Undead

CHAPTER FOUR

10–26 Mirtul, the Year of Blue Fire

Over the years, Aoth had all but covered himself in tattoos, repositories of minor enchantments that could be invoked when needed. So he was accustomed to the recurrent sting of the needle. Normally, it wouldn't even have bothered him to have the sharp point playing around his eyes, and over the eyelids themselves.

This time, however, he felt a flare of pain like the touch of a hot coal. He jerked back in his chair. "What in the name of the Black Hand was that?"

"I'm sorry, sir," the tattooist said. "My art has become difficult lately, just like any other form of sorcery."

"Then try being careful!"

"Yes, sir." The artist hesitated. "Do you want me to continue?"

Aoth realized it was a good question. Did he want the wretch to go on etching sigils of health and clear vision around his eyes, even though the magic might conceivably twist awry and create an entirely different effect?

"Yes," he said. Because the tattooist had reportedly restored sight to the blind on two previous occasions, and with the priests unable to cure him, Aoth didn't know what else to try.

The needle pricked his eyelid again, this time without creating searing heat. Then Brightwing screeched.

The griffon was just outside. Aoth reached out with his mind and looked through her eyes at a legionnaire. The fellow had Brightwing's saddle in his hands, and was holding it up in front of him as if he hoped to use it as a shield.

Aoth pushed the tattooist away, jumped up, strode across the room-he'd grown sufficiently familiar with the layout of his billet to avoid running into the furnishings-and threw open the front door. "What's going on?" he said.

"This idiot thinks he can take me away!" Brightwing snarled.

To the legionnaire, Brightwing's utterance was just a feral shriek, and he reacted by taking a step backward. "Sorry to disturb you, Captain," he said, "but there are orders to round up all the griffons whose riders are dead or disabled and give them to legionnaires who are fit but lost their mounts, or else take the animals along for spares. Do you see?"

Aoth understood. As the war ground on, exacting a constant toll in men and beasts, it was standard procedure. But if he lost Brightwing, he'd lose a piece of his own spirit and all the sight he had left. Bareris knew that, but he evidently wanted her anyway. It was more proof of what a false friend and callous bastard he was.

"I'm a war mage," said Aoth, "and Brightwing is my familiar. She won't carry any rider but me."

"I don't know anything about that, sir. I have my orders-"

"I'm still your commander, even if I am injured!"

"Yes, sir, but this order comes from Nymia Focar herself."

"It's a misunderstanding," Bareris said. When Brightwing turned her head, Aoth could see the bard hurrying down the path.

The soldier frowned. "Sir, with all respect, she spoke to me herself. She told me to make sure I collected Captain Fezim's griffon."

"But later on," Bareris said, "she spoke to me." Aoth could feel the subtle magic of persuasion flowing like honey in the bard's voice. "She told me she'd changed her mind, and Captain Fezim should keep his mount. So you can go on your way and forget all about it."

"Well," said the legionnaire, sounding a little dazed, "in that case…" He put the saddle back on the stoop, saluted, and strolled away.

"Someone made a list of all the griffons to be collected," Bareris said to Aoth. "I happened to glance at it, saw that Brightwing was included, and came as fast as I could."

Aoth grunted. Courtesy indicated that he ought to say thank you, but he'd have preferred to stick a dagger in his own guts.

Bareris frowned. "You didn't think I'd send someone to take her, did you?"

The question made Aoth's muscles clench. "Is that a reproach? Why in the name of every god wouldn't I believe that, considering how you betrayed me before?"

"As the soldier said, the tharchion gave the order. I assume she did because she knew I wouldn't. Even if you don't believe that." Bareris frowned. "Although, valuable as griffons are, there's something odd about her concerning herself with a single mount."

It seemed strange to Aoth as well, but he didn't want to prolong the conversation to speculate. "I'm going back inside."

Bareris's mouth tightened. "Fine." He turned away.

Aoth felt moisture on his face. He supposed it was blood from the needle pricks, beading and dripping. He resisted the impulse to wipe it away for fear of marring the tattooist's work.

As the army of Pyarados prepared to march, dozens of tasks and details demanded Bareris's attention. He had to see to his own gear and mount as well as those of his entire company. Procure provisions in a hungry land at winter's end. And review the intelligence Malark's agents provided, and plot strategy with Nymia, Tammith, and the rest of the officers.

It left him precious few moments even to eat and sleep, but from time to time, late at night, he prowled through the house where he'd taken up temporary residence, looking for Mirror and periodically calling his name. The members of the household-a draper, his wife, three children, and a pair of apprentices-made themselves scarce at such moments, and were leery of him in general.

But he didn't care if they thought he was crazy. He just wanted to find the ghost.

Even more than Aoth, Mirror had been Bareris's constant companion for the past ten years. Often, the ghost faded so close to the brink of nonexistence that no one else could detect him. Even cats failed to bristle and hiss at his presence. But Bareris had always been able to feel him as a sort of cold, aching void hovering nearby.

Lately, he couldn't. Mirror had abandoned him shortly after his falling out with the newly blinded Aoth, and had not yet returned.

On the eve of the army's departure, he began hunting in the attic and finished in the cellar, where cobwebs drooped from the ceiling, mice had nested in the filthy, shredded remains of a stray bolt of cloth, and the shadows were black beyond the reach of his candle. It looked like a fine location for a haunting, but if Mirror was lurking there, he chose to ignore Bareris's call.

"Nymia wanted to take Brightwing," Bareris persisted. "I made sure she'll stay with Aoth. He has a tattoo sorcerer working to heal his eyes. It's possible he'll see again."

Still, no reply came, and abruptly Bareris felt ridiculous, babbling to what was, in all likelihood, an empty space.

"To the Abyss with you, then," he said. "I don't care what's become of you. I don't need you." He wheeled and tramped up the groaning stairs.

The conjuration chamber shook. Grimoires fell from their shelves, racks of jars and bottles clattered, and the piece of red chalk that was attempting to inscribe an intricate magic circle on the floor hitched sideways, spoiling the geometric precision the sigil demanded.

Szass Tam sighed. The earth tremors jolting all Faerыn had turned out to be particularly potent and persistent in High Thay with its volcanic peaks. The entire castle had been rocking and shuddering ever since his return from the Keep of Sorrows, and although the inconvenience was the least of the ills Mystra's death had engendered, it vexed him nonetheless.

He waved a skeletal hand, and the half-completed figure vanished as if it had never been. He animated a different stick of chalk and set it to recreating the drawing.

This time, the chalk managed to complete the circle without the earth playing pranks. Szass Tam took his place in the center, summoned one of his favorite staves into his hand, and recited a lengthy incantation.

A magical structure, invisible to normal sight but manifest to an archmage, took shape before him, then started to slump and deform. He froze it in its proper shape by speaking certain words of power with extra emphasis, and through the sheer insistence of his will.

At the end, his construct wavered into overt existence as a murky oval suspended in midair. Szass Tam said, "You are my window. Show me the Weave."

Had he given the same command before the advent of the blue fires, the oval would have revealed an endless iridescent web reflective of the magic that infused and connected all things, and the interplay of forces that held it all in equilibrium. Now he beheld scraps of burning crystal tumbling through an endless void. Even for a lich, the sight was nauseating, although Szass Tam couldn't define exactly why.

What he did know was that the Weave showed no sign of reforming. Perhaps it would eventually, if a new deity of magic arose, but since Szass Tam had no idea how or when such an ascension might occur, the possibility failed to ease his mind.

