Black Wizards (18 page)

The Seven sat about their wide table again. Six black hoods rose in fascination, absorbing the words that came from the seventh—the wizard in the center of the group.

“The assassin will be here shortly. We shall give him his task, and the last of the heroes among the Ffolk shall presently be eliminated. Then we shall be able to direct our energies to more productive tasks, such as bending the other lands to the will of our liege.” The last word, thick with irony, lay heavily in the air after he spoke.

Alexei, seated to Cyndre’s right, sat quietly. He watched his master through narrowed eyes, thinking deeply.

How much he hated Cyndre! How he craved the power that the master selfishly kept for himself by doling out small tastes of it to those mages who pleased him.

He looked beyond, to Kryphon, and his hatred grew, threatening to
choke him. The worm! He was certain that Kryphon tried to manipulate the master in an effort to unseat Alexei himself from his place at Cyndre’s right hand. Alexei daydreamed of a time when he would watch them both squirm, rot, and die.

But Doric. The slender woman just beyond Kryphon would be his again—as she had once been and as she was meant to be. The thought of Kryphon’s pleasure as he gratified his lust upon the woman that was Alexei’s by right of conquest fueled the flames of jealousy into a white heat.

The other three—Talraw, Wertam, and Karianow—were the weaklings of the council. Alexei was certain that the three mages, barely beyond their apprenticeships, would follow the strongest leader. His heart pounded at the thought of his revenge, of the pain and humiliation he would inflict upon his former master.

“Alexei?” The soft voice called him back to reality.

“Master?” The word almost caught in his throat.

Cyndre turned his head slightly, fixing his assistant with a gaze of cool interest. “Alexei, you have raised many questions—about the cleric, about my judgement. Why? Do you doubt my abilities?”

The blood drained slowly from Alexei’s face, and a knot of panic built in his stomach. No! It was too soon—he was not ready yet! He looked into Cyndre’s eyes—pools of pale blue, as harsh as the arctic sky—and he could not answer, He struggled to speak, but no words came forth.

“Can you give me some reassurances, Alexei? Some proof of your trustworthiness?”

He knows
. The knowledge burned Alexei’s face, and he could speak no reply. The truth would doom him, and he could summon no lie to his lips.

“Very well,” said Cyndre, his voice dripping with regret.

The wizard gestured, and streams of colored lights rushed from his fingertips to swirl about the recalcitrant lieutenant. Alexei’s hood flew back, his stark features outlined in terror. The mage was tall and thin, but the eerie shadows from the spell gave his face a gaunt, emaciated look. His mouth opened in a soundless scream—or perhaps the noise he made was masked from the council by the filtering curtain of lights.

Alexei’s long, thin hands clasped the arms of his chair, but already his image grew blurry. In moments he had faded from view, banished, the other wizards knew, to a lonely imprisonment in a place known only to the master.

A few hours later, the assassin and his band dashed through the courtyards of Caer Callidyrr on galloping black steeds. Racing through the night, they thundered along the streets of the town and soon disappeared along the King’s Road. They rode to the south.

Chauntea heard Bhaal’s challenge and saw the game of the evil god. She briefly pondered her response. The Moonshaes were a small realm, unimportant in the vast scale of her domains. Were they worth the trouble of a conflict?

Yet the isles had shown some promise. The people there, the Ffolk, were a good people—strong and devout in their own way. It saddened her to think of them falling under the thrall of Bhaal’s evil
.

And too, the acts of the evil god needed a counter, or they would grow too powerful and arrogant for the safety of all the planes. Since Bhaal had chosen the Moonshaes for his game, and Chauntea, alone among the gods of good, had power there, should she not resist him?

Chauntea, like Bhaal, had clerics among the Ffolk. Though perhaps not as powerful—and certainly not as deadly—as the minions of Bhaal, her clerics had skills of their own: healing, beneficial powers
.

Perhaps one of them could aid the players in this game. She selected several of her worshippers, not certain what the future would hold. Perhaps one of them might have the chance to do her bidding
.

Chauntea made her wishes known to these clerics in the guise of a dream
.

obyn took a deep breath and felt her body relax as she exhaled. She felt weak but immeasurably better than she had upon first awakening. Whatever the nature of Acorn’s black rock, it had been far mightier than her ability to protect herself. Her fingers were blistered and hot, though the damage did not look permanent. She splashed one more handful of cool water against her face.

