Chapter Nine

 

 

“Forgive me, sir,” Captain Nordin said, “but I really don’t like this.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said as much, and Alesh had long since lost count of the number of times the man had tried to convince him not to come.

Still, he held back the annoyed sigh that threatened. After all, the captain was only doing his best to protect him, and it was no surprise that he didn’t love the idea of his charge being in a room with a servant of the Dark. “You said he asked for the ‘Cursed Orphan?’” Alesh asked the captain, also not for the first time.

Nordin nodded, clearly reluctant. “Yes, sir.”

“That means, Captain,” Alesh said, “that he is from Ilrika, for no one has called me by that name, not in many years, not since I was a child in Olliman’s service. And considering what little news we’ve managed to get from Ilrika in the past weeks, I don’t think this is a chance we can pass up.”

In truth, they’d gotten no news at all, for no messengers were running, not any longer, the guild deciding over a week ago that it was perhaps unwise to continue to send its members out with messages—even at the exorbitant prices they’d charged—when not a single one returned. The captain knew this as well as Alesh, and he nodded grudgingly. “As you say, Chosen.”

There was such an expression of worry on the guard captain’s face that, even given the circumstances, Alesh couldn’t help but laugh. “Relax, Nordin. No doubt, the man would kill me, if he could, but I am not without defenses of my own.”

“Of course, Chosen,” the captain said, looking as if he might argue further but deciding to let it go, for now at least.

The four guards stationed at the entrance to the dungeons looked exhausted, as well as they might, for with the dramatically increased number of prisoners that the last few days had brought, Nordin had deemed it wise to work them in double shifts to ensure that enough men were on hand to deal with any issue, should it arise. Still, weary or not, their backs stiffened when they noted the captain and Alesh moving toward them, and they brought their fists to their chests in salute, bowing.

“Any problems?” Nordin asked without preamble.

One of the guards—an older man whose self-possession, coupled with the scars on his face and arms, marked him as a veteran—stepped forward. “Not anymore than usual, Captain,” he said. “Oh, they’re puttin’ up a mighty ruckus, that’s for sure, but all prisoners are present and accounted for.”

“Good,” Nordin answered with a nod, glancing at Alesh. “And what about the one?”

“In one of the questioning rooms as you asked, Captain.”

“Very well,” Nordin replied. “Show us to him.”

“Yes, sir.” The guard removed a lantern from a bracket on the wall and withdrew a set of keys from his pocket. He slid them into the door which creaked as he pushed it open. As soon as he did, Alesh was assailed by the smell of sweat and filth, the odor of hundreds of unwashed bodies kept in a small space. But the smell wasn’t the worst of it. He and the other men were greeted by a chorus of wails and shouts. With the sturdy iron door closed, the sound had been little more than a steady drone, but now it crashed over him like a wave, so many voices raised in unison that it was nearly impossible to pick out individual words—but there was no missing the desperation in them.

Some were angry, but most sounded scared, terrified, and such was the power of those thundering, desperate cries, that Alesh found himself holding his breath. Nordin turned to him. “Are you sure, Chosen?”

Alesh nodded, gritting his teeth and doing his best to ignore the terrible wails. “Show me to him, Captain.”

Nordin motioned to the guard and soon they were off, following the man down into the dungeon.

The sound of the prisoners’ shouts grew worse the farther they ventured, seeming to take on a power of its own, one that made each step harder than the last, but as terrible as the sound was, as terrible as the smell was, too, neither prepared Alesh for the shock of what he saw.

He and the others had been so busy rounding up traitors lately, working their way through those men and women named in the late Lord Aldrick’s notes, that he hadn’t had a chance to visit the dungeons like he would have liked. He’d known it was bad, of course, as Nordin updated him regularly with reports, but reports, no matter how thorough, couldn’t truly express what they were dealing with.

The cells on either side were packed with men and women of varying station, so many crowding them that it appeared they barely had enough room to stand, let alone sit or lie down, and as he gazed in the cells, aided by the orange, ruddy light of the lantern, Alesh caught sight of more than a few people that appeared to be asleep standing up.

Most, though, were awake, and their shouts and pleas, their angry accusations and recriminations, all grew in intensity as they noticed Alesh and the others walking in their midst. All manner of men and women crowded the cells, some in the fine clothes of nobles—though filthy now from the dirt of the dungeons—others in the simple linen shirts and trousers that marked them as commoners.

Seeing so many of the Dark’s servants crammed into such a small space made a knot of depression settle in Alesh’s stomach, one that seemed to mock all of his and the others’ efforts. What hope did the world have, what hope did any of them have, when so many were willing to give themselves to the Darkness?