"You are my window," he said. "Show me the Shadow Weave."

As its name suggested, the Shadow Weave was the dark reflection and antithesis of its counterpart. It hadn't partaken of Mystra's life in the same way the Weave had, and Szass Tam had conjectured that it might reconstitute more quickly in the wake of her passing.

If so, it could serve as a source of power. For certain practitioners of an alternative form of sorcery called shadow magic, it always had. Despite his erudition and curiosity, Szass Tam had never learned a great deal about the mysteries of shadow. Conventional thaumaturgy had proved such an inexhaustible well of precious and fascinating secrets that he simply hadn't gotten around to it. But he was willing to learn now if it would ameliorate the current crisis.

But it didn't appear that there was anything left to learn. The Shadow Weave, too, remained in pieces, the fragments falling endlessly through darkness and burning with a dim flame whose radiance was somehow a mockery of true light.

He grimaced. With both structures annihilated, it was no wonder wizardry was crippled.

Yet it was hardly useless. It could still evoke and transform, summon and bind-some of the time. If he could figure out why it worked when it did, and why it failed on other occasions, perhaps he'd know how to make it reliable again.

"You are my window," rasped an unfamiliar voice, startling him from his musings. "Show me the one peeping at magic's corpse. I wish to know if he laughs or weeps."

The interior of the oval rippled and flowed, and an entity appeared. In certain respects, Szass Tam might almost have been gazing at his own reflection, for the creature, too, possessed a grinning skull face and naked bones for hands. But instead of a handsome red velvet robe, it wore dark, rotting cerements, and in place of a staff, it carried a scythe.

The weapon enabled Szass Tam to identify the creature, for its blade was blacker than anything made of matter-a long, curved, movable wound in the fabric of reality. Only entropic reapers, undead destroyers in the service of primordial chaos, carried scythes like that.

Formidable as they were, no reaper should have sensed Szass Tam's ritual in progress, let alone been able to subvert the magic to its own ends. It was another disquieting indication of just how diminished his powers actually were.

But diminished or not, he needed to reestablish control. "You are my window," he said, "and I now close you."

Nothing happened.

"Do you see the beauty?" the reaper asked, and even though it was speaking from another universe, Szass Tam caught a whiff of its cold, stinking breath. "It's the beginning of the end of all structure, all limitation, or so we pray."

Ironically, Szass Tam did see, but he wasn't inclined to chat about it. "I am Szass Tam, whose name inspires fear in every world, and I don't tolerate interlopers in my sanctum. Will you leave, or must I punish you?"

"I see you're a great wizard," said the reaper, "but are you great on behalf of chaos, or great in the service of order?"

"It isn't your place to try to take my measure."

"You're mistaken. It's exactly my place, although I admit, the task is difficult. You sow chaos with every move you make, and yet I sense the goal of all your scheming is law transcendent."

Szass Tam felt an unaccustomed pang of genuine alarm. Exactly how much did the reaper perceive? Too much, he feared, for him to rest easy if he merely drove it from his presence. "You are my window," Szass Tam said, "and you will open wide. Wide enough to pass my enemy through."

The reaper took a stride and entered the mortal realm. Having made up its mind that Szass Tam was a considerable force for order, it had no choice but to try to slay him.

But now that Szass Tam had drawn it within range of his most potent magic, he had no intention of giving it a fair chance to do so. He flourished his staff and spoke a word of command.

A form like an eagle made of dazzling white light leaped from the end of the staff, the visible manifestation of a spell crafted specifically to annihilate undead. The blazing raptor plunged its talons into the reaper's naked rib cage and disappeared, leaving the skeletal assassin unharmed. Like so many spells that Szass Tam had attempted of late, the magic had twisted awry.

Its ragged black cerements swirling around it, the reaper swung its scythe. Szass Tam leaped out of range and the dark blade streaked by him, leaving ripples of distortion in its wake.

Szass Tam spun his staff through another pass. Eight orbs of blue-white light flew from the weapon, accompanied by the smell of thunderstorms. The spheres struck the reaper in quick succession, each discharging its power with a blinding flash and a crackle.

The servant of chaos stumbled backward, and portions of its filthy cerements caught fire. But the barrage didn't blast it to splinters as it should have. As soon as it ended, the thing rushed in for another strike.

Szass Tam attempted another retreat and backed into a worktable. The scythe spun at him and he hurled himself to the side. The black blade sheared through a bronze statuette of Set, a serpent-headed Mulhorandi god of magic. The stroke liquefied it, and it splashed into droplets and spatters.

As he scrambled backward, distancing himself from the reaper, Szass Tam could only infer that the random fluctuations in mystical forces had rendered his staff and its stored magic useless. He had no way of knowing if any of his other spells would work any better, or even if he'd have the chance of find out. Evoking an effect from the ether required more time and precision than releasing one already stored, and an aggressive attacker like the reaper could make it impossible for a wizard to conjure successfully.

As the creature rounded on him, he focused his thoughts on the red chalk. It was still enchanted, and still responsive to his unspoken will. He bade it hurtle at the reaper to scribble on its bony face and crown.

With luck, the unexpected harassment would distract the reaper for a precious moment, until it decided that the chalk was insignificant. Without waiting to see if the trick would work, Szass Tam reached for one of his many pockets. He snatched out a tiny ball of compressed bat droppings and sulfur, flourished it, and rattled off the first words of an incantation.

The reaper stopped swiping at the chalk and charged its animator. That was unfortunate. It meant Szass Tam wouldn't be able to smite the creature with the crude magic he was creating without catching himself in the effect. But he didn't abandon the effort. He had to put the reaper down before it hit him with its scythe.

A spark streaked from his outstretched hand and hit the reaper's sternum. It exploded into a blast of crimson fire.

The detonation threw Szass Tam backward and the heat seared his body, particularly the parts that still had flesh. But liches were preternaturally resistant to harm, and he also carried a ward against flames. Thus, though the blast tore much of his robe away, it left his limbs in place. In fact, it didn't even stun him.

He reeled, caught his balance, and came on guard in a wizard's fighting stance, staff gripped to conjure, strike, or parry as needed. As it turned out, he didn't need to do anything. When the blaze subsided, scraps of bone and tatters of burning garments littered the floor. Only the scythe remained intact, its blade warping and melting the granite on which it rested.

Szass Tam drew a deep breath. Without actually needing to breathe, he couldn't truly feel winded, but even after centuries of undeath, the old, useless habits of mortality sometimes manifested.

That had been too close, and it infuriated him. An archmage should have little trouble coping with an entropic reaper, fearsome as the creatures were to lesser folk, and yet the entity might easily have slain him.

But there was no point in bemoaning his weakness. He'd do better to ponder what he'd discovered.

When intricate magic had failed, his instincts had prompted him to resort to a basic evocation of elemental force. That succeeded, and he thought he knew why. The Red Wizards had developed their art to a level lesser mages could scarcely imagine. Their spells incorporated all sorts of sophisticated shortcuts and enhancements. But those features achieved their efficacy by exploiting the subtle interplay of the forces comprising the Weave.

With the Weave annihilated, those same mechanisms had become a hindrance. Szass Tam's spells could no longer tap into all the elements they required to work. Trying to perform magic that way was like attempting to carry water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Of course, most enchantments took advantage of the Weave to one degree or another, and until the realm of magic stabilized, even a basic spell might run afoul of the same problem. But it wouldn't happen as often.

