“I’m not leaving him.” She glowered at the servitors as they picked Ress’s pallet up. “Anything happens to him, anything, Syke’ll be down here. And he can make a right mess when he tries.”
“I do not doubt it,” Nivrotar said wryly. “Now go – I have work that must be done.”
As they carried Ress from the audience hall, he cried again, “You must hear me!”
Jayr was silent as she followed him out.
* * *
Jayr had fallen asleep in her chair when Ress’s screaming woke her, shattering the night’s stillness into sharp-edged fragments of sound. He sat upright, suddenly as a shock, hands wrapped over his head.
Wordless, inarticulate, expressions of fear, grief, anger – she didn’t know. They ripped through the small chamber with a soul-deep pain that made her flesh crawl.
She tried to soothe him, but the noise wore on her thinning patience and soon she was shaking his shoulder, shouting, “Ress! Ress! Ress, for the Gods’ sakes!”
But he didn’t hear her. He was next to her, and he was in another world.
“RESS!”
With no warning, he was silent, hugging his body in anguish, his face contorted.
Rocking back and forth, he began to mutter, “No, no, no, no-no-no...”
Jayr clenched her fists in an effort to stay calm.
“Ress, please...”
She was reaching the end of her tolerance. She’d been all night with minimal sleep, unwilling to leave his side. Nivrotar’s entourage of alchemists, philosophers, healers and apothecaries were all damned useless. Any idiot could tell that Ress was loco, but they couldn’t do horseshit about it. And the longer he was trapped, the worse his torment became.
Singing calmed him. When he heard a voice, high and sweet or deep and powerful, he would strain with every fibre of his being to listen; then collapse as if it was not what he wanted. After that, he would shriek, or sob, or talk frenziedly earnest gibberish. Once, he’d howled for mercy from the tortures of an unseen hand.
And she’d watched it all, helpless, unable to face the enemy Ress fought – just like she’d been unable to face Feren’s infection. If she’d been able to touch it, she would’ve torn it apart.
Ress had dissolved into terrible sobbing, a pitiful sound. If he could have seen himself, he would have perished from humiliation. The loss of his mind had one sole blessing – he didn’t know what had happened to him. Trying to muster serenity, Jayr laid his head on her shoulder. He was unaware of her presence.
“Shhhh.” Her voice was gentle. “Trust me, I won’t leave you.”
Slowly, his weeping softened. And it was quiet.
Outside, far below, the wide waters of the Great Cemothen River crawled past to the sea and the vast, dark sprawl of Amos slept on uncaring. Trapped in the height of Nivrotar’s dark castle like some feeble damned maiden, Jayr had found herself hating the city for surrounding her, for its smells and moods, and most of all for its ability to swallow suffering.
Just like the Kartiah.
Her past was too close; it haunted her.
Where was Syke? Where was Triqueta?
What had been in that fireblasted poem? “Time the Substance of the Gods...”
“Please,” she muttered, “give his madness to me. If he has great vision, then let him go.”
But the Gods, as ever, were not listening.
A knock at the door made her start.
“Yes?”
It swung open to reveal Nivrotar herself, the healer Jemara hovering uncertainly behind her.
Jayr stood upright.
“What?”
“I dislike his screaming.” Nivrotar swept into the room. She was wrapped in a cloak the colour of dried blood. As the plump, cheery-faced Jemara hesitated awkwardly, the Lord stopped by Ress’s bed. “We must take control.”
“Control?” Jayr said.
“Jemara.” Nivrotar gestured for the woman to speak.
“It goes like this,” Jemara said, shrugging round shoulders. “There’s a way I can unlock his mind – but it’s dangerous. Some people ply these substances for recreation, some believe that their visions bring them great truth. Others –”
“Jem,” Nivrotar said warningly.
Jumping nervously, the healer said, “There are various narcotics, hallucinogenics...” she tailed off, watching Jayr’s expression.
Jayr snapped, “He’s not touching your – !”
“Think about it,” Nivrotar said. “If he can open his mind, we may understand him.”
“The problem is,” Jemara said, “that Ress has strength and experience – we’ll need more than a little. Eoritu’s euphoric – it can be addictive, and it could make him worse. Once it’s in his body, we’ll have to lead his visions where we want them to go. Do you understand what I’m asking?”
Jayr looked down at where Ress lay. He slept peaceably now, his face lined and sunken.
“Will it hurt him?”
Jemara shook her head.
Nivrotar said, “Not his physical health.”
Where was Syke? Where was anyone that could take the weight of this decision from her shoulders? Ress, what did they do to you?
“Do it,” Jayr said.
* * *
Heat.
Tight, sweating passageways lined with smoothed rocks and a sheen of panic. Ceilings low and dark, close and choking air.
The slash of a stone blade into flesh. Spilled blood spirals inwards towards a heart of fiery, crystalline awareness. Then a rising sense of hunger and an eagerness for release.
Elemental. Sical, creature of fire. Such a thing has not been seen upon the world in a lifetime of returns.
Here in the passageways, the twisted corpse of a Kartian craftsman, shattered by huge strength. His insides have exploded from his mouth, blood covers his face and chest – he’d thrashed for a long time as he’d been slowly crushed to death.
Here, a creature created of alchemy – a crazed cross-breed of man and horse. It stands in deepening night, the Monument its backdrop, a storm raging over it... It’s colossal – and its death crouches in the grass.
Here, a man on his knees, a slim, fair-skinned woman before him, abandoned in pleasure and passion. The man is grinning like a predator, ringed fingers twisting in the soft flesh of her buttocks. She has incredibly long, black hair, thrown wildly down her back and shoulders. She cries aloud, snarls pleasure through clenched teeth...
...and the stone grows into her flesh. Even as the man withdraws, the creeping calcification reaches her throat, her face, and she is left there – head back, lips parted, frozen forever in stone orgasm.
With her final cry, the image changes.
In that rise of passion and release, the stirring Monument awakens completely: it blazes with new, raw power.
The man’s strength is complete. His rings glinting, he stands before a brazier, a broken and twisted pillar. About him is a vast, dark chamber and within it, rank upon rank, stand blunt and misshapen creatures of rock, dark silhouettes against the light. They are ancient, creatures forgotten and now wakened from long rest. There are embers in their eyes and a terrible, grinding power in their movements. The man can feel the steady pulse of the Powerflux. He can pull its might towards the centre, towards himself.
And it is glorious.
But then he realises –
A cascade of water overwhelms the vision, what the man realises is lost. Ress hears her voice again, crying denial. Her waterfall blinds him, deafens him – he knows she was trying to show him something, but she’s too powerful and the images drown him. He tries to shout, but water fills his eyes his mouth.