The Rite (19 page)

But that was sure to change in a matter of seconds. Will could still hear bellowing from the bottom of the stairs, which meant the creatures outside could, too.

The expedition had camped to the west, on the grand avenue leading up to the primary entrance. Will scurried toward a lesser doorway opening to the north.

As he rushed through, he heard ogres scrambling into the shrine. Had they spotted him in that final instant before he disappeared? Apparently not, for they didn’t come chasing after him.

He climbed a hillside, trying to remember that it was still vital to stay hidden. It was hard. His mind was dim, like a candle guttering out. His limbs felt like lead. It was all he could do just to set one foot in front of the other.

Soon the moment arrived when he couldn’t even do that anymore. He fell on his face, struggled, failed to rise, and finally crawled under a bush. He resolved to rest with his dagger in hand, but discovered he’d dropped it somewhere along the way. Seconds later, he passed out.

4 Kythorn, the Year of Rogue Dragons

“This is is boring,” Jivex whispered.

“Hush,” Taegan replied.

“You need to think of a better plan,” the faerie dragon said. “We should be doing something.”

We are,” Taegan said, though he wasn’t at all certain it was so.

Jivex snorted, sprang up off the stool Selűne’s clerics had provided for him, and flitted about the conjuring chamber snapping moths from the air. The marble shrine was currently open to the night sky—the roof slid back in a cunning way that even the most accomplished builders in Lyrabar would have admired—and the lamps, silver crescents and circles glowing with a soft white magical light, lured a fair number of insects. Evidently annoyed by his darting to and fro, Phourkyn One-eye regarded the drake sourly. Sureene Aumratha, a tall, handsome, middle-aged woman with moon-blond hair almost the exact color of Kara’s—though in the human’s case, the hue came out of a bottle smiled briefly before resuming her interrogation of the mage.

Sureene was the high priestess of the House of the Moon, and considered a formidable mistress of divine magic. In theory, she could weave enchantments that made it impossible for anyone to lie, particularly when her goddess was watching. Yet even so, Taegan suspected Phourkyn had been right to maintain that he and a number of his fellow wizards knew how to cheat the spell. The avariel had chosen to observe the interviews in the hope that he might sense it when someone dissembled, whether Selűne’s power revealed it or not.

Probably it was a forlorn hope, but the truth was, he’d run out of other ideas. He and Jivex had spied and snooped to the extent they were able, and patrolled Thentia from the air, watching for the chasme with its halo of flame. Taegan had encouraged the magicians to report any suspicions they harbored of one another and what a catalogue of petty grudges and grievances that had produced—and maintained constant vigilance while waiting for the tanar’ri to attack him. All of it had been to no avail.

Taegan tried to draw a little comfort from the reflection that the demon hadn’t tried to kill anyone else, either. Rilitar had optimistically posited that Taegan had thrown a scare’ into the traitor, and so the dastard feared to act. But the winged elf couldn’t believe it. Over the course of the past few months, he’d crossed swords with more than his fair share of Sammaster’s agents, and in most cases, they’d proved to be as tenacious as they were malevolent. His current foe was either weighing his options or biding his time, like a fencer who makes a show of relaxing in the hope of prompting his opponent to drop his guard, then attacks the instant an opening appears.

“Are we done?” Phourkyn demanded.

“Yes,” said Sureene.

“Am I the traitor?”

“No.”

“What a relief.”

Sureene’s generous mouth with its coating of shiny white cosmetic tightened at the sarcasm, but she chose not to make an issue of it.

The lamplight gleaming on his pomaded raven hair, Phourkyn rose and turned to Taegan. “Unless you have further business here, Maestro, perhaps you’d care to walk out with me.” His single dark eye shifted to Jivex. “And your companion, too, of course.”

In fact, Taegan would seize any opportunity to try to take the measure of one of the eccentric—and in some cases, virulently antisocial—mages.

“You honor me, Master Wizard, and it’s a splendid evening for a stroll. Come along, Jivex.”

“I’m almost ready.” The small dragon with his iridescent scales swooped, and snapped another moth from the air.

“I daresay you’ll find a plenitude of bugs outside,” said Taegan. “Enough to sate even your gluttony.”

“You can’t catch your prey,” Jivex sulked, “so you don’t want anybody else to catch anything, either. But all right.”

