A wave of misgiving went through me. What was I doing here? If I gave something that dangerous to Nicholas, he would use it to kill a lot of people. Nicholas could talk about freedom and the Revolution all he wanted, but I had seen his true face, and the true face of the Rebels left pregnant women and little children lying dead in the Ducal Mall.
All his pretty words couldn’t change that.
I shoved the doubt aside. The only way out of this mess was forward. And I didn’t dare linger down here. I hadn’t seen any undead inside Willis Tower, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t wander into the basement sooner or later. It would take a lot of energy to get out of Chicago alive, but once I did, maybe I wouldn’t have to come back again. Maybe I could get Nicholas and his thugs to deal with opening the vault, and I wouldn’t have to work with them again until the next time Nicholas wanted something stolen.
And maybe, if I was very lucky, the myothar and its pet corpses would kill Nicholas and the Forerunner’s deal with Morvilind would be broken.
A darker thought occurred to me. Maybe I could arrange for them to be killed. Make it look like an accident. If Nicholas got killed in an “accident” and broke the Forerunner’s deal, that could hardly be my fault, could it?
And if Nicholas wasn’t stopped he was going to hurt and kill a lot of people.
I discarded the thought as I climbed the dusty stairs back to the lobby. It was too much of a risk. If I found a way to get Nicholas killed before the end of our deal, Morvilind would blame me for the loss of whatever information he wanted from the Forerunner. I would have to play this through to the end. Once I had stolen the three items for Nicholas, then I could turn him over the Inquisition.
First, though, I had to get out of Chicago alive.
I reached the lobby, flipped off my flashlight, and cast the Cloak spell again. Several dozen undead milled about on the street outside, reciting their cryptic riddles to each other, but I doubted any of them would steal my bicycle. I would follow the same pattern I had used to get here to escape – Cloak, ice walls, rest, and repeat until I was out.
I took one step out of the lobby, and the undead froze.
All of them went motionless at once.
It was uncanny. They didn’t need to breathe, and every single one of them went as still as a statue. I took an alarmed step back, but the undead weren’t looking at me.
They had just…stopped.
I shrugged and took one step towards my bicycle.
As I did, a rippling distortion exploded from the midst of the undead, a wall of blue light and writhing mist. I flinched as it hit me. It didn’t do anything to me, but I had seen that kind of light before. The Nihlus Stone I had stolen from Rosalyn Madero produced a similar effect. This was some sort of spell to dispel magic.
Which meant my Cloak spell collapsed around me, rendering me visible.
All the undead turned to face me at once.
That was bad.
What was worse was the dark shape behind them.
The myothar had found me.
Chapter 9: Tentacles
My first choice of word to describe the myothar would be “ugly.”
No, “hideous” would be better.
But that would be understating it. That would be like calling the sun “bright” or the ocean “damp.” Both descriptions would be true but inadequate.
The myothar…how to adequately describe the myothar?
First, imagine a man standing about ten feet tall. Also, instead of skin, he has a glistening gray hide like leather dipped in translucent slime.
Next, imagine that this man is morbidly obese, so fat he shouldn’t be able to move without a motorized wheelchair, but that he is nonetheless able to move with remarkable speed.
Instead of a head, he has a massive squid-thing bulging from his neck, a squid thing with long twitching tentacles. Instead of hands, dozens of smaller tentacles sweep back and forth from his wrists, some of them lined with glistening suckers.
Drape the entire thing in a heavy black robe the size of a tent, and that would be a myothar.
And the smell…God, I don’t even want to talk about the smell. I had always thought the breath of an anthrophage was the worst smell in this world or any other. The myothar gave off a smell like dead fish left in the summer sun for three days, a horrible mixture of a fishy odor and rotting flesh.
I called all my magic to me, preparing to strike, and the myothar walked towards me. Or it sort of flowed towards me. I saw thick, fleshy tentacles lashing out from beneath the hem of its black robe, pulling it along the crumbled asphalt. The tentacles left a trail of translucent slime behind it.
The creature stopped about twenty yards away, the tentacles around its head waving. Behind the tentacles, I saw two huge black, red-glazed eyes watching me, weighing me. The thing had absolutely no expression that I could interpret, but I somehow had the impression that the creature was surprised to see me.
Then it started to speak.
Its voice was just as unpleasant as its appearance and smell, a bubbling rasp that sounded like exactly the voice that a horrible squid monster from another world would use.
It spoke the Elven tongue. Quite well, actually.
“You are not an Elf,” rumbled the myothar.
“I am not,” I said, using the Elven tongue. It took me a bit to get my brain around it. Morvilind always talked to me in English. The last time I had used the Elven tongue had been six months past or a hundred and fifty-eight years ago, depending on how you counted.
“You are one of the apes that inhabit this world,” said the myothar.
“We usually call ourselves humans,” I said.
“Apes.” There was no mistaking the disdain in the gurgling voice. “The Elves are apes. The humans are apes. Both are apes. The humans are simply dumber apes.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but at least we’re not giant dripping squids.”
I don’t think the myothar cared about or even noticed the insult.
