by Jean Rabe
Dhamon decided he would hang this favorite sword above the mantel in his favorite house, wear it into town on certain days, wield it against any who caught his eye with a challenging glance. He vowed this particular sword was one prize he would never sell. There were plenty of other pieces of treasure that he also didn’t intend to part with: some fine pieces of armor and an impressive shield edged in platinum and bearing the visage of Reorx the Forge. There was that nightbird statue that Ragh thought was magical and a pair of exquisite throwing daggers.
It was going to be hard to decide what to sell and what to keep.
“Ragh,” Dhamon mused. He would keep the daggers for the sivak, and probably give him a few sacks of steel pieces too. Nothing too. valuable or too extravagant, he thought, but the sivak deserved something for all his help building this hoard.
Dhamon made a slashing gesture with the sword and watched the blade gleam and flash in the light… the light of what? Where was that light coming from?
He spun, looking for the source and seeing moisture glint off the walls of his lair. What was that unaccustomed smell? He should be smelling the swamp, rotting plants and stagnant water, overripe blooms and dank earth, but he didn’t smell anything, not even his own glorious sweat. Neither could he hear anything, all of a sudden. He listened hard for the usual sound of leaves shushing outside, the omnipresent trickling of water—everywhere there was water in the swamp. He couldn’t even hear the clicking of his boot heels against the stones of the cave. He froze, holding his breath, concentrating. Then, faintly, he could hear a gentle thrumming, regular at the beginning, then growing softer and erratic.
“Oh, it’s my heart,” Dhamon realized. He felt his heartbeat slow down, the thrumming difficult even to detect now. “I must be dreaming. I’m dying.”
Feril’s nervous fingers fluttered over the scales on Dhamon’s legs. Dead? He couldn’t be dead, she told herself. Impossible. A dragon as ferocious, as beautiful as this one, could not have been felled by mere goblins—not even by a limitless army of them, yet no question about it, Dhamon wasn’t breathing.
Nothing was breathing within her line of sight. There must have been nearly two hundred dead goblins spread across the clearing and into the woods, all smashed, broken, skewered, or otherwise killed by Dhamon, yet Dhamon was dead.
“How could he be dead?” Feril fought back tears. The scent of the dead dragon was intense, and coupled with the stench from the dead goblins and all the blood, it was overwhelming. “To lose Dhamon again. This can’t happen.”
Perhaps it was the Lake of Death, she thought. Maybe even though Dhamon had been part of her shadow when she was in the lake, the cold and the touch of the undead had so weakened him that the goblins were able to conquer him in the end.
“You can’t be dead.” Her lips brushed the top of his claw. “How could…”
Several small goblin spears were wedged between scales on Dhamon’s claw, and in the light of the moon she saw that something other than blood glistened from those wounds. Feril felt the substance with her fingers. It was dark and oily, smelling like decaying plants.
“Poison!” She felt a stab of realization, of deep pain. “The vile creatures poisoned you!” She spat on the oil on her fingers and wiped them off thoroughly on the grass. Then she spat on her fingers again and again, wiping them furiously on her tunic. The pain persisted but spread no farther, and she clenched and unclenched her fist as she climbed onto Dhamon’s snout and put her ear to a cavernous nostril. Her heart leaped. There was the faintest hint of emission, he breathed only very slightly, and she cursed herself for being a fool and thinking him dead. She splayed her hands wide on the ridge of his snout.
“Dhamon, I pray I have not dallied too long to save you.” Once again the magical spark blossomed inside of her, grew warm and moved down her arms until her fingers felt hot too, then the ache in her hand vanished. “I’m not a healer like Goldmoon and Jasper were. I don’t have their strength of healing magic.” She did have certain curative powers, and she’d called upon them several times when she was in the company of Dhamon and the others years ago. She’d cultivated that power in the years away from him, helping wounded refugees.
Refugees on the island of Cristyne who were ill, starving, some with broken limbs, she had always done what she could for them, and though she mourned the ones who were beyond her help, she had tried to learn from her mistakes. Once, long ago, Feril had aided wolves on Southern Ergoth that had eaten contaminated meat left by herders. She remembered the healing she had used on that occasion, summoning the memory of one favorite wolf she had saved. She’d coaxed his heart stronger, and she tried to do that with Dhamon now. She imagined his heart, huge and muscular. The energy flowed from her fingers and into his snout. Her mind pushed the energy down his neck and into his chest. As the Kagonesti worked, she bent her ear and listened for signs that her tactic might be successful.
“Be stronger, Dhamon Grimwulf. Stay with me.”
At first she heard only her own heart beating, the faint rustling of a soft breeze teasing the trees, the buzz of insects being drawn to the goblin bodies. For a moment, she thought she heard a man talking, an unfamiliar voice coming from the trees behind her. Then it was gone, and she heard Dhamon’s faint heart beat.
“Take my strength, draw from it,” she breathed, pushing the energy, augmenting it, and breathing in time with Dhamon. Now there was more force in each breath he took, and she could sense his heart slowly growing stronger.
