Szass Tam had moved away from his desk and now stood only a few feet from the druid and Brenna.
'What-what do you want us to do?' Galvin asked quietly.
'I want Maligor stopped,' the lich replied simply. 'The threat he poses to me is not from his gnoll army. If he is planning to march his gnolls against another Red Wizard, it will be a weak one. I know Maligor, and I know he won't go up against something that might offer too much resistance. If he wants to march his gnolls against Aglarond, he would not be able to take much of the land. But I don't want him succeeding in any attempt. A victory for him diminishes me. Do you understand?'
Galvin nodded. 'You understand that Brenna and I do not have the power to stop him. Despite the magic at our command, his magic is superior. And he has an army.'
Brenna couldn't stay silent any longer. 'Why don't you go after him yourself?' she said to the lich. 'If you think you have the power to take Aglarond on your own, why don't you take him instead?'
The lich snarled at her. 'Fool. I cannot yet afford to overtly take on another wizard. I prefer to exercise power from a distance.'
'Galvin's right, though,' she argued. 'He and I can't take Maligor.'
'Not alone,' Szass Tam said. 'But I will supply you with enough aid.'
For a third time, the room dissolved, and Galvin and Brenna found themselves on a wide plain. There were orchards in the distance, and to their far right stood the walls of Amruthar. All around them were undead beings- skeletons, zombies, and other creatures that could walk about in the light of day but should have remained buried. There were also a few dozen living men, trained fighters, from the look of their muscles. The men wore nondescript armor and carried featureless shields. The undead were wrapped in cloaks and robes to help hide their true nature.
Szass Tam stood in front of Brenna and Galvin, once again wearing his fleshly visage.
'You will lead my army of undead,' he commanded, 'and no one will know from whence they come. Oh, the wizards who care will be able to guess who is behind this force, but the great masses of people will not know.'
Galvin swallowed hard and surveyed the illusionary force. He imagined the real one would look little different.
'You will lead this force to Maligor's tower. It stands outside Amruthar, so you will not have to contend with the city's guards. You will only have to deal with the gnolls assembled there. The fight could be difficult, but if you wish to live, you will win it.'
'I want Wynter at my side,' Galvin demanded, daring to interrupt the lich's instructions. 'The centaur is my friend and a good fighter.'
'I watched him,' Szass Tam countered. 'He fights only when pressed.'
'I'll fight better with him nearby,' Galvin said honestly.
'Very well,' the Zulkir of Necromancy relented as the room re-formed for the last time. 'I will grant you this one concession, since I have no major use for a zombie centaur.'
Szass Tam padded toward Wynter, who was breathing more shallowly than before. The centaur's skin appeared ashen, but it glowed suddenly as the lich extended his hands over him. Szass Tam knelt and touched his palm to Wynter's human chest.
Galvin was amazed that a man who was so tied to death should have the ability to renew life. The gashes healed before the druid's eyes, the centaur's breathing became even and deep, and the color returned to his skin. The blood Wynter had lost was magically restored somehow, and he was renewed with vigor.
'Galvin!' Wynter gasped, untangling himself from the litter and rising and backing away from Szass Tam. 'The Zulkir of Necromancy! We are his?'
'Only for a time,' the druid answered his friend. 'We've an errand to perform for him.'
Wynter looked puzzled, since he was not privy to anything that had passed before, but Galvin kept him silent with a narrow glance.
'Now, my Harpers,' Szass Tam said, motioning for a pair of jujus to open the double doors. 'Follow your escorts to your chambers. You look tired. You should sleep. It wouldn't do for you to go up against Maligor when you're not feeling your best.'
Galvin followed the jujus from the room, the vampires falling in line behind Brenna and Wynter. The double doors closed behind them, and Szass Tam's laughter echoed through the thick wood. The sound trailed the heroes down the hall and into their dark chambers.
Ten
Maligor sat alone in his vast library, staring out the window at the tops of the city's buildings silhouetted in the early morning sky and at a cloud formation that reminded him of a dragon he had slain in his younger days, a hundred and fifty years ago or so. The cloud wavered like a moving creature, then slowly floated out of his view. The Red Wizard wondered what the landscape and the clouds would look like from his gold mines.
Undoubtedly better.
The Red Wizard felt that his life would be better there, also. He would have more power, more wealth, more of everything that every Red Wizard in Thay wanted. And he would have it all to himself.
'Soon,' he said to the air. 'But first, to my health.' Maligor eyed a thin crystal vial he had been holding in his right hand, inspecting it in much the same way a jeweler would examine a fine brooch. He ran his stiff, wrinkled thumb up and down the side of the vial, feeling the cool smoothness and dwelling on the power within it. The liquid inside was a pale, pearly green that moved sluggishly as he tilted the vial back and forth, evidence of its thick viscosity. He pondered the contents for a time, long enough for another cloud to move across his window and reduce the light spilling into the room.
The Red Wizard had mixed the concoction late last night, feeling especially tired, morose, and old. He had waited until this morning to drink it, however, not wanting to fritter away any regained youth in sleep.
Maligor detested age. He considered it his only weakness and the one thing that could possibly stand in his way of eventually becoming ruler of all of Thay. So he fought it the only way he knew how-with his elixirs, powders, and arcane scrolls that hinted his soul was no longer his own. But Maligor never feared the repercussions of his magic or the well-being of his immortal spirit. He fully intended to live forever, and let the dark forces that hungered for him be damned.
To a renewed decade, he thought as he uncorked the vial, threw his head back, and downed the contents in a single, long draft. The mixture slowly oozed down his throat, burning as it went, bringing tears to the wizard's eyes.
For a moment, Maligor stood motionless. Then he jerked to his feet like a marionette being pulled by a vicious puppeteer, and the vial dropped from his hand, shattering into fine fragments on the marble floor. Gasping in pain, he doubled over, trying to clutch at his stomach through the thick red robes. His insides seethed and churned, seeming as if they were trying to fight their way out. He crumpled to his knees and clawed furiously at the marble, struggling to keep quiet so the guards outside wouldn't run in to defend him from an unseen menace and ruin his experience. He imagined piles of gold, trying to focus on something pleasant to lessen the pain. Still the pain in his gut persisted, but through it all, Maligor smiled, satisfied that the elixir was working properly.
For several minutes, he rode out the agony, then gathered himself up from the floor and wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his robe.
Breathing deeply and inhaling more air into his lungs than he had been able to for the past several years, he collected his thoughts, then anxiously and purposefully strode from the room. The guards at the library door fell in behind him in military precision. Maligor didn't speak to them or to the other guards and servants moving about the hallways who stopped and stared hard at him, some with open mouths. He dismissed them with an indignant scowl and moved hurriedly to his bedchambers, leaving his escort outside and rushing to a long mirror on his closet door.
The imported beveled glass proved to Maligor that the pain was worth it. The wrinkles around his eyes were few and shallow; his skin felt softer, tighter, and the ache of age in his fingers and hands was lessened considerably. He flexed his fingers again and again and grinned sheepishly. Then he dwelled on his hair and beard
