“You disappoint me, Ren!” he boomed. The cavern quaked. “You dare take one of mine?”

Ren whimpered at his feet.

“I raised you!” Maunyn yelled, fists shaking.

Thump!

“You ingrate!”

Thud!

“I gave you everything!”

Ren groaned.

“And the acolyte…” Maunyn said mournfully. Sadness pierced Taul’s heart as well. “You leave me no choice! Someone must answer for that crime!”

The cavern vibrated as his furious rage entwined with the zaeress stored there for eons.

Ren held up a hand. “She was no real priestess, milord! Where was her power? She let me cut her with southern steel.”

Maunyn loomed over Ren. Blacklight danced along his limbs, blue flame like hackles along his shoulders and spine.

“She was false!” Ren screamed. “A fake! Beneath you, milord.”

Maunyn turned, took two steps away, hands raised in supplication. “Why do you take from me?” he asked the darkness. “Have I not done all my matron demands? Will you not exalt me for my fidelity?”

Ren sat up, his face a bloody pulp, and said something.

Maunyn whipped around, his black blade pointed at Ren.

“You dare speak to me?” he sneered. “You, a brothel rat? No, even less! A nomad train mouse. Didn’t know that did you?”

Taul couldn’t tell whether the knowledge surprised Ren. His face no longer had any expression. Only the whites of his eyes gave any sign of recognition.

“Yes, we found you in that camp,” Maunyn said, “and gave you comrades. We tested your quality and deemed you worthy of meager recognition. A thief. A thug. We made a place for you. In time, we would have joined your qualities to ours and given you a house of your own. What do you think of that Yauren Lor… Lor… Lor’Naldril? Oh, you know the name, do you? Yes, you have that blood and a name you’re not worthy of. That is the only reason you’ve lived this long. That is the only reason I restrain my wrath at your blunders.” Maunyn hissed at him, his hand twisting the handle of the blade. “And this is how you repay me?” He kicked Ren again.

Ren breathed hard, gasping and spitting blood, gripping his right side. He wouldn’t live much longer.

“But this thing you have done.” Maunyn shook his head. “Trouble follows you, Ren. I can no longer excuse your actions. I’d hoped you’d change, but your power oozes out of you at the least provocation. Do you think Mornae are great because they flaunt their power? No! We keep it well hidden. It’s not for others to see or know unless dire need requires it. It’s your secret heart and mind, known only to the goddess, but you… you spill yours out like a nomad pissing on the plains where yaks stomp and vultures devour. I just can’t help you! Did I fail to teach you, or are you just a fool? Unworthy of the small gift the goddess gifted you, a tiny flame you could not increase. So now I must snuff it out. You force my hand at last.”

Maunyn grabbed a sack beside Ren.

Ren wailed.

“This thing,” Maunyn said, “this ugly little thing. Do you know what’s in him?”

Ren reached for the sack.

Maunyn shook it at him.

“Well?” he asked. “How little you know, weaver of puny shadows, master of alleys and maker of powders. You see this blade? It’s kithaun from before the Fall, from before your people had a name. But do you want to know something? It is less precious than what is in this sack, so I’m told. Yet I cannot bear to even look at it. It disgusts me.”

Maunyn pressed the flat of the blade to the sack.

“You only ever saw yourself. Never passed yourself to the future, to the life your progeny may live in your place, that you might live through them into eternity. You thought only of your own insignificant peevish joys, and not the epic drama before you. That you might be the turning point of a new beginning for Lor’Naldril. Instead, you chose to be a… god… amongst ants.”

Maunyn chuckled bitterly.

“Oh yes, I know how you tell yourself these things. God of one, you are… nothing more. A shame I wasted so much on you. Unlike you, I work for the future, as unhappy as it makes me in the day. I see ahead; it gives me strength to continue. How do you think our people even exist if not for that far-seeing eye… a far-seeing heart?”

He kicked Ren, and the body slammed against the cavern wall. There was no sound, no reaction.

“You selfish, useless god,” Maunyn said. A thick, oppressive tension, all pulled and drawn into that mighty lord, filled the cavern. The blade rose and remained high, poised to strike the sack.

“Goddess above, stay my hand if it be your will!”

Maunyn’s voice shook the cavern. Then he laughed. Taul almost laughed as well at the strange request. Maunyn set the sack down and cut the knot at the top. The boy’s head appeared. Drugged, he rolled out of the sack and onto the cavern floor.

Taul tensed. That was his boy, meant for Toshtolin. He had the assassin’s dagger and no chance of winning against the Headmaster of Isilmyr, three times badged.

“Voravin,” Maunyn said. “Who would think it was possible? I don’t believe it. The valmasin must be wrong. A liar, even, playing a hoax on us.”

Maunyn pushed the toddler over with his foot.

Taul rose slowly. His sweaty hands fumbled with the dagger.

“Let us see how well you survive on your own,” Maunyn said to the boy. “I would like to see it. Let the goddess feed you on berries from the mouth of a fox.”

Maunyn laughed darkly. He turned and scoured the cavern. Taul’s shadow-shell quavered in response.

Deeper! the devices cried.

The world went even darker as he allowed the devices to sequester him into the Dark. It wasn’t just shadow, the absence of light, it was a place all its own, with distant horizons in all directions. A person could get lost there.

“I know you’re out there,” Maunyn yelled. His voice sounded distant and muffled; the hard edges smoothed away. “Know I will find out who you are. You do not take from me without exacting a blood price.”

His presence moved like a wraith through the cavern, searching for Taul.

You can’t win, the dagger said to Taul.

“I hear you!” Maunyn roared. “I will find you and make you suffer.”

Taul shimmied back, hugging himself, pressing the dagger to his chest. The tunnel quivered around him, shaken by the knight’s power.

“You will feel the might of a high house at your neck,” Maunyn said, “at your house’s neck, at your matron’s…”

The shadows swallowed Taul so completely, he no longer sensed the world. Time passed unmeasured. The cavern stilled, but Taul wouldn’t move. He felt himself melted into the very stone.