Anton hurried onward, hiding and backtracking repeatedly as the tunnels filled up. At least it gave him a chance to eavesdrop on snatches of conversation:
"—attacking up the mountain—"
Anton smiled; he'd guessed right about that much, anyway.
"—crazy to challenge the Sacred Ones." "They're crazy just to challenge us! I know a spell—" "—some kind of bats, or demons that look and fly like them."
"No, it's gill-men. They crawled up out of the sea."
He frowned, puzzled. Was it possible Tu'ala'keth had returned at the head of an undersea army? He couldn't imagine how. She had no influence over her fellow shalarins. That was the galling realization that had launched her on her demented mission. He was still mulling it over when he finally managed to skulk back to the cage.
His fellow captives were all pressed up against the grille and raised a clamor when he appeared. On another night, he would have berated them for it, but it didn't matter anymore.
"What's happening?" demanded Jamark. "We heard all the noise and asked a cultist when he ran by, but he didn't stop."
Anton explained what little he knew. "So it's time," he concluded and, heedless of the squeal and bang, threw open the door. "Dig out the knives."
They didn't move; they just regarded him uncertainly. Eventually Stedd, a scrawny, homely, balding fellow who'd owned a dozen tanneries until pirates captured him and his beautiful young wife refused to pay his ransom, said, "Maybe that's not the wisest thing to do."
"Of course it is," Anton said.
"Why?" Stedd retorted. "We've only got knives, and most of us aren't trained warriors. Where's the sense in taking on well-armed dragonkin, magicians, and wyrms? If somebody else has come to wipe out the cult and rescue us, wonderful. Let's stay here where it's safe and pray they succeed. We can thank them when the fighting's over."
"That might not be a bad plan," Anton said, "except for a reason you already mentioned yourself: The cultists are powerful and have the advantage of a highly defensible stronghold. We can't count on the newcomers, whoever they are, to win without our help. But if we sneak through the caves, stabbing maniacs in the back while they're intent on the threat outside, maybe we can make a difference."
"Or die for nothing," the tanner said.
"Damn you all," Anton said. "Half of you would be dead already if not for me. But forget that and ponder this instead: This is our one chance. The opportunity we yearned and prayed for, never believing it would ever really come. I plan to make the most of it, even if I have to fight alone. If anyone wants to help, I'll be glad of the company. If others are so cowardly they can't bear to leave the cage, that's all right, too. Just stand aside while I pull out the knives."
Jamark made a spitting sound. "Ah, to Baator with it. I don't care if I die, as long as I kill a dragonkin first." Some of the others muttered in agreement.
In the end, almost everyone followed Anton away from the cage, even Stedd, sweaty, eyes darting, one of
the knives clutched tight in an overhand grip. For his part, Anton still lacked a blade. Since they didn't have enough to go around, he'd decided to trust his sorcery to protect him for the time being.
"Where are we headed?" Jamark whispered.
"An armory," Anton answered, "not too far away. It was never practical to steal from it before, but now the cultists are in the middle of an emergency. They may have left it unlocked and unattended. There may be some weapons left inside. We'll find out."
¦©¦
In his time, Diero had been a military man, serving as a war mage and officer in baronial armies and mercenary companies around the Sea of Fallen Stars. Drawing on his hard-won expertise, he had, despite the constant press of his other duties, made time to plan the mountain's defense, and to explain everyone's assigned duties in the event of an attack.
Accordingly, it exasperated him to see the dolts all running around in confusion instead of proceeding briskly to their proper stations.
Part of the difficulty was that most of the others lacked military training. Even the dragonkin were barbarian raiders, not veterans of a civilized army. Their human counterparts tended to be spellcasters with an unhealthy attraction to the forces of shadow, outlaws, and a motley assortment of malcontents, some every bit as deranged as dragons cultists were commonly held to be.
The real problem, however, was that the wyrms they served were ordering them out onto the mountain just any old way. Eshcaz was a case in point. Crouched in the center of the half-finished pentacle in the center of the great hall, shrouded in a haze of acrid smoke leaking from his mouth and nostrils, he bellowed
commands, and lesser beings scurried to obey, more terrified of displeasing him than of any possible threat awaiting them outside the caverns.
Diero murmured an incantation. The world seemed to blink like an eye, he experienced a sensation of hurtling like an arrow loosed from a bow, and he was standing at Eshcaz's immense and scaly feet. The smoke stung his eyes, and the heat was unpleasant.
But he didn't permit his discomfort—or his annoyance—to show in his expression. He might be the most accomplished human spellcaster on Tan, but even so, he wouldn't wager a copper on his chances if the red opted to chastise him for what he interpreted as a show of disrespect.
"Sacred One," the wearer of purple said, "may I ask what you're doing?"
Eshcaz twisted his neck to sneer down at him. "What does it look like?"
"It looks as if you're rallying your troops for battle. But I wonder if you've considered that you're sending them forth from a strong defensive position into the open."
"I'm sending them where the enemy is."
"If that's the strategy you've chosen, so be it. But it might work all the better if you conducted a proper reconnaissance first. Or at least gave your servants time to form up properly."
"To what end?" Eshcaz replied. "Odds are they won't even have to do any real fighting. The other wyrms and I will annihilate the intruders all by ourselves. I just want you worthless mites to witness our wrath and to kill any nits on the other side who might otherwise scatter and hide well enough to escape our notice."
With that, he wheeled toward an exit large enough to admit his colossal frame. Diero had to scramble to avoid being pulped by his swinging tail. The red
rushed forward, occluding the stars framed in the natural arch as he passed through, then leaped up into the sky.
Diero took a long breath, struggling to quell his irritation.
It wasn't that Eshcaz was stupid. That might actually have made his attitude less irksome, but in fact, like all mature dragons, he was cunning. Yet he was also impatient, reckless, and possessed of a fundamental wildness that made him favor boldness, instinct, and improvisation over caution, system, and analysis.
Olna sauntered up to Diero. Her straw-colored hair gathered in an intricate braid, the witch was slim and rather pretty, with bright eyes and a generous mouth made for laughter and frivolity. When he'd first met her, it had rather surprised Diero to learn she'd committed a magical atrocity so heinous she'd had to flee hundreds of miles from her native Damara to escape retribution.
"Well, this is a mess," she said.
Over the course of the past few months, they'd learned they could speak candidly to one another, for neither suffered from an inability to distinguish wyrms from gods, or the delusion that Sammaster's interpretation of a cryptic prophecy necessarily constituted the final word on the destiny of the world. Rather, they'd each reasoned their way to the conviction that dracoliches, if produced in sufficient numbers, might well conquer a significant portion of Faerun, and when it happened, their supporters would reap rich rewards.
"It's ridiculous," Diero agreed. "The dragons see no need for strategy or tactics. They assume their sheer might will suffice to obliterate any threat."
"Well," said Olna, "to be fair, they're almost certainly right."
He felt his lips quirk into a grudging smile. "I suppose you have a point."
"So, do we go outside, too?"
"Mist and stars, no. There are still dragonkin and such in the tunnels. Perhaps enough to defend the key entry points, and if things go wrong outside, the dragons will be glad we stayed inside. Let's get to it."
¦©¦¦©¦ <S>
Sharkskin satchel bouncing at her hip, Tu'ala'keth drove her trident into a human's chest. Another man fell with a ixitxachitl covering him like a rippling mantle, fangs buried in his throat.
That finished clearing the way... to a granite wall. Yzil scowled in irritation and started to turn away from the carnage.
"Wait," said Tu'ala'keth.
"Why? It's a dead end."
"Perhaps not. This passage is large enough for one of the smaller wyrms to negotiate, and it appears to me that the stone at the end displays a less intricate grain and texture than the granite to either side."
She walked forward and probed with the trident. The coral tines sank into the rock without the slightest resistance. She stuck her face into the illusion and found it to be no thicker than a fish scale. Beyond it stars gleamed, surf boomed and hissed at the base of the island, and the deep, rough voices of koalinths shouted and shrieked somewhere closer at hand.
She turned back around. "It is an entrance. Someone has simply concealed it with a phantasm."
"You have a keen eye." Yzil turned to one of his fellow 'chitls. "You and your company will defend this place. If any humans or dragonkin happen along, you'll need to kill them, but your primary concern is to destroy any wyrm that tries to pass through in either direction.
Hide as best you can, and hit it hard the instant you see it, before it senses you. Use your most damaging spells, and some of you, get your teeth in it. With Ilxendren's help, your bites may cripple even a dragon."
The 'chitl curled itself smaller. "Yes, Devitan," it said glumly.
"Buck up," Yzil snapped. "You drew the desirable chore. Some of us are venturing onward to kill the big dragon."
"It's just a little farther," Anton said.
But up ahead, in the lamp-lit darkness, the passage forked, and dragonkin abruptly shambled out of the right-hand branch. The caves were so noisy now, the stone bouncing echoes to and fro, that he hadn't heard them coming.
The ogre-sized reptiles gawked at the humans. They were rushing to fight invaders, not slaves who'd escaped their confinement, and the unexpected sight made them hesitate.
It gave Anton time to rattle off an incantation and brandish the three gray pebbles he'd found and painstakingly polished after Tu'ala'keth took his original set of talismans away from him. Power whined, and vapor billowed into being around the dragonkin. They staggered, retching.
The fumes faded as quickly as they'd appeared. "Get the bastards!" Anton cried. "Now! While they're off balance!"
Some screaming with fury, fear, or a mixture of the two, his fellow captives charged. He jabbered the charm that made his hand into a blade then sprinted after them.
Jamark rammed his knife into a dragonkin's groin, and the creature's knees buckled.
Stabbing madly, two humans swarmed on a second reptile and drove it reeling backward.
But otherwise, the enemy quickly took back the advantage. A dragonkin aimed and braced its spear. An onrushing captive failed to react quickly enough to evade the threat. The point punched all the way through his body and, covered in gore, popped out his back. Unwilling to take the time to pull the corpse from the end of the weapon, the reptile simply dropped it and shredded another victim with its claws. Meanwhile, hissing and snarling, its comrades speared and slashed the puny creatures who'd dared to challenge them.
Anton wondered grimly if he and his allies could possibly prevail. Then he spied the dragonkin leader, and the long, straight sword it was just starting to draw from its scabbard. Shadow swirled inside the forte of the blade.
Unfortunately, the reptile stood toward the rear of its squad. Anton veered away from the warrior he'd intended to attack and plunged into the mass of frenzied combatants.
Some of the dragonkin struck at him as he raced by, and he dodged as best he could without slowing down. Another inch of dark blade cleared the sheath, and eager to start killing, the sword itself jumped, assisting the process and emerging fast.
Anton dived under a jabbing spear then leaped into the air. His first blow had to kill. Otherwise, the greatsword's fury was likely to prop up the leader long enough for it to retaliate, and to say the least, he doubted his ability to withstand the assault.
The dragonkin saw him coming, and took a hasty retreat that didn't quite carry it out of reach. It lifted the sword and scabbard to block but not quickly enough. He chopped at its neck with all his strength.
Blood gushed, and partially severed, its head flopped. It toppled backward.
He dropped to the floor, scrambled forward, and finished drawing the greatsword. No doubt the weapon had been eager to butcher him only a moment before, but now it welcomed him with a thrill of delight. For one set of hands on the hilt was as good as another.
As before, he loathed the touch of its mind, its blood-lust and gloating cruelty oozing in to contaminate his own thoughts. But he opened himself up to them anyway, and the sword rewarded him. It washed aches, weakness, and fatigue away, as if his hours on the rack and all the subsequent abuse had never happened.
Grinning, he pivoted and hacked a dragonkin's legs out from under it then split its skull as it went down. He turned again and buried the greatsword in a reptile's spine.
At that point, the other dragonkin realized a significant threat had materialized behind them. Several moved to encircle him.
Even with the greatsword, he might not have withstood that tactic for any length of time. But by riveting the reptiles' attention on himself, he'd taken the pressure off his surviving comrades. They seized the opportunity to snatch the spears of fallen enemies from the floor and, adequately armed for the first time, assailed the dragonkin once more.
Somehow, it proved enough. The last dragonkin fell, and the greatsword jerked Anton around toward Stedd. "No!" he told it, just as Shandri had, silently adding, be patient. I have plenty of foes left to kill.
The blade quieted, humoring his quaint, irrational notion that some people ought not to be slaughtered.
Oblivious to his argument with the weapon, Jamark shot him a grin. "Nice sword," the scarred man said.
So it was, in its repellent way. Anton had assumed it lay amid Eshcaz's hoard but now reckoned he understood why it didn't. Tu'ala'keth hadn't presented the weapon to the red with the rest of her tribute, and
lacking gems in the hilt or similar ornamentation, it looked like just an ordinary if well-made greatsword until someone pulled it from the scabbard. Eshcaz hadn't deigned to take any notice of it where it lay on the floor, enabling a dragonkin to claim it for itself.
Still it was remarkable luck that it had returned to Anton just when he needed it most. Tu'ala'keth, in her daft and arbitrary way, had decided the sword bore Umberlee's blessing, and if she were here, she'd doubtless tell him to thank the goddess or prattle of divine will manifesting itself in pattern and coincidence. He mulled such notions over for an instant then put them from his mind. He had more urgent things to think about.
"You were right,'' Stedd panted, blood seeping from a graze on his shoulder, "this is worth doing. Let's raid that armory then kill some more of them."
¦©¦¦©¦¦©¦ ¦©¦ ¦©•
As Wraxzala wheeled about the sky, casting her few remaining spells, shouting orders to the slaves in a voice worn hoarse and raw, she marveled at how quickly an army's fortunes could shift.
She and her comrades had sneaked up the mountainside, to guard outposts, and small fields and gardens tucked away in pockets in the escarpment. They'd slaughtered dragonkin, cultists, and penned slaves— who might otherwise raise a commotion sufficient to rouse the rest of the enclave—wherever they found them. As long as the ixitxachitls had numbers and surprise on their side, it was relatively easy.
But at some point, one of the enemy, a dragonkin on the wing, perhaps, or a mage shifting himself instantly through space, had evidently escaped to raise the alarm. For in time, wyrms and a horde of their minions exploded from rifts in the rock.
The minions, though they made a reasonable effort to kill invaders, were virtually superfluous. It was the dragons who immediately started slaying their foes by the dozens, like the limitless might and malice of the Demon Ray himself embodied in gigantic snapping wings, roaring jaws, and slashing talons.
