Prophet of the Dead

by Richard Lee Byers

  Still, he thought, scowling, he had to keep his head, because he already had reason to regret succumbing to the sword and spear’s urgings. Not that he was sure good would have come of responding to Cera’s cry for help on the day they stormed the fortress. Indeed, it seemed more likely that he would simply have failed to find any trace of her. Yet it was possible everything could have been different. She, Jhesrhi, and even Aoth might have been present to help when the Storm of Vengeance attacked. The brothers of the Griffon Lodge might still be alive.

  Dai Shan interrupted Vandar’s self-reproach by peering into the narrow space between two tombs, into which the Rashemi had wedged himself. “It’s a pair of zombies approaching,” the outlander said, “or possibly ghouls. Some sort of corporeal undead anyway.”

  Vandar felt his pulse quicken. The warm tingle of excitement in his weapons quickened too. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Surely, survivors of the force your lodge and the Stag King’s retainers destroyed in the fortress.”

  Vandar frowned. “They might know something about what became of Cera and Jhesrhi, and we might be able to make them tell us.”

  “Indeed,” Dai Shan murmured, “ ‘make’ being the critical term in the mighty warrior’s formulation.”

  “If it’s just a couple of walking corpses,” Vandar said, “you and I have bested worse since we started roaming around in here. We can take them by surprise when they reach the statue of Jergal.” He scowled. “No, curse it, the torchlight will still give me away.”

  Dai Shan took a moment to think, then answered, “I can share my knack for seeing in the dark with you. Please close your eyes.”

  With a twinge of reluctance, Vandar obeyed. Dai Shan whispered words that, although the berserker had no idea what they meant, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. On the final syllable, the Shou touched a fingertip to each of his eyelids.

  When that light pressure ended, Vandar opened his eyes and glanced around. “Nothing looks different.”

  “It will when you leave the torch behind. Come. We should take our positions.”

  Dai Shan turned out to be correct. The curtain of shadow the Shou had conjured blocked the firelight, and after the wavering yellow glow disappeared, Vandar could still see. In fact, he could see a little farther than before, although he’d lost every trace of color, with even his crimson weapons turning gray. The change made the maze’s riotous jumble of morbid carvings look even ghostlier, if such a thing was possible.

  Bending low, Dai Shan scurried around Jergal’s statue. Presumably, he took up a position at the mouth of the passage on the other side, although, with the sculpture in the way, Vandar couldn’t actually see him anymore. The Rashemi occupied the corresponding position on his own side and peeked around the corner.

  Swaying, lurching figures were now visible, although Vandar still couldn’t make out exactly what manner of creature he was about to ambush. Maybe Dai Shan’s magic granted a keener form of dark sight to a shadow adept than to an ordinary person. But whatever the approaching beings were, the fey weapons were eager to assail them. The sword hilt and the shaft of the spear seemed to shiver in his hands.

  Although the undead moved quietly, the moment came when Vandar heard their footsteps scuffing on the floor. Then two withered corpses with foxfire in their sunken eyes shuffled into view.

  Vandar stepped and thrust with the spear. The weapon punched through the knee of the nearer undead. The creature toppled, but it had a naked scimitar in its clawlike hand and slashed at its attacker at the same time. Vandar parried with the fey sword, spun the parry into a bind, and tore the blade from his opponent’s grip. The scimitar flew through the air to clank down on Jergal’s desktop.

  There. That was one dread warrior crippled and disarmed for questioning. Letting go of the spear, Vandar turned to see if Dai Shan needed help dealing with the other and only then perceived the long-hafted war hammer sweeping down at his head.

  The second zombie had had no difficulty rushing in on his flank because Dai Shan had never engaged it. In fact, Vandar still didn’t see the Shou trader at all.

  Vandar leaped backward and, as the hammer stroke fell short, saw more shapes rushing up the passage. The undead he’d so confidently attacked had been forerunners scouting ahead of a larger band, and just as he was simultaneously comprehending that and cutting at the hammer-wielding zombie’s neck, Dai Shan called out from somewhere behind him.

