The dragon lashed its long, wicked tail at the nearest wall of the vault. The wall failed to shatter, but cracks ran all along it.
“Cease!” The elf glared up at the creature. “You will bring everything down upon us!”
In reply, the unliving creature glanced down at its master and gave a silent hiss. It began to shift around, as if seeking some escape from the confinement of the vault. A wing struck the weakened wall, spreading the vein of cracks farther and loosening bits of the ceiling. The dragon moved forward.
“Stop!” Argaen stumbled a short distance from the sphere, which was glowing more intensely than ever. “I command you!”
“Your toy doesn’t seem to be listening!” Kaz shouted, and regretted it a moment later when the dragon suddenly swiveled its head and studied him thoughtfully with its blank eyes. It began to change direction. The tail struck the base of the wall. There was an ominous rumbling from above.
Argaen Ravenshadow was down on one knee, every movement requiring a greater and greater effort on his part. “Minotaur!”
Kaz paid him no mind at first, intent on saving his own skin. He swung the dwarven battle-axe in his left hand, cutting an arc of death that he was certain would not impress a creature that had already proven itself impervious to such weaponry. To his surprise, however, the stone beast actually backed up a step or two. It leaned forward and opened its mouth wide, eerily remaining in that stance for several seconds. The action seemed peculiar until Kaz recognized the pose as that of a true dragon unleashing a deadly stream of flame. The animated dragon obviously thought itself every bit as real as the vast leviathan it had been carved to resemble.
“Minotaur! Listen to-to me!”
“What is it?” Kaz watched in dismay as the monster tried to rise in the air. It was no sooner off the ground, however, than the top of its head smashed into the ceiling like a battering ram. Both elf and minotaur were showered by large fragments.
“By the Oath and Measure!” Whatever Argaen sought to say was again cut off, this time by the intrusion of the Grand Master and Darius. They had come in expecting a battle, but nothing like this. The stone behemoth turned to regard them.
“The Abyss take you, foul fiend! I owe you for many lives!” shouted Darius. He started for the monster in what Kaz thought was typical Solamnic fashion, a head-on charge with only a sword against a creature more than twenty times his size. Kaz was never sure whether such an action ought to be considered bravery or stupidity.
Darius was already upon the dragon before anyone could prevent him. With a loud battle cry, he struck at the nearest leg, only to have his sword rebound off the limb and go flying from his hand. The dragon raised its front paw high.
“No!” Lord Oswal reacted instinctively, rushing to pull the stunned and still angered Darius away from a danger that seemed obvious to everyone except the young knight.
The massive paw came down, smashing a vast hole in the floor and causing the entire vault to shake. More ceiling rained down, but this time it did not cease after a few seconds. The structure had not been designed to combat something so huge trying to get out.
The Grand Master managed to save Darius, but not without risk to his own safety. Several large fragments of rock struck him, knocking him to the ground. Kaz tried to reach him, but Ravenshadow’s uncontrollable stone dragon now blocked his path completely. It was determined to extinguish the two knights. The minotaur steadied his axe, mentally readying himself for a suicide charge.
“There… is a way… minotaur! Listen… to me!”
Argaen Ravenshadow clutched at the ugly hole in his upper torso. The wound had stopped bleeding, but the elf was as white as a dreadwolf. With his other arm, Argaen forced himself to remain in a sitting position. Kaz could see that it wouldn’t take much to shift the arm a little and send the dark one falling facedown into the earth, where he would be too weak to rise again. The temptation was there, but Kaz checked the thought. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Darius was trying to drag his liege lord to safety. He was not making much headway, for the younger knight’s right leg seemed unsteady, as if he had sprained his ankle. Another figure darted into the vault, Tesela, with a look of grim desperation on her visage. Her eyes avoiding the monstrous threat before her, she rushed over to Darius and helped him drag Lord Oswal toward the entrance of the vault. The stone dragon trailed closely behind. Of Delbin, there was still no sign, and Kaz hoped the kender had enough sense to stay out of danger this time.
