XV
Trayn Aldarfro's fingernails cut deep, bleeding wounds in the palms of his fisted hands. Sweat covered his face in a thick, solid sheet; breath hissed between his clenched teeth in jagged, explosive spits of air; and every muscle quivered, shuddering with the waves of agony rolling through him.
He could have escaped the torment anytime he chose, which made it even worse in many ways, yet in truth, he couldn't choose to. He was a mage, pledged to fight the Dark at whatever cost. And even if he hadn't been bound by his mage's oath, he'd made another promise. A promise to a girl-woman he'd never even seen.
His spine arched, until only his heels and the back of his head touched the stone floor, and an animal pain sound ripped from his throat. He'd never imagined such agony, yet he knew that despite all he could do, what he was experiencing at this moment was only a fraction of what that girl he'd never seen was suffering.
He was with her as she writhed, twisting and jerking against her chains on the gore-encrusted altar. He was with her as the chanting ghouls who worshiped Sharnā leaned over her with their knives, their pincers, all the unspeakable instruments of torture consecrated to their Dark God. There was no secret of pain, no possible torture, which they did not know. All the agony which could be inflicted upon the human body was theirs to command, and their victim shrieked as they visited it upon her with a cold, methodical calculation worse than any frenzied explosion of homicidal madness.
Trayn would have given his very soul to save that girl from the atrocity being visited upon her, and he couldn't. He couldn't. His helplessness was a torment deeper than any pain of the flesh, yet he refused to allow it to distract him from the one thing he could do. And so he was with her, sharing her pain, diverting all of it that he could-little though that might have been against such an avalanche of agony. She was scarcely even aware of his presence, now. There was room for so little within the horror which had engulfed her, but still a tiny fragment of her knew he was there. Knew she was not totally alone, even here, even now. And as Trayn bared his teeth in a snarl of agony, still he held the shield he had thrown about her innermost being.
He felt the glowing knot of her life, her soul, like the fluttering of terrified wings against the palm of his hand. Death-and worse than death-was coming for it, and it knew it, yet even as extinction loomed, it blazed ever brighter and more brilliant, focused by the agony inflicted upon her body, consuming itself in her torment. It was that brightness, the final brightness of despair and anguish, that all of this was designed to create. To offer up to the waiting demon until it reached the crucial point and the demon reached out to it. Reached out and took it-consumed its bleeding shreds and sucked the last dim, glowing marrow from its bones as the monstrous evil extinguished not simply the life, but the very soul of its prey.
Trayn twisted, his own sounds those of a tormented animal, but still he held the shield. Still, he muted that brilliant glow. He felt the demon's waiting malevolence, its avid awareness of the feast promised to it, but he refused to yield. He would hold that shield as long as he lived, and until he died, the girl's soul would live, whatever happened to her body.
Cherdahn stepped back from the altar for a moment.
His victim's blood had soaked his vestments in a freshly consecrating flood, and his nostrils quivered with the delicious smell of spilt life and agony. He licked the thin blade of his flaying knife, and the taste was sweet, sweet. But even as its dark power flowed into him, he knew something was wrong.
The sacrifice had been perfect. A virgin, strong-minded enough to have retained her sanity even when her entire family had been butchered, yet old enough-and, perhaps even more importantly, imaginative enough-to appreciate her own fate, and young and strong enough to last even on Sharnā's altar. There could not have been a more delectable offering to one of the Scorpion's Greater Servants, and no one in Sharnā's service was more skilled than Cherdahn in rendering those offerings.
And yet, he couldn't feel the Servant reaching out to the tender delicacy shrieking upon the altar. He knew the agony had been sufficient, the despair deep enough, but still the Servant stood aloof, without so much as touching the sacrifice's soul. That had never happened to Cherdahn before, and uncertainty tried to chip holes in the dark priest's confidence. Was it possible that somehow, in some unknown fashion, Bahzell and Walsharno were responsible? They were champions of Tomanâk. Could they be managing, even from outside the sacred precincts of the sacrificial chamber, to interfere with the ritual? The very idea was preposterous, yet what else could it be?
He didn't know the answer to those questions, but in the back of his brain a dark worm of fear had begun to grow. In order to bind the Servant, he'd been forced to weaken the bonds Sharnā's will had fastened upon it when it was entrusted to Cherdahn's keeping. He'd locked additional restraints into place, tied into the life of the sacrifice, holding it until the instant of her death. That was an essential part of any binding, for a Servant had no loyalty. It hated-and desired-all mortal life, and its most fiery hatred was reserved for those who bound it to their service in the first place. It must be held by the constraints of the Scorpion's ritual until the moment in which it consumed the sacrifice's soul and, in that instant, locked the new binding upon it even as the sacrifice's death dissolved all earlier constraints.
There had been instances in which the ritual had been faulty. In which the sacrifice had died before its soul was consumed. When that happened, the consequences could well prove fatal for the Servant's summoner.
But that had never happened to him, Cherdahn reminded himself, and it would not happen here, either. He refused to let it happen, and his jaw tightened as he stepped back to the altar and bent to his task once more.
Rethak of Kontovar no longer looked quite so dapper. Sweat and the stink of fear tended to have that effect.
He pressed his back to the smooth stone of a passageway and cursed the architect who'd designed this complex warren of tunnels and corridors. The temple was at least twice the size it needed to have been, he thought viciously. Its size was no more than an exercise in egoism on Cherdahn's part, and any priest with half a brain would have kept it as small and inconspicuous as he could have, however good its concealment. But, no, not Cherdahn! He had to flaunt the power of his deity. Had to prove what a magnificent temple he could provide even here, in a land where the worship of Sharnā was punishable by death for all concerned.
And even when its sheer size offered any invader too many possible avenues of advance. Rethak and Tremala were wizards-they'd been able to absorb the temple's twisting, twining design from a quick glance at its plan. Which meant they'd instantly recognized that there were at least six possible paths by which Bahzell, Wencit, and their allies might approach the sacrificial chamber. There was no way Bahzell and Wencit could know the temple's actual layout, but Bahzell was a champion of Tomanâk. He needed no diagrams. He could feel the concentration of evil he sought, could pick out a path to it with his eyes closed.
Still, even though there were at least half a dozen possibilities, they converged so that each of them passed through one of two narrow bottlenecks before they spread out once more. And because they did, he and Tremala had to defend both bottlenecks if they were to have any hope at all of stopping the invaders.