The Sorcerer rota-3

by Troy Denning

Aris looked down at the five Chosen, gestured in the direction of the nave, and said, "My guard's patience is coming to an end."

  "Let's risk a few moments longer, in case we have need of your knowledge," Khelben said. He turned to Dove and Alustriel. "What progress have you made? Given that the city still floats, I take it you have not destroyed the mythallar."

  "We haven't even found it," Dove confirmed. "Asking Galaeron’s help is out of the question. He's been locked inside the Palace Most High since we arrived, and we can't go inside."

  "Dare not go inside," Alustriel corrected. "It seems to be a nexus in the Shadow Weave. The closer we approach, the weaker our connection to the Weave. If we were to enter…"

  "No use in getting ourselves killed," Khelben agreed.

  "But we have made this," Dove said as she produced something from inside her cloak. It was so tiny that it took a moment for Aris to recognize it as a folded sheet of parchment. "This shows most of the city, save for what's within the walls of the Palace Most High."

  Khelben took the parchment and began to open it.

  "Maybe Aris can help us," he said.

  "I fear not. I've never been to the mythallar." Aris peeked out into the nave and found Amararl starting toward the vestry passage. "I should go, before-"

  "I said help." Khelben spread the parchment on the floor and continued, "Even if you don't know where it is, you have a better idea of where to search than we do."

  Aris regarded the parchment dubiously. Though it had opened to the width of Khelben's arm, it was little larger than a thumbnail to him.

  "How can I read a map I can barely see?" he asked.

  "Try," Dove said.

  Aris glanced back to find Amararl coming down the side aisle toward the vestry, then he sighed and stooped down to obey. The instant his eyes fell on it, the image floated off the parchment and began to expand, growing so large he could barely take in all he could see.

  Amazed, Aris diligently studied the map, systematically running his gaze along each street and down every service passage. It didn't take him long to realize that the image was adjusting itself to his scrutiny, sliding past beneath him to keep centered the object of his attention, growing larger or smaller depending how long his eyes remained fixed on a certain area.

  Amararl's voice came down the passage, "Aris?" He sounded more worried than demanding. "What are you doing in there? What's that light?"

  "Our bargain was for privacy!"

  Though the voice that boomed this sounded like Aris's, it was from Alustriel's tiny mouth that the words came.

  "Our bargain was for a few minutes of privacy," Amararl corrected. "It has been ten-and I heard voices."

  "Echoes," Alustriel retorted. "The temple is filled with Yder's warriors."

  Amararl considered this a moment, and said, "Warriors who will be returning soon. If you're not here, I'll say you ran off."

  "And I that you allowed me to," Alustriel said. "Therefore, I suggest you return to your post. Tell me when you hear someone coming."

  "I'm your guard, not your servant!"

  "There is no difference, now," Alustriel shot back. "Unless you wish to meet the same end as Gelthez or Karbe."

  She raised her tiny hand and nicked her fingers in a spell, then said in her normal voice, "Never mind him, Aris. We can still hear if he sounds an alarm, but now he can't hear or see anything in this room."

  Aris spent another five minutes studying the map, then finally looked through the translucent image at the Chosen below.

  "I just don't know," he said. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was inside the Palace Most High."

  "That was our first thought too," Dove said, "but during the battle Galaeron described, the phaerimm were using magic. Unless they've learned to tap into the Shadow Weave-"

  "We've seen no sign of that," said Laeral, who was standing with her sister Storm at Khelben's side, "but it still doesn't mean you don't have to go through the palace to reach it."

  "Yes, it does," Storm said. The phaerimm got there."

  "With the aid of a malaugrym," Dove pointed out. "It might have been able to sneak them through the palace."

  "Would you trust your life to a Malaugrym?" Storm countered. Without waiting for a reply, she continued, "If the phaerimm can get there, so can we."

  "If we can find it," Laeral said. "If Galaeron can't help us-"

  "We'll have to ask Vala," Khelben finished.

  "Her, I can help you find," said the giant.

