Sea of Death: Blade of the Flame - Book 3 (33 page)

“I have no need to ask for what I already possess.” Nathifa reached a hand into her own darkness and withdrew the dragonwand. She held it forth for Paganus to inspect.

The dragon’s shadowy form quivered and for an instant seemed as if it might lose definition, but then it solidified once more.

The Amahau … even as a shade I can still sense its power
.

The dragon lowered his head toward Nathifa, and Makala wondered if it was possible for a spirit to wrest a physical object from its holder. But Nathifa held her ground.

“If you know the Gatherer’s power, then you know that it can absorb any mystical energy. Including a spirit. If you attempt to do anything save answer the questions I put to you, the Amahau shall become your new prison.”

Paganus hesitated.
My present form is due at least in part to a contribution of your own power. If you absorb me into the Amahau, you will sacrifice that portion of your own strength
.

“Perhaps,” Nathifa allowed. “But I am willing to make such a sacrifice for the glory of my dread mistress.”

Paganus considered for a moment before withdrawing his head to its original position.
Ask what you will, lich
.

From where she stood, Makala couldn’t see Nathifa’s face, but she could well imagine the sorceress’s triumphant smile.

“The Amahau wasn’t the first artifact of power that you stole, merely the last. Where are the others?”

The dragon’s glowing green eyes narrowed.
It has been three thousand years since last I gazed upon my treasures, for I was too wounded to move from the spot where my bones now lie. Who knows what fate might have befallen my pretties in all that time?

“Do not dissemble with me, Paganus! You might have been weakened and in pain, but I refuse to believe that you have no idea what happened to your hoard. Despite how badly you were wounded when you escaped Vol’s palace, you managed to fly all the way from the Fingerbone Mountains to Trebaz Sinara. Such a long journey would’ve been an ordeal given your injuries, yet you forced yourself to continue on until you reached home. Why? Surely it was more than a longing for the comforts of your lair”—she gestured to take in the cavern around them—“meager as they are. You must have had another reason for making the difficult journey, and I submit that it was because you wished to be near your precious treasures. Perhaps you even hoped that one of them, its magic added to that of the Amahau, might heal you.”

Paganus regarded Nathifa for some time before finally sighing in defeat.

It is as you say. Over the long centuries, when I could find the strength to move and the will to endure the resulting agony, I made my way to the
chamber where my hoard is hidden and attempted to heal myself using one of my pretties. Obviously, I was unsuccessful
.

“Then your hoard must be nearby, or else you never would have been able to reach it in your wounded condition.”

Paganus said nothing.

“It’s not in this cavern, but perhaps it’s located in another close by, one easily reachable from here by a creature barely able to move.”

Again, the dragon remained silent.

“Tell me, Paganus. Tell me where your hoard is, and I’ll release your spirit. Refuse, and I will consign you to the Amahau until such time as I can find a use for your energy.”

For three millennia I lay here in agony, protecting my treasures despite my wounds. Even now that I have no more use for my pretties, cannot touch them no matter how much I might wish to, I find it nearly impossible to give them up. Still, I suppose I have little choice
.

And so Paganus told them.

When the dragon finished, Nathifa replaced the dragonwand inside herself. “I should absorb your spirit anyway. Three millennia of pain do not begin to redress the wrong you did my mistress. But I’m feeling in a generous mood, so … begone, spirit.”

Nathifa made a casual wave of her hand and, as if a strong breeze blew through the cavern, the shadowy form of Paganus’s spirit dispersed and was soon gone, leaving behind only the harsh smell of poison gas.

The ebon tendrils that had helped give the dragon’s spirit shape withdrew, pulling out of the skull’s eye sockets, slithering back through the ear holes, and sliding across the cavern floor to rejoin the lich’s robe of living darkness.

Despite herself, Makala was impressed by the sorceress’s accomplishment, though she would submit to eternal damnation before ever letting on.

“So now we go treasure-hunting?” Makala said.

“Not quite yet.” Nathifa turned around to face Makala. “I sense that your former lover and his companions have joined us on the island and are drawing close even as we speak.”

“So?” Haaken said, grinning with a mouthful of shark’s teeth.
“Let them come. I have a score to settle with that priest and his half-blood friend.”

“We have important tasks before us and little time in which to accomplish them,” Nathifa said. “We cannot afford to waste what time we have in purposeless battle.” More softly, she added,
“I
cannot.”

“So what are we going to do?” Skarm asked.

“You
are going to do nothing,” Nathifa snapped. “But I do have a request of Makala.”

The vampire raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Yes?”

“I want you tear off one of my arms. Right or left, it doesn’t matter. Your choice.”

Makala looked at the lich for several seconds before her lips drew back from her fangs in a half smile, half snarl. Now
this
was a command she was happy to obey!

She grabbed hold of Nathifa’s right arm with both hands, nails sinking through the darkness of the sorceress’s robe and penetrating into the bloodless flesh beneath. Then, using all her strength, Makala yanked.

Though they couldn’t spare the time, the companions nevertheless decided to bury Thokk as best they could in the charred mixture of soot and soil. Onu remained in his natural form, as if too weary and filled with sorrow to change shape. The changeling said nothing while Solus telekinetically removed earth from the site they’d chosen for the grave. Tresslar and Hinto prepared the body as best they could, but the heat of the fire had melted the dwarf’s mace to his hand, and the only way they could have separated it was to break the hand off at the wrist. So the mace remained in Thokk’s grip, which seemed only fitting. When the psiforged was finished excavating the grave, he offered to use his mind powers to move Thokk’s blackened corpse into the hole, but Diran thought the Solus should conserve his psionic energy. Besides, the dwarf deserved to be laid to rest in a more respectful manner. So Diran, Asenka, Yvka, and Hinto
lowered Thokk into his grave while the rest kept watch.

