“We should hurry,” Zo told them. “The other Scaly Ones will be here soon.”
“Why are you helping us?” Boult demanded crossly, rubbing his raw wrists. He wasn’t going anywhere until the jungle shaman was a little more forthcoming. Having seen her vine spell, he had little doubt that she was the one who had put the runes on the trees back at the compound.
“What he means to say is thank you for helping us,” Harp said, bowing slightly. “I’m Harp. That’s Verran and Kitto. And that’s Boult. He’s always suspicious. Don’t take it personally.”
“I am Majida,” Majida replied. “And that is Zo. We’ll take you someplace safe.”
“Why did you cast the protection spell?” Boult demanded, crossing his arms. He had a right to be suspicious. There was more to the runes than Harp knew. “Why are you helping us?”
Majida smiled faintly. “I heard your question the first time, Outsider. But I don’t have time to answer it. Unless you want to wait for more Scaly Ones?”
“Let’s go, Boult,” Harp said. “You can get your answers later.”
“She knows my name, Harp,” Boult said. “She wrote it in the runes.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Boult said sarcastically. “Somehow amid all the treachery and capturing, it completely slipped my mind.”
“What do you want from Boult?” Harp questioned.
“I wanted his help,” Majida said. She turned to Harp. “Although I was seeking Boult, I now find that I recognize you as well.”
“Me?” Harp asked. “How do you know me?”
“I know how you got those scars.”
She took a stick from the ground and scratched a symbol in the dirt. It was a curving animal in a circle, and the sight of it made Harp go white.
“That is the symbol of a man we call the Ermine,” Majida told them. “A powerful wizard and a cruel man. I think you both have seen it before.”
“At Vankila, the Practitioner wore an amulet with that symbol,” Harp said quietly.
Peering around Harp at the ground, Boult recognized it as well. “Nine bloody Hells,” he said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
2 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One
(1479 DR)
Chult
Having lived for centuries in the lethal jungle, the dwarves of the Domain had perfected survival tricks to give themselves an edge over the many predators who threatened their existence. Good mobility and escape routes were essential, so the dwarves cut secret pathways through the jungle. Hidden throughout the dense vegetation, the pathways tunneled through stinging thickets, walls of vines, stands of massive rhododendrons, and anything else the dwarves could use as cover from hungry eyes. If the path-cutters came up against a natural barrier such as a ridge or a river, they tunneled their way through or under it.
Like a labyrinth hidden in plain sight, the paths wound in laboriously long routes so as to never cut across open ground. Designed to accommodate dwarves and nothing larger, most of the paths were narrow and low so the men had to stoop while they walked, which made progress slow and conversation easy.
“The Ermine has been coming to Chult for years,” Majida told them.
“So the Ermine and the Practitioner are the same person,” Harp said. “He’s the one running operations in Chult. He must have built the machine in the cavern even before the colony was set up.”
“I told you that Cardew couldn’t mastermind this,” Boult said smugly.
“Yes, Boult, let us all bow down before your infinite wisdom,” Harp said irritably.
“We didn’t know about his flesh machine until recently, not until Liel told us,” Majida explained.
“You know Liel?” Harp asked in surprise.
“Did you know she betrayed us?” Boult asked.
“The elf in the colony was not Liel,” Majida said.
“What do you mean?” Harp said.
“She was … doubled,” Majida said slowly, obviously searching for the appropriate word in the Common tongue.
“Doubled?” Harp asked in confusion.
“The Liel you spent time with was not Liel,” Majida told Harp.
“She looked like Liel. She had her memories.”
“But it was not Liel.”
“Was it an illusion?” Harp asked doubtfully. Liel had been cold and aloof, but they had talked about things only the two of them knew.
“No, the body was real, and the memories were true,” Majida said. “But her creation was false, and her actions were plotted by another’s will.”
“How is that possible?” Verran questioned.
“A dark ritual. That’s what the flesh machine does,” Majida said. “It takes blood and distills it to make another body, a double of the original. We call them husks.”
“It seemed so much like Liel,” Harp said, trying to get his head around what Majida was saying.
“How does the Practitioner direct her actions?” Boult demanded.
“The husks are childlike in their desire to please and to take instruction. The creator imposes his will on them at the moment of their creation, but it only lasts for a finite period of time. Then the husk’s own will asserts itself, and they are not so easily controlled.”
“I’ve seen copies of people before,” Verran said. “But they were mute and dumb, like their skin was just a covering and the inside was hollowed out.”
“Usually that is so,” Majida said. “But your Practitioner is very good at making husks, and he filled it with many things from Liel herself.”
“How could he do that?” Harp asked.
“With Liel’s blood and the right magic funneled through the flesh machine, it’s possible,” Majida replied.
“I’ve heard of that,” Verran told them. “From my father. But I didn’t think it could be done anymore. I thought the magic was lost.”
“To most of Faerun, the magic is lost,” Majida agreed. “But the sarrukh, the progenitors of the Scaly Ones, had the knowledge, and the Practitioner focused his will on getting it.”
“My father said that blood copies are the pinnacle of what necromantic magic can achieve,” Verran said.
Majida had stopped abruptly and touched the center of her forehead, which Harp took as a sign for him to keep silent. The group held still and listened to the jungle intently, but there were no sounds save the chirp of birds and the drip of water onto the buttress roots.
“The pinnacle of necromantic magic,” Majida repeated finally, as if she had been musing on the phrase. “I find that to be an inherent contradiction. Necromancy is the lowest and most depraved sort of magic.”
“I didn’t mean anything,” Verran said, abashed. “It’s just what my father said.”
“What’s your name, child?” Majida asked. Her voice didn’t waver from kindliness, but her dark eyes flashed under the indigo scarf that covered her hair.
“Verran,” the boy mumbled. A blush had crept onto his cheeks, and he’d crossed his arms tightly over his chest.
“Did your father ever tell you what happens to the husks, Verran?” she prodded. Verran shrugged his shoulders slightly but didn’t respond. Harp was annoyed by the boy’s surliness at Majida, who had probably saved their lives by helping them escape.
“By the time emotions and free-will emerge in the husk, its life-cycle is almost finished. For a fleeting instant, they experience what it means to truly live, and then death reclaims them. Husk-making is cruelty and humiliation beyond reckoning.”
“How long do the husks last?” Harp took a closer look at Majida. She might look like a provincial shaman, but her manner revealed experience and education that went beyond the boundaries of Chult.
“It’s different for each husk body, but never more than a few months,” Majida replied as she turned and continued down the leaf-locked path.
They reached the base of a tree so large that it would have taken half a dozen men to encircle its trunk. From the branches above them, a collection of white-furred monkeys looked down with distaste as Majida led the group up a buttress root wide enough to walk two abreast, and up into the trees that thrived under the dense canopy. They continued along thick woody vines that were braided together to form a hidden walkway through the papery leaves of the trees.