Unholy

"Of that," Lallara quavered, "I have no doubt. Still, Captain Fezim and Sir Mirror make a legitimate point. Preposterous as this tale may initially appear, it hangs together rather well."

Nevron threw up his hand in a gesture that, like nearly everything he said or did, conveyed contempt. Bareris caught a whiff of the brimstone smell that clung to the zulkir's person. "Fine. Let's say it's all true. Springhill isn't really dead. He's ru

The big man sneered at Szass Tam. "But it doesn't mean we need you. We came here prepared to butcher the master, so I'm sure we can handle the apprentice."

Szass Tam smiled. "You'd think so, wouldn't you? But ask yourselves this: Suppose you meant to perform a lengthy ritual that every entity in the cosmos would want to stop if it understood what you were attempting. What would you do to keep others from interfering in your work?"

Lauzoril narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. It made him look even more like a priggish scholar. "I'd do my conjuring in some hidden sanctuary with potent defenses to fend off anyone who found me despite the concealment."

"Exactly," the necromancer said. "Malark's on the roof of the Citadel, except not really. He's in an artificial worldlet, a Chaos realm, that I created. He's attuned himself to the place and is more or less its god, so my menagerie of guardians will obey him."

"Hang on," said Aoth. "You're telling us that Malark has already gone into this stronghold?"

"By my estimation-it's difficult to judge the passage of time when you're sitting alone in a crypt-he entered and started the Unmaking a couple of days ago. Luckily for us, the ritual takes considerable time. But I imagine the first wave of a

"It's all nonsense," Bareris insisted.

"None of us," said Szass Tam, "is quite the diviner Yaphyll was. But if you exercise your mystical faculties, you may detect a profound disruption building."

The zulkirs exchanged glances. Then Lauzoril and Nevron murmured charms. Their eyes became unfocused and their features slack as they gazed at something beyond physical reality. Meanwhile, Mirror breathed a prayer, evidently asking his god to grant him a glimpse of the unseen.

Then the ghost cried out as he had never done even when some undead horror was clawing him to tatters of ectoplasm. His murky form smudged beyond recognition.

"What did you see?" asked Aoth.

"Something fouler than I've ever seen before," Mirror answered. "Something truly unholy. I understand now what drove Fastrin mad. Why he was willing to slaughter us all to keep that… force from ever coming into existence."

Szass Tam sighed. "I meant to create paradise. Perfection. But now that Malark's perverting the purpose of the magic, I won't dispute your assessment. Now there's nothing to do but stop him."

Lallara glowered at Szass Tam. "Go ahead and tell us how to free you," she said. "It will save time later if we actually decide to do it."

"No!" exploded Bareris. "He's manipulating you! Drawing you deeper with every word!"

"Of course he is," Lauzoril said, blinking. "But unfortunately, that doesn't mean there's no validity to what he says."

"Which is that you'll never reach Malark without my aid," Szass Tam said. "Not in time."

Aoth looked at the figure under the gleaming pyramid. "Tell us how to transport ourselves to this 'Chaos realm.' What to expect and the passwords that will get us past whatever guardians there are. Afterward, we'll take it into account that you helped us."

Szass Tam laughed. "Of course you will! We zulkirs were always known for leniency and forgiveness."

Aoth scowled. "I'm not a damn zulkir."

"And you're not capable of keeping four of them from dealing with me however they desire, not even with the ghost and the griffon to help you."

"Curse it, if the eastern lands die, you die with them."

"Is that all you think will happen? You're mistaken, but never mind. The only real way to settle the question is to let the experiment proceed, and we all agree we'd rather not. Yet even so, I won't surrender my secrets."

"Because if you're going to die, you don't care what happens to anyone else."

The lich shrugged his narrow shoulders. "Believe what you like. But the fact of the matter is, there's no point in telling you anything if you're going to leave me in the Seat. Because you'll still fail. You need my knowledge and my power."

Aoth turned to Lauzoril. "Can you make him talk?"

"No," the zulkir replied. "Only the first rune is in place. It binds him to Thakorsil's Seat, but it would take all nine to divest him of his free will. In addition to which-"

"If you tell me no," said Aoth, "then I believe it. So I say we free him."

"I agree," Lallara said.

"Much to my disgust," said Nevron, "so do I."

"And I," Samas said.

Bareris raised his sword. "I'll kill the first person who tries."

Nevron snorted. "This situation grows more farcical by the moment." He swept his left hand through the start of a mystic pass, and the sapphire ring on his middle finger glowed.

Aoth grabbed Nevron by the wrist and yanked his arm, spoiling the gesture before it could unleash the demon or devil that would otherwise have sprung forth to attack Bareris. Plainly astonished that his former underling would dare, the zulkir gaped at him.

"Just wait, curse it." Aoth let go of Nevron and came closer to Bareris. He lowered his voice when he spoke again: "You can't do this. They'll only kill you if you try."

"The dream vestige already killed me."

"Don't play word games."

Mirror came to stand beside Aoth. "I understand how you feel," the phantom said. "But thousands of lives are at stake. Maybe even the life of the whole world, just as Szass Tam says."

I don't care, Bareris thought. But something kept him from proclaiming it aloud.

"You know this won't be the end of it," said Aoth. "We'll fight the lich before we're through."

"You don't know that." said Bareris, "and you don't know how it will come out even if we do. Right now, he's helpless. Right now…"

He saw that nothing he could say would sway them. That, much as it would grieve them, they would even fight him if he forced the issue.

Fine. Better to slay them or to perish at their hands than to do anything to aid the monster responsible for Tammith's destruction or to stand idle while anyone else aided him. No matter what was at stake.

Yet he knew that if Tammith were here, alive and uncorrupted by vampirism, that wasn't what she'd say. Knew too that Aoth and Mirror had been his friends for a hundred years, even when bitterness and undeath denied him the capacity to respond in kind. He pictured the young Bareris he'd conjured up to fight the vasuthant, regarding him with a kind of reproach in his eyes, and something tipped inside his mind.

He lowered his sword and stepped from between Szass Tam and the zulkirs to signal that the latter could do as they saw fit.

"Thank you for seeing reason," said the lich, and the remark jabbed Bareris like a taunt. "Now, this is the incantation to erase the sigil…"

As Szass Tam instructed the other archmages, Bareris fantasized that as soon as the crystal pyramid blinked out of existence, he'd rush forward and strike so quickly that neither the lich nor anyone else would have time to react. His limbs quivered, and he could virtually feel his legs sprinting, his arm swinging his sword.

He also prayed that everything the regent had said was a lie, just as he himself had maintained. That Szass Tam would leap from the Seat, laugh at their gullibility, and lash out at them, and they'd have no choice but to fight him after all.