Unholy

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

Other creatures emerged from the gloom to menace Bareris. But fortunately, none were as formidable as the vasuthant, and one by one, he and Mirror killed them or put them to flight. Until finally, a basket arch appeared at the end of a stretch of tunnel.

They'd been seeking it so long that, for an instant, an irrational part of Bareris's mind didn't trust it to be real. He had a sense that it would vanish like a mirage as soon as he took another step.

But it didn't, and on the other side was a passage plainly created by artisans, albeit probably not human ones. The faded murals on the walls depicted lizardfolk carrying on the business of a civilization that looked as complex and advanced as any extant today. For an instant, Bareris wondered what calamity had reduced the reptiles to the primitive brutes with which he was familiar.

Maybe, he thought, one of their wizards had attempted the Great Work.

Mirror grinned. "You did it, my brother. You found a way in."

"We haven't done anything yet," Bareris said. "Stand watch while I try the next part."

He extracted five small, sealed silver vials from his belt pouch. Each contained a drop of blood drawn from Aoth, Nevron, Lauzoril, Lallara, or Samas Kul. Clasping them in his left hand, he sang under his breath to send a message. To establish a connection over hundreds of miles.

After a time, he felt the link establish itself, a sensation like a rope pulling taut. He concluded the first song and began another, cobbled together from the same tones, rhythms, and words of power that enabled a bard to shift himself instantly from place to place. Objects appeared to ripple and ooze as he undermined the integrity of the space in which they existed. Violet sparks fell from the air like snowflakes.

Aoth had found a battlefield to his liking. True, he and his allies would have the Lapendrar at their backs-no practical way of avoiding that-but a bend in the river would protect their right flank, and a patch of woods-and the archers Gaedynn would station there-should keep the enemy off the left. In addition, his side had claimed the high ground. True, it wasn't much higher than the surrounding grassland, but it might make a difference even so.

Once he was certain that Khouryn and the zulkirs' commanders were setting up the battle formation properly, he, Jet, and half a dozen of his fellow griffon riders flew out to take another look at the foe. As before, he found himself intrigued by the steel behemoth marching in the lead. So-Kehur, autharch of Anhaurz, looked like a scorpion with some additional limbs and a mask of a glaring human face attached, and he-if "he" was the right pronoun-was as huge as the undead octopus-things that had burrowed up out of the ground at the battle of the Keep of Sorrows.

His army looked nasty too. He had mounted lancers. Spearmen. Crossbowmen. Orcs, dread warriors, Red Wizards, and shuttered black wagons like coffins on wheels to carry entities unable to bear the sun. Their progress shrouded the marching columns in a haze of dust.

"Can we beat them?" asked Jet.

"Yes," said Aoth.

"Even though we're still torn up from the last fight?"

"Yes. Why the sudden doubts?"

"Because I get peeks at what's inside your head, O Mighty Captain."

Aoth snorted. "I'd be a fool if I liked the situation we're in. But that doesn't mean we can't handle it. I suspect this So-Kehur, who- and whatever he is, has no idea of the kind of power that four zulkirs-"

"Aoth…"

It was Bareris's voice crooning his name, and, startled, Aoth reflexively cast about to find the bard. For an instant, he saw him too, standing with Mirror in a corridor decorated with painted lizardfolk. Then the image melted away, exposing the mound of gray cumulus cloud behind it. A sense of connection, however, remained.

Aoth felt elated and disgusted at the same time, the former because Bareris had succeeded in his mission, the latter because the timing could scarcely have been worse. But there was nothing to be done about the when of it.

Responding to his master's unspoken desire, Jet wheeled and raced back toward the river. Aoth surveyed the battle lines on the rise, spotted four scarlet-robed figures-and the attendants who generally followed them around-toward the rear of the formation, and sent Jet plunging down to alight beside them.

"We have to go," said Samas Kul. Aoth observed that the transmuter had abandoned his floating throne. Once again, he wore a harness made of white light to help him carry his bulk around.

"I know," said Aoth, "but I need another moment." He dismounted, cast about, and found Khouryn already waiting to confer with him. The dwarf wore a leather arming cap but hadn't yet donned the steel helmet that went on top of it. "Bareris just called us."

"I figured that out," Khouryn said. "You're sure you need to go too?"

Aoth lowered his voice. "Someone should be there-someone besides Bareris and Mirror, I mean-who thinks that stopping the Unmaking is more important than saving his own skin."

