In the Claws of the Tiger

by James Wyatt

  “How pleasant to see you again, Martell,” Sever said, the sarcasm in his voice sharply contrasting with his emotionless face.

  “You’re quieter when Krael’s around,” Janik said to the warforged. “Or is it because you don’t have a sword in your hand?”

  “Take your pick, Martell.”

  “Well,” Janik said, getting to his feet, “if we’re cooped up here and forced to talk to each other, we might as well make it productive. I want to know what in the Nine Seas is going on with Maija.”

  “By the Flame, Janik,” Dania said, “her evil overwhelmed me. I have never encountered another creature so strongly stinking of it. Not even Krael—”

  “That’s enough, Dania.”

  “Janik,” Dania insisted, “not even Krael makes my senses reel the way she did. She commands these fiends! Can’t you see it? Do you still not believe that she’s beyond redemption?”

  Janik sighed deeply. “Do you remember what you said to me back in Stormreach? That you wouldn’t stand by and watch a friend die, ever again? That’s what this is to me, Dania. I can’t turn away while Maija dies. I can’t give up on her. I’ve got to fight for her, even if I have to fight a legion of fiends under her command, even if it means fighting her. I can’t just accept it, damn it. I will not be a bystander to her destruction.”

  “You’ll have to hold me back, then,” Krael said.

  “That’s what I was going to say,” Dania said, glaring at Krael while looking a little uncomfortable at sharing the vampire’s opinion.

  “Why, Krael?” Janik asked, wheeling on the vampire. “What did she do to you?”

  Krael snarled at Janik, baring his long fangs, for a moment looking like a ravenous beast furious at being caged. Janik didn’t flinch, but held Krael’s stare. After a moment, the vampire spoke.

  “All right, Janik. Let me tell you a story. I believe you know the beginning—or shall I go over it for the benefit of those who weren’t present?”

  “I’ve heard it,” Auftane said over his shoulder. He was busy tending to Mathas, but clearly paying attention to the conversation. Janik noted that Mathas’s eyes were open, but he looked very weak.

  “As have I, Captain Kavarat,” the warforged said.

  “Well, then,” Krael continued. “Maija traveled with us back to Stormreach and from there directly to Korth by airship. Along the way, she played with my affections, as I presume she did with yours, Janik. Except I did not fully trust her, so I was not swayed by her charms. Her considerable charms.”

  Janik almost leaped at Krael again, but the vampire’s grin told him Krael was trying to provoke him, and he didn’t want to provide that satisfaction.

  “She made up a story–that another Emerald Claw agent had contacted her and swayed her to our side, and worked out a deal in which she’d hand a treasure over to me in order to prove her loyalty to the Emerald Claw. She kept up the lie for quite a while. Once we reached Karrnath, she claimed to have had another meeting with this agent, who told her to keep working with me. I knew she was lying, and my superiors confirmed my suspicion, but they ordered me to play along, to find out what she was trying to accomplish. I admit to some curiosity about what she was doing, trying to bluff the Order of the Emerald Claw.”

  Krael cracked his neck before continuing.

  “That went on for about a year,” he said. “We spent most of that time in Karrnath, sneaking around the agents of the damned king to get the work of the Order done. She seemed genuinely committed to working with the Order, and I was just starting to believe that she was really on our side. Then she came to me and announced that she’d been assigned to look for the Tablet of Shummarak. You know what the Tablet is, Janik?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, that caught the interest of my superiors, and they told me to keep working with her. They assigned a priest to accompany us, a simpering idiot named Mudren Fain. They wanted me to get the Tablet if we managed to locate it. Well, it took us a year of searching, and the hunt led us around Khorvaire, briefly to Xen’drik, and finally back to Atur in Karrnath—which is where I saw Dania, of course.”

  Janik was getting sick of Krael’s sarcastic grin and mocking tone, but the vampire was telling him new information—new pieces of the puzzle were taking shape in his mind. He glanced at Dania, who seemed to be keeping her anger in check by thinking hard about what Krael was telling them.

