A chill passed along J'role's spine.
"Please," J'role heard Garlthik gasp. "Please stop … Mordom … I'll give you.. Please stop."
The sound of Mordom's muffled voice came through the wall.
"Wait! The boy!" Garlthik gasped. "He's got it."
The ring felt like ice against J'role's chest. How could Garlthik betray him and their quest so easily?
"If that's all you've got to offer, then you'll die," Mordom's dry, precise voice declared.
“I'll need more if you want to live. Bargain with me, Garlthik. Like the time we first met.
You know more than you ever let on."
"So. . do. . you," Garlthik said, his defiant spirit returning. For a moment J'role thought that the ork had found a means of escape. Maybe he'd only told them about the ring to stall for time. But then Garlthik screamed again. Outside, J'role could hear the sounds of villagers shouting to one another.
"Don't waste my time. I'll find it with or without your help.” Mordom said with great impatience.
More shouts from outside. Slinsk carefully maneuvered himself toward the window, keeping his blade toward J'role. Reaching the window, he pulled the curtain back slightly and looked out. He sighed.
Once more Garlthik screamed. "He can speak of the city. Ha! You knew, didn't you?
When he puts on the ring, he talks. . please, ahhhh. . He talks of it. The city. He's connected to it somehow. . Mordom, my good friend, I only tricked the boy. Gained his trust. An elaborate lie. I would never-" Outside, the cries of the villagers had become louder. Garlthik gasped for air, an infant too tired to sleep, but Mordom said nothing.
An image came to J'role's mind-Mordom cracking his skull open, searching for the creature in his thoughts, searching for his connection with the city. He would be no more than a small spider for Mordom's inspection, an object of curiosity-the way the boys in his village used to pull the legs off insects just to see what they would do.
Footsteps approached from the hall. "I think we're surrounded," said Slinsk even before Mordom appeared in the doorway.
"No matter. I can handle them," said Mordom as he came through the door. J'role had forgotten how disturbing was Mordom's face-narrow and strong, with the pure, white eyes. The wizard raised his hand and the eye Garlthik’s eye-stared at J'role. "I have something to show you," he said slyly.
Then Mordom turned slightly, tugging at someone standing behind him. Over the magician's shoulder J'role saw a long, pale face. Almost disembodied, it was like the face of a ghost as it came floating out of the darkness.
10
The next day, his mother looked at him strangely. Not at him, really. At everything. She seemed very frightened, but also as though she wanted to keep the fear tight to herself His father noticed it too, but when she asked, she said only that she was tired.
J'role's body tensed as his father stepped into the room, assisted by a push from Mordom.
He felt embarrassed, acutely aware of the corpses on the cots as if they somehow incriminated him instead of Slinsk. He didn't want his father to know what he had become.
He need not have worried. Bevarden kept his eyes on the ground, as if ashamed. When he finally raised his head to meet J'role's eyes, a giggle escaped his lips before he quickly dropped his gaze once more. Then he covered his face with his hands, and J'role thought he heard his father weeping softly, but he could not be sure.
The eyes Bevarden had just shown J'role were unlike the ones he had seen all his life, even these last years. Empty, lacking any vitality, they seemed to be the eyes of an infant.
No, something else. All the babies J'role had ever seen searched the details of life with intense fascination. His father's eyes were the eyes of a dead infant, the muscles relaxed, the sight useless.
J’role moved toward his father.
"Ah, ah," said Mordom and raised his other hand. "You can't have him just yet. First, you have something I want. Boy, listen to me. T have a certain ability with. . the Horrors.
Specifically those that assault the mind. I can help your father. I can help you. But I will need your cooperation."
From the next room Garlthik's whimpering continued.
J’role shook his head.
"You're making things difficult," said Mordom, sounding sincerely disappointed. "We can end this all quickly. Please."
What to do? J'role felt his thoughts tugged in too many directions. He wanted to rush to Garlthik's side-at once wanting to help him and to flail at him with his fists. How dare the ork betray the secret of his speaking? Now that Mordom knew, he would undoubtedly kill him. J'role also wanted to rush to his father's side, to get his father away from the vile magician, even though it was obvious he'd never make it past Slinsk and Mordom. And finally, he wanted simply to run, to make a mad leap out the window and leave everyone behind.
He felt the thief magic tugging at him, whispering to his bones and muscles to flee and forget about the wounded ork in the other room and the broken man on the floor. This last choice, he realized, was a thief's choice. The magic coiled around him, encouraging him to flee.
But, he thought, my father.
"You can't save to m," the creature said, unfolding its words like a dark flower in his mind.
"What?"
"You can't save him. And you don't want to save him. He is broken and useless. Flee.
Find the city. Get your glory. Do something for yourself."
The creature's voice carried a new quality, something akin to duplicity. Perhaps it was because the thing had so seldom lied to J'role that he immediately discerned the lie. Why the creature in his thoughts kept encouraging him to find the city, J'role did not know, but why should it be at the expense of abandoning his father? He had already left the man to die once. The instant he began the first step toward Slinsk and Mordom, J'role realized he expected to die, and he found comfort in the thought, cold and moist, like the ground after rain. If he were dead, no more creature. No more father to worry about. But until that moment…
By the time his left foot and then his right had touched the ground in his graceful walk across the room he felt the magic gone, like the sun's light slipping out of a room with the closing of the shutters. The thief magic had deserted him when he decided to fight for his father rather than retreat for his own safety. Alone now, with no one. Mordom smiled at him as a crackle of blue light formed around his hands. J'role returned the smile.
A cry of pain cut through the wall; to the other room. Phlaren, J'role realized, as everyone in the room turned to look at the wall. A heavy thud slammed against it, and then another.
Suddenly the wall cracked open and Garlthik One Eye crashed through it, sending shards of wood scattering about.
Bevarden gasped and cowered, scrambling across the floor in search of safety, finally resting in a pool of the fat trader's blood. Slinsk raced toward J'role from the right, his blade rushing at J'role's chest, while Garlthik charged from the left, leaving Mordom to finish his spell.
J'role kept his attention focused on Mordom. Slinsk brought his blade down swift and hard, but Garlthik swung up and parried with his sword. Out the corner of his eye J'role saw a grimace on Garlthik's face and a stream of syrupy black liquid dripping from a fissure in the side of his head. The image grasped at J'role attention, but he tore his gaze away and focused on Mordom.
The magician watched J'role approach with the green eye in his palm. The eye blinked once as Mordom spoke some strange words. Then the wizard touched his face with his other hand, the flesh suddenly transformed, torn open to reveal muscle and bone, but more disturbingly, becoming the image of Bevarden.