The Spectral Blaze

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 considerably 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.

“I’ll stay a few more moments.” He started unbuckling the straps. There was no reason to make Eider bear his weight while they were on the ground, even though it wouldn’t actually trouble the sturdy beast.

As he swung himself out of the saddle, Alasklerbanbastos took up a position at the far end of a flat stair step of a space partway up a wooded hillside. According to Meralaine, somebody had massacred somebody else on that very spot a long time ago. Even when he’d visited the place in the daylight, Gaedynn hadn’t noticed any sign of it, but he assumed the necromancer knew what she was talking about.

Alasklerbanbastos growled rhythmic words of power. Gaedynn couldn’t understand them, but each was like a prod that made him want to flinch. Eider screeched and started to unfurl her wings. He stroked her head and told her everything was all right.

Cera watched the dracolich with her golden mace dangling from the leather loop around her forearm and the phylactery cradled in her hands. Keeping an eye on Alasklerbanbastos was all that she could contribute. She had her own magic, and it was powerful stuff. But the cleansing light of the Keeper of the Yellow Sun was antithetical to the tainted power of necromancy.

Meralaine drifted aimlessly, or so it seemed, across the level ground. She was a tiny, snub-nosed pixie of a girl, and even knowing her arcane specialty, Gaedynn rarely thought of her as sinister. But her expression, somehow intent and empty at the same time, made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And even though he could barely hear it, her murmuring made him feel bereft, like everyone he’d ever cared about had died.

He grinned and shoved the irrational emotions out of his head. His friends were very much alive, and even if it had been otherwise, he’d learned early on to value those worth valuing but never to need anybody but himself.

Meralaine extended her arms and twirled back and forth as she moved, commencing a languorous dance in time to her and Alasklerbanbastos’s interwoven incantations. Shadows shifted on the ground then boiled up into the air to glide with her for a moment, their murky fingers brushing hers. Some phantoms were simply near-formless silhouettes. Others showed a gleam of phosphorescent eyes or a glimmer of bare ribs or a naked skull.

Gradually the shapes became more persistent, floating, seething, and flickering in the night air, even after Meralaine abandoned them for her next partner, until finally there were… dozens? It was hard to tell in the dark or to keep track of them all from one moment to the next.

Her eyes all black pupil, wide and unblinking, her face a white mask, Meralaine danced a last measure, reciting the remaining words of her spell in time with the final steps. But the deep, steady drumbeat of Alasklerbanbastos’s incantation continued. Evidently it was his task to give the conjured spirits their marching orders.

Suddenly Meralaine gave her head a shake, and animation and dismay flooded into her face. “That wasn’t the plan!” she said just as the phantoms raced away down the hill.

Gaedynn didn’t understand all that was happening, but it was plain that Oraxes’s premonition hadn’t misled him. Things were going wrong. He reached for an arrow; then fingers so cold they burned grabbed him by the wrist.

Jhesrhi recognized that Tchazzar was only pressing his lips lightly to her own. And, of course, nothing was covering her nostrils. Still, her heart pounding, her stomach churning, she felt as if she were choking.

In another heartbeat or two, she’d absolutely have to push him away and pray he couldn’t tell how sick and fouled she felt. She would pray, too, that she could somehow hold him there a little longer, even though it would be obvious the kissing and fondling were over for the time being.

Then she felt something cold and hungry gliding through the little orchard. Apples rotted and dropped as the dead passed underneath. With a crack that sounded strangely faint and dull, one tree split lengthwise, and the smaller part toppled to the ground.

Jhesrhi was an adept and had fought Szass Tam’s legions. Still, she knew that under other circumstances, she would have felt a pang of dread at the advent of the phantoms. Now, however, she was grateful.

Tchazzar let her go, pivoted, gasped, and froze. Thank Lady Luck for that. Jhesrhi had lured him away from his guards and into the dark to make it more likely that he’d succumb to panic, but she still hadn’t been certain it would happen. His terrors were a sometime thing, erratic and unpredictable as the rest of him.