  Aris shifted his scrutiny to the great plaza of gloom sculptures that surrounded the Palace Most High, then slowly moved his gaze along the edge until he came to a huge, many-spired mansion with a procession of flying buttresses and a long tunnel of barrel vaults.

  "You will find her here, somewhere inside Escanor's palace."

  The Chosen studied the map from below for a moment then Khelben said, "It would be nice if any of us had actually met her. The Shadovar were obviously trying to lure

  Galaeron back with all those rumors about her being Escanor's slave. What if they're just that — rumors?"

  "A good point," Storm agreed. "Vala and her men were in service to Melegaunt, and I have it on good authority that she slew three phaerimm for them in Myth Drannor."

  "Vala and her men served Melegaunt in order to keep an oath their ancestors had sworn," Aris said. "Their duty was discharged when Shade returned."

  "But that does not mean she is Escanor's slave," Storm pressed. "Ruha said that it was her choice to remain with the prince."

  "So Galaeron would escape before his shadow took him," Aris said. Storm's aspersions were beginning to irritate him, and he let it show. "She loves Galaeron as a crane loves its mate. If she is with Escanor now, it is not by her choice."

  Storm raised her brow at his tone, but shrugged and gave a little nod.

  "If you say so, Aris."

  "I do," he said. "If you wish her help, all you need do is say you are friends of Galaeron's."

  "Good," Khelben said. He began to fold the parchment, and the map went dark. That" s just what we'll do. My thanks for your help, Aris. We'll try to fetch you before the city falls, but that may be — "

  "We are all risking much," Aris interrupted, "but only Galaeron's sacrifice is certain. If you value that, save Vala first The rest of us are here by choice."

  "If that is what you wish, my friend." Khelben met his eye and nodded. "We will do what can be done."

  Malik awoke to the sound of snakes hissing into both ears. Judging by how he felt, they had bitten him a dozen times, a hundred times. His head throbbed and his back ached. There were pins of light piercing his eyes and rivers of fire coursing through his veins, and he had a bladder that felt like two gallons of wine in one gallon of space. The snakes were about to draw him into quarters. They had him by each wrist and each ankle, and they were all pulling in opposite directions. His arms were ready to pop from his shoulders and his legs to divide what no man ever wished to have divided.

  As Malik's head began to clear, the hissing grew softer and more distant, and he realized it was not snakes hissing into his ears. It was voices, the whispering voices that filled the throne room of Telamont Tanthul.

  If he was in the presence of the Most High and in so much pain, there could only be one explanation.

  Yder had beat him to the palace.

  "It is not true!" Malik screamed. "Whatever the prince says, it is all a terrible lie!"

  For once, his curse did not compel him to say more, and the whispering quieted. A strange sloshing sounded beside him. Malik opened his eyes and saw white fire in his brain. He closed them again, and the fire went away.

  "Why do you torment me like this?"

  He tried to turn toward the sloshing and found his head held motionless by a strap across his brow.

  "I have done nothing wrong!"

  "Oh, but you have, Seraph," hissed a cold voice-a familiar cold voice. "You have stolen from the Hidden One."

  "Stolen?" Malik crie
d. "What have I stolen… aside from a few dozen coins from the pockets of worshipers in my own temple?"

  "The worshipers themselves," the voice said. "You have stolen the Lady's faithful."

  Malik was greatly relieved to recognize the voices as Prince Yder*s. If Yder was doing the speaking, then they would not be in the Palace Most High, and it could not be Telamont Tanthul who had ordered the terrible punishment

  A pair of cold fingertips pulled Malik’s eyelids open. The brilliant fire returned, but this time the white fire was only a silver light as blinding as the sun, and there was a chasmal darkness in the center-with two blazing eyes and a heart of cooling embers.

  "The Lady is angry, Malik."

  As Yder spoke, Malik's eyes grew accustomed to the pain, and he discerned a pair of huge hooked horns crowning the head of the dark figure above him.

  "In-d-deed," Malik stammered. "I can see that for myself… though in truth I must say she does not look very ladylike to me."

  This caused a strange murmur of gasps and chuckles to spread outward behind Yder. There followed a moment of silence, and Malik had the sense that his captor had turned away to glare at his followers.

