Lor stalked the confines of the meager room. Reanna remained huddled against the wall but her grey eyes tracked his anxious pacing. Dim light filtered through a small, high window to reveal the wretched conditions. A pair of lumpy bedrolls graced with thin, ragged blankets and a lidded bucket pushed into the far corner, comprised the room’s furnishings. Stains on the floor spoke of past inhabitants - old grime, urine and blood. Someone had scratched lines on the wall. Why would anyone bother counting days, he wondered. There was no termination date for this hell.

Lor looked at his wife and then quickly away. Matted black hair and a dirty, shapeless shift could not diminish her beauty. Deprivation had refined her face, removing all roundness so that the clean lines of cheekbones, nose and chin stood out starkly.

“I can not endure this,” he said.

“What choice do we have?” Reanna answered softly.

He stopped and took a slow, careful breath. “Only one,” he offered.

“No. Not that.” Reanna’s mouth was set in a firm line.

Lor held back a frustrated grunt and resumed pacing. The monsters were late this morning. They did not grant mercies so there must be a reason for this delay. He would ask Wes about it. Noises started down the hallway and Lor stopped his movements to kneel down beside Reanna.

“Come, love, kiss me before they open the door,” he said.

She unwrapped arms from around her legs and knelt to face him. He closed his eyes to savor the touch of her hand on his face and the softness of her lips. Despite everything, sweet desire filled him. He wanted to pull her close and feel every curve and hollow of her body mold against him. Lor held himself rigidly still. He would not burden her with his passion. He had been told what the monsters did to pregnant women.

Footsteps drew nearer. Lor opened his eyes and gently pushed Reanna away. Standing side by side, they waited for the day’s routine to begin.

The door was thrust open. “Out,” said a harsh voice.

Lor kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor as they walked past the guard’s bulk. Their captors did not tolerate the stares of slaves.

They joined the others in a silent procession down the long corridor and into a central courtyard. He glanced quickly along the row of men already waiting for their breakfast, hoping to spot Wes but could not see him amidst the sea of tall, broad backs. Reanna brushed his hand with hers and went to stand in the shorter line for women.

There were two types of people waiting obediently for their cup of morning gruel. The tall, fair-haired Islanders made up the majority of the people in the courtyard. They were a strong, hardy and peaceable folk. Lor wondered why the slavers bothered harvesting his own people, the Hachin, when such perfect slaves were available. The Hachin were both much smaller in stature and far quicker to anger. Their slender frames did not bow easily to the demands of this life. Several of the men he had arrived with were already dead. Defying their masters was futile, but they did it anyway. One young man had taken a guard with him into death, attacking the imposing wall of muscle with bare hands and the ferocity of a cornered animal. He died well, that young warrior. Lor envied him.

He would endure; for Reanna, he would endure. He leashed his anger and hatred and power for her. She gentled him, had always blunted the edge of what he was with her compassion. Even now she held fast to the strictures of their beliefs, to the teachings that wrapped him in humanity and kept hidden what lay underneath.

A cry of dismay brought his attention back to the surroundings. Three men dressed in bright silks surrounded a woman; she stood silently as they touched breasts and buttocks with revolting familiarity. The cry had not come from her but from one of the men in front of him. Lor’s hands curled into fists when the examiners reached Reanna. She shot him an anguished look as she was pulled out of the line. The slavers left with eight women. Those remaining shuffled forward to fill the gaps.

Lor’s mind churned with questions but he moved along and took his filled cup with the same mindless motion as the others. Sipping the lukewarm muck, he followed the men out of the building’s high metal gate and into the fields. They were set to work picking hard, red berries from bushes set in neat rows. Glancing furtively behind, he popped the occasional handful into his mouth and quickly swallowed. It would mean a beating if they caught him, but he did it whenever possible. Stolen berries, edible greens, even raw fish when they were set to help unload the boats, it all contributed to keeping up his strength.

