Unholy

CHAPTER ELEVEN

27 Mirtul-9 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

When the scout arrived, the artisans were giving So-Kehur's everyday body a second pair of hands, human-looking except for being made of sculpted steel. He'd long since learned to manipulate four crablike claws, tentacles, or what have you at the same time. Now he wanted to see if he could make the precise gestures required for spellcasting with four hands simultaneously, and whether that would enhance the effect of the magic.

He waved the artisans away with the flick of a tentacle and, using his eight arachnoid legs, turned his cylindrical body in the scout's direction. He extended several of his eyes at the ends of their flexible antennae to view the newcomer from multiple angles at once.

Because he'd taken the trouble to do so, he saw the kneeling scout tremble ever so slightly. The creature was an undead soldier with a gray withered face and glazed, sunken eyes, but even so, he feared his lord. So-Kehur found it gratifying.

But it was detrimental to morale to terrorize underlings who'd done nothing to deserve it-he'd learned that observing Szass Tam-so he'd try to make the scout feel at ease. "Please, get up," he said. His voice was indistinguishable from that produced by a normal larynx and mouth, for that was necessary for his conjuring. "Would you like some refreshment?"

"No, thank you, Master," said the scout. His leather trappings creaked as he straightened up. "One of the grooms offered me a prisoner as I was climbing off my eagle."

"Good. Then tell me what you've seen."

"The invaders abandoned the Dread Ring and marched south again. I thought they'd go back into the Umber Marshes and on home to the Wizard's Reach, but they didn't make the turn."

So-Kehur felt a surge of excitement. If he'd still possessed a pulse, no doubt it would have quickened. "You mean they're heading toward Anhaurz."

"It looks that way."

"The lunatics must actually believe they can reach and destroy another Ring-the one in Tyraturos." So-Kehur had no idea why the archmages of the council were so fixated on the gigantic strongholds, but it seemed evident they were. "They mean to take the High Road up the First Escarpment. Of the three likely ascents, it's the only one without a fortress guarding the top. But to get to the High Road, they need to use the bridge here at Anhaurz to cross the Lapendrar."

The undead warrior inclined his head. "The autharch is wise."

"So this is where we'll stop them!"

In his youth, So-Kehur had been a coward, even if it never quite prevented him from doing his duty. But on the plain below Thralgard Keep, in the battle that broke the southern legions, he'd finally found his courage, and afterward, he'd vowed to make sure it never slipped away.

To that end, he'd started replacing parts of his body with grafts from the undead and, when even those began to seem insufficiently strong to protect him from any conceivable threat, with metal. He supposed that at some point afterward, he must have decided to dispense with an organic form entirely, to become a disembodied brain, charged with the energies of undeath to nourish and preserve it, encased in a steel shell, although oddly enough, he couldn't recall the exact moment when he'd made such a choice. Rather, when he looked back, it seemed to him as if the process had simply happened by degrees.

In any case, his transformation had mostly worked out all right. Much as he'd loved to eat, he no longer missed it, or the touch of a woman, either. The cravings faded after he divested himself of the organs with which a person gratified them. Strange abilities emerged to take their place, along with the desire to exert his newly developed strengths.

That last was the problem because the War of the Zulkirs was over, and afterward, Szass Tam proved unexpectedly reluctant to start any new ones. Instead, he devoted himself to erecting the Dread Rings, unnecessary defenses for a realm already impregnable, or, conceivably, monuments to overweening vanity. Either way, it left So-Kehur with no outlet for his aggression except hunting rebels, scarcely a challenge for the consummate killer he'd become.

Now, however, an enemy army was heading straight for Anhaurz, a slayer in its own right. Ninety years ago, the Spellplague had destroyed the town, and when Szass Tam appointed him autharch and gave him the task of rebuilding it, So-Kehur'd done so in a way that expressed his yearning for battle. The new Anhaurz was a true fortress city, constructed and garrisoned to break any force that dared to assault it. Even one led by the likes of Nevron and Lauzoril.

"Fetch me my maps!" So-Kehur called. One of the artisans scurried to relay the order.

The road south ran a few miles west of the towering cliffs the Thayans called the First Escarpment. Close, but not nearly close enough for anyone to menace the Brotherhood of the Griffon and the zulkirs' legions with missiles hurled from the top.

