Agis closed his eyes and focused his concentration on the core of his being, letting the sickening anguish of decay wash over him without fighting it. He focused all his thoughts only on the mystic truths of the Way; truths that allowed him to accept his pain and use it to transcend his mortal body.
Once he felt in control of his agony, the noble said, “Enough games. Leave us alone, or you shall regret it.”
A few Castoffs stared at him in amazement, but most continued to assault both him and his friends. Agis closed his eyes and drew energy from his spiritual nexus. Soon, his tortured body buzzed with the power he needed. In his mind, the noble visualized more than a hundred open hands, then opened his eyes and projected one from inside his head to each spirit’s cheek. The palms struck their targets with resounding slaps, melding into the face and leaving behind black impressions of themselves.
Once he had marked the Castoffs, the noble said, “That’s to let you know I can carry out my threats. If I must defend us again, I won’t be so lenient.”
Crying out in alarm, the Castoffs rose into the air and hovered above his head.
Agis knelt down to examine Kester. Where the glowing faces had been rubbing against her back and shoulder, her thick hide had shriveled into a desiccated, wrinkled mass. The noble turned her over and found her front side in even worse condition. She had long since fallen unconscious, but her face remained racked with pain. The hide covering her neck and breasts was as grotesquely creased as that on her back, save that the outer layers of skin were falling away in a dusty powder.
Agis used a few strands of scraggly beard to secure her beneath Fylo’s chin, then turned his attention to the giant. The half-breed’s face had become as grossly misshaped as that of any Saram child. One of the eyes had nearly doubled in size and now bulged from its socket with all the precariousness of a ball at the edge of a shelf. The other had grown smaller, sinking so far beneath his brow that it was barely visible. His nose had somehow been rearranged so that it had a separate passage running down to each nostril, with a long cleft in between. Even his buckteeth had not escaped alteration, and now splayed out in opposite directions like the two branches of a forked stick.
Agis looked up at the faces hovering over his head. “Why have you done this?” he yelled.
The Castoffs descended toward him in a slow circle, their immaterial visages twisted into bizarre masks of regret or rancor, he could not quite tell which. Ghostly sobs poured from the lips of several children, while ethereal tears streamed down their cheeks and vanished into the black air.
“We’re scared!” wailed a little girl.
“And lonely!” added a boy.
“Why did they put us down here?”
With each cry, a pang of anguish pierced Agis’s breast, filling him with a deep sense of regret. Every complaint added to his sorrow, and his heart grew heavy and weak. Soon, he felt like a terrible weight was pressing down on his chest, and it hurt to breathe.
Still, the Castoffs continued to pour grief into him, until he felt so gorged with misery that he feared he would burst.
“Stop it!” Agis yelled.
The noble summoned the energy to use the Way and closed his eyes again, this time seeing a hammer with white-feathered wings on its handle. Once he had it locked firmly in his mind, he looked toward the highest hanging skull and projected the image there. It appeared an instant later, its white wings keeping it aloft with slow, graceful arcs.
“This is your last warning!” the noble said.
When the Castoffs continued to wail, he drew the hammer back. Before he could strike, the face of the button-nosed woman who had spoken earlier descended in front of him. She looked more like a Joorsh than a Saram, with no obvious deformities and almond-shaped eyes that had a surprisingly gentle quality to them.
“Please, don’t!” she said. “The grief you hear is genuine. They can’t help themselves.”
Agis held his blow, but pointed to his unconscious friends. “Could they help themselves when they did that?” he demanded.
“I know their behavior seems cruel to you, but you don’t know the reason for it,” she replied.
“Tell me,” the noble said, still keeping the hammer poised to strike.
The woman shook her head. “I’ll try, but how can you understand what you can’t possibly feel?” she asked.
“You’d be surprised by what I understand,” Agis countered.
“Not this. Your heart is too good.”
Agis frowned, wondering if she were trying to flatter him. “What can you know of my heart?”
“I know that it’s purer than those crystals,” she replied, gesturing at the spikes of quartz growing from the walls. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have resisted the magic we draw through them.”
Agis glanced at the silvery glow inside a nearby crystal. “Magic from the Oracle?” he asked, remembering what Nal had said about needing the lens to keep the Castoffs in the pit.
The woman nodded. “It’s what sustains us-and it supplies the magic that runs through the crystal lid that keeps us locked in this prison.”
“That’s very interesting, but it doesn’t explain the cruelty of your friends.”
The woman cast a sorrowful look at the faces hovering above. “That is how children become when you lock them away,” she said. “They’ll take out their anger on whatever is weaker than themselves.”
Agis allowed his hammer to fade away. “Then if we don’t want them to be cruel, I suppose we’ll have to free them, won’t we?”
The spirit looked doubtful. “Don’t raise their hopes,” she said. “That isn’t something you can do.”
“I think it is,” Agis replied, craning his neck upward to study the lid. “And you can help by reviving my friends. We’ll need them.”
As he spoke, Tithian’s gaunt form landed on the crystal cover with a dull thump. A high-pitched hum reverberated through the lid, and the king’s body began to pass through to the noble’s side of the barrier.
The Castoffs started to rush up toward him. “We’ll have none of that!” Agis yelled. To himself, he added, “Even if the serpent deserves it.”
The faces stopped and looked to the button-nosed woman for instructions. “I suggest you do as he says if you ever want to return to your bodies,” she said.
As the Castoffs reluctantly dispersed, Tithian passed the rest of the way through the cover. He plummeted onto Fylo’s midriff, causing the giant’s body to tremble violently. For a moment, Agis feared the half-breed would come dislodged, sending them all plunging into the dark abyss below, but the giant sank only a few feet. If anything, the impact seemed to lodge him into place even more securely.
Tithian groaned and tried to rise. Then, his eyes rolling back in his head, he fell motionless. Agis slipped down Fylo’s chest and touched his finger to the king’s throat. He felt a strong, regular pulse.
“It would probably be better for Athas if I killed you right now,” Agis said, using a finger to lift one of the king’s eyelids.
Tithian opened his eyes, then pushed Agis’s hand away. “You don’t have the nerve to murder me,” he sneered. “But it makes no difference. Athas no longer has anything to fear from me.”
“Why’s that?” Agis asked, examining the king’s head for signs of a serious blow. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe you’ve decided not to go after the Oracle?”
“What you believe makes no difference!” Tithian yelled, grabbing Agis by the shoulders. He pulled the noble’s face close to his and gasped, “That worm lied to me!”
“What worm?” Agis asked. “About what?”
“The Dragon!” Tithian cried. “Nal told me. Borys can’t make anyone a sorcerer-king-not even with the Dark Lens!”
ELEVEN
THE CRACKED COVER
Fylo’s knuckles landed on target in a blackened corner of the translucent cover. A sharp crack rang off the pit walls, and the impact reverberated through the shimmering platform upon which he stood. The lid did not break. The giant drew back his fist to try again, then suddenly cried out in alarm as the temporary floor dissolved beneath his feet. He plunged, screaming, into the abyss.