The Alabaster Staff r-1

by Edward Bolme

  For some reason-to eliminate hiding places, Kehrsyn assumed-the man pushed the door all the way open. The movement caught her by surprise. Though she tried to pull her toe up from the hinge, she was not fast enough. The door pinned her foot between it and the wall for the merest instant before her foot pulled free. The man stopped, then quickly shifted back into the room, pick at the ready. He edged the door open again, squinting into the darkness, until his gaze rose to spot Kehrsyn up in the darkened corner.

  "I have protection," blurted Kehrsyn, wracking her brain for the name of the priestess.

  "Not from me," the man replied.

  "I have the sufferance of Tiglath," blurted Kehrsyn with relief.

  "Oh, you're one of Tiglath's, eh?" He hefted his pick with a smile. "Horat will be most interested to know you're here. You'd better hope Tiglath's protection goes a little farther for you in the afterlife."

  "You can't harm me!"

  "Watch," he replied.

  "She's your high priestess! Doesn't her promise mean anything?"

  "Not any more," he said.

  The Tiamatan started to reach for her with the head of his pick. It looked like he intended to hook Kehrsyn, pull her down, and capture her alive.

  Rather than fight it, Kehrsyn leaped. She pushed off with her arms and one foot. The other foot she extended to push the pick's head aside, just a matter of getting her shin inside the man's extended arm. As she leaped, she pulled her one foot back in so that her knee impacted the man's nose. She landed on top of him and heard the cartilage of his nose crunch beneath her weight. As they landed on the floor, Kehrsyn shifted as much of her momentum as possible into a roll. It wasn't enough, and her landing was hard, but judging by the throbbing in her knee, it was better than what her foe suffered. Kehrsyn rolled over and scrambled to her feet, drawing her dagger as she rose.

  The man rolled onto his hands and knees and shook his head to clear it. Blood slung in a veritable fan from his injury, his ponytail moving in counterpoint. Kehrsyn jerked back from the spray. The man got one knee in under him and wiped his eyes with his free hand.

  Kehrsyn saw her opportunity and stepped on the head of the pick where it lay on the ground. She drew her foot back, flipping the handle into her waiting hand. She hefted the pick and slung it inexpertly but with as much desperate force as she could muster. The cruel dragon's muzzle arced in and cracked the man's shoulder blade, driving him back to the ground. Kehrsyn dropped her dagger and swung again with both hands. The point slid between his ribs and buried itself in his chest. The man's back bent backward reflexively, then he shuddered twice, and save a freakish periodic twitch of one wrist, lay still.

  Kehrsyn trembled. She hadn't killed anyone before-hadn't had to, because she'd always had a means of escape. Her heart thundered, and tears clouded her eyes. She felt as if she would be violently ill. Her mind raced with the fact that she had killed one of the cultists and that the others would soon ferret her out and take their revenge. Past the pounding blood in her ears, she could hear that the fighting upstairs had all but stopped. She forced herself to focus, to find a way out of her situation, a means of escaping those who hunted her.

  She left the pick in the man's corpse and dragged him by the ankles to the foot of the staircase. There she heaved him on top of the man he had killed, placing him in such a position that, with luck, it would be assumed that he died either just before or during the fall down the stairs. As she stepped back, the heavy pick slid its way out of the man's back and clattered to the ground. Kehrsyn shuddered. Her hands felt greasy and unclean. It unnerved her to have handled-desecrated, her mother might have said-a dead body, still warm with the memory of its lost life.

  What to do about herself? Kehrsyn cast about, looking for hope and finding little in the ill-lit lower story. She heard footsteps above, heading in her direction-for the staircase-men she saw the puddle of blood that had dribbled down from above. It had grown to be quite sizeable, even alarming. Kehrsyn lay down at its edge, curling up in a half-fetal position so that it looked like the blood pooling in front of her was hers. She buried her face beneath one arm, clenched her teeth in nausea, and hoped the trembling from her revulsion at the cold blood wouldn't give her away.

  She waited. The footsteps of the Tiamat cultists ranged back and forth upstairs for an eternity before they came down.