He didn’t realize he’d hesitated in the hallway until he felt Nordin’s hand on his shoulder. “Chosen,” the captain said, having to shout to be heard over the clamor of hundreds of voices, “the prisoner is this way.”

Alesh swallowed and nodded, not trusting himself to speak just then. He followed the captain and the guard as they pressed further in, passing cell after cell full of filthy men and women, many of whom looked half-starved and mad with fear or anger.

As they walked, assailed by the sounds of those around them, Alesh began to feel as if they were no longer in Valeria, no longer in the world at all. That somehow, when they had walked through the door, they had traveled into the fields of the Keeper, where the desperate dead cried out their fury and rage at their lot, and with each step he took, the feeling of despair that had settled in him grew.

He wasn’t sure how long the trip took, it might have been minutes or hours, but finally they arrived at a door, and the guard stopped, brandishing his key ring again and fitting one into the lock. He hesitated before opening the door, turning back to regard Alesh and Nordin. “He’s through here, sir. Are you ready?”

Nordin glanced at Alesh, raising an eyebrow. “Yes,” Alesh said, his voice sounding breathless in his own ears, as he was desperate to put at least some distance between himself and those increasingly unearthly wails, to have some barrier between him and the stench of the prisoners. His prisoners, ones whose fate was in his hands. He pushed that thought aside for now, telling himself that he had other concerns at the moment and followed the guard and Nordin through the door.

The room was small, no larger than his bedchamber at the castle, adorned only with a single table and two chairs. Dried blood stained the floor beneath the table, evidence of the questioners going about the grim task of extracting information from the prisoners, but Alesh’s gaze was drawn to the man seated at the far chair. He was thin and malnourished, the skin of his face stretched across his skull like thin, aged parchment.

His clothes, once fine, were now little more than rags, and there were sores visible on his arms that wept a yellow pus. Yet despite his terrible state, the man smiled widely as Alesh entered, putting him in mind of what a skeleton might look like should it smile. “Ah, if it isn’t the orphan.”

Once, being labeled as such had caused feelings of anger and inadequacy in Alesh, but that had been long ago, in what seemed now to be someone else’s life, and the man’s words did nothing. Nothing, that was, except for letting him know that the man before him, though his visage was unrecognizable, was someone from his past. Nordin took up a position beside the door, the guard on the other side, and Alesh walked to the empty chair, sitting down and regarding the stranger before him. “Do we know each other?”

The macabre grin stayed in place. “What? Do you mean to say that you don’t recognize me?” He glanced down at his clothes, running his tongue along the gaps in his gums where teeth had once been. “Well. I suppose it’s true that I’ve…changed a bit since we knew each other. Still,” he said, giving Alesh a wink, “I think you’ll come to it, if you try hard enough.”

Alesh did. The man’s speech seemed to indicate that he’d had some education, meaning that he likely wasn’t a castle servant. That thought sent a wave of shame through him as he was reminded of Abigail and Chorin, and all the others that had been lost when Kale murdered Olliman and took over the city. In the time since, he had been so busy fighting for his life or the lives of those he cared about that he’d spared little thought for his lost friends. He tried to console himself with the fact that he had been busy—after all, trying to save the world from a myriad of threats determined to destroy it took a lot of a man’s time—but the justification felt hollow. Abigail and Chorin, the others who had helped to save him, deserved better.

“Ah,” the man said, nodding as if he could read Alesh’s thoughts, “it is always quite daunting, thinking of the past, isn’t it? Of a world peopled with ghosts, some dead, some not, but ghosts just the same. It is painful for me to think about, at times, and I can only imagine that it must surely be worse for you. After all, we all lose something, have it taken from us by time, but you, I think, have lost more than most.”

Later, he told himself sternly, you’ll grieve for them, as you should. You’ll remember them, as you should. But later. It serves no purpose to sacrifice the present for the past, for the past and its attendant regrets are always hungry, a beast never satisfied no matter how much it is fed. He couldn’t remember where he had heard that. Perhaps it had been one of the lessons Olliman had given him when he was younger, it, like so many others, a lesson he had not understood at the time but had grown to as he lived and, inevitably, lost. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “but I don’t know you.”

“Really?” the man said, sounding disappointed. “Try harder.” He leaned forward, turning his ruined face first one way, then the other, holding up his arms in a mocking way. “After all, I recognize you well enough. I know you, well enough. Just as I knew Abigail and Chorin. Just as I know Sonya,” he finished, his eyes twinkling with dark amusement.

Before he knew what he was doing, Alesh lunged forward, grabbing the man by the front of his tunic and jerking him out of his chair. “What do you know of Sonya? Where is she?”

