The Captive Flame botg-1

by Richard Lee Byers

  Chauntea, Gaedynn reflected, being the goddess who oversaw natural, healthy growth. “Obviously, that didn’t work.”

  “No. I tried to be good and obey, but I couldn’t keep from experimenting with my talent any more than you could have refrained from picking up a bow after you saw your elf friends practicing archery. And so my mother and father grew ever more afraid and loved me less and less.

  “And then,” she continued, her voice still oddly cool and matter-of-fact, “they led a caravan north. This was during one of those times when Chessenta and Threskel were supposedly at peace. But the north country was still full of brigands, human and otherwise, and a band of elemental magi waylaid us.”

  Elemental magi were ogres who, somewhat like the genasi, possessed an innate affinity for fire, earth, or air. “When you half saw that big kobold-thing standing in the dark, you took it for an elemental mage, didn’t you? That’s what… rattled you.”

  “Yes. But let me finish telling this my own way. The caravan was better prepared than the giants expected, and the guards withstood their first attack. But the magi still posed a threat, and the creatures knew it. They demanded tribute to let my parents go on their way.”

  Gaedynn felt sick to his stomach. “You were the tribute, weren’t you? Or a part of it.”

  “Yes.” Jhesrhi’s voice, though still soft and calm, grew bitter. “The elemental magi liked the idea of having a human child for a slave, and by that point my parents barely thought of me as their daughter anymore. I was just a problem, and this was a solution.”

  She took a breath. “The next several years were bad. The giants brutalized me in all the usual ways. When the shaman perceived my gift, they taught me their own kind of magic, but even that, which should have been joyous, was awful. Partly because they made me use it to help them attack other travelers.”

  “Knowing you as I do, I assume they must have taken precautions to keep you from turning the power on them.”

  “Yes. I don’t know where they got it, but they had an old leather collar with an enchantment of obedience on it. And they made me wear it. But even if they hadn’t, I don’t know if I would have found the courage to rebel. I was so afraid of them! To some extent, that fear started trickling back as soon as I learned we were bound for Luthcheq, and it grew stronger when Aoth asked us to travel to Threskel.”

  “Levistus take him for that, and for dragging you to this wretched kingdom in the first place.”

  “He has to do what’s right for the Brotherhood. The whole Brotherhood. And I have to perform the duties that fall to me, or I never should have joined the company in the first place. And I have performed them, except for those few moments with the kobolds.”

  “You performed them then too.” He chuckled. “It just took you a little longer than I found comfortable. Still, for Aoth to send you on this particular mission-”

  “He needed a mage, and he probably thought it might help that I spent years wandering the wilds of Threskel. Please don’t be angry with him. I’d still be a slave if he hadn’t rescued me.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was pure chance, Tymora smiling on me or Ilmater taking pity on me at last. The Brotherhood was sailing to start a new commission, and storms damaged the ships. They had to put in to a port south of the Wizards’ Reach for repairs, and while they were stuck there, some minor Jedea cousin wanted to hire a few sellswords to travel inland and do a job. Aoth was bored, so he decided to attend to it personally. When the elemental magi and I attacked, he and the other Brothers killed the ogres, but they let me live. Because those eyes of his could see it was the collar forcing me to fight. He got it off me and offered me a place in the company. Maybe because he realized I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Or maybe because he realized such a powerful wizard would be damn useful, especially after he arranged for additional training. Still, you’ve made your point. Perhaps I won’t shoot him when we see him next.”

  She was silent again.

  “Jhesrhi?” he asked.

  Her chains clinked. “Now maybe you understand.”

  “I do.”

  “Not about the kobolds and all that. About before, and you and me. I thought that if it could be good with anyone, it would be good with you. But when we tried, all I could think about was the ogres. They were so ugly and rough and big, and I was so little. Just the stink of them…” She drew a ragged breath.

  Guilt twisted Gaedynn’s insides. Which was completely unfair, since he hadn’t known about the magi and certainly hadn’t intended to put her through an ordeal, but the feeling persisted nonetheless. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. I am.”

