Chapter eight
30Mirtul, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Delhumide gleamed like a broken skeleton in the moonlight. The siege engines and battle sorceries of the ancient rebels had shattered battlements and toppled towers, and time had chipped and scraped at all that had survived the initial onslaught. Yet the Mulhorandi had built their provincial capital to last, and much remained essentially intact. Bareris found it easy to imagine the proud, teeming city of yore, which only served to make the present desolation all the more forbidding.
He wondered if it was simply his imagination, or if he truly could sense a miasma of sickness and menace infusing the place. Either way, the gnolls plainly felt something too. They growled and muttered. One clasped a copper medallion stamped with the image of an axe and prayed for the favor of his god.
Having cajoled them this far, Bareris didn't want to give them a final chance to lose their nerve. As before, enchantment lent him the ability to speak to them in their own snarling, yipping
language, and he used it to say, "Let's move. "He skulked forward, and they followed.
He prayed they weren't already too late, that something horrible hadn't already befallen Tammith. It was maddening to reflect on just how much time had passed since he'd watched the Red Wizards and their cohorts march her away. It had taken him and the hyenafolk a while to reach Delhumide. Then, for all that the gnolls had scouted the general area before, Wesk Backbreaker insisted on observing the perimeter of the city before venturing inside. He maintained it would increase their chances of success, and much as Bareris chafed at the delay, he had to admit the gnoll chieftain was probably right.
As they'd gleaned all they could, so too had they begun to plan. After some deliberation, they decided to sneak into Delhumide by night. True, it was when the demons and such came out, but even if the horrors were in fact charged with guarding the borders of the ruined city, it didn't appear they did as diligent a job as the warriors keeping watch by day. Bareris hoped he and the gnolls had a reasonable chance of slipping past them unmolested, especially considering that though creatures like devils and the hyenafolk themselves could see in the dark, they couldn't see as far as a man could by daylight.
He and his companions picked their way through the collapsed and decaying houses outside the city wall then over the field of rubble that was all that remained of the barrier at that point. The bard wondered what particular mode of attack had shattered it. The chunks of granite had a blackened, pitted look, but that was as much as he could tell.
The gnolls slinking silently as mist for all their size, the intruders reached the end of the litter of smashed stones fairly quickly. Now they'd truly entered Delhumide, venturing deeper than any of their scouts had dared to go before. A cool breeze moaned down the empty street, and one of the hyenafolk jumped
as if a ghost had ruffled his fur and crooned in its ear.
Wesk waved, signaling for everyone to follow him to the left. Their observations had revealed that shadowy figures flitted through the streets on the right in the dark. Occasionally, one of the things shrieked out peals of laughter that inspired a sudden self-loathing and the urge to self-mutilate in all who heard it. Bareris had no idea what the entities were, but he was certain they'd do well to avoid them.
The intruders turned again to avoid a trio of spires that, groaning and shedding scraps of masonry, sometimes flexed like the fingers of a palsied hand. The facades of crumbling houses seemed to watch them go by, the black empty windows following like eyes. For a moment, a sort of faint clamot like the final fading echo of a hundred screams sounded somewhere to the north.
The noise made Bareris shiver, but he told himself it had nothing to do with him or his comrades. Delhumide was replete with perils and eerie phenomena; they'd known that coming in. It wasn't a problem if you could keep away from them, and so far their reconnaissance had enabled them to do so.
That luck held for another twenty heartbeats. Then one of the gnolls deviated from their course by just a long, loping stride or two, just far enough to stick his head into a courtyard with a rusty wrought-iron gate hanging askew and a cracked, dry fountain in the center. Something had evidently snagged the warrior's attention, some hint of danger, perhaps, that demanded closer scrutiny.
The gnoll suddenly snarled and staggered, tearing at himself with his thick canine nails. At first Bareris couldn't make out what was wrong, but when he saw the swelling black dots scurrying through the creature's spotted fur, he understood.
The gnolls had fleas, a fact he'd discovered when he started scratching as well, and the parasites on the outlaw in the courtyard
were growing to prodigious size. Big as mice, they swarmed over him, burying their proboscises and heads in his flesh to drain his blood. Bulges shifted under the gnoll s brigandine as insects crawled and feasted there as well.
A second gnoll rushed to help his fellow, but as soon as he entered the courtyard, he suffered the same affliction. The two hyenafolk flailed and rolled and shrieked together. Their fellows hovered outside the gate, too frightened or canny to risk the same consequence.
Bareris sang. Magic warmed the air, and he felt a sort of tickling as his own assortment of normal-sized fleas jumped off him. He then chatged into the courtyard, and the enchantment radiating outward from his skin drove the giant parasites off the bodies of their hosts just as easily. With a rustling, seething sound, they scuttled and bounded into the shadows at the rear of the space.
He still had no desire to linger inside the crooked gate. For all he knew, the influence haunting the courtyard had other tricks to play. Fast as he could, he dragged the dazed, bloody gnolls back out onto the street, where the spirit, or whatever it was, couldn't hurt them any further. At least he hoped it couldn't, because they needed a healer's attention immediately if they were to escape infirmity or worse, and in the absence of a priest, he'd have to do.
He chanted charms of mending and vitality. The other gnolls looked on curiously until Wesk started grabbing them and wrenching them around. "Keep watch!" the chieftain snarled. "Something else could have heard the ruckus or hear the singer singing."
Gradually, one gnoll's wounds stopped bleeding and scabbed over, a partial healing that was as much as Bareris could manage for the time being. The other, however, appeared beyond help. He shuddered, a rattle issued from his throat, then he slumped
motionless. Meanwhile, the survivor sat up and, hand trembling, groped for the leather water bottle strapped to his belt.
"Howareyou?"Bareris asked him.
The gnoll snorted as if the question were an insult.
"Then when you're ready, we'll press on."
"Areyou crazy?"
Bareris turned and saw that the speaker was Thovarr Keentooth, the long-eared gnoll he'd punched during their first palaver.
"You said you knew how to get us in and out without the spooks bothering us," the creature snarled, spit flying from his jaws. He apparently meant to continue in the same vein for a while, but Wesk interrupted by backhanding him across the muzzle and tumbling him to the ground.
"We said, "the chieftain growled, "we'd do our best to avoid the threats we knew about, but there might be some we hadn't spotted. This was one such, and you can't blame the human or anyone else for missing it, seeing as how it was invisible till someone stepped in the snare."
"I'm not talking about 'blame,'" Thovarr replied, picking himself up. "I'm talking about what's sensible and what isn't. There's a reason no one comes here, and—"
"Blood ores do," Bareris said. "Are they braver than you ? "
Thovarr bared his fangs like an angry hound. "The pig-faces have Red Wizards to guide them. We only have you, and you talk big but don't keep us out of trouble."
"Enough!" snapped Wesk. "We're soldiers again, and soldiers expect to risk their lives earning their pay. If you don't have the belly for it, turn back now, but know it means the rest of us cast you out for a coward."
That left Thovarr with three options: obey, leave his little pack forever, or fight Wesk then and there for his chieftaincy. Apparently the first choice was the most palatable, the perils of
Delhumide notwithstanding, because the long-eared gnoll bent his head in submission. Til stick," he growled.
They dragged the dead warrior's corpse into a shadowy recessed doorway, where, they hoped, it was less likely anyone or anything would notice it. There they abandoned it without ceremony. Bareris had dealt just as callously with the mortal remains of other fallen comrades when a battle, pursuit, or flight required immediate action, and he had no idea whether gnolls even practiced any sort of funerary observances. It wouldn't have astonished him to learn that they ate their dead as readily as they devoured any other sort of meat or carrion that came their way. Still, he found it gave him a pang of remorse to leave the creature unburied and unburned, without even a hymn or prayer to speed its soul on its way.
Maybe it bothered him because Thovarr was essentially correct. If Bareris hadn't used magic to undermine the gnolls' bettet judgment, they would never have ventured into Delhumide. His friends from more squeamish—or as they might have put it, more ethical—lands might well have deemed it an abuse of his gifts.
But his present comrades were hyenafolk, who boasted themselves that their kind lived only for war and slaughter, and Bareris was paying them a duke's ransom to put themselves in harm's way. If he'd sinned, then the Lord of Song could take him to task for it when his spirit knelt before the deity's silver throne. For now, he'd sacrifice the gnolls and a thousand more like them to rescue Tammith.
Wesk lifted a hand to halt the procession. On the other side of an arched gateway rose a cylindrical tower. Constructed of dark stone, vague in the darkness, it reminded Bareris of some titan's drum.
He peeked around the edge of the gate and squinted at the flat roof, but he couldn't spot anything on top of it. He'd considered singing a charm to sharpen his eyes before entering the city
but had opted not to. He could only cast so many spells before exhausting his powers. Better, then, to trust the night vision of his companions and conserve his magic for other purposes.
"Is it up there?" he whispered, referring to the blood-orc sentry that usually kept watch on the roof.
Wesk bobbed his head up above the low wall ringing the tower to check. "Yes."
"Can you really hit it from down here?" ftziens asked.
He knew Wesk was a skillful archer, maybe even as adept as he claimed. He'd watched the gnoll shoot game on the trek to Delhumide, and only once had the creature missed. Still, Bareris was enough of a bowman in his own right to know just how difficult a shot it was. The ore was four stories up and partly shielded by a ring of merlons.
Wesk grinned. "I can hit it. I'm not some feeble runt of a human."
He caressed the curves of his yew bow and growled a spell of his own, evidently some charm known to master archers and hunters. The longbow glinted as though catching Selune's light in a way it hadn't before, despite the fact that nothing had changed in the sky. Wesk nocked an arrow, stepped into the center of the gate, drew the Retchings to his ear, and let the missile fly.
To Bareris's eyes, the shaft simply vanished into the dark, but from Wesk's grunt of satisfaction, and the fact that he didn't bother reaching for a second arrow, it was evident the first one had found its mark. Bareris imagined the ore collapsing, killed before it even had an inkling it was in peril.
He and the gnolls skulked across the open ground between the wall and the tower. They had no reason to think anyone else was looking—it seemed likely the rest of the folk inside were happy to shut themselves away from the terrors infesting the night—but they couldn't be sure.
Stone steps rose to a four-paneled door. As Bareris climbed
toward it, he hoped to find only a handful of warriors waiting on the other side. Whoever was garrisoning this particular outpost, though, he and the hyenafolk had no choice but to deal with them.
That was because one could only see so far into a ruined city while scouting it from the outside, and thus the intruders had little idea what lay beyond this point. If they were to avoid lurking demons and locate Tammith, someone would have to enlighten them.
Bareris tried the door and found that, as expected, it was locked or barred. He motioned for the gnolls to stay behind him then bellowed.
The magic infusing his voice cracked the door and jolted it on its hinges but failed to break it open. He threw himself against it and bounced back with a bruised shoulder, but then Wesk and Thovarr charged past him and hit the barrier together. They smashed it out of its frame to slam down on the floor of the hall beyond. Ores, three kneeling in a circle around their dice and piles of coppers, and two more wrapped in their blankets, goggled at them in amazement.
As it turned out, there were no mages on hand, and with the ores caught unprepared, the fight that followed was less a battle than a massacre. In fact, that was the problem. Caught up in the frenzy of the moment, the gnolls appeared to have fotgotten that the point of their incursion was to take at least one of the enemy alive.
Bareris cast about. For a moment, he could see only gory, motionless, gray-skinned bodies and the hyenafolk still hacking at them. Then he spotted an ore that was down on its back but still moving, albeit in a dazed manner, groping for the dirk in its boot. Thovarr swung his axe over his head to finish the creature off.
"No!"Bareris shouted. He lunged and shoved Thovarr away
from the ore, swiped the latter's hand with the flat of his sword to stop its reaching for the knife, and aimed his point at its throat. "We have to talk to one of them, and this appears to be the only one left."
He proceeded with the interrogation as soon as the gnolls verified that the rest of the tower was empty. "You can answer my questions and live," he told the ore in its own language, "or I can give you to my friends to kill in whateverfashion amuses them. It's up to you."
"I can't tell you anything! " the ore pleaded. "I'll die! "
"Nonsense. Perhaps your masters will punish you for talking if they get their hands on you, but you can run away."
"That's not it," said the ore. "The Red Wizards put a spell on me, on all of us. If we talk about their business, we die."
From the manner in which he attended to the conversation, it was apparent Wesk understood the orcish tongue, and now he and Bareris exchanged puzzled glances. The bard wondered again what endeavor merited such extraordinary attempts at secrecy.
"Listen to me," Bareris said, infusing his voice with the magic of persuasion, "you don't know that your masters truly laid a spell on you. It would have been a lot less work simply to lie and claim they did. Even if the enchantment is real, you can't be sure it took you in its grip. It's the nature of such charms that they can always fail to affect a particular target. On the other hand, you know my sword is real. You see it with your own eyes, and you can be absolutely certain of dying if I cut your throat with it. Bearing all that in mind, whom do you choose to obey, the wizards or me?"
The ore took a deep breath. Til answer."
"Good. Where in the city do the slaves end up?"
The prisoner sucked in another breath. Bareris realized the ore was panting with fear. "They—"
A single word was all it took. The ore's back arched, and
surprised, Bareris failed to yank his sword back in time to avoid piercing the ore's neck. But the point didn't go in deep, and he doubted the ore even noticed the wound. The ore was suffering far more grievous hurts.
The ore's back continued to bend like a bow, and his extremities flailed up and down, pounding the floor. His eyes rolled up in their sockets, and bloody froth foamed from his mouth. Hoping the creature might survive if he could only keep him from swallowing his tongue, Bareris cast about for an implement he could wedge in his mouth, but before he could find one, the ore thrashed a final time and lay still. A foul smell suffused the air. The warrior had soiled himself in his death throes.
"Well," said Wesk, "it wasn't lying about the geas."
Wo,"Bareris answered.
He felt a twinge of shame for compelling the ore to such a death, and scowling, he tried to quash the feeling. He'd had no choice but to force the creature to speak.
"So what do all of us 'soldiers' do how? "Thovarr asked. "Just wander around and look for the slave? Delhumide's big, andit'sgot a spook hiding in every shadow."
Bareris prayed it hadn't come to that. "We search this place," he said. "Maybe we'll find something useful."
They began by searching the ores' bodies then moved on to ransacking their possessions. Wesk dumped out the contents of a haversack, picked up a parchment, unfolded it, and then brought it to Bareris.
"Is this anything?"asked the gnoll.
Bareris studied the scrawled diagram. It didn't have any words written on it, just lines, circles, rectangles, and dots, and for a moment, he couldn't decipher it. Then he noticed certain correspondences, or at least he hoped he did. He rotated the paper a quarter turn, and the proper orientation made the similitude unmistakable.
"It's a map ofthis part of the city."
Wesk eyed it dubiously. "Areyou sure?"
"Yes. It's difficult to tell because it's crudely drawn and the ore left so much off, but this is the breach in the wall we came through, here are the laughing shadows, and here the towers that squirm of their own accord. The mapmaker used the black dots to indicate areas best avoided. This is the building we're in now, and this box near the top must be the place where the Red Wizards themselves have taken up residence. Why else would anyone take the trouble to indicate the best path from here to there?"
The gnoll chieftain leered like a wolf spying a lost lamb. "Nice ofthe pig-faces to go to so much trouble just to help us out."
With the map to guide them, they skulked nearly to the center of Delhumide without running afoul of any more malevolent spirits or mortal foes, but as Bareris peered expectantly, waiting for the structure indicated on the sketch to come into view, he felt a sudden difference and froze. The gnolls sensed something as well, and growling, they peered around.
It took Bareris a breath or two to puzzle out precisely what they'd all registered. Probably because it was the last thing he would have expected. "It's . . . more pleasant here. The feeling of evil has lifted."
"W%y.>"askedWesk.
Bareris shook his head. "I don't know. Just enjoy the relief while you can. I doubt it will last."
It did, though, and when they finally beheld their goal, he knew why. It was a square-built, flat-roofed hall notable for high columns covered in carvings and towering statues of a manlike figure with the crowned head of a hawk. Thayans no longer worshiped Horus-Re, but bards picked up a miscellany of lore in the course of acquiring new songs and stories, and Bareris had no difficulty identifying the Mulhorandi god. The structure was a temple, built on hallowed ground and still exerting a benign
influence on the immediate area centuries after.
Bareris shook his head. "I don't understand. I'm sure it's the right place, hut why would the Red Wizards set up shop in a shrine like that?"
"The god's power keeps the bogeys away, "suggested Wesk. "The bogeys the warlocks didn't whistle up themselves, I mean."
"Maybe, but wouldn't the influence also make it more difficult to practice necromancy? It's inherently—"
"What's the difference?"Thovarr snapped.
Bareris blinked, then smiled. "Goodpoint. We don't care what they're doing, how, or why. We just want to rescue Tammith and disappear into the night. We'll keep our minds on that."
Employing buildings, shadows, and piles of rubble for cover, they crept partway around the temple to look for sentries. It didn't take Wesk long to spot a pair of gaunt figures with gleaming yellow eyes crouched atop the roof.
"Undead," he said. "I can hit them, but zombies and the like are hard to kill. I don't know if I can put them down before they sound the alarm."
"Give me one of the arrows you mean to shoot," Bareris said.
The gnoll handed it over, and Bareris crooned to it, the charm a steady diminuendo from the first note to the last. At its end, the whisper of the wind, the skritch-skritch-skritch of one of the gnolls scratching his mane, and indeed, the entire world fell silent.
