His reflexes had been honed by years of facing untold dangers and his nerves were frayed raw by the afternoon's confrontations with the walking corpses. Without thinking, Artus slashed at the man behind him. The move was executed expertly, with the skill of a Shou ninja, and the enchanted dagger ran a razor-straight course across Ras Nsi's throat. The knife had barely left its target before Artus fell back, rolling to a defensive crouch a sword's length away. He brandished the blade before him in one hand, the diamond sliver in the other.

Ras Nsi ran the fingertips of one hand along the knife's path-no blood, not even the slightest nick marked the steel's passing. "A palpable hit," he said quietly. "That would have killed most men. Will done, Master Cimber."

The bara's eyes glowed like red-hot steel, so brightly that Artus found it difficult to look him in the face. The rest of his features were soft, even decadent-a weak chin hidden by a neatly trimmed beard, a pate as bald as a vulture's egg, a flat nose that only emphasized the man's inexpressive mouth. But those fiery eyes told Artus any weakness he saw in Ras Nsi was illusory.

Nsi did not wear the tobe so common in Mezro or the rougher, more basic garb of the Tabaxi villagers. He was clad handsomely in cotton trousers, a loose-fitting brocade shirt, and the flowing blue cape of a Cormyrian nobleman. His high leather boots were spotlessly polished, and the rapier hanging at his hip glinted in the sunlight. A ring on his left hand held a small triangular gem, as green as the hills of the Dalelands in spring. Artus felt his thoughts being drawn into the stone, just as he had when staring at the walls of Ubtao's temple. He shut his eyes tightly and focused on his anger.

Holding the palms of his hands together, Ras Nsi bowed. All the time, he kept his fiery eyes on the explorer. "You have found the lost bara of Mezro. Your weapons are not needed." When Artus sheathed the dagger and slipped the diamond sliver back into his pocket, the bara asked, "Your traveling companion-is he the one known as Byrt or Lugg?"

"Lugg, thank you very much," the wombat said sourly.

Artus glanced at the zombies that had been trailing him.

The ragged pack had thrown themselves to their knees. Even now they bowed to Ras Nsi, their pitiful groans filling the air. Artus turned back to the bara. "How do you know who we are?" he asked warily.

Ras Nsi smiled. "Do we have to play that game? You may take it for granted that I know a great deal. Not everything, but-" he held his hands apart in a mock embrace "-I would be Ubtao if I knew all that transpired in the jungle. I am merely his most ancient and humble servant."

"If you know so much, Master Nsi," the wombat said, fearlessly stepping up to the bara, "then 'ow about letting me know if Byrt's still kicking about."

The zombies cried out when Lugg said their master's name, and Ras Nsi scowled. "Do not speak my name aloud again," the bara snapped, small tongues of flame dancing from his eyes.

The wombat backed up a step, but did not look away. "Sorry-er…"

"Your Excellency," the bara prompted. He rubbed his chin and studied Lugg for a moment. "Your fellow is still alive-as is Lord Rayburton." Before Artus could ask how he knew, Ras Nsi added, "If you found me, you must know that Ubtao granted me the power to raise the dead. The power would be rather limited if I could not sense when something died in the jungle, don't you agree?"

Artus straightened his grimy tunic. "If you know about Rayburton, then you know why I'm here."

A strange, almost taunting smile on his lips, Ras Nsi said, "I have my suspicions, but dare not believe them." He grabbed the edge of his cape and lifted it theatrically from his side. "But let us retire to my home, where we can settle this matter in the appropriate style."

With a swirl of the bara's sky-blue cloak, they were gone.

Fifteen

Ras Nsi's home stood at the heart of a very mobile and spectacularly effective logging operation. For miles in every direction, his slaves tore up the Chultan landscape. Elementals summoned from the Plane of Earth-mighty creatures of stone and dirt that could move through the ground as easily as men walk upon it-used their stony hands to uproot trees of every sort. Behind these hulking brutes, gangs of zombies trailed with lethargic steps. The undead slaves dragged the trees back to waiting caravans and bundled the massive cargo onto sledges. Finally, dinosaurs of various species dragged the trees back from the camp and moved them along a wide road toward the coast. In ports all along Refuge Bay ships waited to take the precious wood north.

The sound of trees splintering and crashing to the ground filled the air, along with the shrieks of the birds and apes and other tree-dwellers routed by the destruction.

The whole camp stank of decaying flesh, shattered wood, and overturned earth. Zombies were constantly being crushed by the elementals or the dinosaurs or the falling trees. Just as quickly as they fell, the walking corpses were replaced by newly risen dead. Overhead, vultures and other flying scavengers circled. As soon as the crews moved far enough forward, they would swoop down to claim whatever carrion had been left behind.

In this way, over hundreds of years, Ras Nsi had created the broad, blasted plain upon which Artus and Lugg had found themselves that morning. The scar never seemed to heal. The bara's crews were too efficient for that.

In the center of this chaos sprawled Ras Nsi's palatial home. The building resembled many of the stately houses so common in Faerun's wealthier cities. Four towers capped in spires marked the corners of the huge structure, and a low wall surrounded the courtyard spreading before its front entrance. Arrow loops and stained glass windows dotted the white stone in patterns that appealed to the eye in a dozen subtle ways. Banners floated from poles atop the towers, their bright colors making them stand out against the sun-bleached sky like brilliantly plumed birds. From an open upstairs window, the gentle music of a string quartet lofted upon the hot, humid air.

The entire estate-grassy courtyard and all-was borne upon the backs of two dozen monstrously huge, long-dead tortoises. It was the job of these unfortunate skeletal creatures to keep the estate moving through the jungle at a steady, creeping pace, just ahead of the elementals and the zombies and the falling trees. The gentle swaying of the house was apt to bring fond memories of time at sea, to those who enjoyed such things.

Yet Artus wasn't remembering his days aboard the Narwhal as he stood in his newly clean clothes, framed by a large window in Nsi's audience hall. No, the former Harper was thinking on the injustice of the place-the enslaved dead men, the massive destruction of the jungle. "And you do this all for the betterment of Chult?" he asked coldly, turning back to the outcast bara.

"For the betterment of Mezro" Ras Nsi corrected. "In the end they are the same, but you must see that Ubtao chose the citizens of Mezro as his messengers in the world. The rest of the Tabaxi-" he dismissed them with a wave of his hand "-savages. It was their kind that drove Ubtao back to the heavens four thousand years ago."

The bara paced nervously back and forth before a velvet-lined throne, his boots rapping an unsettling rhythm on the polished floor. Like the rest of the room, the chair was imported from the North-from Suzail, in fact. He caught Artus studying the furnishings. "I do a great deal of business with Cormyrians, Sembians, and other northern merchants. Occasionally they send me gifts."

Fine crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Oak tables and chairs brought from the Dales filled the center of the room. The audience hall was very much like a dozen Artus had visited in Cormyr. Only the painting that hung over the large fireplace was different, surprising. In garish colors, ghastly blues and greens and grays, it depicted men and women being pulled into a grassy mound by bloodless hands. If the rest of the hall was meant to soothe visitors from the North, the painting was intended to remind them of their host's power.