The crimson witch

muscular, handsome young men, all postures and all acts included. But spaced between these were scenes of devils torturing equally beautiful people, devils with hunched backs and gnarled, angry faces. The work was intricate and flawless. At the top of the staircase, he moved through a verticle passageway with rungs carved from the walls and came out of a manhole into another room, much smaller than the grand chamber below, but also more intimate and somehow more beautiful. The ceiling sloped in all directions, blending in with the walls and floor so that the distinctions of partitions seemed to vanish, and Jake felt almost as if he were within a ball that had been hollowed into living quarters. The walls here were carved, too, but in wild, freeform lines and patterns that told the eye nothing, that performed no artistic function for the viewer outside of the fact that it relaxed his eye and helped him become accustomed to the dim lighting.
        “Sit down,” a voice said out of the gloom. “Make yourself comfortable.”
        He jumped, turned, hunting the voice. He found the source. A dwarf sat in one corner of the room amidst a scattering of lush pillows. There was a bottle of wine before him and two glasses. “Who-” Jake began.
        “Mordoth,” the dwarf said. “When someone enters the tangles of the Great Tree, I imagine they come looking for me. You have, have you not?”
        “I have.”
        “Then come and sit and have some wine while we talk.”
        He crossed the room. Twice he had to hunch over to get past the sloped roof that would accommodate the dwarf but would not pass him. He thought, as he hunched, what the grand chamber below must be like to this little man. If it seemed a hundred feet across to Jake, it would seem two hundred to Mordoth. He reached the pillows and sat across from the dwarf, accepted a glass of the darkly gleaming liquid and sipped it. It was quite pleasant, sweet and tangy at once. It gave off fumes that tickled his nose and made his mouth water.
        “This is some place,” Jake said, feeling a necessity for polite chatter before getting down to requests.
        “I hollowed out the passages and the room with my magics. I always think a man's house should be as grand as he can manage. This is the best I have been able to accomplish to date, though I plan a lot more work on it.”
        Jake sipped more of the wine.
        “You want something of me?” Mordoth asked, breaking the ice.
        “Yes.”
        “If it is within my powers, I'll grant it.”
        “My wife has been kidnapped. I want her back.”
        “Who was your wife?”
        “Cheryn, the Witch of Eye Mountain.”
        “The Crimson Witch!” Mordoth said, surprised.
        “That's her.”
        “I can hardly believe-”
        “It is true.”
        “Married, you say.”
        “We were going to be.”
        “And you are not a Talented!”
        “Does that make me naturally inferior as an individual?” Jake snapped, suddenly bristling. Maybe it had been a mistake to come here. Maybe he should have tried it on his own.
        “No, no,” Mordoth said. “Excuse me if I sound racist. I was just surprised. I knew of no Talented that could tame her. I am surprised you could, my boy. Why, it's a wonder she didn't ash you when you made your first advance.”
        “She couldn't.”
        “Eh?”
        “Talenteds cannot affect me negatively. They can only do good for me. The Sorceress Kell gave me that protection.”
        “I see. And congratulations for winning such a fair woman!”
        “But she's been kidnapped, you see. If I don't recover her, she won't ever marry me.”
        “But who could have kidnapped Cheryn. Her own magics are powerful enough to protect her. Surely-”
        “It was King Lelar. More exactly, it was a hag he sent to do his dirty work.”
        Mordoth nodded wisely. “I know the hag.”
        “It was the hag that told me to come to you.”
        “Yes. Yes, of course. She works for Lelar but grudgingly. I knew he would get her, yet I knew he would never fully tame her.”
        Jake fidgeted on the pillows and finished his wine, not wanting to interrupt Mordoth as the dwarf sat cross-legged, his eyes closed and his brow knitted as if he were thinking. He poured himself another glass of wine without asking and sipped at it. Finally, he could contain himself no longer. “Will you help