The Summoning (35 page)

The silhouette’s eyes closed, then it melded into Malik’s pear like figure and was just a shadow once more.

“We must go inside.” Melegaunt started around the pyramid.

Jhingleshod clanged after him. “This Elminster is not my concern. You must destroy Wulgreth first.”

“And we will.” Galaeron scrambled after the pair. “But Melegaunt’s right It’s time to go inside.”

Jhingleshod turned his lidless eyes on Galaeron. “You are not lying?” Though he asked it as a question, to Galaeron the words felt more like a command. “You will keep your word?”

“If this is Wulgreth’s lair, well find him inside,” said Galaeron. “If he’s not there already, hell come when we enter.”

Jhingleshod studied Galaeron with his vacant eyes for a moment, then followed Melegaunt and Vala into the crooked entrance corridor. Galaeron had Aris call upon his god to bless a full skin of water, then took Takari and Malik after the others. Too large to enter with them, the giant waited outside.

The darkness and close confines reminded Galaeron of the cairns in the Sharaedim, though the passageway smelled more like blood than dust, with just a hint of sulfur and steam. Within a few steps, the corridor opened into a vestibule lit by silver spell light. In the moment it took Galaeron’s eyes to adjust to the harsh light, he heard Melegaunt saying, “Jhingleshod, here is your Wulgreth. Nothing but dust and bones.”

Galaeron glimpsed the wizard’s burly shape stooping to pick something up, then heard Takari hissing a spell and knew she had realized the same thing he had.

“Don’t touch—”

Takari’s spell erupted in a terrible ringing, causing Melegaunt and Vala to cover their ears and spin toward the clamor. Galaeron pushed his way past the pair and found a cloud of dust whirling in the corner, a gray skull rising into the air atop it He motioned the others away, then breathed a silent sigh of relief when Takari canceled her spell.

“What spell was that?” he asked, keeping a wary eye on the dust pillar. “You nearly broke my eardrums.”

“It was supposed to be a silence spell,” Takari answered. “Something went wrong.”

“Wild magic,” explained Jhingleshod. “The Dire Wood is full of it, and the closer to the pyramid, the worse it grows.”

“Then let me be the first to suggest we are in terrible trouble,” said Malik. Hanging the skin of blessed water over his shoulder, he drew his curved dagger and waved it at the spinning dust, which was now taking a vaguely human shape. “I fear we have found Wulgreth.”

“There is nothing to fear.” Melegaunt took out a sliver of obsidian and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. “My spells are not affected by wild magic.”

“No!” Galaeron and Takari yelled, then Galaeron added, “Whatever it does, do nothing in return.”

“Nothing?” Malik gasped.

“It’s a demilich,” Galaeron explained. “It will absorb your attacks and use the energy to return to this world.”

“A demilich?” echoed Malik. “Then it will be easier to destroy?”

“Trickier,” Takari said. “If we strike too early, we bring it back. If we strike too late …”

“Yes?” Malik raised his brow. “If we strike too late?”

Galaeron answered, “The Tomb Guard has accounts of demiliches killing an entire company with a single screech.”

“Accounts?” Malik said. “I thought you had fought many of these things!”

Galaeron and Takari exchanged looks, then he said, “There was one lich.”

Malik’s face was not the only one that went pale, and even Jhingleshod’s lidless eyes seemed to bulge. The dust coalesced into a skeletal figure clothed in rotting silks.

“That is not Wulgreth,” Jhingleshod said. “Wulgreth wore no such robes.”

Jhingleshod stepped toward Galaeron, but stopped when

the demilich cut him off. The creature flailed at the knight’s skeletal face, prompting him to step away and heft his axe.

“Don’t!” Galaeron yelled.

Jhingleshod checked his swing, and the demilich’s claws burst into harmless clouds of dust as they struck. Fiery points of light began to burn in its empty eye sockets, then it held the stumps of its arms before its face, let out a powdery snort, and whirled on Galaeron. He lowered his sword, and the creature stepped to within a hand’s breadth of him, a handful of brown-crusted gems glimmering dully in the place of several teeth. It smelled of musty dirt and stale air, and the hiss of alien winds whispered on its breath. Though Galaeron’s whole body went cold and clammy, he forced himself to meet its burning gaze and show no fear.