  “We returned to Atur because we had traced the Tablet of Shummarak to its last known owner, a shifter vampire called Havoc. Mudren finally proved himself useful by discovering the location of Havoc’s crypt. We found him in his crypt, where a bunch of idiots had left him for dead before the Last War. They drove a stake through his heart and left, figuring the job was done. Well, when Mudren Fain pulled the stake out of the shriveled remains of Havoc’s heart, we quickly discovered that the job was not done.”

  “Havoc came back,” Dania said blankly.

  “Havoc came back,” Krael repeated. “He grabbed Mudren Fain by the throat and drank every last drop of blood out of the damned fool’s body while dear Maija stood there, licking her lips. Oh, and did I mention? I would have stopped Mudren from pulling out the stake, but Maija had cast a spell on me to hold me helpless.”

  “Licking her lips?” Dania asked.

  “Licking her lying, cheating, blasphemous lips,” Krael said. “And then she struck her deal with Havoc. Anyone want to guess what she gave him in exchange for his help in finding the Tablet?”

  “You,” Janik and Dania said at the same time.

  “Exactly. Havoc grabbed me while I was still paralyzed by Maija’s spell. He drained Mudren dry and left him for dead, but Havoc turned me into this—” he bared his teeth again. “And until Dania and her friends so kindly obliterated him, I was forced to obey his commands. Which reminds me, Dania, I never did thank you.”

  “Believe me, the pleasure was all mine,” Dania said. “I would have killed you, too, if I could have.”

  “And if I can ever return the favor, I will. Anyway, I think Dania knows the rest of the story, or most of it. Havoc led us to the Tablet—”

  “You found it?” Dania interrupted. “We were never sure.”

  “Oh, yes. We found the Tablet right where Havoc had left it a hundred years ago. Maija spirited it away, breaking her word to Havoc. And Dania and her friends barged in right after that, when Havoc was about to tear Maija’s throat out.”

  “If only we’d come a few moments later,” Dania said.

  “I said that’s enough, Dania,” Janik said.

  Dania got to her feet for the first time. “Well, I’m not going to stop until you get it through your head that this isn’t just some lark that Maija is pulling on us. Don’t you see? If Maija has the Tablet of Shummarak and she’s here, that means she’s trying to release whatever fiend lord is imprisoned here. She might as well be plotting to destroy the world!”

  “And of course we’re going to stop her,” Janik said, “but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to cut her down.”

  “What if that’s what it takes? We’re not just going to talk her out of it, either. What do you have in mind?”

  “We are talking about my wife, damn it!” Janik’s face was a hand’s width from Dania’s. “I will take up arms against the Sovereign Host before I kill her—or let you do it!”

  “She is not your wife any more, Janik, any more than she is the friend I once loved. Evil has consumed her! There isn’t any Maija left.”

  “You talk as if evil were a monster, like the chuul we fought on the shore. Evil doesn’t eat people, Dania. What are you saying? That she’s undead? That she’s been turned into a vampire, like Krael?”

  “I don’t know, Janik! She’s not a vampire, she’s definitely still alive, but—” She stopped abruptly. “Wait,” she said to herself.

  “But what? If she’s not undead, then what do you think happened to her? What kind of evil could consume her and leave nothing behind?”

&nbs
p; “The undead aren’t the only great evil in the world, Janik. Look around you! We’ve been fighting fiends in the flesh since we entered the desert three weeks ago. This whole place was erected by a force of evil so great—” She broke off suddenly.

  “What, then? You think she’s been turned into a rakshasa?”

  “Hosts of Shavarath, how could I be so blind?” Dania whispered. “Janik, I think you might be right!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re here because the Keeper of the Flame sensed something—an evil spirit escaping into the world about the time that we were here. Janik, what if that spirit possessed Maija?”

  ESCAPE

  CHAPTER 17

  Possessed?” Krael said. “That would explain a great many things.”

  “So you’re saying that the evil spirit we accidentally released while we were here is Maija?” Janik said, incredulous.

  “It’s in her,” Dania said. “It has taken up residence in her body and controls her actions.”

  “And that’s the evil that has devoured her?”

