Child of a Dead God

CHAPTER ONE

Chane stood in the hidden mountain gorge amid the Crown Range. Light snow drifted down around him as Welstiel's mad shout rose into the night sky.

"No more! I am finished with you! Go back to where you hide. Find another toy… to cheat!"

Chane lifted his eyes to the dark expanse. The winter storm's cloud cover left the sky black but for one small space that exposed the stars.

Welstiel stared upward, his eyes filled with hate. His disheveled dark hair almost hid the white patches at his temples. Finally he lowered his head, and Chane followed his manic gaze to a switchback path leading up along the gorge wall.

One lone building stood halfway up, cut straight into the ancient stone. A small flicker of light traveled up the path's last leg, and then a figure stepped out of the structure's narrow door. Dressed in a pale blue tabard over a dark robe and full cowl, it lifted a torch high to greet two similarly attired figures ascending the path. All three went inside.

"Lock them all in," Welstiel whispered. "Feed if you must, but leave them alive… for now."

For too many days, Chane had fed only from Welstiel's life-conjuring cup. At the promise of fresh blood, he dropped his baggage and trotted toward the switchback path.

As he rounded the last turn, dim light spilled from the crack beneath the weathered front door. He slowed and crept quietly up to listen.

More than three voices sounded within. At first he couldn't follow the words, then realized they spoke Stravinan-of which he knew enough to understand simple conversations. Only the smell of life beyond the door mattered, and he gripped the cold door latch, senses widening. In one fluid move he squeezed it and shoved the door in. It clattered against the inside wall.

Three men and one woman in dark robes and blue tabards stood before a narrow hearth within a small room. All stared dumbly at him. One more elderly woman sat upon a long bench to the left, frozen halfway through pulling off her soiled boots. They took in the sight of him, tall and long limbed, with red-brown hair beneath a hooded wool cloak, and a longsword's sheath tip peeking from beneath its soiled hem. He was clearly no mountain dweller.

Chane rushed them before he even distinguished their faces and lashed out with both fists.

A woman and a man went down before anyone could flee, and he found himself toe-to-toe with a cowled old man. Tufts of cropped gray-white hair stuck out above a deeply lined face. Then the last of the standing four darted for a stairwell.

Chane had not seen these steps from the entrance. He lunged after the slight figure, grabbing the robe between the shoulders as the man cried out.

"Help! Bandits are upon us!"

Chane braced a foot on the second step and jerked back hard.

The frail young man shot across the entry room. His head and shoulders struck the far wall among cloaks and coats hanging from wooden pegs. He slid down and tumbled off the bench, flopping motionless upon the stone floor. The elderly woman who had been sitting there was gone.

Chane twisted around the stairwell's partition wall.

Welstiel stood inside the open front door, holding the woman by her throat. His eyes roamed the entry room. Clipped choking sounds rose from the woman's gaping mouth as she fought for air. She pulled at Welstiel's grip, but he didn't notice. She grew weaker with each incomplete gasp, until her hands dropped limply to her sides.

As she sagged in Welstiel's grip, he released her. She fell, and her head smacked sharply against the stone floor. Chane turned back to the elderly man.

The old priest, monk, whatever he was, watched him with horrified fascination and lifted shaking fingers to his mouth. Chane realized what the old man was truly looking at, and stretched open his jaws, displaying sharpened teeth and elongated fangs.

The old man stiffened, eyes round in his wrinkled face as the scent of fear thickened in the room. It smelled so good that Chane almost felt it on his skin.

"Lock them up," Welstiel said quietly.

Chane whipped around. "I… you… said I could feed!" he rasped.

"Too late, too slow," Welstiel whispered. "You wasted your chance."

Chane took a quick step toward Welstiel. Pounding footfalls echoed down the stairs from above.

A crowd of people in dusky robes and blue tabards gathered at the top of the steps. One young man backpedaled at the sight of Chane, and then tripped and fell against two others behind him. A clattering of wood filled the entry room as Welstiel slammed the front door shut.

"Finish this!" he snapped, and kicked the crumpled old woman.

The impact lifted her from the floor. She landed across the room atop the bodies of her unconscious companions, and the old man backed away.

