The Spectral Blaze

FIVE

15-19 E LEASIS, THE Y EAR OF THE A GELESS O NE

Aoth studied the drake riders on the rocky ridge below. One outrider was too close to the column. The other had strayed too far away. He suppressed a sigh.

But he shouldn’t have bothered because Jet still heard the sigh inside his head. “It’ll be a marvel if they make it another day,” the griffon rasped.

“Some of them can handle a crossbow or a spear,” Aoth replied. He’d run his new command through a few tests and drills before departing Airspur, less in the hope of improving their skills at such a late date than to assess what he had to work with. “Some have elemental tricks that may prove useful. And some have been in these mountains before.”

“They’re still in over their heads,” said Jet. “Especially when you consider that, judging by what happened back in the city, Vairshekellabex knows we’re coming.”

“At least the company’s not likely to be ambushed.” Aoth felt a twinge of humor at his own expense. He didn’t think of himself as optimistic by nature, but Jet could be so relentlessly dour that it provoked a fellow into arguing the opposing point of view. “Not with you, me, Gaedynn, and Eider in the air.”

Jet grunted. “The column’s stopping.”

And so it was. The riders at the head had reined in their mounts, the better, perhaps, to confer. After a moment, Cera looked up and waved her mace in the air. The gilded weapon gleamed in the sunlight.

Aoth looked around, found Gaedynn, and held up his hand to signal him to stay in the air. The Aglarondan acknowledged the order with a casual wave. Then Jet swooped toward the firestormers.

Drakes hissed and shied as the griffon touched down. It pleased Aoth to see that Cera didn’t have any more trouble controlling her mount than most of the genasi. She’d said she needed a break from being carried around like a sack of flour, and she was evidently getting the hang of managing a reptilian steed.

“So,” said Yemere, “our august captain condescends to descend and mingle with his underlings.”

Yemere was a skinny, slouching fellow with a petulant cast to his features, a silvery-skinned windsoul but, in Aoth’s estimation, much like his friend Mardiz-sul nonetheless. Both were young aristocrats, drawn to the Firestorm Cabal by idealism and a thirst for adventure-or what they imagined adventure would be-and granted a measure of authority despite their inexperience. No doubt it was hard to deny rank to a nobleman, especially if he offered to pay for rations, weapons, mounts, and other necessities.

The major difference between them was that Yemere hadn’t fought a dragon or dragonspawn yet and hadn’t had any of the arrogance kicked out of him. Aoth wouldn’t have minded attending to that chore himself. But there were times when it was better for a captain to ignore insolence, lest he appear thin skinned or malicious. And now when he was still trying to win the trust and good will of the firestormers might be one of them.

So he simply asked, “Why are we stopping?” His fire-kissed eyes notwithstanding, it wasn’t impossible that folk on the ground had noticed something he hadn’t spotted from the air. Although even now that he was down here with them, he still didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

It was Mardiz-sul who answered. “Son-liin thinks we should turn off onto another path.”

Like Zan-akar Zeraez and Arathane, Son-liin was essentially a stormsoul. Unlike them, she had some affinity with the elemental force of earth as well as lightning. Some of the lines that ran through her purple skin were gold instead of silver, and so were the translucent crystalline spikes that took the place of hair.

That likely meant she knew an extra trick or two. But at the moment, it was her knowledge of the Akanapeaks that interested Aoth. Though still an adolescent and small-in her brigandine, with a lance in her hand and a quiver on her back, she looked like a little girl playing warrior-she was one of the few firestormers in the band who’d grown up in the mountains and, with her father, a trapper and prospector, wandered them extensively. It had been a stroke of good fortune that led her to Airspur at just the right moment to join the expedition.

She smiled as though attention embarrassed her. Meanwhile, her drake, a breed with black- and green-pebbled skin, twisted its head, tracking a dragonfly as long as Aoth’s hand. The reptile’s long, pink tongue shot out, slapped the insect, stuck to it, and snatched it into its mouth. The drake slobbered as it crunched the morsel up, and Aoth felt Jet’s flicker of amusement.

“Up ahead,” Son-liin said, “there’s a trail that leads down into a valley. If we take it, we can reach the Old Man’s Head a day or two sooner.”

The Old Man’s Head was the mountain where Vairshekellabex probably laired. If not, his refuge was at least in the vicinity. Or so Alasklerbanbastos had maintained.

“Why didn’t you mention this route before?” asked Aoth.

“Because I didn’t know what the weather would be like,” Son-liin said. “It’s not a path you want to be on if it storms. A flashflood can sweep you away. But now we’re here, and it’s not going to rain.”

Aoth suspected she knew because she was a stormsoul. He wasn’t, but like any commander worth his pay, he’d learned to read the weather, and he agreed with her assessment. The clear blue sky showed no signs of clouding up anytime soon.

“I’m against this,” said Yemere. “We made a plan. We should stick to it.”

“Moving over these peaks and ridges,” said Mardiz-sul, “we can be seen from a long way off.”

“But if we’re going through a valley,” replied Yemere, “an enemy could easily get above us.”

“Don’t worry about that,” rasped Jet, startling a fresh round of hisses out of the drakes. “Those of us in the air will spot any threat before it can come within a mile.”

“Still,” said Yemere.

Mardiz-sul turned to Aoth. “What do you think?”

Aoth thought that it would be nice to consult Alasklerbanbastos about the best way to approach the Old Man’s Head, but it wasn’t feasible. He hadn’t even told the genasi about the dracolich yet, and they needed a decision.

“We’ll take Son-liin’s path,” he said. Why not? She was the one who knew the Akanapeaks, and Jet was right that the griffon riders should still be able to spot any potential problem from a long way off.

Yemere scowled as though the folly of his companions verged on the unbelievable.

“Let’s get them moving again,” said Mardiz-sul. He urged his drake into motion and rode down the column to give direction to the warriors who, when their leaders halted to palaver, had climbed down off their mounts to stretch their legs.

Aoth smiled at Cera. “Want to fly for a while? Someone can lead your drake.”

“No, thanks. I’m enjoying myself down here, and I suspect Jet is enjoying not having to carry double.”

The familiar grunted. “As his females go, you’re more tolerable than some.”

Cera grinned. “High praise indeed.”

It took only a little longer to reach a narrow, branching trail that switchbacked down a mountainside into shadow. Aoth watched with a certain amount of trepidation as the drake riders headed down one at a time. But the reptiles were more surefooted than horses, and they reached the shallow, brown creek at the bottom of the gorge without so much as a stumble.

Then they trekked on southward, plodding over sand and smooth, round stones, splashing through the rippling current, and bounding over the occasional tangle of driftwood or whole fallen tree deposited by one flood or another. Sometimes Aoth and Jet flew high enough to survey the tops of the cliffs that towered to either side of the brook. Sometimes they swooped to see what was lurking on the ledges and in the crannies lower down. Gaedynn and Eider did the same and surprised a goat. The skirmisher put an arrow in it, landed on the outcropping where it lay, and quickly dressed the carcass before returning to his proper task.

Aoth would have done the same, had he been the one to come across some game, because so far the way seemed safe enough.

But after another half mile of twisting canyon, that changed when, for a heartbeat or two, a smear of blue glimmer flowed across a barren scarp like a luminous fish swimming beneath a sheet of ice. Aoth raised two fingers to his mouth, used them to whistle, and pointed with his spear. Gaedynn looked, then turned to Aoth and shook his head to indicate that he couldn’t see anything unusual.

Aoth pointed to the top of the cliff to the east. Jet furled his wings and swooped in that direction, and Eider followed him down. Once they landed, their riders could talk without shouting over the distance that flying steeds needed to maintain between themselves.

