Unclean: The Haunted Lands

by Richard Lee Byers

  “What happened to the two of you?” he asked.

  “We had some trouble on the trail,” Muthoth said. “A man attacked us.”

  Xingax cocked his head. “A man? As in, one?”

  Muthoth colored. “He was a bard, with magic of his own.”

  “And here I thought it was an article of faith with you Red Wizards that your arts are superior to all others,” Xingax drawled. “At any rate, I assume you made him pay for his audacity.”

  Muthoth hesitated. “No. He translated himself elsewhere.”

  “By Velsharoon’s staff! You couriers have one simple task, to acquire and transport slaves without attracting undue attention—never mind. Just tell me exactly what happened.”

  Muthoth did, while So-Kehur stood and fidgeted. Impatient as Xingax was to return to his experiments, he had to admit it was a tale worth hearing if only because it seemed so peculiar. He was incapable of love in both the spiritual and anatomical senses, but in the course of dealing with beings less rational than himself, he’d acquired some abstract understanding of what those conditions entailed. Still, it was ultimately unfathomable that a man could so crave the society of one particular woman that he’d risk near-certain destruction on her behalf.

  Of course, from a practical perspective, the enigmas of human psychology were beside the point, and Xingax supposed he ought to focus on what was pertinent. “You didn’t tell this Bareris Anskuld you were heading into Delhumide, did you?” he asked.

  “Of course not!” Muthoth snapped.

  “It’s conceivable,” said Xingax, “that he’s inferred it, but even if he has, I don’t see what he can do about it. Follow? If so, our sentinels will kill him. Tell others what he’s discovered? We’d prefer that he not, and we’ll try to find and silence him, but really, he doesn’t know enough to pose a problem. He may not dare to confide in anyone anyway. After all, the will of a Red Wizard is law, and by running afoul of the two of you, he automatically made himself a felon.”

  Muthoth nodded. “That’s the way I see it.”

  “We’re just sorry,” said So-Kehur, “that the bard killed some of our warriors, and the orcs had to kill a few of the slaves.”

  Muthoth shot his partner a glare, and Xingax understood why. While telling their story, Muthoth had opted to omit that particular detail.

  “Did you reanimate the dead?” Xingax asked.

  “Yes,” Muthoth said.

  “Then I suppose that in all likelihood, it didn’t do any extraordinary harm.” Xingax started to turn back to his papers then realized the wizards were still regarding him expectantly. “Was there more?”

  “We assumed,” said Muthoth, “that you’d want to divide up the shipment, or would you rather I do it?”

  Xingax screwed up his asymmetrical features, pondering. He didn’t want to forsake his creative work for a mundane chore. He could feel the answer to the puzzle teasing him, promising to reveal itself if he pushed just a little longer. On the other hand, the slaves were a precious resource, one he’d occasionally come near to exhausting despite the best efforts of the couriers to keep him supplied, and he wasn’t certain he could trust anyone but himself to determine how to exploit them to best effect.

  “I’ll do it,” he sighed.

  He beckoned to the giant zombie, and the creature picked him up to ride on its shoulders as if he were a toddler, and the mindless brute with its low forehead and gnarled apish arms, his father. His frayed, greasy length of umbilicus dangled over the zombie’s chest.

  In reality, it wasn’t necessary that anyone or anything carry Xingax. If he chose, he could move about quite adequately on his own, but it suited him that folk should think him as physically helpless as his ravaged fetal form appeared. For the time being, he and his associates were all on the same side, but an existence spent primarily in the Abyss had taught him just how quickly such situations could alter, and a time might come when he’d want to give one of his compatriots a lethal surprise.

  His balcony was one of a number of such vantage points overlooking the warren of catacombs below. Despite the extensive labor required, he’d ordered the construction of a system of catwalks to connect one perch to the next and only descended to mingle with his living associates when necessary. Even necromancers couldn’t maintain their mystical defenses against his proximity every moment of every day, nor could they work efficiently if vomiting, suffering blinding headaches, or collapsing in convulsions.

