D& D - Mystara 02 Dragonking of Mystara

by Thorarinn Gunnarsson

  "I know who you are," he declared. "I call upon you to surrender. You must know that your magic is no match for the power of ancient Blackmoor."

  "But what are you without that power?" the dragon asked. "Are you able to fight me if you are no longer the Dragonlord?"

  Suddenly Thelvyn felt the weight of his armor settle more heavily about him, almost as if its strength had gone out of it. Then he understood the tactics of his enemy only too well. In all the time he had been the Dragonlord, no adverse magic had ever been able to affect the armor. Somehow this crystal was powerful enough to overcome the enchantments of the armor, in some way either blocking or draining most of its own strength. The attack of the three dragons came almost immediately in the form of invisible blasts of force, which struck him like the massive bolts of a catapult.

  The armor responded as well as it could, but its power was so diminished that the shields could only blunt the force of the blasts. Thelvyn was knocked to his knees from the first blow. He braced himself against the tremendous force of the barrage. Each blow felt as if someone were striking his armor with a club, and he began to grow uncomfortably hot as the searing blasts caused the exposed backplate of the armor to smoke. Yet somehow he had to endure this for a few moments more in order to give Sir George time enough to get the king to safety. If the dragons had physically attacked him at that moment, trying to crush him with their weight or overcome him with their strength, he knew that he would not have survived. Fortunately they respected the power of the Dragonlord too much, preferring to attack magically from what seemed to them a safe distance.

  Defending himself the only way he could, Thelvyn desperately called upon his own magic to raise an invisible barrier, hoping to divert the worst of the attack away from the failing defenses of the armor for at least a brief time. He needed to hold what power of the armor remained in reserve for his counterattack. If he didn't somehow counter those blasts of energy to his back, he knew that he would soon be burned. He needed all the force of will he could command to hold the barrier about him, knowing that if it failed he couldn't get it back until he relearned the spell. When he dared to raise his head at last, he saw that Sir George and the king were already gone.

  Now he had his one chance to attack, and this time the strength and magic he needed would have to be mostly his own. Moving slowly and carefully against the assault of the dragons, he called upon the last of his failing strength to force himself to stand and raise his sword. He felt his magic shield give out, and now he must rely only upon the remaining strength of the armor to protect him for the short time he needed. He lifted his sword to his full reach, facing the sphere of crystal. The leader of the dragons responded, moving quickly around to the front of the crystal to protect it.

  Thelvyn knew that he couldn't expect to win a battle against wizards if he had to rely upon his own magic. He simply didn't have the experience. His greatest strength was as a cleric, commanding powers within himself that he knew were powerful enough to subdue a dragon. Telepor-tation wasn't commonly a clerical ability, but he was no common cleric. Suddenly he vanished and reappeared in the next instant on the far side of the crystal, behind the dragon. Startled by the unexpected move and suddenly fearful of what the Dragonlord might do, the dragon whipped around and charged directly at him.

  Trusting only in the failing powers of his armor to protect him, Thelvyn commanded the full remaining force of the sword and brought the blade down with all his strength across the top of the sphere of crystal. The surface of the crystal was immediately crisscrossed with countless cracks, and in the next instant it failed altogether in a tremendous explosion of flame. Blinded by the blast, Thelvyn was hurled backward with tremendous force until he crashed hard against the inside wall of the throne room. Fortunately the power of the enchantments of his armor had begun to return at the moment the crystal was destroyed, protecting him from the full impact.

  He was stunned all the same, and for a time all he could do was struggle to regain his breath. His head seemed to pound with pain, and he could barely move. For several seconds he could see nothing through the flames and the smoke. He was aware only that something heavy, like pieces of stone, was falling about him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the pain in his head to subside. Then, as he began to struggle to stand, a hand took him under his right arm and helped him to his feet. He returned the sword to its clip at his belt, then removed his helmet.

