Unholy

Bareris had hoped that the zulkirs could cast a divination to pinpoint Szass Tam's location, and in fact, Samas Kul tried. But for some reason, the magic simply indicated that the lich was somewhere above them. Since that took in the entire fortress, it wasn't much help.

Bareris struggled to quell a pang of impatience, to take solace in the thought that surely the lord of the Citadel couldn't be hard to find. The castle must be crawling with servants who kept track of his whereabouts, the better to meet his needs.

Lauzoril shrouded the company in an enchantment akin to some of the spells in Bareris's arsenal. With luck, it would beguile anyone who happened to see them into believing they were familiar faces with legitimate business in the catacombs. Then they started looking for the way up.

At first the trek was uneventful, with only the occasional scuff of a footstep, creak of leather, or Samas's wheezing to break the silence. Rumor had it that the dungeons were as haunted and dangerous as the caverns below, but it took a while for one of its denizens to reveal its presence.

Eventually, though, the intruders climbed a staircase and found themselves at a spot where two passages diverged from a common origin, and a murky painting of a farm without farmers or animals, its fields infested with tares and weeds, adorned a nearby wall. And suddenly Bareris's hackles rose as he sensed a hostile scrutiny.

He cast about but couldn't find the source of the glare boring into him. "Aoth?" he said.

The warmage peered around with his luminous, azure eyes. "Sorry. Even I can't see it. Which may mean that somehow, there truly isn't anything to see."

"I think it's a ghost," Mirror said, pity in his tone, "but terribly old and faded. It's forgotten nearly everything."

It was what Mirror might have become, Bareris supposed, if the two of them hadn't encountered one another in the Sunrise Mountains.

"I can sic a demon on it," Nevron said.

"It hates us," Mirror said, his resemblance to Bareris gradually bleeding out of his shadowy features, "but I don't think it has the power to hurt us."

"Then ignore it, and move on," Lallara said.

That sounded good to Bareris. He took a stride and felt the phantom shift position. Which was contrary to common sense, since he hadn't pi

"Does it think it can bar our path?" Samas asked.

"Whatever it believes," Lauzoril said, "I daresay we can walk right through it, and I see no reason why we shouldn't."

"Wait," Mirror said, his face oozing into a wavering mockery of Nevron's brutal features. "I sense it's trying to do something. Nothing harmful, just… something."

Slowly, as if the process required extreme exertion or concentration, a horizontal line scraped itself into existence on the painting of the deserted farm. The spirit then scratched a crude little arrowhead on the left end.

"It's pointing for us to turn around and go in the other direction," Lallara said.

"Because the ghost hopes to send us into harm's way," Samas said. "You said we should ignore it, and for once I agree with you."

"Wait," Mirror repeated. "I have a feeling it isn't finished."

For several moments, it seemed he was mistaken. Then, even more slowly than it had drawn the arrow, the haunt scratched a pair of letters above it.

Bareris felt a pang of excitement. " 'S. T.' Szass Tam?"

"How can it be?" Lauzoril replied. "The spirit has no way of knowing we're hunting the lich and no motive to help us even if it does."

"Unless it's trying to lead us into a trap," Samas said, "just as I warned you." His wand crawled out of his voluminous sleeve with its trimming of diamonds.

Bareris peered around and strained to listen as well. As far as he could tell, he and his fellow intruders were alone with the haunt. "I imagine Szass Tam could think of better ways to lure us if he wanted to. Ploys less likely to rouse our suspicions. And remember, we tried to enter the castle in a way that would keep him from noticing."

Samas snorted. " 'Tried' being the operative word."

"Maybe," said Aoth, "the spook has a grudge against Szass Tam. It would hardly be the first undead that a necromancer had ordered around against its will. In any case, I think we should follow its lead, at least for a little way."

"Even if this is a trap," Samas said.

"We dared to come here," the warmage replied, "because together, we should be able to overcome the worst our enemies can throw at us. Besides, if we haven't been as sneaky as we hoped, and Szass Tam does know we're wandering around in his cellar, we'll have to fight him on ground of his choosing eventually."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," Lauzoril said. He wore a dagger on his belt, and now he loosened it in its sheath.

Lallara and Nevron concurred with Lauzoril, and Samas grudgingly assented to the will of the majority. The intruders stalked in the direction the arrow pointed, past more dingy murals addressing the theme of a world devoid of people or beasts, with their guide's malevolent scrutiny wearing at them every step of the way. Whenever they came to an intersection, the entity contracted from a general miasma of loathing to a localized node of it to lead them in the right direction.

They found a pair of bodies, burned by some conflagration to clumps of half-melted armor, scraps of blackened bone, and ash. Then came a mural of an underwater scene without any fish in it. The haunt positioned itself in front of the painting as if to indicate they'd reached their destination.

"I can see runes on the picture," said Aoth, "but I'm not familiar with them."

"Describe them," Lallara said, and he did so. "Hm. The 'hand with an eye in the palm' is only there to unleash some sort of unpleasantness. Point to the others as I call them out. The 'triangle inside another triangle.' "

Aoth indicated the proper spot, and she rapped it with the head of her staff. For a moment, the sign glowed red.

So did the others as she touched them in their turns, and when she'd tapped them all, a latch clicked. The door concealed within the mural cracked open.

"Let me," said Aoth. He swung the panel a little wider and peered through. "It looks like a vault full of treasure." Spear leveled, he crept through the opening, and Jet lunged forward to place himself at his master's side. Everyone else followed.

At first, Bareris saw nothing more than Aoth had indicated: a big, dark room full of old and no doubt precious articles, intriguing under other circumstances but irrelevant to the task at hand. Then Aoth rounded a gigantic dragon skull with an axe buried in the top of it, pointed his spear, and spoke a word of command. A bolt of lightning crackled from the spear to strike at the threat he'd evidently spotted.

Bareris scrambled forward until he could see what his friend had seen, and then a shock of amazement, elation, and rage froze him in place. Szass Tam sat before them on a high-backed stone chair with arms carved in the shape of dragons and feet in the form of talons gripping orbs. Around it glittered a transparent, nine-sided pyramid composed of arcane energy.

It didn't look as though Aoth's lightning had hurt the lich, but one way or another, Bareris meant to do better. He shouted a thunderous shout. It rattled the sarcophagi and statuary and brought grit drifting down from the ceiling but didn't even appear to jolt the lich. Bareris drew breath to sing a killing song.

Szass Tam chuckled and shook his head. "This is unexpected to say the least. I hoped the Watcher would fetch someone to rescue me, but I never dreamed it would be all of you. Well met."