The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  But in spite of alternating threats and promises of reward, his mages and priests had thus far accomplished little, and none of his other followers could reasonably be expected to penetrate the mysteries of the undead. It therefore seemed unlikely that the Shou could win the prize by themselves in the manner Yhelbruna had prescribed. It was time to find allies, break the rules, or both.

  His first effort in that direction had just failed. Where, he wondered, pulling his overcoat tighter against the frigid, whistling wind, should he cast his line next?

  It was easy to eliminate Folcoerr Dulsaer. The Aglarondan was an honorable idiot just like the Iron Lord, even though in the Iron Lord’s case, his haughty testiness might cause an observer less insightful than Dai Shan to miss the integrity underneath.

  Aoth Fezim was at least intelligent, but possibly too much so. Dai Shan preferred allies who were sharp enough to function without constant direction, but not so sharp that they might be a jump ahead of him when the partnership outlived its usefulness. Besides, the Thayan seemed to believe in keeping his word, fulfilling his contracts, and all that tiresome sort of thing, even if there were one or two episodes in his recent history that suggested otherwise.

  Vandar Cherlinka? He was an honorable idiot already allied with Fezim, although Dai Shan wasn’t sure why. They didn’t appear fond of one another. Perhaps they realized that each had resources the other lacked, and maybe they’d found a measure of grudging mutual respect fighting side by side in the sacred grove.

  That left Mario Bez. Reasonably clever and devoid of scruples, he was currently flying around the countryside on his skyship hunting for ghosts and such. But he returned to Immilmar periodically. Dai Shan would offer him a partnership the next time he did.

  So, that was one decision made. But Dai Shan still had another to ponder, and it was the more problematic of the two. He could think of several reasons why a cautious man would shun the course of action he was contemplating. But he hadn’t risen to prominence in the House of Shan through caution—it had taken boldness and cunning. For, the Dark Goddess knew, his father would never favor a son simply for the sake of affection, even if the old snake were genuinely capable of feeling the emotion.

  Dai Shan abruptly realized that he’d made his second choice. Somehow, picturing his father, withered, palsied, and propped up on a mound of pillows, but as crafty, ruthless, and grasping as ever, had made it for him.

  He glanced around to make sure he was unobserved. The Iron Lord no doubt had sentries who were supposed to walk the battlements, but at the moment, none was in evidence. He whispered, “Wake.”

  The moonlight gave him the bare hint of a shadow. In the darkness, many men might have failed to observe it even after it had leaped upright. But Dai Shan had no difficulty making out the inky rippling—a kind of negative shimmer—when it moved, or gave an attentive tilt of its head. He could even feel its stare and eagerness to please him. It was only by doing the latter that it could fill, even briefly, the aching hollowness inside it.

  “Go forth,” he said, “and find the undead creatures troubling this land. Bring them to me when you do.”

  The shadow bowed. It turned, leaped between two merlons, plunged to the ground outside the castle, and dashed away. Portions of its body stretched and contracted in the fluid manner of its insubstantial kind. In a moment or two, it had vanished into the night, and even its master couldn’t make it out anymore.

  Dai Shan knew he might never hear anything more of the familiar. It was undead of a sort, too, but that didn’t mean it could sniff out durthan revenants, or that they’d trust it or care about its controller’s offer if it did. Still, like reaching out to Bez, the tactic was worth a try.

  It was impossible to guess who, if anyone, would ultimately end up helping Dai Shan claim the griffons. But, by the Dark Moon, claim them he somehow would. And if Rashemen came to harm as a result … Well, the Iron Lord was right about one thing: his poor, barbaric land had never been much of a trading partner anyway.

  * * * * *

  Aoth kept his eyes moving. He was watching for threats slinking through the trees and keeping an eye on Choschax. Even with the cyclops’s hands bound behind him and his feet hobbled with the silver-dusted rope originally intended to restrain werewolves, he might still try to escape or give warning of their approach.

