by Jack Conner
He stroked her soft cheek. “When I saw you die—” He shook his head, unable to finish the thought. Instead, foolishly, he asked, “Did it hurt?”
Tears ran openly down her cheeks and dropped off her jaw as she nodded, and scorpions scattered as the tears splashed the floor, not wanting the liquid to touch them.
“That’s twice now I’ve died,” she said. “I can tell you, death doesn’t get easier with practice.”
“But why are you here? I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. I was just funneled into this body, and they brought me here.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he smiled. It was the first time he’d been alone with his sister in a long, long time. A thought occurred to him, and he hesitated. Finally, he forced himself to say, “Rolly, I . . . do you know that we’re . . . well, I mean that you’re an . . .” He stopped.
The sweet ghost of a smile graced her face. She reached out and brushed a strand of hair from his cheek. “I know. In Illistriv . . . someone told me. You and I . . . we’re not what we thought we were.”
“No.”
“No.” She looked at him steadily. “But maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
That gave him hope, but he said nothing about it.
For some time, they didn’t talk much, just held each other, and to him it felt somehow right. He felt they were meant to be together. But, then, didn’t every lovelorn fool think the same thing? He didn’t want to talk about it. Why ruin things? Yet, the longer she was near, the more he longed for her and the harder it was not to look at her and touch her as he’d grown accustomed to in Havensrike.
Eventually, he asked softly, “The Second Hell . . . is it terrible?”
She made a face. “That depends on where he places you. At first he put me in a safe place, a place of gardens and streams—it was nice, though I was scared, and there was an awful forest near—but after you refused him he was wroth and threw me into a sea of fire where his Warders . . . savaged me.” The memory, so near the surface, broke free, and she sobbed and flung herself against him. He stroked her hair and cooed in her ear.
“It’ll be all right,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”
He held her all night, and it seemed strange to him that Gilgaroth would allow him this, this one moment of happiness. Her heart beat against his chest, and he spoke of happier times. That seemed to comfort her somewhat.
After awhile, she whispered, “You always could make me feel better, Bal. I’ve missed you.”
“And I you.” He paused, cursing himself, then plowed forward. “Rol, I’ve . . . got something to tell you. At Gulrothrog, after we escaped—well, that was you, right, the night Salthrick came? Or the thing pretending to be him.”
“Yes. That was me.”
“Well, when I returned, when we attacked it, we found . . . another Rolenya. Someone pretending to be you. And she . . . he . . . it . . . well, we . . .” He coughed. This was worse than he’d thought it would be.
“I know,” she said.
“What?” He nearly jumped away from her.
“In the Second Hell, in Illistriv, just a few months ago, he . . . that is, Rauglir . . . he came to me, boasting. He wanted to shame me, shame you—to hurt me. He’s the one who let it slip that we weren’t truly brother and sister, and he told me how you . . . how you felt about me . . .”
Heart in throat, Baleron waited. “Well?” he said at last, his voice rasping.
“To tell you the truth,” she said softly, not moving away from him, “I wasn’t as surprised as you might think.”
He tilted her chin up so that he could look into what he could see of her eyes. “No?” he asked, his voice even more a rasp now than before.
“No.”
They didn’t say anything more about it, though they looked at each other for a long, long time. He wanted to kiss her then, but was afraid. After all he’d been through, somehow this still managed to terrify him. I amused him, and shamed him. So he just held her, and she held him, and eventually they passed into sleep.
Upon waking, two fiery eyes loomed over them.
He sat bolt upright, waking Rolenya, and she gasped and shrank away.
No, Baleron thought. No, it CAN’T be. Not again.
But it was. The Dark One had taken the guise of the Great Wolf, but he was even larger now. His slavering jaws dripped hissing saliva that smoldered against the stone floor. His eyes burned, pools of fire in the blackness. He growled deep, and Baleron shook with fear. The Wolf’s musk-stench filled the pit.
“Gilgaroth,” Baleron said, awed.
“I have come,” declared the Wolf.
“Thank You . . . for Rolenya.”
“I have come for her, not you. Unless you have . . . reconsidered.”
