Prophet of the Dead: Forgotten Realms

by Richard Lee Byers

  The Halruaan shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. My commission was to exterminate the creatures, and I did. Now that the crisis is over, perhaps you and the other wise women can look into the underlying cause.”

  “I’m sure they can,” Mangan said. “But first, we’ll have feasting and games to celebrate your victory.”

  “Thank you,” said Bez. “You honor us. But I hope that first before anything, I can claim my prize. This morning, if possible.”

  The Iron Lord cocked his head. “Right now, in other words? Surely you and your warriors are tired.”

  “Of course,” Bez replied. “But we traveled far in the dead of winter to obtain the griffons. Then we fought what turned out to be a challenging little campaign across the length and breadth of this land. In our place, wouldn’t you be eager for your reward, no matter how weary you were?”

  “I suppose so,” Mangan said. He turned to Yhelbruna. “Are you prepared to work your part of the magic?”

  She hesitated for a heartbeat without quite knowing why. Then she told him, “Yes.”

  “Then I guess we’re all going to hike a little farther in the snow.”

  Some of Bez’s sellswords joined the procession as it headed northeast. Yhelbruna recognized Melemer, a sly-looking little tiefling warlock with stubby horns, yellow eyes, and a cabalistic ring on every finger; Olthe, a priestess of Tempus the Foehammer as broad-shouldered and burly as many a berserker; and Sandrue, a plump, jolly-looking fellow with a scraggy, goatish beard, who, as his belt of pouches for spell components and the bronze sickle hanging from it attested, was versed in both arcane and druidic mysteries. He was the beast master Bez was counting on to control the griffons well enough to get them back to Yaulazna for proper training.

  As they all left Immilmar behind, Yhelbruna asked, “Where’s Dai Shan? Didn’t he accompany you the last time you flew out of town?”

  Perhaps, for an instant, a subtle tightening of Bez’s mouth bespoke irritation, but then his face was all affability again, a mask as effective in its way as any witch’s. “If we weren’t all friends here, I might almost wonder if you hathrans spy on your guests.”

  “You can understand why we’d take an interest in those on whom we depended to perform a vital task.”

  “Of course. And unfortunately, that’s the part of my news that isn’t joyous. The Shou perished during the battle. When I have a chance, I’ll inform his retainers and write a letter of condolence for them to take back to his kin.”

  “What about Captain Fezim, the sun priestess, and the wizard? And Vandar Cherlinka and the Griffon Lodge? They all ventured forth to find and destroy the undead too, but they haven’t returned.”

  Bez shook his head. “I wish I knew, but we saw no trace of them. It’s unfortunately possible the undead killed them before the Storm found and destroyed the creatures in their turn, but I hope not. I hope they’re simply wandering the countryside trying to pick up a trail and will turn up in due course.”

  The rasping cry of a griffon split the frigid air. A number of the creatures were circling within their invisible cage, a weave of magical compulsions constraining them to a certain patch of hilly ground. The bell jar—like space was as huge as Yhelbruna and her sister witches had been able to make it, but it was still obvious the magnificent creatures hated their confinement, and even knowing that she’d acted in accordance with the will of the Three, seeing their restlessness gave her a twinge of guilt.

  The hathran currently watching the beasts wore a white robe trimmed with green and a silver mask with a single short horn jutting from the center of the forehead to signify her devotion to the Forest Queen. Dispensing with decorum like everyone else this morning, she hurried to greet the procession with the several berserkers Mangan had assigned to attend her striding along behind.

  “We all saw the skyship and heard the thunderclaps,” she said. “Is it time?”

  Yhelbruna supposed that with Mario Bez right beside her, the only courteous answer was yes. Still, some grudging impulse made her say, “We’ll find out,” instead.

  She glanced around, but as she’d expected, the particular griffon she sought wasn’t one of the few on the ground. She peered up at the creatures soaring and circling overhead until she made out one that gleamed like gold in the sun.

  She pointed to it. “That one is the leader. Control him, and you control the pride. Well enough to take them south, anyway.”