  Aoth took stock of the state of his command, making sure they were game for what he was about to require of them. Much as he trusted them—well, all of them except Vandar—he would have understood if they were nervous. They’d already fought one fight, and although they’d all emerged from it essentially unscathed, such struggles took a toll. On top of that, everyone was aware that the spellcasters among them had already expended a fair amount of their mystical strength. In other circumstances, Aoth would have put off a raid until they had rested and recovered. But if he delayed that long, Choschax’s mistress would wonder why the cyclopes who’d gone out to meet the wolf pack hadn’t returned.

  Fortunately, no one looked shaky. Not even Cera, who arguably still wasn’t a true warrior even if, since falling in with Aoth, she’d fought foes more terrible than most soldiers would ever have to face. Or Jhesrhi, who’d once spent a grim and desperate time trapped in the spirit world and likely wasn’t eager to go back. He felt a surge of pride and affection for them both.

  Vandar looks just as steady, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. The griffon was soaring above the treetops watching for trouble from that angle.

  Aoth snorted. He’s too stupid to know what we’re getting into.

  He’s Rashemi. He knows more about the fey than we do. You just don’t like the way he fights.

  You’re right. It’s sloppy and undisciplined.

  It’s not so different from the way you and I fight when cornered.

  But we try hard not to get cornered. We keep our heads, and that allows us to do the cornering. That’s why we’ve survived as long as—

  Choschax stumbled around to face his captors. Aoth turned his eyes slightly to the side, so he wasn’t meeting the cyclops’s burning gaze dead on.

  “It’s just ahead,” Choschax said. “You’ll see it.”

  “Go back the way we came,” said Aoth. “We’ll find you and untie you when we come back out. And remember, my griffon is watching you. If you try to get rid of your bonds, warn your friends, or do anything else we wouldn’t like, he’ll dive down and rip you apart.”

  The prisoner scowled. “I hear you.”

  “Then go.”

  As Aoth and his comrades skulked forward, and Choschax hobbled in the opposite direction, Jet said, If we killed him, no one would need to keep track of him, and then I could go into the hole with you.

  That’s not the only reason I’m leaving you on watch, or even the main reason, replied Aoth. You’re stealthy on the wing, not underground, and stealth is what’s required now. Besides, if we run into trouble, I’ll give you a shout, and you can go for help.

  You mean, back to Chessenta? That’s where the rest of the Brotherhood is, and nobody in Rashemen cares what happens to a Thayan.

  Go to Vandar’s lodge. I imagine they’ll listen to a griffon that tells them their chieftain is in trouble.

  And fortunately, they’re only a few days’ travel away.

  Then you come up with a better plan. Just do it quietly. I need to focus on what I’m doing so we won’t need rescuing in the first place.

  A gnarled thorn tree with twisted forking branches like clawed hands stood some little distance from its nearest neighbor. Aoth didn’t recognize the species, but he did observe that it looked dead. The slimy pockets of rot in its trunk made it stand out in a season when every deciduous tree had shed its leaves.

  What he couldn’t discern, even with fire-kissed eyes, was that the thorn tree was a sentinel, animate and aware of its surroundings. But he spoke the words that Choschax had taught him anyway.

  The tree shuddered, its branches rattling. Cera took a reflexive step backw
ard, and Vandar hefted his javelin. Jhesrhi drew fire from the head of her staff, and Aoth aimed his spear.

  But the thorn tree didn’t try to harm them. With its roots writhing and coiling like tentacles and pulling themselves out of the earth, it reached out and lifted a section of ground, like a trapdoor on its hinges. Illuminated by a pale glow from below, rude sandstone steps—high and deep, sized for a cyclops—descended into the earth.

  “I’ll go first,” said Aoth. “I’ll be able to see no matter what. Jhes, you’re second, and Cera, third. Vandar, you’re rearguard.”

  The berserker glowered but—for a welcome change—didn’t argue.

  The thorn-tree guardian lowered the plug back into the hole once Vandar was inside. Descending, Aoth and his comrades soon came to the source of the glow: a sort of rippling curtain of light.

  To Aoth’s annoyance, seeing it made him hesitate. Perhaps it was because, despite an eventful first century of life, he’d only visited another plane once before—Szass Tam’s lifeless little artificial world—and he hadn’t much enjoyed the trip. He spat, readied his spear, and strode on through.

