The black mouth of the cave yawned in the eastern face of a big, granite knob. Peering around a smaller outcropping, Gaedynn barely had time to look at it before a deafening roar echoed from within. Then the same deep, sibilant voice chanted rhyming couplets in what he assumed to be the draconic tongue. Blue sparks fell from the air. For a moment the darkness was something he felt rather than saw, like cool silk sliding on his skin, and the cries and other muddled sounds of combat coming from behind him were a metallic taste in his tongue.
“Oh, good,” he said as the synesthesia faded. “Vairshekellabex is a sorcerer.”
A huge head at the end of a serpentine neck came twisting out of the cave to peer about. Its jaws seemed disproportionately large in relation to the rest of the skull, and yet the rows of crooked, protruding fangs likewise appeared grotesquely oversized in relation to the mouth. Spiky growths dangled under the lower jaw to make a kind of beard.
“He’s big too,” Son-liin whispered. Despite her attempt at bravado, she wasn’t quite able to keep a tremor out of her voice, and Gaedynn didn’t blame her. Judging from the head, Vairshekellabex was twice as big as Yemere had been and likely twice as old and powerful too.
Gaedynn’s first impulse was to try to sink an arrow into Vairshekellabex’s eye. But that one attack probably wouldn’t kill him. No single wound ever seemed to stop a wyrm. Yet his first effort, whatever it was, would give away his location.
He drew one of the two remaining enchanted arrows from his quiver and laid it on his bow. Then he stepped into the open, drew, and loosed.
As he intended, the shaft flew over Vairshekellabex’s head, then vanished in a flash and a howl. A section of the cavern ceiling cracked apart, and banging and rumbling, the pieces rained down on top of the wyrm.
In fact, they drove his head and neck—which were still the only parts Gaedynn could see—to the floor and buried them. But the granite shards began to shift immediately. Plainly Vairshekellabex was still conscious and trying to drag himself free.
Gaedynn cursed and shot the last of the magic arrows. It, too, exploded into light and noise, and it brought more chunks of granite raining down to add to the pile. But afterward the mound continued to shift. Pieces spilled off the top and clattered down the sides.
Son-liin drew an arrow of her own. “Grumbar,” she said, “please help me.” She kissed the broad-head point of the shaft, and a glimmer flowed through the golden lines in her skin.
Then she shot the arrow into the pile, and golden light rippled through it as well. Grinding and crunching, the chunks of stone bunched more tightly together. Some hissed as one fused to another.
“Nice work,” Gaedynn said.
“It still won’t hold him for long,” Son-liin replied. “I’m much more of a stormsoul than an earthsoul. I did what I could, but …”
Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she pitched forward. Gaedynn caught her and laid her on the ground.
* * * * *
Up ahead, with Alasklerbanbastos rapidly closing on her, Cera jammed the shadow stone back into the purse on her belt. Her hand twitched toward the gilded mace hanging on her other hip, but then didn’t grab it. She evidently realized there wasn’t time. Instead, she simply raised her arm high and swept it in an arc from east to west. “Keeper!” she cried.
Golden light blazed around her, and finally Alasklerbanbastos balked and recoiled from the sun god’s holy power. So did a thing like an empty, flopping sack sewn in the shape of a dragon.
Aoth had been so intent on the dracolich that, his fire-kissed eyes notwithstanding, he hadn’t noticed the other threat until that moment. It reminded him of the skin kites he’d fought in Thay and was certainly a product of necromancy, specifically of Alasklerbanbastos’s necromancy. The undead creature had apparently flayed his own rotting hide to make himself a servant.
Aoth ran around Alasklerbanbastos and put himself between the dracolich and Cera. The sheer drop at the edge of the earthmote was just a stone’s throw behind him, limiting his ability to maneuver.
“Use the phylactery!” he yelled.
“He can use the link to hurt me too,” Cera panted. “But if I concentrate—”
With a snap like a sail catching the wind, the empty dragon rushed into the light. Aoth started to pivot in that direction, but then Alasklerbanbastos surged forward too.