Argaen’s renewed plea made him turn back to the elf. “Help… me to… bind the sphere… the sphere to my will…”
“Hah! You’re even madder than I thought! Me help you?”
The elf spat blood. “I… cannot control the animate… for very long! You can… see that I… am dying, minotaur! If I do, that thing will rampage until… all of Vingaard is destroyed… and then it… will start on Solamnia!”
“Another sorcerer will stop it!”
“True”-Argaen tried to smile-”but we will be long dead… and who knows… how many others will die!”
Kaz looked back and saw that Darius and Tesela had succeeded in nearly gaining the entrance. As the dragon struggled against Argaen’s control, it was slamming against the walls again. The network of cracks now extended from one end of the vault to the other, and Kaz wondered if the outer chamber was in danger of collapsing as well.
“You’ve precious little time left, minotaur! I’ve… precious little time also!”
“What do you want of me?”
“In… a pouch… a pouch on my belt…”
“Gods, Argaen, not another of your little trinkets!”
“A… very old one, minotaur. This pouch…” The elf nodded to the left side of his body.
Kaz eyed the emerald sphere. Somehow, he could not help feeling that it watched him in return-with amusement. He found its sporadic surges of power unsettling, as if it were playing a game of sorts. The minotaur wondered how well Ravenshadow truly understood what it was he was trying to bind to his mind. The elf’s death would be no great loss to Kaz, but there would still be the emerald sphere itself to deal with.
Kaz reluctantly stepped over to Ravenshadow and began to search the pouch. “What am I looking for? This flat, leathery thing?”
“No… and release it immediately!” Argaen coughed up more blood. “A tiny cube… a box.”
Kaz found what he assumed was the cube. Carefully he pulled it out and showed it to the elf. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes. Now… help me to move… a few feet from the sphere.”
Behind them, there was a tremendous noise, and suddenly portions of the ceiling began to cave in, Kaz nearly released his grip on Argaen as he turned to see what was happening. “Pay it no mind!” Argaen shouted madly. “This vault and… likely the entire chamber… is collapsing! Help me!”
The minotaur cursed in the name of every god he could think of as he dragged the dark elf away. When they were a good dozen paces from the sphere, Argaen had Kaz help him into a sitting position.
“Now…” Ravenshadow’s breath was very ragged. “Place the cube on the top of the sphere.”
“Raven-”
“Don’t argue!” The elf nearly toppled. The other walls were showing signs of weakening. Kaz could hear the stone dragon pounding away at something and realized it was trying to get out of the vault, despite the fact that its present girth was too vast to fit through the entrance.
Axe in one hand and cube in the other, Kaz took a deep breath and made his way back to the malevolent globe. Oddly, this time he felt no surge of power, no blinding glare. Rather, there was an aura of impatience.
It’s only an object, he told himself. It’s an Abyss-spawned, cursed object, but only an object.
Though he was not able to completely convince himself, he did succeed in reaching his goal. Steeling himself, Kaz carefully placed the tiny black cube on the very top of Dracos’s pride and joy, then ran.
Argaen Raven
shadow was laughing, or at least attempting to, when Kaz rejoined him. “Were-were you expecting something?”
The minotaur looked at the cube. “It’s growing! Elf, if you’ve unleashed another pet-”
“Keep watching!”
The black cube continued to swell in size, but it also took on a new quality. The larger it became, the less substantial it seemed to become. When it was nearly half the volume of the sphere, it appeared to sink down into the artifact, as if its bottom were melting.
At the battered vault entrance, the stone dragon paused in its rampage, seemingly confused about what it was supposed to do next. Kaz’s companions were nowhere in sight, and he hoped they had departed the outer chamber in quick order.
“It’s swallowing up the emerald sphere, minotaur. Once inside, the power of the sphere will be muted and controllable, transportable.” Argaen arose, very unsteadily, but obviously without as much pain as he had been suffering moments before. “I knew it would work!”
“You knew it would work?” The minotaur’s eyes narrowed.
