Chapter 4 : Dark Places

“On your belly, worm!” Serdigal shouted, pushing Vasper to the floor and leaning heavily on the defenseless Thane with an armoured knee stuck in the man’s back. The warrior yanked Vasper’s head back by his long black hair and pressed the edge of his sword against the pale skin of his throat. “How does it feel, devil, to know that at this particular moment your fate is entirely in my hands?"

"I fear that you flatter yourself,” Vasper managed to reply, choking on his ironic laughter.

Serdigal wrenched Vasper’s body back even farther, spewing his vitriol in the captive Thane’s ear. “I wouldn’t rile me, snake, for it would be an immense pleasure to bathe in your blood!”

“Enough, General,” Bey’s voice commanded. “I do not wish excessive damage to my prize if it can be helped. Surely this one has done nothing to earn the expediency in death that a blade to the throat would bring. There will be nothing so clean as that for him.” Both of them chuckled over this.

“Sanctimonious fools…” Vasper muttered, closing his eyes to chant in the otherworldly tongue.

“There’ll be none of that, sorcerer!” cried Bey, gesturing wildly to Serdigal. Stars danced suddenly in Vasper’s field of vision as the pommel of Serdigal’s sword smashed into the back of his head.

“Let him wander in the darkness for awhile,” Vasper heard Bey say before the lights went out.

* * *

Wandering in the darkness…

Rathamir led Vasper into the back offices of the tavern, to a small room far removed from the noisy belligerence of the common area. Vasper had visited this particular room several times in the past while hunting for some nameless secret that he felt sure to exist. None of his forays throughout the tavern’s back rooms had borne fruit, however.

“You have waited a long time for me to deem you ready to enter this place,” Rathamir began. “And, despite my most severe admonitions to the contrary, you have invested copious amounts of time attempting to find it for yourself—“

“You knew?” Vasper’s face reddened.

“Of course I knew. You are not nearly so proficient at subterfuge, yet, as to avoid my scrutiny, my young pupil. Besides which, I could hardly expect anything less out of the excessively inquisitive nature which you and I share.” He grinned. “And so, here we are. Your wait is at an end and the secret entrance into supremacy that you have so hardly sought is before you.” He gestured to the wall before them.

Vasper followed the gesture and saw nothing. “Entrance? Rathamir, are you feeling quite alright? I see nothing here but wall!” he exclaimed, looking dubiously at the teacher.

Rathamir simply smiled, “Sooner or later, doubting Vasper, you will have to learn the difference between what you see and what is. Look again.”

Vasper did so and now saw that where there had been, but a moment before, a solid wall of new brick and mortar, now stood an ancient-looking stone archway. Beyond this, an even more ancient-looking stairway spiraled into a black abyss. He looked back at Rathamir in amazement, “I don’t believe it! If I’ve been through this room once, I’ve been through it a thousand times – how could I have missed that?”

“I did not intend for you to find it, and thus you did not,” Rathamir replied. He nodded knowingly at Vasper’s further questioning expression, “How did I do this, you wish to know? Follow me and you will discover the answers to many questions far more interesting than that.”

With that, the robed tutor stepped through the archway and down the stairs. After but a moment’s hesitation Vasper quickly decided to do likewise and followed closely behind. At first he was afraid of being stuck in the dark, winding staircase without a lamp or torch for light, but his fear soon proved unnecessary. A hazy grey glow, whose source he could not identify, faintly lit the stairway, though it did little to reveal more than a few steps at a time. As they descended in silence, the Thane imagined that he was climbing down into the deep pits of the underworld, where the great furnaces burned day and night. Did the air seem to be growing warmer? He shivered despite what he hoped to be an imagined warmth creeping up through the stone underfoot.

After an indeterminate amount of time they reached the bottom of the stair, which ended abruptly at a flat walk interrupted by an iron door, plain enough looking and tightly shut and locked. Rathamir turned to his pupil, placing both hands upon Vasper’s shoulders and captured the other’s eyes with his.

