T
W
O
3–6 ELEASIS, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE
Khouryn couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to be a warrior, or when his elders hadn’t unanimously agreed that that was his proper path. Thus, his education had centered on the battle-axe and the warhammer, on the shield wall and the charge.
Still, he was a dwarf, and so, at least to some degree, stone-craft and metalworking were in his blood, which made it all the more frustrating that he couldn’t remove the heavy, ironbound door from its hinges or take it apart until there was a Khouryn-sized hole to squeeze through.
The darkness in the bare, little cell was no hindrance to a member of the race the Soul Forger had created to thrive underground. Nor had hunger yet stolen all his strength. But he needed tools, as his raw fingertips attested.
They gave him a twinge at the mere thought of picking at the bolts and screws again. He stood up from the cold, hard, concrete floor and moved to the door anyway then started humming a song he’d once heard a master smith sing, as best he could recall the tune. There might be magic in it to bend iron and steel to the singer’s will, although if so, he certainly hadn’t seen any evidence of it so far.
At least it pushed back the silence. But then something else did too. Something clanked on the other side of the door. Someone was coming.
Probably to push another cup of water and maybe even a crust of moldy bread through the narrow slot at the bottom of the door. Up until that point, the guard entrusted with the chore had been careful to keep his hand beyond Khouryn’s reach. But maybe he wouldn’t be the next time. Then Khouryn could grab it, jerk the human’s arm through the hole, and twist and bend it viciously, threaten to cripple him for life unless he surrendered the key to the cell.
Even if it didn’t get him out of there—and Khouryn was realist enough to recognize it probably wouldn’t—a little taste of revenge would do him good.
He kneeled beside the slot and poised his hands to grab. Then, to his surprise, the lock clicked.
He stood back up, and the door creaked open. There were four guards clad in mail and crimson jupons outside, not just one, and three of them had their short swords leveled. Without a weapon of his own, Khouryn had no hope of taking them on.
The fourth carried a pair of manacles. “Turn around, dwarf,” he said, “and put your hands behind your back.”
Khouryn obeyed. Heavy rings snapped shut on one wrist, then the other. The chain between them clinked.
“Now come on,” said the fourth guard, retrieving a lantern from a niche in the corridor wall. Its glow stretched all of their shadows out behind them as they climbed from the dungeons back into the palace above.
“Who are you taking me to see?” Khouryn asked. If it was someone besides the crazy woman who’d ordered him imprisoned, then maybe he could convince that person of his innocence.
“Shut up,” answered one of the guards, who then gave him a shove.
That suggested the sad likelihood that it was the madwoman who’d ordered Khouryn hauled forth. So he was pleasantly surprised when his escort ushered him into a hall decorated with tapestries and marble statues depicting the legendary Tchazzar’s martial exploits. The crazy woman actually was there, looking as outlandish as before in layers of garish vestments. But so were Jhesrhi, Shala, Zan-akar Zeraez, and—
Khouryn faltered in astonishment when it registered that it wasn’t Shala sitting on the war hero’s raised, golden throne. It was a man, whose pointed ears and long face subtly suggested the shape of a dragon’s head without detracting from a flawless masculine beauty, a man who very much resembled the woven and sculpted portraits of Tchazzar on every side.
Recovering his wits, Khouryn started to bow. Then the madwoman shrilled, “Kneel before the living god!” And before he could even consider doing so, one of the guards grabbed him from behind and threw him down on his belly.
Khouryn floundered to his knees as best he could with his hands still shackled behind him. Meanwhile, her golden eyes ablaze with anger, Jhesrhi said, “There was no need for that! Nor any need to arrest him in the first place!”
“He’s a friend to the dragonborn,” the madwoman said, “and so an enemy to Chessenta and Your Majesty. Why else did he go slinking off to Tymanther with Ambassador Perra and her household?”
Although Tchazzar—if that was really who he was—hadn’t given him permission to rise, Khouryn decided he’d be damned if he’d stay down like a prisoner already judged guilty of some heinous offense. He clambered to his feet, and to his relief, nobody moved to shove him down again.
“Majesty,” he said, “you and I haven’t met. But if you know Jhesrhi, and Aoth Fezim, you know what you need to know about me. I’m loyal to the Brotherhood of the Griffon and to whoever’s paying us to fight. I escorted Perra and her people home because Shala Karanok wanted them to have an escort.”
Shala’s mouth tightened as though she didn’t especially appreciate being involved in his defense. But she spoke up without hesitation. “That’s true, Your Majesty.”
The scrawny woman rounded on her in a swirl of red. The voluminous folds of her garments kept swinging and flapping for another moment after her bony body had stopped moving. “And why was it true? Why would you let them escape Chessenta when it had just been proved that dragonborn were behind the Green Hand murders?”
Shala scowled. “Because, Lady Halonya, it hadn’t been proved that all dragonborn, up to and including Tarhun’s own emissaries, were guilty. I hoped not, and wanted to preserve the alliance if, in fact, it was genuine.”
“Even though I warned you what sort of treacherous, murdering scum the dragonborn are,” said Zan-akar Zeraez. The Akanûlan ambassador was a stormsoul genasi. He had silvery spikes in place of hair, and a complex pattern of argent lines etching skin the same deep purple as a grape. Sparks often crawled and crackled along them, especially when he was agitated, but that wasn’t the case at the moment. Apparently he was satisfied with the way events were unfolding.
“It was unquestionably a blunder,” Tchazzar said. “But then, we already knew Shala wasn’t up to the task of ruling Chessenta. That’s why I had to return from the realm of the gods.”
“Majesty,” Jhesrhi, “the point isn’t whether or not Lady Shala made a good decision. It’s whether Khouryn should be blamed for obeying an order from the person who was, at that time, the supreme authority in the land.”
“That’s not the whole point,” Halonya said. “The sellswords who marched south with the dwarf came back as soon as their errand was done. But he stayed in Tymanther for months afterward. Why was that?”
“I had Captain Fezim’s permission to take a leave of absence,” Khouryn said. “I wanted to head on down to East Rift to see my wife and kin.”
“And did you go?” Tchazzar asked.
