Norrec leaned back, stretching out. After so many years on the battlefield, any spot served as good as another when it came to finding a bed. The armor would make matters uncomfortable, but the tired soldier had suffered worse in that respect.
"What in-?"
His arms and legs pushed him back up to a standing position. Norrec tried to sit down, but no part of his body beneath his neck obeyed.
His arms dropped, swinging from the shoulders as if every muscle had been cut. Norrec's left foot stepped forward; his right followed after.
"I can't go on, damn you! I need some rest!"
The suit cared not a whit, picking up the pace. Left. Right. Left. Right.
"An hour! Two at the most! That's all I need!"
His words echoed uselessly through the mountains and hills. Left. Right. Whether the hapless veteran liked it or not, he would continue his arduous journey.
But to where?
This should never have happened, Kara nervously thought. By the will of Rathma, this should never have happened!
The emerald sphere that she had conjured earlier in order to see gave the entire tableau an even more unsettling appearance. Her face, already pale in color, paled further. Kara pulled her lengthy black cloak about her, taking some comfort from its warmth. Under thick lashes, silver, almond-shaped eyes surveyed a scene that her masters surely could never have envisioned. The tomb is forever safe, they had always insisted. Where Vizjerei elemental sorcery falters, our own trusted skills will make the difference.
But now both the more materialistic Vizjerei and the pragmatic followers of Rathma had apparently failed in their trust. That which they had sought to forever bury from the sight of men had not only been discovered, but had actually been stolen.
Or was there more to it? How powerful could the intruders have been to not only eliminate the undead guardians, but also shatter the unbreakable wards?
Not so powerful that two of them had not died in very violent fashion. Moving with such grace that she seemed almost to glide, the black-clad woman went to the nearestof the corpses. Kara leaned down and, after pushing back several tresses of lengthy, raven-colored hair, inspected the remains.
A wiry man, a battle-scarred war veteran. From one of the distant western lands. Not a pleasant-looking man, even before someone had completely twisted his head around and nearly torn off his arm. The dagger in his chest, surely an exercise in excess, looked to be his own. Which had killed him, even the necromancer could not say-not yet. The gaping wound had bled well, but not as much as it normally should have. Yet, why cut the victim open after snapping his neck?
As silent as death, the slim but curvaceous young woman made her way to the other body. This one she immediately recognized as a Vizjerei, which did not surprise her in the least. Always meddling, always seeking methods by which to gain advantage over one another, the Vizjerei made untrustworthy allies at best. If not for them, this entire situation would never have occurred. Bartuc and his brother had followed the early teachings of the Vizjerei, especially their reckless use of demons for more powerful spells of sorcery. Bartuc had especially excelled in that respect, but his constant interactions with the dark ones had twisted his own thinking, making him believe that demons were his allies. They, in turn, had fed off his growing evil, kindred spirits from both the mortal and infernal planes.
And although Horazon and his fellow mages had slain Bartuc and defeated his demon host, they had found it impossible to destroy the warlord's very corpse. The armor, known to bear several sinister enchantments, had continued to try to serve its function, protecting its master even in death. Only the fact that Bartuc had failed to cover his throat properly had even allowed his foes to decapitate the villain in the first place.
Left with a head and torso that they could not readilyburn, the Vizjerei had come to Kara's own people, searching the dense jungles for the reclusive practitioners of a sorcery that balanced life and death, a sorcery that caused their wielders to be branded necromancer. Together the two diverse orders worked hard to make certain that Bartuc's remains forever vanished from the face of the world, hopefully even the warlord's enchantments fading to nothing with time.
Kara touched the crimson-soaked throat of the dead sorcerer, noting how most of it had been ripped away with a savageness beyond that of most animals. Unlike the fighter, the mage had died very quickly if still brutally. His eyes stared up at her, the horror of what had happened to him still evident. His expression remained a mix of shock and disbelief, almost… almost as if he could not believe who his murderer had been.
Yet, how could some force slay a Vizjerei and still fail to stop the other thieves? Had they just been fortunate, barely escaping? Kara frowned; with the undead guardians gone and the wards shattered, what had remained that could have hunted the intruders? What?
She wished the others had come with her, but that had not been possible. They had been needed elsewhere- everywhere, it seemed. Ageneral ground swelling of forces so very dark had been sensed not only throughout Kehjistan, but also Scosglen. The faithful of Rathma had been spread thinner than in any other period of their existence.
And that left only her, one of the youngest and lesstested of her faith. True, like most of those who followed the path of Rathma, she had been trained to be independent almost from birth, but now Kara felt she entered territory for which no amount of teaching or experience could have prepared her.
Perhaps… perhaps though, this Vizjerei could still teach her something about what she now faced.
From her belt, Kara removed a delicate-looking but highly resilient dagger, the blade of which had been fashioned in a back-and-forth serpentine manner. Both the blade and the handle had been carved from purest ivory, but there again appearances deceived. Kara would have willingly pitted her own knife against any other, knowing full well that the enchantments placed on it made it stronger and more accurate than most normal weapons.
