Black Wizards (38 page)

For several moments they heard sounds of movement within. Pans clanked against an iron stove, and something sizzled in a frying pan. Soon the aroma of succulent bacon drifted through the doorway.

“Let me try this time,” whispered Daryth. Tristan nodded, and the Calishite led the way into the kitchen. All of the activity came to an abrupt halt as they marched imperiously through the door.

The kitchen was huge, with long counters and several large ovens.
Several middle-aged men and women were bustling about the stove and counters, and a group of serving wenches were laying out china on trays in the far corner of the room.

“You!” said Daryth, pointing to a stout man with several pink chins. “Tell me—who is the miserable wretch who prepares breakfast for the king?”

“Th-there she is, sir!” said the man, relieved to divert the officer. He pointed an accusing finger at a sturdy matron near the griddle. The woman’s face grew pale.

“Come here,” said Daryth more softly.

“Yes, sir,” she said, meekly stepping over to them. She stared at the floor, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Don’t be afraid,” continued the Calishite, “We are looking for one of the serving wenches. Tell us, which one took the king’s breakfast to him yesterday?”

“Sheila!” screeched the woman, turning to point at a black-haired lass. It was now the unfortunate girl’s turn to grow pale. “Come here, immediately!”

Sheila stumbled numbly over to the men, and Tristan regretted the need to cause such fear among these Ffolk. Her eyes were wide and slowly filling with tears. Nevertheless, the prince had to continue the charade. “Come with us!” he ordered.

The young woman nodded dumbly and followed them from the kitchen. In the hall, they turned to her. She sank back against the wall and quivered like a terrified doe.

“We have uncovered a plot that could bring grave harm to the king!” Tristan said sternly. “Has anyone spoken to you about the food you have taken to him?”

“No, your lordship! No one!”

“Very well. It may be that the plotters are working through a different avenue. You may help us to discover who and where they are. Do you understand the importance of this?”

She nodded fearfully.

“You must retrace for us, exactly, the route you took in bringing the king his breakfast yesterday. Every step, every hallway, every door. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, squeaking like a frightened mouse. She led them
from the kitchen into a vast hall. She paused before a wide stairway and bit her lips. Hesitantly, she pointed to a curtained alcove below the stairs. “I-I stepped in here, j-just for a moment,” she whimpered. “Garrick, the tailor’s son, met me. I was only there for a moment! He pulled me in. I fought him to get away. I really did!”

Tristan forced dawn an urge to smile, embarrassed that they had stumbled upon the wench’s amorous little secret. “Very well,” he said sternly. “And then?”

She turned to climb the stairs, her footsteps silenced by the deep pile of the red carpeting. At the top of the stairs, the lass turned down a long hallway.

The walls here were gleaming marble, and tall mirrors dotted them at frequent intervals. High windows at each end, screened with cut crystal panes, broke the morning light into a series of colorful patterns.

“And here I took the food,” said the maid as she pointed to a door—the only one along the wall of the hallway.

“You have done well,” said the prince. “Now, return to your duties!” The wench scurried back to the stairs and raced out of their sight.

Tristan reached for the latch, about to push it open, when he had second thoughts. Instead, he lifted his hand and knocked firmly against the smooth panel. The door was pulled immediately open, and he stood face to face with a very startled young soldier of the Scarlet Guard.

“You can’t—” the guard began.

“Yes, we can,” snarled Daryth, who had flicked the point of his sword against the man’s throat in the blink of an eye.

“We have an audience with the king,” announced Tristan, smoothly stepping through the door. Daryth prodded a bit with the sword, and the young guard’s eyes bulged.

“Yes sir,” he said, his voice squeaking.

The guard stood in a small room. Beyond him another gilded door led to the royal chambers. The guard stumbled across the chamber and pulled it open, while Tristan and Daryth strode calmly through.

The Prince of Corwell stopped in shock. Even his wildest imagination had not prepared him for the sight of the preposterous figure sitting before him. Could this man, concealed by a curled and powdered
wig, his face heavily made up, actually be the High King of all the Ffolk?

The largest city among the Moonshae islands was not Callidyrr as the humans thought. Rather, it was a community known only to a few of the air-breathing peoples, a vast metropolis, more ancient than any town of the Ffolk. The city sprawled across miles. Its densest reaches filled the bottom of a deep, narrow canyon, but its most elegant structures clung precariously to the sides of the canyon. Vast gardens spread to either side of the gorge, on top of the fissure, and the hunters and warriors of the city ranged a hundred miles or more in search of plunder and prey. But no living man had ever been here
.

For this was a city on the bottom of the sea
.

It was a city of coral with lofty green towers and low, rounded buildings. Its colors were green and blue and red, and a myriad of other variations. The onion-shaped domes of its towers often rose a thousand feet or more from the bottom of the sea, reaching from the bottom into the higher stretches of the canyon, still many thousands of feet under the surface
.

