Unholy

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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

Dangerous as plague spewers were, in Aoth's judgment, they were less so than beholders and far less so than Malark. So he lunged in front of one of the rotting giants with its twitching, snarling face, using the corpse as a wall to separate him from the rest of his foes.

Unfortunately, it was a wall that was just as intent on killing him as everything else on the mountaintop. It doubled over, opened its mouth impossibly wide, and puked up dozens of rats. Chittering and squealing, the rodents charged.

Aoth incinerated them with a flare of fire from his spear. Heedless of the blast, the plague spewer pounded forward right behind them. It had its enormous hands raised to grab, crush, and infect him, and its strides shook the ground.

Exerting his will, Aoth tried to seize it with the same magic that had failed to kill Malark. This time, he was more successful. Rotten hide splitting, muscles bursting and spattering slime, bones snapping, the plague spewer's body crumpled in on itself. More rats-the bulges that had scuttled ceaselessly under its skin-sprang clear of the demolition but, without the giant's will to guide them, made no move to attack.

The stink of charred rat hung in the air along with drifting flecks of ash. Aoth cast about, surveying the battlefield. Malark was circling right, so he dodged left. The maneuver brought him in front of a death tyrant. The bulbous creatures floated slowly, but they didn't need to close with an opponent to attack, only maintain a clear line of sight.

A ragged burst of shadow leaped from one of the death tyrant's eyestalks. Aoth dodged, but it washed over him anyway. He felt a stab of pain, but it faded after a moment. Most likely thanks to the wards Lallara had cast on him, the attack hadn't done him any actual harm.

He focused his will to strike back, then felt something else shaking the ground. He pivoted just in time to see the oncoming plague spewer flail at him with its fist.

He avoided the blow by lunging between the giant's legs, then drove his spear into its ankle and channeled power through the point. The joint exploded, half severing the spewer's foot and sending it reeling. It toppled into the path of another blaze of power from one of the death tyrant's eyes, and as it crashed to earth, the giant turned to stone.

The petrified corpse blocked that undead beholder, but by now, another had maneuvered into position. Two of its rotting eyestalks bowed in Aoth's direction. He reached for it with the pulverizing magic and managed to strike first. The pressure burst it like a boil, and viscera spilled from the ruptured husk.

Unfortunately, at that point, the crushing magic ran out of power, and it was questionable whether Aoth would have a chance to cast that or any spell again. Despite his best attempts to outmaneuver them, a dozen of his enemies, Malark included, had moved into positions from which they could attack him simultaneously. The only hope of avoiding the assault would be to jump over the cliff, and then Malark would either rain destruction down on him or go back to his filthy ritual.

Ah, well, Aoth had expected it would come to this. He'd needed a kiss from Lady Luck, as well as some of the best fighting of his life, to last as long as he had.

He leveled his spear at Malark for one last strike. But Szass Tam's protege brandished his staff, and his power stabbed through Lallara's wards. Nausea twisted Aoth's guts, and his legs buckled. The strength drained out of him all at once, and the head of his spear clanked against the ground. A plague spewer lumbered forward and stretched out its hand to seize him.

Then golden light flowered at his back. The radiance didn't hurt him. In fact, it quelled his sickness and started his strength trickling back. But it seared the plague spewer, melted one of its eyes, and sent it stumbling backward.

Aoth didn't have to look around to realize that Mirror had flown up over the mountaintop and had invoked the power of his god, and at that moment, Aoth no longer cared whether the intervention was sound strategy. He was simply grateful for another chance at life.

Malark smiled as if to acknowledge an opponent's sound play in some trivial game, then aimed his staff at a target-Mirror, presumably-in the air. At that point Jet plunged down on the spymaster like a hawk killing a rabbit.

The griffon dashed Malark to earth, but his talons didn't penetrate the human's armoring enchantments, nor did his plummeting mass snap the wizard's spine or even stun him. Malark immediately hit back with a chop to the side of the familiar's feathery neck.

Perhaps because Malark was on his back, the blow didn't land hard enough to kill. But it did jolt Jet to the side, which gave the former monk of the Long Death the chance to wrench himself out from under his attacker's claws.

Run! thought Aoth. You can't handle him by yourself. Jet's response was a pang of frustration and disgust, but as Malark rolled to his feet, the familiar lashed his wings and vaulted back into the air.

Lallara floated down from above to alight beside Aoth. She jabbed the ferrule of her staff into his ribs, and a surge of vitality swept the last of his weakness away.

"Thanks," he said.

"Get up," she snapped. "You have work to do."

"I suppose I do." He clambered to his feet and cast a thunderbolt.

Lallara too hurled attack spells but also conjured barriers of fire, stone, and spinning blades to hold back the enemy. Sometimes she even managed to drop such a wall right on top of one of Malark's servants, imprisoning it or tearing it in two. Mirror, who currently resembled a smudged caricature of Aoth, alternated between evoking bursts of divine light and battling with sword and shield. Jet repeatedly dived, attacked, and climbed back up into the sky, circling until he saw another chance to strike by surprise.

All in all, it was a fine display of fighting prowess, and yet it wasn't good enough. No matter how many of Malark's guardians Aoth and his companions destroyed, the creatures kept coming. Aoth never actually saw new ones popping into existence, but in time he decided that somehow the supply must be inexhaustible.

What was even more discouraging was that no attack seemed to damage Malark himself. Once in a while, a barrage of ball lightning or a blast of frost rocked him back on his heels, but afterward, he quickly returned to working his own magic, methodically dissolving Lallara's barriers.

Until a flying blade made of absolute darkness streaked down at him from above. Malark sidestepped the cut, then tapped the conjured weapon with his staff. The black sword vanished.

