by Dragonlance
She stopped, her heart leaping into her throat.
There were three more scorpions on her bag.
All of them were deformed, none smaller than the one she’d just killed. One was close enough to her fingers that it could have grabbed them with its pincers. She held her breath, fighting back the sudden urge to scream. She let her eyes drift this way and that, then felt a terrible, sick feeling in her gut as the walls suddenly came alive, bugs crawling out of nooks and clefts all around them. There were scorpions everywhere.
Mother of the moons, she thought. I’ve killed us all.
The creatures swarmed around the four of them, moving over the stones, then onto their bodies. Instinctively, they all held still and fell silent except for a low groan that came out of Essana’s mouth. Sweat poured down Hult’s face. Azar raised his hand, and Shedara saw a scorpion with twelve legs scuttle down the sleeve of his robe toward his knuckles. Venom dripped from its stinger.
“No … one … move,” Shedara said through tight lips.
“What do we do?” Essana replied, her voice trembling.
I wish to Astar I knew, Shedara thought. She felt movement on her back, on her legs, in her gods-be-damned hair. She couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t remember the words to a single spell. If she so much as breathed too hard, she was sure, half a dozen stingers would drive into her flesh. She’d be dead before she hit the ground.
“Let me think,” she said, but she couldn’t. She watched the scorpion dance along Azar’s arm. Its front legs touched his palm, and it stopped. The stinger trembled. The creature was about to kill him, and still she couldn’t think of a single word of magic.
Then Azar’s fingers twitched, and the scorpion stepped onto his hand like an invited guest. He turned his hand, and held the thing cupped in his palm. The thing was huge, like the stone-crabs dwarf fishermen caught in their underground lakes. It quivered, pincers opening and closing, opening and closing.
Azar smiled, then clenched his fist.
That should have been it, the end of him. Even if he killed it, the scorpion should have stung him in its death throes. Then he would have cried out, and the rest of the creatures would have started stinging too. In three heartbeats’ time, they ought to have all been lying in the stream, carrion for the vermin to feast on. But it didn’t happen.
What did happen was, in a way, much worse.
The scorpion died without the least struggle. Azar simply crushed it with his bare hand; there was a wet crunching sound, as if he’d cracked a rotten nut, and white slime dribbled between his fingers. The monster’s tail held taut for an instant, then relaxed, drops of poison falling into the water. Azar looked at it, opened his hand again, and let the remains fall from his grasp. Then he looked around, raised his hands, and clapped them once.
Shedara felt a chill gust over her, like the winds of Panak. Then, with a chorus of crunches and squeals, the rest of the scorpions died.
It was the same with all of them: when the cold wind touched them, their shells shattered, broken as if by a hundred invisible fists. They simply caved in, guts oozing from their smashed bodies, and tumbled from wherever they had been. The patter of their corpses hitting the ground went on for some time. Shedara watched the three on her bag crumple then felt the warm dribble of ichor on the back of her neck as the one in her hair fell away. She shuddered, bumps rising on her arms.
No one moved or spoke for nearly a minute. They all stared at Azar, too stunned to react.
“What … what did you just do?” Essana asked at last, her voice scarcely more than a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Azar replied.
Hult made a face and turned to Essana. “Do you see now? Do you believe?”
She licked her lips, shaking her head, and Shedara felt annoyed, thinking the woman was about to deny what they’d all just seen. Just as she was preparing for an argument, however, Essana reached out and cupped her son’s cheek with her hand.
“Child,” she said, “it’s time we had a talk.”
Chapter
6
THE DOURLANDS, AURIM-THAT-WAS
It turned cold that night—as cold as the wastes of Panak, where the Ice People dwelt. Shedara found shelter and conjured a stone-fire to warm them, but the wind still howled down the canyon, slicing through their clothes and shivering their flesh. Hult sat by the ghostly flames with his sword across his knees, watching the darkness. They hadn’t seen another living thing in hours, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Not after how close they’d come to an ignominious death, there in that Jijin-forsaken hole in the ground.
