Whisper of Venom

ONE

20 MIRTUL, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS NE (1479 DR)

It started out the way it was supposed to. The two teams of dragonborn approached one another in formation, each warrior in the front lines covering himself with his shield. They jabbed at the fighters on the other side with the padded lengths of wood that represented spears. When a fellow was hit, he kneeled down to indicate he was a casualty, and the soldier waiting behind him shifted forward to take his place.

But then everyone got excited. If a warrior pushed a foeman back, he lunged forward to chase him. The dragonborn waiting in the rear grew impatient and either tried to shove forward prematurely or swarmed out of the formation to engage an opponent. What had been a clash between two organized squads dissolved into an amorphous brawl.

“No!” bellowed Khouryn Skulldark. “No, no, no! Break it up!”

Some of the combatants heard and obeyed. Some kept fighting.

Khouryn understood that. Dragonborn and dwarves possessed a similar fighting spirit. It was one reason he felt at home among the manlike saurians.

But the vanquisher’s troops weren’t in the muddy field to entertain themselves. They were there to train. Khouryn strode in among those who were still fighting and rapped knees with his cudgel. His smaller stature allowed him to do so without too much concern that a stray thrust or cut from a practice weapon would score on him.

Finally, everyone calmed down. Then he took up a position in front of them, and they all stared down at him expectantly, some no doubt with veiled resentment or apprehension, as so many trainees had before them.

“That was pitiful,” he said. “My blind, one-legged granny fights better than that. Why is it so difficult to stay in the damn formation? Stand where you’re supposed to stand and hold your shield where it’s supposed to be, so it protects your neighbor and yourself. Stay alert for chances to stick the enemy who’s in front of your comrade. A lot of the time he’s not looking at you, and that makes it easy to hit him.”

“In other words, fight like a coward,” muttered a yellow-eyed, bronze-scaled warrior standing behind two others. He had two copper owl-shaped piercings-the emblem of Clan Linxakasendalor-gleaming in the left side of his blunt snout.

Khouryn smiled at him. “What was that?”

The Linxakasendalor looked momentarily taken aback. For some reason, such grumblers never expected the instructor to catch what they said.

But then he glowered. Since Khouryn had found him out, he figured he might as well stand up for his opinions.

“I meant, sir,” he said, “with all respect, that this isn’t how dragonborn fight. It isn’t how our ancestors fought when they won their freedom.”

Others muttered in support of his opinion.

Khouryn raised his voice to cut through the drone. “Then it’s a wonder they prevailed. You’ll notice you’re not prevailing. The giants are kicking your soldiers from one end of Black Ash Plain to the other.”

“We’ll beat them in the end,” said the Linxakasendalor. “We always have.”

“Maybe,” Khouryn said. “But not by doing the same things you’ve always done. The giants are fighting differently, and you have to fight differently too. Now, I could go on trying to pound that simple truth into your thick skulls. Or I could remind you that Tarhun hired me to train you, so you have to do as I say whatever you think. But I’m not going to do either of those things. Do you know why? Because I heard the word coward.”

The Linxakasendalor blinked. “Sir, I didn’t mean that personally.”

“I don’t care a rat’s whisker what you meant. Come here. And you, and you.” He pointed to two other dragonborn, and the trio emerged from the crowd. “The three of you are going to try to stun, cripple, or otherwise incapacitate me, and I’ll do the same to you. At the end of it all, everyone can judge for himself whether I know enough about fighting to teach you anything.”

The three exchanged glances. Perhaps it was their sense of honor that balked them. The average dragonborn possessed that in abundance-another characteristic they shared with dwarves-and three against one must have seemed like long odds, especially when each of the three towered over the one.

“Do it!” Khouryn roared.

The three fanned out, plainly intending to surround him. As Khouryn had learned fighting among them on the journey from Chessenta and on Black Ash Plain, dragonborn were capable of using teamwork when a situation called for it. But only the teamwork that came naturally. It hadn’t traditionally been a part of their martial training.

Khouryn feinted a step to the right, then whirled and raced left, straight at a warrior with silvery scales. The reptile thrust with his practice spear. Khouryn dodged and then he was inside the reach of the weapon, where it was more or less useless.

The dragonborn tried to clout him with his oval shield. He had good technique, but Khouryn was expecting the attack and evaded it as well. He stepped up beside the warrior and clubbed him in the knee, using almost enough strength to break it.

The silver-scaled saurian fell onto both knees. By then his comrades were rushing in, but his body shielded Khouryn for a heartbeat. Long enough to bash him in the head, make his steel and leather helmet-fashioned with holes so his crest of thick, scaly tendrils like braided hair could flop out the back-clank, and lay him out in the trodden muck and the new spring grass.

Khouryn scuttled backward. His foot slipped, and a spear thrust nearly cost him some teeth. He whirled his baton in a circular parry and slapped the attack out of line less than a finger-length from his mouth.

By the time he felt sure of his balance, he had his opponents’ patterns and rhythms too. When they both jabbed, missed, and pulled their spears back at the same moment, he charged between them. When they tried to follow the motion and keep their long weapons pointed at him, they more or less tangled together.

Dragonborn were big, but they weren’t ogres. Khouryn had no trouble stabbing the one with the dark green scales in the throat with the end of his club. Once again he was careful not to kill. The warrior just reeled, dropped his spear, and clutched his neck while making choking sounds.

Hoping to end the fight, Khouryn rounded on his remaining opponent, only to find that the Linxakasendalor had been too quick. He’d retreated, taking himself beyond Khouryn’s reach and reestablishing the proper distance to use his spear.

