Only recently Praz was certain that he'd heard Devlin Morely talking about Commander Lenik and Fahd Mandel. Wait, he thought, it was just this morning. A fountain under the Nexus of the Towers.
Praz took off at once.
"Where are you going?" River called out.
"To the service tunnels beneath the Towers," Praz replied, aware that Telop and River plunged after him.
"Why?" River asked.
"Because Devlin Morely only recently found a fountain down there that no one knew existed. He was trying to interest Bo in the project, but apparently Lenik and Mandel were interested first."
"Why would they be there?" Telop asked, praying he would slow down.
Praz opened the door to a long, winding stairway that coiled through the Tower to all the floors below. He headed down immediately.
"Maybe they aren't, but the guards appear to have looked everywhere else."
"They could be miles from here," River pointed out, desperately trying to control her spiraling plans. "Maybe Mandel and Lenik were victims just as Devlin Morely and Lissella were."
"Maybe," Praz said, plunging down the steps. "We'll know soon enough."
Lenik looked suspiciously at the dark tunnels around them.
"Fahd, we should give up on this. There isn't time."
Barely turning, Mandel glared at him. "We're almost there," he said, picking up his pace.
A troubled look filled Lenik's long lizard's face.
The goblin in front followed the twisting spiral of tunnels leading between the six Towers. The knot of torches at the front of the pack illuminated the water streaming over the stairs from the freakish storm.
Lissella and her father were both bound and gagged and lying over the broad shoulders of Minotaurs. A sleep spell rendered both of them unconscious.
Less than five minutes later, the service tunnel widened and opened into the main chamber. Along the north wall, where a recent earthquake had done its damage, a wide hole gaped obscenely.
Lenik halted at the broken hole and looked back at Mandel.
The goblin thief walked to the crevice in the wall without hesitation, shoved his torch through, and followed.
The room on the other side was nearly as large as the main chamber. Purple-glowing spiders moved ponderously near the webbed corners of the room. They were all as large as Mandel's closed fist, and the master thief felt their eyes on him as he walked toward the fountain.
The lizardman shoved his torch into a mass of webbing. A pile of bones—human, elf, dwarven, and other—lay under it like some kind of sacrificial altar. The lizardman cursed fervently.
"When you first told me about this place, I had no desire to see it. Now I see why"
"Just wait," Mandel said. "You haven't seen anything yet."
He took three more steps along a narrow path that led through the webs.
Then the torchlight caught the alabaster gleam of the fountain.
12
The magical fountain stood as a simple cistern thirty feet across, but sported a well in the shape of a creature composed of a hunchbacked toad's body and a horned snake's head. The creature wore a carved kilt of two wolfskins and was nearly ten feet tall. Numerous magical markings were etched all around it.
"What the hell is that?" Lenik demanded.
"I don't know," Mandel replied. "I've never seen anything like it. Morely wasn't able to identify it either."
He walked to the fountain's edge.
Mandel had visited the fountain a dozen times at Devlin's insistence. Every time he'd come, he'd been fascinated by the water. He shoved his hand down into the liquid, feeling the soft airiness that barely wet his hand.
None of the other water sources in the Towers felt the same, and it held a lambent lilac glow, just like the spiders.
Mandel called to the Minotaur holding Devlin Morely. "Lumbarg. Bring the prisoner here and wake him/'
The Minotaur looked through the hole and scowled into the secret chamber. Reluctantly, he stepped through the wall and carried Morely to Mandel, moving his hand over Morely's head until he began to moan.
The old man's eyes fluttered open slowly. He gasped, looking up at Mandel.
"Are you awake, old man?" the master thief demanded.
"What—what do you want?" Morely asked.
"The fountain's secret," Mandel answered.
Morely hesitated, then shook his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me," the master thief ordered. "I don't have time. And neither does your daughter."
Devlin's eyes widened in surprise.
"Lissella?"
Mandel motioned to the Minotaur holding Lissella, who carried her into the chamber. Holding her up in front of Mandel, he placed a knife at her throat.
Mandel growled, "You're going to help me, Morely, or I'll slit her throat."
The Minotaur tugged the knife closer into her neck.
"All right!" Morely yelled.