  Kehrsyn's throat convulsed. She wanted to whimper in fear, wanted to run away as fast as she could. They talked in casual voices, mercifully drowned by the ambient noise of the crowd. Kehrsyn could only presume they were inspecting the bodies at the foot of the stairs.

  "Well," said one, more loudly as he walked closer, "at least he took out two of them."

  He stopped next to Kehrsyn, his robes rustling.

  Kehrsyn tensed as his feet shifted on the dirty floor. Would he stab her to ensure she was dead? The very thought was mortifying. He'd stab her in her back as she lay there. She could see the blade in her mind's eye. It felt like her kidneys were trying to crawl up her spine to hide beneath her ribs. She could feel them crying out as the Tiamatan speared them, time and again, in her imagination. She tried to relax and be limp, but couldn't, and finally she wondered if she was supposed to have rigor mortis.

  Why was he standing there for so long? she wondered. Please, go away!

  "Pity she got butchered," the Tiamatan said. "That's a nice head of hair."

  "So scalp her later," said a companion.

  The man standing over her nudged her with a boot, and an involuntary squeak escaped her throat. His feet shifted again, and her heart stopped, knowing her ruse had been betrayed by her surprise.

  A voice called down from the top of the stairs, "All clear?"

  "All clear," echoed one of the Tiamatans.

  "Very well," said the one upstairs. "Tear the place apart. I want it found!"

  The man over her stepped away, and he and the others began rummaging through the rooms. They talked and joked, banged drawers and doors, slit mattresses and tapped the walls for false panels, unafraid of being overheard for the noise of the crowds outside. They strode past her time and again as they tore the place apart.

  While death stalked around her, she clung to the advice in one of the ancient tales of her people: she never once opened her eyes to see the danger.

  After what seemed an eternity, Kehrsyn heard the last of the Tiamatans leave. Just to be safe, she lay there for what seemed another two or three hundred years, hearing nothing but the thudding of her heart. She soon arose, slowly, quietly, looking all around for signs of threat, but every body she saw lay still. Even the twitching of the dead Tiamatan's wrist had subsided.

  She removed her cloak, meticulously avoiding the blood as much as possible. In Tharrad's office, she was relieved to find her rapier had been overlooked or ignored, and she retied it to her belt. She recovered her dagger, then sneaked throughout the house, weapons in hand, searching each room for loiterers or survivors. There were none. Even the dog was dead. She found the sorceress in the front room, empty eyes staring at the ceiling, snarling mouth left devoid of threat. Blood soaked her torn jersey, testament to the blows that had killed her. Curiously, her left middle finger had been cut off.

  Part of Kehrsyn's mind wanted her to kick the vile woman in the head or spit on her corpse, but her heart could find only relief and some small pity within. No venom remained for the dead.

  She brooded as she stared at the slowly cooling corpse. It was frustrating to have her revenge cut short, to be sure, but at the same time she wondered if she weren't better off as a result. She had a job and a place to stay, and she was cleaner and better fed than she had been for months.

  The only catch, Kehrsyn thought as she stared at the sorceress, is that if I'm not careful, I'm more likely to end up like you.

  Even as she thought that, she heard a creak on the ladder outside the front door. Glancing through the gap in the curtain, Kehrsyn saw the telltale colors of red and black looming to fill the window.
/>   CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The visitor knocked on the door and started to open the latch. Kehrsyn had but a moment to react, so she leaped behind the door, her light frame landing silently and smoothly like a cat on the prowl. The door swung open, sweeping away her elbowroom, yet she concealed her rapier and readied her dagger, making no noise.

  A large figure dressed in rich red-and-black robes entered the room and drew up, heavy, wide hands pushing the door closed again.

  Kehrsyn heard the intruder gasp at the carnage. Nervous, but confident enough being both behind the newcomer and close to the exit, Kehrsyn stepped forward and placed the tips of her blades firmly into the intruder's back, dagger just behind the left ear and rapier pointed at the right kidney.

  The intruder stiffened.

  "I see you are a student of anatomy," the woman said in a firm and steady tenor, though the words were spoken softly and inoffensively.

  "I discovered many years ago that a good knowledge of anatomy can get you out of a great deal of trouble," said Kehrsyn.

  "I came to see Tharrad. Is he…?"