He wasn’t attacking though. Maybe Khouryn had thrown a scare into him-although given that he was a dragonborn, it was more likely he was simply taking his time.

Hoping to goad him into doing something reckless, Khouryn grinned and said, “Now in East Rift, where I come from, we say a fellow fights like a coward if he hangs back while his friends take all the chances.”

It worked a little too well. The Linxakasendalor’s face twisted, and he sucked in a breath. He meant to spit frost, fire, or something equally unpleasant, a trick the dragonborn shared with actual wyrms.

And here was Khouryn without a shield to block the spew. He hadn’t appropriated one because he wanted to impress, and fighting with only the baton was impressive. Right up until the moment he got frozen solid or burned to cinders.

The Linxakasendalor’s head jerked forward, and his jaws opened. Pearly frost streamed out.

Khouryn dodged left. The edge of the jet still gave him a chill, but nothing worse. He rushed the Linxakasendalor, knocked his spear out of line, and rammed the end of the baton into his gut. The dragonborn grunted and doubled over. The involuntary movement brought his head within easy reach. Khouryn hit him in the temple, and that was that.

Controlling his breathing-the win was supposed to look easy, after all-Khouryn turned, surveyed the rest of the troops, and judged that he had indeed impressed them.

“You see?” he asked. “That’s how a small fighter-and we’re all of us small compared to ash giants-turns his size to his advantage. That’s part of what I’m trying to teach you. Now, somebody clear these fools out of the way until they’re ready to resume the training. I want to see the rest of you fight the Beast. Move!”

The Beast was a big, drum-shaped, timber shell that one of the vanquisher’s wizards had enchanted to Khouryn’s specifications. When someone touched one of the small runes carved on the sides, it floated up and flew around three feet off the ground. The object then was to jab a rune with a spear point and render the contraption inanimate again.

The game was difficult because the Beast spun and changed direction unpredictably. And if a person didn’t fall back smartly when it lurched in his direction, it gave him an unpleasant bump. The point was to teach warriors how to assail a large adversary when its back was turned, then scramble out of reach when it turned in their direction.

Khouryn watched for a while and was pleased to see that at least some of the trainees were getting the hang of it. Then hoof beats thumped the earth. He turned to see Daardendrien Medrash trotting toward him astride a big, black mare.

Big and powerfully built even by dragonborn standards, Medrash had russet scales and bore the six white studs of Clan Daardendrien pierced into his left profile. He was an oddity among his people, a worshiper of one of Faerun’s gods. In fact, he was a paladin of Torm-a champion whose rapport with the Loyal Fury granted him certain mystical abilities.

Behind him, Djerad Thymar rose from the grasslands against a blue sky striped with wisps of white cloud. It was the strangest and most impressive city Khouryn had ever seen in a life of wandering, because it was all one colossal structure. The base was an immense block of granite. On top of that sat hundreds of pillars supporting a truncated pyramid.

Specks soared and swooped around the apex. The aerial cavalry called the Lance Defenders were coming and going on various errands. Their mounts were enormous bats, nocturnal by nature but capable of daytime service, and, seeing them, Khouryn felt a pang of sadness. He still missed Vigilant, his own winged steed, killed by a topaz dragon on the trek south from Luthcheq.

Medrash swung himself off the mare. “How is it going?” he asked.

Khouryn waved a hand at the training exercise. “See for yourself. I had to thump a couple of them to get this batch to take me seriously.”

Medrash smiled. “I know how you fight well, but eventually that ploy is going to turn around and bite you.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m just saying they know how to fight too. All dragonborn do. Some of them have already served a year or two with the Lance Defenders.”

“I know. That’s why I only called out three of them. Ordinarily it’s four. Now tell me about the horses.”

“We’ve selected the most spirited and the steadiest. The riding masters tell me there’s no way to train them naturally in the time we have. But after conferring with the mages, they grudgingly agreed that if an animal carries the proper talismans of courage and obedience, it might do what you want it to.”

“ ‘Grudgingly’?”

“They love horses. They don’t want to see them get anywhere near the giants or those lizard things they conjure out of the ash.”

“I don’t blame them. But we need lancers on horseback as well as batback.”

That too would be an innovation. Khouryn suspected that back in wherever-it-was, when Medrash’s people had rebelled against their dragon overlords, war-horses had been in short supply.

“We’ll have a few,” Medrash said. “Let’s hope they’re enough to make our troops look as impressive as the Platinum Cadre’s.”

“And that Balasar learns something that will discredit the Cadre in any case.”

Across the field, the trainees raised a cheer as someone finally managed to thump a rune and make the Beast drift back down to the ground.

Jhesrhi Coldcreek loved flying, and never more than today. It was exhilarating to see the buildings and tangled streets of Luthcheq laid out before her and hear the cheers and hymns of thanksgiving rising from the folk crowding the streets, hanging out the windows, and gathered on the rooftops.

Not, of course, that the cheers were for her. They were for Tchazzar. His scaly crimson wings shining in the sunlight, the red dragon was returning to the city he’d ruled a century before. His long-tailed shadow swept along beneath him, and the griffon riders with whom he shared the sky looked tiny by comparison, like hummingbirds escorting an eagle.

Still, until recently Jhesrhi had feared and loathed the city of her childhood as it had feared and loathed her. Its prejudices were to blame for the nightmarish captivity that had scarred her spirit for all time. But recent events had given her the chance to heal at least one of her psychic wounds, and like it or not, Luthcheq was going to change for the better as well. Tchazzar had promised that it would.

