Finally tiring of staring at the tongue-and-grooved ceiling planks’ knots and whorls, Teldin began to take inventory of himself. His chest was crossed with thin lines of dried blood and raw patches caused during the flood. More blood caked his hair and clotted around his bitten ear, muffling his hearing on the left side. The lordservants had done their work well, mangling, twisting, and pulling every joint in his body. Still, he had all his limbs and, in accordance with the neogi’s orders, none seemed broken or even dislocated. Every inch felt bruised, and his face, especially, was puffy from beatings.
“I must be a handsome fellow,” Teldin croaked, his throat parched. “It’s time to go,” he told Gomja’s image, standing over him. Astonished, he blinked, and the giff was gone, replaced by Amdar, as unsmiling as ever. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing tight,” the old man’s ghost preached. As quickly as it had appeared, Amdar’s face disappeared into the planking above.
With excruciating effort, enough to force tears to his eyes, the farmer swung off the edge of the table and stood unsteadily on his feet. He clutching the table for support, then ventured with jerky steps across the room. Slowly and painstakingly, the human tottered toward the door.
Incomprehensibly, the portal swung open as he neared it, and there, blocking his path, was a party of umber hulks and neogi. Teldin’s mind was too numb to be surprised, and he could not read the malevolent expressions on the neogi’s faces. In the forefront, though safely behind the lordservants, were the golden-tattooed overmaster and M’phei. The overmaster’s small claws snapped in triumph.
“There,” the neogi gloatingly hissed. “You see, unharmed human meat is. Warned you were, quastoth M’phei, my patience test not too far.”
“True, meat lives,” the other neogi sourly conceded, “but tell you nothing it has. Useless meat will be with more persuasion."
“No longer important that is.” The overmaster signaled an umber hulk to seize Teldin. The beast ducked through the small door and easily caught the exhausted farmer in its grasp. “To yrthni-ma‘adi meat will be given.”
M’phei’s eight clawed feet rattled on the metallic floor in anger. “No! This you do not. My capture human meat was. My slave it is!” The neogi made a snapping lunge for the overmaster. One of the lordservants seized the enraged M’Phei and restrained it.
The golden neogi ignored the outburst. “Overmaster I am and feeding yrthni-ma’adi my responsibility is. This meat I claim for feeding. That my right is.”
“Expose you I will, overmaster!” the other hissed.
Hoisted up by its lordservant, the overmaster smiled evilly. “You will not. Against your overmaster witnesses have heard you speak. Revolt of my quastoth I tolerate not. This you risk or human meat for feeding I take.”
M’phei paled, its tattoos gaining an ashy gray color. Futilely, the neogi tried another tack. “Cloak-”
“Revealed will be, if cloak human meat has,” the overmaster hissed softly so that Teldin, as groggy as he was, had to strain to hear the words. “Cloak protect meat it will, certain I am. Cloakmaster it will let die not and then know I will.”
M’phei looked hungrily toward Teldin. “Eating this one I hoped,” it said plaintively.
“Other meat will be. Rich in meat this world is,” the overmaster curtly announced. “With me to feeding you come-as my guest.” There was no warmth in the overmaster’s voice, only the cold calculation of keeping an enemy close in its sight. Teldin, still listening, doubted these creatures knew any love or charity. “Time it is. Lordservant-to the pit.”
The overmaster’s umber hulk carried the neogi through the ship’s corridors. Teldin’s guard pushed the staggering human along behind, while M’phei brought up the rear. This time the route was well lighted, which the yeoman could only assume was to honor the overmaster. The group went down a deck, other neogi gradually falling in behind. Teldin noticed a few non-neogi cowering in the corners as the overmaster went past. These were a smattering of humans, gnomes, and elves, watching from the shadows with a haunted look in their eyes. Teldin could clearly see the elaborate tattoo each bore on his shoulder, marking the poor soul as neogi property.
Finally the group reached an improvised pen in the middle of the cargo hold. It was enclosed by solid walls mote than fifteen feet high, which were braced with a motley assembly of beams, as if to hold back some great pressure. A narrow gallery circled the top of the walls and was reached by reinforced stairs.
“Wait,” the overmaster ordered the prisoner’s guard. The umber hulk clicked its huge pincers in understanding. While Teldin stood on the deck, slowly trying to regain his strength, the lordservants hoisted their neogi masters up to the balcony, since it was clear that the small catwalk would never support the huge slaves.
The balcony quickly became clustered with neogi, their bodies tattooed in a variety of ways and colors. Here the overmaster was clearly supreme, the other neogi keeping a respectful distance from where it stood. Only M’phei was close by, glaring hatefully whenever the overmaster’s attention was elsewhere.
At last the neogi overmaster gave the signal for Teldin to be brought up. The brown-plated umber hulk prodded Teldin up the strengthened stairs, staying close behind him. Once on the catwalk, the umber hulk pushed Teldin toward the edge of the pit. At the far corners, several neogi hung lanterns on poles and swung these out over the void.
The bobbing lights filled the pen with shadowy shapes, some real, others only brief interplays of light and dark. Teldin sensed danger and resisted the umber hulk’s prodding as he desperately scanned the shadows for the source of his fears. His vigilance was rewarded when a bloated, dark bulk slowly twisted and heaved across the floor. Moving into the fitful light, the dark blob metamorphosed into a grotesque parody of the vile neogi. Where the overmaster and the others were small, no larger than a strong dog, the thing in the pit was immense. The bulk of it was a shuddering mass about the size of a wagon or more, the flesh falling in thick, sagging folds. Its dull white skin was covered by overstretched tattoos and a network of purple veins. It had the appearance of a gigantic maggot. The body shuddered and heaved as the creature turned its head toward Teldin. There was the face of a neogi, all evil eyes and ravenous teeth, but the neck was buried in the folds of fat. Tiny, shriveled hands protruded from the ball of flesh, and the eight legs that gave the neogi its distinctive spidery appearance were nothing but atrophied stumps. The yrrhni-ma‘adi, the great old master, struggled to climb up the sides of the pit with labored breath, only to slide slowly back to the deck.
Teldin pushed against the umber hulk’s claws that forced him forward, but, weakened as he was, the human slowly lost ground. Two toes slipped over the edge. A hissing chant rose from the neogi, eager for the specatacle to begin.
“Stop!” the overmaster snapped, striking the umber hulk to convey the command. “On platform him you put."
“Yes, little master,” the lordservant intoned. With pressure behind him gone, Teldin quickly stepped back from the edge.
"Cloak you produce,” the overmaster demanded of Teldin, “before to yrthni-ma‘adi I feed you.” The overmaster pointed to the thing in the pit. “My quastoth once it was, before too old and feeble it became. Now, more quastoth for me it will breed.” The overmaster was interrupted by a grating scream from the creature below. “Your flesh my children hunger for. Tell me!”
Teldin’s body trembled, not with fear or exhaustion, but with hysterical rage at his captors. His death was certain, the farmer felt, so it did not matter what he did now. “You’ll never find the cloak,” he prophesized, abandoning all denials. Teldin spat at the overmaster’s face, causing the creature to lunge forward, snapping with rage. The sharp teeth brushed at the cloth of Teldin’s pants. Barely recovering its composure, the overmaster wheeled to its lordservant.