Pathfinder Tales: Lord of Runes (34 page)

Zora slammed her flag into the back of the monster’s knee, but it didn’t budge. The thing reached for her.

Illyria’s light went out.

In her stone-spirit body, Kazyah rose up behind the golem, boulder fists swinging together to crush its mismatched skull.

Eando’s light went out.

I reached out, not knowing what I’d touch or what I’d do with it. When I caught something, Eando called out, “It’s me! It’s me!”

“I lost my knife,” I told him.

“Here.” He pressed the grip of a dagger into my hand.

Figuring Kazyah’s rock-body would protect her, I followed the smell of rotten meat and slashed. The knife scratched hard flesh. The stink got worse. “I got him!”

I heard Eando hacking away beside me. A second later came a sickening crunch, a brief yell, and the sound of him landing somewhere across the library. Not eager to take that trip again, I shifted right and ducked. The breeze of the monster’s punch lifted my hair.

A clatter of stones fell all around us. Kazyah groaned, and I bet she felt what I did: exhaustion falling over me like a thick wet blanket. Just like the dragon did earlier, somebody had hit us with a spell to weigh us down, only this one was worse. I could barely lift my arms, much less escape the monster’s reach. Tensing, I waited for the blow that would put me down for good.

But it didn’t come. I heard a sucking sound and a clank of metal on the floor. There were some whispers I couldn’t make out, and then heavy footsteps crossed the room, paused, and moved again. Slow at first, they picked up speed as they vanished in the direction of the gallery.

The cavern grew quiet except for Illyria’s voice casting yet another light spell. That one failed, and so did the next. Finally, Zora’s weak voice called out and a dim light appeared at the top of her flagstaff.

Zora stood panting beside the table with the boss’s body. She reached down a hand to help Janneke to her feet. Illyria leaned against the opposite side, wand held high, waiting for the horror to jump out of the shadows again. Arni limped over, bleeding from bites and scratches. Back in her flesh, Kazyah pulled herself up by the table’s edge. Her brown face looked pale under the black tattoos. I heard Eando groan somewhere in the dark. The dragon was nowhere to be seen.

One by one, the lights returned. At first we could see only the ceiling, but then the shattered walls and shelves came into view. A trail of blood led from where the golem had thrown me. Spatters here and there showed where it had smashed the others, but the monster itself was nowhere in sight.

“The
Tome
!” said Eando.

The table where we’d left it was empty. The Shadowless Sword lay nearby. I grabbed it. Nobody said a word. At first I heard the distant sound of dripping water and tumbling pebbles, but then I could make out a whisper.

“No, Otto,” replied a wheezy voice. “You and your sister may go now.”

“But Master—” said the flat voice I’d heard before.

“Obey me.”

Amaranthine hissed as a pair of thin shadows slipped away through the cloud of dust and mist.

A third figure remained.

It looked like the shadow of a tall, fat man. It seemed to be wearing a fur collar around its hunched shoulders. Loose clothing spilled over its bulging waist, flowing like a gown. It leaned forward on a pair of canes studded with glowing purple and red stones.

“It’s over,” said the Master.

“You have what you want, Professor Ygresta,” said Lady Illyria. “There’s no need for any more bloodshed.”

“I quite agree, my dear girl.” A chuckle. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. Violence was never my first choice, but my shadows warned me of your company’s proclivity for mayhem. Despite what you might have imagined, I’m not some villain from your penny romances. I just want what everyone wants.”

“What’s that?” said Eando.

“To live.”

“But you’re the one who always told me necromancers needn’t be evil,” said Illyria.

“And I believe it still. But I also have no desire to perish from this world. There is so much I have yet to accomplish, so many pleasures I have yet to experience. It may be difficult for you to understand. Like Jeggare, you were born to wealth and privilege. Like most others, I toiled all my life for the slightest taste of what your kind take for granted. I cannot afford to bid on the famous sun orchid elixir to extend my life. I do not possess elven blood and the longevity it bestows. And so I bend the powers of necromancy to my will to extend my life.”

“Unlife,” said Illyria. “Not a life worth living.”

