Shadows moved at the bottom of the steps, and then creatures swarmed out, more than a dozen things the size of cats. Some were roughly human in form, the color of blood-flecked ash or clay, and others had tiny wings and horns. Still others had leathery flesh, and what seemed like masks grafted to their tiny faces, but those masks were snapping jaws made of metal and bone. They leapt, hissing and spitting, the ones with monstrous jaws opening and dripping acid that smoked when droplets struck stone.

  23

  The Scepter of the Arclords

  Lais leapt back and clambered up the statue as easily as if climbing a tree, and Dhyana beat her wings and rose into the air. Nice for them. Rodrick swung Hrym to try to freeze the creatures as they emerged, but only caught a handful in bonds of ice. The rest were scattering throughout the room, the more humanoid among them shouting in eerie, piping voices, “For Nex! For the Arclords!”

  Of course. The Arclords were famed for their construction of golems and other constructs, like these homunculi—Tapasi had told him that. It made sense that the Arclords had left a nest of the vile creatures to guard their treasure. At least this meant the scepter probably hadn’t been looted already. A few of the creatures darted at him, and he swung Hrym, flinging ice at them, and one of Dhyana’s arrows caught another—though it simply pulled out the shaft with its tiny hands and continued coming.

  Grimschaw grunted loudly around her gag, and Rodrick looked over to see two of the horned creatures climbing her body, hissing as they went. Dhyana howled above, and Rodrick saw a swarm of the winged homunculi harrying her. Lais was clinging to the statue’s face, shaking one leg wildly and trying to dislodge a homunculus that stabbed at her ankle with a knife the size of a toothpick.

  He couldn’t help Dhyana or Lais, and he didn’t want to help Grimschaw, but he’d have to deal with the creatures climbing on her eventually. He darted toward her, swooping the sword around in an ice-spraying arc to suppress further ambushes. Once he was within reach of Grimschaw he dropped his torch and pulled one of the homunculi off her chest, where it tried to cling, leechlike. The texture of its flesh was grotesque, slick and yielding, and when it hissed at him he tossed it onto the torch, where it burst immediately into flame. He tore off the other creature and hurled it at the ground, where it splattered, though that didn’t stop its tiny hands from clutching and waving a miniature knife.

  More were coming out of the vault. How many of these things were there? Had they bred over the centuries? Could constructs do that?

  Grimschaw’s muffled voice sounded like she had something to say, so he reluctantly pulled out her gag. He assumed she was going to demand he set her free so she could fight, and was trying to decide if he’d comply, when she shouted some ear-twisting word that made his head hurt. Suddenly lengths of whitish-gray rope appeared throughout the room at knee level, immense spider webs stretching from benches to pillars to the base of the statue, covering the chamber’s floor in a complex web. Rodrick leapt onto the bench to keep from being caught in the strands, and heard howls of outrage as the homunculi were bound up in sticky strands.

  “The torch,” Grimschaw said. “Burn the webs.”

  Rodrick reached down for the torch, careful to avoid the nearest wrist-thick strand of webbing, then touched the flame to the web. It flared so brightly it made him blink, and flames raced along the strand, met at the first intersection of webs, then burned along in both directions, until within moments the entire complex net of webbing was alight. The trapped homunculi burned and howled as the strands turned to ash, some running a few steps before falling over. A few of the flying creatures weren’t caught in the spell, but Dhyana took them with her arrows, making them fall into the flames, where they perished.

  “Be glad they weren’t golems,” Grimschaw said. “Those seldom burn as easily as homunculi, and my magic would be largely useless against them.” She shook her head. “Homunculi aren’t meant to do battle—even the snapjaw homunculi, the ones who spat acid, are fairly weak. For the most part such creatures are used as familiars and messengers.”

  “These were sufficiently warlike,” Rodrick said.