“What? You cannot . . . you cannot do this! You can’t give her to me and then take her away, again. It’s not right!” He understood how foolish the words were even as he spoke them, but he couldn’t help it.
Rolenya huddled against the far wall, her eyes, angry but scared, transfixed by the Shadow’s. She did not seem able to bring herself to speak.
“WILL YOU SERVE ME?” asked Gilgaroth.
Baleron understood now why Gilgaroth had given Rolenya to him. He’d given Baleron something precious so that it would hurt more when he took it away. It was the same in the arena, but this was worse, as the gift he’d given was greater: time.
In a small, trembling voice, Rolenya said, “Don’t give in, Bal.”
Baleron tried to meet the Wolf’s gaze, but couldn’t.
“I am not your creature,” he said.
Enraged, the Great Wolf bounded forwards, knocking the prince aside and leaping on Rolenya. She struggled, but she could not fight such a being. The Wolf’s jaws crushed the life from her, and her blood spattered the stone walls and scattered the lurking scorpions to their holes.
Gilgaroth, ignoring the prince’s shouts and fists, devoured Rolenya, right before Baleron’s horrified eyes. Baleron beat at the Great Wolf’s sides so fiercely that he exhausted himself and sank against the wall as far away as he could get, and, weeping bitterly, turned his face away. He closed his hand over his ears to muffle the wet, meaty sounds and awful growls of the Wolf.
Finally, a secret door slid away in the pit wall with the sound of stone grating on stone, and the Dark One backed into it, his red stare never leaving Baleron. Rolenya’s blood dripped from his muzzle.
“I can make her and destroy her a thousand times, Baleron. How many times can you stand to watch?”
The door slammed shut, leaving Baleron alone in the pit.
Gilgaroth was true to his threat, for the next night it happened all over again—and the next.
Every night Gilgaroth created a new body for Rolenya and every night he destroyed it after Baleron’s refusal to aid him. Sometimes he would give them time together first, sometimes not. The prince watched his beloved die time and again, sometimes horribly and slowly. He began to go mad, talking to himself when no one was there, pulling at his hair, which (he knew from the fistfuls) had begun to show even more streaks of silver. Killing himself would be pointless; Gilgaroth would only make him a new body. His only defense was to lose himself in his own mind.
He could not obey the Shadow, could not help destroy the world. If he and Rolenya had to suffer for it, then suffer they would. Eventually the war would reach a point where his contributions would matter little and the Dark One would kill him or forget him. Either way, this had to end sometime. He only had to hold on till then, no matter the cost to Rolenya. She agreed, as she said many times when they were put together. “If all I have to do to save the world is be tortured and die, I’ll do it,” she said. Over and over she urged him to be strong for both of them, to resist the Enemy’s demands.
As Olfrig had alluded to, a huge army of Borchstogs and corrupted Giants and Men and others had gathered at the base of the tower, beyond the reach of the Inferno. Baleron overheard his guards and torturers discussi
ng it. Ghrozm was openly boastful. The forces had been massing for months and their ranks were still not swelled fully yet. When the army was all gathered, Gilgaroth would send them and the dragons north to break the sieges at Clevaris and Glorifel, then to sweep across the whole Crescent, destroying what bastions of the Light remained, and they were few. Baleron knew he had only to wait until then, to that unimaginable day, the day when all hope died, when his usefulness to the Lord of the Tower would surely be at an end.
One day, Borchstogs led him out from the pit and down corridors he’d never been down before, and suddenly he smelled fresh air.
Outside!
Excitement coursed through him at first—he’d lived to see the world beyond Krogbur one more time—but then he grew uneasy. What now? He steeled himself to face whatever new horrors awaited him, and Rolenya.
His captors led him to an outside terrace, where a red Worm waited. Much smaller and leaner than Throgmar, it was more serpentine, and it hissed at the prince, lashing its tri-pronged tail. Nonetheless, it allowed the Borchstogs to strap him into a saddle, while two of their number strapped in behind him.
