The Medusa Plague

by Mary Kirchoff

  In the event that the body is not available, due to immolation, devouring, disintegration, or any other factor, a small bit of skin, hair, nail, or bone can be substituted. The duration of the spell will be halved.

  Lyim scowled. Where was he going to get a piece of a dead man? Lyim blinked, recalling the one door in the villa that he had never opened. Snatching up a hand broom and small pan, he lifted the hem of his red robes and sprinted up the staircase two steps at a time. The mage emerged in the large rotunda through an archway that appeared to be a floor-length mirror. Lyim pounded across the inlaid marble floor and down the long hallway that led to the kitchens … and Belize’s sleeping chamber.

  Lyim paused outside the door before placing his hand on the faceted diamond knob. He had kept the room he’d had as an apprentice upon returning from Wayreth those many years ago. He’d had no need for, or curiosity about, the archmage’s sleeping chamber. He’d actually tried hard to forget Belize had ever lived here, blaming his former mentor for the mutation whose removal had become his obsession. Lyim stayed at the villa only because it was practical and convenient.

  Was the door trapped? Lyim doubted it, since the archmage had frequently mentioned he preferred marking his possessions so that he could track down thieves. Still, Lyim would not take foolish chances this close to a solution. A simple divining spell assured him he would not be harmed by opening the door.

  The door creaked loudly from disuse when Lyim pushed it open. He peered cautiously around it, feeling foolish as he did. Who was he expecting to find, Belize himself? The mage stepped in boldly and looked around.

  The room was small, even smaller than Lyim’s own. A layer of dust as thick as his little finger covered everything: the granite floor, the narrow spartan bed, the night stand. Lyim’s heart sank. He’d been hoping to sweep the room for any trace of Belize. But how would he be able to separate a lock of hair or petrified fingernail from the dust?

  Then his eyes fell upon it. The small corked jar on the night stand. It was half filled with red-tipped nail clippings. He snatched it up and hugged it to his chest, relieved laughter bubbling from his throat. Belize wasn’t vain; he must have had some magical purpose for saving his garishly painted nail clippings. If Lyim hadn’t hated the archmage so, he might have blessed the soul he was about to conjure.

  Lyim took the nails to the laboratory and continued reading where he’d left off. Hunger gnawed, and he felt his energy flagging. He would have to cast the spell soon.

  Speak the words of the spell. Next, place your prepared mixture in two flaming braziers set near the body and burn until smoke forms.

  Lyim reached under the central table and withdrew the requisite braziers, placing them on the table near the open jar of nails.

  Inhale smoke deeply. Exhale by calling forth the full name and suspected realm of containment for the soul in question. If a successful conjuration is attained, the caster is advised to recall the recommendations for speaking with the dead.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” muttered Lyim impatiently. His left hand, on the bowl of mixed components, was shaking. Using his teeth, the mage removed the cork from a seldom-used bottle of snowberry wine and took a long pull, waiting for it to burn a trail to the pit of his empty stomach.

  After carefully speaking the words that would activate the spell, Lyim took up the bowl again and divided it evenly between the two small flames. The flames roared up from both braziers, singeing Lyim’s eyebrows on the way to the ceiling. Slowly the flames flickered back down and in their wake left beautiful plumes of purple smoke. Lyim exhaled harshly, then thrust his head into the smoke and sucked in the acrid fumes until his lungs could hold no more.

  “I call from the Abyss the essence of Belize of Palanthas!” Lyim cried in a rush. The smoke that blew from his mouth now was as black as the air in that fetid realm of the dead. While Lyim watched, the smoke began forming into the familiar profile of the archmage Belize. The image, which wavered like the smoke from which it was made, lacked detail, but the stubble-ringed pate and goateed chin were unmistakable.

  A tide of conflicting emotions swept over Lyim: relief, fear, reverence, hatred. But hatred was the strongest. “Belize.”

  The apparition looked up at the sound of its name. There was neither recognition nor confusion in Belize’s expression, only an expectant stare.

