Unclean: The Haunted Lands

by Richard Lee Byers

  “All I’m suggesting,” said Aoth, “is that we proceed cautiously.”

  “We will,” Nymia said briskly, “but proceed we must, and never stop until we’ve purged Pyarados of this plague, which brings us back around to the question of just how soon we can head into the pass.”

  Realizing it would be fruitless to argue any further, Aoth at last managed to hold his tongue.

  After the council of war broke up, he tried to join the merrymaking in the streets, only to make the depressing discovery that it failed to divert him as in days of yore. Wondering why anyone ever aspired to become an officer, nipping from a bottle of sour white wine, he prowled aimlessly and watched other folk wallowing in their pleasures.

  Finally, his meandering steps led him back to the home in which he and Brightwing were billeted. The griffon perched atop the gabled roof. When she caught sight of him, she spread her wings and half-leaped, half-glided down to the street. A stray mongrel that evidently hadn’t discerned her presence hitherto yipped and ran.

  “How did it go?” Brightwing asked.

  Aoth grinned a mirthless grin. “About as well as I expected. Nymia’s desperate to prove her competence and avert the zulkirs’ displeasure. Everybody else is proud of himself for besting a terrible foe. Accordingly, no one was in the mood to hear that we’ve only won a few petty skirmishes, with all the battles that matter still to come.”

  Brightwing gave her head a scornful toss. “I don’t understand how humans can ignore the truth just because it’s unwelcome.”

  Aoth sighed. “Maybe the others are right and I’m wrong. What do I know anyway?”

  “Usually, not much, but this time, you’re the one with his eyes open. What will you do now?”

  Aoth blinked in surprise at the question. “Follow orders and hope for the best. What else can a soldier do?”

  “If he serves in the Griffon Legion, he can fly south and speak his mind to this Milsantos Daramos.”

  Aoth realized it could conceivably work. Pyarados was Nymia’s domain to govern, but as tharchion of Thazalhar, Milsantos was her equal in rank, and since she herself had asked him to participate in the current campaign, they shared authority in the muddled fashion that, the war mage abruptly realized, had hampered Thayan military endeavors for as long as he could remember.

  In this case, however, it might prove beneficial. If he could convince Tharchion Daramos of the validity of his concerns, the old warrior could then pressure his fellow governor to adjust her strategy, and it seemed possible if not probable that Nymia actually would heed him. Aoth had never met the man, but of all the tharchions, he had the reputation for being the canniest commander, and the most sensible in general.

  Yet …

  “I can’t,” he said. “Nymia Focar is my tharchion. It would be an act of disloyalty for me to run to another commander with my concerns. To the Abyss with it. This is a strong army and we’ll win. We may pay a heavier price for our victory than Nymia anticipates, but we’ll have it in the end.”

  Brightwing grunted, an ambiguous sound that might signify acquiescence, disapproval, or both at once.

  Aoth resolved to put his misgivings out of his mind. “I wish I knew where Chathi’s gone,” he said.

  “Why, nowhere,” she replied.

  He turned. The priestess stood in the house’s doorway with a pewter goblet in either hand. She wore only a robe, open all the way down the front, though the night obscured all but a tantalizing suggestion of what the gap would otherwise reveal.

  Aoth felt a grin stretch across his face. “I thought you’d be off somewhere celebrating with everybody else.”

  “I hoped that if I waited for you, we could have a sweeter time together. Was I wrong?”

  “No,” said Aoth, “you were right as blue skies and green grass.” He strode to her, and enfolded in her arms, he did indeed succeed in forgetting all about the undead. At least for a while.

  Though he’d known her for twenty years, Aznar Thrul had never beheld the face of Shabella, high priestess of Mask, god of larceny and shadow, and mistress of the thieves’ guild of Bezantur. Every time he’d seen her, she’d worn a black silk mask and hooded gray woolen cloak over the rainbow-colored tunic beneath.