Or so Jhesrhi would have assumed, before the stones started showering down along with the cold drizzle from the overcast sky. They hammered the road with uncanny accuracy too.

It was plain that only folk who could fly had any hope of stopping the bombardment, so Aoth led griffon riders to the top of the crags, which appeared to be deserted. But the breeze whispered to Jhesrhi that her enemies were almost directly below her, shrouded in an invisibility that couldn't blind the tactile sight of the wind.

She drew breath to shout a warning, then saw that she needn't bother. The concealment hadn't fooled Aoth's spellscarred eyes, either. He pointed his spear, power glimmered around it, and a greenish cloud swirled into existence around the hidden men, revealing their forms to those who soared above them.

Some of the enemy doubled over, puking. Other, hardier crossbowmen shot a volley into the air, but the griffons veered, swooped, and dodged most of the quarrels. Their riders shot back, and Szass Tam's warriors fell.

With their bodyguards slain, the Red Wizards died almost as easily. Afterward, the griffon riders set down to loot and learn whatever they could.

The magical artillery used a scrying pool to provide a view of the highway. Beside the water was a flat piece of slate incised with a groove carved to mirror the slight curve of the road. One aimed and launched a barrage by placing a black pebble at a point along the depression. Then the rocks heaped on a slab of granite vanished to reappear above the designated spot.

Since Thay had been at peace for some time, it seemed likely the apparatus was relatively old. Jhesrhi wondered if someone had crafted it during the first War of the Zulkirs, and if so, which side the craftsman had been on.

"What do you think?" Gaedynn asked.

She turned to face him. As was so often the case, he seemed to be smirking at a joke that was opaque to everyone else, and his long red hair shined even on a gray, cheerless day.

"It's cleverly made," she said. "I've never seen anything exactly like it."

"It's good that you can appreciate such things," he said, "seeing as how we're likely to have them hurling death at us with some regularity."

She frowned. "You know we have no choice but to do what we're doing."

"Because two dead strangers and a funny old book said so, and then our captain suffered a hallucination."

"You know his visions come true."

"So far."

"Are you just babbling to hear yourself, the way you generally do, or are you actually thinking of running?"

He grinned. "If I did, honeycomb, would you go with me?"

"You know I owe Aoth everything."

"Whereas I don't. Honestly, I think he's lucky to have enjoyed the benefit of my services for as long as he has." Evidently glimpsing something from the corner of his eye, he turned. She looked where he was looking and saw Aoth straightening up from a red-robed corpse with a folded parchment in his hand. "Shall we go see what the old man's found?"

"You should sing," said Mirror, striding, flickering a little, effortlessly keeping pace with Bareris's steed. The ghost was merely a shadow in the deepening twilight, his form too indistinct to resemble anyone in particular.

Bareris's mouth tightened. He truly wished his friend well. He wished Mirror's mind could be clear every instant of every day. But it was at those times that the phantom became talkative, and the chatter sometimes grated on Bareris's nerves.

"I don't want anyone to take me for a bard," he said. That was why he'd left his harp behind when he and Mirror had split off from the army.

"There's no one but me to hear you," Mirror said, and he was indisputably right. The tableland atop the First Escarpment was even more blighted than the plains below. A traveler encountered hamlets and cultivated fields less frequently and saw even more gnarled, pallid flora and deformed wildlife. High Thay was bleaker still, as if Szass Tam's actual residence was a fountainhead of poison that lost a bit of virulence as it seeped down from the Citadel.

"Still," Bareris said, "I don't see a point."

"We're finally going to try to kill the creature you hate above all others, with the fate of the East-at a minimum-hanging in the balance. You must have feelings about that. Don't you want to express them?"

"I always feel the same, and singing doesn't help it."

That answer seemed to irk or discourage Mirror, and they traveled in silence for a time, the cantering gait of Bareris's steel gray mount eating up the miles. As best he could judge, the burly, misshapen beast was a cross between a horse and some infernal creature and seemed not to require sleep or rest.

In time, a crescent moon rose to reveal the black, rectangular shape of a tax station. It was no surprise to see it. Such bastions lined the Eastern Way. But Bareris scowled to behold the roadblock, even though they too were common. The soldiers garrisoning tax stations threw them up for any number of reasons, including extortion and simple boredom.

