‘A man can lose himself entirely in the darkness,’ my master tells me as we pass the cells and interrogation chambers on the first level of Stonehaven Keep’s dungeons. It is dusk, yet a languid smattering of light filters into each cell from barred windows near the ceiling. ‘But one ray of light, be it of a waning moon, the gloam of a setting sun, or the meagre flicker of a candle, is enough to sustain a man’s spirit.’

I pluck an unlit torch from a basket as we approach stairs down to the next level. I can see without light, as my master’s design intended, but I incline my head and offer him the tarred end of the torch. He holds his palm underneath it and the air warps with heat until the torch bursts aflame. My master doesn’t speak as we descend, a habit of his, to see what I might say to fill the silence, to learn what thoughts he might have evoked in me, and I suspect, to test the depth of my intellect. But I am as comfortable in silence as I am in darkness.

‘It’s about balance, Jerrich. Understand the axis upon which a man’s sanity balances, and tip it. All men need both light and dark, day and night. Another lightless day and this one’s spirit may fail, and with it, his mind. We need to break him before that happens. What is it? Speak your mind,’ he commands.

I tread carefully. ‘I fear you overestimate his resilience, my lord. His addictions show a weakness of mind. And he has been deprived of those, too.’ Within me, dissonance wars silently. I do not want the prisoner permanently addled, yet neither can I afford a collapse of his fortitude.

My master’s pristine teeth flash in the torchlight. ‘You learn,’ he says approvingly. ‘I am heartened that there is more to you than savagery.’

We turn down a corridor of empty cells and rooms stocked with the likes of branding irons, bone-saws, pliers, and other more creative nameless inventions. This prisoner had not succumbed to physical torture. He’d laughed through teeth extractions, howled and writhed through the elemental boiling of non-vital organs, and left mages who’d entered his mind psychotic or comatose. So, my master tailored his approach to less efficient but more effective methods. Time, darkness, and deprivation.

We come to the last cell where a naked, cadaverous man is curled up in the corner. He squints in the glow and unfurls his wasted limbs. His finger and toenails have been pried off and starving rats released into the cell to gnaw on his bloodied extremities. In case that didn’t keep him awake, his eyelids had been stapled open. He crawls towards the light, craning his head up to drink it in.

‘Are you ready?’ my master asks him.

He bobs his head and a cough wracks him. ‘Yes,’ he whispers, then louder, ‘yes.’

Our eyes meet for a fraction of a second and I know he is utterly broken. Days of pitch darkness in the delirium of withdrawals is a special kind of hell. The cocksure, mercenary thief I’d hired is gone and all that’s left is this mutilated wretch. I observe a strange flutter in my stomach and cast it aside.

‘Tell me who took my wife and unborn child. Tell me where she is.’ My master’s voice is low, monotonic.

‘N-n-never saw who,’ the prisoner croaks. ‘But can tell you wh-where.’

‘Speak it, and you will have your choice of bread or farisk.’ The prisoner’s eyes strain wider with piteous need.

The prisoner chokes at first as he tries to speak. ‘Farisk, farisk, yes,’ he wheezes, voice crackling.

‘You shall have it.’

His haunted eyes flicker to mine but I fix my gaze on the flagstones. ‘I delivered her to…a mage.’ I cringe at his choosing of detail to renege and alter. ‘There was a portal. To another realm.’

‘Where?’ A cold fury seeps into my master’s tone. ‘Where was the mage? The portal?’

The prisoner stutters, ‘Th-the lower reaches of, of The Sleeve. Down by the southernmost peaks!’

My master slams his ringed fist against the cell’s bars and the prisoner whimpers and hunches into himself.

‘Don’t. Lie. To. Me,’ he snarls. It is the most I have seen him lose control of his temper. ‘The Sleeve is not habitable. None can survive the creatures that reside there!’

The prisoner sobs violently, curls into foetal position. ‘It is true! I swear it!’ he splutters.

‘The word of a farisk fiend,’ my master scoffs. ‘What does this mage want?’

The prisoner moans and rocks. ‘I was just paid to…bring her to the location. Told…nothing else.’

As my master paces away, cogitating, the prisoner’s bloodshot eyes latch to mine and he grins, all gums, before moaning again. ‘Farisk,’ he wails. ‘Ple-e-hease.’

My master rummages in his pocket and produces a tiny segment of crushed farisk bean and tosses it into the cell. The prisoner scrambles to find it among the rat droppings on the grimy floor, hyperventilating in his desperation.

‘Let’s go,’ my master says.

I follow him away from the sounds of fingers scrabbling on the ground. Before we ascend, I hear crunches and a great groan of relief as the prisoner chews on his bitter reward.

