness, and when at last he was able to stay awake for some time, the buzzing in his ears receded.

  A shadow descended from above. He looked up.

  The dark, tall, winged figure hovered before him. Black eyes bore into Baleron. The jagged crown glinted with red light. Broad batwings pumped slowly up and down behind him.

  “You,” Baleron said.

  In Ungier’s arms, held like an infant, was Aran.

  Baleron felt sick. “No,” he said. “Don’t ... don’t ...”

  Ungier smiled, revealing blood-coated fangs. Many small puncture marks dotted the old man’s throat. As Baleron watched, Ungier bent his leathery head and bit into the man’s neck one more time. Aran twitched; that was all.

  Baleron strained against his chains, tendons standing out from arms and chest, but the chains resisted him.

  When Ungier lifted his head, his whole lower face was smeared in red. It dripped from his chin onto Aran’s narrow chest, which no longer rose and fell. Then, almost gently, Ungier released the old man. Baleron watched, sickened, as the man’s body diminished below, shrinking against the white-hot glow of the river’s center.

  “Burn that into your memory, boy,” said Ungier. “That is what comes of heroics in my house. You have gotten away with too much for too long. Next time I will have every single slave in your pen tortured to death for your insolence.” The rithlag wiped his chin, gathering up a palm-full of crimson, and flung it at Baleron, spattering the prince’s chest. “His blood is on you.”

  Ungier flapped his wings and ascended, but Baleron did not watch him go. His eyes fixed on the place where Aran had vanished.

  Someday, he thought. Someday ...

  That day seemed very far away.

  * * *

  They let him hang for a week. Occasionally they brought him water and rotten meat, which they shoved down his mouth. Lesser vampires, sons and daughters of Ungier, brought him these. One of the females sucked his blood, pressing her naked body against his. She locked her legs about his waist and writhed against him, rasping his scabs so that they burst open. She aroused him despite himself and pleasured herself on him. Then, covered in his blood and filled with his juices, she laughed and flew away.

  Other vampires would fly down and mock him, or prod him with spears and knives. Finally they hauled him up and put him to work again.

  He mined the earth all that day until, exhausted, he collapsed. This was the typical pattern. The Borchstogs made sure he wasn’t pretending his exhaustion by whipping and kicking him until they were satisfied, then threw him on a cart covered with bodies in a similar state. He was the last one this time. A team of dwarves chained to the cart pulled it through the halls until they reached one of the rest areas, the dreaded pens.

  Borchstog guards unlocked the iron gates, and the dwarves removed the fallen bodies from the cart as gently as they could. Baleron they sat on the ground along a cave wall, though he was so tired he was hardly aware of them. He slept deeply, helpless against his nightmares.

  After what seemed like seconds, he awoke to savage rattling. A Borchstog banged an iron rod against the bars: the call for supper. Baleron could smell its stench from here. Despite the putrid odor, his stomach rumbled.

  “Mmm,” a voice said to his right, and he looked over to see Veronica.

  “Makes a man’s mouth water,” he said, playing along.

  She smiled, the flesh around her nasal cavity crinkling. Before her capture, she must have been a beautiful woman; Baleron could still see it in her eyes, in the shape of her face and her flowing hair, however filthy. But she had cut off her own nose and gouged her cheeks to make her less appealing to the Borchstogs, and they’d placed her in the mines instead of using her as a plaything. Baleron admired her for it, and she often let him show his appreciation in the dark. Though her face was a ruin, her body was not.

  She smiled and gripped his hand, and he forced himself to look her in the eyes.

  “After you,” he said.

  She rose from the floor, where she must have lain beside him as he slept, and he followed her toward the trough—

  The whole cavern shook. Dust drifted down from the ceiling. Slaves and Borchstogs alike glanced nervously upward. A stalactite broke off and shattered to the floor. Slaves scurried out of the way.

  “It’s the Leviathan!” people said.

  “Ol Mrungona!” murmured the Borchstogs.

  “He stirs,” Veronica muttered, and there was no little fear in her voice.