“No,” Khouryn said. “The ash giants were on the attack and had closed the Dustroad. And my griffon had died on the way from here to Djerad Thymar, so I couldn’t just fly over them. I stuck around, hoping the dragonborn would beat the giants back and get the road open again, as they finally did. But by then, it was time for me to rejoin the Brotherhood.”
“Riding on a bat,” Zan-akar said. “The steed of the dragonborn’s Lance Defenders.”
“It was a gift,” Khouryn said. “I helped defeat the giants.”
Halonya whipped back around to address Tchazzar. “He admits to giving aid to your enemies!”
“I didn’t know they were enemies,” Khouryn said. “I still don’t understand why it needs to be that way. I mean, I realize that a handful of dragonborn committed crimes here in Luthcheq. I helped catch them. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking to Tarhun and Perra, and I’m sure they want Chessenta and Tymanther to be friends.”
Tchazzar sneered. “Sadly, I know otherwise.”
“Majesty,” Jhesrhi said, “I say again that, while Tymanther may be the enemy, Khouryn hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“He gave aid to Tymanther,” Halonya said. “So much aid, apparently, that they honored him with one of their special treasures. And he’s still speaking well of them, right to Your Majesty’s face. Don’t let him go around saying the same sort of things to others. Don’t let him weaken your warriors’ resolve!”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Khouryn said.
“Would you tell us everything you’ve learned about Tymanther’s defenses?” Zan-akar asked.
Khouryn took a breath. “Yes. If Captain Fezim or His Majesty ordered me to.”
“I don’t believe you,” the genasi said.
“Neither do I,” Halonya said. “Not unless we force him to give up what he knows.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Jhesrhi said. For a moment, yellow flame rippled up from her hand to the head of her staff.
Zan-akar put on a sober, nuanced expression worthy of a diplomat, one that simultaneously sympathized with her distress and rejected her opinion. “With respect, Lady Jhesrhi, not from Akanûl’s point of view. We’ve joined Chessenta in a difficult, dangerous undertaking, and we naturally expect our allies to make choices that maximize the chances of success. Here, the choice seems clear. His Majesty can let a fellow of uncertain loyalties go free to foment whatever mischief comes to mind. Or he can detain him and question him rigorously to extract the valuable information he undoubtedly possesses.”
“Majesty,” Jhesrhi said, “I beg you not to abuse an innocent person.”
“And I beg you to protect your children from spies and traitors,” Halonya said.
Frowning, Tchazzar hesitated. Plainly he was looking for a way to placate both women, and just as plainly, even a “living god” wouldn’t be able to find one.
Finally he said, “Lady Jhesrhi, it’s understandable that you feel a … nostalgic attachment to someone from your sellsword days. But you’re a royal counselor of Chessenta now, and like all of us charged with the protection of our people, you must put their welfare first.”
“Yes!” Halonya crowed.
A trace of amusement in his face, Tchazzar turned to look at her.
Halonya colored and made a visible effort to compose herself. “I mean … may I keep on overseeing the prisoner? You have priests in your church who are good at convincing people to talk.”
“She’s talking about the wyrmkeepers who tortured Sunlady Cera!” Jhesrhi said.
“I know that,” Tchazzar said.
“Majesty, I’m the one who found you chai—”
“You’re also the one who acknowledged that debt is paid!” Tchazzar snapped. “The one who promised to speak no more about it! I don’t want to hear any more about this either! The subject is closed!”
“Majesty!” Khouryn shouted. “I know what’s written in the Brotherhood’s contract! I know you’re not supposed to do this!” Even as he spoke the words, he knew they were useless.
And he was right. Tchazzar waved his hand, and the guards grabbed Khouryn to wrestle him around and drag him away. Halonya gave Jhesrhi a spiteful, triumphant smile.
* * * * *
Aoth liked the warm, summer sunlight, the feel of Cera nestled up behind him with her arms around his waist, and the forbidding but breathtaking vista that was eastern Akanûl. The landscape below was a jumble of cliffs, rocky outcroppings, and ravines. Off to the north, the so-called Glass Mesa—which was more likely quartz—gleamed like an enormous gem. There were plenty of earthmotes too, floating islands in the sky, some of substantial size and covered in vegetation.
It was fun being off on a journey with no one but his familiar, one other griffon rider, and the woman he supposed he’d come to love for company. It reminded him of his youth, when he’d served, often as a scout and courier, in the Griffon Legion, in the old Thay that Szass Tam and the Spellplague had destroyed. It had mostly been a pleasant, carefree life, and it had never even occurred to him to aspire to anything more.
But of course he wasn’t that young soldier anymore. He’d acquired far heavier responsibilities, and despite the distractions of the day, at odd moments, worry gnawed at him. Especially since, for the first time ever, he’d left the Brotherhood with none of its senior officers to oversee it.
He could have left Gaedynn. He probably should have. But he also needed trustworthy companions to help him accomplish his mission. If—
Enough! said Jet.
Aoth smiled. What?
You already made your decision, the griffon said, so why are you still fretting about it? I don’t know how humans ever accomplish anything, second-guessing yourselves the way you do.
Somebody has to do the thinking, said Aoth.
The thinking, yes, said Jet. The dithering, no.
Aoth was still trying to frame a suitable retort when he spotted the minotaur. The hulking creature with the bull-like head was climbing up a steep trail to the top of a ridge. A line of similar creatures followed it.
Aoth pointed with his spear.
“What is it?” Cera asked.
Evidently she couldn’t make out the minotaurs, even as antlike specks. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Even Jet might not have noticed them as yet, if not for the psychic bond they shared. But it was sometimes difficult to guess what ordinary people—folk without Blue Fire smoldering in their eyes—could see and what they couldn’t.
After he told her what he’d noticed, she asked, “Do we care?”
“No,” he said. “We won’t go any closer than we need to in order to tell what they’re doing.”
“Why do even that?” she replied.
“Because,” he said, “when you’re traveling through wild country, it’s always better to know what the savages and brigands are up to, even when you can whiz by high above their heads.”
Responding to his unspoken desire, Jet raised one wing, dipped the other, and wheeled left. Aoth glanced back to see if Gaedynn and Eider were following. They were. The archer’s elegant rust-and-scarlet clothes and coppery hair shined in the sunlight. So did the griffon’s bronze-colored plumage and tawny fur.