  “Noble undead, the barbarian is Vandar Cherlinka, a champion of Rashemen and your enemy! I’ll help you kill him!” The Shou rattled off an incantation.

  The red sword tore the hammer zombie’s rotting head tumbling from its shoulders, and then the world went black. As Vandar realized Dai Shan had ripped away the gift of dark sight he’d bestowed previously, something clamped around his ankle.

  * * * * *

  Booms and crashes echoed through the caverns. So did crackling, thunderclaps, and screams.

  Old Ones looked in the direction of the noises. On the other side of the foundry, one masked Rashemi jerked around and spoke to another. Aoth couldn’t catch the fellow’s words, but he didn’t need to.

  “Hold your positions!” he called, not just to that particular mage but to everyone. “I know how all the commotion sounds, but I guarantee you, only a few of the enemy have come in the other way. Orgurth and our other friends can handle it. Most of the creatures will break in this way, and we need to be here to handle them.”

  Standing beside Aoth, Shaugar called, “Captain Fezim knows what he’s talking about!” Then, in a voice so low that only the man next to him could hear, he added, “I hope.”

  Aoth’s troops did stay where they were, although their restlessness grew increasingly apparent, and why wouldn’t it? Every reverberating cry could be a friend dying, a comrade reinforcements might have saved, and although the enchanters claimed they knew how to fight, they surely hadn’t learned to accept the occasional necessity of such losses as sellswords did. When the second gate finally crashed and clattered to rubble, Aoth felt a surge of relief that it had happened before his own plan could fall apart.

  He slapped his arms and chest, activating the magic in his tattoos to enhance his strength, quickness, and endurance. Then, like huge living toys of hinged metal and stone, the first constructs charged into the foundry.

  The layout of the caves was such that, having breached the gate they did, the enemy had to pass through this chamber, and in Aoth’s professional judgment, the space ought to serve for a killing box. Ledges partway up the walls afforded the defenders the advantage of height, and the carved stairs that ran up to them were steep, narrow, and thus easily defended.

  At first, the scuttling golems, and then the undead rushing in behind them, didn’t even appear to notice the men crouching behind the improvised and uncompleted battlements. And despite their edginess, the Old Ones, the Pure Flame warm them, didn’t lash out as soon as the first foes came into view. As instructed, they awaited Aoth’s signal.

  When the floor below was teeming with foes, Aoth leaped up, pointed his spear, and snarled a word of power. A red spark shot from the point down at the pale, robed figure of an undead wizard, and, if Tymora was smiling, one of the Raumvirans skilled at managing constructs. With a boom, the streaking point of light exploded into a flash of flame that tore the creature limb from limb. It half ripped the head from an articulated bronze panther too, and the golem froze. But other constructs engulfed by the blast weathered it unscathed.

  Rising from behind the makeshift parapets to the extent necessary, Old Ones called words of command and lashed wands, staves, and orbs through mystic passes. The blue and argent figures they’d created previously glowed to life atop or just inside the floor.

  A steel minotaur and a ceramic preying mantis lurched into immobility. A thick-bodied giant of stone with golden eyes pivoted ponderously and slammed its fist down on top of a skeleton, shattering the undead from the top of its skull all the way down to
its pelvis. Yellow light flickered over a two-headed iron mastiff, and then its metal body burst into flame.

  So, despite the frantic haste and improvisation with which the Rashemi had completed them, the snares were working, but not on every automaton. Some of the ones on the floor simply seemed impervious, while none of the flyers were falling out of the air. All the golems still capable of purposeful action turned to assail the ledges, and their undead masters were right behind them.

  Aoth looked over his section of battlement and saw a man-sized, eight-legged contraption like a mix of rat and spider climbing the wall. It noticed him too, and spit dark liquid straight up at him. He recoiled and avoided the spew. The drops that splashed down on the parapet sizzled and smoked, and the fumes smelled hot and vile.

