It wasn't an especially encouraging view, consisting as it did of dozens of black ships crewed by rotting corpses, gleaming wraiths soaring above the masts, and skeletal leviathans swimming before the bows, all rushing to annihilate the council and its servants. Despite himself, he felt a twinge of fear.
But a true zulkir-as opposed to useless pretenders like Kumed Hahpret and Zola Sethrakt-learned not merely to conceal such weakness but to expunge it as soon as it appeared. Nevron quashed the feeling by reminding himself that it was his destiny to reign as a prince in one of the higher worlds. This little skirmish was merely practice for the infinitely grander battles he would one day fight to win and keep his throne.
When he was certain he was his true self, all foxy cunning and steely resolve, he pivoted toward the other conjurors on the deck. "Now," he said. "Bring forth your servants."
His minions hastened to obey him-some by chanting incantations, some by twisting a ring or gripping an amulet-and demons, devils, and elemental spirits shimmered into view until the deck and the air overhead were thick with them, and the warship reeked of sulfur. An apelike barluga slipped free of its summoner's control long enough to grab a sailor and tear his head off.
Most of Nevron's followers had called the entities with whom they'd dealt most frequently-the same spirits they would have summoned on land, and that was all right. Most of the creatures could reach the enemy by flying or translating themselves through space. But Nevron knew how to bring forth and control every extradimensional creature the Order of Conjuration had ever catalogued, and he suspected that denizens of the infernal oceans might prove even more useful in this particular confrontation.
He chanted and, infuriatingly, nothing happened. The blight afflicting magic had ruined his spell. Some of the entities caged in the talismans he carried laughed or shouted taunts. He gave them pain enough to turn their mockery to screams, then repeated the incantation.
Forces wailed and shimmered through the air, and then the patch of sea directly beneath him churned as a school of skulvyns materialized. Lizardlike with black bulging eyes and four whipping tails, the demons raised their heads and looked to him for instructions. Other Red Wizards, sailors, and even spirits started drawling their words and moving with languid slowness as the hindering aura emanating from the swimming creatures took them in its grip.
Nevron told the skulvyns who and what to destroy, then recited a second incantation. A gigantic wastrilith appeared in the sea, its mass displacing enough water to rock the ship. The demon resembled an immense eel with a vaguely humanoid upper body, round amber eyes, and a mouth full of fangs. Nevron didn't have to speak to it out loud, because wastriliths could communicate mind to mind. When it learned what he required of it, it roared with glee and hurtled toward one of the black ships. It reared, spewed, and raked the enemy vessel's main deck with a stream of seawater heated hot enough to scald. Blood orcs screamed.
All right, Nevron thought. It appeared that his wizardry was working properly again, so perhaps it was time to attempt something challenging. His grating words of command cracked the planks under his feet and made the people around him cringe, even though they couldn't understand them. A sailor's nose dripped blood. The spirits locked in Nevron's rings and amulets howled and gibbered in fear.
The myrmixicus's arrival triggered a sort of purely spiritual shock that staggered nearly everyone, as if the mortal world itself were screaming in protest at having to contain such an abomination. Like the wastrilith, the demon resembled an enormous eel but was even bigger. Its head was reptilian. Beneath that were four arms, each wielding a scythe, and below those, six tentacles. Its tail terminated in a lamprey mouth.
Nevron sent it at the black ships, and a zombie kraken swam to intercept it. The undead creature threw its tentacles around the tanar'ri and dragged it toward its beak. Except for making sure that its arms didn't become entangled, the myrmixicus didn't resist. It wanted to close, and when they came together, it hacked savagely, shredding its foe into lumps of carrion.
Then it resumed its swim toward the enemy fleet. A ghostly dragon, a vague shape made of sickly phosphorescence, rose from the depths to challenge it.
Nevron realized the wizards around him had fallen quiet. He looked around and discovered his followers watching the myrmixicus in awe and fascination.
So had he, for a moment, but that wasn't the point. "What's the matter with you?" he shouted. "Do you think this is a pageant being staged for your amusement? Keep conjuring, or you're all going to die!"
The ghost of a woman, slain by torture from the look of her, flew at Aoth and Brightwing. The mouth in the phantom's eyeless face gaped as if the hapless soul had died screaming, and burns and puncture wounds mottled the gaunt, naked form from neck to toe. Its limbs flopped as though suspension or the rack had separated the joints.
Aoth tried to throw flame from the head of his spear. Nothing happened.
The ghost reached out to plunge its tattered fingers into his body. Brightwing swooped and passed under the insubstantial figure.
Certain the ghost would give chase, Aoth twisted around in the saddle and tried again to summon flame. To his relief, a fan-shaped blaze of yellow fire leaped from his weapon to sear the spirit.
But though its entire form contorted like a sketch on a sheet of crumpling parchment, it wasn't destroyed by the fire. It kept hurtling forward and thrust its hand into Brightwing's backside just above the leonine tail. She screamed, convulsed, and fell. Anchored to the griffon's body, the ghost snatched at Aoth, its skinny arm stretching like dough.
Aoth jerked his upper body away, leaning over Brightwing's neck, and although it came so near he felt the sickening chill of it, the ghost's hand fell short. He drove his spear into its chest, snarled a word of power, and channeled destructive force into the weapon.
The ghost dissolved. Brightwing spread her wings and arrested her plummet.
"Are you all right?" Aoth asked.
"Yes," Brightwing croaked, her voice more crow than eagle.
He studied the black, suppurating sore where the phantom had wounded her. "Are you sure?"
"I said yes!"
"All right, but let's take a moment to catch our breaths."
The griffon veered, climbed, and carried him to a clear section of sky. Aoth took the opportunity to study the battle raging around and beneath them.
His fire-touched eyes could see nearly everything clearly, even at a distance and in the dark, but at first he wasn't sure he'd be able to make sense of it all. So much was going on.
Swimming devils and zombie leviathans tore at one another.
Archers and crossbowmen shot their shafts. Ballistae threw enormous bolts, and mangonels, stones. Wizards hurled bright, crackling thunderbolts and called down hailstones.
Galleys and cogs maneuvered, seeking the weather gage or some comparable advantage. One vessel drove its ram into the hull of another. Dread warriors flung grappling irons, seeking to catch hold of a nearby ship and drag it close enough to board. Aquatic ghouls tried to clamber onto what had been a fishing boat, with nets still lying around the deck, while legionnaires jabbed at them with spears.
Fighting from one of the largest warships, Iphegor Nath and some of the Burning Braziers alternately hurled holy fire at enemy vessels and at any particularly dangerous undead that wandered within range. Suddenly, quells appeared among them, shifted through space by the wizards in their midst.