Unclean (28 page)

“I assume Aznar Thrul is dead,” he said.

To his surprise, she failed to reply or acknowledge him in any fashion. She just kept guzzling blood. The prey in her grasp trembled, and his extremities twitched.

“Other people are coming,” he said. “We can escape, but we should go now.” She still didn’t answer, so he laid his hand on her shoulder.

Snarling, she turned and knocked his arm away, and when he gazed into her glaring crimson eyes, he saw nothing of reason or

comprehension there. It was as if she were a famished dog and he a stranger trying to drag her away from a side of beef.

As he’d warned her, humans were frail vessels to receive the power of a blood fiend, and her metamorphosis had driven her crazy. The only question was whether the insanity was permanent or temporary. If the latter, it might be worthwhile to try and see her safely through it.

Or not. When he heard shrill, excited voices and looked around, he saw a veritable phalanx of foes approaching, with men-at-arms around the edges of the formation and scarlet-robed wizards in the center.

It was possible that two blood fiends could defeat such a band, but Tsagoth saw little reason to make the experiment. His bemused interest in the odd hybrid entity he’d created and his casual notion that perhaps he ought to school her as his sire had mentored him lost their cogency when his own well-being was at issue. Now he only cared about extricating himself from this situation as expeditiously as possible.

The spear still embedded in her back, Mari helped him by whisking herself through space and ripping into the warriors in the front of the formation. The imminent threat riveted every foe’s attention on her, and Tsagoth had no difficulty translating himself in a different direction without any of the warlocks casting a charm to hinder him.

He didn’t shift as far as prudence alone might have dictated. At the last possible instant, he decided that, even if he was unwilling to stand with the savage, demented creature he’d created, he was curious to see how she would fare, so he contented himself with a doorway some distance away.

She fought well, slaughtering most of the warriors and two of the Red Wizards before one of the other mages showered her with a downpour of conjured acid. Her scales smoking and blistering, she fell, and eyes seared away, face dissolving, struggled futilely

to rise. The warlock chanted and created a floating sword made of emerald light. The blade chopped and slashed repeatedly until she stopped moving.

Her destruction gave Tsagoth a slight twinge of melancholy, but only enough to season rather than diminish his satisfaction at the completion of what had proved an onerous chore. Glad that the system of wards protecting the fortress was better suited to keeping intruders out than holding would-be escapees in, he slipped through the net and into the night beyond.

7 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin

Bareris crept down the trail, a narrow, crumbling path that ran along a sheer drop, and then the moonlight dimmed. Heart hammering, he crouched low and cast about until he discerned that it was only a cloud veiling Selune’s face.

Flying with wings or without, as bats or insubstantial wraiths, the hunters prowled by night, and as often as not, Bareris found that required him to flee through the dark as well. At first he’d hoped he could simply find good hiding places and lie up until dawn, but close calls two nights in succession convinced him no refuge was safe enough. Perhaps, wearing the forms of wolves or rats, his foes could track him by scent. In any case, it seemed the better option was to keep moving and try to stay ahead of them.

Even with magic sharpening his vision, it was exhausting, dangerous work to negotiate mountain terrain in the dark. It made foraging more difficult as well. His throat seemed perpetually dry, and his belly, hollow.

Often, he wondered why he was even bothering with this forlorn, foredoomed attempt to escape. He’d promised to save Tammith, but truly, what were the chances? In all the lore he’d collected, from the soberest historical annals to the most fanciful tales, there was nothing even to hint that a vampire could recover her humanity.

And what was the point of going on without her? How could he endure the knowledge that she blamed him for what had befallen her or the suspicion that she was right to do so? He’d failed her at least twice, hadn’t he, once when he’d left her behind in Bezantur, and again when he’d bungled his attempt to rescue her.

If the future held nothing but misery, wouldn’t it be better to put an end to the ordeal of running? A shout or two would draw the undead to him, then he could fight them as they arrived. With luck, he might have the satisfaction of destroying a couple before they slew him in his turn.

