The Haunted Lands: Book II - Undead

by Richard Lee Byers

  Aoth watched in dismay as the dream vestige came streaming and boiling from empty air. He could hear its myriad voices moaning and whimpering even from high above.

  “You didn’t think we were going to get through the fight without seeing that thing again, did you?” Brightwing asked. The undertone of stress in her voice revealed that the wound she’d received from the ghost was still paining her.

  “I hoped so, but maybe the zulkirs can handle it this time. I know they talked about how to do it. Our job is to keep our troops away from it.” He flew around bellowing a warning, and other griffon riders took up the call in turn.

  Although perhaps it wasn’t necessary. The dream vestige had manifested just above the water and there it floated still, either because that was where Szass Tam wanted it or because it judged it would catch more prey there. Tentaclelike extrusions groping for any sentient swimming or flying creature unfortunate enough to be within reach, it streamed forward and engulfed one of the council’s war galleys. When it flowed on, no one was left on deck.

  The Red Wizards and the priests of Bezantur counterattacked with every form of magic at their disposal. Hurtling sparks exploded into blasts of flame at the center of the cloud. Thunderbolts pierced it, and howling winds shoved at it. Two of the largest conjured entities Aoth had ever seen, both eel-like with vaguely human upper bodies, spat their breath weapons, then swam in to rip with fang, claw, and scythe before dissolving in the dream vestige’s misty embrace.

  Aoth told himself that his allies must be hurting the thing. Whether alive or undead, no being was entirely impervious to harm. But they weren’t causing enough damage to stop it.

  It devoured the crew of a second ship.

  “Take me nearer,” said Aoth.

  “Are you joking?” Brightwing replied. “If the thing doesn’t grab us and eat us, a stray lightning bolt will fry us.”

  “I trust you to dodge the dangers.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “I need to look at the fog up close. If I do, I might see something nobody else can see.”

  “I think I liked you better blind.” Brightwing furled her wings and dived.

  They swooped over Szass Tam’s servant with the height of a tall ship’s mainmast separating them from the top of the billowing vapor. It wasn’t nearly enough separation to keep them safe. Composed of writhing, mewling shadows all ragged and intertwined, columns of mist shot up and lashed at them. Angled upward, a lightning bolt stabbed out of the cloud just in front of them and burned an afterimage across Aoth’s vision. An elemental in the form of a towering, roaring waterspout, a rudimentary face repeatedly forming and disappearing in the swirl, rushed toward them. Brightwing veered constantly, striving to evade whatever threat was closest without running straight into another.

  When they finished running the gauntlet, they were above the necromancers’ fleet, but the threat implicit in that seemed almost trivial compared to what they’d just endured. “Did you get what you wanted?” the griffon asked.

  “No,” Aoth said. “Do it again, but fly lower.”

  Brightwing laughed. “Of course. Why not?”

  As they skimmed just above its surface, the fog-thing tried even harder to seize them, and since its extrusions didn’t have to shoot far, the griffon had less time to dodge. Blasts of flame seared and dazzled them, and Aoth’s thoughts threatened to shatter into panic and confusion. The latter resulted from too much magic unleashed in too small a space and in too short a time, straining the foundations of reality itself.

  He struggled to ignore the distractions and look, although the cloud streaking by just under Brightwing’s talons and paws was so palpably vile that he wanted to cringe and avert his gaze. Murky, tangled, inconstant figures crawled over and over one another like a nest of snakes. Mouths gaped and twisted, and shredded fingers clutched and scrabbled.

  One of the dream vestige’s arms leaped up directly in front of Brightwing. She veered, but Aoth saw that she had little chance of avoiding it. Then an ammizu, a squat, bat-winged devil with a face like a boar, dived at the necromancers’ servant and the misty tentacle twisted away from the griffon to snatch for the baatezu.

  The shadowy vapor below gave way to black water. In another moment, Aoth and Brightwing hurtled beyond the dream vestige’s reach.

  “I’m not doing it a third time,” Brightwing rasped.

  “I wasn’t going to ask. Take me back to Lallara.”

