The Rite

by Richard Lee Byers

  She found Dorn and Raryn at the lower terminus of the stairs. Grimy, bruised, and haggard, the half-golem was fully armed. Apparently he’d been standing watch. Raryn had his ice-axe, but not his bow, white fur-covered armor, or the rest of his gear. He’d probably been off duty, and come running without taking the time to equip himself in full.

  Dorn frowned when he saw Kara.

  “You’re not coming,” he said.

  “I am,” she replied.

  “If you get yourself killed up top, who’ll pull the old elves’ secrets out of the archives?”

  “I fight the chromatics when they make an assault.”

  “That’s necessary. This isn’t.”

  “It is for me. Chatulio is my friend.”

  Raryn looked up at Dorn. “You aren’t going to change her mind,” said the burly dwarf.

  Dorn grunted. “Then let’s get this done.”

  As they climbed the stairs, Raryn leading, Dorn following, and Kara bringing up the rear, she strained her senses for any warning sign that they were headed into a trap. She didn’t detect any, but she did hear snarling, and smell the tang of blood. Because of the Rage, the odor made her head swim, her mouth water, and her guts twist with self-loathing.

  Nothing lay in wait for them in the outbuilding. Like the rest of the structures comprising the monastery, it was a fine example of the stonemason’s craft, pleasingly shaped of creamy stone and adorned with intricate round stained glass windows, even though it was, in its essence, simply a gardener’s shed, with hoes and pruning shears hanging on pegs, flowerpots stacked in the corner, and sacks of fertilizer tingeing the air with a dungy scent. Still struggling against frenzy, Kara wished the stink was potent enough to mask the unsettling, arousing aroma of gore.

  She and her companions crept to the doorway and peeked out. She caught her breath. The growling came from several dragons devouring the body of another. So eager were the wyrms to rip their meal apart and gobble down the shreds that much of it was already unrecognizable. But Kara could still make out some coppery scales glinting in the sunlight.

  Fury swelled inside her. She hated the chromatics for desecrating the body of her friend, almost as much as she despised herself for craving a portion of the feast. She had to make Sammaster’s minions pay for the atrocity. She focused her mind to trigger the shift from human to draconic form.

  Somehow—perhaps he noticed a change in her posture—Dorn sensed her intent, took her by the forearm, and turned her around to look her in the eyes.

  “No,” he whispered.

  For an instant, she fully intended to strike him down for interfering with him, but then resentment gave way to shame.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Dorn replied, gruff and awkward as always when trying to give comfort or reassurance.

  “The madness is so close to the surface now,” she said, “all the time.”

  “You’ll beat it,” he said.

  “Look beyond Chatulio,” Raryn murmured.

  She tried. The knot of squirming, lunging dragons in the foreground largely blocked her view, but by craning and ducking, she caught a glimpse of the portion of the garden on the far side of them.

  Torn by fang and claw, the immense hidecarved green lay dead on the ground. Nobody was eating him yet, perhaps because his slayer had reserved the body for herself. Said killer was surely the ancient red—Kara had heard her underlings call her Malazan—commanding the attacking force. Burned and blistered, nearly as mangled and bloody as her vanquished foe, she lay in a bed of purple blossoms. Two smaller dragons, who evidently possessed priestly powers, crawled around her, hissing charms to close her wounds and renew her strength.

  “Now,” said Raryn, “back down the stairs. We’ve lingered long enough.”

  When they reached the vaults, Kara said, “Somehow, Chatulio tricked Malazan and the green into dueling. I’m sure of it.”

  The dwarf nodded. “I think so, too, which means he won a victory before the enemy laid him low.”

  “He eliminated one of their two most powerful fighters,” said Dorn, “and sorely hurt the other. Even with healers tending her, she won’t be fit to lead another attack for a while. The copper bought us some extra time.”

  I’ll make the time count, Kara thought. I promise you, Chatulio.

  As if to mock her pledge, a picture of all the tomes and loose parchments she had still to examine—shelf upon shelf, rack upon rack, chamber after chamber—rose up unbidden in her mind.