He felt the urge repeatedly, but as of yet he hadn’t acted on it. Maybe, in defiance of all reason, a part of him hadn’t abandoned hope that Tammith could still be saved, or perhaps the raw animal instinct to survive was stronger even than despair.

He skulked onward and came to a saddleback connecting one peak with the next, a wide, flat ridge that promised easier, faster trekking for a while. Hoping to find water as well, he quickened his stride, and then he felt a coldness, or perhaps simply an indefinable but sickening wrongness, above his head.

He threw himself onto his stomach, and hands outstretched to grab, rend, or both, the misty form of his attacker streaked over him. He rolled to his feet and drew his sword. The phantom lit on the rocky ground, or nearly so. Its form flickered and jumped so as to suspend its feet slightly above the earth one instant and sink them partly into it the next. Blighted by the entity’s mere proximity, the little gnarled trees and bushes in

the immediate area dropped their leaves and withered.

Bareris took his first good look at the spirit then gasped. He never would have expected to encounter a creature uglier than Xingax, yet here it was. Indeed, despite their vague, flowing inconstancy, its features somehow embodied the idea, the very essence, of hideousness in a way that even their twisted, hooknosed, pop-eyed asymmetry couldn’t wholly explain. The mere sight of them ripped at something inside of him.

For an instant, he was afraid his heart would stop, his mind would shatter, and he’d collapse retching helplessly, or faint. But then he bellowed a war cry, and though the spirit remained as ghastly looking as before, its ugliness no longer had claws sunk in his spirit—a fact that wasn’t likely to matter in the long run. Now that he could think more clearly, he recognized the undead as a banshee, an entity so powerful he had little hope of defeating it.

The banshee began to moan, and like the sight of its face, the noise pierced him to chill and stab something essential at his core. Steeling himself against the pain, he drew breath and sang, and the magic in his voice countered the lethal malignancy in the phantom’s.

Still wailing, the banshee stretched out its long fingers and flew at him. He started chanting his charm of haste, waited until his foe was nearly upon him, then sidestepped. The undead hurtled past, and he cut at it. Though it passed through the banshee’s wavering form, his sword encountered no tangible resistance, and he had no way of telling if he’d actually hurt the spirit. Since he was wielding an enchanted blade, it was possible but by no means a certainty.

His muscles jumped as the spell of quickness infused him. The banshee wheeled and rushed him anew, and his accelerated condition made it seem to fly more slowly. He bellowed, a blast of noise that might well have broken a tangible adversary’s bones. Maybe it wounded the spirit as well, but as before, he could see

no indication of it. The attack certainly didn’t slow the banshee down, not even for a heartbeat.

Grimly aware his brigandine was no protection against the entity’s ghostly touch, he dodged and cut, sang and shrouded himself in a field of blur that might make it more difficult for the banshee to target him. He kept himself alive for a few more heartbeats.

Then the banshee sprang backward. For a moment, he imagined that he’d wounded it badly enough that it feared to continue fighting him. Then he felt the chilling scrutiny of a new presence, whose advent the banshee had evidently perceived a moment before he had.

It could easily be a fatal error to take his eyes off his original foe, but he needed to understand what was happening, so he risked a glance around. At first, he saw nothing, but then phosphorescence oozed through the air like a brush stroke flowing downward.

The streak of glow gradually assumed a manlike shape. Bareris gasped, because though it was like looking into a poorly made mirror in a dark room, he could tell the murky form was supposed to mimic his own.

Only for a moment, though. Then the thing rejected or was unable to sustain the resemblance. It softened until it was simply a luminous shadow with the hint of some form of armor in its shape and a length of sheen extending from its hand.

Bareris didn’t know what the newcomer was, nor could he see a point to its brief impersonation of him, but he could only assume it was another of Xingax’s hunters. Against all probability, he’d seemed to be holding his own against the banshee, and now his achievement didn’t matter a jot. Fighting in concert, the two spirits were certainly capable of slaying him, and he felt a crazy impulse to laugh at his dismal luck and the ongoing ruination of all his hopes.

Instead, he faced the newcomer, the nearer of his foes, and came on guard. He’d at least make the vile creatures work for their kill.

