The wizard pointed forward. The downward passage looked a little small to him; a dragon with Serpestrill-vy th's evident ego would not care to squirm its way into its lair. But he resolved to keep a very careful watch behind the party as they continued on, just in case.
They continued a short distance past the intersection, and Bragor halted and went to one knee, reaching his thick fingers to the stone floor.
"Stone's pitted here. Acid burns," he whispered.
Erzimar leaned close to look over Bragor's shoulder.
"The dragon's breath," he murmured.
His eye fell on an oddly shaped dark lump deep in a crevice in the floor. He prodded it with the end of his staff. Rusty red flakes crumbled away, revealing a small white glint of bone: A human hand in a seared mail gauntlet.
"Damn," Bragor muttered. "Right about here, then."
He looked up, hefting his warhammer.
"Little humanss. Your sswords are sharp, your sspells are strong. Have you come to sslay me, then?" a sibilant, oddly high-pitched voice rasped from somewhere overhead.
The Argent Hawks went on guard, blades pointing up, crouching against the stone walls of the passage. Erzimar glimpsed a glimmer of bright green near the top of the crevice, a glint from the dragon's eye.
"We've come to put an end to your depredations here, Serpestrillvyth," Gethred answered. "You can leave now, fly off and never return, and we'll let you go. Otherwise you'll not leave this cave alive."
"You musst help me carry off my hoard, then. I cannot fly it away sso easily."
"Seeing as your hoard consists of things you've stolen from the people you've murdered, you can leave it right here," said Gethred.
He glanced back at Erzimar and cut his eyes toward the crevice overhead. The wizard caught the message—take the opportunity to locate the creature as long as it was willing to talk. They all understood that Serpestrillvyth had no intention of leaving; the dragon thought it was toying with them.
"You creep into my house to murder me and take my gold, and you call me a thief?" Serpestrillvyth sounded aggrieved. "If the humanss in that little town keep sending brigandss and assassinss against me, I will have to redouble my effortss to show them the error of their ways. I have dealt with one ssuch band already."
"You'll find us a more formidable challenge than the Sundered Shields," Isildra called up into the cave.
"Indeed. Do you know you are sstanding exactly where they sstood when I killed them all?"
Serpestrillvyth laughed—a strange sound like sandpaper abrading a plank—then the dragon thrust its head down low into the passage and hissed out a tremendous gout of sickly green vapor.
The Hawks cried out and scrambled for cover, so taken aSack by the quickness of the attack that their magical protections were momentarily forgotten. Only Erzimar did not allow himself to flinch. Instead he gestured and snapped out a magical word, and hurled a bright stabbing fork of lightning up at the spot where the dragon crouched. He saw the creature twist away from the magical blast, but then the dragon's horrid breath sank down over the company.
Acrid fumes stung his eyes, and thousands of tiny pinpricks danced over his skin—but Isildra's holy protections against the dragon's breath held, and Erzimar endured with little more than a stinging in his eyes and throat, while the very rock around him turned black and flaked to the ground like rotten clay.
"You are warded against acid!" he called to his companions. "Stand your ground!"
Gethred swore in Elvish and said, "I can't reach the damned thing!"
He held his greatsword in a high guard, never taking his eyes from the darkness above. Bragor, crouching nearby, set down his warhammer and unslung a big
crossbow from his back, quickly cranking back the bow's arms. The dwarf expertly laid a thick quarrel in the weapon.
The dragon hissed in frustration, "Sso. Your magic guardss you from my breath. But I have other weapons, humanss."
Erzimar readied his staff, expecting the dragon to drop down on them, but Serpestrillvyth had something else in mind. The dragon shifted across the top of the crevice with a quick writhing of its body, then whirled away and slammed its powerful tail into the fragile limestone above. Stone split with a loud, terrible crack! that staggered the adventurers in the bottom of the dragon's passage. Then a great cascade of rubble thundered down over them.
Erzimar raised his arms to cover his head, feeling jagged boulders and broken stalactites glance from his magically armored flesh. The smaller pieces simply bounced away from him like so much firewood burned completely to ash, seemingly solid but light as a feather. But then a much larger piece of the wall caught him as he straightened up, a blunt stalactite the size of a butter churn. Despite the armoring magic that protected him, the wizard was driven to the ground and knocked breathless. Bright spots danced in his eyes.
That would have killed me if not for the stoneskin spell, he realized.
He shook his head to clear his vision, and looked up at his companions.
Bragor and Isildra were digging themselves out from under loose rubble, floundering to their feet. Gethred; at the head of the band, had actually been in front of the dragon's cave-in, and had avoided the rocky avalanche. Similarly, Selran in the back was out of the way as well. But Murgholm____
"Help... I... help..Murgholm murmured.
He lay pinned against the wall by a boulder the size of an ox, gasping out curses in Vaasan. His face was as pale as a sheet, and a dark trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. Erzimar's spell guarded him from sharp blows, but the inexorable weight of the boulder simply crushed him.
The wizard took two unsteady steps toward the injured Vaasan before he thought to look for the dragon and see what Serpestrillvyth was doing. He glanced up just as the wyrm descended into the passage above Isildra. With one quick snap of its jaws, it seized the Helmite cleric by the head and shoulder, digging its fangs into her flesh and worrying her from side to side. . Isildra screamed—a muffled sound, since her head was inside the dragon's mouth—and struggled, frantically trying to pull herself away.
"Let her go, you fiend!" cried Gethred.
The half-elf leaped in from above and slashed at the dragon with his sword. Black blood spattered from his blade as he sheared away a broad swatch of scales from the side of its neck. Serpestrillvyth hissed in pain and thrashed away. Still clenching Isildra in its teeth, it dug its claws into the soft rock of the passage walls and scrambled back up into its retreat overhead, dragging her out of reach. Gethred leaped up and hacked again, but the dragon was out of reach. Bragor finally found his crossbow again and snapped off a shot at the retreating monster, but the bolt merely punched a small bloodless hole in the membrane of its wing.
Erzimar started to incant a deadly spell of disintegration at the monster, but the dragon had Isildra in its grasp—if he missed by even a finger's width, he might incinerate his own comrade. He cursed and changed his spell to a barrage of fiery orbs, easier to
aim and less dangerous to the cleric if he should miss. Five searing bolts scorched the dragon's lashing tail, and it scrambled up out of sight again.
Gethred howled in wrath, "Erzimar! We have to go after her!"
"I know!" Erzimar snapped back.
Isildra still struggled up above. He could hear her cries. The stoneskin enchantment would keep Serpestrillvyth from ripping her to pieces easily, blunting its claws and teeth—but it could still maul her to death slowly. They had to get up there quickly.
He glanced over at Murgholm again. The Vaasan was slumped down over the huge rock, as if he'd decided to simply lay his head down to sleep. Dead or unconscious, it didn't matter. He clearly couldn't help. But just in case he might still be saved, Erzimar quickly barked out the words to a spell that disintegrated the massive rock pinning the swordsman. Murgholm slid nervelessly to the rubble-strewn floor.
I should have thought of that at once! the wizard berated himself.
"Erzimar, quickly!" Gethred shouted.
"Selran, see to Murgholm," Erzimar barked.
The ranger stood unmoving, his face streaked with dust from the cave-in, his eyes wide and blank. The wizard ignored the ranger, fumbled with his belt pouch for a moment, and found a small tube of lacquered wood. He twisted off its top and drew out a scroll.
"One moment," he called to Gethred.
Isildra's screams and the venomous hissing of the dragon still continued overhead, but Erzimar forced the sounds from his consciousness and skillfully and steadily read the spell recorded on the scroll.
"Erzimar!" Gethred cried.
"We can fly!" the wizard shouted. "After the monster, quickly!"
Without waiting for the others, he willed himself into the air, darting up the narrow, twisting crevice to the sound of the fighting above. Gethred followed, a little more awkwardly, as did Bragor, his warhammer in hand. Selran stood unmoving below.
The crevice widened out into the floor of a larger cavern, a broad ledge or gallery with plenty of room for the dragon to spy down on creatures picking their way into its lair along the steep-sided path below. Erzimar whirled, expecting the dragon behind him—but there was Isildra, crumpled awkwardly on the stone floor, her head twisted around over her shoulder in a horrible manner, neck snapped. Yet her screams still echoed through the chamber, and the dragon's hissing rage as well.
A simple illusion.
"Watch out!" Erzimar cried to his companions. "We've been deceived!"
From the shadows of a deep cleft nearby, the dragon's cold, high-pitched voice whispered the words of another arcane spell—a spell of dismissing. Erzimar's magic lingered a heartbeat before unweaving all at once. He yelped, and plummeted back down into the crevice, his flying spell gone. Bragor fell as well, but Gethred was close enough to the edge of the crevice to catch himself on the edge, though his sword went clattering down into the depths.
Erzimar hit the far wall first full upon his back. His skull bounced from the stone, giving him a brief instant of merciful blackness, then he turned over in the air, struck the other wall, half-turned again, and landed badly in the uneven rubble at the bottom of the crevice. His right arm snapped like a twig, pinned between two stones. He screamed.
"Ah, that iss a pleasant ssound," Serpestrillvyth hissed from overhead. The dragon stalked back out
into view over Gethred, who clung with both hands to the edge of the crevice. It ran its long forked tongue over its bloody fangs and moved close to the half-elf warrior. "You are not sso bold now, are you, my friend?"
Gethred glanced down to where his sword gleamed in the passage below. Hanging from the edge, he was completely helpless before the dragon.
"I'll show you bold," he spat.
Gethred he let himself drop. The warrior took the first impact well, bending his knees and glancing away from the wall, but his balance was thrown off. He cartwheeled in the air and landed on the uneven floor on his side with a sickening crunch. He grunted once and slid spinning into the awkward V of the crevice bottom, near where Bragor lay motionless.
The sword was a good six feet from his fingertips.
The dragon laughed again, and began to pick its way back down into the lower passage.
"You have courage, warrior. But your rashness hass undone you."
Erzimar pushed himself upright with his good arm. His back hurt horribly—likely broken as well—and he found himself staring at a white sliver of bone that stuck out from the side of his boot near his ankle. His head swam, but he could still cast a spell. He looked toward Gethred, and their eyes met in the darkness of the cavern.
"I can't rise, Erzimar," the half-elf whispered. He tried to grope his way toward the sword blade, but groaned and fell back. "Save yourself if you can, my friend. There is no shame in it."
Erzimar held the half-elfs gaze, and nodded. He could teleport—it only took a word—but he could never reach any of the others with his limbs broken. Numb with shock, he saw no other alternative.
"Selran," he gasped. "Come close if you want to live. I can teleport us away from here, but you must take my hand."
He reached out to the ranger.
Serpestrillvyth coiled down into the passageway. Its bright green scales gleamed in the dim light, and its eyes danced with malice. It cocked its head sideways, looking at the tracker.
"Kill the wizard," it said.
Eyes glazed, the ranger raised his bow, drawing the arrow's red fletching back to his ear. Erzimar stared up at Selran in horror, understanding finally that the ranger was not a coward, was not petrified with fear, but instead was enslaved by the dragon's enchantments, helpless to do anything unless Serpestrillvyth commanded it. Erzimar hesitated for one awful moment before he managed to begin speaking his spell.
"I can't stop it," the ranger sobbed. "Gods help me, I can't!"
His fingers parted, and the bowstring sang.
Erzimar grunted, and looked down at the arrow quivering in his breastbone. A deep hot hurt welled up in the center of his chest, and he reached up to pluck at the arrow, only to find his arm didn't work.
Did Serpestrillvyth dominate him when it took the Sundered Shields? he wondered dully. Or did it enslave him before that even, and use Selran to lead the previous company to their doom?
He tried to speak, to ask the ranger which it was, but soft darkness stole up from the floor and quieted his questions in its empty embrace.
The ranger stood weeping, his bow still clutched in his hand. The dragon hissed softly in pleasure and slowly slithered closer, bringing its great scaled head close to Selran's face.
"Ah, Sselran. Why do you weep? I did this, not you, little archer."
"Kill me," the ranger whispered. "Oh, by all the gods, kill me and have done with it."
"Kill you? When you have proven sso useful to me? No, I think I will renew my enchantmentss. You will sserve me a long time yet."
Serpestrillvyth coiled around the ranger, tracing its claw over Selran's heart.
"Now, go back to Pelldith Lake and tell them how these brave fellowss met such a poor end. Tell them they should ssend for more heroes, more dragonslay-erss, for I will be hungry in a tenday or two."
WAYLAlD Thomas M. Reid
Marpenoth, the Year of the Unstrung Harp (1371 DR)
"You can't just go traipsing through Silverymoon Pass by yourself, girl! I don't care what sort of package you have to deliver, or to whom. It's the middle of winter! If an avalanche doesn't kill you, the beasts will! No book is worth all that."
Those words—delivered at Lynaelle Dawn-mantle's back as she had walked out the door of the Silverlode Arms two days previous—had seemed innocuous to the girl. But caught near the summit of the pass in a howling, stinging blizzard, with a huge white dragon rearing above her, Lynaelle realized with sudden clarity just how foolish she had been to ignore the proprietor's admonitions.
She desperately wished she was still sitting in the common room of the Silverlode,
enjoying one of Hostwyn Bramblemark's fine meat-and-mushroom pies. Instead, gaping jaws of icy white descended toward the half-elf wizard from out of the swirling curtain of snow, a massive, tooth-lined cavern of a mouth that very easily could engulf her whole, and was just about to.
Lynaelle wanted to scream, to run, but she could not. She found herself rooted to the spot, stark terror holding her fast. She couldn't breathe. As the fangs neared her head, the girl clenched her eyes shut, trembling and praying to Mystra that the end would be quick.
The stabbing pain of death did not come.
Lynaelle opened one eye and found herself staring at another eye, an orb almost as big as her balled fist and the color of glacial ice. That lone eye regarded her from a mere foot or two away, staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and malevolent eagerness while the winter storm raged all around them. The larger eye was set into a bony face, all shiny blue-white, smooth and glistening, like the frozen skull of a bird with a hooked beak, but with hundreds of icicle-teeth as long as the half-elf s fingers. The head bobbed low at the end of a serpentine neck covered in thick, jagged plates.
A dragon.
Lynaelle's knees lost their strength, and she crumpled into the snow that surrounded her. She realized she was holding her breath and exhaled sharply, then drew one shuddering gasp of air. The act nearly made her pass out, for she caught the scent of the beast's own breath, a cold, chemical odor that made her cough and choke. It reminded her of the distilled goat urine the smith back in Galen's Ford used to use to temper his forge work.
A dragon.
The beast's neck stretched up and away, connecting to a body that loomed high above the girl, indistinct in
the swirling haze of snow. Lynaelle could barely make out two broad, leathery wings, bent and ribbed like the bat's, fanning out to either side of the huge monster. Even at five paces away, they were nothing more than a slightly darker shade of gray in the overwhelming white of the snow storm. And still they blotted out all light. They could have easily reached and engulfed the girl where she cowered, still trembling. A dragon!
"You will serve," the beast said, it's voice deep and hard-edged, like the sound the glaciers made when they scraped together.
Just hearing the dragon's voice made Lynaelle's heart flutter wildly in her chest, and she cringed at the sound of the words, not understanding them but wanting to flee their harshness. She tried to make herself very small, sinking into the waist-deep snow, thinking only of escape. She thought to hide, to cast a spell to take her away from the dragon.
Terror prevented her from remembering any magic at that moment.
Before Lynaelle could even turn away, a great talon-tipped claw raised up and reached for her, digits extended wide. The girl screamed and flailed, trying to roll over in the drift and scramble away. But the cumbersomeness of her heavy clothes and fur-lined cloak, along with the weight of her pack and the depth of the snowdrift, impeded her efforts. The huge claw shot forward, enveloping her.
As the claw closed tightly around her, Lynaelle expected to be crushed. But the dragon's death grip did not squeeze her unduly, nor did the talons gouge into her flesh. Nonetheless, the power of the dragon's grasp was undeniable, and the girl knew she was trapped as surely as if she were bound in iron. She found her arms pinned tightly to her sides, her cloak bunched up
awkwardly, half covering her head. She felt the book, the damnable book covered in oilcloth in her pack, poking painfully against her spine. Snow pressed in and packed all around her, also trapped in the dragon's grasp.
Lynaelle sobbed, her wail muffled in the fur of the cloak, and she felt herself lifted from the ground, hoisted into the air easily. She struggled between the desire to peer out and see where the beast was taking her and the terror-filled urge to bury her face and clench her eyes closed, as if that could shut the world out, make the dragon go away.
She felt a sudden lurch, and the air was whistling fiercely against her head, whipping the hood of her cloak off and causing her long, straw-colored hair to lash about. Snow pelted her exposed skin, stinging her face. Curiosity won out for a moment, and she opened her eyes a fraction to see, but there was nothing but an endless swirl of white. She could sense that she was aloft, that the dragon was flying, for there was a rhythmic rolling motion that she equated with the beating of the beast's wings. With the blizzard raging all around her, though, the girl couldn't make out her surroundings, and the wind and ice simply hurt too much.
Lynaelle closed her eyes again in pain and despair as the white dragon carried her away from Silverymoon Pass.
She would not reach Silverymoon, would never enroll at the Lady's College. She would never deliver the book. A gift from her teacher for an old friend in the city, it would instead wind up in some lost place in the mountains, its pages rotting away alongside her bones.
