The Jewel of Turmish

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Framed by the doorway leading to the stairs, glistening from the rain that clung to his skin in the firelight, a small woman watched Borran Kiosk. Her simple brown breeches and green shirt showed no insignia nor gave any indication of her station. Beneath her hood, unbound black hair surrounded her gaunt, pinched face, emphasizing her deep-set white opal eyes. If Borran Kiosk had not felt the woman's eyes on him, he would have sworn she was blind. He considered killing her outright but held himself at the last moment, giving in to curiosity. Whatever she was, alive though she may be, the scent around her didn't taste as human as it should have. Turning his attention back to the approaching city guard, Borran Kiosk spoke words of power then pointed toward the street. A wall of violet flames sprang up from the cobblestones and darted around the larger puddles. Water hissed, spreading clouds of steam, and the heat drove the guardsmen back. "Send for a watch wizard!" the commander roared, taking a firm hand with his nervous mount. One of the guardsmen took off at once. "Is this what you think you should do, Borran Kiosk?" the woman asked amid the harsh yells of the guardsmen and gawkers below. "Squander the second chance Malar has given you to wreak havoc among your enemies?" "Have a care, woman," Borran Kiosk replied. He sensed the woman walking closer to him, and he was amazed at her lack of fear. Gathering his energies, the mohrg gestured again. He watched as a shadow blurred the area in front of the watch commander. The man screamed and swung at the air with his sword. His hoarse voice scared the men in his group, dividing their attention between him and the wall of twisting violet flames that gave off searing heat. "What does he battle?" the woman asked, peering over Borran Kiosk's shoulder. "His own fear," Borran Kiosk replied. "The spell I employed gave form to his private aberrations." The watch commander screamed himself hoarse, startling his mount. Two of the guardsmen ran to him and attempted to help. One of them got a sword slash across his face for his trouble. The other backed away. The commander stiffened and fell from his saddle. His limp body smacked onto the cobblestones. "He's dead?" the woman asked. "Yes," Borran Kiosk said, watching the blurred shadow fade away as the commander died. "Touched by whatever he most feared in this life." "Perhaps he envisioned himself fighting you." A faint smile touched the woman's shadowed face. Borran Kiosk faced her, intrigued anew. "I am," the mohrg said, "a frightful thing to behold." The woman's opal eyes met his gaze without flinching. "I've never seen anything more horrid." Standing close to the woman, Borran Kiosk found himself aware of her simple beauty. Her face was almost triangular, holding the wide-spaced opal eyes and coming down to a firm chin beneath a full-lipped mouth. Even though he was dead and the flesh and most of its natural calls had left him, he found himself drawn to the woman on a level he'd never experienced even while alive. "Who are you?" he asked again. "You may call me Allis," she answered. "May?" Borran Kiosk mocked her with his tone. "You are impudent, child." "I've seen worse things than you, Borran Kiosk." Her demeanor was calm and easy. Before he could restrain the anger that burst within him, Borran Kiosk swung a mallet-hard, bony fist that would have broken her skull if it had connected. The blow never landed. With incredible speed and poise, the woman dodged to one side and said, "You're making a mistake." Borran Kiosk flailed at her again, but she dodged his next blow with even more ease. "You're wasting time," Allis said. "Even with your power, do you think you can stand against a watch wizard? Surely after your demonstration of power one is already on his way." Borran Kiosk spat his thick, purple tongue at her. She threw herself to one side and the vulgar appendage missed her by inches. Steadying himself, the mohrg lunged for the woman with his tongue again and again. His disbelief grew stronger as she continued to evade his attacks. He prepared another spell then pointed at her. Blurred energy sped from his outstretched hand and her shirt seemed to explode. Strange appendages sprang out of her. She leaped for the ceiling, and clung there by four hairy, jointed legs. Staring at the woman in awe, Borran Kiosk noted that her features had undergone drastic changes as well. Instead of two wide, opal eyes, there were now several orbs, each of the same peculiar hue. The long hair had become short, stiff bristles. The triangular face rounded, and became an almost featureless ovoid. Only a lipless slash remained of her mouth. "A werespider," Borran Kiosk said, staring up at the fantastic creature on