Unholy hl-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  Malark shrugged. "I only care about the moment of absolute and universal annihilation. Afterward, the void will either bring forth new forms or it won't. Either way, I won't be around to see, although truthfully, I rather hope it doesn't."

  "I don't suppose I can dissuade you by pointing out that you're insane."

  "That's like ice rebuking snow for being cold, don't you think? Now, I regret having to cut our conversation short, particularly since this is the last time we'll see one another-"

  "You're mistaken about that."

  "— but as you know better than anyone, I have matters to attend to. So I'll bid you farewell. I realize I haven't left you much of a vantage point, but I hope that even so, you'll be able to perceive a portion of the spectacle to come." Malark turned and walked away.

  Szass Tam believed that one should never lose one's composure in the presence of an enemy, so he waited for the door to click shut and for another moment after that. Then he slammed his fist down on the arm of the Seat.

  He'd always prided himself on his ability to read people. In the old days, he'd often gleaned the tenor of his fellow council members' unspoken thoughts, and they'd been as devious an assembly as the East had ever seen. How, then, had he been so disastrously wrong about Malark?

  Well, in a very real sense, he hadn't been. He'd comprehended the essential nature of Malark's obsession. That was what enabled him to turn the spymaster and led him to believe he could trust him. He just hadn't realized how ambitious Malark would become in his efforts to serve the terrible object of his devotion.

  In any case, it was useless to fret over the error now. Szass Tam had to find a way to free himself. After all, Yaphyll had done it. True, she'd had a lucky combination of circumstances to help her, but Szass Tam had his intellect. He assured himself that it would serve just as well.

  First-as part of a methodical examination of all the possibilities, not because he thought it might actually work-he gripped the stone arms of the chair and tried to stand.

  The Seat stabbed forbiddance into his mind, sparking fear, jumbling his thoughts, and opposing the will to rise with the compulsion to remain as he was. Defying the psychic intrusion, he kept trying anyway, but it was as if something had fused his body to the stone surfaces behind and beneath it.

  He then tried to shift himself through space, off the Seat and beyond the confines of the pyramid. The chair attempted to deprive him of the will and the focus to do that as well. Once again, the psychic assault failed to shake him, and once again, it didn't matter. He suffered a kind of mental jolt as his prison held him fast.

  He tried to speak to one of his captains up in the castle. He felt the magic, intended to carry the words like leaves on the wind, wither when it reached the inner surface of the pyramid.

  He attempted to summon a demon, but no such entity appeared.

  He sought to call the mummies forth from their coffins. They didn't heed him, either.

  He hurled fire and lightning at the gleaming construct around him and at the massive stone chair beneath him, without so much as scratching either one.

  He'd sometimes flattered himself that fear was a weakness he'd left behind the day he discovered his gift for sorcery. But he realized he was afraid now. With a spasm of annoyance, he pushed the useless emotion out of his mind. There must be a way out of this. He simply had to think of it.

  With all his attention focused inward, he pondered for some time before the spiteful regard of the Watcher recaptured his notice. Even then, it took a while longer before it occurred to him that the entity could be anything more than a distraction.

  He'd verified repeatedly that even when he managed to overcome the Seat's psychic interference and cast a spell, the pyramid dissipated the magic when it tried to pass through. That was why he hadn't been able to wake the mummies or summon a demon.

  But the Watcher was inside the pyramid with him, and outside too. That was its peculiar nature, to be omnipresent within the gloomy crypts and passages that constituted its domain.

  He spoke a spell of binding. His swirling hands left trailing wisps of scarlet light as he made the necessary gestures.

  Perhaps the influence of Thakorsil's Seat kept him from casting as powerful a spell as he would have under normal circumstances. Or maybe the Watcher's diffuse and ambiguous nature made it particularly difficult to compel. Either way, when he spoke the final word, he sensed that he'd failed to hook his fish.

  No matter. He was the greatest necromancer in all Faerun, and he would catch it. He took a breath and began again.