Another stroke of Jet’s wings carried him, Cera, and Aoth far enough to see what lay beyond the ridge. Aoth took in the view, then cursed.
An earthmote hung high above the ground with a waterfall overflowing its edge and hissing downward. Sustained by a link to the realm of Elemental Chaos, the endless spillover had created a small lake at the bottom, with tilled fields and pastureland around it.
Goats and sheep grazed on the grass with a brown-skinned earthsoul boy to tend them. But most of the genasi villagers had forsaken the livestock and crops to take care of or palaver with the red-coated warriors who’d paid them a visit.
The warriors slumped on the ground in the clear space at the center of the huts looking as if they barely had the energy to lift the food and drink the villagers had provided to their mouths. Some had bloody bandages. Presently contained in a pen the settlers had cleared for the purpose, their steeds, gray lizardlike drakes as big as horses, looked just as battered and exhausted.
Cleary the men-at-arms had recently fought a hard battle. Aoth wondered if it had been a battle with another contingent of the same foes who were sneaking up on them.
The warriors should have posted a sentry on the high ground overlooking the village but they hadn’t, and if the settlers were in the habit of keeping watch, the excitement had evidently lured their sentry down from his perch.
“If the minotaurs attack by surprise,” Cera said, “shooting bows from the high ground—”
“Don’t worry,” said Aoth. “We’re going to help.”
Discerning his intent, Jet wheeled, and Gaedynn and Eider followed suit. Despite the impediment of being in the saddle, the archer strung his bow with quick facility.
So, said Jet, Tchazzar’s willing to pay us to fight dragonborn, but we don’t want to. Nobody’s paying us to kill minotaurs, but we do want that.
It may help us convince the queen, Aoth replied, if we’ve done some of her subjects a good turn.
I think you’re just showing off for the sunlady. But it’s fine with me. A little skirmish should be fun.
“Should I call Alasklerbanbastos?” Cera asked. The dracolich was in a sense traveling with them, but at a distance and mostly after dark. That way they didn’t have to worry every moment about him suddenly lashing out in another attempt to reclaim the phylactery.
Aoth snorted. “For this? No. I doubt it’ll last more than a moment.”
He lifted his ram’s-horn bugle and blew a blast to attract the attention of the folk on the ground. Then, leaning out of the saddle, he used his spear to point to the top of the ridge.
Meanwhile, the first minotaur climbed onto the crest of the outcropping. Instantly Gaedynn drove an arrow into his chest and he toppled. Eider and Jet let out bloodcurdling screeches.
A second minotaur scrambled to the top of the rise. Aoth rattled off a short incantation and punctuated it with a jab of his spear. A viscid glob flew from the point to splash in the bull-man’s face. He fell down, thrashing and screaming, pawing at the smoking, corrosive paste.
And that, thought Aoth, was likely to be that. The horned barbarians had lost the advantage of surprise. Nor would the high ground do them much good when a hostile warmage and bowman were flying higher still. It would make sense to withdraw.
Instead, a minotaur with red-stained horns clambered onto the ridge. Gaedynn instantly shot at him, and the shaft flew true. But it burst into flame and burned to a puff of ash just short of the creature’s body.
Maybe one of the demonic emblems freshly cut into his arms and chest was responsible. Aoth cursed himself for not noticing them before. But even fire-kissed eyes couldn’t take in everything at once.
The shaman brandished his club and bellowed a word—perhaps the name of his patron demon—in an Abyssal tongue. The sound jabbed a twinge of headache between Aoth’s eyes.
Flowing into view from head to foot like a painter’s brush stroke, a hulking, gray-and-black figure appeared. Horns jutted over its yellow eyes, and jagged tusks lined its oversized mouth. Its wings and pointed ears were like a bat’s.
“That’s a nabassu!” Cera said.
“I know,” said Aoth. In other words, it was a particularly nasty kind of demon. He spoke a word of command and released one of the spells stored in his spear. A rainbow of varied and destructive forces blazed from the point.
Unfortunately the nabassu vanished before the magic reached it. Prompted by instinct, Aoth looked up just as the demon reappeared overhead. It spread its leathery wings, turning what would have been a plummet into a swooping glide.
Jet gave a choked little cry as a mystical attack struck him, and Aoth felt a stab of pain and weakness across their psychic link. The steady beat of the griffon’s wings turned into a useless, spastic flailing. Then Jet was the one who fell, carrying his riders along with him. The nabassu dived at them all.
Cera rattled off the first words of a healing prayer, Aoth charged the point of the spear with power, thrust, and caught the demon in the belly. But the weapon didn’t go in deep enough to stick. The creature twisted and tumbled free, and Aoth knew that while he’d inflicted a wound that would have stopped any human, it wasn’t nearly enough to incapacitate a fiend from the netherworld.
Cera finished her prayer. Healing warmth poured from her hands into Jet’s body. He spread his wings and arrested his descent.
Let me take him! the griffon said.
When you can get above him, Aoth replied. Until then, let me wear him down with spells.
So the two flyers maneuvered, each seeking the high air. Meanwhile, the puncture in the nabassu’s stomach closed, and new hide and fur grew over it.
Swinging her golden mace over her head, Cera hurled flares of Amaunator’s light at the demon, and Aoth conjured blasts of flame and frost. The nabassu dodged more often than not, sometimes by translating itself through space and sometimes by becoming an insubstantial phantom for a moment.
It also snarled a word that, even though Aoth didn’t know the meaning, somehow carried a weight of stomach-churning foulness. Cera jerked and grunted then said, “I’m all right.” She started another prayer, and the demon shrouded itself in fog.
Aoth conjured a wind that tore the cloud apart, then immediately followed up with darts of crimson light. All five hit the nabassu squarely, and although they penetrated its head and torso without opening visible wounds, he suspected that he’d finally hurt it enough for it to matter.
Then pain ripped through his own skull and body. No, not his, Jet’s. When the darts had pierced their target, the magic had somehow wounded the familiar as well. The griffon flailed his wings, trying to keep flying and stay away from the demon despite the shock.
“What’s wrong?” Cera cried.
“The demon forged a link between the two of them,” said Aoth. “You have to break it.”