At length Dhamon gave a loud snort, and after long minutes his eyes eased open. Feril turned so she could look into them, straddling his snout, fingers still splayed and working their spell. She gazed at her reflection in his dark eyes. She searched for the poison, finally sensing it, dark, oily, and potent, deep down.
“The poison’s strong, Dhamon. You need to be stronger than death.”
Feril pictured the poison, as real and as threatening an enemy as the Knights of Neraka she had stalked in this forest, and like the knights she’d hung by the trees as punishment, she would vanquish this menace. Her arcane energy continued to pulse into Dhamon, and after nearly an hour it gradually diluted the poison until it was no longer a serious threat. Her skin was slick with sweat from the exertion, the slight breeze doing little to soothe her. She was exhausted.
“You’ll be all right now, Dhamon.” She pushed herself off him and slid down, collapsing when her feet touched the grass. “I’m so weak.” She was careful not to have taken any of the poison into herself, as surely anything strong enough to fell a dragon would certainly kill her. Perhaps they’d used it on the sivak.
Where was Ragh? Looking around, she remembered— oh, over there.
She dragged herself up and staggered across the goblin bodies, falling more than once and coming up slick with blood. Feril finally reached the sivak—out of responsibility to Dhamon, who had been his friend, she should at least bury the strange creature. Peering at him now, she realized the draconian wasn’t dead, not yet anyway. He stared up at her, his mouth working. Surprised to find him alive, she bent over him so she could understand what he was saying.
“They had poison, the goblins did.” His voice was unusually soft and forced. “Took me unawares, the poison. Is Dhamon…”
“Unwell, but he will survive. It was indeed a virulent poison. And you? You don’t look very healthy…”
The branches of the white oak towering above them were thick, and not much moonlight was filtering down. Feril could see the many wounds lacing the sivak’s chest, the goblin spears holding his limbs to the ground.
“They tortured you,” she said, wondering how best to free him.
“I didn’t tell them anything,” the sivak said.
He grimaced as she tried to twist the spears off that were trapping his left arm. “Ouch! That hurts.” After a moment, with a dry chuckle, “Of course it, hurt before, too.”
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
“I don’t know. They wanted
to know about Dhamon; they were waiting for him to come back. They didn’t know about you.”
She’d worked the spear free and moved on to another. Two more to go on this arm. The sivak had lost a lot of blood to the spears and the cuts. His blood had a sulfurous odor and was oddly congealed. “The goblins wanted to know what about Dhamon?”
“The knight leading them, he wanted to know where he was, what he was doing. He’d been looking for Dhamon, I guess. I didn’t tell him anything, though. To the lowest level of the Abyss with all of them.” He spat, choked, and coughed.
Two more spears came free, and painfully, Ragh began to move his left arm. “There were dozens, probably a hundred of the stinking goblin rats. I saw them running past me on their scaly little legs, all of them whooping and…”
“Shhh. I don’t need to hear your prattle. Only Habbakuk knows why I’m doing this anyway. You are no friend to me or to my kind,” her voice softened, “but Dhamon seems to like you well enough.” She continued to pull out the spears, breaking some of them off and working his legs free. At the same time she called upon her healing energies again, directing the warmth down her arms and into her fingers, which were gently stroking the sivak’s main wounds.
He ground his teeth together to keep from crying out. Feril knew he wasn’t about to show weakness in front of her. Some of his wounds had already started to heal over. In spite of herself, Feril felt a twinge of compassion for him.
“I wonder why they were so intent on finding—and killing—Dhamon.”
Ragh was still flat on his back. He clenched his fists, testing his muscles, and slowly moved his arms and legs, muttering and grimacing. “I thought they had killed me, too,” he said. “I thought I would bleed out my essence all over the ground.” He tried to sit up, but she pushed him firmly back down on the ground.
“They weren’t only looking for a dragon, they were looking for Dhamon by name? How is that possible? I thought you were the only one who knew that Dhamon was a dragon.”
Ragh closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “That Knight Commander, the one who was leading the goblins, did Dhamon manage to kill him?”
He didn’t see Feril shake her head.
“I don’t like this place.” Feril was talking to herself, carefully prodding the sivak’s wounds to make sure none were infected. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“Finally we agree on something, elf.”
“Yet in this lake I may discover a chance to give Dhamon his humanity back.” Still, it was as though she were talking to herself. “I need to be about that business as soon as possible, if we are to get away from here.” She nervously smoothed her tunic with the palms of her hands, spreading the blood around. Then she turned and surveyed the battlefield; not a goblin stirred.
“Can you stand, sivak?” She held out her hand to assist Ragh.
The draconian lumbered to his feet on his own power, wincing when he took a few steps on wobbly legs. “So we’re leaving soon? I’m all for that, but it doesn’t look like Dhamon’s going to be able to move for some time.” He nodded toward Dhamon, then started limping in that direction, stepping over goblin bodies.
“Stay close by his side, sivak. He’ll probably sleep for a few hours yet, and I intend to be back by the time he wakes up. You need some rest, too.”
“What about you? You should rest too, elf.”
“Not me. I have unfinished work at the bottom of the lake.” The elf’s face was an emotionless mask as she stepped by Ragh and headed toward Nalis Aren.
