Richard Byers - The Captive Flame

He stopped leading foot patrols thereafter. No point agitating the locals more than they were already. Instead, he and Jet had taken to monitoring the city from the sky.

An easterly wind carried them to the religious quarter, where the gilded dome of the temple of Waukeen, goddess of trade, gleamed at one end of a mall. At the other stood the colonnaded house of Amaunator, lord of the sun, with an enormous sundial out in front.

Drumming and chanting, Tchazzar cultists paraded past the instrument. Some carried crimson banners. Others had combined forces to animate a dragon made of red cloth. Capering inside it, they made it weave back and forth in serpentine fashion.

At first no one seemed to mind. Then half a dozen priests in yellow robes strode forth from Amaunator’s temple. The stout sunlord in the lead, his vestments trimmed with gold and amber, started haranguing the marchers.

“Fly lower,” said Aoth. “Let’s hear what he’s saying.”

Jet swooped and set down on the roof of the Red Knight’s house, a comparatively small box of a building that, with its battlements and barbican, looked more like a fortress than a shrine. Aoth hoped the patron of strategists would forgive a fellow commander the intrusion.

Nobody mortal appeared to notice his descent. The sun priests, and the dragon cultists’ reaction to them, had already captured everyone’s attention.

“Dragons aren’t gods!” insisted the chief sunlord, his voice raised so everyone could hear. “And your display, in these sacred precincts, is an affront to the true gods!”

“Tchazzar saved his people,” replied the skinny adolescent girl at the head of the procession. She’d daubed scarlet symbols on her forehead and cheeks, and had a fervid, feverish cast to her expression. Someone had given her a fine vermilion mantle to throw on over the shabby garments beneath. “He also rose from the dead. That’s what gods do. And now that we need him, he’ll come back again. We only have to believe.”

“Child, you don’t understand these matters. You can’t. You lack the education.”

“I’m glad. Because I see that all learning does is blind you to the truth.”

The high priest took a breath. “Put your faith in the Keeper of the Yellow Sun and the other powers of light. And in the war hero they’ve appointed to rule us. That’s who will save you.”

“When?” called a man with a pox-scarred face. “Threskel and High Imaskar and the filthy wizards are destroying us! What are your gods and Shala Karanok waiting on?”

“Perhaps,” the cleric said, “they’re waiting for their people to stop behaving in a manner that’s both blasphemous and treasonous.”

The marchers shouted back, jeering at him.

“My children,” said the priest, “I tried to counsel you. As you refuse to heed me, I’ll have to resort to more drastic measures.”

He beckoned for the lesser sunlords to gather in. A couple hesitated or looked alarmed, but they all obeyed. Their master started chanting, and they joined in.

“They’re not,” said Jet in disbelief.

But apparently they were. Trying to perform some ritual of chastisement with the targets standing unrestrained just a few strides away. Did they imagine Tchazzar’s worshipers would simply wait idly for them to finish?

If so, they were doomed to disappointment. The thin girl-the cultists’ prophetess, apparently-shrilled, “Stop them!” She lunged forward, and the marchers surged after her.

Jet perceived what Aoth wanted through their psychic link, or else he simply recognized himself what was required. As he sprang into the air, he gave a screech that froze some of the folk below in their tracks. Aoth pointed the long spear that served him both as warrior’s weapon and mage’s staff, rattled off words of command, and cast a wall of leaping, crackling yellow flame between the cultists and the priests. That brought the rest of the rushing men to a sudden, stumbling halt. It startled the sunlords into falling silent too.

Then Jet made a couple of low passes over the crowd, like he was deciding whom to snatch up in his talons and devour. Scowling, Aoth tried to look equally intimidating.

When he judged that their little pantomime had done as much good as it was likely to, he had the griffon land on top of the sundial. Evidently it was just his day to take liberties with the property of the gods.

“Captain!” called the chief sunlord.

Aoth dismounted. “If anyone makes a move,” he said, ostensibly to Jet but loud enough for everyone to hear, “kill him!” The griffon crouched and glared as if he’d like nothing better than to pounce over the blazing barrier and down into the marchers. Aoth then strode to the edge of the sundial and looked down at the man who’d hailed him.

“I’m Daelric Apathos,” said the sunlord, “steward of the Keeper’s house. Thank you for holding back the rabble.”

To Aoth, the fellow sounded more stiff than grateful, but it seemed best to take the statement at face value. “That’s why I’m here, Sunlord. To keep the peace.”

“Hold them back for a few more moments, and my clergy and I will complete the malediction.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Daelric blinked. “I assure you, I only intend a mild rebuke. It won’t be that much worse than the average sunburn.”

“And I assure you, if you start praying again, I’ll snuff the fire, climb back on my griffon, and leave you and the Church of Tchazzar to sort things out for yourselves.”

The high priest sneered. “I should have known better than to expect piety from one of your kind. The war hero will hear how you denied me in my hour of need.”

“I bet she will.” Aoth paced to the front of the sundial. Peering out across the wall of hissing flame, still burning hot and bright with no fuel but magic to sustain it, he located the prophetess. “As long as I’m collecting names, I may as well get yours.”

She drew herself up even straighter, as though to assert that she wasn’t afraid. “Halonya.”

“Well, Halonya, you and your friends go march somewhere else.”

“It’s our city as much as it is that priest’s. We have the right to walk the street. Any street, including this one.”

“I’m an officer of the watch, which means you have the right to walk where I say. Now go, or the next fires will drop right on your heads.”

Halonya held his gaze for another moment, then nodded curtly. She pivoted and started to lead her fellow cultists away. They followed, but not without some glaring, spitting, and obscene gestures to demonstrate their dislike of Aoth.

The sunlords were more restrained about it. But their stony faces conveyed the same sentiment.

“This is nice,” said Jet. “At least they agree on something.”

Gaedynn spotted three lights shining close together in the dark street below. He sent Eider, his griffon, named for a love of swimming unusual among her kind, swooping lower.

The lanterns belonged to a patrol, but not one of the Brotherhood’s. The men were locals. Their lights revealed an eviscerated corpse. A circle of spectators, some in their nightclothes, had assembled to gawk at it. A couple cried out when Eider touched down. The griffon gave them a disgusted look.

As Gaedynn dismounted, he caught the smells of spilled blood and waste. Judging from the fallen wooden bucket and the communal well just a stride or two away, the dead man had ventured out for water. The killer had left a green handprint on the brickwork surrounding the hole.

Gaedynn looked for the sergeant in charge. That appeared to be a blunt-featured man who was evidently putting on weight, since even with the bottom buckles left unfastened, his leather cuirass was too tight for his flabby body. His face pale in the lantern light, swallowing repeatedly, he stood and stared at the dead body.