Power prickled across his body, which was no guarantee that the charm would actually protect him, considering that Szass Tam himself had animated the mummies. Malark supposed he'd know in a moment.
He slowed his breathing and sought to suppress what remained of his pain. Then he scrambled out from behind the dragonfly, again staying low in the hope that it would keep Szass Tam from spotting him. It might. The lich had taken only a few steps into the vault, and a number of sizable artifacts lay between the two of them.
The same precaution wouldn't throw off the mummies converging on his last position. Yet they took no notice as he darted between a pair of them. Thanks to his magic, they now mistook him for one of their own kind. And while they were seeking him in the back of the chamber, and Szass Tam waited for them to reveal his position, Malark had a few precious moments to try to steer this confrontation to the desired conclusion.
First, he needed to maneuver Szass Tam to the proper spot. Kneeling behind what appeared to be a common alchemist's oven but was no doubt something infinitely more valuable, he murmured sibilant words of command.
Szass Tam peered this way and that, then stiffened when he felt the magic bite. He appeared to sneer the unpleasant sensation away.
Malark had been certain the elder wizard would shrug off the effects of the spell, but that wasn't the point. If he'd succeeded in annoying the lich before, then surely it was more irksome still for someone to try to use necromancy against him, the greatest practitioner of that dark science, as if he were no more than a common zombie or ghoul.
Malark rapped his cudgel against the side of the kiln, then ran. An instant later, jagged shadows spun around the device in a maelstrom of conjured fangs and claws.
Then Szass Tam drew the flying blade back to float in front of him. As he advanced on the kiln, the weapon leaped this way and that in an unpredictable pattern of defense. Meanwhile, Malark circled.
Szass Tam stepped around the oven and scowled to discover that it didn't have a mangled corpse sprawled behind it. He raised his staff and began another incantation.
This one would conjure a flying eye that he would no doubt send to the ceiling. There, it would survey the entire vault from above, allowing its maker to see it too. Then he wouldn't need the mummies or any other spotters to pinpoint the whereabouts of his quarry.
He'd likely cripple or kill Malark the instant after. In light of Malark's previous failure to hinder Szass Tam's spellcasting, the spymaster decided he needed to close now, even though the lich hadn't positioned himself precisely as he'd hoped.
He charged.
He had some semblance of cover part of the way, but none for the last few feet. As he burst out into the open, he hoped that astonishment might paralyze his opponent for a critical instant. After all, Malark Springhill had supposedly died in Lapendrar and was supposedly Szass Tam's faithful disciple as well.
He should have known better. The lich hadn't existed as long as he had and hadn't achieved supremacy in Thay by freezing in the midst of combat. The black blade leaped at Malark.
He hurled himself underneath the stroke, slid forward on the dusty floor, and sprang upright again. Now the flying sword was behind him, the worst place for it, but he ignored the peril to concentrate on pivoting and driving a thrust kick into Szass Tam's midsection.
As intended, the attack knocked the lich stumbling backward, but it also jolted Malark as if he'd kicked a granite column. For an instant, he feared he'd broken his leg.
When he set it down, it was plain he hadn't, but there was worse to come. His stomach turned over, and the room tilted and spun. Another effect of Szass Tam's armoring enchantments, perhaps, or simply the result of touching the undead creature's poisonous flesh.
Whatever it was, he couldn't let it slow him down. He was certain the shadow blade was making another attack. Instinct prompted him to fake left, then shift right, and the stroke missed.
But at the same time, Szass Tam snarled a rhyme and thrust out a shriveled hand. A splash of liquid appeared in midair, and, nauseated and dizzy as he was, Malark couldn't dodge it and the sword too. He flung up his arm and shielded his eyes, but the acid spattered the rest of him, burned him, and kept on burning.
He knew a spell to wash the vitriol away, and another to purge himself of sickness, but had no time for either. Now that he'd knocked Szass Tam backward to the proper spot, he had something else to do, something that neither the lich nor the philosopher-assassins of the Long Death had taught him.
Rather, he'd learned it as a boy growing up in a long-vanished city beside the Moonsea, before he'd betrayed his best friend for the elixir of perpetual youth, suffered the despair of endless life, or discovered the consolations of devoting himself to death. In that bygone age, he and the other children had played kickball in a field near the purplish waters, with a tree at each end to serve as a goal. He'd gotten pretty good at scoring points once he learned to take an instant to line up his shot.
And, ignoring his vertigo, churning guts, and the searing pain of the sizzling, smoking acid, twisting out of the path of a sword stroke that slashed close enough to catch his sleeve and make it disappear, that was what he did now. Then he launched himself into a flying kick.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
27 Mirtul-9 Kythorn, The Year of the Dark Circle (1478 DR)
When the scout arrived, the artisans were giving So-Kehur's everyday body a second pair of hands, human-looking except for being made of sculpted steel. He'd long since learned to manipulate four crablike claws, tentacles, or what have you at the same time. Now he wanted to see if he could make the precise gestures required for spellcasting with four hands simultaneously, and whether that would enhance the effect of the magic.
He waved the artisans away with the flick of a tentacle and, using his eight arachnoid legs, turned his cylindrical body in the scout's direction. He extended several of his eyes at the ends of their flexible antennae to view the newcomer from multiple angles at once.
Because he'd taken the trouble to do so, he saw the kneeling scout tremble ever so slightly. The creature was an undead soldier with a gray withered face and glazed, sunken eyes, but even so, he feared his lord. So-Kehur found it gratifying.
But it was detrimental to morale to terrorize underlings who'd done nothing to deserve it-he'd learned that observing Szass Tam-so he'd try to make the scout feel at ease. "Please, get up," he said. His voice was indistinguishable from that produced by a normal larynx and mouth, for that was necessary for his conjuring. "Would you like some refreshment?"
"No, thank you, Master," said the scout. His leather trappings creaked as he straightened up. "One of the grooms offered me a prisoner as I was climbing off my eagle."
"Good. Then tell me what you've seen."
"The invaders abandoned the Dread Ring and marched south again. I thought they'd go back into the Umber Marshes and on home to the Wizard's Reach, but they didn't make the turn."
So-Kehur felt a surge of excitement. If he'd still possessed a pulse, no doubt it would have quickened. "You mean they're heading toward Anhaurz."
"It looks that way."
"The lunatics must actually believe they can reach and destroy another Ring-the one in Tyraturos." So-Kehur had no idea why the archmages of the council were so fixated on the gigantic strongholds, but it seemed evident they were. "They mean to take the High Road up the First Escarpment. Of the three likely ascents, it's the only one without a fortress guarding the top. But to get to the High Road, they need to use the bridge here at Anhaurz to cross the Lapendrar."