The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  He heard stone cracking and crunching. He twisted his head and looked around.

  It was the first time he’d taken a close look at the menhir. Strings of small, jagged-looking runes extended from the top of the granite shaft to the bottom. Though he couldn’t read them, Vandar recognized the writing of the Raumvirans, who’d lived throughout those lands in ancient times and had left ruins and monuments to prove it.

  Though a wooden staff should have been incapable of breaking granite, the hag had succeeded in effacing some of the symbols, and even with her body lying headless on the ground, her work continued. More patches of stone chipped away, seemingly of their own accord. Hairline cracks snaked out from the disappearing runes, and the entire menhir shivered.

  “It’s like an egg hatching,” Vandar whispered. He couldn’t explain exactly how he knew that, but he did—just as he sensed that whatever was about to emerge would make even an undead hag seem like a trivial annoyance by comparison.

  Still trembling, he dragged himself to his feet and poised himself to go berserk a second time. It would be a strain to do it again so soon, particularly when he was wounded. But he didn’t see that he had a choice.

  Yhelbruna was advancing on the stone, although not in a straight line. Her path weaved from side to side and even doubled back at certain points, as though the footprints she left in the snow were themselves a form of writing. She swept her bluewood wand up and down and side to side as she chanted rhymes in a tone that reminded Vandar of someone snapping commands at an unruly dog.

  The menhir shuddered harder. More of the sigils crumbled. Though he was no mystic, and unversed in any mysteries save those of his own lodge, Vandar suddenly felt the elation of another mind. The psychic intrusion was so powerful that, for a moment, he shared the emotion, even as he also discerned that as soon as the thing in the stone achieved its release, it intended to kill him and Yhelbruna, too.

  Yhelbruna sang words in a different rhythm. Her voice reminded Vandar of a bugle blowing on a battlefield. She pressed her hands to the sides of her face.

  The hathran’s leather mask burned like the sun. The radiance it shed lit up everything in front of her, but seemed to fall most intensely on the disintegrating menhir.

  Its cracks closed, and new stone formed to seal over the broken places. Glyphs rewrote themselves.

  The alien exultation that had intruded in Vandar’s mind gave way to rage and determination. The creature in the shaft made a supreme effort, and for a moment, a huge and shadowy form, with horns curling upward from its two reptilian heads and several tentacles writhing from each shoulder in place of arms, loomed above the standing stone. Then, in a paroxysm of hate and frustration, it disappeared. To his relief, Vandar’s link to its psyche vanished with it.

  Yhelbruna flopped down in the snow. He hurried toward her and saw that her mask was gone, perhaps fading from existence once she had used up every bit of magic stored within it.

  Her heart-shaped face was youthful, with smooth skin and apple cheeks. It was more girlish and less queenly than he could have imagined, with a largish nose and a hint of humor at the corners of the wide mouth.

  He kneeled beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Just tired,” she said, smiling. “Now you’ve seen my face, and, under the circumstances, there’s no sacrilege in it. But you won’t tell anyone what you saw.”

  He wondered how she knew he’d hoped to see her unmasked. “I swear I won’t, by the totem of my lodge,” he replied. “But can you tell me what just happened? What was that thing?”

  “Ah,” Yhelbruna said. “The Raumvirans who once lived in these mountains were enemies to the Nars, and the Nar wizards were masters at summoning devils and demons to do their bidding. They sent such fiends to trouble the High Country, and the Raumathari mages coped by erecting traps like this one. A spirit that wandered too near was pulled inside.”

  “And held,” said Vandar. “Until something set it free.”

  “Exactly,” replied the hathran. “We Wychlaran inspect and maintain the stones every year. That’s enough to counter the effects of simple weathering and the like. But obviously, it can’t prevent tampering.”

  “By filthy Thayan hands,” Vandar said.

  “I would assume,” Yhelbruna replied.

  “Curse it,” he said. “It’s not even an act of war, because we’re not at war right now. It’s just … evil. Setting a demon loose to wander around and hurt anyone unlucky enough to run into it.”

