[He volunteered to take the hunger binding into his own flesh,] Dross said confidently. [The first test subject. Let this be a lesson to you, Lindon: never volunteer.]
The Dreadgod’s cries became laughter again. “The spirit is right.” Lindon stiffened as he realized that Dross hadn’t just been speaking to him, but Subject One didn’t seem to mind.
“I was afraid not to volunteer. You understand the allure of hunger madra, I see. Endless power.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “We were wrong about virtually everything.”
Black-and-white eyes met Lindon’s. “Hunger, you see, is all linked. It is one force, one entity, one…existence. As I spiraled out of control, so did our four greatest subjects. They escaped, contained as they were on the surface…but I was locked here.”
His attention had drifted off, and Lindon felt the power around him ebb. He had to keep the man focused. “Please, how do I defeat Reigan Shen?”
“Slay the Monarchs,” Subject One whispered.
Lindon froze. “No one but the Monarchs can do battle with Dreadgods.”
“It is the Monarchs who sustain the great beasts,” the Wraith continued. “If they are gone from our world, hunger aura will fade away. And we can finally…rest.”
[Fool. That will take decades!]
“How much damage will the Dreadgods cause without the Monarchs around to contain them?”
Subject One gave a cruel smile. “Try to defeat the beasts first, then. That was what the last generation attempted. It was the most awake I’ve felt in…however long. They crushed the beast of earth, and then they discovered what we did. When one of the beasts dies, the others inherit its power until it is reborn. They become smarter. Stronger. And the hunger takes hold.
“The beasts devoured the rest of the Monarchs, and for a while, I could live through their eyes.”
He stared off into the distance, reminiscing, but only for a moment. Then he returned to reality. “But that energy didn’t last. As a generation of Monarchs passed, hunger weakened. The great beasts had to sleep more often, and never fully awakened. I lost myself to the long dream…until more Monarchs were raised up, and failed to leave.”
Not only was Lindon having trouble reconciling this new knowledge with what he knew of the Monarchs, he was becoming restless. Subject One paced around his throne, looking down at his own body, but Lindon felt a foreign will pressing against the authority of the labyrinth.
“Apologies, but how does this help me defeat Reigan Shen?”
“He seeks to replace me.” The echo touched his chest, where the hole was in the enshrined body. “To devour the devourer.”
Lindon looked to his heart again. “He took your core binding?”
“It will be his path to great power,” Subject One said, and each word dripped with mockery. “Such power.”
Lindon looked to the throne where Subject One had been imprisoned for an uncounted number of years. His spiritual perception moved throughout the endless room, and he recognized that this was the perfect state of the dreadbeasts. Physical and spiritual had been fused seamlessly, so that it reminded him of the Herald’s body.
Subject One suddenly shot forward, his teeth bared. “You stop him by ridding the world of Monarchs! Kill them, banish them, convince them, it matters not! Make them leave! If Reigan Shen becomes me, then he will fade into mortality with no Monarchs to sustain him. If he does not…” His grimace turned into a horrific corpse-smile. “…then the beasts will feed one last time.”
“I will do all I can to stop him,” Lindon promised, and that commitment settled on him. Rather than a promise between him and the echo, it felt like a promise between him and the labyrinth. “But I need a way out.”
“As the first child of hunger, I give you my blessing.” The authority of the labyrinth softened, easier for Lindon to mold. Now he could feel the script-chains controlling the mundane functions of each room. He suspected that if Subject One were still alive, his blessing would have been more effective, but anything would help.
Lindon focused his will and the walls blurred. Another exit appeared.
Now, for the first time, Lindon felt the ancient authority that bound Subject One here. It was a suction even stronger than the hunger aura, a hole that Lindon could sense through the Void Icon. No matter how much power the Slumbering Wraith consumed, it only weighed him down.
Lindon saw the longing in the transparent black-and-white eyes of the echo. Even with the keys to his prison, he had been unable to escape. He had been trapped here, half-awake, controlled by hunger.