They had decided to wait until the end of the day to question Azar, after Essana had asked him at length, and fruitlessly, about how he’d killed all the scorpions. She was still upset, constantly stealing glances at her son, as if fire might shoot from his eyes at any moment, and shying away from him whenever he came near. That hurt him, and after a while he walked in silence, head bowed and hood drawn low, so he looked all the more like one of the Faceless. He wouldn’t meet Hult’s gaze at all, and his face darkened whenever Shedara glanced at him.
Shedara set wards around their camp to guard them against anything that might approach, drawn by their scent. Hult searched the rocks, digging his knife into any chinks or cracks, to make sure they were empty. The group ate without words—more of Shedara’s tasteless, magic-born sludge—and when they were done, Essana met the others’ eyes and nodded. We must do this now, her expression said.
Azar looked sullen and surly, huddled in his torn and dust-caked robes at the edge of the firelight. His eyes were pools of shadow, his arms folded across his chest. It was a boy’s posture, not a man’s, full of guilt and anger. Shedara walked over to face him, her eyes glittering. He stared at his feet.
Shrugging, she reached into her pack and produced the broken remains of one of the scorpions. She held it up for a moment, grasping it by one of its pincers, then dropped it in front of Azar.
“Look at me!” she demanded.
He did as she bade, his eyes narrowed. There was a sternness in her voice that made even Hult sit up a little straighter. It was more sorcery.
Shedara nodded at the dead scorpion, her eyes not breaking contact with Azar’s. “You did that,” she said. “We want to know how. And no more fooling around, telling us you don’t remember.”
Azar’s face reddened. He glanced away into the night. “I … don’t know how,” he said. “I just killed the one, and I knew. I saw them all dying the same way. Then I wished it were true, and it was.”
“You … wished,” Hult muttered. “Perhaps you could wish we were away from this place and safe in the Rainwards.”
Shedara raised a finger. Not long ago, the gesture would have rankled Hult; the man he’d been when he rode with the Uigan would never have allowed a woman or an elf to silence him. At that moment, though, he nodded and shifted his grip on his sword. The wind gusted down the gorge, making the fire twist like a serpent.
“Essana,” Shedara said.
The woman leaned forward, reaching out to lay her hand on Azar’s arm. He flinched at the touch: another childish thing. Essana’s face creased; then she shook it off. She didn’t let go of her son.
“You can trust us,” she said. “Hult and Shedara wish you no harm; neither do I. You are my blood. But we must know. Too much is at stake for us to have this power among us and not know where it comes from, child.”
“I am no child!” Azar snapped, snatching his arm away from her.
She didn’t move, held him with her gleaming eyes. “Then why do you sulk like one? You must know the answers to our questions, Azar. You may not want to admit it, but you do.”
“And you’re going to tell us,” Shedara added. “One way or another.”
She might have drawn one of her daggers then to emphasize her words. Hult would have. But Shedara didn’t have to. She merely let the moons’ power surge through her for an instant. Hult felt the magic, the hairs on his arms stand
ing up. So, evidently, did the others, for Essana looked alarmed and Azar grew pale.
“You promised you wouldn’t do anything to him!” Essana said.
Shedara shook her head. “I promised he wouldn’t be hurt. But there are other things I can do if he won’t cooperate. I know a lot of spells, Essana, and if you try to stop me from using them, Hult will have to restrain you.”
Hult’s eyebrows rose. They hadn’t talked about that. He looked from one woman to the other, feeling the tension. Essana stiffened, and Shedara’s fingers twitched. It could go very badly, he thought, and it could happen very fast.
“My lady,” he said, “you know us. We are your friends. We crossed half the world to help your husband free you.”
“And to destroy the Hooded One,” Essana said.
Hult shook his head. “Not I. I had many reasons—vengeance for my people was one, I admit—but most of all I did it because Forlo was my friend. He loved you, and so I loved you too, though I never saw you until we came to Akh-tazi. I would have to say the same of Azar. And though Forlo is gone now, that love is not diminished. If Shedara tries to hurt him, I promise you, I will stop her … with my sword if I must.”
