"Are you sure about this?" asked Aoth the griffon. "Stay here, and you can fight under the open sky."
Jet clacked his beak shut on empty air. It was one of several mannerisms the familiar used to expressed annoyance. "I already told you, I'm coming."
"Everyone, be silent!" Lallara snapped. She raised her staff, chanted words of power, and, one by one, the other archmages joined in.
The world shattered into chaotic points of brightness, and Aoth had a sudden vertiginous feeling of hurtling like an arrow shot from a bow. Translating oneself through space wasn't a part of his own specialized discipline, but other wizards had taken him on such journeys a time or two, so he was prepared for the sensation.
He wasn't ready for what happened next.
The travelers should have appeared before Bareris and Mirror as quickly as a hummingbird flicks its wings. Instead, they abruptly found themselves suspended in a gray void that, Aoth realized, was scarcely even a space in the truest sense but rather a condition of transition and indeterminacy.
He felt multiple pressures acting on him simultaneously. Something-the spell the zulkirs had cast, presumably-shoved him relentlessly forward. But he couldn't go forward, because something else-Szass Tam's wards against this form of intrusion-had him in its grip. Bareris and the archmages had weakened those defenses, but not enough, with the result that Aoth and his companions were like men trying to squeeze through a hole too small to accommodate them. The effect was painful and growing worse.
One of the soldiers screamed, and then, armor groaning and bones snapping, his body crumpled in on itself and disappeared. Perhaps, ejected back into the real world, the corpse had fallen to the ground somewhere outside the Citadel.
A second warrior's body compressed as if it were no weightier than a sponge. Blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils.
Lallara rattled off a spell of protection. The pressure holding Aoth in place abated, and he had a sensation of lurching forward. Then Szass Tam's defenses clamped down again, arresting him. Another bodyguard shrieked as magic crushed him like a grape in a press.
Lallara glared at Aoth. "Back at the Dread Ring," she said, "I saw you conjure a prismatic wall."
He didn't see how the spell could help them, but he was willing to follow her lead. The Firelord knew, he had no ideas of his own. "Where do you want it?"
"It doesn't matter! Just cast as many as you can."
The balance of pressures acting on Aoth's body was becoming more excruciating by the moment, but he managed to grit out the incantation with the necessary precision. Multicolored radiance flared from the point of his spear, but instead of forming the usual barrier, it arced over to Lallara and cloaked her decrepit-looking form in rainbows, which coruscated as she chanted words of command. Aoth inferred that since a prismatic wall was a defensive enchantment, she, with her mastery of that form of magic, could siphon its power to strengthen her own spells.
He cast another wall, then another, and she wrapped those around herself as well. Szass Tam's wards mashed three more soldiers to pulp. Then the gray space burst apart.
The surviving travelers materialized down the length of the corridor in which Bareris and Mirror awaited them. Aoth stumbled a step, then caught his balance. A warrior exclaimed at the sudden darkness, and, with a casual gesture, Lauzoril kindled a globe of floating silvery light.
Aoth grinned at Bareris. "Nice work."
"How do you figure that?" Samas demanded, shrill with displeasure. "We nearly died. Both my guards did die."
Nevron sneered. "You're a sad excuse for a zulkir if you need soldiers to protect you. But if you do, rest assured, we still have plenty." He made a sweeping gesture to indicate his own person with all its talismans and tattoos, and, by implication, the demons and devils caged inside them.
"We did experience an awkward moment," Lauzoril said, "but in my view, the scheme worked as well as we reasonably could have expected. All the important people made it through, and a few of our underlings as well. So I suggest we turn our attention to finding Szass Tam."
Bareris had hoped that the zulkirs could cast a divination to pinpoint Szass Tam's location, and in fact, Samas Kul tried. But for some reason, the magic simply indicated that the lich was somewhere above them. Since that took in the entire fortress, it wasn't much help.
Bareris struggled to quell a pang of impatience, to take solace in the thought that surely the lord of the Citadel couldn't be hard to find. The castle must be crawling with servants who kept track of his whereabouts, the better to meet his needs.