With a thought, she set the head of her staff ablaze, raised it high, and took a step toward the oncoming apparitions. She shouted three words in one of the languages of Elemental Chaos and swept her weapon down parallel to the ground.

A blast of yellow flame leaped out at the phantoms. Or more accurately, in their general direction. They were no actual threat, and if she appeared to defeat them too easily, Tchazzar might not come away as alarmed as she and the other plotters wanted him to be.

So the blast simply set a tree trunk on fire and made the dead recoil, moan, and howl. The chorus was almost inaudibly faint, yet somehow loud and chilling as it echoed inside her head.

Then the phantoms charged, and startled, she was the one who froze.

Gaedynn twisted and found himself gazing into a leering face that was mold and decay one moment and just a blur of shadow the next. The spirit’s hold on his wrist leeched strength from his body. The entity cocked its other hand back to plunge it into his chest.

Gaedynn dropped his bow, snatched out one of his two short swords, and struck first. His gods, old Keen-Eye and the other powers the elf bow masters had taught him to venerate, favored him. It was sometimes difficult for even an enchanted blade to cut the immaterial body of a wraith, but his attacker convulsed and frayed to nothing.

Another apparition darted in on his flank. Screeching, Eider sprang to meet it, reared high on her leonine hind paws, and raked with a double sweep of her aquiline talons. The shadowy thing shredded and melted into something resembling cobweb, and the griffon clawed in the carpet of old, fallen leaves to clean the stickiness off her feet.

Jabbering, but with the precise cadence and intonation wizardry required, Oraxes recited a spell. Gaedynn made sure nothing else was about to strike at him, then swung around in the direction of the sound.

Backing away from more of the undead, the young magus had evidently tripped over a tree root. He’d fallen on his rump, and the leather helmet he’d taken to wearing over his oily black hair had tumbled off his head. Two phantoms were rushing him, white eyes shining, long-fingered hands posed to snatch and clutch.

But they were an instant too slow. As they reached for him, the boy snarled the final word of the incantation. His hands glowed green, and he plunged them into the torsos of his two intangible assailants. Emerald light pulsed outward and washed the phantoms from existence.

Gaedynn sheathed his sword, retrieved his bow, and hauled Oraxes to his feet. “Meralaine!” the wizard gasped.

The necromancer stood at the center of a whirl of shadows. Perhaps because he wasn’t frantic with young love, or maybe simply because he was by far the more experienced combatant, Gaedynn immediately perceived what Oraxes apparently couldn’t. The innermost phantoms were fighting to protect her from their fellows.

One murky form pounced through her circle of defenders. But, barking a cruel laugh quite unlike her usual girlish chortle, Meralaine simply tore the apparition in two like a piece of flimsy cloth. She wrapped what remained around her knuckles like a pugilist preparing for a bout.

“She’s fine!” Gaedynn snapped. “Look past her!”

Oraxes did then spit an obscenity.

Like Meralaine, Cera was under attack, and also like the necromancer, she had her defenses. Her body glowed with a golden radiance that seemed to sting and dazzle the undead. And whenever she flicked her gilded mace, miming a sharp tap, a flying mace, seemingly made of the same yellow light, flashed into solidity and struck at one of her foes.

Amaunator’s sunlight was hurting Alasklerbanbastos as well. He was facing Cera, and bits of the remaining flesh on his head melted and dripped like candle wax. But unfazed by the punishment, he was snarling an incantation, and the priestess was apparently unable to use her magic to fend off the spirits and stab into the phylactery at the same time.

Oraxes swept his clenched fist over his head, lashed it down, and screamed another, even viler epithet. Apparently at that moment, infused with all his force of will, it served as a word of power because a big, translucent fist made of blue shimmer appeared above Alasklerbanbastos and slammed down on his spine.

Meanwhile, Gaedynn plucked a stone arrow from his quiver. In an effort to win the loyalty of the Threskelans, Tchazzar had forbidden his troops to loot the possessions of their defeated foes. But Gaedynn had located a few enchanted shafts in the royal arsenal in Mordulkin and appropriated them when everyone’s back was turned. He’d known he was likely to need them, and Jhesrhi was too busy attending the war hero to make any more.