That thought made Lynaelle sob and struggle desperately for a moment, but the effort was futile, and eventually she gave up, sagging in the dragon's grip.
For what seemed like forever, they flew, Lynaelle's fear dulled somewhat by the rhythmic pumping of the dragon's motion. As the initial shock of her capture faded, she began to consider her predicament, as well as the cryptic words the creature had uttered upon claiming her.
If it meant to eat me, the girl thought hopefully, it would simply have done so.
Unless it intends to save me for later, she added. But what did it mean by "serve?"
The thought that perhaps the dragon intended to keep her as a prisoner crossed the girl's mind, and hope actually rose within her. Whatever awful circumstances would be thrust upon her as a dragon's slave, they were better than dying, and it meant Lynaelle might find a way of escaping. Perhaps she would even be able to put her magic to use.
The notion of inflicting any sort of harm on the wyrm with her limited ability was laughable to Lynaelle, but tricking it was not out of the question. If she got the chance.
The half-elfs thoughts were interrupted as she became aware that the brightness of daylight beyond her shut eyelids, weak though it had been, suddenly and sharply diminished. She also noted that, though she still felt the keen rush of icy air, she was no longer being pelted by flakes of snow.
Lynaelle opened her eyes and nearly screamed again.
The dragon was dropping like a stone through a great shaft of ice, a hole in a glacier that was nearly vertical and just large enough for the dragon to unfurl its wings. Overhead, the dim gray of the sky was a receding circle, while below, the shaft plunged into deeper and deeper darkness.
The great white beast fanned its wings out, drawing
up sharply and slowing its descent. Lynaelle was jostled roughly as the beast beat its wings three or four times in rapid succession and settled onto a solid surface. As it dropped into a crouch, the dragon released the girl from its grasp, sending her tumbling across a floor of cracked and rent ice, covered by a dusting of snow. She wound up sprawled on her back, staring upward, the book pressing painfully into her from beneath.
Some light shone down through the shaft, and permeated the area with an eerie bluish glow. It was ample illumination for Lynaelle to see that she was in a large domed chamber, a hollow bubble in a great glacier of ice. The shaft through which she and the dragpn had descended opened through the ceiling of the chamber, near one side. The rounded walls of the domed room were slightly uneven, like a drawn curtain, though still smooth and solid like glass. There would be no climbing those surfaces, at least not without tools or magical aid. Only the floor seemed the least bit rough and uneven.
The chamber was an effective prison.
"You will serve me," the dragon said, its harsh, crunching voice reverberating through the chamber.
Lynaelle's attention was drawn instantly back to the beast, which loomed over her, its wings folded in against its body for the moment. Unlike before, out in the weather, she could see the dragon clearly then. It peered down at the girl, its fang-filled jaws open slightly in an unsettling way as it regarded her. Muscles rippled along its chest and flanks, chorded and strong, yet shielded by plates that overlapped all along the surface of the beast. Its body must have stretched a good twenty feet, ending in a tail equally as long and segmented. It reminded Lynaelle of the tail of a beast called a crocodile, pictures of which Ambriel had once shown her.
Lynaelle realized she was shivering from her wind-blasted ride and from lying on the icy floor of the chamber, so she sat up and drew her cloak around herself more tightly, staring fearfully at the dragon.
"Serve you?" she asked, startled by the timidity of her voice.
Unlike the dragon's, which had echoed loudly in the domed room, her own speech was hollow and faint. In a way, the girl was surprised she could speak at all.
"Yes," the dragon replied, settling on its haunches and craning its neck down so that its head hovered closer to its captive.
Lynaelle cringed involuntarily.
"I am Torixileos, Master of the Blizzard, Bringer of Icy Agony, and Lord of the Frozen Mountain," the dragon said, his cold and pungent breath washing over Lynaelle and making her flinch away. "You will help me, or I shall devour you!" he roared, making the floor rattle and causing Lynaelle to quake in terror and curl up into a ball. She brought her hands up over her head as she cowered, as though to placate or fend off the beast. Torixileos darted forward, bringing his head down close to Lynaelle and sniffing at her. "You would make a sorry meal," he said, his icicle-teeth mere inches from the girl's face, "but perhaps you will cure nicely if I froze you."
"No!" Lynaelle pleaded, flinching away and wrapping her arms more tightly around her head. "Please don't! I will serve you!"
She could feel tears running down her face as she lost all composure.
I don't want to die, she thought desperately, miserably. Please, she silently begged. Ambriel, come find me.
The dragon laughed, a great, thundering roar that shook the whole icy cavern and made the floor beneath
Lynaelle rumble. She screamed and tried to scramble away. But in her panic she could get very little traction on the slippery surface and only succeeded in slipping and sliding a couple of feet.
"Very wise, little morsel," Torixileos said, quieting. "You may serve me well. And if you do, then I might free you."
At such an offer of hope, Lynaelle stopped frantically trying to escape and turned back to face the dragon, abasing herself before it.
"Yes," she said, ashamed of her own cowardice but unable to find any courage under the gaze of the terrible beast. "I will do whatever you say. Tell me."
She hated how eager she was to please the dragon, but Lynaelle knew she would do anything, anything at all, to convince him not to eat her.
"I am yours to command," she added, shame making her voice waver.
"Then stand up," Torixileos ordered.
When Lynaelle slowly, carefully managed to get to her feet, the dragon swung his head toward one wall of the domed chamber and said, "Go through there."
For the first time, Lynaelle noticed a tunnel set into the icy wall, though she could see why it had escaped her notice before. It was partially shielded from her view because of the way it opened into the room, angled away from her and behind a lip of ice that jutted out on the near side. She began to make her way toward the opening, taking short, tentative steps. Her whole body was weak with terror, and she feared losing her footing on the slick floor as well. As she walked carefully across the open room toward the exit, Torixileos followed her with his head, giving Lynaelle shivers down her spine. Then the dragon began to pad after her, each of his steps a tremendous thump upon the glacial floor.
Lynaelle had to use every ounce of her willpower to fight the urge to run.
The half-elf followed the passage out of the domed cavern. It sloped gently downward and bent around to the right, then back to the left. As a result, she could not see where it was leading, though the dim light filtering through the ice from outside was bright enough for her exceptional eyesight to view everything clearly enough.
Finally, Lynaelle rounded the last bend in the passageway and came upon another large chamber, though it was more irregularly shaped than the previous cavern. It was clear to the half-elf that the room was actually ice-rimed stone, a shallow cave chiseled out of the mountain itself. Only the area surrounding the passage in which she stood, as well as a smaller section opposite and to her right, consisted of massive sheets of ice, more of the great floe that covered the mountain. The condition of the second chamber was more uneven, with numerous small shelves and ledges along the periphery, and jagged stone and rubble strewn across the floor. A handful of other holes and openings pierced the walls and ceiling, varying in size, distance, and angle.
The girl realized after a second glance that the other ice wall seemed different somehow. In addition to letting in more light than could be found anywhere else in the glacier, it had an unusual look to it, as though it wasn't part of the floe.
It's newer, Lynaelle decided. The ice is cleaner, fresher.
Lynaelle didn't realize she'd stopped moving until she felt Torixileos' icy breath on the back of her neck. Suppressing a shudder, she quickly stepped to one side to allow the dragon to enter. It was only then that she realized the white wyrm had been forced to crawl through
the passage, snaking along on its belly with his wings furled tightly against his flanks. Once he was through the narrow tunnel and fully into the stone chamber, the dragon rose up again to his full height and peered down at the girl expectantly.
Lynaelle backed away from the creature until she felt the cold hardness of a wall pressing against her, stopping her. She waited there timorously for the beast to give her some indication of what he wanted from her.
"I have sealed the entrance," Torixileos said, nudging his nose in the direction of the fresh ice. "You cannot escape."
Dumbly, Lynaelle nodded, realizing at last why the ice looked so different. The dragon had created a barrier to seal her inside.
"There is now only one way out, and you cannot fly, little morsel. I can keep you here forever."
With those words, Torixileos bent his head back around to stare balefully right at the girl.
Lynaelle slid down the wall she had pressed herself against, feeling panic rising in her gut again. She began to shake her head, and opened her mouth to protest, but the dragon continued on.
"If you help me get my treasure back, I will let you live. Perhaps I will even take you back outside and set you free. But only if you obey. Will you be good, little morsel?"
Lynaelle found herself nodding emphatically, even as she flinched at the nickname the dragon had chosen to bestow upon her.
"Yes, sir," she said without thinking. "I will be good and help you."
"Yes," Torixileos said, bobbing his own head up and down, mimicking Lynaelle's eager nodding. "Help me get my treasure."
"But how?" the girl asked, confused and curious at the same time. "Where is your treasure?"
"Come here!" the dragon said, perhaps more loudly than he'd intended.
The whole room vibrated and shook with those words, and Lynaelle cringed again. Fearful that she might anger the beast if she didn't react promptly, Lynaelle scrambled to her feet and followed Torixileos's head as it swiveled around and he began to nuzzle with his nose the opening to a small tunnel on the opposite side of the room. She approached the small egress, which sat about chest-high to her, and waited for the dragon to move aside so she could peer in.
"I caught a thief trying to steal my treasure. I hurt it, but it escaped in there. I am too big to follow. You must bring them back to me."
Lynaelle recoiled from the small opening upon hearing that she and the dragon were not alone.
"A thief?" she exclaimed, afraid. "How did it-?"
She snapped her mouth shut when she realized that Torixileos was glaring at her.
"You will bring the thief and my treasure to me!" the dragon said loudly, bringing his head down level with Lynaelle's and staring at her directly. "You cannot escape, so you must do as I say!"
Again, Lynaelle found herself nodding, desperately trying to appease the fearsome beast before her. Whatever was in the hole, it could not be as dangerous as the angry white wyrm in front of her. She eyed the opening, which was large enough for her to traverse while walking, if she hunched over a bit. It was dark in the passage, and she could not see very far into it at all.
"What kind of thief is it?" she asked, deeming it prudent to learn as much as she could about whatever she was going to have to face before she actually went into the tunnel.
"A nasty ore!" Torixileos roared at her, blasting her off her feet with his chilling breath.
Lynaelle flailed her arms in front of her face, coughing and wheezing as the icy vapors chilled her skin and stung her lungs. She coughed and spit as she rolled over to her knees.
"Please," she begged, waving an arm to ward off further blasts. "I can't breathe!"
"You can see the thief from here," the dragon continued, ignoring Lynaelle's pleas. "It is wounded, not moving. Drag it back here so that I may eat it."
Lynaelle struggled to her feet again and moved to peer once more inside the passage, casting one fearful glance at Torixileos as she did so. The dragon was staring into the tunnel with one eye narrowed to a hateful slit. The girl stared into the darkness, but of course she could see nothing down the tunnel.
"It's very dark," the half-elf said carefully, then quickly added, "I will need some light to see by," before the dragon could misinterpret her words as a refusal.
Torixileos merely stared at Lynaelle, as though he could not comprehend what she was trying to say.
"I have no light," the dragon said at last. "Perhaps you are not such a good helper at all, and I should just eat you and find another."
"Wait!" Lynaelle said frantically, backing away and waving her hands in front of herself. "I can make light!"
The girl had not wanted to give up her secret, that she had magical ability, for she feared it would make the dragon suspicious and more wary of her, limiting her chance to escape. But she had no choice, she realized, and yanked off a glove to begin digging through an inner pocket.
She pulled out a tiny bit of moss, which glowed softly, giving off a pale green hue. Then, after slipping her
glove back on, she placed the moss in the palm of her hand and began to cast a spell with it.
Just as quickly as she had begun, Lynaelle stopped again, realizing that Torixileos was rearing back from her, drawing in a deep breath. The half-elf went stark still, not daring to move, as the white wyrm stood poised over her, watching her intently. The dragon appeared ready to blast Lynaelle with his breath, but he did not.
"I do not like wizards," Torixileos said at last, eyes narrowing. "They are tricky and use their magic to try to hurt me." Then he bent low and cocked his head so that one eye was level with Lynaelle's face. His next words were delivered very slowly and deliberately. "I have eaten many wizards."
Lynaelle swallowed hard and nodded very gently, her heart pounding in her chest.
She eased her hands down to her sides and said, "I was only going to make some magical light. So I can see to get your treasure back for you." When the dragon didn't move, she felt panic rising again. "I want to be a good helper," the girl said, trying desperately to sound enthusiastic, "so you will be pleased with me."
Torixileos drew his head back.
"Yes," the creature said, his voice low. "My treasure. Go and get it now. Make your light, little-morsel, but do not try any tricks, or I will eat you."
Lynaelle nodded vigorously again and moved toward the opening.
"I promise," she said.
The girl very slowly and deliberately repositioned the moss in the palm of her hand and began to cast her spell. She mumbled a simple arcane phrase under her breath, nearly tongue-tied by words that at any other time she could have delivered with practiced ease.
Don't often have to cast with a dragon threatening to eat you, she thought as she finished the spell.
The pale green glow of moss transformed into a brighter white glow, like that of a torch, emanating from the glove on Lynaelle's hand. She held it there for a moment, fearful that the dragon might devour her despite her obedience, but when the beast simply blinked in the glow of the magical light, Lynaelle breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then she turned her attention back to the passage.
Grabbing onto the side of the tunnel, she pulled herself up and stood just inside the opening. With her glowing glove thrust out in front of her, Lynaelle peered deeper into the depths of the passage.
The glitter of many sparkling things shone back at her, and she gasped softly.
The tunnel was not long, perhaps ten paces, and it opened into another chamber, that one also rimed in ice, at the far end. The brilliant shine of coins, jewels, and precious works of art reflected Lynaelle's light.
As Torixileos had promised, an ore lay at the far end of the tunnel, near where the passage opened into the treasure chamber. The creature was sprawled out on its stomach, facing away from Lynaelle. It wore thick fur like armor wrapped around its torso and limbs, kept snug against its body with tied straps of leather. Its back rose and fell softly with each breath. It was alive, but not moving.
Lynaelle wasn't sure whether to draw her dagger or use magic to kill the thing. She hesitated to move closer, unsure of the ore's condition.
"Drag it here so that I may eat it, then bring me my treasure," Torixileos said from behind her. "Now."
Shivering in apprehension, Lynaelle felt trapped between the dangers both behind and in front of her.
The dragon was by far the more terrifying threat, though, so she began to creep closer to the ore, her dagger held defensively in front of herself. She had never been very good with it, carrying the weapon only because Ambriel had insisted she have something else with which to defend herself when magic wasn't an option. Still, her fingers twitched with the desire to let loose with her spells, to sling a magical missile at the ore from a safe distance.
"Stop wasting time," the dragon growled, his voice reverberating down the passage. "I want my treasure!"
Lynaelle jumped at the sound, nearly cracking her head on the roof of the tunnel. The ore groaned softly, making her freeze in her tracks.
"Why can't you just breathe on it and kill it from there?" she asked timidly, cocking her head slightly to one side without taking her eyes off the humanoid. "Then I can get your treasure much more easily."
"Because it cannot—because I do not wish it!" the dragon roared, his chilling breath wafting over Lynaelle's back and making her jump again. "Now obey me, or I shall eat you! Hurry!"
Shaking her head miserably, Lynaelle took another tentative step closer to the ore. She clutched the dagger in a death grip, and she could see the blade trembling from her own fear. Then she took another step, and another. She was within two paces of the ore. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to lunge down for the killing blow, planning to grab the creature by its unruly green hair and yank her dagger sharply across its throat.
As she braced herself and prayed to Mystra for the courage to follow through, Lynaelle took another look at the treasure just beyond the ore, stalling.
What she saw amazed her. True to every tale of dragons the girl had ever heard, riches were scattered
in every corner of the chamber. Coins spilled out of overflowing chests and formed huge, ice-caked piles all across the floor. Gems and jewelry sparkled everywhere, embedded in thick blocks of the frozen stuff. And everywhere that Lynaelle looked, artifacts of gold, silver, and adamantine were scattered, many of them coated in a crystal-clear sheen. Everything glinted in the light of Lynaelle's spell, sparkling and shining brightly. Even the chests, coated as they were in thick layers of ice, reflected the girl's illumination.
A low growl from behind her snapped Lynaelle out of her brief distraction, and she knew she could hesitate no longer. She took a final step toward the ore, her dagger still thrust out threateningly. When nothing happened, she nudged the ore with the toe of her boot.
The creature groaned softly and stirred.
"Stop it," the ore mumbled softly, barely loud enough for the girl to hear.
Startled, Lynaelle retreated a step, holding her dagger in front of herself with both hands.
"Kill it now, before it wakes up!" Torixileos roared from the far end.
Lynaelle glanced back toward the entrance to the tunnel and saw one of the dragon's forelegs shoved down the passage, its claws extended, grasping for her. She yelped in alarm and darted forward, terrified of being impaled on one of the deadly talons. In her haste, the half-elf stumbled over one of the ore's legs and went sprawling, landing next to the creature in a heap. Her gloved hand—the one with the magical light still emanating from it— hit the floor of the tunnel right next to the ore's face.
The glare of her spell made it flinch back, and it opened one eye to look at her. The other, she saw, was swollen shut. A gash across its forehead leaked dark blood.
Lynaelle shrieked once and jerked her hand away, scrambling on hands and knees to get beyond the ore. Abject terror lent her speed, but not grace. She slipped and skidded along the frozen floor, barely making any headway.
