The God Catcher

EIGHTEEN

Jorik surveyed the wreckage of the apartment once occupied by Tennora Hedare. Papers lay burnt and torn everywhere, not a piece of furniture upright and whole. A fight between two parties had done it, he was certain. Its traces lay in the blast patterns that smeared the opposing walls, the layer stripped away from the tabletop someone had hidden behind. The wizard boy said it had looked like that when he'd seen it last.

"There was a man," he said. "Actually three men and a woman, and the Tethyrian. She was unconscious. The others were attacking Tennora, I think."

Jorik eyed him. "And you didn't think to mention that?" Cassian shook his head. "It's been a very hectic day."

"What did the attackers look like?"

Cassian screwed up his face. "A half-elf woman, rather fetching. She's the one the Watch charged. A blond man with copper eye-teeth. The third fellow-"

"Copper eyeteeth?" Jorik said. "Hrast." He pulled an amulet out from under his shirt and murmured the spell to activate it. "Nazra," he said.

Have you found them?

"Not yet, but we may have found how the kidnappers got in. There's a letter on your desk somewhere. Agnea dropped it off two nights before the party; she'll find it. Don't recall who it's from, but the messenger who dropped it off is the same one who made a mess of Tennora Hedare's apartments."

You think they used it to get in? The wards should have rejected it.

"I hope it isn't, Nazra," he said. "But the wards wouldn't have noticed anything wrong. We brought it in. I'm so sorry."

Nazra said nothing for a long moment. It doesn't mean the Hedare girl is innocent.

"We can pull the half-elf from the Watch's dungeons," he said. "She can tell us who she's working for. Maybe-"

"Oh dear," Cassian said. He was standing in the middle of the room, staring at a spot on the floor. He looked up at Jorik. "I may have forgotten something."

Jorik lowered the amulet. "What?"

"The man who was unconscious wore green velvet. Not a cape, but

… Do you think that might be important?"

"One moment, saer," he said, and tucked the amulet back into his shirt. "Sit," he ordered, pointing at the remaining chair. Cassian backed into it and sat down. Jorik leaned in close.

"Now is not the time to forget things," he said. "There is a life at stake. You said there were four people and the Tethyrian. The man with the copper eyeteeth and a man in green velvet who was unconscious. What. Else. Did. You. See?"

Cassian licked his lips nervously. "The, um, the man with the copper eyeteeth, Tennora threw a little blade at him and caught him in the leg. He shouted to the half-elf that she… Her name… Alina? Alita? He said she should use the favor and she took out a coin of some sort. Then, ah… then Tennora jumped on her. She doesn't usually do things like that. Anyway, the man caught the coin and dropped it. Then they all vanished."

"And that's it?"

"Yes," he said, then added, "Well, Tennora was upset afterward, saying they'd kidnapped the Tethyrian-Nester, I think she said, or maybe Nestrix? She said that one of them-one of the men, I don't know which-was a dragon. 'A dragon too,' actually. The bounty hunter-"

"Hrast it, boy. When did the bounty hunter come in?"

"During the fight. He and Tennora argued about it. I went for the Watch and for… I think he's an uncle of Tennora's perhaps. Then Goodwoman Blacklock-she's the landlady-came in. Said the plan had worked and that was the best way to get rid of a dragon. She has strange ideas about the proper use of spells, I think."

Jorik shot to his feet. He pulled out the amulet and activated it again, telling Nazra what Cassian had related.

The plot thickens, she said.

"I don't think the girl is a part of the kidnapper's plans."

Whatever she is, she knows more than we do. Find her. "You will not find her," a new voice said.

Jorik startled and turned to the window where a creature half woman and half raptor crouched watching him, a pair of enormous wings arched over her head. She bobbed her head at him the way the falcons in the mews did when presented with a lure.

"You will not find her," she said again, "because she changed the paths." "I beg your pardon?"

Jorik? Nazra's voice asked. What's going on? Who's there?

"Tell her I am called Aundra Blacklock," the creature said. "Tennora read it differently. She will fail or she will come back in her own time-but that doesn't stop the storm." She bobbed her head again, more quickly, as if he agitated her and she wanted to chase him off.

