“Would you ask if you and your templars had to stay to work Urik’s quarries?” demanded Neeva. “Stop trying to save your own life.”
The templar spun on her. “I’m trying to save Tyr!” he yelled. “If that means some of us suffer, then so be it!”
“You’re a fool, then,” said Jaseela, speaking calmly. “Even if we could force the gladiators to surrender—which we can’t—it would make no difference. Hamanu will honor his word only as long as it’s convenient. I say we stay and fight as one.”
“You mean stay and die,” spat Styan.
“We’re not going to die, and our gladiators are not going to surrender,” Rikus said, leaning forward in his chair. “I have something else in mind for us.”
His comment elicited puzzled expressions from his lieutenants, but only Styan questioned him. “What would that be?”
Rikus sat back. “I’ll tell you when the time comes,” he said.
The mul had no intention of revealing his plan now, for he feared the mindbender would use the Way to communicate it to Hamanu. Instead, Rikus turned his gaze on Maetan, who was quietly smirking at the discord.
“Now that you’ve delivered Hamanu’s message, our truce is finished. At the moment, you are the one who has only two choices: answer my questions and die quickly, or refuse and be torn apart by the thri-kreen.”
Maetan showed no emotion at the threat. “My choice depends upon your questions.”
“Name the spy who has been telling you of our movements and plans,” the mul demanded.
The statement elicited a rustle of surprised murmurs from his lieutenants, for Rikus had mentioned his concerns to no one except Neeva. All eyes immediately went to Styan, who, as a templar, was automatically suspect. The color drained from the old man’s face.
Maetan raised his brow and barely kept a smile from crossing his lips. “My spy?”
“Answer!” Rikus yelled.
The mindbender allowed the crowd to eye Styan for several moments, then said, “Very well. It costs Urik nothing to reveal the spy’s identity. Besides, his service did not prevent my family’s disgrace.” He pointed at Caelum. “It was the dwarf.”
“What?” Neeva shrieked.
“I promised to return the Book of the Kemalok Kings,” the Urikite explained. He held his arms up and opened his robe, showing that there was nothing beneath them. He laughed cruelly, then said, “Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten it. What a pity—Caelum will have to go to my townhouse in Urik to recover it.”
Rikus stared at Caelum’s frightened face with a slack jaw. He had been so convinced of Styan’s guilt that Maetan had stunned him by naming the dwarf. Nevertheless, the mindbender’s accusation made a certain amount of sense. Rikus had long ago voiced his own suspicions that the dwarf would resort to treachery to recover the book. To the mul’s mind, however, the most condemning indications of the cleric’s betrayal were the times he or his dwarves had refused to do as commanded and the lengths to which he had gone to endear himself to Neeva.
“Seize Caelum,” Rikus ordered.
Styan, who looked greatly relieved, moved to obey. Neeva cut him off and stepped in front of the dwarf. “Leave him alone.”
Styan reached for his dagger and tried to circle around the female gladiator. Neeva disarmed him with a lightning-fast kick that sent his blade flying, then grabbed a handful of his long gray hair and jerked him into her grasp. She slipped a hand around his chin and placed the other against the back of his neck.
“Don’t even flinch,” she hissed “As it is, it’s been too long since I’ve killed a templar.”
“Release him!” Rikus ordered, stepping off the marble throne. When she did not obey, he repeated his order. “Let Styan go.”
“No,” Neeva answered. “If you take another step, Rikus, I’ll snap his neck.”
“That’s your choice,” the mul countered, drawing the Scourge. “It won’t save Caelum.”
Neeva yelled in anger, then pushed Styan halfway across the room and unsheathed her own sword. “If you mean to kill him, you’ll have to fight past me.”
Rikus stopped. “You don’t mean that,” he said, his gaze fixed on her emerald eyes.
“Neeva, don’t,” Caelum said. He took a slow step toward Rikus.
“Be quiet and let me handle this,” Neeva ordered, once again placing herself between the dwarf and Rikus. To the mul, she said, “If you believe Maetan—”
“It’s not Maetan I believe, it’s what happened since the dwarves joined us,” Rikus countered. “The Urikites have countered every move we’ve made before we made it.”
