The Rite (3 page)

“I’m fine. It’s just . . you know what it is. This is why we take turns standing watch. Because it’s dangerous for any of us to remain awake for too long at a stretch.”

“Of course.”

“Lay the enchantment on me, and—”

Lareth heard wings lashing overhead, and peered up at the sky to see Azhaq swooping lower. A member of the martial fellowship of silvers called the Talons of Justice, Azhaq was one of the few metallic drakes who enjoyed Lareth’s permission to stay awake and wander abroad.

Lareth should have greeted Azhaq with the decorum befitting their respective stations, but he was too eager to hear what the shield dragon, as silvers were often called, had to say. Before Azhaq’s talons even touched the earth, the King cried, “Give me your news. Did you find Karasendrieth, or any of the other rogues?”

Smelling like rain as his species often did, the broad argent plates on his head reflecting the sun, Azhaq folded his wings and inclined his head. “No, Your Resplendence. The Rage has plunged the North into madness. Flights of our evil kindred lay waste to the land. The Zhentarim and other cabals of wicked men strive to turn the chaos to their own advantage.

Suffice it to say, amid all the terror and confusion, it’s difficult to pick up a trail.”

Lareth bared his fangs in a show of frustration. “Then why have you returned,” he asked, “if not to report success?”

Azhaq lowered his wedge-shaped head with its high dorsal frill in a rueful gesture. “I had to come. The frenzy has its claws in me. I need to sleep, and perhaps it’s just as well. On my flight north, I saw something you ought to know about. The creatures of Vaasa have breached the fortifications in Bloodstone Pass. They’re pouring into Damara.”

“Impossible,” Lareth said. “They could never take the Gates, certainly not without the Witch-King to lead them, and Zhengyi is gone.”

“I don’t know how they managed it,” Azhaq said, but they did, and Damara was already in desperate straits, fighting off dragon flights. I don’t know how the humans can deal with hordes of orcs as well.”

“It’s a pity,” Lareth said, “but there’s nothing we can do about it at the moment.”

“With respect, Your Resplendence,” Azhaq said, “I think there might be Surely the dragons sleeping here can withstand the Rage for just another day or two of wakefulness. That could be all the time we need to turn the goblins back.”

“No,” Lareth snapped. “Too risky. We stick to our plan.” “Plans must sometimes change to fit changing circumstances,” Azhaq said.

Lareth’s fire rose in his throat and warmed his mouth. “Wings of our ancestors,” he snarled, “why didn’t I see it before? You and Karasendrieth were comrades in your time.”

His eyes like pools of quicksilver, Azhaq blinked in what was surely feigned confusion. “What? No…. never.”

“Since the day I sent you to deal with her, you’ve caught

up with her twice—”

“No, only once!”

“—and she ‘escaped’ both times. It can only be because you permitted it You’re her accomplice, working to undermine me from within my own court.”

Lareth reared to blast forth his flame. Realizing he was in actual danger, Azhaq crouched, his wings unfurling with a snap, as he prepared to spring.

Tamarand lunged between the two combatants. Lareth scrambled, trying to reach a position from which he could expel his fiery breath without hitting his meddling fool of a lieutenant, while Azhaq attempted a corresponding maneuver.

Wings spread to their fullest to make his body a more effective screen, scuttling to keep the king and the Talon separated, Tamarand bellowed, “Llimark! Llimark! Llimark!”

Angry though he was, the shouted name finally registered with Lareth, and he understood he’d been confused. It was Llimark, one of his own golds, who’d been Karasendrieth’s friend, and Llimark who, at his monarch’s behest, had attempted to bring her to heel the first time. Just as he’d maintained, Azhaq had only caught up with the dragon bard on a single occasion, later on.

The Talon was no liar, and likely wasn’t a traitor, either. Lareth abandoned his combative posture and stood still. When Azhaq discerned as much, he too dropped his guard. Tamarand warily edged out from between the other two wyrms.

“My friend,” Lareth said, “I’m truly sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Azhaq replied, albeit somewhat stiffly. “It was the frenzy prompting you.”

“Yes,” said Lareth, “and it shows just how close to the edge all of us truly are. This is why we don’t dare fly to the aid of Damara.”

Azhaq grimaced. “I suppose.”