The demilich raised an arm, where a dusty hand was forming anew, and pressed a fingertip to Galaeron’s face. Though the claw did not cut, the otherworldly cold of its touch traced a line of numbness down his cheek. The elf willed himself to stand fast, and though he knew it would anger Melegaunt, readied the necessary spell. The thing opened its mouth and spewed a plume of dust into his face. Caught by surprise, he began to cough and choke, stumbling back as he tried to spit the powdery stuff from his mouth.

“Poison!” Malik started for the exit.

Vala dropped an arm to block his way. “We may have need of that holy water you’re carrying.”

Galaeron snorted the dust from his nose, then felt his gorge rise as the reek of decay filled the room. A fringe of red, straw-coarse hair sprouted from the lich’s head, then a mask of shriveled skin began to creep over its face. The open nasal cavities did nothing to improve the thing’s appearance, but with a rounded forehead, overhanging brows, and hideously-skewed jaw, it would have been grotesque even with a nose.

A terrible aura of cold filled the room, and Galaeron knew the demilich’s spirit had finally returned to its body He

stepped forward and circled his palm before its face.

“Forget.” He spoke in the ancient language of magic, calling upon Melegaunt’s coldmagic to empower the spell. “Return to your rest.”

The demilich lashed out, catching Galaeron by his chain mail and ripping a handful of magic-forged loops from over his breast. Vala leaped forward to attack, but the links were already falling through the creature’s hand. Galaeron raised a hand to check her attack, then watched as the thing’s body dissolved back into dust. When the skull sank to the floor, he motioned her forward.

“Now, Vala—before the spirit flees. Cleave it in one blow.”

Vala’s sword descended in a black flash, splitting the skull lengthwise and dividing both sides again before they toppled to the floor. A crimson flamelight shot from the bones and streaked through Vala’s body, then circled the room with a blood-curdling keen. Her jaw dropped and she looked as though she might collapse of shock, then a cold wind ripped through the room and the whirling flamelight faded from view.

Galaeron glanced around the room. “Where’s Malik?”

The little man stepped out of a shadowy corner, dagger clutched in his trembling hand. “Have no fear on my account.”

Galaeron motioned at the skull fragments. “Douse them well—and hold your breath.”

Malik did as he was asked, and the blessed water began to eat through the skull fragments, filling the room with an evil-smelling fume that troubled the little man not in the least. Everyone else withdrew to the tunnel and took turns gulping down fresh air. The bone fragments dissolved, mixing with the dust in a single muddy heap. Malik continued to pour, but no matter how much he stirred, the whole mess adhered together like bread dough. Finally, when no chips of the skull remained visible, Galaeron returned and prepared another

spell.

Melegaunt caught his arm. “Allow me.”

“If you’re not too weary, old man.” Galaeron was surprised to feel his lip curl into a disparaging sneer. “All you need do is dispel the magic.”

Melegaunt glowered at him. “I can manage. And 1 could have handled the forgetting magic as well.”

The archwizard muttered a few syllables and waved his hand. A purple shadow fell over the doughy mass, then the mud lost its cohesiveness and spread across the floor. Malik dropped the waterskin, and on the pretext of stooping to pick it up, deftly swept up the six brown-crusted gems that had been in the demilich’s mouth. Having no interest in the stones himself, Galaeron pretended not to notice.

Jhingleshod came to their side, then propped his axe on the floor and looked at his iron palm. When the gauntlet showed no sign of flaking or disintegrating, he turned to Galaeron.

“What next?”

“I don’t know.” Galaeron glanced around the chamber, searching in vain for some hint of a forgotten step. “The lich is gone.”

“What of its phylactery?” Malik quietly pocketed the gems. “I have heard it said that liches hide their life-forces in repositories—usually an item of great worth?”

“They do,” said Galaeron. “But not so with a demilich. They have abandoned their repositories for worlds beyond, and remain connected to Toril only through their remains.”

“Liar! Do you think your excuses can fool me?” There was a note of desperation in Jhingleshod’s voice. “Had you destroyed the lich, I would not be here now.”

“Unless we destroyed the wrong one,” said Galaeron, recalling the argument between Melegaunt and Jhingleshod over the lich’s true identity. “Malik, let me see those gems you took.”

“Gems?” asked the little man. “What gems are those?”

“These.”