Khouryn nodded. "I see that. Well, don't worry. The army could use all the magic you five are taking away with you, but we'll manage."

"I know you will."

"Now!" Nevron shouted.

Aoth turned. The zulkirs had moved apart to clear a space among them, and eight soldiers stood inside it. Aoth and Jet hurried to join them.

"Are you sure about this?" asked Aoth the griffon. "Stay here, and you can fight under the open sky."

Jet clacked his beak shut on empty air. It was one of several mannerisms the familiar used to expressed annoyance. "I already told you, I'm coming."

"Everyone, be silent!" Lallara snapped. She raised her staff, chanted words of power, and, one by one, the other archmages joined in.

The world shattered into chaotic points of brightness, and Aoth had a sudden vertiginous feeling of hurtling like an arrow shot from a bow. Translating oneself through space wasn't a part of his own specialized discipline, but other wizards had taken him on such journeys a time or two, so he was prepared for the sensation.

He wasn't ready for what happened next.

The travelers should have appeared before Bareris and Mirror as quickly as a hummingbird flicks its wings. Instead, they abruptly found themselves suspended in a gray void that, Aoth realized, was scarcely even a space in the truest sense but rather a condition of transition and indeterminacy.

He felt multiple pressures acting on him simultaneously. Something-the spell the zulkirs had cast, presumably-shoved him relentlessly forward. But he couldn't go forward, because something else-Szass Tam's wards against this form of intrusion-had him in its grip. Bareris and the archmages had weakened those defenses, but not enough, with the result that Aoth and his companions were like men trying to squeeze through a hole too small to accommodate them. The effect was painful and growing worse.

One of the soldiers screamed, and then, armor groaning and bones snapping, his body crumpled in on itself and disappeared. Perhaps, ejected back into the real world, the corpse had fallen to the ground somewhere outside the Citadel.

A second warrior's body compressed as if it were no weightier than a sponge. Blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils.

Lallara rattled off a spell of protection. The pressure holding Aoth in place abated, and he had a sensation of lurching forward. Then Szass Tam's defenses clamped down again, arresting him. Another bodyguard shrieked as magic crushed him like a grape in a press.

Lallara glared at Aoth. "Back at the Dread Ring," she said, "I saw you conjure a prismatic wall."

He didn't see how the spell could help them, but he was willing to follow her lead. The Firelord knew, he had no ideas of his own. "Where do you want it?"

"It doesn't matter! Just cast as many as you can."

The balance of pressures acting on Aoth's body was becoming more excruciating by the moment, but he managed to grit out the incantation with the necessary precision. Multicolored radiance flared from the point of his spear, but instead of forming the usual barrier, it arced over to Lallara and cloaked her decrepit-looking form in rainbows, which coruscated as she chanted words of command. Aoth inferred that since a prismatic wall was a defensive enchantment, she, with her mastery of that form of magic, could siphon its power to strengthen her own spells.

He cast another wall, then another, and she wrapped those around herself as well. Szass Tam's wards mashed three more soldiers to pulp. Then the gray space burst apart.

The surviving travelers materialized down the length of the corridor in which Bareris and Mirror awaited them. Aoth stumbled a step, then caught his balance. A warrior exclaimed at the sudden darkness, and, with a casual gesture, Lauzoril kindled a globe of floating silvery light.

Aoth grinned at Bareris. "Nice work."

"How do you figure that?" Samas demanded, shrill with displeasure. "We nearly died. Both my guards did die."

Nevron sneered. "You're a sad excuse for a zulkir if you need soldiers to protect you. But if you do, rest assured, we still have plenty." He made a sweeping gesture to indicate his own person with all its talismans and tattoos, and, by implication, the demons and devils caged inside them.

"We did experience an awkward moment," Lauzoril said, "but in my view, the scheme worked as well as we reasonably could have expected. All the important people made it through, and a few of our underlings as well. So I suggest we turn our attention to finding Szass Tam."

Bareris had hoped that the zulkirs could cast a divination to pinpoint Szass Tam's location, and in fact, Samas Kul tried. But for some reason, the magic simply indicated that the lich was somewhere above them. Since that took in the entire fortress, it wasn't much help.

Bareris struggled to quell a pang of impatience, to take solace in the thought that surely the lord of the Citadel couldn't be hard to find. The castle must be crawling with servants who kept track of his whereabouts, the better to meet his needs.