Bareris handed the arrow back and waved his arm, signaling for Wesk to shoot when he was ready. The gnoll chieftain laid it on the string, jumped up from behind the remains of a broken wall, and sent it streaking upward. Sound popped back into the world as soon as the shaft carried its invisible bubble of quietude away.
Wesk's followers shot their own arrows, and at least half found their mark, but as the gnoll had warned, the undead
proved difficult to slay. Shafts jutting from their bodies like porcupine quills, they picked up bells from the rooftop and flailed them up and down. Fortunately, though, the sphere of silence now enshrouded them. The bells refused to clang, and after another moment, the amber-eyed creatures collapsed, first one and then the other.
Wesk balled up his fist and gave Bareris a stinging punch to the shoulder. "For a human," said the gnoll, "you have your uses."
"I like to think so," Bareris replied. "Let's go."
Keeping low, they ran toward the temple. Their path carried them near a weathered statue of Horus-Re. In its youth, the figure had brandished an ankh to the heavens, but its upraised arm had broken off in the millennia since and now lay in fragments at its feet.
The temple proved to consist primarily of long, open, high-ceilinged galleries, with a relative scarcity of interior walls to separate one section from the next and no doors to seal any of the entrances and exits. To Bareris's war-trained sensibilities, that made it a poor choice for a stronghold, but perhaps in Delhumide, the site's aura of sanctity seemed a more important defense than any barrier of wood or stone.
In any case, he was far more concerned about something else. The temple was occupied. From time to time, they slipped past chambers where folk lay sleeping. But there were fewer than Bareris had expected, nor did he observe any indication that Red Wizards were practicing their arts here on a regular basis.
Eventually Wesk whispered the obvious, "If all those slaves were ever here, they aren't anymore."
"They must ^."Bareris said, not because he truly disagreed, but because he couldn't bear to endorse the gnolls conclusion.
"Do you want to wake somebody and ask him?"
The bard shook his head. "Not unless he's a mage. Any soldier would likely just go into convulsions like our ore. It's not worth the
risk of rousing the lot of them, at least not until we've searched the entire place."
They prowled onward, looking for something, anything, to suggest an answer to the riddle of the missing thralls' whereabouts. In time they found their way to a large and shadowy chamber at the center of the temple. Once, judging from the raised altar, the colossal statue of Horus-Re enthroned behind it, and faded paintings depicting his birth and deeds adoring the walls, the chamber had been the hawk god's sanctum sanctorum. More recently, someone had erected a freestanding basket arch in the middle of the floor, its pale smooth curves a contrast to the brown, crumbling stonework on every side. When Bareris spotted it, he caught his breath in surprise.
"What?'' whispered Wesk, twisting his head this way and that, looking for danger.
"The arch is a portal, "Bareris said, "a magical doorway linking this place to some other far away. I saw one during my travels and recognize the rune carved on the keystone."
"Then we know what became of your female," said Wesk.
"Apparently, but what sense does it make? If the Red Wizards want to do something in private, what haven is more private than Delhumide? No one comes here. Conversely, why bother with this dangerous place at all, if you're only using it as a stepping stone to somewhere else? "
Wesk shrugged. "Maybe we'llfind out on the other side."
"Hold on, "Thovarr said.
Bareris assumed he meant to point out the recklessness of walking through the gate when they had no idea where it led or what waited beyond, but before the gnoll could get going, a scarlet-robed figure stepped into view through a doorway midway up the left wall. At first, the wizard didn't notice the intruders, and Thovarr had the presence of mind to fall silent. Wesk laid an arrow on his bow.
But as he drew it to his ear, the mage glimpsed the intruders from the corner of his eye, or sensed their presence somehow. He was wise enough not to waste breath and time crying for help that would surely arrive too late to save him, nor did he attempt to scramble back through the doorway as Bareris might have done. Perhaps the space he'd just vacated had only the one exit, and he didn't want to trap himself.
Instead he flourished his hand, and the black ring on his thumb left a streak of shadow on the air. Each gripping a great-sword, four pairs of skeletal arms erupted from the band. They emerged tiny but swelled to full size in a heartbeat.
They were an uncanny sight to behold, and even Wesk faltered for an instant. The Red Wizard snarled words of power, and the bony arms flew at the gnoll and his companions. Ignoring the imminent threat of the greatswords, Wesk shot an arrow at the mage, unfortunately not quickly enough to keep the warlock from finishing his incantation. A floating disk of blue phosphorescence shimmered into being in front of him, and the arrow stuck in that instead, just as if it were a tangible wooden shield.
Then the disembodied arms hurtled into the distance and started cutting with their long, heavy blades. The intruders had the advantage of numbers, but even so, Bareris realized the wizard's protectors would be difficult to defeat. The only way to stop them or even slow them down was to hit hard and square enough to cleave a length of bone entirely in two, and they flitted through the air so nimbly that it was a challenge to land a stroke at all.
But the necromancer was an even greater threat, and Bareris didn't dare leave him to conjure unmolested. He stepped between a set of skeletal arms and Wesk, ducked a cut, and riposted, buying the gnoll chieftain the moment he needed to drop his bow and ready his axe. After that, though, the bard extricated himself from the whirl of blades and charged the mage who, the
translucent, arrow-pierced disk still hovering between him and his foes, the skirt of his robe flapping around his legs, was himself sprinting toward the white stone archway. Apparently he believed safety, or at least help, awaited him on the other side.
Bareris was too far away to cut him off. He sang a charm so rapidly that he feared botching the precise rhythm and pitch required, but he didn't have the option of taking his time.
Magic groaned through the air, and the section of floor under the Red Wizard's feet bucked as though an earthquake had begun. The vibration knocked the mage staggering then dumped him on his rump. Bareris dashed on, closing in on the warlock while likewise interposing himself between his foe and the portal.
The Red Wizard thrust out his arm. A glyph tattooed on the back of his hand leaped free of his skin and became a hand itself, levitating and seemingly formed of shadow. It bobbed over the top of the floating shield, then streaked at Bareris.
The bard tried to dodge, but the hand grabbed him by the shoulder anyway. Agony stabbed outward from the point of contact to afflict his entire body.
It was the fiercest pain he'd ever experienced, severe enough to blind and paralyze, which was no doubt the object. Evidently still intent on reaching the gate, but looking to finish off his adversary as well, the necromancer simultaneously circled in the appropriate direction and hissed sibilant rhyming phrases.
The pain is in my mind, Bareris insisted to himself, and I can push it out. He struggled to straighten up, turn in the mage's direction, and lift his sword once more. For a heartbeat, it was impossible, and then the bonds of torment constraining him ripped like a sheet of parchment tearing in two.
He spun around. His eyes widening, the necromancer appeared startled, but the floating shield automatically shifted to defend its creator as thoroughly as possible. Bareris poised himself
as if he meant to dart to the right then dodged left instead. That fooled the shield and brought him within striking distance of the wizard. He drove his point into the other man's chest. The enchanter fell back with his final incantation uncompleted.
Bareris studied the mage for another moment, making sure their duel was truly over, then pivoted to survey the rest of the battle. Two of the gnolls were down, but with a final chop of his axe, Thovarr was reducing the last of the disembodied arms to inert splinters of bone.
His allies' success gave Bareris the opportunity to contemplate the enormity of what he'd done, or the seeming enormity. He'd earned a death by torture the moment he'd lifted his hand to So-Kehur and his skull-masked partner, so in practical terms, it shouldn't matter that he'd now killed a Red Wizard outright.
Yet it gave him pause. The eight orders taught every person and certainly every pauper in Thay to think of their members as superior, invincible beings, and though Bareris's experiences abroad had given him ample reason to feel confident of his own prowess, perhaps a part of him still believed the myth and was accordingly appalled at his temerity, but then a surge of satisfaction washed his trepidation away. After all, these were the bastards who'd taken Tammith away from him, and this particular specimen didn't look so exalted or omnipotent anymore, did he?
Wesk trotted up to him, bow in hand once more. He had a cut on his forearm where a greatsword must have grazed him, but he wasn't paying it any mind.
*/donV hear anyone coming,"he said, "doyou?"
Bareris listened. "No. "Evidently the fight hadn't made a great deal of noise. He was glad he hadn't needed to produce any of the prodigious booms or roars of which his magic was capable. He pointed to the gnolls still lying on the floor. "How are they?"
"Dead." If Wesk felt bad about it, no human could have told it from his manner. "So what now?"
"We hide the bodies and what's left of the skeleton arms. With luck, that will buy us more time before anyone else realizes we were here."
"And then we go through the gate?"
Bareris opened his mouth to say yes, then thought better of it. "No. Thovarr's right. We don't know where it leads or what's waiting beyond, but we do know the necromancer believed that if he could reach the other side, it would save him. That means he could have had a lot of allies there. More than we, with half our band already lost, can hope to overcome."
Wesk cocked his head. "You didn't come this far just to give up."
"No, but I'm going on alone, clad in the dead wizard's robe, in the hope that trickery will succeed where force would likely fail."
"Did you notice that the robe has a bloody hole in it? You put it there."
Bareris shrugged. "It's not a big hole and not too bloody. Bodies don't bleed much after the heart stops. If I throw a cloak on over the robe, perhaps no one will notice."
He'd also sing a song to make himself seem more likable and trustworthy, the very antithesis of a person meriting suspicion, but saw no point in mentioning that. He was still leery of allowing the gnolls to guess the extent to which he'd used magic to manipulate them.
Wesk grunted. "Better, maybe, to disguise yourself with an illusion or be invisible."
"Perhaps, but I don't know those particular songs. Somehow I never had the chance to learn them. Now let's get moving. We need don't anybody else blundering in on us while we stand around talking."
They dragged the bodies to the room from which the Red
Wizard had emerged. It turned out to be a small, bare, rectangular space the clergy of Horus-Re might have used to store votive candles, incense, and similar supplies. Bareris wondered what the mage had been doing in here and realized he'd never know.
He was stripping his fellow human's corpse when Wesk exclaimed, "Your hair."
Bareris reflexively raised a hand to touch his tangled, sweaty locks. "Curse it.'" Like any Mulan who hadn't spent the last several years in foreign lands, the Red Wizards uniformly employed razors, depilatories, or magic to keep themselves bald as stones.
Wesk pulled his knife from its sheath. "/ don't suppose you can truly shave without lather and such, but I can shear your hair very short, and the robe has a cowl. Keep it pulled up and maybe you'll pass."
The gnoll proved to be about as gentle a barber as Bareris had expected. He yanked hard on the strands of hair, and the knife stung as it sawed them away. Bareris had no doubt it was nicking him.
"Gnolls take scalps for trophies sometimes," said Wesk. "You make the first cut like this." He laid the edge of his knife against Bareris's forehead just below the hairline.
"I had a hunch that was what you were doing," Bareris replied, and Wesk laughed his crazy, bestial laugh.
When the gnoll finished, Bareris brushed shorn hair off his shoulders and chest, put on the scarlet robe over his brigandine and breeches, then donned his cloak and sword belt. He hoped he could get away with wearing a sword. Though it wasn't common, he'd seen other Red Wizards do the same. But he tealized with regret that he'd have to leave his yarting behind. The musical instrument would simply be too unusual and distinctive.
He handed it to Wesk. "Take this. It's not a ruby, but it'11 fetch a good price."
The gnoll archer grinned. "Maybe I'll keep it and learn to play."
"Thank you all for your help. Now clear out of here. Try to be far away by daybreak."
"Good hunting, human. It was good to be a soldier again, even if our army was very small."
The gnolls stalked toward the exit. Singing softly, Bareris headed for the arch.

Chapter nine
30Mirtul-l Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
For the briefest of instants, the universe shattered into meaningless sparks and smears of light, and Bareris felt as if he were plummeting. Then his stride carried him clear of the portal, and his lead foot landed on a surface just as solid and level as the floor in Horus-Re's holy of holies. But because his body had believed it was falling, he lurched off balance and had to take a quick step to catch himself.
Seeking to orient himself as rapidly as possible, he peered around. He was in another stone chamber, this one lit by the wavering greenish light of the sort of enchanted torch that burned forever without the heatless flames consuming the wood. It didn't look as though Mulhorandi had built this room. Its trapezoidal shape, the square doorways, and the odd zigzag carvings framing them were markedly different than the architecture of his ancestors or any other culture he knew of.
The portal was a white stone arch on this side too, identical to
its counterpart. Armed with spears and scimitars, wearing cyclopean-skull-and-fbur-pointed-star badges that likely proclaimed their fealty to one Red Wizard or another, a pair of blood ores were standing guard over it. They eyed Bareris curiously.
Their scrutiny gave the bard a twinge of fear. Indeed, it inspired a witless urge to whip his sword from its scabbard and try to strike the sentries down before they could raise an alarm. He raked them with a haughty stare instead.
They straightened up as much as their stooped race ever did, thrust out their lances with the shafts perpendicular to their extended arms, drew them back, and pounded the butts on the floor. It was a salute, and Bareris breathed a sigh of relief that he'd deceived the first creatures he'd encountered anyway.
One guard, afflicted with a runny walleye that rendered it even homelier than the common run of ore, looked back at the portal expectantly. When no one else emerged, it asked, "No slaves this time, Master?"
"No," Bareris said. "I traveled on ahead carrying word of how many you're getting and when. It should help with the planning." He hoped his improvisation made at least a little sense.
The ore's mouth twisted. "You need to see the whelp, then."
The whelp? What in the name of the Binder's quill did that mean? "The one in charge," he said warily.
The ore nodded. "That Xingax thing. The whelp is what we call it." It hesitated. "Maybe we shouldn't, but it's not one of you masters. It's . . . what it is."
"I understand," Bareris said, wishing it were true. "Where is it?"
"Somewhere up top. That'll take you up." The ore used its spear to point to a staircase behind one of the square doorways.
Bareris started to say thank you, until it occurred to him that the average Red Wizard probably didn't bother showing courtesy to ores. "Got it." He turned away.
"Master?"
Breathing more quickly, fearful he'd betrayed himself somehow, the bard pivoted back around. "What?"
"I don't mean to bother you. I wouldn't, except you haven't been here before, have you? I understand you're a wizard, and ten times wiser than the likes of me, but you know to protect yourself before you go close to Xingax, don't you?"
"Of course," Bareris lied, wondering what sort of protection would serve and hoping he wouldn't need it. Given the choice, he'd steer well clear of "the whelp," whatever it was.
He discovered that the room above the arch connected to a series of catwalks that apparently allowed one to make a full circuit of the various lofts and balconies without ever descending to the more extensive and contiguous system of chambers and corridors comprising the primary level below. Unlike the rest of the stronghold, the walkways appeared to be of recent construction, and it seemed plain the Red Wizards—or rather, their servants—had expended a fair amount of effort building them, which was odd, considering that Bareris didn't see anyone else moving around up here.
Peculiar or not, their vacancy was a blessing. It allowed him to explore without venturing near to anyone who might penetrate his disguise, and in time he came to suspect the advantage was essential. Viewed up close, his face might have betrayed horror and disgust no matter how he tried to conceal them.
He soon concluded from the complete absence of windows that he was underground. Stinking of incense and carrion, the chilly vaults felt old, perhaps even older than Delhumide, and like the haunted city, breathed an aura of perversity and danger. Unlike Delhumide, however, the catacombs bustled with activity. Necromancers chanted over corpses and skeletons, which then clambered to their feet, the newly made zombies clumsily, the bone men with clinking agility. Warriors drilled the undead
in the use of mace and spear, just as if the creatures were youths newly recruited into the legions. Ghouls practiced charging on command to shred straw dummies with fang and claw. A half dozen shadows listened as, its face a carnival of oozing, eyeless rot beneath its raised visor, a corpse armored in plate expounded on strategy and tactics.
Anyone but a necromancer would likely have found it ghastly, but it was inexplicable as well. The Red Wizards were free to turn their slaves into undead men-at-arms if they so desired. They created such monstrosities all the time. Thus, Bareris wondered anew: Why the secrecy?
Though he still didn't care. Not really. All that mattered was spiriting Tammith away from this nightmarish place before her captors could alter her.
He refused to entertain the notion that perhaps they already had until he found his way to a platform overlooking a crypt housing dozens of listless, skinny, ragged folk with the whip scars and unshorn hair of thralls. Bareris scrutinized them all in turn, then peered into every empty shadow and corner, and none of the prisoners was Tammith.
His nerves taut, he marched onward, striding faster, no longer concerned that his boots would make too much noise on the planking beneath them or that haste would make him appear suspicious to anyone looking up from below. He gazed down into chamber after chamber and felt grateful the catacombs were so extensive. Until he ran out of spaces to check, he could still hope. But at the same time, he hated that the warren was big and labyrinthine enough to so delay his determination of the truth.
He passed through yet another newly cut doorway then at last he saw her, lying on her back on the floor of an otherwise empty room with a scatter of earth around and beneath her. Sleeping, surely, for she displayed no marks to prove otherwise. No wounds, and none of the bloat or lividity of a corpse.
"Tammith!" he called, trying to make his voice loud enough to wake her but not so loud as to be overheard outside the chamber.
She didn't stir. He called again, louder, and still she didn't respond.
He trembled and swallowed, refusing to believe someone had killed her with a poison or spell that didn't leave a mark, recently enough that her body hadn't yet started to deteriorate. It simply couldn't be so.
Except that he knew it very well could.
