"Your young friend has gone mad!"
"He protects the girl."
"Your niece." There was no missing the accusation in that tone.
Wingham looked at Nyungy hard, but only for a moment, then moved around and began to untie him. "To simply murder—"
"It is not murder, as she brought it on herself."
"Unwittingly."
"Irrelevant. You would see the city endangered for the sake of one girl?" asked the sage. Again Wingham held up his wrists, but Nyungy was too sly to fall for that ruse. "You play a dangerous game here, Wingham."
Wingham offered a sigh and said, "The game was begun before ever I knew the dangers, and once set in motion, there was no other course before us."
"You could have killed the girl and been done with it."
Wingham paused for just a moment. "Come," he bade his old friend. "We must prepare the city."
"Where is the girl?"
"Heroes have come from the Vaasan Gate."
"Where is the girl?"
"She went into the castle."
Nyungy's eyes widened and he seemed as if he might simply fall over.
"With Commander Ellery, niece of Gareth Dragonsbane," Wingham explained, "and with Mariabronne the Rover."
Nyungy continued to stare, then nodded and asked, "Olgerkhan is with her?"
"With instructions to not allow the structure to take her. At all costs."
The old sage considered it all for some time. "Too dangerous," he decided with a shake of his head, and he started walking past Wingham.
"Where are you going?"
"Didn't you just say that we had to go and prepare the city? But prepare it for what? To defend, or to run?"
"A little of both, I fear," Wingham conceded.
PART THREE
SECRETS WITHIN
SECRETS WITHOUT
Many times during his journey back to the apartment he shared with Entreri, Jarlaxle fished the violet-glowing gem out of his pocket. Many times he held it up before his eyes, pondering the possibilities hidden inside its skull-like facets as he vividly recalled the sensations at the graveyard. It was a power, necromancy, of which Jarlaxle knew little, and one that piqued his curiosity. What gains might he realize from that purple gem?
The book that had hidden it had been destroyed. Gone too was the tower it had created from feeding on the life-force of Herminicle. All that remained was rubble and scraps. But the gem survived, and it thrummed with power. It was the real prize. The book had been the icing, as sweet as anything Piter spread on his creations, but the gem, that violet skull, was the cake itself. If its powers could be harnessed and utilized….
To build another tower, perhaps?
To find a better connection to the dead? For information?
To find allies among the dead?
The dark elf could hardly contain his grin. He so loved new magical toys to examine, and his near-disastrous companionship with the infamous artifact Crenshinibon, the Crystal Shard, had done little to dampen his insatiable curiosity. He wished that Kimmuriel was available to him, for the drow psionicist could unravel the deepest of magical mysteries with ease. If only Jarlaxle had found the skull gem before his last meeting with his lieutenant.
But he would have to wait tendays for their next appointed rendezvous.
"What can you do for me?" he whispered to the skull gem, and perhaps it was his imagination, but the item seem to flare with eagerness.
And that Zhengyian artifact was of little consequence, comparatively speaking, if the fear in Ilnezhara's eyes was any indication. What other treasures lay up there in wait for him and Entreri? What other toys had Zhengyi left scattered about to bring mischief to his vanquishers?
Power to topple a king, perhaps?
Or power to create a king?
That last thought hung in the air, waiting for the drow to grab it and examine it.
He considered the road he and Entreri had traveled to get to Heliogabalus in the still untamed Bloodstone Lands. Wandering adventurers they were, profiteers in heroes' clothing. Living free and running free, turning their backs to the wind, whichever way that wind was blowing. No purpose led them, save the drow's desire for a new experience, some excitement different from that which had surrounded him for so many centuries. For Entreri, the same?
No, Jarlaxle thought. It wasn't the lure of new experiences that guided Entreri, but some other need that the assassin likely didn't even understand himself. Entreri didn't know why he stayed by Jarlaxle's side along their meandering road.
But Jarlaxle knew, and he knew, too, that Entreri would stay with him as that road led them farther to the north to the wilds of Vaasa and the promise of greater treasure than even the skull gem.
