The Haunted Lands: Book II - Undead Page 8

  People, even the best of them, were such flawed and inadequate creations.

  “What does this mean for all of us?” Homen asked.

  “Well,” Szass Tam said, “plainly, we failed to win the overwhelming victory we anticipated, and now we’re facing some unexpected problems. But we took the Keep of Sorrows. That’s something.”

  “If the ground doesn’t crumble beneath it and cast it all the way down into Priador,” Azhir said.

  “Portions of the cliffs are still collapsing,” Szass Tam said, “but I examined the granite beneath the castle. It will hold.”

  “That’s good to know.” Homen drained his silver cup. “But when I asked what this all meant, I was asking about … the whole world, I suppose. Is everybody going to die?”

  Szass Tam snorted. “Of course not. Do you imagine the gods are necessary to the existence of the universe? They’re not. They’re simply spirits, more powerful than the imps that conjurors summon and command, but much the same otherwise. Deities have died before, goddesses of magic have died, and the cosmos survived. As it will again. As for us, we simply must weather a period of adversity.”

  “How do we do that?” Azhir asked.

  “My thought,” Szass Tam said, “is that we must garrison the Keep of Shadows. It’s too valuable to abandon. It can play a vital role when we go back on the offensive.”

  “But you don’t intend to continue attacking now,” Homen said.

  “No. We need to withdraw the majority of our forces back into the north, to rebuild our strength and lay new plans. But you two are the soldiers. If you care to recommend a more aggressive course, I’m willing to listen.”

  Azhir and Homen exchanged glances. “No, Master,” the latter said. “Your idea seems the most prudent.”

  “Good. Then let’s sort out the details.”

  Bareris sang a charm of healing, plucking the accompaniment on the strings of his yarting. Mirror, currently a smeared reflection of the bard, hovered silently beside him.

  Aoth had been escorted to a dark tent, and sat with bandages wrapped around his eyes. He opened them from time to time and glimpsed the world for just a moment, even though a man with normal vision wouldn’t have seen through the bandages or in the dark. Then sight turned against him, jabbing pain into his head, and he had no choice but to flinch away from it.

  He felt a cool, tingling caress on his face, a sign that the song was trying to heal him. Bards too were reportedly having difficulty casting spells, but not as much as wizards.

  Still, Aoth doubted the charm would be any more effective than the prayers of the priests who had sought to help him already, and at the end of the song, he was proven right. Another peek brought another sickening spasm, and he gritted his teeth and hissed.

  “I’m sorry,” Bareris said. “I don’t know anything else to try.”

  “It’s all right,” Aoth said, although it was anything but. He felt a pang of resentment and struggled to quell it, for there was no reason to take out his frustrations on his friend. He could scarcely blame Bareris for failing to deliver what even accomplished clerics could not achieve.

  “At least,” Bareris said, “you can see through Brightwing’s eyes.”

  “Yes, that solves everything. I just have to live the rest of my life outdoors.”

  “No, you have to resign yourself to being a blind man indoors, at least until your friends find a way to restore you. But outside, you’ll be whole. You’ll be able to fly, cast spells, and fight the same as always.”

  “No. I won’t. It’s clumsy when your sight isn’t centered in your own eyes. It throws off everything in relation to your hands and body.”

  “In time, you’ll learn—”

  “Stop! Please, just stop. How are the men and the griffons?”

  “The army’s still in disarray, and we left much of the baggage train behind when we ran. But I made sure our company got its fair share of what food there is, and of the healers’ attentions.”

  “Good. The Griffon Legion’s yours now, what’s left of it. I’m sure Nymia will proclaim you captain.”

  “If she does, I’ll accept, but only until you’re ready to resume your duties.”

  “That’s good of you to say.” Aoth opened his eyes. He’d found that, even though he knew the discomfort that would follow, the urge periodically became irresistible. An instant later, he stiffened.

