He looked up at the wyrm, could hardly make out its horned head through the flaming deluge, and waited, and waited, until at last the fire stream ended.
“Impressive!” Del congratulated.
The sheer power of the outraged dragon’s ensuing roar split stone, and down came the snapping maw. Unsettling indeed was that sight to Del, the rows of spearlike teeth chomping over him, seeming to bite him in half. But again the mouth only closed with a resounding, empty snap, the dragon’s maw passing right through the insubstantial ghost, and when the wyrm lifted its head, Del stood impassively in place, looking up at it.
“Again, I must agree that you are quite impressive,” Del, growing ever more confident now, mustered the courage to remark. “Ineffective, but impressive.”
He nearly swooned at the sheer speed and power of the claw slash, the three-taloned weapon swooshing right through him, screeching off the still-warm stone at his feet, tearing deep jagged grooves.
“YOU ARE NOT REAL!” the wyrm cried, and Del took note of the slightest hint of distress in its godlike voice.
“Yet here I stand,” Del started to respond, but the dragon was paying him no heed at all.
“WHAT TRICK IS THIS, WIZARD?” the wyrm roared. “WHAT DISTRACTION? BUT YOU SHALL NOT ESCAPE! YOU WHO DARED TO DISTURB THE SLUMBER OF SALAZAR SHALL NOT LIVE TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY!”
“Oh, and it is a bright day,” Del remarked, for no better reason than to distract the wyrm again, to indeed distract it that his friends might hustle out of the caverns.
Salazar ignored him though, and moved out of the chamber with awesome grace, seeming more a stalking cat than a bulky lizard.
The ghost thought to follow, perhaps to pester the dragon all the way, or to dance about it in the coming confrontation in an effort to take some of the creature’s focus from his friends. Del couldn’t help a long glance at the treasure mounds, though, as splendid as anything he could ever imagine—at least in this form, on this world. And when he did glance back that way, a flash of gleaming white light caught and held his eye.
There it was: the sword Belexus had described, stuck into the side of a huge pile of gold and silver coins. There could be no doubt about the identity of this blade, for there could be no other to match it in all the world. Despite his fears for his friends, Del found himself drifting toward the sword. He reached down tentatively and felt its shining hilt: bright, silvery steel woven with threads of the purest gold. Slowly, reverently, Del drew it forth from the pile, marveling at its blade—blue-gray, but edged on both sides with a thin line of roughly triangular diamonds, like little pointy teeth or—the thought suddenly came to Del from some far-off, fleeting memory—like little white-wrapped Hershey’s Kisses. He didn’t have to run his finger along that blade to recognize its sharpness; in fact, so wicked did it seem that Del was actually afraid to touch it, fearing that this sword would somehow transcend the boundaries of the material plane and his present spectral state and cut his digits clean away.
Del had no idea of how strong he was in this condition, but he understood that this sword was incredibly light and perfectly balanced. He gave it a slow swing, marveling at the diamond light that trailed its swishing cut.
Then he remembered, suddenly he remembered, that his friends remained in dire trouble. Off he went at full speed, and he heard the roar of Salazar, heard the “Oh, bother” of Ardaz, and knew that he had tarried too long.
Belexus went forward in a roll, under the dragon’s bobbing chin, between its forelegs. He rose on his feet with a powerful thrust, driving his sword straight up and hoping that the beast would prove less armored underneath.
No such luck, and as the blade jabbed, bent, and skipped harmlessly to the side, the ranger had to leap and dive again, out from under the dragon, for Salazar, no novice in battle, simply buckled its great legs, dropping its tonnage straight down.
Belexus barely missed that crushing blow, and he came up hard and pivoted abruptly, bringing the sword in a mighty over-the-shoulder chop. Again the screech and the sparks, and this time, the ranger believed that he had actually cracked a scale.
That realization brought little hope, though, for he was working hard, far too hard, for each swing, and the damage, even from this one, proved minimal at best.
Even worse, the last hit only got the dragon angrier, if such a rage was possible, and even more animated. The great claws tore at the stone, bringing the creature in a devastating turn to keep up with running Belexus. The long, serpentine tail whipped about, smashing a rocky outcropping into a pile of broken rubble. And that turning head, trying to catch up to the ranger, held a blast of fire ready to incinerate the man.