"I'm sorry," Jorik said. "Goodwoman Blacklock, we don't mean to trespass. But it's imperative we find Tennora right away."

She stopped and turned her head to the side. She blinked slowly. "I will help you, I suppose, but you cannot become used to it."

"Never," Jorik said, and he meant it.

Tennora had never been so glad in all her life to see someone as she was when Veron strode into the chamber, crossbow high. Ferremo jabbed at her again, piercing the muscle above her shoulder and wrenching the blade down. She finished her spell with a yelp. An explosion of colored lights filled the space between them. Not as bright or as painful as she'd hoped, but enough to drive the assassin back a few feet, still limping.

"Shoot the lovac!" Nestrix yelled. A bolt whizzed across the room and struck the wall.

Tennora's own wound was still seeping blood, and the loss of it was slowing her down, dizzying her. Her vision swam and her ears were ringing. All her focus she put into staying on her feet and keeping Ferremo and his knife away.

But every spell, every careful attack, used up a little more of what she had left. She could hardly keep her arm up and the dagger in her hand.

And bit by bit, Ferremo was cutting her down. A slash here, a stab there-he was toying with her. And though she had bloodied him as well, leaving him limping, squinting, and wiping blood from his chin, he would fall long after she had.

She pulled her hand from her wound long enough to make it glitter with the beginnings of a spell. Ferremo slashed at her upraised wrist. With a quick turn, she stuck him with the dagger under the arm as he slashed. He hissed and pressed that arm down over the wound.

"Isn't this fun?" he panted, his eyes wild and bright. He lunged forward again, but Tennora twisted away to make the thicker leather catch the knife. Quick as an eel, he turned the weapon and slammed the hilt into the armor near her wound. Tennora cried out.

Another crossbow bolt sang across the room, sinking into Ferremo's hip. His eyes went wide with pain.

"Put the blades down," Veron shouted.

Ferremo yanked the bolt free of his joint. He slipped around Tennora so she stood between him and the crossbow. As she started to move out of the way, his hand lashed out and grabbed her by the braid, yanking her close. He bent her sword arm behind her back and held her body close to him like a shield.

"Go ahead!" Ferremo shouted back, his breath close and hot against her ear. His weight leaned on her, saving his wounded leg. "Send us some love."

Veron froze, anger and fear congealing his features, but Tennora boiled over.

She stomped down hard on Ferremo's foot. The soles of her own boots were soft, but she struck him across the toes with her heel. His grip loosened as he cried out, and she pulled her arm away from him. She reached back and shoved her palm up against his face.

"Ziastayix" she gasped, her vision crumbling to gray around the edges. He shrieked as his skin and hair scorched, the scented oil burning with a smell like pinesap. The twang of Veron's crossbow sounded as she pulled herself free of Ferremo.

Tennora fell to her hands and knees, the blood still oozing from the wound beneath her armor sapping what remained of her strength.

Nestrix and Dareun were off the ground and circling each other, Dareun's hands tracing the shapes of his wild magic, Nestrix beginning to crackle with lightning. As Dareun came around to face his wounded lovac, he stopped and glanced around the room.

"You are alone, wyrmling," Nestrix said, her voice crackling in Tennora's ears. Dareun's eyes narrowed, and his hands came up to cast.

He shouted another spell, and the shadows of the room condensed around him. He flickered, and his image skipped across the room and into the cage swaddled in the darkness. Antoum Mrays, still huddled in a ball, looked up as Dareun appeared before him. He screamed as Dareun grabbed him by the arm and twisted his ring. The two of them vanished.

"No!" Tennora cried out, but she couldn't even hear her own voice. The grayness closed over her eyes and she collapsed into it.

Tennora's eyes fluttered open to see Veron holding her head up and pressing another vial to her lips.

"You need to start carrying some of your own," he said. She drank the potion gratefully and let him help her up, still aching but no longer bleeding.

Nestrix stood beside her, tense and worried. Ferremo was pressed into a comer, watching and breathing unevenly.

"Don't do that again," Nestrix said.

"I'll do my best," Tennora said wryly as Veron pulled her to her feet. She looked around the chamber. "Hrast it. He's gone?"