  Sir George stood at his side. The blast from the destruction of the crystal had completely wrecked the throne room, rushing upward and blowing away the roof of the palace and tossing the debris in every direction. Many of the interior walls had also been ripped away as well, devastating the surrounding halls and chambers in that entire section of the palace. Only the wall behind him remained standing, and that was only because it was also the massive outer wall of the city. Everywhere wood from splintered rafters and beams and the ruins of the galleries was in flames.

  When he looked around, he saw that none of the three dragons had survived the attack. Their broken bodies had been tossed aside and lay half buried in the debris.

  "That was a bit extreme, I must say," Sir George commented.

  Thelvyn shook his head slowly. "That wasn't my doing. They were using that large crystal to channel some vast reserve of power, great enough that it nearly overwhelmed the enchantments of my suit. I suppose we should consider ourselves fortunate it didn't devastate this entire side of the city. Did you get the king to safety?"

  "He was already dead," Sir George told him. "They had crushed him just like the others. I left his body down the hall."

  The fires seemed likely to spread throughout the entire palace, and they were in danger of being overcome by the smoke and dust. Although Thelvyn was still somewhat unsteady, the old knight helped him pick his way through the rubble. When they came to the body of the largest of the dragons, they found that the enchantments had failed and it had transformed back into its true nature.

  As Thelvyn had expected, it was Byen Kalestraan.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Thelvyn and Sir George finally emerged from the smoke and flames, they saw that the explosion of the crystal sphere had devastated at least a quarter of the palace. The spreading flames, which had been advancing slowly, suddenly began to burn vigorously and were in danger of consuming the rest of the palace. Once he had rested a few moments, Thelvyn cast a clerical spell to suppress fire to contain the damage. By that time, he was completely exhausted and in pain from the injuries he had sustained in his battle. He very much needed to rest for a while. Just the same, he thought it best to stay close and help sort out the mess that was sure to follow. Sir George wouldn't allow him to remove his armor, fearful of additional attacks, but at least he was able to sit down for a few minutes.

  Needless to say, the destruction of the king's palace awoke the entire city, and help was quick in coming. The captain of the garrison at the north gate discussed the matter briefly with Thelvyn, finally sending most of his garrison to put out the remaining flames and stationing the rest at the gate and

  along the walls of Braejr to guard against further attack. When more soldiers arrived, Thelvyn sent them to secure ihe wizards' residence at the Academy, with instructions that no one was to be allowed to leave the premises until further notice. Then he sent a message to the captain of the garrison to begin searching the palace for survivors and remove the dead. Once he felt reasonably certain that nothing more could be done until morning, he went home to bed.

  Thelvyn felt no better the next morning. He had taken quite a beating during the time that his armor had been unable to fully protect him, and again when the explosion had thrown him violently against the wall. His back and neck ached, and his head still throbbed. He was also concerned about his armor, which had come through the attack badly scorched. A good night's rest, however brief, seemed to have done the suit more good than it did him. When he put it on morning, there was already little sign of damage. The enchantme
nts of the ancient armor seemed to cover all contingencies, including self-renewal.

  As much as he hated to consider it, Thelvyn knew that he needed to return to the palace as quickly as he could. As the Dragonlord and the commander of the Highlands Army, he now commanded the highest authority of anyone in Braejr. Until he was able to determine who had been named Jherridan Maarsten's heir and successor, he would have to assume command himself. He knew that ancient Flaemish law required certain assurances from any new king. One of those laws required every new king to name his successor in his will, but Thelvyn couldn't recall Jherridan ever saying anything about whom he had chosen as his successor.

  Only then did the reality of the situation begin to sink in. King Jherridan was dead, and Byen Kalestraan as well. A country that was at war with an enemy it could not fight was suddenly without direction, and by chance the welfare of the Highlands seemed to be his responsibility. He washed and dressed and then ate quickly. Then he asked Sir George to accompany him to the palace and sent a message to Alessa Vyledaar, who had been summoned to the Academy, to meet him there as soon as possible. As far as

  Thelvyn knew, Alessa was now the senior ranking Fire Wizard. There might be other wizards at the Academy of higher rank and greater experience, but there was no way of knowing yet just how many of them had been involved in the plot to assassinate the king.

