The Spectral Blaze

THREE

6-10 E LEASIS, THE Y EAR 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 Akanul 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 that, 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!”

Two fellows in the scarlet jupons of the War College’s household guards scurried to the center of the hall and dropped to their knees before him. Their faces were pale and sweaty.

“What do you have to say for yourselves?” Tchazzar asked.

One, with a bald spot in the middle of his light brown hair, said, “Please, Majesty. We were told the dwarf was the priests’ responsibility, not ours. We were told not to go anywhere near him.”

“But he had to go near you to leave the dungeons, didn’t he?” Tchazzar replied. “The undead creature had to pass by you twice.”

The man with the bald spot swallowed. “I guess. I mean, maybe. But if he was magic-”

Tchazzar slapped him.

Except that it had to be more than a slap because it trailed spatters of blood in its wake. And as Tchazzar completed the swing, and the guard doubled over, shrieking and clutching at the tattered remains of his face, Hasos saw that the war hero’s hand had changed. It was too big for his arm. The skin had turned to dull red scales, and the nails, to long, curved claws.

The other guard tried to fling himself backward, but he was too slow. Tchazzar snatched and shredded his face too, and he collapsed to writhe and whine beside his comrade. His stomach churning, Hasos wondered if either of them had an eye left.

“Now,” Hasos said, “let the surviving priests come forward.”

The wyrmkeeper with the bandaged head hobbled away from the wall. So did another, who clutched a bloody handkerchief. His upper body jerked repeatedly as he apparently tried to hold in a series of coughs.

“Your fault is as great as theirs,” said Tchazzar, returning to his throne. “But fortunately for you, if I punished you as you deserve, it would upset your high priestess. So I’m willing to forgive you. I only ask that you sacrifice these two wretches to me.”

The wyrmkeeper with the battered head grinned like a fool. The coughing man let out a sigh and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Majesty,” said the bandaged priest, “it will be our very great honor. Perhaps some of the guards could hold the sacrifices and lend us daggers.”

“No,” the war hero said. “Do it by yourselves, with your bare hands. That’s the form of sacrifice your god desires today.”

The wyrmkeepers hesitated. They looked as if they’d been hardy enough before fighting the vampire, but now they were wounded and weak.

“Go on,” Tchazzar said. “I softened them up for you.”

The wyrmkeepers kneeled down beside the guards and tried to seize hold of their throats. Up until then, the mutilated soldiers had seemed too lost to shock and agony to resist anything else that anyone might want to do to them, but then, floundering in their own blood, they flailed blindly, frantically, and knocked the wyrmkeepers’ hands away.

To Hasos’s eyes, the struggle that followed was horribly reminiscent of farm boys fighting to catch greased pigs at a fair, and it seemed to last forever. So did Tchazzar’s peals of laughter as they echoed from the ornately finished sandstone walls.

Khouryn looked around the chamber full of dragonborn, a hall decorated with the weapons and armor of famous wyrm slayers and the fangs, claws, and whole skulls they’d taken as trophies, and for a moment, he had the odd feeling he’d never left, that his return to Luthcheq had simply been a nightmare.

Still, it was easy to spot changes. Medrash carried the greatsword denoting high status and wore the batwing badge of the Lance Defenders. Along with the steel-gauntlet medallion signifying his devotion to Torm, god of justice, and the six ivory studs pierced into his rust-colored saurian left profile to denote his membership in Clan Daardendrien, they made for quite a collection of honors and adornments. Ocher-scaled, and small by dragonborn standards, his kinsman Balasar bore all but the Torm medallion too.

Each of Khouryn’s friends had changed his demeanor as well. During most of the time the dwarf had known Medrash, the paladin had been careworn and afflicted with self-doubt. But even after hearing why Khouryn had come back, he seemed more at ease in his own skin. In contrast, the notoriously jaunty, flippant Balasar looked nervous as Kanjentellequor Biri chattered to him. Accounted pretty by her own kind, the young mage had snow white scales, a rarity. Silver skewers pierced the edges of her face, with most of their lengths sticking out behind.