Vala slipped an arm around Malik’s throat and used the other to pluck the brown nuggets from his pocket. Galaeron took them and carefully scraped the brown crust from their faces. He was down to the sixth, a deep ruby, before he found the inner light for which he had been searching. Returning the others to Malik, he displayed this one to his companions.

“The chronicles suggest that this will be an imprisoned spirit,” he said. “If we free it, perhaps it can help us.”

Melegaunt cast an impatient eye toward the tunnel. “How long?”

“Not as long as trying to defend yourself from my axe,” warned Jhingleshod.

“It will need a body,” said Galaeron. “Perhaps one of the undead?”

“1 can make a body for it,” said Melegaunt. “One that will be safer for it—and us.”

The archwizard took a piece of shadow silk from his cloak and laid it on Vala’s shoulder. Repeating a long incantation over and over, he began to knead the stuff with his fingers, spreading the dark substance over her, carefully covering her flanks, limbs, even her head and face. When he finally finished, Vala resembled a living, breathing sculpture of the blackest basalt.

Melegaunt took her hand and pulled. She emerged from the shadow as though from a dark corner, leaving a dark likeness as perfectly shaped as one of Aris’s sculptures.

“If the spirit is troublesome, we can dismiss it with a little light.”

Galaeron laid the gem next to the figure, then waved Jhingleshod over. “If you would smash it.”

“If this is one of your tricks….”

“By the shadow deep!” Melegaunt cursed. “We haven’t time for trickery.”

Melegaunt brought his heel down and ground the gem to powder. A crimson radiance flowed out from beneath his heel and began to climb his leg.

“Oh no, my friend!”

The archwizard plunged his foot into the body he had created, then sighed in relief as the luminescence melded into the shadow. A glossy sheen spread over the figure’s black flesh, then the eyes opened and stared at the ceiling. It raised a leg, and twisting it around at an impossible angle, studied its heel. Then, seemingly unaware of the arms hanging motionless at its side, did the same with the other leg—and crashed to the floor.

Galaeron rushed to its side. “We didn’t know what kind of creature you were.” He waved at the body. “We made this in our own fashion.”

The shadow sprouted a pair of eyes on the side of its head. “You did well. The color is right.”

Galaeron glanced at Melegaunt and found the wizard staring at the dark figure with a dropped jaw. When the elf looked back to the creature, it had wrapped its arms around its legs, and all four limbs were melding into the body.

“We were wondering if you could tell us …” Galaeron looked away. He could not quite keep from asking, “What are you?”

“A sharn.” It was Melegaunt who said this. “At least that is what I think.”

A smiling mouth appeared in the flank of the drop-shaped body “You think right, wizard.” Another mouth appeared on Galaeron’s side. “What is it you want to know? I am obviously in your debt.”

Galaeron was too stunned to answer, as was everyone except Jhingleshod.

“We would know who captured you, and whether he has been entirely destroyed.”

The sharn rose off the floor and floated toward the door. That was the lich Wulgreth, who took my soul when I came thinking to end his depredations against the empire.”

“Wulgreth?” echoed Jhingleshod. “Which Wulgreth?”

“The only Wulgreth that is a lich,” replied the sharn. “How many do you think there can be?”

Iron shoulders slumping, Jhingleshod whirled on Galaeron. “You have not destroyed him, not completely.”

“Wulgreth is completely destroyed,” said the sham, now struggling to squeeze itself into the exit tunnel. “Were that not so, I would not be free.”

Jhingleshod whirled on the sharn. “Liar! If Wulgreth were destroyed—”

“Jhingleshod, wait,” Galaeron said, stepping in front of the iron knight “You asked the wrong question.”

“Then ask the right one—and quickly” The sharn paused in the tunnel mouth, peering out from a bulbous extrusion that might or might not have been a head. “Grateful as I am, I hunger for better company than yours.”

“Which empire were you trying to protect?” Galaeron asked.

“Which empire?” The sharn withdrew completely into the tunnel. “Why, the only empire of course—unless you mean to include your quaint elven confederacies.”

“The Netherese Empire?” Galaeron pressed.

“The very one.” The sharn’s voice faded as it retreated up the passageway “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall return later to repay the favor you have done me.”

“Wait!” Melegaunt stepped forward, speaking in a language of strange syllables. When the sharn did not reply, he turned back to the others, shaking his head sadly “He doesn’t know. It’s all gone, and he doesn’t know.”