The Lake of Death

by Jean Rabe

  Feril rubbed at the back of her neck and rolled her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to the sivak’s prattle.

  “Well, I met Dhamon back when he was human, too,” Ragh continued. The sivak leaned against the trunk of an old gum as he warily regarded her. “He was a good man, for a human. Best I can recall knowing. I have a gap in my memory, but I understand that Dhamon freed me from some of Sable’s minions. Sable’s the black dragon overlord that rules this swamp,” he paused, “but I suppose you know about Sable. I suppose everyone does.” He rubbed his back against the tree. “Anyway, Sable’s minions cut off my wings. Dhamon said they were bleeding me to make spawn and abominations.”

  Still no reaction from Feril. She seemed busy watching a small black bird that was searching for insects in the flowers and along the small branches. Her elf eyes picked through the darkness and noticed the bands of blue on the bird’s wings.

  “In those days Dhamon had this big scale on his right leg, black as night with a silver streak in it. The thing was paining him terribly. Sometimes he’d curl into a ball and pass out, it hurt that much. We’d watch him with a knot in our stomachs—Maldred and Riki and me. I remember thinking I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to suffer so. We thought sooner or later the pain might kill him.”

  Ragh talked on and on about Maldred and Riki, the ogre-mage and half-elf thief who kept company with Dhamon for a while and who worried over him and his accursed scale. He talked some about Rig and Fiona, without mentioning their deaths, since he realized Feril must have known the pair. Dhamon could deliver those somber tidings when and if he wanted to.

  “Somehow the pain got worse, then he started growing more scales. Not as big as the first one—he said that first scale came from the red overlord. Malys, they called her. At first, all the smaller scales were just on his leg, black as night, and he managed to keep them hidden from us. We found out eventually, and Maldred tried to find a cure for him.” The sivak paused. “We went to Shrentak, where there was this magical woman Maldred had heard about, some old Black Robe sorceress who was said to be near as powerful as Raistlin Majere. She was powerful, all right, but she was as mad as a nest of rattled hornets.” Again he left out a vital piece of the story… that the mad woman indeed could have cured Dhamon, for a price—if Ragh had become her property. The sivak thought the cost too high and killed her when Dhamon was unconscious, hiding her body and later telling Dhamon that the woman could do nothing for him and had wandered off.

  “Wasted trip. She couldn’t help him,” Ragh continued, a little louder. “We left Shrentak, and Dhamon’s scales kept spreading. I guess you knew him about the time he got that first big scale, huh? It was some years ago from what I understand. He said it was red at first, just like the overlord Malys. He also said a shadow dragon and a silver dragon broke the hold Malys had on him because of the scale, and in the process the big scale turned black. ’Course, the magic the shadow dragon worked on that scale, we didn’t know it at the time, but I figure it eventually caused all those other scales to sprout. It just took time.”

  The sivak waited for Feril to say something. He scratched at his chin and let out a deep breath. He heard the hoot of an owl, and then a closer owl hooted longer at a higher pitch. The owls were waiting for it to get a little darker, then they would fly in search of mice and ground squirrels. He allowed himself a moment of envy, then brushed a beetle off his leg and resumed his tale.

  “It was a little more than a year ago, I’m talking about, when the small black scales had started to sprout like fever blisters. Like I said, we had left Shrentak and were cutting through the swamp trying to help Dhamon. We took a boat across the New Sea and went north through goblin lands and into the mountains. It wasn’t an easy trip, definitely dangerous, and Dhamon was hurting more and more all the time. Dhamon wouldn’t give up, though, and we stayed with him. He was after the shadow dragon, figured it was his only chance to stop the scales from covering him entirely. Figured, I guess, that since the shadow dragon caused his problem, the shadow dragon could cure him.”

  “The shadow dragon was in the mountains?”

  Ragh bit his tongue in surprise that Feril finally had deigned to speak to him.

  The sivak nodded. “Yes, in a lair deep in the mountains, but Dhamon was scarcely human by the time we arrived there.” Ragh slid down the trunk and sat cross-legged. “By then Dhamon looked like a draconian, biggest one I ever saw, but he was black as night, like one of Sable’s spawn, and he had wings. He started growing even bigger every step closer that we got to the shadow dragon.”