Luthcheq sat at the foot of a towering cliff, and the citadel called the War College actually protruded from the rock face. Tchazzar landed in the plaza in front of it, which the city guard had kept clear for him. On the other side of the peace officers and the barricades, a collective moan rose from the crowd, many of whom carried the scarlet banners or wore the trappings of the Church of Tchazzar. For a moment Jhesrhi thought they’d rush in and mob the dragon, but somehow they managed to control themselves.

She set Scar down in the fenced-off corner reserved for griffons, and her fellow mercenaries did the same with their mounts. Stocky, bald, and covered in runic tattoos, his blue eyes glowing noticeably even in the daylight, Aoth Fezim had flown down from Soolabax with plump, pretty Cera Eurthos riding behind him. The sunlady, a high priestess of Amaunator, wanted to observe the ceremonies and had prevailed on her new lover to bring her.

Jhesrhi could tell that the captain of the Brotherhood of the Griffon was somewhat more ambivalent about attending, and she reckoned she knew why. Aoth needed to be there to make sure the company received the credit it deserved for Tchazzar’s deliverance and any rewards that came with it. But on the other hand, war was brewing in the north, and he resented the time filched from his preparations.

Meanwhile, Gaedynn Ulraes smiled as if all the drama and pomp was an entertainment staged for his personal amusement. Elegantly clad in a purple, red-slashed doublet, not a shining coppery hair out of place despite the fact that he’d just flown for miles, the lanky archer gave Jhesrhi a wink as he swung himself out of the saddle.

Tchazzar twisted his long neck to survey the waiting throng, then spat an arc of flame high enough to avoid incinerating anyone or setting a building on fire. The onlookers screamed in excitement.

Then the red dragon shrank, dwindling into a tall, broad-shouldered warrior with golden armor and a flame red cloak and plume. Though seemingly human, and despite his massive frame, he had a long, tapered face and slightly pointed ears subtly suggestive of his wyrm form. His slanted eyes were as tawny as Jhesrhi’s. She, Gaedynn, Aoth, and Cera hurried to attend him.

Tchazzar offered Jhesrhi his arm, and despite the extraordinary honor the gesture represented, she froze. If he scowled in response, it was only for an instant, and then the expression became a look of rueful comprehension.

“Forgive me,” he murmured. “But since you have no difficulty touching me when I’m a dragon, it makes it hard to remember you flinch from the man.”

“I’m sorry, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said.

“Don’t be.” He glanced around, evidently making sure everyone had taken up his or her proper ceremonial position. “Shall we?”

They climbed the stone staircase that led up to the terrace where Chessenta’s foremost dignitaries waited. The butt of the staff Jhesrhi had carried away from Mount Thulbane clicked on the steps. Behind them the city guards admitted the crowd to the plaza. As they streamed in, they made a noise like the rush of water when something breached a dike.

Tchazzar walked to the edge of the platform and gazed out at his people. As one, the folk in the crowd fell to their knees. So did everyone on the platform.

Then, as had been arranged, Shala Karanok paced out onto the terrace. A strongly built woman in her middle years, the war hero carried a steel and diamond circlet in her hands. Her face with its scarred, square jaw was without expression, and it was impossible to guess how she felt about what was happening.

She kneeled before Tchazzar and proffered the diadem. “I acknowledge your sovereignty and surrender my office,” she said.

Tchazzar took the circlet, raised it high to gleam in the sunlight, and set it on his own brow. “I crown myself War Hero of Chessenta,” he said. “And you may all rise.”

As soon as they did, the cheers began. The noise rose and fell, surging up at the platform like waves battering a rocky headland.

Tchazzar let his subjects vent their jubilation for a while. Then he raised a hand, and over the course of several heartbeats they fell silent.

“I thank you for your welcome,” the transformed dragon said. “It’s good to be back in the land and the city I love.”

That set off more cheering. After a few moments, he quelled it as he had before.

“As I always did and always will,” Tchazzar continued, “I have returned when you need me most. War is coming. Enemies, hateful and envious, threaten Chessenta on every side. But don’t be afraid. With me to lead you, you’ll butcher them to the last man!”

Again he had to pause and let the crowd roar.

“But vengeance and victory are tomorrow’s business. We have other matters to address today.

“I told you I come to my people when they need me. And how do I know you need me? Because I hear your prayers. Over the years, many have deemed me a god, and now it pleases me for everyone to know the truth. I am a god. A god in every sense, a being as exalted as Amaunator or Waukeen, and you will worship me as such.”

At that, no one cheered. Even if a person believed in Tchazzar’s divinity-and many Chessentans did-there was something disconcerting about hearing him proclaim it outright.

Jhesrhi peered surreptitiously at Cera, stout Daelric Apathos-her superior in the Church of Amaunator-and the other high priests assembled on the terrace. Presumably they all had their professional opinions concerning Tchazzar’s claim, but she couldn’t tell what those were from scrutinizing their solemn expressions.

“Some of you already worship me,” Tchazzar continued. He looked down at the front of the throng, where a profusion of scarlet standards and red cloaks cut to resemble scalloped dragon wings revealed the presence of many adherents of the Church of Tchazzar. “Who is your prophet?”

For a moment it looked like whoever it was, he or she was too shy to say so. Then a skinny adolescent girl stepped forward. She had crimson symbols painted on her starveling, acne-pitted face and wore a fine vermilion cloak-a gift from a follower, perhaps-over the grimy rags underneath.

“I am, Majesty,” she quavered. “My name is Halonya.”