the ceiling. Allis clung to the ceiling and gazed down. Her new face betrayed no emotion. "I've never seen a werespider before." "I was sent here to find you," Allis said. "Who sent you?" "Those who follow the Beastlord's ways." Allis tilted her malformed head. "Your first sacrifice was not in vain, Borran Kiosk. Nor was your resurrection intended to be wasted by railing at the city watch and inciting a battle." "Malar still has interests in Alagh?n?" Borran Kiosk asked. "In all the Vilhon Reach," she said. "I was sent to guide you." "Guide me where?" "To a place," Allis said, "where you can raise an army of undead." Allis's body shimmered again. She dropped from the ceiling, her legs shrinking back into her body. By the time she landed on her two feet, she resembled a human woman again. "The Beastlord doesn't want you to wait to strike," she said. "The time is now." More shouts came from the street. Allis peered through the window. "The flames are dying," she said, "and it won't be long before reinforcements arrive. We need to go." "Where?" "Into hiding for now," Allis said. "Tonight, Malar willing, we'll take a ship." "We?" "You have allies here, Borran Kiosk, and you have more coming. Malar also caused the five you buried all those years ago in the swamplands around Morningstar Hollows to rise from their graves." The name surprised Borran Kiosk. One of his final battles had been fought there, but no one living had known of the preparation he'd made with the five pieces of Taraketh's Hive. In fact, few had even known of the magical gem's existence before the mohrg had discovered it. "The five have been raised?" he asked. "They are on their way here now." Borran Kiosk's thoughts spun. "You crave vengeance," Albs stated. "Malar has guided you to Taraketh's Hive, and he has returned your freedom. Don't be so prideful that you have cause to regret the Beastlord's generosity." Glaring at the woman with harsh intensity, Borran Kiosk said, "You have eluded me so far, woman, but rest assured that I can kill you, and I will should I deem that necessary." "My life has been spent in the service of Malar," Allis said. "Kill me and another will take my place to guide you, unless the Beastlord withdraws his favorable consideration of you and has you destroyed." Though Borran Kiosk wasn't too afraid of that instance, the possibility did give him pause. Only Malar's blessing had returned him to life as a mohrg after he'd been executed. "Malar's benediction doesn't come without price," Allis said. More shouting sounded out in the street. "We need to go." Leading him to the back of the tavern, Allis changed into her werespider shape again and leaped up to the ceiling. She used a knife from a sheath at her belt and cut through the ceiling. In less than a minute she was through to the rafters. With some reluctance, feeling that such an exit from a fight was beneath him, Borran Kiosk climbed up after her. Borran Kiosk stepped out through the opening and followed her across the rooftops. His mind whirled in fascination at all that had been set before him. As his gaze roamed over the storm-blasted city, taking in the new shape of the skyline and the much bigger harbor out toward the Sea of Fallen Stars, he felt the old hunger for vengeance against the living return to him.

Alagh?n Watch Sergeant Faholian Tahrass walked through the graveyard and gazed at the dead bodies that had been taken from the crypt by men in his command. One of the corpses lay naked under the misting rain. "Who are these people?" Tahrass asked. He'd been a member of the watch for seventeen years and not much surprised him. He'd been privy to murder and every kind of sadistic abuse a thinking creature could do to another. Dorric Chansin, Tahrass's young aide de camp, knelt beside the stripped man. Chansin wore rain leathers but they did little to mask the lean hardness of his body. A tracker, his hands roamed the area around the bodies. "Priests," Chansin answered. "Priests?" Tahrass shook his head, hoping Dorric was wrong. "What makes you think that?" Chansin took up one of the corpse's hands. "They're dressed in robes. Their hands are soft. The men don't have much coin between them, but they don't look poor." He held up an object that dangled by a string from his fingers. "And they all carried these." "Symbols of Eldath." Chansin closed his fist over the symbol and gazed up, eyes slitted against the rain. "You follow Eldath's teachings?" "It is my wife's faith," Tahrass said, "and my two daughters'. I have my own. Eldath's ways of peace are not for someone like me." Chansin gave a short nod and turned his attention back to the bodies. "There are some who say Eldath is taking a more active hand in the affairs of the lands around the Sea of Fallen Stars, in light of the return of Myth Nantar to the knowledge