“She’s right,” Ruen said. “Your people need their leader. Why don’t you go to them?”
“I will lead them!” the king cried, rage and anguish twisting his features. “To death, to annihilation, whatever the gods will, but for this last night, leave me in peace! Gods, you don’t know how I’ve longed for just one moment of peace in a century.”
“They don’t understand, my king,” Joya said gently. She went to the king and tried to take his arm, but he shrugged her off with an incoherent cry. “Your people don’t know what you have suffered. You must tell them the truth.”
“What right do they have to the truth?” Mith Barak roared. “What right to rip open the wound, to pour through my mind and heart?”
“Because they have shed blood for you,” Garn said. He gazed at the king with hard eyes, and his voice was not gentle like Joya’s. “Your people have endured torments of their own. They will not see their king as weak for having his own share of scars.”
“Scars, aye.” The king let out a bitter laugh. “Claw marks raked into stone.” He stood before Icelin. “Is that what you want, then? To see into the abyss?”
Fear surged through Icelin, but she didn’t back down. “I want to understand,” she said.
“And you to heal,” Joya said, laying a hand on Mith Barak’s shoulder.
“Very well,” Mith Barak said hoarsely. Silver flecks swirled in his eyes, a hypnotic light that snared Icelin and wouldn’t let go. “I’ll go with you to the dark places. I hope neither of us gets lost.”
Icelin opened her mouth to reply, but an icy gust of wind cut off the words, filling her mouth and making her chest ache. The world fell away, and she was flying, soaring high above dozens of mountain peaks. In and out of the cloudbanks, she dived and reeled. Terror and elation filled Icelin as she soared upward to even more dizzying heights.
“What is this?” she cried. She expected the wind to steal her voice, but instead a mighty roar split the air and shook the snow from the mountain peaks. Above her, the sun broke through the clouds and bathed the mountains in gold light.
“Look below you.”
Mith Barak’s voice reverberated in her mind. Icelin recognized it, and yet the voice was different, bigger, and full of an immense, mind-shattering power barely kept in check.
Icelin looked down and saw the shadow of a massive serpentine body on the unblemished snow. A pair of talon-tipped wings unfolded from its body, and its frilled neck ended in a thick, horned head.
By the gods, Icelin thought. This can’t be happening. If she’d possessed a body in this strange vision, she’d be trembling, weeping with the wrongness of what she saw.
I can’t do this. I can’t ride a dragon’s mind.
“You’re not seeing the worst of it, girl. If you can’t handle a simple flight, you’ll go mad with what’s to come.”
“You’re not a dwarf at all,” Icelin said. The mountains fell away, and they flew over a vast pine forest just as a flock of crows broke from the trees and surrounded them. The birds screeched loudly in Icelin’s ears and flew away. “For centuries, you’ve ruled Iltkazar, yet you’re—”
“A dragon,” Mith Barak finished for her. “I came to the dwarves over fourteen hundred years ago. When their ruler died, he appointed me, Mith Barak the Clanless, his successor, knowing what I was, because he knew I could protect his people.”
“But why?” Icelin exclaimed. “I see your mind.” Images of open spaces and fresh, cold air blasting her in the face—it couldn’t be a coincidence that these were the memories Mith Barak had sought first when he let her enter his mind. “You don’t belong underground, in the dark.”
“Neither do you,” Mith Barak said, his booming voice full of an unexpected humor. “Yet here we are. Suffice to say, the dwarves needed me, and I needed them. Don’t doubt that it was a fair exchange.”
“How?” Icelin asked. The dragon’s shadow rippled over the treetops. She couldn’t stop staring at it, couldn’t reconcile the dwarf she’d known these past several days with the creature whose mind she rode.
“Why? How?” Mith Barak echoed. “Do you really want to know, or are you still dumbstruck?”
“Can you blame me?” Icelin cried. “You could have warned me!”
“I am warning you,” Mith Barak said. All traces of humor disappeared. “Where we’re going next won’t be pleasant. If you want to know how it was a fair bargain, I’ll tell you. You’ve heard the stories of the king who becomes a mithral statue for decades, leaving his people to fend for themselves.”
