Beyong the Moons

Chapter Twenty-one

“To the Chamber of Pain take meat you shall,” the leading neogi whispered to the red-brown brute carrying Teldin. The human, stripped of his weapon and slung over the beast’s shoulder, craned around to see the neogi scuttling about. Teldin’s head throbbed and he had trouble focusing. The horrid little creature swam before his eyes.

Hanging limply across the umber hulk’s shoulder, such as it was, Teldin’s chest banged against the creature’s bony hide. Gradually his head stopped swimming and he could see around him again, albeit upside-down and across the back of a smelly, plate-covered creature. From his position, though, the human had a fairly good view of the back of the beast’s feet, and somehow he was not surprised to see the creature’s talons gouging the solid rock floor like soft sand. Each glimpse of the cracked, yellow claws accentuated the agony of the equally powerful hand that dug into Teldin’s back, holding him in place.

Teldin caught fleeting upside-down glimpses of the corridors and rooms they passed, but he had no idea where he was. He counted five of his captors. At least one neogi and four freakish umber hulks were in his group, of that much he was certain. The escort plodded through the halls, the noise of cracking stone and clicking mandibles echoing with every step. Just as Teldin thought he knew where he was, the caravan reached a stair, still dripping from the gnomish flood, and disoriented him again.

After climbing several levels, the group struck off through the corridors again. The pace was brisk; apparently, the neogi was trying to spirit its captive out of the gnome warrens as quickly as possible. Along the route were clear signs of battle: shattered walls, broken machines, bloodstains, and bodies. Most of the dead were gnomes; only a few were umber hulks, and none were neogi. In several instances, the neogi leader ordered its slaves to collect the corpses until the beasts were loaded down with bodies. Bloody streaks darkened their rust-brown hides.

When the sanguinary caravan finally reached the outdoors, Teldin found himself once again looking at the crater lake. The neogi’s choice of direction was now clear, for hovering over the water below was a massive ship-or creature. From his vantage point, Teldin couldn’t be sure.

Whatever the thing was, it looked like a gigantic spider, divided into three parts. The rear section, blood red and larger than the rest, was egg-shaped with an underbelly, if one could call it that, lined with veinlike courses. This abdomen loomed fat and plump in the starlit sky over the tiny Unquenchable. From its broad end protruded a smaller section, looking much like the head. A thick, curved, gray mantle covered the forward part while glowing hemispherical ports gave the impression of malevolent eyes glaring down at its prey, the hapless little sidewheeler.

A tight cluster of slender spars, jointed like gigantic legs, were affixed at the front of the head. Four swept to the rear, arching above and below the main hull, and each tapered to a point. Four others reached out to the front, probing into the darkness. Teldin could only see the spars as the spider’s legs, completing the image of an immense, bloated arachnid hovering in the sky. Gossamer sails, woven like vast cobwebs, stretched between the tips, trembling on the slightest breeze. More webs, strung like ladders, reached from the abdomen of the hovering thing to the shore. The ship was a maleficent spider weaving its web over the helpless Unquenchable.

Teldin’s ride, forced as it was, became rougher as the umber hulk scrambled down the talus slope. For once the yeoman was thankful for the creature’s gripping claws, though its bony hide scraped his chest nearly raw. Finally it reached the bottom of the slope and grabbed a webbed ladder. The farmer expected the massive beast to tear through the thin hawsers but the cables were far stronger than they seemed. The ladder swayed and tossed as the immense bulk ascended toward the ship’s belly. Teldin could clearly see the gnome sidewheeler floating in the water below. While he knew it was undamaged, the ship looked like little more than floating wreckage.

The swaying stopped and darkess closed about Teldin as the umber hulk struggled off the ladder and into the neogi ship’s hold. Apparently the neogi did not feel the need for lights, since none of several commands the leader hissed involved illumination. The words were foreign, but Teldin felt he understood them. “Dead meat take to food lockers,” the foul thing told its slaves. “Live meat take to Chamber of Pain. Live meat guard well, and see it escape does not.”

“I obey, small lord,” rumbled Teldin’s keeper, its chest trembling beneath his legs.

“Do it, lordservant.” A scrabbling series of clicks told Teldin the neogi had departed. He was unable to follow their progress in the darkness, and Teldin could do nothing but let himself be carried to some new destination. Somewhere along the way, the umber hulk climbed a ladder, pressing its claws into Teldin’s back and causing warm blood to seep into the weave of his shirt. Held helpless, he gave up his ideas of escape.