With neither distaste nor eagerness, the necromancer touched the point to one of the bloodiest areas on the dead Vizjerei's ravaged throat. She turned the blade over and over until the tip had been completely covered. Then, holding the dagger hilt down, Kara muttered her spell.
The deep red splotches on the tip flared bright. She muttered a few more words, concentrating.
The splotches began to change, to grow. They moved as if alive-or remembering life.
Kara, called Nightshadow by her teachers, flipped the dagger over, then thrust the point into the floor.
The blade sank in halfway, not at all impeded by the hard rock surface. Stepping back quickly, Kara watched as the ivory dagger became engulfed by the swelling splotches, which then melded together, creating a vaguely human form little taller than the weapon.
Drawing patterns in the air, the necromancer uttered the second and final part of her incantation.
In a blaze of red light, a full-sized figure materialized where the ivory dagger had stood. Completely crimson from head to toe, skin to garments, he stared at her with vacant eyes. He wore the clothes of a Vizjerei sorcerer, the same clothes, in fact, that the corpse on the floor behind him wore.
Kara eagerly beheld the phantasm bearing the likeness of the dead mage. She had done this only once beforeand under conditions much more favorable. What stood before her most mortals would have called a ghost, a spirit-but in doing so they would have been only partially correct. Drawn forth from the life's blood of the victim, it indeed bore some traces of the dead's spirit, but to fully summon a true specter would have taken more time and trouble and Kara had to act in haste now. This phantasm would surely serve to answer her questions.
"Name yourself!" she demanded.
The mouth moved but no sound came from it. Nonetheless, an answer formed in her mind.
Fauztin…
"What happened here?"
The phantasm stared, but did not answer. Kara cursed herself for a fool, realizing that it could only answer questions in a simple way. Taking a breath,
she asked, "Did you destroy the undead?"
Some…
"Who destroyed the rest?"
Hesitation, then… Norrec.
Norrec? The name meant nothing to her. "A Vizjerei? A sorcerer?"
To her surprise, the spectral form shook his crimson head ever so slightly. Norrec… Vizharan…
The name again. The last part, Vizharan, meant servant of the Vizjerei in the old tongue, but that information helped Kara little. This path led her nowhere. She turned to a different and far more important subject. "Did this Norrec take the armor from the dais?"
And again the phantasm shook his head ever so slightly. Kara frowned, recalling nothing in her teachings mentioning this. Perhaps Vizjerei made for more unusual summonings. She pondered her next question with care. With the limitations of the phantasm, the necromancer realized that she could spend all day and night askingand yet still receive no knowledge of value to her mission. Kara would have to-
A sound came from the passage behind her.
The young enchantress whirled about. For just the briefest of moments, she thought she saw a slight bluish light deep within, but it vanished so quickly that Kara had to wonder if she had imagined it. It could have simply been a glow bug or some other insect, but…
Cautiously approaching the tunnel, Kara warily peered into the darkness. Had she been too hasty in heading directly to the main chamber? Could this Norrec have been hiding outside, waiting for someone to come?
Absurd, but Kara had heard a noise. Of that she felt certain.
And at that moment, she heard it again, this time much farther into the passage.
Muttering a spell, Kara formed a second emerald sphere, which she immediately sent fluttering down the rocky corridor. As it darted along, the dark-haired woman followed after for a few steps, trying to make out what she could.
Still no sign of another intruder, but Kara could not take a chance. Anyone who could so readily slay a Vizjerei certainly offered deadly threat. She could not simply ignore the possibility. Taking a deep breath, the necromancer started down the rocky passage-
— and froze a moment later, swearing at herself for her carelessness. Kara had left her prized dagger behind, and she dared not face a possible foe without it. Not only did it provide her with protection both in the mundane and magical senses, but by leaving it behind, the dark mage even risked possibly losing it to whomever might be stalking the tomb.
She quickly stepped back into the chamber, already preparing in her mind the spell to dismiss the phantasm, only to find that the crimson figure had already vanished.
Kara managed but one more step before a further realization struck her just as hard. With the phantasm had vanished her precious dagger, yet that alone did not leave her now wide-eyed and unable to even speak.
Both the body of the sorcerer Fauztin and his slighter companion had also disappeared.
Four
The sand snake wound swiftly along the shifting desert, its constant undulations keeping the heat of the ground from burning it underneath. Hunting had been poor today but with the sun rising higher, the time had come, like it or not, for the snake to temporarily seek shelter. When the sun had descended some it could come out again, this time hopefully to snag a mouse or beetle. One could not go long in the desert without food, where hunting had always been a difficult business.
Pushing itself hard, the snake traveled up the latest dune, aware that only minutes separated it from shade. Once over this one impediment, it would be home free.
The sand beneath the snake suddenly erupted.
Mandibles more than a foot in length snapped tight around the midsection of the serpent. The snake flailed desperately, trying to slither out. A monstrous head burst through the sand, followed by the first pair of needlelike legs.
Still struggling, the snake struck at its attacker, hissing and trying to use its venom. The fangs, however, could not penetrate the chitinous exoskeleton of the huge arthropod.
One leg pinned down the rear half of the snake. The beetlelike head of the massive predator twisted sharply, at the same time the mandibles squeezing tight.