“You appear human,” said the myothar, “but you wield aetheric force beyond the capability of humans. And you can cast the Cloaking spell. That is beyond the ability of human apes.”
“I’m super special,” I said.
The myothar oozed forward another yard. Watching the huge creature move was a nauseating sight. The undead remained motionless, but hundreds of pair of glowing green eyes were fixed on me. Further down Wacker Drive in either direction, I saw more undead moving into position.
“This is an anomaly,” said the myothar. “I do not care for anomalies.” It raked its hands through the air, the tentacles lashing, and I got the feeling that it used those tentacles as a sensory organ. “You also have been marked by the Dark Ones.”
“Like I said,” I repeated, “I’m just really super special.” Was that why the anthrophages could follow me wherever I went if I didn’t cast the spell to mask my psychic spoor?
“You will explain,” said the myothar, sliding a little closer.
I racked my brain, trying to think of a way to get out of this mess. I could try Cloaking and running for it, but if the myothar could guess my general location, it could cast a dispelling spell and let its pet undead tear me to pieces. Could I strike at the creature itself? I got the impression it was a much more powerful than me, but if I hit it hard enough and fast enough, maybe I could stun it and get away.
But the myothar was hiding, wasn’t it? It was afraid of its own people and had been lurking in Chicago for centuries in fear of their wrath. The creature had to be fearful that sooner or later trouble would catch up to it.
People who were frightened sometimes did stupid things. Did the same principle apply to something like the myothar?
Guess it was a time to find out.
“I am an agent of the Inquisition of the High Queen Tarlia,” I announced, “and I have come to investigate reports that you have been violating the terms of your agreement with our High Queen.”
The myothar went mo
tionless for a moment, its tentacles freezing.
“Lies,” said the creature at last, but there was an edge in its voice that hadn’t been there before. “The Inquisition does not recruit human agents.”
“And you would know that how?” I said, spreading my hands. “When was the last time you left Chicago? When was the last time you spoke with a Knight of the Inquisition?”
The myothar didn’t say anything.
“How else do you think a human of my age acquired magical power of this level?” I said. “My masters in the Inquisition taught it to me.”
The irritating thing was that it wasn’t technically a lie. I had been an agent of the Inquisition, in the sense that the Lord Inquisitor had arranged for me to kill Baron Castomyr. And Arvalaeon had made sure I received a great deal of magical power.
All it had cost was my sanity and my relationships with everyone I loved.
“But I have done nothing wrong!” protested the myothar.
“I wouldn’t say that,” looking at the glowing eyes of the undead things that surrounded me.
At that moment, I discovered something about this particular myothar. It might have been a wizard of tremendous power. It might have been a necromancer of great skill, and it might have possessed magic far greater than my own.
Nevertheless, it was kind of a whiner.
“But I have not violated any of the terms of my agreement with the High Queen of the Elves!” said the myothar. “I have not left the boundaries of the human city destroyed by the Reaping. I have not killed any of the human apes, save those that come into the city, and I only kill those. I have guarded the gate faithfully and slain any Archons and other creatures that have attempted to enter. These aspersions upon my conduct are unfair.”
“Archons tried to pass through the gate?” I said. “Do you raise them as undead?”
“Many times,” the myothar assured me. “I do not raise them as slaves. Instead, I eat them, for the flesh of Elves is delicious and digests well.” The myothar paused as if worried that it had said too much. “But I would not consume the Elves sworn to the High Queen. Only the traitors to her that come through the gate. I have been faithful to my given word! I have not betrayed the High Queen, and I have guarded the gate against her enemies.”
“Then where have all those anthrophages been coming from?” I said, bluffing. I suspected that Nicholas might have some hidden away in his container yard.
“That is not my doing,” said myothar. “They have not come through my gate. And it is not my fault that the High Queen is losing control of her human apes. Many anthrophages have been summoned in the port city filled with smoke. The rebellious humans have opened gates to the Shadowlands and made alliances with the Knight of Venomhold. I have not summoned anything from the Shadowlands. I only devour anything foolish enough to come through the gate.”
“I bet,” I said. “Well, you’ve convinced me. I don’t know why the High Queen was suspicious of you. I’ll go back to the Inquisition and tell them that you have kept the terms of your agreement with her.”
I started to take a step back.
“Wait.”
The myothar’s horrid voice boomed over the street, the whining note gone from it.
“Why did you enter the ruined tower?” said the myothar.
I shrugged, wondering if the creature understood the gesture. “I was looking for you. You’re a hard man to find.” Though I didn’t know if the myothar was male. Come to think of it, I didn’t know if the myothars were male and female. Maybe if you chopped off a tentacle, it would grow into a new myothar after a few weeks.
“You went into the cellars of the tower,” said myothar.
“So what?” I said.
“I remember,” said the myothar, a hiss in its voice. “I remember from long ago, soon after the High Queen used the Reaping upon the city. The dead carpeted the streets, and I raised them as my slaves. But living humans still came here in secret, thinking to sneak past me. The human apes still thought they could overthrow the High Queen, so they came to seek the tomb below the tower.”
“Did they?” I said. “I’ve never heard of it. Whose tomb is that?”