  “Don’t be. At least we stayed friends, and I finally understand I shouldn’t take your revulsion personally. As for the rest, I can get that in any festhall.” He faltered. “I didn’t mean that the way it may have sounded.”

  She laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that, and it was strange to hear it sounding from the darkness of their prison, especially considering the torments she’d just revealed. “Now I know why you generally avoid saying how you truly feel. You’re terrible at it.”

  A retort sprang to mind. But before he could voice it, a cold hand gripped his shoulder.

  *****

  The apartments of Clan Daardendrien were high up the south wall of the pyramid, which meant Khouryn and his fellow sellswords had a long climb up stairs and ramps to get there. But the supper of roast pheasant was worth it. So was the tart white wine.

  Afterward, pleasantly replete and a little tipsy, with full goblets in hand and a fresh bottle awaiting their pleasure, he, Medrash, and Balasar lounged on the balcony overlooking the atrium. The magical illumination had dimmed to match the night outside. Across the empty space, the lamps in other dragonborn homes glowed like stars. Somewhere, a lutenist plucked out an air in a minor key.

  Balasar sipped from his cup. “Do you like the view?”

  “Yes,” Khouryn said. “Now that the light’s faded, this feels very much like certain portions of East Rift.”

  Speaking the name of his home brought a pang of melancholy.

  Evidently Medrash sensed it. “There must be some way to get you there,” he said.

  “It doesn’t seem like it,” Khouryn said. He emptied his cup and reached for the new bottle. “Your war has closed the Dustroad. Somehow, it’s even stopped boat traffic on the lakes, even though I’m told the giants never bothered it before.”

  Balasar shrugged. “If you took control of the narrows where Lanee Lake flows into Ash Lake, it wouldn’t be that hard to do.”

  “Apparently not,” Khouryn sighed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to try going the long way around?”

  “Through the Shaar Desolation? I like to think I could survive the trek, but traveling through a desert would take a lot longer than using the road. And I can’t stay gone from the Brotherhood forever, not with Chessenta and Threskel preparing for war. Truly, the only solution I can imagine would be for the vanquisher to lend me one of those bats. And you say that despite the warm welcome he gave me, he won’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” Medrash said. “The bats are the steeds of the Lance Defenders, the core of our army. I’ve never heard of anyone else being entrusted with one under any circumstances. In wartime, it’s all but inconceivable.” He sipped from his cup.

  “Unless we stole one,” Balasar said.

  Medrash choked and sputtered.

  “Easy,” Balasar said, laughter in his voice. “I didn’t say we should, or that I would. I was speaking hypothetically.”

  The paladin wiped his mouth with the back of a scaly hand. “That’s good, since such a theft would amount to treason.”

  “And I wouldn’t be a party to it anyway,” Khouryn said. “I’ll just have to resign myself to not seeing my lass this time around.”

  Out in the darkness, the lutenist finished his song, paused, then started another just as sad.

&n
bsp; After a while, Balasar said, “It seems like a cheerless world all of a sudden. Bad things happening everywhere you look.” Khouryn noticed that when dragonborn drank to excess, they started to slur just like dwarves and men.

  “I hate sensing the pattern,” Medrash said, “yet not being able to see it. That’s the thing that keeps us helpless.”

  “Everything doesn’t have to be connected,” Balasar said. “Not in the way you mean. Maybe the stars are just in a bad configuration or something.”

  “No, there’s a better reason than that. If the Loyal Fury would guide me again, maybe I could figure it out. But given my failure in Luthcheq, perhaps he’s decided to look for a more capable agent.”

  “Please,” Balasar groaned. “I’m begging you by the tree and the stone, don’t start babbling that nonsense again.”

  Khouryn decided to change the subject. “What will the two of you do now that Perra doesn’t need your services anymore?”

  Balasar grinned, the gleam of his pointed teeth perceptible even in the dark. “You’re looking at it. Strong drink and a soft chair. Throw in an amorous female or two and I’m set.”

