by James Wyatt
“Have you seen what you wanted to see, wizard?” Vestapalk’s voice seemed to ring in his mind as much as in his ears, and Albanon’s eyes popped open.
“You’re projecting your consciousness through this demon, somehow,” Albanon answered.
“And what have you seen of this one?”
Albanon frowned, trying to make sense of what he had seen. “You’re not just a dragon any more,” he said.
“This one is a dragon, the Voidharrow, and the Plaguedeep. This one is the plague that will consume you.”
The demon’s mouth opened wide, and a cloud of vapor billowed out. Tiny red crystals shimmered in the air and spread slowly out from the hulking creature.
As Kri jumped back from the spreading cloud, Albanon hurled a blast of fire at the demon. It roared its pain and lurched forward, sending the scarlet cloud eddying around it. Kri called down a column of light that sent the demon sprawling to the ground and also dissipated the portions of the cloud that it touched.
A lingering wisp of cloud touched one of the fey hounds, seeped in through its nostrils, and immediately started to alter the poor beast. Jagged crystal protrusions sprouted from its back as it howled its agony. Its forequarters flattened, its legs splayed to the sides, and its head curled in on itself.
Careful not to get too close to the remaining wisps of the toxic cloud, Immeral cut the hound-demon’s head from its broad shoulders with a single swing of his sword. With a gesture, the huntmaster ordered the other eladrin and their hounds away from the tower, back to where their horses waited.
Albanon followed, forming a clearing among the thorns for the eladrin to sit comfortably. Kri threw himself down on the ground, still short of breath from the exertion of their long flight across the plain. Albanon settled with the others, enjoying a moment of quiet after all the chaos of the battle.
“Well,” Immeral said after a moment, “had I known at Moonstair that I was speaking to the son of the Prince of Thorns, I would have offered to escort you to your father’s palace.”
“And had I known you were my father’s huntmaster,” Albanon said, then paused. “I don’t know what I would have done, actually.”
Immeral laughed, the clear, musical sound of the fey’s wild delight. Just like the smells on this side of the Moon Door, that laugh stirred up Albanon’s memories of home, of feasts in secluded glades and races along woodland trails.
“Why did you come to the tower?” Albanon asked.
“As soon as you left the Palace of Thorns, your father turned his attention to the Whitethorn Spire. He had paid it little heed for decades, and it had almost faded from his consciousness entirely. When he cast his gaze this way again, he discovered that the tower was breached-something was here that shouldn’t be. Well, we saw what that was.”
“And he sent you here, to …?”
“To protect you, yes.”
“And we thought you were chasing us.”
Immeral laughed again, but without mockery. “Oh, my friend,” he said through his laughter, “if we had been chasing you, you would not have reached the tower.”
“Although your command of the thorns was impressive,” another one of the hunters added.
“Indeed,” Immeral said. “You gave us a worthy chase-better than we’ve had in years.” The smile faded from his face. “Of course, that left us all more tired once we arrived than we might have been. Probably cost us a couple of hounds.”
“I know I’m lucky to be alive,” another hunter-the one Kri had healed-said. He nodded to the priest. “Thank you.”
“Without your help in that battle, Albanon and I would be dead for certain,” Kri said. “We owe you our gratitude and our lives.”
“You are the son of my lord and master,” Immeral said to Albanon. “You need only to ask my help, and I will give it. Whatever the circumstances.”
“Thank you.”
Albanon sat back and looked up at Sherinna’s tower. Splendid, the last legacy of his apprenticeship with Moorin, was perched atop the arch over the open door. Everything else around him was a part of his life that was new and at the same time old. Kri, his new mentor, was passing on to him a tradition that came from his own grandmother, whose tower this had been. His father’s huntmaster had just promised Albanon his aid, and the very brambles of the Plain of Thorns acknowledged his noble birthright.
This is who I am, he thought. A prince of the Feywild, heir to the legacy of the Order of Vigilance. His eyes found Splendid again. Not some bumbling apprentice. Not anymore.
And not ever again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Is it the dragon?” Shara whispered.
“I can’t tell,” Uldane replied. “It’s dark down there, and … foggy?”
Shara’s vision cleared enough to show her what the halfling was talking about. Eddies of mist billowed up the stairs from the chamber at the bottom. She took Quarhaun’s hand and got to her feet, as slowly and quietly as she could manage.
“Should I take a look around down there?” Uldane asked.
“No. Whatever it is, it knows we’re here. You’re not going to sneak past it. The first one down is going to be the first one attacked. And that’s going to be me.”
“We should send some lizardfolk warriors down first,” Quarhaun said. “Get a sense of what we’re up against. Force the dragon to reveal itself, if it is him.”
Shara looked for any hint of humor in the drow’s face and saw none. “What?” she asked.
“They’re expendable, Shara. You’re not.”
“I don’t send anyone into danger I’m not willing to face myself.”
“Officers with that attitude rarely live long enough to get promoted.”
“I’m not an officer, Quarhaun. I’m an adventurer. I’m not here because some baron or general sent me here to achieve some military objective.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m here because that dragon killed almost everyone in the world that ever meant anything to me. And after I killed him once, he didn’t have the decency to stay dead, which means I get the pleasure of killing him again. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get to kill him a third time-once for Borojon, once for Cliffside, and once for Jarren.”