There were no stairs in this particular room. He swung himself over the guardrail and dropped, as, in what had come to seem a different life and a brighter world, he'd once leaped from the deck of a ship onto a dock in Bezantur.
The landing jarred but didn't injure him. He rushed to Tammith, knelt, and touched her cheek. Her skin was as cool as he'd feared it would be. His voice breaking, he spoke her name once more.
Her eyes flew open. He felt an incredulous, overpowering joy, and then she reached up and seized him by the throat.
In one respect at least, the temple of Kossuth in Escalant was like most other human households: Nearly everyone slept away the time just before dawn. That was why Hezass Nymia, tharchion of Lapendrar and Eternal Flame of the god's house, chose that time to lead his four golems on a circuit of the principal altars. Carved of deep brown Thayan oak to resemble men-at-arms, the glow of the myriad sacred fires reflecting from their polished surfaces, the automata had been fashioned first and foremost to fight as archers, and their longbows were a part of their bodies. Hezass had them carrying sacks in their free hands.
Lifeless and mindless, the golems were tireless as well. Yawning, Hezass envied them that and wondered if this surreptitious transit was truly necessary. He was, after all, the high priest of the pyramidal temple and so entitled to his pick of the offerings the faithful gave to the Firelord.
It was the accepted custom, but custom likewise decreed that the hierophant should exercise restraint. One could argue that such self-control was particularly desirable if the previous Eternal Flame, proving not so eternal after all, had fallen to his death under mysterious circumstances, and the current one had somehow managed to secure his appointment even though several other priests were further advanced in the mysteries of the faith.
Yes, all in all, it was best to avoid the appearance of greed, Hezass thought with a wry smile, but the truth was, he had little hope of avoiding the reality. He coveted as much as he coveted, and he meant to have it. Better then to do some of his skimming when no censorious eyes were watching.
The golems' wooden feet clacking faintly on the marble floor, the little procession arrived at another altar, where women often prayed to conceive, or if they had, for an easy delivery and a healthy baby. Hezass picked up a string of pearls, scrutinized it, and put it back. He liked to think he had as good an eye as any jeweler, and he could see the necklace was second-rate. The delicate platinum tiara, on the other hand, was exquisite.
Responsive to his unspoken will, one of the golems proffered its sack, but since it only had the one functional hand, Hezass had to pull open the mouth of the bag and drop the headdress in himself. As porters, the constructs had their limitations, but their inability to speak made up for them.
"That is a nice piece," drawled a masculine voice.
Startled, Hezass nearly whirled around but caught himself in time. Better to move in a leisurely fashion, with a dignity
befitting an Eternal Flame and tharchion, like a man who hadn't gotten caught doing anything illicit. He turned to meet the dark-eyed, sardonic gaze of a gaunt figure whose capacious scarlet sleeves currently concealed his withered fingers.
Hezass dropped to his knees. "Your Omnipotence."
"It looks Impilturan," Szass Tam continued. "Brides from wealthy families often wear such ornaments on their wedding days. Please, stand up."
Hezass did so, meanwhile wondering what this unexpected intrusion portended. "I haven't had the honor of meeting with Your Omnipotence in some time."
"We've both been busy," said the lich, sauntering closer, the hem of his red robe whispering along the floor, "but you're awake, I'm always awake, most of the rest of the world is asleep, so this seems a convenient moment for us to talk."
Hezass wondered how Szass Tam had known he was awake and precisely where to find him. "I'm at your service, of course."
"Thank you." The necromancer casually pulled a crystal-pointed enchanted arrow from a golem's quiver, examined it, and dropped it back in. "I admit, it concerns me a little to find you out of bed. If you're suffering from insomnia, I know a potion that will help."
"I'm fine," said Hezass. "I'm just getting a head start on my duties."
The wizard nodded. "I can see that, though technically, it's arguable whether pilfering from the offerings constitutes a duty."
Hezass forced a smile. "Your Omnipotence always did have a keen sense of humor. You know, surely, that I'm entitled to my share."
"Oh, absolutely, but if you start claiming it while the coins and other valuables still lie on display atop the altars, before
the clerks make their tally, doesn't that mean you underreport the take to the Flaming Brazier and send Eltabbar less than its fair share? If so, isn't that the equivalent of robbing the Firelord himself? I'm afraid Iphegor Nath would think so. He might try to punish you even if you are a tharchion, and who's to say he wouldn't succeed? He's made a considerable contribution to the campaign against the undead horde in the east, and we zulkirs are accordingly grateful."
Hezass drew a long, steadying breath. "Master, you know that even if there's anything ... irregular about my conduct as Eternal Flame, it's no worse than the way other folk in authority behave every day across the length and breadth of the realm. You also knew what sort of man I am when you helped me rise in the church and later gave me Lapendrar to govern."
"That's true," said Szass Tam, "and I'll tell you a secret: It doesn't bother me if you dare to rob a god. Do the gods deal with us so kindly or even justly as to merit abject devotion?" He waved his hand at the offerings on the altar. "Look at all this—not the gold and gems that usually catch your eye, but the copper, bread, and fruit. Needy women have given what they could ill afford, perhaps all they possessed, to bribe your god, yet he won't answer all their prayers. Some petitioners will remain barren or perish in childbirth even so. Why is that, and what's the sense of a world where it's possible for women to miscarry and infants to die in their cribs in the first place?"
Hezass had no idea what the necromancer was talking about or how to respond. "Master, you understand I share a true bond with Kossuth even if I do pocket a few too many of the trinkets the faithful offer him. He forgives me my foibles, I believe. Anyway, the world is what it is. Isn't it?"
Szass Tam smiled. His expression had a hint of wistfulness about it, the look, just conceivably, of someone who'd briefly hoped to find a kindred spirit and been disappointed. "Indeed it
is, and I didn't mean to cast aspersions on your creed or bore you with philosophy either. Let's focus on practical concerns."
"With respect, Your Omnipotence, your 'practical concern' seems to be to blackmail me, but why? I have no choice but to do whatever a zulkir commands, and beyond that, I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. I'm happy to aid you in return."
"Your loyalty shames me," the lich replied, and if he was speaking ironically, neither his voice nor his lean, intellectual features betrayed it. "If only everyone were as faithful, but 'the world is what it is,' and with the council of zulkirs divided against itself, even I sometimes find it expedient to make it clear to folk that, just as I reward those who cooperate with me, so too do I have ways of rebuking those who refuse."
Hezass smiled. "You've covered the rebuking part. Now I'd like to hear about the reward."
The dead man laughed. A whiff of decay escaped his open mouth, and Hezass made sure his features didn't twist in repugnance.
"As one of your peers recently reminded me," Szass Tam said, "the miners dig prodigious quantities of gold out of the mountains of High Thay."
"So I understand," Hezass said.
"At present, most of it comes down to the Plateau via the road that runs east. That's natural, since it's really the only highway worthy of the name, but I see no fundamental reason why more gold couldn't move west and south, following the courses of the rivers, perhaps with magical aid to see the caravans safely over the difficult patches, and obviously, if it does, it will descend into Lapendrar. You can tax it as it passes from hand to hand and turn a nice profit thereby."
"A nice profit" was an understatement. Hezass suspected that over the course of several years, he might amass a fortune to rival Samas Kul's. "You truly could arrange it?"
"Why not? Pyras Autorian is my friend, no less than you."
More, actually, Hezass thought. He was Szass Tarn's confederate, or to be honest about it, his underling. Pyras Autorian was purely and simply the lich's puppet, a docile dunce who did exactly and only what his master told him to do, which suddenly seemed like quite an admirable quality, since it meant there was no doubt Szass Tam could deliver on his offer.
"What must I do," Hezass asked, "to start all this gold cascading down from the heights?"
"Quite possibly nothing, but here's what I'll require if it turns out I need anything at all... "
Tammith s fingers dug into Bareris's neck as if she'd acquired an ogre's strength. Her mouth opened to reveal canine teeth lengthening into fangs. She started to drag him down.
He tried to plead with her, but her fingers cut off his wind and denied him his voice. He punched her in the face, but the blow just made her snarl. It didn't stun her or loosen her grip on him.
At last he recalled a trick one of his former comrades, a warrior monk of Ilmater and an expert wrestler, had taught him. Supposedly a man could use it to break free of any stranglehold, no matter how strong his opponent.
He swept his arm in the requisite circular motion and just managed to knock her hand away, though a flash of pain told him it had taken some of his skin along with it, lodged beneath her nails. She immediately grabbed for him again, but he threw himself back beyond her reach.
He scrambled to his feet and so did she. "Don't you know me?" he wheezed. *It's Bareris."
She glided forward, but not straight toward him. She was maneuvering to interpose herself between him and the door.
He drew his sword. "Stop. I don't want to hurt you, but you have to keep away."
Rather to his surprise, she did stop. A master sword smith had forged and enchanted the blade, giving it the ability to cut foes largely impervious to common weapons, and perhaps the creature Tammith had become could sense the threat of the magic bound in the steel.
"That's good," Bareris said. "Now look at me. I know you recognize me. You and I—"
Her body exploded into smaller, darker shapes. Astonished, he froze for an instant as the bats hurtled at him.
His fear screamed at him to cut at the flying creatures. He yanked off his cloak and flailed at them with it instead, fighting to fend them off while he sang.
Something jabbed his arm and then the top of his head. Bats were lighting on him and biting him despite his efforts to keep them away. He struggled to ignore the pain and horror of it lest they disrupt the precise articulation the spell required.
The bats abruptly spun away from him as if a whirlwind had caught them. In fact, they were suffering the effects of the same charm that had repelled the enormous fleas. It was supposed to work on any sort of vermin, and apparently even creatures like these were susceptible.
The bats swirled together and became Tammith once more. Her fangs shortened into normal-looking teeth, and her face twisted in anguish. "I'm sorry!" she whispered. "I'm sorry."
He inferred that his magic had done what his punch could not: Shock her out of her predatory frenzy and restore her to something approximating sanity. He sheathed his blade, put his cloak back on, extended his hand, and stepped toward her.
"It's all right," he said.
She recoiled. "Stay away! I don't want to hurt you." "Then you won't."
"I will. Even though I ... fed on poor Yuldra already. Something about who you are, what we are to each other, makes it worse. Don't you understand what's happened to me?"
He realized he was reluctant to say the word "vampire," as if speaking it aloud would seal the curse for eternity. "I have some idea, but what magic can do, it can undo. People say the holiest priests even know rituals to . . . restore the dead to life. We just have to get you away from here, and then we'll find the help you need."
She shook her head. "No one can help me, and even if somebody could, I'm not able to go to him. I'm more of a slave now than I was before Xingax changed me. He chained my mind, bound me to serve the wizards and their cause."
"Maybe I can at least do something about that. It wouldn't be the first enchantment I've broken with a song."
"You can't break this one. Get away from here while you still can."
"No. I won't leave without you."
She glared at him. "Why not? You abandoned me before."
Her sudden anger shocked him. "That's not true. I left Bezantur to make us a future."
"Well, this is the one you made for me."
"That isn't so. I'm going to save you. Just trust—"
A voice sounded from overhead: "What are you doing in here?"
Bareris looked up to behold the most grotesque creature he'd ever seen. Riding on the back of what appeared to be a zombie hill giant, the thing looked like a man-sized, festering, and grossly malformed infant or fetus. He surmised that it could only be Xingax, "the whelp."
Bareris reminded himself that he was still wearing a red robe and still cloaked in an enchantment devised to quell suspicion and inspire good will in others. In addition to that, Xingax was
squinting down at him as if the mismatched eyes in his lopsided face didn't see particularly well. Perhaps this encounter needn't be disastrous.
The bard lowered his gaze once more. He hoped Xingax would take it for a gesture of respect, or a natural human response to profound ugliness, and not an attempt to keep the creature from getting a better look at an unfamiliar face.
"I was just curious to see what you'd made of the slave."
"Do I know you?"
A bead of sweat oozed down Bareris's brow. He wished he knew the proper attitude to assume. Was Xingax a servant, something a supposed Red Wizard should treat with the same arrogance he showed to most creatures, or did the abomination expect a degree of deference?
"I'm new. So far, I'm just performing routine tasks. Creating zombies and the like."
"I see. What's your name?"
"Toriak Kakanos."
"Well, Toriak, let's have a decent look at your face, so I'll know you in the future."
Bareris reluctantly complied. When his eyes met Xingax's, a malignant power stabbed into the core of him, searing and shaking him with spasms of debilitating pain. He crumpled to the floor.
"It was a good try," Xingax said, "but I meet all the wizards as soon as they come through the portal. Is it possible this is ... what was the name?... never mind. The bard who tried to rescue you before."
"Yes," Tammith groaned.
"Drink from him and try to change him as the ritual changed you. It's another good test of your new abilities."
Bareris fought to control his breathing then started singing under his breath.
"Please," Tammith said, "don't make me do it."
"Why not?" Xingax replied. "Don't you love him? Wouldn't you rather he continue on still able to think, feel, and remember? Isn't that better than making him a mindless husk?"
"No!"
The whelp snorted. "I'll never understand the human perspective. It's so perverse. Even so, it grieves me to deny my daughter's request, but the truth of the matter is, if this fellow wields bardic magic, survived a battle with Muthoth, So-Kehur, and their guards, and found his way to our secret home, then, like yours, his courage and talents are too valuable to waste. I must insist you transform him. You'll thank me later."
Haltingly, as though still struggling against the compulsion, Tammith advanced on Bareris.
Her resistance gave him time to complete his song, and its power washed the pain and weakness from his body. The question was, what to do next?
He was sure he had no hope of defending himself against Tammith and Xingax simultaneously. He had to neutralize one of them fast, before either realized he'd shaken off the effect of the fetus-thing's poison gaze, and unfortunately, Tammith was both the more immediate threat and the one within reach of his sword.
Despite what she'd become, striking the blow was the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he wanted to survive and do so as a living man, not an undead monstrosity, so he leaped to his feet and drove his sword into her stomach.
The stroke would have killed any ordinary human, if not instantly, then after a period of crippling agony, but if the tales he'd heard were true, a vampire would survive it. He prayed it was so, and he prayed too that the wound would incapacitate her long enough to make a difference.
He yanked his sword free of her flesh, and she doubled over
clutching at the gash. Making sure he didn't look up and meet Xingax's gaze again, he dashed for the doorway. The catwalk banged as the giant zombie lumbered after him.
The huge corpse had longer legs than he did. Aware that he was running short of spells, he nonetheless sang a charm to quicken his stride. It might be the only hope he had of keeping ahead of his pursuers.
Of course, it likely wouldn't be long before he blundered into some of Xingax's allies, at which point the fetus-thing would yell for them to stop him. Then, with new foes in front of him and his current ones pounding up behind, it would make no difference how fast he could run.
He halted, lifted his head, and shouted. The blast of sound jolted and splintered the section of catwalk immediately in front of the huge zombie. Its next heavy stride stamped a hole in the weakened planks, and then it crashed through altogether, carrying its rider along with it.
The two creatures slammed down hard in a clattering shower of broken wood. Bareris didn't expect the fall to destroy the zombie outright, but he dared to hope he'd damaged it and maybe slain the feeble-looking Xingax.
The zombie tried to rise and the whelp slipped from its shoulders. Evidently he couldn't hold on anymore. The undead giant fell back on top of him when one of its legs buckled beneath it.
Bareris could scarcely believe how well the trick had worked. How lucky he'd been. He sprinted on, found a staircase, climbed to the catwalks, and headed for the portal. He'd just promised Tammith he wouldn't leave her here, but the plain truth was now he had to get away or die, quite possibly when she murdered him herself. He vowed to himself that he'd return and next time rescue her. Somehow. Somehow.
His guts churned, his vision blurred, and a pang of headache
jabbed through his skull. Something was making him ill. He cast about for the source of his distress and saw nothing.
He recalled his ore informant warning him that a person needed protection merely to come into proximity with Xingax. Could that possibly be what ailed him? If so, where was the whelp? A sudden blast of cold coated the right side of his body with frost and chilled him to the core. He'd seen battle mages conjure such attacks. Shaking, he looked for cover and found none within reach. He turned to see where the magic had originated.
Visible now, Xingax floated in empty air a few yards away from the catwalk. Obviously, the fall hadn't killed him, and he didn't actually need the zombie to carry him around. He certainly hadn't had any difficulty catching up to Bareris.
Stricken as he was, the bard almost looked into the abomination's eyes before recalling he mustn't. At the last possible instant, he averted his gaze.
Not that it was likely to matter. He'd drained his reserves of magic nearly dry, and his twisted little infant's mouth leering, Xingax was hovering out of reach of his blade. From that position, the fetus-creature could throw spell after spell without fear of effective reprisal.
Bareris could only think of one ploy to attempt, and it was nowhere near as clever as breaking the catwalk had been. In fact, it was as old as any trick in the world, but it would have to serve. He allowed himself to collapse onto the walkway and lay motionless thereafter.
A wary foe might suspect he was merely feigning death or unconsciousness and continue smiting him at range. If Xingax took that tactic, he was finished.
But maybe the abomination wouldn't be that cautious. He seemed smugly confident of his own powers and likewise devoted to his work. He might be reluctant to kill Bareris here and now
and settle for reanimating him as a zombie when it could still be possible to turn him into a more powerful undead.
I'm helpless, Bareris thought. Sick. Frozen. Dead. Just come closer and you'll see.
As if heeding his silent entreaties, Xingax floated over to hang directly over him. One larger and set higher than the other, his dark eyes squinted.