  “It seems,” Tammith said, “that you’re a bad loser.”

  Tsagoth laughed. “Not really. I rather admire the way you tricked me. I’m here because Szass Tam ordered me to seek you whenever my other duties permitted. You could consider it a compliment of sorts that he took special notice of your departure.” He vanished.

  Tammith had been expecting such a trick. She whirled and swung her sword in a horizontal cut at the level of Tsagoth’s belly.

  But the attack fell short. She assumed he’d position himself close enough to attack instantly, without the necessity of stepping in, but she’d been mistaken.

  He sprang at her before she could recover. She flung herself to one side, and three of his snatching hands closed on empty air. The fourth, however, grabbed her shoulder, yanked, and came away with flesh, leather, and lengths of rattling chain clutched in the talons.

  She cried out at the burst of pain but couldn’t allow it to slow her. Tsagoth pivoted toward her, and she heaved her blade into line. He halted rather than risk impaling herself on her point, and she retreated farther away from him.

  She’d kept herself alive for at least another moment, but that was all. She had no hope of winning. She still carried the hurt the zombie had given her, Tsagoth had just injured her a second time, and he overmatched her in any case.

  But if she couldn’t prevail, she might still survive. She couldn’t turn into bats and flee over open water, but he wouldn’t be able to harm her if she melted into mist, and so, although the savage part of her protested, she willed the transformation.

  Pain stabbed into her back. She lost control of the change, and her form locked into solidity again.

  In fact, she lost control of everything and couldn’t move at all. Her legs buckled beneath her, dropping her to her knees. She would have fallen farther, but something was holding her up. Her head lolled backward, and then she could see it. At some point, Tsagoth had used his hypnotic powers on one of the sailors, who now crept forward and thrust a spear into her back.

  The mortal had done a good job of it, to penetrate her mail and plunge the lance in deeply enough that the wooden shaft transfixed her heart. That was why she couldn’t move, and likely never would again.

  Tsagoth advanced and reached for her head, probably to tear or twist it off. Then a thunderous shout staggered the blood fiend and flayed flesh from the upper part of his body. Winddancer and Bareris plunged down on top of him. The griffon’s talons impaled Tsagoth, and his momentum smashed him down onto the deck.

  Tsagoth heaved himself onto his knees, tumbling his attackers off of him. He scrambled upright, and gathered himself to spring before Winddancer found his footing or Bareris could shift his sword to threaten him. Then Mirror, resembling a sketch of Bareris wrought in smoke and starlight, flew down on his flank. The ghost cut, and his intangible blade sheared into Tsagoth’s torso. The blood fiend staggered.

  Attacking relentlessly, the newcomers pushed Tsagoth down the deck toward the stern. Bareris slipped off Winddancer’s back, ran to Tammith, shoved the unresisting sailor away from her, and, grunting, pulled the spear out of her back.

  As soon as he did, her mobility returned. She felt an itching across her body and realized that, with a length of wood jammed in her heart, she’d already started to rot. Now the process was reversing.

  Bareris threw the spear over the side. “I have to fight.”

  She bared her fangs and stood up. “So do I.”

  She expected him to protest that she ought to keep away from Tsagoth, at least un
til her wounds closed, but he didn’t. Something in her manner must have told him he couldn’t dissuade her. He simply turned and advanced on their foe, and she glided after him.

  Bareris didn’t try to climb on Winddancer’s back, nor, biting and clawing, did the griffon need a rider to encourage him to fight. Battling in concert, the four of them—bard, beast, ghost, and vampire—harried Tsagoth, each defending when the blood fiend oriented on him and attacking from the side or rear when their adversary sought to rend a comrade.

  By degrees, they slashed Szass Tam’s agent into a patchwork of gaping wounds, and dark sores erupted where Mirror’s sword had penetrated. The fiend couldn’t heal them fast enough, and Tammith prayed that he was too lost to battle rage to realize that his only hope was to translate himself through space to safety.

  His wolfish muzzle partly sliced from the rest of his head, he leered at her as if he’d read her mind, as if to promise that he wouldn’t leave with the matter between them unresolved. Then he charged her.