  That, of course, was simply the way of the Maskarran, and it had never bothered him before. Now it did. What, he wondered, if this isn’t the same woman with whom I’ve conspired for all these years? What if someone else, some agent of my enemies, killed her and took her place? Even if I unmasked her, I wouldn’t know.

  Trying to push such groundless fancies out of his mind, he scowled at her across the length of the small room he used for private audiences, and as a servant closed the door behind her, she bowed deeply, spreading the wings of her cape.

  He left her in that position for several heartbeats, rather hoping it pained her middle-aged back muscles but knowing it probably didn’t. Though she likely hadn’t committed a robbery with her own hands in a long while, her position required her to train to maintain the skills and athleticism of an all-around master thief, and he had little doubt that she could still scale sheer walls and lift latches with the ablest burglars and stalk and club a victim like the most accomplished muggers.

  “Get up,” Aznar said at last. “Tell me what’s happening in the streets.” He already knew, but the question was a way of starting the conversation.

  “The common folk,” she said, “are celebrating the good news from Pyarados.” As always, her soft soprano voice sounded gentle and wistful, belying the iron resolve and ferocity she displayed when circumstances warranted.

  “ ‘The good news,’” he parroted. “Meaning what, precisely?”

  “That the legions are pushing back the undead.”

  “In the opinion of the mob, who deserves the credit for their success?”

  Most people hesitated before telling Aznar Thrul something he didn’t want to hear. Shabella never did, and that was one of the things that made him if not like at least respect her.

  “Szass Tam,” she said, “who committed the order of Necromancy to the struggle, convinced Iphegor Nath to send the Burning Braziers, and armed the priests with their torch weapons.”

  “And who just recently saved the northern tharchs from a Rashemi invasion.”

  “Yes.”

  “Curse it!” Aznar exploded. “I don’t care what the whoreson’s done. How can they make a hero of a lich?”

  “We Thayans aren’t a squeamish people,” Shabella replied. “You Red Wizards made sure of that when you recruited orcs, zombies, and even demons to serve you. The commoners had little choice but to get used to them.”

  “Spare me your gloss on the history of the realm. Tell me who spreads these tidings through the alehouses and markets in a way that lionizes Szass Tam at the expense of everyone else who contributed to the victory.”

  “Agents employed by Dmitra Flass and Malark Springhill, most likely.”

  “If you know that, why haven’t your cutthroats silenced them?”

  “Because I don’t really know, I simply infer. The taletellers are wily and my followers haven’t yet identified them.

  “Too busy skirmishing with the Shadowmasters?” he asked, referring to the one cartel of thieves that sought to supplant her and her organization.

  “I have to address the problem,” Shabella said. “I’m no use to you dead.”

  “Are you of any use currently? Perhaps your rivals wouldn’t be so foolish as to give their business priority over mine.”

  “The local Shadowmasters are only one chapter of a greater network based in Thesk. Would it truly suit Your Omnipotence to have foreigners controlling all thievery south of the First Escarpment?”

  “It might at least suit me to see someone else officiating in front of Mask’s high altar, so get out of here and do what needs doing.”

  She bowed and withdrew.

  The unsatisfactory interview left Aznar feeling as restless and edgy as before, but perhaps he knew a w
ay to lift his spirits. It had been a month since he’d visited Mari Agneh.

  Though he didn’t play with her as frequently—or, often, as elaborately—as in the first years of her captivity, she still amused him on occasion, which made her a rarity. Generally, the torment of a particular victim eventually came to seem repetitive and stale, at which point he consigned that prisoner to his or her final agonies and moved on to the next.

  He supposed it was Mari’s austere good looks and defiant spirit that he still found piquant, combined with the fact that she was nearly the first person of significance he’d punished after assuming the mantle of a zulkir. In her way, she was a memento of his ascension.

  Smiling now, he rose, took up his staff of luminous congealed flame, and exited the private chamber into a larger hall where bodyguards, clerks, and other functionaries awaited his pleasure. He waved them off and tramped on alone, through one magnificently appointed space after another. His passage was a like a ripple in a pond, agitating everyone. Sentries came to attention and saluted, while everybody else groveled in the manner appropriate to his station.