As the others stepped back from the grave, Solus stepped forward, removed his travel cloak, and gently placed it over the dwarf. Diran knew Solus had no need of the travel cloak to protect him against the elements, so giving it up was no great sacrifice, but it was a nice gesture all the same. Diran was about to perform the rite of the Burial of the Faithful when Onu at last spoke.

“You are a priest, Diran. Is there nothing you can do to restore Thokk to life?”

Diran sighed heavily. He feared Onu might ask this question. “I understand that you are grieving, Onu, and your request comes out of the deep sorrow you feel at Thokk’s loss. Please try to understand: the Purified believe that the souls of the faithful join with the Silver Flame after death. This union is a joyful one in which the deceased is reborn into an afterlife of peace and bliss, and the Flame itself is strengthened by the addition of the new soul. To return a spirit to the material world not only weakens the Flame, it brings the deceased back into an existence of further pain and suffering. For these reasons, priests of the Purified have a sacred duty not to raise the dead, regardless of the circumstances. I am sorry.”

Diran waited to see if Onu would argue that Thokk wasn’t one of the Purified, and therefore the Church’s ban on resurrection shouldn’t apply to him. It was an argument Diran had heard too many times before. But Onu only nodded, and the matter was closed.

Diran then gestured to Solus, and the psiforged used his mental powers to return the earth he’d taken from Thokk’s grave. Diran then conducted the rite of the Burial of the Faithful. He spoke a series of prayers over the grave, asking the Silver Flame to forgive whatever spiritual impurities might have remained in Thokk’s soul at the time of his death and to accept the dwarf as part of the divine Flame. Strictly speaking, the rite was intended to be used only for the burial of Purified, but Diran followed the thinking of Tusya on this matter.

It’s not for us to judge who is worthy of joining the Flame. We may call ourselves Purified, but no mortal creature can ever be as pure as the Flame itself. To pretend otherwise is a dangerous arrogance that taints the spirit as surely as any wicked deed
.

When Diran completed the prayers, he sprinkled a bit of silver dust onto the grave, and the rite was finished. Thokk was at rest.

Ghaji came over to Diran then. “There’s no sign of danger yet, but we need to get moving,” the half-orc said in a low voice.

Diran looked at Onu. The changeling stood at Thokk’s gravesite, hands clasped in front of him, head lowered.

“Let’s give Onu another moment,” the priest said. “Why don’t you go tell the others to get ready?”

Ghaji glanced at Onu, frowning, and Diran knew what his friend was thinking: Thokk hadn’t wanted to accompany them onto the island, but he’d come along because Onu had insisted on going. If the changeling hadn’t been so adamant, Thokk would still be alive.

Ghaji moved off to see to the others, and Diran walked over to stand by Onu’s side. “We have to go,” the priest said gently.

“Thokk was the real captain of the
Turnabout
, though I imagine you’ve already guessed that by now. He was working to repay a great debt of some sort. He never did tell me the details regarding it, but every bit of profit he made went toward that cause. That’s why he risked working as a smuggler: he needed to make as much gold as he could in as short a time as possible. But as hardworking as Thokk was, he hated dealing with people and negotiating prices with customers, and eventually he realized he was losing business because of it. He decided he needed someone who was good with people, someone charming and flamboyant …”

“Someone who was everything he wasn’t,” Diran said.

Onu nodded. “And so he hired me, and ‘Captain’ Onu was born. I’d always loved traveling, being exposed to fascinating new people and places, and my bargain with Thokk granted me those things. And if I do say so, after taking me on, Thokk’s profits increased quite significantly. He could be a prickly one to work with, and I must admit that my over-enthusiasm for my role didn’t always help us get along, but he was a good man. A good friend. I’ll miss him terribly.”

Diran laid a comforting hand on the changeling’s shoulder. Onu and Thokk’s partnership had been an odd one, and Diran wasn’t
certain he entirely understood it, but he could tell that Onu’s grief was genuine.

The changeling’s features blurred, shifted, reformed, and his human guise was once more back in place.

“Let us continue with our quest, my good priest! What better way to honor our fallen comrade’s memory than by seeing this adventure through to the finish, eh?” Onu clapped Diran on the shoulder and strode off confidently to join the others.

Diran stared after him, puzzled. He’d known changelings before. One of Emon Gorsedd’s most trusted assassins was a changeling named Rux. But though Diran understood that in many ways changelings’ identities were as fluid and malleable as their outer forms, he’d never seen such a drastic shift in personality as the one he’d just witnessed in Onu. “Captain” Onu had always struck Diran as a trifle erratic, and now he wondered if the changeling might be mentally imbalanced in some way. The man would bear close watching, Diran decided, regardless of which shape he chose to wear.

Diran started off to join the rest of the companions, who’d already shouldered their packs and were ready to move out again, but Asenka broke away from them and approached the priest, meeting him halfway.

“I can’t believe that after taking the time to bury Thokk you aren’t going to at least attempt to do the same for Leontis. He was a fellow priest—not to mention your friend!”

Diran knew none of the others had seen Leontis change into a werewolf during the battle with the shadowclaws, and he saw no point to reveal his friend’s secret now. If Leontis was dead, then let his shame die with him.

“We have no proof that Leontis was killed,” Diran said. “But even if he was and even if we could locate his body, he would not wish us to further endanger ourselves by burying him. He came along to help us stop Nathifa, and we would be dishonoring his sacrifice if we failed in that mission.” Asenka started to protest, but Diran placed his fingers on her lips to silence her. “When I prayed over Thokk’s grave, I prayed for Leontis’s soul as well … just in case.”

For a moment it looked as if Asenka would continue to argue, but
in the end she nodded her acceptance of Diran’s words. He put an arm around her then and said, “Let’s go join the others.”