Текст книги "The Spectral Blaze"

Автор книги: Richard Lee Byers

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Finally, even though it went against her better judgment, she felt impelled to try to find out what was really going on. “This is very nice,” she said. “Just not what I expected.”

“We friends should cherish these moments together,” Tchazzar said, “now that there are only a few remaining.”

Jhesrhi glanced around at the other folk in the Red Dragon’s immediate vicinity. As far as she could tell, none of them knew what he meant either.

“Do you mean that these are the last few moments of peace before we go off to war?” she asked.

Tchazzar laughed. “Not at all! With the children’s prayers to bolster my power, the annihilation of Tymanther will be a trivial undertaking. I was referring to something else entirely.” He turned his wide, white grin on Daelric. “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”

Though plainly startled, Daelric controlled himself well. His eyes only widened a little, and his body barely twitched. “I’m sure you can explain it better,” he said.

Tchazzar nodded. “Possibly so. Here it is, then: I’ve spoken with my little brother Amaunator. I told him what a curse the darkness is to Chessenta. I explained that we have specters committing atrocities, even within my own palace and against my own person, and I urged him to do something about it. Well, it took some convincing. He’s a traditionalist and, to be blunt, a little lazy too.” He winked at Daelric. “No offense. Anyway, in the end, he agreed to my plan.” He paused, perhaps to draw a question from his audience.

If so, Halonya obliged him. “What is your plan, Majesty?”

“Why, to put an end to night,” Tchazzar said. “That’s why we should enjoy the few sunsets we have left. Soon Daelric will lead all the sunlords and ladies of the realm in a great ritual. After that, the sun will hang perpetually at zenith, and it will be noon in Chessenta forevermore.” He turned back to the stocky high priest in his yellow vestments. “Isn’t that right, my friend?”

Daelric swallowed. “Majesty, this is… the first I’ve heard of this scheme.”

Tchazzar’s smile bent into a frown. “Don’t you commune with your god every day? What kind of priest are you?”

“I do indeed open myself to receive whatever the Keeper chooses to share with me,” Daelric said. “But if he shared this, I… didn’t comprehend it.”

“Majesty,” Jhesrhi said.

Tchazzar turned. “What is it, dear one?”

“You’re speaking of matters that are certainly beyond my comprehension as well. But is it possible that Amaunator didn’t tell Sunlord Apathos about this because he thought better of it? Think about it. If the sun shines on Chessenta every moment, won’t that be too much heat? Won’t it bake the land into a desert?”

“I’m sure Amaunator can adjust the heat,” Tchazzar said. “It’s fine if the sun burns cooler, just as long as it provides the same illumination.”

Halonya smiled. “Just think how the crops will grow with so much sunlight!”

Tchazzar smiled, threw his arm around her, and hugged her to his side. “Exactly! I knew you’d understand!”

Daelric took a long breath and stood up very straight, “Majesty, I beg you to hear me.”

“I’m listening,” Tchazzar said.

“I’m not capable of raising enough power to perform the miracle you seek. Nor would I know how to turn it to this particular purpose even if I could.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself! You have strengths you’ve yet to discover, and Amaunator will guide and support you every step of the way.”

“With all respect, Majesty… with all reverence for the god incarnate who blesses me by allowing me to talk with him in the flesh

… I don’t know how that can be so. Amaunator is a god of order. Of the orderly progression and marking of time. Night follows day, season follows season, and year follows year because he-”

Tchazzar whipped his hand from right to left. For an instant, as Daelric’s voice caught, it looked to Jhesrhi like the war hero’s fingertips had missed the priest’s neck by a hair. Then three redder lines appeared on Daelric’s ruddy skin.

“This is blasphemy!” Tchazzar snarled. “You’re defying me and your own patron deity too! Admit it!”

But Daelric was beyond admitting anything. He could only make little choking, gurgling sounds as he tottered and fumbled at his throat in a feeble attempt to keep the blood from pouring out and dying his golden robes crimson.