So long as Szass Tam acted in accordance with this new limitation, he might be able to function effectively. And if he shared his insights with his necromancers, they too-

He sighed. No. For the most part, they couldn't, not anytime soon, because they weren't immortal archmages with his breadth and depth of learning. Most of them had only ever studied Thayan thaumaturgy, and it would take time to retrain them. By then, his rivals, wielding the brute strength of their legions, might gain such a decisive advantage that even sorcery couldn't counter it.

He had to find another way to stave off defeat, and after a time, an idea occurred to him. It would require another divination, and he summoned a blue crystal globe into his hand. For the time being, he'd had his fill of opening windows into the infinite.

The world of mortal men in general, and of warriors in particular, was good for Mirror. It filled him like water filled a cup, or perhaps it unblocked a spring of essence that welled up inside him. Either way, it dulled the ache of emptiness.

Yet despite its solace, he sometimes felt obliged to let go of it. He needed to step into a place that, he'd posited, on one of the rare occasions when his thoughts were clear enough for such conjectures, existed only within himself. In effect, he turned himself inside out like a pocket.

Whatever and wherever the place was, it was dangerous, for so far as he'd ever discovered, nothing existed there but a cold whisper of wind that rubbed away at everything his commerce with the material world had given him. For that reason, he never stayed long. He opened himself to its corrosive power then hastily retreated, like a man fingering a sore tooth then snatching his hand away.

Yet now he tarried, for instinct told him there truly was something to find, something the living world could never provide. And though he had no idea what it was, if he recovered it, perhaps he could mend an ill and wash away dishonor.

So he took a stride and then another, fading with every pace.

The wings of her many bodies beating, Tammith peered into the darkness. She, Bareris, and a half dozen griffon riders were scouting ahead of the combined hosts of Eltabbar, Tyraturos, and Pyarados, looking for signs of the enemy, the blue fire, or any hazards the flames might have created.

It had certainly passed that way, scouring away vegetation and sculpting the earth into spires and arches. Eviscerated, virtually pulverized, the remains of a herd of cattle littered a field. A single survivor dragged itself along, lowing piteously.

Even for a vampire, it was unpleasant to see nature herself tormented in this fashion. Baring her many fangs, Tammith sought to snarl the feeling away.

A griffon screeched. "What's that?" its rider called.

It's just Solzepar, fool, Tammith thought, right where it's supposed to be. She could make out the dark shape of the town below, at the point where the road north from Zolum intersected the great highway called the Eastern Way.

On first inspection, it looked as if the wave of blue fire had missed Solzepar, for there was the town, still standing. Then a great crashing and crunching sounded from the midst of the shops and houses. It was like the start of another earthquake, but few of the structures and trees were swaying.

An island of earth and rock within the city rose from its surroundings like a cork popping out of a bottle. A wooden house straddled the edge and the separation tore it in two. The half that ascended disintegrated, raining boards and furniture onto the part below.

The chunk of earth rose high before slowing to a stop, and Tammith saw it was the latest addition to an archipelago of small floating islands ripped from the town below. A number of them supported buildings that were still intact.

The vampire realized she'd done the griffon rider an injustice by deeming him a fool. It was this prodigy, not the mere sighting of Solzepar, that had elicited his outcry.

Bareris climbed high enough to inspect the islands from above. Tammith and the other scouts followed. No lights burned in any of the houses-nor, she realized, in any of the parts of Solzepar that remained earthbound-and she didn't see anyone moving around.

"Fall back and descend," Bareris ordered. He seemed to speak in a normal tone, but his bardic skills projected his voice across the sky.

The scouts touched down several hundred paces from the edge of the town, in a field where the new spring grass had taken on a crystalline appearance, gleaming in the moonlight. Averse to having such uncanny stuff beneath its feet, one griffon clawed chunks of earth away.

Tammith's bats whirled around one another, and she shifted to human form. When she did, Bareris's appearance stung her somehow. He looked haggard, fierce, and sad at the same time. She reminded herself she didn't care. Creatures like her were incapable of it.

"Well," Bareris said, "we see them. The question is, what to make of them? Captain Iltazyarra, did you hear anything about floating rocks before you fled the Keep of Sorrows?"

"No," she said.

"That's too bad. Malark's people haven't reported anything about them, either."

"We know the blue fire passed this way," another soldier said, unclipping a waterskin from his saddle. "Maybe it went through Solzepar, changed the ground somehow, and now we get… this."

"That's a reasonable guess," Bareris said, "for it certainly seems as if the flame can do anything. But up until now, everything that has been changed or destroyed has been affected immediately, at least as far as we know. But we have to consider the possibility that a contingent of necromancers is creating hanging islands."

"Because they know our army is coming this way," Tammith said.

"Yes. And since we would pass under their aerial stronghold, the enemy could rain destruction on our heads."

The soldier who'd spoken before wiped his mouth and stuck the stopper back in his waterskin. "If we're worried about it, the army can just steer clear of them."

"We can," Bareris said, "but only by leaving the road, which slows the march. The tharchions won't do that unless it's proven to be necessary. It's our job to determine whether it is."

"Does that mean prowling around on top of the rocks?" another warrior asked.

"Yes," Bareris said, "but maybe not all of them. One of the larger fragments has a walled stone house on it, grander and more defensible than the buildings on any of the others. It's the structure I'd occupy if I were going to install myself up there, and it's where we'll begin our search. Up!" He kicked his mount in the flanks, and it spread its wings and sprang into the air.

They all climbed above the island, then spiraled down toward it. When they landed in the courtyard, symbols graven above the door became visible, stylized representations of a lightning bolt, a snowflake, and other emblems of elemental forces with a hand hovering above as if to manipulate them all. The place was, or had been, a chapterhouse of the Order of Evocation.

"This," said Bareris, "looks like an ideal place for necromancers to set up shop." He swung himself off his griffon and his subordinates dismounted. Tammith changed to her human form.

Bareris climbed the steps to the sharply arched door and tried the handle. "Locked," he said.

"Perhaps by enchantment," Tammith said.

"With luck, it won't matter." He sang, and his magic set sparkling motes dancing in the air. Tammith remembered how amazed he'd been the first time he'd sung and produced not merely melody but a green shimmer and the scent of pine, the moment when he'd discovered he was a true bard. Once they realized what it meant, she'd felt just as elated.

She wished she'd died then, or during one of the happy times that followed. Any time, really, before he made up his mind to sail away and seek his fortune.

He twisted the handle and the door creaked open on blackness. He drew his sword and sang luminescence into the blade. The steel shined with a white light brighter and steadier than the flicker of any torch.

"Come on," he said.

"Let me take the lead," Tammith said. "My senses are sharper, and I can withstand attacks that would kill a mortal."

He scowled as if he found the suggestion distasteful, but he said, "All right. Just don't range too far ahead. We're stronger if we stay together."

Beyond the door was a spacious entry hall, its appointments reflecting the luxury Red Wizards took for granted. The walls rose the full three-story height of the house, to one railed gallery, then another, and finally to a stained-glass skylight.

Nothing moved-nothing but the intruders and their long black shadows flowing across the walls. The house remained silent. But Tammith smelled tears, mucus, sweat, and the sour stink of fear. It was the way her prey often smelled when they realized she was about to feed on them.