Aoth jerked back around and stepped to meet the dracolich. He thrust with his spear and released much of the power stored within it, to infuse the thrust with destructive force and anchor himself to the ground, so his foe’s momentum wouldn’t fling him backward or bowl him over.
The spear stabbed deep into the wyrm’s lower jaw. A white burst of power banged and flung scraps of decayed flesh, bone, and broken teeth through the air. Alasklerbanbastos stumbled to a halt but instantly raised a forefoot.
Aoth scrambled right to keep the undead dragon from clawing him, then sensed motion on his left. He glanced in that direction. Alasklerbanbastos’s head had looped around toward him.
The dragon’s gaze made his own head spin. Suddenly it was as though the floating island had flipped on its side, and he was falling into his adversary’s eyes.
He focused his will on one of the tattoos on his chest and activated its magic. A surge of clarity and vigor washed his vertigo away, and he wrenched his eyes away from the wyrm’s. It was only then that he could see his foe’s jaws opening and the glow at the back of the mouth.
He dived forward. Lightning flared behind him, the flash illuminating the raw, reeking putridity of Alasklerbanbastos’s body in all its ugliness.
Aoth landed on his knees. Alasklerbanbastos lifted a foot to stamp. His neck kept twisting to put Aoth in front of his jaws and eyes again.
Aoth scrambled underneath the dragon. At that moment it was the safest place. Bellowing, he thrust the spear up between the massive ribs. When he jerked the weapon out, black sludge spattered down from the puncture.
Alasklerbanbastos’s legs flexed. Aoth realized his foe was about to take flight, and once that happened it would be impossible to keep the creature from turning his attention back on Cera. He rattled off words of power and swept the spear in an arc.
Tentacles of inky shadow burst out of the ground. They wrapped around Alasklerbanbastos’s hind feet and tail. While he had the creature immobilized, Aoth repeatedly drove the spear into his chest.
The dracolich snarled a rhyme in Draconic. Magic whined through the air and for a moment turned everything a sickly phosphorescent green. The black tentacles melted, and the steaming residue flowed down his limbs like oil.
Aoth ran toward one of Alasklerbanbastos’s forefeet. Maybe he could nail the creature to the ground with his spear. But before he could reach the extremity, the dragon jumped away.
To Aoth’s relief, though, Alasklerbanbastos didn’t take to the air. The wyrm just sprang away across the ground, uncovering him. Then he could see why. Jet and Eider had returned and were swooping and wheeling over the lich, crowding him, denying him the room he needed to take off.
Each griffon was carrying a pair of firestormers. The genasi were hanging on desperately, plainly too terrified to do anything more. One of them was screaming.
Aoth didn’t blame the fellow. Alasklerbanbastos’s wings were sweeping up and down. His tail swirled through the air. He struck like a serpent, his fangs clashing shut. It must have seemed impossible to their passengers that the griffons could dodge every attack.
It was certainly impossible that they could do it for very long, not unless somebody gave Alasklerbanbastos something else to think about. Aoth called fire from his spear and slashed it down the dragon’s flank like a sword.
Just die! he thought. I killed you before, when you were in a much stronger body than this. But then he’d had Tchazzar, Jaxanaedegor, and several other dragons fighting on his side.
As he dashed to interpose himself between the dracolich and Cera once more, it seemed to him that the phylactery was still the key. Cera c
ould subdue their foe if she could only take the time to reassert her mastery of the stone. But the hollow wyrm was still pressing her relentlessly, pushing her back parallel to the edge of the cliff. The unnatural thing lunged, then snapped and raked with fangs and claws of hardened hide, and she hit back with the mace of amber glow she’d floated in the air between them.
Aoth aimed his spear at the sack-wyrm and growled the first words of an incantation intended to tear it to shreds. Then he heard a thump, and the rocky ground jolted beneath him.
He looked around. Alasklerbanbastos had made another leap, away from the griffons and off the line that Aoth had closed with his body. Now there was nothing but clear space between the dracolich and the priestess who had dared to chastise and control him.
Still chanting, Aoth resolved to turn his spell on Alasklerbanbastos. Then it came to him that there was a better tactic.
“Cera!” he bellowed. “Throw the stone! Over the side!”
