“Croix!” I shouted, turning. “Croix, you coward! Come out and fight!”
No answer. Might stirred in my hands, throbbing and unsatiated. Flakes of burnt skin sloughed off my face as I searched for the cardinal.
“Mouth.” “Tegeus.” “Hands.” “Eyes.” “Hound.” “Tegeus.” “Welcome.” “Lover.” “Tegeus.” “Welcome.” “Tegeus.” “Mine.” “Hands.” “Come.” “Eyes.” “Hound.”
The cacophony echoed through the empty building, making the words even more difficult to understand than usual. I reluctantly turned toward the altar.
Yzyrchye bulged through the bale, distorting the sanctuary’s walls and revealing them as the shadow of reality that they were. Only a small part of the Sovereign of Hell was capable of manifesting through Far’s construct, but it was enough to send two dozen probes thrusting at me, testing and tasting.
“Welcome.” “Here.” “Tegeus.” “Hound.” “Die.” “Come.”
I shuddered as feelers pushed into my mouth and brushed aside my clothes to press under my arms, between my legs, against my eyes. Might pulsed one last time, absorbing the blood on my hands, and then lay quiescent.
Yzyrchye’s twiglike limbs brushed burnt skin off my face, revealing the new flesh beneath, and lingered over the blood on my sleeves and boots. I looked down. Yzyrchye’s probes danced away to avoid cutting and blinding me.
Blood pooled over the floor between the motionless transients. Michael and Lorencz were both dead at my feet.
“Mine.” “Mine.” “Mine.” “Mine.” “Mine.” “Mine.”
Might’s influence was gone. And the only people in Cislunar who didn’t bore me were dead. My stomach lurched and I leaned over, vomiting, choking, and vomiting again. I gagged until I dry-heaved, involuntary tears streaming down my face as I convulsed and trembled and felt wrung dry.
I’d lost control. I’d sworn it wouldn’t happen again, but I’d failed. I’d put Yzyrchye’s collar back around my neck.
“Tegeus.” “Stand.” “Come.” “Welcome.” “Stand.” “Tegeus.”
I crouched, my arms wrapped around my stomach, shaking like a man with a fever. My face burned where salt tears inflamed raw flesh. I was ashamed of both my failure and my despair over failing. I sucked in a desperate, gasping breath.
Self-control. The key to resisting Yzyrchye was self-control.
I took another deep breath, letting it hiss out between my teeth. I concentrated on my pulse, my breathing, the stinging of my cheeks.
“Stand.” “Come.” “Welcome.”
Here I was. Alone again. In hell.
In hell. I licked my lips. Maybe, at last, this was my hell.
If what had happened was real, I’d failed myself and everyone else. And if what had happened was only a simulacrum, I’d still failed, but like I’d told Lorencz, I could learn from my failure and move on.
False. This had to be false. I was in hell. It was my turn to suffer, that’s all.
I looked up. Yzyrchye’s limbs were plucking at my clothes, urging me to move. A row of black, insectile eyes glistened in the candlelight, watching me.
“This isn’t real,” I said, testing out the theory aloud. “This is just a hallucination.”
“Hell.” “Line.” “Real.” “Mine.” “Bale.” “Lover.” “Welcome.” “Come.”
“No.” I wiped my face, wincing as more flashburnt skin peeled away. “I told you I wasn’t going to be your Hound anymore.” I spat away more bile, my gaze skittering off the bodies next to me.
Fakes. Constructs. Hallucinations.
“Mine.” “Mine.” “Hands.” “Hound.” “Mouth.” “Tegeus.”
Of course, if I was wrong — if the bodies were real — then I didn’t have any reason to stay in Cislunar anymore. I might as well become Yzyrchye’s Hound once again. It would be safer. More entertaining. More ego-gratifying. Empty and lonely, perhaps, but I’d discovered over the years that endless physical pleasure makes up for a lot of emotional isolation.
But if the bodies were false and I accepted Yzyrchye’s offer, I’d be damning myself for — how long? A lifetime? An eternity? Would I be trapped here in hell, caught in some twisted fantasy of my own making, or be sent across the Line again?
I looked at Lorencz’s hand, stretched out on the floor. A streak of blood ran between her thumb and first finger. The skin looked very white, and the blood looked very dark. It was the hand that had killed Elliot. The hand that should have given the librarian a wedding ring, instead.
As if I cared about my partner’s ridiculous romantic obsession.
“Tegeus.” “Come.” “Stand.” “Hound.”
Probes moved over me again, perhaps to see if I’d been broken. Yzyrchye’s bale-warping bulk made the candlelight appear to limn it with fire, the candles themselves bending and burning at impossible angles. The golden sun of Kyrchye behind it was almost hidden, only a few unnaturally elongated rays spiking out around it. The image was so bizarre that it was almost beautiful. I closed my eyes for a few moments and then opened them again. Yzyrchye was still there.
I stood, slowly. Exoskeletal probes swarmed over me, testing joints and muscles, poking at my clothing as if to help me up. I stepped over Lorencz’s hand, my boot landing in blood that was already starting to congeal in the chill air. I took another step, past Michael’s head. Another, past the point where the barrier had once blocked me from the altar. Another, into the twisting field that surrounded Yzyrchye’s mass. Limbs surrounded me, almost cradling me, as I stepped even closer.
I’d seldom stood so close to Yzyrchye before. The first time had been when I’d accepted its offer to make me its Hound. Now I reached out, touching a curve of razor-sharp carapace. I gingerly ran my hand past its edges to touch the warm, pulsing flesh beneath, as swollen as a pregnant spider’s belly.
“Tegeus.” All the mouths spoke the same word at once. A rarity.
“You may be real,” I admitted with reluctance. “But the rest of this isn’t.”
The warm flesh moved as countless alien limbs played back and forth over me like a lover’s caress. I shivered, responding despite myself. Yzrychye knew me far too well.
“Take Might back,” I said. “I don’t want to be your Hound anymore.”
“Might.” “Bale.” “Mine.” “Hands.” “Gift.”
“The word is ‘temptation.’ Or ‘lure.’ As long as I have Might, I’m still tied to you, aren’t I?”
“Might.” “Gift.” “Temptation.” “Lure.” “Welcome.” “Lover.” “Hound.”
“That’s right.” For a moment my fingers sank into its flesh and I jerked my hand back before Yzyrchye could solidify around them. I didn’t want to become part of it, the way so many of its other worshippers had. I was already too much a part of it. Or rather, it was too much part of me.
“Yzyrchye, I don’t want you,” I said, looking up at its impossible bulk. “This is a hallucination, and I reject it.”
Reality rippled.