Striving to deny sickness and injury their grip of him, bellowing a war cry to infuse himself with vigor and resolve, Bareris sprang to his feet. Still doing his best to avoid looking into Xingax's eyes, he cut open the creature's chest.
Xingax gave an ear-splitting screech like the cry of the baby he so resembled. Bareris slashed away a flap of flesh from one of the creature's cheeks.
The fetus-thing started to fly away from the catwalk. Bareris lunged and caught the dangling length of cold, slimy umbilicus. It threatened to slide out of his fingers, but he clamped down tight, twisted it around his wrist, and held Xingax in place as if the latter were a dog straining at a leash.
He kept on cutting and thrusting. Xingax hurled anorher blaze of chill from his small, decaying hands, but Bareris discerned his intent, twisted aside and evaded the worst of it then retaliated by lopping off one of the outthrust extremities at the wrist. His next cut sliced the smaller of the creature's eyes.
The whelp screamed and vanished, leaving a segment of gray rotting birth cord behind in Bareris's fingers. His final wail echoed.
Fearful that his foe had simply become invisible once more, Bareris pivoted and slashed at the air all around him. His blade failed to find a target, and in another moment, he realized he felt better. Xingax truly had departed, evidently translating himself instantaneously through space and taking his aura of sickness along with him.
Unfortunately, that didn't fix the chill burns on Bareris's skin. With luck, his healing songs would keep the injured patches from turning into genuine frostbite and gangrene, but he didn't have the magic or time to spare to attempt it now. He cast away the section of umbilicus, brushed rime from his garments, and strode in the direction of the portal, until he heard a commotion up ahead.
Then he realized that Xingax, surmising his foe would make for the magical gate, had transported himself there when he fled, where he'd no doubt arranged for some of his minions to guard the portal with special care while the rest scoured the catacombs for the man who'd maimed him.
Bareris struggled to suppress a surge of panic, telling himself there had to be another way out of here, wherever here was. He just had to find it.
He threw away his cloak. At a distance, the brown mantle was probably more conspicuous than the bloody rent in his robe. He hid his sword and sword belt beneath the voluminous crimson garment. Then he hurried away from the sound of the searchers and toward a portion of the maze of vaults and tunnels he had yet to explore.
Eventually he spotted a subtle change in the ambient illumination up ahead. He rounded a corner and saw a trapezoidal opening with a ray of wan light shining through. Puzzling as it seemed, given his near-certainty that he was underground, the wizards' lair possessed a window after all.
He lowered himself from the catwalk by his hands, dropped, stuck his head out the opening, and then he understood. The vaults were adjacent to a wide cylindrical shaft plunging deep into bedrock. He'd heard stories of an ancient people who'd excavated well-like fortresses in the Sunrise Mountains. Apparently they'd dug out at least one city as well, constructed on a grander scale, and he was standing in it. The morning sun
hadn't yet risen high enough to shine straight down into the central vacancy, but even so, the light reflecting down from the gray clouds revealed other windows, as well as doorways connecting to chiseled balconies and staircases.
Intending to locate one of those doors, he turned, then heard his pursuers once more. They were manifestly closing in. Before, the noise they'd made had simply been a drone. Now he could make out some of the words that one ore was growling to another.
Bareris realized he didn't dare spend any more time in the tunnels looking for anything. He had to get out now, so he clambered out the window feet first.
He was no expert climber, and fatigue and the flare of cold had stolen a measure of his strength, but fortunately, the ancient builders hadn't polished the walls of the shaft smooth, or if they had, time had come along behind them and roughened them again. There were hand- and footholds to be had, and refusing to look down at the gulf yawning beneath him, the bard hauled himself upward.
Finally he reached one of the spiraling staircases. He dragged himself onto the steps, lay on his belly for a moment panting and trembling, then forced himself to rise and skulk onward.
In time he spotted a pair of human guards at the top of the steps. As best he could judge, no one had alerted them that an intruder had penetrated the catacombs below, for they appeared more bored than vigilant and were looking outward, not down the stairs.
Trying to be silent, Bareris drew his sword from beneath his robe and held it behind his back. Then he crept on.
Despite his efforts at stealth, one of the sentries apparently heard him coming. The warrior turned, and reacting to the sight of a red robe, he began to salute with his spear as the ores at the portal had.
Then, his eyes widening, he exclaimed, "What's this?" and leveled the weapon.
Bareris charged, knocked the lance out of line with his sword, and drove the blade into the warrior's chest. Where it stuck fast as the other spearman attacked. Bareris let go of the hilt, twisted to avoid his adversary's thrust, grabbed him, and shoved him off the edge of the landing. Shrieking, the warrior plummeted down the well.
His pulse hammering in his neck, Bareris peered about. He was on top of a mountain, with brown, jagged peaks rising on every side to stab the overcast sky, and except for the subterranean city he'd just exited and a well-trodden trail running down the rocky slopes from the lip of the shaft, no sign of human habitation anywhere. He still suspected he was in the Sunrise Mountains, but he'd never even seen them before, and he knew that in fact, he could be anywhere.
At least he had the dawn to give him his directions. He'd head west, south, and/or downward, depending on which was most practical at a given moment, and hope to find his way to the Pass of Thazar or one of the eastern tharchs. He saw little choice but to try. By all accounts, a lone man couldn't survive in these mountains for long.
To his disappointment, the dead warrior at his feet wasn't carrying any food, but he did have a leather water bottle. Bareris appropriated that, his spear, and his cloak. Spring had come to the lowlands, but up here the wind whistling out of the north was cold, and the night would be colder still.
Once he'd outfitted himself as well as he was able, he trotted down the trail. It was the best way to distance himself from the wizards' stronghold, the fastest, easiest way to travel, but he'd need to forsake the path in just a little while, because his foes would come after him, and his only hope of evading them was to vanish into the trackless crags and gorges.

Chapter ten
4-5 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Aoth looked around the table at Nymia Focar, his fellow captains, and an assortment of high-ranking Burning Braziers and Red Wizards. Many of his comrades looked tired, and tight mouths and clenched jaws revealed the determination to participate in the council of war despite the ache of one's wounds. Yet everyone seemed happy as well, whether expansively or quietly, and the singing and whooping outside the hall mirrored the mood of satisfaction within.
It was the satisfaction that came with victory. Upon learning the undead had in fact assaulted the sizable town of Thazrumaros and overrun the eastern half of it, Nymia had hastily reunited the greater part of her army to attack the creatures in their turn, and though the battle had claimed the lives of a number of Thayan warriors, in the end, she'd prevailed.
Now the common soldiers were celebrating, drinking the town dry and bedding every woman who felt moved to so reward
its saviors. Aoth wished he were reveling with them.
Leaning on a crutch, his leg splinted, an officer hobbled in and took the last available chair. The yellow lamplight gleaming on the rings in her ears and the stud in her nose, Nymia sat up straighter, tacitly signaling that she was ready to begin. The drone of casual conversation died.
"My good friends," Nymia said, "you scarcely need me to tell you what your valor has accomplished over the course of the past several days. I've just received a message from Milsantos Daramos, and he and his troops have been similarly successful, cleansing the southern part of Pyarados as we've cleansed the north."
Everyone exclaimed and applauded, and Aoth supposed he might as well clap with them. It was good news, as far as it went.
When they'd all had their fill of self-congratulation, Nymia continued. "It's plain that when we combine Thayan arms, Thayan wizardry, and Kossuth's holy fire, these ghouls and specters are no match for us, so I propose to finish destroying them as expeditiously as possible. It's time to join forces with Tharchion Daramos, drive up the Pass of Thazar, and retake the keep. I only need to know how soon your companies can be ready to march."
The war leaders began to discuss how many casualties they'd sustained, how much flour and salt pork and how many crossbow bolts remained in the supply wagons, and all the other factors that determined an army's ability to travel and fight. Maybe, thought Aoth, he should leave it at that.
For after all, every other face at the table was a long, fair-complexioned, indisputably Mulan visage. Every other captain had more experience as an officer. Every other wizard was a Red Wizard. Thus, it was unlikely that his opinion would weigh very heavily with anyone.
Still, he felt it was his duty to voice it.
He raised his hand to attract Nymia's attention. "Yes," she said, smiling, "Aoth, what is it?"
He found he needed to clear his throat before proceeding. "I'm concerned that when we talk about rushing up the pass as fast as we can, or of the enemy as if their final defeat were a certainty, that we aren't taking the threat seriously enough."
Nymia cocked her head. "I take it very seriously. That's why, after our initial setbacks, I recruited the help required to deal with it."
"I know, but there's still a lot we don't understand."
"Of course—exactly where the undead came from, and why they decided to descend on us now. Perhaps we'll find out in due course, but do we actually need to know to defeat them? Judging from our recent successes, I'd say no."
"With respect, Tharchion, it's more than that. I told you about the fall of Thazar Keep, and the priest who wielded so much power against the undead. None of the creatures should have been able to stand against him, yet something struck him down."
One of the senior Burning Braziers, a burly, middle-aged man with tattooed orange and yellow flames crawling up his neck, snorted. "Are you well-versed in the mysteries of faith, Captain?"
"No," said Aoth, "but I know overwhelming mystical force when I see it, whether the source is arcane or divine."
"What, specifically, was the source in this instance?" asked the fire priest. "Which god did this paragon serve?"
"Bane."
"Oh, well, Bane." The Burning Brazier's tone suggested that all deities other than his own were insignificant, and his fellow clerics chuckled.
Nymia looked at Aoth. She was still smiling, but with less warmth than before. "I understand why you're concerned, but
we already knew the enemy has special ways of striking at our priests, and we've already taken special measures to protect them. Is there anything else?"
Just let it go, thought Aoth, but what he said was, "Yes. Have you noticed the particular nature of the creatures we've been fighting of late?"
Idly fingering one of the bones comprising his necklace, Urhur Hahpet grinned and shook his head. "Unless I'm mistaken, they were undead, the very entities we set out to fight."
"At one point," Aoth replied, "you, my lord, asked me what could be learned by confronting our foes at close quarters instead of simply burning them from a distance. After pondering the matter, I'm now able to tell you. For the most part, the creatures we've been destroying were zombies, ghouls, and shadows. Nasty foes but familiar ones, and often plainly the reanimated remains of farmers, villagers, and even animals the marauders slaughtered, not members of the original horde."
Nymia frowned. "Meaning what?"
"That the work we've done so far was necessary, but we've yet to inflict much harm on our true foe. The marauders' strength is still essentially intact. They still have their nighthaunt, most of their skin kites, diggers, and quells, and the rest of the strange creatures we don't really know how to fight."
Nymia looked to the necromancers. "You're the authorities on these horrors. Is it possible Aoth is right?"
Urhur shrugged. "I agree, we've destroyed relatively few of the exotic specimens, but it's conceivable that Tharchion Daramos has encountered more of them and also that we overestimated their numbers to begin with." He gave Aoth a condescending smile. "If so, you're not to blame. It can be difficult for anyone not an expert to tell the various species of undead apart, and the terror and chaos of a massacre would impair almost anybody's ability to make an accurate count."
"My ores fished some water ghouls out of the river," a captain said. "They count as 'exotic,' don't they?"
"I'd say so," Urhur replied. "At any rate, the essential point is this: Yes, we're facing a few rare and formidable creatures, but as Tharchion Focar said, we're prepared to deal with them. In the final analysis, no undead can withstand the magic specially devised to command or destroy its kind, or to give credit where it's due, Kossuth's fire, either."
"All I'm suggesting," said Aoth, "is that we proceed cautiously."
"We will," Nymia said briskly, "but proceed we must, and never stop until we've purged Pyarados of this plague, which brings us back around to the question of just how soon we can head into the pass."
Realizing it would be fruitless to argue any further, Aoth at last managed to hold his tongue.
After the council of war broke up, he tried to join the merrymaking in the streets, only to make the depressing discovery that it failed to divert him as in days of yore. Wondering why anyone ever aspired to become an officer, nipping from a bottle of sour white wine, he prowled aimlessly and watched other folk wallowing in their pleasures.
Finally, his meandering steps led him back to the home in which he and Brightwing were billeted. The griffon perched atop the gabled roof. When she caught sight of him, she spread her wings and half-leaped, half-glided down to the street. A stray mongrel that evidently hadn't discerned her presence hitherto yipped and ran.
"How did it go?" Brightwing asked.
Aoth grinned a mirthless grin. "About as well as I expected. Nymia's desperate to prove her competence and avert the zulkirs' displeasure. Everybody else is proud of himself for besting a terrible foe. Accordingly, no one was in the mood to hear that
we've only won a few petty skirmishes, with all the battles that matter still to come."
Brightwing gave her head a scornful toss. "I don't understand how humans can ignore the truth just because it's unwelcome."
Aoth sighed. "Maybe the others are right and I'm wrong. What do I know anyway?"
"Usually, not much, but this time, you're the one with his eyes open. What will you do now?"
Aoth blinked in surprise at the question. "Follow orders and hope for the best. What else can a soldier do?"
"If he serves in the Griffon Legion, he can fly south and speak his mind to this Milsantos Daramos."
Aoth realized it could conceivably work. Pyarados was Nymia's domain to govern, but as tharchion of Thazalhar, Milsantos was her equal in rank, and since she herself had asked him to participate in the current campaign, they shared authority in the muddled fashion that, the war mage abruptly realized, had hampered Thayan military endeavors for as long as he could remember.
In this case, however, it might prove beneficial. If he could convince Tharchion Daramos of the validity of his concerns, the old warrior could then pressure his fellow governor to adjust her strategy, and it seemed possible if not probable that Nymia actually would heed him. Aoth had never met the man, but of all the tharchions, he had the reputation for being the canniest commander, and the most sensible in general.
Yet...
"I can't," he said. "Nymia Focar is my tharchion. It would be an act of disloyalty for me to run to another commander with my concerns. To the Abyss with it. This is a strong army and we'll win. We may pay a heavier price for our victory than Nymia anticipates, but we'll have it in the end."
Brightwing grunted, an ambiguous sound that might signify
acquiescence, disapproval, or both at once.
Aoth resolved to put his misgivings out of his mind. "I wish I knew where Chathi's gone," he said.
"Why, nowhere," she replied.
He turned. The priestess stood in the house's doorway with a pewter goblet in either hand. She wore only a robe, open all the way down the front, though the night obscured all but a tantalizing suggestion of what the gap would otherwise reveal.
Aoth felt a grin stretch across his face. "I thought you'd be off somewhere celebrating with everybody else."
"I hoped that if I waited for you, we could have a sweeter time together. Was I wrong?"
"No," said Aoth, "you were right as blue skies and green grass." He strode to her, and enfolded in her arms, he did indeed succeed in forgetting all about the undead. At least for a while.
Though he'd known her for twenty years, Aznar Thrul had never beheld the face of Shabella, high priestess of Mask, god of larceny and shadow, and mistress of the thieves' guild of Bezantur. Every time he'd seen her, she'd worn a black silk mask and hooded gray woolen cloak over the rainbow-colored tunic beneath.
That, of course, was simply the way of the Maskarran, and it had never bothered him before. Now it did. What, he wondered, if this isn't the same woman with whom I've conspired for all these years? What if someone else, some agent of my enemies, killed her and took her place? Even if I unmasked her, I wouldn't know.
Ttying to push such groundless fancies out of his mind, he scowled at her across the length of the small room he used for private audiences, and as a servant closed the door behind her, she bowed deeply, spreading the wings of her cape.
He left her in that position for several heartbeats, rather hoping it pained her middle-aged back muscles but knowing it probably didn't. Though she likely hadn't committed a robbery with her own hands in a long while, her position required her to train to maintain the skills and athleticism of an all-around master thief, and he had little doubt that she could still scale sheer walls and lift latches with the ablest burglars and stalk and club a victim like the most accomplished muggers.
"Get up," Aznar said at last. "Tell me what's happening in the streets." He already knew, but the question was a way of starting the conversation.
"The common folk," she said, "are celebrating the good news from Pyarados." As always, her soft soprano voice sounded gentle and wistful, belying the iron resolve and ferocity she displayed when circumstances warranted.
" 'The good news,' " he parroted. "Meaning what, precisely?"
"That the legions are pushing back the undead."
"In the opinion of the mob, who deserves the credit for their success?"
Most people hesitated before telling Aznar Thrul something he didn't want to hear. Shabella never did, and that was one of the things that made him if not like at least respect her.
"Szass Tam," she said, "who committed the order of Necromancy to the struggle, convinced Iphegor Nath to send the Burning Braziers, and armed the priests with their torch weapons."
"And who just recently saved the northern tharchs from a Rashemi invasion." "Yes."
"Curse it!" Aznar exploded. "I don't care what the whoreson's done. How can they make a hero of a lich?"
"We Thayans aren't a squeamish people," Shabella replied. "You Red Wizards made sure of that when you recruited ores,
zombies, and even demons to serve you. The commoners had little choice but to get used to them."
"Spare me your gloss on the history of the realm. Tell me who spreads these tidings through the alehouses and markets in a way that lionizes Szass Tam at the expense of everyone else who contributed to the victory."
"Agents employed by Dmitra Flass and Malark Springhill, most likely."
"If you know that, why haven't your cutthroats silenced them?"
"Because I don't really know, I simply infer. The taletellers are wily and my followers haven't yet identified them.
"Too busy skirmishing with the Shadowmasters?" he asked, referring to the one cartel of thieves that sought to supplant her and her organization.
"I have to address the problem," Shabella said. "I'm no use to you dead."