Lauzoril shrouded the company in an enchantment akin to some of the spells in Bareris's arsenal. With luck, it would beguile anyone who happened to see them into believing they were familiar faces with legitimate business in the catacombs. Then they started looking for the way up.

At first the trek was uneventful, with only the occasional scuff of a footstep, creak of leather, or Samas's wheezing to break the silence. Rumor had it that the dungeons were as haunted and dangerous as the caverns below, but it took a while for one of its denizens to reveal its presence.

Eventually, though, the intruders climbed a staircase and found themselves at a spot where two passages diverged from a common origin, and a murky painting of a farm without farmers or animals, its fields infested with tares and weeds, adorned a nearby wall. And suddenly Bareris's hackles rose as he sensed a hostile scrutiny.

He cast about but couldn't find the source of the glare boring into him. "Aoth?" he said.

The warmage peered around with his luminous, azure eyes. "Sorry. Even I can't see it. Which may mean that somehow, there truly isn't anything to see."

"I think it's a ghost," Mirror said, pity in his tone, "but terribly old and faded. It's forgotten nearly everything."

It was what Mirror might have become, Bareris supposed, if the two of them hadn't encountered one another in the Sunrise Mountains.

"I can sic a demon on it," Nevron said.

"It hates us," Mirror said, his resemblance to Bareris gradually bleeding out of his shadowy features, "but I don't think it has the power to hurt us."

"Then ignore it, and move on," Lallara said.

That sounded good to Bareris. He took a stride and felt the phantom shift position. Which was contrary to common sense, since he hadn't pinned it down to a specific location before. Yet even so, he somehow perceived a surge of movement, and then, though he still couldn't see it, his instincts told him the spirit had planted itself squarely in front of the procession.

"Does it think it can bar our path?" Samas asked.

"Whatever it believes," Lauzoril said, "I daresay we can walk right through it, and I see no reason why we shouldn't."

"Wait," Mirror said, his face oozing into a wavering mockery of Nevron's brutal features. "I sense it's trying to do something. Nothing harmful, just… something."

Slowly, as if the process required extreme exertion or concentration, a horizontal line scraped itself into existence on the painting of the deserted farm. The spirit then scratched a crude little arrowhead on the left end.

"It's pointing for us to turn around and go in the other direction," Lallara said.

"Because the ghost hopes to send us into harm's way," Samas said. "You said we should ignore it, and for once I agree with you."

"Wait," Mirror repeated. "I have a feeling it isn't finished."

For several moments, it seemed he was mistaken. Then, even more slowly than it had drawn the arrow, the haunt scratched a pair of letters above it.

Bareris felt a pang of excitement. " 'S. T.' Szass Tam?"

"How can it be?" Lauzoril replied. "The spirit has no way of knowing we're hunting the lich and no motive to help us even if it does."

"Unless it's trying to lead us into a trap," Samas said, "just as I warned you." His wand crawled out of his voluminous sleeve with its trimming of diamonds.

Bareris peered around and strained to listen as well. As far as he could tell, he and his fellow intruders were alone with the haunt. "I imagine Szass Tam could think of better ways to lure us if he wanted to. Ploys less likely to rouse our suspicions. And remember, we tried to enter the castle in a way that would keep him from noticing."

Samas snorted. " 'Tried' being the operative word."

"Maybe," said Aoth, "the spook has a grudge against Szass Tam. It would hardly be the first undead that a necromancer had ordered around against its will. In any case, I think we should follow its lead, at least for a little way."

"Even if this is a trap," Samas said.

"We dared to come here," the warmage replied, "because together, we should be able to overcome the worst our enemies can throw at us. Besides, if we haven't been as sneaky as we hoped, and Szass Tam does know we're wandering around in his cellar, we'll have to fight him on ground of his choosing eventually."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," Lauzoril said. He wore a dagger on his belt, and now he loosened it in its sheath.

Lallara and Nevron concurred with Lauzoril, and Samas grudgingly assented to the will of the majority. The intruders stalked in the direction the arrow pointed, past more dingy murals addressing the theme of a world devoid of people or beasts, with their guide's malevolent scrutiny wearing at them every step of the way. Whenever they came to an intersection, the entity contracted from a general miasma of loathing to a localized node of it to lead them in the right direction.

They found a pair of bodies, burned by some conflagration to clumps of half-melted armor, scraps of blackened bone, and ash. Then came a mural of an underwater scene without any fish in it. The haunt positioned itself in front of the painting as if to indicate they'd reached their destination.