  “You bastard.” Lyim was tempted to go on, but remembered that because of substitutions he would get only half the spell’s usual brief duration. “Tell me what you did to cause my hand to be changed to a snake.” Lyim viciously shoved the overlong cuff of his right sleeve back and held the hissing snake up to the apparition.

  As if looking beyond Lyim’s mutation, Belize seemed not to see the limb. “Your arm was the first living thing to enter the dimensional portal to the Lost Citadel in untold years.” Belize’s unearthly voice reminded Lyim of the wavering, ghoulish timbre he’d used as a child to frighten his friends.

  “Yes? So?”

  “Waiting within the unused bridge were starving extradimensional creatures. One was feasting on your flesh when your arm was withdrawn from the portal.” The apparition’s face contorted as if it were in pain. Its head spun about, and it appeared to bite at something behind it that only it could see.

  “The extradimensional snakelike creature was forced to meld with you to survive the transplantation to the Prime Material Plane.”

  It made a certain sense. “How do I remove the creature?” Lyim asked.

  “Recreate the events and reverse the process.”

  “But that’s impossible!” Lyim heard himself cry for the second time in recent days. “Thanks to you, no one can create a portal to the Lost Citadel!”

  Suddenly the image of Belize began to break up. “Don’t go yet!” Lyim didn’t know if the spell was expiring, or Belize was angered by his verbal attack. Frustrated, he continued to ignore the advice about dealing with the dead. “I conjured you, and I demand that you stay! I’m not finished with you yet!”

  But the fires in the braziers choked out simultaneously as if doused with water, and the smoke became purple and featureless again.

  Lyim collapsed onto a small wooden stool and rubbed his face wearily with one hand. He hadn’t been this exhausted since the conclusion of his Test. Then he’d felt good, proud. Now he just felt empty.

  Things had changed in the world of magic since Belize’s departure for the Abyss. Big things. One thing in particular, as he’d started to tell Belize’s apparition. No one would ever again be able to create a portal directly to the Lost Citadel. Just after Lyim had passed his Test and returned to Palanthas he had heard through magical circles that the Conclave of Wizards, in a rare moment of cooperation, had begun to build a stronghold to protect the entrance to the storehouse of godly magic. Those same sources mentioned that the location of the redoubt, called Bastion, would be a secret place beyond the circles of the universe and guarded by a representative of each of the orders.

  Five years ago Lyim had given the story little more than passing attention, consumed as he was with finding a cure for his arm. Now he wished he’d listened more closely to the gossip. Wherever it was, Bastion stood between Lyim and the Lost Citadel, between Lyim and his arm.

  Suddenly Lyim saw a glimmer of light flicker through the crack in what he’d thought was his last door of hope. Could he recreate the portal to the citadel at Bastion? It only made sense that, if creating the portal was still possible at all, Bastion was the only place to do it. Hope spread like magical fire in his heart. Each time Lyim had found himself at a dead end, a secret and unexpected door seemed to open for him.

  But where was the door to Bastion? Beyond the circles of the universe … that could be almost anywhere! The Abyss alone had six hundred sixty-six levels. Lyim considered it safe to rule out the realm of the dead, considering that the Council would not have sent their creation to such an evil place.

  Still, Lyim was undaunted. All he had to do was find the way to Bastion,
and then bribe the jailor with the keys. The magical world was a small one. Tapping his chin in thought, he wondered if, perhaps, he even knew one of the representatives stationed there.

  He’d been told the manor house he sought was at the end of the narrow lane, behind a tall and obscuring copse of trees. The mage trudged the muddy track between cropped hedges of bright green dogwood. The light but steady rain continued, piercing the fog that clung like cotton batting to everything it touched, including the mage’s mood.

  Cinching the hood of his cloak closed beneath his chin, Lyim hoped this miserable trek would prove worth the effort. Lightning flashed overhead, and he hastened his steps. The path abruptly opened up around a curve in the road, giving view of a large beige stone-and-timber manor, windows and shake roof overgrown with curling tendrils of ivy. Lyim stood in the rain for a few long moments, staring up at the manor; he was not looking forward to again witnessing the pity he’d seen in her honey-colored eyes that night on Stonecliff. But there was no way around it, if he was to get what he’d come all this way to retrieve. Not even a pretty girl and her pity would keep him from reaching the goal of a half decade.