“Beyond this door lies the entrance to a very different world, Vasper, and one in which, once you have entered, you can never leave,” Rathamir stated, gravely, not missing the thoroughly confused look on the boy’s face. “The Serpent’s Belly, which you have no doubt built up in your mind as some magical place of immeasurable power, is not what you think. There is power here, yes, but more than that, there is realization and revelation. Indeed, once you enter these halls, your perceptions of the world outside will be forever altered. Within these halls you shall be compelled to prove, to me and to others, your worthiness to be instructed in deeper truths and darker powers than most men can begin to imagine. The testing will be difficult and it will be painful, but I am confident that you will succeed.” He paused, looking entirely humourless, and asked the sobering question. “Do you wish to enter and be tested?”

Vasper responded with the resolute nodding of his head, “Yes, teacher, I wish to enter and be tested.”

Rathamir inclined his head in approval at the response and turned back to the door. Placing one hand upon it, he began uttering in an outlandish tongue whose words seemed to emanate forth not only from his own mouth but from the very bowels of the earth below.

”Gzh’Trga Ydzl’gzh Frdzh’guul Ak’taan!”

At once the plain iron door seemed to melt away, revealing grand double-doors of jet black onyx. Dark and ominous they stood, and in their centre a crudely painted sigil shone starkly crimson against their blackness. Angular and cruel, the symbol was instantly recognizable: three interlocking triangles formed the bulk of it, one larger and broader, pointing downwards for a head. The other two perched atop the other, pointing upwards, the horns of a great and terrible beast. Though his eyes registered recognition and dread, Vasper said nothing and waited for his tutor to speak.

“I see you recognize the great beast sigil, and you are correct in what you surmise. Though you heard tell of whom or what might be hiding here, you did not believe the worst of those rumours. Not until now,” said Rathamir. He reached out with his fingers, reverently caressing the image. “The Serpent’s Belly is lair to something much more beautiful and terrible than the vague, simple evils inhabiting most men’s simplistic superstitions. Nor is it merely a storehouse of illicit knowledge as others believe.

“Beyond this door, as you have guessed, lies the dungeon Drakhalteyon, high hall of the Black Guild.”

Vasper visibly shivered and leaned heavily against the wall, as though unable to hold himself up under the weight of current events. He eyed the volcanic-rock door warily before shifting his wide-eyed glance back toward his mentor. “The Black Guild. Drakhalteyon,” he sighed, almost whispering the names. “One hears about such things in whispers and stories, but this—“ he trailed off uncertainly. “To be here, I mean. I can scarcely credit it. Why am I here, Rathamir? Why have you brought me to this place?”

“Because I deem you worthy to share in the truth, my son,” Rathamir replied. Vasper looked questioningly into his teacher’s eyes; never before had Rathamir called him his son. “Worthy to share in the incredible power of enlightenment that dwells here. It is a power that cannot be taught, but must be claimed, conquered. But be warned, young Thane, that the world that is operates far differently than the world which you have been taught to accept. All the stories you have been told about the great and noble conflict of good and evil are just that – stories. Ever has the real truth – the deeper truth – been known only to those deemed worthy to serve those who hold the reins of power in Giliathor.

“So it has been from the start, when the brightest of all the burning stars in the sky took hold of his power and chose his servants from among the strongest and wisest in our world. And, gathering his chosen servants together, he formed the great guild in whose service I pledged my life at the same age you are now.”

“I understand, Rathamir. I am ready,” Vasper declared, determined not to let down the only person in his life who had ever shown him more than perfunctory care. “I trust you more than anyone.”

“Such trust comes easily to you, now,” said Rathamir, grimly. “Not so, later on, I think. Evolution is never easy, and once you pass into that domain you cannot return unchanged. Here you will learn of things that will freeze the blood in your veins, or boil it, or both. You will reject what is revealed to you, as I did, and you will have to be shown the truth, as I also was. In the end you will accept and be found worthy to embrace the responsibility. Or, by other’s hands or your own, you will die. Now, Vasper, son of Jirith and Thane of all Serapis, I ask again, are you ready?”

Shaking too violently to form words, Vasper merely nodded his assent. Rathamir merely blinked in response and the black door ceased to be. Stretching out beyond the threshold ran a long corridor, encased in walls and ceiling of the same polished stone as that of the door. Taking a deep breath, Vasper followed his mentor through the entryway. After a few paces he turned to look behind him, suddenly worried that someone might find the door open and follow them through. But where the door had been, none now was, nor any indication of an entrance. Vasper’s quizzical expression elicited gentle laughter from his guide, “All is not as it appears here, young one. Be mindful.”