"I can see runes on the picture," said Aoth, "but I'm not familiar with them."

"Describe them," Lallara said, and he did so. "Hm. The 'hand with an eye in the palm' is only there to unleash some sort of unpleasantness. Point to the others as I call them out. The 'triangle inside another triangle.' "

Aoth indicated the proper spot, and she rapped it with the head of her staff. For a moment, the sign glowed red.

So did the others as she touched them in their turns, and when she'd tapped them all, a latch clicked. The door concealed within the mural cracked open.

"Let me," said Aoth. He swung the panel a little wider and peered through. "It looks like a vault full of treasure." Spear leveled, he crept through the opening, and Jet lunged forward to place himself at his master's side. Everyone else followed.

At first, Bareris saw nothing more than Aoth had indicated: a big, dark room full of old and no doubt precious articles, intriguing under other circumstances but irrelevant to the task at hand. Then Aoth rounded a gigantic dragon skull with an axe buried in the top of it, pointed his spear, and spoke a word of command. A bolt of lightning crackled from the spear to strike at the threat he'd evidently spotted.

Bareris scrambled forward until he could see what his friend had seen, and then a shock of amazement, elation, and rage froze him in place. Szass Tam sat before them on a high-backed stone chair with arms carved in the shape of dragons and feet in the form of talons gripping orbs. Around it glittered a transparent, nine-sided pyramid composed of arcane energy.

It didn't look as though Aoth's lightning had hurt the lich, but one way or another, Bareris meant to do better. He shouted a thunderous shout. It rattled the sarcophagi and statuary and brought grit drifting down from the ceiling but didn't even appear to jolt the lich. Bareris drew breath to sing a killing song.

Szass Tam chuckled and shook his head. "This is unexpected to say the least. I hoped the Watcher would fetch someone to rescue me, but I never dreamed it would be all of you. Well met."

"'Well met'?" Bareris repeated. "'Well met'?" His fingers clenched on the hilt of his sword, and he started toward the figure in the pyramid.

"Easy," said Lauzoril at his back. "We're in no danger, nor is there a need for precipitous action. I daresay our vengeance can be as protracted as we care to make it."

Szass Tam nodded. "I assumed the former zulkir of Enchantment would recognize Thakorsil's Seat. Perhaps if you expound on its properties, you'll set your companions' minds at ease. Then we can all enjoy a civil conversation."

Lauzoril hesitated as if it felt wrong to follow the suggestion of a hated enemy. But then he said, "The Seat is a prison originally designed to hold the archdevil Orlex, and the presence of the pyramid indicates that at least the first ward is active. Szass Tam can't leave the chair or do anything to hurt us."

"Then… it's over?" Samas asked, incredulity in his voice. "He's helpless, and we can reclaim our dominions?"

"Before you start planning the victory feast," said the lich, "you might want to ask yourselves how I came to be in this predicament. Listen, and I'll explain."

25-28 Mirtul, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

When Szass Tam felt the backs of his calves slam against the hard stone edge, he realized that Malark's kick had hurled him staggering into the same artifact in which he himself had once imprisoned Yaphyll. He made a frantic, floundering effort to arrest his momentum and landed in Thakorsil's Seat anyway.

Instantly the nine-sided pyramid sprang into existence around him. It was still hazy; it looked as if it had been sculpted from fog instead of gleaming glass. It would hold a captive nonetheless but not for long. Not unless someone commenced the proper ritual.

Szass Tam had never taught Malark the magic or anything else about the Seat. But he suspected his lieutenant had somehow obtained all the necessary information anyway.

Malark murmured a charm to wash the acid from his body, then drank an elixir that partially healed his burns and blisters. Then he recited an incantation to send the mummies shambling back to their sarcophagi.

Meanwhile the force holding Szass Tam in place and in check attenuated. If Malark didn't start the ritual soon, he'd be able to act. And perhaps the spymaster wouldn't. He needed a mage pledged to the gods of light, and no such prisoner was in evidence. If Malark imagined he had time to scurry to another part of the catacombs to retrieve one-

But no. He didn't. Malark plucked a glass bead from the pouch on his belt and dashed it to powder against the floor. A skinny, naked young woman, gagged and with her hands tied behind her, appeared in a flash of ruddy light. The bead had held her shrunken and in stasis until Malark required her.