"Someone's here," she said. She led her companions up two flights of stairs to the upper gallery, then opened the door to a small, sparsely furnished chamber with a narrow bed. A servant's quarters, or perhaps an apprentice's. The thump of a racing heart led her to the wooden chest by the wall.

The box wasn't very big. The lanky Mulan boy in the patched red robe surely hadn't found it easy to fold himself compactly enough to fit inside. When Tammith lifted the lid, he yelped and goggled up at her.

"Easy," Tammith said, "we're friends, here to help you."

"It's true," Bareris said, stepping beside her. "We serve the council, not Szass Tam. Come out of there." He reached to help the lad up.

Instead of taking the proffered hand, the boy pulled his own in closer to his chest. "I can't. It isn't safe. I haven't heard them in a while, but I know they're still here."

Bareris shot a glance at one of his men. The legionnaire nodded and positioned himself at the door.

"It's all right," Tammith told the apprentice, "we'll protect you. Please, stand up." She locked eyes with him and stabbed with the force of her will.

The youth's resistance crumbled, and he suffered her to lift him out of the chest. Still, his eyes rolled and he trembled, so frightened her powers couldn't numb him.

"Tell us who you're hiding from," Bareris said. "Is it northerners?"

"Northerners?" The apprentice shook his head.

"Who, then?" Bareris persisted. "Does this have something to do with the blue fire?"

The boy closed his eyes and tears oozed out from under the lids. "Yes. Some of the folk ran away, but the wizards cast the runes and said the flames would miss the town. They laughed at the people who ran!"

"But the flames didn't miss," Tammith said.

"No. I don't know if the wave split in two or what, but suddenly the fires were here. Some of the mages translated themselves away to safety, but most of us didn't know how. Travel magic's not a part of evocation. And those who knew didn't bother to carry the rest.

"It hurt when the wave swept through. It was like drowning in pain and glare. But afterward, everything seemed the same, and we laughed and cheered, even after we realized no one else was rushing into the streets to do the same. Because we'd survived, even if the rest of Solzepar hadn't. We decided the wards bound into the foundations of the house had saved us."

"But they hadn't," Bareris said.

"No," the novice said. "In time, it occurred to us that we ought to let our superiors know we were still alive, but that the rest of the town was likely dead. We had an enchanted mirror in our library that allowed us to communicate from afar, and we all gathered around it. And that was when the spells came alive."

Tammith didn't understand. Judging from Bareris's frown, he didn't either. "What spells?" he asked.

"The spells in the scrolls and books on the shelves," the apprentice said. "I don't know how else to put it. They jumped out all at once, crazy jagged forms whirling around us, all flashing or rimmed with blue. Then one of them, some sort of frost, poured itself into Mistress Kranna's eyes."

"You mean it possessed her?" Bareris asked. "That doesn't make sense. Spells aren't demons. They're just… formulae."

"But it did," the novice said, "and as soon as she was a person and the spell both, she grabbed Master Zaras and he fell down. I think the shock of the cold stopped his heart. Then a shadow squirmed into his ear, and he got up again and reached to hurt someone else.

"Half of us were either changed or dead and changed in less time than it takes to tell it. I ran and hid. That's all I know."

"What about this piece of ground, and the others like it, rising into the air?" Tammith asked.

"What? What are you talking about?"

She realized he truly had no idea. He'd been in the chest when the phenomenon began. "You'll see in due course," she said. "For now, don't worry about it."

"We're leaving," Bareris said.

"Without searching the rest of the building or any of the other islands?" she asked.

"Yes. We've seen and heard enough to know what's happening here, and it's not the enemy laying a trap for us. It's the lingering effect of the blue fire tainting the earth. We'll tell the tharchions, and they can decide what to do about it. We don't need-"

"Something's coming," said the sentry at the door.

Tammith rushed to his side and looked down the gallery. Most likely the sentry could only perceive a shadow shuffling in the gloom, but a vampire's eyes saw more clearly. It was a Red Wizard approaching, lurching and flopping as if half his bones were broken.

Yet somehow he contrived to hobble faster, even as he started to shudder. A whine arose, not from his throat, but from all of him. Tammith inferred that he had absorbed a sound-producing magic, and the power was manifesting. Tongues of blue fire licked around his body.

She stepped onto the walkway, stared into his eyes, and tried to stifle his will. It was no use. Perhaps he had some sort of sentience remaining, but she couldn't even feel his mind, let alone grab hold of it.

The droning abruptly swelled into a deafening roar. The gallery shook, and focused noise smashed into Tammith like a battering ram, flinging her onto her back.

She felt broken bones, and her muscles were pulped. She'd heal in a few moments, but she might not have them. The whine rose in another crescendo.

Bareris scrambled onto the balcony and sang at their foe. The wizard below flailed and collapsed. The power of the bard's voice had dissolved the possessing force inside him.

Bareris crouched over Tammith. "Can you walk?" he asked, and she barely understood the words. The howling attack had nearly deafened her. But her ears would recover as quickly as the rest of her.

"Yes," she said.

"Then get up." He hauled her to her feet. "We're going now. If we can believe the apprentice, there are more of those things, and I likely won't find it as easy to put down the ones inhabited by something other than sound."

As they started their scurry back to the staircase, she saw that they were leaving the sentry behind. Peering around the doorframe, he'd caught only the fringe of the attack sent at her, but it had been sufficient to snap his neck.

The young evoker kept balking as if he'd rather retreat to the illusory safety of the chest. A legionnaire cursed him and shoved him along.

"I should have sensed the creatures," Tammith said, drawing her sword. Her leg throbbed when it took her weight, but the next step was better.

"Not if they were undetectable," Bareris said. "It's a big building, and those things were keeping quiet." He halted abruptly, causing some soldiers to bump into the comrades in front of them.

Shrouded in a wavering blue glow, a robed woman strode along the second-floor gallery. She was in position to block the stairs connecting the lower walkway with their own.

A second staircase lay farther away, but when Tammith peered in that direction, she saw other glowing blue figures, on her level and the ones below. The patrol couldn't avoid confrontation by doubling back. It would only cost them precious time.

Bareris turned to his men. "Get to the top of the stairs, and make a lot of noise. Your job is to keep the mages looking up the steps." He pivoted to Tammith. "You and I will fly or drop down to the next level and hit the wizard while she's distracted."

"I understand," she said. As the soldiers tramped on, speaking loudly, she broke apart into bats and Bareris sang a charm.

She flew out under the skylight. Bareris swung himself over the balcony and plummeted. For an instant, it appeared he'd run afoul of the malaise that rendered magic unreliable, but then the enchantment he'd cast slowed his descent.

Tammith swooped down beside the female wizard. From a distance, the evoker had seemed adequately clad in the usual robe, but in fact, the garment had burned to tatters. So had the skin and flesh beneath, corroded by a fluid seeping from within. The same process shrouded the woman in eye-stinging vapor and charred her footsteps into the floor.

Tammith had no desire to bring any part of her body into contact with the acid or the blue flames flowing across the wizard's form. Better to use her blade. She flew behind the possessed woman, then jerked her several bodies into one.

The wizard evidently heard the flutter of wings or sensed the threat somehow, because she pivoted, but by that time, Tammith was ready for her. She drove her sword into the woman's torso.

Though the evoker collapsed to her knees, the stroke didn't kill or cripple her. She opened her mouth wide, and, guessing what was about to happen, Tammith leaped high into the air. Because she had, the torrent of acidic spew caught only her legs, dissolving pieces of armor and boot and searing the flesh beneath.