  Grimschaw grimaced. “When homunculi get too far from their masters, or their masters die, they go mad, attacking anyone who invades their territory. This was a desperate sort of trap to make, I think—a great many Arclords and their servants must have sealed their homunculi away beneath that statue, knowing they would become ferocious in time and provide some protection. Or perhaps their masters simply expected to return, before they were driven from the island.” She shook her head. “You clearly need my help. You should—”

  Rodrick stuck the gag back in her mouth. “Sorry. You only saved us because it was the way to save yourself. I couldn’t trust you any less if you were a member of the cult, Grimschaw.”

  “Shall we go down?” Lais said, standing near the edge of the opening. “No more of those creatures have come out. Maybe it’s safe.”

  Dhyana nodded, lifting her bow. “Rodrick should go first, with Hrym. If there are other surprises, ice will do better in those quarters than your fists or my bow.”

  Leading from the rear was more Rodrick’s style, but he nodded assent and went down the stairs, holding a torch ahead of him. What he could see of the chamber below was rough-hewn, perhaps cut hastily with magic, and the walls seemed more like those of a cave than the worked stone of the temple above. A secret room the Arclords made in an abandoned temple to hide something precious. There were unlit torches on the walls by the door, and Rodrick touched them with his flame, flooding the small chamber with light.

  There were only two things of note in the room. One was a human-sized statue of a Vudrani god, one he didn’t recognize, sitting cross-legged, with four arms, one holding a stone knife, one a stone hatchet, one a short sword, and one a small round shield. The god’s face was serene and human, apart from his boar tusks.

  The other item interested him more. A stone pedestal stood beside the statue, against the room’s back wall, and on it rested a staff four feet long. The Scepter of the Arclords was not the confection of jewels and mystic runes Rodrick had expected, but was made of gleaming silver metal, one end tipped with a spike flanked by curving, sharp ornaments shaped almost like wings, the other end capped by a pair of smaller sharp curves, coming together to nearly form a point like a spear’s. There were three eyelike blue gems arranged at the top, and a single smaller gem at the bottom. Rodrick took a step forward—and the blue eye-gems rolled toward him and blinked in unison.

  He took a step back.

  Lais and Dhyana joined him, and he said, “I think … I think the scepter looked at me.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Hrym said. “I look at you. Are you saying objects shouldn’t look at people? What, we aren’t good enough? You there, scepter—do you talk? I could do with some non-human conversation.”

  “I do not recognize that god,” Lais said, nodding at the statue. “Do you, Dhyana? What would a statue of one of our gods be doing down here in a chamber the Arclords made, anyway? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  The scepter’s eyes rolled again, this time toward the statue.

  The statue blinked its eyes, smiled with its tusked mouth, and began to stand up, stone dust sifting down.

  “Golem!” Rodrick shouted, and pointed Hrym, throwing up an ice wall between the statue and themselves. “Get the scepter, quick!” Lais darted forward without hesitation and Rodrick thought better of his suggestion. “No, wait, what if it’s a trap—”

  Lais grabbed the scepter with no apparent ill effects, but she gave Rodrick a considering look before darting up the stairs, Dhyana after her.

  The ice surrounding the golem cracked under a massive blow from the other side, and Rodrick yelped and backed up the stairs. “A wall, another wall, a thicker wall,” he said, and Hrym complied, sealing off the back half of the room behind a barrier of ice. The golem pounded on the ice with monstrous thuds. “How can it be strong enough to break your ice?” Rodrick said.

  “It doesn’t feel pain, and it won’t stop hitting until it shatters itself into dust.” Hrym said. “Those are very bad qualities in an enemy!”

  They hurried upstairs, where Lais and Dhyana stood holding the scepter, looking around the room wide-eyed and scowling, respectively. Grimschaw was gone, the shackles in ruins, the gag on the bench. “You didn’t shove the gag in deep enough,” Dhyana said. “She must have spat it out and worked some spell to free herself.”

  “I doubt she went far,” Rodrick said. “Not without the scepter.” He nodded toward Lais, who held the scepter, its eyes still rolling wildly. “We’ll keep our eyes open, but we should go. If we can get back to Niswan—”

  “But you left Niswan in such a hurry.” Nagesh’s voice came from the shadows, smooth and amused. “You’re so eager to go back?”

  “Oh, this is wonderful,” Rodrick said.

