The Rite (27 page)

A huge, dark, and bat-winged reptilian form slammed to earth, the impact jolting the hillside. Scarlet eyes shining like hot coals, it snatched up an ore in its jaws, the two elongated upper fangs toward the front of its maw piercing the goblin kin through. The wrongness, the unnatural corruption Pavel felt seething inside the dragon, made his guts clench.

ait’s Brimstone!” Will exclaimed.

Since he wasn’t a priest, he lacked Pavel’s sensitivity to the undead, but he too had recognized the vampiric smoke drake—perhaps by the wyrm’s stink of sulfur and ash.

Brimstone laid about himself, rending orcs with his talons and smashing them with his tail. For the time being, though, his jaws were occupied. He kept his first victim impaled on his longest fangs, and a nauseating sucking and slurping sounded from his mouth as he drained the goblin kin’s blood.

The orcs screamed and fled, scattering in all directions. Plainly, they were no longer a threat, but Brimstone kept attacking them anyway, pouncing from one to the next like a dog in a ratting pit. After a time he spat out the bloodless corpse in his jaws, and apparently still thirsty, snatched up another swine-faced warrior in leather and mail.

By the time he drank the life from that one, all the orcs were either dead or had run far away. Brimstone pivoted, and the fiery light in his eyes dimming a little since the slaughter was through, gave Pavel and Will a sneer.

“Behold, priest,” he said. “You pray to your god for deliverance, and I appear. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

Taegan floated on the wind, above the lights of Thentia, and when the air currents carried him south of the town, the black expanse of the Moonsea. From time to time, luminous, translucent phantasms wavered into view around him, then faded out again. For the most part, they were representations of the local wizards, their images in full or just their faces painted large. The show was supposed to make him look like a seer using “avariel wizardry, the secret magic of the sky” to search for the identity of the traitor.

The truth, of course, was otherwise. Hovering near him, shrouded in invisibility, Jivex cast illusions to create the spectacle. With luck, Sammaster’s agent saw the lights flickering in the night sky, and they’d provoke him into making an attack.

That was assuming Taegan hadn’t already demonstrated the hollowness of his threat to unmask the wretch by erroneously proclaiming his innocence. Two days ago, to keep the pressure on, the bladesinger had announced the names of four more magicians whose loyalty he’d supposedly established beyond question. According to Rilitar, the folk in question were spellcasters of comparatively modest abilities, lacking the arcane might to operate as Sammaster’s agent did, but it was impossible to be sure. After all his prying and pondering, Taegan still wasn’t certain of anything.

Hence the need to draw the enemy out, dangerous though the tactic was. Rilitar had wanted to stand guard over Taegan as he attempted it, but the bladesinger had deemed it a bad idea. Invisible or not, the more folk who lurked in his vicinity, the more likely it was that the traitor or his minions would somehow detect their presence. Accordingly, when Phourkyn had asked the elf wizard to meet with him to discuss some esoterica one of Kara’s rogues had discovered etched on a ceremonial anvil in a long-deserted dwarven stronghold, Taegan had insisted that he go.

The avariel was carrying a pair of charms that Rilitar had prepared for him, however. One was a silver ring imbued with magic that gave the wearer the ability to see the invisible. Thus, he perceived Jivex as clearly as ever, and as the faerie dragon cast the glowing semblance of Firefingers’s grandfatherly countenance against the dark, he abruptly glimpsed the chasme as well.

The fly-thing surged into view progressively from proboscis to rump as its body penetrated the effective area of the enchantment. It was diving from on high, but of the glittering haze of Selűne’s Tears, and had quenched its halo of flame. Perhaps it didn’t know how to make the blaze invisible.

Since Taegan had spotted the danger, the other charm Rilitar had given him, a golden brooch cast in the form of an eye, had presumably detected it, too, and was sending a psychic signal to its maker. The elf would rush to the scene of the confrontation as soon as his magic could carry him there. Meanwhile, Taegan simply went on hovering as if nothing was wrong, luring the chasme into striking range.

It snarled, leveled off out of its dive, and wheeled, putt ting distance between itself and its foe. Its shroud of flame erupted around it, drawing a hiss from Jivex, who hadn’t been aware of its presence until that instant. Somehow the demon realized Taegan had spotted it.

