The Dragon's Doom (dragonlance)

by Ed Greenwood

  "A Sword of Spells has two edges, overbold apprentice!" Gadaster Mulkyn hissed, as the Dwaer flared in unison.

  Not to strike at the Great Serpent with ravening bolts of magic, but to awaken the last traces of the mind-link Ingryl had used for years to drain Gadaster's life. With cold glee the skull-headed mage forced his will upon Ingryl Ambelter's mind.

  The Spellmaster wrestled against him, a dark and furious mind-struggle that lasted an eternity but no time at all… and lost. Calmly and carefully, Gadaster forced Ambelter to work certain magics.

  "You wanted the Dwaer so much, didn't you?" he said, directly into Ambelter's trapped mind. "And now, lucky lad, you at last have what you've schemed so energetically for. A pity 'twill destroy you and your precious kingdom and probably most of Flowfoam, too. Let the conjunction begin!"

  And four Dwaerindim blazed up blinding white, tearing free of scaled skin and grasping hands alike to soar up into the air together in a great floating ring.

  As the Stones rose, so too certain folk all over the palace were jerked upright and into full awareness: Embra Silvertree and a handful of surviving Lords of the Serpent. Wherever they were, they stared up at the stones, quivering in helpless thrall.

  Many other folk within sight of Flowfoam did much the same-not ensnared by the rushing magic, but awed by the sheer power singing in the air above them, and the rushing hues and images they could now see in the blinding shared radiance of the Stones. Faces of kings and wizards and warriors dead and dust for centuries whirled before all eyes in a flashing parade that-shivered, suddenly, as something darker and more solid burst into their midst.

  Something like a dark flame, leaping from Dwaer to Dwaer as it struggled, growing arms and wings and talons and biting heads that all vanished again with the passing moments, thrusting up shape after shape as it fought toward freedom. Arched, wracked, and tattered with pain in the heart of all the flowing magic, it thrust a smooth and faceless head out of the chaos to regard Gadaster Mulkyn, glaring without eyes down at the skull-headed sorceress. The rogue Koglaur!

  That moment of malevolence broke the flow of leaping forces into wildly stabbing bolts of lightning that splashed down onto Flowfoam and raced along through its riven chambers like crackling snakes. Men and women screamed, bodies were hurled into the air, and the Great Serpent turned with all the speed of any swift-striking snake and spat a desperate thrust of dark power at Gadaster-not mind to mind, but as another crackling bolt of force, this one of shining black.

  The skull-headed sorceress writhed in the heart of it as blackness whirled around her in a great fist, stabbing through her repeatedly-and from the skull burst forth a cold, high, wailing scream of despair, that seemed almost to plead as it rose and grew fainter and fainter, fading away as the Great Serpent shuddered in the pain echoing back across the old link between them.

  The screaming skull slowly melted away, revealing in its place the tearful face of a frightened living woman, her long black hair swirling around her as she frantically wove a very swift spell. Her body her own once more, Maelra Bowdragon teleported herself away from the air above Flowfoam Palace, vanishing in a silent instant.

  And so passed Gadaster Mulkyn, first Spellmaster of Silvertree, dead a second time, his sentience shattered. "Or is it?" Embra Silvertree whispered, still trembling in Dwaer-thrall. "Is he truly gone this time, or fled into Ambelter or somewhere else?"

  The Great Serpent roared in exultation, stretching its great scaled neck up once more-and breaking the thrall that held Embra as it caused the four Dwaerindim to break their ring and whirl around its neck in a new orbit. The Koglaur fell away from them, a torn and writhing scrap of darkness, and fell wetly onto tumbled stones far below.

  Amidst that rubble the freed Lady of Jewels collapsed, gasping, but scrambled to stare up again, not wanting to miss a moment of what could well be her unfolding doom.

  Four Dwaer-Stones were flashing brightly as they spun about the Great Serpent's neck-and it struck, fangs gaping, at the diminished, wounded Dragon in its coils.

  "Not worthy, fey?" That thunderous shout burst forth from the rent and bleeding Dragon, even as serpent-fangs bit deep. The Dwaerindim flashed and then dimmed in unison, becoming almost dark, and the snake made a wordless sound of surprise and alarm. The Dragon gasped-and glowed, its ruined body flaring to the same white brilliance that the four Stones had shared in their ring.

