Prophet of the Dead

intended to make sure that, although perhaps swearing abstract fealty to some distant authority, it was she and her sisters who would truly control Rashemen. It had always been a unique land of witches and fey, and so it must remain, even if the witches were ghosts and vampires, and the spirits were greedy and cruel. The thought of mechanical insects and other such unnatural contraptions infesting the lonely hills and sacred forests was loathsome to her.

“Of course,” she said. “You’ve explained as much, my friend. It’s just that old habits of thought die hard. Still, the truth is, we don’t need an army of the sort Lady Pevkalondra describes. What we need is all the durthans we can muster.”

The ghoul made a spitting sound. “You really think this feckless scheme will work?”

“It isn’t ‘feckless.’ It’s cunning. Although it doesn’t surprise me that a relic of a vanquished, vanished realm can’t tell the difference.”

“Enough!” Uramar said. It truly seemed to upset him when his allies bickered. Perhaps, in his distant homeland, the Eminence stood united in perfect amity, although given what Nyevarra knew of human-and undead- nature, she doubted it.

“We’ll proceed with the strategy we all agreed on,” the patchwork swordsman continued. “Despite any second thoughts you may be having, Lady Pevkalondra, I still think it’s a good one. But you’re right that we need to rebuild our force of arms in case the plan goes awry. We’ll be vulnerable until we do. So of course we’ll reanimate more of your folk, more durthans too, and everybody else who can be of use. And we’ll ask for fresh help from Nornglast.” He paused to survey them both. “Does that satisfy you?”

“Of course, my lord.” Pevkalondra gestured her companions onward. “Come this way, and I’ll show you one of the largest Raumathari war devices ever made. It slaughtered hundreds of Nars in its day.”

“That sounds fascinating,” Nyevarra drawled. “But I must go and prepare to begin the real work of conquest.” She gave Uramar a smile, squeezed his forearm, and turned away.

As she walked along, the butt of the antler weapon clicking of the floor, she hoped she remembered her way out of the maze of tunnels. It would mar the insolent effect of her departure if she had to come back and ask for directions.

1

Aoth didn’t see anyone moving around the courtyard. He supposed he had the cold and the early hour to thank.

From his limited vantage point inside the tomb, he couldn’t see anybody on the walls either, but assumed there was probably a sentry or two up there somewhere, maybe sheltered in the corner turrets. With any luck at all, though, they’d be peering outward, not in.

Next, he looked for religious symbols in the ornate, soot-blackened stonework or any other sign that suggested the location of a chapel. For healing was the province of clerics even when, as was likely in the nightmarish land Szass Tam had made of Thay, the priests in question were dreadmasters of Bane, Lord of Darkness.

But Aoth failed to spot a shrine. A wry smile tugged at his lips when it occurred to him that, for a man whose vision was sharper than a griffon’s, he was doing a poor job of finding anything he looked for.

In fact, it would be unfortunate but not surprising if there were no shrine. Most of the lords with citadels in High Thay were Red Wizards, and in his experience, such folk, devoted as they were to esoteric knowledge, often had little use for faith.

He took a deep breath. The air smelled and tasted of burning sulfur, the taint of the volcanoes whose smoke also darkened the sky. He swung open the creaking iron gate and, trying to stay low, hobbled across the graveyard.

He didn’t like it that he was leaving tracks in the snow, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d just have to hope nobody would take any notice of them.

By the time he reached the keep, the pain in his neck had spread across his shoulders, all the way down his back, and into his hips, making all the muscles ache and bunch. Struggling to block the clenching torment out, he tested one of the lesser doors.

It was unlocked, and when he cracked it open, there was no one in view on the other side, just a kind of vestibule with five doorways around the walls. Maybe, he told himself-unconvincingly-his luck was finally changing. The Smiling Lady knew it was past time.

It was somewhat warmer indoors, although still chilly and drafty in the part of the castle where its master likely never ventured and the humble folk who saw to his comforts lived and toiled. Those servants and slaves had risen with the dawn to take up their tasks, and Aoth scurried past doorways and crouched behind barrels to keep them from spotting him.

Eventually, he found a small storeroom containing only dusty, cobweb-shrouded crates that, plainly, no one cared about anymore. The space was beyond easy earshot of the chambers where yawning servants were starting the day’s baking, mending, and washing, yet not so distant that there was little hope of anyone wandering by. He limped inside and stood beside the door where no one would see him.

After that, time dragged, slowed by the pain and anxiety that were gnawing away at him. Finally, he heard footsteps padding along. Just a single pair if he could trust his ears. He waited for them to pass by, then stepped out into the passage.

As he hoped, he was looking at only one creature, a stooped, olive-skinned orc dressed in rags. The marks of multiple floggings, some ridged and old, others raw and recent, showed through the rips in the slave’s shabby tunic.

Aoth didn’t know all the ways Thay had changed since Szass Tam became its sole master-and deeply regretted that he wasn’t being allowed to preserve his ignorance-but in the homeland of his youth, pig-faced brutes like the one before him had mostly been soldiers, not common thralls. Maybe the orc had started out that way but then so disgraced himself that his master reduced him to bondage.

“Turn around slowly,” Aoth growled in his best menacing cutthroat voice, “and don’t cry out.” And as the orc pivoted, Aoth tried to look like the war mage and sellsword captain who’d slain dragons and devils in his time and not like the creeping invalid that fearsome fellow had become.

His superficial appearance might help. He still had his squat, muscular frame, his leveled spear and armor, and luminous blue eyes framed in their mask of tattooing. It might take a keen observer to see past all that to the pain and weakness underneath.

The orc had had his tusks pulled, maybe because he’d been in the habit of biting and goring with them. He glowered at Aoth with a certain caution but no overt fear. It all reinforced the sellsword’s suspicion that the creature had once been a man-at-arms.

Aoth jerked his head toward the little storeroom and tried not to react to the resulting stab of agony in his neck. “In there. Fast.”

The slave obeyed, and Aoth closed the door behind them. “Whose castle is this?” he asked.

“Lord So-Remas.”

The name meant nothing to Aoth. “A Red Wizard?”

“Yes.” The orc’s piggy, bloodshot eyes narrowed. “You don’t even know whose fortress you sneaked into?”

Aoth sighed. “It’s a long story. Does So-Remas have a healer who attends him?”

The orc grunted. “He doesn’t need one. He’s undead.”

Curse it! “Then who tends the members of the household when they fall sick?”

“If it’s somebody So-Remas cares about, he gives him a potion to drink. The rest of us just either get well or die.”

Aoth frowned, considering. Healing elixir was valuable, all the more so in a remote fastness where it was apparently the only magical remedy available. “Where does your lord keep his jewels and talismans and such?”

The orc snorted. “You think he’d tell somebody like me?”