“Use yer lightning!” Belexus begged Ardaz, but the wizard, knowing that any offensive spell he might invoke would likely only anger the dragon even more—and even worse, might rebound off the solid scales, doing harm to Belexus or to Ardaz—was busy concentrating on his next defensive shell.
Belexus came running back in a loop, the turning dragon’s head right behind, and the ranger dove again for the staff, catching it just as the fiery breath rolled over him. On and on it went, but this time, Ardaz and Belexus, protected by the shell, didn’t stand there screaming, but rather used the plumes of fire and smoke to slip away, into the next chamber. Then, when they had put the continuing fires behind them, they broke into a dead run.
The dragon’s angry and frustrated roar signaled all too clearly that the beast was again in pursuit.
“Ye keep going,” Belexus bade the wizard. “I’ll stop and slow the thing, and might that ye’ll find yer way out!”
Ardaz grabbed him doubly tightly. “Oh no, no, no!” the wizard cried. “The wyrm will incinerate you, and hardly slow. Or maybe he’ll just run you over, flatten you in the corridor, on his way to get to me! You keep running with me, fool hero; I need your speed to help pull me along!”
Indeed, the ranger’s stride was much greater than the old wizard’s, and Belexus was pulling Ardaz along at a great clip. Not great enough, though, the ranger feared, as Salazar’s continuing tirade of wicked threats loomed ever closer.
“We canno’ get away like this!” the ranger complained.
“Why did we come in here at all?” Ardaz screamed back at him. “For a sword? A single, stupid sword?”
In reply, Belexus gave a sharp tug that turned Ardaz about ninety degrees. The wizard gave a stifled cry, thinking he was about to slam the wall, but he went into blackness instead, a small side passage.
“Douse yer wizard light,” Belexus bade him, squeezing by and pulling the wizard along.
Ardaz looked at his staff curiously for a moment, then, with a word, extinguished the fire burning atop it. On they went. They heard the dragon skid up in the main corridor, near to where they had detoured, and a great sniffing sound told them that the wyrm had not been fooled.
“Run on!” the pair cried together, and Ardaz added, “I do daresay!”
The wizard desperately tried to summon another defensive globe, but he wouldn’t be fast enough this time, and only Belexus’ pulling saved him, took him far enough down the side passage that Salazar’s fiery blast only tickled his backside.
“THIEVES!” the dragon bellowed, and that roar seemed worse by far than the dragon-fire breath. “WHAT TRICK IS THIS?”
“Trick?” Belexus echoed curiously. “Going down a smaller tunnel’s no trick. Not a good one, anyway,” he added when he turned a slight bend and came against solid stone, the dead end of the passage.
“Something else?” Ardaz asked with a shrug, and his thought was bolstered a moment later when he heard the dragon rush off, back the way it had come.
“Are ye thinking that we should go back out there?” the ranger asked after a long, quiet while.
Ardaz shook his head so fiercely that his lips made smacking sounds.
“Well, put up yer light,” the ranger said, and when Ardaz complied, they saw that they had indeed come to a dead end.
“On
ly one way out,” Belexus reasoned.
Again, the wizard’s lips smacked wildly, ending when Ardaz pursed them and blew out the fire at the end of his staff.
“Then we’ll be sitting here a bit and waiting,” the ranger said, and it was obvious from his tone that the notion didn’t wear well upon him.
“Just give the wyrm a chance to get farther away,” Ardaz begged.
“If DelGiudice coaxes the thing on a merry chase, then might be that we can get back in the treasure room and sniff about for the sword.”
The darkness in the tunnel was complete, but the ranger could well imagine the incredulous look Ardaz was offering his way.
“We come for the sword,” the ranger announced with more determination than he had been able to muster since first he sighted the terrible dragon.
“We ran away,” Ardaz said dryly.
“Only to regroup and go back,” Belexus said determinedly.
Ardaz’ snort showed that he was far from like mind.
