“Then you fetch it. If you want those pitiful souls, you keep her alive.”
“Yes,” he said. She would need food. She would need someone else to be with her. But someone who would not run away.
He did not want to ask her the question, but he had to. He had to know. “Will you release one of the souls to me now?”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“You said—”
“Quiet!” she commanded.
She wouldn’t do it. She was a liar. But a thought had been forming. All was not lost. No, he had an idea buried deep down. If the collar could be made, then it could be remade. He didn’t know how. But those men . . . he turned to leave.
The Mother stopped him. “I want the others as well,” she said.
She’d heard his thoughts, knew who she spoke of. And his inability to hide from her filled him with dismay. “What others?” he asked.
“You’ll bring them here, those two men, and keep them as well.”
“Even you don’t have the appetite for three,” said Hunger.
“I’m not going to eat them,” she said. Then she sighed. “It is unfortunate that, when I found you, your soul was bound to the Mother of Mokad. I could only recover pieces.” She shook her head. “Understand, the human wizards, those that stink, must swear allegiance to me. All of them.”
A memory rose in Hunger’s mind. Before, when he was not in this body, he had been searching for something in her caves. Something dangerous. He had been under orders from a different master then who had yet another master. And the Mother had stolen him away from them. “I had a name,” he said.
“That name doesn’t matter,” she said. “You are no longer that creature.”
It came to him. “Lumen,” he said, and knew it was true. “That was my name.” He himself had been a master.
And a thrall. The realization of this crashed upon him—the Divines, the Glories, the rulers of men were nothing more than servants to creatures like her.
But that wasn’t right. He was Barg. He was many names. Confusion clouded his mind.
“You are mine now,” said the Mother.
That also was true, but it didn’t mean he was hers willingly. “The Sleth will fight you. They will not serve you.”
“They will all serve me, one way or the other. I will find my human to lead the harvest. And those that rebel will be put to another purpose.”
“They will die here in the dark.”
“Not before we use them to quicken the children.”
“Children?”
Hunger tried to probe her mind to find out what she was talking about, for there were no children here.
“Come,” she said and led him down a passageway he did not know to a large room.
The Mother sang and suddenly the ribbons of light that wove their way about her ranged out into the room and illuminated it. Half a dozen bodies lay slumbering in the dirt. They were not human or animal. And they were not small, not the bodies of children. They were bodies like his, made of earth, but they weren’t exact matches—one had multiple arms, another had a vicious snout and head, another was tall and thin. One had a head shaped like an onion.
“These,” said the Mother, “are your brethren.”
Hunger knew she’d formed these bodies just as she’d formed his. And he knew when they were ready, she’d call them forth just as she had called him.
“There will be more. We shall quicken them, you and I. And the master of the harvest shall lead them.”
“You’re going to make war on us?”
“War?” she said. “You weren’t listening.”
But then what were these for?
“War is the last thing I want. This land and people have been neglected. Koram is ours. It always has been, even far-flung fields like this one. We could not stop the Mother of Mokad from taking them before, but we have recovered some of the old ways. The Mother of Mokad is failing. Soon all her human herds will be mine, and I shall make them fruitful. They will become the envy of the earth and yield a rich harvest for many, many years to come. And these,” she gestured at the children, “will be the first of those that will protect them.”
Hunger stared at the Mother. Memories tumbled in, stories of a time when there were many minor beings with power. The old gods—this one ruling a valley, that one a small village, this one living on her own in the woods, that one farming with his