“I beg to differ,” he said. “No, actually, that’s not so—I do not beg. Not anymore. Nor do I explain myself to dilettantes and bounty hunters, fortune-seekers and thieves. Speaking of thieves, I see you have adopted mine.”

“Please, don’t,” said Zora. She cringed behind me. “I’ll never—”

Ygresta let out a wheezy chuckle. “You’ve nothing to fear, Zora. As I said, I am not some playhouse fiend. I bound you with spells because it was necessary. I don’t even begrudge your service to my old friend.”

“‘Old friend’?” I said. “You cursed him. You used him. You killed him.”

“On the latter point, must I point out the obvious hypocrisy?” He pointed one of his canes to the sword in my hand. “While I enjoy a certain satisfaction in outwitting the famous Count Varian Jeggare, he did not need to die even after the curse took him. Having renounced necromancy, he could not use the spells in the
Gluttonous Tome
against me. I half-believed he would prove immune to its influence, but I trusted his curiosity to compel him to find the missing volumes. He deduced my plan sooner than expected, but that hardly mattered. Once he read the
Kardosian Codex
, his fate was sealed.”

“That’s a hell of a way to treat an ‘old friend.’”

“Jeggare and I were never truly friends. He saw me as a servant, never as an equal. Something tells me you know something of that disparity. If I hated him at times, I also valued his friendship, however condescending it might have been. It brought me everything I wanted, in the end.”

“It’s not the end,” I said. “You aren’t the first jerk to think he’s outsmarted the boss. He might be down, but he’s not done with you. We’ll make sure of that.”

“You raise a troubling point. Ada overheard your efforts to revive the count. While I did not wish him dead, I would find his resuscitation before my plans are done quite inconvenient.” Ygresta hooked a cane over his wrist and said a few magic words.

“No!” cried Illyria. I made to jump him, but the spell was too quick.

A thin green ray shrieked out from Ygresta’s finger. At its touch, the boss’s body crumbled. It left nothing but a fine gray dust with a jeweled ring where every finger and thumb had been.

“He will not follow me now,” said Ygresta. “As for the rest of you, if I never see you again, may you live long lives and be grateful for them. If I do see you again…”

He swept his finger to point at each of us as his shadowy body faded.

17

The Shrine of Lissala

Varian

Hesitating at the threshold of flesh, my senses eased back into the world.

The scent of dust and ozone suggested another battle had occurred in my absence. The cold stone beneath me brought Ygresta’s laboratory to mind. In returning to life, I had become a sort of reverse golem. Instead of a body composed of disparate pieces, it was my fractured soul the shaman’s spell rejoined.

While voices spoke over my regenerated body, I considered my immaterial parts: nobleman, naturalist, investigator, soldier, archaeologist, diplomat, commander, explorer, spy, runelord descendant, wizard or sorcerer—I no longer knew nor cared which term applied. Servant of an infernal empire, loyal in oath and deed yet a rebel in my heart, I had lived a century’s contradictions. Among my deeds and sins, there remained far too many variables to calculate what fate I deserved in the afterlife.

I heard Lady Illyria’s voice. “Is he breathing?”

“It is difficult to tell,” said Kazyah. I felt a warm hand upon my chest.

“The resurrection obviously worked,” said Eando. “Otherwise his body would still be dust.”

“I think he’s breathing,” said Zora. I smelled a hint of spice as she put her ear near my face.

“Come on, boss,” Radovan said. “Give us something. Show us you’re alive in there.”

“You must fulfill your promise to my … to the oracle,” said Kazyah. “Return and destroy the
Gluttonous Tome
.”

“You’re a lord of Cheliax,” said Lady Illyria. “The Count Jeggare I know wouldn’t let a trifling thing like disintegration prevent him from honoring his word.”

“You’re the only one who can beat Ygresta,” said Zora. “That’s why he let the rest of us live. We weren’t worth his attention.”

“Without you, I’m done here,” said Janneke. “It’ll be the same for Kaid. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t commandeer your carriage.”

“If we have to finish this thing without you, I swear I’m taking credit for the whole thing,” said Kline. “With or without the
Pathfinder Chronicles
.”

“Don’t you want another glass of wine?” said Radovan. “Wouldn’t you like to see the Fierani Forest again? How about a ride on those giant owls? We can fly back to Tian Xia, find another princess to break your heart.”