“From this day forward,” Tchazzar said, “you’re a lady of the realm. Your rank is the same as that of any of the patriarchs who stand behind me, and the church you lead is equal in dignity and importance to any of theirs. Others will heed my call and offer themselves to serve as priests and priestesses under your direction. Together, you will build the grandest temple in Luthcheq. My deputy”-he gestured in Shala’s direction-“will assist you with everything you need.”

Halonya started weeping and dropped back onto her knees. “Thank you, Majesty! I love you! I won’t let you down!”

“I know,” Tchazzar said. “Now, I wish to acknowledge someone else who has done me great service. Jhesrhi Coldcreek, come forward.”

Tchazzar hadn’t warned Jhesrhi he meant to do that. She suddenly felt intensely awkward, and Gaedynn’s sardonic smile made the sensation worse. Somehow she managed to walk the several paces to the war hero’s side without tripping or otherwise disgracing herself.

“As some of you know,” Tchazzar said, “this woman is a wizard. And after she … used her magic to my benefit, I offered her a boon. She could have asked for a title, wealth, and land, but she didn’t. She asked me to correct a long-standing injustice, and so I shall.

“I hereby rescind all laws that apply only to folk possessed of arcane abilities. Henceforth, sorcerers need not have their palms tattooed. They can live where they like, assemble as they like, and practice their arts as they like, provided they do no harm. Priests and scholars are forbidden to teach the false and pernicious belief that all arcane magic derives from the lower worlds, and those who seek to persecute warlocks and wizards will face severe reprisals.”

No one cheered for that declaration either. Jhesrhi supposed that in its way it had shocked the assembly as much as Tchazzar’s unequivocal claim to godhood, and was surely less popular. Luthcheq had always loved to hate her kind. Well, choke on it, you ignorant bastards, she thought.

“There will be more new edicts in the days to come,” Tchazzar said. “Bold new ideas and ventures to make Chessenta into the great land it was always meant to be. But for now, celebrate my ascension! Your lord has provided for your needs. You’ll find food and drink on every corner, and musicians, jugglers, and players performing for your amusement in every street!”

That got them clapping and shouting again. Tchazzar turned in a swirl of scarlet cloak and headed into the War College.

As Aoth followed Tchazzar into the fortress, he made psychic contact with Jet. Everything all right? he asked.

If that strutting jackanapes is a god, the black griffon replied, the world is even worse off than I thought.

Aoth snorted. I have a more specific criticism of his performance. But I’ll be sure to give him your opinion.

Once through the doorway, he found that Tchazzar had stopped on the other side to accept congratulations. Trampling the rules of protocol, Zan-akar Zeraez, the Akanulan ambassador, had somehow managed to make himself first in line. Maybe everyone else had hesitated to crowd the genasi for fear of the sparks that crawled and popped on his deep purple, silver-etched skin.

While Aoth waited his turn, Nicos Corynian approached him. Trimly built, with a broken nose and a cauliflower ear that bespoke the Chessentan enthusiasm for the more violent forms of athletic competition, Nicos was in theory the Brotherhood’s patron, although the relationship was slightly muddled. The nobleman had hired the sellswords to serve the crown, and Shala had in fact accepted their service in due course.

And now she wasn’t the monarch anymore. Aoth sighed and wondered why nothing was ever simple.

“I’m sorry the war hero didn’t mention you during his address,” he murmured. “I trust he’ll prove more appreciative in private.”

Nicos shrugged. “He didn’t mention you either,” he replied just as softly, “or your man Ulraes, although I gather he had as much to do with the rescue as the wizard. I assume it’s because we’re not supposed to talk about the fact that His Majesty needed to be rescued.”

“That’s fine by me,” said Aoth. “We want the troops to think he’s invincible. They’ll fight better.”

Smiling, Tchazzar turned in their direction. “What did you think of my little oration?”

“It was inspirational,” Nicos said.

For a heartbeat Aoth wondered if it wouldn’t be better to say something just as empty and let it go at that. Then he decided, to the Hells with it. He was a soldier, not a courtier, and he’d talk like what he was, especially with Chessenta facing war.

“You said some things I didn’t expect,” he said, “and left out one thing I did.”

Tchazzar smiled. His teeth were white and even, as flawlessly handsome as the rest of him. “I was addressing my children for the first time in a hundred years. I had to speak my heart, even if it meant deviating from the script.”

“I understand that, Majesty. But I thought you were going to tell everyone that the creatures behind the Green Hand murders weren’t really dragonborn at all, but rather fiends conjured from the netherworld.” By the Black Flame, he and Cera had damn near died penetrating that particular secret!

“Unfortunately,” Tchazzar said, “it isn’t always possible to address every topic of interest in a single speech.”

“I understand that too. But this particular topic is important. At a time when Chessenta needs friends, you could have reestablished the alliance with Tymanther.”

“Tymanther has its own problems,” Tchazzar said. “They won’t be lending us troops anytime soon.”

“Still, it might hearten the people to know they don’t truly have enemies lurking across every border.”

“Perhaps at the cost of rekindling their suspicions of those they were originally inclined to blame-the mages. Which would violate the spirit of my pledge to Lady Jhesrhi.”

A pledge she exacted without consulting me, Aoth thought bitterly.

Not that he didn’t agree with it in principle. How could he not, considering that he was a war-mage himself? But the Brotherhood hadn’t come to Chessenta to spread justice and enlightenment. After two brutal campaigns that had diminished their ranks, produced little profit, and tarnished their name, they’d come to fill their coffers and rebuild their reputation fighting the country’s wars. And it wouldn’t help to have the people at large blame them for an unpopular edict.