  Lyim rolled down the last fold of his right cuff and secured beneath it the fingerless leather glove he’d had specially made for this trip. The mage came to the gate-room, a three-quartered cylinder fit against a corner of the manor. Standing under a small overhang, Lyim pounded first with his fist, then banged the lion-faced wrought-iron knocker repeatedly against the thick wooden door. Before long, he could sense someone regarding him through a small peephole. Lyim stood up straight, deliberately looking away from the door to present a casual profile.

  The door creaked open on unoiled hinges. Lyim spun about with a warm smile of greeting on his face, expecting a servant to answer. His lip trembled slightly at the sight of the woman herself. Lovelier than he remembered, statuesque and still slim, Esme’s face had taken on a depth of wisdom with age. The soft, round cheeks were now attractively hollowed and burnished with a healthy red glow. Shiny tendrils of curly golden-brown hair ringed her face and draped her shoulders like a thick cloak. Lyim preferred it loose to the tight bun he remembered her wearing at the nape of her neck. Her gown, a rosy whisper of a thing, draped and clung to her best advantage.

  “Lyim Rhistadt.”

  “Hello, Esme.” Lyim took note that her smile held genuine warmth. He gave a courtly bow from the waist. “You look as exquisite as ever.”

  “And you are ever the charmer,” she said, clearly pleased despite her cynicism.

  “It makes my words no less true,” he said smoothly, calling upon skills dusty with disuse.

  Esme colored ever so slightly. “What brings you to Fangoth?”

  “You, of course,” he said, his eyes sparkling directly into hers. He held his left hand out from under the stoop to catch the drops of rain that pelted his back. “May I come in?”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, coloring a becoming shade of red. “Of course, please come in.” Esme swept wide the heavy door and waved Lyim into the gate-room.

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, leading him over the polished slate floor in the small, circular room. “I’ve had so few visitors since my father died.”

  They entered a long hallway, dark and draped with thick tapestries. Esme turned left, into a small, cozy sitting room. Three large, arched windows, adorned with heavy mauve chintz, let in the rainy afternoon’s meager light. The room was overfilled, for Lyim’s taste, with flowery throw pillows and dark, heavy furniture, and tables covered with lace doilies and odd bric-a-brac. It was a very feminine place, and Esme slid into it like a hand into a well-worn glove.

  The young woman lowered herself gracefully into an enveloping chair by the unlit hearth. “This room was always kept closed when my father was alive,” she explained. “The furniture was here, though badly water-damaged from some long-ago flood. The first thing I did when I returned here to tend Melar during his illness was to clean the place up and redecorate to my own taste. It’s my haven within the manor house. Most of my time is spent here—when I’m not in the laboratory.”

  Lyim spied a black-framed silhouette of a man with Esme’s patrician nose and chin, but distinguished from her by a curling mustache. “Was your father ill very long?” he asked, settling into the second heavily padded chair. Lyim crossed his legs and arranged the folds of his red robe about his knees.

  “No.” Water dripped loudly and steadily from the windowsills outside.

  In the awkward silence that followed, Lyim spied a spellbook, open and lying facedown, on the parquet table between the two armchairs. “I heard you passed your Test at the tower,” he said.

  “From the same person who told you I’d come back to Fangoth?” she quizzed.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact I believe it was Justarius who told me both,” Lyim said mildly.

  “Justarius?” Esme looked surprised and a little disappointed at the mention of the Master of the Red Robes.

  “Who else?” Lyim asked archly.

  Esme stood and rubbed her arms as if chilled. “No one, of course,” she said, fidgeting as she placed some tinder in the cold hearth. “I lead the quiet life of a mage in study here. Justarius is about the only other wizard with whom I ever communicate, and then only rarely.” Esme stood and brushed off her hands, preparing to light the wood.

