The words of the kaltrar the Plowir Medn chanted wormed into Hel’s ears, making her head pound. “No!” she tried to shout, but the words caught in her throat. One moment, Haymtatlr’s robot guardians crowded toward her, matte black tubes that dealt instant death extended, and in the next Osgarthr seemed to turn ninety-degrees and disappeared with a disgusting pop.
“No!” she shrieked, and her voice bounced back to her out of the viscid darkness. “How dare you pull me away! How dare you!” The Plowir Medn surrounded her in the darkness—she knew that even before their titters and jeers reached her ears.
She thrashed her arms and legs, hoping to connect with one of the little blue bodies, wanting to lash out, to impose physical pain. “I’ll kill you for this!” she hissed.
“I think not,” said a childlike voice in her ear.
“Why have you done this? Why have you taken me—”
“The guardians threatened us. They represent a danger not easy to brush aside. If we are to protect your life, we must—”
“I had them! They were within my grasp!”
“No,” said another voice in the darkness. “You did not.”
Rage seethed in Hel’s blood, a caustic poison dripping into her brain. “I am your queen!” she hissed.
“No.” The word echoed from a myriad of locations, in multiple voices.
“Not ours,” said the voice in her ear.
“I’ll kill you all,” she whispered.
“I think not,” said the voice in her ear.
“Get me out of this accursed darkness!” she yelled.
“As you wish.”
Another wormy kaltrar filled her ears, seeming to crawl across the inside of her skull and tweak her brain. Another wet pop sounded, and she stood on solid ground, wrapped in a chilly gray mist. “Did you at least bring Luka?”
“We could not,” sang a childlike voice from the surrounding mist.
“First the traitors robbed me of Vowli…” she said, almost panting. “And now you’ve robbed me of my Luka!”
“He was too far,” said a voice.
One of the blue-skinned sorcerers stepped out of the mist to stand in front of her. He gazed up at her from beneath his cowl, eyes shining like twin points of cold, polished stone. “Do not worry,” he said.
“Take me to him,” she said, stomping her foot. “Take me to my Luka, right now! I command it!”
The Plowir Medn before her shrugged. “Mayhap we will,” he said. “But command us nothing, Isir.” He held up a withered blue finger and waved it in the air.
The insolence! The arrogance! she fumed. I will kill you!
“I think not,” said the man before her. He traced a rune in the air, allowing it to glow in the mist, a metallic tracery of veins and capillaries connecting the rune to his finger. “As I said, we may transport you again, but it will not be by your command. It will be so if the Tveeburar af Tikifiri—”
Hel bent to push her face into his. “DO NOT SPEAK OF YOUR PALTRY RELIGION!” she shouted.
He recoiled from her, mouth twisting with distaste, eyes burning with hatred. His withered finger snapped up to shake and quiver in her face. “Be careful, Isir! Mirkur and Owraythu do not receive such disrespect kindly.”
Resisting the desire to bite the tip of his finger off was more difficult than it should have been. She had no recollection of when her violent urges had grown so powerful. She kept her mouth closed, gritting her teeth and glaring into his cold black doll-eyes.
“We may take you where you want to go,” said a voice from the mist.
“If Our Lady of Chaos wills it,” said another.
“If Our Lord of Darkness agrees,” said the first.
The Plowir Medn in front of her withdrew his finger, his lips pressed into a thin blue line as though he too had to fight to keep hateful curses unsaid.
Simpletons, she thought with a sneer. “And how will we know if they do?”
The man in front of her shrugged, unable to keep the grin from his face. “They will tell us.”
“Tell us? Tell us? How will they tell us, you misbegotten troll?”
The grin stretched into a crooked smile. His hand lifted from his side as if drawn by invisible strings. “We shall ask them,” he whispered. “They stand behind you in the mist.”
Hel shivered as a blast of cold, malevolent wind caressed her from behind.
“Ah, Mirkur greets you,” said the little blue man.
“Mirkur just means darkness, you little fool! And that was only the wind!”
The Plowir Medn surrounding her laughed and mocked her, dancing in circles like children.
“The wind?” laughed the one in front of her. “The wind?”
The wind gusted again, and Hel hunched her shoulders against the sting of ice borne by it. “What else?” she demanded.
“Isir,” a voice that sounded one thousand years disused croaked behind her.
Hel whirled, but behind her, there was only gray mist. “Lyows!” she cried. White light flared around Hel but quickly faded into nothingness.
“My brother disapproves of light,” said another nails-on-glass voice.
“Mirkur! Owraythu!” chanted the Plowir Medn repeatedly.
“You’ve been naughty, Isir,” said Mirkur in a basso voice and a blast of frigid air slammed into Hel’s face.
“You refused to play by the rules,” said Owraythu, her voice monstrous and grim. “For that, you will pay a price.”
“What? Who…”
“Silence, now,” said Owraythu, and Hel’s mouth snicked shut and her throat clamped shut around her scream.