The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  “I agree,” Falconer said. “My folk have demons we haven’t used yet.”

  Pevkalondra nodded. “And mine, constructs,” she added.

  Uramar smiled. “Good,” he replied. “I knew I could count on your fighting spirit. Now, it seems to me that the best way to crush the intruders is to target their spellcasters. They only have a few, and their side can’t win without them.”

  “Again, I agree,” Falconer said. “And no one needs to coax me to focus my efforts on Fezim and the sunlady. I have a score to settle.”

  “While I,” Nyevarra purred, “would take considerable satisfaction in bringing the Stag King low. What sort of dark fey sides with hathrans?”

  “Then we have our strategy,” Uramar said. “Except that there’s one more point to consider. What if, in spite of everything, the enemy gains the upper hand again?”

  Pevkalondra snorted. “I plan for victory, not defeat,” she said.

  One of Uramar’s more glib voices advised him how to answer. “But with all respect, lady,” he said, “it’s one of the strengths of the Eminence that we plan for every contingency. We figure out how to make even defeat serve our purposes. That’s why no one can stop us from establishing our empire.”

  “How nice,” Falconer said. “But what’s the contingency plan now?”

  “Simply this,” Uramar said. “If we smash our enemies, excellent. But if the battle goes against us, the more … rational undead will retreat to safety along the deathways. Meanwhile, we’ll leave zombies in fine armor and durthans’ masks and robes behind to perish with our goblins and such. Some will carry documents to create the impression that by taking this one fortress, our foes have crushed our entire enterprise.”

  Even as he articulated the scheme, he felt a pang of guilt; because all undead, even those with the dimmest minds, deserved better. But it was likewise true that any commander sometimes had to sacrifice troops to achieve his objectives.

  Nyevarra nodded. “I like it,” she said.

  “Good,” Uramar said. “Now, let’s talk specifics. Falconer, you know the fortress better than the rest of us. What’s the best way to harry the mortals as they advance? Where are the best places to make a stand?”

  * * * * *

  The winter sun had nearly sunk behind the battlements. Jhesrhi knew the next phase of the siege would begin soon, so even though she wasn’t hungry, she made herself take a couple of bites from a hunk of pungent white Rashemi cheese.

  She was rewrapping what was left in a threadbare old kerchief when Cera and Aoth approached her. “The Iron Lord of Rashemen has griffons for sale,” the war mage said, smiling a crooked smile. “We should go buy them.”

  “It should all be straightforward enough,” Cera said, quoting him as he’d just quoted himself. “The three of us can handle it.”

  “Well,” Jhesrhi said, “the three of us are handling it. Give or take.”

  “True,” Aoth said. “But be careful inside. Especially down in the vaults, which I’m sure is where we’ll find the hardest fighting.”

  She frowned. It wasn’t like him to deliver such vague, useless cautions to a seasoned veteran and trusted comrade like herself.

  Cera apparently thought the same. “Are you worried?” she asked. “Did you have a vision?”

  Aoth snorted. “You and your thirst for revelations,” he said. No, thank the Firelord. I just wish we were doing this with the Brotherhood. But wishing won’t make it so, so let’s get on with it.”

  The berserkers and stag men had already heard the plan, so it didn’t take long for them to form up in a rough horseshoe shape around the tall double doors in the center of the keep. Jhesrhi stood inside the arc and fixed her eyes and her will on the ironbound panels before her.

  Pointing her staff at the doors, she recited a counterspell to dissolve the enchantments that buttressed them. Then she spoke to the mundane mechanisms that likewise secured them, commanding pins to lift and bars to slide.

  Nothing happened.

  But that was all right. The spells she’d just attempted were the least of her magic. Next, she tried to breach the stone to the left of the doors as she’d shifted the cavern walls in Grontaix’s subterranean palace. Chanting, she swung her staff in a horizontal pass to indicate where and how she wanted it to split.

  Warded like the entryway by the magic of the ancient Nars, the sandstone blocks ignored her.

  It was going to take fire. Somehow, she’d imagined that it would.

  Sweeping her staff up and down in a pass that suggested leaping flame, she recited a rhyme in one of the hissing, crackling languages of the Undying Pyre. The fire that was a part of her sprang forth to cloak her.