Lauzoril shrouded the company in an enchantment akin to some of the spells in Bareris's arsenal. With luck, it would beguile anyone who happened to see them into believing they were familiar faces with legitimate business in the catacombs. Then they started looking for the way up.
At first the trek was uneventful, with only the occasional scuff of a footstep, creak of leather, or Samas's wheezing to break the silence. Rumor had it that the dungeons were as haunted and dangerous as the caverns below, but it took a while for one of its denizens to reveal its presence.
Eventually, though, the intruders climbed a staircase and found themselves at a spot where two passages diverged from a common origin, and a murky painting of a farm without farmers or animals, its fields infested with tares and weeds, adorned a nearby wall. And suddenly Bareris's hackles rose as he sensed a hostile scrutiny.
He cast about but couldn't find the source of the glare boring into him. "Aoth?" he said.
The warmage peered around with his luminous, azure eyes. "Sorry. Even I can't see it. Which may mean that somehow, there truly isn't anything to see."
"I think it's a ghost," Mirror said, pity in his tone, "but terribly old and faded. It's forgotten nearly everything."
It was what Mirror might have become, Bareris supposed, if the two of them hadn't encountered one another in the Sunrise Mountains.
"I can sic a demon on it," Nevron said.
"It hates us," Mirror said, his resemblance to Bareris gradually bleeding out of his shadowy features, "but I don't think it has the power to hurt us."
"Then ignore it, and move on," Lallara said.
That sounded good to Bareris. He took a stride and felt the phantom shift position. Which was contrary to common sense, since he hadn't pinned it down to a specific location before. Yet even so, he somehow perceived a surge of movement, and then, though he still couldn't see it, his instincts told him the spirit had planted itself squarely in front of the procession.
"Does it think it can bar our path?" Samas asked.
"Whatever it believes," Lauzoril said, "I daresay we can walk right through it, and I see no reason why we shouldn't."
"Wait," Mirror said, his face oozing into a wavering mockery of Nevron's brutal features. "I sense it's trying to do something. Nothing harmful, just… something."
Slowly, as if the process required extreme exertion or concentration, a horizontal line scraped itself into existence on the painting of the deserted farm. The spirit then scratched a crude little arrowhead on the left end.
"It's pointing for us to turn around and go in the other direction," Lallara said.
"Because the ghost hopes to send us into harm's way," Samas said. "You said we should ignore it, and for once I agree with you."
"Wait," Mirror repeated. "I have a feeling it isn't finished."
For several moments, it seemed he was mistaken. Then, even more slowly than it had drawn the arrow, the haunt scratched a pair of letters above it.
Bareris felt a pang of excitement. " 'S. T.' Szass Tam?"
"How can it be?" Lauzoril replied. "The spirit has no way of knowing we're hunting the lich and no motive to help us even if it does."
"Unless it's trying to lead us into a trap," Samas said, "just as I warned you." His wand crawled out of his voluminous sleeve with its trimming of diamonds.
Bareris peered around and strained to listen as well. As far as he could tell, he and his fellow intruders
were alone with the haunt. "I imagine Szass Tam could think of better ways to lure us if he wanted to. Ploys less likely to rouse our suspicions. And remember, we tried to enter the castle in a way that would keep him from noticing."
Samas snorted. " 'Tried' being the operative word."
"Maybe," said Aoth, "the spook has a grudge against Szass Tam. It would hardly be the first undead that a necromancer had ordered around against its will. In any case, I think we should follow its lead, at least for a little way."
"Even if this is a trap," Samas said.
"We dared to come here," the warmage replied, "because together, we should be able to overcome the worst our enemies can throw at us. Besides, if we haven't been as sneaky as we hoped, and Szass Tam does know we're wandering around in his cellar, we'll have to fight him on ground of his choosing eventually."
"That makes a certain amount of sense," Lauzoril said. He wore a dagger on his belt, and now he loosened it in its sheath.
