Scream of Stone w-3

by Philip Athans

  “And for the longest time,” the woman replied, “we turned a blind eye. Now, I must tell you, I am ashamed to admit that.”

  “All of the zombies have disappeared form the canal site,” Pristoleph said. “But then you knew that.”

  The woman tipped her chin up and gazed back at him with such a look of pure self-confidence it made Phyrea’s palms start to sweat.

  Oh, the old woman whispered from somewhere in the corner of the huge room, I like this one.

  She might be worth the trouble to kill, after all, the scarred man concurred.

  “That was a service I’m sure the entire city-state will thank us for, Ransar Pristoleph,” said the priestess.

  “And you’re providing the same service now, on the quayside,” he said.

  The high priestess nodded and replied, “But, apparently, not without opposition.”

  “Mother,” Pristoleph said, leaning forward to look the woman in the eyes, “you have my assurance as Ransar of Innarlith that I had nothing to do with the deaths of your priestesses. You also have my sincere assurance that my offices are at your disposal in the effort to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.”

  Phyrea was certain he was telling the truth with the first part, but the first part only, and from the look the high priestess gave him, they shared that opinion.

  Phyrea took hold of the little knife the servants had placed in front of her, and while Pristoleph and the high priestess stared each other down, examining each other as one would look for a hairline crack in a piece of expensive pottery, she put her hand under the table.

  Well, the man with the scar said, it looks as though you won’t have to kill her for that brooch.

  Phyrea lifted her skirt with one hand and held the knife with the other. She made her movements slow and quiet so the other woman wouldn’t look at her.

  “I hope that that is indeed the case, Ransar,” the high priestess said.

  “It is,” Pristoleph assured her.

  Phyrea held the blade of the little knife against her bare thigh.

  Yes, the old woman cackled, it looks as though your husband is going to do it for-

  She stopped when the blade bit into Phyrea’s soft flesh.

  “And we will agree that it is improper to employ the animated corpses of our fellow citizens as slaves,” the high priestess said.

  Phyrea closed her eyes against the pain of the cut in her thigh, while at the same time reveling in the silence.

  “I like to think I’m the sort of gentleman who can admit when he’s wrong, Mother,” Pristoleph said, but his voice was thick with a not-so-subtle warning.

  With that, the two of them moved on to niceties and vacuous small talk, in which Phyrea couldn’t bring herself to join.

  39

  25 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)

  THE LAND OF ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN

  The sky in Marek Rymut’s tiny universe roiled and thundered. The clouds moved in many different directions at once, pulling away from the tall tower of dark stone atop the lone hill. Lightning arced across the horizon, making it appear as though the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen was contained in a cage of blue-white light.

  Marek grinned and took a deep breath of air that reeked of dragon and ozone. He looked up again and spied the huge, sinuous form of Insithryllax diving in and out of the tortured gray-black clouds. The dragon’s batlike wings caught the air and rode it in great sweeping arcs. The wyrm kept the black firedrakes at a distance, and Marek could only rarely see one of the much smaller forms dart from cloud to cloud closer to the lightning-traced horizon.

  The Red Wizard turned his attention to the stone-tiled roof of the tower upon which he stood. Before him, carefully scribed to sit in the exact center of the cylindrical structure, he had drawn a circle of chalk, blood, and magic. Placed at uneven but carefully delineated points around the circle were six candles made of wax mixed with the blood of an Abyssal tanar’ri-not an easy commodity to get one’s hands on, even in Thay.

  Looking up once again at the dragon circling high above him, Marek called out, “Stay close! I begin!”

  The dragon tipped one wing and waved his head in response and began a sweeping descent toward the roof of the tower.

  Marek set his hands in the first of a complex series of uncomfortable gestures and began to chant. The words stung his ears, and the foul language of a malignant civilization millennia dead grated in his dry throat until his voice sounded like the growl of a rabid dog. Ignoring the little aches and pains, the Red Wizard twisted his fingers through the series of gestures, and when he came to the last of them and the final word of the incantation, he took one step back from the circle.