  But that blaze was a feeble guttering candle compared to the heat, or the potential for heat, concentrating in her hands and her staff. When she’d gathered all she could hold, she raised the brass rod over her head and swung it at the doors like an axeman cleaving a foe from the scalp down.

  A torrent of flame poured from the head of the staff. Neither the heat nor the brightness troubled Jhesrhi, but her allies cried out and recoiled.

  For a heartbeat or two, the doors withstood even such an assault. Then the wood caught all at once, burning away to nothing in an instant. Half melted and deformed, the door’s ironwork dropped, clanking onto the threshold.

  Something as big as an ogre, with the head of a cat and a whipping tail as scaly as a dragon’s, sprang out of empty air. Jhesrhi realized the gaunt form was a demon the Nars had bound in the entryway as the linchpin of their defensive magic. It was the fiend’s strength she’d been contending against, and, paradoxically, by overcoming it, she’d set her adversary free.

  The demon stretched out its clawed hands and lunged at a berserker. Aoth pointed his spear and pierced the creature with darts of blue light. The tanar’ri staggered, and that gave Vandar enough time to rush it and slash open its belly with the red sword. Loops of guts came sliding out, and the creature collapsed. A second cut split its skull and spilled its brains.

  Since it wouldn’t do to set the donjon on fire, at least not yet, Jhesrhi extinguished the streaming, hissing flare and her personal halo of flame. Cera swung her mace in an overhand arc that ended with it pointing at the doorway. The pure light of the Yellow Sun flashed in the chamber on the other side. It might not hurt a goblin or troll, but it ought to discomfit most types of undead.

  Nothing cried out. The berserkers surged forward. “No!” Aoth barked. “Vandar and I will go through first.” He shot the lodge chieftain a glance. “Carefully.”

  The berserker scowled but also nodded brusquely. “As you say,” he replied.

  Picking their way through glowing coals and scraps of hot iron, the two men prowled into the keep. Jhesrhi strode after them and entered with the first wave of Vandar’s eager lodge brothers.

  She found herself in a roomy, high-ceilinged vestibule, with an arched opening leading to other chambers on that level, and a staircase twisting upward. The enemy had left footprints along with drops and smears of blood in the dust when they made their hurried retreat back into the fortress. But, except for a dead hobgoblin that had evidently succumbed to its several wounds just after staggering inside, no one was there any longer.

  Vandar looked around the gloomy, echoing space. “You were right,” he said to Aoth. “They’ve gone down into the crypts like the dead things they are.”

  “Maybe not all of them,” Aoth replied. “In their place, I’d leave a force hidden above ground, on the upper levels of this keep, in one of the secondary towers, or wherever, to follow us down into the tunnels and attack us from behind when it would do the most harm. So we’re going to sweep the castle room by room. Then it will be time to head downstairs.”

  * * * * *

  The Storm of Vengeance possessed more than her fair share of spellcasters, and none of them trusted Dai Shan. Their scrutiny made it difficult to achieve privacy. But after some investigation, he’d found a sort of nook in the ho
ld, a space walled off by a bulkhead and a bundle of barrels lashed in place, that sufficed as long as he kept his voice down and didn’t let anyone spot him sneaking in or out.

  Unfortunately, it was cramped, filthy, and stank of spoiled foodstuffs. But Dai Shan didn’t allow its unpleasantness to hasten his departure. He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, breathed slowly from the diaphragm, and considered the implications of his annoyingly curtailed conversation with Falconer.

  After he had assessed them as best he could, he still had a smaller matter to ponder: how to dispose of the useless half of the little dead demon. He was tempted just to leave it where it lay and let the rats he heard scuttling elsewhere in the hold gnaw it until nothing recognizable was left. But it was possible someone would stumble across it before that happened, and then Mario Bez would want to know why there were tanar’ri bones aboard his skyship.

  Dai Shan preferred to not have such a possibility hanging over his head. Better to take a small risk, and afterward, enjoy the tranquility that came with knowing he’d resolved the situation. That was the path his father would have chosen.