Shedara drew back a little at that, and Hult allowed himself an inward smile. He’d thrown that bit in to surprise her. Essana, meanwhile, furrowed her brow, while Azar continued to glare at the fire.
“You swear it?” Essana asked.
Hult dipped his head. “On my ancestors.”
She thought about it a moment longer then, finally, nodded. “Go on, then,” she said. “Do what you will.”
“Mother!” Azar cried, beginning to rise.
She shook her head, her eyes shining. “It must be this way,” she said. “If this power of yours is born of evil—and does any of us truly doubt that it is?—we need to know. I’ve already lost your father to darkness. If I can, I’ll keep it from claiming you too.”
Azar gaped at his mother. His sullenness had given way to outrage. His hands curled into fists, and in his mind Hult envisioned him clapping his hands and Essana falling over dead, her bones crushed like the scorpions’ shells. He stood up and held his sword ready.
“Where will you go, Azar, if you flee?” Shedara asked, not moving from where she sat. “It’s too hard to climb around here, so you only have two directions to choose. Hult is a skilled hunter. I have my magic, and I can see in the dark. Now sit down, and either tell me the truth, or let me seek it myself.”
For a moment, no one moved. Somewhere in the distance, something howled. It wasn’t a wolf, not quite; there was too much human in the sound. Some monster of the wastes, Hult was sure. Perhaps a skin-changer, like Chovuk Boyla had been.
Azar glared at Shedara. “I don’t know!” he said. “I really don’t. You have to believe me.”
“I do, Azar,” she said. “But there is a way to find the answers we seek. I cast a spell on your father, once, to learn why he was having nightmares about his last campaign in Thenol. It didn’t hurt him; if anything, it set him free.”
His hands found each other and began to twist. “You wish to cast the same spell on me?”
“Only if you agree to it. I can’t cast it on someone unwilling.”
Far away, the howl rose again. It went on and on that time until it finally faded into the wind’s moaning. Everyone stared at Azar, waiting. His hands wrung and squeezed. When he finally answered, his voice was small and trembling, like a child’s.
“All right,” he said and bowed his head. “I want to know too.”
The world seemed to constrict around Hult, as if none of it truly existed. The Tamire, Neron, even Aurim beyond this canyon … it was all a dream he’d had once and was beginning to forget. He breathed deeply, trying to slow his hammering heart. He had to submit himself to the spell, or it would never take hold of them all. Millennia of Uigan tradition fought against his need to know the truth about Azar.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.
Shedara chanted, her hands moving like moths, fluttering from one place to the next. Essana and Azar sat before her, cross-legged, waiting. Hult watched them both, ready to act if either of them did anything to disrupt the elf’s casting, as the world continued to fade, leaving only the smoldering campfire, bright in the darkness.
Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
The air shimmered, and all at once the fire didn’t really exist anymore either. There was only the four of them, sitting in a place that was no place at all. No stars shone above; no ground lay beneath them. Hult’s stomach lurched: he was floating in a void, a great, cold nothingness like the ocean. Wind howled, buffeting him. Even Shedara and Essana flickered away, and there was nothing but Azar, his eyes shining with some sourceless light. Those eyes drew Hult closer, closer, pulling him in.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
A flare of magic ran through him like lightning. Hult shuddered, his eyes squeezing shut, and when he opened them again, he was somewhere else.
It was a small, dark room. A monk’s cell, windowless, the door sealed shut. A bed lay in one corner, a chamber pot stinking nearby. The remains of a meal sat on the floor: gnawed bones, blots of some sort of porridge, an empty wine cup. The only light was a dim, violet glow from some undefined place near the ceiling. It gave him enough to see by, just barely. Shedara stood to his right, hands on hips; Essana to the left, her eyes narrow. Azar was nowhere to be seen.
“Where are we?” Hult whispered.
“Exactly where we were a moment ago,” Shedara replied in a low voice. “Sitting near the fire. As for this place … it’s Azar’s memory.”
“Akh-tazi,” Essana said, giving a shudder. “I know it well. I lived in a cell like this, for a time. I had hoped never to see its like again.”