He drew and released, and the arrow punched into Alasklerbanbastos’s face just below the eye. The dracolich stiffened, and waves of grayness rippled through charred, torn hide and exposed bone as the magic in the weapon sought to turn him to stone.

It didn’t. But the combined harassment of the hammering disembodied fist and the arrow’s power made him stumble over his chanting. Blackness pulsed in the air around him like flowers blooming and withering in an instant as the mystical power he’d been gathering discharged itself prematurely.

He spun around, knocked the arrow out of his face with a swipe of his foreclaws, and glared at his attackers. His neck cocked back, his jaws opened, and white light shone inside his mouth.

Gaedynn lunged at Oraxes, caught hold of him, and shoved him to the side and down to the ground. Thunder boomed and glare erased the world. But the dragon’s breath missed.

Instantly, though, the ground shook. Blinking, Gaedynn looked up to see Alasklerbanbastos bounding toward him and Oraxes. As he scrambled to his feet and grabbed another arrow, he judged that at most, he had time for one more shot. And just one more was unlikely to be enough.

Eider plunged down, caught hold of one of Alasklerbanbastos’s wings, and clung and slashed until the dracolich shook her off. The phantoms under Meralaine’s control swarmed around him, and he took another moment to roar a word that popped them like inky bubbles.

Then bright yellow flame erupted down the length of his body. He bellowed, roared, and thrashed.

As he laid an arrow on his bow and backed away from Alasklerbanbastos’s convulsions, Gaedynn took a look around. As far as he could tell, there were no phantoms left on the hillside. He and his companions had accounted for them all.

Giving the dracolich plenty of room, Oraxes circled around toward Meralaine. “Burn him up!” he called to Cera.

“No!” Gaedynn said. “We still have use for him.”

“He just tried to kill us!” Oraxes said.

“Which is simply what you expected. So why complain?”

Cera gazed into the phylactery, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her body stopped glowing, and the crackling flames leaping up from Alasklerbanbastos died. With all the light sources suddenly doused, the hillside seemed very dark.

“Everyone all right?” Gaedynn asked.

“Yes,” Cera panted.

“Good,” he said. “Meralaine, what did you mean when you said, ‘That wasn’t the plan’?”

“In addition to telling some of the dead to attack us,” the necromancer said, “the wyrm gave the wrong orders to the rest. They aren’t just going to make a show of menacing Tchazzar. They’re really going to try to kill him.”

His body still smoking and reeking of combustion, Alasklerbanbastos struggled to his feet. “Is that so terrible?” he asked, a hint of mockery in his voice. “Tchazzar’s the enemy, isn’t he? That’s why you want to trick him.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Gaedynn said. Aoth’s professional ethics might allow him to trick and manipulate an employer, but he balked at assassination. And far more importantly, if everything had gone as planned, Jhesrhi and Tchazzar were wandering around in the night together. “Call them back.”

“I can no more do that,” the dragon said, “than you can call back an arrow after you let go of the string.”

“It’s true,” said Meralaine. “But Jhesrhi is powerful. She’ll be all right.”

Gaedynn stared Alasklerbanbastos in the eye. “She’d better be,” he said.

Astonishment made Jhesrhi falter but only for a heartbeat; then the combat instincts honed on many a battlefield spurred her into motion once again. Those and the staff, crowing with excitement inside her head.

Most of the phantoms were rushing Tchazzar. Of course, that was more or less what they were supposed to do. But they were closing the distance too quickly, and she could feel their malice like a frigid winter wind. They were really out to kill him.

He had only to transform to become an entity so mighty as to make their intentions laughable. Or perhaps-no one really knew-he need only call on powers he possessed even in his human guise. But he did neither. He simply stumbled backward.

Much as his attentions had repelled Jhesrhi mere moments before, his manifest terror filled her with guilt and a need to protect him. She scrambled to interpose herself between him and the dead. Then, rattling off an incantation, she sketched a line on the ground with the still-burning head of her staff. Fire roared upward, making a barrier to hold the dead at bay. The staff exulted.

