The Masked Witches

by Richard Lee Byers

  By the Luckmaiden’s grace, it took a moment. Time enough for Aoth’s thoughts to snap back into focus and for him to rattle off a spell.

  Nearly as long as the blaspheme’s weapon, a blade made of blue phosphorescence shimmered into being. It flew at the undead and cut at it. It parried, and the greatsword rang.

  Fence with that for a while, thought Aoth. Meanwhile, he’d take the blaspheme apart with further spells.

  But as he took a breath to begin, the patchwork warrior snarled a single word. Aoth had never heard it before, but the charge of power it carried set his teeth on edge and made his battered head throb anew. It also prompted the corpse of the ice troll to make a grab for his ankle.

  Aoth barely managed to jump away. The reanimated ice troll heaved itself up off the floor.

  All right, he thought, it’s a race. I need to get rid of you before the blaspheme finds a way to get rid of my flying sword.

  Suddenly, a disembodied female voice sounded across the vault, magic making it audible despite the roar of combat. “Uramar!” it called. “Fall back! Everyone, fall back!”

  Still defending himself against the sword of light, the blaspheme started to do precisely that, and its troops with it. It occurred to Aoth that a prudent man might be glad to let it go. But he was certain that the blaspheme was a leader—maybe the leader—of the undead conspiracy threatening Rashemen. He set about stabbing and burning the ice troll out of his way as quickly as he could.

  Unfortunately, it took a few heartbeats, and after that, he found himself facing clanking, steaming boarlike constructs of articulated steel and brass—products of Raumathari sorcery, probably—that the enemy had deployed to recover their retreat. Once he and his allies destroyed those, the vault was theirs, but the blaspheme had long gone.

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  As previously planned, the surviving leaders of the defense assembled in a vault two levels deeper than the one they’d just conceded to the attackers. A number of their weary followers had crowded into the chamber with its intricate bas-reliefs of demons and damned souls crawling over and over one another, and more were stumbling in by the moment. But Nyevarra and her peers had claimed a little side crypt for their exclusive use, so they could talk privately.

  As she’d so often seen him, Uramar stood staring at nothing and occasionally whispered to himself. Dark blood, or something akin to it, oozed from the slash in his torso; and despite the gravity of the current situation, she found herself wondering how that gelid ichor tasted. Would it poison her or exalt her in ways the blood of the living never could? Of late, sleeping away the time when the sun shone in the sky, she’d been having ecstatic dreams and terrifying nightmares—sometimes it was hard to tell which were which—about what might happen if he’d allow her to drink her fill of ekolid blood …

  She realized Pevkalondra was staring at her. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I asked,” said the ghoul with an edge in her voice, “if you were absolutely certain we were beaten.” The pearl in her eye socket glimmered in a manner suggestive of a tic, and the tiny silver scorpions crawling in the folds of her robe made a tiny rustling. No living person would have been able to hear them, but a vampire could.

  The Raumviran’s question, and the implication of cowardice it carried, drove thoughts of exotic blood from Nyevarra’s mind. “Of course!” she snapped. “Once I was out of the thick of it, I could see the whole battle in a way others couldn’t. And yes, we killed the Stag King”—or rather, she had, she and the trap she’d set, so how dare anyone doubt her courage or her judgment, either? “But nothing else was going as we had hoped. The enemy had destroyed Falconer and the glabrezu, too.”

  And the blonde witch had seemed on the verge of burning her and her sister durthans to ash. Although in retrospect, Nyevarra realized, there was reason to question whether the bitch truly had possessed the power. Maybe Nyevarra had given up on that particular part of the struggle too quickly. But she would rather have jammed a hawthorn stake into her own heart than admit it.

  Pevkalondra spat charcoal-colored sludge. “If I had thought the battle hinged on filthy Nars and their pets,” she said, “I wouldn’t have agreed to help fight it in the first place.”

  Nyevarra sneered and felt her fangs lengthening. “If I were you, I’d keep my voice down,” she said. “There are Nars just outside. Many more than there are Raumvirans.”