They strode on determinedly along a hallway long and dark and seemingly endless, toward what destination Vasper could not guess. They had been traveling thus for several minutes when Vasper glimpsed something odd out of the corner of his eye, like the hint of an out-of-place shape in the shadows. Perhaps they were not alone as he had assumed; a chilling prospect. But when the hinted-at shape had passed by without incident, Vasper decided it to be a product of his nervous imagination, and dismissed it as a trick of the strange light in the place, walking on.
Vexed by a nervous edginess, it was not long before he felt the need to see something other than the monotonous road stretching unchangingly from the gloom behind to the gloom ahead.

Desperate for some kind of diversion, he turned his head to examine the stone walls of the hallway, having earlier taken note of some interesting glyph-shapes carved along their length. Instead of the foreign symbols he had expected to see, he caught sight of something very like the odd thing from before, though this time around he was able to discern a distinct man-shape crouched down inside a sort of dark void in the wall. Catching the hint of something to the other side, he turned to see a matching void in the opposite wall, and a matching man-shape crouched inside it. He was about to mention what he had seen to Rathamir but thought better of it, having been taught to rely upon his own senses and observations before seeking out the knowledge of others. In any case, the red-headed teacher seemed quite unconcerned, if the unwavering footfalls were any indication.

Now knowing what to look for, Vasper watched the walls to catch the next anomaly before he was past it. Armed with that knowledge, he could clearly see the next small compartment facing inward from wall, along with its counterpart on the opposite side. Inside each opening knelt – not crouched – a figure robed and cowled in shades of black and grey, silent and stock-still. Dark eyes, intensely aware, sparkled from within shadowed faces. Sentries, Vasper realized, suddenly glad he had not managed to discover the secret way on his own, without Rathamir for escort.

After passing by several more of the darkly clad guards, they came to the corridor’s sudden end. By now, Vasper’s sense of spatial awareness was thoroughly confused; he had not at all seen the end coming and yet there it was, appearing in front of him in the form of a low archway. Before the arch stood, or perhaps floated, three figures. They were clad similarly to the sentries along the way except that the garments they wore seemed tailored with shadow where there should have been cloth.

Seeing Rathamir and student approach, the figures knelt down, bowing low – worshipfully, Vasper thought – each with a hand stretched out in offering. It was an expression very much akin to something Vasper had seen passing between the royal palace guards in Unverferth and the king, though the dim grey light of the corridor seemed an exceedingly odd setting for such gestures.

Upon each of the shadowy figures’ upraised palms was lain a key, each of the three as different and unique from the others as fire is from water and water from air. The hand on the left held a large key of polished steel. Plainly wrought but strong it seemed, with a long handle, undecorated save from an engraving of a hammer and sword crossed, as if in battle. Another key, this one in the hand of the rightmost figure, was a delicate bauble, carved delicately out of clear blue crystal with a handle that curved gracefully into the elegant shape of a raindrop, shimmering alluringly. The last of the keys, held between the others, was of nondescript shape and size but black as pitch. It was made of a curious material, neither metal, nor wood but with a porous texture, as though carved from the charred arm-bone of some ancient dead thing.

Vasper looked at the three figures with their keys, and back at Rathamir, clearly confused about what was required of him.

“The way lies before you, Vasper,” his mentor directed. “Choose your path carefully, only one way leads to enlightenment. The other paths lead to torments that are, as yet, unimaginable to you.”

Despite the questions forming in his mind, Vasper did not speak them out but reached out confidently to grasp each key in turn, somehow knowing, with absolute confidence, what to do. An important choice loomed before him – one which would determine more than simply whether he would live or die. The choice could not be rushed, and yet he also knew that indecisiveness was a luxury he could not afford – not now, not ever.

At the barest brushing of his fingers over the keys, each, in turn, called out to him in a voice distinctly unique in essence and tone.

The voice of steel was loud and furious, edged in unrestrained rage and anger, and an overwhelming urge to satisfy those feelings with the outpouring of violence, pure and raw. Oh, what marvelous release it would be to feel a life choking away between his fingers, or bleeding out on the end of his blade. But after the violent thoughts had faded he was left void and unfulfilled. He had never been taken to the idea of physical assault – it had always seemed somehow beneath him. So he put down the steel key and moved on.