  "Don't lie to me," demanded Kehrsyn. "Why did you do this? Answer me, and perhaps I'll spare your life."

  She had to hope that her threat carried adequate menace. Kehrsyn knew she couldn't just skewer someone through the back, even if that someone worshiped Tiamat.

  "I had nothing to do with this," said the woman, raising her arms to her sides, "though it appears that some of my people were involved." She nodded to a decapitated body dressed in red and black. "I mean no foul play, and I am unarmed. If you please, I prefer to hold discussions face to face. May I turn?"

  "Yeah," said Kehrsyn, after some thought, "but keep your arms to your sides, and don't do anything stupid."

  Kehrsyn stepped back to ensure she remained out of reach of the woman's long arms.

  The newcomer turned around very slowly. With her feet obscured by the long, snow-wet hem of her Tiamatan robe, it was almost reminiscent of seeing a hanged criminal turning on a gibbet.

  "Tiglath!" blurted Kehrsyn as she saw the intruder's profile and unique scars.

  Tiglath raised her chin and said, "I recognize you."

  "Don't play the fool," said Kehrsyn. "You knew I was here, you just didn't expect me to be alive."

  "I am never the fool," said Tiglath. A brief pause. "Ah, yes, you were in our narthex, the one who chose to tell the truth. I granted you my sufferance."

  "Oh, I remember that," said Kehrsyn. She advanced, dagger held forward and aimed at Tiglath's throat, rapier level behind her, ready for a thrust to the torso. "Is sufferance your code word for 'kill her later'? That's an ugly way to pay someone back for giving you the truth."

  Tiglath drew herself up, and though her arms were still spread helplessly wide, her scar-framed eyes blazed with indignation. "How dare you? I would mete out great punishment for such temerity had I not already given you said sufferance."

  "Yeah, well, one of your brutes already tried that. Tried to kill me, he did. Your protection isn't worth two grains."

  At once Tiglath's eyes blazed even brighter, but the ire turned away from Kehrsyn and focused within as her eyes twitched to the side. Her nostrils flared, and her outstretched hands clenched into fists. At that moment, Kehrsyn decided it would probably be a very wise thing not to push Tiglath's patience too far.

  "Really?" growled Tiglath, as slow as rolling thunder.

  "Yes'm," said Kehrsyn, taking a step back. "I told him I had your sufferance just like you said, and he was even one of the ones there with you when you gave it." Kehrsyn watched as Tiglath pursed her lips. Her skin started blotching with red, making her scars stand out even more starkly. "You, um, can put your arms down, now," added Kehrsyn, not wishing to stoke the fires any further.

  Tiglath fixed Kehrsyn with her gaze again, a look gone from a firestorm to cold steel.

  "And where is this disobedient disciple now?" the priestess asked, her lips moving with exaggerated curves across her clenched teeth. Her arms began to drop.

  "I, uh… well, he's at the bottom of the stairs. Now."

  "Show me," Tiglath commanded.

  Kehrsyn took a look at Tiglath's eyes and at the tendons standing out on her neck, and decided to obey. She trotted through the house, skipping uneasily over the bodies, with Tiglath's heavy tread close behind. She moved down the staircase, vaulted over the rail to avoid the bodies at the bottom, and moved as far away as she could.

  Tiglath stepped over the bodies and grabbed the hair of the Tiamatan that Kehrsyn indicated. She raised his head and stared into his face, swollen and purple with pooling blood.

  "You bastard!" Tiglath spat.

  It was the quietest yell Kehrsyn had ever heard, yet it packed the anger and malice of an outburst a hundred times as loud. Tiglath's knuckles whitened where they gripped the ponytail, and the extra tension tautened the skin on the dead man's face. She threw the head back down with disgust and, still kneeling beside the corpse, turned to face Kehrsyn. She forced her face into a calm expression, but Kehrsyn could see the fires still blazing behind her eyes.

  "If you please," asked the priestess, "would you tell me exactly what happened here?"

  Kehrsyn gave a full accounting of what she had seen and heard, carefully skirting her involvement in the issue and especially avoiding any reference to the fact that she had been the one who'd stolen the necromantic wand in the first place. Tiglath nodded throughout the retelling, staring at an empty bit of space off to her left somewhere.