  A blue-violet glow traced the outside of the circle, one he’d carefully measured to be precisely sixteen feet in diameter, then poured into the middle as though the light was water filling a low pool from all sides.

  Marek smiled when the bright light faded to a deep indigo. He looked up once more and made eye contact with the dragon.

  Insithryllax tucked his wings to the sides of his black-scaled body and dived headfirst at the pool of indigo light. Before the dragon reached the top of the tower, a gout of red and black smoke belched from the circle of light, and the air around them was assaulted by the sound of a million people screaming while another million cried. Marek flinched away from the agonized cacophony, but the dragon never wavered in his downward path-not until he was only feet above the circle, which had become a doorway into the heart of the Abyss.

  The black dragon spread his wings, and a sound like a great ship’s sails catching a stiff wind drowned out the screams of the tormented. Insithryllax stopped in midair for the briefest moment-less than one of Marek’s rapid, excited heartbeats-then he dipped his head into the very Abyss itself and came out carrying the writhing form of what at first appeared to be a man.

  Holding the squirming form in his mighty jaws, Insithryllax beat his wings once and fell away over the lip of the tower’s roof. As the tip of his right wing dropped from sight, Marek brought his hands together in a firm clap. The sound sent a shudder through the stone floor and the gate sent out a deafening crack in response. The candles and the circle both were gone, and a waft of acrid smoke remained, but otherwise the doorway to the horrific plane of chaos and evil was closed.

  The Red Wizard took a deep breath and smiled, waiting.

  Insithryllax, with a flapping of wings that made Marek stagger backward and hold onto a battlement lest he be blown over the side, rose above the roof. Like a cat toying with a mouse, the dragon snapped his neck and tossed the writhing form onto the roof. The gray-skinned creature rolled to a stop but was instantly on its feet and hissing its infernal rage at the black wyrm. Ignoring it, Insithryllax took wing, and before the demon even noticed Marek standing only a few feet away, the dragon was lost to the clouds.

  “Be at peace, maurezhi,” Marek said.

  The creature spun on him. The Red Wizard could feel its gray eyes fix on him though they held no iris or pupil. Its sinuous, grotesquely naked form was well muscled, especially in its legs, which were disproportionately huge compared to its upper body and head. Its feet were like a crocodile’s, with four big, pointed talons of yellowing, fungus-ravaged bone. It hissed at him, showing a mouth full of razor edged fangs.

  “Calm yourself,” Marek said, passing a hand in front of the creature to enact a spell. “Be calm, so we can speak.”

  The maurezhi seemed to deflate. It closed its mouth and stepped back, reaching out behind itself to lean against a battlement. Its eyes were the only part of it that didn’t seem to slow. They darted around, taking in the strict confines of the pocket dimension.

  Insithryllax dived from out of the clouds and the demon watched it circle the tower once then land with startling grace on the battlements. Then the tanar’ri turned its attention back to Marek.

  What are you? the thing hissed directly into Marek’s head in a voice like breaking
glass. Human? What is this place?

  “I am indeed human,” the Red Wizard said, stepping away from the demon but still exuding all the confidence he felt. “You will call me Master.”

  The demon flinched at that and said, Master what?

  Marek snapped his fingers and the demon’s forearm snapped. The creature howled in agony and grabbed the twisted limb. Its clawed hand hung limp at the end of it.

  “You will call me Master,” the Red Wizard repeated.

  Y-yes … the maurezhi begged, dipping its head low, … Master.

  “Good,” Marek replied with a smile, and he snapped his fingers again.

  The demon shrieked when its arm snapped back into place, then worried at it with its claws, surprised that it was not only repaired but that the pain was gone. Marek grinned, doubting the maurezhi would soon forget that lesson.

  Why was I snatched from my torments, Master? the demon asked, and Marek could tell it still struggled with the title.

