'Not really. You taught me most of your secrets-if you recall, you even let me read Fastrin's book. And I am a spy. With ninety years to poke around, I uncovered the rest of them.
'Which is to say, I've practiced the same preparatory meditations you have, and I can perform the ceremony. Confined to Thakorsil's Seat, you won't be able to interfere, and no one will turn up to release you. Not when you're sealed in a hidden vault in a part of the dungeons everyone shuns. Not when people don't even realize you've gone missing.' Malark swept his hand from his shaven crown down the length of his torso, and his form became Szass Tam's, tall, gaunt frame, chin beard, shriveled fingers, and all.
'And so,' Szass Tam said, 'in preference to a lich, a traitor will shape the world to come.'
'No,' Malark said.
'What do you mean?'
'I told you you're unfit to ascend to godhood. It's true and justification enough to meddle in your plans. But there's a deeper reason. I worship Death, and I originally joined your cause because you told me your intent was to kill everything, including me. My desire for that perfect consummation hasn't changed.
'But I can't leave it to you to bring it about, because if I did, it wouldn't
'If the master of the ritual dies with everything else, than there's no one left to spark a new creation.'
Malark shrugged. 'I only care about the moment of absolute and universal annihilation. Afterward, the void will either bring forth new forms or it won't. Either way, I won't be around to see, although truthfully, I rather hope it doesn't.'
'I don't suppose I can dissuade you by pointing out that you're insane.'
'That's like ice rebuking snow for being cold, don't you think? Now, I regret having to cut our conversation short, particularly since this is the last time we'll see one another-'
'You're mistaken about that.'
'— but as you know better than anyone, I have matters to attend to. So I'll bid you farewell. I realize I haven't left you much of a vantage point, but I hope that even so, you'll be able to perceive a portion of the spectacle to come.' Malark turned and walked away.
Szass Tam believed that one should never lose one's composure in the presence of an enemy, so he waited for the door to click shut and for another moment after that. Then he slammed his fist down on the arm of the Seat.
He'd always prided himself on his ability to read people. In the old days, he'd often gleaned the tenor of his fellow council members' unspoken thoughts, and they'd been as devious an assembly as the East had ever seen. How, then, had he been so disastrously wrong about Malark?
Well, in a very real sense, he hadn't been. He'd comprehended the essential nature of Malark's obsession. That was what enabled him to turn the spymaster and led him to believe he could trust him. He just hadn't realized how ambitious Malark would become in his efforts to serve the terrible object of his devotion.
In any case, it was useless to fret over the error now. Szass Tam had to find a way to free himself. After all, Yaphyll had done it. True, she'd had a lucky combination of circumstances to help her, but Szass Tam had his intellect. He assured himself that it would serve just as well.
First-as part of a methodical examination of all the possibilities, not because he thought it might actually work-he gripped the stone arms of the chair and tried to stand.
The Seat stabbed forbiddance into his mind, sparking fear, jumbling his thoughts, and opposing the will to rise with the compulsion to remain as he was. Defying the psychic intrusion, he kept trying anyway, but it was as if something had fused his body to the stone surfaces behind and beneath it.
He then tried to shift himself through space, off the Seat and beyond the confines of the pyramid. The chair attempted to deprive him of the will and the focus to do that as well. Once again, the psychic assault failed to shake him, and once again, it didn't matter. He suffered a kind of mental jolt as his prison held him fast.
He tried to speak to one of his captains up in the castle. He felt the magic, intended to carry the words like leaves on the wind, wither when it reached the inner surface of the pyramid.
He attempted to summon a demon, but no such entity appeared.
He sought to call the mummies forth from their coffins. They didn't heed him, either.
He hurled fire and lightning at the gleaming construct around him and at the massive stone chair beneath him, without so much as scratching either one.
He'd sometimes flattered himself that fear was a weakness he'd left behind the day he discovered his gift for sorcery. But he realized he was afraid now. With a spasm of annoyance, he pushed the useless emotion out of his mind. There
With all his attention focused inward, he pondered for some time before the spiteful regard of the Watcher recaptured his notice. Even then, it took a while longer before it occurred to him that the entity could be anything more than a distraction.
He'd verified repeatedly that even when he managed to overcome the Seat's psychic interference and cast a spell, the pyramid dissipated the magic when it tried to pass through. That was why he hadn't been able to wake the mummies or summon a demon.
But the Watcher was inside the pyramid with him, and outside too. That was its peculiar nature, to be omnipresent within the gloomy crypts and passages that constituted its domain.
He spoke a spell of binding. His swirling hands left trailing wisps of scarlet light as he made the necessary gestures.
Perhaps the influence of Thakorsil's Seat kept him from casting as powerful a spell as he would have under normal circumstances. Or maybe the Watcher's diffuse and ambiguous nature made it particularly difficult to compel. Either way, when he spoke the final word, he sensed that he'd failed to hook his fish.
No matter. He was the greatest necromancer in all Faerun, and he would catch it. He took a breath and began again.
He soon lost count of how many times he repeated the spell. But at last, when even he had nearly depleted his powers, he felt the spell seize its prey and the ghost thrashing like a hare in the jaws of a fox.
'Enough,' he said. 'Whether you realize it or not, you crave oblivion, and I'm willing to give it to you. But only if you serve me to the best of your ability.'
The spirit quieted. Its regard conveyed as much hatred as ever, yet even so, it had a different quality. Szass Tam sensed a sullen acquiescence.
The Watcher's submission allowed him to probe its essence and examine its qualities. In most respects, they were disappointing. The entity was incapable of leaving its haunts even under magical duress. It was too mindless ever to recover the power of speech, either to articulate the words that would dissolve the first rune or to communicate with someone who could.
But it still might be able to interact with the physical world to a limited degree. Szass Tam focused his will on it, reinvigorating the decayed capacity and reminding the ghost of its existence.
The process evidently hurt, for the spirit writhed. But he had it in his grip now, too firmly for it to escape.
'Now,' he said, 'you can make a mark.' Leaning forward, he drew an arrow in the dust at his feet. 'You can make this one to guide people here. Do you understand?'
He sensed that it did. Probably its people had used arrows to point directions when it was alive.
'If the arrow isn't enough to bring them, draw these.' Szass Tam wrote his initials.
He assumed two letters were just about all the Watcher could manage. Even if the phantom had been literate during its mortal existence, it hadn't been in Mulhorandi, and it was unlikely that its tattered mind could retain as many unfamiliar symbols as would be required to spell out his entire name, let alone an even lengthier message.
He made the Watcher write the letters until it got them right about nine times out of ten. When further practice failed to improve on that, he told it, 'All right. Use what I taught you, and fetch someone. Anyone.'
The Watcher didn't leave. It was still glaring at him. But presumably its awareness also pervaded the rest of its environs and was ready to obey his commands.
Which left nothing for Szass Tam to do but try to believe that before time ran out, someone would come to this all-but-forsaken area and heed the promptings of an entity that knowledgeable visitors had long since learned to ignore.