  Medrash gave him an irritated glance. “It isn’t only active Lance Defenders fighting the giants. Every clan has sent or will send its own troops. I’m going, and I know that whatever he pretends, this clown wouldn’t think of staying behind.”

  “Oh, I’d think about it,” Balasar said.

  “How soon will you leave?” Khouryn asked.

  Balasar chuckled. “I have a terrible premonition that the prig here won’t even give me time for my hangover to run its course.”

  “In that case, I’ll tag along if you’ll have me. Just me. I need to send the other sellswords back to Aoth.”

  “Of course we’ll have you,” Medrash said. “But why are you doing this?”

  “If Tymora smiles, maybe it won’t take you dragonborn long to win a decisive victory. Then the Dustroad will open up again, and I’ll be in the right place to take advantage of it.”

  That really was the main reason. But it was also true that Medrash’s murky talk of a pattern had struck a chord with him.

  Could the paladin possibly be right? Was there a common underlying cause for all the tribulations afflicting the realms around the Alamber? If so, then it could only benefit the Brotherhood to understand it. And maybe if Khouryn stuck with Medrash and Balasar and learned more about Tymanther’s problems, he’d gain some insight.

  More likely not. But all things considered, it was worth an extra tenday or two just in case.

  *****

  From their icy touch, and the fact that they had no trouble moving around in the dark, Jhesrhi inferred that the captors gripping her forearms and marching her along were vampires. Once she realized that, she found their touch even more repulsive than that of the living, but all she could do was steel herself and bear it as they marched her along. They’d removed the shackles that suppressed her magic, but it was unlikely her powers could help her while she was blind and two such formidable creatures were holding on to her.

  “Are you still all right, buttercup?” asked Gaedynn from somewhere behind her. Despite their predicament, his tone was no longer grave and gentle as it had been before the vampires came for them. Now it was as jaunty as usual.

  “I’m well,” she answered.

  Light appeared ahead of them, revealing the dimensions of the tunnel they were traversing. She could tell it was magical illumination, silvery and soft, but after her time in the dark it made her squint like the glare of a summer sun.

  As her eyes adjusted, her pale, gaunt guards marched her and Gaedynn into a broad, high-ceilinged chamber where glowing white balls floated in the air and slowly drifted from one point to another. Their light gleamed on the treasure below. Gold and silver coins filled open coffers or simply lay in heaps and drifts on the floor. Emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, water stars, and red tears lay scattered among the rounds of precious metal-some loose, some set in necklaces, rings, and brooches.

  It could have been a spectacle to make an observer smile at its glittering beauty or drool with greed, except that there was more to it. Corpses-human, halfling, orc, goblin, and others-sprawled amid the wealth. Some were old and withered, and others still fresh enough to nourish the scuttling rats. All were mangled and had had the heads ripped from their shoulders. Their rotten stink made Jhesrhi queasy.

  Suddenly a shape surged from the rear of the chamber. It was so huge that she couldn’t understand how she’d missed it before, but it truly seemed to burst out of nowhere. Startled, she tried to recoil, although the cold iron grips of the vampires kept her from succeeding. Gaedynn gasped.

  Jaxanaedegor was immense enough to make the blue dragon who’d carried the prisoners there seem puny by comparison. Subtly pattered with scales of lighter and darker green, his clawed feet were the size of oxcarts. The spiny crest that ran from the top of his wedge-shaped head down the length of his body was nearly as tall as a human being all by itself.

  Yet the most daunting thing about him was the pale unearthly sheen in his yellow eyes, a surface manifestation of the insatiable hunger and boundless malice of the undead. Jhesrhi recognized it from her time in Thay, but she’d never seen it melded with the profound intelligence and prodigious might of an ancient wyrm before.

  As she struggled to contain her fear, Gaedynn’s guards brought him forward to stand beside her. He ran his gaze over the nearest corpses and said, “You might think about tidying up a bit.”

  Jaxanaedegor stared at him for a moment that seemed to drag on endlessly, scraping at Jhesrhi’s nerves. Then the lesser vampires let the captives go and backed away. She assumed their master had given them some silent signal to do so.