  Her smile widened slightly. “I’m sorry if the Thayans have disappointed you,” she said.

  The joke surprised a chuckle out of him, which made his gashed, burned chest ache worse. “That’s all right,” he replied. “To tell the truth, I never did have a very high opinion of them.”

  “Nor I, even a hundred years ago when Thay was a cruel, wicked foe, but nowhere near as vile as it is now,” she said, as she touched her face. It felt strange to have it exposed to the chill mountain air. “I think I’ve recovered enough of my strength to heal your wounds. After that, I’d like very much to share that firewine you offered.”

  Yhelbruna’s friendliness lasted for the remainder of the night. But in the morning, to his disappointment, she tied a scarf around the lower portion of her face and seemed to shroud herself in severity again. They climbed the trail in silence, just as they had before.

  Midday brought them to the flat, oval tabletop of a summit. To the south, the Sunrise Mountains, of which the High Country was the northernmost part, marched away as far as the eye could see. In the opposite direction, the mountains jutted out in the near distance, but sharp eyes could make out the spot where they gave way to flat land that was mostly uninhabited desolation. To the west lay the green and silver heart of Rashemen, with its forests, rivers, and lakes; and to the east, the endless steppes called the Hordelands.

  Yhelbruna looked around, muttered under her breath, and slashed her wand through a Z-shaped figure. “I’ll perform the ritual here,” she said.

  Vandar smiled. “You didn’t tell me the journey was nearly over,” he replied.

  “Because I didn’t know this was the spot until I saw it,” she said.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “For now, stay out of my way and be quiet,” she replied.

  Vandar did his best to comply while the hathran walked around and around the summit. Alternately silent, chanting, and sometimes crooning, she stopped periodically to swirl her bluewood wand in figures like intricate knots. She was asking the help of the local spirits. And, one by one, they flickered in and out of view: an enormous raven perched on an outcropping. A doll-sized man of living stone. A ghostly wolverine.

  When Yhelbruna had finished her preparations and consultations, she beckoned to Vandar with an imperious twitch of her wand. He joined her beside the jutting piece of granite where the raven spirit had appeared.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  When he did, she turned it palm up and brushed the tip of the wand across it. The rounded bluewood slit his skin like a razor. Though it didn’t hurt—and it would have shamed him to flinch even if it had—he caught his breath in surprise.

  She dabbed at the welling blood, using her wand like a paintbrush to daub symbols on the outcropping. Though stylized, some were less cryptic than the Raumathari runes. Vandar recognized the rose of Chauntea, the eyes and stars of Selûne, the unicorn head of Mielikki, and a beaked, winged, four-footed beast that was presumably his lodge’s totem.

  Yhelbruna waved him away when she had finished writing. Then she lifted her face to the sky and started singing a song punctuated by rasping shrieks similar to his own battle cry, only even more bloodcurdlingly realistic. The power she was raising sent concentric ripples running out from her feet through the snow, as though it was a pond disturbed by a pebble.

  She sang the spell three times through and started on a fourth time before anything answered. Then a speck appeared above the peaks t
o the south.

  Flying fast, it beat its way toward the humans on their mountaintop, while Vandar gradually made out the details of its appearance. The lashing wings. The eagle head with its golden eyes and curved beak, a match for the raptor talons on its forelegs. The leonine hindquarters and tail, where bronze-colored feathers gave way to tawny fur.

  It floated and wheeled above the mountaintop, seemingly inspecting the humans. Then, one or two at a time other griffons came to join it. Yhelbruna explained to Vandar that she was calling these beasts from the south, where they’d found easy prey near the mines of Tethkel. They had devoured mules, goats, sheep, and even men, prompting the locals to ask the hathrans to put an end to the slaughter.

  At first, the dozens of soaring, circling beasts were a glorious confusion, but gradually Vandar observed differences. The one currently ascending had dark brown plumage with scarcely a hint of bronzy gleam. One that kept swooping particularly low was mostly fur—it only had feathers on its wings and head. A third was missing the tip of its tail.

