The Reaver

by Richard Lee Byers

“Stay still,” Anton whispered, “and stay quiet. Otherwise, I’ll kill you. Nod if you understand.”

  After a moment, the priest did. Anton warily lifted his hand away. The sunlord, a man with a prominent, deeply cleft chin and eyes wide with fear, didn’t attempt to cry out.

  “Good,” Anton told him. “Keep doing as you’re told, and you might survive this. Where’s Stedd Whitehorn?”

  The cleric had to swallow before he could reply audibly. “On the other side of the temple.”

  Anton frowned. “Why not on this one? My friend says this is where all the nice living quarters are.”

  “The First Sunlord locked the boy up to keep him from spreading heresy.”

  “It grieves me to think a holy man would lie,” Dalabrac said, “but nobody’s proclaimed the lad a heretic.” He turned to Anton. “Kill this fellow, and we’ll wake the one in the next room.”

  “I’m telling the truth!” the cleric said. “Would you denounce the boy with that mob gathered outside the temple? Sweetgrove is waiting for everyone to calm down.”

  “That does make sense,” Anton said.

  The halfling shrugged. “Maybe. I suppose, then, that the lad is in one of the Towers of Enlightenment?”

  “Yes,” said the priest.

  “Which?” Dalabrac asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t been up there to see.”

  “Is he under guard?”

  “I just told you—”

  “You haven’t been up there to see,” Anton said. “So it appears you have nothing more to tell us.” Employing the curved brass guard of the cutlass like a knuckleduster, he drove it into the priest’s temple. The man jerked then lay motionless.

  “Not exactly a credit to his faith,” Dalabrac said in his deep croak of a voice. “We barely started scaring him before he babbled everything he knew. You should have cut his throat on general principle.”

  “If anyone else looks in here,” Anton replied, “he’ll see a sleeping coward as opposed to a dead one with blood all over his nightclothes.”

  The Fire Knife grinned. “There is that. Should we take the time to question anyone else, do you think?”

  “No,” Anton said, “not if you know where the Towers of Enlightenment are. There can’t be that many of them, can there, or prisoners shut away inside them?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Then let’s collect the boy and get out.”

  One of the limitations of invisibility was that while people couldn’t see a mage who shrouded herself in such an enchantment, they certainly would notice a door that opened seemingly of its own accord. Thus, Umara had come prepared to neutralize the two sentries watching over the rear entrance to the House of the Sun and was surprised to discover that someone had performed the task before her.

  That surely meant somebody had invaded the temple to retrieve the boy prophet ahead of her. Curse it, anyway! But at least there was no indication that the rival hunters had accidentally roused the sunlords. Despite their head start, Umara might still be able to find the boy first. It was a big temple, and she had magic to facilitate her search.

  So use it, said Kymas, speaking mind to mind.

  I was just about to, she replied.

  She slipped through the door into the quiet gloom beyond. It was a relief to escape the pounding storm and even pleasanter to feel that she was suddenly alone in her head. The sanctity of even the mundane work areas of the temple had proved sufficient to break her psychic link to the vampire.

  She let out a long sigh but knew she mustn’t stand idly savoring the sensation. She skulked to the halo of light shed by the nearest oil lamp, willed her veil of invisibility to fall away, took the scroll Kymas had given her from under her cloak, and read the trigger phrase. The words that followed glowed red and vanished in quick succession as the spell they composed cast itself.

  A shimmer danced through the air and silvery floating orbs, each the size of a human eyeball, appeared before her. They lacked pupils or any other external feature to suggest they were peering in a particular direction or capable of perception at all, but because she’d created them, Umara could feel them watching her expectantly.

  “There’s a little blond-haired boy somewhere in this temple,” she whispered. “Find him, then return to me.”

  The orbs flew away in a swarm that dispersed rapidly as one seeker after another veered off to investigate what lay beyond a particular doorway. Meanwhile, Umara shrouded herself in invisibility once more.