of men." "Even so," Tahrass said, "why would these men come to this place in the dead of night?" "I don't know." Chansin took a slim-bladed dagger from his boot and used the point to examine the gaping wound in the naked priest's head. "I would like to know what made this. I've never seen the like." "Magic, mayhap," Tahrass suggested. He glanced up from the body, feeling uncomfortable gazing at a fresh corpse in a place where so many old ones were kept. "Maybe they were already dead," he added. "And climbed up out of their graves?" Chansin smiled despite the harsh circumstances. "Could be," Tahrass replied, taking no offense. "During the years I've stood watch over Alagh?n, I've heard several tales of the dead walking out of graveyards or ambushing people when they come into them." "How many have you seen yourself?" "None." 'There you go," Chansin said. "With mages poking into everything, and necromancers tinkering with things best left alone, I know it's possible that such a thing could happen, but I've never seen it." "You're too young to remember," a creaky, hoarse voice said. Turning, Tahrass spotted a thin old man approaching them. Chansin stood, showing respect. "Mage Vorahl, I meant no disrespect." Vorahl was ancient even by standards set by mages. His skin, even though his health and life had been prolonged by spells, clung to his bones like coarse parchment. Age had pulled the man in on himself, collapsing him a lot over the twenty years that Tahrass had known him. Rain had turned Vorahl's gray hair dark, but silver highlights glinted from the lantern light. His dark purple robes held the badges of his office in the watch, and the intricate sigils of his craft. His staff, once just a tool, now supported his infirm steps. He glanced at the assembled bodies. With pain showing on his face from the effort involved, Vorahl bent over to look at the corpse. His sticklike fingers clung to the staff for support. He shook with palsy and perhaps from the cold. "You shouldn't be out here," Tahrass said. "We can take care of this." The soaking cold was almost too much for him, and his rain leathers offered more proof against the elements than the mage's robes. Vorahl waved the watch commander's words away and said, "When I heard about this, I knew I had to come." Tahrass waited, watching the agony the old mage put himself through to examine all the priests' bodies. "Six of them?" Vorahl asked as he gazed at the yawning mouth of the violated crypt. "Yes," Chansin answered. "And you got them all?" "We think so." Anger clouded Vorahl's crumpled face as he turned back to the two guardsmen. "You think so?" "We took out all we found," Tahrass said. In all the years he'd known the old mage, he'd never seen Vorahl so close to losing control. The wind whipped through the graveyard, raking wet whispers through the trees. "We must find them all," Vorahl stated. "Every man who was murdered here this night must be found." "We will," Tahrass promised. He waved toward the lanterns bobbing through the graveyard. "I've got men out looking for any more bodies and whoever did this." "You won't find him here," Vorahl commented, straightening and looking around the ivy-infested stone walls surrounding the graveyard. "He'll be long gone from this place." "Who?" Chansin asked. "Borran Kiosk," Vorahl answered. "These men were priests from the Temple of the Trembling Flower." "How do you know?" "Because," Vorahl said with an air of impatience, "all those years ago the Emerald Enclave, at the behest of Silvanus, entrusted the priests of Eldath here in Alagh?n to lock the creature away." "Borran Kiosk is a myth," Chansin said. "Then a myth killed these men," Vorahl snapped, "and escaped into the night." He turned from the younger man and hobbled around the bodies, taking care to keep even the hem of his robes from touching them. "We need to identify these men," Vorahl said. "I've already sent a man to fetch a priest from the temple," Chansin said. "As soon as these men are identified by the other priests," Vorahl said, "their bodies will have to be destroyed." "Why?" Chansin asked. "If they are not, they will rise again." Vorahl's voice lowered. "All killed by Borran Kiosk stand a good chance of rising once more as a mindless beast bent on the savaging of all living things. If they don't follow Borran Kiosk's leadership, they will kill on their own. A roaring fire is the only way to insure that they don't return-a fire to burn them first then a sledge to shatter their charred bones. Even burned skeletons have been known to walk." A sudden light flared south of the graveyard, climbing over the top of the stone wall. The nimbus of yellow light warred against the night and the storm. "That's a fire," Chansin said. "It has begun," Vorahl said in a solemn voice. "May the gods preserve us."