Free Path of the Crushed Heart: Book Four of the Serpent Catch Series by David Farland Page B

at Phylomon.
    “Are you sure you left him alive?” the man in red asked.
    “Yes, My Lord,” Mahkawn said. “Barely.”
    Tull could think of only one person who ranked higher than Mahkawn, and he was amazed to see the Slave Lord. Tantos stood tall—almost as tall as Phylomon’s seven feet—as if he held the pure blood of the Starfarers of old. Tantos had his back to Tull, so that Tull could not see his face.
    “Remove the straw from Phylomon’s cell,” Tantos said, “so that he does not eat it and receive nourishment. See that he gets no food or drink for one month. At the end of that time, bring his skin to me.”
    “Yes, My Lord,” Mahkawn answered. “If you wish, we can skin him alive for you now. He is very weak.”
    Tantos leaned forward, wrapped his lean hands around the bars of Phylomon’s cell, and Tull saw that they were red, as dark red as a cardinal. “No. He has done me great harm these past two centuries. I want him to die slowly.”
    “I could arrange that,” Mahkawn said. “A little water would keep him longer.”
    “No it wouldn’t,” Tantos said. “I killed his brother by keeping him in a pit for months, without food or drink. The symbiote wrung water from the air, as much as it could. Phylomon’s symbiote has been his ally these many centuries, but without food or water, it will be forced to eat him. That torture is more exquisite than anything you could devise.”
    Tantos turned. Tull saw a brief flash of his face under the deep hood, a crimson face without hair or lashes.
    The guards returned, chained Phylomon where he lay.

    Tull counted the days by the number of meals served, and for the next four days he sat in his cell, and from time to time he would get up and look at Phylomon. The blue man lay on his back, his right hand in the air as if grasping something, his head turned to the left. He did not move in four days, outside the shallowest breathing, and sometimes Tull would speak to him in the darkness, try to say something to comfort the dying man.
    Finally, once when the torches were burned down to stubs and fluttered in their sconces, Phylomon moaned in pain, begging, “Water.”
    “There is no water,” Tull replied, and the blue man lay silent for a long time. Khur was sleeping in his cell.
    Phylomon spoke softly. “Chaa said … that you could throw down the Slave Lords. He said … you could destroy them, if you get free.”
    Tull went to the bars of his cell and pressed his face tightly against them. Phylomon lay in the same position, unmoved, and if Tull hadn’t heard the words, he would have sworn that the mound couldn’t speak.
    “What did he say?” Tull asked.
    “Before we captured the serpents, Chaa, told me … you would throw down the slave lords.” Phylomon’s dry lips barely moved. “He told me, I’d die, horribly.”
    “Is it horrible?” Tull asked.
    “I feel the symbiote,” Phylomon said at last, “consuming. It has … kept me alive—centuries. Now, I keep it alive.”
    Tull said, “In order to get free, the Blade Kin want me to become like them. They want to put me in the arena, and they want me to fight other innocent men.”
    “They want you to fight … criminals, who deserve to die.” Phylomon argued.
    “But some do not,” Tull said.
    “I have battled … a thousand years. Watched, half a million, innocent men—die. Carry on that fight. Their blood is on your hands. Free yourself.”
    Tull squatted, thinking. “I’m afraid,” he said at last. “To kill innocent men is … Mahkawn knows me. He sees himself in me. It would be too easy to become like him.”
    Phylomon did not answer, and lay as if sleeping. Tull strained against his chains, snapping them at odd angles, trying to find some way to pull them from the ground. But the chains were well anchored, and hours of struggling had bought him only bloodied limbs.
    Phylomon did not speak for the rest of the day.
    On the next, his chest began to heave, and he gasped for