“Gareth Dragonsbane is a great leader. He saved his people once, and he’ll do it again, even without our help. Now lie down and sleep until someone wakes you to take a turn at watch.”

Once the silver was asleep, Lareth turned to Tamarand.

“Thank you,” said the king. “You saved me from a terrible mistake.”

“It’s always my honor to serve you,” Tamarand said. ‘Tin just glad I was able to react quickly enough, because I certainly didn’t foresee the need.”

Lareth felt a pang of annoyance. “What are you getting at?”

“You know Llimark quite well, and you’ve invested countless hours reflecting on Karasendrieth and all reports concerning her. For you to become muddled in that particular way….”

“Must mean the Rage has crippled my mind? That it’s time for the first of my Lords to take my place? Is that what you’re implying’?”

“No, Your Resplendence. By no means.”

“Our folk elected me King of Justice because I’m the oldest and thus, the strongest, not only in body but in mind and spirit. I can withstand frenzy better than anyone else.”

“I know that. It’s just that you’ve stood almost as many watches as the rest of us put together. Perhaps the strain is telling on even you. Perhaps you should rest for a good long while.”

Lareth did his best not to feel doubted, mistrusted, and betrayed. He struggled to believe Tamarand meant well. “Lie down,” Lareth said.

Tamarand peered at him and asked, “What’?”

“You heard me. I’m going to put you back to sleep. You think I’m displaying signs of instability, but in fact, you are. You don’t recognize it because that’s the insidious nature of the affliction.”

“Was I irrational when I stopped you from attacking Azhaq without cause’?”

“No, but you are now.”

“When you roused me, you said it was because you yourself needed rest.”

“I was suffering dark fancies, the same kind that plague us an. It’s nothing I can’t endure for a while longer.”

But you don’t have to If you don’t trust me, wake Nexus, or one of the others.”

Lareth hesitated. “Well, I admit, that makes sense. As soon as you’re asleep, I will.”

Then Tamarand hesitated. “Your Resplendence

.”

“Lie down, old friend. I know your mind is in turmoil, but trust me, as we have always trusted one another down the centuries. Or are you turning rogue on me as well?”

Tamarand stood silent for a moment or two, then said, “Of course, I trust and obey you, my liege, as I have always done.”

Lareth cast the enchantment of slumber on Tamarand then returned to the outcropping where he liked to perch. He experienced a twinge of guilt at lying to his lieutenant, but realized he simply didn’t feel inclined to sleep quite yet. Besides, it truly did make sense for the strongest to stand guard as much as possible and so shield lesser drakes from the ravages of frenzy.

It occurred to Lareth that he ought to resume his gnome disguise. Wearing the shape of one of the small folk enhanced a dragon’s ability to resist the Rage. But he didn’t feel like doing that, either. He was too tense, too frustrated by Karasendrieth’s continued defiance, and vexed by Tamarand’s questioning of his competence. At the moment, forsaking his draconic body would make him feel weak and vulnerable, and he very much wanted to feel strong.

Sammaster stood on a ledge in the morning light and watched the orcs stream like ants through Bloodstone Pass. With their access to the lands beyond secured, some of the goblin kin were attacking the various settlements inside the valley. From on high, the battles looked like black twitching knots on the ground. Pillars of gray smoke from burning villages and isolated crofts billowed up to foul the sky.

At first, Sammaster felt satisfied. He didn’t know if the brutish inhabitants of Vaasa would actually succeed in conquering Damara, but he didn’t care. His only purpose had been to plunge the region into a bloody chaos that would inhibit any effort to find the source of the secret power he’d mastered and halt the process he’d set in motion. Until such time as it didn’t matter anymore. Until he and the Cult of the Dragon had created enough dracoliches to subjugate the world and grind humans, dwarves, orcs, giants, and all other races into subservience.

Gradually, though, as was often the case when, to all appearances, everything was going well, the dead man felt contentment eroding into doubt. So many times before, he’d imagined himself on the brink of triumph, only to have one or another of his countless enemies, all the folk who feared and envied his incomparable intellect and magical prowess, thwart and humiliate him, sundering him from the mortal plane for decades, or plunging him into self-loathing and despair.

