Into the Depths-Part Three

Part Three

Gabriel floated up out of darkness, tormented by some agony that clawed at this face, and wracked his body with tremors. He wished to sink back down into oblivion and away from the pain, but a hoarse pleading voice and a constant rhythmic vibration against his skin would not let him be.

After some time struggling he managed to open his eyes. It was dark, but bright moonlight shone down and lit the hair of the man that crouched near him.

Swallowing with difficulty against the painful feeling in his throat, Gabriel managed to force out “How long?”

Torch swung around to face him, then with a cry he clasped Gabriel to him, squeezing him tightly.

“You are alive, thank goodness you are alive. We must hurry back to the caves, to my home world. We must go now!”

Gabriel understood his sense of urgency, but he was slightly disgruntled as well. He currently felt as if he might genuinely be dying, yet this man cared only to return to his people.

He tried to lever himself up and failed.

“Don’t try and get up, I’ll carry you. Simply tell me where the portal is. We must return immediately,” Torch said.

“I closed it,” Gabriel answered flatly, “those creatures might have tried to follow us through, I had no choice.”

“Then how do we get back?” Torch questioned his voice filled with panic. Gabriel felt like panicking himself. Trying to gate back into a cave system was bad enough, but with his mind so muddled he was likely to kill them both. He pondered telling Torch that it was simply impossible, but decided he should at least try and explain.

“We will have to wait until my mind is clear enough to attempt another gate and even then we’ll have to test it carefully before going through ourselves.  Building a gate down into a cave system like that is very dangerous, we might end up half buried in the rock with no way out or worse.” Gabriel explained patiently. His head was throbbing and the walls of the cave kept spinning around him. The more he spoke the more a fire lit upon his face and for once his expressionlessness was a true blessing, for the muscles of his face barely moved.

“If we wait, your mind will only muddy further,” Torch said his tone full of despair, “the poison on the claws of those beasts is deadly and the longer it is in your system, the harder it will be to treat. The cure...the cure is in the caves, I can get it for you, but...we have to be there! I know not if it even exists on this world, it is something we specially cultivated to grow there and even if it were here, I know not where to find it.”

Gabriel stared at Torch as comprehension slowly sank in and he felt a moment of shame as he realized how much he’d misjudged the other man. Then the urgency of their situation truly hit him. What was the chance that they had an appropriate anti-toxin or anti-venom at home that would work? If they didn’t, how long would it take to manufacture one and how long before the poison in his system would claim his life. Instead of gating them both to his home he turned his eyes inward, searching through the gate for their route back. But the caves they had left were a blur in his mind and he could latch onto no secure place to put the other end of the portal. The possibilities fluctuating too greatly and the line between open space and solid rock blurring to his perception.

He searched again and felt dizziness come in waves, distorting even his vision of the worlds through the gate...but then he perceived that some of that distortion was not dizziness at all, but rather a slight ripple left by the the last gate he had set here.

Panting with effort he created the gate following the template left by the ripples of the older one, and then clutching Torch’s hand, he pointed to it and whispered, “Same gate as before, to the same spot...the best I can do,” before the blackness reached up with dark claws and took him entirely.

Gabriel once again swam in darkness, but now the fire in his face had eased. It was a sickening pain in his stomach and a sense of nausea that brought him to the surface.

The first thing to meet his eyes made no sense to Gabriel’s addled brain and he stared a long moment, his head swaying with some motion, before he realized he was staring at the curves of Torch’s ass from above with his legs flashing below as he half ran, half walked.

The pain in his stomach resolved into Torch’s shoulder where it jabbed him as he was carried and the nausea was no doubt induced by the swaying.

Struggling a bit, Gabriel pushed himself up slightly, by pressing his hands against Torch’s strongly muscled back, and then yelped when the man squeezed his hand around Gabriel’s thigh in response.

“Let me down,” Gabriel tried for the words, but all that came out of his mouth was a dry croak.

