The Lake of Death

by Jean Rabe

  Only Dhamon hadn’t drowned A dragon living in a cave at the bottom of the lake had spotted him. That dragon had saved his life and presented him with an enchanted glaive to help in his fight against the Overlords.

  “I should have died then and there,” Dhamon muttered. He thrust a claw into the water and shook his head again. “I really should go look for Feril.”

  He stayed in the shallows, however, and stared at his scaly reflection through the cool mist for more than an hour before he finally took a deep breath and with a shudder dived back into the Lake of Death.

  “By Elalage’s silver braids, I’ve seen nothing like you before!”

  The old elf’s voice carried clearly through the water as he knelt over Feril, smoothing at her face, pasty fingers gingerly brushing her eyelids. He scowled when she didn’t wake up. She was stretched out on the stone floor of the tower room in front of the largest bookcase, bits of parchment floating all around her. Her head was resting on a pillow that he’d retrieved from another room, and her hands were folded on her stomach. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

  He stood and paced, his thick hair flowing into a mass of bright white curls that hung below his shoulders, his thin lips working, mouthing over and over, “What to do, what to do.” His thumb came up to rub against the crooked bridge of a nose that looked a little too long for his narrow, deeply wrinkled face.

  “An elf with gills, an amazing sight. An elf who’s obviously been to visit Deban’s place and stole one of his lighted crystals.” The pear-shaped crystal Feril had tucked under her belt was now perched on the bookcase, clearly illuminating the entire room. “Perhaps you only borrowed the crystal, elf lady, or maybe Deban gave it to you as a gift. Toward the end, just before the dragon came, he became quite charitable. Maybe he knew what was fated for us, and maybe he thought being neighborly might put him in better stead with the gods in the world beyond. You are certainly pretty enough to catch Deban’s eye, though you’ve no hair to speak of. What, by the memory of my dear Elalage, are you doing down here? How do you breathe water?” He made an annoyed sputtering sound and shook his head, the gesture causing his hair to fan away from his pale face.

  “Not a sea elf. No, not Dargonesti or Dimernesti. Seen plenty of them before, and you’re obviously neither. Certainly not Qualinesti, and you’re too far from home to be one of those argumentative and pretentious Silvanesti. A Kagonesti, you look to be from your dress and the color of your hair. Seen Kagonesti, too, and you’re the type. Except no tattoos and here you are exploring underwater in a place you’d best not be roaming around in without a map. So a puzzlement is what you are. Gills and flesh and elf ears. Remarkable.”

  He stopped pacing and looked down at Feril, studying her as if she were a rare specimen in a laboratory. After several moments he bent, his face inches from hers. He shook his head again, this time the curls spilling down over his shoulders and brushing Feril’s cheeks. “What to do, what to do,” he mouthed again. “You’re alive, my elf-fish. I see you breathe, but for how much longer? I think you are fast fading.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “Like I faded.” A second kiss, then he pulled back. “They’re cold as death, my puzzlement. Cold as this graveyard. Your skin is so white, when I don’t think that is its natural state. The cold has got you in its grip, little elf-fish.” He stroked the bridge of his nose again. “The cold cannot have you. No, no. Not yet. You are a refreshing mystification, and if the cold takes you now, my questions will go unanswered, so you must live, my pretty puzzlement. Somehow I must stop you from fading…”

  He stared at her for several minutes more, then the old elf seemed to come to a decision. He closed his eyes, spread his arms, and floated above her, parallel to her form. His lips moved, forming clipped and precise Elvish words, though no actual sounds emerged. His fingers danced rhythmically, as if he were playing an instrument. Motes of saffron and green light appeared in shimmering globes that enveloped his hands. The globes grew larger then receded, seeming to grow and dim, breathe as if in rhythm with Feril’s breathing. The silent words came faster, and the water began to circulate in the tower room.

  The bits of parchment started whirling then dissolving, pages from the books on the shelf joining them and dissipating. All of this turned the room a milky opaque color, then the water churned itself clear. The globes glowed with a fierce intensity now and broke free from the old elf’s hands. They hung poised between him and Feril for several moments, the motes of color winking on and off erratically. Then the globes dropped onto Feril and melted into her prone form.

