Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 2 - The Crimson Legion (22 page)

The mul stared down at the body, awed by the sight of its corroding weapons and armor. He
had never before seen a suit of man-sized steel plate, not even in the armories of King
Kalak.

As the mul studied the armor, a gray shadow left the glowing amethyst and slipped across
the floor to the corpse. It slithered silently into the armor, then the dead man's head
turned to look up at Rikus. A thin layer of gray, papery skin still covered the man's
face. The corpse's leathery lips pulled back in a nasty sneer, and in the empty eye
sockets twinkled eerie purple lights.

Rikus cried out in fear, then stepped back and drew his sword. Although he held the
Scourge of Rkard in his hand, the tomb remained silent to his ears. The mul heard nothing
but his own blood rushing through his body, his breath stirring the still crypt air, and
the rapid pounding of his terrified heart.

When the corpse did not rise, Rikus dared to hope that it would leave him alone. He slowly
backed away, moving as carefully and quietly as he could.

A woman's throaty voice demanded, “What are you doing? Put it back!”

Rikus stopped moving, barely finding the courage to look toward the voice. When he did, he
saw the gray silhouette of a broad-shouldered woman. Although the rest of her body
appeared as no more than a shadow, the woman's face remained well-defined in the form of a
translucent, wavering mask with citrine-yellow eyes. If the spirit was anything to judge
by, the woman had been strikingly beautiful, though there was no longer anything in her
features that gave an impression of tendernessÑif there ever had been.

“Put what back?” Rikus asked, trying to control his mounting fear. “The coffin?”

“That is for you to decide,” the wraith answered, floating across the room to Rikus's side.

She grasped the mul's injured arm and raised it into the air. Rikus's jaw fell open, for
her clammy grip seemed as substantial and solid as that of any living being who had ever
touched him.

“This is what you must return.”

The wraith opened her grip and Rikus's sore arm dropped like a stone. A bolt of anguish
shot through his shoulder.

“My arm?” Rikus gasped, groaning in pain.

The wraith pointed at the sarcophagus from which the mul had escaped earlier. “Your body.
Put it back,” she insisted, pushing him toward the coffin. “The sooner your spirit departs
your body, the sooner Rajaat will come.”

The mul allowed himself to be herded through the dimly lit room, unsure of whether he
should swing his sword at the wraith or not. So far, she had done him no harm, and the
prospect of starting a fight with anything undead frightened even him.

When they reached his empty sarcophagus, the wraith patted the cold interior. “Return to
the coffin.”

Rikus shook his head and stepped away, ready to raise his sword if she attacked. “Let me
out of this tomb.”

“The time for bodies is past, Borys,” she insisted, paying his demand no attention.

“Who's Borys?” the mul asked.

A distressed frown appeared on the wraith's translucent face. “The Thirteenth Champion of
Rajaat, Borys of Ebe,” she said, touching an ethereal palm to his chest. “Butcher of
Dwarves. You.”

“Me?” Rikus exclaimed. He shook his head violently.

“No.”

She brushed his cheek with her cool hand. In a living woman, the gesture might have been a
warm one, but coming from a wraith it seemed imperious and threatening. “Have you
forgotten your knights? Is that why you have been gone so long?”

“You've made a mistake,” the mul insisted, stepping away from the woman's tenebrous shape.
“I'm Rikus, freed man of Tyr.”

“Don't say such things, Borys. There is nothing to fear,” she said. “Die and join your
followers, as you should have done a thousand years ago.”

“How do you know Borys isn't dead?” Rikus demanded, stopping just beyond the wraith's
reach. “He could have died someplace else.”

“You know that cannot be,” she answered confidently.

“Why not?”

The wraith pointed at the dark opal in the broken lid of Rikus's sarcophagus. “If you were
dead, your spirit would have returned to light your gem.”

Rikus stared at the opal, uncertain of what he should do. By convincing the wraith that he
was not Borys, he might cause her to attack. On the other hand, he had nothing to gain by
misleading her, since she had already made it clear that she wanted Borys dead.

After a moment's hesitation, the mul pointed at the gem, “Borys may still be alive, but
I'm not him. I wouldn't know how to light that opal if I wanted to.” He stepped over to
the bas-relief depicting Borys slaying the dwarves. “I don't even look like your champion.”