This time, he reassured himself, he’d planned so well and acquired a tool so powerful that he couldn’t possibly fail, yet even so, he wondered. He knew that somewhere there existed an unknown adversary who’d stolen the notes he’d cached in Lyrabar. For a variety of reasons, no one could decipher those pages, and even if somebody managed, it was inconceivable that he could put the information to use in the relatively brief time remaining. But still, if anyone did

Sammaster had already decided he couldn’t spare the time to hunt down the thief. Though his cultists were useful in their fashion, there were too many tasks across the length and breadth of Faerűn that only the lich himself could perform if his schemes were to come to fruition. As he brooded, it occurred to him that he could take one additional measure to guarantee no one else would discover his secret, if only to buttress his peace of mind.

He swept his skeletal hands through an intricate pass and said, “Come to me, Malazan.”

The red dragon would heed the call wherever she was, and sense in which direction she ought to travel. Since no compulsion was involved, Sammaster could only hope she would choose f^ heed Under normal circumstances, the reptile probably would, but if she happened to be berserk in the midst of combat, her scales sweating blood and her already awesome strength and ferocity amplified to preternatural levels, that would be a different matter.

Soon a crimson dot rose up from one of the watchtowers along the Damaran Gate, circled, and soared in Sammaster’s direction. The lich’s eyes were shriveled, decaying things, but their vision was keener than in life, and he soon discerned a superficial cut on Malazan’s shoulder, and a trivial tear in one membranous wing. As he’d expected, she had done more fighting since he’d seen her last, but if she’d chosen to invoke the demonic fury that was her particular gift, the fit had already passed.

Wings snapping and pounding, disturbing the air and making Sammaster’s regal purple cloak billow and flap, Malazan settled on the ledge, which was only just broad enough to contain her immensity. As had become his habit, Sammaster scrutinized her features and posture, looking for warning signs that she was about to go mad.

He’d armored her mind, and the minds of all the Sacred Ones with whom he’d come in recent contact, against the Rage, but the protection wouldn’t hold forever. The curse cast by the ancient elves, the mythal he’d adapted to his own purposes, was too strong, and growing stronger by the hour. His wizardry notwithstanding, he would prefer not to be caught off guard if a dragon should lapse into frenzy.

Malazan looked all right, though.

“Good morning, Milady,” the lich said.

Your orcs now control almost the entire length of the Damaran Gate,” she said. Only the larger castle remains in human hands, and I trust we can take it within a few days.”

“You needn’t concern yourself with that. Even if the occupants manage to hold out indefinitely, it will do nothing to hinder our plans.”

“Our plans,” Malazan echoed. “Your plans, you mean. I still don’t understand why you want goblins scurrying all over Damara.”

As I explained, war serves our purposes. It will distract the likes of the Chosen and the Paladins of the Golden Cup from seeking out and destroying our hidden sanctuaries, thus denying you and your kin the opportunity to become undead and so escape eternal madness.”

“I suppose,” Malazan said. “In any case, now that I’ve accomplished the task you set me, it’s time for me to repair to one of the havens myself.”

It gratified Sammaster to glimpse how eager the red was to commence the process of transformation, how profoundly she feared the Rage. That was the point of all his work, to make her and the other chromatics feel that way.

They couldn’t all become dracoliches right away, however. The process was too lengthy, difficult, and expensive, and the cult’s resources, too limited. Sammaster reckoned that while wyrms like Malazan waited their turns, he might as well make use of them.

“I have one more task for you first,” he said.

Malazan’s lambent eyes glared. A drop of blood oozed from her scaly brow.

“Something else needs destroying,” the lich went on. “It shouldn’t take long. I’m not sending you alone.”

“I’m tired of you presuming to send me at all. You’re the servant of dragonkind, not our master.”

“I acknowledge it proudly. It is, however, equally true that. I’m your friend and savior, and as such, have earned your respect. Now, you have three choices: You can simply renounce me and my followers, and in time succumb to the Rage. Or, if you want to punish me for what you see as my impertinence, we can fight. I warn you, though, that I’ve slain many wyrms before you—bronzes, silvers, and even

golds—and that even if you manage to destroy me, once again, the end result will be that you fall into frenzy. Or, you can cooperate, perform one more piddling chore to our mutual benefit, and claim your immortality.”