Tchazzar made a disgusted spitting sound. Then he struck again with a vertical sweep like an uppercut. His scaly hand was too large, as much a wyrm’s forefoot as a human extremity, and the talons drove into the underside of Daelric’s jaw and deep into his head. He then pivoted and flung the priest over the parapet as easily as a man could throw a ball.

Or rather, he flung most of him. Daelric’s head came apart and left the lower jaw stuck to his killer’s claws.

When Tchazzar noticed, he laughed. He shook the piece of gory flesh and bone loose and caught it before it could fall. Then he grabbed Hasos, pulled him close, held it right in front of the warrior’s own chin, and moved it up and down like a child making a puppet talk. “I’m Baron Hasos,” he said in a falsetto. “I’m Baron Hasos.”

Overcome with shock and revulsion, Hasos reflexively strained to pull free. Jhesrhi tensed, for that could have prompted the dragon to kill him too. But instead, Tchazzar simply let go. Hasos reeled backward with Daelric’s blood streaking his chin. He lost his balance and fell on his rump, and the war hero guffawed at his discomfiture.

Lord Luthen and some of the other more sycophantic courtiers joined in, but it sounded forced, and maybe Tchazzar noticed. Or maybe he noticed Nicos Corynian and the other folk who hadn’t managed a laugh.

In any case, he raked the whole assembly with his glare. “Daelric Apathos was a false priest and a traitor!” he shouted. “Who claims otherwise?”

No one did. Not even Jhesrhi, although it made her feel a flush of shame.

But the silence didn’t mollify Tchazzar. “Leave me!” he screamed. “If you’re here in ten heartbeats, you’ll burn!”

People gaped, then scrambled away. Some crammed themselves onto the nearest stairway. Others scurried toward the east side of the roof and the staircases there.

Jhesrhi was one of the latter, but unlike many of the courtiers, she wasn’t panicked. She was simply exercising prudence. And when she’d put some distance between the dragon and herself, she stopped and looked back.

His back to the sunset that had faded to a mere gleam of deep blue and crimson on the horizon, Tchazzar was sitting on a merlon. He was little more than a silhouette in the twilight, but Jhesrhi could tell he was slumped forward with his elbow on his knee and his hand covering his eyes.

It was a posture suggestive of weariness, regret, or even despair. It made her wonder if Lady Luck had given her one last chance to lead him away from cruelty and madness.

She knew she had every reason to doubt it. But she also remembered that he loved her, even if it was in a lustful, selfish way. He’d helped her and Gaedynn escape the Shadowfell. He’d made her a great noblewoman and freed the mages of Chessenta. And how had she repaid him? With lies and tricks. By dangling herself in front of him like a nasty child teasing a dog with a morsel that she had no intention of ever giving.

She took a deep breath then walked toward him. One of the bodyguards hovering at a safe distance from the monarch moved to block her way. She gave him a scowl. He hesitated, then shrugged, as though conveying that if she insisted on approaching Tchazzar in his present mood, she could take the consequences.

The butt of her staff clicked on the roof as she walked. Tchazzar lifted his face from his hand to glower at her.

“I said I’d kill anyone who didn’t leave me in peace,” he said.

“You said you’d burn them,” she answered. “I’m not too afraid of that.”

He snorted. “No. I suppose not. Well, if you want to be here, sit.”

She perched on the merlon next to his.

“Do you think I was too hard on Daelric?” he asked. “Everyone else did, even the ones who laughed. I could see it in their lying faces.”

“I think,” Jhesrhi said, “that he may have been telling the truth when he said he simply didn’t know how to obey your command.”

“Then it’s just like I said. He was no true priest of Amaunator and deserved to die for passing himself off as one. His successor will do better.”

“Possibly. If a human being can. If you aren’t asking him to accomplish something that only a god could conceivably do.”

Tchazzar cocked his long, handsome head. “Is that what you believe?”