  Everything changed.

  Aoth was still climbing downstairs, but his surroundings weren’t earth anymore. They were black stone: unfinished, but glossy as though polished. Veins of gold and rubies, or something like them, glowed in the rock, providing additonal illumination. The intricacy of the patterns and the richness of the colors were fascinating. Aoth knew he had to remain alert, but couldn’t resist drinking in the particularly gorgeous detail for just a heartbeat or two. And then that one over there—

  Something bumped into his back and pitched him forward. He staggered down the steps and struggled to keep from falling. The effort snapped him out of his daze.

  He turned and looked up at his companions. As they stepped through the curtain, each faltered and caught his or her breath as Aoth no doubt had, transfixed by the preternatural beauty before them.

  It was a beauty they shared. Cera and Jhesrhi had always been beautiful in Aoth’s eyes, but although he couldn’t say how any one feature had changed, each now seemed as flawless and as radiant as a goddess. Even Vandar appeared to have the perfect musculature and keen, dauntless air of a hero in some lying bard’s witless story.

  “Choschax wasn’t lying,” Aoth said, as much to rouse his companions as anything. “His people do live in the Feywild, not in the Shadowfell.”

  The Shadowfell was the world of darkness, death, and decay that Jhesrhi and Gaedynn had once visited. The Feywild was its bright counterpart: a realm of light and vitality. Aoth felt invigorated just breathing the air.

  “It’s wonderful,” Cera breathed.

  “Don’t let the wonders put you to sleep,” said Aoth.

  “Don’t you,” she replied. “You can see them better than we can.”

  “Nobody will let himself slip into a trance,” Vandar said. “Now, can we keep moving? We don’t want to get caught on these steps.”

  “You’re right,” Aoth said, “we don’t.” As he led his companions onward, making sure not to look at anything for too long lest its beauty draw him in, he noticed an unpleasant absence in his head. Apparently, shifting to a different plane of existence blocked his psychic connection to Jet.

  The intruders reached the little antechamber at the foot of the stairs without incident. A cavern opened out before them. There, magic, the toil of artisans, or a combination of both had sculpted much of the gleaming black stone with its luminous multicolored veins into arches, balconies, windows, battlements, and turrets. They stood as ornate and as imposing as the façade of a zulkir’s palace. The splendor made Aoth want to stand and gawk. He gave his head a shake to clear it. There might well be sentries watching the entrance to the vault, and he and his comrades needed to focus on that.

  “Ready?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” Jhesrhi said. She murmured charms of concealment, and her magic stung across his skin like icy needles.

  “My turn,” Cera said. Her lips moved in silent prayer.

  To Aoth, it seemed paradoxical to ask the god of the sun to help you hide. But the sun wasn’t just the world’s great source of warmth and light. Its motion also defined the stately progression of time, and Amaunator gave some of his clerics the capacity to tamper with an observer’s subjective perception of time. Cera wanted to compress the time it would take to scurry across the space ahead to the briefest instant, so that even if an observer had the ability to pierce Jhesrhi’s veils, the intruders would appear and disappear so quickly that their presence wouldn’t register.

  “That should do it,” the priestess said.

  Aoth took a breath. “Let’s go,” he said and ran out into the open space.

  He made it in three strides, and then a jolt of pain staggered him.

  From his vantage point in the antechamber at the foot of the stairs, Aoth hadn’t been able to see the big, stylized, staring eyes carved high on the walls of the vault beyond. No doubt that was as those who’d fashioned the magical mantrap intended it to be. The pupil of each hieroglyph glowed red like the pupil of a cyclops’s eye, and their gazes pressed down on him like a prodigious weight.

  As he and his comrades lurched and stumbled, trying to keep their feet, he spotted the battlements directly above the arch they’d just passed through. A pair of cyclopes stood there with crossbows in hand, ideally positioned to pick off intruders immobilized by the magic of the eye glyphs.

  Which was to say, ideally positioned to pick off Aoth and his companions. Waves of heat were rippling over his skin, which likely meant that countermagic was burning his enchantment of invisibility away.

