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