"Are you of any use currently? Perhaps your rivals wouldn't be so foolish as to give their business priority over mine."
"The local Shadowmasters are only one Chapter of a greater network based in Thesk. Would it truly suit Your Omnipotence to have foreigners controlling all thievery south of the First Escarpment?"
"It might at least suit me to see someone else officiating in front of Mask's high altar, so get out of here and do what needs doing."
She bowed and withdrew.
The unsatisfactory interview left Aznar feeling as restless and edgy as before, but perhaps he knew a way to lift his spirits. It had been a month since he'd visited Mari Agneh.
Though he didn't play with her as frequently—or, often, as elaborately—as in the first years of her captivity, she still amused him on occasion, which made her a rarity. Generally, the torment
of a particular victim eventually came to seem repetitive and stale, at which point he consigned that prisoner to his or her final agonies and moved on to the next.
He supposed it was Mari's austere good looks and defiant spirit that he still found piquant, combined with the fact that she was nearly the first person of significance he'd punished after assuming the mantle of a zulkir. In her way, she was a memento of his ascension.
Smiling now, he rose, took up his staff of luminous congealed flame, and exited the private chamber into a larger hall where bodyguards, clerks, and other functionaries awaited his pleasure. He waved them off and tramped on alone, through one magnificently appointed space after another. His passage was a like a ripple in a pond, agitating everyone. Sentries came to attention and saluted, while everybody else groveled in the manner appropriate to his station.
Such displays became less frequent once he made his way to corridors that, while no less handsomely decorated, were smaller and less well travelled. From there, a concealed door admitted him to his private prison.
Mari gave him a level stare as he entered her cell. "I'm going to kill you tonight," she said.
It surprised him a little. She hadn't made that particular threat in quite a while, not since they'd proved her helplessness time and again.
"By all means, try," he answered. "It always made our times together that much more entertaining, but first, take off your clothes, and keep your eyes on me as you do it. I want you to see me seeing you."
She obeyed, as of course she had to. His magic left her no choice.
"Now crawl to me on your belly and clean my shoes with your tongue."
She did that, too.
"Now hug the whipping post." He wouldn't need to tie or shackle her to keep her there. His spoken will sufficed even for that.
He laid down his staff, took down the whip from its hook on the wall, and cut her back into a tidy Crosshatch of bloody welts. Though it was the least of his accomplishments, he'd always taken a certain satisfaction in his skill with a lash. He fancied that if he hadn't been born with a talent for magic, he could have been one of Thay s more successful slavers. Perhaps it would have been a less stressful and demanding existence than the life of a zulkir.
Mari invariably struggled against the need to cry out. Perhaps what remained of her warrior's pride demanded it, whereas he found pleasure in overcoming that resistance, striking for as long as it took to get her squealing like an animal.
Perhaps the day's worries and frustrations had wearied him more than he knew, for tonight, it seemed to take an unusually long time. He grew hot and sweaty, peeled off his crimson robe, and then the garments underneath, all the way down to his smallclothes.
Eventually Mari gave him a reaction, though not precisely the one he was expecting. Her shoulders began to shake, and she made a breathy, rhythmic sound. For a moment, he assumed she was sobbing then he realized that in reality, the noise was laughter.
He shook his head. He'd just been imagining she was the one plaything that would never break, and here was the first sign her sanity was crumbling at last. Life could be so drearily perverse.
"Turn around," he said, and she did. "Tell me what's so funny."
"The flogging doesn't hurt," she said, "not really, and you don't have any pockets anymore." She charged him.
Though she hadn't lifted her hand to him in quite some time, he was always watchful for it, always prepared, even in the deepest throes of lust, and it was no different now. "Stop!" he snapped.
She didn't stop. She raked her nails across his eye and punched him in the throat.
Half blind, half choking, he reeled back, then reflex took over. She was right, he'd divested himself of his protective talismans and the physical components required to cast many of his most powerful spells. He was the greatest master of Evocation in all Thay, though, and capable of creating many other effects by word and gesture alone. He croaked a word of power, jabbed out his hand, and bright globes of light burst in rapid succession from his fingertips. Swelling larger, they hurtled at Mari, each engulfing her in its turn, and with a deafening crackle, discharging the lightning that constituted its essence into her body.
Startled, hurt, Aznar had lashed out with one of the most potent attacks available to him, and he immediately realized the response was excessive. Such an abundance of magic he might have used to kill a giant or wyvern. In all likelihood, there wouldn't even be anything left of her body and not much left of the furniture either.
When he caught his breath, wiped the tears from his stinging eye, and blinked the blurriness out of the world, he saw that he was half right. The spell had blasted the whipping post and bed frame into smoking scraps of kindling. The blankets, pillows, and mattress were on fire, but Mari stood where she'd stood before, seemingly unscathed.
Unscathed but not unchanged. She had four arms, not two, and her smooth ivory skin had darkened and roughened into purple scales. Her eyes glowed red, and the bottom half of her face had lengthened into a muzzle complete with fangs.
It occurred to him that, except for her merely human stature and the fact that she was still manifestly female, she now resembled one of the demon guards stationed elsewhere in the palace. What did that mean? The order of Conjuration had supplied those demons. Was it possible Nevron had turned against him?
Mari gathered herself to spring, and Aznar realized he'd better put such speculations aside. He'd unravel the mystery of his captive's transformation in due course, but for now, what mattered was defending himself against her. It was obvious that in her altered condition, she no longer felt constrained to obey his commands.
Lightning hadn't harmed her, but maybe fire would. She lunged at him, and with a simple exertion of his will, he released the power bound in a tattooed glyph on his left forearm. It pained him like a bee sting, and Mari's entire body exploded into flame.
Plainly hurt, she staggered, and looking forward to watching her flounder, shriek, and burn, he stepped out of her blundering way.
She caught her balance and pivoted to threaten him anew. Two of her hands swiped at him with their talons. One grazed his shoulder and drew blood.
The blaze enshrouding her hand didn't sear him. He'd long since forged unshakable alliances with Ere, acid, lightning, and cold, and Mari's claws scarcely broke his skin. Even so, he suffered a shock of weakness and dizziness. He swayed, and she nearly succeeded in catching him by the throat when she snatched for him again.
Retreating, he chanted while miming the making of a snowball and then the act of throwing it. Hurtling chunks of ice sprang into existence to batter Mari and knock her back a step, but they didn't put her down any more than the lightning and
fire had. In fact, her corona of punishing flame was guttering out faster than it was supposed to, revealing only superficial burns that were already starting to heal.
Damn it, he needed the items cached in his robe. They were the keys to unlocking his most devastating spells, and apparently nothing less would serve to neutralize his foe. Unfortunately, Mari stood between the garment and himself. He had to get past her somehow and likewise obtain the additional moment he'd need to retrieve the garment and pull out one of the appropriate talismans.
With a wave of his hand, he filled the air with what was, to him, merely a tinge of gray. To any other eyes, though, it would seem impenetrable darkness. Mari snarled and rushed him, plainly seeking to catch him before he could shift away from the spot where she'd seen him last.
He whispered a word of power and whisked himself through space. Now that he was outside the clot of shadow, it was opaque to him as well, though he could hear Mari flailing around inside.
He picked up his robe. It was on fire from collar to hem, but not yet so badly burned that it would disintegrate if he tried to put it on, and he lifted it to do so. His hands would find his spell triggers far more easily if his pockets were hanging in their accustomed places about his body.
Mari sprang from the cloud of datkness. Obviously, she'd figured out Aznar was no longer inside. If only she could have stayed fooled for one more heartbeat! Then everything would have been all right.
She snatched, caught the robe in her claws, and for an instant, the two of them pulled on it like children playing tug of war. Alas, she was the stronger, and when the burning, weakened cloth ripped in two, the piece in her talons was by far the larger. Laughing, she shredded it, and crystals, medallions, and
vials tumbled to the floor. Then she reached for Aznar, who, backing up until his shoulders banged against a wall, petceived that his paltry piece of the robe possessed at least a few pockets, though which ones, he couldn't tell. He stuck his hand in one at random and brought out a folded paper packet of powdered ruby.
It made him want to laugh, but there was scarcely time for that. He jabbered a rhyme and lashed the particles of red glittering dust through the air to explode into tiny sparks.
A cube with transparent crimson walls sprang into existence around the onrushing Mari. She slammed into the side of it and rebounded.
She'd charged so close to Aznar that when it popped into existence, the magical cage nearly trapped him as well by pinning him between itself and the wall behind him, but he sucked in his breath and managed to sidle free. Meanwhile, Mari attacked the enclosure with the frenzy of a rabid animal, repeatedly breaking and regrowing her talons.
"Strike at it all you like," Aznar Thrul panted. "It will hold. It will hold for days." Plenty of time for him to decide how best to chastise her and solve the puzzle of her metamorphosis.
For now, he required the aid of a healer to take away the sick feeling her claws had slashed into his flesh and strong drink to quiet his jangled nerves. He snapped his fingers to extinguish all the various fires then turned and exited the cell.
He was several paces down the corridor when four strong hands gripped him by the shoulders and forearms. He just had time to realize that, like many a true tanar'ri, Mari must also possess the ability to translate herself through space, then she yanked him close and plunged her fangs into his neck.
Tsagoth had tried to finagle a guard station close to Mari Agneh's hidden cell, so he'd have some hope of knowing when Aznar Thrul went to torture her. Unfortunately, though, he'd been unsuccessful, and when screams started echoing from that general direction, he had no idea whether they meant the former tharchion had struck at her captor at last or portended something else entirely.
He dissolved his body and reshaped it into the guise of a gigantic bat. Flight was often a faster, more reliable means of travel than blinking through space when he didn't know precisely where he was going. Wings beating, he raced through imposing chambers and hallways, over the heads of humans, ores, and other folk who were, in many cases, either running toward or away from the source of the noise.
He rounded another corner, and free of her prison at last, Mari Agneh came into view. Tsagoth felt a strange, unexpected stirring of pride at the marvel he'd created. Painted with fragrant human gore—Aznar Thrul's, no doubt—from mouth to navel, she was a pitiful runt compared to any true blood fiend, but in every other respect, he'd succeeded in transforming a feeble, insignificant mortal into an entity like himself.
She was confronting four warriors, a trio of spearmen, and one swordsman clad in the more ornate trappings and superior armor of an officer. Dissolving his bat guise, Tsagoth started the shift to his more customary form. Generally speaking, it was more useful for combat.
Before he could enter the fray, Mari sprang and raked the guts out of a spearman. In so doing, she perforce turned her back on some of his allies, and another warrior drove his lance deep into her back. She scarcely seemed to notice. She whirled with such force that she jerked the weapon from his hands, grabbed hold of his head, and slammed him to the floor. Part of his face came away in her talons, and he didn't move thereafter.
The remaining spearman dropped his weapon and bolted. The officer, however, raised his sword to cut at Mari's head, and Tsagoth sensed potent enchantment seething in the gleaming gray blade. Perhaps Mari did too, for though she'd essentially ignored the spears, she now retreated and lifted a hand to ward herself.
The officer instantly spun his sword lower, extended the point, and exploded into a running attack. The move was all offense and no defense, arguably reckless in any situation and certainly so against an opponent as formidable as Mari, but it caught her by surprise, and the enchanted sword punched all the way through her torso.
Shouting, the warrior jerked his weapon free and raised it to cut. As it streaked down, she caught it in her two upper hands. The keen edge cut deep enough to sever one of her thumbs, but at least she kept it from cleaving her skull and brain.
She shifted closer to the swordsman and used her two remaining hands to gather him in. Then she plunged her fangs into his throat and sucked at the gushing wound.
All this, before Tsagoth could even complete his transformation and come to her aid. It made him feel even more gratified. He started toward her, and the mark on his brow gave him another twinge. He clawed it from existence, and his hide tickled as it immediately started to heal.
"I assume Aznar Thrul is dead," he said.
To his surprise, she failed to reply or acknowledge him in any fashion. She just kept guzzling blood. The prey in her grasp trembled, and his extremities twitched.
"Other people are coming," he said. "We can escape, but we should go now." She still didn't answer, so he laid his hand on her shoulder.
Snarling, she turned and knocked his arm away, and when he gazed into her glaring crimson eyes, he saw nothing of reason or
comprehension there. It was as if she were a famished dog and he a stranger trying to drag her away from a side of beef.
As he'd warned her, humans were frail vessels to receive the power of a blood fiend, and her metamorphosis had driven her crazy. The only question was whether the insanity was permanent or temporary. If the latter, it might be worthwhile to try and see her safely through it.
Or not. When he heard shrill, excited voices and looked around, he saw a veritable phalanx of foes approaching, with men-at-arms around the edges of the formation and scarlet-robed wizards in the center.
It was possible that two blood fiends could defeat such a band, but Tsagoth saw little reason to make the experiment. His bemused interest in the odd hybrid entity he'd created and his casual notion that perhaps he ought to school her as his sire had mentored him lost their cogency when his own well-being was at issue. Now he only cared about extricating himself from this situation as expeditiously as possible.
The spear still embedded in her back, Mari helped him by whisking herself through space and ripping into the warriors in the front of the formation. The imminent threat riveted every foe's attention on her, and Tsagoth had no difficulty translating himself in a different direction without any of the warlocks casting a charm to hinder him.
He didn't shift as far as prudence alone might have dictated. At the last possible instant, he decided that, even if he was unwilling to stand with the savage, demented creature he'd created, he was curious to see how she would fare, so he contented himself with a doorway some distance away.
She fought well, slaughtering most of the warriors and two of the Red Wizards before one of the other mages showered her with a downpour of conjured acid. Her scales smoking and blistering, she fell, and eyes seared away, face dissolving, struggled futilely
to rise. The warlock chanted and created a floating sword made of emerald light. The blade chopped and slashed repeatedly until she stopped moving.
Her destruction gave Tsagoth a slight twinge of melancholy, but only enough to season rather than diminish his satisfaction at the completion of what had proved an onerous chore. Glad that the system of wards protecting the fortress was better suited to keeping intruders out than holding would-be escapees in, he slipped through the net and into the night beyond.

Chapter eleven
7 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Bareris crept down the trail, a narrow, crumbling path that ran along a sheer drop, and then the moonlight dimmed. Heart hammering, he crouched low and cast about until he discerned that it was only a cloud veiling Selune's face.
Flying with wings or without, as bats or insubstantial wraiths, the hunters prowled by night, and as often as not, Bareris found that required him to flee through the dark as well. At first he'd hoped he could simply find good hiding places and lie up until dawn, but close calls two nights in succession convinced him no refuge was safe enough. Perhaps, wearing the forms of wolves or rats, his foes could track him by scent. In any case, it seemed the better option was to keep moving and try to stay ahead of them.
Even with magic sharpening his vision, it was exhausting, dangerous work to negotiate mountain terrain in the dark. It made foraging more difficult as well. His throat seemed perpetually dry, and his belly, hollow.
Often, he wondered why he was even bothering with this forlorn, foredoomed attempt to escape. He'd promised to save Tammith, but truly, what were the chances? In all the lore he'd collected, from the soberest historical annals to the most fanciful tales, there was nothing even to hint that a vampire could recover her humanity.
And what was the point of going on without her? How could he endure the knowledge that she blamed him for what had befallen her or the suspicion that she was right to do so? He'd failed her at least twice, hadn't he, once when he'd left her behind in Bezantur, and again when he'd bungled his attempt to rescue her.
If the future held nothing but misery, wouldn't it be better to put an end to the ordeal of running? A shout or two would draw the undead to him, then he could fight them as they arrived. With luck, he might have the satisfaction of destroying a couple before they slew him in his turn.
He felt the urge repeatedly, but as of yet he hadn't acted on it. Maybe, in defiance of all reason, a part of him hadn't abandoned hope that Tammith could still be saved, or perhaps the raw animal instinct to survive was stronger even than despair.
He skulked onward and came to a saddleback connecting one peak with the next, a wide, flat ridge that promised easier, faster trekking for a while. Hoping to find water as well, he quickened his stride, and then he felt a coldness, or perhaps simply an indefinable but sickening wrongness, above his head.
He threw himself onto his stomach, and hands outstretched to grab, rend, or both, the misty form of his attacker streaked over him. He rolled to his feet and drew his sword. The phantom lit on the rocky ground, or nearly so. Its form flickered and jumped so as to suspend its feet slightly above the earth one instant and sink them partly into it the next. Blighted by the entity's mere proximity, the little gnarled trees and bushes in
the immediate area dropped their leaves and withered.
Bareris took his first good look at the spirit then gasped. He never would have expected to encounter a creature uglier than Xingax, yet here it was. Indeed, despite their vague, flowing inconstancy, its features somehow embodied the idea, the very essence, of hideousness in a way that even their twisted, hooknosed, pop-eyed asymmetry couldn't wholly explain. The mere sight of them ripped at something inside of him.
For an instant, he was afraid his heart would stop, his mind would shatter, and he'd collapse retching helplessly, or faint. But then he bellowed a war cry, and though the spirit remained as ghastly looking as before, its ugliness no longer had claws sunk in his spirit—a fact that wasn't likely to matter in the long run. Now that he could think more clearly, he recognized the undead as a banshee, an entity so powerful he had little hope of defeating it.
The banshee began to moan, and like the sight of its face, the noise pierced him to chill and stab something essential at his core. Steeling himself against the pain, he drew breath and sang, and the magic in his voice countered the lethal malignancy in the phantom's.