  “I don’t fear them or barbarian witches, either,” the ghoul said.

  Nyevarra took a firmer grip on her new antler weapon. But before it could come to a fight, Uramar roused with a jerk, and his mismatched eyes widened at the display of burgeoning hostility. “Enough!” he said.

  Pevkalondra scowled to the extent that her shriveled, flaking face was capable of expression. “I don’t care if your Nars and durthans outnumber me a thousand to one,” she said. “I will have respect.”

  Uramar hesitated before replying, almost as if someone was whispering the proper response in his ear. “You do have it,” he said. “If it seemed otherwise, it’s simply because we undead have a … fierceness in us. And when things aren’t going well, it can even make us lash out at one another.”

  “Well, it’s too bad your leman here wasn’t feeling a little more fierce upstairs, the ghoul said. “Then perhaps things would be going better.”

  “I was in the midst of the fighting,” Nyevarra said. “Where were you? Directing your constructs from a safe distance, I believe.”

  “Because that’s an effective way to kill the enemy,” Pevkalondra replied. “As opposed to giving the order to run away.”

  “Please,” Uramar said through gritted teeth. “No more bickering. Lady Pevkalondra, I understand your frustration. I thought we were going to win, too. We should have. But luck wasn’t with us, and I’m satisfied that Nyevarra made the right decision. I promise you that when the time is right, we’ll take revenge for this defeat.”

  Pevkalondra spat again. “But for now, we set our puppets dancing and disappear,” she said.

  “Yes,” the blaspheme said. “So let’s get to it, and deploy those who are staying behind in such a way that the enemy will pay a price for the privilege of hunting us.” For if their counterfeits went down too easily, it could give the game away.

  * * * * *

  Aoth turned back to Cera just in time to see blood flow from under the stained linen bandages wrapped around her brow. Cursing, she pressed her hand against the dressing.

  “Do you need help?” he asked.

  She snorted. “What kind of a healer would I be if I didn’t know how to apply pressure to a cut?” she said, cocking her head. She studied him, and her expression softened. “It’s nothing, I promise.”

  But you almost lost your eyes, he thought, and, maybe partly because he himself had once been blind, the thought appalled him. She was right, though, there was no point fussing about it, especially when so many of their allies had fared far worse.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Is your magic coming back?”

  “Trickling back,” she said. “I’ll start helping those who are hurt the worst as soon as I can.”

  “Good. And I need to do my own work,” he said as he hugged her, and their armor clinked together.

  Aoth made his way across the vault. Corpses—most conspicuously, the gigantic, burned-smelling carcass of the glabrezu—littered the floor. Berserkers sat huddled and shivering, waiting for the sickness that followed their fury to run its course. Meanwhile, stag warriors guarded the arches leading to the tunnels. Jhesrhi had attended to that. Apparently the degenerate fey were taking their orders from her.

  Aoth wondered what they thought they recognized in her, and what the durthans she’d put to flight imagined they’d perceived. He told himself they were merely overreacting to the fire flowing inside her. With his spellscarred eyes, he could see it, too, but it di
dn’t mean anything beyond the obvious. Although, of course, the obvious was strange enough.

  When she saw him coming, Jhesrhi gave him a nod. “Is your magic coming back?” she asked.

  “The question of the moment,” he said, smiling. “Yes, and what about yours?”

  “Yes,” she said, returning his question with a quick smile. “I take it we’re going to need it.”

  “I hope you are,” Vandar said.

  Aoth turned to face the man who’d come up behind him. Though he looked as spent and as shaky as any of his lodge brothers—he was leaning on the red spear like an old man leaning on a staff—Vandar’s eyes glared, and his lips were twisted in a sneer.

  “What does that mean?” asked Aoth.

  “I thought the glabrezu had killed both of you,” the Rashemi said. “But now I see that you just gave up on trying to kill it.”

  Aoth felt a stab of anger and took a long breath to quell it. “Fighting the demon was important,” he replied. “But other things were happening that were just as important, and Jhesrhi and I—and Cera—had to go and deal with them. We didn’t want to leave you berserkers to handle the glabrezu by yourselves, but it was necessary.”

