Shadows Return

weight in their hands.
    They stopped at the door of an outbuilding and Ilar grabbed him by the hair again. “I’m going to do you a great favor. In fact, I’m probably granting your most heartfelt wish. I do hope you’ll show me some gratitude afterward.”
    Seregil’s heart beat faster as they took him through a large, sunny workshop. The large athanor dominating the center of the room and various alembics steaming away on a table suggested alchemy. He didn’t have time to form much of an impression otherwise; his handlers wrestled him roughly through another door on the far side of the room and down a staircase. It stopped at a landing where there was another door, then continued down into a cellar below.
    It stank of damp earth and blood here, and something else he couldn’t identify. It was sweet, but with an underlying stench of decay, like moldy apples.
    The men lowered him to his knees, but kept a grip on his arms, holding him upright. His head lolled limply, but his eyes quickly adjusted to the dim light cast by a single lamp, and he saw that part of the dirt floor had been disturbed. There was loosely mounded soil there and, as he watched, a drop of something dark and glistening fell on it. As the droplet sank in, something underneath the soil moved.
    “Ah, I see you’ve brought your friend to visit,” a deep, cultured voice remarked from somewhere across the room. The words were Aurënfaie, but the accent was Plenimaran.
    “Yes, Ilban. Thank you for allowing it,” Ilar replied.
    Ilban.
That was the Plenimaran word for master.
    Seregil turned his head slightly, wanting to see what sort of man owned Ilar. He managed a glimpse of a tall, robed figure on the far side of the disturbed earth—the alchemist, perhaps—and another, taller man in black.
    The loose earth heaved again, and Seregil was suddenly afraid of what might be about to emerge.
    “Why…?” he managed to croak.
    “I was hoping you would ask,” Ilar rasped. “Let him see.”
    His keepers released him and Seregil slumped forward in an ungainly heap. The cloying stench of the damp earth against his face was overwhelming. He gagged, then let out a startled grunt as they turned him over onto his back. He found himself staring up at some sort of grillwork suspended from the beamed ceiling. No, he realized as his eyes adjusted to the light; a cage.
    Ilar lifted a torch close to it and Seregil let out a low whine.
    Alec hung there, splayed facedown and naked. His eyes were closed and his face was slack and deathly pale. He was thin, too. Seregil could count his ribs through the bars.
    Oh Illior, he’s dead!
Seregil thought in despair, but then saw that this was not so. Corpses didn’t bleed.
    There, in the center of Alec’s chest, was a tiny metal tap, just large enough to funnel a slow, steady fall of blood, drop by slow, small drop. Every time a drop landed on the mound of earth, whatever horror lay beneath moved in response, as if it shared a pulse with Alec.
    “Killing…him!” Seregil whispered between suddenly chattering teeth.
    “I promise you, I am not,” the robed man assured him. “If my labors here prove fruitful, I will be keeping your friend alive for a very long time. He will be my precious and most prized alembic, brewing wonders for me. At the moment, I’m keeping him comfortable and asleep.”
    As if he’d heard, Alec suddenly stirred in his bonds. His hands clenched and his eyes moved behind closed lids, making his lashes quiver.
    “Alec!” Seregil croaked.
    Alec’s eyes remained closed, but his cracked lips moved. No sound issued, but Seregil was sure they formed the word “talí.”
    Ilar leaned over him, gloating. “And it’s all thanks to you, Haba. If not for you, I’d never have known this boy existed. I wanted you to see what’s become of him and show you that you are helpless to stop it.”
    Seregil glared up at him. “Kill…you!”
    “This one has spirit, too,” the alchemist observed in Plenimaran. Seregil kept very still, not letting on that he understood. “I wonder if he’d be any use to me? Which clan is he again?”
    “A Bôkthersan, Master.”
    Seregil gritted his teeth, imagining himself hanging in a cage like Alec’s.
    “But I don’t know if he’s strong enough, Master,” Ilar murmured. Seregil couldn’t see his face but caught a distinct hint of hesitation.
    “Nonsense. A little bloodletting won’t hurt him. And do I need to remind you that until I see fit to free