Still wailing, the banshee stretched out its long fingers and flew at him. He started chanting his charm of haste, waited until his foe was nearly upon him, then sidestepped. The undead hurtled past, and he cut at it. Though it passed through the banshee's wavering form, his sword encountered no tangible resistance, and he had no way of telling if he'd actually hurt the spirit. Since he was wielding an enchanted blade, it was possible but by no means a certainty.
His muscles jumped as the spell of quickness infused him. The banshee wheeled and rushed him anew, and his accelerated condition made it seem to fly more slowly. He bellowed, a blast of noise that might well have broken a tangible adversary's bones. Maybe it wounded the spirit as well, but as before, he could see
no indication of it. The attack certainly didn't slow the banshee down, not even for a heartbeat.
Grimly aware his brigandine was no protection against the entity's ghostly touch, he dodged and cut, sang and shrouded himself in a field of blur that might make it more difficult for the banshee to target him. He kept himself alive for a few more heartbeats.
Then the banshee sprang backward. For a moment, he imagined that he'd wounded it badly enough that it feared to continue fighting him. Then he felt the chilling scrutiny of a new presence, whose advent the banshee had evidently perceived a moment before he had.
It could easily be a fatal error to take his eyes off his original foe, but he needed to understand what was happening, so he risked a glance around. At first, he saw nothing, but then phosphorescence oozed through the air like a brush stroke flowing downward.
The streak of glow gradually assumed a manlike shape. Bareris gasped, because though it was like looking into a poorly made mirror in a dark room, he could tell the murky form was supposed to mimic his own.
Only for a moment, though. Then the thing rejected or was unable to sustain the resemblance. It softened until it was simply a luminous shadow with the hint of some form of armor in its shape and a length of sheen extending from its hand.
Bareris didn't know what the newcomer was, nor could he see a point to its brief impersonation of him, but he could only assume it was another of Xingax's hunters. Against all probability, he'd seemed to be holding his own against the banshee, and now his achievement didn't matter a jot. Fighting in concert, the two spirits were certainly capable of slaying him, and he felt a crazy impulse to laugh at his dismal luck and the ongoing ruination of all his hopes.
Instead, he faced the newcomer, the nearer of his foes, and came on guard. He'd at least make the vile creatures work for their kill.
The phantom came on guard in its turn, hesitated, then turned to face the banshee, to all appearances taking Bareris for its ally and making plain its opposition to its fellow undead.
The banshee screamed, and Bareris sang to leech the poison from the sound. Then, even though it was apparently leery of the phantom, it raced forward to attack with its hands once more. Perhaps the will of its necromancer masters compelled it.
In the moments that followed, Bareris discerned that his new comrade, whatever else it might be, was a master swordsman, landing cunning strokes, retreating to avoid the banshee's snatching, clawing attacks, and scoring anew with stop cuts when the moaning ghost lunged after it. The newcomer likewise understood how best to exploit a numerical advantage and consistently maneuvered to insure that it and Bareris remained on opposite sides of their opponent.
The banshee pounced at the spectral swordsman. Bareris leaped after it and spun his blade through its head. The banshee frayed into tatters of glow, which then winked out of existence.
That left Bareris gasping for breath and peering at the remaining phantom through the empty space their foe had occupied a moment before. The entity shifted its sword to threaten him.
Wonderful, thought the bard. It didn't oppose the banshee because it wanted to help me. It just wanted to make sure it got to kill me itself. Probably I'm to be its supper in one fashion or another.
Yet the spirit didn't follow through and attack. It hesitated as though uncertain of what to do.
Doubtful that he could defeat the phantom in any case, Bareris decided to lower his sword. "Thank you for helping me," he said. "Unfortunately, I'm still in danger. Other enemies are
seeking me, and the banshee and I made more than enough noise to draw them here. If you see fit to stand with me a second time, I'll be forever in your debt, or if you have a way we can hide or escape, that would be better still."
The spirit stared at him, then turned and started walking away. Bareris followed.
As the phantom strode, the sword melted from its hand, and its outline softened until it was just a luminous haze. Then that too faded away, though Bareris could still somehow sense it as an aching emptiness drifting on before him.
It led him into thick brush, and he had to shove and scramble to keep up. Then he took another step and found only empty air beneath his foot. He plummeted into darkness.
Samas Kul hadn't been sure he wanted to leave the banquet even temporarily. He'd eaten and drunk a considerable amount, enough to make even a fat man sluggish, enough to incline him to stay on his couch and sample all the courses and vintages still to come, no matter how enticing the reason to arise.
But he found the enclosed garden at the center of the mansion refreshing. The fountain gushed, the water glimmered in the moonlight, and the scent of jasmine filled the air. Best of alls the breeze cooled his hot, sweaty face. It made him hopeful that he'd be able to perform without recourse to magic, and that was always a relief.
"Girls!" he called. "Where are you?"
The women in question were gorgeous twin courtesans provided by his hostess. People exerted themselves mightily to entertain a man who was both zulkir of Transmutation and Master of the Guild of Foreign Trade, but perhaps not mightily enough, because the twins didn't answer.
He wondered if they'd thought a game of hide and seek amongst the flowerbeds and arbors would arouse him. If so, they'd mistaken their man. He'd abandoned such callow amusements many years and many pounds ago. These days, he preferred passion without an excess of exertion.
"Girls!" he repeated, this time putting the snap of command into his voice. "Show yourselves."
Still, no one replied, and abruptly he remembered that Druxus Rhym and Aznar Thrul were dead. Someone or something had caught them alone and murdered them. By all accounts, Thrul had even been preparing for coition, or a perverse alternative to it, when destruction overtook him.
But neither Rhym nor Thrul had anticipated trouble, nor had either had his talismans and spell triggers ready to hand. Samas invoked the power pent in a ring, and a protective aura, invisible as air but strong as steel, radiated from his body. He gave his left arm a shake and a wand of congealed quicksilver dropped from his voluminous sleeve into his pudgy fingers. He whispered a word of power and the darkness seemed to brighten. Now he could see as clearly as an owl.
That made it possible to spot the figure slipping through a doorway on the far side of the garden. Samas pointed the wand at the newcomer. A single flare of power should suffice to turn the wretch into a snail, after which it would be simplicity itself to capture him, change him back, and put him to the question.
But the man didn't move to attack, nor believing himself unobserved, did he continue skulking either. Instead, he dropped to his knees.
"Your Omnipotence," he said. "Thank you for coming. I realize I'm not as appealing a sight as the whores who delivered my invitation, but you can dally with them later if you're still so inclined. They understand they're to await your pleasure."
"How is it they answer to you? Duma Zan is paying them."
"You assumed that, and Lady Zan believes you invited the twins to attend the feast as your guests. In reality, I hired them to serve as my go-betweens."
"Who in the name of the Abyss are you?"
"Malark Springhill. We've never met, but perhaps you've heard of me."
"Dmitra Flass's man."
"Yes. May I rise?"
Samas hesitated. "I suppose so. What's this all about?"
"As you've surely heard by now, Szass Tam is convening the council of zulkirs. Tharchion Flass requests the honor of a private conversation with you, Yaphyll, and Lallara prior to the conclave."
Samas blinked. "You mean, with the three of us alone? And Szass Tam none the wiser?" "Yes."
"Everyone knows Dmitra is the lich's creature. Is he trying to test our loyalty?"
"If you believe so, Your Omnipotence, then may I suggest that you attend the meeting, then hurry to Szass Tam and tell him what was said."
Samas realized he'd been standing too long. His back was beginning to ache, and he felt a little short of breath. He cast about, spotted a marble bench, and lowered himself onto it. "What does Dmitra want to talk about?"
"I have no idea."
Oh, you know, Samas thought, it's just that the "First Princess of Thay" wants to tell us herself. "At least explain why you found it necessary to contact me in this melodramatic fashion."
Malark grinned. "If I may say so, Master, you don't know the half of it. To make it possible for me to reach all three of you zulkirs in time, my mistress conjured me a flying horse, and as 1 understand it, when an illusionist manufactures such a creature,
it isn't altogether real. Recognizing its ephemeral nature yet still riding it high above the ground makes a man feel rather bold.
"But to answer the question," the outlander continued, "you are watched. I should know. Some of the watchers report to me, but there may be others who report directly to Szass Tam, and if so, I'd rather they not tell him you and I have spoken.
"Now then: What answer should I deliver to Tharchion Flass?"
Frowning, Samas pondered the question. Like any sane person, he had no desire to run afoul of Szass Tam, yet as Malark himself had pointed out, he could always claim afterward that he attended the secret meeting as the lich's loyal ally, to make sure no one was plotting against him. Meanwhile, his truest fealty was to himself, and he hadn't prospered to the extent he had by ignoring any opportunity to find out what the other grandees of the realm were scheming or to accrue every conceivable advantage.
"Where and when does she want to see us?"
Bareris saw that he'd stepped into an overgrown but open stone well. It was like the shaft he'd climbed out of days before, only narrower. Falling, he dropped his sword and grabbed at the curved wall beside him but failed to find a handhold.
Below him, metal rang, and an instant later he slammed down on a hard, uneven surface. Once the shock of the impact passed, and it was clear the short drop had merely bruised him, he discerned that he and his weapon had landed on a portion of a staircase spiraling into the depths. The disquieting vacancy that was his phantom guide hovered farther down.
He wondered if the spirit had just attempted to lure him into a fatal fall. If so, it would be crazy to continue following it.
But if it wanted him dead, it could have just attacked him with its sword, or let the banshee kill him. It seemed more likely that it had simply expected him to spot the shaft before blundering over the edge.
In any case, Bareris might have nowhere to go but down. By now, more of Xingax's hunters could easily have reached the ridge.
He rose, picked up his sword, and grumbled, "Warn me next time." The entity drifted onward, and he stalked after it.
Before long they came to the first of the vaults opening onto the well. The chamber was a sort of crypt, with supine, somewhat withered-looking figures of pale stone, their arms crossed, laid out in rows on the floor. They could have been sculptures, but Bareris' intuition told him they were corpses, coated with rock or ceramic or somehow petrified entirely. That suggested the ancients hadn't excavated this place to serve as a village or fortress either. It was a warren of tombs.
The dead bodies brought the phantom wavering in and out of visibility as it took on the semblance of first one and then another, but it didn't cling to any of them for long.
The crypts grew larger as Bareris and his guide descended. Stone sarcophagi, in some cases carved with the images of the dead, hid their occupants from view. Faded, flaking murals on the walls proclaimed their achievements and their adoration of their gods. The phantom borrowed faces from some of the carved and painted images as well, only to relinquish them just as quickly.
The bottom of the well was in view when the phantom led Bareris off the steps and into one of the vaults. A moment later, a gray, plump, segmented creature half as long as the bard was tall crawled from behind a bier. It raised its hairless, eyeless, but nonetheless manlike head and swiveled it in his direction.
Bareris's body clenched into rigidity, and pain burned
through his limbs. He struggled to fill his lungs then chanted a charm of vitality.
The agony and near-paralysis faded. Intending to dispatch the sluglike creature before it could afflict him a second time, he lifted his sword and took an initial stride, but the spirit stepped to block the way, and a shadow blade extended from its murky hand.
Meanwhile, the crawling thing turned, retreated deeper into the crypt, and called out in a language Bareris had never heard before.
He hesitated. Despite the unpleasantness he'd suffered a moment before, it now seemed as if the worm-creature wanted to talk, not fight, and he certainly didn't want to battle it and the wraith at the same time if it wasn't necessary.
He sang to grant himself the gift of tongues then called, "I couldn't understand you before, but I will now."
"I said to keep your distance," the eyeless being replied. "I don't want to turn you to stone—not unless you mean me harm—but I can't stop the force emanating from my body any more than you can stop the flow of blood through your veins."
"I didn't come to hurt you," Bareris said. "/ asked your . . . companion here to take me somewhere safe because other undead creatures are hunting me. I should warn you, they might track me into the well. They've sniffed out some of my other hiding places."
"I doubt they'll find this one," the creature said. "Those who built it had a fear of necromancers tampering with their remains, so they took precautions to prevent such indignities. They laid their dead to rest in a secret place far from their habitations and also arranged for me to dwell here, to petrify the corpses and make them impossible to reanimate. Most importantly from your perspective, they laid down wards to keep a wizard's undead servants from locating the tombs."
Bareris felt the tension flow out of him, leaving a profound
weariness in its place. "That's good to hear."
"Sit. Mirror and I can offer no other comforts fit for a mortal man, but you can at least rest."
The bard flopped down with his back against a wall. "Mirror is an apt name for your friend, 1 suppose. Mine is Bareris Anskuld."
"I'm Quickstrike. A gravecrawler, as you can see."
Bareris shook his head. "I have to take your word for it. I've never met or even heard of a creature like you before."
"Truly? I wonder if the rest of my kind have vanishedfrom the world." Quickstrike sounded more intrigued than dismayed by the possibility. "Men also called us ancestor worms."
"Interesting," Bareris said, and it was, a little. Despite the despair that had consumed him of late, he couldn't help feeling somewhat curious about his new companions. Curiosity was a fundamental aspect of the character of any bard. "Are gravecrawlers undead?"
"Of a sort, but not the sort that was ever human or preys on humans, not as long as they behave themselves."
"I assure you, I intend to. And Mirror is a ghost? "
"Ofa particularly brave and accomplished warrior, I believe. As you will have guessed, Mirror is simply the nickname I gave him, based on his habit of filching an appearance. He doesn't remember his true name or face any longer, or much of anything really."
"Why not?"
Quickstrike's body rippled from head to tail in a manner that suggested a man stretching. "He fell victim to the power that destroyed his entire people. It's a sad story, but one lean relate if you want to hear."
Bareris had the feeling that, after centuries with only the mute, nearly mindless Mirror for company, Quickstrike enjoyed having someone to talk to, while for his part, he had nothing better to do than listen.
"Please do. I've spent much of my life collecting tales and songs."
"Well, then. In its time, not so very long after the fall ofNetheril, a splendid kingdom ruled these mountains. It owed much of its greatness to a single man, Fastrin the Delver, a wizard as clever and powerful as any who ever lived.
"For much of his life, Fastrin worked wonders to benefit his people and gave sage counsel to their lords. Eventually, however, he withdrew from the world, and those few who saw him thereafter said he was troubled but couldn't or wouldn't explain why, which kept anyone from realizing just how dire the situation was. Fastrin wasn't just morose, he was going mad.
"One sunny summer morning," Quickstrike continued, "he emerged from his seclusion and started methodically slaughtering people, laying waste to one community after another, but he wasn't content with simply ending the lives of his victims. His magic mangled their minds and souls. In many cases, it may have obliterated their spirits entirely. Even when it didn't, it stripped them of memory and reason."
"Like Mirror," Bareris said.
"Yes. He was one of many who tried to stand against Fastrin. Sadly, their valor accomplished nothing. I suppose a few people must have escaped by taking flight, but at the end of the wizard's rampage, the kingdom he'd done so much to build no longer existed. He then turned that same lethal, psyche-rending power on himself."
"What was it all about? Even lunatics have reasons, though they may not make sense to the rest of us. Did anyone try to parley with him?"
"Yes," said the ancestor worm. "Fastrin said he'd been robbed, and since he was unable to identijy the thief, everyone must die. It was the only way to be safe."
Bareris shook his head. "I don't understand."
"No one did, and Fastrin refused to elaborate."
"May I ask how you learned all this?"
"When I was buried in this place? Well, even Fastrin couldn't kill an entire realm in a day, or a tenday, and as the massacre continued, folk sought my counsel. Ancestor worms were accounted wise, you see. When I ate the flesh of the dead, before I grew beyond the need of such provender, I absorbed their wisdom. Alas, nothing I'd ever learned offered any remedy to the disaster.
"Later, when people stopped coming here, I ventured forth to discover if anyone remained alive. I didn't find any humans, but by good fortune, I encountered a hunting party of ores, who then attacked me."
Bareris smiled crookedly. " 'Goodfortune, 'you say."
"Very much so, because they didn't all turn to stone. One simply bled out after I pierced it with my fangs, and when I ate some of it, it turned out that it had witnessed Fastrin's suicide from a safe distance. Either the wizard didn't notice, or since the ore hadn't been a subject of the kingdom, it didn'tfigure in his delusions and he saw no reason to attack it. Either way, at least I now knew what had happened, grim though it was, so I returned home.
"Now tell me your tale."
Bareris winced. For a moment, Quickstrike's story had distracted him from his sorrows, and he had no desire to return to them. "It's not worth telling."
"When it involves you fleeing the undead? Don't be ridiculous."
Bareris reflected that the gravecrawler was, in fact, his host, so he owed the creature some accounting of himself. "Asyou wish. I don't know how much you know about the kingdoms ofmen as they exist today. I hail from a realm called Thay..."
He tried to relate the tale as tersely as possible, without any of the embellishments he would have employed if he'd been enjoying himself or striving to tease applause and coins from an audience. Still, it took a while. Long enough to dry his throat.
He drank the last swig from one of his water bottles. "And
that's it," he concluded. "/ warned you it wasn't much of a story. A good one has a shape to it. Even if it makes you feel sadness or pity, it somehow lifts you up as well, hut mine's just bungling, futility, and horror."
Quickstrike cocked his eyeless head. "You speak as if the story's over."
"It is. It doesn't matter if I make it out of these mountains and live another hundred years. I've already lost everything I cherished and the only fight worth fighting."
