Ричард Кнаак - The Veiled Prophet

He cut her off, his expression darkening. “Uldyssian has been taken.”

Cyrus’s daughter was startled. “Did you feel something, too? How do you know? What exactly do you mean?”

“Calm yourself. Here is what I know. The caravan was attacked by foul magic. All were slain but him. He was the one sought by the spellcaster.”

The news was even more terrible than she could have imagined. “When did you find all of this out?” Serenthia repeated. “I only just felt danger now!”

With a shrug, Mendeln replied, “Master Fahin told me.”

The chill that she sometimes got around the younger brother returned. “Master—Master Fahin, too?”

“All…all save Uldyssian.”

“And he? Is it the mage clans who have him?”

He drew himself up, a sign that he was not comfortable with what he knew. “One of them, at least. There were also men who perished who nominally served the spellcaster.”

This brought some slight pleasure to Serenthia. “So, not all the scoundrels escaped retribution.”

“They, too, were slaughtered by Uldyssian’s captor.”

“But that makes no sense!”

Mendeln shook his head. “Unfortunately, it does make sense, which is why I was just about to dismiss the others, anyway, and seek you out.”

She tried to think. Something had to be done and done quickly. “Do you know where Uldyssian was taken?”

“He is in the city. The mage is an individual of some high ability who calls himself Zorun Tzin. That is all I was able to find out. The spirits know nothing more, for they came immediately to me.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do they keep coming to you?” Serenthia asked with mounting frustration.

“Because it is so,” Mendeln returned with another shrug.

Serenthia surrendered. All that actually mattered now was rescuing Uldyssian…if it was not already too late. “He’s been taken to the capital, you say.”

“Yes, likely to the abode of this Zorun Tzin, whose location even the shades of the guards do not know.”

She had expected that. Serenthia also knew that they could not very well go and request that the mage clans return their leader. Somehow the merchant’s daughter felt certain that Uldyssian would “vanish” to somewhere even more impossible to find.

“We have to go to the city,” Serenthia determined. “That much I know.”

“Yes, but may I point out that if we depart, the others are surely going to follow?” Mendeln gestured toward the rest of the encampment. “Even now, I suspect some of them, such as Saron, are beginning to feel the same uneasiness you did.”

“Good! We’ll tell them what you told me, and then we’ll all march on Kehjan. Make the mage clans or whoever else is in charge find him, or else. All Uldyssian wanted to do was speak with them, and this is how they treat him!”

“They will see such numbers as a threat to the capital, Serenthia. They will see it as an attack.”

She was undeterred. “It may very well be one if they don’t return him to us safe and sound! Is that so wrong? Would you do less for him?”

Uldyssian’s brother let out a great sigh. “No, though I wish the options presented to us were different. We will do as you suggest.”

“Good!” Serenthia turned from him. “In that case, we’d better waste no time in alerting the rest.”

She left Mendeln in her wake, at the same time shouting out Saron’s and Jonas’s names. Mendeln watched her for a moment and then, with a shake of his head, reluctantly followed.

“This will not be good,” he muttered under his breath. “This will not be good…”

It was Malic…the same Malic who had callously and horrifically had the lord of Partha and his young son stripped of their flesh so that he and one of his morlu could use the skins for trappings in order to fool Uldyssian. Malic, who served the order of Mefis—in reality, the demon Mephisto. Malic, who had been the right hand of Lucion, the terrifying master of the Triune.

And though Malic had suffered some justice when he had inadvertently attacked Lilith in her guise as Lylia—and thus perished as Ethon and his son had—the high priest had returned as a spirit bound to a bit of bone procured by Mendeln. At the time, Mendeln had utilized it to help them against Lilith, for she was the one thing that Malic hated more than Uldyssian. The spirit had done his task as commanded, guiding Uldyssian through the dangers of the main temple.

However, there had come a point in one corridor when Malic’s specter had commanded Uldyssian to throw the bone fragment. Accepting that there had to be a good reason, he had obeyed. A moment later, the piece had struck hard the forehead of a priest—Durram his name.

Circumstance and Lilith had forced Uldyssian to abandon any attempt to retrieve the bone fragment, and he had assumed it and Malic’s dread shade lost in the collapse of the temple. Now Uldyssian saw that he had been very, tragically, wrong.

And that mistake was going to mean oblivion for him, and his body and powers serving a man who was pure evil.

“We—or, rather, I—will be long gone from here by the time that fool Zorun can dare return. It was easy to sow holes in a story so full of holes already. I have manipulated his thoughts all along since taking this giant’s body, building on his own vanity. That he would imagine his paltry power the reason for capturing you so easily! He was only able to do it because I, who know you so very well, my old friend, provided the true effort. I knew the chinks in your armor and played upon them.” The face of Terul lit up in amusement. “And it all went so well that even I was astounded!”

Uldyssian listened. It was the only thing he could do, and it was his only tool. Malic insisted that time was on his side, but the more his prisoner appeared to pay attention, the more the high priest went on and on, like Zorun Tzin, so very proud of himself.

It was a danger of wielding such powerful skills, Uldyssian knew. He himself had already fallen prey to his ego more than once, and perhaps the fatal journey with the unfortunate Master Fahin was a grim reminder of that. Again, Uldyssian had believed himself infallible, untouchable. He had everything planned perfectly…or so he had thought. It now seemed so audacious, so ridiculous, to have assumed that he could just walk into the capital of the eastern half of the world and demand the right to speak with its leaders without fear of treachery or repercussions.

“Yes, I shall be able to make use of your body much, much better.” Terul—no, Malic—clutched the fragment tight as he stepped toward Uldyssian. The giant’s grin grew exceedingly sinister. “Now, is there anything you might like to confess, my son, before I grant you absolute oblivion?”

Uldyssian struggled to clear his head but feared it was too late. Malic’s alterations of the mage’s spell had done nothing so far to weaken its hold on him. True, that had been a desperate hope at best, but it had also been Uldyssian’s only hope.

“Nothing? Well, we shall begin, then.” Malic touched the piece of crystal to Uldyssian’s chest. The high priest quietly started to chant—

And at that moment, a warmth spread from the stone into Uldyssian. At first, he thought it part of the priest’s spell, but then the haze that prevented him from concentrating began to clear. His strength returned…

But the change in him did not go unnoticed. Malic’s brow furrowed. “What are—?”

The spirit got no farther. Just as he had while in the jungle with Mendeln, Uldyssian let raw emotion take hold. There was no time to do otherwise.

A furious orange glow erupted from his chest where the fragment touched.

The giant let out a howl as the fiery force burned away his skin, his sinew, and all beneath. The grotesque face became more so as the ravaging energies tore away Malic’s lips and eyelids. Then the eyes melted to empty sockets, and the jaw fell slack.