Undead

CHAPTER SIX

2-21 Kythorn, the Year of Blue Fire

Bareris's shout tore flesh from the giant's head and splintered the bone beneath. At instant later, a Burning Brazier blasted the creature with flame. It lost its grip on the wall and crashed down on the gallery, where it lay blackened, smoking, and still.

Fast as he could, Bareris limped toward it, and a yellow-eyed dread warrior placed itself in his path. He had to slay it, and then the ghoul that took its place. It reminded him that, although all he truly cared about was breaking open the giant's head, he still had a battle to win.

In fact, it didn't take long. When the crawling head perished, the defenders' last hope of victory perished with it, and they began to turn and run.

Bareris cast about, found a fallen battle-axe, and chopped the colossal skull apart. For a time, he was terrified that Tammith's head had completely dissolved inside it, but he finally found it within a sac of leathery flesh.

It didn't move. Not the mouth, not the eyes. Even when he yanked loose the tendrils that had attached themselves to it and lifted it free, it looked as dead as the putrid mass that had imprisoned it. Bareris shuddered and felt a howl building inside him.

Behind him, someone cleared his throat. He turned to see one of the Burning Braziers. Though far advanced in the mysteries of his order, the priest was a relatively young man of Mulan stock.

"Forgive me, Captain," he said, "but you still have work to do."

Bareris took a breath. "Yes." He proffered the head. "You're the best healer we have. Help her."

The Brazier hesitated. "Captain…"

"That's an order!"

The priest accepted the head. "I'll try."

Limping, using a spear for a cane, Bareris oversaw the securing of the fortress. The chambers echoed with the chanted prayers of the priests. The flashes of fire they conjured gilded the walls. Their power would so purify the place that no one could ever practice necromancy there again.

Meanwhile, the southern wizards plundered the necromancers' libraries and stores of mystical equipment. The warriors of the Griffon Legion hunted down and killed the enemies cowering in dark corners. Finally it was done, and Bareris rushed to find out what had become of Tammith.

The Burning Brazier had taken her to a small room so he could work undisturbed. There she lay atop a table, her form-white skin, black clothing and armor, raven hair, and dark dried gore-ghostly and vague in the glow of a single oil lamp. But even the feeble light revealed the ragged discontinuity that circled her neck like a choker and the mottling of ugly wounds on her face.

Bareris could tell by looking at her that nothing had changed. Still, he turned to the cleric and asked, "How is she?"

The fire priest hesitated, then said, "She's dead, sir. She was dead when you last saw her and she's still dead now."

"She can't be. She survived decapitation before."

"If so, then I surmise that when the giant thing bit off her head and began the process of combining it with its own substance, the injury was qualitatively different. At any rate, she hasn't moved, and the two… pieces of her don't show any signs of growing together."

"Did you try to encourage the healing with your magic?"

"Yes, Captain, just as you ordered. Even though healing prayers, which channel the cosmic principles of health and vitality, are unlikely to help a being whose existence embodied malignancy and a perversion of the natural order."

You're glad she's dead, Bareris thought, and trembled with the urge to knock the Burning Brazier down. Instead, he said, "Thank you for trying. Go help the other priests with their tasks."

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring her back. But I can perform the rites to cremate the body with the proper reverence and commend her spirit to Kossuth."

"Perhaps later."

"I can also tend you. Your leg needs attention, and unless I'm very much mistaken, you're still feeling sick and weak from Xingax's mystical attack. Let me-"

"Are you deaf? I told you to get out!"

The Brazier studied Bareris's face, then nodded, turned on his heel, and left Bareris alone with Tammith's body and the gloom.

Bareris sang his own charms of healing, even though they were no more effective than the spells the priests employed for the same purpose. He sang until he exhausted his magic, and she didn't stir.

Then he sang the tale of the starfish that aspired to be a star, and other songs she'd loved when they were young. Perhaps he hoped they'd entice her spirit back from the void where even magic had failed, but she still didn't move.

