Two dozen senior diviners chanted spells to their mirrors and crystal orbs. Light seethed inside the devices, then coalesced into coherent images. Lallara, Nevron, Lauzoril, Samas Kul, and Kumed Hahpret prowled among them, peering at ranks upon marching ranks of dread warriors, packs of loping ghouls, crawling hulks with writhing tentacles like the ones that had reared up out of the ground outside the Keep of Sorrows, and skeletal horses drawing closed wagons.
After a time, Lauzoril said, "You've done well. Thank you."
A diviner with additional eyes tattooed above and below his real ones said, "To be honest, Your Omnipotence, it wasn't difficult. The necromancers aren't trying to conceal their numbers or their location."
Nevron spat. "No. Why should they? You soothsayers, get out. Your masters need to talk."
If the diviners resented the brusque dismissal, they had better sense than to let on. They filed out docilely.
Samas flopped down on a stool, plucked a silk handkerchief from a pocket of his luxurious scarlet robe, and wiped sweat from his mottled, ruddy face. He looked as if the brief stroll around the chamber had taxed his stamina, and, as on many previous occasions, Lallara felt a pang of disgust at his gross, wheezing immensity.
"How can Szass Tam have such a large army?" the obese transmuter said. "How could the necromancers create so many undead in so short a time?"
"We don't know!" Lallara snapped. "We already discussed it and agreed that we don't understand. Either think of something new to contribute or keep your mouth shut."
Samas glared at her. By the look of him, he was attempting to frame a truly scathing retort, but Lauzoril intervened before he could.
"Let's not take out our frustrations on one another," the zulkir of Enchantment said, his manner that of the stuffy, condescending schoolmaster he was at heart. "We have decisions to make, and we need to make them quickly, because I recognize that tax station." He gestured to a greenish sphere floating in the air. The luminous scene inside it revealed gigantic hounds, their forms composed of mangled corpses twisted together, standing near a roadside keep, its walls a distinctive mosaic of white stones intermingled with black. "The lich's host has nearly reached the First Escarpment."
"How do they travel so fast?" Kumed asked.
"The undead are tireless," Lauzoril said, "and by day, the wagons carry the creatures who can't bear sunlight. And we have no one left in the field to harry the enemy and slow them down."
"The Griffon Legion did it at the start of the war," Samas said.
"The Griffon Legion is a shadow of its former self," Nevron said, "like all our other legions. I don't think they could manage the same trick again. Let's not send them to their deaths until we can accomplish something thereby."
"So," Samas said, "Szass Tam will be here soon. The question is, do we linger to receive him?"
"Yes, damn it!" Nevron snarled. "This is Bezantur! It can withstand a siege."
"Can it?" Lauzoril asked. He waved his hand again, this time in a gesture that encompassed all the globes and mirrors shining on every side, and all the visions of martial and mystical might flickering inside them.
"If it can't," Nevron said, "the four of us-" He stopped short, then gave Kumed a cold smile. "Excuse me, Your Omnipotence, obviously I meant to say, the five of us can always transport ourselves to safety."
"In the midst of battle," Lauzoril said, "nothing is certain. It would be difficult to articulate any spell properly with a vampire's fangs buried in one's throat. Besides, if we waited to escape until Szass Tam's army had breached the walls and flooded into the city, we might get away, but it's likely that the ships carrying our treasure and our more useful followers wouldn't. Is that how we want to start our lives in exile?"
Samas looked pained at the mere thought of leaving his vast wealth behind.
"At this point," Lallara said, "we can count ourselves fortunate we even have ships. Only four burned, but we could have lost all of them."
Kumed cleared his throat. "What really happened last night? Who was responsible?"
"The church of Bane," said Lauzoril. "Their agents stirred up the rabble to try to steal the ships to flee the city. The point was to create cover for the Banites to sneak over the rooftops, shoot flaming arrows into the vessels, and so keep us from fleeing."
Kumed attempted a scowl as fierce as Nevron's. "Then we should hang every Banite we can find."
"You won't find the ones who actually pose a threat," Lallara said. "They've gone into hiding."
"Which means they could try again," Samas said, summoning a golden cup into his hand. Lallara caught a whiff of brandy. "For that matter, the mob could rise again, now that the Dreadmasters have put the idea in their heads, and this time succeed in making away with the boats."
"All the more reason," Lauzoril said, "to use them ourselves as quickly as possible."
Nevron shook his head. "Are you really so craven?"
"I'm not surrendering," Lauzoril said. "I intend to spend my time in the Wizard's Reach planning and gathering strength. I'll deal with Szass Tam when the time is right, but that time has yet to arrive. If you disagree, then you're free to try and prove me wrong. Stay in Bezantur and command the defense. Just don't expect me to leave any enchanters, or any of the soldiers we command, behind to fight."
"I'm leaving, too," Lallara said. The admission wounded her pride, but pride was of no use to the dead.
"So am I," said Samas.
"And I," said Kumed, as if anyone cared.
"Then I must come as well," Nevron said. "Plainly, I can't hold the city without you. But curse you all for the gutless weaklings you are!"
He seemed furious enough, but Lallara sensed a histrionic quality to his bitterness. Perhaps, underneath it all, the conjuror was grateful they'd made it impossible for him to stay.
His fingers scratching among the feathers atop Winddancer's head, Mirror wafting a chill at his back, Bareris stood at the rail of a barge overloaded with griffons and their riders and watched the zulkirs' fleet set sail. It took a long time for so many vessels to maneuver out of the harbor. The Red Wizards and nobles had laid claim to every trawler, sloop, and cog in port to transport themselves, their troops, their possessions, and favored members of their households.
The city stood in a haze of smoke. As the fleet set forth, evokers had hurled blasts of fire at the piers and the shipyards with their half-completed and half-repaired vessels suspended in dry dock. The idea was to make it as difficult as possible for the necromancers to give chase over the Alambar Sea, and if the conflagrations spread to other parts of the city, the lords who were abandoning it no longer had any reason to care.
The smoke was thick enough to sting their eyes and make them cough. Yet hundreds of folk perched on rooftops, or ventured as close as they could to the water's edge, to watch their masters' departure. Bareris wondered if they were happy or sad to see them go.
He wondered the same about himself. He'd been a warrior for sixteen years. He didn't like losing, and despite all the council's swaggering talk of hiring a mighty host of sellswords and returning to reclaim mainland Thay in a year or two, he judged that was exactly what had happened. He doubted he'd ever lay eyes on the city of his birth again.
It was particularly hard to accept defeat after a ten-year struggle against Szass Tam. He'd hated the lich ever since he'd discovered that his minions had turned Tammith into a vampire, and he still did.
But that loathing wasn't the passion that ruled his life anymore. His love for Tammith was stronger, and perhaps he ought to regard this final retreat as a blessing. Now they could devote themselves to one another, and to finding a remedy for her condition, without worrying that, in one ghastly fashion or another, war would sunder them yet again.