Startled, she glanced over at him, then grinned and dropped the mace of metal and wood in her hand. She reached into her belt pouch, snatched out the shadow gem, and flung it into space.
Alasklerbanbastos froze. The empty wyrm did too, as though consternation had leaped from the mind of the creator to the creation.
“That’s your soul falling into the gorge,” panted Aoth. “Your existence. Your liberty. You and your friend can stay up here and fight us, or you can go look for it.”
Alasklerbanbastos roared. Then he ran at Cera. But when she scrambled out of the way, he didn’t pivot with her. He simply pounded onward, leaped off the edge, and plunged out of sight. After a heartbeat, the empty dragon did the same, although, its loose folds catching the air, it fell more slowly.
That, said Jet, speaking mind to mind, was actually a little bit clever.
I thought so, Aoth replied.
Or at least it would have been if you’d come up with it sooner.
Aoth snorted. You and Eider, stop loafing. Put your passengers on the ground and go back for the next four.
As the griffons did as instructed—and a watersoul dropped to his knees and puked—Aoth headed for Cera, who hurried to meet him. They hugged for a moment as best they could with weapons, shields, and armor in the way. Their gear clinked together.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, “except that I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “I’m the one—”
At their backs, toward the center of the earthmote, something roared.
“Curse it!” he said. “Come on!” He strode in the direction of the noise, and she followed.
Tiny flames rippling through the asymmetrical mask of lines on his face, Mardiz-sul scurried toward them. “That’s Vairshekellabex!” he said.
“I imagine so,” Aoth answered.
“But … we don’t have our own dragon to pit against him anymore!”
“If we fight, we have a chance,” said Aoth. “If we don’t, we can be absolutely sure Vairshekellabex will kill us. So I recommend fighting. Collect those three”—he indicated the other new arrivals with a poke of his spear—“and come on.”
He’d done his best to project toughness and determination, but inwardly he understood Mardiz-sul’s dismay. Their situation was likely to turn out bad. Vairshekellabex might already be on the wing, soaring overhead to blast the intruders with his breath. Aoth scanned the sky but didn’t see the wyrm.
And when he and his companions reached the center of the floating island, he realized why. Vairshekellabex, or the front end of him, anyway, was evidently caught under the heap of fallen stone in the mouth of the cavern. Gaedynn stood watching with his customary air of insouciance, as if the gray’s situation were faintly amusing but of no actual significance. Shielded behind an outcropping, Son-liin lay unconscious on the ground.
Cera crouched beside the girl.
“She’s just napping,” Gaedynn said. “She strained herself. Some of us had to take up the slack when others weren’t where they were supposed to be. What was it, Alasklerbanbastos slipping the leash? Whoever could have predicted that?”
“Tell me what I need to know,” Aoth rapped.
Gaedynn’s flippant demeanor fell away. “You see we trapped the gray. But I can’t imagine it holding him for long. Right before the stone fell on top of him, he cast a spell. Something to make him stronger or faster, maybe, since it didn’t do anything else that I could see.”
“Right.” Aoth turned to Mardiz-sul and the other genasi. “Surround the cave entrance.” He pointed to the watersoul who’d vomited, leaving stinking spatters of puke on the front of his brigandine. “Except you. You run to the bridge. Whatever happened there, our squad should have it under control by now. Leave one man to stand guard and fetch the rest. Everybody, move!”
The genasi burst into motion. The watersoul sprinted with the inhuman speed of his kind, as if an invisible current was sweeping him along.
Cera looked up from her examination of Son-liin. “She just fainted,” the priestess said.
“Then leave her,” said Aoth. “We have to get into position too and break whatever enchantment Vairshekellabex already cast, if we can.”
He and Gaedynn positioned themselves squarely in front of the cave. The dragon was going to attack someone, and for the moment, it needed to be the warriors who had the best chance of surviving. Cera crouched behind a boulder off to the left. It would give her some protection without hindering her spellcasting.
His pulse beating in his neck, Aoth aimed his spear and chanted a spell whose purpose was to dissolve other enchantments. Cera murmured the start of a prayer.
