"Is he gonna be okay?"

"I'm okay!" Michael blurted; but in the same breath he whined: "My arm hurts..." Michael grabbed his right elbow and winced. "Ouch."

"Well stop touching it, then," said Kenyari with false sternness. "Selie, fetch me more hazel root."

"Yes ma'am."

Selie dug through her mother's medicine basket while Bethsaida dabbed a strong-smelling solution onto Michael's bruised and swollen face. The boy hadn't had any more convulsions since the other slaves had carried him off of the cornfields, but he'd spent most of the intervening hours unconscious. When he awoke, he complained of a headache and a sore arm, but not of anything else. Other than the beating he'd taken, Michael looked normal. Or as normal as Michael COULD look.

Bethsaida wasn't fooled, however. And neither was her mother. The girl had told Kenyari what she'd seen in the cornfield. The hasting was back, and it was much much stronger than before. And yet it wasn't quite the same. Michael didn't look any older. And his wounds were not healed. If the hasting had indeed taken him, then his bruises would be days or even weeks old, despite the fact that the fight occurred only this morning. In fact, Michael SHOULD have starved to death or died of thirst in the cornfield. But he hadn't. He was normal... as if nothing had happened at all.

"But mamma, it hurrrrrts..." he whined, still clutching his elbow. The joint was swollen... as was his wrist. Both were severely sprained.

"Hush," Kenyari snapped. "Hush and let your sisters work." She rocked nervously back and forth as her daughters followed her instructions. Her eyes were filled with tears that she dared not let fall. Her full lips trembled as she spoke, and sometimes her instructions were backward or wrong. Her mind was not on the healing. Bethsaida knew that her mother was putting on a false show of strength, trying not to seem worried despite the fear. Bethsaida was old enough to know why her mother was afraid... and to respect her attempt to keep her children calm. Instead of correcting her mother's mis-spoken instructions, Bethsaida made the correct mixtures from memory while keeping a careful eye on what Selie was doing.

Together, they soaked some bandages in hazel-root solution and used them to wrap Michael's arm. Naturally, Michael protested the tightness of the wraps, but Bethsaida ignored him and moved on to mixing something else to help reduce the swelling. Her own head continued to throb, and her throat burned from Kalem's grasp.... but she didn't think about the pain. Every time she thought about it, she remembered what had happened in the fields... and the consequences it would bring.

A slave was dead, and she was involved... although she didn't know how. Michael was too, but the boy still claimed ignorance. The last thing he remembered was crying over Bethsaida... whom he thought was dead. Then he woke up back in the slave quarters hours later, being treated by his sisters. He told his mother everything he remembered about the fight, but could say nothing about how Kalem died. Neither could Bethsaida. It was a mystery. And, as much as the very thought pained her, Ghan and Tenna's attempted escape was the only reason that she and Michael hadn't been flogged. Overseer Grady had promised he would find out what happened, and there was no doubt that his full wrath would be visited upon whoever was even remotely involved. But the horrible truth was that... at least for now... the Overseer had more important things to do.

A shout carried across the farm from the courtyard... where Ghan's punishment would soon begin. Runaway slaves were whipped at night in front of the House, so that their screams and howls of agony could frighten the other slaves. The shout that Bethsaida heard wasn't Ghan, though... it sounded more like Master Percy's. He and his friends were preparing for the night's entertainment... knotting the ropes and pouring the ale. Molesting the female house slaves... which was why he'd gotten kicked out of the house to begin with. Grady would be nearby, sharpening the metal 'teeth' embedded in his whip.

The screaming would come soon.

"So what's it like being dead, Saida?" Michael asked.

"I wasn't dead," said Bethsaida.

"Yes you was. I saw you. You weren't moving-"

"Trees don't move. Does that make THEM dead?"

"The Hanging Tree isn't dead," Selie said quietly. "Tenna says that one night she saw it move-"

"HUSH now!" Kenyari hissed. "No talking about that Tree! It's evil... almost as bad as Grady. You don't talk about it!"

"They're gonna hang him tomorrow, aren't they?" said Michael. He turned and looked up at his mother. Moisture was gathering in the corners of his eyes. "Ghan. They gonna hang him on the Tree?"

"I'm afraid so, baby," said Kenyari.

"But... but I like Ghan..."

"Michael..." Kenyari was sitting in a chair; Michael crawled over and sat on the ground before her. She wanted to hold him in her arms, but the boy was too big, and Kenyari was too weak. Instead, she leaned over and put her arms around him. Michael leaned his head against her leg and cried.

"...I like Ghan..." he sniffed.

"Shhhh..." Kenyari comforted him.

"Don't make me go to the Tree tomorrow, mamma. I don't wanna see.... I don't wanna see...."

"Everybody's got to go. You just close your eyes like you did last time."

"But I don't wanna go..."

"You have to."

"Why?"

"'Cause Master Ellis wants us all to be there. And we always do what the Master says."

"Why?"

For that, Kenyari had no answer.

"You just close your eyes," she said.

Michael closed his eyes, as if practicing for tomorrow. After a few minutes of silence... broken only by more distant shouts from the courtyard... it seemed that Michael was asleep.

"mamma, what happened to Tenna?" said Selie.

Kenyari looked up suddenly, as if the question was a lash from Grady's whip.

"Yeah," said Bethsaida. "You never said-"

"Don't you two worry about that now," Kenyari whispered.

"But Sh-she was all tore up. Down here..." Selie pointed to her crotch. "It looked like it hurt..."

"Was it bad, mamma?" said Bethsaida. "What happened?"

Bethsaida watched her mother's expression change from shock to anger... to pain. She got a faraway look in her eyes, as she sometimes did when she prayed to the spirits for strength. Then she looked at her daughters and spoke in a low, choppy whisper... as if the words were fighting to crawl back down her throat even as she tried to spit them out.

"S-sometimes, the masters... when... when the masters get drunk, they..."

Kenyari sighed weakly. She took several breaths before starting over.

"M-master Percy took Tenna last night. He took her to his cabin... out by the fields. And he... was... with her... in the way that men are with women. You remember when I explained how men lay with women? And how it h-hurts the first time?"

"Yes, ma'am," Bethsaida and Selie said.

"That's what happened," Kenyari choked.

Bethsaida was still trying to figure out what her mother's words meant when Selie asked a question that drained all color from the old woman's face:

"mamma... does that mean that Master Percy loves Tenna?"

Kenyari looked like she was about to choke on her own tongue. She looked down at Michael... and kept her head down for several long seconds.

"I don't think so," Bethsaida replied for her.

"But... but mamma you said that people do that when they're in love. If Master Percy doesn't love Tenna, then why-"

"Shhhh..." Bethsaida quieted her sister. Their mother was crying openly now. Tears dropped down from her cheeks onto Michael's face. He woke up, but only Bethsaida noticed.

"mamma, what's wrong?" said Selie. "Did I say something bad?"

Kenyari shook her head and took a few breaths.

"Sometimes..." she began. "Sometimes the men... the masters... want to be with a woman just because they can. Not because they love them... just because they are there. They take them... us... out to the fields... and they do the things that should mean love... only to them, it means hate."

"I don't understand," said Selie.

"...you will..." Kenyari whispered in a voice so low that she seemed to be speaking to herself rather than her daughters. "...and if you don't want them to hurt you like Tenna..."

She never spoke the rest of the sentence. The words just wouldn't come.

But they didn't need too. Bethsaida understood. She looked at her mother's pain and thought about her words... and she knew. The pain of her head and throat were forgotten and replaced by the dull ache of her soul twisting uncomfortably within her. She had just learned that something she thought was hers... wasn't. Somehow she had gotten the notion that her body belonged to her... that it was the property and dwelling place of her soul. But it wasn't. It belonged to Master Percy. It was his to do with as he pleased. He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wished.

Would she learn one day that he had a similar claim to her soul as well?

"...If somethin ever happens," Kenyari warned. "you come back here and you don't tell anybody. You don't say nuthin' to ANY man about what went on."

"Why?" said Bethsaida.

"'cause the words you say will rot a man's heart. He'll end up like Ghan. You understand?"

Selie shook her head, but Bethsaida nodded.

Suddenly, a long and tortured scream rang out from the courtyard. Ghan's shrill voice wailed out into the slave quarters and beyond like a gruesome siren of agony.

Kenyari winced, and Michael shuddered. The scream died slowly... but quickly rose again... and again...

...and again...

"Don't listen," Kenyari ordered. Selie and Bethsaida put their hands to their ears... not quite blocking out the sound. Bethsaida tried to WISH the screams away, but she knew that they would not stop. Ghan's cries would last most of the night. And beyond that, his screams... and those of the ones who'd gone before him to the whipping post... would keep echoing in Bethsaida's head...

...forever.

---

The call to the hanging came at dawn... before the fields and before breakfast for most of the slaves. Overseers fanned out into the slave quarters at first light. One man blew a loud horn while the others kicked open doors and snatched out the half-awake slaves... throwing them out into the dirt if they moved too slow. Then came the slow march to the Hanging Tree. The walk was always slow, as if the slaves had to fight just to put one foot in front of the other. They knew the purpose of the early morning assembly... they'd seen it just a few days ago and they had no desire to see it again. But they had no choice.

The field slaves made their way down the wide dirt path that separated two of the larger fields. The path lead straight to the House, but it forked just short of the courtyard. One part of it continued on to the House, while the other led up the small hill where the Hanging Tree loomed like a huge, petrified monster. The slaves took the second path without being told.

The slaves gathered before the evil tree, segregating themselves according to their own rank. The house slaves stood to the right, and the field slaves to the left. Between them was a narrow strip of emptiness across which gazes of spite and jealousy shot back and forth like arrows. Bethsaida looked over at the house slaves and saw a few of her friends... but her playmates didn't look back. Most of them turned away, and the few that did return her glance scowled at her just as they did at everyone else left of the divide. Bethsaida was a field slave now.

Kenyari nudged Bethsaida and admonished her for seeking trouble. The girl apologized. She never looked over at the house slaves again.

The slaves stood quietly while the overseers counted them... and then counted them again. When it was verified that no slave was missing, they waited.

There was nothing for them to see for a long time. Master Ellis, Master Percy and Overseer Grady were still in the courtyard... no doubt trying to revive Ghan after his long night of torture. The alchemist Jallan would be there as well, applying his foul and expensive potions to the doomed man in hopes that the slave would have enough life left in him to scream during the final lashes. Bethsaida didn't want to see Ghan scream. Hearing it all through the night was one thing... but to actually see him...

"NO ONE CLOSES THEIR EYES!" announced a burly overseer. It was Chase... Grady's assistant and a good friend of Master Percy. He was on horseback, riding back and forth in front of the slaves. "I SEE A CLOSED EYE AND I'LL HAVE GRADY REMOVE IT WITH HIS WHIP!!!"

"mamma..." Michael began.

"Shhh..."

"NO TALKING!"

Chase unfurled his whip and cracked it in the air above the field slaves as both a threat and a signal. Almost immediately, a procession of guards and overseers emerged from the courtyard. Masters Ellis and Percy road on horses at the very front, flanked by guards on either side. Percy was completely sober for once, though he did look tired and a bit sick from the night's festivities. Behind them were two overseers leading a small, horse-drawn cart. A thick tarp covered the rear of the cart, but all the slaves knew what was beneath it.

Behind the cart road the Overseer. Grady was dressed in all black, wearing a pair of black leather pants and a leather vest that left his chest and tanned, bulging arms exposed to the sun. Even his boots were black. He carried no weapons other than his knife and his whip, which was coiled at his waist. He kept his eyes fixed on the cart, his lips drawn tight in an almost-smile while the rest of his face scowled deeply. Bethsaida could feel the hatred radiating off of him. Behind him rode more guards... and then the alchemist Jallan and his assistant, Nathaniel, both riding on the same horse. They SHOULD have been then end... but, after a pause, more figures emerged from the courtyard behind them.