The umber hulk reached another deck, no brighter than the previous, walked a short distance, then stopped. Teldin heard the rattling of a lock, then the faint creak of a well-oiled door. With a savage clench to the ankles, the beast swung the human off its back and hurled him through the doorway to crash to the floor, skinning his body even more. Teldin heard the door slam and the lock drop into place.

Teldin huddled on the floor in the darkness for he didn’t know how long, his mind shut down in shock. Eventually self-preservation took hold and the farmer pulled himself up. “Don’t sit there! Do something!” he cursed under his breath. Teldin carefully began to crawl on his raw knees across the prison’s floor, feeling his way. Groping along this way, the captive bumped into several tables, each of them bare, though he could feel the tops were scarred and scored. There was a smell in the air, the faded suggestion of a sweetly thick odor. What was it that seemed so familiar? As he surveyed the cell’s dimensions, the mule skinner in Teldin remembered the odor, a long-forgotten scent from the war. It was blood, dried and stale to be sure, but blood just the same. Suddenly fearful in the darkness, Teldin pressed himself against the wall, trying to melt into it, fighting the panic that rose from his core.

“Keep going!” the farmer snarled at himself, whispering the words through clenched teeth. He thought of Amdar, scowling at his weak son, remembering the disappointment so clearly etched in his father’s face. The grim memory stiffened Teldin’s resolve; he would not fail this time. He would meet every one of his dead father’s expectations. Painfully, slowly, the trembling yeoman moved forward, fingers following the wall. He desperately tried not to think about the smell, the blood, the scarred tables, the “human meat,” as the neogi had called him. Scratching the metallic surface, the farmer finally touched something different. Fingers eagerly caressed the surface until it was cleat that it was the hinge of the door. There was almost a sense of hopes that the joints might offer some chance of escape.

It was while he was probing the door that Teldin heard faint voices from the other side. He pressed his ear to the metal and strained to make out what was being said.

" …human I found and brought. My property he is. Tattoo him I will!” snarled the first voice. Teldin could only guess that the speaker was his neogi captor. While he magically understood their speech, the nuances were still beyond him. The words were distinctive enough, though.

“Overmaster you defy, M’phei. Human meat overmaster claims until found is the cloak.” Although not raised, the second voice spoke with clear menace. “Here cloak is, overmaster believes. A giff with gnomes, reports say. A giff went with human, groundlings said.”

“If my meat overmaster wants, in pit overmaster I will meet,” M’phei promised. “Human meat and cloak who will get we will see. If cloak I have, benefit greatly my friends do. This world with cloak the overmaster could enslave."

There was a long pause. The second voice started speaking, softer than before, as if the speaker were walking around. " …loudly you speak not. Nearby overmaster is."

The first voice spoke again, louder and stronger than before. “Growing old overmaster is. Another yrthni ma‘adi in fleet may be soon.” Teldin barely understood the meaning of the word yrthni ma‘adi. The literal translation- which the cloak imparted? — was “great old master.”

"…cloak find?” The words were drawn out, tempting.

“Ah, cloak. Key human meat is and give it up meat will.” Even without understanding nuances, there was no mistaking the triumphant gloat in the neogi’s voice.

Teldin unconsciously touched his hand to his throat. The silver chain and clasp were still there. Feeling the back of his neck, the cloak still was little more than a strip of cloth, and the whole thing felt like no more than a necklace or amulet. The farmer wondered what would happen if he just gave up the cloak-if he could get it off. Could he convince the neogi to let him go? Teldin refocused his thoughts on listening for more.

“Discuss I will not until…" Teldin had no idea what the two voices were now debating, but it did not matter, since the voices trailed off. The captive kept his ear pressed to the door, but there was no more.

Slowly the farmer let his body slide to the floor, his long limbs slowly folding underneath him. Part of his spirit sank into despair. The neogi’s meanings seemed clear; Teldin could not imagine any other “human meat” on board the black ship. Apparently the creatures knew about the cloak. Indeed, it seemed they knew more about its purpose than he ever imagined. The neogi wanted it desperately, enough to trail him halfway across a continent and slaughter untold numbers of innocents. Now that the creatures had him, Teldin had few doubts about the extremes to which they would go to attain their goal. The farmer thought of the Penumbra, Liam, Vandoorm, and the-gods-knew-how-many gnomes. How many more had the neogi killed searching for the cloak? Teldin tried not to consider the bloody responsibility that rested on his shoulders, but he failed to drive the thought from his conscience. For a moment, the human’s thoughts sank to resignation, surrender, and sacrifice to prevent more death.

