The woman at the wharf looked alive.
That was the problem.
Hexen had followed corruption across battlefields before. He knew the smell of blight, the wrongness of poisoned soil, the hollow silence that settled over woods when animals had fled something they could not fight. The warning that had drawn him downriver from Gildan felt like all of those things at once, except concentrated here, at the edge of the Great Lake.
And yet the fishing settlement looked almost insultingly ordinary.
A handful of weathered buildings stood close to the shore. Nets hung from posts. Small boats shifted against wooden docks. A shop faced the road near the water, its windows crowded with cheap trinkets, carved charms and the sort of things travelers purchased because they had forgotten to bring home a gift.
Farther out stood the larger hall they had seen on approach.
It rested partly over the lake.
Bones decorated the roof.
Fendor had already decided that any building decorated with bones deserved suspicion on principle.
The shopkeeper did not.
She stood outside her establishment as the four heroes approached, watching them with mild curiosity.
She was striking in the way some people were striking without appearing to work very hard at it. Her features were sharp. Horns rose elegantly from her head. Her clothing suited someone accustomed to travelers, fishermen and the occasional wealthier visitor moving along the lake road.
Nothing about her suggested death.
She breathed.
She blinked.
Color warmed her skin.
Her hair moved in the lake breeze.
Even from several steps away, she smelled like a person who had spent the day near water and woodsmoke.
Kaylor stopped in front of her.
“We’re looking for something foul.”
The woman stared at him.
Fendor closed his eyes.
Nethnarel looked toward the lake.
Hexen waited.
The woman finally said, “Something foul?”
“Yes.”
Kaylor’s expression suggested that no further explanation should have been necessary.
She glanced around the settlement.
“Fish?”
Fendor looked away before she could see him smile.
Kaylor remained serious.
“Magic. Creatures. Something corrupting the land.”
The woman’s confusion appeared genuine.
That bothered Hexen more.
She thought for a moment.
“There’s an island.”
Kaylor leaned forward slightly.
“What island?”
“Not far out.”
She pointed across the lake.
The water extended broad and blue beneath the afternoon light. Several small shapes broke the horizon nearer shore—rocks perhaps, or low islands.
“One of those?”
“A small one. There are old markers on it. Stones. Totems. Whatever they are.”
“Dangerous?”
“I’ve never seen anything dangerous there.”
Hexen studied her.
She looked back at him without discomfort.
“No dead fish?”
“No.”
“Animals behaving strangely?”
“No.”
“People missing?”
“Not that I know.”
Fendor watched the woman.
Something bothered him.
Not the horns.
Not the calm.
Not even the fact that Hexen had been drawn to this exact settlement by a warning from nature while its shopkeeper insisted nothing was wrong.
It was smaller than that.
A detail his mind could not quite isolate.
He had spent centuries learning how to see what others overlooked. Wind direction before an arrow. A shifting shoulder before an attack. A line through trees no one else believed existed.
This woman looked right.
Perfectly right.
Too perfectly.
His eyes narrowed.
The breath.
There.
No.
She had breathed.
The pulse.
Perhaps.
No.
He could not point to it.
He simply knew.
Fendor had seen too many dead things pretending to be alive.
He had fought vampires.
Walking corpses.
Things that borrowed skin.
Things whose flesh obeyed magic long after whatever belonged inside it had departed.
The woman before him had accomplished the deception better than most.
But she was dead.
Fendor’s hand lowered toward his sword.
“Hexen.”
The druid looked at him.
Fendor did not take his eyes from the woman.
“She’s wrong.”
The shopkeeper heard him.
Her expression barely changed.
Hexen reached outward with his senses.
This time he was not asking the lake.
He was asking the thing standing before him.
The answer came immediately.
Not life.
An imitation of it.
Beautiful.
Careful.
Rot hidden behind magic so complete that ordinary sight would never have found it.
Hexen took one slow step back.
The woman’s smile disappeared.
Kaylor noticed.
“What?”
Fendor drew.
“She’s dead.”
The shopkeeper moved.
So did the ground.
Something pale crawled from beneath the nearest building.
At first Kaylor thought it was a person pulling itself from a crawlspace.
Then it stood.
No face.
No eyes.
No mouth.
Only smooth flesh where all three should have been.
Another emerged near the wharf.
Then another.
One unfolded itself beside a ruined fence like a mannequin suddenly remembering that mannequins were not supposed to walk.
Nethnarel’s fiery wings appeared.
“Well.”
Kaylor drew his axe.
The shopkeeper no longer bothered pretending confusion.
Fendor looked toward Hexen.
“You wanted foul.”
Hexen raised one hand.
“I found it.”
The first faceless creature came at Kaylor.
It did not roar.
That made it worse.
The thing crossed the distance silently and struck with both arms.
