The Haunted Lands: Book III - Unholy

by Richard Lee Byers

  “Then I too will stay for as long as I see a point to it.” Lauzoril smiled tightly. “I know the rest of you see me as somewhat … bloodless. But I’ve hated Szass Tam for a long time. It’s enticing to think I might finally get the chance to show him just how much.”

  Lallara gave Samas a nasty leer. “That leaves you, hog.”

  “Curse you all,” the transmuter said, sweat beading his ruddy brow. “This is madness.”

  “Oh, probably. But what if you desert us, and then the mad plan works? I hope you don’t think we’ll tolerate you back in Thay or in the Wizard’s Reach, either. By the Seven Shields, I’m not sure I could abide the thought of your continued existence anywhere.”

  “All right!” Samas snarled. “If you all insist, we can try it and see where we are in a few days.”

  Once they all had agreed, they had to elaborate on Bareris’s basic idea, and that took most of the night. Selûne and her trail of glittering Tears had forsaken the sky by the time the council broke up.

  Though tired, Aoth felt an impulse to mount the battlements and check for signs of trouble before he sought his bed. Pulling his cloak tight against the cold breeze whistling from the east, he started up the stairs that climbed to the top of the wall, and Bareris followed a step behind him.

  “That went all right,” said Aoth, “but when we were arguing about what to do, I was surprised you left me to do so much of the talking. After all, you’re the eloquent one.”

  “Since they all came around,” Bareris replied, “plainly, you were eloquent enough. Besides, I couldn’t talk and hum at the same time.”

  Aoth stopped and looked around. “I didn’t hear any humming.”

  “Because I did it very softly.” Bareris’s black eyes suddenly opened wider. “But I swear, you weren’t the target!”

  “I believe you. I trust you, and even if I didn’t, my feelings didn’t change. I was resolved to continue the fight before the council ever began. I’m just appalled because those four are zulkirs. More than that, Lauzoril is the master of enchantment, and Lallara, of defensive magic.”

  “I knew it was risky. Still, I hoped I could give them a little nudge and get away with it.”

  Aoth took a deep breath. “Well, I won’t argue with success. Or claim to be outraged at the thought of manipulating them as callously as they’ve always exploited anyone under their sway.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to part company with bad feelings between us.”

  “When will you and Mirror split off from the army?”

  “As soon as the march is under way.”

  “I believe the griffon you were riding survived the battle unharmed.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need him. At this point, any sentry who spots a griffon rider will immediately think of Aoth Fezim and his sellswords. I’ll do better to choose another steed from among the ones the enemy kept here in the Ring.” A smile came and went on his pallid face. “It was … pleasant to ride a griffon one last time.”

  “After we destroy Szass Tam, you can ride them whenever you like.”

  “I think I’ll visit the stables now.” Bareris turned and headed back down the stairs.

  Malark felt a hostile presence lurking on his right. Employing the mental skills he’d learned as a Monk of the Long Death, he ignored it and kept his awareness focused on the silent stretch of tunnel ahead of him. That was where his quarry was likely to appear.

  The Watcher, as generations of Red Wizards and their servants had called his invisible and unwanted companion, haunted a section of the catacombs decorated with dingy paintings of scenes from which all the people and animals seemed to have vanished—throne rooms without monarchs or courtiers, wedding feasts devoid of bride, groom, guests, and musicians, and forests uninhabited by birds or squirrels. The spirit never actually did anything to mortals who trespassed in its domain. Still, most people found the pressure of its hateful regard so nerve-wracking that they gave this part of the dungeons a wide berth.

  To Malark, though, it was no great matter. He actually found himself more distracted by thoughts of his magical twin.

  He’d sensed it when his counterpart had died, and he felt a wry sort of envy. He’d wooed death for centuries, to no avail. His twin had needed to exist for only a few days before the greatest of all powers had seen fit to extinguish him. And since the two Malarks had been exactly alike, it was difficult to perceive any sort of justice in the event.