"Not quite," Nestrix said. She stepped toward Ferremo.

Wounded, Ferremo held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "It's not me you want," he said, panting. "It's him. I'm just the lackey."

Nestrix kept coming. "You're right. He can see through your eyes, can't he? Hear through your ears?"

Ferremo nodded nervously, hands still raised. "He will know if you-"

Nestrix seized Ferremo around the throat and slammed him against the brick wall. Ferremo twisted and kicked. His face turned plum.

"Then listen and understand this, wyrmling," she hissed, leaning in close. "Your days are numbered. You marked yourself the moment you took that boy. If his dam cannot find you, I will hunt you down for her, and you will regret ever breaking through your shell."

Ferremo tried to cough, but Nestrix's grip compressed his throat. Words struggled from his lips. "You… can… try… ulhar." "Oh, I'll do it. I'll watch you die."

Ferremo's mouth twisted into a smirk. "He's… laughing."

"Tell me where he's gone and I'll let you live."

"He… wouldn't."

"Last chance, lovac. Where is the child?"

Ferremo's mouth curved into a gruesome smile. "Gone."

Tennora had heard enough. "Nestrix," she said. Nestrix looked back at her without releasing Ferremo. "He's not going to tell us anything. Are you?" she said to Ferremo.

Ferremo's smile widened, and he said nothing.

Nestrix bared her teeth. "Do not ask me to let him go."

"No," Tennora said, though nausea rose in her stomach. "Hold him still." Rage, bright and hot, filled Tennora as she sank her mother's dagger between Ferremo's ribs. His eyes went wide. Bright red blood poured from his chest and pumped out in heavy gouts over Tennora's knuckles. His lashes fluttered, and a last wheeze escaped his lips before he trembled and went slack. Tennora pulled the dagger from his body, her hands shaking.

"That was… sudden," Nestrix said, sounding-for once-surprised.

"No it wasn't," Tennora said quietly. "He almost killed me three times over. He kidnapped that boy. He kidnapped you. He started it. I wanted to end it." She looked up at an amused Nestrix. "I'm not making a habit of it. But I gave him plenty of chances."

"Of course you did," Nestrix said. "Anyway, he was on his way already. You did him a favor."

"Stop talking about it."

"All right," Nestrix said. "But can you do it again?"

"I-"

"Stop right there." Standing in the center of the chamber, Veron watched them over the sights of his crossbow. He took a step forward. "I've been tracking you a long time, Clytemorrenestrix."

Nestrix looked him up and down. "And who are you? The bounty hunter the henich spoke of?" "I am. I've been sent to bring you back to Cormyr to answer for the death of-"

"The wizard," she finished. "You should be glad I killed him."

"Not now, Veron," Tennora said. "We need to find the boy. Dareun's planning to bring down the city."

Nestrix stepped toward him. "You need me right now, hunter," she said. "Tennora is clever enough to find him, I think, but he's no mere warlock. Not with that collar."

Veron didn't lower the crossbow. "And how do I know you aren't working with the… other dragon."

"You watched me kill his lovac," Nestrix said. "What more do you need? While we talk, that child is in danger."

"Tell me where he's headed."

Nestrix frowned. "To a second lair, probably. He wants something from the boy's dam. The boy is a bargaining piece-he won't take him back to his mother until he has what he wants."

"Where's his second lair?"

Nestrix shook her head. "I don't know that. That's why we need to find him."

"The antiquary's," Tennora said. "Anywhere else is out of the city."

"That's true," Nestrix said. "The antiquary's is to hold his seed hoard, his treasure. This place is to recover-that ward of yours is weaker at this edge. He doesn't need anything else here-he probably made his moves from his main lair until now. That could be anywhere."

"But he'd have to transform or teleport to get there," Tennora finished. "He can't walk down the street dragging the unwilling son of Nazra Mrays. He didn't teleport. And if he'd transformed… I think we'd have heard something, even down here."

Veron shook his head and lowered the crossbow. "But he knows you both know where his seed hoard is. He can't hide the boy there for long."

"He doesn't have to. No food, no place for the boy to sleep, a plan for his body. He's clearly not planning to keep the boy more than a few days."

"Hells," Tennora said. "The boy could be anywhere."