Mandel waited a moment, then nodded at the Minotaur to cut Morely's bonds. Morely stumbled away, barely keeping his balance after the spell's effects.
Lenik pulled his sword free.
"Make no mistake, old man," he declared. "If you try to pull a fast one, we'll kill her." The blade flashed in the torchlight. "And you won't live much longer."
"I care only that my daughter not be harmed," Morely said.
"Then awaken the powers of the fountain," Mandel commanded.
"I don't know if I can."
Mandel pulled out the scroll Sendark had given him.
"Here, maybe this is what you need."
Morely's eyes went wide.
"Where did you get that?"
Without warning, a string of thunderous booms echoed above. The sound rolled so heavily through the underground chambers that it shook stones from the ceiling and created clouds of dust. Purple spiders tumbled from their webs and plopped to the floor.
"Sendark is attacking," Lenik growled. "We're out of time."
Mandel focused on Devlin Morely. "Do it, old man. Incant the spell!"
With trepidation, Morely took the scroll and stood at the edge of the cistern. He looked at it for a moment, reveling at the one piece to the fountain's puzzle he had yet to find.
Slowly, he began to read, drawing intricate patterns in the air as the spell required, until each pattern suddenly caught fire. The patterns hung in the air for a moment, then spun crazily and shot across the cistern to wrap around the fountain. The sigils burned into the stone, wreathing the figure in a white, hazy fog.
The fountain began to glow white and Mandel basked in it for a moment. He smiled at Morely. "You've done well, Devlin. Congratulations."
Morely stared at the fountain in rapt fascination.
The cistern water boiled and turned deep violet, then scarlet fumes rushed up into the air, pooling against the spiderwebbed ceiling above. Heat washed over Mandel in a near-blistering wave.
Mandel glared at the scarlet steam swirling above the violet water. He looked at Lenik. "We'll step into the fountain together."
Lenik hesitated. "Perhaps I should wait. You may need rescuing."
"No," Mandel said, not wanting to go in alone either. "According to the book, there is only one moment the powers can be claimed. We must go in together."
Lenik hesitated, appearing uncertain.
"We've been found!" one of the goblins screamed. "It's the Tower Guards!"
Lenik's guards moved into a defensive posture, bristling with weapons.
"Lenik," Mandel said.
Slowly, the lizardman nodded.
"On your command."
Steel rang on steel in the outer chamber as the mercenaries serving Lenik crossed blades with the arriving Guard.
Mandel glanced at the Minotaur holding Lissella. "If I die before I'm able to make my escape, kill her."
The Minotaur nodded and held the knife firm.
"No!" Morely cried, trying to break free from the guard holding him.
Feeling certain he was committing one of the worst mistakes of his life, Lenik stepped into the boiling violet water at the same time Mandel did. A fiery blast of pain shuddered through his foot, then went away.
Then, without warning, the violet water boiled up around them.
Sendark stood on the bow-castle and peered at the dark city before him. Sight of the six Towers filled him with a savage hunger. Gale force winds swept over the deck around him, coiling up from the roiling black sea behind and whipping storm clouds into the city.
A winged creature speared through the air on its great wings and caught hold of the bow railing with its huge claws. A cat's body twisted and hunkered to alter her line against the harsh wind. A dead child's face turned toward Sendark.
"So we're working for Necros now," she said. "That's not like you, Sendark."
Sendark held up a hand and closed his eyes.
"It may appear that I am working for Necros, my dear, but—as always—I'm working for myself. It just so happens that our plans overlap with the dark lord's."
The child's face looked at him suspiciously.
"Then why are we here?"
"The Towers." Sendark smiled, studying the six Towers he knew so intimately from the books he'd been studying. "They hold secrets that we couldn't imagine, Maven. We shall try to unlock some of them as we help Necros against the Great Dragon."
Nearly on shore, a huge wave from the Sea of Mist crashed against a dozen homes, reducing them to splinters and rubble. Bodies tumbled back into the wake, coming close to one of the lead ships that made up Demero.
Zombies standing at the railing threw nets out into the water to catch them. For tonight, Soronne's losses were Demero's gains as the ship's necromancers brought back the dead.
Maven wached the shoreline with interest.
"What does Necros want here?" she asked.