Only some of the figures were human.

The hideous howling and barking of dogs sent ripples of fear through the slaves. Chase cracked his whip several times to silence them as Harriek and five of his largest, meanest hounds fell in line behind the alchemist. The snarling, inbred beasts pulled and jerked at their chains. Harriek had two guards helping him control the animals... and all three men were sweating profusely from the sheer effort of holding the beasts back. The hounds snapped and growled at each other... and sometimes at the guards. But when they got within sight of the slaves, the animals went into a murderous frenzy that nearly yanked one guard off of his feet. One hound began biting its own chain, trying to chew through the iron links. Harriek shouted a mixture of commands and curses at the animals, and they calmed down. They still snarled and barked... just not quite as violently.

Harriek took the dogs out behind the tree... away from the slaves... and waited. Master Percy and Master Ellis whispered to each other as Grady and the other overseers pulled the tarp halfway off of the cart. The cart's sides were too tall for Bethsaida to see Ghan until they'd dragged him out into the open and stood him up with his back to the crowd.

The man had almost no skin left on his back. Grady's whip had stripped the flesh from his body, leaving a raw, bloody mess. And the alchemist's potions had kept Ghan alive to feel every agonizing moment. Even though the wounds were new, fresh skin had already began growing over the valleys and furrows in Ghan's back. The new skin was scarred and cancerous,and probably hurt more than the whip itself. That was how the punishment worked. Grady would whip a slave to within seconds of death... and Jallan would heal them. Then they would do it again. And again. Until either Grady got tired or Jallan ran out of potion. Grady rarely got tired, and if it was one thing that the old drunken alchemist always had... it was more potions.

Ghan was only half-conscious now... his hands and feet were already bound, and he swayed weakly back and forth between the two overseers who held him as Grady and another man hoisted the noose.

The Hanging Tree had no end of strong, low branches suitable for hanging a man. Grady studied them and selected one. He pointed. The other overseer hung the noose.

Then Grady selected another one.

He pointed to it, and the other overseer threw a rope over it. There was no noose on the end of the rope.... instead, there was a large metal hook.

The slaves looked at each other, but kept silent. Bethsaida wondered what the other rope was for.

Maybe it was for... her.

She shivered and her knees trembled. Grady said he was going to get to the bottom of what had happened to Kalem. Was this it? Was he going to hang her right here and now?

"STRING HIM UP!" Grady growled.

The overseers placed a wide, stable stool beneath the noose. They stood Ghan on the stool and placed the noose around his neck. Bethsaida thought it strange that, when they stood him up, they had him facing the wrong way. He wasn't facing the other slaves; he was turned to the side, facing the branch where the other rope hung. He wouldn't be able to see the other slaves... just the hook. But Ghan was so far gone that he probably hadn't even realized they'd stopped whipping him.

"mamma, why-" Bethsaida began.

"Hush!"

Grady took a small bottle of something from Jallan. He didn't do anything with it; he just held it and nodded to Master Ellis... who, in turn, nodded to Master Percy.

Percy stepped forward and smiled.

"YESTERDAY, the Ghan tried to escape," he announced. "He ran away. I don't know why. I don't care. You know... it really amazes me how IGNORANT you animals really are. You've seen AGAIN and AGAIN what happens to slaves who run away. Harriek always catches you. Grady always whips you... everyone gets to listen to it through the night. And then we ALLLL gather around this old tree to watch your neck snap and see your body swing back and forth in the breeze. We leave your body here to rot... and maybe you come back as a smarter slave in the next life. Now, as entertaining as that is... for me, anyway... it's SUPPOSED to teach you animals a lesson. But the next month... or the next year... someone else tries to run away. Hell, even Harriek's DOGS are smarter than that! Now, I SAID I don't care why this slave ran... and I don't. But I DO care that the rest of you LEARN your lesson so we don't have to waste working time hanging you all! Obviously, what we've done in the past hasn't made enough of an impression on you. Since Ghan is MY slave, father has left it up to ME to come up with something that WILL make an impression! I do believe I've found something that will be as educational for YOU as it is entertaining for ME. If you remember nothing else that EVER happens to you in your miserable lives... you WILL remember THIS! GRADY!"

Grady uncorked the tiny bottle and held it under Ghan's nose.

"GAAAGH!" Ghan's body stiffened suddenly. He spasmed several times before opening his mouth and screaming. He screamed until his lungs were empty... until the echoes of last night's torture were faint enough for him to regain control of himself. He was awake now. He pulled at the ropes that bound his hands behind him, but the very act of struggling re-opened the wounds on his back. Blood drooled down his legs and dripped onto the wooden stool. "YOU BASTARDS!" he spat. His voice was mauled by swollen lips and cracked teeth. "HANG ME! HANG ME, DAMN YOU! GET IT OVER WITH! HERE... LET ME HELP!"

Ghan tried to step off of the stool, but Grady punched the slave in the stomach. The one punch knocked the air... and strength... out of Ghan's tortured body.

"Ungh!"

"Not yet," said Grady. "BRING THE GIRL!"

The other overseers returned to the cart... and when they came back into view, they were carrying Tenna.

"Tenna...!" Ghan gasped. Her hands and feet were tied just like Ghan, and she had a gag around her mouth.

She'd been beaten. Not nearly as badly as Ghan, but the marks of Grady's whips were prominent on her body. She was awake; her eyes were filled with terror, especially when she saw her grandfather. The overseers took the young girl to the second rope. The rope with the hook. They stood her up and slipped the rope binding her hands over the hook.

"MMMMMM!" she protested.

Grady signaled to one of the overseers. The man took a knife and cut the filthy rag that was gagging Tenna's mouth. The girl screamed as two strong guards grabbed the other end of the rope and hoisted her up into the air. She was being suspended by her hands... and one of her arms was broken. The jagged pieces of bone ground together in her arm. Fresh blood dripped from the bandaged limb as the shards pierced the skin. Another overseer cut the rope around her ankles. Her feet kicked futilely in the air, nearly hitting the overseer in the head.

"TENNAAAA!" Ghan screamed.

"Hold this one," Grady ordered. Another overseer took his place beside Ghan while Grady unfurled his whip and took position... behind Tenna.

"From NOW on..." Master Percy began. "For every ONE Of you that runs away, there will be TWO ropes on the Hanging Tree. One for YOU... and one for a member of your FAMILY! Think about the person you love MOST... your mother... your sister... and watch THIS! GRADY!"

"ONE!
wha-KASH!

Grady's whip ripped a long, bloody furrow down Tenna's back.

"AAIEEEEEEEE-"

Ghan's own scream drowned out his granddaughter's howl of pain. The man yanked and pulled at the rope, trying to free himself. The overseer had to punch him repeatedly in the kidneys just to get him to stand still-

"TWO!"
wha-KASH!!!

Tenna's body spasmed in the air as the whip bit into her. By then, even punching Ghan wouldn't stop his struggles. The overseer drew his knife and drove it into the flesh just above the slave's knee. The pain kept Ghan's motion to a minimum.

"Three!"
WHA-KASH!

"AAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Tenna swung back and forth in the air as Grady rained agony down upon her. Her tortured cries excited Harriek's dogs, who began howling and barking in time with Grady's whip.

"Three!"
WHA-KASH!

Bethsaida watched the punishment with as much control as she could muster. She was holding Michael's hand tightly in her own, and every time the whip came down

"Four!"
WHA-KASH!

-she her grip tightened a little more-

"FIVE!"
WHA-KASH!

-and a little more. Bethsaida looked to her mother. Kenyari was watching... but she wasn't. Her eyes were aimed at something far away. She was praying to the spirits. Bethsaida tried to do the same-

"Six!"
WHA-KASH!
"DADDY-HELPMEEEEEEEEE!!"

But the sound of the whip and Tenna's screams brought her back. Bethsaida couldn't look at the girl. Or at Ghan, who's face was more tortured than Tenna's. She had never seen a grown man cry before. It hurt to look at him. It hurt even more to hear the whip come down-

"SEVEN!"
WHA-KASH!

Tenna was in too much pain to scream now. She just howled and cried and convulsed each time the whip touched her.

"EIGHT!"
WHA-KASH!

Bethsaida's stomach clenched and her throat spasmed. She tried to fight back the rising knot of emotion... nausea and fear. And hatred. She was afraid of Grady, and she hated herself for it. She looked at Grady in his black leather... whip in hand... he was trying not to smile as he struck.

"NINE!"
WHA-KASH!

Fear and hatred. She promised herself that one day she wouldn't fear him any more. Then there would only be hate...
-but that day wasn't today. Today, she was terrified of him. And his whip-

"TEN!!!"
WHA-KASH!

Ten lashes.

Only the first few had been aimed at Tenna's back... the rest fell lower, eating away at her buttocks and legs. When the last lash fell, blood was falling in thick red drops from Tenna's shredded flesh.

Grady stepped back. He admired his handiwork for a moment, then he re-coiled his whip and went to stand next to Master Percy.

They watched the blood soak the ground...

...then Master Percy spoke.

"NOW WE CAN BEGIN!" he shouted.

"Mamma?" Selie began.

Kenyari looked down at her children... confusion evident on her face. She didn't know what was going on either, but she knew it was going to be bad.

"HARRIEK!" Percy continued. "RELEASE THE HOUNDS!"

"What-?"

"Mamma?"

"Great Spirit, NO!" Kenyari gasped. Harriek and his two helpers released the beasts. Five vicious, slavering animals galloped away from their trainer. Harriek trained his hounds to hunt and attack slaves on sight... and he fed them just enough raw meat to keep them alive. The beasts were always hungry... and they always preferred living prey....

The blood...

...Tenna's blood... on the ground...

The hounds caught the scent, and the hunt was on.

"NOOOOOOOOO!!" Ghan shrieked.

Tenna's feet kicked violently as the hounds circled her dangling body. One dog was lapping her blood from the ground, while the others snarled at her. They jumped up after her, she he was just out of their reach. They jumped higher... barely grazing her feet...

"LOWER HER!" Master Percy ordered.

The slaves gasped. Every slave... all at once... they all gasped in disbelief as the overseers lowered Tenna toward the hungry beasts.

"Michael, don't look," said Kenyari. "Close your eyes, babies-"

"EYES FORWARD!" Overseer Chase commanded. "EVERYBODY WILL WATCH!"

"TENNAAAAA!!"

Tenna bent her knees, trying to raise her legs out of the dog's reach... but she lacked the strength to keep them up. The overseers just lowered her further-

"GRANDADDY!!"

-and further. And all the while, more blood dripped down into the dog's mouths. They tasted her... and it made them want more. They grew bolder and more determined. Hungrier. The largest hound leapt and caught Tenna's right foot in his powerful jaws. He bit down. The delicate bones of her feet snapped in the hound's jaws. Sharpened teeth peeled strips of flesh from her as the dog fell back to the ground... her blood dripping from its lips.

"LOWERRRRRR!" Master Percy commanded. "EVERYBODY WATCHES! NOBODY TURNS AWAY!"

Overseer Chase cracked his whip in the air, commanding the slaves to watch as Tenna slowly came into easy reach of the dogs... her bloody feet dangling mere inches above their heads.

The five beasts grabbed her frantically kicking feet and began to feast.

"TENNNAAAA!" Ghan howled. "YOU BASTARDS! GODS DAMN YOU ALL! YOU'LL BURN IN HELL FOR THIS! EVERY ONE OF YOU WILL ROAST IN THE LOWESTS PIT OF HELLLLL!!"

The overseers let Ghan shout.... no one could hear him over Tenna's screams anyway.

"Did he say 'lower'?" said Master Percy. "Eh? I THINK GHAN WANTS THE GIRL LOWER! LOWER THE GIRL!!"

