The Rite

by Richard Lee Byers

  “It’s a chasme,” said Rilitar. “But—”

  Taegan shoved past the wizard and charged.

  Still glimmering with their own pale inner light, shards of what had evidently once been a crystal ball crunched beneath the bladesinger’s boots. The fierce heat inside the room made every forward stride a test of will. The chasme with its great blade of a proboscis and tufts of coarse hair sprouting from its leathery body skittered around to face him. His stomach turned over.

  The creature was trying to cripple him with a charm, but he exerted his will, refusing to be sick, and the nausea disappeared. He thrust his sword at the chasme’s burning head.

  The point glanced off.

  “It’s a demon!” Rilitar shouted. “You need an enchanted weapon!”

  The chasme pounced at Taegan, clawing and biting, and he retreated out of range. It scuttled forward to renew the attack, but then he heard the flutter of Jivex’s wings as the little dragon streaked past him, and the demon jerked back. Taegan could imagine his small comrade, heedless of the fly-thing’s halo of flame, snapping and raking at it to give him a chance to get clear. At the same time, Rilitar pelted the chasme with a barrage of conjured snowballs.

  The bombardment didn’t seem to injure the demon, but it spun toward the wizard anyway. Taegan hastily began a spell to imbue his blade with magic.

  “I don’t know how you got in here,” Rilitar said, “but I’m sending you back to the Abyss.”

  Raising his hands high above his head, he shouted the first line of what was presumably a spell of banishment.

  The demon smirked and started an incantation of its own.

  Taegan’s sword trembled and whined as his enchantment sank into the steel. Rilitar finished his chant with a dramatic flourish of his hands and the air of a duelist confidently driving home the killing stroke. But as far as Taegan could tell, the magic had no effect, and while Rilitar faltered in surprise, the chasme completed its spell.

  A bright swarm of spiders, each apparently a creature of living flame, rippled into existence around Rilitar’s feet. They scuttled over his shoes and started up his ankles.

  The chasme started growling another incantation. Wishing the ceiling was high enough to allow him to use his wings, Taegan rushed the demon.

  The chasme tried to back away out of range, but the cluttered workroom hampered its ability to maneuver. Taegan closed with it, feinted high, and cut low. His sword sliced the fly-thing’s thorax, and it stumbled over the precise meter of its recitation, botching the spell.

  The chasme shrieked and assailed him furiously, ripping with its blazing claws, biting with its fangs, and gouging with its long, pointed snout. Taegan parried, dodged, and rattled off an incantation. Power crackled and tingled over his body. As a result, the chasme should see him as a blurred, wavering figure, and have more difficulty aiming its attacks.

  Warded thus, he waited for a chance to take the offensive. The demon pounced at him, raking at his head, overextending itself. He parried hard with the edge of his blade, gashing its wrist, then plunged the point into the juncture of its head and thorax.

  The thrust would have killed most mundane creatures, but the fly-thing wasn’t done. It thrust out its uninjured forelimb, and a beam of crimson light leaped from its fingertips. Taegan almost twisted aside, but not quite. The magic grazed him, and he felt too weak to hold his sword up.

  He lost his balance and fell on his rump. The chasme lunged at him.

  It would have had him, too, except that Rilitar, who’d somehow rid himself of the blazing spiders, attacked it with a burst of intense cold that made it recoil and extinguished some of the fires burning in the room. At the same instant, the still-invisible Jivex spat a plume of his sparkling breath into the demon’s eyes.

  At which point, it evidently decided it had had enough. It turned, hurled itself at a casement, smashed through, and flew off into the night.

  “I win!” Jivex crowed.

  “Quick,” gasped Taegan to Rilitar, “can you break the spell the spirit cast on me?”

  “I’ll try,” the moon elf said.

  He declaimed words of power and slashed one hand through an intricate figure, leaving a flickering trace on the air. Taegan’s strength flooded back, and he scrambled to his feet.