She didn’t, because she suspected the wall of fire would only delay the undead for a few heartbeats at most. Without turning away from the foe, she called, “Majesty! Become the dragon! You’ll be safe!”

“Yes,” said Tchazzar in a thin voice unlike his usual exuberant tone. “I will.”

But he didn’t. Enormous wings didn’t snap as they unfurled, and nothing swelled up from the ground to rustle and break the branches overhead. Apparently he couldn’t muster the willpower to initiate the change.

A murky thing with elongated limbs and a head that was all glimmering needle fangs and gaping mouth leaped over the wall of flame. Its feet caught fire, but it didn’t seem to notice as it plunged down at Jhesrhi. She rammed her staff through its torso, and it burned away to nothing in an instant.

By then, though, other apparitions were leaping the blazing barrier or simply pouncing through. Those that attempted the latter perished within moments, but apparently their hatred of the living was so fierce that they were willing to trade existence for the chance to strike a blow.

Jhesrhi whirled, blocking, clubbing, and jabbing with her weapon. It was scarcely her preferred mode of fighting. She liked to throw spells at her foes from far away. But in the first years of her training, Aoth had insisted that she master the quarterstaff. He’d assured her there would be moments like this, and he’d turned out to be correct.

And fortunately, even in a melee, it was possible to use some magic, especially when a wizard was as closely attuned to an arcane implement as she was to hers. With a thought, she released a bit of the power stored inside the staff, and the entire length of it burst into flame. The blaze didn’t pain or otherwise inconvenience her, but provided a searing, blinding shield to hinder the undead.

Finally the phantoms’ attack flagged, as every assault must if the defender could only wait it out. That gave her time to rattle off a charm, and flame sheathed her entire body, affording her even more protection.

She sprang at three more phantoms, taking the fight to them. Shrieking war cries, she spun the staff and struck. Bursts of flame incinerated a dead thing every time she connected.

When the three were gone, she looked around, making sure no more were creeping up on her. Then she cast her eye over a wider area and scowled in dismay.

She’d preserved only her own life, not Tchazzar’s. While she’d fought her fight, other phantoms had simply dashed around the ends of the wall of the flame. Once again, they were rushing at Tchazzar, who still hadn’t changed into a dragon or done anything else that might have saved his neck.

Then Aoth and Jet plunged down into the midst of the bounding, gliding shadows. The familiar’s talons and momentum crushed one phantom to mist and smears of ectoplasmic jelly. A snap of his beak annihilated another.

Aoth pointed his spear to the right. A hedge of whirling blades made of green light appeared on top of the phantoms on that side, slicing them to wisps and tatters of gloom.

At once he swung the spear to the left. Bright, crackling lightning sprang from the head, leaping to one dead thing, and from that murky, shriveling figure to another, then on to another after that.

It was potent battle magic, but even so, he didn’t get them all. A dozen remained, still racing toward Tchazzar.

Then, however, the red dragon finally transformed. His clothing and jewels melted away, and his body expanded to prodigious size. A serpentine tail and batlike wings sprouted from his torso, and layered scales rippled into existence across his skin. The lower part of his face jutted into a reptilian snout and jaws.

He opened those jaws, swept his head from right to left, and spewed fire. Jhesrhi saw that the flame was going to fall on Aoth as well as the phantoms. She sucked in a breath to shout a warning.

It would have come too late, but Aoth or Jet had already recognized the danger for himself. The griffon lashed his wings and sprang, and his leap carried him and his master out of harm’s way.

The phantoms failed to do the same, and Tchazzar’s breath obliterated them in an instant. Still, he spit fire three more times, scourging the ground before him with the blasts. When he finished, he stayed in his crouch and kept staring in the same direction. The membranes of his leathery wings rattled softly.

Jhesrhi was reluctant to speak or move. She had the feeling that if she attracted his attention, he might lash out at her before he realized who she really was.

Aoth, however, was less diffident. “Majesty,” he said. “Others are right behind me, rushing to defend you. Maybe you should go back to camp and show them you’re all right. Jhesrhi and I can clean up here.”

