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.
