But unfortunately, as Aoth and Orgurth drew near, intricate designs of scarlet phosphorescence abruptly shined from the light and dark casements alike. The phenomenon looked like threads of fire had started burning inside the horn panes themselves.
Oblivious to the radiant sigils, Orgurth raised a hand to the first of the dark windows. “Don’t touch it!” whispered Aoth. “There’s a glyph.”
Orgurth snatched his hand back, then spit in the snow. “Here’s an idea. How about if you and your truesight don’t wait till the last instant to warn me next time?”
“I spoke up the moment it appeared.”
“If you say so. So what about the glyph? Can you get us past it?”
Aoth grunted. “You’ve already seen this isn’t my specialty. But I recognize the ward. I’ve breached it before. We’ll see what happens.”
He released a bit of the power he’d recently restored to his spear, murmured words of negation, and scratched a sign of his own on the casement Orgurth had nearly touched. The razor-sharp enchanted spearhead marked the horn as easily as a quill writing on parchment, and the red glyph deformed as the lines composing it writhed like spasmodic snakes, then vanished entirely.
“That wiped it away,” he said. “Now I just need a second charm to make the casement unlatch itself.”
Orgurth frowned. “That didn’t work so well on So-Remas’s secret cupboard.”
“True. But your former master’s approach to foiling thieves was to hide and lock up his valuables very well. The mage who enchanted these windows thought it would be more amusing to burn a burglar’s hands off. Now that we’ve eliminated that snare, we could probably just pry the casement open. But why risk the noise?” He whispered a charm, spun his hand in a flourish that ended with a twist like he was turning an invisible key, and the window popped open just a little.
Aoth put his eye to the crack and peered into a dark, unoccupied room containing a stained table with built-in manacles, a cold hearth with a rack of pokers and branding irons next to it, and shelves laden with thumbscrews, flaying knives, choke pears, and similar implements. Faded paintings of Loviatar, the Maiden of Pain, smiled from the walls.
Aoth glanced back at Orgurth. “It looks like you get that trip to the torture chamber after all. But if Lady Luck smiles, only for as long as it takes to cross the room.”
Ever since she was a little girl, Cera had liked staring into a fire and looking for pictures in the flames. Perhaps it reflected her affinity for that greatest of fires, the sun itself.
Even under normal circumstances, the pastime could produce a sort of trance. And when a twinge in her thigh, the result of sitting cross-legged for too long on cold, hard stone, recalled her to her senses, she realized she’d lost all track of how long she’d been watching the halo of blue and yellow flames flickering around Jhesrhi’s body.
That was worrisome-no sane person would want to lose awareness of her surroundings in an environment as dangerous as the deathways-but more worrisome still was the fact that when she grunted and stretched out her leg, Jhesrhi, sitting with her back against an intricately carved marble bier and her brazen staff cradled in her fiery hands, didn’t react in any way.
“Jhesrhi?” Cera asked.
The wizard still didn’t respond, although her corona of flame nearly gave the illusion of movement even as it set shadows dancing.
“Jhesrhi, please, talk to me.”
But the tall woman didn’t speak, and Cera abruptly recalled another childhood memory. When she was eight, she and her friends had stood and watched a merchant’s house burn down. One of the things that had impressed her was the way the blaze devoured it more or less from the inside out, leaving the hollowed-out shell that was the exterior for last.
She wondered if she was looking at a similar process now.
No, surely not! But still, it suddenly felt imperative to rouse Jhesrhi without further delay, and as an alternative to sticking her hand into the other woman’s corona of flame, she poked her in the ribs with the butt of her gilded mace.
Jhesrhi didn’t react.
Truly worried now, Cera pulled the cork from her water bottle and dashed the contents into Jhesrhi’s stern but lovely face. The liquid sizzled and puffed into steam.
Awareness surged back into the mage’s expression. Unfortunately, rage arrived with it and she bared her teeth in a snarl. She raised her staff, and flame roared up from the head of it.
Cera scrambled backward. Alarmed by the sudden motion, the bells in their antlers chiming, stag men scrambled up and then hesitated, uncertain what to do next.
Jhesrhi floated to her feet like a wisp of ash wafting up from a bonfire. She drew breath, perhaps to begin an incantation.
“Don’t!” Cera said. “It’s me!”
Jhesrhi’s golden eyes widened. Then the flame on the end of her staff burned lower, while those cloaking her body went out entirely. The dwindling of the light made the darkness draw in like a fist closing.
“I’m sorry,” Jhesrhi said. “For a moment, I … did you throw water on me? You shouldn’t have. The fire didn’t like it.”
“You were in a daze-for a while, we both were-and I couldn’t wake you. I was worried.”
“Then I don’t blame you, but … never mind.”
“We need light”-by the Keeper, how they needed it! — “but I don’t want you to squander all your strength making it. I can do my share.”
“When you conjure sunlight, it truly does use up some of your magic. Whereas when I just let the fire come out of me, it makes me feel better.”
“So would wine, but you wouldn’t drink yourself insensible with enemies nearby, and this maze is as dangerous as any battlefield. If we don’t keep our wits about us, it will hurt us.”
“Why, sunlady, what a distressing thing for an honored guest to say about my home.”
Startled by the new voice, Cera jerked around. Sarshethrian sauntered out of the darkness.
As always, his vileness set her teeth on edge, and her separation from the Yellow Sun, barely discernible even as a spiritual presence, made his proximity even harder to bear. But on this occasion, curiosity distracted her somewhat from her reflexive loathing. That was because he had a prisoner tangled in the cloud of his writhing shadow tentacles, which were apparently capable of hauling such a burden along without slowing or otherwise inconveniencing him.
The captive was a ghoul, with the gaunt, stooped frame; gray, rotting flesh; and protuberant, fanged jaws of his kind. But unlike the average graveyard scavenger, he wore a clean leather jerkin, breeches, and boots fit for a courtier. A curved line of oblong silver studs defined a reversed
“This,” Sarshethrian said, “is Gosnorn, an old acquaintance of mine who joined the Eminence of Araunt early on, long before Lod decided to betray me. He’s a resourceful fellow, and so his master uses him to carry messages.”
“Messages to and from Rashemen?” Cera asked.
“It’s a distinct possibility,” Sarshethrian said. “We’ll know when he sees fit to enlighten us.”
Gosnorn made a savage, snapping, flailing attempt to rip his captor with fang and claw, but the shadow bonds kept him from even getting close. “I won’t tell you anything!” he snarled.
“Oh, I think you might,” Sarshethrian answered. “You must have noticed that my new allies here differ considerably from the vermin who caught you. The woman with the mace is a servant of one of those ‘gods’ you’ve surely heard tell of. She can make holy sunlight shine anywhere, even here. Her friend with the staff has a similar connection to fire. All of which is my roundabout way of saying that if you thought your numb, dead flesh could withstand any excruciation I could bring to bear, you were mistaken.”
Cera glowered at the fiend. “Hold on. Jhesrhi and I aren’t torturers. That was never part of the bargain.”
Sarshethrian sighed. “Must I argue with you about every little thing? If you encountered a ghoul wandering around in your own world, you’d smite it without a second thought.”
