The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

  He turned and, limping, conducted his visitors into a candlelit, low-ceilinged room. Bearskins, wolf pelts, racks of antlers, and halfling-sized hunting weapons hung on the walls. A scatter of maps lay on a table, along with the hook and leather cuff the halfling presumably wore when he felt the need for a prosthesis.

  Jhesrhi was somewhat encouraged. Judging from appearances, their host might truly have known the Sky Riders well, in the days before some beast mauled and crippled him.

  He flicked his remaining hand at a bench with chipped and peeling paint that looked like he’d salvaged it from the town dump. “That’s the one thing big enough for humans to sit on.”

  “Thank you,” Gaedynn said.

  The halfling flopped down in a chair. “What exactly do you want?”

  “We’ve heard stories,” Gaedynn said, “about a dragon that roars by night somewhere high in the hills.”

  “So?”

  Gaedynn smiled. “A dragon’s lair is full of treasure.”

  The cripple snorted. “And you think you can carry it off? Just the two of you?”

  “The tales suggest this particular wyrm is inconvenienced somehow.”

  “It’s still a dragon.”

  “We don’t intend to fight it. Just sneak into its lair, pocket a few prize gems, and live like lords for the rest of our days.”

  The halfling squirmed in his chair like he couldn’t get comfortable. “It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out already. What do you need me for?”

  “The tales are either unclear or contradictory concerning the dragon’s location.”

  The maimed hunter grinned, revealing gapped, stained teeth. “Easy to see why, if the creature only appears at night. And seeing as how fools are always getting lost in the Sky Riders. People who saw or heard the wyrm-if anyone truly did-may not have known exactly where they were.”

  “Do you think anyone did?” Jhesrhi asked. “See it, I mean.”

  “What’s the difference?” The halfling shifted again. “You and your man have decided they did, or else you wouldn’t be here. Nothing I say is likely to change your minds.”

  “You’re probably right,” Gaedynn said. “So, can you help us?”

  “Maybe,” the halfling said. “I’ve heard all the stories you have and more, and knowing the hill country, I can interpret details that don’t mean anything to you. I can make a good guess where you ought to look. But only if you make it worth my while.”

  “I already gave you one piece of silver. How about four more?”

  “That’s piddling for information that will make you rich, or so you tell me. How about ten gold?”

  “If we had that kind of coin, we wouldn’t need to chase dragons. What about this? We’ll cut you in for a tenth of the profits.”

  “Now, that sounds splendid! Because I’m confident you’ll come back loaded down with diamonds and rubies, and just as certain you’ll keep your word.”

  “I take your point. We’ll pay you three gold. But I swear by the Merchant’s Friend, we can’t go any higher.”

  The halfling grunted. “Hand it over.”

  Gaedynn fished a purse out of the jerkin he’d mended with big, clumsy stitches after the kobold’s javelin tore it. “You just need to understand one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Gaedynn shook coins out into his palm. “My companion is a wizard. She’s going to cast a charm that will alert her if you try to cheat us.”

  It was a lie. Jhesrhi had mastered dozens of spells, but none that would serve that particular purpose. But other people had no way of knowing that, and she and Gaedynn had used the bluff to extract the truth from the credulous on several previous occasions.

  As he took the coins, the halfling made a spitting sound. “As long as she doesn’t turn me into a rat or make my manhood fall off, she can do what she likes.”

  Jhesrhi whispered words of power. The room grew colder. For a moment, the candles burned green, and a breeze rustled the parchments on the table. It was likely enough to create the impression that some useful enchantment was in place.

  “Now,” said Gaedynn, “go ahead.”

  The halfling leaned over the table and riffled through the maps until he found one drawn on vellum. He sketched a circle on it with his fingertip. “Somewhere in this area. And I think that if it’s really there to be found, you’ll find it on the western side of a hill.”

  Maintaining the fiction that Jhesrhi could tell if their informant was telling the truth, Gaedynn looked to her. She nodded.

  The redheaded archer extended his hand. “Thank you for your help.”