#

I see little of my master in the following weeks. The search for the kidnapped Queen Sefra goes on with no demands or communication from the kidnappers, and my master withdraws further, pursuing his own avenues of investigation privately, trusting no one. I receive referrals from my master’s magi and advisors, and my work continues, which I carry out as always with cold efficiency. A long-forgotten feeling niggles at me, spreads up from my guts like a creeping mould, as I travel the province from one task to the next. I deal with wraiths in bogs, ghouls in graveyards, and waterhags haunting marshes. I kill a troll waking from hibernation before it can plunder farms and terrorise towns. I exterminate a fledgling horde of goblins before they multiply into a greater threat. I cut down human mages for practicing magic without licence, witches with plans to summon demons or empower themselves with black magic, a trio of necromancers stupid and arrogant enough to think they can raise the dead to rise against the monarchy. I battle ferocious, nameless beasts corrupted by energy leaking through fissures in reality, that my master’s coterie of magi then come to seal up. I enter cursed forests where no man can breathe the miasmic air and I cull supranaturally large and intelligent animals and arthropods. In more delicate objectives, I assassinate a list of nobles and diplomats; one fellow consumes poison that stops his heart, another’s neck is snapped before she tumbles down a flight of stairs, one is left to suffocate on a public thoroughfare, steel wire garroting his neck, another appears to overdose on farisk, and one I simply make disappear, his corpse left at the perimeter of a forest to be devoured.

I purge, and I feel nothing.

I think of the Queen’s fate and I feel a nausea, not born of any physical ailment. A fizz of vulnerability in my core. Humanity I didn’t know I still possessed. Weakness.

My master disappears to the lowest subterranean levels of the castle for days at a time. He grows paranoid. Or perhaps I do. But one has to care about things to be paranoid, even if it’s only about oneself. I, however, exist for one purpose and one purpose only. I am a fiend in a way, but not for substances, sex, power, coin, or such vices. I crave the thrill of the hunt, the exhilaration of battle, the base satisfaction of applying the abilities my master gave me. I exist to purge.

Or I had.

Now, that primal drive is not enough.

I do not sleep. I lie awake, troubled. I cannot suppress my thoughts. I cannot purge what I feel within. I cannot scour from my mind Sefra’s gaze. I cannot cull my mind’s desire to call upon memories of her smile…her touch…and ultimately, her request.

‘Help me.’

‘Help you what?’ I’d asked her.

‘Escape.’

‘He would kill you. And me.’

‘He’ll kill us anyway, when he finds out.’

‘He won’t find out.’

‘He will.’ She had clasped my hand in both of hers. Her voice quavered. ‘He’ll know the child is not his when he sees it. If not, when he holds it. I would rather die escaping than risk his wrath, rather die than risk our child, Jerrich,’ she’d said, eyes brimming but jaws clenched. ‘Do you not feel the same? Do you want to keep…doing what you do for the rest of your days?’

She had cracked something open in me.

And it would not close.

#

I am summoned to my master’s private study, where he tells me he knows the realm the Queen was taken to.

‘That is good news, my lord,’ I say. I keep my eyes as blank as stones. ‘What do you require of me?’

He scrutinizes me with a piercing, sunken gaze from behind his desk. Whatever magic he performed took a toll on him. He is haggard, cheeks hollow, a grey pallor to his skin. ‘From the residual energy of the closed portal in The Sleeve, the magi were able to create a portal to the same realm. The Queen is well veiled and cannot be tracked, however. But veils and wards don’t affect you.’

‘I will prepare to leave, my lord.’

‘Do you not have questions about the realm she resides in?’

‘I trust you will inform me of any pertinent details, my lord.’

He strokes his chin, shaping the point of his beard as he considers me. He inhales as if finishing a thought and raises his eyebrows. ‘It is an interesting world. Technologically and economically more advanced than us by centuries. I went there myself and searched some of the land, but it was perilous to stay long. That is a job for you, Jerrich.’

‘Perilous?’ I cannot imagine what perils might threaten my master.

‘Their weaponry is…exquisite. Magic, strictly controlled, utilised indirectly through weapons, tools, transport vehicles – in ways you wouldn’t believe. There is light brighter than fire but without heat everywhere. All the time.’

I don’t understand what he means. ‘How?’ I ask.

‘I will come to know how, in time,’ he says. ‘Knowledge, after all, is one of the greatest pillars of power.’

I nod. ‘You are wise, my lord.’

He tilts his head and there is a prolonged silence.

‘What is it you desire, Jerrich?’ The air around me seems to thicken.

‘I desire only to serve, my lord.’ I recite the oath I spoke over a decade ago. ‘To purge from the land that which sows chaos, and any who conspire against your reign.’

‘And serve loyally you have. My unseen hand. My silent knife. My purger of monsters and men.’ He drums his fingers. ‘Thank you, Jerrich, for all that you have done.’

‘I am glad I have met your expectations, my lord.’

His eyes bore into me, then he waves a hand. ‘Go. Prepare. Come to the ninth sublevel under the castle when you are ready.’

I bow and turn to leave.

‘Jerrich.’ I stop. ‘How well do you know Sefra’s mother?’

My neck prickles. ‘I…only know of Lady Adaline.’ I pause. ‘Why do you ask, my lord?’

‘No one knows where she is. Did you know she was a witch? Veils and wards and such are her specialty.’