Chane looked up the stairwell. He could not count how many were huddled there. When he lunged upward, the tangled mob fled amid panicked cries. Chane crested the stairs before the last one bolted beyond his reach.

Old wooden doors lined the upper passage, each opening into a small stone chamber. He drove the shrieking robed figures before him, and though they struggled to escape, not one struck at him. These mortal cattle would not even fight him for their lives, and Chane grew more spiteful and brutal with each one. He wrenched and flung them into the small cells, their fear-scent making him nearly manic to be finished.

All he could think of was the taste of terror-seasoned blood tingling down his throat to fill him with euphoria. Not for release from hunger but for the pleasure of feeding.

He heard Welstiel's footfalls behind him, and the cracking of wood. When he pulled the last door shut, and shoved back a figure trying to emerge from the previous door, he was shaking with a wild appetite.

Welstiel carried shards of thick wood in his hands. He shoved one through each door's iron handle and braced its end against the stone frame. Anyone who tried to pull a door inward would need enormous brute strength. Welstiel passed his gaze over each door along the passage's sides.

"Seventeen candidates," he muttered, absorbed in thought. "Adequate… since we had no opportunity for a more studied selection." He lowered his head. "There are several still below, incapacitated. Drag them up and lock them away."

Chane wanted to snarl, but didn't. Instead, he pushed past Welstiel for the stairs, numbly following orders.

By his second trip down, only two priests remained in the entry room- the elderly woman and the young man Chane had thrown aside. Welstiel knelt on the floor by the latter, unpacking his little brass cup.

"Take the woman," he said. "Leave the man."

Welstiel refused to feed directly on blood, preferring his arcane methods to draw concentrated life force. He began chanting softly.

Chane snatched up the woman, dragging her limp body up the stairs.

By the time he returned, Welstiel had finished. The young priest was a desiccated husk, and the cup brimmed with red liquid so dark it looked black in the entry room's low hearth light. But Welstiel did not drink. He poured the cup's contents into a brown glass bottle and pressed a cork soundly into its neck.

"You will remain here, out of my way," he said.

Welstiel headed for the stairs, but he paused at the first step. A shiver ran through his back. He lifted his head, staring up the dark stone staircase for a long moment, and then resumed his ascent.

Resentment could not stifle Chane's curiosity. He drew close, watching.

Welstiel climbed in a slow, forced gait, as if bearing a weight that grew with each step, until he slipped into the upper passage beyond sight. A door creaked above, followed by a dull thump.

Chane's suspicion sharpened, but he felt compelled to follow Welstiel's orders not to pry-at least for now. He scanned his surroundings.

A passage ran along the building's front from left of the front door. The stairs were set farther back on that same side and ran upward in the same direction. An old bench stood against the opposite wall, with three cloaks and a long-haired goatskin coat hanging on wooden pegs. In the rear stone wall, between the small hearth and the stairwell's base, was an opening leading deeper into the structure.

Chane was in no mood for poking about, but he did not care to just stand there, waiting, so he stepped through the rear opening.

The passage immediately turned left, ended in a right turn, and spilled into a wide chamber behind the entry room. A lantern on the nearest table offered enough light for Chane's hunger-enhanced sight.

Bundles of drying leaves, flowers, and branches hung from cords strung loosely across the ceiling. Below the dangling harvest, pottery and glass jars sat atop wooden tables along with rolling pins stained from long use, polished marble pestles, knives, and other instruments. It was the priests' workshop.

Chane stepped back and retreated down the passage, and as he reached the entry room, a muffled clatter sounded from above.

He looked up the dark stairs, wondering again what Welstiel was doing. Curious, he climbed until he was high enough to peer over the last step. He saw the doors along the upper passage. A sharp squeal of panic came from somewhere behind one of them. Silence followed, and Chane crept farther up. He smelled the rich, salty blood even before he saw it.

Smeared trails led from a dark pool at the passage's far end to the second door on the left. Chane's longing began to build as he stared at one door after another, trying to discern which cell Welstiel was in.

The wood brace was missing from the second and third doors on the left.

The third door jerked inward and Welstiel emerged.

His cloak, shirt, and sword were gone. He braced one hand on the door frame and gagged with his mouth tightly shut. Fresh blood seeped from between his clenched lips and ran down his chin to drip upon his bare chest.

