chapter ten
16 Eleint—4 Marpenoth, the Year of Blue Fire
Samas Kul impaled a link of venison sausage on his knife, lifted it, and smelled its spicy aroma. His stomach squirmed, and he discovered that even though he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and it was now mid-afternoon, he wasn’t hungry. The realization startled him, as if he’d looked down at his hands and discovered they’d turned green.
He supposed that last night’s debacle was responsible for his loss of appetite. Most of all, the horrible moment when he’d ventured to the front of the battle formation to confront the cloud-thing.
He hadn’t wanted to, but he’d judged that only a zulkir could destroy the thing. Because plainly, none of the lesser Red Wizards, nor Burning Braziers hurling gout after gout of fire, were having any luck against it.
So he raised his power and attempted to turn the entity into an enormous lump of stone. But it didn’t transform. Rather, it reached out and caught him in a dark, swirling extension of itself, and a terrifying intimation of dissolution ripped through his body and mind alike. He barely managed to cling to sufficient lucidity to activate the magic of the tattoo that whisked him to the Central Citadel.
Looking older than usual, and for once, shaken rather than ill-tempered, Lallara had appeared shortly thereafter, and then other Red Wizards capable of translating themselves across long distances. Samas realized that if they too were forsaking the field, the battle was surely lost, not that he’d had much doubt of it before.
Scowling, Nevron marched into the council chamber and took his seat at the table. He was the last to arrive at a conclave that, the zulkirs had decided, only they would attend, and not all of them at that. Like Yaphyll’s, Dmitra Flass’s chair was empty. No one knew what had become of her, only that she hadn’t transported herself back to Bezantur with the rest of her peers.
“Let’s get to it,” Nevron growled. “I summoned the high priest of Bane this morning. I thought he might care to explain yesterday to me. The son of a dog sent his regrets. He claims to be ill.”
Lauzoril’s thin lips twitched into a grim and fleeting smile. “That sounds plausible. Living as he does in a great temple, where would he possibly find a healer?”
“What does this mean?” Samas asked.
“Either that he fears to face my displeasure,” Nevron said, “or that he imagines he can flout my commands without consequences.”
“When your devils drag him forth screaming,” Lallara said, “you can ask him which it is.”
“I hope that day will come,” Nevron said, “but for now we have graver matters to address. What was that new creation Szass Tam sent against us?”
Zola Sethrakt cleared her throat. The slight stirring made her white and black jewelry clink. “My assistants and I,” she said, “have been reading the grimoires and journals the griffon riders took from the sanctuary of the creature called Xingax. In one passage, he describes such an entity, although it doesn’t seem that he had any intent of creating one himself. He thought the process would be difficult, and that it might prove even harder to control the thing.”
“But obviously,” Lallara said, “Szass Tam dared, even with sorcery weakened and unreliable.”
“Yes. Xingax called the entity a dream vestige.”
Samas snorted. “‘Vestige’ seems a puny word to describe anything so dangerous and immense.”
“I suppose,” Zola replied, “but that’s the name he gave it. It’s somewhat similar to a creature known as a caller in darkness, which is made of a number of spirits melded together. A dream vestige begins as hundreds of nightmares gathered, combined, and infused with the energies of undeath. It grows by devouring any being possessed of a mind.”
“Is it as impervious to magic as it seemed?” Lauzoril asked.
“Not entirely,” Zola said. “But even though we could see it, it isn’t a physical entity. Intangibility gives even a common wraith a measure of protection, and this creature has strong additional defenses. So, with wizardry diminished. …” She shrugged her bony shoulders, and her necklaces and bracelets clattered.
“We’re lucky,” Samas said, “that it only existed for a while. Maybe Szass Tam will prove incapable of making another, or maybe he’ll lose control of it if he does. Maybe it will eat him.”
Zola sighed. “I’m sorry, but it didn’t cease to exist. A dream vestige can pass back and forth between the physical realm and what I infer is some sort of demiplane of dreams. When Szass Tam judged that it had done all he required, he sent it there.”
“To keep it from slipping its leash and getting into mischief,” Nevron said, “like a conjuror keeping an elemental in a ring or bottle. I’m familiar with the concept. So, you’re telling us he can call the thing forth whenever he feels the need, and that it will grow bigger and stronger every time it kills somebody.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Our luck is a wondrous thing,” Lallara said. “There are two schools of wizardry, divination and illusion, that make a study of dreams, and those are the two zulkirs we lack. Yaphyll went over to Szass Tam, and Dmitra is missing.”
“I suspect,” Lallara said, “Dmitra, too, has betrayed us. Remember, at one time, she was Szass Tam’s most devoted minion, and she urged us to fight at the base of the cliffs.”
“With a god endorsing her point of view,” Lauzoril said.
“Are you sure?” Lallara asked. “Dmitra is the zulkir of Illusion. Perhaps she tricked us into believing the Black Hand spoke to us.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Lauzoril said, “because that would make it Szass Tam and two other zulkirs against the rest of us. But let’s stay focused on the lich’s new servant. We no longer have a wizard with a special understanding of dreams in our company. But we do have an authority on undeath.”
Zola’s mouth tightened. “If you’re asking me if I know how to stop the creature, Your Omnipotence, I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”
Lallara sneered. “Zola Sethrakt at a loss. How astonishing.”
“Perhaps,” Lauzoril said, “since the dream vestige is a form of undead, the priests can destroy or at least repel it.”
“Don’t count on it,” Nevron said. “I watched Iphegor Nath and a circle of his acolytes try and fail. I detest that arrogant whoreson, but he’s the best of his breed. He always has been.”
“The Order of Abjuration,” Lallara said, “can try to devise a ward to hold the dream vestige back. Although if it can jump back and forth between this world and some astral realm, that makes the task more difficult.”
“Perhaps it’s time,” Lauzoril said, “to ask ourselves whether it even matters if we can devise a defense against the dream entity.”
Nevron glowered at him. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
“Reluctantly,” the zulkir of Enchantment replied, “but someone has to say it. We just lost the greater part of our military strength.”
“We have other troops,” Nevron said.
“Who are out of position to confront the horde of undead that is surely racing south, and too few to stop it even if they could. Because somehow, Szass Tam has raised a vast new army when it should have been impossible. He and his necromancers also appear to have discovered how to make wizardry reliable again while the solution still eludes us. In short, the lich holds every advantage.”
“I don’t care,” Nevron said.
“Nor does it matter to me,” Lauzoril responded, “what your pride obliges you to do. But I don’t intend to die struggling to cling to my position in a realm that mostly lies in ruins anyway. Not if the cause is hopeless.”
“It may be that Szass Tam would offer us terms,” Samas said.
