Barb Hendee - Sister of the Dead

Magiere's dhampir half rose enough that her senses expanded. She saw the masked man's chest rise and fall beneath the robe and felt his slight heat. He was alive and mortal for all she could tell.

"You are Ubad?" she asked.

"One of my names," he answered, ending in a slur than made his voice hiss.

"I have questions," Magiere said coldly. "I'm told you have answers."

"Yes. And I've longed to tell them to you for many years. " Ubad faced his visitors and raised a leather-colored hand to point at Magiere. "Perfect. Your hair, flesh, power. Day combined with night, the living and the dead."

"Get to your answers, old man," Leesil snapped. "I think you know the questions already."

A cluster of ghosts appeared instantly around them. The soldier with the stomach wound hovered near Leesil.

"You're here on the whim of this thing… this oppressor," Ubad said to Leesil, pointing to Chap. "I can do little about that, but you are nothing to me. Keep your tongue-or I'll keep it for you."

"Don't," Magiere whispered, and flattened her free hand against Leesil's chest. "It's all right."

She caught sight of Wynn hiding behind Leesil. The sage peered out with wide eyes, still holding her cold lamp, but she looked at Vordana rather than the masked old man. It troubled Magiere that Vordana, who showed all signs of succumbing to decay, had not been destroyed as Wynn had thought.

"How is he still standing?" Magiere asked of Ubad, nodding in the dead sorcerer's direction.

Ubad swept a hand toward the spirits surrounding Magiere and the others. "I conjure the dead into my service and have learned much in my life's work. Vordana is loyal… and useful. He called upon me for help, and I preserved him."

"And if I severed his head right now," Magiere asked, "would he still be useful?"

Vordana shifted, his robe rustling around him. He, at least, was unnerved by her suggestion or uncertain what the result would be. It was more difficult to gauge Ubad's reaction beneath the mask, but his wrinkled lips tightened.

"Did you come to discuss the welfare of my servants?" he asked, waiting briefly for an answer and continuing when none came. "How did you find me? Vordana only recently learned of your return to this land."

Magiere felt no obligation to answer any of Ubad's questions, but in this matter, she had sworn on Leesil's life. "Osceline sent us."

My apprentice? Vordana's voice filled Magiere's head. It appeared Osceline was as firmly connected to Vordana as to her Master Ubad.

"Unexpected," Ubad said, ignoring his servant's outburst. "But we have much to discuss, and I have much to show you."

"Who is my father?" she asked. "Is it Welstiel Massing?"

'Too fast, too far," Ubad answered with a shake of his head, and he turned to glide toward the stone slab in the cavern's center. His robe neither twisted nor rustled with his movement. "I'll show you, and afterward, you will thank me for dispelling this false front you wear. You have a far better purpose to fulfill."

"Answer me, and it had better ring true," Magiere said. "I've no interest or trust in your twisted tales of my past."

He stopped, his back still to her. "Would you trust your mother?"

Magiere's stomach lurched. "You can't fool me with some delusion. Your corpse servant already tried that."

"You misunderstand me," Ubad replied. "I am no trickster of sorcery. I work with the dead, who are the past… and sometimes the future. The past is what leads us into the future, and you might ask your little sage and dog about that. Come here, child. Here is your past."

He gripped the edge of the white satin cloth and jerked it away.

Lying upon the granite slab were carefully arranged bones, almost as white as the cloth on which they lay. The skull was set upon its jaw at the far right and appeared polished and cared for like a valued possession. The skeleton was human, the bones slender.

Magiere stopped breathing.

Chap lunged forward, snapping and growling. As he passed through the spirits directly in his path, he flinched away from the contact. He turned again toward Ubad as he circled to the cavern's right side.

"No… no," Wynn whispered.

Ubad gave Chap no notice, but Vordana focused upon the dog. Magiere heard a resonating chant fill her mind as the sorcerer fixed his gaze upon Chap. Before she could take a step, Chap backstepped twice, and his growl cut short. He shook himself sharply and leaped, landing a few paces from Vordana, and let out a vicious series of snapping barks.

Vordana didn't retreat, but Magiere saw him recoil, and his chanting ceased.

"No advantage of surprise this time," Leesil said. "It seems that won't work on him again."

Magiere stared at the bones upon the granite slab.

"It's not her," she said. "In my childhood, I visited the grave where my aunt buried her."

"Draw on your awareness," Ubad challenged. 'Touch the bones, and see for yourself."

"She didn't die here. It won't work that way, and I think you know mat," she rasped, anger feeding her frustration.

Ubad shook his head with a shallow sigh. "This is not the same. She is your relation, your blood… bones of your bones. Touch her and see."

Unable to look away, Magiere took a step forward. Leesil grabbed her arm. "It's a trick," he said. "And even if not, I told you in the graveyard. You don't want to see this. You don't want to see her die in your hands."

The air about Magiere whipped sharply, tossing her hair, and the soldier spirit lashed out at Leesil.

Its translucent fist struck his temple and passed through his skull. Leesil buckled, eyes rolling up as the frenzy grew around Magiere.

Spirits circled them, never touching her, but moving like wind-ripped trails of mist that dove at Leesil. Wynn backed toward the passage as she was struck, two blurred streaks in the air piercing through her chest. The sage crumpled to the cavern floor without even a whimper, and the cold lamp tumbled from her hands.

"Ubad…" Leesil groaned.

He clung to Magiere's arm but dropped his blades. Magiere spun about, putting herself between him and the withered old man. She pulled Leesil close with her free hand, trying to shield him with her own body. She heard Wynn cry out in pain. Leesil pulled a stiletto from his wrist sheath and held it by its blade between them, where no one else could see.

In her confusion, Magiere looked into his amber eyes, and he whispered to her. "Get to Ubad!"

Leesil shoved her back and raised the stiletto. When he threw the blade, Magiere understood.

She turned and charged, following the blade's path through the air.

The stiletto tumbled toward Ubad's mask, but the old man didn't move. Magiere saw Vordana in the side of her view as the sorcerer raised a hand in panic.

The stiletto froze in the air a hand's length from Ubad's face.

Magiere closed on him, falchion swinging out. Vordana rushed in from her side, the topaz amulet in his hand, and then he stumbled as growls filled the air.

Vordana fell back out of Magiere's sight, and the stiletto dropped with a muffled thud to the cavern's floor. Magiere heard Chap's snapping jaws and knew the undead sorcerer was well occupied. She stood perfectly still, the end curve of her sword slipped into Ubad's cowl and pressed against his throat.

"Call off your dead," she demanded. "Or you can join them even quicker."

Ubad neither gestured nor spoke.

Chap's snarls lessened, and the sound of Vordana thrashing upon the ground faded.

"Leesil?" she called out, keeping her eyes upon her prisoner, but no answer came. "Leesil!"

"I'm all right," he said from behind her, and she heard his ragged breath drawing close.

"And Wynn?"

A pause followed before he answered. "She's up again."