The largest wyrm wheeled, vomited flames, and burned ixitxachitls to drifting sparks and wisps of ash. A second dragon, its countenance studded with hornlets, spewed fumes, and a squad of locathahs dropped, skin dissolving, fins riddled with sizzling holes. A third conjured a glowing orb that hurtled down like a crossbow quarrel then exploded into leaping, dazzling arcs of lightning when it hit the ground. Transfixed by one or another of the radiating flares of power, koalinths danced spastically and withered to smoking husks. Perhaps lacking breath weapons and wizardry, the smallest drakes—which were still far bigger than the largest of their foes—ravaged them with fang and claw. Some were content to smash down into a mass of opponents, crushing some in the process, and fight on the ground until they wiped that cluster out. Others swooped, seized an opponent, carried it aloft to tear apart or simply drop from on high, and dived to catch another.
Wraxzala had participated in savage battles before and watched significant numbers of her allies perish. The difference this time was that they scarcely seemed to be inflicting any damage in return. Most of the drakes had crossbow bolts jutting from their scaly hides. Some bore puncture wounds from the slaves' spears and tridents. Now and again, one even faltered or convulsed when a vampire 'chitl swooped in and bit it, or an attack spell pierced its mystical defenses.
Yet nothing balked them for more than a moment. After which they assailed the invaders as fiercely as before.
She realized bitterly that nonetheless, she and her comrades were accomplishing all Yzil expected of them. They were keeping the wyrms busy and enticing them to exhaust their breath weapons and sorcerous capabilities. They were softening them up for the confrontation to come.
In her folly, Wraxzala had dared to hope the diversionary force might somehow accomplish more, might actually defeat the foes counterattacking down the mountain, or failing that, that she might at least outlive the struggle. Now, however, it was clear just how unlikely that was to happen.
In her eyes, the contest became absolutely, incon-trovertibly hopeless when the colossal red dragon conjured eight orbs of seething, crackling lightning, which then streaked down to strike and blast every third thrall in a ragged formation of koalinths.
The reptile then oriented on a squad of locathah crossbowmen, ostentatiously sucked in a breath, swelled its throat, and cocked back its head. The warriors discerned that the red's snout was pointing a little to the left, so they madly scrambled right. Most of them escaped the booming flare and kept right on running until the dragon furled its wings, slammed down immediately in front of them with a thud that started loose stone clattering down the mountainside, and roared into their terrified faces. The locathahs blundered about and fled in exactly the opposite direction.
The red was so certain of victory, and so contemptuous of its foes, that it was playing with them.
Enough of this! Wraxzala thought. If she disobeyed her devitan—and he survived to condemn her for it— her rank and life were forfeit, and that was why she'd lingered as long as she had. But it was plain she would surely die if she didn't get away.
Fortunately, she'd had the foresight to save a spell for the purpose. She declaimed the prayer, and darkness
swirled and whispered into being all around her. For an instant the touch of it chilled her skin.
By day, a blot of inky shadow would itself be conspicuous against the sky, but by night, it would make Wraxzala effectively invisible. It was inconvenient that she couldn't see through it either, but that wouldn't be necessary just to distance herself from the island. She'd flee until she heard and smelled water below her; then she'd dive for the safety of the depths.
She wheeled, sped away, and a rhythmic flapping sounded somewhere above her. She wondered if she should change course, or dodge, but how, when she couldn't tell exactly where the dragon was in relation to herself? She was still trying to determine its exact position when gigantic claws punched through her body. Dazed with the shock of it, she dully remembered hearing that all a dragon's senses were acute, and the wyrm pulled her apart as if she were no more substantial than a jellyfish.
¦©¦¦©¦¦©¦¦©¦¦©•
It took a lot of killing just to reach the enormous chamber at the top of the mountain. Tu'ala'keth observed that by the time they cleared it of enemies, most of Yzil's thralls were dead. But that was all right. They'd served their purpose.
Weary from fighting, she cast about, making sure the cave was as she remembered it. Then she pointed, noticing as she did so that her hand was spattered and tacky with gore. Fighting on land was a filthy business.
"Eshcaz has to come in either there," she said, "or over there. Those are the only holes big enough to admit him. So we'll set up by that wall, as far as possible from both of them."
Hovering, body rippling, Yzil studied the corner in question. Blood oozed down from a superficial cut above his eyes, and he blinked and swiped it away with a flick of his tail. "We'll be boxed in," he said.
"It does not matter," she replied. "Either we will kill the red, or he will kill us. It is unlikely we could retreat and get away."
"I suppose so." The devitan raised his voice. "Follow me, warriors of Ixzethlin, and be quick about it. We may have very little time in which to prepare."
The other 'chitls, who'd been either gliding about, investigating the chamber, or feeding on dead or crippled cultists and dragonkin, obeyed him. When everyone was in position, Tu'ala'keth opened her satchel and pulled out the book inside.
The heavy volume consisted of plates of horn inlaid with characters of onyx, agate, and obsidian, and perforated on one edge so a chain of worked coral like her silverweave could bind them together. It was plain from the construction that someone other than 'chitls had made it. They were literate, but books of the sort employed by shalarins and sea-elves were awkward for them. For an instant she wondered again where and how her allies had obtained the precious thing then put the irrelevant question aside.
Straining, she snapped the coral chain, gave one page to each 'chitl cleric, and kept the remainder for herself. Perhaps some of 'chitls resented a "slave creature" retaining most of the magic, but it was in accordance with Yzil's orders. He understood that just as she, by virtue of her anatomy, had been best suited to carry the tome, so she, possessed of hands, would be best able to flip from one leaf to another as circumstances required.
She started to read the trigger phrase of one of the preserved spells, and others did likewise, their voices muddling together. The carved stones glittered,
flashed, and sometimes crumbled as they delivered themselves of the power stored inside. The gathering magic made everything look somehow too vivid, too real, and therefore frightening, like looming, leering faces in a delirium. The granite groaned beneath her feet.
¦©¦¦©¦
Eshcaz watched his troops form into squads then tramp forth to scour the island. If any of the invaders had escaped the massacre, the dragonkin and humans would find and kill them. They were competent enough to manage that, anyway.
Once certain his minions were setting about their work with sufficient zeal, he then prowled over the battleground in search of plunder and morsels to eat.
Considering how many had fallen, the latter were surprisingly different to locate because, for the most part, the dragons had sensibly kept to the air, out of reach of the enemies' hand weapons, and annihilated them with spells and breath effects. Which was to say, burned the corpses to charcoal, poisoned them with acids and other malignancies, or blasted and ripped them to such small fragments that it would be awkward and undignified for a creature the size of Eshcaz to bother with the crumbs.
Fortunately, he wasn't actually hungry. It was simply his custom to sample his enemies' flesh after any fight. It made the victory seem complete.
Something flopped feebly on the ground before him. He scrutinized it then grinned. He'd discovered a still-living ixitxachitl, and eating a live enemy was even more satisfying than devouring a dead one.
He scooped the ixitxachitl up in his jaws. It writhed and shrieked for a second as he chewed; then it was too maimed for even that bit of impotent resistance.
He swallowed it whole then turned to the black-robed, skull-masked priest of Velsharoon who'd been trailing him about, awaiting orders. "Tastes like chicken," he said. It was a human joke, and he didn't really understand why it was supposed to be funny, but the cleric laughed dutifully.
Then a ghostly, grayish figure wavered into existence between the two of them. With a twinge of unease, Eshcaz saw that it was Diero, or rather, a conjured semblance that would allow the two of them to speak over a distance. The wearer or purple's snowy hair, which he always kept neatly combed, now dangled over his sweaty brow. He was breathing hard, too, his shrewd features taut with urgency.
"What's wrong?" the dragon asked.
"The warriors you just fought constituted a feint. While they kept you occupied, a larger force climbed up into the mountain from the sea caves, dividing as they progressed to invade every gallery and tunnel. Those of us who stayed inside are trying to fight them, but we're heavily outnumbered. It's difficult to stop them from going wherever they want and holding any position they choose to occupy."
The dragon snarled, angry at the sea creatures for tricking him and at Diero for having been right that it was a poor idea to leave the caverns. Had the magician been physically present, the red might even have clawed him, just to rip away any smugness or sense of superiority that he might be harboring inside. .
Eshcaz struggled to calm himself. It was galling that the wyrms would have to fight their way back into their own stronghold, that they'd already expended a measure of their arcane abilities, and that in the confined spaces within the mountain, their wings would prove less of advantage. But even so, surely this fiasco was only a momentary nuisance.
They were, after all, dragons, and he, the most powerful red the Sea of Fallen Stars had ever known. It was insane to imagine that lesser creatures could defeat them under any circumstances whatsoever.
"I'll deal with it," he said, spreading his wings.
"Wait, please!" Diero said. "Listen to me. We don't know why the ixitxachitls attacked us or the full extent of their plans, but if they destroy the work we've been doing, it will set us back by months."
Curse him! He was right again. "What needs protecting most urgently?" Eshcaz asked. "The grand pentacle?"
"Yes. A bit of chiseling at the right point, coupled with the proper counterspell, could ruin it almost beyond repair. I'm trying to head in that direction."
"I will, too." Eshcaz glared at the priest of Velsha-roon. "Tell everyone I order them back inside to kill more intruders." He lashed his pinions and sprang into the air.
Tu'ala'keth trembled as Eshcaz burst into the chamber. She reminded herself that she was a waveservant, and her reflexive dread subsided to a degree.
She glanced from side to side. Hunkered on the floor, crouched over their pages from the compendium of priestly magic, the 'chitls were likely frightened, too. In some cases, their long tails lashed in agitation. But nobody tried to flee.
The red began to charge in eerie silence. That wasn't his doing but theirs. They'd shrouded his side of the chamber in an enchantment that stifled sound to keep him from reciting incantations.
Perhaps Eshcaz realized what they'd done, for he gave them a sneer, as if to scorn the suggestion he needed sorcery to slaughter tiny creatures like
themselves. Then he bounded far enough to trigger a second ward.
Whoever had originally crafted the ixitxachitls' book, he must have been a supremely wise and able priest of the sea because he'd stored extraordinary magic in the gemstone lines. A huge wave of saltwater surged up from the dry stone floor and smashed into the dragon. Even his strength, weight, and momentum couldn't withstand the prodigious force. The wave tumbled him all the way backward to slam against the wall before dissipating into nothingness.
The impact didn't even stun him, though. He scrambled to his feet in an instant, cocked his head back, and spat a bright jet of flame. The flare rustled as it left the zone of quiet, then hissed explosively when it met the enchantment the invaders had emplaced to counter fire. Blocked short of its targets, Eshcaz's breath produced a gout of steam at its terminus, as if it had struck an invisible, freestanding wall of water. In a metaphysical sense, that was precisely what had happened.
Tu'ala'keth read the final trigger phrase from one of the pages, and the entire sheet of horn shattered in her grasp. Fortunately, the magic, once unleashed, could strike anyplace, even where silence reigned, and Eshcaz thrashed, stricken.
She'd filled his lungs with water, a bane that ought to kill him, but he mastered his convulsions and retched it forth. Because of the heat in his vitals, most of it burst out in another gout of steam.
By that time, Yzil and another 'chitl had also conjured attacks. A cloud of luminous blue-green wraiths in the form of sharks appeared with the dragon at their center. They whirled around him biting and tearing until he leaped clear of the effect.
Canny enough to know that particular magic couldn't shift to pursue him, he paid it no further heed.
Instead he oriented on Tu'ala'keth and the 'chitls then jerked as the next spell took hold of him. His scaly hide withered, cracking and flaking. But it blurred back to normal a heartbeat later as resilience of soul or body enabled him to withstand the curse.
Enraged, his shark bites bleeding, he hurled himself at his tormentors, and another wave arose and threw him backward. He spat more flame, and it, too, halted short of the mark in a burst of steam.
"By the Five Torments!" cried one of the ixitxachitls. "We're doing it! We're killing a dragon!"
Though she saw no point in contradicting it—it would fight better jubilant than afraid—Tu'ala'keth thought its judgment was, at best, premature. For even the supremely powerful magic sealed in the book of horn hadn't done Eshcaz any serious harm as yet. The second wave, moreover, hadn't flung him backward as far as the first, while his second jet of flame had shot a little closer before their defense balked it. His exertions were eroding the wards, and it was impossible to guess whether they'd manage to kill him before he succeeded in breaking through.
But in essence, this was a clash between fire and water, and there was no flame Umberlee could not drown. She dragged down the sun and devoured it every night without fail, obliging Lathander, god of the dawn, to craft a new one each morning. If Tu'ala'keth could simply reflect the infinite majesty of her patron, then surely she, too, must prevail. She reached and from somewhere—inside herself or Fury's Heart, it was ultimately the same thing—flowed the pure cold malice of the Queen of the Depths to steady and exalt her. She searched through the plates of horn for the spell she wanted next.
Diero peeked around the corner just as Hsala-nasharanx collapsed with so many writhing, flapping ixitxachitls clinging to her that her serpentine shape was almost indistinguishable. Even so, he expected the green to heave herself to her feet again or roll and crush her attackers. She didn't, though, and as they sucked and slurped at the wounds their fangs had inflicted, it became apparent she never would.
The magician cursed under his breath. He hadn't liked Hsalanasharanx any more than he liked—well, any of the wyrms, to be truthful about it—but they were all important to realizing his own ambitions. Besides which, the victorious 'chitls and their gill-men servitors were blocking yet another route to the grand pentacle.
He wondered if he and Olna, supported by the dozen other cultists who were following them around, could fight their way through this particular clump of invaders. Perhaps, but it would be a messy, time-consuming business. Better to go around if they could.
He and his comrades skulked back the way they'd come, through shadowy tunnels echoing with the muddled roar of combat. It was all but impossible to tell precisely where or how close the sounds originated, and he worried he might turn a corner and find himself instantly caught up in a melee. He knew a spell that could have conjured a phantom to scout ahead for him, and wished he'd had the foresight to prepare it at the start of the day. But who could have predicted insanity like this?
He suddenly felt the pressure of another's gaze. He pivoted and cast about, but saw only the passageway and the murky irregular mouths of side tunnels and galleries.
"I don't see anything," Olna said.