Gaedynn swung himself out of the saddle and started slicing pieces of raw, bloody goat meat off the carcass he’d tied behind it. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“For a moment I saw blue fire inside the mountainside,” Aoth replied.

Gaedynn tossed a piece of goat to Eider, and the griffon snapped it out of the air. “How in the name of the Black Bow did I miss that?”

“You needed spellscarred eyes to see it,” Aoth replied, stretching. His spine popped. “Maybe it was more like the memory of blue fire.”

Gaedynn tossed the other piece of meat to Jet. Perhaps thinking it beneath his dignity to catch it in his beak, the griffon reared and snatched it with his talons. “And what does that mean exactly?” the bowman asked.

“There was a time when this whole kingdom existed in another place. Then the Spellplague picked it up and dumped it in Faerun. If the… disruptions were that strong here, it makes sense that there are traces of them left.”

“I suppose,” Gaedynn said, “but are we marching into genuine plagueland or not?”

Aoth peered as far down the canyon as he could, looking for any hint of blue mist or earth and rock oozing like candle wax. Everything appeared all right. “It doesn’t look like it,” he said. “I’d guess the area’s no worse than the Umber Marshes.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Now that’s encouraging.”

Aoth smiled back. “Isn’t it? But Son-liin says that as long as it doesn’t rain, the gorge is safe. And the only alternative to moving ahead is miles of backtracking and a hard climb back up onto the ridge.”

The archer shrugged. “Son-liin strikes me as a reliable sort.”

“Forward it is, then.”

They strapped themselves back in their saddles, and the griffons sprang into the air. In time, Aoth spotted another fleeting blue gleam in another cliff face, as if the brown, striated stone were a mirror reflecting a flash of azure light. But nothing else happened as a result.

Standing on a neighboring peak, long armed, round shouldered, and barrel chested, a lone hill giant watched the griffon riders pass overhead. Aoth considered making contact to ask the hulking savage about the region but then decided not to bother. The giant would probably start throwing stones the instant a human came within range and might not speak any language but his own.

Then the column stopped. Cera brandished her mace. As before, Aoth left Gaedynn in the air while he swooped down to find out what was going on. “What is it?” he asked as, wings snapping, Jet settled on a tongue of granite protruding from the base of the eastern cliff.

“She doesn’t know,” said Mardiz-sul. He was trying not to sound impatient but not quite succeeding.

Aoth smiled at Cera. “I imagine you know something,” he said.

“Not really,” she replied. “But… you understand that Amaunator is the great timekeeper. Night follows day and spring passes into summer because he makes it so.”

“Right,” said Aoth. He had some firsthand experience with her god’s connection to time. But he had no idea why she was bringing it up at that moment.

“As his priestess,” Cera said, “I sometimes feel it as the wheels turn. As some natural cycle is reaching its culmination.”

“What does that mean?” asked Mardiz-sul. For an instant blue light rippled through the water flowing around his drake’s four-toed feet.

“In this situation?” she replied. “I don’t know.”

But suddenly Aoth thought he might. “I once traveled all the way to the Lake of Steam,” he said, speaking quickly. “Heard of it?”

Mardiz-sul shrugged. “Vaguely.”

“They have hot springs there… and geysers. Boiling water that shoots up out of the ground. And with a few of them, it happens at very regular intervals.” Aoth turned back to Cera. “Could you sense something like that?”

She frowned. “I’ve never seen a ‘geyser,’ but perhaps.”

“I don’t see the relevance,” said Mardiz-sul, waving his lance at their surroundings. “This creek is cold.”

“True,” said Aoth, “but there’s still spellplague festering in the ground. Mostly it’s too weak to cause any trouble. But over time, the power builds up until there’s too much. And then some of it sprays out like a geyser. I think that’s about to happen now.”

“How could you possibly know that?” asked Mardiz-sul.

“You’re a brother to fire,” Aoth said. “And I’ve got a little spellplague burning inside of me.” He pointed to his eyes.

“What will happen?” asked Son-liin.

Aoth shook his head. “There’s no way to predict.”

“Then what we do? Run?”

“No. It’s too late to get clear. We just have to be ready for anything.” Aoth raised his voice: “Everyone, ready your weapons! If you know any protective charms, cast them!”

Cera started praying and swinging her mace over her head. The sunlight grew warmer. After a moment’s hesitation, some of the genasi muttered their own incantations. Ruddy hands flicked up and down in a manner that suggested leaping flame and sketched trails of fire in the air. Breezes gusted and the stream gurgled louder than before.

Then everybody waited while blue light flickered through the creek and the granite walls, the pulses coming faster and faster. The sight of them made Aoth’s mouth go dry and his guts queasy. He’d been caught in a storm of blue fire on the day the Spellplague began and watched his fellow legionnaires die by the score. And though he’d faced a thousand foes in the century since, he’d always avoided a second encounter with that particular danger. Until now.

“Well?” asked Mardiz-sul, still blind to the power flaring all around him. “Is anything happening?”

Aoth opened his mouth to say yes, then saw he wouldn’t have to. Blue mist swirled into existence all along the canyon, or at least for as far as he could see. The genasi cried out and the drakes shrieked at its dank and somehow filthy touch. Aoth felt Jet’s spasm of revulsion and the way he had to clench himself not to take flight immediately and climb above the nasty stuff.

The touch of chaos made some of the stones in the creek bed catch fire. Others rattled together with a sound like chattering teeth. Water heaved itself high and crashed down like waves rolling in from a stormy sea.

Cera continued to pray. The air grew warmer again. The blue fog thinned as if the sun overhead were burning it away.

When the vapor was nearly gone, Mardiz-sul sighed and slumped forward. “Thank Kossuth. And Amaunator too.”

But as the last of the vapor dissipated, a kind of glare shot through it, and blue light flared in the eyes of the drakes. For an instant, Aoth had the crazy feeling that he was looking at his own deformed face in a cracked mirror, as though some mage had disfigured him with a curse and he hadn’t even known.

Some reptiles screeched, reared, or tried to bolt. Two others fell, convulsing. One of the riders, a windsoul, floated up out of the saddle, but the other, a watersoul, couldn’t slip his feet out of the stirrups and jump clear in time. As his thrashing steed rolled back and forth, it ground him beneath its bulk.

Meanwhile, Mardiz-sul’s drake bucked and flipped him into the stream. Then it reared onto its hind legs and grew until cinches snapped, and its saddle, halter, and reins fell away. Its forelegs appeared to wither, although perhaps they simply weren’t expanding like the rest of it. It held them tucked against its chest while a second head and neck wriggled up out of its shoulders like a worm squirming out of an apple.

Another reptile lost its earthsoul master when it, too, grew, and its back bulged upward like a hill. Triangular plates sprouted down the length of its spine and tore its saddle to pieces, dumping the firestormer on the ground. A spike grew from the beast’s snout, and long horns jutted from over the eyes. A bony ruff or collar swelled into being behind the head, and spikes erupted from the tip of the tail.

The two transformed saurians roared and snarled, seemingly communicating with one another. Then they attacked the creatures around them. The reptile standing on two legs leaped at Aoth and Jet like a cat. Its comrade’s charge was a ponderous waddle by comparison. But the spiked tail lashed back and forth in a frenzied blur and actually drew first blood, smashing the head of Son-liin’s mount to gory scraps and spatters.

Aoth leveled his spear and hurled a blaze of force from the point. It stabbed into the onrushing saurian’s torso but didn’t stop it. At the same time, Jet leaped upward and lashed his wings. It seemed impossible that the griffon could rise high enough quickly enough. The reptile was just too tall and too close. But then they were soaring over the creature’s upturned heads, just beyond the reach of the snapping fangs.

Don’t wet yourself, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. One of us knows what he’s doing.

And who gave you that strength? Aoth replied. Stay low and close. I want to keep the beast’s attention on us.

