Dangerous Games.

The Netheril Trilogy.

By Clayton Emery.

"The empire is going to die!" Candlemas shouted in desperation. "This is the end of the end! You said so yourself!"

"Not if Karsus succeeds!" She gazed at her cousin, who shouted threats at the ceiling as he floated higher. "He will ascend to G.o.dhood and save the city! Save the empire! He's the greatest mage . . ."

Candlemas only stared, unsure if his lover was trying to convince him, or herself. Then her words were lost as the building's ceiling blew off.

Tons of stone, slate, timber beams, granite, carved cornices, and other elements exploded upward like wheat chaff. High up, yet almost close enough to touch, frowned the cloud face of Lady Mystryl, Controller of the Weave, the stuff of all magics. And facing her, still shouting, was the presumptuous mage who would steal her power, usurp her place, walk into the firmament and take the throne of the G.o.ds themselves.

Dedicated to Seamus, Powerhouse of the South

Chapter 1.

"There! It's nice to be-"

"Move!"

The pudgy wizard was knocked flying by a shove from the tall, scarred barbarian. Candlemas caromed off a table, slipped, and crashed to the workshop floor. The stumble saved his life, for a monstrous red insect had leaped to the table, scattering jars and crockery and priceless artifacts, clashing steely mandibles to snap the arcanist's head off.

Fighting instinct saved the barbarian's life. Mistrusting magic, Sunbright had unsheathed his sword before Candlemas could invoke the shift spell. One minute they'd been standing in a dusky rainy forest then, at a fast-rattled spell, they were whisked to a cluttered workshop with high, airy windows-a room besieged by a horde of rust-red insects as big as wild hogs.

Had Sunbright thought about danger, he would have been dead long ago. Reared on the tundra, where death was always just a whisker away, he reacted instinctively, attacking the menaces with might and sinew and the fighting agility bred deep into his bones. Training seized his hands and body.

Before Candlemas even recognized the threat, Sunbright had attacked half a dozen marauders.

The great hooked sword Harvester of Blood flashed as Sunbright fell to slaughter. The insects were thick in the body and hunchbacked, like giant fleas. They were giant fleas, he realized. Myriad scuttling legs were pointed as daggers, claws bore pincers like a scorpion's, mouth-mandibles were jagged as broken razors. A dozen insects rushed the two men. Sunbright was hard-pressed to beat them back, both from himself and from the chunky Candlemas, whom the barbarian considered helpless.

The first insect to chomp onto Sunbright's iron-ringed moosehide boot lost its head to a downward slash. But even that was difficult, for their carapaces were thick as boiled-leather shields and they had few vital organs to shear. Sunbright barely wrenched Harvester free before another flea hopped up and clamped onto the barbarian's unprotected thigh. Yowling with sudden pain, Sunbright batted the thing from underhand, bowling it aside and slashing off four legs like brittle jackstraws. Yet the bug ripped a hunk of flesh free as it tumbled to land, upside down and twitching. The bug's blood was thick, reddish, pasty, and smelled acrid as burning garbage. Their alien smell filled the room, until Sunbright felt like some fly blundered into a spiderweb. He tried not to think about being sucked dry of blood, or being paralyzed and eaten alive ... slowly.

Screaming a northern challenge, he slammed his great sword between the jaws of a charging insect, felt the hook hang up in the tough carapace of the skull. He stamped his boot into a face with multifaceted eyes- then a bounding bug crashed on his back, sent him sprawling, knocking his breath out.

Kneeling under the table, crushing a crystal goblet with his bare knee, Candlemas was not helpless, but neither was he happy. How had these giant vermin come to infest his workshop? And how to combat and survive them? Not that he had time to think, for a furious red insect with clacking jaws raced straight at him.

Candlemas was no fighter, but he could hurl magic as instinctively as Sunbright could sling a sword. The wizard's first reaction to these monsters was to push them away, and the spell he ripped off did just that. Locking his two middle fingers under his thumb so first and fourth projected like horns, he squalled the mystic gargle of a spell, invoked the name of Amaunator, and fired a wormhole at the bug not three feet away.