Behind the girl, the dragon's claw withdrew, replaced by the glaring eye of the beast again. As the ore lifted its head and peered around groggily, Lynaelle moved herself into a seated position with her feet closest to the ore's head. She raised one booted foot, aiming it at the humanoid's face, ready to kick it unconscious again.
"Yes," Torixileos gloated, watching. "Bring the thief to me! Shove it to me so that I may eat it!"
Lynaelle drew her foot back, prepared to pummel the ore, her heart thudding sharply in her chest. Terror was giving her strength. She thought she might just drive the ore down the tunnel to the waiting dragon with one powerful kick.
"Wait," the ore said weakly, looking at her with its one good eye. "I'm not the thief."
Lynaelle froze.
At the far end of the tunnel, Torixileos roared in fury and began to reach in with his clawed foreleg once more.
"What?" the girl said, taken aback.
"The... white," the ore panted, barely able to keep its head up,"... is the thief. My treasure... not his."
The ore sagged down again, unconscious once more. Lynaelle sat back, stunned.
How? she thought. So much treasure has to belong to a dragon. Then a realization hit the girl.
The ice.
Seeing that Torixileos had withdrawn his claws once more and that she didn't have much time, Lynaelle stood awkwardly and took hold of the ore by its collar.
She could hear the dragon drawing in a deep breath, and terror of what she knew was to come drove her.
Dragging the humanoid along the floor, thankful for the slick coating of ice there, Lynaelle scrambled desperately into the treasure chamber. Slipping and sliding, she pulled her counterpart around the corner of the tunnel, out of the direct line of fire, and lay down next to it, against the wall.
As the first arctic blast of the dragon's deadly breath came roaring down the tunnel, Lynaelle took hold of the ore and pulled it atop herself, shielding her body as best as she could from the chilling waves of cold. When the unconscious form was protecting her as much as possible, the girl buried her face in her cloak, hiding away from the frigid tempest that erupted in the cavern.
Even with the ore shielding her, Lynaelle thought she would freeze to death right then and there. Numbing cold washed over her, making her skin and bones ache. She groaned from the pain, her sound muffled by the cloak she wore. Finally, after a moment, the worst of the chill subsided, and she began to listen.
At first, there was nothing but the sound of the ore's breathing. Then she heard the dragon speak.
"Little morsel?"
Lynaelle held very still, holding her breath.
"Little morsel, I know you're in there. I can smell you. Come out, or I will breathe again."
Lynaelle was about to shout, "No!" at the dragon, to tell him to go away, but another sound from beyond the treasure chamber stopped her. It was another voice.
"Torixileos! You would dare?"
The voice was different than the white dragon's, but no less powerful. Smooth and warm like honey, it gave Lynaelle a sudden sense of comfort, like Ambriel's voice used to do.
Torixileos roared again, much louder than ever before, but the dragon's anger was dwarfed by a second roar. The two sounds together threatened to shake the mountain apart, and Lynaelle had to cover her ears with her hands to keep from crying out in anguish. The girl felt several intense thumps, felt the stone floor of the chamber beneath her bounce, and there was silence.
She waited a long time before crawling out from beneath the ore.
Very carefully, the girl examined the creature she had rescued from the white dragon, then she took off her pack and dug inside it until she found a small vial. Propping the ore's head into her lap, Lynaelle unstop-pered the vial and poured a little of the contents into the creature's mouth. It coughed and spluttered a bit, but swallowed most of the potion. Lynaelle carefully administered the rest of the healing draught, making sure nothing spilled.
After a few moments, the ore opened its eyes—both eyes, for the swelling had reduced considerably—and looked at her.
"Hello,'' the ore said. "Who are you?"
"I'm Lynaelle. Who are you? You're no ore, that's for sure."
The ore smiled.
"True enough," it said, sitting up and standing. "My name is Starglimmer."
Then, right before Lynaelle's eyes, the ore began to change. Its form shifted, bulged, grew larger yet sleeker. Its features transformed into a reptilian face, all shiny in the girl's magical light. The change had taken only a few heartbeats, but where the ore had stood previously, a silvery dragon, not much taller than Lynaelle herself, held himself proudly.
"Do I have you to thank for saving me from Torixileos and protecting my treasure?" the silver asked,
his voice a slightly higher and softer version of the mysterious tones Lynaelle had heard challenging the white.
"I did nothing," Lynaelle said softly, shyly. "Only tried to save myself. Something else seems to have arrived and chased the white dragon away. I heard a second voice."
"That would be Mother," Starglimmer said, "coming to check on me. Torixileos wouldn't stick around if she's here. Come on," the dragon added, moving toward the tunnel.
Lynaelle followed the creature, too overwhelmed to speak.
Out beyond the tunnel leading to the treasure, the main chamber was empty, and as the pair moved toward the domed room with the ice shaft, a great form, larger even than Torixileos, dropped through the ceiling and landed elegantly.
"Mother!" Starglimmer said, rushing toward the much larger dragon, a silver that gleamed like a finely tempered blade in the eerie blue glow. "What happened?"
"Torixileos won't be bothering you ever again," the larger dragon said, and it was, indeed, the honeyed voice Lynaelle had heard before. The sound made the girl want to cry with joy, so comforting it was. "What happened?"
"Torixileos was here when I returned from a jaunt," Starglimmer said. "I had been out hunting with the ores, hoping to catch wind of any raids they were planning. He caught me by surprise, and I barely managed to slip into a place too small for him to follow before I passed out."
"You should be more careful," the larger dragon admonished. "You're only barely old enough to be out on your own."
"I know," Starglimmer replied, and Lynaelle could hear embarrassment in the tone of his voice.
"Now," the mother said, looking down at Lynaelle, "Who is this?"
Lynaelle blushed as both of the wyrms regarded her.
"I'm Lynaelle Dawnmantle, a humble wizard on her way to Silverymoon."
"Then you are just as foolish as my son, here," the huge silver said. "No one should be using the pass this time of year, especially not young girls unescorted. How did you end up in here?"
"I was captured by Torixileos and brought here to help him recover 'his' treasure." When the larger dragon cocked her head sideways at that last comment, Lynaelle hurriedly added, "He told me that Starglimmer was actually an ore thief, but I didn't believe him."
"And how did you know, Lynaelle Dawnmantle?" the massive dragon asked, her voice rumbling, though it sounded to the girl as though there was appreciation in the creature's words. "How did you figure out that he was not what he seemed?"
"Just a guess, really," the half-elf replied. "No ore planning to thieve a dragon's treasure would haul the entire hoard deeper into the tunnels and freeze it there. But I didn't realize that Starglimmer wasn't really an ore until I began to wonder why Torixileos needed me to help him kill it. Why didn't the dragon just blast it with his icy breath? Once the 'ore' told me that Torixileos was actually the thief, I began to understand—that treasure definitely belongs to a dragon, not an ore.
"I remembered my teacher, Ambriel, telling me once that silver dragons often take on the form of humans and other people to interact with them. And like white dragons, silvers are at home in the cold. The cold can't
hurt you, and you very easily could have protected your treasure by freezing it. An ore couldn't survive Torixileos' breath, but a silver dragon disguised as one could. I figured it out just in time."
"Very clever, little Lynaelle," the larger dragon said, seeming to smile. "And if this Ambriel you speak of is who I think he is, then he would know the truth of the matter about silvers."
Lynaelle's eyes widened slightly and she asked, "You know my teacher?"
"I believe I do. We were friends once, many years ago. We studied magic together at the Lady's College, where I still spend time, interacting with the students and teachers. I have not seen Ambriel in a long time. When next you see him, you must tell him that Symarra Brightmoon sends greetings."
In a very quiet, awestruck voice, Lynaelle swallowed and said, "I have a book for you, a gift from Ambriel."
STANDARD DELVING _PROCEDURE
Lisa Smedman
7 Eleint, the Year of Wild Magic (1372 DR)
Frivaldi strode up to the door. It was massive, made of solid iron, its hinges bolted into the rough stone wall of the tunnel. Its handle was a simple lever. The keyhole under it was shield-shaped. Under the rust that mottled the door's surface, he could see a raised symbol: a curved hunting horn with a six-pointed star above and below it.
"You were right," he called back over his shoulder. "It's the Sign of the Realm, just where you said it would be."
Durin, several paces behind in the darkened tunnel, grunted.
"Oh come on,' Durin," Frivaldi exclaimed. "You've got to be just a little bit excited. Nobody's been through this door in more than seven thousand years. We'll be the first
dwarves to set foot in Torunn's Forge since it fell to the goblins. Smile a little!" "We're not inside yet."
Frivaldi waggled his fingers and said, "Easy as splitting slate. I've yet to meet a lock that was my match."
"You, who became a Delver just eight months ago. This is only your second delve."
"My third," Frivaldi corrected.
"If it was your one hundred and third delve, it might impress me."
Frivaldi shrugged off the snide comment. Durin never lost an opportunity to remind him how young he was—probably because Durin was so old. The veteran Delver was a hundred and ninety-seven, well past his prime. His weathered face had a diagonal scar that carved a valley through his eyebrow, nose, and cheek, and the joints of his fingers were knobby with age. His hair—what remained of it—was steel-gray. His beard, which hung in a single braid tossed over one shoulder with its tip dragging on the ground behind him, was as white as quartz.
Frivaldi's beard, as dark and curly as lichen, had sprouted only the year before. He'd been a late bloomer, celebrating his coming of age at twenty-seven—two years later than most dwarves. He didn't appreciate being reminded of that fact.
He flipped his long, unruly hair out of his eyes and turned back to the door. He squatted and blew dust out of the lock—and blinked furiously as it stung his eyes. Ignoring Durin's chuckle, Frivaldi twisted the magical ring on the forefinger of his right hand, causing a prong to spring from the plain iron band. He inserted it in the lock.
Durin interrupted with a cough.
"What?" Frivaldi asked, irritated.
Closing his eyes, he probed the lock's interior with the prong and located its first pin.
"Standard delving procedure for doors," Durin said, "is 'LLOST: Listen, LOok, Search for Traps.' You looked, but did not listen."
"For what?" Frivaldi twisted the prong but the pin didn't shift. Seven thousand years of rust had frozen the lock's workings. "This door's a palm's width thick, at least. There could be a dragon on the other side and I wouldn't hear it."
"Nor did you search for traps," Durin continued.
"It's been thousands of years," Frivaldi muttered. "Any traps are going to be frozen with rust."
He could hear Durin moving away, retreating around the bend of the tunnel. Standard delving procedure, Durin called it, backing it up with a quote from the Delver's Tome: "When facing a potential danger, one member of the delving pair should remain in a position of safety, thus ensuring that a report can be delivered to the Order in case of calamity." But Frivaldi suspected the exaggerated caution was rooted in Durin's age. The longer the beard, the more fearful a dwarf became of tripping over it.
Frivaldi felt the rust holding the pin give a little, and gave the prong a sharp wrench. The prong bent. Cursing, he retracted it back into his ring. From around the corner, Durin continued to scold. "There may be a ward. When I delved the Halls of Haunghdannar..."
The door bore no glyph. Even through its mottling of rust Frivaldi could see that much. As Durin droned on, Frivaldi rose to his feet, rolling his eyes. Durin was agonizingly tedious—especially when he got on to one of his stories about the delves of decades gone by and the artifacts he'd carried home to Brightman-tle's temple, described right down to the last boring detail. For Frivaldi, delving wasn't so much about the
artifact—surely the dwarves had enough magical axes already—as the challenges faced along the way. That lock, for example—the centuries of rust that had frozen its pins in place would have defeated even the most experienced rogue. But where finesse had failed, brute magic could hammer a way through.
He rapped his ring against the door and said, "01-burakrinr
The lock clicked and the door slammed open with a boom that rattled the floor under Frivaldi's boots, releasing a gust of stale air. Beyond the door was a staircase leading down into darkness. Its stairs were cut from the native rock, worn smooth by the feet of centuries-dead dwarves. Grinning, Frivaldi took a step across the threshold—
And something metal clanged onto the floor behind him. A heavy object slammed into his back, knocking him headlong down the stairs. Frivaldi scrabbled for a grip, trying to halt his tumble, but his head slammed against stone. Sparks exploded across his vision, then all went black.
Durin thumbed the cork out of the vial, parted Frivaldi's lips, and poured a dose of healing potion into the unconscious dwarfs mouth. The smell of honey, herbs, and troll's blood lingered in the air as Frivaldi sputtered, then swallowed. His eyes fluttered and he groaned.
Durin touched the egg-sized lump on Frivaldi's head and felt it slowly sink away as the potion took effect. He clucked his tongue, resisting the urge to scold. The boy would either learn from the experience and be a little more cautious around trapped doors, or not.
Most likely not.
"What... what happened?" Frivaldi asked, sitting up. his voice echoing in the cavernous space.
"There was a pendulum trap at the top of the stairs," he told Frivaldi. "Had you followed standard—"
"So it knocked me down the stairs and I bumped my head," Frivaldi said. "So what? I'm good as new, thanks to the healing potion."
"The pendulum was an axe," Durin continued. "Through luck alone, the wood had shrunk and the loosened blade fell off before it struck you. That axe might have cleaved you in two—killed you—and all because you didn't follow standard delving procedure."
Instead of looking properly contrite, Frivaldi rolled his eyes.
"I know," he said. "LOST."
"L-LOST," Durin corrected. "Listen, LOok-"
Frivaldi rubbed his head and finished for him, "—and Spring the Trap."
Durin sighed. Could he teach his apprentice nothing? He recorked the vial and tucked it back into a side pouch of his Delver's pack, then unbuckled the main flap. Reaching inside the magical pack, he pictured the object he was searching for and felt it nudge his hand. He drew out the map he'd assembled through decades of research and carefully unrolled it. The chamber they stood in was large, extending beyond the limits of his darkvision, and had an arched roof high enough to accommodate a giant. Its floor, once polished, had been cracked by some long-ago earth tremor. Skeletons in rotted leather armor lay on the floor where they had fallen—skeletons with grossly elongated arms and wide jawbones set with small, sharp fangs. These were the goblins that had overrun the kingdom of Oghrann and the stronghold of Torunn the Bold.
Frivaldi clambered to his feet and looked around.
His eye settled on the statues that stood on either side of the staircase.
"Are those supposed to be Moradin?" he asked. "They look like they were hacked out with an axe."
Durin bristled. Frivaldi knew nothing about art.
"They are hewn in a style distinctive of ancient Oghrann," he patiently explained. "Do you see the sharp angles of their foreheads, noses, and chins?"
Frivaldi nodded, but his attention was wandering.
"They are meant to resemble the facets of a gem," Durin explained as he strode over to the nearest statue and ran a hand along the stone.
The surface was precise and smooth, not a chip or a mis-chisel on it. If he'd had a block and tackle and a team of ponies, he would have gladly hauled the statues away. They would have made a fine addition, indeed, to the athenaeum in Silverymoon.
"The arms, legs, and fingers deliberately hexagonal, like rock crystals," Durin continued. "These statues are an exquisite example of their type, a metaphor in stone for the creation of the dwarf race, which Moradin crafted from precious metals and gems cut from the heart of the—"
"So is this the hall we were looking for?" Frivaldi interrupted. He nudged one of the skeletons with his boot. Its skull collapsed, and a rusted helmet clattered to the floor. "I don't see any axe. Lots of goblin swords and maces, but no axe."
Durin sighed. What, by the gleam in Brightmantle's eye, were the Delvers using as selection criteria these days?
"This," Durin concluded, "must be All-Father's Hall. The Bane of Caeruleus lies to the southwest, in the Hall of Hammers."
He paced a straight line across the hall, which turned out to be precisely forty paces wide. Reaching
the wall, he turned right—standard delving procedure was ERROR: Enter Right, Return Opposite Right-making a circuit of the octagonal hall. As he walked, he quoted from The Fall of the Bold, a saga he'd spent decades piecing together from fragments: inscriptions on standing stones and feast bowls, dusty parchments long forgotten on library shelves, and bardic song.
"And when the Hall of Hammers fell,
"Bold Torunn heard his own death knell.
"The Bane ofCaeruleus he had wrought,
"Abandoned lay, 'twas all for naught."
Frivaldi trotted behind him, scuffling and scattering skeletons.
"I don't see any dwarf bodies," Frivaldi said.
"The dwarves carried out their dead," Durin replied. "It was an orderly retreat."
Spotting a crack in the wall that ran square to the floor, Durin examined it according to procedure. FAIL: Feel Air, Inspect, and Listen. He wet a finger and held it to the crack. No air was escaping. He ran a palm against the floor, but found no groove that would indicate that feet had worn away the stone. He gave the wall a sequence of sharp raps with his delving pick, but heard no telltale reverberations. The crack was a natural fissure leading a short distance into the wall, not a secret door.
Frivaldi, all the while, stared idly around. "So why didn't they take the axe with them?"
" 'Weapon,'" Durin corrected as he resumed his circuit of the hall. He passed the staircase. "The precise translation from Auld Dethek is 'weapon.'"
Frivaldi waved a hand and said, "Axe, weapon-whatever. Why didn't they take it with them, if it was so valuable?"
"The Bane was too large," Durin explained. "Only Torunn could wield it."
He paused. A portion of the wall was angled slightly off true. It was time for MISS: Manipulate, Inspect, Slide, Shove. He pressed a raised spot on the wall next to it, but nothing happened. The section of wall didn't slide when he pressed his palms to it and pushed up, then down, then left, then right. Nor did it rotate open under a sharp nudge from his shoulder.
