“Be ever diligent, O my precious ones. That which we fail to master will seek in turn to master us.”

from the teachings of Shaz Vharhisti

Tycho…

A single word shuddered against the still, torrid night air.

Tycho…

An offensive name, scratching into slumber like wailing slashes of lightning heralding an unwelcome storm.

Tycho…is…here…

Gritty salt-tears pricked the corners of his eyes. The room filled with silent shadows, emerging starlight wrestling the sunset until the only color was that of burning incense and acid dreams of a boiling sea. Far away, without, within, Laracae spoke to him. He inhaled the cloying scent of tantyri, his eyes fluttering closed to seal out a thousand dreams of tomorrow’s pain.

Again the whisper, twisting the knife of truth he did not wish to acknowledge.

We are adrift in strange skies, my uncle, my cousin. And Tycho is here.

“Tycho,” he breathed the syllables, his lips burning. The name uncoiled like an infestation of belly worms. His brother’s traitorous younger son lived, corrupted by the cursed little fish that he had been given for study. Tycho, to whom he had made the gift, whose pleasure it might have been to taste the Blood of the Sea, whose clever, conniving treachery had perverted it all and spilled precious shirrasah like early semen. Would that he had placed his trust in Laracae. Now, he would.

Show me, Laracae. Show me where you are.

Bonfires littered a cold and broken land from which rose an angry mountain, an avenue to Akahan’s crimson heart. He inhaled the aroma, the sweet scent of living offerings.

Naharasii.

Bring them, he commanded.

Do not ask this of me, my uncle, my cousin. Not this!

Laracae’s fear poisoned the link between them, and he bellowed, outraged, overturning a tray laden with aged cheese; a full carafe careened off the wall. He staggered under the echo. His servants prostrated themselves on the floor, faces slick with spilled wine, rivulets of iced blood burning coldly.

Would you fail me? Would you be consumed by the night and the nightmare?

dRiish…uncle, Laracae’s humility tasted as sweet as fetal blood. I have shamed you. But this is a place of death. He sent us here. It was the boy! The little fish has grown into a shark. He is different from what he was. His soul resists.

And so it must.

Born of the witch-sea, treasure of his mother; kavsa, soul-touched. What Lian Kynsei possessed at birth had taken lonn Tirehl half a lifetime to learn. As surely as the boy was the servant of a jealous deity, lonn Tirehl resolved to serve an even more jealous god.

A flash of light in the adjoining chamber ignited reasoning. Within the jaws of the reviled, the sacred incense burned. A silhouette, a boy, the only one of his servants that had shown any initiative. He stared, unsure whether to reward this newcomer to his house, or kill him. He would decide…later.

“Bring me wine,” he told the others. He cared not which. “Bring it now.”

They rushed to do his pleasure, goblets held in shaking hands. His fingers passed over each before making a blind choice. A droplet of wine danced from the lip of the chalice lifted toward him, cascaded with an ocean’s roar upon the floor. He struck both cup and cupbearer down as he shambled into the temple, his thoughts unraveling as pain edged into his consciousness again. Lightning, hot and white, ricocheted within him. Such persistent agony had not manifested in years. He embraced the punishment of too many days spent idle, of a body grown weak with age, of a spirit drifting from the strength of Akahan’s consuming fire.

The eyes of the stone beast burned red with knowledge, the fragrance of tantyri root a soothing balm. Pain receded into forgotten pockets of his mind again. A servant knelt before him, offering a smooth crystal goblet. He drank until his thirst had been satisfied and his thoughts swam clearly into place, twisting into his nephew’s mind like a pin-eel into a swimmer’s ear.

His soul resists, cousin of my blood? His soul resists and he does battle? Few of his kind are suited for it. Reach within, deep within, where the meat is tender. Make him angry. Make him hate you. Test his fire, nephew of my house. Test his fire…

And if I find it blazing, dRiish? What then, my uncle?

Show him the way to hell.