Before the wizard's hands a vortex like a gray tornado spun into being, writhed and twisted in the air, then sought the closest, densest object. With a tail like a bee's sting, the magic wormhole drilled through the insect like an arrow through a mouse. The thick, rusty, hair-studded carapace was bored open, and the mystic energy spiraled through the beast to erupt out its back end. In the process, the bug's primitive guts were churned to paste and sucked into the magic maw to disappear Candlemas himself knew not where. The stunned insect, half-deflated, collapsed onto the flagstones of the work- shop.

But Candlemas yelled as another insect tore into his robe at the shoulder, seeking sweet meat and rich red blood.

Sunbright saw his blood mix with the rusty ichor of the giant flea's. He'd been nipped on the arm, gnawed behind his knee, and skinned along his scalp where it was shaved above his ears. A many- legged menace scrabbled at his back, claws and mandibles shredding his thick goat-hide vest, which so far had spared his spine. Another flea with a nest of sharp legs pinned his sword flat on the floor, while a third scrabbled at his elbow. More were no doubt gnawing his boots.

Stupid to be eaten alive by bugs, the young man thought with disgust. Hardly the stuff of legend.

Angry with the fleas' mindless attack, and at Candlemas, who'd teleported them into the mess, Sunbright let his anger grow, and harnessed it. With his free right hand, he hauled as well as he could onto his belly and punched the first flea in the eye. The multifaceted orb, like a mosaic of tiny mirrors, crunched under his fist. The bug was shoved backward and Sunbright could wrench up his sword. At the same time, a keen sting along his back told him his vest was destroyed. Pain fanned his battle rage.

Kicking both feet, grunting with the effort, the barbarian rolled right, dumping the monster on his back into the one at his elbow. Scrambling up, he found the two bugs idiotically gnashing at one another. Swearing in his guttural, icy tongue, he sucked wind and slammed his sword down, shearing through both bugs until his steel blade banged the floor and hashed the insects into a tangle of oozing parts. These bugs weren't so hard to kill, he reasoned. Just bulky, toothy, and persistent.

Behind him clattered jars and retorts, and Sunbright glimpsed a bug straddling a table, smashing crockery as it shuffled to leap on him. Sunbright slung his sword far back to slice the flea's head open from side to side, but the thing leaped too quickly. The table was upset so the edge crashed on Sunbright's toes, crushing them cruelly and making him yelp. Jerking his foot free, he made to kick the bug back to gain swinging room.

But the fearsome beast leapt into the air almost to the barbarian's face, and spat.

A blob of brown ichor like tobacco juice splattered Sunbright's face. Caught unprepared, he hadn't time to close his eyes. Blinking furiously and clawing at his eyes, he found he couldn't see. Then the stinging glop began to burn, sear, until he shouted in pain and anger. And for the first time, fright.

He was blind.

Candlemas's wormhole spell worked on another flea, drilling it through and reducing it to a curved sh.e.l.l spinning on the stone floor. The pudgy mage grabbed the table legs to pull himself out from under, when a warning crash made him duck back. From above, a jar filled with brine crashed on the floor, drenching him. A silver scale followed. The destruction didn't bother him so much as the danger: this table was old and creaky, he recalled. But before he could slither clear, it crashed on his back, pinning him.

A flea nipped at his ear, so close he felt it tick like a cat's claw. With the monster's weight crushing him-how could bugs weigh so much?-he couldn't free his arm to conjure another spell. Normally he hated to employ the same spell repeatedly, for it was considered the mark of an amateur, and many of his spells were subtle, designed to turn opponents away, to instill fear, to enfeeble their minds. But these insects had no minds, only claws and teeth, and ravening hunger.

But now he'd be glad to hurl a wormhole, except he was trapped with one hand underneath him.

The bug hooked a mandible into the back of his neck, making the arcanist shiver. It would tear open his skull and suck out his brains unless he got loose- Then a crashing, smashing, crunching rattled all around him, and the flea was knocked clear, as was the table. Sunbright stamped on the arcanist's hand, making him gasp.

Still, Candlemas didn't waste time. Sliding on his knees under the far side of the table, Candlemas clambered up, shoving the empty hulls of dead insects away. How many of the murderous b.a.s.t.a.r.ds were left?

