Storm of the Dead

by Lisa Smedman

  Masked Lord, he pleaded fiercely, strengthen me.

  The panic dissipated, leaving only a nervous bead of sweat that trickled down the small of Kâras’s back. He glared at the animated dead who clustered around him, fawning for his attention. “Clear a path for me,” he ordered.

  The quth-maren nodded. It waved a hand, and the plague-killed drow standing on the dock folded to the ground, lifeless once more. Then it gave a hacking cough, deep in its chest. A wad of blood-tinged mucous shot from its mouth and landed on the stomach of a corpse that had lain down immediately in front of Kâras. The acidic spit sizzled, burning clean through the body, down to the stone beneath.

  The quth-maren gave a gurgling chuckle and padded up the dock, leaving bloody footprints in its wake.

  Behind Kâras, Gindrol and Talzir pulled away from the dock. The splashes of their oars were rapidly lost amid the clattering of the skulls overhead and the wails of the ghosts that flitted above.

  Kâras forced his shoulders erect and followed the quth-maren with a haughty, confident step. They walked through the ruined city. Everywhere Kâras looked lay plague victims, preserved by fell magic. They rose at his approach, bowing in subservience to the Crone he appeared to be. Some plucked at his cloak with blistered fingers; he shrugged them away imperiously.

  Movement down a side street caught his eye. He glanced in that direction and saw a monstrous hound nearly four times his height, made up of a seething mass of bodies, with teeth made from broken femurs. It sniffed at the dead, selected one, and closed its teeth around it. Lifting the corpse into the air, the monstrous hound shook its head, scattering chunks of flesh left and right. It paused in this gruesome task to stare back at Kâras, blood dribbling from its mouth like drool.

  Kâras averted his eyes and walked on. All around him, however, were equally horrific sights. Ghouls scuttled like crabs across the corpses, snapping off choice pieces and sucking on them. Specters drifted in and out of walls, leaving a rime of frost in their wake. Finger-sized gravecrawlers wriggled into the nostrils and ears of the bodies that lay on the ground, gradually calcifying the dead.

  Kâras had seen it all before. Just as they had then, his guts churned in horror. He’d thought himself ready. It had been five years since the fall of Maerimydra, after all. Five years since he’d escaped from the horror of a city conquered both from without, by the army of Kurgoth Hellspawn, and from within, by the traitorous priestesses of House T’sarran.

  You survived then, he told himself sternly. You’ll survive now.

  But his thoughts kept turning traitorously back to that time. To all the near misses, the almost-fatal mistakes. Becoming the consort of one of Kiaransalee’s priestesses, for example. How badly that had gone! Later, he’d thrown in his lot with a group of survivors hiding in the ruins. All had gone well until they decided to take on the Crones, a suicidal task. Kâras had taken his leave of them, fleeing Maerimydra with the sackful of the treasures he’d been able to scavenge.

  Later, he’d heard they’d actually done it: thrown down Kiaransalee’s high priestess with the help of adventurers from beyond the city. That thought should have bolstered him, given him the confidence he so desperately needed. But he was haunted still by the memories of the long months he’d spent constantly on the run from the undead. The moans of the ghosts above reminded him of the shrieks that had cut down the other members of his House like invisible scythes. The clattering that filled the air reminded him of the bony touch of a skeletal hand on his shoulder.

  Stop thinking about it, he told himself sternly. He forced down the gorge that rose in his throat. He would do as his god commanded. Discover what the Crones were doing with the voidstone, learn how to stop it, then get out. The Masked Lord would protect him, just as he had in Maerimydra. And if Kâras died … well, then the fear that roiled in his guts would end. He’d be taken up into the Masked Lord’s shadowy embrace.

  He knew where he had to go: into the temple atop that central spire. The Acropolis of Thanatos was the only logical place for the voidstone to be delivered to. The blue-green glow that suffused the column it stood on confirmed it. The Faerzress was brightest at the top of the spire, just underneath the temple. It pulsed with an eye-stinging glow.

