Healed by Hope by Jim Melvin Page B

and secure these upper levels.”
    Tew again came shyly forward. “Master Asēkha? Is there any way I could come along? I feel responsible, if you get my meaning. I’ve never been down there before, but I know these people and what they are capable of doing. Maybe I can help.”
    “If he goes, I go,” the countess said.
    Podhana arched an eyebrow. “Very well,” he said to Dhītar. “You have earned a spot among us.” Then he glared at the pirate. “But any signs of treachery will be dealt with mercilessly. If we choose to slay you, we will do so—regardless of any attempts to resist.”
    “Yes, sir,” Tew said.
    The platform felt surprisingly solid, with little give or sway, and it easily held the weight of its passengers, including the heavily muscled Asēkhas. Podhana watched as Tew pressed the lowest button, and instantly the platform descended, slowly at first but ever increasing in speed until it was falling so fast that Podhana believed it might have broken free of the cables. But then it slowed steadily before coming to a comfortable halt.
    “How far down have we gone?” Bruugash said with amazement in his strange voice.
    “I would guess a thousand fathoms, at least,” Podhana said.
    “Closer to twelve hundred,” Rati said.
    The rest of the Asēkhas snorted.
    Podhana was the first to step off the platform. Before him was a passageway that appeared to have been roughly hewn from the stone. Ordinary torches leaned from the walls, though only a few still burned, and the light was dim. Tew gasped and then pointed a trembling finger at one of the walls.
    “Overlord, I need more light,” Podhana said to Bruugash.
    Bruugash and Gorlong willed their tridents to glow, and they followed Podhana in the direction Tew had indicated. At the base of the stone wall was a rounded depression about the width of the bed of a small wagon. Within it were the remains of a smallish man in white robes now stained crimson with blood. Parts of the man’s body had been ground in gruesome fashion against the stone.
    “The snow giants?” Gorlong said.
    Podhana nodded. “But how many? And why?”
    “The why is obvious,” Rati said. “It appears that Mala is not the only one of his kind to be forced into violence by Invictus’s evil. The snow giants want vengeance.”
    “We know that word well,” Bruugash said.
    They soon discovered that both sides of the passageway were lined with these depressions—and each contained a mashed body of one species or another. The carnage sickened even the war-hardened Asēkhas.
    Suddenly Tew spoke in a loud voice, startling even the chieftain. “If I had known . . . if I had been allowed to see this, I never would have done what I did. I’m sorry, I swear!”
    “Known what?” Podhana said.
    “These were the birthing chambers of the golden soldiers,” Tew said sadly. “In each of these depressions, a Daasa would writhe and perish so that a soldier could be born. I heard many rumors of this, but such things are better left to the whims of your superiors. I wasn’t about to cause no trouble asking about it.” Tew sighed deeply. “Apparently the snow giants who came here before we arrived also recognized this and decided to . . . well, you can see what they decided to do.”
    This was met by a hush. The weight of such horror seemed to paralyze them. The silence was broken not by them, but by eerie mewling sounds coming from farther down the passageway. Podhana drew a lighted torch from the stone wall and started forward.
    “ Detha vo anuttaram odahanam (Attain supreme attention),” Podhana said to the others.
    Uttaras were drawn in a series of sparkling whisks. The small company continued forward, looking this way and that. The groaning grew louder and more disturbing. Podhana had never heard such a sound. He found himself moaning in response.
    “I’m not sure I can go any farther,” Dhītar said. “I can’t bear to see what lies beyond.”
    “You may stay here,”