He thumped her on the back with the heel of his hand, paralyzing her, then lowered her to the floor. Employing his clawed yellow glove, he carved a pair of identical runes in her forehead, and the bloody symbols burst into flame. He chanted the opening words of the first of the rituals of twin burnings, and Szass Tam felt coercion clamp down hard. It would remain impossible for him to rise or cast a spell at the man before him.

He could still talk, so he shouted at Malark. Insults. Threats. Obscenities. Nonsense. Anything to shake his concentration. For if Malark made even the slightest error in either his incantations or his cutting, the rite would fail.

But that didn't work out, either. Szass Tam had trained his student too well, and when the former monk of the Long Death carved the last double sigil on the sacrificial victim's charred, torn corpse, and a rune briefly flared into visibility on one face of the pyramid, the lich knew the Seat could conceivably hold him forever.

"Perhaps I deserve this," he said, "for long ago, I resolved never to trust anyone, and I broke the vow with you. Still, I'd like to know why you've betrayed me."

"A moment," Malark croaked. The dozens of lengthy incantations had dried out his throat, and since he no longer required precise intonation, he was letting the rawness show in his voice. He unstoppered a leather waterskin and took several swallows. "There, that's better. Master, you do deserve an explanation. And I promise you, it's not that I've forsaken the dream we share."

"Then why?" Szass Tam asked.

"Well, for one thing…" Malark hesitated. "Your Omnipotence, ever since I joined your cause, you've been a generous friend and mentor to me. I've learned to admire your wisdom, courage, and vision. But you also embody the unnatural vileness of undeath. You're the last creature who should undertake the task of recreating the world."

"I intend," Szass Tam answered, "to make a universe unafflicted with suffering or death."

"I believe you." Malark closed his eyes for a moment, and some of the remaining burns on his body faded. He was using a technique he'd learned as a monk to speed the healing process. "But it wouldn't work out like that. It couldn't. The new world would reflect your fundamental nature and come out worse than this one. That's one of the reasons I'm going to perform the Unmaking in your place."

"That's absurd."

"Not really. You taught me most of your secrets-if you recall, you even let me read Fastrin's book. And I am a spy. With ninety years to poke around, I uncovered the rest of them.

"Which is to say, I've practiced the same preparatory meditations you have, and I can perform the ceremony. Confined to Thakorsil's Seat, you won't be able to interfere, and no one will turn up to release you. Not when you're sealed in a hidden vault in a part of the dungeons everyone shuns. Not when people don't even realize you've gone missing." Malark swept his hand from his shaven crown down the length of his torso, and his form became Szass Tam's, tall, gaunt frame, chin beard, shriveled fingers, and all.

"And so," Szass Tam said, "in preference to a lich, a traitor will shape the world to come."

"No," Malark said.

"What do you mean?"

"I told you you're unfit to ascend to godhood. It's true and justification enough to meddle in your plans. But there's a deeper reason. I worship Death, and I originally joined your cause because you told me your intent was to kill everything, including me. My desire for that perfect consummation hasn't changed.

"But I can't leave it to you to bring it about, because if I did, it wouldn't be perfect. One thing-you-would survive. I won't commit that blasphemy."

"If the master of the ritual dies with everything else, than there's no one left to spark a new creation."

Malark shrugged. "I only care about the moment of absolute and universal annihilation. Afterward, the void will either bring forth new forms or it won't. Either way, I won't be around to see, although truthfully, I rather hope it doesn't."

"I don't suppose I can dissuade you by pointing out that you're insane."

"That's like ice rebuking snow for being cold, don't you think? Now, I regret having to cut our conversation short, particularly since this is the last time we'll see one another-"

"You're mistaken about that."

"— but as you know better than anyone, I have matters to attend to. So I'll bid you farewell. I realize I haven't left you much of a vantage point, but I hope that even so, you'll be able to perceive a portion of the spectacle to come." Malark turned and walked away.

Szass Tam believed that one should never lose one's composure in the presence of an enemy, so he waited for the door to click shut and for another moment after that. Then he slammed his fist down on the arm of the Seat.

He'd always prided himself on his ability to read people. In the old days, he'd often gleaned the tenor of his fellow council members' unspoken thoughts, and they'd been as devious an assembly as the East had ever seen. How, then, had he been so disastrously wrong about Malark?

Well, in a very real sense, he hadn't been. He'd comprehended the essential nature of Malark's obsession. That was what enabled him to turn the spymaster and led him to believe he could trust him. He just hadn't realized how ambitious Malark would become in his efforts to serve the terrible object of his devotion.