"It figures," said Mirror. "We passed through Nethwatch Keep without any trouble only to get stopped out here in the middle of nowhere. Unless you want to go around."

"No," Bareris said. "They've already seen us. If we just play our roles, they'll pass us through."

He thought it would work. He was wearing the trappings of a Thayan knight, plundered, like his demon horse, from the Dread Ring, and if that proved insufficiently convincing, he'd bring his bardic powers of persuasion to bear.

But as he rode closer, he saw that the soldiers manning the barricade were yellow-eyed corpses, all but immune to the sort of songs that addled the minds of the living. And when one of them recognized the outlaws who'd bedeviled Szass Tam's servants for a century, Bareris and Mirror had no choice but to fight.

So they did, and when they had finished with the soldiers at the roadblock, they broke into the tax station and slaughtered every creature within. Because no one must survive to report who'd perpetrated the massacre. And for a precious time, the exigencies of combat drove all other thoughts from Bareris's head.

When the fight was done, Mirror-who had at some point taken on the appearance of a gaunt, withered ghoul complete with fangs and pointed ears-frowned. "The authorities will likely blame the local rebels for this. They'll make reprisals."

"Good," Bareris said, then caught himself. "I mean, good if they don't even suspect that we were the ones who passed by in the night. Not the reprisals part."

Keeping low lest the moonlight glint on their armor or the saddles, tack, and packs slung over their shoulders, Toriak and three companions slunk toward the sleeping griffons. Fortunately, the winged creatures occupied a field somewhat removed from the rest of the camp. The zulkirs' soldiers were leery of the beasts, and well-trained though the griffons were, it would be stupid to keep them close to the horses whose meat they so relished. So, once Toriak and his companions crept clear of the smoky, crackling campfires and rows of tents, they didn't have to worry quite so much about being spotted.

Or so he imagined. But as he cast about for Dodger, his own beloved mount, a figure rose from behind the moundlike form of a different griffon. Gaedynn's long, coppery hair was gray in the dark, but his jeweled ornaments still gleamed a little. He nudged the beast before him with his toe, and it made an annoyed, rasping sound and stood up too.

"I don't remember ordering you lads to make a night patrol," Gaedynn said.

Toriak wondered if a lie would help, then decided it plainly wouldn't. He took a deep breath. "We're leaving."

"Remember the compact you signed when you joined the Brotherhood. You can leave between campaigns, not when we're in the field. Then it's desertion, and it's punished the same as in any other army."

"We already took plenty of loot from the Dread Ring," Toriak said. "It's stupid to hang around any longer."

A dark form reared up, and despite the gloom, he recognized its contours immediately. His voice had woken Dodger, and in all likelihood, the voices of his companions would rouse their particular griffons. He made a surreptitious gesture, hoping they'd understand he was encouraging them to talk.

"I take it," Gaedynn said, "that you don't credit the warning of impending universal doom."

Standing to Toriak's right, Ralivar snorted. "Things like that just don't happen. Not anymore. Maybe they never did, except in stories." His griffon raised its head.

"I'm skeptical myself." Casually, as though making some petty adjustment to his garments, Gaedynn laid an arrow on his bow. "But it would be embarrassing to bet that it isn't going to happen and then be proved mistaken."

"I'll risk it," Duma said. Maybe her griffon hadn't been asleep, or at least not soundly, for it rose to its feet at once. "It's better than fighting in the vanguard time after time."

"But that's what sellswords do," Gaedynn said. "More to the point, it's what we have to do in this situation. Because we're better than the council's troops, and only we can win the toughest fights."

"We don't care! Like Toriak said, we're leaving! Do you think you can stop us and four griffons too?" Sopsek half-shouted, making sure his mount would hear. Toriak winced at the loudness, but no answering cry of alarm sounded back in camp, and at least Sopsek's griffon did spring to its feet, cast about, and, like its fellows, come prowling across the field to stand with its rider. Sensing the tension between their masters and Gaedynn, the creatures glared at the latter, and the one steed crouched in front of him.

"I promise that at the very least, I'll stop a couple of you," Gaedynn said. He still hadn't bothered to draw his arrow back to his ear, much less aim it. "Would anyone like to volunteer to die first in the hope that his gallant sacrifice will aid his comrades-in-arms?"

