Yvka nodded. 'It manifested in Kolbyr, during the Fury.'
'It's not unknown for dragonmarks to appear later in one's life.' The artificer looked thoughtful. 'I wonder if exposure to high levels of the Fury had something to do with its emergence.'
Ghaji looked at Yvka, but the elf-woman wouldn't meet his gaze. The sudden appearance of a dragonmark was a major event in her life, but in the two days since they'd departed Kolbyr, she hadn't mentioned it to Ghaji. And now he knew why she'd insisted they make love in the dark the last several times: she hadn't wanted him to see her dragonmark. Ghaji had always felt an emotional distance between Yvka and himself, and he'd struggled not to let it bother him. But her reluctance to share this latest development with him only made Ghaji feel farther away from her than ever.
Hinto and Onu stood looking down at the black residue that was all that remained of Nathifa's arm.
'Was that really a lich's arm?' Onu said. 'Most remarkable!'
Hinto frowned at the changeling. 'You're enjoying this far too much, you know.'
Onu grinned. 'My dear lad, one can never enjoy life too much!'
Hinto looked back down at the ebon dust. 'Seems to me this business has little to do with life.'
Ghaji attempted to push aside his feelings about Yvka for the time being, but he vowed that the two of them would have a long talk when the opportunity presented itself. 'Why would the lich sacrifice her arm just to slow us down?'
'She gave up more than just an arm,' Diran said. 'She invested it with a significant portion of her own mystic power so that it could break through Solus's psychic defenses and control him. Now that the arm is destroyed, that power is lost to her forever.'
'She's getting desperate,' Leontis said in a low, almost guttural voice. 'I can smell it in the air.'
Ghaji feared the priest wasn't speaking metaphorically. In the time since he'd emerged hairless from the fireblast, Leontis's hair had grown in to the point where it reached past his ears, and he had the beginnings of a mustache and beard once again. More disturbing, his body was dotted with small patches of thick body hair that resembled animal fur. Ghaji had been keeping a close eye on Leontis, and the half-orc was determined to strike the man down if he began to transform into a werewolf once again-and from the way Yvka, Tresslar, and Asenka continued glancing at Leontis, they felt the same way.
'But what's so important about this cavern that it's worth that kind of sacrifice?' Asenka asked. 'Nathifa evidently didn't want Paganus's skeleton, and there's nothing else of interest here.'
'Nothing obvious,' Yvka said.
Ghaji was about to interject a comment of his own, but he was cut off by an ear-piercing-and familiar-scream from the far end of the cavern.
Ghaji looked at Diran, Diran looked at Ghaji, and at the same time they said, 'The barghest.'
Things weren't turning out as Nathifa had planned. She'd sacrificed her arm to gain enough time to locate Paganus's hoard of magic items and drain their energy into the Amahau. Once she'd accomplished that, she'd no longer have to be concerned about Diran Bastiaan and his retinue of hangers-on. With the mystical power that would be at her disposal, she'd be able to destroy them all easily, and the Amahau would still have more than enough magic left over for Nathifa to fulfill Vol's design for the Principalities.
She'd located the dragon's hoard easily enough. It lay at the rear of the cavern, accessible through a short tunnel concealed by an illusion spell that the lich had been able to remove with ease, even diminished in personal power as she was after the loss of her arm. The hoard chamber contained an impressive collection of stolen magical items: amulets, wands, crystalline figurines, gems of all types and sizes, pendants, bracelets, rings, gauntlets, leather-bound books, yellowed scrolls… But the chamber contained more than Paganus's hoard. The dragon's treasures lay piled around sepulchers carved out of black stone, a dozen or more, all with their lids removed, shoved aside, or knocked onto the floor. Strands of white gossamer covered the walls, stretched between the sepulchers, and lay across the magic items as if they had collected there naturally over the course of three thousand years while Paganus lay suffering in the outer cavern from wounds that would never heal. But Nathifa knew the white strands were no natural occurrence.
