The Spectral Blaze

“You couldn’t have!” Halonya said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Shala said. “I’ve killed far more dangerous creatures in my time. You were there for some of it. On this occasion, I was inspecting the battlements. I noticed the fiend wandering around, and it attacked me. So I disposed of it.”

“And then didn’t bother telling anyone?” asked Zan-akar Zeraez.

“To be honest, my lord,” Shala answered, “it didn’t occur to me that the brute was lurking there to watch Lady Jhesrhi’s apartments from above. I thought it was there to spy on me or maybe even kill me. I figured the wyrmkeepers had summoned it on His Majesty’s or Lady Halonya’s orders. So you can see why I didn’t think I could do myself any good by reporting what had happened.”

“But you’re not a sorcerer or a priest!” Halonya snarled. “You couldn’t have seen an invisible devil.”

Shala snorted. “I evidently know more about the supernatural than you do, prophetess, not that that comes as any great surprise. There are talismans that confer magical abilities even on thoroughly mundane people like me. Here, let me show you.”

Moving without any particular haste, Shala opened the pouch on her belt and brought out a ball the size of her fist. The object was so black that it scarcely looked solid or even three dimensional. It was more like a hole punched in the substance of the world. She tossed it into the air, and, floating, it started circling her body in a lazy sort of way. People exclaimed in surprise.

“The Crown Jewel of Chessenta,” she said.

“Then it’s mine,” Tchazzar said.

Shala shrugged. “I admit I was surprised that you never asked me to hand it over. For after all, you’re supposed to be a god. I figured that if that were true, you must know of it, even though it didn’t come into existence until after you disappeared. I assumed you meant for me to keep it as my family always has.”

“You were mistaken,” the dragon said.

Meanwhile, Jhesrhi watched the confrontation in an agony of guilt and indecision.

She understood why Shala was claiming that she’d killed the spined devil. The warrior had decided it was only a matter of time before Tchazzar turned on her in any case, so she was willing to endanger herself to protect the one person at court who could sometimes persuade the dragon to behave sanely and humanely and who was secretly working to forestall the coming war.

Jhesrhi couldn’t refute that bleak logic, but she was loath to let others risk themselves on her behalf. Hasos had gotten away with it, but he hadn’t spoken defiantly or disrespectfully. Shala had, to say the least.

Jhesrhi didn’t know how to intervene, but she meant to try. She took a breath and drew herself up straight. Apparently glimpsing the change in her posture from the corner of her eye, Shala shot her a quick but ferocious glare that froze the half-formed words inside her.

“Well, I think I deserve to keep it,” the warrior replied to Tchazzar. “You ousted me from the throne. You forced me to break Ishual Karanok’s sword. The jewel can be my recompense.”

“Give it to me now,” Tchazzar groweled.

“If you insist,” Shala said. And the black sphere hurtled straight at Tchazzar’s head.

Halonya screamed. Tchazzar leaped aside, and the jewel missed. As it started to turn, presumably to make a second pass at him, he leaped off the dais and charged Shala.

Retreating, she reached into her sleeve and snatched out the throwing knife she’d kept hidden there. Darkness rippled inside the steel, a telltale sign of the death magic that Jhesrhi also felt like a pang of headache. Shala lifted the flat, leaf-shaped blade for a cast.

Tchazzar spat fire. It was a puny flare compared to the mighty blasts he spewed in wyrm form, but it caught Shala in the face and she reeled. The dagger tumbled from her hand. The jewel slowed down, curved away from Tchazzar, and drifted back in her general direction.

The living god closed with Shala and backhanded her across her square, blistered face. Her knees buckled and he caught her by the forearms with red-scaled fingers. His claws pierced her clothing and the flesh beneath. He opened a mouth full of fangs and cocked his head to rip the side of her neck.

“Are you sure?” Jhesrhi called.

Tchazzar looked around. “What?” he snapped.

“I just thought, what you’re about to do would be very quick, wouldn’t it?”

The dragon took a breath. “You have a point.” He flung Shala to the floor, grabbed the black gem out of the air, and stared at it until it stopped trying to float back out of his grip. Then he glowered at the nearest guards. “You! You were apparently asleep when the bitch tried to kill me. Have you awakened sufficiently to take her to the dungeons?”

As the soldiers dragged Shala away, Jhesrhi couldn’t judge whether she’d done a good thing or a bad one. Maybe all she’d accomplished was to consign her rescuer to a long, excruciating death by torture, for surely Tchazzar had taken measures to ensure that no one would liberate a second prisoner from his cellars. Yet she couldn’t have stood idly by and watched an ally be slaughtered.

For the moment, she decided, all she could do was make sure that Shala’s act of self-sacrifice didn’t go in vain. And deliberate self-sacrifice it had surely been. The soldier couldn’t possibly have believed that the gem and the knife, potent weapons though they were, would prove capable of slaying the Red Dragon.

Tchazzar started pacing around the chamber, peering into one face after another. Looking for signs of disloyalty, no doubt. Fearful of the potential consequences of cringing, people met his gaze as best they could.

Jhesrhi put on a mournful expression. “Majesty,” she said.

Tchazzar turned. His teeth looked human again. His fingers showed only a hint of scales, and his nails were only a trifle long. Jhesrhi supposed that was something. “Yes?” he asked in a gentler tone than she’d previously heard from him that day.

“May I have your permission to depart?” she asked. “I can be gone by sunset. It goes without saying that I won’t carry away any of the gifts you gave me, so I won’t need long to pack.”

Tchazzar blinked. “What?”

“I assume Shala Karanok’s actions have exonerated me. Still, I have disappointed you, and you don’t trust me. So it would be wrong and selfish for me to stay. You need deputies you know to be dependable and true, especially on the eve of war.”

He looked back at her in silence for a moment. Her heart sank as she decided that her instincts had failed her. She shouldn’t have pushed and obliged him to make a choice that very instant.

But then he strode to her. Up close, he smelled of the blood that covered him, and of smoke and burning too. “No,” he said, “no, no, no. You don’t have my permission to depart. What you have is my heartfelt apology. Obviously Shala was our traitor all along, not you, never you.” He gri

“No!” Halonya wailed.

Tchazzar sighed and turned in her direction. “My dear, stubborn daughter-”

“Think about it!” Halonya jabbered, scurrying closer, her gaudy, voluminous vestments flapping and her amulets and necklaces swinging and clinking together. “The witch still had the wet cloak hidden in her quarters! It has to mean something!”

“Why?” Tchazzar asked.

Jhesrhi could have laid out that particular chain of reasoning for him. But although Halonya apparently had a sense of it, she seemed unable to articulate it. “Because!” she sputtered.

Stiff with reluctance, Jhesrhi lowered herself to her knees in front of Halonya. She bowed her head like a humble petitioner awaiting permission to kiss the bejeweled, curling toe of the other woman’s slipper.

“High Lady,” she said, “I beg your forgiveness. For whatever it was I did that first turned you against me, and for every unkind word I’ve spoken since. I know you’re wise and good, and that your person is sacred. I know our god wishes us to be friends. Yet it’s been hard for me to let go of my ill will. Maybe I’m the one who’s jealous.”