On a nearby terrace he saw Rolenya likewise being lashed onto the back of a similar dragon. Former brother and sister looked at each other sadly. Neither knew what was about to happen, but it could not be pleasant.
The wind roared and, despite everything, Baleron enjoyed it as it swept through his hair and over his skin. He hadn’t seen the outside world in months, and he blinked at its brightness, even if the sky was covered with storm clouds and all was dim and stark. A tongue of lightning lanced the ground to the left, and he recoiled at its brightness, having to mash his eyes shut. The thunder nearly knocked him off his feet.
When he could see again, he marveled at the vision before him, at the mountains in the distance, the smoking volcanoes, the river of fire off to his right . . . It was so big that it took his breath away. He’d become accustomed to tight environs.
As always, hundreds of dragons circled the tower in neverending loops, screening Krogbur from unwanted guests. Baleron thought of that day when he’d tracked Throgmar here. Then he had supposed the moat-Worms had sensed Rondthril and allowed him to breach their ring, but now he knew the truth, as he’d half-suspected at the time: the Wolf had let him in. Gilgaroth had, as was his way, been playing with Baleron.
Baleron’s mount tilted and he received an unwelcome glimpse over the side of the terrace. His stomach lurched. It was a long way down. Krogbur reached to the very clouds and higher still, and the terrace they perched on was well above the Black Tower’s equator. Small wisps of clouds drifted below. Below that raged the terrible Inferno of Illistriv. Souls, millions of them, flashing like silverfish, darted through the leaping flames pursued by nightmarish terrors, the Warders.
On the ground beyond the fire spread a restless darkness: the army. They soldiers were too far away to look like even ants; all Baleron could see was the formations and a myriad of tiny pinpricks that must be their bonfires. Still, he was struck by the size of the gathering: it was immense, stretching off towards the horizon. No might that the Crescent Union could summon could stand against it.
The realization shook Baleron. This army, coupled with these hell-Worms, is the doom of the Alliance. And when the Alliance fell, so would all of Roshliel.
He glanced to Rolenya. She, too, had caught a glimpse of the hordes, and was staring at them with a tight, pale face. Nervously, she looked up from them and shared a grim glance with Baleron.
The dragons bearing prince and princess took off. Flying in tandem, they spiraled down around the thick trunk of Krogbur, taking their time. Overhead, the black stem of the tower rose to the charcoal roof above, ringed by lightning. Thunder shook the heavens.
They passed terraces where powerful Worms lazed on mounds, some of treasure, some were of bones and rotting bodies with flies buzzing around them. More blood—spattered Worms hung like bats from jutting beams and ramparts.
On other terraces stood groups of Borchstogs and other demons, come to get a glimpse of Baleron. When they saw him they pumped their fists in the air and chanted, “Roschk ul Ravast! Roschk ul Ravast!” Some dropped to their knees and slit their arms with knives, flinging their blood in his direction.
The Worms angled out, away from the tower, and just in time, too—any lower and they would have flown through the very flames of Illistriv. Sparks leapt up from the Inferno and the dragons flew through the fiery sprites that swayed and swarmed with the searing currents. Baleron hunkered low, feeling scalding pains on his thigh and back.
Peering over his shoulder into the fires, he saw at close range a white-hot soul pursued by a long, serpentine dragon-shape, something like the creature in the Labyrinth of Melregor below Gulrothrog—part wolf, part spider, part Worm. He wondered if perhaps the fleeing soul was that of Salthrick. He would be in there somewhere, having died in unholy lands.
The dragons leveled out, gliding just twenty feet or so over the heads of the teeming Borchstogs whose camps sprawled across the plain. The creatures hooted and cheered. Baleron saw a group that had been torturing an Elvish captive stop their games and gaze upward, blood dripping from their mouths.
Some pointed back toward the tower, and a great clamor rose up. Baleron felt a thrill of dread. Reluctantly, he turned.
Saw.
Cold fingers touched his spine.
For—emerging from the very flames of the Second Hell—was none other than the Breaker of the World.
In a form Baleron had never seen him take before, Gilgaroth—it could be no other, such was his awful might and splendor—exploded from the fires that wreathed the Black Tower and shot directly toward Baleron and Rolenya. Rolenya gave a startled cry.
