Tep Longeur deliberated within himself a moment longer. However, my suggestion proved too plausible to be dismissed. “Very well,” he muttered abruptly. Brandishing his saber, he stepped aside. “Go ahead of me. Give me cause, and I’ll hack you down where you stand.”
I obeyed. In a few steps, I passed him cautiously to advance along the hall. Involuntarily I held my breath, fearing that he would strike me from behind—that his acquiescence was like my prevarication, a ruse. But he did me no harm, although I was entirely defenseless.
Guided by the threat of sharp steel, I led him to another corner, beyond which I finally saw an entry to the region enclosed by the passages I had traversed. The entry had no door. In fact, I had yet to encounter any door within the manor. Every hall and chamber I had visited opened on the next without restriction. Apparently Sher Abener wished his fiends to roam freely, his forces to expand without hindrance. Or perhaps his manor served as the body, the flesh, of his arts, through which necromancy flowed as though it were blood, and the passages and rooms were veins.
I did not doubt that beyond this entry I would encounter Sher Abener himself. From it, illumination reflected outward, ruddy as fire, unsteady as flame. And muffled gasping emerged at intervals, choked groans of a sort that suggested torment.
There I faltered, hampered by old terrors and new alarms, until Tep Longeur gestured with his blade, instructing me forward. Even then I could scarcely place one step ahead of the other. If he had not set a hand on my shoulder to thrust me along, I might have fled screaming rather than enter there.
I had no wish in the world to witness the pain which wrung those gasps and groans from any human throat.
I seemed to have no choice, however. Once Tep Longeur had set me in motion, the light drew me toward it. I felt the grasp of its heat and horror before I reached the chamber of its source—the heart of the manor, where my enemy exercised his arts.
Ahead of me, extracted anguish rose to a wail, then fell silent as though it had been stifled or strangled.
The room was large—more hall than chamber—but at first my sight failed to receive its details. After the gloom of the outer passages, the intensity of the light dazzled me. A pyre would not have blazed more brightly. Perhaps, I thought with the oblique concentration of the truly mad, this explained the absence of doors. Flame on such a scale must require vast quantities of air.
To my sun-cooked flesh, the heat might have been the direct touch of coals. Within my cloak, sweat squeezed from my ribs and back. I felt slick moisture upon my face.
Yet I heard no roar of devoured wood. And I smelled no smoke. Instead the bitter reek of a charnel assailed my senses. Soon the odor seemed to sting the dazzlement from my sight. I found now that I could see—and wished that I could not.
The chamber was round, encircled by walls of blunt stone. It held no lamps or torches. None were needed. Larger fires provided illumination. The fitted granite of the floor sloped somewhat downward from the walls to the center of the circle, where a blaze nearly the height of a man capered and spat from what appeared to be a shallow pit. At first, I could not guess how the flame was fed, if not with wood. But then I observed four servants around the chamber, at the points of the compass near the walls. Each had a look of possession in his eyes. And each attended a piled mess of flesh and bone, sinew and offal. I feared to imagine the slaughter which had produced so much hacked and bloody tissue. With the slow regularity of half-wits, the four bent in unison to their piles, lifted up gobbets of dripping meat or bone, and tossed them ponderously into the fiery pit.
Butchered animals fueled the conflagration. Or butchered men.
I might have stared at the necromancer’s servants longer, transfixed by the nature of their task. However, another choked outcry snatched my attention away.
A quarter turn of the circle beyond my entrance stood a rude trestle table like the one at which Sher Abener had broken his fast during our earlier encounter. There the light was augmented by four iron braziers braced on tri-stands and set to brighten the corners of the table without interrupting movement. On the sides of the braziers, a bloody glow described the flames within them.
Stunned by the stench and the heat, I made no sound—either of surprise or of protest—when I saw my usurper outstretched upon the table.
He lay on his back, chin jutting fiercely at the ceiling. Leather thongs bound his wrists and ankles to rings of black iron set into the edges of the table. Pain corded his muscles and strained his limbs as though he lay upon a rack.
