Vengeance

CHAPTER 47

Mere thought of the Oathbreaker’s Blade froze the wrythen’s plasm. The Immortal Text must be found and destroyed in case the Herovians were rising anew, though he did not know where to look for it.

He dismissed that worry for a more immediate one. He was floating in the white shaft of the Abysm. His nuclix, which was black as a hole in space, kept calling, calling, and the stolen three kept replying, but the master nuclix no longer answered and the wrythen was very afraid.

Had Deroe taken it already? He was growing stronger all the time, feeding on the raw power of the three stolen nuclixes and preparing to break free. The wrythen shivered; the cold radiating from his nuclix seemed to intensify.

And yet, he did not think Deroe had taken the master nuclix. Several times, after burning through his servant’s brain, the wrythen had glimpsed enigmatic flashes of a band of his own people, and behind them the scenery of the Seethings, as though seeing it from another’s eyes — the host’s eyes. He had also seen a scrawny little slave girl and, once, his brain-burnt servant, arms out-thrust as though pleading to his master. Unfortunately, the wrythen had not been able to find them again. Had the host discovered how to block the call?

What else might she do? He could not guess — she was unpredictable. What if she discovered how to use her nuclix to bolster her own magery? That risked everything and could not be allowed.

It was remarkable that his faithful servant had survived at all, but a matter of wonder that he had recovered enough to try and follow the wrythen’s orders. Could he succeed? The wrythen did not think so. The host girl was more than his match. And since he could not contact his servant, it left him no choice.

The facinore was evolving, which made it even more perilous to use, but it was all he had. He would direct it to the place from where the last call had come, and urge it to make haste. The host had to be taken now, or killed if she could not be taken alive. Her death would set his plans back by decades but it was better than the alternatives. If she got out of the Seethings he would lose her, either to his own people or the enemy.

Either alternative would be disastrous.