The Spectral Blaze

by Richard Lee Byers

  On the next stroke, the corona of fire surrounding the head of the pick became a crust of frost, then on the one after a cloud of poisonous smoke. Jhesrhi kept dodging and the priest kept missing, although each swing came closer than the last.

  Finally she reached the end of her incantation, and a prickling danced over her hands. She held them low to avoid drawing attention to them and murmured nonsense so the priest wouldn’t realize she’d finished the spell.

  Crackling and showering sparks, the pick whizzed past her nose. And as Aoth and Khouryn had taught her, if a weapon was long and heavy, particularly at the striking end, then after a swing, it took even a skillful warrior an instant to ready it for another. So she raised her hands, which, thanks to the spell, wore gauntlets of articulated bone with talons on the fingertips, and lunged.

  The attack surprised the wyrmkeeper. He managed a chop even so but only clipped her shoulder with the wooden shaft of the pick. The steel head with its charge of magic fell behind her.

  She clawed the left side of his face to gory ribbons. He threw back his head, maybe to scream, and that exposed his throat. She ripped it open. He toppled with blood spurting from the second wound.

  As her claws melted away, she turned toward the web. It still held two wyrmkeepers helpless, but a third stood unbound on the far side of it. Maybe he’d never been entangled in the first place. Maybe he was the fellow the leader had told to watch for trouble coming from the other end of the hall.

  Whoever he was, he bolted, abandoning his comrades. Jhesrhi rattled off another incantation and thrust out the hand with the ring. Putrid-smelling fog swirled into existence around him. He staggered and collapsed.

  Jhesrhi then returned her attention to the pair in the web. Eyes wide, they struggled even more frantically but still ineffectually to break free.

  Their panic filled her with contempt. Maybe it was because she was sure they’d mistreated Khouryn. Whatever the reason, she felt a sudden urge to burn them alive.

  But she didn’t. She picked up a fallen pick, and heedless of their pleas and cries and, careful not to get herself or the weapon stuck in the web, used the butt end to club them both unconscious.

  Then she went through the doorway and cursed.

  She’d been expecting a torture chamber, so the lamp-lit space, with its tiny cage, spiked chair, ducking tank, whipping post, and similar implements, held no surprises. Still, it was ghastly to see Khouryn’s burly, hairy, naked form covered in welts and stretched utterly taut on the rack.

  She knew he wouldn’t want a show of pity any more than she would have in his place. So she swallowed the clog in her throat, dissolved the illusion that made her resemble Bareris, and said, “Halonya’s followers are stuck in a rut. They racked Cera too, as I recall.”

  Khouryn gave her a grin, although it appeared even that movement pained him. “In my case, it was Chessentan humor,” he croaked. “They said they’d cure me of being a dwarf. How much time do we have?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, hurrying closer, into the stink of his abused and unwashed flesh. “Some, I hope. We’re in a separate section of the dungeons from any of Tchazzar’s guards, and there are prisoners closer to them. Their noise may have masked the noise of the fight.”

  She spoke the words that had unlocked the door to the dungeons, and the leather cuffs flopped open to release his wrists and ankles. The flesh inside was raw.

  Khouryn sucked in a breath and struggled to sit up. She reached to help him then faltered as her aversion to touching others asserted itself. But curse it, if she could let Tchazzar fondle her and slobber on her, she could help a friend!

  Her skin crawling, she supported Khouryn with one arm and dug out the healing elixir with the other. “Drink it slowly,” she said, holding it to his mouth. “We don’t want you coughing it back up.”

  With every sip, his condition improved. His body made popping sounds as dislocated joints snapped back together. Some of the whip marks disappeared, and bruises changed from black to yellow.

  “How are you now?” she asked when the vial was empty.

  “Good enough.” Moving like an old, arthritic man, he slumped to the floor, hobbled to the corner where the wyrmkeepers had dropped his clothes, and started putting them on. “What’s our next move?”

  “I’ll tell you as we go. But first I need to disguise us.”

  She rattled off the rhyme needed to shroud herself in Bareris’s image again. Then she made Khouryn look like a halfling, which was to say, a member of a demihuman race that her countrymen didn’t regard with disdain. Though halflings were slimmer than the Stout Folk, they were of a comparable height, and that point of similarity might aid the deception.