"My existence and mind are different from yours. I don't love, and long solitude that no human could endure suits me. All my knowledge of mortal thoughts and feelings is secondhand, and it's possible that on the deepest level, I cannot understand, but I think you still have a path to walk, and Mirror will help you on your way."
"What do you mean?"
"He wanders, and despite the damage to his mind, he knows these peaks and valleys, these Sunrise Mountains, as your people name them. He can keep you hidden from your pursuers while he guides you back to your own country."
"Does he want to? Why?"
"Because he's empty. He needs something to reflect, to fill and define him, and you, thefirst live man we've seen since he manifested in these vaults centuries ago, can do so in a way that lifeless paintings and carvings and I, an undead, inhuman creature, cannot."
"You make it sound as if he'll drain sustenance from me like a leech."
"No more than your reflection in any other glass." Bareris still didn't like the sound of it. "Won'tyou miss him?" "No. I wish him well, but I told you, my needs and feelings aren't like yours."
Bareris decided it wasn't worth further argument. The truth was, if he meant to go on living, he did need help, besides which,
if Mirror insisted on accompanying him, he probably couldn't stop him anyway. But if they were to be companions, he ought to stop talking about the ghost as if he weren't there, even though he barely was.
He cast about and found a streak of blur hanging in the air. "Thank you,''he said. "I'm gratefulfor your aid." As he'd expected, Mirror made no reply.

Chapter twelve
9-11 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin
Yaphyll looked around the shabby, cluttered parlor, a room in a nondescript house that Dmitra Flass probably owned under another name. It was easy to imagine a goodwife shooing her children out of the chamber so she could dust the cheap ceramic knickknacks and scrub the floor, or her husband drinking ale and swapping ribald jokes with his cronies from the coopers' guild. Today, however, the occupants were rather more august.
Voluptuous by Mulan standards, the "First Princess of Thay" was as annoyingly ravishing as ever. Samas Kul was as obese, ruddy-faced, sweaty, and ostentatiously dressed, while, as was so often the case, Lallara looked vexed and ready to vent her spleen on the first person who gave her an excuse.
Though Yaphyll remained dubious that attending Dmitra's secret meering was actually a wise idea, she found it marginally reassuring that the tharchion seemed as ill at ease as everyone else. Oh, she masked it well, but every Red Wizard of Divination
mastered the art of reading faces and body language, and Yaphyll could tell nonetheless. Dmitra likely would have manifested a different sort of nervous tension had she been engaged in a plot to harm or undermine her superiors.
On the other hand, Dmitra was a Red Wizard of Illusion, so how could anyone be certain whether to trust appearances where she was concerned?
At least, now that Samas had finally waddled in and collapsed onto a couch substantial enough to support his bulk, Dmitra appeared ready to commence.
"Masters," she said, "thank you for indulging me. Ordinarily, I wouldn't presume to take the lead in a meeting with my superiors, but since—"
"Since you're the only one who knows what in the name of the Dark Sun we're here to talk about," Lallara snapped, "it only makes sense. We understand, and you have our permission to get on with it."
"Thank you, Your Omnipotence. I'm concerned about the welfare of the realm, worried and suspicious because I have information you lack and have thus been able to draw inferences you haven't."
"What are they?" Samas asked, fanning his face with a plump, tattooed hand.
"That Szass Tam murdered both Druxus Rhym and Aznar Thrul, that he betrayed a Thayan army to its foes, and that he disseminated a false report of a Rashemi invasion."
Lallara laughed. "This is ludicrous."
"If we consider the evidence, Your Omnipotence, perhaps I can persuade you otherwise. May we start with the assassination of Druxus Rhym?"
"By all means," Samas said. "It seems like the quickest way to lay your suspicions to rest. As I understand it, the murderer used evocation magic to make the kill."
"As could any of us," Dmitra replied. "We all tend to rely on spells deriving from our particular specialties, but in fact, each of us possesses a more comprehensive knowledge of magic. Certainly that's true of Szass Tarn, universally recognized as the most accomplished wizard in the land. My conjecture is that he used the spells he did precisely to throw suspicion on the order of Evocation, Aznar Thrul being one of his enemies."
"But Druxus wasn't," Yaphyll said. "He was Szass Tarn's ally, no less than any of us. Szass had no motive to kill him."
"He had one," Dmitra replied, "to which we'll return again: to create a climate of fear. I'll grant you, that by itself isn't sufficient motive to turn on a supporter, and as yet I can't resolve the discrepancy, but I can demonstrate that Szass Tarn hasn't sought the identity of the murderer with the zeal one would expect of a compatriot with nothing to hide."
"How so?" Lallara asked.
"I have the most competent spy network in the realm, and Szass Tam knows it. Over the years, it's served him well, yet he virtually forbade me to use my agents to seek the identity of the assassin. He said that you, Mistress Yaphyll, would attend to it."
Yaphyll blinked. "I tried for a while. In fact, Szass and I tried together. Then when our divinations failed to reveal anything, he suggested I turn my attention to other concerns and said he would continue to hunt for the killer by other means. I assumed he was referring to your spies."
"None of that proves anything," Samas said.
He looked about, spotted the drink and viands laid out on a table by the wall, and made a mystic gesture in their direction. A bottle floated into the air and poured red wine into a goblet. A knife smeared honey on a sweet roll.
"No," said Lallara, eyes narrowed, "it doesn't, but I'll concede it's curious, and I also agree that Szass Tam is one of the few people who might have been able to slip into Druxus's bedchamber
undetected or sneak an agent in. He's also one of the few capable of thwarting Yaphyll's divinations, especially if he was actually present to undermine the efficacy of the rituals in some subtle fashion."
"There's also this," Dmitra said. "Szass Tam made sure that you, Master Kul, would be elected Druxus Rhym's successor. I don't doubt you were a suitable candidate for the post, but still, why was he so concerned that it be you in particular? Could it have been partly because he knew you felt no great fondness for Rhym, and—forgive me for presuming to comment on your character—weren't the kind of man who would exert himself unduly to investigate a murder that worked to his benefit, even if the crime did constitute an affront against the order of Transmutation?"
Lallara snorted. "You have that right. All this hog cares about is stuffing his coffers and stuffing his mouth."
Samas glared at her. "I understand I'm your junior and that you have a shrewish disposition. Still, have a care how you speak to me."
"Masters, please," Dmitra said. "I beg you not to quarrel among yourselves. If my suspicions are correct, that's the last thing you should do."
"Is there more to say about Druxus's death?" Yaphyll asked.
"Unfortunately no," Dmitra replied, "so let's consider the battle in the Gorge of Gauros." She smiled. "I myself have a spy's nose for truth and falsehood, and from the start, something about the tale that came down from the north smelled wrong. Since Szass Tam figured prominently in the story, and he'd just piqued my curiosity by terminating my inquiries into Druxus Rhym's murder, I decided to look into the matter of the 'Rashemi invasion' instead.
"I found out there wasn't any. The barbarians weren't on their way south to attack us. Tharchions Kren and Odesseiron were
marching north to invade Rashemen, but after a near-disastrous battle forced them to abandon their ambitions, Szass Tam supported them when, to avert the anger of the rest of you zulkirs, they claimed the Rashemi were the aggressors."
"And you think," Lallara said, "it was because, coming so soon after Druxus's murder, that story added to the 'climate of fear' Szass Tam hoped to create."
"Yes," Dmitra said, "but if we look deeper, we'll discern even more. Allow me to describe the battle in detail." She did so with the concise clarity of a woman who, though she wore the crimson robes of a wizard, also possessed the requisite skills to command troops in the field. "Now several questions suggest themselves: How did the Rashemi know our legions were coming and where best to intercept them? How were the witches able to counter the Thayan wizardry holding the river in check so easily? How was it that Szass Tam discerned the army's peril from wherever he was and translated himself onto the scene just in time to avert calamity?"
Yaphyll chuckled. "Perhaps the greatest mage in Thay perceives all manner of signs and portents invisible to lesser beings like ourselves." At the moment, she didn't actually feel like jesting, but they all had their masks to wear, and hers was the cute lass with the light heart and irrepressible sense of humor. Even after she rose through high in the hierarchy of her order, and any person of sense should have realized she possessed a ruthless heart and adamantine will, it had caused foes and rivals to underestimate her. "But you're positing that his spies reported Kren and Odesseiron's plans before they ever marched and he then somehow conveyed critical military and arcane intelligence to the Rashemi, providing them with the means to smash the Thayan host, and finally, he rushed to the tharchions' rescue."
"Exactly," Dmitra said, "because it isn't enough to frighten everyone. He also wants to convince the nobles, legions, and
commons that he's the one champion who can end our woes. Obviously, the recent trouble in Pyarados must have seemed like a boon from the gods. It's given him the chance to play the savior not just once but twice."
Samas swallowed the food in his mouth, and then, his full lips glazed with honey, asked, "Why would he suddenly care so much about the opinion of his inferiors?"
"With your permission, Your Omnipotence," Dmitra replied, "before we ponder that, perhaps it would be well to finish our review of recent events, to consider the death of Aznar Thrul."
Yaphyll grinned. "Must we? I'd hoped that was one matter we understood already. In the wake of Druxus's murder, Nevron loaned the other members of his faction demons bodyguards. One of the spirits slipped its tether and surprised Thrul when he was amusing himself with a female slave and ill prepared to defend himself. It tore them apart and afterward some of Thrul's followers killed it in its turn." .
"I suspect," Dmitra said, "the truth is more complex. From what my spies have managed to determine, it's not clear that the thrall's body has been recovered. We do know the creature that ran amok liked to kill by biting its victims in the throat and that some people remember it as originally being huge and male, whereas the entity the conjurors ultimately slew possessed the same four arms, scales, and what have you, but was no taller than a human being and female.
"I believe the original creature was a blood drinker and transformed the slave into an entity like itself so she would kill Aznar Thrul. In other words, it wasn't a demon in the truest sense, but rather some exotic form of vampire."
"Which suggests," Lallara said, "that it wasn't really a conjuror who summoned and bound it but rather a necromancer like Szass Tam, who then slipped it into Thrul's palace amid a troupe of Nevron's demons."
Samas nodded, his multiple chins wobbling. "Figuring that the murder of a second zulkir would spread that much more terror throughout the land. I understand, but we should also recognize that at least this death benefits us as well. Thrul was our enemy. With him gone, our faction controls the council, at least until the conjurors elect a new leader, and if he turns out to be sympathetic to our views, we can run things as we like for the foreseeable future."
"That assumes," Dmitra answered, "your faction remains intact, that you still view yourselves and Szass Tam as sharing common interests."
"Why wouldn't we?" Samas asked.
"I see it," Yaphyll said, and though she still wasn't certain Dmitra was correct, the mere possibility made her feel queasy. "Supposedly, Thay is in jeopardy. The Rashemi threaten from the north and undead marauders from the east. An unknown foe strikes down the zulkirs one by one. Fortunately, a hero has demonstrated the will and capacity to save the realm—if given a free hand to do so. You think that's the object of convening the council, don't you, Tharchion? Szass Tam is going to ask us to elect him supreme ruler of Thay."
Lallara grinned a sardonic grin. "Only temporarily, no doubt. Just until the crisis is resolved."
"He can't believe we would ever consent to such a thing!" Samas cried. "It's one thing to acknowledge him as the eldest and most accomplished of the zulkirs and the leader of our faction— first among equals, so to speak—but none of us fought all the way up to the loftiest rank in the land just to enthrone an overlord to command us as his vassals."
"I understand that," Dmitra said, "but I still felt it incumbent on me to warn you. Imagine if I hadn't. You've pledged your loyalty to Szass Tam, and knowing just how shrewd and powerful he is, you have no inclination to cross him. You take your seat in
council worried over threats to the realm and your own personal safety as well. It appears the lich is the only person who's enjoyed any success confronting any of the various problems. Certainly that's what the populace at large believes.
"Now then: In the situation I've described, when Szass Tam requests his regency, or however he intends to put it, who among you, without knowing how the others feel, is bold enough to be the first to denounce the proposal?"
Yaphyll wished she could claim that she would find the courage, but she wondered if it was so. No zulkir could show weakness by confessing to fear of anyone or anything. But the truth was, even though he'd supported her in all her endeavors, she was afraid of Szass Tam, and she could tell that Samas and even Lallara, with her bitter, thorny nature, felt the same.
Lallara laughed. "Hear the silence! It appears, Tharchion, that none of us would dare."
"That means four votes in favor," Dmitra said, "and with Evocation's seat empty, at best three against. The measure passes. To forestall that, I hope the three of you will pledge here and now to stand firm against it."
"No," said Samas Kul, "or at least, not yet."
Dmitra inclined her head. "May I ask what more you require to persuade you, Master?"
"Yes, illusionist," the fat man replied, "you may. You've whistled up a host of phantoms to affright us, but I'd be more inclined to cower if I understood why you of all people would want to warn us. You're one of Szass Tarn's favorites. If he crowned himself king, you'd benefit."
"You forget," Yaphyll said, "Tharchion Flass has sworn to serve all of us zulkirs, and I'm sure that, like all of us, she's concerned first and foremost with the welfare of the realm."
Lallara shot her a poisonous glance. "Your little drolleries are growing even more tiresome than usual." She shifted her glare
to Dmitra. "The hog raises a valid point. If this is all a charade, it's hard to imagine what you could possibly be trying to achieve, but still: Why should we trust you?"
"Because Szass Tam no longer does," Dmitra replied. "In times past, he would have confided in me. Involved me in any scheme to which I might prove useful, even the assassination of a fellow zulkir, yet now, suddenly, he dissembles with me and only asks me to advance his schemes in a limited fashion, even though I've given him no reason to question my loyalty.
"Why? I can't imagine, any more than I know what he gained by murdering Druxus Rhym, or why, after contenting himself with being senior zulkir for so long, he's decided to strike for even greater authority. Not understanding alarms me.
"What I do know is that life in Thay as it's currently governed has been good to me. I have a nasty suspicion that, for whatever reason, I wouldn't find existence so congenial under Szass Tarn's new regime."
She smiled. "So I'm trying to keep things as they are, and hope to manage to do so with minimal risk to myself. I've taken pains to keep Szass Tam from learning of this meeting, and if none of you tattles that I sought to rally you against him, I shouldn't suffer for it."
Lallara grunted. "What you say makes a certain amount of sense, Tharchion, which isn't to imply I embrace it as complete and utter truth. And perhaps your motives don't matter so very much, because Samas was right about one thing: He, Yaphyll, and I are all averse to installing the lich in a new office higher than our own. It's clear from our manner even if we haven't declared it outright, so I say, yes, let's seal a secret pact of resistance, just in case."
Yaphyll nodded. "Agreed. No kingship or regency for anyone, ever, under any circumstances." Unless, of course, she could somehow, someday win such a prize for herself.
Samas Kul heaved a sigh. "I agree, too, I suppose."
It was as eloquent an oration as Szass Tam had ever given. He enumerated the dire menaces facing Thay in general and the zulkirs personally. He reminded the other mage lords of his accomplishments, recent and otherwise, and pointed out how divided leadership could prevent even the greatest realm in Faeriin from achieving its goals or coping in an emergency. The failed military endeavors of recent decades were obvious examples.
He also promised he'd step down as soon as he eliminated the threats to the common weal. He omitted, however, any mention of the hideous punishments he'd meted out to folk who had, at one time or another, balked or angered the oldest and most powerful wizard in the land. He was certain the other zulkirs recalled those without his needing to allude to them.
Yet when he saw the glances that passed among Yaphyll, Lallara, and Samas Kul, he realized that somehow the other members of his faction had already known what he was going to propose. Known, palavered in secret, and resolved to oppose him as staunchly as the remaining zulkirs, and that was staunchly indeed. The other three were his long-time enemies: Nevron with his perpetual sneer and the brimstone stink of his demon servitors clinging to his person; Lauzoril, deceptively bland and clerkish; and Mythrellan, who affected to despise everyone else on the council, who changed her face as often as other great noblewomen changed their gowns, frequently to something with an element of the bizarre but always exquisite nonetheless. Today her eyes were gold and her skin sky blue. A haze of unformed illusion ready for the shaping made her image soft and blurry.
Even though he recognized early on that he was almost certainly speaking in vain, Szass Tam carried on to the end then called for a vote. It seemed possible that, now that the moment
for support or defiance had arrived, his supposed allies migr. lose their nerve.
Alas, they remained resolute. Only Szass raised his ham in support of the proposal he himself had introduced. Nevroi leered to see his foe so humiliated. Even prim Lauzoril managec a smirk.
Though he hadn't expected to find Yaphyll, Samas, and Lallara united against him, Szass had thought himself prepared for the possibility that his ploy would fail. Still, the mockery inspired an unexpected paroxysm of rage. He yearned to lash out at every adversary, old and newly revealed, seated around the gleaming red maple table.
He didn't, of course. Attacking six other zulkirs at once might well prove suicidal, even for a mage more powerful than any one of them. Instead, making sure his mask of affability didn't slip, he inclined his head in seeming acceptance.
"So be it," he said. "We'll continue on as we always have, deciding all matters by consensus. Be assured, I don't resent it that you rejected my plan, prudent though I believe it was, and I'll keep working diligently to solve the problems that plague us."
At the same time, simply by thinking, he sent a signal. He'd prepared the magic beforehand, with sufficient concern for subtlety to ensure that even the extraordinarily perceptive Yaphyll wouldn't notice it thrilling through the aether.
After that, everyone blathered on for a while longer, and though he felt a seething impatience to depart, he supposed that really it was fine. His minions needed time to do their work.
