Richard Byers - The Spectral Blaze

“Lady, I’ll justify the decisions I made to Tchazzar if he requires it, not to you.”

“Of course,” Jhesrhi said, “because you’re simply too busy to talk to me about anything, aren’t you? But perhaps I can lift the burden from your back.”

With a thought, she made the head of her staff burn like a torch, and the pseudo-mind inside it crowed. She lowered the flames over the tallest stack of papers, and one of the clerks yelped in dismay.

Shala jumped up out of her chair, and seemingly indifferent to the possibility of burning herself, swatted the staff aside. “Are you crazy?” she snarled.

“No,” Jhesrhi said. “I merely wanted your full attention. If I finally have it, maybe we should continue this talk in private.”

Shala raked her assistants with her glare. “Go!” she said, and they all scurried out.

When the door closed, Jhesrhi ordered the staff to stop burning, and it sulked at being denied a conflagration. “I apologize for that,” she said to Shala. “Although I hope it was convincing.”

Shala blinked. “That was all a sham?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m no courtier, High Lady. But since I joined the Brotherhood, I’ve wandered through enough royal and noble courts to know that Tchazzar probably has a spy among your aides. I didn’t want him to slither off and report that we’re plotting in secret. And since I swaggered in here like Queen Bitch, I don’t think he will. He’ll believe we’re having a bitter row.”

“Possibly,” Shala said, “but what makes you think I’d conspire with you?” She smiled crookedly. “After all, you’re a wizard, and as you pointed out, I cruelly mistreated your poor, innocent kind.”

Jhesrhi shrugged. “You simply enforced laws that existed before you ever came to the throne, laws the temples told you were just and good. And then, when the murders began, you still let Lord Nicos bring the Brotherhood to Luthcheq so the people wouldn’t slaughter all the arcanists.”

“So I was only half a tyrant?”

“After that,” Jhesrhi persisted, “you rode to war with Oraxes, Meralaine, and me. Maybe you saw something there, something to persuade you that wizards are just people, not the devil-spawn that the priests have always made us out to be.”

“Let’s say I did.” Shala sat back down in her chair and waved Jhesrhi to another. “In my life I haven’t found normal people to be all that trustworthy either. If Tchazzar doubts my loyalty, maybe he asked you to trick me into saying something treasonous. And why wouldn’t you be eager to oblige when you’ve risen so high in his favor?”

“If he decides he wants to get rid of you, do you honestly think he’ll require incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing before ordering your arrest?”

Shala snorted. “There is that. Still, it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

“You know Halonya arrested Khouryn Skulldark.”

“And you couldn’t convince Tchazzar to let him go. The madwoman won that round.”

Jhesrhi scowled and a line of flame oozed up the staff. “The point is that if Tchazzar won’t free him, I have to. And I need help.”

“You’d risk everything the dragon’s given you-and your own freedom and your own life-to accomplish this?”

“I only have a handful of friends, High Lady. Khouryn’s one of them.”

“He’s also a dwarf, and Chessentans don’t like them any better than sorcerers. So why should I risk everything that I have left to help him?”

“Because you know he’s being punished just for following your orders. Because it will do you good to give Halonya a poke in the eye. And because you know that, even leaving the question of justification aside, it’s rash and stupid for Chessenta to invade Tymanther right after fighting a war in the north.”

“And freeing your friend will keep that from happening?”

“It might help,” Jhesrhi said, then explained how.

Shala grunted. “It sounds like a feeble hope to me.”

“It may be. But also consider that you won’t be running all that much of a risk. I’ll be the one taking the big chances.”

“I’m not a coward!” Shala snapped.

“I know that, High Lady. But you are the one who keeps asking why she should help me. I’m giving all the reasons I can think of.”

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“Halonya dangled Khouryn in front of me as bait,” Jhesrhi said. “She wants me to go after him so she can kill or capture me and then convince Tchazzar I’m a traitor.”

Shala fingered the scar on her square jaw. “That sounds about right.”

“Still, I have to rescue Khouryn and do it without using my most potent magic because if I invoked the wizardry of the four elements to do the job, it would be like signing my name.”

“I suppose so.”

“If I’m going to manage anyway, I need to know about the dungeons under the War College. Where exactly is Halonya keeping Khouryn? Are there mechanical or magical snares along the way, and if so, how do I bypass them? Where are guards generally posted, and where are the wyrmkeepers likely to wait in ambush? I know you can tell me. You’re the type who makes it a point to learn everything about everything over which you hold authority.”

Like Khouryn himself.

Shala sat and thought for a moment then stood up abruptly. “If you’re lying to me, then I swear by the Foehammer that I’ll see my blade in your heart before Tchazzar takes me into custody. Now come look at a book. It has diagrams of the tunnel system in it.”

As he sipped the bitter beer the villagers had given him, Gaedynn reflected that it was odd to feel welcome and at ease among genasi. During his time in Luthcheq, he’d come to regard the Daardendriens and Perra as friends, and the Akanulans at court, who despised the dragonborn, as hostile to himself and all the Brotherhood as well.

But there was none of that here. These genasi were effusive in their gratitude. Even Aoth’s appearance didn’t faze them, although, once Gaedynn thought about it, perhaps that made sense. The tattoos that decorated Aoth’s body, face included, somewhat resembled the patterns of lines that crisscrossed the Akanulans’ skins, and with his shaved scalp, exposed after he’d removed his helmet, he was as bald as the earth- and watersouls.

Cera slumped beside him with her hand resting on his. She looked as if she could barely keep her eyes open. Gaedynn gathered that turning the waterfall to holy water-a trick he wished he’d witnessed-had taxed her mystical strength considerably. Then she’d expended what magic remained to cast healing charms on Jet and the more sorely wounded genasi warriors.

“I wish I knew how to repay you,” said Yarel-karn. The leader of the war band was a surprisingly young firesoul with an earnest, studious cast to his ruddy features. Flame rippled along one of the golden lines on the top of his head. It reminded Gaedynn of the way fire would sometimes spring, seemingly of its own volition, from Jhesrhi’s new staff. For a moment, he wished she were there, then, annoyed with himself, pushed her out of his thoughts and refocused on what was happening around him.

Aoth smiled at Yarel-karn. “Well, now that you mention it, there actually might be a way.”

“Anything!” the genasi said.

“We’re on our way to Airspur to seek an audience with the queen,” said Aoth. “If an officer in Her Majesty’s forces passed the word along that we helped him out, it might help us get in.”

“And lend weight to our words when we do,” Gaedynn added.

To his surprise, the firesoul looked chagrinned. “It might. Except that, unfortunately, you’ve mistaken me-us-for something we’re not.”

Aoth frowned. “How so?”