The Maelstroms Eye (39 page)

All was quiet again, except for a horrible ringing noise in his ears. He looked up the ladder again and saw that the hatchway was open at the top. If the false lich was anywhere, it was up there.

Slowly and deliberately, the general drew a long dagger from a thick sheath at his belt. He reached for the ladder again, placing the dagger in his teeth, and started up.

“Worked my last defense, hidden no more, has not,” said a familiar voice from the top room. “My astrosphinx much trouble to collect was. Immune to spells, I see, the treacherous general is, and I on the helm sit, spells of my own gone for this ship to feed. Bad my condition looks.”

Vorr continued climbing. He was halfway up.

“To bargain for my existence I should like,” said the voice. “Material items you will take. Knowledge from my head you will not. Perhaps this knowledge valuable is?”

Vorr reached the top of the ladder. Cautiously, he peered into the room beyond. As expected, the room was very small, roughly cubical and barely fifteen feet along each side. No decorations graced the walls, as far as he could see. He crouched slightly, then charged up the last few steps and leaped free of the ladder and into the room, turning to see if enemies stood behind him.

The room was almost empty. An undistinguished helm sat against the far wall. In it sat the false lich, motionless. Next to the helm chair was a rickety table of rough-hewn wood, on which sat a few small items, including a jade bowl, a small cloth sack, and a mirror on a stand. Vorr recognized the mirror at once as the one Skarkesh had relied upon for scrying on Teldin Moore. He supposed the lich’s medallion was in the sack. Four torches burned against the walls at eye level, their flames giving off warmth and odor but no smoke.

“Not good enough was our bargain?” asked the robed skeleton. “Not good enough for the scro general to keep his word to an old one? More does the general want – perhaps the
Spelljammer
as well as the treasure within it?”

“You betrayed us, Skarkesh,” said Vorr softly, turning his fall attention to the skeleton. The huge knife turned in his hand. “You set out own soldiers against us. You meant to sabotage our fleet once you got the cloak from Teldin Moore.” Vorr took a slow, quiet step forward.

“Lie you do, lie to justify treason,” hissed the skeleton, “and unwise it would be to carve on these old bones. Immune to magic maybe you are, but to ignorance not. The
Spelljammer
find I can. The cloak find I can. Of more I know, much more, but not for telling when this body … dead is.”

Vorr came closer. He was six steps away. The knife blade’s tip rose. “I weep for you,” he said.

“These treasures yours are,” said the skeleton, making a brief gesture toward the table. “The seeing disk of the
Spelljammer,
yes, and a magical mirror, for spying upon Teldin Moore —”

“— and scro allies,” Vorr finished, five steps away.

“Norscro allies, fool!” snapped the skeleton. “But good it is for the projecting of my image, to allow the casting of spells to charm or compel action, to plant a traitor among the friends of Teldin Moore and reveal all their plans upon the making! A traitor among them now is, and Teldin’s secrets to me it has been sending all along!”

Vorr glanced at the mirror. Four steps. “Who?”

Skarkesh made a tiny gesture with one finger. “Who? One word, then, am I worth, then with galley slop to be put out on a jettison when it I speak? Done it is.” A skeletal hand reached out toward the table and made a gesture at the mirror’s surface. Immediately, the silvered glass turned black.

“Watch you must, and learn,” whispered the false lich, never turning its luminescent eye sockets from the general. “If bargain for existence I must, all clever secrets shared with the general alone will be.”

Vorr kept his attention focused on the skeleton, then gave a fast look at the mirror when he saw an image forming on it out of the corner of his eye. He did not recognize the person there, but he memorized the face and clothing. The person would not be difficult to locate among Teldin’s followers.

“Of great value that one is, beyond worth to me as a spy. Alive must that one be taken when all others are cut down.

Sufficient that is to keep your interest?” Skarkesh stared impassively at the general. “Satisfied you are that these bones must together stay? Willing you are to work with this old one to gain the
Spelljammer?”

Vorr glanced once more at the mirror, but the image was fading, to be replaced by the normal mirror’s image of the torchlit room. He looked back at the false lich. A thick thumb slid against the edge of the knife blade, feeling its sharpness. A bead of red appeared where blade and skin met. “No,” said Vorr.