  As his undead giant lumbered along with Muthoth and So-Kehur trailing at its heels, it pleased Xingax to see the complex bustling with activity, each of his minions busy at his—or its—job. That was as it must be, if he was to make progress in his investigations and earn his ultimate reward.

  One of the Red Wizards had conjured a perpetual gloom to shroud the platform overlooking the enormous vault where the couriers caged newly arrived slaves. The prisoners’ eyes couldn’t penetrate the shadows, but an observer experienced no difficulty looking out of them. Thus, Xingax could study the thralls without agitating them.

  He didn’t scrutinize any one individual for long. He trusted his first impressions, his myopia notwithstanding. “Food,” he said, pointing. “Basic. Basic. Advanced. Food. Basic.” Then he noticed the wizards simply standing and listening. “Why aren’t you writing this down?”

  “No need,” said Muthoth. “So-Kehur will remember.”

  “He’d better,” Xingax said. He continued assigning the slaves to their respective categories until only two remained.

  They were young women who’d found a corner in which to settle. Likely aghast at what she’d glimpsed on the walk to her current place of confinement, the one with long hair appeared to have withdrawn deep inside herself. Her companion was coaxing her to sample the porridge their captors had provided.

  “Food and food,” Xingax concluded, feeling a renewed eagerness to return to the problem of the defective ritual. “Is there anything else?”

  Maddeningly, it appeared there was. “My hand,” said Muthoth, lifting the bandaged one. “I’ve heard about your skill with grafts, and I was hoping you could do something to repair it.”

  “Why, of course,” Xingax said. “I have a thousand vital tasks to occupy me, but I’ll gladly defer them to help a mage so incompetent that he couldn’t defend himself against a lone madman even with a second wizard and bodyguards to help. Because that’s exactly the sort of ally I want owing me a favor.”

  Muthoth glared, looking so furious that Xingax wondered if he was in danger of losing control. So-Kehur evidently thought so. He took a step backward, lest a sorcerous attack strike him by accident.

  Xingax called on the poisonous power inside him. He stared into Muthoth’s eyes and released an iota of it, hoping to suggest its full devastating potential in the same way that a mere flick of a whip reminds a slave of the shearing, smashing force of which the lash is capable.

  Muthoth flinched and averted his eyes. “All right! If you’re too busy, I understand.”

  “Good,” Xingax rapped. He started to direct his servant to carry him away then noticed that the confrontation had delayed him long enough for another little drama to start playing itself out in the hall below.

  Specifically, one of the blood orcs had entered the makeshift barracoon. The warrior was somewhat reckless to enter alone. It must assume the slaves were too cowed to try to hurt it, and to all appearances, it was right. They shrank from it as it prowled about.

  The orc’s gaze fell on the two women sitting on the floor in the corner. It leered at them, started unfastening its leather breeches, and waved for the slave with the short hair to move away from her companion.

  The orc’s actions were neither unusual nor illicit. The wizards and guards had permission to amuse themselves with the slaves provided they didn’t damage them to any significant degree. Still, despite the lure of his work, Xingax lingered to watch for another moment. Though he would never have admitted it to another, he sometimes found the alien ma
tter of sexuality intriguing as well as repugnant.

  To his astonishment, the short-haired slave stood up and positioned herself between the orc and her friend. “Find someone else,” she said.

  The orc grabbed her, perhaps with the intention of flinging her out of its way. She hit it in the face with the bowl of gruel. The earthenware vessel shattered, and the warrior stumbled backward. The slave lunged after it, trying to land a second attack, but the guard recovered its balance and knocked her staggering with a backhand blow to the face. Her momentary incapacity gave it time to draw its scimitar.

  It stalked after the thrall, and she retreated. “Help me!” she called. “If we all try, we can kill at least one of them before the end! That’s better than nothing!”

  Apparently the other slaves were too demoralized to agree, because none of them moved to help her. Knowing then that she stood alone, pale with fright but resolute, the short-haired woman shifted her grip on the shard of bowl remaining in her hand to make it easier to slash with the broken edge.