A horn sounded. Lor put down his bucket and staggered to the canvas shelter. A simple clay cup filled with warm water was thrust into his hands. His throat was so dry it hurt to swallow. He wanted to hold the wetness in his mouth and let it slowly seep into the parched membranes, but he’d learned not to delay. The cup had to be empty again before he got to the next station where another slave was ladling out a thick reddish-brown soup.

Lor caught a glimpse of Wes but the other man was too far ahead for them to contrive to sit together. Wes had been on one of the first slave ships and had found a way to endure for over a year. It was hard to believe that the raids, the burnt villages and abductions of his people, had begun only a year ago.

The men slowly fill the shelter, row upon row of hunched figures. No matter how tightly they packed themselves in, those unfortunate enough to be at the end of the line would find themselves exposed to the sun. Lor was lucky this time. He was under the shelter but on the edge where a slight breeze could reach his face. It cooled him and moderated the sour smell of nearly two hundred men drenched in sweat.

He sat with his knees drawn up, sipping the bland soup. Lor licked out the cup as best he could and placed it carefully between his feet. Then he put his head down on his knees and closed his eyes. He wondered where Reanna was at this moment. They were always separated during the day but he had never witnessed such a singling out of particular women before. Perhaps she had been chosen for something less grueling, he thought, and sent a prayer to Menya. The horn sounded again and he moved with the others to get his second cup of water.

The shifting bodies let him approach a man he recognized.

“Darel, do you know what they were doing with the women?” he whispered.

The other gave a barely discernable shake of his head. “Helm said it’s happened before. Didn’t know why.”

Darel had been transformed even more than the others from their village. The handsome youth had once delighted in weaving mischief through their lives. Now his clever tongue was stilled and his eyes seemed drained of all life. Lor ignored the sharp stab of sympathy. He could not help Darel. Gulping down the water, he walked back to his assigned row.

The sun was setting brilliantly to the west, painting the horizon with purple and rose, when the men were herded back to their prison. Evening was the best time of the day. They would be allowed to congregate in the courtyard, to take their supper and sit with whomever they wished as long as they talked in hushed voices. Any loud exclamations or fighting among the slaves would bring guards and brutal swings of the whip.

Lor accepted his plate with the familiar meal of hard flat bread and brown beans. He scanned the courtyard for Reanna. The other women were already eating, but his wife was not among them, nor were the others he had seen pulled out of the line that morning. Lor frowned and sank against the wall, waiting for someone who could answer his questions.

Wes paused on the way back to the residence to admire the beautiful simplicity of the building. Even slaves lived in a sort of grandeur in this land. The town that spread out across the hills was filled with homes and shops painted in warm, rich colors – ochre and umber and a pale yellow that made him think of spring blossoms. All the structures showed delicate lines and perfect proportions. The golden roofs of palaces and temples glowed in the dying rays of the sun. It was breathtaking. He did not think he would see anything as lovely again in all his days. A guard glared at him and he hurried on. The Kahlin were magnificent builders but hard masters.

He picked up his plate of food and surveyed the courtyard. Lor had already staked out a territory in the shade. Wes knew he needed to talk to him but dreaded the task. Lor reminded him of a mountain cat from their homeland – lithe, powerful and dangerous. The man had the muscles and movements of a trained fighter. If it had not been for his wife, Wes was sure that Lor would have been one of the young fools that sacrificed his life to bring down an Kahlin guard. He hoped what he needed to tell the man would not send him over the edge and into immediate death. He sat down next to Lor and scooped up a few beans with his bread.

“The women this morning. What does it mean?” Lor asked before he’d even managed to swallow that first mouthful.

Wes kept his eyes on the plate. “They take away some of the new ones a few weeks after every ship arrives. I think they wait just long enough to break them to this life, but not so long that they are… haggard.” He took another bite.

“Why?”

“No one knows. There are stories but…” Wes shrugged and forced himself to look at Lor. “We only know that they don’t come back.”

“What stories?” Lor grated the words out from between clenched teeth.

Wes raised the bread half-way to his lips and dropped it again.