  A moment later, her eyes fluttered opened, and the first thing she saw was the old elf standing at her side, extending an insubstantial hand as if to help her up. Feril’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and she skittered away from the apparition, bolting to her feet and looking toward the window she’d come in.

  “Nothing to be afraid of, little elf-fish,” the strange old man cooed. “I won’t hurt you. Indeed, it is I who saved you.” He beamed and tipped his chin up, proud of his efforts. “I had to save the pretty puzzlement.”

  Saved me, Feril thought.

  “Yes, indeed I did,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “You were dying of the cold, and we just couldn’t have that. I cast a spell to keep you warm.”

  Feril looked back and forth between the apparition and the window. She wasn’t cold any longer, and she certainly wasn’t dead. Her last thought had been that she was joining the ghosts of Qualinost and would never see Dhamon Grimwulf again.

  How…

  “…did I save you? A spell, just like I told you, and not a terribly difficult one, once it came to mind. I’ve still some magic in me. I can even look…” he paused and scratched at the bridge of his nose, searching diligently for the correct term. “I can even look like I am alive if that makes you more comfortable.” His lips worked and his body took on color and substance, but there were a few spots where he was still semi-transparent. The venerable age he had reached in life was evident from the many deep creases on his face and the numerous spots on his hands and neck. “If I concentrate, I can almost look like my old impressive self.”

  Thank you for saving me….

  “Obelia was my name,” he interjected. “Obelia Durosinni D’l’athil of House Evner of Qualinost.”

  So… you’re dead, Obelia.

  “Yes, like everyone else who stayed when the cursed dragon and her forces came to call. My dear sister Elalage urged me to leave, but I would have nothing to do with the notion. I said I was too old, said she was too old, and that we should stay here. Said it would be safe in the city, great Qualinost would never fall. She called me an old fool and left that night, but Elalage was right; I was an old fool. Now I am a dead old fool in a city that is crushed to the bottom of a very deep lake.”

  And… are you reading my mind? Is that how you know my questions?

  “Not exactly, my elf-fish, but when I try hard, I can hear what you’re thinking. It would be hard to communicate with you otherwise.”

  So you’re a sorcerer. Feril, beaming, couldn’t hide her pleasure.

  “Well… I was a sorcerer, back when I was alive. Of some renown I might add.” He stepped between her and the window. “But to the matter of you. I find you a pretty puzzlement, and I must know what exactly you are and what brings you here to this dangerous lake. Why do you have gills and skin? Why do you brave this cold, cold graveyard to come poking about in what used to be my books?”

  Feril glanced around the room, noting that the empty leather bindings of many books lay askew on the shelves and the floor. She was glad to be alive but didn’t like that Obelia was standing so close, blocking the quickest way out.

  I am Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter, she thought.

  “A Kagonesti name! I was right! But you’ve got gills, Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter. Gills! Such magic you must have. You must tell me everything, my pretty puzzlement.”

  Feril wasn’t sure she trusted this
dead sorcerer, but after all he had saved her life. Maybe he would be able to help Dhamon, so she told him everything, going back to when she first met Dhamon, to the torment he suffered because of the dragon scale inflicted upon him, to the time she spent alone after the incident at the Window to the Stars, to her affinity with nature magic.

  “Such wonderful magic you possess! Ah, little elf-fish, were I alive I would beg you to teach me all that you know.”

  Dhamon, she concentrated. He’s the reason why I’m here and…

  She finished her long story. “Those two dragons, that shadow dragon and that silver dragon… they broke Malys’s control, and the scale on Dhamon’s leg turned black. The shadow dragon was a trickster, and his magic later caused scales to grow all over Dhamon.” Obelia was engrossed in her tale, pacing in front of the window and worrying at the bridge of his nose. He’d become wholly transparent again. “So this Dhamon fellow… a human… eventually turned into a dragon. Strange predicament. Now you’re hoping to find some magic here in this graveyard of a city to help him become a human again.”

