While Leitos sensed himself drawing nearer to the Faceless One, neither the pillar nor the figure grew larger, giving the illusion that he moved not at all.
Then, with sickening abruptness, he found himself standing within the shadows just beyond the pillar’s luminance, gazing up at the figure seated upon a throne of intricately carved obsidian. The man leaned forward, his head deeply bowed, with thick and tangled strands of long dark hair obscuring his features.
Nothing about the Faceless One was as Leitos had imagined. Clad in simple leathers and furs, he looked an imposter upon a throne stolen from a mighty king. Usurper or not, strength resonated from his broad shoulders, deep chest, and thick arms, but nothing about him spoke of regal authority. Rather, this figure represented a raw, brutish power.
“Who are you?” Leitos asked, the sound of his voice thundering in the still. The figure flinched, seemed ready to reveal himself, then settled back. Leitos made his demand again, shouting it.
The man stirred once more, raising his head listlessly. Leitos clutched his dagger, not sure what good it would do, and not caring. Here was his enemy, and he would strike him down, somehow. He must.
That terrible head lifted higher, and Leitos felt ice coat his insides. Where a face should be, blue flame teemed over an indistinct skull.
“Go from this place,” the man pleaded, again at odds with Leitos’s expectations.
“I did not come here to obey,” Leitos said through clenched teeth, “but to destroy you.”
“Escape, boy … while you still can.”
The man’s hands suddenly pressed against his head, as if trying to contain those unnatural fires. His limbs trembled, and he doubled over, groaning.
Leitos waited, poised to attack.
The Faceless One abruptly sat straight, the fires solidifying enough to make out the vague outlines of a face, still unclear, but a true face. A vicious grin played over his lips. “Tell your father that death has found him!”
That shout fell on Leitos like the breaking of mountains, crushing him flat. The man began to rise, his proportions growing immense. The void’s emptiness came alive with roaring flames of every vile hue, and from those leaping fires sprang Mahk’lar. Terrible beings, creatures born of hate and shadow, their flesh formless, bloated, drooling corruption from gnashing, fang-filled mouths.
They danced near, their incomprehensible language filling Leitos’s mind with visions of a thousand atrocities. He saw the brutal ends of all those he knew, the destruction of all the world’s peoples. He saw screaming men, their flesh stripped from crushed bones, their living marrow scorched to ash. He saw women and girls savaged by demon-born, their beauty and grace pillaged by abominable lusts. He saw children boiled alive in their own blood, or roasted on spits above black fires, or torn from wombs with flaming pincers, before being ripped to pieces and stuffed into the fanged mouths of demons.
Howling in dismay, Leitos hurled his dagger at the Faceless One. For a moment all froze, save the twirling blade. For a moment, it seemed the Faceless One’s hellish delights would at last come to an end. For a moment alone, Leitos believed he would prevail against his dread foe.
The blade struck true, sinking deep into the Faceless One’s heart … and passed through him.
“No,” Leitos breathed.
The Faceless One fingered the spot where the dagger had pierced him, and Leitos fled. Roaring hateful mirth, the Faceless One ordered his minions to join the hunt.
Chapter 27
After hiding the bulk of his warriors around the entrance of the Throat of Balaam, Damoc strode into the chill light, following two sets of muddy tracks. One set he knew as well as his own, the other belonging to the outlander. He still could not understand why Belina had brought Leitos here. Surely no good could come of it.
Nola and a handful of others, all armed with bows and swords, guarded his flanks. Washed in the haunting radiance, their mottled garb served poorly to conceal them.
“Do not hesitate to cut down any Fauthian or Alon’mahk’lar we see,” Damoc told them. Of demonic spirits, neither he nor his people feared their touch. At worst, such were a nuisance, although he had heard it told that other peoples did not fare so well against Mahk’lar. In all the Great Councils, no one had been able to explain why the Yatoans could resist being taken by spirits. In the end, it was a small advantage.
“What of Na’mihn’teghul?” Nola asked. “Is it still your wish to capture any young ones we find?”
Damoc considered that decree, born of a secret and now forsaken desire to redeem his eldest daughter. His deeper hope was that his people could, perhaps, change the nature of one of those fell creatures, and turn its loyalties against the Fauthians. Or, at the least, use it to crush the sea-wolves who hunted the Isles of Yato. While he knew he could never fully trust such an abomination, it seemed well worth the risks to utilize such a living weapon. If it were not for Belina, who he was sure waited somewhere up ahead, he would have allowed the capture of any and all changelings they came across. But not this night.
“The time for taking captives is for later,” he advised. “Retrieving Belina and killing Leitos is our only purpose.”
“Had Belina not stopped me,” Nola said, “I would have cut his throat when we found him.” She searched the empty corridor. Only Damoc among his party had ever entered this domain, and his daughter’s apprehension mirrored that of the others.
“Do not fret over that,” Damoc said in a placating tone, sensing his daughter’s coming words before she spoke them.
“When this is over, we must confront Belina. Her decision to betray our trust has endangered the clan, perhaps all Yatoans.”
The warriors around them gave the pretense of ignoring the conversation, but Damoc knew they sided with Nola.
“She did not betray us,” Damoc said firmly. “She made a mistake, much as Robis blundered in heeding her.”
“And how many such mistakes will you allow her to make, before you enforce our laws?”
He dragged her close. “You are speaking of your sister,” he said against her ear. Nola tried to pull away, and though she was strong, he was stronger. “Trust that I will deal with Belina. Not you, not anyone else. And before you think to pass further judgments, remember that she is your sister-a sister who has, time and again, ensured your safety, when others would have left you in the hands of our enemies.”
“She has saved me, but only as I have saved her, on occasion. Past good deeds cannot erase present wrongdoing.”
“We will speak of this later,” Damoc growled. “For now, concentrate on our task.” Only after Nola nodded agreement, did he release her, and set out ahead of his clan.
As time had seemed to slow when first he had ventured into the Throat, it did so now. They had passed what he judged was the midway point, when a brief rumble filled the corridor, fading slowly.
Damoc signaled a halt, sure that buried under that noise he had heard a voice. When the silence persisted, he waved them forward.
The first time he journeyed into the Throat of Balaam, he had been searching for his eldest daughter. He found instead a breeding ground at the corridor’s end, a place rife with demonic spirits, Alon’mahk’lar, and fires spread across a seemingly infinite plane. Countless women and older girls had been held captive by invisible bonds across that endless expanse. All had been stripped bare, and they had gazed about with deluded, lustful eyes….
A night had not passed since that he did not relive the horror of those wanton expressions, or the dismay and revulsion he had felt upon witnessing the captives crying out for the brutal touch of Alon’mahk’lar. At the center of all that ruthless madness, the Fauthians and the Faceless One had overseen the loathsome ritual.