  Unfortunately, that protection didn’t extend to the orbs. But they were small and darted around quickly. That should make them difficult to spot. And while Umara knew almost nothing about the inner workings of the Church of the Yellow Sun, she doubted that many of Amaunator’s servants were up and about conducting observances in the dead of night.

  Still, as time dragged by, she had to resist an old nervous habit of biting her nails. Because if some resident of the temple did notice one of the flying eyes, or worse, if her competitors had already spirited her prize away, life would become a good deal more difficult.

  Finally, one of the orbs hurtled back into view. It oriented on its maker despite her invisibility, and when she held out her hand, it settled into her palm and started dissolving. A cool tingling ran up her arm as the searcher’s memories unfolded before her inner eye.

  Umara blinked in surprise to see that the boy prophet must actually be a prisoner, not the honored guest that she’d supposed. But it was good. She could use that.

  The final image presented itself, and the orb faded out of existence. Umara headed deeper into the temple, where sculleries and pantries gave way to spaces that smelled of frankincense and where rows of columns with golden capitals supported vaulted ceilings. Images of the Keeper of the Yellow Sun gazed down with placid indifference, as though even he couldn’t see her, but she didn’t encounter anyone mortal.

  Though the orb had looped back and forth and up and down in the course of its wanderings, its memories had still provided Umara with a fairly clear notion of where the prisoner was and how best to reach him. She proceeded to the east side of the temple, and when a staircase provided the opportunity to ascend to a higher level, she took advantage of it.

  Eventually, her prowling brought her to a place where a bored-looking temple guard armed with a mace and garbed in blue and yellow stood beside one in a row of little doorways. On the other side, a cramped little staircase corkscrewed upward.

  Umara whispered an incantation and flicked out the fingers of her left hand. Shafts of blue light streaked from her fingertips and plunged into the sentry’s chest. He grunted and pitched forward with a thump that echoed off the nearby stonework.

  Umara didn’t think the noise was loud or distinctive enough to rouse any of the sleepers in this cavernous place. She was more concerned by the fact that she’d just popped back into view of anyone who might happen to be looking. It was another limitation of invisibility that casting combat magic generally ripped the mask asunder.

  She scurried to the fallen guard, and, teeth gritted, dragged the body bumping far enough up the spiral stairs that no one who simply wandered by on the landing below would see it. Then she pulled the iron key from the warrior’s belt and climbed onward.

  At the top was a locked grille of a door, and on the other side of that, a little chamber occupying the top of a stubby tower rising from the temple roof. Umara could tell it was a tower because the walls and even the ceiling were mostly clear crystal window. Perhaps the original idea had been to place priests in need of correction in an optimal setting to contemplate the glories of the sun. And if the cell became oppressively bright and hot, that too might encourage the occupant to mend his ways.

  Of course, no one incarcerated here since the start of the Great Rain had needed to worry about glare or heatstroke. Still, even asleep on his side on the floor, the boy looked miserable enough with his hands and feet tied and a gag in his mouth.

  He looked ordina
ry, too, and perhaps before Umara went to the trouble to steal him from the temple, she should double-check that he truly was what she sought. She reached into her pocket, gripped the carved onyx talisman, braced herself, and breathed the word of activation.

  As before, she felt a twinge of headache as her perceptions altered. But after that, the experience was different.

  Seen for what he truly was, Evendur Highcastle had been like a stone so heavy its mere existence threatened to grind her into nothingness. Whereas the boy felt like a vista of endless sky that pierced a person with its beauty and inspired both exultation and calm in equal measure.

  And despite the looming, crushing spiritual bulk of him, the Chosen of Umberlee had simultaneously possessed a sickening quality of absence, as though, even if he failed to realize it himself, he was no more than a hole in the fabric of the world through which the Queen of the Depths could work her will. The child remained entirely a person, individual and free-willed, yet also shining with the promise of joy and resounding in the mind like a trumpet call to some heroic endeavor.