“We can’t be letting the wraith—”
“Oh, bother the wraith, and Thalasi, too,” the wizard interrupted. “I’d fight them both with my bare hands before I’d go back into the Salazar’s room! Have you gone mad, then?”
In response, a grumbling Belexus crawled over Ardaz, none too gently, and started back down the passage. The wizard couldn’t make out many of the words the ranger was muttering, but he heard “Andovar” and “vengeance” quite clearly.
“I do daresay,” Ardaz mumbled, and with a helpless shrug, he crawled into line behind the ranger, even brought up his staff-torch a moment later—not that his courage had increased, just that he was feeling so ultimately stupid that he figured he might as well take this quest all the way. If they were indeed going back after the wyrm, then they might as well let the wyrm know it. “Might get it over with more quickly,” was all the explanation Ardaz offered to Belexus when the ranger turned back to stare incredulously at the light.
They came to the lip of the tunnel and paused there, listening to hear if the dragon was waiting quietly just around the bend. Then Belexus hesitated once more, taking a long while to try to muster the courage to peek out. It mattered little, the ranger told himself, for if the dragon was nearby, waiting to spring, the beast could just as easily go to the mouth of the hole and let loose its fires, for the ranger and Ardaz could never scramble far enough away in time.
Still, thinking about an action and performing it can be two very different things, and Belexus had to wait a moment longer before he found the strength to ease his head and the lit end of the wizard’s staff out into that wider tunnel.
All was clear, so the ranger crept out, then motioned Ardaz to follow—then reached back and pulled the trembling and unmoving wizard out. The ranger pointed right, back toward the treasure room, but Ardaz stubbornly pointed left, back toward the exit.
Belexus thrust his finger more forcefully to the right and nodded that way.
Ardaz started left.
Belexus caught him by the beard and turned him about, and then both jumped and yelped, surprised by the approach of the ghost of DelGiudice.
“What’re ye about?” the ranger started to complain, but the words were stuck in his throat the moment he noted the precious cargo Del carried.
“There are some advantages to this semiethereal state,” the ghost explained, handing the weapon over.
“Ah, but she’s beautiful,” the ranger said with an awestricken gasp, feeling the balance and the clean cut, and witnessing the trailing diamond light.
“Salazar knows I took it,” Del explained. “I think he knew the moment I picked it up, though he was out here, chasing you.”
“Dragons are like that,” Ardaz offered.
“Never have I seen such a blade,” the ranger went on, the gleam of the diamonds reflecting off his clear eyes, even in the dim light.
“Knows which way I went, too,” Del tried to explain.
The ground shook beneath their feet, then again and again at even intervals, the heavy footsteps of the approaching wyrm.
“Time to go,” Ardaz implored, and when Belexus continued staring at the blade, the wizard popped him on top of the head with the end of his staff. “Time to go!” Ardaz said again, pointing frantically back down the tunnel.
Belexus turned to see the long and empty passage but could hear, quite clearly, the thunderous approach. For an instant, the ranger thought of going back that way, of trying his luck against the wyrm now that he held such a powerful weapon as this.
He decided against that course, only because his duty was to Andovar; and his primary enemy, and the greatest threat to the goodly folk of the world, remained the wraith of Hollis Mitchell.
“Run on and I’ll keep the dragon busy for a bit,” Del offered.
Ardaz and Belexus exchanged skeptical glances, but it was obvious that Del had already accomplished quite a bit more than they ever could have hoped to, and so they started off, after Belexus tried to pat the ghost on the shoulder and inadvertently slid his hand right through Del’s chest.
Del watched them go, managing a supportive smile. In truth, though, the ghost was feeling a bit low, sad that he could not experience that touch, or any touch, from a warm, living creature. He thought of Brielle again, of their lovemaking, and his heart sank.
It was just for a moment, though, as the spirit purposefully recalled his time with the Colonnae—and how distant that memory seemed! It struck Del as more than a bit odd how the trappings of this world and this shape, such as they were, were imposing upon him some very different emotions than any he had experienced in all his time with Calae, as if the form itself were dictating some thought to the intelligence.
