Agent of the Dragon
Chapter 42

Lord Amilar’s eyes widened, then hardened to iron; it gave Rhysa barely enough warning to fill her channels and throw up a personal shield. She thought he’d meant to throw a dagger; the explosion blasted her through the door she’d just closed, and reduced the crossbow to toothpicks. Dust and screaming cooks hid her from his sight for a few critical seconds.

She climbed to her feet and drew her sword; she hadn’t expected him to use magic--she’d never seen any hint he was a mage. The cooks drained away through a delivery door. Amilar advanced into view through the dust. She shifted to Sight, and nearly froze. He roiled with magic energy.

She didn’t give herself time to fear, she threw daggers of magic as she charged. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she began to put things together, but her main focus was surviving this encounter.

Amilar erected a wedge-shaped barrier. Rhysa’s magic daggers splintered and were deflected off the barrier; her eyes narrowed. Most people’s first reaction was to block, not deflect--Amilar was experienced.

Magic rushed through her, enhancing her abilities. Dust and the last of the falling splinters slowed. They became as down-feathers drifting to the ground. Amilar’s sword was out, and it appeared he, too, was using magic to enhance his speed and reaction...and very likely his strength.

The faint glimmer of his sword warned Rhysa, and she channeled magic to strengthen her blade. Their swords clashed. Rhysa was jarred to the bone, but her sword held firm. Amilar’s eyes widened.

Rhysa didn’t give him a chance to try something else. She kicked at his knee, and tried to hit the side of his head with an elbow. He caught her kick on the side of his calf, and ducked the elbow.

As she’d hoped, he assumed the elbow was the strike intended to land. The elbow strike had been only an excuse to get her hand near a dagger, and as he coiled for a counter attack, she drew her dagger and slashed. He dodged back, but she scored a line of red across his chest.

Amilar adjusted his grip on his sword, and set himself in a defensive stance. The corridor was too narrow to use a sword properly; but Rhysa didn’t dare take the time to sheathe her sword. She switched sword and dagger hands, and let the flat of the sword rest against the back of her arm.

Amilar’s eyes flicked side to side, measuring the width of the hall. Rhysa threw her dagger, hoping he was distracted enough to miss the deflection. The ease with which Amilar knocked the dagger from the air was almost insulting.

Amilar grinned, then leapt sideways through a door Rhysa had barely noticed. She didn’t dare give him the chance to outflank her, which he would do if she tried to leave the building. She cursed and raced after him.

Rhysa paused at the open doorway to check for ambush, then ran through--into a very large trophy room. Amilar stood between the largest bear she’d ever seen, and a tiger frozen mid-swipe by the taxidermist. Two simultaneous blasts turned the stuffed animals into clouds of slowly settling cotton shreds even as they began to move under Amilar’s direction.

Amilar stumbled back a little at the backlash of energy caused by the destruction of his puppets. Rhysa took advantage of his distraction and aimed a blast at his sword. Instead of shattering, the sword seemed to glow. Amilar gave her a nasty smile and pointed the sword at her.

She dove to the side and a coruscating bolt of energy passed where her chest used to be. Amilar didn’t give her a chance to collect herself.

Rhysa looked up at a noise, and rolled from under a falling deer head with an impressive rack of antlers. A painful tug on her hair told her how close it had come to impaling her face. She felt a persistent squeezing, and discovered a large snake had wrapped itself around her leg. It constricted while it worked its way upward.

A flick of thought turned it into so much cotton and shredded snakeskin. As quick as she was, she still had to dodge frantically to avoid being spitted on the tusks of a boar. She managed to turn her dodge into a roll and gain her feet.

Amilar smirked at her, flicked of his hand, and sent a mounted lion’s head at her. This time Rhysa managed to get her sword up. The two halves fell to either side of her. A flicker of movement caught her attention, and from the far end of the room came the sound of a horse galloping.

She turned to face this new threat--and stared in shock as a unicorn bore down on her. That Amilar had killed one was bad enough, but having it stuffed for display was nearly inhuman. A crushing sorrow immobilized her. It was the merely white coat that convinced her this creature was long dead. She collected her wits in time to twist out of the way of the deadly horn.

Rhysa decided to let the unicorn remain intact for now. It was ungainly and slow enough she could get out of the way, or destroy it easily enough if it became necessary...and while Amilar controlled it, he was unlikely to try some other magical attack. She turned to replace him and saw he was at the end of the room from which the unicorn came; he stood in front of a set of double doors smiling at her. There was a particularly nasty twist to his smile.

