by James Lowder
"Now that the wench is disposed of," Malocchio noted glibly, "we can discuss what it is I require of you."
"Yes, lord," Ganelon replied in a subdued tone.
"What do you know of Veidrava?"
"The mines? I know them like the veins on the backs of my hands."
"Fine, fine. You will go there and be the agent of my wrath against that treacherous beast Azrael. I want you to kill him, if possible."
Ganelon laughed bitterly. "Is that all, lord?"
Malocchio did not bridle at the grim joviality, for he knew the last laugh, as always, would be his. "Azrael must be made to pay for his betrayal. Those troops you say are now marching toward Nedragaard were never meant as more than a diversion. They were supposed to stay close to the border, to buy the little monster time in which to perform a rite to oust the death knight from the throne. He would take over Sithicus, hand over Magda and her Vistani as thanks for my help, and the world would be a better place.
"He's obviously got something else in mind. He must have bribed my men, purchased an army he could not hope to raise in Sithicus." The Invidian frowned at Ganelon. "What's your concern? You may speak."
"How am I supposed to challenge Azrael?" The youth held up his empty hands. "I don't even have a sword."
"A blade will do you no good against a thing like Azrael," Malocchio noted. He reached into his black cloak and brought out a small bag. "This, however, will make his twisted little brain boil in his skull."
Ganelon undid the drawstring on the silken bag. The pouch contained nothing more than poppy seeds.
"Slip enough of the seeds into his food, his drink, and he will be the Sorrow of Sithicus no more," Malocchio said brightly.
Aderre reached into his cloak again and produced a clear crystal orb. He rolled it in the palm of his hand, letting the sunlight flare upon its flawless surface. "This will be of use to you against his minions at the mine."
"What does it do, lord?"
"Azrael surrounds himself with creatures of the living dark, salt shadows and the like. This is a conduit for their opposite." He held it up to the sun. The orb flared brightly, almost as brightly as the sun itself, before resuming its appearance of mundane glass. "You need only speak a single word to activate it."
"What is the word?"
"Whatever you choose," replied Malocchio, "though you'll want it to be a word you won't forget."
"Helain," Ganelon replied softly.
The smirk returned. "The wench again." Malocchio murmured something as he passed his fingers over the orb. It darkened for an instant before he dropped it into Ganelon's outstretched hands. "I think you'll be able to remember the trigger."
"There's one thing I don't understand," Ganelon said as he tucked the orb and the seeds into a pouch. "Why are you trusting me with this task?"
"Your dearest Helain," the black-clad youth said. "The rite Azrael hopes to perform will destroy her-and everyone else you love in Sithicus. He'll gain control of their shadows, and they'll be his slaves. I'm certain you can imagine what Sithicus would be like if that were to happen."
Ganelon could imagine. That horrible thought drove him on through sleepless nights and exhausting days as he trekked back across the border, through the Fumewood, and on to Veidrava. At the same time, Inza's curse taunted him. If, as she had promised, everything he held dear would perish by his own hand, was he returning to the mine to save Sithicus, or to destroy it?
Fourteen
Nabon's daydreams had once been simple. In them the giant wandered faraway hills, to places familiar and places fresh. Beyond that, their content was inconsequential. Freedom was all.
Freedom was, of course, something Nabon no longer possessed.
That theft darkened the giant's fantasies. He dreamed now of roaming the land, but not in idle explorations. Nabon ranged the Sithican wilds in search of the one who had first ensnared him: Inza, a Vistani girl with hair as black as her soul and a viciousness in her heart the likes of which the giant had never seen in all his wide travels.
Deep in the Fumewood, Nabon had responded to her cry for help but found himself set upon by the girl instead. With a cudgel of unbreakable wood she shattered first one kneecap, then the other. As he lay on the ground, howling in pain, she beat him unconscious.
The greatest indignity of all was the purpose the assault served. Inza had captured him and broken his legs so she could barter him to Azrael for a mere dagger. The dwarf had been given the blade by Malocchio Aderre as a symbol of their recently forged alliance. Inza wanted it, and Nabon was the substantial price she was willing to offer.