“It looks to me,” Khouryn murmured, “like Balasar has yet to resign himself to marriage.”

“He’s just being perverse,” Medrash replied. “He wants her as much as she wants him, and if she were willing to settle for being just another notch on his tally stick, he’d pounce on her like a hungry cat on a mouse. But he’s always resisted anything our elders wanted him to do. Fortunately, he’s got me looking out for his best interests. If I keep pushing the two of them together, eventually nature will take its course.”

“And meanwhile, you have the fun of watching him squirm.”

Medrash bared his fangs in what Khouryn had learned to recognize as a dragonborn grin. “A holy warrior of Torm is above such pettiness. Although the stars know, over the years he’s subjected me to more than my share of pranks and japes.”

A servant struck a bronze gong three times, and the notes shivered through the hall. Khouryn took a breath, forgot about friendly banter, and readied himself to repeat news that was just about as grim as it could be.

“All hail Tarhun!” a different functionary called. And they all did, bowing and sweeping their hands outward as the vanquisher strode through a doorway at the back of the chamber.

The ruler of Tymanther was also its greatest warrior, and he looked it. He was taller and had broader shoulders than any of his subjects. He carried square bits of gold pierced under his eyes like teardrops, and his green hide was mottled where a dragonspawn’s fire had burned him. He was dressed in rugged leather.

“Rise,” he rumbled. “I’m sorry I made you wait. I was out flying.” He turned his gaze on Khouryn. “My good friend. Ordinarily I’d call your return a cause for celebration. But I understand it isn’t so.”

“No, Majesty,” Khouryn said. “I’m afraid not.”

“Then you’d better step forward and tell us all about it.”

Khouryn did his best, although he didn’t think his best was particularly good. He was neither a bard nor a schemer, and the tale was just too tangled. By the Finder-of-Trails, he wasn’t even sure that he fully understood it himself. He’d heard it only once, from Jhesrhi as they fled Tchazzar’s dungeons, and then he’d had the urgency of escape and the leftover pains of torture to distract him.

Still, it seemed that his audience understood at least a part of it. Enough to make them exclaim in shock and grow visibly more dismayed with every word.

When he finished, Tarhun shook his head. “I knew we were in danger of losing Chessenta’s friendship, but I never dreamed it would come to this.”

“If Shala Karanok were still on the throne,” Khouryn said, “it probably wouldn’t. But somehow, Tchazzar’s back, and he’s apparently a real dragon. The dragons are all playing a game; it’s worth a lot of points to conquer Tymanther-well, you heard it the first time I explained it.”

“Yes,” Tarhun said, “and mad as it seems, I believe it. It explains why Skuthosin moved against us at this particular point in time. But he’s yesterday’s problem. How will we counter this new one?”

“Fight,” rapped Fenkenkabradon Dokaan. The commander of the Lance Defenders was almost as hulking as Tarhun. He had bronze-colored scales and branching steel piercings sticking up from his temples like antlers. “Smash the Chessentans and Akanulans just like we broke Skuthosin and the ash giants.”

“Of course,” Tarhun answered, “we’ll prepare to the best of our ability and fight to the last warrior if need be. That’s our way. That’s how our forefathers won their freedom from wyrms every bit as terrible as Skuthosin and this Tchazzar. Still, we have to be realistic. Defeating the giants cost us. It’s hard to see how we can turn right around, fight Chessenta, Akanul, and Threskel all at once, and come out on top.”

Khouryn said, “There might be another way.”

Tarhun cocked his head. “If so, I’m eager to hear it.”

“Except for Medrash, Balasar, and Perra,” Khouryn said, “none of you know Captain Fezim. But he’s sharp. And as I understand it from Jhesrhi Coldcreek, when he found out about this game, he more or less analyzed the play, looking for a way to relieve the pressures that are driving the lands around the Alamber Sea to do what the dragons want.”

Tarhun nodded. “Go on.”

“Akanul is coming to attack you partly because its queen blames you for a series of raids and massacres. Thanks to Alasklerbanbastos, we now know that a gray dragon and his servants are really responsible. Aoth and others have slipped off to Airspur to prove it. If they do, maybe the genasi will pull out of the alliance with Chessenta.”