To the Abyss with this, Toriak thought. He drew breath to order his mount to attack, shifted his grip on his saddle to use it as a shield against the officer's arrow, and then a huge shape emerged from the gloom at Gaedynn's back. Toriak hadn't noticed its approach because, unlike the other griffons, it was black as the night, except for eyes like lambent drops of blood.

Jet screeched, a cry like an eagle's scream with an undertone of leonine roar. The other griffons shrank back before the leader of their pride, then slunk away from their human masters.

"Now," said Gaedynn, "it appears to be two griffons and me against the four of you. Still like your chances? If not, I'd scurry back to camp before Aoth comes to find out what stirred up his familiar."

Gaedynn watched the would-be deserters until he was sure they actually were returning to camp. Then he scratched Eider's feathery neck and told her she could go back to sleep. The griffon grunted, shook out her wings with a snap that would have knocked him staggering if he hadn't seen it coming and stepped back, then lay back down in the dewy grass.

Gaedynn turned to Jet. "Thanks for backing me up," he said.

"Glad to," the familiar rasped. "Do you think more men will try to leave?"

"I hope not. With luck, those four will warn other malcontents that we're alert to the possibility. And speaking of them, I need another favor. Please don't tell Aoth they sneaked out here tonight."

"You don't want them punished?"

"They're good soldiers. It's just that they know we're in a tough spot, and they had a little crisis of confidence, possibly exacerbated by strong drink plundered from the Dread Ring's cellars. They'll rediscover their nerve in the morning. Besides, I have my own reputation to consider."

Jet cocked his aquiline head. "Your reputation for not caring about anyone but yourself?"

Gaedynn grinned. "Unkindly put! But something like that."

A chunk of rock and soil supporting a single pine tree floated just west of the Lapendrar, one of many such islets in the sky, raised by the Spellplague. It commanded a view of Anhaurz, so Khouryn and Aoth landed their griffons on top of it, dismounted, walked to the dropoff, and surveyed the city.

Khouryn reflected that despite the distance, Aoth's luminous sapphire eyes no doubt made out every detail with utter clarity. Squinting, Khouryn had a harder time of it but fancied he was seeing enough to draw conclusions.

After a time, Aoth said, "It didn't always look like that, but then, I remember hearing that the blue fire destroyed it. It's been completely rebuilt since then."

Khouryn dug his fingers into his beard to scratch an itch on his chin. "The question is, why? The civil war was over, and while this town commands the river crossing, it's also well inland from the edge of the realm. To say the least, the average lord wouldn't fortify it to the extent that this one-or his predecessor-has."

"Then I gather you wouldn't relish laying siege to the place."

Khouryn snorted. "You gather rightly. The bridge amounts to a castle by itself, and combined with the rest, it's as bad as the Dread Ring. Maybe worse." He grinned. "In other words, it's perfect!"

Aoth grinned back. "It's so strong that turning away from it won't call into question our resolve to reach the Ring in Tyraturos. We'll head southwest down the Lapendrar-for after all, the other direction would take us dangerously close to the Keep of Sorrows-looking for a place to ford."

"Which we won't find," Khouryn said, "because the spring thaw and the spring rains have swollen the river. Actually, we'll be headed toward the border even though it will look like we're still trying to march deeper into the country."

"Not bad, eh? We might actually make it out of Thay with a company left to lead."

"As long as the bard and the ghost succeed at their task, and then everything else works out. As long as we aren't still diddling around taking in our surroundings when Szass Tam sends forth his tides of death."

Aoth's smile turned wry and crooked. "You know, for a moment there, I actually felt my spirits lift."

Even in Szass Tam's own city, where his undead minions were ubiquitous and the living scurried like mice to make way for them, there were rebels, and Arizima Nathandem was their leader. In her youth, the Red Wizards had taken her as an apprentice, until a training exercise gone awry left her with a persistent stammer and the inability to recite spells with the requisite precision. Then they'd cast her out as a useless cripple.

At first agreeing with that judgment, she'd fallen a long way, her Mulan blood notwithstanding. She'd landed in a festhall and still worked there today, though age had long since wrinkled her face, whitened her hair, and stained some of her teeth and outright stolen the rest. Now she managed the house, and it served the rebel cause admirably. No one questioned it when people of all stripes came and went at any hour of the day or night.