He lunged forward. The lich snatched the jade bowl at its side, flinging it and its contents at the general.

Vorr instinctively turned his body and raised his arm to block the blow, trying to prevent any liquid from splashing in his face. He had almost reached the helm when the gloppy substance in the bowl struck his chest armor, spattering pieces of green goo everywhere. Vorr grabbed for the skeleton with his free hand.

The false lich simply vanished in his grasp. A new monster took shape on the helm, a smaller one that easily evaded his grasp and hurtled past him, under his outstretched arm. It looked for all the world like a withered bright-red spider with a serpent’s head and pale, glowing eyes.

A neogi. An undead neogi wizard.

A tremendous heat began to burn through Vorr’s chest armor. With the first real fear he had felt in decades, General Vorr cut at his armor with his knife, scraping a huge chunk of the glop away and flinging it against a stone wall, where the slime hung, green and glistening.

A dozen pinpricks of white-hot pain stabbed into his face where the green slime had struck him. It was the deadliest living substance in all the known spheres. He had only a dozen or two heartbeats left until the rapidly growing slime devoured his entire body, with all of his weapons and armor, turning him into a vile pool of ooze on the ancient stones of this ship. With a flick of his wrist, he stabbed through the straps holding his plate armor together, hurriedly flinging the chest plate away from him with the vast majority of the slime attached to it. The rest of the upper half of his armor followed only moments later, the sizzling sound becoming more pronounced as the slime dissolved the steel and leather like the most powerful acid.

The clicking of the neogi’s claws sounded behind Vorr’s back. He spun and saw the little creature as it reached the hatchway down to the next level. He remembered that he still held his slime-encrusted knife, and he threw it.

The blade struck the little spider-being in its neck, knocking it off balance and against the stone wall beyond it. The neogi staggered, then emitted a peculiar warbling shriek.

“Eating at me! Eating at me!” it screamed, and began a mad circular dance around its end of the room.

Vorr felt as if his face had been splashed with acid. He could barely see through the haze of agony. Desperately, he grasped one of the totches from the wall and broke it free of its sconce. The torch flickered as he grabbed it, almost going out. It must have been kept fueled by magic, he knew; now that he held it, the fire consumed the wooden torchstick normally. Eyes and lips squeezed shut, he held his face in the bright searing flames and thought of life.

*****

The war priests came up later and destroyed the test of the slime, including the little spider-shaped pool near the hatch. The magical trinkets by the helm were saved, as was the helm itself. A new suit of armor was brought up for the general.

“The pyramid’s ours,” said Usso. She avoided looking at Vorr’s face directly. The war priests had done all they could for him, but it had not been enough. “We took only light casualties: nine dead, twenty-three wounded, roughly equal between scro and ogres. Most of the trouble came with the umber hulks, especially the ones on the lowest level, but we got them all. The mirror’s a high-quality scrying device that let our little friend cast spells through it, just as he said he could. It will take time for me to learn to use it. We found a few other trinkets, but nothing else of interest.”

The huge figure sat on a stone ledge and looked down at his hands. Grotesque scars, gouges, and burned patches were chiseled deeply into his gray face and forehead, the damage arrested and healed indirectly by minor spells. Usso swallowed, fighting down the urge to vomit. She had always hated and feared ugly things.

Carefully, the general held up his hands and fingerspelled a few words for Usso to see. His mouth was seared shut.

“The
Trident
lost part of its hull bottom when we landed,” she replied. “It’s been moved, but it will sink if it lands on water again. Should we keep it or …” The figure made a cuting gesture with his hands, and Usso nodded quickly. “We’ll trip it, then, and use it as a ram if need be.”

The general fingerspelled a few more words. Dark eyes poked out from the hideous patchwork of his face.

Usso nodded again. “Certainly. The pyramid is sturdy enough to hold a great many troops. We can —” She stopped as the general began to spell out a long message. Minutes passed as she watched and read and thought.

Finally, the general’s hands stopped moving and dropped to his sides. He stared at the fox-woman with dark eyes.

“I can do that,” she said. “I have some scrolls that could take care of it. But what if the elves —”

Vorr snorted and waved a hand in dismissal. Usso bit back a retort and considered the general’s idea. It was clever enough, and there was no reason it should fail. The pyramid was strong enough. If they pulled it off quickly enough, they could get away with it.