  “Do you hunger?” the Red Wizard asked.

  Always, Master, the demon replied. Always.

  Marek remembered well his lessons on demonology. The vile maurezhi feasted on the flesh of their victims, and when they were done, they could assume the form of their former meal, only to move ever deeper into human society to eat, and eat, and eat.

  “You will feast, then,” Marek promised it. “You will go to a human city on the world of Toril, and there you will find and devour a man named Pristoleph.”

  Pristoleph…. the demon repeated, nodding, and a great drop of yellowish drool hung from the side of its black lips.

  The dragon huffed and Marek turned his attention to the huge wyrm perched on the battlements and sneering down at the demon.

  “Yes, my friend?” the Red Wizard asked.

  “Isn’t Pristoleph surrounded by black firedrakes?” Insithryllax said.

  “He is, yes,” Marek replied.

  “And you feel you have to summon this thing from a universe away rather than just give the creatures you created yourself a single order?”

  “The black firedrakes were created to serve the Ransar of Innarlith,” Marek said.

  The dragon smiled a little and Marek tensed under the dragon’s scrutiny-a look that came painfully, infuriatingly close to patronizing.

  “If you’ll watch and see,” Marek continued, “all will become clear to you, I’m sure. Really, Insithryllax. Where has your patience gone?”

  The Red Wizard turned back to the demon and said, “Yes, Pristoleph. But first, you must wear a disguise.”

  The demon’s form blurred. It stood more erect and its legs shrank. Clothing formed around it almost as though it was weaving itself from the thin air. In a breath or two the monstrous entity had been replaced by a black-skinned man in rough-spun clothes. The gray eyes turned white and circles of deep, penetrating brown formed in their centers.

  “Nicely done,” Marek said, and the transformed maurezhi smiled a broad, gap-toothed grin. “But not precisely what I had in mind.”

  Marek cast a spell and the demon in its human form shrank away, holding up arms that even then began to lose their healthy color to return to that pallid, awful gray. It was only back in its natural form for a moment before its legs came together, its joints popped, and its skin tore.

  The demon howled in pain, but the transformation didn’t take long.

  It looked down at itself, confused at first, but then the admiration for its new shape was written plainly on its new face. The demon twitched its new body, testing its own ability to move like a snake moves. Its face looked more human than it had moments before, but when it opened its mouth, a long, thin tongue that ended in a fork flicked over its lips.

  “There,” the Red Wizard said, “that’s better. Now, since I know you’ll be loath to tell me your name, I’ll have to give you a new one.”

  “A name?” the demon asked aloud, surprised by the hissing sibilance of its new voice.

  “Svayyah,” Marek said.

  40

  25 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)

  PRISTAL TOWERS, INNARLITH

  Pristoleph sat on a cool marble bench, letting the late summer sun that shone through the skylights and windows warm his already burning hot skin. The room was the uppermost floor of the second tallest tower of his magnificent manor home. From nearly a hundred feet in the air, the city looked peaceful, even beautiful, and Pristoleph often found himself drawn to that lofty space to sit alone and think.

  His eyes drifted lazily from one of the sixteen triangular windows to one of the sixteen statues lined up along the walls of the octagonal room. He’d collected the statues for years, finding them in all corners of the world. Some were very old-older even than the ancient empire of Netheril-and others he’d had commissioned from the artists himself, the newest one only a few months before.

  He turned his face back up to the skylights, which, like the windows in the tall, straight side walls, were triangles cut from the pyramidal roof. Through the skylights he could see the long orange pennant spreading itself along the gusty wind from its pole at the apex of the pointed roof.

  Uncharacteristically calm, even content-if such a thing could be imagined from a man like Pristoleph-he took a deep breath and smiled.

  But his smile faded almost as quickly as it came to his lips. A strange feeling nettled at the back of his neck, and though he didn’t remember hearing anything, he could swear his ears had something akin to an aftertaste, the feeling of having heard something. He turned to look behind him but he was still alone in the big room. The statues all stood mute sentinel around the perimeter, staring out at nothing with eyes of marble, bronze, and wood.