“And maybe not,” Dokaan said. “They hated us before this insanity ever began, before the Blue Fire ever scooped up our two kingdoms and dropped them here in Faerun. And even if they don’t come, I suspect the Chessentans still will.”

“And I suspect you’d be right,” Khouryn said, “if that were all of the plan.”

Balasar grinned. “It sounds like we’re getting to the part where we get to have some fun.”

Khouryn snorted. “That’s one way of putting it. Majesty, I remember when you asked High Imaskar for help against the giants. They said they couldn’t give it because creatures out of the Purple Dust were attacking their lands. According to Alasklerbanbastos, that, too, is a part of the game. A dragon named Gestanius created the crisis to cut you off from help.”

“The same Gestanius who was Skuthosin and Tchazzar’s ally hundreds of years ago?” Biri asked.

Khouryn shrugged. “I’m no authority on dragons, but that would be my guess. The important thing is, Alasklerbanbastos told my friends where to find Gestanius, and Jhesrhi told me. If some of us go to High Imaskar, join forces with the locals, and kill her, the attacks will stop, freeing up the Imaskari to come to your aid in return.”

“So if everything works,” Medrash said, “Tchazzar loses an ally, and we gain one. And faced with such a radical shift in the balance of power, he ought to call off the invasion.”

“Even if he doesn’t,” Khouryn said, “you’ll be in a much better position to fight him. By the Twin Axes, even if only half the plan works, you’re still better off.”

Dokaan shook his head. It made the little steel antlers glint. “Majesty, I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” Tarhun asked.

“Because it’s all based on the presumption that Alasklerbanbastos, who isn’t just a dragon but an infamous, undead one, told Captain Fezim and his companions the truth.”

“They had the means to wring it out of him,” Khouryn replied.

“Are you certain of that?” Dokaan asked. “Do you truly understand the magic involved?”

Khouryn shook his head. “Not a bit of it. But Jhesrhi said she does, and that’s good enough for me.”

“And I trust your judgment,” Tarhun said. “It was sound during the campaign against the giants. Still, I understand why Dokaan is reluctant to see anyone dispatched on such a… speculative mission. We’re likely to need every warrior we have to stand against the invaders.”

“Maybe not every warrior,” Medrash said. “The soldiers of the Platinum Cadre fought well against the giants, but the rest of the army still doesn’t trust them very far. That could limit their usefulness on this side of the sea. So why don’t Khouryn and I take them to High Imaskar?”

“Dokaan,” Tarhun said, “do you agree that’s a reasonable plan?”

Dokaan shrugged. “Medrash is right. They fought pretty well. Still, if we have to excuse somebody from a fight with a dragon, it might as well be our company of dragon worshipers.”

“I ask to be excused too,” Balasar said. “Medrash, Khouryn, and I made a good team before.” He grinned. “I supplied the brains and panache, and they, the… well, I’m sure there was something.”

Tarhun snorted. “Fine, you can go too.”

“And me?” Biri asked.

Balasar turned back around to face her. “My lady, don’t you think you’re needed here? There aren’t many dragonborn mages, whereas High Imaskar is a land of wizards. When we get there, we’ll have all we need.”

“Yes,” she said, “when you get there. But I’m under the impression that every moment counts. And I have some power over wind and weather. I can ensure a speedy voyage.”

“That sounds good to me,” Medrash said.

“And to me,” Tarhun said. “Fetch Nellis Saradexma,” who, Khouryn recalled, was the Imaskari ambassador. “He can go too to speed things along when you reach your destination.”

Selune’s silvery light seemed incapable of penetrating the depths of the gorge. It was as though the aura of death and despair emanating from the bottom held it at bay.

There was power in that feeling, and if he were still wearing his old body, Alasklerbanbastos would simply have plunged into the crevasse to claim it for his own. Now, however, he had to consider the possibility that something else, something capable of harming the diminished creature his enemies had made of him, had gotten there first. And so, hating it, he crawled warily down the precipitous wall of the crevasse.