  He soon lost count of how many times he repeated the spell. But at last, when even he had nearly depleted his powers, he felt the spell seize its prey and the ghost thrashing like a hare in the jaws of a fox.

  "Enough," he said. "Whether you realize it or not, you crave oblivion, and I'm willing to give it to you. But only if you serve me to the best of your ability."

  The spirit quieted. Its regard conveyed as much hatred as ever, yet even so, it had a different quality. Szass Tam sensed a sullen acquiescence.

  The Watcher's submission allowed him to probe its essence and examine its qualities. In most respects, they were disappointing. The entity was incapable of leaving its haunts even under magical duress. It was too mindless ever to recover the power of speech, either to articulate the words that would dissolve the first rune or to communicate with someone who could.

  But it still might be able to interact with the physical world to a limited degree. Szass Tam focused his will on it, reinvigorating the decayed capacity and reminding the ghost of its existence.

  The process evidently hurt, for the spirit writhed. But he had it in his grip now, too firmly for it to escape.

  "Now," he said, "you can make a mark." Leaning forward, he drew an arrow in the dust at his feet. "You can make this one to guide people here. Do you understand?"

  He sensed that it did. Probably its people had used arrows to point directions when it was alive.

  "If the arrow isn't enough to bring them, draw these." Szass Tam wrote his initials.

  He assumed two letters were just about all the Watcher could manage. Even if the phantom had been literate during its mortal existence, it hadn't been in Mulhorandi, and it was unlikely that its tattered mind could retain as many unfamiliar symbols as would be required to spell out his entire name, let alone an even lengthier message.

  He made the Watcher write the letters until it got them right about nine times out of ten. When further practice failed to improve on that, he told it, "All right. Use what I taught you, and fetch someone. Anyone."

  The Watcher didn't leave. It was still glaring at him. But presumably its awareness also pervaded the rest of its environs and was ready to obey his commands.

  Which left nothing for Szass Tam to do but try to believe that before time ran out, someone would come to this all-but-forsaken area and heed the promptings of an entity that knowledgeable visitors had long since learned to ignore.

  19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

  "And my faith was not misplaced," the lich concluded, "for here you are."

  Bareris laughed. It was the first time he'd done so in ninety years, and it hurt his chest. "Yes, here we are. But unfortunately for you, we're not as credulous as you hoped. Even if we were, we wouldn't believe your story, because some of us watched Malark die."

  Unruffled by his foe's jeering attitude, the lich said, "I assume you mean during your siege of the Dread Ring in Lapendrar."

  "Yes," Samas said, satisfaction in his tone. "I killed the wretch myself."

  "Bravo," said Szass Tam dryly. "I'm not terribly surprised, for I ordered him to Lapendrar. But we all know of magic that allows a person to be in two places at the same time. As you likely recall, if I make the proper preparations, I can appear in several places simultaneously."

  "Still," Bareris said, "your story's ridiculous. Malark's immortal and wants to murder the whole world, himself included, just because h
e loves Death and thinks it will bring him a moment of ultimate joy? I knew him for ten years and never saw a hint of any of that."

  Aoth frowned. "But you know, I always sensed that he had his secrets, didn't you? And wild as it is, this story does explain why he would betray the southern cause, even though we were winning at the time."

  "It would take someone as formidable as Malark to imprison the lich," Mirror said. At the moment, he was a shadow of the warrior he'd been in life. "And someone with a cunning mind and, most likely, a knowledge of sorcery to keep anyone from realizing Szass Tam was missing. Which his captor plainly has. Otherwise, we would have run into search parties."

  Bareris clamped down on a surge of fury. Told himself that his friends weren't really betraying him, even though that was how it felt. "How can you believe a single word that comes from this liar's mouth? He'd say anything to persuade us to set him free."

  "Of that," Lallara quavered, "I have no doubt. Still, Captain Fezim and Sir Mirror make a legitimate point. Preposterous as this tale may initially appear, it hangs together rather well."