That takes away every advantage we have, said Jet. Nice tactics! Still, he wheeled as quickly as he could.

Then they danced with the saurian, teasing it with their proximity, dodging when it struck, and blasting it with flares of lightning and frost. It wasn’t easy. Since Jet had never fought such a creature before, he didn’t know how fast it could lunge and pivot or how high it could leap, and he was having to guess in adverse circumstances, with the narrow gorge limiting his mobility. A single misjudgment would either land him in the reptile’s jaws or slam him into a cliff.

But as Aoth had intended, the dance kept the two-headed drake from attacking anyone on the ground, and a few firestormers took advantage of its distraction by shooting it with their arbalests or jabbing it with their lances, albeit to little apparent effect. But most of them were too busy trying to contend with the beast that was attacking them, the massive thing with the horned head and flailing tail.

Intent on his own half of the battle, Aoth registered only an occasional glimpse of that other struggle. Gaedynn flew above the reptile, loosing one shaft after another. Eider screeched repeatedly, maybe in an effort to distract the creature as Aoth and Jet were diverting its fellow. Son-liin circled the beast until she could aim a bowshot at its ribs. His sword, hand, and forearm wreathed in flame, Mardiz-sul slashed at the reptile’s snout then blocked with his shield when the brute tried to spear him with one of its horns. Cera swung her mace in a horizontal arc, and brightness leaped from the head. It burned a black streak across the creature’s belly.

Aoth’s comrades were fighting well. But so far the horned saurian wasn’t slowing down either.

Curse it! He had to end the battle while he still had a company to command. He stuck his spear in the sheath attached to his saddle, tore open the pouch on his belt, and grabbed the noxious-looking green berries he’d picked on the way through the foothills of the mountains. Get me close, he said.

What do you think I’ve been doing? Jet replied. Discerning his master’s intent, he swooped straight at their foe’s two heads. Which both opened their jaws wide to catch him.

Aoth rattled off an incantation. Power tingled in the palm of his hand as it suffused the berries. He swung his arm back and threw them.

At least some flew into the jaws of the head on the right. So furious it likely didn’t even notice them bouncing and rolling down its tongue, the saurian struck with both heads.

Jet lashed one wing, wrenched his body, and flung himself to the side. The reptile’s fangs missed him-barely-but the maneuver sent him tumbling like a stone flung from a catapult. Only Aoth’s harness held him in the saddle when the motion spun him upside down, and the canyon wall loomed just ahead.

Wings beating, floundering, the griffon couldn’t overcome his momentum in time to avoid a collision. But he did manage to twist far enough that it was his feet that slammed against the rock, not his head, wings, or the man on his back. He and Aoth grunted together at the resulting jolt. Still, it was only that. Jet’s sturdy frame withstood the shock without injury, and he sprang away from the side of the cliff at once.

Meanwhile, their foe turned. Its hind legs flexed as it prepared to pounce. Then the head on the right came apart in a blast of flame as, with a muffled boom, the berries in its mouth and gullet exploded. The detonation hurled broken teeth and scraps of charred flesh and bone in all directions.

The reptile screamed and staggered. Then, possibly mad with pain, it twisted the head that was burned on one side but still otherwise intact to bite the ruined lump that was the other. Bone cracked and blood spurted until nothing remained but a stump.

Then the reptile tottered, and its forelimbs pawed at the air. Certain it was about to drop, Aoth turned to survey the other side of the fight, and his satisfaction curdled into dismay.

The rest of the company wasn’t faring as well as he and Jet had. Many of the firestormers were shrinking back from the horned reptile. They had the look of warriors who were about to break. And when they did, the saurian would almost certainly slaughter those who hadn’t lost their nerve.

Aoth wasn’t sure that magic could turn the situation around in the moment he had left. But maybe something else could.

Perceiving what he wanted, Jet hurtled at the reptile that the two of them had been fighting. The familiar’s talons stabled into the top of the creature’s remaining head, but that wasn’t the point. Aoth wanted their momentum to topple the beast.

For a moment, he didn’t think it would, but a final beat of Jet’s wings carried the saurian past the tipping point. It fell and the griffon sprang clear.

The dying saurian smashed down on top of the horned creature, which let out a bellow. Aoth had hoped the great mass dropping from above would injure it badly. Since it kept moving, that didn’t appear to be the case. But it moved slowly, barely able to support the added weight. It shifted this way and that, trying to shake it off, but it couldn’t. The pointed plates on its spine had likely stabbed deep into the other beast’s body.

“Now!” shouted Mardiz-sul. “Kill it now!”

Heartened, the firestormers attacked the reptile from all sides. It defended as best it could, but its best was inadequate when it could hardly stand. It tried to whip its tail up and over its hindquarters, and the spikes caught in the other saurian’s body and stuck there. Thus deprived of its most formidable weapon, it fell a moment later, when Yemere charged and drove his lance into its eye.

Khouryn stood at the rail and gawked at the scene before him. The docks with their fishing nets drying in the sun were nothing remarkable, nor were the boxy, unassuming buildings immediately behind them. But the sheds and shacks huddled in the shadow of a colossal granite tower, with countless windows, balconies, and secondary spires branching from the central mass, making it look a little like a tree.

“You see,” said Nellis Saradexma, “the dragonborn aren’t the only folk who can build a tower city.” Both his tone and the smile on his narrow face with its high forehead, receding hairline, and gray-black marbling made it clear how proud he was of the metropolis called Skyclave and how happy it made him to return, even if only briefly. As a wanderer who sometimes went years without seeing his own home, Khouryn empathized with the ambassador’s feelings.

“Impressive,” Balasar said, “but please tell me that the empress doesn’t hold court at the very top of the pile.”

Nellis chuckled. “Actually, she pretty much does. But don’t worry. You won’t have to climb thousands of stairs to reach her.”

Khouryn found out why not after the ship docked and he, Nellis, Balasar, and Medrash hiked through the port to the gigantic structure beyond. An insect with scarlet fore- and hindwings and a spindly abdomen that made up more than half its length crouched at the base of the tower. For an instant it looked relatively small, as anything might look small in contrast to the looming mass of stone behind it. Then Khouryn spotted the elderly Imaskari man sitting on a chair in front of the beast. He was a mite in contrast with the dragonfly, which meant that in actuality the creature was as huge as Skuthosin.

Despite himself, the dwarf stopped short. So did the dragonborn. Nellis laughed. “It’s all right. Redwings look menacing, but they’re completely docile, and none more than old Drummer there. She and Qari have been carrying me up and down since I was a little boy.”

And in fact, the giant dragonfly did behave herself. As the travelers approached, she turned her head to regard them with her globular eyes and shook out her wings with a series of percussive snaps that, Khouryn suspected, might be responsible for her name, but that was all. Meanwhile, Qari rose stiffly from his chair to greet Nellis with the deference befitting a commoner greeting a grandee, but with genuine fondness as well.

“My companions and I need to see the empress,” Nellis said.

“Of course,” the old man said. “If you’ll all please step into the gondola.” He waved his hand at what amounted to an open wooden box. Ropes ran from the four corners to holes drilled in the chitin on Drummer’s belly.

When everyone was inside, Qari called, “Up! North side.” Wings a droning blur, Drummer rose into the air. The lines went taut, and, with a jerk, the gondola rose with her.

Khouryn took a long, steadying breath. Whether he was riding a griffon or a bat, he had no fear of flying because he was in control. But he wasn’t with this giant insect, and the knowledge gnawed at his nerves. He distracted himself by taking in the view.

With its countless ornately carved terraces, friezes, and windows, Skyclave certainly merited closer inspection, and so did the lands beyond. It was there that any resemblance to Djerad Thymar and the area around it broke down. The dragonborn’s bastion-city rose from a fertile plain. Skyclave, too, had a ring of farmland surrounding it, but east of that, crags stabbed upward, gorges split the ground, and earthmotes dotted the sky. The Imaskari likely needed flying beasts of burden to move travelers and goods across such difficult terrain.