"...please don't let them do this..." Bethsaida heard her mother say. "...by all that is holy, please stop them... please..."

The overseers lowered Tenna even more as the hounds literally pulled the flesh from her still living...still screaming body. Master Percy was feeding her to the hounds... one inch at a time... so her grandfather and everyone else could watch as they tore her apart.

Bethsaida felt her soul go numb.

At first she couldn't even MAKE herself watch, no matter how many times Chase snapped the whip over their heads. But as the screams and the snarls and the howls and the sounds of flesh... those hideous sounds... assailed her, she couldn't NOT look. She raised her head and watched as they lowered Tenna even more. The girl was making sounds that couldn't even be describe as screams... or even human. Bethsaida watched. She knew that... somewhere deep inside... she was feeling the horror and nausea and everything else. She would remember feeling those things later... but not now. Now, it was as if this were just a dream. Somebody else's dream. A story. A vision. That's what it FELT like. Bethsaida KNEW what she was seeing was real, but it FELT like a fantasy from some twisted spirit world. For a moment she forgot all about the other slaves... there was just her and Tenna and the hounds.

Then she remembered Michael. His hand still clutched hers, and his eyes were fixed straight ahead at the horror unfolding before them. A large string of drool had formed on his lips. Michael couldn't stop watching, either. He was taking it all in... unending waves of blood and screams. Eventually his soul would have more than it could take and it would shut down just like hers had done. He'd feel much better, then.

Underneath the tree, the long and gruesome death of Ghan's granddaughter's was slowly proceeding. The girl was in shock now. Her screams... and her legs... were no more. The hounds continued to feast as the overseers lowered more of her into their mouths. There came more snarling and tearing of flesh... until finally they released the rope and let her fall. The hounds snapped and fought with each other as they devoured her in front of the captive crowd.

Bethsaida looked around and saw that some of the slaves had passed out. A lot of the overseers looked pale... and one man was yielding up his breakfast onto the ground. Even Master Ellis looked appalled. But Master Percy and Grady were nodding and smiling. Harriek was shouting at his hounds, urging them to hurry up so he could go and finish his own breakfast. Jallan and Nathaniel weren't even watching. They were scanning the crowd of slaves... as if searching for something. No one else was paying them any attention, so neither did Bethsaida.

After about a minute, Master Percy waved to Harriek. The dog-trainer and his helpers pulled the hounds away from their meal. Each hound came away with a bloody morsel... continuing to chew hungrily as they were dragged off toward the courtyard, leaving behind the half-devoured corpse of one of the few field-slaves that Bethsaida could call a friend. Tenna. Her name had been Tenna. She had been Bethsaida's age. Smart and pretty. But now she was just a pile of meat. Meat with only a few tattered rags to identify it as having once been human.

"I hope you ALL watched carefully," said Master Percy. "I hope we don't have to repeat this little exercise. If we do... you can expect it to be worse."

"DAMN YOU TO HELL!" Ghan spat. "I HOPE I GO TO HELL JUST SO I CAN HAVE THE PLEASURE OF SEEING YOU THERE!!! ALL OF YOU!"

"Ghan here gets to die knowing that his granddaughter HATED him for the pain he caused her," Percy continued. "Yes... HE caused it. All he had to do was not be STUPID.... but he just couldn't manage that. Maybe the rest of you can. Kill this fool..."

Ghan turned toward the crowd as the overseer reached for the stool...

"It's better this way!" he shouted. "IT'S BETTER! Even THIS is better than living as a slav-"

The overseer yanked the stool away, and Ghan fell straight down. The noose snapped his neck cleanly... ending his final words before they were done.

Out in the crowd, the slaves lowered their heads and prayed for his soul.

Most of them did.

Bethsaida prayed for the spirit-king to come and kill every one of the masters... and the overseers... and Harriek... and the dogs. And when he was done, she prayed for him to take her and Michael and Selie and their mother to freedom. But even if he didn't take them away... as long as she got to watch when the bantika tore Master Percy and Grady to pieces, she would be happy to remain a slave forever and ever. Amen.

Meanwhile, Master Ellis and his guards milled around uncomfortably beneath the tree. Ellis didn't seem to know what to think of his son's display... or how he should react to it in front of the slaves. Still looking rather pale, he flashed several annoyed glances at Percy. Master Percy was prancing back and forth before the assembled slaves like pigeon, basking in their disgust and barely managing to stifle his laughter every time one of them threw up or passed out. Overseer Grady just stood behind him and nodded to himself... lost in his own thoughts of what to do at the NEXT hanging, and who he was going to get to clean up the mess left over from THIS one. Suddenly he stepped forward and tapped Percy on the shoulder. He whispered in the master's ear, and Percy nodded.

"It seems we had an exciting day yesterday," Master Percy announced to the slaves. "Not ONLY did Ghan decide to entertain us with an escape... but we had an incident in the cornfield as well. Some of my property was damaged... and I DO believe we are all familiar with the penalty for damaging the master's property. No? Very well... let us remind you. Grady?"

Bethsaida's heart sank into her heels as Grady stepped forward and began calling out names.

"LAZIM!" he bellowed. "BETHSAIDA! MICHAEL! TEROL!..."

He went on... shouting out the names of the older children he'd seen near Kalem's body. The children who SHOULD have known what happened, but could tell him nothing when he asked about the boy's death. As each name was called, another section of the field slaves began murmuring and jostling. Mothers wailed as their children either stepped out of the crowd on their own, or were taken by the other slaves and thrust forward.... ANYTHING was better than having Overseer Grady come into the crowd and GET them.

"Mamma, I'm scared!" Michael cried. He was terrified. The boy was beginning to shake... not with the hasting, but with fear. "Mamma, don't make me go!"

"I think you better," said Kenyari. "Its better if you do."

"But, mamma we didn't DO anything!" Bethsaida protested.

"GO!" The shout wasn't from Kenyari, but from a nearby slave woman. "Go, girl, before they comes to get you!"

"But-"

"Go, Saida," said their mother.

Bethsaida took Michael's hand and lead them up to the front of the assembly with the other children. There were twelve of them up there... Michael and Bethsaida were the last two to arrive.

"Turn," Grady ordered. "Turn around and face the others."

The slave children turned to face the crowd. Bethsaida heard overseers walking behind them, and then suddenly one of them grabbed her shirt and tore it from her body. It came away with a loud ripping sound... a sound that continued on down the line of children as they were each forcibly stripped from the waist up. The chilled morning air stung Bethsaida's skin. She got goose bumps, and some of the other slaves began to shiver. The cold air... and her body's reaction to it... only accentuated the fact that Bethsaida was the only female in the line. She felt the eyes of the overseers and guards scraping across her nakedness like claws. Bethsaida heard Master Percy mutter something, and then he laughed. Several other men laughed with him... but their laughter held no humor at all. Their cackling was as harsh and sinister as Grady's whip.

But even worse was the buzzing of the flies already drawn to the shredded corpse laying not six yards behind them. Bethsaida fought the lump of revulsion growing in her gut.

Bethsaida ignored it and kept her eyes down... lifting them from the ground only occasionally to glance at Michael. He was shivering, too, but not from the cold.

"Wh-what's gonna happen, Saida..." he murmured. The tremor in his voice told her that Michael really DIDN'T want to know what was coming... he already knew. "S-Saida, are they gonna h-hurt us?"

"Yes," Bethsaida returned, still keeping her head down.

"B-b-but I didn't do nuthin..." Michael cried.

"...doesn't matter..."

"Kalem was valuable property," Master Percy announced. He was pacing back and forth in front of the children, dividing his attention between them and the adults who stood silently before them. "Or at least he COULD have been. I don't know whether you are even capable of understanding this or not... but you animals are EXPENSIVE! Each of you represents a sizeable investment of my father's money! When one of you turns up dead, there must be a proper recompense, either in money... or as an EXAMPLE to the others. Since slaves don't have money, you will all have to be examples!"

The adult slaves shuddered and murmured... each remembering the previous 'example'.

Master Percy signaled to the overseers. Twelve men... some overseers, some guards... all armed with whips, took position behind the children.

"You all know how this works," said Percy. "The pain stops when I get what I want... when I know WHO killed the boy and HOW they did it."

"The HOUSE BOY DID IT!" Lazim blurted. "He was there! He... he... he..."

"House boy?" said Percy. He turned and stormed over to Michael, who whimpered with every footstep. "You mean THIS!"

Master Percy grabbed Michael by the neck and yanked him out of line.

"You expect me to believe THIS boy killed a slave over twice his size! Is THAT what you want me to believe!?"

"I..." Lazim fell silent.

"Uhhh," came Jallan's voice. "Matthew, perhaps now would be a good time-"

"HUSH UP!" Percy snapped.

Jallan hushed up. Beside him, Nathaniel gave Percy a foul look... a look that Percy returned in full before turning his attention back to the slaves.

"You think I'm an IDIOT!" he demanded of Lazim.

"N-n-n-no sir..." the slave replied.

"One!"

The guard standing behind Lazim let go with a fierce lash across Lazim's shoulders. The young slave yelped and stumbled forward, nearly falling from the single blow.

"ALL of them!" Percy commanded. "ONE!"

Twelve whips came down as one. Bethsaida felt the thin stripe of pain split the skin of her back. She closed her eyes and shuddered silently through the pain while Michael screamed and fell down.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAMAMMAAA!!!!"

"STAND THAT BOY UP!" Percy ordered. The guard behind Michael grabbed the boy and yanked him to his feet. "AGAIN! ALL OF THEM!" Percy shouted. "TWO!"

The pain came again. The overseer's whip burned Bethsaida's shoulders. All around her, the other children were screaming and crying... but she didn't make a sound. Instead, she clenched her fists and stood straight and still, determined not to give them the pleasure.

"MAMMAAAAA!" Michael shrieked. "I didn't do nuthin, I SWEAR!!"

"THREE!"

Bethsaida's body convulsed involuntarily an instant before the whip touched her... her muscles clenching in anticipation of the pain that she could not prevent. Her eyes remained closed. She heard Michael hit the ground again, but this time several other slaves joined him. There was a brief pause as the overseers stood them back up-

"FOUR!"

-and knocked them back down again. The air was alive with screams now... howls of pain from the children and their parents. Bethsaida heard her mother's voice loudest of all. Master Percy strutted up and down the line, basking in the power his overseers wielded. But when he caught sight of Bethsaida, he stopped.

"What the HELL is wrong with you!" he shouted... not at her, but at the overseer behind her. "You don't know how to USE that thing or what!? HIT her next time! FIVE!"

The whip struck twice as hard. Bethsaida hissed and felt the strength drain out of her knees. She wavered and dropped to her knees... but that was as far as she fell. Tears of pain and concentration rolled down her cheeks.

"STAND THOSE SLAVES UP!" Master Percy bellowed. Bethsaida opened her eyes and saw that she was the only one still half-upright. Most were on their hands and knees, but Michael had curled into a ball. He was crying so violently that he looked like he was throwing up.

"...I didn't do nuthin... I didn't do nuthin... I didn't do nuthin..."

"SHUT THAT BOY UP!"

The overseer's whip tore a line down Michael's back... a bloody whelp to match the others.

"AAAAAAAAA!" Michael screamed. "SAAIDAAAA!!"

"AGAIN!"

"SAAIDAAA-"

The next hit sucked the cry right back down Michael's throat. His eyes got wide, and for a second, he seemed frozen in time. His pants were wet now; his bladder simply could not hold under the pain. Bethsaida wondered if he was going to pass out. Not that it mattered... the alchemist would just wake him up again. Finally, after a few agonizing instants, Michael gasped for air.

"AGAIN!" Master Percy commanded. "HIT THAT FREAK AGAIN!"

"NOOOOOOO!" Bethsaida heard herself scream. She threw herself on top of Michael just as the whip came down... right across her bleeding back. This time she DID cry out.