Like most undead, he could see in the dark, although not as far as a man could see by day, and he soon discerned that when the Spellplague raged and the earth convulsed, that crack had opened and swallowed a town. Most of the buildings lay broken and half buried at the bottom. Although, looking as if a breath would suffice to dislodge them, a few houses clung to the sides.

Something fluttered. Alasklerbanbastos looked around. Birds, or things like the shadows of the birds, were landing on the roof of the nearest house. They didn’t seem to be flying in from somewhere else so much as taking shape from the ambient gloom, and it was only the attitude of their bodies that told the dracolich they were looking back at him. He couldn’t pick out a gleam of eyes or a hint of feathery texture anywhere on their vague, almost flat-looking forms.

He considered blasting them with his breath. But so far, they weren’t doing anything hostile, and perhaps they wouldn’t. He was still a dracolich, after all, a being most creatures feared to provoke. So he simply continued his descent, and the ghostly flock simply kept pace with him, flying from one broken rooftop to the next.

When he reached the bottom, he could feel a gradation in the palpable memory of anguish. It festered on every side but was foulest in the direction of the fortresslike temple of Helm the Watcher, lying on its side. Alasklerbanbastos surmised that many of the townsfolk had fled there to pray for succor when the upheavals began, and there they’d perished when it never came.

Picking his way through rubble and bones, Alasklerbanbastos headed in that direction. The black birds divided. They still kept pace with him, but some flew and perched to the right, and the rest, to the left.

Then other creatures, similarly murky but somewhat manlike, came out of the dark. Those bearing scythes stalked from behind cover. Others simply flickered into view. All barred the path to the temple.

Once again, Alasklerbanbastos felt the urge simply to smite the impudent mites, and once again he held it in check. “Who commands here?” he asked. “I assure you, it’s in your best interest to parley with me.”

Yet another dark figure emerged from behind the others. But this one had scalloped wings like Alasklerbanbastos’s own sprouting from his shoulder blades, spindly horns like the points of a jagged diadem jutting from his head, and round, luminous red eyes. The dragon could just make out a few of the runes engraved on the blade of the newcomer’s scythe.

That was enough to confirm that the creatures were sorrowsworn, haunters of sites where mortals had perished in pain, in terror, and in quantity. Alasklerbanbastos had assumed as much, but the things resembled a number of other denizens of the netherworld, and it was always better to be sure.

“You’re intruding on a sacred place,” the deathlord said.

For an instant Alasklerbanbastos wondered what deity or quasi-deity the sorrowsworn served, then decided he didn’t care. “A useful place,” he replied. “I need to borrow it for a while.”

“No,” the deathlord said.

“I need to tap the kind of power a place like this provides. I promise to leave it as I found it.”

“No,” the red-eyed creature repeated, then hesitated, as though deciding how much more he wanted to say. “Something seeks to be born in the house of the fallen god. It was conceived forty years ago and must gestate undisturbed for twenty more. Leave now while-”

Alasklerbanbastos spit a crackling flare of lightning. The deathlord floundered backward, jerking in a spastic dance.

But when the lightning flickered out of existence, he didn’t collapse. Instead, his seared flesh smoking, he screamed a command in a language that even Alasklerbanbastos didn’t recognize.

The shadowravens instantly hurtled at the dracolich from all sides. By itself, each little peck of a beak or scratch of a talon would have been insignificant, but dozens every instant were a different matter. Worse, the birds flapping around his head all but blinded and deafened him, allowing the sorrowsworn to advance unopposed. Scythes sliced along his ribs, the blades bumping and catching on his bones.

He swept his head from side to side and burned shadowravens out of the air with an arc of lightning. Or rather, he tried. In his old body, he could have used his breath weapon several times before depleting it, but in his new one, he’d exhausted it with a single exhalation.

A shock ripped through the base of his neck. One of his foes-the deathlord, he suspected-had driven a scythe in deep. Another stroke or two like that could cripple him.

He leaped into the air, lashed his wings, and soared upward.