  But in light of the destiny he was pursuing, he didn’t really mind—unless his double’s demise indicated that the unique instrument Szass Tam had created was in jeopardy. At the moment, it must still exist, for Malark was sure he would have sensed its destruction, also. But was it safe? Despite the regent’s tutelage, he wasn’t a master diviner, and his magical inquiries on the subject yielded ambiguous results. And unfortunately, hiding here in the depths, he had no other way of obtaining information.

  He took a breath, let it go, and sought to dismiss the problem from his mind just as he expelled air from his lungs. A warrior could fight only one fight at a time. He’d address other concerns after he won the current battle.

  Thanks to his headband, he glimpsed motion at the very limit of his vision. The murky shapes passed quickly from left to right, proceeding north along a passage that intersected the one he was peering down.

  Malark waited for another moment after they disappeared, then, making sure to move silently, jumped up and sprinted through the maze of tunnels. The Watcher kept pace with him. No doubt Szass Tam and the vampire knights felt its oppressive stare as keenly as he did, for its nature was such that it was capable of despising multiple intruders at the same time.

  Malark came to a branching passage, halted, and listened. He heard nothing and wasn’t surprised. The undead moved quietly too, especially when they were hunting.

  If he’d needed to recite an incantation and time the final word with the stalkers’ appearance in the gloom, that might have posed a problem, but he’d had the foresight to store the spell he required in a ring. When his pursuers, following the trail he’d laid for them, came into view, he extended his arm and breathed the trigger word. A spark erupted from the cabochon ruby set in the gold band and streaked at Szass Tam and his bodyguards.

  When it reached the hunters, the spark flared and boomed into an explosion of yellow flame. Malark knew better than to suppose it would do much harm to Szass Tam. The lich was too powerful and too wrapped in protective enchantments. But with any luck, it would incinerate the vampires.

  It certainly appeared to. It took Malark an instant to realize he’d glimpsed only two armored bodies breaking apart in the flash.

  Which suggested he wasn’t the only one capable of trickery. Szass Tam and two of the knights had stayed together in an effort to snare his attention while a third vampire prowled alone in the hope of creeping up on him.

  Malark pivoted, and the creature was right behind him. The warrior was just completing the process of changing from wisps of mist to human form, but he already had his sword in his hand. He made a horizontal cut at Malark’s torso.

  Malark hopped back just far enough to evade the attack, then instantly lunged, cudgel shimmering with destructive power and poised to strike. The guard took a retreat and parried the blow.

  As Malark would have expected of a warrior Szass Tam evidently trusted, the vampire was an expert combatant. Not so expert that Malark couldn’t defeat him, but the problem was that he couldn’t bide his time and wait for an opening. With luck, the fire magic had staggered the archmage, but he’d recover quickly and advance. And if Malark was still stuck here dueling the vampire when his liege lord arrived, Szass Tam would surely strike him down.

  Malark murmured the opening words of an incantation and flicked the ebony wand through a star-shaped figure. Fangs bared, the vampire sprang in and made a head cut. The move was virtually a reflex for any seasoned warrior: If the wizard you’re fighting starts reciting a spell, hit him before he can finish.
Spoil the magic.

  Malark shifted inside the arc of the cut, and the blade fell harmlessly behind him. Remembering that he mustn’t shout—Szass Tam might well recognize his battle cry—he focused his strength, stiffened his fingers inside their clawed demon-hide glove, and drove them through the vampire’s breastplate and ribs and into his chest. He gripped the creature’s cold, motionless heart and ripped it out. The knight collapsed.

  Malark dropped the heart, ran back the way he’d come, and held the hand with the ruby ring behind him. The gem dropped sparks as if they were caltrops, which then flowered into sheets of bright, crackling flame. The fires extended from wall to wall and might slow Szass Tam down a little. They might also keep him from getting a good look at his quarry and do so more reliably than any illusory disguise or charm of invisibility.

  A wind howled down the passage, staggering Malark and blowing out his blazing barricades like candle flames. Recovering his balance, he dived into another branching passage a bare instant before a lightning bolt crackled down the one he’d just vacated.

