Dangerous Games

Chapter 15

"Sir?"

Candlemas whirled, startled. The woman had entered his workshop silently, even opening the door without his knowing it.

He'd been daydreaming, thinking of Aquesita and when he might visit her. Too, he wondered about Sunbright and that young, one-eyed thief. Were they safe on the ground? And how might he locate them if the need arose? Or would he never see the barbarian again? And why did the loss pang his heart?

And now this girl jarred him from his daydreaming, then stunned him with familiarity. She resembled a young Lady Polaris: white-haired, slim, beautiful in a perfect, porcelain way. But this woman, girl really, had none of Polaris's cold aloofness. Rather, she seemed to cast a warm glow despite her cool looks.

"Sir," she said, in a voice no less beautiful, "do you work with Karsus?"

"Wh-What?" Candlemas stammered, trying not to stare. "Wh-Why, uh, yes. I was his, well, he, uh, called me his 'special friend' for a while. I imagine he's forgotten me by now. Why do you ask?"

Funny, he felt flustered by her star-eyed beauty. Women didn't usually affect him, though Aquesita had possessed his thoughts almost to the exclusion of anything else.

"I was just curious," she answered simply. The girl was slim, almost skinny. A plain gown, unadorned against fashion, hung almost straight from her bony shoulders. "I'd like to know about this new heavy magic of his. Powered by the metal from a fallen star. Has it really given his research a huge jump?"

"Why, yes, it has. Distilling magic by containing it in a crucible of star-metal increases its power. Mages are working now to learn the limits of this super heavy magic, but there doesn't seem to be any. The larger the container and the longer the magic steeps, the heavier it becomes. Like tea growing darker…"

He talked on and on, babbling as he did in the presence of Aquesita. The girl listened intently, starry eyes boring into his as if she were reading his mind.

Once she asked, "You must be aware that when Karsus first conjured heavy magic, decades ago, he temporarily disrupted the flow to the mythallars, and the city came close to plummeting. They say he's embarked on a new course, something never before attempted. Any idea what that might be?"

Candlemas shook his head. Her question puzzled him. What, in the annals of magic, had never been attempted before? There was nothing new under the sun.

"Why do you ask? Has Karsus told you anything?"

"Oh, no!" she giggled suddenly, like a child. "I could never get close to Karsus. He'd know me in an instant!"

"But…" Candlemas started to say as he backed against the table. It was as if she'd turned cold, but hot inside, like one of Sunbright's polar bears off the icecap. "How? Who are you?"

The frost topped girl stepped closer and said, "My name is Mystra. I was named after the goddess. But better you forget me." Quickly, she leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek. He stood dazed, unmoving.

He was still standing that way minutes later when a sound came from the doorway: a genteel clearing of a throat. He shook his head, dizzy and frightened, though he didn't know why.

Aquesita stood in the doorway. He was surprised, for she'd never visited him in the workshops before. She toted a cloth-covered basket over one arm, and Candlemas saw the top of a wine bottle projecting from it. She'd planned a surprise picnic! Despite his blurry thoughts, he smiled weakly, delighted to see her.

But her short round frame was very erect, her plump mouth creased by a frown. She snapped, "Well?"

"What?" Strangely weak, Candlemas held the table to keep from tottering. "Well, what, dear?"

"Don't you 'dear' me!" Her voice held the whip crack of generations of noble birth. "I saw you kiss that girl! Is that what goes on here when you claim to be working, you consort with hussies? Fondle the apprentices?"

"What?" Candlemas scanned the room. "What girl?"

"In this room, not thirty seconds ago!" Her plump finger stabbed downward, her golden-brown eyes flashed. "She kissed you, and you kissed her back, and she flounced from the room right past me without a word!"

The man wondered which was the worse crime for a woman, being cheated or being ignored. But he hadn't a clue what she meant. There hadn't been any girl. And he always wove personal wards to keep enemies at bay. No one could approach without his knowledge, certainly not close enough to kiss him. But then, his magic was outdated…

"Do you intend to explain," demanded Aquesita, "or just stand there with your mouth open?"

"A spell," Candlemas whined. He felt tipsy, no, drunk. "She… I never saw her-must have enchanted me-"

"Pish! You think I wouldn't sense her enchantments? I am cousin to Karsus, you know! I haven't anywhere near his abilities, his genius, but I can detect magic with both eyes shut. She was nothing but a paltry wench with no more magic than my parrot, and skinny besides!"

This was bad, Candlemas knew. He was in trouble with a woman over something only a woman understood. And plump women hated skinny ones worse than poison. But what girl?

"The least you could do is apologize!"

Aquesita's voice contained a sob, and Candlemas found hope in that. At least she cared enough to cry over him.

"Sita, please. I'm sorry," he said, though sorry for what he didn't know. "I'm sorry if you're upset."

