as some called it, the tease. Do you know it?”
The orchestra leader was a stooped little man with a pinched face. Gaedynn might have thought he looked more like a miserly shopkeeper than an artist, except for the zest that lived in his bright gray eyes. “No one has asked for that one in a long while, Majesty. But yes, we do know it. Or at least the older players do, and the rest can join in as they catch the sense of it.”
“Then let’s have it,” Tchazzar said, “and I’ll teach the steps to those who care to learn.”
The conductor smiled and switched the index finger of his offhand back and forth, telling his associates how quick he intended the beat to be. Then he raised his baton and swept it down. As promised, about half the musicians immediately began a lively tune in three-quarter time. The harper joined in a couple of measures later.
Meanwhile, Tchazzar walked straight toward Jhesrhi. When she saw him coming, she blanched.
“My lady,” he said. “Will you do me the honor?”
“I’m sorry, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said. “I can’t. I never have. Never in my life.”
“Neither has anyone else,” the dragon said. “Not this dance. You’re all starting even. What’s more, it’s a dance where the lady and gentleman don’t touch. Not even a brush of their fingertips, not even once. So please, won’t you give it a try?”
And to Gaedynn’s astonishment, she did. After a while she even smiled.
Something was weighing in his hand. He looked down at his heavily laden plate and realized he didn’t want it anymore.
Balasar woke suddenly from a sound sleep to the darkness of his bedchamber. At first he had no idea why. Then he heard, or perhaps merely sensed, a voice calling his name. It was less like speech than the whisper of a breeze, but somehow he understood it anyway.
It was undoubtedly the summons that Nala had promised would come. Plainly magical, it likely had something to do with the fuming, sour potion she’d given him to drink.
He threw off his blankets, dressed quickly, strapped on his broadsword, and slipped a dagger into his boot. He was supposedly going to the Platinum Cadre as a supplicant. But he’d feel like a jackass if they figured out he was actually a spy and managed to kill him because he hadn’t hidden a weapon on his person.
The common areas of Clan Daardendrien’s suite were deserted. Even the doorman was snoring. Balasar slipped out without waking him. The phantom voice whispered again, urging him toward the stairs that led downward.
As it turned out, he had to tramp all the way down to the floor of the City-Bastion’s central atrium, where fountains gurgled and shrubs and verdure grew in planters and flowerbeds. Striped and studded with balconies, the walls soared to the loft that served as the barracks of the Lance Defenders and the roost for their giant bats. The ambient magical glow was almost nonexistent at that hour, as conducive to sleep as the natural darkness outside.
The voice led Balasar down again, out into the cold night air. Onto the Market Floor, the pillared open space between the half pyramid above and the granite block below. Points of yellow light shined in the gloom, and somewhere to the north a longhorn whined. Clearly some of the taverns were still open, and for a moment Balasar dared to hope that Nala had summoned him to a meeting in such convivial surroundings.
Alas, no. The whisper-he still couldn’t judge if it existed only in his head-led him to another staircase, one descending into the bowels of the stone cube that formed the foundation of Djerad Thymar. Into the Catacombs.
The warren of tunnels and chambers contained storerooms, foundries, and other well-traveled areas with mundane and legitimate functions. They also held burial crypts and, according to rumor, desolate sections where outlaws conducted illicit business, fugitives went to ground, and specters walked.
Balasar sighed because he suspected he knew in which sort of precinct the priestess of the dragon god had set up shop. Sure enough, the voice called him into a narrow, snaking side passage and then down a steep and treacherous ramp. Most of the globular magical sconces had gone out, either because of time and neglect or because someone had taken the trouble to extinguish them.
Eventually he came to a point where the darkness was all but absolute. There
Running the claws of his right hand along the wall, he pushed on. After what seemed a long time, he traversed an oblique bend in the passage, and then the light finally brightened. It led him into a bare pentagonal chamber where four dragonborn waited. Hoods of silvery cloth concealed their heads.
But not quite well enough. A big male with red scales had three chains dangling visibly from the underside of his jaw. They were the piercings of Clan Shestendeliath-and enabled Balasar to identify Patrin.
He almost grinned. The clandestine meeting with masked, silent cultists was clearly supposed to seem ominous, and it did. But he found it difficult to believe that the paladin of Bahamut intended any treachery or harm. Though misguided, Patrin was honorable, and he and Balasar had battled the ash giants side by side.
Still, his voice was steel and ice as he asked, “Who comes?”
Balasar gave the ritual response Nala had taught him. “A seeker of truth.” Just not the truth you think.
“What will you give to learn it?”
“All that I have and am.”
“Then strip him,” Patrin said. The other worshipers moved forward.
Balasar had to force himself to stand still and submit to the subsequent rough handling. No one had warned him about that part of it.
For a time Aoth savored the glow of contentment, the feeling of utter, spent relaxation. Then, without him willing it, his mind resumed gnawing at all the matters that troubled him.
Her sweaty body snuggled up against his own, Cera seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and gave it a twist.
“Ouch!” he said, though it hadn’t really hurt. “What was that for?”
“It’s all right if you fall sleep after,” Cera said. “A woman learns to expect that sort of swinish male behavior. But if you’re going to stay awake, I want your attention.”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just …” He gestured with the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her.
“Tchazzar’s not what you expected.”
Aoth snorted. “Starting out, I didn’t expect anything. What were the odds that Jhesrhi and Gaedynn would even find a trace of him, let alone fetch him home? But yes. What do
She hesitated and brushed one of her curls away from her snub-nosed pretty face. He liked it that his spellscarred eyes could see the bright yellow color of her hair, and everything else about her, as clearly in the dark bedchamber as under the sun she worshiped.
“People use the term ‘god’ in more than one way,” she said at length. “I think Daelric and the other patriarchs won’t make an issue of it, as long as he keeps his pretensions within bounds. And obviously I, dutiful daughter of the faith that I am, will follow my wise superior’s lead.”
Aoth grinned. “In other words, in your opinion he’s just a big, strong dragon. But Chessenta needs him, so it makes sense to humor him.”
“Pretty much. At this point, I’m actually more vexed by the same thing that irked you. Why didn’t he tell everyone about the abishais? At first he seemed so interested, and now it’s like he doesn’t care at all.”
“I can’t explain it,” he said. “He gave me a couple of reasons, but none that made a lot of sense.”
“Do you think he’ll investigate? We still don’t understand the reason for it all.”
He shrugged. It made her breast bounce ever so slightly where it rested against his chest. “He said yes, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
Cera glowered. “That’s … unacceptable! Somebody has to find out what’s really going on!”
“If there’s one thing I learned growing up in Thay, and during my time as a sellsword, it’s that someone always has some sort of secret agenda or scheme. You could go mad trying to unravel it all.”
“But