Kaylor met it head-on.
His axe passed through one shoulder with enough force to spin the abomination halfway around.
It did not react like anything alive.
No cry.
No sudden retreat from pain.
It simply corrected its balance and attacked again.
Kaylor struck a second time.
The creature folded around the blow.
Fendor drew the new bow.
The weapon still felt unfamiliar in his hand.
He had acquired it only hours earlier from the Pack Glitch’s lair, another piece of Leonidas’s impossible legacy. Cold lived within the limbs of the bow even beneath the afternoon sun.
The nearest faceless thing turned toward him.
Fendor fired.
The arrow struck its chest.
Ice spread from the wound.
He fired again before the creature finished moving.
The second arrow entered nearly beside the first.
Frost flashed across pale flesh.
Fendor smiled.
“Useful.”
The creature kept coming.
“Less useful.”
He moved.
The shopkeeper lifted one hand.
Kaylor saw her gesture.
“Spell.”
A sickly vapor erupted around him.
The cloud did not spread like ordinary smoke.
It congealed.
Heavy.
Clinging.
Kaylor disappeared inside it.
The first breath burned.
Not flame.
Something chemical and magical at once, acrid enough that his throat seized almost immediately. His eyes watered. The vapor pressed against exposed flesh as though trying to enter through every pore.
Kaylor stumbled toward the edge.
The undead woman watched from beyond the cloud.
He could barely see her.
“You could have just answered the question.”
The cloud did not respond.
Neither did she.
Fendor’s next arrow passed between them and struck another faceless creature.
Something in the thing’s presence pressed against him.
Cold without temperature.
Loss.
For an instant Fendor felt as if part of his strength had simply been removed from the world.
He staggered.
The abomination reached for him.
He twisted away.
Its smooth face turned toward him.
No eyes.
Still, he knew it was watching.
“I preferred the ice maidens.”
Nethnarel rose above the street.
The wings carried her over the toxic vapor and gave her a view of the settlement that the others lacked.
More movement.
The things were everywhere.
Not dozens.
Enough.
Crawling from beneath structures.
Stepping out of alleys.
Emerging from places that should have contained fishermen and families.
The warning Hexen had received had not led them to an isolated monster.
It had led them to a village already taken.
Nethnarel lifted the Staff of Power.
Two faceless creatures had clustered near the road.
Perfect.
Cold gathered.
Fendor looked up.
“New bow.”
She glanced down.
“What?”
“I am using cold now.”
“That’s nice.”
A cone of killing frost erupted from the staff.
The contradiction amused Fendor enough that he nearly forgot to move.
White magic swept across the street.
Both abominations disappeared inside it.
Boards whitened with ice.
A water barrel froze solid.
Frost raced across the side of the shop.
When the blast ended, one creature remained upright.
Barely.
The second had collapsed amid shattered ice.
Kaylor emerged coughing from the poisonous cloud.
His eyes found the shopkeeper.
She pointed toward him.
“No.”
Nethnarel felt magic gathering.
The spell had structure.
Intent.
Something aimed directly at Kaylor.
She cut it apart.
The woman’s power struck an invisible wall and unraveled.
For the first time, genuine anger crossed the undead face.
Nethnarel smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
Kaylor looked up.
“For what?”
“Nothing.”
Another faceless thing hit him.
Kaylor turned and buried the axe in it.
Fendor switched targets.
The creatures were spreading.
Hexen watched them come through the settlement and understood the problem immediately.
There were too many structures.
Too many approaches.
Too many places for the undead things to hide, flank, disappear and re-emerge.
He could shape the battlefield.
The solution arrived whole.
It was, perhaps, slightly excessive.
Kaylor saw Hexen lower both hands toward the earth.
His expression changed.
“What are you doing?”
Hexen called upon the land.
Not the plants.
Not the water.
The land itself.
Fendor felt the first vibration through his boots.
He looked at Hexen.
“No.”
Hexen finished the spell.
The world broke.
The road jumped sideways.
A crack ripped through the packed ground between two buildings and widened instantly. Wooden posts snapped. One section of wharf tilted hard enough to throw crates into the lake.
The shop windows exploded.
Fendor spread his stance.
“You cast an earthquake.”
Hexen’s concentration remained fixed.
“Yes.”
“In a village.”
“Yes.”
Kaylor grabbed the side of a building as the street rolled beneath him.
“Good.”
Fendor stared.
“Do not encourage him.”
The earthquake deepened.
The settlement had been constructed by fishermen, not engineers preparing for druidic wrath.
Walls cracked.
Roofs dropped.
The little shop partially collapsed in a thunder of wood, shelving and trinkets.
A faceless abomination disappeared beneath it.
Another fell into a widening fissure.
A third was struck by debris and vanished under broken beams.