“Yes,” the dragon said. “And I’ll confer with my lieutenants at dawn.” His tail sweeping through patches of flame, he turned and stalked away.

Aoth waited a while to speak, and even then, he kept his voice low. Wyrms had sharp ears. “The dead were more… enthusiastic than we expected.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And Gaedynn hasn’t come back. I’ll go check on him and the others. Cover for me if you have to.”

With the uneven gait of a creature whose front and hind legs were formed quite differently, Jet trotted to a spot where no branches would block his assent. Then he ran, sprang, lashed his wings, and soared upward.

Jhesrhi turned her attention to the fires that she and Tchazzar had kindled. Like any sellsword, she had little compunction about destroying other people’s property to achieve an objective. Still, there was no reason the village should lose every tree once the mock attack-except that it hadn’t turned out to be mock, had it?-was over.

She puffed on her staff as she’d blow out a candle. Its corona of flame and her mantle of fire blinked out together. Then, her voice like a lullaby, she crooned to the fires consuming trees and fallen branches, calming them and coaxing them to dwindle. The staff helped but grumbled without words.

Aoth’s stomach rumbled and Tchazzar shot him a glare.

“I’m sorry, Majesty,” said Aoth. “I haven’t eaten since supper. I’ve been busy strengthening the camp’s defenses.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie. On his flight into the Sky Riders, he’d met Gaedynn coming back and so hadn’t needed to travel all the way to the spot where Meralaine and Alasklerbanbastos-curse him!-had summoned the dead.

“I’m glad someone is,” Tchazzar said. “However belatedly.” He shifted his glare to Shala.

Seated at the foot of the trestle table, the ridged scar on her square jaw just visible in the wan dawn light that penetrated the silk wall of the pavilion, Shala took a moment to answer. Maybe because she had to suppress the retort that first sprang to mind.

“With all respect, Majesty,” Shala said, “may I point out that the camp itself was not attacked, and its defenses did not prove inadequate? It was you, wandering beyond the perimeter with only a single wizard to guard you, who drew an attack.”

“Are you scolding me?” Tchazzar asked.

“Of course not, Majesty,” she replied. But her voice was cold, and Tchazzar didn’t look placated.

Aoth had come to respect Shala even if she did in some measure share the general Chessentan prejudice against mages, Jhesrhi and himself included. So he decided to intervene before the exchange grew any more acrimonious.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “clearly nobody is or should be blaming anyone else for anything because none of us expected trouble last night. Why would we? The war’s over. Chessenta and Threskel are truly one kingdom at last. Our focus now should be figuring out who attacked you.”

“I agree,” Jhesrhi said. Tchazzar had seated her at his right hand, in the place that properly belonged to Shala.

“So do I,” said Hasos. A tall, muscular man with a long-nosed, aristocratic face, he looked like the very personification of the Chessentan martial ideal and had in fact proved to be a competent commander within his limits. “And I say we start our search right here in this tent.” He turned a cold eye on Kassur Jedea.

The scrawny, grizzled wizard-king took a breath. “Majesty,” he said, “you will recall that I was never absolute master of Threskel, with no overlord set above me, and so I took no harm from your victory. To the contrary. I was overjoyed to escape the rule of an undead thing and pledge my fealty to a god incarnate.”

“Or perhaps,” Tchazzar said, “you merely feigned happiness to convince me to lower my guard. Then you struck at me in the hope of becoming the supreme lord of this miserable kingdom at last.”

“No,” said Aoth. “I’ve had people keeping an eye on him throughout the procession, yesterday and last night included. He was never out of view long enough to conjure up dozens of spirits.”

“And how would they have moved unnoticed from his tent to the orchard if he had?” Jhesrhi said. “I think, Majesty, that if we’re going to look for enemies who might plausibly attack you inside Threskel, and use the undead as their agents, we should begin with the obvious.”

Tchazzar frowned. “Alasklerbanbastos is gone, and I made sure he can never return.”

“I know,” said Aoth, “but Jaxanaedegor is still with us. I understand that you and he made common cause to destroy the dracolich. But now that you’ve succeeded, it’s hard to see why the truce would hold. After all, the creature is what he is.”