Drummer set the gondola down on a projecting platform where a pair of sentries stood to either side of an entryway. The sentries recognized Nellis and saluted. He nodded in acknowledgment and sent one of them into the tower to announce his return and request an audience with his sovereign.

She didn’t keep him waiting long. He scarcely had time to give a silver coin to Qari before the guard reappeared to usher him and his companions inside.

The interior of the tower-or that part of it, anyway-turned out to consist of cool, spacious, high-ceilinged chambers lit with floating orbs of silvery magical glow. Those lamps were dimmer and less numerous than Khouryn might have expected. A moment earlier, he’d been standing high above the ground in bright, hot sunlight. But inside, for all that he was dwarf enough to tell the difference in a dozen different ways, he almost felt as if he’d somehow been whisked underground.

The illusion persisted when he entered the empress’s throne room. With its vaulted ceiling and surprisingly austere lines, it was an echoing, shadowy cavern of a hall. The courtiers who occupied it wore garments that, with their high collars, layers of shoulder cape, dangling sleeves, and trailing skirts, were flamboyant in cut but funereal in hue, which added to the general impression of gloom.

But Empress Ususi’s manner was warmer than the superficial appearance of her court. Stooped and wizened enough to make Qari seem young by comparison, so frail looking that one almost wondered how her wattled neck could support the weight of her golden circlet, she gave Nellis a smile. Then, however, her wrinkled face turned serious, if not positively bleak with care. “My friend. It’s an unexpected joy to see you. Although, since I didn’t recall you, I suspect that your return means more bad news.”

Nellis smiled. “Majesty, it’s my great joy to explain that appearances are deceiving. Tarhun didn’t expel me from his court or anything like that. Rather, I come with some of his most trusted lieutenants. Allow me to present Daardendrien Medrash and Daardendrien Balasar, officers of the Lance Defenders, Kanjentellequor Biri, a wizard attached to the same company, and Khouryn Skulldark, a sellsword who’s distinguished himself in the service of Tymanther.”

Ususi sighed and turned her gaze on the dragonborn and Khouryn. “And no doubt you come to ask again for military aid. It grieves me more than I can say that I must continue to refuse.”

Balasar grinned. “Don’t grieve on our account, Majesty. It’s true that Tymanther needs your help. But we mean to earn it by solving your problem first, so you won’t need your whole army on this side of the Alamber to ward off the beasts from the east.”

The empress hesitated. “And you truly believe you can accomplish this?”

“Yes,” said Medrash, “we do. We’ve learned that a dragon called Gestanius is sending the creatures to plague you. We know-more or less-how they’re making their way out of the desert and through the mountains. We believe that with the information-and the troops we brought with us-we can stop the raids.”

“Although,” Balasar said, “if you care to commit some of your own soldiers and mages to the effort, we won’t turn them down.”

Ususi turned back to Nellis. “And you believe they can do this?” she asked.

“I do,” Nellis said, “because I know what these very champions achieved in their recent war against the ash giants and the wyrms directing them. I also believe that with the empire under siege, you have little to lose and much to gain by giving them permission to undertake their expedition.”

“Except,” the ancient monarch said wryly, “that if we gain a stop to the raids, we also gain a war with Chessenta. That’s the bargain, is it not?”

“It is, Majesty,” Khouryn said, “but we hope it won’t come to that. We hope that once Tchazzar learns that High Imaskar stands with Tymanther, he’ll decide it’s too risky to invade.”

“From what I’ve heard of the Red Dragon,” Ususi said, “I wouldn’t absolutely count on that.”

“Well,” Medrash said, “then it comes down to this. Lord Nellis here, speaking on your behalf, has repeatedly assured us dragonborn that High Imaskar is our faithful friend and ally and would rush to our aid if only it weren’t fighting for its own survival. Was that the truth or hollow cant?”

The assembled courtiers seemed to catch their breath. Ususi regarded Medrash in silence for a moment. Then she said, “You have a… direct way of speaking, knight.”

“I’m a paladin of the Loyal Fury,” Medrash replied. “We say what we mean. And the knowledge that an army is even now mustering to attack my homeland makes me even less inclined to talk in circles.”

The empress smiled thinly. “Fortunately I’ve learned to appreciate directness. Probably it’s because I, too, feel I no longer have time to waste. But I need details. I need to hear how you learned what you claim to know. If your answers satisfy me, you can undertake your expedition, and if it succeeds, Tymanther and High Imaskar will face down Chessenta together.”

Cera was the only practitioner of healing magic in the company. But Son-liin had some rough-and-ready knowledge of how to clean and bandage wounds and splint broken bones. Perhaps her father had taught her so they could tend one another’s hurts when far from any other help in the wild.

Working together, they first addressed the needs of wounded genasi, of whom, thank the Yellow Sun, there were relatively few, then moved on to the injured drakes. Through it all, though she acted with brisk efficiency, the young stormsoul looked as if she might start crying.

Not because of the blood, Cera thought. She’s seen that before. Because she thinks it’s her fault.

They crouched down together beside the final wounded steed. It lay panting and trembling on its side, and bubbles swelled and popped into the blood flowing from the puncture wound in its chest.

Son-liin gave Cera a questioning look. Already knowing it was futile, she nevertheless took stock of herself and found only a hollow ache inside. For the time being, she’d exhausted her ability to channel Amaunator’s power, and no mundane remedy would suffice.

She shook her head. Son-liin murmured to the drake, stroked its head with one hand, and drew her hunting knife across its throat with the other.

As they were rising, Gaedynn sauntered over. Sidestepping a pool of blood, he said, “If you’re done, some of the fellows want to talk.”

“What about?” Cera asked.

“Oh, to congratulate this lass on her skill as a pathfinder, I imagine.”

Son-liin’s face twisted. Cera frowned at Gaedynn, and he gave her a shrug as a reply.

Then he led them toward a relatively broad patch of sand, where everyone could take his ease without having to sit in water. And “everyone” was pretty much the way of it. Most of the firestormers were headed for the spot as well. Perhaps, given that they were all volunteers, they all felt entitled to participate in a council of war. Meanwhile, Jet kept watch, soaring high overhead.

When everybody had flopped down where it suited him, Aoth, who’d found a mossy piece of log to perch on, said, “First let’s take note of our victory. This was no easy fight, and we only lost four men winning it. I’ll be honest with you. When we set out from Airspur, I wasn’t sure you fellows had what it takes to kill dragons. Now I am.”

His words had the desired effect on some of the firestormers. One earthsoul sat up straighter, another smiled and touched the stock of his crossbow, and a watersoul elbowed his firesoul friend in the side.

But not everyone basked in their new leader’s words of commendation. Some still looked sick and shaky from the desperate action they’d just fought, while others scowled.

Yemere was one of the latter. Glimmers flowing along the blue lines etching his silvery skin, he stood up and said, “That’s all very well, Captain, but we shouldn’t have been exposed to that particular danger in the first place. We consulted the maps back in the Motherhouse. We weighed all factors and chose the best route. We should have stuck to it, not deviated on a whim.”

“It was one of your own who suggested the deviation,” Gaedynn drawled. Perhaps to avoid dirtying his garments in the sand, he’d ordered Eider to lie down, then sprawled atop her as if she were a divan. His fingers scratched in the bronze-colored feathers at the base of her neck, and her eyes closed in bliss.

“But it was Captain Fezim who ordered it,” Yemere replied.