"Likely!" she blurted. "Likely not! You're… you're…"

Then she was gone, whirling down the hall in a flurry of skirts and tears. When he made to follow, the door slammed in his face, almost whacking his nose.

"What?" he asked himself. "What did I do? What did she do? Was there a she at all? And if so, why did she kiss me?"

Jouncing belly down across a saddle woke Sunbright, and there was pain. Agony tore at every nerve and churned his guts so he vomited down the scaly flank of the raptor. He was horribly thirsty, his throat felt like sandpaper, his tongue was foul. Bound with rawhide, his wrists and feet throbbed as if they'd explode. Only an iron will and stubborn pride made him study his surroundings.

The big lizard picked delicately along a trail on two thin, mincing legs. Sunbright was tied across the empty saddle. He had killed the rider back at the pine tree. Ahead tripped two more raptors, with riders. Knucklebones was trussed across the cantle of one of them. Setting sun slanted long through the woods, so Sunbright knew he'd been out most of the day, and they'd traveled far through a forest like nothing he'd ever seen.

Like some nightmare, trees grew every which way. He barely recognized some. As the lizard (bird?) plodded along, he watched a red pine pass. The tree had laid down, its scaly trunk like a serpent, until the end suddenly forked and sprawled in all directions. Some pine needles were excessively long, others stunted. After that came a sassafras tree with leaves like broken hands. Patches of a green ground cover, which Sunbright's people called rabbit-creeper, were tipped with spines like crabgrass.

The prancing lizards flushed a badger hiding in the underbrush. The poor animal was both balding and tufted with coarse gray feathers. Sunbright saw more corruption: mushrooms big as dinner plates and blood red, a frog with four eyes, a purple flower that drooled saliva, and an oak tree whose branches had broken from fifty-pound acorns. He recalled his painful discovery that one of the raptors had two heads.

So these must be the Dire Woods, where Karsus's twisted magic had landed and wrought havoc with trees and flowers and animals. Even the presence of raptors argued skewed magic too, for the old lizard beasts had been dying out for generations, almost prisoners of deep swamps and bogs. Yet here they thrived.

And people? Sunbright hadn't noticed much in the battle by torchlight, but in the dying daylight he noticed the savage rider ahead also sported deformities. The back of his square head had a bald spot like a scar. His elbows bore painful-looking bone spurs that stretched the skin. And his bare feet had only three toes. He must have been born in these cursed woods.

So a whole tribe of savages must inhabit this diseased forest. And Knucklebones and Sunbright were their prisoners, probably not for ransom, perhaps for slavery. But there were plenty worse fates.

Sighing, the barbarian hung his head and rested, harbored his strength for the ordeals that were sure to come.

It was long past dark when firelight announced a camp. One of the savages cupped his hands and bellowed a cry of recognition and boasting. Someone called back, and Sunbright barely understood the words. Then a flock of savages surged around, and it pained Sunbright to look at them.

One man was blind, with no eyes at all, just flesh over empty sockets. A woman had no lower jaw, just a hole in her face ringed by teeth. One child had no arms, while another had three. About half the tribe-forty all told-sported deformities. Most wore skins while some went naked, and still others wore cast-off clothing probably taken from prisoners. Many carried knives of iron or steel.

Jabbering mutants capered around the prisoners until the raptors danced nervously. One rider explained, in garbled words, that Sunbright had killed two fighters. Immediately their families began to wail, and the whole tribe beset the barbarian, slapping, pinching, tearing his hair, gouging at his eyes with filthy thumbnails. Hanging head down, Sunbright dodged as best he could, bit, kicked. But the wailing frenzy increased. Soon he'd be pulled down and torn to shreds. He heard Knucklebones yelp as someone ripped her dark hair. Laughing at his misery, a rider slashed Sunbright's bonds and heaved him off the saddle. Still bound hand and foot, he flopped in cinders and dust, was kicked and stomped with horny, bare feet, prodded with knives, rammed with spear butts. Someone wrenched his hair and jerked his head back while another put a flint knife to his throat. He kicked, flailed with his arms, bit an ankle, got kicked in the teeth. He couldn't see for dust and feet, and soon he'd be blinded. He hoped Knucklebones had the sense to cut her own throat before she was skinned alive.

The kicking, beating, and prodding stopped. The crowd fell away. Sunbright pried his eyes open to see why.

A great hand came down, caught the front of his tattered goatskin vest, hoicked, and slammed him to his feet.

A giant faced Sunbright. The man was a full head taller than the captive barbarian, as broad across the shoulders as a wagon, with hands as big as snowshoes. A massive, shaggy head was covered in coarse, red-brown hair. He was brimming with energy, but curiously lifeless, for his skin was a ghastly white, his muscles knotted but grainy. He wore almost a full raptor skin. The white scaled breast hid his own and the warty hide covered his back, hanging to his knees as if he'd hollowed the animal out and climbed inside. A necklace of raptor teeth like white fishhooks clattered around his neck.