  Vandar grunted. “Whatever you say,” he said. “I—I mean, my brothers and I—managed to kill the thing without you. What I want to know now is why we’re dawdling. We need to get after the enemy to crush them once and for all.”

  “Of course,” Aoth said, “I agree with you. And I mean to give chase as soon as we’re able. But we’ve had this talk before. You don’t want to lead your brothers into more fighting before they’re ready.”

  “No,” said Vandar. “But what if the durthans are getting away?”

  “We have a way of checking on that, remember?” said Aoth. “I’ll do it now.” He reached out to Jet, and, through the familiar’s eyes, saw the night sky. Selûne was rising in the east and trailing her haze of shimmering tears behind her. Fresh white snowflakes drifted on the frigid, moaning wind.

  There’s still nobody coming up out of any tunnels, said Jet. You should have taken me along with you. You could have used me when the patchwork man was tearing you apart.

  You may be right, but it’s too late now. Stay on watch.

  I will. But I’m going to kill a wild hog, too. I saw some awhile ago, and I’m hungry.

  Aoth fixed his gaze on Vandar. “Jet says there’s no sign of undead and such aboveground,” he said.” So they must still be down here with us.” He smiled. “Come on, relax. Surely the master of the Griffon Lodge trusts the word of his totem.”

  Vandar didn’t smile back, but said, “Be ready as soon as you can.” Then he turned and strode off toward some of his lodge brothers.

  “I don’t like this,” Jhesrhi said. “He was always headstrong and touchy, and he never liked you much. But now he’s … different.”

  “I agree,” said Aoth, “and I don’t like it, either. But in spite of everything, we’ve got the foe on the run. Let’s finish this, collect our reward, and go home to the Brotherhood.”

  * * * * *

  Dai Shan stood at the bow of the Storm of Vengeance and gazed out at the vague black face of the benighted land below. It was an interesting sight, simultaneously majestic and mysterious, but it still afforded no sign of the Fortress of the Half-Demon.

  Leaning on the rail beside him, Mario Bez said, “We’re almost there.”

  “Are you sure?” Dai Shan asked.

  The sellsword arched an eyebrow.

  Dai Shan bowed. “A thousand apologies, most sagacious of navigators,” he added. “Of course you are.”

  “Right,” said the captain. “And because I am, it’s time for you to do some more spirit traveling and figure out what we’re going to find when we arrive.”

  Inwardly, the Shou sighed. Perhaps it had been a mistake to let Bez know that he in any sense possessed that capability. Certainly there was an element of risk attendant upon entering a trance in the mercenary’s presence. What if Bez had inferred that, his assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, Dai Shan still intended to claim the wild griffons for himself? What if the Halruaan decided to take advantage of a rival’s diminished capacity by sticking his rapier in him or tossing him over the side? It was, after all, what Dai Shan might well have done in Bez’s place.

  But only after said rival had outlived his usefulness. Dai Shan hadn’t, and he judged that his companion was shrewd enough to realize it.

  So he said, “I have every confidence that your timing is impeccable, my valiant ally, and it will be my privilege to glean whatever information I can.”

  He moved to the center of the forecastle, sat down on the deck with his legs crossed, closed his eyes, and breathed slowly and deeply. When he felt centered, he reached out to the shadow that, tendays before, he’d cast to spy on the Griffon Lodge. Unless something had happened to it, it had followed the berserkers north to the Fortress of the Half-Demon and was stalking them still.

  Yes. It still existed. He could feel the ache of emptiness, the strange mix of malice, cunning, and dullness, and the absolute need to serve him that passed for its mind. He told it to give up everything it had and was, identity and existence themselves, and become him.

  Perhaps the shadow resisted or regretted, but if so, only for an instant. Then it was gone, and Dai Shan stood in its place.

  Of course, he was still sitting in the bow of the Storm as well. But for the moment, the original Dai Shan was content to empty his mind and vicariously experience what his counterpart experienced.