The larger hall out over the lake shook violently.
Bones spilled from its roof.
Nethnarel remained safely airborne.
She looked down at the destruction.
“This is impressive.”
Fendor stumbled as the ground shifted.
“You are flying.”
“Yes.”
“That changes your perspective.”
Another violent tremor passed through the settlement.
Fendor lost his footing.
Part of a wall came down beside him.
Stone and wood crashed across the road.
For several seconds he disappeared beneath dust and debris.
Hexen saw it.
“Fendor?”
A hand emerged.
Then the elf.
He shoved broken timber aside and pulled himself free.
“I remain opposed.”
“You’re alive.”
“That does not improve the architecture.”
The faceless creatures fared worse.
Some tried to crawl from rubble.
Others moved without concern for collapsing structures until the structures collapsed on them.
One clawed free beside Kaylor.
The dragonborn waited.
It rose.
He hit it.
It went back down.
The earthquake continued.
Hexen could have stopped it.
He did not.
Not yet.
The woman still stood.
The magic that hid her death had survived the destruction. Dust covered her clothing. One horn had been scraped by falling debris. The perfect living appearance remained intact, but the fury beneath it was no longer disguised.
She raised her hand again.
Nethnarel watched.
The sorcerer remained above the ruined street, wings burning against a sky increasingly filled with dust.
Magic gathered around the undead woman.
Nethnarel recognized another spell beginning.
She severed that one too.
The woman jerked as the power failed.
Fendor, now standing on the remains of what had once been a wall, drew the Icy Burst bow.
“Do it again.”
Nethnarel looked over.
“The spell?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you hated magic.”
“I hate hers.”
“Clarification accepted.”
The woman turned toward Fendor.
That was a mistake.
Nethnarel descended.
She did not need the Staff of Power for what came next.
The wand answered instead.
Small.
Familiar.
Reliable.
The Wand of Magic Missiles had been with her through battles whose names blurred together now.
She pointed it.
One bolt appeared.
Then another.
Then more.
Nethnarel pushed additional power through the spell until the air around her filled with glowing darts.
The undead woman saw them.
There was nowhere to dodge.
Magic missiles did not care about dodging.
The barrage crossed the ruined village.
One struck the woman’s shoulder.
Another her chest.
Then six more arrived almost together.
The illusion of life finally failed.
Not all at once.
A crack appeared in one cheek.
Darkness showed beneath it.
The skin around her eyes collapsed.
The color vanished from her lips.
For a moment, the beautiful shopkeeper and the corpse hidden inside her occupied the same shape.
Then the missiles tore that shape apart.
She fell.
The remaining faceless abominations stopped.
Not all of them.
Enough.
Some continued attacking with the same mindless persistence.
Others turned.
Fled.
Into alleys.
Toward the lake.
Through the ruins.
Kaylor looked at Hexen.
“Now.”
Hexen released the spell.
The earthquake stopped.
The silence afterward arrived too suddenly.
Timbers creaked.
Dust rolled through the street.
Something collapsed in the distance.
Water slapped against broken dock supports.
Fendor looked around.
The fishing settlement no longer resembled the place they had entered.
One entire row of structures leaned at different angles.
The little trinket shop was mostly gone.
A deep fissure crossed part of the road.
Several faceless corpses protruded from rubble.
Nethnarel landed.
She looked at Hexen.
Hexen surveyed the destruction.
Fendor waited.
Kaylor waited.
Nethnarel said, “Subtle.”
Hexen brushed dust from the Cloak of the Moon.
“They were undead.”
Fendor pointed toward half a building.
“That was not.”
“It was helping.”
“The building?”
“Indirectly.”
Kaylor walked toward the fallen shopkeeper.
“We found the foul thing.”
Fendor looked across the ruined village.
“You found several.”
They finished the rest quickly.
The remaining faceless creatures had lost whatever coordination held them together.
Some fought.
Some fled.
The heroes moved through the settlement methodically, destroying those that attacked and allowing the others to retreat rather than chasing them blindly into the lake country.
No triumphant cheer followed.
No rescued villagers emerged from hiding.
This place had already been lost before the heroes arrived.
That realization settled over Hexen harder than the silence after the earthquake.
Nature had not called him because danger was approaching.
It had called because the corruption was already here.
Kaylor crouched beside the dead woman.
Up close, the disguise had finally broken.
The thing beneath was undeniably dead.
Not freshly.
Not recently.
Flesh had been held together far longer than nature intended.
Nethnarel examined the remains.
“Powerful.”
Fendor looked at her.
“We noticed.”
“She knew serious magic.”
“So did we.”
“She hid herself perfectly.”
“Almost.”
Fendor sounded more satisfied by that than he meant to.
Hexen came beside them.
The warning he had felt from Gildan was weaker now.
Not gone.