  15 Kythorn, the Year of Rogue Dragons

  In Thar, the infrequent trees were runt-ish growths twisted and gnarled by the wind. Still, the specimen on the benighted hilltop was substantial enough to support the naked corpse of an orc. Dangling from rawhide lashings, its eye sockets emptied by some hungry bird, reeking like the carrion it was, the goblin kin with its piggish face bore multiple cuts on its chest and belly. No doubt one of them had been the death of it. Above the marks of combat, someone had carved a crude representation of a horned, leering face with crossed scimitars beneath. Pavel reckoned it was the emblem of a rival orc tribe, who’d likely killed the creature for entering their territory, then hung it there as a warning to other would-be trespassers.

  “Well,” said Will, “are we ready for this?”

  He stood with his hand on the pommel of his hornblade. They’d found the curved, enchanted hunting sword in the grip of a dead ogre, and Pavel’s sun amulet among Yagoth’s possessions, after the flight of greens moved on. In the priest’s opinion, that was about the last piece of good fortune that had come their way.

  In the time since the extermination of the ogre troupe, the two searchers had tried to make their way back toward Thentia, but without horses, progress was slow. Time and again, they had to deviate from their course to avoid marauding dragons, or encounters with orcs and giant-kin.

  He wished he and Will had traveled in the company of one of Kara’s rogues. How glorious it would be to soar straight out of that wasteland on the wings of a dragon. But the Great Gray Land was just to the north of Thentia. He’d never imagined it would be so difficult to journey from one to the other, and thus it had made sense to employ all their flying allies to explore more distant sites.

  Finally, desperate to make some headway, he and the halfling had resolved to sneak across orc territory under cover of night. The problem, of course, was that goblin kin could see in the dark. But not as far as a man could see in the daylight, so it was possible the hunters’ woodcraft would see them through.

  “I’m ready,” Pavel said.

  “Want to cast a spell of silence?” asked Will.

  Pavel shook his head. “If something’s sneaking up on me, I want a chance of hearing it. I can creep quietly without enchantment helping me.”

  Will snorted. “You ‘creep’ like a three-legged ox, but have it your way. I’ll lead. You keep ten paces behind me, unless I wave for you to close it up.”

  They skulked forward, keeping to high ground but not the crests of the low hills. They didn’t want to silhouette themselves against the sky.

  In that sky, Selûne and the stars floated unseen above a layer of cloud, though a bit of their light suffused through to keep the night from being entirely black. The wind whistled, colder than by day. It made Pavel’s leg ache. Though Will had done a good job of straightening the limb, the priest walked with a slight hitch, and suspected he always would. Well, perhaps the ladies would think it heroic and therefore alluring.

  He and Will skulked along for perhaps an hour. Then the one-time thief raised his hand signaling a halt, and scurried back to join his human comrade.

  “What?” Pavel whispered.

  “Orcs, I think. A hunting party, maybe. I can’t see them yet, just hear them. They’re over there—” he pointed—“and headed in this direction.”

  Pavel listened intently, and heard nothing but the moaning of the breeze. Still, he was sure Will was correct. The halfling’s ears were ke
ener than his.

  “So we hide and wait for them to pass by?” Pavel asked.

  “Yes.” Will pulled the warsling from his belt. “And fight if they spot us. Come on.”

  They crouched behind a clump of brush. Heart beating faster, reviewing the spells he carried ready for the casting, Pavel kept trying to detect some sign of the approaching orcs. It came abruptly: a fierce baying, followed immediately by a clamor of brutish voices.

  “You didn’t tell me they had dogs,” Pavel said.

  “I didn’t know,” Will said. “Until the beasts picked up our scent, they didn’t make any noise. We’re in for it, pretty boy. Try not to wet yourself.”

  He placed a stone in the pocket of his sling.

  “Let me enchant that, you larcenous flea,” said the cleric.

  Pavel murmured a prayer, flourished his pendant, and touched it to the rock, which then glowed with a red-gold light. The halfling rose and let the stone fly.

  When the glow illuminated the oncoming orcs and the several huge dogs bounding ahead of them, Pavel winced. Maybe, as Will had assumed, they’d set forth as a hunting party, but if so, it was a large and well-armed one. Pavel thought it more likely they were raiders who embarked at first to attack a neighboring clan, but then grew more intent on prey discovered closer to home.