Still, there was a small spark of promise that kept Teldin from utter despair. Apparently, while they had him, the neogi did not know their human prisoner wore the cloak. That, the farmer guessed was all that kept him alive. Teldin squatted against the door and tried once more at the clasp, hoping to get it unfastened. With it off, his numbed mind rationalized, he would be free from its burden and the neogi might even let him go.

As he fumbled with the chain, the face of the dying alien came into his mind. The spelljammer captain had perished rather than surrender to the neogi. She had taken an entire ship and her crew to their deaths, taken them by choice. How many more had died to keep it from the neogi’s grasping little hands? Teldin wondered. Could he give up, or would surrendering now be a betrayal of the captain and perhaps others, even his father? Worse still, the neogi had hinted that the cloak could enslave whole planets. Howmany untold innocents would be killed then? Almost sadly, he realized the cloak could not be given away, at least not to them. It felt as if Amdar and hundreds of others all had spectral eyes trained on him, a lone human captive in a shipful of the enemy.

A thumping vibration came through the floor. Alerted, Teldin pressed close to the door and listened. Without light, there was no distraction from his sense of hearing, and the human discovered this sense was more acute than he suspected. Through the wall, the thumps ended in clicks, and Teldin guessed they were the footfalls of the huge lordservants, the beetle-headed umber hulks. “Door open," a voice hissed. Futilely trying to hide, Teldin scrambled backward in the dark, until he cracked his head against the edge of a table. The prison door swung open and light from a lantern streamed through the doorway, blinding the dazed farmer, who could only sit blinking at the glare. Silhouetted in the door was a pair of umber hulks, while behind and between them was a small neogi, holding a lantern high. Farther back were more of its kind, twisting to catch sight of their prey. Lantern light glinted off the lordservants’ mandibles and the neogi’s yellow eyes.

“Lordservants meat grab, kill not,” ordered the neogi. The two umber hulks leisurely rumbled forward, confident in their own might. Teldin avoided the gaze of their multifaceted outer eyes, focusing instead on the small, beady pair at the center of each of their broad faces. Nonetheless, the farmer could not help but glance at the strange orbs, and the minute he did his mind felt fogged and confused, like the time he’d gotten sunstroke working in the fields. It was a struggle to think, to act, but his mind would not obey, and the lordservants were on him before he could even formulate a thought. Seizing the human roughly, clawed hands gouged skin and the beasts slammed their victim onto a table, then ruthlessly pinioned his arms and legs. Shoulder joints strained as one of the lordservants pressed Teldin’s arms backwards over the edge of the table.

“Me lift up,” rasped a sinister voice. From out of Teldin’s sight, a third lordservant mutely hoisted a neogi to where the human could see the creature, a ball of flesh and legs gently cradled in the monster’s arms. The little body was tattooed with brilliant designs of red and gold, marking it clearly as different from the creature who had captured Teldin. The neogi twisted its neck about and looked over its prisoner’s scraped, cut, and bleeding body. The creature’s eyes gleamed with feral hunger.

“Cloak you know where is,” the neogi intoned with leisurely sibilance, its fanged maw barely inches from the farmer’s face. The words were a statement, not a question. The neogi tipped its serpentine head toward one of the lordservants. Already crushing Teldin’s wrists, the umber hulk pressed down on the human’s spread-eagled arms. The yeoman heard his shoulder joints creak while his vision dimmed, tunneling down until he could see only his tormenter’s black-gummed, gleaming teeth. The pain roared in his head-for seconds or minutes, Teldin did not know. Then, gradually, the pressure subsided. “Cloak you tell where is,” the leering eel face promised. “But not yet. First play I must.” It smiled, or at least showed its teeth, in a gruesome mockery of friendship, and then signaled the lordservant once again.

The pain rushed back in on Teldin, distorting his senses. He was keenly aware of sweat running down his temples, soaking his hair, and the roaring noise that returned to fill his mind with grinding and hammering. Shoulders popped and cracked, biceps burned. All he could see was a single point on the ceiling. Time became meaningless. At last, the tearing pressure eased again and faded to a steady burn of his tortured muscles.

“Again,” instructed the neogi in a whisper just loud enough for Teldin to hear.