Pain flared, and kept burning when she landed in a pool of the corrosive liquid, which immediately started eating through the soles of her boots and into her feet. Unfortunately, she had nowhere else to plant them if she wanted to remain within striking distance of her foe. She cut the evoker again, then Bareris floated down into view. He grabbed the railing at the foot of the steps, heaved himself onto the stairs behind the possessed woman, and drove his glowing sword into her spine.

It took several more blows to finish the evoker, but at last she toppled forward onto her face. Bareris peered at Tammith. "Are you all right?"

"Stop asking me that!" she snapped. "You cut my head off and chopped it to pieces. If that didn't destroy me-" Something shifted in his stony face. Perhaps it was the slightest suggestion of a wince. At any rate, it made her falter. "Never mind. We have to keep moving."

"You're right." He looked to the top of the stairs and waved his arm, urging his men onward.

The scouts made it almost to the ground level before anything else maneuvered into position to attack them. But then luminous blue shadows darted across the floor below, moving to block the door.

Bareris shouted, "Everybody out! Get on your griffons and fly!" He sang five syllables and leaped like a grasshopper.

The prodigious jump carried him out onto the floor to intercept the possessed wizards before they could cut off the patrol's escape. He plainly hoped to keep them occupied long enough for everyone else to flee into the courtyard.

Tammith intended to do exactly that, for like any vampire, she cared first and always about her own well-being. Besides, even if she had felt the slightest twinge of regret at abandoning Bareris, he was commanding this venture, and she was supposed to follow his orders.

Instead, she rushed down and positioned herself beside him.

Another female evoker threw a blast of freezing cold from her outstretched hands, but even though it hit Tammith squarely, it wasn't more than she could bear. Snarling, she slashed at the possessed woman until she toppled.

Next came a wizard with yellow flame hissing from his mouth and nostrils, the true fire leaping amid tongues of eerie blue. His hands were burning, too, and he grabbed hold of her sword arm long enough to brand the print of his fingers into her flesh. She pulled free and gutted him.

The remaining evokers maneuvered to encircle their foes. Bareris shifted so he and Tammith could fight back to back. He started singing another spell.

Tammith's arm ached. With her next opponents already edging in, she didn't have time to wait for it to mend. She shifted her sword to her left hand.

She could see at least a dozen transformed evokers remaining, and experienced a cold, pragmatic urge to flee. If she dissolved into mist, it was doubtful her foes could do anything to detain her.

But she stayed in her human body and made a cut at a creature with eyes like prisms.

Bareris's voice soared through the concluding phrase of his spell. Vibrato throbbing, he held the final note, and then, to Tammith's surprise, his hand gripped her shoulder. She just had time to realize that he'd needed to turn his back on the enemy to do so, and then the world seemed to shatter and reform around them. A cool breeze blew, and above their heads, the night sky glittered with stars.

She realized he'd shifted them a short distance through space, away from their foes and into the courtyard. He ran toward his griffon, and she split apart into bats.

Brightwing liked the quarters-she refused to think of them as "stables"-that the zulkirs had reserved for griffons in the great Central Citadel of Bezantur. They were spacious, airy, and clean, with rough stonework and irregular arches intended to resemble the caverns her kind inhabited in the wild. The food was tasty and plentiful, too-a side of fresh horse carried in by two servants who kept a wary eye on her and moved slowly, to avoid arousing her predatory instincts, she assumed.

But their presence darkened her mood. If all were well, Aoth would personally have made sure she had everything she needed. Unfortunately, that was impossible when he could only see what she saw.

But only humans fretted over things they couldn't change. She pushed worry aside and tore into the bloody meat, bones snapping in her beak.

When she'd devoured half of it, pain ripped through her guts. She screamed, and drops of blood flew out with the sound.

Aoth reached to take hold of the bottle and bumped it off balance instead. He snatched and managed to grab it before it toppled over.

He scowled and wondered why he was bothering to pour the tart wine into a goblet anyway. Easier to just hang onto the bottle and swig from that. He tossed the cup away. It clanked twice-once, he assumed, against the wall, and a second time when it hit the floor. It made a smooth rumbling sound as it rolled.

Then Brightwing shrieked. He was too far away to hear the anguished cry with his ears, but it stabbed through his mind. His belly cramped.

The griffon was hurt or ill, and the problem was in her guts. He recited a charm to purge himself of the befuddlements of intoxication. His wits sharpened, and for a moment, his limbs felt almost painfully sensitive. He groped for his spear, rose, and started for the door.

The latch clicked and the hinges squealed before he made it across the room. "Captain Fezim," said a baritone voice. "Our orders are to escort you to Lauzoril."

Aoth felt a surge of hope. Because the blue fire had afflicted him with a kind of curse, the zulkir of Enchantment might be the best person to cure him. Indeed, Nymia Focar had said she was ordering him to Bezantur instead of sending him home to Pyarados precisely so wise and powerful folk like Lauzoril and Iphegor Nath could try to help him. But until that moment, they hadn't taken any notice of him.

Still, he couldn't neglect Brightwing's distress. "I've been waiting for this for days," he said, "but I can't meet with His Omnipotence right now. Something has happened to my griffon."

"I'm sorry, Captain," the other man said, "but we must all do as the zulkir commands."

"Lauzoril doesn't know the situation. He wouldn't want us to let such a valuable creature come to harm. I don't know precisely what ails her, but it's serious. We need to find a healer skilled in ministering to animals. Then I'll go to His Omnipotence."

"I'm sorry, sir, but you need to go now. Tell Lauzoril about the beast. That might be the fastest way to get help for it, anyway."

As the man spoke, the floorboards creaked almost inaudibly, and metal clinked. Aoth caught a whiff of the oil soldiers used to preserve their mail and weapons. His imagination conjured up the image of armed men creeping into the room.

It didn't make sense. Aoth was a loyal servant of the council of zulkirs. Why would anyone believe that force might be required to bring him into Lauzoril's presence? Yet he was all but certain that several armed men had come for him.

Curse it, he had to know what was really happening! He opened his eyes.

As usual, the black bandage wrapped around his head proved scarcely any impediment to his altered sight. Five legionnaires had entered the room, a human speaking from the doorway and four blood orcs creeping up on him. One of the latter held a set of manacles.

The other three held their empty hands poised to grab him. But for a heartbeat, something painted the semblance of knives into their grips, just as he had seen Bareris dangling a marionette.

Though he couldn't understand the reason, the message seemed clear. If he allowed them to take him, he was as good as dead.

Vision turned to pressure. Soon it would be agony, but he could bear it for another heartbeat. The tattoos had produced that much benefit, anyway. He made note of the exact positions of the orcs, then closed his eyes.

He pivoted and thrust the butt of the spear at the midsection of the orc farthest to the right. Mail clashed as the spear jammed into something solid. Aoth whirled, swung his weapon, and bashed the orc on his left flank.

With luck, that at least balked the two that had been on the verge of seizing him. He reversed the spear, presenting the point, and retreated, meanwhile thrusting and sweeping the weapon through a defensive pattern.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Please stop fighting," said the soldier in the doorway. "I give you my word, you're panicking over nothing. We only want to help you."

If he wouldn't tell the truth, he was of no use. In fact, Aoth realized, he was dangerous. His babble could mask the sound of the orcs sneaking up on their quarry once again.