  Such displays became less frequent once he made his way to corridors that, while no less handsomely decorated, were smaller and less well travelled. From there, a concealed door admitted him to his private prison.

  Mari gave him a level stare as he entered her cell. “I’m going to kill you tonight,” she said.

  It surprised him a little. She hadn’t made that particular threat in quite a while, not since they’d proved her helplessness time and again.

  “By all means, try,” he answered. “It always made our times together that much more entertaining, but first, take off your clothes, and keep your eyes on me as you do it. I want you to see me seeing you.”

  She obeyed, as of course she had to. His magic left her no choice.

  “Now crawl to me on your belly and clean my shoes with your tongue.”

  She did that, too.

  “Now hug the whipping post.” He wouldn’t need to tie or shackle her to keep her there. His spoken will sufficed even for that.

  He laid down his staff, took down the whip from its hook on the wall, and cut her back into a tidy crosshatch of bloody welts. Though it was the least of his accomplishments, he’d always taken a certain satisfaction in his skill with a lash. He fancied that if he hadn’t been born with a talent for magic, he could have been one of Thay’s more successful slavers. Perhaps it would have been a less stressful and demanding existence than the life of a zulkir.

  Mari invariably struggled against the need to cry out. Perhaps what remained of her warrior’s pride demanded it, whereas he found pleasure in overcoming that resistance, striking for as long as it took to get her squealing like an animal.

  Perhaps the day’s worries and frustrations had wearied him more than he knew, for tonight, it seemed to take an unusually long time. He grew hot and sweaty, peeled off his crimson robe, and then the garments underneath, all the way down to his smallclothes.

  Eventually Mari gave him a reaction, though not precisely the one he was expecting. Her shoulders began to shake, and she made a breathy, rhythmic sound. For a moment, he assumed she was sobbing then he realized that in reality, the noise was laughter.

  He shook his head. He’d just been imagining she was the one plaything that would never break, and here was the first sign her sanity was crumbling at last. Life could be so drearily perverse.

  “Turn around,” he said, and she did. “Tell me what’s so funny.”

  “The flogging doesn’t hurt,” she said, “not really, and you don’t have any pockets anymore.” She charged him.

  Though she hadn’t lifted her hand to him in quite some time, he was always watchful for it, always prepared, even in the deepest throes of lust, and it was no different now. “Stop!” he snapped.

  She didn’t stop. She raked her nails across his eye and punched him in the throat.

  Half blind, half choking, he reeled back, then reflex took over. She was right, he’d divested himself of his protective talismans and the physical components required to cast many of his most powerful spells. He was the greatest master of Evocation in all Thay, though, and capable of creating many other effects by word and gesture alone. He croaked a word of power, jabbed out his hand, and bright globes of light burst in rapid succession from his fingertips. Swelling larger, they hurtled at Mari, each engulfing her in its turn, and with a deafening crackle, discharging the lightning that constituted its essence into her body.

  Startled, hurt, Aznar had lashed out with one of the most potent attacks available to him, and he immediately realized the response was excessive. Such an abundance of magic he might have used to kill a giant or wyvern. In all likelihood, there wouldn’t even be anything left of her body and not much left of the furniture either.

  When he caught his breath, wiped the tears from his stinging eye, and blinked the blurriness out of the world, he saw that he was half right. The spell had blasted the whipping post and bed frame into smoking scraps of kindling. The blankets, pillows, and mattress were on fire, but Mari stood where she’d stood before, seemingly unscathed.

  Unscathed but not unchanged. She had four arms, not two, and her smooth ivory skin had darkened and roughened into purple scales. Her eyes glowed red, and the bottom half of her face had lengthened into a muzzle complete with fangs.

