Where are you?
A moment of silence followed, and then ...
We are camped a quarter league ahead of you to the east beneath a jagged foothill with an overhang.
Wait there.
He released the medallion before he could be questioned and rose to stride back toward the foothills’ edge above the open desert. When certain of not being seen, he paused again with fear feeding his rage.
He hoped his rage was justified and that his fears were unfounded.
A small buzz rose inside his mind ... Ghassan was once again trying to pester and confuse him.
“Shut up, you little insect!” he hissed.
Concentrating, he allowed an immense tangle of signs, sigils, and symbols to appear over his sight, and he lifted himself on his will. His body rose just high enough that his passage would not stir a trail of dust and sand in his wake ... as he shot through the dusk toward the east. It was not long before he spotted the landmark of craggy foothills with an overhang.
Touching down lightly, he banished all glowing symbols from his sight and broke into a run. As he rounded the hill below its overhang, the ghost girl with her severed throat stood in his way, watching him.
There in the camp beyond her was the necromancer still strapped to his wheeled litter. Ubâd was tilted upright, as if awaiting the arrival between his two corpse attendants. Nearby stood Sau’ilahk, arms folded, his pale skin still vivid in the twilight, though his blue-black hair nearly melded with the encroaching darkness.
Khalidah strode straight through the ghost girl, his gaze locked on Sau’ilahk.
He rarely used physical force, for he did not need to do so. There were so many better methods at his disposal. Yet now he could not stop himself. Grabbing the front of the false duke’s shirt, he shoved Sau’ilahk back into the rocky hillside.
Before the wraith-in-flesh even righted himself among the sliding stones, Khalidah shouted, “What are you playing at, you self-righteous priest?”
Sau’ilahk straightened to full height, cold and quiet in a returned glare, and Khalidah suddenly second-guessed his action.
The priest’s ... the wraith’s body was dead, unlike his own, but it appeared to be quite physically strong, and Khalidah had no idea of what else Sau’ilahk might be capable.
“Do not touch me again,” Sau’ilahk warned in a threatening whisper. “And what are you talking about?”
Pressing down tangled fear and fury, Khalidah fought for calm.
“You know! I told you to leave hints ... a bit of bait to keep Magiere here until the other orbs are brought. I did not tell you to slaughter a pack of vagrant nomads. And how did you convince them of greater numbers?” He pointed to Ubâd’s male servants. “Did you use them? Or has that dead necromancer created a few more ghosts?”
Sau’ilahk’s brow furrowed in confusion. He did not even glance at Ubâd. Then the ghost girl suddenly appeared between them.
“What is this?” she lashed out at Khalidah. “We have not changed our position since you contacted us the night before last.”
Khalidah stiffened. As angry as he was at the idea of Sau’ilahk’s giving in to an urge of excess, the alternative was worse, as he had no control over it.
“We have not moved,” Sau’ilahk added.
Khalidah turned away. After a moment, he related the scene of slaughter, still not truly believing the denials—the feigned ignorance—of his confederates. For if Sau’ilahk was not the culprit, and the story of the survivors was true in another way, then the ruse Khalidah had used to lead Magiere on was no longer a ruse.
Beloved was calling its servants.
This meant their god was on the verge of reawakening.
Choices now became few: dangerous, and worse.
Magiere might stop scouting for proof and turn to find Beloved if more random events spurred her on. If groups of the undead and their like were now truly scurrying to the east ...
Khalidah was not ready for this. Three orbs were still not in his possession. His only controllable allies were this miscreant High Reverent One and a necromancer with no true life to lose. And both were as starved for revenge as he was.
None of them trusted one another. In life, Sau’ilahk had made no secret of how much he despised the Sâ’yminfiäl, the Masters of Frenzy or Eaters of Silence. The feeling had been mutual between the sects.
And now Ubâd would know that both Sau’ilahk and Khalidah despised him. Compared to them, he was a rebellious child for all of their centuries of suffering and enslavement. From what Khalidah understood, Ubâd had been taken down by a single majay-hì and not even by the dhampir herself.
Yet, all three of them had their own uses in this matter.
All three labored toward the same goal.
As Khalidah finished recounting the morning slaughter, Sau’ilahk had been as silent as the corpse master.
“If this is true,” he finally said, “if a horde is being gathered, then what of our own plans?”
“Nothing has changed,” Khalidah answered, “though it will make my dealings with the dhampir more difficult.”
“Lies from the master of lies,” the ghost girl countered for Ubâd. “The closer she comes to so many prey, the more she will want to hunt.”
“Then I will keep her from them,” Khalidah replied. “I will not allow her to find the resting place of Beloved yet ... of anything gathering there.”
“Where are Andraso and the majay-hì?” Sau’ilahk asked. “How much longer until they return with the other orbs?”
At least this turned to better news with which to pacify his inferiors.
“They have acquired all three remaining orbs,” Khalidah assured. “They now sail south for Soráno.”
“That is still a good distance,” Sau’ilahk cut in. “Can you keep the dhampir in control until they return?”
Khalidah did not bother responding and turned to give instructions.
“Leave a few more hints for her,” he said. “And perhaps next time, something to give the little sage pause. Make Wynn wonder if the past returns to ... haunt her ... oh, restless spirit! Wynn’s fears are shackles upon the dhampir as well.”
Sau’ilahk’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded once.
Khalidah did not need to feed so long as he was in proximity to orbs, but in part, he envied the priest, for his body—Ghassan’s body—still required food.
“It is more difficult to find desert denizens than imagined,” Sau’ilahk said. “And less so living ones the farther east that we go.”
“I have faith in you,” Khalidah answered dryly.
Sau’ilahk sneered and turned away.
Trapped within his flesh, Ghassan il’Sänke found that his panic grew. He was party to every action, every word that Khalidah spoke, and yet he was powerless. And he felt himself becoming weaker, fading a little more each night. It had become difficult to remember certain things too far in the past.
Somehow, some way, he had to warn Wynn Hygeorht. She was the only one who might recognize something from him, not from Khalidah.
Chapter Eight
Aboard the Kestrel, Chane came to a decision halfway to Soráno. He had been preparing to try something and believed he was ready.
Chap and Ore-Locks had adapted to living on his schedule, sleeping through the days, though they were always up before he rose at dusk. They also chose to spend a fair portion of time on deck, which gave Chane some much-desired privacy.
He carried two packs wherever he traveled. The first contained his personal possessions, spare clothing, and now the talking hide for Chap. The second was old and faded and a guarded treasure.
That pack and most of its contents had once belonged to Welstiel Massing, another vampire, Magiere’s half brother, and son in life to a vampire once a vagrant noble. Welstiel had also been an arcane practitioner of thaumaturgy by artificing, specifically alchemy. And his subtle skill with both pushed the limits of Chane’s minor knowledge of conjury.