"Watch you must, and learn," whispered the false lich, never turning its luminescent eye sockets from the general. "If bargain for existence I must, all clever secrets shared with the general alone will be."
Vorr kept his attention focused on the skeleton, then gave a fast look at the mirror when he saw an image forming on it out of the corner of his eye. He did not recognize the person there, but he memorized the face and clothing. The person would not be difficult to locate among Teldin's followers.
"Of great value that one is, beyond worth to me as a spy. Alive must that one be taken when all others are cut down.
Sufficient that is to keep your interest?" Skarkesh stared impassively at the general. "Satisfied you are that these bones must together stay? Willing you are to work with this old one to gain the Spelljammer?"
Vorr glanced once more at the mirror, but the image was fading, to be replaced by the normal mirror's image of the torchlit room. He looked back at the false lich. A thick thumb slid against the edge of the knife blade, feeling its sharpness. A bead of red appeared where blade and skin met. "No," said Vorr.
He lunged forward. The lich snatched the jade bowl at its side, flinging it and its contents at the general.
Vorr instinctively turned his body and raised his arm to block the blow, trying to prevent any liquid from splashing in his face. He had almost reached the helm when the gloppy substance in the bowl struck his chest armor, spattering pieces of green goo everywhere. Vorr grabbed for the skeleton with his free hand.
The false lich simply vanished in his grasp. A new monster took shape on the helm, a smaller one that easily evaded his grasp and hurtled past him, under his outstretched arm. It looked for all the world like a withered bright-red spider with a serpent's head and pale, glowing eyes.
A neogi. An undead neogi wizard.
A tremendous heat began to burn through Vorr's chest armor. With the first real fear he had felt in decades, General Vorr cut at his armor with his knife, scraping a huge chunk of the glop away and flinging it against a stone wall, where the slime hung, green and glistening.
A dozen pinpricks of white-hot pain stabbed into his face where the green slime had struck him. It was the deadliest living substance in all the known spheres. He had only a dozen or two heartbeats left until the rapidly growing slime devoured his entire body, with all of his weapons and armor, turning him into a vile pool of ooze on the ancient stones of this ship. With a flick of his wrist, he stabbed through the straps holding his plate armor together, hurriedly flinging the chest plate away from him with the vast majority of the slime attached to it. The rest of the upper half of his armor followed only moments later, the sizzling sound becoming more pronounced as the slime dissolved the steel and leather like the most powerful acid.
The clicking of the neogi's claws sounded behind Vorr's back. He spun and saw the little creature as it reached the hatchway down to the next level. He remembered that he still held his slime-encrusted knife, and he threw it.
The blade struck the little spider-being in its neck, knocking it off balance and against the stone wall beyond it. The neogi staggered, then emitted a peculiar warbling shriek.
"Eating at me! Eating at me!" it screamed, and began a mad circular dance around its end of the room.
Vorr felt as if his face had been splashed with acid. He could barely see through the haze of agony. Desperately, he grasped one of the totches from the wall and broke it free of its sconce. The torch flickered as he grabbed it, almost going out. It must have been kept fueled by magic, he knew; now that he held it, the fire consumed the wooden torchstick normally. Eyes and lips squeezed shut, he held his face in the bright searing flames and thought of life.
*****
The war priests came up later and destroyed the test of the slime, including the little spider-shaped pool near the hatch. The magical trinkets by the helm were saved, as was the helm itself. A new suit of armor was brought up for the general.
"The pyramid's ours," said Usso. She avoided looking at Vorr's face directly. The war priests had done all they could for him, but it had not been enough. "We took only light casualties: nine dead, twenty-three wounded, roughly equal between scro and ogres. Most of the trouble came with the umber hulks, especially the ones on the lowest level, but we got them all. The mirror's a high-quality scrying device that let our little friend cast spells through it, just as he said he could. It will take time for me to learn to use it. We found a few other trinkets, but nothing else of interest."
The huge figure sat on a stone ledge and looked down at his hands. Grotesque scars, gouges, and burned patches were chiseled deeply into his gray face and forehead, the damage arrested and healed indirectly by minor spells. Usso swallowed, fighting down the urge to vomit. She had always hated and feared ugly things.
Carefully, the general held up his hands and fingerspelled a few words for Usso to see. His mouth was seared shut.
"The Trident lost part of its hull bottom when we landed," she replied. "It's been moved, but it will sink if it lands on water again. Should we keep it or…" The figure made a cuting gesture with his hands, and Usso nodded quickly. "We'll trip it, then, and use it as a ram if need be."
The general fingerspelled a few more words. Dark eyes poked out from the hideous patchwork of his face.
Usso nodded again. "Certainly. The pyramid is sturdy enough to hold a great many troops. We can-" She stopped as the general began to spell out a long message. Minutes passed as she watched and read and thought.
Finally, the general's hands stopped moving and dropped to his sides. He stared at the fox-woman with dark eyes.
"I can do that," she said. "I have some scrolls that could take care of it. But what if the elves-"
Vorr snorted and waved a hand in dismissal. Usso bit back a retort and considered the general's idea. It was clever enough, and there was no reason it should fail. The pyramid was strong enough. If they pulled it off quickly enough, they could get away with it.
She reflected a few seconds more. This shouldn't interrupt her plans, really. It might even help her in the long run. Vorr would be distracted enough to miss all the clues. She was good at staying on top of things. If she could keep it up just a while longer, she would be on top of the universe.
Her tail wagged.
Vorr saw her do it and nodded thoughtfully. She couldn't read his mind and for that he was glad. Once in a while, though, he wished he could read hers. He'd tell her about the traitor in Teldin's group later. In the meantime, he was glad he'd pocketed the lich's medallion before she'd come up. She would have been impossible otherwise.
Chapter Seventeen
"What happened?" Gomja's rumbling voice was barely above a whisper, but Teldin and Aelfred did not have to strain to hear him. Teldin stood, his cloak flapping lightly in the breeze. Aelfred sat cross-legged on the ground, apparently relaxed and comfortable. Sylvie sat to the side on a stool from the ship, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands covering her mouth as she watched. Teldin noticed she held a copper coin in her fingers.
Gomja, still blinking into wakefulness, was tied up so thoroughly that Teldin thought it was a wonder he could still breathe. The barrel-chested giff sat on the ground, propped upright against an old tree stump. His once-pristine uniform was stained by mud, sweat, and crushed grass; rips showed in several places. Some of his medals and gold braid were missing as well.
"What happened?" Gomja repeated, then noticed his condition. "What-what's this? Why am I… what-"
"Your elven friends apparently thought you were in the way, so they moved you," Aelfred said easily. "You'd already served their purposes. Maybe they wanted to shut you up for good to cover their trail when they tried to kidnap Teldin, but they muffed their plan." He looked at Gomja thoughtfully. "I was glad to meet you after all that Teldin had said about you, but I never figured you for a traitor."