He prayed for silence.

The damp stone walls never ceased shuddering to the moans and roars of the Hell things chained in neighboring cells. The laboratories of Ehelebe had yielded a hundred strains of monster terrible and strange.

The scratching and roaring ceased. Ethrian stared at the heavy iron door. A light flickered in the passageway beyond. The beasts remained poised in an expectant hush. Slow, shuffling footsteps broke the abnormal stillness.

The door contained one small, barred opening. Ethrian watched it fearfully. His hands shook. Those were not the steps of his keeper.

His captors had raped away everything but fear. Hope was as dead as the darkness in which he lived.

Keys jingled. There was a metallic scratching at his door. The rusty lock squeaked in protest. The door swung slowly inward.

The boy gathered his legs beneath him. He curled into a balled crouch. Even had he been unchained he could not have resisted. He had been inactive too long.

An old, old man entered the cell.

Ethrian tried to shrink away.

And yet… there was something different about this one. He lacked that air of indifferent cruelty possessed by everyone else the boy had encountered here.

The old man moved as if in a dream. Or as if he were badly retarded.

Slowly, clumsily, the ancient tried his keys on Ethrian’s fetters. At first the boy cowered. Then, moved by cunning, he waited for the last lock to fall away.

The old man seemed to forget what he was doing. He considered the keys with a bewildered expression, surveyed his surroundings. He made a circuit of the dark-walled cell.

Ethrian watched warily.

He tried to stand.

The old man turned. His forehead creased in concentration. His face came alive. He moved closer, fumbled with the last lock. It fell away.

“Ca-ca-come,” he said. His voice was a crackling whisper. It was hard to follow even in the unnatural stillness haunting the dungeon.

“Where?” Ethrian whispered too, afraid he would rouse the beasts.

“Ah-ah-away. Th-they sent me to ka-ka… to ga-give you to the savan dalage.”

Ethrian cringed away. The turnkey had told him of the savan dalage—the worst of Ehelebe’s creations.

The old man produced a tiny vial. “Dra-drink this.”

Ethrian refused.

The old man seized his wrist, pulled him close, twisted him round, forced his head back and his mouth open. His strength was both startling and irresistible. Something vile flooded the boy’s mouth. The old man made him swallow.

Warmth and strength spread through him immediately.

The old man pulled him toward the cell door. His grip was steel. Whimpering, Ethrian tripped along after him.

What was happening? Why were they doing this?

The old man led him toward the stair leading up out of that subterranean realm of horror. The unseen beasts roared and howled. Their tone suggested they felt cheated. Ethrian glimpsed red eyes behind the barred window in the nearest door.

He gave up trying to hang back.

The old man stammered, “Ha-hurry. Th-th-they will ka-kill you.”