"Neither do I," he replied. "But somebody was
watching us. He simply ducked out of sight when I turned around." As both mage and soldier, he'd learned to trust his intuition.
"Do you want to spend time looking for him?" the blond woman asked.
Frowning, he took a heartbeat to consider then said, "No. We have more important matters to concern us. Onward."
In another minute, they came to point where a lava tube squirmed upward, the ascent steep enough that, at his direction, his followers and captives had chiseled stairs. He listened, trying to determine if any of the ambient noise was filtering down from above, and as usual, he couldn't tell.
He led his companions upward and—praise be to the Lady of Mysteries!—encountered nothing lurking on the steps to bar the way. The twisting shaft opened onto one of the ledges overlooking the great chamber; after what had felt like hours of fighting and sneaking, they'd finally reached their destination. He raised a hand, ordering everyone else to hold his position, then prowled to the edge of the platform and peered downward.
The vista below was peculiar enough that it took a moment to make sense of it. Acrid smoke and warm, wet steam mingled in the air. Bloodied and to all appearances berserk with rage, Eshcaz beat his gigantic wings and ascended to the high, domed ceiling. But the pinions didn't rustle and crack or make any sound at all.
Jaws gaping, foreclaws poised to catch and rend, Eshcaz dived at those creatures who were making noise, murmuring ixitxachitls strangely hunkered on the floor, a few terrified gill-men arrayed to guard them, and—Diero blinked. Was that the same demented shalarin who'd intruded here before?
A waterspout whirled up from the stone floor to
intercept the plummeting Eshcaz. It caught him, engulfed him, and whirled him backward before dissipating as suddenly as it had appeared. The red couldn't sort out his wings and the rest of his body quickly enough to resume an attitude of flight, and he fell ingloriously, slamming down on the stone.
At the same instant, other spells assailed him.
Branching and extending like flowing water, a lattice of ice formed on his skin, binding him, searing his scales with its frigidity, until he flailed and shattered it.
A black cloud boiled into the air above the wyrm. Lightning flared in its belly, and thunder would surely have boomed an instant later except for the field of silence. Rain hammered down, mingled with a harsher liquid that blistered the reptile's hide.
Diero scowled. He'd wasted a moment in professional appreciation of the rather neat trap Tu'ala'keth and her allies had lain for Eshcaz, and to be honest, in enjoyment at seeing the arrogant dragon discomfited. But it was time to intervene. If the acidic downpour could burn the red, it was conceivable it could mar granite and deface the grand pentacle as well.
Fortunately, with a wyrm to occupy them, none of the sea folk had noticed him perched on the ledge. So long as he was quiet about it, he should be able to conjure without interference, and better still, his foes had emplaced their defenses in relation to Eshcaz on the other side of the hall. He doubted they had anything oriented to deflect an attack striking down from his angle.
Diero extracted a bit of lace from the pocket of his vestments. Tied up inside were bits of phosphorus and saltpeter. He swept the bundle through the proper pass and whispered the appropriate words of power.
Tu'ala'keth burst into flame. She reeled and dropped a stack of clattering rectangular plates. Gouts of fire
leaped from her body to the nearest ixitxachitls and gill-men. They didn't start blazing like torches in their turn. The spell wasn't quite that deadly. But the secondary effect did sear whatever it touched, and the creatures thrashed and floundered at the pain.
The black cloud and its downpour wavered out of existence. It had required the concentration of one of the spellcasters down below to sustain it, and Diero had just disrupted that.
He could see that, in their shock, pain, and confusion, the sea creatures hadn't yet determined where the attack had originated. He should have time to cast another.
It was a burst of glare, and he scrunched his eyes shut so his own magic wouldn't blind him. Afterward, the rays and fish-men crawled or stumbled about helplessly, so bereft of sight they couldn't even avoid Tu'ala'keth, still lurching to and fro like a living bonfire. Tendrils of flame lashed out at them whenever they blundered close to her, or she to them.
Diero waved Olna forward. "You see the water creatures," he said. "They're helpless for the moment. You make sure they stay that way, and I'll dismantle the wards they set." He glanced back at the remainder of his followers. "You fellows, watch for trouble coming up the stairs."
Anton knew it would be stupid to outdistance his comrades, who possessed no supernatural means of enhancing their vigor and suppressing fatigue, or to make any more noise than necessary. Still it took an effort not to run up the steps.
He and the others had given a good accounting of themselves as they prowled through the caves. They'd killed a fair number of cultists and dragonkin, and
because of his hatred of these particular foes, reinforced by the greatsword's blood-thirst, he'd enjoyed every second of it.
But such accomplishments paled to insignificance the moment he peeked from one tunnel to the next and sighted Diero, wearer of purple, master wizard, and the whoreson who'd sent him to the rack. Diero had to die, to satisfy Anton's need for retribution and, quite possibly, to ensure the defeat of the entire enclave of wyrm worshipers.
Peering upward, trying to penetrate the gloom, Anton skulked around a twist and beheld the uppermost section of the shaft, lit by the wavering glow of a single oil lamp set in a nook halfway up. At the top was an opening, and on other side of it, barely visible in the darkness, two men stood gazing downward. They spotted him and started yelling.
Anton charged as best he could, dashing up a crudely chiseled flight of stairs. The shadows above him shouldered crossbows. He bellowed, "Archers!" and threw himself down on the risers. The quarrels thrummed over him, but one thunked into the body of someone at his back. The fellow made a low sobbing sound.
There was no time to turn and find out who'd taken the wound or how bad it was. The erstwhile prisoners couldn't stay where they were, or the enemy would shoot them all dead. Anton jumped up and scrambled onward.
Figures scurried in the natural doorway above as the crossbowmen, their weapons useless until cocked and loaded once again, yielded their places to two other cultists. The new men pointed spears down at the captives then jabbed with them to bar the way and halt Anton's ascent.
They had the advantage of the high ground and weapons even longer than the greatsword. So long
as they maintained their current defensive posture, it would be difficult to get at them, but it would be likewise difficult for them to score on Anton. That, however, didn't matter. Behind them, barely visible between their shifting bodies, a woman with a long blond braid was chanting an intricate rhyme. The spearmen were simply giving her time to complete the spell unmolested.
Anton hacked at a lance. The greatsword sheared through the seasoned ash and chopped the point off. If the spearman knew his business, the remainder of the weapon could still pose a threat but not as deadly a one as before.
Anton paused for an instant, as if he'd overcom-mitted to the stroke and couldn't come back on guard quickly. The second spearman took the bait and thrust at his exposed flank. The spy pivoted, used the greatsword to bat the lance out of line, and bounded upward, safely past the long steel point. He cut at the cultist he'd just outfoxed, and the dark blade smashed through his ribs and into his vitals.
At the same moment, though, the blond woman finished her incantation and sucked in a deep breath. Knowing he couldn't free and lift the sword in time to threaten her, Anton averted his face and pressed himself against the wall of the lava tube.
The wizard expelled her breath into a searing conical cloud. Anton's skin burned wherever the corrosive vapor brushed it, and on the steps below him, other captives cried out in pain.
He couldn't let the shock of injury balk him, nor allow the witch to cast another attack spell. The greatsword agreed and steadied him with a surge of strength and anger. He jerked it from the first spearman's body and cut down the second one then another cultist who rushed in with a short sword. That cleared a path to the magician.
He sprang out onto what he now perceived was one of the natural balconies overlooking the big cave at the top of the volcano. Smoke and steam swirled through the air, and fire flickered somewhere down below, but he couldn't tell what was burning. Too many people were in the way.
The witch goggled as if astonished he'd survived her initial attack. She started jabbering a second incantation, and the words slurred into a gargling sound as the greatsword crunched into her skull.
Anton stepped deeper into the mass of cultists and cut at another foe. His enemies were all around him now, and even an enchanted sword wouldn't save him from a stab in the back. Only his comrades could do that—assuming any were still alive and fit to fight.
Cries of fury and scrambling footsteps established that they were. They swarmed out onto the platform and ripped into the cultists. Jamark swung a mace. A cultist managed to catch the blow on his shield, but the force sent him stumbling backward to topple off the ledge. Stedd drove a sword into an opponent's chest and laughed crazily. Then the eyes rolled up in his head as the other man, mortally wounded but not dead yet, thrust a blade into his torso. They took a lurching sidestep together, like spastic dancers.
As he fought, Anton looked for Diero but at first couldn't spot him amid the frenzied press. Finally, though, the master of the enclave, with his trim frame, purple vestments, and silvery hair, came into view. To the spy's surprise, Diero was facing outward, away from the battle. His hands slashed through mystic passes, and it looked as if he might be trying to complete a conjuration begun before the escaped slaves intruded on the proceedings.
Anton struggled toward the wizard. If Lady Luck smiled, he might reach him in time to cut him down from behind and spoil the magic, whatever it was.
But he had to kill another cultist first, and it was too late.
A prodigious roar sounded from the floor of the chamber below. Flickering firelight cast a gigantic serpentine shadow on the wall. By the Lanceboard, had there been a wyrm down there all along? Why had the cursed thing kept so quiet until this moment?
There was no time to ponder that, either. Diero was the immediate threat. The wearer of purple called something—Anton couldn't make out the words—to the dragon then turned toward his embattled followers and their assailants. His gaze fell on Anton. He murmured a word and extended his hand, and a bastinado appeared in it. He swept the cane through an occult figure.
Anton rushed in and made a chest cut. Diero hopped back, and the attack fell short. He flicked the bastinado through a final backhanded stroke, as if chastising a thrall.
Agony tore through Anton's body. It was worst in his guts, and he doubled over. Tears blurred his vision.
Diero tossed away the stick to vanish in midair. He took something from a pocket and brandished that instead. Ripples of distortion seethed around his hand.
Anton had little doubt that the follow-up spell, if completed, would mean the end of him. He had to straighten up and strike. Had to. Had to. He sucked in a breath, bellowed it out, and heaved himself upright. The curse inflicted a final spasm, and the torment faded.
But perhaps it had delayed him long enough. Diero lifted the fist clutching the spell focus as if grasping a dagger in an overhand grip. It looked as if it must be the penultimate move in the conjuration. When he stabbed downward, the magic would blaze into existence.
Anton cut as the hand plunged down. The greatsword clipped the extremity off just above the wrist. Blood spurted from the stump. Diero's face paled all at once, and his mouth fell open. Anton pulled the dark blade back for the death stroke.
"The torturer wanted to break you," whimpered Diero, gripping his truncated forearm in a thus-far unsuccessful attempt to stanch the bleeding. "I saved you."
"That was a mistake," Anton replied. He decided to behead Diero, shifted the sword into the proper attitude, then hesitated.
Because somehow, in spite of all his hatred and anger, all the terror and excitement of combat, he'd abruptly remembered he was a spy. A gatherer of secrets, and it was certain no one on Tan knew more secrets about the Cult of the Dragon than its resident wearer of purple.
Still he yearned to kill Diero, and the greatsword urged him on. His arms trembled with the need to cut. He gave a wordless cry, denying the impulse, and kicked the wizard's feet out from under him instead. Once his foe was down, he booted him in the chin then stamped on the fingers of his remaining hand. Even if Diero escaped death by exsanguination, the fractures should keep him from casting any more spells.
As Anton finished, he heard the wyrm on the cavern floor snarling what sounded like an incantation of its own. He rushed to the drop-off to see what was happening.
To his dismay, the dragon was Eshcaz, the most formidable of them all. The red bore a number of wounds, but if they'd weakened him, it wasn't apparent from his carriage. Eshcaz declaimed the final syllable of his spell, and a soft, oozing, semitransparent wall appeared midway across the chamber. It looked like
water piled up on top of itself, like a tall wave that refused to curl and break.
Rather, the mass simply lost cohesion, shattered, and all the liquid plunged toward the floor. It vanished into nothingness, though, before it could raise a splash. Eshcaz strode toward the opposite end of the cavern and the defenseless creatures gathered there.
Most were ixitxachitls and gill-men, crawling, stumbling, or gliding erratically about in manifest confusion and distress. One, however, was a shalarin shrouded in bright, crackling flame, as if someone had dipped it in oil and set it alight. That one rolled back and forth on the ground.
After her first clash with Kassur, Anton had explained to Tu'ala'keth that if she ever caught fire, dropping and rolling was the way to put it out. Was that her?
Maybe it was, though he couldn't imagine how she could have returned at the head of an ixitxachitl army. As he understood it, the demon rays were hostile to the Nantarn Alliance. Still, what other shalarin could it be?
He reflected grimly that in another moment, it wouldn't much matter who it had been. The shalarin and its allies were helpless, and Eshcaz was about to kill them. Even if Anton had cared to intervene on behalf of a creature who'd given him to the cultists to torture and enslave, he could only delay the inevitable for a moment or two at most, and that at the cost of his own life.
He knew it, jumped off the ledge anyway, and couldn't even say why. He wondered if the sword's irrational, implacable bloodlust had prompted him then decided it didn't matter. Though he was committing suicide, it felt right: pure, in a black and ferocious way.
The final spell in his meager store allowed him
to land softly as a drifting wisp of gossamer, without injury or even a jolt. He charged instantly.
Eshcaz must have been intent on the creatures who'd evidently managed to wound him previously, or else the ambient noise and stinks masked Anton's approach, for despite the dragon's keen senses, he didn't notice the newcomer. Anton cut deep into his flank.
Eshcaz roared and spun around toward his foe, which meant the world shattered into a chaos of sweeping tail and trampling feet. Anton had to duck, dodge, and scramble just to avoid being crushed before the red even oriented on him and made an actual attack.
Eshcaz glared with eyes like hellfire. He opened his fangs, and his wedge-shaped head surged forward and down at the end of the serpentine neck. Anton waited until the final instant—dodge too soon and a foe would simply compensate—then wrenched himself aside. The gigantic jaws clashed shut beside him, and he cut at the dragon's mask.
His sword glanced off the wyrm's scales. Eshcaz flicked his head sideways, and the great bony mass of it smashed into Anton like a battering ram, flinging him through the air and down on the floor. Claws loomed above him and slashed, and he rolled out from underneath. The dragon immediately leaped, trying to smash down on top of him. He scrambled back and just got clear. When Eshcaz slammed down, the cavern shook.
Anton got his feet planted, poised the greatsword to cut, then glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. He had to forgo his own attack to jump away from another sweep of Eshcaz's talons.