The wraith drifted after the mul and, before he could retreat, skimmed the sides of his
head with her murky fingers. “It is not unusual that your appearance would change over so
many years, especially if you shave your beard and crop your ears. I still know who you
are.”

“How can you be so sure?” the mul asked, slipping away from the wraith.

She gestured at his sword. “Is that not the Scourge of Rkard in your hand?”

Rikus's jaw fell. “That doesn't make me Borys of Ebe.”

“Who else could have taken the dwarven belt?” she asked, dropping her glance to the Belt
of Rank. “Only Borys.”

“This was givenÑ”

“Return the body to the coffin,” the wraith snapped, suddenly growing angry. “We are
anxious to summon Rajaat.”

She moved toward him, reaching for his shoulders.

Rikus raised his sword. “I'm not who you think.”

The wraith's translucent face contorted into an expression of anger and regret. “After all
we shared, you would lift your weapon against me?”

“YesÑbecause I'm not Borys!” the mul yelled, his exasperation overcoming the fear he felt
in the wraith's presence.

“You are!” she insisted, gliding toward the mul with an outstretched hand.

Rikus slashed at her arm with his sword, but she pulled away before the blade could strike.

“Let me touch you,” she commanded. “I will undo the magic that blinds you.”

“And if there is no magic?” Rikus asked, hoping that he had, at last, found a way to
convince her of his identity. “Will you let me leave?”

“Only Borys can light the opal,” she answered. “There is no reason to keep anyone else
here.”

Rikus lowered his weapon, but did not sheathe it. He was far from confident that her word
could be trusted, but he was even less confident that he would win a battle with a wraith.

The wraith laid her hand on the burn in the center of the mul's chest. Though he felt the
pressure of her hand, he did not experience the pain he would have expected from being
touched on the wound. She closed her translucent eyes, then said, “Borys, it has been so
long.”

“I'm notÑ”

The mul stopped speaking in midsentence, for her hand suddenly turned noncorporeal. An
eerie tingle spread through his body. As he looked on in horror, the hand began sinking
through his bone and flesh. Rikus heard himself breathing in shallow, terrified gasps,
then a distraught shudder ran down his spine as her hand crept deeper into his chest.

A ghastly pain spread through his body, then he felt a morbid prickle as her fingers
closed over his heart. Rikus tried to raise his sword, but found that he was too terrified
to do anything but tremble.

The wraith locked gazes with him. Her eyes were glowing red. “What is this?” she demanded
in a disgusted voice. “A human-dwarf half-breed, and a knight of Kemalok's filthy kings!”

Her icy fingers squeezed the mul's heart, and Rikus felt like someone had dropped a
granite pillar onto his chest. The mul backed away, but the wraith's hand remained
clenched around his heart. She drifted through the air after him, her body hovering above
the floor like a banner waving in the wind. Rikus's heart struggled to beat against her
pitiless grip, each pulse coming more strenuously and after a longer interval. He began to
grow dizzy and soon even his breath came in painful wheezes.

“What of your word?” he gasped, forcing himself to look into the thing's red eyes.

She squeezed so hard the mul thought his heart would burst. In his ears, he heard rushing
wind, and the bitterness of oblivion filled his mouth.

Finding strength in the certainty of his impending death, Rikus lifted the Scourge of
Rkard to swing it. The wraith clamped down on the mul's heart viciously. Rikus released
the sword and, as it clanged to the floor, cried out in despair, his entire body filled
with such unthinkable agony that he could no longer control his own muscles.

“Fool! While I hold your heart, I can read what is in it,” hissed the wraith. “That is why
I know you are telling the truth. You are not Borys.”

She relaxed her grip just enough to allow the mul's heart to beat only feebly. He dropped
to his knees, terrified that she would kill him.

“Before you die, tell my companions of Kemalok,” the wraith demanded.

Rikus looked up and saw more wraiths rising from the glowing gems in the coffins. Like the
one gripping his heart, they were gray and formless, mere silhouettes of men and women who
had died long ago. Their faces were bitter and loathsome, twisted into pellucid masks
resembling the visages on the sarcophagi from which they rose.

“Kemalok stands,” the mul gasped, answering his captor's question.

“There is more,” the wraith said. “Tell the others.”