His shirt had been torn open, exposing his chest. And over his bared skin hunched Sher Abener. Like his servants, the necromancer had not noted my arrival. Fervor lit his eyes, echoing the braziers. In one hand, he held a thin blade, curved and cruel—an arthane. While I watched, aghast, he bent to his victim and drew a fine, precise cut across the helpless flesh. Anguish clenched the stranger’s frame, but Sher Abener paid no heed to it. Instead he slowly lowered his head to lick up the welling blood.
The action of his tongue forced me to see that he had already cut his victim a number of times—too many to count. Wounds wove a tapestry of pain across the stranger’s chest.
When the blood was gone, Sher Abener whispered avidly, “Endure, Urmeny.” Husky passion rasped in his tone. “Endure if you can. I will teach you to fear death.”
“This is no true death,” the stranger gasped. The touch of Sher Abener’s lips and tongue appeared to cause him more hurt than the arthane. “With every use of your arts, you slay yourself, necromancer.”
His tormentor snorted. “Do you still believe you have the power to judge me?”
“No power is needed. The truth”—my usurper choked as he spoke—“suffices.”
Sneering, Sher Abener poised his blade to slice again.
Fed by death, the central fire clawed upward, reaching higher and higher.
I could not move. I might have been one of the necromancer’s servants, overtaken by a possession I could neither define nor counter. If the stranger had wailed for my aid, I would not have answered him. Sensations of fire searched within my garments to discover and consume my courage—and my purpose. Horror enclosed my soul. No other need could touch my own.
You have mistaken me for my father. I am not such a man.
I felt a pluck at my belt as Tep Longeur removed Bandonire’s pouch, a tug as he claimed my dirk, but I did not regard him. I abandoned my lamp to him. No act of his could pierce my dismay. Only Sher Abener’s fatal arts held any significance to me.
Leaving my side, Tep Longeur approached the table. At the base of the nearest brazier, he dropped my paltry weapons.
“Master,” he intruded bluntly, “this fellow requires your attention.” He showed no reluctance to interrupt his master’s pleasures. Nothing remained for him to fear. “He claims he must warn you. He claims the Thal moves against you.
“I think he lies.”
At once, the necromancer looked sharply toward me. Feral hungers lay naked upon his face. Blood from his lips smeared into the darkness of his beard.
I could neither move nor breathe. In terror, I begged the Heavens to grant that my usurper’s glamour would withstand Sher Abener’s gaze.
For a moment, he frowned as though he had glimpsed something which perplexed him—some hint of my true name. But then the danger passed. Scornfully, he dismissed me from his attention.
“Without question he lies,” he informed Tep Longeur. “Like all his fine folk, the Thal has been bred to cowardice. He may flee. He will not fight.”
Indicating me with a nod, the necromancer instructed, “Hold him there. I will enjoy discovering the truth from him when I have extracted”—he licked his lips over the stranger’s flesh—“everything from Urmeny.”
Tep Longeur glared at me with his hand on the hilt of his saber as though daring me to attempt escape.
I might have risked flight. I could not imagine the means by which Sher Abener would discover any “truth” from me, b
ut I feared that his methods would surpass my deepest nightmares. Before I could summon heart or panic enough to move my legs, however, the necromancer’s victim stopped me.
He did so by the simple expedient of turning his head so that his eyes met mine.
For the second time that day, I felt myself dislocated from time and comprehension. As before, the blue penetration of his gaze transcended any scrutiny I had ever endured. Indeed, it appeared to transcend my fate as well as my fears. As plainly as language, it seemed to promise that if our places had been reversed he would have spent his life to aid me.
No, I was wrong. His assertion went farther. In his eyes, I saw that he had already spent his life to aid me.
His sacrifice alone would have sufficed to unman me—but again I was wrong. Pierced by dislocation, I discerned that the particular hue of his gaze had changed. This morning, his eyes had expressed an unflinching resolve, a willingness to face any peril. Now they suggested another courage altogether—the valor, not of pleading or self-sacrifice, but of compassion.
