by Mel Odom
*****
Alagh?n Watch Sergeant Faholian Tahrass walked through the graveyard and gazed at the dead bodies that had been taken from the crypt by men in his command. One of the corpses lay naked under the misting rain. "Who are these people?" Tahrass asked. He'd been a member of the watch for seventeen years and not much surprised him. He'd been privy to murder and every kind of sadistic abuse a thinking creature could do to another. Dorric Chansin, Tahrass's young aide de camp, knelt beside the stripped man. Chansin wore rain leathers but they did little to mask the lean hardness of his body. A tracker, his hands roamed the area around the bodies. "Priests," Chansin answered. "Priests?" Tahrass shook his head, hoping Dorric was wrong. "What makes you think that?" Chansin took up one of the corpse's hands. "They're dressed in robes. Their hands are soft. The men don't have much coin between them, but they don't look poor." He held up an object that dangled by a string from his fingers. "And they all carried these." "Symbols of Eldath." Chansin closed his fist over the symbol and gazed up, eyes slitted against the rain. "You follow Eldath's teachings?" "It is my wife's faith," Tahrass said, "and my two daughters'. I have my own. Eldath's ways of peace are not for someone like me." Chansin gave a short nod and turned his attention back to the bodies. "There are some who say Eldath is taking a more active hand in the affairs of the lands around the Sea of Fallen Stars, in light of the return of Myth Nantar to the knowledge of men." "Even so," Tahrass said, "why would these men come to this place in the dead of night?" "I don't know." Chansin took a slim-bladed dagger from his boot and used the point to examine the gaping wound in the naked priest's head. "I would like to know what made this. I've never seen the like." "Magic, mayhap," Tahrass suggested. He glanced up from the body, feeling uncomfortable gazing at a fresh corpse in a place where so many old ones were kept. "Maybe they were already dead," he added. "And climbed up out of their graves?" Chansin smiled despite the harsh circumstances. "Could be," Tahrass replied, taking no offense. "During the years I've stood watch over Alagh?n, I've heard several tales of the dead walking out of graveyards or ambushing people when they come into them." "How many have you seen yourself?" "None." 'There you go," Chansin said. "With mages poking into everything, and necromancers tinkering with things best left alone, I know it's possible that such a thing could happen, but I've never seen it." "You're too young to remember," a creaky, hoarse voice said. Turning, Tahrass spotted a thin old man approaching them. Chansin stood, showing respect. "Mage Vorahl, I meant no disrespect." Vorahl was ancient even by standards set by mages. His skin, even though his health and life had been prolonged by spells, clung to his bones like coarse parchment. Age had pulled the man in on himself, collapsing him a lot over the twenty years that Tahrass had known him. Rain had turned Vorahl's gray hair dark, but silver highlights glinted from the lantern light. His dark purple robes held the badges of his office in the watch, and the intricate sigils of his craft. His staff, once just a tool, now supported his infirm steps. He glanced at the assembled bodies. With pain showing on his face from the effort involved, Vorahl bent over to look at the corpse. His sticklike fingers clung to the staff for support. He shook with palsy and perhaps from the cold. "You shouldn't be out here," Tahrass said. "We can take care of this." The soaking cold was almost too much for him, and his rain leathers offered more proof against the elements than the mage's robes. Vorahl waved the watch commander's words away and said, "When I heard about this, I knew I had to come." Tahrass waited, watching the agony the old mage put himself through to examine all the priests' bodies. "Six of them?" Vorahl asked as he gazed at the yawning mouth of the violated crypt. "Yes," Chansin answered. "And you got them all?" "We think so." Anger clouded Vorahl's crumpled face as he turned back to the two guardsmen. "You think so?" "We took out all we found," Tahrass said. In all the years he'd known the old mage, he'd never seen Vorahl so close to losing control. The wind whipped through the graveyard, raking wet whispers through the trees. "We must find them all," Vorahl stated. "Every man who was murdered here this night must be found." "We will," Tahrass promised. He waved toward the lanterns bobbing through the graveyard. "I've got