Then he looked up, and Aoth did too. Szass Tam was hovering above the mountaintop. Malark gestured and shouted a word of command, and a dozen death tyrants floated upward like bubbles to turn their virulent gazes on the lich.

That should have helped clear a path from Aoth's position near the drop to Malark's at the center of the high place. But when Aoth looked for such a route, it seemed there were just as many guardians blocking the way as ever.

He cursed, then sensed motion on his flank. He pivoted toward the onrushing plague spewer, and a thunderous shout blasted the head from its shoulders. As it toppled, rats swarmed from the stump of its neck. Meanwhile, Bareris finished hauling himself up onto the mountaintop.

"I'm glad you made it," said Aoth. The bard responded with a nod, drew his sword, and struck up a dirge. The eerie tones had no effect on Aoth but were apt to afflict a foe with weakness and confusion.

Nevron swooped down in the midst of a throng of demons that immediately hurled themselves at Malark's minions. Lauzoril arrived in a cloud of tiny floating daggers that darted from point to point like hummingbirds. Finally even Samas Kul, whom Aoth had judged the likeliest to flee, floated up into view with his quicksilver wand in his blubbery hand.

The other council members positioned themselves near Lallara, no doubt in the hope that her wards would protect them as well. Then they attacked. Lauzoril recited an incantation in his dry, clerkish voice, and three plague spewers started mauling one another. Growling words of power, Nevron summoned a ghour, a huge, shaggy demon with bull-like horns and cloven hooves, and the thing spat poison smoke at the enemy. Samas daintily flourished his wand, and a death tyrant turned to snow, its eye-stalks and globular body crumbling into a shapeless mound when it thumped down on the ground.

Surely now, Aoth thought, hurling darts of green light at Malark, surely now, he and his allies were strong enough to win. They had to be, because no more reinforcements were coming.

Yet he could see they weren't. Their combined might sufficed to offset Malark's but nothing more, and in time that strength would fade, as even archmages ran out of magic. Whereas Malark, if he truly was a kind of god in this place, would likely remain as powerful as ever.

"None of our spells are hurting Malark," said Aoth. "Those of us who are warriors need to get over to him and see if we can do any better with our blades. And do it now, before the tide turns against us."

Lauzoril arched an eyebrow. "Are you proposing to charge straight through the middle of all these undead?"

"Yes. You zulkirs will use your sorcery to keep the guardians off our backs, both while we advance and after we engage Malark."

Samas turned an onrushing plague spewer into mist. "Even with our help, I don't see how you're going to make it to Springhill. But you're right, we need to try something."

"That's the plan, then." Aoth turned to Bareris and Mirror. "Ready?"

The ghost flourished his sword, and warm light pulsed from the blade. Aoth felt a rush of confidence and vitality and inferred that he'd received some sort of blessing. "Now we are," Mirror said.

The enemy still had men positioned to flank the council's army. No doubt if given the opportunity, they'd make another attempt to advance into the trees. But they hadn't tried for a while, and Gaedynn had glimpsed motion behind the front ranks as their officers redirected a number of warriors elsewhere.

From that, he inferred that henceforth, his archers and skirmishers could probably hold this position without him. He set down his longbow and headed for Eider. Crouched back down in her hollow, the griffon was grooming herself, biting at the feathers she'd damaged flapping her wings among the low-hanging branches.

She jumped up when she realized her master meant to ride her. He swung himself into the saddle, strapped himself in, strung the shorter compound bow he used for aerial combat, then turned her away from the enemy, so no one would shoot her as she took off.

Picking up speed with every pace, Eider ran toward the riverbank, leaped, and soared over the black water. Gaedynn took a moment to savor the exhilaration of flight, then urged her higher. They wheeled and glided over the treetops so he could survey the battle as a whole.

Flashes of light-attack spells-leaped between the dark masses that were the opposing hosts. Then a chorus of battle cries howled from the one in the west, and the greater part of So-Kehur's army hurtled forward in what looked like an all-out effort to overwhelm the zulkirs' forces.

"Forward," Gaedynn said. He snatched arrows from one of the quivers buckled to his tack and loosed them at the charge as Eider dived into range. A skin kite flapped at him, and the griffon beat her wings, rose above the membranous undead, and ripped it to pieces with her talons.

The charge crashed into the defenders' spears and shields. As he nocked another shaft, Gaedynn peered, trying to determine if his sides formation was holding.

Some of it was. But, pincers snapping, tentacles lashing, and tail stabbing, a thing like a gigantic steel scorpion was tearing into the battle lines. Supposedly So-Kehur was a necromancer, fully capable of casting lightningbolts and the like, but Gaedynn supposed that a man didn't put on the shape of a beast unless he had a craving to kill like one.

He also supposed that it was up to him to keep the autharch from breaking the formation. It certainly didn't look as though anyone on the ground was having any luck. Touching a finger to the back of Eider's neck, he sent the griffon swooping lower.

Bareris sang to shield Aoth, Mirror, and himself behind barriers of fear. If it worked, even the undead should hesitate for an instant before striking at them, and an instant might be all they needed to dash on by.

The magic seemed to protect them for a few strides. Or perhaps it was the zulkirs' sorcery, blasting guardians out of their way or sending snarling demons to rend them with flaming halberds or jagged claws. Or Szass Tam's wizardry. So many death tyrants had drifted upward to surround the lich that it was almost impossible to catch a glimpse of him. Power flashed and crackled as they hammered him with their malignant gazes again and again and again. Still, hard-pressed as he was, he realized what his allies on the ground were attempting and hurled lightning and beams of searing radiance to aid them.

Then another undead beholder floated out in front of Bareris. Dripping slime, the big glazed eye in the middle of its body shimmered, and suddenly he couldn't remember why he was running.

