The Alabaster Staff (15 page)

As instructed by the guards, Kehrsyn knocked on the door indicated and pushed it open, letting herself into the room. Her heart pounded. She had never been in a mage’s study before.

A large, low wooden table dominated the center. What little of the tabletop could be seen through the clutter of scrolls, tomes, and glassware was covered with scars and stains. A thin silver chain rose from the center of the table and reached two thirds of the way to the ceiling. A greenish phosphorescent flame burned at the end of the chain. It seemed as if the fire’s ethereal magic supported the chain against gravity. Kehrsyn could see no other means of support.

A second large table sat against one wall, covered with a humanoid cadaver so thoroughly dissected that Kehrsyn could not even hazard a guess as to its species. Thankfully, a pot burning with heavy incense sat next to the bloody surgical instruments and masked the corpse’s
dead-meat stink. Bookshelves dominated another wall, filled with thick, leather-bound tomes inscribed with arcane and sinister characters. A sticky pall of incense hung in the air, veiling the misshapen wizard Eileph, who sat on a wide, comfortable chair studying a book that sat propped up on a stand. The book was easily half as large as he was.

Though that was all strange, it was the toad that made Kehrsyn stop in shock. A large toad, closing on a foot in length, sat atop Eileph’s nearly hairless head, its paws spread wide across the Thayan’s skull to grip his pallid skin in a tight embrace that seemed obscenely intimate. Its color was reminiscent of rotting leaves, and its grotesque and flaccid obesity stretched taut its greasy, warty skin. It had a wide, sagging mouth surmounted by two cold eyes the color of dead fish.

Kehrsyn’s lower lip curled in disgust as the toad’s head swiveled slowly, just a small adjustment in her direction until it looked squarely at her. Its body pulsed, and its throat filled with an appalling amount of air. It let the air back out in a deep croak that sounded like a glutton’s belch. Perhaps, surmised Kehrsyn, it was.

The toad opened and closed its mouth once. Kehrsyn pulled her lip back farther, disgusted.

Eileph sat reading his book and as yet seemed unaware of her presence. Kehrsyn cleared her throat, and the toad responded with an even louder croak.

The hideous thing opened its mouth again, stabbing its tongue into the air in the direction of an empty bench placed against the wall, then staring at her again. When Kehrsyn hesitated, the toad repeated the gesture.

Kehrsyn cringed, closed the door behind her, and edged over to the bench, which sat close to the dissection table. As she put her bag down and sat on the edge of the bench, the toad nodded almost imperceptibly.

As she sat and waited, Kehrsyn took the opportunity to
pull out the magic wand, careful to handle it only through the square of cloth she had cut.

At first glance, Kehrsyn thought that for Eileph to dub it a “necromancer’s staff” seemed far too grandiose. It measured less than a cubit, stretching from Kehrsyn’s elbow to her wrist, barely even worthy of being called a scepter. At its crown it was no thicker than a flute, tapering to the size of Kehrsyn’s finger at the other end. Despite what she’d been told, for some reason Kehrsyn had expected it to be made of some unusual or glowing substance, but instead it was a plain material, almost pure white, perhaps bone or some exotic wood. It looked so clean that one could easily believe it had been forged but the day before.

Still, she thought, the necromancer’s staff demanded a name far weightier than “wand.” Its polished surface was deeply etched with pictograms of exquisite detail. Tiny stylized birds, eyes, hands, and other images covered the staff from one end to the other, minute and detailed enough to absorb the mind for hours, and with edges sharp enough to provide a satisfying, biting grip in the hands, even through the cloth. The interior portions of the relief work were inlaid with what looked like powdered gold. Viewed at even a short distance, the gold blended with the white to give it a unique color. The bronze band around the top had all of its luster, and was formed into delicate waves of flowing water and studded with smoky quartz. The bronze river whirled up to hold a large piece of black amber at the top, delicately carved. The staff was light and moved easily in the hand, yet it had an indefinable momentum about it that conveyed a sense of consequence.