The crystal voice brought with it a sense of fluidity and flow – harmony with the very elements of nature: earth, air, fire and water. It was a slow voice, a quiet voice of subtle power over all the long processes and the collective knowledge of the natural world. Such wisdom, he knew, would be an invaluable asset, but as much as he was not given to physicality, neither was he a man of peace and contemplation. So he put down the crystal and moved on once more.

The dark voice echoed something different, indeed. Empty and shapeless, it was the slow creeping of shadow into a sunlit room, choking the inhabitants with its patient poison – a subtle whisper, killing without a sound. It was dark as light, deception as truth and death as life. In a word: perfect.

Vasper’s decision came quickly, and he grasped the black key tightly to his chest, unwilling that any harm should come to it. As he did so all that had been behind him – corridor, ceiling and walls – blurred and faded from existence, leaving him standing on a road that went only forward, suspended in an infinite field of black. Clearly, there could be no going back; the only thing that remained was to move ahead, through the arch. Destiny awaited.

The first person to move was the middle figure, now empty-handed. Expressionless, it ducked under the arch, followed by its fellows, still holding their keys. Rathamir gestured for Vasper to proceed next, and the Thane did as he was bidden. Beyond the arch he saw three doors, and beside each stood one of the shadowy figures.

The figure with the steel key turned to his door of polished steel that glittered brightly, even in the low light of the passage. Adorning this door, a likeness was hung of a mail-clad fist, forged in gold and silver. The matching key turned easily in the great door’s keyhole and the door swung open, bright sunlight streaming through it. Through the door was a great field of battle, upon which stood a grim army, weapons at the ready. The key-holder stepped through and became changed: a great warrior it was, dressed in a brightly polished suit of heavy armour. As the dark army surged forward in attack the warrior grew in size until it towered over the swarming combatants, dispatching dozens of its enemies with each swing of the great mace it wielded. The warrior grew larger with every man that it felled, but so also did the sun hanging over the battlefield, until its deadly fires could be held back no longer and fell to earth with a mighty roar, consuming army, warrior and the entire world with its fury.

The steel door shut hard against that all-consuming fire, bursting, itself, into flame and disappearing into the blackness.

To the crystal key belonged a wooden door, plainly but sturdily made of some rich, dark timber. Upon the wooden door was carved an image of a great tree holding the sun, moon and stars in its outstretched branches. The figure with the crystal key unlocked the door and stepped through, into a garden, beautiful and serene. A great tree it became whose branches reached into the heavens while its roots spread through the earth, drinking in the knowledge and power of all nature’s creatures, flora and fauna alike. A thousand peaceful years flashed by in an instant, and the power and beauty of the tree waxed along with its kingdom, the garden. In the blink of an eye the bright sun turned dark and the garden fell into decay. Great thorny vines invaded the garden, overgrowing all in their path and devouring the once mighty tree, continuing to expand until they had choked the very life from the earth from whence the tree had sprung.

The wooden door closed upon a world of chaotic vegetation whose creepers grew through the cracks to encompass the door with their weedy malignance.

One way, only, remained, a dark iron grate of worn vertical bars that might have just as easily belonged in the cruelest of dungeons. Undecorated, save for a sturdy lock, the grate was heavily soiled with the filthy grime one might expect to find collecting in the kind of dank prison cell wholly too familiar with the presence of death. From out of the darkness beyond, a light draught blew, wafting along with it odious hints of the unwholesome air within.

The Thane stepped forward, clear of purpose, knowing that he could go no other way but forward. He inserted the key and twisted hard, expecting to meet resistance from decades, or perhaps centuries, of disuse. To his surprise, the key turned easily and the door swung open of its own accord.

Rathamir came forward, looking deeply into his student’s eyes. “Cross the threshold, my son. Destiny awaits.”

* * *

“I’ll not hear talk of destiny from a fork-tongued snake!” shouted the baneful voice of Serapis’ new Thane-apparent to the cheering mass of his followers. Vasper cried out as the whip lashed against him, another welt joining the growing collection of angry red gashes already striping his bare back. Kast let out a frustrated growl from his place on the dais, among his few remaining men. Though he wanted nothing more than to go down, taking as many of the rebellious filth with him before he died, he knew any such action would prove deadly to his Thane, so he stayed put.

