by James Lowder
The tree line remained distant, as if it were receding as quickly as they could run toward it. Apart from the squawking of the vultures wheeling ominously overhead and the groans of the zombies, the only sounds came from those faraway trees. Wood split and palms toppled noisily. If anyone in the hidden logging camp had heard Artus's calls for help, they'd chosen not to answer. Not that Lugg blamed them. If he didn't like the explorer so well, he'd wish himself well out of this jam, too. The worst part about it was the sun. Lugg hated being caught outside during the day more than anything.
"Come on, then," the wombat said, squinting fiercely. "We'd best be off again."
"Right," Artus mumbled. He tried to push himself up, but his arms wobbled and he collapsed back to the ground like a felled oak.
"This is worse than watching after Byrt," Lugg said truculently. "Like bloody children, the both of you." He nudged Artus with his snout, but got only a grunt for a reply. Narrowing his eyes, he bared his teeth to nip the explorer into action.
Fortunately for Artus, he chose that moment to roll over. "Are they close?"
"Too close for my 'appiness," the wombat grumbled.
With a grunt, the explorer pushed himself to his knees. The zombies had closed the distance to their prey by half, but that still left a comfortable enough lead for Artus and Lugg. They started off again toward the tree line, the wombat trundling at a steady pace, the human staggering like he was undead himself.
Artus pulled his hood over his face. The breeze blowing across the plain was hot and smelled of smoke and decay. "How long can you keep up this pace, Lugg?"
"As long as it takes before I'm off the menu for that lot what's following us." The wombat glanced back at his companion. "As long as it takes for us to get back to rescue Byrt."
"We'll get back to Mezro in time to save him," Artus said sincerely. They had regained their earlier pace, loping forward at a good clip. "Byrt's safe. I-"
The promise was lost on the breeze as Artus sank to his waist in a pool of loose ash and thick, gummy water. He thrashed about for a moment, but that only mired him more soundly. Stand still, his mind cried, though his limbs threatened to lash out frantically. The quicksand rose over his stomach.
Lugg skidded to a halt, still on solid ground. "Grab 'old," he said. The wombat bowed his head and edged toward the explorer.
Artus warned him to stay back. The ash now covered half his chest. Its stench was overpowering, and the explorer had to fight to keep from gagging. Where the soot had splashed over his wounded shoulder, it burned like molten metal.
"I won't let you sink like a scuttled boat," Lugg said. He narrowed his beady eyes. "You won't get out of rescuing Byrt that easy."
Slowly Artus shook his head. "You need to have solid footing," he said as calmly as he could. With slow, deliberate movements, he pulled an extra bowstring from his pocket then reached toward his boot for his dagger. That got him a mouthful of bitter ash, but he managed not to drive himself down too much deeper. As quickly as he dared, he tied the string to the dagger and tossed the blade toward Lugg. "Take hold of this with your teeth."
The wombat did as told, grabbing the dagger in his mouth. When Artus wrapped the sturdy cord around his hand, Lugg began to back slowly away from the sinkhole.
"That's it," the explorer murmured, letting himself be dragged toward solid ground. "Just a little farther…"
Artus felt his foot bump against something solid-the ground, he hoped fervently. The ash was up to his neck, but it seemed at that instant it would get no higher. Then something grabbed the hood of his tunic. Artus thought a branch below the mire's surface had snagged him, but as Lugg pulled him forward and the ash receded from his shoulders, he saw it was a skeletal hand, the bones and cartilage stained gray by the filthy water. He wanted to reach around to free himself from the ghastly thing, but he didn't dare let go of the bowstring.
"Pull, Lugg!"
The wombat's vitriolic reply was thankfully muffled by the dagger and his clenched teeth.
A second hand reached up from the muck, dripping fetid water. It reached around and tried to get a hold on Artus's face. Bony fingers pressed into his mouth and nose and eyes. Suppressing a scream, Artus shook his head violently. The prodding hand slipped away, four thin scratches marking its wake. Finally it settled for a viselike purchase on the explorer's shoulder.