“The tomb of a human warlord who fought the High Queen,” said the myothar. “He was buried with a weapon, a weapon the humans thought they could use to defeat the High Queen. Dozens of them came, and I slew them all and made them my slaves. None have come seeking the weapon for a long time. The secret was lost…but it seems that more have come seeking it.”
“That’s a very interesting story,” I assured the creature. “I shall definitely include that in my report to the Inquisition.”
The myothar let out a wet, bubbling laugh. “You are not an agent of the Inquisition. You are a servant of the Rebel apes! I can smell the mark of the Dark Ones upon you. I shall slay you and make you my slave, and perhaps the High Queen will reward me when I tell her of the plot.”
“Sure,” I said. “Bye!”
I took another step backward and cast the Cloaking spell, vanishing from sight. I turned and ran towards my bicycle, intending to get to it and to get the hell out of here.
The myothar lashed its tentacles through the air and screamed something, ghostly blue-white fire playing around its tentacles. Suddenly a huge, complex symbol of the same ghostly blue-white fire filled the street, wide enough that it covered everything from where I was standing to the ruined bridge. The glowing symbol didn’t hurt me, didn’t touch me, but I felt the power surging from it and flowing around me.
My Cloak spell collapsed, and the hundreds of undead turned towards me.
I recognized the glowing symbol for what it was. It was a Seal spell, a kind of focused ward, and it caused a specific effect within its boundaries. A Seal of Shadows blocked access to the Shadowlands, for instance, and I knew there were other kinds of Seals.
This Seal seemed to be a Seal against illusions, and I confirmed it a second later when I tried to cast the Cloak spell again. The power gathered and then unraveled in the magic pulsing from the Seal beneath my shoes. So long as I stood within the massive Seal, I couldn’t use any illusion spells.
Which mean that I couldn’t Cloak.
“Take the human female!” said the myothar, beginning to cast another spell. “Take her and bring her to me!”
This time green fire played around its waving tentacles as it started to gather power, and in perfect unison, hundreds of undead turned towards me.
I had only a half-second to decide. I had a revolver under my coat, but I doubted the puny weapon would do much against a creature the size of the myothar. For that matter, the myothar was from another world, and bullets forged from the ores of Earth often had trouble wounding powerful creatures. That meant I had to strike it with magic. But which spell? The myothar looked like a nightmare from the bottom of the sea, which meant I didn’t think my ice spells would bother it. My fire spells probably wouldn’t hurt it either.
My lightning globes, though…I thought the translucent slime that coated the creature looked as if it could conduct electricity.
It was time to find out.
I called power, and three lightning globes spun into existence over my hand. I flung out my arm, and the globes soared forward and slammed into the myothar’s head.
As it turned out, the translucent slime coating the creature’s body made an excellent conductor of electricity.
The myothar howled in rage, its head thrown back, its tentacles lashing like wind-tossed hair. As it did, I saw its mouth, a pit lined with spikes, topped with a cruel beak the length of my leg. The undead rippled as the myothar howled, its furious cry echoing off the ruined buildings, and I realized that causing the myothar pain disrupted its control over the undead.
I hit the myothar with another volley of lightning globes, and the creature staggered back, its arms and tentacles coming up to protect its head from the volleys. I readied another attack, and by then some of the undead drew close enough to attack. I cast another spe
ll, calling a sphere of flame into existence above my fingers, and flung it out. The sphere hurtled forward and blasted through the head of the first undead, turning its skull to embers and sending the headless corpse to the street.
The sphere kept going, directed by my will, and zipped left and right, blasting through the head of undead creature after undead creature. It was easier to drive the sphere through the skulls of the undead than the heads of living anthrophages. I supposed the undead were all dried out, and the magic of elemental fire burned through necromancy like a flame through dried leaves.
The sphere had taken a dozen of the undead before its power drained away.
That only left a few hundred of them on the street, and tens of thousands more in the city.
The myothar let out a gurgling howl again and flung out its tentacles towards me. I recognized the type of spell and started another spell of my own, and I did it just in time. A bolt of blue-white lightning screamed down from the burning sky and thundered towards me, but I cast the spell to resist elemental forces that the Knight of Grayhold had taught me. The lightning blast hit me with a thunderclap and a blinding flare, but it rebounded from my spell and blasted a smoking crater on the side of the building facing the Willis Tower. My spell kept the lightning from incinerating me or making my heart explode in my chest, but the raw power knocked me back several steps, and my head swam with the effort of it. The myothar didn’t have the raw power of someone like Morvilind or Arvalaeon or a lord of the Shadowlands, but that didn’t matter. The creature had the power to maintain that huge Seal and throw massive bolts of lightning at the same time.
It didn’t need to bother with the lightning. It could just let its undead pets take me apart.
Dozens of the corpses rushed towards me, and I cast another spell. White mist swirled, and a curved wall of ice rose before me, six feet high and eighteen feet long. The undead smashed into it, and they kept coming. Chips of ice flew as they hammered into it, and with their inhuman strength, they would punch through the wall in a few seconds. They might not be able to see my body heat through the ice, but with the myothar guiding them, they didn’t need to rely on their own senses.
Cloak Games: Tomb Howl Page 12