Huge balconies hung from the sheer sides of the canyon. Tendrils of kelp draped from these, giving the place a jungle-like appearance. Sharks swam slowly among the kelp, for these fish were the watchers of the city; they protected its inhabitants and attacked its enemies
.

The city’s gardens were seaflowers and anemone. Its monuments were the broken hulls of sunken ships—and the dead who crewed them. The skeletal monuments surrounded the high domes, and decorated the vast balconies. The gold and silver plundered from these vessels ornamented the most elegant dwellings, or adorned the most prominent citizens. Throughout the city, the bones of dead sailors supported doorways and arches. Light curved stools were crafted from skeletons
.

Kressilacc was its name, and it was a city of the sahuagin, the undersea race that ruled its domain with a harsh and merciless hand. The sahuagin had lived in Kressilacc since the birth of their race, and their city had grown in size and beauty as they had grown in might and numbers
.

The sahuagin were ruled by their king, Sythissall, and his high priestess, Ysalla. Both of them, creatures of the greatest evil, had grown bored with their absolute mastery of the sea. They sought other realms to loot and conquer, other sights to amuse them
.

Sythissall claimed as his residence the vast palace along the crest of the canyon’s
wall. Together with his hundred concubines, his huge octopi guards, and the skulls of his enemies, Sythissall sat in his vast throne room. The hugest of the sahuagin, the king neared giant proportions. His teeth and wide, flaring gills gave his head a broad, stubborn cast. He held a huge trident of whalebone. With it, he had once slain six prisoners, rival sahuagin, with a single blow
.

The spines along the king’s head, and down his back, were fully four feet long when Sythissall was aroused. He had ruled the sahuagin for centuries, and the fish-men were pleased with his leadership. They tortured and killed for him—under his direction, they had conquered or destroyed every other group of sahuagin for hundreds of miles. To celebrate their final victory, a decade earlier, Sythissall had ordered one thousand prisoners tortured slowly, and then fed to the sharks. That spectacle had been the grandest in sahuagin history
.

Ysalla, the High Priestess, dwelled in her sprawling temple, across the canyon from the king’s palace. As Keeper of the Eggs, Ysalla’s influence among the sahuagin was nearly as great as the king’s. As a female, she lacked the sharp spines along her head and backbone. Her scaled skin, and the skin of her priestesses, was a bright yellow—in contrast to the natural green of her kind. The yellow, a badge of pride and chastity, was proof that the priestesses did not breed. Tenders of the eggs, they would produce none of their own
.

The priestesses of the sahuagin adorned themselves with golden bracelets, headbands, belts, and anklets. They swam among their kin with imperial arrogance, for none of the sahuagin dared harm, or insult, a priestess
.

Like others of their order among the worlds of men, orcs, and ogres, these priestesses were clerics of Bhaal
.

Sythissall kept the sahuagins’ most precious relic in his throne room. The Deepglass was a mystical artifact, crafted by sahuagin at the dawn of their race from the ice of the farthest north, forged in the fire of the deepest undersea volcano. Sythissall kept, and controlled, the Deepglass
.

But only Ysalla knew how to use it
.

The High Priestess could unlock the power of the Deepglass, aided by the immense power of Bhaal. Through it, Ysalla and Sythissall could look at anything they chose, anywhere. They studied the world of sun, and air—and though they found the setting unpleasant with its warmth and horrid dryness, they saw many objects that they desired for their city and themselves
.

And also through the Deepglass, they found the wizard, Cyndre. The sorcerer had been watching them and waiting, for he knew that the Deepglass would eventually lead the sahuagin to his mirror. Sythissall flew in to a rage at the sight of the human
staring back at him
.

But Ysalla was more patient She learned that the human could speak to them, that they could understand him and speak in return. The shrieks and clicks of their conversation echoed through the huge throne room with its coral pillars and tapestries of hanging kelp. Sythissall’s rage cooled as he heard the words of the black wizard promising gold, and bone, and blood
.

As they listened to Cyndre’s plan, they were intrigued. Sythissall saw a way to extend his influence into those realms that had been hitherto untouchable. Ysalla saw a way to serve her god and further the aims of her followers. The soft hiss of Bhaal’s voice came into her ear, telling her that the human would be a useful tool in the god’s scheme
.

And Bhaal watched, and listened, and smiled
.

amerynn bucked and kicked, crushing zombies with his forehooves and then lashing out behind him to splinter a pair of skeletons into hundreds of bone fragments. The madness of combat was upon him, and the great unicorn killed for the joy of slaying the enemies of the goddess.

He had started the fight beside Robyn at the arch, but his bloodlust had carried him upon a rampaging gallop through the attackers. He was now some distance from the Moonwell, and he turned to gallop back to the defensive ring. But then his sensitive ears detected a worrisome noise.