  It was an old legend, perhaps more than a legend. Slaves and Borchstogs alike whispered of a great being that dwelt in the heart of the volcano, kept warm by the fires of the mountain. Some said he was an ancient god or demon. Most believed that he was a Great Worm, one of the earliest and most powerful beings to walk the earth, and that he was the protector of Gulrothrog, a servant or ally of Ungier. But he was never seen, save in the most dire circumstances. Few had ever witnessed him, and those from afar. The Leviathan, he was called. The Earth-shaker. Some people even confused him with Grudremorq, the Fire God of whom Ungier was custodian.

  Eventually the rumbles died away, and everyone breathed easier.

  A barrel of slop was wheeled before the pen. Dwarves lifted the barrel high and poured its contents down a black, encrusted funnel, which channeled the slop into rusty troughs running the length of the pen. Their dignity seemingly forgotten, the slaves, Baleron and Veronica included, dropped to all fours and lapped up the gruel. Like pigs, he thought.

  “This stuff is horrible, and there’s not enough of it,” Veronica said.

  “That’s ever the way.”

  The other slaves gave him room as he ate. They had come to respect him over the years, owing to his attacks on particular overseers. Sometimes when food was low they would offer part of their portions to him, though he never accepted.

  He tried to turn off his mind to his beastly state as he drew nourishment from the slop. It would get him through another day, and that was all that mattered. Ever since coming here, he took life one day at a time. He had to. Eventually he hoped that he would escape this hell and . . .

  No. He could allow himself no false hopes. To do otherwise would be to needlessly torture himself. And he had the Borchstogs to take care of that.

  Whenever he didn’t perform to their satisfaction, or if he had killed someone they liked (evidently not the case with Ghroq), they would drag him off to their torture pits to terrorize and brutalize him for days until they tired of him and dragged him back to the mines. Most slaves, he knew, were not so fortunate. Most slaves did not have the relative protection of ... whatever it was that had been done to him. Some great Doom, some great purpose—some reason to be kept whole and alive and sane. He saw many get tortured to death, or to the point of madness. He made friends only to see the Borchstogs break them, o
r slay them. Sometimes Lord Ungier would descend into the mines and do the honors himself. More often one of the slaves would be brought before him as a meal. The rithlag needed blood, and he demanded only the best; only the strongest or most attractive of the slaves was worthy to be drained by His Lordship. He preferred elves, for their blood held power, but they were also his best, most tireless workers, and some could lay charms on the weapons and tools they made for him.

  The sound of a woman crying caused Baleron to snap his head up. To his chagrin, Rolenya stood at the entrance to the pen, her small white hands gripping the bars tightly. Tears hovered at her blue eyes as she watched him shovel up slop.

  The other slaves turned to regard her. Baleron wanted to snap at them not to let their greedy eyes wander over her lightly-attired body, but he checked himself. Many looked forward to her comings with near-religious fervor. Only Veronica did not seem pleased to see her.

  Baleron quit his meal, wiped his chin and crossed to Rolenya.

  She looked very beautiful today, even more so than usual. Her hair hung in artfully curled black locks arranged by gold pins; her face was made-up tastefully and her elaborately cut white dress hugged her body like a glove. Ungier enjoyed seeing her in sensual outfits, and she did not disappoint. Over the last three years, she had become a favorite of his, and Baleron hated him for it. To Baleron she was a fallen angel. He couldn’t bear to see her like this, a painted whore, just as she couldn’t bear to see him as he was.

  Vomit and death hung on the greasy air as his fingers enclosed hers. They stared into each other’s eyes.

  “Bal,” she whispered.

  “Rol.” His voice sounded rough and choked. “What news from the land of the living?” He tried to sound light but did not quite succeed.

  She shook her head. “Another sacrifice tonight. He requests your presence.”

  “Murder as a spectacle.” He grimaced. “Tell him no.”

  “He won’t take no for an answer this time.” She squeezed his hands. “Come on, Bal. At least we’ll get to see each other again ... without bars in the way.”