Prophet of the Dead

both of us. It’s your choice.”

Jhesrhi frowned in perplexity. She understood the literal meaning of the words, but she was not clear why the one-eyed man imagined they could possibly deter her. Fortunately, she didn’t need to understand. She rattled off the first words of an incantation in one of the hissing, crackling languages of the Undying Pyre.

The sunlady’s head snapped around in her direction. “Jhesrhi, no!” the priestess yelled.

Apparently, the sunlady was deterred. Why? And come to think of it, what was the short, plump woman’s name?

Jhesrhi knew she ought to remember, and it bothered that she couldn’t. She strained to do so, and then, abruptly, everything came clear, including the fact that a sellsword was supposed to be loyal to her comrades.

“I’m all right,” she gasped. “I promise not to hurt him if he lets the stag man go.”

“Fair enough,” the creature said. He dropped the fey, and at the same time, a psychic pressure abated. Jhesrhi hadn’t quite been conscious of it before, but its departure came as a relief nonetheless. She surmised that the foe had dissolved the enchantment intended to strike terror into the hearts of all who beheld him.

Yet the sight of him still made her skin crawl. There was a fundamental vileness about him beyond anything his physical appearance could explain, like he was the walking embodiment of some hideous disease.

“Go away,” Cera said, her voice tight. Her mace was still glowing, just not as brightly.

The pale man smiled. “It would be sad for all of us if I did. We need each other.”

Dangling from Jet’s talons, Dai Shan saw streaking thunderbolts and orbs of red and yellow light burst into being. They’d been darts and balls of coal when they leaped from the ballistae and catapults of the Storm of Vengeance, but magic had transformed them in mid-flight.

Many of the attacks fell short or flew wide of the mark, but one looked like it was coming straight at its target. As Dai Shan started to warn Jet, the black griffon lashed his wings and veered. He’d already spotted the threat and was dodging.

Successfully too. Jet got them safely out of the way, and while Dai Shan had by no means forgotten that Aoth Fezim’s familiar was his captor, not his ally, for a moment, he felt an appreciation that bordered on camaraderie.

Then the missile made an impossible hairpin turn. Dodging again, Jet dived, but the luminous missile hit him anyway and exploded with a flash and a boom that smashed Dai Shan’s wits into stupefied confusion.

Perhaps it was the hot pain that roused Dai Shan, for when his thoughts snapped back into focus an instant later, he was on fire, as was Jet, who was no longer flying but rather dropping like a stone.

If the plummeting griffon carried Dai Shan all the way to the ground, the impact would unquestionably kill him. Fortunately, Dai Shan knew a spell to arrest his descent if only he could separate himself from the winged steed. Blocking out the pain of his charring skin, he tore at the eagle claws gripping his shoulders.

To no avail. Jet had been holding him tightly even before the fiery missile struck them. When the flame burst over him, he’d apparently gripped even tighter, convulsively, driving his talons into Dai Shan’s flesh.

Dai Shan jabbered a word of power and infused the griffon’s body with the magic he’d originally intended for himself. Then he willed Jet to rise, not fall.

That didn’t happen. The beast’s weight and momentum were too much for the enchantment to overcome. But perhaps the fall slowed somewhat, or at least stopped accelerating.

Yet even if it had, that wasn’t enough to guarantee the drop, or Jet’s weight smashing down on top of Dai Shan, wouldn’t still kill him. “Fly!” he shouted, jabbing at the underside of the griffon’s body with his fingertips. “Wake up and fly!”

Jet gave a rasping cry and unfurled his fiery wings. That didn’t stop them falling either. It turned a straight drop into a diagonal, but they were still rushing at the ground.

Dai Shan felt a scream pressing for release and clenched himself to hold it in. If these were his final moments, that made it all the more important to comport himself like a Shou gentleman and his father’s son.

The ground was hard but not as hard as he’d expected, and it splashed over him afterward, all but burying him. He realized Jet had steered the two of them into a snowdrift, and then darkness swallowed him.

“What do you mean?” Jhesrhi asked, pulling her aura of flame back inside herself and wiping at her nosebleed. “And who are you?”

“Sarshethrian,” the pale man said.

The name meant nothing to her. She glanced at Cera. The priestess shrugged to convey the same lack of recognition.

“Well, there’s a blow to my pride,” the one-eyed creature said, “but no matter. May I ask your names?”

Jhesrhi hesitated, pondering if there was a reason to refuse to answer or to lie. But Cera answered at once: “My friend is Jhesrhi Coldcreek, a wizard and officer in the Brotherhood of the Griffon,” she declared. “I’m Cera Eurthos, sunlady of Soolabax in Chessenta.”

“And unless I’m mistaken,” Sarshethrian said, “you’re both trapped here in the deathways, with scant hope of ever seeing either your sellsword company or your temple again. That is, unless we come to an arrangement.”

“No,” Cera said.

Jhesrhi frowned. “Hold on. What kind of an ‘arrangement’?”

The pale man smiled. “I’m glad one of you is sensible. Together, you wield fire and the sacred light of the Yellow Sun, and those are the ideal weapons to smite some former friends of mine. Help me pay them the wages of ingratitude, and when we’re done, I’ll return you to your own world.”

“No,” Cera repeated. “Leave us alone or take the consequences.”

Sarshethrian sighed. “I suppose I evoked this truculence by testing your abilities. But the test is over. Let’s converse like reasonable beings. I’m not asking you to kill anyone you don’t already want to kill anyway. My enemies are yours.”

“Give or take a couple who may have run away,” Jhesrhi said. “We-and our allies-just finished defeating our enemies in the Fortress of the Half-Demon.”

The pale creature chuckled. “You were meant to believe that. In truth, all your most important enemies are still alive-well, undead, but you know what I mean. They’ll pursue new designs while Rashemen sleeps, imagining itself secure, and before the thaw, they’ll bring her down.”

“If that’s true,” Cera said, “then thank you for the warning. Now leave us.”

“Cera,” Jhesrhi said, “I need to talk to you in private.”

She told the stag warriors to watch Sarshethrian. Then she and the priestess retreated to the cracked, chipped spot on the wall where they’d worked their unsuccessful divinations.

“Why are you acting this way?” Jhesrhi asked.

Cera scowled. “I don’t know exactly what that thing is. But it’s a great evil, and the sort of entity clerics of the Yellow Sun are sworn to oppose with all their strength.”

Jhesrhi glanced to make sure Sarshethrian wasn’t getting up to mischief. He wasn’t. He was just watching them with a crooked smile that reminded her momentarily of Gaedynn.

“Is he more evil than the zulkirs of the Wizard’s Reach,” she asked, “or Tchazzar? Because the Brotherhood worked for them.”

“That’s nothing to boast of,” Cera snapped. Then she took a deep breath in a visible effort to calm down. “Forgive me, Jhesrhi. I don’t look down on the Brotherhood for anything it’s done. You know that. But there’s a difference between serving even the wickedest human being and an undead or a fiend. Demons and devils are nothing but evil in a way mortals never can be. When you look at Sarshethrian, don’t you feel the difference?”

“Of course,” Jhesrhi said. “It makes my guts cramp. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know how to get out of here. Do you?”

Cera hesitated. “You’re a master wizard, and I’m the high priestess of my temple. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m a master elementalist,” Jhesrhi said. “I couldn’t open a way out of Shadow when I was stuck in it before, and you’ve never mentioned being an experienced traveler of the planes. There’s no guarantee we can do it, and certainly none that we can do it quickly. What if Rashemen fell to the undead because you were too squeamish to do what’s necessary to get back there and warn everybody? Wouldn’t that be the real sin against Amaunator?”