The lich stood at the chamber's entrance, a rough-hewn doorway that, from the crudity of its construction, had most likely been made by Paganus when the dragon had broken through the wall in order to use the ancient crypt to store his treasures. Makala and Haaken stood in front of the sorceress, and Skarm stood in front of them. There was no sign of life in the chamber, but Nathifa could sense it just the same. Life that was, paradoxically enough, suffused with negative energy.
'What is that stuff?' Skarm asked. 'Cobwebs?'
'It's webbing, yes,' Makala said. 'But not the kind formed from dust.'
'The vampire is correct,' Nathifa said. 'In order to safely drain the mystic energy from this many magical artifacts, I will need several moments of undisturbed concentration. It appears that in the decades since Paganus's death, a new resident has taken possession of the dragon's hoard chamber. You three will enter the chamber, flush out the creature, and slay it for me.'
Makala turned to Nathifa. 'You're a sorceress. Why not use magic to destroy whatever thing has made this place its lair?'
Nathifa wasn't about to admit to Makala that she'd been weakened by the sacrifice of her arm. Nor did she wish to reveal that she wanted to conserve her power for the task of wielding the Amahau. Using the device to absorb a vast amount of energy in a short period of time would require precise control. One mistake, and the Amahau would release its captured energy in a conflagration of mystic power that would destroy everything in its vicinity-including Nathifa and her servants.
Nathifa spoke in a low, dangerous voice. 'Because I am your mistress, and I command you.'
Makala had already had the pleasure of tearing the lich's arm off, and Nathifa thought the vampire-no longer be able to restrain herself-would finally attack. But though Makala's undead eyes flared bright crimson, the vampire made no move toward Nathifa. Instead, she gave the lich a cold, hard smile, and nodded.
'As you desire, my lady.'
Makala turned and walked past Skarm into the hoard chamber.
Haakan grinned. 'Looks like this is going to be fun!' The sea raider's flesh turned gray, his muscles swelled, a dorsal fin protruded from his spine, and black claws erupted from the tips of his broadening fingers and toes. His face lengthened, teeth grew sharper and more pronounced, hair and ears disappeared, eyes became shiny black orbs, and gill slits opened on the sides of his neck.
The wereshark lumbered into the chamber after Makala.
Of Nathifa's three servants, only Skarm still remained standing at the chamber's threshold.
The barghest turned to his mistress, an expression of mingled fear and apology on his goblin features. 'Nathifa, what sort of creature-'
The lich didn't wait for Skarm to finish his sentence. With her remaining hand, she snatched hold of the barghest's cloak, lifted him off his feet, and hurled him into the chamber. Skarm yelped as he flew overtop the heads of Makala and Haaken, arms and legs windmilling as if he might somehow slow his flight. In anticipation of a painful landing, the barghest began to transform into his natural shape of a lupine-goblinoid hybrid. But before he could complete his metamorphosis, a strand of white silk shot down from the chamber's ceiling and struck the barghest in the back. The strand adhered instantly and went taut. Skarm's flight was arrested, and he hung in the air for a split second before the strand withdrew, pulling the barghest along with it.
Nathifa, Makala, and Haaken looked upward to see Skarm being reeled in by a mottled gray spider the size of a horse. The spindly creature clung to the chamber's ceiling and as the barghest-still in mid-change-came within reach, she snatched hold of him with her mouth parts and swiftly plunged her fangs into Skarm's chest. Skarm resumed his goblin shape, almost as if the spider's venom had forced the transformation, and then the huge creature flexed her abdomen and rammed a sharp barb into his stomach.
A scream of sheer agony tore loose from Skarm's throat, and in that instant Nathifa knew the barghest was lost.
She was about to order Makala and Haaken to slay Skarm-though the barghest was next to useless, he had served her for many years and therefore had earned a swift death. But before the words could leave her mouth, a pair of web-wrapped corpses that had been lying hidden in sepulchers sat up. Beneath their gossamer covering, the mummies' skin rippled, as if numerous small creatures squirmed within. The mummies began climbing out of their
