The Ruin

by Richard Lee Byers

  Ahead lay a sizable room with a high, arched ceiling. A pair of wyrms, or wyrm-like things, crouched there motionless. They were small compared to true dragons, but still huge compared to men, or, Brandobaris knew, a halfling, and they were more or less barring the way to the doorway in the far wall. Somewhere beyond that opening, light seethed and flickered, first red, then green, then violet, changing color from one heartbeat to the next.

  “They aren’t moving,” said Jivex, hovering near Taegan, “and I don’t smell them, or hear them breathing. Maybe they’re dead.”

  “I suspect not,” the avariel said. “My guess is that if the guardians are living creatures, the elves—or, conceivably, Sammaster—made them proof against the depredations of time by placing them in a state of hibernation. If they’re automatons of some sort, they’ve no need to move around at times when nothing threatens their charge. But either way, they’re likely to rouse as soon as we approach too near. Do you concur, Master Firefingers?”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “So let’s not ‘approach.’ Instead, I’ll teleport the lot of us right past them.”

  “Onto that narrow strip of floor between them and the lights?” asked Darvin, frowning.

  “Since we don’t know what lies beyond it, and thus have nothing better to aim for, yes.”

  “What if—”

  “The only way to make sure we don’t misstep,” said Scattercloak, “is never to move at all. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Darvin sighed. “I suppose.”

  “Then everyone gather close,” said Firefingers.

  He recited an incantation, and the vista in front of Will, dragon shapes included, seemed to leap at him. Then it all disintegrated into dots and blobs of light, streaking past and harmlessly through him. Then, as abruptly as it had lurched and fallen to pieces, the world remade itself, and the mysterious doorway—filled with blue radiance—yawned before him.

  That close, he could feel that the flickering, inconstant light embodied a fundamental wrongness, like the unholiness infusing a pyroclastic’s breath or Brimstone’s very essence. It made his eyes smart, and his guts cramp. Yet he still stepped closer.

  Pavel grabbed him by the shoulder. “Don’t go in there, cretin. Or rather, come to think of it, do.”

  “Get your filthy paw off me,” said Will, pushing his comrade’s hand away. “I can feel it’s dangerous, but after hunting for it all these months, I’m at least going to take a look at it before the counterspell blasts it to bits, or whatever it’s going to do.”

  Apparently, everyone felt the same, for all ten of them moved forward, crowding together, leaning sideways, and craning to peer through the opening. Jivex clung upside down to the lintel to look over the heads of his larger companions.

  The vault beyond the threshold was as spacious as its antechamber. The builders had inlaid an intricate pentacle in gold on the black marble floor, and used truesilver and gems to create an image of the night sky on the walls and ceiling. An enormous ruby with a streaming carnelian tail represented the King-Killer, the comet that, in times past, had served as the harbinger of the Rage.

  But jewels and a mithral moon weren’t the only things on the walls. Bright, fist-sized holes that Will had learned to recognize as portals pocked the ebon surfaces at irregular intervals. From the miniature gates blazed flares of power, the source of the noisome, ever-changing light shining through the door. The ragged, luminous tendrils arced and whipped back and forth, burning through one section of the room, then another, but always terminating at the same point: a black amulet floating above the very center of the pentagram with a loop of chain dangling below.

  “Glories of the dawn,” Pavel breathed, “now I know how Sammaster did it.”

  “Whereas I,” Taegan said, “am primarily interested in seeing you wise folk undo it. So, if you wouldn’t mind—”

  Something scraped on stone. The seekers spun around, to see that the wyrm-things in the antechamber were turning, too.

  Dorn watched as Tamarand blasted a chaos dragon with his fiery breath. The flame withered the hell wyrm’s wings, and it plummeted. Tamarand turned as if he meant to dive after it. But then a howling dragon hurtled down at him, and he lashed his wings and twisted himself around to meet that threat instead.

  The chaos dragon dropped halfway down the sky, then managed to spread its blackened, shriveled wings. Maybe, despite all the holes Tamarand had burned through them, they served to slow its fall. The wyrm still smashed down hard, but then rolled to its feet and rushed foes on the ground: Raryn, Baerimel, and Jannatha.

