Undead (21 page)

When she cast about, she saw that he’d slashed his wrist, and it had bled copiously enough to spatter gore all over him, her, and the table on which she lay. But she realized his arm wouldn’t satisfy her either. She wanted a more intimate connection. Because this time, the thirst wasn’t just a craving for blood, but rather a melding of passions.

She shifted her mouth to the side of his neck, slipped her fangs into the pulsing vein, and tore at his garments. When he realized what she was doing, he ripped at hers as well.

Fiercely, they ground their bodies together. Excitement carried her higher and higher, and after a time, she felt the frantic hammering of his heart, struggling to keep him alive despite the extreme demands he was placing on it.

Good. Let it burst. Let him die. His death was a part of the exultation she sought.

Yet at the same time, the prospect of destroying him was intolerable.

Once, her vampiric instincts would have ruled her in any such situation. They were no less potent now, but she’d had a decade to learn self-control. Though it was as difficult as anything she’d ever done, she withdrew her fangs from his neck, licked the double wound to close it, and contented herself with a lesser consummation.

He blacked out at the same moment, and sprawled atop her like a dead man. She squirmed out from under him, dashed to the door, and screamed for a healer.

When Bareris’s eyes fluttered open, he found that someone had carried him to a proper bed. Tammith sat beside him, holding his hand, her fingers cool as usual. She was fully clad again.

“Water,” he croaked.

“I knew you’d want it.” Easily as a mother shifting a small child, she lifted him up and held a cup to his lips. The cold liquid tasted of iron.

“Thank you.”

“How are you?” she asked.

“Weak, but all right, I think.”

“I fetched a healer as soon as we … finished.” She lowered her eyes and it occurred to him that he hadn’t expected her to look shy ever again.

Bareris chuckled and it made him cough. “I must have presented an interesting tableau for his inspection—clothing in disarray, cut wrist, cut lips, blood everywhere.”

Tammith smiled back. “Especially since I was half naked and bloody, too, and I still have this.” She held up her left hand for his inspection. It had begun to regenerate, but was still bone, tendon, and little else.

It hurt him to see it. “By the Harp!”

“Don’t worry about it. It will likely finish healing the next time I drink blood.”

“I should probably hold off on that for a little while.” She frowned. “I don’t mean yours.”

“Well, I realize it can’t be me every time. Sometimes it will just be supper.”

“You saved me, and I’m grateful. But what we did together is an abomination.”

“It didn’t feel abominable.”

“I drank too much. I nearly killed you.”

“I know.”

“It would be like that every time, the thirst pushing me, infecting me with a pure cruel wish to see you die.” “I trust you.” “Then you’re an idiot!”

“Maybe. And you were right. We aren’t the people we once were. We’re lesser, tarnished things. And so we can never again possess a love like the one we had before. Yet a bond remains between the people we’ve become, and why shouldn’t we have that? Why shouldn’t we see where it takes us, and enjoy whatever happiness it can provide? What would be the point of doing anything else?”

“To save your life.”

“I haven’t cared about that since Thazar Keep.” “I do.” She sighed. “But if you reach out for me, I won’t turn you away.”

A tap on the door roused Malark from poring over the latest dispatches, and made him realize his eyes were dry and burning. He rubbed them and called, “Come in.”

A skinny, freckle-faced boy entered, balancing a tray with one hand while using the other to manage the door. Was it suppertime already? It must be, because the sky beyond the window was red, and the spicy aroma of the roast pork made Malark’s stomach gurgle.

The boy looked around. The room was spacious and adequately furnished, but maps, books, ledgers, and heaps of parchment covered almost every horizontal surface.

Malark shifted a stack of paper onto the floor, clearing the corner of a table. “You can set it here.”

“Yes, sir.” The servant placed the tray as requested, then turned as something caught his eye. Head cocked forward, he

stepped closer to the largest map in the chamber, a representation of Thay and neighboring lands painted on a tabletop. A person could scrawl notes on it with chalk or set miniature figures atop it to represent armies and fleets, and Malark had done both. The southern tokens were pewter, and the northern, brass.

He could understand why the display might intrigue a child, but the servant had no business scrutinizing state secrets. “You’d better run along now,” Malark said.