"GET OFF OF HIM!" one of the guards shouted. The whip tore across her flesh again, adding yet another bleeding welt to her back. Then someone grabbed her arm and yanked her off of Michael.

"NOOO! Don't HIT him, PLEASE!" she cried. "IT WAS ME! I KILLED KALEM! HE WAS HURTING MY BROTHER, SO I HIT HIM IN THE STOMACH WITH A ROCK! I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T WHIP MY BROTHER, AGAIN...PLEASE!!!"

"BETHSAIDA, NO!" Kenyari shouted from the crowd.

"IT WAS ME! IT WAS ME! IT WAS M-"

WHA-KASSHHHH!

Bethsaida's world turned red as Overseer Grady's whip exploded down her back. The metal-encrusted tip didn't leave welts as the other whips did... it left a deep, bloody WOUND that overflowed with agony. The guard still had Bethsaida in his grasp, but the sudden pain caused her to convulse so badly that she flew from the man's grasp and threw herself to the ground at his feet.

"I know good and well you didn't kill that boy," said Grady. "But since you want to take it on yourself... FINE! The punishment is THIRTY lashes!"

The crowd gasped, and Bethsaida's mind reeled. Thirty lashes from Grady's whip was a death sentence. A long, agonizing death sentence.

"...unless you want to tell the TRUTH about what happened. But I'd hurry and do it while you can still talk! That was one... this is TWO!"

WHA-KASSH!"

"AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRGGH!!" Bethsaida emptied her lungs in the loudest, longest scream that had ever passed her lips. She'd barely begun to inhale when-

"THREE!"
WHA-KASSSH!!

With no air to scream, all she could do was gasp and squirm. She felt her flesh peeling off with each blow, but she could do nothing but endure. And die. There was blood all around her. Her blood. Her arms flailed wildly as-

"FOUR!
WHA-KASSSHHH!!

"MAMMA, I'M SORRYYY!!" she cried with her next breath. "I'M SORRY!"

"FIVE!"
WHA-KASSH!

The lash silenced her... but she could still hear screaming. Michael. If she could just tell him not to worry... just tell him goodbye-

"SIX!"
WHA-KASSH!

For an instant, Bethsaida felt like she was immersed in a tub of warm water... everything was so clear... and fuzzy... all at the same time. In the second between the sixth lash and the seventh, Bethsaida looked out at the crowd, scanning their horrified faces for her mother.

"...mamma..." she tried to say. Then someone called her name. Bethsaida turned her head and looked out at the fields, where she saw a dark stain on the world. The stain was shaped like a man surrounded by shadows... and the shadows were so bright they made Bethsaida's eyes burn. Bantika. And the Spirit King. They had come to take her. To avenge her. She looked into the darkness and understood. Her death would be the key that unlocked his fury.

She was ready.

...but then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

And there was a sudden gasp from the crowd. Bethsaida's world snapped back into focus, but nothing made sense. The faces of the slaves were all turned toward her, but their eyes were looking... beyond? Behind?

Their collective gasp became a murmur... and the murmur became a flood of prayers and shouts of disbelief. She saw Master Percy standing off to one side, mouth hanging open with shock... an expression mirrored by every one of the guards and overseers. Master Ellis was pointing at something Bethsaida couldn't see. Something behind her.

Bethsaida gathered enough strength to slowly push herself over onto her side. She looked up to see what sight had transfixed the crowd...

Michael stood behind her... looming over her like one of the Master's giant sculptures. One thin arm was upraised... one hand clenched into a fist.

And clutched within that fist was the end of Grady's whip, still bloody from Bethsaida's flesh. The boy had reached out and grabbed the speeding tip as easily as plucking flower from a the Master's garden. At the other end of the whip, Overseer Grady stared at the boy in complete disbelief.

The truth and impossibility of what had happened took few pregnant seconds to sink in. Master Percy broke the silence.

"KILL THE BOY!" he shouted. His shout broke the guards from their shock.

"NO!" Jallan shouted. "DON'T-" Too late. A half-dozen loaded crossbows came around, firing the instant that boy was in their sights.

Bethsaida saw Michael's head turn toward the archers... and then his whole body began to blur. Bethsaida couldn't tell one part of his body from another any more. Her brother was just a vaguely defined haze floating in front of her. The archer's missiles zipped through the blur, entering it from one side an exiting it on the other with no sign of them having touched anything in between.

Then Michael reappeared, his brown body solidifying out of the haze. He still held one end of Grady's whip, but the strip of metal-encrusted leather had snapped in half. Both of the frayed ends were smoking from the friction of Michael's movement. Michael dropped the piece of burnt leather in his hand. His palm was blistered and bloody. Then he looked up at Grady.

Bethsaida watched as the disbelief on Grady's face changed to something else: perfect and absolute terror.

"...kill him, Michael..." Bethsaida's thoughts came to her lips as breathless whispers. "...kill him... kill them all..."

"AAAAAAAAAKGH!" Michael became a blur again... but now something was wrong. The boy winked in and out of existence... becoming a blur and then solid again at increasingly random intervals. He grabbed his head and dropped to his knees... became a blur... and when he stopped moving, he was unconscious on the ground.

"YAAAAH!" Several guards drew their swords and charged the helpless child.

"WAAAAITT!" Jallan stepped in front of Michael and pointed at Master Ellis. "CALL THEM BACK! CALL THEM BACK! THIS IS IMPORTANT! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HIS MEANS!!"

"KILL THAT THING!" Master Percy commanded... but the guards took their orders from the elder Ellis, not from Master Percy. They all glanced expectantly at their employer.

"Mister Ellis," said Jallan. "Allow me to remind you of just WHO this child is-"

"I know who it is," Ellis said impatiently. "Seems to me that your experiment isn't quite over, Jallan. Guards, tie the boy up and deliver him to Jallan's study. Jallan... make sure the boy STAYS tied up."

"Father, I object!" Master Percy blurted. "This thing is dangerous!"

"This 'thing' could be the key to a thousand fold increase in our profits, boy... so SHUT UP! We've all seen and heard enough from you today! Guards!"

The guards swarmed around Michael's unconscious body, seemingly ignoring Bethsaida. She watched them bind her brother's arms and legs with thick ropes and then haul him off toward the House... with Jallan trotting giddily behind them.

"Come along, Nathan!" Jallan called. "We have work to do!"

"And get these slaves back out to work where they belong!" Master Ellis ordered. The overseers cracked their whips over the crowd, driving the slaves back toward the field like cattle. The other children ran... or hobbled... back to their waiting parents. Bethsaida couldn't even stand. Someone... Bethsaida couldn't see who... grabbed her arm and dragged over to her mother.

"Fix her," said overseer Chase's voice. "Grady and Percy will decide what to do with her later... make sure she's in good enough health to enjoy it. HA!"

Chase walked away. His boots scuffling along the dirt was the last sound Bethsaida heard before she blacked out.


---

"Productivity."

"Oh, yes," said Jallan as he and Nathan chained their new experimental subject to one of the large marble tables. Nathan had replaced the leather straps with iron shackles. Unfortunately, the chains and manacles were sized for an adult slave. They had to be adjusted to fit the unconscious child. "I'm sure you can imagine how useful such a thing would be. A single slave that could harvest a field in an hour. Two or three such slaves could run this entire farm by themselves."

"But how would you oversee them?" said Nathan.

"That, dear boy, was not my concern. Ellis didn't seem too bothered by the question at the time, so he let me continue my work. Take another few links out of that leg-iron... its still too long."

"Yes sir." Nathaniel took his tools to the far end of the table and began adjusting the chain holding Michael's leg. He unlocked the clamp with a large iron key so that he could work more easily. When he was done, he re-locked the manacle and tossed the key to Jallan. "Rather stupid if you ask me... to wish for something you can't control."

"True," said Jallan as he pocketed the key. "But we had more immediate problems. Haste potions are never quite as easy as they are in the adventure-stories. In REAL life, a human body would tear itself apart if it moved that fast. That is a very ugly thing to see... and quite a mess to clean up, let me tell you!"

"But his didn't," Nathan nodded at the unconscious slave. "Why?"

"That's what we're going to find out," said Jallan. "Of course, then there was the aging issue. Even after you slow them down enough to keep them in one piece, the damned things would age so rapidly. And gods forbid one of them trip over a rock or something in the fields... they'd hit the ground so fast..."

Jallan shuddered at the thought.

"It just isn't worth it," the alchemist continued. "When haste-potions DO work, they're only a very short time. A lasting effect like Ellis wanted just isn't worth the price. Given the cost of replacing slaves when they wear out, you'd end up losing money in the long term. Still... I gave it my best shot. I thought I'd failed... until now."

"So what happened to this one?"

"Mother was a test subject. Didn't realize she was pregnant until... well, you can imagine. That type of thing happens, you know. Usually neither the mother nor the child will survive, but... and this is a TRUE testament to my skill... I managed to keep them both alive. Had to keep the mother hasted so she could tend to the boy. Then after a while he slowed down and seemed reasonably normal. Some stunted muscle development..."

"But nothing like what we saw this morning."

"Oh, no. He was nowhere near that fast before."

"Is this tight enough?" said Nathan. Jallan examined the chains securing the slave. He tested them for slack... and found very little. The boy couldn't move.

"He'll tear off a limb if he tries to move fast," Nathaniel informed him.

"Yes..." Jallan nodded. "But that won't be fatal. In fact..." Jallan grabbed Michael's leg. "We might want to saw his legs off. In case he manages to get free."

"Good idea," said Nathaniel.

"Fetch me the surgical tools. If we do it now we won't have to worry about all the screaming."

Nathaniel retrieved a tray of fiendish instruments from a cabinet by the fireplace. There were no tiny scalpels or forceps for delicate work... no, these tools were for sawing bone and dismembering bodies of both the living and the dead.

Jallan removed a large bone-saw from the tray and placed he serrated edge just below Michael's right knee. He held the leg steady with his other hand.

"Ready?" he said.

Nathaniel had gotten a red-hot implement from the fireplace... he stood ready to cauterize the wound once Jallan had removed the limb.

"Yes."

Jallan pressed down on the blade while drawing it back across Michael's leg. The first spurt of blood had began to flow when the alchemist stopped suddenly. His eyes shifted from the point of incision to his hand... resting on the boy's knee.

Jallan frowned... then he put the saw down.

"What is it?" said Nathan.

"This... is not a normal knee. Feel this." Jallan stepped aside and let Nathan touch the boy's knee. He could tell by the look on Nathan's face that his apprentice was feeling the same thing he felt. The joint was... awkward. The flesh surrounding it was spongy, yet tight. The kneecap wasn't quite in the right place... and there were far too many muscles and tendons packed into the tiny area.

"...hmmm..." said Nathan.

"'Hmm?' Is that a professional diagnosis?" said Jallan. He walked around the table and examined the other knee. It was identical. The ankles, elbows, and shoulders were similarly affected. More muscles. More tendons, and ligaments... and bones that didn't quite fit the way they should. Even the fingers and toes... especially the toes... showed signs of the bizarre affliction. Every joint in his body... everything that was intended to move in some way... was abnormal.

No...not just abnormal. It was as if his entire body had been fine-tuned for speed.

"I think we'd better leave the legs on..." Jallan said after a long, silent pause.

"What could change him like this?" said Nathan. "Was he like this before-"

"I think I would have noticed," said Jallan. "It appears that we have more here to study than I thought."

"Where do we start? Dissection?

"Not yet. Fetch me the smelling salts and make sure those chains are tight... I think its time to wake him up."