At last, Artus's feet found solid ground. He slipped and scrambled out of the quicksand, releasing the bowstring as he went. The skeleton clung to the explorer's back like a desperate child, arms on his neck and shoulder, legs wrapped around his waist. It was little more than bones and tendons, with cracked ribs and twisted feet. The skeleton's lower jaw was gone-a good thing for Artus, since the undead creature was trying frantically to bite him, rotten teeth scraping over his neck and back.
With the sudden release of tension on the line, Lugg lost the dagger and tumbled backward, snout-over-tail. He landed on his wounded side. "I wish I'd never left the island," the wombat said mournfully.
When Lugg righted himself, he saw Artus grappling with the skeleton. The explorer had found his knife and was using the handle like a cudgel. He brought the blunted end of the weapon down on the creature's skull, the blow sending a spider web of cracks through the gray bone. "Enough!" Artus shouted. "Enough!"
With its sharp, bony fingers, the skeleton clawed at Artus, tearing bloody ribbons from the backs of his hands. But the pain did not penetrate the fury clouding the explorer's mind. Again and again Artus struck, crushing the weird life from the bones. Like a monstrous crab, the skeleton tried to scrabble backward into the mire, but Artus shattered its arm and pinned its legs in place with his weight. Another blow caved in its skull, and the skeleton clattered lifeless to the ground.
As Artus wiped the stinking water and ash from his face, the pack of zombies came toward him with slow, deliberate steps. He flipped the dagger around in his hand. Holding the blade out like the most mighty of enchanted swords, he stood. "Where is your master?" he shouted.
The decaying creatures shambled forward, moaning and clutching the air before them. They were close enough for Artus to see the glaze of starvation in their eyes. Still he did not move.
"We'd better get running," Lugg said, hiding behind Artus's grime-covered boots.
The explorer shook his head and reached into his pocket. The third of T'fima's enchanted diamond slivers slid reassuringly into his palm. Carefully he raised the gem, ready to transform it into a lightning bolt. "No more running, Lugg." He turned back to the zombies. "Where is your master?" Artus shouted. "Where is Ras Nsi?"
It was as if an invisible wall had suddenly been thrown up before the zombies; they stopped in midstride, throwing back their heads to wail in agony. The deafening, unearthly chorus rang out over the blasted plain. Then the zombies turned their wide eyes back to Artus and started forward again.
The explorer opened his mouth to shout the name again, but a gentle hand on his shoulder shocked the air from his lungs. "There is no need to call me, Master Cimber," said a cool, soothing voice.
His reflexes had been honed by years of facing untold dangers and his nerves were frayed raw by the afternoon's confrontations with the walking corpses. Without thinking, Artus slashed at the man behind him. The move was executed expertly, with the skill of a Shou ninja, and the enchanted dagger ran a razor-straight course across Ras Nsi's throat. The knife had barely left its target before Artus fell back, rolling to a defensive crouch a sword's length away. He brandished the blade before him in one hand, the diamond sliver in the other.
Ras Nsi ran the fingertips of one hand along the knife's path-no blood, not even the slightest nick marked the steel's passing. "A palpable hit," he said quietly. "That would have killed most men. Will done, Master Cimber."
The bara's eyes glowed like red-hot steel, so brightly that Artus found it difficult to look him in the face. The rest of his features were soft, even decadent-a weak chin hidden by a neatly trimmed beard, a pate as bald a
s a vulture's egg, a flat nose that only emphasized the man's inexpressive mouth. But those fiery eyes told Artus any weakness he saw in Ras Nsi was illusory.
Nsi did not wear the tobe so common in Mezro or the rougher, more basic garb of the Tabaxi villagers. He was clad handsomely in cotton trousers, a loose-fitting brocade shirt, and the flowing blue cape of a Cormyrian nobleman. His high leather boots were spotlessly polished, and the rapier hanging at his hip glinted in the sunlight. A ring on his left hand held a small triangular gem, as green as the hills of the Dalelands in spring. Artus felt his thoughts being drawn into the stone, just as he had when staring at the walls of Ubtao's temple. He shut his eyes tightly and focused on his anger.
Holding the palms of his hands together, Ras Nsi bowed. All the time, he kept his fiery eyes on the explorer. "You have found the lost bara of Mezro. Your weapons are not needed." When Artus sheathed the dagger and slipped the diamond sliver back into his pocket, the bara asked, "Your traveling companion-is he the one known as Byrt or Lugg?"