  When planning this chase, Malark had decided that if he were Szass Tam, this was the point at which he’d shift himself through space. Because if the lich had the layout of the catacombs memorized—and his protégé was certain he did—then he knew that the twisting passage his quarry had just ducked down was supposed to be a cul-de-sac. So he’d want to advance far enough to bottle up the supposed demon before the marauder realized it had nowhere to go.

  But Malark actually did. Yesterday, he’d employed a tunneling spell to connect the dead-end passage with another. He scurried on unimpeded, ultimately to what looked like just another section of painted wall, this mural a murky underwater view of a sea divested of fish, shells, and coral.

  He whispered words of release and touched the tip of his wand to the invisible sigils inscribed across the seascape, avoiding the one that only existed to spray a thief with freezing cold. The signs glowed like red-hot iron for a moment, each in its turn, and then the hidden door clicked as the latch released.

  Malark swung it wide open and left it that way after he passed through. On the other side was a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber crammed with some of Szass Tam’s greatest treasures. An axe with a diamond blade, still lodged in the skull of the colossal dragon it had slain at the conclusion of its final battle. Gold and silver vials, each containing the sole surviving dose of some exotic potion. Tapestries in which the figures moved if one watched long enough, and spoke if one listened hard enough, doorways to small artificial worlds created by a long-extinct order of mystic weavers. A plentitude of sarcophagi, canopic jars, and grave goods looted from the tombs of the Mulhorandi lords who had once ruled Thay.

  Since he didn’t want Szass Tam to hear breakage and come running prematurely, Malark had stamped flat a chalice crafted of some strange green metal and had snapped the head off an exquisite ivory carving of the goddess Nephthys on a previous visit. He grabbed the ruined items and set them outside in the passage as if they’d been tossed there, then crouched behind an enormous block of carnelian crawling with carved, spidery-looking symbols—some sort of drow altar, perhaps.

  After that he had nothing to do but wait for Szass Tam to appear. Well, that and tolerate the spiteful scrutiny of the Watcher. He hoped the entity was enjoying the show.

  He imagined Szass Tam creeping down the tunnel, proceeding warily since the constant bend kept him from seeing more than a pace or two ahead. He imagined the lich’s annoyance when he discovered he didn’t have his quarry cornered after all, and his further vexation when he beheld the secret door standing open and more of his treasures defiled.

  What he would he do then? That was the question. Because, if one stopped to think about it, the view before him looked like it could be a baited trap, and he was more than wily enough to perceive it that way. He knew, moreover, that the contents of the vault were fated to perish in any case and had been training himself to regard them, like the rest of creation, with disdain.

  So it was entirely possible that he’d seal the chamber up again, locking it so well that even his trusted apprentice couldn’t breach the wards a second time, and fetch reinforcements.

  But Malark hoped the archmage would make a different choice. Szass Tam likely had some lingering attachment to the precious things he’d collected, and even if he didn’t, the “demon’s” desecration of them was an affront to his dignity, just like the rest of Malark’s escalating series of provocations.

  And perhaps the chase, with its violence and frustrations, had roused Szass Tam’s passions and left him eager to make the kill. If so, it seemed likely that he’d enter even if he did suspect a trap. For he was, after all, the greatest wizard in the East, capable of defeating virtually any foe under almost any circumstances.

  Szass Tam wasn’t in sight yet, but his dry, pleasant voice recited a spell outside the door. A wave of chill swept over Malark, and for a heartbeat, his body felt heavy as lead. He recognized the enchantment. The lich had just made it impossible for anything lurking in the vault to escape by shifting itself through space.

  Then Szass Tam stepped into the doorway. A red halo of protective power outlined his thin frame, and a blade blacker than night hovered before him. Malark recognized that magic as well. The flying sword was a sort of mobile wound in space, and its slightest touch would rip him—or a big piece of him—out of the mortal world.

  Szass Tam’s gaze raked the room and failed to catch on Malark’s hiding place. That was something, anyway.

