Child of a Dead God Read Free Page B

stone floor and sat up quickly. He had never dreamed in dormancy before.

    Muted moans and cries drifted down the stairwell, and Chane took brief relief in realization. The sounds had come from the dead rousing in the cells, not in his dream, and the glint in the dark, as if something moved . . .

    Chane turned around.

    A dim line of fading light stretched across the floor. The last of dusk’s light crept between the window’s shutters. The low fire still burned in the hearth, but the young priest’s withered corpse was gone, and Welstiel was nowhere in sight. Only then did Chane notice a dim light at the top of the stairs.

    The moans and agonized calls pulled at him. He took slow steps up the stairwell and saw a lantern upon the floor. Welstiel sat upon a stool just beyond it in the passage’s near corner.

    “Six,” Welstiel whispered, his voice laced with astonishment. “Can you hear them? Six of ten, all risen. My highest hope had been three.”

    Chane barely heard him as longing surged at the smell of blood still on the floor. Panicked mewling escaped through the spaces below the cell doors and echoed along the stone walls. Or were they only in Chane’s mind?

    The second door on the left rattled.

    It shuddered twice as something rammed against its inner side, and then lurched as it was pulled hard from within. A sharp grating of metal on stone snapped Chane from his morbid fascination. In place of wood shards, each door handle on the left was jammed with a plain iron shaft.

    “ You will now watch over them,” Welstiel said. “I have other preparations to make.”

    Chane caught the implication. “You have been here watching all day? How . . . how could you keep from falling dormant?”

    Welstiel ignored him. More iron bars leaned against the wall beyond his stool.

    “You plan to drain more of them . . . and brace them in?” Chane asked.

    Welstiel shook his head, still watching the one shuddering door. “The spare bars are for when one is no longer enough.”

    Chane stared at Welstiel, confused. Had the man abandoned all reason amid a night of gluttony, driven over the edge by his revulsion for feeding? Living priests were still trapped in the right-side cells—to satisfy the appetites of Welstiel’s newborns. If he knew his creations would break free, then why wait to reinforce the doors? And why keep his new servants locked up at all?

    As if reading Chane’s thoughts, Welstiel answered. “To let them hope they might yet break free and feed . . . and as reason fades and desperation grows, to take that hope—and sanity—and leave only the hunger.”

    Welstiel headed downstairs as Chane stared numbly after him.

    “Do not let them out,” Welstiel warned softly, pausing at the bottom. “And if by chance you glimpse one through the crack of a straining door . . . do not look in its eyes. You may see too much of yourself reflected there.”

    Chane backed into the corner, settled upon the stool, and closed a hand tightly upon a spare iron rod.

    He couldn’t choose the greater madness surrounding him inside this fortress.

    Was it the new undeads within those small cells, or was it Welstiel, who had made them?

    Welstiel retrieved his pack and headed down the passage off from the front door. He had made it through the day without falling dormant—without a visitation from his patron of dreams. But he would not get through another such day without aid.

    He opened the few doors along the way but found only storage rooms, not quite the private place to safely sift through his belongings. The passage’s end spilled into a wide room with long rough tables and benches—a communal meal hall—and he wasted no time looking about.

    Welstiel threw open the pack’s flap to dig inside and withdraw a frosted glass globe. Three dancing sparks of light flickered within it. Their glow brightened at his touch, enough to illuminate the table. Fishing again, he retrieved the iron pedestal with the hoop