  The halfling blinked like he wasn’t used to courtesy or gratitude. “There’s one more thing I can tell you. People only ever glimpse or hear the dragon at the dark of the moon.”

  “That complicates matters,” Gaedynn said, “but at least it’s not for a while yet. We have time to get to the right place. Thank you again.”

  After the cripple showed them out, Jhesrhi said, “You could have just given the poor fellow ten gold.”

  “That would have seemed very strange to him. He expected me to haggle.”

  “And, it’s bad luck to swear a false oath by any of the gods.”

  “Oh, I imagine Waukeen will forgive me.” He grinned. “As you know better than anyone, I’m well nigh irresistible to blondes with golden eyes.”

  She scowled. “Where now? Back to the stable?”

  “If you like. We have what we came for.”

  They headed in that direction. To her relief, the crowds in the streets had thinned out. In fact, they soon found themselves entirely alone on a block lined with dark, shuttered shops at ground level. In the quiet, even the iron ferrule of her staff bump-bump-bumping against the mud seemed noisy. She picked up the weapon and carried it over her shoulder.

  Then the wind whispered to her. She willed the bindings on the staff to loosen, and the cloth fell away. She lifted the rod into a middle guard and roused the power stored inside it. The golden runes glittered.

  By that time, Gaedynn had noticed what she was doing and nocked an arrow. “What?” he asked.

  “People are stalking us,” she said.

  “Where are they?”

  “All around us. I think. They’re using magic that hinders even the wind’s ability to perceive them, and-”

  “And anyway, the breezes in Mourktar haven’t fallen in love with you yet.” He shifted so they stood back to back. “I’ve heard the song before. If the bastards are just thieves, now that they see that we’re ready for them, maybe they’ll go away.”

  “I doubt common thieves would command such potent enchantments.”

  “Permit me the comfort of my delusions.”

  The breeze moaned, warning her. “Above us!” she said.

  They both looked up at the wide, shadowy something plunging down at them. They each leaped forward, separating in the process because otherwise they wouldn’t have had time to scramble out from underneath. The weighted net thudded and rustled down between them.

  A figure with a white face and hands jumped off the rooftop after the meshwork like a four-story drop was nothing. And apparently for him it was. He landed like a cat, and Gaedynn drove an arrow into his chest.

  That too should have killed or at least incapacitated him. But he simply staggered a step, then charged. As he did, Jhesrhi recognized him as the small man from the tavern. She also noticed his bared fangs.

  Fortunately, Gaedynn did too-and after the nightmarish campaign in Thay, he knew how to fight a vampire. His next shaft punched into the creature’s heart, where it would serve the same function as a stake. Paralyzed, the undead collapsed.

  Jhesrhi glanced around. Other pale figures were creeping from between the houses. She hurled a blast of fire and set the nearest two ablaze.

  Then she pivoted, searching for her next target. Even though she was trying to avoid it, she looked straight into another vampire’s eyes.

  The undead’s
coercive power stabbed into her head. Suddenly she couldn’t move. She wanted to, but it was like she’d forgotten how. She had the terrifying feeling she’d even stopped breathing.

  She strained to break free. In her mind she recited words of strength and liberation that would no longer pass her lips. Abruptly, and without realizing it was about to happen, she wrenched her gaze away and gasped for air.

  Her paralysis, brief though it had been, had given her foes the chance to rush closer. She spoke to the wind, and it hurled a vampire backward an instant before his outstretched hands could grab her.

  Behind her, light flashed, momentarily painting the world blue-white. Thunder boomed, power crackled, and Gaedynn laughed a single “Ha!” of satisfaction. He’d used one of the special arrows she’d enchanted for him, evidently to good effect.

  Even comparatively weak vampires-and it seemed to her that these were some of the weaker ones-were fearsome opponents, but so far it appeared that she and the archer were holding their own. Hoping to stand back to back again, she retreated a step, and then other figures stalked from the gloom behind the undead.