  The morning was bright and clear, with only a few clouds hovering over the mountains to the east. But as innocent and pleasant as the morning seemed, the king's palace still looked dark and forlorn in the morning sun. A large area of the palace, fully a fourth of its length, had been devastated by the explosion of the crystal, although the damage didn't appear so bad from the courtyard because the front wall remained intact. The soldiers of the city garrison had begun to salvage what could be saved from the damaged areas.

  Thelvyn's first concern was to uncover every smallest detail of just what had happened. Every member of the palace staff and some forty men of the palace garrison were dead, most of them slain as they slept. Of those who had been in the palace when the wizards had arrived, only Taeryn had survived, and then only because he had been sent by Kalestraan to summon the Dragonlord into the trap that had been prepared for him. Thelvyn hadn't intended to ask the young valet to return to the palace so soon, knowing that the death of King Jherridan had upset him, but Taeryn had insisted. The young valet didn't want for courage, and he was determined to remain calm at a time when he knew that he was needed.

  There seemed to have been five wizards involved in the attack, and none of them had survived. Alessa returned from the Academy just past midmorning to report what she had learned so far. Knowledge of the conspiracy seemed to have been limited to the eighteen most senior Fire Wizards; of those, five had been slain in the attack, and the rest had fled in spite of Thelvyn's attempt to prevent that. For now, the Academy was under the direction of Alessa Vyledaar, supported by one older wizard who had agreed to take time from his books only until a replacement could be found.

  Needless to say, the events of the previous night had already done serious damage to the prestige and the credibility of the Fire Wizards as the guardians of Flaemish law and tradition. King Jherridan had been generally well liked and respected. Worse yet, the wizards had attacked and slain him because of their own ambitions. Byen Kalestraan's plan, of course, had been to slay both the king and the Dragonlord and then seize power in the resulting crisis, laying the blame on the dragons, whom he then expected to defeat with his new power. Now that the depths of his treachery were generally known, the remaining Fire Wizards shared in his disgrace. The fury of the Flaemish people was so great that the wizards might never again reclaim the standing they had once enjoyed.

  Indeed, the only one who seemed to have benefitted from this tragedy was the Dragonlord himself. Thelvyn was regarded as a hero for having exposed the traitors and for his desperate attempt to save King Jherridan. By that evening, there had already been public calls to make him the next king. It was unprecedented for the Flaem, considering their natural suspicion of foreigners, to even contemplate such a thing. At first, Thelvyn deemed such calls the least of his problems. He wasn't able to speak privately with his companions until that evening at dinner. By that time, he had two very important questions that he needed to have answered.

  "I have a very nasty suspicion," he began. "I am reminded that the dragons accused the wizards of stealing something they very much want back. I know what it is, and the thing I destroyed last night wasn't it. Still, if Kalestraan had stolen the Collar of the Dragons, then he apparendy wanted it for its supposed ability to direct great powers, much as he was using that crystal."

  "Kalestraan stole something from the dragons," Alessa admitted reluctantly. "I don't know what it was, although it apparently never did him any good. Now, with all of his associates either dead or fled, I'm not sure we have any way now of finding this thing."

  "This has got to have something to do with that great source of power that your Fire Wizards have discovered," Thelvyn said.

  Alessa looked surprised. "You know about that?"

  "Kalestraan himself told us about it the first time we were here," Sir George told her. "Its limited range was his excuse for why his wizards were having no luck fighting the dragons, and also for why Thelvyn's cape wasn't supposed to function outside of the Highlands. I suppose he thought it was safe enough to tell us, since he thought he was sending us to our deaths anyway."