  "Make a joke of your own god if you wish, little man," Yder said, "but when you make fun of the Hidden One, it is the Lady who laughs."

  The prince's fingers pressed down until Malik thought his eyeballs would burst

  "Who was joking?" Malik cried.

  The murmur that followed this was even louder than the first. Yder*s hand came away from Malik's head.

  "Silence!"

  The command was muffled, as though the prince had turned his back when he spoke it. Malik blinked the spots from his eyes and again found himself staring at the dark figure overhead. It was a ghastly demon as large as Aris and as black as night itself, with long curving talons at the end of outstretched arms.

  Yder returned his attention to Malik and said, "Mock the Hidden One again, and I shall pull your brains out by your own antlers."

  The prince grabbed Malik by one of his horns, and a dark hand appeared on the hooked horn of the figure overhead.

  Malik bit his own cheek, lest he cry out in astonishment and give the prince an excuse to do as he threatened. The monster above was certainly his own shadow, but that gave him no hint of relief. Melegaunt Tanthul had once summoned the wretched being to serve as a guard, and the accursed thing had made clear it would like nothing better than throttling Malik with its own hands.

  "You are learning, Seraph," Yder said. "Perhaps this will not be as difficult as I feared."

  "Not difficult would be good," Malik agreed. "I am a captive in the temple of Shar the Ni-?"

  Yder struck him a blow that returned his thoughts to their muddled state.

  "Do not speak the Hidden One's name!"

  "I am only trying to be certain," Malik complained. "How do you expect to convert me, if you will not tell me who it is I am to worship?"

  For the first time, Yder's face came into view. He was wearing the black skullcap and purple mask of the high priest.

  "You would convert?" he asked.

  Malik’s chest began to grow cold and tight, as it had when Fzoul Chembryl had asked a similar question in the hidden temple of Iyachtu Xvim. At the time, he had been weak from torture and assured only of a life of impoverishment in servitude to a mad god, and nothing would have pleased him more than to find protection in the church of some other deity. But that had been before he understood how impossible it was for him to betray the One, and before he had established what promised to be-in addition to the altar that would give Cyric control over the Shadow Weave-the wealthiest temple in all Faer?n.

  "Convert?"

  The tightness in Malik's breast became a smashing weight. The heart beating-slurping-in his chest was not his own, but a rotting mass of curd that, in a fit of the deranged genius of the mad god, the One had plucked from his own body and traded for Malik's mortal-though far healthier-heart. Since that day, the mere thought of betraying Cyric brought crushing agony. It was all Malik could do to continue speaking.

  "Certainly I will convert." His chest felt as though someone was standing on it. "I will convert you and all of your followers to the Church of Cyric, the One and All!"

  The weight vanished.

  Yder’s fist came from nowhere, catching Malik in the side of the mouth. Two teeth came loose and got caught in his throat. Malik began to choke.

  "Trifle with me all you wish," Yder said. "The goddess relishes your blood on her altar."

  Malik’s only answer was a cough. He grew dizzy from lack of breath, and the world started to close in around him. He fought to stay conscious, summoning his anger by imagining his wealth in the hands of Prince Yder and his filthy Sharists.

  "Nothing to say?"

  Yder struck him again, and Malik's mouth grew so full of blood that it bubbled over his lips and spilled down his cheeks onto Shar's altar.

  "That is good, Seraph," Yder said. "You are learning to please the Lady."

  Unable to do anything else, Malik stared at the monstrous shadow hanging above him. A purple crescent appeared where the traitorous thing's mouth should have been-a smile. It thought he was going to choke to death.

  Malik continued to cough.

  "You will convert, Seraph," Yder said. "All you control is how long it takes."

  "The Hidden One rules all," said someone behind the prince.

  A chorus of whispers filled the chamber as Shar's worshipers repeated the paean. Had he not been so busy coughing and choking, Malik would have laughed. He might die upon Shar's altar or even rot upon it, but he would never convert. That was the one thing he did not control at all.