---

"I'm not so sure about sending him to Hawthorne's farm, now," said Mister Ellis. The patron of the vast Ellis estate sat back in his chair and took a sip of his morning drink. He'd intended to have breakfast after the hanging, but after the morning's events he'd discovered that his appetite had departed. And even worse, the hanging had run longer than expected... pushing into his morning appointments. Sirgrad Porterwood was waiting for him in Ellis's study, ready to begin the negotiations for Porterwood's orchard. Ellis forwent his usual breakfast in favor of a tall glass of fruit juice.

"What is this, some kind of trick?" said Porterwood. Sirgrad was younger than Ellis... younger and not even half as rich. But what he lacked in riches, he made up for in shrewdness, frugality, and paranoia. "First you say you want to buy... now you don't? Whatever mind-game you're trying to play, Ellis, it isn't going to work."

"No games," Ellis took another sip. The corn liquor was mixed so evenly with the orange juice that he could hardly detect either... the mixture had taken on a unique flavor of its own. "I was planning to get something more out of your orchard than the obvious financial gain. I was going to use it as... an opportunity... to deal with a family matter. Show my son a bit of responsibility. But now I'm thinking that might not be such a good idea."

"Are you buying or not?" said Sirgrad. "Yes or no?"

"Maybe," said Ellis. "Perhaps this isn't the best time... I've had a rather stressful morning. If you came back later-"

"You're playing GAMES, Ellis!" Sirgrad spat. He stood up and pointed an accusing finger at his host. "You want to deal, then you DON'T want to deal, then you MIGHT want to deal... You're tossing away a golden opportunity, here!"

"Oh, please," Ellis dismissed his guest's anger with a wave of his hand. "You were going to 'negotiate' your way out of this deal anyway. No reason we can't do this later on... or not at all. Either is fine with me."

"You... you mean it..." Porterwood said quietly, as if in disbelief. "You're not tricking me? You really don't want to buy?"

"I said 'maybe' and I meant it. We'll discuss this later; I've got more important matters to think about at the moment."

"I'll sell the island to someone else!" Sirgrad warned.

"Not likely. Not at the ridiculous price YOU'RE wanting. But if you do... fine. Stop by next week if the property is still for sale."

Porterwood gave Ellis a long, suspicious stare... then he gathered his papers and left. The guard opened the study door for him, and closed it behind him when he left. Ellis sat alone in his study... alone with his thoughts.

"...dear gods, he fed her to the dogs..." he whispered. He took a long sip of 'juice' and returned the empty glass to the table beside him. "...what a waste of perfectly good property. The boy is clearly insane. Clearly. Couldn't have been good for the dogs, either..."

There was a tentative knock on the door.

"Come," Ellis called. The door opened just a little... the guard stuck his head in.

"Sir? There's a... priest... here to see you."

"Excuse me.... a what?"

"A priest, sir. From the temple in town."

"Well he's certainly come a long way. Tell him we gave already. Bloody parasites..."

"He's not here for money, sir. Says he wants to speak with you."

Ellis considered for a moment... turning his thoughts inward. His appetite hadn't returned yet, so he may as well see the man.

"Yes, yes," Ellis waved at the guard. The guard stepped aside, allowing a short, balding man in a dingy brown robe to shuffle into the study. The priest's neck, wrist, and fingers were adorned with silver jewelry, most of it bearing the convoluted and rather ugly seal of the Order Illuminat... the small group that served the dwindling spiritual needs of the kingdom. They had a large temple in town, where they could successfully bilk travelers and traders out of hard-earned money in exchange for 'prayers' and 'spiritual protection'. They rarely came this far out of the city, however.

"Mister Ellis," said the priest. He extended his hand in greeting. "My name is-"

"Thaul Handers," Ellis interrupted. He remained seated, making no effort to get up and shake his visitor's hand. "Yes, I know who you are. Your father used to make shoes and sell them out at the town square. Very good shoes. Must have disappointed him when you decided to take up the priesthood... but a man has to make his money somehow, eh? And I guess praying is a lot easier than making shoes."

Ellis and the priest exchanged stares... and Ellis knew that his point was made. Fancy robes and jewelry did not make one a gentleman. To Ellis, the priest was no more than a common laborer... an overseer for gullible people who didn't even realize they were slaves. And Ellis was a gentleman. The fact that they were both in the same room was an aberration that Ellis hoped to correct very shortly.

"I would invite you to sit," said Ellis. "But I get the feeling this visit will be very brief. Do you get that feeling, Mr. Handers?"

"Ummm, yes, well I certainly don't mean to intrude-"

"I thought so."

"Sir, there is a matter of some importance that I wish to discuss with you."

"I assumed as much."

"I'll get right to the point-"

"Please do."

"-uhhh, for the, uhhh... past several days there's been some... activity."

Ellis nodded slowly.

"Sp-spiritual activity," the priest elaborated. "Localized here. On your farm. We first noticed that our meditations were-"

"I care not for prayers and meditations, Handers," said Ellis. "Get to the POINT!"

"There's something going on on your farm," Handers blurted.

"Yes, there is," said Ellis. "And its called... FARMING!"

"Y-yes, yes, but have you noticed anything odd? Have the slaves been a bit more... a-agitated lately?"

"Well if they weren't before, they certainly are now."

"Excuse me?"

"You missed a very good hanging this morning, Handers. Very good show."

"Ah." Handers looked around nervously. Ellis watched him for a few seconds.

"Answer a question for me, Handers," he said.

"Sir?"

"What are you afraid of? You're sitting there fidgeting like you expected something to reach out and grab you."

"Well, that's... that's why I'm here. The particular disturbances we've found are very close to... they almost... well... are you familiar with local history, Mr. Ellis? I'm referring to the neighboring kingdoms..."

"Ahhhh, now I understand," said Ellis, smiling widely.

"Y-you do?" Handers looked even more frightened than before. Ellis saw the priest's eyes glance around the study several times.

"Oh, yes. You're here to tell me that the BOOGEYMAN has taken up residence in my farm, and that he's going to kill us all unless.... unless what? Unless I pay you to perform a nice, expensive exorcism, is that it?"

"Well..."

"What's the matter, Handers... profits at the temple not enough to keep you in new jewelry? Not bilking enough from the traders, so you've added a little 'protection' scheme? Run out and scare the farmers with your slave-myths about zombies and rampaging spirits?"

"I assure you that I'm here in all sincerity!"

"Of course you are."

"Mister Ellis, it wasn't that long ago when-"

"Horatio Ellis was my great grandfather, Mister Handers. I KNOW how long ago it was. He was THERE when a bunch of anti-slavery zealots stirred up a slave revolt. A lot of people died. A lot of people who DIDN'T die covered their own cowardice and incompetence with made-up stories about monsters and bogeymen and... what did the slaves call him... ah, yes... a Great Spirit King... that came down and smote the evil slave masters. BAH! A few heretics with magic and a few slaves with weapons... that's all it was."

"That's what Horatio Ellis chose to believe. But the Order was FOUNDED on the very principals of guarding and protecting against... against the kind of thing he chose NOT to see. The kind of thing that has possibly taken up residence on your farm."

"Ohhhhh, the Great Spirit has come to fetch my soul, has he? Come to drag my soul to hell?"

"The disposition of your soul is not my concern, Mister Ellis."

"Now THAT'S a rather odd thing for a Priest to say..."

"I'm here for the greater good," said Handers. "To offer my services in l-locating and possibly...uhh... exorcising this spirit if it has indeed returned."

"You?"

"Well... not by myself, of course."

"Of course! You'll need to bring the whole TEMPLE down here with you! You're all going to hold hands and march through my fields, pissing holy-water into every rabbit-hole you find! And, OH! OH! Of course you'll want to have sex with every female slave on the farm, so that your holy seed can drive out any demons that may be hiding in their loins! So tell me, Handers, HOW MUCH is all this going to COST me!?"

"Ummm... w-well there would be a d-donation," said Handers. "And there wouldn't really be any...ummm... urinating or... or the other thing. Well, maybe... if we actually found-"

"Get out," said Ellis.

"Excuse me?"

"You're excused! Now GET OUT! I'll not abide the presence of CHARLATANS and CRIMINALS in my house!"

"But, I-"

"GET OUT! GUARD!"

The study door flew open, and not one... but TWO armed guards rushed in.

"HEY!" Handers protested as the burly men seized him by the arms and literally dragged him out of the room. "I'M NOT A CHARLATAN! YOU'RE IN GRAVE DANGER, MISTER ELLIS! YOU AND YOUR FAMILY! AND EVERYONE HERE! IF THE SPIRIT HAS RETURNED, YOU'RE ALL IN TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE DANGER!!!! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED! REMEMBER-"

Thankfully, one of the guards placed a hand over the priest's mouth... silencing him for the rest of his trip to the front door.

"...and here I was thinking the morning couldn't get any worse," said Ellis.

"AAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" The sudden, chilling scream reverberated up and down the massive hallway. Guards drew their weapons... servants and slaves darted for cover.

Then the scream ended.

The mansion was deathly silent.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?" Ellis demanded.

"Sounded like it was coming from the alchemist's lab," said a nearby guard. "He's got that slave in there... from this morning."

"Oh," said Ellis. "Never mind, then."

---

Michael awakened to the smell of strong medicines... and to the severing of his flesh. He was tied to a stone table, with both arms and both legs bound by thick chains. He was naked, but he was not alone in the strange-smelling room. Jallan, the Master's alchemist stood beside the table, leaning over him and holding a tiny knife. A droplet of blood clung to the sharp blade... oozing slowly down its edge. Jallan's eyes were fixed not on Michael's face, but on his chest... examining the inch long incision that he'd just made above Michael's right nipple. The cut was short, but deep. The blade had cut to the bone, scraping across Michael's rib even as the boy awoke.

Michael screamed. Pain and fear and shock all merged in his mind to form an ball of emotion that could not be held back. He opened his mouth and screamed with all the air he had in his lungs. He tried to pull away from the maniacal alchemist, but his limbs were bound so tight that they hurt even when he DIDN'T move.

Jallan glanced briefly into Michael's terrified eyes... then back down at the incision. He took a small rag and wiped away the blood... then frowned.

"Doesn't seem to be healing any faster than normal," said Jallan.

Michael wondered who the man was talking to, but then the other figure in the room moved for the first time. It was a boy, only a little older than Bethsaida. He'd been standing behind Michael's head, but when the alchemist spoke, the boy moved so that he could see the cut on Michael's chest more clearly.

"I see."

While the alchemist's voice was laced with disappointment, the boy's voice was... curious. Michael tried to contort himself out of Nathaniel's reach when the alchemist's helper touched him... poking and prodding at the wound Jallan had made. Nathaniel observed the boy's futile wiggling, and nodded.

"He isn't moving fast at all. Normal. Try again?"

"Of course," said Jallan. "I'm certain that pain is the key. The girl said that the other slaves were hurting him... that must have triggered it. And the lashes at the tree this morning must have set it off again."

Michael had no idea what the two were talking about... but he didn't like the way they were looking at him. They had a cold look in their eyes. It wasn't like Grady's sneer when he whipped a slave, or even the hungry look that Bethsaida drew from the overseers. This was worse. Curious and cold... as if they weren't even looking at a living thing.

Michael liked it even less when, without warning, Jallan plunged his tiny knife into the center of Michael's hand... lodging it between the thin bones and sawing it gently back and forth, slicing a perfectly straight line down toward Michael's knuckles.

"AAAAAAAAAAA-"

"Put something in his mouth, will you?" Jallan said nonchalantly. He kept cutting while Nathaniel took a piece of scrap cloth and stuffed it into Michael's open mouth, muting his scream. Michael's chest heaved and his throat burned as he roared into the rag. He could feel the blade in his flesh... cutting....

...and then it was gone. Blood spurted out onto Jallan's hand, but he wiped it off with another cloth before examining Michael's wound.

"Nothing," he announced.

Michael whimpered. A string of tears rolled down his cheeks... dropping onto the stone table and collecting into tiny pools on either side of his head.