She shrugged. “I’m a wizard, not a cleric, so maybe my opinion is of little value. But it seems to me that arcane magic is about as powerful as the divine variety. And I certainly wouldn’t know how to go about making the sun stay in the same place forever like a torch burning in a sconce.”

Tchazzar grunted. “Then Amaunator misled me.”

Jhesrhi hesitated. “I don’t know, Majesty.”

“He must have. I may have to discipline him. I may have to discipline all the gods. They’re all jealous. All sorry I came back.”

“I… hope that isn’t so.”

“Sometimes they don’t even appear when I call them.” He lowered his voice. “That’s… upsetting. Once or twice, it even made me wonder if I really can summon them.”

“Majesty, at present, you’re walking the mortal world cloaked in something like mortal flesh and blood. Maybe that comes with certain inconveniences.”

Tchazzar sighed. “Maybe. It would be nice to believe the lesser deities don’t hate me. That I won’t have to cast them down just to be safe.”

Steeling herself, Jhesrhi reached out and took his hand. Her skin crawled. “Majesty,” she said, “you’re safe now. I know you don’t feel it, and considering that you endured a hundred years of torture in the Shadowfell, who can blame you? But you are. You don’t need to fight any more wars against gods or anyone. If you choose, you can simply enjoy being home.”

Tchazzar sat quietly for a few heartbeats. Then he said, “But the game.”

Apparently, distracted as he was, he’d once again forgotten that mere humans weren’t allowed to know about xorvintaal. Jhesrhi tried to think of a way to talk about it without revealing that she did.

She was still trying when something fluttered overhead.

Tchazzar jerked, gripped her hand painfully tightly, and yelped. Maybe it was because, like her, he’d just noticed that dusk had given way to night.

She spoke to the wind, and it whispered that the creature fluttering over the roof was only a bat. She opened her mouth to share the reassuring knowledge with Tchazzar.

But she was too late. He sprang to his feet and grew as tall as a gnoll. Seams in his garments ripped. He tilted his head back, opened protruding jaws, and spit a jet of yellow fire. The pseudo-mind in Jhesrhi’s staff exclaimed in excitement.

Tchazzar’s breath caught the bat, and the burning carcass dropped onto the roof. Panting, trembling, the war hero stared at it as if he suspected it might rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Guards came scurrying.

“It was just a bat,” Jhesrhi said.

“Or another vampire!” Tchazzar snapped. “I understand that you only wanted to comfort me. But you’ll serve me better with the truth. And the truth is I’m not safe. I can never be until I rule everything and everyone who wishes me ill is dead. And even then, there will always be the dark.” He flashed a fierce, mad grin. “Unless…”

Inwardly Jhesrhi winced. “Unless what, Majesty?”

“You gave me the germ of the idea. If Amaunator won’t or can’t drive back the night, we’ll use torches instead. Geysers of perpetual fire drawn from the Undying Pyre. And if Kossuth doesn’t like it, we’ll make him like it. Think what an adventure that will be! An army of gods and men descending into Chaos to kill a primordial!”

The staff all but vibrated at the prospect of entering a world made wholly of fire. For half a heartbeat, its excitement infected Jhesrhi, but she crushed out the alien emotion as though grinding an ember under her boot.

Unfortunately the reassertion of her own natural perspective just made her feel sick to her stomach. I was right the first time, she thought. Tchazzar’s sunk too deep into lunacy for me or anyone to reach him anymore.

That meant Shala had sacrificed herself for nothing.

TWELVE

5-6 E LEINT, THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE

Oraxes couldn’t see Luthcheq from the ground. But when he rode a griffon just a little way up, there it was. He could make out the great slab of sandstone that was the War College, the crazy tangle of streets behind it, an ongoing demolition that must be the first stage in the erection of Tchazzar’s temple, and the sprawl of the assembled forces of Chessenta, Threskel, and Akanul.

It was over, then. He, Meralaine, Ramed, and the few others who shared the secret of Aoth’s absence had kept the Brotherhood marching as slowly as it plausibly could. But there was no way to stop it from reaching its destination by the next day.