Well, he thought, at least I managed to cut the bastard once. He feinted left then scuttled right, trying to get back on the red's flank. Eshcaz sneered, and with a quickness incredible in a thing so huge, matched him
shift for shift. Wisps of smoke seeped from his nostrils and between his fangs.
¦©¦¦€>¦
Tu'ala'keth rolled and rolled, and still fire clung to her like a horde of leeches. She wondered if Anton— who had, after all, betrayed her in the end—had lied about the way to put out such a conflagration. Perhaps rolling intensified the flames.
But they finally guttered out, either because she'd smothered them or because the curse that had kindled them had run out its time. She tried to lift her head, and even with the fire gone, her entire body cried out in agony.
She slumped back down and might even have stayed that way, too daunted to try again, except that Eshcaz was roaring and snarling, and once she noticed, she remembered how wrong that was. She shouldn't be able to hear the red. Silence was an essential component of the defenses against him.
Despite the torture of charred skin cracking and splitting, she managed to take a look around. The surviving 'chitls and locathahs appeared as helpless as she was. Though she hadn't truly been able to see through her shroud of flame, she'd had a vague impression of a succession of mystical attacks hammering them, and it was evidently so.
Eshcaz was on their side of the cave, and no wave or waterspout was forming to shove him back. Plainly, all the wards were gone. The red would no doubt have finished off his original adversaries already, except that a lone human had appeared from somewhere to challenge him. He had an octopus tattooed on one arm and wielded a huge sword with shadow drifting and twisting inside the steel—impossible as it seemed, it was Anton!
Naturally, he couldn't prevail against Eshcaz. It was miraculous he'd lasted any time at all. But magic had hurt the dragon. If Anton could keep the creature busy a little longer, it was at least remotely possible it might finish the job of killing the red.
Of course, she didn't mean her own personal magic. Even if she were still capable of articulating a complete incantation with the necessary precision, it simply wasn't strong enough. But the remaining spells bound in Yzil's book might serve.
She expected to find the pages lying right beside her. When she didn't, though, she dimly recalled dropping them at the moment she burst into flame then reeling blindly about before she fell. She looked around and spotted them scattered a few feet away. As weak and anguished as she felt, it was like peering through a scrying mirror and observing them on the far side of the world.
She started crawling on her belly. Her silverweave rattled and clinked. Bits of ruined skin broke off and flaked away.
The pain was like a tide trying to sweep her into darkness, and she had to fight the desire to let it take her. Umberlee, she thought, Umberlee, Umberlee, Umberlee. It was as much of a prayer as she could manage.
Finally she reached the sheets of horn. Certain she was on the very brink of losing consciousness, she pawed through them to find the first spell she needed. That was almost as difficult as crawling. Her cooked fingers couldn't bend or grasp.
Here! Here it was, but could she actually use it? Though mercifully short compared to an entire spell, the trigger phrase required accurate enunciation, too, and she wasn't sure she even still had a voice. Maybe the fire had burned that away also.
She sought to steady herself, to hold back the pain
that might otherwise have made stammer and stumble, then tried to whisper. The words came out faintly but clearly.
Magic washed over her like the caress of the sea. Pain faded. Scorched and blistered skin blurred, flowed, and became smooth and soft. Her dorsal fin, which had nearly burned away, extended into the high, scalloped crest it had been before.
She looked at the battle just a few yards away. Somehow, Anton was still on his feet. Perhaps Eshcaz was playing with him. The dragon's chest pumped, and his neck swelled in time. If she'd seen a lesser air-breather doing that, she would have inferred it was winded. But the red's strength seemed inexhaustible, and judging from the smoke streaming from his mouth and nostrils, she suspected he was actually recharging his depleted breath weapon.
Once he accomplished that, his foes would have no hope at all. She hastily returned to the pages of Yzil's book. They were depleted, also, the majority of spells cast already, and most of the remaining ones, duplicates of invocations that had already failed to put the dragon down.
But one potentially crippling spell remained. She would have attempted it already, except that it required the caster to touch the target, and she and her allies had hoped to stay away from him. But now that their defenses had fallen, that was no longer a consideration.
She murmured the trigger phrase, and an aching throbbed deep in her right hand. It was bearable enough—compared to the agony of burning, it was almost laughable—but even so, she could sense the profound malignancy it represented. Fortunately, it was incapable of inflicting its devastation on her.
She cast about, found her trident, snatched it up in her off hand, and ran forward. Though seemingly
intent on Anton, Eshcaz must have heard her coming or else felt the bane she harbored in her flesh, for he whirled to face her.
His neck bulged, and his head cocked back. His flame had renewed itself, and he was about to spit it at her, while she was still nowhere near enough to touch him. Nor did she have any realistic hope of dodging the great expanding blaze that was his breath.
But Anton rushed the foe whod pivoted away from him. Its seething darkness smeared with gore, the greatsword swung high and swept down to bury itself in Eshcaz's side.
It must have found a vulnerable spot, for the dragon convulsed, and the spasm made him spew his flame too high. Tu'ala'keth threw herself to the floor, and the crackling flare passed harmlessly above her. The fierce heat was unpleasant, but did her no harm.
Eshcaz rounded furiously on Anton, which required twisting away from her. She scrambled up and charged. The red lifted a foreleg to rake at the swordsman, and she planted her hand midway along the limb.
She winced at the blistering heat of the reptile's body. Then the power she'd invoked leaped from her flesh into his, and he screeched. His scaly hide split again and again, into a Crosshatch of gashes. Between the cuts, sores opened to seep and fester, and knotted tumors bulged. A milky cataract sealed one blazing golden eye.
The dragon shuddered and took a stumbling step. Tu'ala'keth stabbed him repeatedly with her trident. She suspected that, on the other side of the gigantic creature, Anton was attacking just as relentlessly, doing his utmost to take advantage of Eshcaz's vulnerability.
Then, unbelievably, the red regained control of his ravaged body. A wing snapped down out of nowhere to swat Tu'ala'keth to the ground. Eshcaz poised his head
to seize her in his fangs. She tried to spring back to her feet, but dazed, could only clamber clumsily. It wasn't going to be quick enough.
But the wyrm's head slammed down beside her. His body listed ponderously to the side then toppled. His limbs flailed, feet clawing, tail lashing, but not at any target. After a few moments, the thrashing subsided. He shivered and lay dead.
Tu'ala'keth surmised that as Eshcaz had prepared to strike at her, Anton must have scored a final, fatal blow. She started around the enormous corpse to find the human.
¦©¦¦©•¦©¦-©¦
Anton slumped over, panting, the end of the greatsword resting on the floor. For the moment, he was too exhausted to hold it up.
Cheering sounded from overhead. He looked up at the ledge. His fellow captives had won the fight against the cultists. Good for them. He didn't blame the survivors for declining to climb down to the cavern floor and fight Eshcaz. The Red Knight knew, it was the craziest, stupidest thing he'd ever done, and the fact that he'd somehow prevailed didn't make it any less idiotic.
Tu'ala'keth stalked around the great mound of Eshcaz's carcass to remind him he hadn't prevailed unaided. As was often the case, he couldn't read her expression. Behind her, some of the afflicted ixitxachitls had finally recovered from whatever magical effect had ailed them. Bodies rippling, they glided forward.
He had no idea what to expect of the comrade he'd attempted to murder, or of her allies either. Until now, he and his band had avoided contact with the ixitxachitls. Partly it was because they were afraid
the 'chitls wouldn't be able to distinguish between human captives and human cultists. But it was also because of the 'chitls' reputation as raiders and vampires. Under normal circumstances, they were hostile to mankind.
Still the current situation was far from normal, and he felt an obligation to try to look after his comrades. "My friends," he said, pointing, "fought alongside you, even if you didn't notice. They helped me kill the wearer of purple. I ask that they be allowed to take the cog on the beach and depart in peace."
"The 'chitls," said Tu'ala'keth, "have no use for slaves who cannot live underwater. I expect I can persuade them."
"Thank you." He hesitated. "What about me? Where do I stand?"
"It appears," she said, "that you have resumed your role as Umberlee's champion." A ixitxachitl with blistered hide and a cut above its eyes came flying up beside her. "How, then, can I do anything but accept you as my ally?"
He smiled. "I can think of one or two other things I might do in your place. So thank you again."
"Eshcaz is dead. But it is possible some wyrms and cultists are still holding out. Let us rest for a while then go kill them."
Despite the handicap of broken fingers, Diero had managed to fumble the belt from around his waist, loop it around his stump, pull the makeshift tourniquet tight by clenching the end in his teeth, and stanch the bleeding. It had been the most difficult thing he'd ever done, and now he wondered if it had been a waste of effort.
For a quick death might have been preferable to his current circumstances. The victors had locked him in the bare, stony misery of a slave cell. Tu'ala'keth had used her magic to, in effect, cauterize the end of his mutilated arm. But she'd done nothing to mend his fractured jaw and fingers, and all his injuries throbbed in time with the beating of his heart.
He suspected the pain, severe as it was, would pale in comparison to torments to come.
He needed to escape, which meant he needed his magic. He tried to articulate a simple cantrip, but garbled the words. He strained to crook his swollen fingers into an arcane sign, and that was hopeless, too.
"I respect a man," a bass voice drawled, "who doesn't give up easily."
Startled, Diero jerked around. Anton and Tu'ala'keth stood outside the iron grille, looking in at him. He realized he was so weak from blood loss, shock, and dehydration, so sunk in his own wretchedness, that he hadn't even noticed their arrival. He struggled against an unfamiliar impulse to cringe from them.
Anton recited a charm then swung the rasping door open. "I still haven't found the key to this thing. I'm lucky I never needed it."
Tu'ala'keth approached Diero where he slumped on the granite floor. "I am going to heal your jaw," she said. "If you then attempt to conjure, Anton and I will kill you." She recited a prayer, took his chin in her webbed blue fingers, and gave it a little jerk.
A bolt of agony stabbed through his head. But afterward, his jaw didn't ache as it had before. He worked it gingerly, and it clicked. The bone seemed intact and in its proper place.
"We brought you a drink, too," Anton said. He pulled the cork from a waterskin and held it to Diero's lips. The magician gulped the lukewarm liquid. For a moment all he could think of was how wonderful it felt to slake his thirst.
Anton took the sloshing pigskin bag away. "That's enough for now."
"I know," Diero sighed. He'd watched thirsty men guzzle too quickly and make themselves ill.
"Now," said the spy, "let's take a walk."
Diero felt another jab of fear and struggled to mask it. "Where to? What do you want with me?"
"Explanations," said Tu'ala'keth. She hauled him to
his feet, and they marched him out of the cell, catching and steadying him when, in his weakness, he stumbled.
A miscellany of bodies littered the tunnels. Here and there, ixitxachitls glided and fish-men shambled about but not in great profusion. Diero suspected that after the battle, most of them had returned to the sea, thus conserving the magic that enabled them to function above it.
At one intersection lay the shredded carcass of a fire drake, still radiating warmth hours after its demise. "We only killed some of the wyrms," Anton said. "The rest flew away when they realized the outcome of the battle was in doubt. Not very loyal to their devoted worshipers, are they?"
"No," Diero said. He wished the invaders had killed them all. Had Eshcaz only heeded him, none of this would be happening.
His captors conducted him to the upper levels, where the cult's mages, priests, and artisans had labored to produce dracoliches and where their conquerors had heaped amulets, swords, scrolls, battle-axes, quivers of arrows, vials, wands, and books atop a worktable. The pile seemed almost to glow, to radiate a palpable tingle of arcane force.
Diero recognized many of the items but not all. He inferred that in addition to plundering the shrines, libraries, and conjuring chambers, the invaders had located Eshcaz's hoard wherever it lay hidden deep in the mountain. The bastards were clever, he had to give them that.
"Given time," said Tu'ala'keth, "I could study these articles and learn all about them. But I do not have time, so you will help me. You will tell me what they are, how they work, and how they can best be employed to kill dragons."
Despite repeated efforts to muster his courage,
Diero still felt weak and afraid. But if he hoped to help himself, now was the time. "Why should I?" he replied.
"The rack survived the battle," Anton said. "I checked. Maybe you'd like to find out how it feels to be stretched. Or what life is like without any hands at all."
Diero gave him a level stare. "You can certainly torture me. I'll break eventually. Everybody does. But I'll hold out as long as I can. Perhaps long enough to ruin the shalarin's plans. Or maybe the stress will kill me outright. At present, I'm not strong."
"What do you want?" asked Tu'ala'keth.
"Freedom, once I supply what you need."
"No," Anton said. "Even leaving my personal feelings out of it, my chief would flog me if I agreed to that. But I will offer this: When my fellow captives leave the island, you'll go along as their prisoner. They'll hand you over to the Turmian navy and earn themselves a bounty. They deserve some recompense for their suffering, and the 'chitls won't let them carry away any gold.
"From then on," the spy continued, "my superiors will decide what becomes of you, and they just might spare your life if you cooperate. I've heard it said that one Cult of the Dragon coven knows nothing of the others. That way, no matter what calamity befalls it, it can't betray them. But you're a wearer of purple, and reasonably clever. I suspect you possess some information you shouldn't, and in a season when everyone's frantic to ferret out your conspiracy wherever it hides, you may be able to parlay it into soft treatment."
Diero shook his head. "No. I insist you release me."
"To Baator with that," Anton snapped. "You claim you can last under torture? I doubt it. I doubt you can take much pain at all."
Quick as a striking snake, he grabbed Diero's
broken fingers in his own and bore down hard. The agony dropped the magician to his knees.
"All right!" he sobbed. "All right! We have a bargain."
"Good." Anton shifted his grip to Diero's forearm and dragged him back to his feet. "Drink some more water then tell us what we need to know."
<§>¦¦©¦-©¦¦©¦¦©¦
Anton found Diero a chair. In his weakened condition, the wizard might have fainted if required to remain on his feet much longer.
After that, Tu'ala'keth brought him the enchanted articles one at a time. She didn't permit him to touch them, and Anton hovered behind him with a dagger in hand. In his experience, magicians were always dangerous, even when placed at a disadvantage.
It was difficult to remain vigilant, though, when Diero's explanations were so intriguing, so promising. Some of the weapons possessed virtues enabling them to strike dragons with extraordinary force and precision. Scrolls contained spells to soften their scaly armor, blind them to the presence of their foes, addle their minds, or render the caster impervious to their breath. Shields and coats of mail possessed magics to fortify them against the bite of a wyrm or a swipe of its talons.
