Hoping the blade hadn’t taken too long to capitulate, Vandar whirled and ran.
By thought alone, Aoth released the power pent in one of his tattoos, and as a result, he fell slowly, meanwhile rattling off an incantation.
Many of the Raumathari automatons were still either frozen or doing pointless things such as rolling over and over or trying to walk through walls, although probably not for much longer. And the majority of the constructs and undead that did constitute potential threats were too busy assailing their chosen targets on the ledges to notice Aoth drifting toward the floor. Still, three shriveled spearmen with foxfire eyes and flaking skin rushed at him, and a phantom in the form of crucified little girl floated in their wake. The cross and nails were absent, but the apparition had holes in her outstretched hands and crossed feet, and although her translucent face was a mask of uncomprehending anguish, her giggling echoed in Aoth’s head.
Until, just as his boots touched the floor, he finished his incantation and jabbed with his spear. Then spinning blades of blue light whirled into being to chop the zombies into chunks of rot and bone and her into wisps of phosphorescence.
Weaving his way past a frozen iron boar with textured bristles, a bronze squidlike thing with twitching tentacles, and even a gaudily painted wooden jester slumped like a marionette with cut strings, Aoth headed for Pearl-eye. Then he glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision.
He spun to find a pair of shadows lunging at him straight through the body of an oversized bronze jackal. He met one with a thrust of his spear and positioned his targe to block the other’s outstretched hands.
The spear pierced the first, and it dissolved. The other splashed into shapelessness against the shield, its insubstantial form held back not by the steel but by the enchantments bound inside it.
At once, the apparition sent a dozen wispy lengths of itself curling around the rim of the targe like jellyfish tendrils. One brushed Aoth’s elbow, and a jolt of cold pain sent the muscles on either side into spasms.
He charged the point of his spear with chaotic power and simply slapped it against the shadow’s back. The undead vanished, and metal clanked when the weapon struck the shield.
He pushed on and came up behind a vampire wizard casting fire at some of the Old Ones. He killed the new blood drinker as he had the previous one, only by surprise, and as conjured daylight ate the undead from within, Aoth saw that the thing’s wand looked a lot like Pearl-eye’s. He grabbed the implement, tossed it up at the nearest ledge, and kept moving without waiting to see if any of the Rashemi caught it.
A metal manticore abruptly lurched into motion, and Aoth aimed his spear at it. But, maybe still not entirely free of the waning effect of the Old Ones’ snares, the leonine, bat-winged automaton simply paced across his path without seeming to perceive him.
When it moved on by, however, with its spike-tipped tail curled up off the floor, it became clear that at some point, Pearl-eye had become aware that Aoth was stalking her. At the moment when the manticore’s progress had hidden her from view, she’d appeared intent on reactivating golems and striking at the men on the ledges, but now the wand in her gray, outstretched hand pointed at him, and pale light seethed at the tip.
He dodged right, the same direction the manticore was going, and then a serpent made of sizzling lightning leaped from the end of the wand. Its strike missed, but not by much, and in the instant before it blinked out of existence, its mere proximity made his muscles burn and clench.
Fortunately, the restorative power of a tattoo quelled the pain, and then, once again, he had the manticore between him and the ghoul. Now what? It had to be a move she wasn’t expecting to offer any hope of ending the duel quickly.
Still moving with the manticore, using it for cover, he discarded his shield so he’d have at least one hand free. Then he ran at the golem, jumped, and tried to scramble over its hindquarters.
The automaton’s back stood as tall as he was. The surface was rounded and smooth, and just as he was clambering up, the razor-edged wings gave a clattering flap. He had to snatch his head sideways to keep one wing from slicing his face to the bone.
Then he had his balance, his feet under him, and he could tell Pearl-eye hadn’t spotted him. She was watching for him to reappear at one end of the manticore or the other, not over the top of it.
He hurled darts of emerald light. They were far from his most destructive spell effect, but they couldn’t possibly damage the wand, and when they pierced her withered, rotting form, she staggered. He jumped off the manticore’s back and charged her.
But she recovered and scrambled backward before he could close. Her retreat took her out of the foundry proper and back into the section of cavern that connected to the shattered gate.
For a moment, Aoth imagined that might work to his benefit because she was separating herself from her allies. Then, removed from the crippling influence of the Old Ones’ wards against constructs, the silver mites clinging to the folds of her robe seethed into motion.
Jhesrhi thought that if she’d been at the head of the column, she might have done something. Somehow whisked Vandar out of sight before any of the undead spotted him, blasted Dai Shan as soon as he called out, and justified the precipitous action afterward.
But Lod traveled in the middle of the procession, and he’d wanted her company. Thus, when things started happening in the darkness up ahead, it caught her by surprise. And with the bone naga’s followers clogging the passage, she still had no way of aiding Vandar with her magic.
But maybe she could keep Dai Shan from exposing her masquerade. Once again bringing the uncaring savagery of her fiery self to the fore, she looked up at Lod, who, with his wagon slaves now dead, was slithering along with his skull nearly brushing the ceiling.
“I know the man who shouted,” she said. “He’s one of the foremost obstacles to your plans. Let me kill him.”
Swaying slightly, fleshless head tilted, Lod studied her. Then he said, “It sounds like the human wants to talk. If I draw him in close and then don’t like what he has to say, it will be easy to destroy him.”
“He’s a master of shadow and trickery. He might find it possible to escape even you. But let me burn him right now, before he realizes you’ve decided on his death, and-”
“You don’t really believe he could slip away from me and all our comrades too? You want to kill him immediately for some other reason. What is it? Do you hate him? Are you worried that if I don’t send you after him right now, it won’t be you who ends up taking his life?”
“Something like that.” Even as she spoke the words, Jhesrhi knew they weren’t a particularly useful lie. But she was at a loss for anything else to say.
Lod chuckled. “I promise that
“I’m coming forward,” called Lod. “If you’re a friend, do the same.”
“Does the august lord,” Dai Shan replied, “pledge that neither he nor his stalwart warriors will harm me?”
“I do.” Lod glanced down at Jhesrhi. “Don’t worry. We of the Eminence don’t consider a promise to a living human binding.”
As they headed up the passage, Jhesrhi imagined lashing out with flame, freeing Cera, and fleeing with her. But such a desperate ploy would never work.
She had no idea if she was a match for Lod, and even if she was, it didn’t mean she could incapacitate him and all the other undead in the immediate vicinity with a single spell.
She likewise didn’t know Cera’s precise location, only that the sunlady was somewhere toward the rear of the procession. She
But suppose, despite all those impediments, Jhesrhi and Cera did somehow manage to break away. Then they’d still be trapped in the deathways just as they were now, and it was worse than unlikely that anyone else would happen along to unlock the way out.
Thus, Jhesrhi saw no choice but to walk peacefully into a parley with Dai Shan and hope that, somehow, her lies came out more convincing than whatever the Shou had to say.
