The Scrolls of the Ancients

CHAPTER

Six

"R aise oars!"

The grotesque pacemaster finally stopped beating out the incessant rhythm and placed his twin mallets on the floor. Number Twenty-Nine thanked the Afterlife that he had survived the horrific pace, and, along with the other slaves in his row, pushed down on the heavy oars, lifting the paddles from the Sea of Whispers. Blood was dripping from his palms; every muscle in his body felt as if it might literally crack in two.

"Ship oars!" the pacemaster shouted.

Using whatever remaining energy they could muster, the slaves who could still move drew their long oars into the frigate and laid them in neat rows down the length of the aisle. Many of the oarsmen had collapsed during the final, brutal day. Some had simply died of heat and exhaustion where they sat. Those had been unchained and thrown overboard, to be replaced by another Talis from the decks below. The deck was bathed in vomit, urine, and blood.

As usual, the Harlequin and the pacemaster seemed to take it all in stride. For much of the day the Harlequin had sat in his upholstered chair, watching the slaves labor as he sipped what seemed to be a bottomless glass of red wine.

Oars finally secured in the gangway, Twenty-Nine collapsed on the filthy, bloody deck. After what seemed only moments, the bleeders came around again, using their tridents to prod the helpless slaves upright. Coughing, Twenty-Nine managed to regain his seat and used the opportunity to peer out the oar slit in the side of the hull. His gaze fell upon a sheer face of gray, slick rock, and he realized they had struck land.

Smiling, the Harlequin stood up, arms akimbo. "Unchain them," he ordered.

The white-skinned bleeders in the strange skullcaps immediately began to unchain the slaves from one another, but left wrist manacles and foot shackles in place, drastically limiting movement.

"Where are they taking us?" the slave next to Twenty-Nine whispered, trembling with fear.

Twenty-Nine glared at him angrily.

"Do not talk, you fool!" he muttered furiously. "This is no time to invite attention! And as you go by the Harlequin, lower your face!"

The bleeders then began prodding them to their feet. It took many painful attempts to get cramped and atrophied legs to stand, but eventually, after a smiling, almost kindly gesture from the Harlequin, they all began shuffling toward the bow, their manacles clanking as they went.

Twenty-Nine reached the stairway and followed his comrades up onto the deck above. The first thing he saw were hundreds of slaves of both sexes standing before him, waiting to disembark. They had been divided by gender. The women, dressed in simple, one-piece frocks, had apparently fared little better than the men. Most looked ill; many were coughing.

Trying to adjust his vision to the relative darkness, Twenty-Nine rubbed his stinging, bloodshot eyes. Blinking, he finally saw where he was.

Their ship seemed to be docked in some kind of subterranean stone harbor. The flat, rough-hewn wharf had apparently been carved directly from the walls. A great deal of activity was taking place. The noise of the clanking manacles and the shouting of frightened slaves echoed hauntingly back and forth between the cavern walls and ceiling. Wide enough to easily anchor several ships like the Defiant, the saltwater bay was open to the ocean at only one end. The tunnel-shaped portal was easily wide enough and high enough to allow the passage of the great ships in and out.

Looking more closely, Twenty-Nine saw the sunlight beyond the cavern's outer edges come streaming down from the sky. Dappling the surface of the sea beyond, it tantalizingly reminded him of the freedom from which he had been so unbelievably, inexplicably taken. In the distance, his eyes could just make out the white, graceful sails of two more ships.

The stone pier before them was huge, easily large enough to allow several hundred persons to stand upon it. Numerous gangplanks had been lowered from the Defiant to the pier, and slaves were already filing down them. Dozens of bleeders stood there waiting.

As he looked closer, he could see beyond the crowd of disembarked slaves several dozen men sitting at long tables. They wore dark blue robes. As the slaves approached them, the men wrote with quills and ink in large, leather-bound journals.

Turning around, Twenty-Nine could see that the seawater here looked murky and cold as it gently lapped up against the rock walls and the sides of the ships. Numerous stalactites snaked down from the ceiling, covered with and surrounded by moss and mildew. The chamber smelled of a strange combination of mustiness and sea salt.

The only light, aside from the sunshine streaming in at the curved entrance to the harbor, came from various wall sconces and larger, standing lanterns dotting the edge of the stone pier. Their combined glow cast spectral shadows across the slickness of the walls. The air was full of the sounds of snapping bullwhips, crying, and still greater confusion.