"We'll find him," Nestrix said.

"No, it's more than that," Tennora said. "He means to take hold of the dragonstaff." She explained the purpose of the dragonward and dragonstaff, and the plan that Dareun seemed to be following.

Veron slid the crossbow back into its harness. "Then we have a problem. He'll hide the boy, but he'll go to the mother to get the staff. If we stop him from getting the staff, we might not be able to find the boy. If we go after the boy, he may get the staff before we reach him."

"And we don't know how to get out of here," Tennora added. She looked over at Veron. "Unless…?"

Verori shook his head. "I'm lucky I found my way here. You don't want to know what I had to go through to find you."

"Yes, well, I owe you a favor," Tennora said.

Nestrix's eyes lit up. "A favor."

She sprinted over to the body of Ferremo Magli and started emptying his pockets and pouches. A palm-sized mirror, a waxy plug of scent, a small whetstone. "Oh come on," she muttered. "Don't have used them up."

"What in the Nine Hells are you looking for?" Tennora asked.

"Favor tokens," she said. "The taaldarax gives them to his lovacs to help them carry out his plans." She pulled his coin purse out from under his belt and upended it. A shower of coins-gold, silver, and copper-rained out. "Quickly! Find the coin that looks different!"

Tennora and Veron both dropped down beside her and started sifting through the coins. "What do they do?" Tennora said.

"They connect to the taaldarax's location. If the lovac needs to return to his master's lair, the favor token will take him."

Veron stopped and looked around. "Aren't we in his lair?"

"Don't be foolish," Nestrix said, still busily emptying pockets. "It's disgusting down here. He's not a swamp dragon. His temporary lair is either the seed hoard or somewhere near to it. He would have made sure the lovac had a way to get back to it."

Tennora was leaned close to the coins, running her fingers over the pieces, when she spotted it. The taaldarax' s favor was a gold coin a little bigger than a dragon piece and a little yellower. It was stamped with Draconic letters.

"Found it!" she cried plucking the coin from the pile. She handed it over to Nestrix. "How does it work?"

Nestrix turned the coin over in her hand, with a soft, strange smile. She looked up at Tennora and Veron. "Like this."

She spread her hand and the piece fell to the ground with a resounding chime. But when Tennora looked down at the floor to spot the coin, she saw they were no longer standing on cold, slick stones, but on a polished wooden floor. Tennora looked down at her hands and leathers, and at the body of Ferremo Magli who had come along with them. "That was-"

Nestrix held a finger to her lips and hissed.

They were standing in a small room with no windows. One door looked in on a bed with twisted sheets. The other had been thrown wide and led down a hallway. Nestrix slipped toward the second door, Tennora and Veron close behind.

Ahead of them a door slammed.

"He's here," Nestrix growled.

The hallway ended in a curtain, which Nestrix tore aside. Beyond was the antiquary's shop, still full of false treasures, still silent as a tomb.

Nestrix inhaled deeply. "He was here-not too long ago."

"How can you be sure?" Veron asked.

She looked back over her shoulder at him, one eyebrow arched in disbelief. "I'm a dragon," she said. "And he stinks like an alchemist's trash heap." She sniffed the air again. "He's not here anymore."

"No one's here," Veron said, waving a hand over the room. "Let's go. He can't be too far." He headed for the door, Nestrix following.

Something itched at the back of Tennora's mind as she looked around the room. Something had changed since she'd seen it last, but she couldn't put her finger on what. Instead, the sense skidded around in her thoughts, refusing to settle. After a moment, she started toward the door, still studying the room around her.

Just before the door, Nestrix stopped.

She sniffed the air, suddenly alert as a hound scenting its quarry. "Stop," she said. "He's still here."

"Dareun?" Tennora asked.

"No," Nestrix said. "The boy." She sniffed again. "Inks and sweets and soap." She looked at Tennora, her eyes lambent. "Fear."

Veron cursed. "Where? Are you sure?"

She gave him a withering look. "Of course I'm sure." She pushed past him into the maze of displays and cabinets, tasting the air.

Tennora followed her, watching as Nestrix tried to catch the scent of the boy again. When she turned back, her face was contorted with frustration.

