At first, Denor thought a huge snake was crawling behind Charan, and he opened his mouth to shout a warning. But he immediately shut it with a an audible snap that would make a dentist wince. The metallic coils of the snake had a human head! And not just any human head—Uncle Sulas’s face, tense with pain and looking at the boy with unmistakable agony.

“Oh, Tamet...” Denor whispered, feeling the emptiness behind his back, ready to turn and flee at a moment’s notice. "Who... who is this?"

"This is my father," Charan replied dispassionately. "This is Sulas. It's hard to look at him. Don't be afraid. He won't hurt you."

Denor very much disagreed that the giant snake-like creature slithering toward him had friendly intentions, but he was too paralysed by fear to do anything about it.

In a bizarre attempt at coping with this acute shock, his brain processed what his eyes saw, primarily that the creature with Sulas's head only resembled a snake at first glance. Its body, as thick as a man’s torso, was much more flexible and looked more like that of a segmented metallic worm. For some reason that psychologists would be unable to explain, this helped. It was covered in thick plating, interwoven with powerful rings of some equivalent to muscle that rippled with waves of stretches and contractions, propelling it forward. There were no arms or legs. A giant robotic worm with the head of a man—a beloved man—looked at the boy, smiling painfully and blinking from the flickering light. Around its neck, or rather where the human head transitioned into the worm’s body, was a beautiful necklace of oblong transparent stones.

"Is that you... Sulas?" Denor asked quietly, hoping to upgrade ‘it’ to ‘him’ at some juncture. His throat suddenly felt dry, and his tongue rasped like a dead leaf. "What... did he do to you? Is this... Litarn's work?"

"Yes," said Sulas, with great effort. "Curse the soul and body of that sorcerer. He pulled me out of the grave, healed my wounds, breathed life back into me by means only he knows, and then...well I guess you could say that the worm has turned for me."

The creature patiently waited for laughter, or applause, or even acknowledgement of this terrible pun. Denor stared at him with a blank expression on his face.

“Get it? Worm?”

Oddly enough, Sulas's voice had barely changed. His eyes were still completely alive, completely human. Except that they looked with such pain and bitterness that it seemed a human chest could scarcely contain it.

“Was that a pun?” the boy finally asked in disbelief, then his brain caught up and he switched gears. “I swear to you, I will kill him!”

“Don’t swear, Denor, don’t,” Sulas shook his head, causing the necklace under his chin to sparkle with blue and scarlet sparks. “You cannot keep this oath: even a full-grown man cannot tackle Litarn, who wields secret and dark knowledge. Especially not you, boy. He’d put the sore in sorcerery if you were to ever attack him."

The second pun was completely ignored because his audience was too busy making bold declarations to acknowledge his comedy stylings.

"And yet I do swear!" Denor repeated. “I can shout it loud enough for all to hear. I will kill the sorcerer Litarn!”

An ant further down the passageway twitched its antenna. “Wow, I guess this boy swears he’s going to get himself killed. You don’t hear that every day!”

"Hush!" Sulas said, to the boy, not the ant, as he looked around cautiously, clearly expecting Litarn to leap out of the walls. “I shouldn’t have shown myself, but Charan told me you wouldn’t rest until you knew the truth. Now you will. I’d make a joke about soiling myself by hiding underground in the dirt, but there’s no time. You need to listen.”

“Don’t worry,” Denor nodded, now realising that his immediate plan would probably cause an embarrassing case of death. “I’m listening.”

“Most of our souls had already gone, and our wounded bodies lay in the graves,” Sulas began his story, “when Litarn dug us up and revived us, he grafted us onto robotic bodies and stole our engrams. He needed slaves, many slaves, to mine the gems and metals. But he needed obedient and pliant slaves. That’s why he did something strange with what was left of the soul of each survivor... I can’t explain it well, as I don’t fully understand it myself. He captured the little sparks of life that make a person human, but he couldn’t do it fully. You've probably noticed that Charan and his friends never smile, shout, or argue?”

Denor nodded silently. Charan had all the cheer and humour of a morgue, and Sulas was like a mortician-turned-comedian. Both were truly painful to behold in very different ways.

“Now they will never dare disobey Litarn; they won’t rebel. His every word, every wave of his finger is an unbreakable order for them. Exhausting work underground without sleep or rest, and meager food—that’s their entire existence here, Denor.”

“You say ‘them’!” the boy interrupted. “So this doesn’t apply to you?”

Sulas paused. Short convulsions—or large tremors—ran through his terrible long body.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Litarn didn’t touch my spark of life. He needs me to find new deposits of gemstones. It takes courage to search deep underground. A sharp mind and sense of danger are required. Those deprived of the spark of life lack these human qualities. The sorcerer did not touch my soul, but... you can see for yourself what he turned my body into. With an assistant like me, Litarn will soon find all the stones he needs. I guess you could say it takes someone with stones to perform these duties.”