He ducked as Sunbright's sword slashed sideways, scattered gla.s.s and pottery, and tore a chunk from the table's edge. Was the barbarian mad? Broken chips stung Candlemas's face, cutting his chin and eyebrow, making it hard to see for blood. Sunbright was under attack from four slashing, jumping bugs, but the barbarian slung his sword awkwardly, dinging a marble column, almost severing Candlemas's forearm, hitting nothing. The wizard shouted, "What are you-"

"I can't see! I'm blind!" A sob of panic drowned Sunbright's voice. Strong of arm and body, the barbarian was terrified of being rendered helpless. Now he howled involuntarily as a flea clamped its mandibles onto his knee.

"Get down!" Candlemas shouted. "Drop!"

Desperately the wizard racked his brain for some all-encompa.s.sing spell. Noanar's fireball would incinerate everything in sight, set off a chain of explosions that could level the tower. General Matick's shields were useless, for the bugs would just jump over or around. And they must be destroyed. Aksa's shatter? Ptack's brittleness? If Candlemas had a fault, he knew too much and became paralyzed trying to choose. Nor was Sunbright helping. Used to battling alone, the barbarian had no intention of ducking from a fight.

What to do? The insects were like hot coals tearing up his laboratory and the two men. Even now one skipped away from Sunbright to leap at Candlemas, and the wizard found himself stepping away from the threat. Heat wouldn't mean much to them with their tough, leathery hides. But the opposite .. .

Invoking Kozah, the Storm Lord, Candlemas shot his sleeves, locked his fingers, and conjured. The spell took form instantly, for his fingers ached to the bone, then to the wrists, then the elbows. He couldn't hold this enchantment long- A flea leapt. Instead of backing away, Candlemas stepped to meet it.

A slap to either side of its head did the trick. Veridon's chiller sank magic deep into the beast's core.

Its rust-red carapace was suddenly brighter, reflected in morning sun from the high windows, as the insect was coated with a layer of ice an inch thick. Frozen solid, the thing tilted down and thundered at Candlemas's feet, icy legs and claws shattering against stone. Clumps of frozen bug landed on the wizard's sandaled feet, leaving a wet, chill, ugly feel on his hairy toes. Irritated, he kicked the thing away and dashed around the long table.

Sunbright had sunk his sword into another insect by sheer instinct, but he'd lodged it in the chitin behind the beast's round head and the keen hook had fetched up again. As the barbarian yanked and twisted desperately, another flea crashed into his chest, knocked him loose of his weapon. Sunbright was slammed on his back, winded. Grappling the beast, he only cut his fingers on its sharp claws.

Candlemas worked as fast as he could. He touched a flea before him on two spots on its back. The chill touch rippled through the beast where the hands touched, like an icicle hammered through its body. The creature's back end was frozen solid while the front legs scrabbled to whirl and attack. It would die shortly, Candlemas knew, but he skipped backward, for those living claws could still rip.

Circling, cursing, he swung wide of the struggling insect and laid hands on the bug on Sunbright's chest. A touch at head and rump froze the monster instantly. The blinded Sunbright hissed as his fingers were frosted from the periphery of the spell. The bug fell with a clatter, small legs snapping like frozen twigs.

Candlemas scanned the room quickly. Hadn't there been a third-still alive?

He grunted as the bulky beast crashed into his back. Candlemas flopped atop Sunbright, who'd been uncoiling upright. The men banged heads, then the bug crushed Candlemas's face to the stone floor. His hands locked under him still retained magic, and Candlemas felt ice frost his rough smock and belly. Greedy mandibles gnawed at the back of his bald head. "Get it off! Get it off me!"

A gutty grunt answered, and Candlemas saw a big iron-ringed boot sail by. Leather thudded into the flea's belly and flipped it over. Sunbright followed, grappling madly like some drunk. He stepped square on Candlemas's rump before he stamped down hard on the insect's gut to pin it. The gasping wizard winced at the crunching, tearing noises, rolled far enough to see Sunbright, still blind, ripping wriggling legs and claws off the insect like dead branches.

When the last pair of legs had been yanked off, a red-bathed Sunbright reared back and rubbed at his eyes with his wrists. "Thank Selune! I can see! But G.o.ds above, it stings!"