  "Byen Kalestraan was an absolute idiot," Alessa declared sourly. "The source of power he told you about is called the Radiance. Only experienced wizards are supposed to know about it, and even they aren't allowed to know the secret of its nature. Only the most senior wizards are allowed to know the secrets of its power, if anyone does. I wasn't among them, but I've pieced together enough to have some idea."

  "What do you think it is?" Thelvyn prompted.

  She shrugged. "It's a great, inexplicable source of latent magical energy. The wizards discovered it even before our people came into this world, at the time when they were still searching through the worlds for traces of the Alphatians. They immediately saw the Radiance as a source of the power we needed to defeat our ancient enemy, so they brought us here to take advantage of it. At first they wanted it left here, when this place was mostly wilderness, so they could have it to themselves. Later, when they began learning to use the Radiance, they decided that it should have better protection. They encouraged the first archduke to move the capital of the Highlands here from its first home in Braastar."

  "But they still have no idea what it is?" Sir George asked.

  "No, although there's a good deal of speculation about what it might be. The most logical assumption is that it must be some natural source of magic of a type we don't yet comprehend. Many of the wizards prefer to believe that it was a gift from the Immortals in recognition of the value of our quest to destroy the Alphatians."

  Solveig rolled her eyes. "The self-righteous never cease to amaze me."

  "As you already seem to know, the Radiance is tremendously powerful, yet limited in range," Alessa continued. "That was what got Kalestraan in trouble during the last war with the dragons. His wizards were able to assemble magic powerful enough to subdue a dragon, at least here in Braejr where they were working on it. But when they went into the northern frontier, the magic failed."

  "Then how did he expect to deal with the dragons after he had assassinated Jherridan and me?" Thelvyn asked. "Did he expect to just sacrifice the frontier and wait until the dragons had come within the effective range of the Radiance in the central Highlands?"

  "I suppose that was it," Alessa said. "If he had other plans, I have no idea what they might have been. That's why I greatly regret the escape of the conspirators who have fled. They are the ones who best understand the Radiance, and before the trouble with the dragons is over, we may need its power. Also, they alone may know the location of the treasure that was stolen from the dragons."

&
nbsp; Thelvyn shook his head. "Kalestraan's plans were flawed. He presumed too much in thinking that the Radiance was powerful enough to defeat an army of dragons, just as it couldn't completely negate the enchantments of my armor. It didn't prevent my using either my magical or clerical powers."

  Alessa looked surprised. "I had suspected you were a cleric, but do you mean to say you are a wizard as well?"

  "The term wizard might be a little extreme in describing my abilities," he said, aware that he had already told her too much. "But we can speculate on the motives of dead wizards some other time. The problem facing us now is finding a new king. Jherridan had no direct heir. By ancient Flaemish law, he was supposed to name his successor in his will. Naturally, one of the first things I needed to do this morning was to find that will. And I wanted to do it in the presence of the most credible witnesses in the city, so there could be no accusations by the dukes that I had changed it. That turned out to be a good thing."

  "What do you mean?" Sir George asked. "Jherridan named a successor, didn't he?"

  "Oh, yes, he certainly did," Thelvyn admitted reluctantly, crossing his arms on the edge of the table. "The trouble is that he named me."

  "Well, well. Congratulations, old boy!"

  "Do try to be serious," Thelvyn told the old knight. "I certainly don't want to be King of the Flaemish Realm, and I'm sure that my duty as the Dragonlord doesn't permit it. I might be willing to watch over things temporarily, but the Flaem are going to have to find themselves a real king. The trouble is, I'm not sure there's a mechanism in Flaemish law to decide upon a new king. The dukes made Jherridan archduke as a matter of convenience; he later made himself king. Ordinarily the wizards would be the arbitrators of Flaemish law, but their order is in utter disgrace for the foreseeable future. That seems to leave only the dukes to decide, and I doubt they could. They're too suspicious of each other to want another duke made king."