"Which is all that matters, isn't it? Your revenge."
"I won't deny feeling that way. But destroying Xingax was the task our masters set me."
Aoth sighed and felt a little of his anger seep out of him. "You're right, it was. And fortunately, you didn't take the whole of the legion with you to High Thay. Maybe, when the rest return from Delhumide, it will turn out there are enough left to lead. But considering the tidings of late, I wouldn't count on it."
Bareris frowned. "It is much worse than I thought it would be. I understood the hazards, but still, I never imagined the campaign would go so badly."
"Has it occurred to you that there might be a reason? A reason beyond the obvious, I mean."
"What are you talking about?"
Aoth took a breath. "When I was blind, I told you I occasionally glimpsed things invisible to normal sight. Now that I can see properly again, that's even more true. I can see in the dark, or through a blindfold. When an illusionist casts a glamer, I see it, but I also see through it."
"That… sounds useful."
"Once in a while, I also see signs. After you tampered with my mind, I saw you dangling a puppet made in my image, and when the guards came to march me to my death-"
"Someone ordered your death?"
Aoth waved the interruption away. "I saw knives in their hands. Not long ago, I saw Malark's face turn into a naked skull."
Bareris hesitated. "And you thought, a skull to signify allegiance to Szass Tam, or that Malark's a deadly menace to our cause? Mightn't it simply mean that he's a skilled fighter and assassin? You and I have seen the proof of that, time after time."
"Yes. So this new sight of mine didn't need to conjure a phantasm to tell me."
"You're assuming you understand how it works, and that it works efficiently. You could be mistaken."
"Maybe."
"Why would Malark, of all people, turn traitor ten years in? He stood with us when we defied Szass Tam himself. He kept the lich from taking Bezantur in the first tendays of the war."
"I don't know. I've always trusted him, and I'd like to go on doing it. I mentioned I was nearly killed. The zulkirs hit on the idea of vivisecting me to learn more about the blue fire. I wouldn't be here if Malark hadn't interceded. I feel like a filthy traitor myself just for suspecting him of treachery."
"But you saw his face turn into a skull."
"That's only part of it. Short of a zulkir, who's the one person who, if he turned traitor, could do the most to ruin our campaign? Our spymaster, the grand collector of information and disseminator of orders and intelligence. He could reveal all our plans and the disposition of our forces to Szass Tam. Steer our troops into ambuscades, or into the path of the blue fire. Sow rivalry and mistrust among our officers. Kossuth knows, they're all jealous of their positions as it is."
Bareris fingered his chin. "I'm still not convinced, but we did run into an interesting situation on the flight home."
"What?"
"Some of Dimon's troops expected to march over clear terrain, but instead found their way blocked by a new chasm and an abomination that climbed out of it. They assumed that the blue fire had passed by recently. But the griffon riders had spent the day flying high enough to see a long way, and we hadn't spotted any blue flame."
"So it's possible Malark deliberately guided Dimon's soldiers into difficulty."
"I suppose. But why are you telling me this? Take your suspicions to the zulkirs."
Aoth scowled. "I can't. I mean, I won't accuse a friend unless I'm certain. I especially don't want to do it when it's my sight that put my thoughts running in this direction."
"I understand. You barely escaped being vivisected. If they learned that you've acquired extraordinary abilities, they might insist on slicing you up after all."
"Yes. And if that weren't bad enough, I also have to recognize that Dmitra Flass values Malark, trusts him as much as any zulkir ever trusts anyone. She has reason. He saved her life at the Keep of Sorrows."
"So you can't denounce Malark, at least not yet, but you can't forget what you've seen, either. You'll need proof, and you must be telling me because you want my help. Why? I mean, why me?"
It was a good question. Aoth supposed it was because even though Bareris had betrayed him once, in the decade leading up to that moment of treachery, he'd been as faithful a comrade as anyone could want. No matter how grim and morose he became, how utterly indifferent to his own well-being, he'd always given his utmost when Aoth needed him.
But Aoth didn't want to acknowledge that out loud. "I'm asking you because you owe me," he said. And that was true as well.
"I do," Bareris said, "and of course I'll help you, even to spy on another friend. But I hope you turn out to be wrong."
"So do I." Aoth hesitated and tried to rein in his curiosity, but didn't quite manage it. "You're… different. This Tammith. Even changed, she's what you need?"
Bareris smiled a smile that conveyed happiness and rue in equal measure. "In life, she was a river. Undeath has dried her to a trickle. But after ten years in the desert, a man will weep with gratitude at any taste of water."
Pyras Autorian, tharchion of the Thaymount, had a meadow outside his castle walls. Working under Szass Tam's supervision, twenty necromancers drew a broad and intricate pattern in yellow powder on the flat, grassy field, then set the stuff on fire to burn the design into the ground.
Long-necked and weak-chinned, Pyras watched the process from a chair his slaves had fetched. An awning protected his pasty skin from the feeble sunlight leaking through the cloud cover. He plainly wanted to ask what was going on, but couldn't quite muster the nerve.
His restlessness amused Szass Tam, but that wasn't the reason he opted not to explain. Though timid and dull-witted, Pyras had served him to the best of his ability for a long while. It would be shabby to repay him with an explanation that would only make him more uncomfortable.
The necromancers positioned and consecrated the altar stones inside the pattern with meticulous care. By the time they finished, the sun had set.
Szass Tam turned to Pyras. "Now," he said, "we need the slaves."
He focused his will, and after a moment, dread warriors marched a score of naked slaves out of the castle gate and over the drawbridge. The zombies' amber eyes shone in the gloom.
When the thralls beheld the pentacle and altar stones, and realized what lay in store, some tried to run. Dread warriors clubbed them senseless and dragged them onward.
Pyras cleared his throat. "You know, Master, slaves are valuable."
Szass Tam wished he could offer a reassuring smile, but he was still lacking a face capable of such nuances. "I promise that in days to come, you won't regret the loss. Now I must ask you to excuse me. It's time for me to take a more active role."
He rose and walked to the center of the mystic figure, while dread warriors shackled weeping slaves on top of stones, and the necromancers took up their ritual daggers. When the zombies finished their task, they cleared out. The wizards looked to Szass Tam like a choir awaiting a downbeat from its conductor.
He called a staff of frigid petrified shadow into his bony hands, raised it high, and spoke the initial words of the lengthy incantation. Chanting in unison, the lesser Red Wizards supplied the counterpoint and made the first cuts.
The slaves screamed louder. Szass Tam amplified his voice to keep it audible above the din. His followers needed to synchronize their declarations with him. If the timing was off, the ritual could escape his control, with fatal consequences.
In fact, that could happen anyway. His powers were diminished, wizardry itself had become slippery and undependable, and he was undertaking something he'd never attempted before.