“They always take the pretty ones,” he said softly. The Kahlin were men, after all.

Wes saw a savage fury swell behind Lor’s hard, grey eyes and instinctively his body pressed back against the wall.

“Why did you not tell me this earlier?” Lor demanded.

“What would you have done with the knowledge?”

“Saved her from such... degradation.”

Wes let out a short bark of laughter that was more a strangled sob. “How?”

“By destroying them.” Lor’s expression conveyed the utter certainty that such a thing was possible.

Then Wes knew what the Kahlin had, in their ignorance, brought home with them.

“You will damn yourself for eternity,” Wes whispered. The power to command earth and air was a rare and terrible gift granted to his people so they could calm the trembling of their unstable homeland. To use it for any other purpose, the sages said, condemned one’s soul to endless suffering.

Lor gave him a thin, hard smile. “But I will take these monsters with me into the deepest, coldest hell.”

“How will that save our people... save Reanna? Do you think we can escape the mad destruction you would unleash?”

“Is this life so wonderful that you cling to it?”

Wes winced at the biting reproof. Perhaps he was a coward, but even here he could find reasons to live, to hope. Just last week he had seen a look of regret on an Kahlin fisherman’s face as slaves helped unload his boat. The memory prompted the beginnings of a plan.

“There are ships,” he said. “Wait until we can find a way to use them.”

“We can’t sail,” Lor said. The Hachin were not a sea-faring people and did not understand boats or the ways of the ocean.

“The Islanders can.”

Lor stared at him in silence for several heartbeats. “Very well. Perhaps it is possible to save at least some of our people. Make what plans you can tonight. Tomorrow this city will be dust. The land torn in two, the monsters and all their buildings buried in a pit.”

“You’ll be killing Kahlin women and children too,” Wes said softly, still hoping to stay Lor’s wrath.

“They are all monsters.”

Wes heard the hatred in the other man’s voice and tried one final gamble. “Reanna would not wish this.”

“How can you know what Reanna would want? After today... perhaps even she...” Lor’s voice faltered, then continued in a harsh tone. “It ends tomorrow. I will wait until they take us outside but no longer.”

Wes watched Lor’s back as he stalked away. He forced himself to finish his meal, devising desperate strategies in his mind. Finishing his meal, Wes began to circulate around the courtyard. The Hachin listened to him with hope and terror, but never any doubt. The Islanders, he knew, would be harder to convince and he was not sure he had the language skills to do so. He settled himself next to a group of tall, blond men who were playing a desultory game with pebbles picked out of the dirt.

“Tomorrow morning,” he said in their awkward tongue, “bad things will happen in the city. You must go to the boats and escape.”

The men froze and three sets of eyes focused on him.

“You plan to escape?” the youngest one asked him.

He hesitated, and then nodded. It was not much of a plan.

“You must talk to Elric,” another man said. They rose as a group and, mindful of the watching guards, drifted across the courtyard.

Elric had arrived two months ago and immediately taken up the position of leader for the Islanders. When Wes asked one of his friends about it, the man had shrugged and used a word that Wes did not know. He assumed that it meant Elric had royal blood.

“What things will happen in the city?” Elric asked.

“The land will shake and strong winds blow. Buildings will fall.”

“How?” The pale blue eyes seemed to bore into him.

Wes could only shrug. He knew no words in the Islander tongue to communicate what Lor was.

Elric’s eyes narrowed. “You are certain this will happen?”

“Yes. Much death and confusion. We can use this to escape. Your people must help mine. We do not know boats.”

Elric nodded slowly. “Your people will cause these things to happen?”

“Yes. One of ours.” He paused, unsure whether he should say Lor’s name, and then decided they would know soon enough. “Lor will do this. Do not be afraid, but do not go into the city. Go to the boats.”

Elric looked across the courtyard to where Lor was sitting by himself. “They took his wife.”

“Yes. Reanna.”

“Ours have been taken as well. Will he save them?”

