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Chapter Eighteen
The endless corridors of stone stretch before us into darkness like a road made entirely of shadows. Angelaria in the lead, I note that she occasionally raises her hand to bring me up short, then ventures forth to make sure the way is clear. Sometimes she disappears only to reappear a few seconds later as if moving into and out of an invisible field. The marvels of magic never cease to amaze me. When the assault comes, I'm knocked to my knees by the power of my master's mind.
"Kian, you've got to fight him!" Angelaria says.
Fight him? How? I can't even vocalize the words because he's got a grip on my ability to speak as firmly as a war dog with its teeth sunk deep in my jugular.
I look desperately to the walls of the lava tube that surround us hoping to find a means of escape. It's irrational, but a part of me reasons I could get away from this mental attack. I'm filled with ideas that offer a glimmer of hope. What if I could somehow put enough distance between Kierak and I? Could I then be free of him? Behind me, the perverted doctor reveals his terror in wild, insane eyes; I'm drawn to the flickering lights up the tunnel to where a slithering sound begins. It grows louder and louder. I fight as best I can and manage to rise to my feet once more when the paralysis seizes my limbs, and I'm no longer in control of my body. Then I fall, cracking my bones against the hard ground where I claw with one last effort to stay in control of my own body. But I fail, and my fingers are frozen in the shapes of hooks. Angelaria puts a finger to her lips, flickers, and disappears. My consciousness retreats and images pummel my mind. They belong to the master.
One shows me strapped to a table, flesh peeling away from my bones via a carving knife. Blood drips from my body as...things...that I'll miss dearly are removed with tongs. Kierak places them in glass jars. I know I should be screaming, but I can't. However, even without the screams the pain is never ending.
How dare you try to escape me? Master Kierak says in my mind. I trusted you above all other thralls! And now in the hour of my greatest triumph and honor, you seek to flee through the eternal night of the mountains. The Elder Brain has chosen me to begin a new colony. I would be its ruler, and you would be elevated above all others as my master breeder. You are a paragon of your species. Yet, you choose to flee from my generosity, from the life of pleasures I could grant a walking cock like you. The gods created you to spill your seed wherever you may, filled you with genetic blessings that mortal men would die to obtain, and you throw it all away with this trickery and deceit.
From out of the darkness a pair of gargantuan worms appear. They're as long as adult rock pythons and pale as ghosts. Each possesses a double row of suckers that line their bellies. Sightless things, I know the pale soft bodies are under the control of Master Kierak. He directs them to close upon my body heat. One attaches itself around my ankle and begins to climb up my killsuit toward my naked head. Its mass is thick, heavy, and covered in slime. The other wraps itself around the doctor's leg and begins to make its way toward his shrieking mouth.
"The blood lampreys!" Talisac shrieks. "Master, I beg you to spare me!"
In the recess of the corridor, Master Kierak appears. Using psionic power to travel through solid rock, my mind lord master walks forward surrounded by his hubris. Power bristles along his serpentine fingers and takes the form of crackling bolts of black lightning.
"Why should I spare you?" he intones with the voice box. "You kept a secret from me, doctor. I have only now just learned that his uke has infiltrated the lair of the Mind Wight and succeeded in something many of us believed impossible. Am I to believe that you did not know of this plan? That somehow, your interrogation failed to woo this knowledge from the flesh of my thrall? If this is the case, then you're not as talented as I'd hoped. But if you did know about it, then you're a deceiver, like him. For either transgression, your sentence is death."
"No!" Talisac screams, his ugly face dripping in cold sweat. The lamprey attacks, closing about his mouth with one of its own. An orifice appears; it looks like an obscenely grotesque vagina with inch long thorns that ring the inside (which I note is the color of blood). A tongue-like appendage emerges from within and forces itself between Talisac's thin lips, filling him like a huge slimy penis. Pink mucus pours from off his cheeks; his body twitches in the throes of the constricting worm.
My own lamprey reaches my neck, and I feel its coils tighten. My own mouth opens and I stare in horror at the nightmarish creature whose maw begins to form on the surface of its slick head.
"My pets will pump you full of their eggs. When they hatch, their brood will feast upon your flesh before they emerge to serve me. Death is prolonged and filled with agony," Master Kierak says, the tentacles depending from his face slither over one another in pleasure.
"Hey you," Angelaria calls out, getting the mind lord's attention.
He turns his head to the left just in time to see Angelaria hurl a ball of flame at him. Reflexively, he dodges to one side as the illusion slams into the rock and dissipates in smoke. But the distraction is enough for me to act upon. It's long enough for me to have a single thought of my own, and when an assassin has only one thought, it's always about killing.
