The Haunted Lands: Book III - Unholy Page 25

  “It would take someone as formidable as Malark to imprison the lich,” Mirror said. At the moment, he was a shadow of the warrior he’d been in life. “And someone with a cunning mind and, most likely, a knowledge of sorcery to keep anyone from realizing Szass Tam was missing. Which his captor plainly has. Otherwise, we would have run into search parties.”

  Bareris clamped down on a surge of fury. Told himself that his friends weren’t really betraying him, even though that was how it felt. “How can you believe a single word that comes from this liar’s mouth? He’d say anything to persuade us to set him free.”

  “Of that,” Lallara quavered, “I have no doubt. Still, Captain Fezim and Sir Mirror make a legitimate point. Preposterous as this tale may initially appear, it hangs together rather well.”

  Nevron threw up his hand in a gesture that, like nearly everything he said or did, conveyed contempt. Bareris caught a whiff of the brimstone smell that clung to the zulkir’s person. “Fine. Let’s say it’s all true. Springhill isn’t really dead. He’s running around up in the Citadel wearing Szass Tam’s face, and he intends to perform this ‘Great Work’ himself. That means we need to go kill him and make it stick this time.”

  The big man sneered at Szass Tam. “But it doesn’t mean we need you. We came here prepared to butcher the master, so I’m sure we can handle the apprentice.”

  Szass Tam smiled. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But ask yourselves this: Suppose you meant to perform a lengthy ritual that every entity in the cosmos would want to stop if it understood what you were attempting. What would you do to keep others from interfering in your work?”

  Laurzoril narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. It made him look even more like a priggish scholar. “I’d do my conjuring in some hidden sanctuary with potent defenses to fend off anyone who found me despite the concealment.”

  “Exactly,” the necromancer said. “Malark’s on the roof of the Citadel, except not really. He’s in an artificial worldlet, a Chaos realm, that I created. He’s attuned himself to the place and is more or less its god, so my menagerie of guardians will obey him.”

  “Hang on,” said Aoth. “You’re telling us that Malark has already gone into this stronghold?”

  “By my estimation—it’s difficult to judge the passage of time when you’re sitting alone in a crypt—he entered and started the Unmaking a couple of days ago. Luckily for us, the ritual takes considerable time. But I imagine the first wave of annihilation will race forth in the not-too-distant future.”

  “It’s all nonsense,” Bareris insisted.

  “None of us,” said Szass Tam, “is quite the diviner Yaphyll was. But if you exercise your mystical faculties, you may detect a profound disruption building.”

  The zulkirs exchanged glances. Then Lauzoril and Nevron murmured charms. Their eyes became unfocused and their features slack as they gazed at something beyond physical reality. Meanwhile, Mirror breathed a prayer, evidently asking his god to grant him a glimpse of the unseen.

  Then the ghost cried out as he had never done even when some undead horror was clawing him to tatters of ectoplasm. His murky form smudged beyond recognition.

  “What did you see?” asked Aoth.

  “Something fouler than I’ve ever seen before,” Mirror answered. “Something truly unholy. I understand now what drove Fastrin mad. Why he was willing to slaughter us all to keep that … force from ever coming into existence.”

  Szass Tam sighed. “I meant to create paradise. Perfection. But now that Malark’s perverting the purpose of the magic, I won’t dispute your assessment. Now there’s nothing to do but stop him.”

  Lallara glowered at Szass Tam. “Go ahead and tell us how to free you,” she said. “It will save time later if we actually decide to do it.”

  “No!” exploded Bareris. “He’s manipulating you! Drawing you deeper with every word!”

  “Of course he is,” Lauzoril said, blinking. “But unfortunately, that doesn’t mean there’s no validity to what he says.”

  “Which is that you’ll never reach Malark without my aid,” Szass Tam said. “Not in time.”

  Aoth looked at the figure under the gleaming pyramid. “Tell us how to transport ourselves to this ‘Chaos realm.’ What to expect and the passwords that will get us past whatever guardians there are. Afterward, we’ll take it into account that you helped us.”