  Fast as he was able—and it didn’t feel fast at all—Dorn ran to help them.

  Baerimel and Jannatha shot chunks of ice and darts of light from their wands into the dragon’s squirming, ever-changing countenance. Raryn threw his harpoon into the reptile’s shoulder.

  The chaos dragons’s scales turned green where Tamarand hadn’t charred them a permanent suppurating black, and hornlets sprouted over the eyes. It cocked back its head and spat poisonous vapor.

  Raryn and the temple mages tried to scramble out of the way. Most likely, they all had defensive wards in place. Yet they still doubled over coughing, and the chaos dragon pounced and landed right in front of them.

  For the moment, the sisters were helpless, and Dorn was still too far away. His ruddy face blistered, blue eyes bloodshot and streaming tears, Raryn straightened up, gripped his ice-axe, and attacked the chaos wyrm so savagely that it had little choice but to focus its attention on him while Jannatha and Baerimel stumbled away from it.

  Raryn chopped into its forefoot. It raised the wounded leg, the scales rippling back and forth between red and blue, and stamped. The dwarf sidestepped out from underneath and hacked at the limb again. The drake lurched off balance, and he struck it a third time, like a woodsman striving to fell a tree.

  But the leg wouldn’t give way. The wyrm pivoted, bit, clawed, and Raryn jumped away. The chaos dragon lunged after him and drove him back.

  Bellowing a war cry, Dorn raced into the distance and struck at the creature’s flank. His sword plunged deep into a raw spot where Tamarand had burned away the scaly hide. The chaos dragon faltered, then whirled in his direction.

  He jumped back. Sidestepped when the wyrm clawed at him. Cut, and dodged once more, fighting his own trained habits every step of the way.

  He couldn’t lead with the iron arm. It wasn’t there anymore. He had to keep the sword in front, to threaten the drake and to parry.

  Nor could he plant himself in front of the creature, trusting his armor to protect him. That wasn’t there anymore, either. He had to fight like Raryn and the others: Hit the wyrm when it was striking at somebody else, and do everything possible to protect himself whenever it paid attention to him.

  Maybe it was because Raryn fought superbly. Or because the chaos dragon was already hurt. But somehow, working together, the hunters both stayed alive and cut the reptile up a little more. Until one of the sisters—with his eyes on the wyrm, Dorn didn’t see who—conjured a deafening shriek that tore most of the flesh from creature’s skull and the top half of its neck. It flopped over onto its side to kick and flail in its death throes.

  Raryn trotted around the corpse to Dorn. “Are you planning to go on fighting?” asked the dwarf.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ve got something for you.” Raryn took hold of Dorn’s wrist and rattled off an incantation. For a moment, a scent of earth and greenery filled the air, and power tingled up the human’s arm. Afterwards, he felt more agile, and more certain of his balance.

  “Now let’s kill dragons,” Raryn said.

  Havarlan watched in fury and grief as, one by one, Sammaster ripped and smashed her silvers out of the air. It was quite possibly the end of the Talons of Justice. She hadn’t led all her followers into this terrible place, but she’d brought the best of them, the heart of the fellowship, and already the majority lay crumpled and dead on the ground.

  She call
ed out to Brimstone, who was gliding nearby. “You know the lich,” she said. “How do we counter this magic? How do we reach him?”

  “I don’t know,” the vampire said. “Perhaps if we fetch Nexus—”

  “We can’t! We’ve pulled too many warriors out of the fight with the hell drakes already. Look at the sky! What do you think would happen if either he or Tamarand withdrew?”

  Sammaster conjured a dozen shadow-shapes like disembodied jaws. They shot at Azhaq, swarmed on him like angry bees, and sank their needle fangs into his scales. He roared in pain, and the lich laughed.

  No more, thought Havarlan, no more of this, and she knew what she was going to attempt. She lashed her wings and flew straight at Sammaster.

  She’d already discerned that concentric spheres of protection surrounded his perch. As she hurtled through the first one, pain stabbed down the length of her body from her nose to the tip of her tail.