  “She has courage,” Xingax said.

  “That’s the one the bard wanted to buy,” So-Kehur said.

  “Really? Well, perhaps his obsession does make at least a tiny bit of sense. In any case, I was wrong about her.” Xingax waved his hand, dissolving the unnatural gloom so the orc could see him. “Leave her alone!”

  Surprised, the warrior looked up to find out who was shouting at it. It hesitated for a moment, seemingly torn between the prudence of unquestioning obedience and the urgency of anger, then howled, “But she hit me!”

  “And she’ll suffer for it, never fear.” Xingax turned to So-Kehur. “The woman comes to me.”

  After Aoth’s company destroyed the creatures occupying Dulos, he opted to stop there for the night. His weary warriors could use the rest.

  So could he, for that matter, but he proved incapable of sitting or lying still. Eventually he abandoned the effort, left the house he’d commandeered, and started prowling along the perimeter of the settlement.

  It was a pointless thing to do. Shortly before dusk, he and Brightwing had flown over the immediate area and found it clear of potential threats. On top of that, he already had sentries posted.

  Yet he couldn’t shake a nagging unease. Maybe it was simply because the undead were more powerful in the dark. If any remained in the region and aspired to avenge their fellows, this was the time when they would strike.

  Abruptly a shape appeared in the pool of shadow beneath an elm, and though Aoth could barely see it, its tilted, knock-kneed stance revealed it to be undead. No living man would choose to assume such an awkward position, but a zombie, incapable of discomfort, its range of motion altered by its death wounds, very well might.

  Aoth leveled his spear and drew breath to raise the alarm, then noticed the gleam of yellow eyes in the creature’s head. The thing was a dread warrior, one of his own command. As it still possessed sufficient intelligence to fight as it had in life, so too could it stand watch, and apparently Urhur Hahpet or one of his fellow Red Wizards had stationed it here to do so. Maybe the whoreson believed Aoth’s security arrangements were inadequate, or perhaps it was simply that the necromancer, too, felt ill at ease.

  “Don’t blast it,” said a feminine voice. “It’s one of ours.”

  Startled, heart banging in his chest, Aoth jerked around to see Chathi Oandem smiling at him from several paces away. He tried to compose himself and smile back.

  “I wasn’t going to,” he said. “I recognized it just in time to avoid making a fool of myself.”

  The priestess strolled nearer. Though she still carried her torch weapon, she wasn’t wearing her mail and helmet anymore, just flame-patterned vestments that molded themselves to her willowy form at those moments when the cool breeze gusted.

  “I thought all wizards had owl eyes and could see in the dark.”

  Aoth shrugged. “I know the spell, but I haven’t been preparing it lately. I’d rather concentrate on combat magic, especially considering that I can look through Brightwing’s eyes when I need to.”

  “Except that the poor tired creature is asleep at the moment.”

  If Chathi had observed that, it meant she’d passed by his quarters. He felt a rush of excitement at the thought that perhaps she’d gone there intentionally, looking for him, and kept on seeking him after.

  “Good. She’s earned her rest.”

  “So have you and I, yet here we are, up wandering the night. Is something troubling you?”

  He wondered if a captain ought to confide any sort of anxiety or misgivings to someone at least theoretically under his command, then decided he didn’t care. “There shouldn’t be, should there? We won our battle and received word this afternoon that other companies are winning theirs. Everything’s quiet, yet …” He snorted. “Maybe I’m just timid.”

  “Then we both are. I’ve trained since I was a little girl to fight the enemies of Kossuth, and I’ve destroyed my share, but these things! Is it the mere fact they’re undead or that we have no idea why they came down from the mountains that makes them so troubling we can’t relax and celebrate even after a victory?”

  “A bit of both, I suppose.” And something more as well, though he still wasn’t sure what.

  She smiled and touched his cheek as she had to heal him. Even without a corona of flame, her hardened fingertips felt feverishly warm. “I wonder—if you and I tried very hard, do you think we could manage a celebration despite our trepidations?”