The man didn’t appear frightened in the least. Instead, he laughed, his breath foul and smelling of death. Surprised by his own actions, Alesh noted that he was shaking with rage and impotent fury. For days, the missing girl had preyed on his mind, and it had been all he could do to keep from charging off into the forest looking for her, the only thing keeping him from it the knowledge that, should he do so, the city would be doomed with no one to lead them. Finally, he let the man go with disgust, and he dropped back into the chair like a ragdoll.

“Tell me,” he said quietly. “What’s happened to her?”

“Little Sonya,” the man said, and there was no doubting the mocking tone of his voice, not now. “So well loved, wasn’t she? Doted on by Abigail and all the other women in the castle, treated so kindly. And even when the worst came, she had a protector, didn’t she? Had you.” The last words were hissed out as if in accusation, and the terrible smile left the man’s cadaverous face, giving way to a twisted expression of mad hate. “But what did the rest of us have?” he demanded. “While you were so worried about your sister, did you not spare a single care for the rest of us?”

Alesh frowned, taken back by the sudden rage in the man’s voice. “I don’t—”

“Savior they call you,” the man hissed, “but what sort of savior would leave so many to their fates? What sort of Chosen would abandon so many?”

Alesh knew the man was a servant of the Dark, but he still felt his own heart go out as he saw the terrible anguish on the man’s face. “I can’t…who are you?”

The man raised his thin fists and slammed them down on the table. “Don’t you know!?” he screamed.

Steel rasped as Captain Nordin drew his sword, but Alesh held out a hand, forestalling him. “Why don’t you tell me?” Alesh asked. The man’s eyes danced wildly, and Alesh decided without a doubt that the man was insane.

The stranger remained that way for several seconds, his clenched fists still sitting on the table, his body trembling with emotion. Then, as quickly as the bout of rage had come, it vanished, and he sank back into his chair. “Very well,” he said softly. “I will tell you. But first, send these others away. We will talk of the past now, you and I, will go and see our ghosts, the ghosts of those we once knew, of the people we once were, and they have no place in it.”

Nordin grunted. “Not likely you son of a—”

“Go, Captain,” Alesh interrupted.

Nordin turned to him, a look of surprise on his face. “But, Chosen, you know that as soon as we’re gone the bastard will try something.”

“Like what?” Alesh said softly. He motioned to the prisoner sitting at the table. “He can barely stand, Nordin.”

Nordin glanced at the man again. “Sir, I don’t like it. Better if we stay, just in c—”

“The Light does not hide, Captain,” Alesh said.

The captain winced at the words, ones that Alesh had spoken to him before, and he opened his mouth as if to argue further. Then, finally, he sighed, glancing at the guard. “Come on.” He turned back to Alesh. “We’ll be right outside, Chosen. If you need us.”

Alesh nodded and watched the men leave, waiting until the door closed before turning back to the prisoner. “Will you tell me now?”

The prisoner favored him with his macabre grin once more. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair grandly as if he were a king at some banquet, bestowing some great honor on one of his guests. “The past, after all, has a way of knocking a man from his feet, when it comes at him.”

Alesh thought about arguing but decided against it. The man would either tell him who he was or he wouldn’t, and there was no point antagonizing him. He moved to the chair and sat, and despite his words to Nordin, there was such malevolence in the man sitting before him that he didn’t relish the idea of being alone with him. “Your name?”

The man shook his head teasingly. “Still it eludes you, does it? Well, I suppose that is no great surprise. After all, a Chosen of the gods can’t spare a moment’s thought for the little people, can he? Not when he’s got such high and mighty matters to deal with and never mind those he abandons.” He leaned forward, watching Alesh. “My name,” he said slowly, obviously savoring the moment, “is Tom.”

Alesh frowned. There was something vaguely familiar about the name, about the man’s face, now that he looked at it, but he still couldn’t seem to place it. The stranger only sat quietly, a dark amusement glittering in his eyes, and Alesh studied him closer, trying to figure out what it was about him that seemed familiar.

The man had little hair left on his head, and most of his scalp was covered with weeping sores similar to those dotting his arms and face, but what was there was so blond as to be nearly white. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black, a stark contrast with his hair, one that Alesh thought must have been far more noticeable when he’d been healthy.

Looking closer still, he realized that the man was younger than he’d originally thought. When he’d first seen him, Alesh had placed him in his forties, perhaps fifties, but looking past the sores and the ravages of a hard life, he realized that the man before him was considerably younger than that. Perhaps only a teenager.

Suddenly realization struck him, and his breath caught in his throat as he realized who the man must be. “Oh gods,” he breathed.

“Ah,” the prisoner said, “you see now, don’t you? You remember me, Alesh?”