Lallara laughed. “Now that his victory is at hand? He’d butcher you and feed your bloated carcass to his ghouls before you could even blink.”
“Even if he was inclined to be merciful,” Lauzoril said, “I’d prefer a comfortable life in exile to subservience.”
Nevron shook his head. “I won’t give up.” But for the first time in all their long acquaintance, Samas heard a hint of weakness and doubt in the conjuror’s voice.
“No one has to flee yet,” Lauzoril said. “We can keep searching for a way to turn the situation around. But we’ll also make preparations to depart, and take comfort in the fact that, whatever resources Szass Tam may possess, he doesn’t have ships, and some forms of undead can’t cross open water.”
“Very well,” Nevron said. “I suppose that’s reasonable.” He turned his glower back on Zola, studying her, and his mouth tightened. He stroked the hideous face tattooed in the palm of one hand and muttered under his breath.
A creature resembling a diseased satyr appeared behind the conjuror’s seat. Open sores mottled its emaciated frame. It had horns and a head like a ram, but with seeping crimson eyes and pointed fangs. Its serpentine tail switched back and forth, scraping a cluster of metallic spines on the tip against the floor. It clutched a huge spear in its four-fingered hands. Nevron pointed, and it oriented on Zola.
The necromancer jumped out of her seat. “What are you doing?”
“It’s only a bulezau,” Nevron said, “not all that powerful for a demon. A true zulkir shouldn’t have any trouble defending against it.”
The tanar’ri leveled its spear and charged.
Zola shouted a word of power and swept her hand through a mystic pass. Swirls of jagged darkness spun from her fingertips to fill the space between the bulezau and herself. The demon lunged in and stuck fast like an animal caught in brambles. Zola grabbed a bone-and-onyx amulet.
The bulezau vanished from the shadowy trap and appeared behind her. She sensed it, started to turn, but was too slow. It raised its spear high, rammed it into her torso, and the force of the blow smashed her to the floor. The bulezau threw itself on top of her, clawed away hunks of flesh, and stuffed them into its mouth. The rattle of the jewelry on her flailing limbs found a counterpoint in the snapping of her bones.
Samas swallowed and wondered if he would even be hungry at suppertime.
“If this really is the end,” Nevron said, “I’ll be damned if I meet it in the company of a useless weakling claiming to be my equal and looking to rule our shrunken dominions along with the rest of us.”
Samas noticed that Kumed Hahpret had turned an ashen white.
If the war had taught the people of Thay anything, it was that horrible entities were apt to come stalking or flying out of the dark. That was why Aoth approached the walls of Mophur wrapped in a pearly conjured glow that also enveloped Brightwing, and with a fluttering banner of the Griffon Legion tied to the end of his spear.
Even so, crossbow bolts flew at him from the battlements. One struck his shoulder with stinging force but glanced off his mail.
“Bareris!” he shouted. The bard was better able to communicate over a distance.
“Stop shooting!” Bareris called. “We fight for the council. Look carefully at Captain Fezim and you’ll see.”
More quarrels flew. Brightwing screeched in anger. “Go away!” someone yelled.
Aoth flew Brightwing away from the walls and waved his spear for his fellow griffon riders to follow. They landed beside the High Road, near the mounted knights and men-at-arms who’d fled south with them. The griffons were so tired that they didn’t even show signs of wanting to eat the horses. Some wounded, heads hanging low, the equines were in even worse shape. One charger toppled sideways, dumping its master on the ground, writhed once, and then lay still.
While he flew, the kiss of the wind had kept Aoth alert, but on the ground, he suddenly felt weary enough to keel over himself. He invoked the magic of a tattoo to clear his head and send a surge of energy into his limbs. It helped, but not a great deal. He’d already used the trick too many times.
“What’s wrong?” asked the knight at the head of the column. Aoth tried to recall the man’s name and rank, but couldn’t dredge them out of his memory.
“Apparently,” said Aoth, “the autharch of the city doesn’t want to let us in.”
“He has to!” said the knight. “Now that it’s dark, Szass Tam’s creatures will be on our trail again.”
“I know,” said Aoth. “Bareris and I will talk to him.” He found a sycamore growing near the road, chopped off a leafy branch to signal he wanted a parley, and he and the bard walked their griffons toward the city’s northern gate. Currently resembling an orc with a longbow, Mirror oozed into visible existence to stride along beside them.
As they came near enough to the gate for Aoth to converse without shouting at the top of his lungs, several figures mounted the crenellated wall-walk at the top of it. The flickering light in the grip of a torchbearer was inadequate to reveal them clearly, but Aoth’s fire-infected eyes had no difficulty making them out.
One was Drash Rurith, autharch of the city. Aoth had met him a time or two. Gaunt and wizened, he hobbled with a cane, and looked so frail that one half expected the weight of the sword on his hip to tip him over. But there was nothing feeble or senile in the traplike set of his mouth.
Beside him stood a younger man. Judging from his dark gauntlet and the black pearls and emeralds adorning his vestments, he must be the high priest of Bane’s temple in Mophur. Where Drash looked unhappy but resolute, like a person determined to perform some unpleasant task and be done with it, the cleric smirked and had an air of eagerness around him.
The other eight men were guards, some clad in the livery of the city, the rest sporting the fist-and-green-fire emblem of the Black Hand’s church.
“Milord autharch,” said Aoth, “it’s a relief to see you. Your servants apparently doubt my identity, or that we all owe our fealty to the same masters. I come to you with a number of the council’s soldiers at my back. We need shelter and food.”
“I regret,” said Drash, “that Mophur can’t assist you. The city is already full to overflowing with country folk who fled here when the war, the earthquakes, or blue fire destroyed their homes. I need all my resources to tend to their needs.”
“I understand your situation,” said Aoth. “But you can at least spare us water from your wells, and a length of street on which to unroll our bedding.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“If I must, I demand it in the zulkirs’ names.”
The high priest spat. “There is only one true zulkir, and his name is Szass Tam.”
Aoth stared at Drash. “Does this priest speak for you? Have you switched sides?”
“I only say,” the old man replied, “that, to my sorrow, it isn’t practical for Mophur to accommodate you at this time.”
“You’d better be sure of what you’re doing.”
“We are,” said the priest. “Do you think we don’t know that Szass Tam smashed the army of the south? We do! The Lord of Darkness revealed the truth to his servants, and now we understand that the lich’s triumph is inevitable, and likewise in accordance with the will of Bane. Those who act to hasten that victory will thrive, those who seek to thwart it will perish, and when Szass Tam claims his regency, the earth will stop trembling and the blue fires will burn out.”