Azrael was wont to torment Nabon with this tale on nights the giant slacked in his ceaseless toil. Nabon loathed the dwarf and wished him harm more times than he could remember, but his chief hatred was reserved for Inza. Had she not preyed upon his kind nature, he would never have fallen into Azrael's hands. Worse, the Vistana had hunted Nabon only after hearing stories that lauded the giant's gentleness of spirit. That, Inza explained as she hauled him to the salt mine that first night, made him the perfect slave.
With the mine shut down, the men all shuffling off to war, Nabon passed the time in a fitful drowse. He envisioned himself inflicting his revenge upon the girl in myriad ways, but only after he had pursued her through the Sithican wilds. The chase made the kill all the more satisfying. In those dreams, his footfalls shook mountains and sloshed rivers from their banks. His legs were whole. He was free.
One morning, in the quiet moments before dawn, he awoke to find the dream had become reality. At least parts of it, anyway.
The pain was gone. The shrieking ache of mangled flesh and broken bones had left his legs. He squinted into the darkness, reached down with trembling hands. It was true. His legs were sound again. The shackles that had pinned him to the filthy floor were broken.
The joy in Nabon's heart was overwhelmed an instant later by a terrible dread. This had to be a trick. Surely Azrael lurked in the darkness. Worse still, maybe Inza was there. When he moved, when he got the first fleeting taste of freedom after his long imprisonment, they would descend upon him. This time they'd cut off his legs and rob him of any hope at all.
The giant cowered against the wall of his light-less, stinking prison.
"No need for that," came a soft voice from the darkness.
A lantern glowed to life. Its light revealed a figure dressed in pale clothing, a fine cloak, and a wide-brimmed hat. He removed the mask that concealed his features. The friendly smile on that handsome face made the giant gasp. It had been so long since he'd seen such a sign of goodwill that he scarcely knew how to respond.
"You really are free," the Cobbler said, "and well shod for the road that awaits you." He held the lantern toward the giant's feet. "Tell me, how do they feel?"
Nabon let his eyes trail down his legs. The wounds had all but vanished. The only traces of his abuse were some faint scars. Around his ankles, though, he could detect some heavier puckering. He ran his fingers over the marks. They were like the stitching that joined a sleeve to a coat or held together the pieces of a shoe.
"They're much bigger than the ones I normally make," the Cobbler noted casually.
He leaned close to admire his handiwork. It had taken the Cobbler much of the night to dress the giant's feet. The work had required much more from the Vistani corpses than the soles of their feet, but the magic had taken hold. That much was obvious from the way Nabon's bones had knit. The boots didn't look half bad, either.
"She betrayed them too," Nabon said softly as he ran his fingers over the leather. "Her own people."
The Cobbler smiled more broadly. This was clearly the best match he had ever made.
"Inza orchestrated the attack that took their lives," the pale-clad figure confirmed. "She paid the murderers in advance, with money stolen from the gypsies' own vardos."
"But why?"
"The slaughter gave her a reason to call upon Lord Soth for aid," the Cobbler replied. "She needs to b
e inside Nedragaard Keep for what she has planned."
Nabon stood. He wobbled a bit at first and bashed his head upon the Engine House's beams. He soon got his balance again, though. When he did, he offered a quick but sincere thanks to the Cobbler, then bulled his way through the huge building's back wall.
The Bloody Cobbler was chuckling to himself as he emerged from the rubble into the morning sunlight. The smile didn't abate, even when he found Azrael standing before him. "You're fortunate he didn't wait around to hammer you into the ground like a tent peg," the Cobbler said.
The dwarf's face was so colored by fury that even his bone-white mustache and sideburns seemed tinged with crimson. He let the jugs and candles he'd been cradling in his arms crash to the ground. "I still needed him," he rumbled. "Now I'll have to climb down to the chapel."
"You could use the exercise," the Cobbler replied calmly.
Azrael's stubby fingers sprouted thick black claws. The bones of his face shifted, grinding into a profile that reflected both dwarf and badger. "Who do you think you are to challenge me here?" Snarling, he locked one hand around the Cobbler's arm.
