Prophet of the Dead

Still, one of Faerun’s preeminent wizards might possess occult means of sensing all sorts of things. And when Szass Tam had set about the final slaughter of his foes, Aoth was the one fish who’d slipped the net.

The blurry, luminous ghost of a young woman silently sauntered toward Aoth and Orgurth. At first, like a sleepwalker, the phantom seemed oblivious to their presence. Then, suddenly, she rounded on them, and her transparent face brightened with an exaggerated smile of surprise and delight. She opened her arms, inviting an embrace.

Aoth felt a lustful urge to kiss her. He touched one of his tattoos through his mail, and the resulting tingle of protective magic cleared his head. Orgurth, however, started forward.

For want of a subtler remedy, Aoth grabbed the orc and shook him. Orgurth struggled for a moment and then relaxed in his grip.

That still left the problem of the ghost, who, in this new Thay even more than in the old, was free to chastise commoners who refused her attentions in any way she liked. Fortunately, though, she simply laughed-her mirth was silent, but Aoth could feel it chiming in his head-and drifted on her way.

“By the Black Hand,” Orgurth growled. “What was it going to do to me?”

Aoth shrugged. “Age you a thousand years? Eat your soul? Something unpleasant. Keep moving.”

They prowled onward, and then he felt Jet’s mind reaching out across the hundreds of miles separating them. It wasn’t an ideal time for a palaver, but he was eager for one anyway. Because of his injuries, the griffon had recently spent so much time sleeping that their communication had been infrequent.

Dividing his attention, still watching the street for danger, Aoth answered, I’m here. How are you?

As I’ve told you. The burns are healing slowly. In their way.

Aoth frowned at the sense of despondency underlying the words. Weeping Ilmater, what’s the matter with you? You’ve been wounded before.

Not like this, and when it was bad, I always reached a healer quickly. If it turns out I’m never going to fly-

Curse it, just stop! We’ll get you healed, and meanwhile, you just have to put up with the pain and be my eyes, ears, and voice in Rashemen. Now stop whining and tell me what’s going on.

It took Jet a moment to answer, but when he did, he sounded a little more like himself. Vandar and Dai Shan go into the maze twice a day. They still haven’t found any trace of Jhesrhi or Cera. I need to start searching too.

Only when you’re ready.

If Jhesrhi and your mate need me-

I know how you feel. But they can take care of themselves, and you can’t do anybody any good by setting back your recovery.

You don’t know what it’s like to just lie here-

Yes, I do. From back when the Blue Fire blinded me, before my eyes adjusted. So I’ll say it again: stop whining. Tell me about Dai Shan. Has he raised a shadow and sent it running back to Immilmar?

Not yet, Jet answered. He claims that even before we were wounded, he stretched that particular talent to the breaking point. He says that if he tried to use it again right now, he might become one of the “Shadowless,” whatever that means.

A patrol of zombie warriors with glowing amber eyes came marching down the street. Aoth and Orgurth ceded them the center of the street, and the creatures only gave them a cursory glance before continuing on their way.

At the same time, Aoth continued his psychic conversation: Well, Dai Shan’s messenger likely doesn’t matter anymore anyway. By now, Bez has probably taken charge of the griffons and flown south, in which case, our revenge will have to wait. Maybe, come spring, we can find out who the Storm of Vengeance is fighting for and sell the Brotherhood’s services to the other side. Then we’ll kill the treacherous son of a dog on the battlefield.

If I hadn’t provoked him into casting fire at me, or done a better job of dodging-

Stop it! You haven’t done anything idiotic, and neither have I. We’ve just had rotten luck. But I’ll be with you soon-in fact, I’m working on it now-and then we’ll put everything right. Understand?

Jet hesitated, and Aoth could feel the griffon’s urge to make a sardonic reply. But what he said was, Yes.

Good. Rest now, and we’ll talk again later.

He and Jet allowed their psychic linkage to attenuate, although it didn’t break entirely, as it never could so long as they were both alive and in the same world. He could still sense the griffon’s presence in somewhat the same way that, if he chose to pay attention to it, he could feel his right hand at the end of his arm.

“Bad news?” Orgurth murmured. He’d learned to recognize when Aoth was communing with his distant familiar, and apparently he’d also marked a grim cast to his companion’s expression.

Aoth had avoided confiding much information or even his full name to Orgurth lest even a runaway slave succumb to the temptation to betray a notorious enemy of the realm to the authorities in hopes of a lavish reward. Still, the colloquy with Jet had left him with feelings that needed to come out somehow.

“One of my best friends,” he growled, “is so badly hurt he fears being crippled forevermore, and he’s coping with the prospect about as well as you or I would in his place. My foster daughter and the woman I love are caught in a magical trap. A foe is making off with a treasure that’s rightfully mine. So yes, I think you could fairly say the news is bad.”

Orgurth grunted. “Well, then, we’d better go set it all to rights.”

It was the same confident attitude-indeed, couched in almost the same words-that Aoth had sought to convey for the sake of Jet’s morale, and being on the receiving end of the same treatment tugged a smile out of him. “True enough. Or at least I’d better. You’re still free to go your own way.”

The orc snorted. “And where would that way lead, I wonder, the whipping post, the rack, or the gallows? Maybe all three!”

“Well, there is that. And for what it’s worth, when we’re clear of Thay, you’ll be better than free. I can make you a soldier again. If that’s what you want.”

Orgurth grinned. “In that case, why are we dawdling?”

In fact, they weren’t. But while still trying to look like innocent folk abroad on legitimate business, they were approaching the chapterhouse, a four-story stone structure at the end of a dead-end street, with a certain circumspection. It would have been foolish to approach a structure full of Red Wizards in any other way.

The chapterhouses of Aoth’s youth had served the needs of one or another of the orders of Red Wizardry. The one ahead had been the property to the Order of Conjuration, as the reaching and beckoning hand symbols carved above the arched front entrance attested.

And the summoners, creators, and their brothers would no doubt claim exclusive rights to it still, except that the orders and the specialized studies that supported them had passed into memory when the Spellplague changed the nature of magic itself. Now all Red Wizards held all chapterhouses in common as sanctuaries where they could fraternize with their own kind, collaborate on projects of mutual interest, or secure accommodations free of charge when traveling from one place to another.

Steady magical illumination shined through the translucent horn windows to gleam on snow gray from a fall of ash. Hoping any observer would take them for some Red Wizard’s bodyguards, Aoth and Orgurth tramped across the little yard but veered off from the high bronze door with its stylized representations of flame, cold, wind, and other fundamental forces. No one would think it odd if mere men-at-arms who weren’t presently attending their master used the servants’ entrance around back.

Somebody was likely watching that door to make sure no one came in who wasn’t supposed to. But a person had to move through the darkness along the side of the house to pass from the front to the back, and like the facade, the side had a row of windows in it.

Some of those glowed as well, and muffled snatches of conversation, laughter, and even a mournful song with harp accompaniment leaked through from the other side. Two windows, though, had only gloom and silence behind them.