“Do you truly find this mad rant convincing?” asked Aoth, still speaking to Drash. “You shouldn’t. I actually saw Bane appear to the council and give them his blessing. Kossuth and the other gods of Thay stand with the south as well. I’ll admit, we lost a battle beneath the cliffs, but we’ve lost them before. It doesn’t mean we’ve lost the war.”
“I regret,” said Drash, “that Mophur cannot help you at this time. I wish you good fortune on the road.”
Speaking softly enough that the men above the gate wouldn’t hear him, Aoth said, “Can you charm the bastard into letting us in?”
“No,” Bareris said. “I pretty much exhausted my magic during the battle. Even if I hadn’t, I doubt I could beguile the autharch with the priest standing right there to counter any enchantment I cast.”
“I was afraid of that. Curse it, we need what’s inside those walls, but I don’t know how to get it. I don’t have any magic left, either. Knights are pretty much useless in situations like this, especially with their horses dropping dead underneath them. The griffons have a little strength left, enough to fly over the walls. But even if they weren’t exhausted, we don’t have enough riders with us to take a city. We don’t even have any arrows.”
“Don’t worry about taking the city. Let’s take the gate, right now, the three of us.”
“Five,” Brightwing said.
“We just rode up out of the dark,” Bareris said. “Most of the town guards have barely gotten themselves out of bed. They’re making their way to the battlements to drive us off if need be, but they aren’t there yet. Let’s strike before they’re ready.”
Mirror frowned around his jutting orc tusks. “We stand before this gate under sign of truce.”
“The autharch has betrayed his oaths to the council. He isn’t an honorable man.”
No, thought Aoth, we’re Thayan soldiers, not followers of some ancient and asinine code of chivalry. Although in fact, the ghost’s objections gave him an irrational twinge of shame. “Our comrades are going to die if we don’t get inside these walls. That will weigh heavier on my conscience than sinning against the supposed meaning of this stick in my hand. But I won’t ask you to help if you feel otherwise.”
Mirror changed from an orc into a murky, twisted semblance of Aoth. “I’ll stand with my brothers and seek to atone afterward.”
“Then let’s do it,” said Aoth. He dropped the sycamore branch, and the weary griffons beat their wings and heaved themselves into the air. Sword in hand, Mirror followed.
Someone atop the gate cried out in alarm. Quarrels flew, and Brightwing grunted and stiffened, the sweep of her wings faltering. Because of their empathic link, Aoth felt the stab of pain in her foreleg. “I’m all right!” she snarled.
They plunged down on top of the battlements. She bit, and her beak tore into a guard’s torso. Aoth twisted in the saddle and thrust his spear into one of the warriors pledged to Bane. From the sound of it, Bareris, Winddancer, and Mirror had reached the walkway and were doing their own killing, but Aoth was too busy to look around.
Someone roared a battle cry and charged him. It was Drash Rurith, cane discarded and sword in hand. The blade glowed a sickly green, and perhaps the enchantments sealed inside it were feeding the old man strength and agility, for he moved like a hunting cat.
Occupied with another foe, Brightwing couldn’t pivot to face Drash. Aoth was on his own. Drash feinted a head cut, slashed at his opponent’s chest, and Aoth parried with the shaft of his spear. The impact jolted through his fingers. He struck back with a thrust to the belly, but Drash twisted out of the way, then rushed in again. The head of the spear was behind the autharch now, and he was plainly confident that he could drive his sword into Aoth before the griffon rider could pull his long weapon all the way back for another jab.
But Aoth simply whirled the spear in a horizontal arc as if it were a club, and the shaft took Drash in the side. Teeth gritted, exerting every iota of his strength, Aoth kept shoving, threw the autharch off balance, and pushed him staggering through a crenel and off the walk.
A city guard attacked immediately thereafter. Aoth speared him in the guts, and then had a moment to look around.
What he saw was less than encouraging. His comrades were holding their own for the moment, but other guards were running along the battlements toward the gate, with even more scurrying on the ground just inside it, about to climb the stairs on either side.
“Let’s kill the ones down below!” Brightwing snarled.
“I suppose somebody has to,” Aoth replied, and she leaped down into the mass of soldiers, smashing two or three to the ground beneath her.
She ripped with beak and talon, and he thrust with his spear. For a few heartbeats, it was all right, but then a blade sliced the same foreleg the crossbow bolt had pierced, and afterward Brightwing couldn’t use it to claw or even support her weight.
Sword strokes hit Aoth as well, and though his mail kept them from doing more than bruising the flesh beneath, that luck couldn’t hold indefinitely. He heard himself gasping, felt the burning in his heaving chest and the exhaustion weighting his limbs, looked at the feral faces and upraised weapons hemming him in all around, and decided that his time had come. After all the perils they’d survived, he and Brightwing were about to die trying to take a stupid gate in a drab little market town that was supposed to be on their side.
Then scraps of darkness fluttered down from above. They attached themselves to several of Aoth’s foes, and he realized they were enormous bats biting and clawing at human prey. Startled by the unexpected assault, the warriors of Mophur broke off their furious assault to flail and fumble at the creatures sucking their blood.
The guards so afflicted either collapsed or turned tail. The bats abandoned them to whirl together and become a pale, raven-haired woman in black mail. Mirror floated down from the top of the gate to stand beside her.
The remaining guards decided they no longer liked the odds. They ran, too.
Tammith nodded to indicate the gates. “Let’s get these open.”
Aoth climbed out of the saddle. Together, they threw their weight against the enormous bar, and it groaned and slid in its brackets. They swung the leaves open while Brightwing and Mirror guarded their backs.
Aoth peered up at the platform atop the gate. It looked as if the fight had ended there as well, and although he couldn’t see the bard from this angle, Bareris must have won it. Otherwise, the surviving guards would be taking steps to kill their foes on the ground and close the gate once more.
“Sound your horn!” Aoth shouted, or at least that was what he intended. The cry emerged as more of a wheeze.
But Bareris evidently heard, for he gave the signal. Griffons soared into the air and winged their way toward the city. Hoofbeats drummed as knights spurred their steeds in the same direction.
His sword gory from point to guard, Bareris jumped from Winddancer to the ground, and then his eyes opened wide. It was only at that moment that he realized Tammith had arrived.
He scrambled out of the saddle and embraced her. “I kept waiting for you to appear. If you hadn’t found me by morning, I was going to turn back to search for you.”
As Aoth watched them clinging to one another, he felt wistful. He’d never in his life known anything like the fierce obsessive adoration Bareris felt for Tammith, and she for him. The closest he’d ever come had been with Chathi. But she was long dead, and he supposed that meant that on a certain fundamental level he would always be alone.