Cera began a spell, but she was only a word into it when the bat-winged creature flickered through space once again. It reappeared right beside Jet, snatched hold of his neck with the talons of one hand, and raked at Aoth with those on the other.
Unbalanced by his attacker, Jet floundered through the air. He strained to strike at the demon with his own talons and beak but couldn’t reach him.
Aoth could use neither the sharp end of his spear nor the lethal spells that were a warmage’s stock in trade for fear of killing Jet. Blocking claw strokes with his shield, the targe clanking, rasping, and jolting his arm, he reversed his weapon and used the butt to try to knock the nabassu away. He couldn’t. He conjured another howl of wind to blast it loose. That didn’t work either.
He struggled to think of a tactic to dislodge the demon and couldn’t. Then a sparkling, hissing curtain appeared before him. He just had time to realize that, despite the injuries and the clinging foe hindering his flight, Jet had managed to aim himself at the waterfall streaming down from the floating island into the lake below. Then they all plunged into it.
The frigid water hammered, smothered, deafened, and blinded Aoth, all in the first instant. He thrust with the butt of the staff anyway and thought he felt it connect, although with what result, it was impossible to tell.
It might not matter anyway. The waterfall would likely tumble them down to their deaths no matter what. He certainly couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t even tell which way was up anymore.
But then, half flying, half swimming, exerting every iota of his flagging strength, Jet carried his riders clear of the raging water and out into the open air on the other side.
His riders, but not the nabassu. The savage force of the torrent, possibly aided by that final jab from Aoth’s spear, had finally broken them apart.
Unfortunately, thought Aoth, coughing, the demon was likely to escape a watery death too. All it had to do was recover from its surprise, disappear, and rematerialize outside the waterfall.
But Cera called out to Amaunator. And for an instant, the entire waterfall blazed with golden light. Spotting the nabassu with his spellscarred eyes, Aoth saw its body crumble away to nothing in the center of the torrent.
“Nice work,” he panted. “Both of you.”
It certainly was, answered Jet, flinging spray with every sweep of his wings. And remind me: who was it that you said does all the thinking?
“Do you have power left?” said Aoth to Cera. “Can you heal Jet?”
She coughed. “I’ll try.” She started another prayer, and Aoth cast about to survey the rest of the battle.
At some point Gaedynn had evidently tired of trying to drive an arrow past the shaman’s mystical defenses because he and Eider had set down on the ridge. But that hadn’t worked either. A circle of minotaurs armed with spears and axes was keeping them busy while the shaman stood off to the side and worked on casting a spell. The magic was a shuffling dance as much or more than it was verbal. He repeatedly dipped his head as though he were goring and tossing a victim with his bloodstained horns.
Aoth assumed that he had, at most, a heartbeat or two to interrupt the spell short of completion. He pointed his spear, then cursed when he recognized that the fight with the nabassu had carried him, Jet, and Cera too far from the ridge for his own magic to span the distance.
At that same moment, Gaedynn, who’d evidently managed to defend himself and unbuckle the straps securing him to the saddle at the same time, hurled himself off Eider’s back. The reckless move caught the minotaurs by surprise, and he plunged through a gap in the circle. One barbarian pivoted and leveled his spear for a thrust. Eider lunged and nipped his head off, and that deterred any of the others from turning his back on her.
When Gaedynn charged, the shaman abandoned his conjuring. Smoke swirled around him as the power he’d raised dissipated prematurely. But when he swung the club, sweeping it in a horizontal arc, that attack was magical as well. Almost invisible in the sunlight, misty horns appeared above, below, and around the weapon and whirled along with it in a stabbing cloud that threatened to pierce Gaedynn from head to toe. His two swords couldn’t possibly parry every thrust.
But he didn’t try. He put on a final burst of speed and sprang inside the shaman’s reach an instant before the horns could gore him. He thrust one sword up under the minotaur’s chin and the other into his chest.
The club slipped from the minotaur’s grasp, and the disembodied, semitransparent horns disappeared. The creature staggered backward off the ridge and disappeared down the slope on the other side. Unfortunately he took the short sword that had pierced his throat and head with him. Evidently it was stuck, and Gaedynn had to let go of the hilt to avoid being dragged along.
Two more minotaurs clambered onto the top of the ridge, and he wheeled to face them with the single blade he had left. Then genasi warriors swarmed up the other side.
Riding bareback, some clung to the backs of the gray lizards that seemed to climb almost as well as their smallest cousins. Bald, green-skinned watersouls somehow dashed up the steep slope with equal ease. Silver-skinned windsouls simply flew.
However they reached the top of the ridge, the Akanûlans started killing minotaurs the instant they arrived. Spears stabbed and scimitars slashed. Little flames rippling along the pattern of lines crisscrossing his bronze-colored skin, a firesoul snapped his fingers and set a bull-man’s hide tunic ablaze. A burly earthsoul with skin the color of mud stood on the far side of the ridge and stamped his foot. Shocks ran through the slope below, presumably jolting any minotaurs who were still trying to climb up and join the fight. Aoth hoped that some reeled off the trail and fell, although, from his angle, he couldn’t actually tell.
But it didn’t really matter. Eider slashed with her talons and disemboweled the last living minotaur on the ridge, and she, Gaedynn, and the genasi all visibly relaxed. Obviously the surviving barbarians were fleeing.
* * * * *
Jhesrhi found Shala sitting at a desk heaped high with stacks of parchment. Quills in hand, half a dozen clerks scratched away at smaller desks while several adolescent boys whispered, fidgeted, or dozed in chairs along the wall. The latter were messengers, waiting to run a note or document to wherever it needed to go.
“My lady,” Shala said, frowning. “What can I do for you?”
“You can respond when I ask for something,” Jhesrhi said. “I sent you lists of the improvements required to make the wizards’ quarter livable and petitions detailing the reparations due arcanists wronged by the courts and the watch.”
“You only sent them yesterday,” Shala said. “And as you can see, with the army preparing to march on Tymanther, I have many matters to attend to.”
“I also sent you a letter that pertains to the coming campaign,” Jhesrhi said. “I explained how you should integrate mages into His Majesty’s forces and the ranks they ought to hold.”
