Erin Evans - The God Catcher

Far from the House of the Laughing Star, the Timehands and temple bells were pealing the fourth hour after deepnight. Her wand high and tracing the magic of the wards, Shava yawned so hard her jaw looked ready to split. Agnea gave Nazra a pointed look, which she ignored. She was tired as any of them, but sleep could wait until Antoum was found.

After much argument, Lord Neverember had softened and agreed to lend her the aid of the guard. Now two dozen low-ranked officers were stationed in places around her house, full of whatever story Dagult had fed them to make them pliable and alert. Nazra didn't ask. Whatever it took.

Shava lowered her wand. "Your wards have been compromised for certain," she said. "There's nothing to stop someone from teleporting right in."

After Jorik's message, Agnea had shuffled through the papers on her desk, finding a gold-bordered envelope with an illegible name scrawled across the back and a seal of wax stamped with a strange rune. Nazra had tilted the envelope, shifting the reflection of the candles across the gilt edges. The reflection did not show her face but a room full of strange, bulky furniture. If she squinted, she could make out curios in cases among the lumps.

"It's certainly enchanted. They probably used the envelope to see in," Shava said. "Get an idea of what your house looks like and who's inside."

Agnea had taken the envelope from Nazra and shut it inside a desk drawer with a half-empty bottle of zzar. "I know that look," she'd said. "You can't tear it to shreds and burn it yet. We might need it."

She watched Nazra as Shava pronounced the wards useless. "At least now we know he's not working for someone you know already," she said. "If they could teleport into the house, they wouldn't have needed the envelope to see in."

Nazra glared at the closed drawer. "A good point. But where does that leave us? I…" Her throat closed and threatened to overflow with emotion. "I cannot very well search over all Faerun."

"No," Agnea said. "But we have time to look a bit farther afield. Three days, he said."

Nazra nodded, but in her thoughts she was very far away. For the space between the last two bells, she had been running through what she would do if by the third day she could not find her son.

And if that happened, she could not bring herself to deny his kidnapper the dragonstaff. Get Antoum back, she thought, and then deal with the aftermath.

After all, what could one man do with the dragonstaff?

For years, no one had known the dragonstaff even existed. A single mage had kept it and used it for his own benefit, allowing dragons to enter the city as it served his purposes. After the Spellplague, the mage disappeared and the staff had passed from wizard to wizard until it had reached the hands of the Blackstaff, who had decided that its powers belonged to the Lords of Waterdeep and turned it over to be hidden in Nazra's care.

To hand it over like some silly bauble would be betraying the city and her station. No justifications or circumlocutions would change that.

"Perhaps-" she started to say, when something scratched at the window. Nazra jumped back and set her hand on the hilt of her borrowed sword. The scrabbling came again, as heavy booted feet ran up the stairs.

"Open the window," Jorik said as he came into the room, panting. "She wouldn't walk."

"Who?" Nazra asked. Agnea moved to the window and threw it open.

A pair of clawed feet grasped the windowsill, followed by long-nailed hands on the sash. A female raptoran pulled herself in and stepped down, her wings held high as if she might fly back out the window.

"Goodwoman Mrays," Jorik said. "Allow me to introduce Aundra Blacklock, Tennora Hedare's landlady. She says she can help."

"Well met," Nazra said, approaching the raptoran. "Has Jorik told you what we're looking for?"

Aundra Blacklock stared at the molding along the top of the walls. "He said what you think you're looking for. A man in green velvet. He's kidnapped your egg."

"My son," Nazra said. "Who is he?"

Aundra's great yellow eyes followed a slow, ragged circuit around the edge of the ceiling, as if she were tracking the flight of a moth.

"Your wards have been damaged," she said. "There's a hole just the size to jump through." She tilted her head. "So to speak."

"Thank you," Nazra said, fighting to keep her tone and her temper under control. "I had wondered. Who is the man in green velvet?" "The dragon, you mean."

"Dragon?" Nazra said. "No, he's a young man-"

"You mean the dragon. If you ask the young lady in the Watch's dungeon, she should corroborate."

"That's not possible. The dragonward-"

"The dragonward makes it difficult," Aundra said. "Painful. Excruciating. But not impossible. Not for one as determined as him." Her eyes pierced Nazra. "Can you think of no one who has suffered for the sake of ambition?"

Nazra flushed. "How dare you imply it's my fault that my son has been kidnapped!"

Aundra blinked. "Is that what I said?" she asked mildly.

Nazra looked back over her shoulder at Jorik. His normally careful expression was full of naked surprise-at Nazra, and not at Aundra Blacklock. Agnea raised an eyebrow. Nazra pursed her lips-she was losing control. No one needed to hear what she was thinking, least of all that she might have prevented this, somehow.

"I must beg your pardon," she said slowly. "My nerves are understandably frayed. Please. You know where to find the man you say is a dragon?"

"I have no idea," Aundra said offhandedly. "As I said, you can ask the young woman-she might tell you, though I doubt it. And Tennora has gone after him. I suspect she will find him. One way or another."

Nazra thought a moment about bludgeoning Aundra Blacklock with the dragonstaff. "It seems highly unlikely that a young noble with a penchant for stealing has any chance of doing what the Watch and guard haven't been able to do."

"Possibly," Aundra Blacklock conceded. "But Tennora has the other dragon on her side. Much as I warned her not to," she added in a faintly aggrieved tone.

"Other dragon?" Jorik said. He looked at Nazra. "She didn't mention anything about that." But Nazra knew-knew down to the marrow of her bones-who Aundra Blacklock meant.

"The Tethyrian," Nazra said, and in her mind she heard Antoum's voice, That woman was different, wasn't she?

"Calishite," Aundra corrected. "In a manner of speaking. She is fighting the green. One will win, and one will die." She cocked her head again, to the other side. "I had hoped the green would prevail. He is younger and weaker. But Clytemorrenestrix… Tennora is young and unwise at times, but she is not a stubborn creature to be obstinate for obstinacy's sake. I could not convince her that the blue dragon was a threat. There is something there." She looked back up at the ceiling and the molding. "Your house is very old. It's seen many things."

Nazra's mind worked at a furious pace. Every secret she uncovered implied a dozen more, but the crux of it was unavoidable, if Aundra was right. She was not dealing with a rival or a madman or even a fellow mortal. Trying to divine a dragon's intentions, the truth or lie in his promise, was futile.

"Jorik, send someone to the Watch and see if you can't convince them to give us that young woman. I'm… I'm going to lie down." Before anyone could try to stop her, she swept out of the room and went downstairs.

She did not lie down, but instead went into a little-used room off to the side of her salon-a library and gallery of artwork and precious objects. That it was little used was no accident-there were no windows, and an enchantment made the room smell perpetually of mildew and decaying ink. She lit the candles by the door, casting everything in a sullen light.