"You..." said Jallan. "Boy. Can you understand me?"

Michael didn't reply. The alchemist was looking into his eyes now. Michael liked it better when the old man didn't even acknowledge that he HAD a face.

"Of course he can understa-" Nathaniel began.

"He could be in shock," said Jallan. Then he leaned over Michael's face and shouted: "BOY!"

Michael stiffened on the table. The old man's voice hurt his ears... but not as much as the knife hurt his hand.

"Do You Understand Me!"

Michael nodded. Reluctantly.

Jallan yanked the rag out of Michael's mouth.

"Don't scream," Jallan said quickly. "Unlike Grady and Matthew, I really do abhor the sound. I hear it enough around hear already; I don't need you shouting it into my ear while I'm trying to work. Understand?"

Michael nodded.

"Do you know who I am, boy?"

Michael began to nod-

"SPEAK!"

"Y-y-yes, sir." Michael managed to squeeze the words out through his trembling lips. Jallan looked at Nathaniel.

"Voice sounds normal," said the apprentice. "Normal pitch and speed, anyway."

"How do you feel, boy?"

"M-m-my hand-"

"OTHER than that. Your head?"

"It h-h-hurts... please don't hurt me no more, Mister Jallan..."

"I'm afraid that's not up to me, boy. That's up to you."

"But I didn't do nuthin wrong!"

"No," said Jallan. "But you did something very interesting. You're going to do it again, too... I'll keep hurting you until you do."

"But I didn't do nuthin! I want my mamma! I want my sister!"

He did want them... he wanted them terribly. His mother would take the pain away, and Bethsaida wouldn't let the old man and the evil boy hurt him again. She wouldn't let them do things to him.

But she wasn't here. Neither of them was here to help him.

Michael wept.

"Do you remember the hanging this morning?" said Jallan. "Do you remember the lashes... what you did..."

"I Didn't Do Nuthin, I S-SWEAR!!!"

"Shhhhh..." said Jallan. "Quiet, now. No screaming."

"But-"

"What was the last thing you remember, boy? Tell us what happened at the Tree..."

Michael shrank away from the alchemist... trying to melt his body into the table to get away from him. Naturally, he couldn't, but he wished he could.

"He's afraid," said Nathaniel.

"Oh? And what ever gave you THAT idea?" Jallan said sarcastically.

"Of the question," the apprentice explained. "He's afraid of the question you asked. He's hiding something."

"Hmmmm..." Jallan looked into Michael's eyes again. "Very observant. Well, boy? Are you going to answer..." Jallan held up the tiny knife and brought it toward Michael's face. The razor-sharp edge hovered above his eye, slowly getting closer.

"...please don't hurt me..." Michael whispered. The whisper was all that his terror would allow... the only sound that could escape his dry, clenching throat. "...pleeeeease..."

"Give us what we want and we won't hurt you," said Nathaniel. "Answer the questions. What do you remember?"

"...I don't remember nuthin... honest, I don't... please..."

"Not good enough," said Jallan.

Michael closed his eyes. He felt the blade resting against his eyelid... and then slicing through...

He was too horrified to scream.

"...I saw... I saw... I saw the Spirit King..." he mouthed almost silently. The words had no breath behind them.... they were hardly even a whisper.

"Eh?" said Nathaniel.

"Just a slave superstition," said Jallan.

"...I saw him in the fields. And Saida saw him, too. He... he was mad. He was mad at you."

"He's delirious," said Nathaniel.

"And then what did you see?"

"I didn't see n-nuthin after that. E-everything got s-slow, and then I don't remember nuthin."

"Slow." Jallan repeated. He turned to Nathaniel. "Point of view. To someone moving very quickly, everything around him would appear very slow. Assuming the brain processes were accelerated as well as the body."

"But he can't remember anything."

"Speeding up and slowing down must be a tremendous shock to the brain. Memory would be effected. He doesn't remember what he did, or how he did it."

"How convenient," said the apprentice. "We can get nothing else from him."

"Oh, we can get a LOT from him. Just not from questioning him. We still have yet to reproduce the effect under laboratory conditions."

"Pain doesn't seem to be working. Neither is fear, for that matter."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that just yet. We've only gotten started... fetch me the needles...."

---

"My poor child," Kenyari muttered. "My poor, poor baby..."

The old woman rocked back and forth in her chair, her gnarled hands resting in her lap. Her eyes stared off into nothingness, eyes fixed on some distant invisible thing that only she could see.

"...my baby... they took my baby..."

"Mamma?" said Selie. "W-what do I do now?

Selie stood over her sister's body, holding a small bowl of half-finished healing salve. It was one of Kenyari's strongest recipes, but Selie only knew the beginning of it. The rest of was locked away in her mother's mind.

"Mamma?" Selie said again... this time with more fear in her voice. Kenyari had been fine a while ago. She'd told Selie to start mixing the salve, but then she sat down and...

...and now she wasn't there any more. The strong woman's unbreakable spirit... was broken.

"...they took my baby. They gonna feed him to the dogs..."

Bethsaida lay on the old woman's bed, her bare back a lattice of bloody welts and wounds. There was so much blood. Selie didn't know what to do. She had to fix Saida's wounds, but she didn't know how!

"Mamma, please wake up..." she cried. She grasped her mother's knee and shook it.

"...Tenna..." Kenyari moaned. "Oh, what they did..."

A single tear rolled down the woman's cheek.

Bethsaida moaned weakly... but didn't wake up.

The idea came to Selie like a spirit whispering it into her ear. It came so suddenly that it was almost frightening... but Selie wasn't afraid. She accepted the thought as if it were her own... and perhaps it was.

She knelt down and fumbled through her mother's medicine basket until she found the tiny glass bottle. The acrid smell of its contents burnt her nose even through the cork. She got a wet rag and wiped Bethsaida's face... then unstopped the bottle and held it under her sister's nose.

Bethsaida stopped breathing.

Selie took the bottle away, and Bethsaida coughed and inhaled... then exhaled slowly. She was still asleep. Selie held the bottle under her nose again, and this time she kept it there. Bethsaida's nose wrinkled... her face twisted into an uncomfortable mask...

Then her eyes opened and she reared back away from the horrible scent in the bottle... the powerful smelling salts had brought her back to consciousness.

But they'd done nothing for the pain. There was a brief second of numbness, then it all hit her at once. She opened her mouth to scream... but the world went dim around her. Weak and exhausted, she collapsed back onto the bed... welcoming her pain not with a scream, but with a whimper. Her eyes slowly closed...

"SAIDA!" Selie shouted.

Bethsaida winced. She opened her eyes.

"...Selie..." Bethsaida could hardly breathe, let alone speak.

"Saida you have to help me!" Selie cried desperately. "You're hurt, but something's wrong with mamma and I don't know what to DO!"

Bethsaida whispered something, and began drifting off to sleep once again.

"NOOOO!" Selie's shrill voice snatched Bethsaida back from oblivion... barely. "Saida if you go back to sleep, you'll DIE! You gotta HELP me! You gotta tell me how to FINISH this!"

She held the half-finished potion down by the edge of the bed so Bethsaida could see it.

Bethsaida said nothing for a long while. Her eyes and her mind and her memory were all going in different directions, scattered by the pain. Finally she focused them enough to understand what Selie was saying.

"Please, Saida, PLEASE!"

"...th-throw... throw it out..." Bethsaida murmured. "...start over..."

"But this half is GOOD! I KNOW I got this part right, you gotta tell me the rest!"

"...better..." said Bethsaida. "...something better. I'll tell you... tell you how... to mix it."

"But this is the best medicine I know!"

"...I know... something stronger. Just... do what I tell you... okay?"

"Saida... they took Michael." Selie didn't know why she said it, but it just seemed like something Saida needed to know. "They took him to the house."

Bethsaida let the words sink in. She nodded as best as her wounds would allow. Her pain wasn't quite so bad any more. It still FELT the same, but it wasn't important now. They had taken her brother. And she was helpless to get him back, or even know what they were doing to him. Another part of her soul had just withered, and no pain she could feel with her body could ever compare with the hole it had left in her heart.

But she had to go on.

"Take everything out of the basket," she instructed Selie. "So I can see what we have..."

---

"So, do I have reason to be excited?" said Ellis as he walked unannounced into Jallan's laboratory. "Have you taken that slave-boy apart and figured out what-..." Ellis paused when he saw the slave. The boy was still in one piece, which wasn't quite what he expected, but the alchemist and his assistant had been far from idle. As far as Ellis could tell, they had turned the boy into a human pincushion. They'd driven hundreds of long needles into his skin. The painful instruments were arranged in clusters on his chest... abdomen... feet... hands and genitals. The very sight of it made the old man wince.

"-what the hell?" he said in a much quieter tone.

"Acupuncture," Jallan explained. "Attempting to stimulate his metabolism,"

"What the hell?" Ellis repeated.

"The needles are... well... its complicated," said Jallan. Beside him, Nathaniel was holding a four inch long needle between his fingertips. Ellis watched as the apprentice slid the needle into the slave's flesh, wiggling it underneath the kneecap to get at the nerves behind the bone.

The slave boy stiffened suddenly, causing all of the other needles to move around... which caused more pain... which caused more movement... The chain reaction quickly sent the boy into unconsciousness, but Jallan awakened him with a powerful mixture of smelling salts. Only the rag stuffed into the boy's mouth prevented his scream from shattering the relative calm of the mansion. They had been torturing him for hours... ever since the hanging. It was almost sunset now. The boy's gag was saturated with drool. His tear-filled eyes were like bloody eggs stuffed into his skull.

"The interesting thing," Jallan mused aloud. "is that there's a completely PAINLESS way to do this. We just aren't doing it that way."

"Well dear gods, don't let Grady see you," said Ellis. "We'll have to order BARRELS of those needles just for him to play with."

"Grady? Ohh, this is a bit beyond him, I think. This takes a skilled and careful hand..."

Nathaniel inserted another needle, probing gently behind the other knee. The chains holding the boy clinked lightly. Either the boy was trying not to move, or the chains were so tight that he couldn't budge.

"Well, have we learned anything?"

"The boy has a very high pain threshold," said Jallan.

"Lucky for him," said Ellis.

"Not really," said Nathaniel. "Just means it goes on longer." Nathaniel and the elder Ellis exchanged glances. Ellis nodded... barely and reluctantly acknowledging the boy's presence, and completely ignoring the fact that he'd spoken to him.

"Is he coherent?" Ellis asked.

"Mostly," Jallan replied. Ellis walked over to the table to examine the boy more closely. The alchemist had even driven needles into the boy's face. Several concentric circles of pain surrounded both the boy's eyes, coming close to, but piercing the eyeballs themselves. Amazingly, there was very little blood.

"Do you know who I am?" said Ellis. The slave boy's eyes looked away... as all slaves did when a Master questioned them. "I see that you do. Do you realize how much money you've cost me, boy? How much time and money I spent to keep you alive when you were born... you and your mother. And why? So that Jallan could study you and maybe learn something useful. You were a disappointment then. We learned nothing; and my money was spent in vain. I won't be disappointed again, boy. The same goes for YOU, Jallan."

"Ah, well this may take some time-"

"You've had all DAY! Tell me SOMETHING! And none of your alchemy mumbo-jumbo, either!"

"We all know what we saw," said Jallan. "We know what the boy can do."

"He dodged arrows! Caught Grady's whip out of the air! But he doesn't appear to be aging rapidly... I'd call that a success, wouldn't you?"

"IF the effect can be duplicated," said Jallan.

"...if?"

"Well as you can see, he's perfectly NORMAL now. There are some peculiarities in his musculature, but they don't explain his speed. If anything, they're just... adaptations... to help his joints endure the rapid motion. They aren't the source of the motion itself. In fact, his speed may not be metabolic at all... since we've stimulated him for hours with no recurrence."

