Emperor of Ansalon v-3

by Douglas Niles

  "Who… is there?"

  The deep, booming question was spoken in a strangely hesitant voice, as if the speaker's lips and tongue had not been used in a considerably long time. Nevertheless, Ari shy;akas had no doubt as to who had spoken.

  "It is I!" the human boasted to the dragon, watching

  the great head rise from its platform. "I am the Highlord Ariakas-loyal champion of Takhisis, and master of the armies that shall march in her name!"

  "Impressive, indeed," thrummed the dragon's voice, the tone rich with respect. Now Ariakas saw the gleam of two huge eyes, each a yellow orb tinged with crimson by the infernal fires below. "I am honored to be joined by such an illustrious visitor."

  Nothing in the dragon's tone indicated irony, but sud shy;denly Ariakas was struck by the ludicrousness of his own braggadocio. "How are you called, great dragon?" he asked in a tone considerably more humble.

  "In the age of the Dragon Wars, I was known as Tomb-fyre," replied the monster. "Though I suspect that was a very long time ago. In truth, it has been more than an age since I last opened my eyes."

  Ariakas's heart quickened. Again he felt that tingling of destiny-a self-assurance that he would not perish, alone and forgotten, in this place.

  "Why do you awaken now?" he asked.

  The dragon shook his mighty head thoughtfully, the great mane swaying back and forth like a regal robe. "I don't… it was the queenl She called to me in my sleep, and I obeyed! She has not forgotten me!"

  "The queen speaks to you-to both of us-through this!" Ariakas brandished his sword, and the dragon's sinuous neck raised the great wedge of his head. Clearly interested, Tombfyre regarded the human with new respect.

  "Why did you come here, warrior?" inquired the red dragon, his voice a soft hiss.

  Suddenly Ariakas knew the answer.

  "I came because of this weapon-and the will of our mistress! Because of her prophecy: In the heart of the world, it will set fire to the sky!"

  Again he raised the sword, and now he began to won shy;der if he had guessed its purpose, understood now the importance of the blue blade.

  "I, too, was given a prophecy," the dragon observed quietly, his deep voice tinged with an incongruous note of awe. "When we were defeated by Huma and his infer shy;nal lances, the queen bade us leave Krynn, to languish in exile and banishment beyond the memories of men.

  "But when we departed the world," Tombfyre contin shy;ued, "she made us several promises. Our exile would be long, she warned us-but it would not be forever. And as she sent me here, to this lonely prison, she gave a promise for my ears alone."

  "What-what did she tell you?" demanded Ariakas, his nerves taut with excitement.

  "She said that I had served her well.. pleased her. When I awakened, she would have a special role for me. When it came time for her call, she would send me the highest of her agents-her champion. Together we would fly, and I would carry him in a blaze of fire through the heavens!"

  "Why are you imprisoned, then-held in a cage?" asked the human.

  'The champion of Takhisis would release me," claimed the serpent.

  "Can't you bend the bars? Melt them with your breath?"

  Tombfyre sighed. "I tried, before I slept. These bars are an alloy of copper and iron, too strong even for my muscles. When I breathed, the fire just flowed around the metal-it didn't weaken it."

  Suddenly Ariakas remembered a tale from his temple lessons, and in a flash of insight he understood. It was the blue blade!

  "I ask you for your pledge, Tombfyre Reddragon," Ariakas said solemnly. "When I release you, you will take me from this place and serve me, as we serve the queen who has given us life and power! Will you make this promise?"

  "I am not a servile creature," Tombfyre said carefully. "Nor do I see how you might release me from this cage. I will grant you this, should you find a way to break these bars that bind me: I will carry you from this place and aid you in your battles against the enemies of Takhisis. As you command her hosts, I shall command her drag shy;ons-and together, we will conquer all who stand in our way!"

  "It will not be my power that releases you-it shall be the queen herself," Ariakas countered. "And in that power you will see the destiny that brings us together. No, indeed-you are not a servile creature. You will serve only in the same way as I-in the acknowledgment that in Takhisis we prostrate ourselves before a might that makes puny any power on all this world."

  "Agreed, Highlord Ariakas," replied Tombfyre. "I give you my pledge of alliance-if I am released from my cage."