“Tom,” Alesh said shocked. “Lord Gustan’s servant.” He remembered Tom well enough, remembered, too, how the young boy had been kind to Sonya, had been one of her friends. Alesh had never cared for Lord Gustan much—the man had been a known lecher who seemed to have no interest in anything beyond his whores, and one who’d possessed a reputation for accosting the female servants in the castle when he visited. Alesh had always thought well of Tom, though, the handsome lad who had befriended Sonya, always treating her kindly. It was so difficult to reconcile the emaciated creature before him with the young teenager he had known that Alesh began to think he had surely been wrong. But no—Tom, he remembered, had also had very light blond hair and dark, brown eyes, and as he looked closer, he could not doubt that he recognized the youth he’d known in the wretched prisoner sitting before him.

“But…Sonya always liked you,” Alesh said. “I always liked you. Why would you give yourself to the Dark?”

“Liked me, did you?” the prisoner spat, his eyes dancing wildly with sudden fury again. “Sure, well, I guess that’s nice. That you liked me. Didn’t stop you from abandoning me in Ilrika when things went to shit though, did it? Didn’t stop you from taking Sonya and running when everyone was dying.”

Alesh shook his head slowly as he remembered his desperate search through the city, remembered finding Abigail and Chorin dead. He’d searched for Sonya, searched through the piles of corpses stacked like lumber, pawing through the grizzly remains, wanting to find her, to know, but fearing to at the same time. Yet, he hadn’t found her. In the end, he’d been forced to hire the last Lightbringer left alive, a man named Garn, and left the city, carrying the message of what had happened to Valeria. “I never found her, Tom,” he said. “I looked, but I couldn’t find her. Sonya did make it out of the city, but it was someone else—”

“Liar!” the man screamed, and there was such rage in his tone, that Alesh’s hand went for the sword scabbarded at his side. Tom, though, made no move to attack, only slumped back in his chair a moment later. “Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. You can lie to me, if you want, Chosen Alesh, but that doesn’t forgive your crimes.” The man paused, and a tear slowly worked its way down his ruined face. “You see, I liked Sonya too. I liked you too.” He gave a laugh bordering on madness. “It’s funny to say it now, but I always looked up to you. Everyone in the castle—most everyone, anyway—used to whisper about you. ‘Demon-spawn,’ they called you. ‘Cursed.’ Would it surprise you to know that I even ended up getting in a fight over it, once? Several boys were talking about you, and I defended you.” He laughed again. “They beat the shit out of me, of course—I never was much of a fighter, small for my age. But I defended you. And you repaid me by leaving me alone in that city with…with him.”

“I…I didn’t know you were there,” Alesh answered honestly. “Tom, everything had gone crazy. Did…were you separated from Lord Gustan’s retinue?” He hated to think of what might have happened to the boy, if that was the case. Shira’s wildness had taken over the city completely, he remembered it all too well, remembered the places he’d known nearly his whole life burning while the Redeemers slaughtered the city’s citizens in droves.

“Separated,” the man said giving a mad giggle. “If only that was the case. No, I was not separated from Lord Gustan, Alesh. He kept me close. Very close. You see, he took me to a hideout he had in the city, and there we weathered the worst of what the Redeemers did.”

“Then…I’m glad,” Alesh said.

“Glad?” The man laughed again, a terrible, pitiable sound that Alesh thought might turn to a scream at any moment. “Oh, I’m happy you’re glad. Do you remember, Lord Gustan, Alesh? Do you remember how he enjoyed his whores?”

“I remember,” Alesh said slowly.

“Not much whores for hire in Ilrika in the days following Olliman’s assassination,” Tom said quietly. “Nobody brave or foolish enough to risk going into the streets except for the very desperate. So what is a man like Lord Gustan, a man whose appetites always ran toward younger women—and sometimes men, he wasn’t very particular on that count—supposed to do when suddenly left without any means of fulfilling his…appetites?”

A wave of dread and revulsion washed over Alesh as he began to understand the other man’s meaning. “Oh, gods,” he said. “Tom…you can’t mean…”

“Oh, but I do mean,” Tom hissed. “Small for my age, I was, but Lord Gustan thought I was handsome enough. And when a man like him, a man like that bastard is left with only one person to sate his appetites…well, he begins to experiment, doesn’t he? And never mind the young boy and his screams, screams, the nobleman’s guards were always deaf to.”

“Tom,” Alesh said, “I’m…I’m so sorry.”

“He’d apologize, too,” Tom whispered, his gaze taking on a distant look, “but that changed nothing, took away none of the hurt, the pain. Still,” he went on, his eyes focusing on Alesh once more, “he left me with some gifts.” He held his arms up for Alesh to see, brandishing the sores with mock-pride. “Tokens, Alesh,” he said, “of Gustan’s attentions. Tokens that, soon, will kill me.”