In any case, it was useless to fret over the error now. Szass Tam had to find a way to free himself. After all, Yaphyll had done it. True, she'd had a lucky combination of circumstances to help her, but Szass Tam had his intellect. He assured himself that it would serve just as well.

First-as part of a methodical examination of all the possibilities, not because he thought it might actually work-he gripped the stone arms of the chair and tried to stand.

The Seat stabbed forbiddance into his mind, sparking fear, jumbling his thoughts, and opposing the will to rise with the compulsion to remain as he was. Defying the psychic intrusion, he kept trying anyway, but it was as if something had fused his body to the stone surfaces behind and beneath it.

He then tried to shift himself through space, off the Seat and beyond the confines of the pyramid. The chair attempted to deprive him of the will and the focus to do that as well. Once again, the psychic assault failed to shake him, and once again, it didn't matter. He suffered a kind of mental jolt as his prison held him fast.

He tried to speak to one of his captains up in the castle. He felt the magic, intended to carry the words like leaves on the wind, wither when it reached the inner surface of the pyramid.

He attempted to summon a demon, but no such entity appeared.

He sought to call the mummies forth from their coffins. They didn't heed him, either.

He hurled fire and lightning at the gleaming construct around him and at the massive stone chair beneath him, without so much as scratching either one.

He'd sometimes flattered himself that fear was a weakness he'd left behind the day he discovered his gift for sorcery. But he realized he was afraid now. With a spasm of annoyance, he pushed the useless emotion out of his mind. There must be a way out of this. He simply had to think of it.

With all his attention focused inward, he pondered for some time before the spiteful regard of the Watcher recaptured his notice. Even then, it took a while longer before it occurred to him that the entity could be anything more than a distraction.

He'd verified repeatedly that even when he managed to overcome the Seat's psychic interference and cast a spell, the pyramid dissipated the magic when it tried to pass through. That was why he hadn't been able to wake the mummies or summon a demon.

But the Watcher was inside the pyramid with him, and outside too. That was its peculiar nature, to be omnipresent within the gloomy crypts and passages that constituted its domain.

He spoke a spell of binding. His swirling hands left trailing wisps of scarlet light as he made the necessary gestures.

Perhaps the influence of Thakorsil's Seat kept him from casting as powerful a spell as he would have under normal circumstances. Or maybe the Watcher's diffuse and ambiguous nature made it particularly difficult to compel. Either way, when he spoke the final word, he sensed that he'd failed to hook his fish.

No matter. He was the greatest necromancer in all Faerun, and he would catch it. He took a breath and began again.

He soon lost count of how many times he repeated the spell. But at last, when even he had nearly depleted his powers, he felt the spell seize its prey and the ghost thrashing like a hare in the jaws of a fox.

"Enough," he said. "Whether you realize it or not, you crave oblivion, and I'm willing to give it to you. But only if you serve me to the best of your ability."

The spirit quieted. Its regard conveyed as much hatred as ever, yet even so, it had a different quality. Szass Tam sensed a sullen acquiescence.

The Watcher's submission allowed him to probe its essence and examine its qualities. In most respects, they were disappointing. The entity was incapable of leaving its haunts even under magical duress. It was too mindless ever to recover the power of speech, either to articulate the words that would dissolve the first rune or to communicate with someone who could.

But it still might be able to interact with the physical world to a limited degree. Szass Tam focused his will on it, reinvigorating the decayed capacity and reminding the ghost of its existence.

The process evidently hurt, for the spirit writhed. But he had it in his grip now, too firmly for it to escape.

"Now," he said, "you can make a mark." Leaning forward, he drew an arrow in the dust at his feet. "You can make this one to guide people here. Do you understand?"

He sensed that it did. Probably its people had used arrows to point directions when it was alive.

"If the arrow isn't enough to bring them, draw these." Szass Tam wrote his initials.

He assumed two letters were just about all the Watcher could manage. Even if the phantom had been literate during its mortal existence, it hadn't been in Mulhorandi, and it was unlikely that its tattered mind could retain as many unfamiliar symbols as would be required to spell out his entire name, let alone an even lengthier message.

He made the Watcher write the letters until it got them right about nine times out of ten. When further practice failed to improve on that, he told it, "All right. Use what I taught you, and fetch someone. Anyone."

The Watcher didn't leave. It was still glaring at him. But presumably its awareness also pervaded the rest of its environs and was ready to obey his commands.