"The Great Dragons created this place," Sendark answered, "and Necros feels they have many sources of power here to draw from. That is why he has altered the course of the mist, and that is why he wishes the Towers taken. But we will make the most of our pillage." Sendark smiled, his eyes falling on the two dormant Towers.
The flotilla of ships crashed over a large wave and came within walking distance of Soronne's shores. Zombies from hundreds of ships threw themselves in the water, and a moment later, they took their first stumbling steps into the city.
Sendark grinned at the progress. For a moment, he wondered if Mandel and Lenik had found the mysterious fountain. Then he realized it didn't matter. If they didn't, his men would find it that night, and if they did, even better, for that meant everything was going according to plan.
13
Magistrate Bo extended his empty hand at the zombies wading into Soronne’s streets. Shimmering force spewed from his fingertips and struck the undead creatures, scattering them like flower petals before a strong wind.
Madness, Bo thought, staring out at the undead invasion. He drew his saber from his side and watched as a young mother herding three small children was almost attacked by a horde.
Bo charged forward, unable to hold himself back. He held the saber at the ready, following the line of his body as he prepared another spell.
"Back, you wretched beast!" the wizened mage ordered, stepping beside the young mother. His keen blade bit deeply into the zombie's haggard face.
The zombie fell to the ground for a moment and Bo turned to the woman.
"Go! Get out of here!"
The woman grabbed her children and went running down the street.
In the same instant, a score of Guardsmen fell into position around the Magistrate, two of them tackling Bo's zombie and slashing it to pieces.
A grizzled sergeant bearing many scars glanced at the mage with grave concern.
"Magistrate Bo, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Bo assured him, trying to figure out how an invasion could have come so swiftly. Over the years, many armies had attacked Soronne in the hopes of gaining the power of the Towers. But in all his years, Bo had never seen anything like this one. It was so quick, it almost came out of nowhere, and literally thousands of zombies were running rampant in the streets.
The Guards made a living wall between Bo and the undead. Blades lifted and they charged forward. Zombie weapons clashed with theirs as Guards slashed deep furrows into the undead flesh. But even when reduced to pieces, the zombies continued clambering toward the city's interior.
"Magistrate," the sergeant said, "we're not going to be able to hold them."
Lightning zigzagged through the sky, briefly illuminating the battleground.
"We should retreat to the Towers. Captain Jar-rell has just returned from sea. He's organizing a resistance group."
Bo nodded.
Jarrell was captain of the entire fleet the Six Shards, maintained on the Brass Sea. He was a good man and a great hero.
"How widespread is the invasion?" he asked.
The sergeant cursed, drew back a booted foot, and kicked a zombie head away. "These damned things are coming in all along the eastern side of the city. Some of them have found the service tunnels. If we don't manage to contain them there, they'll be all over the city by morning."
The announcement chilled Bo even more than the freezing rain.
"They know about the service tunnels?"
"Yes sir. They went straight for them."
Bo's glance shifted back to the undead creatures hammering a line of Guardsmen.
The zombies couldn't think for themselves, he thought. Someone had planned the invasion, given them orders.
Someone has sold us out.
Immediately, Bo's thoughts turned to Fahd Mandel. Ever since the goblin had learned that he wasn't ever going to be a Magistrate in his own right, his attitude toward the Magistracy, and the city, had changed. The Magistracy had even assigned spies to him, and although they'd found nothing, Bo always felt he was capable of turning towards Darkness.
"Magistrate!” the sergeant called, "I would feel better if you got to safety."
"I understand, sergeant. Thank you."
Bo turned and ran back along the street, keeping his sword ready in his fist. He felt guilty about leaving the fighting to the Guardsmen, but he was a Magistrate, not a warrior.
His thoughts turned again to the fact that the zombies had invaded the service tunnels.
Then he remembered his conversation with Devlin that morning. Mandel had been interested in the fountain the old sage had discovered.
Can the zombies be after the fountain?
Bo found no logic to support the idea, but nothing else came to mind. Picking up his pace, he ran back to the Towers.
For a moment, Fahd Mandel was convinced he was on the verge of being cooked alive. He closed his eyes to protect them and screamed, hearing his own scream rebound from the spider-covered walls of the chamber.
Lenik roared beside him, crying out in agony.
