The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

  Lightning seething painlessly and uselessly in his throat, he wanted to give chase but knew it would be pointless. He had no hope of tracking his quarry over the rooftops. He was no acrobat-and even if he were, by the time he got up there, the leaper would have too long a lead.

  Maybe he could at least glean some hint of what was going on. He scrutinized his surroundings.

  The perceptions of ill had led him to one of the shabbier sections of the city, where tenements jammed to bursting with the poor leaned drunkenly, one against the next. The phantom he’d barely glimpsed had jumped from one such structure, a wooden building several stories tall, with layers of scrawled graffiti blemishing the base.

  A pair of shutters on the top story swung open partway. There was a flicker of movement in the darkness beyond, then nothing. It was like someone had tried to open the shutters completely-to lean out and cry for help?-but something had prevented him.

  Medrash ran to the tenement and opened the front door.

  He’d never been inside this type of human habitation. But Tymanther had its own paupers, and in his limited experience, the places where they dwelled tended to be noisy.

  In contrast, this building was silent-like the residents knew trouble had paid a call, and were keeping quiet for fear of attracting its attention.

  Medrash found a shadowy stairwell and headed upward. The soft risers creaked and bowed alarmingly under his weight, but he didn’t let it slow him down.

  The uppermost floor smelled of onions. All the doors were closed, and he couldn’t tell which corresponded to the half-opened shutters he’d observed outside.

  He rapped on the nearest. “Are you in trouble?” he called. “Or are your neighbors? I’m here to help.”

  No one answered.

  He knocked and shouted at the next, and once again nobody answered. Then it occurred to him that if an intruder had broken into one of the apartments and then fled via the roof, the door to that room would likely be unlocked and unbarred.

  So he worked his way down the hall, testing each handle in turn. Sure enough, one door was unsecured. Holding his sword ready, he swung it open.

  The space on the other side smelled of charred flesh, spilled blood, and the overturned chamber pot. The wavering light of a single smoky oil lamp revealed several bodies strewn around the room. Two of the children had burned to death, and it was a wonder the flames hadn’t spread to consume the room as well. The other corpses were slashed and torn.

  Except that one of them wasn’t a corpse after all. The skinny, dark-haired man sprawled beneath the window proved that by groaning and stirring feebly.

  “Hang on,” Medrash said. “I can help you.” He kindled the warmth of a paladin’s healing touch in his empty hand, then started forward.

  At the sound of his voice, the human oriented on him, and his eyes opened wide. Despite the deep gashes running down his torso, he somehow managed to flounder to his feet.

  Medrash realized the wounded man had mistaken him for another assailant. It was a natural mistake, especially if-like many humans-he knew little or nothing about the dragonborn.

  “I swear,” Medrash said, “I’m a friend. See?” He stooped and set his sword on the gory floor, then eased forward again.

  For a moment, it seemed he’d succeeded in reassuring the man. Then the fellow wailed and flailed his arm, and Medrash belatedly noticed the knife in his hand. The blade was clean; he hadn’t succeeded in stabbing or cutting any of his real enemies.

  Medrash jumped back, and the wild attack fell short. Then he lunged, hands poised to disarm and immobilize the wounded man. It seemed to be the only way to make the poor addled wretch submit to his ministrations.

  The human recoiled, and the windowsill caught him across the back of his thighs. He pitched backward, knocking the shutters completely open.

  Medrash snatched at him, but caught only air. The injured man tumbled out of sight. A thud announced his collision with the ground below. Barring extraordinary luck, that drop would have killed anyone. It had surely killed a man who was almost dead even before he fell.

  Medrash clenched his fists so tightly that his talons sank into his palms. At that moment, he hated whoever had perpetrated this atrocity, and he hated himself as well for failing to prevent it.

  Why hadn’t he run faster, or been more clever about finding the way here? And if he couldn’t arrive in time to stop the attack, why hadn’t he at least had the wit to use his preternatural powers of persuasion to calm the survivor?

  He was still reproaching himself when he noticed the daub of fresh pigment on the wall.

