chapter six

26 Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin

Mari Agneh rarely had much of an appetite, and this morning was no exception. She scraped the eggs, fried bread, and peach slices off her dish into the chamber pot then performed what had come to be a ritual.

First, she slid the edge of the knife that had arrived with breakfast across her forearm. The blade appeared sharp but failed to slice her skin. In fact, the length of steel deformed with the pressure, as if forged of a material soft as wax.

Next she gripped the spoon. It too was made of metal and had an edge of sorts. A trained warrior, striking in fury and desperation, should be able to hurt someone with it, but when she thrust it at her outstretched limb, she felt only a painless prod, and the utensil bent double.

That left the pewter plate. She slammed it against her arm, and it didn’t even sting. It was like swiping herself with a sheet of parchment.

It was always thus. Every item that entered her prison immediately fell under the same enchantment, a charm that made it impossible for her to use it to hurt anyone, herself included. Strips of bed sheet and portions of the skimpy whorish costumes that were all she was given to wear unraveled as soon as she twisted them around her neck and pulled. Even the walls turned soft as eiderdown when she bashed her head against them.

She wondered how many more times she could perform her tests before accepting the obvious truth that her captor’s precautions would never ever fail, before abandoning hope.

What would happen to her then? Would she let go of the last shreds of her pride? Of sanity itself? The prospect was terrifying yet perversely tempting too, for if she broke or went mad, perhaps the torments would be easier to bear. Perhaps Aznar Thrul would even grow bored with her. Maybe he’d kill her or simply forget about her.

She struggled to quash the weak, craven urge to yield and be done with it, then noticed the vapor seething through the crack beneath the door.

Mari’s first thought was that some malevolent god had seen fit to grant the prayer implicit in her moment of despair, that Thrul, or one of his servants, was blowing a poisonous mist into the room to murder her. She didn’t actually believe it. The zulkir hadn’t shown any sign of growing tired of his toy, and she was certain that if he ever did decide to dispose of her, he’d at least want to watch her die. No, this was something else, which didn’t make it any less alarming.

The vapor swirled together and congealed into a towering creature with purple-black hide, four arms, a vaguely lupine countenance, and a brand on its brow. Mari retreated and picked up a chair. Like every other article in her prison, the seat would fall to useless pieces if she tried to strike a blow with it, but perhaps the demon, if that was what the thing was, didn’t know that.

Of course, it was ludicrous to imagine that such a horror might fear a nearly naked woman brandishing a chair in any case, but it was all she could think of to do.

The demon either smiled or snarled at her. The shape of its jaws was sufficiently unlike the structure of a human mouth that she couldn’t tell which.

“Greetings, Tharchion,” it rumbled. “My name is Tsagoth, and I’ve been hunting you for a while.”

“I don’t believe Aznar Thrul sent you,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady. “If he wanted you to molest me, he’d also want to be here when you did it. If I were you, I’d think twice about bothering me without his consent.”

Tsagoth snorted. “You’re right. I am here without the zulkir’s permission, so scream for help if you think anyone will come. Let’s get that out of the way.”

It—or rather, he, for the hulking creature was plainly male—was right. She could try calling for help, but she wouldn’t.

“No. No matter how bad it gets, I never beg the swine for anything.”

Tsagoth’s hideous grin stretched wider. “I like that.”

His attitude didn’t actually seem threatening. Rather, it was … well, something else, something anomalous.

Still wary, but increasingly puzzled as well, she asked, “You like what?”

“Your toughness. I know something of what you’ve endured, and I expected to find you ruined, but you’re not. That will make our task easier.”

“What task?”

“Killing Thrul, of course. Attaining your revenge.”

She shook her head. “You don’t look like you need help to kill anybody you take a mind to kill.”

“You flatter me, Tharchion. I’m more than a match for most prey, but I’m not capable of destroying one of the most powerful wizards of your world. Nor, perhaps, is anyone, so long as he’s on his guard and armored with his talismans, enchanted robes, and whatnot. But what about those occasions when he lays aside his staff, divests himself of his garments, and is enframed and heedless with passion? Don’t you think he might be vulnerable then?”

