The Spectral Blaze Read online

  Panting, Halonya looked at Khouryn Skulldark, lying unconscious on the tiled floor of the Green Hall, and realized exactly what she wanted to do.

  The stars knew he had it coming, for all sorts of reasons. For starters, he was a dwarf, and her people had always mistrusted his stunted kind, burrowing in the ground like vermin. Worse, he’d just returned from Tymanther astride one of the giant bats the dragonborn’s elite warriors rode. That proved he was friendly to the very enemies Chessenta was preparing to attack. And as if all that weren’t damning enough, he’d revealed his true loyalties by lunging at Halonya when she’d ordered his arrest.

  Worst of all, he was a friend of both Aoth Fezim, the Thayan sellsword captain who’d threatened to kill her, and Jhesrhi Coldcreek, the filthy witch seeking to mislead and corrupt Tchazzar. It shouldn’t have been possible for a mere mortal to do any such thing to the greatest of gods, but the powers of the Abyss had plainly wrapped their chosen seductress in a terrible glamour.

  Yes, Khouryn deserved all the punishment anyone cared to give him. But Halonya wasn’t just a beggar anymore, or even a scorned and ragged prophetess preaching in the streets. She was high priestess of the Church of Tchazzar and had her dignity to consider.

  For one more heartbeat, that reflection held her back, and the urge to express her loathing swept it away. She strode to the dwarf, hitched up the ruby-studded crimson skirts of her voluminous vestments, and kicked him repeatedly. She didn’t stop till she ran out of breath and only then noticed that her own foot was smarting.

  Garbed in a chasuble of shimmering scales, a heavy pick clasped in a hand adorned with rings of five colors, his mustache and beard waxed into the same number of points, Pharic cleared his throat. He was a wyrmkeeper, a priest of Tiamat, but he and others of his order had come to swell the ranks of her newly constituted clergy. Because the Dark Lady was Tchazzar’s consort. Or the two were somehow the same being. Or something like that. Halonya didn’t really understand it, although she would sooner have died than admit that to anyone else.

  “I recommend shackling him without further delay,” Pharic said. “Dwarves have thick skulls. A knock on the head might not keep him out for long.”

  “Do it,” Halonya said. She stepped back from Khouryn, and the guards hurried forward.

  “May I ask what you intend to do with him?” Pharic inquired.

  “I don’t kn—I mean, I’ll have to meditate about it,” Halonya said.

  Chains clinked as a soldier snapped the leg irons on the dwarf.

  “We could scarcely find a better sacrifice.” Pharic lowered his voice. “His death would give strength to Tchazzar and perhaps even to you personally if you yourself perform the ritual.”

  Halonya eyed the wyrmkeeper. Did his words contain a gibe? Did he know that, unlike other clerics, she’d never figured out how to wield the divine magic that was hers by right? If so, she couldn’t tell it from his face.

  In any case, his suggestion appealed to her but made her feel a little queasy too. She’d never killed a person with her own hands. She wasn’t sure she had the stomach for it.

  And maybe it would be a waste of an opportunity. Maybe Lady Luck had finally given her a way to out-trick Jhesrhi for a change.

  “No,” she said, “or at least not yet. We’ll lock him away for now.”

  * * * * *

  Alasklerbanbastos made a sort of ugly rumbling sound. It took Aoth a moment to realize it was a chuckle.

  “Yes,” the undead dragon said, “that’s the question, isn’t it? Now that you little creatures know about the game, what can you possibly do about it? Especially considering that you sellswords yourselves are merely a few of the pawns and have been ever since Skuthosin laid claim to you back in Impiltur.”

  Wings furled, Jet set down on the ground. With his spellscarred eyes, which saw as well in the dark as they did in the light, Aoth observed that Eider was still circling high overhead, probably so she could dive at Alasklerbanbastos if he attacked again. Or just because she found the undead creature repulsive.

  “Do we even want to stop the game?” asked Jet, stalking forward to stand beside Aoth. He’d listened to the entire conversation through their psychic bond.

  Gaedynn smiled crookedly. “That’s an interesting question. After all, we’re sellswords. The dragons want to plunge this part of the East into years, probably decades, of war. From our perspective, what could be better?”