  Because he saw two Barerises, the figures superimposed. One—the real one, presumably—sat on a campstool, cradling his yarting in his lap. Smirking, the illusory one dangled a marionette and twitched the strings to make it dance. The puppet was thick in the torso, clad in the trappings of a griffon rider, and clutched a spear in its hand.

  A throb of pain closed Aoth’s eyes again, but it wasn’t as overwhelming as usual. He was so shocked, so appalled, that it blunted his physical distress.

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve told you, this blindness isn’t like normal blindness.”

  “Yes,” Bareris said.

  “I’m beginning to sense that at certain moments, it may even turn into the opposite of blindness. It may reveal things that normal eyes can’t see.”

  “Really? Well, then that’s good, isn’t it?”

  Aoth felt a crazy impulse to laugh. “Perhaps it is, if it shows the truth. You can help me determine if it did. I was ready to desert, and you talked me out of it. Remember?”

  Bareris hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Did you seek to persuade me as any man might try to influence another, or did you use your voice to lay an enchantment on me?”

  This time Bareris sat mute for several heartbeats, a silence as damning as any confession. “I did it to save your honor,” he said at last, “and because I knew you’d feel like a coward if you left.”

  “Liar! You did it because you wanted me, and the riders who would follow my lead, to stay and fight. For ten years, I’ve been your only friend. I’ve sought out your company when everyone else shunned your bitterness and your obsession. But you never truly felt friendship for me, did you? I was just a resource you could exploit in persuit of your mad vendetta.”

  “It’s not mad.”

  “Yes, it is! You aren’t Szass Tam’s equal, fighting a duel with him. You’re just one soldier in the army his peers have fielded against him. Even if the other zulkirs defeat him, it won’t be your triumph or your revenge. Your part in it will be miniscule. But you can’t see that. Even though you’re just a pawn, you had to try to push your fellow pawns around on the game board, and as a result, I’m crippled!”

  “Maybe not forever. Don’t give up hope.”

  Aoth knew precisely where his spear was. He could grab it without looking. He sprang up from his stool and only then opened his eyes, using his instant of clear and painless vision to aim the weapon at Bareris’s chest.

  The earth bucked beneath his feet and pitched him forward, spoiling what should have been the sudden accuracy of his attack. Vision became unbearable and his eyes squeezed shut. He toppled to his knees and the spear completed its thrust without any resistance.

  “If you’ll allow it,” Bareris said, “I’ll help you up and back into your seat.”

  “No.” Aoth realized he didn’t want to kill the bard anymore, but he didn’t want anything else from him, either. “Just get out and stay away from me.”

  Bareris panted as if he’d just run for miles. His guts churned and his eyes stung.

  “He swore an oath to serve the tharchion and the zulkirs,” he said, “and so did I. I was right to stop him.”

  He was talking to himself, but to his surprise, Mirror saw fit to answer. “You deceived him,” said the ghost. “You broke the code of our brotherhood.”

  “There isn’t any brotherhood!” Bareris snapped. “You’re remembering something from your own time, getting it confused with what’s happening now, so don’t prattle about what you don’t understand!”

  His retort silenced Mirror. But as the spirit melted back into
the shadows, he shed Bareris’s appearance as if it were a badge of shame.

  “What about a taste of the red?” a rough voice whispered.

  Startled, Tammith turned to behold a short, swarthy legionnaire who’d opened his tunic to accommodate her. She’d known she was brooding, but she must have been truly preoccupied for the soldier to sidle up to her unnoticed, her keen senses notwithstanding.

  Those senses drank him in, the warmth and sweaty scent of his living body and the tick of the pulse in his neck. It made her crave what he offered even though she wasn’t really thirsty, and the pleasure would provide a few moments of relief from the thoughts tumbling round and round in her head.

  “All right.” She opened the purse laced to her sword belt, gave him a coin, then looked for a place to go. Big as it was, the Keep of Sorrows was full to overflowing with the northern army, but a staircase leading up to a tower door cast a slanted shadow to shield them from curious eyes.