  Ezendor Blackgult wrestled fiercely for control of the Dwaer, heedless of the pain. He was beating Ambelter, he was winning…

  Calmly he drew in more mighty magic than he'd ever felt before, searing himself inside as he used not a scrap of Dwaer-force to shield himself, but forged it all into a great slaying thrust that raced back up the fangs sunk so cruelly in him, into the Spellmaster.

  And the Great Serpent burned, shriveling in a trice to blackened, screaming bones. Ingryl Ambelter and all his dark dreams fell to ash so swiftly that many of the watching folk of Aglirta could scarce believe what had befallen.

  Yet one tiling was clear enough: The towering bulk of the Serpent was gone from above the blackened, near-skeletal remnant of the Dragon, and four Dwaer-Stones were falling out of the sky.

  Embra made a wordless sound of her own and started to run to where the plunges of at least two of them would end among the tumbled Stones- but a dark, shuddering, constantly changing shape was there before her.

  The Koglaur! She clambered desperately toward it, knowing in her dazed pain and all this chaos of magic she couldn't yet weave a spell no matter what the need… and ahead of her, saw all four Dwaer, glowing faintly again, race down to strike the shapeshifter as if spell-called to it. The Faceless rose up into the shape of Ingryl Ambelter, spell-wove a gate outlined by four whirling Stones-and stepped through it.

  In his wake, all four Dwaer sprang apart, fading away in midair as they raced in opposite directions… and leaving in their wake a dumbfounded silence to settle over the riven Flowfoam Palace.

  "So did the real Spellmaster die," Flaeros Delcamper murmured, looking to the Lady Orele for answers, "or was it a Faceless, all along?"

  "And do we have to go hunting four Dwaer-Stones now?" Craer groaned, from the shattered floor of the Throne Chamber below.

  Spell-radiance flared in a darkened chamber in the tower of the Master of Bats, momentarily outshining the saying-globes. Three mages whirled around in time to see what fell out of it, into a weak, weeping, smoking sprawl on the stones. Idiim Bowdragon gasped, but Arkle Huldaerus moved as swiftly as a veteran warrior, striding forward to pluck up the young woman by the throat.

  "Are you Gadaster Mulkyn?" he demanded, in a voice that shook with all the magic he could muster-as bats poured down from the ceiling to settle all over his visitor in a flapping cloud.

  Dark, tearful eyes flashed. "I know you not, sir," a constricted but furious voice snarled, from under Arkle's hands, "but I am Maelra Bowdragon-and I've had quite enough of being forced to do things by mages!"

  With a sigh of relief the Master of Bats let go of her throat and stepped back. He was jostled and almost sent sprawling by Ithim Bowdragon, plunging forward to embrace the daughter he'd thought lost-but who'd just spell-sought him across much of Asmarand. Uncle Dolmur was not far behind.

  The Bowdragons collapsed into joyful hugs and tears. Arkle Huldaerus watched their laughter, feeling more lonely than he ever had before, and suddenly tears were welling in his own eyes.

  He turned away, wiping at his eyes furiously. It would not do to miss a single glimpse of what was now unfolding in his scrying-globes.

  It would not do at all.

  Ezendor Blackgult knew he was dying. The pain alone told him that, even without his watery, blood-filled glimpses of his own charred ribs and limbs, returning to him as he slipped helplessly out of dragon-form-and fell just as helplessly across the body of a wounded and dying Lord of the Serpent.

  Lying sprawled on his back with the clear morning sky of Aglirta above him, the Golden Griffon mu
mbled to no one in particular, "I want to hear birds sing again. I don't know why."

  As always, Hawkril Anharu reached him first. The great mountain of an armaragor reached down as gently as any wet-nurse, to half-raise his old master, cradling Blackgult in his arms.

  The Golden Griffon smiled wearily up at him as darkness came in waves, taking his breath with it. "Good friend," he said swiftly, while he still could, "have my barony. You more than deserve it. I've done much of… what I wanted to do… chased many dreams, and… even caught a few."

  Embra Silvertree was crashing toward them across the jagged, tumbled rubble now, heedless of her own safety. "Father!" she cried.

  Blackgult kept on speaking, because he had to. "I… wanted love, friends, wealth, danger… and excitement… and I haven't been disappointed."

