an army. Do you know why we call it the Inferno?”
Caina did, but she shook her head so Moryzai would keep talking.
“Because it is the furnace,” he said, “where living men are destroyed and reforged as Immortals in the service of the Padishah. Or, more accurately, in the service of the Grand Master of the College of Alchemists. There are alchemical laboratories within the Inferno where the vile elixirs are prepared. There are halls where the slaves are forced to kill each other for the amusement of the Lieutenant, so their souls and hearts become inured to blood and death. There are chambers filled with instruments of torture, where those who fail in combat are taught the meaning of pain so they can become strong. Thousands have died inside the Inferno over the decades, thousands and thousands beyond count. Those who survive, those who endure the training and the torture and the elixirs of sorcery…they come out as something colder and harder and more malevolent than human.”
“Immortals,” said Caina.
Little wondered Rolukhan served as Lieutenant of the place. Nagataaru feasted on death and pain, feeding some of that stolen energy back to their hosts, and the Inferno would be an eternal fountain of pain and misery.
“Yes,” said Moryzai, his voice fading to a whisper. “The Immortals call the Inferno the Iron Hell, and they are not wrong to name it that. But even that, even all the tortures and horrors of the place, were not the worst of it. The dead walk the deepest halls of the Inferno.”
“Dead?” said Caina. “You mean undead?”
“Like the golden dead,” said Moryzai. “The Inferno was originally a Maatish fortress, remember, and the pharaohs and necromancer-priests commanded vast armies of the undead. According to legend, the Bloodmaiden destroyed Maat two thousand years ago, but not all the fortresses fell. Some held out and tried to carve petty kingdoms for themselves. In time the Inferno was abandoned, but its undead remained.”
“Then the Inferno is filled with ancient Maatish undead?” said Caina. That was a disturbing thought. The undead Rhames had been a Great Necromancer of Maat, and if Caina had not stopped him he would have killed half the Empire and conquered the rest. “Why have they not overrun the fortress?”
“Because they remain confined to the lower halls,” said Moryzai. “No one can command them, not even the Grand Master himself. Yet they never leave the lower halls. Sometimes the Lieutenant will order a troublesome slave thrown into the lower halls as punishment. The undead slay their victims in short order, and the victims rise themselves as undead.”
Caina frowned. “So whoever is killed in the Inferno rises again as an undead creature? How does the Lieutenant keep the undead from overrunning the entire fortress?”
“Pardon,” said Moryzai. “I was not clear. Only those slain in the lower halls, the Halls of the Dead, rise again. Those who are killed in training in the upper halls, or executed at the Lieutenant’s command, do not rise again. They, at least, get to escape the torment of the Inferno.”
“As you did,” said Caina.
“By accident,” said Moryzai, his gurgling voice growing fainter. “It was a mistake. I…well, I have never been particularly graceful. The peril of using one’s mind to earn one’s bread, I suppose. My master Kurzir gave me a message to deliver, and as I hastened, I lost my balance and fell from one of the walkways and into the Halls of the Dead.”
“How did you escape?” said Caina.
Moryzai offered a sickly little smile. “I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I was younger and lighter in those days, and I could still run. The undead…they called out to me as I ran. The oldest demanded that I stop in the name of their pharaoh and his gods. The younger ones screamed the manner of their deaths and demanded that I share their fate. I managed to climb my way out and I fled the Inferno. By Istarish law, a slave who deserts his master is crucified, but I thought crucifixion preferable to remaining another moment in that awful place. I fled to the city and turned my skills to less legal but more profitable ends. I feared Kurzir’s vengeance, but in time he died and his son Rezir ascended to the Emirate of the Vale of Fallen Stars. I suppose he had other matters to occupy than my fate, and then the Balarigar slew him at Marsis, may the Living Flame roast his black soul. His brother