"Checkmate's edge," Anton exclaimed at length. "I suppose this is what we were hoping for, but I don't understand it. I thought you cultists served the wyrms. Why did you stockpile arms specifically intended for use against them?"
Diero smiled a crooked smile. "We didn't. Not as such. At its higher levels, the Cult of the Dragon is a fellowship of wizards and priests—which is to say, scholars—who venerate wyrms. When scholars take an interest in a subject, they want to study it and learn
all about it, and one way to study dragons is to examine artifacts that pertain to them. So, over the decades, our cabal assembled an extensive collection of such things—including dragon banes.
"In addition to those," the mage continued, "you have the items from Eshcaz's horde. Before we mages woke him, he slept for so many human generations that most folk have forgotten him. But prior to that, he was the terror of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Armed with the finest gear desperate princes and hierarchs could provide, heroes used to challenge him on a regular basis. Obviously, after he killed them, he added their swords and staves to his treasure."
Anton shook his head to think he'd helped to slay not just a dragon, but a legendary one. It was the kind of thing a paladin in an epic might have done.
But of course he wasn't a paladin, and Tu'ala'keth and the rest of the sea folk had done the bulk of the slaying. He'd just landed a couple of cuts toward the end. With a snort, he resolved to put such fancies out of his head and focus on the matter at hand.
Which was to say, on a prospect that seemed brighter than he'd imagined possible before. He grinned at Tu'ala'keth. "Well, may the gods bless madmen and dragons both for hoarding because this means you've succeeded. You can use the blades and such to save Seros."
The shalarin declined to enthuse along with him. The narrow face behind the inky goggles remained as dour as before. "No. They will be useful, but by themselves, insufficient."
"You're joking. I realize some of the items may not work underwater. But many will."
"You have not have seen the dragon flight. Nor have I, but I have heard it described by survivors. There are dozens of wyrms. If my people are no stand against them, we need something more."
Anton returned his attention to Diero. "Well," he said, "you heard her."
"Yes," the wearer of purple replied, "but I don't know what else to tell you. These are the weapons and talismans that were kept here. You found them all, and now know how to use them. I suppose I could give you some pointers on wyrm anatomy and how they tend to move in combat, but that wouldn't be sufficient either."
Anton placed the edge of his knife against the magician's neck. "If you can't help Tu'ala'keth enough for it to matter, you're not going to make it back to Turmish."
The touch of the blade made Diero stiffen, but when he answered, his voice was steady. "Break your word, slit my throat if you want, but I'm not holding back. Haven't you realized I'm not one of the zealots? I joined the cult to further my ambitions, and I'd gladly betray it to save my life. That's exactly what I have been doing."
"All right," Anton said. "In that case you need to tell us all you can about dragons and everything related to them." He was hoping that maybe, just maybe, the magician actually did possess the key to destroying the dragon flight but simply didn't realize it.
"You understand it'll take a while."
"Then you'd better get started."
As Diero had warned, he talked through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Anton found parts of the discourse—where to strike to cripple a dragon's wing, for example, or what sort of fortifications were of actual use against a gigantic reptile that could fly-fascinating. But once the cultist ventured into genuine esoterica—such as the link between wyrms and various elemental forces of the cosmos—he simply couldn't follow it. His own petty, intuitive knack for sorcery notwithstanding, he lacked the necessary education.
He could only hope Tu'ala'keth would pluck something useful from all the babble.
In the end his mind drifted. When Diero finally said something that tugged at his attention, he didn't even realize for a while, and wasn't certain what he'd truly heard.
"Go back," he said.
"How far?" Diero replied, hoarse again from so much talking.
"You were explaining how to turn dragons into dracoliches."
"Right. The details vary from one stronghold to the next, depending on which deities the priests serve, the particular strengths and conjuring styles of the wizards, and what have you. But in its essentials, the process is always the same. Artisans craft phylacteries, amulets of precious stones and metals, which the spell-casters enchant in a series of rituals. Even I can't recite all the incantations from memory, but you have the texts in that purple-bound volume on the table. Meanwhile, the alchemists and apothecaries distill a special libation in a process just as magical and complex. When both elements are ready, the wyrm can transform. At the climax of a final ceremony, it drinks the elixir. That frees its soul to leap from its body into the medallion, establishing a mystical bond that will safeguard its existence thereafter. Unless someone destroys the phylactery, the dragon can never truly perish. Then, having ensured its immortality, the spirit returns to its body, which rises as one of the undead."
"So what you're telling us," Anton said slowly, "is that basically, the drink is a poison? It kills the wyrms, and that's what 'frees' their spirits?"
"Well... yes. Though we don't usually put it that way. It's difficult enough to win and keep the dragons' trust without bandying words like 'poison' and 'kill' about."
"Despite their heartiness, it slays them every time without fail?"
"Yes. A single drop of it would kill almost anything, but the formula was especially devised to stop a dragon's heart."
"What if a wyrm drank some when there was no ritual going on and no amulet for its spirit to inhabit?
"Why, it would die, pure and simple." Diero smiled like a man who'd begun to believe his captors might permit him to live after all. "Let me anticipate your next questions. Yes, we brewed a supply of the stuff here on Tan, and yes, it's ready for use."
¦©¦ ¦©¦ O-
Supervised by the occasional hovering ixitxachitl, lines of koalinths and locathahs trudged through the stronghold, collecting treasure and carrying it down to the sea caves for transport to Exzethlix. Meanwhile, Tu'ala'keth stood watch over her share of the plunder. She didn't think the 'chitls would try to steal it. Puffed up with the glory of killing dragons, Yzil seemed satisfied with his share. But it was never prudent to underestimate the 'chitls' rapacity or fundamental scorn for any species other than their own.
Footsteps sounded outside the magician's sanctum where she'd collected the dragon-killing gear and, later, the clay jugs containing the poison. It was the brisk, sure stride of an air-breather, not the slapping shuffle of a creature with webbed feet, managing out of water as best it could, and for a moment, she smiled.
Beard shaved and hair chopped short again, Anton appeared in the entrance to the chamber. He carried a sea bag slung over his shoulder, and the greatsword in its scabbard in the other hand. "I came back," he said.
"I see that," she replied.
"I seem," he said, "to have picked up the habit of doing stupid things. Now that the cog is gone, I'll have a bitch of a time getting back to Turmish. That is, unless you help me."
"But you do not wish to return to Turmish. Not yet. You have decided to accompany me."
He smiled wryly. "Yes, and judging from your attitude, you're not surprised. Don't you ever tire of being right?"
"Of late, I have often been mistaken. But not about your role in Umberlee's design."
"Just so you know, I still don't see any 'design.' I simply think we've had a lot of luck. I came back because... well, I'm not sure why. Except that I tried to kill you, and you wound up freeing me and finishing my mission for me. So maybe I owe you."
"You do not. You helped vanquish the cult, and in so doing, atoned for your apostasy. The goddess forgives you."
"But do you?"
"Of course. You are my comrade in a great and holy endeavor."
"If you say so. I admit, after coming this far, I'm curious to see the end of it."
"Then let us proceed. I found some potions that will allow you to breathe under water and also some netting to fashion into bags. We will carry our plunder down to the water, and I will summon seahorses, those we rode before and others, too. Enough to bear us and our possessions away."
CHAPTER 13
A3 Anton had initially suspected, all Myth Nantar lay under a benign enchantment enabling visitors from the world above to breathe, withstand the pressure of the depths, and even see clearly despite the hundreds of feet of water filtering out the sun. Thus, he could discern the preparations for war. Mermen strung enormous nets between the luminous spires and equally massive spurs of corals. Sea-elves shot crossbows at targets, and shalarins jabbed in unison with tridents, as the alliance's raw new army, hastily scraped together to replace the superior one the wyrms had already annihilated, doggedly trained for the struggle to come.
It was the loan of Tu'ala'keth's coral ring, however, that permitted Anton to eavesdrop on passersby as he and the waveservant swam
through the canyonlike streets. He heard variations of the same fearful conversation repeated again and again: "The dragon flight has turned." "The wyrms are headed straight at us." "I'm taking my family out of the city today."
Tu'ala'keth had been correct about the need for haste. As it was, she'd only barely returned in time.
They swam through a plaza where a fountain miraculously spewed yellow flame, noticeably warming the water. Beyond that lay a blue marble temple, with columns shaped like chains of bubbles, and a frieze of a triton adoring the facade. Adjacent to that stood the imposing five-story keep that was the Council House.
Sentries stood watch before the arched entry. According to Tu'ala'keth, the allied races supplied the honor guard on an alternating basis, and today was evidently the locathahs' turn. Advised to expect the waveservant and her companion, the gill-men ushered them inside with a minimum of fuss. It reminded Anton of his own countrymen, who, as citizens of a republic, often took a sort of pride in eschewing aristocratic airs and elaborate ceremony. But he suspected that in this case, the city's desperation had more to do with it.
The council chamber turned out to be a spacious room with an enormous table made fashioned from a dragon-turtle shell at the center. Around it sat the councilors, one for every allied race, another for each of the three orders of Dukars—a sort of highly regarded wizard who could evidently come from any race—and one for an elven High Mage, for a total of ten. Still, the Serosians called it a Council of Twelve, and two chairs sat empty, the first representing an extinct order of Dukars and the second reserved for any god who might care to manifest and address the assembly.
The word chairs was somewhat misleading. Fashioned in different shapes to accommodate the varying
anatomies of the councilors, some resembled cages as much as anything else, and in a realm where everyone floated, each functioned to hold the occupant effortlessly in position at the table at least as much as it did to provide a comfortable resting place for a rump.
A merman functionary announced Anton and Tu'ala'keth. The spy hung back a little as they swam toward the assembly. The councilors were the waveservant's people. Let her do the talking.
The muscular sea-elf representative—Morgan Ildacer, if Anton remembered the name correctly— wore a shirt of sharkskin armor and had brought a barbed lance and crossbow along to the meeting. He was evidently a high-ranking warrior, who, by the look of him, might have just come from drilling the troops under his command. He regarded the newcomers without discernible enthusiasm. "Priestess. Forgive us if we receive you with little courtesy, but we're trying to deal with an emergency. You told our deputies you have a way to help us."
"I do," said Tu'ala'keth. "Umberlee sent me on a mission to find our salvation in the world above the waves and provided a champion to aid me. To put the matter succinctly, we succeeded. If you follow our guidance and use the weapons we procured, you can destroy the dragon flight."
Ri'ola'con, the shalarin councilor, sat up straighter. Gray of skin, with a white mark on his brow and milky stripes on his dorsal fin, he was skinny even for one of Tu'ala'keth's kind, with deep wrinkles etched around his eyes. "Can this be true?" he asked.
"I pray it is." Pharom Ildacer said. Though less overtly athletic, the High Mage bore a familial resemblance to his handsome cousin, but his sympathetic air was in marked contrast to the warrior's brusque and haughty manner. "Please, tell us more."
"In good time," said Tu'ala'keth.
Anton felt a twinge of unease. What did she think she was doing?
"As I explained," said Morgan, "time presses. Speak if you actually have something to say."
"I have a good deal to say," she replied. "Have you wondered why this affliction has come upon us in this season?"
Arina, a youthful-looking mermaid and her people's representative, shrugged bare and comely shoulders. In less serious circumstances, Anton could have spent a stimulating time ogling the upper half of her. "It's just something that happens every couple centuries," she said. "Isn't it?"
"It is," said Tu'ala'keth. "But you would do well to remember that nothing happens without the permission of the gods, and that calamities can embody their displeasure."
Ri'ola'con blinked his round black eyes. "What god have we offended?"
"Do you not know?" Tu'ala'keth said. "Of all those assembled here, you and Tu'ola'sara"—the shalarin Dukar—"are the ones who should. None of the allied peoples honors Umberlee as much as is her due. But some never did, and perhaps considering their lack of reverence beneath her notice, she did not deign to avenge herself. But until recently, the shalarin people did worship her, and now, for the most part, we have turned away. She will not tolerate that affront."
"Nonsense," Morgan snapped. "Any time misfortune strikes, some priest pops up to claim it's because folk failed to heap pearls on his deity's altar. But the world doesn't work like that."
A hideous blend of sailfish, octopus, and crustacean, Vualdia, the morkoth councilor, stirred within her "seat," a lattice of intricately carved bone. "Sometimes it does," she said. Accurately or not, Tu'ala'keth's ring, translating for Anton's benefit,
gave the creature the quavering voice of a cranky old lady accustomed to having her way. "History records a number of instances where the gods chastised cities and whole kingdoms that displeased them."
Morgan sneered. "You're a scholar, so I'll take your word for it. But where's the proof it's happening now?"
"Those of you who profess mystical abilities," Tu'ala'keth replied, "should be able to read the signs. If not, I swear on Umberlee's trident that matters are as I say."
"I trust your oath," Pharom said. "I believe you think you're speaking the truth. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're right."
"Had I been wrong, had Umberlee not prompted me to do as I have done, I surely could not have procured the means of saving Myth Nantar."
"Good," said Nalos of Pumanath, the triton councilor, "now we're circling back around to the point. I don't care why the dragons are attacking. We can argue that later. I care about killing them. Do you truly have a way, waveservant, and if so, what's your price?"
"I have the way," said Tu'ala'keth, "and will give it to you in exchange for a pledge. After we destroy the wyrms, Myth Nantar will hold a festival of thanksgiving to Umberlee. The lords and captains of every allied race will offer at her altar."
"Impossible," Morgan said. "Deep Sashelas is the god of the sea-elves, and supreme above all others. I've never prayed to a lesser deity, and I never will."
"Still," Pharom said, "we know he isn't the only god."
Tu'ala'keth continued as if she hadn't heard either of them. "There is more. For the next year, once every tenday, every shalarin in As'arem and Myth Nantar will pay homage in Umberlee's shrines and temples."
Gaunt Ri'ola'con shook his head. His crest, which had a limp and withered look to it compared to Tu'ala'keth's, flopped about. "We can't tell people which god to worship."
"The Rulers Caste can order them to do anything within reason, and this is within reason. I have not stipulated that they forsake the weak, ridiculous powers to whom they have lately pledged allegiance. They may continue praying to them if they wish. But they must give Umberlee their adoration as well."
