CHAPTER 11

Gavril opens his eyes. It is past midnight in the Iron Tower and his cell is utterly dark. And yet he senses that he is not alone.

“Who’s there?”

Eyes glimmer in the darkness, blue as starlight. And something blacker than the darkness itself rears up out of the night until it towers above his bed.

“I have returned, Gavril Nagarian.”

“Drakhaoul?” His heart is pounding with fear and a wild, unbidden joy. “Why have you come back?”

“You could not live with me—but now you cannot live without me. Do you want to stay here until your body withers with age?”

Stay here until he is a frail old man too senile to remember how long he has been imprisoned, too damaged to care? He springs up from the bed. He turns to face his banished daemon, arms wide to embrace it.

“Take me, then. Take me away from this place.”

The Drakhaoul enfolds him, close, closer, until he is drowning in an ecstasy of shadows . . .

His body spasms, arching in one final convulsion of possession—and from somewhere buried deep within him he hears that subtle voice whisper in triumph.

“Now you are mine again, Gavril. Now we act, we think, as one.”

His sight blurs, then clears. Suddenly he can see everything in the moonless dark of the cell. He can hear the sounds of the night, from the wheezing snores of the prisoner in the cell below his to the tick of the clock in the exercise-yard tower. He can even smell the tobacco smoke wafting from the warden’s pipe and the brine of the waves pounding the cliffs below the Iron Tower. Until now, he has forgotten how the Drakhaoul sharpens every sense.

“What are you waiting for, Gavril?” the daemon whispers. “Go to the window. Tear out the bars. Feel the salt of the sea breeze on your face. Launch yourself out onto the wild wind . . .”

 

Gavril opened his eyes, the Drakhaoul’s soft voice still echoing in his mind.

It was raining. The drab brown of the cell walls enclosed him, lit by the dull dawn light that streaked the stones.

His world was bathed in a wash of sepia. The rain showered against the Iron Tower in erratic bursts—a dirty-colored rain, not silver shot with sunlight. The clouds hung low in the sky, layer upon layer, heavy with more rain to come.

So it had just been a dream. A cruel illusion of escape and freedom, made crueler still by the fact that it had seemed so real.

Gavril lay motionless, staring up at the square of rain-wet sky, striped with metal bars. Once, when he and the Drakhaoul had been one, he could have used the daemon’s strength to wrench the bars from their sockets, then flown free on powerful shadow-wings. But now there was no hope of escape from this bleak prison. Even his name had been taken from him.

 

Gavril blinked in the daylight. The paving slabs glistened, wet and slippery underfoot. A warder was taking him to the exercise yard. Gavril walked slowly, dragging his feet, hearing the clank of his shackled ankles. The touch of the rain on his shaven head was cool and refreshing. There was a slight smell of damp earth in the air that reminded him of spring. He wondered what day it was. What month.

“I will come for you. . . .” He heard himself making the promise to Kiukiu that he would now never be able to keep. He pictured her going to the door of her grandmother’s cottage and gazing out over the empty moors, day after day. Who was there to protect her, now that he was gone? What would happen if the Tielens came searching for her?

“Keep up, there.” His warder sounded impatient.

As he walked, Gavril examined in his mind the events at Kastel Drakhaon. Every day it was the same; he found himself obsessively going over what had happened, trying to work out how he could have better planned the defense of his domain. The Tielens had outmaneuverd him; their military strategic experience was far superior to his own. Karonen had taken out his lookouts before they could even raise the alarm. By the time the warning reached the kastel, it was too late to run.

But where could I have run to? And what price would my people have been forced to pay for my cowardice?

“No! No!” It was a man’s voice, almost incoherent with rage and despair. “Let go of me!”

Gavril’s warder ran ahead through the archway. Gavril tried to run too, but the shackles tripped him and he fell to one knee. In the courtyard beyond he saw another prisoner struggling with several warders.

“I’m not mad! It’s all a fabrication!” yelled the man. “I know secrets! State secrets that could bring down Eugene’s empire!”

“Silence, Thirteen.” One of the warders struck him hard across the mouth and the prisoner’s wild shouting changed into a yelp of pain. The next moment, Gavril saw him kick out and send one of the warders flying.