That rid him of all the foes who didn’t have wings to follow. He swiped with his claws, smashing birds by the dozen, and snarled an incantation. Meanwhile, he felt some sort of psychic magic pounding at his mind. But it wasn’t divine power like the despicable sunlady wielded, and it couldn’t pierce his defenses.

He bellowed the last word of his spell, and a cloud of acidic vapor seethed into existence around him. It stung him, but it was worth it because it annihilated the shadowravens. Sizzling, they fell like stones and corroded away to nothing before they reached the ground.

A beat of his wings carried Alasklerbanbastos clear of the burning mist, and he looked around for the deathlord. He was reasonably sure the creature had followed him aloft, but at first glance, he couldn’t spot him.

A weight thumped down on top of Alasklerbanbastos’s head. Certain that he had only an instant before the deathlord’s scythe would slash at one of his eyes, he lashed his neck as though he were cracking a whip. The sorrowsworn tumbled from his perch.

Alasklerbanbastos twisted his head and tried to snap him out of the air. His teeth clashed shut on nothing. The deathlord had shifted through space to dodge the attack. Another psychic attack beat at Alasklerbanbastos’s consciousness. He snarled in annoyance as he tried to locate his opponent once again.

There! Even blurrier than before, probably turned intangible, the deathlord was swooping toward the ground to rejoin his underlings. Alasklerbanbastos’s snarl turned into a laugh because abandoning the high air was the wrong play.

He furled his wings, plunged downward, and rattled off three words that drew all the lightning that continually danced in a blue dragon’s body down into his foreclaws. Crackling, they glowed white and should annihilate an insubstantial foe as readily as any other.

Just before Alasklerbanbastos plummeted into striking distance, the deathlord sensed the danger. He wrenched himself around, congealed into solidity, and swung the scythe. It gashed Alasklerbanbastos’s leg, but that was all.

Then the dragon’s claws stabbed into the sorrowsworn’s body, piercing it, all but splitting and tearing it to pieces. It was a killing stroke even without the lightning that discharged itself with a thunderous bang an instant later.

Alasklerbanbastos flicked the charred scraps that were all that remained of the deathlord off his talons and spread his wings for a softer descent.

The remaining sorrowsworn were brave, stupid, or compelled by some enchantment. Even with their chieftain and the shadowravens destroyed, they kept fighting, and pretty well at that. Still, it took Alasklerbanbastos only a few more moments to rip them apart.

He looked around and made sure he’d gotten them all. Then he stalked on to the dead god’s temple.

Since the building was lying on its side, the entry was halfway up the wall. At some point, the doors had come loose from the hinges, leaving just a hole. He stuck his head inside.

Somehow, the outer shell of the temple had survived its slide or tumble into the crevasse partially intact. But the disaster had shattered interior walls and shaken everything loose from its proper place. Broken pews, icons, and skeletons lay heaped and jumbled altogether.

Alasklerbanbastos felt a little disappointed. Whatever the sorrowsworn had believed was growing inside the ruinous womb, he couldn’t detect any sign of it. But he could still feel the throbbing, malignant power of the place, and that was what was important.

He crawled through the doorway. The litter shifted under his weight, so, using his claws and tail, he scooped and swept it to the sides until he had a clear place to work. Then he chanted words of power and scratched a rune on the stone beneath him whenever the ritual called for it.

When he’d written all twenty-five, he slit the hide on his left foreleg and started to flay himself.

It wasn’t easy. Even though the undead were less susceptible to pain than the living, the discomfort was considerable. And on top of that, the skin was damaged. Tchazzar had burned it, death had rotted it, and the fights Alasklerbanbastos had gotten into since occupying the body hadn’t done it any good either. Yet he needed to remove it in just a few pieces. Cutting or inadvertently tearing it into too many would spoil the magic.

Finally the painstaking task was through. He laid out the sheets of hide in the proper places, refocused his concentration, and whispered the final rhyme.

The darkness seemed to spin around him. Disembodied voices wailed, and a stench like vomit filled the air. Broken bones jerked and rattled.

Blue light danced where one sheet of scaly skin touched another, fusing them back together. Then the hollow, flapping but united thing they’d become heaved itself up off the floor. It whipped around toward Alasklerbanbastos and opened its jaws, revealing the hard, serrated ridges that had formed to substitute for fangs.

