Lies of Light

31

9 Alturiak, the Year of the Staff (1366 DR) The Palace of Many Spires, Innarlith

Salatis smiled and rubbed his hands together, gazing up at the jet black iron disk rimmed with purple-stained woodthe finishing touch to the shrine.

“Shar be praised,” he whispered.

One of the men looked at him, his eyes wide. Salatis’s blood ran cold, and the man looked away, sensing, perhaps, that he shouldn’t have heard that name.

“Olin,” Salatis said, still staring at the workman.

The black firedrake stepped up behind him with hardly a sound, and stood stiff and at the ready in his human guise. The workman and his partner wouldn’t look them in the eye. Instead, they hurried to pack up their tools. They were such simple men, with their rough homespun clothes and dirty, calloused hands. They smelled of sweat and sawdust.

“Is there a problem, Ransar?” a stern, deep voice asked from behind him.

Salatis turned to see Insithryllax standing in the open doorway. The swarthy, intimidating man folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. He glanced at Olin with a smirk, but the black firedrake refused to look at him.

“No,” Salatis said, “thank you, Insithryllax. What brings you here?”

“Just curious,” Marek Rymiit’s man replied, stepping into the room. Salatis could feel Olin move between them. “Back off, drake.”

A sound like a creaking door rumbled out of Olin’s throata bestial growl. Insithryllax laughed.

“Please, gentlemen,” said Salatis. “Have some care with your behavior. You are in a holy place.”

The too-curious workman glanced up at the symbol of the Lady of Loss, and Salatis watched goosef lesh break out on his arms. He put a hammer into his toolbox, and Salatis sensed his reluctance to let go of the would-be weapon.

“My apologies, Ransar,” Insithryllax sneered.

Salatis stifled a gasp and thought, Ransar. I am the ransar, aren’t I?

“Not at all, Insithryllax,” he said, watching the two workmen finish up their packing. “If you don’t mind, though, I wonder if between the two of you, you might do me a favor and kill these two workmen.”

The two men looked up at that, fear taking over their faces. They began to sweat profusely, and stood on shaking legs. One of them held up his hands, the other shook his head.

“Why?” Insithryllax asked.

“Because I am your ransar, and I wish it.”

“Please, Ransar,” one of the peasants blurted. “What what have we done?”

“Pardon me,” said Insithryllax, “but you are not my ransar.”

The hair on Salatis’s arms stood on end, and he suppressed a shudder. Olin, without a word, stepped closer to the two men, who backed away from him with their hands up to fend him off. He hefted his longaxe and smiled the leer of a killerthe toothy grin of the jackal.

The front of one of the workers’ trousers bloomed with a dark shadow, and the stench of urine filled the dense air of the close space.

“Leave us alone,” the man whimpered.

The other one sobbed, “Let us go home, my lord. Please let us go.”

“You are excellent craftsmen and I’m sure your families are very proud of you,” Salatis said, excitement making his heart race and his throat tighten.

“Please, Ransar,” one of them begged.

“You will go to the Fugue Plane having done a great service to the Dark Goddess. Perhaps there she will claim your souls and bring them with her to the Plane of Shadow where you will serve her as you served me.”

Olin stepped forward, and set his longaxe on his shoulder.

“Oh, I see,” Insithryllax said. “This little temple of yours is a secret.”

“Careful,” the ransar said, glancing back over his shoulder at Insithryllax.

The bolder of the two doomed menthe one who hadn’t yet wet himselftook that as an opportunity to attempt to run past the three of them and out through the secret door to the ransar’s hidden shrinethe hidden shrine they’d just finished building for him. Olin swung his heavy longaxe from his right shoulder, took the man’s head off in the blink of an eye, and only stopped when the axe haft rested gently on his left shoulder.

Blood fountained from the decapitated man’s neck as his body jerked to the floor. His partner was sprayed in the face, and yelped, trying his best to fend it off. He fell to his knees, then scrambled back until he fetched up against a wall. Babbling incoherent pleas for his miserable existence, he all but clawed the blood from his eyes.

Insithryllax chuckled in a mean-spirited way and said, “Collecting heads, are we?”

He tipped his head in the direction of the altar, behind which was a shelf. On the shelf was a big glass jar, tightly sealed with a waxed cork. Inside the jar was the grimacing, disembodied head of Osorkon.

“I hadn’t actually thought of that, no,” Salatis answered with a laugh. “Anyway, this new one isn’t worth keeping.”

The surviving workman groveled on the blood-soaked floor, crying. He retracted, staring up with pleading, animal’s eyes, as Olin stepped up to tower over him.

“All this blood,” Insithryllax said, “on your new floors.”

“A small sacrifice,” Salatis said, “for the favor of the Mistress of the Night.”

“Weren’t you a devoted follower of Malar just a tenday or so past?” Insithryllax asked.

Salatis stiffened and said, “I’ll thank you not to mention that. Today, here in this place, I live for the dark secrets of Shar, divine daughter of Lord Ao.” He paused and Insithryllax shrugged. “Captain Olin”

Olin brought the axe down again, and the man stopped crying all at once. When Olin tried to pull his axe out of the dead man’s back, it stuck fast. The black firedrake vomited a black fluid over his axe blade and Salatis had to turn away. He could hear the workman’s skin sizzle away, freeing the blade.

“Leave the mess,” Salatis said as he stepped past Insithryllax, ignoring the strange man’s grim smirk. “When Shar has had her fill of their souls, clean it up, and never come back in here again. Is that clear?”

Olin nodded, wiping the blood and acid from his longaxe onto the headless workman’s back.

Insithryllax laughed again, which elicited a sharp look from the black firedrake. But Salatis left the shrine, confident that no more blood would be spilled there, until he ordered it spilled.