The Spectral Blaze: A Forgotten Realms Novel

by Richard Lee Byers

“I realize you’re demented,” Alasklerbanbastos replied, “but try to think. Do you have one whit of actual evidence that any Threskelan wanted to avenge my downfall? Or that it was an undead who freed Khouryn Skulldark?”

  Tchazzar hesitated. “Strange things have happened,” he said. “And Halonya kept warning me I was bestowing my trust where I shouldn’t. But no … I can’t believe—”

  “At least believe that Gestanius and Vairshekellabex are dead! I’ve seen their corpses in Brimstone’s scrying mirror.”

  “You’ve been to Brimstone?”

  “Right after I recovered the phylactery and my freedom. And he agrees with me that Aoth Fezim and every other human who knows about the game must die immediately, before they can disseminate the secret any further. That’s why I’m on my way to Luthcheq. I figured I’d better warn you that I’m not coming to rekindle our feud.”

  “And what if I rekindle it?”

  “Then that will prove you really are deranged, not just partly but through and through. Nothing is more important than preserving the game. If we don’t, we’re throwing away the key to mastery of Faerûn. And offending Tiamat, who gave it to us.”

  “I can protect the secret without allowing you in my realm.”

  “Are you sure? You have a court full of traitors, and they’ve outwitted you at every turn. They’ve also destroyed other old, powerful dragons, including me in my previous incarnation.”

  “I destroyed you.”

  “Fine. I won’t quibble. My point is simply that you can’t underestimate Aoth Fezim, especially now that he has his mercenary band there in the city. Let me help you deal with him. I’m bringing several of the Murghôman dragons with me. Enough to be certain of killing the Thayan and all his allies too.”

  “How can I be sure they won’t turn on me?”

  “Because they fear the Father of Chessenta, onetime Chosen of the Dark Lady, a wyrm so mighty he’s returned from the dead repeatedly and might actually be a god. Because they’re prudent enough to focus on one battle at a time. Because you have your own loyal troops in Luthcheq to fight them if necessary. And because I no longer want you dead.”

  Tchazzar laughed. “I almost believed you until you said that.”

  “But I don’t want to kill you. Not tonight, anyway. The Spellplague swept the old world away. Why not let our conflict die along with it? Think how we can dominate the Great Game and the new world it will create if we join forces! And if we find we still despise one another after we establish our supremacy over lesser creatures, we can fight our final duel a few centuries hence.”

  Tchazzar stood and thought about it for several heartbeats. Then he said, “All right. How do you want to proceed?”

  “Where is Captain Fezim?”

  “In a suite here in the War College. Cera Eurthos is with him.”

  “Excellent! Don’t do anything to alert him until the other dragons and I are in the city. We’ll surround the fortress and make it absolutely impossible for him to escape.”

  “I could kill or capture him right now, in his sleep.”

  “It’s better to wait and come at him with every bit of our strength. My companions and I will be there before he wakes. The only thing I want you to do now is deal with the humans I hear blubbering nearby.”

  “I’m sure neither of them speaks Draconic.”

  “They could still prattle about a strange occurrence in the war hero’s bedchamber. Somehow, someway, the tale could find its way to Fezim or one of his allies. Let’s not take the chance.”

  “I suppose you have a point.”

  “I’ll see you before dawn, then.” The flickering died, plunging the room into almost total darkness.

  But the casement let in a little light. Enough, evidently, to reveal the motion when Tchazzar pivoted and raised his sword. The daughters screamed but had time for nothing more.

  * * * * *

  Some of the time, Jhesrhi knew she was dreaming. The knowledge seemed to slide in and out of her mind like cargo shifting in the hold of a rocking ship.

  Gaedynn was trying to kiss and caress her past repulsion into desire. Her reaction to that was inconstant too. At certain moments, his attentions were, if not pleasant, at least tolerable. She could appreciate how slowly and gently he was proceeding, and it made her want to want him.

  But at other moments, loathing welled up inside her. Her guts churned and bile burned in the back of her throat. She tried to focus on his face, tender and open for once, not armored in cockiness and mockery. But memories assaulted her. Huge and hideous, the elemental mages held her down. Tchazzar planted his eager mouth on hers.