On the other hand, he didn’t have to worry that any of his casual lovers or whores would ever rip his throat out in the throes of passion, so perhaps things balanced out.
In any case, he had more immediate problems to ponder. “I recommend we clear the gate,” he said. “Otherwise, the knights are liable to ride us down.”
“Right,” said Bareris. Everyone moved aside.
“I did my best to find you,” Tammith said, “but what’s left of the army has broken into countless tiny pieces fleeing south. It took time to find the right piece, especially since I had to lay up by day.”
“Are other griffon riders still alive?” asked Aoth.
“I saw some.”
“Thanks be to the Lord of Flames for that. And thank you, too, for coming to help me when you did.”
“I needed to help,” the vampire said, “ifwe were going to get the gates open. But … I wanted to. I cared about what might happen.” She sounded like a person who’d just discovered something surprising about herself, although Aoth didn’t understand what it was.
The rest of his band of refugees arrived before he could ask. Griffon riders glided down the sky to perch on rooftops, and the horsemen trotted through the gate. The leader of the knights inspected the litter of corpses on the ground, shook his head, and said, “What now?”
“We take what we need,” said Aoth, “as fast as we can. Food, water, arrows, and fresh horses. Healing and charms of strength and stamina from any priest or wizard we can find. Then we ride on.”
“If we could sleep for just a little while—”
“We can’t, because if Szass Tam’s legions show up outside the walls, we can’t hold Mophur by ourselves, and we can’t count on the townsfolk to help us. So we have no choice but to keep moving. Get used to it. We’re likely to find people changing allegiance all the way south, or at least in every place that has a shrine to Bane.”
Bat wings beating, Tsagoth flew over the battlements of Hurkh, and his command—vampires, wraiths, and other undead capable of flight—hurtled after him. No one was stupid enough to shoot at them.
That was as he expected. The town was flying crimson banners adorned with black skulls. The flags glowed with magical phosphorescence to make them stand out against the night sky. The no-doubt hastily sewn cloths didn’t precisely duplicate any of Szass Tam’s personal emblems, but their message was plain enough.
Tsagoth swooped down into Hurkh’s central square and flowed into bipedal form. Some of the vampires did the same, while others melted into wolves. The phantoms hovered, and elsewhere in the city, dogs began to howl.
“Whoever governs this place,” Tsagoth shouted at the gates of the town’s central keep, “reveal yourself!”
No one inside the fortress responded, although he could sense wretched little humans cowering inside. Rather, the door of a building on the opposite side of the plaza opened.
Constructed of blackened stone, the structure was a temple of Bane, a mass of spires adorned with spikes, jags, and windows narrow as arrow loops. Judging from the black and green gems adorning her dark vestments, the Mulan lady who emerged first looked to be the high priestess. She smiled and strode with a confident air, but the four lesser priests creeping in her wake were pale, wide-eyed, and stank of sweat and fear.
“Good evening,” she said. “My name is Unara Anrakh.” Up close, she smelled of the myrrh she probably burned during her devotions.
“Are you in charge?” Tsagoth asked.
“For the moment,” Unara replied. “Until His Omnipotence Szass Tam appoints a new autharch. The previous one was deaf to the voice of Bane.”
Tsagoth grinned. “So you murdered him.”
“Should I have allowed him to keep his position and continue giving his fealty to the council? I knew that if I did, you and your comrades would lay siege to Hurkh and put us all to the sword.”
Perhaps she believed Hurkh was of greater strategic importance than it actually was. Still, she had a point. “We might have gotten around to it eventually.”
“But now there’s no need. We pledge our loyalty to Szass Tam and have already begun to serve him. Come visit the Black Hand’s altar. See the heads heaped before it. Each belonged to a southern legionnaire. The autharch gave them refuge inside the city walls, and after we killed him, my followers and I disposed of them as well.”
“I’m sure it’s an impressive display,” he said, not caring whether or not she detected his sarcasm. “But I doubt you managed to kill every southern soldier who fled in this direction.”
Unara blinked. “That’s true. We needed to fly the skull banners so you wouldn’t attack us by mistake. But once we started, the southerners stopped coming near the walls.”
“Then my company and I need to press on without delay. With luck, we might overtake more southerners before the end of the night. But first we want to feed. I need forty people, one for each of my followers.”
The priestess hesitated. “I … learned about spectres and similar entities during my training. Do they require nourishment?”
“No. But they have a constant, insatiable drive to hurt and kill, and it’s easier to control them if I allow them to gratify it periodically.”
“Oh. I see. But as I explained, we’ve pledged ourselves to Szass Tam, and I promised everyone that it would make us safe.”
“Most of you will be, unless you keep trying my patience. Have your guards fetch the forty folk you consider most expendable. Otherwise, I’ll simply turn these hounds of mine loose to feed on whatever rabbits they can catch.”
As he’d expected, Unara brought slaves and emptied out the town jail to fulfill his requirements. Still, as ghosts plunged their shadowy hands into the flesh of the living, withering their victims, and the occasional vampire, lost to blood lust, chewed a throat to shreds, she periodically winced. Perhaps it had occurred to her that Szass Tam’s troops would pass this way again, and eventually all the thralls and captured felons would be gone.
Tsagoth rather enjoyed her discomfiture. Prompted by her god, or so she claimed, she chose to embrace the rule of a lich and the necromancers and undead who carried out his will. Well, here was a first taste of what that would entail.
It wasn’t the first time Aoth had regretted attaining high rank. With the exception of Mirror, every other member of the ragtag band he’d shepherded south was almost certainly sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion. He, on the other hand, was standing at attention and saluting.
“By the Great Flame,” said Nymia Focar, seated behind a silvery soth-wood desk so highly polished that it gleamed even in the wan daylight shining through the window, “was the journey as hard as your appearance suggests?”
“I’m just tired and dirty. We didn’t have to fight south of Mophur. But we had to keep running. I kept hoping we’d reach a place where we could rest for a while and be safe, but we never found it. Some towns and fortresses have gone over to Szass Tam. Some no longer exist, or are in such bad shape that the northerners could overrun them in a heartbeat. Earthquakes knocked the walls down, or they endured some other calamity. Even Tyraturos was no good for us. Dimon naturally favored the church of Bane while he was alive, and the clerics are taking full advantage of the authority he gave them.” He gave his head a shake. “Am I rambling? If I am, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re making sense.” She gestured to a table laden with bottles of wine and a platter of dark brown bread, apples, pears, and white and yellow cheeses. “Take whatever you want, sit down before you fall down, and then give me a full report while you eat.”
