terms of a game. It’s common for people to talk that way.”
Tchazzar scowled. “I know that! And I don’t want you to be guilty. I want you to be my consort and my luck, like I imagined.”
“Then allow me to be those things,” Jhesrhi said. “Allow it by trusting me.”
“It isn’t that easy. You have to prove yourself, and do it before Alasklerbanbastos arrives. Otherwise-”
“Alasklerbanbastos?” She’d heard how the Great Bone Wyrm had escaped but, like her friends, had assumed the dracolich had simply gone to ground somewhere. Obviously not. “Now I understand! Majesty, that foul thing is your enemy! You can’t believe anything he says!”
“Yet I do. I believe I’ve been mired in lies since the day of my return, and now I’m free at last, which is bad luck for the liars. They’re about to find out the punishment for trying to trick a god.”
“Majesty, whatever you suspect, surely you’ll at least give them a trial.”
“When will you insects understand that I’m a god? I can judge and punish as I please, without the mortal rigmarole of courts and laws. In other words, your friends are already as good as dead. The only question left is whether you’ll join them in the Hells.”
“You said I could prove myself. How?” She assumed she knew and wondered if she could endure it any better in reality than she had in dream.
But Tchazzar surprised her by laughing at whatever he’d seen come into her face or heard in her voice. “Do you think I’m that besotted? That it will be that easy?”
Bewildered and, crazily, a little hurt in spite of everything, she said, “Majesty, I believe I’ve explained that it wouldn’t be easy for me.”
“Or perhaps you’ve just tantalized me endlessly because you judged that would be the best way to keep me obsessed and distracted.”
“I swear that isn’t so.”
“Well, you’ll have to prove it as worshipers have always proved themselves to the gods. By sacrifice. Your friend Ulraes is in the fortress. Now, I told Alasklerbanbastos that I wouldn’t move against any of you until he arrived. But I had to figure you out, and the archer is no wizard, just an insolent man-at-arms. Surely you can dispose of him without making enough fuss to rouse Captain Fezim, and then you and I will make love beside the corpse. That will make our first time all the more special.”
“Gaedynn helped rescue you. He had as much to do with it as I did.”
The world exploded into senselessness. When her shattered thoughts came partly back together, her head was ringing, her mouth tasted of blood, and she had her back against the wall. She realized that the dragon had lashed her across the jaw with the back of his hand, his arm whipping so fast that she hadn’t had time to react.
“I told you not to mention that again!” Tchazzar snarled. “I’m a god! I was never a prisoner, never bound in the dark, and never needed any mortal’s help! It’s blasphemy to say otherwise! And blasphemy’s the foulest treason of all!”
“Forgive me, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said. “I… don’t know why I said it. Some devil must have prompted me. Because I love and worship you and will do whatever I have to to prove it. Even kill my friend if that’s what you require.”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll get my staff.”
As before, she thought he might stop her, but he didn’t. Probably he rightly assumed he had little to fear from the instrument. He was largely impervious to the fire that had become her greatest weapon, and no other single spell in her arsenal was likely to hit him so hard that he’d be unable to retaliate.
It was late. But the corridors of the War College were seldom entirely deserted, and startled sentries and servants hastily saluted or bowed to their ruler, then no doubt eyed him and his companion curiously once they passed by. Jhesrhi’s nightclothes and bare feet probably made them think Tchazzar had whisked her out of her bed for some madcap escapade or tryst. Which, in a ghastly way, wasn’t far from the truth.
Tchazzar stopped in front of one carved, brassbound door in a row of them. He removed a silver key from the inside of his doublet, slid it into the keyhole, and twisted it. The lock yielded with a tiny click. He smirked, laid his finger across his lips, swung open the door, and ushered Jhesrhi into the dark room beyond.
At which point, she felt a pang of hope because Gaedynn wasn’t there. But when Tchazzar eased open a second door, they found the Aglarondan sprawled, snoring softly, in his bed. Despite everything, Jhesrhi’s mouth tightened when she made out the second shape all but hidden under the covers.
“See?” Tchazzar whispered, a hint of laughter in his tone. “He doesn’t care anything about you. So this shouldn’t be so difficult after all.”
“No.” Jhesrhi raised her staff, told it to be still when it begged for fire, and spoke to the wind instead.
Conjuring an actual gale wasn’t easy in a massive, enclosed structure such as the War College. But, like every wizard who’d ever cast a spell successfully, she made herself believe the magic would answer and it did. The air screamed, snatched her off her feet, and hurled her forward. Tchazzar grabbed for her, but at that moment, he was the one who was too slow.
Ahead of her, the wind rocked the bed and ripped Gaedynn, his companion, and the covers off the feather mattress. In the dark, Jhesrhi couldn’t tell if the blast of air smashed the cames and diamond-shaped panes out of the casement, or if the lovers’ bodies did it as they hurtled through.
An instant later, she, too, shot through to see that she and the others had burst out of the east face of the War College, on the opposite side from most of Luthcheq. Only a few scattered buildings bumped up from the ground below.
Jhesrhi spoke to the wind once more and felt it respond with a hint of reluctance. Flinging people around like a cat batting a ball suited it better than carrying them in a more precise and less violent manner. But it obeyed. It heaved her, Gaedynn, and his erstwhile bedmate upward.
And not a moment too soon. Flame blazed through the broken window but passed beneath them. Above, on the battlements atop the enormous sandstone edifice, a sentry cried out.
Certain Tchazzar would try again to burn them, Jhesrhi told the wind to bring her close to the wall and drew those she was carrying close to it also. That should give the dragon a difficult angle.
Although evidently not an impossible one, for a second streak of fiery breath shot up between Gaedynn and herself. Then, however, they were high enough to fly over the roof and use it for cover. Jhesrhi dumped Gaedynn’s wench beside one of the catapults, and she thumped down with a squeal.
Then, Jhesrhi judged, she could finally pause to catch her breath and think. The guards below looked astonished, not aggressive, although that could change at any moment. She made Gaedynn and herself float in the air.
To her relief, it didn’t appear that the window glass had cut him. Using his fingers to comb his tousled hair, he grinned at her. “You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble just to see me naked.”
“Shut up!” she snapped. “The plan’s come apart! Tchazzar wants us all dead!”
“I guessed that, actually. The gist, if not all the details. And I assume Aoth and Cera are still inside the fortress.”
“Yes. Do you know what quarters they were given?”
“Even if I did, I doubt I could spot it from the outside.”
“We can’t just leave them to be killed in their sleep.”
“No, but we can’t go back in and look for them either. That would only get us killed. You have to warn them from out here.”
“All right.” Growling harsh, percussive words derived from one of the languages of Elemental Chaos, she gripped her staff with both hands and jabbed it downward in time with the steady beat of the incantation.
Her power jolted the structure beneath her. The shocks made the sentries stumble back and forth.
When she finished, Gaedynn asked, “Are you sure that was enough? I mean, it was impressive in its way, but you didn’t break anything.”
“I’m not done,” she answered. She spun her staff over her head. The pseudo-mind inside cried out in joy when she willed the ends of the rod to burst into flame.
Fireballs shot from the ends of the staff and, arcing, fell down the four faces of the War College. Presumably the light they shed shined through all the windows.
