Faeterus gave him new instructions. He wanted a small fire kindled at a particular spot on the Stair. Favaronas scurried away to gather tinder. He made several trips, dumping fistfuls of dry leaves and twigs by a waist-high block of dark blue basalt. The block had a shallow depression in its top. While Favaronas fetched and carried, Faeterus produced tiny flasks and small suede bags from inside his ponderous robes. These he arranged atop the stone block, then added a large, shiny coin and a small trinket on a chain. Favaronas managed to pass close enough to identify the coin as a Khurish
When Favaronas had the fire burning, Faeterus ordered him to find water. Favaronas’s stomach chose that moment to offer a loud grumble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
“Care to share my fare, elf spawn?”
Favaronas looked away from the mocking voice and blank hood and went to search for water.
They’d passed no springs on their ascent. He’d have to go higher. With much puffing, he climbed the steep slope behind the Stair. The sun was down, and the growing dark made his quest all the more difficult. He poked among thorny shrubs and peered under rock ledges. All he found were patches of leathery lichen.
Pausing to rest, he looked down on the Stair. The notion of escape was alluring, but be couldn’t muster the nerve. Faeterus was in no better physical shape than he and likely couldn’t catch him if it came to a foot race. But the sorcerer might hurl a thunderbolt at him or blind him or lame him. Favaronas shuddered at the possibilities his imagination conjured. If a warrior had stood in his place, that worthy might have found an opportunity to escape or to kill his captor. Favaronas was no warrior.
It wasn’t only fear that held him back. Weak and beaten as he was, he still clung to a faint hope that he could foil Faeterus’s evil machinations. Perhaps he might yet be able to serve his people.
A force tugged on the hem of his robe, pulling him off balance and forcing him to scrabble wildly to avoid a fall. The invisible hand of Faeterus beckoned. Favaronas hurried back down the mountainside and reported his failure to find water.
“A pity. I’ll have to use the drinking supply.”
Favaronas’s throat was terribly dry, but he maintained a prudent silence.
The sorcerer was grinding powders in the hollow atop the basalt block. The tarnished silver necklace and the
The contents of their only water bottle went into the pot. Faeterus sprinkled in the powders he’d mixed then added the hissing, stinking contents of the shallow pan. The vitriol had completely dissolved the silver coin and necklace.
A light breeze had come up, and the fire wavered. A sharp command from Faeterus sent Favaronas hurrying to add more wood.
Faeterus next produced a parchment, one very long, continuous sheet. “Set the pot by the fire,” he said. “Stoke the flames to medium intensity. And mind what you do! Spill that pot, and you’ll die right now!”
Favaronas placed the pot carefully next to the fire. The corrosive mixture continued to swirl as if stirred by an unseen hand. Its noxious fumes set Favaronas to coughing. Faeterus pointed a finger at him, and the archivist was horrified to feel his lips seal themselves shut again. He inhaled and exhaled rapidly through his nose and retreated to the far side of the platforms but Faeterus wasn’t done with him. The finger pointed again, and Favaronas’s legs fused at the ankles. As with his mouth, there was no outward trace of a seam. His ankles were welded together as though he’d been born that way. Caught completely by surprise, he lost his balance and fell.
The scroll proved long enough to stretch from one side of the Stair to the other. Unrolling it, Faeterus made use of the stones and tree branches Favaronas had collected. At intervals along the parchment’s length, he erected the spindly branches, supporting each with a pile of stones. He lifted the parchment, turned it on its edge, and wove it in and out of the natural forks in the branches. With a scrap of cloth from his robe and a short branch, he fashioned a makeshift swab and dipped it into the liquid simmering by the fire. He painted the liquid onto the upright sheet of parchment, covering only the side facing the valley. Then he settled himself by the dying fire.
“Now we shall see what we shall see.”
A wave of his hand brought Favaronas’s eyelids down and sealed them. That was a new horror. Blind, mouthless, hobbled, Favaronas screamed against his own flesh until he could scream no more.