They bade farewell to Sureene, Phourkyn with his customary brusqueness, Jivex cheerfully, and Taegan with all the subtly flirtatious courtliness Impiltur had taught him. Then they withdrew.

Lyrabar was a city of magnificent temples. Thentia had only the House of the Moon, but as he and his companions traversed its spacious galleries and chapels, their foot steps echoing, Taegan conceded that at least it was a worthy one. Everywhere, the glow of the enchanted lamps gleamed on silver vessels and alabaster carvings, or illuminated the paintings of the night sky adorning the high ceilings. The air smelled of frankincense. the incense competing with the pungent apple smell of the unguent in Phourkyn’s hair. Yet for all its grandeur, the temple had an empty, shadowy feel to it. Taegan supposed .that when Selűne walked the

heavens, most of the clerics repaired to the gardens to worship her.

“So,” said Phourkyn after a time, “you can’t catch your prey?”

Taegan grinned and said, “Jivex and I merely like to banter. I assure you, I’m well on my way to laying hands on Sammaster’s agent.”

“In that case,” the human said, “your behavior puzzles me.”

Up ahead, Jivex landed on a statue of the Lady of Silver bearing a mace in one hand and a sextant in the other. He crawled around on her for a moment, nosing at a sculpted fold in her robe, then, butterfly wings shimmering, sprang back into the air.

“How so?” Taegan asked.

“If you have your own infallible means of identifying the cultist,” Phourkyn said, “why watch while Sureene interrogates us? Indeed, why put her to the trouble at all?”

“My method of ferreting out the traitor requires time. It’s possible Sureene can identify him more quickly.”

“I’d like to know what your method is.”

“Yet you yourself are averse to sharing your secrets, so perhaps you’ll be tolerant when others display the same inclination.”

“I know the limits of the magical system you claim to practice, Maestro. But if you can truly probe the minds of accomplished wizards, you’re far more than a bladesinger.”

“Back home in Lyrabar I’m celebrated for my modesty, and I simply can’t find it in my meek and humble heart to claim to be anything grander. Though I will confess that Jivex and I slew a dracolich, so take that for whatever you feel it’s worth.”

Phourkyn grunted, then after a pause said, “You don’t like me very much, do you, avariel?”

“I scarcely know you well enough to like or loathe you. I appreciate the fact that you recognize the need to aid Kara.”

“Throughout my life,” Phourkyn said, a brooding note entering his voice, “I’ve rarely cared what anyone thought of me. Most people are dull-witted vermin, either cowering mice or vicious rats. Certainly nothing that ought to concern an archmage as he strives to expand the limits of his Art.”

“That may be a sound philosophy, but I’d be leery of propounding it to the rodent who cooks your food, unless you want her seasoning it with spittle.”

Phourkyn scowled and said, “My point is this: I don’t want you to misread me. While I care nothing for the average dolt I’m encounter in the street, I am concerned about the future of the world. I’m won’t stand idly by while flights of wyrms in frenzy hammer Faerűn’s cities into rubble, or hordes of dracoliches rise up to enslave mankind. In other words, you can depend on me.”

Taegan was still trying to decide how to respond when the first cry for help shrilled from an arched doorway on their right.

As he walked among his wicked kindred, Chatulio reflected that most spellcasters who considered themselves skilled illusionists had barely acquired the basics of the discipline. Perhaps they too could have cloaked themselves in the appearance of a black-scaled skull wyrm, right down to the flaking, decaying hide on the cheeks. They might even have managed the acidic smell. But could they have cast the far subtler enchantment that blinded the evil drakes to the fact that this particular black hadn’t been a part of their host from the start? Chatulio thought not, and the fact that he’d accomplished the trick with the Rage gnawing at his faculties made the achievement even more impressive.

It was the Rage that had prompted him to flee the monastery, back through the caves. His every instinct had warned that if he didn’t, he’d soon turn on the small folk. It had pained him to depart without explaining the reason to Kara, Raryn, and Dorn, but he’d suspected it might be even more painful to say good-bye.

