“What are you going to do?”
“I will forge something new. A sword, Skye. I will forge a sword. And I will call her Muse.”
Days upon end he toiled, working for the Gigeron and secretly forging Muse whenever he was left alone. The forging was long and bitter, for he wrestled with metal far more resilient than the mineral that he normally worked. He poured all of his fury, his hatred, and his newfound focus in its creation. His sweat fell sizzling from his brow as he lost himself in a trance of concentration, day after day; honing his weapon until it was keen enough to slash the wind. He affixed the shimmering orb in the center of the crosspiece, and immediately the entire sword flushed with light as if the entire weapon were made of crystal. Only then did a small smile crack the granite of his hardened face.
He held the sword aloft. It glittered with the promise of absolution.
With a wild howl he smote the great anvil that he had pounded upon for so long. He was rewarded by a thunderclap that rattled the entire cavern. The reverberations rippled, toppling stalagmites and splintering petrified bridges. When the dust finally cleared, the obsidian anvil was split in two. Muse shone brightly from its heart, unmarred and oblivious of the violence.
The hissing of serpents alerted him before the Gigeron arrived, brandishing their whips of fire. As they struck in a furious barrage of fiery lashes and shrieking curses, Talan smiled.
Then he slew them.
Muse parted sinewy flesh and bone like water and Talan delighted in the shower of inky blood that spattered across his face. Their screams were honey to his ears as he danced among them, a smiling nightmare that held a blazing star in his fist. Their shrieks were cut short as they toppled in heaps of twisted limbs.
Talan raced through the tunnels, striking down any Gigeron that he ran across. As he battled, some of the children who still had their senses struck the chains from their comrades. The tunnels filled with rivers of fleeing bodies. The Gigeron beat them viciously, but the children’s numbers were too great, and the Gigeron were afraid. Talan sought the twisted creatures out, his translucent eyes shining with rage.
He struck with Muse, cutting into their numbers heedless of their whips and serrated blades. He struck with his focused mind, calling to the ceilings of jagged stone and dropping them upon the heads of the Gigeron. The fires of the forge obeyed his will, serpents of liquid flame that devoured the knobby-limbed creatures. He attacked relentlessly until all he encountered thrashed in their death throes, until the halls and chambers rang with new sounds.
The dying shrieks of the Gigeron.
Chapter 6 — The Price of Vengeance
Fleeing children ran everywhere. Talan caught sight of a horde of them attacking a group of Gigeron, trying to stop the creatures from assaulting someone. He moved to aid them.
Then he heard the anguished shrieks of the Queen.
He paused and casually turned to stride into her glittering chambers. Hosts of Gigeron fell upon him, but they were no match for the power of Muse. Talan flowed from one to the next, cutting them down until none dared to face him.
He turned and beheld the Queen in all her hideous magnificence. She writhed in impotent fury; her unheard screams echoed in his ears. When her tantrum finally resided, she fixed her thousand glittering eyes upon him. Her face was more insect than human, sheathed in dull scales and full of wriggling, protruding feelers.
Foolish boy. The plow blades of her voice dragged across his mind. Bitter, vengeful, angry boy. Why do you rebel against your masters? I can taste your anger, your need to kill. Look what you have become. You seek my destruction because of your enslavement, because I hold you and the children in this hive to serve me. And what do you do? Slaughter my children without mercy. Whose crime is the greatest, boy?
Talan wavered for an instant as the words sank deeper into his mind. He shook his head to clear the fog that surrounded it. “No… you’re wrong…”
I know that you can Focus, boy. You should have been brought to me when your powers were forming. I would have removed that curse from you, freed you of your agony. Now, it will destroy you. Your mind has betrayed you, has warped your thinking. Only I can complete your transformation.
“You lie! You would turn me into one of your beasts… one of your Gigeron. I do not need your aid. I survived because I am strong.”
You are strong? Her laughter silently rang in his head. For eons I have scourged worlds, boy. Yours was not the first. It shall not be the last. I existed when your ancestors huddled in caves and feared the sound of the wind. I will remain after your world is blasted to powder and all memory of its existence is forgotten. Your ignorance is amusing. You are just a boy. A poor, ill-bred, misbegotten mortal child with delusions of destroying the eternal.
Talan felt cold fingers grasp his spine and squeeze tightly. “No…”
Mockery bled from her words. There is nothing for you Beyond this place. You have been chosen to serve, and serve you shall.
What ripped from Talan’s throat was something between a roar and a shriek of anguish. The Queen’s words collided in his mind and shattered in jagged, glittering shards. His knees tottered, his muscles turned to water as he desperately sought something to counter the slide to oblivion, to the undeniable assurances that she so casually related.
He felt it within, the flickering blaze that she had tried to extinguish, tried to smother with her flood of oppression. He let the hatred blaze once more and fill his veins with fire. When he raised his head, he felt her shrink back from his gaze.
“You will not break me. Your Gigeron are slain, yet I live. They fear me because of this.” He raised Muse before him; it shimmered almost blindingly. “You fear me because of this!”
The Queen shrieked in rage. Talan felt something slam into him, solid as bricks yet invisible as air. His breath exploded from his lungs as he was crushed against the rainbow-hued wall and held as though by a giant fist. Muse fell from his hand and clattered uselessly on the ground.
Foolish boy. Did you truly believe that your makeshift control of the Focus would allow you to best me? I can do things that your feeble mind cannot even begin to fathom. You will become my slave, bonded to me mind and soul. You will be my prize possession, my most valuable servant, after I instruct you in lessons of pain.
His body twisted unnaturally, wracked by agony as though rusty daggers stabbed into him again and again. As he writhed in the unseen grip, the Queen’s voice laced razor wire across his mind.
Youwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobeyyouwillobey…
Talan howled with laughter.
What is wrong with you, boy? In his head he could hear her astonishment. Have you already lost your mind to madness?
“Don’t you see?” He grinned fiercely through the haze of torment. “There’s… nothing more… you can…do to me. I am… beyond your… pain. Nothing can hurt me anymore than I’ve already been hurt. You are… powerless!”
He Focused, and the force that pinned him dissipated. Muse hummed and flew to his hand as he landed.
“It is time,” he said. “Time you saw the end of your days.”
He flew. Up the petrified mound he raced as the Queen shrieked in outrage. Muse sizzled and slashed the glaze of regurgitated mineral; it cracked and split apart, exposing the thousand withered, wriggling legs. Eggs and larvae spilled across the floor, and her shrieks grew louder until the sound filled the entire chamber. Her scream still lingered even after Muse severed her head from her body. The terrible sound ceased only when the monstrous head shattered like brittle pottery against the flagstones.