  Szass Tam laughed. “Of course you will! We zulkirs were always known for leniency and forgiveness.”

  Aoth scowled. “I’m not a damn zulkir.”

  “And you’re not capable of keeping four of them from dealing with me however they desire, not even with the ghost and the griffon to help you.”

  “Curse it, if the eastern lands die, you die with them.”

  “Is that all you think will happen? You’re mistaken, but never mind. The only real way to settle the question is to let the experiment proceed, and we all agree we’d rather not. Yet even so, I won’t surrender my secrets.”

  “Because if you’re going to die, you don’t care what happens to anyone else.”

  The lich shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Believe what you like. But the fact of the matter is, there’s no point in telling you anything if you’re going to leave me in the Seat. Because you’ll still fail. You need my knowledge and my power.”

  Aoth turned to Lauzoril. “Can you make him talk?”

  “No,” the zulkir replied. “Only the first rune is in place. It binds him to Thakorsil’s Seat, but it would take all nine to divest him of his free will. In addition to which—”

  “If you tell me no,” said Aoth, “then I believe it. So I say we free him.”

  “I agree,” Lallara said.

  “Much to my disgust,” said Nevron, “so do I.” “And I,” Samas said.

  Bareris raised his sword. “I’ll kill the first person who tries.”

  Nevron snorted. “This situation grows more farcical by the moment.” He swept his left hand through the start of a mystic pass, and the sapphire ring on his middle finger glowed.

  Aoth grabbed Nevron by the wrist and yanked his arm, spoiling the gesture before it could unleash the demon or devil that would otherwise have sprung forth to attack Bareris. Plainly astonished that his former underling would dare, the zulkir gaped at him.

  “Just wait, curse it.” Aoth let go of Nevron and came closer to Bareris. He lowered his voice when he spoke again: “You can’t do this. They’ll only kill you if you try.”

  “The dream vestige already killed me.”

  “Don’t play word games.”

  Mirror came to stand beside Aoth. “I understand how you feel,” the phantom said. “But thousands of lives are at stake. Maybe even the life of the whole world, just as Szass Tam says.”

  I don’t care, Bareris thought. But something kept him from proclaiming it aloud.

  “You know this won’t be the end of it,” said Aoth. “We’ll fight the lich before we’re through.”

  “You don’t know that.” said Bareris, “and you don’t know how it will come out even if we do. Right now, he’s helpless. Right now …”

  He saw that nothing he could say would sway them. That, much as it would grieve them, they would even fight him if he forced the issue.

  Fine. Better to slay them or to perish at their hands than to do anything to aid the monster responsible for Tammith’s destruction or to stand idle while anyone else aided him. No matter what was at stake.

  Yet he knew that if Tammith were here, alive and uncorrupted by vampirism, that wasn’t what she’d say. Knew too that Aoth and Mirror had been his friends for a hundred years, even when bitterness and undeath denied him the capacity to respond in kind. He pictured the young Bareris he’d conjured up to fight the vasuthant, regarding him with a kind of reproach in his eyes, and something tipped inside his mind.

  He lowered his sword and stepped from between Szass Tam and the zulkirs to signal that the latter could do as they saw fit.

  “Thank
you for seeing reason,” said the lich, and the remark jabbed Bareris like a taunt. “Now, this is the incantation to erase the sigil …”

  As Szass Tam instructed the other archmages, Bareris fantasized that as soon as the crystal pyramid blinked out of existence, he’d rush forward and strike so quickly that neither the lich nor anyone else would have time to react. His limbs quivered, and he could virtually feel his legs sprinting, his arm swinging his sword.

  He also prayed that everything the regent had said was a lie, just as he himself had maintained. That Szass Tam would leap from the Seat, laugh at their gullibility, and lash out at them, and they’d have no choice but to fight him after all.

  But when the construct of solidified energy faded, Bareris didn’t spring forward. And when Szass Tam rose, he didn’t summon any wraiths or hurl blasts of shadow at his liberators.

  He simply stretched and said, “Thank you. Shall we be on our way?”

  chapter fourteen

  19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

  Jhesrhi looked at the several dozen assembled mages, most of them robed in scarlet, then glanced down at Khouryn.