  “I take it,” said the lich, “that I’m supposed to grope my way through the clutter and give you a chance to pounce out at me. Please forgive me if I take another approach.” He leveled his staff, slowly swept it from left to right, and spoke the first line of a spell of reanimation.

  Reciting as quickly as he could, Malark whispered his own spell. Darts of green light leaped from his outstretched fingertips.

  Their trajectory would give away his location, so, staying low, he immediately scurried from behind the carnelian block for another piece of cover. He’d rely on his ears to tell him whether the attack had disrupted Szass Tam’s incantation.

  It didn’t. The archmage continued to speak with flawless cadence and inflection. It was likely the darts hadn’t even stung him through his armor of light.

  He snapped out a final word like the crack of a whip, and for an instant, the darkness boiled. Stone scraped on stone, and then the lids of the sarcophagi crashed to the floor. Smelling of embalmer’s spice and dry rot, wrapped in linen, the Mulhorandi dead stood.

  The nearest mummy was within easy reach of Malark. It gave a croaking call and, without even bothering to step out of its coffin, made a sort of toppling lunge at him, its withered, bandaged hands outstretched to grab.

  Its touch would rot living flesh, but Malark’s gauntlets would protect him, or at least he hoped so. He sidestepped the mummy’s attack, sank the talons of one gloved hand into its temple, and yanked its head off.

  It had only taken an instant, but that was an instant too long. The undead creature’s groan and the ensuing scuffle had surely revealed Malark’s location. He ran, and a blaze of shadow seethed through the air. He dived, but the fringe of the attack grazed him anyway.

  That was enough to make his back arch in agony and flood his mind with terror. He fought against both. Held in a scream and brought his spasmodic muscles back under control. Scuttled onward.

  Another mummy groaned and lurched at him. He parried its flailing fist with his cudgel, then bashed its chest in, at that same instant sensing danger. He sprang to the side, and the black sword slashed through the space he’d just vacated. He scrambled behind a gigantic dragonfly preserved in an even bigger lump of amber, the whole mounted on a bronze pedestal.

  Perhaps he was safe for a breath or two. No mummies were close enough to strike at him, and the shadow blade couldn’t target what Szass Tam couldn’t see. Maybe he had time for another spell. He flourished his baton
and whispered the rhyming words.

  Power prickled across his body, which was no guarantee that the charm would actually protect him, considering that Szass Tam himself had animated the mummies. Malark supposed he’d know in a moment.

  He slowed his breathing and sought to suppress what remained of his pain. Then he scrambled out from behind the dragonfly, again staying low in the hope that it would keep Szass Tam from spotting him. It might. The lich had taken only a few steps into the vault, and a number of sizable artifacts lay between the two of them.

  The same precaution wouldn’t throw off the mummies converging on his last position. Yet they took no notice as he darted between a pair of them. Thanks to his magic, they now mistook him for one of their own kind. And while they were seeking him in the back of the chamber, and Szass Tam waited for them to reveal his position, Malark had a few precious moments to try to steer this confrontation to the desired conclusion.

  First, he needed to maneuver Szass Tam to the proper spot. Kneeling behind what appeared to be a common alchemist’s oven but was no doubt something infinitely more valuable, he murmured sibilant words of command.

  Szass Tam peered this way and that, then stiffened when he felt the magic bite. He appeared to sneer the unpleasant sensation away.

  Malark had been certain the elder wizard would shrug off the effects of the spell, but that wasn’t the point. If he’d succeeded in annoying the lich before, then surely it was more irksome still for someone to try to use necromancy against him, the greatest practitioner of that dark science, as if he were no more than a common zombie or ghoul.

  Malark rapped his cudgel against the side of the kiln, then ran. An instant later, jagged shadows spun around the device in a maelstrom of conjured fangs and claws.

  Then Szass Tam drew the flying blade back to float in front of him. As he advanced on the kiln, the weapon leaped this way and that in an unpredictable pattern of defense. Meanwhile, Malark circled.

  Szass Tam stepped around the oven and scowled to discover that it didn’t have a mangled corpse sprawled behind it. He raised his staff and began another incantation.