He faltered, and the death tyrant jumped at him. Its jagged fangs snapped shut on his sword arm.

If not for his brigandine and the unnatural strength of his undead flesh, the bite surely would have severed the limb. As it was, the agonizing pressure nearly paralyzed him. But the pain cut through his confusion as well, and he used his offhand to yank his dagger from its sheath and stab his foe repeatedly in the central eye. He punched holes in it, splashing himself with cold jelly in the process, but the fangs kept clamping down relentlessly.

Mirror burned away a portion of the creature's body with a flash of holy light, but unfortunately, did not affect the mouth. Aoth lunged and thrust his spear into it, sparked a blast of power from the point, and the death tyrant burst into pieces.

Bareris cast about and saw that other guardians were already right on top of them. The things would almost certainly have overwhelmed them too, except that the next moment, one plague spewer turned into an iron statue, and a second simply vanished. Hunched creatures with hairless red hides and massive upper bodies pounced on a death tyrant, pressed their mouths against it as if to kiss it, and roared. The cries blasted craters in its body, and it fell.

Mirror turned to Bareris. "Are you all right?"

Bareris flexed his perforated sword arm. It ached but seemed to work. "Yes. Keep running!"

They did. A plague spewer scrambled in front of them and opened its mouth, no doubt to vomit rats. Jet plummeted down on top of the giant and clawed its head to shreds. The griffon then sprang back into the air and flew along above them, likewise racing in Malark's direction.

Eyes glittering, two more death tyrants floated toward them. Some invisible force exerted by one of the archmages slapped the creatures out of the way as if they weighed no more than puffballs. And then-to Bareris's surprise, actually-the way to Malark was clear.

The spymaster smiled at them with what looked like genuine fondness. "Nicely done." He raised his staff in a middle guard.

As Khouryn ran toward So-Kehur, a burst of fire splashed the arcing, stabbing metal stinger. One of the wizards had targeted a part he could hit without burning the soldiers trying to hold the autharch back with their jabbing spears.

Sadly, neither the magic, nor the spears, nor the arrows that griffon riders loosed from on high appeared to hurt So-Kehur. The gigantic scorpion-thing kept pressing forward, tentacles whipping to smash men's bones, pincers snipping them to pieces, stinger plunging to pierce them through. He would have broken the formation already, except that, like Khouryn, other warriors-sellswords, mostly-kept leaving their assigned positions to reinforce the point in danger of giving way, scrambling over the corpses of the men the necromancer had already killed as they rushed to take their places.

That mustn't continue, or the enemy would breach the weakened battle lines somewhere else. The defenders had to kill or at least repel So-Kehur and do it fast.

Khouryn pushed between two soldiers and charged the autharch. A tentacle whirled at his head. He ducked it and ran on underneath the scorpion body. Then he took a firm grip on his urgrosh and chopped at one of So-Kehur's eight legs.

The spindly limb wasn't as heavily armored as the massive steel body, and the axe blade dented it. Grinning, he chopped it again.

A tentacle slithered into view. But though So-Kehur had plenty of eyes, none were in his belly, and the arm had to grope for its quarry. Khouryn scurried to a different leg on the same side and bashed that one.

Then pain ripped through his skull. He gasped and fell to his knees. He told himself he had to get back up, to keep moving, but his head hurt so badly he could barely see. The tentacle found his ankle, coiled around it, jerked tight, and dragged him into the open.

A dozen illusory Malarks sprang into being around the genuine immortal. Bareris peered in a futile attempt to determine where he should actually strike.

"Follow my lead! "Aoth shouted. "I can pick out the real one!" He lunged and stabbed with his spear.

Malark sidestepped the thrust, and his counterparts copied the motion. He whirled his staff at Aoth's head, and the war-mage caught it on the shaft of his own weapon. The impact produced a flash of dark, malignant power and knocked Aoth off balance. Malark spun the staff into position for a follow-up attack.

Flowing from a parody of Aoth to his own true image as he lunged, Mirror cut and shattered one of the phantasms into nothingness. Despite Aoth's guidance, which by rights should have pinpointed the real Malark, the illusions were maddeningly deceptive. Bareris slashed and merely burst another.

It was Jet, with his ability to look through his master's eyes, who wasn't fooled. He dived from on high, and Malark had to give up his second strike at Aoth to leap out of the way.

Jet slammed on the ground between Aoth and Malark. Beak gaping, he lunged. Malark shifted to the side and jabbed his staff at the griffon's flank. Blackness seethed around the tip.

Mirror sprang in and, despite the confusion engendered by the doubles, somehow managed to catch the stroke on his shield. Power discharged itself with a bang. The ghost swung his sword in a low cut, and Malark and his likenesses leaped above the arc of the blow. The traitor spun his staff through the center of Mirror's body. Mirror shredded into wisps of shadow. Malark poised his weapon for another strike at the tatters, which didn't even constitute a recognizable human shape anymore.

Bareris shouted to jolt everything in a certain area, the real Malark and his illusions alike. Darts of turquoise light leaped from Aoth's spear, diverging in flight to strike multiple targets. He obviously realized that even if the phantasms couldn't fool him or Jet, he needed to get rid of them so his allies could fight effectively.

The illusions vanished. It didn't look as if any of the magic had actually wounded the one remaining Malark, but he faltered for just an instant, time enough for Mirror's form to fill in and become discernibly manlike again-still faceless, but at least possessed of limbs and a head-and avoid another attack by plunging into the solid ground beneath him.

Singing a battle anthem, gripping his sword with both hands, Bareris rushed in and feinted high. Malark didn't try to parry or dodge the false attack. He simply dipped his own weapon to threaten his adversary's groin and, when Bareris tried to block, whirled and smashed a back kick into his chest.