  The quth-maren led Kâras to the base of a staircase that spiraled up to the temple. On each side of the stair stood a boneclaw: a skeletal humanoid twice Kâras’s height with fingers that ended in scything claws. One of the boneclaws lashed out as Kâras approached, its claws extending until they were several paces long. Their tips plunged into the rock in front, back and to either side of Kâras, forming the bars of a razor-sharp cage.

  Kâras jerked to a halt. “Release me,” he ordered. He flipped up his hood, using it as an excuse to touch the skullcap he wore—his disguised holy symbol. Silently, he prayed to the Masked Lord, Drive him back. Make him obey.

  The boneclaw twisted its wrist, snapping off its claws near their tips. Fresh points sprouted immediately from the stubs as it returned its hand to its side. “Pass,” it hissed through clenched teeth.

  Kâras stepped over the broken claw stubs. Then he climbed the stairs. The quth-maren didn’t follow. It remained at the base of the stalagmite, craning its neck up to watch him, its lipless mouth twisted in a mocking smile.

  Did it know something Kâras didn’t?

  Kâras shook off his apprehension. He needed to watch where he was going. The stairs were covered with trickles of what smelled like dribbling, rancid fat. He had to concentrate on each step to keep from slipping.

  At last he reached the level stop of the spire. Here, for the first time since setting foot on the island, he saw other Crones. All were dressed as he was, in loose black robes, some with their hoods pulled up. The silver rings they wore on every finger glinted blue, reflecting the light of the Faerzress. Most of the Crones hurried past on errands of their own, but others stood rocking in place, arms clasped tight around their bodies, tittering with mad laughter. One squatted over a corpse, yarding out its withered entrails and carefully coiling them around a spool.

  Kâras walked steadily toward the temple. Built of black marble veined with red, it was a chaotic jumble of angles, misshapen windows and gaping doorways. The closer he got, the greater his urge to cringe and cower. His feet felt heavy as stone. Each dragging step forward was an effort that caused his heart to pound wildly in his ears. A part of his mind gibbered in terror at what he was about to do. This is the Acropolis, it shrieked. Kiaransalee’s temple. You don’t dare enter it. They’ll know you, see you for what you are. Turn back!

  A whimper struggled to escape his throat. With a savage effort, he swallowed it down. He shifted the strongbox into the crook of one arm and adjusted his hood, using the motion to once again brush his fingers against the skullcap-mask. Masked Lord, he silently prayed, give me strength.

  Confidence stirred like a whisper in the darkness, then flooded him like a shaft of moonlight. His shoulders squared, his heart lightened, his step grew more confident. I can do it, he told himself. Just a few steps more.

  Then he was inside.

  He halted as abruptly as he’d entered. If he hadn’t, it all would have ended right there. He stood on the edge of a precipice; the interior of the Acropolis of Thanatos was nothing more than an empty hole. Walls, floors, ceiling beams—all ended abruptly, as if the stone building were a squash that had been scraped empty by a spoon. At the center of this hollow hung a sphere of utter blackness. Kâras could feel it tugging at him, and he found himself leaning toward it. When he flinched back, a tiny fragment of marble broke off from the edge where his foot had been. The chip of stone flew toward the sphere at the center of the hollow space, spiraling in toward it, then was gone.

  “Voidstone,” he whispered.

  The sphere sucked hungrily at his essence, chilling him until his bones ached. He tried to take the measure of the thing but couldn’t. It was enormous, as large as a small building. The Crones must have been working at it for year
s, building it up one tiny chunk at a time.

  Seeing the immensity of it, his heart sank. Destroying it would take dozens of priests, working in concert to channel positive energy into it. Before there was even a hope of attempting this, the army of undead that filled the streets below would have to be defeated.

  Cavatina had been right. They would have to mount an attack on the Acropolis.

  The sphere of darkness wasn’t entirely featureless. If Kâras turned his head slightly, he could see shapes and movement out of the corner of his eye. Wild images filled the voidstone’s depths: the towers of a city, rows of skeletal undead lined up like soldiers, a plaza filled with capering ghouls, a minotaur seated on a bone throne. The latter twisted around to stare at Kâras. A bestial muzzle pressed against the surface of the voidstone sphere from within. Lips twitched in a grimace, revealing elongated fangs.

  Free me, the minotaur hissed. And my legions will serve you.

