The Stories of Elaine Cunningham

by Elaine Cunningham

  Her gaze swept the room. The walls and alcoves and altar were fashioned of a rare blue-veined marble that resembled fine opals. Silver chalices stood on marble pedestals, and an elusive hint of incense filled the room like moonlight. A tall priest stood over Noor's body, chanting as he waved a wand that leaked shining blue smoke. He was robed in white vestments, and the silver circlet on his brow marked him as a high priest. Noor expected no less, for this was the chapel on her family's ancestral lands.

  Understanding came to her in a sudden, bright flood. The chanting was a prayer, requesting a vision from Mystra, Lady of Magic. Family custom demanded a mystic journey, a threshold that must be passed before a wizardly apprenticeship. This detachment from herself, this strange, floating experience, must be part of her vision.

  It was odd, though, that she remembered so little of what had come before. Odd, too, that she and the priest were alone. The Ghalagar clan always gathered to see fledgling wizards on their way.

  Noor studied her prostrate form. She was dressed for rough roads, and her feet were shod with boots rather than her customary jeweled slippers. Most of the rings on her outstretched hands looked unfamiliar to her, but that was not so surprising. Gifts from her indulgent father and numerous suitors were so plentiful that she had chests full of jewels never yet worn. She did, however, recognize the large black and red circlet on her left thumb. Carved from obsidian and set with a giant ruby, it was a deathwizard ring.

  So that was why her father had not come!

  Anger, black and bitter, welled up in Noor's heart. She embraced it, for it was less painful than the sting of rejection. Granted, necromancy was the least regarded of Halruaa's nine Arts, but she could not understand her father's aversion to her chosen path. Wealth, lineage, and beauty were already hers: Noor aspired to power. Toying with the hearts and pride and honor of her suitors was a fine diversion, but as a necromancer, she could possess their very souls, and hold life and death in her jeweled hands!

  The chanting grew louder as it gathered magic from the Weave that sustained and connected all. Noor's heart pounded in cadence with the quickening power. She threw back her head and laughed with anticipation, not caring that her astral form made no sound.

  She could not have been heard, regardless. The priest's chant had risen in power until it engulfed the room, until it became too large for a human voice to contain. The chant tore free of the priest and bore down on her like a hundred thundering hooves.

  The magical onslaught swept her away. For a moment Noor was a leaf in a monsoon gale-utterly, terrifyingly adrift. Then unseen hands caught her, and pulled her with a single wrenching tug back into her prostrate body.

  Noor came to with a gasp. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, feeling dizzy and unaccountably heavy.

  The priest knelt before her. Gentle fingers cupped her chin and raised her face to his. "Lady Noor?" he inquired.

  Dark eyes, kind and concerned, searched her face. The priest used her given name, and his touch held the familiarity of long acquaintance, but his face was that of a stranger.

  Panic fluttered through Noor, filling her belly like the baiting wings of caged birds. She turned her head sharply aside to remove her chin from the priest's grasp and rose unsteadily to her feet.

  "Lady Ghalagar," she corrected in cold, regal tones-a voice that one of her suitors had likened to an ice sculpture honed by generations of wealth and privilege. "I am ready for my journey."

  A small, sad smile ghosted across the priest's face. "Yes, I can see that you are. Welcome back. Your boat has been prepared and provisioned."

  She darted a quizzical look at him. "Boat?"

  "Your journey will take you to the Confluence," he explained. "It is a place of great power, where the warp and weft of Mystra's Weave-"

  Noor cut him off with a single imperious gesture. "Who are you, to instruct me on my family's history? I know my destination, priest. I also know that the paths to the Confluence have been dry throughout my lifetime and yours."

  He averted his eyes. "The River Ghalagar overflowed its banks."

  This news set her back on her heels. The river that rioted down from the Lhairghal peaks was a slow and sedate thing by the time it reached her family estates. It brooded its way through ancient woodlands and emerald-green horse pastures with an air of middle-aged resignation, finally to disappear into the Swamp of Ghalagar. Never in her life had the river overflowed! How could such a thing happen, and she not remember?