"I assume you will now explain all of that to me in words that I understand," Ellis said expectantly.

Jallan thought for a moment, and then shrugged.

"No, that's about as simple as it gets, I'm afraid."

"So you know nothing."

"Well...."

"Jallan, you have always been very useful to me-" Ellis began. Nathaniel interrupted him.

"We think he doesn't have conscious control over it," said the apprentice. "If he could do it whenever he wanted, he would have done it by now."

"We assumed that pain was the triggering event," Jallan added. "We may have been wrong."

"Or," said Ellis. "You're trying to trap flies with vinegar."

"Ummmm... what?"

"Flies don't LIKE vinegar," said Ellis. "If you want to catch them, you have to use the right kind of bait."

"I'm not sure I follow-"

"There's MORE than one kind of pain!" Ellis snapped. "THIS-" he swept his hand over the slave on the examination table. "isn't working.... so try something else! I want RESULTS, dammit! TONIGHT!"

"Reproduce the conditions of the hanging," Nathaniel said slowly. "Yes..."

"Nathan, move some of these tables back," said Jallan. "We're going to need room."

"Yes, sir." Nathan began packing away the esoteric items on the laboratory tables.

"Mr. Ellis... would you please tell Mr. Grady that his presence is requested in my lab. Tell him to dress as he was this morning, and to bring his best whip."

"And the female slave girl from the hanging," Nathaniel added.

"Yes, that's right. We may need the sister, too."

"The girl?" Ellis said with a smile. "Hell, I'll tell Grady to bring them ALL!"

---

Michael heard voices, but could not understand who was talking or what they were saying. The words were just phantom sounds... flashing on and off amid the bolts of pain as someone... he couldn't tell who... began removing the needles from his flesh. The needles didn't hurt quite as much coming out as they did going in, but Michael was in no condition to appreciate the difference. He had had enough. The alchemist's torture had unhinged the portion of his mind that could think clearly, or even recognize what was going on around him. It was wandering a maze of memories. Memories of pain. He felt his body react to things that were not happening... and some things that were. He couldn't distinguish between the two. He heard echoes of his screams from hours ago. He was submerged in a sea of needles and blades... some were real, but others were mere phantoms. The needles were gone now, but they still hurt just the same.

Once, he saw an image of Master Ellis. He looked real, so Michael turned his eyes away from it. There were more words... some of which may have been directed at him. Was someone asking him a question? Were they talking about him? What were they saying? The fog that muffled his thoughts shifted, and he heard movement. Was it in his mind? No... people were moving things in the room. Michael opened his eyes, and realized that they were already open. He lifted his head and saw boy... Nathaniel... clearing a space in the center of the room. Michael started to ask him if he needed any help, but the gag turned his dry whispers into unintelligible moanings. Michael hadn't even noticed the gag before.

Then he realized that keeping his head up was causing him excruciating pain. Or was it? It seemed to be... but it could have been a memory. He lowered his head anyway, choosing instead to stare up at the ceiling.

Several hours seemed to go by, but when he looked around again, Nathan was still moving the lab tables. Only he wasn't moving. The boy was frozen in mid motion, just like...

...like something Michael had seen before. The whip. Bethsaida lay bleeding on the ground, with Grady's whip hurtling toward her back for another kiss. But it stopped. The speeding, blood-soaked whip stopped in mid air, as had everything else around him. Michael reached out and grabbed it gently...

Nathaniel started moving again, and Michael's head started to hurt. Just like it had before. At the Hanging Tree. And the cornfield. Sheets of pain crackled across his already tortured nerves as they reincarnated with his brain. It was like a storm... but one that he had weathered before. His body had learned from the first two times... it had figured out how to adapt and adjust, so that this time there were no convulsions. No blackouts. No memory loss. Just pain... and a strange, lasting sensation that things hadn't quite returned to normal. Michael felt... off... wrong... as if he were dangling on the edge, waiting to slip and fall back into that strange place where nobody moved. And somehow he knew that if he went there again, he'd never come back.

"Did I miss anything?" said Jallan. The alchemist returned to the room carrying a bottle of some clear liquid that he drank greedily.

"No," Nathaniel replied. "Are you sure this will work? Ellis seemed... impatient."

"He's always that way when it comes to money," said Jallan. "Besides... this whole thing was his idea in the first place. Do you think I was wandering around trying to make faster slaves just for the hell of it? No, no... all HIS idea. And if it doesn't work-"

"He'll still blame us," Nathaniel finished.

"Yes," Jallan sighed. "That's true. Care for a drink?"

"No."

"Suit yourself." Jallan drank the rest of the solution.

"You don't know the formula, do you." Nathaniel said accusingly.

"What? For corn-licquor-"

"No. The formula you used on the boy's mother. You don't have it, do you. That's why its so important that we study and learn from THIS boy, because if we don't... you can't make another one."

"Well, heh, heh... there were a lot of formulas. Can't expect me to remember them all!"

"You didn't write it down?"

"Well... maybe. None of my notes are very... ehhh... readable." Jallan shrugged. "But that's why I have YOU now!"

"Having me now isn't helping. You needed me years ago."

"True, true..."

Michael listened to what the men were saying. Faster slaves. They meant him. Michael felt he warm chill as he finally realized what was happening to him during those times when the world stopped. The world hadn't stopped... it hadn't slowed down... HE had sped up. HE was the faster slave. But not all the time. Not now. That's why they were hurting him; they wanted him to do it again, but didn't understand that he couldn't control it. It just... happened...

Michael closed his eyes and tried to make it happen. He tried to force it. He wiggled his fingers as fast as he could... he thought about fast things: bees and birds and running dogs.

Nothing. It wouldn't come.

And then a noise broke his concentration. Men were coming into the room... lots of men. Master Ellis and two of his guards. And Master Percy... barely sober enough to stumble into the laboratory. One of the guards had to catch him when he almost fell.

But there were more people. Someone shouted out in the hallway-

"GET IN THERE!"

Someone staggered into the room. Michael couldn't tell if they'd fallen or if they'd been thrown. All he saw was a flash of brown skin and rags. The person hit the floor and yelped in pain.

Bethsaida!

It was his sister!

Two more slaves were right behind her: Selie and Kenyari. Selie was helping her mother walk, as her cane was nowhere to be seen. She must have forgotten it. But why would she do such a thing?

"Saida!"

"I'm fine," Bethsaida moaned. She wasn't fine. Michael could see the pain in her movements as she slowly got to her feet. Then she saw Michael. Her eyes met his, and she covered her mouth to keep from screaming. "...mamma..." she finally said, pointing at Michael.

Kenyari had already seen him.

"...what have you done to my boy..." she said. She wasn't speaking to anyone in the room, but rather at the floor. She'd lowered her eyes so that they wouldn't see her tears. "...my baby hasn't done anything wrong... p-please let him go, Master Ellis..."

"mmmm!"

Michael tried to call out to his mother, but the gag prevented him.

Then one more person entered the crowded room.

Grady.

The Overseer wore the same black leather from the hanging. His new whip... freshly cleaned and oiled... hung at his side, slapping against his hip as he walked. The sound of it sent chills down Michael's back. If his bladder hadn't already emptied itself repeatedly over the course of his torture, it certainly would have done so now.

"I dragged these slaves all the way up here myself," he growled. "Somebody mind tellin me what for?"

"In a moment, Grady," said Ellis.

"Please, Master Ellis," Kenyari begged. "Don't hurt my baby any more. Please let him go."

"Let him go?" said Ellis. "Oh no, I'm afraid that's not possible. I'll either get a return on my investment tonight, or I'll cut my losses. Isn't that right, Percival?"

"But I got nothing to do with this!" Master Percy slurred loudly. "Why do I even have to BE in here with these... ghouls!" Percy flashed a foul, red-eyed stare at Jallan and Nathaniel.

"The responsibility of ownership," said Ellis. "These slaves are under YOUR care, therefore, you should be here."

"Yes, but they're YOUR slaves... as you keep reminding me all the damn time-"

"How would you like to proceed, Mister Ellis?" said Jallan with a humble bow. Beside him, Nathaniel's attention seemed to be focused on Bethsaida. And Percival.

"I'll tell ya the first thing," said Grady. He walked over to the table and snatched the rag violently out of Michael's mouth, nearly dislodging a few teeth in the process. "Can't hear any screaming when he's all stopped up like that."

"Yeah, that's a good idea, Grady," said Percival. "heh... this should be fun. So what's this about?"

"Science," Jallan announced. "A lesson in reproducing this morning's events. Grady, if you wouldn't mind..."

Michael stared up at Grady and shivered.

"What are YOU looking at?" said Grady. "I give you permission to look at me?"

Michael looked away, but Grady kept talking.

"That witch mother of yours fixed your sister up real good. She shouldn't even be walking... but we can fix that with just a few lashes, can't we, boy? Percival! Hold that girl steady!"

Master Percy grabbed Bethsaida by the shoulders and stood her in front of him. Grady unfurled his whip and-

Wha-KASH!

Made a test strike that cracked in the air a few inches from Bethsaida's face.

"ahhhh..."

"NOOOOO!" Selie screamed. "SAIDA'S ALREADY HURT-"

"Shut up!"

WHA-KASH!

Grady's whip came so fast that it took Selie completely by surprise. One moment she was pleading for her sister... and in the following moment, she was on the floor, crying and clutching her bleeding chest. The echo of the blow hadn't even faded when-

WHA-KASH-

Another strike removed a long strip of cloth from Bethsaida's shirt... slicing the garment almost in half without touching the skin underneath. Percival finished ripping the shirt away, exposing Bethsaida's bare skin to Grady's whip... and his own lusty eyes.

"Try not to mess her up too bad, eh Grady?" said Master Percy. "Leave some for me and the boys."

"Hmph. You and your friends wanna dirty yourself with slave girls, you'll have to deal with my whip's leftovers. And don't think I don't know why Ghan ran away."

"Oh, like YOU never-"

"No," said Grady. "Never. Slaves disgust me. Now hold this bitch still... I'd hate to hit you by accident. Sir."

"Hey, maybe we should get one of the guards-"

"Noooo," said Master Ellis with a smile. "I think I'd rather YOU do it, Percival. Proceed, Mr. Grady."

"Michael, don't look!" Bethsaida shouted.

Michael closed his eyes.

"HOLD IT!" Jallan raised his hand. "We can't have that!"

Michael felt someone's hands on his face, prying his eyes open without any attempt at gentleness. It was Jallan.

"You will watch, or I'll bring out the needles and PIN your eyes open. Would you like that, boy?"

"N-n-nno, s-sir," Michael stammered.

"Then watch." Jallan stepped back, but stayed close to the table. From where he lay, Michael could see both Grady and Bethsaida clearly. "Grady?"

WHA-KASH.

Michael saw Bethsaida recoil from the blow, nearly knocking Percy to the floor. He caught her thrust her forward, standing her back up on her feet. There was a long, jagged line carved down her abdomen, leaking blood down into her pants. A few more strikes like that, and Percival would be able to peel the skin off her torso as easily as he'd removed her shirt.

"I-it's okay, Michael," Bethsaida said between gasps of breath. "I-it didn't hurt-"

"Oh yeah?"

WHA-KASH!

Bethsaida convulsed and almost screamed... even though the whip hadn't even touched her. Michael knew his sister had been lying about the whip not hurting. Her reaction proved it. Now she stood there shivering in Percival's grasp... shaking almost as bad as Michael was.

"HA!" Grady laughed.

"Anything?" Nathaniel asked. Jallan shook his head. He'd been watching Michael for any signs of a reaction.

"Not yet."

"Let's say we spoil that pretty face of hers, eh?" said Grady. He prepared to strike again-

"Wait," said Master Percy. He licked his lips and smiled. "I-I've got a better idea."

"And what might THAT be," Ellis said impatiently.

