The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (8 page)

He rose, his face dark with
rage, and strode down the stairs to Aiul’s cell. On his way,
he removed a truncheon from its place on the wall. He would make the
Traitor pay for his interruption.
That's the excuse, anyway. He's
paying for everything else, too.

Salastin inserted his key and
turned it, then cursed. The lock was frozen! He slammed the eye slit
open and glared in at his captive. Aiul stood, eyes cast to the
floor, his body shaking in silent laughter, his hands clutching at
his ragged garment.

“I don’t know what
you’ve done to the lock,” Salastin growled. “But
it will be the worse for you when I get it open!” He slammed a
boot into the steel door.

Aiul’s laughter grew more
audible, a deep, malevolent chuckle, as he raised eyes of pure ebon
toward his tormentor. “Your name is Salastin,” he noted,
and stepped toward the door.

“Whatever game you’re
playing, you’re going to suffer for it,” Salastin spat.

“Suffer and die,”
Aiul agreed, bringing his own eyes to the slit.

From a distant corner of his
mind, Aiul watched the horror unfold as a child might listen to a
particularly chilling tale being told by a master storyteller. He
saw not with his own eyes, but from a perspective outside himself
entirely, as if he were a disembodied spirit.
Perhaps that is
just what I am. I should be afraid, but I am not.

He saw his right hand rise and
slam against the cell door, the impact like a meteor falling from
the heavens. The sounds of tortured metal, rending stone, and
Salastin’s cry of shock rang out through the cell block as the
door exploded from its jamb, propelling the guard across the room
and dashing him against the far wall in an explosion of blood and
gore.

The remainder of the watch
charged down the stairs, weapons in hand and ready for anything
except what they actually found. The cell door slowly peeled itself
from the wall with a wet, sickening squelch, then fell to the ground
with a clang, revealing all that remained of Salastin.
He's just
another bug crushed underfoot, now. As the rest of you are about to
be, I think.

They turned from the splatter
to gape at Aiul, or rather, Elgar wearing Aiul’s flesh, as he
emerged from the cell. He was gaunt and haggard from deprivation,
his skin flushed a bright pink, his hair bone white. Steam rose from
him as if he had just stepped from a hot bath. His grin seemed to
nearly split his head, so wide it was, an expression of pure joy, a
baring of fangs in abject hatred. Blood ran freely from his ears,
eyes, and nose, staining his exposed teeth.

Elgar spoke to them in his own
voice, “I am Monster,” he spoke, in his own voice, the
sound and emotion ripping through the building in a shock wave.

“Ravager….”

The guards were literally
trembling in their boots as he approached them, but they were frozen
in their tracks.

“Destroyer!” His
voice thundered from the bowels of the prison, shook loose mortar
from the stones, and rattled the streets of Nihlos above. Elgar
reached out, seized two guards by their necks, and dashed their
heads together, smashing their skulls in a shower of blood and gray
matter. He punched a fist into the chest of a third, tore out his
still-beating heart, and crushed it in his grip. The explosion as it
burst painted the walls and ceiling with even more blood and gore.

The remaining two guards, still
unable to even raise a hand in their own defense, stood trembling
and silent as Elgar chuckled, his voice tearing at their souls like
a scourge.

Even in his disembodied state,
Aiul found he had no stomach to watch further. He had hated Salastin
and reveled in his just end, but these men Aiul did not even know.
He had no eyes to close, but he could at least shift his focus away
from what was to come, to stare at the wall instead.

He heard the sounds well
enough, though, the snapping of bones and rending of flesh, a soft,
wet sound like cloth being torn.
The true horror is their
silence. They know what is happening to them. They can feel it, I'm
certain. But they can't move, can't even scream. Mei, what have I
done?

More blood splattered against
the wall, seemingly at random, but somehow, in the end, accreting
into an obscene pattern, a sigil of destruction and death. The gore
bubbled and smoked like acid as it worked its way into the surface,
burning into the stone an indelible mark of Elgar’s passing, a
crow picking at the eye socket of a grinning skull.