men out looking for any more bodies and whoever did this." "You won't find him here," Vorahl commented, straightening and looking around the ivy-infested stone walls surrounding the graveyard. "He'll be long gone from this place." "Who?" Chansin asked. "Borran Kiosk," Vorahl answered. "These men were priests from the Temple of the Trembling Flower." "How do you know?" "Because," Vorahl said with an air of impatience, "all those years ago the Emerald Enclave, at the behest of Silvanus, entrusted the priests of Eldath here in Alagh?n to lock the creature away." "Borran Kiosk is a myth," Chansin said. "Then a myth killed these men," Vorahl snapped, "and escaped into the night." He turned from the younger man and hobbled around the bodies, taking care to keep even the hem of his robes from touching them. "We need to identify these men," Vorahl said. "I've already sent a man to fetch a priest from the temple," Chansin said. "As soon as these men are identified by the other priests," Vorahl said, "their bodies will have to be destroyed." "Why?" Chansin asked. "If they are not, they will rise again." Vorahl's voice lowered. "All killed by Borran Kiosk stand a good chance of rising once more as a mindless beast bent on the savaging of all living things. If they don't follow Borran Kiosk's leadership, they will kill on their own. A roaring fire is the only way to insure that they don't return-a fire to burn them first then a sledge to shatter their charred bones. Even burned skeletons have been known to walk." A sudden light flared south of the graveyard, climbing over the top of the stone wall. The nimbus of yellow light warred against the night and the storm. "That's a fire," Chansin said. "It has begun," Vorahl said in a solemn voice. "May the gods preserve us."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Morning light woke Druz Talimsir. She rose with slow deliberation, keeping her back to the cave wall. The druid and the bear were gone. Though she knew that neither Haarn nor his animal companion would have thought twice before abandoning her, the druid shouldn't have been able to move so quickly. Her legs tingled with weakness from all the climbing the day before, and the smell of cooking meat filled her nostrils and caused hunger pangs to erupt in her stomach. She turned to the mouth of the cave and started out. Pausing at the entrance, she took up a defensive position and lifted her sword in front of her, ready to strike. Straining her ears for any noises outside the cave, she peered around the entrance. A campfire nestled in a ring of stones on the ground in front of the cave. A brace of coneys hung from a spit over the fire. The slender rabbits' bodies dripped grease, sending flames leaping up at them. Haarn knelt at the disturbed grave, a curious look on his face. "What made this?" he asked without lifting his eyes from the hole in the ground. Druz didn't answer, her irritation growing at the druid's uncanny ability to know she was up and about. She'd made no noise. "Did you hear me?" he asked, facing her. "Yes," she replied. "I heard you." "Do you know what made this?" "A skeleton." Druz sheathed her sword, wondering if the druid intended to eat all the coneys or if there would be any left over. Her stomach rumbled again. "Did you summon it?" "How would I do that?" Druz said. "I wouldn't even have known it was down there." Haarn turned his gaze back to the deep hole. "Where's the bear?" Druz asked. "Foraging." Haarn examined the muddy ground around the hole, but Druz was sure he'd done that once before at least. For the first time she also noticed he was still nude save for herbal poultices that clung to his wounds. "How are you?" she asked. "I'm fine," replied the druid. "Your wounds-" "Are only inconveniences." Haarn stood and gazed down the mountainside into the forest. He peeled the poultices from his body to reveal wounds that had already knitted together and were well on their way to healing. "The skeleton left a good set of tracks," he added. Following Haarn's gaze in the direction of the rising sun, Druz said, "It's headed east." "For now," Haarn agreed. "I was surprised when it didn't try to kill us," Druz said. "Why would it just leave?" "That's something I'd like to know too." Haarn glanced at her then walked to where his clothing hung on a branch. "You'd ha