Mutely, the stranger seemed to announce that he understood—and forgave—my inability to rescue him.
A moment later, he shifted his head away, and I felt myself snatched back to urgency. Sher Abener had chosen the place for his next cut, and had poised his blade to begin. My usurper turned to watch as though he meant to restrain the necromancer by the unassisted force of his will.
His efforts would fail—of that I was certain. While I lived, nothing the stranger did in my name would stay Sher Abener’s hand.
Gasping with dread, I stumbled forward a step, then braced myself against the heat, coughed fire from my throat, and raised my voice.
“You are a fool, Sher Abener,” I croaked fervidly. “You disdain theurgy—yet you have been baffled by it, and you notice nothing. The simplest glamour confuses you. While you blind yourself with pleasure here, your defeat is already accomplished.”
In surprise, the necromancer jerked up his head to face me. For an instant, his perplexity returned, and a stronger doubt twisted his features. Then he spat a curse in a rough language beyond my grasp.
Setting aside his arthane, he made a weird gesture my eyes could not follow. At once, the braziers guttered, while the flames in the center of the chamber spouted higher. Before I could flinch, a fist of necromancy seized the front of my cloak, lifted me from my feet, and slapped me to my back upon the floor.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. Fire seemed to swirl about my head, bearing sight away.
Between one heartbeat and the next, Sher Abener appeared at my side. From his eyes, power spilled like dark blood to his hands. Swiftly, he stooped to splash burning drops of force onto my forehead and across my cheeks. Then he peered at me more closely.
Another raw curse abraded my ears. Staring, the necromancer snarled as though in protest, “You are Urmeny.”
For no reason except that I was entirely insane, I nodded.
Wrenching himself upright, Sher Abener wheeled toward the stranger. “Then who are you?”
My usurper was insane as well. He replied with a grin as fierce as his tormentor’s blade.
Muttering necrotic imprecations, Sher Abener strode to the table and retrieved his arthane. Without a glance in my direction, he pointed me out to Tep Longeur. “Watch him,” he commanded. “I have questions which this impostor will answer.”
Tep Longeur bowed slightly. Drawing his saber, he confronted me across the distance between us. His hard glare held my face as though he were enraged—as though he needed only a small excuse to strike my head from my shoulders.
The necromancer stood now with his back toward me. I could not see his visage as he addressed the stranger. Perhaps that was well. I would not have been able to bear the sight as he abandoned his former delicacy and hammered his malice into his victim’s ribs.
Betrayed by his vulnerable flesh, my debtor cried out. As promptly as he could, he stilled his pain. But then Sher Abener put his mouth to the wound, and the stranger wailed again, unable to do otherwise.
That also I could not bear.
Ignoring the threat of Tep Longeur’s saber, I pried my legs under me and lurched to my feet. His gaze roared at me, but he did not move.
I shrugged the cloak from my shoulders, swept it into my arms. One weak step and then another carried me forward. My overseer’s fist corded on the hilt of his saber. A paroxysm of fury distorted his features. Still he did not advance to thwart me.
I chanced another step. Tep Longeur slapped his free hand across his mouth, clamping his voice to silence.
Now I understood his wrath. It was directed not at me, but at himself—at his involuntary submission to my enemy. Sher Abener had commanded him to watch, not to warn. Not to act. Despite the necromancer’s grip upon his soul, Tep Longeur opposed his master by the only means available to him—by mere, literal obedience in the place of true compliance.
With ire and courage, he gave me all the assistance his possessed spirit could supply.
Like the stranger’s pain, Tep Longeur’s struggle was more than I could endure. Two more steps brought me to the nearest brazier. Within reach of his saber. He could have struck me there, slain me easily. Still his resistance held.
My weapons lay at the base of the tri-stand—Bandonire’s pouch and my dirk—but I ignored them. My intentions were too extreme for such implements. Only my cloak could serve me now.
A sane man would have attacked without warning. I did not. I had left ordinary reason and sense far behind. I knew only heat and sweat—the excruciating fire of the damned, and the drawn blood of my mortality.