“I will be heard! I will—”

It took four warders to hold him down, kicking and writhing, on the wet pavement. The one who had struck him hit him hard once more, causing a fountain of blood to spurt from his nose. The prisoner let out a gargling cry, but still twisted and fought in the hands of the warders.

“Enough!” Gavril started forward, with no idea in his head but to stop the beating.

“Stay back, Twenty-One.” His warder glanced around. “Stay out of this.”

“Let him be. Can’t you see he’s hurt?” cried Gavril, still coming on, fists clenched.

“And unless you want a taste of the same treatment, you’ll stay back.”

Gavril halted. He looked down at his clenched fists and saw the shackles around his wrists. He was as powerless as the wretched Thirteen.

“I want to see a lawyer.” The protests began once more, more mumbled than shouted this time, from a bleeding, broken mouth. “I demand another trial. A fair trial!”

“Get him back to his cell.”

Still protesting, Thirteen was dragged away. By now his coarse prison shirt and breeches were torn and stained.

Gavril’s warder exchanged quiet words with Thirteen’s warder, a little distance away. “This has happened once too often. Tell the director.”

Thirteen’s warder nodded and followed after his charge.

“Was it necessary to hit him so hard?” Gavril said, anger still simmering.

His warder did not reply.

“Well? Was it?”

His warder turned and stared at him, his eyes hard with hostility.

“What makes you think you have the right to express an opinion?”

Gavril stared back, at a loss for words. The prison clock struck the hour, a dull, unmelodious chime.

“Speak out like that again and you’ll be disciplined. Severely disciplined. Now, back to your cell.”

“And my exercise time?” Gavril demanded.

“You heard the clock. Exercise time is over.”

 

In the darkness, Gavril lay awake, unable to sleep. Somewhere in the Iron Tower below, another prisoner was weeping, a crazed, droning sound that went on and on.

Had he been tortured to let out such wretched cries? Or was this the madness that set in after years of incarceration in Arnskammar? Surely he must stop soon. . . .

Gavril tried to block out the desolate sound of weeping, burying his head under the thin, scratchy blanket. If only he could sleep. But his mind was restless, churning over the thoughts and fears that the daylight kept at bay. The only escape was in dreams. He lived more in the world of his dreams than in the drabness of his cold, rain-chilled cell. In his dreams he was not a prisoner. In his dreams he was not Twenty-One, or even Gavril Nagarian. In his dreams he was free. . . .

 

Colors shimmer in the air around him, so vivid he can taste them: yellow, tart as lemon zest; purple, heavy with the musky sweetness of autumn grapes; sea-aquamarine, tinged with a hint of brine; fern-green and gold of anise-savored fennel . . .

Now he can glimpse translucent forms darting and swooping around him. He senses the beat of wings, fast and light as a bird’s, stirring soft whirring vibrations in the scented air. Brilliant eyes glimmer close, staring at him with curiosity, then blink and vanish. He feels the kiss of gossamer-soft lips, breathing spice-scented breath . . .

He raises his hand to greet these fleeting apparitions, overcome with delight and wonder—and feels himself slowly borne upward with them, light as a drift of soap bubbles . . .

Gavril awoke to hear the splatter of wind-driven raindrops against the roof slates of the Iron Tower. His mind was still filled with swirling colors; his body still felt light enough to float. The Drakhaoul’s memories must be seeping into his dreams again. The images were richly sensual, yet tainted with a disturbing aura of darkness. He did not want to be drawn back into the darkness.

In prison in Mirom he was sure he had heard the Drakhaoul’s voice. But if the Drakhaoul was still at large in the world, why had he not heard it since that night? Madmen heard “voices” that told them to commit terrible deeds. Did that mean he was truly mad?

He pulled his blanket closer, listening to the incessant patter of the rain overhead. He wished he could dream of more comforting things. He tried to picture his bedchamber at the kastel: his father’s hunting tapestries of red and gold; the warmth of the burning pine logs in the grate, the aromatic scent of the curling smoke evoking the green shadows of the great forest of Kerjhenezh that lay beyond the kastel walls. And Kiukiu kneeling at the grate to tend the fire; Kiukiu impatiently pushing aside a straying strand of golden hair as she raked the glowing embers, wiping a smut of ash from her cheek with the back of her hand. . . .