“Do you sleep for that time?” Icelin asked. “Is it something unique to … er … dragons? Some kind of hibernation?”
“In a way,” Mith Barak said. “It allows me to travel. When last I went to the stone, I was gone a very long time.”
“Where did you go?” Icelin gasped as the forest dropped away. Suddenly, thousands of glittering lights surrounded them.
“I came here,” Mith Barak said, “to the Astral Sea.”
Gods, Icelin thought, the dwarf—dragon—had been right. She wasn’t ready for this. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to shut away the scene, but if she did, she might miss something extraordinary.
A vast ocean of darkness enveloped them, broken by starlight and misty threads of cloud. On the horizon, the darkness lightened, reminding Icelin of the times she’d watched the light change over Waterdeep harbor, or the early mornings when she sat on the roof of her great-uncle’s shop and waited for dawn. The dragon swam in an ocean of starlight, and Icelin rode his memories, tasting each image as if it were alive.
I’ll never forget any of this, she promised herself.
“Your people say you weren’t the same when you came back from here the last time,” Icelin said, struggling to focus. She could lose herself in the beauty of this place if she wasn’t careful.
“I was delayed,” Mith Barak said, “by that.”
Icelin looked ahead, and a scream welled up in her throat.
ILTKAZAR, THE UNDERDARK
27 UKTAR
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO HER?” RUEN DEMANDED.
Icelin and the king stood facing each other, no more than a couple of feet apart, with their eyes closed. Ruen had assumed Mith Barak was using magic to show Icelin a vision, and up until a breath ago, all had seemed well. Then Icelin screamed and clutched her head as if seized by a terrible pain.
Ruen rushed forward, intending to pull her away from the dwarf. Obrin and Garn got to him first, restraining him by the arms. He set his weight against them, but they were immovable. Sull’s face reddened with anger, but Joya clutched his wrist.
“You can’t interfere,” she said. “You’ll do more harm.”
“She’s in pain,” Ruen said through gritted teeth. “Stop this.”
“No, you must let them see the vision through,” Joya said. “Icelin will know what must be done. Trust her.”
“It’s him I don’t trust,” Ruen said.
“Icelin’s strong,” Sull said, though he looked as worried as Ruen felt. “Give them a little more time.”
Ruen watched Icelin’s face contort as she struggled with the vision Mith Barak had planted in her head. What was she seeing—what had Mith Barak seen—that had terrified him so?
They flew toward a massive darkness, ripped like a gigantic scar across the Astral Sea. Roiling within the scar was a five-headed beast. Its serpentine necks braided together in shades of red, black, green, white, and blue. Icelin tried to pull back, but Mith Barak flew them relentlessly toward the maw.
“Turn away,” Icelin cried, frantic. “Why are you taking us toward it?”
“Because it’s already too late,” Mith Barak said in a remote voice.
Before Icelin could answer, a loud screech split the air, and two giant masses slammed into them from either side. Mith Barak roared and went into a diving roll, so that the stars blurred together in a sickening storm. Lightning tore apart the sky, but it was not a natural phenomenon. Energy c
rackled in blue waves across the dragon’s body. Icelin saw it through Mith Barak’s eyes, the electric heat rippling over his belly. She felt no pain from this attack, but Mith Barak’s anguish ripped through her as keenly as the lightning bolts.
They were going down. Icelin’s gut twisted. A breath later, an object loomed in front of them, large and brown with jagged peaks not unlike the mountains they’d flown over earlier. The floating mote had very little open ground, but it didn’t matter. The dragon slammed flat onto it with the full weight of his body and the other bodies clinging to him. The crash echoed across the remoteness of the Astral Sea.
He’s surely dead, Icelin thought. No one can survive a fall like that. Yet he obviously had, and already the dragon stirred, attempted to lift his broken body while the lightning burned black threads into his scales and the creatures pinned him from either side.
“It’s all pain now,” Mith Barak said thickly. “All pain for so very long. Pain … and then silence. I couldn’t move. They had no need to restrain me. The pain—and fear—kept me still.”