Welstiel had been feeding, while Chane had been denied a chance to do so himself.

Welstiel's eyes rolled up, and his clear crystal pupils vanished, leaving white orbs. He faltered, wavering near collapse, then turned back to heave something from the cell's floor. Welstiel dragged a young priest to the first door on the left, and kicked it open.

The dead youth's eyes were frozen wide in astonishment above the red mess below his chin.

Welstiel tossed the corpse in and jerked the door shut, not bothering to reset a wood shard in the door's handle. Instead he staggered away until his back struck a door on the passage's opposite side. Small startled whimpers answered from within that cell.

Chane took a step, unable to hiss even one resentful word, and then Welstiel stumbled.

He fell to his hands and knees and crawled to the passage's far end. His back arched as he vomited out blood, heaving violently. Finally, in a shadow of living habit, Welstiel drew a breath into his dead lungs and toppled.

He tried to fall clear of his own mess, but there was too much blood. It spattered across him as he landed, convulsing in the pool spreading down the passage floor. Finally, he crawled into one far corner and propped himself up against the walls.

Chane couldn't fathom what was happening. His mind was too clouded by the smell and sight of the red trails creeping down the passage, as if seeking him out.

"One… mine!" he rasped. "One should be mine!"

"Get out," Welstiel whispered and lifted a hand to hide his face. He recoiled at the crimson running down his bare arm.

"No," Chane answered. "No more drinking from your filthy little cup! I want one of them… now!"

He bolted for the door across from where Welstiel had tossed the dead priest. Before Chane's fingers touched the handle, Welstiel was there, and his hand closed in a crushing grip on Chane's wrist.

"I said no," Welstiel growled.

Chane lashed out for his throat.

Welstiel's head twisted aside like a serpent weaving upon its coiled body. He heaved on Chane's arm, turning it back and behind, and pulled it taut with a crack.

"Already twice raised"-Welstiel hissed at him-"in your first year of death!"

A fist struck the back of Chane's skull. His head snapped down, driving his chin against his chest. The blow's power buckled his knees, and the passage dimmed in his sight.

"And still you do not listen," Welstiel added, "to your better!"

Pain spread through the back of Chane's skull. He saw only the blurred, dark shape of Welstiel's leg. He strained against his locked arm and sank his teeth through the thick canvas breeches.

No tang of warm blood filled his mouth-no salty sweetness or tingle of life flooded his throat. Only thin, bitter cold seeped from Welstiel's breeches. It flowed quickly through Chane's teeth and a taste like rancid seed oil coated his tongue.

Chane's shoulder cracked again as his jaws tore free and his knees lifted from the floor. He kicked wildly, trying to find footing, and then his whole body spun in the dark and slammed sideways into a stone wall. At the same instant, something struck hard into his chest.

His spine ground into the wall, making his throat clench in reflex. Before his body slid down, he was jerked through the air again.

A second impact, and a third, and he heard but did not feel the fourth. Only half-aware of the grips around his throat and twisted arm, he cried out as both released suddenly.

Chane felt an instant of weightlessness as he tumbled through the dark. He collided roughly with the floor, edges of stone scraping at him as he flopped over and over. When all motion ceased, he weakly rolled his head.

He lay in the entry room near the bottom of the stairwell and firelight flickered off the stone walls. A deeper shadow in blood-soaked boots stood at the top of the stairs.

"Servant beasts should obey," it whispered in Welstiel's voice. "If they want to be fed… and have their wishes fulfilled."

Chane's eyelids sagged closed. Something inside him cowered in anguish, like a chained beast with hands instead of paws. It had fed on gristle and joints for too long, while its master had just feasted on fresh meat.

Chane opened his eyes when a cold breeze rolled across his face.

Firelight danced over a stone ceiling above him. When he turned over, he found a congealed puddle of viscous black fluid where his head had rested, and he touched the back of his skull, wincing.

Looking about the entry room, his gaze passed over the withered remains of the young priest.

How long had he lain here unconscious?

The hearth's fire still burned as if recently fueled. A tin kettle rested near it, faint wisps of steam rising from its spout. And the cold breeze…

The front door was ajar.