The phantom came on guard in its turn, hesitated, then turned to face the banshee, to all appearances taking Bareris for its ally and making plain its opposition to its fellow undead.

The banshee screamed, and Bareris sang to leech the poison from the sound. Then, even though it was apparently leery of the phantom, it raced forward to attack with its hands once more. Perhaps the will of its necromancer masters compelled it.

In the moments that followed, Bareris discerned that his new comrade, whatever else it might be, was a master swordsman, landing cunning strokes, retreating to avoid the banshee’s snatching, clawing attacks, and scoring anew with stop cuts when the moaning ghost lunged after it. The newcomer likewise understood how best to exploit a numerical advantage and consistently maneuvered to insure that it and Bareris remained on opposite sides of their opponent.

The banshee pounced at the spectral swordsman. Bareris leaped after it and spun his blade through its head. The banshee frayed into tatters of glow, which then winked out of existence.

That left Bareris gasping for breath and peering at the remaining phantom through the empty space their foe had occupied a moment before. The entity shifted its sword to threaten him.

Wonderful, thought the bard. It didn’t oppose the banshee because it wanted to help me. It just wanted to make sure it got to kill me itself. Probably I’m to be its supper in one fashion or another.

Yet the spirit didn’t follow through and attack. It hesitated as though uncertain of what to do.

Doubtful that he could defeat the phantom in any case, Bareris decided to lower his sword. “Thank you for helping me,” he said. “Unfortunately, I’m still in danger. Other enemies are

seeking me, and the banshee and I made more than enough noise to draw them here. If you see fit to stand with me a second time, I’ll be forever in your debt, or if you have a way we can hide or escape, that would be better still.”

The spirit stared at him, then turned and started walking away. Bareris followed.

As the phantom strode, the sword melted from its hand, and its outline softened until it was just a luminous haze. Then that too faded away, though Bareris could still somehow sense it as an aching emptiness drifting on before him.

It led him into thick brush, and he had to shove and scramble to keep up. Then he took another step and found only empty air beneath his foot. He plummeted into darkness.

Samas Kul hadn’t been sure he wanted to leave the banquet even temporarily. He’d eaten and drunk a considerable amount, enough to make even a fat man sluggish, enough to incline him to stay on his couch and sample all the courses and vintages still to come, no matter how enticing the reason to arise.

But he found the enclosed garden at the center of the mansion refreshing. The fountain gushed, the water glimmered in the moonlight, and the scent of jasmine filled the air. Best of alls the breeze cooled his hot, sweaty face. It made him hopeful that he’d be able to perform without recourse to magic, and that was always a relief.

“Girls!” he called. “Where are you?”

The women in question were gorgeous twin courtesans provided by his hostess. People exerted themselves mightily to entertain a man who was both zulkir of Transmutation and Master of the Guild of Foreign Trade, but perhaps not mightily enough, because the twins didn’t answer.

He wondered if they’d thought a game of hide and seek amongst the flowerbeds and arbors would arouse him. If so, they’d mistaken their man. He’d abandoned such callow amusements many years and many pounds ago. These days, he preferred passion without an excess of exertion.

“Girls!” he repeated, this time putting the snap of command into his voice. “Show yourselves.”

Still, no one replied, and abruptly he remembered that Druxus Rhym and Aznar Thrul were dead. Someone or something had caught them alone and murdered them. By all accounts, Thrul had even been preparing for coition, or a perverse alternative to it, when destruction overtook him.

But neither Rhym nor Thrul had anticipated trouble, nor had either had his talismans and spell triggers ready to hand. Samas invoked the power pent in a ring, and a protective aura, invisible as air but strong as steel, radiated from his body. He gave his left arm a shake and a wand of congealed quicksilver dropped from his voluminous sleeve into his pudgy fingers. He whispered a word of power and the darkness seemed to brighten. Now he could see as clearly as an owl.

That made it possible to spot the figure slipping through a doorway on the far side of the garden. Samas pointed the wand at the newcomer. A single flare of power should suffice to turn the wretch into a snail, after which it would be simplicity itself to capture him, change him back, and put him to the question.