  That action required him to abandon any attempt at defense, and Bareris, Mirror, and Winddancer all cut deep. But Tsagoth didn’t drop, the reckless tactic caught Tammith by surprise, and she couldn’t dodge in time. The blood fiend grabbed her and bulled her onward. They smashed through the rail and plummeted into the sea.

  The circle of abjurers recited the final line of their incantation, and power whined through the air. Some of the shrouds attached to the foremast snapped. But the cloud-thing across the water continued devouring every sentient being it could seize, exactly the same as before.

  Aoth was disappointed, but not surprised. Lallara and her subordinates had tried thrice before with the same lack of success.

  The zulkir pivoted and lashed the back of her hand across a female Red Wizard’s mouth. Her rings cut, and the younger woman flinched back with bloody lips.

  “Useless imbeciles!” Lallara snarled. Then she looked at Aoth, and, to his amazement, gave him a fleeting hint of a smile. It was the first such moment in all his years of service. “There. That made me feel a trifle better, but it didn’t help our situation, did it?”

  “No, Your Omnipotence. I guess it didn’t.”

  “Then it’s time to go. Would you care to accompany us? Perhaps you’ve earned it, even if this last piece of information—or alleged information—you brought me is worthless, too.”

  “Mistress, is it possible that if you and the other zulkirs all combined your powers—”

  “I think not, and for all we know, the others have already transported themselves to safety.”

  “Surely it wouldn’t take long to find out for certain.”

  She scowled. “The dream vestige has turned the tide in Szass Tam’s favor, and our fleet is going to lose. I don’t like it either, but that’s the way it is. Now, do you want to live?”

  “Yes, Mistress, very much. But I have griffon riders in the sky.”

  She looked up, then snorted. “By my estimation, not many, not anymore.”

  “Still.” He swung his leg over Brightwing’s back.

  Tammith and Tsagoth splashed down into the dark water, and it paralyzed her as completely as the spear, even as it ate at her like acid. As they sank deeper, the blood fiend clawed and bit at her eroding flesh.

  Something else plunged into the sea. Her eyes were burning like the rest of her, but she could make out Winddancer’s talons ripping at Tsagoth, and Bareris’s sword stabbing repeatedly.

  The blood fiend vanished.

  The weight of Tammith’s mail dragged what was left of her deeper amid a cloud of corruption. Now she was beyond Winddancer’s reach. Her fingers corroded to nothing, and her sword fell away.

  Bareris dived after her, seized her, and struggled to swim upward. She herself wasn’t weighing him down. She scarcely had any weight left. Her mail and his brigandine were the hindrances.

  She felt relieved when her chain shirt slipped off the wisp of mush she’d become, and he finally started to make headway toward the air above. She couldn’t have borne it if he’d drowned.

  But it was too late for her, and probably that was for the best. Now she couldn’t hurt him anymore. She wished she could tell him so, and then blackness seemed to rise like a great fish from the gulf beneath her and swallowed everything.

  Sopping wet, the wind chilling him, Bareris stood at the rail and stared out at the night. Illuminated by the flickering glow of burning ships and flares of mystic force, the battle raged before him on the sea and in the sky, and he knew he could make sense of it if he wanted. But he couldn’t muster any interest.

  Why did I swim to the surface? he wondered. What was the point? Why can’t I find the courage to dive back in?

  Wings snapped and fluttered behind him. He assumed it was Winddancer trying to dry her feathers until Aoth’s voice said, “I expected to find you aloft directing the men.”

  Bareris took a breath, then reluctantly turned to face his comrade. “I was. Then I saw Tsagoth fighting Tammith. He was pressing her hard.”

  Aoth closed his smoldering eyes as if in pain. Perhaps he’d just realized that Tammith was nowhere to be seen, or maybe he surmised her fate from Bareris’s manner. “My friend, I’m truly sorry.”

  “So am I,” Mirror said.

  For some reason, their sympathy infuriated Bareris, but he realized in a dim way that he ought not to let his anger show. “Thank you,” he said, his voice catching in his throat.