  As they kneeled down together, voices struck up a farmer’s song about planting and plowing, which echoed through the baileys and stone-walled passageways of the fortress. Today was Greengrass, the festival held to mark the beginning of spring. Some folk evidently meant to observe it even if Thay had little to celebrate in the way of fertile fields, clean rain, and warm, bright sunlight.

  Tammith slipped her fangs into the legionnaire’s jugular and drank, giving herself over to the wet salty heat and the gratification it afforded. It lay within her power to make the experience just as pleasurable for her prey, but she didn’t bother. Still, the legionnaire shuddered and sighed, and she realized he was one of those victims who found being drained inherently erotic.

  He should be paying me, she thought with a flicker of amusement.

  The tryst was enjoyable while it lasted, but brought her no closer to a decision. She sent her dazed, grinning supper on his way, prowled through an archway, and spotted Xingax riding piggyback on a giant zombie at the other end of the courtyard.

  “Daughter!” he cried. “Good evening!”

  Reluctantly, she advanced to meet him.

  “Good news,” Xingax said. “I’m going home. It’s no surprise, of course. I assumed Szass Tam would need me there to help rebuild his strength, but I’m still delighted. Perhaps you can come along and command my guards.”

  Tammith’s upper lip wanted to rise, and her canines, to lengthen, but she made herself smile instead. “I believe you made me so I could charge into the fiercest battles, not stand sentry waiting for foes who, in all likelihood, would never find their way to me.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Xingax said, “but maybe you can at least escort me to the sanctuary, and then I can send you back again. I’ll ask Szass Tam about it.” He leaned over the hulking zombie’s shoulder, reached down, and stroked her cheek with the hand that was shriveled, twisted, and malodorous with rot. Her skin crawled. Then his mount carried him on his way.

  If I have to travel with him, Tammith thought, he’ll know. He isn’t a necromancer himself, not precisely, but he, or one of the wizards in his train, will figure it out.

  Then they’d change her back, and she wondered why she’d needed to ponder for so long to realize that would be unendurable.

  As the singers struck up another song, she made her way to a sally port and peered around. As far as she could tell, nobody was watching her. She dissolved into mist and oozed through the crack beneath the secondary gate.

  She drifted across the battlefield with its carpet of contorted, stinking corpses. The crows had retired for the night, but the rats were feasting. Most of the enormous squid-things had stopped moving, but three of them were still crawling aimlessly around.

  When she reached the far side of the leviathans, she judged she’d put enough distance between herself and the castle to risk changing from fog to a swarm of bats. It was unlikely that a sentry would notice her in that guise, either, and her wings would carry her faster than vapor could flow.

  Just as she finished shifting, a creature big as an ogre pounced out of nowhere. Its head was a blend of man and wolf, with crimson eyes shining above the lupine muzzle. Dark scales covered its naked body. It had four hands and snatched with two of them, catching a bat each time. Its grip crushed and its claws pierced, and even those beasts that were still free floundered with the shared pain.

  “Turn into a woman,” Tsagoth said, “and I’ll let them go.”

  She didn’t have to. She could survive the loss of some of the creatures that comprised herself. But it would weaken her, and she was reluctant to allow that when she knew Tsagoth could keep pace with her however she chose to flee.

  She knew because their abilities were similar. He was a blood fiend, an undead demon who preyed on living tanar’ri in the same way that vampires hunted mortal men and women.

  She flowed from one guise to another, and he released the captive bats to blend with the rest of her substance. She shifted her feet, but subtly; she didn’t want him to see she was ready to fight. But he evidently noticed anyway, because his leer stretched wider.

  “You should have fled,” he said, “as soon as the blue fire came, and you realized the enchantments compelling your obedience had withered away.”

  “Probably so.” Irredeemably feral and in some cases stupid to their cores, a number of ghouls and lesser wraiths had bolted instantly. She, however, had long ago acquired military discipline, and during those first moments, it had constrained her as effectively as magic. Only later had she recognized that escape was an option for her as well.