  He wanted her as urgently as he could recall ever wanting a woman, but he also wondered if he’d be crossing a line he shouldn’t, for all that Nymia did it constantly. She was a thar-chion and he but a newly minted captain.

  “If this is about my having saved your life,” he said, playing for time until he was sure of his own mind, “remember you saved mine, too. You said it yourself, we’re even.”

  “It’s not about gratitude but about discovering a fire inside me, and when a priestess of Kossuth finds such a flame, she doesn’t seek to dowse it.” Chathi grinned. “That would be blasphemy. She stokes it and lets it burn what it will, so shall we walk back to your quarters?”

  He swallowed. “I imagine one of these huts right in front of us is empty.”

  “Good thinking. No wonder you’re the leader.”

  When she unpinned her vestments and dropped them to pool around her feet, he saw that her god had scarred portions of her body as well as her face, but those marks didn’t repel him either. In fact, he kissed them with a special fervor.

  Each gripping one of her arms, the two blood orcs marched Tammith toward the doorway, and she offered no resistance. Perhaps she’d used up her capacity for defiance seeking to protect Yuldra, or maybe it was simply that she realized the two gray-skinned warriors with their swinish tusks were on their guard. She had little hope of breaking away and wouldn’t know which way to run if she did.

  The spacious vault beyond the door proved to be a necromancer’s conjuring chamber lit, like the rest of the catacombs, by everburning torches burning with cold greenish flame. Though Tammith had never seen such a place before, the complex designs chalked on the floor, the shelves of bottled liquids and jars of powders, the racks of staves and wands, and the scent of bitter incense overlying the stink of decay were familiar to her from stories.

  Two Red Wizards currently occupied the room, along with half a dozen zombies. A couple of the latter shuffled forward and reached out to collect Tammith.

  The gods had been cruel to make her believe that she might still have Bareris and freedom only to snatch them away. Her spirit had nearly shattered then, and she still didn’t understand why it hadn’t. Perhaps it was the knowledge that her love had escaped. He could still have a life even if she couldn’t.

  In any case, she hadn’t yet succumbed to utter crippling terror and had vowed to meet her end, whatever it proved to be, with as much bravery as she could muster. Still, the prospect of the enduring the touch of the
zombies’ cold, slimy fingers, of inhaling the fetor of their rotten bodies close up, filled her with revulsion.

  “Please!” she said. “You don’t need those creatures to hold me. I know I can’t get away.”

  The Red Wizards ignored her plea, and the zombies, with their slack mouths and empty eyes, trudged a step closer, but then a voice spoke from overhead.

  “That sounds all right. Just position a couple of the zombies to block the exit, in case she’s not as sensible as she seems.”

  Tammith looked up and observed the loft above the chamber for the first time. The giant zombie was there and its master, too. A number of round lenses attached to a branching metal framework hung before the fetus-thing like apples on a tree. From her vantage point, the effect was to break his body into distorted sections and make it even more hideous, if such a thing was possible.

  Since the creature had decreed that she was to come to him, she’d expected to encounter him wherever she ended up. Still, the actual sight of him dried her mouth and made her shudder. How could anything so resemble a baby yet look so ghastly and radiate such a palpable feeling of malevolence? She struggled again to cling to what remained of her courage.

  She didn’t hear either of the Red Wizards give a verbal command or notice a hand signal either, but the zombies stopped advancing as the fetus-thing had indicated they should. The orcs looked to one of the necromancers, and he waved a hairless, tattooed hand in dismissal. The guards wasted no time departing, as if even they found the chamber a disturbing place.

  Tammith forced herself to gaze up at the baby-thing without flinching. “Thank you for that anyway. I’m tired of being manhandled.”

  “And corpse-handled is even worse, I imagine.” The creature smirked at its own feeble play on words. “Think nothing of it. This could be the beginning of a long and fruitful association, and we might as well start off in a friendly sort of way. My name is Xingax. What’s yours?”

  She told him. “ ‘A long and fruitful association?’ Then … you don’t mean to kill me?”