“Stand, you miserable cur!” yelled Sacha.
“Die now, and the Shadow People shall have your spirit as their slave-until Rajaat is free!” threatened Wyan.
Tithian seized on their angry words, visualizing his fingers closing around a burning rope. He began pulling hand over hand, hauling himself out of the darkness, into the blinding light and searing agony that was his body. Within moments, he was once again fully possessed by his pain.
For a moment, Tithian tried to accept his physical anguish, to let it wash over his body like a searing wind, uncomfortable, but sufferable for short periods of time. It was no use. He had never been good at enduring pain, and he was no better at it now. If he was to survive this, he would have to rely on an old trick, one that he had found useful since his adolescence.
Marshaling his spiritual energy, the king used the Way to form an image of his friend Agis. His own pain he viewed as a bottomless vial of syrupy brown poison, and this he tipped toward the noble’s open mouth. Tithian felt better immediately. He could still feel the agony of the giant’s crushing weight, but it went straight into the brown vial, and from there down Agis’s throat. The king’s ribs still ached, and his head still throbbed, but no longer was the pain overwhelming.
Slowly, the king dragged himself from beneath the axe blade’s crushing weight, then rose and stood at the dead giant’s side.
“You’re looking better,” observed Sacha. “More fit to be one of Rajaat’s servants.”
“What happened?” inquired Wyan.
“Agis is bearing my pain for me,” Tithian replied. “Remind me to reward him when we return from freeing Rajaat.”
“He’ll never survive that long,” replied Sacha. “Our task will take months.”
“Agis will find a way,” the king said absently, studying the interior of the enclosure.
It was roughly rectangular in shape, surrounded by ragged slabs of mica that rose from the granite bedrock like a tall, silvery hedge. In the center of the enclosure, a pearly film shimmered over the entrance to a dark tunnel, just large enough for a Saram giant-or a small Joorsh-to crawl through. The passage tilted to one side, so that anyone passing down it would be forced to lean sharply to the right.
Tithian started toward the tunnel, saying, “Besides, it hardly matters if Agis isn’t alive when we return. If he’s not, I’ll just raise him from the dead.” When neither of the heads said anything in reply, Tithian asked, “Rajaat will grant me such powers, won’t he?”
“Rajaat can bestow you with magic,” replied Wyan. “What you learn to do with it is not for him to determine.”
Tithian reached the passage and stopped. The tunnel entrance was covered by a single flake of mica, as thin as paper and as clear as glass. Behind it, the hole descended into the bedrock at a steep slope, lined on both sides by smooth walls of the mineral. The floor and ceiling looked like the torn edges of a book, showing the ends of hundreds of closely-pressed mica sheets.
“What are you waiting for?” snapped Sacha. “Go get it!”
The king opened his satchel and removed a black belt, so wide it was almost a girdle. The buckle was hidden by a starburst of red flames, with the skull of a fierce half-man in the center. As Tithian laid the belt over his arm, the stiff leather crackled like breaking fingers.
“That’s the dwarven Belt of Rank!” gasped Wyan.
Tithian nodded. “A little token for the ghosts of Sa’ram and Jo’orsh,” he replied. “You remember those slavers Agis is so mad about?”
“The ones that mistakenly raided Kled,” confirmed Wyan.
“Yes, except it was no mistake-and they weren’t after slaves,” said the king, smiling.
With that, he pressed his fingers against the shimmering mica. He felt a brief burning sensation as they sank through, then he was looking at his hand through the silvery sheet. The membrane reminded him of the lid that covered the pit where he had left Agis. Remembering how difficult it had been to get out of there, he hesitated before stepping through.
“You two wait here,” Tithian said to the heads. “I may need you to help me get back through this.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Wyan. “Sacha can wait here.”
Tithian considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “Have you forgotten that I found the lens by locating the undead spirits of Jo’orsh and Sa’ram?” Tithian asked. “I’m more certain of finding them down there than the Dark Lens. It wouldn’t do to have them recognize you from the days of Rajaat.”
“As you wish,” replied Wyan. “But if you fail-”
“You won’t do anything to me that will be worse than what Sa’ram and Jo’orsh do,” Tithian replied.
The king stepped through the mica, then looked back toward Sacha and Wyan. The two heads continued to hover outside the entrance, watching him with suspicious frowns.
“Hide yourselves!” Tithian ordered. “I don’t want you here when I send Jo’orsh and Sa’ram out!”
The pair narrowed their eyes and began to drift away. “We’ll be watching!” warned Sacha.
The king shuffled down the slanted tunnel. Each time he touched the mica’s slick surface, a feverish tingle buzzed through his fingers. The air felt sweltering and still, heavy with the stale smell of dankness. There was no sound, save for the whisper of Tithian’s breath hissing past his lips, and the soft crunch of his boots on the floor. As he advanced down the corridor, the color of the walls changed from silver to lavender, then to green, brown, and finally, when he had gone so deep that the entrance was only a point of light far behind, the tunnel became jet black.
Soon it grew too dark to see what lay ahead, and Tithian stopped to prepare a light spell. When he opened his palm to summon the energy he needed, his whole arm began to tingle with the same burning sensation that he felt whenever he touched his fingers to the walls. Before he could close his fist to cut off the flow, the strange force rushed into his body of its own accord, as if it were being driven into him by some external pressure.
Hissing in pain, Tithian opened his palm and tried to expel the searing energy. Nothing happened, save that the smell of his own scorched flesh rose to his nostrils. Fearing he would burst into flames, the king fished a wad of glowing moss from his satchel and cast his spell.
A blinding flash filled the passage. The fiery tingle inside Tithian’s body faded as his spell consumed the energy that had pervaded his form. The rancid stench of burning flesh did not fade, however, nor did the scalding feeling inside his body. The king found himself sucking his breath through clenched teeth, and the vial inside his mind was overflowing with the brown syrup of pain.
To his dismay, the spell did not work quite as he had planned, either. Instead of the soft crimson glow he had expected, the corridor was filled with hundreds of globes of scarlet light, erupting into existence one moment, then, an instant later, expiring in a maroon burst.
It took Tithian’s eyes a few moments to adjust to the strange illumination. When they did, he almost wished that he were still blind.
Crawling up the corridor were two skeletal lumps, about the size of Saram giants and warped into shapes scarcely recognizable as manlike. Their legs were gnarled masses, with knotted balls for feet, while the thighs, knees, and calves were all curled together in a single coil. Long, twisted shards of bone jutted out from their shoulders, lacking any sign of elbows, wrists, or hands. One figure had fused ribs and a hunched back, with a slope-browed skull sitting on his squat neck. The other’s torso was more normal, except that his neck ended in a knobby stump with no head at all.
Regardless of whether or not they had skulls, a pair of orange embers burned where their eyes should have been. Where the chins had once been, coarse masses of gray beard dangled in the air, unattached to any form of flesh or bone.