The Captive Flame

Khouryn let go of Medrash and, his hands red with the Tymantheran’s blood, snatched the urgrosh from his back. He chopped at one of the glowing blue lines composing the figure. The edge sheared deep into the earthen floor beneath. But when he yanked the weapon free, Gaedy

Balasar spewed frost at the same patch of floor. Dragon breath was inherently magical, so Gaedy

Still, he thought Khouryn’s idea was a good one. Spoil the figure involved in raising a supernatural effect and you generally ended said effect, even if the tactic had failed dismally in Thay.

Even indoors, even in relaxed circumstances, Gaedy

The charge of countermagic in the narrow arrowhead sent nullification surging outward in all directions, an expanding ring that wiped the figure of light away. The floating mirror vanished too, and Medrash’s skin stopped splitting. The wizards’ chant stumbled to a halt. The cellar seemed profoundly silent without it.

Until Medrash drew a deep breath. “I don’t know whether to thank you or rebuke you.”

“Thank them,” said Aoth. He let his spear drop to hang casually in his grasp. A blue-green glow faded from the head. “That was completely out of control.”

“And heal yourself,” said Balasar. “You’re bleeding all over everything.”

“What just happened?” Gaedy

Jhesrhi brushed a stray strand of blonde hair away from her golden eyes. “I don’t think so. It seems to me that he has a powerful ward in place to keep anyone from using divination against him.” She glanced around at her fellow mages. “Do you agree?”

All speaking more or less at the same time, they indicated that they did.

“So what does that mean?” Gaedy

“Maybe,” said Aoth, “or he could be a practitioner of divine magic.”

“That sounds promising,” Khouryn growled, returning his axe to its harness. “I can just see a bunch of Chessentan mages trying to pin the murders on a Chessentan holy man.”

“There are other possibilities,” Jhesrhi said. “Maybe the killer simply possesses a formidable talisman or receives aid from a supernatural entity. Or is a supernatural entity himself.”

“In other words,” Gaedy

“I’m game to try,” Medrash said. Gaedy

Aoth smiled crookedly. “Considering that we damn near killed you, I don’t know whether to praise your courage or doubt your good sense. But I have no idea how to get around that ward. Does anybody else?”

“I wouldn’t want to try to improvise a method,” Oraxes said. “Next time it could be me getting sliced to pieces.”

“But given time and study,” said the elderly witch, “we may well find the key.”

“How much time?” asked Aoth.

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “A couple of tendays. Perhaps a month.”

“I have eight days left. That’s the bargain I made with the war hero.”

“So where does that leave us?” Khouryn asked. “We just keep patrolling and hope to catch the killer at his work?”

“No.” Gaedy

“Interesting,” said Medrash. “But is it practical in this situation? The Green Hand doesn’t kill any particular sort of person-”

“Rumor has it,” Oraxes said, “that he kills people who have a particularly strong hatred of mages. Unfortunately, Luthcheq possesses those in abundance.”

Medrash gave a quick nod. “Indeed. And given that he prowls the entire city and kills the highborn and the low, the prosperous and the poor alike, how would we go about luring him into a snare?”

Jhesrhi frowned. “There might be a way. Places can have a spirit. An atmosphere. Often it derives from their history. They attract a certain sort of person, and certain events tend to happen there.

“Generally speaking,” she continued, “it’s a very weak effect. So weak we never feel the tug. So weak that if you mean to go one way instead of another, you will. The influence can’t change your mind. But if you kept track, you’d find that over the course of a year, or a hundred years, the groups that took each path differed at least slightly.”

“Maybe I see what you’re getting at,” Khouryn said. “But if the effect is as subtle as all that, how can we count on it solving our problem in the next several days?”

“The effect as it occurs in nature is subtle,” Jhesrhi said. “We wizards should be able to infuse a particular location with a negativity more potent than that found in any of Luthcheq’s dueling grounds, slaughterhouses, torture chambers, or what have you. That will cause the Green Hand to gravitate toward that area when he chooses his next victim. And we’ll be waiting there to catch him.”

“But what about the people who live and work in that area?” Khouryn asked. “If I understand you correctly, the new atmosphere will poison their thoughts. They might end up hurting or even killing one another.”

Oraxes sneered. “To the Towers of Night with them. If somebody doesn’t catch the Green Hand, those bastards will come back here to burn and butcher all of us.”

Medrash gave him a level stare. “It’s unlikely that all the people whose minds you’d corrupt hate mages, or would try to slaughter you in any case. But even if they are your enemies, this is a dishonorable way to strike at them.”

“Oh, sharpen your claws,” said Balasar. Gaedy

“If a person isn’t depraved to begin with,” Jhesrhi said, “the influence won’t make him so in just a few days.”

“What about the man who’s right on the edge?” asked Khouryn.

“And what about angry blows and spiteful words?” Medrash asked. “A person doesn’t have to fall into outright fiendishness to make mistakes that will mar his life forever afterward.”

Aoth frowned. “There’s no point debating the morality of it unless we’re sure it’s even possible. In the time we have left, I mean.”

“I think it is,” the aged sorceress said. “It’s not really that complicated, just fu

“Then I say we go ahead,” said Aoth. “The Green Hand murders people every tenday. The city’s in a panic. Every wizard’s in danger, and the future of the Brotherhood’s at stake. If we can fix all that, it will more than make up for whatever incidental nastiness we cause along the way.”

Oraxes gri