“And now, if you’ll excuse me …” Tchazzar said. He was already turning and smiling at Luthen, Nicos’s chief political rival.

Gaedynn was the son of minor nobility and knew how to behave like a gentleman when it suited him. In some parts of Faerun that meant gorging on whatever viands the host provided, to show appreciation for his largess. In Chessenta, with its mania for physical fitness, a fellow made a good impression by merely picking at the refreshments or ignoring them entirely.

But that night, he didn’t care. He and Jhesrhi had spent a hard, hungry time of it trapped in the Shadowfell. He’d be in the field soon, where the timing and quality of meals were always uncertain. Accordingly he meant to eat as lustily as Khouryn would in his place. And if his voracity repulsed any ladies worth charming, then he’d just have to try a little harder.

He had the lackeys behind the serving tables heap his plate with suckling pig, chicken breast with blueberry glaze, peas, buttered dark rolls, and slices of candied peach. His mouth watering, he turned away from the buffet, then froze.

Jhesrhi had come up behind him, but not a Jhesrhi he’d ever seen before. Some maid-or more likely a whole squad of them-had arranged her golden hair in an intricate coiffure and dressed her in a scarlet brocade gown. Rubies glittered on her earlobes and around her neck. Her attendants had even managed to pry the staff out of her hand.

“Good evening, milady,” he said. “You bear an uncanny resemblance to a wizard of my acquaintance. But she shuns occasions such as this.”

Jhesrhi scowled. “I couldn’t shun this one. The war hero told me to come and gave me this … outfit to wear. He wanted me to have myself announced too, but that was too much. I came in one of the side doors.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Well, you arrived before the dragon, so he’ll never know about your breach of protocol.”

Jhesrhi hesitated. “I’ve never worn anything like this. Does it look all right?”

She looked ravishing, but he realized he didn’t want to say so. Maybe it was because they’d already gone down the road of compliments and fond blandishments and found out that for them, it led nowhere at all.

“The important thing,” he said, “is that after tonight, you’ll be able to sell it all for a tidy sum.”

Something moved behind her amber eyes, and he wished he could take his answer back. Then the trumpeters blew a brassy fanfare, and, attired in crimson velvet and cloth of gold, Tchazzar came through the high arched doorway at the end of the room. The open leaves framing the entrance sported carvings of high points from the dragon’s previous reigns.

The men bowed and the women curtsied. Tchazzar beamed and gestured, signaling everyone to straighten up. Then he turned and nodded to the musicians, who struck up the first dance, a galliard.

Standing near the buffet, Gaedynn and Jhesrhi were already removed from the dance floor. But she took a reflexive step backward anyway.

Then Tchazzar shouted, “Stop!” His voice shouldn’t have cut through the galliard. But it did easily, as though he still carried a dragon’s roar within his seemingly human throat to use when necessary. The orchestra stumbled to a halt. The couples who were waiting for the war hero to choose a partner and start dancing so they could do the same peered at him in surprise.

“When last I walked these halls,” said the dragon to the conductor, “the dance in fashion was the longing. Or as some called it, the tease. Do you know it?”

The orchestra leader was a stooped little man with a pinched face. Gaedynn might have thought he looked more like a miserly shopkeeper than an artist, except for the zest that lived in his bright gray eyes. “No one has asked for that one in a long while, Majesty. But yes, we do know it. Or at least the older players do, and the rest can join in as they catch the sense of it.”

“Then let’s have it,” Tchazzar said, “and I’ll teach the steps to those who care to learn.”

The conductor smiled and switched the index finger of his offhand back and forth, telling his associates how quick he intended the beat to be. Then he raised his baton and swept it down. As promised, about half the musicians immediately began a lively tune in three-quarter time. The harper joined in a couple of measures later.

Meanwhile, Tchazzar walked straight toward Jhesrhi. When she saw him coming, she blanched.

“My lady,” he said. “Will you do me the honor?”

“I’m sorry, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said. “I can’t. I never have. Never in my life.”

“Neither has anyone else,” the dragon said. “Not this dance. You’re all starting even. What’s more, it’s a dance where the lady and gentleman don’t touch. Not even a brush of their fingertips, not even once. So please, won’t you give it a try?”

And to Gaedynn’s astonishment, she did. After a while she even smiled.

Something was weighing in his hand. He looked down at his heavily laden plate and realized he didn’t want it anymore.

Balasar woke suddenly from a sound sleep to the darkness of his bedchamber. At first he had no idea why. Then he heard, or perhaps merely sensed, a voice calling his name. It was less like speech than the whisper of a breeze, but somehow he understood it anyway.

It was undoubtedly the summons that Nala had promised would come. Plainly magical, it likely had something to do with the fuming, sour potion she’d given him to drink.

He threw off his blankets, dressed quickly, strapped on his broadsword, and slipped a dagger into his boot. He was supposedly going to the Platinum Cadre as a supplicant. But he’d feel like a jackass if they figured out he was actually a spy and managed to kill him because he hadn’t hidden a weapon on his person.

The common areas of Clan Daardendrien’s suite were deserted. Even the doorman was snoring. Balasar slipped out without waking him. The phantom voice whispered again, urging him toward the stairs that led downward.

As it turned out, he had to tramp all the way down to the floor of the City-Bastion’s central atrium, where fountains gurgled and shrubs and verdure grew in planters and flowerbeds. Striped and studded with balconies, the walls soared to the loft that served as the barracks of the Lance Defenders and the roost for their giant bats. The ambient magical glow was almost nonexistent at that hour, as conducive to sleep as the natural darkness outside.