  Noor quickly moved past the shock of this revelation to consider the implications. If she needed a boat to reach the Confluence, it was entirely possible that swamp creatures had made their way through the floodwaters to that magical place.

  Her lips curved in a feline smile. The swamp was a cauldron into which life disappeared, and simmered, and rose again in unexpected ways. Few travelers were equal to the swamp. Noor could think of no better place to test her fledgling powers.

  Suddenly the priest's concern took on new meaning. Noor's chin went up, and her cheeks burned with insulted pride. "You think I will fail," she stated coldly. "You consider the challenges ahead beyond my skills and courage."

  She thrust out her hand so that the ruby in the Deathwizard ring caught the torchlight and glowed like a malevolent eye. "I earned the right to wear this ring, and to wield the powers it holds!"

  Noor glared at him, silently daring him to curse her, as her father had done. Deathwizard rings were rare and precious. The price was always high, always paid in blood. This ring had cost Noor her virtue, her father's favor, and the lives of three good men. Even so, she counted it a bargain.

  The priest's gaze faltered before her furious challenge, and he bowed his head. "This is your threshold, Lady Noor. The decision to pass through or turn aside belongs to you, and no other."

  She gave a curt nod and strode purposefully from the chapel. The door swung open as she approached, creaking, as she had never remembered it doing, as if its magic were somehow tainted by the priest's reluctance. Then Noor's gaze fell on the garden, and all other thoughts fled. She stopped so abruptly that she had to seize the doorframe for support.

  The chapel garden had been all but swallowed by the floods. Trees that had provided fruit and shade were hunched over like broken old men, and the courtyard's bright mosaic paving had been reduced to an indecipherable jumble of cracked and faded tiles. Once a broad sweep of marble stairs had led to sunken gardens that were the pride of her family and the envy of their neighbors. Now, the steps disappeared into murky water, and their marble was cracked and begrimed with green scum. A servant stood in knee deep water, holding the rope that secured a low, shallow skiff.

  Noor's gaze slid over the small craft. The prow rose in a graceful curve, but the boat itself was broad and low-sided and nearly as flat as a barge. It skimmed like a water bug, barely dimpling the surface. She let out a small sigh of relief. At least one thing was as it should be! Such boats were commonly used during monsoon season to travel through swamplands and flooded fields, moved by spells so simple that nearly any Halruaan child could cast them.

  She allowed the servant to hand her into the boat. After settling down, she fixed in mind her desired destination and began the easy, singsong chant of the spell. The boat glided steadily toward the Confluence. Noor held her head high, determined to ignore the blighted landscape and focus on the task ahead.

  Her resolve soon faltered. She turned this way and that, gazing in open horror at the changes wrought by storms she could not remember. Ancient, barren trees loomed overhead, moss draping the skeletal branches like a moldy shroud. The air became heavier, fetid. Large bubbles simmered free of the murky water, and the deep, grumbling calls of swamp creatures came from all around her.

  A giant dragonfly darted past, so close that wings of rainbow gossamer brushed Noor's face. She shied violently away, shoving her fist into her mouth to muffle her startled scream. Showing fear could be deadly, for the dragonfly's touch was far from accidenta
l. The creatures fed upon carrion and soon-to-be carrion. It had "tasted" her, and decided that she was not yet near enough to death to be of interest. Or perhaps it had recently feasted on the storm-provided bounty.

  Noor closed her eyes, trying not to imagine the bloated bodies of drowned horses. Her father's breeding farms lay near the chapel. She did not wish to see what had become of those sleek, fleet animals, or watch the dragonflies gather in feeding frenzy. She had seen such a thing once. They had gathered as thick as flies, their brilliant colors shimmering like obscene flowers in a breeze as they reduced a rothe cow to bone.

  A frustrated sigh escaped her. The monsoons that fueled such flooding must have been fierce, yet she could remember nothing. No doubt the ritual left her confused. Her memory would surely return once the threshold journey was complete. If it did not, she would have that wretched priest flayed alive, and his hide tanned for boot leather!

