“Magical snares seeded through the mountains.”
The burly, white-bearded scout returned his attention to the lichen. His knife scritched against the stone. “Then it’s good there’s at least a little something to eat. I spotted bistort and coltsfoot, too.”
Such provender may sustain you and the others for a time, Brimstone thought. But when my thirst becomes too keen to bear, the only things I’ll have to eat are you.
13-16 Uktar, the Year of Rogue Dragons
In Sossal, corpses weren’t hard to find. The slain lay where they’d fallen, buried only by the premature snows. But even so, Zethrindor’s instincts led him to seek out an old cemetery, where sunken graves crumbled in on themselves, and weathered markers listed, a place given over by ritual and custom to the dominion of death.
He waited for the moon to set, then, hissing and murmuring incantations, used a talon to inscribe pentacles and sigils, some in the frozen earth, others on granite headstones and the facades of mausoleums. Several of the monuments, hallowed in the name of one beneficent power or another, couldn’t bear the desecration without cracking or crumbling.
Gradually the night grew even colder, though, paradoxically, the graves began to smell more strongly of decay. Neither manifestation bothered him.
He snarled a final invocation, and something—the underlying structure of the world, perhaps, on which seas, plains, and mountains lay like paint on a canvas—moaned in protest. The patch of ground before him spun and churned like a whirlpool. A hollow formed at the center, and a horror oozed and clambered out of it into the open air. Essentially, it was shapeless, though Zethrindor could make out forms within the squirming central mass: a femur, skulls, a tarnished brass coffin handle, worms, and a length of stained and filthy winding sheet.
The thing peered back at him with several rudimentary eyes made of earth, mold, and scraps of rotten wood. “I wondered,” it said, in a slow, slurred voice, “when you would next summon me.”
“I name you G’holoq,” Zethrindor said, “and I bind you by the staff, the crown, and the hexagon.”
G’holoq laughed a muddy laugh, intensifying the ambient stench of rot, and a marker sculpted in the shape of the Earthmother, crowned with roses and holding a sheaf of grain, flowed and deformed like a melting candle. “Such caution between old friends! When did I ever attempt to deny you?”
“Never,” Zethrindor said, “because I always constrained you properly.”
“Ah, but then you were a mere wyrm. Now you’re an omnipotent dracolich, predestined lord of a goodly portion of Faerûn. How, then, would a humble spirit like me dare to defy you, whether you performed the ceremony properly or not?”
Zethrindor bared his fangs. “Continue to mock me and I’ll show you how powerful I’ve become.”
“No need. I watched your final spat with Iyraclea. Very impressive. Have you wondered, though, what the Frostmaiden thinks of you, now that you’ve killed her special servant?”
“I don’t care. The time of the gods is over.”
“Is it, indeed? I can’t image why you bother fishing oracles out of graveyards when you’re already privy to such extraordinary secrets.”
“With the staff,” Zethrindor said, “I strike you.”
G’holoq’s amorphous body burst into blue flame. The demon writhed and howled until the dragon willed the blaze to go out.
“I warned you,” Zethrindor said. “I’m not in the mood for your japes.”
“So I see,” G’holoq croaked. “Ask your three questions, then, and we’ll be free of the annoyance of one another’s company.”
“The portal in the Novularonds. Where did it lead?”
“I don’t know.”
“By the crown, I rule you.”
The blue flame burned brighter, and didn’t just sear G’holoq’s surface. It devoured portions of the demon’s body entirely. When Zethrindor extinguished it, G’holoq lay in several chunks, which sluggishly extended feelers toward one another and seeped back into a single mass.
“I’ve already invoked the staff and the crown,” the dragon said. “If we proceed to the hexagon, you’ll burn until my own existence comes to an end, and that, I assure you, means forever.”
“I can’t answer if I don’t know the answer! A wizard as powerful as Sammaster can conceal his designs even from entities like me.”
“Then we’ll turn to matters of more immediate concern. I’m having difficulty locating what remains of the Sossrim army.”