  “Nice of you to leave a wall of ice standing in the jungle to mark your location,” Nagesh said. A swift arrow flew from the shadows and splashed when it struck Dhyana, the garuda howling as her feathers smoked—he’d conjured or hurled some sort of weapon made of acid.

  Nagesh’s voice came from another place in the darkness; either he was moving around, or he knew a trick for throwing his voice. “I don’t know how you set these slaves of the Arclords upon me, but their attack, combined with your fog, served to spoil the conclave. Those not dead have fled. Vasaghati’s cultists are seldom bold fighters, and their skills leave a great deal to be desired when it comes to working together. But I am here, still. And I am enough.”

  “We have the Scepter of the Arclords!” Dhyana shouted, and Rodrick groaned. Always thinking in straight lines, never keeping anything back. Admirable qualities, in a way, but badly misplaced now. “Leave this place, or we’ll use it against you!”

  “Oh really,” Nagesh said. Rodrick still couldn’t pin down where his voice came from. “How very interesting. That scepter would be a fine prize.”

  “You will never use it to further the goals of Vasaghati!” Dhyana cried.

  “Hmm? Oh. Yes. Of course. My goddess. To be perfectly honest, and since none of my fellow cultists are here, I must admit that I’m less interested in the Lady of Knives than I am in myself. I’d make a better god than she would, anyway, though it does amuse me to rot out her cult from within, and turn it into my own. But listen to me—I’ve given too many speeches today, and clearly I’ve gotten into the habit. You were going to use the scepter against me, weren’t you? Well, go ahead. I’m curious to see what it does.”

  Reading garuda features was difficult, but Rodrick thought Dhyana was annoyed. He was annoyed, too. It was fine to bluff, but it was always better to have some idea what you’d do if your bluff was called.

  Dhyana tried to brazen it out, stepping forward with the staff held aloft—and then gasped as a blindingly white bolt of lightning cracked out from the darkness and struck her, knocking her into the stone benches and onto the floor, where she shuddered and trembled.

  The scepter, dropped when she fell, rolled away along the canted floor—more than the floor’s slight slant could account for, especially with that elaborate ornamental head, which should have kept it from rolling at all. Was it moving itself? Rodrick supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Its eyes moved, so why not the rest of it?

  “Decisions, decisions,” Nagesh said. “Should I kill you with acid and lightning from the shadows, or enjoy the earthier pleasures of biting you to death?”

  Enough. Rodrick started swinging Hrym, firing sprays of ice into all the shadowed corners of the room, and was rewarded with a curse from one corner. “Get the staff!” Rodrick cried.

  “Already done,” Nagesh said, suddenly visible in the light of a toadlike fire elemental who burst into luminescence beside him. At a glance from the snake-headed rakshasa, the elemental swelled into a ten-foot-high giant, like the volcano from Hrym’s mindscape made into a man.

  The rakshasa had an ice-encrusted arm where Hrym’s magic had struck, but his other hand held up the scepter, its eyes staring directly at Rodrick.

  Rodrick ignored Nagesh for the moment and focused on the fire elemental, sending spiraling clouds of snow and spears of ice at it, buffeting the thing back. Dhyana tried to take flight, but stumbled to her knees, then looked around blankly before falling forward on her beak, apparently still disoriented from the lightning strike. Lais rushed to her, murmuring and trying to rouse her. Rodrick couldn’t spare them his concern. He pushed forward, driving back the elemental step by step.

  The rakshasa didn’t seem to pay any of them any mind. “Perhaps I should try to catch the goddess’s attention,” Nagesh said, holding up the scepter and looking at it admiringly. “I’m sure she knows what this thing does. Maybe I can convince her to let me be the one to do it. Mmm. Or perhaps I could change my appearance, pretend to be Nex himself, returned at last, to take my rightful throne again…”

  Then the rakshasa stumbled, dropped the staff, and fell forward. Rodrick was busy trying to drive back the elemental, and could only spare glances, but he saw Grimschaw on the rakshasa’s back. She was wearing some kind of fist weapon—spiky brass knuckles, more or less—that glowed with crackling magical energy every time she punched Nagesh in the back of the head. One blow should have filled his brain with holes, but based on Rodrick’s own experience with Nagesh, she was probably doing little more than combing his hair. Still, if Nagesh was paying attention to Grimschaw, he wasn’t paying attention to Rodrick.