  “Soon, Lord Casus,” a soft voice answered. “Soon.”

  Kâras started, nearly dropping the strongbox. Slowly he turned.

  Standing just behind him was a female he recognized: Cabrath, of House Nelinderra. Her face was clean of the death’s head paint she habitually wore, but she looked no better for it. Her lips were a narrow slash, her nose a second, vertical slash, and her eyes mere slits. She wore black robes trimmed with purple. She toyed with a bone-handled dagger whose blade was a tapering glimmer of blue energy. The harsh light glinted off the silver rings on her fingers.

  Kâras was surprised to see her there. He’d assumed she’d died with the rest of the Crones when Kiaransalee’s cult in Maerimydra was overthrown.

  A bone-white aura wavered around her, chill as mist in a graveyard. It brushed against Kâras—he didn’t dare flinch, lest Cabrath realize something was wrong. Its brief touch left him feeling sick and weak. In another moment, he thought, he would faint. Tumble and slide down the slope in front of him into the voidstone and be consumed.

  Staring at the orb was better than looking into Cabrath’s terrible amber eyes. Kâras tore his gaze away from her. The voidstone was black again, unmarked by visions.

  Cabrath drifted around in front of Kâras, her hair streaming back toward the voidstone. Her body was translucent; Kâras could see the voidstone right through her. She was dead.

  She tilted her head at the voidstone. “Feed him.”

  Kâras hesitated, even though he knew there was little he could do. In death, Cabrath had become something more than the mere priestess she had been. As a spirit, she could slay him with a touch, with a word, between one heartbeat and the next. Any spell he tried would die on his lips before he could complete it.

  He tossed the strongbox at the voidstone sphere. Cabrath moved to intercept it. As the box passed through her ghostly body, she threw out her arms and shrieked with wild laughter. For just an instant, she seemed solid again, corporeal, except for her aura. She spun in place and watched the box strike the larger sphere and disappear, releasing the chunk of voidstone it held. Her gaunt face held a look of first eager anticipation, then disappointment.

  “Go!” she shrieked over her shoulder at Kâras, not deigning to look at him. “Find more!”

  Kâras bowed. As he started to back away, a section of the voidstone bulged outward. Horror filled Kâras as he realized the chunk of voidstone he’d just added might tip the balance. Were the armies of the undead minotaur about to be released?

  The bulge in the voidstone erupted. A figure tumbled out, screaming like a thing damned. She was a massive female drow, twice as large as Q’arlynd, with a bestial face, matted hair, and spiderlike legs protruding from her chest. Cabrath whirled, barely dodging the tumbling form. The newcomer sailed past her and crashed into a wall. Cabrath glanced between the bestial female and the voidstone, a shocked look on her face.

  The demonic drow scrambled to her feet. She stared wildly around—at the hollowed-out temple, at Kâras, at the voidstone, at Cabrath. Then she threw back her head and shrieked with laughter, a sound as brittle as breaking glass.

  “Lolth!” she cried. “I’m your plaything no longer. I’ve won! I’m dead!”

  Kâras stared at the voidstone. It was smooth and spherical once more. The skeletal legions were not issuing forth from it. Not yet. And Cabrath seemed just as surprised by what had just happened as Kâras was. The spirit stared at the demonic drow, a puzzled frown on her face.

  Slowly Kâras backed out of the temple. He’d find a quiet place, report to Qilué—and let her decide what to do next.

  CHAPTER 12

  Leliana halted the group when she spotted Brindell running back through the tunnel. The halfling’s eyes were wide with terror. Unlike a drow, she wore her emotions where everyone could see them.

  Brindell skidded to a halt in front of Leliana, her copper-colored hair damp with sweat. “A wave,” she gasped, fear making her forget to use the silent speech, “of putrid flesh. It’s headed this way, dissolving everything in its path.”

  “Mother’s blood,” Leliana whispered. She could hear it, even then. A bubbling, gurgling sound, overlaid with a faint, sizzling hiss. She turned to the mages, several paces behind her, and signaled for them to turn back.

  But we’re almost there, Gilkriz protested. According to the map … His hands fluttered to a halt as he stared at something behind Leliana.