  “Not much,” said Aoth. “But how do you feel about the way it’s all supposed to work out?”

  Gaedynn shrugged. “We’re already fighting for one dragon king. They already have dragon princes ruling over in Murghôm. Still, the prospect of every monarch everywhere in this part of the East—and ultimately in all Faerûn, I assume—being a wyrm … well, I admit, there’s something a tad disturbing about it.”

  “ ‘A tad disturbing’?” Cera exploded. “It’s horrible!”

  Aoth sighed. “Maybe. But nobody’s paying us to do anything about it. In fact, the Brotherhood’s in service to Tchazzar. We’re being paid to further his ambitions.”

  Cera scowled. It didn’t make her round face any less pretty, or at least not in Aoth’s opinion. But it revealed a fierceness that might have surprised the many folk who, despite her holy office, regarded her as a merry little flirt.

  “You signed a contract to serve Nicos Corynian, Shala Karanok, and the Chessentan people,” she said. “At that point, Tchazzar was nowhere around.”

  “But he’s the war hero now,” Aoth replied. “Shala handed him the crown herself.”

  “Because she didn’t realize he’s insane!”

  “Well, yes,” Gaedynn said, and only one of his closest friends would have noticed the steeliness underlying his customary light, flippant tone. “There is that. And it’s not as though we haven’t done some poking around and conspiring behind his back already.”

  “To an extent,” Aoth said, “because it endangered us not to understand what was truly going on.”

  Gaedynn grinned. “And because a certain stubborn little dumpling snapped the whip.” He winked at Cera.

  Aoth sighed. “My point, jackanapes, is that through it all, my goal was to find a path through all the mystery and come out the other side. So we could go back to our proper roles: fighting wars for coin, without giving a mouse’s fart about the reason for the quarrel.”

  “But you had to know it wouldn’t be that easy,” Cera said. “Not when Amaunator himself set us on this path. Why would he reveal the truth to us if he didn’t want us to use it to help his children?”

  Inwardly Aoth winced. At the end of the War of the Zulkirs, he’d blundered his way through a tense few moments when the fate of the entire East, perhaps the entire world, had depended on him and him alone. To say the least, he hadn’t enjoyed the experience, and he didn’t want to believe that a higher power was pushing him into anything remotely comparable again. It seemed particularly unfair considering that Amaunator wasn’t even his patron god.

  Yet there came a moment when only a fool kept swimming against the current, and however much he might resent it, his gut told him that the time had come around again.

  He glowered at Alasklerbanbastos. “Gaedynn guessed that only Brimstone completely understands the Great Game. Is he right?”

  “Essentially,” the dragon said.

  “So what does that mean, exactly?” Aoth persisted. “Is he the scorekeeper? The referee?”

  “All of that,” Alasklerbanbastos said.

  Gaedynn grinned. “In that case, I know who I’d bet on to finish on top. Him.”

  “Because you’re a fool,” said the undead blue. “The game is a sacrament. We play with all the cunning and ferocity in us, but no one—certainly not its anointed arbiter—would pervert its fundamental tenets for personal gain.”

  “If you truly believe that,” the bowman said, “then I understand how Jaxanaedegor outsmarted you.”

  “I don’t care whether Brimstone’s an impart
ial judge or not,” said Aoth. “What I want to know is this: could the game continue without him?”

  With so much flesh burned, torn, and rotted away from the skull beneath, it seemed impossible that Alasklerbanbastos could produce a spiteful grin. Still, Aoth could have sworn that he did.

  “No,” said the dracolich, “it couldn’t. So there, clever humans, is your solution. Just go kill him.”

  “I’ll bite,” said Jet. “Where is he?”

  “Dracowyr,” Alasklerbanbastos replied.

  Cera shook her head. One of her tousled yellow curls tumbled down over her forehead. “I assume that’s the place we visited in spirit. But I don’t recognize the name.”

  “I do,” said Aoth. “It’s an earthmote floating miles above the Great Wild Wood. Which means that only griffon riders could assault it, not the Brotherhood as a whole.”

