Unholy

"I have to start murdering people down here, and I'd much rather begin with you than a menial. It's more sporting and will make a bigger impression."

The necromancer swallowed. "I don't understand."

"All you need to understand is this: I'm not going to use my own sorcery. If you start right now, you might have time to generate one effect before I cross the space between us." Malark sprang forward.

The necromancer snarled a word of command and thrust out his hand. Darkness leaped from his fingertips, swelled, and formed itself into an object shaped somewhat like a greatsword but made of sets of gnashing jaws lined with multiple rows of jagged fangs. Howling and gibbering in some infernal tongue, the fang-blade flew at Malark.

Who dived underneath its raking, slavering stroke, straightened up again, and tore away the necromancer's eyes and throat with two gory sweeps of the clawed gloves. The wizard fell backward, dropping his staff, which clattered on the floor.

Malark spun back around to defend himself from the fang-sword, then saw he wouldn't have to. Without the focused will of its creator to guide it, the weapon simply floated in the air.

Still, Malark thought it wise to silence its caterwauling. Screams of various sorts were by no means uncommon in these crypts, but even so, the noise might attract attention. He rattled off a charm of dismissal, and the blade disappeared.

Then he dipped a clawed finger in the necromancer's blood and daubed symbols emblematic of Shar, Cyric, and Gruumsh, deities whose worship Szass Tam had forbidden in order to honor his pact with Bane, on the brows of some of the omnipresent skulls. It was yet another form of obfuscation.

Lallara gave Aoth a scowl. "What's the matter?" she snapped.

Actually, she supposed that from a certain perspective, it wasn't entirely bad that he'd insisted on a private palaver in the command tent with her, the other zulkirs, Bareris, and Mirror. Her back and thighs aching from another long day in the saddle, she'd rapidly grown sick of grubby, malodorous serfs and escaped slaves babbling praise and thanks and proffering shabby handicrafts and trinkets. It was a mark of just how far the world had fallen that such wretches even dared approach her.

But she didn't like having a man who'd once vowed to serve the Council of Zulkirs dictating to her, either.

Aoth answered her glower with one of his own. "The rebels obviously think you've come back to overthrow Szass Tam and restore the Thay that was. And you're encouraging them to think it."

"If their misapprehension inspires them to give us whatever help they can," said Samas Kul, "then why not take advantage of it?" He had a walnut pastry in one hand and a cup in the other, and as usual, he sprawled on his floating throne. The ungainly conveyance had snagged the edge of the tent door and nearly pulled down the shelter when he came in.

"Because as our allies," said Aoth, "they deserve to know the truth: that after we break the Dread Ring, we're going to leave."

Nevron sneered. "Allies."

"Yes," said Aoth, "allies. Not subjects. You can't claim to rule them when you fled this land before any of them were even born."

Lauzoril put his hands together, fingertip to opposing fingertip. "Whatever they believe, by aiding us, they'll be fighting for their only hope of survival. Isn't that what's truly important?"

"I suppose so," said Aoth. "And I think they're capable of understanding that if we explain it to them."

His pastry devoured, Samas sucked at the traces of sugar glaze on his fingers. "But where's the profit in risking it?"

Aoth took a deep breath. "Evidently I'm not making myself clear. I'm going to make sure they know the truth. I'm warning you so we can all speak it. That will be better for their morale than if they catch the mighty zulkirs in a lie."

"You'll do no such thing," Lauzoril said. "We forbid it."

Aoth said, "I don't care."

"But you took our coin!" said Samas.

"Yes," said the stocky warmage, his luminous azure eyes burning in the gloom. "You can well afford it, and my men deserve it. But this isn't our usual kind of war. We're fighting for our lives and perhaps the life of the world, not for pay, and you four wouldn't even know about the threat if not for Bareris, Mirror, and me. So I won't take your orders if I don't agree with them. In fact, you might as well consider me your equal for the duration."

Lallara felt a surge of wrath, and then, to her surprise, grudging amusement. The Rashemi bastard knew they needed him, and he was making the most of it. It wouldn't stop her or, certainly, any of the other zulkirs from punishing him in the end, but still, one could almost admire his boldness.

When they had found out the rebels wanted to pay homage to them, the zulkirs had raised a section of ground to serve as a makeshift dais, then lit it with a sourceless crimson glow.

The archmages were gone now, and so were their chairs, but the mound and light remained, and the ragged, starveling insurgents, apprised that Bareris wished to address them, were assembling before it once again. Standing with Mirror and Aoth, he watched them congregate.

"The zulkirs had a point," he said. "These folk might well have fought better with hearts full of hope."

"Maybe so," said Aoth.

"So why did you insist on giving them the truth?"

Aoth shrugged. "Who knows? I suspected that returning to Thay would be bad for me. Maybe it's clouded my judgment. Or maybe I spent too many years as the council's ignorant pawn."

Mirror, at the moment less a visible presence than a mere sense of vague threat and incipient headache, said, "Telling them the truth is the right thing to do."

Aoth gri

Bareris had heard such praise before, and as usual, it felt like mockery. "I'm no hero. I've bungled everything that ever truly counted. But I'll do my best to hold them." Judging that most if not all of the rebels had gathered, he climbed onto the mound and started to speak.

As he did, he was tempted to try to hypnotize his audience. But it was possible he wouldn't snare every mind or that some folk would shake off the enchantment in a day or so, and then, feeling ill-used, the rebels would surely depart. Besides, he found he just couldn't bring himself to manipulate them as egregiously as he'd once manipulated Aoth, not with the latter actually looking on.

So he infused his voice with magic to help him appear a wiser and more commanding figure than he might have otherwise. But he stopped short of enslavement.

First, he gave the assembly the truth Aoth insisted they hear and watched it crush the joy out of them. Then he reiterated that it was still vital that they fight. Because, while victory wouldn't bring down their oppressors, it would save their lives.

A man at the front of the crowd spat on the ground. At some point, a necromancer or necromancer's minion had sliced off his nose, and he wore a grimy kerchief tied around the lower portion of his face to hide his deformity. The cloth fluttered as his breath whistled in and out of the hole.