He generally didn’t try to eat and converse with a superior at the same time. He feared it would make him look more graceless and uncouth—more Rashemi—than he did already. But for once he was too starved to worry about it. He poured a goblet of pale amber wine, loaded a plate, and dropped down in a chair.
He fancied that, exhausted and famished though he was, he at least managed to talk between mouthfuls rather than through them. When he finished, Nymia said, “Your report agrees with everyone else’s. This situation is bad.”
“You didn’t see firsthand?”
“I happened to be near a circle of conjurors when they made the decision to abandon the battlefield, and they translated me back to Bezantur along with them. I didn’t have to journey overland.”
How nice for you, he thought. “I saw a fair number of griffons in the aerie, so a reasonable number of my men must have made it to safety. That’s something, anyway.”
“It would be more if we were actually safe.”
Aoth took another sip of wine. “Don’t you think we are? Bezantur’s the biggest city in Thay. The walls are high and thick, and whatever strength remains to the south stands ready to man them. Give or take a few companies still wandering around the countryside, maybe unaware that we even lost a major battle in Eltabbar.”
Nymia sighed. “I don’t know. A year ago, I would have said that even Szass Tam couldn’t take Bezantur. But now the south is weaker than ever before, and I’m not just talking about our legions. We lost two more zulkirs. Dmitra Flass didn’t return from the battlefield. She died, was taken prisoner, or defected. Then Zola Sethrakt dropped dead. Of wounds sustained in the battle, or so I’m told.”
“I admit, that’s unfortunate.”
“So is the state of the city’s food stores. We can’t endure a protracted siege. Szass Tam can starve us into submission.”
“What are you telling me—that the council wants to surrender?”
“No, but they might flee into exile and abandon mainland Thay to fend for itself. The fleet is in port waiting to carry people of importance away. We legionnaires are likewise prepared to commandeer every other vessel we can lay our hands on.”
Aoth felt sick to his stomach. “So that’s it? After fighting for ten years, we’re just going to run away?”
“Not necessarily. The zulkirs haven’t made a final decision.” Her lips quirked into a crooked smile. “Nor have I.”
“Perhaps it’s not too late to slip out of Bezantur, offer my services to Szass Tam, and secure a position of wealth and influence in the Thay to come.”
Aoth marveled that she trusted him enough to confide such thoughts to him. Didn’t she realize that he knew she’d acquiesced to the zulkirs’ plan to vivisect him?
Maybe, he thought with a flicker of wry amusement, she understood him better than he’d ever imagined, well enough to realize her callousness hadn’t ignited a thirst for revenge in him. He still wasn’t sure why not. Perhaps, with the world falling and burning around him, he simply didn’t have the outrage to spare for every disappointment and betrayal.
At any rate, he told her, “Go if you want to. I won’t tell. But I won’t go with you, either.”
“Why not?”
“If I weren’t so tired, maybe I could explain it to you. Or to myself. As it is, I just know after coming this far, I don’t feel like turning my cloak at the end. Maybe I don’t want to be like that whoreson Malark.”
“I think you owe it to yourself to think more deeply than that. Even if we assume that the zulkirs can somehow hold this part of the coast, or that Szass Tam won’t come after them if they flee into exile, we surely can live grander, richer lives in his new kingdom than in the council’s shrunken dominions.”
“I wouldn’t be certain of that. You see what he’s made of Thay already.”
“As a tactic. He’ll bring back sunshine and green grass after he wins the war.”
“You’re probably right. But, maybe because I’m so tired, I swear I can hear Malark asking the question he pondered over and over again—why did Szass Tam murder Druxus Rhym?”
Nymia shook her head, and the stud in her nostril caught a ray of light. “Now you’re no longer making sense, or at least you’re fretting over trivia. He killed Rhym before the war even started. Ten years later, what does it matter why?”
“I suppose it doesn’t. Unless it points to the fact that there’s still something about Szass Tam’s schemes that we don’t understand.”
“We may not understand everything about his strategy, but you’d have to be an imbecile not to comprehend his objective. He means to be sole ruler of Thay, and once he is, he’ll launch wars of conquest and try to make himself emperor of the East.”
“Of course. You’re right, and I’m blathering. But here’s something that isn’t blather: Szass Tam has plenty of lords and war leaders who have served him faithfully since the war began. Even if he welcomes you into his host, those others will all be standing in line ahead of you to claim their rewards when the conflict ends. Do you think there’ll be a tharch left for you to govern? Or even a town in need of an autharch?”
She sighed. “Probably not. So I suppose I might as well stick where I am. But if only all these wretched zulkirs would destroy each other! Then I’d crown myself queen of Pyarados and appoint you marshal of my legions.”
Aoth smiled. “It’s a nice dream, High Lady.”
As a boy, Bareris had loved the harbor. The sea breeze made a refreshing change from the stinks of the slum in which he lived, travelers sang new songs and told new stories, and the spectacle of the myriad ships with their towering masts, intricate rigging, and banks of oars fed his dreams of finding adventure and wealth in foreign lands. Tammith had liked it too, or perhaps she’d simply liked accompanying him wherever he chose to wander.
As in days past, they strolled beside the water, but everything seemed different than he remembered. The docks didn’t bustle by night as they had by day, particularly with legionnaires standing watch to keep ordinary folk away from the piers. The waves were black, not blue and rippling with sunlight, and Tammith’s fingers were cold in his.
Still, he was grateful to be here.
Tammith sniffed, her nostrils flaring. He did the same, but could smell only salt air and the leftover stink of the catch the fishermen had brought into port earlier that day. He supposed that she, with her inhumanly keen senses, perceived something more.
“It’s a pity,” she said.
“What is?”
“This part of the docks used to smell of spices. Now it doesn’t.”
“You have a good memory.”
“When we were paupers’ children, we used to imagine a day when we’d be able to afford foods prepared with expensive seasonings and all the other luxuries Bezantur provided for the wealthy. Now we’re officers, lords of a sort, and we can have most anything we want. But the war has turned our home into a faded, tired place.”
“Do you mind so very much?”
She sighed. “Perhaps I’m simply trying to mind. I don’t have a problem with caring too much about things that don’t really matter. My difficulty is trying to feel that anything does.”
He forced a grin. “You were supposed to say, ‘No, I don’t mind at all, so long as we’re together.’”
Her pale lips quirked into a smile. “That would have been better, wouldn’t it? But you have to remember, you’re the bard, gifted with a ready wit and golden tongue.”
“Perhaps I can use them to coax you behind that pile of crates where you first permitted me to touch you under your shift.”
“Bezantur would have to have some lazy dockhands if it’s still there after all these years. Anyway, I can’t believe you’re feeling lickerish again so soon.”