  The elemental diminished in size, its limbs turning to steam and smoke, as it succumbed to Hrym’s onslaught. Good. Once it was extinguished, Rodrick could turn his attention to freezing Grimschaw and Nagesh both—

  She ran past him, to where the scepter had rolled—it seemed almost to be trying to return to its hidey-hole. He glanced at Nagesh, who tried to push himself up on his hands and knees but then slumped back down, tongue flickering out weakly. One or two of Grimschaw’s punches must have done actual damage. The wizard snatched up the staff and turned on Rodrick, holding the artifact aloft. “I have it! The Scepter of the Arclords is mine! And unlike you fools, I was told how to use it!”

  Something boomed and cracked from the direction of the huge statue. Rodrick spared a glance in that direction—the elemental was the size of a small dog now, and shrinking fast, but if he left it alone it could flare back to full size—and saw the stone golem emerged from the hole, plodding along implacably. It must have smashed its way through the wall of ice. Things did keep finding ways to get worse, didn’t they?

  The golem didn’t pay any attention to Rodrick. It only looked at Grimschaw, wielder of the scepter. “No!” she shouted, turning to face it. “No, the Arclords sent me, I’m supposed to take it!”

  The golem hurled its stone axe at Grimschaw. She lifted the scepter and opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to do, or say, or cast, she didn’t have the chance. The axe struck her head with a sound like … well, like an axe burying itself in someone’s head. It was a sound Rodrick had, unfortunately, heard before.

  Then the golem just stood there. Rodrick looked at the scepter, which had fallen from Grimschaw’s grasp and was rolling across the chamber again, back toward its pit. Definitely moving under its own power. Apparently the guardian didn’t much care about anyone else’s presence, as long as no one touched the scepter. When the staff rolled past it, the golem turned and began to follow it back toward the vault.

  The scepter was Rodrick’s only chance at real freedom. He didn’t know much about golems, but he knew they were largely immune to magical spells, and clearly it was strong enough that Hrym’s ice couldn’t contain it for long.

  But Hrym was a sword. He was many other things, too. But he was definitely also a sword.

  Rodrick ran toward the golem, raised Hrym high, and swung at the golem’s head.

  The magical blade, which he’d seen cut stone pillars in two, just bounced off.

  The golem turned toward him, raising its weapons. Rodrick fell back on what basic sword fighting knowledge he had. He’d learned a lot of flashy flourishes, things that looked impressive, but knew very little when it came to actually defeating an enemy, and he barely parried the golem’s strike with its short sword. Fortunately, the stone blade sheared right off when Hrym struck it—at least the golem’s weapons weren’t impossibly durable. Rodrick remembered one move, a sort of spinning curtsy with blade extended, which in theory could hamstring a man …

  He made a very pretty pirouette, ducked low, and swung, but the sword just bounced off the golem’s legs with a clang. The thing kept coming, hefting its remaining weapons, as implacable as a flow of lava or an avalanche.

  Rodrick had to dance away, parrying bows that came slowly, but with enough force to make his arms go numb under the impact. This was a not a sword fight he was going to win, and if Nagesh got his wits about him and decided to bite Rodrick on the back of the head …

  Hrym sighed heavily and began to gush forth torrents of ice. The golem was, alas, not blown backward the way a person would have been, but as the ice built up around it, the creature’s legs slowed. “Hrym, it’s shattered two walls of ice, this won’t work!”

  “This time, I’m not giving it room to move!”

  As the golem lifted its arms, the ice climbed its body, holding its limbs in place, layers of ice piling up thicker and thicker to hold it there. Rodrick backed away, giving Hrym more space to pile on layers, until he stood before an immense boulder of bluish-white ice, with a barely visible gray smudge of golem at the center.

  “I don’t think that will hold forever,” Rodrick said. “The thing will get out eventually.