Szass Tam smiled. His expression had a hint of wistfulness about it, the look, just conceivably, of someone who'd briefly hoped to find a kindred spirit and been disappointed. "Indeed it is, and I didn't mean to cast aspersions on your creed or bore you with philosophy either. Lets focus on practical concerns."

"With respect, Your Omnipotence, your 'practical concern' seems to be to blackmail me, but why? I have no choice but to do whatever a zulkir commands, and beyond that, I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. I'm happy to aid you in return."

"Your loyalty shames me," the lich replied, and if he was speaking ironically, neither his voice nor his lean, intellectual features betrayed it. "If only everyone were as faithful, but 'the world is what it is,' and with the council of zulkirs divided against itself, even I sometimes find it expedient to make it clear to folk that, just as I reward those who cooperate with me, so too do I have ways of rebuking those who refuse."

Hezass smiled. "You've covered the rebuking part. Now I'd like to hear about the reward."

The dead man laughed. A whiff of decay escaped his open mouth, and Hezass made sure his features didn't twist in repugnance.

"As one of your peers recently reminded me," Szass Tam said, "the miners dig prodigious quantities of gold out of the mountains of High Thay."

"So I understand," Hezass said.

"At present, most of it comes down to the Plateau via the road that runs east. That's natural, since it's really the only highway worthy of the name, but I see no fundamental reason why more gold couldn't move west and south, following the courses of the rivers, perhaps with magical aid to see the caravans safely over the difficult patches, and obviously, if it does, it will descend into Lapendrar. You can tax it as it passes from hand to hand and turn a nice profit thereby."

"A nice profit" was an understatement. Hezass suspected that over the course of several years, he might amass a fortune to rival Samas Kul's. "You truly could arrange it?"

"Why not? Pyras Autorian is my friend, no less than you."

More, actually, Hezass thought. He was Szass Tam's confederate, or to be honest about it, his underling. Pyras Autorian was purely and simply the lich's puppet, a docile dunce who did exactly and only what his master told him to do, which suddenly seemed like quite an admirable quality, since it meant there was no doubt Szass Tam could deliver on his offer.

"What must I do," Hezass asked, "to start all this gold cascading down from the heights?"

"Quite possibly nothing, but here's what I'll require if it turns out I need anything at all… "

Tammith's fingers dug into Bareris's neck as if she'd acquired an ogre's strength. Her mouth opened to reveal canine teeth lengthening into fangs. She started to drag him down.

He tried to plead with her, but her fingers cut off his wind and denied him his voice. He punched her in the face, but the blow just made her snarl. It didn't stun her or loosen her grip on him.

At last he recalled a trick one of his former comrades, a warrior monk of Ilmater and an expert wrestler, had taught him. Supposedly a man could use it to break free of any stranglehold, no matter how strong his opponent.

He swept his arm in the requisite circular motion and just managed to knock her hand away, though a flash of pain told him it had taken some of his skin along with it, lodged beneath her nails. She immediately grabbed for him again, but he threw himself back beyond her reach.

He scrambled to his feet and so did she. "Don't you know me?" he wheezed. "It's Bareris."

She glided forward, but not straight toward him. She was maneuvering to interpose herself between him and the door.

He drew his sword. "Stop. I don't want to hurt you, but you have to keep away."

Rather to his surprise, she did stop. A master sword smith had forged and enchanted the blade, giving it the ability to cut foes largely impervious to common weapons, and perhaps the creature Tammith had become could sense the threat of the magic bound in the steel.

"That's good," Bareris said. "Now look at me. I know you recognize me. You and I-"

Her body exploded into smaller, darker shapes. Astonished, he froze for an instant as the bats hurtled at him.

His fear screamed at him to cut at the flying creatures. He yanked off his cloak and flailed at them with it instead, fighting to fend them off while he sang.

Something jabbed his arm and then the top of his head. Bats were lighting on him and biting him despite his efforts to keep them away. He struggled to ignore the pain and horror of it lest they disrupt the precise articulation the spell required.

The bats abruptly spun away from him as if a whirlwind had caught them. In fact, they were suffering the effects of the same charm that had repelled the enormous fleas. It was supposed to work on any sort of vermin, and apparently even creatures like these were susceptible.

The bats swirled together and became Tammith once more. Her fangs shortened into normal-looking teeth, and her face twisted in anguish. "I'm sorry!" she whispered. "I'm sorry."

He inferred that his magic had done what his punch could not: Shock her out of her predatory frenzy and restore her to something approximating sanity. He sheathed his blade, put his cloak back on, extended his hand, and stepped toward her.

"It's all right," he said.

She recoiled. "Stay away! I don't want to hurt you."

"Then you won't."

"I will. Even though I… fed on poor Yuldra already. Something about who you are, what we are to each other, makes it worse. Don't you understand what's happened to me?"

He realized he was reluctant to say the word "vampire," as if speaking it aloud would seal the curse for eternity. "I have some idea, but what magic can do, it can undo. People say the holiest priests even know rituals to… restore the dead to life. We just have to get you away from here, and then we'll find the help you need."

She shook her head. "No one can help me, and even if somebody could, I'm not able to go to him. I'm more of a slave now than I was before Xingax changed me. He chained my mind, bound me to serve the wizards and their cause."

"Maybe I can at least do something about that. It wouldn't be the first enchantment I've broken with a song."

"You can't break this one. Get away from here while you still can."

"No. I won't leave without you."

She glared at him. "Why not? You abandoned me before."

Her sudden anger shocked him. "That's not true. I left Bezantur to make us a future."

"Well, this is the one you made for me."

"That isn't so. I'm going to save you. Just trust-"

A voice sounded from overhead: "What are you doing in here?"

Bareris looked up to behold the most grotesque creature he'd ever seen. Riding on the back of what appeared to be a zombie hill giant, the thing looked like a man-sized, festering, and grossly malformed infant or fetus. He surmised that it could only be Xingax, "the whelp."

Bareris reminded himself that he was still wearing a red robe and still cloaked in an enchantment devised to quell suspicion and inspire good will in others. In addition to that, Xingax was squinting down at him as if the mismatched eyes in his lopsided face didn't see particularly well. Perhaps this encounter needn't be disastrous.

The bard lowered his gaze once more. He hoped Xingax would take it for a gesture of respect, or a natural human response to profound ugliness, and not an attempt to keep the creature from getting a better look at an unfamiliar face.

"I was just curious to see what you'd made of the slave."

"Do I know you?"