But Alasklerbanbastos had expected resistance. He grabbed the dragon shell by the neck, slammed it to the floor, and held it there while it tried to wrap around him like a python. He bound it with words of command.

When it stopped struggling, he let it up and gave it a more leisurely inspection. Satisfied with his handiwork, he smiled.

A watersoul functionary had informed Aoth that he and his companions would have to wait until Queen Arathane could find the time to receive them. He suspected the reality was somewhat different. Her Majesty was more likely conferring with Tradrem Kethrod, the Steward of the Earth and her spymaster, and anyone else who might have some idea why a sellsword captain in service to Chessenta had unexpectedly appeared to request a palaver with the ruler of Akanul.

Waiting made Aoth edgy, and he tried to calm himself by taking in the view. The royal palace was a spire that, from the outside, resembled a narwhal’s horn. It occupied the highest point in Airspur, and the outer wall of the waiting room was made entirely of glass. He could see much of the capital spread out below.

Even in the Thay of his youth, where the Red Wizards had not infrequently turned their Art to spectacle and ostentation, he’d never seen another city like it. It incorporated dozens of small, low-floating earthmotes, linked to one another and adjacent towers by bridges. And everything reflected the genasi’s kinship with, and mastery of, the elemental forces. Most structures had a flowing, rounded look to them, as if they’d been molded from clay, not hewn from stone. A few hung like mirages in midair. Sparkling in the sunlight, water cascaded from the higher levels of the city to the lower.

“You’d think,” Gaedynn said, “that if Jhesrhi wanted to settle down anywhere, it would be here, not Luthcheq.”

“Our childhood homes keep a hold on us,” Cera said. “And I suspect that if you were an unhappy child, the hold can be all the stronger.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Speak for yourself. I’d sooner take another run at Szass Tam than return to my father’s castle.” He turned back to Aoth. “I’m still vague on our strategy. Exactly how much are we going to tell them?”

“You’re vague because I’m vague,” said Aoth. “This is potentially dangerous. I’ll need to read Arathane’s reactions and make decisions as we go.”

“Thanks for clarifying. I feel so much more confident.”

Cera frowned. “The Keeper of the Yellow Sun teaches us to cast the light of truth as widely and brightly as we can.”

“Is that why you’ve been doing things behind your high priest’s back ever since this craziness started?” Aoth replied.

She tried to look at him sternly, but humor tugged at the corners of her mouth, and after a moment, she gave it up. “Perhaps I am trying to put the milk back into the cow.”

The door behind them clicked open, and they turned to see the same green-skinned watersoul servant as before. Her tabard bore a pentagram emblem that symbolized the five subraces of the genasi people, although after his experiences of late, Aoth found it unpleasantly reminiscent of the wyrmkeepers’ sigils and regalia.

“Please follow me,” the watersoul said.

They did and she soon led them up additional flights of stairs. Arathane’s throne room was at the very top of the spindly tower. The arrangement probably wasn’t convenient for anybody, but anyone reaching the round chamber would likely admit it provided an air of grandeur. With glass on every side, Aoth could see all of Airspur, as well as the brown, snow-capped Akanapeaks to the west, and the expanses of blue water to the north and east.

Supporting the small keeps that belonged to the individual stewards, the four “thronemotes” floated in a ring, almost but not quite as high above the city as the chamber. Bridges like the spokes of a wheel joined them to the central spire.

Arathane sat in a massive, silver chair resting on a dais floating two feet above the floor. The usual gaggle of courtiers and attendants clustered around it. The queen was young and slender, with delicate features and a pointed chin, and had only a couple of silvery lines running down her purple face from scalp to chin; unlike some genasi, she didn’t look as if she were wearing a filigree mask. One of her maids had affixed dozens of tiny sapphires to the crystalline spikes that took the place of hair. The jewels matched the ones in her necklace and rings.

“Welcome, Captain Fezim,” she said in a clear, soprano voice. “My mother told me stories about you.”