  ONE

  11-16 CHES, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  Griffons hated the confinement of a sea voyage. You could make it a little more tolerable for them by flying them on a regular basis, but even that was no panacea. They were creatures of the mountains and the plains, and they felt ill at ease soaring over vast expanses of salt water.

  Now that the cogs had finally docked, the winged mounts were frantic to get off, and their masters were having a difficult time controlling them. Their screeching spooked the horses, with the result that they too were difficult to manage. One chestnut gelding had already stumbled off a gangplank to splash down in the brown water below. It was a miracle the idiot beast hadn’t injured itself.

  In short, the process of debarkation was a tedious, aggravating chaos, and Aoth Fezim regarded the muddy, rutted road that ran away from the docks with equal disfavor. “Before the sea retreated,” he said, “Luthcheq sat on the Bay of Chessenta. We wouldn’t have needed to march from the river to the city.”

  Well-brushed shoulder-length auburn hair, jeweled ornaments, and the golden threadwork in his sky blue jerkin gleaming in the morning sunlight, Gaedynn Ulraes grinned. “Oh, I’m certain of it, Grandfather. As you’ve explained so often, everything was better before the Spellplague. It was always summer, the streams ran with wine, and every woman was beautiful and eager to please.”

  Aoth’s lips quirked upward. “Do I really talk like that?”

  “Only when your mouth is moving.”

  “I suppose it’s a hazard of longevity.” Or conceivably of actual immortality. The blue fire had touched him less than a century before, and it was too soon to tell if he’d stopped aging entirely or was just doing so very slowly. “Or maybe of being in a foul mood.”

  “Difficult as it may be to believe at present, I suspect we’ll get all the men, beasts, and baggage off the boats eventually. Probably without taking too many casualties.”

  “It’s not that,” Aoth said. “It’s Chessenta.”

  “Well, you’re the one who decided to come,” Gaedynn said.

  “Did I have a choice? If so, I wish you’d pointed it out at the time.” Aoth tried to drag his thoughts away from gloom and bitterness. “You, Khouryn, and Jhesrhi can handle things here. I should call on our new employer.”

  “As you wish,” Gaedynn said.

  Aoth turned toward Jet. The black, scarlet-eyed griffon, big even by the standards of his kind, stood watching the awkward confusion of the debarkation with an air of amused superiority. Altered by magic while still in the womb, Jet was Aoth’s familiar as well as his steed, and possessed an intelligence equal to, though subtly different from, a man’s. For that reason, his master could trust him to wander loose and unsupervised, even in proximity to horses.

  Although, in a sense, Jet was never unsupervised. The psychic link they shared precluded it, just as it now enabled him to sense that Aoth wanted him. As he padded toward the pile of baggage with his saddle perched on top, he said, “It’s about time.”

  Aoth draped the saddle over the griffon’s back, then stooped to buckle the cinch. “I said we’d fly by midday, and we are.” He swung himself onto the animal’s back and stuck his spear in its boot. Jet lashed his wings and leaped skyward.

  From the air, it was possible to view the entire Brotherhood of the Griffon all at once, and thus to see how much small
er the company was than it had been a year before. Once again Aoth tried to hold somber thoughts at bay and share Jet’s exhilaration at getting airborne instead.

  It wasn’t too difficult. He wasn’t glum by nature, or at least he didn’t think so, and he’d loved flying ever since he was a youth. Winter was dying but not dead, and a cold wind blew, but the magic bound in one of his tattoos warmed the chill away.

  The grasslands beneath him were more brown than green, though that would change with the coming of spring. When he and Jet climbed high enough, he could just make out the mountains to the east. A wisp of smoke crowned the volcano called Mount Thulbane.

  They reached their destination sooner than he might have wished. Jet swooped lower over the rooftops of Luthcheq. Someone noticed and gave a shrill squawk of surprise.

  Aoth guided the griffon toward the towering cliff and the carved structure partway up, half jutting from the rock to overlook the city and half buried inside it. It was the citadel of the War Hero Shala Karanok, ruler of Chessenta, and-like many of the prominent folk in the city-the Brotherhood’s new patron lived more or less in its shadow.