ve been better off getting out of those clothes before sleeping last night," he said. "They would have been dry by now." Druz didn't say anything. As a mercenary, she was used to nudity. Living in the field was a hardship that didn't differentiate between genders. The druid was different, though, but she didn't know why. She looked at the coneys steaming on the spit and said, "I thought you didn't like to kill animals." Haarn dressed, showing only a little stiffness in his movements. "The rabbit population is rising too quickly here," Haarn said, settling his scimitar around his lean hips. "We need the meat after the way we've been pushing ourselves." He padded barefoot through the mud, hardly leaving an impression despite the looseness of the ground. Druz watched him in wonder. The wolf had savaged him the night before, but Haarn hardly showed any sign of injury. Haarn took one of the spitted coneys and handed it to Druz. "Thank you," she said. She sat, a dull headache throbbing at the base of her skull and spreading up through her temples. She pinched meat from the coney and dropped it into her mouth. The meat was almost too hot, but the flavor was amazing. "It's very good." Haarn nodded, but he seemed a little uncomfortable with the compliment. His eyes kept drifting to the hole in the earth. "Where are the wolf pups?" Druz asked, remembering them for the first time that morning. "I gave them to the pack," Haarn answered. "They made it through the night and seemed strong enough to survive." Druz looked around and asked, "What of the pack?" "They've gone." "With no more trouble?" Haarn shrugged. "They tried to hide Stonefur's body," he said, "but I found it." He pointed at a hide-covered lump back by the mouth of the cave. "I took Stonefur's head so you would have it as proof." Druz pulled more strips of meat from the coney and continued eating. "Are we heading back today?" she asked. A hot bath followed by a night in a feather bed seemed too good to be true. She promised to treat herself to both those things when she got back to Alagh?n. "I'm not," Haarn said, making a neat pile of bones in front of him, each one broken where he had sucked the marrow from it. "What are you going to do?" Haarn looked east and said, "I'm going to follow the skeleton."
*****
Terror filled Alagh?n as news of Borran Kiosk's return spread through the community. During the night, the stories had circulated through the sailors' bars and been taken with them back to their ships. By morning, the stories flowed to the townspeople buying bread and meat for their tables, washing back from the merchant ships to land like the tide, by way of cargo handlers and merchants. In each telling the stories of the watch's encounter with the mohrg and the violent deaths of the priests of Eldath grew fiercer and uglier.
High in one of the older buildings on the west side of Alagh?n, not far removed from the gate that allowed entrance in from the western trade routes, Borran Kiosk gazed down from between the slats of a boarded-over window. From there the mohrg watched people gather fearfully in the streets and along the docks.
"You take pride in your accomplishment," Allis said.
For a moment, Borran Kiosk did not answer. After whisking him away to this hiding place, traveling swiftly across the rooftops of the city for a time, then dropping down to the street level and managing all the twists and turns there, the werespider woman had disappeared. No longer of the flesh, the mohrg needed no sleep. He'd passed the long, slow night aching for revenge against the living who still called Alagh?n home. It had been everything he could do to stay hidden, and only his fear of Malar's retribution had stayed his hand.
Sails lifted on one of the ships in the harbor. Slowly, the great Sembian merchant ship turned and headed east, bound for other ports.
They escaped, Borran Kiosk couldn't help thinking.
The idea rankled him, but he consoled himself with the thought that though the ship's crew had escaped his physical wrath, his arrival had given them stories they would never forget and never forget to pass on.
Borran Kiosk turned toward his visitor, momentarily putting aside his anger at her for not having come earlier. His great purple tongue slid through his jaws and tasted the air, licking the woman's scent from it.
"Yes," he said, "I do take pride in the fear they have of me. I have expended great effort to acquire that fear."
Allis regarded him from the doorway at the other end of the room. She was holding a woven basket that was covered by a dingy scrap of cloth. She looked like she was just returned from washing laundry.
She said, "You are everything I was told to expect."
"Who told you what to expect?" Borran Kiosk asked.
Ignoring him, she crossed the room and deposited the basket on a slanted, three-legged table.
