Part 11 (2/2)

With a whispered incantation, ”Wor exploded from its palms

Candlemas watched in horror as the bolts overtook his assistants, enfolded all three in brown carapaces like insects Then the brown hulls split in a hundred places like old parch frozen, as if unharmed Then they fell apart

First to drop off where their fingers, ears, noses Their flesh split into thousands of long, wriggling tubes, like ots or earthwor their skulls bare Their brains boiled into writhing pink nests of worans Within a minute, the huling and boring through fresh white bones

Candlemas was too stunned to look away, to fall down, to be sick He just stared, until the ain, ”Like that spell? I learned it in the deeps, dear Candle, isn't it, when you think I created the place? That I couldn't know it?”

”What?” The pudgyblue eyes ”Your ownoh, by the Pitiless One”

”No pity,” cooed the monster ”Only pain I'd fashi+oned a pocket of hell to punishothers, for you betrayed me But Polaris, she who'll die most exquisitely, turned the tables on me She stripped me of skin, remember that? Peeled me like a chicken so I'd feel the punishments with every nerve end Then she hurled ht suffer for o was that, dear 'Mas?”

”Wh-What?” the e stuttered He couldn't look away, hypnotized like a bird before a serpent

”Uh, it was a-a year-”

”It wasn't!” the monster shrieked The banshee wail stabbed into Candlemas's brain ”A year passed! And another! And a third! Years longer thantorot rew this hide you see I formed a whole skin from the rock walls that were my prison I clad myself in stone, unpierceable, unstoppable I became this hideous creature to escape the world of fiends, to enter the world of e!”

”But you were-”

”Beautiful?” the flint eous! lusted after by men, envied by women! And look at me now!”

Candlemas remembered

While he had been steward, responsible for the outbuildings and lands around Castle Delia, inside was another official, the castle cha halls, wine cellars, guest rooe with a cascade of beautiful red hair and glowing skin, a woe in her hts with Candleued hierous and foolish bets, with the barbarian Sunbright as their pawn

And all the while, the chamberlain had plotted to steal the seat of Lady Polaris, until the white- haired archwizard's iron hand cla skin from her chamberlain's flesh, and she cast her servant into hell-to be forgotten

And driven insane

”Sysquemalyn, I ” Candlemas moaned He didn't knohether to plead, or offer pity, or run for his life ”Sys, you must understand I didn't know Polaris kept you locked there I've been away froo, and never looked back I assu!” The hellspawn reared against the sule talons over him as she screay e before sizzling chain lightning, so, exploded around hi it with ozone They struck Candlemas's shi+eld so hard he was rocked to his knees, felt the charred earth blistering hot under hie by hundreds of degrees He'd cook unless he dispelled the forcecage, but Sysqueer-loomed and waited And prepared another spell, for she shrieked froash of a mouth like a cleft in broken rock

”Like that, dear 'Mas? Wait until I set your bones afire to burn within you! Wait until I boil your eyes in their sockets, till I curdle your brain! You'll live three years of est seconds of your short life!”

Candleed his head on an invisible section of forcecage It was so hot it seared his bald pate andShe'd actually unconjured his spell!

Wondering at her awesome power, he stu everywhere frouely he hoped his rust-cure spell, his precious work of three long years, escaped the havoc

Then he prayed he'd escape alive Sysquemalyn pouted and blew out cheeks like split rocks

A stinking cloud of yellow-green gas enveloped Candlemas Instantly he retched on the poison His head wanted to explode for sneezing, his eyes watered, he gasped and gagged and choked for air He flapped his arht, but the cloud followed hi at the sa on his vomit He burned, for the cloud contained acid His scalp and hands and nose and ears prickled, grew stippled with blood To open his eyes would blind him Already he felt pinpoints of acid in his eyes like the claws of tiny ih, ”Like the smell? I lived with it for months at a time, when the air in hell was too foul to breath or burn! Taste it! Enjoy it!”

Thefeet left soil, squished in ratitude he splashed into the strea face and bleary eyeballs, he tried desperately to think of a spell-any spell-to drive Sysqueht float hile away Even Undine's door, with no idea of his destination, would be enough Perhaps he had a chance He didn't hear her insane laughter

Heat belched all around him Brinited, as did the skin on his elbows and knees He screamed at the sudden pain, and forced his eyes open to see this new attack, to get away

The water was gone Instead, the creek bed roiled with black, sticky tar Huge gas pockets burped sulfur Things charred and long dead floated on the surface The tar was near boiling, and Candlemas was elbow- and hock-deep in it It stuck to his face and neck, and burned where it touched He wailed with fright and agony as he plucked hirabbed for the shore

The rass near her craggy, twisted feet ”Hot, dear 'Mas?” the monster cooed ”Let me cool you”

A hand like a knot of thorns closed on his arm He tried to yank free, but could not The flint hand was powerful as a chain yoked to oxen, and it dragged hirass and ashes At first Candleh the hand smoked on his upper arm Then he saas not smoke, but ice mist Frost dusted his bicep, then ice The chill spread down his arm until it was numb Steam rose where ice led to get his feet under hied hio, he collapsed onto the dirt path between s crops The whole sky was black now, or so it seemed to his seared eyeballs under tar-heavy brows

”Sys, please ”

”No pleases, please,” htning-killed pine

”Nothing can save you You know you'll die, don't you? But not soon, not fast A little at a time” She lifted her splayed foot and stamped down hard

Candlemas couldn't move his numbed arm, and the foot crashed down like a boulder off avibration through the ground h his shoulder, which burned as if afire Writhing, kicking gluey feet to roll away, he glanced at his arm and shuddered, almost sick The flesh was not just chilled, it was frozen solid, dead forever

Broken in a dozen places, held together by skin

”I bit your arm off once, reme wheedle the beautiful Sysquemalyn had employed years before, ”Had it torn off by a yellow fiend, actually That jolt will seeentlest caress after a day or two”

”Please,” Candlemas ith pain, ”please, Sys What do you want?”

”Want?” A h over the bald shi+ning head ”Death, in all its forms, to all ertips sparkling Candlemas was hoicked into the air, pulled in five directions as if by wild horses, and spun wildly The world beca over hie in his head, saw his vision cloud, saw blood squirt from his sundered are stopped so quickly his legs broke Waves of pain and nausea rolled over, and suffocated hi, Sysque one ht torture him for days, heal him as needed, then continue For years, even, her thirst for revenge unquenched

A coo, ”That's three li boils, perhaps?”

Hanging in mid-air, three limbs distorted, Candlemas knew he couldn't escape He could only live and take it To fight was useless

At least in this forue, Candleine outside death Yet it was a for else If he survived

But pain tore at hishorror like Sysque deep inside, Candlemas conjured words to a spell he'd never atteo he'd read of it, but now it ca a cobwebbed drawer to find a dia his teeth against pain, he grunted the weird, twisted sounds of Quantoul's selfe was instant An observer wouldn't have known if Candleed, or merely swapped hi that suddenly hung in air was a purple granite cone taller than Sysquee teeth Tentacles dangled and flapped Two blind eyes like milky pearls started from its side