Aoth spoke a word of command and discharged magic from the spear. He'd emptied the weapon's reservoir of spells at the Keep of Sorrows, but even though his magic failed as often as not, he had recharged it since. It had given him something to do while he waited for healing, and kept him from feeling quite so helpless.

Now he just had to hope the spell would manifest properly, and when he heard the legionnaires thump down on the floor, a couple of them snoring, it was clear that it had.

He listened intently, just in case the spell hadn't put all his foes to sleep, and probed with the spear as he made his way to the door. Nothing tried to interfere with him, and in due course, he reached the threshold.

He stepped over the man lying there, wondered what to do next, and felt his anxiety ratchet up. What could he do when he didn't understand what was happening? When he was a blind man trapped in a sprawling fortress garrisoned with hundreds of men-at-arms?

Then he realized his course was clear. He'd defied the guards to help Brightwing, and that was still what he had to attempt. Spear extended to feel his way, he headed for the griffons' aerie.

Sensing a presence, Bareris turned. Tammith was looking down at him. The light of the campfire tinged her ivory face with gold and caught in her dark eyes.

"You aren't sleeping," she said.

"No."

"What did the tharchions say? Will the army march straight through Solzepar?"

"They were still talking about it when they dismissed me, but my sense was, probably so."

"I imagine it will be all right. For all we know, it's safer to go somewhere the blue flame's already been than someplace it hasn't yet visited." She hesitated. "May I share your fire?"

"If you like."

She sat down across from him. Wrapped in a blanket on the ground not far behind her, a legionnaire shifted restlessly and mumbled, as though he sensed the presence of something predatory and unnatural lurking close.

"I want to ask you something," Tammith said.

"Go on, then," Bareris replied.

"In the chapterhouse, you meant to sacrifice yourself so everyone else could escape."

He shrugged. "I just played rearguard. I hoped to keep myself alive until everyone else was clear, then sing myself to safety. Which is how it worked out."

It occurred to him that if he'd been capable of playing the same trick on the trail to the cursed ruins of Delhumide a decade before, he might well have succeeded in rescuing her. But the spell was one of many he'd mastered in the years since.

"But you're the commander of the Griffon Legion now, and so your life is more important than that of a common soldier. In your position, many officers would have ordered some of their underlings to hold back the evokers, and never mind that ordinary legionnaires wouldn't have had any hope of survival."

"Not all folk see things as clearly as Thayan captains and patricians. Maybe I picked up some foolish habits of thought while I was away."

In fact, he knew he had-from Eurid, Storik, and the other mercenaries of the Black Badger Company. It was the first time he'd thought of them in a while, for he tried not to. They'd been his faithful friends, and at the time, he'd cherished them and reveled in the exploits they shared. But ultimately he'd learned that his sojourn with them had destroyed his life and Tammith's, too, and that made it impossible to remember them without regret. He realized the vampire's presence was stirring up all sorts of emotions and recollections he generally sought to bury.

"I was harsh that night we talked in the garden," she said, "and I snapped at you after we killed the wizard who'd merged with the acid magic. I wondered if…"

He peered at her in surprise. "If I was so distraught that I was trying to commit suicide?"

"Well, yes."

"No. I've never done such a thing. It doesn't seem to be in my nature. Otherwise, I would have let you kill me back in Thazar Keep."

"I'm glad to hear it."

He shook his head. "Does it even matter to you?"

"I fought beside you in that chapterhouse, didn't I, at some risk to myself. I'm harder to slay than a mortal, but not indestructible."

"Is that why you're here? Are you waiting for me to thank you?"

"No! I just wanted you to understand. When I pushed you away before… I told you, I want things to be easy. If you craved cherries but they made you sick, would it be easier to live under the cherry tree or a day's ride away from it?"

He sighed. "I understand, and you were right. I don't know how you could tell, but I'm not the same Bareris you knew." He thought of his attempt to control Aoth and what had come of it, and it seemed to him only the latest in an endless chain of failures and shameful acts.

She glanced to the east, watchful for signs of dawn. "I may have been right," she said, "but I now see that what I said wasn't the whole truth. Because, while it's painful to see you and talk to you, it's another kind of torment to keep my distance, too."

His throat was dry, and he swallowed. "What's the answer, then?"

"We're not the young sweethearts anymore, nor will we ever again be. Vampires can't love anyone or anything. But I believe we share a common thirst for revenge, even now, at what feels like the end of the world."

"Yes." Indeed, as he contemplated the bleak, fierce thing the necromancers had made of her, his anger was like a hot stone inside him.

"Then it makes sense for us to stand together. Perhaps, if we try, we can learn to be easy with one another and esteem one another as comrades."

Comrades. It seemed like the bitterest word ever spoken, but he nodded, shook her hand when she offered it, and tried not to wince at the corpselike chill of her flesh.

"If we're to be friends," he said, "then you must tell me something. How did you decide just by looking at me that I'd changed so completely? Do you have the power to peer into my soul?"

She smiled. "Not so much. But when was the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror, or better still, caught a whiff of yourself? The boy I remember tried hard to look like a Mulan noble. You managed to keep yourself clean and your head shaved even growing up in the middle of a shanty town."

"I can't imagine going back to shaving my scalp. Once you give it up, you realize it's a lot of trouble." But maybe he'd find a comb.

Mirror dimly recalled that one of his companions had given him that name, but no longer understood why. In fact, he wasn't even certain who they were. He couldn't remember their names or their faces.

That was because he was wearing away to nothing.

Yet he knew he had to persevere, even if he'd entirely forgotten the reason. The sense of obligation endured.

So he walked on through a void devoid of both light and darkness. Either would have defined it, and it rejected definition. He trudged until he forgot how it felt to have legs striding beneath him. With that memory forfeit, he melted into a formless point of view drifting onward, impelled by nothing more than the will to proceed.

I'm almost gone, he thought. I'm not strong enough, and I'm not going to make it. But if that was true, so be it. Defeat couldn't strip a man of his honor. Surrender could. Someone wise and kind had told him that, someone he'd loved like a second father. He could almost see the old man's face.

He suddenly realized he was thinking more clearly, and possessed limbs and a shape once again. Then a torch-lit hall sprang into existence around him, appearing from left to right as though a colossal artist had created it with a single stroke of his paintbrush. In the center of the floor was a huge round table with high-backed chairs, each seat inlaid with a name and coat of arms.

Mirror realized that if he looked, he'd find his own true name and device. With luck, he might even recognize them. Then he glimpsed a towering figure from the corner of his eye. He pivoted, looked at it straight on, and realized he had something infinitely more important to discover.

Half again as tall as Mirror himself, the figure was a golden statue of a handsome, smiling man brandishing a mace in one hand and cradling an orb in the other. Rubies studded the sculpted folds of his clothing. Mirror ran forward and threw himself to his knees before the sacred image.

Warmth, fond as a mother's touch, enfolded him. You found your way back, said a voice in his mind.

Tears spilled from Mirror's eyes. "Lord, I'm ashamed. I can't remember your name."

And maybe you never will. It doesn't matter. You're still my true and faithful knight.

Since coming to the Central Citadel, Aoth had visited the griffons' aerie at least twice a day. He'd made a point of learning the way so he could walk there by himself, without needing a guide.

Yet in his haste, he'd gone wrong. He should have reached Brightwing by now, but he hadn't, and as he groped his way along a wall, his surroundings seemed completely unfamiliar.