  Specifically, he lived in a mansion with a red tiled roof. Yellow banners emblazoned with crimson double-headed eagles flew from all the turrets, and the stones paving the paths outside were of the same colors. Aoth set Jet down in front of the house, dismounted, scratched amid the feathers on the familiar’s neck, and then climbed a short, broad flight of stone steps and knocked on the front door.

  After a few moments, a servant in livery opened it. His eyes widened when he saw who was waiting on the other side.

  Nature had made Aoth homely to begin with. He was short and barrel-chested, with features that were strong but coarse. Outside his native Thay, few folk viewed his shaved head and abundance of tattooing as flattering or aristocratic. In particular, strangers often considered his facial tattoos outlandish and grotesque, and of course the luminous blue eyes at the center of the pattern were overtly freakish.

  So he was accustomed to his appearance attracting startled second glances and curious stares, and people’s reactions rarely troubled him. But now it occurred to him that if the doorkeeper understood what he truly was, his response would likely be more unfavorable still, and that irked him.

  “I’m Captain Fezim,” he rapped. “Nicos Corynian is expecting me. Is he here?”

  The servant swallowed. “Yes, sir. Please come in, and I’ll tell him you’ve arrived.” When Aoth entered, the other man hesitated again. He’d just noticed Jet.

  “It’s all right,” said Aoth. “He won’t eat anyone who doesn’t bother him. Well, not unless it’s somebody who looks particularly meaty. You might want to keep all the fat servants indoors.”

  The doorkeeper eyed him. “Sir is making a joke,” he said uncertainly.

  Aoth sighed. “Yes. A joke. Now take me to your master.”

  Predictably, it wasn’t quite that easy. The rich and powerful always made a man wait awhile, like it was necessary to demonstrate their importance. But eventually the servant ushered Aoth through an antechamber, where two halfling clerks hunched over the documents they were writing, and into a larger study where their master sat behind a much larger and tidier desk.

  Nicos Corynian was a trim, middle-aged man with graying brown hair. His general air of patrician sophistication contrasted oddly with a broken nose and cauliflower ear. Aoth inferred that in his case, the Chessentan enthusiasm for athletics manifested as a love of pugilism, or at least it had when he was younger.

  Aoth bowed slightly. “My lord.”

  The counselor rose and extended his hand. At the same time, a huge green shape with a wedge-shaped head and shining yellow eyes peered over his shoulder. Startled, Aoth froze.

  The apparition vanished. Nicos peered at Aoth. “Captain?” he asked.

  Aoth had no idea what the vision meant. But it didn’t seem to be a warning of any sort of immediate threat, so he pulled himself together and took Nicos’s hand. The nobleman had a firm grip.

  “Welcome,” Nicos said. “I was hoping you’d turn up before this.”

  “Winter voyaging is always unpredictable. We hit foul weather while still north of Aglarond.”

  “Well, the important thing is that you’re here now.”

  “I am. My men will arrive within a day or two. I trust you’ve arranged for our quarters.”

  “Certainly.” Nicos gestured to a chair. “Please, sit. Shall I ring for some refreshment?”

  Aoth sat. “Thank you, my lord, but I’m all right. We can get right to business, if that’s acceptable to you. Where do you mean to use the Brotherhood-against Threskel or High Imaskar?”

  Nicos cocked his head. “You’re well informed for a man just off the boat.”

  “The ships put into port periodically on the voyage south, and whenever they did, I asked for news of Chessenta. So I know you’re contending with two problems at once. Brigands and beasts are raiding out of your breakaway province, and Imaskari pirates are harrying your shipping and eastern coast.”

  Nicos hesitated. “Ultimately, I can see using your sellswords against both threats. But first I need your help with another problem.”

  Aoth frowned. He hated getting caught by surprise, and that seemed to be happening now. “Tell me.”

  “For the past two months, someone has been murdering people in Luthcheq. About all we know is that he possesses supernatural abilities and always leaves a handprint in green pigment at the scene of his atrocities.”