  Whatever their traits, they were all magnificent. Vandar studied them, rapt. He wanted them like he’d never wanted anything before.

  The creatures’ savage strength spoke to the deepest part of him, the part that had first drawn him to the griffon totem and the Griffon Lodge. But there was even more to it than that. Though his lodge held a place of honor, it was by no means the largest or most prestigious in Rashemen, nor was he the land’s preeminent warrior. But the creatures soaring overhead could change that. One day, they might even make their master the next Iron Lord, when Mangan Uruk went to join his ancestors.

  Vandar had been reasonably sure from the start that Yhelbruna meant to give the griffons into his care. He was both the obvious candidate and the one man she’d ordered to accompany her on her quest. And surely last night’s chance encounter had confirmed the wisdom of her choice. Grinning, he asked the Goddesses to bless the stinking Thayans and all their despicable schemes. For thanks to them, Yhelbruna had seen with her own eyes just what a stalwart hero he was.

  Once again the hathran, her voice grown hoarse, reached the last line of her song. She swept out the arms of her voluminous cloak so that she looked like she was spreading wings of her own. She screeched her loudest scream yet.

  As one, the griffons plunged toward the mountaintop.

  If they were diving and swooping to kill the humans who’d dared to summon them, they would easily succeed. Not even Yhelbruna’s magic could fend off so many powerful beasts all at once. Yet Vandar laughed and raised his empty hands in welcome, because he had no doubt the witch was in control. How could it be otherwise when the griffons were his destiny?

  And as he’d expected, the beasts simply landed in the snow. Many turned their heads to glare at him, but they made no move to attack.

  With its wings half furled, the biggest griffon of all alit right in front of Yhelbruna. Some of its feathers were more gold than bronze, painting streaks of brightness through its pinions, while its eyes were as blue as the clear sky above. They stared into Yhelbruna’s face, and she peered steadily back.

  Vandar wondered how he’d missed seeing the striped griffon before, even among such a throng of them. For it was plainly the leader, and that meant, although all the beasts would belong to the lodge, the spirits must surely intend that one to be his own special steed.

  Fascinated, he hurried closer, weaving his way through the lesser griffons. Constrained by Yhelbruna’s enchantments, they allowed him to pass unmolested when one snap of a beak could have nipped off his head, or the flick of a talon could have spilled his guts in the snow. The closer he approached, the more majestic the blue-eyed griffon appeared, and when he came within arm’s reach, it finally turned his head away from Yhelbruna to regard him.

  He reached out a trembling hand to stroke the feathers on its neck. Yhelbruna pivoted and whipped her wand across his fingertips. The startling burst of pain made him snatch his arm back, and, possibly agitated by all the sudden motion, the griffon let out a screech.

  Vandar rounded on Yhelbruna. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “The beast is mine, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here.”

  “You presume,” said the witch in her makeshift mask. “You’re here because I had a use for the affinity in your blood. I don’t yet know who’s meant to claim the griffons. We’ll all have to wait for the Three to speak.”

  O

  N

  E

  As he and his companions flew in from the south, Aoth Fezim studied the snow-shrouded town ahead: a collection of sturdy lodges with steep, crested roofs. A massive castle of stone and iron rose in their center, towering over every other structure and looking far more … well—to use an unkind word—civilized. Aoth supposed there was a reason for that. Although the Iron Lords had occupied the pile for as long as they’d been the warlords of Rashemen, it had started out as a Nar keep, and maybe the architectural style was still more Nar than otherwise.

  It felt a little strange to behold Immilmar, the capital of Rashemen, or most any part of the northern lands. Thoughts of the place had often occupied him since his youth. Commoners of Thay, such as Aoth, were of Rashemi stock. Although he’d been born into the pale, lanky Mulan aristocracy, mischievous nature had given him the darker skin and short, burly frame of a member of the lower orders. As a result, he’d endured childhood taunts and brawls, and the Red Wizards had never seen fit to induct him into one of their arcane orders.