  After that, she wrapped them both in another don’t-look-at-me spell, and they were ready. Since his weapons and armor hadn’t been with his clothes, Khouryn paused to appropriate a corpse’s pick and dagger, then glowered at the merely battered and unconscious men dangling in the web.

  “I wouldn’t ordinarily kill a fellow in this condition,” he said. “But now I’m tempted.”

  “I’d like somebody left alive,” Jhesrhi cut in, “and the way I beat these two in the head and poisoned the one lying over there, a couple of them may not make it as it is.”

  Khouryn spit. “It’s not worth it anyway. Just lead me out of here.”

  She did. They slipped past the guard station, climbed the stairs, and magically locked the door behind them. Then they made their way upward through the passages honeycombing the enormous sandstone block that comprised the greater part of the War College. To her relief, Khouryn’s limp became less pronounced, and he stopped gasping and grunting so often as exercise worked more of the stiffness and soreness out of his muscles.

  Finally they reached the roof with its turrets, battlements, and catapults. She pointed and whispered, “The bat is over that way.” On Halonya’s orders, the guards had given the animal drugged food, then secured it. Eventually, Jhesrhi suspected, the newly minted high priestess meant to sacrifice it to Tchazzar, but she hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

  “Thanks,” Khouryn said, rolling his massive shoulders. “For everything. I’ll take it from here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course.” He gave her a nod, then, crouching low and keeping to the shadows, crept toward the spot she’d indicated.

  She judged that he would have made it all the way too, except that the bat somehow perceived its master coming. It gave a little squeak of a cry and strained upward, trying to break free of the netting that pressed it flat against the roof. The guard who stood watch over it cast about, spotted Khouryn, and raised a javelin. The dwarf rushed him.

  The soldier threw the javelin, but Khouryn didn’t bother to duck or dodge. His practiced eye could evidently tell it was going to fly wide of the mark. As he lunged into the distance, the guard snatched out his sword.

  After all that Khouryn had endured, Jhesrhi wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d taken the easy path and simply killed the soldier. But apparently he’d absorbed enough of her hasty, tangled explanation of recent events to grasp that, despite everything, wyrmkeepers were the enemy but Chessenta wasn’t. Not exactly, not yet. Because instead of striking with the point on the head of the pick, he rammed the blunt, curved part of it into the soldier’s gut.

  The guard doubled over, but his armor cushioned the blow. He could still fight and slashed at Khouryn’s face. The dwarf leaned backward, and the blade flashed past him.

  Then he hooked the Chessentan’s lead leg with the pick and jerked it out from under him. The human fell and, still using the blunt part of his weapon, Khouryn jabbed him in the head. His helmet clanked.

  Khouryn kept his eyes on the guard for another heartbeat, making sure he was out, then peered around. Jhesrhi did the same. As far as she could tell, the brief scuffle hadn’t attracted any other sentry’s attention. Thank the Foehammer that it was a dark, overcast night and a spacious roof.

  Khour
yn yanked the net off from the cleats normally used to lash a catapult or ballista in position. He pulled the mesh off the bat, and it rose and shook out its wings. The snapping sound did attract attention and someone shouted.

  Khouryn gave a command in what Jhesrhi assumed to be the dragonborn language. The bat lowered itself, and he scrambled onto its back. Then it crawled to the edge of the roof, clambered onto a merlon, and sprang out into space.

  Jhesrhi smiled and hurried back the way she’d come.

  T

  H

  R

  E

  E

  6–10 ELEASIS, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE

  Halonya trembled with rage and impatience, and the motion rattled and thumped the stiff, jewel-bedizened layers of her gaudy vestments. Enthroned behind her, Tchazzar looked more composed but no happier. Watching them both, Hasos tensed his jaw muscles to hold in a yawn.

  The yawn wanted out only because Tchazzar’s summons had hauled him out of bed at sunrise. His feelings were an untidy jumble, but boredom wasn’t any part of the mix.

