Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Isaura let no emotion pass over her face as she stepped onto the dais beside Neskartu. She simply turned to face the visitors and nodded solemnly. “Welcome to Aurolan.”

The man started to speak, but Vionna stopped him by pressing a gloved hand to his chest. “Chytrine summoned us and we have traveled a long, difficult road to get here. The summons was urgent, so we should be speaking with her, shouldn’t we?”

“My mother is not in a position to greet you herself, so I have come in her stead.” Isaura’s reference to Chytrine surprised Vionna, but the girl suppressed a smile at that result. “As you are aware, the war with the Southlands demands great attention. Shifting circumstances have embroiled her in pressing matters.”

The Azure Spider snarled. “So, then, I am supposed to stay here and freeze?”

Isaura gave him a thin smile. “You will only freeze if you try to leave.”

“Is that a threat?”

Neskartu’s form swelled and color moved through him more swiftly. When his words appeared in her mind, they had become brambles. This child provided you a courteous warning about the hazards of peregrinations in Aurolan. Take pains to apologize now .

The man winced, having borne the full brunt of Neskartu’s comment. The Azure Spider did bow his head in Isaura’s direction. “Please forgive my misunderstanding.”

The snowy-maned beauty nodded slowly because her upbringing demanded it, but she did not really forgive him. The look in his eyes told her much. He, a Southlander, believed in his heart that her mother was evil. His own greed had pushed him past his fear of her, but also never let him see the true Chytrine, the one who was fighting to save the world from the corruption of the south. Her mother had suggested she might be betrayed, and Isaura found a prime candidate in the Azure Spider.

Neskartu shifted his gaze to Vionna. My mistress bids me to give you a message. She forgave your inability to destroy Vilwan because you did bring her a cargo of students. She continued to trust you, but you failed her when you allowed the sapphire Truestone to be stolen. Had you just given it to her agent, it would not have been lost. You cost her something she held most dear .

Vionna’s chin came up and her eyes slitted. “And she wishes me to atone for my failure?”

There is a way, yes . The sullanciri’s form sank back to normal. However, you are required to pay a price to earn the chance to atone. As you cost her something dear, so she demands something dear of you .

“And that would be?”

Your paramour.

Even before the realization that Neskartu was talking about him had registered on the Azure Spider’s face, Vionna had nodded her assent. A thread of blue energy rose within the sullanciri’s form, then lashed out. It slapped against the Azure Spider’s chest and melded itself to his blouse, stiffening it so the man’s arms shot out straight to his sides at shoulder level.

“You can’t do this to me! Vionna, darling, you can’t let them do this to me!” His hazel eyes widened as blue webwork flowed down over his trousers and boots, further restraining him. “Vionna, think of what we mean to each other!”

The pirate queen regarded him coldly. “You or death? Choices, choices. You were fun, but a blanket can keep me warm at night and doesn’t become petulant when it’s not the center of attention.”

“Vionna!”

The woman backhanded her lover, and Isaura recoiled from the violence. The man began to sob. Bloody spittle mixed with tears and ran down to drip off his chin.

Be still, Vionna, for you have given him to my mistress. Damage her property no more . The energy tendril thickened and lifted the Azure Spider from the dais and hung him in the air as if he were bound to some unseen crucifix. Now, for you, who shall become known as Spyr’skara, you have been fancied a legend. From this point forward you shall join the greatest of legends. My mistress has decided that despite your failures, you will be allowed to join the sullanciri and serve her. You will be more than the sum of all your past. Do you wish to serve her ?

Isaura watched the man and waited for him to agree. She had studied the spells that had to be worked to transform a being into one of her mother’s elite. While they could be worked on someone who was reluctant, that reluctance blocked them from enjoying their full power. A sullanciri created by Neskartu, as was evidenced by Ganagrei and the other lesser sullanciri , would not be as powerful as those transformed by her mother. Myrall’mara, Nefrai-kesh, Nefrai-laysh, Neskartu, and Ferxigo had been blessed among her generals and fashioned by her hand alone. The lessers had been worked in concert with Neskartu, but Spyr’skara would be the first he had done without her.

And this is why he needs me . While Neskartu was extremely powerful, his core humanity hampered him. Though he had learned much since his transformation, certain concepts about dealing with the Aurolani school of magick eluded him. Isaura, whom Chytrine had tutored personally for decades, had grown up understanding that system. She could work the grander spells that would contain and reinforce the transformation.

As she had been taught, magick itself flowed through reality in a massive, surging river with eddies and currents, rapids of varying severity and deadly sinks that could suck down even the most careful of mages. Human magick did not recognize the river for what it was, but thought magickal energy just a pool from which the substance to work spells could be drawn. Human mages did recognize dangers in dipping magick from the pool, so their spells were arranged to be a series of handholds and belay lines that would prevent them from slipping too far into the pool and drowning.

While their prudence doubtlessly saved many a foolish mage, it also prevented them from accessing deeper, purer power. A thirsty man might settle for any water, but given a choice would go for cooler. Human magick never allowed its practitioners a chance to find that cooler water and, hampered as they were, they remained unable to truly grasp that they were dealing with a river.

The elves and urZrethi had progressed enough to know that the pool did have motion in it, and that some energy was better than others, but still the idea of the river escaped them. Neskartu had learned enough to perceive motion and different currents of different values, but the vastness of the river escaped even him. Isaura suspected he was afraid of how much power could be had, and afraid that he might just dive into it and never surface again.

That latter fear was one she had known when she first had her eyes opened to the true nature of magick. Her mother allayed that fear by showing her how to read the river. Isaura now could follow the flows. She could look forward and back, spot eddies and sinks. With a thought here or there she could navigate across the flow to reach those currents she required to perform her magicks.

The Azure Spider lifted his head. “I accept.” He glared sidelong at the pirate queen. “I move beyond you.”

The blue energy flared, and the man’s clothing instantly combusted into an azure flame. The man writhed, though the fire he breathed in so seared his throat that he could make no sound. He fought for a moment, then the flame closed around him in a tight blue shroud. His feet rose, his arms came in. For a moment or two his elbows, head, heels, and knees stretched the shroud, then the shape solidified and flowed into something akin to an egg, retaining the blue hue and exhibiting a spiderweb pattern in black over the surface.

The egg hovered in the air and Vionna pulled back. “What are you doing to him?”