The boy shifted a little pewter griffon. “You’re well informed. I can add a few lines to the story the map tells, but only a few. Your griffon riders destroyed the north’s primary manufactory for the creation of undead and then withdrew successfully from High Thay.”

He picked up a stick of turquoise chalk. “Just last night, blue fire melted Anhaurz, killing all within.” He drew an X through the city. “The ruins have a weird beauty about them.”

He set down the chalk, rubbed his fingertips together to brush off the dust, and moved a pair of ships. “Thessaloni Canos and her men made it to the Wizard’s Reach and secured both Escalant and Laothkund for the council.

“In short, it’s the same story everywhere. Despite the inconveniences of waves of blue flame, earthquakes, wizardry misbehaving, and dangerous new animals rampaging around, southern armies are winning victory after victory, and I give much of the credit to you, Goodman Springhill, and your network of agents.”

Malark swallowed. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I think you know. Once, I spoke with you and your comrades in a grove. I offered you my patronage, and you spurned me.”

“Szass Tam.”

“Say it softly, if you please, or better still, don’t repeat it again at all. I’ll tell you something I’d admit to few others. I’m not the

mage I was before Mystra died and the Death Moon Orb blew up in my face. I’ve yet to recover the full measure of my strength, and I’m not eager to fight the entire Central Citadel. It was difficult enough just sneaking in here despite the wards Lallara and Iphegor Nath set to keep creatures like me out.” “Why did you?”

The boy grinned widely enough to reveal he was missing a molar on the upper left. “I’ve already told you, more or less. For ten years, you’ve played a key role in the war. If I’d realized just how important you were going to be, perhaps I would have killed you that evening in the wood. But I imagined it beneath me to destroy a person like you—meaning a man with no command of magic—with my own hands, especially when I’d entered your camp under sign of truce. Vanity and scruples are terrible things. They can cause all sorts of problems.”

Malark didn’t have to glance around the room. He already knew where everything was, including his enchanted cudgels, hanging on a peg by the door. It seemed likely he was going to need them. He knew better than to batter the chill, poisonous flesh of a lich with his bare hands, even when the undead wizard had cloaked himself in the semblance of a living child.

Of course, even if he reached the batons, no sane person would give a shaved copper for his chances. It seemed that Death had forgiven his sins at last and stood ready to usher him into the blackness. He felt a thrill of anticipation.

“Please,” Szass Tam said, “don’t spring into action like the hero of some tawdry play.” It startled Malark that the necromancer knew he was about to move. “I’ve never had the opportunity to study the fighting system you employ, and no doubt it would be interesting. But I’d prefer you not make a commotion, and I promise, there’s no need. If I’d wanted to kill you, I could simply have poisoned your supper. Feel free to eat it, by the way. No point letting it get cold.”

Malark felt out of his depth. It wasn’t a feeling to which he was accustomed, nor one he enjoyed. “If I’m such a stone in your buskin, then why wouldn’t you want to murder me?”

“Because it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Before she ascended to greater things, Dmitra was a brilliant spymaster in her own right. If I eliminated you, she’d just pick up where you left off. What I need to do is bring you over to my side.”

“As you mentioned, I’ve already refused your offer of patronage.”

“So you did, and I daresay the events of the ensuing decade have given you no cause to regret it. Ordinary folk deplore the widespread loss of life the war produces, but a worshiper of Death must revel in it, and in the destruction produced by the blue fire as well. You must feel as giddy as a lad at his first carnival.”

Malark took a breath. “I’m impressed. You’ve discovered something I haven’t confided to anyone in a while.”

“Actually, monk of the Long Death, I’ve discovered everything. In desperation, with all my schemes unraveling, I employed divination to learn more about my adversaries. I don’t mean Dmitra and the other zulkirs. I long ago learned all their sordid little secrets. I focused on those among their lieutenants who’ve done the most to hamper me.”

“If you really know everything about me, you know I regard the undead as affronts to the natural order of things. That’s why I’d never come over to your side, no matter what you offered.”

The boy grinned. “Never say never. If you’ll consent to hear it, I’d like to share a story. Along the way, it will answer a question that’s perplexed you for ten years. Why did I murder Druxus Rhym?”