  Ariakas stood at the edge of his narrow platform, clos shy;est to the place where the metal girder met the cavern wall. Carefully, reverently, he raised the blue blade, utterly confident now of the Dark Queen's will-and of her power, as it would be made manifest by his sword.

  "Hear me, O Queen," he murmured. "And show us thy will!"

  A brilliant flash exploded in the vast chamber, fol shy;lowed by a sharp clap of sound. The explosion crackled, and Ariakas saw a bolt of energy-like a furious blast of lightning-hiss into the iron strut that spanned the yawn shy;ing space to the dragon's cage.

  The roaring clap of noise created a sustained echo in the cavernous space, but that was nothing compared to the brilliant flare of searing, sputtering fire that took root in the long beam of iron. Where the lightning bolt had struck, the metal began to glow-red, then yellow, and finally a pure white that glared like a desert sun, forcing Ariakas to turn his eyes away.

  The light sizzled along the length of the girder in a cas shy;cade of smoke and sparks as it streaked toward the caged dragon. Glowing embers trailed from the rippling explosion, and Ariakas smelled a pungent, burned odor in the air all around him.

  In an instant the eruption of power reached the cage, and the entire structure of bars stood outlined in glaring, searing light. Within the grid, the huge dragon cringed against the floor, trying to duck away from the fuming, sparking magic surrounding him.

  Then, with a burst of sound that swallowed the echoes of the lightning bolt, the metal frame exploded. Pieces of glowing iron showered the vast cavern, some of them landing on the ledge beside Ariakas, while many more tumbled into the smoking depths below. The sound of that destructive explosion boomed deafeningly back and forth, the caverns seeming to growl with the voice of the world. Then slowly the chaos died away.

  Ariakas kept his eyes glued to the mighty serpent. Tombfyre tumbled free as the cage shattered. Once again the warrior saw those vast wings unfurl. This time, un-confined, they spread wide, the joints creaking stiffly, and when the serpent struck them downward they swirled a gust of wind that reached Ariakas like a cool shy;ing breeze.

  The dragon dived, wheeling gracefully to the left and gliding through a full circle in the vast cavern. Then, as he approached the ledge where Ariakas awaited, the dragon craned his neck upward and, with a dip of his tail, swooped up to the narrow shelf of rock, to the very feet of the highlord.

  The human held his breath. The dragon had been freed-but would the mighty creature keep his word? Tombfyre turned those huge eyes, now glowing a bril shy;liant sheen of yellow, toward Ariakas. The dragon bel shy;lowed, a triumphant, exultant sound of pleasure, power, and promise.

  Tombfyre seized the ledge with his front claws, wings beating powerfully as his iron-hard talons cut into the crumbling stone. For a full second Ariakas stared into those huge eyes, seeing the long, slitted irises cutting ver shy;tically through the yellow pupils. Then, with just a trace of a mocking smile on the broad, tooth-studded snout, the red dragon dipped his head in a dignified bow.

  Ariakas again felt overwhelming awe. He stood still, holding his great sword. Idly, he noticed that the blade was now green-a rich, verdant color like the foliage of a tropical grotto. It was, he reflected, a very beautiful color. Now the weapon seemed more like an icon than a tool, and he gently, reverently, resheathed it.

  Again Tombfyre beat his powerful wings, and the human saw the great dragon's sinews tighten in his fore
shy;arms and shoulders. Too heavy to hover, the creature struggled hard to maintain its position in the air.

  Impetuously, Ariakas stepped onto the great, taloned forefoot. The serpentine neck rose to meet him, forming a handrail to his side as he walked along the taut, mus shy;cular foreleg, barely conscious of the infinite drop yawn shy;ing below. Grasping a handful of the dragon's wiry mane, the man slipped around the great shoulder, com shy;ing to rest in a natural depression between the roots of the creature's massive wings.

  Still holding the tufts of mane, Ariakas smiled grimly when Tombfyre turned his head to meet his rider's gaze. The dragon's mouth, too, split into a cruel grin, and a long, forked tongue snaked from between the reptilian lips.

  Then, with a forceful shove, Tombfyre pushed away from the precipitous ledge. For a brief moment Ariakas felt weightless, and only his hands tightly gripping the mane prevented him tumbling into the abyss below. But abruptly the dragon's wings thrust downward, biting into the air and firmly settling the human in his natural saddle.