Oraxes stroked his steed’s neck and sent it swooping back toward the ground. Meralaine followed him down. They gave the griffons into the custody of a groom and headed for Aoth’s pavilion.

Once inside, Oraxes let the warmage’s appearance dissolve. Meanwhile, the shadows around Meralaine deepened just a little. It reminded him of a cat rubbing against its owner’s ankles.

He pulled the cork from a jug of some clear, biting Threskelan spirit-he’d never gotten around to finding out what the vile stuff was called or made from-and filled two pewter cups. His hand trembled. He hoped she hadn’t noticed.

They each took a drink. Her face twisted, and he suspected his did too. Then he asked, “What do you think?”

“The masquerade’s worked so far,” she replied.

“Maybe on the sellswords. It didn’t fool Sphorrid Nyra, did it?”

“Well, it kind of did. At first.”

“We’re about to face Tchazzar, who’s already going to be suspicious because Sphorrid and the other wyrmkeepers never came home. And because he sent orders for Captain Fezim to fly to Luthcheq ahead of the rest of the company and he didn’t.”

“So which way do you want to run?” Meralaine asked.

Oraxes shook his head. “I don’t know. I figured we’d take the drakkensteeds. They actually belong to us, or at least more than any of the griffons do. But I don’t know how far they can travel over open water. That means…”

Meralaine frowned. “Why did you stop?”

“I guess because I don’t want to go.”

“You’d rather let Tchazzar kill you?”

He groped for the words to explain, for his own benefit as much as hers. “I said I’d do this. I’d rather take a risk-even a big risk-and follow through than not. I mean, it’s not that bad here.” He took a breath. “But you should probably leave. I’ll feel better if you do.”

She smiled a crooked smile. “You’re an idiot and a liar.”

He snorted. “Maybe.”

“If not for the idiot part, you’d know I don’t want to go either. Not away from the Brotherhood and especially not away from you.”

“True love,” said a voice from the direction of the tent flap. “A debilitating affliction but fortunately nearly everyone recovers.”

Oraxes spun around toward the sound. Just as he’d imagined, it was Gaedynn who’d spoke, and Aoth was entering right behind him.

Oraxes almost started babbling about how glad he was to see them, but that would have looked soft. So he simply smirked and said, “I was just about to give up on you and become Aoth Fezim permanently.”

The Thayan smiled. The dimness inside the pavilion made the glow of his eyes more noticeable. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said.

Cera entered behind him, and after her came a young genasi, a stormsoul, apparently, although some of the lines in her purple skin were gold instead of silver. She wore a pentagonal badge that likely identified her as some sort of Akanulan soldier or official.

“The camp already saw Captain Fezim enter this tent just a little while ago,” Meralaine said.

“So they shouldn’t see it again?” Aoth replied. “I doubt that anyone’s been keeping such close track of ‘my’ movements that it will rouse suspicion, and even if it does, I’m too tired to care.” He dropped into a camp chair. “Bring me that jug and report. You can talk in front of Son-liin. She knows pretty much everything.”

Resisting the temptation to embellish the account into a celebration of his own cunning and prowess-and Meralaine’s too, of course-Oraxes laid out recent events as clearly and succinctly as he could.

When he finished, Aoth grunted. “Could be better, could be worse.”

“But mostly better,” Gaedynn said.

*****

As he and Aoth strode through the corridors of the War College with Nicos Corynian, the captain and the Brotherhood’s original sponsor murmuring urgently back and forth, Gaedynn’s nerves felt taut as bowstrings.

Partly it was because he and his companions were about to face Tchazzar, who was likely displeased with them anyway and whose mood would almost certainly sour further before the audience was over. But mainly, he realized, it was because he was about to see Jhesrhi.

He sneered at himself, reminding himself she was simply his friend. That was all she could ever be, and that was how he wanted it because friends were worth having, but frustrations and encumbrances were not.

