by Jack Conner
“Yes. The world will fall to me, and when it is mine I will bridge the gulf to Kunrieth and free Lorg-jilaad from the Void—and I will owe it all to your Doom, which is still most thoroughly upon you. You ARE Ul Ravast, whether you wish it or no. You are my Deliverer. My Champion.”
“You bastard,” Baleron said.
Gilgaroth’s flaming eyes simmered. “Why aren’t you kneeling, mortal? ON YOUR KNEES!”
A cloud overcame Baleron’s mind, and he was only dimly aware of sinking to one knee.
“What do you want of me?” he shouted.
“I can make you obey me, but only within the borders of Oslog. Beyond them you are your own agent. I need you to be mine.”
Through still-gritted teeth, Baleron spat, “Then make me a werewolf, put a demon into my body. It’s the only way you’ll ever control me in the outer world.”
“No. I need you whole, at least in spirit, so that you can pass their examinations, for they will not be fooled twice. But there is another way.” Again, the Shadow paused. “What if I told you to chop off your left hand?”
“You’re mad!”
A clammy feeling twisted its way up through Baleron’s gut, like a serpent shoving its way through his innards, then seized his mind and body with a sudden icy grip. He tried to fight it, but it was too strong. His body twitched and trembled, and his jaw chattered; every muscle stood out and he was full of a terrible vibrating tension as he fought to resist and was denied. Sweat beaded his brow. This was the worst torture yet: being a spectator in his own body.
He watched helplessly as his right hand reached out, trembling, and wrenched a sword loose from a Borchstog scabbard. Its owner did not protest.
Baleron raised the sword high, and it reflected the torchlight on its tarnished metal surface. It was heavy. He tried to fight the pull, but he could not stop the force that controlled him.
He could not even yell as the blade descended.
For a moment, everything happened very slowly, and he noticed every hair and pore on his left hand, every bead of sweat. Borchstogs had pulled the nails out of his thumb, middle finger and ring finger. His knuckles were raw and bloody from punching his captors; he occasionally, though rarely, got the opportunity to strike out, and he always took it, though it never did much good except to provide momentary satisfaction. Many more cuts and bruises decorated the hand, which was muscular and well shaped. He had always liked it.
It was outstretched before him, right under the descending blade.
He hacked it off at the wrist. Blood spurted from the stump.
Pain arced through him. The Shadow withdrew from his mind.
Baleron watched in horror as his severed hand smacked the stone floor of the platform. Blood leaked from it. A finger twitched.
Screaming, Baleron fell backwards into the arms of two Borchstogs. A third, without being told, plunged his torch against the prince’s bleeding stump, cauterizing the wound. Baleron’s vision wavered, and the world blurred.
“Why?” he gasped. He clutched his stump tightly beneath his right armpit, stemming the flow of blood that still leaked out from the charred mass. Emotion contorted his face as tears ran uninhibited down his sweaty, soot-smeared cheeks. “Why me? All of it—why? What did I ever do to deserve you?”
The Shadow regarded him. “You were born.”
Baleron wavered, and darkness overcame him.
With the prince passed out, Ghrozm stooped and retrieved the still-twitching left hand from the platform. He lifted the bloody thing up for his Master’s inspection.
“What shall be done with it, my Lord?”
“Hold it high.”
Ghrozm complied, trembling.
Gilgaroth closed his blazing eyes and turned inward, looking within himself to Illistriv. The First resided within his father, the distant Lorg-jilaad drifting through the Nether far away.
Gilgaroth had formed Illistriv during Omkarcharoth, the War of Light and Dark. Later he’d used its energies to forge his form of flesh when he birthed himself into the mortal plane, thus Illistriv was bound to his corporeal form, even if it in truth existed on a different level of being entirely. The gateway to the Second Hell was his very maw, and because the Second Hell and he were so thusly fused its flames blazed from his throat and lit his eyes.