Chane glanced up the dark stairwell. Not a sound came from above. All was silent but for the crackle of the flames and the cold air spilling around the open door. He struggled to his feet.

Twice risen, Welstiel had said, only in his first year of death. Less than a full season past, Chane had been beheaded, and Welstiel had somehow brought him back. The only evidence that it had ever happened was the scar line around Chane's throat-and his forever maimed voice. Some among the dead would say he had been fortunate indeed.

Yet he had just tried to face an experienced undead freshly gorged on life.

Despite festering resentment, Chane acknowledged his own foolishness.

He tottered and bent over to brace his hands against his knees. His left shoulder and elbow burned as if filled with embedded needles. And now he was truly hungry. His dead flesh ached for life with which to repair itself.

But why was the front door open?

Chane stumbled over, pulling it wide. Falling snow swirled in the darkness outside, and he heard a grunt off to the left.

Welstiel knelt in a drift, still naked to the waist. Thin trails of steam rose from bloodstains on his arms and chest. He leaned down, scooping armfuls of snow, and splashed it over himself, scrubbing furiously. He repeated the process over and over.

"Why?" Chane asked.

Welstiel lifted his head. Flakes of snow clung to the locks down his forehead. When his gaze landed on Chane, his expression shifted from numb horror to startled wariness.

"Awake, are you?" he asked quietly, and rose to his feet. "And reason returns once more… for the moment… but always with one foot perched upon the Feral Path."

"What are you babbling about?" Chane rasped, though that last strange reference seemed familiar.

He tensed as Welstiel approached, but he was in no condition for another fight.

"Perhaps I should not help you reach your sages," Welstiel went on, but he stared into the gorge, as if alone. "Monster with a mind…"

Chane hesitated. Welstiel had promised him letters of introduction to gain acceptance at one of the sages' main branches, across the sea-in exchange for Chane's obedient service on this journey.

"A beast," Welstiel whispered mockingly, "sent in among the learned of the cattle."

That last word, which Chane had used so often, suggested Welstiel was fully aware of his presence, but the tone made Chane's instincts sharpen in warning. He sidestepped toward the switchback path down the gorge's sheer face, ready to bolt.

"Get back inside!" Welstiel ordered.

Chane halted.

Welstiel stood as still as ice, a pale column of flesh surrounded in a swirling white snowfall.

Chane longed for the denied pleasure of a feast. Sustaining draughts from Welstiel's cup might fuel him more than feeding would, but they left him painfully unsatisfied in other ways. But the existence he most desired still awaited him, where he would spend his nights studying history and languages in a sages' guild. He closed his eyes and saw Wynn's oval face. Could he attain this world on his own and no longer suffer Welstiel's madness?

"Now," Welstiel demanded. "Or stay and burn in the sun!"

Chane raised his eyes to the sky.

In the east, a faint glow exposed the black silhouette of the gorge's distant ridge. Where in this desolate place would he find shelter if he ran? He backed into the entry room as Welstiel followed, slamming the door shut.

"Sit," Welstiel instructed. "I will have need of you soon… to guard them until they rise."

Chane looked to the dark stairwell and finally understood.

Once before he had watched an undead feed to bursting and disgorge all it had swallowed. In faraway Bela he had crouched in an alley while his maker, Toret, took his time in choosing and killing two sailors, who rose the next nightfall as undead servants.

"You are making more of our kind?" Chane asked.

Welstiel crossed to the room's front corner and crouched to dig through his pack.

Chane remembered something else of Toret's efforts, and glanced at Welstiel's bare forearms. He saw no slashes there by which Welstiel would have force-fed his own fluids to his creations.

"They will not rise," Chane hissed. "You have not fed them from yourself."

Welstiel clicked his tongue in disgust. "More superstition… even among our kind."

Although this was not the first correction Chane had received in his new existence, he knew better than to question it. But if feeding the victim one's own fluid was not necessary, then why did one victim rise from death while another did not?

Chane's thoughts turned to the small cells lining the upper passage. He tried to count off the number of those locked away.

"How many?" he asked.

"We will not know until tomorrow's nightfall," Welstiel answered, making certain the front window shutters were soundly latched against the sun. "I took ten."

Chane stared at him. Toret had taken only two at once, and the act had nearly incapacitated him.