“
Another
princess?” said Lady Illyria.

“I’m talking here,” said Radovan. “Think about it, boss: the look on their faces when we ride back into Egorian in the Red Carriage. All the things you’ve done since we left, you’ll be a hero.”

The air pressure changed. I sensed the approach of an enormous creature.

“Desna smiles,” said Radovan. “I figured we’d lost you.”

“We nearly did.” The dragon’s voice sounded hoarse and weak. “If Ygresta is so mighty without the
Tome
, he will be unstoppable if he finds it.”

“I got bad news about that.”

As the others told Svannostel of their battle with the shadows and Ygresta’s golem, I opened my eyes a sliver. Radovan had laid his tattered jacket over my lap to preserve my modesty. Otherwise, I was naked from head to toe.

Sitting up, I noted that all eyes had turned to Svannostel. The dragon’s wings and flanks were bloody. One of her eyes had swollen shut, and she was missing scales along her snout. She held a crooked forelimb close to her chest.

Only Arnisant was undistracted. He rose up to put his paws on the edge of the table. Wagging his tail, he licked my hand.

The last act of my previous life of nearly one hundred years—no, I realized, of
exactly
one hundred years—had been to threaten him. Yet the hound forgave in an instant.

While the sickening presence of the
Gluttonous Tome
was gone, still I felt Zutha’s rings nearby. The stones lay farther off, perhaps where I had fallen in the gallery. With a thought, I summoned them to me. Ten rings leaped to my fingers. A moment later, the Azlanti stones took up orbit around my brow.

By silent will, I called upon the ring with a platinum sihedron to conjure a garment black as shadow. As it wrapped its eldritch fabric around me, I realized my body was no longer bloated from the curse.

In fact, I felt—not different so much as renewed. My body felt fitter than it had in—well, better than it ever had. Gone were the lingering aches of age, hardship, and injury. Yet despite this physical rejuvenation, I also felt ineffably diminished. The spell that fetched me back from the River of Souls had also left something behind.

The others noticed my awakening. I stood up from the table. Each of them took a step or two away.

“Fear not. I am…” I had begun to say that I was once more myself, but a powerful intuition told me that I had become something quite different from my former self. “I pose no danger to you.”

They continued to stare, still keeping their distance. They needed further assurance. They deserved more than that.

“My behavior…” To blame the curse would appear only a feeble evasion of my responsibility. After all, I had chosen to read the
Codex
and then the
Grimoire
and the
Black Book
. “Inexcusable. I cannot expect your forgiveness, but I offer my unequivocal apology.”

Radovan offered me the Shadowless Sword. “Boss, I hope you understand—”

I took the sword and turned away, unable to look at him.

Awareness that his deed had been necessary did nothing to dull the shock that my friend had killed me. I wanted no revenge, but I could not shed an acute sense of betrayal.

I walked toward the gallery, desirous of solitude.

Illyria stepped in my way. The sight of her was almost as confusing as looking at Radovan. I had heard her plotting my death and trying to persuade Radovan to turn on me. No matter how much I understood the logic, I could only feel the sudden blow to my heart, the cut and the wound. “Varian,” she said, “if there had been any other way—”

I withdrew from her, but the others moved to prevent my departure. Perhaps they feared I remained under the effects of the
Tome
and sought only to prepare myself to resume battle. In any event, I saw that I would not have the seclusion I craved until I assuaged their fears. Composing my face as best I could, I said, “Tell me what transpired during my … absence.”

By turns they told me of their battles with Ygresta and his minions.

Svannostel and Kazyah first encountered the intruders in a chamber downriver. Ygresta had summoned a small army of restless dead, which the dragon and shaman proceeded to demolish. Because he cloaked his forces in darkness, they did not realize their enemies included a golem. Even if they had, they might not have realized the folly of attacking such a creature with lightning, which only made it stronger. Between the patchwork brute and Ygresta’s spells, they had been forced to retreat.

The others told an equally confused story of a battle of light and shadow and confusion. The end result was as bad as I could have expected.

“Ygresta has the
Gluttonous
Tome
,” I summarized. “And you know his destination?”