It is said, and it is true, that Gilgaroth existed always in two places at once, if not more, looking both inwards and outwards with his terrible eyes of flame. For always in addition to commanding the forces of Oslog he lorded over Illistriv, too, sitting on his ethereal throne, overseeing the torments of his prisoners and the pleasures of his faithful servants.
Rauglir, newly arrived in Illistriv after having the body he possessed rendered unusable by the Archmage Logran Belefard, was enjoying himself in a mock-corporeal form, chasing maidens through a garden in his favored shape, the wolf. He chose the shape not just because it suited him but also to honor his Lord, who was the Father of Wolves, among other things.
Rauglir looked up when he felt his Master’s presence, and ceased his pursuit of the half-naked maidens—to kill or otherwise, it was unclear.
“My Lord,” he said in his usual half-growl.
“It is time for your next labor.”
Though frustrated by the brevity of his leisure time, Rauglir merely bowed. “Of course.”
“I give you leave of Illistriv.” One could not leave without Gilgaroth’s permission.
Rauglir discorporated and followed the Dark One’s inner self to the Gates of Hell, where he slipped through those terrible jaws, between the wicked fangs and Beyond—into the world of the living.
In wraith form, Rauglir flew about Gilgaroth’s head, circling, waiting for his Master’s bidding. It was not long in coming. The Dark One directed him towards the severed hand of Baleron and aided him in slipping inside the small fleshy morsel.
“I told him I needed his spirit whole,” mused the Lord of Oslog. “And so it shall be. But it will have a rider.”
In his huge black temple, the Dark One opened his terrible maw and laughed. Flames from his throat scorched the walls.
THE WAR OF THE BLACK TOWER:
PART THREE
by Jack Conner
Copyright 2014
All rights reserved
Cover image used with permission
Chapter 1
Ravening nightmares chased Baleron from sleep.
He shot up gasping, drenched in sweat, to find himself in a small, dark room, propped on a narrow bed. A hideous face hovered over him, tusked and horrible, and he shouted in surprise.
The face drew back, its owner visibly startled.
It was a Borchstog, but a Borchstog unlike any Baleron had ever seen. It was bigger, for one. For another, it was not bristling with hostility, and something in its face even hinted at gentleness.
The Borchstog recovered itself. It held a damp cloth; it had been wiping the sweat from his brow while he slept. A nurse?
It smiled down at him—not prettily, no, but it seemed to be heartfelt, and in this place such a thing was beautiful.
“From the deep pool one comes,” it said, and its voice was different from any other Borchstoggish voice Baleron had ever heard. It was . . . soft.
He tried to ask it a question, but the effort proved too much for him. He grunted something and fell back on the bed. The world grew hazy for awhile, and terrible beings chased him, drooling, and he heard Rauglir’s laughter from the darkness. Upon waking he found himself in the small room once more.
The same Borchstog nurse checked the bandages on his left wrist.
Groaning, he sat up a little and tried to see what she was doing. What he saw surprised him, and he moaned something interrogatively. The Borchstog looked up and smiled again.
“Roschk ul Kunraggoq,” it said, a common greeting here. Looking down at the end of his left arm, it asked, “What think you?”
He stared. For, terminating his left arm, was in fact his left hand. It had been rea
ttached. A ring of ugly and uneven stitches marked the juncture, and the whole mass was swollen and bruise-colored, and it hurt terribly, but it was there.
He tried to wiggle his fingers. They wiggled.
“Bleh?” he asked.
The Borchstog listened patiently. “I am Olfrig. I am the head nurse here and have been personally assigned to oversee your recovery.”
He mumbled another question. He felt very woozy. They must have given him something.
“We nurses see to the healing of our injured slaves—at least, the ones valuable enough to keep,” the nurse explained. “I had a dwarf in yesterday, for example: an excellent metalworker. And there’s an elf just down the hall who is very good at laying charms on works-in-progress. But you’re even more special, you know. Of course you do. It’s an honor to serve you, Ravast-rul. You’re going to help us win the War. You may have already.”
He mumbled something.
“That’s right, the War. We have both Glorifel and Clevaris under siege as we speak, and the other countries are overrun. It’s only a matter of time.” The Borchstog seemed very proud.
