Free Worldbinder by David Farland Page A

wondered. A thousand years? It can’t be. My flesh would have turned to dust, and I would be beyond the power even of Lady Despair to call.
    And now the gongs were sounding, announcing that the Great Wyrm demanded his presence.
    Vulgnash swore, strode to his closet, and drew on a crimson robe to hide the ruin of his face, then went striding down the stairs, into the great hall.
    He felt so weak, he needed sustenance; and so as he entered the great hall, where servants went scurrying about in terror, their eyes wide in fright to see him, he grabbed a small girl of eight or nine.
    “Your life is mine,” he whispered, then placed five fingers upon her skull—one between her eyes, two upon each of her eyes, and his thumb and pinky finger upon her mandibles.
    At this touch, the girl’s blood turned to ice water in her veins, and she wet herself.
    The girl tried to withdraw in terror, but his fingers held to her flesh as if it were his own. Some of the servants that saw groaned or looked away in horror; one cried out the girl’s name in mourning, “Ah, little Wenya!”
    With a whispered incantation, the girl’s passions—her longing for life, her hopes and ambitions—and the fire in her soul that drove them were drawn away.
    The spell went to work, and the girl’s flesh, rife with water, began to sag and putrefy, even as Vulgnash’s own flesh gained heft and a less unwholesome color.
    When he was done, he let the girl fall away, a dry and rotting husk. He felt refreshed, but not refreshed enough. He would need to feed on others before he regained his full strength.
    But the gongs were tolling, and he had no time for it.
    He grabbed a torch from a sconce, then went striding down to the lower levels. Powerful guards cringed in terror as he passed, for they knew what Vulgnash was.
    The black basalt tunnels were cracked and broken, and often the passageway was littered with rubble and boulders. Vulgnash waded through or climbed over as the need took him.
    Is this why she summoned me? he wondered. A mere earthquake? But no, he knew that there must be some greater threat to the realm.
    In his weakened state, the race left him drained.
    The great fortress of Rugassa was built upon the crown of a volcano, and his spiraling journey downward felt like a plummet. All the while, the gongs grew louder, more insistent, until at last he had gone far enough, and the corridor opened into the audience chamber.
    Two others had arrived before him and stood at eachside of the chamber like an honor guard, robed all in crimson. Thul and Kryssidia were their names.
    She has summoned three of the Knights Eternal, Vulgnash realized, a full quorum. Great need must be upon her.
    A platform jutted out above a lake of boiling magma, which heated the room like a blast furnace. Tunnels high up allowed the hot air to escape, while lower vents, one of which sat directly behind the platform, allowed cold air to rush in.
    Thus as Vulgnash reached the end of the platform, he found himself at the mouth of the vent, a chill wind whirling all about him, making his blood-red cape flutter like a caged bird. Without the refreshing wind, no mere mortal could have withstood the heat of this place. Even Vulgnash would have succumbed in time. He peered down, hundreds of feet below, into the pool of magma.
    “Lady Despair,” Vulgnash cried. “I hear your summons, and obey.”
    The lake of magma below him was red hot. Suddenly it boiled madly and the lake began to rise. Molten stone churned, and the level kept rising, until it seemed that the platform itself would be swallowed by magma.
    Then the mouth of the great wyrm appeared, rising from the molten flow.
    She was a hundred yards in diameter, and her mouth, which had five hinges, each jaw shaped like a spade, could have swallowed a small fortress.
    She rose up, and magma streamed off of her.
    Vulgnash dropped to one knee and bowed until the bony plate on his forehead touched the hot floor.
    A great rushing voice