Silence reigned in the chamber.
One warm afternoon, Lilten had told her a legend of a sharn who turned a cabal of mighty sorcerers to toadstools and fed them to a gibbering mound-which it had summoned with a gesture much like what mortals use to stifle a sneeze. This was simply for pausing, confused, when the sharn asked for goblin pelt tea. Then it annihilated an unseen servant that delivered the noxious brew, on the grounds that it tasted bad.
In short, questioning a sharn was madness.
The sharn laughed. Rather, its central head laughed. The head on the right muttered homicidal promises in a long forgotten language Twilight only understood with the talisman. The third serenaded her with an ode to a desert posy in some ancient dialect of Elvish that predated the Crown Wars.
"Very well," it said. "Prisonerssss."
"Release them," she said, then quickly amended it to, "such I desire. Name-"
The sharn just laughed. "You dessssire, detesssst, dessserve nothing!"
The declaration rippled through the air, and the golden ooze caked on the ceiling hissed with a thousand spells and memories flooding through it.
Twilight found herself prostrate on the ground. Betrayal lay beneath paralyzed fingers. "Test me, then," she said.
The sharn did not pause, as though it expected this, and immediately shouted at her again, this time in a sort of half-mad, half-ordered poem. "Child of liessss, liar in love, lover of children," the sharn's three heads said, each beginning at the last's final word, eerily like a roundsong. "Do you know your mother, father, daughter?"
"My lord Sharn, this is not what I ask," Twilight said, rising to her feet.
For the first time, Ruukthalmuramaxamin turned all of its eyes upon the shadowdancer, and Twilight sank to her knees with a cry. Her head burst into flame within and she screamed, pressing her palms to her temples. This wasn't the mind-scream. It was reading her thoughts, tearing deep down into her memories. It took all her willpower not to tear out her own eyes to get at the agony or crush her own skull, much less resist. Tears poured down her face and she whimpered. She could do nothing else.
"He emptiessss you firsssst and fillssss you after," Ruuk continued unabated. "Chokessss with blood and ssssoakssss with laughter, but give him up you will, leading him to the kill."
"My lord, I do not under-" Her head felt as though it would rip itself free if her hands didn't tear it off first.
"Are the applessss in sssseasssson? Issss your essssence broken, assss is mine? Hassss the inquissssitor come? Where issss the ssssword that wassss sssstolen, the life it took, the life it killed, the life it definessss?"
"My lor-"
"For whom would you fall, child? Who would feel the blade meant for your breasssst? Who puts a ssssword in your heart? Whosssse kissss would you sssswallow and whosssse betrayal you lament?"
In her agony, Twilight opened her mouth to cry that she did not understand, but then she went pale. She knew the answer, though she'd never heard the question.
"For whom would you fall?"
Ruuk's gazes crushed her even further. It took all her furious determination-her rage at her betrayals, her hatred of those who had loved and wronged her-to resist the crushing hands that sought to annihilate her mind, the claws that shredded her soul, and the ever-tightening chain that grasped her heart.
How could it know? Did its eyeless gaze penetrate so deep? How could it know what she didn't even know?
"For whom would you fall, daughter of foxessss?"
Twilight's lip trembled and her body screamed, but she said it anyway. "All of them!" she moaned.
The sharn paused, considering. Twilight knew that upon its whim lay her life, that of Gargan, and those of her allies. She had been a fool, trusting in chaos…
Then the agony vanished and she fell breathless to the ground. If Gargan had not darted forward to catch her, Twilight might well have split her face on the burning stones.
As the goliath cradled the limp elf, Ruuk loomed over them, its three heads gleaming hungrily. Its hands traced patterns in the air-whether meaningless or slaying spells, she knew not. Then it spoke, and Twilight could hardly believe her ears.
"Two livessss for a death, two deathssss for a life," the sharn said. "Sssslay him, and your companions I–I-I…" It coughed, hissing ochre magic that flowed to the ground like blood. Veins like metal ribbons stood out on its black carapace. "I free will."
"Who?" Twilight croaked. "Who must I slay, my lord?"
The sharn coiled in upon itself, hissing madly, both in pain and in hatred.
"Gessstal!" Three throats screamed in unison.
Lord Divergence gazed down into the blood, scanning the overgrown city. Their scrying swept into the great hive, as far as the sharn's defenses would allow. As before, they could see only the borders of Amaunator's temple. That was far enough.
Yes, mayhap the heavy magic Ruukthalmuramaxamin kept in place would shield against farseeing. It would probably burn their eyes from their sockets or fry Gestal's mind to a blackened husk. But the way the sharn boomed-well, heavy magic did not keep sound from traveling.
Gestal heard their plan. Not that he expected anything different. For Ruukthalmuramaxamin was mad, and what lovelier madness could there be to a Sharn but predictability?
The eyes turned to a lifeless husk propped in the corner. "Time to go," they said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"Gestal?" Twilight dared speak back. "Who is…?"
Ruukthalmuramaxamin screamed in her mind and the world went fuzzy.
"Ssssilence!" the sharn shouted with enough force to drive even Gargan to his knees. The thing lunged, mouths slavering, and the elf's heart skipped.
But death did not fall upon her. Instead, a new sound assailed her ears and a heavy mist struck her skin. Ruuk drew back, issuing an involuntary assortment of sounds ranging from growls to crows to outright coughs. Fluid trickled between the jaws of one head, which slumped down for just an instant, then shot up and leaned over its back, as though to hide itself.
"Then," Ruuk said. "We have a foe, you and I. He dwellssss above, in cavernssss dark, there deceivessss, demon sssservessss."
Twilight opened her mouth but wisely did not speak. Instead, she reached up at the black fluid coating her face, and realized it felt like blood-blood mixed with bile and tears, but blood nonetheless.
The sharn spoke more softly then, though its voice was no less powerful.
"Long ago," the sharn said. "Before the elf ssssang, before the human dreamed, my and mine came, out of the formlessss darknessss from which had arissssen moon and her dark ssssisssster. Chaossss had ever been our sssstrength…"
Ruuk hissed with one mouth, screeched with another, and whined with the third.
"Now dying," he said. "Killed by antihessssissss, buried by logic. Ssssoul-sssstuff becomessss bane, madnessss issss death to him-her-it. Trapped!" The last was a shout, with all three voices. "Now demon-fiend-prince'ssss power waxessss and wanessss that of my people."
Twilight was uncertain whether he was talking about the race or himself. That Ruuk might be dying, Twilight had not realized, but once that thought occurred, she accepted it as a possibility-an unsettling one. What could kill a sharn?
A buzzing warned her. She cleared her mind as best she could.
The sharn gave a gesture with its three heads that might have been a nod. "Ssssink to rise, do the deed. Kill Gesssstal, your friendssss be freed."
Though Twilight's blood raced at the suggestion, she had negotiated too often to be fooled. "What if we refuse?" she asked, having no intention of doing so.