  Later, as a war mage in Thay’s legions, Aoth had fought the true Rashemi along his country’s northern border. But until his journey to Immilmar, he’d never seen more than the southern edge of Rashemen—not before the War of the Zulkirs, and not in all the decades since.

  You still aren’t seeing it, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. You’re too busy picking at your memories. Pull your head out of your arse and look where I’m looking.

  Considering that they shared a psychic link, and that the familiar was actually using his master’s eyes at the moment, that wasn’t difficult. Jet often availed himself of Aoth’s sight, because the same magical storm that had extended the human’s life had granted him vision even keener than a griffon’s.

  That sight enabled him to make out the skaters and ice fishermen on the frozen surface of Lake Ashane, though at that distance they were only tiny specks. More to the point, Aoth could see that the broad-beamed ship sitting beside the water was no mere canoe, raft, or felucca, but rather a three-masted vessel with a pair of odd-looking panels on each side of her hull. She belonged on the high seas, not in such an inland waterway. The ship’s figurehead was a horned, bare-breasted she-demon, and the flag atop the central mast bore a leering red skull with crossed yellow thunderbolts beneath.

  Aoth drew breath to curse, and Cera Eurthos asked, “What’s wrong?” Seated behind him with her arms around his waist, the priestess had felt his body shift.

  “That ship beside the lake is the Storm of Vengeance,” he replied.

  “The sellsword ship?” she asked.

  “Yes, and by all accounts, Mario Bez had a profitable year fighting along the Dragon Coast.”

  “And you think he’s come to buy the griffons, too.”

  “I do. The Storm of Vengeance is a skyship, so fielding a company of riders on flying steeds would suit his style of warfare. I can’t imagine what else would bring him here. Even if the Rashemi were in the habit of hiring mercenaries, winter’s the wrong season for it.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it. You had a good year, too. You saved Chessenta from ruin, and Shala Karanok rewarded you accordingly. I’m sure you can outbid Captain Bez.”

  “I hope so.” He needed those animals.

  The Brotherhood of the Griffon, his own sellsword company, had endured a hard couple of years. What the world at large viewed as a failed invasion of Thay had left its reputation tarnished and its ranks depleted. A defeat of sorts in Impiltur had aggravated the damage.

  But as Cera had said, he and hi
s comrades had turned things around that summer, in Chessenta and Threskel. They’d won notable victories. And, as a result, new recruits and offers of employment had come flooding in.

  But one problem remained. They had lost too many griffons in their battles against Szass Tam, Alasklerbanbastos, and ultimately Tchazzar. If the Brotherhood were to continue practicing its own highly effective style of warfare, they had to obtain new mounts. So the news that the Iron Lord had dozens to sell brought Aoth hurrying north with only three companions: Jet, Cera, and Jhesrhi Coldcreek, currently riding the giant hawk she’d shaped from the wind. A larger group might have slowed the journey down, and some of his officers needed to stay behind to supervise the men in their winter quarters.

  Aoth supposed he should have realized he wouldn’t be the only prospective buyer rushing to Immilmar. There truly was no time to lose. Discerning the tenor of his master’s thoughts, Jet swooped down toward the courtyard behind the citadel’s primary gate.

  * * * * *

  Jhesrhi’s golden hair streamed out behind her as she sent her conjured hawk plunging after Jet and his riders. Her patched, stained war cloak and mage’s robe fluttered around her willowy form.

  Touching down, she swung herself off her mount, thanked it in one of the tongues of Sky Home, the realm of the air elementals, and permitted it to dissolve back into pure wind. Before it departed, the wind howled and blew particles of snow from the shoveled heaps shoveled into the cleared sections of the courtyard.

  Jhesrhi was glad that her recent accident, if that was the proper term for it, hadn’t cost her the ability to command elements other than flame. To a degree, she could contain the heat inside her. She could wear clothing or sit on a chair without it catching fire. But if she were to ride a mount of flesh and bone for very long, the contact with her would pain and blister the poor beast.

  Which meant she herself would never fly on griffonback again. That saddened her, but it was the only part of her transformation she regretted. At first the change had been a shock, but ultimately, it had brought her a kind of peace.