Free The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) by Matt Gilbert Page B

escaping into
dreams, this time.
    Aiul found himself on a barren
plain that extended in all directions as far as he could see. Cold,
gray light, its source invisible, filtered through dark clouds
overhead, illuminating a scorched wasteland. There were no plants or
animals, only dirt and rock, dust and wind, and all about, blackened
areas where fire had scoured the surface clean of color. It was gray
and lifeless, a world of ash.
    He scanned the horizon,
searching for something, anything that might serve as a sign of
habitation, but saw nothing but more of the same rubble.
    He heard a chuckle and felt his
heart skip within his chest. It was the voice! He was certain of it!
It was weaker, but it still chilled him to the depths of his soul.
“Who are you?” he shouted to the gray sky, looking about
frantically. “What do you want of me?”
    “You called to me,”
the voice answered. The words had the same strength as before, and
he felt the terror rising in him again, the urge to scream and bury
himself in the earth as the sensations of horror, grief, and madness
bored into his soul.
    “I can’t bear it!”
he cried out. “Leave me alone!”
    “You called to me,”
the voice repeated, “And I am come.”
    Aiul covered his ears and
ground his teeth, using the shock of physical pain to anchor him
against the storm. “Who are you?” he cried out again.
    “I have many names,”
the voice answered. “Destroyer. Violator. Monster. Hater.
Elgar. You called out to me, and I am come.”
    “No,” he whispered,
both a denial and a plea. “I didn’t mean it. Please—“
    “ Liar !”
The sensory assault was changed now. It was the sight of a trusted
lover caught in bed with a best friend, the sound their sighs
together, the burning of flame in the heart and mind. But it was the
taste that made it bearable, the sweetness of standing with a boot
on that former friend’s neck as he grovels and begs for mercy
that he knows can never come.
    Aiul staggered and collapsed,
overwhelmed, face down in the dirt, raising his arms above his head
like a shield, desperate to block out the cacophony. For long
moments he waited, cringing against more words, but the next sound
he heard was the crunch of metal on gravel, right beside his head.
    Slowly, trembling, he raised
his eyes and stared, taking in the figure that stood over him.
    The newcomer was of average
height and armored for battle, perhaps six foot three, though
seemingly much larger from Aiul’s vantage point. Tiny death’s
heads, some graven into the armor’s plates, others embossed
and adorned with black gems for eye sockets, leered downward at him,
mocking him with their mindless grins and empty stares. The mail he
wore was blackened and scored, as if he had just walked from a
battlefield. Fresh blood and gore streaked the surface of his armor,
splattered from slain enemies. Dark, viscous liquid oozed from
breaches in the mail, running into the eye sockets and between the
grinning teeth of the skulls. He wore no helm, however, and that, in
particular, made Aiul’s blood run cold.
    The face looming above him was
his own. He blinked rapidly, in shock, his mind reaching for
denials, and finding purchase on minor details, at least. The eyes
were not his own green, but instead pools of pure black, windows
into a cold hell, full of hate and malice that sent chills up and
down his spine, made his stomach rebel and his muscles tremble with
weakness. The hair, too, was changed, not his dirty blonde, but a
sickly, gray-white, the color of sun bleached bone. The wind whipped
it about his double’s head, strands of it striking toward the
sunken, unblinking eyes and caressing high, ashen cheekbones like
the hands of a lover.
    “I am come,” the
figure said, this time in Aiul’s own voice, rather than the voice. It, too, was subtly different, more sinister, cold, but
again, close enough that it could not be confused as simple
happenstance.
    “What do you want of
me?” Aiul