I cupped my wings to catch the updrafts from the perpetual storms over the Stormur Syow. Ahead, there was a promontory of black basalt, and a fortress castle of the same stone stood on its pinnacle. A man walked from one building near the outside wall, across the courtyard, and opened a door set in the inner keep’s back wall. He glanced up at me and sneered. The man’s name—Vowli, servant of the Dark Queen and compatriot of Luka—crept into my mind from some unknown source. The name of the fortress—Helhaym—came half a heartbeat later. The castle could only be approached from the west…unless you had wings.
“Well, come on, antafukl. I don’t have all afternoon.” He held out his arm, inviting me to land on his clenched fist, and I felt compelled to do as he wished. Once I’d landed, he turned and entered the main keep, striding down a long hall and into a small square room, containing only the head of a spiral staircase.
Vowli hummed as he descended into the depths below Helhaym. The black stairs spiraled down through the man-made parts of the castle, and deeper through the parts of the castle’s dungeon that had once been caves in the promontory. As he descended, the air got colder and wetter as if the spray from the waves crashing against the base of the cliffs had somehow penetrated through solid stone.
“Why have you come, antafukl? What is it you seek? I do not recognize you. Do you come with a message from Mithgarthr? Have you come from the queen? From Luka?”
I could speak if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to speak to Vowli. I treated him to a crrruck as I imagined any raven would.
Vowli laughed. “So be it.”
When the staircase ended, Vowli stopped, content to let his muscles relax for a moment. The deepest subterranean level of Helhaym swam in darkness, by necessity if not design. “Lyows,” he murmured, and a globe of golden light burst into existence at his shoulder. Despite its color, the light cast no warmth, but rather the opposite.
The floor made the shape of a giant X with the stairwell ending at the center. Vowli strode down the northwestern leg of the X, humming again. He passed empty cell after empty cell—as if he’d wanted the occupant at the end of the corridor to drown in silence and darkness. As he approached the end of the corridor, my sensitive nose picked up the man’s stench—staggering in its potency. “Owtroolekur, you reek of the grave,” he called. “Worse than some of the truykar.” Vowli stepped up to the iron-banded door and peered in through the grate covering a hole the size of a book. “You don’t appear well. Have you eaten?”
“Master, I put out the food, but he won’t eat,” said a young woman in a piping, yet mournful voice. “He doesn’t speak to me, nor gaze upon me. He ignores me.”
Vowli hid a grin by glancing at his feet. “That can’t be true, Edla. You are too delightful.”
“Perhaps I offend him, Master.”
“I’m sure not, Edla. You are a beautiful woman. Succulent. What man could be offended? What do you have to say, Owtroolekur? Does Edla offend you?”
“She does! Send her away!” Owtroolekur croaked.
“Ah, now! Come toward the light and let me survey the sorry state into which you have no doubt fallen.”
I wanted to see through the square window, but Vowli held me well away. I snapped my wings out, intending to fly to his shoulder, but, quick as a snake, he grabbed my feet and held me fast. An annoyed croak flew from my beak instead.
“What is that? Is that a bird?”
Vowli scowled and shook his head. “I wish you would eat, Owtroolekur.”
“You promised to free me.”
Vowli shrugged. “You promised to eat.”
“He has tried, Master. The food makes him sick.”
“Indeed,” said Vowli. “He knows the cure for that problem, don’t you, Owtroolekur? Such recalcitrance. Why do you still resist?”
“You understand why!” he cried.
Vowli shook his head and blew out a breath. “Still? After all these years?”
“Until the day I starve to death!” snapped Owtroolekur.
“Such vehemence. Wasted, I’m afraid, as I am not impressed.”
“In that case, I must try harder.” Something scraped inside the cell, sounding like stone against stone.
“Where did you get the stone?” asked Vowli, sounding bored. “You’ve sharpened the edge of the stone, I see. To what end?”
Edla cried out, and the scent of blood filled the air. Vowli’s nostrils flared. “Oobna,” Vowli muttered, and the door sprang open. “Shut up, woman.”
He set me on the ground. “Frist,” he said, and a coldness crept from the stone floor into my feet. I tried to hop away, but my feet had frozen to the floor.
“He’s killed himself,” whispered Edla. “Did you bring a raven to carry his soul away?”
Vowli turned and strode through the cell door. “He’s done nothing of the sort.” He stopped walking, and his booted feet scraped against the roughhewn floor as he copped a squat. “Lifa ow nee.”
Inside the cell, something twitched violently, and someone gasped. “Why?” he cried.
“I’ve told you more than once, Owtroolekur. I have the power over life and death. You made your choice all those years ago. You swore yourself into the Queen’s service, did you not?”
“Under duress,” whispered Owtroolekur.
Vowli scoffed and pulled Owtroolekur to his feet. “Such trivialities have no merit, Owtroolekur. You will stay in this cell until you eat to sustain yourself, until you honor your vow.”
“Never! I never will!”
“The weight of the years you’ve spent in this cell have taught you nothing? There is no such thing as ‘never.’” Vowli chuckled nastily. “You will eat, Owtroolekur, and when you do, you will see how foolish you’ve been.”
“Never,” repeated Owtroolekur, but his denial lacked conviction.
Vowli’s laughter echoed through the dark recesses of the subterranean dungeon and…