City of Jade

48

DARK DESIGNS

MID AUTUMN, 6E9

At the onset of night and smiling to himself in his aethyrial form, Nunde flew out from his tower in the Grimwalls and headed for the City of Jade. Surely by now, Malik had triumphed and had Aravan’s corpse in his possession. I will have to reward my loyal and clever apprentice for succeeding in his task. Yet, wait: should I reward him for something I planned? After all, he is merely an extension of my own hand. Oh, why not? Surely a reward will confuse him, and I would add to his distress, and that will please me much. And so, in astral contentment, Nunde sped toward that far-distant land.

Yet when he neared and with his reversed aethyrial vision he saw along the shore a thin spiral of white smoke rising up as from a dying fire. Nearby and peacefully docked lay the Elvenship. Human and Dwarven lookouts aboard kept watch, yet these Nunde did not fear, for they could not see him. Only that trollop who consorted with Aravan had the ‹sight› to do so. Yet careful observation showed him the whore was not adeck, and so Nunde swooped low over the dwindling blaze, where he saw the massive bones of an Ogh amid the ashes.

Shaken, he sped toward the col between the hills where the ambush had been set. No one was there. Where had they gone? Surely they couldn’t have been-

Nunde sped back to the smoldering remains of the fire. Not only were there Ogh bones among the ashes, but a medallion that Malik had worn. Malik had failed! Malik had failed! Aravan, no doubt, yet lived.

How did they discover his trap? The hawk! That must be how. That slut of a Seeress must have flown the bird under the canopy and had peered through its eyes and had found the ambush waiting. And that fool of an apprentice had somehow lost all in an attack on the ship. Four Oghi and a hundred Drik and another hundred Ghoki: more than two hundred Chun in all. How could he have done so, with the ship bound to the pier and as vulnerable as a puling child? Idiot! Imbecile! May he rot forever! May he have died in unbearable agony!

Now I must do that which will put me in peril.

Nunde sped back to his distant tower, where he ordered the roundup of hundreds of Drik. And in an orgiastic frenzy of killing, not only to vent his rage, but also to bloat his being with ‹fire›, he began an all-day slaughter. For what he now needed to do, in fact had been forced to do by that foul Dolh, was to cast a spell while in his aethyrial form, and to do that took energy beyond compare. And so he slew and slew, and tortured and flayed and sucked up the life force needed to perform the deed. But even then, even though swollen with power, he knew he might not survive the loosing of the thing he was about to set free to do his bidding, for if he could not reconfine it, the creature would come after him next.