“He will try, I think.”

Elric pinned Wes with another penetrating gaze but seemed to recognize that no better answer could be given. He turned to the other Islanders and nodded. Wes listened as murmured conversations spread like ripples across the courtyard.

“You are afraid of Lor,” Elric said when they were alone. It was not a question and Wes did not feel the need to answer.

Lor filled his cup with water and retreated to a corner of the courtyard. They were not permitted to go to their rooms yet so he found what scant privacy he could and closed his eyes to think.

Sorcery, on those rare occasions when his people practiced it, was surrounded by rituals. There were preparations to purify the body and the mind. There were lines drawn in powder, followed by words crafted with great care and intoned solemnly. He had no sacred water, no scented oils, no powders, ink or paper. It didn’t matter. The rituals were intended to limit and contain sorcery, to provide safeguards for the user and all around him. Such risks did not concern him, given the circumstances. The act itself required only power and focused will. Those he had in abundance.

First, he needed to know where Reanna was being held. There was a minor spell anyone with a touch of power could perform. Lor looked down at the cup of water in his hands and tilted it to catch some of the fading light. Usually he used a small, calm pond or a basin of water. He frowned and wished he’d kept his plate a little longer. Darel sat down next to him and held out what was needed.

“Thank you,” Lor said and rinsed the plate before filling it with a little water.

“Is it true? About tomorrow?” Darel asked. Emotion had been revived in him. Anger and hope were warring in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Good.” A pause. “You will find Reanna, Jaleen and the others?”

Jaleen was a village girl that the young man used to tease mercilessly. Reanna had once predicted that Darel would marry the girl, after he stopped being so full of himself.

“I can not promise to save any of them,” Lor said.

“You will save them... or avenge them,” Darel stated with quiet intensity.

“Vengeance I can guarantee.” Lor gave him a tight smile. The young man nodded as if accepting a bargain made.

“I’ll watch and make sure no one interrupts,” Darel said and stood up. He took two paces and leaned casually against the wall, scanning the other people in the courtyard.

Lor brought his attention back to the water. He took several deep breaths and formed a mental picture of his beautiful and gentle wife. The words were mouthed so softly that not even a whisper of sound escaped his lips. Focusing his entire will on finding her, he peered into the small pool. A peaked roof came into focus, capped with gold. A few more words and the vision in the water spiraled down through opulent living quarters, offices, corridors, servant’s rooms and grand halls. The dizzying motion stopped in a bright spacious room. Many women were sitting on cushions around low tables laden with delicate plates and tempting morsels. He saw Reanna, washed and dressed in a green silk robe. She stared at the food without eating.

“Eat. Be strong,” he whispered. “Tomorrow I come.”

Her eyes widened and he knew that she had heard. Lor pulled himself out of the trance.

He leaned his head back against the wall and glanced around. Darel was still being his unobtrusive guard. Lor closed his eyes again, feeling drained from that minor working because he had used only his own energy to feed it. He thought about the distance between his cell and the palace room where Reanna was, considered the difficulty of getting there and away, and knew there was no quiet, sure way of getting her out. It curdled his blood to leave her with the monsters for a night. He would make them pay… and hoped she would forgive him, both for leaving her there those extra hours and for the vengeance he would wreak in her name. The horn blew and he shuffled to his door. He kept his eyes to the ground and waited for the guards to come and lock him inside the bare cell. It seemed even more desolate now that he was alone.

The noises of the morning pulled his awareness back into the room. Lor stood and waited to be released, tension coiled beneath his skin like a snake preparing to strike. He followed the others outside, received his thin breakfast gruel and walked up the slight slope to the berry patch. Lor entered his assigned row and kept walking until he exited the other end. A guard shouted and came after him, flailing his whip.

Lor grabbed the whip and tore it out of the guard’s hand. He landed a kick and heard the sharp crack of bone breaking. As the monster crumpled, he grabbed the guard’s throat and sucked the life-force out of him. That energy would help feed his working. Others were running toward him. He shouted a word and the ground beneath him rose twenty feet into the air.