Twenty-Nine looked down the pier and saw that two other ships were also docked quietly along its length. They floated there gently, their graceful lines and somehow comfortingly creaking hulls belying their horrific, inhuman purpose. Their waterlines rode high in the sea, revealing that their human cargoes had already been ordered ashore.

Twenty-Nine lowered his head in shame. Averting his eyes from his soiled loincloth, he regarded his tortured, shackled hands. Once beautiful, they had easily commanded the highest of compensation for his chosen trade of weapon making. Now they were bloodied and broken, and he doubted they could ever demand such sums again, even if somehow given the chance. Painfully, he tried to straighten out his fingers, but they stubbornly refused to obey, as if they had become appendages belonging to someone else. As they defiantly clung to the shape of the oar handle, he suddenly realized that even though he no longer held the oar, its mastery of him might remain a part of his being forever. Raising his face back up to the strange subterranean harbor and the wailing of his fellow innocents, he felt tears come to his eyes.

It was while standing there, waiting his turn to walk down the gangplank, that Twenty-Nine first noticed the slave directly to his right.

The man was very tall, and unlike most of the other slaves, he somehow stood defiantly erect. Broad-shouldered and stocky, the man was heavily muscled, making it clear that he was quite used to manual labor. The level, intelligent-looking eyes were hazel. Smooth, sandy-colored hair was tied behind his neck with a short strip of leather and fell long down his back. A dark mole lay at the left-hand corner of the man's mouth. Although not what many would call classically handsome, the slave carried with him a great sense of strength and personal fortitude. He looked to be approximately thirty-five Seasons of New Life.

On the man's shoulder Twenty-Nine could easily see the still angry, partially healed brand R'talis.

All the captives grouped with this man had been branded with the same word, Twenty-Nine noticed. He also quickly realized that this particular group of men and women was noticeably smaller than the others, almost as if they had been singled out for some reason.

Just then the cat-o'-nine-tails came whistling out of nowhere.

The knotted strands of leather lashed into Twenty-Nine's naked back. He screamed, falling to the pier. For the briefest of moments he looked up, fire in his eyes, his anger tempting him to lash out at his attacker. Taking a breath, he wisely relented.

The bleeder responsible grabbed him by his dark hair and wrestled him to his feet. Twenty-Nine suddenly realized why he had been whipped. In his examination of the slave standing next to him, he hadn't kept up with the moving line.

The bleeder struck him in the back, forcing him to close ranks. As if understanding, the slave he had been regarding turned his face to him and gave him a nod. Through his pain, Twenty-Nine tried to manage a little smile back.

Reaching the Defiant's gunwales, they began marching down the gangplanks and onto the stone pier. After what seemed an eternity, he finally took his turn at the tables where the men in the hooded blue robes sat waiting. He could now see that the robed ones were seated in dozens of pairs, one pair before each line of disembarking slaves. Twenty-Nine faced the pair in front of him, and they looked up at him disinterestedly.

"Turn to the right," one of them said. Twenty-Nine did so.

"Talis," the other one said, looking at the brand on his shoulder. "Your number?"

"Twenty-Nine."

Refilling his quill with ink, the man scribbled something in his ledger.

"And your given name and house?" the man asked. As Twenty-Nine told him, he again wrote in the book.

"Hold out your right hand," the other one said flatly. Looking around, Twenty-Nine tentatively did so.

One of the seated men narrowed his eyes, and a strange blue glow began to surround Twenty-Nine's tortured hand. Startled, he tried to pull it away. But then the bleeder assigned to these two robed men grabbed his wrist, forcing it back into position over the tabletop. A small, almost painless incision somehow formed in his fingertip. Then a single, controlled drop of his red blood obediently plopped down onto a sheet of parchment lying on the table. As the glow around his hand dissipated, the bleeder let Twenty-Nine's wrist go.

Then one of the men picked up a small vial and poured a single drop of what looked to be red water from it. The drop of water also landed upon the parchment, a short distance away from Twenty-Nine's blood. Leaning over, the two men at the table watched closely as Twenty-Nine's blood drop on the parchment began to dry up. He looked back up at them.

"Lack of blood activity confirmed," one of them said perfunctorily, again writing in his ledger. "Talis. No blood assay or Forestallment map required."

The man next to him reached over to a large pile of books. Selecting one, he rifled through its pages.