Lallara and Nevron concurred with Lauzoril, and Samas grudgingly assented to the will of the majority. The intruders stalked in the direction the arrow pointed, past more dingy murals addressing the theme of a world devoid of people or beasts, with their guide's malevolent scrutiny wearing at them every step of the way. Whenever they came to an intersection, the entity contracted from a general miasma of loathing to a localized node of it to lead them in the right direction.
They found a pair of bodies, burned by some conflagration to clumps of half-melted armor, scraps of blackened bone, and ash. Then came a mural of an underwater scene without any fish in it. The haunt positioned itself in front of the painting as if to indicate they'd reached their destination.
"I can see runes on the picture," said Aoth, "but I'm not familiar with them."
"Describe them," Lallara said, and he did so. "Hm. The 'hand with an eye in the palm' is only there to unleash some sort of unpleasantness. Point to the others as I call them out. The 'triangle inside another triangle.' "
Aoth indicated the proper spot, and she rapped it with the head of her staff. For a moment, the sign glowed red.
So did the others as she touched them in their turns, and when she'd tapped them all, a latch clicked. The door concealed within the mural cracked open.
"Let me," said Aoth. He swung the panel a little wider and peered through. "It looks like a vault full of treasure." Spear leveled, he crept through the opening, and Jet lunged forward to place himself at his master's side. Everyone else followed.
At first, Bareris saw nothing more than Aoth had indicated: a big, dark room full of old and no doubt precious articles, intriguing under other circumstances but irrelevant to the task at hand. Then Aoth rounded a gigantic dragon skull with an axe buried in the top of it, pointed his spear, and spoke a word of command. A bolt of lightning crackled from the spear to strike at the threat he'd evidently spotted.
Bareris scrambled forward until he could see what his friend had seen, and then a shock of amazement, elation, and rage froze him in place. Szass Tam sat before them on a high-backed stone chair with arms carved in the shape of dragons and feet in the form of talons gripping orbs. Around it glittered a transparent, nine-sided pyramid composed of arcane energy.
It didn't look as though Aoth's lightning had hurt the lich, but one way or another, Bareris meant to do better. He shouted a thunderous shout. It rattled the sarcophagi and statuary and brought grit drifting down from the ceiling but didn't even appear to jolt the lich. Bareris drew breath to sing a killing song.
Szass Tam chuckled and shook his head. "This is unexpected to say the least. I hoped the Watcher would fetch someone to rescue me, but I never dreamed it would be all of you. Well met."
"'Well met'?" Bareris repeated. "'Well met'?" His fingers clenched on the hilt of his sword, and he started toward the figure in the pyramid.
"Easy," said Lauzoril at his back. "We're in no danger, nor is there a need for precipitous action. I daresay our vengeance can be as protracted as we care to make it."
Szass Tam nodded. "I assumed the former zulkir of Enchantment would recognize Thakorsil's Seat. Perhaps if you expound on its properties, you'll set your companions' minds at ease. Then we can all enjoy a civil conversation."
Lauzoril hesitated as if it felt wrong to follow the suggestion of a hated enemy. But then he said, "The Seat is a prison originally designed to hold the archdevil Orlex, and the presence of the pyramid indicates that at least the first ward is active. Szass Tam can't leave the chair or do anything to hurt us."
"Then… it's over?" Samas asked, incredulity in his voice. "He's helpless, and we can reclaim our dominions?"
"Before you start planning the victory feast," said the lich, "you might want to ask yourselves how I came to be in this predicament. Listen, and I'll explain."
25-28 Mirtul, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
When Szass Tam felt the backs of his calves slam against the hard stone edge, he realized that Malark's kick had hurled him staggering into the same artifact in which he himself had once imprisoned Yaphyll. He made a frantic, floundering effort to arrest his momentum and landed in Thakorsil's Seat anyway.
Instantly the nine-sided pyramid sprang into existence around him. It was still hazy; it looked as if it had been sculpted from fog instead of gleaming glass. It would hold a captive nonetheless but not for long. Not unless someone commenced the proper ritual.
Szass Tam had never taught Malark the magic or anything else about the Seat. But he suspected his lieutenant had somehow obtained all the necessary information anyway.