Abruptly, the pain started to fade, and Mandel was dimly aware that the Minotaur holding Lissella was already in motion, about to draw the knife across the young woman's throat while her father watched in rampant horror.
He watched the Minotaur rake his blade across Lissella's throat, biting deeply into the soft, pale flesh. Blood rushed down her neck and over the tops of her breasts.
Swiveling around, suddenly aware of how slow and certain his movements were, Mandel gazed at Lenik.
Like him, the lizardman had grown to nearly twice his size, both of them standing over ten feet tall.
The lizardman was totally naked, and when Mandel took stock of his own body, he discovered he was naked as well. Evidently their growth had caused them to burst free of their garments, and Lenik's sword now looked pitifully small in his huge hand.
"Nooo!" Devlin Morely screamed, still trying to save Lissella.
Mandel stepped from the fountain and grabbed Lissella. Then he backhanded the Minotaur and sent him spinning away.
Mandel lifted Lissella from her feet as she died. With the sleep spell upon her, she never woke as she slipped closer and closer to her death.
Calmly, somehow knowing he had the power he needed, Mandel put his hand on Lissella's neck. Bright light flowed around it, and when he took his hand away, the flesh was healed, not even leaving a scar.
Morely cried and tried to reach her.
Mandel passed his giant hand over Lissella's breasts, hearing her heart restart before he'd even drawn back.
He looked down at the Minotaur. "I told you to wait till I was dead."
"You looked dead to me," the Minotaur grumbled.
Anger surged through Mandel and he knew he couldn't allow the Minotaur's insolence. The master thief opened his eyes wide.
Blazing gold beams shot from Mandel's eyes and reduced the Minotaur to a pile of ash.
"No," the master thief intoned, "that's dead."
Mandel turned his attention to the men holding the wall opening to the fountain. Lenik's mercenaries were still in a heated battle with Guards, and one goblin went down with a half-dozen arrows piercing his body.
Mandel summoned his power as the first Guardsman ran to the opening and began climbing through. Throwing his empty hand forward, the master thief pushed the air. Waves of wind threw the Guard and slammed him into a far wall.
Mandel looked at his hand and felt power coursing through him. A wave of euphoria followed.
Lenik felt groggy.
Shaking his head—which was now only a few inches from the ceiling—he looked around and saw the Guards.
"We shouldn't stay here," he roared.
"We can, though," Mandel insisted, laughing madly. "No one in this city has the power to stop us. We're invincible! Don't you feel it?"
"So invincible that you can stand against all of the Magistrates and the armies they can call?" Lenik asked. "We don't know that yet."
Mandel shook his head from the overwhelming euphoria that threatened to drive him mad.
"Yes," he said, taking in a deep breath, "we need to go."
He looked up, and at that moment he thought about where they needed to be next—the Isle of the Dead.
Mandel closed his eyes and pictured it, making it real in his mind. He gazed at the far wall of the chamber and strode over to it.
"I will make a way," he said.
He slammed his hand through the air and a purple glow rippled around it. Inside the ripple, a clear image of a beach on the Isle of the Dead shone through.
"Mandel!"
Mandel turned slowly and his eyes narrowed at a white-robed elf entering the cavern.
"Well, well," Mandel smiled, "if it isn't Magistrate Bo."
14
Bo's gaze took in the fountain, and then, horrified, rested on Mandel.
"What have you done?" he whispered, striding forward.
Mandel grinned, feeling the power moving easily within him.
"It's too late now, Bo. Too late for you and too late for Soronne. You'll all be dead soon, and with any luck, some of you will even be undead."
Bo drew a pattern in the air that turned into a flaming sigil.
Some inner sense that Mandel never knew before tingled, warning him as the shimmering force approached. He put his hand up, erecting an invisible wall of protection just by thinking about it.
The burning sigil smashed against it and burst into hundreds of flaming embers that died before they fell to the floor. Mandel couldn't believe how easy it had been to erect a defense. All he had to do was think it.
The image of the second fountain called to him, flickering through his mind like a windblown torch. The pull was undeniable, and Mandel knew they had to go.
Steeling himself and pooling his strength, he gestured again, throwing the invisible shield into the Magistrate.
The impact lifted Bo from his feet and smashed him horribly against the back wall.