  Refusing to let it balk her, not bothering to look and see how deeply the ward had slashed her, she streaked onward. Into the second barrier.

  This time, the agony pierced all the way into the core of her. Blood surged up in her throat, and her left eye went blind. Her heart juddered, and worst of all, something broke or sheared apart inside the linkage of bone and muscle controlling her pinions. They locked up, and she fell. She roared, spitting gore and bits of broken tooth, strained to shift them, and finally they flapped and bore her onward.

  At the third barrier. Which she dreaded as she’d never dreaded anything before. But she was the Barb of the Talons of Justice, and duty demanded she plunge on through.

  It was like being on fire, outside and in. Like becoming a being that didn’t merely suffer anguish, but purely and simply was anguish. If she was still beating her pinions, she couldn’t tell it. The sensation was lost in all-consuming pain. But maybe she was, for something—sheer momentum, conceivably—flung her at the skull-faced lich in his window.

  He goggled in sudden realization of what was about to happen. Opened his mouth full of chipped and rotting teeth, no doubt to jabber a spell. But before he could, she crashed into the top of the tower like a boulder flung from a catapult.

  The impact shattered Sammaster’s perch and knocked him backward. He and Havarlan fell to the ground outside the castle wall amid a rain of broken stone, splintered timber, and roofing tiles.

  The world faded, then jumped back into clarity. Evidently Havarlan had only lost consciousness for a moment, because everything was still the same. Sammaster was just drawing himself to his feet.

  He planted himself in front of her and glared up into her face. “Die!” he snarled.

  Fresh pain stabbed through her chest. She tried to claw at the lich, but her leg wouldn’t move.

  She took what solace she could from knowing that she’d dislodged Sammaster from his web of defenses. Perhaps her comrades could handle him from here. They’d have to, for her spasming heart gave a final lurch, then stopped.

  Taegan realized he and his companions were trapped between the onrushing guardians on one side and the vault containing the heart of the Rage—where, he gathered, it was death to enter—on the other. He wondered if Darvin would take a moment to observe that he’d tried to warn them all that something like this could happen.

  But the man in white didn’t. Instead, like the other priests and wizards, he jabbered an incantation. Flares of booming flame, crackling lightning, and other manifestations of mystic power leaped forth to hammer the guardians.

  Or rather, simply to illuminate forms made of sculpted stone and cast iron. As Taegan had suspected, they were automatons like the construct of bone he’d encountered previously, and as far as he could tell, the magic of several of the Moonsea’s greatest warlocks had damaged them not a jot.

  “Warriors, forward!” he shouted, and lunged at the iron golem, which radiated heat like an oven. The point of Rilitar’s sword pierced its snout, and, smoke fuming from its molded nostrils, the animated statue struck at him like a serpent. He dodged and cut at its throat, but his blade bounced off.

  Jivex swooped over the iron guardian and raked with his claws, striking sparks. Will darted under its belly and stabbed with his hornblade. Pavel scrambled onto its flank and pounded it with the glowing head of its mace. Meanwhile, Sureene, Celedon, and Drigor assaulted the other construct. All the weapons clanging on stone and metal raised a hideous din.

  “We’ll hold the things!” Taegan bellowed. “You wizards, stop the Rage!”

  Scattercloak started chanting, and a moment later, Darvin did the same. Since they weren’t reciting in unison, the words jumbled together in a confusing, echoing way.

  Taegan hoped the counterspell was brief. He and his comrades were fighting hard, desperately, but to little apparent effect. Even enchanted weapons glanced off creatures of iron and stone as often as not, and generally just scratched or chipped them the rest of the time. While the living statues riposted with all the speed and strength of actual dragons.