It was beautiful. Even were it not magical, it would be incomparably valuable, worth far more than anything Kehrsyn had ever seen in her life, let alone held in her delicate hands.

And it belonged to someone else.

The full import of her actions came back to her, washing
away her confidence and exhilaration with the undeniable truth of what she held in her hands. She had stolen a priceless item from someone, selfishly taking their valuables to benefit herself, and she had ruined the cloth during her theft, a thoughtless act of vandalism to further her crime.

Kehrsyn clenched it tightly as the tears began to well up in her eyes. Why did the gods make it so that all her prospects for survival or prosperity could be obtained only by taking that which belonged to others? Why did her benefit have to come at someone else’s pain?

Why had the gods conspired to force her to break the only vow she’d ever made?

A loud croak and a rough-edged “
Aha!
” interrupted her painful musings. She looked up through blurry eyes and saw Eileph hobbling over to her with great excitement, the toad still sitting implacably on his head. He let out a long, covetous sigh that sounded like nothing so much as a death rattle. Kehrsyn barely managed to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her free hand before Eileph reached her.

She drew back as far as she could while sitting against the wall, contained by the corner of the room at one shoulder and the dissected cadaver at the other. Eileph’s avaricious eyes bulged out of his head, and his face was blotchy with anticipation. His whole body quaked with excitement, and Kehrsyn could see his trembling fingers flex like a malformed spider. She feared the misshapen Thayan might rupture a blood vessel in his brain just by looking at her ill-gotten treasure.

Instead of falling over dead, however, Eileph moved with a speed Kehrsyn would not have thought possible. He snatched the small scepter from her grip and held it in front of her eyes, shaking his white-knuckled fist.

“
Do you have any idea what you have?
” he shouted, his face and baleful breath mere inches from hers.

Kehrsyn tried not to wince and tried to shrink back even more, both unsuccessfully.

“Neither do I,” said the wizard. “Look at this aura, will you? Look at the power throbbing within!”

Eileph held it in front of his face and hers, rotating it in his hand as if he expected she could see the magical auras as well as he could.

“Thissss,” he hissed, “is amazing! This is a true relic, an item …” His tone changed to a purr as he stepped away from Kehrsyn and limped for his work table, all the while stroking the wand. “Oh, such craftsmanship. It’s beautiful. A masterpiece! Such runes, such sigils as I have never seen. And the magic embedded within, wrought within the matrix of these symbols, why … why this could be the Staff of the Necromancer!”

“That’s what you said last time,” offered Kehrsyn.

“Pah! Speak not of things beyond your comprehension, young lady!” bellowed Eileph. “I did not say this was
a
necromancer’s staff—well, I did, of course, but that was last time—I said that this might be
the
Staff of
the
Necromancer, a relic forged by the archwizard Hodkamset, favored of the God of Death, of which all other such staves are hackneyed imitations!

“It is said to be carved from the spine bones of a dragon,” he continued in a disgruntled voice. “I’d always imagined it would be bigger. Nonetheless, I could spend a lifetime studying this—” He turned back to Kehrsyn, clutching the staff to his barrel chest—“and I will,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, “as soon as this war is brought to a successful conclusion. You haven’t forgotten that part of the deal, right, wee little thief?”

“Uh, no, of course not,” said Kehrsyn, forcing a smile.

Eileph giggled malevolently. “That is wise. It does not do well to anger the Red Wizards.” He stopped abruptly and straightened up as much as his misshapen body allowed. “Hmph. Listen to me, I sound just like one of the zulkirs.” He sucked in his lips and drummed the fingers of one hand on the table. “Must be the excitement of the
moment. Calm, now, old boy, you have work to do.”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. It would almost have been a sigh, were it not so violent and lustful.

When he opened his eyes again, he was much closer to the almost-personable Eileph that Kehrsyn had met in the plaza.

“Let’s see what we have here, shall we?” he said.