  “Chessentan law requires wizards to submit to having their palms tattooed with green sigils.”

  “Yes, it does. And the victims had only one thing in common-they were particularly… vehement in expressing antipathy for sorcerers and the like. At my urging, the war hero has tried to suppress that particular fact, but even so, people suspect mages are responsible for the murders. They’re harassing them in the streets.”

  “More than usual, you mean.”

  Nicos made a sour face. “I’m aware that the Chessentan prejudice against wizards is unjust. I also know that you, a war-mage, have more reason than most to view it with disfavor. That’s part of the reason I hired you.”

  Aoth snorted. “You thought the local mages’ plight would appeal to my sympathies? My lord, I’m a professional. I’d persecute them myself if the price was right.”

  Nicos looked slightly taken aback. “Well, the fact is, we need someone to keep order and protect them. Even the war hero, who in large measure shares the common bias against them, agrees. And we can’t depend on the city guards to do it, because they hate wizards too. So I offered to hire the Brotherhood of the Griffon at my own expense.”

  “To take up the slack for the watch? My lord, we’re soldiers!”

  “I understand that.”

  “Actually, this would be worse than simply filling in for the watch in normal times. Our job would be to stand between the mob and the people they hate. It wouldn’t be long before they hated us too.”

  “You have my word that this isn’t the only reason I brought you to Chessenta, although frankly-in light of your arcane abilities and dubious reputation-it is the only task Shala Karanok is willing to entrust to you. But if you prove yourself, that will change. Once the city calms down, she’ll give me permission to send you to the border or the coast. Where you’ll find your work more congenial and, no doubt, with ample opportunities for plunder.”

  “Just as soon as I live down my ‘dubious reputation,’ ” Aoth said bitterly.

  Not long before, it had been as bright as that of any sellsword commander in the East. But then the previous year, he’d broken a contract for the first time ever and fought his former employers, the Simbarchs of Aglarond. Then he’d spearheaded the forces of the Wizards’ Reach in a costly and seemingly failed invasion of Thay, losing many of his own men in the process. And then-

  “You have to admit,” Nicos said, his tone mild, “what happened in Impiltur doesn’t inspire confidence
.”

  “What happened in Impiltur,” Aoth said, gritting his teeth, “was not my fault or the fault of anyone under my command. There was a band of demon worshipers marauding in the north. More a rabble of madmen than a proper army or even a proper gang of brigands, but there were a lot of them, they had actual demons fighting among them, and they were doing a great deal of harm. The Brotherhood marched out to hunt them, and so did Baron Kremphras with his household troops. He and I agreed that whoever found the enemy first would notify the other, and then we’d trap the bastards together.

  “Well, my scouts found them first, and learned they meant to massacre a nearby farming village at the dark of the moon. I sent a messenger to let Kremphras know there was just enough time to intercept them, and that if he brought his force to a certain position, we could catch the advancing cultists between us. He sent back word that he would.”

  “So what happened?” Nicos asked.

  Aoth laughed without mirth. “You’ve probably guessed. The demon worshipers came, and the count didn’t. We Brothers of the Griffon had to fight them by ourselves, and it cost us dearly. Still, I think we would have won anyway, except that creatures came out of nowhere to attack our flank.”

  “What sort of creatures?”

  “In the dark and the confusion, it was hard to tell. Some, I think, were drakes, and others kobolds. There may even have been a true dragon spitting some sort of caustic slime. Whatever they were, I had the feeling the cultists were as surprised to see them as we were. But they were happy to accept their aid, and once they did, we couldn’t hold. We had to retreat or we all would have died.”

  “It sounds like you were lucky you were even able to retreat.”

  “I still don’t understand why the enemy allowed it. But once we opened up the path to the village, the reptiles and such simply melted back into the night, and the cultists rushed on in to butcher the farmers.” Aoth recalled the screams and the inhuman laughter, the leaping flames and the smell of burning flesh, and a pang of nausea twisted his guts.