  Then, suddenly, she realized that the person who was embracing her really was Tchazzar. He drew his head back and leered at her then opened a mouth full of fangs. A long, forked tongue slid out to lick her lips. Its surface was rough and blistering hot.

  It repulsed her beyond bearing, and she tried to push him away. But he was too strong and either indifferent to her unwillingness or too intent on his own satisfaction to notice. She spoke a word of power.

  Flame exploded between them, breaking his grip, flinging him backward, but incapable of actually harming a red dragon. That was why she’d chosen that particular magic.

  But then he started screaming and thrashing on the floor, and it wasn’t just clothing blazing but his hair. He was Gaedynn once again.

  His agony was hers, yet it wasn’t the only thing she was feeling. A part of her rejoiced simply because flames were leaping and crackling. Maybe that was the reason that no matter how she strained, she couldn’t remember the words to put them out. Gaedynn’s face blackened, the fire gnawing it away—

  With a gasp, Jhesrhi jerked awake, and her eyes flew open. Tchazzar was standing over her bed. Even in the gloom, she recognized his tall, muscular frame and the long head with the tapered chin and pointed ears.

  She drew a ragged breath and let it out. “Majesty,” she said. “No one told me you were here.”

  “That’s because I sent your maids away.”

  Jhesrhi assumed that meant he’d grown impatient with waiting for her to overcome her dread of intimacy. Heart pounding, she told herself she could put him off as she had before.

  “If Your Majesty will excuse me for a moment,” she said, “I can put on proper clothing.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, and with the nightmare fading, she caught the strangeness in his voice. Maybe it wasn’t lust that had brought him to her apartments, or at least, not lust alone.

  “Well, then.” Half expecting him to stop her but unwilling to keep lying supine, she tried to sit up. And when he permitted that, she rose and moved to pick up a robe to pull on over her nightdress. In so doing, she also positioned herself close to her staff. “Is there something urgent? Something wrong?”

  “You could say that. I’ve learned that Aoth Fezim betrayed me. It was his duplicity that made it impossible for Chessenta to march on Tymanther.”

  “Majesty, with all respect, that’s absurd. Aoth’s a sellsword. He earns his living—”

  “Don’t!” Tchazzar snapped. “I know he’s guilty. I suggest you devote your energy to convincing me you weren’t involved.”

  If there was no hope of persuading the Red Dragon of Aoth’s innocence, that might indeed be the wiser course. For after all, Jhesrhi couldn’t help her comrades if she was dead or locked up herself.

  “I truly don’t believe,” she said, “that Aoth would ever do anything disloyal. But even if he has, I’m not a part of the Brotherhood anymore, and I haven’t been with them. I’ve been here with you.”

  “Yes, here in Luthcheq. Where some agency helped your friend Skulldark escape and a prodigious wind ruined the supplies. Where you looked me in the eye and urged me to consider my position in a game.”

  Trying not to be obvious about it, Jhesrhi swallowed. “Majesty, we’ve already talked about the escape and what happened to the supplies, and I don’t understand why it was wrong for me to
talk about war and statecraft in terms of a game. It’s common for people to talk that way.”

  Tchazzar scowled. “I know that! And I don’t want you to be guilty. I want you to be my consort and my luck, like I imagined.”

  “Then allow me to be those things,” Jhesrhi said. “Allow it by trusting me.”

  “It isn’t that easy. You have to prove yourself, and do it before Alasklerbanbastos arrives. Otherwise—”

  “Alasklerbanbastos?” She’d heard how the Great Bone Wyrm had escaped but, like her friends, had assumed the dracolich had simply gone to ground somewhere. Obviously not. “Now I understand! Majesty, that foul thing is your enemy! You can’t believe anything he says!”

  “Yet I do. I believe I’ve been mired in lies since the day of my return, and now I’m free at last, which is bad luck for the liars. They’re about to find out the punishment for trying to trick a god.”