“Perhaps there is a spy,” Neeva allowed. “It’s not Caelum, though. It doesn’t make sense. He’s the one who saved us from the halflings, and he fought with us at Umbra’s ambush—”
“That was when we lost Jaseela’s company,” Styan pointed out, still lying on the floor.
“Thanks to you,” Gaanon said. “If your templars would have been there, we’d have won.”
“True—but the dwarves weren’t there either,” said Jaseela.
“How can you say that?” Neeva demanded. “Caelum was, and he saved your life!”
“Only because she was standing next to him,” Rikus said. “He didn’t save any of her retainers.”
Caelum stepped from behind Neeva. “Rikus, I can understand why you choose to believe our enemy’s word over mine,” the dwarf said, his voice edged in anger. “But Neeva does not deserve such an insult. Apologize to her, or I’ll take measures.”
Neeva scowled. “Caelum, I’m not the one in danger here. Be quiet.”
Rikus shook his head, astonished by the dwarf’s tone. “Take measures!” The mul shouted. “Are you threatening me?”
Caelum blanched, but did not back down. “No, I’m warning you,” he said. He stepped forward, shrugging off Neeva’s hand when she tried to restrain him. “Believe that I’m the spy if you want. Go ahead and kill me. But you won’t mistreat Neeva while I’m alive.”
Jaseela stepped to the mul’s side. “Maybe we’d better think this through,” she said. “What if Maetan’s lying? He has no reason to tell us the truth. He might be trying to avenge himself on Caelum for bringing that river of fire down on his army, or he might be protecting the real spy.” She glanced at Styan meaningfully, then turned back to the dwarf who remained standing before Rikus. “Besides, I don’t think Caelum’s acting much like a spy.”
“No, he’s not,” Rikus agreed. He looked from the noblewoman to the dwarf. “He’s acting like a dwarf with focus.”
Caelum met Rikus’s eyes evenly. “That is so,” he admitted. “On the day Neeva saved my life, I swore to protect her always.”
“Then it stands to reason Caelum can’t be the spy,” Neeva said. She gently laid a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “Betraying the legion would be a violation of his focus.”
“Unless he’s lying about his focus,” Rikus said, glaring at Neeva. Despite his growing anger, the mul sheathed his sword and stepped away. “I don’t know whether he’s the spy or not, Neeva, but he’s your responsibility. If he betrays us later, you’ll suffer the same as him. Nothing will save you—not even what there is, or was, between us.”
Neeva’s eyes softened. “You’re doing the right thing.” She, too, sheathed her sword, then gave him a weak smile. “Thank you.”
Rikus turned away without responding. “Now leave—everyone,” he ordered. “Maetan and I will talk alone.”
The others frowned and began to object, but Rikus was in no mood for arguments. “Do it!” he ordered. “And don’t come back until I call you.”
The time had come to kill the Urikite, and Rikus thought it would be safer if there was no one else in the room when he attacked. Though Maetan had made it clear that he expected to die, the mindbender had given no indication that he intended to offer up his life without a fight. With the Scourge in his hand the mul would have some defense against the Urikite’s mental attacks, but no one else had the benefit of such p
rotection.
When everyone except Gaanon filed toward the doors, Rikus nodded to him. “You, too, my friend.”
“But if he intends to attack you—”
“He’ll do it whether or not you’re holding him,” the mul said. “A mindbender doesn’t need his hands.”
As Gaanon reluctantly released Maetan and moved toward the exit, Tamar demanded, Are you preparing to kill him?
Don’t try to stop me, Rikus warned.
Why would I want to? As long as he lives, he’s an obstacle to recovering the book, she answered. But you’ll need help, or he’ll use the Way against you.
Help?
Open the robe, she said. I’ll engage his mind. It will help if you can draw his attention to my ruby.
Once Gaanon had left the room, Maetan smiled confidently. “What did you wish to discuss in private?”
“I have something that belongs to you,” Rikus said, opening his robe.
The mindbender made a sour face as he eyed the wound on Rikus’s chest. Tamar’s gem shined so brightly that it cast a scarlet light over Maetan’s face.
