Snarling his horror and disgust, the guard swung his blade to decapitate her. Yet he failed. His sword jammed in her neck — perhaps her ligaments and bones had been hardened for preservation — in any case, he yanked but could not free the blade. She rose then, swiftly, and her fingers, all sinew, bone and long, curved, yellowed nails, found his face to gouge and dig in.
He howled, abandoning the sword to grasp her hands. Everyone hacked at the thing. They finally managed to dismember it but not before the guard had fallen, his face and throat a bloody torn ruin. Jatal picked up the lantern where it had rolled aside, luckily not extinguishing. ‘Do not touch anything!’ he snarled, and limped onward.
They passed a chamber where rank after rank of small short figures, children in Thaumaturg robes, sat as if in meditation. They faced away towards the far wall. Jatal stepped into the room, raising the lantern high. ‘Flee, all of you,’ he called. ‘The shaduwam are here.’
Heads turned. Some forty pale faces regarded him silently. Jatal’s vision darkened in abhorrence; the eyes and mouth of each child had been sewn shut.
Behind him, the guards cursed softly and gagged. Jatal pushed them back as he retreated from the room. He lowered the lantern and the heads calmly turned away as the children — children! Was that what they were? — returned to their meditation. Jatal stood in the hall, unsteady on his feet. His heart hammered and his throat was as dry as kiln-heated sand yet it burned with suppressed acid bile.
A madhouse! Inhuman!
All Jatal wanted now was escape. He urged the men onward. Was this why the Thaumaturgs offered no resistance? They no longer thought like humans, no longer shared common human values and fears? Were no longer even human? Perhaps they considered them no more a threat than an ant or a lizard? Who could know? None of this seemed remotely sane.
Unfortunately, the path led downward. They descended narrow slick stone stairs. At the bottom they found a heavy iron gate that had been smashed aside. Beyond lay a large chamber with halls leading off into utter darkness. Jatal raised the lantern; the stairs descended into dark water that covered the floor. It stank like a sewer and gnawed, half-skeletal corpses floated about, both Thaumaturg and shaduwam. He had no idea of the water’s depth, or what it might contain. The lantern’s weak light just brushed a distant figure somehow raised above the surface of the pool — a figure that wore the remains of tattered white robes over gleaming armour.
The guards surged forward. They descended the stairs into the water up to their waists. Jatal followed, holding the lantern high. They pushed their way through the water. The sloshing and splashing echoed about the chamber and halls to return loud and distorted.
It was Andanii; she had pulled herself on to, or been laid upon, a stone slab similar to the other operating platforms they’d seen everywhere. She bled from numerous wounds — what looked like vicious bites that had gouged rounded chunks from her flesh.
‘Princess!’ the men called, outraged, choked with tears. Their voices seemed to rouse her; she stirred, her limbs shifting. Jatal pressed forward. She has earned this! Why then am I terrified for her?
‘Andanii,’ he whispered, his face almost pressed to hers. Blood smeared her mouth and chin.
She shook her head, mumbled something.
‘What? What is it?’ Say it, something in him urged her. Say it was all a mistake!
‘… no … trap …’ she gurgled in a mouthful of blood.
Jatal set down the lantern to scoop her up in his arms. ‘Ware! Trap!’
The remaining four of Andanii’s bodyguard spread out, surrounding them. One picked up the lantern to hold it high. ‘There!’ he called, pointing his sword. Hunched shapes came lurching their way up the halls. They appeared naked, hairless, with long ropy arms ending in great taloned hands.
The group retreated to the stairs. Water surged, rising and splashing as a number of the creatures straightened from the murky waves to block their path. Closer now, Jatal could see that they were of basic human stock. No real monsters here — the true monsters are the Thaumaturgs.
Yet things had been done to them. Thaumaturg experimentation. Their heads were narrower than any skull ought to be, the flat eyes devoid of emotion or intelligence; Jatal read in their opalescent depths hunger only — no recognition of a common humanity. Their mouths hung open to make room for teeth that stood out as sharpened and serrated weapons. Jatal did not think that they could close their mouths even should they try. They raised their clawed hands and made blood-chilling noises all the more horrific for sounding almost like words.
‘Keep going!’ Jatal urged. ‘Make for the stairs!’
The group charged. Swords slashed and the creatures fell. Yet more of them surged from behind, falling upon the guards and dragging them down below the water to disappear. Jatal rushed for the stairs. He shouldered his way through the melee. The man holding the lantern fell, his scream ending in a mouthful of the foul water. The light snuffed out, hissing.
Jatal blundered on, reaching the stairs and finding the opening by slamming an elbow into its stone lip. He charged up without pause. He leaned against a wall to support himself and when that wall ended in an opening he tumbled into a side chamber, crashing into furniture that broke beneath him. Yet he managed to keep Andanii out of the way, cushioning her with his own body. He laid her down and bent over her. In the absolute dark he remembered his waist pouch and a nub of candle that he kept there. He found it and the small tinderbox. He set the box on the cold stone floor, opened it, and set to striking into it. The flashing sparks each revealed the room for an instant, leaving lingering after-images of a broken frail desk, of walls dark with painted frescoes.
The tinder lit and he gently blew. He used it to light the thin wick. The candle caught, filling the room with a light that was incredibly bright to his starved eyes. He took Andanii’s head on to his lap. ‘Andanii — my princess … can you hear me?’
The eyelids fluttered. A smile came to the lips — followed by a wash of blood that spilled down her chin. As awareness rose within her, the smile twisted into a panicked grimace and her hands fought him then clenched his arms. ‘Flee …’ she breathed.
All anger was gone from him now. All resentment. He thought he understood her at last. She’d had ambition and the ruthlessness to chase it. In short … he’d cursed her for doing nothing more than acting like a man. Acting as any of his brothers would have done. For acting as he could not bring himself to do.
‘I understand,’ he whispered to her tenderly. ‘You made your choices. Why should I be resentful? You acted in the best interests of your people.’
She smiled now, almost wistfully. ‘You understand … do you?’ She gripped him tighter, convulsing. ‘Jatal — my prince … promise me this … Promise!’
He ducked his head. Tears fell from his eyes to wash the blood from her cheek. ‘I promise.’
She nodded, easing her arms. ‘Good … Go. Flee. Return to the tents of the Adwami. Read your books. Write your poetry. And try … try to forgive me …’
‘Forgive! Andanii … You are my life!’ But she did not answer. Her head eased to one side.
Jatal pressed his own hot face to her cooling cheek and wept.
How long he crouched there, trembling and weeping, he knew not. At length, he gently set her head down on the cold stone and rose. He picked up the tiny stub of candle. Its weak light barely illuminated the room yet he could make out a painting of a dark throne and a seated figure. Its face had been chiselled from the stone — deliberately disfigured. He was hardly conscious of his surroundings as he staggered into the hall.