But his eyes Sunbright noticed most. They were dead white with gray flecks, like chips of granite. Sunbright couldn't understand how the giant could see, yet the eyes bored into the barbarian as if taking his measure.

Superstitions welled in the barbarian's mind, made his flesh crawl. He'd seen many frightening things tonight, but this fiend was the worst. It must be Wulgreth, once a mighty wizard who'd lived too long by infusing himself with magic, until the day Karsus's corrupted heavy magic blanketed these woods and erased his life, leaving him animated, but not alive. Undead.

Abruptly, the giant shoved Sunbright to crash on his rump in dust and ashes. He saw by smoky firelight that the camp was only a jumble of huts and lean-tos and brush piles scattered through a grove of stunted oaks. On the outskirts were tipsy corrals holding raptors who hooted and squabbled and battled amongst themselves. The central fire pit sprawled like a black smear, and garbage and bones littered the ground. At every step, flies rose in clouds.

The giant addressed his tribe, hollering in their guttural accent, thumping his chest for emphasis. Wulgreth was king. Claimed right to first fight. Owned one-eyed girl. She'd be wife, or (to laughter) dinner. Did anyone contest that and, so, want to die?

There were no objections. Wulgreth bawled orders, and Sunbright was manhandled by half a dozen men and women. His remaining bonds were slashed so his hands and feet prickled with returning circulation. Before he could fight back, he was stripped of everything: Harvester and scabbard, belt and warhammer, haversack and canteen, vest and shirt. Even his knucklebone pendant was ripped away and his worn moosehide boots were shucked off. The iron rings would be priceless goods to these destitute savages.

Painfully, his clumsy hands and feet almost useless, Sunbright rolled to his knees to rise.

A huge foot almost kicked his head off.

The barbarian heard the scuff of a bare sole, saw the flicker of motion by firelight, and ducked just in time. Still, the kick creased his shaved temple and stunned him. Flopping on his rump, he heard the tribe howl with glee. His crippled hands and feet cramped, but he had to rise or be stomped to death. Gasping, he rolled to one side, felt the earth shake as Wulgreth crash-landed with both feet where Sunbright had just lain. Mutants cheered.

Hobbling, Sunbright crouched on numb feet barely in time to meet Wulgreth's charge.

Screaming, the giant ran at the barbarian with both fists locked. Sunbright limped aside, flung up both hands to deflect the blow. Uselessly. Fists like rocks hammered his shoulder, almost broke his collarbone. He was knocked aside like a doll to bite dust again.

This wasn't a fair fight, he reflected bitterly, it was a massacre, a savage beating such as Karsus's city guards might inflict. And it was Karsus's magical mistake that had turned Wulgreth into this hideous form. The arms of the Netherese Empire were long, grasping, callous, and cruel.

Sunbright spit dust, rolled to all fours. Some feeling had returned to his hands and feet. If Wulgreth could fight dirty…

The giant had been crowing, arms in the air, calling his own name as a battle cry, exulting in wild applause and shrieks. Now he marched across the dirty arena and reached for the barbarian's horsetail to yank him upright.

Stooping, Sunbright clutched a double handful of dirt and ash, threw them into Wulgreth's dead stone eyes.

To no avail. The giant barely blinked, snagged Sunbright's hair and dragged him close. His scalp burning, Sunbright crowded the giant, bunched his fingers and rammed them into the brute's throat. The jab would have killed a normal man, crushed his windpipe, made him strangle.

Ignoring the blow, Wulgreth waded in, smashed a forearm across Sunbright's throat, and snatched the back of his neck. Choking, the barbarian struggled, beat Wulgreth's head, kicked his knees and groin and instep. Nothing worked. The undead man couldn't feel pain. Meanwhile, Sunbright would either be strangled or have his neck snapped.

Yet Wulgreth didn't want to kill his plaything. Instead, he shifted his grip, locked Sunbright's wrist, sucked wind, and shoved.

Sunbright's arm snapped at the elbow. A double bone in his forearm jutted through the skin. Blood spurted. But the magically infused Wulgreth jammed a horny thumb against the wound and sealed it, though the bone still bent crookedly. Sunbright was oblivious to the details. Electric pain coursed through his body and blotted out everything else.

Enjoying the torment of his victim and the cheering of the tribe, Wulgreth stamped on Sunbright's foot to pin it, then wrenched the broken arm high overhead. Grinding bones broke anew, then Sunbright's ankle popped.

Released, the barbarian collapsed to jeers from the crowd. Wulgreth's stony hand crashed down on Sunbright's chest and broke ribs. More blows pulped other bones.