The voice led Balasar down again, out into the cold night air. Onto the Market Floor, the pillared open space between the half pyramid above and the granite block below. Points of yellow light shined in the gloom, and somewhere to the north a longhorn whined. Clearly some of the taverns were still open, and for a moment Balasar dared to hope that Nala had summoned him to a meeting in such convivial surroundings.

Alas, no. The whisper-he still couldn’t judge if it existed only in his head-led him to another staircase, one descending into the bowels of the stone cube that formed the foundation of Djerad Thymar. Into the Catacombs.

The warren of tunnels and chambers contained storerooms, foundries, and other well-traveled areas with mundane and legitimate functions. They also held burial crypts and, according to rumor, desolate sections where outlaws conducted illicit business, fugitives went to ground, and specters walked.

Balasar sighed because he suspected he knew in which sort of precinct the priestess of the dragon god had set up shop. Sure enough, the voice called him into a narrow, snaking side passage and then down a steep and treacherous ramp. Most of the globular magical sconces had gone out, either because of time and neglect or because someone had taken the trouble to extinguish them.

Eventually he came to a point where the darkness was all but absolute. There might be a faint glimmer somewhere up ahead, but it could just as easily be a trick his light-starved eyes were playing on him.

Running the claws of his right hand along the wall, he pushed on. After what seemed a long time, he traversed an oblique bend in the passage, and then the light finally brightened. It led him into a bare pentagonal chamber where four dragonborn waited. Hoods of silvery cloth concealed their heads.

But not quite well enough. A big male with red scales had three chains dangling visibly from the underside of his jaw. They were the piercings of Clan Shestendeliath-and enabled Balasar to identify Patrin.

He almost grinned. The clandestine meeting with masked, silent cultists was clearly supposed to seem ominous, and it did. But he found it difficult to believe that the paladin of Bahamut intended any treachery or harm. Though misguided, Patrin was honorable, and he and Balasar had battled the ash giants side by side.

Still, his voice was steel and ice as he asked, “Who comes?”

Balasar gave the ritual response Nala had taught him. “A seeker of truth.” Just not the truth you think.

“What will you give to learn it?”

“All that I have and am.”

“Then strip him,” Patrin said. The other worshipers moved forward.

Balasar had to force himself to stand still and submit to the subsequent rough handling. No one had warned him about that part of it.

For a time Aoth savored the glow of contentment, the feeling of utter, spent relaxation. Then, without him willing it, his mind resumed gnawing at all the matters that troubled him.

Her sweaty body snuggled up against his own, Cera seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and gave it a twist.

“Ouch!” he said, though it hadn’t really hurt. “What was that for?”

“It’s all right if you fall sleep after,” Cera said. “A woman learns to expect that sort of swinish male behavior. But if you’re going to stay awake, I want your attention.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just …” He gestured with the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her.

“Tchazzar’s not what you expected.”

Aoth snorted. “Starting out, I didn’t expect anything. What were the odds that Jhesrhi and Gaedynn would even find a trace of him, let alone fetch him home? But yes. What do you think of him? I remember the first conversation we ever had. You made it clear you don’t believe he’s a god.”

She hesitated and brushed one of her curls away from her snub-nosed pretty face. He liked it that his spellscarred eyes could see the bright yellow color of her hair, and everything else about her, as clearly in the dark bedchamber as under the sun she worshiped.

“People use the term ‘god’ in more than one way,” she said at length. “I think Daelric and the other patriarchs won’t make an issue of it, as long as he keeps his pretensions within bounds. And obviously I, dutiful daughter of the faith that I am, will follow my wise superior’s lead.”

Aoth grinned. “In other words, in your opinion he’s just a big, strong dragon. But Chessenta needs him, so it makes sense to humor him.”

“Pretty much. At this point, I’m actually more vexed by the same thing that irked you. Why didn’t he tell everyone about the abishais? At first he seemed so interested, and now it’s like he doesn’t care at all.”

“I can’t explain it,” he said. “He gave me a couple of reasons, but none that made a lot of sense.”

“Do you think he’ll investigate? We still don’t understand the reason for it all.”

He shrugged. It made her breast bounce ever so slightly where it rested against his chest. “He said yes, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

Cera glowered. “That’s … unacceptable! Somebody has to find out what’s really going on!”

“If there’s one thing I learned growing up in Thay, and during my time as a sellsword, it’s that someone always has some sort of secret agenda or scheme. You could go mad trying to unravel it all.”

“But Amaunator wants it unraveled. Or else he wouldn’t have showed us the assembly of dragons.”

“With all respect, my sweet sunlady, you don’t know that’s why your ritual went awry, or that the gathering had anything to do with the abishais.”

“I don’t understand. One moment you’re upset that Tchazzar isn’t going to do anything. The next it’s like you agree with him that what we discovered isn’t even important.”

“It’s not that exactly. But I have a war to fight. It won’t matter who wanted to blacken the name of the dragonborn, or why, if the Great Bone Wyrm and his troops slaughter us all.”

Frowning, she studied him for a time. Then she said, “I think you’re perverse. Your truesight gave you at least one vision to warn you that something mysterious and dangerous is happening.”

“I don’t know that that’s what it meant,” he interjected.

She continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Then the Keeper gave us both a sign indicating the same thing. That would make many another man more eager to search for the truth. But I have the feeling it made you more reluctant. Why?”

He sighed. “You mean above and beyond the intelligent, practical reasons I’ve already given you?”

“Yes. So tell me.”