“We will rest ahead, so please hold on for now,” Torch informed him.

Gabriel didn’t recognize the caves they were in, but judging by the way the walls shook, they must have travelled far while he was unconscious. That, or more of the cave system had gone unstable while they were gone.

They reached a larger cavern with a quiet pool of water, and Torch gently slid Gabriel off his shoulder, careful not to jar him, and propped him against the wall.

He moved off swiftly, stretching his shoulder, headed for the water and Gabriel found his mind drifting towards blackness, now that the world wasn’t lurching beneath him with each step of  Torch’s stride.

Another tremor woke him quickly and his eyes snapped open to assess their danger.

“Are we close to your people?” Gabriel asked, the chamber was one he didn’t recognize at all, and with a source of water they would have stopped here on their previous journey if they had come this way. Torch must have found them a different route.

“Yes,” Torch said, his face very tight and troubled, “But three of the routes to them were blocked by rockfall. The whole area has gone massively unstable.”

“How long was I out for?” Gabriel asked in shock.

“Four days.” 

“You’ve been carrying me that whole time?” Gabriel asked in alarm.

“I took breaks,” Torch said mildly.

“How...” Gabriel trailed off without completing his question, but Torch answered anyways.

“My people were bred that way, to be strong, fast, hardy. Our eyesight, hearing and sense of smell are sharper and more acute. We can run faster, our bones are very dense so they don’t break easily,” Torch’s voice took on a fond note of pride, but his eyes were distant as if he were talking about someone else and not his own race, “We live much longer lives as well,” he finished finally.

“Any downsides to that?” Gabriel questioned, glad at least that the conversation was clearing his head.

“We can’t swim,” Torch answered with a wry smile, “We sink like a stone and we’re heavier than we look.”

The man’s face was went still and he lowered his head a bit, white hair falling forward to shadow his face.

“And there’s infertility,” he said finally his voice very soft, “many of us are born infertile and thus our numbers are fewer every year.”

The way he spoke gave Gabriel the hint that this was likely a problem that had touched Torch personally. The expectant silence that followed made it clear Torch was willing to open up if Gabriel should ask him about it, but Gabriel had a good idea they wouldn’t see eye to eye on the issue. An infertile man that wished desperately for the ability to help continue his race, would not likely sympathize with a boy who desperately wished to get out of carrying on his own family name even if it did come packaged as “my grandfather wants me to fuck my cousin.”

“Well,” Torch continued after a moment of awkward silence.

To cover his discomfort he began tending to Gabriel checking his wound, taking his pulse and checking the temperature of his skin.

“Are you good to carry on?” Torch asked when he was finished.

The white haired man stretched and Gabriel couldn’t help but ponder again how the man had carried him such a distance. Surely it must have been taxing, even to one of Torch’s strength. But the man’s urgency to reach his people was clear.

Gabriel’s own anxiety about the fate of Torch’s people was rising by the moment and another small quake was enough to convince him that they dare not linger.

“Let’s go,” he said, pushing himself to his feet despite the weakness in his muscles, “If I collapse again, then carry me,  but I think we must hurry to get there in time.”

Now that he was conscious Gabriel could feel it, a moment of importance coming, a moment that would resonate so strongly as to create echoes of this world.

Torch took Gabriel’s hand and they started travelling. Slow at first, but then with more speed as Gabriel pushed the stiffness out of his muscles.

It was not long before his whole body was one screaming mass of pain and he felt like he would have given almost anything to stop, but he knew they didn’t dare.

“Tell me more about your people,” he asked Torch between panting breaths, needing the distraction so that he could keep going.

