Erin Evans - The God Catcher

She watched the Open Lord for a long moment. "Swear to me it's not your doing," she said softly.

He looked appalled. "Mystra's blood, Nazra. That's a fair step beyond my style. I'm no kidnapper. I swear."

She flushed. They'd had their quarrels and their joint machinations, but she should have known better. "He's not from Waterdeep," she said. "He has a plethora of magical trinkets on his person, not the least of which is a collar-the sort you see on old-style plate-with a moonstone as big as a-"

"A deck of cards," Lord Neverember finished.

Nazra raised her eyebrows. "I was going to say a child's hand, but yes. Right on the flat of his chest. You know it?"

Lord Neverember ran his hand over his face. "Your man's wearing a piece of the Songdragon's armor."

Nazra's pulse sped again. "Why?"

"Gods know, Mrays-I mean Nazra. Can't remember what the blasted thing does. It's not supposed to be in his hands though. Unless your man's an eladrin. Some wizard holds the gorget. One of those House of Wonder sorts. Lives near the Market."

"Halnian?" Nazra said, shocked. "Rhinzen Halnian?"

"Sounds right. You know him?"

"He's my son's tutor."

Dagult smiled wickedly. "Well then, I suppose you know where to begin."

The bars were not going to bend, Nestrix had to admit. Not the walls, not the ceiling. She even tried blowing a little lightning into one comer to melt the metal, but succeeded only in shocking herself and burning her lower lip. She sucked on it, considering her options and cursing to herself the hand of fate.

There was a lock on the door-if she rested for a while, she might be able to draw up enough dragonfear to get one of her guards to drop the key. If she had a wire like Tennora's, she might be able to unlatch it by drawing up the thiefs memories.

A sudden rush of emotion cut her off that path of thoughts, and she was surprised to find tears welling up in her eyes. Tennora was gone.

"Weeping for some dokaal," she muttered and wiped her eyes, but the tears kept coming. Tennora was gone, and she had never said she was sorry for running off.

She was sorry now, though she was just as surprised to realize that as she was that she was crying. Who was she? What was she doing, weeping over some dokaal?

"Not some dokaal," she said aloud, as if to convince herself. "Tennora."

She had gone and made friends with a human. After a hundred years of walking among the dokaal, Clytemorrenestrix, the Terror of the Calim, She Who Thunders in the Sky, had begun to enjoy the company of a human! If Nestrix had been able to tell herself, in the days after the Blue Fire came about, that she would find herself locked in a cage and crying for the loss of a human, she did not doubt her younger self would have laughed.

Nestrix brushed the tears from her cheeks as if they were insects, as if they irritated her.

Tears would not stop Dareun. Tears would not make him suffer as he so richly deserved. But to make him suffer, she would have to escape the cage.

And then what? she thought sourly. Breathe on him and hope you don't die of it? She sank down onto the crate, mired in despair. She would be trapped here until Dareun decided to kill her.

She looked down at her hands and smiled viciously at that. She'd take her chance then, if he were foolish enough to try.

A light flickered in the passage that led up to the surface-and went out. Nestrix sneered at it, waiting for Dareun to come striding down the passageway, smug as a red dragon on a mountaintop.

The light did not return, and neither Dareun nor his colorful lovac appeared from the shadows. Nothing came down the dark path.

But something had undeniably been there. Nestrix cursed her feeble eyes, unable to pierce the gloom. If not Dareun or his lovac, then what? One of the city's soldiers? A creature of the tunnels?

The light flicked on again, like the tail of a firefly, and briefly illuminated a woman in leather armor.

Nestrix racked her mind, but couldn't remember a woman in jacks among Dareun's minions. An adventurer then, she thought. Well, at least this would be interesting.

The woman in the leather armor stepped into the edge of the glowballs' light. She caught Nestrix's eye and pressed a finger to her lips before stepping back into the shadows.

Nestrix's heart stopped-the woman in the leather armor was Tennora.

She had to purse her lips to stop herself from crying out. Tennora! Tiamat m'henich, she was alive.

The guards on either side of the exit hadn't heard Tennora or seen her brief light. They stood, looking bored and dismayed at the task they'd been given. But that wouldn't last long-Tennora couldn't strike both at once.

She needed help.

Nestrix cleared the worry from her thoughts, shut away the trepidation so that it couldn't taint her.

She stood before the bars, watching the guards until they watched her back.

All that fear, all that anger, all the rage at being held like a beast in a cage-she poured it into them. Their eyes widened, and the grip on their weapons tightened. She felt every nerve in her skin screaming at the absence of her scales and the absence of the storms. She gathered that up and poured it into them too.

The guards passed nervous glances to each other. Nestrix drew up the memory of how she had seemed to the thief in the desert, the image of her former self-unstoppable as a sandstorm, rearing up, lighting crackling in her jaws as the wall of Blue Fire rushed in and swallowed them all. Riding the dragonfear the image streaked into the men's heads as well. She screamed-a battle cry, a thunderclap, a keening.

The one on the left started shrieking. The one on the right dropped his weapon, his eyes so wide the whites gleamed all around. He stood there for a moment, knees shaking so hard he could barely stand, before turning tail and bolting down the tunnel.

There was an ugly grunt and a thud.

The second guard stopped screaming, and though he trembled, he turned toward the dark tunnel, sword held high. He glanced over at Nestrix, who was still forcing the dragonfear on him, though the effect was clearly diminishing.

His face contorted in a sneer and he started down the tunnel.

Only to walk straight into one of Tennora's fireballs.

The flames ignited his hair and he screamed again, twisting away from the tunnel.

Tennora ran out of the shadows, holding the other guard's sword, her face white and determined. As the guard beat down the last of the flames, he turned and caught the blade of the sword across the fleshy part of his belly. The armor he wore protected him somewhat, but not from being knocked onto his back.

Still faintly gray, Tennora pulled out her dagger and, planting her knee on his chest, held it to the man's throat.

"Keys," she said.

"I… I haven't got 'em," he gasped. "The master carries them."

"Give me a good reason to let you live, then," Tennora replied, and oddly, she sounded as if she meant it.

"I–I-I-"

"There's a chemical in here somewhere," Nestrix interjected. "They used it to put me to sleep when they kidnapped me. Knock him out and deal with him later."

Tennora's brown eyes fell gratefully on Nestrix for a moment. She prodded the man with the dagger. "Where's the poison?"

"It's… it's… I'll get it for you," he said. "He keeps it in a case, over in those crates there. Let me get it for you. Don't kill me."

Tennora glanced up at Nestrix briefly, then shifted her weight off the man. "All right. Go find it," she said. She made a little gesture with her hand, as if telling him to get up.

"Oh thank you, thank you," the man said, climbing to his feet. "You're doing the right thing. It's right over-Ha!" He pulled his own dagger from his belt and spun on Tennora with a cry of triumph.