  It didn’t matter. If she had had her staff and Gaedynn his bow, or at least some weapon and armor, they might have had an infinitesimal chance of fighting their way clear of the situation. As it was, they had no hope at all.

  “I know you,” the dragon said. “Jhesrhi Coldcreek and Gaedynn Ulraes. Lieutenants to Aoth Fezim.”

  Jhesrhi tried to keep her surprise from showing in her face.

  “Who?” Gaedynn replied. “My name is Azzedar, and my woman is Ilzza. We-”

  Fast as a striking serpent, Jaxanaedegor lunged forward. A flick of his forefoot flung Gaedynn backward to slam down on an old sack. It burst under the impact, and clinking coins splashed out.

  Meanwhile, the same forefoot grabbed Jhesrhi around the middle and shoved her to the floor. Jaxanaedegor’s scaly hide was as cold as his servants’ skin, and his weight squashed the breath out of her.

  She wheezed a word of power. The wyrm glared down at her. The force of his will stabbed into her head and made it throb, but failed to paralyze her. She forced out the next word of her incantation, and he shifted his stance to make her take a fraction more of his weight.

  “All I have to do is bear down,” he said, “to crush you into jelly.”

  She left the rest of the spell unspoken. The stillborn magic dispersed with a crackling sound.

  Gaedynn jumped up and started toward Jaxanaedegor. The dragon’s head whipped in his direction. Wisps of yellow-green vapor fumed from the creature’s nostrils and between his fangs. Jhesrhi caught a whiff of it. It seared her nose and throat and made her cough.

  Gaedynn stopped.

  “That’s better,” Jaxanaedegor said.

  “Let her up,” the archer said.

  “Are you done lying?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better be.” The wyrm picked up his foot.

  Jhesrhi sucked in a breath, then rose and scurried to stand with Gaedynn. She realized that putting a few paces between the dragon and herself meant absolutely nothing in terms of making her safer. But it felt better than lingering within arm’s reach.

  “If I may ask,” Gaedynn said, “how is it that you know us?”

  “For obvious reasons,” Jaxanaedegor said, “we in the north take an interest in the so
ldiers the war hero sends against us.” His breath weapon had stopped leaking into the air, though the little that had escaped was enough to fill the cave with an eye-watering haze. “I have an observer in Soolabax, and when he lost track of you, I told my people throughout Threskel to keep an eye out. Because you had to be going somewhere.”

  To Jhesrhi it seemed, if not a false explanation, certainly an incomplete one. She could understand a lord of Threskel monitoring the Brotherhood of the Griffon as a whole, or its captain for that matter. But it still surprised her that the wyrm had taken such a close interest that he knew two lesser officers by name.

  “Well,” Gaedynn said, “we’re honored to have snagged the attention of the terror of Mount Thulbane.”

  “It could work out to your advantage,” Jaxanaedegor said. “You could attain eternal life.”

  “As an eternal menial eternally creeping around in a hole in the ground, like these?” Gaedynn waved a hand to indicate the undead standing at the mouth of the tunnel.

  “Servants with minor talents,” the dragon said, “must content themselves with minor roles. But you’re a skilled warrior, and your companion is versed in elemental sorcery. I might consider giving you the true Dark Gift of the Undying. To make you master vampires and knights of the realm.”

  Jhesrhi took a breath. “We had an undead comrade named Bareris Anskuld. We saw what his condition made of him. We’re not interested.”

  “You assume you have a choice.”

  “I don’t assume I could hurt you or fend you off for any length of time. But I do think I could raise enough fire to burn Gaedynn and me to ash.”

  Actually, probably not-not without her staff. But it was possible that despite his cunning, Jaxanaedegor couldn’t tell that.

  The dragon grunted. “Well, don’t set yourself ablaze quite yet. I’m still deciding what to do with you. Tell the truth, and I might show more mercy than a spy deserves. What were you looking for in Mourktar?”