“What is that?” Maetan asked, gesturing at the glow.
“Umbra,” Rikus answered. “And I want you to take him back. He’s so foul I can’t keep him locked inside any longer—he’s rotting my flesh from the inside out.”
A clever trick, Rikus, Tamar cooed.
A black shadow began to swim through the light coming from the ruby. Maetan overcame his revulsion and looked into the gem. “Umbra isn’t foul, he’s merely—”
Tamar ended his sentence by making her attack.
She filled Rikus’s mind with a vast plain of frothing yellow mud, stinking of sulfur and tolling with the thick plop of bursting bubbles. From one of these bubbles emerged the rear of a gross, many-legged thing with a ruby-red carapace of square scales. When it dragged its head out of the mud, Rikus saw that it had Tamar’s slitlike eyes and broad lips. In its huge mandibles it clutched Maetan’s struggling form.
Instantly, Rikus willed himself into the picture. He wasted no energy by assuming any form except his own, complete with the ulcerating sore on his chest. The only thing that was different, as far as he could tell, was that Tamar’s gem was not embedded in the wound.
Maetan turned toward him. “You ambushed me!” he snarled. “For that, you will die.”
The mindbender changed to the double-headed Serpent of Lubar. At the same time, the ground changed from boiling mud to roiling black gas, and Rikus lost sight of the snake.
“Maetan!” the mul screamed, furious that his enemy had eluded him in his moment of victory.
A brilliant blue light rose from the Scourge of Rkard, and Rikus found himself standing a short distance away from a massive arch of blue obsidian. Between him and the arch was a sandy plain. Here and there, jagged, square-edged sheets of translucent green glass protruded from the ground. There was no sign of either Maetan or Tamar.
“You said you wanted him!” the wraith’s voice cried, echoing down from the clouds of the black sky. “Come and get him.”
“Where are you?” the mul yelled.
The light cast by his sword suddenly narrowed to an intense beam that shone through the arch. Rikus ran toward the blue landmark. Already, he was beginning to feel tired, and he had done nothing except project himself into the combat.
A half-dozen glass sheets slipped from their places and shot toward him, their sharp edges turned horizontally so as to slice him into six different pieces from the knees to the neck. Rikus barely had time to bring his sword up, then slashed down through the plates as they approached him. They shattered into a hundred pieces, covering him with dozens of painful cuts as they struck. For many moments, the bloodied shards hung in the air, then fell upward toward the sky.
It was then that Rikus realized it took no effort at all to hold his sword with the blade pointing upward. He was standing upside down, no matter that the terrain suggested otherwise.
The mul threw his head toward the ground and his feet toward the ceiling. The icy world dropped out from beneath him, and he fell an immense, immeasurable distance. The world went black, then white again. Finally, he landed in the yellow bubbling ooze, his legs buried clear to his knees. There before him, where the blue arch had been a moment ago, was the Serpent of Lubar. The fangs of one of its massive mouths were sunk deeply into Tamar’s scaly carpace, and the second head was darting to and fro in search of an opening.
Pulling his feet free of the muck, Rikus waded toward the battle as fast as he could. Tamar tore at the serpent with her mandibles, opening long rips that oozed foul black goo. The snake coiled its body around her and squeezed. The wraith’s red scales snapped and cracked and splintered.
When he reached the battle, the mul raised his sword and brought it down on Maetan’s sinuous body. The magical blade sliced through the beast’s scales, sinking deep into its stringy flesh. The snake’s second head hissed and turned to face the mul, then shot toward him with its venomous fangs exposed. Rikus pulled the Scourge free and swung again.
The head stopped just short of the blade’s arc. The mul brought his weapon around for a thrust, but before he could strike the snake hissed at him. A blast of tepid air washed over Rikus, filled his nostrils with the sour odor of bile.
The serpent and the wraith disappeared, then Rikus found himself in the great hall of the mansion, expelled from the battle raging inside his own head. Before him stood Maetan’s motionless body, his gaze locked on the glowing ruby in the mul’s chest.