“Stay with me, Kiukiu,” he whispered. He was cold, and dawn was still hours away. “Help me keep the dreams at bay.”

 

Gavril sneezed a wracking sneeze that left him shivering.

“One more circuit.” His warder lounged against the wall of the exercise yard, picking at a hangnail.

Gavril pushed himself on. His head ached, his nose was blocked, obliging him to breathe through his mouth, and his throat was sore. Just a head cold. How could a simple cold make him feel so wretched?

He sneezed again. Now his nose began to stream and he had no handkerchief. He stopped, obliged to wipe his nose on his sleeve like a little child.

“Keep moving, Twenty-One.”

Elysia would have made him a hot drink of honey and lemon juice to stop the shivering. Palmyre would have brought him clean handkerchiefs, freshly laundered and ironed, smelling of lavender from the villa gardens.

He lumbered doggedly on, forcing one foot to follow the other. If they could just allow him one extra blanket to keep warm at night . . . But he had asked and been told bluntly, “No special privileges.” So he must endure the damp and the cold as best he could. . . .

The sound of voices made him raise his head. Through cold-bleared eyes he saw two warders supporting a prisoner who walked with a strange, lolling gait.

“Time’s up,” said his warder, jerking one thumb in the direction of the Iron Tower.

Gavril stared at the prisoner. He moved like one who has forgotten how to walk.

“Left foot now,” ordered one of the warders, but the prisoner did not seem to understand. “Left!”

The prisoner began to make some kind of reply, but the words came out all jumbled and slurred together. “Trying . . . am . . .”

He was close enough now for Gavril to see that the man’s head had been shaved and bandaged. Blood had leaked out and dried brown on one side of the bandages.

“Right foot.”

“Sh-shorry . . .” The man tried to raise his drooping head. Gavril recognized Thirteen, the prisoner he had seen shouting and demanding his rights a few days ago.

Gavril’s warder placed one hand on his arm, trying to move him on. Gavril shook the hand off.

“What have you done to him?” he demanded.

“None of your business.” The hand gripped harder.

“Those bandages. The blood.” Gavril stood his ground. “Has he been tortured?”

“Shut your mouth!”

 

Gavril’s cold turned feverish by nightfall. He huddled in the corner of his cell, cocooned in his threadbare blanket. In most prisons, inmates could buy comforts such as a brazier of coals to keep warm or extra blankets. But he had no money at his disposal and no family or friends nearby to pay for such necessities.

He could not keep from thinking about Thirteen. Those bloodied bandages, that shambling gait . . . Was it torture, or had Thirteen harmed himself in his rage and despair? His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably as he pulled his blanket tighter. If it was torture, when would it be his turn?

As hot and cold chills ran through his body, he tried to sleep. Fever-fueled images began to leak into his mind. He kept starting awake, only to see fleeting impressions of jewel-flecked eyes, daemon-eyes, staring at him in the dark.

“No,” he heard himself mumbling. “Leave me be.”

 

The air trembles. A thunderous darkness looms. A feeling of foreboding overwhelms him.

The bruised sky is rent apart. A ragged gateway gapes, as though some nameless power has ripped the very matter of this world asunder.

A sound issues from the gateway in wave after sickening wave, the sound of disintegration, a grinding and groaning that judders through him until he feels himself drawn helplessly toward the rent in the sky.

Then he is sucked into a whirling vortex; a chaos that crushes all consciousness from him—

And spits him out into a harsh, dry place. Light washes over him, the cruel, blinding light of an alien sun.

The gate still gapes behind him, darker than a thunder-wracked sky. Little crackles of energy fizzle across the opening. It seems to him that the bolts of energy are forked tongues, flickering from the carven mouths of great winged serpents, whose coils tower above him, forming the great arch of the door. And somewhere high above, a serpent-eye, bloodred, fixes him in its burning gaze.

The gate—still a chance of escape.

He flings himself back toward the darkness and the curling fiery tongues lash out, binding him, spread-eagled across the gate. They sear into his wrists and ankles, a white-hot agony.

“Let me go!” he roars. He screams his rage aloud, yet no sound emerges. He is mute.