  “Perhaps I can catch it,” he said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Rilitar said, then scowled.

  “You’re right,” Taegan said. “You need to extinguish the rest of the fires.”

  He hurried toward the ruined window, leaped into the dark, spread his wings, and climbed. Jivex appeared beside him. The faerie dragon evidently realized his invisibility didn’t work against the chasme, so it was pointless to maintain it.

  “I didn’t find anything,” Jivex reported, “and the nether-spirit jumped at me out of nowhere.”

  “At which point, it bumped into the scrying orb?”

  “No. I knocked that off its stand myself, on purpose. I figured you’d hear it smash, and come running.”

  “Next time, break something less expensive,” Taegan said as he scanned the rooftops of Thentia spread out beneath him.

  He’d half expected the chasme to extinguish its corona of flame, but having flown high enough, he could see it still burning like a shooting star as it fled across the city. Nothing could be easier to track.

  The trick would be overtaking it. He spoke words of power and swept a bit of licorice root through a cabalistic pass. His muscles jumped as the enchantment stabbed through them. Jivex hissed.

  But the discomfort was fleeting, and afterward they flew faster, gradually closing the distance to their quarry—until the chasme peered back and snarled. The space between them darkened, clotted somehow, hiding the demon from view.

  An instant later, Taegan made out why the air had blackened, but his momentum was such that he couldn’t veer off in time. He plunged into the mass of flying locusts. They were all over him, stinging, blinding, and suffocating him. Somehow one worked its way halfway inside his mouth, thrashing and seemingly trying to crawl down his throat.

  The onslaught was unbearable, and he could think of nothing but escape. He hammered his wings and climbed above the insects. Shrilling in disgust, Jivex struggled free a moment later.

  The chasme had increased its lead, but not by too much. Perhaps they could still catch it. Except that just then it vanished in front of a dark, shuttered, dilapidated house on the edge of town.

  When Rilitar answered the door, Taegan noticed that the mage had strapped on the belt with the sheathed wand. He also had charred patches on his shoes, breeches, and lounging robe, but except for a blister or two, didn’t appear to be burned himself.

  “May we come in?” Taegan asked.

  “It’s nice that you both ask for permission this time,” Rilitar said, stepping aside. Jivex almost certainly understood the sour comment as a reference to his own illicit entry earlier that evening, but it failed to faze him. Silvery wings shimmering, he flitted past Rilitar and started nosing curiously about the vestibule.

  “Come on,” the moon elf said. He ushered his callers into the same comfortable, oak-paneled room where he’d entertained Taegan before, then poured everyone a fresh glass of wine.

  The wizard took a sip of his drink and asked, “Did you kill the chasme?”

  “Alas, it escaped us,” Taegan said.

  “It translated itself into Scattercloak’s house,” Jivex said, sitting on the table and craning his neck to lap at his wine with a forked tongue.

  Taegan smiled wryly. “That’s one interpretation of what we observed. How did you fare, Master Shadow-water? Did the fire destroy any notes or other materials required to study the Rage?”

  “Nothing critical,” Rilitar said. “We’ll come back to Scattercloak, but first I need to understand the two of you. When we met, Maestro, I had the feeling you didn’t particularly relish my company. That’s why it surprised me when you accepted my dinner invitation. But now I understand th
e reason. You opened a window so your friend could sneak in and snoop through my possessions.”

  “I humbly apologize,” said Taegan, “and beseech you not to take it as a personal affront. I would have done the same to any of your colleagues. And will, as opportunities present themselves.”

  “Why?” Rilitar demanded.

  “Because I suspect one of you is secretly a member of the Cult of the Dragon. Which is to say, a traitor to his fellows, and to Kara’s enterprise. If Jivex and I can find a copy of the Tome of the Dragon or some other incriminating item, that will establish who it is.”

  “Why would you believe such a thing?”