  “That’s just it, Janik! If I’m right, then Maija is still in there—like a passenger in a carriage the fiend is driving, helpless to stop it. And that means we might be able to save her—if we can drive the fiend out of her!”

  Janik could not speak. He had clung to shreds of hope for so long without having any idea what to hope for. Now, when hope seemed justified, he wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

  “Dania?” Auftane said, looking up from Mathas. “What makes you think she’s possessed?”

  “Look,” Dania said, “all along we’ve been baffled by what happened, unable to explain such a sudden and dramatic shift in her behavior. It was like it came out of nowhere, and we felt like she must have been keeping up an incredible charade for over a decade. But if I’m right, that’s not what happened at all—it really was a sudden change. She wasn’t lying to us all those years. When the spirit entered her, that’s when she turned against us.”

  “So that makes it desirable to believe your theory,” Auftane said, “but what evidence supports it?”

  “Evidence? There’s the stink of evil on her, which is stronger than the mere taint of a corrupt heart. It overpowered me back in that room. Even Krael’s evil odor isn’t strong enough to do that.”

  “I’ll have to work on that,” Krael said.

  Dania ignored him. “Then, there’s the connection with this place. It was here that she changed, as if the evil of the spirit imprisoned here had seized her. And, once she found that tablet in Karrnath, she brought it back here, as if she were obeying the orders of the rajah. And finally—” She paused a moment, searching for a conclusive argument. “Krael—you said possession would explain things. What things?”

  Krael grimaced. “Well, as I said to you in Karrnath, I never thought much of Maija. I always thought of you and Janik as my real enemies, Mathas to a lesser extent, and Maija as sort of the annoying accomplice—Janik’s good little wife. Believe me, I was as surprised as you were when she brought me the Ramethene Sword. And when she gave me to Havoc, I was stunned. I never trusted her, but I would have expected her to go back to Janik rather than betray me to a hundred-year-old vampire.”

  Janik scowled and opened his mouth to speak, but Krael cut him off.

  “And then, just before we found the Tablet of Shummarak, she killed a man—a priest of the Blood of Vol, really just an innocent bystander. She used a spell on him to split him open. Blood oozed from his eyes first, then his skin erupted. I asked her where a cleric of the Sovereign Host learns magic like that.”

  “Exactly,” Dania said. “A cleric of the Sovereign Host doesn’t use spells like that. But ancient demons of Khyber do.”

  “I’m convinced,” Janik said, and Auftane nodded as well. “So what do we do?”

  “If we can drive the fiend out of her, then we can confront it on a different footing, perhaps destroy it. No matter what, Maija should be restored to her right mind.”

  “I liked the plan of killing her better,” Krael said.

  “Careful, Krael,” Dania said. “There are three people in this very small room who have been hoping to kill you for fifteen years. Don’t provoke us.”

  “Without weapons, I’m fairly certain that Sever would rip all your arms off before you managed to hurt me,” Krael shot back. Sever accentuated Krael’s point by slamming one fist into his open hand.

  “Krael, help me here,” Janik said, dropping to his knees in front of the vampire.

  “What?” Krael said, one eyebrow arched in surprise.

  “You stole all my books that have anything to do with Mel-Aqat, damn it. I assume you had a reason for doing that besides spite. What is the spirit possessing Maija?”

  “Dhavibashta?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Janik said, and Krael grinned.

  “What are you talking about?” Dania said.

  Janik got to his feet. “Dhavibashta is the name of the rajah imprisoned here, according to the Serpentes Fragments. But it’s clear to me that whatever spirit has possessed Maija is trying to release the rajah, so it’s obviously not the rajah.”

  “I’m glad to see you can function without your books,” Krael said.

  “I still want them back.”

  Mathas sat up, his desire to participate in the conversation finally overpowering his weakness. “Is it possible,” he said, “that the imprisoned rajah could extend its will beyond its prison to control Maija, while most of its essence remained trapped here?”

  “That would mean the rajah could be using Maija to try to free itself,” Dania said. “And I confess I don’t know enough about this kind of thing to say for sure. Kophran might have been able to answer that, but—”

  “But we wouldn’t want to be locked in this tiny room with a pompous ass,” Auftane said.

