Roberc cursed but kept the wraith busy as Borovazk moved into a flanking position. The ranger's warhammer and sword moved in a deadly dance. Both struck the wraith hard, causing ripples in the creature's form.
Taen had time to watch his friends' battle only for an instant. Confident that they could hold their own, he returned his attention to the crown-bearing wraith now looming before Marissa. The druid fell back, barely avoiding the wraith's attack as the undead creature swung its scepter in a wide arc. It gave a soft moan, like the wind whistling through an empty graveyard, before pressing forward.
Taen loosed a series of magical bolts from his fingertips, hoping that the arcane missiles would distract the creature. The creature shuddered as the energy struck its form, but it continued to advance toward Marissa. Desperately, she swung the length of her staff at the creature. Pure white energy erupted at the point of contact, causing the wraith to fall back in pain. It glared at her from the depths of its red eyes but made no further move to advance.
Borovazk's cry of pain and anger drew Taen's attention. He watched in horror as a wraith withdrew its long, black arm from within the ranger's chest. Roberc beat madly at the undead monster with the edge of his blade, but his opponent remained focused on the wounded Rashemi. Without thought, Taen summoned the words to another spell. When he had finished, a single bolt of blue lightning sped from his outstretched hand to strike the wraith. It shuddered like an unfurling sail in the midst of a gale wind before fading out of existence.
Too late, Taen realized that casting his spell left him vulnerable to attack by the wraith lord. He managed to stumble away from the creature's first swing, but it quickly followed through with a thrust from its outstretched arm.
Taen gasped as the wraith's long fingers passed through the skin of his neck and reached deep into his being. Instantly, the world spun away, replaced by a thick haze of gray fog. He stumbled forward, anxious to find his companions, trying to avoid the follow-up blow that would surely fall, but the fog swirled around him, filling his lungs. Taen's chest burned. His heart had stopped beating, and was replaced by a single ball of white ice that sat in his chest like a lodestone. Choking and retching, he nearly didn't hear the woman's voice that called out to him from the depths of the fog.
"Murderer!" it shouted, and again, "Murderer!"
Taen wanted to protest, to deny the accusation, but he knew the truth. He was a murderer. Talaedra's face formed in the fog swirling around him.
"Murderer." This time several voices accused him—then several hundred, until the air reverberated with the word—"murderer."
"Talaedra!" he shouted—then knew no more.
* * * *
Marissa's blood froze in her veins when she saw Taenaran fall beneath the wraith's attack. Fear and anger rose within her at the thought that he might be dead. She gripped the Staff of the Red Tree tightly and swung it with all her strength at the stooped form of the feeding wraith. Power flowed through the staff once again as it struck the undead monster, but this time the impact caused the wood of the staff to ignite with a flaring blast of silver energy. Whatever she had done had awakened life from deep within the wood. She could feel the whispering voice in her mind grow stronger, more urgent, until it nearly shouted ancient wisdom and ancient wrath.
Marissa fought it while she could, but the voice overcame her. For a moment, she knew the terrible power held within the still-living branch of the Red Tree, knew how to tap into it and how to unleash it on the world.
A moment was all she needed.
Raising the staff high into the air, she brought its heel down hard on the earth, singing the words to an ancient song in a voice both her own and not her own. The ground trembled. Light exploded from the artifact, as bright as the searing light of noon at High Summer. It filled the road with its blinding rays, and against its elemental force, the wraiths had no defense. In a flash of darkness, they imploded, leaving only the memory of death behind.
Then, as suddenly as it had flared into existence, the light winked out, and darkness descended like a shroud upon the trade road.
Selov was the first to recover.
"By all the gods and the wisdom of the elders," he whispered in obvious amazement. "What have you done?"
Marissa was tired, almost too tired to stand.
"I am not sure," she said wearily, "and right now I don't care." She forced her body to move toward the fallen half-elf. "Is he—?"