I will the knives in my magical boots to appear and with all my strength I burst my hand free of the coiled worm and grab it around the neck. So many rocks, so much time spent slaving away in the mine has increased my strength by half again as much as it was before the three of us ended up down here as thralls to these horrible monsters.
Still, the worm fights me, its suckers latching onto my armor, and its length tightening around my chest. I raise my right foot and slice downward with the knife, cutting off the bottom end. It rolls across the floor spurting goo and in my grip, the other end shrieks. I cut upward with my foot, slicing it open as if I'm cleaning a fish. Guts spill out onto the ground. Its tongue protrudes from its pussy-like mouth, and I grab hold of it in my gauntlets, crushing it until red slops its way down the sleeve of my armor.
My master stands up and hurls the black lightning at Angelaria's astral projection. When it passes through her, he realizes the trick that's been played on him. I have a choice to make: attack him or save Talisac. Because I gave the doctor my word that he'd come to no harm, my choice is already made for me. Once more (and using the knives on my boots) I attack the worm that's forcing its way down his throat. Within a few seconds, I pull it free of his dripping jaws and hurl its lifeless body against the rocks.
"You saved me," he sputters before puking his guts out on the floor. The tone in his voice is one of incredulity.
"Fool!" Talisac declares turning on me.
But before the furious mind lord can finish his sentence, strange humans appear all around us, streaming from some place further down the tunnel. I feel the scratch across my brain one last time, and my body is once again drowned within the ocean of Master Kierak's awesome domination. But this time, there's something different. I find a wellspring of strength within me to fight him. I can't keep from total surrender, but his command to defend him conflicts with my own self- preservation. What results is a deadlock of wills that leaves me dripping in sweat. I remain frozen long enough to see that these newcomers are not allies of the mind lords.
They are surface men.
Some are dressed in fine chainmail, and I spot tabards of forest green outlined in gold. My enraged overlord, face tentacles writhing over one another, blasts each of these men with a titanic wave of invisible force originating within the depths of his squid-shaped cranium. It drops me to the ground, blood streaming from my nose, my eyes hemorrhaging. Several of the attackers fall to their knees too, but in the end, there are too many of them. Each new body dilutes the wave of power by a small portion. All are damaged, but no one dies. Arrows hiss by my shoulders and slam into Master Kierak. He falls down upon the stones clawing with whatever strength remains in his right hand. I watch motionless and feel his control over me slipping away bit by bit. Then one of the attackers from out of the endless deep severs the monster's head.
A rushing noise fills the space between my ears and suddenly I'm free.
My mind hurtles back into my consciousness as if snapped back into place like the tension of a bow gone slack. I look to where Angelaria once stood and see only smoke there now. Somehow, whatever my master did banished her illusion from my plane of existence. But she awaits me along with Talen at the Rainbow Falls.
"My name's Riaken," a soldier says to me. He helps me to my feet. Others surround Talisac, but I tell them he's my prisoner. "You're fortunate to be alive," Riaken adds. "That blast he smote you with is meant to kill. If we hadn't shown up when we did, we wouldn't have weakened it enough to keep your brain from liquefying and oozing out your ears."
I stare at my savior, charmed by his handsome face.
Riaken has bold green eyes and a svelte body wrapped dark, almost black skin. I gain my feet, a dizziness settles, and I steady myself against the wall. "I-I need to find the Rainbow Falls," I say to him with some difficulty. "I'm meeting my friends there."
"Aye," Riaken says. He nods to two men who travel back the way we'd come. "I'll send those scouts to look for others that might be trying to get away from the mind lords. The Falls are a few hours from here through the ground. It's where we'll regroup. Once we get you to safety, we plan on striking at the heart of the Grimlock Empire."
"Grimlock?"
"That's what we call them," Riaken says, kicking the corpse of Master Kierak. For a moment, I experience a pang of guilt at seeing him lie so low upon the ground.
"They're back stabbers, slavers, cannibals, and cowards. Grimlocks are behind most of the evils that have been done to the good people of the Icewall Mountains. Good people like yourself."
Startled I glance back at him and he claps me on the shoulder.
"I-I'm not from here?"
"Really?" Riaken states. "Well, wherever you're from, you're free to go there again. May I ask your name?"
I think for a moment that I might tell him my real name, but I decide upon Hunter. It just sounds right.
"Well met, Hunter," Riaken says, shaking my hand. "That's a man's name, and I like it."
I shall post Chapter 19 next week.