The Destroyer raised his hands
above his head and closed his eyes, simply breathing in the scent of
terror and death for long moments, then spoke a single word: “Rise.”

The broken flesh of the guards
answered his call, reassembling itself as best it could to achieve
mobility. Elgar’s warriors rose to their feet, steady and
fearless, dead hands taking up their weapons once again, dead eyes
seeing nothing, to follow him from the prison.

Aiul felt himself falling into
blackness.
Perhaps this is the end.

Then
he knew nothing.

Kariana moaned in pleasure, her
body writhing on silk sheets as her lover ground against her, her
mind clouded by the drugs she had taken to heighten the experience.
What was his name again? Oh, it hardly mattered, some lesser noble
from house Veril. The drugs made it seem lovely, though it was still
clearly artificial. A lover with skill was much preferable, but they
were few and far between. Mr. Right Now worked fine with certain
enhancements.

Thoughts licked at the edges of
her consciousness like annoying insects, gnats of reality intruding
on her reverie. With effort, she managed to focus her attention and
open her eyes slightly.

The door to her quarters was
open, and a man stood at the foot of her bed, gesticulating,
shouting…what? She eyed him momentarily, considered inviting
him to join them, if only to shut him up, but something seemed odd
about that notion.

Her lover rose and rolled off
the side of the bed with surprising speed. Her senses returned
suddenly, like the lifting of a veil, and with them, outrage at
being interrupted. “Caelwen!”

Her bodyguard pointed a mailed
finger at her lover, the expression on his face lethal. “You’re
done. Get out.”

The lover glared back at him
with as much dignity as a naked man with a raging erection could
muster. “You don’t order me, Caelwen Luvox!”
Kariana couldn’t help but titter at how he looked. When all of
the passion was stripped away, men looked a bit silly, aroused and
bouncing around like that.

Caelwen was not feeling
merciful or amused, it seemed. Without warning, he swung his fist
and sent the man straight to the marble floor. Kariana had a moment
of genuine empathy for him. She could certainly appreciate why he
would be upset. Men always were when they didn’t get to finish
their business. And it was too bad, really it was, that he hadn’t
fallen on a pillow. There were so many scattered about. But when
Caelwen followed up his blow by drawing his sword, things grew
decidedly more serious in her mind. “Caelwen, what are you
doing? Stop it!”

Caelwen ignored her and kept
his focus on the other man. He gestured toward the door with his
blade. “Get your things and get out.
Now
!
You can dress in the hallway if you like, but I'd advise you to just
keep running!”

Nobility had a certain pride
that often came with it, a false, pretentious air. Kariana couldn’t
help but approve of Caelwen’s graceful demonstration of true
nobility and power. Her lover (what
was
his name?) hesitated a moment, as if testing his scrotum and finding
it withdrawn into his body. He suddenly bent and began gathering his
clothes quickly, like a chicken pecking at seeds. Well, at least
that solved the problem of his not having finished, she supposed.
Cold steel, cold shower, they were probably quite interchangeable.

As her lover scurried out,
clothes clutched to his crotch, Kariana raised an eyebrow at her
bodyguard. “Why, Caelwen, are you
jealous
?
Did you come bursting in here to have me for yourself, perhaps?”

Caelwen was not amused. “Don’t
be ridiculous. Get dressed at once. We must flee!”

Kariana raised an eyebrow as
she fetched her robe from the bed and shrugged into it. She cinched
the tie with a salacious grin. “Flee? Oh, no, the blood of
Tasinal does not
flee
.
You flee if you like. What will you be fleeing from, I wonder?”

Caelwen was losing that cool
self control, she could see. It happened so rarely. How lovely that
she could be a part of it, even the cause of it! Everyone needed to
feel human once in a while. He would ultimately thank her. She
couldn’t quite suppress a giggle, even though she knew there
was something very wrong. Caelwen's expression, his eyes, both
fairly sang of something terrible, but it was difficult to react as
she ought. The drugs made everything seem less important.

Caelwen ground his teeth and
explained. “Aiul has escaped Davron's prison and rounded up a
small army of men. He’s headed this way now.”