That was a question for another day, Del realized, as the dragon came rambling into sight at the end of the corridor. The ghost waited until he was certain the wyrm saw him; then he slipped into the same side tunnel Ardaz and Belexus had recently exited.
Salazar was there quickly, and with predictable, irrational fury, the dragon breathed its fire into the passage, balls of searing flame rolling over calm Del.
“Deeper, deeper!” Del yelled, turning his mouth so that his voice was aimed deeper into the tunnel, as if he were bidding his friends to run for all their lives.
Salazar clawed at the stone and roared repeatedly. “NOWHERE TO RUN!” the wyrm bellowed. “I CAN WAIT A HUNDRED HUNDRED YEARS! HOW LONG CAN YOU STAY IN THERE?”
“Longer than that,” Del said, too quietly for Salazar to hear.
The dragon’s patience proved the first to go, or perhaps it was just that Salazar was more cunning than Del believed, and would not be so easily fooled. The wyrm began snuffling again, then turning circles in the corridor beyond the side tunnel, finally moving a bit beyond the opening and sniffing again.
Then came such a roar as DelGiudice had never heard, the roar of a dragon robbed, and even worse, the roar of a dragon fooled!
Outside the mountain, both Ardaz and Belexus heard it clearly. So did Calamus, the pegasus shifting nervously as the wizard tried to climb onto its back. So did Desdemona, darting so speedily into the nearest saddlebag that she nearly took the harness from the pegasus’ back.
“We should be hurrying,” Belexus said dryly.
“Time to run,” the ghost concurred, coming fast out of a crack in the mountain wall, not far to the side. “Or to fly,” he corrected, noting the winged horse.
“But the big dragon cannot get down that small passageway,” Ardaz reasoned.
“He’s not to stay in there, however he comes,” Belexus cried, and it seemed true enough, for the mountain itself began violently shaking from the wrath of the great wyrm. The ranger looked back into the tunnel determinedly, his hand clenched tightly about the hilt of the diamond sword, and both Del and Ardaz wondered if Belexus meant to run back in.
Truly it was difficult for the proud ranger to flee at that moment. He had no desire to face the likes of Salazar again, but the sudden notion that hi
s action, his theft, might bring the wyrm out of its hole, and that the dragon, in its unrelenting outrage, might fly off and take vengeance on undeserving souls—perhaps on the elves of Lochsilinilume, perhaps even on Avalon—was heart-wrenching indeed.
“Get on!” Ardaz commanded, grabbing the ranger’s shoulder. “Climb on and guide us far, far away! You’ll not defeat the wyrm, Belexus Backavar, not if you and all your ranger friends together, and each with blades like that you now hold, caught it curled up in a deep sleep!”
With a frustrated growl that showed he could not disagree, the ranger mounted the pegasus in front of Ardaz and urged Calamus into a short run to the edge of the small ledge and then leaped the horse high into the empty air. The white wings beat furiously, wise Calamus understanding the need for speed. Up they went, and around the side of the mountain, and just a few seconds later, they heard the thunderous rumble of an avalanche, a tremendous explosion of rock and snow bursting out from the mountainside, and they knew that Salazar had come forth.
“Do keep us out of sight,” Ardaz cried in Belexus’ ear. The wizard turned to look back, but stopped halfway, gawking, seeing DelGiudice floating along easily beside them, hardly working, yet pacing the swift flight of Calamus with ease. Del offered a wink to the wizard and then was gone, reversing his direction so quickly that Ardaz blinked many times before he figured out where the ghost had flown off to.
Around the mountain, Del met up with the dragon. Salazar in flight—wings extended, hardly beating, yet traveling at a speed that mocked the furious rush of the pegasus—seemed even more fearsome than had the dragon in its mountain hole, where the tight stone of ceiling and walls forced it into a tight posture. The dragon spotted Del, who was making no effort to conceal himself at all. Salazar never slowed, never swerved, just came on at tremendous speed, swooshing right through the startled spirit and flying on in pursuit of the real quarry and the stolen treasure.
It took Del more than a few moments to recover from that tremendous shock. He turned and started after the wyrm, but changed his mind and his direction, flying fast instead the other way around the conical mountain.
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