  “Now you’ve missed your chance,” Tsagoth continued. “The necromancers understand that they may not have complete control over even those undead who obediently followed them into the keep. They charged me to watch for those who try to stray.”

  “Good dog,” Tammith said.

  Tsagoth bared his fangs. “Do you really think it wise to mock me? Your powers are just a debased and feeble echo of mine. I can destroy you in an instant if I choose. But I’d just as soon reason with you.”

  Tammith shrugged. “Reason away, then.” At least a conversation would give her time to ponder tactics.

  “You hate our masters,” he said. “I understand. So do I. But you thrive in their service. You’re a celebrated warrior, and Szass Tam promises you’ll be a rich noblewoman after he wins the war.”

  “I don’t want gold or station. I want my freedom.”

  “Your freedom to do what and go where? Where, except in Szass Tam’s orbit, is there a place for a creature like you? And even if it were possible for you to escape me, where could you be safe from the other hunters the lich would send after you?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.”

  “You understand, the blue fires are still raging back and forth across the world destroying all they touch. The earthquakes are still shaking towns to rubble. It’s the worst possible time to forsake your allies and strike out on your own.”

  “Or the best. The necromancers may decide they have more important things to think about than chasing after me.”

  “At least return to the castle and ponder a while longer. Don’t act recklessly.”

  “I don’t have ‘a while longer.’” She smiled. “You truly don’t want to fight me, do you? Because you sympathize with me. You wish you could do what I’m doing.”

  He glared as if she’d insulted him even more egregiously than before. “I don’t sympathize with anyone, least of all one of your puny kind! But of course, I’ve tried to break my own bonds. It’s like a vile joke that the blue fire liberated common ghouls and spectres and left a blood fiend in his chains.”

  “Try again,” Tammith said. “Don’t fight me. Change into your bat guise and fly away with me.”

  “I can’t.” Suddenly, he sprang at her.

  Fortunately, she was ready. She whirled out of the way and drew her sword, then cut at Tsagoth as he lunged by.

  The enchanted blade bit deep into Tsagoth’s back, staggerin
g him. She ripped it free and slashed again.

  Tsagoth spun back around to face her. His left arm swept downward to meet her blade. The weapon sliced his wrist, but it was only a nick, and the block kept the sword from cutting another gash in his torso.

  At the same time, he raked at her with his upper hands. She recoiled, and his claws tore through her sturdy leather jerkin to score the flesh beneath. If she hadn’t snatched herself backward, great chunks of flesh would have been torn away.

  She leaped farther back, simultaneously extending her sword to spit him if he charged. He didn’t, and they started circling.

  He gazed into her eyes and sent the force of his psyche stabbing at her like a poniard. She felt a kind of jolt, but nothing that froze her in place or crushed her will to resist. She tried the same tactic on him, with a similar lack of success.

  Her wounds itched as they closed. The cut on Tsagoth’s wrist was already gone, and no doubt the more serious wound on his back was healing too. In theory, they could duel the night away, each suffering but never quite succumbing to an endless succession of ghastly injuries. Until the sun rose, when she’d burn and he wouldn’t.

  But it was unlikely to come to that. As he’d boasted, he was the stronger, and if she couldn’t beat him quickly, he was apt to wear her into helplessness well before dawn.

  He murmured a word and ragged flares of power in a dazzling array of colors exploded from a central point like a garish flower blooming in a single instant. Tammith was close enough that the leading edge of the blast washed over her and seared her like acid.

  Even as she staggered, she realized her foe had wounded her but likewise given her an opportunity. Fighting in a war of wizards, she’d seen this same attack, and understood how it worked when it achieved its full effect. Perhaps she could convince Tsagoth that it had done so. It all depended on her skill at pantomime.

  She fell on her rump as if her mind and body were reacting too slowly for her to catch her balance. She dropped her jaw in what she hoped was a convincing expression of surprised dismay and started to rise, all with the same exaggerated lethargy.