The portal was a white stone arch on this side too, identical to its counterpart. Armed with spears and scimitars, wearing cyclopean-skull-and-four-pointed-star badges that likely proclaimed their fealty to one Red Wizard or another, a pair of blood orcs were standing guard over it. They eyed Bareris curiously.
Their scrutiny gave the bard a twinge of fear. Indeed, it inspired a witless urge to whip his sword from its scabbard and try to strike the sentries down before they could raise an alarm. He raked them with a haughty stare instead.
They straightened up as much as their stooped race ever did, thrust out their lances with the shafts perpendicular to their extended arms, drew them back, and pounded the butts on the floor. It was a salute, and Bareris breathed a sigh of relief that he'd deceived the first creatures he'd encountered anyway.
One guard, afflicted with a runny walleye that rendered it even homelier than the common run of orc, looked back at the portal expectantly. When no one else emerged, it asked, 'No slaves this time, Master?'
'No,' Bareris said. 'I traveled on ahead carrying word of how many you're getting and when. It should help with the planning.' He hoped his improvisation made at least a little sense.
The orc's mouth twisted. 'You need to see the whelp, then.'
The whelp? What in the name of the Binder's quill did that mean? 'The one in charge,' he said warily.
The orc nodded. 'That Xingax thing. The whelp is what we call it.' It hesitated. 'Maybe we shouldn't, but it's not one of you masters. It's… what it is.'
'I understand,' Bareris said, wishing it were true. 'Where is it?'
'Somewhere up top. That'll take you up.' The orc used its spear to point to a staircase behind one of the square doorways.
Bareris started to say thank you, until it occurred to him that the average Red Wizard probably didn't bother showing courtesy to ores. 'Got it.' He turned away.
'Master?'
Breathing more quickly, fearful he'd betrayed himself somehow, the bard pivoted back around. 'What?'
'I don't mean to bother you. I wouldn't, except you haven't been here before, have you? I understand you're a wizard, and ten times wiser than the likes of me, but you know to protect yourself before you go close to Xingax, don't you?'
'Of course,' Bareris lied, wondering what sort of protection would serve and hoping he wouldn't need it. Given the choice, he'd steer well clear of 'the whelp,' whatever it was.
He discovered that the room above the arch connected to a series of catwalks that apparently allowed one to make a full circuit of the various lofts and balconies without ever descending to the more extensive and contiguous system of chambers and corridors comprising the primary level below. Unlike the rest of the stronghold, the walkways appeared to be of recent construction, and it seemed plain the Red Wizards-or rather, their servants-had expended a fair amount of effort building them, which was odd, considering that Bareris didn't see anyone else moving around up here.
Peculiar or not, their vacancy was a blessing. It allowed him to explore without venturing near to anyone who might penetrate his disguise, and in time he came to suspect the advantage was essential. Viewed up close, his face might have betrayed horror and disgust no matter how he tried to conceal them.
He soon concluded from the complete absence of windows that he was underground. Stinking of incense and carrion, the chilly vaults felt old, perhaps even older than Delhumide, and like the haunted city, breathed an aura of perversity and danger. Unlike Delhumide, however, the catacombs bustled with activity. Necromancers chanted over corpses and skeletons, which then clambered to their feet, the newly made zombies clumsily, the bone men with clinking agility. Warriors drilled the undead in the use of mace and spear, just as if the creatures were youths newly recruited into the legions. Ghouls practiced charging on command to shred straw dummies with fang and claw. A half dozen shadows listened as, its face a carnival of oozing, eyeless rot beneath its raised visor, a corpse armored in plate expounded on strategy and tactics.
Anyone but a necromancer would likely have found it ghastly, but it was inexplicable as well. The Red Wizards were free to turn their slaves into undead men-at-arms if they so desired. They created such monstrosities all the time. Thus, Bareris wondered anew: Why the secrecy?
Though he still didn't care. Not really. All that mattered was spiriting Tammith away from this nightmarish place before her captors could alter her.
He refused to entertain the notion that perhaps they already had until he found his way to a platform overlooking a crypt housing dozens of listless, skinny, ragged folk with the whip scars and unshorn hair of thralls. Bareris scrutinized them all in turn, then peered into every empty shadow and corner, and none of the prisoners was Tammith.
His nerves taut, he marched onward, striding faster, no longer concerned that his boots would make too much noise on the planking beneath them or that haste would make him appear suspicious to anyone looking up from below. He gazed down into chamber after chamber and felt grateful the catacombs were so extensive. Until he ran out of spaces to check, he could still hope. But at the same time, he hated that the warren was big and labyrinthine enough to so delay his determination of the truth.
He passed through yet another newly cut doorway then at last he saw her, lying on her back on the floor of an otherwise empty room with a scatter of earth around and beneath her. Sleeping, surely, for she displayed no marks to prove otherwise. No wounds, and none of the bloat or lividity of a corpse.
'Tammith!' he called, trying to make his voice loud enough to wake her but not so loud as to be overheard outside the chamber.
She didn't stir. He called again, louder, and still she didn't respond.
He trembled and swallowed, refusing to believe someone had killed her with a poison or spell that didn't leave a mark, recently enough that her body hadn't yet started to deteriorate. It simply couldn't be so.
Except that he knew it very well could.
There were no stairs in this particular room. He swung himself over the guardrail and dropped, as, in what had come to seem a different life and a brighter world, he'd once leaped from the deck of a ship onto a dock in Bezantur.
The landing jarred but didn't injure him. He rushed to Tammith, knelt, and touched her cheek. Her skin was as cool as he'd feared it would be. His voice breaking, he spoke her name once more.
Her eyes flew open. He felt an incredulous, overpowering joy, and then she reached up and seized him by the throat.
In one respect at least, the temple of Kossuth in Escalant was like most other human households: Nearly everyone slept away the time just before dawn. That was why Hezass Nymia, tharchion of Lapendrar and Eternal Flame of the god's house, chose that time to lead his four golems on a circuit of the principal altars. Carved of deep brown Thayan oak to resemble men-at-arms, the glow of the myriad sacred fires reflecting from their polished surfaces, the automata had been fashioned first and foremost to fight as archers, and their longbows were a part of their bodies. Hezass had them carrying sacks in their free hands.
Lifeless and mindless, the golems were tireless as well. Yawning, Hezass envied them that and wondered if this surreptitious transit was truly necessary. He was, after all, the high priest of the pyramidal temple and so entitled to his pick of the offerings the faithful gave to the Firelord.
It was the accepted custom, but custom likewise decreed that the hierophant should exercise restraint. One could argue that such self-control was particularly desirable if the previous Eternal Flame, proving not so eternal after all, had fallen to his death under mysterious circumstances, and the current one had somehow managed to secure his appointment even though several other priests were further advanced in the mysteries of the faith.
Yes, all in all, it was best to avoid the appearance of greed, Hezass thought with a wry smile, but the truth was, he had little hope of avoiding the reality. He coveted as much as he coveted, and he meant to have it. Better then to do some of his skimming when no censorious eyes were watching.
The golems' wooden feet clacking faintly on the marble floor, the little procession arrived at another altar, where women often prayed to conceive, or if they had, for an easy delivery and a healthy baby. Hezass picked up a string of pearls, scrutinized it, and put it back. He liked to think he had as good an eye as any jeweler, and he could see the necklace was second-rate. The delicate platinum tiara, on the other hand, was exquisite.
Responsive to his unspoken will, one of the golems proffered its sack, but since it only had the one functional hand, Hezass had to pull open the mouth of the bag and drop the headdress in himself. As porters, the constructs