  It was that call that soured the momentary bliss of revelation when it came home to Umara that, in relation to her life at least, the spirit of optimism the boy embodied was fundamentally a lie. The undead ruled her homeland and always would. In the years to come, she would either grovel, scheme, and kill her way into their pestilent ranks or remain forever subservient, and neither future seemed all that joyful or heroic.

  With a scowl, she released the onyx disk, and her perceptions reverted to normal. As a gust of wind clattered rain against the tower, she unlocked the grille with the key she’d found, kneeled down beside the boy, and touched him on the shoulder. He woke with a gasp and, squirming, tried to recoil from her.

  “Easy,” she said, “I’m a friend. I heard about what you did in the marketplace, and I’ve come to set you free.” She pulled the gag from his mouth. “What’s your name?”

  “Stedd,” he croaked. “Stedd Whitehorn.”

  “And I’m Wydda.” It would have been unwise to give her true name. He might have recognized it as Thayan and questioned whether anyone hailing from Szass Tam’s realm, particularly a wizard, could truly wish him well.

  “Can you really get me out of here?”

  She smiled, drew her dagger, and sawed at his bonds. “I got in, didn’t it? And I have a ship waiting in the harbor to take you away from Westgate.”

  “I need to go east.”

  “Then you will.” All the way to the Thaymount, she suspected. “My friends and I are here to help you however we can.”

  “Thank you.” He rubbed his wrists and then his ankles.

  “Ready to stand?” she asked.

  He nodded and she hoisted him up. He gave a little hiss of pain, but after that he seemed to be all right.

  She kept hold of his hand. “I’m going to cast a spell to help us sneak away,” she said. “It might make you feel strange for a moment, but it won’t hurt you.”

  Stedd nodded. “All right.”

  He trusted Umara, and while that was what she wanted, something about it gave her a twinge of disgust not unlike what she’d felt when killing the dying rower. Pushing the useless emotion aside, she cast another enchantment of invisibility.

  Just as she finished, a fork of lightning flared across the sky. The illumination alleviated the gloom in the tower and gave Stedd a good look at his body fading away. He shot her a grin that reminded her of how wonderful wizardry had seemed when she first started learning it as a girl no older than he was.

  She repeated the spell and veiled herself. “Remember that we still need to be quiet,” she said, “and hang onto my hand so we don’t get separated. Now let’s get moving.”

  It was awkward negotiating the dark, cramped, twisting stairs while, in effect, towing the boy behind her, especially when they had to maneuver around the corpse. Stedd sighed in a way that made her wonder if he was sorry she’d killed the guard. If so, she couldn’t imagine why.

  Once they left the little tower behind, the going was easier. She hoped Stedd wouldn’t want to leave by the front way and join his true followers when they reached ground level. If he did, she’d have to persuade—

  A horn blared from the spaces below, the brassy note echoing through the temple. In its wake, a thick voice called out, and a door banged open.

  Scowling, Umara wondered what had gone wrong. Maybe someone had found the two dead guards outside the back entrance. Or spotted the rival hunters sneaking around. In any case, somebody had raised the alarm.

  “What do we do?” Stedd whispered.

  “Keep making our way out,” Umara replied. “We’re still invisible, and there can’t be that many guards. This is a temple, not a fortress.”

  She gave his hand a gentle tug. “Come on.”

  They made it a few more steps. Then golden light shined through the dimness, and silvery figures shimmered into being in the lofty open space in the middle of the temple. They looked like women forged of metal. Feathery wings beat slowly to suspend them in midair, and long, straight swords gleamed in either hand.

  Like many Red Wizards, Umara knew more about devils, demons, and elementals than she did about the denizens of the so-called higher planes. But she took the silver creatures to be angels, archons, or something comparable. Someone, most likely the First Sunlord himself, was doing his utmost to make sure Stedd didn’t escape; he’d summoned supernatural help to prevent it.

  It was possible, though, that the temple’s celestial allies were no more able to see the invisible than were its mortal protectors. Umara crept onward, and to her relief, Stedd moved with her. Despite the fearsome spectacle that had just materialized, he hadn’t frozen.