  Will slung a stone, and one of the hounds fell, its momentum tumbling it head over heels. Rattling off an incantation, Pavel thrust out his arm. A ray of light leaped from his hand to burn another dog to ash.

  Javelins flew out of the dark. One of them missed Pavel by inches and made him yearn for his enchanted brigandine, damaged by the squamous spewers, then destroyed utterly when Yagoth tore away what remained.

  He could conjure a form of magical armor for both Will and himself, but decided that before he attempted the spell, they needed to finish neutralizing the dogs. Big, shaggy brutes, the four who survived had nearly closed the distance separating them from their prey.

  Will hurled stones and dropped two more. Pavel conjured tingling, crackling power into his hand. A rod of congealed crimson phosphorescence shimmered into being in his grasp. When a hound lunged into range, he snapped his arm as if he held the butt of a whip, and a lash of red lightning blazed into being to strike the canine. The dog convulsed and collapsed, stinking of burned meat.

  The remaining beast sprang in, and Pavel had to leap aside to avoid its slavering jaws. He lashed it with the sizzling whip, and it too went down.

  The orcs charged.

  Will hurled more stones. Pavel chanted, brandishing his amulet. When it glowed red-gold, he touched it to the halfling’s shoulder. The light leaped to Will’s body to surround him with a shimmering aura that would help deflect a blade. Pavel just had time to repeat the operation and provide himself with the same protection before the first orcs scrambled into striking distance.

  Pavel and Will fought back to back, so no foe could attack either from behind. The lightning whip would last a few more heartbeats before the spell ran out of power, so for the time being, the priest struck with that, using the mace in his off hand as a shield to bat away thrusting spear points and slashing scimitars.

  He killed one foe, then another. He assumed Will was faring at least as well. But more orcs kept coming, swarming around them, and he wondered if he and the halfling would be overwhelmed. What a bitter joke it would be if they, who’d survived encounters with scores of creatures commonly accounted more dangerous, fell to goblin kin.

  As he battled on, he silently prayed to Lathander for succor. Until something swept over the combatants on the ground, momentarily blocking the moonlight that leaked through the clouds and plunging them all into deeper gloom.

  A huge, dark, and bat-winged reptilian form slammed to earth, the impact jolting the hillside. Scarlet eyes shining like hot coals, it snatched up an orc in its jaws, the two elongated upper fangs toward the front of its maw piercing the goblin kin through. The wrongness, the unnatural corruption Pavel felt seething inside the dragon, made his guts clench.

  “It’s Brimstone!” Will exclaimed.

  Since he wasn’t a priest, he lacked Pavel’s sensitivity to the undead, but he too had recognized the vampiric smoke drake—perhaps by the wyrm’s stink of sulfur and ash.

  Brimstone laid about himself, rending orcs with his talons and smashing them with his tail. For the time being, though, his jaws were occupied. He kept his first victim impaled on his longest fangs, and a nauseating sucking and slurping sounded from his mouth as he drained the goblin kin’s blood.

  The orcs screamed and fled, scattering in all directions. Plainly, they were no longer a threat, but Brimstone kept attacking them anyway, pouncing from one to the next like a dog in a ratting pit. After a time he spat out the bloodless corpse in his jaws, and apparently still thirsty, snatched up another swine-faced warrior in leather and mail.

  By the time he drank the life from that one, all the orcs were either dead or had run far away. Brimstone pivoted, and the fiery light in his eyes dimming a little since the slaughter was through, gave Pavel and Will a sneer.

  “Behold, priest,” he said. “You pray to your god for deliverance, and I appear. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  Taegan floated on the wind, above the lights of Thentia, and when the air currents carried him south of the town, the black expanse of the Moonsea. From time to time, luminous, translucent phantasms wavered into view around him, then faded out again. For the most part, they were representations of the local wizards, their images in full or just their faces painted large. The show was supposed to make him look like a seer using “avariel wizardry, the secret magic of the sky” to search for the identity of the traitor.

  The truth, of course, was otherwise. Hovering near him, shrouded in invisibility, Jivex cast illusions to create the spectacle. With luck, Sammaster’s agent saw the lights flickering in the night sky, and they’d provoke him into making an attack.

