inky blind blackness of Madmanse.
Then ... they were close and I sensed it. They stood right there before me, only a few paces away. I formed my hands into talons and rushed at them. And ... they had brought me here, to a refuse pit! My legs struck the wall which you see before you; I fell! And while 1 lay at the bottom, broken in the mire, Wran and Spiro choked the pit with boulders.
For half a year I lived on muck and bones. And while my metamorphic flesh was still willing, 1 gathered to me the remnants of extinct creatures: the armour of warriors, and all of that which you saw in your dream. I made a giant of myself, my plan being to break out. But the pit was as deep as my 'food' was bad, so that my strength waned even as my size increased.
As for my eyes, I would repair them. But nothing I fashioned was nearly so good, and all of the evil had been burned right out of them. Finally I was starved. Too weak to struggle on, at last I slumped against the wall, where in the course of fifty years J commenced my stiffening. Thus Eygor KiJJgJance became the mummy-thing which you saw in your dream ...
Nathan, who was almost inured to horror now, nodded and said, 'Your just deserts.'
You think so? Ah, but you're a hard one.' And what of my bastard bloodsons? Should they go unpunished?
'Punished? They should be destroyed utterly!' Nathan answered. 'Not for what they did to you but for what they've done - and what they're doing even now - to Olden Sunside in the west.'
Ahhh! said Eygor, and Nathan read approval in his sigh. And so we are of a mind after all!
Nathan's torch was wavering; he turned to go, to follow his own tracks back the way he'd come. Wait! Eygor begged him.
'For what?' Nathan kept going, putting distance between. 'We've nothing in common. There's no way you can help me. But I sense that you would help yourself, even now!'
Nathan, it can be yours ...
With his foot on a bottom step, Nathan paused. 'What can be mice?'
The evil eye of Eygor Killglance. I've read your dreams, your wildest flights of fancy, and know that you'd make war on the Wamphyri. But only think ... what a weapon it would make.'
To kill men with a glance? To be a monster as you were a monster?'
But you said it yourself: 'All men have urges, but some control them.' You, the Necroscope, would control this special urge. My power would be yours to use for good, not evil!
'I don't want it.' Nathan climbed away from the voice, through the hollow shell of Madmanse.
But now that you know it's there you will, eventually.
And now that you know where I am, you'll be able to find me always. I'll never be far away, Nathan, wherever you are.
'Suppose I did ... want it? What then? How would you give me your power? And what would you want in return?'
Oh, I would give it to you, never fear. And in return ... my freedom1.
'Freedom? From what? You're a dead thing.' "Away from the miasma of Eygor's mind, Nathan's dizziness quickly cleared. He went faster, and as he approached the outer wall and light came in from the gorge, so the other's deadspeak began to fade and break up. It wasn't so much that Eygor couldn't reach him, but that Nathan no longer desired to be reached. He felt that he'd escaped - but just in time - from something which would damn his soul forever.
My freedom from that, from death itself! Eygor was desperate now. You can do it, Nathan. I heard it from the Thyre, carried on their dreaming deadspeak thoughts ... you, the Necroscope ... it for Rogei ... Cavern of the Ancients ....as a dead thing, too ... gave him life ....ou willed it, you and Rogei together ... because you needed ... he was alive!
Nathan had heard enough. 'Return you to life? Never!' His torch went out and he ran in near-darkness to the final stairwell. And the night-dark spirit of the place was right behind him, snapping at his heels.
Not now but ... some future time. If you should need me, I... here. All I ask . .. don't forget me ...
Panting, trembling, Nathan came up into Runemanse, which seemed a healthy place now - almost. But in his metaphysical mind, burning like ice: Don't