Which left nothing for Szass Tam to do but try to believe that before time ran out, someone would come to this all-but-forsaken area and heed the promptings of an entity that knowledgeable visitors had long since learned to ignore.

19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)

"And my faith was not misplaced," the lich concluded, "for here you are."

Bareris laughed. It was the first time he'd done so in ninety years, and it hurt his chest. "Yes, here we are. But unfortunately for you, we're not as credulous as you hoped. Even if we were, we wouldn't believe your story, because some of us watched Malark die."

Unruffled by his foe's jeering attitude, the lich said, "I assume you mean during your siege of the Dread Ring in Lapendrar."

"Yes," Samas said, satisfaction in his tone. "I killed the wretch myself."

"Bravo," said Szass Tam dryly. "I'm not terribly surprised, for I ordered him to Lapendrar. But we all know of magic that allows a person to be in two places at the same time. As you likely recall, if I make the proper preparations, I can appear in several places simultaneously."

"Still," Bareris said, "your story's ridiculous. Malark's immortal and wants to murder the whole world, himself included, just because he loves Death and thinks it will bring him a moment of ultimate joy? I knew him for ten years and never saw a hint of any of that."

Aoth frowned. "But you know, I always sensed that he had his secrets, didn't you? And wild as it is, this story does explain why he would betray the southern cause, even though we were winning at the time."

"It would take someone as formidable as Malark to imprison the lich," Mirror said. At the moment, he was a shadow of the warrior he'd been in life. "And someone with a cunning mind and, most likely, a knowledge of sorcery to keep anyone from realizing Szass Tam was missing. Which his captor plainly has. Otherwise, we would have run into search parties."

Bareris clamped down on a surge of fury. Told himself that his friends weren't really betraying him, even though that was how it felt. "How can you believe a single word that comes from this liar's mouth? He'd say anything to persuade us to set him free."

"Of that," Lallara quavered, "I have no doubt. Still, Captain Fezim and Sir Mirror make a legitimate point. Preposterous as this tale may initially appear, it hangs together rather well."

Nevron threw up his hand in a gesture that, like nearly everything he said or did, conveyed contempt. Bareris caught a whiff of the brimstone smell that clung to the zulkir's person. "Fine. Let's say it's all true. Springhill isn't really dead. He's running around up in the Citadel wearing Szass Tam's face, and he intends to perform this 'Great Work' himself. That means we need to go kill him and make it stick this time."

The big man sneered at Szass Tam. "But it doesn't mean we need you. We came here prepared to butcher the master, so I'm sure we can handle the apprentice."

Szass Tam smiled. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But ask yourselves this: Suppose you meant to perform a lengthy ritual that every entity in the cosmos would want to stop if it understood what you were attempting. What would you do to keep others from interfering in your work?"

Lauzoril narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. It made him look even more like a priggish scholar. "I'd do my conjuring in some hidden sanctuary with potent defenses to fend off anyone who found me despite the concealment."

"Exactly," the necromancer said. "Malark's on the roof of the Citadel, except not really. He's in an artificial worldlet, a Chaos realm, that I created. He's attuned himself to the place and is more or less its god, so my menagerie of guardians will obey him."

"Hang on," said Aoth. "You're telling us that Malark has already gone into this stronghold?"

"By my estimation-it's difficult to judge the passage of time when you're sitting alone in a crypt-he entered and started the Unmaking a couple of days ago. Luckily for us, the ritual takes considerable time. But I imagine the first wave of annihilation will race forth in the not-too-distant future."

"It's all nonsense," Bareris insisted.

"None of us," said Szass Tam, "is quite the diviner Yaphyll was. But if you exercise your mystical faculties, you may detect a profound disruption building."

The zulkirs exchanged glances. Then Lauzoril and Nevron murmured charms. Their eyes became unfocused and their features slack as they gazed at something beyond physical reality. Meanwhile, Mirror breathed a prayer, evidently asking his god to grant him a glimpse of the unseen.

Then the ghost cried out as he had never done even when some undead horror was clawing him to tatters of ectoplasm. His murky form smudged beyond recognition.

"What did you see?" asked Aoth.

"Something fouler than I've ever seen before," Mirror answered. "Something truly unholy. I understand now what drove Fastrin mad. Why he was willing to slaughter us all to keep that… force from ever coming into existence."

Szass Tam sighed. "I meant to create paradise. Perfection. But now that Malark's perverting the purpose of the magic, I won't dispute your assessment. Now there's nothing to do but stop him."