Bey, meanwhile, had been very specific in his treatment of the outgoing Thane: First he had been stripped down to his skivvies, then beaten and dragged around the hall by a rope around his neck to receive the callous kicks and blows of the combined rebel force. Finally he had been strung up by his wrists and subjected to a drawn-out flogging, the brutality of which had been seldom encountered in civilized lands. While Serdigal’s hands held the whip, Bey gloated over his trophy.

“You have inflicted much pain upon your victims, most of them helpless women, the base carrion creeper than you are. But I notice that you have no scars to call your own!” The crowd booed loudly then cheered as their chosen Thane continued his tirade. “Hardly fitting for a leader of your outstanding character, wouldn’t you say? What do you say we change that?” Bey postured dramatically for his audience, eliciting a steady cadence of clapping hands from the nobility and stomping feet from the soldiers. Serdigal brought the whip back once more.

“It’s time you had a lesson in pain!”

* * *

In the darkness of an adolescent mind, the young Thane wondered if the incessant screaming was ever going to stop. It had been going on, seemingly, for days without ceasing, and he feared that he would lose his mind if the infernal keening did not end soon.

If the coward has to suffer, at least he could do it in silence and save me the headache!

That it was his own cries of pain that filled the air did not make the sound of it any less perturbing. Somewhere in his adolescent mind, he had separated the combined immensity of his torment into its separate elements, each piece wholly independent from the others. Somewhere in his adolescent mind, he had imagined that if only he concentrated hard enough upon the irritating sounds of his torture, he might not feel the pain.

He was wrong, of course; the various men and women of the guild who came and went from his torture chamber took special pride and skill in playing the role of tormentor. And, while techniques varied from practitioner to practitioner, all the torturers shared one thing in common: their master, the master of the Black Guild. Or, as he had introduced himself to Vasper, Drakhal, highest servant of Giliathor’s true gods. Gods who, unlike the heroic characters celebrated by countless generations of religious observance and tradition, were neither benevolent nor virtuous as their mythical counterparts were claimed to be.

“I know your mind, son of Jirith,” spoke the slithering voice of Drakhal from behind the iron masque he worse for a face. Vasper had assumed it was a he behind the grotesquely cast features, though he could not have said for sure. “Despite everything that has been done to you, you cling to the vain belief that you are above all of this. That the blackness in your heart is not so black as mine and your murders not so dire. Is that not so?”

Vasper cleared the blood from the back of his throat and spat it weakly, missing the cowled figure by some distance.

“It is difficult for such a mind as yours to accept that evil remains evil regardless of motive or rationale. In your mind you have built up the notion that your crimes are of more noble purpose, because they have been committed in the name of convenience, rather than intention, and with indifference rather than relish. So committed are you to freeing yourself from being bound to another’s will that you would forsake your station as an honoured servant to the lords of Giliathor in favour of becoming their slave, instead.”

Vasper thrashed, suddenly, flailing against the chains that bound him. “I am no slave!” he tried to shout, coming out more as ragged gasps that gurgled from lips stained red with blood.

“No. Not a slave,” said Drakhal, no longer standing at Vasper’s feet, but crouching down to whisper in his ear. “You were not brought into this place only to be left the slave who entered. You came to me to be indoctrinated into the greatness and power that only the gift of Anak can bestow. For it is to him that the gods owe their allegiance, and it was he who first gave them the names by which they are commonly known and worshipped: Tergo the Resurrector, Dorlan the Hunter, Kirthdal the Animator, Idsilion the Maiden of Peace, Gurlon’Tal the Warrior’s Patron, Ferius the Warden of the Afterlife, Caylen Tael the Goddess of Beauty and Pleasure, Larken Mal-Ek-Mal the Righteous Judge of the Dead, and Orsong Tiras the god of fire and forge.

“All of these, who inhabit the highest circle of the holy court, and the myriad spirits beneath them, belong to Anak and always have. Their true names are ancient and powerful, known by only a privileged few among the guild, and of those few, only Drakhal knows them all.”

Vasper lay silently, though his thoughts raced. Tergo had been his family’s patron god for generations without number and, indeed, the house chapel which occupied the entire top floor of the Thane’s manor was wholly devoted to the traditionally celebrated deity. That his family had been worshipping a lie all this time gnawed at his pride. Yet he knew somehow that it was all true, and he could no longer deny that fact. More troublesome was the realization growing in him that if the holy court of gods was based on such untruth, so then were his allusions to a higher calling.