  The newcomers weren’t pale as bone, and she didn’t see any glistening fangs or lambent eyes. Humans, then, wrapped in shapeless hooded cloaks much like her own.

  She drew breath to cast a spell at the new enemies, then realized some of them were already chanting. A couple whirled implements resembling picks through serpentine passes with a nimbleness at odds with the weapons’ obvious weight.

  Jhesrhi abandoned her offensive magic to rattle off a briefer charm. A disk of golden light shimmered into existence in the air before her.

  Also floating and made of glowing light, but continually rippling from one color to another, several picks abruptly appeared in front of her defense. The magical weapons hurtled at her, and though her amber shield shifted back and forth, it couldn’t block them all. One red as flame whirled itself around the edge of the oval. She parried it with her staff, but at the same instant another such attack stabbed her in the back.

  Wracked with pain and horribly cold besides, she crumpled. The pick that had wounded her changed from white to green and struck again before she finished falling. Her nose, mouth, and throat burned, and she started coughing uncontrollably.

  Evidently recognizing that she was no longer able to oppose them, the enemy sent the animated picks streaking over her to take Gaedynn from behind. Still coughing, floundering in her own blood, she flopped over to watch the inevitable result.

  Gaedynn whirled and loosed another arrow. Then, chopping relentlessly, the luminous, multicolored picks assailed him like a swarm of wasps. He fell with blood streaming from his wounds.

  Between coughs, Jhesrhi caught the stink of charred flesh. Hands grabbed her and slammed her flat on her back. His skin burned black, a vampire dropped to his knees and bent over her.

  Then one of cloaked men stepped into Jhesrhi’s field of vision. Now that he’d come close enough, she could make out the pattern of scales on the robe visible through the gap between the wings of his outer garment. She could even discern how the folds of the iridescent vestment changed color as he moved, although in the darkness she couldn’t truly see the colors themselves.

  But she didn’t have to see them to recognize a priest of five-headed Tiamat, the Dragon Queen. “Get away from her,” the cleric said.

  The vampire glared up at him. “She burned me,” he said, the words garbled for want of the lips the fire had taken. “It’s only fair that her blood help restore me.”

  “If we injure her any further, she’s likely to die. As it is, we’ll have to cast healings on her and the bowman before they’re fit to travel.”

  Coughing less, no longer shaking quite so hard with chill, but still too weak to resist, Jhesrhi silently thanked the Foehammer that Gaedynn was still alive.

  “You… mortals,” the vampire snarled, like it was the foulest insult imaginable. “You priests. You order us to the fore to run the greatest risk-”

  “And you obey,” the wyrmkeeper said, “because our master has given us authority over you.” Master, Jhesrhi noted, not mistress. Whomever he was talking about, it wasn’t his goddess. “And because you know we possess the power to compel you-or at least I assume you know. If necessary, I can provide a demonstration.”

  Though still glowering with fangs extended, the undead rose and backed away. “Thank you,” the wyrmkeeper said. He stooped and tugged the staff from Jhesrhi’s feeble grasp. The runes stopped shining. He studied the tool with a knowledgeable eye. “Nice. Very nice. Now, we’re going to gag you and bind your hands. Then I’ll do something to restore your strength and take away the worst of-”

  “Look!” someone yelped.

  The wyrmkeeper pivoted and glanced around. “At what?”

  One of the men armed with a pick made of ordinary steel and wood pointed at a rooftop. “He’s gone now, but he was there! Somebody spying!”

  The wyrmkeeper turned toward the spot where three vampires stood clustered together. “Whoever it is, retrieve him.”

  The pale-faced figures dissolved from bottom to top like icicles melting. Shrunken into bats with wrinkled snouts and eyes like gleaming ink, swirling around one another, they fluttered upward and vanished into the night sky.

  Next the cloaked men restrained Jhesrhi, denying her any hope of using her magic. Then the wyrmkeeper prayed over her. The nasty, sibilant sound of the words made her skin crawl. But as promised, they closed her wounds, muted her pain, and brought a bit of her strength trickling back. The priest moved over to Gaedynn and did the same for him.

