Richard Byers - The Captive Flame

Jhesrhi realized it was time to stop, but it took three more stamps of the staff before she managed it. Her will was entangled with the earth’s, and her mad collaborator wanted to go on quaking until it knocked down, shattered, or buried everything-even itself.

Gaedynn sprang to his feet. “Keep moving!”

He was right. That was exactly what they had to do, no matter how tired she felt. They turned and ran into the trees.

There, she willed her blazing cloak to go out. Gaedynn waved the hand where she’d drawn the rune. A tongue of flame leaped from his skin to become a tall, slender figure with a feminine shape. From a distance, the elemental ought to pass for a mortal woman wrapped in fire.

Gaedynn dashed onward. The living flame sprang after him.

Jhesrhi stepped behind an oak and whispered charms of silence and concealment. Invisibility was largely a magic of the mind, and she was nowhere near as proficient at it as she was at elemental wizardry. But since she’d given the enemy a nice, bright lure to follow, perhaps they wouldn’t even bother to look elsewhere.

It was only a few heartbeats before, moving in eerie quiet even now, the first shadar-kai came racing after Gaedynn and the fire spirit. Had they been human, some of the dark men might have stayed behind to dig for survivors or simply because they’d succumbed to grief for those presumably lost. But she and Gaedynn had learned that malice and bloodlust were the shadar-kai’s ruling passions even when unprovoked, and they’d done everything in their power to enrage them. They hoped the final outrage would goad every last one of them into giving chase. Leaving Tchazzar unattended.

It looked like it was working. Dozens of the gray-skinned, black-clad folk, and the other creatures that dwelled alongside them, hurried past her hiding place.

But she wouldn’t know for certain until she returned to the hillside and determined what was waiting for her there. She let a final band of the dark little servants flicker by, then took a breath, shifted her grip on her staff, and headed in that direction.

Aoth sat inside the wardrobe with Cera’s garments dangling all around him. He peered out the peephole he’d bored and reflected that he was like a lover in a bawdy tale hiding from the jealous husband or suspicious father.

He was trying to find the humor in his situation but was too impatient to feel truly amused. Come on, he thought, what are you waiting for?

He was impatient because he’d decided that whatever did or didn’t happen, he couldn’t continue the ruse beyond that night. It had seemed pretty clever when he’d first hit on it, but now that it was underway, he realized that he couldn’t allow a do-nothing like Hasos to have sole charge of the defense of the barony for very long, nor could he leave the Brotherhood without a single one of its senior officers in command. Any number of his men might decide that their obligations to their unlucky company had died with its leader and that they preferred to seek their fortunes elsewhere.

He reached out with his mind and made contact with Jet, who was skulking on the gabled roof of a building adjacent to the temple. He could tell immediately that the griffon hadn’t noticed anything suspicious.

He scowled in frustration. But at that moment, the door swung open and a figure in a hooded robe slipped into Cera’s bedchamber. Aoth wasn’t surprised that this time there was only one assassin. It should only take one to kill an invalid, and a single murderer could sneak into a sickroom more easily than a larger number, even with a kind of invisibility aiding the endeavor.

The black-scaled dragonborn took a wary look around. Then he strode to the bed and pulled back the blankets, revealing the motionless form beneath. Aoth held his breath. This was the moment when the scheme could all too easily fall apart.

The dead sellsword had perished taking the same fort where Aoth allegedly received his terrible wounds. He’d been short and burly, and with his head shaved and his skin painted with false tattoos, he made a fair approximation of his commander.

Cera had used cosmetic and magical tricks to mask the appearance of death. It was Aoth’s good fortune that little Soolabax had no temple of Kelemvor and that in the absence of doomguides, other clerics had to learn how to prepare the dead for their funerals.

Still, despite the plotters’ best efforts, it was entirely possible the dragonborn would realize the man lying before him wasn’t Aoth. Or that he was no longer alive and therefore this must be some sort of trap.

But it didn’t happen that way. As soon as the dragonborn had the corpse uncovered to the waist, he whipped out a poniard, drove it into his victim’s heart, then turned and headed for the door. He was eager to finish his task and get well away before anyone discovered his handiwork.

Too late, thought Aoth. I’ve got you, you son of a whore.

He gave the assassin time to exit the temple. Then he ran through the building, startling yellow-clad sunlords who were astonished to see him up and around and fully armed. He plunged out into Cera’s garden. Aware of his need through their psychic link, Jet swooped down in front of him.

Aoth swung himself into the saddle. “The dragonborn didn’t spot you, did he?”

“He shouldn’t have,” said the familiar, “but I can’t be sure because I still haven’t seen him.”

“Go,” said Aoth. “Stay high and be quiet.”

Jet grunted. “I know how to hunt.” He loped forward, beat his wings, and carried Aoth aloft.

Once they were well above the rooftops, the griffon flew in a spiral search pattern. At first Aoth couldn’t see any sign of their quarry and feared that somehow the dragonborn had already gotten away. Then he spotted a robed figure hurrying down a narrow, crooked alley.

Got him, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. Now that his master’s fire-kissed eyes had spotted the assassin, he could see him as well. I wonder where he’ll lead us.

Gaedynn considered himself proficient at evading pursuit. But in the past, his goal had generally been to leave the enemy far behind as expeditiously as possible. It was trickier when he needed to stay just a little way ahead so they wouldn’t get discouraged, give up, and go back to their captive dragon. Trickier too, when he was fleeing with a living beacon to draw his pursuers on.

Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary to have the fire spirit constantly burning at his side. He could make her disappear when his foes drew as near as they were now. He held out his hand.

The elemental’s features were a vague, inconstant blur, but he thought he saw her pout. Then she thinned to a long sliver of flame, which leaped into his palm and vanished. The contact stung for an instant-further evidence, perhaps, that she didn’t want to go.

He slipped between two stands of brush, on a course at right angles to the one he’d been following before. He climbed a steep hillside, then looked around.

Dark figures stood clustered together not far from the point where he’d started his ascent. As usual he couldn’t really hear shadar-kai voices, but he suspected they were trying to figure out what direction he’d taken. The elemental’s abrupt disappearance had confused them.

Well, Gaedynn thought, maybe I can help them out with that. He nocked an arrow, drew it to his ear, and let it fly. One of the shadar-kai reeled and fell.

Without even pausing to check on him, the others swarmed up the slope. Gaedynn turned and scurried into a tangle of gnarled, scabrous-looking oaks.

Something whispered from behind one of the trees. A slim, shadowy hand beckoned. It filled him with a yearning so keen that when he strode on anyway, it was like tearing free of a barbed hook. His would-be seducer giggled after him.