Despair filled Baleron, and guilt; he’d abandoned his people in their darkest hour. Of course, he reminded himself, the reason he’d left was because he could do them no more good; his time would be better spent avenging them. And so he still would, he vowed.
He had to get out of here—had to get back home. Maybe there was some way he could still help—
A coldness gripped him, like an icy claw about his heart. His Doom had triggered that thought. He knew it. Father was right, he thought with a shudder. How do I know where it ends and I begin?
Working carefully, he said, “M’ot.”
The nurse frowned, then brightened. “Mrot?” Water?
Glad to assist, she ladled some water into his mouth from a nearby bowl, and he drank it down greedily. Rank and bitter, it was the best thing he had ever tasted. Feeling much better, he wiped his mouth and said, slowly and carefully, “You’re a female?”
She laughed, and he tried not to cringe. “Yes,” she said. “Olfrig is very female. Olfrig has over a hundred sons.”
“A hundred?”
She patted his thigh. “We Borchstogs have few daughters, but we are large and can fend for ourselves. The males do what we say or we eat them.”
He cleared his throat. “Did you say Glorifel is still under siege?”
“For five, six months now.”
That sobered him. He’d been tortured for more than a quarter of a year. “What of Larenthi?”
“Clevaris is the only city left, and it’s ready to collapse, its rivers poisoned, its gardens aflame. The Queen’s powers are exhausted, and most of her House are slain.”
Olfrig seemed very cheery about all this, as if she didn’t understand that Baleron was on the opposite side. Though the attitude vexed him, it was good that his nurse felt on the same side as her patient, and he didn’t disabuse her of the notion.
“Prince Jered?” he said. “Does he still live?”
She scratched her scarred face. “He’s been in some battles . . . Olfrig has heard name . . . but can’t remember.”
“And the other countries . . . Esril, Felgrad, Crysmid . . . all of them . . . they’re overrun?”
“Oh, yes. They sent their armies to Clevaris to break siege. Grudremorq destroyed them. Their homes were defenseless. The Flame and the Shepherd both sent out hosts to raid and burn, and the Master sent more. Some of our foes still live, but they run and hide, they do not fight. The Crescent is fallen. All that is left are two cities, and Master builds another army, the greatest yet, to bring them down utterly Himself.”
Dismay filled Baleron. If it were possible to escape, he wondered if there were some way he could aid the Crescent. But if he tried, what guarantee was there that he wasn’t simply carrying out his Doom? He was alive for a reason, after all, and nothing in his life since Gulrothrog had been an accident, it seemed.
To keep her talking, he brought up something she’d said that puzzled him: “You said the nurses treated your . . . slaves. What of the injured Borchstogs? Don’t they need healing?”
“Not in Krogbur. Here the strength of our Lord is at its greatest. It’s here where the strands of His web cross each other, and one of His children who is wounded need merely bask in His power, and he is healed.”
“Your kind must like this place then. Is it to replace Ghrastigor as his fortress?”
She shrugged. “Not privy to Master’s designs is Olfrig. I do know, yes, that He has planned long for this, for the raising of His Tower. The Shadowneedle. The Rooted Lightning. The Doorway. And you helped bring it about. You must be very proud.”
Catching him by surprise, she pinched the small finger on his left hand. He yelped.
“Is well,” she noted. “Feeling has returned.”
Later, when exhaustion tugged him back down into slumber, he dreamt that his left hand bristled with wolf fur and attacked him. Claws extended from its fingers, and a snapping wolf mouth had opened in the palm. Rauglir’s laughter chased him.
Olfrig nursed him back to health over the next few days, putting salves on his abrasions, giving him medicines and potions to drink, applying poultices, removing and replacing bandages. Slowly, he began to recover, though he did not know to what end.
In the beginning he would ask her why he was being seen to, why he was being made well, but she never had an answer—it was not her place to know, and she didn’t—so gradually he quit asking. He thought he knew without being told: the Dark One was ready to use him again.