  With another powerful wing beat, the crimson dragon curled them into a fast glide, and then they were climb shy;ing higher and higher, spiraling upward … ready to set fire to the sky.

  Chapter 25

  Conquerors

  Tombfyre carried Ariakas through a long, laboring climb. Even in the huge chamber the monstrous red dragon had to spiral constantly, striving every moment to increase their altitude. Ariakas stared above them, seeking some sign of the sky-anything that would show them a way out. Yet the higher they climbed, the more clear it became that this massive vault of stone was sealed by a solid dome of rock overhead.

  "How did you get in here?" Ariakas asked, as they soared in a circle near the top of the vast space.

  "I don't remember," Tombfyre replied with a rippling shrug of his powerful shoulders and sinuous neck. The serpent's tone was bitter. "The queen placed me here after the war-I have no knowledge of occurrences im shy;mediately following Huma's victory."

  "It may salve your pride to know that Huma died in that battle-your army had its vengeance, at least."

  "Vengeance is no substitute for victory," growled the wyrm. Abruptly, he tucked his wings, plummeting into the depths of the vast caverns, toward the smoking, smoldering reaches below. The plunge should have taken Ariakas by surprise, but a warning tingled in his mind a second before the dive-he tightened his hands in the dragon's mane, and when the serpent dived, the human clung securely to his back.

  Still spiraling, Tombfyre sped through his long descent. Wind whipped Ariakas's hair back from his face, and his lips clenched into a snarling smile of tri shy;umph. The dragon's wheeling path continued down shy;ward, circling around the shaft that had held his prison for more than a thousand years.

  Smoke stung Ariakas's eyes, and heat began to build oppressively. They plunged ever lower, still faster, and the human began to imagine an inevitable, fiery end to their descent. The smoldering depths became clear, as he saw eddies of cloudy smoke whisking past bright, flam shy;ing lava. He pictured an instantaneous finale, life blotted out at the very moment they smashed into the abyssal fires seething within the heart of Krynn.

  The light grew brighter, forming a reddish haze of flaming illumination, burning the very air around them. Abruptly, and with a dizzying sense of expansion, the shaft they flew down opened through a hole in the ceil shy;ing of an incredibly vast, furiously burning cavern-like a plain of fire, sprawling to the horizons far below the surface of the world.

  The dragon pulled out of the dive, and a huge, crim shy;son vista opened before the warrior's astonished eyes. Bubbling lava spread to the limits of vision, smoking, flaming, casting great, liquid gouts upward from the surface of a fiery sea. The shaft where he had found Tombfyre was nothing more than a tall, capped chimney leading upward from this huge, subterranean fire sea.

  It seemed to Ariakas that the searing heat should kill him, but though he looked all around, at air shimmering with the scalding effects of fire, those effects did not touch his skin. He rode through the blazes of the inferno as though a bubble of cool, moist air surrounded him.

  Great islands of dark stone rose into craggy peaks from the flaming surface, while stalactites funneled downward like inverted mountains from a cavern ceiling that in many places arced a full mile above the violent sea. Bub shy;bling veins of white-hot, molten rock crisscrossed back and forth among the cooler red of the lava, and many of these hot spots spewed geysers of liquid fire.

  "Look-there! Smoke's escaping!" Ariakas indicated a vast crack in the cavern's ceiling. They could see shafts of smoke, sometimes accompanied by whirling blasts of flame, surging upward to disappear into the dark hole. "There has to be a vent to the surface!"

  Immediately the dragon drove his wings downward, breaking from his glide and striving to gain altitude. The billowing updrafts helped carry them aloft into the crack. Soon stone walls surrounded them, leaving barely room for Tombfyre to wheel through tight circles. Fortu shy;nately the rising air gave them just enough lift to main shy;tain the climb.

  With a flash of fierce, savage triumph, Ariakas caught a glimpse of the sky overhead-a pale swatch of blue that might have been sunset or dawn. Curiously, the man realized, he had no idea what the time might be on the outside world.

  They reached a side cavern in the great shaft, and as the red dragon continued to labor upward Ariakas caught a strong stench of the Zhakar odor-the com shy;bination of mold and mushroom tea that had been so pervasive around the runty dwarves. With a flash of inspiration he remembered the tunnels leading into the city from the flaming, volcanic reaches below.

  "There-go therel" he hissed. "Our vengeance will begin immediately!"

