“The led them at a great pace o" aid="F89onGrandfather?” Regis asked breathlessly, and he understood then who it was that had screamed.
“And this,” Donnola added, producing a blue beret, the prized cap of Grandfather Pericolo Topolino.
Without doubt, then, in that terrible moment, Regis knew that the great halfling was surely dead.
“I cannot leave,” he whispered.
“You have no choice, boy,” said Wigglefingers, coming up to the door. “For your sake and for all of our sakes!”
“What is the meaning of this?” Regis demanded.
Donnola grabbed him by the shoulders and squared him up to face her, then gently kissed him. “Ebonsoul,” she whispered, pulling back. “He is here … for you. Be gone, I beg! Out your window, out of Delthuntle, at once.”
“No time, boy,” Wigglefingers added. “We cannot contain him, we cannot defeat him.”
His expression reflecting his shock, the dumbfounded halfling took the beret from Donnola and glanced at his window.
Donnola threw herself over him, kissing him again, deeply and passionately, sweetly and sadly.
How could he leave her?
But he thought back to the image he had seen in the Lichwreck, the leering, emaciated form of the lich, and his legs went weak beneath him.
He strapped the sword belt around him, set his dagger into it opposite the grand rapier and right beside the hand crossbow, and was out the window quickly, scrambling along the side of the mansion as nimbly as any spider. He didn’t go straight to the ground, as he should have, but instead, seeing a light from within, he crept along the side of the second story to the master chamber.
He spotted Pericolo immediately when he looked in, the old halfling sitting before the hearth. Old indeed! The Grandfather’s silver hair had thinned greatly, and turned pure white, and his face! All wrinkled it was,
CHAPTER 21
The Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) Shade Enclave
The tiny mouse looked back wide-eyed at the burning building. The roof fell in and the remaining kegs of lamp oil exploded, sending another massive fireball rolling up into the air.
The mouse silently prayed for the corpse within the building. She felt it her duty to witness this, and yet she knew that she should not, and when reason at last overruled emotion and her sense of obligation, she scurried away.
Down the alleyway, the mouse became a bat and flew off into the night, to the wall of Shade Enclave and away from the floating city.
Catti-brie didn’t dare revert to her human form. Lady Avelyere wouldn’t be easily fooled, or easily deterred from seeking her out with every magical trick and spell she could muster.
Catti-brie could only hope that her explosive diversion and her placement of the dead woman would hold the diviner off her trail long enough for her to make a clean getaway.
She thought of that woman. She had gone to the graveyard and raised a zombie. She had desecrated a grave and disturbed the sleep of the dead. that theIesmargin-left: no less
The notion grated on her uncomfortably, for surely such an action was not a goodly deed. But it was a necessary one, and the zombie had been raised through the power of Mielikki, though such a spell was anathema to the very tenets the goddess represented, that of the natural cycle of life and death.
These were extraordinary circumstances, and Catti-brie had to accept the granted power of animating the dead as confirmation that Mielikki understood and approved of her choice. The mission was paramount and the mission had been severely compromised. Charmed and hypnotized, Catti-brie had revealed far too many secrets to Lady Avelyere. That recollection reminded the young woman that she could be caught again, and would be helpless in such an event. She sprouted larger wings from her rodent form, transforming yet again. Within a few moments, an eagle fluttered down to the desert floor and became a wolf, loping off on padded paws, silently into the night. Catti-brie couldn’t keep this up for much longer, she knew, for her magical energy was fast depleting, so she had to find a sheltered spot and properly ward it from intrusive, magical eyes.
She would say a prayer to the poor woman whose corpse she had abused with magical animation, of course.
As she settled in for the night within the shadows of a rocky overhang, she hoped that the many blessings and wards she had placed on the dead woman would hold against Avelyere’s certain magical intrusions, for her own sake as well as for the dignity of the deceased.
“I do not believe it,” Lady Avelyere remarked, standing on the edge of the smoldering ruin. “That was no coincidental lightning strike. We have seen this play before!”
“We had compromised her, and all that she meant to do,” Rhyalle dared to say. “Perhaps Ruqiah became worthless … nay, less than worthless, even dangerous, to the designs of her professed goddess, Mielikki.”
“So she went into a tinder keg and obliterated herself with a blast inspired by the goddess?”
“A divine blast greatly enhanced by the elements contained within that location, it would seem,” said Rhyalle.
But Lady Avelyere was shaking her head through every word of the feeble explanation. “That would be more the play of A’tar, or Lady Lolth. I doubt that Mielikki would support …” She paused, hardly able to throw out the word, and waved her arm out at the blasted and burning building, and finished, “… this.”
A thin form approached through the hazy smoke.
“We have found her, Lady,” Eerika said quietly, and she glanced over her shoulder toward the far corner of the blasted building. “What is left of her.”
Lady Avelyere took the lead and strode across the smoking rubble, joining a trio of her other disciples at the spot Eerika had indicated. She followed their gazes and glanced down, then looked away quickly from the disgusting sight.
Blackened and blistered and shrunk to half its size, the ruined corpse rested on its side, one arm splayed out, one apparently burned to nothingness.
Lady Avelyere took a deep breath, which, she quickly realized, was not a good idea, as the smell of charred flesh nearly doubled her over with nausea. “Get a blanket and collect … this thing,” she ordered. “Bring it to the Coven. led them at a great pace o, seekingon”
“Ruqiah?” Eerika asked, clearly confused by the reference. Lady Avelyere waved her arm angrily at the corpse. “That!” she stated flatly, and she rushed away, unwilling to tag it with Ruqiah’s name.
Yes, she had seen this trick before, outside the encampment of the Desai. A thin smile cracked through Lady Avelyere’s angry and disgusted expression, for she knew indeed that the dead did tell tales.
Wings spread wide, the eagle glided on the updrafts of hot air, circling lazily above the Desai encampment. The form afforded Catti-brie enhanced vision, so even from this great height, she could clearly make out the faces of those moving around below her. She had already noted the tent of Niraj and Kavita, and focused on it most of all. She had arrived early in the morning, after all, and it was unlikely that the two were already out and about.
How she wanted to go down there, revert to her human form, and accept one last warm hug from her parents!
But she could not, she understood. Lady Avelyere would surely visit the couple, and would wield her insidious magic to get into their thoughts. If they tried to cover for Catti-brie, they would be discovered and heinously punished, no doubt, and in either case, just letting them know the truth, that she was alive, would likely put Avelyere back on her trail.
Catti-brie repeatedly reminded herself of that dark reality, but then she saw the brown, bald head of Niraj come out of the tent, and before she even realized it, she had dipped her wings and circled lower.
She caught herself and fought back, truly heartbroken. The feeling only intensified when the raven-haired Kavita came out beside Niraj.