For a heartbeat, Aoth could only stand and stare, frozen by the certainty his life had come to an end. Then he started to level his spear and drew breath to chant. He was a warrior and could at least go down fighting.
"Don't!" Brightwing screeched. "He isn't attacking!"
Szass Tam smiled. "Your familiar has good instincts, Captain Fezim. At the risk of sounding immodest, I'm… formidable. When I kill with my own hands, the victim tends to be a fellow archmage, a demigod, or a whole army. Anything less is scarcely worth the bother, which is not to suggest that your brave and resourceful company doesn't merit some sort of attention."
Aoth swallowed. "I don't understand."
"I'd like a parley with you and your fellow officers." Szass Tam gestured toward the heart of the grove, where the exhausted griffon riders had camped in the evidently vain hope the trees would conceal them from hostile eyes. His sleeve slipped down toward his wrist, revealing more of his withered hand. "Will you grant me safe conduct?"
"Yes," said Aoth.
He felt as if he were still mired in a dream, and it was somehow impossible to say anything else. He led Szass Tam toward his slumbering, snoring comrades. Brightwing followed, positioning herself behind the lich so she could pounce on him if it became necessary to protect her master, even though Aoth could feel she shared his conviction that Szass Tam could crush them like ants whenever he chose.
Szass Tam surveyed the sleeping men and griffons. "Do you want to wake them or should I?"
"I'll do it," Aoth replied. "Get up, everyone!" The mundane quality of the words made the moment feel that much more unreal.
Men groaned and rolled over, rubbed their eyes and threw off their covers, then faltered as Aoth had done when they saw who'd tracked them down. Rather, all but one of them did. Bareris leaped up, drew his sword, and sprang, all in a single blur of motion. Aoth lunged to interpose himself between the bard and Szass Tam but saw he wouldn't make it in time.
Bareris's sword flashed at the necromancer's head, and Szass Tam caught in his hand. The enchanted weapon should have cut the skeletal fingers off, but instead, Aoth saw some sort of malignancy flash up the blade. The sword shattered, and Bareris crumpled.
Sword in hand, vaguely resembling Aoth at this particular moment, Mirror streaked at the lich. Szass Tam simply looked at the ghost, and Mirror froze into a statue of shimmer and murk.
Warriors snatched up their weapons, and griffons gathered themselves to spring. They were all afraid of Szass Tam, but now that a fight had broken out, none intended to stand idle while the lich struck down their comrades. Nor, for that matter, did Aoth. He charged his lance with power.
Szass Tam flourished his staff. Patterns of rainbow-colored light shimmered into existence around his body, then flowed into another configuration, and another after that. The ongoing process was fascinating, so much so that despite the urgencies of the moment, Aoth could only stand and stare. No doubt his comrades felt the same compulsion.
"I entered your camp under sign of truce," Szass Tam said, "and this swordsman and the ghost had no right to attack me. Even so, I've done them no permanent harm. Now will you grant me the parley I seek, or should I smite you all while you stand helpless?"
It was difficult even to think, let alone talk, while transfixed by the shifting lights, but Aoth managed to force the words out. "You can have your talk. No one else will raise his hand to you."
"Good," said the necromancer, and his halo faded away. "Now, who are your fellow officers?" The folk in question stepped forward, some only after a moment's hesitation. Szass Tam gestured to a patch of clear ground a few yards away. "It looks as if we have room to sit and talk over there. Shall we?"
The officers exchanged looks then moved in the direction the zulkir had indicated. Aoth surmised that the situation felt as surreal and impossible to control to them as it did to him. He started after them.
"Help me over there," Bareris croaked.
Aoth snorted. "You already had your chance to be stupid."
"If you gave Szass Tam a truce, I was wrong to break it, and I'm sorry, but I have to hear what he has to say."
"Don't make me regret it." Aoth hauled Bareris to his feet, draped the bard's arm across his shoulders, and essentially carried him to the clear spot. As far as he could see, Bareris didn't have any actual wounds. Szass Tam had simply burned away his strength.
The necromancer smiled sardonically as Aoth set Bareris back down on the ground. "I trust the inclusion of this gentleman won't prevent us from enjoying a civil conversation."
"He'll behave himself," said Aoth. He paused, waiting for somebody senior to himself to assume the role of chief spokesman for the Griffon Legion, then he realized no one else intended to put himself forward. "What is it you want to say to us, Your Omnipotence?"
"I suppose," the lich replied, sitting cross-legged on the grass like any ordinary person, "I should begin by congratulating you. Your campaign of harassment slowed my army sufficiently to achieve your purpose."
Despite his fear of the lich, Aoth felt a pang of satisfaction. "So you won't take Bezantur without a hard fight."
"Alas," said Szass Tam, "I won't take it at all, at least not this month nor the next. My fellow zulkirs have a sizable force maneuvering to intercept me, and they're reportedly willing to commit their own persons to the battle. I'd have to fight them with the Lapendrar at my back, hindering my retreat if I should need to make one, and even if I won, Samas Kul has Bezantur ready to resist a siege. All things considered, my tharchions and I believe the superior strategy is to withdraw."
"Then we won," said Malark.
Of them all, he seemed most at ease in the lich's presence, perhaps because, serving as Dmitra Flass's lieutenant, he'd seen the creature often. Or maybe it was simply because few things seemed to daunt or even surprise him.
"In a sense," said Szass Tam, "but it's time to consider what you've won. By balking me, you've simply condemned Thay to a long war instead of a short one, a protracted struggle as destructive as only the wizardry of archmages can devise. That's of little practical consequence to me. I'll still win in the end, and immortal as I am, I'll have all the time I need to rebuild. But I would have preferred to spare humbler folk the miseries that now await them."
Aoth shrugged. "I don't know about any of that. I just know we had to follow our orders and do our duty."
"Why," asked Szass Tam, "do you believe your duty lies with the other zulkirs instead of me?"
"That," said Malark, smiling, "is a good question, Your Omnipotence, for obviously, nothing you've done is illegal, treasonous, or wrong. It can't be, because a zulkir's will is itself the definition of what's proper."
"As I recall," Szass Tam said, "you hail from the Moonsea. Perhaps it amuses you to mock our Thayan way of thinking."
"By no means," said Malark. "I simply meant to convey that I follow your logic. I recognize your authority is as legitimate as the council's, and the choice between you is essentially an arbitrary one."
"Then why not join me," said the lich, "and undo a portion of the harm you've caused? You could. You could strike a crippling blow before the council realizes you've switched sides, and afterward I'll treat you well. You'll hold high honors in the Thay to come, whereas if you cleave to your present course, you'll only reap disaster and defeat."