“You mean, you want to hide here and attack while he’s … busy with me?”

“No, we can’t do it that way, not when we don’t know how many days or tendays it will be before he next visits you. I’m supposedly a slave here in the palace. If I go missing, people will search for me, and even if they didn’t, I imagine Thrul would sense a third party—a denizen of the Abyss, no less—lurking in your chamber. You’ll have to be the one to kill him, and though I know little of humans, I suspect you’ll prefer it that way.”

“I would if it would work,” Mari said, “but I don’t see how it can. His magic prevents any object that enters the room from serving me as a weapon and limits me in other ways as well. If he gives me a direct order, I have no choice but to follow it.” No matter how degrading. She felt nauseated at the memory of the laughter of the sycophants he’d brought to watch her perform.

“You won’t need a weapon if you are the weapon,” Tsagoth said, “and your puppet strings will break if you cease to be the sort of creature they were fashioned to control.”

“You want to … change me?”

“Yes.” Evidently the mark on his forehead itched, for he scratched at it with the claws on his upper left hand. “I’m a blood fiend. An undead. As vampires prey on humans, so does my kind prey on demons, and like vampires, we can, when we see fit, share our gifts and essential nature with others.”

“But you normally transform other creatures from the netherworld, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Tsagoth said, “and to be honest, I don’t know if it will work the same on you. You mortals are fragile vessels to contain the power I hope to give you. I can only tell you that he who summoned me cast spells to increase the likelihood of our success.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“I’m forbidden to say. Someone who wants to help you avenge yourself. Does anything else truly matter?”

Mari frowned. “It may. I’m willing to risk my life. As a warrior, I did it more times than I can remember, but if I change into something like you, will I still be the same person inside? Will I keep my soul?”

The blood fiend shrugged. The gesture looked peculiar with four arms performing it. “I can’t say. I’m a hunter, not a scholar of such esoterica, but ask yourself if this spark you mortals prize so highly is truly of any use to you. Does it make your punishments and humiliations any less excruciating? If not, what good is it compared to a chance for retribution?”

Maybe he was right, and even if not, it abruptly came to her that in all probability, he was going to transform her whether she consented or not. Ultimately, he was as much a slave as she was and had no choice but to carry out his master’s commands. He was offering her the opportunity to agree because … she wasn’t sure why. It seemed preposterous to imagine that such a being could like her or consider her a kindred spirit, but perhaps her initial defiance had elicited a measure of respect.

If so, she was glad to have it. It had been a long while since anyone, even the servant who brought her meals, had shown her anything but contempt. She didn’t want to forfeit that regard by showing fear, by obliging him to treat her as victim and pawn instead of accomplice, and perhaps that was what ultimately tipped the balance in her mind.

“Yes,” she said. “Make me strong again.”

Tsagoth grinned. “You were never truly strong, human, but you will be.” He clawed a gash into the palm of his lower left hand and held it out to her. “Drink.”

His blood was like fire in her mouth, but she forced herself to suck and lap it anyway.

Bareris wasn’t sure if he was a guest or a prisoner of the gnolls, and at first he was nearly too sick to care. So-Kehur’s curse of weakness was to blame. Ordinarily such afflictions passed quickly, but the effects of arcane magic, partaking as it did of primordial chaos, were never entirely predictable, and maybe some lingering vestige of the illness from which Bareris had only recently recovered rendered him particularly susceptible. In any event, it had taken him well into the next day to start feeling any stronger at all.

Thus, when, guards shouting and cracking their whips, the caravan resumed its trek, he’d had no choice but to simply lie and watch, not that he could have prevented it in any case. Lie and watch as Tammith’s captors marched her away into the gathering darkness.

Once the procession vanished, the gnoll who’d dragged him back into the low place in the earth, thus hiding him from the Red Wizards and their minions, rose, hoisted him onto its back, and headed north. A head taller than even a lanky Mulan, the creature with its hyenalike head, coarse mane, and rank-smelling spotted fur manifestly possessed remarkable strength and stamina, for its long stride ate up the miles without flagging, until it reached the rude camp—three lean-tos and a shallow pit for a fire—it had established with several others of its kind.