The bladesinger gave chase, and so did Jivex. Taegan rattled off the spell to augment their speed. As the magic jolted through his muscles, he wondered what was keeping Rilitar, who represented the best hope of defeating the tanar’ri’s power of instantaneous travel.

The chasme swooped low, over the spires and peaked roofs of the town. Just as it began a tight turn, Jivex stared at it intently, and slipped a bit of his natural magic past the tanar’ri’s natural resistances. A layer of powder spread across the chasme’s long-nosed caricature of a human face, sealing its eyes. Startled and blind, it swung too wide and smashed into a conical spire, then dropped to the rooftop below, where it lay unmoving.

Taegan and Jivex raced on to the rooftop, where the bladesinger landed. Any swordsman, even an avariel, struck hardest with his feet planed. Pinions spread for balance on the treacherous incline, he advanced on his motionless foe. Butterfly wings a glimmering blur, Jivex streaked along beside him.

The chasme vanished. Taegan cursed. He assumed the demon had recovered its wits and translated itself to a different location, but Jivex thought otherwise.

“It was an illusion!” the dragon snarled. Perhaps, as a being adept at creating such mirages himself, he’d belatedly recognized a phantom for what it was.

In any case, the purpose of the glamour could only have been to lead him and Taegan where the chasme wanted them to go. The bladesinger poised his wings to propel him back into the air.

The rooftop split open beneath him, and his feet plunged through. The shingle-covered planks snapped shut, stabbing jagged wood into his ankles, holding him fast like fanged jaws. He cried out at the shock.

Wings buzzing, the chasme—the real one, presumably— clambered over the apex of the pitched roof of a neighboring house. Jivex oriented on the tanar’ri, but hesitated for an instant as if uncertain whether to engage the demon or help Taegan free himself. It gave the chasme time to target the faerie dragon with a spell.

Jivex’s flickering wings—and the rest of his body— abruptly stopped moving. He dropped from the air and rolled down the roof, nearly dropping off the edge before he came to rest. He trembled as he struggled vainly to overcome the magically induced paralysis.

Heedless of the pain it caused him, Taegan strained to drag his feet from the crack. When that didn’t work, he started quickly reciting his spell of translocation.

The air around him darkened. Locusts swarmed all over him, crawling inside his clothing, biting him, cutting off his air. Startled, repulsed, he stumbled over the cadence of his incantation, and the magic failed.

Unable to see what he was doing, he hacked at the trap of wood securing his feet, but failed to free himself. With his off hand he flailed at the locusts, but that too accomplished nothing.

He wished again that Rilitar would come, but realized the wizard never would. Somehow the chasme had detected and neutralized the talisman that was supposed to summon him.

The locusts bit again and again. Each attack was little more than a pin prick, but in the aggregate, the effect was crippling. As consciousness began to slip away, Taegan felt a bitter anger, directed primarily at himself, that he’d been so thoroughly outwitted and outplayed.

Pavel wondered how Brimstone could tell that he’d prayed to the Morninglord for succor, but he was reluctant to ask, or to give the vampiric drake the satisfaction of responding, to his taunt in any other way.

Instead, he said, “What do you want?”

Brimstone snorted, thickening the smell of smoke that surrounded him, and answered, “What I’ve always wanted: to defeat Sammaster. I told you I’d emerge from seclusion when I deemed it necessary.”

So he had. But the priest had doubted the promise, and not just because, of all of Kara’s allies, Brimstone was the strangest and by far the most sinister. Bound to the purifying sun, every cleric of Lathander despised the undead, and in the normal run of things, did his utmost to destroy them whenever they crossed his path.

“Something’s different,” murmured Will. “Make another light.”

The glowing stone Pavel had enchanted previously lay somewhere behind the drake, which made it difficult to see him as anything more than a silhouette.

Pavel hesitated for a beat, then decided that, though they were still technically in hostile territory, the chances of any more orcs attacking while Brimstone was on the scene were minute. He recited the prayer, and ruddy light shined from the head of his mace.

The illumination revealed all the details Pavel recalled with such loathing, the serpentine form, charcoal-colored scales with their maroon highlights, and jet-black dorsal ridge. But it showed something new as well. A huge and seemingly flawless ruby gleamed at the center of a diamond-studded platinum collar encircling Brimstone’s neck.