Which was to say, everything that Tchazzar had come to loathe and fear, as well as an opponent in the Great Game.

Still, the Red Dragon looked skeptical. “He seemed content with my promise to let him rule Mount Thulbane and its environs without interference.”

“But lacking any trace of honor himself, would such a treacherous creature trust anyone else to keep such a pledge?” Aoth replied. “Especially when you gave it under what amounted to duress, and Mount Thulbane, like the rest of Threskel, is indisputably yours by right.”

“Possibly not,” Tchazzar said. “Yet as best we could judge, the undead didn’t come from the north. They came from the direction of the Sky Riders.”

“And you and I know there are terrible things hiding in those hills,” Jhesrhi said. “But they don’t generally come out to trouble the lands beyond. I think it would take a powerful creature at one with darkness and undeath, a being like a vampire dragon, to call them forth.”

“Perhaps,” said Tchazzar, “perhaps.”

“If Jaxanaedegor has turned against you,” said Aoth, “then we need to consider the implications. The other dragons who betrayed Alasklerbanbastos were following his lead, not yours. The raiders out of Murghom left off harrying Chessenta because he arranged it, not any of us. It’s possible that we’re going to have to contend with all those foes again as well.”

Tchazzar fingered the round medallion-gold set with the red gems called Tempus’s tears-he wore around his neck. “What, then, do my advisers recommend?”

Hasos, who, bless him, always preferred defending to attacking, spoke up at once. “Majesty, we can’t turn our backs on Threskel if the kingdom isn’t truly pacified. I fear the invasion of Tymanther will have to wait.”

“That’s out of the question!” Tchazzar snapped.

Inwardly Aoth cursed.

You knew he wouldn’t like it, said Jet. He’d been eavesdropping on the palaver through his psychic bond with his master, and he was using it to speak mind to mind. Whoever humbles Medrash’s people, or wipes them out altogether, will score a lot of points in the dragons’ game.

But everyone says Tchazzar was a great commander in his day, Aoth replied. Like it or not, he should still see the sense in it.

“Majesty,” he said aloud, “as you’ve probably noticed, Lord Hasos and I almost never agree. We do now. It would be unwise to march south while a threat remains within your own borders.”

Tchazzar scowled at him. “Back in Luthcheq, you were friends with the dragonborn from the embassy. You advocated for them from the day you arrived.”

Careful! said Jet. But Aoth had never allowed himself to flinch in the face of Tchazzar’s displeasure, and he figured that if he backed down, it would only lend weight to the dragon’s suspicions.

“It’s true,” he said, “I liked Sir Medrash and Sir Balasar. Why not? They’re brave warriors. But it didn’t influence the way I did my job, then or now. That job being to give you good intelligence and good advice, and then to go kill whomever you tell me to.”

“Then you’ll go kill dragonborn!” Tchazzar said.

Jhesrhi put her hand on top of his.

The war hero looked at her in surprise. Aoth felt a pang of pity because he knew what that seemingly innocuous gesture cost her.

But she didn’t let it show in her face or her voice either. “Isn’t there a middle way?” she asked. “With Threskel now loyal, and Akanul sending troops to help you, you now command a larger host than before. Can’t some of your warriors stay in the north?”

“I volunteer the Brotherhood,” said Aoth.

Tchazzar sneered. “Because you have no stomach for fighting Tymanther?”

“Because you need someone here with the knack for unmasking hidden foes, and I’m the man who caught the Green Hand killers. Also, to be honest, because the Brotherhood was in the forefront of every fight with Alasklerbanbastos. We could use some time to recover. So for the moment, hunting leftover rebels and watching out for pirates will suit us better than undertaking a long march and an entirely new campaign.”

“It makes sense,” Jhesrhi said to Tchazzar. “And you can always summon them later if you need them.”

“Fine!” The dragon sprang to his feet. “Let’s get the procession moving! Away from these wretched hills!”

“She’s not coming,” Gaedynn said. “Tchazzar wants her company.”

Then a tall, slender figure stepped out of the darkness. The light of the campfire gleamed on her long, blonde hair and the gold rings on her staff.