That's it, then, he thought. I tried, but all I could do was say good-bye. The music was my farewell.

Perhaps her destruction was for the best, for truly, she'd perished ten years ago. The cold, implacable killer that remained was a mockery of the Tammith he'd loved. She'd known it herself. She'd wanted to die, even if she never quite said it.

Perhaps it was even better for him. He'd pined for her every day, but when she miraculously returned to him, it had only initiated a different kind of torment. Then he had to contemplate what his failure had made of her, and hold back from touching her and pouring out his heart.

Yes. Perhaps. But how could he stand to lose her again?

Maybe he didn't have to, because there was one measure he had not tried. For a vampire, blood was life, and many tales told that they particularly craved the blood of those they loved, or had loved prior to their rebirths.

He unbuckled his sword belt, pulled off his armor, and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. He drew his knife and poised the blade at his wrist.

I'm mad to do this, he thought. I have no reason to think it will work, and the Brazier was right. I'm still weak from Xingax's death magic, and I've already lost a good deal of blood. Shedding more is apt to kill me.

Yet still he sliced into the vein.

The blood welled forth. It looked black in the dim light. He poised his wrist over Tammith's mouth and let it drip in.

Nothing happened. For a moment he felt she was actively resisting him, and even though he knew the idea was crazy, it evoked a spasm of anger nonetheless.

He smeared gore across his own lips, then decided that wasn't good enough. He scratched them with the point of the knife so fresh blood would keep trickling forth. Then he bent down and kissed Tammith, moving with exquisite care to make sure he didn't jostle her head away from her body.

Tammith woke to fiery pain in her neck, gentle nuzzling pressure on her lips, and the coppery tang of blood in her mouth. She couldn't see, or remember where she was or what had happened.

She only knew her thirst was overwhelming, and whatever was feeding her blood was doing it too slowly to suit her. She tried to grab it, but her arms refused to obey her. In fact, she realized, she couldn't feel them, or anything else below the agony in her neck.

Because, she abruptly recalled, Xingax's creation had bitten her head off. She wondered if her body was nearby, and experienced a pang of fear that it wasn't, or that even if it was, this time, she wouldn't fuse back together. Then, as if to soothe her anxiety, she felt flesh and bone growing and flowing to reassemble her neck. Her body announced itself with a stab of agony in the mangled hand Xingax had clawed apart.

Absolute blackness flowered into blurry patches of light and shadow as the infusion of blood returned the use of her eyes. As her vision sharpened, she saw Bareris restoring her. Resurrecting her with bloody kisses.

She returned the next one, and he drew back to regard her with joyous incredulity. His smile stabbed shame and sorrow into her. Don't be happy, she thought. I ruined you. I'm going to be the death of you. Then another surge of thirst washed such notions away.

She pulled him down to her and sucked and licked at his lips. They still weren't yielding enough blood, and she felt as if he were teasing her. As soon as she was sure she'd regained sufficient strength, and that vigorous motion wouldn't break her into two pieces again, she sought a better source.

When she cast about, she saw that he'd slashed his wrist, and it had bled copiously enough to spatter gore all over him, her, and the table on which she lay. But she realized his arm wouldn't satisfy her either. She wanted a more intimate connection. Because this time, the thirst wasn't just a craving for blood, but rather a melding of passions.

She shifted her mouth to the side of his neck, slipped her fangs into the pulsing vein, and tore at his garments. When he realized what she was doing, he ripped at hers as well.

Fiercely, they ground their bodies together. Excitement carried her higher and higher, and after a time, she felt the frantic hammering of his heart, struggling to keep him alive despite the extreme demands he was placing on it.

Good. Let it burst. Let him die. His death was a part of the exultation she sought.

Yet at the same time, the prospect of destroying him was intolerable.