Standing on his perch, Lor looked toward the many-colored structures where the monsters lived. He uttered a string of words and the earth opened up at the far side of the city. Buildings collapsed and dark forms ran about in confused terror. With deliberate intent and no mercy, he stopped the destruction and calmed the earth. As he had hoped, monsters began rushing toward the ruins, seeking to help those trapped in the rubble. Guards poured out of the palace.

Lor called a spinning wind around himself and let it lift him into the air. Cradled in the center of the tornado, he saw the terrified eyes and wide, gaping mouths of those unfortunate enough to be caught up by the elemental force. He heard only the roar of the wind. Filled with purpose, he focused his intent on reaching Reanna.

The tornado deposited him gently in the palace courtyard. With a casual flick of his wrist he sent the wind into the city to wreak what havoc it could there. Lor turned to face the north, he knew exactly where Reanna stood at that moment. Saying more words he compressed the air and blew the other three sides of the palace outward with explosive force. He walked into the portion that remained and moved around panicked monsters with careless ease. Most were too distraught and confused to try to stop him. The few that did, died quickly. Lor sucked the life out of them and drew in the energy.

He blasted open the door to Reanna’s room. A monster spun around to stare at him with huge, dark eyes. Lor attacked with vicious fury, putting aside sorcery to relish the feel of bones breaking beneath his hands. He didn’t even bother to take its energy. He wanted no part of this one.

Lor looked up from the whimpering jumble of disjointed body parts pooling scarlet at his feet. Reanna stared back at him in silence. There was a weary weight of grief and pain in her grey eyes. He could not hold her gaze and searched instead for any injury done to her. A large purpling bruise marred one arm. He wondered what other hurts were hidden by the thin emerald shift. He shut his eyes and swallowed the anguish that spiked through him.

“I knew you would destroy them for this.” Her voice was soft and very near. She took both his blood-stained hands in hers. “Oh Lor. I’m so sorry to be the cause of your damnation.”

“The fault is not yours. Without you, they would only have died sooner.” He spoke the truth and saw sad acceptance bloom in her face. “It’s not all death and destruction. Wes and the others are using this opportunity to try to take the ships.”

“The women. We must find them all.” The firm set of her mouth that told him she would not be denied any portion of her search, no matter the danger in delaying.

There were monsters in some of the other rooms and those he killed with the simple touch of his hand. Very few fought back. These were not trained guards but soft, pampered beasts that reeked of perfume. By the time it was done, there were almost forty women gathered together. His wind could not carry so many and Lor led them outside.

The Hachin women regarded him with horrified comprehension as they took in the targeted devastation which left only their portion of the palace untouched. Slow and stumbling, they picked their way across the rubble, clambering over fallen walls and skirting broken glass. The women wore only thin, jewel-colored shifts and delicate slippers. Several were already limping from cuts and abrasions.

A group of guards saw their purposeful retreat and came toward them. Lor opened up the earth beneath their feet. As their screams faded, he noticed several Islander women frozen in place, eyes full of fear. Reanna and the other Hachin stepped forward to tug the taller women along. Lor shrugged. His people feared him as well, but at least they had the courtesy not to stare. He called up another tornado and used it to clear away everything along their path to the harbor.

Men were fighting to gain possession of several large sailing vessels. Lor stooped to take a sword out of a slack hand and climbed aboard the nearest ship. He swung the weapon with his right hand as his left reached to touch where it could. The left hand dealt death more quickly and efficiently than the sword. Monsters died around him like flies. Then a sharp pain bit into his right shoulder and he dropped the sword. Lor spun to face his attacker but the other was already toppling to the ground. Lor’s eyes met Darel’s and they shared a brittle nod.

Other men were already busy throwing bodies over the side. The ship was won. Lor left to bring the women on board.

Reanna’s hands flew to her mouth when she saw him approach.

