She returned the next one, and he drew back to regard her with joyous incredulity. His smile stabbed shame and sorrow into her. Don't be happy, she thought. I ruined you. I'm going to be the death of you. Then another surge of thirst washed such notions away.
She pulled him down to her and sucked and licked at his lips. They still weren't yielding enough blood, and she felt as if he were teasing her. As soon as she was sure she'd regained sufficient strength, and that vigorous motion wouldn't break her into two pieces again, she sought a better source.
When she cast about, she saw that he'd slashed his wrist, and it had bled copiously enough to spatter gore all over him, her, and the table on which she lay. But she realized his arm wouldn't satisfy her either. She wanted a more intimate connection. Because this time, the thirst wasn't just a craving for blood, but rather a melding of passions.
She shifted her mouth to the side of his neck, slipped her fangs into the pulsing vein, and tore at his garments. When he realized what she was doing, he ripped at hers as well.
Fiercely, they ground their bodies together. Excitement carried her higher and higher, and after a time, she felt the frantic hammering of his heart, struggling to keep him alive despite the extreme demands he was placing on it.
Good. Let it burst. Let him die. His death was a part of the exultation she sought.
Yet at the same time, the prospect of destroying him was intolerable.
Once, her vampiric instincts would have ruled her in any such situation. They were no less potent now, but she'd had a decade to learn self-control. Though it was as difficult as anything she'd ever done, she withdrew her fangs from his neck, licked the double wound to close it, and contented herself with a lesser consummation.
He blacked out at the same moment, and sprawled atop her like a dead man. She squirmed out from under him, dashed to the door, and screamed for a healer.
When Bareris's eyes fluttered open, he found that someone had carried him to a proper bed. Tammith sat beside him, holding his hand, her fingers cool as usual. She was fully clad again.
"Water," he croaked.
"I knew you'd want it." Easily as a mother shifting a small child, she lifted him up and held a cup to his lips. The cold liquid tasted of iron.
"Thank you."
"How are you?" she asked.
"Weak, but all right, I think."
"I fetched a healer as soon as we… finished." She lowered her eyes and it occurred to him that he hadn't expected her to look shy ever again.
Bareris chuckled and it made him cough. "I must have presented an interesting tableau for his inspection-clothing in disarray, cut wrist, cut lips, blood everywhere."
Tammith smiled back. "Especially since I was half naked and bloody, too, and I still have this." She held up her left hand for his inspection. It had begun to regenerate, but was still bone, tendon, and little else.
It hurt him to see it. "By the Harp!"
"Don't worry about it. It will likely finish healing the next time I drink blood."
"I should probably hold off on that for a little while."
She frowned. "I don't mean yours."
"Well, I realize it can't be me every time. Sometimes it will just be supper."
"You saved me, and I'm grateful. But what we did together is an abomination."
"It didn't feel abominable."
"I drank too much. I nearly killed you."
"I know."
"It would be like that every time, the thirst pushing me, infecting me with a pure cruel wish to see you die."
"I trust you."
"Then you're an idiot!"
"Maybe. And you were right. We aren't the people we once were. We're lesser, tarnished things. And so we can never again possess a love like the one we had before. Yet a bond remains between the people we've become, and why shouldn't we have that? Why shouldn't we see where it takes us, and enjoy whatever happiness it can provide? What would be the point of doing anything else?"
"To save your life."
"I haven't cared about that since Thazar Keep."
"I do." She sighed. "But if you reach out for me, I won't turn you away."
A tap on the door roused Malark from poring over the latest dispatches, and made him realize his eyes were dry and burning. He rubbed them and called, "Come in."
A skinny, freckle-faced boy entered, balancing a tray with one hand while using the other to manage the door. Was it suppertime already? It must be, because the sky beyond the window was red, and the spicy aroma of the roast pork made Malark's stomach gurgle.
The boy looked around. The room was spacious and adequately furnished, but maps, books, ledgers, and heaps of parchment covered almost every horizontal surface.
Malark shifted a stack of paper onto the floor, clearing the corner of a table. "You can set it here."
"Yes, sir." The servant placed the tray as requested, then turned as something caught his eye. Head cocked forward, he stepped closer to the largest map in the chamber, a representation of Thay and neighboring lands painted on a tabletop. A person could scrawl notes on it with chalk or set miniature figures atop it to represent armies and fleets, and Malark had done both. The southern tokens were pewter, and the northern, brass.
He could understand why the display might intrigue a child, but the servant had no business scrutinizing state secrets. "You'd better run along now," Malark said.
The boy shifted a little pewter griffon. "You're well informed. I can add a few lines to the story the map tells, but only a few. Your griffon riders destroyed the north's primary manufactory for the creation of undead and then withdrew successfully from High Thay."
He picked up a stick of turquoise chalk. "Just last night, blue fire melted Anhaurz, killing all within." He drew an X through the city. "The ruins have a weird beauty about them."
He set down the chalk, rubbed his fingertips together to brush off the dust, and moved a pair of ships. "Thessaloni Canos and her men made it to the Wizard's Reach and secured both Escalant and Laothkund for the council.
"In short, it's the same story everywhere. Despite the inconveniences of waves of blue flame, earthquakes, wizardry misbehaving, and dangerous new animals rampaging around, southern armies are winning victory after victory, and I give much of the credit to you, Goodman Springhill, and your network of agents."
Malark swallowed. "Who are you?"
"Oh, I think you know. Once, I spoke with you and your comrades in a grove. I offered you my patronage, and you spurned me."
"Szass Tam."
"Say it softly, if you please, or better still, don't repeat it again at all. I'll tell you something I'd admit to few others. I'm not the mage I was before Mystra died and the Death Moon Orb blew up in my face. I've yet to recover the full measure of my strength, and I'm not eager to fight the entire Central Citadel. It was difficult enough just sneaking in here despite the wards Lallara and Iphegor Nath set to keep creatures like me out."
"Why did you?"
The boy grinned widely enough to reveal he was missing a molar on the upper left. "I've already told you, more or less. For ten years, you've played a key role in the war. If I'd realized just how important you were going to be, perhaps I would have killed you that evening in the wood. But I imagined it beneath me to destroy a person like you-meaning a man with no command of magic-with my own hands, especially when I'd entered your camp under sign of truce. Vanity and scruples are terrible things. They can cause all sorts of problems."
Malark didn't have to glance around the room. He already knew where everything was, including his enchanted cudgels, hanging on a peg by the door. It seemed likely he was going to need them. He knew better than to batter the chill, poisonous flesh of a lich with his bare hands, even when the undead wizard had cloaked himself in the semblance of a living child.