Evidently they were all out hunting and foraging, for as the night wore on, they returned one or two at a time with rabbit, edible roots, and the like, which they grilled all together in an iron skillet. Bareris’s rescuer—or was it captor?—insisted that he receive a share of the meal, and while some of its comrades snarled and bared their fangs, none was as big or powerful-looking, and their display of displeasure stopped short of actual resistance.

When the sun rose, they mostly lay down to sleep, though one stood watch. When Bareris’s strength started to trickle back, he wondered if he could take the sentry by surprise, kill it or club it unconscious, and flee while the other gnolls slumbered on oblivious.

If so, it might be prudent to try. Gnolls had a savage reputation, and it was by no means ridiculous to conjecture that eventually the hyenafolk meant to fry some bard meat in their skillet.

Yet he was reluctant to strike out at anyone who, thus far at least, had done him more good than harm, and his lingering weakness, coupled with his frustration over his failure to liberate Tammith, nurtured a bleak passivity. He simply lay and rested until sunset, when the sleeping gnolls began to rouse.

The big one walked over and peered down at him. “You better,” he said. As his form was half man and half hyena, so was his speech half voice and half growl. If he hadn’t possessed the trained ear of a bard, Bareris doubted he would have understood.

“I am better,” he agreed, rising. “The curse is finally fading. My name is Bareris Anskuld.”

The gnoll slapped his chest. “Wesk Backbreaker, me.”

“Thank you for hiding me from my enemies.”

“Hide easy. Sneak around humans and stinking blood orcs all the time. They never see.” Wesk laughed, and though it sounded different, sharper and more bestial than human laughter, Bareris heard the bitterness in it. “Or else they kill. Not enough gnolls to fight them. Not enough singer, either. Crazy to bother them like you did.”

Bareris sighed. “Probably.”

“But brave. And fight good. Like gnoll.”

“That’s high praise. I’ve seen your people fight.” No need to mention that he’d witnessed it during his wanderings and had been fighting on the opposing side. “Was that the reason you rescued me?”

“Help you because you chop fingers of Red Wizard.”

“Did he wrong you somehow?”

Wesk snorted. “Not just that one. All Red Wizards. Gnoll clan fight in legion. Wesk’s father. Father’s father. Always. Until Red Wizards say, no more war. Trade now. Then they make blood orcs and say blood orcs better than gnolls.”

Bareris thought he understood: “To save coin, someone decided to reduce the size of the army, and you and your clan brothers were discharged.”

“Yes. Just hunters now. Robbers when we can. Not fair!”

“On the ride north, I heard that Thay’s at war with Rashemen again. The legions of Gauros and Surthay are looking for recruits.”

“Recruits?” Wesk snarled. “Crawl back to take orders from blood orcs? No!”

“I understand. It’s a matter of pride.” A mad thought came to him. “If you won’t serve a tharchion, what about working for me?”

Wesk cocked his head. “You?”

“Why not? I can pay.” In theory, anyway. In fact, most of his wealth was in his sword belt and purse, which the gnolls had already confiscated, but he’d worry about that detail when the time came.

“To kill Red Wizards? Want to, but no. Told you, gnolls too few.”

“I understand we can’t wage all-out war on them, but we can make fools of them, and maybe it will involve bleeding an orc or two along the way.”

Wesk grunted. “Everyone needs to hear, but some not talk your talk. I … “ He hesitated, evidently groping for the proper word.

“Translate? No need.” Bareris sang softly, and the growling, yipping conversations of the other gnolls abruptly became intelligible to him. While the enchantment lasted, he would likewise be able to speak to them in their own language. “Let’s gather everyone up.”

The impromptu assembly convened around the ashes of last night’s cook fire, and Bareris found that the unwashed-dog smell of gnoll was markedly worse when several of the creatures gathered together. Some of the hyenafolk glared at him with overt scorn and hostility, some seemed merely curious, but with the possible exception of Wesk, none appeared cordial or sympathetic.

But a bard had the power to make good will flower where none had existed before, and as he introduced himself and spun his tale, he infused his voice with subtle magic to accomplish that very purpose.