  In the center of the room, ringed by an ornamental railing of polished brass, was a hole down which a spiral stairway sank into the room below. Even as Pristoleph assured himself that there was no one on the stair, a scuffle of booted feet sounded from below, and the head of one of his black firedrake guards appeared, scanning the room with a furrowed brow over his coal-black eyes. He saw Pristoleph and came up to the top of the stairs.

  “Ransar?” the firedrake said. “All is well?”

  “I believe so, Sergeant Nevor,” Pristoleph said, “but I have the strangest-”

  Pristoleph was silenced by the black firedrake’s shuddering, strangled cry of shock and pain. The dark-skinned, black-clad man’s knees buckled and he dropped to the floor-not dead, but nearly so. His longaxe clattered onto the wood floor next to him. Pristoleph stood as the huge, terrifying form of a water naga shimmered into existence. It stood just at the top of the stairs, behind Nevor, and by the way it held its right hand, Pristoleph could tell that it was the naga’s touch that had felled his guard.

  But not his only guard.

  “Firedrakes!” Pristoleph called.

  The naga, slithering on its blue-green scales, charged him, its clawed hands out in front of it, its fangs bared and its forked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth.

  “Firedrakes, to me!”

  Pristoleph drew the dagger from his belt and tried to jump to the side to avoid the charging naga, but his shin clipped the marble bench. He fell to his right and the naga slithered past him, raking along the left side of his chest and digging ragged furrows in his skin that flared with burning pain.

  He let loose a hissing curse as the dagger fell from his hand. He clambered away from the naga, literally crawling across the floor.

  The naga surged forward at him, and he grabbed for the dagger. The weapon looked small, hopelessly insufficient when compared to the bulk of the massive creature, but it was enchanted to bite a little deeper, hurt a little more, and slice a little faster than any ordinary dagger. Pristoleph didn’t usually come to his statue gallery armed at all, so he had to be thankful that he’d thought to carry the dagger with him that day.

  Surging above him, the naga opened its eyes wide and hissed at him, the humanlike, feminine face and arms the only thing about it that wasn’t a h
ellish serpent. Pristoleph felt a tingling wash over his body and he rolled away. A burst of panic welled up within him.

  “Guards!” he screamed, and only then heard them coming up the stairs.

  The naga heard it too and backed off enough to look at the stairs without giving Pristoleph too easy an opening with his dagger. The ransar picked up the knife with a shaking hand and paused long enough to fight back the fear. He could feel it fall away as suddenly as it came, and there was something about the feeling that made him think it came from outside him-it must have been some foul magic of the naga’s.

  Nevor tried to get to his feet but couldn’t. When a black firedrake in its bestial, dragonlike form, swooped up the stairs, it almost tripped over the sergeant.

  “Dlavin,” the dying sergeant gasped, and Pristoleph was thankful that Nevor had named the drake. In their natural forms, Pristoleph could never tell one from another. “To the ransar.”

  Nevor fell to the floor again, breathing but unconscious, and Dlavin took wing just long enough to hit the wood floor between Pristoleph and the naga.

  “Kill it!” Pristoleph barked, and before the words were even out of his mouth, the winged creature belched forth a cloud of black acid that sprayed over the naga.

  Pristoleph could hear it sizzle, and he climbed to his feet, watching and waiting for the serpent to dissolve before his eyes. But that didn’t happen. The naga winced at what appeared to be a minor burn, then smiled into the black firedrake’s reptilian face.

  The acid should have killed it.

  Fighting down the fear again, Pristoleph tightened his grip on his dagger and glanced over to the stairs to see two more guards-Varnol, in his human guise-and a second firedrake in its dragonlike form emerge from the room below. It took them both all of a heartbeat to figure out what was going on and rush to the aid of the ransar.