“To be joined to the Black Guild,” Drakhal intoned, standing over his captive once more, “means acceptance of truths so unspeakable, revelations so shocking, that only the strongest or most malleable of minds can learn of them and not break, utterly. It means submission to Principalities so lofty and cruel that all life in Giliathor serves as little more than fodder for their insatiable appetites, or pawns to their inexorable will. And it means fulfillment of your role as harvester and mentor, leading sheep to the slaughterhouse and slaves to their shackles. Or as petitioner, offering up the pain of the innocent as a sacrificial offering to the unholy pantheon in exchange for the lending of their power.”

Ironic, thought Vasper, that he now found himself the object of just such a sacrifice. That for all he had thought to resist being ruled by the will of others, he had accomplished just the opposite.

“Are you yet convinced, young Vasper?” the iron-masked voice lilted seductively, “are you content to be numbered among the multitudes – the sheep – of Giliathor, or will you take your place as a servant-king under the rule and protection of the Prince of gods?”

Drakhal stood at Vasper’s side, the two of them suddenly encircled by all those who had enacted torture upon the once-handsome, now-disfigured boy, each with the preferred implement of their individual crafts. When they had arrived, Vasper could not tell; he had been alone in the cell, aside from the hideously masqued Guildmaster a moment before. They moved in slowly, apparently unaware of their master’s presence in their midst. The certainty of their bloodlust hung palpably in the air like a thick haze.

“The time for games is over,” Drakhal hissed, “my thralls have come to end a worthless slave whose long parole has finally expired. Your life is forfeit, but Anak offers your pardon in exchange for service done in his name. Only he can save you now! Merely reach out and take my hand, and you will achieve all that you have ever hoped for. The decision is yours for the making.” The horrific iron gaze took in the approaching guildsmen, clearly resolved to their task. “But, you should not delay over long, I think.”

Vasper looked at the outstretched hand and felt a release of pressure as his shackles came open of their own accord. To accept Drakhal’s offer would change things, to be sure, but Thane’s lofty idols had long since been replaced with thoughts of the cold, cruel revenge he would bring upon the heads of his tormentors.

Oh, how he hated them, and how that hatred gave rise to darker things within. He had quenched their thirst with the blood seeping from his many wounds to form sticky pools on the dirty floor below, fed their hunger with flesh stripped from his ravaged body by devilish scourges woven with the jagged shards of his own broken bones. Worst of all, he had sated their perverse pleasures with his cries, revealing weakness in himself that he could not excuse. And Drakhal was the worst of them all, watching while the guildsman had carried out his every word and command.

But now was not the time for such thoughts. Now was the time to do what one must to survive to see the next day, and to claim the protection and power of the gods, whatever their nature may be, no less. Perhaps, once he had built favour enough for himself with the dark powers he must serve, he would repay Drakhal’s hospitality, kindness for bloody kindness.

A serpentine voice slithered around the edges of his comprehension. Hold onto your wrath, favoured one, for but a little while, and you shall be made greater even than he.

Vasper laughed, knowing well whose voice it was echoing in his thoughts. Hold onto my wrath? Indeed, I shall never let it go.

Eyes dancing, he reached out and took the offered hand. A sinister power of darkness was set loose in the touch, that sucked at the very fabric of the shadows, pulling in the silky black stuff, gathering it, concentrating it, and forcing out the light. Time seemed to slow, sound to diminish, for a few fleeting seconds. The moments that followed were filled with the screaming deaths of a score of the guild’s finest torturers, eviscerated by an explosion of merciless writhing tentacles of living darkness formed by the malevolence of the guildmaster’s will.

When the shadowy deed had been done, and the torture chamber was thoroughly painted in guildsman blood, the darkness began to expand once more, rolling over Vasper in silent waves of nothingness. Light turned to dark as all reckoning of space and time was swiftly swept away.

Sense returned slowly, giving no account of the passage of time. Gone was the repugnant squalor of the torture chamber, replaced by a grand audience hall of smooth onyx, polished to a shine. His first sight was of an evilly cast face, the same previously worn by Drakhal, but now belonging to the graven image of a man, which was the large room’s central feature. The rest of the statue’s horned head stood atop a majestically poised body, perfectly proportioned and robed in a long cape, signifying royalty. In the figure’s clawed right hand was clutched a heart, twain in two, and in the other a long, twisted dagger. To either side, kneeling in submission to the horrible chief monument were a uniquely frightful pair of figures, a male and a female, authoritatively and hideously carved, yet clearly subservient to the other.