I keep my back to him and ask with trepidation, ‘You think she is involved, my lord?’

‘I think I am beginning to understand many things. Many things. But not all. Not yet.’

#

It is chokingly humid nine levels below. Smoke from my master’s torch coils torpidly against the low ceiling in the dead air, his waiting figure limned in the flames’ amber haze. Three cloaked mages attend him. They stand before a break in the brickwork wall where there is instead a smooth black rockface veined with ripples of silver.

‘Are you ready, Jerrich?’ my master asks me.

‘I am.’

A mage steps forward bearing an impractically huge sword, the blade gently curving into its tip. The weapon would be absurd if not for its arcane mythos, and many do believe its existence a fanciful folk tale, but I recognize the legendary relic: Alascabar’s Claw. I had returned from battling the dragon with its talon as my trophy, Alascabar oathbound in defeat to the uppermost peaks of The Sleeve. The trophy had been forged into a five-foot long blade. The mage struggles to balance it in his grip as he unsheathes it and touches the tip against the rock. He carves a simple outline of a doorway into the rockface, the graven lines glinting as peelings and chips of silver-flecked rock fall away. My master presses his hand against the rock until incandescent heat smoulders under his palm. The rock rumbles, a glowing ring of heat ripples out from his hand, and within the etched boundaries the rock falls inwards. My master steps back and nods to me, and I go through the opening.

#

I walk into the night of another world and find myself on a remote hilltop crowned by a ring of black silver-veined standing stones like the rock under Stonehaven Keep. Behind me, the torn fabric of reality begins to re-knit with a sound like the air itself is drawing in a strained deep breath, then suddenly the portal inhales, implodes, and vanishes with a subaudible ear-popping whoomph, a highpitched ringing left in its absence. I stop, sensing the presence of others. I turn to see my master and two magi standing before a smoking pillar.

The third mage appears over the crest of the hill behind them, two hooded, bound figures stumbling in tow. One carries a small squirming bundle in her arms. Ice grips my heart, spreads outwards, fluxes to a choking heat in my throat. The figures are unhooded to reveal Adaline and Sefra, bloodied and beaten, Sefra cradling our newborn child. Every fibre of my body tenses so tautly I feel my eyes bulge from their sockets and hear a low vibratory growl ripple from my throat. The magi hesitate but my master’s stride doesn’t falter.

‘I wanted to believe you hadn’t betrayed me, Jerrich,’ he says. ‘If you accept execution,’ his gaze swivels to Adaline and Sefra, ‘I will let them live. If not, you still die, but so will Sefra and Adaline.’

I lunge forward but before I reach him he melts to shadow and evaporates. His voice sounds from further away behind me. ‘You of all people should know not to cross me. But I suppose you are little more than a dumb animal. It was my own fault, gradually humanizing you over the years.’

He is both right and wrong. I am not a dumb animal, yet nor am I fully human. I am some twisted merging of both, but unlike any animal, I revel in violence. I seek and willingly surrender to the drive implanted in me to kill, to destroy, to purge that which I am pointed at. I sprint snarling at the nearest mage. His conjured fire would have burned me but it dies as smoke in his hands as I grab him by the neck and crush his throat, squeezing until my fingers interlock inside his flesh. I rip my hands free of his pulped neck, spraying arcs of blood. The hilt of Alascabar offers itself to me from the expired mage’s back. I grasp it and the great blade sings free of its scabbard. A thrill shivers through me.

Faster than any human can move, I bound and leap and spin, covering twenty feet in the blink of an eye. The tip of the swinging blade spans the remaining space and clips the mage behind Adaline and Sefra. His head snaps to the left with a gout of blood, face shorn ear to ear, the cut half a head deep. His body follows the momentum of his head and he falls garbling and clutching at the mortal wound. The last mage summons flames and a wall of fire rushes at me but I have already burst into motion and catch only a brush of heat off it. I charge, grunting. Blinded by the brightness of his own fire, he flails his hands but I smash through the condensing shield of ice he conjures. I feel his mind scrabble feebly to break into mine, but even he knows that is futile. I give him a swift death, skewering his heart.

‘Jerrich.’ My master’s voice is calm. ‘You can kill those mages. But you cannot kill me. I found them days ago, and bound Sefra to me as insurance. Whatever injury is done to me is also done to her. So drop the sword.’

My eyes find Sefra’s. Even in the grips of rage, her gaze affects me. ‘Remember,’ she whispers, ‘what you promised.’ She looks down at the baby in her arms. My son. I hear his muffled cries.

My master looks between the two of us, frowns, then his eyes widen. My death stroke whips through him, but instead of drawing blood, shadows scatter and his body disperses. I wait two heartbeats and plunge my hand into the air behind me and grasp my master’s coalescing heart. His body forms around it, sealing my hand in his chest. He stutters. Ogles his chest. Grabs my wrist weakly. He shakes his head and mouths a silent plea. Sefra’s breath hitches and blood dribbles from her mouth as it does my master’s. Adaline hangs her head and cries.

I rip out his heart.