Page 32 of Run Like the Devil

“I thought anyone who came back was mad?”

“Oh, it seems like they were, but he still wrote down what he could figure out from them. After he did that, he had them killed.”

“So much for a reward for a job well done…”

Yazmor tapped on the page. “They were uncontrollable, violent and swinging between rage and despair. It seems they were even able to ignore commands.”

“I didn’t think that was possible. Did it break the bond between them or something?”

“I don’t think so. The Demon Lord, Hector, could sense that bond. It was like whatever they experienced here was so bad that it fractured their minds. You know that pain when you try to deny an order?”

I shuddered. “Oh, boy, do I remember that.”

“Well, I’d guess they still felt it, it was just that their mind was so fragmented and broken that it didn’t affect them the same way. Hector had no real choice but to kill whatever came back.”

“You don’t remember this? Weren’t you there?”

Yazmor flashed me a smile. “I remember Hector. He came a few before Tyrus. He was taken out by a lover if I recall correctly.”

“I can’t imagine a Lord letting their guard down like that.”

He tilted his head, and I immediately got his point. I did that to Gorrin, didn’t I? Still, he didn’t mention that, instead continuing with the story. “Hector fell for a damned name Jordan. He showered him with everything he could have ever wanted—except power. I think Jordan was playing the game from the start, waiting for his chance, and eventually he managed it. After Hector fell asleep, Jordan buried a knife in Hector’s temple. Of course, damned don’t handle that much power well, so he only made it a few weeks before someone else took his position. I wonder what sort of reunion that would have been…”

Probably a lot like Gorrin and mine, right?

I waved my hand to get him to focus. “We were talking about you remembering these tests he did.”

“Right. Well, Hector kept things to himself. No one else except those closest to him knew anything about it. In fact, these are written by him, which means he was the one doing the interviews and recording the results himself. We’re lucky that Tyrus had his old books still.”

“Is there anything useful in them? Anything that tells us what we’ll find in here?”

“Sort of. You’ve got to remember that the person who said all this was completely mad, so the things they said don’t make a lot of sense.”

“Which explains why you’re the perfect one to read it.” I gave him a smirk at the joke.

Yazmor laughed, no sign of anger at the mockery. “Exactly. I’m not all there either, so I speak crazy person.”

“Can you read some to me?”

Yazmor nodded and ran his finger across the strange writing, his voice soft. “This is talking about the story one of the damned told him when they came back. This person has been gone for a week and was found eating dirt just outside of the city. It reads, ‘Klyne said that mist covers the ground, and when he left the Path, it made it so he couldn’t find his way back. He said the silence got to him, that it was so quiet, he thought he was completely alone. He wandered through the mist for what felt like weeks. I asked what he ate or drank to survive, and he said he ate fruit off the trees, and that small ponds held fresh water along the way.’”

“So there’s food here?”

“Maybe,” Yazmor said. “Or maybe the damned was chewing on rocks and didn’t know the difference. You can’t take anything written here as the truth—it’s only how he saw it, and that view was twisted the longer he stayed here. A lot of what Hector wrote revolves around the landscape. Because the damned left the Path early, he mostly wandered.”

“How did he go crazy then?”

“People can lose their minds from being lost. I once couldn’t find my way out of one of those huge malls and after a few hours, I about went crazy.”

“Yeah, but it’s a really short walk for you,” I pointed out.

Yazmor leaned over, bumping me with his shoulder. “Getting lost wasn’t the end of it. See, here— ‘Klyne says something started following him. It was in the fog, and at first, he just heard clicking and rustling. When he slept, he said it brushed against him, waking him, but when he tried to figure out what it was, it would pull back. The longer he remained lost, the bolder it grew. Klyne said it grabbed his foot once and tried to yank him, that it started to go for him even when awake. He swore that it stalked him no matter where he went, that it continued to grab him, that the more he fought, the more vicious it became.’”

“How did he get back, then? If he was lost and had something attacking him, how did he escape it and return to the Chasm?”

Yazmor scanned the page, running his finger across the words there. “It seems that when Klyne wished to return, when he gave up, he turned around and found the walkway leading down to the Chasm. The damage was done and he was no longer himself. When he was brought to the cells that Hector had, Klyne was lucid rarely. He woke sure that the thing in the fog was still after him. He attacked almost everyone he saw, believing they were in league with the creature from the fog. No matter what anyone did or explained, nothing could convince him it was gone. They waited about two weeks, but after he managed to kill four guards, Hector decided he was too dangerous to keep alive. They’d gotten everything they could from him, anyway.”

When Yazmor went quiet, only the crackling of the fire filled that space. I weighed what he had said, but I struggled to believe it. That was likely just self-serving delusion.

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