Aoth let out a long breath and took malicious satisfaction in Tradrem’s glower.
As he’d expected, the Steward of the Earth wasn’t the only one who was disgruntled, or at least professing to be. Gaedynn confronted him as soon as they exited the throne room.
“Am I correct in assuming,” the redheaded bowman asked, “that you knew what the cloak pin was the moment you saw it back in Vairshekellabex’s cave?”
“Pretty much,” said Aoth. “It’s crawling with magic, and as you know, I can see things like that.”
“And yet you didn’t warn me that I was claiming something as the greater part of my share that you fully intended to give away.”
“For what it’s worth, I was actually hoping we wouldn’t have to.”
Humor tugged at the corners of Gaedynn’s mouth. “Well, we shouldn’t have, no matter what the need. Who gives away loot? Let’s hope we get back to acting like proper sellswords before we forget how.”
* * * * *
Balasar dozed for a while then woke to throbbing pain from head to foot. He considered trying to fall back asleep. It would surely be beneficial if he could manage it, but he doubted that he could.
And he didn’t feel like simply lying awake on the hard, stone floor, staring up at the cavern ceiling, and aching. If he got up, there might at least be something to distract him from his discomfort. So he pushed away his blankets and dragged himself to his feet, even though that made everything hurt worse.
Most of his comrades were sound asleep. Only a few of the floating orbs of glow remained, just enough to allow the healers and the sentries to do their jobs. Balasar considered applying to the former for relief. But he couldn’t ask them to squander their spells, medicines, and other resources just to ease his pain when other wounded folk were barely clinging to life. He decided to divert himself by chatting with one of the guards and, feeling like a mummy in his tightly wrapped linen bandages and malodorous ointments, hobbled toward the nearest.
He made it a few steps before his back cramped. He let out a grunt through gritted teeth.
Biri threw off her covers, jumped up, and hurried over to him. Her white scales and long, silver piercings were ghostly in the gloom. “What are you doing up?” she whispered.
“I just couldn’t sleep,” he replied, keeping his voice just as low and trying not to voice his distress.
Perhaps he failed at the latter because she put her arm around him and helped him to a spot where a bulge at the bottom of the cavern wall made a sort of bench. She helped him sit, then plopped down beside him.
“Better?” she asked.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Truly? I can fetch someone—”
“Thank you, but yes, truly. Medrash hauled me back from the brink. As soon as he gets around to giving me another dose of healing magic, I’ll be good as new.” He grinned. “Although apparently that won’t be until after Praxasalandos is fit to travel. I never thought to see the day when a Daardendrien would put a stinking wyrm ahead of his own clan brother. Nor do I understand why a creature capable of splitting into dozens of drops of quicksilver and then putting himself back together needs any help recovering.”
Biri smiled. “That is a mystery. I guess it makes a difference whether he’s changing his own body on purpose or some outside force is doing it.”
“I defer to the wisdom of a magus.”
They sat quietly for a few heartbeats. Then she said, “It will feel strange to divide the company, especially in the middle of this warren.”
“I agree. But there’s no scheme so harebrained that Medrash won’t try it if he imagines Torm whispered it in his ear.”
She chuckled. “Back in Djerad Thymar, everybody says you’re the reckless, feckless one.”
“Only when it comes to sensible pursuits like winning bets and chasing … well, sensible pursuits. Anyway, I suppose the first part of the plan isn’t entirely idiotic because we might actually be running short on time.”
And such being the case, he, Medrash, Khouryn, Nellis, and Prax would exit the caverns to the east, where they let out on the Plains of Purple Dust. It was a shorter hike than backtracking, and then the quicksilver dragon would fly his companions over the mountains. If everything went accordingly to plan, they’d reach Skyclave and ultimately Tymanther quicker than they would have otherwise.
“What about the second part?” Biri asked.
“Oh, that’s completely crazy, of course.”
