The Spectral Blaze botg-3

by Richard Lee Byers

  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 impartial 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 Murghom,” 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?”

  ONE

  26-30 F LAMERULE, THE Y EAR OF THE A GELESS O NE

  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 considera
bly 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 crown 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.”

  “Has he said so?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  Tchazzar took hold of her arm to stop her walking. It startled her, but she managed not to flinch. He gently turned her and looked her in the eye.

  “Then do you think you’re betraying him?” he asked.

  “He saved me from slavery and torment,” she said.

  “And you repaid him in full with years of valiant, faithful service. Now you have another calling. We repealed the laws that oppressed Chessenta’s arcanists, but that was only the first step. They still need someone to look after them and help them reach their full potential, and I intend that shepherd to be you. It will make you one of my chief advisers and one of the greatest ladies in the realm.”

  The bitter thing was he really did mean what he was saying. And hearing it still twisted her up inside.

  But she’d come to understand that he was mad and ultimately cared for no one but himself. That he meant to conquer an empire, no matter how many innocents suffered as a result. That she had to help stop him if she could, even if it made her hate herself.

  “I know,” she said, “and I want that. I want… everything we’ve talked about. I guess I’m just in a mood tonight. Can we stroll a little farther? I have some ideas on how to get inside Djerad Thymar.”

  They walked and talked, and she tried to steer him in the right direction without his realizing. It worked. Gradually they made their way to the southern edge of camp.

  Beyond lay the range of rugged hills called the Sky Riders. She couldn’t see them in the dark. But after her experiences there, she almost felt she could sense them, as a weight of malice and malignancy, because they contained at least one gateway into the nightmare world called the Shadowfell.

  She wasn’t surprised when Tchazzar balked. He’d spent a hundred years as a tortured prisoner in the Shadowfell, and it had left him with a wariness of several things, darkness, wraiths, and the Sky Riders themselves included. That, she suspected, was why he’d left this leg of the procession for last.

  He looked out at the blackness, swallowed, then turned back toward the wavering light of the fires. “How about a little more wine?” he said.

  “I’d rather have an apple,” Jhesrhi said. “The village has a grove right over there.” She pointed with the staff. Some of the runes shone with their own inner light.

  “I can send someone to pick a basket.”

  Jhesrhi took a deep breath. “I also… you know that when we try, it’s easier when there aren’t other people around.”

  He smiled. “It’s private in the pavilion.”

  “But people would see us go in alone. I’d hear them moving around outside. They might hear us too.”

  He stood and thought for a moment. Then he said, “Whatever my lady wishes,” and they walked out among the trees.

  She risked one quick but hard look in the direction of the hills, peering not just with her eyes but also with her wizard’s intuition. She couldn’t sense anything coming. That wasn’t surprising. There hadn’t been any way to arrange the trick on anything approximating a precise schedule.

  So she allowed Tchazzar to take her hand in his. Then he used a fingertip to caress it. She assumed that was supposed to be erotic, although it simply made her skin crawl.

  “Is that all right?” he asked.

  “It’s nice,” she said, straining to keep revulsion out of her voice.

  She understood why he was so intent on bringing her to his bed. Partly it was because it had been she and Gaedynn who’d freed him from Sseelrigoth the blight wyrm. But he also saw her as a challenge. Abuses she’d suffered as a child had left her with a horror of being touched. To increase her sway over him, she’d led him to believe that out of all the males in the wide world, he alone could cure her affliction and teach her the joys of physical intimacy. Now she was paying the price for that deception.

  After a while he left off fondling her hand and started caressing her face instead. His fingertip brushed her cheeks, her lips, her eyelids, the side of her neck and the whorls and lobe of her ear.

  That was worse. It was like a centipede crawling on her. But she endured it and hoped that he mistook her twitches and shudders for signs of excitement.

  Then he snapped around and looked to the south. Jhesrhi did too. She still couldn’t sense anything, but she suspected he had. Even in human guise, he often seemed to possess a dragon’s sharp senses and, always, a dragon’s instincts.

  “Perhaps we should go back,” he said
.

  She took a breath to steady her voice. “Why, Majesty? Did you hear something?”

  He hesitated. “I… no, apparently not. But people will wonder what’s become of me.”

  She sighed. “That’s a shame. I was enjoying this. Truly.”

  He smiled. “So was I.”

  “But I was enjoying it so much that I thought that perhaps this was the moment for the next step.”

  He studied her. Then, moving slowly, still entirely gentle, he put his forefinger under her chin and tilted her face up. Then he pressed his lips to hers. Bile burned in the back of her throat.

  She imagined he was Gaedynn, but that didn’t help. She’d never been able to bear the archer’s touch either. All she could do was command herself not to throw up.

  *****

  Once Gaedynn had delivered word that the procession had arrived within reach of Alasklerbanbastos and Meralaine’s sorcery, he had no reason to linger, nor any desire to. Back in camp, Jhesrhi was trying to make a fool of Tchazzar, and her friends should be close in case the attempt went wrong.

  He glanced down at the harness that secured him to the saddle, making sure the buckles were still fastened, and drew breath to give Eider the command to fly. Then, evidently sensing his intent, Oraxes said, “Wait.”

  “What’s wrong?” Gaedynn asked.

  “Can you stay until we’re certain the magic is working as it should?” Oraxes asked.

  Gaedynn raised an eyebrow. “Do you have some reason to think it won’t?”

  The adolescent shrugged. “Not exactly.”

  “And you understand that I’m no sorcerer. I wouldn’t know how to fix a spell if it did go awry.”

  “I’d still appreciate it. I… have a feeling.”

  Gaedynn sighed. He still wanted to return to camp, but he also liked Oraxes. Maybe it was because neither of them knew when to hold his insolent tongue. And more importantly, he’d come to trust the boy. There was more to him than the slouching street tough he’d initially appeared to be.