“Don’t be afraid, Zvain. Your loyalty is commendable, for all that it was misplaced. You shall be rewarded—”
Sheer terror finally broke his paralysis when the talons were less than a handspan from his nose. He flopped onto his side and curled into a tight, quivering ball. His heart stopped when cool fingers caressed his cheek.
“There, there, Zvain. Don’t be afraid. Truly. When you fear the worst, it manifests before you; that is the mind’s nature. Banish your fears and be rewarded. Raise your head. Open your eyes.”
Slowly, unwillingly at first, he began to relax. His heart calmed, and the knotted muscles in his neck loosened. When his eyes opened, he looked upon a wise and kindly face, a face so pale it seemed to glow with its own gentle light.
“No,” Zvain whispered, trying to recall his fear and the slave-master’s true face.
Black talons traced a feather-gentle line across his cheek. He felt his skin open.
“Banish your fears. Accept what I show you as the truth.”
The talons were gone, replaced by soothing fingertips that sealed his wounds. Blood became tears.
“Pavek would not help you—Pavek did not love you.”
Elabon Escrissar gestured toward emptiness. It filled with a swarthy, stoop-shouldered human dressed in a dirty, sweat-stained yellow robe. The scars on Pavek’s face pulsed malignantly. His eyes squinted, and his lips twisted into a beastly sneer.
“He abandoned you, didn’t he? He consorted with your enemies, the Laq-sellers—”
The itinerant trio, as ugly and depraved as before, appeared around Pavek, bound to him by chains of congealed blood.
“And you thought he was your friend. My poor Zvain—you thought he would rescue you, protect you. But he betrayed you instead—”
A cool fingertip touched his tears, drying them, so he could see with perfect clarity.
“What can I give you for a reward, Zvain?”
“Vengeance.”
“That is not enough. What else do you want?”
“Magic.”
“They are yours. Take them.”
He felt parchment fingers touch his forehead, then withdraw.
“Take ashes and dust.”
The conducive substances appeared on the ground. He gathered a handful of each before rising to his feet. He could see the templar’s face—stern and vengeful now, but still glowing with inner wisdom—and Pavek’s—turning more bestial each time his scar throbbed—and the truth was very, very clear in his mind.
“Open your mouth. Speak the words on the tip of your tongue—”
He obeyed, willingly. Harsh syllables hung in the air. They summoned the dust from his right hand and the ash from his left. Pavek began to scream; his tongue lengthened and swelled grotesquely until it plugged his throat. The screaming stopped, but the tongue continued to grow as Pavek’s entire body was consumed by one of its lesser parts.
Completely enrapt by the horror and magic, Zvain watched as the slug-thing burst its yellow robes and writhed on the paving stones. It sprouted countless wormy fingers, each with a throbbing scar, a single Pavek-eye, and a silently shrieking Pavek-mouth. As the last of the dust and ash evaporated from his clenched hands, the Pavek-thing began to shrivel. The tiny eyes turned to ash, the open mouths filled with dust, and the wormy fingers shriveled into black splotches that spread and merged until what remained of Pavek resembled nothing so much as the tell-tale black, protruding tongue of a Laq-eater’s corpse.
Then that, too, crumbled and was borne away on the intangible wind.
“Vengeance…” the whispered word echoed against the walls of the deserted dyers’ plaza.
He opened his hands and stared at them a moment. He’d imagined vengeance would be gratifying; instead he was as empty as his hands.
“Will he serve?” an unexpected, unfamiliar voice said from behind his left shoulder.
Without thought Or hesitation, he turned toward the sound. He saw painted walls, draperies, and a wild-haired halfling. The halfling’s face had been brutally marked with slave-scars that seemed both old and unhealed. There was, however, nothing servile in the halfling’s posture or his voice when he repeated his question.
Zvain shook his head, unable to comprehend the question until he’d sorted out where he was from where he’d been.
“Oh, yes, Kakzim. Beyond our wildest dreams—”
This time the voice and face were familiar: the elegantly pale slave-master with taloned fingertips. Elabon Escrissar without his mask or the inner light of wisdom.
Were he not still sitting on the hassock, he would have collapsed as the pieces fell into place. He’d taken more than food and drink from the interrogator: he’d accepted magic.
Or the illusion of magic.
He’d destroyed Pavek in the theater of his mind, not reality and took a moment’s comfort from