“And so you’re going to walk boldly into what’s probably a death trap, not even knowing if whatever is down there is the dragon or not. You can’t kill the dragon if you’re dead.”
“I have no intention of dying. Tell the warriors to come down with me, if you want. We’ll face it together, whatever it is.” With one hand on the wall to make sure she didn’t slip again, she started down the stairs into the darkness and the mist.
Damned dragon probably heard every word of that, she thought. She smiled to herself. Good.
Quarhaun hissed instructions to the lizardfolk, and Uldane trailed behind her with a fresh sunrod. The sound of water dripping on stone and plinking into pools echoed up the stairway. Mist billowed around her feet as she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she peered ahead into a large, open chamber.
Water poured down slime-covered walls as the swamp worked slowly to absorb the ancient building. As it splashed to the ground it rose in fine droplets of mist that draped the floor of the room and rose in eddying clouds above it. Streamers of moss hung from jutting stones in the worn walls, waving in the water coursing over them. A gurgling sound came from somewhere near the center of the room, suggesting that the water was draining out before it could fill the room entirely.
Shara didn’t see the dragon. It was hard to imagine the mist cloaking something that large, but not inconceivable-and there were corners of the room she couldn’t see without stepping fully into the archway. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the lizardfolk warriors arrayed behind her, clubs and maces held at the ready, shields ready to block, and their eyes fixed on her.
Maybe Quarhaun was right, she thought. Maybe I am an officer.
One of the lizardfolk nodded its head at her in a gesture she interpreted as respect
. She returned the gesture, then met each one’s eyes in turn, excitement building in her chest.
No, she thought, they follow me because I’m willing to lead them into battle. I’ve earned their respect.
Eager for a fight, she turned back to the archway and took the last few steps that opened the entire chamber to her view. A large, sleek figure moved in the mist to her right, incredibly fast, snaking toward her to attack.
It wasn’t the dragon. In its basic outline, it was identical to the demons they’d been fighting-vaguely pantherlike, with low forequarters but longer hind legs, a flattened head and torso that suggested the head of a cobra. This one was covered in red crystal protrusions that glittered in the light of Uldane’s sunrod, jutting from its back, its hips, and the joints of its legs and forming horns and spikes around its eyes and mouth. And it was enormous, towering over her as it pounced, even its low-slung head far enough off the ground to let her pass underneath without ducking her head.
It slammed into her before she had time to do more than turn to face it, knocking her off her feet and sending her splashing into a puddle. Shara’s ears rang as her helmet clanged against the stone floor again, and her shoulder burned where the demon’s claws had raked her. Then the demon darted away, vanishing into the billowing mist.
The lizardfolk warriors gave a gurgling shout and charged into the chamber, fanning out as they passed through the archway, clattering their clubs and maces against their shields as if they were flushing game out from the reeds of the swamp. Uldane appeared in the archway next; he tossed the sunrod into the room and then slunk into the mist and shadows.
“This is no time for a nap, Shara,” Quarhaun called as he stepped into the arch.
Shara stood up, scowling. “Listen, demon,” she announced to the room. “I’ve spent enough time flat on my back in the last hour. No more.”
Uldane’s laugh betrayed his position, already almost a quarter of the way around the edge of the chamber. But the demon didn’t reveal itself.
“Everyone get ready to hit it as soon as it shows itself,” Shara said. “Hit it hard.”
Keeping her center of gravity low, she stalked toward the middle of the room. The mist swirled around her feet and rose in clouds around her as she moved, and her feet splashed in shallow pools of water.
“It shouldn’t be so easy to hide in here,” she said. She stopped walking and listened. The lizardfolk were quieter than she was, but their feet made noise in the water as well, and the mist revealed the signs of their passage. But no such signs betrayed the movement of the demon, which meant it was either standing still or-
She looked up, and saw the demon slinking along the ceiling almost directly overhead.
“Up! Up!” she shouted. “It’s on the ceiling!”
With a yowl that chilled her blood, the demon dropped down onto her, twisting as it fell so its ruby-tipped claws led the way down. Shara lifted her shield and crouched down, and as the demon hit she blocked its claws and drove her sword deep into its shoulder. Its yowl turned into a hideous, screeching scream as it crashed to the floor on its side, scrambling to get its feet beneath it again.
The two nearest lizardfolk were on it before it could stand, bludgeoning its head and its hips with blows from their maces. She heard the crunch of bone and saw some of the crystal growths on its hind parts shatter, then the lizardfolk who had struck the crystal shouted and drew back in pain. The shattered crystal had pierced the warrior’s scaled hide, and he looked down at the wounds with wide, terror-filled eyes.
The demon found its feet and crouched to pounce. Shara’s blade cut the creature’s flank, then the demon leaped over the terrified lizardfolk and vanished in a rising cloud of mist.
“Quarhaun!” Shara called. “Bring Kssansk to look at this!”
