The Crimson Gold

by Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  “Yes, I did.”

  Tazi sighed and rested against the dead griffon, trying to catch her breath. She wiped at her forehead, thinking that it was sweat that dripped down her face and neck, but her hand came away wet with her own blood. She blinked at her gory fingers.

  “Trying to look like me?” Justikar asked her with a smirk, and when she glanced at him blankly, he pointed at his bald pate.

  “Darkenbeasts,” she answered simply, and the dwarf gave her a curt nod. “Where are yours?” she asked.

  “Gone,” he replied.

  “They’re all gone?’ she said in amazement.

  “They’ve been slaughtered,” he nodded bitterly, “but not before they took out most of Eltab’s flock. There’s the odd clutch scattered around, though. I can still ‘hear’ them. And they still listen.”

  Without another word, Tazi turned away from the duergar and clambered up the large rock pile that was just behind the griffon’s body to get a better view. In the red blaze of the fires and the lava that continued its inevitable course down the mountains, she could see mayhem and destruction everywhere. Along the western ridge, bodies were stacked like cord wood. Tazi could make out some of the colors of Szass Tam’s troops, now truly dead. Strewn in between, she saw the occasional lizard claw or bloated lamia tail poking through the carnage. On the eastern slopes, Tazi watched as her orcs slashed viciously at the albino lizards. The reptile men had acquired weapons from the fallen zombie legions and were quite proficient at using them. But Tazi’s heart sank when she saw that demons still emptied out of the central peak.

  She turned back toward the Citadel and closed her eyes. She summoned the last of the undead soldiers Szass Tam had left at her disposal. They marched out and began to assume the positions of their fallen brethren. Wearily, she opened her eyes again.

  “They keep coming,” she told the dwarf. “Szass Tam must have failed in his bid to stop them.”

  “You think he stuck it out?” the duergar asked. “I’m sure he and those other sour-faced wizards fled as soon as we stepped out onto the battlefield.”

  “No,” Tazi disagreed with him. “Somehow, and I can’t tell you why, I think he stayed. For his own, warped reasons he cares about this land more than we do.”

  “Than you do,” he corrected her.

  “It doesn’t matter now, if we can’t stop them,” she said. She looked to the peak that erupted again and realized that it was the only one still active. It was also where the demons continued to emerge from.

  “All that’s left is to stop that demon,” Tazi added, “and I think I know where I can find him. Justikar, you have to lead the rest of the forces in my place.”

  “It makes no difference,” he argued. “As many as we throw at them, they match.”

  “No,” she shook her head, “forget that. What you have to do is fortify the barricade now. It’s the only chance the people of Thay have. Stack up the dead if you have to, but make a wall to stop the lava flow. I don’t care if you have to kill every last one of them to do it. Understand?” she shouted at him.

  Justikar smiled broadly at her. “Now you’re finally speaking a language I can understand.”

  Tazi shot him a grin in return and broke into a run toward the central peak. She didn’t look back at the dwarf. She had to trust him now; there wasn’t a choice any longer. And still Szass Tam’s words about choices and consequences rang in her head.

  With the last eruption, a series of lava bombs were released. One came whistling down like a meteor in the night sky and nearly hit Tazi. When it struck the ground, the explosion blew her off her feet. She landed hard and was dazed for a minute. As she lay on her back staring at the red-gray night sky heavy with smoke, an albino lizard came upon her, spear in hand.

  It thrust its weapon at her, and Tazi rolled to one side, narrowly missing being skewered by the monster. Its spear stuck in the ground, and she rolled back over it, using her body to snap the pole out of the lizard’s claw and knock the shaft to the ground. As she rolled underneath the unarmed lizard, she stabbed up with her sword and killed it. Tazi got to her feet and took up the spearhead in her other hand.

  She jumped over bodies and ran in a crisscross pattern, dodging flaming missiles and debris. Tazi sprinted as though she wore blinders like a horse. She refused to see or stop for any of the slaughter around her. Orcs raged beside her, overwhelmed in their own berserker fury, smashing the lizards and demons with incredible strength. Tazi was lost to her own red haze. She sliced anything that crossed her path and was as unstoppable as the lava flow, slowly working her way up the steep incline of the central slope along the only narrow path that was not presently engulfed in lava. At times, she had to sheathe her sword and use her free hand and the spear to hoist herself up through the rocks and boulders, walking a fine tightrope. She was covered in sweat from the intense heat as she finally neared the core of the volcanic peaks.