  “Not long ago, one of you wizards was killed by something that both tore and burned the body. It seems likely that our friend the chasme was responsible, and came here to murder you as well. Perhaps it glimpsed movement upstairs as Jivex poked about, assumed he was you, and popped in for the kill.”

  Rilitar frowned and said, “That does sound reasonable.”

  “Yes, and it refutes the hypothesis that your associate perished at the hands of an entity she herself fished out of the netherworld. You weren’t doing any conjuring when the demon appeared.”

  “If Lissa did summon the chasme, it could conceivably have lingered on this plane after it killed her.”

  “In that case, how likely is it that it would coincidentally invade this particular home? Isn’t it more credible that one of you magicians is sending it against his colleagues? If you find it difficult to credit, pray, consider this: The brass wyrm seemed entirely rational, then fell into frenzy all at once. I know from personal experience that a spell exists to overwhelm a metallic dragon’s mind in precisely that way, and that Sammaster has entrusted the charm to certain of his agents.”

  “But it we had a traitor in our midst all along, wouldn’t he have tried more often to hamper us?”

  “Would he? Put yourself in his place, surrounded by shrewd, magically talented folk who’d unite to destroy you in an instant if they knew your true allegiance. At first, when the investigation into the Rage began, you might simply watch and wait, hoping it would come to nothing. Even later on, when it looked as if it might actually bear fruit, you wouldn’t just attack constantly, relentlessly, lest your enemies find you out. You’d only strike when you felt certain no one would discern the source of the assault.”

  Rilitar shook his head. “You came to this conclusion the day you arrived here. That’s the reason for this alleged weakness in the lungs that doesn’t seem to hinder you when you fight.”

  “Yes,” Taegan said. “If I was going to unmask Sammaster’s agent, I needed an excuse to linger in town.”

  “And you’ve told no one of your actual intent?”

  “Who was I to trust, when any of you could be the cultist? True, a number of wizards fought the brass, but even the traitor could have done that, or pretended to. It would have made him appear loyal to the cause, and perhaps the wyrm might still have killed a mage or two, or destroyed some vital papers, before it succumbed to your spells.”

  “Well,” Rilitar said, “you don’t lack for confidence, I’ll give you that. I don’t discount your abilities, Maestro—or yours, either, Jivex—but to imagine that the two of you alone could outfox a wizard as canny and powerful as a member of our circle … well, let’s just say it’s by no means a sure thing.”

  Taegan grinned and said, “I’m not quite as cocky as I sometimes appear. I knew it would be difficult, but what was the alternative? Fortunately, we’ve had a stroke of luck tonight. The chasme’s intrusion here would seem to prove that you at least are trustworthy. Ergo, I trust I can count on you to help find the traitor.”

  “I’ll help, certainly. But if you saw the chasme disappear into Scattercloak’s house, then you’ve identified the cultist already.”

  “Not necessarily,” Taegan said. “It appeared to orient on Scattercloak’s place, but when it disappeared, it actually could have jumped anywhere, couldn’t it?”

  “Well, perhaps.”

  “So why lead Jivex and me on a chase across town when it could have translated itself at any time? My guess is that it wanted us to assume Scattercloak is its master.”

  “But Scattercloak argued against continuing our inquiry.”

  “What’s more, I gather no one likes or trusts him very much.”

  Rilitar snorted. “How can you trust a person when you’ve never seen his face, aren’t even certain if he’s male or female, and don’t understand the reason for all the secrecy?”

  “However justified your feelings, it all combines to make him the perfect scapegoat.”

  “I suppose, but are you sure it isn’t him?”

  “No,” Taegan admitted. “Despite all my snooping, I’m not certain of anything. But you know your colleagues better than I. Who do you think it is?”

  “I can’t imagine. Phourkyn? No. I’m only guessing him because he’s haughty and obnoxious. Sinylla? She’s learned so much so young, one can almost imagine a legendary archwizard like Sammaster secretly tutoring her. But she’s such a sweet lass, I could never believe it. Darvin?” Darvin Kordeion, Taegan had learned, was the plump mage who liked to dress in white and who, like Scattercloak, had urged discontinuing the investigation. “He strikes me as too nervous and timid.”

