The Temple of Yellow Skulls (5 page)

Albanon’s hand was on the handle of the tower’s door before he noticed something was wrong. He turned sharply and squinted into the moonshadows, searching for the subtle traces of magic. There were none.

But there should have been. Moorin had woven arcane wards around the tower long ago. Albanon took care to speak the ritual words that raised them whenever he went out.

The last time he’d come home and found the wards unexpectedly dispelled had been the night Moorin had been killed.

He hesitated before pushing the door open silently. Whatever had brought down the wards was probably inside. Only one suspect came to his mind: Moorin’s killer, the creature Nu Alin. Granted, they’d beaten it
—him
, if Tempest was to be believed—back deep in the tunnels of Thunderspire Mountain, but what if he had lived and managed to make his way back to Fallcrest?

On the other hand, what if there was no one in the tower? What if he had simply forgotten to raise the wards tonight? Or what if they’d only lasted so long without Moorin’s influence to maintain them? He hadn’t considered that possibility before. Either way, if he raised an alarm that turned out to be for nothing, his already damaged reputation would be completely shattered. He’d be laughed out of town.

Just a quick look, he promised himself. Just a quick look to be sure there really is someone. Then I’ll go get help.

He stepped inside.

T
he barking speech of gnolls assaulted Nu Alin’s ears. The only time the savage creatures closed their hyena-like muzzles was when they were stalking prey—and there was little enough of that to keep them happy. Yips, yaps, and growls accompanied every action. Coupled with matching cackles from the actual hyenas that the gnolls kept as pets, the din made Nu Alin want to puncture his host’s eardrums for silence. The only thing worse was the stink that rolled off both gnolls and hyenas to saturate the den they’d claimed in the labyrinth beneath Thunderspire Mountain.

No, Nu Alin knew that wasn’t true. There was something worse than the noise and the stink. Until he recovered his strength and found a new host, he
was
a gnoll.

When I am free, he promised those around him silently, I will return and slaughter you all.

“Rooga!” called Gerar. “Bring meat!”

But he wasn’t free yet.
Do it
, he prompted his host.

And as if it was his own thought, Rooga rose from a crouch,
snatched the leg of a dwarf out of the fire, and carried it through the den to where the tribe’s leader sprawled. Eyes and jealous whines followed him. Servitude among the gnolls was a strange thing, Nu Alin had discovered. The weaker served the stronger because they were forced to, yet being singled out to serve the strongest gnoll in the den was a mark of status.

He should have been able to tear Gerar limb from limb while wearing the body of a gnoll pup. Instead it had taken him a month—as near as he could reckon in the underground labyrinth—to force his foul host up the hierarchy of the tribe. If only he had his full strength.…

The tiefling, Tempest, had been a strong host. Her efforts to resist his control had been sweet to him. But interference, an error, had left Tempest trapped under fallen stone and Nu Alin’s hold on her weak. When her companions—that dragonborn, that eladrin, those others—had caught up to them, she’d been able to beg for release. To his shock, her friends had given it to her. A sword had pierced her chest.

For all of the power that the Voidharrow had granted to him centuries before, Nu Alin depended on a living host to sustain his own life. He’d left the tiefling’s dying body in an attempt to seize a new host only to discover that he’d been tricked. While one of Tempest’s companions healed her, the others assaulted his flowing form. They’d discovered a weakness, and Nu Alin had been faced with a harsh decision: fight and die or flee and seek out a new, less-resisting host.

He’d fled. He was the Herald, exarch of the Voidharrow. It called to him, a summons he could not deny, and he’d been so close to recovering it when Tempest had become trapped.
He had to live to recover it, but to live he needed a new host. Unfortunately, he discovered, the dark tunnels of the labyrinth were like a desert. There was life there but little of it and isolated in oases. A new host was not so easy to find.

Nu Alin didn’t know how long or far he’d wandered, his already damaged liquid shape slowly losing cohesiveness. The Voidharrow itself was the only thing that had saved him, exploding across his consciousness like a sudden dawn. Somehow it had been freed from its prison!

Even as he’d felt the surge of the Voidharrow ebb back, that knowledge had given him the strength to go just a little further. With the last of his energy, he’d found the lone gnoll guard. Rooga had seemed strong and fit, an ideal host. Nu Alin hadn’t hesitated for an instant.

Only after he was safely within Rooga’s body had he realized how weak he’d grown. His host’s body should have been a tool for him to use, but it was all he could do to prod Rooga into action. Until he recovered his strength, his host was his prison, barely even aware of the presence lurking within. And Rooga was a particularly pathetic prison—lowest among the low, the gnoll had stood guard alone in the dangerous labyrinth because he’d been given no choice in the matter. Nu Alin would have abandoned him in favor of a new host if he’d had the strength.

But he didn’t. The distant call of the Voidharrow was a constant mockery.

Fortunately, unlike the gnolls, strength was not all he had to rely on while he recovered.

“I bring meat,” Rooga said, presenting the dwarf leg to Gerar. From behind his host’s eyes, Nu Alin watched the big
gnoll grab it from him and tear into the bloody flesh. Such a horrid feast might have disturbed a lesser being, but Nu Alin consumed bodies in his own way. Rooga was fortunate that he was weak. The rigors that Nu Alin typically forced on his host bodies wore them out quickly. Rooga was still intact. Mostly. The flesh around his eyes was cracking and Nu Alin’s substance was peeking through. Among the gnolls, with their penchant for scarring and decorating their bodies, the change had gone unnoticed.

