Page 96 of The Malevolent Seven

The tears falling from her golden eyes looked heartbreakingly human to me. We stared silently as her unwilling body methodically completed its hideous work.

It took just a few more minutes before the Seven Brothers we’d destroyed so utterly less than ten minutes ago were once again standing before us, gasping.

‘What. . . what have you done to us?’ the eldest asked, the dread in his voice almost enough to make me pity him.

‘Oh, tut tut,’ Fidick said, and gestured at Shame. He didn’t even bother to look at her as he passed on his order: the subtle disdain of a master for his slave. It brought back that moment on the prince’s barge when Galass had chosen one of the pleasure girls for herself.

‘I’ve only ever known what it is to be another’s plaything,’she had said.‘Who are you to tell me I can’t, for once in my life, experience what it is like to hold that power myself?’

But Galass had been tentative, almost deferential to the girl she had chosen for herself, while Fidick dominated Shame without the slightest hesitation, as if subjugating another were the most natural thing in the world to him.

On his unspoken command, Shame’s fingers twitched. How she knew what he wanted, I had no idea; maybe he was speaking directly in her mind.

The Seven Brothers’ eyes widened in horror. When they opened their mouths, their tongues were gone.

‘Much better,’ Fidick said with a contented sigh. ‘I much prefer not having the architecture scolding me.’

‘Architecture?’Galass demanded. ‘Fidick, how can you—?’

‘They made themselves into gates, Galass. They chose to become doorways between this realm and another. Who are we to deny them the destiny they themselves chose?’

The brothers were lined up now. It looked as if all our efforts– all the sacrifices we’d made– had changed nothing at all. But that wasn’t true. It turned out we’d changedeverything.

Fidick walked along the row, a general inspecting his unwilling troops. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we have a little problem with the size of our portals: the beings who rule the Infernal and Auroral planes are quite a bit bigger than insects.’ Again without looking at Shame, he ordered, ‘By my hand be guided.’

I didn’t understand what he was doing at first, until he reached up and slid his fingers into the mouth of the youngest of the brothers. Slowly, he prised open the unwilling jaws, pulling them as wide as they would go– and then wider and wider yet, and as he did so, Shame’s transfiguration magic altered the brother’s face until it was just a hideous parody of a human being. The poor bastard needed no tongue to scream.

‘Fidick, stop this!’ Galass shouted. ‘This isn’t you– it’s wrong!It’s evil!’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he replied, patiently continuing his monstrous work. ‘You and I have witnessed true evil, Galass. We experienced it in the Ascendant’s camp– what they did to us there, remember? What right does humanity have to govern their own affairs when men like Lucien can rip the innocence from children?’

The boy stopped and stepped back to inspect his handiwork. The brother’s mouth was now a gaping maw stretching down to the floor: more than enough space for a grown man to walk through.

‘There, that’s better,’ said Fidick with satisfaction.

He moved to the next brother, and as we stood there, paralysed with terror and shock, he transformed one after another, until only the brother in the middle– the one I’d locked eyes with a lifetime ago– remained unchanged.

‘I’m afraid seven is an odd number,’ the boy informed him, ‘and it wouldn’t be right to give one side more than the other. I’m sure you understand.’ He turned to us, smiling as if he’d only just remembered we were still there. ‘Would any of you like to kill this one again? I don’t mind which way you choose to do it. Corrigan? Aradeus?’

When none of us spoke, he shrugged. ‘Fine, then, I’ll do it myself.’

He reached up and pressed the brother’s nose closed, holding it firm with one small hand while with the other, he pushed the man’s mouth shut. He might have looked like an eleven-year-old, but he clearly had an adult’s strength, for he held firm even as the man struggled to free himself.

The brother’s body was shaking violently now, but he still wasn’t able to move more than a fraction of an inch, no matter how hard he fought. In just a minute or two, the spasms became less frequent, and soon stopped completely.

He might have been dead, released from life, but he was still in bondage, for his corpse remained frozen like an anguished statue.

‘What happens now?’ I asked, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

Fidick turned to me and smiled. ‘But you already know, Cade– you figured it out before we even began, didn’t you?’

‘I was a little busy trying and apparently failing to save the world. I didn’t have time to work out all the details of your complete and utter betrayal of humanity.’

Fidick clapped his hands excitedly. ‘And youdidsave the world, Cade, you and the others! All of us, really! We should all be very proud of ourselves.’ He frowned. ‘But there’s a problem, see? We didn’treallysave the world because all that was going to happen was that the Mortal demesne would go back to being the awful place it’s always been– a place where cruel men and women get to have their way with little boys and girls.’ He wagged a finger at us. ‘And you wonderists have far too much unchecked power, you can surely see that. You could have fought for us, but instead, all you’ve ever done is to sell your magic to the highest bidders, no matter how evil they are. You must see it’s long past time we did something aboutthat, surely?’

As if on cue, a bright light suddenly shone from the gaping mouth of the first brother.

A figure stepped forth, dipping his head to avoid mussing his hair on the top row of teeth.

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