As soon as the meeting broke up, he spurned Samas, Yaphyll, and Lallara with their slinking excuses and attempts at reconciliation and translated himself back to his study in the citadel of the order of Necromancy. It took the warlock waiting there an instant to notice his arrival, and then the fellow flung himself to
his knees. Tsagoth knelt as well, albeit with a glower. Apparently the blood fiend had expected his master to liberate him once he accomplished the death of Aznar Thrul, but as demonstrated by that success, he was too useful an agent to relinquish when so many challenging tasks remained.
"Get up," Szass Tam said. "Tell me what's happening."
"Yes, Master," said the younger necromancer, rising. Szass had the conceit that if he peered deep into his subordinate's eyes, he could glimpse an indefinable wrongness there, a hint of the psychic shackles binding the live wizard to silence and obedience, but perhaps it was only his imagination. "Our agents are spreading the tidings that, in their arrogance, folly, and ingratitude, the other zulkirs denied you the authority you need to preserve the realm."
"With the proper enchantments in play to make the news seem as infuriating as possible."
"Yes, Master, just as you directed."
"Good." Szass Tam turned to Tsagoth. "You know what to do from here. Go tell your partners."
Nular Tabar glanced back at the shuttered three-story brick house behind him. It wasn't the primary stronghold of the order of Conjuration in Eltabbar. That imposing citadel was on the other side of town, but despite a lack of banners, overt supernatural manifestations, and the like, everyone in the neighborhood knew this was some sort of Chapter house. People saw the mages and their retainers passing in and out.
They weren't coming out now. They were leaving the protection of the property to Nular and the dozen legionnaires in his patrol, and at that point, it remained to be seen just how hard the job would be. Though in normal times, no commoner dared
annoy Red Wizards, scores of people had gathered to glare, mill about, and shout slogans and insults at the house. Apparently, they all wanted Szass Tam for their king, were angry they weren't going to get him, and had decided to hold Nevron, notoriously one of the lich's enemies, responsible for their disappointment. The zulkir of Conjuration wasn't here to bear the brunt of their anger, but a structure belonging to his order was.
Nular had formed his patrol into a line to block the approach to the house as best they could. The problem was that a dozen soldiers couldn't form a very long line without standing so far apart as to give up the ability to protect one another's flanks. He wasn't about to order that, which meant that a fool hell-bent on getting at the building could dart around the end of the formation.
Sure enough, a wiry, dark-haired youth with a sack clutched under his arm lunged at the gap on the southern end. The warrior last in line pivoted and swung his cudgel but was too slow. The lad sprinted on unbashed.
"Hold your positions!" Nular shouted then raced after the youth himself.
The adolescent was quick, but so was he, and he possessed the advantage of long Mulan legs. He caught up, lifted his baton to bash the lad over the head, then thought how the brutal sight might further enflame the mob. He dropped the cudgel to dangle from the strap around his wrist and grabbed the youth with his empty hands instead.
The boy dropped the bag to wrestle and turned out to have some notion of what he was doing. He tried to jam his knee into Nular's groin, and the guard twisted and caught the attack on his thigh. Next came grubby fingers gouging for his eyes. He protected them by ducking his head then butted the adolescent in the face. The lad faltered, and Nular threw him down on his back. That seemed to knock the fight out of him.
Clad in rags, the lad was plainly a pauper. The stained sack gave off a fecal stink. Most likely he'd meant to use the contents to deface the Red Wizards' door.
"Stay down," Nular panted, "or I swear, next time I'll use my sword on you."
The boy glowered but didn't move.
"What in the name of the Kossuth's fire is the matter with you?" Nular continued. "Would you throw away your life on an idiot prank? You know the wizards punish disrespect."
"Szass Tam has to be regent!" the youth replied.
"Why do you care? What difference do you think it will make to the likes of you?"
And as long as Nular was posing questions, how had the boy and his fellows learned the outcome of the zulkirs' deliberations so quickly? As often as not, lesser folk never even heard the council had met, let alone what it decided.
It was a mystery, but someone shrewder than Nular would have to puzzle it out. His job was simply to keep order in one section of Elrabbar's labyrinthine streets.
"Get up," he said, "and pick up your bag of filth. Now go home! If you're still here in forty breaths, or if I catch you out of doors again tonight, I'll gut you." He prodded the youth with the tip of his club to start him moving.
Once he'd herded the lad to the other side of the line, Nular scrutinized all the others like him. Feeding off one another's outrage, they were growing more agitated by the moment. It was only a matter of time before the stones started flying.
He was no orator, but he had to say something to try and calm them. He was still trying to frame the words in his mind when some of them cried out, and they all flinched back.
He turned to see what had alarmed them. Standing behind the line was a towering four-armed creature with dark scales and gleaming scarlet eyes.
Nular felt a strange blend of fear and relief, the former because every sane person was leery of demons, and the latter because it was plain the conjurors in the house had sent the creature to help him.
He gazed up at its wolfish face. "Do you understand me?" he asked.
The entity chuckled. "Yes."
"Good. That will make things easier. The sight of you has frightened the mob. We need to keep them intimidated. With luck, scare them into going elsewhere."
"No, warrior. We need to slaughter them. Don't worry, fighting in concert, we'll manage easily."
Nular frowned. "Maybe we would, but I'm hoping it won't be necessary."
"It already is. The rabble's impudence is an affront to my masters and must be punished accordingly."
"Do your masters understand that the unrest isn't just happening here? The 'rabble' have taken to the streets across the city. If we kill people, the violence could spread and spread. We could end up with a riot far worse than those we've endured already."
The demon shrugged. "That's nothing to me. My masters command, and I obey. Are you not obliged to obey Red Wizards, also?"
Nular hesitated. "Yes, but you're not one. If we're going to do this, I at least need to hear the order from one of the conjurors." He started to walk around the creature toward the house.
The spirit shifted so as to remain directly in front of him. "That isn't necessary," it said, and its crimson eyes flared brighter.
Nular rocked backward as though something had struck him a blow. He felt bewildered, as if he'd just awakened from a dream so vivid that he couldn't be certain what was real.
Then he caught his balance, and his confusion passed. Or partly so. "What. . . what were we saying?" he asked.
"Thar we're going to kill the rebels."
"Yes." That sounded right, or at least familiar. "Swords!"
A couple of his men—the clever ones, who might rise from the ranks one day—eyed him dubiously, but they were all well trained and exchanged their truncheons for their blades without protest. He did the same.
"Now forward!" Nular shouted. "Keep the line and cut the bastards down."
The mob might have had the stomach for a fight with a dozen legionnaires, but legionnaires and an ogre-sized demon were a more daunting prospect. They screamed and tried to run, but their numbers were such that they got in each other's way. The ones closest to their attackers couldn't evade the soldiers' swords and the creature's fangs and talons, and thus they had no choice but to turn again and fight.
It was all right though. The soldiers' training, armor, and superior weapons aided them, of course, but it was the demon's ferocity that truly rendered the mob's numerical advantage inconsequential. Striking quickly as a cat, ripping men to pieces with every blow, the spirit butchered more foes than all its human allies put together, until a rioter charged it from behind and buried an axe in its back. Whereupon the demon screamed, collapsed to its knees, then melted away to nothing at all. Nular could scarcely believe that a creature, which had seemed the very embodiment of inhuman might, could perish so easily, but evidently it was so.
"I killed it!" yelled the axeman, brandishing his gory weapon. "I killed it!" His comrades roared in triumph then hurled themselves at the legionnaires with renewed savagery.
With the fiend gone and rioters circling to get behind their remaining adversaries, the advancing line wasn't viable anymore.
The legionnaires needed a formation that would enable them to guard each other's backs.
"Square!" Nular bellowed. "Square!"
But they couldn't form one. The enemies swarming on them from every side, grabbing and beating at them, made it impossible to maneuver. Pivoting, fighting with his sword in one hand and his cudgel in the other, Nular realized the press had suddenly grown so thick that he couldn't even see his men anymore, just hear the clangor of their opponents' blows pounding on their shields.
That clashing noise diminished as, no doubt, the legionnaires fell one by one. Something smashed or cut into Nular's knee, and he dropped too. His injured leg ablaze with pain, he glimpsed men running toward the conjurors' Chapter house, then a burly laborer lifted a shovel high and plunged the edge down at his throat.
At first, Faurgar Stayanoga thought, it had made sense. They'd take to the streets as the priest in the alehouse had urged, and when the zulkirs saw how many they were, and how displeased, they'd have to rethink their decision.
More than that, it had been fun. Intoxicating. His whole life, Faurgar had walked warily in the presence of Red Wizards, legionnaires, or any Mulan really, but tonight, roaming the streets with hundreds like himself, he hadn't been afraid of anyone. They'd all said whatever they wanted as loud as they wanted. Defaced, smashed, and torched whatever they wanted. Broken into shops and taverns and taken whatever they wanted.
But he was scared, because the legions had turned out in force to deal with the disturbance, and he and his friends were trapped, with blood ores advancing from one side and human
warriors from the other. The ores leered and howled their piercing battle cries. The men strode quietly, with faces like stone, but despite their differing attitudes, both companies looked entirely ready to kill.
Faurgar looked up and down the street and found nowhere to run. Some of his companions pounded on doors, but no one would open to them. Evidently hoping the legionnaires would spare the lives of any who surrendered, others raised their hands or dropped to their knees. The rest, defiant still, brandished the knives and tools that were all they possessed in the way of weapons.
Faurgar simply stood, mouth dry, heart pounding, uncertain of what he ought to do. It didn't look to him as if the guards intended to spare anyone, and if so, it seemed better to go down fighting. But if he was wrong, if there was even the slightest chance of surviving...
By the Great Flame, how had he come to this? He was the son of respectable parents and a journeyman mason. He didn't belong in the middle of this nightmare.
The ores reached the first kneeling man. Steel flashed, blood spurted, and the penitent collapsed to flop and twitch like a fish out of water. Soldiers trampled him as they continued to advance.
All right, thought Faurgar, now we know for certain that they mean to kill us all. So fight! But he didn't know if he could. Tears were blurring his vision, and even if they hadn't been, the urge to cringe was so strong that he could hardly bear even to look at the warriors. How, then, could he possibly strike a blow?
As if too full of bloodlust to permit their human comrades an equal share in the killing, the ores abruptly screamed and charged. One ran straight at Faurgar.
Fight! he told himself, but when he tried to raise his trowel, his hand shook so badly that he dropped it. Knowing it was
craven and useless, but powerless to control himself, he crouched and shielded his torso and face with his arms.
And as if the Storm Lord were responding to the spectacle of his wretchedness, the night burned white. Prodigious booms shook the earth, and torrents of frigid rain hammered down, ringing on the legionnaires' armor and drumming on everything else.
The legionnaires faltered in shock. Barely audible over the thunder and the downpour, the commander of the ores bellowed at his troops. Faurgar couldn't speak their language, but he had a fair idea of what the gray-skinned creature was saying: It's only rain! Go on and kill the rabble as I ordered you to!
The ores moved to obey, then a flare of lightning struck a peaked rooftop on the right-hand side of the street. The flash was blinding, the crash loud enough to jab pain into Faurgar's ears, and everyone froze once more.
One of the human soldiers shouted and pointed. Blinking, Faurgar reflexively glanced to see what had caught the legionnaire's attention. He expected to observe that the thunderbolt had set the shingled roof on fire, but it wasn't so. Rather, a tall, thin man in a red robe stood in the middle of the charred and blackened place where the lightning had struck, as if he'd ridden the bolt down from the sky.
"That's Szass Tam!" someone exclaimed, and certainly the guards were coming to attention and saluting. Faurgar and his fellows knelt.
The lich's dark gaze raked over them all, warrior and cornered troublemaker alike. "This won't do," he said. He seemed to speak without raising his voice, yet despite the din of the storm, Faurgar could hear him clearly from yards away.
"Unlike some," Szass Tam continued, "I'm not eager to see Thayan soldiers slaughtering Thayan citizens, not as long as there's any hope of avoiding it. Accordingly, you legionnaires
will give these people one last chance to disperse and retire to their homes in peace."
"Yes, Your Omnipotence!" the commander of the human guards shouted.
"And you citizens," the necromancer said, "will do precisely that. I understand that you've behaved as you have out of concern for the realm, and to that degree, your patriotism does you credit, but you can't accomplish anything by damaging your own city and compelling the guards to take harsh action against you. I promise a better outlet for your energies in the days to come.
"Now go," he concluded, and a heartbeat later, inexplicably, he was gone. Faurgar had been looking straight at him, yet had a muddled sense that he hadn't actually seen the wizard vanish.
The human officer barked orders. His company divided in the middle, clearing a corridor for Faurgar and his companions to scurry along. The ores scowled but offered no protest. Szass Tam was their zulkir too.
Their zulkir, and the greatest person in the world. Thanks to him, Faurgar was going to live.
Malark stood at the casement watching the lightning dance above the city. The peaceful city. Even those folk who hadn't had the opportunity to hear Szass Tam speak had discovered that cold, blinding, stinging rain washed the fun out of looting, vandalism, and assault, or in the case of the legionnaires, it dissolved their zeal to chase those guilty of such offenses.
The door clicked open behind him, and he smelled the perfume Dmitra was wearing tonight. He turned and knelt.
"Rise," she said, crossing his darkened, austerely furnished room, a silver goblet in her hand. "I've received a message from Szass Tam. He's retiring to his estate in High Thay for the time
being. I can contact him there, but the implication is that I should refrain except in case of an emergency."
"Do you think he knows you warned the other zulkirs of his intentions?"
"By the Black Hand, I hope not. I also hope it was the right thing to do. My instincts told me it was, and they've rarely played me false, but still..." She shook her head.
"If I may say so, Tharchion, you look tired. If you don't feel ready to sleep, shall we sit and watch the storm together?"
"Why not?" He moved a pair of chairs up to the window and she sank down into one of them. "Do you have anything to drink, or must I call for a servant?"
"No wine." Now that she'd come closer, he knew what she'd been drinking. He could smell it on her breath despite the overlay of perfume. "But some of that Hillsfar brandy you like."
"That will do."
As he passed behind her to fetch clean cups and the decanter, he automatically thought of how to kill her where she sat. One sudden blow or stranglehold, and no magic would save her, but he didn't actually feel the urge to strike. Aside from the inconvenience to himself, obliged to give up a congenial position and flee Thay just when life here was becoming truly interesting, there wouldn't be anything profoundly appropriate or exceptionally beautiful about the death. Dmitra was his benefactor, perhaps even in a certain sense his friend, and she deserved better.
She sipped brandy and gazed out at the tempest. "You have to give Szass Tam credit," she said after a time. "First he incites what could have been the worst riot in the history of Eltabbar. He even tricks the mob into believing Nevron and the conjurors sent demons to kill them. Then he ends the crisis in the gentlest way possible, making himself a hero to every person who feared for his life and chattels, every rioter who escaped punishment,
and any legionnaire who was squeamish about killing other Thayans."
Malark smiled. "While simultaneously demonstrating just how powerful he is. I assume it's difficult to spark a storm in a clear sky."
"Yes, though we Thayans have been the masters of our weather for a long while. I'm actually more impressed by the way he appeared in dozens of places around the city all at the same moment. Obviously, people were actually seeing projected images, yet by all accounts, the phantasms didn't behave identically. They oriented on the folk they were addressing, and if anyone dared to speak to them in turn, they deviated from the standard declaration to answer back. I'm a Red Wizard of Illusion, and I have no idea how one would go about managing that." She laughed. "And this is the creature I opted to betray."
"But with considerable circumspection, so instead of fretting over what can't be undone, perhaps it would be more productive to contemplate what's just occurred. What game is Szass Tam playing now?"
"I don't know, but you're right, he is still playing. Otherwise, what's the point of the riot?"
"He must realize now that the other zulkirs will never proclaim him regent no matter how much he makes lesser folk adore him."
A gust of wind rattled the casement in its frame.
"I wonder," Dmitra said. "Suppose he murders another zulkir or two. Suppose he tempts one or more of those who remain with the office of vice-regent, subordinate to himself but superior to all others. Sounds better than death, doesn't it?"
It didn't to Malark, but he didn't bother saying so. "Now that I think about it, the various orders must be full of Red Wizards who'd love to move up to be zulkir, even if the rank was no longer a position of ultimate authority. It's easy to imagine one or more
of them collaborating with Szass Tam. They work together to assassinate Nevron, Samas Kul, or whomever, get the traitor elected to replace him, and afterward the fellow acts as the lich's dutiful supporter."
Dmitra nodded. "It could happen just that way, but not easily, not when Szass Tam needs a majority on the council, and not with all the other zulkirs now striving assiduously to keep themselves safe. I actually think the game has entered a new phase."
"Which is?"
"I wish I knew." She laughed. "I must seem like a pathetic coward. It's one zulkir against six, who now enjoy my support, yet I'm frightened of the outcome. I have an ugly feeling none of us has ever truly taken Szass Tarn's measure, whereas he knows our every strength and weakness. I can likewise imagine our very abundance of archmages proving a hindrance. The lich is a single genius with a coherent strategy maneuvering against a band of keen but lesser minds bickering and working at cross purposes."
"Then you'll have to make sure that, no matter what the zulkirs imagine, it's actually you calling the tune."
"A good trick if I can manage it, whereas your task is to figure out what Szass Tam means to do next."
Malark grinned. "Even though I've never met him, and you tell me he's a genius. It should prove an interesting challenge."