“Lord Anak in the glory of his youth, on the day that the twin deities Xizixizix and Yidsn pledged themselves to his rebellion against an impotent master,” said a familiar voice from the shadows nearby.

“Devourer … Devil …” Vasper replied breathlessly. He was suddenly aware that his myriad wounds of blade, scourge, and fire had disappeared without any hint of mark or scar.

“Ignorant titles granted by unenlightened men to a being they could not possibly comprehend,” answered the voice. “Surely even you must now acknowledge that he is a king among gods.”

Vasper nodded, flexing his newly restored fingers in disbelief.

“And your hurts, though a necessary element of your own enlightenment, have been healed to your satisfaction?”

“They have, Guildmaster,” he responded. The voice belonged to Drakhal, Vasper decided, however there was something more familiar in it that he had not detected previously.

“Do you now find yourself able to enlist your soul to the service of Anak, and his Principalities?” the pointed question was asked.

Vasper grinned, “With everything that is in me, master.”

A smooth hand gripped his shoulder. “For your trials you have earned the right to stand by my side, as the son I never had, but shall now guide to his destined station.” The voice was proud, triumphant. “Stand, then, honoured son, and look upon your new father.”

Vasper did as he was bidden and looked into a face almost more familiar to him than his own – the face of one who would never hurt him? “Rathamir..? But—“

“In the world of men I am known to you as Rathamir, teacher and advisor to the Thane of Serapis,” the red-haired man cut in, silencing his apprentice with an upraised palm. “There, a Thane shall learn of governance, diplomacy, warfare and other such things befitting his station in that world. But here, in Drakhalteyon, Anak’s hall, I will be known to you as Drakhal, master and father to Anak’s newest servant. Here, a Black Guildsman shall enter into communion with the cruel spirits who turn the wheels of Giliathor, and their power shall be his for the asking so long as he remains in their favour.”

Vasper’s long hair brushed the glassy surface of the black stone floor as he knelt down to Anak’s image. “Tell me what I must do, master,” he breathed reverently.

Rathamir’s hand rested gently upon the boy’s head, smoothing ruffled hairs, “You must make your first offering to the gods. Only then shall you receive the blessing of their regard.”

Vasper looked up, gleefully sinister, and reached into the loose-fitting garment he had been dressed in to retrieve the jagged knife he knew he would find. “Bring me an innocent life and I shall dedicate its pain to my lords, with pleasure.”

Rathamir shook his head, “No, my son, the first time is never so easy as that. A stranger’s suffering may be a sufficient gift from one already dedicated, but not for you. Not now.”

Vasper’s head jerked up, a signal of the uncertainly that suddenly gripped him, “Then what must I do?” The question came with trepidation.

“You must make a difficult choice,” declared the master. “To serve Anak fully is to divorce yourself from all the things of your former life that hold meaning to you. You must show your willingness to discard such things with passion and with pleasure, and in so doing, free yourself from the constraints of morality and conscience. You must offer up the pain not only of the victim, but of the gift itself and with the savour of that pain you shall be made worthy.”

The revelation of what must be done struck Vasper dumb with dread as he leaned away from Vasper’s black-tinged stare. To inflict such torment upon a stranger was one thing, but to commit such deeds as his master was suggesting was abhorrent, unthinkable.

“No! How can you.. I cannot—“

Vasper’s voice was cut off along with his breath by the Drakhal’s supernaturally strong hand closing off his wind-pipe and lifting him into the air, then slamming him roughly to the ground. “You will do as I command you, or die squealing for mercy, whelp! You belong to Anak now, and you will not disgrace me by failing to live up to your potential.”

The pressure eased, and the teenager’s breath was allowed to return with much gasping and coughing. The fire had gone out of Rathamir’s eyes and he helped the boy to his feet. “But do not despair, for I shall do what I can to make the choice easier for you than it might have been.”

“How do you think to make such a thing easier?” Vasper demanded.

“By giving you the answer to a question asked long ago, which you have agonized over for long enough,” said Rathamir.

“You mean… my father’s—?“ Vasper started, eagerly.

“Yes, my son, that very thing.”