Medrash had worked it out that enlisting the active aid of High Imaskar was all very well, but to maximize the chances of averting a war, somebody needed to make sure the news reached the Chessentans, then negotiate with them. He intended to make the trip with Ophinshtalajiir Perra—or whomever Tarhun sent—as he had before.
That was because it had occurred to him that Tchazzar, whom his people revered as their greatest champion, might be suffering from the same stain that had afflicted the Platinum Cadre and Prax. And if so, perhaps a paladin could resolve the conflict between Chessenta and Tymanther by using his gifts to scour it off.
Balasar was dubious. He still fundamentally subscribed to the traditional dragonborn belief that the only good wyrm was one who’d donated his head to decorate your wall. But even so, he’d paid attention to Vishva’s explanation of the difference between metallic and chromatic dragons and to Khouryn’s account of his one meeting with the “living god.”
“But you’ll go with Medrash anyway,” Biri said.
Balasar shrugged and regretted it because that hurt too. “Someone has to do the thinking. The rational kind, as opposed to demented ruminations about the will of the gods. And anyway, I’ve been stuck in the middle of this mess since the beginning. I might as well be there at the end.”
Biri looked down at her hands with their several rings, all of which had either an outré or a starkly utilitarian look that marked them as mystical tools rather than adornment. “Yes … well … I talked to Prax, and he says that carrying one more rider as far as the outpost where we left the redwings won’t slow him down.”
Balasar hesitated and thought how ridiculous it was that one maiden could so easily flummox a fellow glib and clever enough to infiltrate the Platinum Cadre and unmask Nala for the insidious traitor she had been. “You’ve done plenty already,” he said.
She sighed. “I hope you realize, it’s not every female who’d chase you down the gullet of a purple worm.”
“Thank you for that. I know I owe you my life.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to ‘owe’ me anything. I just want you to like me.”
“I do.”
“Then why does such a notorious lecher flinch whenever I smile at him?”
“Because it wouldn’t just be a dalliance with you. Not if our clan elders have their way. Not if you have yours.”
“So it’s the prospect of something permanent that’s unbearable?”
“Yes. No.” He groped for the words to express his feelings. “I’m proud to belong to Clan Daardendrien. But at the same time, for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like if I let it, it would smother me. All the duties, the traditions, the expectations … I mean, some of it is fine. I joke about not wanting to, but I’m happy to go fight any bandit, giant, or wyrm that comes sniffing around. The rest, however, is …”
“Stifling.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s all fine, but I think you’ve been so busy defending your precious independence that you haven’t noticed who’s clicking her claws at you. Ever since I broke out of the egg, my own clan elders have striven to make me as ‘marriageable’ as possible, and like most of our folk, they regard mages as ‘eccentric.’ Do you think they encouraged me to study wizardry?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then you’re right! I had to fight for it! Which makes you and me kindred spirits. So you know there wouldn’t be anything staid and proper about our marriage. We’d have the most scandalous, outrageous union i
n all Tymanther. Our elders would rue the day we met.”
Balasar laughed, then struggled to hold it in so he wouldn’t wake the exhausted folk snoring just a few paces away. “Well,” he said, “when you put it that way.”
* * * * *
Brimstone had finally acquired what he considered to be a proper instrument for his scrying, a trapezoidal sheet of polished obsidian in a silver frame. When he stared into it and whispered words of power, the blackness flowed to the edges of the stone, and images appeared in the center.
At first, Ananta had hesitated to peer through the magical window. But eventually the smoke drake had noticed her hanging back and invited her to satisfy her curiosity as she saw fit. She wasn’t sure if that reflected trust per se or the assumption that she wouldn’t dare try to use whatever she learned against him.
Indeed, she wouldn’t try but not because of fear, for all that he’d once defeated her in battle. It was because Skalnaedyr, the blue wyrm to whom she owed everything, had given Dracowyr to Brimstone and commanded her to serve its new master as she had the old.
“Got it,” the vampire said as the image cleared.