There are forms, vague and shadowy, looming up out of the intolerable brightness of the unknown sun. Strange, deep voices issue from his shadow-captors.

“Do not approach it yet. It is still too strong. Wait till it weakens.”

“See how it shimmers. Like a dragonfly in the sunlight.”

“Let me go!” he screams again, but still his plea goes unheard. And now he feels his life force ebbing from him. The harsh rays of the sun are draining it fast. He is fading. . . .

“Its light is dimming. We will lose it!”

“Wait!” That one voice again, which buzzes in and out of his consciousness, is commanding.

This terrible sun is searing the luminous liquid from his veins. The air is too thin; it is poisoning him. He is drying to dust, like a fallen leaf.

“Dying . . . help me . . .”

Anguish bleeds through him. He is dying here, alone, torn from his kin, against his will.

“Send it back. Look—it is in torment.”

“No!”

“The doorway is still open—”

“Then I will shut it.”

The bloodred glare is extinguished. With a sucking sound, the gaping rent seals itself—and his last means of escape is gone.

Frenzied rage shudders through him. What do they want of him? What possible use can they make of him? They will pay for what they have done. If it is the last thing he does, he will make them suffer as he has suffered at their hands.

“By all the gods—what’s happening to it?”

“Stand back.” That cold, authoritative voice again.

“Can’t you see? We’re killing it! It’s in some kind of death-throes. We should send it back. Before we have its death on our consciences.”

“Daemon-spirit. Can you hear me? I can save you. But first you must give me your allegiance.”

“Never!” he cries back with the last of his strength—although he has no idea whether his tormentor can hear him.

Eyes stare into his. Strange eyes, not luminous and dazzling like those of his own kin, but small, fringed by flesh and curling fronds of hair. Ugly eyes, hardened by a hunger for power and dominion. This creature with the small, ugly eyes wants more than his allegiance. It wants to dominate, to bend him to his will.

To make him his own.

 

“He’s coming round.”

Gavril could smell the breath of his captor, foul with the reek of raw onion. He tried to turn his head away, and felt strong hands pressing him into the bare boards until his spine protested.

“Hold him down. He may attack again.”

“Let—me—go.” He twisted his head from side to side, desperate to free himself, but still they held him pinned down to the floorboards.

“Twenty-One.” This new voice came from farther away; it was crisp and businesslike. “I will give you a choice. If you give me your word not to attack my warders, I will order them to release you. If you cannot give me your word, I will be obliged to order them to shackle you and administer a sedative. Now—which is it to be?”

“No—more—sedatives,” he heard himself begging. Begging! How low had he fallen? He swallowed back the feeling of self-loathing that rose in his throat.

“Release him.”

The pressure on his arms and legs did not relax. “Is that wise, Director? You’ve seen how strong he is when he’s in one of his fits.”

“And I’ve also seen how drained he is when the fit passes. He’ll hardly have the strength to drag himself to his bed.”

The warders loosened their grip on him and moved away.

“Now just stay where you are a moment longer, Twenty-One. Skar—the appliance, if you please.”

A lean, sallow-skinned young man came forward and placed a crown-shaped metal device on Gavril’s head. He proceeded to adjust and tighten the device until it pressed hard into his temples. Director Baltzar bent over, peering at the contraption and checking it was secure.

“Take down the measurements, Skar.”

“What are you doing to me?” Sweat chilled Gavril’s body. He had the distinct impression that the director was planning some unpleasant medical investigation.

“Hold still, Twenty-One. I’m merely making some observations for my notes. Hmm. There.” The metal band was lifted from his head. “That will be all for now.”

Gavril sat up.

“Now, Twenty-One,” said Director Baltzar in a calm and reasoning voice, “that is the second fit you have thrown this week. Is there anything you can remember that might have provoked the seizure? Think back—if you can.”

“I have a name, not a number,” he said sullenly.

“The number is to protect your anonymity, Twenty-One, and the reputation of your family.”

“I have nothing more to tell you.” Gavril was not going to reveal anything of his innermost self to this lackey of Eugene’s, for all Director Baltzar’s kindly manner.

“I heard him cry out, ‘Daemon-spirit!’ ” put in Onion-Breath helpfully.

