Unleashing his tongue, Borran Kiosk splintered the wall to the side of her head.
She flinched, but only little, and swallowed hard again. Her gaze met his boldly for a moment before sliding away.
'The people who control you have no control over me,' Borran Kiosk announced.
'They control whomever they wish,' she told him. 'You wanted Taraketh's Hive, didn't you?'
Borran Kiosk glared at her.
'They can take that from you,' Allis said softly. 'They raised the dead that you buried so long ago. They can just as easily return those cadaverous minions back into the ground somewhere short of Alagh?n, only this time the wizards will stop your minions in places that you won't know of.'
'Don't threaten me, woman,' Borran Kiosk warned.
'I'm not,' Allis said. 'I'm just stating a fact. Perhaps they'll even see to it that the priests of Eldath lock you away once again.'
'They want something from me,' Borran Kiosk said, and he found himself needing to hear that statement as much as he needed to tell the woman. 'They won't let me fall so easily.'
'If you prove difficult,' Allis said, 'they will.'
Borran Kiosk turned from the woman, not wanting to believe her, but he did believe her. She was too calm, too complacent in her words, and she took a certain measured delight in passing them on.
'If your damned wizards come for me,' he said, 'they'll do so at the peril of their own lives.'
'They won't come for you,' Allis told him. 'They won't have to. You'll be hunted all over Alagh?n after last night, and though it might take them time to bring you down, they will. They will withhold the gifts they offer you today, and they'll keep Taraketh's Hive from you.'
'Gifts?' Interested, Borran Kiosk looked at the basket the werespider had placed on the slanted table.
Allis picked up her dress, which had been ripped considerably as she'd changed forms. Still, she pulled herself into it as best as she could. Her eyes never met his while she dressed.
Crossing to the table, Allis lifted the cloth from the basket and revealed the items inside. She took a small oval mirror from inside a black wooden chest that was filled with padding to protect the mirror. She waved a hand over the mirror, spoke words that Borran Kiosk almost recognized, and placed the looking glass on the tabletop.
'First,' she said, 'I bring you proof that the five you buried with the pieces of Taraketh's Hive have risen.'
Borran Kiosk didn't need her mystic bauble to tell him that, but he remained silent. Even now he could feel them drawing steadily closer.
Allis pointed to the mirror.
Drawn by the sight of a figure moving within the glass, Borran Kiosk came closer. He peered into the mirror and saw a scene as though through a hazy fog.
A skeleton marched through swamplands with a long stride. Murky water came up to the skeleton's shins. In the hollows of its chest, lodged behind the breastbone, a jeweled cube burned bright and hard. The skeleton carried a short sword in one fist, and divots of mud still filled its cavernous eyes.
Allis waved her hand again, and the other four skeletons bearing pieces of Taraketh's Hive came into view, each in turn.
'You see,' she said, 'all is as I have promised. They have no will of their own but to serve Malar-and you-in the best way they know how.'
'And what of the other gifts you said you bore?'
Reaching into the basket again, Allis took out a section of gray and pink coral almost as long as her forearm.
She held it out and asked, 'Do you sense the death on this?'
'It's coral,' Borran Kiosk said. He tasted the salty scent of it with a flicking caress of his tongue. 'It reeks of death.'
Intrigue filled him. Even after everything he'd done, all the foul murders he'd committed, nothing had tasted so exquisite.
'Where did you get this?' he asked.
'From the Whamite Isles.'
Borran Kiosk's tongue leaped out again, drawing closer to the coral. 'I've never tasted death like this. Not even that wrought by my own hand.'
'There has never been death like this before,' Allis said. 'The islands are encircled by drowned ones and other undead. This was taken from the reefs that surround the Whamite Isles and was magically altered.'
Borran Kiosk's tongue flicked out again, and he could sense the magic energies bound within the coral. It was the most powerful thing outside of Taraketh's Hive that he'd ever encountered.
Allis extended the coral to him and with some trepidation, Borran Kiosk accepted it. As soon as his bony fingers touched the coral, it grew, shimmering as it changed. In a heartbeat, the coral had formed an elbow-length glove of white and pink streaks that perfectly encased his hand. A buzz of power filled the mohrg.
'What is this?' Borran Kiosk asked.
'Power,' Allis answered. 'The power to wake the dead of the Whamite Isles and call them to you.'
Borran Kiosk held the glove up before him, admiring it. For a moment, he worried that the mystic thing had ensorcelled him in some way, but he had safeguards-spells and magical items about him-that guaranteed such things could not easily affect him.
The power was real. He felt it surging within the glove and within him.
'Use it,' Allis urged, 'and you will raise an army to follow you back here to Alagh?n. No one will be able to stand before them. All of Turmish, and perhaps even the Vilhon Reach, will fall under your power.'
Borran Kiosk flexed the glove upon his hand. It moved as supple as leather, far easier than even the flesh he could remember wearing all those years before.
'And these wizards that you serve,' he said, 'they want me to have such power?'
'Serve your own dark desires, Borran Kiosk,' Allis said, 'and you will serve theirs.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Haarn ran, cutting through the overgrown grass that sprouted from the low valley's marshy ground. Despite the speed at which he'd been moving for hours, he knew he could run for hours more. From the wheezing gasps of his companion, he likewise knew that Druz Talimsir could not. He grew irritated again at his own inability to leave the woman, as he knew he should have. I gave her Stonefur's head, he thought in disgust. That's all I owed her. Druz gasped for breath but in a controlled manner, showing training and stamina, but her abilities were nothing when compared to the druid's. Her passage through the marshlands, punctuated with discordant splats of her boots slapping mud, echoed around them. Ahead, the valley sloped up again, leaving a thin trickle of stained brown water running through the heart of it. The long rain of the preceding day and night still wound through the land, and a tenday or more would pass before the sun burned away what the ground couldn't absorb. Haarn started up the slope, then stopped under a copse of trees. Scanning the ground for the trail he was certain he'd find, he waited for Druz. 'Tymora's blessing,' Druz gasped. 'I thought we were never going to stop running. Have you lost the trail?' 'No,' Haarn said, only just keeping the scorn from his voice. The skeleton's trail was there for anyone to see. Over the last three miles, the stink of moldy, dead flesh had carried more strongly on the air. They were much closer than they had been, practically on the undead abomination's heels. 'Wait here,' he told her. 'What are you going to do?' Haarn didn't pause to answer her. It was surprising how many questions she asked, but he supposed it was because she was used to being in control. 'Haarn,' she called after him, irritating him further because she must have known how far her voice would carry. 'Wait,' he growled over his shoulder. He raced up the side of the valley, finding the firmest spots and rocky shelves at a glance. Running in zigzag fashion, he spotted the trail he was looking for. A dolodrium plant, one of those that sprang up when the rainy season started and turned the drylands to verdant marsh, lay broken and twisted on the ground. An imprint beneath it, the one that had broken the frail plant, showed three toes and the ball of a skeletal foot. The thing he pursued had come this way. Despite his
