Vengeance

CHAPTER 37

The wrythen made another fluttering circuit of his alkoyl still, and another. Despite centuries of planning, every single thing had gone wrong.

Deroe was breaking the possession. If he discovered where the host was, he would gouge the master nuclix out of her in a place the wrythen could not reach, which was practically everywhere, and the battle would be lost.

Now the wrythen’s own people were hunting the host, planning to kill her for escaping, and that would ruin the nuclix. But if they realised it was inside her, and took it, it would destroy them.

He had to get to her first, but how? His faithful servant was somewhere in the Seethings, still clinging to a shambling kind of life, though there was no way to reach him. However, Rix’s friend Tobry must be exhausted, and sooner or later he would relax his guard. When he did, the wrythen would renew the link, possess Tobry and send him after the host.

But what if Tobry broke free?

Only one weapon remained, the facinore, though it sickened the wry-then to use it. It was a reminder of how far he had fallen, and he had a healthy fear of it, too. The facinore’s strength was its changeability and it was evolving rapidly, becoming harder to command by the day, but there was no choice.

Activating the pathways imprinted in the creature when he had created it by the uncanny art of germine, the wrythen sent it the image of the host he had seen through his faithful servant’s eyes, then imitated the strident, angry call of the master nuclix she bore.

She is in the Seethings. Locate her via this call and bring her to the cellar, unharmed.

In the labyrinth between the caverns and Cython, the facinore stopped suddenly, head cocked. It gave a savage nod, scraped a morsel of deliciously decayed flesh from between its teeth and swallowed it, then loped away.