by Barb Hendee
Welstiel had no prepared tool or artifice to deal with this. Conjuring elementals of this magnitude was beyond anyone he had ever known.
He clenched his fist, frustration and panic eroding his self-control. As Magiere and Chap struggled, the tendrils shifted to grip them, responding to their movements. Ubad turned his attention toward the majay-hl, and the tendrils tightened around the animal.
Welstiel took another step, moving close behind a tree at the clearing's edge.
These tendrils were a mass of elemental matter, but without any will of their own. They responded to commands from the necromancer.
Sightless Ubad had no natural vision that Welstiel knew of behind that leather mask. He relied upon some arcane method to see the world around him. Welstiel had one possession that could deceive all detection but physical senses. He had created it long ago to escape with Magiere when she was a child.
Welstiel sat upon the ground, his legs crossed, as he stared at his ring of nothing.
It had been created to work passively upon the wearer, without the need for willful activation. It was all he had, and in this moment, he needed its influence to grow.
He removed the brass band, holding it level between his fingertips like a conjuring circle engraved in the air. As he murmured softly, he focused within the circle to pass his consumed life force into it. Exhaustion crept through him, but he held his concentration until it felt as if he had lingered there far too long.
Ubad had to sense Magiere's presence in order to assault her. Welstiel would hide that presence.
Fatigue sharpened suddenly, and Welstiel felt a ripple of tension in the air expand outward from the circle of brass.
Anger built inside Magiere, along with fear of loss. Leesil couldn't be dead. It was a lie.
When Ubad turned upon Chap, she meant to shout, but the words came out hoarse and low. 'Touch him, and I'm finished with you."
Ubad paused, one hand in the air.
"I'll tolerate your words," she said, "but you'll do as I say—or you can go find one of your corpses to chat with."
Ubad turned back to her. "You do not care for helplessness. What if I told you that freedom is yours to take?"
Magiere had no wish to play any more of these games. She had hope in Leesil's arms, in his eyes. If she lost him, there was nothing left but death and blood—and both would be Ubad's.
"Get to the point," she answered.
"I gave you the answer, if you had listened," Ubad said. "All existence is composed of the five elements, and life itself is no different. These tendrils that bind you are made from the element of Spirit summoned from the forest, and life clings most to that element. You can feed upon life. Freedom is yours, and you have but to consume it."
He stepped close enough mat when Magiere looked down at him, she saw the creases in his leather mask.
'Take the life from the tendrils. Consume it like the Noble Dead you are. With its pure form pressed to your flesh, you need only will it so ... and be free."
Magiere grimaced as she looked at the glowing blue-white tendrils curled about her arm. She felt their slick warm touch upon her as if they were solid. To her eyes, they appeared no more material that the ghosts of the forest and cavern.
What Ubad asked sickened her.
To give in to hunger? To feed like the undead mat she and Leesil hunted and burned to ash? Whether by touch or blood down her throat, it meant becoming one of them. It meant becoming all that Ubad claimed she was rather than what she wished to be.
Only once had she ever done this. Leesil had been her willing victim, though she'd been unaware of his sacrifice until it was nearly too late. But if Ubad lied and Leesil still lived, he would be alone against this madman and his minions if she didn't get free.
Leesil's life ... or the life she wanted to live?
Magiere let her hunger rise.
It spread through her whole flesh instead of just her throat and head. She felt it move like the black ribbons Wynn had seen with her mantic sight. Hunger coiled through her limbs toward the tingling life touching her skin through the tendrils.
And nothing more happened.
Magiere stared wide-eyed along her arm, torn inside between anguish and relief. Her body wouldn't consume the life it felt there. Perhaps it couldn't do so at all.
And she couldn't free herself to help Leesil.
Whatever she might be, Ubad didn't know as much of her true nature as the twisted mage thought. She looked down into his leather mask, unable to speak. What could she possibly say to him that would gain her anything?
A sudden tension in the air passed over her—through her—like a wind pushing at a dangling leaf.
Ubad stumbled back, and Magiere saw that he'd felt this strange sensation, as well. The staff slipped from his grip to thump heavily on the ground, and he slapped both hands over his mask. As he slid backward, he stumbled and fell hard, his arms flailing.
Magiere didn't know what had just happened, but with Ubad down, she thrashed to pull her right arm free, the falchion still in her grip. The tendrils held, but they didn't clench tight at her struggle.
"Dhampir?" Ubad whispered, an edge of fear in his voice. He crawled upon the ground, feeling along it with his hands for something, perhaps his lost staff.
Magiere watched in astonishment. Ubad was now truly blind.
The glow to the far right of the clearing brightened, and Magiere looked up.
Chap still hung in the air, but he wasn't the same. His fur appeared whiter. The brighter he grew, the more the tendrils' glow softened. Those cords of blue-white sagged until Chap's paws touched the earth. As he scrambled free of their touch, the glimmer in his coat faded, flowing back into the earth from where it had come, and he ran to Magiere.
At Chap's movement, Ubad rose on his knees. His masked face turned sharply toward the dog, and he raised a hand in the air.
Chap froze, and Magiere feared the old man had regained his sight.