She conducted Bareris and Mirror into a sort of mock torture chamber, equipped with soft leather whips, switches, blindfolds, gags, and restraints, but no implements likely to inflict permanent harm. Just toys to amuse a Thayan noble bored with ordinary forms of sexual congress.

Arizima sat down stiffly on the bed. "It's b-been a… long time," she said.

"Your circle wasn't fighting," Bareris replied. "Our time was better spent elsewhere."

The old woman scowled. "We sp-spy. We can't do anything more, not here at the heart of it all, or Szass… Tam's agents will swoop down on us like hawks!"

Mirror, who currently resembled a blood orc they'd passed in the street, inclined his head. "We understand that, Lady. My brother meant no offense."

Arizima cackled. " 'Lady,' is it? You'd think the b-bard would be the one with the golden tongue."

"You lead a band of our comrades," the phantom replied. "That makes you a knight, or as good as, in my eyes."

"Thank you," she said. "That's kind. Now, why have you… returned, and how can we help you?"

"Help us find a way into the Citadel," said Bareris, "so we can destroy Szass Tam."

Arizima peered at him as though looking for some sign that he was joking.

"I mean it," Bareris said, and, as clearly and convincingly as he could, he explained the lich's scheme and what he and his comrades intended to do about it.

By the time he finished, the old woman was shaking her head. "Tear down this world and put up a new one with himself as the only god? That's madness!"

"I agree," Bareris answered, "but the trouble is that it truly does seem like Szass Tam's particular flavor of madness. And while the zulkirs of the council doubt the ritual will accomplish its goals, they do believe it may well devastate Thay and neighboring lands."

"So after all our years of hoping and praying and trying to nibble away at the necromancers' reign, it's now or never."

"Yes. But the good part is that if our plan works, we'll have four archmages popping out at the lich to attack him by surprise. That's never happened before. The zulkirs were never willing to bet everything on this sort of gamble."

"All right," Arizima said. "I under… st-stand, and I want to help. I just don't know if I can. We've watched the fortress for decades, but the more you look, the more discouraged you become."

"I assume that it's still impossible for a mage to translate himself inside."

"Yes. I've seen demons try. They appear in midair looking like they ran headfirst into a wall."

"But what if I were to disguise myself with magic?"

"It won't work. There are wards to strip away illusions and shrouds of invisibility."

"Then what if I just walk in as though I have legitimate business inside? I don't look all that different from many other undead. I have the proper uniform and that 'golden tongue' you spoke of. And after all, it is the regent's palace. There must be people coming and going all the time."

"All the d-d-doorkeepers are undead, so you'd have trouble making your blandishments work on them. And if you did persuade them, they'd assign an escort to take you where you c-claimed you wanted to go."

"Curse it." At the periphery of Bareris's vision stood an X-shaped wooden stand with shackles to hold a prisoners wrists and ankles, and he had to resist a sudden urge to turn and give it a kick. Hoping it would calm him, he took a breath instead. "Very well, if neither magic nor pure brazenness will serve, that leaves skulking and climbing."

"Yes," Mirror said, "but not for you. Not yet."

Bareris frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"I can fly," said the ghost. The tusks and snout of the orc melted away, and his face became a murky semblance of the melancholy, mustachioed one he'd worn in life. "I have innate abilities to walk through walls and fade from view that Szass Tam's defenses may not affect, or at least, not as strongly as they'd cancel out a sorcerer's tricks. If things go wrong, I'll have a better chance of getting away. So let me try to slip inside by myself, and if I succeed, we'll both go in tomorrow night."

Bareris didn't like it. Now that they'd come this far, now that Szass Tam was only a mile away, the urge to press on burned like a fever inside him. But he couldn't deny that Mirror's idea made sense.

In the dark, the Citadel loomed like a bizarre, multi-bladed weapon raised to gut the moon. Like any castle worthy of the name, it stood at the center of a patch of open ground and had sentries patrolling the battlements.

Peering from between two of the buildings nearest to the fortress, Mirror watched the guards and timed them as they made their circuits. When he understood the routine, he waited for a gaunt, yellow-eyed dread warrior to trudge by, then darted forward.