"Ten more?" Chane asked in disbelief. "In these mountains, with nothing to feed upon but those few still alive?"

"No," Welstiel answered. "Ten taken. Not ten undead… yet."

Chane noticed the brown glass bottle in his companion's hand.

"Not all rise from death," Welstiel said. "If I am fortunate, perhaps a third of these will." He held out the bottle. "Drink half. You have duties, and I need you whole again."

Chane recoiled. That chained beast inside him struggled against its bonds at being offered more scraps of gristle.

He was trapped not only by the sun but by what little life remained here. Where else in these winter mountains could he hope to feed enough to reach civilization? He was trapped as well by his hope for a future. That was the true manacle around his neck-and Welstiel held its chain.

Chane took the bottle.

Lost in dormancy, the sleeper heard a cry. A second, then a third unintelligible voice joined the first, alternating and growing in volume. The sleeper shifted and began to rouse.

But in the dark, a brief glint vanished. Too quick in its retreat, the flicker seemed like a light upon something huge and black undulating in the dark.

Chane awoke upon the entry room's stone floor and sat up quickly. He had never dreamed in dormancy before.

Muted moans and cries drifted down the stairwell, and Chane took brief relief in realization. The sounds had come from the dead rousing in the cells, not in his dream, and the glint in the dark, as if something moved…

Chane turned around.

A dim line of fading light stretched across the floor. The last of dusk's light crept between the window's shutters. The low fire still burned in the hearth, but the young priest's withered corpse was gone, and Welstiel was nowhere in sight. Only then did Chane notice a dim light at the top of the stairs.

The moans and agonized calls pulled at him. He took slow steps up the stairwell and saw a lantern upon the floor. Welstiel sat upon a stool just beyond it in the passage's near corner.

"Six," Welstiel whispered, his voice laced with astonishment. "Can you hear them? Six of ten, all risen. My highest hope had been three."

Chane barely heard him as longing surged at the smell of blood still on the floor. Panicked mewling escaped through the spaces below the cell doors and echoed along the stone walls. Or were they only in Chane's mind?

The second door on the left rattled.

It shuddered twice as something rammed against its inner side, and then lurched as it was pulled hard from within. A sharp grating of metal on stone snapped Chane from his morbid fascination. In place of wood shards, each door handle on the left was jammed with a plain iron shaft.

"You will now watch over them," Welstiel said. "I have other preparations to make."

Chane caught the implication. "You have been here watching all day? How… how could you keep from falling dormant?"

Welstiel ignored him. More iron bars leaned against the wall beyond his stool.

"You plan to drain more of them… and brace them in?" Chane asked.

Welstiel shook his head, still watching the one shuddering door. "The spare bars are for when one is no longer enough."

Chane stared at Welstiel, confused. Had the man abandoned all reason amid a night of gluttony, driven over the edge by his revulsion for feeding? Living priests were still trapped in the right-side cells-to satisfy the appetites of Welstiel's newborns. If he knew his creations would break free, then why wait to reinforce the doors? And why keep his new servants locked up at all?

As if reading Chane's thoughts, Welstiel answered. "To let them hope they might yet break free and feed… and as reason fades and desperation grows, to take that hope-and sanity-and leave only the hunger."

Welstiel headed downstairs as Chane stared numbly after him.

"Do not let them out," Welstiel warned softly, pausing at the bottom. "And if by chance you glimpse one through the crack of a straining door… do not look in its eyes. You may see too much of yourself reflected there."

Chane backed into the corner, settled upon the stool, and closed a hand tightly upon a spare iron rod.

He couldn't choose the greater madness surrounding him inside this fortress.

Was it the new undeads within those small cells, or was it Welstiel, who had made them?

Welstiel retrieved his pack and headed down the passage off from the front door. He had made it through the day without falling dormant-without a visitation from his patron of dreams. But he would not get through another such day without aid.

He opened the few doors along the way but found only storage rooms, not quite the private place to safely sift through his belongings. The passage's end spilled into a wide room with long rough tables and benches-a communal meal hall-and he wasted no time looking about.