Ubad turned back and forth as if still blind. He was following the sounds of the dog's movement. Chap crept toward Magiere.
She took a deep breath and blew a shrill whistle through her lips.
Ubad flinched, spinning toward her on the ground, but his head turned erratically as his outstretched hand came back to his ear. The piercing sound masked Chap's movement from his hearing.
Magiere looked down and saw Chap brush against the tendrils holding her.
His coat glimmered to white wherever it made contact. He licked the tendrils, and they buckled more quickly than his own had done. Magiere dropped to her feet. At the sound, Ubad faced her directly, and his hands shot out like weapons.
Chap scurried away to the left while Magiere shifted right. Ubad froze in confusion and slowly withdrew his hands as he cocked his head, listening.
Magiere raised her hand, pointed to Chap then Ubad, and curled her fingers to motion the dog forward. She began to steal inward toward the kneeling old man as the dog closed in quietly from the other side.
Ubad's head twitched from side to side. Magiere saw his mouth open and heard his breathing quicken. He straightened himself, raised his hands in the air, and slapped them down against the ground as he shouted.
"il'Samar, li-yigdim eyak khadim fa-ta'zez ana alan!"
Magiere stopped, turning to both sides to catch whatever new trick Ubad tried. There were still the empty cracks in the earth, and nothing more rose from them. Chap was nearly within lunging distance, and Magiere moved in again.
"il'Samar!" Ubad shouted once again. "Come to your servant and aid me!"
Magiere abandoned silence and lifted the falchion high.
The night around her deepened, until even her night sight couldn't penetrate it. She blinked, thinking her eyes had somehow shut. She felt her eyelids open and close, and yet still everything remained black. Slowly the night shapes of the forest reappeared, and there was movement in the trees.
Magiere turned from one side to the other and saw it everywhere
.
The dark in the spaces between the trees undulated. It circled the clearing.
In each turn it seemed to come nearer, passing through trunks, branches, brush, and moss strands like a turning ghost made from the night itself. At first it looked like the ground had risen up in moving waves of black earth. Then Magiere saw it slowly sharpen into clarity.
Those rolling mounds were coils, each one larger than the height of a man. They glinted from a strange dull light that came from nowhere, and she saw their surface. They were covered in scales like a mammoth serpent, writhing around her in the forest with no beginning or end and no space between.
"Great patron," Ubad continued with arms once more in the air. He leveled one hand out toward where he'd last heard Chap move. "I bring you the minion of your enemy to devour!"
His other hand reached out toward Magiere.
"And the child you desired, for when you awaken from your long slumber... May it come soon."
Chap turned about, running back and forth. The low cry issuing from his jaws sounded almost human in its anguish. He ran to Magiere's side of the clearing, scrambling back and forth between her and the coils in the forest.
The coils reached the clearing's edge, sliding within the trees, but they came no closer. When Magiere peered carefully, she could see trees beyond them. They were not wholly real, yet Chap was in a state of panic.
And Ubad supplicated himself.
Was this what he served... what he had made her to serve?
"il'Samar... ?" Ubad said. "I feel you with me.... Will you not take her, after all the many years of my labor?"
Chap ran around Magiere and charged for the necromancer.
Ubad's scream filled Magiere's ears even before she turned to see the dog strike. The animal atop Ubad was still the long-legged and silver-blue figure who'd been with her and Leesil for years, but all that she'd learned of him in recent months vanished in that moment.
Chap's jaws snapped closed on Ubad's throat, choking off the man's wail. The dog's victim thrashed at him as Chap began ripping and tearing flesh.
A voice filled Magiere's head as if it came from all around her.
High... in the cold and ice. Guarded by old ones... oldest of your predecessors.
The words slipped into her mind, deep and resonating, and suffocated all other thoughts. She felt their vibration in her whole body, and she looked out to the roiling coils in the forest.
Sister of the dead... lead on.
Chap's snarls halted to be replaced by rasping pants.
The voice faded from Magiere's mind as the coils faded from the forest. All that remained around her were the dark spaces between the trees. She looked down to where Ubad lay and cringed.
She had seen horrible things in her life. The mangled mess of the necromancer's throat was no worse an end than she herself would have given the man. It was the sight of Chap she found so unsettling.
He paced with his back to her and stared into the trees. His low rumble came out in gasps, and his sides rose and fell in rapid pants.
"Chap?" she called quietly.
The dog spun about with a snarl. The fur upon his muzzle, throat, and chest was soaked dark red, and with his jowls pulled back, his teeth were stained, as well. His brow furrowed around wide, wild eyes. He stood looking at her between glances toward the trees, as if he expected the coils of dark to return. And underneath his feral appearance, Magiere saw him quivering.
Chap was terrified.
Magiere had never seen this in him before, and it made her look warily into the forest and then back to Chap again. She wasn't even certain he recognized her, but she held out her hand, palm up, not trying to reach but waiting for him to catch her scent.
Chap's jowls pulled back slightly. He took a slow step toward her and stopped.
"That was what you've been keeping from us," she said softly. "Or what you have been keeping me from?"
After a stretched silence, he barked once.
There was no time for more questions.