“We have sixteen years’ worth of lost love to make up for. I assure you, I can couch my lance for another tilt. And you can nibble my neck if you want.”
“No!”
Her vehemence surprised him. “You realize, I like it, too.”
“That only makes it worse. If we’re going to do this—be together—it has to be in the way of a natural man and woman. We need to put perversity behind us.”
“All right. If you want it that way. Although you know, there are different sorts of perversity.”
She cocked her head. “I suppose you learned of all manner of strange and disgusting practices during your time among the outlanders.”
“Well, obviously, I kept myself pure for my beloved, but I could hardly help hearing the lewd stories told around the camp-fire. Storik once swore to me that dwarves like to—”
Tammith pivoted away from him to peer into the dark. “Something’s happening,” she said.
He looked where she was looking. At first he couldn’t see anything. But he heard a muddled sound, and a moment later, the first ranks of what seemed to be a considerable number of folk tramped into the pool of amber glow cast by a hanging lantern. Most of the newcomers carried weapons, either proper ones or tools like axes and chisels that could serve the purpose. Many dangled sacks in their hands, or bore them slung across their shoulders. One fellow pushed a barrow full of bundles. The wheels squeaked and rumbled on the cobblestones.
There’d been a sentry posted at the far end of the street. He must have tried to turn these people back. Bareris wondered how badly the mob had hurt him.
He also wished he and Tammith were wearing armor. Although no one had specifically ordered them to quell unrest and protect the fleet, in an emergency, it was their duty even so.
“I’m going to try to turn them back without fighting,” he said. “Don’t hurt anyone unless you have to.”
Tammith nodded. “My abilities aren’t like yours. I can’t tamper with so many minds at the same time. But I’ll help as much as I’m able.”
He crooned a charm that made him appear a shade handsomer and taller, more sympathetic and commanding, in the eyes of anyone who beheld him. Then he smiled and ambled toward the mob as if they were all staunch friends. Tammith kept pace beside him.
“Good evening, Goodmen,” he said, infusing his voice with the magic of influence. “What’s going on?”
A big man at the front of the pack, a trowel clutched in one fist and both arms banded with tattooed rings, glared at him. “We’re taking a ship. Or ships, if we can’t all fit on one.”
“Why?” Bareris asked.
“Because the blue fire is coming.”
“No, it isn’t, and if someone told you otherwise, he was simply repeating a baseless rumor. I’m not wearing my insignia at present, but I’m an officer of the Griffon Legion. I hear what the scouts and soothsayers discover, and I give you my word, nobody has seen any blue flame moving toward Bezantur.”
“What about Szass Tam?” shrilled a voice rising from farther back in the throng. “Are you going to tell us he isn’t coming?”
“No,” Bareris said, “he probably is, but even he won’t be able to get inside the city walls. No enemy could. You’ll be far safer here than trying to sail to some foreign land. The same upheavals that shake the land are raising huge waves at sea. The depths are giving birth to strange new creatures.”
“The nobles don’t think it’s safer to stay,” said the man with the trowel. “Everybody knows they’re getting ready to sail away and leave us ‘lowly Rashemi’ behind to die.”
“Once again, I give you my word. They haven’t made any such decision.”
“We’re done listening to you, legionnaire. We’re going. If you want, you can come along. If not, you’d be wise to step aside.”
Since the mason seemed to be a leader of sorts, Bareris targeted an enchantment of persuasion at him specifically. “I won’t do that, because I’m trying to save your lives. The ships are well protected. Their crews are sleeping onboard, and the zulkirs have other troops and wizards stationed in the warehouses adjacent to the piers. If you proceed any farther, someone will spot you and sound the alarm. Then all those legionnaires and wizards will rise from their hammocks and bedrolls and slaughter you.”
The big man took a deep breath. “Or we’ll kill them.”
“There are mothers and children at the back of the crowd,” Tammith whispered. “I can hear them talking to one another.”
“No,” said Bareris, still addressing the big man, “you won’t. You can’t win. I understand you’re brave and determined, but the soldiers have armor, superior weapons, and the training to put them to good use. They also have sorcery backing them. If you press on, you can only die, and watch your wives and babies hacked to pieces alongside you. Is that what you want?”
The man with the trowel swallowed. “You said it yourself. At this time of night, most of the soldiers are asleep. If—”
Tammith stepped forward. Her eyes gleamed and she snarled, exposing her extended fangs. A sudden feeling of foulness and menace radiated from her, and even Bareris flinched back a step.
“Idiots!” she cried. “You know what Red Wizards can do. What they love to do to anyone who defies them. You know the sort of creatures who fight for them. I’m only the first of many such beings who stand in your way, I could butcher every one of you by myself, and I’m getting bored with your stupidity. Choose now whether you mean to live or die, or I’ll choose for you.”
For a heartbeat, the mob stood and gaped at her. Then the big man dropped his trowel, and it clanked on the street. He turned and bolted, shoving into the mass of humanity behind him.
When he panicked, so did his fellows. They all ran.
Tammith laughed an ugly little laugh and took a stride after them. Bareris caught her by the forearm.
Fangs still bared, she rounded on him, glared, and then seemed to remember who he was, or perhaps who they were together. The chatoyant sheen left her eyes, and the long pointed canines retracted.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be. You did that brilliantly.”
She smiled. “We did it together. Your magic softened them up, and afterward I thought that if I could throw a scare into the leader, they’d all lose their nerve.”
“I’m glad we were able to chase them off before any of them came to grief.”
“Believe it or not, so am I. They’re just frightened people trying to survive. They don’t deserve punishment for that.”
Trumpets blew, and someone screamed. Crossbows clacked, discharging their bolts.
“Damn it!” Bareris cried. Prompted by instinct, he dashed toward the water, and Tammith sprinted at his side.
When he looked up and down the boardwalk at the end of the lane, with the docks extending out into the surf beyond, he saw what he’d feared he might. He and Tammith had turned back the troublemakers advancing down one particular street, but those misguided souls had been only one contingent of a far bigger mob converging on the harbor. Emerging from other points, the malcontents were trying to fight their way toward the docked vessels, while lines of legionnaires formed to hold them back. Other soldiers scrambled from the warehouses to reinforce them, and sailors leaped from the decks of their long, sleek ships.
The violence exploding on every side made Bareris and Tammith’s little coup in the cause of peace and public order feel like a bitter joke. But there was nothing to do now but stand with their fellow soldiers.
So they did. Whenever possible, Bareris sang songs of fear to force rioters to turn tail before anybody had to kill them. But he still had to bloody his sword, and the necessity sickened him as it seldom had before.
Light and heat flared behind him, and he risked a glance backward. Flames leaped up from the prow of a warship.