He hesitated, as he supposed most men would hesitate to admit any sort of fear or weakness to a woman. But his instincts told him it wouldn’t make her think any less of him. Mustering his thoughts, he ran his palm over the top of his head. His calluses scratched his hairless scalp.

“I told you where my visions led me before,” he said. “To that mountaintop in Szass Tam’s artificial world. Where, until my comrades showed up, it was just me against Malark Springhill and all the undead horrors under his control.”

“Where you saved thousands of lives,” she said. “Perhaps even all the lives there are.”

“Yes! That’s exactly the point! I didn’t really feel the weight of the responsibility at the time. You can’t allow yourself to feel things like that in the midst of battle or they’ll slow you down. But I’ve felt it over and over in the months since. I feel it in my nightmares.”

“I don’t understand. By your own choice, you’ve always carried a lot of responsibility. You’re responsible for the welfare of your company. For the fate of the lords and realms that hire you to fight.”

“That’s different. Battle sorcery and leading the Brotherhood suit me. I understand them. I’m big enough to handle them. But what happened on the mountaintop …” He shook his head. “It was too strange, and too much.”

“Throughout the centuries,” she said, “Amaunator, either as himself or in the guise of Lathander, called many champions to serve the cause of righteousness. Some of them protested that the burden was too heavy for them to bear. Yet they acquitted themselves nobly in the end.”

“That’s one reason I like worshiping Kossuth. He doesn’t have stories like that.”

She scowled. “You’re impossible.”

“Just let me work on driving Alasklerbanbastos back into his hole. I promise we’ll all be better off.”

“All right. If that’s what you think is best.”

They lay in silence for a while.

Then, when he’d begun to wonder if she’d drifted off to sleep, and if she’d start snoring the gurgling little snore he liked, she said, “I can’t go back to Soolabax with you tomorrow.”

“No?”

“No. Daelric wants me to report what I know about the raids out of and into Threskel, Tchazzar’s return, and all the rest of it. I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

Aoth scrutinized her. But if there was more she wasn’t telling him, his fire-kissed eyes failed even to hint at what it might be.

To Balasar’s relief, no one remarked on the knife hidden in his boot. Many warriors carried an extra weapon in a similar fashion, particularly if, like him, they made a habit of patronizing Djerad Thymar’s seamier taverns and entertainments.

When he was naked, Patrin picked up a steel helmet. For a moment, Balasar couldn’t see what distinguished it from an ordinary one. Then he noticed the lack of eyeholes, and the U-shaped piece intended to fit under the wearer’s snout.

Patrin put it over his head and so deprived him of sight. The locking mechanism clicked shut. The chin piece was snug enough to dig uncomfortably into the spot where a dragonborn’s lower jaw joined his neck, but not quite tight enough to choke him.

“Now,” Patrin said, “your pilgrimage begins.” A hand, perhaps the paladin’s, perhaps another initiate’s, shoved Balasar stumbling forward.

He groped to keep from running into whatever was in front of him. He found an empty space that was presumably the mouth of another passage leading away from the pentagonal room. He headed down it, once again running his hand along the wall to steady and orient himself.

The voice whispered. Eerie though it was, he supposed he ought to be glad. It should keep him creeping in the right direction.

He tried to slow his breathing and so quell the fear nibbling at his mind. He’d heard of secret societies initiating their recruits via nerve-racking ordeals. His current state of extreme vulnerability didn’t mean anything was going to happen to him. To the contrary. The members of the Platinum Cadre wouldn’t bother with this game if they realized he was here to spy.

Somewhere in the blackness, the voice breathed his name.

Then somehow he lost contact with the cool, granite surface he’d been touching, and instinct told him he’d entered a much broader space. Still, he judged that the most sensible way to traverse it was to work his way along the wall. But when he groped, first to the sides and then behind him, he couldn’t find anything solid.

All he could do was walk toward the whisper.

It grew colder with every step. Something crunched beneath his naked feet, chilling them. He realized it was snow. A frigid wind rose and, howling, tried to shove him back the way he’d come. He leaned into it.

This can’t be here, he thought. It’s some kind of trick. But it felt real. It felt like he was outdoors traversing some bitter winter landscape.

Then he heard something else moving through the snow. But the sound was a continuous slithering drag, not the rhythmic crunch of footsteps. He felt a malicious scrutiny, and then the wind roared.

No, not the wind, not this time. A blast that stabbed cold into his very core. He reeled off balance, and something swept his feet out from under him. He crashed down on the ground.

He scrambled to his knees, then lashed out with his claws. They didn’t connect with anything.

Shuddering with the cold, he tried to stand and was grateful to find that the blow that had knocked him down hadn’t broken his ankles. The voice whispered, and he turned toward it.

His unseen tormentor knocked him sprawling in the snow with a hard thump to the chest. He clawed and missed again.

Whatever was abusing him, he couldn’t fight it weaponless and blind. The cultists surely didn’t expect him to. He was just supposed to persevere and get past it.

He crawled toward the whisper, enduring the freezing discomfort of wallowing in the snow. Because if he wasn’t standing up, his adversary couldn’t knock him down.

But it could shove him down onto his belly. Suddenly something big and heavy pressed on his back and smashed him into the snow, like a foot squashing an insect.

It was crushing him. And there was no air to breathe, just snow filling his mouth and nostrils.

He struggled, but couldn’t break free of whatever was holding him down. Terror screamed through his mind.

You’re fighting the dragon in your own soul, whispered the voice, finally saying something besides his name. The dragon nature you have always scorned. Claim it and all will be well.

With the words came a sense of something stealthily prying at his mind, trying to open it up like an oyster. Apparently the idea was that if raw fear alone didn’t convince a fellow to yield to the voice’s demand, a touch of enchantment might tip him over the edge.