"Talis section," he said, looking up at the bleeder. A notation was made in this book, as well.

Ready to escort him away, the bleeder took Twenty-Nine by the arms.

But before the bleeder could push him into motion, a loud hubbub started to come from the line to Twenty-Nine's right. The man he had been studying earlier was standing before another pair of robed men. They seemed very excited, and their voices were rising in volume. Even the bleeder holding Twenty-Nine and the robed ones seated at the desk before him stopped their duties to listen.

"Say your name again!" one of the agitated blue-robes shouted at the slave. "And your house!" It was clear he was extremely eager to have his answer.

The man looked at them with defiance. "I already told you," he said. "I am Wulfgar, of the House of Merrick; son of Jason and Selene. What do you want of me?"

One of the robed men before him looked up to the bleeder stationed by his side. "Take his wrist," he ordered. The bleeder obeyed.

The robed one seated on the right looked back up into the man's eyes. "This will not hurt," he said softly. Twenty-Nine was surprised by his sudden change in tone.

Almost immediately an azure glow formed around the slave's hand. An incision similar to the one created in Twenty-Nine's finger opened. A single drop of his blood fell softly onto the blank parchment lying on the table.

Then the two robed men did something curious.

From a leather case, one of them produced a strange-looking object-actually two objects, housed side by side in some kind of open frame, Twenty-Nine soon realized. One of them appeared to be a clear beaker, the other an hourglass. Both were small in size.

The beaker contained a small quantity of thick, red fluid that seemed to move about inside it in little waves, as if it had a life of its own. At the bottom of the beaker was a small spigot.

The hourglass was the smallest Twenty-Nine had ever seen. Its lower, teardrop-shaped globe contained what looked to be no more than a dozen small black spheres. Looking closer, he couldn't possibly imagine why one would need to measure the extremely limited period of time such a small amount of sand would allow.

The beaker and the hourglass were fastened upright, side by side, in a simple frame of wood without front or back panels.

One of the blue-robes very carefully moved the device into place on the blank sheet of parchment. By now everyone in the immediate vicinity-slaves, bleeders, and hooded ones alike-had become very still, wondering what would happen next.

Slowly, carefully, the man slid the odd device across the parchment, bringing it to rest near the blood drop. The beaker was nearest the blood, the hourglass positioned on the opposite side.

From his bag he then produced a piece of string marked in bright red near either end. Stretching the length of string out on the parchment, he very carefully adjusted the position of the device until one of the string's red marks lay exactly across from the blood drop, the other directly beneath the beaker spigot. Finally satisfied, he replaced the string in his bag.

"Are you ready?" he asked, turning to the robed one beside him.

"I am," the other replied seriously, grasping the hourglass.

"You realize they must be exactly timed," the first man said, holding the release handle of the beaker spigot.

"Of course," the other said eagerly. "Begin the count."

"On my mark," the first man said. "Five, four, three, two, one, now!"

Simultaneously, the two men moved, one turning over the hourglass, one hand hovering above it, the other releasing a single drop of the strange red fluid from the beaker down onto the parchment.

Almost immediately, the two drops of fluid flowed toward each other across the parchment and joined in a single, larger drop of red. The man holding the hourglass waved his hand. A blue glow formed around the device, and the black spheres stopped falling-one of them in midair. Twenty-Nine gasped. Then, wide-eyed, he turned his eyes back to the red drop to see that it had begun to trace a design onto the surface of the parchment. After it finished forming its design, the fluid began to retrace its path over and over again atop its original lines.

Amazed, Twenty-Nine looked over at the man whose blood had accomplished this marvel. The man looked stunned.

The robed one on the right then produced a single piece of parchment from his case. He spent what seemed to be a great deal of time nervously looking from one sheet to the other, and back again. Finally, he raised his eyes to his associate.

"They match!" he shouted. "It is he! We have found him!"

His partner turned to him. "How many spheres?" he asked eagerly.

The other narrowed his eyes, and stared intently at the glass. His mouth fell open.

"Only one and one half!" he whispered in awe, barely able to croak out the words. "The second sphere didn't even reach the bottom! I have never seen such blood assay quality!"

Barely able to contain his joy, his colleague again reached into his case. This time he produced a thick magnifying lens mounted on a tripod. Unfolding the tripod's three legs, he carefully placed it over the strange red design. Standing, he closed one eye, using the other to peer down through the lens. He remained that way for some time.