Frivaldi, all the while, continued to be idle. He could, at least, have leant his shoulder to the shove. Instead he persisted with his foolish speculations.
"Torunn led the shield band that broke through the goblin ranks. Why didn't he use the axe against the goblins?"
Durin sighed and continued his circuit of the hall. Frivaldi obviously hadn't been paying attention the night Durin had recited the saga for him. Verses one thousand three hundred and fifty-six through one thousand three hundred and seventy-four clearly stated the purpose of the magical weapon Torunn had forged—to slay a blue dragon that had been troubling the realm for nearly a century: the dragon Caeruleus. The magical weapon would enable Torunn to fight the dragon "claw for claw," according to the poetic language of the saga. Its wielder would be immune to the blue dragon's primary attack—the bolt of lighting it spat from its mouth—and to the aura of fear that preceded the beast like a shadow. Against goblins, however, the Bane would be no more effective than an ordinary weapon.
Since his map had proved accurate, it was all Durin could do to keep his emotions in check. His lip had twitched at least twice, threatening to pull his mouth into a smile—he straightened it into its usual grim line.
If he did succumb to idle mirth, however, he'd have good cause. After decades of searches in the Stormhorn
Mountains, he'd at last found Torunn's Forge. He was certain of it. Recovering the Bane of Caeruleus would be greatest thing he had ever accomplished in his long career. No Delver had ever brought back a weapon of its type. Oh, to think what the order's battle clerics would learn from it. The lost secrets of Oghrann metalsmith-ing would be returned to the light.
Too bad he'd been saddled with a fool like Frivaldi. Durin should have kept his mouth shut when the order asked who would mentor a new member. Durin had pictured an apprentice who would hang avidly on his every word, who would learn. That was hardly the case with Frivaldi. The boy had a precocious talent for opening locks, it was true, but in truth, Durin would be better off searching for the Bane of Caeruleus on his own. Instead he was stuck with a boy whose beard wasn't even long enough to braid.
Realizing he'd reached the point where he'd begun his circuit, Durin halted and consulted his map. Had he missed something? He glanced back along the wall he'd just walked. Nothing. Just bare wall. All-Father's Hall was one of the main entrances to Torunn's Forge, yet the chamber had no exit other than the stairs. There could be only one conclusion: It wasn't All-Father's Hall. He hadn't found Torunn's Forge, after all. His head bowed and his beard slipped from his shoulder, onto the floor.
Frivaldi peered over Durin's shoulder.
He stabbed a finger at the map and said, "We're here, right?"
Durin jerked the map away and slowly rolled it up.
"I thought so," he said. "But I was..."
He couldn't bring himself to say it.
"And that rune at the end of the line leading southwest from All-Father's Hall..." Frivaldi continued. "It's Auld Dethek for 'hammer,' right?"
Durin grunted. He hadn't realized Frivaldi could read Auld Dethek.
Frivaldi peered around, stroking his pitiful excuse for a beard.
"Then the exit's got to be... there!"
He pointed toward the crack Durin had thoroughly examined earlier.
Durin shook his head.
"It's solid stone." he said. "Standard delving procedure revealed no exit."
Frivaldi snorted and replied, "Standard delving procedure doesn't allow for imagination. All of those stupid acronyms...."
Durin's fists clenched. He'd written the chapter on acronyms for the Delver's Tome. Belatedly, he realized he'd just crumpled his map.
Frivaldi tossed his head, flicking his hair back out of his eyes. The habit was an annoying one. It reminded Durin of an impatient pony he'd once ridden. The gods-cursed animal had bolted off with both his tent and bedroll.
"Here's a new acronym for you," Frivaldi said. "R-A-S-H." Durin scowled.
Frivaldi winked and said, "Run At SHadows."
Whirling, Frivaldi charged straight at the cracked wall. Durin winced, waiting for the thud of a body hitting stone that would signal the boy knocking himself unconscious a second time.
The sound of running footsteps abruptly stopped.
Durin turned. Frivaldi was gone.
"By my brow," Durin muttered. "It's an illusion."
Tossing his beard over his shoulder, he strode through the wall.
Frivaldi waited, bored, while Durin inspected the corridor on his hands and knees, peering at the floor. If he remembered correctly, the procedure was called CREEP, and had something to do with crouching and examining the floor every so many paces. Eleven, he supposed. That would be the second "E." It seemed silly to Frivaldi. The trigger for any trap was just as likely to be on the second pace, or the seventh, or the twelfth.
With his own dagger, he scratched at the wall beside him, carving his name into a mural fashioned from a natural vein of silver in the rock. In the centuries to come, when other Delvers explored the Forge, theyd see it and know that Frivaldi Loder had been there first.
Durin rose, tossed his beard over his shoulder, and counted off another eleven paces, then dropped once more to his knees for what must have been the hundredth time.
Frivaldi sighed. If he'd been in charge of the delve, they would have been exploring all of the tantalizing side passages and doors theyd seen since leaving the hall with the hacked-up statues. Like the one they'd just passed, for example. Similar to the door at the top of the stairs, it also had a shield-shaped lock. The door probably led somewhere important, but Durin had passed it by.
Frivaldi waggled his fingers. An apprentice was supposed to practice. Wasn't he?
This time, he thought, I'll know what to watch out for.
Walking back to the door, Frivaldi listened—nothing, looked—nothing again, and searched—no sign of a trap. Just in case there was a trap, he crouched to one side of the door as he extracted the prong from his ring and inserted it into the lock. The pins slid aside with only a minimum of effort. Frivaldi twisted his ring
closed and flipped back his hair. He eased the door open a crack, half expecting a pendulum axe to swing out of the ceiling at any moment. None did.
He gave the door a shove. It stuck, hung up on something. He shoved harder, putting his shoulder into it. Something dragged across the floor—which, Frivaldi noticed, was discolored with what looked like dried blood.
Maybe he wasn't the first Delver to go that way.
He peered around the door and saw a body, long since dead. It was one of the oddest looking creatures hed had ever seen. Taller and heavier than a human, it had leathery wings and a mane of thick, matted hair. Its face was elongated—it had a snout rather than a mouth—and its jaw was studded with bony scales. A stubby horn jutted out from behind each pointed ear. The thing wore a motley collection of clothing: a torn cloak, leather pants that had split at the seams, and boots with the toes cut away to reveal long, curved toes that ended in talons. Around its neck was a leather thong that was threaded through three rings. The body wasn't as old as the goblin corpses. Judging by the lingering smell it had died only a few months ago, maybe a year at most. There were a dozen or more dagger-blade-sized punctures in its flesh. The creature had probably triggered some sort of trap.
The room was square and small, no more than two or three paces wide. Against the rear wall was a pile of coins that had spilled from a rotted wooden chest. The place must once have been a treasury. At the edge of the pile was a round blue gem—a sapphire shaped like a hen's egg. One side of it—the one tilted away from Frivaldi—was carved with an Auld Dethek rune, but he couldn't read it from where he stood. He crouched and reached for the gem.
"Don't touch it!"
Frivaldi leaped to his feet and exclaimed, "Durin! You startled me."
The older dwarf grabbed Frivaldi by the arm and yanked him out of the room.
"Never—ever—wander off on your own like that again."
Frivaldi shook off Durin's hand and said, "What's that? More standard delving procedure?"
"No," Durin growled. "Just common bloody sense. We're here to find the Bane of Caeruleus, not fill our pockets with gold."
"I wasn't-"
"Yes you were. I saw you reaching for those coins. If you'd touched them, you'd have gotten a nasty surprise."
"What do you mean?"
"Watch."
Durin fished a large copper coin out of his pocket and tossed it onto the pile. Dozens of the gold "coins" sprouted legs and scurried sluggishly about, filling the room with a metallic clinking sound. After a few moments they stilled, retracting their legs.
Frivaldi was intrigued by the tiny creatures. He'd never seen anything like them.
"What are they?" he asked, leaning into the room.
"Hoard beetles," Durin said. "They burrow into the flesh and head straight for the vitals. A swarm can take a man down in the time it takes to blink. They can lie dormant for centuries, waiting for something warm-blooded to touch them."
"Oh." Durin eased back out of the room. "So that's what killed him."
"Who?"
"Scaly face. The guy behind the door."
Durin unfastened the flap of one of the long, narrow
pouches that hung from his belt—they contained his delving tools—and pulled from it a small silver mirror mounted on a short length of segmented rod. Cautiously, keeping one eye on the pile of coins, he extended the rod and used it to peer around the door. He grunted, nodded to himself, then collapsed the mirror rod and put it back in its pouch.
"Are you going to tell me what kind of creature that is?" Frivaldi asked. "Or do I have to look it up in the Delver's Tome?"
Durin gave him a sour look, but said, "It's a dragonkin." .
"What's that?"
"They're like dragons, but not as smart, or as powerful. No breath weapon, no spells—but they can tear open your guts with a single swipe of their talons and they know how to use weapons. They're drawn to anything that's magic. They can't resist it, any more than a crow can forego something shiny. They'll pick a place clean of magic, even though they don't know how to use it." He paused, nodding to himself. "So that's what made the scratches on the floor. Dragonkin."
"Are the rings magical?" Frivaldi asked.
"Let's find out."
Durin opened a second equipment pouch and pulled out a rod with a hooked blade at one end and a pincher-grip at the other. Extending it, he used the bladed end to slice through the thong around the dragonkin's neck, then reversed it and used the spring-loaded pinchers to recover the rings, one by one. He put the first two inside his pack, but held the last one up for Frivaldi to inspect. It was a band of solid hematite, set with a shield-shaped diamond.
"This one's a stoneskin. If the dragonkin had been wearing it, the beetles couldn't have penetrated its flesh."
"And the sapphire?" Frivaldi asked, eyeing it. "I suppose it's the most valuable bit of magic of all—and the dragonkin was too stupid to know what it was."
"Sapphire?" Durin snorted. "That's a blue spinel, not a sapphire. Any beardless boy could tell you that."
Frivaldi's face flushed.
"And it's nothing but a magical bauble," Durin continued. "The dwarves of Oghrann handed them out as favors at their feasts. I've found hundreds. I've stopped • picking them up."
"What do they do?"
Durin's lips actually twitched. A smile? He collapsed his pincher-grip rod and put it away in its pouch.
"Look it up in the Delver's Tome when we get back to Silverymoon," he said. "Volume sixteen, chapter four, entry number eight hundred and nine."
Frivaldi glanced at the gem and waggled his fingers. Why should he wait until they got back to Silvery-moon, when he could find out here and now? With the speed of a releasing trap, he lunged into the room and plucked the gem from the pile of coins before the horde beetles could swarm his hand.
"There," he said, turning to Durin. "Now I can start my own collec—"
Something strange had happened to his darkvision. The corridor was no longer black and gray—it had turned blue. No, his skin had turned blue. It was glowing with an eerie blue light that also emanated from his clothes, his hair, even his dagger and pack. Startled, he flung the gem into the air.
"It's just faerie fire," Durin answered. "Touching the rune triggered the spell."
"I knew that," Frivaldi said. He flipped the falling gem back into the air with his foot and bounced it off an elbow for good measure, then caught it, trying to appear nonchalant.
"My, uh... nephew... will love it."
He shrugged off his backpack and opened its main flap, savoring the smell of new leather that rose from it, and dropped the gem inside.
Durin, examining the door, said, "Did you pick this lock?"
"Of course." Frivaldi waggled his fingers. "Easy as—"
"Then how did the dragonkin get in?"
"It, uh..." Frivaldi shrugged. "It teleported?"
Durin stared at the floor, muttering to himself, "By. the scatter of the coins... yes. There."
He slipped the hematite ring onto his finger, then stepped into the room. Hoard beetles skittered off the pile of coins and threw themselves at his feet and legs, slashing holes in his trousers and boots. They bounced off his skin and clattered to the floor. Durin ignored them.
"What are you doing?" Frivaldi asked.
The glow of the faerie fire was starting to lessen. He could almost see normally again.
Durin examined a section of the rear wall. He pressed his palms against the stone and pushed. With a squeal of rusted pivots and a low grumble, a door-sized section of wall rotated open, revealing a corridor.
"Standard delving procedure," Durin said. "STOP: Secret Transits Ought to be Perused."
He braced his shoulder against the door, which seemed to be straining to shut itself again, and fiddled with the ring on his finger.
Waiting.
Suddenly Frivaldi understood. It was a test of his abilities. A challenge—just like picking a lock.
He eyed the pile of coins. The hoard beetles that had been flinging themselves at Durin had given up and crawled back to their fellows, but several were still moving restlessly on the pile. And the pile was directly in front of the rotating door. He glanced at the
dragonkin corpse—at the dozens of coin-sized lacerations in its flesh—then back at Durin, who was still twisting the ring on his finger.
Frivaldi grinned, took a deep breath, and sprinted for the door. One step, two—the horde beetles skittered off the pile, swarming toward him—then he leaped. He hurtled past Durin, knocking him down. Behind them, the door sprang shut with a scraping thud. Something metallic rolled across the floor: the stoneskin ring.
Durin shoved Frivaldi off and said, "By Moradin's beard, boy, must you always be so impatient?" He scooped up the ring and shoved it into a pocket. "It was stuck on my finger."
Frivaldi picked himself up.
"You were going to toss the ring to me?" the younger dwarf asked. "I thought..."
Durin met his gaze and said, "What? That I was unwilling to take a calculated risk that the horde beetles wouldn't attack me a second time, in order to see an apprentice safely through a dangerous spot?" He tossed his beard over his shoulder. "You don't know me very well, boy."
Durin took off his backpack and pulled from it an iron rod as long as his forearm. One end was wrapped in worn leather, like the grip of a frequently used sword. The other end had a small knob shaped like the face of a hound.
"What is it?" Frivaldi asked.
"Something that will tell us if there are dragonkin ahead."
Frivaldi dredged up the acronym: "FLEE, right? Flank, Locate, Eradicate Enemies. We're going to make sure the dragonkin don't steal up behind us."
The faerie fire had at last worn off, and he could see Durin's face clearly.
"Not quite," Durin said, his eyes glittering like mica.
"The stronger the dweomer, the more dragonkin feel its pull. They're drawn to artifacts like a hoard beetle to warm flesh. If we find other dragonkin..."
Frivaldi grinned and finished, "We find the Bane of Caeruleus."
The rod quivered in Durin's hand, indicating hostile creatures ahead. Pressing a finger to his lips, he made a stern motion, indicating that Frivaldi should remain where he was, then he crept forward along the corridor. It opened, just ahead, onto a gallery that ran along one side of a large hall. From below Durin could hear the sound of half a dozen to a dozen guttural voices. He recognized the language as Draconian by its hisses and clicks, but the voices were pitched too low for him to make out the words.
The low wall of the gallery had been carved in a pattern as delicate as lace. Sadly, it had suffered. Large pieces had been smashed out of it and a rusted spearhead was wedged in it. Creeping forward, Durin peered down through what remained.
What he saw in the hall below made his eyes widen. He'd half expected the clutch of eight dragonkin, but the figure they were kneeling in front of sent a chill through him. A dragon! And not just any dragon. The monster was just at the edges of Durin's darkvision, but even so he could see the frilled ears and a single, forked horn jutting out of its forehead that were the distinctive traits of a blue.
Had Caeruleus survived, all those centuries?
No, a blue might live two thousand years, but not seven. The dragon below must have been one of Caer-uleus's descendants. What a bitter irony—that it had chosen Torunn's Forge as its lair.
The dragon was crouched, unmoving, at the center of the great hall. Standing, it would have been as tall as the gallery. It must have been fully thirty paces long from snout to tail tip. The dragonkin seemed puny in comparison. They groveled next to it, snouts to the ground and wings folded, as if worshiping it. The dragon was oblivious to them. It seemed to be sleeping.
Durin glanced around the chamber. It was the Hall of Hammers—that much was clear by the pillars that had been carved into the walls, each topped with a stylized hammer head. At the left end of the hall was the massive forge that had given Torunn's stronghold its name. In front of it was an anvil the size of a feast table and a waist-deep hole in the floor that once would have held water for quenching. The wall to the right was rough, unfinished stone.
Durin peered around the hall, searching for the Bane of Caeruleus. According to the saga, it had been newly forged and imbued with magic when the goblin attack came. Even after seven thousand years it still should have been polished and bright. But the only weapons Durin could see were ancient and rusted. Some were dwarven great axes and urgoshes, some were cruder goblin weapons, but none was the Bane of Caeruleus.
Had the dragonkin simply carried the Bane away?
No, Durin didn't think so. Judging by the fouling of the floor, the dragonkin had made the Hall of Hammers their home for several months—though strangely, the air smelled fresh. There was even a tang of rain-fresh rock in the air. Perhaps it was some magical effect, designed to waft away the soot and smoke of the forge.
The answer to the riddle came a moment later, when a ninth dragonkin seemingly emerged from solid stone, wings flapping. The rough stone wall was an illusion.
Durin tensed as the dragonkin wheeled once around the gallery, but the creature didn't appear to have seen him. It landed next to its fellows on the floor with a scrape of talons on stone, then crouched, folding its leathery wings against its back.
Something brushed against his foot, startling him. Turning his head—he would make no sudden moves that would alert the creatures below—Durin saw that Frivaldi had disobeyed him once again. The boy had crawled forward and was staring, goggle-eyed, at the scene below.