“I’ll get to that too. If you let me go back to work, I’ll get to it that much faster.”
Jhesrhi took a firmer grip on her staff. “It appears,” she said, “that you don’t think the needs of Chessenta’s arcanists are important.”
Shala’s mouth tightened. “You’re a soldier of a sort. Surely you agree that they aren’t the most important concern on the eve of war.”
“I suppose it’s to be expected that you think that way, considering that the arcanists suffered persecution through all the years you held the throne.”
“Lady, I’ll justify the decisions I made to Tchazzar if he requires it, not to you.”
“Of course,” Jhesrhi said, “because you’re simply too busy to talk to me about anything, aren’t you? But perhaps I can lift the burden from your back.”
With a thought, she made the head of her staff burn like a torch, and the pseudo-mind inside it crowed. She lowered the flames over the tallest stack of papers, and one of the clerks yelped in dismay.
Shala jumped up out of her chair, and seemingly indifferent to the possibility of burning herself, swatted the staff aside. “Are you crazy?” she snarled.
“No,” Jhesrhi said. “I merely wanted your full attention. If I finally have it, maybe we should continue this talk in private.”
Shala raked her assistants with her glare. “Go!” she said, and they all scurried out.
When the door closed, Jhesrhi ordered the staff to stop burning, and it sulked at being denied a conflagration. “I apologize for that,” she said to Shala. “Although I hope it was convincing.”
Shala blinked. “That was all a sham?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m no courtier, High Lady. But since I joined the Brotherhood, I’ve wandered through enough royal and noble courts to know that Tchazzar probably has a spy among your aides. I didn’t want him to slither off and report that we’re plotting in secret. And since I swaggered in here like Queen Bitch, I don’t think he will. He’ll believe we’re having a bitter row.”
“Possibly,” Shala said, “but what makes you think I’d conspire with you?” She smiled crookedly. “After all, you’re a wizard, and as you pointed out, I cruelly mistreated your poor, innocent kind.”
Jhesrhi shrugged. “You simply enforced laws that existed before you ever came to the throne, laws the temples told you were just and good. And then, when the murders began, you still let Lord Nicos bring the Brotherhood to Luthcheq so the people wouldn’t slaughter all the arcanists.”
“So I was only half a tyrant?”
“After that,” Jhesrhi persisted, “you rode to war with Oraxes, Meralaine, and me. Maybe you saw something there, something to persuade you that wizards are just people, not the devil-spawn that the priests have always made us out to be.”
“Let’s say I did.” Shala sat back down in her chair and waved Jhesrhi to another. “In my life I haven’t found normal people to be all that trustworthy either. If Tchazzar doubts my loyalty, maybe he asked you to trick me into saying something treasonous. And why wouldn’t you be eager to oblige when you’ve risen so high in his favor?”
“If he decides he wants to get rid of you, do you honestly think he’ll require incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing before ordering your arrest?”
Shala snorted. “There is that. Still, it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“You know Halonya arrested Khouryn Skulldark.”
“And you couldn’t convince Tchazzar to let him go. The madwoman won that round.”
Jhesrhi scowled and a line of flame oozed up the staff. “The point is that if Tchazzar won’t free him, I have to. And I need help.”
“You’d risk everything the dragon’s given you—and your own freedom and your own life—to accomplish this?”
“I only have a handful of friends, High Lady. Khouryn’s one of them.”
“He’s also a dwarf, and Chessentans don’t like them any better than sorcerers. So why should I risk everything that I have left to help him?”
“Because you know he’s being punished just for following your orders. Because it will do you good to give Halonya a poke in the eye. And because you know that, even leaving the question of justification aside, it’s rash and stupid for Chessenta to invade Tymanther right after fighting a war in the north.”
“And freeing your friend will keep that from happening?”
“It might help,” Jhesrhi said, then explained how.
Shala grunted. “It sounds like a feeble hope to me.”
“It may be. But also consider that you won’t be running all that much of a risk. I’ll be the one taking the big chances.”
“I’m not a coward!” Shala snapped.
“I know that, High Lady. But you are the one who keeps asking why she should help me. I’m giving all the reasons I can think of.”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“Halonya dangled Khouryn in front of me as bait,” Jhesrhi said. “She wants me to go after him so she can kill or capture me and then convince Tchazzar I’m a traitor.”
Shala fingered the scar on her square jaw. “That sounds about right.”
“Still, I have to rescue Khouryn and do it without using my most potent magic because if I invoked the wizardry of the four elements to do the job, it would be like signing my name.”
“I suppose so.”
“If I’m going to manage anyway, I need to know about the dungeons under the War College. Where exactly is Halonya keeping Khouryn? Are there mechanical or magical snares along the way, and if so, how do I bypass them? Where are guards generally posted, and where are the wyrmkeepers likely to wait in ambush? I know you can tell me. You’re the type who makes it a point to learn everything about everything over which you hold authority.”
Like Khouryn himself.
Shala sat and thought for a moment then stood up abruptly. “If you’re lying to me, then I swear by the Foehammer that I’ll see my blade in your heart before Tchazzar takes me into custody. Now come look at a book. It has diagrams of the tunnel system in it.”
As he sipped the bitter beer the villagers had given him, Gaedynn reflected that it was odd to feel welcome and at ease among genasi. During his time in Luthcheq, he’d come to regard the Daardendriens and Perra as friends, and the Akanûlans at court, who despised the dragonborn, as hostile to himself and all the Brotherhood as well.
But there was none of that here. These genasi were effusive in their gratitude. Even Aoth’s appearance didn’t faze them, although, once Gaedynn thought about it, perhaps that made sense. The tattoos that decorated Aoth’s body, face included, somewhat resembled the patterns of lines that crisscrossed the Akanûlans’ skins, and with his shaved scalp, exposed after he’d removed his helmet, he was as bald as the earth- and watersouls.
Cera slumped beside him with her hand resting on his. She looked as if she could barely keep her eyes open. Gaedynn gathered that turning the waterfall to holy water—a trick he wished he’d witnessed—had taxed her mystical strength considerably. Then she’d expended what magic remained to cast healing charms on Jet and the more sorely wounded genasi warriors.