  That was assuming Taegan hadn’t already demonstrated the hollowness of his threat to unmask the wretch by erroneously proclaiming his innocence. Two days ago, to keep the pressure on, the bladesinger had announced the names of four more magicians whose loyalty he’d supposedly established beyond question. According to Rilitar, the folk in question were spellcasters of comparatively modest abilities, lacking the arcane might to operate as Sammaster’s agent did, but it was impossible to be sure. After all his prying and pondering, Taegan still wasn’t certain of anything.

  Hence the need to draw the enemy out, dangerous though the tactic was. Rilitar had wanted to stand guard over Taegan as he attempted it, but the bladesinger had deemed it a bad idea. Invisible or not, the more folk who lurked in his vicinity, the more likely it was that the traitor or his minions would somehow detect their presence. Accordingly, when Phourkyn had asked the elf wizard to meet with him to discuss some esoterica one of Kara’s rogues had discovered etched on a ceremonial anvil in a long-deserted dwarven stronghold, Taegan had insisted that he go.

  The avariel was carrying a pair of charms that Rilitar had prepared for him, however. One was a silver ring imbued with magic that gave the wearer the ability to see the invisible. Thus, he perceived Jivex as clearly as ever, and as the faerie dragon cast the glowing semblance of Firefingers’s grandfatherly countenance against the dark, he abruptly glimpsed the chasme as well.

  The fly-thing surged into view progressively from proboscis to rump as its body penetrated the effective area of the enchantment. It was diving from on high, out of the glittering haze of Selûne’s Tears, and had quenched its halo of flame. Perhaps it didn’t know how to make the blaze invisible.

  Since Taegan had spotted the danger, the other charm Rilitar had given him, a golden brooch cast in the form of an eye, had presumably detected it, too, and was sending a psychic signal to its maker. The elf would rush to the scene of the confrontation as soon as his magic could carry him there. Meanwhile, Taegan simply went on hovering as if nothing was wrong, luring the chasme into s
triking range.

  It snarled, leveled off out of its dive, and wheeled, putting distance between itself and its foe. Its shroud of flame erupted around it, drawing a hiss from Jivex, who hadn’t been aware of its presence until that instant. Somehow the demon realized Taegan had spotted it.

  The bladesinger gave chase, and so did Jivex. Taegan rattled off the spell to augment their speed. As the magic jolted through his muscles, he wondered what was keeping Rilitar, who represented the best hope of defeating the tanar’ri’s power of instantaneous travel.

  The chasme swooped low, over the spires and peaked roofs of the town. Just as it began a tight turn, Jivex stared at it intently, and slipped a bit of his natural magic past the tanar’ri’s natural resistances. A layer of powder spread across the chasme’s long-nosed caricature of a human face, sealing its eyes. Startled and blind, it swung too wide and smashed into a conical spire, then dropped to the rooftop below, where it lay unmoving.

  Taegan and Jivex raced on to the rooftop, where the bladesinger landed. Any swordsman, even an avariel, struck hardest with his feet planed. Pinions spread for balance on the treacherous incline, he advanced on his motionless foe. Butterfly wings a glimmering blur, Jivex streaked along beside him.

  The chasme vanished. Taegan cursed. He assumed the demon had recovered its wits and translated itself to a different location, but Jivex thought otherwise.

  “It was an illusion!” the dragon snarled. Perhaps, as a being adept at creating such mirages himself, he’d belatedly recognized a phantom for what it was.

  In any case, the purpose of the glamour could only have been to lead him and Taegan where the chasme wanted them to go. The bladesinger poised his wings to propel him back into the air.

  The rooftop split open beneath him, and his feet plunged through. The shingle-covered planks snapped shut, stabbing jagged wood into his ankles, holding him fast like fanged jaws. He cried out at the shock.

  Wings buzzing, the chasme—the real one, presumably—clambered over the apex of the pitched roof of a neighboring house. Jivex oriented on the tanar’ri, but hesitated for an instant as if uncertain whether to engage the demon or help Taegan free himself. It gave the chasme time to target the faerie dragon with a spell.