He sat at the table and pulled the chain down toward him, links clinking on the tabletop as he drew the light closer. He laid the Staff of the Necromancer down on a cloth, and with his other hand he absently peeled the toad from his head. It tried to hold on, pulling at his skin, but Eileph prevailed and tossed it to the side. The ugly beast landed on the table on its back, and its legs flailed in the air as it tried to roll its bulk over.

“Hmm,” said Eileph, as Kehrsyn timidly drew closer.

She noticed that he studied only one side, the side that had not been illustrated in his drawing. Kehrsyn’s eyes kept getting pulled back to the periodic flailings of the toad, and eventually she used the scabbard of her dagger to nudge the hapless beast back onto its bloated stomach. Despite its earlier demonstrations of intellect, it did not acknowledge her assistance.

As Kehrsyn used the scrap of cut cloth to wipe the toad’s slime from her scabbard, Eileph finally spoke up.

“The color is good,” he said, “and the stone I can handle, but I wasn’t counting on the gold inlay. Hmph. That’ll take some extra time.” He drummed his fingers on the table again and smacked his lips. “I can have it for you by noon tomorrow. Shall I deliver it, or will you send someone to pick it up?”

“Um, you’d probably better … deliver it,” answered Kehrsyn.

“I understand,” said Eileph. “If I’d just stolen this, I wouldn’t want to carry it around, either. I tell you,” he
added through gritted teeth, “if someone stole this from me, I’d be testing some creative new ideas I’ve—”

“I’d just as soon not know,” Kehrsyn interrupted.

Eileph laughed, then glanced at Kehrsyn with an intense look and asked, “Still at sixteen ’Wright’s?”

“Yes,” said Kehrsyn, after a mere heartbeat’s pause.

“Begone, then. I have work to do.”

Kehrsyn stood, picked up her bag, and headed for the door.

“Be careful,” Eileph said as she was closing the door behind her. “It’s slippery out there.”

“Thanks,” said Kehrsyn.

Once the door was shut, she leaned against it for a few moments.

“It’s also cold,” she whispered to the darkness.

Kehrsyn pulled her cloak around her and paused. Eileph’s suite was at the end of a short hallway, and the only guards Kehrsyn had seen were at the gates.

Why not? she thought.

She shrugged off her bag and set it against the wall as a pillow, then she curled up in the shadows at Eileph’s doorstep—on her right side, as her left arm was still raw—huddled her cloak around her, and soon fell fast asleep.

M
orning arrived on the butt of a spear as a gruff guardsman jabbed Kehrsyn in the ribs. She mumbled an excuse that she had fallen asleep waiting for Eileph, and if her protestations availed her, she shuddered to think what would have happened to her without them. As it was, the guard merely hauled her out by the collar and ejected her from the Thayan enclave.

The morning was bright, especially after she’d spent the night in an unlit corridor. Sunlight pierced the thin cloud cover and reflected off the newly fallen snow, which was only starting to be plowed into an indistinct gray mush by the day’s traffic.

A bracing wind blew steadily from the coast. Kehrsyn took a deep breath of the biting air, clean and free of the strange scents from the wizard’s laboratory. Shading her sleepy eyes with her hand, she scanned the streets. Off to her left, she saw a familiar face: the green-hooded and
scowling visage of the gritty-looking man who’d been watching her at the Jackal’s Courtyard, the one whom she’d been trying to evade when the whole nightmarish venture began.

Obviously, he or his compatriots in the thieves’ guild had been watching the Thayan enclave for her arrival, and awaited her departure. A dusting of snow on the man’s heavy, hooded cloak attested to how long he’d been standing outside. She drew some small satisfaction that she had made them wait in the cold all night for her reappearance. It was the least she could do to repay them for the difficulties they’d caused her.

She started to understand why his expression at the Jackal’s Courtyard had been so studious, so calculating. He’d not been interested in her show, nor in her body. He’d been interested in her skill and technique, scouting her out for the thieves’ guild so that the annoying sorceress could “recruit” her.