“I wish I knew how to repay you,” said Yarel-karn. The leader of the war band was a surprisingly young firesoul with an earnest, studious cast to his ruddy features. Flame rippled along one of the golden lines on the top of his head. It reminded Gaedynn of the way fire would sometimes spring, seemingly of its own volition, from Jhesrhi’s new staff. For a moment, he wished she were there, then, annoyed with himself, pushed her out of his thoughts and refocused on what was happening around him.
Aoth smiled at Yarel-karn. “Well, now that you mention it, there actually might be a way.”
“Anything!” the genasi said.
“We’re on our way to Airspur to seek an audience with the queen,” said Aoth. “If an officer in Her Majesty’s forces passed the word along that we helped him out, it might help us get in.”
“And lend weight to our words when we do,” Gaedynn added.
To his surprise, the firesoul looked chagrinned. “It might. Except that, unfortunately, you’ve mistaken me—us—for something we’re not.”
Aoth frowned. “How so?”
“We’re not part of the army. We belong to the Firestorm Cabal.”
After a moment Aoth said, “Which is?”
Yarel-karn looked surprised and perhaps slightly crestfallen that they didn’t know. “Volunteers. You see, as ordered by the queen and the stewards, the army concentrates on protecting the capital and the lands closest to it. But the settlers on the northern and eastern borders need protection too. In fact, they need it more! This region is full of dangers.”
“So your cabal patrols it,” said Aoth.
Gaedynn grinned. “And no doubt the authorities are grateful to you for taking up the slack.”
Yarel-karn’s eyes narrowed. Then he relaxed as he decided Gaedynn’s sarcasm wasn’t directed at him. “No. They tolerate us. But they also resent our existence for what it is: an implicit judgment that they’re letting the people down.”
Gaedynn looked at Aoth and said, “In other words, a testimonial from our friends here would be worse than useless.”
Aoth rubbed a hunk of brown bread around inside his bowl, soaking up the last of the vegetable stew. “Well, at least the food is good.”
* * * * *
Jhesrhi disliked the cool, oily feel of illusion on her skin. It wasn’t unpleasant per se, but it was a reminder that she was relying on magic with which she was less than an expert.
She glanced around, making sure no one was watching, then started down the narrow, stone stairs. Dread welled up in her mind, a feeling that something awful would happen if she continued her descent. She whispered the password Shala had given her, and the enchantment released her from its grip.
At the bottom of the steps stood a more mundane barrier: a sturdy, ironbound door. She kneeled and whispered coaxing words into the keyhole as if it were a stubborn child’s ear. The pins clicked as they released, just as if a key were lifting them, and she pulled the door ajar.
Everything had been easy enough so far, but that was what she’d expected. The wyrmkeepers would let her get close to Khouryn before they sprang their trap. That way, there could be no doubt as to her intentions.
She crept past a guard station. Something—either the enchantment of stealth she’d cast or a smile from Lady Luck—kept the two men inside from looking up from their game of cards.
On the other side, a block of cells stretched away into the dark. Her mouth stretched tightly with disgust at the stench. Voices murmured. A child wept and a woman begged her to be quiet so the “bad men” wouldn’t come back.
Jhesrhi shook her head. She’d had some awareness that alleged traitors and scoffers at Tchazzar’s divinity were being rounded up, occasionally on flimsy pretexts. Still, she hadn’t realized just how many were caged there underground.
Surely, she thought, Tchazzar doesn’t realize either. It’s Halonya—
But that was a lie, and she rejected it with a twinge of self-contempt. Tchazzar, whose damaged mind saw threats and treachery everywhere, was to blame. Halonya’s desire to avenge slights past and present, real and imagined, and to enrich her church with confiscated coin and property, simply fed the fire.
But whoever was responsible for the Chessentan prisoners’ plight, Jhesrhi hadn’t come to do anything about it. She cast about and found another set of stairs, leading down to the part of the dungeons the wyrmkeepers had claimed for their own.
From that point forward, there could easily be mantraps that Shala hadn’t been able to warn her about. Jhesrhi murmured an incantation and tapped out a cadence on the onyx in the steel ring on her middle finger. The ring was an arcane focus, taken as plunder when the Brotherhood sacked a town years before. Until then, she’d never actually used it, and it felt like a feeble sort of tool compared to her staff.
It seemed to send a sort of flicker running down the stairwell, but what she was actually beholding was an alteration to her own eyesight. While the charm lasted, she could see without benefit of light and glimpse telltale emanations of mystical force. Not as well as Aoth could, but, she hoped, improved enough to get by.
She skulked onward, to the bottom of the steps. No torches or lamps burned in the immediate vicinity. But light glimmered at the end of the passage that ran away before her.
There was a fair chance that Khouryn actually was down there. But it was even more likely that the light was a lure to draw Jhesrhi to where the wyrmkeepers wanted her to be. Fortunately she knew from Shala’s diagrams that the corridor ahead wasn’t the only way to reach the glow. A branching corridor snaked around to arrive at the same spot from behind.
So she headed in that direction and kept scanning the way ahead for dangers. The priests of the Dark Lady might want her to take the one path, but that didn’t mean they’d ignored the other.
A vague, glimmering point appeared floating in the gloom. If she hadn’t been a spellcaster herself, she wouldn’t have recognized it for what it was: a disembodied eye created to watch for intruders.
Whispering, she rattled off words of unmaking and squeezed the hand with the ring shut as though she were squashing something inside it. She actually expected the wyrmkeepers’ magic to sound the alarm before she finished. But apparently her charm of stealth kept the eye from spotting her instantly, and as she spoke the final syllable of the countermagic, it collapsed in on itself and vanished with a tiny squishing sound. For a moment the inside of her fist felt slimy.
She crept onward. Ahead, light spilled from a doorway, surely the same glow she’d spotted from the foot of the stairs. She contemplated which attack spell to hurl into the room and reminded herself that magic manipulating any of the four elements was out of bounds. For a moment it seemed particularly annoying that she couldn’t cast fire, until she realized the risk of burning Khouryn along with his captors.
Then something hissed.
She cursed under her breath because she was sure she knew what it was. When Aoth had rescued Cera from the cellars of Halonya’s interim temple, he’d found that the wyrmkeepers were using a drake as a guard dog. Apparently this bunch had one too, and the beast had caught her scent.