The impact would have killed a living man. Ribs snapped, and Bareris reeled backward and fell.

As he did, he caught a glimpse of the rest of the battle. Many of the guardians were still attacking Szass Tam, the zulkirs of the council, and Nevron's familiars. But some were turning their attention to the knot of struggling figures in the center of the mountaintop.

A pair of plague spewers rushed to take Malark's assailants from behind. One collapsed into a shapeless heap of carrion, as though its bones had melted. The horns now torn from its head, Nevron's ghour lunged, tackled the other, and bore it down to the ground.

A death tyrant floated down from on high. Still all but hidden in the midst of many such creatures, Szass Tam rattled off words in some sibilant Abyssal tongue. The undead beholder twisted its eyestalks to gaze at itself, then discharged flares of virulence into its own putrid flesh.

Plainly, though surely finding it a formidable task even to protect themselves, the archmages were trying their best to do the job Aoth had given them. And Bareris had to get back to doing his. Clenching his teeth at the grinding pain of his shattered ribs, he clambered to his feet, resumed singing his battle anthem, and circled to attack Malark from behind.

The spymaster whirled, parried the cut, then spun back around and swept the staff at Jet. The griffon ducked, and the staff simply brushed across the top of his skull. Still, that was enough to make him scream and send him stumbling backward. He lashed his head back and forth as though trying to clear it.

Malark pivoted to threaten Bareris, accelerating as he moved. He was fast when he started, but lightning by the time he finished. Bareris sprang back, and the staff fell short by the length of a finger joint.

Somehow Malark had cast an enchantment of quickness on himself without the necessity of chanting or mystic passes. Perhaps he'd carried the spell stored in a talisman, or maybe it was his rulership of this place that allowed him to invoke it so easily.

He threw himself at his two remaining adversaries, and his blows hammered at them like raindrops in a downpour. Even though Aoth and Bareris tried to flank him, they still found it impossible to attack. It was all they could do to parry and retreat.

Meanwhile, Bareris sang a charm to make Aoth and himself as quick as Malark had become. But he doubted he'd have time to finish, especially after the spymaster, plainly recognizing his intent, concentrated his attacks on him.

Then a mesh like a huge piece of spiderweb shimmered into existence on top of the former monk, tangling his limbs and gluing him to the ground. Bareris suspected Szass Tam had conjured it. As Malark's wards burned the sticky strands away, Bareris sang the last note of his own spell. His muscles jumped at the infusion of power. No doubt feeling it too, Aoth bellowed a war cry, thrust his spear at the spymaster, and they all fought on.

Bareris wanted to believe he'd done more than postpone the inevitable. Surely it mattered that he'd canceled out Malark's advantage. And that Mirror was rising from the earth to reenter the fight. And that Jet, the feathers on his head soaked with blood, was bounding forward to do the same.

Surely the four of them could surround Malark and cut him down. It wasn't as if the bastard couldn't die. He'd done it once already, when Samas had buried him in molten lead.

But back in the Dread Ring, Malark hadn't been a god. In this place, he avoided nine strokes out of every ten, and the one that landed glanced harmlessly off his protections. Meanwhile, he struck back with dazzling speed and showed no signs of slowing, unlike Aoth and Jet, whose chests heaved and whose breaths rasped.

We're going to lose, Bareris decided. And he could think of only one mad ploy that might conceivably change that dismal outcome.

He raised his sword over his head, opening himself up, and charged Malark. Trailing tendrils of crackling shadow, the traitor's staff whirled to meet him, and he did nothing to parry or avoid it. It smashed into his torso, and everything disappeared.

Jhesrhi dashed toward So-Kehur, never mind if it looked odd for a decrepit, hobbling hag like Lallara to sprint. At this point, stopping the steel scorpion was more important than maintaining her masquerade.

She pushed between two spearmen and obtained a clear view of all of So-Kehur, not just the part that loomed above the heads of ordinary people. At the moment, the scorpion-thing was no longer ripping into the formation, but only because he'd paused to deal with a foe who'd emerged from it to attack him. One of his tentacles was dragging Khouryn out from underneath him.

The dwarf still had his urgrosh in his hands, but he wasn't moving, and Jhesrhi couldn't tell if he was alive. If so, he wouldn't be for much longer. Not unless someone diverted So-Kehur's attention.

Drawing on her own strength and the power that other mages were lending her to aid her impersonation, she spoke to the earth, and stones thrust up out of the dirt. Then she married her mind to the wind and made it an extension of her will, like an extra pair of hands.

The wind screamed, snatched up the rocks, and hurled them at So-Kehur's various eyes. Any natural creature reflexively protected its sight, and she prayed the autharch possessed the same instincts.

One missile cracked the opalescent left eye in the mask that passed for the scorpion-thing's human face. Another snapped a writhing antenna with an optic gleaming at the end.

Still clutching and dragging Khouryn, but for the moment no longer concerned with him, So-Kehur turned to face his new attacker.

Bareris hadn't slept since becoming undead, but violence could smash the awareness out of him, and he supposed that must be what had happened. Sprawled on his back, his torso ablaze with pain, he groggily tried to lift his head. Then, trading attacks, Aoth and Malark passed through his field of vision, the sellsword captain retreating and the immortal pushing him back.

The sight of them sparked Bareris's memory. He, Aoth, Mirror, and Jet had assailed Malark and found themselves outmatched. So, depending on his unnatural hardiness and recuperative powers to help him weather the assault, he'd allowed the former monk to land a solid blow with the staff, charged with destructive power though it was.

Remembering, he froze. His desperate gamble would fail if Malark realized he'd survived.

Although it was possible it had already failed no matter what. He'd expected injury, pain, but not agony like this. What if he could no longer move, or at least, not fast enough to make his plan succeed?