  “It’s conceivable,” Taegan said, “that our traitor might adopt a public persona markedly different from his true nature, if that would help divert suspicion.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, along with Firefingers and me, that’s the roster of the most powerful mages, the ones who might have a fair chance of laying a curse on a brass dragon right under their colleagues’ noses and getting away with it.”

  “What about Firefingers?” Taegan asked.

  “He’s lived in Thentia since Selûne lit the sun, and has a stainless reputation. No, it’s impossible that it could be him.”

  “My wine glass is empty,” Jivex announced.

  Rilitar smiled, rose, and picked up the bottle.

  Taegan was feeling increasingly discouraged, but trying not to give in to it. “Have you noticed anything strange?” he asked.

  “Well, the chasme.”

  “What, specifically?”

  “First off, its aura of flame. Chasmes don’t usually have that. Perhaps its master enchanted it to help it destroy our notes and such. If the demon sets fires wherever it goes, then with luck, it wouldn’t have to single out important papers to burn them up.”

  “Would the enchantment require a master of fire magic?”

  “Firefingers is scarcely the only one of us to make a study of the properties of the essential elements.”

  Taegan sighed. “Well, it was worth inquiring. What else about the chasme was peculiar?”

  “It was a wizard itself. It used magic above and beyond the innate abilities of its breed. But to my mind, the strangest thing of all was its resistance to wards and banishment. No tanar’ri should be able to enter my house unless I summon it myself. I have protections. Yet the chasme evidently experienced no difficulty, and when I tried to send it back to its own world, it laughed at me. Somehow, it knew the spell had no chance of working.”

  “What do you conclude from all of that?”

  Rilitar shook his head. “At this point, I don’t know what it means. I’m not much of a thief-taker, am I?”

  “You’re doing as well as I am,” Taegan said.

  “Look,” Rilitar said, “I understand why you wanted to poke about in secret, but now that we’re both certain there is a traitor, and that he intends further killing, we have to warn the other mages.”

  Taegan replied, “I don’t like it much, but you’re right.”

  “We can downplay the fact that you’re trying to ferret out the killer.”

  “No. To the Abyss with it, make me a target. Perhaps, in the act of striking at me, the killer will reveal himself.”

  “I think you are as cocky as you seem,” Rilitar said. He crossed the room, opened a hands
omely carved maple cupboard, brought out a long, straight, relatively slender sword, and presented it to the avariel. “So take this. We can’t have you pausing to enchant your weapon every time some malevolent spirit attacks you.”

  Taegan gripped the sharkskin-wrapped hilt, pulled the sword from its silver-chased green leather scabbard, came on guard, and experimentally thrust and cut. Diamond-shaped in cross-section, the gleaming blade was light and exquisitely balanced, with a needle point. He felt a shade stronger, a hair quicker, even a bit bolder, wielding it, a manifestation of the potent magic infusing the steel.

  It was, in fact, the finest sword he’d ever handled, a weapon sharp and sturdy enough to cut through mail or a dragon’s scales, but that responded to his manipulations as quickly and precisely as the rapiers he’d regretfully left behind in Impiltur.

  “I hesitate to accept such a princely gift,” he said.

  “Please,” Rilitar replied. “I’m no swordsman, so it’s no use to me. It’s an elven blade I enchanted when Firefingers first got me involved making gear for Dorn Graybrook’s hunters, but for one reason or another, none of them wanted it.”

  “Well, I do,” said Taegan, extending his hand. “May sweet Lady Firehair bless you.”

  “What do we do next?” Rilitar asked.

  “Convene a meeting, announce that you magicians have a traitor in your midst, watch to see if the wretch somehow betrays himself—not that I believe we could possibly be so lucky—and be wary in the meantime.”