How might Entreri react if Jarlaxle decided they should stay for some time—forever, perhaps, as measured in the life of a human? If Zhengyian artifacts fell into their hands, the power to tear down a kingdom or to build one, would Entreri willingly participate?
"One journey at a time," Jarlaxle decided, even as he came upon the wooden staircase that led to the balcony of their second story apartment. The sun was up by then, burning through the heavy mist of the eastern sky.
Jarlaxle paused there to consider the parting words of the two dragon sisters:
"The secrets of Zhengyi were greater than Zhengyi. The folk of Damara, King Gareth most of all, pray that those secrets died with the Witch-King," Ilnezhara had said with certainty.
"But now we know that they did not," Tazmikella had added. "Some of them, at least, have survived."
Jarlaxle remembered the words and recalled even more vividly the timbre with which they were spoken, the reverence and even fear. He recalled the look in their respective eyes, sparkling with eagerness, intrigue, and terror.
"With all due respect, King Gareth," Jarlaxle said to the misty morning air, "let us hope that little was destroyed."
He glanced down the street to the little shop where he had set up Piter the baker. Its doors weren't open yet, but Jarlaxle knew that his portly friend would not refuse him admittance.
A short while later, he started up the staircase, knowing that the first battle along his new road, that of convincing the sour, still-hurting Entreri, lay behind his multi-trapped door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ZHENGYI'S ALTERNATE WORLD
So complete was the castle construction that by the time the nine companions approached the front gates the next morning, they found a fanciful and well-designed flagstone walkway leading to them. On the walls to either side of the closed portcullis, half-formed gargoyles leered at the approaching troupe, and in the few moments it took them to reach the portcullis, those statues grew into an even more defined form.
"They will be ready to launch into the sky again this night," Mariabronne noted. "Wingham would do well to force Palishchuk into a strong defensive posture."
"For all the good that'll do 'em," Athrogate grumbled.
"Then let us be quick about our task," Ellery replied.
"We heroes," Entreri muttered under his breath, so that only Jarlaxle, standing right beside him at the back of the line, could hear.
The drow was about to respond, but he felt a sudden tug at his sensibilities. Not sure what that might mean, Jarlaxle put a hand over the magical button on his waistcoat, wherein he had stored the skull gem. A look of concern flashed over his angular face. Could it be that the magical gems could call to each other? Had he erred in bringing his skull gem near to the new construct?
Mariabronne was first to the portcullis, its iron spikes as thick as his arms. He peered through the bars at the castle's lower bailey.
"It appears empty," he reported as the others came up beside him.
"I can get a grapnel over the wall, perhaps, and locate the hoist."
"No need," Canthan said, and the thin wizard nodded at Athrogate.
"Bah!" the dwarf snorted and he moved up and gently nudged Mariabronne aside. "Gonna pop out me guts, ye stupid m
age."
"We all have our uses," Canthan replied to him. "Some of us attend to them without so much blather, however."
"Some of ye sit back and wiggle yer fingers while some of us stop clubs with our faces."
"Good that there's not much beauty to steal then."
"Bah!"
The other seven listened with some amusement, but the banter struck Entreri and Jarlaxle more poignantly.
"Those two sound a bit familiar," Entreri lamented.
"Though not as witty, of course, and therein lies the rub," said the drow.
Athrogate spat in his hands and grabbed at the portcullis, knees bent. He grunted and tried to straighten, to no effect, so he gave another roar, spat in his hands again, and reset his grip.
"A little help, if ye might," he said.
Mariabronne grabbed the portcullis on one side of the dwarf, while both Pratcus and Olgerkhan positioned themselves on the other side.
"Not yerselves, ye bunch o' dolts," the dwarf grumbled.
Behind them, Canthan completed the words of a spell and a wave of energy rolled out from the wizard's hands to encompass the dwarf. Muscles bulged and bones crackled as they grew, and Athrogate swelled to the size of a large man, and continued to grow.
"And again!" the dwarf demanded, his voice even more resonant.