“The city's been buried for a thousand years, perhaps longer,” he added, struggling to
bring each word to his lips. He desperately wanted to attack the wraith, to somehow fight
for his life. Unfortunately, the Scourge of Rkard lay out of reach, and, even if his bare
fists could harm a wraith, he did not see how he could hope to attack when she knew his
thoughts. “From what I saw, Kemalok was never sacked.”

The wraiths hissed at each other in disconcerted tones. In a deep raspy voice, one asked,
“And what of Borys?”

“He killed Rkard, but the king's dead body still guards his city,” Rikus answered. “I
don't know what happened to Borys.”

“You must,” objected another. Her voice was silky and smooth, but with sinister undertones
that sent a chill down the mul's spine. “You carry his sword.”

Rikus shook his head, for he was growing too weak to waste his strength on simple denials.

“There is no lie in his heart,” said the woman who held him. “The sword was given to him.”

“Then he is of no use to us,” said the raspy voice. “Kill him.”

“Wait,” Rikus coughed. Despite the urgency of his plea, his voice was weak and low. “The
dwarves kept a history.”

“The
Book of the Kemalok Kings,”
said the silky-voiced wraith. “What of it?”

“It mentioned the Scourge of Rkard,” Rikus said. “It might say what happened to Borys.”

“Then give it to us, or we will make your death an agonizing one,” ordered a wraith.

Rikus shook his head, then had to wait for his abused heart's next pulse before he had the
strength to answer. “The book was stolen,” he said. “I'm trying to recover it.”

“And you expect us to believe you would bring it here?” hissed the woman who held his
heart. She squeezed more tightly, and the mul's heart stopped beating. His vision narrowed
to a small tunnel of light.

The raspy-voiced man said, “Catrion, let him speak.”

Abruptly the woman relaxed her brutal grip and Rikus's heart began to pound with
incredible fervor. “He's alive, Nikolos.”

“Good.” The wraith who had been addressed as Nikolos drifted toward Rikus, saying, “Unless
we find out what happened to Borys, Rajaat will never come.” He appeared before the mul,
his eyes glowing amethyst purple. “You're going to help us, or you'll feel the wrath of
Rajaat.”

Rikus nodded. “I'll do it.”

“He's lying, Nikolos,” Catrion reported.

Inwardly Rikus cursed. He had come to realize that tricking the wraiths was his only hope
of surviving. Unfortunately, that would prove to be difficult as long as they knew what he
was thinking.

“Now he's trying to trick us,” Catrion said, again closing her fist about his heart. “I'll
kill him.”

“No,” said the soft voice of a female wraith. “We have waited for Borys long enough. It is
time to find out what happened to him. We'll just have to ensure that this half-dwarf
keeps his word.”

“How will we do that, Tamar?” countered Catrion.

In answer, the soft-spoken wraith passed her gray hand over the huge ruby set into the lid
of her sarcophagus. The stone rose from its setting and hovered beneath her hand as she
drifted toward Rikus. “I'll go with him,” Tamar said.

Catrion removed her arm from the mul's chest, then Tamar closed her shadowy fingers over
her glowing ruby. Rays of crimson light shot from between her fingers and danced before
Rikus's eyes in a mesmerizing pattern.

The mul lunged for his sword. By the time he grasped its hilt, Catrion and Nikolos stood
over him, staring down at him with their eyes burning red.

“You could not destroy one of us, much less all twelve,” said Catrion.

“Do as we demand, and you will live at least until the book is recovered,” added Nikolos.
He laid his hand on the back of the mul's neck, and Rikus felt a harrowing prickle as the
wraith's fingers slipped over his spine. “Otherwise, you die here.”

Rikus took his hand away from the sword's hilt and settled back onto his knees.

Tamar pressed her ghostly fist into the mul's chest. At first, Rikus experienced only the
same eerie tingle that he had felt when Catrion's hand had gripped his heart. When the
ruby passed into his flesh, however, it seemed that someone had planted a burning ember in
his heart.

Screaming in anguish, he lashed out at the wraith with his good arm. His fist passed
through her body harmlessly, then Nikolos's hand squeezed his neck and pulled him back
up-right. Tamar's gem continued to sink into his breast for what seemed an anguished
eternity.