  Yes, Feril thought. There must be a way to save Dhamon. He looked into a crystal ball, and something there told him the answer rested in this lake.

  “What an astonishing yarn you’ve spun for me, elf-fish.”

  Is it possible?

  “To help your friend? With something in this lake? Well, I really don’t know. This is a very big city and an even bigger lake, but looking for a remedy could be an interesting diversion for me. It could take a very long time.”

  So you’ll help me?

  “I insist on it!” Obelia made a tsk-tsking sound, wagging an insubstantial finger at her. “You shouldn’t seem so surprised, my pretty puzzlement. You’re the only living creature I’ve talked to since Qualinost sank. Of course I’ll help you. In fact, I’ll have to help you if you’re to have any chance of success. Who else will keep you warm down here in the deep cold waters? Who else will show you this city… without trying to make you a permanent part of it?”

  Feril wanted to visit the home of every sorcerer and sage Obelia knew. The old elf said he could do just that, if she really wanted to—but there were a great many of them, and he would show her some of the city first to prove his point.

  As they left the tower and glided above this section of the city, Feril saw that indeed the search would take a very long time. The city spread out beneath her like a graveyard of spires, manors, businesses, and small homes jutting up like tombstones from the lake floor. Qualinost looked at once peaceful and eerie, with spirits of the dead floating idly everywhere. The dark blue water distorted some things, making some buildings and objects appear larger or farther away than they really were.

  “Serilait lived there many decades ago,” Obelia said, pointing at a three-sided building and interrupting Feril’s musings. “I fancied her once, and she had some interest in me, but magic took too much of my time, so Serilait found another and moved to the artist’s quarter.” He released a sigh that sounded like a long-held musical note. “She escaped the disaster with the dwarves through the tunnels under the city. I’m glad she and her family got away. She and Elalage and so many of my friends… I should have gone with them. I had some good years left to me.”

  They passed over a park where the tree limbs had been trained to grow in attractive patterns, some in the shapes of animals, now distorted by ruin and water. Feril tried to picture what they would have looked like in the past and guessed one was a horse rearing, another a winged beast. There were sculptures in the center of the park, similar to the ones she’d seen in Deban’s gallery.

  “Yes, they are his work,” Obelia said, answering her unspoken question.

  Feril touched the enchanted crystal that Obelia had returned to her and which she’d tucked back under her belt. Obelia didn’t need any enchanted light to see, but the crystal helped her make out some of the details. She saw clearly now that many of the buildings had been damaged by magical attacks; doors and shutters had been torn apart. Broken vases, stools, and candleholders lay amid the bones outside a fanciful residential district. Perhaps the elves who stayed until the end had fought their enemies with any belonging they could wield like a club.

  “Ilit-Ivo’s place,” Obelia said, pointing to another house. “One of the finest archers in Qualinost competitions. He won most of them, year after year after year. He finally tired of the trophies and the lack of any real opposition. He quit in the middle of a match one day and provided the best arrows for all the challengers thereafter. I thought he would have remained in the city, but he was persuaded to leave with the others, despite his hatred of the dwarves. Many of those who stayed broke into his weapons shop, looking for things to defend their homes. If you need a sword, my little elf-fish, we can…”

  I wouldn’t mind one, Feril thought, but first I need to help Dhamon.

  Another musical sigh, and Obelia led her toward the very center of the city, where the buildings looked older and smaller. As the city grew it spread outward in a circular pattern. The streets beneath her appeared as spokes on a wheel.

  “I knew many sorcerers in this district—and philosophers, too. Some of them were close to my age, and some of them stayed to die with the city. Maybe we can stir up a spirit or two, little elf-fish. Let’s do a little looking here.”

  He dived toward a dark shape, a narrow three- or four-story place that looked simple compared to its neighbors. As they got closer Feril could tell it wasn’t so much a building, as a tree. The place had been fashioned out of the trunk of a giant ebonwood, with doors and windows carved into it and a tile roof laid across the top. Colorful carved bricks rose up one side of the tree, likely more for design than for stability. However, age and the lake were taking their toll—she could see where the wood was rotting at the base and midway up.