  Janik ran his fingers through his hair. “I want to consider the more likely possibilities first.”

  “And what are those?” Dania asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Janik snapped. “If my theory is correct, the city of Mel-Aqat was built long after the rakshasa rajah was imprisoned. The ziggurat was built to mark the site of the rajah’s prison, and the city was built around it.”

  “Who built the city?” Auftane asked.

  “Based on the scale of the ruins, most of the city was inhabited by giants.”

  “Giants?” Auftane exclaimed. “Not the areas we’ve been in so far!”

  “Right. The subterranean chambers, which include the chamber where we found the Ramethene Sword, were neither built nor used by giants. It suggests two possibilities. The pattern often seen elsewhere in Xen’drik is that of giant-sized main structures, plus attached quarters built on a human-sized scale that were used by the elf slaves of the giants. The chambers we’ve seen don’t fit that pattern. They don’t look like slave quarters—they’re far too well built and extravagant. And they’re not decorated with the typical elven motifs of skulls and scorpions. Instead, we find stylized tiger faces.”

  “Hmm,” Krael said with mock seriousness. “Now who would have carved tiger faces in these ancient stone walls?”

  “Right,” Janik said, ignoring Krael’s sarcasm. “I have long argued that Mel-Aqat was built by a fringe cult of giants that worshiped the rakshasa rajahs. I think now that this cult was led by a smaller cadre of rakshasas—a force of zakyas responsible for direct control of the giants, and smaller echelons of the more powerful fiends above them.”

  “So you think that one of these rakshasas might be the spirit possessing Maija?” Dania said.

  “That’s where my theory was heading,” Janik said.

  “The Fleshrender,” Krael said.

  “What?”

  “The Fleshrender,” Krael said. “That’s the spirit in Maija.”

  Janik’s brow furrowed. “The Fleshrender is a name for the Ramethene Sword,” he said.

  “I thought so too, until just now. But
what’s the one text that uses that name?” Krael asked.

  “One of the Serpentes Fragments.” Janik searched his memory for a moment, then quoted:

  The Sunderer smote to the dragon’s heart, and its blood formed a river upon the land;

  The Fleshrender drew forth the serpent’s life and its blood gave life to the gathered hordes.

  “It’s a clear textual parallel, the Sunderer in the first couplet and the Fleshrender in the second, both referring to the sword.” Janik was thinking out loud.

  “And what’s the next couplet?” Krael said.

  “Something about the blade and the hand that wields it. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “‘For the blade drinks the blood, and the hand that wields it feasts on the life.’ The two couplets are parallel, but not synonymous. The blade is the Sunderer, drinking the dragon’s blood. But the hand that wields the blade is the Fleshrender, feasting on the dragon’s life. See?”

  Janik opened his mouth and closed it again, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

  “I think you might be right, as much as I hate to admit it. But what makes you think this Fleshrender is the spirit possessing Maija?”

  “Two things,” Krael said, “neither one more than a gut feeling. First, there’s the kind of magic Maija used in Karrnath. I suppose any fiend might use such spells, but they seem particularly well suited to one called the Fleshrender. Second, consider the connection to the Ramethene Sword. Like it or not, Janik, I think you released that fiend when you pulled the Ramethene Sword from its place.”

  “I don’t like it, but I can’t argue that right now. So—we have a name for our enemy—though not a very pleasant name. How do we get the Fleshrender out of Maija’s body?”

  “First, we get out of here,” Krael said.

  “We?” Dania said. “I don’t plan on letting you out of here alive, let alone helping you escape.”

  Krael looked distinctly uncomfortable and Janik felt a strange twinge in his chest. A large part of him agreed with Dania. Krael had caused him so much misery and difficulty over the last few months, to say nothing of the previous fifteen years, that helping him and accepting his help in return seemed unthinkable. At the same time, he couldn’t avoid seeing himself in Krael’s situation: helpless and at the mercy of his worst enemies. Krael had been cooperative, and, well, useful—probably because he knew he needed the help of his enemies if he was to escape.