“Let me bandage that. You can bleed to death like any man,” she said and tore a relatively clean sleeve off a corpse. She washed the wound with salt water, then bound it tightly. She cleaned his hands and dabbed at his face.

“Better tell the men to strip clothes off some of the dead. We’ll need them for bandages and also for the women to wear. We can’t keep wandering around in these flimsy things,” she said and tugged at the fine fabric of her shift.

He laughed at her tone. Reanna had somehow reduced all the personal suffering and immense horror of the past day to a mere annoyance caused by inappropriate attire.

“You do that, love,” he said softly, thanking her in his heart for the gift she had just given him. “I have to help the others.”

“How will you get back to me, if you don’t come on this ship?” Men were already untying the thick lines holding it to the dock.

He smiled at her. “I’ll walk on water if I have to.”

Reanna nodded solemnly, accepting it as truth. She leaned forward and kissed him. Surrounded by the dreadful evidence of his damnation, she kissed him. He gathered her in his arms and ran trembling hands over the slender body pressed so tightly against his.

“I love you,” she said when they drew apart. “Damned or not, I will follow you into death and beyond.”

“The demons in hell will burn in the face of your pure heart, my love,” Lor whispered into her hair.

He found Wes directing the fighting on another large sailing ship. Only a few bulky monsters continued to battle the mixed group of Islanders and Hachin. It took little for them to complete the job. Four ships had already cast off and were heading out into open water. Theirs was the last to be taken. Lor scrambled down the ship’s rope ladder.

“Where are we going?” Wes asked, landing beside him on the wooden dock.

“You are going back,” Lor snapped. “See to our people.”

“That is your duty,” Wes reminded him.

“I have unfinished business.” Lor looked back toward the city. Too much of it was still standing.

“Reanna is on a ship, is she not?”

“Yes.”

“Then let it be enough.”

“I vowed I would bury the city.” Lor struggled to contain his impatience. He owed this man an explanation at least. “I will join you soon enough. The wind can carry me.”

Wes shook his head. “Reanna may be able to forgive you for what you’ve done so far. But if you continue, is vengeance worth what you will see in her eyes?”

“I’m already damned,” Lor said, his voice made sharp by the bitter taste of that truth.

“You acted out of love as much as anger. You may yet find redemption and grace in Menya’s care.”

Lor said nothing. There was nothing in their teaching which allowed him to expect forgiveness from the goddess who weighed their souls after death. Still, there was a small easing of his despair that Wes could suggest such a thing.

“Get our people to safety. Focus your will on that.” Wes reached out and put a hand on his arm.

Lor felt the warmth of the other’s hand seep through the fabric of his torn shirt. Gratitude surged through him that Wes, who had not grown up with him as Reanna had, could bring himself to offer a creature out of his people’s oldest nightmares the kindness of a simple human touch. Lor moved his gaze from Wes’ hand to his face. Rust-brown smears ran across his forehead and down one cheek. Lor could not tell which was Wes’ blood and which came from the monsters. The other man held his gaze. It was Lor who looked away.

He surveyed the land around him. The path he had carved down to the harbor was brutally clear; a bare streak of land bracketed by the remains of what had once been merchant’s shops and houses. He could see brown limbs, half-buried in the rubble of crumbled masonry. Shards of glass glinted in the sun. His eyes were drawn toward a building that stood whole and untarnished in the middle of the devastation. A delicate spire pierced the blue cloth of the sky and the morning sun birthed a miniature twin in the glowing gold of its roof. It was… beautiful.

Lor stepped away from Wes, breaking the contact that strove to leash his power. He whispered some words and gathered his will. The two tornadoes which had continued their mad harassment of the city, dissipated into mere wisps of air. The silence created by the cessation of their roar was instantly filled with the wails of the injured and sharp keening cries of people mourning their dead. Just monsters, Lor told himself, and found he could no longer believe it. He still hated them, but the inner shield that had stopped him from seeing any humanity in the Kahlin was broken.

“Let’s get our people to safety,” he said and followed Wes back onto the ship.