"He is alive," Selov said, examining Taen carefully.
"So is Borovazk," called out Roberc.
Relief flooded through her body, giving a lift to her wearied spirit.
"Then we must hurry to the well," Marissa said. "I fear that our friends need help that only the wychlaran can provide."
Or withhold, she thought cynically.
In the distance, a lone wolf sang mournfully to the dying moon.
Chapter 13
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
The goblin screamed.
Yulda, wrapped in her hag illusion, smiled at the foul creature's pain—though her eyes held little humor. She watched it beat ineffectually at the incorporeal form of the snow tiger, like a small child denying its mother's discipline. Her smile deepened as Fleshrender batted the hapless creature between its paws, purring loudly while its claws sank through the goblin's skin.
In truth, her mood was fouler than the snowstorms that battered the mountains surrounding her citadel. When word had come to Yulda, through her spy at the Green Chapel, regarding the outsiders and their peculiar journey to Immil Vale, she was incensed. The presence of the Staff of the Red Tree among the outsiders drove her beyond reason. If Durakh had not had the sense to try to calm Yulda down, the witch would have set about destroying the interlopers right at that moment—thereby revealing herself too soon. Instead, she retired to her chamber, cursing the presence of the strangers and her need of Durakh's wisdom, and began planning her next move.
Circumstances made it clear to Yulda that powerful forces were moving against her. She had spent nearly ten winters planting the seeds of her plan and nurturing its growth. A little whispered gossip here, a quiet expression of dissatisfaction there, and the subtle promise of power to those who craved it the way a dragon craves gold had done much to position her for what she was about to do. There was no way that she would let her plan wither on the vine because of some soft outsiders.
She wrestled for a time with the problem before her. It was clear right from the start that she couldn't allow the intruders to meet with the wychlaran. If those meddling telthor from the Red Tree had sent the outsiders to speak with the othlor, then it could only be because they had discovered Yulda's secret and were moving against her. But, she thought bitterly, how could she accomplish the destruction of the outsiders without it being traced back to her? It was then that a plan began to form in her mind.
She had summoned Durakh from her meditations, and immediately they set out for the abandoned crypts lying in the secret places beneath the citadel. There the evil cleric bound several wraiths haunting the forgotten tunnels to her will. Once the strangers had departed the hamlet of Urling, Yulda teleported the undead monsters right in their midst.
It was a sound plan, one that was supposed to rid the witch of the one serious threat to her plans.
And it failed utterly.
Yulda nearly screamed with frustration. Not only had the strangers defeated the undead menace, but they also managed to evade every attempt at locating them through magical scrying. It was as if they had disappeared from the world.
Selov!
She knew that the old fool was somehow behind this. He had ever been a bootlicking lackey of the wychlaran. No doubt he used his knowledge to help the outsiders. Once she ruled Rashemen utterly, Yulda would deal with the doddering idiot herself. Until then, she would just have to try and salve her seething temper and—if she were being honest—her growing fear, in the blood and pain of her servants.
>
Unfortunately, Fleshrender's current plaything had stopped screaming and simply lay there like a piece of meat. Yulda's assembled minions watched with barely concealed terror. Human and goblin servants huddled in clumps, pointing and whispering at the stiffening corpse, no doubt wondering if they would be next.
The stink of their fear rose up in the vaulted room like sweet perfume. Yulda breathed it in deeply, savoring its pungent aroma. Still, it could not ease the clenching of her stomach, and the witch found herself grinding her teeth in frustration.
A curse on Selov, the blasted wychlaran, and their foolish pawns, she thought acidly.
Yulda turned to face her gathered servants. Their whispered mewling irritated her. With a sharp clap of her hands, she captured their attention.
"Leave us," she shouted at them, "and prepare for your duties!"
At that, they scattered into the shadows of the room, and Yulda drew a small sense of satisfaction from their hasty retreat.
"Not you," she called out to Durakh as the cleric started to walk down the hall to her private chamber. "We have things to discuss."