  "In short, ma'am," finished Kehrsyn, "I guess maybe it was a raid or something."

  "Indeed," replied Tiglath. "That fits the evidence." She stared straight at Kehrsyn. "I note your story neatly omits any reference to your involvement, but as I surmise your involvement was with Furifax and not with this worm, I'll allow your secrets to remain yours. You've been satisfactorily forthcoming with the information I need. Thank you for killing him, though it's a pity he didn't remain alive for interrogation."

  "Who was he?" hazarded Kehrsyn, as it appeared Tiglath was in a mood to talk.

  "He was one of my inner circle," answered the priestess, "one of my trusted advisors."

  "If he was considered trustworthy," observed Kehrsyn, "I'd sure hate to have your advisors."

  Tiglath snorted, and with a half-smile, said, "I suppose so. There's a feeling you get when the ground just starts to give way beneath your feet, or when the axle breaks on your wagon, or right after you've drunk too much. It's a feeling that there's something wrong, something imminent and close, but you can't put your finger on it and everything seems normal. I have had that feeling for some time within my church and most especially among my advisors. I dismissed those feelings as worry brought by the war. Now I know the feelings were right. I find that my most trusted people have been operating behind my back."

  "You're sure that's what's happening?" asked Kehrsyn.

  "I know they have not been pleased with some of my choices. I continued our alliance with Furifax and his people, and refused the aid of other, more aggressive, more ruthless factions. I did this to ensure that we did not save Unther only to yield our sovereignty to a foreign power. Not everyone sees the wisdom of this choice.

  "Further, now that the god-king Gilgeam has been killed, I wish to replace his despotic thearchy with a government modeled after some of the younger nations, a meritocracy where the power resides in the hands of a council that rules for the betterment of the nation, not their own vanity. This decision has also met with resistance. My advisors do not understand that seizing control of Unther for the church of Tiamat only replaces one thearchy with another, and I will not see my life's work perverted in such a manner."

  Tiglath sucked in her lips and drummed her fingers.

  "It seems," she said, "that those beneath me, some of them at least, have made other plans." She chuckled mirthlessly. "Curious that a high priestess learns more from a street-smart refugee than she does from her own people."

&nb
sp; Kehrsyn shrugged.

  "I am thankful that I spared you," said Tiglath, rather kindly for a woman of her imposing demeanor.

  "Yeah, well, so am I," said Kehrsyn, sheathing her weapons.

  An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a few moments, until Tiglath slapped her knees and heaved her bulk to her feet again.

  "Well," she said, "you said they were after something?"

  "Yeah, a magical relic that someone told me might be the Staff of the Necromancer. About so long," she added, gesturing.

  "Let's see if we can find it, shall we?" asked the priestess.

  Tiglath's voice rang with forced cheer, but then, Kehrsyn mused, at least the priestess was trying to be friendly, even if it didn't come naturally to her.

  "I really doubt we'll find it, if they didn't," said Kehrsyn. "They were very thorough."

  "I have better help than they," said Tiglath. "I'll be right back."

  The priestess went upstairs, and Kehrsyn heard her heavy footsteps tromp over to the front door, heard the door open and close again, and heard the stairs creak as Tiglath returned.

  On Tiglath's shoulder, Kehrsyn saw the smallest dragon she had ever seen. It peered back at her with two tiny, intelligent, emerald eyes. Its whiskers seemed to float as if underwater, and it bobbed its head as if scenting the air, or perhaps some ethereal breezes that moved beyond mortal senses. It peered closely at Kehrsyn, then stuck its muzzle in Tiglath's ear.

  "Really?" said Tiglath, speaking softly to her familiar. She pursed her lips with interest. "Fascinating," she added, as the dragonet withdrew its muzzle.

  "What's fascinating?" asked Kehrsyn, rather unnerved that Tiglath was looking at her differently in the wake of the dragonet's message.

  "Nothing, dear," answered Tiglath. "We have work to do."

  The priestess held her hand up to her shoulder, and the dragonet moved to perch upon it. Tiglath "tsked" and clucked a few times-soft, intimate noises-and the dragon flew away, whizzing from room to room, its wings sounding like giant wasps or paper sheets in a windstorm.