The injured lizardfolk had dropped both mace and shield and started clawing at his own wounds as if trying to dig out the shards of crystal that had buried themselves in his flesh. Shara thought of the way Vestapalk’s infusion had taken hold in Albanon and Quarhaun, starting to change them both into demons like these.
Again she was reminded of the dragon’s commandment to his minions. “Spread the abyssal plague!” he had cried. She shuddered as the lizardfolk threw his head back and screamed.
Kssansk came and laid a hand on the frantic warrior, whose convulsive movements stopped at once, the scream squelched in his throat. Shara scanned the chamber for any sign of the demon’s return, checking the ceiling as well as the billowing mist. This time, eddies in the mist signaled the demon’s movement to her left, approaching the warriors on the far end of the lizardfolk line.
“This way!” she shouted, breaking into a run.
The demon was fast. It emerged from the mist and crashed into one of the lizardfolk, much as it had when Shara first entered the room. The lizardfolk, though, kept its feet and managed to get a solid blow on the creature’s shoulder as it darted past.
The demon never stopped moving. After colliding with the warrior and his club, the creature leaped onto the wall and ran another ten yards before dropping back down into the mist. Shara stopped, frustrated.
“It’s too fast,” she said. “We could spend the next hour running back and forth across the room, and it’ll just keep attacking one of us at a time.”
“We need to group up,” Quarhaun said. He shouted something in Draconic, and the lizardfolk responded immediately, pulling back to where Shara stood.
Kssansk led the injured warrior, the last to join the ragged circle. The wounds were still visible and the warrior’s eyes had a glassy look, but he held his weapon and shield ready.
“How is he?” Shara asked.
“He’s ready to fight,” Quarhaun said.
“Will you ask Kssansk how he is?”
Quarhaun shrugged and relayed the question to the lizardfolk shaman, who answered with a long string of gurgles and hisses.
“He’ll make it,” Quarhaun translated.
“What else did he say?”
“I’m not an interpreter,” the drow snarled. “I said he’ll make it, he’s ready to fight. What more do you need to know?”
“Shara!” Uldane’s voice, full of terror, came from off to the right, not far from where Shara had last spotted the demon.
“Damn it, Uldane!” Shara shouted. “Join the circle!”
The halfling gave a short cry of pain, then Shara saw the demon leap up out of the mist again. It clung to the wall this time, craning its serpentine head around to watch the floor.
Shara saw the mist billow, then Uldane emerged from it, his face streaked with blood. He ran toward the circle as fast as his feet could carry him, then the demon hurled itself down from the wall to land right on the halfling.
A bolt of purplish lightning shot over Shara’s shoulder to strike the demon, knocking it away from Uldane. Shara ran, calling for the lizardfolk to follow. Quarhaun echoed her instructions in Draconic and the warriors surrounded her, forming a tight clump around her as she moved to stand over Uldane. She reached a hand down to help the halfling to his feet. He managed to get up, but he was badly hurt.
The demon had vanished into the mist once more, though great clouds billowed around where Quarhaun’s eldritch lightning had sent it sprawling. A reddish light filtered through the mist, as if the creature’s crystal protrusions had started glowing. Then a voice whispered from the mist, and Shara’s heart froze.
“This one is sorry not to be present. There would be pleasure in robbing the red-haired warrior of more of those she cares about.”
“Vestapalk!” Shara cried. “Show your face and get ready to meet your doom!”
“This one is no longer called Vestapalk,” the dragon’s voice said. “And though there is pain in saying it, this one is not present to tear the halfling apart and bite the drow’s head from his body.”
“It’s speaking through the demon,” Quarhaun whispered in her ear. “Some kind of telepathic link.”
“This one is
the Voidharrow and the plague. Wherever the Voidharrow is, there are the eyes and the ears and the voice of this one also.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shara said, striding forward. “But I’m about to poke out your eyes and cut off your ears to shut you up.”
She took three steps into the billowing mist, then stopped as she realized, with a jolt of fear, that the mist right in front of her face was formed of tiny red crystals suspended in the air. The Voidharrow and the plague, she thought. That’s not a plague I want to catch.
Behind her, Uldane cried out again, and she whirled around. The demon was right behind her, right in the midst of the lizardfolk warriors-and right on top of Quarhaun, its horrid face looking directly at her as it sank its claws into the drow’s body.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Roghar, wait,” Travic said.
Roghar was poised to charge down the hall after the fleeing humans, but Travic’s words brought him up short. He turned to look back at his companions, and the battle fury ebbed from his heart.
Travic still lay on the ground, barely strong enough to lift his head. Tempest sagged against the wall, breathing hard, her eyes looking around wildly as if following the movements of spirits only she could see.
“We’re in no condition to keep fighting,” Travic said.
“Of course,” Roghar said. “I acted without thinking.”
“Again,” the priest said with a smile. “You need to learn to curb your youthful exuberance.”
“Bahamut was with me,” Roghar said. “Proud and fierce.”
“For all his talk of nobility and justice, the Platinum Dragon is a warrior god at heart,” Travic said.
Roghar stepped to Tempest’s side. She recoiled, staring at him with wide eyes, then recognition seemed to sink in to her fevered mind. Her body relaxed, and she let her head drop onto Roghar’s shoulder.