The fact that Sulas didn’t have any stones beyond the literal ones on his neck was entirely missed by Denor, unlike his terrible attempt at a pun.

“With such an assistant... so you...” the boy repeated slowly. Then he exploded, “So you agreed to help this evil sorcerer? You obediently search for things in the ground for him? After what he did to them... to you...”

Denor choked on his words, his indignation so great it left him speechless. He mentally rummaged through his repertoire of curses, finding them all too feeble for his fury. It wasn’t a long list, as doing things mentally was something that happened to other people.

"Don’t mistake my levity for cheerful compliance," Sulas grinned again, but a hot melancholy flickered in his eyes, and Denor fell silent, out of respect, or possibly because he was trying to figure out what the word ‘compliance’ meant. "Do you really think I chose to help him willingly? Do you truly believe old Sulas was chickening out? Feather or not you remember me well, my boy, I’ve clucked on to his evil scheme, and have been pecking and scratching away at it in the shadows. As soon as I awoke and saw what he’d turned me into, as soon as the vile sorcerer told me what he expected of me, I... I spat in his face and laughed. I laughed, Denor, even though my neck hurt unbearably, and I had to shut my eyes tight to avoid seeing my fowl new body. Even now, I can’t bear to look at myself. I avoid barrels of water and underground lakes, even after six months… but I plan on vengeance every waking moment."

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"You said it right!" Denor exclaimed warmly, patiently ignoring the chicken puns. "You should’ve strangled that snake!"

"But Litarn just grinned," Sulas continued with deep bitterness. "'Great,' he said to me. 'If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’ll take away your spark of life, and you’ll become an obedient slave like the others. Those without the spark will never dare disobey their master. But I need one of you unafraid to delve deep and find new precious deposits. I need one of you with a full human soul. If you don’t want it, Sulas, your son Charan will take your place. This is even better: he’s young, strong, more resilient. Tomorrow he’ll be just like you, a monster.'"

"Damn that old man!" Denor exhaled, his anger fuelled by what was actually a really good impersonation of the old man from Sulas. "No, I won’t just find a way to kill him, I’ll... I’ll..."

"I agreed to help Litarn because to see my son like this..." Sulas paused, as if the weight of his words had stolen his breath. “Well there’s simply not a pun applicable for it. The sorcerer must pay for his insolence.”

The stones on Sulas’s neck glowed with an eerie intensity. "There are things beyond the ken of human understanding. If it were you in my son’s place, Denor, I wouldn’t have borne it the same way... Not because you’re a bad sort, it’s just that…”

Sulas seemed to halt, trying to reason why he wouldn’t save Denor but also trying to spare the boy’s feelings. Failing that, he continued. “...moreover, the old man swore we'd work for him for only three years. In that time, he claims he’ll gather all the stones he needs and achieve either immortality or power over the whole world, I can’t be sure... Six months have already passed. In two and a half years, Litarn will let me go to wherever my trampled soul longs to be. Maybe sooner. He has promised he will return real life to my son and his comrades."

"He'll deceive you!" the boy objected. "He’ll send them to their deaths too. Why would he leave witnesses to his villainy and sorcery?"

"Maybe you’re right," Sulas conceded. "But even that would be better than the fate they have now."

Denor was attempting to think, his face screwed up with pained and impatient frustration as if trying to pass a kidney stone. "But you say you can move freely through the earth! So you can crawl out! You can go home and tell everyone about the sorcerer Litarn. Then the men will kill him! They’ll hang him upside down from a tree, pierce him with bolts, incinerate the body, then—"

Sulas shook his head sadly. "No force could make me crawl out, Denor. For what? To frighten my wife, my daughter, and all the children in the village to death? If my wife doesn’t die of horror, she’ll curse me for daring to appear to them in this form. And she’d be right. She already put up with my previous body, and this really is only a marginal improvement on that one. It would be too much.”

"Fine, fine!" Denor waved his hand in despair. "Don’t show yourself to women. Just show yourself to old Hevath. He didn’t believe me when I told him about Litarn. He can’t not believe you, unless he tears out his own eyes! Come with me, Sulas! Let’s go right now!" He lunged forward, intending to grab his uncle’s hand to drag him to the exit, but quickly realized that Sulas had no hands.

“Hands off from you and hands off for me,” Sulas winked at him. “The only way I’m getting a hand is if you start applauding.”

Unsurprisingly, there was no applause forthcoming.

Noticing the involuntary disgust in the boy's eyes, Sulas smiled bitterly, and crawled back a little, retreating into the shadow. “Okay, I get it, the situation doesn’t call for puns… I was just trying to be… disarming.”

Denor groaned as the creature that he once called uncle retreated out of his sight.

“There is another reason, Denor, why I’ll not venture out and show myself, not even to old Hevath,” Sulas continued, his tone turning grave. “If your men manage to kill Litarn—and I highly doubt it, for he’s capable of things beyond mortal reckoning—if he is slain, incinerated, or pierced with blaster fire, Charan and the other young warriors will remain half-human forever. No one knows where Litarn hides the sparks of life he took from them. And no one knows what those sparks even are or what they look like. Litarn won’t reveal his secrets, not even under the cruelest torture.”