With my cloak swathed over my outstretched arms, I positioned myself across the brazier from Sher Abener. From its iron sides shone heat enough to shrivel my organs and scorch the marrow of my bones. Nevertheless I stood near it. When I was ready, I called out hoarsely, “Release him! While you can!”
In a whirl of darkness, the necromancer turned.
At the same moment, the servants who fed the central fire ceased that task. As one, they strode slowly toward me, moving with the silent inexorability of figures in dreams. Their hands reached for me across the space between us.
Sher Abener’s bloody scowl measured me briefly, then shifted to Tep Longeur. He spat at what he saw. “Lout!” Anger streamed from his eyes, dripped from his hands. “I have no patience for your puny opposition.
“Kill him.” The necromancer pointed at me so that there would be no mistake. “Kill him now!”
Possessed and appalled, Tep Longeur clenched his fists upon the hilt of his saber and raised the blade above his head. A cry of denial which he could not utter filled his mouth as he aimed a long blow at the tender flesh where my neck met my shoulder.
I knew what I meant to do, but I was too slow, too slow. The slash of Tep Longeur’s saber left too little time for me.
Yet I was not slain.
With an ease more swift than I could have imagined, the stranger shrugged the bonds from his wrists and ankles. Swinging his legs over the edge of the table, he set his boots to the floor. Despite the wounds woven across his chest, he caught Tep Longeur’s hands so that the overseer could not strike.
Tep Longeur’s physical strength was formidable. In addition, his subjugated soul had been commanded to murder. Still my usurper restrained him as though he were infirm, or ill.
That was all the opportunity I required. In another moment, the nearest of Sher Abener’s other servants would reach me, but the man’s progress was too ponderous to deflect me now.
Before the necromancer could master his surprise, I put my arms to the sides of the brazier.
There the true scale of my madness revealed itself. My cloak was thickly woven and heavy, yet it might as well have been parchment against the ruddy iron of the brazier. It caught fire instantly. Through it, a terrible incineration blazed into my arms. Flame beyond bearing seemed to strip away my flesh, so that nothing remained to me except nerves and agony. No doub
t I screamed, although I could no longer hear myself.
Yet my resolve or my insanity endured long enough to lift the brazier from its stand and tip its contents onto the necromancer.
His garments and his power seemed to take fire as though they had been drenched in oil. At once, he became a torch, burning brightly enough to light the path to damnation. A howl which might have been anguish rose among the flames.
While he blazed, I slumped to the floor, cradling pain which consumed my senses. I scarcely saw what transpired. I felt nothing when Sher Abener’s possessed servant raised me in his embrace in order to crush out my life. I did not understand when I heard the necromancer’s shout echo about the chamber as though the fire had been given voice.
“Fools!” he raged with the passion of a pyre. “Do you think you are strong enough to stop me?”
While he roared, his hands seemed to shape the fire so that it might be hurled at his assailants. His eyes defined the blaze like glimpses into the heart of a furnace. Although he was immersed in conflagration, his power preserved him, transforming pain and flame to weapons.
The stranger did not shout. Nevertheless his reply matched Sher Abener’s resounding fury.
“Yes,” he promised. “We are strong enough.”
Deliberately, he released Tep Longeur’s hands.
Freed from constriction, the overseer struck as though he had been coiled and pent to the breaking point. His saber flashed crimson, reflecting the flames, as the blade buried itself to the guards in Sher Abener’s blaze.
The necromancer’s howl turned to shrieks, and he stumbled backward, away from the blow. For a long moment, he appeared to totter on the brink of dissolution, imponderably balanced between the strength of his arts and the damage of his wounds. Then he toppled.
As he plunged into the devouring heat of the central fire, his servant released me as though I had lost all significance.
I knew that I fell again, although the prospect did not trouble me. I had no attention to spare for minor impacts and bruises. I was more keenly aware that I could breathe once more, and that the stone under me felt comparatively cool.
Reave the Just and Other Tales Page 44