Her staff of office in hand, Ananta moved up beside his head for a better view. She was a dragonborn, with the tall, sturdy frame of her kind, but even so, for a moment, standing so close to Brimstone with his dark gray, red-speckled scales and luminous crimson eyes made her feel like a mouse who’d ventured too close to a cat.
She suppressed the feeling by focusing on the humans in the mirror.
They were feasting in a lordly hall, and accompanying himself on a lute, a bard was just finishing a song. To Ananta’s ears, the sound was a tiny, tinny thing, the lyrics indistinguishable, but she knew Brimstone could hear it clearly.
The bald, smiling man at the center of the head table rose and leaned over the goblets, plates, and trays to shake the minstrel’s hand and give him a bulging purse. Then he looked around, possibly to summon the next entertainer, but a nobleman in a red jerkin spoke and distracted him.
They conversed for a moment; then the man in red called out. Slowly and carefully, so as not to stir up the sediment, a servant carried a dusty bottle to the table.
He served the lord of the hall first. The bald man sniffed the red vintage, made some comment on the bouquet, then took a sip. He started to say something else, and his eyes opened wide. He tried to lift his hands to his throat or face, but they made it only partway. Then he pitched forward across the table.
A priestess of the Great Mother rushed forward and tried to heal him. But after three prayers, she shook her head to indicate that he was gone. And that was when the bald man’s retainers fell on the gaping aristocrat in red and the equally shocked-looking fellow who’d brought the wine.
Brimstone chuckled. “Neatly done,” he said in his sly, sardonic whisper of a voice.
Like any dragonborn worthy of the name, Ananta disdained poison as a coward’s weapon. But she felt disinclined to say so and elicit a jeer at her supposed naïveté. “How so, my lord?” she asked.
“The bald man was Quarenshodor’s chief lieutenant. It was actually Eeringallagan who ordered his murder, but the assassin arranged for Lyntrinell’s servant to serve the poison. Well, Lyntrinell’s servant’s servant, but you get my point. The wrong dragon prince ends up taking the blame. It’s good, solid xorvintaal, subtler than much of the play we’ve seen of late.”
“How did you know to watch?” Ananta asked.
“Oh, Eeringallagan requested it,” Brimstone said. “He wanted to make sure he’d receive the points for it.”
Ananta grunted, Brimstone twisted his head to regard her straight on, and blackness washed over the scene in the human hall.
“You don’t approve,” the dragon said, his breath smelling of smoke. “You try to hide it—to avoid bruising my tender feelings, no doubt—but I can tell. Does it all seem somehow petty? Unworthy of the mightiest creatures in the world in general, and your beloved Prince Skalnaedyr in particular?”
Ananta scowled. “Something like that.”
“Believe it or not, I can see that side of it. But it’s a pettiness that will remake Faerûn.” He turned suddenly, lifting a wing so he wouldn’t swat her with it. “I’ll explain further another time, but for now we have a visitor.”
After another heartbeat, she, too, smelled a scent like incipient lightning and heard buzzing and crackling. Then, dripping sparks, a dracolich crawled into the cave. Entirely skeletal, it dwarfed Brimstone as he dwarfed Ananta.
She wondered if that could possibly be who she thought it must be: a player who, despite or maybe because of possessing every advantage, had been eliminated from the Great Game early, when a cabal of his rivals and underlings conspired against him.
Brimstone’s greeting removed her uncertainty. “My lord Alasklerbanbastos,” he said. “I rejoice to see you returned to the world of the living and cloaked in a form every bit as imposing as the last one.”
“Did you know?” the dracolich growled.
“That Jaxanaedegor and your lesser vassals intended to betray you?” Brimstone replied. “By the end, I did.”
“And yet you didn’t warn me!” Pale light flickered inside Alasklerbanbastos’s ribs, through his fangs, and behind the orbits of his skull. The smell of an approaching storm thickened.
Ananta shifted her grip on her staff. It had formidable powers, but she doubted they were formidable enough to contend with the Great Bone Wyrm.
“Nor did I warn anyone else of any of your schemes,” Brimstone said. If he felt threatened, Ananta couldn’t tell if from his demeanor.