Weaker.
The dead woman had been part of it.
Perhaps the center.
Perhaps only the nearest knot in something larger.
Kaylor searched her belongings.
A small vial survived beneath the folds of her clothing.
Nethnarel examined it.
“Invisibility.”
Fendor looked at the corpse.
“She was already pretending not to be dead.”
“Maybe she liked options.”
They searched what remained of the shop.
Earthquake had complicated the process.
“Your fault,” Fendor said.
Hexen moved another fallen plank.
“I know.”
“You could sound sorry.”
“I could.”
Fendor waited.
Hexen kept searching.
The surviving storage room contained the sort of clutter one might expect from someone who sold charms to travelers.
Most of it was worthless.
Some of it was not.
They found small rubies mixed among other cut stones and valuables.
Nethnarel turned one over in the light.
“Worth something.”
Kaylor looked at the pile.
“Five hundred?”
“Approximately.”
“Take it.”
Fendor stared.
“Your scholarly assessment?”
“Gold.”
“Fair.”
More disturbing objects lay beneath the gems.
Small dolls.
Human shapes made from cloth, wood, hair and bone.
Some had pins driven through them.
Others had symbols painted across their faces.
Hexen picked one up.
“Ritual work.”
“The summoning?” Nethnarel asked.
“Maybe.”
The later answer, when they pieced together what the woman had been doing, would be worse than a simple haunting.
She had been preparing something.
Calling something.
The corruption Hexen felt was not accidental.
The village had not merely become a nest for undead.
Someone had been working here.
The next object was another potion.
Kaylor recognized the strength of the magic before Nethnarel finished examining it.
“Storm giant.”
Fendor glanced at him.
“Don’t you already have one?”
“Yes.”
“So this is a spare.”
Kaylor looked offended.
“That is not how potions work.”
“You drink one and become absurdly strong.”
“Yes.”
“If you have two, one is a spare.”
Nethnarel lifted the vial.
“Should we test whether both at once makes him twice as obnoxious?”
“No,” Fendor said.
Kaylor said, “Maybe.”
Hexen took the potion away from both of them.
“We’ll decide later.”
The final vial was more immediately useful.
Nethnarel held it toward the light.
“Supreme healing.”
Kaylor nodded.
“Good.”
Fendor considered.
“You should carry it.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“Because I’m usually in front?”
“Because when you fall, moving your body is inconvenient.”
“That too.”
Nethnarel looked at the potion.
“Or I carry it.”
Kaylor raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
“If you fall, I can give it to you.”
Fendor nodded.
“That is surprisingly logical.”
“Thank you.”
“I meant surprisingly.”
She smiled.
Custody could wait.
The discovery beneath the counter could not.
Hexen found a bundle of papers protected inside a narrow box.
Most were worthless records.
Transactions.
Lists.
Names that meant nothing.
A crude map had been folded beneath them.
He opened it.
The Great Lake appeared as little more than a broad shape.
The settlement occupied one edge.
A line extended outward.
Not far.
Northeast across the water.
At the end stood a tiny island.
Three marks had been drawn upon it.
The same kind of markers the woman had casually mentioned when Kaylor asked about anything strange nearby.
Fendor looked toward the ruined shopkeeper.
“She told us where to go.”
Kaylor nodded.
“Eventually.”
“She told us before we knew she was dead.”
“Still counts.”
Nethnarel traced the bearing with one finger.
“The island matters.”
Hexen felt the land.
The water.
The lingering wrongness.
Yes.
Beyond the ruined village, the corruption remained.
A thread leading out across the lake.
The woman had lied carefully.
She had said nothing dangerous was happening.
That everything appeared normal.
That the little island was merely an old place with strange markers.
And perhaps, if they had been ordinary travelers, they would have believed her.
Fendor walked outside.
The dust had begun settling.
The Great Lake shone beyond the broken wharf.
Calm water.
Blue sky.
A few birds moving above the distant surface.
Nothing visible suggested danger.
The island itself was too far away to make out clearly from shore.
Kaylor joined him.
“So.”
Fendor folded the map.
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“We need a boat.”
“There it is.”
Kaylor pointed toward the surviving fishing vessels.
Fendor sighed.
Behind them, Hexen and Nethnarel emerged from the ruins.
Hexen stopped at the water’s edge.
The warning inside him remained.
Quieter now.
More focused.
Out there.
The four heroes looked across the lake.
A tiny island waited somewhere beyond sight.
Three old markers stood upon it.
An undead spellcaster had concealed its location beneath lies.
And whatever she had been trying to summon had not yet answered loudly enough for the rest of the world to hear.
Hexen pulled the Cloak of the Moon tighter around his shoulders.
“We go out there.”
Fendor looked toward the boats.
“Of course we do.”
This time no one disagreed.