"This is outrageous!" Arina exploded. "How can you bargain with us when the survival of everyone and everything is at stake? Seros is your home, too!"
"So it is," said Tu'ala'keth, "and I would grieve to see its people slaughtered and its cities laid to waste. But I have pledged my loyalty to one power, one principle, beside which nothing else matters. I serve Umberlee, and the rest of you who owe her reverence must acknowledge her as well. Or perish beneath the fangs and claws of dragons."
"I know," said Vualdia, tentacles squirming, "some of us are squeamish about torture. But with our survival at issue, perhaps they could put their qualms aside and agree to force this creature to help us."
"If I ask," said Tu'ala'keth, "Umberlee will surely take my soul into her keeping and leave you a lifeless husk to question."
"If I tortured you," said Morgan, "it would be to punish you for impudence, not to extract the secret of Myth Nantar's deliverance. Because you don't have it!" He raked his gaze over his fellow councilors. "Don't you see? It's a trick, a game she can't lose. She'll give us some meaningless blather, and if we wind up defeating the dragons, she'll take the credit. If we lose, and anyone survives to confront her, she'll claim it's because we didn't pray hard enough."
"If you lose," said Tu'ala'keth, "it will be because
Umberlee offered you salvation, and you spurned it."
"If a priest of Deep Sashelas, or any proper, civilized god"—Anton had a hunch that what Morgan actually meant was any patron god of the sea-elves—"made that claim, I might take it seriously. But Umberlee is just a spook for human sailors to dread, because she sinks their boats and drowns them. But what influence can she exert over those of us who dwell in the sea?"
"She is the sea," said Tu'ala'keth. "You live your life in her embrace, and at every moment, only by her sufferance. But we need not argue about her majesty. If you accept my help, its worth will prove my contention. If you refuse, perhaps you will achieve greater insight in the afterlife."
"All right," said Jorunhast, frowning, wisps of his hair and beard wafting in the gentle current drifting through the room. Once the Royal Wizard of Cormyr, now, in his exile, a Dukar, he was human, the only such expatriate on the council. "Let me make sure I understand. You'll hand over whatever weapons you collected, advise us how to use them, and we'll decide whether to employ the strategy you recommend. If we do and emerge victorious, it's then and only then that we all need to abase ourselves at Umberlee's altar. Is that the bargain?"
"Yes," said Tu'ala'keth, "but I will reveal nothing until I have the oath of every member of this council."
"You won't get them," Morgan said.
Pharom frowned at him. "That's not for you to say, cousin. Not by yourself. Not before we deliberate." He turned to Tu'ala'keth. "Would you and your companion please withdraw so we can talk among ourselves?"
Tu'ala'keth inclined her head. "As you wish."
The merman functionary conducted them into a waiting area, where dolphins, carved in bas-relief, swam on creamy marble walls. Anton managed to wait
until the servant left them in privacy, but then could contain himself no longer.
"What in the name of Baator are you doing?" he demanded.
"You heard the discussion."
"Yes, but you didn't warn me you were planning this... extortion. The way you explained it, you'd help your people, and afterward, they'd return to Umberlee out of gratitude."
"Originally," she said, "that was my intent. But I meditated on the journey back from Tan, and the goddess whispered that my simple scheme would not achieve its goal. The common run of folk are blind and heedless. You are a case in point. You are Umberlee's knight and cannot even perceive it. In the aftermath of victory, Seros would rejoice. People might even think me a hero. But if I proclaimed the credit belonged to Umberlee, would the masses heed me? Would they flock back to her temples? I suspect not, and so I must compel them."
"Doesn't it matter to you that they won't be praying out of honest devotion?"
"Aboard Teldar's sailboat, you yourself observed that most folk pay homage to Umberlee only because they feel they must. They never have and never will comprehend her magnificence, and that is all right. She is well content with their dread."
"So really, you're just trying to put things back the way they used to be. All right. I see that." He lowered his voice. "But I need to know: Are you bluffing? If the council refuses your demands, do you mean to help them anyway?"
"No."
"Damn you!"
"You have sometimes thought me mad, and now you suspect it again. Or at least believe me devoid of feeling. But I am not. I can rejoice to behold Umberlee's
face in the burst of blood when predator seizes prey and still not desire to see my entire race slaughtered. If the council denies me, I will withhold the weapons we have found. But otherwise, I will place myself at the disposal of the new army and fight and die with the rest of the soldiers."
He threw up his hands, a gesture that, thanks to the city's pervasive enchantments, he could perform as quickly as if flinging his arms through thin air. "Don't you see how perverse that is?"
"You cannot judge the will of Umberlee by mortal standards."
"They're the only standards I have. I don't hear the Bitch Queen telling me what to do. I've explained that time and again. I'll tell you what I can perceive. Everything in Myth Nantar is strange to me. I see a creature, and I'm not even sure if it's a person or just a fish. I notice workers carrying tools and have no idea what they're for. But I do recognize that this is a splendid city peopled, more or less, with honest folk. Folk as worthy of protection as my own."
"Yes," she said, "they are."
"Well, consider this: I can protect them. I know where you cached the poison and the rest of the loot. I listened to that whoreson Diero explain how to use it all. Why shouldn't / go back into the council chamber and give the representatives what they want?"
"Do as your spirit prompts you. I will not stop you. It is no longer fitting for one of us to compel or constrain the other. We have come too far and achieved too much together."
"Look, if you know I'd do it anyway, doesn't it make sense for you to do it instead? Wouldn't it be better for your standing among your people, and for your goddess's as well?"
"Umberlee does not wish me to take that course, and in any case, I do not actually know what you will
do. Perhaps you do not know yet, either."
With a pang of annoyance, he realized she was right.
He knew he ought to do precisely as he'd threatened. Common sense allowed no other option. Yet he'd come back to Seros to help Tu'ala'keth, not betray her a second time.
Maybe it wasn't really treachery to thwart an addled mind in pursuit of disastrous folly, and she was right, often enough, she did seem crazy to him. He just couldn't see what she saw or feel what she felt.
But sometimes he wondered what it would be like. How it felt to stalk fearlessly about the world, armored in faith and certainty, to steer one's life by absolutes, not pragmatism and compromise.
It's insane, he thought, but I could do it this one time. I could let go of my own notions and trust hers, if I'm willing to live with the consequences.
"Fine," he growled, "I'll keep my mouth shut. Just don't tell me you knew all along how I was going to decide."
"I did not. Umberlee has called us, but nonetheless, we are always free to swim with the current or struggle against it. Now be of good cheer. The councilors are wise after their fashion. They will see reason."
They didn't have to wait long to find out if she was right. Piscine tail flipping up and down, the merman servant arrived only minutes later to conduct them back to his masters.
For the most part, the councilors—those whose expressions Anton could read, anyway—scowled and glowered as if a physician had forced them to swallow vile-tasting medicine. He felt a sudden urge to grin, and made sure he didn't.
"For the record," Pharom said, "this council regards compelling the worship of any deity as a reprehensible practice. It could easily undermine the mutual
tolerance necessary for the six races to live in peace together."
However, Anton thought.
"Yet at the same time," the High Mage continued, "we naturally recognize the existence of all the gods, and understand that over the course of a lifetime, a sensible, pious person may offer to many of them, according to his circumstances. So, waveservant, if you, acting in the name of the Queen of the Depths, can help stave off the dragon flight, then we would deem it appropriate to proclaim a festival of celebration in her honor. As far as obliging the shalarin people to worship her on an ongoing basis, that's an internal matter for As'arem. This council can't command it."
Tu'ala'keth turned to Ri'ola'con. "Then, High Lord," she said, "as eadar, it falls to you to say yes or no on behalf of our folk."
The wrinkled, frail-looking shalarin frowned. "You know very well, Seeker, that As'arem is five realms, not one, and that my authority has its limits."
"Swear to do your utmost to meet Umberlee's requirements, and that will suffice."
In the end, the councilors all vowed in turn, each by his patron god, by one sacred principle or another or simply on his honor, though several offered their oaths with an ill grace. Morgan was the last and surliest of all.
"All right," he said, "enough mummery. Enough stalling. Tell us your secret, and by all the powers we just invoked, it had better be worth the wait."
"Very well." Tu'ala'keth provided a terse account of the weapons they'd seized and what they proposed to do with them. Anton, who rather prided himself on making clear, concise reports to his superiors, appreciated the brevity.
When she finished, the other councilors looked to Morgan. "What do you think, cousin?" Pharom asked.
The warrior scowled and hesitated. Anton could all but see the feelings clashing inside him, resentment of Tu'ala'keth on one side, hope and the need to keep faith with his own martial pride by giving an honest appraisal on the other. "It's... interesting," he said at length.
Tu'ala'keth responded as if this equivocation settled everything. "I noticed you have started preparations to defend the city. That is good, for even if the army readied itself in time to engage the dragons elsewhere, this is the best place to make our stand. The damage will be significant, but we can turn the architecture and reefs to our advantage. I suggest evacuating all those unfit to fight."
"We haven't yet agreed to your plans," Morgan said.
"That's true," Pharom said. "So should we? You're as able and canny a soldier as anyone here, so speak plainly. Are you in favor, or against?"
"Yes," sighed the other sea-elf. "This plan gives us more hope than anything we've thought of hitherto." The truculence came back into his manner. "But only if her liquids and baubles perform as she claims."
"If they do not," said Tu'ala'keth, "I will be among the first to suffer for my stupidity. As it is my scheme, it is only proper that I play a central role in attempting it."
Anton said. "I'll be in the vanguard, too." Nose to snout with more dragons, may the Red Knight stand beside me.
•©•<§>¦ ¦©¦-<§>• ¦©•
Tu'ala'keth watched Anton swim experimentally back and forth and up and down. She understood the reason for it. Though they'd passed beyond the field of helpful magic enveloping Myth Nantar, the Arcane
Caste had, at her behest, supplied him with enchantments that should enable him to function just as well in the open sea. A bone half-mask allowed him both to breathe and to see in what he would otherwise regard as impenetrable gloom. A fire-coral ring warmed him, and eel-skin slippers and gloves enabled him to swim with the speed and agility of a shalarin.
Unfortunately, he hadn't had much time to practice with the latter items before Morgan Ildacer led the company forth. He still felt uncertain of their capabilities. It was natural, but though she maintained her composure, as a waveservant should, his fidgeting was making her restless, too. "You will be fine," she said.
Beneath the mask with its amber lens, carved scales, and gill slits, his mouth quirked into a smile. "Can I take that as a guarantee from Umberlee?"
"Umberlee does not deal in guarantees. It is simply that I have found you to be a quick study."
He gazed right, left, up, straight ahead, then down at the dark, silt-covered slopes of Mount Halaath falling away beneath them. Many of their comrades were similarly peering about and making a point to check in every direction. In open water, an enemy could strike from anywhere.
"I don't see the brutes," Anton said. "It would be funny if they just decided to veer off and go somewhere else entirely. They could, you know. A dragon flight can do any crazy thing."
"Not this one," she said.
"Because Umberlee sent it?"
"I have spoken of pattern precipitating from the randomness of life. As it begins to articulate itself, it either breaks against some form of resistance or increases in implicit strength and complexity, until, if it thrives beyond a certain point, it inevitably fulfills itself. You and I have followed such a pattern. Or we created it. One perspective is as valid as the other."
"So now the dragons have to come."
She smiled. "I think that no matter how many times I explain, you will never truly permit yourself to understand. They do not have to. They can do as they like. But they will."
He stiffened then said, in a softer voice, "Yes, I guess
SO.
She turned and looked upward as he was. At first, she couldn't see forms, just a great burgeoning agitation in the water. That, however, was enough to send a pang of fear stabbing through her, because she comprehended just how many dragons it took to create that seething, onrushing cloudiness.
Many of her comrades were plainly frightened also, staring wide-eyed, shivering, and unconsciously cringing backward. She gripped the drowned man's hand and murmured a prayer. A pulse of clarity and resolution throbbed within her, cleansing much of the anxiety from her mind, and streaming outward to enhance the courage and vigor of every ally within range.
"Steady," she said, "steady. The Queen of the Depths is with us. All our gods are with us." Well, give or take the feeble frauds from the Sea of Corynactis.
Throughout the company, other folk in authority did what they could to maintain morale and order. Priests of every race prayed for good fortune. Magicians—sea-elves, shalarins, and morkoths mostly—prepared to cast spells in as showy a manner as possible, brandishing staves of bone and coral and wands of polished semiprecious stone, leaving fleeting, glimmering trails in the water, tacitly assuring their comrades of their arcane might. Officers talked confidently to common warriors. A squad of tritons lifted their tapals—crystalline weapons with both a point extending beyond the fist and a long blade lying flat against the forearm—and shouted, "Myth
Nantar! Myth Nantar! Myth Nantar!" Other soldiers took up the chant.
Still nothing could take away all the fear. A merman started swimming upward, and his sergeant bellowed at him to get back into position.
"They're above us," the soldier pleaded. "We'll be caught between them and the mountain below."
"They're where we want them!" the sergeant snarled. "Get a grip, and remember the plan!"
A locathah dropped its crossbow, whirled, and started swimming away. Its captain put a quarrel in its spine then rounded on its gaping comrades. "Anybody else want to turn tail?" the leader demanded. If so, the others kept it to themselves.
Now Tu'ala'keth could make out shapes ... or at least the suggestion of them. Prodigious wings beat, hauling wyrms through the water almost as fast as they could fly through the sky. The flippers of the dragon turtles stroked, and the tails of the colossal eels lashed, accomplishing the same purpose. On Tu'ala'keth's right, a shalarin started making a low, moaning sound, probably without realizing he was doing it.
"This is it," came Morgan's cool, clipped voice, magically augmented so everyone in the company could hear. "Start the attacks."
He meant the order for those spellcasters who, either by dint of exceptional innate power or formidable magical weapons, had some hope of smiting the wyrms even at long range. Thanks to a scroll from Eshcaz's hoard, now sealed in a yellowish transparent membrane to keep the sea from ruining it, Tu'ala'keth fell into the latter category.
She read a trigger phrase and felt the magic pounce from the page, supposedly to rip at a cluster of the onrushing wyrms, though at such a distance, she couldn't tell if it was cutting them up to any significant
degree. It certainly didn't kill any of them or even slow them down.
Other spells began to strike in the dragons' midst, swirls of darkness and blasts of jagged ice. Those didn't balk them either.