Then the heap of stone fell in on itself. Vairshekellabex had finally succeeded in dragging his head and neck out the back end of it. A deep voice hissed a word of command, and the whole mound shattered into bits of gravel, which instantly hurtled from the mouth of the cave like a thousand slung stones.
It was pure reflex that made Aoth raise his targe in time to cover his face and eyes. The barrage clattered on his armor, stung him all over, and sent him reeling backward.
He caught his balance and looked around. Grinning, Gaedynn was rolling to his feet with one bloody pock on his cheek and another on his chin. He’d plainly saved himself from worse by dropping flat, as Cera had by cowering behind her boulder. And everyone else had been standing to one side or the other of the barrage.
Aoth returned Gaedynn’s smile. He surmised that they’d just experienced the result of the magic Vairshekellabex had conjured previously. It had been a spell of blasting prepared in advance, then triggered by a single word of command. Since it had been discharged, it was one less thing to worry about.
But when Vairshekellabex lunged out into the open, it became immediately apparent that there were plenty of other reasons for concern. One earthsoul yelped at the dragon’s size and speed, or maybe at the sheer horrific grotesquerie of the jutting, tangled fangs.
Aoth took a step, shouted a word of power, and hurled crackling lightning from his spear. The dazzling flare burned into Vairshekellabex’s chest, and the gray threw back his head and howled.
Gaedynn loosed an arrow. The shaft stabbed into the underside of their foe’s scaly neck.
Bobbing up from behind her stone, Cera stretched out her arm and said, “I pray for your holy light.” A brilliant beam shot from her fingertips and stabbed a smoking, black-edged hole in one of the dragon’s wings.
Mardiz-sul ran forward, shouted, and swung his sword at Vairshekellabex’s flank. The blade burst into flame as it arced through the air.
And at that point, all the other genasi started fighting too, shooting crossbow bolts and flinging javelins. Thank the Firelord, thought Aoth. Now we’ve got a chance anyway.
Vairshekellabex’s tail whipped through the air. Mardiz-sul ducked barely in time to keep it from smashing his skull. But at the same moment, the wyrm lunged forward. He was coming at Aoth and Gaedynn, but one of the spines on the hock o
f his hind leg snagged the firesoul’s sword arm, catching between two links of mail then popping free in a splash of blood.
Mardiz-sul froze in place like a statue. His red-bronze skin turned gray.
Meanwhile, Vairshekellabex cocked his head back, snapped it forward, and opened his jaws wide. Gray spew blasted out, and Aoth and Gaedynn threw themselves out of the way.
The caustic spray hammered the ground but didn’t splash like water. By the time it hit, it was already congealing, and it ended up as a freestanding web of interconnected globs, loops, and tendrils. Imagining the steaming, sizzling goo eating into his flesh and sticking to it at the same time, Aoth winced and roused the protective magic of another tattoo.
Then, spinning his spear through the necessary figure, he created a second such weapon made of rippling, multicolored light. It hefted itself as though an invisible warrior were holding it, threw itself at Vairshekellabex’s head, and guided by its creator’s will, started jabbing.
Gaedynn shot a second arrow into the dragon’s neck just as the first one fell out, the end of it charred away. If it meant the shaft had gone in deep enough to come into contact with Vairshekellabex’s caustic spew, Aoth supposed that was a good thing. Although so far, it didn’t seem to be slowing the gray down any.
Meanwhile, braving the lashing tail, stamping hind foot, and pounding wing that could have swatted him like a fly, an earthsoul scuttled forward to Mardiz-sul. He gripped the Bright Sword by the shoulder and jabbered something Aoth had no hope of hearing, not with Vairshekellabex snarling, Firetormers screaming war cries and warnings, and all the rest of the cacophony. But maybe it was a charm or a prayer meant to help the earthsoul exploit his affinity with stone, because the red and gold washed back into Mardiz-sul’s face, and freed from the bonds of petrifaction, he staggered backward with his comrade.
Vairshekellabex’s forefoot snatched for Aoth. He sidestepped and tried to jab it but was too slow. The gray started to claw again, and another arrow appeared in his neck right beside the last one and the gory hole left by the one before that. He hissed and his talons fell short of the mark.
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