  “Majesty, whatever you suspect, surely you’ll at least give them a trial.”

  “When will you insects understand that I’m a god? I can judge and punish as I please, without the mortal rigmarole of courts and laws. In other words, your friends are already as good as dead. The only question left is whether you’ll join them in the Hells.”

  “You said I could prove myself. How?” She assumed she knew and wondered if she could endure it any better in reality than she had in dream.

  But Tchazzar surprised her by laughing at whatever he’d seen come into her face or heard in her voice. “Do you think I’m that besotted? That it will be that easy?”

  Bewildered and, crazily, a little hurt in spite of everything, she said, “Majesty, I believe I’ve explained that it wouldn’t be easy for me.”

  “Or perhaps you’ve just tantalized me endlessly because you judged that would be the best way to keep me obsessed and distracted.”

  “I swear that isn’t so.”

  “Well, you’ll have to prove it as worshipers have always proved themselves to the gods. By sacrifice. Your friend Ulraes is in the fortress. Now, I told Alasklerbanbastos that I wouldn’t move against any of you until he arrived. But I had to figure you out, and the archer is no wizard, just an insolent man-at-arms. Surely you can dispose of him without making enough fuss to rouse Captain Fezim, and then you and I will make love beside the corpse. That will make our first time all the more special.”

  “Gaedynn helped rescue you. He had as much to do with it as I did.”

  The world exploded into senselessness. When her shattered thoughts came partly back together, her head was ringing, her mouth tasted of blood, and she had her back against the wall. She realized that the dragon had lashed her across the jaw with the back of his hand, his arm whipping so fast that she hadn’t had time to react.

  “I told you not to mention that again!” Tchazzar snarled. “I’m a god! I was never a prisoner, never bound in the dark, and never needed any mortal’s help! It’s blasphemy to say otherwise! And blasphemy’s the foulest treason of all!”

  “Forgive me, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said. “I … don’t know why I said it. Some devil must have prompted me. Because I love and worship you and will do whatever I have to to prove it. Even kill my friend if that’s what you require.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I’ll get my staff.”

  As before, she thought he might stop her, but he didn’t. Probably he rightly assumed he had little to fear from the instrument. He was largely impervious to the fire that had become her greatest weapon, and no other single spell in her arsenal was likely to hit him so hard that he’d be unable to retaliate.

  It was late. But the corridors of the War College were seldom entirely deserted, and startled sentries and servants hastily saluted or bowed to their ruler, then no doubt eyed him and his companion curiously once they passed by. Jhesrhi’s nightclothes and bare feet probably made them think Tchazzar had whisked her out of her bed for some madcap escapade or tryst. Which, in a ghastly way, wasn’t far from the truth.

  Tchazzar stopped in front of one carved, brassbound door in a row of them. He removed a silver key from the inside of his doublet, slid it into the keyhole, and twisted it. The lock yielded with a tiny click. He smirked, laid his finger across his lips, swung open the door, and ushered Jhesrhi into the dark room beyond.

  At which point, she felt a pang of hope because Gaedynn wasn’t there. But when Tchazzar eased open a second door, they found the Aglarondan sprawled, snoring softly, in his bed. Despite everything, Jhesrhi’s mouth tightened when she made out the second shape all but hidden under the covers.

  “See?” Tchazzar whispered, a hint of laughter in his tone. “He doesn’t care anything about you. So this shouldn’t be so difficult after all.”

  “No.” Jhesrhi raised her staff, told it to be still when it begged for fire, and spoke to the wind instead.

  Conjuring an actual gale wasn’t easy in a massive, enclosed structure such as the War College. But, like every wizard who’d ever cast a spell successfully, she made herself believe the magic would answer and it did. The air screamed, snatched her off her feet, and hurled her forward. Tchazzar grabbed for her, but at that moment, he was the one who was too slow.

  Ahead of her, the wind rocked the bed and ripped Gaedynn, his companion, and the covers off the feather mattress. In the dark, Jhesrhi couldn’t tell if the blast of air smashed the cames and diamond-shaped panes out of the casement, or if the lovers’ bodies did it as they hurtled through.