The rooms had been vacant for years. Spider webs filled the corners and created fragile latticework bridges between piles of rubbish. Judging from the amount of refuse in the building, for a time after being vacated it had become a dumping ground for the businesses and homes around it.
Unleashing the rage that filled him, Borran Kiosk reached for Allis, closing his skeletal hand around her upper arm and pulling her around.
The woman turned easily, coming around almost like a lover acknowledging the favored attentions of her suitor, but even as that thought filled Borran Kiosk, he saw her change. She wasn't afraid of his grim, fleshless face as he'd thought she would be.
Her head erupted, becoming bigger and rounder, sprouting eyes and fangs. Venom dripped from the slash of mouth that no longer fit a human face. The arm Borran Kiosk held turned rough and covered over with spiky hair. Her simple green dress dropped to the floor, pooling around misshapen spider feet as she soared above him in height.
"No!" she said, her voice filling the enclosed space. "Don't you dare put your hands on me!"
As a spider standing on six of her eight legs, the woman was taller than Borran Kiosk, almost to the point of bumping her head on the ceiling rafters, and she was almost four times as large. She struck with her other forward leg, slamming into the mohrg's chest and head with incredible strength.
The impact lifted Borran Kiosk from his feet, though if Borran Kiosk chose not to be moved, not much could move him.
He flew across the room, mind working with lightning speed, and slammed against the far wall. He broke through the thin boards that covered the bare bones of the wall and stopped against the inside of the outer wall without breaking through. The impact fractured his left femur in two places, the breaks quite apparent.
Borran Kiosk threw a hand out, a spell already on its way. He watched the giant spider bob and weave at the other end of the room. The realization that she was afraid of him soothed the mohrg's nerves like a healer's balm. He was more in control of the situation than he'd expected.
His anger vanished, replaced by triumphant humor. In the past, his peers had pointed to those quicksilver mood changes as proof of his madness, but he knew he only looked on the world in a manner different from most. He closed his hand, stilling the destructive magical energies he'd almost unleashed.
Borran Kiosk grabbed the edges of the wall and extracted himself. Debris from the shattered wall rained around him, but he ignored it. His left leg moved awkwardly as the broken ends of the femur grated against each other. He reached down then spat his tongue out.
Wrapping the broken bones in the thick purple tongue, he used the magic that was an inherent part of what he'd become. Pain flared through his leg for a moment, then was gone. When he removed his tongue, the femur had been healed and nothing remained of the breaks.
Borran Kiosk raised his fierce gaze to the werespider and said, "You're afraid of me."
The huge spider shifted back and forth, scuttling on the tips of all eight legs, the fat body hanging ponderously between them.
"You are evil," Allis accused.
"And what are you?" Borran Kiosk advanced on her.
"I am a servant of Malar."
"Then why fear me?" Borran Kiosk asked, continuing to walk toward her. "I, too, walk in the Beastlord's shadow and serve his wishes."
"I don't fear you."
"You lie," Borron Kiosk said, letting his tongue whip through
the air. "I can taste it."
The spider retreated, pressing up against the wall behind her. She was too large to attempt to go through the door or any of the windows, and returning to human size would weaken her.
She said, "You live only to kill."
"As does Malar," Borran Kiosk said.
"That is but one aspect of his nature," Allis objected.
"A very important aspect."
The spider reared up on her four back legs, flattening against the wall. She held her four front legs before her, raised to defend herself if necessary.
"Malar called me here to help you," she said.
"Malar doesn't speak directly to someone like you."
Borran Kiosk stopped in front of her. He shook broken pieces of boards and splinters from his bloody priest's cloak.
"Who?" he asked.
The spider didn't hesitate. "I can't tell you," she said. "If I did, they would kill me."
Summoning a fireball, Borran Kiosk held it dancing in his fleshless palm. The heat was intense. He heard leftover cartilage in his hand pop and crackle, surrendering to the heat. The fire couldn't actually harm him, but the effect of the crackling sounds on Allis was immediate.
The spider shivered and drew back, the flames of the fireball reflected in all of her eight eyes.