  Suddenly the boat lurched to the port side. Noor slapped her hands against the low sides to keep from tumbling off her seat. But the boat continued to tip, the starboard side moving slowly, heavily up. Noor threw herself onto the boat's floor and braced her feet against the port wall. The boat rose until it stood upright on its side, then continued its path until it leaned ominously over the dark, hungry water. Finally the boat stopped, quivering like two strong wrestlers locked in combat, too evenly matched to prevail and too stubborn to cede victory.

  Noor clung desperately to the seat to keep from falling. "You'll never capsize me!" she shrieked at her unseen foe. "My father's magic protects the boat!"

  "And you, as well?" inquired a dry, mocking voice. "I don't think so, little deathwizard."

  Shock numbed her, silenced her. Noor had spoken out of fear and bravado, never expecting a response!

  "Speak up, girl! A well-bred lady does not stand about gaping like a carp."

  A second wave of dread shivered through Noor. She had heard these words before, many times, scolding and prodding her throughout her childhood and toward "proper behavior." The voice had been leeched of tone or pitch, but there was no mistaking the crisp, exaggerated precision of the words. Well-bred ladies were, above all, articulate.

  "Grandmother?" she whispered.

  "Give me the ring, little deathwizard, and go home."

  "No!" The word tore from Noor in a rising scream, fueled by terror and fury and denial.

  The boat slammed back down. Fetid water splashed over Noor, and the jarring impact sang down her spine like a banshee's wail. She gritted her teeth against the pain and rolled aside.

  Just in time. A skeletal hand lurched over the side and drove down hard. Bony fingers screeched against wood as the hand groped about for its prey.

  Noor scuttled back, crab-walking away from her attacker. But oddly enough, curiosity outweighed fear. If this undead thing had indeed been her grandmother, why could it speak? Her grandmother had been an imposing matriarch, but not much of a wizard. The spells that transformed a dying wizard into an undead lich were far, far beyond the woman's meager skills.

  "Who gave you this power?" Noor demanded.

  A second hand grasped the edge of the boat. Bony fingers flexed, and then a skull rose above the side of the boat. The famous Ghalagar hair was gone, replaced by lank strands of seaweed. Empty eyes regarded Noor above sharp, aristocratic bones.

  "Deathwizard," the skeletal moaned. There was an eternity of sorrow in that word, yet the jawbones still moved in a manner than ensured ladylike annunciation. And then, they shattered into a thousand pieces as crimson lightning flashed from the ring on Noor's hand.

  Noor stared at the wisp of fetid smoke, all that remained of the skeletal wizard. She glanced down at her left hand. Still clenched in a fist, it was thrust out, twisted so her thumb pointed toward the attacker. Crimson fire still smoldered in the deathwizard ring.

  "Worth the price," she whispered, adding the destruction of her undead ancestor to the cost of the ring. She took a long, steadying breath, and then renewed the spells that sent the boat gliding over the dark water.

  The mist steadily deepened as Noor neared the Confluence, closing around her until she could not see past the prow. She was therefore startled when her boat grated against stone and ground to a halt.

  At that moment a strangely cold wind blew though the swamp. The mist parted to reveal a tall black tower, a wizard's tower, built upon the very point of the Confluence.

  After a moment of stunned silence, Noor rose to her feet, shaking with wrath. This was her land, her inheritance! She climbed out of the boat, too angry to puzzle over the fact that she stepped out onto dry land.

  A pair of fierce gargoyles guarded the door, gray stone demons with elven ears and heads crowned with writhing snakes. Unimpressed, Noor looped the mooring rope around a menacing stone hand. Balling her fist, she pounded on the tower door.

  It swung open immediately to reveal a comely young man clad in the crimson robes of a necromancer's apprentice. A practical color, by Noor's estimation, for only a few damp spots and a faint coppery smell betrayed the blood that stained his garments. The lad gave her a friendly, open smile and a courteous greeting, and offered to take her to the master. Disarmed and curious, Noor followed him.

  The room through which they passed was round and vast-much larger than the exterior of the tower had suggested possible-and it bustled with activity. A dozen red-robed apprentices hurried about, carrying sharp implements or shallow bowls brimful of blood. Cages stood about in no apparent order, filled with strange creatures unlike any Noor had ever seen.