  Close to the top, she spotted a lamia that had completely encircled a fallen zombie, locked together in a twisted, lovers’ embrace. She ignored them and tried to get past. The lamia, however, struck out with its tail and slashed Tazi’s right leg, while it continued to constrict the corpse of the soldier. The venomous stinger cut through her leathers, and Tazi hissed in pain. She grabbed the spear with both her hands and drove it into the monster with a grunt of rage. The weapon not only impaled the lamia, but the zombie as well and pinned them both to the ground. The two squirmed there, caught like a strange multi-limbed bug on a dissecting table. She climbed on.

  Tazi had to scale the last twenty feet of the nearly vertical face of the volcano. She struggled for handholds and could already feel her leg growing numb from the lamia’s sting. She fleetingly thought of her climbing boots, abandoned somewhere back in Pyrados a thousand years ago. She wiped at her eyes to clear the sweat from them and rested her head against her outstretched arms for a brief pause. When she turned her head back, she could see the forces of Szass Tam lined up across the field of battle like a hasty dyke before the floodwaters. She continued up the last few feet thinking that she might be Thay’s last chance.

  She pulled herself over the rim of the volcano and slid into it a few feet on her stomach, scratching her arms and face. Tazi scrambled to her feet as best she could with her game leg and looked directly into the face of hell. The volcano was framed by heavy clouds of smoke, glowing a dirty red from the fires. The heat was almost too much to bear and near the center of the fiery furnace, Eltab stood with his arms raised, great wings spread wide. In the heart of the tempest, he was speaking a strange language. To Tazi, it seemed older than time itself. But, judging from the way that the center of the volcano bubbled and boiled in time with his chants, Tazi believed he was trying to conjure up even more lava.

  “Stop!” she shouted down to the tanar’ri lord, her voice almost lost in the maelstrom. But the demon-king heard her, and he slowly turned around.

  His skin glistened like fresh blood, and his eyes were twin suns, blazing brightly. Tazi thought he had even grown taller, if such a thing was possible. His horns were longer and more gnarled, twisted high above his head. His huge wings flexed and twitched in excitement. Eltab gnashed his jaws and saliva hung like icicles from his huge canines.

  “Ah,” he rumbled at Tazi, “it is my savior.”

  “What?” Tazi demanded.

  “I owe all of this,” and he spread his arms even wider, “to you. I saw through that weakling’s eyes that you were the one who brought the spells to the dark-haired woman. You gave her the key to my prison, and I am eternally grateful.”

  Tazi swayed as her leg started to fail her. She drew her sword and held it low at her side. “I’m here to put an end to this,” she said gravely.

  The demon looked at her through slitted eyes. “I should strike you dead,” he told her, “but I see something in you, something familiar.” He slowly strode up the slope of the volcano and stopped ten feet from where she stood. Since Tazi was closer to the rim of th
e crater, she was evenly sized with the tanar’ri lord. He passed his hand in the direction of her leg, and suddenly Tazi felt strength pour back into the limb.

  “That is a small measure of my gratitude, woman. There is so much more than that in store for you if you want it,” he promised her with the voice of a serpent.

  “I don’t want your gifts,” she spat back at him.

  “Are you so sure?” he asked her slyly. “I see you proudly bear the gifts from others such as myself.” He gestured to Tam’s mark, and the crystal of Shar’s she still wore about her neck. Steorf was right about the chain’s strength, she thought absently.

  “All I want is your head,” she said in a low voice.

  “Try and take it then.”

  Tazi charged at the beast as he waved his hand at her again. This time, however, there was no healing gift. Showers of fire streaked from his fingertips. Tazi realized there was no cover for her to use, and she raised her sword instinctively as a shield. To both their surprise, the eldritch weapon Tazi had stolen from Szass Tam’s armory absorbed most of the demon fire, though a spray of it skipped past the blade. She hissed in pain as her shoulder was scalded directly where the necromancer had left his sign, but she hardly felt it as she watched her sword glowing with Eltab’s absorbed bolts. The glow diminished, and the blade was intact. She charged him again.

