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

peeled itself
from the wall with a wet, sickening squelch, then fell to the ground
with a clang, revealing all that remained of Salastin. He's just
another bug crushed underfoot, now. As the rest of you are about to
be, I think.
    They turned from the splatter
to gape at Aiul, or rather, Elgar wearing Aiul’s flesh, as he
emerged from the cell. He was gaunt and haggard from deprivation,
his skin flushed a bright pink, his hair bone white. Steam rose from
him as if he had just stepped from a hot bath. His grin seemed to
nearly split his head, so wide it was, an expression of pure joy, a
baring of fangs in abject hatred. Blood ran freely from his ears,
eyes, and nose, staining his exposed teeth.
    Elgar spoke to them in his own
voice, “I am Monster,” he spoke, in his own voice, the
sound and emotion ripping through the building in a shock wave.
    “Ravager….”
    The guards were literally
trembling in their boots as he approached them, but they were frozen
in their tracks.
    “Destroyer!” His
voice thundered from the bowels of the prison, shook loose mortar
from the stones, and rattled the streets of Nihlos above. Elgar
reached out, seized two guards by their necks, and dashed their
heads together, smashing their skulls in a shower of blood and gray
matter. He punched a fist into the chest of a third, tore out his
still-beating heart, and crushed it in his grip. The explosion as it
burst painted the walls and ceiling with even more blood and gore.
    The remaining two guards, still
unable to even raise a hand in their own defense, stood trembling
and silent as Elgar chuckled, his voice tearing at their souls like
a scourge.
    Even in his disembodied state,
Aiul found he had no stomach to watch further. He had hated Salastin
and reveled in his just end, but these men Aiul did not even know.
He had no eyes to close, but he could at least shift his focus away
from what was to come, to stare at the wall instead.
    He heard the sounds well
enough, though, the snapping of bones and rending of flesh, a soft,
wet sound like cloth being torn. The true horror is their
silence. They know what is happening to them. They can feel it, I'm
certain. But they can't move, can't even scream. Mei, what have I
done?
    More blood splattered against
the wall, seemingly at random, but somehow, in the end, accreting
into an obscene pattern, a sigil of destruction and death. The gore
bubbled and smoked like acid as it worked its way into the surface,
burning into the stone an indelible mark of Elgar’s passing, a
crow picking at the eye socket of a grinning skull.
    The Destroyer raised his hands
above his head and closed his eyes, simply breathing in the scent of
terror and death for long moments, then spoke a single word: “Rise.”
    The broken flesh of the guards
answered his call, reassembling itself as best it could to achieve
mobility. Elgar’s warriors rose to their feet, steady and
fearless, dead hands taking up their weapons once again, dead eyes
seeing nothing, to follow him from the prison.
    Aiul felt himself falling into
blackness. Perhaps this is the end.
    Then
he knew nothing.

    Kariana moaned in pleasure, her
body writhing on silk sheets as her lover ground against her, her
mind clouded by the drugs she had taken to heighten the experience.
What was his name again? Oh, it hardly mattered, some lesser noble
from house Veril. The drugs made it seem lovely, though it was still
clearly artificial. A lover with skill was much preferable, but they
were few and far between. Mr. Right Now worked fine with certain
enhancements.
    Thoughts licked at the edges of
her consciousness like annoying insects, gnats of reality intruding
on her reverie. With effort, she managed to focus her attention and
open her eyes slightly.
    The door to her quarters was
open, and a man stood at the foot of her bed, gesticulating,
shouting…what? She eyed him momentarily, considered inviting
him to join them, if only to shut him up, but something seemed odd
about that