“Oh, he’ll tell under torture!” the boy exclaimed fiercely, his eyes flashing with a confidence that was entirely unwarranted.

“You don’t understand, Denor. His machinations are beyond your imagination. The man is an amateur compared to what’s out there in deep space, but he’s still a bonafide sorcerer, okay? He might look old, but trust me, he’s immune to pain, with skin tougher than a turtle’s shell. No amount of fighting is going to stop him, and if you try, then poor Charan will keep mining, refining rocks, and polishing stones for years upon years. I can’t let that happen, Denor. He is my son!”

“And my blood brother, by the way,” Denor muttered. “And my friend. Though he attacked me like a hunting dog at Litarn’s command. I forgive him, since he doesn’t have that spark of life anymore...”

“I beg you, Denor, don’t try to fight Litarn,” Sulas implored, his voice desperate now and completely devoid of humour, as he slowly crawled back along the narrow passage. His head hung low, sweeping up gray stone dust with his beard. He avoided looking the boy in the eye and spoke in barely audible tones. “I implore you: forget everything you saw here, forget the path to this place, and tell no one. Hevath didn’t believe you; that’s a blessing. Don’t tell anyone else. Leave, Denor. I sense our master’s approach. I hear it many steps away—the walls seem to tremble, and the stones begin to crumble when he touches them with his inhuman gaze... Hurry, Denor! You may not make it out in time and you could die.”

The boy hesitated. Of course, he’d love to flee from this vile lair, teeming with black magic and maimed half-humans. But he wasn’t satisfied with how the conversation with Sulas ended. Forget everything? Tell no one? That meant the sorcerer would remain one of the most respected people in the village, gloating over others’ hunting trophies on feast days, burning Denor with hateful eyes... If only he would just burn! Denor had no doubt that the old man aimed to destroy the boy who had uncovered his secret. Or worse: turn him into an unthinkable monster like Sulas, once a carefree, merry fellow who died a glorious death...

“Alright, fine,” the boy shouted to Sulas, now almost lost in the darkness. “Charan lacks the spark, you lack the courage, but I have both! Praise be to Tamet, I am neither slave nor corpse! I will keep my vow, and I’ll make another. I will kill all of the dark sorcerers, everywhere!”

This was both a lofty task, foreshadowing of the epic variety, and exactly the wrong thing to say as Litarn rounded the corner.

“So you’re going to be the one to kill us all?” the old man asked, chuckling thinly. “So, that’s how you talk, my boy! Well this is the last time you’ll speak of me disrespectfully. Soon, you’ll say different words entirely, something along the lines of ‘yes, master.’”

Denor saw the silent slaves emerge behind the old man—Charan among them. Apparently, Litarn had already ordered them to grab the boy. They moved toward him, pushing each other in the narrow passage like slow lava from a volcano’s mouth.

Denor wasn’t afraid. He knew he could escape just like last time. The boy carefully stepped back, not taking his eyes off the grim and determined half-humans with familiar faces. Here came the turn. Just a few steps more, and the sky above would be blue.

But... where was it?! Darkness, complete darkness surrounded him on all sides.

“Got you!” the old man’s malicious laughter echoed around the bend. “Caught like a rat in a trap! Looking for your way out? Search all you want—it's gone! I closed the entrance! You cannot loop back to the ladder!”

Feeling like an animal driven into a corner, besieged by muscular and well-fed dogs, Denor continued to move back, hands feeling the walls.

The main thing was to find the exact spot where he had jumped down, right onto the ant's convex back. Perhaps the ant was still lying there, as it seemed to be its favorite spot.

“This again? I was just about to make my way out of this place when I saw the sorcerer come down after you.”

Praise be to Tamet! That lazy bug had appeared at the commotion! Denor scrabbled onto the insect’s back in a movement that would make an arthritic Aurox wince, pushed off with his heels, and began to climb up the ladder, promptly missing half the rungs.

As if in sympathy, the insect grabbed him in his jaws by the scruff of the neck and breached the surface with ease, and Litarn's gloating and urging cries suddenly turned into curses. The lair that the insect had magically opened seemed to tremble from his filthy language. “Oh, you insignificant creature! I know where you live, I will hunt you down and kill you!” Judging by the flavor of the curses, it wasn’t hard to guess that the old man was a little bit angry, though they couldn’t tell if he was shouting at the ant or Denor. Despite his dire situation, Denor had inexplicably found a way to freedom in the jaws of another.

“Last time I’m ever sleeping in a sorceror’s abode,” the ant muttered to himself as he carried Denor off.

“Thanks for your help,” Denor replied.

The ant paused, his spirit soaring at the compliment. Finally, he had made a friend. Someone had acknowledged him, and the curse would soon be broken.