"Is that-"
Durin slapped a hand against the young dwarfs mouth, staunching the whisper.
Once the boy was quiet, Durin returned his attention to the hall below. The dragonkin were rising to their feet. Five of the nine unfolded their wings and launched themselves at the illusionary wall, disappearing through it. The remaining four seemed to be holding a conversation—one that turned ugly a moment later when one of the dragonkin yanked something out of another's hand. A shoving match ensued and the object—a wand—clattered to the floor. The other two dragonkin both dived for it at the same time, tugging the wand back and forth between them.
Belatedly, Durin realized Frivaldi had started crawling along the gallery toward the staircase that led below. Durin smacked his forehead. By Moradin's beard, why had he been saddled with such an idiot? The dragonkin would probably leave once their quarrel concluded—didn't Frivaldi have even a thimbleful of patience? Standard delving procedure dictated precisely the steps to take, when faced with superior numbers: SWAT: Sit and Wait for Appropriate Time.
Furious, Durin crawled after the boy and yanked him back.
Frivaldi slipped, his hands going out from under him. His shoulder slammed against the rail, dislodging a chunk of it. For the space of one heartbeat, two, Durin held his breath. Then he heard the clatter of it landing below.
As one, the four dragonkin whipped their heads around to stare at the spot on the floor. Then, slowly, they looked up. One of them pointed at the spot where Frivaldi and Durin were hiding. It let out a chattering hiss, and launched itself into the air. The other three leaped after it.
"Run!" Durin yelled, scrambling to his feet.
"Right!" Frivaldi shouted, yanking the leather sheath off the blade of his axe. "'Retaliate Until Neutralized'."
"Not RUN," Durin said, exasperated. "Run!"
Frivaldi turned and grunted, "Huh?"
A dragonkin slammed into him from behind, knocking him down.
Cursing, Durin thrust a hand into his pocket. Before he could get the stoneskin ring onto his finger, however, one of the dragonkin raked his shoulder with its talons, spinning him around. Gasping at the fierce pain of the furrows that had just been torn in his flesh, Durin fell to his knees, blood flowing from his shoulder. Something tugged at his backpack—and his arms were wrenched backward as the pack was ripped off his back.
The dragonkin were gone.
So was Frivaldi.
Staggering to his feet, Durin looked wildly around. The dragonkin were wheeling through the air above the dragon, first one grabbing the pack, and another, their shrill roars filling the hall. Frivaldi lay on the floor below, his Delver's pack hanging from his shoulder by one strap. The dragonkin must have plucked
him from the gallery and dropped him. He was still conscious—he rose, unsteadily, to his knees, holding his head.
"Frivaldi!" Durin shouted. "Get away from the dragon before it wakes."
Frivaldi either didn't hear him over the racket the dragonkin were making, or was still groggy from being dropped. He managed to clamber to his feet, but then staggered. He slapped a hand against the side of the dragon, steadying himself. Then he peered closely at its scales and did something that made Durin's mouth gape.
He knocked on the dragon's head.
Overwhelmed by the boy's stupidity, Durin nearly abandoned him then and there. Standard delving procedure called for him to cut his losses and retreat; the location of Torunn's Forge was far more important than a single Delver's life. It would be painful, after all of the decades that had culminated in at last finding the Hall of Hammers, to turn back, but Durin could return again with a new partner. A more experienced one. The order wouldn't fault him if—
"Hey Durin!" Frivaldi shouted. "I've found it. I've found the Bane of Caeruleus!"
Durin winced. The four dragonkin, still playing their winged game of snatch-the-stone with his pack, flew out through the illusionary wall, disappearing from sight, but the dragon was still in the hall below. Surely Frivaldi's shout had awakened it. Cautiously, Durin peered over the gallery rail.
The dragon hadn't moved. Frivaldi, standing beside it, was beckoning furiously. Had he spotted the weapon? Had the Bane forced the dragon into a magical slumber? Was that why it wasn't waking up?
Durin took a deep breath and winced at the pain of his wounded shoulder. He slipped on the stoneskin
ring, picked up his weapon, and walked, slowly and carefully, down the stairs. As he approached Frivaldi, he pitched his question in a whisper. "Where?"
"Here," Frivaldi replied.
He rapped the dragon's head a second time. A hollow, metallic echo sounded.
Durin felt his eyes widen.
"It's... it's iron," he gasped. "A statue."
"And look at this," Frivaldi said, pulling the dragon's jaw down. The mouth opened smoothly and silently, revealing a row of daggers that had been set into the jaw like teeth. "It's articulated. So are the wings. And the scales are all attached individually, to make the body more flexible. But what's most interesting of all is that, despite the fact that it's made from iron, there's not a speck of rust on it. The workings are as good as new. Which means it must be—"
"Magic," Durin said, completing the thought.
He ran a hand along the dragon's flank. It was true. The iron had an unusual bluish tinge, but otherwise seemed fresh from the forge. Yet it was clearly something that had been made long ago. It hadn't just arrived recently in the Hall of Hammers. It had been sitting there for centuries, waiting to launch itself through that illusionary wall.
"A golem," Durin whispered. "A golem in the shape of a dragon. So that's why the Bane of Caeruleus was too large to move."
"My conclusion, exactly."
Durin ignored the young dwarfs cocky comment. He sighed. Maybe Frivaldi was right. Maybe he was getting old. How had he not recognized the "dragon" for what it was?
Frivaldi peered at the golem, head cocked, and asked, "So how do you make it go?"
"You can't," Durin said. "Only a golem's creator can command it." "That's Torunn, right?" Frivaldi asked. Durin nodded.
"And Torunn's dead, so it's useless. We've come all this way for nothing."
Durin balled his fists. No. It couldn't be. All those decades, searching for the Bane, only to find...
Wait a minute. Closing his eyes, he recalled verse two hundred and seventeen of the saga, muttering it aloud.
"And when the Bane at last was wrought, "Bold Torunn ensorcelled it with a thought. "Its purpose to slay the dragon blue, "Yet this the bane would never do." Durin opened his eyes.
"Torunn did command it," he said. "The saga said so."
"Then why didn't it fly off and attack Caeruleus?" Frivaldi asked.
He let go of the jaw, which spring shut with a clank.
Durin glanced at a goblin skeleton that lay nearby, then at the illusionary wall. He could guess the answer—the goblins had overrun the Hall of Hammers before the illusionary wall could be dispelled. The golem, unable to see its intended target, had remained in place, waiting for it to appear, down through the centuries.
"We didn't come all this way for nothing," Durin said, an embarrassing amount of excitement in his voice. "The golem is lying dormant, just like the horde beetles. If a target should appear—if an illusion of a blue dragon could be created outside, and the illusionary wall was dispelled, the Bane might be lured back to Silverymoon." He slapped Frivaldi on the back. "We've done it!"
Frivaldi wasn't looking at him. He was staring at the illusionary wall—and his eyes were getting bigger and his face paler by the moment.
"Uh, Durin..."
Durin glanced over his shoulder and felt his own face blanch as he spotted the dozen dragonkin who had just flown in through the illusionary wall. They landed on the floor of the hall and strode menacingly toward Durin and Frivaldi, talons clicking on the stone floor. The largest of the clutch—a dragonkin with one broken horn and a nasty sneer on its snout—pointed at Frivaldi.
"Magic," it barked in a crude approximation of the Dwarvish tongue. "Give. Or die."
Behind it, the other dragonkin chuckled.
Frivaldi glanced at Durin and asked, "What do I do? Give them my pack?"
Durin almost cracked a smile. Frivaldi, asking him for advice? He raised his axe. Even with the stoneskin ring, he wouldn't last long against such odds, but perhaps if he managed to look threatening enough, Frivaldi might be able to escape, to carry word that they'd found the Bane back to the order. He kept his expression stoic, careful not to betray the pain of his wounded shoulder. The blood had soaked his sleeve and was dripping onto the floor. He was already feeling a little faint. If only he had the healing potion—but it had been in his pack, which was gone.
"You're younger and faster," he told Frivaldi. "Toss your pack into the middle of them. They'll fight for it. Then run. Return to Silverymoon. Tell the Order..."
Frivaldi wasn't listening. He squatted down, unfastening his pack.
"Much magic inside," he told the dragonkin leader.
"What are you doing?" Durin asked, exasperated. "Go!"
"These guys are part dragon, right?" Frivaldi asked. "Yes, but-"
The dragonkin moved closer, elbowing each other as they angled for a look inside the pack. Their leader growled, elbowing the nearest ones behind it.
"And the golem's primed to attack dragons."
"Not any dragon," Durin gritted. His hands were sweaty on the grip of the axe. If Frivaldi didn't run soon____"Just Caeruleus."
Frivaldi pulled a potion vial out of his pack and held it up.
"Hey guys, magic!"
He tossed the vial away and it shattered on the floor. Three of the dragonkin immediately leaped to that spot and began lapping at the spilled potion. A half dozen more tried to yank them back, to get a lick in themselves.
Frivaldi pulled the spinel out of his pack, holding it carefully.
"That's not what the saga said," the young dwarf said. " 'It's purpose—" He hurled the spinel up into the air. "—to slay dragons blue.'"
As the spinel raced toward the ceiling, the clutch of dragonkin leaped into the air, wings beating furiously. One grabbed it—and immediately erupted into a blue glow as the faerie fire spell the gem contained was activated. A second dragonkin rose behind it, wings flapping furiously, and slammed its fists down in a hammerlike blow on the top of the first one's head. The spinel dropped. Another dragonkin swooped in, grabbing it—and also began to glow with an eerie blue light. A third dragonkin grabbed the gem, only to have it knocked from its hand by a flying tackle, then a fourth...
The rest of the dragonkin rose into the air, eager to join in the sport. The dragonkin leader roared something at them, but they refused to listen. Teeth gnashing, the leader leaped into the air.
Durin heard a sound behind him: the smooth slide of metal on metal and the creak of a hinge. He turned.
The iron golem had raised its head. Its metal muscles flexed, wings flared open—and it lunged upward, snapping one of the glowing dragonkin out of the air. A severed leg tumbled out of its jaws, landing with a wet, bloody thud beside Durin.
"Yes!" Frivaldi yelled, punching a fist into the air. "Go get 'em, golem!"
By then, more than half of the dragonkin had touched the gem. Their leader—obviously smarter than the rest—railed at them, screeching in Draconian, then gave it up and fled through the illusionary wall. The golem tossed its head, flicking what remained of the bloody corpse aside, then roared its victory—a hollow sound like thunder reverberating through a bell. The dragonkin holding the gem gave a shrill squeak of fear, then dropped the spinel and bolted through the wall after its leader. The others followed as fast as their wings would carry them.
"Go!" Frivaldi cried at the golem, pointing at the illusionary wall. "Finish them off."
The golem reared up—then seemed to totter. A wing fell off, landing with a tremendous boom as it hit the stone floor.
"Huh?" Frivaldi asked, standing and blinking up at the golem. "Is it defective?"
The jaw fell off, narrowly missing the young dwarf. Sword-blade teeth bounced out of it and skittered across the floor.
Durin groaned as he realized what was happening.
"It's not defective," he yelled over the clatter of
scales raining down from the golem. "The saga said 'dragon,' not 'dragons.' The golem killed a blue dragon—singular—and fulfilled Torunn's command. Now the elemental bound inside it is free."
Dropping his axe, he hurled himself at Frivaldi. The stupid, blundering fool. The Bane of Caeruleus—the artifact Durin had poured decades of his life into searching for—was falling apart. Ruined. Had it remained intact, it might have at last been used for its intended purpose. But instead...
His fists closed around Frivaldi's throat as rage pounded in his ears. Standard delving procedure be damned. He was going to kill that stupid, impulsive, undisciplined-Something slammed into Durin's head from above, knocking him unconscious.
Frivaldi yanked the cork out of the vial with his teeth, opened Durin's mouth, and poured the remainder of the healing potion down his throat. Durin sputtered. The wound in his shoulder closed, the bloody dent in his scalp disappeared, and his eyes fluttered open.
"What... what happened?" he croaked, sitting up.
Frivaldi picked up a sphere of iron the size of a mace head.
"One of the eyeballs fell out of the Bane of Caeruleus," he said. "It landed on your head."
As Frivaldi started to toss it aside, Durin spotted a mark on the sphere, next to the post that had mounted the eye in its socket.
He caught Frivaldi's wrist and said, "Let me have that."
Frivaldi hesitated then said, "You're not going to hit me with it, are you?"
Durin yanked the sphere out of his hands. Peering closely at it, he saw a spiral of runes that had been etched into the back of the eyeball, around the mounting post. They were tiny, each no larger than an oat grain. Fascinated, Durin started to read.
"I recovered your pack," Frivaldi said, holding it out like a peace offering. "I found it on the floor after the golem ... ah ... after the dragonkin fled. One of them must have dropped it. The side pouches are all torn up—the dragonkin must have sensed the magical items inside, and not been able to get at them—but the main pouch is intact. Lucky thing, too. That's where the healing potion was."
Durin glanced at the pack. It was a sorry sight, with its side pouches hanging in tatters and talon gouges through the Delver's "D" embossed on the main flap. No matter. It could be repaired. He continued to read the inscription, his excitement mounting.
Frivaldi lowered the pack and said, "Sorry about the golem. Are you still angry?"
Durin reached the end of the inscription.
"By all the gods," he muttered, his heart pounding like a war drum. He glanced up at Frivaldi. "If it wasn't for you..."
Durin's face felt oddly tight; a moment later he realized he was grinning. Frivaldi took a step back, stumbling over one of the chunks of iron.
"I'm sorry. Really I am, Durin."
Durin chuckled and said, "Nothing to be sorry about, boy." He hefted the sphere. "Do you know what this inscription is?"
Frivaldi shook his head.
"The complete text of the spell used to create the Bane of Caeruleus. If you hadn't activated the golem, it might never have been discovered. But now..."
Frivaldi's eyes widened and he said, "Now we can make as many Banes as we like?"
"Exactly," Durin said. "And to fight any color of dragon we choose."
He picked up his shredded pack and tucked the sphere into its central section, then carefully tied the main flap shut.
"One thing more," he told Frivaldi. "Thank you for saving my life."
Frivaldi grinned.
"I figured I had to," he said. "Standard delving procedure. Uh ... Precious ARTifacts Need Expedient Rescue."
"PARTNER," Durin muttered after a moment's thought. "Partner," he repeated, clasping Frivaldi's hand.
AN ICY HEART
Voronica Whitney-Robinson
16 Alturiak, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR)
Chorael slowly climbed out of the water, feeling sluggish. The sand was rough under her shell as she began the measured crawl along the bank of Lake Thaylambar. Though she was more vulnerable on land than she was in the water, she could still reach surprising speeds if she had to. But it was not one of those nights. With the moon riding high and full, it was a night for something rare and wonderful.
She moved her large body deliberately and methodically over the ground, searching for just the right location. Though none of the others believed that any dragon turtle had ever become a guardian in, the region, Chorael felt certain one had. She had loved that spot from the moment shed discovered it. It was where she always chose to lay her clutch
of eggs. The location brought her luck and she had no reason to believe things would be any different.
Chorael pushed away some branches and rocks and began to dig a small hole with her blue-green, clawed hands, occasionally using her sharp beak to break up roots and such. The ground, though somewhat soft to begin with after the daily evening rains controlled by the Red Wizards, gave way easily under her insistent touch. She carefully fashioned the hole into a burrow of sorts, packing the sides and tamping them to keep them stable. When she was satisfied that it was just deep enough, she turned around and climbed partially out. Then she did what she had come to do: lay her eggs.
In short order, five perfect, ovoid shells glowed softly in the moonlight, like fey pearls. Chorael stared at them for a few moments, in quiet awe. Only her third clutch, she was still rather new to motherhood. Her other two broods had done well and almost all had survived to young adulthood. That might have been why she considered the spot lucky, if not outright blessed. Dragon turtles left some things to fate, and their clutches were one of those things. They chose the place carefully, looking for geography that offered some natural protection. Both parents periodically visited the site to see that it remained undisturbed, but that was all. Chorael treated them no differently. She looked down at the precious treasure and smiled to herself.
After a few moments, she turned and used her rear legs to carefully push the pile of excavated sand gravel and debris back over the hole, gently burying the dear cargo. Each brush of a leg brought another load of cover over her eggs. She didn't need to see them to know that they were nearly buried. She let her eyes travel the surface of the lake, not far away, and watched the moonlight splash and caper on the water's surface. It
was a near-perfect night. She wondered, briefly, what her mate, Dargo was doing at that moment and if he was still angry with her. His absence was the only mar on a perfect moment.
Not long before she had left to lay her eggs, she, Dargo, and the other dragon turtles had had a heated argument. Lately, that was all they ever did. A slow poison was sweeping across the world and word of it had finally reached the reclusive dragons of the lake. A strange madness that was coming to be referred to as the Rage was blanketing the land. Wyrms of every breed and color seemed to be vulnerable to infection. A near-blinding fury seized them and drove out all reason and sanity. The lunacy blinded some to such an extent that they became vulnerable to attack and too many had already been destroyed. Some were even driven to slaughter their own young. That had brought a shiver to Chorael's cold heart. But she knew Dargo had aimed that barb at her, specifically to frighten Chorael, knowing her time was near.