  The beast master nodded. “I understand.”

  “I hope so. I imposed my will on him when Vandar and I found him in the High Country, and my magic has controlled him ever since. I’ll have to loosen my bonds so you can create yours.”

  “That shouldn’t pose a problem.”

  “One more thing. The golden griffon is a telthor—a spirit animal, and sacred to the goddesses. I understand the requirements when one lays an enchantment on any creature. Yet even so, it would be blasphemous for you to use a spell that inflicts pain or reflects a lack of reverence.”

  Sandrue pulled the bronze sickle from the loop that attached it to his belt and hefted it for her inspection. “My lady, I understand that among your folk, the men don’t study spellcasting. But I wouldn’t have this instrument if I weren’t an initiate in mysteries comparable to your own.”

  “So let’s get on with it,” said Bez.

  With an effort of will, Yhelbruna thrust the nagging reluctance out of her mind and so achieved the pure intent magic demanded. She locked her gaze on the golden griffon and chanted while shifting her staff from side to side in choppy mystic passes.

  As the incantation proceeded, the completion of each rhyme removed another bit of compulsion from the golden griffon’s mind like she was picking stitches out of a piece of sewing. The invisible cage would still confine the telthor because that was an enchantment she and other hathrans had laid on the ground itself, but in other respects, he was becoming increasingly free to act in accordance with his instincts.

  Or rather, he would have if she were the only person working magic. But to give him his due, Sandrue started conjuring exactly when she would have chimed in herself, and brandishing the sickle, murmuring contrapuntally, he replaced her coercions with his own.

  She finished her working, and he finished his own a few breaths later by slashing the sickle through the air, pressing the flat of the curved blade to his lips, and then touching it to his heart. Then he screeched like a griffon himself.

  The pride leader answered, furled his wings, and swooped toward the ground.

  People cringed or cried out, partly because a dangerous animal was plunging down at them, but also because, once he came close enough, it didn’t take a hathran to recognize how marvelous he was.

  It wasn’t just the golden plumage, unique as that was among the brown- and bronze-feathered kindred. It was the blazing sapphire eyes and his hugeness. With the possible exception of Aoth Fezim’s steed—the product, Yhelbruna had gleaned, of arcane tampering over multiple generations—she’d never seen a griffon so manifestly graced with preternatural strength and vigor.

  The telthor lit in the snow fifteen paces in front of Yhelbruna, Sandrue, and the people clustered behind them. The blue eyes glared, and for a moment, like mice frozen in front of a cat, no one moved or made a sound.

  Then Sandrue smiled and said, “You honor us, hunter. What’s your name, I wonder?”

  “Whatever I decide to call him,” said Mario Bez.

  Sandrue hesitated, plainly torn between the wish to avoid irritating his commander and the need to assert his own esoteric expertise. “Such a special creature already has a true name—”

  “Fine,” said Bez. “Puzzle it out and let me know. Meanwhile, is it safe to approach him?”

  “It should be,” Sandrue replied.

  “Good.” The sellsword captain eased forward. “Griffon, we’re going to have some wonderful times together. People tell me your kind relish horseflesh. Well, we’re going to lands where horses—”

/>   The golden beast crouched as though poising himself to spring. At the same instant, Yhelbruna had a sudden sense of bonds slipping and dropping away. Overhead, other griffons called to one another.

  Registering the change in the pride leader’s stance, Bez halted. “Is it still safe?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the beast.

  “No,” Sandrue said. “Back away—”

  With a snap of his wings, the golden griffon pounced.

  Bez leaped to the side. Yhelbruna rattled off the first words of a spell.

  Splashing up snow, the golden griffon thumped down beside the sellsword captain and spun toward him. Bez was snatching for his rapier but didn’t have it out yet and likely wouldn’t be able to dodge again with the huge beast right on top of him.

  But as the golden griffon started to snatch with his talons, Yhelbruna finished her incantation and jabbed her staff at the beast.