"Lugg, thank you very much," the wombat said sourly.
Artus glanced at the zombies that had been trailing him.
The ragged pack had thrown themselves to their knees. Even now they bowed to Ras Nsi, their pitiful groans filling the air. Artus turned back to the bara. "How do you know who we are?" he asked warily.
Ras Nsi smiled. "Do we have to play that game? You may take it for granted that I know a great deal. Not everything, but-" he held his hands apart in a mock embrace "-I would be Ubtao if I knew all that transpired in the jungle. I am merely his most ancient and humble servant."
"If you know so much, Master Nsi," the wombat said, fearlessly stepping up to the bara, "then 'ow about letting me know if Byrt's still kicking about."
The zombies cried out when Lugg said their master's name, and Ras Nsi scowled. "Do not speak my name aloud again," the bara snapped, small tongues of flame dancing from his eyes.
The wombat backed up a step, but did not look away. "Sorry-er…"
"Your Excellency," the bara prompted. He rubbed his chin and studied Lugg for a moment. "Your fellow is still alive-as is Lord Rayburton." Before Artus could ask how he knew, Ras Nsi added, "If you found me, you must know that Ubtao granted me the power to raise the dead. The power would be rather limited if I could not sense when something died in the jungle, don't you agree?"
Artus straightened his grimy tunic. "If you know about Rayburton, then you know why I'm here."
A strange, almost taunting smile on his lips, Ras Nsi said, "I have my suspicions, but dare not believe them." He grabbed the edge of his cape and lifted it theatrically from his side. "But let us retire to my home, where we can settle this matter in the appropriate style."
With a swirl of the bara's sky-blue cloak, they were gone.
Fifteen
Ras Nsi's home stood at the heart of a very mobile and spectacularly effective logging operation. For miles in every direction, his slaves tore up the Chultan landscape. Elementals summoned from the Plane of Earth-mighty creatures of stone and dirt that could move through the ground as easily as men walk upon it-used their stony hands to uproot trees of every sort. Behind these hulking brutes, gangs of zombies trailed with lethargic steps. The undead slaves dragged the trees back to waiting caravans and bundled the massive cargo onto sledges. Finally, dinosaurs of various species dragged the trees back from the camp and moved them along a wide road toward the coast. In ports all along Refuge Bay ships waited to take the precious wood north.
The sound of trees splintering and crashing to the ground filled the air, along with the shrieks of the birds and apes and other tree-dwellers routed by the destruction.
The whole camp stank of decaying flesh, shattered wood, and overturned earth. Zombies were constantly being crushed by the elementals or the dinosaurs or the falling trees. Just as quickly as they fell, the walking corpses were replaced by newly risen dead. Overhead, vultures and other flying scavengers circled. As soon as the crews moved far enough forward, they would swoop down to claim whatever carrion had been left behind.
In this way, over hundreds of years, Ras Nsi had created the broad, blasted plain upon which Artus and Lugg had found themselves that morning. The scar never seemed to heal. The bara's crews were too efficient for that.
In the center of this chaos sprawled Ras Nsi's palatial home. The building resembled many of the stately houses so common in Faerun's wealthier cities. Four towers capped in spires marked the corners of the huge structure, and a low wall surrounded the courtyard spreading before its front entrance. Arrow loops and stained glass windows dotted the white stone in patterns that appealed to the eye in a dozen subtle ways. Banners floated from poles atop the towers, their bright colors making them stand out against the sun-bleached sky like brilliantly plumed birds. From an open upstairs window, the gentle music of a string quartet lofted upon the hot, humid air.
The entire estate-grassy courtyard and all-was borne upon the backs of two dozen monstrously huge, long-dead tortoises. It was the job of these unfortunate skeletal creatures to keep the estate moving through the jungle at a steady, creeping pace, just ahead of the elementals and the zombies and the falling trees. The gentle swaying of the house was apt to bring fond memories of time at sea, to those who enjoyed such things.
