Tyveris noted two things about the room. The first was that there was no fire. The flickering light emanated from an object resting on a marble table-a small glass jar filled with a strange light that washed over him in dizzying waves.
The second thing he noticed was that he was not alone. The stranger, Kelshara, sat nearby in a high-backed chair lined with crushed velvet the same purple hue as her eyes. Tyveris took a startled step backward, but she seemed not to notice him. She continued to stare straight ahead, her face pale and devoid of expression. He would have thought her dead if it weren't for the steady rise and fall of her breast beneath her crimson gown.
Tyveris felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Without thinking, he dropped his hand down to his hip, but there was no sword hilt for it to grasp.
'There's enchantment at work here, sure as the night is black,' he grumbled. He'd never much cared for magic, or those who worked it. Mages were treacherous creatures, the whole lot of them.
But the weird scene in the room puzzled him. Was Alamric dabbling in magic himself? Perhaps there was nothing he would not do to achieve his bloody dreams of holy conquest. Perhaps he had ensorcelled Kelshara so that she would give him the gold he needed for his schemes. Tyveris shook his head in disbelief. He had to go find Mother Melisende.
As he turned to leave, his gaze was drawn once again to the light-filled jar. Dread fascination reeled him in, forcing him to peer into the jar's center. There was something inside.
A man-or, more precisely, the ghostly image of a man- battered at the glass prison. His eyes were wide with madness, his mouth open in a silent, endless scream. The tiny ghost scrabbled at the glass with hands clenched into claws. Worst of all, Tyveris recognized the man imprisoned within the vessel. It was Alamric.
'So, you've come after all,' a hard, cruel voice said behind him. 'I expected you to, of course. Toz lies at times, but the cards never do.'
Tyveris spun on a heel, crouching into a defensive posture. He held his big hands out before him, ready. His nostrils flared with the scent of danger on the air.
He found himself facing Patriarch Alamric.
Yet, somehow, his battle-honed senses told him that all was not as it appeared. The body might be the patriarch's, but it was not Alamric who gazed out of those gray eyes at him. No, somehow the patriarch-or at least his soul-was locked inside the glowing prison. Someone else had possessed him, and the smug, triumphant smile that curled about the patriarch's lips gave the foe's identity away.
'Kelshara,' he whispered. The woman's body still sat, unmoving, in the high-backed chair, but somehow she was in control of Alamric's form.
The smile broadened. 'Perceptive,' the necromancer crooned through the man's lips. 'However, I think you will find yourself wishing you weren't so terribly clever. Fate decreed you would stand in my way, warrior. It is my decree that you will fall.'
With a suddenness that surprised Tyveris, the false patriarch drew a long curved dagger from beneath his robes and lunged forward.
Reflexes worn into Tyveris's muscles by his years as a sell-sword sparked him into motion. He spun away from the blade as he kicked out his other foot. He felt the bones of the patriarch's arm buckle and snap beneath the blow. The dagger flew from Alamric's grip. With lightning speed Tyveris reached out and snatched the knife before it fell and brought it downward in a smooth, precise stroke.
It was over in a second.
'No,' Tyveris whispered in horror, staring wild-eyed at what he had done. Alamric's body slumped against him, a bloodstain blossoming on his robes like a rose unfurling its petals. Tyveris tried to pull the dagger free, but the false patriarch grabbed his arm with uncanny strength, driving the dagger in deeper.
'And so victory is mine,' Kelshara hissed triumphantly through Alamric's teeth.
A flood of orange fire burst from the glass jar, searing Tyveris's vision. When his sight cleared he saw that Alamric was gazing at him in mute amazement. And this time the patriarch himself looked out through his body's dimming eyes. With a gasp and a shudder, he died. Slowly, Tyveris let the corpse slide to the growing pool of blood on the cold stone floor.
'I am grateful to you,' said a chill, mocking voice. Tyveris turned to see Kelshara rise from the chair, smoothing her silken gown. 'I was finished with Alamric, and you have so kindly dealt with him for me.' She picked up the now empty jar from the table and slipped it into a pocket of her gown. There was a scrabbling of claws, and Tyveris watched in shock as a small, misshapen creature hopped from the sill of the chamber's open window and hobbled to Kelshara's side. It was a kobold. The creature regarded him with its bulbous red eyes.
'Here they are, Toz, just as the cards foretold,' Kelshara said. 'The priest who is not a priest.' She waved a hand, and an intricately drawn card appeared in her fingers. It depicted a holy man. The card was turned upside down. 'His was a violent heart, and violently has he died.' She crumpled the card in a fist. It burst into flame as she dropped it, turning to ash before it even hit the floor.
'And the warrior who is not a warrior,' the kobold croaked.
'Yes,' Kelshara said, her violet eyes gleaming speculatively, 'but I think there is more warrior in this one's heart than he wishes to believe. He kills with practiced ease. But then, so do I.'
Too late Tyveris realized his peril. Before he could leap forward another card appeared in Kelshara's hand, this depicting an armored knight. It was also upside down. With a swift motion, she tore the card in half.
Tyveris screamed.
He had never screamed before, not in all his years of battle. He'd taken wounds that would have killed other men, borne the torture of whip and hot iron without ever giving his tormentors the satisfaction of hearing him hiss in pain. But this time he screamed, the agony ripping the sound out of him like a claw reaching down his throat to tear out his heart.
Mercifully, a numbing coldness washed over him then. He fell to the floor, his limbs frozen motionless, his heart shuddering in his chest. Kelshara bent over Alamric's body and took something from his pocket. It was a small, clear gemstone. Everard's Tear.
'I have what I came for,' Kelshara purred. 'Farewell,
The dark-haired necromancer turned to the open window. She spread her arms wide and called out in a strange, guttural tongue. A huge creature swooped down from the night sky to hover before the window.
In life the thing might have been a griffin, a feral but noble beast with a lion's body and an eagle's head and wings. But Kelshara's mount was a creature of death. Rotting flesh hung in tatters from its bones, and its eyes glowed with a sick, unearthly light. It let out a shriek, but the sound was muffled by the dirt filling the thing's beak. Kelshara climbed onto the nightmarish steed, the kobold clambering up after her. There was a rush of dank, charnel-house air as the creature spread its wings. It soared triumphantly into the sky, leaving Tyveris alone and utterly defeated.
Some time later, Loremaster Orven came upon the former sell-sword lying beside Alamric's already stiffening body, still clutching the bloodstained dagger in his frozen hand.
Then came the ringing of bells, shattering the night.
It was a chill, gray morning. The wind smelled faintly of snow. Tyveris stood before the open gates of the abbey, alone. No one had come to bid him farewell, though that was hardly surprising since everyone believed him a murderer. And he supposed they were right, though not in the way they so smugly believed.
He gathered his travel-stained cloak about his broad shoulders. He had traded in his brown homespun robe for the worn leather jerkin and breeches he had worn before coming to the abbey. His swordbelt was slung low against his hip, the flat of the blade resting comfortably against his thigh. It felt almost as if he'd never taken the weapon off. He shouldn't have even bothered trying.
The council of loremasters had not believed his tale.
'I need no magic to explain these black deeds,' Lore-master Orven had pronounced angrily. 'Treachery is reason enough. You plotted with Kelshara to steal the Tear and brutally killed Patriarch Alamric to avoid discovery. But once Kelshara gained the relic, she needed you no longer. You are a fool as well as a murderer, Tyveris, for she left you to suffer punishment while she herself escaped to freedom.' The others had agreed. Tyveris would never be anything but a man of violence.
Only Mother Melisende's intervention saved him from a sentence of death. But the punishment finally handed