Still, although making sure he wasn’t obvious about it, he peered around for her as soon as he and his companions entered the Hall of Blades. For after all, he had to make sure she was all right.

As the name suggested, the decor in the chamber celebrated swordplay. Sculpted bronze warriors brandished greatswords over their heads. Their counterparts in the tapestries assailed one another with broadswords and targes. The design in the floor tiles was made of stylized scimitars, and atop the high back of the throne on the dais, a fan-shaped arc of five blades projected to threaten the ceiling.

Along with Hasos, Halonya, Kassur Jedea, and some other dignitaries, Jhesrhi was standing near the dais in a robe of crimson damask. A ruby-studded tiara helped to hold her blonde tresses in the elaborate arrangement some hairdresser had created. But despite her finery, she looked drawn and tired, perhaps even haggard in a subtle kind of way. Gaedynn could see it in her golden eyes and the set of her mouth, and it made him dislike Tchazzar all the more.

She smiled and started toward him and Aoth, but then the Red Dragon strode through a door at the back of the hall, and everyone had to fall silent and bow or curtsy.

“Rise,” said Tchazzar, flopping down on the throne. “Captain Fezim, Lord Corynian, come forward.”

Gaedynn supposed that meant him too, and even if it didn’t, he had no intention of hanging back. He wanted to be close to his friends if things turned ugly.

When they were all standing before the dais, Aoth said, “Your Majesty, I have good news. It took some doing, but we eliminated the threat in Threskel.”

Frowning, Tchazzar stroked his chin. “And who were the traitors?” he asked.

“Once-human liches and other undead who formerly served Alasklerbanbastos,” Aoth replied, “and who had apparently been geased to avenge him in the event of his destruction.”

Gaedynn thought it was a good lie. When you fought the living, you generally ended up with fresh corpses, prisoners, and friends and kin lamenting the loss of the fallen. But slaughtering the undead didn’t necessarily produce the same sort of evidence that a struggle had in fact taken place. It would be hard for a skeptic to prove that the Brotherhood hadn’t destroyed a pack of phantoms somewhere out in the wilds.

“Are you sure the creatures didn’t serve Jaxanaedegor?” Tchazzar asked. Gaedynn would have asked the same thing, considering that the green was a vampire and, as he and Jhesrhi knew firsthand, numbered other undead among his followers.

“Yes,” said Aoth. “During the battle, some of the undead spoke of the Great Bone Wyrm.”

“Fair enough, then,” the war hero said. “Now tell me why you ignored my order to report to me as fast as possible and let your company catch up with you.”

“As we all know,” Aoth said, “the undead are poisonous, and after we fought them, sickness broke out among the men. Fortunately the chaplains and other healers controlled it. But what kind of war leader would have left his command before he was sure the problem had been contained? Not your kind, Majesty, not if all the stories about you are true.”

“But what about my priests?” Halonya demanded.

“I believe I already explained that in a dispatch,” said Aoth. “They visited us, they left to return to Luthcheq, and that’s the last I know about them.” He returned his gaze to Tchazzar. “Majesty, you’re my employer, and I’ll answer any question you put to me. But still, I wasn’t expecting quite this sort of interrogation. I expected you’d be glad to hear that I eliminated one nest of enemies, and then we’d discuss the next campaign.”

Tchazzar stared back at him for a few moments and, suddenly, he grinned. “Right you are, Captain, especially with regard to the planning! I delayed my departure until you and your company arrived because Lady Jhesrhi tells me you know how to take Djerad Thymar.”

Aoth smiled wryly. “Does she? All right, what do we know about the place?”

During the discussion that followed, Jhesrhi caught Gaedynn’s eye. They obviously couldn’t speak freely in front of Tchazzar. But he could tell she was eager for some indication of whether there was any reason for hope that the invasion could be stopped. He gave her the tiniest of nods.

And a guard by the door announced Zan-akar Zeraez just a few moments later.