“Yes,” said Aoth, “it was. So if you think anyone can fairly be blamed for not knowing about something that only happens occasionally on a patch of earth in the middle of the wilderness, blame me. But let me ask you this: Did you believe we could travel this region without running into anything dangerous? Isn’t that why your Cabal formed in the first place? Because the outlying parts of Akanul are dangerous?”

“Yes,” said Mardiz-sul. “That’s exactly why.”

“But it isn’t the point,” Yemere said. “The point is whether this outlander is the right man to lead our expedition. People say he won some notable victories in his day. But not lately. Not in Thay and Impiltur.”

Aoth took a long breath that, to Cera’s eye, conveyed as eloquently as any words just how sick he was of having his supposed failures in those two campaigns thrown in his face.

“I learned to fight in the legions of old Thay,” he said, “one of the finest armies Faerun has ever seen. I’ve spent the past hundred years sharpening my skills in wars throughout the East. What are your qualifications to lead, Sir Yemere?”

“I don’t want to lead,” the windsoul noble said. “But in light of what just happened, I do wonder why we aren’t following Mardiz-sul.”

Some of the assembly muttered in agreement.

Mardiz-sul held up his hand. “Please. I’m honored that my comrades trust me. But if you really do, then trust my judgment. I agreed that Captain Fezim should command because I’m convinced it’s the best way to accomplish our purpose.”

Son-liin stood up. “If there’s anybody here who’s lost any claim on your trust, it’s me.”

“How true,” Gaedynn said.

“So hate me if you want to,” she continued, “for the sake of those who died. But don’t let it turn you against our leaders or our mission. I came upon one of the slaughtered villages not long after the raiders struck. I saw all the bodies, even children and babies, hacked to pieces. If this Vairshekellabex is responsible, then the firestormers need to kill him.”

“Like I said before,” said Aoth, “if there’s any blame to assign, it belongs to me, who made the decision to ride through this gorge. But the rest of what Son-liin said is on the mark. We came out here to do a job, and it’s just as important now as it was before.”

Cera rose. “It’s more than important,” she said. “It’s a holy quest, and Amaunator will support us as we fight to accomplish it. Surely you realize that it was his power that kept the blue mist from transforming every drake. Or us, for that matter.”

“We believe you,” said an earthsoul. “It’s just… those things. I mean, if dragons are anything like that…”

“They are,” said Aoth, “but I swear by the Black Flame that Gaedynn and I have killed them before. And when we kill Vairshekellabex, you fellows will be heroes. The girls in Airspur will fight over you like magpies.”

That made some of the firestormers grin, and Yemere, apparently recognizing that he’d failed to convince them, withdrew into sullen silence. By the time the assembly broke up, Cera judged that morale was about as high as anyone could reasonably expect. Yet the fact remained that most of the genasi weren’t hard men like Aoth, accustomed to sudden mayhem and horror, and she wondered if their spirits would hold in the face of more ill fortune. She prayed they wouldn’t have to find out.

Then the misery manifest in Son-liin’s expression recalled her to more immediate concerns. Wishing she could infuse her hand with some of the Keeper’s comforting warmth, she put it on the genasi’s shoulder. “Aoth was right,” she said. “There was no way for you to know, and so you have no reason to feel guilty.”

“Maybe I do,” Son-liin said. “I… I think my father told me to beware of traveling the canyon in high summer. But I didn’t remember! Not until after the blue fog rose!”

Oraxes raised the leather dice cup to his mouth and blew magic into it. But his intention was not to cheat, not anymore, profitable though it might have been. He considered himself an officer of sorts, especially with Aoth currently in the west and Jhesrhi in the south, and petty swindles were beneath his newly acquired dignity.

As he threw the eight carved ivory cubes, he spoke a monosyllabic word of power and reached after them with his mind. For a moment he fumbled the contact-a little too much beer dulling his edge-but then his power locked on to them.

First, he made them jump like maddened crickets, clattering and bouncing. Then he forbade them to fall back onto the dice table. Instead, his will floated them higher and higher, whirling them around one another all the while.

He raised them almost to the smoke-blackened oak beams supporting the ceiling before letting them drop, and even then, he kept control of them. They bounced around a little more then stacked themselves into a tower where they finally came to rest.

His audience, a mixture of hunters, sailors, soldiers, and whores, whooped and applauded. Someone slapped him on the back. He glanced around and gave Meralaine a wink, and she smiled back. He’d learned early on that she wasn’t as fond of raucous taverns as he was, but she seemed to be enjoying herself. And why not? They’d come a long way from the bad old days in Luthcheq, when just the green tattoos on their hands, let alone an actual demonstration of arcane power, could have earned them a beating or worse.

Another hand fell on his shoulder. He turned and looked into the beak-nosed, bushy-browed face of Ramed, a sellsword he’d first met during the siege of Soolabax. In fact, it was Ramed who’d saved him from falling off the top of the wall.

“My friend!” Oraxes said. “Have a drink on me!”

“You have to come with me,” Ramed answered. “Meralaine too. Right away.”

Oraxes started to ask why, then realized that might be indiscreet with so many folk loitering close enough to overhear the answer. He smiled and gave a wave to his audience, then beckoned to Meralaine. She picked up her slim bone wand where it lay within easy reach of her dainty-looking hand, and rose. They followed Ramed out into the night.

Alasklerbanbastos’s war had brought an influx of coin to Mourktar as the mercenaries the dracolich had hired passed through the port. Most of those warriors were gone, in many cases added to Tchazzar’s army in the south, but the town still clung to a fading air of celebration. The windows of taverns and festhalls burned bright, and music lilted through. It was as if the proprietors couldn’t bring themselves to admit the boom was over.

But it mostly was, and once Oraxes and his companions had progressed a few paces down the rutted, muddy street, Oraxes judged that they had enough privacy to converse. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“A wyrmkeeper showed up,” Ramed said. “He’s got a paper with Tchazzar’s seal on it. Apparently it authorizes him to get a report from Captain Fezim about how the hunt for the rebels is going.” Oraxes inferred that Ramed was as illiterate as most men who followed his trade and hadn’t been able to read the document for himself.

“Did you tell him the captain is away on patrol?”

“Yes,” said Ramed. “He said he’ll wait.”

“Well,” said Oraxes, “let him wait, then. Maybe Lady Luck will smile, and Captain Fezim and the others will get back soon.”

The soldier shook his head. “That’s a lot to hope for. It’s a ways to Akanul, even on griffons, and it wasn’t an easy chore they had to tackle once they got there.”

“And what if the wyrmkeeper starts asking questions,” said Meralaine, “and some of the other sellswords say they haven’t seen Aoth or Gaedynn in days? What if they say their officers have marched them this way and that, but they haven’t seen a trace of renegade necromancers or any other leftover enemies?”

“Right,” Oraxes said. The tipsiness that had seemed so exhilarating in the tavern was like a blanket smothering his ability to think. He took a deep breath in an effort to clear it away. “We can’t just let him hang around. We need to send him on his way, and that means we need either Captain Fezim or someone who can pass for him. Ramed, I’m going to shroud you in his appearance.”

The sellsword goggled at him. “Me?”

“Yes. You’re an officer of the Brotherhood, and the captain let you in on the secret of what’s going on before he left. You’re the perfect man for the job.”

Ramed shook his head. “Truly, lad, I don’t think so. I’m a warrior, not a player. I’d botch it.”

“He’s right,” said Meralaine. She was standing right beside Oraxes, but it was still oddly difficult to see her features clearly. It was as though the darkness had stained her with itself. “You’re the illusionist, and if you conjure a mask, it will fit you better than it would anyone else.”

“But I’m not a warrior,” Oraxes said.

Meralaine smirked. “That’s not what you think to yourself when you’re swaggering around with that pot on your head.”

Oraxes felt his face grow hot. “I’m saying that I won’t be able to answer questions the way a veteran soldier would.”