"A left-leaning signature!" he announced. "And the angle is the most severe I have ever encountered!"

"And there are no Forestallments to map!" the other said. "His blood is unadulterated, just as Krassus predicted! We could not have asked for more!"

Stunned, the two men sat back in their chairs. The one on the right looked up in awe at the confused slave. Then he nodded to a nearby bleeder.

"Take him," he ordered. The bleeder immediately stepped behind the man and grasped him by both arms. "Should any harm befall him, you forfeit your life!"

"I understand, my lord," the bleeder answered obediently.

The man behind the table then turned to another bleeder. "Go and fetch Janus," he said. "Tell him we have good news. And for the moment, none of the other slaves are to go anywhere."

"Yes, my lord," the monster answered. In a flash he was gone, easily wending his bulky form through the crowd.

Twenty-Nine looked back down at the tabletop, and to the design on the parchment, and the weird devices the two men had used in their examination of the slave's blood. He shook his head, understanding none of what had just transpired.

The man named Wulfgar was faring no better. Confusion and hate filled his eyes as he stood there gripped from behind, waiting for the one called Janus.

Finally, the crowds of slaves began to part. Turning, Twenty-Nine looked to see who it was.

It was the Harlequin.

Ignoring everyone but the men seated at the table, he strode forward to face them. "What is it?" he asked.

"We have finally found him, Janus," one of them said proudly, as if having just obediently returned with a bone thrown by his master. "The blood signature is conclusive."

Janus picked up the two parchments. He gazed back and forth between them for some time. Finally he returned his red-masked eyes to the ones behind the table.

"You are sure?" he asked sternly. Turning, he looked briefly at Wulfgar. "Trust me when I say that Krassus will not be amused should he again return to this forsaken place, only to find this to be yet another false alarm."

He turned back to the robed ones. "What did the blood assay reveal?" he asked.

"A blood quality of one and a half," one of them replied promptly. "We have never seen its like. That is, of course, with the exception of the Chosen Ones."

"And the craft tendency?" Janus asked.

"Left-leaning," the man seated on the right answered. "To a degree never before seen."

"You don't say," Janus mused. Removing his fancy handkerchief from a pocket, he dusted off the lens atop the tripod. Placing his eye to it, he examined the design on the parchment for some time. Finally, he raised his head back up.

"Very well," he said finally. "I stand convinced."

The painted freak turned toward Wulfgar. "All of that magnificently endowed blood, just waiting to be trained," he mused. Grasping Wulfgar's chin, he examined the slave's face as he turned it this way and that in the dim light of the torches.

"And you are so beautiful, as well," he added. Then, letting out an exasperated breath, he backed away, all the while staring with revulsion at the slave's soiled, torn loincloth and filthy, bare feet. Reaching into a pocket, he produced a small, golden tin of snuff. With careful movements, he held a pinch up to his nose and sniffed hard. A sudden, forceful sneeze followed. Then he smiled.

"No matter," he said, sniffing twice again. "Your disgusting aroma can be remedied. And beautiful you are, my dear Wulfgar, despite your current state. You are living proof that the licentious tart that was your mother somehow always managed to vomit forth impressive children, no matter the quality of the fool she laid with. How nice."

The slave's answer was immediate: He summoned all the saliva he could and spat it directly into Janus' face.

Slowly Janus wiped the spittle from his face with his embroidered handkerchief. "So much defiance," he said softly. "And how like your half brother and sister you seem to be."

Confusion flashed across Wulfgar's face.

"Ah, but you don't know about them yet, do you?" Janus asked nastily. "All in good time. We'll see to it that the demonslavers watch over you well."

Twenty-Nine looked over to the white-skinned monster on his right. Demonslavers. So that was what they were called.

Janus turned back to Wulfgar and looked into the slave's hazel eyes. "Assign this one to Krassus' personal quarters," he ordered the ones at the table. "And keep the door securing our new charge locked at all times. See to it that he is bathed and properly fed. Nothing but the finest for our friend, wouldn't you agree? Also see to it that our guest has some finery to wear. His forthcoming station shall require it. Otherwise, he is not to be disturbed unless I order it." He smiled again. "I want him to be sleek and happy when he first meets his new teacher." The robed men nodded.

Wulfgar struggled in vain to free himself from the demonslaver's iron grip. "What do you want of me?" he growled. "What is it that I am supposed to do for you?"