Alesh didn’t know what to say. He had known that Gustan was a lecher, of course, but he never would have thought the man would have gone so far as to abuse Tom, had never even considered it.

“Tell me, Alesh,” the man said, “did you think of me? When you were leaving the city, did you ever stop to wonder about young Tom? About what had happened to him?”

He wanted to lie then, wanted to lie more than he could ever remember wanting it before. But lying, while it might be Marta’s talent, her gift, was not—could not—be his. Amedan stood for him, the Light stood for him, and he was meant to stand for it as well, a thing he couldn’t do if he hid the truth behind lies and shadows simply because it was convenient. “No,” he said truthfully, having to force the word past the lump in his throat. “No, I did not.” He could make an excuse, then, could say that he had been being hunted, which was true, or that he’d been given a mission to warn the rest of the world about Kale’s treachery—also true—but the fact was that neither of those was the reason why he hadn’t looked for Tom in the wake of Olliman’s assassination. The truth, cold and hard as it was, was that he had never even considered the man, so he said nothing.

Tom sneered. “I thought as much. Too concerned with weightier matters, I suppose, to waste any time thinking of servants.”

Actually, after finding Chorin and Abigail dead, Alesh’s only concern had been to find Sonya and then, failing that, to get out of the city and to Valeria as quickly as possible, but he didn’t think saying so would make matters any better, so he left it. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

“You’re sorry,” the man repeated in a flat voice devoid of any emotion. Then he looked up at Alesh, and his expression twisted into a terrible mixture of rage and pain and sadness. “You’re sorry,” he said again, louder this time, a tinge of incredulity in his tone. “Well, I suppose that’s something, isn’t it?” he demanded. “Not enough to give a child his innocence back, that’s true, not enough to return what Lord Gustan took in the darkness of his rooms while his guards remained stationed outside pretending not to hear.”

“I’m sorry, Tom,” Alesh said again. “I swear to you, once all of this is over, I’ll find Lord Gustan and make sure that he answers for his crimes.”

The man gave him that humorless, wretched grin. “Find him, will you? That’d be a neat trick.”

Looking at the man’s darkly satisfied expression, a suspicion began to grow in Alesh. “What did you do, Tom?” he asked softly.

“What did I do?” the young man asked, leaning forward, his eyes intense. “I took my pleasure. Just as Lord Gustan had taken his from me for over a year. In my defense,” he went on, grinning, “I apologized after, just as he always did. Although, if I’m being honest, I don’t suspect he heard me.”

“I can’t blame you, Tom,” Alesh admitted honestly. “Considering what he did to you…I don’t think anyone would.”

“As if your blame or your opinion matters anything to me. It did once, but not any longer. And I wouldn’t be too ready to pardon me for my sins, were I you, Alesh, particularly when you have no idea how long the list.”

Alesh frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean,” Tom said, “is that when I killed Gustan—not just killed, mind, there was a bit of torture involved—I realized something.”

“What, Tom? What did you realized?”

“That I enjoyed it, of course,” Tom said as if it were obvious. “Causing pain to others, I mean. Most people do, you know, it’s just that they’re not honest about it.”

Alesh could have argued that, but he didn’t see the point. “You’ve hurt…others?”

Tom grinned again. “Oh, yes. Many others.”

“Tom, what was done to you…it’s terrible,” Alesh said. “But that doesn’t explain why you would choose to serve the Dark.”

“Doesn’t it?” the other man demanded “You see, Alesh, back then, in Ilrika, I prayed to Amedan. Each night, when Gustan finally tired of his entertainments and left me alone, I prayed to the Light for help, but none came. So then, finally, I decided that if the Light wouldn’t help me, I would pray to the Darkness, hoping that it would hear me where the Light did not. And you know what? It did. The next day, I was out on an errand for Gustan, dodging through the streets of the city and avoiding the Redeemers as much as I could, until I was cornered in an alley by a man. The man didn’t hurt me, though—in fact, he told me he’d been sent. He didn’t say by who, but then, I didn’t need him to. He said he came to help, and he asked me where Gustan’s hideout was. Figuring that I had nothing to lose, that nothing the man could do could be worse than what was already being done to me, I told him. You have to understand, I never would have been able to hurt Gustan, not on my own. He had too many guards, and whatever else he was, the man was careful, I’ll give him that much. But to my surprise, the next night, Gustan didn’t show up when he normally did to find me cowering in the corner of my small room as I normally did. And after a while—an hour, perhaps more—my curiosity overcame my fear enough to step outside of my room and see what had happened.”

