different matter to prey on the Iron Lord himself. If Mangan Uruk looked pale and started squinting and flinching at the sunlight, someone-such as Yhelbruna-might well notice.
And besides, Nyevarra didn’t need to turn the warlord into a genuine thrall, gratifying though that would have been. She only needed him to commit a single error in judgment when the occasion arose for him to do so.
She told him what she wanted and made sure he understood. Then she ordered him to forget ever meeting her.
Now all that remained was to head back to Beacon Cairn via the deathways and tell Uramar what he needed to do to make her scheme work out as planned. Smiling, she melted into mist and then put on solidity once more. Her smile widened when she saw that the last transformation had restored her altered hand to normal.
Jhesrhi cloaked herself in flame for the hike back to the cemetery. That way, Lod and his creatures wouldn’t think she was trying to sneak up on them, and Cera, looking cowed and fearful, her mace, shield, and helmet left behind, had light to see by.
Even after Jhesrhi’s previous exertions, calling the fire in her core to come out and dance had been relatively easy. What was difficult was maintaining the dual consciousness her masquerade required.
She needed to be as ruthless and uncaring as flame. Otherwise, her lies wouldn’t fool a creature as cunning as Lod must surely be. But underneath the mask of fire, the human Jhesrhi needed to remember she
And while she was keeping the balance, neither allowing human worry and loathing for the undead to dampen the flame nor permitting the inner blaze to spread to her affection for Cera and her other friends and burn that loyalty away, she also had to scan the gloom ahead. It wouldn’t do for an undead to spring out of hiding and drive filthy, jagged talons or a blade forged of shadow and disease into her heart before she even had a chance to start talking.
She fancied that she managed to stay vigilant. Still, several paces into the graveyard, it was Cera, a sworn foe of the undead possessed of a certain intuitive sensitivity to their presence, who suddenly stopped short. She didn’t cry a warning, though. That would have undercut the pretense that she and Jhesrhi were no longer on the same side.
Their flowing, inconstant forms lending a deceptive appearance of slowness to their movements, seven luminous bluish phantoms sprang from the tombs nearest the two women to surround them. Jhesrhi spoke words of power, and a circle of flame leaped up around her and Cera.
She sensed that if she chose, she could make the ring expand and sweep over the sentries. In fact, it took willpower to resist the impulse. Both sides of her nature wanted to succumb-the fire because it lived to burn whatever it could, and the human because the apparitions were menacing and vile.
Still, resist she did. “I don’t want to fight. I want to talk to your leader. As a show of good faith, I brought you a present.”
On the final word, she gave Cera a prod with her burning staff. With luck, it looked like she didn’t even care if she set the priestess on fire, although in reality, her control over the flames kept Cera’s garments from catching.
The seven transparent, wavering sentries moaned and whispered an answer in unison. They must actually be a single entity, a doomsept. “Give her to us, then.”
“I’ll hand her over when I talk to Lod. Is that all right? If not, I can burn you up like I already burned up many of your comrades, then vanish away to safety like before.”
The doomsept thought it over for a moment. Then the seven phantoms said, “Come.”
Jhesrhi dispelled the circle of flame with a sweep of her staff and gave Cera another jab in the back with it, and they followed the apparitions deeper into the graveyard.
As they proceeded toward the central path, loping ghouls and skeletons with glowing eye sockets joined the procession. Maybe the stinking things were curious, or perhaps they wanted to be in striking distance in case it turned out that Jhesrhi had actually returned to renew hostilities. Either way, there were soon enough of them to make retreat problematic if not impossible.
Still, peering around to assess the state of their expedition as best she could, Jhesrhi noted with satisfaction that there weren’t as many as there used to be. With her aid and Cera’s, Sarshethrian had done considerable harm to the Eminence’s forces even though he’d lost the battle in the end.
Still, like mortal soldiers in the wake of a battle, some of the undead that had suffered harm were merely wounded, not destroyed. To facilitate their recovery, creatures with necromantic skills brought pools of black liquid malignancy bubbling up from the graveyard earth; their fellow horrors either drank from them or splashed the foulness on their injuries. Meanwhile, Lod had sacrificed the surviving cart slaves to restore burned and mangled vampires, and the gaunt, naked mortals shivered and twitched as two or three blood drinkers battened on each.
Except for the damage to his charred and tattered robe, Lod himself was intact again already, every broken human-looking bone back in place and the burns and gashes in the long scaly tail erased. He sat coiled in the bed of his wagon, the better, perhaps, to oversee his company as it dealt with the aftermath of combat.
He cocked his fleshless skull of a head as he peered down at Jhesrhi and Cera. “The two of you fought well today. Too well to expect anything but vengeance if you fell into our hands.”
Jhesrhi gave Cera a poke with the staff. “This one deserves it. She fought of her own free will. I didn’t.” She proceeded to tell the tale the sunlady had concocted.
When she finished, Lod simply stared down at her for a while. A wizard’s instincts warned her he was using some occult means of perception in an attempt to examine her essence. I’m fire, she told herself, fire, ready to incinerate any dead, filthy thing that displeases me, and she gazed back at him unflinchingly.
At last he said, “You don’t look exactly like an elemental.” And all around her, anticipating that he was about to give the order to attack, direhelms, zombies, and wraiths gathered themselves to lunge and pounce.
“I admit,” Jhesrhi said. “My mother was human. But she burned to death giving birth to me, and afterward, my efreet father took me to raise. He taught me to hate the cold, wet, mortal part of me, and with his help, I reforged it into something stronger.”
“Congratulations,” Lod replied, a note of irony in his slightly sibilant voice. “Undead too, occasionally have to work to slough off clinging vestiges of the lesser beings we started out as. But that doesn’t change the fact that fire and our kind are natural enemies.”
“Sharp steel harms living warriors,” Jhesrhi answered. “That doesn’t stop them from wielding axes and swords, and in my time, I’ve known liches and the ghosts of mages to wield flame. I’d wager you yourself have a fire spell or two in reserve for when fire is exactly the right weapon for the occasion. If not, you’re a fool.”
The bone naga chuckled. “Perhaps I do at that. Yet even if so, should I trust living, thinking fire not to betray me?”
“I don’t deny I view your kind with distaste. But my current predicament obliges me to overlook that. Does my gift do nothing to prove my sincerity? The clerics of Amaunator stand in opposition to your kind more than any fire spirit ever could.”
Lod’s lower body shifted position, the coils sliding. “It
Be fire, Jhesrhi reminded herself, and when she replied, her voice was steady. “Do what you please. It doesn’t matter to me. But I don’t know how detailed your knowledge of affairs in Faerun is. Your prisoner is Cera Eurthos. She’s the lover of Aoth Fezim, a sellsword captain hired to fight your forces. She’s also one of the principal candidates for the head of the church of the Yellow Sun in the land of Chessenta. You
“Hm. That does seem possible. And I confess, I know little about gods and divine magic and such, and I need to remedy that. Perhaps a priestess can instruct me.”
“No,” Cera said. “I won’t help you in any way.”
“Oh, I trust you will,” Lod said, “starting right now.” He turned to the vampires, who, Jhesrhi now observed, had at some point risen from the drained, lifeless bodies of the slaves. “Who’s still thirsty?”
