He reached the tent, crouched down, then hesitated. Curiosity is my greatest curse, but simple acknowledgement of a flaw does not correct it. Alas. He drew the flap aside and looked inside.
A blanket-wrapped figure sat huddled against the tent's far wall, less than three paces away, leaning over a brazier from which smoke rose in sinuous coils. Its breathing was loud, laboured. A hand that appeared to have had every one of its bones broken lifted into view and gestured. A voice rasped from beneath the hooded blanket. 'Enter, mage. I believe I have something of yours …'
Quick Ben accessed his warrens — he could only manage seven at any one time though he possessed more. Power rippled through him in waves. He did so with reluctance — to unveil simultaneously nearly all he possessed filled him with a delicious whisper of omnipotence. Yet he knew that sensation for the dangerous, potentially fatal illusion it was.
'You realize now,' the figure continued between wheezing gasps, 'that you must retrieve it. For one such as myself to hold such a link to your admirable powers, mortal-'
'Who are you?' the wizard asked.
'Broken. Shattered. Chained to this fevered corpse beneath us. I did not ask for such a fate. I was not always a thing of pain …'
Quick Ben pressed a hand to the earth outside the tent, quested with his powers. After a long moment, his eyes widened, then slowly closed. 'You have infected her.'
'In this realm,' the figure said, 'I am as a cancer. And, with each passing of light, I grow yet more virulent. She cannot awaken, whilst I burgeon in her flesh.' He shifted slightly, and from beneath the folds of filthy blanket came the rustle of heavy chain. 'Your gods have bound me, mortal, and think the task complete.'
'You wish a service in exchange for my tracker,' Quick Ben said.
'Indeed. If I must suffer, then so too must the gods and their world-'
The wizard unleashed his host of warrens. Power ripped through the tent. The figure shrieked, jerking backward. The blanket burst into flame, as did the creature's long, tangled hair. Quick Ben darted into the tent behind the last wave of his sorcery. One hand flashed out, angled down at the wrist, palm up. His fingertips jabbed into the figure's eye-sockets, his palm slamming into its forehead, snapping the head back. Quick Ben's other hand reached out and unerringly scooped up the pebble as it rolled amidst the rushes.
The power of the warrens winked out. Even as the wizard pulled back, pivoted and dived for the entrance, the chained creature bellowed with rage. Quick Ben scrambled to his feet and ran.
The wave struck him from behind, sent him sprawling onto the hot, steaming ground. Screaming, the wizard writhed beneath the sorcerous onslaught. He tried to pull himself further away, but the power was too great. It began dragging him back. He clawed at the ground, stared at the furrows his fingers gouged in the earth, saw the dark blood welling from them.
Oh, Burn, forgive me.
The invisible, implacable grip pulled him closer to the tent entrance. Hunger and rage radiated from the figure within, as well as a certainty that such desires were moments from deliverance.
Quick Ben was helpless.
'You will know such pain!' the god roared.
Something reached up through the earth, then. A massive hand closed about the wizard, like a giant child snatching at a doll. Quick Ben screamed again as it pulled him down into the churning, steaming soil. His mouth filled with bitter earth.
A bellow of fury echoed dimly from above.
Jagged rocks ripped along the wizard's body as he was pulled further down through the flesh of the Sleeping Goddess. Starved of air, darkness slowly closed around his mind.
Then he was coughing, spitting up mouthfuls of gritty mud. Warm, sweet air filled his lungs. He clawed dirt from his eyes, rolled onto his side. Echoing groans buffeted him, the flat, hard ground beneath him slowly buckling and shifting. Quick Ben rose to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from his soul's torn flesh — his clothes were naught but strips — but he was alive. He looked up.
And almost cried out.
A vaguely human-shaped figure towered over him, easily fifteen times the wizard's own height, its bulk nearly reaching the cavern's domed ceiling. Dark flesh of clay studded with rough diamonds gleamed and glittered as the apparition shifted slightly. It seemed to be ignoring Quick Ben — though the wizard knew that it had been this beast that had saved him from the Crippled God. Its arms were raised to the ceiling directly above it, hands disappearing into the murky, red-stained roof. Vast arcs of dull white gleamed in that ceiling, evenly spaced like an endless succession of ribs. The hands appeared to be gripping or possibly were fused to two such ribs.