“Although I could be wrong.”

“He did want me for quite a while,” Jhesrhi said. She gave a nod to the others sitting around the fire. “But I kept yawning, and he finally let me go.”

If only, Gaedynn thought.

It had taken three days to arrange the gathering. First, Oraxes, Meralaine, and Cera had to slip back into camp without revealing that they’d ever been away. Then Aoth had to decide how to proceed and pass the word around.

He’d decided that an assembly outdoors, around a fire, ought to appear less suspicious than a palaver in a tent. He and his fellow plotters would just look like insomniacs keeping one another company, and if they kept their voices down, no one would hear what they had to say. Most of the camp was asleep, and Oraxes had cast subtle charms to deflect the attention of anyone who happened to be awake. He was good at spells of concealment and misdirection, as many a shopkeeper back in Luthcheq had discovered to his cost.

“Join us,” said Aoth. He made room for Jhesrhi to sit down and handed her a wineskin. It was a fresh one, not the one they’d been passing around, so she wouldn’t have to put her mouth where someone else’s had already been.

Right, Gaedynn thought, human beings aren’t allowed to touch her even at one remove, but a mad wyrm-

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and tried to push the unfair, useless thoughts out of his head.

“Well, let’s get on with it,” said Aoth. “As you all know, our trick failed to convince Tchazzar that he shouldn’t invade Tymanther.”

“I think it may have made him even more eager to get away from Threskel and the Sky Riders and back to someplace he feels ‘lucky.’ ” Jhesrhi’s habitual frown deepened. It made her look haggard. “I should have known.”

“Well, you are supposed to be the expert,” Gaedynn said.

Cera shot him a reproachful look.

“Tchazzar’s crazy,” said Aoth. He accepted the communal wineskin, took a swig, and passed it on. “We could only guess which way he’d jump. And we did accomplish something. After the procession splits up tomorrow, we-well, all of us except for you, Jhes-will be away from him. That will leave us free to act.”

“And do what?” asked Meralaine. She looked subtly different than everyone else in the circle. The light of the smoking, crackling fire didn’t illuminate her quite as well as it did everyone else. But that hint of eeriness evidently didn’t bother Oraxes, who was holding her hand.

Aoth smiled a crooked smile. “That’s the question, isn’t it? How to spoil the dragons’ game, or at least slow it down. Well, they’ve been pushing the realms hereabouts toward war by applying certain pressures. And if we relieve one of the pressures, then maybe everybody won’t be so eager to fight.”

“So what’s the plan, specifically?” Gaedynn asked. The wine made its way back to him, and he took a pull. The sour red stuff hadn’t gotten any tastier. A poor province of scrubland and little, hardscrabble farms, Threskel wasn’t noted for its viticulture.

“According to Alasklerbanbastos,” said Aoth, “it was a gray dragon named Vairshekellabex who made the Akanulans believe the dragonborn were committing atrocities in their kingdom. His wyrmkeepers disguised abishais as dragonborn, just like the wyrmkeepers here in Chessenta and in Murghom. If some of us go west and prove it, maybe the genasi will decide not to help Tchazzar invade Tymanther.”

Gaedynn arched an eyebrow. “That’s your strategy? Because I see two problems with it.”

“If you only see two,” said Aoth, “then I’ve got you beat. But go ahead.”

“The genasi hate the dragonborn,” said Gaedynn. “So maybe they’re like Tchazzar. Maybe they’re happy for any excuse to go attack them, legitimate or not.”

“Maybe,” said Aoth, blue eyes glowing, “but they do have other enemies and other problems. Notably the aboleths. So they might change their minds.”

“Assuming they do,” said Gaedynn, “that still leaves Tchazzar to change his mind. And he could easily decide to go ahead even without Akanul’s support. After all, if the ghost attack didn’t dissuade him

…” He turned up his hands.

“If you have a better idea-and by better, I mean one that doesn’t involve trying to assassinate the powerful dragon king we supposedly serve, and then, assuming we survive, fighting our way out of Chessenta through all the folk who will take exception to our treachery-I’m eager to hear it.”