  His daughter reached him and fell to her knees, sobbing, "Father!"

  "Hah," the Serpent-priest sneered weakly, from where he lay beside her, "did you think it was going to be easy to kill a god?"

  Embra stared at the dying man with fire rising in her eyes. "I do believe," she said softly and deliberately, "I feel the Blood Plague taking hold of me at last."

  She snatched out her dagger and drove it firmly through one of the priest's eyes, not flinching when his gore fountained over her.

  Incredibly, the Lord of the Serpent did not the right away. Choking on his own blood, he cried, "Serpent, aid me!"

  Nothing happened, and his next cry was fainter. "Serpent?"

  Blood bubbled from the lips of the Lord of the Serpent as his remaining eye glared at Blackgult, and then turned to gaze back up at the woman who'd brought him death, and was still bent over him, dripping his blood.

  "I expected so much more," the priest whispered reproachfully. "You've all been such a disappointment." And he turned his head toward his own shoulder and looked away from them. One last tear ran from his eye, and he died.

  A serpent slithered from the neck of the priest's robe and reared up to strike at Embra with a malevolent hiss-and she grabbed it just below the head, flung it to an exposed patch of marble floor, and stomped on its head with one booted foot, shuddering.

  Then she whirled back to her father, and burst into tears.

  One charred arm reached up and caught hold of her arm in a last, vise-hard grip. "You're… my daughter, all right," Ezendor Blackgult whispered hoarsely, giving her a fierce, pain-wracked smile. "Live… well. Go on to glory, with Hawk… Save Aglirta!"

  She leaned forward to stroke his face, through her tears, but he struggled up and forward, trembling. As the Golden Griffon thrust himself forward, trying to reach her lips and kiss them, the light went out of his dark eyes… and that iron strength ebbed, until his fingers fell away from her arm.

  27

  The Renunciation of the Dragon

  Trembling with grief, Embra Silvertree bent forward the few inches of space her father had died trying to cross, and kissed his dead mouth fiercely.

  And a gout of shining blue flame rose from within Ezendor Blackgult and hissed out of him, into her.

  Swallowing it, Embra gasped-and froze like that, her lips parted and her eyes staring wildly. Flames of that deep and splendid sapphire hue licked up all around her, appearing from the empty air around her body. In their midst, the tall and slender Lady of Jewels was tugged upright, as if plucked by unseen strings, and held there, motionless in the rushing flames. Blue fire roared up all around her, but touched her not.

  The Aglirtans now stumbling cautiously through the ruined Throne Chamber, their king among them, stared at her doubtfully. She gave no sign of seeing or hearing anyone.

  "He's dead! Blackgult is dead!" a palace guard gasped, staring down at the man fallen on his face at her feet. "The Dragon is dead!"

  Armed men burst in through several archways as he spoke, breathless from their race up from the docks.

  "The Serpent's dead, too! Aglirta is free at last!" a courtier cried.

  "No," a new voice snapped from behind King Raulin Castlecloaks, as a blood-wet sword burst through the royal breastplate from behind. "Now Aglirta is free!"

  The king reeled, and then toppled forward as the Tersept of Ironstone shook the gurgling, dying Raulin off his blade, snatching the crown from the king's head in the same motion.

  "Behold your new King!" he roared, as he crowned himself.

  His armaragors standing with him took up the cry: "King Ironstone!"

  "It's customary," Craer Delnbone remarked, as he sprang from atop a broken wall to crash down atop Ironstone's shoulders, slitting the man's throat with a dagger and striking the crown from his head to clang and roll on the floor, "to have just one king in a realm at a time. Orele?"

  The Lady of the Wise was already picking her way forward through the rubble to where Raulin lay, the sorceress she'd just healed at her side. Wordlessly the old woman turned to Tshamarra, and the last Talasorn sorceress fed her what magic she had left, to heal the king.

  The moment it was clear the Lady Overduke's magic was bent on healing and not blasting them down, Ironstone's men surged forward with a roar-but were met by royal warriors headed by Hawkril, Hulgor, Flaeros, and Craer, who sprang to meet them, striking savagely with their blades.

  In a trice the Throne Chamber was in an uproar of men swording each other, chambermaids screaming from the balconies, tersepts shouting orders, and hurrying folk. Royal guards led by Suldun Greatsarn rushed into the room to form a defensive ring around the stricken king-and some of the courtiers shifted their shapes into warriors wearing Flowfoam armor, plucked up weapons from among the fallen, and joined them.