Will let out a whistle. “Nice,” he said. If you could see your way clear to part with that bauble, I wouldn’t ask for any other payment.”

It was a suggestion that glossed over the fact that Kara, not the vampire, was, in theory, the hunters’ employer, though they’d long since passed the point where coin was their principal reason for helping her.

Brimstone showed his fangs, and his eyes burned brighter.

“I suggest you spare me your impudence, halfling, considering that I have no need of you. It’s the sun priest I require.” Pavel frowned and asked, “Require for what?”

“To accompany one into Damara.”

“That’s out of the question. Our errand was a success. We’ve learned something important, and we have to get back to Thentia to tell Firefingers and the other images.”

“You’ll report your discovery in due course. First, you must assist me. Otherwise, our cause will fail.”

“I guess you’d better tell us about it,” said Will. He pulled up a handful of coarse grass and used it to wipe ore blood from his hornblade.

“As you’ll recall,” said Brimstone, “I’m a scrier, and of late, I’ve used the ability to keep track of events throughout the North. Thus, I know that disaster has overtaken Damara.”

Pavel felt a pang of dismay. “What’s wrong? Have dragon flights ravaged the realm?”

“No. Or rather, Damara has suffered such assaults, but that’s not the greatest danger threatening it. The giants and goblin kin of Vaasa have once again overrun your homeland.”

“impossible. The Gates hold them back, and if they somehow circumvented them, Dragonsbane and his army would crush them.”

“The Gates and the king alike have fallen to treachery. Most people believe Gareth Dragonsbane is dead, and nobody else can persuade the barons to fight as one. Every petty lord seeks to protect his own holdings. But they can’t survive that way. The Vaasans are sweeping all before them.”

Will eyed the smoke drake and said, “It almost sounds like you care, but I can’t figure out why.”

Brimstone sneered. “I shed no tears for slaughtered shepherds or farmwives raped to death. But Karasendrieth and her agents have many sites to explore in Damara. if the country is crawling with giants and goblins, it will be impossible.”

Pavel shook his head, trying to assimilate what 13rimston6 had told him. Like most Damarans, he’d grown up thinking of Dragonsbane as an invincible hero, almost a demigod. It was nearly impossible to believe that anyone or anything could vanquish the paladin monarch, or destroy Damara’s hard-won freedom, peace, and prosperity in a matter of tendays. Yet, profoundly as Pavel mistrusted the vampire, it was difficult to see why Brimstone would lie about such matters. What would he have to gain?

“You said,” observed the priest, “that the majority of folk believe the king is dead. Does that mean he isn’t?”

“Yes,” said Brimstone. “I hope you have wit enough to realize it isn’t a coincidence that the creatures of Vaasa invaded at this time. Sammaster stirred them up to cover his tracks, and agents of the Cult of the Dragon, positioned close to the king, struck Dragonsbane down with a spell that sundered his soul from his body. Fortunately, I learned the same enchantment during the time I made common cause with the lich.”

“So I’m guessing you know how to lift the curse,” said Will. “Good. But how does the charlatan here come into it?”

“I think I know,” said Pavel, “assuming he’s telling the truth. Brimstone needs to get close to the king to cast the counterspell. But Dragonsbane is a champion of the bright powers, and his officers are as devout as he. They’d never permit an undead to approach their master in the hour of his infirmity. Except that the wyrm believes that if I, a Damaran born and a servant of Lathander, vouch for him, they may allow it after all.”

“Yes,” said Brimstone. “This is why I scried for you and sought you out. If you’re willing to help, climb onto my back and let’s be gone while we still have some hours of darkness left. My wings will carry us swiftly, but I can’t fly by day.”

“I need a moment,” Pavel growled.

He turned and stalked a few paces down the hillside, and Will trotted after him.

“Is there a problem?” the halfling whispered. “Don’t you believe him?”

Pavel sighed. “That’s the problem. I think I do. Which means spending days in his company…. touching his undead flesh as he bears us northward. It will grind at me.”

“We got used to traveling with ogres, and their personal habits were pretty disgusting.”

“For a priest of the Morninglord, this will be infinitely worse.”

“Don’t give yourself airs. It’s not like you’re much of a priest.”