  Feril was definitely listening now. She leaned forward, intent on Ragh’s story, nodding for him to continue.

  “Deep, deep under the mountain we learned that the shadow dragon wanted Dhamon to turn into a dragon. The shadow dragon was dying, old and spent, and was looking for a new body—Dhamon’s. He had control of Dhamon for a while and almost had him trapped for good, but all of us fought hard to free him.”

  Feril’s lips formed a thin line. “And you won?”

  Ragh nodded. “If you can call it that. We killed the shadow dragon and left Maldred in ogre country when it was all over. I’m the only one who stayed with Dhamon. He’s not great company, I’ll tell you. I don’t think he cares for being a dragon.”

  Neither said anything for a while. Feril rubbed at her palm and looked far into the woods, seeming to watch something the sivak couldn’t see. There was a flapping sound, wings directly overhead, a large white owl taking flight.

  “You said all of that was a year ago, sivak?”

  “About a year, give or take. Hard to mark time when time doesn’t matter much.”

  “Rig and Fiona… where are they now?”

  Ragh didn’t answer at first.

  “Did they fight the shadow dragon, too?”

  “Fiona did,” he said finally. He quickly changed the subject. “Dhamon and I have been living in Sable’s swamp. He’s built a lair, collected some treasure.”

  She edged closer, raising an eyebrow. “Wealth never mattered that much to him.”

  “When he was human, maybe,” Ragh said. Maybe when he was with you and the powerful Palin Majere, he added to himself. The sivak knew that when Dhamon traveled with the cunning Maldred, it was different; the two were always scheming to rob people or find buried riches. Treasure was at the top of their priorities. “Dhamon thinks dragons have some deep instinct to build a hoard.”

  “Is his treasure around here? If not, what is he doing here?”

  Ragh gave a great shrug of his broad shoulders.

  “He came looking for me, isn’t that it?”

  “Yes,” the sivak said. “You mean a lot to him for some reason.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “Once he meant a great deal to me, too, but it feels like that was a lifetime ago.”

  “When he was human.”

  “Yes. I met him even before he had the scale.”

  “When he was a Dark Knight?”

  She shook her head as she stood up. “He was as chivalrous as a knight, though, all puffed up with notions of honor.”

  It looked as though she might say something else but stopped herself. Her face became hard again and set itself in a scowl, as if she were angry for talking this much to a sivak, a monster without humanity.

  “You have a problem with my kind?” he said, sensing her discomfort.

  She answered swiftly, her words sounding brittle even to her ears. “Sivaks killed my father and sister. I ran away before I could see the beasts eat them, but I was a child, too small and too frightened to do anything except run.”

  She brushed at her legs and then walked to the edge of the trees and looked out over the clearing. Twilight was starting to claim the sky, and the river was dark and still churning.

  She stood there waiting for Dhamon, never once glancing back at Ragh.

  It took him longer than she expected, but he had fished all the bodies out of the river, too, heaping them all in one mass grave
, marked with shields and swords, in front of the trees from which she’d hung them.

  Now he was slowly lumbering toward her, his blue and silver scales dim in the fading light, his equine snout pointed straight at her. He had put effort into suppressing his aura of dragonfear, so Peril felt not even a twinge of dread. A few yards away he stopped, letting her finally break the silence.

  “The Knights of Neraka have been hunting the Qualinesti elves living in these woods,” she said.

  “Thus, you’ve been hunting the knights?”

  A new life, a new code of responsibilities.

  “And goblins,” she said. “Tribes of goblins, hobgoblins, and worse are roaming the forest. Mostly I’ve been hunting the bandits, but I get my share of knights.”

  “Bandits?” His eyes blinked questioningly. “Can’t the Qualinesti deal with bandits?”

  Feril laughed lightly, and Dhamon thought it sounded like crystal wind chimes teased by a slight breeze.

