'No other force as large as ours is close enough to do it, and anyway, I'm in authority here. Do you think the regent would have given me my position if he didn't trust me-indeed, expect me-to show initiative?'
'Master, I'm sure Szass Tam has complete confidence in you. But in light of the powers the rogue zulkirs command, maybe it would still be prudent to consult him before you act. I mean, you're a Red Wizard and have other mages under your command. Surely someone knows a way to communicate with High Thay quickly.'
Yes, surely. And if So-Kehur were to employ it, perhaps Szass Tam would opt to leave his old enemies unmolested in the hope they'd eventually leave Thay of their own volition. He never would have done so in the old days, but Szass Tam had changed since establishing the regency, and no one truly understood his priorities anymore.
Even if the lich did want the invaders pursued and destroyed, he might decide to dispatch a more seasoned general to command the effort, or even descend from the Thaymount to see to the task himself. So-Kehur could find himself consigned to a subordinate role or left behind to mind Anhaurz while the blood spilled elsewhere.
And all those possibilities were unacceptable.
He tried to frame an excuse to give Chumed, then suffered a spasm of irritation. He was thinking like the old So-Kehur, that plump, cringing, contemptible wretch. The new So-Kehur was a lord, and lords didn't have to justify their decisions to their subordinates. Rather, they disciplined them when they were insolent.
Drawing on one of the peculiar talents he'd developed after abandoning the external attributes of humanity, he lashed out with his thoughts. Chumed cried out, staggered, and nearly reeled off the wall-walk before collapsing onto his side, where he writhed and bled from his chewed tongue and his nostrils. Though not the target, the scout too caught a bit of the effect. Crouching, face contorted, he clutched his forehead in both hands.
For a moment, So-Kehur remembered his long association with Muthoth and how the other young necromancer had liked to bully him. He felt both squeamish and pleased to at last be the bully himself, but of the two emotions, pleasure was by far the stronger.
He delivered only a few restrained blows to Chumed's psyche; the seneschal was too useful a deputy to kill. Upon finishing, he said, 'I trust we're done with questions and second-guessing.'
Shaking, Chumed clambered to his knees. 'Yes, Milord.'
'Then get our army ready.' Meanwhile, the artisans would transfer So-Kehur's brain into a body specifically intended for the battlefield.
Mirror thought he heard something that might have been a footfall, the faint sound almost covered by the whistling of the cold mountain wind. Or perhaps he simply sensed the advent of trouble. Either way, he didn't doubt his instincts. They'd saved him too many times, even if they hadn't helped on the terrible day when Fastrin killed his body and dealt his soul the spiritual wounds that had never truly healed.
'Come on,' he whispered. He started toward an extrusion of basalt large enough to serve as cover, then saw that Bareris wasn't following. The bard was still singing under his breath, still casting about with wide, black eyes and a dazed expression on his pallid face.
Even after centuries as a phantom, Mirror almost reached to grab his friend and drag him behind the rock before remembering that his hand would simply pass through Bareris's body. Instead, he planted himself right in front of the bard and said, 'Brother, come with me
Bareris blinked. 'Yes. All right.' Mirror led him into the patch of shadow behind the basalt outcrop.
They scarcely had time to crouch before a dozen ghouls- hunched, withered, hairless things with mouths full of needle fangs-came loping down the trail. Szass Tam had plenty of patrols watching for signs of trouble, even this far down the mountain.
The creature in the lead-judging from the stomach-turning stench of it, it might be one of the especially nasty ghouls called ghasts-abruptly halted, raised its head, and sniffed, although how it could possibly smell anything but itself was a mystery. Mirror willed his sword into his hand. But then the ghast grunted and led its fellows on down the path.
Mirror waited for the patrol to trek farther away, then whispered, 'It's a good thing neither of us sweats.'
Bareris didn't answer. That wasn't unusual, but the reason was. Crooning to himself, he was already slipping back into his trance. He started to straighten up.
'Wait,' Mirror said. 'Give the ghouls another moment.'
Bareris froze in a position that would have strained a living man.
'All right,' continued the ghost, 'that should be long enough.'
Bareris finished rising and continued onward, straying from the trail as often as he walked on it, halting periodically to run his hand over a stone or a patch of earth. Prowling behind him. Mirror watched for danger and tried to believe this scheme might actually work.
He told himself he should believe. He had a century's worth of reasons to trust Bareris, and even were it otherwise, faith had been the foundation of his martial order and his life. Still, his friend's plan seemed like a long shot at best, partly because Mirror had never seen the bard do anything comparable before.
Rumor had it that the cellars of the Citadel connected to natural caverns below. Bareris reasoned that the caves might well let out somewhere on the mountainside, and Mirror agreed the notion was plausible.
It was his comrade's strategy for finding an opening that roused his skepticism. Bareris had collected stories concerning killings and uncanny happenings on the slopes. Some of those tales were surely false or had become confused as they passed from one teller to the next. Even the ones that were accurate didn't necessarily reflect the predations of creatures that emerged from the catacombs to hunt. The desolate peaks of the Thaymount were home to a great number of beasts likely to devour any lone hunter or prospector they happened across.
Still, Bareris had tossed all the dubious stories into his head like the ingredients of a stew. Somehow the mixture was supposed to cook down to a measure of truth, or perhaps a better word was inspiration. Then magic would lead the singer to the spot he needed to find.
Let it be so, Mirror silently prayed. I don't know how it can be, but let it be so.
Day gave way to night. Light flickered on the northern horizon as, somewhere in that direction, a volcano belched fire and lava. The ground rumbled and shivered, and loose pebbles clattered down the slopes.
Some time after, Bareris abruptly halted and sang the brief phrase necessary to give his song some semblance of a proper conclusion. 'We're close.' His voice and expression were keen, purged of the dreamy quality the trance had imparted.
Mirror cast about. 'I don't see anything.'
'I don't, either, but it's here.' The slope above this narrow length of trail was steep enough that an ordinary man might well have hesitated to climb on it. But Bareris scuttled around on it quickly, with minimal concern for his own safety. Since a ghost couldn't fall, Mirror tried to examine the least accessible places and spare his comrade at least that much danger.
Neither found anything.
Mirror looked down at the bard. 'Should we go higher?' he asked. 'Or investigate the slope beneath the trail?'
'No,' Bareris said. 'It's here. It's right in front of us.'
Or else, Mirror thought, you simply want it to be. But what he said was, 'Good enough.' They resumed picking over the same near-vertical stretch of escarpment they'd already checked,
Until Bareris said, 'I found it.'
He was standing-or clinging-beside what appeared to be just another basalt outcropping. Mirror floated down to hover directly in front of him and still couldn't see anything special about it. 'You're certain?' he asked.
'Yes. Last year or the year before, this stone was higher up the mountain. Then a tremor shook it loose, and it tumbled down here to jam in the outlet like a cork in a bottle. For a moment, I could see it happening.'
'Let's find out what I can see,' Mirror said. He flew forward into the solid rock. For a phantom, it was like pushing through cobwebs.
Almost immediately, he emerged into empty air. A tunnel ran away before him, twisting into the heart of the mountain.
He turned, flowed back through the stone, and told Bareris he was right.