  “And let’s not forget that the Great Wild Wood’s on the far side of Murghôm,” Gaedynn said. “I imagine the dragon princes are all playing the game. They wouldn’t want us to spoil their fun, so they wouldn’t just let us fly over their territories unopposed.”

  “Maybe we can’t reach Brimstone in his lair,” Cera said, “but can’t we just tell all the peoples around the Alamber Sea that they mustn’t let the dragons manipulate them?”

  “Would people believe such a strange story?” Aoth replied. “Would they even understand it?”

  “One thing’s for certain,” Gaedynn said. “The wyrms would exert themselves mightily to silence the tattletales.”

  Cera scowled. “There must be something we can do!”

  Aoth scratched Jet’s neck as he pondered the problem. The feathers rustled and tickled his nose with their scent. “Maybe we can’t shut down the whole game,” he said eventually. “But we might be able to spoil the dragons’ immediate plans. Convince Tchazzar that now’s not the right time to go to war with Tymanther.”

  “I know he listens to Jhesrhi,” Cera said, “but even she doesn’t have that much influence over him.”

  Aoth smiled. “I have an idea that ought to help.”

  “And if we can get him to call off the war,” Gaedynn said, “then maybe he won’t mind us leaving his service. Not now that he has the army of Threskel calling him master. And once the Brotherhood is out of his reach, maybe we can find a way to end the game in its entirety.”

  “Meanwhile,” Cera said, “my kingdom will have to go on enduring the rule of a mad creature who thinks of his subjects as tokens on a lanceboard.”

  “You don’t have to endure it,” said Aoth, with a flicker of surprise at how easily these particular words were slipping out. “If we make it out of here, you’re welcome to come with us.”

  She smiled at him. “I like it that you said that. But I have responsibilities to my temple and my parishioners. I can’t just run away if times are bad.”

  Aoth sighed. “I understand.” How could he not when he was a leader too? “Look, let’s find out if we can even prevent the war and then see where we are.”

  “You’ll be in your graves,” said Alasklerbanbastos, “or Tchazzar’s torture chambers. He may be insane, but he’s clever too. You can’t go on deceiving him for long.”

  “What about if we have your help?” Aoth replied. “Wouldn’t you like a little taste of revenge?”

  O

  N

  E

  26–30 FLAMERULE, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE

  Oraxes rubbed his forearms through his leather armor. “It’s cold here,” he said. “The middle of summer and it’s cold.”

  “Not really,” Meralaine answered. “You’re just feeling all the people who died here. And all the things that grew out of their deaths or came to feed on them. We woke them up, and now their essence is bleeding into the night.”

  His long mouth grinned. “You know, you could have just put your arms around me and given me a hug.”

  She laughed, did as he’d suggested, and threw in a kiss for good measure. Up close, his skinny body and gear had a sour, sweaty, unwashed smell, but it didn’t bother her. She was used to smelling considerably fouler things.

  “Did that warm you up?” she asked.

  “A lot,” he answered.

  “You need to prepare yourself for your task,” rasped a deep voice. Startled, Oraxes jerked. “Not wallow in the petty, animal pleasures of living flesh.”

  Oraxes freed himself from Meralaine’s embrace and turned to face Alasklerbanbastos. She was sure he found the dracolich intimidating. She certainly did and she was used to the undead. But he sneered as he would have at any bigot or bully who accosted him in a Luthcheq tavern or alleyway.

  “Mind your own business,” he said.

  “This ritual is my business,” Alasklerbanbastos said, sparks crawling on the horn at the end of his snout, “or so I’ve been given to understand. You’re the one who knows nothing of the forces involved and has nothing to contribute.”

  There was an element of truth in that. Oraxes was a wizard but not a necromancer. He was there because he’d refused to let her sneak off with Alasklerbanbastos with only Cera and the phylactery to control him. Actually, Aoth, Jhesrhi, and Gaedynn hadn’t liked it either. But Tchazzar would have missed them if they’d disappeared for days on end. And so far, no one else was in on the scheme.

  Fortunately, aside from jeers and grumbles, the dragon hadn’t shown any signs of rebellion. Perhaps he truly had learned to fear the blaze of Cera’s power burning him through the shadow stone. Or maybe he was eager to make a fool of Tchazzar.