  Eltab backed up, and he and Tazi began to circle around the rim of the volcano. Tazi was very aware that she could not move too close to the bubbling core for longer than a few moments because of the excruciating heat. The tanar’ri lord closed his eyes and flung out his right arm. He roared in pain as an extension of his bones burst through the webbing between his claws and grew to a length of four feet. He fashioned a sword of sorts from his own body, bits of marrow and tendon dangling from it, slick with his blood. Suitably armed, he advanced on Tazi.

  They crossed swords, and Tazi knew immediately that she was outmatched in size and strength. When she blocked one of his thrusts, she felt the vibration of the force through her entire arm and shoulder. She realized that if she was going to stop him, she was going to have to find a way to outwit him. Tazi knew her life was forfeit regardless. With a cry of anger, she lunged forward and stabbed at him at every turn. The demon-king matched her stroke for stroke.

  Keeping one eye on the bubbling core to her right, Tazi thought it was churning even more, and she realized she hadn’t felt a tremor for several minutes.

  It’s building up, she thought to herself. The demon sliced her across the forearm, and the wound burned as if it had been doused in acid. As Eltab started to press the advantage, Tazi vaguely wondered why he only relied on his physical strength and didn’t use more of his sorcerous powers against her. She didn’t think Tam’s sword could protect her from much more of it. And as she backpedaled toward the core, Tazi started to wonder if she had been mistaken from the start. Had Eltab been strengthening the forces within the volcano, or had he been feeding off of them instead?

  She dodged a gurgle of lava at her feet and managed to get behind the tanar’ri lord, away from the core.

  “Do you wish to fight,” he mocked her, “or do you prefer to dance?”

  “I prefer for you to die,” she replied, realizing how foolish she sounded.

  As she engaged him again, Tazi saw that on the opposite side of the crater, several of the Blooded Ones were scrambling up. Eltab had not yet seen them. Tazi was caught unaware, though, and as a bit of the superheated rock crumbled under her, she tumbled down. Eltab leaned over, and for a bizarre moment Tazi was sure he was going to help her to her feet. Instead, he scooped up a small handful of lava and threw the molten stuff at her. She vainly tried to raise her sword against the assault with little success. The weapon stopped some of it, but most of the deadly slag caught Tazi along her right side and leg.

  “What I give,” the tanar’ri lord told her as he pointed to her now re-injured limb, “I take away.”

  Tazi lay still. In spite of everything, she held her sword more out of instinct than conscious thought. The lava flowed down the blade and though it emanated its eerie light, the sword could not absorb the heat a second time. The metal burned down as well, and Tazi dropped the blade before it could scald her. As the flaming sword fell to the ground, the initial, numbing shock Tazi suffered wore off. She howled in agonizing pain and writhed along the crater rim. Eltab raised his bone-sword for the killing stroke.

  From across the crater, the Blooded Ones responded to their leader’s anguish in kind. The handful that had reached the rim screamed back in a berserker rage. The demon-king turned in surprise at the new intruders. The orcs, though caught up in a frenzy, didn’t attempt to run the gauntlet through the lava. They kicked and smashed at the boulders and loose rock along the volcano’s edge and threw their haphazard missiles and spears at the demon-king.

  While he blocked the assault, Tazi realized she had lost. Tears of rage and pain streaked her filthy face. The right side of her body was all but useless, and she could smell her burnt flesh over the sulfurous belching of the mountaintop. She watched helplessly as the tanar’ri lord raised his hands in the air, and a wave of lava rose up to shield him from the orcs’ strike.

  Tazi decided she wanted to die on her feet. She pushed against the ground with her left hand and struggled to rise. A glint in her right boot caught her eye.

  Still nestled safely in her secret sheath, the crimson gold dagger winked in the firelight. It was all she had left, and Tazi bitterly realized that she and the bewitching treasure had somehow unleashed the chain of events that wrought the havoc all around her.

  As Eltab turned to face her a final time, framed by the wall of fire behind him, Tazi reacted. She grabbed the perfectly crafted dagger and threw it underhand to strike the demon-king.