“Who were they?” Icelin asked when she’d recovered her voice. “Why did they capture you?”
“Servants of Tiamat, the dragon goddess. You saw the five-headed serpent,” Mith Barak said. “I beheld her image just before they took me. As to why—because I am old, powerful, and I guard knowledge they covet. Perhaps they did it because I oppose their goddess. Perhaps they did it for the pure enjoyment of it. After the first decade, I stopped asking why. After the second, I prayed for my own death. Sometime later, I simply lost myself to pain and madness. I did not care what happened to me.”
“Gods above,” Icelin said. Sorrow welled inside her. How long had he stayed there, in life and in his memories? Had he ever truly escaped this nightmare? “How did you escape?” Icelin asked.
“Luck and a lapse in judgment,” Mith Barak said. “My captors grew complacent. I’d stopped resisting years ago. They thought I was mind-dead. I realized this gradually, and a part of my soul woke up. I conserved my strength, planned, and waited for my moment. Finally, it came, and I broke free. I still remember what it felt like to wake from the stone, to shake it off like molted skin. It had become so much a part of me. And my dwarf form—intact, unblemished—it was a miracle not to feel pain.”
“But you weren’t intact,” Icelin said. The dreamlike world, the glimmering stars floated in her periphery, but Mith Barak wasn’t looking at it. He hadn’t stirred since they’d crashed on the drifting island. “Your spirit had been scarred.”
“Being in my hall was a comfort,” Mith Barak said. “A large enough nest that I could return to my true form if I needed to defend myself, yet it did not have the openness of the Astral Sea or the vast, echoing caverns of Iltkazar and the Underdark. I stayed there as much as I could when I awoke, dispensing counsel. At first, no one knew anything had changed. My people were too grateful I was back.”
“You felt safe,” Icelin said. It was not so different from how she’d felt in Waterdeep, nestled in her great-uncle’s shop. Waterdeep’s walls protected her from the outside world and all its dangers. Wider Faerûn held no interest for her, until she’d met Ruen and Sull and ventured outside her small world.
“There’s no such thing as safety,” Mith Barak said. “I’d thought of everything. A vast underground city, heavily fortified with walls and magic, protected by the dwarves—my physical body could not have been safer while I traveled the Astral Sea. I was arrogant and left my spirit vulnerable.”
“That’s why you rule Iltkazar,” Icelin said, “why you dwell among the dwarves when you’d rather be soaring through the skies. They protected you, and in return you guided the city and shared your wisdom with the dwarves.”
“I failed them,” Mith Barak said. “I was gone too long, and what came back from the Astral Sea … it’s an empty shell.”
“That’s not true,” Icelin insisted. “You can still lead your people. They need you now more than ever.”
“I see drow faces in my dreams. They strike at my body and reopen old wounds. I have to protect my city from them, from Zollgarza.” Mith Barak’s voice broke, and he sounded small again, like the old dwarf she knew.
“Zollgarza isn’t your torturers,” Icelin said. “His only power over you comes from what you allow him to have.”
“No!” the dragon snarled, making Icelin quail with fear. “I let them catch me unawares once before. Never again! I will not let my people suffer the way I suffered.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Icelin whispered. “Protect your people—or are you really just trying to protect yourself?”
“Of course I am!” Mith Barak shouted, rage and anguish filling the dark corners of the Astral Sea. “I would rather die than let myself be taken—used—again.”
“You’ve lost so much,” Icelin said, “and you have scars that won’t ever go away. Yet you live, and you are needed—you are also loved.”
“You don’t love a broken thing, something scarred beyond recognition,” Mith Barak said. “It’s not worthy.”
“You’re wrong,” Icelin said gently. “Those are the souls that have truly lived.”
The stars around them faded, and shapes pushed out of the darkness—columns and a throne, the outlines of figures standing in a semicircle before them. Gradually, their faces resolved into those of the Blackhorn family, Ruen, and Sull.
Icelin looked for Mith Barak, but her vision, caught for a breath between the Astral Sea and the dwarven hall, perceived the shape of a great serpentine body filling the room. Its skull brushed the vaulted ceiling, silver scales arranged like a fall of pure water. One of its curving claws stood as tall as Icelin’s body. She saw her distorted reflection in its polished surface.
