Page 94 of Heart of the Shadow King

“This isn’t the gods’ doing.” The words spit like venom from my tongue. “It’s yours. You took her, manipulated her, changed her.”

“Yes!” Maylin gasps, her body shuddering in terrible agony. “I made her what she must be! To justify the life-price.” She closes her eyes then, leaning back against her stone. “A life for a life. It was the only way to bring her back. To give her a chance to fulfill her destiny. In the end, is this not a fair exchange?”

I stare at her a moment, uncomprehending. Then I shove my hand into my pocket, wrench out theurzulstone which I’ve carried there these many weeks. Like all others of its kind, it pulses with red light. The darkness in its heart has diminished, almost disappeared. Hissing, I lift my gaze back to the witch. “You knew? You knew yours would be the life required?”

She shrugs. “I suspected. One of us would have to pay it. Either you for carrying her there, or me for sending you in the first place.” She looks down at her bloodied body. “I suppose the gods thought it best to get double the use of this sacrifice. Very . . . efficient of them.”

I shake my head, turning again to the chasm. I try once more to take a step, but my feet will not obey. “Damn you, woman, let me go!” I roar. “She’s not prepared for such a foe. She cannot hope to survive.”

“Oh, she doesn’t.” Maylin chuckles, a dark, cruel sound. “Hope, that is. She is as beyond hope now as she is beyond pain. Or love. There is only destiny left for her.”

“You lie.” It can’t be true. I felt love in her. I felt it in every touch of my lips against her skin, in the closeness we shared, the glory and the agony. She experienced it all so deeply it rocked her very soul. That woman cannot be gone.

But Maylin looks up at me sharply, her gold eyes suddenly bright and steady. “Why would I die for a lie?”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“No. The sacrifice must last as long as it can, but—”

Her voice breaks off as theurzulsing out suddenly, a pulse of sound that jolts through every sense and sends me to my knees. I cry out in pain and clamp my hands over my ears. The sound goes on and on, reverberating my bones as though it would burst them apart and scatter them as dust across this world. I fear it will never end, that I will spend the rest of eternity wracked in agony.

But it fades at last. And I, collapsed to my knees and panting, turn to look at the witch once more. Her face is ghastly, drained of lifeblood, sagging with age, ripped apart. But just for a moment I see her again: my mother. I see her as I remember her, young, beautiful, sad. And determined.

“There’s no more time,” she whispers. “She needs this. I will not balk here at the end.”

I see what she’s doing an instant before it happens. “No!” I shout and lunge to interfere. Perhaps her witchcraft prevents me, slows me just long enough so that I cannot smack the diamond blade away before it penetrates her abdominal wall and slices clean through. Blood and entrails spill forth onto the ground. Theurzulrespond at once, their song rising to a deafening pitch, drowning out my howl. I drop to my knees, gather my mother’s broken body in my arms, frantically trying to shove her innards back into place. A madman’s endeavor, but I am mad in this moment. Mad and lost to despair.

Maylin gazes up at me, her life fleeing fast now. One trembling, gore-stained hand flutters to my cheek. “Let her go,” she whispers thickly as the last gasp of air leaves her lungs. “Let her . . . save you . . .”

Then the world begins to shake again.

41

FARAINE

Theurzulcalls to me.

At first, it’s just the small stones, the dust-sized specks trapped in the cliff face, reaching out with their millions of tiny voices. As I descend, the voices deepen, grow. Maylin is right—there are greater stones down here. Greater by far than the Urzulhar. It’s as though the source of allurzullies below me, sending out vibrations across this world. Ordinarily I would not be able to sense it. Now, with the earth cracked wide open, its voice echoes up to me, carried from the deeps.

The world quakes again. I put out a hand, catching hold of the trembling wall, my crystal-crusted fingers gripping fast. The old Faraine would have screamed in terror, flattened herself against the wall, and prayed to the gods for deliverance. But the old Faraine did not have the protection ofjor.

I stand motionless as the world writhes and groans in agony. Should I be afraid? This would be an appropriate context for such emotion. But what good would fear do me? It will not prevent this narrow ledge from crumbling beneath my feet. It will not stop these falling stones from raining down on my head and shoulders. It certainly won’t turn back Arraog.

So, I simply wait until the stirring passes. When I am satisfied nothing vital has cracked or broken across my protective covering, I continue down into the pitch dark, listening to the song of theurzulhumming all around me.

The song intensifies. Though I am still walking blind, a reddish glow appears in my head, a sense as real as sight, possibly more real. “Blood,” I whisper, still without feeling, merely observing. This is howurzulresponds to blood offerings, this change in resonance, this pulse of power. Maylin must have come through on her promise to find a willing sacrifice. Good. Everything is as it should be then.

How long have I descended into this darkness, this heat? Time has lost all meaning, measured only by the increased frequency of tremors. How much longer do I have left? Or is that the right question to ask? There’s no hurry after all. The people of Mythanar are beyond saving; I saw to that personally.

But I cannot stop. The deep stones call to me, their voices excited by blood. I must answer. With the pulse ofurzulin my head, I hasten on. Heat surrounds but does not affect me, unable to penetrate myjor.I come to a place where the quakes have destroyed part of the stairway, and here at last I pause. When no alternative presents itself, I simply step out into nothing.

I fall.

A free, beautiful plummet into the unknown.

It is not unlike the dream I’ve had so many times before. Only in the dream, my skin burned away, and I screamed in terror.

There is no terror now. No pain.

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