Mandel prepared another spell to cast, but before he could unleash it, Guardsmen crowded into the room, drawing protectively around the old elf. Zombies charged after them, and in seconds the fountain chamber was host to a series of melees that came closer and closer to Mandel and his group.
Giving in to the sickness twisting his stomach and hammering at his head, Mandel turned away from Bo and led the way to the shimmering image.
"Follow me if you want to live!"
He stepped through the image of the Isle's beach, moving from the dank, flooded chamber to a sandy shoreline bathed in moonlight.
Lenik staggered through behind Mandel, obviously feeling symptoms of his own, and almost immediately the rest of their ragtag band followed.
Turning, Mandel gazed back at the opening he'd just stepped through. It was impossible to tell if the Guards or Sendark's zombies were winning.
Two of the Guards ran toward the opening but Mandel simply closed the door and the view into the fountain was replaced by the sea.
Lenik looked at the Isle of the Dead, locating the trail up the soaring peaks he had been to before. The trail wound up the stark mountain, zigzagging back and forth, flanked on either side by the crucified skeletons that gave the island its name.
"Let's go," he said, "theres a keep near the top of the mountain. We can rest there till morning, then hunt for the second fountain."
"Well, I have to admit," Jarrell said, "this isn't the homecoming I'd expected."
Captain Jarrell, commander of the Six Shards fleet based in the Brass Sea, swung his cutlass and lopped off the head of the zombie facing him in the tunnel beneath Eldrar's Tower. He hadn't expected there to be a war going on when he arrived, much less one that encompassed dead zombies and an attacking sea of mist that had come from nowhere.
He was a tall man, broad of shoulder and narrow-waisted. He wore his dark brown hair— flecked with gray these days—gathered back in a stylish queue under his captain's tricorn hat. The sea had laid her hand on him, gifting him with hard weathered lines, deep bronze coloring, and scars from ropes and knives.
He turned to the woman fighting next to him. They'd just met—he recently saved her Tamaskan convoy from the Mist before making it back to shore—but he felt like he'd been fighting with her for days.
Noleta Mareldi was a tall, leggy redhead. Her hair was so bright that it captured the light from the torches on the walls and looked like a flame itself. She wore dark green and black traveling leathers that showed the grime of hard travel.
"How are you holding up?" he asked.
Noleta grabbed one of the nearest zombies and kicked its feet out from under it. Bones crunched when the corpse's face smacked onto the stone.
"Just fine," she said.
The zombie reached up for the Tamaskan, growling and gnashing its broken teeth.
Noleta reversed her knife in a practiced move and speared it up into the zombie's throat, driving it deeply into the brain. She pulled on the knife, twisting the undead creature's head violently until the spine cracked and the skull popped free.
"Wreck the brain and break the backbone," Noleta said. "Besides fire, that's the only way to destroy these damned things."
"You seem to know them well..."
"I live on the Mist," Noleta said coldly, pushing up from the corpse. "And these are Sendark's men. Many times a year, when Sendark is looking for more troops, he raids Tamaska."
"Cap'n Jarrell," a wounded sailor called. "We can't hold them, sir."
Jarrell spotted a sailor with a lantern and asked for it. The sea captain opened the oil reservoir, then gave the order to fall back.
The crewmen scampered past him at once, creating a break between themselves and the zombies. Another dozen filed down the tunnel toward them.
Jarrell sluiced the oil from the lantern across the front of the first zombies as he stepped backward. Then he turned and plucked the lit torch from Noleta's hand. He swiped it across them, igniting the oil he'd thrown.
In an eyeblink, the lead zombies became blazing pyres. Black smoke coiled up toward the ceiling of the service tunnel and the stench of cooking flesh burned Jarrell's nose.
He fell back to join his men.
The burning zombies faltered, screaming in their high, thin voices. For a moment, they held the others back. Then the arriving zombies knocked them down and came at the sailors again.
"Hold them!" Jarrell commanded. "Hold them, lads, and we’ll survive!" He engaged the lead zombie, slicing an arm off, then chopping through one knee and reducing the undead creature to a leg and a stump.
Still, the zombies came on.