“Tom, you really don’t need—”

“Oh, but I do,” the man interrupted. “You see, Alesh, I found all of Gustan’s guards in the same places they usually were. Except, they weren’t standing at attention as they normally were. Instead, they were lying in pools of their own blood, their throats cut. I was scared, as you might imagine, but I kept walking through the manse, finding corpse after corpse, not just of the guards, but the other servants, too, all of them dead. Finally, I stood before Gustan’s rooms. The door was ajar, and I could hear what sounded like whimpering from within. I thought about running then, but I knew I wouldn’t get far before someone in the city, perhaps one of the mobs that regularly roamed the streets, caught me. After all, as bad as he was, Gustan wasn’t the only evil in Ilrika, not then. It took everything I had to step inside that room, but I did step inside, and imagine my surprise when I found the lord himself in nothing but his underclothes, tied to the bed, a rag stuffed in his mouth.”

He grinned again at the memory, and the expression was more terrible than any Alesh had yet seen from the man. “There was a note lying beside him. It read, ‘A gift from the goddess.’ Well, there was no need asking what goddess the writer had meant, and I doubt I would have bothered anyway, to be honest. I was so…occupied, I suppose, by seeing my tormenter there on the bed, without protection, without any of his guards to keep him safe. Someone, probably the man I’d met in the street, had been thoughtful enough to leave a knife beside the letter. A short, dull knife, but one that did the job well enough. Though, I must admit it took some time in the doing. I made sure of that much, and I was only just finishing up when the morning sun shined in through the windows.”

Alesh could only imagine what the next few hours had held for the nobleman, what they had held for the boy with the knife, and he didn’t like to think of it. Those hours had killed Gustan, yes, but they had also killed something in Tom, and as he had taken the nobleman’s life, so too had something been taken from him. “It’s the Darkness, Tom,” Alesh said softly. “There’s always a price for its ‘gifts.’”

The man across from him laughed at that, a terrible, shrieking sound that grated at Alesh’s ears. “Oh yes, there was a cost, a cost I still pay, but I would pay it again, would pay it a thousand times if it meant I got to relive that night. Maybe the Dark is evil, Alesh, maybe it does always have a price. But at least it answers.”

Suddenly, Alesh felt exhausted, more tired even than he had been after several days of managing only an hour or two of sleep. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said again. “For everything.” He rose, starting for the door, but paused when the man spoke again.

“Don’t you want to know why I asked you to come here?” Tom said, and there was a strange, arrogant quality to the man’s voice that Alesh hadn’t yet heard. “Don’t you want to know about Sonya?”

Alesh felt a chill of fear run up his spine hearing his sister’s name from this wretched man’s mouth, and he’d taken a step forward before he realized it. “What do you know about Sonya? Where is she? Is she—”

“The Darkness always has a price, Alesh,” the man said, rising from the table. “Always. But some debts, a man might pay gladly.”

Alesh was still trying to figure out what he meant when Tom swept aside the wooden table in front of him with one hand, displaying a strength and speed Alesh wouldn’t have credited in a man twice his size and that should have been impossible for his frail, emaciated frame. Tom charged toward him then, screaming and producing a knife with a short, dull blade from somewhere inside his tunic.

He moved with such shocking speed that Alesh didn’t manage to dodge out of the way in time, and he grunted in surprised pain as the blade sliced across his side. A moment later, Tom bowled into him, and Alesh’s teeth snapped together as he was slammed against the door.

“Die!” Tom screamed, bringing the knife up again, still displaying an incredible speed and ferocity which would have been far more at home in a beast than a man. But this time, Alesh was ready for it. He caught his attacker’s wrist, stopping the questing steel inches from his chest.

Tom was strong, far stronger than he should have been, and despite Alesh’s efforts, the knife began to edge closer to him. He grabbed the man’s wrist with his other hand, yet even straining as much as he could, he wasn’t able to hold back the smaller man, and the blade moved closer still. Then the tip of the steel pierced his chest, drawing blood, and Alesh grunted in pain. Desperate now, he spun, taking a shallow cut across his chest as he did so and buried his foot in his attacker’s stomach.

Tom might have possessed inhuman strength and speed, but such gifts did nothing to add any more weight to his frail form, and the blow sent him hurtling across the room where he slammed against the far wall. Alesh barely had time to take a breath before the man was on his feet again, lurching to them like a puppet whose master was giving a tug on its strings. One of his arms, Alesh saw, was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly broken by his impact against the stone wall, but the hand of the other still clenched the bloody knife, and if Tom felt any pain at the broken bone, it didn’t show past the maniacal rage on his expression.

“For the Dark Goddess!” he growled, rushing forward.

Alesh lunged forward himself, snatching one of the chairs off the ground from where it had fallen when Tom charged him. Grasping it in both hands, he spun, calling on his own powers to lend him extra strength and speed, and the small lantern flame bloomed brightly. He barely noticed though. Instead, he was focused on his movement, his timing, and he was rewarded a moment later when the chair crashed into his onrushing attacker, and Tom was sent flying again.