Flailing, the bloody front half of the serpent dropped to the ground, the head still hissing.
The black and red arthropod emerged completely from its hiding place, turning now to the process of dragging its meal to where it could eat in leisure. With its front appendages, the nearly seven-foot long predator began prodding the back half of the serpent.
A shadow suddenly loomed over the hideous creature. Immediately it turned its bulky head and spat at the new intruder.
The corrosive poison splattered against the somewhat ragged silk robe of a bearded and rather wild-eyed elderly man. From above a long, almost beaklike nose, he gazed down briefly at the sizzling mess, then waved one gnarled hand over it. As he did this, the acidic poison and the damage it had already caused completely vanished.
Watery blue eyes focused on the savage insect.
Plumes of smoke arose from the exoskeleton. The beetlelike creature let out a high-pitched squeal, its spindly legs teetering. It tried to flee, but its body seemed no longer to work. The legs buckled and the body crumpled. Parts of the monstrous insect began to drip away, as if the creature was no longer made of shell and flesh, but rather runny wax now melting in the hot sun.
The squealing arthropod collapsed in a molten heap. The mandibles, so deadly to the snake, dissolved into a pool of black liquid that readily sank into the sand. The cries of the dying creature finally cut off and, as the ragged figure watched, what remained of the oncesavage predator utterly vanished, draining away like the few drops of rain that annually sought to soothe this parched land.
"Sand maggot. Too many of them about now. So much evil about everywhere," the white-haired patriarch muttered to himself. "So much evil even out here. I must be careful, must be very careful."
He walked past the savaged snake and its just as unfortunate pursuer, heading to another dune just a shortdistance away. As the bearded hermit neared, the dune suddenly swelled, growing higher and higher, finally forming a doorway within that seemed to lead directly into the underworld itself.
Watery blue eyes turned to survey the oppressive landscape. A momentary shiver ran through the elderly man.
"So much evil… I must definitely be careful."
He descended into the dune. The sand immediately began to pull inward the moment he passed through the entrance, filling the passage behind in rapid fashion until no sign remained at all of any opening.
And as the dune settled to normal again, the desert winds continued their shifting of the rest of the landscape, the snake and the sand maggot already joining countless other hapless denizens in a dusty, forgotten burial.
The mountains lay far behind him, although how he had journeyed so far Norrec only half-recalled. At some point he had passed out from exhaustion, but evidently the suit had gone on and on. Despite the fact that none of the effort had actually been his own, every muscle in the veteran's body screamed and every bone felt as if it had broken. His lips were parched from the wind while sweat covered much of his body. Norrec yearned to peel off the armor and run free, but knew the hopelessness of that dream. The armor would do with him as it chose.
And now he stood atop a ridge, staring at the first sign of civilization he had seen in many a day. An unsavory inn, a place that more befitted brigands and highwaymen rather than honest warriors such as himself. However, with darkness about to befall and Norrec nearly done in, the suit seemed to finally register that it had to once more deal with the frailties of its human host.
He marched without desiring to toward the building. Three glum horses stood tethered nearby and at least onemore sounded its displeasure from a wretched stable just beyond. Norrec found himself wishing that he had his sword; the armor had not bothered to take that when it had walked out of the tomb with him.
Just before he reached the doorway, the veteran's legs suddenly buckled under him. Norrec quick
ly caught himself, realizing that Bartuc's damnable armor had granted him the dubious gift of entering on his own, likely in order to avoid notice of anything strange.
Hunger and rest more important to Norrec at the moment than his own pride, the soldier pushed the door wide open. Grimy, suspicious faces looked up, the onlookers a mixture not only of the eastern races, but those on the other side of the Twin Seas as well. Mongrels, all four of them, Norrec saw, and although he certainly held no man's background against him, this group did not look at all like men next to whom he desired to sit.
Kind of place where you gotta watch your back even around the serving wench! Sadun Tryst would have jested. Tryst, of course, would have sat with anyone who would have offered him a drink.
But Sadun was dead.
"Shut the door or go back out!" snarled the one seated nearest.
Norrec obeyed, desiring no confrontations. Forcing himself to act as if he had just ridden in, the weary fighter kept his head high as he walked smartly through the room. His body screamed as he moved, but no one there would know of it. Give these men even the slightest hint of weakness and Norrec suspected that they would make dire use of that fact.
He approached what he assumed to be the innkeeper, a towering heavy-set figure more frightful than his patrons, who stood behind a worn and scratched counter. A bush of dirty brown hair fought its way from under an oldtravel cap. Beady eyes stared from a round, canine face. Norrec had noted a peculiar odor in the room when he had first entered and now he knew it to originate from the man before him.
Had he thought that the armor would let him leave, Norrec would have walked right out regardless of his needs.
"What?" the innkeeper finally muttered, scratching his extravagant belly. His shirt had been decorated in a variety of stains and even a rip under the arm.
"I need food." That, more than anything else, Norrec had to have quickly.
"I need good coin."
Coin. The desperate soldier fought back growing frustration. Another item that had been left behind with the bloodied corpses of his companions.
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