"You're wasting your time," the pale-clad man said lightly. "I can leave any time I want."
"Not from here you can't," Azrael said. He pushed the Cobbler against a pile of shattered timber.
It was then that the Cobbler noticed the items the dwarf had dropped into the dirt. A thick black sludge oozed from the shattered bottles. It stank of salt and of sorcery. Concern stole across his handsome features. He reached for a shadow in the rubble, expecting to enter it. His fingers met solid wood. The way was blocked.
As swiftly as he could picture it, a pale leather case appeared in the Cobbler's hand. Before he could extract one of his knives, though, Azrael batted the entire thing from his grasp. The silver tools scattered.
"I sealed the place off," Azrael said. The Cobbler's lost smile was on the werebadger's lips now, all pointed teeth and malicious glee. "You're not going anywhere."
The beast reached down for one of the silver scalpels.
"You can't kill me," the Cobbler said defiantly, "even with that."
"Oh, good," Azrael replied. "That will make this a lot more interesting."
* * * * *
In her two days at Nedragaard Keep, Inza had grown insensitive to the smell of death. The whole place reeked of it, from the web-choked dungeons to the top of the shattered tower. That was hardly a surprise. Skeletal soldiers patroled the battlements. Banshees howled through the corridors. Death had never frightened Inza, though, and the walking dead held no special place in her nightmares. Despite the lingering fetor of decay-perhaps even because of it-she found the castle much to her liking.
Soth had abandoned her soon after they arrived. They stepped into the shadows at the battlefield and emerged an instant later within Nedragaard's circular throne room. Soth informed Inza that she was free to roam the keep-at her own peril, of course-but that he had more important business elsewhere. He left her standing in the darkness.
Since then Inza had marched through every hall and explored every room of Nedragaard Keep. The inspection was long and largely tedious. The castle revealed little about its master that the Vistana didn't already know.
Now, at last, Inza had returned to the hall from which she had started her explorations. She lingered at the triple-tiered chandelier that lay in a heap at the room's center. The damage to the floor, flagstones shattered by the chandelier's fall, was both ancient and recent. Soot and melted wax from a fresh blaze masked far older scarring.
Inza found the juxtapositions unsettling. It was like standing in two times at once, suspended precariously between the past and the present. "Better to keep your gaze fixed on the future," the Vistana muttered. Unconsciously she tugged at the fine silver chain hanging around her neck and fingered the small black charm dangling from it.
She then made her way to the dais, with its warped and moldering throne. Her lips curled in a moue of distaste at the sight of the worm-eaten wood. It could be salvaged, she supposed. The rotting lumber might be reinforced with strips of metal. The joints could be joined more tightly with pegs or nails.
Or badger's teeth, thought Inza, smiling darkly to herself. They would do quite nicely.
Something winked on the floor behind the throne, distracting the Vistana from that pleasant thought. She knelt upon the cold stone flags to get a better look.
Shards of glass lay scattered across the back of the dais, pieces of the large oval mirrors that had once hung behind the throne. Inza gasped. These were fragments from the memory mirrors Soth had once used to prompt his reveries. Her mother had told her about them. The mirrors tapped into a person's memories and fantasies to create a waking dream that could be experienced as if it were reality. There were few men strong enough to resist a memory mirror's seductive powers. Most who used them quickly abandoned the real world for the mirror's tantalizing illusions.
Inza picked up one of the larger shards. As she looked into the mirror fragment, she saw not her own reflection, but a knight clad in gorgeous silver armor patterned with roses and kingfishers. This was Soth as he had been before his curse-at least, how he remembered himself.
The Vistana moved to slip the fragment into the pocket of her leather breeches. Before she could, something white and fleeting snatched the glass from her fingers, slicing them in the process. Inza cursed. She reached for Novgor, but an unseen force grabbed her long black hair and toppled her backward. Thrashing like a landed fish, she finally got the blade in her hand. She brandished it at the three apparitions floating above her prone form.