Noleta chanted and gestured forward. A furnace-blast of heat shot toward the zombies. Hideous boils suddenly erupted from their flesh, then chunks of rotted meat tumbled from their bones. Dead once again, the front line of five zombies toppled to the stone floor.
"You're a mage," Jarrell said, glad to have some magic on their side.
"Not a trained one," Noleta replied, looking shaken and worn. "I'm a witch. I can't harness all the spells that a mage can, but I'm powerful enough."
Jarrell took another grudging step back. "We're not going to hold them," he said.
He kicked a zombie in the stomach and drove it back. Turning to check on his men, he saw a young, amber-haired giant striding forcefully through his sailors. A young woman and an elf followed him.
"One side, damn you!" the young man's hoarse voice commanded. "One side or I'll go over the top of you!"
Noleta closed her eyes and placed a finger to her temple. Something about the young man prompted a vision. She could see blue lights, an underground cavern, and fighting against a Minotaur army.
She opened her eyes and held on to Jarrell, overcome with nausea.
Before Jarrell could ask if she was alright, the young giant was at his side in the tunnel, screaming curses and using his sword with impunity.
Jarrell stood beside him as he halted, and listened in awe as unfamiliar words tumbled from his lips.
Fire blew out from where the warrior stood, flinging zombies back as it set them ablaze. And then, without hesitation, the man ran forward, taking the fight again and rushing past the sea captain with a zealot's ferocity.
15
Praz-El gave himself over to the frenzied battle lust that filled him. In all his years in the Six Shards, even with tracking down various freelance thieves that had made their way into Soronne, he'd never fought so uninhibitedly.
The last spell he'd cast seriously depleted his magical energies, so he swept his blade through the zombie in front of him instead, cutting the undead creature from armpit to armpit.
A ball of flame landed among the zombies to Praz's left, catching them on fire. He felt the heat as he twisted and fell to the stone floor. Hands— human hands—caught him under the arms and helped him to his feet.
A broad-faced dwarven corporal sporting pockmarks grabbed Praz by the front collar of his chainmail shirt and helped steady him.
"What are you doing here, boy?" the dwarf demanded.
"I'm looking for someone," he said. "Lissella Morely."
"Haven't seen her," he said. "Ain't you Magistrate Bo's son?"
"Yes," Praz responded.
"Got some bad news for you, then," the Guardsman announced. "He's been hurt..."
"Hurt?" Praz echoed.
A sad look covered the dwarf's blood-spattered face. "He's in bad shape."
Praz shook his head.
"Is there a healer with him?"
"There was one, but I'm not sure what happened. Follow me."
The dwarf led the way down a side passage filled with Guards, and Praz rushed along with him, forgetting about everything else.
He's going to be all right, he told himself. He has to be all right. But looking around at the corpses piled in the main chamber, Praz began to worry.
River and Telop caught up to him as they came close to a hole in the wall surrounded by Guards.
"It's through there," the dwarf said, "but I've got to head back to my men."
He headed back up the tunnel as Praz and the others made their way forward to the guards blocking the passage.
"Let me pass," Praz demanded. "The fight's out here, boy," one of the Guards snarled. "You look like you can fight, so get to it."
"My—" Praz hesitated. The word hung in his throat. "My—father—Magistrate Bo—" He halted, unable to go on any further. He thought his heart was going to burst as he peered over the heads of the warriors. "Let me in!”
"Nobody's going in there," another Guard said. "We're making our stand here."
Praz lifted his sword and took a step forward, ready to fight his way to his father, but just then, a soft yellow glow gently pushed the warriors to either side of the wall opening.
"Let him pass," a voice whispered.
Praz's fear lifted when he recognized his foster father's command. He strode forward, keeping his shield and his sword at the ready. River and Telop fell in behind him.
When Praz shoved his head and shoulders through the wall opening, he spotted Bo in a crumpled heap near an empty cistern. Alagar was kneeling next to him, and three other soldiers held torches around them.
"Bo," Praz whispered.
The young warrior moved toward the wizened elf.
Bo swallowed hard, his throat straining. His eyes rolled up into his head, and for a moment Praz thought they might not open again. A long, low hiss of pain threaded through Bo's splintered teeth.
From the misshapen set of his body on the stone floor, Praz guessed he didn't have many unbroken bones. Whoever—whatever—had done this to him had been incredibly strong.