  Leliana spun. The thing Brindell had spotted was in view. It looked like a waist-deep puddle of bruised fat, wide enough to fill the tunnel from side to side. Veins as thick as legs bulged as it oozed forward—one broke, spraying the tunnel walls with red. Boils rose on the surface of the thing and erupted with wet pops. The monstrosity was still a hundred paces away, but even at that distance Leliana could smell the stench of corruption.

  “Join my prayer!” she shouted. “Drive it back.”

  The priestesses burst into song, lifting the miniature swords that were the symbols of their faith. “By sword and by song, we command thee. By moonlight be driven back …”

  The monstrosity surged on, unaffected by the priestess’s prayers.

  Leliana lowered her holy symbol. If they couldn’t stop this thing, they’d be forced to retreat through the shaft they’d just climbed to reach this tunnel. A shaft that led only down. A deep shaft. Before they reached bottom, the monstrosity would be spilling down on top of them.

  A streak of frost shot past Leliana’s shoulder: one of the wizards, casting a spell. Ice crystals blossomed across the leading edge of the putrid wave, freezing it. An instant later, however, the ice cracked and the monstrosity surged forward again. As it came on, a rat burst from a crack in the tunnel wall just ahead of the oozing mass and scurried up a timber, trying to escape. The putrid mass flowed after it, climbing the wall. The rat shrieked as it was enveloped and dissolved. The timber it had tried to climb fell to pieces and was also consumed.

  “Out of the way!” Gilkriz yelled, shoving past her. “Kulg!” he cried, slamming his stiff-fingered hands in front of him as if they were a gate closing.

  With a rumble and a thud, the tunnel ahead slammed shut. A wall of solid stone stood where an open passage had been a moment before, blocking the monster’s path.

  Brindell let out a whooping cheer. “Praise be to Eilistraee! We’re safe.”

  The others were more restrained; they merely murmured their relief.

  “That’s it, then,” Leliana said. She turned her back on the wall. “We’ll have to go another …”

  She paused. What was that sound?

  There it was again. A faint noise, coming from the shaft they’d just climbed.

  Tash’kla ran to it and peered down. Another one! she signed—as if maintaining silence would save them. Coming up the shaft!

  “Gilkriz!” Leliana barked.

  The conjurer nodded. He ran over to where Tash’kla stood and repeated his spell, bringing his hands together. Rock groaned, bulged. The top of the shaft slammed shut.

  Brindell glanced back and forth
between the blocked tunnel and the plugged shaft. “Now what?”

  Leliana looked around. What indeed?

  She noticed the human wizard standing slightly apart from the group, intently studying a portion of the tunnel wall. “What is it, Daffir? Have you spotted something?”

  He turned, leaning on his staff. “A doorway, hidden by magic.” He pointed. “Here.”

  The dark lenses hovering in front of his eyes hid his expression, but his voice had a strained sound Leliana didn’t like. “Where does it lead?”

  “To death. And … freedom.”

  “Whose death?” Gilkriz asked, striding forward. He peered at the wall, his face illuminated by the Faerzress glow.

  Daffir shrugged.

  “We certainly can’t stay here,” Tash’kla said. “We’ll run out of air.” She raised her sword in both hands in front of her; the blade hummed softly. “I’m ready to face death, if it means finding a way past those monsters.”

  “So am I,” Brindell said. She fingered her holy symbol with a pudgy hand.

  “Perhaps the divination wasn’t a literal one,” Eldrinn said. “‘Death’ could mean the Crones, and the door may be another route to the Acropolis, hence ‘freedom.’” He turned to the wizard beside him. “What do you think, Q’arlynd?”

  “Why don’t you try opening it, Daffir?” Q’arlynd suggested, moving closer to the other wizard. “Let’s see what’s behind the door, and decide.”

  Q’arlynd’s eyes, Leliana noted, kept straying to the staff Daffir held.

  “Just be ready,” she told the others. “Anything could come through that door.” She readied her sword. “Go ahead, Daffir.”

  Daffir balled his hand into a fist, raised it to his lips, and barked a word into it.

  Nothing happened. The wall looked as solid as ever.