Canthan uttered a second enchantment, and soon Athrogate was the size of an ogre, his already muscular arms as thick as old trees.
"Bah!" he growled in his booming bass voice, and with a roar of defiance, he began to straighten his legs.
The portcullis groaned in protest, but the dwarf pressed on, bringing it up from the ground.
"Get ye going!" he howled, but even as he said it, even as Entreri and Ellery both made to dive under, Athrogate growled and began to bend, and the other three couldn't begin to slow the descent of the huge barrier.
Entreri, the quicker by far to the ground, was also the quicker to halt his movement and spin back, and he managed to grab the diving Ellery as he went and deflect her enough so that she did not get pinned under the heavy spiked gate as it crashed back to earth. The commander cried out, as did Arrayan and Pratcus, but Canthan merely chuckled and Jarlaxle, caught up in the curious sensations of the skull gem, hadn't even heard the call or noticed the lifting of the portcullis, let alone the near loss of one of their companions. When he looked at Athrogate, suddenly so much larger than before, his eyes widened and he fell back several steps.
"Oh, ye son of a bar whore!" Athrogate cursed, and it did not miss Jarlaxle's notice that Entreri shot the dwarf a quick glance that would have curdled milk. Because of the gate's swift descent, the drow wondered? Or was it those few words? Very rarely did Jarlaxle glimpse into the depths of the puzzle that was Artemis Entreri, for the disciplined assassin rarely wore his emotions in his expression.
Every now and then, though….
Athrogate stormed about, rubbing his calloused hands together and repeatedly tightening his belt, a great and decorated girdle with a silver buckle set with crossed lightning bolts.
"By the gods, dwarf," Mariabronne said to Athrogate. "I do believe that you were lifting that practically by yourself, and that our helping hands were of little or no consequence. When you bent, I felt as if a mountain was descending upon me."
"Wizard's spell," Athrogate grumbled, though he hardly sounded convinced.
"Then I pray you cast the enchantment on us others," Mariabronne bade Canthan. "This gate will rise with ease in that case."
"My spells are exhausted," the wizard said, as unconvincingly as the dwarf.
Jarlaxle looked from Canthan to Athrogate, sizing them up. No doubt the spell of enlargement had played some role, but that was not the source of the dwarf's incredible strength. Again Athrogate went to his belt, tightening it yet another notch, and the drow smiled. There were girdles said to imbue their wearer with the strength of a giant, the greatest of which were the storm giants that threw lightning bolts across mountain peaks. Jarlaxle focused on Athrogate's belt buckle and the lightning bolts it displayed.
Athrogate went back to stand in front of the portcullis, hands on hips and staring at it as if it were a betraying wife. Once or twice he started to reach out and touch the thick bars, but always he retracted his hands and grumbled.
"I ain't about to lift it," he finally admitted.
The dwarf grumbled again and nodded as the first of Canthan's enlargement dweomers wore off, reducing him to the size of a large man. By the time Athrogate sighed and turned about, he was a dwarf again. Intimidating, to be sure, but still a dwarf.
"Over the wall, then," said Mariabronne.
"Nah," the dwarf corrected.
He pulled his twin morning stars off of his back and set them to twirling, glassteel gleaming dully in the soft morning light. He brought the handle of the one in his left hand up before his face and whispered something. A reddish-gray liquid began to ooze from the small nubs on the striking ball, coating the whole of the business end of the weapon. Then he brought up the right-hand weapon and similarly whispered, and the liquid oozed forth on that one too, only the gooey stuff was blue-gray instead of red.
"Get back, ye dolt," he said when Ellery moved near to investigate. "Ye're not for wanting to get any o' this on that splendid silver armor o' yers. Haha!"
His laugh became a growl and he put his morning stars up in whistling spins above his head. Then he turned a complete circuit, gathering momentum, and launched the red-covered weapon head in a mighty swing against one of the portcullis's vertical bars. He followed with a smash from the other weapon, one that created an explosion that shook the ground beneath the feet of all the stunned onlookers. Another spin became a second thunderous retort, the dwarf striking—one, two, and always with the red-colored morning star leading—a perpendicular bar.