Once, her vampiric instincts would have ruled her in any such situation. They were no less potent now, but she'd had a decade to learn self-control. Though it was as difficult as anything she'd ever done, she withdrew her fangs from his neck, licked the double wound to close it, and contented herself with a lesser consummation.

He blacked out at the same moment, and sprawled atop her like a dead man. She squirmed out from under him, dashed to the door, and screamed for a healer.

When Bareris's eyes fluttered open, he found that someone had carried him to a proper bed. Tammith sat beside him, holding his hand, her fingers cool as usual. She was fully clad again.

"Water," he croaked.

"I knew you'd want it." Easily as a mother shifting a small child, she lifted him up and held a cup to his lips. The cold liquid tasted of iron.

"Thank you."

"How are you?" she asked.

"Weak, but all right, I think."

"I fetched a healer as soon as we… finished." She lowered her eyes and it occurred to him that he hadn't expected her to look shy ever again.

Bareris chuckled and it made him cough. "I must have presented an interesting tableau for his inspection-clothing in disarray, cut wrist, cut lips, blood everywhere."

Tammith smiled back. "Especially since I was half naked and bloody, too, and I still have this." She held up her left hand for his inspection. It had begun to regenerate, but was still bone, tendon, and little else.

It hurt him to see it. "By the Harp!"

"Don't worry about it. It will likely finish healing the next time I drink blood."

"I should probably hold off on that for a little while."

She frowned. "I don't mean yours."

"Well, I realize it can't be me every time. Sometimes it will just be supper."

"You saved me, and I'm grateful. But what we did together is an abomination."

"It didn't feel abominable."

"I drank too much. I nearly killed you."

"I know."

"It would be like that every time, the thirst pushing me, infecting me with a pure cruel wish to see you die."

"I trust you."

"Then you're an idiot!"

"Maybe. And you were right. We aren't the people we once were. We're lesser, tarnished things. And so we can never again possess a love like the one we had before. Yet a bond remains between the people we've become, and why shouldn't we have that? Why shouldn't we see where it takes us, and enjoy whatever happiness it can provide? What would be the point of doing anything else?"

"To save your life."

"I haven't cared about that since Thazar Keep."

"I do." She sighed. "But if you reach out for me, I won't turn you away."

A tap on the door roused Malark from poring over the latest dispatches, and made him realize his eyes were dry and burning. He rubbed them and called, "Come in."

A skinny, freckle-faced boy entered, balancing a tray with one hand while using the other to manage the door. Was it suppertime already? It must be, because the sky beyond the window was red, and the spicy aroma of the roast pork made Malark's stomach gurgle.

The boy looked around. The room was spacious and adequately furnished, but maps, books, ledgers, and heaps of parchment covered almost every horizontal surface.

Malark shifted a stack of paper onto the floor, clearing the corner of a table. "You can set it here."

"Yes, sir." The servant placed the tray as requested, then turned as something caught his eye. Head cocked forward, he stepped closer to the largest map in the chamber, a representation of Thay and neighboring lands painted on a tabletop. A person could scrawl notes on it with chalk or set miniature figures atop it to represent armies and fleets, and Malark had done both. The southern tokens were pewter, and the northern, brass.

He could understand why the display might intrigue a child, but the servant had no business scrutinizing state secrets. "You'd better run along now," Malark said.

The boy shifted a little pewter griffon. "You're well informed. I can add a few lines to the story the map tells, but only a few. Your griffon riders destroyed the north's primary manufactory for the creation of undead and then withdrew successfully from High Thay."

He picked up a stick of turquoise chalk. "Just last night, blue fire melted Anhaurz, killing all within." He drew an X through the city. "The ruins have a weird beauty about them."

He set down the chalk, rubbed his fingertips together to brush off the dust, and moved a pair of ships. "Thessaloni Canos and her men made it to the Wizard's Reach and secured both Escalant and Laothkund for the council.

"In short, it's the same story everywhere. Despite the inconveniences of waves of blue flame, earthquakes, wizardry misbehaving, and dangerous new animals rampaging around, southern armies are winning victory after victory, and I give much of the credit to you, Goodman Springhill, and your network of agents."