  More arrivals from the docks charged in with swords drawn, novice Serpent-priests with venomed knives slipped in among the royal warriors and started slaying, and the clang of steel became deafening in the shattered Throne Chamber. Men were dying bloodily everywhere. Embra stood like a living torch of blue flame in the center of the tumult, and tersept turned on tersept to settle old scores.

  On her knees above a blood-drenched Raulin Castlecloaks, Tshamarra Talasorn went pale as she spent the last of her power. Swaying, she almost fell over on her face-but Lady Orele put a steadying hand around her shoulders, ignoring an armaragor bearing down on them with bloody sword raised.

  The man was still two hurrying strides away when Hulgor Delcamper crashed into him from one side and Flaeros Delcamper hit him from another. The young bard smote his foe so hard that his sword broke, its riven ends singing past the Lady Talasorn's nose. Snarling, Flaeros drove the broken stub of the blade into the man's face, and they crashed to the floor together, rolling-the bard trying to deal more harm to his foe, and the warrior lost in pain. Hulgor ended it for him with a sword-thrust, and kicked the body aside to grin encouragingly at Orele.

  She shook her head and sighed. "Lads never grow up, do they?"

  The Tersept of Thornwood died screaming an instant later, his fingers hacked away by the cortahars of a rival and a spear run through him-and at the same time, not far away, the Tersept of Harbridge took a hurled Serpent-dagger in the face and went down, tripping over the heaped bodies of his fallen armaragors.

  The ruined Throne Chamber was strewn with the dead and dying now, and as the Tersept of Mesper roared out a challenge to his rival of Tarnshars and launched into a lumbering run, Embra Silvertree suddenly threw up her hands and bellowed "Enough!" in a voice that rocked Flowfoam and echoed back from the banks of the Silverflow and the crumbling battlements of the Silent House.

  Scales rippled into being on her cheeks, and then as swiftly faded again. Dragon scales.

  "Sithra dourr" she whispered, her voice still thunderous with the awakened power of the Dragon-and all drawn swords, daggers, spears, and like weapons in the room were plucked into the air. Above the roofless part of the Throne Chamber, the sky was full of swords-and where there was still a ceiling, the weapons were driven deep into smoking stone.

  Silence fell as dumbfounded men turned to stare at the Lady of Jewels.
>
  Wild-eyed, her breast heaving and her hair standing on end, Embra Silvertree glared back at them.

  "There's been more than enough killing in Aglirta today," she said fiercely. "Let it end, now."

  A deeper silence fell, wherein men glanced sidelong at each other, and then hurriedly back to the tall, slender woman still sheathed in wisps of bright blue flame, wondering what she'd do next-and what they dared try, in the face of her fury.

  "The King lives," Craer Delnbone remarked, into that stillness.

  "H-help me up," Raulin said urgently. Hawkril Anharu took one great stride and plucked the King of Aglirta to his feet.

  Raulin Castlecloaks's face was bone-white, and he was still drenched in his own blood, his breastplate missing and the rest of his armor much hacked and dented. Yet he looked both calm and older than he'd ever seemed before as he faced the silent crowd and announced, "I'm very weary of Serpent-priests and warring barons and tersepts alike. Henceforth, let it be known that the penalty for worship of the Serpent, anywhere in Aglirta, is death. There will be no more barons, and any tersept who does not declare loyalty to me-and prove it, by service in the army I shall whelm today, to scour the Vale-shall lose his rank and his life. Loyal Aglirtans, to me! No longer shall-"

  "No," the Lady Silvertree said firmly, from behind him. "No, Raulin, this is not the way. Loyalty and trust must be earned… and not by greater tyranny than that practiced by those you deem traitors."

  She bent, and picked up the crown. "I think Aglirta deserves better."

  There was a brief murmur from the watching crowd as she lifted the crown, and the sunlight caught it, making it gleam in her hands.

  "What do you mean?" Raulin whispered, whirling around. "You know I never wanted the throne…"

  "Precisely why you've done better than a more ambitious man would have," the Lady of Jewels replied, "yet still there's unrest in the Vale, and swords out, and Serpent-mischief."