Aoth sensed Gaedynn and Cera glancing at him in surprise. He hadn’t bothered to tell them the tale because it hadn’t seemed relevant. He hadn’t thought it likely that the Akanulans would remember something that had happened thirty years before.

“She was a great lady,” he replied.

“Who would have lost her throne and probably her life if not for you and your company,” Arathane said. “So I’m happy to welcome you and your companions. Happy but also perplexed, for reasons I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes, Majesty,” said Aoth. “You wonder why I’m not in Chessenta helping Tchazzar prepare to invade Tymanther.”

“Something like that,” Arathane said.

“It’s because my companions and I have learned something you ought to know. You’re going to war over a misunderstanding. The dragonborn didn’t raid your villages. The servants of a gray wyrm named Vairshekellabex, a creature native to your own kingdom, did it.”

The queen turned her head. “Can this be true?”

A barrel-chested, square-jawed earthsoul-Tradrem Kethrod, Aoth surmised-looked back at her. His brown leather garments nearly matched the color of his skin, as their golden ornaments matched the pattern of parallel lines and right angles that ran through it. It made him look disconcertingly like a terra cotta statue come to life.

“No, Majesty,” said the Steward of the Earth. “As you will recall, a handful of witnesses saw the raiders and lived to tell the tale. The perpetrators were unquestionably dragonborn.”

“With respect, my lord,” Cera said, “your witnesses were mistaken through no fault of their own. Vairshekellabex has wyrmkeepers in his service. They know magic to summon fiends called abishais from the Hells, then disguise them to look like dragonborn. I swear by the Keeper’s light that Captain Fezim and I have seen it for ourselves.”

Tradrem frowned. “You’ve seen for yourselves that this Vairshekellabex has wyrmkeepers working for him and that they’re playing this particular trick?”

Cera hesitated. “Well… no. Not that… exactly.”

“Have you ever even seen Vairshekellabex?”

The priestess sighed. “Again, no.”

“Then how can you be certain of any of this?”

Aoth considered then dismissed the idea of admitting that he and his comrades had, on their own initiative, reanimated a creature who was both their employer’s greatest enemy and one of the terrors of the East. Maybe the moment would come, but he wasn’t there yet. “By mystical means,” he said.

“Well, then,” Tradrem said, “with respect to all of you, divination has its uses, but there are a number of ways it can mislead or yield the wrong intelligence entirely. That’s why I put my trust in people reporting what they’ve observed with their own eyes.”

“And yet,” Arathane said, “there are rumors of a gray dragon lairing in the wasteland. You brought me the accounts yourself.”

“True enough,” Tradrem said, “but that alone scarcely makes Captain Fezim’s case. Especially considering that, even if he’s right, it’s far from clear why he would rush here to give us the information.” He pivoted back to Aoth. “Or am I mistaken? Did you confer with Tchazzar first, and did he excuse you from your normal duties to pay us a call?”

“No,” said Aoth. “When we learned the truth, we were in Threskel, completing the pacification of the province. Tchazzar was already back in Luthcheq. I thought it would save time to fly straight here.”

“But why did you want to?” Tradrem persisted. “Why bring news to Tchazzar’s allies that could persuade us to forsake him?”

“For coin,” Gaedynn said. “Aoth and I are sellswords, after all, and surely this information is worth a little something.”

Arathane frowned. “Worth betraying the sovereign to whom you pledged your service?”

“The Brotherhood of the Griffon fought hard to conquer Threskel,” the archer said, “and then Tchazzar forbade us to plunder the place. That curdled our loyalty a little.”

“Majesty,” said Aoth, “whatever you think of our motives, the fact remains that Vairshekellabex is slaughtering your subjects and casting the blame on the dragonborn so he can keep doing it with impunity. And I’m not asking you to take my word for it. I’m asking for the chance to put an end to it.”

Arathane cocked her head. “How?”

“I know where to look for Vairshekellabex’s lair. Lend me some warriors. I’ll go kill him and bring back proof of all we’ve told you.”

Gaedynn smiled. “What do you have to lose?”

