Page 49

He'd had little food for days and nights. Unspeakable things had been done to him.

He rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling. How the shadows danced from the licking flames of the fire. And the scratching noise continued.

Sharply, defiantly, he turned his head. The advancing hand was now only a yard from him. The fingers reached out, curled, lifting the hand, the thumb tucked underneath, and dragged the arm forward. Then once more the fingers reached, then curled and lifted, and the arm dropped down again on the stones, and again they reached.

Losing my mind, losing my soul, mad. Mad before they ever find me or free me. He couldn't take his eyes off it. He couldn't not look at it making its way towards him. Is it going to connect again? It is going to attach to my shoulder!

His horror slowly turned to hope. But as it drew closer, he caught sight of something on the palm of the hand, something glittering, indeed a pair of small glittering particles and something that resembled a mouth.

He gasped. He couldn't move. It was a face that had formed on the palm of the hand, and the small gleaming eyes were fixed on him, and the small mouth was making soft sucking noises, gaping, smacking its lips, its tiny thin lips, and the eyes met his eyes.

His mind sank beneath all that he knew. Yet some prayer was voicing itself, some prayer to the Parents to help and to guide, the Parents who had given him not the slightest word of what such a horror could mean as it came closer and closer.

The hand was almost touching him. The arm lay on the stones full length behind it and the fingers were raised and spread apart and waving in the air, and then with a lurch the fingers grasped Derek's shirt, grasped it and ripped it, tearing the buttons loose from the long placket.

Derek struggled to reason, struggled to think, I must help it, if it means to reconnect, I must help it, but he could not bring himself to move.

The heat had never left his wounded shoulder, and now it spread through all of his left side, even to his pounding heart. It was as if his heart were beating all through the left side of his body.

The arm was against him. He could feel its weight, its living weight, and with his head lifted, he stared at it, stared as the fingers touched his naked flesh, the flesh of his chest, and slowly moved upwards. It wanted to be on his naked flesh.

His eyes rolled back into his head once more. He expected to go under. He reached for the blackness, the emptiness.

He felt the fingers touching the left nipple of his chest, felt them pulling on the nipple, pulling and pulling, and the warmth collected into heat beneath his nipple.

A soft wet mouth, a tiny mouth, closed over the nipple.

And then the blackness came. And he was sliding into oblivion.

It was a dream of Atalantaya, but he was not walking her polished streets or feeling her soft warm breezes. No, he was far away from her and Atalantaya was on fire and all her people cried out to the Heavens. Smoke billowed from the melting dome, and the sea rose up to drown Derek. Kapetria and Welf were locked in each other's arms, crying for Derek as the waves carried him away, Kapetria screaming for Derek, and Garekyn was gone into the deep.

He opened his eyes.

He rubbed his face with his hands. Oh, this, the dungeon of Rhoshamandes. And the fire still burned, but it was now little more than tiny flames on one thick black log and piles of glimmering embers. The night had paled behind the high window. And no sound came to him from the castle around him of monsters plotting to torture him.

He rubbed his eyes hard with both hands again. His face was sticky from his tears.

His hands!

He had both his hands. He sat up in one swift motion staring at his hands, and down at his left arm fully restored! It had been true, the arm and the hand, but how he couldn't divine. And what would that monster Rhoshamandes do when he saw him restored? Would this be his warrant to torture Derek with the ax forever? But oh, it was glorious to have his arm restored! He flexed his fingers, opening and closing his fist, scarce believing it, that he was whole once more.

He sat there still and quiet, so relieved at the restoration of his arm that he could think of nothing else for the moment, and even the terror of Rhoshamandes was nothing to him. This was his arm, all right, strong and normal to him as it had ever been since the Parents had made him, and his left hand carried no tiny face in it.

"Father."

He looked up. What he saw so shocked him he let out a loud hoarse cry.

But the naked dark-skinned figure standing against the wall put out its hands.

"Father, be quiet!" said the figure.

It approached on bare feet and stood looking down at him. The very duplicate of Derek himself, to his dark skin and his own hair except that the long black waves that hung down around his shoulders were shot through and through with the golden-blond streaks, so that the massive head of hair was more blond than black. Otherwise it was Derek. And it was Derek's voice that had spoken.

Slowly the truth dawned on him! He knew it complete and entire without words. This being, this duplicate of himself, had formed from the severed arm, and he was staring at his own offspring! He looked down at his restored left arm and up again at the creature that was his son.

The son dropped on his knees in front of Derek. He was indeed naked, and perfect all over, dark skin without blemish, sharp eyes fixed on Derek.

"Father," he said as if he were the parent addressing the child. "You have to lift me up to that window now so that I can climb down and then when the monsters have gone to their rest, I will find my way back into the castle, to this room, and get you out of here."