The only glimmer of hope that had appeared on the bleak horizon was a message from a representative of the lich who commanded the Cult of the Dragon. Long believed, or hoped, to be dead, Sammaster had risen from the ashes and once again commanded the Cult. Simply put, the message promised that if they would swear their allegiance to him, they would be spared the madness of the Rage. And he had a host of unaffected wyrms to authenticate his honeyed words. Mostly solitary, the dragon turtles only gathered in times of great crisis. Such a crisis had come.
"Don't you remember the stories," Dargo had reminded them, "of the earliest years when we first walked the land and swam the waters? There was a Rage like this that washed over the world and we nearly died then. Do we want to face that again?"
Chorael had scanned the cove full of dragons and saw that many were considering his words. Some even nodded openly. She had to speak out even though she knew it would anger Dargo.
"So you would have us turn ourselves over to this lich?" she questioned him, startling him as the only real voice of dissension. "You would choose to be his slaves? And how would that be any better than to be a slave to this Rage, which may not even exist? We haven't seen it. It may not even be real, it might be something transitory, or it might burn itself out. But even if it is real," she admitted as she swam around the others, "wouldn't it be better than slavery?"
"We spend our time here, constantly on the patrol for the humans who hunt and trap us, and now you are considering giving up everything for a different kind of slavery?" she added and sank to the rocky shelf of the cavern and let the currents rock her gently.
Her eggs were nearly full size and she found it difficult to find a comfortable spot for very long.
The others had grown silent at her words. Even Dargo had given pause over it. She knew he had been frustrated and startled that she had not automatically sided with him and perhaps, even angrier that she had made sense. He refused to meet her look, pained that the others had started softly debating the matter.
"She has a point," Okara, one of the oldest in the lake interjected. He was nearly thirty feet long and his shell had more chips and cracks along his carapace than many had years in their lives. He pushed his front claw against the reeds as though annoyed with the vegetation. "Ever since the successful capture of one of our own by Brazhal Kos, the hunters have become increasingly bold. Too often, we spend our time avoiding the growing numbers of hunters that seemed determined
to trap and break us. Would service to Sammaster be any different than service to the hunters?"
His final words had brought a hush to the gathered dragons.
Dargo swam away as soon as the meeting was over and Chorael had not seen him for days. She suspected that it was his irritation that her words had turned the tide with many of the others that made him stay away on that special night. It was his way of showing how unhappy he was with her.
And he had missed the moment when she had laid their clutch. She was saddened by his decision but knew Dargo would be even more so after he had time to think on all that had been said. Though he was quicktempered, Chorael knew he was reasonable at heart. She liked to think that she balanced him and was the cool voice of reason to his fiery temper. When he and the others mulled over all the facts that they could gather, she was certain they would see that another option had to exist.
"I won't see you little ones be anyone's slaves," she whispered and patted the newly fashioned mound lovingly. "I promise you that."
With one more look at her nest, Chorael began to shuffle and crawl along the bank back to the frigid waters of the lake. Though tired from the effort of laying her eggs, she felt a renewed sense of hope at seeing them. New life always meant new opportunities, she believed. Caught up in her reverie, she almost didn't see the tiny figure a few hundred feet off on the lake. It was the additional flash of moonlight that caught her eye and for a moment, she hoped it was Dargo and that he had come after her. But as she looked more closely with her keen eyes, Chorael was disappointed.
Splashing about on the lake was not a dragon, but a human. And judging by the way he flailed and
thrashed his arms, one not well suited to swimming. Chorael felt the chill water touch her arms and started to pull herself in, meaning to swim away as quickly as she could. Men on the water never boded well for her or any others who called the lake their home. Instinctu-ally, she wanted to flee. But she paused. The night had been one of hope and dreams and full of promise. She found she did not want to have it sullied by any omens or portents of bad luck. And she found that in her icy heart, she didn't want anything to die on that night.
Pushing herself completely into the water, Chorael glided toward the frantic man as he bobbed and bounced. His head appeared at the surface less frequently and it was clear he had started to sink under the relatively calm waters. Chorael knew that humans quickly chilled in the lake. She and the other dragons were not immune to the cold, but their physiology was more adapted to their life there, with a special organ near their heart that helped them store heat and regulate their body temperature. Even though their bodies were cold in the lake, they didn't freeze. But Chorael had seen more than one human perish in no more than the blink of an eye as their limbs turned leaden from the cold and they sunk beneath the waves. The man seemed destined for the same fate.
As his head vanished from view, Chorael made her decision and dived beneath the waves, cleaving the lake surface like a knife. No longer bound by gravity's demands, she maneuvered through the water like a bird through the air, weightless. Though it was past middark, she could see everything with vivid clarity. Her own eyes were protected by three inner eyelids, the last one crystal clear. It was that lid that lowered over her eyes when she was in water and prevented any distortion. As though suspended in midair, the unfortunate man was only a few feet away.
He was dressed like many of the fishermen of Thay, without any sign of the heavier weapons favored by those foolhardy enough to try to capture a dragon. She hated that she paused long enough to verify what he was, but her goodwill didn't extend beyond her own self-preservation. Not far off, she could see the silhouette of a small boat against the shine of the moonlight like some small eclipse. Chorael reasoned that he must have gotten a net tangled or had a strong pull on a line and been yanked into the black waters. She could see no one else nearby and thought he was foolish indeed to be on the water so late and alone. However, she would have been the first to admit that she never could understand the actions of humans and their foolish ways, nor did she try much to fathom them.
As she sped toward him, she could see that even as the cold had taken hold of his limbs and made them dead weight, the human's eyes still held some life in them. She could see their piercing blueness through the slow swirl his brown hair made around his face, and she saw a glimmer of fear in them as though he knew death was near. She wondered what he feared more: drowning or her approaching visage. .
When she was nearly underneath him, Chorael positioned her body carefully. The fisherman somehow found some strength, but he could only flail his useless arms once before giving up. When she felt his weight against her shell, she slowly pulsed her limbs and started to rise straight to the surface. She was careful not to jostle her cargo because she knew if she dropped him, he might not live long enough to survive a second rescue attempt.
Chorael broke the lake's surface for a second time that night and drew in a deep breath, filling her lungs and making herself even more buoyant. She could feel the limp man sprawled across her carapace and she
wondered if she had been in time. However, as she started to swim once more, she felt some movement as her burden rolled to one side and retched lake water down her shell. She smiled to herself as she heard his coughs and knew she had been in time. For the second time that evening, she wondered just what he might have been thinking at that moment as he found himself atop a creature such as herself. Briefly, she feared that perhaps she might have made a mistake in saving him.
What if he finds this all to be wondrous and amazing? she thought. What if I just added fuel to an already dangerous situation? Well, what's done is done.
When she reached his boat, some distance away from where she had saved him, she floated there for a moment, hoping the man would simply roll off of her and back into his small vessel. But she could feel his even breathing as he just laid there. Not wanting to hurt him by bucking him off, she sighed inwardly and cleared her throat.
"You are safe," she said in Common.
Choreal tripped over the words because it had been some time since she'd had opportunity or motive to use the language. Her voice was slightly raspy and sounded like rocks scratching against themselves.
She wondered if the human might have lapsed into unconsciousness and was about to say something more when she felt him push himself up to a sitting position. The sensation of his hands on her carapace was strange and foreign, and she found she couldn't decide how it made her feel. She felt herself bob upward slightly as she was free of his meager weight. He slid into his boat.
For a few moments, both regarded each other warily, she from the safety of the water and he crouched behind the thin hull of his boat.
Chorael finally turned to move away when the shivering man rose from his squat and said in a shaky voice, "You saved me."
"Yes," Chorael finally answered.
"But I thought that—" he started and she cut him off.
"That we are monsters?" she asked. "I could say the same about you. It's what I heard."
She turned some more but the human called out to her, "Gregoire. My name is Gregoire. Do you have a name?"
Chorael was growing a bit exasperated and started to reevaluate her decision to help him. Having found his voice, the human seemed determined to use it. She realized it had been better when he had been retching water and silent.
"You couldn't pronounce it even if I told you," she said. "Now, you have enough to tell your tavern cronies tonight. I wish you good fortune and good even."
"Is there any way I can thank you?" he asked.
Chorael looked him over, from his tunic and pants, which upon closer inspection were of a finer weave than many fishermen sported, to his small boat that also looked slightly sturdier and more solid the most fishing vessels on the lake.
"You have nothing that I would desire in payment."
She started to swim away from the tiny boat slowly, so as not to capsize it and dump the hapless human into the water for a second time. He called out to her again.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
Chorael was torn between entering the soothing darkness of the depths and her growing curiosity with the man who didn't seem to want her to leave. Her curiosity finally overcame her desire to leave and she circled back to him. She could see that he was
carefully coiling up a line from the water. A sharp tug from that line might have been why he'd found himself in the lake.
"There is one thing," she told him.
"Anything," he replied eagerly, excited she had returned.
"Tell your brothers to leave us in peace," she replied and hoped that her request, coupled with the fact that she had saved him, would negate any desire he or his friends might have to capture one of her kind in the future.
"Of course," he agreed and continued to coil up his line.
Chorael cocked her head some at the sight of it. It struck her as odd that the line was thicker than most she had seen and realized it was almost like rope.
Too heavy for fishing, she thought.
Then it struck her that he seemed slightly out of place as a fisherman, clothes and gear just a bit too fine. And he had been so eager to talk to her when most might have been just too stunned by their near-death to say a word. Almost as if he was distracting her.
She quickly scanned the waters for any other vessels, fearing a trap. But she couldn't see any other boats anywhere else on the water. With a sinking dread she realized that she was not the prey that night, but something else was: her eggs.
Without another word, she plunged into the water and swam furiously back to where she had laid her clutch. Chorael once again pulled her lumbering body across the sandy bank. She didn't need to go much farther. In the bright moonlight, there was no mistaking the desecration that lay in front of her.
Her carefully buried mound had been haphazardly dug up and her eggs unearthed. All but one was gone and the one that remained was hopelessly ruined. Whoever
had dug them up had been careless and crushed part of the egg underfoot. Nutritional fluid bled over the sand and Chorael could see the undeveloped head of her child peek through the broken shell. She crawled over slowly, her body shaking of its own volition.
With a trembling claw, she reached out as though to caress the skull of her only remaining child. As she did so, Chorael realized that the human had been a decoy, meant to lure her away from her eggs. That was why he had the line, so that he could pull himself out of the water as she had approached him. Maybe he had figured that she would attack him, but had been caught unaware by her actions. Or maybe the cold had simply affected him more than he had anticipated. She didn't know and she didn't care. All she knew was that he had stolen her future from her.
With one final glance at her baby, Chorael hissed, "And I helped him!"
She scrambled back into the water and tore after Gregoire like something possessed. And as she bore down on his tiny vessel, Chorael felt something alien grow inside of her. Her white-hot anger burned even brighter and seemed to be stoked by an other-worldly force. Vaguely, she wondered if it was the Rage that she had heard of and realized if it was, she no longer cared.
Chorael saw the outline of the human's small boat above her and she pushed straight up toward it, building momentum with each stroke. First her head and her upper body burst through the bottom of the vessel and she briefly saw Gregoire. She thrashed her head and torso from side to side, and the tiny ship was torn asunder as though an explosion had ripped through it. Chorael, diving back under, swam in a slow, deliberate arc, sweeping her clawed hands through the dark water. With measured strokes, she circled back to the boat and her fate.
Little remained of the vessel after her fierce onslaught. Rising up from the depths, she easily pushed her way through the flotsam that bobbed and bounced along the lake's surface. Like fallen leaves, the splintered timbers and planks were simply an annoyance to her and not even noticeable as they slapped and smashed against her blue-green carapace. Her keen eyes were fixed on one target alone and it filled her vision, bounced back and forth, echoing off of her lenses until it was all that she could see. Swimming in a broken fashion, Gregoire was not even a league away. Chorael smelled his blood in the water and nothing had ever seemed as sweet to her as that moment did. She savored it, reveled in it and she felt the Rage grow stronger. Every stroke she made pushed her old life farther and farther away. She no longer resisted it, but let the fires grow, burning her up from within, melting her cold heart and finally consuming it.
The dragon turtle bore down on the hapless hunter like an avenging angel. He turned in her direction and Chorael could see that he knew he was doomed. All else was lost to her but the single man floating in front of her, leading the way like some glowing beacon. Chorael cut through the waves deftly and she imagined what sounds he would gurgle when she sank her sharp, beaklike mouth into his vulnerable torso. They would be music to her, no matter what. She sped forward.
As she neared the betrayer, the man who raided her nest, Chorael did not see that his comrades-inarms, those who had actually removed her eggs, had -launched boats of their own and had circled back around. Moving quickly in two separate vessels, they flanked the dragon turtle. Normally, her sharp vision would have picked them out easily even if the moonlight hadn't have been so bright. The double lenses in her eyes allowed light and images to bounce back and
forth within the occipital chamber and grow more intense. But the Rage had gripped Chorael and the only other image she saw besides the hunter barely treading water was the image of her defiled nest; the broken shells and shattered dreams. She had no idea that her own death was so near at hand.
Unlike his boat, the ships of his cohorts were well equipped for dragon hunting. As Chorael bore down on Gregoire, his assistants launched spears and harpoons into the air. Chorael, consumed with vengeance, didn't see them and made no move to dodge them. One after another of the iron tipped lances struck her carapace, piercing the tough shell. Somehow, the hunters managed to pull her back and stop her inches from Gregoire.
Chorael, denied her vengeance, reared up and thrashed madly against the tethers. Chorael released a spew of burning steam but disorientated and lost in her bloodlust, struck no one. She screamed out and the sound echoed off the lake for miles and miles around. Every other living thing grew silent at the sound of her death throes. The water grew slick with her blood and Chorael grew weaker and weaker. As her outer lids grew heavy, she turned to face Gregoire. The last sight she saw was his fearful face bathed in a red haze. Then her eyes closed forever and her lifeless body bobbed between the two boats like a marionette.
Dargo's eyes were not made for tears. Even if he had been capable, they would have been dwarfed by the lake itself and lost all meaning. Still, in his heart, he wept for Chorael and the final fate that had been served so undeservedly to her. She had merited better, though even he had warned her of the folly of aiding
the damned humans. Nothing but tragedy could have come from their meeting and he was right, though he wished otherwise. And he had seen more tonight than the death of his beloved sometimes-mate. He had seen firsthand the true measure of the Rage and what it could mean to his people. He arrived only in time to watch the hatred and anger wash over the gentlest spirit he had ever known, and see what folly that madness had led her to.
Was this to be their fate as well, he wondered? To be blinded by fury to the point of death or destruction at the hands of the hated humans? Or even worse, to be enslaved by them until they achieved the freedom that only twilight offered a dragon?
No, he told himself with a growing anger that surprised even him in its sudden ferocity. I will not allow it even if it means slavery of a different kind.
He resolved himself to speak with the remaining council members about the offer Sammaster made to their kind. With the only truly dissenting member of their group gone in such a horrific manner, Dargo was certain there would be no other opposition to the lich's offer. If he had been more of a philosopher or a sage, the dragon turtle might have pondered over the twist fate had taken when it made the staunchest opponent to Sammaster become the greatest example for those remaining to embrace his offer instead of facing pointless death. However, philosophy was not his strong suit. He was simply one who had watched his love meet destruction in the flames of the Rage and was determined to lose no one else to it, no matter the cost.
With one final glance at the surviving humans as they hauled away Chorael's body, Dargo dived deep into the lake. To all the surface world, his retreating form looked like nothing more than moonlight dancing on the waves.
Deeper and deeper he dived, determined to find the others before another moment was lost. The dragon turtles would embrace the Cult of the Dragon and find some salvation in it. And as he dived on to the black depths at the heart of Lake Thaylambar, he felt his heart grow cold and icy as though a never-ending winter had taken hold and no spring would ever thaw again.
PENITENTIAL RITES.
Keith Francis Strohm
6 Ches, the Year of Rogue Dragons
Candle wax dripped like blood in the crowded chapel.
Drakken Thaal scratched at his rough gray robe and gazed at the congealing liquid with barely concealed annoyance. The acrid stench of incense blanketed the air, nearly choking him, while a stinking mass of human and elven bodies pressed in on all sides. From a distant loft, deep-throated voices warbled out unappealing harmonies. A sharp shake of his wickedly horned head brought little relief from the incessant sound—though it did elicit several disapproving comments from members of the crowd nearby. Slowly, he turned to face the nattering imbeciles and let the full weight of his black-scaled visage fall upon them. He smiled at the fear in their eyes, pointedly
revealing several rows of cruelly barbed teeth. It would be a simple thing to grab each of them and—
By Ilmater's Tears, Drakken cried silently, what am I doing?
He stopped his forward movement, bowed low, and softly growled an apology. Before the stunned crowd could react, he pushed past them, stopping only when he reached the relative isolation of a shadowed apse.
Something was wrong.
Looking out from the recesses of his darkened vantage, Drakken's eyes fell on the shroud-covered corpse resting upon the main altar. Arranoth Fen, Sub-Prior of the Monastery of the White Willow, and the only brother who had championed his request for sanctuary within the monastery's sacred walls, lay stiff and lifeless, wrapped in a stark, thrice-blessed cerement and surrounded by his Ilmatari brethren who stood vigil as the cleric's spirit traveled at last to rest in the crook of the Crying God's arms.