“But we can hope,” Ramed said, “that the dragon priest won’t ask difficult questions. After all, he’s not a soldier, either.”

“And your magic,” said Meralaine, “will lend an air of plausibility to anything you say.”

Oraxes shook his head. “I still don’t think-”

She raised her hand to cut him off. “This is why Captain Fezim left us here, so if it was needed, we’d do what only wizards can. And you can do this. Ramed and I will help you.”

He took a breath. “You’re right, curse it.” He looked around and found the mouth of a narrow, litter-choked alley even darker than the street. He waved at it. “Let’s duck in there.”

“You don’t have to do it right now,” said Meralaine.

He grinned. “Don’t worry. The prospect of what’s to come is sobering me up fast. And it’s like you said. We want to send the wyrmkeeper back to Luthcheq before he talks to a bunch of other people.”

He took off the steel and leather helmet Meralaine had mocked, then started the magic by writing runes on a clapboard wall. His fingertip trailed blue phosphorescence. Ramed kept watch and stood in such a way as to hide the two wizards from anyone who might happen to pass in the street.

After he finished writing, Oraxes murmured rhymes in dactylic hexameter. Meralaine whispered contrapuntal responses. They hadn’t practiced performing that particular ritual together, nor did he understand the language she was speaking. But he could feel how her efforts supported his own, and it made sense that they would. Darkness and deception were natural allies.

As his recitation progressed, he gradually raised his hands to his head. He ran them through his hair and imagined it falling away. He felt it just as if it were really happening. He shifted his hands to his face and molded it like clay, reshaping his sharp features into Aoth Fezim’s blunt ones and branding them with the Thayan’s black tattoos.

As he reached the final line of the spell, he touched his eyes with his forefingers, and, as though lighting a pair of candles, commanded a blue glow to flower inside each one. For a moment he felt a double pulse of warmth.

He lowered his hands. “Well?”

Meralaine smiled. “It’s good. You look like him and sound like him too.”

Ramed turned and his eyes widened. “She’s right! You truly do!”

Oraxes snorted. “You don’t have to sound so surprised about it.” He put his helmet back on, looked around for Aoth’s spear, and found it leaning against the wall. Naturally he knew it was just another piece of the illusion, but the deception would be stronger if there were a part of him that didn’t know, and when he closed his fingers around it, the ash shaft felt solid and smooth. “Let’s go see the wyrmkeeper before the magic starts to wear away.”

Even if Ramed hadn’t come to find him, he would have known something was different even before they reached the Brotherhood’s camp on the outskirts of town. Griffons were screeching when they should have been asleep, and when he came within sight of Aoth’s pavilion he saw the reason. Leathery wings folded, saddles cinched to their torsos, four drakkensteeds crouched on the ground near the entrance. Created from the blood of wyrms, or so Oraxes understood, the reptiles looked like scrawny, runt dragons with unusually long necks and probably smelled like them as well. So it was no wonder their proximity agitated beasts that had just helped their masters fight a war against dragons.

It agitated Oraxes for a different reason. “You said there was one wyrmkeeper!”

“One main one,” Ramed said, “and three underlings. Convince the leader, and you’ll be fine.”

“Each of them surely has some skill with his own kind of magic,” Oraxes said. “Any one of them could see through-” He heard the whine in his voice and made himself stop. “Forget it. You’re right. Let’s do this.”

One of the drakkensteeds growled as they approached. The sellsword sentry in front of the tent came to attention and saluted. Responding as he’d seen Aoth acknowledge such shows of respect, Oraxes gave the warrior a clap on the shoulder as he passed by.

The wyrmkeepers inside the tent had made themselves free with Aoth’s possessions. They were working on their second bottle of wine and, by the looks of it, rummaging through bundles of dispatches and the like. All four were unmistakably priests of Tiamat, their garments and jewelry marked with the draconic imagery and pentad motifs emblematic of their faith. But the big man seated in Aoth’s favorite camp chair had carried things further. He had a scaly pattern tattooed on his hands and neck, and when he smiled, he revealed teeth filed to points.

“Captain Fezim,” he said, rising. “Good evening. I’m the wyrmlord Sphorrid Nyra.”

“And this is Meralaine,” Oraxes replied. “She’s one of the wizards the war hero assigned to help the Brotherhood accomplish its tasks.”

Sphorrid’s eyes flicked to Meralaine then back again. “I hope you don’t mind that my acolytes and I made ourselves comfortable. From what this fellow was able to tell us”-he indicated Ramed with a vague gesture-“I was afraid you might not return for a tenday.”

“No one can predict exactly how long it will take to fly over half a province,” Oraxes said.

“I imagine that’s especially true when you wander off by yourself,” Sphorrid said. “Do the masters of sellsword armies typically behave that way?”

The question ratcheted Oraxes’s nerves a little tighter. But he told himself that Sphorrid hadn’t really seen through his disguise, nor did he know anything about Aoth’s plans. Otherwise, the whoreson wouldn’t bother with this particular line of conversation. He might be suspicious, but he was just fishing.

“When I was a young legionnaire,” Oraxes said, “I was often sent on scouting missions. I guess old habits die hard. And sometimes one man can catch foes who’d spot a whole company coming over the horizon and scurry for cover. You may have heard that I was searching alone when I found the cellar where Sunlady Eurthos was being held and tortured.”

Sphorrid’s eyes narrowed at the implication of hostility. But so be it. Oraxes was fairly sure that Aoth wouldn’t have tied himself in knots trying to be cordial. So he supposed he shouldn’t either.

“I understood,” said the priest, “that that incident had been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“Yes,” Oraxes said, “but you’ll also understand if the sunlady doesn’t feel inclined to partake of the pleasure of your company.”

“No matter,” said Sphorrid. “Our business is with you.” He proffered a roll of parchment, no doubt the same one he’d waved in front of Ramed.

Oraxes looked it over without haste, as he imagined Aoth would have done. At the top, the listing of Tchazzar’s titles went on for line after line, but once he waded through those, the sense of the rest was clear enough. He rolled it back up and tossed it on the trestle table beside the wine bottles.

“If His Majesty wants to know what I’m doing,” he said, “he could have just asked for a written report. I was planning to send one anyway.”

“He thought I might be able to provide additional insight,” Sphorrid said. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the reconnaissance you just concluded? What did the lone man see that an entire company would have missed?”

Oraxes swallowed. “It will be easiest to show you on a map,” he said, then realized he didn’t remember where Aoth kept them. He looked around and felt a twinge of alarm when he failed to spot them. But, like a dutiful subordinate, Ramed hurried across the tent, opened a chest, lifted out a roll of lambskin, and spread it on the tabletop.

That left Oraxes to concoct a tale of flying and searching from place to place and to stuff it with enough detail to make it convincing. Sphorrid put up with the tedious story for a while, but finally said. “Excuse me, Captain, but let’s stab to the heart of the matter. Did you find some trace of rebel holdouts and traitor necromancers or not?”

Oraxes took a breath and pointed at a place on the map that was a little farther along his imaginary route. “Right here, on a hill overlooking the crossroads, there was a campsite where someone burned a carving of a red dragon in the fire. The scraps of wood that survived had symbols of hatred and murder cut into them.”

Sphorrid gave him a skeptical look. “I thought you were searching for cunning, dangerous wizards, not folk so dim they’d try to curse a red wyrm with a ritual involving flame.”

Inwardly Oraxes winced. If he weren’t so nervous, he wouldn’t have slipped up like that! “The intent is the important thing.”

“With respect, Captain, the important thing is whether you’re making any real progress. If not, Chessenta could use your sellswords in the campaign against the dragonborn. The Church can pursue the work of ferreting out rebels and blasphemers closer to home.”

Meralaine laughed. Both Oraxes and Sphorrid turned to her in surprise.