Nu Alin would need to move to a new form soon, though. His strength had almost returned. A few more days and he would be ready. He’d considered taking Gerar’s body. The gnoll was strong and agile. His body would be a good host. But he was still a gnoll, and the thought of dwelling in such a creature longer than he had to was nauseating. There were other creatures in Thunderspire Labyrinth, though.

Gerar looked at Rooga over his meat, black eyes flashing, then lifted his gory muzzle. “I like what you told me,” he said. “Treasure would make Maldrick Scarmaker happy.”

Answer
, Nu Alin urged, and Rooga practically vomited in his eagerness to please Gerar. “If Maldrick is happy, Gerar will be happy, too. The ruins of Zaamdul hold what Maldrick craves!”

At one time, the voice of the Elder Elemental Eye had spoken to Nu Alin in his dreams, providing him with guidance and instruction. Now Nu Alin did the same to Rooga, though he let the gnoll believe the ideas were his own. Nu Alin had listened to the barking that assaulted him. Gerar’s band wasn’t the only pack of gnolls in the labyrinth, nor was it the most powerful. Even a strong leader like Gerar knew when to bend his neck.

Maldrick Scarmaker, favored of the gnolls’ demon lord, Yeenoghu, sought artifacts of the ancient minotaur city that
Thunderspire Labyrinth had once been. Rumor among Gerar’s gnolls told of stores of such artifacts in an old underground palace not too far from their den. That none of the gnolls had considered the possibility of raiding those ruins to please Maldrick and advance themselves was another sign of their stupidity.

And perhaps their general cowardice. Gerar chewed another bite of dwarf flesh, then added, “The ruins of Zaamdul are haunted by demons and undead. Minotaurs go there looking for the treasure of their ancestors, too.”

Nu Alin was ready for him. He’d prepared Rooga for this. “So we avoid the demons and the undead, and find a minotaur,” the gnoll said in a wheedling whine. “One minotaur against Gerar’s pack. What treasure he has gathered from the ruins will be ours for the taking.”

Gerar’s eyes drifted half shut as the simple argument sank slowly into his feeble mind. Nu Alin watched him closely. He had left simple wealth behind long, long ago. Gold, ancient secrets—what did he care about those? The treasure he sought was a minotaur’s body. A body more powerful than any gnoll. A body that would allow him to escape Thunderspire and continue his journey in pursuit of the Voidharrow. He couldn’t simply march Rooga up to a minotaur and pass from one body to the next, though. Even his feeble host would have balked at that.

But as part of a pack in the frenzy of battle …

Finally the bloody muzzle curled into a toothy grin. Gerar drew back his arm and hurled the half-devoured leg across the den. “We will hunt in Zaamdul!” he howled, and the voices of the other gnolls rose in barking excitement. Rooga bared his teeth and folded back his ears, joining in his pack leader’s exaltation.

For once, the din was almost sweet, even to Nu Alin.

A
lbanon surveyed the sitting room of the Glowing Tower from the doorstep. The moon’s glow fell through the open door, providing more than enough light for his eladrin eyes. Nothing moved. He listened and heard nothing, but the thick stone of the walls dampened sound at the best of times. There was one sound that he should have heard, though. He considered the wisdom of calling out for a moment, then whispered, “Splendid?”

There was no response from the little pseudodragon that had been something between Moorin’s pet and his companion and who now considered herself Albanon’s guardian and moral guide. Splendid didn’t like taverns. When Albanon or the others stepped out to the Blue Moon, she was inevitably there to greet them with barbed comments on their return. That she hadn’t already made an appearance was a bad sign, but Albanon didn’t dare call out any louder.

The pseudodragon could hide as effectively as any rogue, though. She might still be all right. Leaving the door open
behind him, Albanon crossed the room as quietly as he could and glanced briefly into the kitchen, then put his head cautiously into the tower’s central stairwell.

He was just in time to see light wink out in the door to the library that occupied the second floor. His stomach flipped and he ducked back, struggling to keep his breathing soft. Someone was definitely in the tower—and it seemed they knew he was here, too.

Or did they? There was no further sound from above. Whoever was up there, Albanon guessed, they were waiting, just like him. If he left now, he could summon help, but the intruder would have the opportunity to get away.

For once, he wished Uldane was there to slip up the stairs and peek into the library. No Uldane, though. No Shara to occupy the intruder while he held back to cast spells, either. But he had to know who the intruder was. Cursing the decision to leave his staff leaning in the corner of his bedchamber while he went out, he gathered his robes close and stepped cautiously on to the stairs. They were stone and wouldn’t give him away with creaking, but he still paused briefly on every step, listening carefully. There was still nothing. As he approached the library door, he flattened himself against the wall and waited once again. A slow count to ten, then to twenty. Then he stuck his head around the corner and peered into the library.

“Kerath-Ald!”

Albanon didn’t recognize the word that the figure standing before book-filled shelves shouted—he just ducked as a ray of brilliant light blasted overhead. The intensity of it seared an afterimage into his vision. When he looked again, splotches of radiance danced before his eyes. The figure in the library was just another bright blur, one that seemed to grow even brighter
as it moved toward him swinging a long-hafted morningstar. The weapon left a glowing streak with each whistling passage.

He blinked rapidly, trying in vain to clear his vision, and thrust himself back to his feet. A new sense of anger rose alongside his fear. This was his home! After Moorin had died here, Albanon wasn’t going to let himself be driven out. Spells rose in his mind like sprites clamoring for attention. He chose one and spat the arcane words at the bright shape. A misty blue pellet seemed to condense out of the air and streak toward the intruder. The morningstar altered its trajectory as if to swat it away, but the instant the pellet struck the weapon it burst. A cloud glittering with frost exploded around the shining figure. Albanon could feel the chill of the magic from across the room.