“No voices in your head? Voices telling you what to do?”

Gavril opened his mouth to reply, and then closed it.

“You can earn privileges if you cooperate, Twenty-One. How much exercise does Twenty-One take each day?” the director asked the warders.

“A turn around the inner yard in the mornings,” Onion-Breath said.

“That’s not enough for a young man like you, is it? I’ve seen how fit, supple bodies can decline in here without adequate exercise and fresh air. I have devised a healthy regime for our more compliant inmates that keeps the muscles toned—”

Gavril was hardly listening. One thought alone possessed him.

“Paint.”

“Paint?” Director Baltzar echoed.

“I am a painter. I want to paint. I want paper, charcoals, pastels, watercolors—”

“Privileges have to be earned,” grunted Onion-Breath. “Didn’t you hear the director? Don’t you think you should start by earning a shave? Look at you. You look like a wild animal.”

“Give me the razor and I’ll shave myself,” Gavril said, glinting a twisted smile at him.

“And I was born yesterday.”

“Good-day to you, Twenty-One.” Director Baltzar turned toward the door. “Remember what I said.”

Skar opened the cell door for his master and Gavril caught a glimpse of the landing and spiral staircase beyond. Instinctively, he rose to his feet, making a lunge for the open doorway.

Onion-Breath grabbed him in an arm lock and flung him back onto his narrow bed.

“He’s not ready for privileges, this one,” he said, shaking his head at Gavril as if he were a disobedient child. “He’s trouble.”

“Just let me paint!” Gavril cried after the director. “I want to paint!” The door clanged shut and he heard bolts shot, keys clanking as they locked him in again.

The next day Skar brought him a list of conditions. First he must agree to a shave. If he agreed to the shave, he would be allowed back into the inner exercise yard. If he completed the morning turn for a week without attacking any of the warders, he would be allowed some paper and a box of watercolors.

Gavril agreed. What had he to lose? But he wondered who had given permission for him to be allowed to paint again. The time lag meant that Director Baltzar must have consulted a higher authority. Had the permission come from the Emperor himself?

 

Gavril sat staring at the treasures laid out on the little wooden table before him, as a starving man stares at food. A ceramic mixing dish, several brushes of good quality sable and of different thicknesses, a lead pencil, a stick of charcoal, a jug of water, and a box of paints. He took out each little brick of compressed color, one by one, and examined it.

Madder lake, ultramarine, green earth, dark grey smalt, blue verditer, rich gamboge yellow, even—and he smiled wryly to himself—a square of brown dragon’s blood. Fanciful name, “dragon’s blood.” That, he knew all too well, was dark and purple.

But it was a good selection, full of possibilities. It must have been sent all the way from Tielborg or some other Tielen city where there were artists and shops to supply their needs.

And there was paper too. Sheets of fine quality paper with just the right texture to absorb a little of the paint, but also let it flow smoothly in a wash. He picked up the stick of charcoal and snapped it in half, a better length for sketching. He held the half poised above a clean sheet of paper, then glanced toward the door and the little round spyhole. Were the warders watching him, waiting to see what he would draw? Were they hoping for some clue to his secret, most private thoughts that would help them to break his will and make him compliant?

But the urge to draw became too strong. Let them watch. They would never understand. He wasn’t even sure he understood this compulsion himself. It was just something he had to do. Something that confirmed he was still Gavril Nagarian and not just a number.

 

The weak afternoon sunlight was fading and it was almost too dim to see. At Arnskammar, the setting of the sun meant another day was already over for the inmates of the asylum. Nighttime and the hours of darkness were for sleeping. Candles were a rare privilege to be earned only after months of untarnished behavior.

Gavril laid down his charcoal stick and looked at what he had drawn.

A great stone archway, carved out of twisted serpentine bodies, filled the first page. Winged serpents with cruel hooked claws protruded into the center of the arch, as though to rip to shreds anyone rash enough to venture underneath.

Once he had started to draw, it had seemed as if another will was guiding his hand. Only the skill, the bold style, the little details, were his own, giving substance to half-remembered snatches of dreams.