He struck the ground hard, rolling end over end until finally coming to a stop. Alesh studied him, breathing hard from the exchange, as Tom started to work his way to his feet. “Tom, listen,” Alesh said, “you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to be this. I can help you, I—”

“Help me?” the man hissed, raising his head. His nose was broken, and a steady stream of blood coated his mouth and chin. “The way you helped me in Ilrika? You abandoned me!”

Before Alesh could say anything more, the man sprang forward with that unnatural agility he’d already shown, his blade leading. Alesh still held the shattered remnants of the chair—little more than small pieces of the legs, no longer than his hands—and he tossed them aside, bringing up his own hands in defense. He managed to catch Tom’s wrists, keeping his two-handed, overhead strike from driving into his chest, but the force of the other man’s momentum made them both stumble backward.

Alesh’s foot caught on the table, and he was sent sprawling. Tom fell atop him, still baring down with the blade, oblivious of his own wounds or the pain of his broken arm which must have been excruciating. The man hissed and spit, his eyes crazed, and in that moment he was not a man at all, had turned, by his anger, into some wild beast gone mad with the thirst for blood. Alesh struggled, trying to throw him free, but the man was too strong, possessed of a manic strength, and it was all Alesh could do to slow the inexorable progress of the steel seeking his flesh.

He wanted to reason with the man, to help him, but one look in Tom’s face, twisted with insensate rage, and he knew there was no reasoning with him, not now. He had become something more than a man and something less than one, had been made such by Shira. Alesh turned, bringing all his weight to one side, then with a desperate effort, pushed with both feet, using his momentum to flip them over so that he was now atop Tom. With a growl that didn’t sound like anything that might have issued from a man’s mouth, the man stabbed at Alesh again.

Alesh’s instincts took over, and he grabbed the man’s wrist, turning it at the last moment and plunging the blade into his attacker’s heart. Tom’s eyes went wide—seemingly as stunned as Alesh who’d given no conscious thought to what he’d done. They remained there in a frozen moment in time, and by some trick of the lantern light or his own memory, Alesh gazed not on the wretched creature who had attacked him but the youth he’d once known, the handsome boy with the bright blond hair and deep brown eyes who had always been so kind to Sonya.

“Always…a price,” Tom whispered. Then, his eyes rolled back in his head, he breathed a shuddery, final breath, and was still.

A moment later, the door crashed open. Nordin and the dungeon guard rushed inside, blades drawn. “Chosen?” Nordin said. “Are you alright?”

Slowly, Alesh took his hands off the handle of Tom’s blade, thinking that the magic of weapons—any weapon—was that, sometimes, they cut the man who held them as much as the man they were used against. He was very aware, then, of the blood staining his hands and tunic as he rose. “No, Captain,” he said softly, his gaze locked on the dead man lying on the floor. “No, I’m not alright. But I’ll live.”

“W-we couldn’t hear,” Nordin said, perhaps meaning to excuse his and the guard’s tardiness. “The prisoners, they started puttin’ up a wild racket, worse than any I’ve heard. We finally got ‘em to quiet down, then we heard a crash and…” He trailed off, perhaps not knowing how to finish, but then he didn’t need to, and Alesh was barely listening in any case. He was still studying the man—the boy—lying dead on the floor.

Always a price, he’d said, and those words had perhaps been truer than he’d known. Alesh felt that while Darkness might demand a price, so, too, did the Light, and each time it came calling it left a little less of Alesh behind.

And when there is nothing left? he thought. Will I die? The thought, just then, didn’t seem like a bad one. The dead, after all, could cause no pain, no hurt, and perhaps they might be allowed to forget their many, many failures.

“Chosen,” Nordin exclaimed, rushing to stand beside him, “y-you’re wounded.”

Alesh glanced at the cuts on his chest and side where Tom’s knife had scored him, cutting through his tunic and the flesh beneath. “Leave it, Captain,” he said, quietly but firmly. “I’ve earned it.” That and far worse. For wherever else he had gone wrong, Tom had been right about that much. Alesh was supposed to be a savior, was supposed to help people, but he had not helped this one, had not saved him. Instead, he had abandoned him to his fate without even so much as a thought for his welfare.

The captain nodded, perhaps understanding some small bit of the turmoil Alesh was going through. “As you say, Chosen.”

“Have him buried,” Alesh said, “and find his family, if he has any.”

“Chosen,” Nordin said, “we…we don’t know who he was. His name or—”

“Tom,” Alesh interrupted softly. “His name was Tom.”

