Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [57]
How could it be? He had never seen anything like it…
Kohath's flesh-the skin, muscles, and organs-had almost completely liquified. Most of his friend's bones and skull were already visible, glistening wet in the fading light from the window. Even worse, the bones were shaking in some sort of death palsy. Tiuren had seen death before, but never like this.
Rather than focus on this disturbing sight-it had to be a delusion, the bard told himself-Tiuren turned back to his attackers. Diccona still reveled in the success of her dark spell. Darius muttered something unintelligible while gently stroking his head wound and summoning his strength for the deathblow.
Suddenly, the wizard's face curled into a visage of utter pain, his mouth forming a silent scream. The upraised dagger glowed white-hot. Wisps of smoke issued from between his fingers. He unclenched his hand to drop the weapon, but it was already seared to his flesh. He dropped to his knees, stuttering out a high-pitched sob, his unhurt hand squeezing his wrist to force the knife from him.
Diccona saw this and screamed in terror. She had enough intuition to turn around, though the sight was probably one she would rather have missed.
Tiuren's attention was meanwhile drawn to the presence within the bedchamber.
The skeletal figure of a man, still dripping with the remains of his flesh and blood, stood. His jaw mouthed horrible but unintelligible words.
Kohath?
Who else could it be? But how could Kohath, or whatever Kohath had so quickly become, stand here in the room where his corpse had lain just moments before? Could a man's passions allow him to defy even death? Could hate be so powerful a force?
With terror-filled eyes, Darius and Diccona looked at the risen Kohath.
"Kohath? Is that you?" Diccona asked, her voice cracking with fear.
The monstrous thing turned his head toward his traitorous wife. With a hideous creaking, a bony arm rose from his side. The fingers of the hand curled as if clutching some unseen object. A high-pitched whine began.
Darius turned to flee.
"Kohath?" Diccona said again, frozen in place.
The whine had become very loud now, as though its source drew ever closer. Darius dispelled his magical seal and dived out the door.
"Ko-"
The horrible whine drowned out Diccona's words. A dark object entered the room from the open door, hovering four or five feet from the floor-riding on the whine itself. Tiuren had only to look upon its oval shape and dark green color for a moment before he recognized it.
"The Dark Eye of Gavinaas!" he shouted, struggling to his feet.
He and Kohath had slain Gavinaas long ago, when the evil Anaurian wizard had threatened tiny Vantir's northern reaches with a conjured army of misshapen monsters. They had locked the wizard's talisman away in a deep vault below the palace. Now it was here.
The object flew into Kohath's outstretched hand, which grasped it so tightly Tiuren could hear a crushing sound. Only then did his mind register that the piercing whine had stopped. Kohath's skull turned its black, empty sockets toward him for the first time.
"No," Kohath rasped in a voice that seemed to originate from somewhere far, far away, "the Dark Eye of Kohath."
Realization washed over Tiuren, causing him to step backward with a gasp. "The Dark Eye caused this?"
"No," Kohath said again in his grinding mockery of articulation. "The Dark Eye only permitted me to do what I must." Kohath turned back toward Diccona, his skeletal body moving with a disturbing fluidity. His free hand pointed a single bony finger at her. "She caused this."
Diccona screamed.
"The Dark Eye has given me power," Kohath said, "but my reasons-my motives-are my own. Look upon me and remember this. After the wrongs wrought upon me this day, I do what I do willingly."
Diccona began the frantic gestures of a spell.
"So, my dear," Kohath said, his hideous skull glaring at the queen. "You wanted magical power. You wanted a wizard