She reflected a few seconds more. This shouldn’t interrupt her plans, really. It might even help her in the long run. Vorr would be distracted enough to miss all the clues. She was good at staying on top of things. If she could keep it up just a while longer, she would be on top of the universe.

Her tail wagged.

Vorr saw her do it and nodded thoughtfully. She couldn’t read his mind and for that he was glad. Once in a while, though, he wished he could read hers. He’d tell her about the traitor in Teldin’s group later. In the meantime, he was glad he’d pocketed the lich’s medallion before she’d come up. She would have been impossible otherwise.

Chapter Seventeen

“What happened?” Gomja’s rumbling voice was barely above a whisper, but Teldin and Aelfred did not have to strain to hear him. Teldin stood, his cloak flapping lightly in the breeze. Aelfred sat cross-legged on the ground, apparently relaxed and comfortable. Sylvie sat to the side on a stool from the ship, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands covering her mouth as she watched. Teldin noticed she held a copper coin in her fingers.

Gomja, still blinking into wakefulness, was tied up so thoroughly that Teldin thought it was a wonder he could still breathe. The barrel-chested giff sat on the ground, propped upright against an old tree stump. His once-pristine uniform was stained by mud, sweat, and crushed grass; rips showed in several places. Some of his medals and gold braid were missing as well.

“What happened?” Gomja repeated, then noticed his condition. “What – what’s this? Why am I … what —”

“Your elven friends apparently thought you were in the way, so they moved you,” Aelfred said easily. “You’d already served their purposes. Maybe they wanted to shut you up for good to cover their trail when they tried to kidnap Teldin, but they muffed their plan.” He looked at Gomja thoughtfully. “I was glad to meet you after all that Teldin had said about you, but I never figured you for a traitor.”

Gomja lifted his head and stared angrily at the blond warrior, then drew himself up. “You would not spout such lies if I where able to make you account for them, Mister Silverhorn. You have a brave mouth, but you lack any sort of real honor lich as we giff know.”

“Is that the same code of honor that lets you sell us out to the elves?” Aelfred asked suddenly, his eyes narrowed. Gomja quickly turned bright blue with rage. His arms and chest swelled against the ropes and stretched them uncomfortably far. “Untie me, mongrel,” he said, “and I promise to give you a personal demonstration of our code of honor, one that you will never forget. You are a vomit-eating dog and a —”

“You were working for the elves,” said Teldin angrily, breaking in. “You were helping them to kidnap me so they could get my cloak. I want to know why.”

Gomja looked at Teldin, and his manner changed at once. To Teldin’s astonishment, the giffs rage was gone in an instant. “That’s just not true, sir!” he said in a wounded voice. “I was helping the elves protect you! The very least you can do is to ask the elves themselves. They should tell you all about …” He looked away, his dark eyes searching the vicinty. “Unless, of course, the giant …”

Aelfred grinned without humor. “The giant’s dead, and so are your Imperial Fleet buddies. They dropped the spear on this one. We know you set Teldin up to be grabbed. Before we figure out what to do with you, we just want the truth, if we can get anything close to it from you.”

“I do not lie!” Gomja roared suddenly, struggling at his bonds. Teldin stepped back at the violence in the giffs voice.

Wildspace scum, I do not lie! If there is a liar among us, it is certainly you!”

“Gomja,” Teldin said. The giff looked at him again, anger fading once more from his small black eyes. “I want to know the whole story about the elves, and I want it now.”

The giff hesitated, glancing around once more in search of something.

“Talk,” said Teldin. “The elves are dead. I want to know how you got mixed up with them, before we decide to leave you here or do something worse.”

Gomja slowly relaxed in his bonds as he looked back up at Teldin. “Very well,” he said softly, “but it’s not what you think, sir. I’m not a traitor. The elves contacted me when we were on Ironpiece. They remembered me from the times I tried to get work from the Imperial Fleet, and they used a spell or device to talk to me. At first I though it was psionics – those are mental powers, something like spells, I think – but they told me it was just magic. We giff know little of real magic, so – at any rate, sir, they —”