  With the gloom proving no hindrance to his sight, he prowled around the hold until he found a piece of oilcloth. Permitting himself a slight frown of distaste—the half-imp, or what was left of it, was even more repulsive to the touch—he bundled up the slime and bones and proceeded to the deck hatch that was farther forward.

  Once on the companionway, he whispered a charm that caused the grime to fall away from his person. Next came a spell to deflect the attention of any potential observer for a critical moment. Then he climbed onto the deck and lowered the hatch behind him.

  Trying to seem casual, he glanced around. As far as he could tell, no one was paying any attention to him, not even Olthe, the mannish-looking battleguard, who was practicing her axe strokes just three paces away.

  Wondering if the hulking creature ever chopped the rigging, and if so, whether anyone, even Bez, had the nerve to complain about it, Dai Shan sauntered to the rail. He slipped the bundle over the side, and that was that.

  He celebrated the success of his maneuver by taking a moment to enjoy the view of the frozen expanse of Lake Ashane shining red in the light of the setting sun. Though he’d never traveled by skyship before, it hadn’t taken him long to discover that flight was a pleasure unlike any other in his experience. He felt godlike with the whole world spread out below him, and he promised himself again that, however the House of Shan ended up disposing of the rest of the wild griffons, he’d keep the blue-eyed king of the pride for himself.

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t just stand and enjoy the view for long; there was work to be done. He turned and made his way to the stern castle, where Bez stood at the great oaken wheel. He had underlings who knew how to steer the ship, but he seemed to enjoy taking turns at the task himself.

  As Dai Shan mounted the companionway, he wondered what good it did for anyone to steer when the rudder projected not into water but rather empty air. Presumably, it was part and parcel of the same magic that allowed the Storm to fly at all.

  “Illustrious captain,” Dai Shan said.

  “Greedy merchant,” the sellsword replied, with a leer that indicated he was indulging his notion of humor. “Where have you been lurking?”

  “A quiet corner conducive to meditation,” the Shou said, “where I could stay out from underfoot as your industrious crew pursued their manifold tasks.”

  Bez grunted and turned the wheel a notch to starboard. The correction didn’t appear to require any action from the sailors in the rigging, but those manning the windlasses controlling the folding wings immediately started cranking.

  “That sounds like a good place for you,” the sellsword commander said. “But I take it you think we need to talk.”

  “The captain is as shrewd as he is courageous,” Dai Shan said. “When I meditate, I sometimes find it possible to send my spirit flying free of fleshly constraints. So it was this afternoon. I scouted ahead and witnessed the Griffon Lodge already attacking the Fortress of the Half-Demon.”

  Bez scowled. “The Maiden of Pain take you then, you son of a sow,” he said. “If you hadn’t insisted that I come back to Immilmar to collect you, the Storm could have gotten there first. As it stands, I guess we’ll just have to hope the berserkers aren’t up to the job. Then we can come flying heroically onto the scene to turn defeat into victory.”

  Dai Shan bowed. “As always, when my shrewd ally speaks, I hear wisdom,” he replied. “That is indeed one possibility. But, if I may be so bold, perhaps we should take care not to discount any of our options prematurely.”

  T

  W

  E

  L

  V

  E

  Stop,” said Aoth. Ahead, where the tunnel widened out into a spacious pentagonal vault with five other corridors leading away from it, an intricate mosaic covered the floor. Hidden in the pattern, but visible to spellscarred eyes, was a pentacle glimmering with pale green phosphorescence.

  “I see it, too,” Jhesrhi said, “more or less. I’ve been speaking to the stone around us. It’s sick. Poisoned by the things that have been festering inside it for all these centuries. And there’s what amounts to a big chancre straight ahead. It’s a powerful demon, I think.”

  “Do we know any more about it than that?” Cera asked, letting her mace dangle from its martingale so she could tuck a stray blonde curl back up under her helmet.

  Apparently, no one did.

  “I can tell you this,” Aoth said, “when it pops out at us, it won’t be alone. Unless I miss my guess, there are other foes lurking on the far side of those arches where we can’t see them. In the side passages behind us, too.” The allies had tried to check and clear such potential trouble spots as they explored, but without splitting men off from his little army again and again, there was no way to keep the tunnels cleared. They were too much of a maze. Passages hooked around and linked together in unpredictable ways.