Candlemas pushed upright, cast about wildly for more insect enemies. But apart from the de- limbed one writhing impotently on the floor, all were dead, some drilled through, some frozen solid, some chopped to hash. Bug parts and smashed pots lay everywhere. Candlemas himself was wrapped in torn and spattered clothing, while Sunbright was painted head to toe in bug guts and blood, some of which was his own. His long shirt and goat-hide vest hung in tatters. Gasping, he pawed his red eyes clear and blinked painfully.

Sunbright asked, "What were you saying?"

Candlemas sank on his hams on the floor of his ruined workshop and found himself in a puddle of ice water, the last vestiges of his chill touch spell. He sighed, "I said, it's nice to be home."

Stumping across the filthy, littered floor, Candlemas pulled ta.s.sels to ring faraway bells. Despite seeping wounds, fiery pain, and swollen eyes, Sunbright saw first to his weapon, scrubbing ichor from the blade and touching up the edge with a stone plucked from a belt pouch.

Harvester of Blood was Sunbright's weapon, his father's sword, forged in some unknown southern land. The shank of the sword was as wide as three fingers, but the tip swelled to a curved and brutal edge where the backside was cut away to a deep hook. A good blade for slaughter and mayhem: wide- pointed for stabbing and driving home damage, heavy-nosed for lopping and slashing, back-barbed for sinking into an enemy's vitals, then causing terrible damage twisting and ripping out. A weapon to destroy man or beast or pit fiend, and Sunbright had killed them all in his adventures since leaving the tundra. One reason he'd survived was because he always honed Harvester's edge before tending to his own wounds.

Before long, a clutch of lesser wizards and black-and-white-clad maids swirled in, wondering when their master had returned and exclaiming at the wreckage and wounds. Candlemas ordered the lot to shush, demanded hot water, rags, and brooms. Within a few moments, sculleries were stuffing bug carca.s.ses out the window, mopping up blood and sweeping up crockery. Two wizards blathered apologies to Candlemas while two maids undressed him. When the women and girls made to disrobe Sunbright, the barbarian let them close enough to swab his eyes with deliriously warm and clean water, but when they picked at his leather laces and rags, he pushed them at bay with b.l.o.o.d.y hands.

The babble was horrendous, everyone gabbling at once.

The chief a.s.sistant arcanist, a green-robed woman named Kalle, apologized over and over, ". . .

sorry, Lord Candlemas. We thought it best to move the breeding boxes here where it was quiet in your absence ..."

A clerk called, "... Lady Polaris is asking for you, my lord. She says it's urgent and you must..."

Kalle's a.s.sistant, a older man in red robes named Gibor, blathered, ". . . just a tad too much magic in the wrong place. Instead of growing tougher they grew bigger . .."

Sunbright brushed in vain at helpful maids' hands. "Candlemas, tell them to desist!"

"My lord, it's all this fool's fault. I had no idea-"

"Not true, Lord Candlemas, not true! She insisted we come up here-"

"How could you have been so stupid?" Candlemas roared at his mages as maids removed his sandals. "You know this workshop is saturated with magic-What is your problem, Sunbright?"

"They're trying to tear off my clothes!" Older maids tsked and younger ones giggled as they plucked ineffectually. They wore plain black-and-white gowns, ap.r.o.ns and caps, the house colors of Lady Polaris.

"What did you expect? You need a bath! Kalle, I'll have you scouring toilets if you don't come up with a better reason-"

"I can bathe on my own!" Refusing to strike the women's hands, the barbarian backed into a corner.

Two maids giggled so hard they had to hold their stomachs.

"And you, Gibor! What kind of moron ..." By now, Candlemas wore only a loin cloth. Maids scurried out with his torn, b.l.o.o.d.y clothing. None of the servants seemed to mind his paunchy, hairy near-nakedness. "What? No, you can't bathe on your own! A lord is never alone, or at least not often!

A gentleman is tended by underlings!"

"I'm no gentleman!" Sunbright retorted. A maid sneaking up from behind caught his long shirt and ripped it up the back. Sunbright yelped. "Stop that!"

The clerk insisted, "Lady Polaris promised to bleach my skull for a birdhouse if I didn't tell you immediately ..."

"My lord barbarian," pouted the head maid, Hamuda. "If you'll just allow us-"

"I'm no one's lord!" Sunbright barked. Sensing a draft, he looked back and saw his own white rump. "My shirt!"