Torch looked at him a moment, weighing the threat of making extra noise as they travelled against the good it would do to keep his companion on his feet. Finally he gave a nod, and picking up the pace once more, he began to tell Gabriel of his people, starting with his own family and his two beloved younger sisters and smart beautiful older sister. They were the pride of the colony, genetically fit and sound with full capacity fertility. He spoke of the nephew his older sister had already bore, much beloved and future hope for the colony. It was immediately clear that Torch treasured his family. That he adored them and was adored in turn. Gabriel felt a pang of ugly emotion at that, something that resembled jealousy or envy, but he squashed it down. To ward off the ugly emotion, he asked more questions this time less personal, about their culture, about their language. He learned that the rhythm that Torch had so repeatedly greeted him with, tapped upon the rocks was part of a complicated distance language his people had created, and that much of their language was communicated through subtle vibrations during touch. Other things were communicated by scent and subtle body language and almost nothing was verbalized.

Gabriel had a moment of horror to realize he was about to greet a people who would all wish to reply by touching him or breathing on him. The thought made his skin crawl, but he hid his aversion from Torch.  At last they reached a long switchback staircase that was the last obstacle before reaching Torch’s people and they both breathed a sigh of relief to see the staircase intact and the area around it seemingly undisturbed by the recent quakes. In fact, Gabriel realized it had been quite some time since they’d felt the tremors and he hoped that meant they’d travelled out of the area that was experiencing them.

Unfortunately, not far up the staircase, Gabriel’s muscles seized. He fell to his knees, barely stopping himself in time before smashing face first into the sharp stone stairs.

Gabriel attempted to right himself and discovered he couldn’t. Swallowing his pride he turned to Torch.

“Have you the strength to carry me the rest of the way?” he asked.

Torch didn’t answer. He just scooped Gabriel up and turned to run up the stairs with him.

Gabriel could feel the hardness of the man, the unyielding determination as he ran with them both and for the first time Gabriel wished for a greater power. A power that would let him rescue this man’s people no matter what they found on the other side of the stairs. He hated this feeling of creeping anxiety and worry.

At last they reached the summit.  Ahead was a thick square door set into the stone before them. Torch moved to it and with feverish speed he tapped out a complicated rhythm over the surface of it. The door gave a hiss and then opened swinging outward. They passed through and came out upon a high ledge looking out over a vast underground cavern. Light glowed from all over and Gabriel stared in wonder as he beheld the city of Torch’s people. Torch sagged with relief to find his home intact. After a moment of ragged breathing where Gabriel was careful not to watch his face, he composed himself. He pointed to a spot in the distance where a particularly bright and beautiful structure stood, festooned with lights. Only the size of the structure allowed it to be seen at this distance.

“There. That is home,” Torch told him proudly and Gabriel regarded the structure with no little awe, for it was truly a feat of engineering. Now at last Gabriel could see the technology of these people. It could be seen in the way the buildings were constructed, in the complicated mass of reinforcement and lighting rigged to the high domed ceiling. He noted with interest tiers of crops incorporated into the walls of the cavern. Even the clever way the roofs of each dwelling became a garden was ingenious making the best use of every space.

In a way Gabriel was sad that he would be leading these people away from their home, for clearly this was a place where they had learned to live in harmony with their surroundings.

This here before him was a portrait of what the colonies should have been, the lesson they should have learned.

Torch took Gabriel very gently by the elbow, distracting him from his thoughts and they began the long trek down to the cavern floor.

They were about halfway down the slope when it began. Torch felt it first and his eyes went wide with horror, but then Gabriel felt it too, a trembling in the stone beneath them that increased and increased until they could no longer stand.

Lights overhead swayed and then came crashing down. Screams of animals and people could be heard from below. The dim white light of the plant life was suddenly snuffed out, and the cavern grew darker, as if a thunderstorm had rolled in.

 The rock beneath them was shaking so fiercely that it pulled their feet from beneath them, and they could only cling on with their fingers as it tossed them about. There was a horrifying groan from the rock above them, and a loud crack, then another groan. A huge hunk of rock gave way, crashing to the cavern floor so far below and Gabriel watched in horror as it obliterated the house beneath it. Another piece of the ceiling gave way, this time very close, and a cloud of dust rose to obscure their view.