"You're tryin' to get a rise outta the boy, right?"

"In a manner of speaking..." said Jallan.

"Well, what's likely to upset him most," said Percival. "Peeling a few yards of skin offa his sister.... or doing the same thing... to his MOTHER?!"

Master Ellis looked surprised that Percival had actually said something intelligent. He thought for a moment. Then:

"Do it."

"Mamma!" Selie, who hadn't managed to get up off the floor yet, wrapped herself around Kenyari's leg. "Mamma, NO!"

"No, let me!" said Bethsaida. "Let me take the lashes!"

"Ohhh, look at this," Percival chuckled. "One big happy family." He spun Bethsaida around and leaned down to speak his drunken words into her face. "You owe me, girl," he said. "Grady was gonna kill you... but now he's not. You owe me BIG! I'll be comin' to collect later tonight, but for now... GET over there!"

Percival shoved Bethsaida across the room, where she collided with Jallan. The alchemist caught and held her.

"Keep her out of the way," Master Percy spat. He grabbed Kenyari's arm and pulled her over in front of Grady.

"Mamma!" Michael cried. He pulled at his restraints, but they wouldn't let him move. All he could do was squirm... thin muscles bulging as he fought the restraints. His mother was standing before Grady's whip. The Overseer was going to beat her just as he'd done to Bethsaida.

"Yes, I think that was a VERY good idea, Percival," said Ellis.

"...bout time I got some respect..."

Kenyari stood stoically before the Overseer, eyes cast downward.

"Shirt," said Grady.

Percival removed Kenyari's shirt. Her skin was remarkably smooth and unscarred for an old woman. Potions and salves had kept the scars from her for many years, but they couldn't heal the gnarled, dark marks around her stomach and lower abdomen, where Michael's sudden, unnatural growth had stretched her skin.

"Let's put some more marks on that skin," said Grady.

"Mamma, no-"

WHA-KASH!

Kenyari stiffened at the blow. Grady's whip left a deep red groove across her breasts. The old woman moaned at the pain... but it wasn't enough for Grady-

WHA-KASH!
WHA-KASH!

"Mammaaaaa!"

Bethsaida squirmed in the alchemist's grasp, nearly slipping way several times as the old man's attention was divided between her, Kenyari, and Michael-

WHA-KASH!

"...uuunnnnnnnnnghh!!...." Kenyari cried out as she fell. She crouched on her hands and knees, with blood dropping from her ruined chest like rain.

WHA-KASH!

Grady's whip caressed her back, removing a long strip of skin stretching from one shoulder to the other.

"MAMAAAA!"

Michael, Bethsaida, and Selie all screamed in unison as Grady's whip came down again and again...

Wha-KASH

-establishing a horrible cadence of pain-

WHA-KASH!

-every second, more flesh was torn from the woman's body. More blood flowed-

WHA-KASH!

"SAAAIDA DO SOMETHING!" Michael cried. Bethsaida was fighting to get out of Jallan's arms. She stepped on his feet and kicked his ankles... she twisted and turned...

WHA-KASH!

Kenyari had collapsed, and was laying motionless on the hard floor.

"Stand her up," Grady commanded.

Master Percival grabbed the old woman and tried to lift her. Her blood got all over him.

"...she's all bloody," he complained.

"You oughta be used to that by now," said Grady. "Watch your hands-"

"Eh-?"

WHA-KASH!

"MAMMAAAA!"

"She's not making enough noise," said Percival. "Make her scream, Grady... that oughta get the boy going."

"She's a tough one," said Grady. He stretched his arm out and massaged his wrist... then...

WHA-KASH!

"AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!"

"There we go," Grady hissed.

WHA-KASH!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!"

The woman dropped to her knees and screamed-

WHA-KASH!

Grady's whip drew a thick red line across her face. Her wide-open mouth became a tight 'O' of shock and pain. Her scream had stopped. It came out of the children's mouths instead. One of the guards had restrained Selie, and Jallan was having to expend more effort wrestling with Bethsaida. Nathaniel helped him. He folded the girl's arms behind her back, but she threw herself backward, knocking him off balance. She twisted free... and ended up fighting with Jallan again.

"HA!" Grady spat.

WHA-KASH!

Kenyari's nose became a spray of blood. And a second later-

WHA-KASH!

"SCREAM, DAMMIT!" He roared.

WHA-KASH!

Kenyari obliged, filling the room with her pain.

"MAMMA I CAN'T DO IT!" Michael cried. "I CAN'T MAKE IT HAPPEN!! I TRIED BUT I CAN'T DO IT!"

WHA-KASH!

"MAMMA, PLEASE!" Michael looked into his mother's bleeding face as-

WHA-KASH!

-Kenyari's expression didn't change. She made a chocking sound... almost a hiccup. A dollop of blood oozed down from the corner of her mouth, mingling with the blood that already coated her lips and face. Her eyes fixed on Michael's as she leaned forward-

WHA-KASH!

-and didn't even flinch when the whip caught her on the way down. She collapsed for the second time.

"DAMMIT, PERCIVAL! STAND HER UP!!" Grady shouted.

"Yeah, yeah!" Percival leaned down to get a grip on the woman. He lifted... "Hey... I think... she's out cold."

"Jallan..." Ellis began.

"No, scratch that..." Percival pressed his fingers into the flesh around Kenyari's throat. "She's dead."

"Damn. Are you sure."

"Oh, I may not know much, but I know dead when I see it." said Percival. "And SHE is dead!"

Michael heard the words... and saw the unmoving thing that used to be his mother. His mother.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO-" he began. Halfway through the scream, the world changed again. "-EEEEEEEEE..."

Glass bottles and vials in the room began to rattle as the pitch of Michael's voice ran up the scale... past the resonant frequency of glass... past the human ear's ability to even hear it. Only the chain's holding Michael motionless prevented him from smashing his bones against the stone table as he struggled.

"HE'S DOING IT!" Jallan cried.

Everyone looked in awe at what was transpiring on the table.

Except for Bethsaida.

She didn't hesitate... the instant that Jallan loosened his grip, she lunged for Michael. In her hand, she had the iron key that she'd taken out of the alchemist's pocket when they were fighting. Were the chains not so tight... if his arm had been allowed to move even a little, she never would have been able to find the keyhole. The chain would have been a inconceivable blur. But it wasn't. They'd tied him so tight that freeing him was just a simple matter of jamming the key into the hole and-

-click-

"HEY!" one of the guards shouted. Too late.

There followed a series of sounds... and a powerful gust of wind.

...and suddenly Michael wasn't on the table any more. Somewhere in the room, a red hot and half-melted iron key hit the floor.

The slave stood in the center of the room, looking down at his mother's body. His face was a blur as it contorted through unending expressions of fear and rage and boundless grief. He reached down to touch her face... but he forgot about his speed. Iron chains and an iron key were more forgiving than flesh. The merest brush of his fingers ruptured her skull and sent pain arcing up from his already bruised fingertips. Kenyari's head had shattered at his touch.... right before his eyes. A shower of blood radiated out from the impact... droplets hanging almost motionless in the air.

Michael stood frozen... assailed by an image that no child should ever know... and by the horror that came with it.

To him, the world had come to a near halt, but to everyone else, things were transpiring far too rapidly...

"MICHAELLL!!!" Bethsaida shouted. One of Ellis's guards quieted her with a punch... to the center of her back. The morning's wounds re-opened with a vengeance, and Bethsaida fell screaming to the floor.

"GET THE BOY!" Ellis shouted. Master Percy had already found an inconspicuous corner in which to hide, and he made no move to approach the slave.

The guard that had hit Bethsaida charged, but Bethsaida grabbed his foot and tripped him.

"UNGH!" He hit the floor, his sword flying from his hand and coming to a rest near Michael's slightly blurred foot.

"MICHAEL!" Bethsaida shouted. "MICHAEL TAKE IT!"

Michael watched the sword oooooooze across the floor. Bethsaida was shouting something, but the words were lost on him. Only a low, moaning warble passed her lips.

Grady and a second guard were both converging on the boy. Grady had discarded his whip in favor of his hunting knife.

"THEY KILLED MAMMA, MICHAEL!" Bethsaida shouted. "THEY KILLED MAMMA!"

"SHUT THAT GIRL UP!" Said Master Ellis as he quickly backed away toward the door. "JALLAN, DO SOMETHING!"

Jallan and Nathaniel were already out in the hallway.

"Michael STOP him!" Bethsaida pointed at Grady. "HE KILLED MAMMA!"

Michael just stood there as the Overseer came for him. Grady may as well have been standing still... but so was Michael. The boy couldn't move... his mother was dead... they'd killed her... they'd killed her because of something they wanted from him...

...because of him...

"YOU CAN FREE US, MICHAEL!" Bethsaida continued. No one was making any move to shut her up. "THEY CAN'T STOP YOU! NOBODY CAN STOP YOU!"

...they'd killed her because of him...

"MICHAEL, HELP US!" Selie cried. Master Ellis had snatched the girl up off the ground and was holding her in front of him like a shield.

Percival saw this, and thought it was a grand idea. He sprinted across the room, straight for Bethsaida.

"MICHAEEEEL!"

Master Percy grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet.

"MICHAEL, HELLLLP!!"

"Don't make a MOVE, boy, or I'll SNAP HER NECK!" Percy shouted. "And if you RUN, there won't be enough of her left for even your SPIRIT KING to put back together!"

Michael heard none of this. He only saw Grady... and the blood... and his mother... dead... dead...deadDeadDEAD!

"MAMMAAAAAAAAA!"

Michael ran.

He ran across the room, darting between the guards and Master Ellis so fast that the wind of his passing threw them all off balance. He ran down the hallway, and out through the massive double doors. The guards never even saw him. He ran through the courtyard... past the bloody whipping post where they'd tortured Ghan. He ran out past the Hanging Tree, where flies and vermin still feasted on Tenna's remains. He ran through the fields where he and Bethsaida used to toil under the overseer's watchful eyes. There were no overseers watching now... and even if there were, they couldn't have stopped him. He ran down the roads connecting the fields... past the stables and the livestock... past the outer edge of the farm... through the main gate... past the quiet fields of Hawthorne's farm... past bridge to Porterwood's orchard. He sprinted down the town's main street like a gust of unholy wind... racing past the Order Illumitat's temple without slowing down. In the blink of an eye, he had gone from Jallan's laboratory to the furthest plantations on the other side of the city. In the second that followed, the speeding child was but a memory in the moonlight...

Gone.

Michael was gone.

"Well..." Master Ellis stuttered. "uhh... SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING! GRADY, GET THAT BOY BACK!"

Grady looked at him as if he were insane.

"MOVE!" Ellis roared. "RELEASE THE HOUNDS! SOUND THE HORN!!"

"What... you... you MEAN it?" said Grady.

"YES!

"They'll never catch him," said Jallan. "Never. At best, he's tripped over something and killed himself out there in the fields. At worst... he's three kingdoms away by now. They'll never catch him."

"CATCH HIM ANYWAY!" Ellis was beginning to turn red.

"You heard him," Grady hissed at the guards. "Go get Harriek! I'll wake the others!"

"MOVE! MOVE! MOVE! I WANT THAT BOY BACK BY SUNRISE!!!!"

"What about these two?" said Percival. He had Bethsaida in a choke-hold, and had grabbed Selie by arm and lifted her up onto her toes. "Whatcha want to do with them?"

"They're yours," Ellis spat as he stormed out of the room. "Do what you want!"

A sinister smile came to Percival's lips.

"Heh, heh, heh..." he chuckled.

"...saida..." Selie whined. "...saida what happened Michael?"

"He left us," Bethsaida said with tears of shock and disbelief falling from her eyes. She swallowed the pain and bile that were rising up from her gut. "...h-he ran away, Selie... he left us..."

[To Be Continued]