"To blazes with Lady Polaris! I'll send to her when I get a moment! Salve this cut, will you, it stings like fury! Get used to it, Sunbright! You're one of the rulers of this castle now, even if you are my underling!"

Candlemas went on berating his mages. It was true he'd ordered experiments made on these fleas.

He'd had a vague hope they carried germs in their guts that could counteract the "wheat rust" that was threatening famine, since they fed on the cows that prospered eating blighted wheat. The arcanist was getting desperate, for every other experiment had failed. But he'd never intended his workshop to be the site of the testing. There were laboratories, storerooms, and halls aplenty in this castle, more than in some whole towns. And certainly he hadn't ordered giant, man-eating fleas, though he had mentioned a magic grain-toughening spell he thought might help. Still, his underlings were supposed to think for themselves, not follow orders like drunken zombies. He wasn't Sysquemalyn, after all.

"You two'll be flogged for your incompetence! I never-"

He halted, whirled in place by a mighty barbarian hand. Sunbright towered over the smaller man with a heart-stopping frown.

Up close, the wild man was frightening. Although his hair was bright blond-thus naming him- Sunbright wore only a topknot and horsetail, with his temples shaved close. He bore no facial hair, but made up for it with myriad scars: enough scars to st.i.tch a tapestry, though he was not much over twenty years old. He was strapped with ropy muscle, tough as an oak tree and as hard to kill, for he'd been to h.e.l.l and beyond and survived, killed more monsters than Candlemas could imagine. Blood- spattered and sc.r.a.ped, with his bulky clothes in rags making him look even wider and taller, Sunbright was a frightening sight. Candlemas knew he could handle this young wildling-most of the time-but there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

"Let's split that nut now!" growled the northerner. "I am not your underling! You came asking my help! I agreed to study with you to learn Greenwillow's fate, and to see if, together, we could solve our problems. But we're to be equals in all things. Is that clear?"

Breathing carefully, keeping his face neutral, Candlemas replied, "Of course. My mistake. Being steward of this castle I tend to give orders easily, and forget. All apologies. But I might point out, if you are to live in this castle, you'll need to conform to certain rules, certain ... conventions."

"I see no need for any conventions, or rules!" Sunbright leaned close, and Candlemas reflected even his smell was wild: wood smoke, pine sap, and musk. "I seek to become a shaman, to free Greenwillow's soul from whatever slimy corner of h.e.l.l she's been banished to, and to eventually return to my tribe to ... well, never mind why. So I don't-"

"Yes, and I've plenty to do too," Candlemas dared to interrupt. He needed to show some pride.

"And that's why I asked you here! I need to direct these nincomp.o.o.ps in finding a solution to this blight-which is beginning to spread to barley crops and apple orchards-before nine-tenths of the empire's peasants starve to death! And I need to address the demands of Lady Polaris, may Tyche, our Lady Luck, see she prosper, because this is her Castle Delia you stand in! And I must also . . . well, enough about me. Just don't think-"

"I'll think as I please!" So intent was he on arguing, Sunbright failed to see the maids creep in.

"Don't tell me how to think! Or what to do! We'll work together or not at all! I'm not some bull- whipped dung-shoveler you've cowed into subjugation! I'm Sunbright Steelshanks of the Raven Clan of the Rengarth Barbarians, and my tribesmen bow to no one, including each other. There are no freer people in all the lands of all the G.o.ds!"

"Fine, yes, wonderful," Candlemas sighed, "but this is not the tundra, and you'll do well to follow a few of our customs. Such as regular baths, especially when one is drenched in gore! Now, if you'll be so kind-is that better?-please follow Hamuda and her girls to the baths. Because you're now as free as a man can be." He looked downward significantly.

Sunbright glanced down. While he'd glowered at the steward, the maids had industriously peeled off the rest of his torn, b.l.o.o.d.y, trail-worn clothing. For a moment, the barbarian stood in only his ring- studded moosehide boots, then the giggling maids wrapped him in a soft robe of black-and-white.

Candlemas raised his eyebrows. With a snort of disgust, Sunbright s.n.a.t.c.hed his sword from a table and, boots jingling, followed a bevy of fawning, laughing maids out the door.