  “This can go to hell,” she croaked, “and so can you.” With uncanny accuracy, the crimson gold caught Eltab straight through the heart. He looked down at the sorcerous metal shaft that protruded from his chest in shock and disbelief.

  “I missed once,” Tazi rasped in explanation, “and let a great evil escape. I don’t miss anymore.”

  He dropped his bone-sword and wailed, all the while clawing ineffectually at the dagger. The demon-king literally began to peel into two beings. His whole body was engulfed in a cool, blue flame that started on one side of his body and raced to outline his whole form. Eltab’s head snapped back, and he balled his claws into useless fists, unable to dislodge the dagger.

  His howls pierced the night, but his hellish rage did not stop the smaller, human form that tumbled from the tanar’ri lord’s glowing one. Tazi watched, awestruck, as a red-haired human fell forward, the crimson dagger still embedded in his chest. And the tanar’ri lord, no longer anchored to his human host, toppled backward into the bubbling heart of the volcano, his screams cut off as soon as he hit the molten bath.

  Tazi blinked hard and lost her balance. She fell toward the lava, too weak from her wounds to be able to stop herself. As her knees buckled, Tazi felt herself jerked back by a strong arm around her waist. She twisted her head. Justikar’s stern face peered back into hers—an almost worried expression in his eyes.

  “That makes two,” he shouted at her. “Now we’re even!”

  Tazi couldn’t speak. She glanced back at the heart of the volcano, half-expecting to see the tanar’ri lord rise up from the lava, but the world exploded around them. A giant quake shook the peak so violently that the far end of the crater rim crumbled in on itself. The duergar managed to find purchase within a nook along the rim and hung on to it and Tazi.

  The remaining Blooded Ones, however, were not as lucky. They tumbled into the core, followed along by the rush of boulders and rocks from the volcano rim. The earthen debris sealed off the heart of the volcano and stopped the last of the lava flow.

  Tazi felt the dwarf move stones and rubble off of her. He held her in his sinewy arms, and Tazi could see from where they were that the remaining demon spawn of Elt
ab’s were retreating back into the depths of the Thaymount.

  “With him gone,” she whispered and didn’t even realize she spoke aloud, “Szass Tam’s spells must be able to take hold.”

  The dwarf simply held her without saying a word. Tazi’s head lolled to one side, and she could see somewhat down the mountainside. The lava had been stopped. But mired within the now-cooling flow were thousands upon thousands of bodies. Everywhere Tazi turned, all she saw was a sea of red. Finally, her wounds were too much. As oblivion called for her, Tazi welcomed the cold darkness.

  10th Kythorn 1373 DR

  Tazi was lost in the shadows. There was no longer any pain. The severe burning of her flesh had eased and cold night was everywhere. She realized she had never known such peace before this moment, alone in the dark. The rage that had boiled inside her had also faded to only a whisper. And somewhere in the blackness, a voice sighed. She could almost understand the words.

  “Tazi.” She finally did hear her name and somehow managed to swim up from the icy depths to consciousness.

  “Hmmm …” she sighed and stretched her body slowly, reveling in the feeling of comfort. Her eyelids fluttered open and, at first, she didn’t know where she was. Tazi could make out that she was in a darkened room, lying in a large bed, covered by a heavy, satin coverlet. Her head rested atop several down pillows. She was confused but not frightened. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what had happened. She placed a smooth, white hand against her forehead and rubbed her temples with her thumb and fingers.

  Her face felt cool and uninjured. What happened to the burns? She raked her hands through her hair, and not only were there no longer any wounds on her scalp, her hair was thick again, and it was as long as it had been before her father died.

  She threw the coverlet from the bed and saw that she wore a sleeveless nightgown of amethyst silk with a plunging neckline. But what was startling was that she could very easily see, through the near-transparent material, that she was whole again. There were no longer any burns or wounds anywhere along the length of her body. Nor did she feel the fever in her mind that had raged there since she had immersed herself in the alchemical blood. It seemed her bond to the Blooded Ones had been severed by their death in the volcano. Tazi was stunned. A soft cough startled her, and she looked about the room for the source. A shadow separated itself from the wall and moved toward the bed.