He opened his eyes, but had to close them again immediately. Despite his resolve to use them sparingly, he'd overtaxed them, and for the moment vision was unbearable and useless. He couldn't even tell whether he was indoors or out.

Somewhere nearby, somebody shouted, the noise echoing through the hollow stone spaces of the fortress. Aoth couldn't quite make out the words. He wondered if the legionnaires he'd put to sleep had awakened. If so, maybe the manhunt had begun.

I'm sorry, my friend, Aoth thought. I couldn't even reach you to sit with you while you die.

"Captain," said a voice.

Startled, Aoth whirled toward the sound and aimed his spear at it. On the verge of hurling fire from the point, he belatedly recognized Mirror, as much by the chill and intimation of sickness radiating from him as the hollow timbre of his speech.

The ghost's disquieting nature notwithstanding, he and Aoth had been comrades for ten years, and the war mage was loath to lash out at him without cause. But neither could he simply assume that Mirror, who generally functioned as an agent of the zulkirs, hadn't come to kill or detain him. "What do you want?" he panted.

"To help you," Mirror said.

Aoth hesitated. Then, scowling, he decided to take the ghost at his word. "Then take me to Brightwing. We may have to dodge legionnaires along the way. For some reason, Lauzoril wants to kill me. I think he had Brightwing poisoned so I couldn't summon her to protect me."

"Your steed will have to wait. I need to help you now, while I still remember what to do."

"The way to help is to get me to Brightwing."

"I need to heal your eyes first."

Aoth felt a jolt of astonishment. "Can you do that?"

"I think so. After Bareris betrayed our bonds of fellowship, I had to set things right. And I sensed that I could, if I could only remember more of who and what I was."

"Did you?"

"Yes, when I went into the emptiness. I remembered I was a knight pledged to a god, who blessed me with special gifts."

"A paladin, you mean?" Thay had no such champions, because it didn't worship the deities who raised them up. But Aoth had heard about them.

Mirror hesitated as if he didn't recognize the term. "Perhaps. The important thing is that my touch could heal, and I believe it still can. Let me use it to cure your sight."

Aoth shook his head. Maybe the ghost with his addled, broken mind had remembered something real. Maybe he truly had possessed a talent for healing. That didn't mean he still had it. Every wizard knew that undead creatures partook of the very essence of blight and ill, and Aoth had witnessed many times how Mirror's mere touch could wither and corrupt. The sword with which he wrought such havoc in battle wasn't even a weapon as such, just a conduit for the cancerous power inside him.

Yet even so, and rather to his own surprise, Aoth felt a sudden inclination to trust Mirror. Perhaps it was because his plight was so hopeless that, if the spirit's suggestion didn't work, it was scarcely likely to matter anyway.

"All right. Let's do it." Aoth pulled off the bandage, then felt the ambient sense of malaise thicken as Mirror came closer. Freezing cold, excruciating as the touch of a white-hot iron, stabbed down on each of his eyelids. He bore it for a heartbeat or two, then screamed, recoiled, and clapped his hands to his face.

"Damn you!" he croaked. He wondered if he looked older, the way Urhur Hahpet had after the ghost slid his insubstantial fingers into his torso.

"Try your eyes now," Mirror said, unfazed by his anguished reproach.

The suggestion seemed so ridiculous that it left Aoth at a loss for words. He was still trying to frame a suitably bitter retort when he realized that his eyes didn't hurt anymore.

And since they didn't, he supposed he could muster the fortitude to test them. He warily cracked them open, then gasped. Seeing wasn't the least bit painful, and somehow he could already tell it never would be again.

Indeed, vision was a richer experience than ever before.

Wandering blind, he'd blundered into the covered walkway connecting two baileys. No lamps or torches burned in the passage, yet the gloom didn't obscure his vision. He could make out subtle variations of blackness in the painted stone wall beside him and complex patterns in the dusty cobbles beneath his feet. He could only liken the experience to borrowing Brightwing's keen aquiline eyes, but in truth, he was seeing even better now than he had then.

He realized he'd been seeing in this godlike fashion ever since the blue fire swept over him, but the torrent of sheer detail had overwhelmed him. Now he could assimilate it with the same unthinking ease that ordinary people processed normal perceptions.

He turned to the wavering shadow that was Mirror. "You did it!"

"My brothers always said I had a considerable gift. Sometimes I could help the sick when even the wisest priests had failed. Or I think I could." Mirror's voice trailed off as if his memory was crumbling away, and his murky form became vaguer still.

Aoth wondered if the act of healing, so contrary to the normal attributes of a ghost, had drained his benefactor of strength. He prayed not. "Don't disappear! Stay with me! If you can cure blindness, you should be able to cure a poisoning, too. We're going to Brightwing."

This late at night, no one was working in the griffons' aerie. Aoth felt a surge of anguish to see his familiar crumpled on her side, eyes glazed and oblivious, blood and vomit pooled around her beak. He reached out with his mind but found no trace of hers. She was still breathing, though.

"Hurry!" he said, but Mirror just stood in place. "Please!"

"I'm trying to remember," Mirror said, and still he didn't move. Finally, when Aoth felt he was on the brink of screaming, the ghost flowed forward, kneeled beside the griffon, whispered, and stroked her head and neck. His intangible hand sank ever so slightly into her plumage.

Brightwing thrashed, then leaped to her feet and swiped with her talons. Thanks to spells Aoth had cast long ago, her claws were capable of shredding a spirit, but Mirror avoided them with a leap backward.

"Easy!" Aoth cried. "Mirror just saved your life, or at least I hope so. How are you?"

"My belly hurts." Brightwing took a breath. "So does my head, and my mouth burns." She spat. "But I think I'll be all right."

Aoth's eyes brimmed with tears. He hoped he wouldn't shed them, because the griffon would only jeer if he did.

"We're going to find the vermin who poisoned me," she continued, "and then I'm going to eat them."

The vengeful declaration served to remind Aoth that they were still in trouble. "I'd like to watch you do it, but we can't fight the whole Central Citadel."

"Would we have to?" Brightwing's voice took on an unaccustomed querulous note. "What's happening?"

"People suddenly want to kill me, and they knew it would be easier if you were out of the way. So they tried to separate us back in Zolum, and when that didn't work, they fed you tainted meat."

Brightwing snorted. "I should have realized that, as usual, you're to blame for any unpleasantness that comes my way. All right, if it's like that, saddle me and we'll flee the city."

It was good advice, especially considering that Aoth had intended to run off anyway, until Bareris tampered with his mind. So it surprised him to realize just how reluctant he was to go.

Deserting because he wanted to was one thing. Fleeing because he feared for his life would leave him feeling baffled and defeated. It would also mean he could never command the Griffon Legion again. He'd never aspired to do so, and in the years since his elevation, he'd honestly believed he didn't enjoy the responsibility. But after blindness rendered him unfit to lead, he discovered he missed it. Indeed, he'd felt guilty and worthless because he couldn't look out for his men anymore.

"Besides… since I don't understand why this is happening," he said, "I don't know how just badly people want to kill me. It may be badly enough to hunt us down if we try to run. I also have misgivings about fleeing when earthquakes and tides of blue fire are ripping the world apart. It doesn't seem a promising time to try to build a new life in some foreign land."

"Then what will we do?" Brightwing asked.

"You'll stay here with Mirror and be quiet. I'll talk to Lauzoril and try to straighten things out."

