Like the rest of the city, this was probably beautiful once too. Inlaid stonework and graceful statues, all of it in a style very different from normal Quuros ornamentation.
In the center of that vast space, someone had carved a sphere out of the palace or temple or hall of government. Walls, ceiling, floor, and columns sheared away, as if everything within a fifty-foot distance of the center of the great, echoing hall had simply been annihilated.
A man floated in that negative space.
I shuddered even as I stepped forward. I found myself moving to get a better look, ignoring Tyentso’s hissing warning to be cautious. I had to know. I had to see him.
I couldn’t make out details. He was a silhouette, the blackest thing I have ever seen. He had no features, no clothing, no reflection at all that might give one a sense of depth and shape. That silhouette wasn’t large—shorter than myself—nor was he a big or heavily muscled man. And yet I knew that silhouette, knew that body. It was as if I was looking at something so familiar to me, that if I could just concentrate I’d remember how I knew and why he’d called me there.
He opened his eyes and looked at me.
Now, I know what you’re going to say. He was darkness incarnate. Utterly black. He was the opposite of the light that pulsed down from the roof and kept him trapped in floating suspension. How could I even tell he had eyes, let alone that he had opened them? All I can say is that I could tell. His hate washed over me with an intensity keener than the Old Man’s fire. He knew me. I knew him. The pure fear I felt under his gaze was fear such as I have never felt before. I had never been as afraid of anyone or anything before or since.
And then I felt his will against mine, pulling me to him. I felt the overwhelming desire to go to him, to join with him, to be part of him.
We would be whole. We would be free.
Nothing would ever chain us again. Nothing.
“Ty … I need your help.”
“My goddess,” Tyentso whispered. “I think I know who that is. I know…” She stared for a moment, shocked into absolute stillness. Then she shook it off. “Kihrin, we need to leave.”
“Possess me,” I said, grinding my teeth as I stepped forward. “Do it right now.”
To her defense, Tyentso didn’t demand to know what had changed from just a few minutes earlier. She simply took control of me.
The next few seconds were shaky. I think I was screaming, or trying to. I might have cried. I know I struggled to run back to where that silhouette waited for me.
None of that mattered, thankfully.
Tyentso sprinted me right back out of the prison and kept running until we reached the edge of the city. I felt her loosen her control, just enough that I could talk and move on my own but not so much that she couldn’t reassert herself if I proved to still be under that monstrosity’s power.
I bent over and was sick all over the stone walkway.
“Scamp,” Tyentso said, “I think that was Vol Karoth.” She sounded numb. “You brought us to Kharas Gulgoth itself.”
I shuddered and was sick again, sick until I dry heaved. Logically, I had no idea who Vol Karoth or Kharas Gulgoth were. Although as the son of a minstrel, you’d think I’d be slightly more familiar with stories concerning the destruction of an entire race. Yet it didn’t matter: I knew this place. I knew that creature. I knew him in my soul. She was right.
“Gadrith used to talk about this place all the time,” she continued. “Kharas Gulgoth is where the King of the Demons, Vol Karoth, is imprisoned, trapped by the gods themselves. Gadrith wanted to use him. Evil bastard dreamed of coming here, but never had the guts.”
Images formed along my peripheral vision, phantoms that had been summoned, not from the living world, but from Tyentso’s memories. One of her phantoms, a tall man in black robes, strode down the avenues, his face hidden in shadows.
Then the full meaning of what she said sank in. “Gadrith? How do you know Gadrith the Twisted?”
I felt her surprise. The phantom wizard of House D’Lorus seemed to echo that surprise, turning his head to stare at me.
I recognized him: it was Dead Man.
“How do I know—?” Tyentso laughed. “I thought you realized, Scamp. He was my husband.”
“Dead Man—” I’d have thrown up again if I had anything left. And it all came crashing back. Thaena had said Tyentso’s true name was Raverí, which meant that she was Raverí D’Lorus, Thurvishar’s publicly acknowledged mother, apparently never executed after all for her role in the Affair of the Voices. She still probably knew more about Gadrith’s methods and motives than any other living being, save his gaeshed adopted son.
What were the odds that I’d run into her on board The Misery by accident?
I knew enough by this point to recognize Taja’s meddling touch when I felt it. Just this once though, I didn’t feel upset by that fact.
“He’s not dead?” She’d been following the train of logic as if it were her own. I felt her dismay, her disgust, her shock. Tyentso hated Gadrith, hated him with a pure emotion I couldn’t hope to match for the man. I think she was ready to open some sort of magical portal to take me back to him right that instant, and rid the world of him once and for all. The only thing stopping her was the small and inconvenient matter of still being dead herself.
Besides, she was never any good at opening gates.
“We have to return to Khaemezra.” I stood and leaned against a wall for strength. I felt drained, as if just being in the same room as Vol Karoth had pulled away some of my life. Then my fingers felt an odd shape in the rock, and I realized that it was a bas-relief.