The ambassador had a grim, clenched look to him. Gaedynn was glad because it meant the stormsoul intended to act in accordance with the message Son-liin had given him.

As he should, for the badge she wore to identify herself as a royal herald and the parchment bearing Arathane’s seal were legitimate. But Zan-akar wouldn’t have been the first officer serving abroad to ignore orders from home if he found them inconvenient or unpalatable.

Tchazzar beamed at him. “My lord! This is perfect… or would have been if you’d brought Lord Magnol with you! Now that Captain Fezim has finally seen fit to grace us with his presence”-he gave Aoth a wink-“we can make final plans for the campaign and march at dawn tomorrow.”

Zan-akar took a breath. “Majesty, it is with the profoundest regret that I must ask you to excuse Akanul from any such undertaking. Queen Arathane has ordered our soldiers home.”

Tchazzar gaped at him. “Why?”

“Apparently,” the stormsoul said, “evidence has emerged to prove beyond doubt that dragonborn did not commit the atrocities inside Akanul. Arathane suggests you evaluate the possibility that they weren’t responsible for the killings inside Chessenta either.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Tchazzar snapped, and smoke puffed out of his mouth.

As though in response, a spark or two crawled on the silver lines in Zan-akar’s skin. But Gaedynn had to give him credit. That was the only sign he was afraid.

“I can only repeat what my queen wrote to me,” Zan-akar said, “and assure you she isn’t someone who jumps to rash conclusions.”

“We have a pact!” Tchazzar said. “More than that, we have an opportunity. To destroy a hated enemy once and for all.”

“I promise you,” Zan-akar said, “you don’t have to teach me or any genasi to detest the dragonborn. I pray for the day when our two peoples will unite to humble them once and for all. But it appears that day is yet to come. I beg Your Majesty to understand just how grave a threat the aboleths pose to Akanul, and how vulnerable we are with the bulk of our army elsewhere.”

“I should kill you,” Tchazzar said. More smoke swirled from his mouth and nostrils, and a subtle patterning suggestive of scales sketched itself on his neck.

“Clearly,” the genasi said, “you can if you choose. I’m at your mercy. But I ask you to consider how such a breach of custom and diplomacy would reflect on the honor of a great king and the dignity of his court.”

“Are you impugning my honor?” Tchazzar asked.

“No, Majesty, simply asking you to reflect.”

“Go!” the war hero snarled. “I want you out of my kingdom! You, Magnol, and all your craven, unnatural kind!”

“As you command, Your Majesty.” Zan-akar bowed and turned to go.

You lucky bastard, Gaedynn thought. The gods only know what we’re going to need to do to get Jhesrhi-and the whole Brotherhood, for that matter-out of Tchazzar’s clutches, and you, he orders away.

But he didn’t entirely begrudge the envoy his good fortune. Zan-akar had been an aggravation almost from the day Gaedynn and his comrades had arrived, but he’d acquitted himself bravely in the face of Tchazzar’s wrath.

Tchazzar clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, and took several deep breaths. The smoke stopped fuming out of his nostrils, and the scales melted off his skin.

Then he leered out at the assembly. “This is actually excellent news,” he said. “Arathane’s timidity means more glory and plunder for the rest of us.” He looked at Aoth. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Possibly,” Aoth replied. He then launched into an analysis of how the loss of their genasi allies would likely affect the course of the coming war. He pointed out one difficulty after another but never said that the invasion had become too risky. He wanted Tchazzar to draw that conclusion for himself.

Any rational human monarch would have, but Tchazzar was neither the one nor the other, and as Gaedynn watched the Red Dragon’s jaw set with stubbornness, he wondered if killing Vairshekellabex had been pointless. Maybe it had simply ensured that the war in the south would last longer and cost more sellswords their lives than would have been the case otherwise.