“Quite a bit,” Tradrem said. “Most of the army has marched south. The portion that remains is already stretched thin to protect Airspur and the northern parts of the realm from the aboleths.”

“Surely you can spare someone,” Cera said.

“Even if we could,” Tradrem said, “we’d need more convincing because it makes perfect sense that the dragonborn would raid our lands. They’ve always been our enemies, for as far back as anyone can remember.”

“I picked up a little history when I lived with the elves,” Gaedynn said. “Mainly I learned that if you go back far enough, you find out that at one point or another, everybody’s ancestors pissed on everybody else’s. And that’s convenient if you enjoy holding a grudge, but you can’t let it blind you to what’s happening here and now.”

Tradrem’s mouth tightened. “Thank you, sellsword. I’m sure we’ll all cherish that nugget of moral instruction. But it doesn’t alter the fact that Her Majesty’s ambassador in Luthcheq reported that you and your comrades showed bias toward the dragonborn almost from the moment you arrived in the city.”

Aoth sighed. “That’s a… skewed interpretation of events. We simply kept the peace as we were charged to do and counseled Shala Karanok to the best of our ability.”

Tradrem turned to the queen. “Majesty, I think it likely that these folk are in the pay of Tymanther and have come here to perpetrate a hoax, the object being to keep Akanul from retaliating against its enemies as justice and prudence both demand.”

Arathane frowned. Sparks crawled and popped on the web of silvery lines on her throat and hands. “It’s hard to imagine the champion from my mother’s tales doing such a thing.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” the earthsoul said, “the man in the late queen’s reminiscences served her for coin, not out of nobility of spirit. And even if he did demonstrate some finer qualities, as Sir Gaedynn was just kind enough to remind us, the past doesn’t provide an infallible guide to the present. People change.”

“Majesty,” said Cera, “please, listen to your heart.”

“By all means,” Tradrem said, “but listen to your ministers as well. My lords, what do you say?”

The first to answer was a watersoul with a leaping dolphin emblem on his buttons and belt buckle and black smears on his gray velvet doublet. It appeared he was in the habit of absentmindedly wiping his inky fingers on it. Aoth assumed that he was Myxofin, the Steward of the Sea, also called the Lord of Coin.

“Meaning no offense to Captain Fezim, his lieutenant, nor certainly to a sunlady,” he said, “I have to agree with Lord Tradrem. Your Majesty already made her decision. Your army is already on its way to Chessenta. We’ve already spent a great deal of treasure to equip and provision them. And this story is just too strange.”

When he finished, everyone looked to a female windsoul with the silver skin and blue patterning of her kind. Despite the urging implicit in their regard, she still stood, frowned, and deliberated for a couple moments longer. She was evidently Lehaya, the Steward of the Sky and Akanul’s Lawgiver.

“Majesty,” she said when she was ready, “you no doubt remember that from the start, I had misgivings over going to war.” Aoth felt a pang of hope. “Still, I must agree with my fellow stewards.”

Curse it! “Just give me fifty men,” he said. “Fifty to rid your realm of a horror.”

Now it was Arathane’s turn to hesitate. She looked out over them all with troubled eyes.

“Majesty,” Tradrem said, “pardon me for bringing this up. But you know that, by your mother’s decree, if the Four Stewards stand united in opposition to the queen, it’s our will that prevails. And I believe we all know how Magnol would vote if he were here.”

“But he isn’t,” Gaedynn said. “He’s marching south at the head of Akanul’s army. So Your Majesty can do whatever you want. And where’s the fun in wearing a crown if you don’t make an unpopular decision once in a while and then make everybody eat it?”

Inwardly Aoth winced but Arathane surprised him by chuckling. “You’re not shy about speaking your mind, are you?” she said.

Gaedynn grinned. “It’s merely one of my many endearing qualities.”

“I’m sure. Still… gentlemen, sunlady, you’re welcome in Akanul for as long as you care to stay. And you needn’t worry that anyone will inform Tchazzar of what you said to me. But I truly don’t know what to make of it, so I’ll abide by the advice of my counselors. Vairshekellabex, if indeed he exists, will have to wait until the war is over.”