“I know, milady,” Shedara replied. “But it is necessary. Azar will have no memories of anyplace else.”
Hult fought the urge to bite his hand and ward off the spell. He was sharing another man’s mind. Among his people, the punishment for that kind of witchcraft was to be tied up and dragged behind one’s own horse for three miles, then exiled forever into the wild steppes. Under some chiefs, it was even worse. All his instincts warned him to get out or be damned, forever forbidden to enter Jijin’s halls, barred from seeing his ancestors in the afterlife. He shook his head, forcing himself to remain there. The Uigan’s ways had failed him. He must try new ways.
“What about Azar?” he asked. “Where is he?”
“There.” Shedara nodded.
Hult’s eyes followed the gesture. At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing, but he quickly figured it out. Lying on the cot, covered by a rough-spun blanket, was a mannish shape, only a bit over four feet tall. As big as a large kender, or a small dwarf, or even a goblin … but no. It was none of those things.
It was a child.
“Yagrut,” he swore.
One of Shedara’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t expect this?”
“I …” he began, then stopped, frowning. “I didn’t believe it, I suppose. I know he’s less than two months old, but I couldn’t picture him as a child.”
Essana stepped forward, crouching down at the boy’s bedside. She reached out a trembling hand toward him. “My son,” she breathed, but her fingers passed through his shoulder when she tried to touch him. She turned away.
“He can’t hear you,” Shedara said. “We weren’t here when this happened, and we’re not really here now. You can’t change things in the past. You can only watch.”
Hult glanced around. The walls were black stone, carved into hideous reliefs of grinning skulls and bloated, many-eyed horrors. The whole cell was maybe three paces on a side. From the smell, Azar’s bedclothes had never been changed. He stared at the boy, longing to reach out and pull back the covers, see him as he was.
A sound came from the door: the scrape of a bolt being slid back. Hult recoiled, reaching for his sword, then held still at a look from Shedara. Do nothing! echoed her voice in his head
as the door rumbled open.
Two Crawling Maws, the tentacled monsters who called themselves yaggol, stood in the passage outside. Both wore plain, gray cassocks. One had skin the color of spoiled milk; the other was a blotchy, deep crimson. They gazed into the cell with their white, pupilless eyes but looked right past Hult and Essana and Shedara. Instead, their sight fixed on the boy.
With a whisper of velvet robes, another figure stepped into view. He was cloaked head to foot in black, his hood pulled down low. Hult did bite his palm at that sight, though the man who entered Azar’s cell must have been dead now. All the Faceless Brethren were. The air around him turned cold as he walked to the side of the cot and knelt down. It was the Speaker, perhaps, or the Watcher. It was hard to tell one of the dark sorcerers from another; they all wore the same garb, and all had cut the flesh from their faces as a sign of loyalty to Maladar. Whoever this one was, he reached out a gloved hand and shook Azar awake.
“Taker,” he spoke, the voice harsh, distorted by his disfigurement. “It is time to rise. The Master awaits.”
Azar stirred, shaking himself awake. A youthful face appeared from beneath the blanket, and indeed it was Forlo’s son. There was no way of mistaking the prominent nose or the strong jawline, even in a boy of perhaps eight summers. Azar blinked, rubbing his bleary eyes, and looked right at Hult and Shedara and his mother. He nodded.
He can see us, Hult thought. The others won’t, but this is his mind. He knows we’re here.
“Watcher?” he asked, his gaze sliding back to the Faceless. “What is the time?”
“Still two hours until dawn,” the sorcerer replied. “But the black moon rides high; the Master summons you. All must obey the Master.”
Hult nearly laughed aloud. He’d watched the Master die, dragged off the roof of Akh-tazi’s temple by Eldako—the merkitsa’s last, heroic act. That even the other Faceless had feared the old man seemed downright ludicrous. There was no hiding the tremor in the Watcher’s voice, though, nor the widening of Azar’s eyes as he rose from the bed. He was also clad in black: the Brethren’s newest member, born only days ago, but already halfway to manhood.