Yet Artus wasn't remembering his days aboard the Narwhal as he stood in his newly clean clothes, framed by a large window in Nsi's audience hall. No, the former Harper was thinking on the injustice of the place-the enslaved dead men, the massive destruction of the jungle. "And you do this all for the betterment of Chult?" he asked coldly, turning back to the outcast bara.
"For the betterment of Mezro" Ras Nsi corrected. "In the end they are the same, but you must see that Ubtao chose the citizens of Mezro as his messengers in the world. The rest of the Tabaxi-" he dismissed them with a wave of his hand "-savages. It was their kind that drove Ubtao back to the heavens four thousand years ago."
The bara paced nervously back and forth before a velvet-lined throne, his boots rapping an unsettling rhythm on the polished floor. Like the rest of the room, the chair was imported from the North-from Suzail, in fact. He caught Artus studying the furnishings. "I do a great deal of business with Cormyrians, Sembians, and other northern merchants. Occasionally they send me gifts."
Fine crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Oak tables and chairs brought from the Dales filled the center of the room. The audience hall was very much like a dozen Artus had visited in Cormyr. Only the painting that hung over the large fireplace was different, surprising. In garish colors, ghastly blues and greens and grays, it depicted men and women being pulled into a grassy mound by bloodless hands. If the rest of the hall was meant to soothe visitors from the North, the painting was intended to remind them of their host's power.
"I control the Refuge Bay Trading Company, which owns the Narwhal," Ras Nsi said proudly. "That's how I knew who you were-well, one of the ways."
Artus was suddenly glad Lugg was fast asleep in the shadow of the cold hearth. He was finding it difficult to hide his growing disdain for the bara, and he was certain the wombat wouldn't be nearly as diplomatic. "I still don't see bow this is helping Mezro," the explorer noted.
Slowly Ras Nsi unhooked the rapier from his belt and hung it over the back of his throne. "Money," he said, a patronizing tone to his voice. "The more money I control, the greater network of servants, the grander things I can do for Mezro-once King Osaw and the others see the error of their ways and allow me to return to the city."
The bara sank into the embrace of his throne. "By Ubtao's blood, they were fools," he chuckled. "I end a three-hundred-year-long war, save Mezro from destruction, and they banish me."
"A war that lasted three hundred years?" Artus gasped.
"They sent you here without telling you of my great crime?" Ras Nsi asked sarcastically. His sun-bright eyes flashed. "They must be embarrassed by their foolishness, especially now that the city is in such grave danger."
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Ras Nsi began his tale. He stared into the green stone on his ring as he spoke, as if it were calling forth his memories of the ancient battles.
"The war started about eighteen hundred years ago," the bara told Artus. "That was long before the wall encircled the city. We didn't need sorcerous protection then. Mezro boasted the mightiest army in the world, and every Tabaxi who had the heart to be a warrior flocked to the city to prove his mettle.
"There was another large tribe of humans in Chult then-the Eshowe-and they were our sworn foes. They mocked Ubtao, worshiping the rain and the sun, calling upon local spirits for spells." Nsi sneered and reached behind him for a short-handled spear hanging on the wall. Holding the broad blade toward Artus, he added, "But their local gods could not help them against our righteous armies. For three hundred years we fought, driving the Eshowe farther and farther into the wild parts of the jungle, the valleys where creatures from before time still dwell in dark caves."
The bara tapped the spear against his palm, digging the sharp tip deeper and deeper into his bloodless flesh. The wounds healed instantly. "The Eshowe found just such a beast," Ras Nsi said, his voice strained with excitement. "A creature as tall as the highest spire on the Temple of Ubtao, its body wrought of blinding smoke and choking fog. They made a deal with the creature, promising the souls of all the slain to its greedy stomach, for it fed upon bravery, and the Tabaxi were known throughout Ubtao's jungle as the bravest of all men." He sank the spear into the arm of his throne. "The Eshowe led the beast back to Mezro for a final, desperate attack."
A look of sadness passed across the bara's features, though his eyes still blazed with an infernal light. "They sacked the city before we could defeat them. Our homes, our fields-all burned. Just the temple and a few of the buildings in the city's heart were left standing." Ras Nsi sighed. "Of the seven barae, only I survived. The others all died crushing the Eshowe and the beast. We were the victors, but at a terrible price.