He thrust doubt out of his mind. Malark was the last obstacle on the path to Szass Tam, and after waiting a hundred years for vengeance, he'd clear the way no matter what. He just had to lie perfectly still, watch the fight through slitted eyes, and wait for Malark to set a foot in the right place.

Finally, the immortal did. Bareris snatched with both hands, grabbed Malark's ankle, and squeezed with all his might.

The bones didn't crack. Malark's mystical defenses prevented it. But Bareris had him anchored.

Its tip shrouded in writhing shadow, the staff of murky crystal stabbed down repeatedly. Still maintaining his grip, Bareris wrenched himself back and forth in an effort to keep the blows from landing squarely.

They did anyway, each jolt of torment so intense that for that moment, it was as though nothing else existed. But he managed to hold on nonetheless, and then the assault stopped. Aoth, Mirror, and Jet had rushed to surround Malark, and he lifted his staff to defend against them.

The spymaster could no longer retreat, only duck, sway from side to side, and parry. It should have made a difference, but his weapon flicked from guard to guard with impossible speed and precision, blocking one attack after another.

A death tyrant floated toward the struggle, and, sensing the threat, Jet whirled, leaped, lashed his wings, and threw himself at the creature. Malark's staff swept through Mirror's shadowy form, and the phantom flickered as though tottering on the edge of nonexistence. The staff then leaped to deflect Aoth's stabbing spear, the parry nearly knocking the shaft out of the warmage's hands.

Bareris didn't think he could squeeze any harder, but he tried anyway. Drawing on his hate and rage, he crooned a malediction.

Malark's ankle cracked, and his body jerked. The staff stopped spinning and leaping from point to point.

Already glowing, the head of Aoth's spear flared like a lightningbolt, while Mirror's blade changed from a splinter of darkness to a light as bright as the sun. The two warriors hurled themselves at Malark, and their weapons punched all the way through the immortal's torso, the spear with an audible thud and a splash of blood, the sword silently and cleanly.

The staff fell from Malark's hands to clink against the stony ground. For a moment, he looked astonished. Then he smiled, laughed, and more blood drooled from his mouth. "Thank you," he breathed. "I wish you could see it too. It's everything I…" His knees buckled, and he fell.

The jagged crown floated up off his head, and the staff too rose into the air. Bareris realized Szass Tam must be drawing them to him. They were likely the instruments that had given Malark control of this artificial world and had made him nearly invincible, and were apt to prove more powerful still in the possession of the archmage who'd actually created them.

Bareris sucked in a breath and bellowed with all his remaining strength. The rod and diadem shattered like the crystalline things they were.

A hurtling stone tore another eyestalk away. Jhesrhi wondered if she actually could blind So-Kehur.

Then a sort of chill stabbed into her head, and none of her wards, potent defenses against sorcery though they were, did anything to prevent it. The cold numbed her, dulled her, and the determination to fight faded into a dazed and hopeless acquiescence. She told herself she had to resist, but the thought was just babble that failed to engage her will.

The coldness in her mind commanded her to release her hold on the wind, so she did. The rocks fell and thumped on the ground. It ordered her to walk forward, and she did that too.

So-Kehur spread his pincers. At her back, soldiers shouted for her to turn around and run. She had a vague sense that it would be nice if she could.

As Malark dropped, Aoth jerked his spear out of the corpse and, panting, pivoted to look for other threats. One of Bareris's thunderous shouts spun him back around, just in time to see the noise smash the spymaster's levitating staff and crown into glittering powder.

At that point, the death tyrants and plague spewers simply faded away. Evidently the talismans had maintained the endless supply of the filthy things.

Their sudden disappearance made the mountaintop seem strangely quiet and empty, although a handful of Nevron's demons-limping, mangled, and gory-remained. The zulkirs of the council now spread out along the edge of the drop. And Szass Tam hovered high over everybody else.

The lich looked down at the minute shards and dust that were all that remained of his tools. "I put a lot of work into those," he said. "But perhaps it doesn't matter anymore. Particularly if we're all willing to be sensible."

"Meaning what?" Lallara rasped. Aoth realized that despite the distances involved, no one needed to shout to make himself heard. No doubt some petty magic helped the voices carry.

"The Unmaking will never happen now," Szass Tam said. Aoth risked a glance skyward and saw that, in fact, the churning vileness was gone. "We're all tired, in some cases wounded, our magic largely exhausted. And perhaps we've had our fill of revenge, killing the man who, at one time or another, betrayed each and every one of us. So I propose we go our separate ways. I promise you and your legions safe passage out of Thay."

Bareris took hold of the sword he'd dropped when Malark had struck him, and clambered to his feet. He stood partly bent at the waist as though still in pain. But his voice was steady as he said, "Never in this world or any other."

"I'm inclined to concur," said Lauzoril, still at the center of his cloud of little darting knives. "You wouldn't suggest such a thing if you didn't recognize that we have you at a profound disadvantage."

"Don't be so sure," the necromancer replied. "In particular, don't be certain that it's all of you against the one of me." He shifted his gaze to Aoth.

Aoth took a breath. "Actually, it is."

"Even though your sellsword band and the friends who help you lead it are on the brink of destruction? I'd gladly order So-Kehur to break off the attack."

Aoth couldn't fathom how Szass Tam even knew about the battle by the Lapendrar, let alone that the invaders were in trouble, but his instincts told him the lich had spoken the truth. Still, he answered, "I trust the Brotherhood to pull through somehow. I mean to stick by the friends who need me here."

"You won't be doing them a favor. Have you forgotten they're undead, and I'm the world's preeminent necromancer? If obliged to fight, the first thing I'll do is turn them into my puppets and force them to kill you."

