However, despite its terrible injury, the tapestry creature seemed far from dying. Moving with swift, gliding motions, it rose up to the ceiling, then over to a corner. A slight shower of life fluids spilled onto the floor below it.
"Are you all right, lad?"
"I will live. Thank you, Humbart."
The skull made a peculiar noise, like the rushing of air out of pursed lips. "Thank me when you've finished that abominable rug off!"
Zayl nodded. Raising the dagger toward the heavily breathing creature, he muttered another spell. Trag'Oul had helped him once; perhaps the great dragon would grant him one more boon.
A shower of bony projectiles roughly the size of the dagger formed from the air, shooting upward with astonishing swiftness.
The thing near the ceiling had no chance to move. Without mercy, the needle—sharp projectiles ripped through its hard hide. A rain of blood—or whatever equivalent the monster possessed—splattered the necromancer, the sanctum, and one cursing skull.
Now the creature keened, loud and ragged. It tried to flee, but Zayl had summoned the Den'Trag, the Teeth of the Dragon Trag'Oul, and they struck so hard that they pincushioned the struggling form to the wall and ceiling.
The movements of Zayl's adversary grew weaker, sporadic. The flow of life fluids slowed.
At last, the monster stilled.
"Zayl! Zayl!" called Humbart. "Gods! Wipe this slime off of me! I swear, even without a good, working nose, I can smell the stench!"
"Q—quiet, Humbart," the necromancer gasped. Summoning the aid of Trag'Oul twice had taken much out of him. Had he been more prepared, it would have not been so, but the initial assault by the beast had left him weakened even before the first spell.
As he tried to recoup his strength, Zayl eyed the vast array of specimens Gregus Mazi had collected over his life. The monster had been one small, seemingly dead sample among so many others. Did that mean that each of the sorcerer's collected rarities still had some life left in it? If so, Zayl gave thanks that none of the shelves had been disturbed or their contents accidentally sent shattering on the floor. The necromancer doubted that he would have long survived among a room filled with dozens of strange and dire creatures.
When his legs felt strong enough to trust, Zayl returned to where the skull lay. A thick layer of yellowish ichor covered most of what remained of the late Humbart Wessel. Taking the cleanest edge he could find on his cloak, the necromancer proceeded to wipe the skull as well as possible.
"Pfaugh! Sometimes I wish you'd left me to rot where you found me, boy!"
"You had already rotted away, Humbart," Zayl pointed out. Putting the skull on a clear part of the table, he looked around. Something on the wall to his right caught his attention. "Aaah."
"What? Not another of those beasts, is it?"
"No." The pale figure walked to what he had noticed. "Just a cloak, Humbart. Just a cloak."
A cloak once worn by Gregus Mazi.
Yet it was not the garment itself that so intrigued Zayl, but rather, what he could find upon it. Under the light of the dagger, he carefully searched.
There! With the utmost caution, the necromancer plucked two hairs from inside the collar region. Even better than clothing, strands of hair granted almost certain success when summoning a man's shade.
"You finally got what you want?"
"Yes. These will help us call the sorcerer forth."
"Fine! It'll be good to see old Gregus after all this time. Hope he's looking better than I am."
Surveying the chamber, Zayl noticed a wide, open area to the side of the entrance. As he neared, he saw that symbols had been etched into the floor there. How more appropriate—and likely helpful—than to summon the ghost of Gregus Mazi using the very focal point from which he had cast many of his own spells?
Muttering under his breath, the necromancer knelt and began to draw new patterns on the floor with the tip of his blade. As the point slowly drifted over the stone surface, it left in its wake the design Zayl wanted.
In the center of the new pattern, he placed the two hairs. Moving carefully so as not to disturb them, Zayl brought his free hand over, then, with the dagger, reopened one of the cuts he had suffered earlier.
The barely sealed cut bled freely. Three drops of crimson fell upon the hair.
A greenish smoke arose wherever the blood touched the follicles.
The necromancer began chanting. He uttered the name of Gregus Mazi, once, twice, and then a third time. Before him, the unsettling smoke swelled, and as it did, it took on a vaguely humanoid shape.
"I summon thee, Gregus Mazi!" Zayl called in the common tongue. "I conjure thee! Knowledge is needed, knowledge only you can supply! Come to me, Gregus Mazi! Let your shade walk the mortal plane a time more! Let it return to this place of your past! By that which was once a very part of your being, I summon you forth!"
Now the smoke stood nearly as tall as a man, and in it thereappeared what might have been a figure clad in robes. Zayl returned to chanting words of the Forgotten Language, the words that only spellcasters knew in this day and age.
But just as success seemed near, just as the figure began to solidify, everything went awry. The billowing smoke abruptly dwindled, shrinking and shrinking before the necromancer's startled eyes. All semblance of a humanoid form vanished. The hairs curled, burning away as if tossed into hungry flames.
"No!" Zayl breathed. He stretched a hand toward his two prizes, but before he could touch them, they shriveled, leaving only ash in their wake.
For several seconds, he knelt there, unable to do anything but stare at his failure. Only when Humbart finally spoke did the necromancer stir and rise.
"So… what happened there, lad?"
Still eyeing the pattern and the dust that had once been hair, Zayl shook his head. "I don't—"
He stopped, suddenly looking off into the darkness.
"Zayl?"
"I do know why it failed now, Humbart," the necromancer responded, still staring at nothing. "It never had a chance to succeed. From the first, it was doomed, and I never realized it!"
"Would you mind speaking in less mystifying statements, lad?" the skull asked somewhat petulantly. "And explain for us mere former mortals?"
Zayl turned, eyes wide with understanding. "It is very simple, Humbart. There is one and one reason alone that would make this and any other summoning of Gregus Mazi a futile gesture: he still lives!"
TEN
If anything, Quov Tsin had grown more unsettling, more unnerving, by the time Captain Dumon next visited him. An empty mug and a small bowl of half—eaten food sat to the side of where he feverishly scribbled notes. His withered features had become more pronounced, as happened only in the dead as the flesh dried away, and he looked even more pale than the necromancer. Now the Vizjerei did not just mumble to himself; he spoke out in a loud, demanding tone.
"Of course, the sign of Broka would be inherently necessary there! Any cretin could see that! Ha!"
Before entering, Kentril questioned Gorst, who leaned against the wall just outside the library. "What sort of state is he in?"
The giant had always been untouched by Tsin's acerbic personality, but now Gorst wore a rare look of concern and uncertainty. "He's bad, Kentril. He drank a little, ate even less. He don't even sleep, I think."