  It occurred to him that, except for her merely human stature and the fact that she was still manifestly female, she now resembled one of the demon guards stationed elsewhere in the palace. What did that mean? The order of Conjuration had supplied those demons. Was it possible Nevron had turned against him?

  Mari gathered herself to spring, and Aznar realized he’d better put such speculations aside. He’d unravel the mystery of his captive’s transformation in due course, but for now, what mattered was defending himself against her. It was obvious that in her altered condition, she no longer felt constrained to obey his commands.

  Lightning hadn’t harmed her, but maybe fire would. She lunged at him, and with a simple exertion of his will, he released the power bound in a tattooed glyph on his left forearm. It pained him like a bee sting, and Mari’s entire body exploded into flame.

  Plainly hurt, she staggered, and looking forward to watching her flounder, shriek, and burn, he stepped out of her blundering way.

  She caught her balance and pivoted to threaten him anew. Two of her hands swiped at him with their talons. One grazed his shoulder and drew blood.

  The blaze enshrouding her hand didn’t sear him. He’d long since forged unshakable alliances with fire, acid, lightning, and cold, and Mari’s claws scarcely broke his skin. Even so, he suffered a shock of weakness and dizziness. He swayed, and she nearly succeeded in catching him by the throat when she snatched for him again.

  Retreating, he chanted while miming the making of a snowball and then the act of throwing it. Hurtling chunks of ice sprang into existence to batter Mari and knock her back a step, but they didn’t put her down any more than the lightning and fire had. In fact, her corona of punishing flame was guttering out faster than it was supposed to, revealing only superficial burns that were already starting to heal.

  Damn it, he needed the items cached in his robe. They were the keys to unlocking his most devastating spells, and apparently nothing less would serve to neutralize his foe. Unfortunately, Mari stood between the garment and himself. He had to get past her somehow and likewise obtain the additional moment he’d need to retrieve the garment and pull out one of the appropriate talismans.

  With a wave of his hand, he filled the air with what was, to him, merely a tinge of gray. To any other eyes, though, it would seem impenetrable darkness. Mari snarled and rushed him, plainly seeking to catch him before he could shift away from the spot where she’d seen him last.

  He whispered a word of power and whisked himself through space. Now that he was outside the clot of shadow, it was opaque to him as well, though he could hear Mari flailing around
inside.

  He picked up his robe. It was on fire from collar to hem, but not yet so badly burned that it would disintegrate if he tried to put it on, and he lifted it to do so. His hands would find his spell triggers far more easily if his pockets were hanging in their accustomed places about his body.

  Mari sprang from the cloud of darkness. Obviously, she’d figured out Aznar was no longer inside. If only she could have stayed fooled for one more heartbeat! Then everything would have been all right.

  She snatched, caught the robe in her claws, and for an instant, the two of them pulled on it like children playing tug of war. Alas, she was the stronger, and when the burning, weakened cloth ripped in two, the piece in her talons was by far the larger. Laughing, she shredded it, and crystals, medallions, and vials tumbled to the floor. Then she reached for Aznar, who, backing up until his shoulders banged against a wall, perceived that his paltry piece of the robe possessed at least a few pockets, though which ones, he couldn’t tell. He stuck his hand in one at random and brought out a folded paper packet of powdered ruby.

  It made him want to laugh, but there was scarcely time for that. He jabbered a rhyme and lashed the particles of red glittering dust through the air to explode into tiny sparks.

  A cube with transparent crimson walls sprang into existence around the onrushing Mari. She slammed into the side of it and rebounded.

  She’d charged so close to Aznar that when it popped into existence, the magical cage nearly trapped him as well by pinning him between itself and the wall behind him, but he sucked in his breath and managed to sidle free. Meanwhile, Mari attacked the enclosure with the frenzy of a rabid animal, repeatedly breaking and regrowing her talons.

  “Strike at it all you like,” Aznar Thrul panted. “It will hold. It will hold for days.” Plenty of time for him to decide how best to chastise her and solve the puzzle of her metamorphosis.