Gaedynn sighed. “So who’s going?”

“You, me, Alasklerbanbastos, and Cera, to control him.”

“Because nothing says ‘I’m trustworthy’ like arriving with a dracolich in tow?”

“Because he claims to know the approximate location of Vairshekellabex’s lair. And because I don’t trust him out of my sight.”

Oraxes smirked. “He’s out of your sight now.”

“In a literal sense, yes,” Cera said. “But I can always pull him in with this.” She tapped the nondescript leather satchel in her lap. It was the bag in which she kept the shadow stone.

“What’s it like,” asked Meralaine, “to look into his mind? His soul?”

A hint of distress came into Cera’s plump, pretty face. “I realize you’re a necromancer. But still, trust me, you don’t really want to know.”

Aoth gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“Shouldn’t we all go to Akanul?” Oraxes asked.

“I don’t want to leave the Brotherhood bereft of magic,” Aoth replied. “For all we know, Jaxanaedegor actually might make a move. He really is every bit as treacherous as I made him out to be. Even if he doesn’t, if there’s somebody here who can cast spells, it might help to hide the fact that I’ve gone away.”

“So some fly west, some stay here, and I go south alone,” Jhesrhi said. She held out her hand, and a bit of the fire jumped into it. She sent the flame dancing from one fingertip to the next like an ordinary person might play with a worry stone.

“I’m sorry about that,” Aoth said.

Her mouth twisted. “Don’t be. One way or another, it was probably inevitable. Tchazzar wants me cut off from my old life to encourage me to embrace my new one.”

Gaedynn forced a grin. “And won’t he be disappointed when, in the end, you fly away over the horizon with the rest of us.”

Jhesrhi glared. “I don’t like deceiving him. None of us mages do.”

“Well, I don’t mind,” said Oraxes, “but then, he mistreated Mera.”

“He still freed you, her, and every arcanist in Chessenta,” Jhesrhi said. “And as for the rest, he was tortured! He isn’t always responsible for what he does.”

“Is he responsible for wanting to play xorvintaal?” asked Aoth. “For thinking it’s all right to exterminate the dragonborn on a pretext because only wyrms truly matter and the rest of us are just pieces on a lanceboard?”

“I know,” she said.

“Do you really?” Aoth asked. “Because there’s no in between. You’re either with us or you’re not.”

“I said, I know!” Jhesrhi snapped. Responding to her anger, the campfire roared and leaped higher. “I’ve been spying for you and pushing him in the right direction all along, haven’t I? I’ll just be glad when it’s over; that’s all. Gladder than you can imagine.”

“Fair enough,” said Aoth. “And it’s good you’re still with us because there’s work for you too. I need you to keep Tchazzar in Luthcheq as long as possible, so Cera, Gaedynn, and I have time to convince the Akanulans to pull out of the alliance.”

Jhesrhi flicked her bit of flame back into the campfire. “I can try stalling him with false auguries. But that’s a dangerous game when I haven’t really mastered such arts, and he has mystical abilities himself.”

“Just do what you can,” said Aoth, “and don’t overlook the fact that three armies-Chessenta’s, Threskel’s, and Akanul’s-are going to be trying to combine into one. It’ll be chaos. Such musters always are. Maybe you’ll have a chance to heighten the confusion.”

“I’d have a better chance,” she said, “if I were in camp instead of the War College. If Tchazzar still thought of me as primarily a soldier. As opposed to his minister of magic, or whatever it is I’m supposed to be.”

Concubine in training, Gaedynn thought, but for once managed to keep the gibe to himself.

Instead, he said, “Shala’s just about had her fill of Tchazzar.”

Cera nodded. “And Daelric and the other high priests are sick to death of Halonya. Still, if Jhesrhi asks someone for help and that person, for whatever reason, turns around and informs on her-”

“That will be it for me,” said Jhesrhi. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

“Good,” said Aoth. He looked around the circle. “Any other thoughts?”

Gaedynn snorted. “Just that it’s still hard to see how we come out of all this scheming and double-dealing any better off than when we started.”