“I’m sorry, my lords,” she said. “Truly. But it’s comical to see you scowl and bluster when there’s nothing to quarrel about.”

The wyrmkeeper cocked his head. “Explain.”

“Captain Fezim has a methodical mind,” she said. “It’s probably what makes him a good commander. But it also makes him a dull storyteller, and tonight is a case in point. His inclination is to describe every step of his journey instead of skipping to the discovery in the end. But I’ve already suffered through the tale once, so I can tell you the trail eventually led him to a place where His Majesty’s enemies meet to scheme and work their sorcery. The site of an ancient battle in the Sky Riders.”

Oraxes assumed she meant the place where she and Alasklerbanbastos had summoned the dead to frighten Tchazzar. “Yes,” he said, touching his finger to the map again, “right here.”

Sphorrid smiled a wry, less arrogant smile that almost made him likable for a moment. “The wizard’s right, Captain. We could have had a less contentious discussion if you’d told me this at the start. But never mind. Just tell me what you intend to do about it.”

What indeed? “According to my information,” Oraxes said, “the coven will gather tomorrow night. We’ll attack them when they do. If we sneak up on them with a small force, maybe we can take them alive and interrogate them. Then we can find out if they’re agents of Jaxanaedegor, diehards loyal to the memory of Alasklerbanbastos, or maybe even in the pay of the dragonborn.”

Sphorrid narrowed his eyes and considered. Then he said, “That does sound like a sensible way to proceed. My acolytes and I will accompany you, of course.”

“Fine,” Oraxes said. “But for now, I’ve had a long journey, and this is my tent. Ramed will find you suitable quarters and provide for your mounts as well.”

After the wyrmkeepers left, he flopped down in a chair. Meralaine grinned at him. “You were wonderful,” she said. She picked up the half-empty wine bottle, took a swig, then brought it to him.

“Did I say what you wanted me to say?” he asked. “When you started talking about a coven and the place in the hills, I had to guess.”

“You read my mind exactly. It was clear that the only way to satisfy the bastards is to actually show them some rebels. So we will.”

“Are there any ghosts left haunting that patch of ground? You and Alasklerbanbastos raised a bunch of them, and then those were all destroyed.”

“I’ll call some new ones somehow.”

He smiled. “And then we use them to put on another pantomime. Why not? If the trick fooled Tchazzar, it ought to fool his servants too.”

Her silver-skewer piercings gleaming in the glow of the floating orbs of light, Biri walked toward Balasar, and he felt the usual contradictory pulls, the inclination to enjoy the undeniable pleasure of her company pitting itself against the urge to draw away. But at the moment, there was really no question of how he would behave. A warrior of Clan Daardendrien didn’t spurn a comrade in a strange and dangerous place.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “After Nellis Saradexma vouched for us, the empress accepted our offer. She even loaned us the big red dragonflies so we could get to the mountains faster. But these men act like they don’t want our help.”

She was referring to the Imaskari soldiers and war wizards who’d accompanied the dragonborn into the caverns. Uniformed in somber colors, their pale skins mottled with dark streaks and spots in a way that, so far as Balasar was aware, made them unique among humans, they were courteous enough. But when they thought no outlander was looking, their expressions betrayed varying degrees of skepticism, amusement, and impatience.

“I think it’s a matter of professional pride,” Balasar murmured back. “They already explored these particular tunnels. They couldn’t find a path that leads all the way under the Dragonswords to the desert beyond. So it will make them look inept if somebody else does.”

“But Khouryn is a dwarf.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to them that it does to us. Not if they believe they’re just as at home underground as his people are.”

Biri gave him a puzzled look. “Is that what they believe?”

“I don’t know and don’t intend to ask. If it’s not already common knowledge, they may not want outsiders to know. But have you ever wondered where they spent all those centuries between the fall of their old empire and the founding of the new one? Or why the new one is called High Imaskar?”

She smiled at him. “You think like a wizard.”

He normally took compliments as his due, but for some reason, hers always disconcerted him, although he trusted it didn’t show. “I doubt that. My poor tutors had to thrash me on a regular basis just to inspire me to learn my letters and numbers.”

She chuckled then her face turned serious again. “Do you think the Imaskari could be right that there’s nothing to find?”

He shrugged. “Alasklerbanbastos didn’t show Jhesrhi where to search. He just told her. Then she passed the information along to Khouryn when they were mainly worried about sneaking him out of the War College. So it could have gotten muddled along the way. But I doubt it. Jhesrhi and Khouryn are both sharp, and Gestanius’s creatures have to be slithering under the mountains somewhere. Why don’t we go inquire how things are going?”

They headed for the front of the column. Warriors of the Platinum Cadre greeted them or nodded as they passed. Like any sensible dragonborn, Balasar had no use for religion, and a wyrm-worshiping religion least of all. But he was still glad the cultists had forgiven him for infiltrating their fellowship to spy.

Peering in all directions, Khouryn was prowling around at the point where the pale, steady shine of the floating orbs faded out. He’d explained that was intentional. There were things a dwarf could see in the dark but not in the light and vice versa. Operating at the leading edge of the illumination made it easy to switch back and forth between the two modes of sight.

“Anything?” Balasar asked.

“Not yet,” Khouryn said. He turned toward Biri. “I noticed you and a couple of the Imaskari wizards casting a spell a while back.”

She shrugged. “More divination. It didn’t reveal anything. But that could be because Gestanius has countermeasures in place.”

“I imagine it is,” Balasar said. “But saying so won’t keep our new friends from getting restless. They’re going to want to turn back pretty soon.”

“We have lanterns,” Biri replied, and Balasar liked the matter-of-fact way in which she said it.

“That we do,” he said. “Still-”

“Look at that,” Khouryn said.

Balasar turned. The dwarf was using his new battle-axe, a cherished heirloom and gift from the Daardendriens, to point at a spot where the high wall met the vaulted ceiling.

Balasar squinted then said, “I don’t see anything.”

Khouryn grinned, a flash of white teeth inside his bushy beard. “Good.” He waved for Medrash, Nellis, and Jemleh Bluerhine to come forward.

Predictably Medrash looked keen as a newly honed dagger to learn what was afoot. Clad in a black greatcoat with four layers of shoulder cape, the crystal globe that served as his arcane focus cradled against his chest, Nellis appeared almost as eager. The diplomat had been startled when Tarhun ordered him to join the expedition, but at some point on the sea voyage, his attitude had shifted, and he was enjoying himself.

It was Jemleh who advanced in a more leisurely fashion. Tall for a human, the Imaskari commander wore the same sort of ink black greatcoat as Nellis. But his had an oval onyx clasp to hold the high collar shut, and he carried a cane with a crook carved from the same stone to help him cast his spells.

“What do you need?” he asked.

Khouryn pointed as he had before. “It looks to me like there’s a rift at the very top of the wall, right before it bends out and turns into ceiling. It’s hard to see because it’s almost beyond the reach of the lights, and because of the way the stone humps out to either side. That makes it look like just an indentation, not the start of another tunnel.”

Jemleh squinted at it for a couple of heartbeats. “I think it is just an indentation.”

Biri smiled. “We don’t have to speculate.” She murmured a rhyme and pressed her hands together as though making a snowball. Between them appeared an orb of light like the ones the Imaskari had conjured except that the glow was golden, not silvery. She tossed it and it floated upward.

Its radiance spilled into a gap broad enough to allow the passage of even the biggest creatures assailing High Imaskar. It would be tight for the largest ones, but they could squirm through. Balasar felt a pang of excitement.

“You have good eyes,” Jemleh told Khouryn. “I admit we never noticed that. But you don’t know that it goes anywhere. There could be a back wall just beyond reach of the light.”

Balasar grinned. “It’s like the lady said. We don’t have to speculate.”