“You’ve witnessed my pride and joy, minotaur. I designed the shadow box, as I call it, strictly for such a purpose… and it worked! The emerald sphere, the path of power, is mine at last!”
Kaz’s huge, clawed hand pulled the elf off his feet and brought him to a minotaur’s eye level. “You sound much better, magic thief!”
“Remember your friends!” Wild-eyed, Argaen Ravenshadow tore himself from Kaz’s grasp and fell to the ground. He looked up at the minotaur and smiled broadly. “Especially your talkative little lockpicker!”
A huge section of the ceiling collapsed, sending tons of earth falling around the shadow box but strangely leaving it untouched and accessible. Kaz was caught between his hatred for the elf and his desire to leave before the rest of the ceiling and the earth above came crashing down around him.
“I should let the animate kill you all, though I fear that my playacting was not far from the actual truth, minotaur! Elves are a bit stronger than you think, but there are limits.” Argaen stared past Kaz at the stone dragon, which still paused by the vault entrance. The creature suddenly spread its wings as best it could in the cramped space and turned, shrieking silently, toward the two. The mighty jaws opened wide, and the stone beast began to move slowly in their direction. Its movements were graceful, and Kaz could almost imagine its stone muscles rippling. The tail lashed out and struck one of the walls, sending large pieces of the wall flying and raising a cloud of dust.
Kaz stepped back swiftly as the monster, ignoring the destruction raining down, stopped just before its master. The dark elf laughed at Kaz. “I would not recommend remaining down here, minotaur! If you leave now, you might just make it before everything crumbles!”
“You can’t be serious!”
Argaen’s unliving pet, its eyes focused on Kaz, lowered itself to the ground so that the elf could climb aboard. “I am so very serious!”
A Knight of Solamnia might have stayed and fought. Most minotaurs might have stayed and fought. Kaz knew better. He started running.
A small figure chose that moment to come crawling over the wreckage of the vault doorway. It was Delbin. Behind the kender, Kaz could see Lord Oswal. He cursed, knowing Darius and Tesela could not be far behind them. So much for his vague hope that they would do the intelligent thing and flee while they could. The Grand Master, haggard, spotted the minotaur first and started to speak.
Kaz waved them back. “Run!”
The elder knight took one look and, sizing up the situation, obeyed reluctantly, but Delbin, caught up in typical kender curiosity, remained where he was, trying to see what was going on beyond the minotaur. Snarling, Kaz tucked his battle-axe under one arm and, with the other, scooped up the small figure. Behind them, Argaen shouted something incomprehensible.
Lord Oswal and Tesela were already helping Darius up the steps. No one paused or even looked back. The walls and the steps vibrated as the party ascended. Kaz, in the rear, felt the step beneath his feet begin to give way. He said nothing, knowing that the others were moving as fast as they could. Tesela hadn’t had time to do anything for Darius’s sprain.
When the steps finally ended, the party’s relief at reaching the surface died quickly. The exit was barely passable; there was extensive damage.
“We must go outside,” the Grand Master decided for them. “We may have to abandon Vingaard entirely until the danger is over.”
Lord Oswal led them through crumbling halls. Darius was in definite pain but said nothing. Kaz, in his excitement, had forgotten to put Delbin down, likely a good idea, in retrospect. There was no way of telling whether the kender would stick by them or wander into further danger somehow.
The darkness of night welcomed them once more. Kaz, with a start, realized that only a short period of time had passed since he and the two humans had gone in search of Delbin and the elf. His encounter with Argaen Ravenshadow had seemed to last an eternity.
A few bewildered figures darted out of the darkness, the knights who were standing guard around the Grand Master’s stronghold. It was a bit of a surprise to discover that those knights were indeed real and not illusions. By now it wouldn’t surprise Kaz to discover that Oswal had been alone all this time.
The Grand Master instantly took charge of his meager force. As much as he admired the human, Kaz knew that Lord Oswal was weak and faltering. With each passing second, the moment drew nearer when he would collapse-this time for good. For now, though, he was still the one who must be obeyed, and for those who served him, only just emerging from the madness they had lived with for these past few years, he was a beacon of trust.