Lallara glowered at Szass Tam. "Go ahead and tell us how to free you," she said. "It will save time later if we actually decide to do it."

"No!" exploded Bareris. "He's manipulating you! Drawing you deeper with every word!"

"Of course he is," Lauzoril said, blinking. "But unfortunately, that doesn't mean there's no validity to what he says."

"Which is that you'll never reach Malark without my aid," Szass Tam said. "Not in time."

Aoth looked at the figure under the gleaming pyramid. "Tell us how to transport ourselves to this 'Chaos realm.' What to expect and the passwords that will get us past whatever guardians there are. Afterward, we'll take it into account that you helped us."

Szass Tam laughed. "Of course you will! We zulkirs were always known for leniency and forgiveness."

Aoth scowled. "I'm not a damn zulkir."

"And you're not capable of keeping four of them from dealing with me however they desire, not even with the ghost and the griffon to help you."

"Curse it, if the eastern lands die, you die with them."

"Is that all you think will happen? You're mistaken, but never mind. The only real way to settle the question is to let the experiment proceed, and we all agree we'd rather not. Yet even so, I won't surrender my secrets."

"Because if you're going to die, you don't care what happens to anyone else."

The lich shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Believe what you like. But the fact of the matter is, there's no point in telling you anything if you're going to leave me in the Seat. Because you'll still fail. You need my knowledge and my power."

Aoth turned to Lauzoril. "Can you make him talk?"

"No," the zulkir replied. "Only the first rune is in place. It binds him to Thakorsil's Seat, but it would take all nine to divest him of his free will. In addition to which-"

"If you tell me no," said Aoth, "then I believe it. So I say we free him."

"I agree," Lallara said.

"Much to my disgust," said Nevron, "so do I."

"And I," Samas said.

Bareris raised his sword. "I'll kill the first person who tries."

Nevron snorted. "This situation grows more farcical by the moment." He swept his left hand through the start of a mystic pass, and the sapphire ring on his middle finger glowed.

Aoth grabbed Nevron by the wrist and yanked his arm, spoiling the gesture before it could unleash the demon or devil that would otherwise have sprung forth to attack Bareris. Plainly astonished that his former underling would dare, the zulkir gaped at him.

"Just wait, curse it." Aoth let go of Nevron and came closer to Bareris. He lowered his voice when he spoke again: "You can't do this. They'll only kill you if you try."

"The dream vestige already killed me."

"Don't play word games."

Mirror came to stand beside Aoth. "I understand how you feel," the phantom said. "But thousands of lives are at stake. Maybe even the life of the whole world, just as Szass Tam says."

I don't care, Bareris thought. But something kept him from proclaiming it aloud.

"You know this won't be the end of it," said Aoth. "We'll fight the lich before we're through."

"You don't know that." said Bareris, "and you don't know how it will come out even if we do. Right now, he's helpless. Right now…"

He saw that nothing he could say would sway them. That, much as it would grieve them, they would even fight him if he forced the issue.

Fine. Better to slay them or to perish at their hands than to do anything to aid the monster responsible for Tammith's destruction or to stand idle while anyone else aided him. No matter what was at stake.

Yet he knew that if Tammith were here, alive and uncorrupted by vampirism, that wasn't what she'd say. Knew too that Aoth and Mirror had been his friends for a hundred years, even when bitterness and undeath denied him the capacity to respond in kind. He pictured the young Bareris he'd conjured up to fight the vasuthant, regarding him with a kind of reproach in his eyes, and something tipped inside his mind.

He lowered his sword and stepped from between Szass Tam and the zulkirs to signal that the latter could do as they saw fit.

"Thank you for seeing reason," said the lich, and the remark jabbed Bareris like a taunt. "Now, this is the incantation to erase the sigil…"

As Szass Tam instructed the other archmages, Bareris fantasized that as soon as the crystal pyramid blinked out of existence, he'd rush forward and strike so quickly that neither the lich nor anyone else would have time to react. His limbs quivered, and he could virtually feel his legs sprinting, his arm swinging his sword.

He also prayed that everything the regent had said was a lie, just as he himself had maintained. That Szass Tam would leap from the Seat, laugh at their gullibility, and lash out at them, and they'd have no choice but to fight him after all.

But when the construct of solidified energy faded, Bareris didn't spring forward. And when Szass Tam rose, he didn't summon any wraiths or hurl blasts of shadow at his liberators.

He simply stretched and said, "Thank you. Shall we be on our way?"