Welstiel threw open the pack's flap to dig inside and withdraw a frosted glass globe. Three dancing sparks of light flickered within it. Their glow brightened at his touch, enough to illuminate the table. Fishing again, he retrieved the iron pedestal with the hoop on top and set the globe upon it. Then he opened the pack wider.

Years had passed since he had needed to drug himself. He pushed aside books, metal rods, a hoop of marked steel, and the box that held the cup with which he fed. At the pack's bottom, his fingertips brushed soft fabric over something more solid. He pulled out this hidden object wrapped in a sheet of indigo felt.

Welstiel unwrapped the covering, exposing a thin box bound in black leather, and tilted the lid up. Inside were six glass vials cushioned in felt padding, each with a silver screw-top stopper. All but one were empty, and that one was filled with murky liquid like watery violet ink.

Two doses per vial, and one dose could stave off dormancy for a few days at best. He needed much more-as much as he could make. Tonight, he planned to search the monastery for the components to create more. Hopefully the hidden enclave of priest healers would have the supplies he required.

He was done being a puppet-done with his dream patron.

From here on, he served only himself, and had no wish to meet those black coils in his dreams ever again. He unscrewed the one full vial and a fishy sweet scent filled his nose as he downed half its bitter contents.

Welstiel grimaced, wishing for tea to wash away the taste. He closed the vial and returned it back to its padded slot. Once the box for his concoctions was sealed and rewrapped, he tucked it in the bottom of his pack.

The orb of his desire, the promised artifact from the world's lost past, was locked away in an ice-bound castle guarded by ancient ones-vampires. When he gained it, he would never feed on mortals again. Or so his dream patron had told him.

Once, he had believed that controlling Magiere, his dhampir half-sister, was the way to acquire this treasure. But her actions grew more and more unpredictable. Still, one phrase whispered by his dream patron rang true.

The sister of the dead will lead you.

Though his patron was often evasive or deceitful, Welstiel believed these few words. In dream visitations to that six-towered castle, he had seen a figure upon its steps, waiting at the great iron doors. He knew he needed Magiere. She was necessary, either to find or to gain entrance to that place, or merely to face its guardians as a hunter of the dead. But if Welstiel could not control her directly nor trust his patron, he would need more than Magiere to assure his success.

He needed minions-mindless, savage, without mortal weaknesses-to serve him in the coming days.

He needed ferals.

Halfway through the third night's vigil, Chane's reason began to fracture. He could barely hold off the false hunger brought on by the wails and hammering within the cells. And though he tried to bury himself in memories of Wynn and fancies of an existence far from this place, it did not work.

At the sound of splitting wood, Chane lurched to awareness and rushed the first door on the left.

The top corner above the latch warped inward. Pale fingers with torn and split nails wedged through the space. They were smeared in fresh and dried black ichor. Chane slammed an iron bar against the wriggling knuckles.

An outraged snarl erupted behind the door, and the stained fingers jerked from sight. The door slapped back into its stone frame, and Chane jammed a second iron bar through the handle.

He covered his ears, trying to shield himself from the yelps and moans and scratching upon wood. Then he retreated down the corridor to the far end-as far as he could get without fleeing the upper floor altogether.

To hunt… feed… and the blessed release of blood filled up his thoughts.

His gaze drifted to the other side of the passage, and the doors barred only by wood.

How long would Welstiel starve his new children before feeding them? What if there was not enough for them-or nothing left for Chane but Welstiel's little cup? He turned away from the doors, and his gaze fell upon the sixth right-side cell. Its door was still ajar from Welstiel's night of gluttony.

Chane shuffled over to look inside, though his lantern left by the stool provided scant light, even for his keen night vision. A shadowy stain of congealed and dried blood marred an old canvas pillow on a plain bed. Little else in the room promised distraction from torment, from a small discolored chest of tin fixtures to the oval rug woven from faded fabric scraps. The little bedside table…

Chane's eyes fixated on the book resting there. He stepped in and seized it.

Its page edges were rippled from long use, and he felt deep creases in the thick leather cover. Old but well crafted, what use would religious recluses have for such a soundly bound volume? Chane stepped out into the passage for better light.

The cover's gilded lettering was half-gone, but he still made out the title written in old Stravinan.

"The Pastoral Path," Chane whispered, and flipped pages at random.