Once he’d escaped the mouthwatering scent of human flesh, his beleaguered mind cleared a little, and it occurred to him that, chromatic dragons being the vain and quarrelsome creatures that they were, he might still be able to help the defenders of the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, even from outside the walls. It would be dangerous. The attacking wyrms were almost certain to see through his disguise eventually, and tear him apart. But that would be a good thing. He needed to die before frenzy took him and he started slaughtering the innocent, though the Rage wasn’t bothering him much at the moment. It had faded to an irritating but tiny whine at the back of his mind. He supposed his current escapade was responsible. Some pranks were so funny, they could even stave off madness for a while.

Chatulio cast a charm to make his every pronouncement seem wiser and more important. He then advanced toward a trio of wyrms, a young red, a yellow-eyed fire drake glowing like iron fresh from the forge, and a magma drake with crimson optics, black claws, and hide like cooling lava. All three were creatures of fire, and crouching together, they threw off heat like a furnace, driving back the chill of a mountain night. They were eating some shaggy, curly-horned sheep they’d killed, and hissed and showed their fangs to warn Chatulio away from their repast. He shook his head to convey that he’ had no intention of trying to claim a portion, and they suffered him to approach. He hunkered down among them, then waited for them to finish gobbling meat, crunching bone, and slurping marrow.

When they did, a conversation started, and inevitably it turned to the siege. Baffled and enraged by how long it was taking just to root out a nest of feeble humans, the dragons could talk of little else. They had to pick at the wound to their pride.

Speaking of wounds, Chatulio noted that the fire drake still bore scabby gashes and punctures on its flank.

“I hear,” the disguised copper said, “that we may attack again, as soon as the moon sinks behind the peaks.”

As he’d hoped it would, the fire drake snarled, “I’m still hurt!” It rose and turned to display its injuries.

The red said, “The half-iron warrior mauled you, didn’t he, with those spikes on his hand. He hurt me the same way. Before this is over, I’m going to roast him slowly.”

“Some say,” Chatulio said, “the healers among us have secretly pledged their loyalty to Ishenalyr. So, if you’re willing to grovel to the hidecarved as well, they’ll attend to you first, and if they run out of spells before they get around to the rest of us…. well, that’s just our hard luck.”

“By flame and shadow,” rumbled the magma drake, “that isn’t fair! Those who fight the hardest should receive healing first, and that’s not Ishenalyr and his ilk. They hang back. I’ve seen it. Why would Malazan stand for this?”

Chatulio hitched his wings in a shrug. “Maybe she’s afraid of Ishenalyr.”

The red sprang to his feet. His throat swelled with the promise of fire, and sulphurous smoke streamed out of his nostrils and mouth when he roared, “Malazan fears nothing!”

Chatulio was certain the red felt no affection for the ancient female, who treated all her troops with an arrogance that bordered on outright contempt. But apparently he’d rather give his loyalty to a leader of his own kind than to the rune-scarred green. Or simply to the dragon he regarded as the mightiest and most savage of them all.

Chatulio inclined his head in a gesture of submission. “As you say. Malazan fears nothing. I spoke as a fool. But alas, I’m not the only fool among us. Someone should warn her that if she wants everyone to go on respecting her, she should squash the hidecarved like the impudent bug he is.”

“I’d like to see that,” said the fire drake. “By all the princes of the Abyss, I would.”

“Well,” said Chatulio, drawing himself to his feet, “you’ve had your suppers. I still need to catch mine, so I’ll bid you farewell.”

He withdrew, but not to forage. That could wait until after his enchantment of persuasiveness wore off. Instead, he insinuated himself into another gathering of wyrms on the opposite face of the mountain, midway between the fortress and the glacier below. The ice glowed in the moonlight.

Before long, he found the chance to say: “The reds and their cronies are grumbling again.”

“Grumbling?” growled an earth drake, its massive body more like a rocky outcropping than the usual sinuous dragon form, its jade eyes gleaming.

“They claim,” Chatulio said, “they bear the brunt of the fighting, while certain others engage the humans timidly, and turn tail at any little hurt.”

“Which ‘certain others?’ ” demanded a fang dragon with an irritable snap of its stunted wings.

“Those who look to Ishenalyr for leadership.”

“Nonsense,” snarled a green, reeking of the corrosive poison that was its breath weapon. “If I take my cues from Ishenalyr, it’s because he’s crafty, and senses when the humans have set a snare. What’s the point of blundering recklessly into trouble, as Malazan routinely does?”