Shock and pain flooded Sunbright's mind like a tide, and he blacked out.

He awoke to a buzzing, like bees. A whole hive, it seemed, crawled over him with red-hot stingers.

Then a stick pried at his eyelids. He fought it, but couldn't move his head, which was tied in place. When his eyelid was finally dragged up, he saw a child holding a smoldering stick. Other children swarmed around him. He was staked on the ground, spread-eagled, near the fire. Urged on by adults, the children picked up coals and burning brands to tentatively scorch Sunbright's flesh. It was a lesson in torture. Sunbright smelled his own flesh burning, gargled a cry at this unending nightmare. At least the pain couldn't get much worse, he thought vaguely.

Then a boy dropped a red coal on his eyelid, and he learned about pain.

Hours later, Sunbright, or what was left of him, was dumped in a hut alongside Knucklebones.

The thief started from a near trance. So far she'd been ignored, left as a plaything-or supper-for Wulgreth. With her shredded foot, bitten deep by the raptor, she could hardly stand, let alone flee, even if she weren't surrounded by enemies. She'd merely hunkered with her arms around her knees, head down, trying to ignore Sunbright's torture, wishing she were elsewhere. Once, when a scream had ripped out, she'd uncurled and bolted from the hut. But a man and woman guarded her, and she'd been clubbed flat, kicked savagely, and booted back into the hut. Since then she'd blanked out the world.

Now it was back, in the form of a bleeding and burned Sunbright. The savages had given up, unable to keep him conscious. Now they sat around the fire and crowed of their triumphs. They laughed in their cruel recitations, and promises of more to come.

Toughened by a hard and harsh life, Knucklebones could stand almost anything, but this wreck of her companion was beyond endurance. His bones were broken, hair singed off, body seared in half a hundred places.

Yet he was alive, croaking, "Knuck…?"

"Yes, yes!" she sobbed, "I'm here!" She cried real tears for the first time in her life. "But there's nothing I can do!"

"Water… please…"

Weeping, Knucklebones crawled to the hut door. On her knees, she begged her guards for water, using hand gestures. They both laughed, and when she came closer, kicked her in the face. Tearfully she told Sunbright of her failure.

"S'aright… Not to blame… Harmed you?" His words were mushy, for even his tongue had been burned, and he stared at the roof of the hut as if blind. Probably he was.

"No, no, they haven't, but…"

She couldn't believe he, tortured and abused, thought of her safety. Oh, she thought, how cruel the gods were to send her such a man and then snatch him away! Or how cruel were people.

These last few hours had wrought wonderful and awful changes in Knucklebones's breast. Of course she'd had friends in the sewers of the city: Ox and Lothar and Mother, other unlucky souls like herself. And she'd had lovers too. Too many to count when your life was measured in days. Men who'd enjoyed her body but never touched her heart, and then Sunbright had literally dropped upon her like something from a dream. A tall, bronzed man, hard and tough as an oak tree, tough as she was, yet with a gentle and kind spirit even the city couldn't crush. He'd followed her everywhere, looked after her, cared about her, and she hadn't shown him a jot of gratitude or sympathy, for the iron that protected her heart was the hardest part, and she was afraid to open up lest it crack and leave her helpless, snuffed out by the cruelty of the city.

But in the hours she'd hunkered here, she'd prayed to every god she knew, but mostly Mystryl, Lady of Mysteries, Mother of All Magic. Mystryl was the goddess of lovers, and the poor, and those in dire strife. Never had Knucklebones been in worse trouble, nor cared so much to see someone else helped, and been herself so helpless.

And worse than useless, for she had no comfort for him.

She touched his singed scalp, recoiled at the clammy feel of his skin, hot and cold and wet and dry at the same time. He raged with fever while shivering with chills. For lack of anything better, she peeled off her leather vest and laid it gently on his scorched breast. "I don't… What can-"

"Try to…" his voice rasped, "… find knife or stick. Kill… yourself… before start on you…"

"Yes, I will," she whimpered. "I promise. I will, Sunbright."

"Oh!"

She flinched in sympathy with his new pain, but he was shaking his head in wonder.

"Wha-What is it?"

"Never… said my name… before…"

Then he sighed and blacked out again.

It was true. She'd only called him by nicknames. All this time, even "Country Mouse," which she'd never even thought of before meeting him. In her own way, she'd been cruel, for he was as lonely as she was, homesick and far from his home.

He lay still, barely breathing, just a trace of husky whistling.

"I promise you, Sunbright."

She would kill herself, and take Wulgreth with her, though she doubted it was possible. He was a zombie king, a wizard lich, undead, and how to kill one of them? But she'd try. She'd keep herself alive to try. And remain alive while Sunbright lived.

Which wouldn't be long, she sobbed. It was clear Sunbright was dying.