"He is here," she said. "I can't… I can't find him."

"So we start looking," Tennora said. She turned toward the other half of the shop. Veron caught her by the arm.

"We should go after Dareun," he said softly. "We're chasing figments if we stay and rummage through this place."

"She says she smells him."

"And so what? There's still a very good chance she's plague mad." He let go of her arm. "That boy could be anywhere in this city. Or beyond."

Tennora started to retort, but when her eyes fell on a cabinet pushed up against the wall, her mouth shut.

Three days earlier, she had stood in front of that cabinet and had been startled out of her wits when a slinger's bullet shattered the glass.

Tennora pushed past Veron and started toward it.

The cabinet had since been hung with ornate metal doors that did not match the thick wooden body, and fitted with a beastly, complicated-looking lock.

"Nestrix!" she called. "Nestrix! This one! It's this one."

Nestrix sprinted across the shop to Tennora's side and sniffed. Her eyes widened. She rapped on the door.

Nothing.

"Get it open," she whispered.

The lock was heavy and made of the same ornate, layered brass as the doors. Tennora maneuvered herself underneath it and slid the picks up into the mechanism. The pins lay in a far more complicated pattern, and after a moment she pulled out another pick. "Hold this," she said to Veron, indicating the turning bar. "And twist it gently."

The delicate wires slid over one another, moving pins in tandem. A lock within a lock-but they were moving, slipping into their homes.

Something in the cabinet rustled. Veron gave her an alarmed look.

"You see!" Nestrix snapped.

"Hurry," he said.

Tennora ignored him, focusing on the mechanism, opening bit by meticulous bit with each fragile motion. Time seemed to stretch, seconds became hours or perhaps days, but eventually the last pin balanced on the end of her wire.

"Turn," she ordered Veron.

The lock popped and slid out of its latch, landing on the floor with a crack.

Antoum Mrays tumbled out of the cabinet-flushed, and damp with tears and sweat-and into Nestrix's arms. Nestrix grasped him fiercely and lowered him to the floor, smoothing back his damp hair.

Tennora made quick work of the shackles, and after a few songs, Antoum Mrays's eyes fluttered and opened.

"Mama?" he said. His eyes regained focus and grew fearful again as he realized that neither Nestrix not Tennora-nor certainly Veron-were his mother. His whole body went tense.

"It's all right, little man," Nestrix said, in what Tennora suspected was a soothing tone for her. "You're safe."

Antoum's wide-eyed stare didn't fade. "You said we were going to escape."

"And now we shall," Nestrix said. "We're out of the sewers, and now you need to tell us where you live."

"No!" Antoum said, sitting up. "That's where the dragon-man is going."

"Indeed," Nestrix said. "And we have to save your mama. You've been a very brave little man all this time, and now you have to be brave a little longer."

"We don't know how to find your mother's home, lad," Veron said. "We have to get there before the"-he glared at Nestrix-"dragon-man tricks her."

Antoum wiped his snotty nose and eyes on the back of his sleeve and looked up, by chance at Tennora. She wished she could tell him everything would be fine-she wished someone would tell her that everything would be fine-and in his terrified face she found a queer sort of kinship. Antoum Mrays was feeling as if his life had stopped.

"And we know how to stop the dragon-man," she said. A spark of hope lit Antoum's eyes.

Veron raised an eyebrow. "Do we?"

"Of course," Nestrix said. "Do you still doubt your own eyes?"

"All my eyes tell me is that you're just as likely to be what they say you are as what you say."

"That isn't what I meant," Tennora said.

"What a fool you are!" Nestrix said. "What taaldarax would go after a plague-addled wretch?"

"Well, we've already seen he's not the most stable-"

"What does that matter?"

"It matters-" "Listen to me!" Tennora shouted. Veron and Nestrix turned to her.

"I gave him the gorget on purpose," she said. "That collar protects him from the dragonward, but it's very hard to enchant something with that powerful a spell without causing additional effects, especially when it was made in the days after the Spellplague. It has a drawback we can use against him."

"What sort of drawback?" Veron said.

Tennora smiled, very pleased with herself. "As long has he wears the gorget, he cannot protect himself against lightning."