  The entities peered this way and that. Then one with a golden circlet on her brow abruptly looked straight at Umara and Stedd. She pointed with the sword in her right hand and extended the one in her left behind her back.

  A beam of argent light leaped from the blade aimed at the mortals. A hot prickling danced over Umara’s skin as the ray caught her, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Stedd pop back into view. No doubt the winged outsider’s magic had just put an end to her own invisibility as well.

  Wings beating more rapidly now, all the flying women oriented on her and the boy. Rattling off hissing, crackling words of power, Umara hurled fire at the entity crowned with gold. The blast rocked the spirit and charred patches of her silvery body black. But afterward, she flew at the fugitives, and her sisters followed.

  Anton and the Fire Knives had been about to ascend a staircase when the winged women appeared. Now they stood motionless. The creatures had spotted them immediately but seemingly dismissed them as of no importance, and they were reluctant to do anything that might prompt the entities to reconsider that initial judgment.

  But they couldn’t stay put much longer. Voices were calling, and footsteps were scuffing and thumping. The temple’s human guardians would arrive soon, and now that they were on alert, they were unlikely to take Anton and his companions for anything other than the trespassers they were.

  He was still trying to decide what to do when a silver spirit cast light from one of her swords. The beam cut across a bit of the gallery above, and suddenly, Stedd and a tall, slender woman in a brown hooded cloak were standing there. Presumably, they had been all along, and countermagic had just ripped a charm of invisibility away.

  The sight of Stedd resolved Anton’s uncertainty. He drew his blades and charged up the stairs, and after a moment of hesitation, Dalabrac and the other two Fire Knives pounded after him.

  A booming burst of flame engulfed one of the winged beings. Apparently, the stranger in brown was a mage, and Anton was glad of it; his chances were at least a little better than they’d seemed a moment before.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, there were five brown-cloaked women, the original, presumably, and four illusory duplicates that mirrored her movements perfectly to flummox the silver creatures. It wo
rked, too. She pierced one of the flying spirits with ragged shafts of shadow, and when the being sought to retaliate, her sword simply popped one of the phantoms like a bubble.

  But while the mage’s two winged assailants kept her occupied, another swooped across the balcony at Stedd. The boy turned tail and dodged as he ran, but his pursuer compensated.

  Anton sprinted, leaped, cut, and caught the silver creature’s wing. He half expected the stroke to ring like metal striking metal, but it didn’t. Rather, the saber scraped on bone. The celestial being slammed down on the gallery floor and started to scramble to her feet, but he slashed the side of her neck before she could. The blood that sprayed from the wound was clear as spring water.

  Anton pivoted. The mage in brown, Dalabrac, and the other Fire Knives were busy fighting silver spirits and seemingly holding their own. But more foes were winging their way toward the gallery. The gods only knew how many the high priest had summoned altogether.

  Anton turned to Stedd. “Get back against the wall!”

  Stedd balked. In the excitement of combat, Anton had forgotten that the boy no longer had any reason to trust him.

  “Do it!” the pirate urged. “It’s the only way we can protect you. The creatures won’t be able to use their wings or get around behind you.”

  Stedd stared back for another heartbeat. Then, evidently seeing something in Anton’s face that persuaded him, he gave a jerky nod and scurried to put himself where his former traveling companion wanted him.

  Anton spun back around, and a silver woman lit in front of him. Her eyes blank and her sharp features expressionless, she advanced with her swords spinning.

  He cut to the chest, but the saber glanced off. She was wearing armor, but of the same color as her flesh and feathers, which made it difficult to see. One of the twin swords whirled at this head, and he parried with the cutlass. The straight blade caught on his guard, and he tried to twist it out of her grip, but she spun it free before he could.

  For the next few breaths, they traded sword strokes, neither scoring, and then Anton went on the defensive. It was scarcely his preferred style of fighting, especially when enemy reinforcements were surely on the way, but the winged spirit was too formidable. He needed to study her and find a weakness to exploit.