Richard Byers - The Captive Flame

Thin as a straw with lank gray hair, a wrinkled old woman quavered, “It’s against the law for so many of us to meet indoors, Captain.” She cackled. “It forms a coven, don’t you know? So by gathering us, you officers of the watch have given yourselves all the justification you need to whisk us away to Shala Karanok’s dungeons.”

“Well,” said Aoth, “that’s not why you’re here, and if it makes you feel any safer, the war hero has given me a special dispensation to hold this meeting.”

That, Gaedynn knew, was an exaggeration. Shala Karanok had simply given Aoth permission to put some sort of plan into effect. He hadn’t told her the details, and probably that was all to the good.

“So we can help catch the Green Hand murderer,” said the knavish-looking youth.

“Yes,” said Aoth, “and thus persuade the town that it doesn’t need to rise up and slaughter you.”

“But haven’t you heard?” the adolescent replied. “One of us is the Green Hand. And the fiend will surely sabotage any attempt to unmask him.”

Perched on a narrow windowsill with hardly an inch of clearance on either side, his stumpy legs dangling, Khouryn wiped foam from his moustache. “We doubt that the killer’s truly a mage and fool enough to proclaim it to the world. It’s more likely he’s not, but wants to divert suspicion in your direction. To help cover his tracks-or because he hates you and wants to make trouble for you.”

“But he could be a wizard who hates Luthcheq for the way it treats us,” said the adolescent. “He could feel a need to declare that hatred. A compulsion so intense that he has to leave the prints, even though they somewhat increase the risk to himself.”

Gaedynn grinned. “Conceivably. But if he’s here among us, he’ll have to subvert the ritual without any of us or his fellow mages noticing. I’m no wizard, but I suspect that would be difficult. So, with a little luck, we catch him either way.”

The youth sneered. “You’re right, archer. You’re no wizard. If you were, maybe you would have studied the Five Blank Scrolls of Mythrellan, and then you’d understand-”

“Hush,” the old woman said.

To Gaedynn’s surprise, the adolescent immediately fell silent.

“Oraxes is a good boy at heart,” the sorceress continued, now addressing the officers of the Brotherhood, “but he’s contrary and loves to argue. I think your idea is a good one, and obviously we have ample reason to help. So why don’t you tell us exactly what you intend?”

“I practice a specialized form of magic,” said Aoth. “So I’ll defer to my lieutenant Jhesrhi Coldcreek.”

Jhesrhi was standing against the wall next to Khouryn. Her frown was even more forbidding than usual, a sign that she was uncomfortable. Perhaps because she never liked being the center of attention, or perhaps simply because there were too many people stuffed into the room.

“I’m no expert diviner either,” she said, “but I propose we pool our strength to create Saldashune’s Mirror.”

Oraxes snorted. “We’d need a vessel.”

“We have one.” Jhesrhi waved to the pair of dragonborn filling up a bench. “It isn’t generally known, but Daardendrien Medrash there is the one living person ever to catch a glimpse of the Green Hand.”

And, Gaedynn understood, the russet-scaled dragonborn had been hunting him ever since, out of some lofty paladin sense of obligation. That was why he’d been wandering the wizards’ quarter on the night of the riot. But if he still suspected the killer was a mage, no one could have told it from the courteous way he rose and bowed to the specimens who were peering at him curiously.

“Unfortunately,” Jhesrhi continued, “he only saw the killer in the dark, at a distance, and for an instant. But that’s the sort of problem Saldashune invented her ritual to solve. I’ve made the necessary preparations in the conjuration chamber in the cellar.”

The stairs creaking and bowing beneath their weight, they all trooped down to the space in question. By the standards of anyone who’d grown up in Aglarond with its rich tradition of sorcery, it was a miserable excuse for a mage’s sanctum-just a squared-off hole that smelled of dirt like anybody’s cellar.

But Jhesrhi had made the place seem considerably more magical. Floating orbs the size of fists shed a golden glow, while a complex geometric figure made of lines and arcs of blue phosphorescence covered most of the floor. Luminous green handprints spotted the design.

With no role to play in the conjuration, Gaedynn and Khouryn sat down on a couple of the bottommost steps. Balasar, the smaller dragonborn with the red eyes and yellow-brown scales, clasped Medrash’s shoulder, then came to stand with his fellow spectators.

“Where do you want me?” Medrash asked.

“Here.” Jhesrhi escorted him to a circle at the center of the figure.

“Now what?”

“Just stand and remember the moment when you saw the murderer. If your thoughts wander, that’s all right. Simply bring them back to where we want them.”

Jhesrhi then took a position two paces to his right, and-after some discussion and a little squabbling-Aoth and the Chessentan mages chose stations for themselves. Jhesrhi looked around like a conductor making sure all her musicians had their instruments ready. Then she spun her staff through a flourish and started chanting.

Brandishing their own rods, wands, or orbs, her fellow mages joined in, one or two at a time. Remarkably, given that they hadn’t practiced together, the wizards managed to speak exactly in unison. And when the incantation became a responsory, they seemed to know instinctively who should perform the verse and who the refrain.

Gaedynn suspected that the magic, in some sense willing its own creation, was guiding them. For certainly it was present almost from the moment Jhesrhi started speaking. It made his joints ache and filled the air with a smell like rotting lilies.

Medrash had his eyes closed and his steel medallion clasped in one hand. He was whispering too, perhaps a prayer or meditation to aid his concentration. Gaedynn assumed it wouldn’t interfere with the ritual, or Jhesrhi would have stopped him.

A disk of silvery luminescence appeared near Medrash. At first it was so faint that Gaedynn wasn’t sure he was actually seeing it. But the mages chanted louder, more insistently-and it clotted somehow, becoming more definite if no more solid.

The disk darkened, as though reflecting a place more dimly lit than the cellar. Stars glittered in a stripe down its center. The borders were the facades of buildings rising toward the sky.

A shadow leaped, or conceivably flew, across the open space between them.

After a few heartbeats it sprang again, exactly as before. Then a third time and a fourth. But it was so tiny and fleeting that even repeated viewings didn’t enable Gaedynn to determine anything more about it.

Then, however, by almost infinitesimal degrees, it started slowing down. At the same time, and just as gradually, it grew larger. Closer. Before, the magic had in effect put Gaedynn on the street, where Medrash had stood in actuality. Now it was like he was rising into the air.

“They’re doing it,” Khouryn whispered.

Then Medrash grunted and lurched like someone had struck him a blow. A white crack zigzagged through the mirror’s darkness.

After a moment the jagged line disappeared, like the wizards’ chant had repaired the damage. But now the shadow wasn’t drawing any closer, or making its jump any more slowly either. And Medrash was shaking.

“I don’t like this,” Balasar said.

More cracks stabbed across the mirror. The wizards chanted louder still and spun their instruments through circular figures. The wands and other talismans left trails of sparks and shimmers in the air.