“Despite all your sorcery, and all your flying scouts flapping hither and yon? It’s all but impossible to imagine.”
That, too, sounded like mockery, and Zethrindor felt tempted to punish G’holoq yet again. Unfortunately, though, he had, in his impatience, already run through the lesser, finite chastisements. Satisfaction would come at the cost of terminating the interview, and deprive him of the opportunity to make use of the demon in times to come.
“The surviving druids are powerful,” he gritted, “and this is their country. They know every inch of it, and have a special bond with it.”
“Also,” G’holoq said, “the snows Auril sent to help the Ice Queen are, understandably, no friends to Iyraclea’s slayer. They baffle the eyes of your observers, and likewise hinder your divinations.”
“Well, for your sake, let’s hope they won’t hinder you. Where are the Sossrim forces?”
“I’ll show you.” The patch of ground in front of G’holoq heaved and twisted, configuring itself into a three-dimensional map of Sossal. Several squares of green phosphorescence appeared on hills and in valleys. Presumably, the larger the luminous rectangle, the bigger the band of soldiers.
“Good,” Zethrindor said. “Now, where are they heading, or, if they aren’t moving yet, where do they intend to go?”
The fiend responded by willing glowing bluish trails into being. They all converged on a single point. The Sossrim were on the verge of uniting into one force.
But they hadn’t done it yet. At the moment, each of the companies was vulnerable. Zethrindor poised a claw above the representation of the largest. “I’ll wager Madislak Pemsk is traveling with this force.”
“I’ve already answered three questions.”
The white spat a puff of frost. “And need answer no more. My course is obvious. If my army marches immediately, I can intercept the biggest Sossrim company here, before it links up with the others. With luck, I’ll take it by surprise; I’ll overwhelm it with superior numbers in any case. Then it will be easy to pick off the rest.”
He wouldn’t even need his fellow wyrms anymore, and that was just as well. They were growing restless, eager to abandon the war and undergo their own transformations into dracoliches before madness overtook them. Well, after they helped him win a final, decisive victory, they were welcome to depart. It would mean that much more plunder for their chieftain.
“It should work,” G’holoq said. “I see no reason why it wouldn’t. Milord … if you do become one of the kings of Faerûn, remember me kindly. If I’ve ever spoken to you scornfully, it’s only because it’s my nature. In the end, I’ve always served you well.”
Zethrindor sneered. “If you were prudent, you’d be hoping I’ll forget you.” He turned, unfurled his pinions, and leaped into the air.
The smoke stung Taegan’s eyes, and considering what a niggardly little fire Raryn had built—fuel was all but nonexistent, and they didn’t dare produce an excess of light in any case, for fear of attracting the Tarterians’ attention—that hardly seemed fair. How could a blaze that scarcely warmed a person even when he was sitting right beside it foul the air throughout the entire cave?
Brimstone crouched peering into the flames and whispering. Kara and Raryn watched intently, even though Taegan assumed that, like himself, they’d pretty much abandoned hope of the smoke drake’s trick ever working. Brimstone had attempted it several times already, and sure enough, eventually he scowled and shifted his smoldering gaze away from the fire.
Kara sighed. Despite meager food and the constant chill, her cuts were healing quickly, thanks to her draconic vitality and Raryn’s healing charms. But she seemed strained and dispirited even so.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You spoke to me when we were hundreds of miles apart. Firefingers surely has a flame burning somewhere close at hand—”
“Our current location is warded,” Brimstone whispered. “You know that perfectly well, so why are you prattling?”
“I—” For an instant, anger blazed in her amethyst eyes, and a blue tinge washed across her skin, but then she mastered herself. “You’re right. I didn’t mean to criticize. I’m simply frustrated.”
Raryn, who’d set his broad, ruddy hand on his axe when the two dragons began to quarrel, casually moved it away again. “As are we all. But even if we managed to contact Thentia, who’s to say it would do any good? We couldn’t tell the mages where we are, because we don’t know ourselves.”
Taegan grinned. “If that’s your idea of providing solace, your technique needs work.”