Guilt surged within Praz as he gazed at his foster father and remembered their last conversation in the Sage's Rebuttal. He'd been so excited about leaving Soronne, but now, all he wanted was for everything to be the way it was.
"Who did this?" he asked, his face close to his father's.
Bo's mouth worked, but nothing came out, as the sounds of battle continued to stream into the chamber.
"He's dying," the black man stated quietly. Praz narrowed his eyes. "He won't die," he seethed. "I won't let him." Alagar looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes.
"A man who would deny the truth is a fool." He paused. "Magistrate Bo taught me that long before I was your age."
Praz was about to turn to him when Bo's trembling fingers touched the back of his hand.
"Praz-El," he whispered.
Praz looked down at Bo. He wasn't dead. There was still hope.
He yelled up at the Guards holding torches. "Find a cleric! Find a cleric now!" Frustration and helplessness warred with the dark anger that filled him.
"If there were a cleric who could fix this," Alagar said quietly, "that cleric would have already been brought forward."
"Listen to Alagar," Bo said weakly. "Please."
Praz shook his head stubbornly.
"Who did this?" he asked, his eyes welling with tears.
"It doesn't matter," Bo whispered, "... we have so little time ..."
Praz wiped his tears. Bending closer to his foster father, he took the wizened elf's hand in his and gripped it gently.
He'd never felt Bo feel so fragile.
Bo swallowed. "Do you remember the day ... you came to Soronne?"
Without a word, afraid to trust his own voice because it might break, Praz nodded.
"I remember."
"You were angry," Bo whispered, a smile on his lips, "but so scared and proud. I took you in because I sensed something promising about you, though I had no idea what it was."
He closed his eyes and coughed blood.
16
“All those years, I knew you were a special child,” he went on slowly. "You were stronger, faster, and more able than any of the other children in the Towers. No one could even guess the reason, but I began to put it together."
"What?" Praz asked.
"Your parents," Bo said. "For years I've gleaned tidbits of history here and there, till I was able to complete a tapestry of a boy who had been trained by a demon, a boy locked away in schools because his birth had to be kept secret." The wizened elf shook his head weakly.
"I didn't know it was you, Praz-El."
Praz tried to speak but didn't know what to say.
Bo grew paler.
"Your parents," Bo continued, "they gave you many gifts." His breath rattled and whistled in his chest, and for a minute Praz was afraid that he wouldn't draw another one. "But they left you tainted in Darkness. That Darkness will only consume you, Praz-El. The letter. You'll have to go, but even I cannot save you from this. From now on, you'll have to find your own way."
"Father," Praz whispered.
Bo grasped Praz's hand tighter. "It's that Darkness within you that must be controlled, Praz-El. It will be your undoing if you let it." He gasped. "And perhaps the undoing of the world."
Praz felt sick.
"Father ...," he whispered.
Bo reached up with a shaking hand and caught Praz around the neck in a surprisingly fierce hug.
"Don't let the Darkness take you, Son."
Son. The word echoed in Praz's mind as Bo's grip went slack. Closing his eyes, Bo's body slid back to the ground and, just like that, he was gone.
Hot tears ran down Praz's face as he touched bo's lifeless body. He pulled the old elf against Kim, seeing Bo's blood on his chainmail shirt.
Then the black fury he'd always been aware bf, that even Mistress had taken care with when ^he'd trained him as a child, descended on him.
The pain went away, leaving only the driving need to vent that rage. The young warrior laid his mentor gently down on the stone floor.
"Praz," River called, coming over to him.
Alagar reached out and caught River's arm, his deep brown gaze resting solely on Praz.
"Leave him," the druid warned softly. "He isn't with us right now."
Praz ignored them all. River and Telop and Alagar didn't matter any longer. Nothing mattered. He picked up his sword and shield and got to his feet. With one last look at his father, he focused on the opening and started for it.
The Guardsmen hastily got out of the young warrior's way and, in a heartbeat, the area was filled with zombies.
Praz sliced his sword through the air. Fueled by the black fury that twisted inside his soul, he became a machine that moved with surgical precision and the speed of a whirlwind. In seconds, his arm was stained up to the shoulder with zombie ichor, but still he kept moving.
