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The screeching sound of before reached his ears, closer that time. The dogs leaped into a frenzy of barking and snarling. That horrible sound echoed all around him, coming from all directions. And he twisted around as it grew louder and louder, trying to determine its direction. It was only at the sound of Solomon’s tortured cry that he snapped his attention back that way, and the dogs lurched forward.
Four grotesque creatures with oversized limbs and balding heads scampered around the old man. Their eyes were a blood red, their bodies thin and wiry. Dark skin that reminded Jericho of a rotting corpse stretched over sharp protrusions of bone. He’d never seen anything so terrifying in his life.
Cerberus reared back on his haunches as if to charge toward them, and as the baron rested a hand on the dog to settle him, drawing his attention to the sparks dancing across his fingers, a thought sprung to mind. Could he cast the energy as easily as he could draw it in?
He threw back his arm and thrusted forward, sending a bolt of lightning toward one of the creatures, hitting it square in the flank.
It shriveled under the flash of light and crumbled to dust.
He sent another. And another. And another still, until all four of the monsters lay as ash on the ground. Once destroyed, he dashed toward Solomon, whose flesh bore the vicious tears of fangs, spilling blood and gore onto the ground around him.
Lord Praecepsia chuckled, the sound of his amusement grating on the baron as he held his mentor’s head. Rage burned inside of him. Feeling a grip on his arm, he peered down at Solomon, who shook his head, his milky, unseeing eyes staring off somewhere beyond the baron.
“Do not … seek vengeance. Do not … kill him, young lord.” The older man convulsed in his arms, until, at last, he stilled.
“No. No!” Jericho lowered Solomon’s head to the ground and stroked the short-cropped hair on his head.
“He was your friend!” He stood, the old man’s final words chiming inside his head as he strode toward his father.Damn the debts.
“That was long ago. He is no friend of mine now.”
The sound of screeching from behind brought him to a halt. He turned to see Solomon jerk on the ground. The old man arched up, as he was before, contorted in a strange arc that hurt to gaze upon. Red bled into the milky white of his eyes, giving him an unnerving appearance that had the baron backing farther away.
Solomon reached out a hand, and his arm extended well past the length of a normal arm.
Cerberus and the other two broke into a barking frenzy, the incessant sound pounding against the baron’s skull as he desperately tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Elongated arms and legs and skin that mottled before his eyes. By the time Solomon pushed to his feet, his back hunched, knuckles dragging on the ground, what stood before him was no longer his mentor. It was the very thing that had attacked the older man mere minutes before.
“What have you done?” The words hardly broke free of the baron’s stiff jaw.
Lord Praecepsia chuckled again, but the baron’s attention remained fixed on Solomon, whose eyes locked on his, as if the blindness had lifted. “He is what is known as a Mortunath and while he cannot infect you and turn you into his kind, hewillconsume you, if given the chance. On the contrary, if he should sink his teeth into one of your hounds, hewillturn them into one of his kind. And what beautiful creatures they would make!”
“Cerberus!” I shouted over his barking. “Quiet!”
The dog whined and sat back on his haunches.
“Home, Cerberus. Home!”
The dog whined again and made a sound in his throat, which the baron took for disappointment.
“Home! Now!”
On a growl, all three dogs trotted off in the direction from which they’d come, though the baron did not bother to watch as he kept his attention fixed on Solomon.
“He will not cease to consume you entirely. You will have to kill him.”
With another screech, and the old man bounded toward him. Jericho felt the tingle in his palms from before and shot a bolt of lightning between the two of them, intentionally avoiding a strike to Solomon. The bolt hit the ground on a blast of blazing foliage that caught flame and fizzled to curling black smoke.
“Stay back! I do not want to kill you! Stay back, Solomon!”
But the old man charged after him, and the baron had no choice but to spin around and run. He darted through the trees ahead, which opened to the clearing of the cabin.
A blast of light nearly blinded him as he leaped toward a patch of grass, and when he glanced over his shoulder, Solomon stood in the shadows. He did not advance toward him. As if he had abandoned his chase.
The baron slowed his steps and studied the stark contrast of light and shadow, where it seemed an invisible barrier existed between the two of them. The intersection of two realms, through which Solomon apparently could not breach.
Lord Praecepsia strode toward the edge of it, straddling the two. “I cannot control the Mortunath. I can only control the realm which holds them. Their master slumbers, and thank heavens for that. Or all five realms would be consumed.”
“What do you want? What do you want from me!”