Feril dived quickly through the blessedly warm water and swam through schools of sunfish and perch. It didn’t take her long to reach Qualinost and locate the enchanted crystal atop Kalilnama’s home. The cold seemed far worse than before, especially brutal and draining, but as weary and weak as the Kagonesti was, she wouldn’t retreat. She swam through an open window and down through the stairwell opening until she reached the second floor.
Obelia was there, as she’d hoped, along with Kalilnama and four other Qualinesti spirits.
The spirit of the aged elf rushed forward to warm her with a spell. “Elf-fish, elf-fish, we feared you were lost to Beryl’s protectors. We…”
Beryl’s protectors? For a brief instant she worried about provoking the spirits, suspecting they could harm her if they wanted. Still, she couldn’t contain her ire. You were among them, Obelia! You protected the accursed corpse as much as the ghost knights! You told me to take a scale from an overlord! You followed me to Beryl’s corpse! And then—despite your promises—you did nothing to help me. Nothing! It was as if you had gleefully handed me right over to… to….
Obelia hung his insubstantial head apologetically. “We didn’t know what would happen, elf-fish. Something… some force tied to the dragon and to the lake… maybe even tied to us, prevented us from helping you.”
“It’s the evil magic that’s left in the dead dragon,” Kalilnama explained. “It obviously sustains this lake and the spirits of those who died here. It also must have compelled us to protect the dragon’s remains. I find it most interesting that in death a dragon still has such great power. It bears studying, don’t you concur? Now that I know, I think it will give me something to occupy my time.”
Obelia came nose-to-nose with Feril. “There is certainly some evil force making those knights and goblins guard the body. Perhaps a spell cast when the dragon lived and whose power endures, and something caused us… forced us… to safeguard Beryl’s body. I can’t explain just what it was… something… maybe Kalilnama’s right and it’s the magic left in Beryl. Maybe it’s something inside of us.”
Scales… that was all I wanted, and what you told me I needed. You agreed, no—volunteered—to help me.
“I will help you this time, elf-fish. I promise.”
Feril’s expression softened a little.
“The powders and scrolls, we’ll take you to them,” Obelia continued. “Anything we can think of that will strengthen magic. Maps and items that will help you locate other scales without alerting the dragon who possesses them. Some dragons shed scales like snakes and lizards shed their skins, you know.”
Kalilnama rubbed his hands together, the fingers passing through each other. “We’ll help you find another dragon’s scales—not Beryl’s—to aid your cause.”
Beryl is so close! To leave now when that huge carcass is…
“There are other overlords, elf-fish. They’re not all dead like Beryl, are they? I believe that Beryl is too protected. Your chases will be better elsewhere.”
Thinking of the dead, bloated white beast that had destroyed the Qualinesti homeland, Feril saw that the elf spirits were right. She’d willingly go back and try again, no matter the odds, if it would help Dhamon, but she might be able to find dragon scales elsewhere without endangering herself. After all, there were other overlords—dead and alive—besides the one that ruled the Lake of Death. She nodded.
“The closest, if my memory does not fail me,” Kalilnama noted, “is the black called Sable. She lives somewhere on the other side of the mountains. The climate of the swamp will be easier to manage than the evil magic of the lake.”
You’ll tell me where these powders and scrolls are? And how I might use them?
“We’ll take you to them,” Obelia reiterated. His translucent fingers passed through her hands. “As before, you’ll have to do the gathering, elf-fish.”
Let’s be about it, then. Decisively, she opened her mind and flooded the elf spirits with images of the dead goblins and Dhamon, so they would understand how urgent her need was. I’ve spent too much time here already.
“I used to know an expert herbalist on Wildarth Lane,” Obelia said, nodding slowly as he saw what had happened to her, Dhamon, and Ragh. His fingers came up to work at the bridge of his overly long nose. “He had amazing powders on his shelves. Balms and unguents that elves would travel hundreds of miles to buy. Let’s go there and see what we can find to help you—and your friends.”
“And I remember a few sorcerers,” Obelia continued, “whose houses we should visit.”
“Don’t forget my wife’s scrolls,” Kalilnama said, “and then there’s…”
They moved quickly for ghosts, but not as quickly as Feril would have wanted. For one thing, the insubstantial ghosts could not physically propel themselves through the water. They floated like flotsam and seemed ignorant of time.
From one abandoned shop they took her to, Feril selected two large satchels made from the hide of a beast she wasn’t familiar with. In the bottom of one she put a pair of leggings and a tunic for herself, then she found something that she thought might fit Dhamon… when he became human again. The other satchel she filled with jars, scroll tubes, and well-stoppered vials that Kalilnama, Obelia, and their ghostly associates insisted contained promising materials.
She also gathered a handful of small, jeweled trinkets that she guessed might be valuable and filled a small pouch with steel pieces. Little was free in the world above, and now she would have a means to pay for things if the need arose.
“One more place to visit,” Obelia told her.
They were on the roof of Kalilnama’s home again with more than a dozen curious Qualinesti spirits fluttering around them. Feril plucked the enchanted pear-shaped crystal off the roof and stuffed it under the clothes in the satchel. The water surrounding them instantly became eerily darker without the magical light.