Zombies gave way before him, flying back when he hit them with the shield, going to pieces when he slashed them with the sword, and evaporating with dark spells.
Still he kept moving.
The Guardsmen followed him out of the fountain chamber. They seized lanterns and torches and burned the zombie pieces in his wake. Only a moment later—where there had been a ragtag band of men about to die—there marched a cheering army.
And Praz's sword continued to rise and fall without mercy.
"Soronne didn't fall last night," Lenik said nervously.
Mandel glanced up at him from the meager breakfast table that had been set up at a keep near the top of the Isle of the Dead. Mandel took two plums and popped them into his mouth.
"Has Sendark abandoned his attempts to take Soronne?" he asked, unconcerned.
"No. He's locked into a siege around the coastline."
"Then I would suggest Sendark's attentions are going to be riveted on the city for a time, and he won't have any further interest in us."
Lenik's tail flicked, rasping across the stone floor.
"Unless he holds us accountable for what has happened."
Mandel turned slowly toward the lizardman, spitting out two pits.
"Even if Sendark did, he doesn't know that we're here. And we're no longer the same men he dealt with before. You know the power we wield now."
Lenik shook his head. "I don't care for that either."
Mandel couldn't believe it. How could anyone not enjoy what they had? The thought struck him as so impossible that he couldn't help laughing, which only seemed to discomfort the lizardman even more.
"You don't enjoy this?" he asked in wonder.
"No," Lenik replied. "Especially not if it means being stuck at ten feet tall. I've tried making myself return to my normal height. Have you?"
Mandel nodded. The master thief had tried last night, and he'd tried again this morning. Both times he'd been able to achieve his old height, but incredible pain had wracked his entire body and he'd had no choice but to return to his new height.
Lenik whipped around
"Gods' blood," he exploded. "We're ten feet tall! Do you realize that we can't fade comfortably into the background anywhere? We're too tall to be anything close to human, and too short to be a true giant. Once a description gets out regarding us, no safe place will ever exist for us again."
"We're safe," Mandel pointed out.
"Till they learn about this place.”
"They won't."
Lenik hissed angrily. "If Devlin Morely knew about the second fountain, he'd have taken notes. If he did take notes and someone finds them, they'll know about this place."
"I have Morely's notes," Mandel said. "No one will know about this place."
Lenik folded his arms in sharp displeasure. "Even with all the gold that Sendark paid us for betraying Soronne's secrets, I'm marooned on this damned island."
"We're not marooned," Mandel argued.
"Can we leave?" Lenik demanded. "Can we leave this island and spend some of the gold?"
Mandel remained silent. What the lizardman had said was true: their size marked them, and the fact that Soronne had survived Sendark's attacks so far only added to the probability that they would be pursued. But still, they didn't even need gold anymore, and when they finally reached the second fountain, they wouldn't have to worry about anything again.
"We can't leave yet," Mandel agreed. "We still have to decipher the second fountain."
"So we can absorb more of this cursed power?" Lenik snapped.
"At twenty feet tall," Mandel mused, "we could pass for giants."
"How many giant goblins and lizardmen have you seen lately?" Lenik asked. "This place has become our prison, Fahd, and all this newfound power you seem to be so taken with isn't going to be enough to keep us alive."
"Lenik," Mandel said harshly. "Keep your head. You're a warrior. Relax."
Lenik looked as if he was going to say something for a moment, then let out a long breath and glanced away.
"There is still the matter of the second fountain," Mandel pointed out. "Once we drain the power from it, we could be gods. Think of that!" He felt so good about it that he began tapping a tune on the table before him.
Lenik looked at him suspiciously.
"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine," Mandel assured him. "I'm more powerful than I have ever been. And soon I will be even more powerful."
"If we get to that fountain," Lenik growled. "So, when are we going to try?"
"Patience," Mandel said, staring out at the sea below. He spotted a small ship on the horizon and smiled.
"Look, Lenik," he said, "we have visitors."
Lenik narrowed his lizard eyes and peered far into the distance to observe the flag.
"It's Sendark's ship," he said with a scowl. "I thought you said we were done with him?"
Mandel peered more closely, barely able to make out the sigil. But once he saw it, there was no mistaking the black lotus that belonged to Sendark.