The half-orc checked her movement and turned back to Yulda.
"As you command," Durakh said in an even tone.
Careful, Yulda thought—though if she meant it as a reminder to herself or as a mental warning to the cleric, she couldn't be sure. Her world had begun to spin out of control with the revelation of the strangers' presence in Rashemen. It wouldn't take much to tear things irrevocably from their moorings, leaving her only with the ruins of a plan and the ire of the wychlaran and vremyonni pursuing her through the darkness. She licked her cracked lips before speaking.
"You know that our plan has failed," she said, more as a statement than a question.
Durakh nodded.
"Yes," Durakh replied. "I felt the wraiths' destruction." Her gray eyes met Yulda's. "It was... unexpected."
Yulda's temper rose at the cleric's equanimity.
"Unexpected," Yulda nearly shouted. "You assured me that your undead servants would destroy them."
Durakh raised a single eyebrow in response. The scars on her chin and throat gleamed angrily in the light of the chamber.
"They were powerful," she said after a moment. "More powerful than I expected, and"—she paused, casting another glance directly at the witch—"they had help."
"Help?" Yulda asked, her voice rising. Not for the first time, she regretted the necessity of her illusion, for as Chaul the hag, she could not bring her empty eye socket to bear on the impertinent cleric.
"Yes," Durakh replied. "Could you not feel it—a wave of energy that did not originate from any mortal spellcaster?"
In truth, Yulda had felt the unexpected surge of power. Its passing echoed through the bones of the earth even as far as the citadel. She was surprised, however, that the half-orc had felt is as well. She was forced, once again, to revise her assessment of the cleric.
"It was the power of the staff," Yulda said, "though how the outsiders discovered how to tap in to the Red Tree's power remains a mystery to me."
"Have you been able to locate them?" Durakh asked, fingering the outline of her ebony holy symbol.
Yulda gazed at the half-orc warily before answering.
"I have tried spells of location and detection as well as scrying," Yulda said. "So far they have eluded my arcane eye."
Though the cleric's face remained impassive as she spoke, Yulda could sense the feeling of satisfaction that crested through her thoughts. However hard she might try and disguise it, Durakh clearly enjoyed the witch's frustration.
"Then we must assume that the strangers have rendezvoused with the othlor," the half-orc said. "The wychlaran must be protecting them from your spells."
"Perhaps," was all that Yulda said in reply.
The cleric's words galled her, even as she heard the truth in them. Soon they would come after her and try to destroy what she had worked so hard to accomplish. The witch knew that she would be vulnerable in the citadel with her forces heading out into the field.
"Even so," Durakh said, "I have tripled the outer sentries and prepared a few surprises for anyone trying to use the tunnels to gain entrance to the lower portions of the citadel. It would not do for them to catch us unawares."
"Good," Yulda replied, though inwardly she seethed at the liberty taken by her lieutenant. This was her citadel. Clearly the witch would have to take steps in order to reinforce that reality for the half-orc.
Yulda was about to do just that when a piercing shout rang in her mind. She nearly pitched forward from the force of it but found Durakh's strong arm holding her up.
"What is it?" the cleric asked. "What has happened?" Yulda could hear the anxiety in the half-orc's voice, but she had no time to revel in it, for the voice in her mind rang louder.
"They dare," she said, shrugging off Durakh's support and forcing her will to clamp down on the inner alarm.
When she had first come to the citadel, Yulda spent tendays preparing arcane defenses in case anyone should try and magically breach the boundaries of her demesne. One of them had just activated.
"The wychlaran are trying to teleport something or someone into the citadel," Yulda continued. "No doubt those damn outsiders."
"Can you prevent them?" Durakh asked.
The witch shook her head. "No," she said then began to smile, "but I can do something even better."