It didn’t make sense that a rioter had started the fire. None of them were anywhere near it, and besides, they wanted to steal the vessels, not destroy them. Bareris suspected that one of the wizards on his own side was responsible. He’d been trying to hurl flame at the enemy, and because of the problems with sorcery, the spell turned against him.
But that didn’t make much sense, either. Bareris had seen his share of battle magic, and incendiary spells usually flew in a straight line. A wizard onboard the ship wouldn’t have had such a clear path to the foe. Legionnaires were in the way.
But if someone had been trying to hit the vessel with a flaming arrow or spell, the best way would be to shoot from an elevated position. Squinting, he peered upward.
At first he saw nothing to justify his sudden, half-formed suspicions. But then he spotted a point of light like a firefly. It was an arrowhead, glowing as if the point had just been forged.
He could just make out the dark figure holding the shaft. And other archers creeping around on a warehouse rooftop.
He started a song to shift himself through space. He was only halfway through when one of the black-clad bowmen loosed a shaft. The arrow lodged in the foremast of another ship, and flames instantly roared up the spar. The missiles had to carry a potent enchantment to spark such a prodigious blaze so quickly.
The world shattered into blurry streaks, and then Bareris was standing on the sloping, shingled rooftop. He’d cast the spell to position himself behind the three archers, and moving quickly but silently despite the pitch, he stalked up behind the nearest and drove his sword into his back.
The bowman made a croaking noise as he toppled forward. Despite the clamor rising from the struggle below, it was loud enough to alert his comrades, and they both jerked around in time to see his corpse roll down the slope.
Bareris rushed the nearer of the two remaining archers. He didn’t have an arrow on the string, and didn’t like his chances of nocking, aiming, and loosing one in time. He threw down his bow and whipped a short sword from its scabbard. The hand gripping the blade was tattooed solid black, a sign of devotion among worshipers of Bane.
Bareris scrambled to close with the man. He wanted to kill him quickly, before the third archer, who was now standing behind him, could attack from that favorable position. But his haste, coupled with the slant of the roof, betrayed him. One foot slipped out from underneath him and he fell. The swordsman stabbed at him.
Bareris slammed down hard, but managed to swing his blade in a frantic parry. Somehow it carried his adversary’s thrust safely to the side. Taking advantage of his supine position, he sliced the bowman’s hamstring. The man with the black hand yelped and fell. Bareris heaved himself to his knees and cut, shearing into the archer’s stomach.
That should take care of him, but what about the third enemy? Bareris twisted around just as the other man’s arrow leaped from the bow.
The bard wrenched himself sideways and the shaft hurtled past him. The bowman instantly snatched for another. Bareris sucked in a breath to batter him with a thunderous shout.
But before he could, a cloud of black bats swirled down to rip at the archer from all sides. He collapsed immediately. The bats hadn’t shed nearly enough blood to kill, but the cold poison of their touch had stopped his heart.
The bats flew round and round one another and became a woman. “Are you all right?” Tammith asked.
“Yes.” He looked up and down the row of roofs and saw other black figures slinking with bows in hand. “But we have problems.” He bellowed loud as his magic would permit. “Legionnaires! Look up! At the rooftops!”
Despite the volume he achieved and the power of coercion with which he infused his call, he wasn’t certain anyone would heed him. There was too much happening on the ground. But someone paid attention. Arrows and quarrels flew up from the docks and ships, and the dark bowmen started to drop. Bareris heaved a sigh of relief, and then an enormous shadow swept over him.
Black against a black sky, largely visible because it eclipsed the few stars shining through the cloud cover, a nightwing soared above the harbor, while other huge, batlike shadows glided over other parts of the city. Bareris wished again for his brigandine, wished, too, that Winddancer was with him, and that he hadn’t already expended so much of his power. But the nightwings didn’t dive and attack, and when they wheeled and flew north, he inferred that they’d simply been scouting the city stretched out beneath them.
He was glad he wouldn’t have to fight one, but far from overjoyed. If the creatures had ventured here tonight, it could only mean the rest of Szass Tam’s host was following close behind.
The Tower of Revelation offended Lallara’s sensibilities. As far as she was concerned, a wizard’s fortress was meant to hide secrets and provide strong defenses, and the sanctuary of the Order of Divination seemed capable of neither. The acoustics were so excellent that she could hear tiny sounds from two chambers away, and the place sported so many big, costly glass windows that it scarcely seemed to have enough solid stone wall to support its mass. More often than not, the casements stood open to admit the morning breeze and the faint sounds of the city, abnormally quiet, almost holding its breath after last night’s insurrection and the sighting of Szass Tam’s flying creatures.
But though the citadel made her feel exposed and ill at ease, she was an archmage specializing in protective magic, and perceived that the building had wards in place to foil eavesdroppers and keep assassins from flinging daggers or thunderbolts through the openings. So she supposed she could tolerate it for a while. Certainly it had seemed more expeditious for the zulkirs to go to the diviners than to require the seers to drag the appurtenances of their discipline to the Central Citadel.
Two dozen senior diviners chanted spells to their mirrors and crystal orbs. Light seethed inside the devices, then coalesced into coherent images. Lallara, Nevron, Lauzoril, Samas Kul, and Kumed Hahpret prowled among them, peering at ranks upon marching ranks of dread warriors, packs of loping ghouls, crawling hulks with writhing tentacles like the ones that had reared up out of the ground outside the Keep of Sorrows, and skeletal horses drawing closed wagons.
After a time, Lauzoril said, “You’ve done well. Thank you.”
A diviner with additional eyes tattooed above and below his real ones said, “To be honest, Your Omnipotence, it wasn’t difficult. The necromancers aren’t trying to conceal their numbers or their location.”
Nevron spat. “No. Why should they? You soothsayers, get out. Your masters need to talk.”
Ifthe diviners resented the brusque dismissal, they had better sense than to let on. They filed out docilely.
Samas flopped down on a stool, plucked a silk handkerchief from a pocket of his luxurious scarlet robe, and wiped sweat from his mottled, ruddy face. He looked as if the brief stroll around the chamber had taxed his stamina, and, as on many previous occasions, Lallara felt a pang of disgust at his gross, wheezing immensity.
“How can Szass Tam have such a large army?” the obese transmuter said. “How could the necromancers create so many undead in so short a time?”
“We don’t know!” Lallara snapped. “We already discussed it and agreed that we don’t understand. Either think of something new to contribute or keep your mouth shut.”
Samas glared at her. By the look of him, he was attempting to frame a truly scathing retort, but Lauzoril intervened before he could.