  “Ready?” asked the dwarf.

  No, she thought. She was confident of her ability to cast spells, but leadership was a different matter. Most people didn’t even enjoy her company, let alone look to her for guidance. True, she managed to direct her assistants in the Brotherhood, but there were only a couple of them, and they’d joined the company knowing and accepting that she was in charge. The Red Wizards weren’t part of the same chain of command. They were strangers, and notoriously arrogant strangers at that.

  She shifted her grip on her staff. “Yes.”

  Khouryn evidently didn’t like something he detected in her expression or tone, for he frowned through his bushy mustache and beard. “They’re used to taking orders from the zulkirs. Now, whether they realize it or not, they’re looking for somebody else to order them around, and who better than you?”

  “Someone dressed in red?”

  “No, because while they have some experience of war, it isn’t their trade but yours. Show them you believe that matters, and they will too, even if they don’t like to admit it.”

  She took a breath. “All right.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Good! Then I’ll leave you to it. I have to see to the folk who don’t fling fire and frost around.” By that, she knew, he meant that now that both Aoth and the zulkirs were gone, he intended to shuffle the battle lines. The least reliable or ably led of the archmages’ troops would stand with seasoned sellswords to steady them if need be, and also stand in less critical positions. Fortunately, the past several tendays had given him time to assess which portions of the allied army were weak, and he’d done it just as automatically as he kept track of everything else on campaign.

  His mail shirt rustling, he turned and tramped away. She walked toward the waiting wizards. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “But Khouryn needed to speak to me.”

  “What I want to know,” said a Red Wizard, “is why we need to speak to you.” The dagger embroidered on his cloak indicated that he was one of Lauzoril’s subordinates. “Do you think it’s your place to command us?”

  “Someone has to lead,” she replied, “if we’re to cast our spells to their best effect.”

  “But why you?” he demanded.

  She gave them Khouryn’s argument. “Because I spend the better part of every year at war, and our leader needs the wisdom that only comes from such experience.”

  A sharp-featured woman, the collar of her blood-colored cape bearing the chain-and-manacle patch that was one of Nevron’s emblems, pushed to the front of the crowd. “Every Red Wizard learns how to fight,” she said.

  That set them all clamoring in agreement. Jhesrhi winced at the vehemence of their rejection.

  It made her want to back down, especially since she had no particular desire to command them anyway. But she’d promised Khouryn, and even more important, despite herself, she suspected he was right: she likely was the best person for the job.

  So she sought for a way to maintain her composure and inner calm, and as a means to that end, observed how very alike the Red Wizards were with their hairless heads, pasty Mulan faces, and voluminous scarlet garments flapping around on their lanky arms and legs. In fact, they reminded her of a flock of agitated flamingos.

  Amused by the comparison, she let them squawk, and during the course of it, an idea came to her. She bowed her head and raised a hand as if in surrender, and, expecting words as submissive as her posture, the Red Wizards gradually fell silent.

  She didn’t disappoint them. “All right,” she said. “I can’t lead if you won’t follow. But we all know someone must command. So who among you volunteers?”

  Aoth had told her Red Wizards were ambitious, and as she’d hoped, nine of them spoke up and stepped forward as one. They kept right on talking at the same time too, louder and louder until they were shouting, and their supporters were yelling along with them.

  This time, Jhesrhi wasn’t the focus of the rancor, and so she had to resort to stronger measures to recapture everyone’s attention. She tapped her toe, and the ground beneath her amplified that tiny bump into a jolt that sent the others staggering like vermillion insects crawling on a drumhead. A couple of wizards fell on their rumps.

  “Sorry,” she said, making no effort to sound sincere. “But maybe now you see the problem with one of you taking charge. None of you senior Red Wizards will allow one of your peers to claim the role. You’re afraid he’ll parlay it into some sort of permanent ascendancy. But with me, you don’t have that problem. I’m not a member of your hierarchy or even a citizen of the Wizard’s Reach. I’m just a sellsword, and when the zulkirs’ contract with Captain Fezim expires, I’ll vanish down the road.”

