He remembered Szass Tam's claim that Malark had shifted the mountains. It stood to reason that if the traitorous whoreson could do that, he could also smash them together.
Aoth looked around for Bareris and found him too. Unfortunately, the bard stood where the stones were raining down the thickest and at the epicenter of the impending collision. If Aoth tried to retrieve him, they'd both be crushed.
Even so, left to his own devices, he might have tried or at least hesitated in dismay. But, unfurling his wings, Jet raced to carry him out of the deathtrap by the shortest possible path.
Aoth looked for someone he actually might be able to save. He spotted Lallara, tottering in an effort to keep her feet. Moving with her, a disk of crimson light floated above her head. Failing stones bounced off it.
He willed Jet to change course and felt the griffon's resulting pang of annoyance as if it were his own. Neither of them truly wanted to spend an extra instant in the danger zone. But he needed Lallara. Needed all of them, truly, but she was the one within reach.
He leaned sideways and snatched the old woman to him. At once, Jet spread his wings, lashed them, leaped, and flew.
More boulders fell. A big one shattered against the hovering disk, which then winked out of existence, subjecting Aoth, Lallara, and Jet to a shower of gravel. The converging sections of wall accelerated, springing toward one another like clapping hands. Lallara gasped as she finally perceived the true magnitude of the peril.
Aoth doubted they were going to make it, then felt Jet's savage determination. The griffon put on a final burst of speed and kept it up until the passage became so narrow that he could no longer spread his wings.
But by that time, they were close enough to safety that sheer momentum threw them clear into a wider section of canyon. Aoth automatically cast about for new threats. Everything was still.
Jet glided down to the ground. Scowling, Lallara shoved at Aoth to extricate herself from their awkward embrace.
He turned to study the cloud of dust behind him and the mass of stone sealing the passage he'd just escaped. Nothing was moving in that direction, either.
Bareris sang a song intended to shift him to safety, and a nightcrawler turned its head in his direction. Pain and dizziness stabbed through him, and he fell to his knees. The worm had attacked him with some sort of supernatural ability. After a moment, the fierce pangs diminished, but not before he fumbled the next phrase of his spell. The power he'd raised dissipated in a useless sizzle.
He floundered to his knees, took a breath raw with rock dust, and tried to focus his thoughts for another effort even though he sensed that, his charm of acceleration notwithstanding, he wouldn't have time.
Fingers squeezed his shoulder. 'Allow me,' Szass Tam said. Seemingly standing without effort despite the upheavals, he touched the butt of his shadow staff to the quaking ground.
He and Bareris shot down into the earth, which parted for them as if their bodies were made of dense, sharp metal. Startled, sightless, Bareris had the mad, random thought that here at last was burial, ninety years late. Then he and Szass Tam abruptly came to rest in a bending tubular tunnel. The lich had to crouch too, or he wouldn't have fit.
'This is a nightcrawler burrow,' Szass Tam said. 'The way the brutes were popping up around us, I knew the ground had to be riddled with them.' He crooked his fingers into a mystical sign, and sheets of dark fire crawled on the walls around them, burning away soil and rock and creating more open space. He then straightened up and stepped away from Bareris.
A nightcrawler's head burst through the ceiling, showering them with dirt. It was gouged and dented, probably battered by falling boulders. Like its foes, it must have dived into the earth to remove itself from between the converging walls.
The thing plunged into view directly above Szass Tam, and for once, even he appeared startled. The enormous jaws gaped, then snapped shut around him. Because the lich had enlarged this part of the burrow, it was high enough to admit not just the nightcrawler's head but a bit of its body. As a result, Bareris saw its throat swell as it swallowed.
For a moment, he simply stared, too addled with contradictory emotions and impulses to act on any of them. Then he rose, lifted his sword, and took a stride in the creature's direction.
Its head blew apart in a flash of scarlet light. The detonation rocked him back, even as it spattered him and the walls of the burrow with filth. Smeared with slime, Szass Tam squirmed feet-first out of what little remained of the nightcrawler's mouth.
The necromancer inclined his head to Bareris. 'Obviously, I didn't actually need your help. But it's good to see you have your priorities straight.'
Bareris wondered how Szass Tam knew he'd been coming to his aid. 'You and I will settle our score after we deal with Malark.'
Szass Tam waved a shriveled hand, and the jellied filth vanished from his person. 'If you insist. If you believe your devotion to a rather ordinary girl who died a century ago requires it. But it seems to me that what you truly love is your own misery. The Maiden of Pain possessed you in the moment of your despair, and you never managed to escape.'
Bareris took a steadying breath. 'If you want our alliance to last until we stop Malark, then don't mention Tammith or speculate about my feelings anymore.'
'As you wish. Let's turn our attention to the task at hand.'
'Do we still have any hope of succeeding, even after what just happened?'
'Oh, certainly. You weren't thinking you and I are the only survivors, were you? Getting caught between two masses of rock wouldn't hurt your friend Mirror. Captain Fezim scooped up Lallara and tried to carry her out of the affected area, and I suspect he succeeded. Unless they panicked-and that's unlikely-the other zulkirs were capable of saving themselves as well.'
'But we're scattered now, and we've expended a lot of our power.'
'The former has its advantages. We'll all take different paths to get to Malark. Even if he realizes we survived, he and his creatures will have difficulty spotting and intercepting all of us. As for your latter point, I assume that since your odd little troupe crept into the Citadel to assassinate me, the zulkirs are carrying as many arcane weapons and talismans as I am. We have plenty of tricks left, and let's not forget that our arrival goaded Malark into squandering a good deal of his own power. It's one thing to move the mountains with proper preparation. It's another to fling them around when you weren't expecting you'd have to, essentially by sheer force of will.'
Bareris scowled. 'You almost sound glad that his creatures attacked us.'
Szass Tam shrugged. 'I try to perceive the opportunities implicit in even awkward situations.'
'Have you considered that, now that they've seen just how strong and well-protected Malark is, the other zulkirs may 'perceive the opportunities implicit' in being apart from one another and free to act as they please? They may try to leave this place and flee beyond the reach of the Unmaking.'
'I understand why the possibility concerns you. They are supremely selfish, and no doubt you and Captain Fezim had to coax and bully them relentlessly to get them this far. But you know, they aren't cowards. Each had to perform acts of extraordinary daring to ascend to his current eminence. And consider what finally lies within their reach: Revenge on Malark and on me. Rulership of Thay. Given the stakes, this is one time they won't play it safe.'
'I hope you're right.'
Szass Tam smiled. 'So do I. We'll see who joins us on Malark's mountaintop.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
19 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
The sun had set, but the enemy seemed to be waiting for the last traces of its crimson light to fade from the western sky. After that, they'd attack.
