Richard Byers - The Captive Flame

It wouldn’t have been as quick if there were still fresh abishais rushing out of the apartment house, but he now saw that at some point that had ended. Something-either the wyrmkeeper’s death, Cera’s exorcism, or simply the magic running out of power-had finally closed the opening to Tiamat’s domain.

Smelling of singed feathers, Jet set down in the street. “Surely,” he said, “there can’t be too many enemies left hiding in Soolabax. Even if worst comes to worst, you can cope with however many remain.”

Aoth snorted. “It sounded reasonable when I said it. You must have thought so too, the way you took your time getting back here.”

“That was because humans are idiots. I don’t know how many times I had to repeat myself to make the men understand you were well and needed-”

Cera’s incantation cut off abruptly.

Aoth and Jet whirled in her direction. There were no abishais anywhere near her, and no blood on her person. But she was collapsing, and as she did, darkness reclaimed the street.

Aoth ran toward her. Jet started a heartbeat later, but outdistanced his master with his first prodigious bound.

The embrace of fire was as glorious as the touch of a mortal lover had always been vile. It filled Jhesrhi with ecstasy and the yearning to open herself even more completely.

She didn’t know what would happen if she did. Maybe she’d simply burn to ash. Or perhaps her humanity would melt away like dross, leaving a being like an efreet, more truly a creature of flame than even a red dragon could ever be. Either possibility would be a blissful consummation.

But she was a wizard, with a wizard’s trained intellect and will, and she refused to surrender wholly to mere sensation, no matter how pleasurable. She maintained her awareness of the other aspects of her nature-of earth, air, water, and spirit, or identity, memory, and purpose-even as she drew the rarified essence of flame from the Elemental Chaos, gathered it in her staff, and then hurled it forth into Tchazzar’s body.

Strangely, the result reminded her of the action of water, specifically of the explosion of life that came when rainfall ended a drought. Glowing like a hot coal but without heat-every bit of that was turning into muscle-the dragon’s form swelled, and new scales closed old sores. Head thrown back at the end of his long neck, he gasped and groaned. Perhaps his transformation hurt, but if so it was clearly a pain he welcomed.

It looked to Jhesrhi like he was nearly restored. Then nausea and vertigo stabbed through her, and her control over her magic wavered. The fire from beyond clutched at her, trying to claim her, and her treacherous staff rejoiced.

She couldn’t bend the element to her will again. She could only break the flow. The roaring, twisting jet of flame went out, and Tchazzar roared as it suddenly stopped playing over his body.

His progress more like a manta ray swimming than a bat flying, shrouded in a cloud of dust, Sseelrigoth twisted and rippled down from the sky. Newly dead leaves whispered as they dropped from the trees adjacent to the hillside.

“By the Lady of Loss,” said the blight dragon, “are all my slaves killed?” He sounded amused rather than upset. “We’ll have to find a way for you to pay for that, wizard. Right after I eat this wonderful meal you provided.”

“I was weak when you bound me to the earth,” Tchazzar growled. “You kept me weak for all the years since. But I’m not weak anymore.” He heaved, and the staples securing his limbs tore out of the ground.

Sseelrigoth’s black eyes widened in shock, but he reacted quickly. A flick of the writhing membranes on his flanks backed him farther away from the red dragon. He opened his jaws and spewed a jet of grit.

Sick and spent as she was, Jhesrhi managed to lift her staff and ask the wind for help. It howled, swirled around her, and kept any of the dragon’s breath from reaching her.

But it reached Tchazzar. Some of the particles scoured his hide like a sandstorm. Others stuck to him and burned.

Then Sseelrigoth snarled, and dust devils sprang up around Tchazzar’s head, no doubt to blind and confuse him. The red wyrm whipped his head back and forth, but the whirling clouds moved with it. Meanwhile, Sseelrigoth sucked in air.

Jhesrhi focused past her grinding sickness and whispered words of command. The wind screamed and tore the dust devils apart.

Vision restored, Tchazzar lashed his gigantic wings and sprang into the air. The tip of his tail whirled in Jhesrhi’s direction and she threw herself flat so it wouldn’t hit her.

Tchazzar slammed into Sseelrigoth and assailed him with his jaws and the talons on all four feet. He whipped his tail around him like a python. The blight wyrm responded in kind.

So entangled, they couldn’t fly. They crashed to earth and rolled toward Jhesrhi. She scrambled clear just in time to keep them from crushing her.

She scurried until she was well clear and, panting and trembling, simply leaned on her staff and watched thereafter. She was too ill and tired for more and doubted she could help Tchazzar any further even if she weren’t. As long as the wyrms were entwined together, it would be difficult to cast elemental magic at one without hitting the other as well.

The struggle shook the ground, and the bits of the warren that her earthquake hadn’t collapsed now caved in on themselves. Chunks of ripped flesh arced through the air. Flame leaped around the dragons’ fangs as they snapped and bit. Tchazzar’s fire was blue and bright gold. Sseelrigoth’s was a murky red, the poisonous grit he’d spat before superheated by his rage.

For a time it looked like Tchazzar was gradually tearing his adversary apart. Then Sseelrigoth’s eyes grew even blacker, and his shroud of dust darkened. Tchazzar bellowed and his wounds widened, rotting at the edges while the blight dragon’s hurts began to close.

Finish it! Jhesrhi thought. Before he leeches away everything I gave you!

As if he’d heard her, Tchazzar strained with every limb to loosen Sseelrigoth’s coils. Unequal to the pressure, a bone in his left wing snapped and a jagged end stabbed through the membrane. But then he broke free of his adversary’s grip.

At once he opened his jaws wider than Jhesrhi would have imagined possible. Taking advantage of his regained mobility, he launched himself at Sseelrigoth fast as an arrow leaping from a bow. And she perceived for the first time just how much bigger he was than the other wyrm. Big enough for his fangs to crash shut on Sseelrigoth’s head from the snout to just behind the eyes.

Tchazzar’s jaw muscles bunched as he bit down with all his might and wrenched his head from side to side. Flexible as a serpent, Sseelrigoth whipped his coils around his foe and clawed. In some places, his talons sliced to the bone. Meanwhile, his tail whipped up and down, battering a section of Tchazzar’s neck.

Jhesrhi held her breath. She couldn’t imagine the battle lasting much longer. No one, not even a dragon, could endure such punishment for long. One of them was going to succumb.

It turned out be Sseelrigoth. A splintering crunch sounded from inside Tchazzar’s jaws, and then the blight wyrm’s neck lashed back and forth. Nothing was restraining it anymore. Blood sprayed from the jagged bowl that was all that remained of Sseelrigoth’s head.

His decapitated body raked and bashed Tchazzar another time or two. Then, the spurts of gore abating, his neck flopped to the ground and his limbs went limp as well.

Tchazzar spat out several pieces of Sseelrigoth’s head. Jhesrhi took note of the short horns that encrusted them, realized the inside of the red dragon’s mouth must now be a mass of sores, and winced. Still employing every bit of his strength and speed, Tchazzar kept clawing his foe’s corpse.