Yes! Balasar thought, I accept the dragon! Meanwhile, he tried to hold his deeper self clenched tight against the Power seeking to penetrate it.

He could only hope it would work. He was no mystic, and no one had ever taught him how to feint or parry on a psychic battlefield. But he’d always been a good liar, and he was stubborn by nature.

Both forms of pressure abated. The dragon’s foot, if that was what it was, lifted off his back. The sense of influence faded from inside his head. As he floundered back onto his knees, spat out snow, and gasped in breaths of frigid air, the phantom voice called his name. But it was only a whisper, no longer a force trying to breach his soul.

Hoping the harassment was over, he rose and stumbled onward. After a few steps, the snow under his feet disappeared and the wind stopped screaming and shoving him around. He groped and found walls to either side. He was back in the corridor.

I was right, he told himself, it was all an illusion. The thought was reassuring, but not enough so to quell every trace of his anxiety. For all he knew, a person could die in a dream if it was a magical one.

Suddenly the air was humid and smelled of rotting vegetation. His lead foot plunged deep into muck. He waded onward. The slippery, sucking ooze was even harder to traverse than the snow had been.

A prodigious roar jolted him. Then liquid sprayed him from head to toe. It clung to him and burned.

He dropped to his knees and ripped up handfuls of mud and weeds. Using them, he tried to scour the corrosive slime off his body. Gradually, the worst of the searing pain subsided.

But by that time, he could hear the pad of the new dragon’s stride. It was coming at him.

Something pierced his shoulder from both front and back. Fangs? No, claws. They lifted him into the air and tossed him. He crashed into what might have been a tree. As he slammed down on the ground, something-broken twigs dislodged by the impact? — pattered down around him. The wyrm advanced on him.

The punishment continued in the same vein for a while. Balasar endured it as best he could, holding panic at bay by insisting to himself that none of it was real, nor was it meant to harm him.

Finally, the voice spoke. You despised the dragon inside you, and so you are afraid. Accept its gift of courage and all will be well.

He responded much as he had before. Then the second dragon allowed him to pass.

Next came a sandy place and a hammering storm that erupted in an instant. The wyrm in residence blasted him with a crackling something that made him dance an excruciating, spastic dance in place. He had to accept his inner dragon’s gift of strength to pass through.

After that was a place where the rocky, uneven earth groaned and rumbled, and the hot air stank of smoke and sulfur. Its drake seared him with what he took to be flame, and he promised to accept the gift of rage.

Then he entered a place where the air was cool. Something that might have been fallen leaves rustled beneath his soles. Unlike the other environments along the way, this one wasn’t immediately unpleasant. Was the nasty part of the initiation over?

Something hissed, and agony seared his nose, mouth, throat, and the inside of his chest. He collapsed, coughing and retching, trying to expel the vileness. But the vileness was in the air. It was all he had to breathe, and with every inhalation he sucked in more of it.

The dragon in your soul and the dragon deity are one and the same, whispered the voice. Embrace the deity as your own and all will be well.

I do! Balasar replied. I embrace him! Meanwhile, on a deeper level, he thought, never. Never in this life or any other.

The burning air didn’t clear. Perhaps it started to, but then the hiss sounded again, and afterward the floating, burning poison was thicker than before.

The sensation of psychic pressure intensified. The voice whispered its requirement once again. Evidently, this time it wasn’t satisfied with Balasar’s response.

Fearing that he was on the brink of passing out, Balasar repeated his assurance with all the vehemence he could muster. He did his best to mean and not mean it, believe and disbelieve it, at the same time-in much the same way a fellow pledged undying love to a female he wanted to seduce.

Enormous talons gripped him, but without piercing his hide. The dragon dragged him out of what must be a localized cloud of poison. Once he was clear, it permitted him to lie there, cough, and clear his lungs in peace.

The voice whispered, Balasar. When he felt able, he stumbled after it. He stretched out his hands so he wouldn’t bump into a tree.

Other hands took hold of him. They weren’t rough, but, his nerves frayed to tatters, he strained to break free anyway.

“Easy!” Patrin said. “It’s over. Let me take the helmet off.”

Balasar did. After being deprived of sight, even the soft amber glow of the magical sconce made him squint and blink.

He was back in the pentagonal chamber, and he wondered if he’d ever left it at all, even to the extent of fumbling his way down a passage. He seemed to be free of frostbite, blisters, bruises, scrapes, and all the other injuries that his ordeal, had it been entirely real, would likely have produced.

The cultists had removed their silvery masks, and Nala had at some point arrived to preside over whatever festivities remained. She had brown hide speckled with gold, and a pale puckered scar on the left side of her brow ridge. It was where she’d carried her piercing before her clan cast her out for the sin of adoring wyrms. She wore a vestment made of platinum scales. As she swayed rhythmically and ever so slightly from side to side, traces of other colors rippled through the folds of the garment. A glint of blue, a shimmer of red.

“Welcome, brother,” she said. “You’re one of us now.”

“Thank you,” Balasar said. His response felt too brief and matter-of-fact for the occasion, but he was too spent to come up with anything better.

“Let us pray,” Nala said. She raised her hands and recited in a language Balasar didn’t recognize. He caught the name Bahamut but nothing more.

Whatever she was babbling, there was magic in it. He felt a hot sting of Power in the air. As it in some measure possessed them, the other cultists-all but Patrin-started to writhe from side to side like she was.

Balasar did his best to imitate the motion. He supposed he was going to have to practice.