Richard Byers - Prophet of the Dead

She fancied that she managed to stay vigilant. Still, several paces into the graveyard, it was Cera, a sworn foe of the undead possessed of a certain intuitive sensitivity to their presence, who suddenly stopped short. She didn’t cry a warning, though. That would have undercut the pretense that she and Jhesrhi were no longer on the same side.

Their flowing, inconstant forms lending a deceptive appearance of slowness to their movements, seven luminous bluish phantoms sprang from the tombs nearest the two women to surround them. Jhesrhi spoke words of power, and a circle of flame leaped up around her and Cera.

She sensed that if she chose, she could make the ring expand and sweep over the sentries. In fact, it took willpower to resist the impulse. Both sides of her nature wanted to succumb-the fire because it lived to burn whatever it could, and the human because the apparitions were menacing and vile.

Still, resist she did. “I don’t want to fight. I want to talk to your leader. As a show of good faith, I brought you a present.”

On the final word, she gave Cera a prod with her burning staff. With luck, it looked like she didn’t even care if she set the priestess on fire, although in reality, her control over the flames kept Cera’s garments from catching.

The seven transparent, wavering sentries moaned and whispered an answer in unison. They must actually be a single entity, a doomsept. “Give her to us, then.”

“I’ll hand her over when I talk to Lod. Is that all right? If not, I can burn you up like I already burned up many of your comrades, then vanish away to safety like before.”

The doomsept thought it over for a moment. Then the seven phantoms said, “Come.”

Jhesrhi dispelled the circle of flame with a sweep of her staff and gave Cera another jab in the back with it, and they followed the apparitions deeper into the graveyard.

As they proceeded toward the central path, loping ghouls and skeletons with glowing eye sockets joined the procession. Maybe the stinking things were curious, or perhaps they wanted to be in striking distance in case it turned out that Jhesrhi had actually returned to renew hostilities. Either way, there were soon enough of them to make retreat problematic if not impossible.

Still, peering around to assess the state of their expedition as best she could, Jhesrhi noted with satisfaction that there weren’t as many as there used to be. With her aid and Cera’s, Sarshethrian had done considerable harm to the Eminence’s forces even though he’d lost the battle in the end.

Still, like mortal soldiers in the wake of a battle, some of the undead that had suffered harm were merely wounded, not destroyed. To facilitate their recovery, creatures with necromantic skills brought pools of black liquid malignancy bubbling up from the graveyard earth; their fellow horrors either drank from them or splashed the foulness on their injuries. Meanwhile, Lod had sacrificed the surviving cart slaves to restore burned and mangled vampires, and the gaunt, naked mortals shivered and twitched as two or three blood drinkers battened on each.

Except for the damage to his charred and tattered robe, Lod himself was intact again already, every broken human-looking bone back in place and the burns and gashes in the long scaly tail erased. He sat coiled in the bed of his wagon, the better, perhaps, to oversee his company as it dealt with the aftermath of combat.

He cocked his fleshless skull of a head as he peered down at Jhesrhi and Cera. “The two of you fought well today. Too well to expect anything but vengeance if you fell into our hands.”

Jhesrhi gave Cera a poke with the staff. “This one deserves it. She fought of her own free will. I didn’t.” She proceeded to tell the tale the sunlady had concocted.

When she finished, Lod simply stared down at her for a while. A wizard’s instincts warned her he was using some occult means of perception in an attempt to examine her essence. I’m fire, she told herself, fire, ready to incinerate any dead, filthy thing that displeases me, and she gazed back at him unflinchingly.

At last he said, “You don’t look exactly like an elemental.” And all around her, anticipating that he was about to give the order to attack, direhelms, zombies, and wraiths gathered themselves to lunge and pounce.

“I admit,” Jhesrhi said. “My mother was human. But she burned to death giving birth to me, and afterward, my efreet father took me to raise. He taught me to hate the cold, wet, mortal part of me, and with his help, I reforged it into something stronger.”

“Congratulations,” Lod replied, a note of irony in his slightly sibilant voice. “Undead too, occasionally have to work to slough off clinging vestiges of the lesser beings we started out as. But that doesn’t change the fact that fire and our kind are natural enemies.”

“Sharp steel harms living warriors,” Jhesrhi answered. “That doesn’t stop them from wielding axes and swords, and in my time, I’ve known liches and the ghosts of mages to wield flame. I’d wager you yourself have a fire spell or two in reserve for when fire is exactly the right weapon for the occasion. If not, you’re a fool.”

The bone naga chuckled. “Perhaps I do at that. Yet even if so, should I trust living, thinking fire not to betray me?”

“I don’t deny I view your kind with distaste. But my current predicament obliges me to overlook that. Does my gift do nothing to prove my sincerity? The clerics of Amaunator stand in opposition to your kind more than any fire spirit ever could.”

Lod’s lower body shifted position, the coils sliding. “It is a nice gesture. Under other circumstances, I’d punish the woman properly to avenge those who burned when she called the daylight. But important matters await my attention in Rashemen, so I suppose we only have time for a little torture before the kill.” Swaying, he leaned out over the edge of the cart to scrutinize Jhesrhi even more closely. “That is what you expected, isn’t it?”

Be fire, Jhesrhi reminded herself, and when she replied, her voice was steady. “Do what you please. It doesn’t matter to me. But I don’t know how detailed your knowledge of affairs in Faerun is. Your prisoner is Cera Eurthos. She’s the lover of Aoth Fezim, a sellsword captain hired to fight your forces. She’s also one of the principal candidates for the head of the church of the Yellow Sun in the land of Chessenta. You might find she’s more useful to you alive.”

“Hm. That does seem possible. And I confess, I know little about gods and divine magic and such, and I need to remedy that. Perhaps a priestess can instruct me.”

“No,” Cera said. “I won’t help you in any way.”

“Oh, I trust you will,” Lod said, “starting right now.” He turned to the vampires, who, Jhesrhi now observed, had at some point risen from the drained, lifeless bodies of the slaves. “Who’s still thirsty?”

Leering, mouths smeared with red, three of the pallid undead started forward. Cera stepped back, drew breath, and raised her hand to what, in a sane, living world, would have been a sky. She had, Jhesrhi knew, intended to play the helpless prisoner whatever transpired, but the threat of the vampires’ attentions was so repellent that instinct had taken over.

Lod spoke a word of chastisement, and even though Jhesrhi wasn’t the target, it made her body feel as if it were vibrating. Cera cried out and fell to her knees.

The vampires closed with her an instant later and threw her down on her back. Their white fingers ripped away mail and the leather underneath to expose flesh. Then the creatures bent down and bit.

“Try not to kill her,” said Lod. Swaying, he alternated between watching his followers feed and watching Jhesrhi.