Kara stood up and adjusted the folds of her mantle. “It’s time to go.”
“I don’t know about that,” Raryn said. “My hunch is that the Tarterians are still stirred up from their brush with Brimstone. We could give them another day to settle down. The less active and alert they are, the safer we’ll be wandering around in the open.”
The bard smiled a twisted smile. “Trust me, my friend, you don’t want to spend two more days just sitting cooped up in a hole with me. Not … not in my present humor.”
Raryn shrugged his massive shoulders. “I trust you, singer, now and tomorrow, in a cave or anyplace else. But for that same reason, I’ll follow your lead.”
“Whereas I,” said Taegan, “have always followed where beauty led, and never regretted it yet. Well, give or take a few disgruntled husbands.”
“It’s time to be quiet,” Brimstone said. He led his companions to the mouth of the cave.
Outside, it was night. As Taegan had discovered, the far north, at the time of year, the nights were absurdly long and the days, ridiculously short. It was one of the many unpleasant peculiarities of the place, albeit one for which eldritch sorcery bore no responsibility.
At least it made it marginally safer to sneak around. Dragons could see well in the dark, but not as far as they could by day. Or at least that was the way it worked with earthly drakes. It hadn’t bolstered Taegan’s morale to learn that Brimstone and Kara weren’t entirely certain the same was true of wyrms hailing from the netherworld.
Raryn took the lead, prowling several yards ahead of his companions. In theory, he’d spot any danger first. But after a while, Kara, in a low but urgent voice, called to him to stop and back up. The hunter retreated a few steps, and a reddish shimmer danced through the air as another vestige of ancient magic manifested. It nauseated Taegan to look at it, and though it didn’t throw off any perceptible heat, stones on the ground beneath it cracked apart, or melted and bubbled into liquid.
The display ended after a few heartbeats, but the seekers still swung wide around that particular spot. Then they crept onward, while disembodied voices whispered, and the landscape periodically seemed to alter, though afterward, Taegan could never say exactly how it had changed. He picked his way through bones—avariel bones, as often as not—and the cold wind moaned and plucked at his garments. Those things, at least, didn’t change.
Something vast—vague as mist, but projecting a terrifying sense of power and malice nonetheless—floated upward from the ground on the procession’s right flank. As it spread its bat-like wings and opened its reptilian jaws, Taegan realized it had actually oozed through and risen out of the earth. It was a ghost dragon they’d seen before, taking advantage of its insubstantial nature to sneak up on them.
Until then, the seekers had only observed the wraith stalking around one particular area in the northern part of the valley, a spot well removed from their present course. They hadn’t expected to encounter it here, and it looked as if that miscalculation might cost them dearly.
Taegan raised Rilitar’s blade, unfurled his pinions, and rattled off the first line of a defensive charm. Swelling from woman into drake, Kara started singing a spell of her own. Raryn lifted his axe.
“No!” Brimstone snarled. “Don’t attack it!” With a bound and a snap of his charcoal-colored wings, he interposed himself between his companions and the ghost.
For what seemed a long while, he and the specter simply stared into one another’s eyes. Then the ghost turned and crawled away.
“Nicely done,” Raryn said. “I take it that one undead recognizes another.”
“Tonight it did,” Brimstone whispered. “Its mind is faded and broken, and I can’t vouch for what it might do in the future. Let’s hope we can avoid it from now on.”
Kara dwindled back into human form.
They wanted to get inside the castle as quickly as possible, to make sure the Tarterians wouldn’t spot them. Still, as they drew near, Taegan had to pause for a heartbeat or two to marvel at the place. Towering and massive as it was, the stronghold simultaneously, paradoxically, gave an impression of exquisite grace surpassing the loveliest temple in Lyrabar. He supposed the builders’ mastery of proportion was responsible.
“The ancient wizards raised this place for a fell purpose,” he said, “in desperate times, in the most remote, inhospitable place they could reach. Yet it’s beautiful.”
Kara smiled. “Your people,” she said, “rarely build anything that isn’t.”