  Nevron threw up his hand in a gesture that, like nearly everything he said or did, conveyed contempt. Bareris caught a whiff of the brimstone smell that clung to the zulkir's person. "Fine. Let's say it's all true. Springhill isn't really dead. He's running around up in the Citadel wearing Szass Tam's face, and he intends to perform this 'Great Work' himself. That means we need to go kill him and make it stick this time."

  The big man sneered at Szass Tam. "But it doesn't mean we need you. We came here prepared to butcher the master, so I'm sure we can handle the apprentice."

  Szass Tam smiled. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But ask yourselves this: Suppose you meant to perform a lengthy ritual that every entity in the cosmos would want to stop if it understood what you were attempting. What would you do to keep others from interfering in your work?"

  Lauzoril narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. It made him look even more like a priggish scholar. "I'd do my conjuring in some hidden sanctuary with potent defenses to fend off anyone who found me despite the concealment."

  "Exactly," the necromancer said. "Malark's on the roof of the Citadel, except not really. He's in an artificial worldlet, a Chaos realm, that I created. He's attuned himself to the place and is more or less its god, so my menagerie of guardians will obey him."

  "Hang on," said Aoth. "You're telling us that Malark has already gone into this stronghold?"

  "By my estimation-it's difficult to judge the passage of time when you're sitting alone in a crypt-he entered and started the Unmaking a couple of days ago. Luckily for us, the ritual takes considerable time. But I imagine the first wave of annihilation will race forth in the not-too-distant future."

  "It's all nonsense," Bareris insisted.

  "None of us," said Szass Tam, "is quite the diviner Yaphyll was. But if you exercise your mystical faculties, you may detect a profound disruption building."

  The zulkirs exchanged glances. Then Lauzoril and Nevron murmured charms. Their eyes became unfocused and their features slack as they gazed at something beyond physical reality. Meanwhile, Mirror breathed a prayer, evidently asking his god to grant him a glimpse of the unseen.

  Then the ghost cried out as he had never done even when some undead horror was clawing him to tatters of ectoplasm. His murky form smudged beyond recognition.

  "What did you see?" asked Aoth.

  "Something fouler than I've ever seen before," Mirror answered. "Something truly unholy. I understand now what drove Fastrin mad. Why he was willing to slaughter us all to keep that… force from ever coming into existence."

  Szass Tam sighed. "I meant to create paradise. Perfection. But now that Malark's perverting the purpose of the magic, I won't dispute your assessment. Now there's nothing to do but stop him."

  Lallara glowered at Szass Tam. "Go ahead and tell us how to free you," she said. "It will save time later if we actually decide to do it."

  "No!" exploded Bareris. "He's manipulating you! Drawing you deeper with every word!"

  "Of course he is," Lauzoril said, blinking. "But unfortunately, that doesn't mean there's no validity to what he says."

  "Which is that you'll never reach Malark without my aid," Szass Tam said. "Not in time."

  Aoth looked at the figure under the gleaming pyramid. "Tell us how to transport ourselves to this 'Chaos realm.' What to expect and the passwords that will get us past whatever guardians there are. Afterward, we'll take it into account that you helped us."

  Szass Tam laughed. "Of course you will! We zulkirs were always known for leniency and forgiveness."

  Aoth scowled. "I'm not a damn zulkir."

  "And you're not capable of keeping four of them from dealing with me however they desire, not even with the ghost and the griffon to help you."

  "Curse it, if the eastern lands die, you die with them."

  "Is that all you think will happen? You're mistaken, but never mind. The only real way to settle the question is to let the experiment proceed, and we all agree we'd rather not. Yet even so, I won't surrender my secrets."

  "Because if you're going to die, you don't care what happens to anyone else."

  The lich shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Believe what you like. But the fact of the matter is, there's no point in telling you anything if you're going to leave me in the Seat. Because you'll still fail. You need my knowledge and my power."

  Aoth turned to Lauzoril. "Can you make him talk?"