Malark murmured a charm to wash the acid from his body, then drank an elixir that partially healed his burns and blisters. Then he recited an incantation to send the mummies shambling back to their sarcophagi.
Meanwhile the force holding Szass Tam in place and in check attenuated. If Malark didn't start the ritual soon, he'd be able to act. And perhaps the spymaster wouldn't. He needed a mage pledged to the gods of light, and no such prisoner was in evidence. If Malark imagined he had time to scurry to another part of the catacombs to retrieve one-
But no. He didn't. Malark plucked a glass bead from the pouch on his belt and dashed it to powder against the floor. A skinny, naked young woman, gagged and with her hands tied behind her, appeared in a flash of ruddy light. The bead had held her shrunken and in stasis until Malark required her.
He thumped her on the back with the heel of his hand, paralyzing her, then lowered her to the floor. Employing his clawed yellow glove, he carved a pair of identical runes in her forehead, and the bloody symbols burst into flame. He chanted the opening words of the first of the rituals of twin burnings, and Szass Tam felt coercion clamp down hard. It would remain impossible for him to rise or cast a spell at the man before him.
He could still talk, so he shouted at Malark. Insults. Threats. Obscenities. Nonsense. Anything to shake his concentration. For if Malark made even the slightest error in either his incantations or his cutting, the rite would fail.
But that didn't work out, either. Szass Tam had trained his student too well, and when the former monk of the Long Death carved the last double sigil on the sacrificial victim's charred, torn corpse, and a rune briefly flared into visibility on one face of the pyramid, the lich knew the Seat could conceivably hold him forever.
"Perhaps I deserve this," he said, "for long ago, I resolved never to trust anyone, and I broke the vow with you. Still, I'd like to know why you've betrayed me."
"A moment," Malark croaked. The dozens of lengthy incantations had dried out his throat, and since he no longer required precise intonation, he was letting the rawness show in his voice. He unstoppered a leather waterskin and took several swallows. "There, that's better. Master, you do deserve an explanation. And I promise you, it's not that I've forsaken the dream we share."
"Then why?" Szass Tam asked.
"Well, for one thing…" Malark hesitated. "Your Omnipotence, ever since I joined your cause, you've been a generous friend and mento
r to me. I've learned to admire your wisdom, courage, and vision. But you also embody the unnatural vileness of undeath. You're the last creature who should undertake the task of recreating the world."
"I intend," Szass Tam answered, "to make a universe unafflicted with suffering or death."
"I believe you." Malark closed his eyes for a moment, and some of the remaining burns on his body faded. He was using a technique he'd learned as a monk to speed the healing process. "But it wouldn't work out like that. It couldn't. The new world would reflect your fundamental nature and come out worse than this one. That's one of the reasons I'm going to perform the Unmaking in your place."
"That's absurd."
"Not really. You taught me most of your secrets-if you recall, you even let me read Fastrin's book. And I am a spy. With ninety years to poke around, I uncovered the rest of them.
"Which is to say, I've practiced the same preparatory meditations you have, and I can perform the ceremony. Confined to Thakorsil's Seat, you won't be able to interfere, and no one will turn up to release you. Not when you're sealed in a hidden vault in a part of the dungeons everyone shuns. Not when people don't even realize you've gone missing." Malark swept his hand from his shaven crown down the length of his torso, and his form became Szass Tam's, tall, gaunt frame, chin beard, shriveled fingers, and all.
"And so," Szass Tam said, "in preference to a lich, a traitor will shape the world to come."
"No," Malark said.
"What do you mean?"
"I told you you're unfit to ascend to godhood. It's true and justification enough to meddle in your plans. But there's a deeper reason. I worship Death, and I originally joined your cause because you told me your intent was to kill everything, including me. My desire for that perfect consummation hasn't changed.
"But I can't leave it to you to bring it about, because if I did, it wouldn't be perfect. One thing-you-would survive. I won't commit that blasphemy."
"If the master of the ritual dies with everything else, than there's no one left to spark a new creation."
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