Janus smiled. "Be at peace," he cooed softly. "For the time being, all that matters is what we shall be doing for you."

It was at that point that a single, defiant voice rang out from the crowd of slaves.

"Leave him alone! He has done nothing to you!"

Turning quickly, Janus narrowed his eyes and searched among the slaves. "It seems we have a wolf among the sheep!" he said loudly. "How wonderful! Come and show yourself!"

A man stepped out of line and began shuffling toward the table. The nearest demonslaver moved to strike him down, but backed down at a quick gesture from Janus. With a cavalier wave of one hand, Janus beckoned the loinclothed slave forward.

The man had served on the oaring deck. Twenty-Nine had never been afforded the opportunity to speak to him, for their stations had been too far removed from each other. But he did know that this slave had been one of the most quarrelsome. He had purposely given the demonslavers a great deal of trouble, sometimes even mocking them. Many of the others manning the oars had looked up to him. The grisly evidence of the demonslavers' love for both the nine-tails and trident showed over much of his lean, hard body, and yet this man, like the slave named Wulfgar, had somehow managed to keep not only part of his strength intact, but also most of his dignity. As he walked slowly forward to face Janus, the demonslavers grudgingly made way.

"You are in no position to give orders," Janus said, looking the man up and down. He grinned as he fingered the black-and-white spheres at his hip, rubbing them together in a circle around his palm. Twenty-Nine cringed at the perverse, metallic sound of their clinking together.

"Turn your left shoulder to me," Janus ordered. The man obeyed. Janus narrowed his eyes.

"Talis," he said approvingly. "Good. Your death shall be no particular loss. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a head start-say, twenty meters. Run as fast as you can toward the edge of the pier, where the ships lay docked. If you make it, I'll let you live. And if you don't, well, let's just say that you will be saved the unpleasant experience of this place."

After an indication from Janus, one of the demonslavers unlocked the slave's manacles. The slave rubbed his tortured wrists in disbelief.

Smiling, Janus took the black-and-white rope from the hook on his belt and slowly began uncoiling it. Then he grasped the line at its center, letting the small iron spheres at either end hang down almost to the stone floor. Casually, he looked up into the eyes of the slave who had dared defy him.

"I suggest you start now," he said softly.

The slave turned and began running toward the ships docked at the end of the pier.

Calmly, almost slowly, Janus raised the checkered line high over his head and began to swing the spheres around in a circle.The line and spheres sang hauntingly as they tore though the air-faster, faster, until they were a glimmering pinwheel of black and white.

And then Janus let go.

The weapon wheeled unerringly toward the running slave. He never had a chance.

The midpoint of the checkered line caught him in the back of the neck. Instantaneously the lines on either side wound around and around his throat.

The twin spheres closed ranks, smashing with a great cracking noise into his head-one into his face, the other into the back of his skull. Blood and brain matter exploded from his crushed cranium, and he crashed to the ground just before reaching the end of the pier. A hush came over the crowd.

The victim groaned.

"Don't tell me he still lives!" Janus sneered. "How remarkable!"

The Harlequin strode to his victim and uncoiled his bizarre weapon from the slave's mangled neck. The slave groaned one last time as the heartless butcher stood over him, watching him expire.

With a smile, Janus bent over to dip the spheres into the sea to clean them, then replaced them on his belt. He looked over to several demonslavers who had crowded around the body. Suddenly his smile widened.

"I think it safe to say he no longer has the head for this business!" And he gave a sarcastic laugh.

The slavers standing near him broke into raucous laughter.

Twenty-Nine lowered his head in shame. Then his shame quickly turned to anger, filling every corner of his heart. He looked down at his broken hands. Clenching his jaw, he turned to glare at the freak standing so proudly over his bloody victory.

"What shall we do with the body?" one of the demonslavers asked.

Thinking for a moment, the Harlequin turned back to the crowd of slaves and beckoned. Immediately the air became filled with the sounds of snapping nine-tails as the slavers forced the crowd toward the edge of the pier, where the slain slave lay.

"Hear me!" Janus shouted. "For those others of you who might defy us, know that what happened to this slave is perhaps the most lenient of consequences. There exist far more ingenious methods of obtaining your cooperation, I assure you! Your loved ones back in Eutracia know you are gone, but have absolutely no idea of where you have been taken. Nor shall they ever. Rescue is quite impossible. And should any of you be thinking of plotting an escape, also know that you are on an island. Should you try to leave us, only death awaits you in these waters. Allow me to demonstrate!"