  Malik's vision narrowed to a black tunnel, then went completely black. Yder's voice came to him from far away, demanding that he pay attention and not insult the Hidden One by closing his eyes upon her. The prince's cold fingertips settled on his eyelids and pulled them open, and that was the last thing Malik felt before sinking into a soft bed of unconsciousness.

  The next thing was the heel of a large hand slamming him between the shoulders, and the icy fingers of another one dangling him upside down by his ankle.

  "Breathe, you craven little ranag!"

  The hand struck Malik again. The teeth upon which he had been choking flew from his lips, along with a mouthful of blood and bitter-tasting bile. He started to gasp and cough at the same time, two conflicting actions that left him helplessly hiccupping for breath.

  "Did you really think you could escape that easily?" Yder demanded. "The Hidden One will not be deprived of her pleasure."

  Malik opened his eyes and was blinded by the same painful radiance as when he had returned to consciousness before.

  "And I am most thankful for that," Malik said, "though I know it is likely to cost me a month of terrible agony!"

  Knowing Yder would interpret his gratitude as progress toward a conversion, Malik would have liked to stop there and enjoy the reward any good torturer would bestow on him as incentive for further progress-but Mystra's curse would not allow it

  "Now I can finish what I have started by converting you and your followers to the Church of Cyric-" Malik tried to bring his hands up to cover his mouth, but found his wrists manacled together behind his back. The words continued to spill out-"so that I may spare my soul the danger of having to present itself at the Shattered Castle after I have failed to seize control of the Shadow Weave for the One, as he instructed."

  Yder shook with such a rage that the chains binding Malik's wrists began to jingle. Malik cringed and tried to guess whether he would lose fewer teeth by clenching his jaw or leaving it to hang slack, but the blow never came. Instead, the prince remained silent and continued to hold him upside down, allowing Malik a few precious moments to study his surroundings.

  They were, as Malik had guessed from the altar, in a temple to Shar-though it was certainly far from what he had imagined such a place would look like. While the walls were cove
red with the expected images of mysterious women and dark disks limned in purple flame, the chamber itself was blindingly bright, so much so that the shadows dancing on the walls seemed more real than the worshipers standing motionless in long rows of pews. There were easily a thousand Shadovar there, all submerged to their knees in a glimmering pool of mirror-bright fluid. As thick and viscous as quicksilver, the liquid was slowly flowing out toward the edges of the chamber, where it gathered at the walls and vanished down the drainage pits in lazy whirlpools.

  Malik recognized the liquid instantly. It was the same thing that he and his friends had found inside the Red Butte in Karsus, spilling out of the Karsestone that Galaeron had used to summon Shade back into the world.

  The prince hoisted Malik by the chain between his manacles, forcing his arms up and back until he thought his shoulders would break.

  "In my centuries," Yder said, "I have learned a few things about pain."

  Malik felt sick to his stomach. Though the One had blessed him with the ability to suffer any amount of agony and still have the strength to perform his duties as Seraph, that did not mean he was immune to pain. Quite the contrary.

  It seemed to him that he always felt pain more acutely than those around him-and usually a great deal more of it

  As Yder turned back toward the altar, Malik was not all that surprised to find himself looking at a luminous white boulder about the size of a horse. There was a jagged fissure down the center, and from this crack poured a steady flow of the silvery liquid that had filled the temple.

  The stream was, Malik knew from his earlier adventures in the Red Butte, the last whole magic in the world. Seventeen centuries earlier, a mad Netherese archwizard named Karsus had tried to steal the godhead of Mystryl, the goddess of magic at that time. It had been a terrible mistake. The Weave had filled Karsus to bursting and killed him on the spot, and it had split into the Weave and the Shadow Weave. The luminous white boulder was Karsus's heart-all that remained of the mad archwizard-and the silver magic pouring from it was all the remained of the original, unsplit Weave.

  Though Cyric's rancid heart began to slush so hard that Malik could barely hear himself think, he forced himself to remain calm. The Karsestone, as they had dubbed the boulder, was undoubtedly an artifact of untold power, but it seemed to Malik that for Shar's worshipers to tolerate its bright light inside their hidden temple, it had to be something more-something much more.