Perhaps the truest friend he had ever known lay dead—and Drakken felt nothing at all.
No, not nothing. For to say such a thing would be a great lie, and though he had been many things in his cursed life, he had never been a liar. Something stirred in the soundless depths of his heart, a familiar, slumbering beast slow to awaken, yet driven by hunger. It scented the air, waiting patiently—ever so patiently.
Drakken felt fear and disgust, and truth be told, not a little anticipation. When he'd first come to the monastery, five years and a lifetime ago, he came as a warlord. Born of a father so monstrous he was disemboweled by the claws of his own people and a mother too weak to bear him into the world and live, he grew up shunned, until he had learned the measure of his own power. It wasn't long before he had gathered an
army of bitter men and monsters and used his draconic heritage to lay a path of wrack and ruin in his wake. Hatred had been his driving thirst, and though he had tried to slake it in the blood of innocents, it would always return more insistent than before.
Until the day he heard the weeping of a god and found himself kneeling before the gates of White Willow Monastery.
Since then, he had spent his time in service to Ilmater's chosen. Though at first a difficult adjustment, Drakken had found a measure of peace and stillness within the simple rhythm of monastic life and the aching purity of the brethren's worship. He often rose in the middle of the night, that silent hour when the breath of the world was stilled, to gaze upon the Icon of the Broken Deity. There he encountered, in the midst of Ilmater's wounds, a kinship with his god, a humbling sense of his own brokenness. It was in those rare moments that he felt most beloved and impossibly, most whole—as if his wounds were somehow bound up with those of the Crying God.
All of that seemed so far away.
Prayer and peace, stillness and song—it all tasted like ash in his mouth, and had since the nightmares began. Each night for the past month he'd been chased from sleep, waking with a bloodcurdling roar upon his frothing lips. The memory of past acts, or the hope of future atrocities? It was difficult to tell. All he could remember of those nocturnal visions was the metallic taste of blood. Though he'd gone to Brother Phenotar for a draught of sleeping herbs, the mixture did little to stop the nightmares and in fact, seemed to bring them into greater focus. The past night, he had dreamed in vivid detail of his clawed hands wrapped around Brother Arranoth's throat. When he awoke to begin the day's labor, word had spread of the sub-prior's
death—along with the rumor that the elder brother's passing had not been a natural one.
Blessed Ilmaterwhat is happening to me?
Breathing became more difficult. Reaching out, the half-dragon pressed a scaled hand against the flowing stained glass of the apse window. Desperately, he tried to join his voice to those of the congregation, who echoed softly the prayers of the Ilmatari brethren.
No sound emerged.
He cast about for help, but everywhere he looked the penitent saw only the slow, measured spilling of wax, as candles spent their life keeping shadows at bay.
By the time the abbot's summons found him, Drak-ken was drowning in blood.
"Troubling," Brother Meremont, Abbot of White Willow, said, his long fingers steepled beneath an angular jaw.
A fire burned fitfully in the austere stone room. Drakken watched the play of light and shadow accent the abbot's well-lined face. Thin, graying hair and a tightly groomed goatee gleamed like burnished silver in the flickering illumination; eyes the color of moon-mist regarded him carefully from deep pools of darkness.
The half-dragon sat uneasily on his high-backed chair, waiting for more. Yet it was the fire's voice, hissing and crackling, that alone spoke into the silence. Drakken could hear within its susurrus the burning sound of his own condemnation.
Though gentle, the abbot had insisted that Drakken share whatever had been burdening him—for his disturbance at Arranoth's Vigil earlier had not gone unnoticed. Beneath the elder cleric's kindly gaze, the half-dragon had felt compelled to speak. The tale had
come slowly at first, gallingly so. The cruel warlord who had ordered the death of thousands with a few bitter words found his tongue heavy with the weight of doubt. The abbot, however, had proven a patient listener. Stumbling phrases became halted sentences, which in turn became a torrent of language, as the struggling penitent spoke of his growing frustration and anger, his confusion, and finally, the nightmares culminating in the vision of Arranoth's murder by his own hands.
The abbot held his gaze a moment more, extending the awkward silence. Drakken gripped his armrest so tightly, the wood groaned in protest. At last, the elder cleric rose slowly from his seat and walked to a shelf of carved stone, tracing a gnarled finger absently across the faded gilt lettering of several leather-bound books.
"No doubt you heard the rumors surrounding the Sub-Prior's death." The abbot's rich baritone echoed in the room.
Drakken nodded, finally releasing his iron grip upon the chair, and said, "Of course—"
"They are true," Abbot Meremont interrupted. "Several younger brothers found Arranoth's body in the root cellar." The abbot paused, casting a glance back at the half-dragon. "His throat had been torn out."
The half-dragon jumped to his feet, as if burned. The sudden movement upended his chair, and it tilted wildly before crashing to the stone floor.
"Then, Blessed One, I submit myself to Ilmater's justice," Drakken nearly growled. His head swam with conflicting emotion. Relief at finally being caught warred with anger and underneath it all, a disturbing sense of satisfaction. "Confine me to my cell until you have passed judgment," he continued, the words spilling out in a torrent. "Lock me away before I kill again! I am a danger—"
"Enough!" Meremont shouted.
Drakken recoiled as if hed been slapped and found himself staring numbly at the formidable cleric, as if seeing for the first time the man whom the young novices called "The Iron Abbot."
"Unless something very unusual has happened within the last few minutes," Meremont continued in a softer, but no less unyielding voice, "I am still the spiritual head of this abbey. And—" his eyes flashed a dangerous warning as Drakken opened his mouth to speak—"/will decide the guilt or innocence of those under my care. Is that clear?"
The half dragon nodded in desultory agreement— though he could feel a dangerous fire growing within his heart. He'd ripped the tongue from many a human for far less an offense against him. A low rumble began deep within his massive chest. His clawed hands twitched, as if eager to part the cleric's flesh. The half-dragon took a step toward the old man.
If the abbot felt any fear at his advance, Drakken could not see it. The cleric returned his measured gaze evenly. The half-dragon's monstrous face split into a toothy smile. It had been a very long time since he had faced an opponent worthy of his respect. He took another step forward, and stopped. The air within the abbot's chamber grew heavy with anticipation, like the moment before a raging storm.
And cleared suddenly, as the pounding of fists thudded dully on the chamber door.
"Blessed One, is everything all right?" came a muffled tenor voice from behind the dark oak wood.
"Yes, Brother Anwen," replied the abbot, once again the kindly cleric. "We are quite all right. Would you be so good as to bring in some of Brother Rafhard's root stew—and some tea, as well?"
Drakken heard a heavy sigh before footsteps faded softly in to the distance. Silence ruled the room once more. Meremont smiled, and motioned to the fallen chair. The half-dragon bent down and righted the furniture. Whatever had possessed him a moment ago had faded, like the heat from a bonfire suddenly banked. However, he felt the warmth of its embers burning fitfully somewhere deep within him.
Another knock on the door followed, as three white-robed novices appeared quietly, two with stoneware crocks in hand. The third carried a tray with steaming mugs. Each bowed carefully to the abbot and placed the food and drink upon the wooden desk before leaving.
"Something is indeed amiss with you," the abbot said, holding a mug of tea between his ancient hands, "something most unfortunate, if mysterious. But murder—no." He shook his head in emphasis. "I do not believe that you are to blame for Arranoth's death."
"But how can you be sure, Blessed One?" Drakken asked.
The half-dragon sat with arms tightly folded across the expanse of his muscular chest. It was the only way he could disguise the trembling of his hands.
"Do you remember what brought you to us, my son?" the cleric asked.
"Of course," the struggling penitent responded. Then, after seeing the abbot's expectant look, he protested. "You already know why I came to the abbey!"
Meremont set down his mug of tea and once more turned his gaze upon the half-dragon.
"The question is, do you?" he said with a hint of the old iron in his voice.
Drakken relented. Years following the bloody path of the sword had shown him how to evaluate the tides of war. It was a battle he would not win.
"My army had just overrun another village," the half-dragon spoke after only another moment's hesitation. "Which one I did not know, for they all began to bleed together in my mind. We had already killed the men and put the women to work, but it was the children..."
He stopped, unable to continue. The memory of that day lived fresh in his mind, burned there permanently. Talking about it made it more real. The scent of blood, the screams of the dying and those who prayed for death. Fire, sword, and pain—he was among them once again; their master and in truth, their slave. For five years, he had lived each day in the middle of that moment, that never-ending abyss. Peace was a forgetting of sorts, a brief respite from the dark demands of guilt and shame. Remembering it all, however, he felt the stirrings of a darker hunger.
"There was a man," Drakken continued, forcing his mind away from the swamp of his inner thoughts, "dressed in old rags. He was weeping loudly, sobbing over the broken bodies around him. It was as if I could hear in his voice the wails of every dead man, woman, and child in the village. It made me angry. I drew my sword and approached him. I could see that his body was scarred, broken as well. I angled my sword above his head, ready to drive the point into his brain—and he looked at me. Those eyes..." Drakken paused again, his own face suffused with wonder. "They were like stars burning into my heart. I knew at once who he was—and that he wasn't crying for the villagers who died."
Another pause, and Drakken leaned forward before speaking. His voice, when it finally came, rumbled with emotion.
"He was weeping for me.
"I dropped my sword and stared at the man, not caring who witnessed. I turned my head for a moment,
and when I looked back, he was gone. I searched the village high and low for him, bellowing hard at my men when I could not find him. I sent out scouts into the wild woods beyond the camp, and when they eventually came back empty-handed, I wandered the hills myself. I searched for days, driven on by the wound his long gaze had made in my heart. The next thing I remember, I found myself kneeling before the door to White Willow, begging to come in."
Drakken rested his scaled head against the back of the chair, closing his eyes, and finished, "I am so sick of blood."
"There, you see," said the abbot. "You have your answer. You could no more have killed Brother Arranoth than I."
Drakken swallowed hard. The weight of Meremont's faith pressed in upon him.
"How can you be so sure, Blessed One, when I doubt myself so?"
The old cleric took a careful sip of tea from the earthenware mug, and his thin lips parted in a gentle smile.
"It is not your belief—or lack of it—that I find important," he said. "For good or ill, Ilmater chose you. You did not choose him. I trust that choice."
The half-dragon frowned, still unconvinced. Though the time he had spent at the abbey had watered the seed of his own faith, Drakken found the concept that a god would take special interest in him disturbing. Besides, he thought bitterly, no one could deny the damning evidence of his dreams. Perhaps he was beyond the reach of any god.
He shared none of his thoughts' dark turnings with the abbot.
"If I didn't kill Arranoth," he asked instead, hoping to direct the course of the conversation away from him, "then who did?"
"The truth is," the abbot replied, "we don't know. Some opposing power frustrates our attempts at divination. I have sent a letter to the temple near They-marsh, hoping that the Ilmatari clerics there can send someone with greater skills than we have here in our humble abbey."
Meremont paused, setting down his mug before continuing in an even voice, "Which is why, ultimately, I wished to speak with you."
Drakken stared at the old cleric, trying not to feel like a rabbit caught in a carefully prepared snare—and failing.
"Until we have received help from Theymarsh," the abbot said, "I want you to investigate the murder of Brother Arranoth."
"Me?" the half-dragon nearly shouted. "Why-?"
"Simply because," Meremont interjected, "I ask it."
Drakken caught the dangerous flash of fire in the stern abbot's eyes and stifled his protest.
"Besides," the cleric reasoned, "you have been servant to the brethren for many years. Your coming and going will remain unnoticed by any of the brothers. You are uniquely suited for this investigation"
"And," Drakken said at last, not quite keeping the bitterness from his voice, "if the murderer does dwell among us, I am quite capable of 'dealing' with him."
"Perhaps," the abbot offered with a slight frown. "But there is something else, as well. Rangers from the Win-terwood have reported a large band of humanoids—ores-heading out of the forest toward the surrounding hills."
"What do they seek? Are they a warband? What are their numbers?" Drakken asked.
Despite his time as a servant to the Servants of Ilmater, martial instincts long buried flared to life. He found himself calculating the best means of defending the abbey walls from ores.
"From what the rangers have reported, they are fleeing the depredations of the green dragon known as Foilsunder. A few tendays ago, the beast began rampaging through the Winterwood, apparently destroying everything in its path. The rangers have not been able to come up with a final tally, but they suspect the band of ores measures over a hundred, with several shamans in tow."
"Then we should seal the abbey gates and post scouts in the hills." Drakken stood and began pacing back and forth. "There is much to do."
"Yes," agreed the abbot, "and I have already done it. Messengers are even now making their way to the nearby villages and offering sanctuary at the abbey. Every brother is preparing for the influx of refugees. That is why I need you to focus on finding Arranoth's killer. I can spare no one else."
"But I wouldn't even know where to begin," Drakken protested weakly.
He was born for war, not slinking around in the darkness. Somehow, he would make the abbot see the mistake he was making. But Meremont held up his hand in a gesture that forestalled any further deliberation.
"Begin by looking in Brother Arranoth's cell," the abbot ordered. "Perhaps you will find something useful there."
A knock on the door interrupted the cleric.
"That will be Brother Prior," Meremont said. "We have much work to do. Now go, and report back to me anything that you find."
Drakken nodded numbly, unable to fathom exactly how he had been drafted to that duty when danger threatened the abbey from without. The abbot called out Ilmater's blessing on the half-dragon as he turned to walk out of the abbot's room.
Night covered the abbey like a shroud, cloaking the chill stone halls of the chapter house in inky darkness. Drakken held a battered lantern in one hand, its feeble illumination casting a gray pall before him. Thick shadows danced madly at the edge of the meager lamplight. For the third time in as many minutes the half-dragon found himself cursing the strange fate that brought him to wander the halls of the brothers' residence like an ancient wraith.
Twice that day he had attempted to see Brother Abbot, hoping to convince the abbey's leader that he would be of greater use to White Willow coordinating its defense, if indeed the fleeing ores made their way to the monastery's borders. Both times Meremont had been locked away with his advisors. Drakken had eventually resigned himself to carrying out the abbot's orders until such time as he could plead his case once more with the cleric. So, the half-dragon had gone about his regular duties—cleaning, cooking, and otherwise serving the needs of the abbey's inhabitants—all the while keeping a careful ear out for any hint of gossip or whisper of truth that might have a bearing on Brother Arranoth's murder.
One thing was certain, Abbot Meremont's belief that Drakken would remain largely unnoticed as the Ilmatari spoke freely among themselves proved quite true. Though at first treated with a fair degree of suspicion, anger, and—among some brothers—downright hatred, the half-dragon's attempts at humble service and penance, while not completely successful, especially in the early months, had eventually softened the community of clerics. Quite simply, the gray-robed half-dragon realized that he had, over the intervening years, become a quiet fixture in themonastery, as
much a part of the daily rhythms of contemplative life as was the bowl-shaped bell that called the brothers to prayer. It was amazing that Drakken had never realized it before.
Once he had noticed, however, he had felt a rising surge of anger at the casual dismissal he witnessed in the eyes of the Ilmatari. All day this anger had ebbed and flowed like the raging tide of a tumultuous sea. More than once he had stopped himself from challenging an unsuspecting brother, forcing the man's attention by an act of violence. He had fought this growing anger, all day as he went about his duties, focusing ultimately on the task at hand—bringing Brother Arranoth's killer to justice.
It would have been a great deal easier, however, if the signs didn't point to him.
Despite his privileged position as a nearly invisible eavesdropper, Drakken had heard nothing of real substance. To be sure, Arranoth's murder had been on everyone's mind. In fact, it was the most popular topic of whispered conversations in the whole abbey. No one, however, had made mention of anything useful. The most interesting thing that he had heard involved three ancient abbey servants and their belief that Arranoth was murdered by the angry ghost of a novice who had drowned near the abbey a decade past.
And so he found himself skulking through the sleeping expanse of the chapter house.
Drakken stopped his reverie as he came to a closed wooden door. Pushing it open, he entered the brother's vaulted dining hall. He had to move carefully through the large room, avoiding long wooden benches and thick oak tables. Not for the first time, the half-dragon cursed his adopted habit of carrying a light source—even though his draconic vision would more than suffice for piercing the veil of darkness around
him. He'd given some of the abbey's older inhabitants quite a fright the first few times he'd surprised them wandering through the pitch black halls in the dark. Since then, he always made sure to carry a lamp or candle with him to warn others of his presence.
Beyond the dining hall, Drakken found himself in a curving stone passage. Three more turns brought him to the simple staircase leading to the second floor of the chapter house. A few more twists and the half-dragon stood before the stone door to Brother Arranoth's cell.
He hesitated for a moment, listening to the soft murmurs of whispered prayers and the creaking of settling stone and timber. All around him in the darkness, the holy house hummed. Drakken took a deep breath, and opened the door, blowing out the wildly flickering lamp as he did so.
It took a moment for the half-dragon's eyes to compensate for the darkness. Drakken experienced a passing disorientation, and the contours of the room resolved in ever crisper detail. A simple straw mat lay neatly against the far wall, coarse wool bedding folded neatly at one end. Beneath a closed and shuttered window, Drakken could see a solidly made oak desk and a simple, straight-backed chair. A somewhat drab armoire stood in the far corner. The half-dragon found the starkness of the dead cleric's quarters heightened by the black and white lens of his darkvision.
