Derezo shut his mouth.

They’re reading my thoughts.

“Yes, we are,” the arch-magister said in response to the realisation that had only just crossed his mind. “We are using a tele-temporal link. You are an open book to us, I’m afraid.”

A number of salacious, rather crude images crossed through his mind.

“How pleasant.” The moustached man sighed. “In any case, you shall now hold your tongue. Yes, Mr. Alterkain. We have a calamity of unknown proportions taking shape upon the Realm’s border.” He tried to smile – Mr. Moustache Man actually tried to smile – and it was a painful thing to behold. “You see now, don’t you? You know of Timesnatcher?”

Derezo nodded furtively. It’d been Blinkwind in charge of the city-defence when he’d left, but everyone had heard of Timesnatcher.

“He is the one man whose powers, whose ability to perceive, I esteem above my own. I have consulted with him, and so I came to you, seeking my salvation.”

“H-he,” Derezo had trouble swallowing, “he sent you, to me?”

Mr. Zakimel nodded with his eyes.

“But why…” He felt a tightness, a lump in his throat, and croaked through it. “What do I…”

Vaguely-determined intuitions went flashing through his head.

All that Everseer business. All that about the dragons…

“You could do with that drink.” Zakimel got up out of his seat, twisting strangely, hands reaching up as though pinching at the air –

Then he sat down again, holding a bottle of water and two cups.

“Not quite chilled.”

A beautiful, dimpled magister behind him glanced at the glass bottle, a thread of platinum hair poking out of her hood’s rim as she moved her head slightly. The transparent container in his hand immediately frosted over, beads of condensation forming and running down it the very moment she raised her chin again.

“Thank you. Here, Derezo.”

The retired adventurer stared, nonplussed, as his hand reached out automatically to receive the drink. He’d heard of archmagery, of course, and once he even saw Ibbalat use a spell to move faster than an arrow. But to use such magic, for something so trivial as a spluttering lunch-guest? To call on the elements, just to cool a drink on a hot day? These were actions that displayed respect to Derezo, even as they put him in his place.

He drank his cup down anyway.

And was promptly sick, rust-fluid pouring out of his throat, making his teeth tingle, his tongue coil up. Redness covered his urum.

“Blood?” he panted. “Blood? What in the Twelve Hells, Mr…”

But Zakimel was staring at him, slack-jawed; the archmage glanced back at the transparent bottle of fresh, chilled water; then at the next table, where two Tirremines were also vomiting, red-purple darkness gushing down their chins. Now that Derezo saw it from afar, he realised just how strange the stuff looked.

But why is Zakimel surprised? Derezo wondered in a stupor.

Then the world erupted into scarlet flame, and he flung himself back in his chair, gawping. It was hard to take it all in.

Imps, everywhere. He’d seen their like before but never in such numbers, dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, forcing the screaming people to remain in their seats.

And at the very same moment, a man appeared on the table, almost directly between Derezo and the arch-magister – a curtain of fire peeled back to reveal the cross-legged, casual shape. The interloper was leaning back on his hands, gloved palms pressed against the table’s surface.

The spider-mask, its eight dark eyes – that was the same. But the various portcullises, barred doorways, spiked fences – every design stitched into the fabric of his red mage-robe glowed now, if it could be called glowing. The patterns were suffused with a strange black light that went curling about, tracing the shapes: shifting, visible darkness that made it look as though the ex-champion’s robe was crawling, teeming with shadows.

The magisters – none of them really reacted. Derezo could see the moustache bristling as Zakimel’s jaw worked overtime, like he was grinding his teeth. The platinum-haired magister’s eyes had narrowed; Derezo almost thought he saw lightning flickering there across her irises for a moment, as she focussed her gaze on Redgate.

For that was who it was, assuredly. Phanar, Kani, they’d all been wrong. He wasn’t dead at all. He was here, alive, after everything.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The hidden eyes turned to regard Derezo.

“Our dear diviners were looking back at the moment I told you I would return for the name of your vintage, I believe,” the voice echoed through the mask.

It sounded different to before. Almost metallic, hollow. But no less level. No less cold.

“Now you have tasted my wine, the blood of the vampire, with a few tweaks of my own addition. These fine, upstanding fellows are aware that I hold a number of hostages. Mr. Zakimel has just now witnessed at least a few shards of the possible futures here – have you not?”

Vampire?

The masked head had turned back to the arch-magister.

“I have, Lord Othelroe. It is… inhumane of you.”

“You think this assessment would hinder me?” Redgate affected a shrug. “I have never felt bound by those restrictions placed by man and god upon the actions of lesser folk. To be truly human is to exceed the human.”

“And this… excess?” Zakimel’s voice bristled like his moustache but he didn’t move a single finger, even for an instant, keeping his hands half-folded on the table near the water-bottle, the cup. “Threatening to force these people into becoming vampires? It is beneath you, Lyferin.”