A jittery koalinth discharged its crossbow, and the dart lost momentum and sank only halfway to its targets. Tentacles writhing in agitation, the creature's morkoth master screamed for it and its fellow slave warriors to "Wait, curse you, wait!"
More magical attacks exploded into being among the dragons, close enough now that most of the spell-casters could assail them in one fashion or another. The barrage still didn't slow the reptiles down. Indeed no matter how intently she peered, Tu'ala'keth could see only superficial cuts, punctures, and abrasions marring their scaly hides. It was almost as if the allied priests and mages were merely treating them to a harmless display of flickering light and dancing shadow.
But perhaps they'd done a bit more harm, or at least caused a little more annoyance, than that. For now the wyrms retaliated in kind.
Aquatic dragons commonly lacked the sorcerous talents of their kindred on land. As a rule, it was only the species that thrived in either environment who cast spells beneath the waves. Some such—blacks and at least one topaz—had joined the dragon flight, but Tu'ala'keth had hoped that by now, their madness might have rendered them incapable of using arcane talents.
Alas, that was not the case. Water became acid, searing the flesh of the thrashing sea-elves caught amid the transformation, diffusing outward to blister the skin and sting the eyes of other warriors. Black tentacles writhed from a central point to batter and clutch at a dozen mermen. The morkoth who'd snagged
Tu'ala'keth's attention a moment before wailed, froze into position, and turned into a thing of translucent glass sinking downward toward the mountaintop. Its koalinth thralls exchanged wild-eyed looks as if silently asking one another what to do now.
"Hold!" called Morgan's disembodied voice. "Hold fast. Bowmen, the enemy's in range. Start shooting!"
"About time," Anton muttered. Feet kicking lazily, he'd been floating with his crossbow already shouldered. Now he pulled the trigger, and though he hadn't had much time to practice shooting under water either, the dart streaked forth to pierce the silvery scales of a dragon eel just above its black, deep-set eye. He instantly worked the lever to cock the weapon again.
Countless quarrels hurtled at the oncoming dragons. For their part, the wizards and priests switched to a new set of spells. Tu'ala'keth read another trigger, and a colossal squid coalesced into being in front of the wyrms. Her comrades materialized enormous creatures akin to whales, sharks, octopuses, eels, and jellyfish, counterparts to mundane animals drawn from spirit realms or elementals like those she and Yzil had battled. The conjured servants surged forward to engage the reptiles. Meanwhile, other mages evoked sudden booms among the dragons to stun them and pain their sensitive ears, or sweeping their hands to and fro, wove hanging patterns of multicolored light to arrest a wyrm's gaze and hold the creature stupefied.
The allies hoped this magic, even if it ultimately did little damage, would slow the dragons' advance, giving the crossbowmen time to shoot them repeatedly. It did, for a few heartbeats, and one by one, the reptiles started breaking through whatever barriers, living or inanimate, tangible, phantasmal, or psychic, the spellcasters had placed in their way. A sleek, glimmering, silver-blue water drake caught Tu'ala'keth's squid in its fangs and snapped and raked it to shreds.
A black with a withered, cadaverous countenance snarled a counterspell to thrust an elemental back to its native level of existence. Glittering like the jewel for which it was named, its eyes blank yellow flame as bright as Eshcaz's, the topaz simply stared at a priest of Deep Sashelas who'd attempted to shackle its will. The sea-elf screamed, convulsed, and clutched at his head. Blood billowed from his nostrils.
Abruptly, or so it seemed, on the far left flank of the company, a dragon turtle was much too close. It opened its beak and spewed its breath weapon. Water boiled to steam, and the mermen caught in the effect boiled with it. Furious with bloodlust, not hunger, the huge creature didn't pause to gobble its victims. Rather, flippers lashing, it rushed forward to attack new ones.
Coral-headed spear in hand, other sea-elf warriors swimming frantically to join him, Morgan set himself in the dragon turtle's way. The imminent threat didn't keep him from giving further orders in the same crisp fashion as before.
"It's time to fall back. Remember the route you're supposed to take, and wait for a mage to enchant you before you retreat."
Tu'ala'keth belatedly realized the morkoth wizard had been the nearest conjuror to her and Anton, and it now lay on the slopes of Mount Halaath in the form of a glass statue. She cast about and spied a sea-elf warlock not too far away. She pointed, and Anton followed as she swam in that direction.
Others were racing there as well, sometimes shoving their comrades aside in their haste. The company had held its position as well as anyone could have expected, but now, with the dragons nearly on top of it, many warriors were on the verge of panic.
In fact, in their eagerness to converge on the magician, they threatened to crush him. A shrill edge of
fear in his voice, he cried, "Give me some space! I can't conjure if I can't move my arms!"
Tu'ala'keth gripped the drowned man's hand and invoked a surge of Umberlee's majesty. It granted her a moment of mastery over her fellow sea-dwellers, and when she shouted for them to calm themselves, they heeded her.
"Thank you," said the wizard, understanding she'd helped him even if he didn't comprehend precisely how. He swept a scrap of vegetable matter through a mystic pattern and rattled off words of power.
Tu'ala'keth's muscles twitched and jerked. Other folk cried out as the magic jolted them. After the initial shock, she felt no different. But when she looked at those among her allies who were still awaiting enchantment, or at the dragons, they seemed to move sluggishly. In actuality, she knew, the reverse was true. The spell accelerated the reactions of those it touched.
"That's done," Anton said, sliding another quarrel into the groove atop his crossbow. "Now let's get out of here."
"Yes," she said
As if it were the signal for everyone clustered around the warlock, the spherical mass of bodies burst into a ragged, streaming mass. Everyone swam downward and southeast, toward Myth Nantar and the plateau on which it sat, as fast as their magically quickened limbs could speed them along.
The spellcasters still had a responsibility to slow the pursuing drakes. Otherwise, the reptiles might overtake and slaughter everyone, the charm of acceleration notwithstanding.
So Tu'ala'keth turned periodically to release another spell from her parchment, to summon a demon to assault the dragons, or plunge an area into darkness and hinder the reptiles about to pass through it.
Whenever she did, she felt a surge of awe at the spectacle of the onrushing wyrms. They dwarfed the allies as sharks dwarfed minnows, loomed above and extended to either side of the company like a titanic wall of glaring eyes, bared fangs, and curved talons. They were as terrible and beautiful as her vision of the Blood Sea, and she realized that even if this venture cost her her life, it was worth it simply to behold them.
Whenever she wheeled to work magic, Anton turned, shot another bolt from the crossbow, and cursed to see wyrms slaughtering folk who hadn't fled quickly enough. Another burst of dragon-turtle breath—Tu'ala'keth wondered fleetingly if this was the same creature Morgan had engaged, if the councilor was now dead—boiled locathahs so that lumps and strands of flesh slid loose from their bones. A sea dragon spread its gigantic jaws and swallowed two shalarins at once.
Then Anton shouted, "Watch out!"
Tu'ala'keth cast about and couldn't find the threat.
"Below us!" Anton cried.
She looked down. Somehow, a shimmering water drake had been able to swim fast enough to overtake the rearguard but hadn't been content simply to tear into the folk at the very back. Instead, it had dived beneath the fleeing company then ascended in the obvious hope of taking someone entirely by surprise.
It had nearly succeeded. Its jaws spread wide to seize Tu'ala'keth, and she doubted she even had time to evoke more magic from the scroll's ever-dwindling supply. Instead she extended her trident at the creature's head and asked Umberlee for a burst of spiritual force sufficient to cow any sea creature, even a drake.
The power flared, but the wyrm simply failed to heed it. Its essence was too strong. It swiped a forefoot and knocked the trident out of line. She tried to twist
out of the way of its jaws and, when it arched its body to compensate, realized that wouldn't help her either.
Anton dived at the drake, the point of Umberlee's greatsword poised to pierce it like a spear. He'd considered trading it for one of the weapons specially designed for slaying wyrms, but in the end, had opted to stick with the blade that had served him well against Eshcaz. Behind the amber lenses, his eyes burned with the contagious fury of the sword. Or perhaps it was simply his own innate determination.
The dark blade plunged deep into the reptile's head. Flailing, it couldn't follow through on its intention to bite, and Tu'ala'keth wrenched herself away from its teeth.
She hoped the drake would die, for surely the greatsword had driven in deep enough to reach the brain. It didn't, though. It roared and whipped around to threaten Anton. Its wing, slightly torn where someone had managed to hurt it a little, swatted her tumbling away.
She refused to let the bruising impact stun her and oriented on the wyrm once more. The greatsword was still sticking out of its mask. Anton had lost his grip on it when the creature turned. Now unarmed except for the pitiful dagger in his hand and the unloaded crossbow dangling from his wrist, he dodged and retreated as the reptile clawed at him. If not for the spell of quickness, it likely would have torn him to shreds already. As it was, it was plain that, bereft of any weapon that could deter the drake from attacking with every iota of its demented aggression, he couldn't survive much longer.
She hastily peered at the scroll. Two spells left. She triggered the first.
Water surged, churned, and spun around the drake. Caught by surprise, engulfed in a miniature maelstrom, even a creature of prodigious strength had
difficultly swimming in the direction it intended to go, and as it floundered, Anton kicked and shot beyond its reach.
The drake flailed, trying to break free of the bubble of turbulence. Tu'ala'keth unleashed the final spell. A ragged blot of shadow appeared before her then shattered into flat, flapping shapes like mantas. Untroubled by the violent, erratic currents, the apparitions whirled around the dragon. It was impossible to see how they attacked it, if, in fact, they made physical contact at all. But gashes ripped the reptile's hide, and a hind leg, a foreleg, and half the tail sheared away completely. Head nearly severed, wings shredded, the drake drifted toward the bottom in a billowing cloud of blood.
Anton dived after it, gripped the hilt of the greatsword, planted his feet on the wyrm's head, and pulled the weapon free. By the time he managed that, most of their comrades had fled past, leaving him and Tu'ala'keth at the rear of the throng.
Tail lashing, a dragon eel streaked at them. A vertical plane of azure force abruptly appeared in its way, and it slammed into the obstruction beak-first. Amid the chaos, Tu'ala'keth couldn't tell who'd conjured the effect, but it stopped the creature for a critical moment.
She and Anton raced onward with the great frantic horde of their fellows. People slowed abruptly as their charms of quickness exhausted their power. Time would tell which ones had seized enough of a lead to keep ahead of the wyrms.
It would have been easy for anyone to break away. The officers were too busy trying to save their own lives to interfere with anybody who did, and with scores of potential victims to pursue, the wyrms might well not veer away to pick off a single stray.
But as far as Tu'ala'keth could judge, most of the
company were keeping to the plan. A plan, she realized, that now required her and Anton to bear left. She turned, and others began to do the same, their courses crisscrossing as each headed where he'd been ordered to go.
The soft luminescence of Myth Nantar flowered before and below her. Muscles burning with strain, she put on a final burst of speed, passed among the first of the coral-girded spires, then dared to turn and look back.
Most members of the advance force—or what was left of it—had already entered the city via one of several avenues, and diving lower than the rooftops, the wyrms were splitting up to chase them down the same thoroughfares. It was as the allies had hoped. In normal circumstances, dragons were cunning, but addled by the Rage, infuriated by the harassment they'd already suffered and the frustration of prey fleeing just beyond their reach, the reptiles either didn't realize or didn't care that their foes were luring them into a trap.
Of course, it was possible they didn't need to care. Their power might well prevail against every ruse and tactic Myth Nantar had prepared.
But Tu'ala'keth refused to believe it. Not after she and Anton had come so far and achieved so much. The Bitch Queen had no mercy, nor concern for fairness as mortals understood it, but still the pattern would not complete itself in such a bitter fashion.
She and the human swam onward, past dozens of their exhausted, frightened comrades rushing to get indoors, to the keep that was supposed to be their particular refuge. They hurried through an entry on the third story, an opening blessedly too small for even the least of the wyrms to negotiate, and the shalarin warriors waiting on the other side gaped at them.
"What's happening?" an officer asked.
Somewhere outside a dragon roared.
"That noise pretty much says it," Anton gasped, slumping with exhaustion. "We drew the dragons into town. Now you go kill them."
¦©¦¦©¦ ¦©¦
Anton watched as the shalarins made their last-second preparations for combat. Most were soldiers of the Protectors Caste, with bony spines stiffening their dorsal fins rigid as the crest on a human knight's steel helm. But they had spellcasters to support them.
Across the city other squads drawn from all six allied races were no doubt doing exactly the same thing, and Anton silently wished them luck. It was their fight now. He and his comrades had done their job by luring the dragons down the proper streets in the proper heedless state of mind.
But maybe he didn't want to hold back while others finished the battle. It was strange, really. As a spy, he'd rarely been present when the Turmian fleet or army, acting on intelligence he'd provided, eliminated a threat to the republic, and he'd rarely cared. But this time, for whatever reason, he wanted in at the kill.
The greatsword rejoiced at his witless impulse, at a new opportunity for bloodshed. Calm down, he told it sourly, meanwhile casting about for Tu'ala'keth.
Clasping her skeletal pendant, the waveservant was murmuring a prayer. At the conclusion, she shivered, rolled her narrow shoulders as if working stiffness out, then took a firmer grip on her trident.
He swam to her. "What did you just do?" he asked.
"I suppressed my fatigue," she said, "making myself fit to fight once more."
"Cast the same charm on me, will you? If you've got another."
She flashed him one of her rare smiles. "I do. I expected you would want it."
The spell stung like a hundred hornets, and he grunted at the blaze of pain. It lasted only an instant, though, and afterward, he felt as though hed rested for a day.
Tu'ala'keth made her way to one of the warriors bearing a satchel. "I will take that," she said, indicating the bag.
The Protector eyed her uncertainly. "I volunteered," he said.
"Your bravery does you credit," she said, "but unless you have experience fighting dragons, I am better suited to the task."
"All right. If you put it that way." He handed her the bag just as a roar from the street outside agitated the water and shook the walls of the keep itself.
Anton hurried to a window. Beyond was a dragon turtle, its spiky shell nearly broad enough to fill the canyonlike avenue. Its beaked head twisted from side to side, and its eyes glared as it sought the elusive prey who'd fled inside the buildings to either side.