The second sketch detailed the top of the arch: a terrifying serpent-head, fanged jaws gaping wide, and a single eye staring malevolently. He had put one daub of color onto the drawing. A blob of vivid red, carmine and madder lake mingled, that made the single eye glow like a living jewel.

How can I have drawn it in such detail when I’ve only glimpsed it in dreams?

His suppertime bowl of soup had gone cold; little globules of fat glistened unappetizingly on top of the pale brown liquid. He had hardly noticed when the warder had brought it in.

Is it somewhere I visited as a child?

Or was it just his own fevered imagining, conjured from those words underlined by his grandfather in the ancient book in the Kalika Tower library?

Another legend relates how the priests of the winged Serpent God, Nagar, built a great temple, at the heart of which was a gateway to the Realm of Shadows. From this gateway they conjured powerful spirit-daemons to do their bidding. . . .

In the twilight, he lay down on his bed and stared at the barred window as the sky deepened from cloudy grey, streaked with little veins of sunset fire, to a rain-swept black.

A gateway to the Realm of Shadows . . .

 

Eyes stare into his, hungry for power and dominion. This cruel creature that holds him bound in chains of fire wants to bend him to his will. To make him his.

He cannot breathe the thin, barren air of this alien world. He feels his consciousness waning.

“You are mine, daemon. I conjured you from beyond the Serpent Gate. Now you will serve me.”

I will never be your slave.

“Give me your powers, daemon. Obey me—or die.” As his captor leans closer, he catches the alien odors of his strange body of flesh, bone, and blood. Strong, delicious odors of salt and metals, water and carbon. The promise of life, strength, continuance—

“Its light is fading,” cries another voice. “It’s too late.”

“Not yet!” insists his captor. “Listen to me, daemon. I am severing your bonds, the bonds of fire by which I have bound you. Now you will do my bidding.”

His captor stands so close now he can see the warm life-liquids pulsing through his veins, can smell their nourishing warmth.

I will never be your slave. But you will be mine.

His captor raises his hands in the air. At his command, the winged serpents’ tongues uncurl their fiery hold from his tortured limbs.

“Free!” Released, he springs forward to embrace his captor. To unite aethyrial spirit with alien flesh.

For one nauseating moment, he feels his captor’s flesh and bone rejecting him, shuddering uncontrollably at this obscene assault. Suddenly everything slows as he lets himself flow into his host, slowly merging until he is completely absorbed into this strange new body. Together they topple forward onto the ground. The host twitches and jerks in the sand and dust, trying to reject him, to vomit him out.

And now it is he who shouts aloud in terror, “Help me!”

 

The inner exercise yard was a small courtyard surrounded by high brownstone tower walls, blind except for narrow arrow slits.

Gavril paused for breath in his daily circuit and gazed up at the sky. It was spring, no doubt of it, even though there was no sign of leaf or flower, not even a weed pushing up through the courtyard cobbles. The sky high above was a delicate shade of blue, the color of speckled eggshells. The air felt soft and the fresh breeze smelled somehow . . . green.

“Keep running!” bawled his warder. “Your time’s nearly up. You’ve got three more circuits to complete!”

Gavril bit his lip. No point aggravating his warders and losing his paints. For now he would play their game. He began to run again, forcing his unwilling body to move.

It would take a long time to regain his agility. The long weeks of confinement and the heavy dosing with sedatives had slowed his whole system.

Must keep fit. Must keep alert. Must sweat the drugs out of my body.

“Time’s up!” It was not Onion-Breath today, but another he had nicknamed Lanky. Lanky was a tall, shambling man whose stooped frame gave no hint as to his considerable strength.

Gavril continued running.

“I said time’s up!” Lanky tossed Gavril the threadbare square of linen that served him as a towel.

Gavril caught the towel and wiped the sweat from his face. Then he bent over, gasping to regain his breath.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” observed Lanky morosely. “You’ve got privileges. There’s some here as hasn’t been outside in years.”

“In years?” Gavril straightened up. “How so?”

“No friends in high places.”

Gavril cast a glance behind him as Lanky led him away. To be incarcerated here in the same cell year after year . . . He shivered in spite of the sweat dampening his body. He knew he only enjoyed this taste of fresh air because Eugene wanted something of him. Eventually Eugene would tire in his search for the Drakhaoul, and his privileges would be withdrawn. And he would be left to molder here forever.

