CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Chult
Having lived for centuries in the lethal jungle, the dwarves of the Domain had perfected survival tricks to give themselves an edge over the many predators who threatened their existence. Good mobility and escape routes were essential, so the dwarves cut secret pathways through the jungle. Hidden throughout the dense vegetation, the pathways tunneled through stinging thickets, walls of vines, stands of massive rhododendrons, and anything else the dwarves could use as cover from hungry eyes. If the path-cutters came up against a natural barrier such as a ridge or a river, they tunneled their way through or under it.
Like a labyrinth hidden in plain sight, the paths wound in laboriously long routes so as to never cut across open ground. Designed to accommodate dwarves and nothing larger, most of the paths were narrow and low so the men had to stoop while they walked, which made progress slow and conversation easy.
“The Ermine has been coming to Chult for years,” Majida told them.
“So the Ermine and the Practitioner are the same person,” Harp said. “He’s the one running operations in Chult. He must have built the machine in the cavern even before the colony was set up.”
“I told you that Cardew couldn’t mastermind this,” Boult said smugly.
“Yes, Boult, let us all bow down before your infinite wisdom,” Harp said irritably.
“We didn’t know about his flesh machine until recently, not until Liel told us,” Majida explained.
“You know Liel?” Harp asked in surprise.
“Did you know she betrayed us?” Boult asked.
“The elfin the colony was not Liel,” Majida said.
“What do you mean?” Harp said.
“She was… doubled,” Majida said slowly, obviously searching for the appropriate word in the Common tongue.
“Doubled?” Harp asked in confusion.
“The Liel you spent time with was not Liel,” Majida told Harp.
“She looked like Liel. She had her memories.” “But it was not Liel.”
“Was it an illusion?” Harp asked doubtfully. Liel had been cold and aloof, but they had talked about things only the two of them knew.
“No, the body was real, and the memories were true,” Majida said. “But her creation was false, and her actions were plotted by another’s will.”
“How is that possible?” Verran questioned.
“A dark ritual. That’s what the flesh machine does,” Majida said. “It takes blood and distills it to make another body, a double of the original. We call them husks.”
“It seemed so much like Liel,” Harp said, trying to get his head around what Majida was saying.
“How does the Practitioner direct her actions?” Boult demanded.
“The husks are childlike in their desire to please and to take instruction. The creator imposes his will on them at the moment of their creation, but it only lasts for a finite period of time. Then the husk’s own will asserts itself, and they are not so easily controlled.”
“I’ve seen copies of people before,” Verran said. “But they were mute and dumb, like their skin was just a covering and the inside was hollowed out.”
“Usually that is so,” Majida said. “But your Practitioner is very good at making husks, and he filled it with many things from Liel herself.”
“How could he do that?” Harp asked.
“With Liel’s blood and the right magic funneled through the flesh machine, it’s possible,” Majida replied.
“I’ve heard of that,” Verran told them. “From my father. But I didn’t think it could be done anymore. I thought the magic was lost.”
“To most of Faerun, the magic is lost,” Majida agreed. “But the sarrukh, the progenitors of the Scaly Ones, had the knowledge, and the Practitioner focused his will on getting it.”
“My father said that blood copies are the pinnacle of what necromantic magic can achieve,” Verran said.
Majida had stopped abruptly and touched the center of her forehead, which Harp took as a sign for him to keep silent. The group held still and listened to the jungle intently, but there were no sounds save the chirp of birds and the drip of water onto the buttress roots.
“The pinnacle of necromantic magic,” Majida repeated finally, as if she had been musing on the phrase. “I find that to be an inherent contradiction. Necromancy is the lowest and most depraved sort of magic.”
“I didn’t mean anything,” Verran said, abashed. “It’s just what my father said.”
“What’s your name, child?” Majida asked. Her voice didn’t waver from kindliness, but her dark eyes flashed under the indigo scarf that covered her hair.
“Verran,” the boy mumbled. A blush had crept onto his cheeks, and he’d crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
“Did your father ever tell you what happens to the husks, Verran?” she prodded. Verran shrugged his shoulders slightly but didn’t respond. Harp was annoyed by the boy’s surliness at Majida, who had probably saved their lives by helping them escape.
“By the time emotions and free-will emerge in the husk, its life-cycle is almost finished. For a fleeting instant, they experience what it means to truly live, and then death reclaims them. Husk-making is cruelty and humiliation beyond reckoning.”
“How long do the husks last?” Harp took a closer look at Majida. She might look like a provincial shaman, but her manner revealed experience and education that went beyond the boundaries of Chult.
“It’s different for each husk body, but never more than a few months,” Majida replied as she turned and continued down the leaf-locked path.
They reached the base of a tree so large that it would have taken half a dozen men to encircle its trunk. From the branches above them, a collection of white-furred monkeys looked down with distaste as Majida led the group up a buttress root wide enough to walk two abreast, and up into the trees that thrived under the dense canopy. They continued along thick woody vines that were braided together to form a hidden walkway through the papery leaves of the trees.
At the end of the vines, they dropped to the ground in the middle of a thorny thicket growing at the base of a ridge of silver colored rocks. The ridge, which seemed too sheer to climb, was covered in pockets of dark green moss that bulged off the rock. Tiny, gray-furred mammals with long tails and big round eyes scampered up and down the moss.
“If that’s how we’re getting to the top, Boult has to go first,” Harp said, watching the antics of the cliff dwellers.
“I’ll go,” Kitto volunteered.
“No one has to climb,” Zo said, pointing to an opening in the rock hidden behind the undergrowth. Wooden struts supported the entrance, and as they followed the path down into the darkness, Harp saw that runic markings had been etched into the support beams.
“Where does the tunnel go?” Harp asked.
“It takes us to the other side of the mountain,” Zo said. “It’s much easier than climbing up and over.”
The tunnel dipped into the rock and then leveled out. With a low ceiling designed for small travelers, it was only wide enough to walk single file. Crouched in the narrow space with solid rock hanging above his head, Harp decided to avoid caves in the future even if he had to climb a mountain to get where he needed to be. Fortunately, he could already see the light at the end of the tunnel.
“So why would the Practitioner make a husk of Liel?” Harp asked, his voice muffled in the confined space. “How does she fit into it all?”
“I don’t know, Harp,” Boult replied testily.
“So you admit to being an idiot, just like the rest of us,” Harp said.
“I admit nothing,” Boult said. “But I wonder if the dwarf we saw in the glade was a husk.”
“What dwarf?” Zo asked, stopping abruptly. Verran, who was walking behind him, bumped into him.
“We saw the body of a dwarf in a glade near the beach,”
