HE WAS LESS than forthcoming. That was the best that could be said of the captive, who called himself Javon. Whether that name meant anything to Father Iainov, I could not say. The bearded priest stood sternly, the anger in his unblinking eyes glittering dangerously.

The others had lit the chandeliers, which cast a warm glow about the place. There was a simplicity here that seemed entirely out of place in the hellish cavern. A sense of home, presence that I had not felt since awakening in a pile of bones. Perhaps it was as Iainov said: that this place had a purpose, and that carried forward some semblance of what he claimed had existed here before it had been…corrupted.

Javon the gaoler was certainly corrupted. During our fight, my mind had been too occupied to notice, but the man’s skin was bubbled with yellow boils rising up one side of his neck, all the way to his hairline. His greasy hair had fallen out in clumps, and there was a scar on the right of his lip that pulled Javon’s entire mouth down into a scowl. He glared back at me, looking every bit the murderer, except for the ropes that bound his hands behind the chair’s high back. He wore nothing but the ropes on his wrist, for the priest had ordered him stripped. His clothes lay in a heap beside the chair, all save his boots.

I was wearing those.

Param stood beside me. Under the priest’s care, she had been roused. She was unsteady on her feet, but nothing I could say would keep her resting on the bench.

“Where is the Wolf?” she asked Javon again. “Where is Harald?”

“I don’t know,” the gaoler sneered. Param seized him by the hair, yanking his head back. I stepped forward, but father Iainov put a hand on my chest. He shook his head, stalling me. Javon must not have seen it, for he babbled, “He doesn’t deign to invite me in for one of his communions.”

“Communions?” Param let him go and retreated a step.

“I don’t know what they do,” Javon snapped. “He gave me a job. I do the job. That’s it. You want to ask him, go find him.”

“Your job was sending my people into the forest,” Father Iainov said. The priest tucked his hands into the wide sleeves of his gray robe. “One by one.”

“What of it?”

Iainov’s voice was level, but it hardly hid the acid on his tongue. “Did the Wolf order you to cut us away, bit by bit?”

At that, the other man’s eyes narrowed. Not anger. Hate. Javon hated Iainov beyond a measure of reason. And worse, he hated being the priest’s captive. To him this was an intolerable inversion of the world. I saw what he would do even as his slit-like lips pursed. He spat at Iainov, who did not flinch.

“Did the Wolf order you to bleed us?”

“Piss off,” answered the captive, turning his head away.

Now it was my turn to talk. “They bled you?” I remembered the number of ruined limbs, of stumps and poorly-surgeoned amputaitons from my time in the dungeon. Ears and noses, too. The peasants who attended Iainov and the Stone of the Vigilant walked tall, but they were deeply damaged.

“Every night,” Iainov said. He did not look away from the captive. His eyes bore into the man’s skull, and could looks set fire, Javon would have burst into flame. “Cut away pieces, one by one. Men, women. Children. It didn’t matter to these animals.” Param snarled at that, and I saw the silver curve of a blade flutter through the folds of her black robes.

“No!” I said, holding up my hand. But it had the sound of, “Not yet,” and I saw the fear creep into Javon’s eyes. He looked nervously between the three of us. Bloodfang rested against the wall, but even from where I stood I could hear the grim echoes of laughter from the ur-iron blade.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Long have I lingered,” said Iainov, “praying for salvation.”

“No one is listening!” the captive spat. “You pray to dead gods!”

Iainov continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I held my vigil longer than any other I know. Through the fall of Urissa on the cliff, and the rise of the Forest of the Children. Even through the coming of the hellfires, and the molten rivers. But never have I met a lost soul here who deserved the hell they have fallen into. Not until I met you and your ilk, Javon. Your ambitions are lower than a serpent’s belly!” the priest said. His voice was quiet: a deadly whisper, yet it had all the force of a sorcerous curse.

Javon rocked back on his chair, gnashing his teeth. His long black hair whipped back and forth, but his fury was futile.

“You ate them?” I said when he had expended his energy.

He raised his head enough to meet my eyes. Sullen, red-rimmed, and utterly miserable. “Would you not?” he shouted, panic threading his voice as he glared at each of us in turn. “Are you not starving? Does the emptiness not claw at you from the inside? Is it not killing you, even now? The Wolf takes communion of the flesh. Why should we not?”

This was met with silence. Param’s eyes were wide with shock. Iainov’s were narrowed with close-leashed rage.

“I would sooner throw myself into the pit,” I said. And I meant it.

“Cinderborn,” the priest said, drawing away a few steps. Javon’s head snapped round to look at me, but I ignored him. Rather, I stared flatly at Param. I would not have her killing my captive while I conferred with the priest. After a moment, she followed us. We put our heads together.

“He may not now where the Wolf is,” I said. “But he knows more than he’s giving us.”

“I will cut it out of him,” said Param.

“That is a savage sort of justice,” the priest said. “But would it make you any better than him?”

“Better? We have fallen into hell, priest. The fool is right: you pray to gods that have abandoned you. There is no better in hell. Only worse.”

The old man’s brow raised at that. Param’s gaze darkened, and I saw something grim simmering behind her eyes. She was cold with fury, as tightly wound as a coiled snake. What kept her in check, I could not guess, but I was glad to see it. She seemed less frail by the moment.

“How often did they send one of your people off?” I said into the disturbing quiet.

“It is difficult to mark the passage of time, so far from the stars…” The priest looked up sharply and rubbed his jaw with a thumb. “But perhaps every six sleeps. Maybe more. The cutting was more often.”

“How long has it been since the last was taken?”

He picked up my thread in an instant. “Five sleeps,” he answered. “Though I do not know what they did with the poor souls.”

I nodded. Now we had a direction. The conversation only needed steering. “Param?”

She wasted no time, slithering away with a whisper of robes. Javon saw her coming, but could do nothing to stop her, screech though he might. Her slippered foot came up and she kicked the gaoler in the chest, sending him reeling backward. The chair tipped and he slammed painfully on his back. Gasping, he continued to struggle, but the well-made chair held fast against his protest.

“Damn you, woman! Curse you a thousand times!”

“There is not curse greater than Hell,” she answered, crushing the fight out of him. Param leaned on Javon’s chest and laid a silver dagger beside his nose. “Where did you send them?”

He went cross-eyed looking at that blade. “We put them on the cart! That’s it! That’s all I know!”

“What cart?” He writhed and turned his face away from her, trying to get away. Param drove her foot down, and shouted, “What cart?”

“It comes tomorrow!” he cried. “There’s a chronolabe over there!” Javon jutted his chin off toward where the gaolers had kept their things.

“Who drives the cart?” came Param’s next demand.

“A snake-face! I don’t know its name. But it’s always the same one.”

I knelt beside Javon, and fixed him dead in the eye. He was nearly transfixed. His lips quivered, forming a question. “Is it true? You are Cinderborn?”

“It is,” I said with a dark grin. “And you, Javon, are going to help me.”