She ran towards him and exploded the air immediately in front of him. He crashed through the doors and slid on the polished stone floor of the grand display room on the other side.

She ran through the cloud of splinters; her personal shield kept her safe from the hundreds of splinter-spears. Once past the obscuring cloud, Rhysa saw the centerpiece of the room. Her knees buckled.

A dragon, stuffed and snarling, bared its teeth at her. Her stomach clenched and she never heard her sword and dagger hitting the floor. All she could do was stare up into the forever frozen face of her father.

Her heart constricted painfully; she gasped for air; magic drained from her channels. She fell forward onto her hands, and barely felt the blade that emerged from her stomach.

Even without magic enhancement, time slowed around her. She stared at the shiny point of the blade, abstracted in wonder. A rivulet of her blood dropped from its tip even as tears dripped from the tip of her nose. She knelt in front of her father, and for an eternal moment she was back in his lair.

“Someday, my daughter, there will come a day when time will stop for you. On that day, you must decide if the pain of living is worth the cost.”

The love and sorrow in the remembered voice hurt too much. A drop of blood hung between sword tip and floor. The world dimmed, and she shut herself away from the pain.

She raised her head to look at her father one last time. From her position, all she could see was his underbelly and the room beyond--and Elise.

The hair, the body, the posture all proclaimed her. Two hands covered a mouth opened in grief-stricken shock. Unmoving tears on a petrified cheek refracted sunlight through a window. Elise’s hair hung at an odd angle, frozen in time as the head had shaken in denial. Elise’s face contorted in an image of unending grief.

“Elise.” The faint whisper freed the drop of blood to join its brothers on the floor. Magic flowed into her channels even as the blade was withdrawn. She couldn’t heal herself, but she could hold the wound closed for a little while. She used the smallest drop of the power passing through her to temporarily seal the injury. She pushed herself back with her hands until she could sit upright on her knees, clutching the wound in her belly.

Lord Amilar walked around to stand in front of her. Rhysa’s Sight showed he was armored to the point of invincibility against combat magics. He still roiled with internal magic.

“You gave it a good try. Good-bye.” Lord Amilar raised his sword for a two-handed strike that would split her from head to groin. She looked into his eyes and wondered what he was thinking. Then her eyes narrowed.

Rhysa called her sexual aura for the first time in years. Amilar’s eyes widened slightly. She called the aggressive power possessed in her draconic blood, and threw it into the aura, focusing it like a lens on Amilar. She dared hold nothing back.

A tremor passed through Amilar. Desire shredded his soul and ground his heart to dust. His sword dropped from worshipful fingers. He fell to his knees to sit knee-to-knee with her. His mouth gaped; his eyes filled with paralyzed adoration.

Rhysa drew a dagger and plunged it into Amilar’s chest. Her weakness betrayed her and his sternum deflected the stroke into his right lung. His eyes widened, but even as she fell sideways, the adoration in his eyes never flickered. In the air, Rhysa caught the faint scent of sulfur, but she was too weak for her eyes to widen in shock and final understanding.

Rhysa felt herself lifted and carried outside. The world grayed in and out as she struggled to hold on to life. There was a brief jostle as someone put her on something bed-like. A shadow fell across Rhysa’s face. Someone leaned over her. She tried to focus. Elise’s face appeared.

“Elise.” It was less than a whisper--a mere breath of air.

“Shh.” Elise put a hand over Rhysa’s mouth. “I’ve sent for Lord Hermestus and Coramin.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I won’t be here when they arrive. Don’t try to follow us, or you will die.” She turned to leave, but turned back and leaned over Rhysa once more. A gentle hand stroked Rhysa’s cheek. “I love you, Rhysa.” Elise bent forward and pressed her lips to Rhysa’s. “Good-bye.” She got up and left Rhysa alone on a stretcher in Lord Amilar’s front yard.

Elise’s face disappeared from Rhysa’s view. There had been something odd about Elise’s eyes. They hadn’t been the eyes Rhysa remembered, yet they didn’t have the peculiar dead quality she’d seen Lady Hermestus’ eyes. It seemed life and death warred within her friend.

The sound of galloping horses drew near. A clatter of hooves told her whoever was coming had arrived. She couldn’t open her eyes or turn her head, but she recognized the oath and the voice of the person bending over her. Unable to move her mouth, Rhysa smiled inwardly, and carried the memory of Elise into darkness chased by Bryn Hermestus.

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