Whisper of Venom

Suddenly the sentry cried out and hefted his spear. A bare instant later, something big, dark, and eight-legged swarmed over the parapet. It moved fast, in a swirl of shadows blacker than the night.

The sentry jabbed with the spear, but it glanced off his attacker’s shoulder. The spider thing-which, Oraxes observed, had a horned head and clawed feet more closely resembling a lizard’s-spewed something that instantly congealed into strands, which wrapped around the warrior, sizzled, and smoked. He cried out and strained to break the bonds. The spider thing opened its slavering, steaming jaws to bite.

Oraxes rattled off words of power, jerked his right hand through a jagged pass, then pointed. A serpent made of bright, crackling lightning leaped from his fingertip and flew. It plunged its fangs into the spider thing’s flank and vanished in a flash.

For a moment, the creature convulsed. It gave the sentry time to struggle free of his gluey, blistering restraints.

Meanwhile, the men-at-arms in the turret scrambled out onto the wall walk and discharged their crossbows. Then they drew their swords and advanced on the beast.

Which didn’t seem to mind that it was facing half a dozen foes instead of one. In fact, it sprang to meet them. A toss of its head and horns hurled the first mercenary crashing back against the next in line.

Oraxes looked through the turret window for a clear line to the spider thing. He couldn’t see one. The mercenaries were in the way.

He scurried out onto the walkway. It didn’t help.

He told himself that the soldiers might not need any more magical aid, but saw immediately that it wasn’t so. The same problem that was hindering him could easily prove to be their downfall. The wall walk was just too narrow for them all to assail the spider thing at once, and they were no match for it two and three at a time. It tore away mail and flesh with a snap of its jaws, spun to spit more acidic strands at the warrior it had first entangled, then whirled again to rip away another piece of the man it had just bitten, before the poor bastard had even finished falling down.

Oraxes climbed up onto a merlon. It was a step in the right direction, but not good enough. He swallowed and moved to the outer edge of the stone block.

He felt the possibility of losing his balance and falling like a dizzying thi

Force flared from his outstretched hand. It whipped the spider thing’s head all the way down to crack against the wall walk like a blow from an invisible hammer. Before the creature could raise it and resume an aggressive posture, two warriors landed sword cuts.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to finish the spider thing. It lunged again, horns stabbing, jaws snapping. So Oraxes raked it with a flare of yellow fire.

It snarled and sprang back over the parapet. For an instant, Oraxes assumed it had decided to flee. Then he saw that it was actually scuttling horizontally along the wall faster than a man could sprint. Coming for the foe who was hurting it the worst.

Fear turned Oraxes’s bowels to water, but he knew that if he froze or flinched, he’d die. He shouted words of power, and, as the thing turned to charge straight up at him, he thrust both arms down at it with all the strength in his body.

Fist-sized hailstones materialized in midfall, clattered and thudded against the spider thing, and knocked it off the wall. It fell and smashed against the ground.

Oraxes felt relief until he realized that his last, excessively forceful mystic gesture had shifted his center of gravity. He was toppling outward and about to plunge down right on top of the foe.

A hand grabbed him by the belt and hauled him backward. Trembling, he climbed back down onto the wall walk.

Once there, he and the sellsword who’d pulled him to safety looked down at the creature. It wasn’t moving, and the seething gloom that had shrouded it was gone. Which paradoxically meant that despite the distance, Oraxes could see it about as well as before.

The sellsword panted. “That was good work.”

The remark made Oraxes feel awkward, which was something he generally hated. But it wasn’t so bad this time. “We were all beating on it, I guess. We should get the men who are hurt to the healers.”

“I know we’re intent on wi

“I’m sure His Majesty hasn’t,” said Jhesrhi, marveling that the rich, self-important old man, who’d probably spent his whole long life despising arcanists, had sought her out for a conversation. “But it won’t do much good to protect our shipping and harbors if we lose the rest of the realm while we’re accomplishing it.”

“That’s sound thinking as far as it goes,” the merchant said. “But still, if the most important trading vessels could travel in convoy with a proper escort, it would benefit Chessenta immensely.”

Jhesrhi assumed that by “the most important trading vessels,” he meant the fleet he owned himself. Amused, she said, “If you care to request an audience, I imagine His Majesty will at least listen to your proposal.”

The shipping magnate beamed as though her response all but guaranteed success. Who knew? In the oblique parlance favored by courtiers, maybe it did. “Thank you, lady. Rest assured I won’t forget.”

Jhesrhi glanced out the casement at the western sky, gauging the position of Selune and the glittering haze of tears that forever trailed the goddess across the firmament. With a twinge of reluctance that surprised her, she decided it was time to leave the party.

She took a final look around. Tchazzar had commanded that mementoes of his past campaigns be placed on display in a hall in the War College to inspire martial ardor in his subjects, and the court was attending a private viewing. Some of the trophies were functional arms and armor, others a pavilion, captured ba

For the most part the lords and merchants paid little attention to them. They were too busy talking. To Tchazzar, resplendent in crimson and gold, if he chose to favor them with his attention. Or to Halonya, more gaudily robed than ever, her entourage of newly anointed priests hovering in attendance, as a second choice.

Or, Jhesrhi suddenly wondered, to herself? Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t lacked for companionship over the course of the evening. Other courtiers loitered nearby, waiting to take the place of the elderly sea trader, and they looked rueful now that something in her demeanor told them she meant to go.

For some reason that made her blush, which in turn a

She had to climb stairs to reach her apartments-which, despite the exertion involved, was a mark of Tchazzar’s favor. The finest and most coveted suites in the citadel were near the top, where the view looking out over Luthcheq was at its most spectacular. She nodded to the sentry the monarch had insisted on posting at her door, then went inside.

A servant had already lit a fire in the hearth. She kneeled down and traced a star-shaped but asymmetrical figure on the floor. Her fingertip left lines of yellow phosphorescence.

When the sigil was done, she rose and took her staff in both hands. The rod wasn’t alive, but it possessed a sort of quasi consciousness, and it always yearned to create and manipulate fire. She could feel its eagerness when it sensed that was her intent.