In the space of a second,
Kariana went from feeling fairly well in control back to drugged and
drowning in syrup. “What?” she stammered. It made no
sense. Aiul was in the hospital.

“
He's
headed
here
!”
Caelwen shouted. “We have to get you clear
now
!”

Kariana
shook her head in a desperate attempt to clear the effects of the
drugs. It helped a bit, but it still felt as if her brain were made
of cotton.
“Why doesn’t someone stop him?”
she mumbled. “Where are the guards?”

Caelwen’s face grew dark
with anger, his mask of self-control slipping and falling all the
way to the ground. Kariana was fairly certain she could hear it
clattering against the marble. Caelwen slammed a fist against the
wall in frustration. “You mean
after
we account for several hundred dead on your account? We have fewer
with every passing moment! Swords break on his skin! He kills men
with a single blow, and the corpses rise up and follow him!”
He seized her by the arm and jerked her toward the door. “Now,
Empress, we’ll be going, whether it’s under your own
power or otherwise. I’ll let you decide, if you do it
quickly.”

Kariana was, for once,
speechless. She allowed herself to be pulled toward the door,
confusion and fright vying for supremacy in her. What was Caelwen
even saying? Aiul was invulnerable, and had an army of dead guards?
It was madness. If it were anyone but Caelwen, she would think it
was a joke. “I don’t understand!”

“Survive
now, understand later!”

Even as Caelwen spoke, a chill
wind rushed in through the open doors. The dozens of candles
guttered, and most failed, plunging the room into near darkness.
Screams of anguish and horror echoed briefly from the corridor
outside Kariana's quarters, followed by sudden and grim silence.
Well, I suppose he won't be telling me his name anytime soon,
now.

Caelwen stiffened and released
her arm, moving to interpose himself between her and the doorway.
“Stand behind me, Empress. Keep me always between you and him,
and run the moment there is a path!”

Kariana had no idea what was
going on, but she had her doubts as to whether Caelwen's plan to
sacrifice himself would make any real difference. “I can talk
to him. Make him see reason, maybe.”

Caelwen chuckled, a harsh,
cruel sound. “That worked so well the last time, eh?”

Aiul entered the room alone,
striding purposefully, ignoring Kariana and Caelwen as if he were
unaware of them. The mere sight of him was enough to convince
Kariana that Caelwen was absolutely right, there was no chance of
reasoning with him, though not for the reasons Caelwen imagined.

That is not Aiul.

He was covered in blood, steam
rising off him like he had come from a sauna, and thin, starved
practically.
Mei, look at his hair!
She felt her guts twist
in pain to see him like this, but it lasted only a moment. It
looked
like him, in a shallow way, but the movement, the bearing,
everything that made a man who he was besides the flesh he wore, all
of that was terribly, impossibly wrong.

He went directly to the wall
behind Kariana's bed. Without any indication of effort or strain, he
took hold of the brass bed’s foot board, lifted it into the
air with a single hand, and hurled the entire frame aside to expose
the wall. The bed landed against the far wall with a tremendous
crash. Somewhere, beneath the fear and buzz in her head, Kariana
winced to see it crumple. That bed had a lot of memories for her.

Aiul moved to the center of the
wall, made a fist, and punched a hole in the plaster. His arm sank
in up to his elbow.

It took several moments before
she understood what he was doing, but when it at last penetrated,
she found herself so choked she could barely strangle out words.
“Stop!”
Oh, no. Mei, no not that!

Caelwen
gave her a quick, curious glance, his attention still focused on
Aiul, but said nothing. It irked her, even through the numbness of
the drugs.
Of course. I know nothing. Pay no attention to
me.
In a sudden fury, she
punched him hard in the back
. Her knuckles wailed on contact
with his armor, but it least it got his attention again. “We
can't let him take the Eye!”

Caelwen again glanced at her
briefly. “I have
one
priority, here. It's time for you to run!
”

Kariana's heart was pounding so
hard she felt as if she might collapse. The drugs were gone. Even
fear for her own skin was a dim thing. All she could remember were
her father's words: “Inside this vault is the end of the
world. It must stay there.”