Malark swallowed. "Who are you?"

"Oh, I think you know. Once, I spoke with you and your comrades in a grove. I offered you my patronage, and you spurned me."

"Szass Tam."

"Say it softly, if you please, or better still, don't repeat it again at all. I'll tell you something I'd admit to few others. I'm not the mage I was before Mystra died and the Death Moon Orb blew up in my face. I've yet to recover the full measure of my strength, and I'm not eager to fight the entire Central Citadel. It was difficult enough just sneaking in here despite the wards Lallara and Iphegor Nath set to keep creatures like me out."

"Why did you?"

The boy grinned widely enough to reveal he was missing a molar on the upper left. "I've already told you, more or less. For ten years, you've played a key role in the war. If I'd realized just how important you were going to be, perhaps I would have killed you that evening in the wood. But I imagined it beneath me to destroy a person like you-meaning a man with no command of magic-with my own hands, especially when I'd entered your camp under sign of truce. Vanity and scruples are terrible things. They can cause all sorts of problems."

Malark didn't have to glance around the room. He already knew where everything was, including his enchanted cudgels, hanging on a peg by the door. It seemed likely he was going to need them. He knew better than to batter the chill, poisonous flesh of a lich with his bare hands, even when the undead wizard had cloaked himself in the semblance of a living child.

Of course, even if he reached the batons, no sane person would give a shaved copper for his chances. It seemed that Death had forgiven his sins at last and stood ready to usher him into the blackness. He felt a thrill of anticipation.

"Please," Szass Tam said, "don't spring into action like the hero of some tawdry play." It startled Malark that the necromancer knew he was about to move. "I've never had the opportunity to study the fighting system you employ, and no doubt it would be interesting. But I'd prefer you not make a commotion, and I promise, there's no need. If I'd wanted to kill you, I could simply have poisoned your supper. Feel free to eat it, by the way. No point letting it get cold."

Malark felt out of his depth. It wasn't a feeling to which he was accustomed, nor one he enjoyed. "If I'm such a stone in your buskin, then why wouldn't you want to murder me?"

"Because it wouldn't accomplish anything. Before she ascended to greater things, Dmitra was a brilliant spymaster in her own right. If I eliminated you, she'd just pick up where you left off. What I need to do is bring you over to my side."

"As you mentioned, I've already refused your offer of patronage."

"So you did, and I daresay the events of the ensuing decade have given you no cause to regret it. Ordinary folk deplore the widespread loss of life the war produces, but a worshiper of Death must revel in it, and in the destruction produced by the blue fire as well. You must feel as giddy as a lad at his first carnival."

Malark took a breath. "I'm impressed. You've discovered something I haven't confided to anyone in a while."

"Actually, monk of the Long Death, I've discovered everything. In desperation, with all my schemes unraveling, I employed divination to learn more about my adversaries. I don't mean Dmitra and the other zulkirs. I long ago learned all their sordid little secrets. I focused on those among their lieutenants who've done the most to hamper me."

"If you really know everything about me, you know I regard the undead as affronts to the natural order of things. That's why I'd never come over to your side, no matter what you offered."

The boy grinned. "Never say never. If you'll consent to hear it, I'd like to share a story. Along the way, it will answer a question that's perplexed you for ten years. Why did I murder Druxus Rhym?"

The tale went on for a long time. The patch of sky beyond the window turned black. Stars flowered there, and shadow enfolded the chamber.

By the time he finished, Malark's heart was pounding. He swallowed and asked, "Will it work?"

"I admit-Druxus doubted it, but I attribute that to a failure of imagination, because his own analysis suggested it would. I believe it will, and I'm generally considered the greatest wizard in Thay, which is to say, in the most magically advanced realm in all Faerыn. Of course, the only way to know for certain is to try. Will you help me put it to the test?"