Chapter 23

The Guardian known as Gulagh left the city of Nelton and walked out into the desert. Behind Gulagh walked a young man with loose, dirty blond hair. He was shirtless, his trousers ragged. The young man followed Gulagh with his head down, his gaze distant and unfocused. He didn’t question where they went, didn’t speak at all or make any sound.

They walked south for several hours as the sun dropped toward the horizon. They came to an area of badlands, where an ancient volcanic flow covered the ground for miles. The rock was like black glass, smooth and undulating except in those places where an air bubble trapped in the lava had broken open, leaving sharp edges. The young man cut his bare foot on one, but still made no sound. Afterwards he left a faint trail of blood to mark his passage.

Near dark they came to a hole in the ground. It was almost perfectly round and about three feet across. It was a new hole, created over the last six months by Gulagh, starting shortly after it escaped the Gur al Krin. It had only finished the hole the day before.

At the edge of the hole Gulagh wrapped its arms around the young man, then jumped in.

It was a long fall. As they neared the bottom, Gulagh began to slow their descent using its legs and one arm. The impact at the bottom was still enough to break one of the young man’s ribs, but he survived, and that was the important thing.

Because Gulagh needed him alive for what it planned to do next.

At the bottom of the shaft Gulagh had scooped out a small cavern, big enough for a person to lay down in. Despite its depth, the small cavern wasn’t dark, but was lit with an odd purple light. The light came from the floor, which was some kind of translucent stone.

With one clawed finger Gulagh scratched the young man’s chest. The wound was deep and blood began to flow immediately.

It lay the young man face down on the floor. When the young man’s blood contacted the translucent stone floor, something happened.

There was a bright flare of light from the other side.

The young man began to scream.

He tried to push off the floor but he couldn’t break away. The glow grew brighter.

Something began to seep through the floor.

It soaked into the young man’s body. He continued to scream, his limbs thrashing as he fought futilely to get free. Terrible lesions broke out all over his body. Weird bulges formed under his skin, one on his throat, the other on the side of his head.

The slender thread of Song attached to him began to change, a cancerous yellow taint spreading up its golden purity.

The taint crept up and up the flow, spreading after a while into the larger feeder line of Song that it was connected to, and from there into the even larger trunk line.

At last it reached the River and dripped into it. A stain appeared in its golden purity.

Without looking down at the young man, who was still screaming and thrashing, Gulagh climbed out of the shaft and returned to the city of Nelton. The young man was strong enough to survive for several days and during that time he would serve as a conduit passing the poison of the abyss into the River, thence to spread out to the rest of the living world.

After several days he would have to be replaced, but that was not a problem. Gulagh had plenty more to choose from in the city it now controlled.

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