  Without hesitating, Tombfyre ducked toward the pas shy;sage, gaining momentum in the level flight. Cave walls sped past them with dizzying speed, and the smell grew stronger.

  In another moment they burst into a large cavern, and immediately Ariakas saw the twin rows of pillars mark shy;ing the King's Promenade of Zhakar. He heard scream shy;ing, observed with cruel glee hundreds of panicked dwarves frantically fleeing from their path. As Tombfyre flew over a group of them, the Zhakar collapsed to the ground, groveling in abject fear.

  The serpent dipped a wing and curved with regal majesty, flying directly between the columns, diving straight for the twin thrones and the bestial statues at the far end of the promenade. Below, a full rank of Zhakar lizard riders struggled to control their mounts, but the scaly steeds bucked and pitched frantically, terrified by the soaring wyrm. Their powerful hind legs enabled the creatures to jump very high-perhaps twenty feet straight up-and one by one the riders were thrown roughly to the floor.

  The populace scattered amid shrieks and wails of hys shy;terical fear. The bigger dwarves trampled their smaller neighbors in haste to reach the shelter of the huge cav shy;ern's corners and niches. As the crowd spread, Ariakas realized that some kind of gathering had been taking place before the great throne of Rackas Ironcog.

  Tombfyre dived, skimming the floor in a last rush toward the throne and the cavern wall beyond. Now some Zhakar gaped in frozen horror, abject fear distort shy;ing their disfigured faces in clownish exaggeration.

  Amid the terror-struck onlookers, Ariakas saw that Tale Splintersteel knelt before the throne of Rackas Ironcog. The Zhakar merchant was in chains, and a hulk shy;ing dwarf armed with a broad headsman's axe stood beside Splintersteel, awaiting his monarch's command. The executioner gaped upward, motionless, while Splintersteel threw himself, groveling, onto the floor.

  Another prisoner stood a short distance away, and Ariakas recognized the shocked visage of Whez Lavas-tone. Rackas had apparently wasted no time in rounding up his enemies: guards flanked Lavastone, apparently in the process of clapping chains on his wrists and ankles when the approaching dragon brought activity to an abrupt halt.

  Abruptly, Whez Lavastone seemed to shake off the effects of the dragonawe-at least to the point where he twisted free of the two guards holdin
g his arms. Dis shy;abling one with a sharp kick, the sturdy Zhakar plucked a dagger from the belt of the second man-at-arms and disemboweled him in the next stroke.

  "Stop them! Kill them!" cried Rackas Ironcog, king of Zhakar. The monarch jabbered and gesticulated as the horrifying form swooped straight toward him. In response to his command the royal guards threw down their weapons and fled as fast as their stubby legs could carry them-those, at least, who didn't collapse, para shy;lyzed by terror, to the floor.

  Ariakas thought of the green blade on his back, of the hissing cloud of poisonous gas he could send wafting through these chambers. He quickly discarded the thought as an unnecessary extravagance.

  Tombfyre spread his broad wings and came to light just before the monarch's great, stone seat. It seemed that a sneer of amusement curled the serpentine lip as the mighty creature looked around at the scene of confusion and fear.

  Ariakas saw something move in the shadows behind the second of the great thrones. Several guards crouched there, paralyzed by fear, but one cloaked figure scurried away. The warrior caught a glimpse of the gold fringe on the dark robe, and recognized Tik Deepspeaker.

  "Kill him!" Ariakas snarled to his mount, pointing after the fleeing savant.

  Tombfyre turned his broad head. Tooth-studded jaws gaped, and a puff of preliminary smoke emerged from the dragon's black nostrils. Then a belch of hellish, oily fire erupted from that horrific maw, spurting outward to hiss and crackle around the second throne, incinerating the guards who had taken shelter there. The greedy fire billowed farther, and in another instant swept around the gold-robed figure.

  Even considering the incredible, killing heat of the fiery breath, Tik Deepspeaker managed to scream for a long time. When finally the inferno faded, all that remained was a black chip of charcoal, much smaller than a Zhakar's body.

  Rackas Ironcog leapt from his throne and tried to scramble into the narrow niche behind it-a niche that was only wide enough to accommodate his head and shoulders. His terror was both pathetic and gratifying, and he seemed a figure hardly worth Ariakas's or Tomb-fyre's attention.