Prophet of the Dead

Sarshethrian nodded. “Let me tell you a story that will explain all of that by the time it’s through.

“At the beginning-my beginning,” the creature continued, “I came into being in this place. Perhaps it came into existence at the same instant, or perhaps it existed before me. I can’t be certain. All I can say is that so far as I’ve ever been able to determine, no one ever heard of it before I appeared to claim it for my own.

“I also don’t know how long I’ve wandered here. How could I? At first, nothing changed to mark the passage of time, and I didn’t even know what time was. But gradually, language and knowledge formed inside me like a pearl accreting in an oyster.

“Eventually, they prompted me to attempt to define myself. Was I perhaps a devil, or maybe a demon? It didn’t appear so, not in the technical sense, anyway, for although I still didn’t fully comprehend the nature of my home-it’s difficult to take the true measure of a place when you’ve only ever seen it from the inside-it didn’t seem to be a part of the Hells or the Abyss either.”

“Get to the point,” Cera said.

Sarshethrian snorted. “A priestess should be more interested in mysteries. Don’t you realize you’re receiving a bona fide myth no cleric of the light has ever heard before? But never mind. I promise, I am coming ‘to the point.’

“Although I might not have been precisely a baatezu or a tanar’ri, I had quite a bit in common with them, both in terms of my abilities and my awakening desires. And because the latter were cravings I could never satisfy in isolation, I strived ever harder to understand the nature of my home and how it could be made to connect to the greater universe I sensed around it.”

“And eventually, you found out it could connect through tombs and crypts,” Jhesrhi said.

Sarshethrian nodded. “Exactly. Perhaps because it’s a kind of reflection or echo those places strike in Shadow. Or maybe because it’s the perfect, reified idea that every vault and mausoleum in the mortal world expresses in its own limited way … but I’m forgetting that the sunlady is impatient with metaphysics.”

Or you want to make sure you don’t let slip anything that might help us escape, Cera thought.

“Suffice it to say,” the pale fiend continued, “in time, I learned how to step from my world into the funerary places of yours, only to discover I could venture no farther. A realm so full of life was inhospitable to me and would remain so unless I persuaded some of the indigenous creatures to worship me and so provide me with a foothold.”

“And because you could only make your presence felt in tombs,” Cera said, “the only ‘indigenous creatures’ you could talk to were undead.”

Sarshethrian inclined his head. “Exactly so. At first, no one was particularly interested. The lowliest lacked the wit to understand me. Others were content with their existences or skeptical of my ability to improve their circumstances, and perhaps reasonably so. I soon realized it’s fairly common for fiends to try to entice ghouls and wraiths into their service.

“But I persevered and eventually stumbled on a being so desperate for companionship that he was willing to listen to anything and everything I had to say. His name was Lod. Once, he was one of the serpent folk called nagas, and in undeath, he retained all the vast intelligence he’d enjoyed in life. That intellect notwithstanding, the necromancer who reanimated him could think of no better use for him than to seal him up alone in a crypt to guard the grave goods for eternity, and he found the solitude and tedium hellish. He would have done anything to escape them.”

“And so you had your first disciple,” Jhesrhi said. The flames dancing on the head of her staff further gilded her blond hair and tawny skin.

“Yes,” Sarshethrian said, “and I made good on all my promises. Together, we devised magic to break the mystical chains that held him to his endless task, and then to help achieve his grander dreams.”

Cera felt another twist of loathing down in her stomach. “ ‘Grander dreams’ that led to a menace nobody ever heard of attacking Rashemen?”

“Yes,” Sarshethrian said. Then he broke off talking and sat up straight. It reminded her of a hound reacting to a noise its masters couldn’t hear.

“What is it?” Jhesrhi asked.

“I feel them,” the demon said, hopping down from the sarcophagus, “here inside the deathways, and that means the rest of the story can wait. You don’t have to know who they are to kill them.”

Vandar had no doubt that it was only the preternatural vitality he drew from the red weapons that had enabled him to pull himself from the frozen river, and he suspected it was all that was keeping him alive now. But the magic had its limits. Shivering, teeth chattering, he felt colder than ever in his life, and the pale sun in the gray sky seemed to mock him with its lying promise of warmth.

But it did reveal the Fortress of the Half-Demon, visible as a dark nub on the northern horizon, and the sight helped to keep him trudging onward. In the castle, he’d surely find dry clothes, provisions, and a room where he could build a fire and rest out of the snow and the frigid, whistling wind for as long as it took to recover his strength.

Then he’d run to Immilmar as fast as his legs and his rage could carry him, and if the Three truly cared about justice, he’d arrive in time to catch Mario Bez and his sellswords.

Numb feet sliding, he labored to the top of the next rise. Half buried in snow, two more dark objects lay in the hollow before him.

For a moment, in his weariness, he failed to recognize them as anything more noteworthy than the brush, evergreens, and other stunted trees dotting the snow. Then a long, mottled limb, some patches of hide charred black and others glistening raw with a few feathers still clinging to them, rose sluggishly and flopped back down.

Startled, Vandar jumped and leveled the crimson spear. But neither the creature with the burned wing nor what he now recognized to be a man lying beside it moved any farther.

By the rose and scythe, was Vandar looking at Jet and Aoth Fezim? How had they vanished from the Fortress only to reappear out here, and what disaster had befallen them?

Vandar hurried down the slope. When it noticed his approach, the winged creature struggled to its feet, snow spilling from its back and flanks as it did. For an instant, the berserker still wasn’t sure he was looking at Jet. The griffon was too badly burned over too much of his body, and his halting, palsied movements in no way reflected the strength and speed of the beast that had accompanied Vandar and his brothers on the march north. But the smoldering blood-red eyes were still the same.

“What happened?” Vandar asked.

“Bez,” Jet rasped.

“I suspected as much. He attacked the lodge too. I may be the only one left.” Vandar pivoted. “Is Aoth …?” He faltered when he saw that the burned man half hidden in snow wasn’t the Thayan after all but rather Dai Shan. Somehow, despite the lodge’s efforts at secrecy, every contender for the wild griffons had found his way north, not that the Shou had any reason to be glad he’d undertaken the journey.

“Captain Fezim’s alive,” said Jet, “somewhere. I can feel him across our link. But he’s busy, and it could make the danger worse if I distract him. We’ll talk when he’s safe. Or if that imp”-the griffon stabbed his beak in Dai Shan’s direction-“wakes up first, maybe he can tell me where Aoth is.”

“I understand you want to find him,” Vandar said, “but once you do, you need to carry both of us back to Immilmar. It’s our best hope of reaching Bez before he claims his prize and disappears into the south.”

Jet laughed. The sound had always been so bloodcurdlingly harsh that it had taken Vandar a while to realize what it was, but now it held a bitter note that was new.

“I’ve always known that humans are blind and stupid,” the griffon said, “but you take the prize. Open your eyes and look.”

With a grunt, he extended his wing as far as he evidently could, which was about halfway. It bent in places and at angles where it shouldn’t, and in two spots, jagged bone stuck out through the skin.

“I can’t fly anybody anyplace,” the griffon said.

“Curse it!” Vandar said. “But all right. I was going to trek back to Immilmar on foot, and if I still have to, I will. But first, I’m going to double back to the Fortress. You might want to follow and lay up there for the time being. Good luck.”

Vandar turned away and took five crunching steps in the snow. Then Jet said, “Berserker.”