“But all against one?” Alasklerbanbastos said. Little lightning bolts sizzled from one bone to the next. “In the opening moves?”
“If I were speaking to anyone else,” Brimstone replied, “I might suspect that individual was about to embarrass himself by whining about fairness. But I know Lord Alasklerbanbastos understands that’s a concept for weaklings, without applicability to xorvintaal or the deeds of dragons in general.”
Alasklerbanbastos glared back at him for several heartbeats. Then, to Ananta’s relief, the flickering light inside the skeletal dragon dimmed a little.
“I want to know my current standing,” he said.
“You’re in last place,” Brimstone said. “You started out reasonably well. You conspired with Skalnaedyr and his circle to good effect and mounted a credible war of conquest. But then your enemies smashed your army, stole your kingdom and your hoard, and destroyed you, albeit temporarily. You can’t deny that your ranking really is fair.”
“Whatever it is,” Alasklerbanbastos said, “we need to adjust it.”
Brimstone shrugged, giving his leathery wings a little toss. “You said it yourself. The game has barely begun. Over the course of decades—”
“I want it adjusted now,” snarled the undead blue. His tone was so fierce that, despite her desire not to provoke him, Ananta lifted her staff. Fortunately that elicited a nasty little chuckle, not a thunderbolt. “Relax, guardian. I didn’t mean that I intend to force this jumped-up snake to help me. I meant that I’m about to make a new play. One that by rights should earn more points than anyone else has acquired for anything because its purpose is to ensure the survival and integrity of the game itself.”
“That’s … intriguing,” Brimstone said.
“Use your black mirror to look in on Vairshekellabex and Gestanius too. Then I’ll tell you what I have in mind.”
* * * * *
Tchazzar generally conducted official business in the Green Hall or one of the comparable chambers inside the War College. But for reasons he hadn’t confided to Jhesrhi, he’d decided to assemble his court on the roof.
When she arrived, she found servants serving wine and a trio of minstrels playing the yarting, longhorn, and hand drum while the sunset bloodied the western sky. It made her wonder if the war hero had decided to turn the gathering into a purely social occasion, or as close to purely social as an
assembly of Chessenta’s rich and powerful could ever be.
Before she had a chance to work her way through the crowd to ask him, the servant at the top of the stairs thumped the butt of his staff on the floor and, raising his voice to make himself heard above the music, announced “Daelric Apathos, Sunlord of Chessenta.” The stout high priest clambered into view, looking red-faced and breathless from the climb to the top of the fortress.
Tchazzar clapped his hands, and the musicians stopped playing. Daelric bowed like those who’d arrived before him.
“Here’s the man we’ve all been waiting for,” Tchazzar said. “Thank you for coming so promptly.”
“Of course, Majesty,” Daelric said. “The messenger said it was urgent.”
“As it is,” the Red Dragon said. “Sunset waits for no one, as you surely know better than anybody. Come to the parapet, and we’ll enjoy it together.”
His round face a bland mask of agreeableness, the high priest did as he’d been told. Meanwhile, Tchazzar spotted Jhesrhi, grinned, and beckoned her forward as well. Halonya, who was already hovering near the war hero, twisted her mouth into a sort of rictus of welcome. Hasos gave Jhesrhi a nod.
Once everyone had wine, they all stood and watched the sky in silence for a while. It should have been pleasant—or at least more restful than Tchazzar’s usual garrulity and rushing about. But perhaps it was precisely the fact that the dragon was quiet that made Jhesrhi feel edgier and edgier as the moments crawled by.
Finally, even though it went against her better judgment, she felt impelled to try to find out what was really going on. “This is very nice,” she said. “Just not what I expected.”
“We friends should cherish these moments together,” Tchazzar said, “now that there are only a few remaining.”
Jhesrhi glanced around at the other folk in the Red Dragon’s immediate vicinity. As far as she could tell, none of them knew what he meant either.
“Do you mean that these are the last few moments of peace before we go off to war?” she asked.
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