She doubted she had time to sprint the last few paces to the doorway before the foes inside readied themselves for combat. They were expecting her, after all. It would be better to keep her distance and hurl spells as they came out.
Unfortunately they didn’t really do that. An arm whipped out of the doorway, lobbed stones or marbles, and instantly jerked back out of sight. The missiles clattered on the floor.
Jhesrhi started to speak a word of shielding. The first stone exploded before she finished.
A dazzling, crackling flare of lightning burned her, made her whole body clench, and kept her from articulating the final syllable of the word of protection. An instant later a pulse of chill pierced her to the core. Next came flame and finally two bursts of vapor that stung her exposed skin and eyes, seared her from her nostrils all the way down into her chest, and made her cough and retch.
She fell down and told herself she had to scramble back up again or get ready to fight somehow. But it was impossible when she couldn’t catch her breath and her eyes were blind with tears and floating blobs, as if she’d looked straight at the sun.
Footsteps thumped and scale-armor chasubles made a metallic shivering noise as the wyrmkeepers came out into the corridor. The drake gave another rasping hiss. Then a rough bass voice said, “What in the name of the Five Breaths is that?”
The wyrmkeepers had spotted Jhesrhi, as she’d expected they would. Her charm of concealment wasn’t powerful enough to deflect the attention of someone who already knew she was there. But from the one priest’s reaction, it seemed that her underlying spell of disguise was still working. As a result, they weren’t seeing the woman they’d hoped to trap, but rather bone-pale, black-eyed Bareris Anskuld, the undead bard who’d marched with the Brotherhood on the desperate expedition into Thay.
“It could be a diversion,” said a baritone voice in more cultured, aristocratic tones. “I need eyes looking the other way.”
“Let’s see if we can convince it to be on our side.” The speaker—the wyrmkeepers’ leader, Jhesrhi surmised—switched to the language of dragons with its sibilant, polysyllabic words and convoluted phrasing.
Like many priests, he evidently had the ability to command the undead and thought he could use it on Jhesrhi. That gave her a moment to act.
She turned her back on him as though cringing from the power he was bringing to bear. Then, hoping the darkness in the passage would help to hide what she was doing, she fumbled in the pouch on her belt for the small pewter bottle inside. She’d intended to give all the healing elixir to Khouryn, but if she didn’t use some to restore herself, he was never going to get any.
She pulled out the stopper and took a swig. Her pains subsided and once she blinked the tears away, her vision cleared. She finally managed to draw a proper breath.
The wyrmkeeper with the rough voice said, “Wait. If it’s a vampire or something, why was it coughing?”
Jhesrhi hastily jammed the stopper back in, thrust the bottle into her bag, jerked around, and snarled an incantation. She clenched the fist wearing the ring, then flicked her fingers open on the final word. An enormous spiderweb flickered into existence. Their ends adhering to the walls, floor, and ceiling, the sticky, white strands clung to the foes in the midst of them and only entangled them more as they floundered in surprise.
But either because she’d scarcely had time to aim or because they’d been nimble enough to spring clear before the web fully materialized, she hadn’t netted all her foes. Jaws open wide, the drake, a green-scaled creature the size of a wolfhound, bounded at her on its hind legs.
She had just time to speak a thumb-sized, crystalline wasp into existence. Buzzing, it stung the surprised drake on the snout then whirled around its head. The reptile spun too, snapping at it repeatedly.
When the drake halted, the wyrmkeeper, charging a stride behind, ran right into it. They fell in a heap together, and as the wasp blinked out of existence, the confused reptile bit a final time and plunged its fangs into the priest’s neck. An instant later, Jhesrhi thrust out her hand and splashed the creature with a burst of freezing light. It convulsed, then stopped moving. The chill had evidently stopped its heart.
Jhesrhi felt a surge of satisfaction, but it lasted only until she pivoted, looking for new threats, and found one. A big man with long, drooping black mustachios had somehow freed himself from the web. Judging from the quality and ornamentation of his gear, he was the leader. He wore a ring on every finger of his left hand and a helm whose contours suggested a dragon’s head. The light spilling through the doorway sent multicolored streaks running through his chasuble, and glints of the same hues oozed inside the curved head of his fighting pick.
He charged out of the direct illumination spilling through the doorway and into the gloom, and power flared from the rings. Ghostly, crested, wedge-shaped heads at the ends of serpentine necks writhed up from the floor between him and Jhesrhi. The closest one struck at her.
She dodged it but the defensive action put her in range of a second head. She wrenched herself to one side, and its misty but no doubt murderous fangs snapped silently shut on empty air.
The heads withered into nothingness an instant later, but by then their creator himself had rushed into striking distance. Bellowing the name of his goddess, he swung the pick, the head glowing red hot and bursting into flame. Jhesrhi jumped back and the weapon missed. Hoping the darkness would hinder her foe, she kept retreating down the passage while she started another spell.
On the next stroke, the corona of fire surrounding the head of the pick became a crust of frost, then on the one after a cloud of poisonous smoke. Jhesrhi kept dodging and the priest kept missing, although each swing came closer than the last.
Finally she reached the end of her incantation, and a prickling danced over her hands. She held them low to avoid drawing attention to them and murmured nonsense so the priest wouldn’t realize she’d finished the spell.
Crackling and showering sparks, the pick whizzed past her nose. And as Aoth and Khouryn had taught her, if a weapon was long and heavy, particularly at the striking end, then after a swing, it took even a skillful warrior an instant to ready it for another. So she raised her hands, which, thanks to the spell, wore gauntlets of articulated bone with talons on the fingertips, and lunged.
The attack surprised the wyrmkeeper. He managed a chop even so but only clipped her shoulder with the wooden shaft of the pick. The steel head with its charge of magic fell behind her.
She clawed the left side of his face to gory ribbons. He threw back his head, maybe to scream, and that exposed his throat. She ripped it open. He toppled with blood spurting from the second wound.
As her claws melted away, she turned toward the web. It still held two wyrmkeepers helpless, but a third stood unbound on the far side of it. Maybe he’d never been entangled in the first place. Maybe he was the fellow the leader had told to watch for trouble coming from the other end of the hall.