  “If we know it’s an ambush,” said a warrior at Aoth’s back, “what do you say we don’t walk into it? Let’s find a way around.”

  “No,” said Vandar, his red spear gleaming in the glow Cera had conjured to light their way. “Let’s turn the trap against the trappers.”

  Aoth nodded. “I agree,” he said. “It’s not like we can actually avoid fighting the demon. The Nars will pull it out of its cage eventually. At least up ahead there’s room for a bunch of us to fight at the same time, and since we know what to expect—well, partly—we can give the enemy a surprise instead of the other way around.”

  “Should we find out what the Stag King thinks?” Cera asked.

  “No,” said Aoth. “If he wanted to voice his opinions, he should have walked in front with the rest of us. Here’s what we are going to do …”

  When he had finished laying it out for them, and his orders had been whispered from man to man down the tunnel at his back, he reached out to Jet. Anything? he asked.

  No, the griffon answered. If the Nars have tunnels that come up outside the castle, they aren’t using them to slip away. Not as far as I can see.

  Good, because we’re about to release a demon. It wouldn’t be a particularly clever thing to do if the real enemy were already long gone.

  It likely isn’t a clever thing to do, anyway. But that never stopped you before.

  The word came back up the tunnel that everyone knew what he was supposed to do. Aoth and his companions prowled onward. The soft, muffled sound of footfalls, clicking hooves, and creaking leather, and of the occasional murmur or growl of a spirit animal, attested to the line of allies moving up behind them.

  As the leaders prowled into the crypt, Aoth noticed that not only was it large, but also the vaulted ceiling was high enough to accommodate even a true giant. Wonderful. As he steeled himself to deliberately step on the outermost line of the pentacle, Vandar brushed past him.

  Fine, Aoth thought, you do it. And the berserker did, n
early stamping on that part of the mosaic.

  The demon exploded into view and roared a word of power at the same time. It was every bit as huge as Aoth had feared it might be, with horns, a lupine head, a shaggy red-black pelt, and disproportionately large crab-like pincers at the end of each long, burly arm. The charge of force the word carried knocked Aoth and his comrades staggering.

  He found his footing, shouted his own word of command, and hurled a thunderbolt at the demon’s torso. Jhesrhi matched him with a fan-shaped flare of fire; and Cera, with a scorching shaft of Amaunator’s light. Seemingly startled by the speed of their response, the glabrezu flailed its claws and stumbled a step.

  But it wasn’t enough for the three of them to strike back. Their allies needed to start fighting, and once again, Aoth had to admit that the madmen of Rashemen had their uses. Even his sellswords might have hesitated, if only for a heartbeat or two, if such a huge horror had suddenly burst into view directly in front of them. The berserkers didn’t. Vandar screeched like a griffon, his brothers responded in kind, and they all charged.

  What Aoth found even more impressive was that they acted exactly as he’d ordered them to. Some threw themselves at the demon, while others raced to intercept the enemies who, he was certain, were about to pour into the chamber from the other tunnels. The latter was arguably an act of even greater courage, because it required the beserkers to turn their backs on the glabrezu.

  Vandar was one of the warriors who rushed the demon. He thrust the red spear completely through the creature’s left leg. The glabrezu pivoted toward him, and in so doing, sidestepped and jerked the beserker off his feet. Vandar let go of the spear, and, nimble as a tumbler in a carnival, rolled to his feet with the scarlet broadsword in his hand.

  Aoth aimed his spear at the glabrezu’s chest and rattled off the first words of an incantation that would blast it with a rainbow of destructive effects. Suddenly, the light in the chamber flickered and dimmed, and behind him, Cera screamed.

  * * * * *

  The Stag King had some inkling that Aoth Fezim considered him a shirker, and it alternately annoyed and amused him. He could match himself against any foe, as he’d proved in the courtyard. But it was asinine for a war leader to march in the vanguard and be exposed to every pit trap and skirmisher sniping from cover. And if the Thayan didn’t understand that, then he was a fool no matter how many liches and dragons he’d defeated, or how keenly his burning blue eyes saw what others could not.