Gabriel tried to get to his feet, but failed, falling again as the rock beneath him jarred. The tang of blood filled his mouth and he looked up in time to see that the dust had cleared a little. For a moment time seemed to slow and his eyes glued to the spectacle, Gabriel watched as the rock that formed the ceiling at the far end of the cavern gave way and then like a rippling wave the ceiling poured down in a chain reaction that was headed straight across the cavern for them. The supports that were there to bolster the ceiling buckled one after another, the crushing weight above them more than they could bear now that the structural integrity of the cavern itself was destroyed.  As he watched, it methodically snuffed out the lights below, pulverizing everything beneath the weight of itself as it came crashing down.

Gabriel turned to find Torch frozen in place, just watching the spectacle from where they were clinging to the rocks, his eyes round with horror and disbelief.

Gabriel gathered himself against the rocks, feeling his bones strain as they took the force of the lurching and shaking beneath him. He waited until the moment the last light was snuffed out in the cavern before launching himself at Torch and wrapping himself around his body, propelling them both through the gate he’d just opened.

They landed in the soft grass of the west wing gardens of his family home.

Gabriel cradled the other man’s head against him to shield his eyes from the light and tried to think what he should do now.

His mind felt numb from the horror of what he’d seen and combined with the reaction to the poison, he felt like his thoughts were filled with fog. Distantly he could feel his emotions swirl. Desolation, failure, empathy and dread churned below the surface, but he ignored them. His eyes stared around him blankly and he half expected one of the servants to see him and come help. For once he didn’t mind that he might appear weak and he welcomed the interference, for he felt like what he had seen and witnessed was somehow too much for him to cope as if the weight of the roof had crushed down on some part of him, but no help arrived.

Gabriel sat that way for long minutes, shielding Torch against him, staring mindlessly at the grass, when it suddenly hit him that it had grown much too long, nearly as tall as his knees if he were standing. The servants would never allow the grass to grow so long, his grandfather would be completely affronted at the slight.

Gabriel blinked a moment, then looked about himself with more care. He noticed signs of neglect everywhere he looked, the flowers were untended, there were no signs of the animals that normally inhabited the place and aside from the birds calling in the trees there was no noise. His home was normally full of the murmuring and chattering of servants, the lowing of cows, the whickering of horses, even the annoying clucks and crows of two dozen chickens, but now there was nothing. There should be a hundred plus servants and animals here, yet it was silent as the grave.

Gabriel felt his face go stiff and artificial calm rained down on him, clearing his mind.

Something had happened to his family.

Reaching into a pocket, Gabriel pulled out a fine lace edged handkerchief and used it to bind thinly over Torch’s eyes and block some of the light, obscuring his vision slightly so he could cope better with the vastness of the sky and the openness around them..

“This is my family home,” Gabriel told him in a flat voice, “I brought us here seeking safety, but it appears something has occurred. I need to investigate where my family has gone.”

Torch suddenly rolled to his feet. His body was shaking slightly but otherwise he made no noise or indication of his thoughts, his face completely blank, like some strange reversal of the time they first met each other in the caves.. He followed as Gabriel led him across the overgrown garden and into the main house.

Four hours later Gabriel knew for sure none of his family were still there. Every servant and animal was also gone. Many things in the house were missing, but none of the things in the vaults were gone, leading Gabriel to believe there must have been some foul play at work. His family would never abandon the technology locked in those vaults.

The door to Gabriel’s room was locked shut and wouldn’t open even with his key. He finally gated himself and Torch inside. The first thing he noticed was the stench. Locked and barricaded from the inside, he found his door guarded by the body of the family’s head footman, a man who had always shown particular loyalty to Gabriel himself. The man’s stomach was bandaged, but the huge brownish stain on the floor beneath him told tale of the futility of those bindings.