  “Where in all the world have you been, Dhamon Grimwulf? Beryl is dead, and most of the Qualinesti have fled from the woods. This land they’ve held since the Age of Dreams—now it’s lost to them. The stragglers don’t have enough of a force to fight the bandits or anyone else. The north country is ruled by Captain Samuval, an outlaw who’s offering land to any man who’ll serve for a time in his so-called army. Samuval’s army has been killing or driving away any Qualinesti they find.”

  Dhamon lowered his head until the barbels that hung from his chin brushed against the ground. He cringed to see Feril wrinkle her nose at his odor. “What about your allies, Feril? Who is helping you fight the knights and the bandits?”

  She put on a defiant look. “No one.” After a deep breath, she added, “Nature is helping me, Dhamon. You saw how many knights I managed to take down on my own. I’ve become more proficient with magic since you knew me.”

  He opened his great mouth and canted his head to the side. “I shouldn’t have come here, Feril. I should have stayed in the swamp. It’s my home now. I shouldn’t have tried to reach back into the past.” He paused, glancing beyond her to the draconian. “My friend over there wanted to fly for a bit, so I obliged him.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He drew his head close to his neck and something sparkled in his eyes. “That wasn’t so easy,” he said. “It was mostly Ragh’s doing. Some time ago he was a spy for Sable, and he still has some old contacts in the swamp, including ones who worked for the Knights of Neraka. It took more than a month and the liberal spreading around of steel pieces and pearls that I really had no other use for anyway. Eventually, one of Ragh’s contacts told us that a wild elf was waging war in the Qualinesti forest of Wayreth. The description didn’t closely match, but Ragh wanted badly to explore, and I wanted badly to…”

  She raised a hand to the side of her head. “I look different. I have cut my hair,” she said.

  “And the tattoos?”

  “Well, I live a different life now.” She looked over her shoulder at the sivak, who was trying to look casual while eavesdropping on their conversation. “It seems you have a remarkably different life, too.” Taking a few steps forward, she stretched out her fingers and tickled his lower jaw. “You’re an impressive-looking dragon, Dhamon Grimwulf. I’d almost say the scales suit you.”

  For an instant, pain registered in his eyes. “I’ve come to appreciate being powerful, Feril. I enjoy flying. I can see and hear better than any man, and I…”

  Ragh cleared his throat. “Oh, don’t listen to him. He’s not the least bit happy, elf. The scales don’t suit him at all.” The sivak came closer to the pair. “Did you bury all of them, Dhamon?”

  A nod.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.” There was an irritated rumble beneath the word.

  “Damn.” Ragh pounded the ball of his foot against the ground. “I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t thinking at all. Did you…”

  Dhamon shook his head. “No. I did not keep their coin purses.”

  “Damn. Damn. Damn.” The sivak sidestepped the dragon and squinted back in the direction of the mass grave, seeing little in the growing darkness. “We don’t have a single steel piece left. We didn’t bring enough from your lair. You should have grabbed those purses. Maybe we can still find some of those swords…”

  “Let them stay right where they are,” Dhamon said.

  “Fine,” Ragh said. “Fine. Fine. Fine. Now we can’t even take the steel and swords we earned.” He walked away, muttering, kicking at stones.

  Dhamon focused his immense eyes only on Feril. He shook his head, his shadowy horns rustling the leaves of the branches above him. “I couldn’t stop the transformation, Feril. Not even an old Black Robe sorceress in Shrentak could find a way to keep me human. Not the shadow dragon, not…”

  “If it’s magic that made you a dragon…” she began. “Well, now there’s plenty of magic in Krynn again. Perhaps some of that magic can restore you, Dhamon—bring back your humanity.”

  For an instant she thought she saw a flicker of hope in the dragon’s midnight eyes, then nothing.

  “There isn’t enough magic in the world, Feril.”

  She shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Maybe not, but you came looking for me for a reason,” she said, “and I think it was because you think there is a chance. Ragh is right. You are unhappy. You want to be human again.”

  “Yes, I wish to be human.”

  “I know you, Dhamon. You have some plan, don’t you?”

