Larson fought the idea like madness, but he imagined the four again, crushed like roses after a broken romance. Blood colored the cold, stone floor. Limbs bent like fragile stems. Memory awak- ened, triggered others in a spreading circuit. Bodies sprawled in limp piles, pinned to walls in death, shattered to red chaos. Faces lay locked in permanent accusation, lacking ears, prizes claimed for the gruesome pride of death collectors. And we were all death collectors.
Larson kept his eyes open, letting the scenes wash across the rain-warped ceiling, waiting for them to play out and leave him the tranquillity of sleep. But peace remained elusive. Remembrance of Bramin's sorceries surfaced in a searing rush, and past horrors washed to a waste of grayness. Agonies Larson dared not wish upon Satan condensed to a dully throbbing reminder that Silme's family had experienced it all and worse. Surely death was the kindest of Bramin's atrocities.
Larson forced his mind to cheerier topics. He remembered his father and their yearly New Hampshire trips to hunt deer and grouse. But even then, his thoughts betrayed him. Larson recalled the phone call which pulled him from college midterms. His father had been killed, the victim of a drunk driver. He left nothing. To relieve their mother's financial burden, his older sister married, and Al Larson quit school to join the army. / wonder if Mother knows I am dead.
A noise startled Larson from his nightmare of memory. Relieved, he lay alternately sweating and chilled while his trained senses identified sound and location. He heard it again, coming from his left over toward Silme and Brendor. It was the gentle creak of floorboards beneath weight shifting with deliberate stealth.