The trio of ghostly women scowled, a particularly unattractive expression on their angular elven faces.
"Not for your eyes," one banshee moaned.
"Unless you wish to share the dead man's dream," the second added.
"Unless you wish to share the dead man's fate," cried the third.
Inza pushed herself up onto her elbows. "I make my own fate."
Howls of ear-splitting laughter ripped through the hall. It echoed up the stairs and shook the dust from the rafters. The banshees circled the Vistana. Evil mirth twisted their faces.
"Away from me, wretches," Inza finally shouted.
She lashed out with Novgor at the nearest of the trio. The needle-sharp blade bit into the tattered, ghostly shroud that cloaked the spirit's frame. Another howl went up, this one of pain and fright.
"I am cut!" the banshee shrieked. "I am wounded!"
The hall's main doors creaked open, and Lord Soth stalked into the room. At first Inza thought the banshee's cries had drawn the death knight, but he ignored the unquiet spirits' calls for vengeance. "Your men approach, Inza Magdova," Soth stated without preamble.
The Vistana let a sigh of relief escape her lips and closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Lord Soth was gone.
The smirk on Inza's face was almost as sharp as Novgor as she turned to the banshees, still lingering near the throne. She held the dagger up for them to see. "Another sharp word to me, and I'll cut out your tongue," she murmured. "I've done it to my own kind. I'll gladly do it to you lot of howling bed sheets."
The banshees were silent for a moment. They regarded Inza with pale, dead eyes, then said, "We serve the mistress of Nedragaard faithfully, as loyally and honestly as we have served all those who have gone before."
Though the pledge had been voiced without any hint of sarcasm or anger, Inza knew it was a threat. The words had the weight of a curse, a promise of something unpleasant to come.
The sound of Alexi's voice drew her attention away from the banshees. The last of the Wanderers were shuffling through the main doors. They looked terrible, little better than the undead ogres who staggered in behind them. The forced march had pressed them to the brink of exhaustion. Their faces were pale, their clothes ragged and dirty. A grimy, makeshift bandage encircled Nikolas's chest. Piotr had one hand, or all that remained of it, wrapped up tight. The ogres,
too, had been hacked and battered. Some were missing arms. Another had been slashed across the face with a blade of some sort. Its swollen black tongue lolled from the hole in its cheek.
"The whole Invidian army is right on our heels. They've been pursuing us all night," Alexi said. He slumped onto the floor. "Soth's soldiers cut the bridge away the moment we crossed."
Neither the news of the Invidians nor the suffering of her people mattered to Inza. She was interested only in the whereabouts of the chest. "Where is it?" she growled, grabbing Alexi by the collar.
"Outside, raunie," he replied. "Safe."
"Safe?" Piotr groaned. "Nothing here is safe. We're surrounded by dead men, and there's an army on the doorstep."
"I'll keep you safe from the dead men," Inza purred. "As for the Invidians, I'm certain Lord Soth will know how to deal with them. He is a warrior, after all, one used to seeing armies camped before his walls."
The same thought occurred to the Knight of the Black Rose as he climbed the spiral stairs up to the top of Nedragaard's central tower. This, at last, was a problem he could face head on. It had been centuries since he had looked upon the banners of a besieging force, but his warrior's instincts and knight's training left him in no doubt of the course he must take.
He and his thirteen loyal retainers had held off an army of Knights: Sir Ratelif and the best soldiers the Solamnic orders could muster. They'd been flesh and blood then. Hunger and cold and despair had been their foes as much as the besieging Knights. Not so now. With his thirteen deathless warriors, Soth was confident the keep could withstand the charge of the entire Invidian army, with Malocchio himself at the vanguard.
Lost in thought, he continued his march to the keep's upper floors. The interior stair wound in a circle, tighter and narrower as it ascended. Soth barely noticed as the number of steps passed one hundred, then two hundred.
It was not until he reached a small landing high in the keep that he paused. In life, it had been his practice to run his fingers over an inscription etched crudely into the stone: Est Sularus oth Mithas. My honor is my life. The sacred Oath of the Knights of Solamnia.