Sensing his opportunity to finish the battle, the mul lifted his sword and swung it at the mindbender. Maetan disappeared before his eyes. A sharp pain shot through the mul’s ankle as the invisible Urikite kicked him, then he felt his leg being swept from beneath him. Rikus tried to shift his weight to the other foot, but Maetan pushed him over before he could avoid the fall.
The mul crashed to the ash-smeared floor. As his battered body erupted in agony, the Scourge of Rkard slipped from his grasp and went skittering across the floor.
Cursing himself for a softling, Rikus scrambled after the sword. As he moved, the floor changed to a plain of boiling yellow mud, and he realized that he had been drawn back into the battle in his mind. The Scourge’s hilt disappeared into the muck, and the blade followed an instant later.
“Fool.”
Rikus looked over his shoulder and saw the Serpent of Lubar slithering after him. The viper carried its head off the ground, a forked tongue flickering from its mouth. It was using the head at the far end of its body to drag Tamar along, though she had now taken the form of a huge red bird with a needlelike beak.
Rikus looked away and started sweeping his hands through the mud, searching for the Scourge. An instant later, four sharp fangs punctured his abdomen. He felt the sting of venom running into his body as the serpent lifted him from the mud.
Realizing that he had no chance of defeating Maetan until he recovered his sword, the mul decided to try something desperate. Once, while being transported from Urik to Tyr by the slave merchant that bought him from Lord Lubar, Rikus had killed a guard during an ill-fated escape attempt. As punishment, the merchant had sent him into the mud-flats surrounding an oasis of rancid water, telling him the death would be forgiven if he could reach the far side.
Before Rikus had traveled fifty yards, a mouthful of sharp, barbed teeth had grabbed his leg and dragged him beneath the surface. The mul dived in after the beast and, blinded and choked by mud, wrestled his attacker until he snapped its bullish neck. When he had pulled it from the muck, he found himself holding a ten-foot salamander with a ring of featherlike scales around its neck and a half-dozen finlike feet along the course of its body.
Hoping that the same senses that had allowed the creature to find him in the mudflat would help him find his sword, Rikus summoned his stamina for a last stab at survival. He imagined himself as that salamander. The energy rushed up from deep inside himself, then became a long, wriggling reptile.
He slipped from Maetan’s grasp, leaving a mouthful of scales behind, and dropped into the mud below. A pair of membranes closed over his eyes, and he found himself in a world of slime, where there was no such thing as up or down, only forward and backward. As Rikus used his finlike feet to push and pull himself through the thick mud, Maetan’s poison continued to burn through his body, clouding his mind and weakening his muscles with every passing moment. Behind him, the serpent plunged his head into the mud, blindly snapping its jaws in an effort to recapture him.
Rikus continued to swim, emitting a continuous series of high squeals. They bounced back to the feathery scales around his head, constructing something like a picture of the terrain for his mind. It took him only a moment of whipping his head back and forth before he located his lost sword, and he scrambled for it as fast as his stubby legs would pull him.
When Rikus reached the Scourge, he placed a fin on its hilt, then cleared the image of the salamander from his mind. Instantly he changed back to his own form—and found himself blind and choking as he tried to breath mud.
Ignoring the panic welling in his breast, he grabbed the sword and rose from the muck.
Behind him, the Serpent of Lubar hissed, and he knew it was striking. Rikus spun around, lashing out with his weapon. The blade slipped between the snake’s fangs and passed cleanly through the back of the beast’s mouth.
Lord Maetan of Family Lubar screamed.
Rikus found himself standing back in the mansion chamber just as Maetan’s headless body collapsed at his feet.
The mul sank to his knees and closed his eyes, bracing himself on his sword. The serpent’s venom still burned through his body, but he felt it now as profound exhaustion.
It is done, Tamar said. Now, you must go to Urik and find the book. I must know Borys’s fate!
“I will recover the book,” Rikus said. “But not for you.”
The mul shook his head to clear it, but found his vision blurring. When he looked up, he saw that Neeva and K’kriq had disobeyed his orders and were rushing into the room. Behind them came Gaanon, Caelum, Jaseela, and Styan.
The Crimson Legion Page 26