Quarrels flew from windows and doorways. Anton shouldered his own crossbow and started shooting. Many of the missiles glanced harmlessly off the reptile's shell or scales, but some lodged in its hide. Meanwhile, the magicians threw darts of light and raked the beast with blasts of shadow. Blood tinged the water around its body.
The reptile pivoted toward one of the larger entry-ways across the street, a circular opening midway up a marble wall. Anton prayed that everyone inside recognized the danger, that they were already bolting deeper into the structure. But even if so, many wouldn't get clear in time.
With a screech like the wail of a god's teakettle, the dragon turtle vomited its breath weapon, boiling the
water in front of it. Framed in the windows to either side of the entry way, shalarins convulsed then floated lifeless.
But other defenders endured elsewhere, to shoot darts and fling attack spells, and it would take the reptile's breath time to replenish itself. Maybe, despite its derangement, it now began to understand it was at a disadvantage. With a stroke of its flippers, it shot a few yards farther down the street then halted as it evidently perceived it couldn't escape in that direction. Myth Nantar was a city half buried in reef, and like many of its byways, this particular street terminated in an upsweep of coral.
The dragon turtle wheeled just as, rippling with rainbows, a curtain of conjured force abruptly blocked the other end of the avenue. The leviathan angled its body upward, preparing to ascend, but a gigantic net, the magically toughened cables thick as a strong man's thigh, now covered the street like a lid on a pot to complete the killing box. A team of warriors had stretched it across while the reptile was looking elsewhere.
Even so, it swam upward. Maybe it had wit enough to realize the net was the least substantial component of its cage. Its prodigious beak could likely nip through, or failing that, its raw strength and immensity could probably tear the mesh loose from its moorings.
Though not entirely unexpected, the dragon turtle's sound judgment was the allies' misfortune. They'd hoped to harry it from the relative safety of the buildings for a while longer, hurt it a little more, anyway, before anyone ventured out into the open. But they couldn't permit it to breach the netting and maneuver freely. So officers shouted the command to go forth, and Anton, Tu'ala'keth, and dozens of others obeyed.
Some of the warriors bellowed war cries to attract the reptile's attention. Anton yelled, "Turmish!" The dragon turtle peered downward then, trailing billows
of blood, dived at the foes who had at last dared to come within its reach.
Midway through its plunge, it spat more of its breath. Some of the shalarins recognized the threat, but nobody managed to dodge. Everyone caught in the path of the blast boiled and died amid the burst of bubbles. By pure luck, Anton was safely to the side, but even he had to grit his teeth at a brush of scalding heat.
The dragon turtle hurtled down into the midst of its foes. The crested head at the end of the long neck swiv-eled left then right, biting a shalarin to fragments at the end of each arc. The elongated flippers bore talons like the feet of a land-born wyrm, and they clawed with equally devastating effect, tearing warriors to tatters and clouds of gore.
How could anything so gigantic maneuver so quickly? The confines of the street were supposed to hamper it!
It spun toward Anton, its beak gaping. He started to dodge, and a jagged block of ice materialized in the creature's open mouth. Finally, one of the wizards had balked the creature in its furious assault. It flailed in shock and pain.
Anton kicked, shot into the distance, and cut at the reptile. The greatsword bit deep into the side of its beak. Maybe a mage had succeeded in cursing it with one of the enchantments devised to soften a wyrm's scales, for other warriors, likewise taking advantage of the behemoth's sudden incapacitation, were also piercing its natural armor.
Unfortunately, its incapacitation lasted only a moment. Then it bit down hard, and the ice jammed in its mouth crunched to pieces. Its head whirled toward Anton, and he wrenched himself out of the way.
More ice! he silently implored—it worked for a second—or, if not that, some other magic to hinder the brute.
But it didn't happen. The warlocks were still trying. Power glimmered on the dragon turtle's shell, and leering, lopsided faces formed and dissolved amid the swirls of blood in the water. Yet now, for whatever reason, the spells simply failed to bite.
So it was up to the warriors. Anton cut, dodged, slashed, feinted low and kicked high. When he'd battled Eshcaz, he'd tried to stay on the red's flank, away from his deadliest natural weapons. But now he couldn't even do that, because it would be futile to hack at the shell. A combatant had to hover within easy reach of a dragon turtle's head and flippers, trusting to his reflexes to save him from its attacks, because there was nowhere else to hit it.
Anton lost another comrade every couple of heartbeats. He wondered how many were left—with his attention fixed on the reptile, it was impossible to count—and if anyone else would have the nerve to come forth to engage the creature once it had torn the first squad to drifting crumbs of fish food. Then he spotted Tu'ala'keth swimming up from below the behemoth's jaws.
He'd lost track of her early on. But he'd known that if she still lived, she was skulking around the periphery of the battle, seeking a chance to slip in close to the dragon turtle's beak while it was concentrating on other foes, because that was what the plan required her to do.
A couple of other shalarins, also carrying satchels, should have been attempting the same thing, but he still saw no sign of them. Maybe they hadn't been quick or stealthy enough to escape the reptile's attention.
If so, then Tu'ala'keth absolutely had to have her chance. He opened himself fully to the greatsword's malice, kicked forward, and attacked furiously.
The dark blade sliced deep, once just missing an eye. The dragon turtle snarled, and the gaping beak
shot forward at the end of the long scaly neck.
Tu'ala'keth hurtled up from below it, a crystalline bulb in her hand. Unused to working with liquids requiring containment, the artisans and spellcasters of Myth Nantar had experienced a certain amount of trouble transferring the cult's poison into those silvery, translucent orbs, but had finally managed to devise a method.
Tu'ala'keth lobbed the ball into the dragon turtle's open mouth. Necessitating close proximity, the move was insanely dangerous, but at least it brought the virulent stuff to the target. Had they simply released the poison in a cloud, it might well have diffused to harmlessness without slaying a wyrm, or drifted unpredictably to kill the wrong victim. If they'd dipped an arrowhead or blade in it, the sea would simply have washed it off.
Anton couldn't tell for certain—the angle was wrong—but assumed the ball shattered as soon as it entered the dragon's mouth. That was what Pharom, Jorunhast, and their fellow mages had enchanted the orbs to do. Tu'ala'keth instantly whirled, kicked, and stroked in the opposite direction, less afraid now of attracting the wyrm's notice than of poison reaching her gills or mouth.
Her desperate haste didn't matter. The dragon turtle still didn't notice her, but neither did it react to the poison. Flippers stroking, it kept on lunging and snapping at Anton, twisting its neck to compensate when he zigzagged in a futile effort to shake it off his tail.
He kicked high, cut downward, and finally tore an eye in its socket. He'd have that little victory to cherish in Warrior's Rest, anyway. But he didn't expect it to stop the leviathan, and sure enough, it didn't. The creature's throat swelled, and the water abruptly grew warmer as it prepared to loose another burst of its
breath. He had scant hope of evading it when he was right in front of its head.
From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Tu'ala'keth, trident poised, swimming in to fight beside him. He waved her off, but she kept coming, pig-headed to the last.
Then the dragon turtle shuddered. It tried to spit its breath, but now evidently lacked the strength, for no blast engulfed them. Rather, the heat simply boiled the water around its own head and directly above it; the rising bubbles like flame leaping up from a torch.
In the wake of those, a cloud of blood and slime erupted from the reptile's gullet, as if something had ripped and corrupted its flesh from the inside. Anton shrank from the miasma, not because he feared it would hurt him, but simply repelled by the foulness. Tu'ala'keth did the same.
The dragon turtle drifted toward the bottom. For a moment, the spectacle of such a colossus brought to ruin held everyone awestruck. Then a crossbowman in an upper-story window cheered. An instant later, everyone was doing it.
Tu'ala'keth turned to Anton. "The poison," she said, "simply takes a moment to do its work."
"Evidently," he wheezed. It seemed unfair that he was always the only one gasping and panting. But she had gills instead of lungs; exertion didn't affect her the same way.
"If we swim above the rooftops," she said, "we should be able to see how Myth Nantar as a whole is faring."
"Good idea."
They peered about before completing the ascent, making sure no wyrm was lurking nearby. Once they determined it was safe, it was easy enough to squirm through the interstices of the net. Its weavers had fashioned it to hold dragons, not creatures as small as themselves.
Gazing down on the city from above, they beheld battle raging on every side. The screeching, roaring clamor stung the ears. Drifting blood clouded everything, the taste and smell of it vaguely sickening. Spires had fallen and spurs of reef shattered where dragons had torn them apart in their frenzy. Everywhere, bodies sank slowly, or already lay on the bottom, and as Anton contemplated them, he felt a swell of elation. For while too many of the corpses were mermen, locathahs, allies of one species or another, several were immense.
"It's working," he said. "The poison, the strategy, all of it."
"Praise be to the Queen of the Depths," replied Tu'ala'keth.
A yellow shimmer at the edge of his vision snagged Anton's attention. As he twisted his head, it flickered into two shimmers.
Slender and black, covered with luminous mosaics of purple and golden wyrms winging over a benighted sea, Jorunhast's tower constituted one wall of a dragon trap. In it, he and his comrades had snared the topaz.
Judging by the gouges on the decorations, the topaz had been trying to claw and batter its way into the human magician's spire, either to slaughter those assailing it from within or simply to crash on out the other side. Thus far, the structure had withstood the abuse. Now, however, a pair of identical topazes swam before it, wings beating, yellow eyes burning. By dint of enchantment or some innate ability, the dragon had duplicated itself.
Ignoring the crossbow bolts streaking from neighboring structures and the swimmers swirling about them jabbing with their spears, the twin wyrms launched themselves at the tower and, striking together, tore an enormous hole. The folk inside, many Dukars with the coral bonded to their bones
now manifest as ridges of external armor or blades sprouting from their hands, quailed from the oncoming wyrms then flailed and thrashed as some unseen power overwhelmed them.
But one figure floated calm and untroubled. Despite the distance, Anton could just tell that it was Jorunhast, strands of his hair and beard tossing in the agitated water. He held out a crystalline bulb in either hand, as if casually proffering them to friends, and they vanished.
The display made the topazes pause for a heartbeat, maddened though they were. Anton assumed they couldn't understand the purpose of such a petty, pointless conjuring trick.
They found out when pain ripped through them, and they, too, flailed in helpless spasms. The exiled wizard had magically transported the poison into their throats.
Tu'ala'keth nodded. "We are going to win. But there are many dragons left. The sooner they die, the less harm they will cause. Shall we rejoin the battle?"
Anton grinned. "Why not?"
Yhe festival of thanksgiving proved to be as solemn an observance as any cleric might have wished, and it seemed to Anton that for the most part, Myth Nantar offered at the Bitch Queen's altars willingly enough. Even Morgan Ildacer wasn't overtly grudging.
After the prayers and sacrifices, however, solemnity gave way to jubilation, and the human enjoyed that a good deal more, especially since he didn't lack for companionship It turned out that a good many folk regarded him as a hero even if they were vague on precisely how he'd helped Tu'ala'keth procure the poison and other weapons that had saved the city. His well-wishers gave him morsels of spiced shrimp and candied sea urchin as intoxicating as any brandy, and sea-elf ladies and mermaids—the latter coping superbly
despite the obvious handicaps—tendered more intimate rewards.
But eventually even such exotic delights lost a bit of their savor. Maybe it was because he craved the sight of the sky and the touch of the sun or heard duty whispering it was past time to report to his superiors, but in any case he felt in his gut it was time to go.
Fortunately, nobody had asked for the bone mask back. He'd mastered the tricks of riding a seahorse, and he knew where Tu'ala'keth kept her animals when not in use. He could leave whenever he liked. He threw himself into a final night of revelry then swam into Umberlee's house early the following morning.
The sanctuary positively glittered with new offerings—so many that the vast majority had to sit on the floor. But that wouldn't do for his purposes. He cleared a space on the largest and most sacred of the altars then laid the greatsword down. Wordless thought surged into his mind, reminding him how brilliantly he fought with the blade in his grasp and what ecstasy it was to kill with it, pleading with him to reconsider. Then he took his hand away, and the psychic voice fell silent.
"Are you sure?" asked Tu'ala'keth.
He turned to see her floating in a doorway. In her own shrine, her own home, she had no need of silver-weave or a trident, but the drowned man's hand hung on her breast as always.
"Yes," he said. "I'll never have a better sword, but I'm not myself when I use it. I'm worried that eventually I wouldn't be me even when it was in the scabbard."
"You might be something greater. If you wished, you could remain here, continue to bear the blade in Umberlee's service... but I see that is not what you desire."
"No. I'm sorry, but I never felt what you feel. Not once." If it wasn't quite true, it was certainly true enough.
"I know, and you have Umberlee's blessing to depart. But if you are leaving her service, you may not wear her badge. Allow me." She swam to him, murmured a prayer, and stroked his forearm with her fingertip. His all-but-forgotten octopus tattoo, inscribed when they'd first reached Dragon Isle, vanished in a flash of burning pain.
He rubbed his smarting skin. "If you'd asked, I could have erased it, and it wouldn't have stung."
"My apologies," she said, though he almost thought he heard a hint of laughter in her voice. "What will you do now? Will you stop being a spy as you have ceased serving Umberlee? Be your own man in every respect?"
He shrugged. "I'm going to have to think about it. In many ways, I'm sick of spying. But bringing down those whoresons on Tan, helping at least some of the captives to freedom, was... satisfying. Maybe I'm not finished quite yet.
"I don't need to ask what you'll do," he continued. "Your destiny is clear. You'll go down in the annals as the greatest priestess Seros has ever seen."
"You speak as if my work is done."
"Well, the hard part. Isn't it?"
"I have won a year, during which the shalarin people must pray at Umberlee's altars and listen to me preach whether they want to or not. It remains to be seen whether they will continue when the time expires. I suppose it depends on my eloquence. On whether I can show them the goddess as I know her to be, or failing that, at least persuade them of her limitless might and appetite for slaughtering those who neglect her worship."
"You'll manage it."
"I pray so. At least I have my chance. No one can ask more."
"Well...." He had the witless feeling, which often
came to him at partings, that he ought to say more but didn't know what. At length he settled for: "We fought well. Better than well. Checkmate's edge, we're dragon slayers! How many folk can claim that?"
She smiled. "All the warriors in Myth Nantar now but perhaps not with as much justification." Then, to his utter astonishment, she opened her long blue spindly arms for a parting embrace. He took care returning it so as not to crush the fin running down her spine.
Queen of the Depths

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