  A moment later, the golem’s spidery front legs hooked the top of the barrier, and then the rat head appeared. Aoth drove his spear between its jaws and released some of the power stored in the weapon. The resulting white flash blew the steel skull apart, and what remained of the automaton lost its grip and fell away.

  Toward the back of the attackers, the ghoul with the pearl in her eye socket aimed her wand at him. He dropped back down behind the parapet for a moment, and when he peeked over it again, she’d turned away to find another target.

  That was her mistake. But before Aoth could take advantage of it, he sensed danger on his flank. He whirled to confront it and found himself looking into dark, lustrous eyes in a narrow bone-white face. Except that an instant later, that countenance was neither long and thin nor pallid, anymore. It was Cera’s round, mischievous face, bronzed by the sun she served and adored, and after all the time apart, all the days and nights anguishing over her fate, all he wanted in the world was to kiss her.

  But a war mage, especially one whose fate it seemed to be to frequently battle undead, learned to defend against psychic intrusion, and Aoth spoke a word of liberation and visualized a symbol of clarity by pure trained reflex. And as the illusion fell away, he thrust his spear into the vampire’s chest and conjured sunlight from the head of the weapon. The creature screamed as holes opened in her flesh, beams of radiance leaped forth, and the magic ate her from the inside out.

  Aoth turned and destroyed a swooping eagle-sized dragonish construct made of silver and leather by riddling it with darts of green light. And that, it appeared, had been the last foe striving to kill him. Most likely, something else would try in another moment, but meanwhile he could take a breath and assess the progress of the battle as a whole.

  Along the ledges, Old Ones hurled power as savagely and relentlessly as possible. A few, using their affinity with the divine, scourged the undead with beams and bursts of holy light. More relied on the products of their particular arts, swapping one talisman for another when the first ran dry.

  As Aoth had expected, some of the unfinished weapons failed to function properly even once. An Old One tried three inert wands in succession before simply throwing his weight against the section of rampart in front of him, toppling it and dumping the pieces on the brass centipede that had been on the verge of crawling over it. One of his fellows pointed a crystal-bladed dagger at something on the cavern floor, and instead of ice forming around the target, it surged backward from the cross guard and encased his arm to the elbow.

  At a few spots, other automatons and undead had succeeded in flying or climbing onto the ledges like the vampire Aoth had destroyed, and there, Old Ones threw down wands and staves and snatched up blades. A broadsword burned like dry wood, only without being consumed, and a pair of hand-axes roared like bears as their wielder chopped at a hovering wraith.

  Despite failing talismans and foes that managed to make it to the high ground, Aoth judged that he and his comrades might actually be winning, if only gradually and by the slimmest of margins. Then, however, a glowing line or glyph at a time, the figures on the floor began to dim, and as they deteriorated, inert constructs started to stir, while others that had been acting erratically remembered their proper functions.

  Aoth turned to Shaugar. “I see the problem!” the Old One snapped.

  “Then fix it!”

  “I’m trying!” With the tip of his staff, Shaugar drew a glowing blue pentagram on the air. “But the spells have already held longer than I expected!”

  For a moment, Aoth had no idea what to do about that. Then he spotted the ghoul with the pearl in her eye socket again.

  She was standing behind a brass and steel centaur that was shuddering in the middle of one of the fading magical figures. Surely to quicken its return to functionality, she was chanting and tapping the automaton with her wand.

  Recalling how she’d brandished the same arcane implement to send the stone thrower after him, Aoth pointed with his spear. “I think that creature’s wand helps her direct and repair the golems,” he said to Shaugar. “If you had it, would that help you?”

  “How should I know?” the Rashemi replied. “Maybe.”

  “Keep working!” Aoth scrambled to the top of makeshift parapet and jumped.

  * * * * *

  For one instant, swallowed by the cold darkness of the maze, betrayed by a comrade whom, despite his better judgment, he’d started to trust, held in place with dozens of undead rushing up the passage at him, Vandar froze. Then a flash of the anger that was the source of a berserker’s prowess jolted his mind into motion once again.