Gilgaroth came as a great black dragon, long and sinewy, with a wolvish head, horned and whiskered, trailing smoke from his terrible maw. His tail cracked like a whip, making Baleron’s eardrums vibrate. Having no wings, Gilgaroth seemed to swim rather than fly through the skies, moving through the air like an eel. His eyes blazed Hell-fire, and he radiated an awesome power, darkness embracing him.
Wonder overcame the Borchstogs, who knelt or cheered.
For his part, Baleron was startled. He had heard that Lorg-jilaad was called the Great Dragon but had not known Gilgaroth could assume the same form—and such an awful one. He wondered if it could have been this form that he’d seen that day in the Black Temple—as he had come to think of the dark place where he had lost his hand. He remembered the flaming eyes and fire-lit maw of Gilgaroth seemingly suspended, bodiless, in the center of that great empty space. Yet perhaps the darkness had concealed the sinewy shape of the dragon and Gilgaroth had not been discorporated after all. Or perhaps he had been in some sort of cocoon stage, growing this new form.
In any event, Gilgaroth drew abreast them, flame licking his lips and smoke trailing behind him like a second tail. Baleron could feel his heat and smell his smoking breath.
Gilgaroth wasted no time on greetings. “Baleron,” he said, “I tire of games. Today We end this.”
Baleron tried to say something, but his mouth was too dry. He felt his hands tremble as they gripped the red Worm’s reins.
Gilgaroth’s eyes crackled. “Submit to me, Baleron, or I will throw Rolenya down . . . to them.”
The teeming Borchstogs below, tens, no, hundreds of thousands of them, cheered the passing of their great lord. Lust and cruelty and malice burned in their eyes. Baleron looked down at them, then to Rolenya. She was deathly pale, and shaking.
“They will not kill her,” added Gilgaroth unnecessarily.
Below, the hordes swarmed to the passing shadow of their Master, fighting each other to be in it. Baleron felt sick, thinking of what they would do with Rolenya.
“Decide now,” Gilgaroth commanded. “My children will use her for days, weeks. They may never kill her.” He added, giving the final nudge, “You are your sister’s last hope.”
It was too much for Baleron
. He had tried to be good, tried to be strong for the sake of his kingdom, for the sake of the world. But this was beyond his limits to endure. He would not let her be thrown down to them, like a bone to feral dogs.
He hung his head, and Rolenya gasped, sobbing, too scared of her fate to fight him this time.
“I will serve you,” he told Gilgaroth. “May the Light have mercy on my soul.”
Baleron and Rolenya were taken high into the tower and shown to a lavish suite, which they were told would be their home for however long they stayed at Krogbur. The Borchstogs left them, though a servant could be summoned by ringing a bell, and former brother and sister were alone and in comfort for the first time since those few stolen moments at Gulrothrog.
Baleron wasn’t ready to enjoy such comfort, though, and he suspected that neither was Rolenya. When the Borchstogs left, prince and princess just stood there at the threshold of the suite, staring dully.
“What now?” she whispered.
He wrapped an arm about her and said honestly, “I don’t know.”
Despair clung to him. How could he have given in?
She seemed to see his pain. She pressed herself against him and, surprising him, kissed him on the lips.
Startled, he stared at her, and she drew back.
“Thank you, Baleron. I . . . ” She looked at the floor, ashamed but at the same time clearly not sorry to have avoided her fate. She seemed to want to thank him more but did not think it appropriate. He understood. How can you thank someone for damning the world?
“I know,” he said.
She glanced up. “Don’t let it eat you up, Bal. He breaks everyone. It’s what he does. He’s the Breaker. He makes things just to destroy them. Believe me, I know. I don’t blame you. I . . . I think you were strong. So strong. You held out, and held out. I . . . I couldn’t have done it, if he’d been doing those things to you and I was the one he wanted to bend.”
He swallowed. “Do you hate me, Rol, for letting you die all those times?”
She searched his face. “Hate you? How can you think that?”