Bareris straightened up somewhat and smiled wolfishly. "Try."

"Yes," said Mirror, "do. I may perish in this place. A warrior runs that risk in any battle. But I have faith it won't be as your slave."

Szass Tam kept his eyes on Aoth. "Rancor is clouding their judgment," the necromancer said. "Don't let it cloud yours. Remember that your employers plan to kill you."

Aoth paused to give the zulkirs a chance to respond to the charge. None did, at least not in the moment he allowed them. It was sufficient time for an honest denial, just not enough to compose a convincing lie.

"I'll deal with that when the time comes," said Aoth. "You tried to murder the whole world. You have to answer for it."

Szass Tam sighed. "Do I? Well, if you all feel-"

Aoth abruptly saw that the undead wizard was making mystic gestures with his left hand. "Watch out!" he shouted.

Szass Tam flung out his arm, and a mass of shadow exploded into being, with vague demented faces appearing and dissolving in the murk. Growing longer and taller as it traveled, it hurtled at his foes.

Those who'd charged Malark were closest to the effect, and it was rushing at them so fast that even as Aoth leveled his spear, he felt a sick certainty that it would hit before he could cast a spell. But Mirror drew another burst of radiance from his sword, Lallara spat a word of forbiddance, and the wave shattered into nothingness as though it had smashed itself against an invisible mass of rock.

Meanwhile, Lauzoril hurled a dagger at a target too distant and high above the ground for even an expert knife thrower to hit.

Except that the blade flew like an arrow, not a dagger, and turned to crimson light an instant before piercing the lich's body. "Fall," Lauzoril said. And Szass Tam plummeted to earth.

Gaedynn often remarked that if the gods had meant for him to go within reach of his enemies' swords and axes-or in this case, tentacles, claws, and stinger-they wouldn't have made him the finest archer in the East. But his arrows weren't hurting So-Kehur, the scorpion-thing was dragging Khouryn around on the ground, and now Jhesrhi, still disguised as Lallara, was advancing entranced toward her adversary's pincers.

Gaedynn sent Eider diving toward So-Kehur, meanwhile switching out his bow for a falchion. The griffon slammed down on the autharch's head, above the human mask, and, wings extended for balance, managed to cling to the smooth, rounded steel. Up close, the scorpion-thing smelled of the gore of the men he'd slaughtered.

"Rip!" Gaedynn shouted. What he actually wanted was for Eider to break away So-Kehur's remaining eyestalks. She wouldn't have understood such a specific command, but she was in the right place for her raking talons to snag them. He leaned to the right and smashed at one himself.

Mainly, though, he watched for So-Kehur's counterattack. The arms supporting the pincers didn't look flexible enough to reach him, but after an instant, the gigantic stinger whipped up and over.

"Go!" Gaedynn touched his heels to Eider's flanks. The griffon leaped clear and lashed her wings. Behind her, metal clanged.

Gaedynn climbed, turned his mount, and grinned to see what they'd accomplished. Most of the remaining eyestalks were gone. There was even a gap between two of the curved plates comprising So-Kehur's head. Either Eider's talons had caught in a crack and pulled them apart, or the autharch's own stinger had stabbed down and poked a hole.

Looking puny, almost vestigial, compared to the pincers, tentacles, and stinger, So-Kehur's manlike arms and hands swirled in a complex pattern. Gaedynn's momentary satisfaction soured into apprehension as he realized the necromancer was about to cast a spell. He hoped it would be something Eider could dodge.

Then So-Kehur lurched off balance, and Gaedynn saw that the tentacle that had gripped Khouryn no longer had anyone at the end of it. The dwarf had evidently come to, freed himself, scrambled back under the scorpion, and resumed chopping at the legs.

No longer mind-bound, Jhesrhi brandished her staff and cried words of power. The wind howled and threw stones. The big opal eyes in So-Kehur's mask shattered.

Spearmen shouted and advanced, weapons jabbing, and So-Kehur wheeled and scuttled away. Gaedynn started to pursue, but a zombie owl as big as Eider swooped down at him, and he had to fight it instead.

Szass Tam smashed down on the mountaintop, then immediately tried to rise. Bareris shouted, Aoth hurled a crackling lightningbolt from the point of his spear, and Mirror drew a pulse of searing light from his sword. One of the zulkirs caught the lich in a booming blast of flame, and another-Samas Kul, presumably, although Bareris would have had to look around to be certain- turned the ground under him into sucking liquid tar.

Assailed by so much magic all at the same instant, Szass Tam nearly vanished in the flash. When it faded, his robes were charred and shredded, and so was his flesh, portions stripped entirely to reveal the bone beneath.

Yet he still moved as though his muscles and organs had merely been a mask whose loss failed to hinder him in the slightest. He planted the butt of his shadowy staff on top of the tar, heaved his feet up out of the sticky mass just as if his prop were made of solid matter, then turned the ground to rocky earth again. He pulled off a scrap of loose, blackened flesh dangling over his left eye and raised his staff above his head.

He surely meant to conjure with the staff, but a hyena-headed demon twice as tall as a man charged him and struck down at him with a greataxe, and he had to use the implement to parry. A floating thing like the shadow of a jellyfish followed just behind the brute with the axe, and then several other creatures, all of them equally grotesque, appeared. Plainly, Nevron had no intention of allowing Szass Tam to cast spells without interference.

And Bareris couldn't bear to let the familiars tear at the lich while he stood back. He sprinted toward the knot of struggling figures, and Mirror bounded after him. Aoth cursed as though he thought the two of them were doing something stupid, and maybe they were. But it was impossible to care.

Moments later, something rustled over Bareris's head. He glanced up and saw Aoth and Jet flying toward Szass Tam and the demons. The warmage evidently hoped height would give him a clear shot at their foe.