The moment passed, and the dragon’s body faded into nothingness. Mith Barak stood before her, shrunken, aged, and so weary that Icelin wanted nothing more than to step forward and wrap her arms around him.
Garn and Joya got to him first. They positioned themselves on either side of their king and lent him their shoulders when he wavered on his feet. Joya turned, likely intending to lead him to his throne, but Mith Barak resisted and instead sat down right where he was on the cold stone floor.
“Are you all right?” Ruen stood at Icelin’s shoulder, concern shining clearly from his muddy red eyes.
“I’m fine,” Icelin assured him and nodded to Sull, who looked pale and scared. “How much did you see and hear?”
“We heard you cry out, and in the end, when you came back from wherever you were …” Ruen hesitated. “Was it real? Is he truly a dragon?”
Icelin nodded. She related in a low voice what she’d seen in the Astral Sea. Mith Barak stared off into the distance, seemingly unaware of their presence. Joya and Garn stood on either side of him while Obrin looked on, fingering his axe helplessly.
“Did we do the right thing, forcing him to confront the past?” Icelin asked, staring at the king. “Or did we do more harm?” She addressed Joya, she who of all of them seemed closest to the king. “Did you know what had happened to him?”
“Parts of it,” Joya said. “I guessed the rest. My family—plus several others who are not here—knows what our king is. We know where he went, the dangers he faced.” She looked at Mith Barak with sorrow-filled eyes. “I thanked Moradin when he was restored to us, but I did not know how to heal his grief.”
Mith Barak stirred, blinked, and slowly pulled back from the vision that held him in its grip. He looked at Joya as if seeing her for the first time. “You’ve too much grief already, girl, to think so much of an old wreck like me.” He patted her hand. When his gaze rested next on Icelin, she instinctively dropped her eyes, embarrassed at having seen him so exposed. He was an ancient soul, and he’d given her glimpses of things beautiful and terrible. She hadn’t meant to pry into those memories. No human was meant to see such things.
“No, don’t look away,” Mith Barak said. “You deserved to know the truth as m
uch as those gathered here. I would have used you without regard for the consequences.”
“You offered a fair bargain,” Icelin said.
“I was obsessed with knowing Zollgarza’s secrets.” With Garn and Joya’s aid, Mith Barak stood up. Silver light burned in his eyes. He stood straight and shook himself as if chasing away shadows. “I’d tried everything to break through that drow’s magic and uncover the truth of his purpose here. Then you arrived in the city like a gift from the gods. I thought you’d find the sphere and use the Silver Fire, succeeding where I couldn’t. I didn’t care if I put you in danger. I was still half-dead, broken.”
“I made the choice,” Icelin said. “You didn’t force me.”
“You showed courage when you confronted me in the library—courage that I lacked. It shamed me out of hiding, if only for a little while.”
“I would have hidden as well if I’d endured what you have,” Icelin said. “It’s enough to break most people.”
“I was supposed to be stronger than that,” Mith Barak said harshly. “I should never have let it happen in the first place.”
“You mean because of what you are?” Sull spoke up suddenly. “That’s a lot of rubbish.” All eyes turned to him, and he reddened. “I mean, all beings in Faerûn feel pain, don’t they, whether they’re among the high and mighty or the lowliest creatures. They can be hurt, and they can be broken. It’s a sad truth, but it makes us all equal in somethin’, at least.”
Mith Barak stared silently at the butcher. Icelin thought she saw Garn nod in approval. Sull is right, she thought, though it gave her no comfort. We are equal in our ability to suffer—even Zollgarza suffered at the hands of his inner demons.
In the battle ahead, there was no such equality. The drow outnumbered them, but if their target was the Arcane Script Sphere, if it had been the artifact all along, and its purpose was tied to Zollgarza’s memory loss, then there was only one thing left for them to try, one way to give back Zollgarza’s identity and discover what the drow were plotting. She’d refused to do it for herself, but if it saved the dwarves …
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