Still holding the extraordinary sword, Marek stepped back, and let Willemor to be more precise, the creature that Willem had becomeroll onto its belly and vomit out the desiccated black gemstone.
“Stand, thrall,” Marek ordered.
The creature struggled to its feet, its whole body shaking. It looked down at itself, naked and pale, the lightning that flashed in the window playing over the sword wound that no longer bled. Marek could see its eyes focus, and a dim beginning of sentience returned to its gaze.
“That’s right,” Marek said, letting a wide grin spread across his face. “You’re no zombie to be made to dig and claw at mud, my boy.”
The creature looked at its creator, its smoldering eyes running up the wavy length of the blade and stopping on Marek’s grinning face.
“Yes,” the Thayan said, taking a step closer to the hunched, naked undead wretch. “You know me. You know your master.”
Recognition flooded into the creature’s eyes all at once, to be replaced a moment later with impotent rage, then a desperate realization of what had become of it.
“Good morning, my boy,” Marek Rymiit said, then he started to laugh.
The creature grunted, its lips still pulled away from its teeth in a terrible grimace. It lifted its sunken face, skin stretched tight and so pale it was almost green, up to the ceiling, to the lightning outside.
Marek laughed.
The thing that had once been Willem Korvan screamed.
Marek didn’t stop laughing, and his creation didn’t stop screaming, for a very long time.
To be concluded in Scream of Stone June 2007