  The active Dai Shan found himself in a tunnel whose darkness was, of course, no impediment to his sight. Peering about to make certain no one was in his immediate vicinity, he inferred that he was in the notorious tangle of dungeons beneath the Fortress of the Half-Demon. Off in the distance, the wavering yellow lights of torches moved to and fro, men called out to one another, and, to his surprise, sleigh bells, or something like them, chimed.

  He surmised that Aoth Fezim, Vandar Cherlinka, and their allies must have won an initial battle with Falconer, his fellow undead, and their servants. That seemed to be the only way the living humans could have gained access to the vaults. But what else was happening?

  There was one way to find out, and Dai Shan supposed he needed to get on with it before the impermanent incarnation of himself ran out of life. He whispered a charm, and a cool tingle ran over his skin as he became invisible. Then he skulked toward the nearest source of torchlight.

  Keeping a safe distance, he watched creatures like gaunt stags that walked on two legs and fought with weapons. They destroyed a steel bull that snorted jets of scalding steam from its nostrils. The bells bound to the warriors’ antlers made the jingling he’d been hearing.

  From there, he skulked on to a spot where a dozen howling, screeching Rashemi had cornered a durthan and some goblins and were hacking them to bits. The goblins screamed for the masked witch to cast a spell, but she didn’t, not even when the berserkers cut her down in her turn. Perhaps she’d already expended all her power.

  Such scenes gave Dai Shan more insight into the situation unfolding all around him. Since there was still fighting going on, it might be premature to call the attackers victorious, but their victory appeared inevitable. They were hunting their foes and driving them before them, deeper and deeper into the vaults.

  And where was Falconer? Destroyed? Trapped? Escaped via some secret exit? It was impossible to say.

  But perhaps it didn’t matter. It scarcely seemed like a propitious moment to make a stand with the undead. No, if Dai Shan revealed himself at all, it had better be as the honest merchant who’d promised to help save Rashemen. Yet there didn’t seem to be much point in announcing himself in that guise, either. The attackers didn’t need his help and were unlikely to welcome a competitor trying to attach himself to them at the moment of their triumph. So he simply renewed his shroud of invisibility and prowled onward. He might as well learn everything he could.


  He headed for the echoing shouts and clamor of what sounded like a nearby skirmish. But before he reached it, he spotted an archway capped with three relatively inconspicuous vertical notches like the ones he himself had chiseled beneath the Iron Lord’s castle. But something about those grooves looked different.

  Well, no, actually not. They looked identical, but they felt different. Dai Shan was at a loss to account for it until he remembered he wasn’t his normal self. Rather, he was a shadow reshaped into human form, and some such phantoms possessed modes of perception mortals didn’t: tropisms and instincts that enabled them to fix on the energies of life and undeath.

  He was still trying to guess what it all meant when he heard hushed but urgent voices whispering down the passageway. Averse to trusting magic alone to hide him at close quarters, he retreated into the mouth of a branching tunnel.

  Radiating an unnatural chill and a sickening feeling of wrongness, the blurry, wavering, and all but faceless form of a ghost came into view. Dai Shan couldn’t quite tell if it was striding, flying, or moving in some even stranger way. The thought of looking closely enough to figure it out made his stomach churn.

  With many a glance back over their shoulders, a trio of masked, hooded durthans scurried after their spectral guide. Their flickering, semitransparent familiars hurried with them: a peregrine, a wildcat, and a swarm of bees.

  Orienting on the archway with the carving, the ghost extended three wispy fingers and flicked his hand in a downward motion, as if it was scratching similar marks on the air. The space beyond the doorway changed.

  It was still a tunnel, but it forked just a few strides in, whereas before, there had only been one passage receding until a dogleg bent it out of sight.

  Nor was that the only change. Since there were no lights shining anywhere nearby, it mocked common sense to suggest that the passage was blacker than it had been before. Yet it was. The idea, the essence of darkness crawled and festered there so thickly that even Dai Shan’s magically enhanced sight had difficulty making out the details of the morbid carvings that adorned the walls in bewildering profusion.