The torment flooded back, swallowing the farmer in it. Once more it faded, then returned again at a word. The cycle continued endlessly-peace, pressure, suffering, then peace again. The torture pulled a scream from the victim’s lips, one he could not stop even when his throat was raw.

“Enough,” commanded the neogi again. Teldin, his arms wrenched and twisted, hardly noticed the difference when the umber hulk let go. He didn’t feel himself lying on the table, panting in choked spasms. Slowly the neogi’s face, floating overhead, swam before his eyes. The beast reached down with spidery legs and dragged the tips across his chest. They were surprisingly sharp, slicing the remains of Teldin’s shirt and pulling the sweat-and blood-soaked rags from the human’s bare skin. In his current state, the farmer could only eye the neogi with mute terror and rage.

“You perhaps now talk,” the neogi murmured, its face pressed close to Teldin’s ear, “but I want to listen not yet.” The razorlike limb tips etched Teldin’s shuddering chest, slowly creating a web of thin cuts across the skin.

“Overmaster,” hissed a familiar voice, “mine to tattoo meat is!” The enraged neogi stopped its bloody tracings and drove the claw tips into Teldin’s chest. Though not deep, the punctures ignited pain. The farmer writhed under the touch, only to have the immense lordservants wrench him back down onto the table.

“Bold my quastoth, kin slave M’phei, grows. Will overmaster challenge?” said the torturer to the hidden speaker. “This meat I take, then remove unnecessary parts I will- first a tongue.” The neogi glared at its opponent.

There was a scrabbling noise near Teldin’s head, the clicking walk of a neogi. “Confused overmaster is. Without tongue, meat will talk never about cloak,” the voice, M’phei’s, shot back. “Perhaps ready to join yrthni ma’adi overmaster is."

The golden-skinned neogi, the captain, the overmaster, from what Teldin understood, jerked its head up with a rasping hiss. Struggling in the arms of its lordservant, the neogi lunged outward, making a biting snap at the air in M’phei’s direction. “Overmaster I am. Quastoth, slave kin you are. You threaten me not!”

Moving slowly, Teldin painfully managed to turn his head enough to see the other neogi. He judged by its tattooed colors and the hissing voice that it was the creature that had captured him. “Tattoo meat I will, not overmaster,” M’phei coolly answered. The overmaster bristled in rage. “Unless,” the challenger continued, “overmaster’s errors all quastorh to know overmaster wants.”

Teldin was not quite sure why, but the other neogi abruptly paused, then slowly returned to his upright position. “Human meat you will have, quastoth M’phei, but cloak I claim.” The words came out in icy, venomous tones, clear even to the cloakmaster’s untutored ears.

“Quickly do it then, overmaster,” M’phei said with equal vehemence, “or remember your errors again I will.”

The gold-hued overmaster clicked his teeth in a fierce snap, then turned once more to Teldin. The eelly creature lowered its head until its razorlike teeth brushed the farmer’s ear. It whispered, “The Reigar’s cloak is where?”

Teeth clenched tightly to suppress the rivers of torment inside him, Teldin fought to keep from shivering. The farmer could feel the neogi’s fetid breath on his neck, making the muscles tighten and cramp, as if parts of his own body were trying to crawl away from the creature. “I don’t know,” the human slowly said, articulating each word with excessive care to prevent all his other feelings from rushing out. Greatest of these was the urge to manifest the cloak in hopes that it could protect him. Frantically Teldin drove back that thought before the magic took effect.

There was a snap and a sudden burning pain in his ear. Teldin’s back arched with a jerk, only to have the umber hulks slam him down again. The neogi rose back up, its mouth bloodied and a piece of Teldin’s ear dangling between its jaws. “Cloak is where?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Teldin screamed, his face contorted in pain. The lordservants yanked at his arms, reviving the shearing agony. The dimly lit room started to go gray, swirling into oblivion.

“Overmaster, my meat maim not!” shrilled M’phei’s voice. “Meat must be whole or your errors I report. Work meat must do. No broken bones, no torn limbs.”

“No broken bones," the overmaster sullenly agreed, “yet.”

For Teldin, the speakers were growing distant and faint and the pain grew less and less. He only vaguely heard the overmaster’s voice, filled with disgust. “It talks not yet. Lordservants, fill meat with pain, but mutilate body not.”

There was a strange clicking and buzzing voice as one of the umber hulks replied. “Yes, little master. Your slaves do as little master commands.” With the words came a searing pain, then darkness and nothing.