  Lyim watched her profile as he artlessly asked, “What about Guerrand?”

  The young woman went stiff. “What about him?”

  Lyim shrugged his shoulders. “I thought you two were—”

  “We were,” she cut in abruptly, “but we aren’t anymore.” The fire leaped to life beneath Esme’s fingers. She whirled around, amber eyes flashing, her composure totally fled. “Why don’t you cut short this little fishing expedition and tell me why you’re really here, Lyim?”

  “Esme!” Lyim feigned shock, left palm pressed to his breastbone. “I merely came to see an old friend—”

  Her laughter cut him off. “You traveled hundreds of leagues from Palanthas—”

  “It’s not that far.”

  “Just to see me and check on my social life after—what’s it been, five, six years?” Esme chuckled again. “Lyim, Lyim,” she intoned, “you might have been able to fool Guerrand, but I always saw through your slick act.” She shook a tapered finger at him. “Mind you, I’m not overly angry, but neither am I stupid.”

  “No one would ever mistake you for that.” Lyim matched her firm expression, but he was the first to look away, smiling sheepishly. “I’m no less sincere about seeing an old friend, just because I had a dual purpose to this visit,” he said with exaggerated contrition in his tone.

  Esme had the good grace to acknowledge the possibility with a polite nod. She leaned against the back of a chair, facing him, her arms crossed expectantly.

  Lyim blurted, “I understand that you were among the mages who designed and built Bastion.”

  “That was quite some time ago,” she replied cautiously, leaning forward. “How did you hear about it? I thought the identities of the designing members were supposed to be kept secret.”

  “What can I say? The magical rumor mill in Palanthas is a living thing. Besides,” he said, shrugging, “it wouldn’t have been a difficult thing to figure out. In addition to the Council of Three, who were the other eighteen members of the Conclave at the time of construction?”

  Esme pursed her full lips. “Why the curiosity about a place none may enter?”

  Lyim decided to speak boldly. “I want to become our order’s guardian there. Frankly, Esme, my life hasn’t turned out as I’d planned. I haven’t been able to cure my … deformity.” He drew his leather-gloved hand back when her eyes inevitably strayed to it.

  “I’d welcome the isolation,” Lyim went on in an enthusiastic rush. “There, only two other people would be subjected to seeing my hand.”

  “I’m sorry, Lyim,” she said softly.

  He tore h
is gaze from the pity he’d expected, and now found, in her eyes. “I don’t want your sympathy,” he said sharply. “I want your help. You know what Bastion is like. You were among those who designed and built it. Tell me what you know,” he rushed on, leaning toward her, “and it will give me an advantage over other candidates the next time the position becomes available.”

  Lyim reached out with his hand for one of Esme’s, then noticed the thick, silver bracelet in the shape of a snake encircling her right bicep. He remembered well the electrical shock the protective armband delivered. Lyim’s hand curled into a desperate fist. “Please, Esme. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”

  The young woman visibly paled. “Don’t you know?”

  For once, Lyim didn’t have to pretend ignorance. “Know what?”

  “That Guerrand took the position less than a year ago,” she supplied. “And unless something has happened to him—”

  “Guerrand DiThon is the Red Robes’ guardian?” gulped Lyim, uncharacteristically surprised.

  Esme nodded, her brow furrowed. “I can’t believe that you spoke to Justarius recently and he didn’t mention it.”

  “We didn’t really discuss Bastion or Guerrand,” muttered Lyim. That wasn’t surprising, since he hadn’t spoken to the Master of the Red Robes in years.

  “I’m sorry to be the one to dash your hopes,” Esme said. “Frankly, I don’t think I could have helped you very much anyway. Though I participated in the exterior design and construction of the stronghold, all but the Council of Three were dispatched from the site before the interior was complete and it was sent to the plane where it would block passage to the Lost Citadel.”

  “What plane is that?” Lyim asked.

  Esme pondered the question. “ ‘Between earth and sky’ was all Justarius would ever say about it.”