“They were attacked,” Gabriel said flatly though he didn’t expect Torch to respond. The man maintained his silence, and lack of expression following only a step behind Gabriel regardless of where he had travelled in the house. Gabriel knew he should probably do something for Torch right now, talk to him and comfort him, perhaps even think about trying to take him back to his world and look for survivors. But somehow both of those options made Gabriel feel unnerved. It was far, far easier for him to focus on the mystery here then to delve into his own shattered feelings on the subject, so that is what he did, squashing all other concerns down to the darkest reaches of his soul.

They searched the house from top to bottom for clues, then baffled by what they had found and knowing they would get no more answers there, Gabriel gated them to the village below the estates that served as home for the servants of the manor.

There he found many of the family servants alive and well. The relief he felt on finding them surprised him and under the cold facade he was trying to maintain, he told himself he was simply glad they were there to be sources of information for him. He located and spoke to several members of the staff and he was able to begin piecing the story together.

One after another his family members had fallen ill, or gone missing. Much of the family had been en route to the estate to gather for Gabriel’s upcoming wedding and simply vanished along the way. His grandfather had quickly gathered the last of the family together and barricaded them inside the house, much to the servants dismay, but that night the old man had died, his heart giving out and the rest of the family fell into chaos. Many of the remaining family fled the house only to disappear themselves, with no reports that they had made it home.  Others stayed only to fall ill. In the end soldiers disguised as bandits stormed the house, slaughtering all the family that remained and the servants had fled, abandoning the remaining Arren’s to their doom.

Gabriel returned to the manor with Torch. He needed to be sure that his family was truly gone and that none had taken refuge in any of the families secret retreats or hideaways. But Torch was looking paler than death, though he still had not spoke and Gabriel knew he needed to do something for him. He took the man down to the lowest levels of the house where the family vaults and medical center were located. It was a place full of lost technology and one of the  few places in the house that the bandits had clearly not known about, for there was no sign of their pilfering and the secret door to the place was still closed and locked. Gabriel was unsurprised that his family had failed to use the safe spot to hole up. Only the gifted members of the family and the two highest ranked servants were even aware of the rooms and from the stories the servants had told, the gifted members of his family had died first.

He led Torch into the medical center and guiding him gently by the hand led him to lay down on one of the cots there. He gave Torch a sedative and watched to be sure that Torch’s vital’s remained normal as he drifted off into a deep slumber. He left Torch sleeping and ignoring his own exhaustion, quickly travelled by gate to look for some sign of his family.

There was not a single sign of them, not even their bodies.  The entire family was missing down to every last fourth cousin twice removed that he’d been forced to memorize by his grandfather. More than that, every personal gate device that the talented members of his family had carried was also missing and that gave clue to the game. The devices had been stolen before by greedy men hoping to use their power. Even the original Infinity Gate device had been stolen from Professor Arren, but none but Gabriel’s family could use it, regardless of how hard they tried and how much they studied. Gabriel made a mental note to try and get the tracking computer back up and running, it had been built for exactly the purpose of tracking any missing devices and though it only worked on the original colony worlds, it might yet lead him to some information on who had destroyed his family. For one thing was certain, Gabriel’s family was dead. The Arren’s were singular entities within the gates, even the non-gifted members of the family. They created no echoes and their presence sang out to him regardless of where amongst the worlds they might go. Even without travelling, even without collecting the stories of the servants, Gabriel had known they were gone but still he had to look for himself and be sure.

Confirmation had only served to add to the numb void within him, like the soft lights of Torch’s city snuffed out by blackness. Gabriel felt lost, as if his spirit had also been snuffed out, yet he continued to shamble on in some weird parody of a living thing.

He returned home. He wanted to curl up in his bed, sleep...try not to dream, try not to think, but there was a dead man in his rooms.

Gabriel wrinkled his nose in disgust at his thoughts.