He started for the door then, pausing when the guard spoke. “Forgive me, Chosen,” the man said, “b-but, since you’re here, I mean…we’ve been meanin’ to talk to you. That is, about the prisoners. What—” He must have seen something in Alesh’s face when he turned to look at him, because he cut off, glancing nervously at the captain as if for help.

“Go ahead, man,” Alesh said. “Speak on.”

“Well, sir,” the guard said, sliding his sword back into his scabbard and immediately beginning to wring his hands, “that is…we’re just about full to bursting now, what with all the traitors you and the guard have been roundin’ up. I…and that is, no disrespect, sir, but…well, somethin’s got to be done.”

Alesh only watched him, thinking, and the guard swallowed, speaking further. “I mean…sir, if you’re askin’ my opinion…folks like this, men and women that’d kill innocent folk…well, hanging might be too good for them, sir, but at least it’d free up some space, space we’ll need, things keep goin’ like they are.”

“You want to hang them,” Alesh said flatly.

The guard glanced at the captain again before looking uncertainly back at Alesh. “I…well, sir, I don’t suppose the how of it matters much. An executioner’s axe would do just as well. Only, with the city soon to be under siege and—”

“Get out,” Alesh said, and the man cut off, his eyes going wide. “Now.”

Alesh watched the man leave, watched the door close behind him, and wasn’t aware that he was trembling with rage until Nordin put a hand on his shoulder. “Forgive me, Chosen,” he said, “but…is there anything I can do?”

Not unless you can turn back time, Alesh thought. Not unless you can make me save the poor boy, Tom, before it came to this. Suddenly, he needed to be out of the dungeons, needed to be away from the wailing which he could still hear, and most of all, to be away from the sight of the dead man lying on the floor, the man he was largely responsible for putting there. “It’s time to leave, Captain,” he said, trying to be calm, but all too aware of the tremor in his voice. “I…I need to leave this place.”

“Of course, sir.”

Nordin opened the door and led him back into the hallway. There was a lantern sitting by the door, the same one the guard had used to guide them here. The man had left it for them, making his own trip back in the relative darkness, only partially illuminated by the other lanterns intermittently hung along the dungeon wall. A kindness he needn’t have shown, certainly after being dismissed so abruptly, and a fresh layer of guilt was added to the mountain already inside Alesh. He told himself he would have to apologize to the man, for he had only been telling the truth as he saw it. You killed Tesharna and took her place, he thought wearily, telling yourself that it was necessary, that you were helping…but who, exactly, have you helped?

Not Tom, that was sure, and so far, it seemed that the answer must be no one. True, they had imprisoned traitors, but what point in slaying shadows when, for every one you cut down, a dozen rise to take their place? Could a man, even with the help of the gods, think to win such a battle?

“I was wrong,” Alesh said quietly, “to talk to him that way.”

Nordin grunted. “You’ve got a lot on your mind, Chosen, and you’d just been attacked. Willem will understand.”

Maybe, Alesh thought, but he shouldn’t have to. “He was right though, wasn’t he?” he asked quietly, glancing at Nordin. “The dungeon has little room left. Even I can see that much.”

The captain nodded. “Yes. Already the cells are overcrowded, but that isn’t my biggest concern, Chosen.”

“No?” Alesh asked. “Then what is?”

“Soon,” Nordin said, “if everything goes as it seems to, we’ll be under siege. I’m more worried about what we’re going to eat. After all, prisoners still have to be fed, and every meal they eat is one less meal a citizen of Valeria will have. You don’t mind me saying so, sir, but something has to be done—and soon.”

They’d had similar conversations before, though Alesh had not been aware of just how bad the situation was, so he knew well enough what course the captain would recommend, should he ask him. He, like the dungeon guard, Willem, would advise mass executions of those found to be traitors. Hundreds of lives snuffed out in an instant, but if that should happen, it would not be because Nordin or Willem had said so, would not be at their orders. Instead, it would be at Alesh’s, and theirs weren’t the souls who would be stained from the doing of it.

Alesh felt a fresh wave of despair wash through him, and search as he might, he could not seem to find the right answer. Perhaps, there wasn’t one, for it seemed to him that each solution to the problem before him damned him in its own way. “I’ll think on it,” he said finally.

“Sir,” Nordin said warily, “we’re running out of time and—”

“I said I’ll think on it, Captain,” Alesh interrupted, speaking as kindly as he was able which, admittedly, wasn’t much.” The prisoners have kept for this long. They’ll keep for a day longer.”

“Of course, sir,” the captain answered, bowing his head in acquiescence. “As you say.”

A single day. It was not much of a reprieve, not for the prisoners, and not for Alesh, but it seemed that it was the most that any of them was going to get. The screams of anger and fear, of threats and pleas rang out around them as they walked, and as they left Alesh wasn’t quite running, not exactly fleeing. Not quite.