  He had to move. He slapped at two of the tattoos under his mail. The first released a tingling surge of strength that washed away some of the pain. The second was a protective charm that, he hoped, would deflect some of the power of the eyes. Still feeling like he was carrying an enormous weight, he staggered one step, and then another.

  So did Cera. “Keeper,” she gasped, “Keeper, Keeper, Keeper.”

  Jhesrhi spoke in one of the tongues of Sky Home. A cold, howling wind sprang up at the intruders’ backs to shove them along.

  The wind helped, but Vandar still collapsed to his knees and couldn’t rise unaided. Aoth lurched around, grabbed him by the forearm, and heaved him to his feet.

  It seemed to take forever to cross the courtyardlike space and duck into one of the smallest doorways. As soon as they did, the pain and feeling of relentless pressure disappeared. Aoth would have liked nothing better than to lean against the wall and catch his breath, but he forced himself to lead the others far enough down the passage that he was sure the cyclopes sentries couldn’t see them. At that point, intricately carved stonework gave way to something that, except for the level floor, might almost have been a natural tunnel, although the darkly gleaming rock remained profoundly lovely.

  “Well,” Cera panted, her round face shiny with sweat. “That was interesting. But let’s hope there are no other little details that Choschax neglected to mention.”

  “That was well done back there,” Jhesrhi said stiffly. “My enchantments burned away fast. It was yours that kept us hidden.”

  “The eyes were designed to tear away veils of illusion,” Cera replied. “We were lucky the Keeper’s gift wasn’t precisely that.”

  Vandar turned to Aoth. “Thank you for helping me up,” the berserker said, albeit grudgingly.

  “I had to,” said Aoth. “If the guards had caught you, they would have started looking for the rest of us.”

  Vandar scowled.

  Aoth sighed. “By the Black Flame, lodge master, that was a joke,” he said. “Well, mostly. Obviously, we’re all in this together, and we all look after one another as needed.” He looked around. “Is everyone ready to move?”

  The others indicated they were.

  “We’re in a small tunnel with no decoration,” said Aoth. “My guess is that this is the area where the slaves or servan
ts live and labor on their masters’ behalf. If Tymora smiles, we won’t run into any cyclopes, and the thralls won’t care about us. Just try to look like you belong.”

  They prowled onward through what soon proved to be a maze of passages. In many respects, including the seductive beauty that kept snagging Aoth’s attention, it was strange; but in others, it reminded him of the service areas of any palace. Goblins snored on pallets in a dormitory-like space. Tools—some shaped so peculiarly that their intended use was a mystery—leaned in corners or hung from pegs and hooks on the walls. And in a cluttered, filthy kitchen intended to feed the slaves, not their owners, the gutted carcasses of enormous rats dangled by their feet from the ceiling, and an iron cauldron steamed and bubbled on a bed of coals in a hearth.

  The orange glow of the coals was captivating. Despite Aoth’s resolve to remain alert, they held his gaze for a moment, until someone said, “Psst!”

  Startled, he cast about. A hanging eviscerated rat with a bristling black pelt looked back at him with beady scarlet eyes. The combination of colors reminded him momentarily of Jet, although the griffon would surely have taken offense at the comparison.

  “You’re not dead,” Vandar said.

  “Do I look dead?” asked the rat. Aoth heard the edge of pain in his high, cheeping voice.

  Cera said, “Actually, yes.”

  The creature sniggered. “Fair enough, sunlady, fair enough,” he said. “But you could make me better, you and your healing hands.”

  “Maybe she could,” Vandar said. “But you have the look of either a corrupt fey or an awakened beast allied with them. So I don’t know why she would.”

  “To keep me from tattling that there are intruders in the palace,” the creature replied. “Guards do wander by from time to time.”

  The berserker drew his dagger. “I know another way to keep you quiet,” he said.

  Despite his mangled condition, the rat managed to raise his front paws in a placatory gesture. “Easy, human! I was only joking,” he said. “The reason you should set me free is because you’re either spies, thieves, or assassins, and I’ve been spying here for a while myself. Whatever you’re after, I can help you.”