  Ragh had come back, standing silently nearby, listening. He recalled Dhamon studying the crystal ball in his lair, asking it questions and cocking his ear for hours on end.

  “Yes,” Dhamon answered, “and I need your help.”

  “Why? How can I help you?” She searched hard for the human reflection in the dragon’s immense, stoic eyes but found only darkness. “You can come with me to Nalis Aren.”

  “Just who is that?” Ragh cut in, tugging on Dhamon’s dew claw.

  “Not a who,” Feril supplied the answer, as Dhamon lowered his eyes. “Those are Qualinesti words for Lake of Death.”

  4

  One hundred and seventeen grape-sized rubies were arrayed on a pedestal beneath a delicate silver candelabrum. The light made the stones shine like drops of fresh blood that had been magically captured in perfect-faceted form.

  The light stretched yards away to illuminate a long marble table where diamonds filled rose-colored crystal vases and sapphires were heaped in etched platinum bowls. There were also emeralds, amethysts, jacinths, tourmalines, and more, all of these sorted by size and quality and displayed in polished mahogany chests that rested side-by-side beneath the table.

  Against the far wall, gilded urns were crammed with rare black pearls. A small ceramic pot sat on a thin ivory pedestal. There was a silvery liquid inside it—a special presentation from one of the black dragon’s most valuable spies, who promised there would be more goodies to come. Rings and bracelets overflowed an old sea trunk that had been captured from a three-masted merchant ship in the New Sea. Necklaces and gem-encrusted scepters crowned mounds of steel pieces stretching deep into the shadows. There were plenty of gold pieces, too, bearing the faces of famous men from centuries past. The common steel pieces in circulation today served as a carpet beneath all the remarkable treasure.

  A massive ebony chair that once must have been used as some ruler’s throne was one of the centerpieces of the chamber. It was intricately carved with images of centaurs and walrus-men and had a thick green satin cushion embroidered with vines and flowers. On either side of it were life-size priceless sculptures of sea elves that had been recovered from the bottom of the Maelstrom.

  There was much more strewn around the treasure chamber—decorative suits of armor, shields, and weapons; paintings so numerous they were stacked rows across and a dozen deep; tapestries from the Blood Sea Isles; ancient books mysteriously preserved and precisely alphabetized on cherrywood she
lves; numerous crystal balls, magic wands, and attractive enchanted baubles crafted by the most renowned of Krynn’s sorcerers and whose functions had not yet been discovered by their current owner. This was only one of several treasure chambers that was regularly added to and visited by the black dragon.

  Sable lounged at the wide end of this underground cavern, staring as the light from the delicate candelabrum flickered and caused the rubies beneath it to sparkle like fat crimson fireflies. The great dragon knew precisely how many steel pieces, gems, and other trinkets were in her favorite lair deep beneath the foul city of Shrentak. She watched with mild interest as more was added to the pile.

  A Knight of Neraka commander was directing a quartet of bakali to deposit sacks of steel pieces in the center of the cavern, where they could he inventoried under the overlord’s supervision. More precious stones and ornaments were placed near the coins. The weapons and pieces of plate armor that had been gathered would be left outside until an armorer could be summoned to inspect them and determine what was suitable to add to the hoard and what should be discarded.

  When the bakali were finished unloading the riches, they stood at attention in front of the overlord, shivering despite Sable having done her best to suppress her dragonfear. The commander gestured to the tallest bakali.

  “This one, Mistress Sable.” The knight’s words were clipped and loud. “This was one of the few creatures who survived the incident at the lake with the shadowy dragon. He was instrumental in helping to find the beast’s lair.”

  Still trembling, the designated bakali stepped forward, its chest puffed out in pride and a strand of saliva spilling over its quivering lip and stretching to the cavern floor. Its eyes glimmered expectantly when Sable opened her mouth as if to speak, but the dragon spewed forth a blob of acid, engulfing the bakali and his brethren. Their scaly hides bubbled, popped, and disintegrated in places so that muscle and bones showed through. They fell to their knees howling and begging to be spared, but their pleas were short-lived, for Sable breathed a second time.