“Clean yourself up!” Lanky ordered, pushing him into his cell.

A bowl of tepid washing-water stood on the table with his little ball of yellow asylum-issue soap beside it, “to last you half a year, so be sparing!”

“Where are my pictures?” He had left them in a pile on the table. Now they were gone.

The door clanged shut. Lanky had locked him in.

“My pictures!” he cried. He thudded his fists in fury against the iron door. “Where are they?”

They must have taken them while he was in the exercise yard. For what purpose? What could they learn from them? To anyone uninitiated in his family history, they would be meaningless. He was not at all certain he understood them himself.

But the very act of taking away the one thing that was significant to him was a violation. He had staunchly endured innumerable petty slights and humiliations since the life-sentence was imposed. Now he saw that, for all the so-called privileges, Eugene had ensured that the loss of his name meant the loss of his identity. His wishes counted for nothing. He was no one.

“Damn you, Eugene!” he yelled till his throat was raw. “Damn you to hell and all its torments!”

 

Director Baltzar handed the sheaf of drawings to the visitor.

“The man’s mind is deeply disturbed,” he said. “And yet he’s evidently an accomplished artist. What a tragedy. Perhaps we should try to persuade him to paint a still life . . . or some flowers?”

“So you do not subscribe to the view that this outpouring of violent and disturbing images is in some way therapeutic for a troubled mind?” inquired his visitor mildly.

“Indeed I do not!” Director Baltzar said with more vehemence than he had intended. “I fear it may encourage him to dwell more on such dark fantasies. It may feed the flames.”

“And his behavior?”

Baltzar sighed. “My warders report that he has been shouting and banging at his cell door for hours. I am reluctant, in all truth, to bring you to him while he is in such a volatile state.”

“You have reduced his medication, as requested?”

“Much against my better judgment, yes. But as your instructions come from the Emperor himself . . .” He ended with a shrug, and then wondered too late if he had acted presumptuously in expressing a contrary opinion to the Emperor’s special envoy.

“You are a medical man, Director. How do you interpret these drawings?”

Baltzar felt even more uncomfortable now. He sensed he was, in some way, being judged by his visitor. But in what respect? Surely not his medical achievements? His degrees—from several eminent universities—were displayed on the walls of his study. His dissertations on the disorders of the human mind, bound in brown vellum and tooled in gold, lay on the desk for all visitors to see and consult. Yet when he spoke, he found his mouth uncomfortably dry. He swallowed hard.

“I suspect they are the expression of some deep and unresolved conflict of the mind. These terrifying portrayals of great fanged snakes could be interpreted as his fear and resentment of authority.”

“Hm.” The visitor nodded, apparently satisfied with this interpretation, but Baltzar did not feel in any way reassured. “We have talked enough. Take me to him.”

“What, now?”

“Now.” The visitor’s pale eyes stared directly into his own.

Baltzar blinked. He had been about to say something, but his mind was utterly empty.

“Wh—what was I saying?”

“You were about to take me to Twenty-One,” said the visitor.

“Yes. Of course.” Baltzar rang a little bell to summon the warders on duty.

 

Gavril lay listlessly on his bed. He had lapsed into a daze, staring at the clouds endlessly drifting past his high window. Even blinking seemed an effort.

Why had he been deluding himself with these crazy dreams of escape? There was no escape from Arnskammar. He was confined here for life.

Now he wished he had died in the defense of Kastel Drakhaon, fighting side by side with his druzhina.

Footsteps echoed on the landing outside. He did not bother even to raise his head. What was the point?

Keys jangled. The locks creaked and the door swung inward.

“You have a visitor, Twenty-One.”

A visitor? Gavril turned over, in spite of himself.

A wisp-haired, frail old man entered the cell. Behind him Lanky shuffled from foot to foot in the open doorway, awkward and ill at ease.

“You may go now,” the old man said.

“I’m not allowed to leave anyone alone with Twenty-One. Governor’s orders.”

“The governor’s orders are that you return to the ward-room. I will send for you when I need you.”

To Gavril’s surprise, Lanky nodded and shambled away, shutting the door behind him.