Some little inner voice berated him for the expression and he forced his face into stillness only to remember that there was no one left to see if he showed a little weakness if he had an expression.

Still, the cold mask felt stronger than his puling emotions, so he left it in place.

He joined Torch on the cot in the medical bay, choosing to lay close to the man so that he could monitor him as he slept.

 He needed to sleep before he could decide the future.

Gabriel closed his eyes and felt the world spinning about him. He reached with one finger to gently touch the gate device that hung from his own ear as blackness swam up to claim his exhausted mind.

A gentle rap at the door woke Gabriel from his sleep. He recognized the precise tapping sound as it was exactly the way the head butler had trained his staff to knock before entering a room.

Struggling out of sleep, Gabriel found himself suffocatingly hot. Torch was wrapped tightly around him, clinging to his body and shaking slightly even in his sleep. Gabriel levered himself up out of the other man’s arms and cringed a little as the other man whimpered at the loss.

Moving carefully on sleep stiff muscles, Gabriel moved to the door and taking a moment to be sure his weakness didn’t show, he opened it to find the calm face of the head butler waiting for him.

“I brought your tea, Lord Arren,” the man said calmly, as if everything were normal and the house wasn’t ransacked and abandoned.

Gabriel managed to nod politely the way his grandfather had taught him, all the while his mind was racing.

He gracefully accepted a teacup along with one of the delicate cakes and settled back against a nearby hospital cot to enjoy it.

 He watched the man’s face carefully as he deliberately took a big bite of the cake, then chased it down with a good sized gulp of the tea. He took another more moderate sip before speaking.

 “If, as I suspect, the majority of the family were poisoned, rather than contracting a natural illness, you would be my prime suspect for administering it,” he said nonchalantly, taking another bite of the cake.

He allowed a hint of deadly intent to enter the dark pools of his eyes.

“Yes my lord,” the older man said unruffled, “but I suspect it was actually footman Godfey, head  footman Winstone and chambermaid Kerry who completed the deed. They have disappeared, and no signs of their bodies were found.”

“You investigated?” Gabriel questioned.

“I did, sir,” the man answered with dignity, “I have served this family my whole life. I could not let them pass without searching for answers.”

A noise from behind him made Gabriel turn and he caught sight of Torch thrashing on the bed.

“Go,” he commanded perfunctorily, waving the servant to leave.

“Wait,” he called back over his shoulder, “did the rest of the staff return?”

The head butler inclined his head.

“You’ll find Head Footman Winstone in my rooms, I suspect from the nature of his injuries that he was indeed loyal. Please deal with that first before tending to the rest of the house,” he commanded. Then keeping a close eye on Torch, he locked the door to the room before returning to the white haired man’s side.

Torch’s body thrashed on the cot, his legs jerking and twitching. Sweat had broken out all over his body and his eyes moved frantically beneath the closed lids. Yet he made not a single sound above the hiss of his body against the fabric of the cot and the occasional dull thump he made hitting it.

Gabriel reached out a hand to feel Torch’s forehead and bright gold eyes snapped open locking on his. For a moment Torch was there, alive and aware. Then like the fog rolling in, dullness came over his eyes and all his vitality faded away.

Suddenly desperate to halt that, Gabriel grabbed Torch’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“I’ll take you back, we’ll find survivors,” he promised recklessly..

“No,” Torch croaked, “they are all dead.”

“You don’t know that!” Gabriel insisted, though some part of him was sure it was the truth, “there could be survivors in the rubble. We’ve been away less than a day, if we return we might be able to save some.”

Torch met his eyes firmly, “They are all dead,” he said with a note of finality.

For a moment it was as if there were a thousand voices shouting in Gabriel’s head. He could not order his thoughts as they spun out in many directions. Unable to deduce the correct answer he blindly chose one and spoke it.

“What then would you have me do with you?” he asked the white haired man.

“Save me?” Torch whispered, as if he didn’t understand the meaning of the words.