Bareris and Mirror dashed up to the circle of roaring, flailing demons. The ghost's lack of a solid form allowed him to slip through the press without so much as a pause. But Bareris had to halt mere strides away from the action.

He shivered with the mad urge to cut down one of demons just to clear a path. Then the hyena-headed giant reeled backward. Its eyes were on fire, and snakes had grown out of its chest and were biting it repeatedly. Its huge axe floated in the air, hacking at those opponents who tried to come at Szass Tam from behind.

Bareris lunged into the space the blinded demon had vacated. Singing a song of hate, he cut at Szass Tam's chest.

The blow glanced off. Szass Tam thrust his staff at his new attacker. Darkness stabbed from his eyes into Bareris's head. For a moment, Bareris couldn't see or think. But he still felt the exaltation of his rage, and when it ebbed, his battle anthem brought it surging back, and it broke the grip of the confusion.

He cut again, and again failed to pierce Szass Tam's armoring enchantments. The necromancer whispered words of power, and some of the demons pivoted to attack their fellows. He waved his hand, a ruby ring on a withered finger flashed, and a dozen wounds split the hulking body of a furry, gray-black, bat-winged creature as though invisible blades had hacked it from the inside. A flourish of the shadow staff made darkness seethe and divide into manlike silhouettes.

Bareris felt a sudden pang of fear that, though it scarcely seemed possible, he and all his formidable allies were going to lose. Then Mirror lunged and plunged his insubstantial sword through Szass Tam's body.

At first Szass Tam scarcely seemed to feel the violation. Then both the blade and Mirror himself flared, bright as the sun, and the lich cried out.

Bareris had seen his comrade channel the power of his god before, but never so much of it, because it was dangerous. No matter how worthy a champion Mirror might be, no matter how faithfully he adhered to his ancient code of chivalry, the divine light was inherently antithetical to his undead condition.

And equally poisonous to Bareris. The radiance burned him even though he wasn't the target. It might do worse if he dared step any closer.

But he didn't care about that, either. All that mattered was that Szass Tam stood transfixed and vulnerable. Singing, he hurled himself at the lich.

The light was agony, but the pain didn't balk him. Rather, it seemed to feed his fury. He cut and cut, and the strokes plunged deep into Szass Tam's body, cleaving what remained of his flesh and splintering bone.

Until the radiance died. Bareris looked and saw that Mirror had simply disappeared, like a flame that had burned out.

Bareris felt a pang of grief. Then skeletal fingers grabbed him by the neck.

"He's gone to his god," Szass Tam croaked. "You go to your woman."

The lich's fingers simultaneously cut and pulled. Bareris felt tearing pain, a nauseating whirl of vertigo as his head tumbled free of his body, and then nothing more.

His tongue smarting because he'd chewed it during his seizure, Chumed put his foot in the stirrup. But before he could hoist himself onto his charger, he spotted So-Kehur scuttling toward him though the confusion of other warriors in retreat and the reserves trying to push their way forward against the tide.

From the looks of it, So-Kehur's scorpion body had taken a considerable beating. Chumed tried not to feel too pleased about it. That sort of spite could be dangerous, given that the lord he served possessed psychic sensitivities.

"Did you see?" So-Kehur cried. He spoke as if he no longer even remembered striking Chumed down.

"No, Milord. I was… indisposed until just a few moments ago."

"I almost killed Lallara herself! I had her in my grip!"

Almost. The boast of the weak and stupid.

"I wish I had seen it," Chumed said. "But I have tried to assess the overall progress of the battle, and it appears to me that our assault isn't breaking the stalemate. For that reason, I still advise-"

"Where are my artisans? I need new eyes, a patch, and any other repairs they can make quickly. Artisans!" So-Kehur lowered himself onto his belly, no doubt so the craftsmen could reach his upper surfaces. He had a breach between two of the plates on the back of his head.

"Do I take it that you plan to rush back into battle?" Chumed asked.

"Of course!" So-Kehur said.

"Of course." Chumed clambered onto the autharch's back.

One of So-Kehur's remaining eyestalks twisted its optic in his direction. "What in the name of the Black Hand are you doing?" the necromancer asked.

"I see a broken piece dangling. If I pull it free, that will save the artisans a moment."

"Oh. Well, in that case-"

Chumed whipped his sword from its scabbard and thrust the point into the gap between the plates. The blade punched into the silver egg housing So-Kehur's brain.

The scorpion-thing convulsed. Chumed leaped off its back. A flailing tentacle missed him by a hair, and then he landed. Awkwardly. Momentum hurled him to one knee.

He sensed the huge steel body rolling toward him. He scrambled up, ran, lunged out from under it just in time to avoid being crushed, then turned to see what it would do next.

It gave a rattling, clattering shudder, then lay inert.

Other officers had come hurrying to attend So-Kehur. Now they stood frozen, gaping at their master's body and his killer.

Chumed raked them with a glower. "I'm in command now," he said. "Does anyone dispute that?"

Apparently, no one did.

"Then pull our men back! Move!"

For a heartbeat or two, Aoth clung to hope. After all, he'd more than once seen Mirror wither to the verge of nonexistence only to reappear. And after becoming undead, Tammith had twice survived decapitation.

But this time the ghost had vanished so utterly that not even spellscarred eyes could spot a trace of him, and dark wet patches cut through the bone white flesh of Bareris's severed head and body as ninety years' worth of deferred corruption flowered in an instant.

Anguished, Aoth realized that at least his friends' deaths freed him to hurl his most potent spells at Szass Tam without fear of hitting them as well. He didn't care about Nevron's remaining demons, because they no longer posed a threat to the lich. It was all they could do to fight the fiends that had fallen under Szass Tam's control and the phantoms he'd shaped from the fabric of the night.

