"Behind you," Fannah warned him. "I hear something."
He turned in time to see the Mysterious Lurker staggering toward him with his hands extended.
Steorf was becoming tired, and his reflexes were too slow. Before he could bring up his sword, the old priest wrapped his large hands around Steorf's throat. He dropped his sword and tried to claw the Lurker's fingers away, but to no avail. The Lurker's grip was like steel, and Steorf started to hear his own blood pound in his ears, and small patches of black danced in the corners of his vision.
The undead Lurker's eyeless face remained emotionless as he swung Steorf around by his throat and bent the young mage backward toward the brazier as though he wanted revenge for his burned comrades-in-rags.
Tazi carefully started down the stairs, not knowing where the necromancer might be in the darkness. He must have hidden himself somewhere, she reasoned, since Steorf and Fannah hadn't seen him along the stairs. She slid with her back against the stone wall, smearing Ciredor's graffiti with her leathers. After she had gone down a few steps, she paused and listened. She thought she heard a whisper.
At the third level, Tazi stopped her descent and cautiously peered around a corner. She was certain she'd heard was a low, melodic whisper and that it came from that floor. She gripped her sword with both hands and walked sideways, using the walls as shields whenever she could.
Unlike the east tower, this floor was not empty. She could see that Ciredor had transformed this level into a den of luxury, not unlike how he had kept his secret rooms in Selgaunt. There was a decadence to his selections.
As Tazi turned a corner, she could feel velvet drapes on the walls. He had lined the entire room with the sumptuous fabric and blotted out all the exterior light. Furs were thrown haphazardly on the floor, and she secretly thanked him for his opulent taste. Everything was so well padded, there was no way he could hear her approach.
Nestled in the center of a pile of large pillows, Ciredor was sitting with his legs crossed, but Tazi could see that his heels rested on top of the opposite thighs. She had seen Cale assume the pose once when she had caught him deep in his meditations. She realized that Ciredor, who had his back to her, was not actually sitting on the pillows but floated a few feet above them. She thought she caught a glimpse of the purple gem twinkling just in front of him.
He's mesmerized by the thing, she thought. He doesn't even hear me coming.
Tazi padded closer, holding her breath. She moved her blade back and prepared to slice his head off.
"But I do hear your heart beating," he spoke aloud and rotated around to face her.
A flash of green burst from his finger, and Tazi was knocked across the room to slam against the wall. She crumpled in a heap, and Ciredor unfolded his legs and stood to his full height.
"I always hear your heart, sweet Thazienne." He moved over to her, the gem winking in the candlelight behind him.
Steorf was nearly unconscious as the Lurker began to lower his head toward the flames. The first strands of his blond hair touched the fire and the smell of his own burning body snapped Steorf back to awareness. He tried chopping his hands down on the Lurker, but the mummy was unfazed by the blows. Steorf couldn't think of anything else to try and vaguely wondered what had happened to Fannah. He dropped his arms behind his head to strike the Lurker one more time when one of his fingertips brushed a rod of some kind.
Nearly unconscious, Steorf wrapped his fingers around the object and realized it was the poker Tazi had left in the brazier. With his last remaining strength, Steorf brought the red-hot poker up over his head and stabbed the Lurker through one of his eyeless sockets. The metal sizzled as it slid easily through the desiccated flesh of the one-time priest of Ibrandul. The Lurker flailed his arms about and tried to draw the burning rod from his head.
Steorf withdrew the poker, and as the Lurker raised his arms in one last attempt to kill him, the young mage snarled, "This is for Asraf!"
He stabbed the priest through the heart.
"Revenge does taste sweet after all," Steorf whispered.
The mummified Lurker fell to the floor and squirmed like a bug impaled on a study board. He tried to pull the poker out but the hot metal ignited his purple robes.
The Lurker fell still as the flames consumed him.
Steorf leaned against the stone support and tried to catch his breath. He surveyed the room full of corpses and rotted bones. The fetid smoke stung his eyes, but no tears came.
He rubbed a hand against his bleeding chest and whispered, "Is this what you want for me, Mother? A life filled with death all in the name of justice?"
There was no one left to answer him, and he suddenly realized Fannah was missing.
Steorf looked around the room, but she was not amongst the fallen, either-then he saw that she was outside on the parapet, with the last remaining mummy.
"Hold on!" he cried as he searched for the passageway outside.
When Steorf made his way out, he saw that Fannah had her dagger drawn but she was standing calmly. The mummy had also stopped and Steorf thought it looked as if they were regarding each other in the torchlight.
As he got closer, Steorf let out a startled gasp. The last mummy was his old adversary for Tazi's affection: the elf, Ebeian.
"It's him, isn't it?" Fannah asked.
"Yes," Steorf whispered. "Somehow Ciredor collected his body and reunited it."
The eyeless elf stood and turned from Fannah to Steorf. Even though his dried, leathery face wore no expression, Steorf couldn't help but feel the elf was beseeching him somehow, asking for something.
Steorf ran his tongue over his cracked lower lip and finally said, "Maybe I can save him. Maybe there's some way to reunite his soul with his body."
He wracked his brains for a spell that might accomplish it.
"Ciredor would know," he realized.
Fannah stopped him with one word. "No," she said.
At the sound of her denial, the mummified elf lunged for Fannah. She dropped both the dagger and the torch and accepted what was to come.
Steorf screamed at her to move as he sprang at the elf. The young mage's massive size compared to Ebeian's lifeless shell was enough to bowl the mummy over the railing of the parapet. Steorf leaned over the wall with one hand extended, as though to catch his friend, and he watched as the elf fluttered like a dead leaf to the sands below. He hit the ground with a hollow thud, and Steorf could see by the blue light of the sphere that Ebeian had crumbled to dust.
"No," he whispered, and hunched over his shoulders.
Fannah came up behind him and placed both her hands on his back. He turned at her touch and caught her slim hands in his. When he spoke, his voice was choked with emotion.
"Why didn't you let me save him?"
She freed one hand and stroked his cheek.
"Don't you see?" she told him gently. "You did free him."
"There is no one to save you now, little Tazi," Ciredor told her sweetly.
Tazi blinked hard. The blow she had taken left her dazed. Ciredor squatted beside her, grabbed her hair in his hand, and yanked her head up to stare into her sunken, green eyes. She could feel her terror rising, and once again felt like the battered woman in his cellar two years ago.
"I did so prefer you with the longer locks," he said. "You are fortunate and don't even recognize it. Women with black hair are favored by Shar. They wear their hair long and free to honor her. You should do the same and count yourself lucky."