But then he noticed that Hasos had stepped to the side to whisper with a middle-aged woman possessed of a plain, pock-marked face, a shaved head, and two concentric circles painted on her brow. For a moment, the lack of hair made Gaedynn mistake her for a Thayan. Then he realized from the painted rings that she more likely hailed from Gheldaneth, the last surviving city of Mulhorand, which had been subsumed into the Imaskari empire.

When he’d heard what she had to say, Hasos approached the throne and all but stood at attention. His posture made it clear that he wanted to be recognized.

“What is it?” Tchazzar asked.

“Goodwife Nanpret there was one of Your Majesty’s spies in High Imaskar,” Hasos said. “She’s brought us news, and it isn’t good. The incursions from the Plains of Purple Dust have stopped, or at least the empress believes so. If we attack the dragonborn, she’ll send wizards and soldiers to help them.”

I don’t believe it, Gaedynn thought. Finally some luck we didn’t have to make ourselves.

Or had they? He looked to Jhesrhi, and she gave him the same sort of nearly imperceptible nod he’d earlier given her. Evidently they all had their stories to trade if they made it out of Tchazzar’s presence alive.

The war hero glowered at the spy. “How can this be?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Majesty,” Goodwife Nanpret replied. “I didn’t linger to dig for all the details. I summoned a winged demon and made it carry me here to warn you as fast as it could fly.” She hesitated. “It cost me. It cost me dearly.”

If she expected a promise of reward or at least a word of thanks, Tchazzar disappointed her. He was intent on other matters. “Gestanius,” he whispered, “you treacherous piece of dung.”

Hasos peered up at him. “What, Your Majesty? I don’t understand.”

“Nothing!” the war hero snapped. “And this news changes nothing!”

“Majesty,” Aoth said, “I have to say that in my judgment the two pieces of news you’ve received today, taken together, change the strategic picture significantly.”

“If I were some puny mortal warlord, perhaps,” the Red Dragon said. “But I’m a god!”

“Fair enough,” said Aoth. “But you and I have already been to war together. And I’ve seen that even you can lose a battle when the odds are insurmountable.”

“And do you think they’re insurmountable now?”

“I think it might be prudent to let your forces fully recover from one war before leading them into another. I think it’s already late in the year to start a new-”

“Because you dawdled in Threskel while I waited for you here!”

“Someone had to secure the north, or it would have been stupid to march south. But the fact remains, it’s already late to begin a new campaign. Your people will go hungry if no one harvests the crops. Cold and sickness will decimate your troops if we’re still in the field come winter. And without the genasi to support us, and with the Imaskari coming to oppose us, we will be.”

Aoth took a breath. “I’m not saying we can’t win. I am saying that some victories can be as ruinous as defeat.”

“I understand,” Tchazzar said, “that you’ve giving your honest professional opinion. But you don’t understand how High Lady Halonya will channel the power of the children’s faith to make me invincible.”

Gaedynn didn’t really know what that meant either, but it suddenly came to him that he might know what to say about it. “It’s not all bad, then,” he murmured, softly enough that it might seem he was talking to himself but loudly enough for Halonya to overhear. “Because if you don’t turn out to be invincible, at least you’ll know exactly who to blame.”

Halonya twitched as if he’d jabbed her with a pin. She hesitated for a heartbeat or two then said, “Majesty.”

“What?” Tchazzar snapped.

“I… I’ll be honest,” the high priestess said. “The lesser clerics and I might benefit from having more time to practice. To meditate and study. I… don’t want to disappoint you like Daelric did.”

Tchazzar shook his head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or rain down fire on you all. Does no one believe in me?”

Jhesrhi stepped up onto the dais. That could be viewed as an affront to Tchazzar’s royal dignity, but if he saw it that way, perhaps she mitigated the offense by kneeling and taking his hands in hers. Gaedynn’s own guts twisted as he imagined how that contact must sicken her.

“Everyone believes in you,” she said. “Especially Halonya and me. But it’s like I told you before: you don’t have to do this.”

“But I want to,” Tchazzar said, and for that moment, despite the menace he embodied, his manner reminded Gaedynn of a sulking child.