  Shortly afterward the three vampires, in human guise once more, stalked into view. The one in the lead was carrying a motionless body in his arms. When he dumped it on the street, its cape fell open. Jhesrhi was surprised to see that under his outer garment, the dead man too wore a vestment of iridescent scales.

  “Thank the Dark Lady,” the wyrmkeeper said.

  “What do we do with him?” asked the fellow who’d spotted the skulker in the first place.

  “It’s better that he should disappear than be found,” said the priest. “So I suppose we’ll have to drag him along with us. Get them up.”

  The enemy hauled Jhesrhi and Gaedynn to their feet, and she saw that they’d disarmed, bound, and gagged the archer as well. The wyrmkeeper rubbed the black, mask-shaped ring on his finger, and she felt a powerful enchantment-no doubt the charm of invisibility-enfold the entire company, captors and captives alike.

  Then they all tramped some distance through the city. Thanks to the wyrmkeeper’s restorative magic, Jhesrhi expected that she’d continue to recover from her wounds with preternatural speed. But for now she was still weak and sore, and the walk taxed her severely. She might have been glad when her foes pointed her toward the entrance to the ruins of an old warehouse, except that she had every reason to be wary of whatever waited inside.

  First she caught its odor, the tang of a gathering storm like she’d smelled that afternoon. Then she saw the sparks jumping and popping on the body that was simply a huge, shapeless mass in the dark. Eyes big as serving platters glowed white at the top of the murky form.

  “I see you caught them,” the creature said, its voice a sort of rumbling hiss.

  “Yes, milord,” the wyrmkeeper said. “Unfortunately, a spy loyal to one of your brothers discovered us at our work. But he won’t tell anyone what he saw.”

  “That’s all right, then. Tie the prisoners to my back.”

  Jhesrhi felt a pang of dread and tried to shake it off. To take comfort in the fact that at least the dragon didn’t mean to torture or kill her and Gaedynn on the spot.

  Someone produced a long coil of rope, and the worshipers of the Nemesis of the Gods proceeded to obey the wyrm’s command. Meanwhile, Jhesrhi noticed, although she hadn’t been able to tell it from the street, that most of the derelict building was open to the sky. A creature with wings wouldn’t have much trouble entering from above.
r />   Or exiting in the same manner-as the blue dragon proved by lashing its own batlike wings and carrying Gaedynn and Jhesrhi aloft. In a hundred heartbeats or so, Mourktar was left behind.

  SIX

  29 TARSAKH-GREENGRASS THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

  Fires burned in the southwest. Khouryn couldn’t see the flames, but no one could miss the columns of black smoke, even against a gray sky.

  He clucked and urged his dappled mare forward. The dragonborn bred big, powerful horses to bear their weight, and though his was the smallest Perra had to offer, she was still an enormous steed for a dwarf. But he’d ridden all sorts of mounts since leaving East Rift, and he managed well enough.

  He caught up with Medrash and Balasar, who sat silently contemplating the smoke like everyone else. “What is it?” he asked.

  “War,” Medrash said.

  Wonderful, Khouryn thought sourly. Because his wife and home were on the far side of that war, and with Vigilant gone he couldn’t just fly over it, now could he?

  “Pick up the pace!” Perra called. Evidently the sight of the smoke made it seem even more urgent that she confer with her master as soon as possible.

  So they rode or marched faster, and by the end of the morning, Djerad Thymar came into view. For some time afterward, Khouryn kept squinting at it. He was sure some trick of perspective was making the place look bigger than it really was.

  But it wasn’t so. The closer they approached, the more obvious it became that the dragonborn had built themselves a veritable mountain of a city. The structure rested on a colossal block of granite. On top of that, hundreds of gigantic pillars supported a kind of pyramid with a flattened apex. In its totality, the edifice towered more than a thousand feet high.

  Since sighting the smoke, the ambassador and her retainers had been taciturn. But now Balasar noticed Khouryn staring, and grinned a fierce-looking reptilian grin. “Impressed?”