The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) Read Free Page B

the Cauldrons, she had witnessed Balor pick up a half human-half lepton prisoner and had caused a sickening crumbling of bones that turned the inmate into a sack of gore.
    The colossal creature was feared throughout the galaxy, and along with the lava and heat, was a big part of why everyone dreaded being sent to the Cauldrons of Dagda.
    Most inmates didn’t fear being crushed by Balor. They feared his single, bulbous eye. One look from the monster was lethal. Balor’s eye was positioned in the very middle of its head, and it emitted a constant stream of lethal gas. The gas dissipated, so at a distance it wasn’t deadly. But if the creature was close enough to reach out and touch you, it was already too late. The noxious gas released from Balor’s eye would kill you in a matter of seconds. And not in any kind of pretty way.
    The gas caused almost every kind of liquid to dry up. Because most species, humans and aliens alike, have water as the majority of their body composition, nearly every alien species in the galaxy that Balor looked at would die of dehydration in less than ten seconds.
    The most gruesome deaths were the ones where Balor only glanced at a prisoner for a second. It was long enough that the inmate was brought to his hands and knees and felt terrible pains shoot through his body, but not long enough for the monster’s single eye to kill them instantly. These were the prisoners who begged for death.
    Vere wondered if the alien at the other end of the wooden beam from her could possibly have any moisture in his body. It didn’t look as if he would, but he obeyed all of the guards’ orders, so she could only conclude that the monster could indeed kill the Ignus Moris if it wanted it to.
    Together, Vere and the Ignus Moris pushed the wood beam in a circle from the time they woke up until the time they were allowed to go to sleep. In return for their labor, they were given three meals a day and they were allowed to stay alive for as long as they could keep performing their task.
    It was an expectation that Vere refused to follow. Upon arriving at the Cauldrons, she had killed a guard with his own vibro whip. Afterwards, three other guards had lashed her until she was nearly dead. Instead of being pushed into the lava seas, however, she was taken to the medical bay and allowed to heal. The scars across her back and arms still reminded her of the punishment she had endured that day.
    Mowbray, she guessed, wanted her to die on his terms and not on her own. If she was going to die at the Cauldrons of Dagda, it would be because she could no longer stand it. He wanted her to quit of her own volition, to walk into the lava sea, or else drop dead the way the Gthothch had. He must have felt she was getting off too easy if the guards killed her like any other prisoner they became unhappy with.
    As soon as she had regained her health after the beating, she was sent to the Circle of Sorrow. There, she spent the next two years of her life pushing the same beam in a circle. Every week or so, after the alien across from her died and was dropped into the lava, a new alien appeared across from her and aided in the task.
    She dug her foot into the ground, braced herself, then pushed once more. Again, the beam, thicker than her body, groaned as it moved another foot forward. Across from her, the Ignus Moris did the same thing.
    Over the months and years, the act of putting all of her strength into moving the giant beam for hours at a time had the opposite effect that Mowbray had intended. Because the prisoners were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, and because she was performing grueling work every day, she had lost every ounce of fat on her body. Instead of becoming weak and frail, she had become an imposing figure. Her arms were twice as thick as they had been. Her back bulged each time she pushed. The veins in her forearms rippled each time her hands braced against the beam. Even her neck was stout with sinew and