For the thousandth time, Baleron thought about killing himself. But he remembered Elethris telling him that Gilgaroth had made him a sword that could be used against its maker, and he remembered Vilana telling him he could yet sway the war in the Light’s favor, and he hesitated. Yet if he did end himself, he might be reunited with Rolenya. To see her, he might risk eternal damnation. He dreamt about her, and his dreams were not brotherly. He longed to feel her embrace, smell her hair, press her body to him.
Just as often he dreamt of Rauglir. Creatures mocked him in his slumber and hounded him so that he got no rest. Soon he dreaded sleep.
Something was wrong, he felt, wrong with him—with his body, with his mind, he did not know.
He was suspicious of the hand. Sometimes he would hold it up to the light and stare at it. He would flex it and twist it; it obeyed him. The fingernails were growing back, the scars fading and the cuts healing, faster than normal thanks to Olfrig’s potions. Just why had Gilgaroth forced him to cut it off, then ordered it reattached? The Dark One did nothing without reason.
What bothered Baleron nearly as much was Olfrig’s and the other Borchstogs’ conviction that he was ul Ravast. Surely they were wrong. Gilgaroth might use him as a tool, but he hadn’t been born to be that tool. It was merely an accident of circumstance that he was the sort of person the Wolf needed to further his designs, someone who could have access to the nobility and sorcery of both Havensrike and Glorifel. Otherwise, why Baleron? Why not a human that already served the dark powers?
One Olfrig entered the room and said brightly, “You’re awake. Is good. Master invites you to the Feast tonight.”
“Your Master . . . wants me to come to dinner?”
She nodded happily.
Stranger and stranger.
And strange it was.
Chapter 2
The Feast was held in a huge high chamber, the Feasting Hall, the most bizarre dining hall Baleron had ever seen, and he’d seen dining halls in numerous palaces from four out of the six Crescent States. The domed ceiling stretched high overhead, so wreathed in smoke from torches and braziers and pipes that it was nearly impossible to see. The long wooden dinner tables were tiered on a sloped floor, somewhat like that of a theater, but where the stage would be was in fact a sunken pit—a sand-floored arena, in fact.
Thousands of Borchstogs roared and laughed and talked at their seats or st
anding up. Their din shocked the prince, used to the silence of his hole. Most of the Borchstogs seemed to be chiefs of their broods or cities. They engaged each other in braggadocio and fights and contests of various sorts. Two stuck pins in a thrashing elvish captive, chained to a wall. They gambled on who could make her scream the loudest. A group of Borchstogs sat around a table littered with gore; they competed to see who could assemble the best musical instrument out of the provided body parts: a flute with a thigh bone; drums with skin stretched tight over a pelvis; a stringed instrument with spine, ribs and cartilage.
The creatures’ smell repulsed Baleron, which surprised him; he thought he’d become accustomed to their stench by now. But there were so many here, and the smell so concentrated.
Growling wolves, pets or companions of the Borchstogs, lounged under the long wooden tables or fought each other for scraps and bones. Many wore spiked collars with chains attached; others were loose.
Huge greasy platters of silver and gold heaped with raw-looking meat (which Baleron did not want to inspect too closely) lay in large quantities upon the tables, and the Borchstogs picked at them with their fingers and ripped at them with their teeth. A few experimented with crude forks, though more than one of these wound up in another Borchstog’s eye.
They drank wine or mead from slopping, jewel-encrusted goblets, and Baleron wondered if they’d share. He could use a drink.
Many shouted “Roschk ul Ravast!” as he passed. Several dropped to their knees before him, and one even shouted something that sounded like, “Take my soul!” This Borchstog offered him a dagger and bared his throat.
Baleron took the dagger. His guards did not stop him. “If only you were all this accommodating,” he said, and slit the demon’s throat.
Borchstogs cheered the sacrifice, and wolves began gnawing at the dead one’s still-twitching body.
Grimacing, Baleron continued on, and his guards led him down toward the arena. Would he be shoved into it?