The tale went on for a long time. The patch of sky beyond the window turned black. Stars flowered there, and shadow enfolded the chamber.

By the time he finished, Malark’s heart was pounding. He swallowed and asked, “Will it work?”

“I admit—Druxus doubted it, but I attribute that to a failure of imagination, because his own analysis suggested it would. I believe it will, and I’m generally considered the greatest wizard in Thay, which is to say, in the most magically advanced realm in all Faerun. Of course, the only way to know for certain is to try. Will you help me put it to the test?”

26Kythorn-11 Flamerule, the Year of Blue Fire

Nymia Focar ran her gaze over the mounted knights lined up before her, their lances rising straight and high, their fierce chargers standing submissive to their masters’ wills, with scarcely a snort, a head toss, or the stamp of a hoof. She could scarcely help noticing which of the faces framed in the steel helms were particularly handsome, or wondering who might prove exceptionally virile if summoned to her tent. A woman had her appetites.

But Nymia indulged them at night. It was morning now, and she had an army to lead to its next engagement. If the gods continued to smile on her, that would yield its own satisfactions.

After the host that marched north from Zolum divided, she’d led her troops up the narrow strip of flatland between Lake Thaylambar and the foothills of the Sunrise Mountains, then west into Delhumide. So far, she’d encountered only feeble resistance, and had high hopes of taking Umratharos before Midsummer.

Satisfied with her inspection, she waved her arm, wheeled her destrier, and rode toward the road. Hooves clattered and harnesses jingled as her horsemen started after her, and a phalanx of spearmen took a first marching stride in unison. Griffons shrieked and lashed their wings, taking to the air.

Then a black bird swooped down from the sky, its plumage glinting in the morning sunlight. Nymia reined in her steed and raised her hand. Her army stumbled to a halt.

Many army commanders used pigeons as messenger birds, and accordingly, their foes watched for the creatures and shot them. That was the reason that Dmitra Flass—or her outlander lieutenant—had trained ravens to perform the same task. The birds had a touch of magic in them, and weren’t limited to flying to and fro from set locations. They could locate an army in the field or even a specific individual.

One of Nymia’s aides held out his arm. The raven landed on his wrist like a falcon. He untied the miniature leather scroll case on the bird’s leg and proffered it to Nymia.

She unscrewed the cap and magic swelled the tube to its natural size. She shook out the parchment and unrolled it.

The message read:

As you are surely aware, Kethin Hur was not present at the battlefor the Keep of Sorrows, nor is he participating in the present campaign. He claims his strength is needed to guard his southern border and make sure the Mulhorandi don’t invade while we Thayans are busy fighting one another. But my sources report signs he’s secretly massing troops in the northernmost lands of his domain.

The council wouldn’t approve of me tellingyou this. They want you focused on laying waste to Szass Tam’s territories. But I thought you should know. In days to come, remember who did you a favor.

Malark Springhill had neither signed the message nor spelled out the reason Nymia ought to be concerned, but he hadn’t needed to. She understood. While she was busy fighting in the North, Kethin Hur, the governor of Thazalhar, meant to raid into Pyarados, pillaging and perhaps even seizing land.

Grasping and treacherous though he was, he wouldn’t have dared attempt such a thing in peacetime. But amid the chaos spawned by war, blue fire, and earthquakes, he was all too likely to succeed.

Nymia had to thwart the whoreson. But could she, when the zulkirs themselves had ordered her north?

She wished Aoth were present to counsel her. Over the years, he’d offered consistently good advice, and she’d regretted sending him to Bezantur for vivisection. But his life hadn’t seemed worth an argument with Dmitra Flass.

What might he say if he were with her? Maybe that a high-ranking officer had no choice but to follow the commands of her masters, but enjoyed some discretion as to precisely how to obey. If Nymia split her army in two and left a portion of it to fight in Delhumide, she could maintain she’d prosecuted her part in the master strategy with all due diligence.

And if that wasn’t good enough for the zulkirs, she’d say she was sick, had needed to return to Pyarados, and could hardly travel without a proper escort. Or, she could claim she had reason to believe Kethin Hur had aligned himself with Szass Tam. By the Black Flame, that might even be true! It made more sense than if he’d decided to raid a neighboring tharch without a powerful ally backing his play.