Prophet of the Dead

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Of course you can’t,” said a deep, silky voice; Jhesrhi Coldcreek cast around in vain to find the source. “How can Amaunator shed his light on secrets in a place where the Yellow Sun never shines?”

Cera Eurthos’s conjured glow faded, and darkness shrouded the chilly crypt with its mad jumble of funerary carvings. The stag men turned this way and that, the bells in their antlers chiming.

Jhesrhi called for fire. It leaped forth from the core of her, flowed down the inside of her arm, and sprang forth from the head of her brazen staff. She felt satisfaction that the thing that had spoken, whatever it was, couldn’t smother her power.

But then it came out of the dark, and dread pierced her like a knife. She flinched back a step, and so did her companions. Her gilded mace clutched in her hand and blond curls sticking out from under the rim of her helmet, Cera let out a gasp.

The newcomer was seven feet tall, with bone-white skin and clothing so dark that Jhesrhi could only half make out the intricate folds and embroidery. Once, he might have been handsome in the way of a corpse embalmed and displayed with consummate art and care, but since then, something had ripped his left eye from its socket and scarred the skin around it. The same calamity, presumably, had shriveled and twisted his left arm into a useless stick he held pressed to his chest.

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