“I am,” he said.
Karak flicked his wrist at the torches on the far wall, extinguishing them, creating a deep pool of darkness between cascades of light. He then looked Velixar in the eye, his mouth firm, his glowing gaze as serious as a blade to the throat.
“My power is yours to use, my Highest,” he said. His booming voice grew softer, but it still possessed a threatening undertone. “You are my greatest ally, the best of all my children. I trust you with the fate of my kingdom. Do not prove that trust unwise.”
Velixar bowed his head. “I will not, my Lord. That is my solemn promise to you.”
The god held out his hand, and Velixar took it. Energy surged through him, prickling his fingertips, making every hair on his body stand on end. It felt as if his chest had swelled to twice its size by the time he released the deity’s hand and stepped into the darkness between the torches. He closed his eyes, concentrated on his destination, and was overwhelmed by the sensation of his body being broken down atom by atom.
An instant later he opened his eyes to find himself in complete darkness. When his senses returned to him, he muttered a few words. Flames licked from his fingers, revealing his surroundings to be a small room. Faint streaks of daylight shone through the gaps above and below the door in front of him, intruding only a few scant centimeters before being swallowed up by blackness. When he pushed open the door and stepped outside, the sun was beginning to dip behind the treetops.
The room was an empty shed on the edge of Mori Manor. The pillars on which the house banners once flew had been toppled. There was blood everywhere, smeared on the sides of the houses, the grass, and the dirt path leading through the center of the settlement. Hundreds of corpses hung upside down from the rooftops on ropes that creaked as they swayed. The stink of death was virtually unbearable.
Velixar moved among them. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, even infants; none had been spared. Their bellies had been ripped open and their insides devoured, leaving them nothing but empty shells. Judging from the amount of decay, he guessed they had been dead for at least five days, perhaps as much as a week. The beast has been busy, he thought. In a way he admired Darakken’s fastidiousness. There was an exacting nature to the way the corpses had been hung-by height, ascending and descending and ascending again, as if the creature were trying to perfect its own sort of morbid symmetry.
Hearing the sound of tearing flesh, he stepped away from the dangling cadavers. He strolled down the center of the dirt road, the grooves from the carts brought by Handrick’s men still etched into the soft ground. Glancing to the left, he spotted a massive creature sitting cross-legged in front of a small log home. The glimmering pate of the thing reflected the rays of the dying sun as its head moved up and down, up and down, ripping tubes of intestines from the body of the young boy that rested across his lap.
Velixar approached the beast. Clovis was completely naked, and his flesh had been stretched almost beyond recognition, to the point where it was virtually transparent. Hearing his approach, the beast’s head shot up. Its eyes glowed brilliant red from the center of Clovis’s bloated face, meaning the demon was in full control.
“You seem to have eaten more than your fill,” Velixar said.
“My brother-made-master, did you come for me?” the demon asked, chunks of meat and strings of viscera dangling from its swollen lips. It was still strange to hear its odd inflection-the voices of two entities speaking simultaneously.
“I have,” he said, stopping before the beast and folding his arms over his chest. “And I am not happy.”
“Why is Velixar not happy?”
“Look around you. These people were my god’s children, just like myself, just like you. And yet you destroyed them.”
“They were blasphemers against the mighty Karak. I promised to sheer the flesh from thy enemies. Have I not done so?”
Velixar sighed. Darakken was indeed a simple beast.
“I do not wish to speak with you, Darakken. I wish to speak with Clovis. Bring him forth.”
The beast grinned, showing its sharp, red-stained teeth.
“The little man is sleeping,” it said.
“Wake him up.”
“I do not wish to.”
The creature plunged its claws into the gaping chest of the corpse in his lap, pulling out another sloppy pile of entrails and stuffing them in its mouth. Velixar calmly lowered his head, muttered a few words, and lifted his hands. Karak’s borrowed power still flowed through him, and his fingertips crackled with black lightning and swirls of shadow. He pictured the demon’s soul dangling by a slender thread, and he snipped at it, severing tiny strand after tiny strand. Darakken winced in pain, spitting out a mouthful of meat and gagging.
“I submit, I submit!” it shrieked.
The thing pitched forward, the body in the beast’s lap rolling away as it collapsed face-first into the mud. It lay still for a moment, its rippling, distended form falling still, and then its head lifted and a pained gasp left its lips. Velixar could see the beast’s eyes alight with panic, and they were no longer glowing. He stood over the thing-turned-man and laughed.
“Clovis, you fool, get up.”
He did so, awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable with his stuffed, swollen bulk. He looked down at himself, at the bulbous forearms and sagging breasts, at the penis that vanished beneath a rolling gut. Recognition slowly shone through in his stare, and Clovis Crestwell gazed on Velixar with fear and hate.
“Look what you’ve done to me,” he choked out.
“Whatever happened to you, you did it to yourself,” Velixar replied.
“I’m a monster.”
“You were always a monster, Clovis, only not a very good one. You are much more efficient now.”
The naked monstrosity turned away from him.
“Leave me alone, Jacob,” he said. “Go away. You don’t understand how horrible it is to exist like this.”
Velixar lurched forward, grabbing Clovis by the shoulder. It sickened him to feel the clammy, sodden flesh beneath his fingers, and he had to restrain a wince.
“You will not turn away from me, Crestwell. I am Highest; I am your master now. You will do as I say.”
Clovis swiveled toward him. His form was already starting to lose its extra weight as Darakken’s essence swallowed the nutrients.
“What would you have me do?”
“I left you alive for a reason. I could have allowed the demon to devour your soul as it devours everything else, but I need you. You are what keeps the beast in line. And yet you shirked that duty by allowing it to slaughter this entire settlement.”
“I had no choice. He is too strong!” Clovis pleaded.
“And were the Quellan too strong as well?”
Clovis tilted his head, confused.
“Another example of your failure, you weak fool,” seethed Velixar.
“But…but the Quellan elves are loyal to our cause. Dezerea is ours now that they’ve taken it! Just as you asked…just as the Whisperer asked…”
“You were also told to protect the Meln family from harm. Yet the Lord of Stonewood and many of his underlings are dead, and his wife and younger daughter have fled and are in hiding.”
“They acted on their own!” he shouted. “My son…my poor dead son…he told them the terms, and they ignored him!”