Erin Evans - The God Catcher

The first was a young man wearing a green velvet coat and walking with a cane. He was coughing and held a handkerchief to his mouth. The coughing grew worse, and he had to stop and lean against the second man for a moment.

"Tiamat m'henich" he swore in Draconic as the coughing subsided. The hairs on Nestrix's neck stood on end. That was the taaldarax.

"Master," the second man, the lovac, said, "sit down. Rest yourself."

"Away, Ferremo," the other man snapped. "I don't need a nursemaid." He limped away from the antiquary. The light moved with him and illumined a comfortable-looking chair among the dark hulks of a dozen chests. The man with the cane scowled at it, but sat anyway.

"How long will she be unconscious?" he asked.

"It is hard to say," Ferremo answered, and Nestrix realized they meant her. "It should only have been a few hours… but we navigate uncharted waters here." He paused for the briefest moment. "If what you say is true, master."

The man in the chair grunted. "Have I ever been wrong before?"

"Of course not," Ferremo said. "Never in my time with you." He paused. "But the bounty hunter and his story are… quite compelling."

A tense pause. "Whenever did you find the time to seek out a bounty hunter?"

"I-that is, Alina brought him to my attention. The likeness is-"

"The result of a decent artist and a foolish magistrate. Words on foolscap do not make a fact." He began coughing once more, and it was long moments before it subsided.

"The girl," Ferremo said, "her lovac, came to the shop. She offered a trade." "I don't want it," the man with the cane said.

"She offers a relic. Of the world before the Blue Fire. A collar meant to protect against the dragonward."

His master snorted. "I will not need it much longer."

"Master, as a precaution. You're suffering."

"I will endure," he said. "And what does she want in return? Her mistress?"

"Yes." Another pause. "Consider it, master. The creature is not worth your-" He broke off with a sudden gasp.

"You'll mind your tongue, Ferremo," the taaldarax said.

"Whoever she is to you and me-foe or friend or innocent-she is your better."

"And if she is not?" Ferremo asked, after a breath or two. "Master?"

A long silence hung in the air. "Do you think I cannot tell the difference?" the man with the cane said. "Do you think I'd mistake a human for one of the ulhar?"

"You… you are ailing, master."

"May I never be so frail as to…" He trailed off. "Awake, are we?"

Nestrix cursed silently, but she sat up once more with an easy grace. "You are frail enough to have missed that. I have been awake some time now, taaldarax." She glanced over at the antiquary turned lovac. "You wound me, dokaal. You'll live to regret it."

"Leave us," the assassin's master growled at him. Ferremo gave a quick bow, his eyes never leaving Nestrix. When the lovac had left, the dragon in the man's skin stood still and regarded Nestrix for a long while.

"You're a blue," the man said in Draconic. The sharp consonants rolled off his tongue as easily as an old tavern song, without the slightest of two-legged accents. Even Nestrix's tongue tripped on her first language now.

"Are you certain?" she said acidly.

He clucked his tongue. "I'm cleverer than most, ulhar. I know what you are, even if I've never met your kind before."

"And I've never met a green before," Nestrix said, "but your arrogance precedes you. Even if you hoard like one of the aussir."

"How droll." He stepped into the light. An overdramatic gesture, Nestrix thought, worthy of a young and self-absorbed dragon. "I wondered. You always hear the ulhar are too vain to notice much beyond the ends of their horns."

She smiled sweetly. "What am I doing in this cage?"

"Talking," the man said with a smile. "Preferably about how you've managed to evade the dragonward's effects."

Nestrix bit her lip to keep from laughing. "Why?" she said, her voice dripping honey. "Does the dragonward bother you?"

He stood at the bars of the cage, and she could see now that it did. He clutched the walking stick like an old man with a palsy, and he was breathing heavily. His skin was pale, and a fine bead of sweat stood out on his forehead.

"How did you do it?" he said calmly.

"I merely entered the city," she said.

"Now who's being arrogant?" He held up a hand and whispered words that Nestrix knew were a spell, even if she couldn't identify it.

A lance of icy air pierced her lungs, and she was suddenly so cold she couldn't draw breath. She twisted out of its path, but the frost lingered in her chest.

"Henich," she hissed. "Bastard! This is your plan? Cage me up and throw ice at me? What do I care? I have nothing left."

He paced along the edge of the cage. "I've asked around-as much as I can in the space of a night. None of the taaldarax I know recognize you. What are you doing in my territory?"

"They wouldn't know me," Nestrix said, standing. If he was going to torture her, he'd look her in the teeth as he did it. "As I don't play xorvintaal."

"Then who are you working for?"

Nestrix laughed. "Don't you listen? This has nothing to do with your little game. I have no interest in the machinations of mortals." She pulled herself to her feet. "And you know that. You can't kidnap or kill another player."

The man did not blink. "You'll find there are a lot of rules I know my way around. Tell me your name."

"Clytemorrenestrix. Of the Calim, last time any of your opponents heard of me."

He repeated the name under his breath, likely telling that lovac of his to ask around about her. There was nothing to find, she knew, save the possible opinion that she was just a mad human woman with a few lucky talents. She thought of Tennora and the leaflet she'd found.

"I am Andareunarthex," he said, but dissolved into another fit of coughing. He pressed the bloodstained handkerchief to his lips.

"Of Waterdeep?" Nestrix asked.

When the coughing faded, he fixed his dark emerald eyes on her again. "You are a mystery, Clytemorrenestrix. You're a blue-even if Ferremo tells me otherwise, even if your girl says the same, even if there's a hunter calling you to court for human laws' sake. You and I know what is what. You're no more human than I am." He settled back into his chair. "And you say you are no taaldarax, but you dance around my questions as if their answers matter a great deal to you and quote rules back at me like an old one."

Another spell burst from his wand, surrounding Nestrix in a blur of purple light that stung her skin like a swarm of wasps and made her bones feel as if they were melting. She tumbled to her knees.

Dareun leaned forward, looking down at her.

"But whatever you are," he said, "you cannot stop me from taking what I want."

"Why bother?" Nestrix panted. "The dragonward's doing a fine job bringing you down."

Dareun smiled. "For now. Ferremo!" he shouted over his shoulder. The assassin stepped forward and bowed.

"We will take the girl up on her offer," Dareun said. "Who knows-it could be exactly what I need."

Ferremo bowed again. "Shall I shackle this one?" he said.

"No," Dareun said, turning back to Nestrix with a smug look on his face. "We're having such a lovely conversation. She should stay."

Ferremo hesitated. "The girl's certain to make a fuss though." "Well then," Dareun said, and Nestrix felt her heart freeze even as he spoke. "Why don't you give her the business end of your knife for her troubles?"

Tennora waited beneath the street lamp at the street corner nearest the antiquary's shop, the sack with the gorget heavy as a millstone in her hand. The key is the singer's collar. Her plan would work. It had to.

Even if she wasn't certain the statue had meant the Songdragon's gorget. She thought of Aundra's naked frustration with the God Catcher's cryptic words. The statues' prophecies were not the neat explanations one found in chapbooks.