Whisper of Venom

The men bowed and the women curtsied. Tchazzar beamed and gestured, signaling everyone to straighten up. Then he turned and nodded to the musicians, who struck up the first dance, a galliard.

Standing near the buffet, Gaedy

Then Tchazzar shouted, “Stop!” His voice shouldn’t have cut through the galliard. But it did easily, as though he still carried a dragon’s roar within his seemingly human throat to use when necessary. The orchestra stumbled to a halt. The couples who were waiting for the war hero to choose a partner and start dancing so they could do the same peered at him in surprise.

“When last I walked these halls,” said the dragon to the conductor, “the dance in fashion was the longing. Or as some called it, the tease. Do you know it?”

The orchestra leader was a stooped little man with a pinched face. Gaedy

“Then let’s have it,” Tchazzar said, “and I’ll teach the steps to those who care to learn.”

The conductor smiled and switched the index finger of his offhand back and forth, telling his associates how quick he intended the beat to be. Then he raised his baton and swept it down. As promised, about half the musicians immediately began a lively tune in three-quarter time. The harper joined in a couple of measures later.

Meanwhile, Tchazzar walked straight toward Jhesrhi. When she saw him coming, she blanched.

“My lady,” he said. “Will you do me the honor?”

“I’m sorry, Majesty,” Jhesrhi said. “I can’t. I never have. Never in my life.”

“Neither has anyone else,” the dragon said. “Not this dance. You’re all starting even. What’s more, it’s a dance where the lady and gentleman don’t touch. Not even a brush of their fingertips, not even once. So please, won’t you give it a try?”

And to Gaedy

Something was weighing in his hand. He looked down at his heavily laden plate and realized he didn’t want it anymore.

Balasar woke suddenly from a sound sleep to the darkness of his bedchamber. At first he had no idea why. Then he heard, or perhaps merely sensed, a voice calling his name. It was less like speech than the whisper of a breeze, but somehow he understood it anyway.

It was undoubtedly the summons that Nala had promised would come. Plainly magical, it likely had something to do with the fuming, sour potion she’d given him to drink.

He threw off his blankets, dressed quickly, strapped on his broadsword, and slipped a dagger into his boot. He was supposedly going to the Platinum Cadre as a supplicant. But he’d feel like a jackass if they figured out he was actually a spy and managed to kill him because he hadn’t hidden a weapon on his person.

The common areas of Clan Daardendrien’s suite were deserted. Even the doorman was snoring. Balasar slipped out without waking him. The phantom voice whispered again, urging him toward the stairs that led downward.

As it turned out, he had to tramp all the way down to the floor of the City-Bastion’s central atrium, where fountains gurgled and shrubs and verdure grew in planters and flowerbeds. Striped and studded with balconies, the walls soared to the loft that served as the barracks of the Lance Defenders and the roost for their giant bats. The ambient magical glow was almost nonexistent at that hour, as conducive to sleep as the natural darkness outside.

The voice led Balasar down again, out into the cold night air. Onto the Market Floor, the pillared open space between the half pyramid above and the granite block below. Points of yellow light shined in the gloom, and somewhere to the north a longhorn whined. Clearly some of the taverns were still open, and for a moment Balasar dared to hope that Nala had summoned him to a meeting in such convivial surroundings.

Alas, no. The whisper-he still couldn’t judge if it existed only in his head-led him to another staircase, one descending into the bowels of the stone cube that formed the foundation of Djerad Thymar. Into the Catacombs.

The warren of tu

Balasar sighed because he suspected he knew in which sort of precinct the priestess of the dragon god had set up shop. Sure enough, the voice called him into a narrow, snaking side passage and then down a steep and treacherous ramp. Most of the globular magical sconces had gone out, either because of time and neglect or because someone had taken the trouble to extinguish them.

Eventually he came to a point where the darkness was all but absolute. There might be a faint glimmer somewhere up ahead, but it could just as easily be a trick his light-starved eyes were playing on him.

Ru

But not quite well enough. A big male with red scales had three chains dangling visibly from the underside of his jaw. They were the piercings of Clan Shestendeliath-and enabled Balasar to identify Patrin.

He almost gri

Still, his voice was steel and ice as he asked, “Who comes?”

Balasar gave the ritual response Nala had taught him. “A seeker of truth.” Just not the truth you think.

“What will you give to learn it?”

“All that I have and am.”

“Then strip him,” Patrin said. The other worshipers moved forward.

Balasar had to force himself to stand still and submit to the subsequent rough handling. No one had warned him about that part of it.

For a time Aoth savored the glow of contentment, the feeling of utter, spent relaxation. Then, without him willing it, his mind resumed gnawing at all the matters that troubled him.

Her sweaty body snuggled up against his own, Cera seized his nose between thumb and forefinger and gave it a twist.

“Ouch!” he said, though it hadn’t really hurt. “What was that for?”

“It’s all right if you fall sleep after,” Cera said. “A woman learns to expect that sort of swinish male behavior. But if you’re going to stay awake, I want your attention.”

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just …” He gestured with the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her.

“Tchazzar’s not what you expected.”

Aoth snorted. “Starting out, I didn’t expect anything. What were the odds that Jhesrhi and Gaedy

She hesitated and brushed one of her curls away from her snub-nosed pretty face. He liked it that his spellscarred eyes could see the bright yellow color of her hair, and everything else about her, as clearly in the dark bedchamber as under the sun she worshiped.