  When it did, he realized the thing gripping his ankle could only be the hand of the zombie he’d crippled previously. The creature had crawled over and grabbed him.

  Guessing at how it lay on the floor, he hacked at it, then tried to yank his leg loose. After a moment of resistance, it came free all at once, sending him staggering off balance to bang the backs of his thighs into Jergal’s pedestal. He could still feel leathery fingers wrapped around his ankle, though. The zombie’s forearm must have pulled apart at the point where the fey sword had cut it. Vandar kicked and shook the severed hand loose.

  Then, praying he wouldn’t slam into a wall or trip over something, he ran at the spot where, he believed, the entrance to the side passage containing his torch ought to be. He seemed to take too many strides and had nearly decided he’d somehow gone wrong when he plunged through Dai Shan’s conjured curtain of shadow. Although the wavering amber light was guttering, the brand was still burning.

  All right. Grab it and … then what?

  Vandar thought he had two advantages that might, if the spirits favored him, allow him to make it back to the Fortress of the Half-Demon alive. He was a fast runner and, after days of exploration, knew this part of the maze well. But he’d never shake pursuers off his tail if he carried a light to draw them after him.

  Yet if he couldn’t see, his plight would be even more hopeless. With a curse and a pang of bitterness not far short of despair, he stooped and reached for the torch. But just before he could grasp it, his awareness fixed on the sword he carried in his other hand.

  The fey weapons never spoke to him with language. But from time to time, they communicated in their own fashion, and now, prompted, he realized, by the blade, he remembered how they’d sometimes sensed things he didn’t and shared that awareness with him.

  The sword conveyed that it could do so again, only in a more constant and detailed way. It could serve as his eyes in the darkness if he permitted it.

  Yes, he thought, I permit it, and the grotesque stonework of the maze flowed into view around him.

  And as his bond with the red sword deepened, new thoughts sprang into his head. Now that he could see, he didn’t even need to flee. He could go back, slaughter the filthy things that were coming after him, and win the greatest victory of his or any Rashemi’s life. The desire to do so was entirely consonant with the swaggering pride and contempt for danger that defined being a berserker.

  But did they really? Vandar remembered wise old Raumevik urging him not to throw his life away when he still had his lodge brothers to avenge. He remembered too, how the need to be
deemed a great warrior worthy of the wild griffons had led him to ignore Cera’s cries.

  Curse it, no! he thought. I’m not going to go berserk, fight a fight I can’t win, and die for nothing! I’m the master of my rage and, sword, the master of you too!

  A feeling of insistence inside his head abated. He felt free to run if that was what he truly wanted. But plainly, he couldn’t leave a weapon as precious as the spear behind. He turned and started back toward Jergal.

  Then he heard the telltale clinking of armor as the creatures wearing it trotted forward. The rest of the undead were now so close that he likely couldn’t go back for the spear without coming face-to-face with them.

  Still, without consciously willing it, he advanced another step.

  I’ll drop you, he silently promised the sword. I’ll take my chances with the torch, and nobody will ever use you to fight anything ever again. You’ll lie here alone in the dark forever!

  His mind truly cleared, or at least he thought so. He had a sense of the sword yielding like a stubborn and misbehaving dog finally cowering in the face of its master’s anger.

  Hoping the blade hadn’t taken too long to capitulate, Vandar whirled and ran.

  * * * * *

  By thought alone, Aoth released the power pent in one of his tattoos, and as a result, he fell slowly, meanwhile rattling off an incantation.

  Many of the Raumathari automatons were still either frozen or doing pointless things such as rolling over and over or trying to walk through walls, although probably not for much longer. And the majority of the constructs and undead that did constitute potential threats were too busy assailing their chosen targets on the ledges to notice Aoth drifting toward the floor. Still, three shriveled spearmen with foxfire eyes and flaking skin rushed at him, and a phantom in the form of crucified little girl floated in their wake. The cross and nails were absent, but the apparition had holes in her outstretched hands and crossed feet, and although her translucent face was a mask of uncomprehending anguish, her giggling echoed in Aoth’s head.