It was a book of poetry and verse. He stared into the vacant room, wondering about its previous occupant. Why would anyone living such an austere existence want a poetic work?

A sudden twinge tightened Chane's shoulder and the side of his neck.

He headed back to his stool, skirting the cells of the living but averting his eyes from those of the undead. But as he settled in the passage corner, the book still in hand, he could not stop gazing at those silent doors on the right, their handles barred with only wood. A nagging, unformed thought turned in the back of his mind.

With it came a fear he didn't quite understand.

He flung the book down the passage. It skidded until it caught in the congealing pool of blood.

A loud screech from the first barred cell brought Chane to his feet, and he grabbed another iron rod. He heard wood breaking, followed by growls of fury, but the door did not buck in its frame this time. Something was happening inside the cell.

One voice-female-screamed louder than the first. Her sound was smothered by the hungry wail of a third. A pain-pitched shriek ripped out of her, along with the sounds of tearing cloth and bestial snarls. Her voice broke in panting sobs, then gags. A wet tearing followed.

Chane stood staring at the door, unable to move.

Struggles within the cells faded more each night, but by the fifth, Chane was almost deaf to them.

Welstiel stepped out of the stairwell.

He was dressed in black breeches and faded white shirt, and carried water skins and small sacks that smelled faintly of old bread. He approached the first door on the right, opened it, and tossed in a water skin and a sack. Before anyone within could speak or move, he slammed the door and reinserted its wood brace. He repeated the process twice more.

How often had he done this?

"We must keep them alive," Welstiel said absently and then tilted his chin toward the stairs.

Chane's night watch ended once more, and he slipped down the stairwell.

Each dawn, he'd discovered small oddities about the entry room. Nothing extraordinary, but something different each time. One night, Welstiel's pack had rested by the fireplace. Strange rods of differing dark tones peeked out the side of its top flap, but Chane was too mentally worn to be curious. Later, he had noticed the old tin teapot near the hearth, but no cup in sight and no lingering aroma of brewed tea.

On the fourth night, the room was more orderly but smelled of crushed herbs-and something fishy and sweet that Chane could not identify.

Tonight, Welstiel's pack sat upon the bench, and beside it rested a small bottle and a leather-bound box, longer and narrower than the walnut one which held his brass feeding cup.

Chane had never seen this box before.

A few times in their journey he had wondered what items an artificer of conjury like Welstiel might carry. All he knew of were the brass cup and Welstiel's "ring of nothing," which shielded him and anyone he touched from those who could sense the undead.

Chane crept closer. As he crouched down, a fishy-sweet odor rose around the leather-bound box. When he picked up the bottle, it was strong with the same scent. He returned the bottle to its place and reached for the pack's top flap.

Someone shifted in the upper passage of cells.

He froze, his hand poised above the pack, and glanced toward the stairs as his hearing widened. Welstiel shifted upon the stool in the upper passage. Chane clenched his hand into a fist and lowered it.

If he could hear Welstiel, then the mad undead might just as easily hear him.

And mingling with the fishy odor was the scent of herbs, just as he had smelled in the back workroom.

What had Welstiel been doing down here all through the night?

Chane rose slowly. He paused at each step, listening for movement in the upper passage, until he rounded the second turn into the workroom. The scent of herbs was strong. He ducked and wove his way between the tables and dangling bundles of drying plants, searching for anything odd or out of place.

And on one table, he found a mess.

Among knives and pestles and scraps of wax paper was a tin dish, blackened inside as if a substance had been boiled within it. Then he spotted the dried flowers. He leaned closer and caught the faint residue of color-pale yellow but darkening to plum at the centers-and he lifted a fragile dry petal, taking a careful whiff. The sweet, fishy scent was powerful, and he quickly pulled the blossoms from his face as recognition hit him.

It was Dyvjaka Svonchek, called "boar's bell" in Belaskian, after the shape of its yellow flowers and the superstition that only wild boars and the heartiest beasts could eat it. It had other folk names, with meanings like Flooding Dusk, Nightmare's Breath, and Blackbane.

In other words, poison-toxic and mind altering, if inhaled too deeply by the living.

Chane turned a full circle, looking around.

What use would a Noble Dead have for poison?

What had Welstiel been doing in here?