Aoth aimed his spear and rained gouts of fire down on the necromancer's head. The zulkirs hurled flares of their own power.

The magic tore the demons apart and seared the shadows from existence. It reduced Szass Tam to little more than a blackened skeleton, but a skeleton who kept his balance at the heart of the blast.

His rings, amulets, and other talismans glowing with crimson light, Szass Tam turned his empty orbits on Samas Kul. The lich brandished the shadow staff, and a huge pair of fanged jaws appeared in the air in front of his former ally. The apparition shot forward, caught Samas in its jagged teeth, and chewed him to bloody pieces, all so quickly that the fat transmuter only had time for a single, truncated squeal.

Aoth conjured a flying sword to hurtle down at Szass Tam, who somehow sensed it coming, parried it with his staff, and dissolved it without even bothering to glance upward. An instant later, another fiery blast cast by one of the zulkirs rocked the lich. It tore away some of his ribs, but that didn't seem to trouble him, either.

He stared at Lauzoril. "You fall," he said, the words clear even though his lips had burned away. "All the way to the bottom."

Lauzoril's face twisted, and he shuddered. Then he turned, ran, and hurled himself over the edge of the cliff.

Nevron finished snarling an incantation. A goristro, a demon somewhat resembling a colossal minotaur, appeared in front of him. Running on its hind feet and the knuckles of its hands, it instantly charged Szass Tam.

The lich pointed his staff and spoke a word of power. The demon turned to glass and, off balance, toppled. It shattered with a prodigious crash.

Nevron started another incantation. Szass Tam turned his fleshless hand palm up and made a clutching gesture. The demon master fell, and a second Nevron, made of insubstantial phosphorescence, appeared standing over the body. For once, he didn't look angry or contemptuous but astonished.

Szass Tam recited rhyming words, and Nevron's ghost shrank into a pudgy creature only half as tall, with grubs wriggling in its open sores. Aoth just had time to recognize it as a mane, the weakest and lowliest form of demon, slave to every other. Then it vanished, probably to the Abyss.

Lallara whispered, and a wall of rainbows shimmered into being between Szass Tam and herself. "On further consideration," she panted, "I do wish to take advantage of the truce you offered."

Szass Tam laughed. "Sorry, Your Omnipotence. But you and your allies insisted on this fight, and now I intend to finish it. There aren't going to be any more zulkirs in exile to plot against me."

He hurled a ragged burst of shadow. The rippling colors in Lallara's barrier grayed when it splashed against them, and then their brightness blazed anew.

Grimly aware that there was hardly any power left in it, or in him, for that matter, Aoth aimed his spear to hurl a lightningbolt. Lallara glanced up at him. "Come here," she said.

"My attack spells won't pass through your wall," he said.

"Now!" she snapped.

Maybe she had a plan. He sent Jet winging in her direction. Meanwhile, Szass Tam hurled another murky blast against the shield. This time, it took longer for the colors to reassert themselves, and when they did, they were softer than before.

Jet and Aoth swooped over the failing defense and landed by Lallara. Despite its sagging wrinkles, her crone's face looked taut with strain.

"What do we do?" asked Aoth.

She reached in a pocket, extracted a silver ring, and tossed it to him. As soon as he caught it, he felt the nature of the spell stored inside it. Under normal circumstances, it would enable the user to translate himself and a companion or two through space.

"Will this work now?" he asked. Maybe she'd figured out that with Malark's crystal diadem and staff broken, it would.

"We couldn't win," Lallara gritted, "even if it did. But I've spent my life afflicted with idiots and incompetents, and you were never either. Go live if you can." Szass Tam threw his power at the wall of light, staining and muting the colors, and cracks of inky darkness snaked through them. Lallara cried out as though she herself were breaking and stamped the butt of her staff against the ground.

The world seemed to fly apart, then instantly reform. Aoth and Jet found themselves still under a black sky, but one with more stars shining in it. They still perched on a high place, but a smaller one, with merlons running along the edge and other towers rising beyond. Lallara had evidently observed how to open the door between realities when Szass Tam did it, and she used the knowledge to return her surviving allies to the roof of the Citadel's central keep.

Aoth felt a clench of anger. Given the choice, he wouldn't have abandoned her.

Yet underlying the anger was a guilty relief that he had no idea how to return himself to the battlefield, for after all, she was right. They had no hope of beating Szass Tam. Maybe at the start of the fight it had been otherwise, but then the scales tipped against them.

"What now?" asked Jet.

"Fly out over the city," said Aoth. "The direction doesn't matter."

Once they passed beyond the confines of the castle and its wards, he invoked the magic of the ring.

The world shattered and reassembled itself yet again, and then he and the griffon were soaring above the gleaming black expanse of the Lapendrar. They flew west, over the ranks of their own army, and saw that the autharch's host was withdrawing.

Aoth felt some of the tension drain out of his body. This battle at least appeared to have gone about as well as anyone could have expected. Now, if only Szass Tam didn't come after him!

And in fact, when he peered around, he couldn't see any sign of such a pursuit. He supposed it made sense. He and his companions hadn't succeeded in destroying the lich, but surely they'd hurt him badly enough to make him think twice about starting a new fight with an entire army, spent and bloodied though it was. Especially considering that, as he'd made plain, it was the zulkirs he chiefly wanted to kill.

Aoth surveyed the ground and spotted Jhesrhi, Khouryn, and Gaedynn standing together. Responding to his unspoken desire, Jet furled his wings to land beside them.

Gaedynn grinned at the new arrivals. "You missed all the excitement."

Aoth dredged up a smile of his own. "Well, maybe not all of it."