"Leesil... and Wynn," she said. "Can you find them?"
Before he answered, Magiere felt a sudden tension in the air pass over her. It was the same sensation she'd experienced just before Ubad had gone blind.
Chap lifted his head, ears cocked as he stared steadily into the trees. The quiver of fear had left him, and he was poised. He gave her one look with wide clear eyes in his blood-spattered face and bolted into the forest.
For an instant, Magiere was at a loss as she ran after the dog, about to call out for Chap to stop. Then she heard his hunting wail ahead of her.
There was another Noble Dead somewhere in the forest.
IWelstiel's strength was all but drained, but he kept whispering and watching, feeding the ring to keep Ubad blinded until the necromancer was finally dead. Exactly why the majay-hi had gone mad, he wasn't certain, but he had seen the coils of his dreams appear in the forest. The shock of that sight had almost broken his concentration. All the long years, the black-scaled coils in his dreams had taunted him with hints to what he sought. Something that could change his sickening existence. It seemed the patron in Welstiel's slumber had been with Ubad for far longer. Perhaps it had even been this patron that his father had so often muttered to in the dark. When the voice came, not in dream but in the night itself, it had not spoken to Welstiel or even to Ubad. The necromancer's groveling was ignored, and he was abandoned.
Welstiel had heard the coil's words.
Sister of the dead... lead on.
The voice in the night had spoken to Magiere. And the words were similar to those it had whispered into Welstiel's dreams.
As he stopped chanting and slumped upon the forest floor, he slipped the ring back upon his finger before his shaking hands dropped it. A piercing wail issued from the dog, and it raced into the forest with Magiere following. With the ring's sphere of influence contracted to its wearer once again, there was nothing to limit the majay-hi's awareness. It had sensed something more out among the dark, wet trees.
Chane.
Welstiel was surprised by how much this thought disturbed him. He tried to rise but collapsed again upon the ground.
IMagiere pushed herself to keep up and didn't call out to Chap. A short distance into the trees, the dog ceased wailing but continued to run. Magiere trusted Chap's judgment in a fight against the undead. If he chose to run in silence, he had a reason.
With Ubad dead, perhaps Chap had picked up on Vordana or another of the necromancer's minions. If such still moved and searched in the forest, there was hope that this meant Leesil and Wynn were still alive.
She ran on and on behind Chap, using her blade to slash away anything in her path that she couldn't force her way through. When Chap stopped ahead of her, Magiere slowed as she approached him.
He was alert and tense, and stepped forward through the brush between two oaks. She followed, sword at the ready.
Chap paused as they entered a clearer area and stared at the base of a tree across the way. Magiere followed that gaze.
The sight was unreal, and it took her a moment to believe she was not seeing some vision like the coils in the forest.
The headless bodies of both undead mariners lay before her. The neck stump of the nearest one was ragged and torn, its head nowhere to be seen. The other lay farther off, a longsword impaled through its chest, pinning it to the earth. Its head had rolled away from its body.
A man with red-brown hair and a handsome face knelt upon the ground, holding someone in his arms. Magiere saw his profile and remembered the last time she'd seen him in the sewers of Bela.
Chane.
The person he held moved and sat up.
Magiere looked into Wynn's frightened eyes.
The sage's shoulder was bleeding badly beneath a makeshift wad of cloth Chane pressed against it. Magiere had no idea what was happening here, but she didn't care. She stepped forward with her falchion out.
"Get your hands off her!"
; At the sight of Chap and Magiere, Chane scrambled out of the way, reaching for the longsword embedded in the headless corpse.
"No, Magiere," Wynn called. "He saved me. He came to help me."
"Came to help you?" Magiere's rage increased. "Wynn, get back!"
She charged toward Chane as he jerked out the longsword and turned to face her. Black fluids stained his shirt around a tear in the fabric. She thrust under and up, breaking inside his guard and slicing him across stomach with the falchion's tip.
Chane gasped at the touch of her blade and retreated. Magiere knew it would burn him as a mortal weapon would not.
"Stop it!" Wynn shouted.
Chap rushed by and launched into Chane with snapping teeth. Both dog and vampire toppled back across the wet ground. Magiere followed, waiting for an opening to pin the undead down by running him through. He saw her, kicked up, and caught her in the jaw, then pitched Chap away so hard that the dog roiled off into the brush.
Chane rose up, shifting his gaze between his two opponents. Magiere sidestepped, watching for an opening.
"Wynn is correct," he said. "I only wanted to save her from these walking dead."
"Liar!" Magiere snapped, and she felt her canines extend as she shook her head. "You're nothing but a killer... and you're getting tired."
Chap was on his feet again, but he limped upon his rear left leg. He growled again, watching Chane's every move, and hobbled closer. The calm in Chane's light brown eyes faded, and he looked at Magiere in anger.
"So are you," he replied.
Magiere charged Chane, swinging for his head. He dodged, spun, and swung back. When she blocked, he let his blade slide off hers.
He turned so fast, she could barely follow. Instead of slicing back with the sword, he slipped inside her guard and slammed his fist into her cheek. Only Rashed, the Suman undead of Miiska, had ever struck out with such force. Magiere went down.