  “You know,” said a man in the back of the crowd, “Nevron does seem to think well of her. I mean, to the extent that he thinks well of anyone.”

  “She’s got power,” said another wizard. “I’ve seen it before, and she just demonstrated it again. And we can’t take all day arguing and politicking. We have to make a choice before Szass Tam’s troops show up.”

  “That,” said Jhesrhi, “is the most sensible thing anyone’s said so far. So: let me be your leader for this one battle or at least until the zulkirs and Captain Fezim return.”

  The assembled mages stood silent for a moment. Then the one who’d spoken first glowered at her and said, “If that’s the limit of your authority, then I can tolerate it.”

  “And I,” said someone else. The rest either grumbled their assent or at least raised no further protest.

  “Thank you for your trust,” Jhesrhi said. “Now, we don’t have a lot of time, so let’s begin. As you all know, our army took a beating seizing the Dread Ring. The army of Anhaurz is fresh, and there are a lot of them. Still, we have one important advantage: we have four archmages on our side.”

  Her audience looked at her in puzzlement. The sharp-featured woman in service to Nevron said, “No, we don’t. As I understand it, they’ve abandoned us to go fight Szass Tam himself in the high mountains.”

  Jhesrhi smiled. “Yes, but the soldiers from Anhaurz don’t know that. Apparently their autharch has no qualms about facing the likes of Lallara and Samas Kul, but I doubt that everyone who follows him is equally happy about the prospect.

  “So we wizards,” she continued, “are going to do everything we can to bolster the enemy’s belief that the zulkirs are here and fighting to devastating effect, in the hope that it will shake their resolve. We’ll accomplish that in two ways. First, coordinating our efforts, we’ll strike as hard and cunningly as we can. Second, we’ll employ illusion to give our foes an occasional glimpse of the archmages. I’ve always heard that some Thayans—in exile or otherwise—are clever at phantasms. If you’re one of them, speak up.”

  For a heartbeat, no one did. Then an older man, also wearing Lauzoril’s knife insigni
a, raised his hand with a seeming diffidence unexpected in a Red Wizard. “Mythrellan was the last truly great illusionist. Szass Tam killed her during the War of the Zulkirs, and the order she led dissolved not long after the Spellplague. Still, some of us have learned as many of its secrets as we could.”

  “Then I’m sure you can handle the job,” Jhesrhi said. “So that’s the general idea. Obviously, we need to make more detailed plans, and luckily, we do have a little time. The necromancers and their creatures won’t attack before nightfall. But that doesn’t mean we have to wait. Before we do anything else, I’d like to give the enemy a small taste of what we—excuse me, the great and terrible zulkirs—mean to do to them when the fight truly begins. A little something to think about as they march the last half mile to the battlefield.”

  Aoth supposed it had been inevitable that Szass Tam would cause a stir when he emerged from the catacombs with his erstwhile enemies striding along behind him. It seemed unlikely that any of the lich’s retainers had ever actually seen a member of that motley band before, but anyone who’d heard tales of gross, waddling Samas Kul in his jeweled robes and burly, sneering Nevron with his tattooed demon faces probably recognized them. From that, it would be easy enough to guess the identities of Lauzoril and Lallara, while Bareris, Mirror, Jet, and Aoth himself looked sufficiently distinctive to attract notice whether an observer knew them or not.

  Still, curious as people plainly were, they were even more deferential and scrambled to clear a path for their master. So the strange procession climbed up through the Citadel quickly, with whispered speculation murmuring in its wake.

  “I could have shifted—”

  Startled, Aoth jerked his head around. An instant ago, or so it seemed to him, Szass Tam had been walking at the front of the parade. Now, somehow, the lich was beside him.

  “—us all to the top of the keep,” Szass Tam continued, “but my sense is that a little more time won’t matter one way or the other, and walking gives you and me a chance to talk.” He smiled. “It’s also the only chance you’ll ever have to watch Samas climb a flight of stairs. Not that it’s a pleasant spectacle, especially from the back.”