Vicious Magick (4 page)

Novanostrum sees the havoc at the main gates
and decides to use the distraction to his advantage, using the
chaos to divert attention from his fireworks display. He lights the
fuse and ducks into an alley to await the impact.

A piercing explosion blasts a hole in the
stone façade, showering the immediate vicinity with rubble and
burning fragments of wood. Novanostrum darts into the hole.

Someone’s fist is pounding on the door to
Zanther’s cell. Struggling to dress herself, Madra’s terse reply
is:

“I have not finished interrogating the
prisoner!”

“Your majesty, the castle is under attack! We
must get you to safety!”

Still blindfolded, Zanther smiles. Madra
opens the door and a guard steps in, shaken.

“Let me borrow your longknife,
guardsman.”

He hands it to her, and she smacks him in the
back of the head with the flat side of the blade, knocking him out.
Madra unshackles Zanther and takes off his blindfold and his gag.
She hands him the longknife.

“Get dressed and help me get the hell out of
here. I can’t rely on these idiots.”

“You think I’d help
you?
” he says,
slipping into his clothes.

She takes off her diamond necklace and puts
it in his hand, saying, “With the proper incentive, yes, I think
you would.”

Zanther stashes the loot in his pocket and
grunts, kicking the door open to find deadders approaching from
both ends of the hallway.

The wizard runs first down one hallway, then
another, looking for any sign of Zanther, but instead coming across
a grand foyer. In the middle of it all, he sees Varello picking his
lute and directing the mass of groaning undeath. The deadders all
seem to be heading in one direction, so Novanostrum decides to find
out what they’re heading for.

He waves his hand at the torches lighting the
room, and they go out in a wave of chill. The wizard pauses, but
Varello keeps playing, even in the dark. Novanostrum taps each of
his own eyeballs and twists the metal ring circling the face of his
wrist watch. The tempo of Varello’s song slows exponentially, the
already-slow deadders become nearly statuesque.

Novanostrum slides down the banister and
rabbits his way through the room, his night-vision spell allowing
him to distinguish the outlines of the deadders.

The torches in the basement hallway haven’t
gone out, but Zanther has déjà vu, regaining the crazy adrenaline
powers he had at the bar, everything goes black and white and he
swings his newly-acquired longknife through deadder flesh, severing
limbs and heads and torsos.

He finishes slicing up the dozen deadders in
the vicinity, only to see Novanostrum standing at the end of the
hall, clapping as time regains its normal fluidity and texture.

“The Royal Consort. You’re really moving up
in the world. Looks like you don’t need my help at all.”

“I don’t, but I won’t turn it down.”

Around them, arms and heads twitch and writhe
towards the heat of living flesh.

Madra grabs Zanther’s shoulder. “Will you two
cut it out? You can hold hands later. We’ve got to get out of here.
C’mon, I know a nice little way out of here.”

She leads them to a storage room containing a
bunch of dusty chests and chairs and a large wardrobe. She feels
around the underside of one of the chairs, producing a rusted metal
key. Popping open the wardrobe, Zanther and Novanostrum see a rope
and an opening leading below. Hanging from a hook inside the
wardrobe is an oil lamp, which Madra grabs to light their way as
they descend the rope.

The light shines on a subterranean river, and
the rope leads directly down to a small dock with a tiny ship
moored to it.

“Do you bring all your men here?” Zanther
asks.

“Just the ones who save my life,” she says
with a wink.

Varello, taking care not to break his rhythm,
skips from room to room, searching for his quarry. He sees a group
of his minions huddled around a door. He walks past a pile of
wriggling deadder body parts and into the cramped cell. On the
floor, he finds an unconscious soldier.

His nostrils flare, drawing in the smell of
the queen’s…perfume.

He follows the trail of feminine stink to the
storage room. Aside from a few sticks of useless furniture, it’s
empty, but he can hear water. He angrily strums a diminished chord,
which echoes through the castle in a shockwave that topples his
entire undead army back into their respective eternal slumbers.