Janus calmly turned to several of the slavers standing beside him. He pointed to the mutilated corpse. "Hack the body into pieces, and throw them in," he ordered simply.

Two of the demonslavers came forward, sliding their short, broad swords from the scabbards hanging low on their backs. With amazingly fast strokes, the body was quickly dismembered. Blood ran slowly toward the edge of the pier and dripped into the sea.

Two of the demonslavers grasped the bloody parts and tossed them into the ocean just aft of the Defiant. Then Janus turned to look down into the murky depths and held up a painted hand. The entire crowd went silent.

"Wait for it," he said quietly. Then, slowly, something began to happen.

There was a disturbance in the water.

An area of the sea surface started to glow with the color azure. It began to writhe and churn. Deepening whirlpools, each several meters across, could be seen forming in various spots on the gloomy sea of the subterranean harbor. Everyone stood transfixed, waiting to see what would happen next. And then, almost as if with a single mind, the crowd recoiled.

From the midst of the azure whirlpools, squat, menacing heads silently began rising up out of the sea.

The long, flat skulls were covered with dark red scales. Slanted, yellow eyes, with vertical black irises, darted from side to side as the heads turned menacingly this way and that, searching for whatever had disturbed the surface of the sea. Several of them began slithering hungrily toward the pieces of severed corpse, portions of their long, smooth bodies intermittently rising and submerging as they went. Their strangely forked tails rose silently from the water, only to submerge again. In the center of their backs a spiny fin occasionally swept up in a gentle curve only to fall again, to lie against the sinuous spine.

Dozens of them were rising silently to the surface now, slithering over and under one another, writhing and twisting in the dark sea. The only sound was their eager hissing.

Some of them had reached their meal, and they opened their jaws wide. Astoundingly long pink, forked tongues flashed out to entwine the bloody body parts. Then the tongues retracted, pulling the meat into waiting maws. In each mouth, four long, white fangs-two at the top and another pair at the bottom-flashed as they bit down. With snorting, snuffling grunts of pleasure the monsters swallowed.

The sea became a whirling riot of activity as the grisly feeding frenzy continued unabated.

When the dismembered corpse was finally consumed, the beasts, silent now, slithered back into the depths. The surface of the sea stilled; the azure glow faded away. The bloodied, soiled loincloth of the dead slave floated to the surface of the murky water-all that was left of the man who had dared defy Janus.

Smiling, the Harlequin turned back to the gaping crowd.

"They are called sea slitherers," he said. "Created by my esteemed master. They number in the thousands, and completely surround the waters of these isles. As I said, escape is impossible."

Twenty-Nine stood numbly, unable to believe what he had just witnessed. He turned to look at the man called Wulfgar. It was clear he had given up struggling with the slaver holding him.

Gloating, Janus sauntered back from the end of the pier.

"Enough fun for one afternoon," he said casually. "Our little object lesson is now concluded." He looked commandingly at the two robed ones still seated at the table, then pointed to Wulfgar.

"Have him taken to his quarters," he ordered, "and see to it that my other commands are carried out to the letter. His well-being is paramount. Should any harm befall him, you will have to answer to Krassus himself."

The men behind the table nodded obediently.

"Also see to it that the two parchments carrying his endowed signature and blood assay are securely locked away in the vault of the Scriptorium," he added.

He looked back at the hundreds of filthy slaves standing in the dim light of the torches. "In the meantime, keep processing these vermin," he added. "And be quick about it. Two more ships are approaching, and will be in need of docking berths." He turned on his heel and walked away.

As Janus left, several demonslavers gathered around Wulfgar, presumably forming a security squad to escort him to his quarters.

Strong hands suddenly gripped Twenty-Nine from behind. A knee was slammed into his back, and he was muscled around the end of the table.

His foot shackles rattling, he was herded roughly toward the far wall, where two dark, stone doorways waited. Over one was carved the word Talis. Over the other, R'talis. A steep stairway led upward from each, curving around and out of sight.

Just before being shoved through the door marked Talis, he forced his head around one final time to look at Wulfgar. Perhaps he could give him a look of hope, as Wulfgar had done for him.

But Wulfgar was already gone.

A trident at his naked back, Twenty-Nine began climbing the steep, rough-hewn stairway.