  Oraxes drew breath, no doubt for an angry retort or, if his judgment had wholly deserted him, an incantation. Meralaine loved him partly for his truculent reluctance to back down from anyone or anything, especially when he felt he was in some sense standing up for her. But it would be stupid to let the quarrel escalate. She took hold of her sweetheart’s forearm and gave a warning squeeze.

  Then, with a snap and a flutter of wings, Eider dropped neatly through the tangle of branches overhead without breaking so much as a single twig. The griffon set down lightly, and from the saddle on her back, short composite rider’s bow in hand, Gaedynn surveyed the figures before him and smiled.

  “Now, children,” he said.

  Dead leaves rustling beneath her feet, Cera scurried down the hillside. “Is it time?” she asked.

  Gaedynn nodded. “It is indeed.”

  * * * * *

  Even when marching to war, Tchazzar had insisted on a certain amount of pomp and amenities. Now that he was making a victory procession through newly subjugated Threskel, pageantry and comfort mattered considerably more. The evening meal was a case in point. He and his companions took it in a spacious, red silk pavilion, where the steady glow of orbs of conjured light gleamed on golden dishes.

  The Red Dragon’s doublet and jewels were equally splendid, and Hasos Thora, baron of Soolabax, and Kassur Jedea, king of Threskel, had likewise done their best to dress like notables of the royal court. Only Aoth and Jhesrhi still looked like warriors in the field. In her case it was because while Tchazzar had given her a bewildering abundance of gorgeous robes and gowns, it had never occurred to her to drag them along on campaign.

  Had Shala Karanok been present, she no doubt would have worn her customary simple, mannish garb as well. But Tchazzar hadn’t invited his predecessor. He still remembered and resented the moment when she’d anchored the battle line while he hung back and the troops had chanted her name instead of his.

  His long, golden-eyed face animated, his goblet occasionally spilling wine as he swung his arms to emphasize his points, Tchazzar pontificated on the capabilities of his newly augmented forces, the logistics of taking them south and east to Tymanther, and the best way to lay siege to the great citadel-city of Djerad Thymar. Aoth and Hasos offered their own thoughts. Kassur was more diffident, as he generally was in the dragon’s company. The skinny, graying mage-lord seemed to fear that if he called attention to himself, Tchazzar might decide to take his crow
n and his head after all.

  No one mentioned what everyone at the table knew: The dragonborn of Tymanther hadn’t actually committed the outrages of which they’d been accused. But Tchazzar was still using their seeming guilt as a pretext for war.

  When Jhesrhi judged that it had grown late enough, she pushed her chair back. “Majesty,” she said, “I need some air. Will you excuse me, please?”

  Tchazzar frowned. “Are you ill?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “a little.”

  “In that case,” he said, “I’ll stroll along with you.”

  It was what she’d hoped for, but it wouldn’t do to let him know that. “I’m all right,” she said, “and I mustn’t take you away from your other guests.”

  “I’ve talked their ears off already,” Tchazzar said. “I’m sure they’ll be grateful to make their escape.”

  Taking their cues, the other men rose and bade him good night. Meanwhile, she picked up her staff. Made of shadow-wood, banded with golden rings with runes engraved around them, it was a potent aid for working all sorts of wizardry, and fire magic most of all. It had given her pause to learn that Jaxanaedegor had meant for her to carry it away from Mount Thulbane, but it was too useful a tool to give up.

  The pseudo-mind inside the staff woke at her touch. Whispering inside her head, it urged her to set something ablaze. She focused her will and told it to be quiet.

  Then she and Tchazzar walked out into the night.

  In theory, the procession was spending the night in a village. But the royal company so outnumbered the locals that it had essentially engulfed the huddle of wattle huts, and as a result, their camp didn’t look much different than if they’d stopped on the trail. Tents stood in rows. The coals of cook fires glowed red and scented the air with their smoke. A griffon gave a rasping cry, and soldiers and functionaries strode around on various errands.

  “Did supper disagree with you?” he asked. “I can have the cook flogged.”

  “Everything was fine,” she said. “It’s just … it bothers me to be around Aoth. I wonder if he thinks I’m betraying him.”