“Let’s not take out our frustrations on one another,” the zulkir of Enchantment said, his manner that of the stuffy, condescending schoolmaster he was at heart. “We have decisions to make, and we need to make them quickly, because I recognize that tax station.” He gestured to a greenish sphere floating in the air. The luminous scene inside it revealed gigantic hounds, their forms composed of mangled corpses twisted together, standing near a roadside keep, its walls a distinctive mosaic of white stones intermingled with black. “The lich’s host has nearly reached the First Escarpment.”
“How do they travel so fast?” Kumed asked.
“The undead are tireless,” Lauzoril said, “and by day, the wagons carry the creatures who can’t bear sunlight. And we have no one left in the field to harry the enemy and slow them down.”
“The Griffon Legion did it at the start of the war,” Samas said.
“The Griffon Legion is a shadow of its former self,” Nevron said, “like all our other legions. I don’t think they could manage the same trick again. Let’s not send them to their deaths until we can accomplish something thereby.”
“So,” Samas said, “Szass Tam will be here soon. The question is, do we linger to receive him?”
“Yes, damn it!” Nevron snarled. “This is Bezantur! It can withstand a siege.”
“Can it?” Lauzoril asked. He waved his hand again, this time in a gesture that encompassed all the globes and mirrors shining on every side, and all the visions of martial and mystical might flickering inside them.
“If it can’t,” Nevron said, “the four of us—” He stopped short, then gave Kumed a cold smile. “Excuse me, Your Omnipotence, obviously I meant to say, the five of us can always transport ourselves to safety.”
“In the midst of battle,” Lauzoril said, “nothing is certain. It would be difficult to articulate any spell properly with a vampire’s fangs buried in one’s throat. Besides, if we waited to escape until Szass Tam’s army had breached the walls and flooded into the city, we might get away, but it’s likely that the ships carrying our treasure and our more useful followers wouldn’t. Is that how we want to start our lives in exile?”
Samas looked pained at the mere thought of leaving his vast wealth behind.
“At this point,” Lallara said, “we can count ourselves fortunate we even have ships. Only four burned, but we could have lost all of them.”
Kumed cleared his throat. “What really happened last night? Who was responsible?”
“The church of Bane,” said Lauzoril. “Their agents stirred up the rabble to try to steal the ships to flee the city. The point was to create cover for the Banites to sneak over the rooftops, shoot flaming arrows into the vessels, and so keep us from fleeing.”
Kumed attempted a scowl as fierce as Nevron’s. “Then we should hang every Banite we can find.”
“You won’t find the ones who actually pose a threat,” Lallara said. “They’ve gone into hiding.”
“Which means they could try again,” Samas said, summoning a golden cup into his hand. Lallara caught a whiff of brandy. “For that matter, the mob could rise again, now that the Dreadmasters have put the idea in their heads, and this time succeed in making away with the boats.”
“All the more reason,” Lauzoril said, “to use them ourselves as quickly as possible.”
Nevron shook his head. “Are you really so craven?”
“I’m not surrendering,” Lauzoril said. “I intend to spend my time in the Wizard’s Reach planning and gathering strength. I’ll deal with Szass Tam when the time is right, but that time has yet to arrive. If you disagree, then you’re free to try and prove me wrong. Stay in Bezantur and command the defense. Just don’t expect me to leave any enchanters, or any of the soldiers we command, behind to fight.”
“I’m leaving, too,” Lallara said. The admission wounded her pride, but pride was of no use to the dead.
“So am I,” said Samas.
“And I,” said Kumed, as if anyone cared.
“Then I must come as well,” Nevron said. “Plainly, I can’t hold the city without you. But curse you all for the gutless weaklings you are!”
He seemed furious enough, but Lallara sensed a histrionic quality to his bitterness. Perhaps, underneath it all, the conjuror was grateful they’d made it impossible for him to stay.
His fingers scratching among the feathers atop Winddancer’s head, Mirror wafting a chill at his back, Bareris stood at the rail of a barge overloaded with griffons and their riders and watched the zulkirs’ fleet set sail. It took a long time for so many vessels to maneuver out of the harbor. The Red Wizards and nobles had laid claim to every trawler, sloop, and cog in port to transport themselves, their troops, their possessions, and favored members of their households.
The city stood in a haze of smoke. As the fleet set forth, evokers had hurled blasts of fire at the piers and the shipyards with their half-completed and half-repaired vessels suspended in dry dock. The idea was to make it as difficult as possible for the necromancers to give chase over the Alambar Sea, and if the conflagrations spread to other parts of the city, the lords who were abandoning it no longer had any reason to care.
The smoke was thick enough to sting their eyes and make them cough. Yet hundreds of folk perched on rooftops, or ventured as close as they could to the water’s edge, to watch their masters’ departure. Bareris wondered if they were happy or sad to see them go.
He wondered the same about himself. He’d been a warrior for sixteen years. He didn’t like losing, and despite all the council’s swaggering talk of hiring a mighty host of sellswords and returning to reclaim mainland Thay in a year or two, he judged that was exactly what had happened. He doubted he’d ever lay eyes on the city of his birth again.
It was particularly hard to accept defeat after a ten-year struggle against Szass Tam. He’d hated the lich ever since he’d discovered that his minions had turned Tammith into a vampire, and he still did.
But that loathing wasn’t the passion that ruled his life anymore. His love for Tammith was stronger, and perhaps he ought to regard this final retreat as a blessing. Now they could devote themselves to one another, and to finding a remedy for her condition, without worrying that, in one ghastly fashion or another, war would sunder them yet again.
Yes, it might all be for the best—if the fleet managed to slip away unmolested.
The late Aznar Thrul had commissioned a magnificent pleasure ship for himself. After succeeding the murdered evoker, Samas Kul had looked forward to taking full sybaritic advantage of the vessel, only to discover that he was prone to seasickness. After that she had seldom left her berth.
But now he had a use for her, and he’d invited his fellow zulkirs aboard to enjoy a splendid breakfast and watch Thay fall away behind them. He hoped he wouldn’t disgrace himself by needing to rush to the rail. So far, the potion he’d drunk seemed to be doing an adequate job of preventing distress in his guts, but one never knew.
Nevron summoned a demon with the head of a beautiful woman and a body like a small green dragon to carry him between ships. Lallara flew like a bird, and Lauzoril shifted himself through space.
That left only Kumed Hahpret to appear. Samas waited a little longer, then asked if anyone knew where he was.
Nevron smiled. “I’m afraid our young peer won’t be joining us. He met with an unfortunate accident before we even set sail. I myself had to command his underlings to set the port on fire or it wouldn’t have gotten done.”
Lauzoril inclined his head as if to convey approval. “I suppose the evokers will hold an election.”
Nevron snorted. “They can try.”