She stood up and stretched slowly, trying to shake off a sense of guilt over Acorn’s death. She had had no choice! Angrily, she wondered about the sudden transformation. Certainly, he had made her nervous before, but what had driven him to attack? Why, when she would have spared him, had he been driven by such bloodlust? And a deeper, even more frightening question arose within her: How had he come to learn druid magic?

“What did you do with that thing—that rock?” she asked Newt, who buzzed worriedly at her shoulder.

“Oh, that awful stone! I hated it, and I took it away from here. It was no good for you! I hope you’re not mad at me—I only wanted to help!” The little dragon shivered at the memory of the rock, peering hopefully at Robyn.

“No, you did the right thing,” she said reassuringly. “Poor Newt. You worry too much, like an old nursemaid.”

“Well, I just wanted to see you awake again! And I must say, getting rid of that nasty fellow doesn’t bother me at all. Maybe it should, but
it doesn’t. I think we’re all better off with him lying dead over—
ack!”
Newt squealed in terror and zipped past Robyn, hovering over the stream and pointing speechlessly over her shoulder.

Robyn spun around and thought immediately that her senses had deserted her. The stranger was dead—she knew this, for she had checked carefully. So what was this thing lurching toward her?

The body was only ten feet away, shuffling forward with an awkward gait. The neck was still broken, for the head hung grotesquely over its shoulder. A swollen black tongue extended from its gaping mouth, and the two eyes were dull and glazed, though still open.

But the hands clutched for her eagerly, each finger like a living snake, thirsting for her blood. The thing took another step forward, and another, as she stood transfixed, too shocked even to scream.

“Run!” Newt cried, Somehow, the little dragon’s warning restored her self-control and she turned and sprinted down the riverbank.

Gasping and shaking with fear, she turned to look. It came ahead slowly, shuffling awkwardly but steadily toward her. She wanted to cry out her fear, but she bit her tongue and used her mind. How could she fight this thing that was already dead?

“Run, Robyn!” cried Newt, buzzing in a tight circle around him. He darted forward to hover in the air between her and the animated corpse, wringing his forepaws in agitation.

“No, Newt!” she shouted, seeing by his concentration that he was preparing to cast a spell.

Newt’s magic, although unpredictable, had saved her from bloodthirsty enemies before, but she feared it would be of little use against this nightmare.

Multicolored flames exploded from the ground in front of the shambling figure, quickly surrounding it in a ring of fire that covered the spectrum from bright red to deep purple. The corpse hesitated, but only for a moment, and Robyn knew that it would not be daunted by Newt’s illusion.

The body lurched through the curtain of fire, its fingers still twitching eagerly. Robyn stumbled backward, desperately trying to think of something—anything—to stop the unnatural attack. She looked around for a stick or a rock, but the field mocked her with wildflowers.

Sprinting again, she dashed away from the thing, stopping to gasp
for breath at the edge of the forest. Tireless, it marched forward.

Trying to slow her breathing, Robyn marshaled her faith in her goddess. She felt the body of the goddess under her feet. Carefully, she pulled a leaf of mistletoe from her waist. She let the leaf spiral lazily into the breeze as she chanted one of her most powerful spells.

Plants erupted from the ground around Acorn’s body. Shoots of grass and thick-leafed weeds curled upward, clasping toward the undead thing.

But the plants withered and curled away as they made contact with the creature, falling to either side and opening an unobstructed path to Robyn. Once again, she turned to flee, darting underneath the low limbs of a tree behind her. In her haste, she did not duck low enough, and pain flashed through her skull as she cracked it against the heavy bough.

Dazed, she staggered against the tree, squinting through blurry eyes at the monster only ten feet away. She watched as Newt swooped into the thing’s face, and she saw the dead man’s hand slash through the air with stunning speed. With a low squeak, the faerie dragon flopped to the ground.

Robyn tried to run, but the encircling branches of the tree cornered her. The monster moved in, and she crouched like a cat, determined to fight to the last with her bare hands.

Suddenly a shape moved behind the creature, and Robyn heard a loud growl. The body lurched to the side, half turning, and now she saw a brown form, great teeth bared, swat the creature’s outstretched arm. The limb snapped loudly and dropped to the monster’s side.

Robyn watched Grunt smash the monster to its knees with a blow to the hip and then stretch it upon the ground with a vicious cut to the already broken neck. She watched as the bear seized the corpse in his powerful jaws, shaking the thing like a rag doll before tossing the body casually to the ground and tearing at it again with his long, curved claws. The corpse stopped moving, but Grunt savaged it further, tearing pieces away and tossing them aside until the corpse was unrecognizable as a human body.