Everything in the austere cell, from the placement of the simple furniture to the orderly arrangement of quill, paper, and ink upon the desk, spoke of the man that Drakken knew. For Arranoth was an ascetic, even by the rigorous standards of the Ilmatari. Contemplative and serious, the cleric's wisdom was known throughout the community, and yet he had carried himself with an air of true humility. The sub-prior's only concession to his exalted place within the abbey's
leadership was an old, dented coal pot stored beneath the writing desk. For some reason, the presence of the decrepit metal pot brought a smile to Drakken's face. He thought of the bright light that shone behind the sub-prior's eyes whenever he was asked a question that required thought, a light that death's domain had dimmed. The smile faded.
Remembering why he had come, the half-dragon gave the room a perfunctory search, uncomfortable with the thought that the ghost of Arranoth might even then be looking at his killer as he ransacked the man's humble sanctum. He rooted through the cleric's frayed robes hanging in the armoire, looked around the mattress and bedding, and scanned the surface of the desk. Besides several prayer beads and a small silver symbol of Ilmater, the half-dragon found nothing that might point to the man's killer.
Frustrated, he sat down on the chair and gave the desk one final look. Beneath a neatly arranged pile of paper, he found a thin book, covered in calfskin-something he had almost missed in his first hurried examination. He opened the book, instantly recognizing the crisp, flowing script that was so characteristic of Arranoth's hand. Drakken traced his finger along the uneven cut of the page's edge, marveling at the simple beauty of the cleric's work. The lines of script eventually resolved themselves into words, and soon the half-dragon found himself engrossed in the inner thoughts of the dead cleric. Wry observations about abbey life were interspersed with prayers to Ilmater and to Drakken's great surprise, insights about the nature of the spiritual life that touched him so deeply he would have shed tears if he were able.
Without warning, the journal came to an end mid-sentence. The effect jarred Drakken out of his reflective
mood. He would have slammed the book closed, but saw, at the last second, a jagged strip of paper along its spine. Looking closer, the half-dragon could see that the last few pages of the journal had been torn out.
But why would Arranoth tear out just those pages when he showed no sign of editing the rest of his journal? Drakken's mind raced with possibilities. Perhaps someone else tore those pages out. The question of why, however, still remained.
He flipped through the rest of the book, quickly examining the empty pages. As he neared the end, a small swatch of dyed wool fell into his lap. He picked it up between clawed fingers. His darkvision couldn't reveal much else, but the acrid stench of the dye still hung about the wool. Drakken started to stand up and reach for the unlit lantern he'd placed on the floor— and he froze.
At the edge of his hearing, barely perceptible in the night, something scuffed against the stone floor. The half-dragon cocked his head, listening more intently. There it was again, but closer.
Someone was just outside the door!
Drakken crept toward the opening, careful to keep out of anyone's line of sight should they be peering into the cell from the hallway. Though he didn't want to frighten a sleepy cleric on his way to the garderobe, the half-dragon was not about to allow anyone to offer him a knife to the back. Years of peaceful service did little to erase the warrior's habits. A moment more of waiting...
And he pounced—only to grab empty air.
The hallway stood empty. Only the muted rumble of distant snores registered to his sensitive ears. He was alone.
As the half-dragon turned back to the empty cell, something caught his eye. A small piece of paper lay
crumpled on the ground. Drakken swept the paper up and quickly unfolded it.
What he saw forced him to catch his breath. There, written on paper clearly torn from Arranoth's journal were the words:
Meet me two nights hence in the Upper Cellar
—A Friend
The half-dragon's heart raced. There, perhaps, was some proof that he was not personally responsible for the noble cleric's death! But if so, he thought soon after, then darker wheels were turning within the abbey's slumbering walls.
Drakken hurried out of the room, barely shutting the door, and sped off into the darkness. He was halfway to his own cell when he realized"that he had forgotten his lantern.
Mid-morning sun bathed the courtyard in rosy radiance.
Drakken inhaled the early spring air, tinged with the aroma of flowering buds and the sharp spice of frost. Around him, gray-robed clerics and abbey servants went about their business in dignified chaos. Livestock and wagons laden with nuts, grain, and barley crossed paths with burly men, sweat dripping from thick beards as they labored beneath earthen jugs of water and wine. Off in the distance, a cock crowed, undaunted by its lateness in announcing the sun's presence.
Drakken, however, paid none of it any heed. Despite a morning spent in fruitless search for anything or anyone connected to the swath of dyed wool he'd
discovered in Arranoth's room, the half-dragon felt little frustration. He'd slept undisturbed the previous night—the first time in tendays—after returning to his cell. Perhaps, he thought as he continued on his way, he was finally free of the anger that had plagued him for so long. At that moment, a thick gray cloud passed overhead, hiding the sun. Despite himself, the half-dragon shivered.
Moving away from the main courtyard that functioned as the heart of White Willow Abbey, Drakken followed the small alleyways between several stone and wood buildings. After morning prayer, he'd walked quietly among the Ilmatari, inquiring about the possible origins of the dyed wool. Since no one could provide him with anything other than generalities about the quality of the dye and the craft-worthiness of the wool's spin, he'd decided to visit Brother Phenotar in the healer's workshop to see if the man had any more information on Arranoth's death.
Well known for his noxious potions and noisome unguents, the young brother set up his workshop against the south wall of the abbey, farthest away from the chapter house—to the approval of all the brothers. It took Drakken a few more minutes to arrive at the small wooden building that housed the abbey's resident herbalist. He knocked once and entered.
It took the half-dragon a moment to adjust to the riot of sights and smells that greeted him. Clumps of dried and drying herbs hung from every rafter, while a number of small, soot-blackened pots bubbled and boiled in the corner. The tables—old battered trestles burned and scarred with the remains of the herbalist's experiments—looked ready to buckle beneath the weight of countless thick librams, weathered alembics, and the detritus of tools for which Drakken had no name. A cloud of conflicting smells made
war in the low-roofed structure, nearly choking the half-dragon.
He waited a few moments until it was clear that neither the cleric, studiously observing something in a small dish with a hand magnifying glass, nor his bustling novice herbalists had noticed his arrival.
"Brother Phenotar," he said somewhat softly, not used to his normally eye-catching appearance going unnoticed. "Brother," he said again, more forcefully.
White Willow's Brother Herbalist looked up in obvious surprise at his visitor, still holding the magnifying lens up to one eye. He gazed imperiously at the half-dragon, though the effect was somewhat mitigated by the cleric's abnormally enlarged eye peering from behind the glass.
"Hmmm... hmmm..." came the herbalist's response.
The alchemist snapped his fingers. At once, the young novices scurried out of the room, not making a single sound.
"You have them well trained," Drakken said as the last white-robed boy left the workshop, closing the small door behind him.
"Rascals all of them," Phenotar sniffed. "And not one of them with the brains necessary to tell the difference between purging buckthorn and celery, if you must know.
"Still," he added with a crooked smile, "I've grown quite fond of them. But don't you be telling them that I said so! They'll be impossible to deal with."
He turned back to the small dish in an obvious huff.
"Brother Phenotar," Drakken said again, caught between amusement and a growing sense of frustration, "I've come to see if you can tell me anything more about Brother Arranoth's..." he stumbled over the word,"... murder."
"Hmmm... hmmm..." the herbalist replied, and broke off from whatever it was that had caught his attention. "Murder... oh yes, Arranoth. Terrible thing that was," Phenotar put down the magnifying lens. "Brother Abbot asked me to examine the body."
"Yes, I know," the half-dragon replied, the frustration finally creeping in to his voice. "That's why I've come. The abbot asked me to investigate the events surrounding the sub-prior's death."
"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" the herbalist asked.
Drakken stifled a thick-chested growl. The morning's newfound equilibrium vanished in a flash of anger.
"What have you found?" was all the half-dragon managed between clenched teeth.
"Something, to be sure," Phenotar replied, oblivious to Drakken's mounting rage, "but it's too soon to draw any conclusions. I need to verify a few things."
"When will you have something definite?" Drakken asked.
"Later this evening, perhaps..." the herbalist paused. "Tomorrow morning to be sure."
The half-dragon turned to go, a curse on absent-minded clerics already coming to his lips. When the herbalist asked him if he had uncovered anything in his own investigations, Drakken nearly didn't stop. Something in the cleric's voice, however, held him there.
Taking a deep breath, Drakken faced the inquisitive herbalist and relayed what he had discovered in Arranoth's room. He surprised himself, however, when he did not mention the mysterious note.
The half-dragon's surprise deepened when Phenotar asked to see the wool swatch. The herbalist studied it for a moment and grabbed the magnifying lens. With
the fingers of one hand he spread out the wool fibers and peered intently at them through the instrument.
Drakken held his breath, for a moment all anger forgotten.
"Hmmm ... hmmm..." said the herbalist after a moment. "A very fine dye, but not local. It is difficult to get this depth of saturation and this color with the indigenous plants we have here. I seem to remember..." The cleric paused, drumming long, stained fingers against the table in obvious thought. "Yes," he said after another moment. "There was a merchant— Valerix I think his name was. He came to the abbey several months ago seeking an ongoing agreement to supply us throughout the year. He had several bolts of wool exactly this color."
Drakken sighed, cursing his luck. Whoever it was probably traded throughout the region. He'd never find him.
"Worst case of winter fever I'd ever seen," continued Phenotar.
"What?" Drakken nearly shouted. "You mean—"
"Yes," the herbalist said with a smile. "He's still here. Recuperating in the guest house until his caravan comes through here again."
Drakken offered his thanks to the cleric, any earlier anger forgotten in his desire to follow up on his next lead. The half-dragon took his leave and went in search of the recuperating merchant.
It didn't take him long. Smaller than the chapter house, the abbey guest house stood to the west of the Ilmatari chapel that served as the spiritual heart of the monastery. Its two-story stone frame offered shelter to weary travelers, sick villagers, and any who called upon the brothers for aid. A quick word to the guest master and Drakken discovered that Valerix took his morning repast each day in one of the house's
sitting rooms. The young cleric in charge of abbey hospitality led him through several short corridors, eventually stopping before an entryway covered by a thick blue curtain. Calling out a greeting, the guest master ushered Drakken through the curtain into an open, sunlit room before taking his leave.
There, among a stack of dishes heaped with quail and plover eggs, thick bread, cold chicken, and crocks of various jellies, sat the most corpulent human he had ever seen. Bloated, splotchy flesh sagged around a nearly hairless head, running down the sides of the merchant's face to end in thick jowls. Scrag-gly, graying hair—glistening with grease from the morning's meal—erupted in a riot around thin lips. Bright red silks, so at odds with the muted colors worn by most of the abbey, bulged and flowed with the great mass of flesh that shifted as the merchant stood in greeting.
Drakken caught the man's look of surprise, which was just as quickly replaced by a cold, calculating gaze. The half-dragon felt as if he were being appraised for sale, and the feeling did little to improve a mood that seemed consistently sour.
"Valerix the merchant?'' Drakken asked simply when the man had finally caught his breath from the exertion of standing.
The fat man lifted a bloated hand in response.
"At your service," he replied with an uncomfortable bow.
Sunlight reflected off a thick band of gold wedged tightly around one of the merchant's pudgy fingers. The ring glittered with nearly incandescent flame.
"It is a fine work of art, is it not?" Valerix asked, noticing the half-dragon's interest. "You have seen it before?"
He held it up. Two lines of gold, beaten and fashioned
into the likeness of serpentine tails twined around each other to form the ring's shape. Drakken shook his head.
"No?" came the merchant's haughty reply. "Ah well, we are a large trading house. All of my associates wear such trinkets."
... and you are obviously of no consequence.
Drakken heard the unspoken message clearly. He felt the familiar anger coil tightly within him. Something about that fat human cried out for a bloody throttling. The half-dragon fought the impulse down. He felt as if he walked precariously on a tightrope—one false move would send him tumbling into a sea of blood. He must be careful. If he had indeed killed Brother Arranoth, he wanted to make sure that no one else fell victim to his irredeemable evil. The merchant, however distasteful, may hold the secret to finding out exactly what happened. He was of no use to Drakken dead.
"I apologize for disrupting your meal," the half-dragon said at last in a tone that bespoke of anything but apology. "I need to ask you a question about Brother Arranoth."
Valerix raised his eyebrows at the mention of the murdered sub-prior.
"The brother recently killed?" he said, covering his mouth with fat, sausagelike fingers. "Whatever for?"
Drakken thought for a moment before answering, "We are gathering the sub-prior's belongings in order to sell them for those in need, and we had a question about a few of the articles we found."
The half-dragon gazed intently at the merchant, sure that the man had seen through that thin web of half-truth. If he had, however, the canny merchant gave no indication.
"I see," Valerix said, stroking his beard with indolent grace. "How can I help?"
Drakken ignored the man's tone, which clearly indicated that it would be a waste of time. He reached into his robe and pulled out the purple wool swatch.
"Have you seen this before?" the half-dragon asked.
Valerix furrowed his brow, causing deep folds in the skin, as he examined the wool.
"Why, yes," he replied after a moment. "This is part of a sample of product that I give out to prove the quality of my wares. The swatch belongs to me."
"I see," Drakken replied. "Then can you tell me how it came to be in Brother Arranoth's room?"
The half-dragon couldn't quite keep the accusation out of his voice.
"That's easy," came the reply, no less pointed. "My negotiations with Brother Brontheld, the Cellarer, were... let's just say that they were bearing little fruit. So I appealed to Brother Arranoth and offered him samples of my wares. It's that simple," the fat merchant nearly purred.
"Then you won't mind if I verify that with the Brother Cellarer himself?" Drakken asked.
"Of course not," Valerix waved at the half-dragon dismissively as he returned to his meal. "Now, if you don't mind...."
Drakken nearly took a step forward and grabbed the merchant by the collar so angry was he at being dismissed, but a disturbance in the courtyard distracted him. Even inside the guest house he could hear the buzz of many voices.
"Excuse me," he said abruptly, and left the merchant without another word.
The courtyard was a riot of activity. Brothers and servants stood in huddled clumps, chattering excitedly, or else they were running from wall to wall carrying baskets full of supplies.
"What's happening?" he yelled to a passing servant.
The woman stopped and turned to the half-dragon, terror written clearly on her face.
"Have you not heard? They've sighted ores, they have. In the hills not a day's ride from the abbey.''
The news sent Drakken's heart pumping. Perhaps there was still something he could do.
Clearly, it was time to speak with the abbot.
A knock at the door pulled Drakken from his nightmares. He groaned and tried to roll over, to ignore the pounding on the door. Despite his best efforts, it continued—each blow resounding in the room like the hammer that would, finally, bind him in chains for the rest of his life. There was no escaping it. He had killed Brother Arranoth.
The pounding continued.
Drakken groaned and stumbled to his feet. His small cell lay in ruins. Deep claw marks scarred the length of the stone wall, while a tangle of splintered furniture and torn clothing littered the floor.
Memory rushed in on him like a tidal wave. Despite three attempts to see the abbot, he had been unable to speak with Meremont. Each rebuffed attempt stoked the embers of his anger. Frustrated by his inability to participate in the abbey's defense, he had retired to his cell, falling at last into a fitful slumber from which he could not seem to wake.
Images plagued his every moment. The visions were immediate and terrible in their detail. It was as if Drakken wasn't merely reliving the horrifying event, but rather found himself trapped within the moment, tearing out the sub-prior's throat again and again.
Sometime near dawn, he had struggled free of his nightmarish prison, overcome with guilt arid anger.
Rage over his obvious complicity in Arranoth's murder met with a deeper, burning hatred fueled in his heart. The beast within had slipped its bonds and he had lashed out at anything near him, until exhaustion drew him once more into sleep.
The knocking grew more insistent, penetrating the undertow of guilt brought by the evening's nightmares.
"What?" the half-dragon yelled as he pulled open the door, expecting the abbot and a host of his accusers.
Instead, he found a young novice in a simple white robe. The boy took a step back, eyes widening at Drak-ken's wild appearance.
"Brother Phenotar wants ... he wants to see you urgently," the novice's voice quavered.
When he arrived at the herbalist's workshop, Drakken followed the novice to a back room. The half-dragon was sure that everyone in the abbey knew of his guilt. He had felt their eyes upon him as they walked across the abbey close. Steeling himself, he entered the room, prepared for the worst.
Brother Phenotar barely acknowledged his entrance. The herbalist leaned intently over a figure lying on a broad table, running his fingers over something that looked suspiciously like a human arm. Drakken was about to shout his confession to the studious cleric when he realized that the arm belonged to Brother Arranoth.
The half-dragon began to shake, and was surprised when a voice somewhere within him began to curse him for his cowardice.
The herbalist, apparently, took no notice of his condition, but rather continued his examination.
"Take a look at this," Brother Phenotar said without preamble, indicating the sallow track of skin upon the corpse's arm. "Interesting, is it not?"
Drakken drew closer carefully, sure in his heart that the corpse would leap up and point damningly at its murderer.
"I don't... I don't see anything," he replied.
"Hmmm..." came the reply. "Yesterday I mentioned that I needed to study something further. The wounds to our departed brother's throat have bothered me from the beginning."
"Why?" Drakken asked, bending closer to the corpse despite himself.
"There did not seem to be enough bleeding for the severity of the wound." The herbalist tilted back the corpse's head, exposing the ruined wreck of its throat. "So, I did some further examination and I found this."
He indicated a small wound on the inside of the corpse's arm.
"What is it?" Drakken inquired.