  He was curious to learn how the dwarf had escaped, but also a little apprehensive and resentful. He’d observed that it was dangerous for anyone to be around Tchazzar when he was angry, and in that instance, there was no real reason Hasos should be present. No one had tasked him with keeping Khouryn Skulldark locked away.

  He supposed the war hero had called for him simply because, after the successful defense of Soolabax and the subjugation of Threskel, he was accounted one of the champions of the realm. Fighting the thought every step of the way, he’d finally come to realize that the attendant honors and responsibilities didn’t please him as much as he might have expected. He sometimes wished he were home, looking after the farmers and townsfolk, chasing sheep rustlers through the scrub, and jousting in the occasional tournament, not stuck in Luthcheq preparing for another war.

  The functionary at the door announced, “Lady Jhesrhi Coldcreek.” Then the wizard herself walked in, the butt of her staff bumping softly on the floor.

  Hasos studied her, striking and lovely as always in her clenched, frigid way. If she was guilty of anything, he couldn’t see any sign of it.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, curtsying stiffly.

  “Arrest her!” Halonya shrilled.

  Tchazzar shot the prophetess a glance, and she caught her breath. She was one of his favorites, but she’d still overstepped by presuming to give a command in his presence, and she realized it.

  He didn’t make an issue of it, though. Instead, he turned his gaze on Jhesrhi.

  Who met it without flinching. “Clearly,” she said, “something has agitated His Majesty’s high priestess. May I ask what?”

  “Sometime between midnight and dawn,” the Red Dragon said, “someone, or something, helped Khouryn Skulldark escape from his cell, reclaim his bat, and flee.”

  Jhesrhi raised an eyebrow. The flicker of expression reminded Hasos of her annoying comrade Gaedynn Ulraes, and he wondered if she’d picked it up from the archer without even realizing it. “ ‘Something,’ Majesty?” she asked.

  Tchazzar gestured to one of the men standing by the wall, a wyrmkeeper with bloody bandages wrapped around his head. “He looked like a vampire,” said the priest, stammering slightly. “Or some kind of undead.”

  “The last time I checked,” Jhesrhi said, “I was both female and alive.”

  “You didn’t have to sneak down and free the dwarf yourself!” Halonya said. “You could have called something out of the night and sent it to do your bidding!”

  “Has Your Majesty ever seen me practice necromancy?” Jhesrhi asked.

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Halonya said.

  “My lady,” said Tchazzar to Jhesrhi, “you know how disinclined I am to think ill of you. But you were Skulldark’s comrade, and you did plead for his release.”

  “True,” Jhesrhi said, her voice still steady, “and in my private thoughts, I still regretted his imprisonment. But if I’d meant to set my will against your own, I would have acted at once. I wouldn’t have waited while he endured additional days of torture.”

  “You would have,” Halonya said, “if it took you that long to make the preparations.”

  “I believe,” Jhesrhi said, a line of flame flowing from her hand to the top of her staff, “that Lady Halonya is so intent on venting her dislike of me that she’s overlooking the obvious. Your Majesty knows you still have enemies here in your own realm who command the dead. You also know I’m not one of them because when the spirits attacked in the orchard, they tried to kill both of us. Surely if such a creature has now penetrated the War College, they’re the ones to blame.”

  Zan-akar Zeraez raised his hand. With a tiny crackle, a spark jumped from one of his purple, silver-etched fingers to another. “Majesty, may I speak?”

  “Please,” Tchazzar said.

  “For purposes of argument, let’s grant Lady Coldcreek’s hypothesis. It still follows that this secret cabal of traitors would have no reason to free Skulldark unless he, too, was one of your enemies.” He looked to Jhesrhi. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  For the first time, Jhesrhi hesitated. “I … suppose. I didn’t want to believe Khouryn disloyal, but maybe His Majesty and Lady Halonya saw deeper than I did.”

  “And if he is in league to the Tymantherans,” the ambassador continued, “he may well have flown right to them and warned them of our plans.”

  “I suppose that, too, is possible,” Jhesrhi said. “After all, he had to go somewhere.”

  “Curse it!” Tchazzar snarled.