“Good-day to you, Lord Gavril,” said the visitor. The old man’s eyes gleamed like quicksilver in the dull light of the cell. Gavril found he could not look away. Now he saw that the old man’s frail appearance was only a shell, a carapace hiding a dazzling power-source from the everyday world. And that power, he sensed, was as cold and inhuman as a force of nature.

“Who are you?” he gasped.

“We have met once before, Drakhaon. Do you remember?”

Gavril shook his head.

“You broke through my defenses. No one has done that before. But then, you were so utterly determined to rescue your mother.”

“You were at Swanholm?” Nothing but a chaos of memories remained from that frenzied flight, when he had swooped down on the enemy’s stronghold to snatch Elysia from the Tielen firing party. When he could still fly . . .

“You owe your survival to the intervention of one individual. You were exhausted, your powers all but spent. If she had not begged me to stay my hand, you would not have left Swanholm alive.”

Gavril still stared at the visitor. His memory was fogged in mists. One moment alone of that day remained, lit with a horrible clarity.

A dark-haired young woman stares at him across the smoking, charred remains of Feodor Velemir, her eyes wide with revulsion and terror.

She knows him now for the daemon-monster he has become. She knows—

“Astasia. Was it Astasia?”

“You still do not know me?” the old man said, not answering his question. “My name is Linnaius. Kaspar Linnaius.”

“The Magus?” Elysia had warned him of the Magus’s powers. And now here he was, trapped in this little cell, with no means of escape and no one to defend him. It was as if he were stripped naked. “What do you want of me?” His shoulder blades grazed the wall. He had instinctively backed away, without even knowing he was doing so. But there was nowhere else to go.

“You are of considerably greater value to the Emperor alive than dead, Nagarian, I assure you. I am only here to ask you a few questions, that is all.” Slender fingers reached out to rest on his forehead, the back of his head.

Gavril shuddered at his touch. He felt as if his skin were brushed by dead, dried husks of insects. And then a little flare of Drakhaon pride, too long subdued by the physicians’ drugs, suddenly rekindled. “Get out of my head.”

He felt the Magus’s fingertips snatched from his forehead as if singed.

“It is in your best interests to cooperate,” Linnaius said quietly.

“The Emperor has taken everything from me. Everything! Must you take the last of my sanity too?” And then he stopped as a tidal wave of sensations, images, feelings rushed through his mind. He gripped hold of his head in both hands, overwhelmed.

He saw the faces of his druzhina, eyes bitter at their betrayal, as one by one they went to surrender their weapons to the Tielen soldiers. He saw Elysia, distraught, her hands desperately outstretched as if she could tear him back from his captors. He saw Kiukiu turning to wave to him as her sleigh set out across the snowy moorlands. He heard his own voice confidently shouting, “I will come for you. . . . We’ll be together again soon.”

“Ahh . . .” An aching moan of grief and loss welled up from deep inside him. He raised his head and stared at the Magus directly. “What have you done to me?”

“Unlocked your memory, that’s all. The sedative drugs had dulled your brain.”

And protected me from the torment of living with the knowledge of all I have lost.

“So did you find what the Emperor sent you here for?” He would not let himself be intimidated by Kaspar Linnaius, powerful though he knew him to be.

The Magus stared back at him a long time without answering.

“You spoke the truth to him, as you perceived it,” he said after a long while. “That I can verify.”

“Don’t speak to me in riddles. Tell me what you found.”

“Your Drakhaoul is indeed gone. But you are not entirely free, are you, Gavril Nagarian? It has left you a legacy of memories, spanning many human lifetimes . . . and maybe more, besides.”

“More?” Gavril felt a tremor of unease, even though the Magus’s diagnosis was ambiguously phrased.

“I cannot tell.” Linnaius’s pale eyes seemed to grow more translucent as Gavril gazed at him. Silver eyes—seer’s eyes—probing deep beneath the surface of the everyday world. Time slowed as he found himself unable to look away.

Dazzled, Gavril blinked.

And found he was alone in the cell. Alone—and filled with the anguish of bitterly remembered loss.

Why had Linnaius committed this cruel act? What had he wanted him to remember? And how would he use it against him—and all he held dear?