Chapter 30

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Pillars of rough-hewn stone, black as pitch rose above and around Dain in a circle. At the center, a block of marble stood etched with carvings he couldn’t read. It was an odd sort of black, or maybe just such a dark red it seemed black. He didn’t want to think about what might make a block of stone that color. Surrounding him on all sides glistening, jagged rock climbed, all but obliterating light. A grey pall cast an ethereal glow on everything it touched. He remembered this place. He remembered being chained to that altar by invisible bonds, and he remembered a man standing over him with a knife in his hand.

He was alone now, but he didn’t doubt that would change. He looked down at himself to see if he was whole, and he tried to will himself someplace else.

“There’s no way out, Dain,” a voice he thought he should know said from the mists swirling among the pillars.

Fear of a kind he wasn’t familiar with shorted his breath. He looked up. The peak of the cavern could hardly be seen except as an unreachable plateau illuminated by brief flashes of light. He saw the clouds spinning, a vortex suspended over the opening, a gaping maw that stole light from the sky. It was different from his memory of it, the walls built to an impenetrable height. Truly inescapable.

He started to move to the outer edge of the circuit of stones, meaning to climb. Steep or not, he intended to get out. But when he reached the first pillar, a low, humming whisper began, the words slowly becoming distinguishable.

“Is he?”

“He is one.”

“Will he do?”

“He will make us strong.”

“He will do for now.”

“We will take him.”

Dain backed away, but found himself surrounded. Black upon black moved toward him, and he was stopped when he bumped into the center stone, a touch as cold as death itself. He’d experienced that often enough to recognize it for what it was, and its face was evil.

Slender dark filaments wound out of the cracked rock he stood on, weaving upward hypnotically, finger-like and reeking. They seemed intent on studying him until one slithered across his arm. Pain lanced through him. The whisper changed to a discordant moan. Dain tried moving, turning in a desperate search for escape, but everywhere he looked, withered tendrils reached for him.

They attacked and their touch was death. They hurt him, twining through his body, under skin, ever winding toward his soul.

Dain screamed. He was yanked down onto the slab of stone, and held there. An eternity passed. Bound, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t escape. Every muscle contracted. Clawed hands tore through skin, probing inside him in rending, unbearable pain. They gloated over him, stealing his life, taking in everlasting slowness all his strength. There wasn’t ever death to finally ease pain in this place, only eternal subjugation. There was no way out. He knew where he was. The Gates of Hell stood open before him.

The wind wiped his screams away. Cracks of lightning shot down into the crag, culminating in blasting echoes right above him.

Abruptly and without apparent cause, the black bands withdrew, leaving him gasping for air and shaking from pain, curled on the slab of stone. He rolled off the altar, but couldn’t stand. The hard rock beneath him jarred up through hands and knees as he fell. He pushed himself up, forcing his legs to work. He scrambled beyond the nearest pillar, looking for purchase on the impossibly steep slope, his only thought to get out, and get away. Death was a far better prospect than spending eternity in this hole.

“There’s no way out, Dain.”

He spun around, but no one was there. The whispers started again, coupled with an increased urgency, driven by lecherous hunger. They came out of the rock behind him. He fell and clawed back to his feet. He lurched away, forced back inside the circle toward their altar.

He saw a man sitting there, casually leaning against the black stone, at ease and resting. He was older, blond, but graying. Dain stared at him, shaking where he stood while the thirsty horde gathered around him. The man turned to face him.

His mind froze, the process of cognizant thought grinding to a halt, slowing his ability to think past shock. A chilling silence blanketed him, trapping him as effectively as the mountain itself. Ambrose Telaerin looked at him, and held out his hand.