Another hit took that crossing, horizontal bar again. To the amazement of all save Canthan, who stood watching with a sour expression, the thick cross bar broke in half, midway between two vertical spikes. Athrogate back went to work on his initial target, one of those spikes.
The red-colored weapon head clanged against it, about eye level with the furious, wildly-dancing dwarf, followed by a strike with the bluish one a bit lower down.
The spike bent outward. Athrogate hit it again in the same place, once, twice, and the spike fell away, leaving enough room for the companions to squeeze through and into the castle bailey.
Athrogate came to a sudden stop, his morning star heads bouncing around him. He planted his hands on his hips and inspected his handiwork then gave a nod of acceptance.
"For a bit of a kick is why ye got me hired. Anything else ye're wantin' blasting while I got 'em fired?"
Seven stunned expressions and the look of one bored wizard came back at him, eliciting a roaring, "Bwahaha!"
"Would that he slips with both and hits himself repeatedly in the face," Entreri muttered to Jarlaxle.
"So then when he's gone, my friend Entreri can take his place?" the drow quipped back.
"Shut up."
"He is a powerful ally."
"And a mighty enemy."
"Watch him closely, then."
"From behind," Entreri agreed.
* * * * *
Entreri did just that, staring hard at the dwarf, who stood with hands on hips, gazing through the gap he had hammered in the portcullis. The power of those swings, magic and muscle, were noteworthy, the assassin knew, as was the ease with which Athrogate handled his weapons. Entreri didn't particularly like the dwarf and wanted to throttle him with every stupid rhyme, but the assassin respected the dwarf's martial prowess. He suspected that he would soon come to blows with Athrogate, and he was not looking forward to the appointment.
Before the group, beyond the corridor cutting between the two small gatehouses, the castle's lower bailey opened wide. To either side of the gatehouse corridor they could see openings: stairwells leading to the wall top, with perhaps inner tunnels snaking through the wide
walls.
"Left, right, or center?" Athrogate asked. "Best we quickly enter."
"Will you stop that?" Entreri demanded, and he got a typical, "Bwahaha!" in reply.
"The book is straight back, yes?" Mariabronne asked Arrayan, who was standing at his side.
The woman paused for a moment and tried to get her bearings. Her eyes fixed upon the central keep, the largest structure in the castle, which loomed beyond the inner bailey wall.
"Yes," she said, "straight back. I think."
"Do better than that," Canthan bade her, but Arrayan had only a weak and apologetic expression in response.
"Then straight ahead," Ellery told the dwarf.
Entreri noticed that Jarlaxle moved as if to say something in protest. The drow stayed silent, though, and noted the look the assassin was offering his way.
"Be ready," Jarlaxle quietly warned.
"What do you know?"
Jarlaxle only shrugged, but Entreri had been around the drow long enough to understand that he would not have said anything if he wasn't quite sure that trouble was looming. In looking at the castle, the dark stones and hard iron, Entreri had the same feeling.
* * * * *
They moved through the gates and halted on the muddy courtyard, Athrogate at the lead, Pratcus and Ellery close behind. Jarlaxle paused as soon as he slipped through the portcullis, and swayed with a sudden weakness. An overwhelming feeling of power seemed to focus its sentient attention on him. He looked at Arrayan and knew immediately that it was not her. The castle had progressed far beyond her.
The drow's eyes went to the ground ahead, and in his mind he looked down, down, past the skeletons buried in the old graveyard, for that is what the place once had been. He visualized tunnels and a great chamber. He knew that something down there was waiting for him.
The others took no note of Jarlaxle's delay, for they were more concerned with what lay ahead. A few stone buildings dotted the open bailey: a stable against the left-hand wall immediately inside, a blacksmith's workshop situated in the same place on the right, and a pair of long, low-ceilinged barracks stretching back from both side walls to the base of the taller wall that blocked the inner bailey. The only freestanding structure was a round, two-story, squat tower, set two-thirds of the way across the courtyard before the gates of the inner wall.
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