Brimstone spoke a word of power. The immense gates at the end of the barbican groaned open, and behind them, a rattling portcullis rose. The tunnel-like passageway into the castle lay open before them. The vampire stalked to the threshold, took a look around, then stepped inside.
He vanished.
Taegan rounded on Kara. “What just happened?” he asked. “Did he blunder into another maze trap?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Not exactly.”
“Then what did happen?”
“I’ll try to find out.” She crooned spells, and power tingled over Taegan’s skin. He and Raryn looked around, watching for Tarterians and other menaces.
A dark, winged shape wheeled and set down in front of them. Taegan felt a jolt of alarm, then perceived that the wyrm’s eyes shined crimson, not green, and that it smelled of burning.
He lowered his sword. “I trust that wasn’t your idea of a jest,” he said. “Otherwise, your timing is exceptionally poor.”
Brimstone showed his misshapen fangs. “I ran afoul of another ward. Fortunately, not a lethal one. A single stride carried me beyond the far wall of the citadel, as if it, and the ground it sits on, don’t truly exist.”
“Someone twisted space,” Kara said.
“Who,” Taegan asked, “the builders, or Sammaster? I ask because it occurs to me that a barrier erected by elves might not keep out an avariel.”
“A reasonable conjecture,” Brimstone whispered. “But I suspect it was Sammaster. I recognize the taste of his power.”
“Whoever did it,” Raryn said, still watching their surroundings instead of his companions, “maybe he only put the enchantment on the doors. The three of you can fly over walls.”
Taegan grinned. “Astutely reasoned. I’ll find out.” He lashed his wings and took to the air.
As he rose toward the pale, crumbling battlements, he felt horribly exposed, but exhilarated, too. It felt good to fly after days spent creeping on the ground. It would have felt even better with Jivex for company, and he wondered if the faerie dragon was still alive.
He climbed high enough to look over the ramparts, at towers and keeps, some collapsing, others not, and the bones of those who’d perished inside the fortress. He raced forward—
Nothing lay before him but desolate snowy ground and the mountains beyond. He had to turn around to see the castle. It didn’t have any major entrances on that side, jus
t a sally-port or two.
He recited his spell of translocation. The magic discharged itself over his body in a stinging, sparking crackle, but failed to shift him inside the fortress as he’d commanded.
He cursed and flew over the merlons on that side. An instant later, the long, protruding structure that was the barbican lay beneath him.
As he descended, Brimstone, then dissolved into billowing smoke, flowed into the mouth of the gateway. From his vantage point, Taegan couldn’t see what happened, but from Kara and Raryn’s subsequent failure to exhibit any excitement, he was able to surmise. The vampire hadn’t been able to enter the citadel in cloud form, either.
At least, like Taegan, he’d realized he could use the ward to return to his starting point quickly. Solid flesh and bone once more, he reappeared just moments later.
“It looks to me,” Raryn said, “as if there’s only one way we’re getting in. You sorcerers will have to use your own magic to knock down the ward.”
Brimstone spat sulfurous smoke. “Pit our power against Sammaster’s.”
The dwarf shrugged. “It’s two of you against one of him.”
“The notion,” Taegan said, “also appears to be the only arrow left in the bag.”
“They’re right,” Kara said. “We have to try.”
“Of course,” Brimstone growled. “But no ordinary counterspell will do the job. We’ll need to prepare the ground …”
The two drakes embarked on a technical discussion that Taegan simply couldn’t follow. He put himself back on watch, but it was Raryn who abruptly whispered, “Everyone, be quiet! Get under cover!”
Taegan, the dwarf, and Kara scurried into the shadow of a mound of rocks. Brimstone was too large to conceal himself there or anyplace else close at hand, but he scrambled back inside the barbican and disappeared.
A Tarterian screeched its mournful screech as it glided overhead, and along with the usual dread, Taegan felt a surge of frustration and futility. Because he and his companions were fools. Kara and Brimstone were discussing a ritual that sounded as if it would take a long while, and the Tarterians were bound to come and check on the fortress before the ceremony could reach a successful conclusion.
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