Whoever he was, he bolted, abandoning his comrades. Jhesrhi rattled off another incantation and thrust out the hand with the ring. Putrid-smelling fog swirled into existence around him. He staggered and collapsed.
Jhesrhi then returned her attention to the pair in the web. Eyes wide, they struggled even more frantically but still ineffectually to break free.
Their panic filled her with contempt. Maybe it was because she was sure they’d mistreated Khouryn. Whatever the reason, she felt a sudden urge to burn them alive.
But she didn’t. She picked up a fallen pick, and heedless of their pleas and cries and, careful not to get herself or the weapon stuck in the web, used the butt end to club them both unconscious.
Then she went through the doorway and cursed.
She’d been expecting a torture chamber, so the lamp-lit space, with its tiny cage, spiked chair, ducking tank, whipping post, and similar implements, held no surprises. Still, it was ghastly to see Khouryn’s burly, hairy, naked form covered in welts and stretched utterly taut on the rack.
She knew he wouldn’t want a show of pity any more than she would have in his place. So she swallowed the clog in her throat, dissolved the illusion that made her resemble Bareris, and said, “Halonya’s followers are stuck in a rut. They racked Cera too, as I recall.”
Khouryn gave her a grin, although it appeared even that movement pained him. “In my case, it was Chessentan humor,” he croaked. “They said they’d cure me of being a dwarf. How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know,” she said, hurrying closer, into the stink of his abused and unwashed flesh. “Some, I hope. We’re in a separate section of the dungeons from any of Tchazzar’s guards, and there are prisoners closer to them. Their noise may have masked the noise of the fight.”
She spoke the words that had unlocked the door to the dungeons, and the leather cuffs flopped open to release his wrists and ankles. The flesh inside was raw.
Khouryn sucked in a breath and struggled to sit up. She reached to help him then faltered as her aversion to touching others asserted itself. But curse it, if she could let Tchazzar fondle her and slobber on her, she could help a friend!
Her skin crawling, she supported Khouryn with one arm and dug out the healing elixir with the other. “Drink it slowly,” she said, holding it to his mouth. “We don’t want you coughing it back up.”
With every sip, his condition improved. His body made popping sounds as dislocated joints snapped back together. Some of the whip marks disappeared, and bruises changed from black to yellow.
“How are you now?” she asked when the vial was empty.
“Good enough.” Moving like an old, arthritic man, he slumped to the floor, hobbled to the corner where the wyrmkeepers had dropped his clothes, and started putting them on. “What’s our next move?”
“I’ll tell you as we go. But first I need to disguise us.”
She rattled off the rhyme needed to shroud herself in Bareris’s image again. Then she made Khouryn look like a halfling, which was to say, a member of a demihuman race that her countrymen didn’t regard with disdain. Though halflings were slimmer than the Stout Folk, they were of a comparable height, and that point of similarity might aid the deception.
After that, she wrapped them both in another don’t-look-at-me spell, and they were ready. Since his weapons and armor hadn’t been with his clothes, Khouryn paused to appropriate a corpse’s pick and dagger, then glowered at the merely battered and unconscious men dangling in the web.
“I wouldn’t ordinarily kill a fellow in this condition,” he said. “But now I’m tempted.”
“I’d like somebody left alive,” Jhesrhi cut in, “and the way I beat these two in the head and poisoned the one lying over there, a couple of them may not make it as it is.”
Khouryn spit. “It’s not worth it anyway. Just lead me out of here.”
She did. They slipped past the guard station, climbed the stairs, and magically locked the door behind them. Then they made their way upward through the passages honeycombing the enormous sandstone block that comprised the greater part of the War College. To her relief, Khouryn’s limp became less pronounced, and he stopped gasping and grunting so often as exercise worked more of the stiffness and soreness out of his muscles.
Finally they reached the roof with its turrets, battlements, and catapults. She pointed and whispered, “The bat is over that way.” On Halonya’s orders, the guards had given the animal drugged food, then secured it. Eventually, Jhesrhi suspected, the newly minted high priestess meant to sacrifice it to Tchazzar, but she hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
“Thanks,” Khouryn said, rolling his massive shoulders. “For everything. I’ll take it from here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course.” He gave her a nod, then, crouching low and keeping to the shadows, crept toward the spot she’d indicated.
She judged that he would have made it all the way too, except that the bat somehow perceived its master coming. It gave a little squeak of a cry and strained upward, trying to break free of the netting that pressed it flat against the roof. The guard who stood watch over it cast about, spotted Khouryn, and raised a javelin. The dwarf rushed him.
The soldier threw the javelin, but Khouryn didn’t bother to duck or dodge. His practiced eye could evidently tell it was going to fly wide of the mark. As he lunged into the distance, the guard snatched out his sword.
After all that Khouryn had endured, Jhesrhi wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d taken the easy path and simply killed the soldier. But apparently he’d absorbed enough of her hasty, tangled explanation of recent events to grasp that, despite everything, wyrmkeepers were the enemy but Chessenta wasn’t. Not exactly, not yet. Because instead of striking with the point on the head of the pick, he rammed the blunt, curved part of it into the soldier’s gut.
The guard doubled over, but his armor cushioned the blow. He could still fight and slashed at Khouryn’s face. The dwarf leaned backward, and the blade flashed past him.
Then he hooked the Chessentan’s lead leg with the pick and jerked it out from under him. The human fell and, still using the blunt part of his weapon, Khouryn jabbed him in the head. His helmet clanked.
Khouryn kept his eyes on the guard for another heartbeat, making sure he was out, then peered around. Jhesrhi did the same. As far as she could tell, the brief scuffle hadn’t attracted any other sentry’s attention. Thank the Foehammer that it was a dark, overcast night and a spacious roof.
Khouryn yanked the net off from the cleats normally used to lash a catapult or ballista in position. He pulled the mesh off the bat, and it rose and shook out its wings. The snapping sound did attract attention and someone shouted.
Khouryn gave a command in what Jhesrhi assumed to be the dragonborn language. The bat lowered itself, and he scrambled onto its back. Then it crawled to the edge of the roof, clambered onto a merlon, and sprang out into space.
Jhesrhi smiled and hurried back the way she’d come.