“An appropriate threat, then, for the likes of you.” The ex-champion cast his head back as if to ignore these powerful fellows, turning his dark lenses up towards the sun, a gesture of complete, overweening arrogance. “What less would hold off your foolishness? And no, Tervos, I did not permit you to be familiar. I understand you have unveiled my identity, but, please, do not beat me around the head with it. It is most unbecoming.”

He must have shields, Derezo realised.

“Your lordship has been revoked, your lands seized.” Zakimel spoke the words as though they were being forced from him. “This you must surely already realise. The House is now under the leadership of your second cousin, Bertelos. Ilswent, at least –”

“Indeed. And you call me lord nonetheless. This bespeaks your intent: to survive this encounter. To leave this city. Your flattery does not go amiss, and yet…”

Redgate started to laugh, a chuckle rapidly becoming cackling – not a sound designed to mock or intimidate, but a genuine release of amusement.

Derezo felt his eyes itching. He longed to blink, but couldn’t take his eyes off the dragonslayer.

The true dragonslayer.

He wasn’t alone. Without having to look, he was aware of the fact that every pair of eyes in the place was glued to Redgate. It wouldn’t have surprised him if a number of passers-by had been mesmerised by the spectacle by now, stopping in the street to stare in horror.

One of the magisters, an imposing-looking woman in a green robe, spun on the spot and folded her arms out, fingers spread – the fabric of her sleeves seemed to melt into feathers –

“Stop!” Zakimel barked, snapping his head about to glare at her –

But it was too late.

Even as she turned away, something took shape about her – a shadow that seemed to dim the sun just by its very presence here. Within a heartbeat she was being whirled within a tornado of living darkness, and that darkness started to deepen, deepen until a huge clot of pure seething blackness was all that remained of her –

“I beg you,” Zakimel said with wide eyes, gazing imploringly at the sorcerer, “release her. I told her not to act, recognising the precision of your traps.“

Redgate shifted his weight just so that he could raise a hand and wave it lazily in dismissal. “Certain of my traps. But no. Look at your underling, Zakimel. Study your colleague, men and women of the Magisterium.”

The void had become glossy, reflective. The roughly-humanoid shape was jagged at the edges, twisting, constantly being moulded, pulled and pressed, contorting on the air.

“Jaevette was brave,” Redgate said in a voice laden with unusual sympathy – respect, even. “I fought alongside her twice. She even saved my life, upon a time… Or so she would have seen it.”

Everyone regarded the shiny darkness that had been a woman.

“Would anyone else be interested to hear her screams?” For once, Redgate sounded uncertain of himself. “I think I can let them –“

“She saved your life, and zis is how you repay her?”

It was the magister with lightning in her eyes. She hadn’t moved, but the anger in the outlander’s tone was unmistakeable.

“You have a remarkable grasp on the facts, Miss…?”

“Undo zis,” she replied, voice shaking slightly as she ignored his question, “undo it at once and ve shall be lenient.”

“Lenient?” Redgate laughed again. “Oh, your superior wouldn’t stand for that, I’m afraid, madam.”

“Zen I shall take it over his head!”

“No. No, Henthae isn’t here, is she, Zakimel? That would just be too good…”

Zakimel was shaking his head, staring at the table. “She is… She is polishing her rings… at her desk…”

“How long had you been in love with her?”

The sorcerer’s use of past-tense wasn’t lost on Derezo – he was no newbie when it came to life-threatening situations and this was just about as life-threatening as it got.

I need to get out of here, he told himself, doing his best to snap his thoughts out of their paralysis, their shock at this sudden turn of events.

Still, it was difficult. The drama unfolding before him was like a performance designed to enthral him. He couldn’t tear his eyes, his ears, his mind away.

Zakimel was at first denying his love for this Henthae, whoever she was – then his voice dropped away as he stared, realising how the nothingness on the air was smaller now, its sharp edges curling in on its central mass –

The wizard-magister had a nimbus of living white fire in her clenched fist and still Redgate ignored her, keeping his face tipped up towards the sky.

“I think you mistook me,” the dimpled wizard grated. “I do not mean Henthae. Leniency is a svift death. Ze ozzer options… you vould not vont to know zem.”

She hates him, Derezo realised. This goes beyond Jaevette…

Redgate finally brought his chin down, fixing his unseen gaze on the girl. He slowly leaned forwards, freeing his arms, then lifted his hands to his mask and hood. A practised motion revealed the face Derezo remembered, the young handsome lordling with his brown hair now unkempt.

He didn’t remember the pallor, or the purple light in the eyes. The unholy glow was so bright that the radiance stained the white skin of Redgate’s upper face, even against the sun’s rays.

Undead… spell-caster… that means he’s…

Lich.

Lich-lord.

He hadn’t been fond of the sorcerer from the first moment he’d met him. When Ibbalat related a diluted version of what they’d been through while travelling with the archmage, Derezo’s first impressions had been validated. But he hadn’t understood until this moment just what this all portended.

This wasn’t a threat you ran from. Survival wasn’t enough.

Redgate had to die again. Right now, and properly this time.

If these magisters were going to attempt it, he had to find a way to help.

* * *