Yet even so, he wondered if a story of a loved one in peril could possibly move them. If gnolls were even capable of love, they’d never, so far as he knew, permitted a member of another race to glimpse any evidence of it. On the other hand, they were tribal by nature. That suggested something approximating a capacity for affection, didn’t it?

In the end, perhaps the person he moved the most was himself. Spinning the story made everything he’d experienced acutely, painfully real, and when he told of seeing and touching Tammith only to lose her again immediately thereafter, it was all he could do to keep from weeping, but he couldn’t allow the gnolls to think him a weakling.

He ended on a note of bitter anger akin to their own: “So you see how it’s been for me. I undertook what should have been a simple task, especially considering that I was willing, nay, eager, to reward anyone able to help me, but I met contempt, betrayal, and bared blades every step of the way. Now I’m done with the mild and reasonable approach. I’m going to recover Tammith by force, and I want you lads to help me.”

The gnolls stared at him for another moment, and then one, with a ruddy tinge to his fur and longer ears than the rest, laughed his piercing, crazy-sounding cackle. “Sorry, human. It can’t be done.”

“Why not?”Bareris demanded.

“Because the slaves go to Delhumide.”

For a moment, Bareris didn’t understand. They were all in Delhumide, and what of it? Then he realized the gnoll wasn’t speaking of the tharch but of the abandoned city of the same name.

Twenty-three centuries before, when Thay had been a Mulhorandi colony, Delhumide had been one of its greatest cities and bastions of power, and when the Red Wizards rebelled, they’d deemed it necessary to destroy the place. They’d evidently used the darkest sort of sorcery to accomplish their purpose, for by all accounts, the ground was still unclean today. Demons walked there, and a man could contract madness or leprosy just by venturing down the wrong street. No one visited Delhumide except the most reckless sort of treasure hunter, and few of those ever returned.

“Are you sure?” Bareris asked. It was, of course, a stupid question, born of surprise, and he didn’t wait for an answer. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” said the gnoll. “We have better sense than to go into Delhumide ourselves.”

“Even if we could,” said Wesk. After listening to his broken Mulhorandi, Bareris found it odd to hear him speak fluently, but he naturally had no difficulty conversing in his own racial language. “Soldiers guard the place by day, and at night, the things come out. I don’t know if they’re the fiends that have always haunted the place or pets of the Red Wizards—maybe some of both—and it doesn’t matter anyway. They’re there, and they’re nasty.”

“I understand,” Bareris said, “but you fellows are experts at going unseen. You told me so yourself, and I witnessed your skill firsthand when you hid the both of us. I’ll wager your legion used you as expert scouts and skirmishers.”

“Sometimes,” said Wesk.

“Well, I’m a fair hand at creeping and skulking myself, so long as I’m not crippled. With luck, we could sneak in and out of Delhumide without having to fight every warrior or lurking horror in the ruins.”

“To steal back your mate,” said the gnoll who’d jeered at him before.

“Yes. I’ve never seen Delhumide, but you’ve scouted it from the outside anyway. You can figure out the safest path in. Together, we can rescue Tammith, and in gratitude for your help, I’ll make you rich enough to live in luxury in Eltabbar or Bezantur until the end of your days. Just give me back my pouch and sword belt.”

The gnolls exchanged looks, then one of them fetched the articles he’d requested from the shade beneath one of the lean-tos. As he’d expected, the gnoll removed his sword from its scabbard first, and when he looked inside the pigskin bag, the coins were gone.

But the gnolls hadn’t discovered the secret pocket in the bottom of the purse. He lifted the bag to his mouth and exhaled into it. His breath activated a petty enchantment, and the hidden seam separated. He removed the sheets of parchment, unfolded them, and held them up for the gnolls to see. “Letters of credit from the merchant houses of Turmish and Impiltur. A little the worse for wear, but still valid.”

Wesk snorted. “None of us can read, singer, nor has any idea how such papers are supposed to look. Maybe you guessed that and decided to try and fool us.”