  “I’d say we should go in the front door. The polite thing to do and all. Join me?” Obelia didn’t wait for her response. He floated through a door that Feril had to struggle to open.

  By the time she had tugged it open, she could see no trace of Obelia. There was only an empty room which looked like the inside of a hollow tree. The floor was gravel, and there was no furniture, but at the back of the room there was a rotting wooden ladder that led to a room above and another below. Feril hovered by the ladder, her enchanted light revealing a cavernous lower floor that was filled with scroll tubes and colorful glass flasks, most of them intact. She started to head down but heard a musical sound from above, Obelia’s sigh. She reluctantly pulled herself up into a room filled with numerous elf spirits.

  “Join us,” said a reed-thin apparition.

  Feril felt a chill as she spun to go back.

  “Don’t leave, elf-fish.” Obelia said, cocking his head bemusedly, his diaphanous eyebrows raised. “I thought you wanted help with your dragon problem.”

  Feril clung to the ladder, looking up at the ghostlike face of an aged elf standing close to Obelia and peering curiously down at her.

  “This is Kalilnama,” Obelia continued, nodding toward the thin ghost. “His wife was a fine sorceress. She left him when the dwarves led our people from the city, hut he stayed.”

  So he stayed and died, Feril thought. She was growing cold again, and she wrapped her fingers tightly around one of the ladder rungs. I’m getting cold, Obelia. I have to leave, go back to the surface and get warm, recover my strength.

  “Yes, he stayed, little elf-fish. He could not leave all his books and scrolls… his life’s work.”

  The cold surrounded her, and the room above grew darker, the ghosts ever more transparent.

  “He studied dragons. For more than a hundred years, elf-fish.” Obelia’s fingers were twirling in the water, and motes of saffron and green were appearing. Globes of warmth formed around his hands then sped toward Feril. “Oh, here. I almost forgot. We don’t want you getting all frozen again…”

  Let me tell you all about Dhamon Grimwulf, Feril thought, after the cold was banishe
d again.

  Kalilnama glided closer as Feril repeated Dhamon’s saga, with Obelia chipping in comments and things she forgot to mention. The other ghosts crowded in a little closer, peering at her and murmuring amongst themselves.

  The thin ghost named Kalilnama was enraptured by Feril’s story, and more than once he excitedly wrung his hands, the fingers passing through each other. When she was finished, Kalilnama asked questions so fast that Feril’s answers blurred together.

  “Were I alive!” he cried, his voice thin and high-pitched. “To touch this creature you speak of, a dragon who was once a human. Such a thing has never before lived.”

  “Kalilnama knew Beryl was coming.” Obelia was at Feril’s shoulder, his words musical whispers in her ear. “He predicted the great bloated beast would destroy everything.”

  “But I stayed,” Kalilnama said. “I thought we might find safety in the catacombs.”

  “He drowned there,” Obelia said matter-of-factly. He waved an arm at the other hovering spirits. “The others drowned with him; some of them were his students, some were elves from the outskirts of the city who had fled here for protection.” The ghost gave a laugh that sent goosebumps down Feril’s back.

  There was a reverent look on Kalilnama’s insubstantial face. “The dragon was evil, but a truly magnificent creature to behold. I’m glad I stayed, if only to glimpse her. I’d never seen an overlord before, and I thought to record everything about her.” He wrung his hands together again, sadly shaking his head.

  Can you help Dhamon? Feril floated face to face with Kalilnama.

  The ghost grew thinner, folding in upon itself until it looked like a sheet of parchment, then thinner still, until he was a mere wisp of white rising from the floor. “A dragon scale turned him into what he is now. Perhaps the magic in dragon scales can undo this terrible thing. Your friend’s own scales would not work, of course—you would need unspoiled magic to break the old magic that remade him, and very powerful magic, naturally—so the scale of a greater dragon is my guess. That makes it all the more difficult. I have notes in the catacombs, sealed in scroll tubes that keep the water at bay. They are yours.”