  Shala cleared her throat, and the war hero shot her a glare. Seemingly unfazed, she said, “Majesty, may I suggest that this is yet another reason to reevaluate your plans?”

  “No, you may not! Get out before I strip you of all rank and honors and have you hanged for cowardice!”

  Her square face livid, Shala inclined her head. Then she turned and walked away, her pace measured and her back straight.

  Once she was gone, Zan-akar said, “Majesty, I’m glad you still intend to proceed with the invasion because Akanûl still stands with you. The atrocities the dragonborn committed allow no other answer. Still, this development is troubling, and despite Lady Jhesrhi’s glib tongue”—Jhesrhi’s golden eyes blinked as though no one had ever spoken of her in such terms before—“many questions remain. I implore you to seek the answers as vigorously as possible.”

  Tchazzar frowned. “Do you have a specific course of action to recommend?”

  “I truly regret the necessity, but Lady Jhesrhi should be detained and interrogated in Khouryn Skulldark’s place.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Jhesrhi said. “Your Majesty knows I’m loyal.”

  “Additionally,” Zan-akar continued, “the Thayan Aoth Fezim, the dwarf’s commander, should be recalled immediately and given the same treatment.”

  “Aoth, too,” Jhesrhi said, “has served Your Majesty faithfully ever since the day of your return.”

  “No!” Halonya said. “It isn’t so! Majesty—greatest of gods—I’m your prophetess! I proclaimed your divinity and foretold your return! This one time, believe me! Trust me as I strive to protect you from those who mean you harm! Your humble servant begs you!” She flung herself down and prostrated herself before the throne.

  Tchazzar looked at her, then at Jhesrhi, then back again. Hasos had seen him like that a dozen times before, torn between the only two people he truly trusted, the ones who, paradoxically, so often pulled him in opposite directions.

  Then his long face set with the resolve of a man preparing to do something genuinely unpleasant. And Hasos surprised himself by stepping forward and clearing his throat.

  Tchazzar whipped around in his direction. “What?” the Red Dragon snapped.

  “Majesty, I … I hope I’m a proper Chessentan gentleman. I fight for honor and to protect my vassals and homeland, not for riches. So I never had much use for sellswords. On top of tha
t, I don’t trust Thayans. Who does? I’ll also admit that despite Your Majesty’s decrees, I still don’t like mages. I can’t help it. It’s the way that I was raised.”

  “Is there a point to this babble?” Tchazzar asked.

  Hasos took a breath. “I was leading up to saying that in spite of all of that, I ask you not to act on these allegations against Lady Coldcreek and Captain Fezim because, so far as I can see, there’s not a bit of evidence against them. And because they’re our comrades! They proved their loyalty and their mettle when they fought beside us on the battlefield. That has to mean something, surely, to the greatest warlord in Chessentan history.”

  Tchazzar took a deep breath. Then he rose, stepped down from the dais that supported his seat, and raised Halonya to her feet. He kissed her on the forehead, and she all but melted in his embrace.

  “My beloved daughter,” he said. “You’re the wisest mortal in all the world. But no one is all knowing, not even I. And in regard to this one matter, you’ve always been mistaken. Jhesrhi loves me as much as you do, and the two of you should be like sisters.”

  Halonya’s face twisted. “Majesty—”

  Tchazzar smiled and pressed a finger against her lips. “Shush.”

  “Majesty,” Zan-akar said, “will you at least recall Aoth Fezim—”

  “Enough!” snarled Tchazzar. It seemed to Hasos that, suddenly, the Red Dragon simply wanted to put the whole vexing matter behind him. “If I don’t want to hear it from her, do you think I’ll listen to it coming from a half-man?”

  Zan-akar’s face went still, as he had, perhaps, trained it to do at such moments. A few sparks crawled and sizzled on the envoy’s skin, but when he spoke again, his voice was composed, and he allowed the racial epithet to pass without comment.

  “I beg your pardon, Majesty.”

  Tchazzar grunted. “Let’s finish this and get some breakfast.” He looked to the folk standing along the wall. “You … no, I won’t call you my guards or my men. You no longer deserve that honor. You who were supposed to keep watch in the dungeons. Step forward. Now!”