  "No," the zulkir replied. "Only the first rune is in place. It binds him to Thakorsil's Seat, but it would take all nine to divest him of his free will. In addition to which-"

  "If you tell me no," said Aoth, "then I believe it. So I say we free him."

  "I agree," Lallara said.

  "Much to my disgust," said Nevron, "so do I."

  "And I," Samas said.

  Bareris raised his sword. "I'll kill the first person who tries."

  Nevron snorted. "This situation grows more farcical by the moment." He swept his left hand through the start of a mystic pass, and the sapphire ring on his middle finger glowed.

  Aoth grabbed Nevron by the wrist and yanked his arm, spoiling the gesture before it could unleash the demon or devil that would otherwise have sprung forth to attack Bareris. Plainly astonished that his former underling would dare, the zulkir gaped at him.

  "Just wait, curse it." Aoth let go of Nevron and came closer to Bareris. He lowered his voice when he spoke again: "You can't do this. They'll only kill you if you try."

  "The dream vestige already killed me."

  "Don't play word games."

  Mirror came to stand beside Aoth. "I understand how you feel," the phantom said. "But thousands of lives are at stake. Maybe even the life of the whole world, just as Szass Tam says."

  I don't care, Bareris thought. But something kept him from proclaiming it aloud.

  "You know this won't be the end of it," said Aoth. "We'll fight the lich before we're through."

  "You don't know that." said Bareris, "and you don't know how it will come out even if we do. Right now, he's helpless. Right now…"

  He saw that nothing he could say would sway them. That, much as it would grieve them, they would even fight him if he forced the issue.

  Fine. Better to slay them or to perish at their hands than to do anything to aid the monster responsible for Tammith's destruction or to stand idle while anyone else aided him. No matter what was at stake.

  Yet he knew that if Tammith were here, alive and uncorrupted by vampirism, that wasn't what she'd say. Knew too that Aoth and Mirror had been his friends for a hundred years, even when bitterness and undeath denied him the capacity to respond in kind. He pictured the young Bareris he'd conjured up to fight the vasuthant, regarding him with a kind of reproach in his eyes, and something tipped inside his mind.

  He lowered his sword and stepped from between Szass Tam and the zulkirs to signal that the latter could do as they saw fit.

&nb
sp; "Thank you for seeing reason," said the lich, and the remark jabbed Bareris like a taunt. "Now, this is the incantation to erase the sigil…"

  As Szass Tam instructed the other archmages, Bareris fantasized that as soon as the crystal pyramid blinked out of existence, he'd rush forward and strike so quickly that neither the lich nor anyone else would have time to react. His limbs quivered, and he could virtually feel his legs sprinting, his arm swinging his sword.

  He also prayed that everything the regent had said was a lie, just as he himself had maintained. That Szass Tam would leap from the Seat, laugh at their gullibility, and lash out at them, and they'd have no choice but to fight him after all.

  But when the construct of solidified energy faded, Bareris didn't spring forward. And when Szass Tam rose, he didn't summon any wraiths or hurl blasts of shadow at his liberators.

  He simply stretched and said, "Thank you. Shall we be on our way?"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

  Jhesrhi looked at the several dozen assembled mages, most of them robed in scarlet, then glanced down at Khouryn.

  "Ready?" asked the dwarf.

  No, she thought. She was confident of her ability to cast spells, but leadership was a different matter. Most people didn't even enjoy her company, let alone look to her for guidance. True, she managed to direct her assistants in the Brotherhood, but there were only a couple of them, and they'd joined the company knowing and accepting that she was in charge. The Red Wizards weren't part of the same chain of command. They were strangers, and notoriously arrogant strangers at that.

  She shifted her grip on her staff. "Yes."

  Khouryn evidently didn't like something he detected in her expression or tone, for he frowned through his bushy mustache and beard. "They're used to taking orders from the zulkirs. Now, whether they realize it or not, they're looking for somebody else to order them around, and who better than you?"

  "Someone dressed in red?"