“Right,” said Medrash. “We don’t.” He turned and beckoned for a couple of warriors of the Cadre to come forward. Jemleh achieved a similar result by pointing to a pair of Imaskari soldiers with his cane.

Nellis conjured another ball of light and floated it halfway up the wall. Gripping a first handhold, Medrash started to climb. Other men-at-arms followed. Meanwhile, the two Imaskari mages muttered incantations that Balasar realized were the same, perhaps a charm to enhance their strength or agility. Biri didn’t, though. Smiling, she simply awaited her turn to begin the ascent.

Balasar stuck close to her as they pulled themselves up. But there were plenty of places to grip or plant one’s toes, and she didn’t need any help. Above them, one of the Cadre warriors hauled himself up onto the floor of the gap and swore softly.

When Balasar reached the top, he saw what the excitement was about. Though it was impossible to know how far it extended, he and his companions had entered a cave every bit as spacious as the one below. He found it vaguely disquieting that such a prominent feature had gone undetected. It made him imagine a whole world riddled with lightless, secret spaces whose existence no dragonborn ever suspected, even when they were right above his head, beneath his feet, or within arm’s reach.

Mainly, though, it made him eager to press on. He looked around for Medrash and Khouryn; then everything went black.

He realized some countermagic had put out Biri’s light. He snatched out his broadsword; he and Medrash had left their greatswords behind in Skyclave, the Imaskari capital. The larger weapons were fine for showing what important fellows they’d become, but they preferred the blades with which they’d practiced all their lives when it was actually time to fight.

Khouryn bellowed, “Troglodytes!” Then came a thunk that was likely his axe cleaving flesh. An Imaskari yelled something in his own language. Perhaps trying to make a new light, Biri rattled off a spell in dactylic trimeter.

Balasar smelled a putrid odor. Instinct prompted him to pivot to the right and cut. His blade sliced something that gave a hissing screech. At the same time, he felt something sweep past his head as his foe’s attack, whatever it had been, just missed him.

Then amber radiance flared through the cave, revealing that their foes did indeed appear to be troglodytes, cave-dwelling reptilian savages like stunted parodies of dragonborn. But they had long necks like the creatures that had attacked Balasar and his companions beside the Methmere, skins that gleamed like quicksilver, and a quicksilver fluidity to their movements.

The cave started flickering from light to dark as Biri’s magic fought the power that sought to snuff her conjured glow. It made everything appear to move in a series of sickening, disorienting jerks.

Balasar had gashed his particular foe across the snout. It was hardly a mortal wound, and he followed up with a lunge. But the creature melted into shapelessness as if it really were made of liquid metal, flowed and splashed out of reach of the attack, and reformed itself. Its jaws opened.

Balasar abruptly remembered that the long-necked reptiles beside the Methmere had possessed breath weapons. He sidestepped, held his own breath, and lifted his buckler to cover his face.

A jet of vapor washed over him. His eyes burned and filled with tears. But in spite of them, and the flickering, he could just make out the troglodyte rushing him. He ducked a stroke of its flint-studded war club and thrust his point up under its ribs. It collapsed and Biri cried out behind him.

He turned. Two troglodytes had grabbed her by the arms, a tactic that deprived her of the use of any spell requiring mystical gestures, and were wrestling her toward the edge of the drop. She started shouting words of power, but Balasar doubted she could finish the incantation in the moment she had left.

He jerked his sword out of the creature he’d just killed, rushed Biri’s assailants, and slashed the throat of the one on the left. The other let go of her and pounced at him with raking claws and snapping fangs. He jumped out of the way, killed the thing with a cut to the spine, and only then recognized that he himself was teetering on the very lip of the drop. The wretched flickering was still playing tricks on his eyes. He heaved himself forward and banged down on his knees. It hurt but it was preferable to plunging to his death.

The ambient light belatedly grew brighter and steadier. Several paces away, Medrash had set the blade of his sword shining with Torm’s power. Peering around, Balasar was relieved to see that only a couple of his comrades were down. No doubt that was because there actually weren’t all that many quicksilver troglodytes, and those there were had only primitive weapons. Apparently they’d counted on their breath attacks and the explorers’ blindness to even the odds.

Well, you lose that wager, Balasar thought. He chose another foe, but before he could reach it, Khouryn stepped up behind the creature and chopped its head half off. Balasar oriented on still another just in time to watch Medrash drive his sword into its torso.

And that was the end of that. As the last troglodyte’s legs crumpled beneath it, Nellis and Jemleh clambered up into the chamber.

“Perfect timing,” Balasar said.

Nellis, who’d gotten used to his sense of humor, smiled and made an obscene gesture in response. Jemleh glowered. Biri giggled.

Peering down the passage that stretched away before them, Khouryn flung some of the gore from his axe with a snap of his wrist. “I’m now reasonably sure this is the right path,” he said. “Does anyone disagree?”

“It remains to be seen,” Jemleh said. “But I admit, the troglodytes were sentries. And you don’t post sentries where there’s nothing to protect.”

“And if I’m not mistaken,” Medrash said, “these sentries were akin to some of the creatures that served Skuthosin. The ones the giant shamans summoned with their talismans.”

Khouryn took a rag from the pouch on his belt and wiped more blood from his weapon. “We should rig some ropes,” he said, “so the rest of the company can climb up here without it taking all-look!”

Balasar peered down the new tunnel and felt a stab of alarm when he saw the dragon glaring back at him.

Crouching at the edge of the light, it gleamed like the quicksilver troglodytes. Its head had a pair of short horns curling forward under the jaws and two longer ones curving back behind the eyes. Its body was serpent-slim, and Balasar could just make out the lashing tail all but concealed behind its wings.

He and his fellow warriors came on guard. The wizards lifted their arcane implements and started chanting, at which point the wyrm fled-but not by turning and retreating up the tunnel. Instead, it dissolved and flowed sideways, pouring itself through a narrow crack in the granite. It took only a heartbeat, and then it was gone. The mages’ voices trailed off, leaving their incantations unfinished. The forces that had been accumulating around them dissipated in crackling showers of sparks.

“The real guardian of the way,” Biri said.

“And we scared it off,” said Nellis.

Balasar grinned. “Don’t feel too smug. I imagine we’ll see it again. It just means to fight us at a place and moment of its choosing.”

Still, he shared the wizard’s good humor because he and his comrades clearly had found Gestanius’s secret path, and the dragonborn had contended with wyrms before.

But when everyone had made the climb into the new cave and the expedition was arranging itself in the proper marching order, he noticed that not all of his comrades looked eager. Vishva had a clenched, dour set to her jaw.

That wouldn’t do. She was one of the mainstays of the Cadre, and if she lost her nerve, it might well prove contagious.

Balasar sauntered over to her and murmured, “Buck up. We beat Skuthosin, didn’t we?”

The cultist glowered. “I’m not afraid.”

“Then what is wrong?”

“From the description, the creature you saw down the tunnel was a quicksilver dragon. A metallic.”

Balasar shrugged. “If you say so.”

“Skuthosin and the dragons who served him were chromatics,” Vishva said. “Children of Tiamat. It made perfect sense that they were doing evil. But metallics are the children of Bahamut. So why is this one helping Gestanius?”

“Did you ever listen to the old stories and songs?” Balasar replied. “Our ancestors had all sorts of wyrms eating and enslaving them in the world that was.”

“I know that!” Vishva snapped. “I’m not an idiot. But those dragons didn’t know the gods. The ones here do. It ought to make a difference.”

Balasar didn’t know what to say to that. “Just promise me that when the quicksilver drake comes back, you’ll fight, whether you think it’s supposed to be friendly or not.”

“Of course.” Vishva shook her head, and the ropelike scales dangling at the back rattled together. “But truly, I don’t understand.”