  Discernible even in the sunlight, seeming for an instant to set the snow on fire, glare burst into being around the griffon, and the telthor faltered and screeched. Likewise caught in the effect, Bez was probably just as dazzled but had the presence of mind to retreat, finish drawing his sword, and point it at the beast. A coating of frost flowed into existence from the base of the long, narrow blade to the point.

  A second griffon hurtled toward the folk on the ground. Melemer snarled grating words of power in some demonic tongue, and a javelin made of red-hot iron shimmered into being in his hand. Gripping it without apparent discomfort, he cast it, and it streaked upward and completely through the plunging animal’s wing. The griffon screamed and leveled off.

  Apparently Bez had recovered enough of his sight to make out what had just happened. “Curse it, no!” he bellowed. “Don’t hurt the beasts!” Meanwhile, though, he kept his rapier pointed at the golden griffon and drew his dagger as well. Little flares of lighting arched and crackled up and down the smaller blade.

  Understandably, with more griffons orienting on the folk on the ground, folk they suddenly felt free to treat as enemies and prey, nobody else was much more inclined to heed Bez’s command than he was acting in accordance with it himself. The Iron Lord whipped out his sword, and his honor guard did the same. Homely, mannish Olthe lifted her battle-axe.

  Not that any of it was likely to matter very much. Mangan and his warriors were formidable, and Yhelbruna assumed that Bez and his underlings were too. But they hadn’t been prepared for this, and the griffons had them considerably outnumbered.

  The golden griffon pivoted in her direction, and she chanted another spell. The creature crouched and spread his wings, but before he could spring, she reached the end of her incantation, jabbed with her staff, and a huge spider web flickered into existence to cover the beast and hold it to the ground. The mesh appeared a strand at a time but all in the blink of an eye, as though an invisible arachnid were weaving it fast as lightning.

  Yhelbruna immediately began another incantation, this one intended to begin reinstating the coercions she’d removed only moments before. Meanwhile, the golden griffon strained, biting, lashing his wings, and heaving back and forth, and his sharp beak and prodigious might snapped the sticky strands of webbing two and three at a time.

  She could tell the telthor would break free before she completed even a frantic, abbreviated version of the first of the spells that had bound it before. But as the last of the webbing parted, Fyazel extended an oaken wand and shouted words of command.

  Despite her desperate circumstances, Yhelbruna felt a flicker of surprise. Every spellcaster had a unique style, and over the course of many years and group workings, she’d become familiar with Fyazel’s. Although she couldn’t say precisely what, something about the other hathran’s delivery seemed different.

  But then again, she and Fyazel had never been together in a life-or-death emergency before, and the important thing was that the priestess of the moon was trying to help. Yhelbruna wrenched her thoughts back to the matter at hand.

  On the final syllable of Fyazel’s spell, gray vapor puffed into being around the golden griffon. The mist dispersed instantly, but, stunned, the telthor faltered long enough for Yhelbruna to complete her own magic. The golden griffon let out a screech and stood rigid and shuddering.

  She restored her original coercions one at a time, linking and layering them as though she were weaving another sort of web. It was only when she felt the strands draw tightly that she dared to look away and see what else was going on.

  To her relief, the other griffons had broken off the attack. But three of the curious folk who’d wandered forth from Immilmar to witness the claiming of the beasts lay in pieces in patches of bloody snow. So did a griffon, at Mangan’s feet. All of it was a waste, a tragedy, and an affront to the deities who’d given the winged creatures to Rashemen in anticipation of its hour of need.

  Bez peered around the same way Yhelbruna was, making sure the fight was really over. Then, scowling, his face a mottled crimson, he advanced on Sandrue.

  “Captain!” the beast master said. “Please! I’m sorry!”

  The sellsword captain took a long breath. Sparks danced and crackled on the main gauche.

  Then he said, “The hathran, prompted by a very proper regard for the griffon and all he represents, instructed you to be gentle with him. But what if you’re less gentle? Will you then be able to do your job?”

  If Sandrue hesitated, it was only for an instant. “Yes, Captain.”

  Bez turned to Mangan and gave him an apologetic smile. “Well, then, Majesty, it seems the course is clear.”