“No, but I can offer you a different form of wealth if that’s what you prefer.” He started opening the concealed pockets in the sword belt and was relieved to find that the gnolls hadn’t found those either.

He brought out rubies, sapphires, and clear, smooth tapered king’s tears. It was an absurd amount of wealth to purchase the services of half a dozen gnolls, yet for this moment anyway, he felt a sudden, unexpected spasm of loathing for the stones. If he’d never departed Bezantur to win them, he could have prevented Tammith from selling herself into slavery, and what good had they done him since? He had to resist a wild impulse to empty the belt entirely.

He spread the jewels on the ground with a flourish, like a juggler performing a trick. “Here. Take them if you’re willing to help me.”

The gnoll with the prominent ears laughed. “What’s to stop us from taking them without helping you, then cutting up that pouch and belt and all your belongings to see if anything else is stashed inside? Wesk liked seeing you lop a Red Wizard’s fingers off. It made him curious enough to haul you back here and find out who you are, but we’re not your friends, or friends to any human. We rob and eat hairless runts like you.”

Bareris wondered if Wesk would take exception to his clan brother’s assertion. He didn’t, though, and perhaps it wasn’t surprising. Bareris had claimed he was capable of leading the gnolls in a dangerous enterprise. If so, he should be competent to stand up for himself when a member of the band sought to intimidate him.

Or maybe the whim that had moved Wesk to rescue him originally had simply been a transient aberration, and now the towering creature was all gnoll again, feral and murderous as the foulest of his kin.

Either way, it scarcely mattered. Bareris had known that displaying the jewels was likely to provoke a crisis, and now he had to cope as best he could. “Take the stones and give nothing in return?” he sneered. “Strange, that’s just what the Red Wizards and blood orcs tried to do, and I thought you deemed yourselves better than they are.”

The gnoll with the long ears bared his fangs. “We are better. They couldn’t kill you and take your treasure, but we can.”

“No,” said Bareris, “you can’t. It doesn’t matter that you withheld my sword or that you outnumber me.” In reality, it almost certainly would, but he did his best to project utter self-confidence. “I’m a bard, a spellcaster, and my powers are what will enable us to make jackasses of the Red Wizards. I’ll show you.”

He picked up one of the king’s tears and sang words of power. Tiny sparks flared and died within the crystal, and a sweet smell like incense suffused the air. Alarmed, some of the gnolls jumped up and snatched for their weapons or else lunged and grabbed for Bareris with their empty hands.

None of them acted in time, and light burned from within the jewel. It had no power to injure the gnolls. That would inevitably have resulted in a genuine battle, which was the last thing he wanted, but the hyenafolk were essentially nocturnal by nature, and the sudden flare dazzled and balked them. Coupled with the charms of influence Bareris had already spun, it might, with luck, even impress them more than it actually deserved to.

At once, while they were still recoiling, the bard sprang to his feet and punched as hard as ever in his life. The uppercut caught the gnoll with the long ears under the jaw. His teeth clicked together, and he stumbled backward.

“That,” Bareris rapped, “was for impudence. Threaten me again and I’ll tear you apart.”

He then brandished the luminous king’s tear as if it were a talisman of extraordinary power, and as he spoke on, he infused his words with additional magic—not a spell of coercion, precisely, but an enchantment to bolster the courage and confidence of all who heard it.

“It comes down to this,” he said. “Even if you could kill me and steal the gems, it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be a legion’s castoffs, worthless in everyone’s eyes including your own, but I’m offering you a chance to take revenge on the sort of folk who shamed you, and more than that, to regain your honor. Don’t you see, if you join me in this venture, then you’re not mere contemptible scavengers anymore. You’re mercenaries, soldiers once again.

“Or perhaps you don’t care about honor,” he continued. “Maybe you never had it in the first place. That’s what people say about gnolls, that in their hearts and minds, they’re vile as rats. You tell me if it’s true.”

Pupils shrunk small by the magical glare, Wesk glowered for a moment. Then he growled, “Put out the light and we’ll talk some more.”

Bareris’s muscles went limp with relief, because while he still had little confidence that the gnolls would prove reliable if things became difficult, he discerned that, for the present at least, they meant to follow him.