  “If I were you,” Aoth said, “I’d just want to stand here and grieve. But you can’t. The battle’s going against us. Lallara’s fled already, and maybe the other zulkirs, too. I don’t know how many griffon riders are still alive, but we need to collect them and try to lead them to safety. On the wing, if we think land is close enough, and aboard this vessel otherwise.”

  Bareris drew breath to say, Go without me.

  But Mirror spoke first. “I thought we were winning.”

  “We were,” said Aoth, “but then Szass Tam unleashed the dream vestige, and for all their theorizing and preparations, the Red Wizards can’t stop it. I thought I’d discovered something that would help them, but it was no use, either.”

  “What was it?” Mirror asked.

  Aoth made a sour face. “The souls that make up the cloud are in torment, tangled together as they are, trapped in a kind of perpetual nightmare, and they hate one another even more than they hate the rest of the world. Much as they hunger to eat the living, they’re even more eager to lash out at their fellows, but something about their condition—some binding Szass Tam created, perhaps—prevents it. I hoped knowing that would give the Red Wizards an opening, but …” He shrugged.

  Bareris wasn’t making any effort to attend to Aoth’s explanation. The dream vestige no longer interested him, or so he imagined. Yet even so, his friend’s words evoked an idea, and an urge to do something more than “stand here and grieve.”

  “It might be a weakness we can exploit,” he said. “I’m going to try.”

  Aoth scowled. “I told you, Lallara and her circle had the same information, and they couldn’t slay the thing. Neither can Iphegor Nath and the other high priests.”

  “That may be,” said Bareris. “But no one weaves magic to spark or twist emotion better than a bard.” And he believed at that moment, he understood suffering and hatred as well as any singer ever born.

  “Is this just a fancy way of committing suicide?” Aoth demanded. “I ask because it won’t end your pain, or send you to rejoin Tammith. You’ll be stuck inside that thing, sharing its agony, forever.”

  “I promise, my goal is to destroy it.”

  “Let him try,” said Mirror to Aoth. “You’d do the same if you believed you had any chance of succeeding.”

  Aoth snorted. “After watching Lallara abandon the fleet to its fate? Don’t count on it.” He turned his head toward Bareris. “But all right. I won’t stand in your way.”

  “Thank you.” Bareris looked around at some of the surviving sailors and
called for them to lower a dinghy. Since the dream vestige wasn’t far away, he saw no reason to take Winddancer close enough for the cloud-thing to grab.

  “I’ll come with you,” Mirror said.

  “No, you won’t. You can’t sing spells or row a boat, so you truly would be risking your existence for no reason whatsoever, and that would trouble me.”

  The ghost lowered his head in acquiescence.

  It didn’t take the mariners long to put the dinghy in the water, or for Bareris to climb into it. He nodded to his comrades, then rowed toward the dream vestige.

  Nothing molested him. Except for mindless things like zombies and their ilk, even Szass Tam’s other minions were trying to stay clear of the fog-thing, and so they made no effort to intercept a boat headed toward it.

  When he was close enough, he started to sing.

  He sang of loving Tammith more than life itself and losing her over and over again. Of hating the world that inflicted such infinite cruelty, and despising himself still more for his failure to shield his beloved from its malice. Of the insupportable need to attain an end. He took rage and grief, guilt and self-loathing, and sought to forge them into a sword to strike a blow against Szass Tam and to aid his friends.

  The dream vestige extended a murky arm. He kept singing. The groaning, whispering swirl of shadowy figures engulfed him and hoisted him into the air.

  The phantoms slithered around him like pythons trying to crush him. Their jagged fingers scratched and gouged. Shocks of fear and cold jolted him, and he felt some fundamental quality—the boundary that made him a separate entity, perhaps, as opposed to just one more helpless, crazed component of the fog—rotting and dissolving.

  Rotting and dissolving as Tammith had, turning to scum and nothingness in his embrace. He focused on that and it gave him the strength to force out another note and another after that, to keep trying to enflame the dream vestige’s wrath and self-hatred until they were strong enough to burst any constraint.