  That no one had seen before, she realized. She looked about with real interest as she followed her escort through the teeming chaos. Along one wall was tethered a line of centaur-like creatures, human torsos rising from the bodies of strange and mighty beasts. A small wind buffeted her as they passed a young griffin that bated its wings tentatively, its eagle-like beak moving as it muttered to itself in a plaintive, very human voice.

  An excited smile burst over Noor's face. She had heard of such things-combining forms, transferring the life force of one creature into another body. This was necromancy at its most exciting!

  "What is he doing?" Noor asked, nodding toward another crimson-clad youth. The young man stood on a stool, using a long wooden paddle to stir the contents of an enormous cauldron. Apprentices came and went, pouring thick red sludge into the pot.

  "Cats," the apprentice said cheerfully, pointing to the sludge. "The jungles are teeming with them. We're rebuilding a man with a cat's muscles. Measure for measure, cats are ten times as strong as men, and far more quick and agile."

  As Noor watched, a human skeleton rose from the thick and fetid soup. Chains linked its wrists to handles on either side of the cauldron. The skeleton fought against its bonds, writhing and struggling as if to shed the alien flesh that slowly gathered upon its bones.

  "Reverse decomposition," Noor said slowly. She had heard of such a spell. It was exceedingly difficult, and obviously painful. But when the process was complete, what a servant the necromancer would possess!

  She considered her grandmother's final word in this new light. Perhaps that final, whispered "deathwizard" was not a taunt, but an answer to Noor's question. Most likely her grandmother's remains possessed speech and memory not because of any magic the woman had once claimed, but through the power of the wizard who had raised her!

  The apprentice gestured to a tall, black-robed man who stood with his back toward them, reading from a massive book that floated before him. "The master," the lad said simply. He bowed to Noor and left her.

  She took a deep breath, trying to reclaim some of her indignation. "Lord wizard," she called out as she stalked toward him.

  He turned, and something in his gaze stopped Noor in mid stride. His was a striking face, graced with fine features and framed with an abundance of glossy black hair. He might have been handsome, but for black eyes as soulless as a shark's.

  Nevertheless, Noor met his gaze. "You are trespas
sing upon Ghalagar lands, my family home. This tower was raised in defiance of our ancestral claims, and against Halruaan law. What have you to say to this?"

  "I am Akhlaur," the wizard responded, as if that explained all.

  As indeed it did.

  Noor's heart thudded to a painful stop, then took off at a gallop like a bee-stung mare. The room tilted and spun wildly as she dropped to one knee before the greatest necromancer of their time.

  "I am Noor, first daughter of Hanish Ghalagar. Your presence here lends my family grace, my lord, and I bid you welcome in my father's name."

  A wicked glint sparkled through the wizard's eyes, proclaiming her words as the lie they truly were. Building a tower on another wizard's lands, especially in these dark and contentious times, was a challenge the Ghalagar family could not ignore. There was no way this could end but in war, and they both knew it.

  Even as the thought formed, another path opened-one so bright and full of promise that Noor gasped with the wonder of it.

  "My lord Akhlaur, it is my family's custom that every youth and maiden must pass a threshold. We journey to this place of power, seeking a vision from Mystra."

  Akhlaur lips curved with dark amusement. "And I am the vision the Lady granted? Apparently she possesses a fine sense of irony!"

  Noor rose to her feet quickly, before her courage failed. "We make this journey before taking vows of apprenticeship, to test our true path." She held up her hand, and showed him the deathwizard ring. "It is my desire to learn the necromancer's Art. I am the Ghalagar heiress. If you accept me as apprentice, none will challenge your right to this place."

  "Do you think I need such an alliance?" Akhlaur asked, more in curiosity than anger.

  She dipped into a hasty curtsy. "Of course not, my lord. The advantage would be entirely mine."

  The necromancer glanced at her hand. "You have a deathwizard ring," he stated. Without hesitation Noor stripped it off and handed it to him.