“Everyone out of the keep! Everyone out!”
The citadel of the Grand Master began to collapse. Columns cracked and tumbled down the steps. The outer walls of the building caved in. The roof, unsupported, came crashing down on the rest. In mere seconds, the stronghold was in ruins. Yet parts of the structure continued to shift, and those who had been in the vault knew that something massive was digging its way out.
Lord Oswal glanced at his men and noted their consternation. “We can do nothing at the moment I It’s nothing we can fight for now! When our strength is greater, then we shall hunt it down, but not before! No questions now! To the gatesl Go!”
The shattered roof of the Grand Master’s devastated citadel shifted position and slid determinedly into the side of another building, caving in the wall.
“Kaz,” a muffled voice peeped. “I promise I’ll stay with you if you just let me down, even though it’s fun, but it’s kind of hard to breathe like this, and I know you must be tired.”
“All right, Delbin, but if you run off, you’ll wish you’d stayed down in the vaults!”
“Actually, they might still be kind of interesting, if they haven’t caved in com-”
“Come on!”
From the ruins of the collapsed building, a huge form arose. Some of the knights glanced back, then froze and stared in dismay. Worn to the point of breaking, a few even fell to their knees in resignation. The Grand Master paused in his own flight and returned to them.
“What are you doing?” he shouted in his most commanding voice. It was a strain to continue on as he did, but Lord Oswal refused to give in. He waved a fist at them. “Get up now! Whatever destruction that beast causes, it cannot destroy the knighthood so long as one of us believes! Do you understand?”
Chagrined, they began to move again. The light of the one moon visible was suddenly augmented by an unholy glow. Now it was Kaz who paused and gazed back at the center of the keep and the leviathan that was lit up by that horrible glow. The outline of the huge, winged form couldn’t be missed. Beneath the dragon, held tightly in its forepaws, was the shadow box containing the malevolent power of the emerald sphere.
Riding on the back of the stone creature, Argaen Ravenshadow laughed insanely. The elf’s unliving servant spread its wings. Kaz began to move again, but ponderously, his attent
ion fixed with fascination on the great monster as it rose into the air. He marveled that such a creature, even magical, could lift its stone weight into the air.
The stone dragon lurched as its wings beat, causing it to lose altitude and crash into the roof of yet another building. The weight was too much. The roof caved in, and then the floor below it. The beast didn’t struggle, but instead seemed confused. Kaz wondered if Argaen Ravenshadow had lost control.
‘The libraries,” Lord Oswal muttered. Kaz nearly stumbled, not realizing that the Grand Master had come up behind him. “It’s destroyed the libraries as well. We will have much rebuilding to do. Come, Kaz. Odd as it sounds, we have to abandon the keep for the safety of the wastelands of Solamnia.”
The Grand Master had as yet truly not seen what lay outside, and Kaz hoped his mind would be able to stand the shock. The elder knight was a veteran campaigner who had faced some of the deadliest threats the Dragon-queen’s warlord had sent against him, but he was older now, and the past few years had taken an exceptional toll on him.
Behind them, they could hear the beating of the dragon’s wings as it forced itself up into the air again.
A rush of wind and a brief shower of emerald light told them that Ravenshadow and his pet had flown over them. The gates, wide open, stood just before them.
Kaz and the Grand Master found a small jumble of figures, including the minotaur’s companions, near the gates, where uncertainty reigned. Already the stone dragon was little more than a black blot framed in the moonlight of Solinari. Below the blot, like a dim beacon, the sphere continued to glow. Kaz stepped through the milling group and out of the keep, his eyes on the receding form until it left the brilliance of the moon and was swallowed up by the darkness of night.
Somehow his battle-axe was still in his hands. He raised it high in a brief but futile gesture at the magic thief.
“This isn’t over, Argaen Ravenshadow!” Kaz muttered darkly in the direction the elf had flown off. “Not at all. Somehow I’ll track you down. We’ve business left unfinished, you and I.”
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