  “No,” Yhelbruna said.

  The sellsword frowned. “Lady, with respect, you were the one who set the price for the griffons, and my men and I have paid it. I’m sure neither the Wychlaran nor the Iron Lord are so dishonorable that they’d try to renege on the agreement, no matter what measures are required to fulfill it.”

  “You misunderstand,” she said. “There was nothing wrong with Sandrue’s magic. It failed because the spirits wouldn’t allow it to succeed. And that can only be because the threat to Rashemen isn’t over.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Bez replied. He shifted his gaze back to Mangan. “I brought you proof of my victory. Surely a warrior found it convincing even if a priestess doesn’t.”

  Mangan scowled and scratched at his close-cropped black beard with its sprinkling of white. “Hathran, do you actually hear the spirits telling you the danger isn’t over? Or are you guessing?”

  Yhelbruna hesitated. “I’m interpreting what we all just experienced.”

  “Then … you know I respect you, and where this matter is concerned, I’ve done what you wanted at every step along the way. But now, Captain Bez has a point. Perhaps fair dealing requires us to release the griffons even if it requires some rough handling for our guests to take possession.”

  “ ‘Rough handling’ or no, the druid will fail as he failed before.”

  “Maybe not if you don’t use your own magic to thwart him,” Bez said, and then, before she could respond: “I apologize. That was a rude and, I’m sure, baseless thing to say. But, Iron Lord, all I ask is that Sandrue be allowed another try.”

  “If he is,” Yhelbruna said, “it’s likely more people and griffons will die, and we’ll be flouting what we now discern to be the will of the Three.”

  “What you claim to ‘discern,’ ” little Melemer murmured, just loud enough to make himself heard while still pretending he didn’t mean to be.

  Frowning, Mangan wiped the blood from his broadsword. It was his way of giving himself a moment to ponder, and Yhelbruna had an unpleasant feeling she knew where his deliberations were leading.

  She supposed she could simply order him to do what she wanted. She was a Witch of Rashemen, and generally deemed one of the wisest and most powerful. In theory, she stood above any male.

  But in practice, matters weren’t always that simple. Every Rashemi, including herself, respected Mangan, and in the matter of the griffons and the
menace of the undead, she’d consistently overruled his seemingly sensible advice. She didn’t want to appear unreasonable and high-handed yet again. She needed his respect if they were to work together to protect the land.

  So she too, pondered, and then something occurred to her, or perhaps some kindly spirit whispered in her ear. “I just realized something curious,” she said.

  “What?” the Iron Lord replied.

  “Captain Bez told us about the great battle he fought. But I don’t see any wounds on him or any of these sellswords. I didn’t notice any on those we left back in town either. Or scars on the hull of the skyship.”

  Mangan’s brow furrowed. “Now that you mention it, neither did I.”

  Bez smiled. “You can attribute that to the advantages afforded by a flying vessel with enchanted artillery and a complement of spellcasters. We can rain destruction on foes who often have no way of striking back. It’s not a particularly sporting way to fight, but as I’m sure Your Majesty will agree, war isn’t a game.”

  “I’ve been to war myself,” Yhelbruna said, “so I certainly agree. Just as I’m sure the Iron Lord will agree that creatures ensconced in a castle like the Fortress of the Half-Demon would, if bombarded from above, take shelter inside the donjons and dungeons. Even the crew of a skyship would have to come down to earth and fight them at close quarters to really clean them out.”

  Bez shrugged. “My men are good at their work, and I remind you again, High Lady, you’re the one who told everybody else your goddesses and spirits wanted this chore attended to. Perhaps they graced us with their blessings.”

  Mangan sheathed his sword, and the cross guard clicked against the gold at the mouth of the scabbard. “We’ll do this. Captain, you and your men will take the rest you acknowledge you need. Yhelbruna will further inquire into the will of the spirits through prayer and ritual. I’ll find out if any reports come in from the countryside to indicate that there are still undead running loose. And we’ll see where we are a few days hence. Agreed?”