Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

“Interesting,” he said. “Everything else in the house is as handsomely and carefully made as one would expect. But someone in a hurry both sealed and defaced this door, and no one since has seen fit either to breach the seal or even repair the damage to the finish. I wonder why.”

Orgurth grunted. “Break in and find out. At least it’ll make a change from ransacking bedchambers.”

Aoth recited his spell of opening. The glow of the ward didn’t so much as flicker, and when he pushed on the doors, they didn’t budge.

Footsteps thumped and voices echoed up the stairwell. When the folk ascending reached the second floor, they could easily glance down the hallway and see two figures lurking in front of a forbidden room where humble soldiers had no business.

The prudent course might be to hide and come back later. But Aoth suspected he might finally be on the brink of gaining access to something useful, and he was reluctant to turn away.

For after all, even hiding was no guarantee of safety. The chapterhouse was crawling with enemies who could stumble across him and Orgurth at any moment, no matter where they went to ground.

He jammed the point of his spear into the crack between the doors and, with a muttered word of command, charged the weapon with raw, destructive force. Then, using the spear like a pry bar, he threw his weight against the shaft.

Overwhelmed by the opposing power, the glow in the carved ward winked out of existence, and the doors lurched apart. Unfortunately, they did so with a cracking sound.

Aoth and Orgurth scrambled through, pulled the doors shut after them, and stood with weapons ready to attack anyone who followed them in. But nobody did, nor did Aoth detect voices raised in alarm. If the folk on the staircase had even heard the doors snap open, they must not have thought anything about it.

When he was satisfied such was the case, he turned to see what was behind him. His eyes widened.

Inlaid in the center of the floor was a detailed map of Faerun surrounded by a complex circular design. Their maker had no doubt fashioned each precisely, but later on, the floor had rippled and flowed, stretching, bending, and breaking the shapes and lines.

By the looks of it, the distorting effect had originated in the center of the map and spread outward. It hadn’t quite reached the painted text on the left wall or the stained-glass window in the back one. Dull with night, the latter depicted a Red Wizard flying with the aid of silver wings.

“Do you know what we’re looking at?” Orgurth asked.

“I think so,” Aoth replied. “In its day, the discipline of conjuration encompassed shifting oneself through space, and the Conjurors who occupied this chapterhouse created a portal for the purpose. But when the Spellplague struck, Blue Fire must have erupted through this gate, as it did so many-I recognize the warping effect-and someone sealed the room for safety’s sake. Later, folk saw the hurried warning he scratched as a piece of history, and that’s why-”

“Why they left it. I understand. But are you saying we found what we need?”

“Maybe. The Blue Fire isn’t burning in here anymore, the system of battle magic I studied involves quite a bit of conjuration, and the instructions for using the gate are there on the wall. All those things are good.

“But I was never a Conjuror or privy to the craft secrets of any order of Red Wizardry,” Aoth continued. “Magic itself has changed since the time the portal was made, the geography of Faerun has changed, and you can see for yourself how the Blue Fire damaged the design. Those things are bad.”

Orgurth grunted. “But you’re going to try to take us through, anyway.”

“It’s the best chance we’ve found so far. Keep watch.”

The triggering incantation seemed relatively straightforward. Unfortunately, the instructions for the mystic passes meant to accompany the recitation were vaguer, although it was possible a member of the Order of Conjuration wouldn’t have found them so.

Aoth made his best guess at what the author had intended to convey. He considered too, what embellishments he might add to reinforce the spell and so compensate for the damage to the design. Such improvisation added to the risk that translation might not just fail to work at all but go somehow horribly awry, but in his judgment, it was necessary.

When he felt ready, Aoth faced the portal. He thrust his spear at the ceiling and said, “The world is thought. I turn it in my mind and bring the Fortress of the Half-Demon-”

Clinking and chiming, the stained-glass window climbed down from its frame. In the process, its component pieces shifted, turning it into a flat but roughly manlike shape by the time it reached the bumpy floor. It raised hands with the fingers aligned for cutting and slicing and, still tinkling, started forward.

Aoth had never encountered such a creation before but took it for some manner of golem. Presumably the Conjurors had stationed it here to keep intruders like him from using their precious portal, and one had to give a password or some such to keep it quiescent.

He wished he’d noticed it before. But in its previous shape, it had looked exactly like any ordinary stained-glass window, and perhaps because it had stood dormant for so long, it hadn’t had even a hint of power gleaming inside it. In the face of such perfect camouflage, even truesight sometimes failed.

Hoping to melt the oncoming construct without making too much noise, Aoth hurled a burst of fire from his spear point that made Orgurth cry out and jump away. The golem, however, advanced through the flare without even faltering. For the moment it lasted, the fire simply brought the colors of the figure’s component pieces to vivid, glittering life.

The golem raked with a spindly arm, and Aoth caught the stroke on his targe. The impact made a cracking noise, but to his disappointment, the claws didn’t break off.

Meanwhile, Orgurth circled behind the golem and swung his scimitar at its leg. That produced a similar glassy clashing sound but didn’t damage the guardian either.

Aoth blocked another slash of the figure’s talons and riposted with a jab to its torso. His spear popped a trapezoidal piece of crimson glass out of the matrix. But when he snatched the weapon back from the hole he’d made, the surrounding segments shifted to seal it, and the golem kept attacking as relentlessly as before.

Aoth faked left, dodged right, and retreated toward the empty window frame, which had cold air blowing through it. The maneuver flummoxed the golem for only an instant before it turned and pursued, but it gained him enough time and distance to attempt another spell.

He rattled off words of power, and a whine shrilled from the head of his spear. Orgurth’s face twisted in discomfort even though he wasn’t the target of the focused noise.

The golem’s body rattled, and it staggered. Some of its component pieces cracked, while others shattered. When the howl died, though, it was still standing, and more motion ran through it as, once again, the remaining bits drew together to close its wounds.

Orgurth cut at the golem’s flank. Still indifferent if not oblivious to the orc’s attacks, the glass figure kept pursuing the mage who’d roused it. When it caught up, it raked with both hands at the same time.

Aoth caught one attack on his shield and sent it glancing harmlessly away. He also sought to simultaneously deflect the golem’s other set of talons with his spear arm and drive home a thrust.

The glass claws skipped along the links of his mail shirt, snagged, tore through, and sliced into his forearm. But at the same instant, the spear punched through what might by default be deemed the construct’s face.