“Which reminds me. Where is my dear highmaster?”
“I really don’t know,” said Vanderjack. “But I think I’ll send her a message.” He pulled his hand from his pocket and, thrusting both arms into the cage on either side of Gredchen, produced the small parcel Rivven had given him. It was the talisman for sending the mage’s body back to Rivven after Vanderjack had killed him. Well, that might not happen, but Vanderjack had a more immediate use for it. If only he could block out the pain burning his arms, searing his skin, setting the sleeves of his tunic on fire.
Cazuvel’s eyes widened and he drew his hands back, focusing the power of the cage through them. Vanderjack was faster. He slipped the parcel on its thong around Gredchen’s neck, even as the parcel itself glowed with the heat of the eldritch fires within the cage. He fell back and allowed himself a scream, his arms smoking.
Cazuvel roared in anger, unleashing the lightning bolt he’d stored up, and watched it streak into Vanderjack, an Abyssal lightning that blew the sellsword back to the very edge of the platform. But it was too late. A burning smell like roasting cinnamon wafted up from the cage.
Vanderjack lay on his stomach, feeling all but dead. He could barely to look up to see that Gredchen had vanished. The raging vortex of soul and planar energy within the cage had lost one of its vital elements.
Cazuvel shrieked and was lost in a towering column of nightmarish light, fire, and darkness. The vortex exploded upward, straight up into the sky, a tornadic firestorm that carried the too-mortal body of the fetch up as it went. Cazuvel spun about, end over end, screaming, before being torn apart by the winds of the Abyss.
“That’s what I think of your army,” Vanderjack whispered before passing out.
Rivven spoke the words in her mind.
Cear. I need you.
The wind increased briefly, heralding the great red wyrm’s arrival. His wings buffeted Rivven as he descended, dropping to just below the balcony level. The highmaster made sure her sword was secure on her back, adjusted her knee-high boots, and leaped over the railing onto the dragon saddle.
She looked down at the arena and saw Vanderjack hugging the cage, silhouetted by the blinding blue-orange light churning around within it. She saw the wizard, threads of magical power extending from almost a hundred small blue and orange points of light in the arena. She shifted her vision magically with a spoken word, expanding her senses to penetrate into the eldritch realms.
“By the Dark Queen, he’s done it,” she whispered.
“Are we going anywhere in particular?” asked the dragon. “Or am I just hovering here to give you a better view?”
“Take me down there. I have a feeling Vanderjack’s about to die, so I need to-”
“Rivven Cairn!” cried a familiar voice.
She turned in her saddle, looking up to the left. “Theodenes? Are you insane? Get your flying cat out of the way of my dragon, or I’ll personally give the order for him to burn you out of the sky.”
“How much do you know, Rivven?” the gnome said defiantly. He was astride Star, who had flown up and in front of Cear, as brazen as his scales. “About this. How much did you know before today?”
Rivven looked down at the battle then back at the gnome. “Are you asking me about the painting? I knew all about it, of course. Well, Cazuvel being an imposter, that was new to me, but I can adapt.”
“You knew who Gredchen really was,” the gnome said. “That she and the painting …”
“Yes, yes. The painting was crafted by Cazuvel to preserve the baron’s only daughter, but she died anyway. So I had Cazuvel use the painting to bring the daughter back, and Gredchen was the result. I’ve kept the painting ever since.”
“And you promised the baron that one day, if he kept funneling you information about the Solamnic Knights, you’d have your wizard fix everything. He’d get his real daughter back, not an ugly copy.”
Rivven sat up a little straighter in the saddle. “That was the deal. Now if you’re through with this line of investigation, I’ve got a precariously balanced portal to the Abyss to take off the hands of a demonic wizard.”
“That’s all I needed to know,” said Theodenes. “Star? Did the ghosts get all of that?”
The dragonne rumbled. “Yes,” he said. “They will pass this information to Etharion, who is watching over Vanderjack.”
“Ghosts?” asked Rivven with a frown. “What ghosts?”
The gnome smiled. “Vanderjack’s sword is haunted,” he said. “Didn’t you know that? Seven ghosts, always giving him advice. And an eighth ghost, a cook he accidentally killed and whose spirit joined the others.”
Rivven cursed. “So that’s the secret of that sword! Of course! A nine-lives stealer. Cazuvel must be using the sword’s properties to-”
The highmaster was cut off by the sudden arrival of Gredchen, whose unconscious body simply materialized immediately in front of her. Cear craned his long neck around and said, “Hey, isn’t that-?”
“Gredchen!” cried Theodenes. He spurred the dragonne forward. Before either the dragonne or the highmaster on her dragon could react, there was a titanic explosion.
A bright column of roaring magical fury shot into the late-afternoon sky from the cage. The force of the column’s creation released shockwaves that struck Star and Cear and sent the wyrm crashing into the balcony. Marble tumbled to the palace below, smashing through skylights and breaking apart as it hit courtyards and gardens.
Rivven clung to her saddle and realized Gredchen was sliding off the dragon’s neck. She reached out, hauled the girl back up, and looked at her. The teleportation amulet she’d given Vanderjack was around her neck, still smoldering.
“Oh, you clever bastard,” she said. She stood in her stirrups, held Gredchen aloft, and looked up at Theodenes. Star had flown back up again, a little shaken by the fiery column’s explosive arrival, and the gnome was intact.
“Theodenes!” Rivven shouted. “Here. Take her. Now that your friend’s removed her from the arcane equation, the Abyss is about to empty its contents upon Ansalon.”
“But Vanderjack …”
“Probably disintegrated. Just like Cazuvel. Forget about him. Go now. Save yourself. I’m going to go down there and see what I can salvage of that mess.”
“You’ll be killed!”
Rivven laughed. “Don’t sound so pleased, gnome. No, I think I can take care of this little dust-up. I’m Rivven Cairn. I walk the Left Hand Path, just like Ariakas.”
She gave a heave, and threw Gredchen out into the space above the arena. Star dived, intercepting the falling girl before she struck anything below them. Rivven didn’t want to spend any more time arguing with a gnome.
Rivven rode Cear at great speed from the palace of the khan to the center of the arena. The red dragon made one circle around the pillar of Abyssal flame, allowing Rivven time to examine it with her eldritch sight. As she feared, Vanderjack had succeeded in disrupting Cazuvel’s plans to channel magical power into his mortal body and conduct his demonic rituals, but removing Gredchen had upset the delicate balance. The painting was probably still intact, but what she needed was the enchanted sword. Where was it?
“Impossible,” she said as Cear flew back in close to the platform. There, standing barely ten feet from the whirling inferno, was Vanderjack. He’d struggled to his feet, and in his hands was the sword. It had been thrown clear, and the seemingly tireless mercenary had recovered it.
Cear unleashed his dragonfear upon the arena. Rivven saw Vanderjack recoil, shudder, and simply shrug it off. He raised the sword before him; he was keeping himself going by sheer will alone. That and maybe his ghosts were helping.
“Bring us close,” she said to Cear. The dragon obeyed, his wings beating at the air then dropping them to the edge of the platform. Perched like a monstrous red gargoyle, Cear exhaled his hot, blanching breath in Vanderjack’s direction.