He didn't advance invisibly, because even if such a trick would work for him, it wouldn't for Bareris. So he sneaked as he had in life when creeping up on an enemy. He stayed low, kept to the deepest shadows, and reached the foot of the outermost wall without incident.

He inspected the huge granite blocks and the mortared chinks between them. He doubted that an ordinary climber could scale the vertical surface unless possessed of exceptional skill. Not quickly enough, at any rate. Bareris, however, was inhumanly strong, remarkably agile, and knew charms to make himself stronger and more nimble still. Mirror judged that his friend could make it.

That meant it was time for him to do the same, before the next guard came tramping along. Alternately checking to make sure the minimal hand- and toeholds didn't run out and watching the crenellated wall-walk overhead, he floated upward.

With his head at merlon-height, he took another wary look around. This section of the battlements was still clear and, according to his estimation, should remain so for a little while longer. He rose until his feet were at the level of the walkway, then stepped through a crenel onto the ledge.

It was conceivable that if Bareris made it only this far, he could help Aoth, Nevron, and the others translate themselves into the Citadel. But the bard doubted it, and based on all that the past hundred years had taught Mirror about Szass Tam's wiles, he was inclined to agree. They assumed they'd need to cross the courtyard below, get past the inner wall, traverse a second bailey, and slip inside the towering central keep itself to have any hope of success.

Onward, then. Mirror took a step toward the inner edge of the walkway-since Bareris knew a charm to drift down to the ground unharmed, the ghost didn't need to bother with finding stairs, either-and a sudden jolt of pain froze him in place. At the same instant, pale light shined from the stones beneath his feet.

From the corner of his eye, he could just make out the crimson glyph that had appeared on the wall-walk three paces to his left. For a moment, he had a childish feeling that what had befallen him was unfair, because he hadn't actually stepped on the then-invisible sigil and wouldn't have expected it to affect a non-corporeal entity in any case. But he supposed that his predicament too, was an example of Szass Tam's cunning.

He strained to move, but paralysis held him fast. He silently called out to the god whose name he had never remembered but whom he nonetheless adored, and tried again. He took a tiny, lurching step, then a bigger one, and then the clenched, locked feeling fell away.

But at the same instant, figures as shadowy and poisonous as himself surrounded him. Perhaps the necromancers kept the murks, as such undead were called, caged inside the wall, or maybe the flare of light had drawn them; focused on breaking free of his immobility, Mirror had missed the moment of their advent. Before he could come on guard, the spirits scrabbled at him with long, wispy fingers, their weightless essence raking through his.

The attacks caused no pain in the physical sense, but they did something worse. Confusion and fear surged through his mind and threatened to drown coherent thought. Every day he struggled for clarity and purpose, for identity itself, and now the murks were clawing them to shreds.

He called to his deity a second time, and for an instant, his shadow-sword blazed with golden radiance. The murks withered away to nothing. Since they and he were made of the same unnatural foulness, the glow could just as easily have slain him as well, but it didn't. He'd learned to direct it, or perhaps it was simply the god's grace that enabled him to do so.

Something stabbed him in the back. He turned to see a corpse at the top of the stairs he hadn't bothered to locate before. The gaunt thing wore a mage's robe, and its sunken eyes glowed. Tattooed runes covered the exposed portions of its gray, rotting skin.

Mirror's mind still seemed to grind like a damaged mechanism. It look him an instant to recognize the thing as a deathlock, an undead wizard less formidable than a lich but troublesome enough. And the spells inked into its body would give it additional power.

The deathlock extended its hand, and darts of ice hurtled from its long, jagged nails. Mirror tried to block them with his shield but moved too sluggishly. Fortunately, the attack, magical though it was, passed harmlessly though his spectral body.

He charged the undead sorcerer before it could try again. He cut it and cut it until it tumbled back down the stairs…

Where it collided into the foremost of the blood orcs who were rushing up. Other figures were hurrying along the battlements. Atop one of the lesser keeps, a horn blew.

Plainly, it would be suicide to continue forward. Willing himself as invisible and intangible as possible-as close to utter emptiness as he dared-Mirror whirled, leaped off the wall, and sprinted back the way he'd come.

He didn't know how to tell Bareris their scheme was impossible. For warriors of his forgotten brotherhood, it was shameful to say such things; it was an article of faith with them that righteousness would always find a way. But he didn't know what else to say.