The closures of my mind wrenched and tore. Images and voices and sensations both wonderful and terrible surged exuberantly into my conscious mind like a dammed river allowed at last to fill its natural channel. My bones screamed and my flesh cried out, as if I had changed form and dimension, stretched and bent into something else altogether. Power surged into my arms, pushed on my ribs, and scalded my eyes.
Sooner than I could have imagined, pain stripped away the veils of hope and desire and uncertainty, leaving only the stark ruin of truth. And in that startling moment, I understood which of the molds in D'Sanya's lectorium was significant and I knew what D'Sanya had done. Three worlds were in my hand. Truly, there was no choice to be made.
"Be off to your long-awaited grave, Tormentor's Heir, Prince of Dead Men, Sovereign of Desolation!" I screamed at my father as I retreated briskly toward the gap. "You are correct that my power and purposes are beyond your weakling fingers. Tonight as your pain devours you and tomorrow as the worms feed on your rotting flesh, you will know that I am indeed Lord of Destruction, Lord of Chaos!"
I shifted the woman higher on my shoulder, turned my back on my father and the gaping mob and a shadowy figure with red-brown hair who now stood at the verge of the crowd watching me. I sped through the gap toward the three Zhid who stood waiting. "In the name of the Lords of Zhev'Na, take me to Gensei Kovrack," I said, thrusting the woman's limp body into F'Lyr's burly arms. "We have a city to destroy."
Chapter 34
The cellar walls were black with mold. And only a blind optimist would call the brown liquid seeping through the cracks in the stone floor and soaking into my filthy breeches "water." I let my handlight die. I didn't need to examine the sagging roof beams or the rotted grain sacks to know how many years had passed since any Dar'Nethi had maintained enchantments of dryness or health in this dismal place and thus how unlikely it was that anyone would find me here. F'Lyr said I was to be left here, nicely out of the way while Lord Dieste and his Zhid could see to the destruction of Avonar.
"I won't believe it," I shouted upward in the dark. "I'm not that stupid!"
Yes, Gerick was strange and powerful and kept nine-tenths of his thoughts and feelings locked away where not even Paulo could find them. But he had lived in me. He was not a Lord of Zhev'Na.
The moldy stone smothered my protest. No one was going to hear me. The clammy wall made me shudder as I leaned back on it.
The three Zhid—F'Lyr, Gen'Vyl, and Hy'Lattire, two men and one woman, once generous, kind servants of the hospice—had fended off the weak pursuit of the hospice staff and residents long enough to get us to the stable and mounted. They pulled my hands about F'Lyr's thick waist and bound them there, and then we rode hard up and over the ridge behind the hospice. I'd not been able to see much of anything with my nose jammed against F'Lyr's back. I'd let them believe I was still insensible in hopes of hearing something enlightening. Not that listening had done me much good.
Whenever the Zhid began to question—Why had the young Lord not revealed himself earlier? Why had he courted the Lady? Why had he destroyed the oculus?— Gerick snapped at them to be silent. "Do not presume to judge my purposes. Just get me to your commander."
The sun was not yet up when we rode down into the camp. But I could smell the dawn, and the dry air was the color of ash. A peek from under my drooping eyelids revealed a few tents and fifteen or twenty men and horses tucked into deeply seamed foothills, the rubble-and boulder-strewn slopes where Grithna Ridge met the Wastes.
A tall, lean warrior with thin red hair combed back from a high forehead stood waiting for us. Diagonally across his chest he wore an elaborately worked leather strap, the mark of a gensei—a general in the warrior legions of Zhev'Na. An ascetic face, sharp-edged and hard like the granite crags. His lips curled in anger and suspicion. I did not need to examine either his costume or his eyes to know him Zhid.
"I know not how to greet you after our last encounter," he said, as Gerick reined in at the boundary of the encampment. "I know not what you are. No master of Zhev'Na would permit his loyal servants' strength to be stripped away by a woman who was once a slave—the Tormentor's brat, at that."
Gerick dismounted easily. He gave his horse's reins to Gen'Vyl, then clasped his hands behind his back and strolled toward the red-haired man as if he had come here for a month's guesting. Though still wearing torn and bloodstained clothes, his body moved with the confident grace of a king born. He turned his head as if to survey the camp, fixing his attention on the red-haired Zhid only when he stood directly front of him. Then, in a movement so swift I could almost feel the air shatter, he grabbed the neck of the Zhid's tunic and twisted it tightly, forcing the man to bend his knees and drawing the Zhid's face close to his own.
"I am your Lord," he said in a voice that could have frozen the southern oceans. "Your master. The Three of Zhev'Na chose me to be their Fourth, their instrument, their Destroyer. Their glory resides in me, and your proper greeting is to pay me the homage and obedience they demanded of you for seven centuries. Do otherwise and I will draw your bowels out through your ears. Or shall I throttle your heart once more to still your insolent tongue?" Gerick's left hand pointed at the ground. "Kneel and look into my eyes, and then tell me again of your beliefs."
The red-haired Zhid dropped to his knees, whether from fear, from deference, or from lack of breath, I could not determine. No, not deference. His nostrils flared as he raised his eyes to meet Gerick's. For a moment the air felt as if the sun had winked out, never to return. Then the Zhid fell prostrate in the dirt.
From the quivering stiffness of F'Lyr's spine my custodian, at least, had no further doubts. I forced myself to remain slumped against his sweaty back, keeping my jaw slack and my eyelids open only a slit.
The gensei's groveling apologies came with gasps and shudders. "We could not see your plan, Lord Dieste," he babbled. "We heard so many tales of the last day— the day of our shame. Tales of your death. Of your treachery . . ."
"On the day my brothers and sister fell, I was weakened as well," Gerick said, "and forced to go into hiding. But let me be clear. I will have my vengeance and retake my inheritance. I've spent these years regaining my strength and studying my enemies, and now I am ready to reveal myself to both Dar'Nethi and Zhid. Patience and stealth. Subtlety in hatred. Thoughtful vengeance. Are these not the virtues you taught me in the camps of Zhev'Na, Gensei Kovrack?"
"Aye, Lord. I beg you allow me to serve you. Command me, Lord."
Gerick nudged the Zhid's shoulder with his boot. "Before I can regain my rightful place, we must recapture the Tormentor King's spawn."
"Of course, Lord Dieste." Kovrack squirmed up to his knees. "But she serves us well as she is. She made the avantirs for us, and imbues them with such power that we can use them ourselves. When you destroyed the oculus, it fueled our doubts. . . ."
"I will tolerate no rival to my power." Gerick spoke to all the Zhid who had gathered behind their gensei. Though his back was to me now, I could see the progress of his gaze as it roved over the cadre—a quailing shiver and then a stiffened spine as his notice passed to the next warrior. "The Dar'Nethi witch has attuned her devices to her own enchantments, not mine, so I will destroy them all and have her begin again … in my service. Our first priority is to take her captive. Your inept attempt in Avonar forced me to kill five of my own warriors. Such incompetence will reap an unhappy reward should it occur again. Once the woman is mine, she will cast me a new oculus and new eyes, and this world will recognize its master. Now, show me the avantirs."