He does not know why.
He cannot remember why.
But he has made his mother unhappy, and he decides to keep the promise she asks of him.
He will speak to no one but her.
J'role got up quickly, disengaging himself from his father's arms. Drifting down the dark corridors of the kaer came the sound of shouted orders. He turned and placed a hand on his father's shoulder, tried to wake him up, but his father pushed him away.
And what if I wake him up? J’role thought. What if he shouts at me for waking him? If we stay here, we might be safe.
He stood and walked with his wary grace back up the tunnel, toward the sound of the voices, hoping to get close enough to hear what was happening. He left his torch behind, not wanting to call attention to himself. Turning a bend he suddenly entered total darkness. He walked carefully now, one hand brushing the rough stone wall. The barking orders continued, but now the words sounded harsher, as if the people shouting had moved farther away from one another.
Suddenly a voice rushed down upon him from out of the darkness. It was a man's voice, the syllables crashing off the corridor walls, coming closer and closer. "Verin, stay by the entrance! Don't let him get back out!"
Now a light spilled down the corridor, faint at first, turning the corridor walls the color of dried blood. Gripped by fear J'role turned and rushed back the way he had come. The darkness seemed to swallow him, and because he ran with fear, it dug its way into his eyes, removing all sense of direction and balance.
Without warning J'role slammed into a wall. With a cry he fell to the ground.
"Wait! I heard something! It must be him!"
J'role scrambled up, pressing his hand to the wall, firmly now, to steady himself. He touched his other hand to his forehead and felt warm, sticky blood. A desire to be a child crawled over him. The man would be on him in a moment, and all J'role could think was how he wanted his father to come and save him. Couldn't he do that? Just this one time, just once, come and do that for him?
Seeing the dim red light appear around a corner snapped J'role back into action. He continued through the darkness, moving quickly, but this time with one hand pressed firmly against the stone. Virtually blinded by the dark, he kept thinking he would trip over something-a stone, a body- something. The rough wall scraped at his palm, but it gave him comfort rather than pain. Compared to the impenetrable, insubstantial darkness through which he ran, it was solid and real.
Then his groping hand found only thin air and he fell into a side tunnel. The fall terrified him, but this time he stifled any sound. He rolled quickly against the base of the tunnel wall, tucking himself tightly into the shadows. The firelight became brighter and brighter out in the main corridor, the sound of footsteps coming closer. Then the light of a flame washed over him, and J'role was sure the man running down the corridor would see him.
But the footsteps only hesitated at the junction. For the merest instant J'role glimpsed a man dressed in black leather, illuminate by torch light. Then the darkness descended again, comforting J'role as he lay breathing quietly. He started tucking his body deeper into the shallow hole he'd found when he remembered his-father.
The man in the leather armor was heading straight toward his father.
J'role got up, dizzy from the wound on his forehead, and once more began to move down the corridor, putting first one hand then the other against the left wall for balance. After walking no more than twenty yards he heard his father cry out. That made J'role move faster, but not so fast as to run the same risks as before. He used the wall for balance and guidance until the light from flames ahead lit the corridor for him.
Three torches lit the scene: his father's torch jammed into the wall, J'role's own torch on the ground, and the torch carried by the man in leather. The man stood between J'role and the brilliant collection of flames, his features hidden from J'role, his body a red-tinged shadow.
The stranger leaned over Bevarden, his free hand around the man's neck, pressing his head against the wall. "You must have seen him! Why else are you here? You're working with the ork, aren't you?"
His father, wide-eyed, gasping as if staring straight into a nightmare come true, sputtered,
"No. No. No ork." Then he shut his eyes, as if trying to deny his assailant any reality.
“Listen!" shouted the stranger, jabbing his torch into Bevarden's rough shirt. Smoke rose from the coarse-cloth, and Bevarden screamed. The man laughed, and Bevarden tried to shrink himself into a small ball.
Shame burned at J'role's cheeks, and then it was anger driving him-anger at his father-
as he charged the stranger. He screamed, and as he opened his lips he felt himself lose control of his mouth. His tongue writhed of its own volition and seemed thick and strange in his mouth. A prickly sensation ran over the flesh around J'role's mouth and he heard the words stream out.
Words … things like words.
A conflagration of syllables and sounds, some recognizably human, others not. They tore at his mind even as he raced down the tunnel, screaming them at the top of his lungs. He felt his muscles, his tongue, forming the noises, but he had no idea what he was saying.
As the tall thin man whirled toward J'roIe, he dropped the torch and clutched his hands to his face. J'role's father screamed in agony-a moaning so deep and mournful that it matched the wail he had uttered while watching the villagers stone his wife to death nine years before.
Without thinking J'role shoved his thin arms into the chest of the stranger. The man fell back, J’role’s momentum carrying them both just over the edge of the pit. The man cried out, and; J'role, realizing what was happening, twisted and desperately caught hold of the edge with one arm. He quickly swung one leg up onto the edge, then felt a hand grab his back. It was the stranger, who also had one hand on the edge of the pit, and another one on J'role's shoulder as he tried to climb up.
Their faces were inches apart, J'role still babbling uncontrollably. The sensation of his mouth moving without his will terrified him, and he tried to scream, "Help me!" but the sounds and screams and cries and noises only continued louder and faster, broken now by harsh laughs.
Frozen in terror, the man stared wildly for a moment at J'role. Then he began to claw his way frantically over him, the movement nearly sending the boy down into the pool.
As the man climbed over him, J'role tried to roll further away from the pit, all the while still babbling and crying and shrieking.
J'role and the tall thin man cleared the edge of the pit. J'role struggled to get away, but the man flipped him over and pinned J’role’s chest down with his knees. Behind them, J'role heard his father sobbing. Grabbing J'role's head between his hands, the man began to slam it against the stone floor.
Slam.
Slam.
Slam.
Slam.
"Stop it! Stop it! Please! Stop it!" the man screamed at J'role.
J'role felt himself losing his sense of place; the up and down motion, the rhythmic pain, suddenly felt normal. A blackness seeped into his vision. But still the noise from his mouth continued. He tasted the salty tears of the man as they fell into his open, ranting mouth.
Through all the screaming and pain And motion, a single thought burned straight to the center of J'role's thoughts. “I'm going to die." He welcomed the idea. The creature in his head purred.
Everything outside this white-hot thought suddenly faded to the background, though he was still aware of the crying and the screaming and the sharp crack of his skull against the floor. Terror filled him.
What would happen if he died with the thing in his thoughts? Would he just keep ranting never truly dead, alive just enough to support the Horror?