Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

But until it was well advanced, the ongoing subversion would be a powerful yet vulnerable strategy, relatively easy to thwart if a foe discovered what was going on. Concerned that Yhelbruna might accomplish precisely that, Nyevarra had sought to remove her from the lanceboard. Unfortunately, the botched attack had almost certainly made the hathran even more curious about what had happened in the north and more wary where her own safety was concerned. A second murder attempt was almost certain to fail.

Yet Nyevarra still needed to ensure the success of her plan, and if she couldn’t do it by arranging the death of an old enemy, she needed to get at someone else at the very heart of power. She winged her way to the Iron Lord’s castle and flowed and swelled back into human form atop the flat, snowy roof of the central keep.

Then, setting her staff aside, she climbed down the granite wall headfirst toward a certain row of narrow, shuttered windows. Mangan Uruk’s apartments lay behind them.

As best she could determine at a glance, nothing protected the openings except the iron shutters themselves. But instinct told her not to trust that first impression. She whispered an invocation to fey with a knack for revelation, pledging tribute in the form of the plucked eyes of five mortals if her allies would only see fit to open her own.

Sigils-Chauntea’s roses, sheaves, and scythes; Mielikki’s unicorn head; Selune’s moon in all its phases; and a number of others-flared into radiant golden life atop the black metal rectangles, and Nyevarra flinched. Had she tried to pass them, they would have reduced her to nonexistence because, although the defensive magic infusing them would have inconvenienced any dark fey, wicked spirit, or fiend, its particular target was the undead.

Nyevarra supposed some cautious witch had placed the wards here when Uramar and Falconer had started feeling out Rashemen’s defenses by the straightforward method of marauding. She recited a counterspell to scour the metal clean, but the signs shined on as brightly as before.

Maybe Yhelbruna herself had emplaced the protections before her power began to attenuate. The wretched things were certainly virulent enough to represent the elder hathran at her best, which was to say, strong enough that Nyevarra doubted her own ability to dissolve them in a reasonable amount of time.

That meant Nyevarra had to outfox their maker. She had to do or be what that witch hadn’t had the foresight to guard against, and in fact, that might be possible.

She and Uramar had encountered a demon called an ekolid in a Nar tomb complex, and when she’d drunk some of the creature’s blood, she’d nearly turned into something resembling an ekolid herself. The blaspheme had saved her from that fate, but the infection, if that was the proper term, still lay dormant inside her. She knew because she was sometimes a demon in her dreams.

If she could rouse that potentiality without permitting it to overwhelm her essential identity, Mangan Uruk’s protections might not recognize her as undead. She might be able to wriggle past them.

She murmured charms to bolster her will and sense of self. Then she reached inside her psyche to the strangeness imprinted there. You want to be me, she thought. I invite you to try. Come steal me if you can.

Her head filled with the droning of wings and a sense of unspeakable vileness. The buzzing told her the only escape from the foulness was to become it.

Her skull ached as, grinding, it changed shape. Her vision altered as new eyes popped into existence. Serrated mandibles protruded above them.

“No,” she gritted. “I am Nyevarra, a witch of Rashemen. You, creature, are a wart. A scar. Just a tiny blemish I picked up along the way.”

By degrees, her body reverted to its normal state. She realized she’d started growing membranous wings when they retracted into her back.

All right, she thought. She’d subdued the ekolid, but its taint was still wakeful; it made her feel feverish and lent a surreal quality to her perceptions. She didn’t know if it was wakeful enough to fool the sigils, but she was going to find out.

She melted into mist. The fluidity of shapeshifting encouraged the ekolid to make another try to impose its guise on her fundamental nature, and she wrestled it into submission once again. Then she flowed into the crack where a shutter met the wall.

Agony ripped through her as though the Great Mother’s scythe, the Forest Queen’s scimitar, and the Moonmaiden’s mace were slashing and pounding her all at once. The torment went on and on, threatening to eclipse awareness of everything else, even the reason for it and the only way to bring it to an end.

But Nyevarra refused to lose cognizance of those truths. Even with torture addling her, she kept writhing forward for what felt like tendays of effort.

Finally, the last trailing curl of mist floated clear of the window. Congealing into solidity again, she thumped down on the floor, lay shuddering, and waited for the residual pain to fade and her strength to return.

Then came the soft, short rasping sound of someone hastily drawing a blade. Startled, Nyevarra looked up.

She’d felt like it was taking an eternity to enter the chamber, and plainly, it really had taken longer than anticipated. For the Iron Lord had had time to abandon the pursuit of Mario Bez and return to his quarters while she was working on it.

Even sitting in the dark, Cera could feel Jhesrhi give her a sour look. Perhaps before attempting to lighten the mood, she should have remembered that the sellsword, for all her good qualities, mostly lacked a sense of humor. A flaw no doubt exacerbated by the fact that at the moment, there truly wasn’t much of anything to laugh about.

“With Sarshethrian dead,” Jhesrhi said, “we’re back where we started: trapped.”

“Could we spy on Lod and his creatures?” Cera asked. “Just watch and see how they open a door into Rashemen?”

“We’ll have to try if we can’t think of a better plan,” the wizard replied. “But it won’t be easy. The undead know we survived. They’ll be on the lookout for us. And what if we need to be up close to really see how to control the arches?”

Cera shifted uncomfortably on the hard stone surface beneath her, removed her helmet, and ran her fingers through her sweaty, tangled curls. “Maybe,” she said reluctantly, “I do know another way.”

“Tell me.”

“Let’s say I’m a sunlady who allied herself with Sarshethrian because even that was better than letting the undead overrun Rashemen.”

“You are, give or take.”

Cera smiled for an instant. “Yes, but bear with me. I’m a sunlady. You , however, are a fire spirit Sarshethrian bound into his service, and when he died, you regained your freedom. Now you want to escape the deathways, and Lod’s the one who can let you out. In exchange, you’ll help him conquer Rashemen. Ordinary mortals, after all, are nothing to you. To prove your good faith, you’ll give him the prisoner you captured: me.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“For one thing, I’m plainly a human being, not an elemental.”

Cera took a moment to choose her next words carefully. “Of course you’re human, but since you stole Tchazzar’s might, you’re also … special. Why do you think the stag men gave you their allegiance? Because they were fey, and you looked like a mighty fey or spirit to them.”

“I … it doesn’t matter. Because the scheme would also require me to deceive Lod, and I’m a bad liar.”

“How long did you keep Tchazzar beguiled?”

“He was mad and blind with, well, lust .” Jhesrhi’s emphasis bespoke her revulsion. “The bone naga won’t be.”