“I can’t save anyone,” Gabriel answered and the truth in that echoed in his head, killing all hope in it’s path. Yet part of him was still clinging to the desire, the need.

Torch regarded Gabriel, his normally mobile face still dead and lifeless. Slowly he cocked his head to one side, then the other,finally he nodded to himself as if reaching a decision.

“Your family is gone,” he spoke the words as fact rather than question.

“Yes,” Gabriel answered.

“Mine too,” Torch said simply.

He crawled off the cot and knelt down on the floor.

Then he lowered his body till his forehead rested atop one of Gabriel’s boots.

Reaching with an awkward hand he grabbed his climbing hook from where it rested half under the cot and set it on the floor beside him. Without looking at it, his face still pressed to Gabriel’s boot, he cut his thumb upon the blade.

Then gripping Gabriel’s ankle with the other hand he intoned solemnly while faint vibrations crept up Gabriels leg.

“For saving me and for trying to save my people I swear this.”

“By my blood and this weapon I shall protect you.”

Moving his bloody thumb to his face, he tilted his head to the side to press it to his forehead.

“By my blood and mind I shall serve you.”

Lastly he lifted his body so that he could look Gabriel in the face and he pressed his thumb to his heart while he intoned.

“By my blood, heart and spirit I now belong to you. Use me as you wish, for my life is now yours.”

Gabriel felt a cold shudder go through him as the weight of the man’s words settled on his shoulders. He had no doubt this was a totally binding vow for Torch to make and the responsibility of this man’s life only served to remind Gabriel of his other burdens. His last hope for redemption was snuffed out.

Very soon he must leave the quietness of this room and take on the mantle of Lord Arren. It was imperative that he visit the colony leaders immediately and show them the strength of the Arren family remained undimmed, for among them crept those who had thought to exterminate his clan and seize the power for their own.

Perhaps another man might have stopped to grieve his family first, but Gabriel felt no desire to do so. The puzzle of their deaths was there in his mind, the blackness of the loss of Torch’s people, but no grief welled up within him. Instead, like ice settling into his bones, he only felt...alone.

His responsibility now was not simply to guide the rest of his family in carrying out the duties of the Arren’s and supporting them with his strength, but instead to take the place of every single one of them, keeping the peace between a multitude of worlds. If he failed in his task, the weaker colonies would be preyed upon by the strong and war would come. Lights would be snuffed out in masses.

A tremor went through Gabriel’s frame as the weight of that burden settled fully in his bones, but he didn’t buckle beneath it’s weight. The pride of the Arren’s would be maintained and for the length of his life at least, the Arren family would continue to serve.

He studied Torch a moment. All trace of the warm and friendly man he’d known in the caves was gone and a cold, hard, shell of a man stood before him, but the man was strong, fast, powerful and now wholly dedicated to him. He could be used and Lord Arren required such. He would need many more of such servants if he were to keep the peace and staring at Torch he now had an inkling of how and where he might find them.  With this man at his back and by his side, he could accomplish his goals.

“Come,” he told his new servant, “I no longer need worry about collecting guesting gifts for the colony leaders to impress them with my usefulness,” there was no hint of irony or childlike resentment in his tone, only flat coldness. “I think instead I shall gift them with a display of my strength so that none get it in their head to question my power and the authority of the Arren family.”

“We go to search for your family’s killers?” Torch questioned, rising from the floor. There was a certain eagerness in his voice, as if the prospect of a fight roused his spirit.

“No,” Lord Arren answered, “there is no need to hunt for them, for they will surely come hunting for us,” he turned to meet Torch’s eye and offered a challenge,” Are you up to the task of protecting me?”

Torch’s eyes gleamed in a parody of their former life and he stroked one hand down the handle of his climbing hook to show his readiness.

“Then come, it is time I set my house in order,” Lord Arren told him heading for the door.

“Yes master,” Torch replied and like a silent graceful shadow he followed behind.