  An instant later, she, too, shot through to see that she and the others had burst out of the east face of the War College, on the opposite side from most of Luthcheq. Only a few scattered buildings bumped up from the ground below.

  Jhesrhi spoke to the wind once more and felt it respond with a hint of reluctance. Flinging people around like a cat batting a ball suited it better than carrying them in a more precise and less violent manner. But it obeyed. It heaved her, Gaedynn, and his erstwhile bedmate upward.

  And not a moment too soon. Flame blazed through the broken window but passed beneath them. Above, on the battlements atop the enormous sandstone edifice, a sentry cried out.

  Certain Tchazzar would try again to burn them, Jhesrhi told the wind to bring her close to the wall and drew those she was carrying close to it also. That should give the dragon a difficult angle.

  Although evidently not an impossible one, for a second streak of fiery breath shot up between Gaedynn and herself. Then, however, they were high enough to fly over the roof and use it for cover. Jhesrhi dumped Gaedynn’s wench beside one of the catapults, and she thumped down with a squeal.

  Then, Jhesrhi judged, she could finally pause to catch her breath and think. The guards below looked astonished, not aggressive, although that could change at any moment. She made Gaedynn and herself float in the air.

  To her relief, it didn’t appear that the window glass had cut him. Using his fingers to comb his tousled hair, he grinned at her. “You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble just to see me naked.”

  “Shut up!” she snapped. “The plan’s come apart! Tchazzar wants us all dead!”

  “I guessed that, actually. The gist, if not all the details. And I assume Aoth and Cera are still inside the fortress.”

  “Yes. Do you know what quarters they were given?”

  “Even if I did, I doubt I could spot it from the outside.”

  “We can’t just leave them to be killed in their sleep.”

  “No, but we can’t go back in and look for them either. That would only get us killed. You have to warn them from out here.”

  “All right.” Growling harsh, percussive words derived from one of the languages of Elemental Chaos, she gripped her staff with both hands and jabbed it downward in time with the steady beat of the incantation.

  Her power jolted the structure beneath her. The shocks made the sentries stumble back and forth.

  When she finished, Gaedynn asked, “Are you sure that was enough? I mean, it was impressive in its way, but you didn�
�t break anything.”

  “I’m not done,” she answered. She spun her staff over her head. The pseudo-mind inside cried out in joy when she willed the ends of the rod to burst into flame.

  Fireballs shot from the ends of the staff and, arcing, fell down the four faces of the War College. Presumably the light they shed shined through all the windows.

  Panting, she lowered the staff and willed out the fires at the ends. “That’s all I know to do.”

  “Then it will have to be enough. Especially since the fellows below are finally readying their crossbows. We need to reach the Brotherhood.”

  “I know.” She spoke to the wind, and it swept them onward.

  * * * * *

  Jet prowled the muddy field where his fellow griffons lay sleeping. Still not quite recovered from the race back to Chessenta, he wished he could join them in their slumber. But a nagging uneasiness was keeping him awake.

  He turned east and reached across the city with his thoughts. Are you there? Is everything all right?

  But all that he sensed in response was a jumbled blur of a mind that sluggishly shifted away from his psychic touch. Aoth, too, was asleep. Happy that he’d outmaneuvered Tchazzar, he’d likely eaten too much, drunk too much, and spent himself mating with his female.

  Idiot, Jet thought, although not without a certain amount of envy. Don’t drop your guard while you’re still in a dragon’s lair.

  And at that moment, fire erupted from a point above the War College. The blazing orbs arced outward and spilled down the sides of the fortress like spray from a fountain.

  Jet didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he very much doubted it was good. Are you awake now? he called.

  No. Aoth wasn’t. Although it was possible that his sleep wasn’t quite as deep as before.

  Jet trotted, unfurled his wings, lashed them, and rose into the air. “Danger!” he screeched. “Danger!” Then he drove on toward the War College.

  Wake up! he cried, tearing at the barrier of Aoth’s unconsciousness as he would rend a foe with his talons. Wake up, wake up, wake up!

  * * * * *