"That's assuming that he or his minions don't strike you down on sight."

"I think I know who can prevent it, if only I can reach him."

Brightwing snorted. "It sounds stupid to me, but when has that ever stopped you?" She cocked her head. "Say, you aren't wearing your blindfold."

Perhaps it was Malark's imagination, but the ash shaft of the spear seemed to shudder in his grip as though it resented resting in any hand but its master's. He wondered if that could possibly be true, if the weapon was in some sense alive and aware. Perhaps he'd have a chance to ask Aoth about it later, but for now, they had a more urgent matter to address.

Malark hadn't expected to see his comrade again, because he'd heard what fate Dmitra had decreed for him. And although it wasn't the death he would have chosen for Aoth, there hadn't been a reason to intervene. But when, with his lambent blue eyes uncovered and obviously no longer blind, the war mage slipped into Malark's apartments, it was plain the situation had altered.

A small, flat-faced goblin guard used its apelike arms to open the red metal door to Lauzoril's conjuration chamber. When Aoth saw what waited on the other side, he stopped short. Malark didn't blame him.

The room beyond the threshold was the sort of arcane workroom familiar to them both after years spent at the beck and call of wizards. The steady white glow of enchanted spherical lamps illuminated racks of staves and ceremonial swords, a stylized wall painting of a tree that, as Dmitra had once explained, represented the multiverse, and an intricate pentacle inlaid in jet and carnelian on the floor. A thurible suffused the air with the bitter scent of myrrh.

The surprise was the steel table with sturdy buckled straps to immobilize a man, gutters to drain away his blood, and an assortment of probes, forceps, and knives to pick and slice at him. A healer might conceivably have used such equipment. So did a number of the interrogators in Malark's employ.

"Steady!" he whispered. "It's too late to run. They'll only kill you if you try." As if to demonstrate that he was right, a pair of blood orc guards and a Red Wizard of Enchantment advanced to take charge of Aoth.

Aoth strode into the chamber, and Malark followed a pace behind him. An orc reached to seize hold of Aoth's arm. Shifting, the griffon rider evaded the creature's hand and shoved it into its fellow. The pair got tangled up and fell down together.

The Red Wizard jumped back a step and lifted a fist with a pearl ring on the forefinger. Brightness seethed inside the milky stone. Malark interposed himself between the enchanter and Aoth and gave the former a glare and a shake of his head.

Flummoxed if not intimidated, the wizard hesitated.

By then, Lauzoril's other minions were scrambling to intercept Aoth, but they were too slow. He had time to march up to the zulkir and drop to his knees without anyone coercing him. Malark did the same.

Lauzoril frowned. It was a pinched little frown, just as all his smiles were grudging little smiles. "Well," he said, "it's taken half the night, but someone finally caught him."

"No, Your Omnipotence," Malark said, "I didn't. As you surely observed, Captain Fezim obeys your summons of his own volition. Neither I nor anyone else had to force him."

"He resisted the escort I sent to fetch him," Lauzoril said.

"That was a misunderstanding," Malark said. "You'll note, he extricated himself from the situation without seriously hurting anyone. He's too loyal a legionnaire to rob you of the use of any of your servants, even in a moment of alarm and confusion."

"Good." Lauzoril shifted his gaze to Aoth. "Captain, if you are the man your companion claims you are, a faithful soldier willing to give his life in the service of his liege lords, then permit the orcs to secure you on the table, and I'll undertake to make what follows as painless as is practical. Refuse, and my enchantments will compel you."

"Master," Malark said, "may I respectfully ask why you're doing this?"

"Don't you know? It was your mistress's idea."

"No, Master," Malark lied, "she didn't confide in me."

"Then I suppose I can explain. She suggested I examine the griffon rider with all the tools at my disposal and see what I can discover about the blue flame."

"I assume she recommended this while Captain Fezim was blind and unable to perform his usual duties."

"Well, yes."

"Your Omnipotence has surely observed that he has now recovered his sight."

"Of course. I'm not a dunce. But his eyes are still glowing, and I still think it may prove worthwhile to study him."

"I respectfully suggest that my mistress would disagree."

"Then it's too bad she's in Eltabbar this evening, isn't it? Otherwise you could run and ask her. Not that I would feel obliged to accede to her notions if they ran counter to my own."

"No, Your Omnipotence, of course not. It's only that Captain Fezim is one of Nymia Focar's ablest officers-"

Lauzoril snorted. "He's just a soldier. Another such commands the Griffon Legion now, and I imagine he'll do every bit as well. Better, probably, considering he's Mulan."

"You're correct, Bareris Anskuld is also a fine soldier, but-"

A trace of color tinged Lauzoril's cheeks. "Goodman Springhill, your prattle wearies me. If you persist, I'm apt to decide you aren't just tiresome but insolent, and then, you may rest assured, your affiliation with Dmitra Flass won't shield you from my displeasure."

Malark noticed his mouth was dry.

He wasn't afraid to die. But it was entirely possible the archmage had something else in mind. The art of Enchantment lent itself to punishments that crippled and degraded both body and mind but left the victim alive. And despite his prim demeanor, Lauzoril had as sophisticated a sense of cruelty as any other zulkir.

Yet Malark intended to try the wizard's patience for at least a little longer, even though he himself wasn't entirely sure of the reason. Maybe he was simply stubborn, or averse to losing an argument.

"I understand, Master," he said, "but I think I'd be remiss in my responsibilities if I didn't at least point out that Captain Fezim isn't the only creature infected with blue fire. We've received reports of others, and I assume that if you vivisected them, the bodies would yield the same information."

"I remember those reports," Lauzoril said. "The other creatures have become dangerous monstrosities."

"Still, my agents can trap an assortment of them," Malark said. "It will just take a bit of doing. It will delay your investigations a little, but that could work to your advantage. It will give you a chance to involve Mistress Lallara."

"To what end?" Lauzoril asked.

"I shouldn't even presume to speculate," Malark said. "After all, you know everything there is to know about the supernatural, while I know virtually nothing. But I wonder-if the blue fire can get inside a person or animal, generally with hideous results, maybe it can jump from one living being to another. Maybe it would even try to invade you when you cut into the creature. If so, you might want the defensive spells of the zulkir of Abjuration to make sure the power didn't possess you."

"Ridiculous," Lauzoril snapped. "I too am a zulkir. I don't need that shrew or anyone else to protect me. However"-he took a breath-"if a legionnaire is fit for duty, perhaps it would be improvident to sacrifice him when an altered pig or some such would serve just as well. Captain Fezim, you're dismissed. Go away and take this… jabberer with you."

"Yes, Your Omnipotence." Aoth held his head high and maintained a proper military bearing until the goblin closed the crimson door behind him and Malark. Then his squat, broad-shouldered frame slumped so completely that for a moment it looked as if his legs might give way beneath him. "By the Flame," he sighed. "By the Pure Flame. I didn't think you were going to convince him."

"To be honest," Malark said, "neither did I. I'm still not sure which argument did the trick. Probably the last. For all their might, zulkirs aren't eager to risk their own skins, particularly when they don't understand the peril. That's how they live long enough to become zulkirs, I suppose. Here, take this." He gave Aoth his spear.

The war mage gripped his shoulder. "I won't forget this."

Malark smiled. "I was glad to help." Aoth had killed a great many men in his time. It felt right to set him free to slaughter more, and to seek an end more befitting such a warrior.