With a quick motion to silence any further questions, Yulda closed her eyes and cast her mind into the complex web of spells she had spun over the citadel. In a moment, she located the tendrils of power that would coil and grow to teleport her enemies within the walls of the keep. Quickly she gathered her power and sent a surge of arcane energy through the webwork of her defenses. It flared and expanded once the energy met the incoming teleport spell, and Yulda felt a satisfying vibration as her magic intertwined with that of the wychlarans', shunting the location of the teleport to a place of her choosing.
Her smile broadened as she thought about the incoming invaders. Yulda opened here eyes. Durakh stood quietly to one side, her head cocked as if listening for the sounds of battle from somewhere within the citadel.
"Do not worry, Durakh," the witch said quietly, "our guests are nowhere within our walls. I've arranged a little detour for them. I doubt that they shall trouble us further."
Though she remained smiling, Yulda focused every ounce of will on stilling the trembling in her limbs. It had been several tendays since she last drew energy from her vremyonni captive, and the teleportation spell drained her severely. She had no wish for her lieutenant to see her so utterly weakened. With a single command, the witch summoned Fleshrender to her side. The telthor obeyed immediately, loping past Durakh with easy strides.
"I must return to my sanctum and replenish my power," she said briskly. "I trust you can hold the fortress until my return."
She did not wait for the cleric's response but instead whispered the words to another spell and faded quickly into the shadows.
Chapter 14
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
They hovered like ghosts around the well.
Marissa spotted them first as she stumbled into the clearing, half-supporting, half-dragging Taenaran. White robes billowed and shifted in the still night air, catching and reflecting the dim starlight. Sharp eyes, like diamonds, regarded them from behind the cold, impassive mien of stark white masks. There were five of them, living statues, standing still and terrible around the stone lip of the well.
She gazed upon them with a mixture of fear and wonder. In the short time since she had unleashed the power of the staff, her mind expanded—or perhaps it shrank. The strong, implacable voice that had sung the words of power in her head remained—though it softened once again to an ever-present whisper, a sibilance of wisdom that skewed and altered her perception with each utterance. Marissa felt as if she stood with a foot in two worlds, and her spirit was the portal.
Thus, when one of the figures pointed commandingly for them to approach the well, she did so without hesitation. In the half dream where she walked, the witches were creatures of ice and silence, the very judgment of Rashemen incarnated before her. She could not—no, she would not—deny them.
As Marissa approached the assembled witches, she sketched a reverent bow, careful not to let the still-dazed Taenaran drop to the ground. Borovazk bowed deeply as well then moved to help support the wounded half-elf despite his own injuries. She watched as Roberc approached, still mounted on Cavan, his grizzled face staring intensely at the gathered witches from beneath his gold helm. Selov, she noted with little surprise, merely inclined his head to the othlor, a clear gesture of respect from one's peer.
The othlor drew back from the well and formed a circle around Marissa and her companions. From this distance, she could see that the witches' masks were not identical. Though similar in their stark coloring, each mask held a unique expression frozen on its ivory surface. Some were simple and stolid, while the exaggerated features on others crossed the border into the grotesque.
Silence filled the clearing as Marissa and her friends endured the gaze of the assembled othlor. The druid wondered what the protocol was for speaking to the wisest of the wychlaran. Her instincts told her to follow Selov's lead, but concern for Taenaran rode her like a night hag. She cleared her throat in preparation to speak but stopped as one of the witches, bearing a wide-eyed, wide-mouthed mask set in a permanent leer, stepped forward.
"Who dares summon the wisest of the Wise Ones?" the leering witch shouted without preamble. "Who dares call us from the mastery of our lore like a shepherd whistling for his dog? We are the othlor of the wychlaran, guide and guardians of Rashemen, not servile hedge-witches who run at the beck and call of our masters. Tell us who you might be so that we shall know the names of those whose blood we shed!"
The witch's voice cracked like a whip across the silence of the clearing. Marissa flinched beneath its lash and heard Borovazk groan softly under his breath.
Keith Francis Strohm Page 11