  Taegan dodged raking claws, slashed at his opponent’s extended leg, and glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. The golem’s head was whipping around at the end of its long neck to strike at him. He jumped back, avoiding the attack, and his opponent lunged after him. He retreated, resisting the impulse to use his wings and leave the constructs a clear path to Darvin and Scattercloak. The golem attacked faster, then faster still. It spread its wings so that he couldn’t dodge past it even if he wanted to. Jivex landed on its head, bit and raked, but failed to distract it. Taegan felt a grim certainty that it was about to punch through his defense—

  A flare of frost splashed across one of the golem’s outstretched pinions. Taegan’s muscles clenched at the sudden chill, but since the attack hadn’t engulfed him, took no actual harm. The living statue, however, abruptly started moving slower than before. It was easier to evade its strikes, and cut and batter it in its turn.

  Perhaps it realized as much, in whatever passed for its mind, for it attempted a different mode of attack, rearing, cocking its head back and spreading its jaws. Taegan poised himself to dodge. But Firefingers rattled off words of power, and when the flare of breath weapon exploded from the statue’s mouth, the flame hooked upward to splash against the ceiling.

  “Nice trick!” said Will. He darted under the statue’s belly and stabbed. Gripping his glowing mace in both hands, Pavel bashed dents in its side.

  “Get clear when I give the word,” Firefingers said. He declaimed another incantation. “Now!”

  The fighters scurried backward, and the golems lunged after them. But then, crashing and rumbling, the floor—and the ground beneath it, evidently—shattered into fragments beneath the statues’ claws, and they floundered down into a pit of rubble like animals in quicksand.

  Taegan grinned. Realizing the golems were more or less impervious to his magic, Firefingers had instead employed it to deny them a stable surface on which to stand. It was a clever tactic.

  Scattercloak and Darvin’s voices grew louder. More insistent. They’d finally reached the concluding syllables of the counterspell. Taegan turned back toward the source of the Rage to see what would happen next.

  As far as he could tell, nothing. The flares of power kept on leaping from the wounds in the walls to the pendant floating in the center, exactly the same as before.

  “I don’t feel any different,” said Jivex, hovering. “The craziness is still inside my head.”

  “That,” spat Darvin, “is because our countermagic doesn’t work! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it to Baator!”

  The chunks of stone at the top of the pit crunched, groaned, and shifted as the golems started to dig their way up from the bottom.

  Tamarand caught an updraft, gained the high air, and dived at his foe. The wounded rust dragon tried to dodge, but he compensated and plunged his talons into its neck. They sheared through muscle and smashed vertebrae, all but beheading the creature. He released the convulsing body and let it fall.

 
Momentarily free of threats to his person, Tamarand then looked around to monitor the progress of the battle as a whole. Just in time to see Sammaster strike Havarlan dead.

  Tamarand refused to feel shock or grief. Such emotions were for later, should he survive. For the time being, what mattered, the only thing a war leader could allow to matter, was that the silver had dislodged Sammaster from his prepared defenses.

  The question was, how best to take advantage of the opening, and essentially, the answer was another impossible choice. Tamarand scarcely dared divert any more of his strength from the clash with the hell wyrms, but neither could he ignore the lich.

  So, rattling off commands in his magically augmented voice, the gold divided his strength once more. The folk on the ground, and some of the metallics in the air, would assault Sammaster. Everyone else would strive to keep the otherworldly drakes from coming to their master’s aid.

  At least if they pushed Sammaster hard enough, he wouldn’t be able to direct his troops anymore. Praying it would make a difference, wishing it were wise, invincible Lareth and not just a traitorous lieutenant in command of this desperate venture, Tamarand wheeled to attack a trio of howling dragons.

  Sammaster took a moment to savor Havarlan’s death throes, then turned and saw the other foes rushing to surround him, charging across the ground or swooping down from the sky. Brimstone. Azhaq. The song dragon. The two pretty sisters with their wands. The white-haired dwarf in his polar bear-fur armor, and even the maimed half-golem, still fighting despite the loss of an arm and the near-destruction of his leg.

  It was the nightmare moment Sammaster could never escape. All he wanted, all he’d ever wanted, was to fulfill his destiny and create a better world. Yet time and again, a host of jealous, spiteful wretches rose up against him, to tear down whatever he tried to build. To defeat and humiliate him. To do like rats in a pack what none of them had the honor, courage, or prowess to attempt alone.