Dragonmage of Mystara

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Marthaen was beside himself when he went to the lair early the next morning and learned that Thelvyn and Kharendaen would be leaving at once for the world of the Masters. He tried hard not to show his disapproval, since the instructions had come from the Great One himself, but he wasn't able to completely hide his agitation. He obviously considered the whole thing ill-advised. He did not believe that the Dragonking should subject himself to such a risk, not to mention his own sister.

"There is only one good thing I can say about it," he grumbled at last. "With Kharendaen along, you might be more careful to stay out of trouble."

"I'm not happy about bringing Kharendaen along," Thelvyn insisted. "I'd still prefer to go alone, but I dare not second-guess the Great One. For now, I need to know if you can open a worldgate someplace where the Masters will not suspect it."

Marthaen considered that briefly. "I believe it can be done, but I must consult with my sorcerers before I can

promise anything. Opening such a gate is one thing, but knowing where to send the other end is quite another matter. Perhaps one of the sealed gates at Braastar can show us how to create one of our own."

Marthaen went out into the yard and leapt into the air, flying quickly across the city to join the dragon sorcerers at the Academy. Once he was gone, Thelvyn retreated into the lair. He sat for a time staring down at a platter of roasted elk that had been brought for him. Dragons did not commonly eat more than once a day; he had dined late the previous night after his return from battle, and he wasn't particularly hungry yet. But ahead of him was a long journey, during which he may not be able to hunt for his fare, so it was best to eat while he could. Kharendaen sat on the other side of the table nibbling quietly at her own breakfast, also without great interest.

After a long moment, Kharendaen looked up at him. "What are you thinking about? Are you worried about the task ahead?"

"I suppose I should be," Thelvyn answered, "but actually I was thinking about last night-about my mother and the Great One."

"Your mother and your father," she corrected him.

Thelvyn shook his head slowly. "In these last few weeks, I've found it difficult to think of the Great One as my father. It seems presumptuous somehow, although I admit I find it easier after last night. Do you suppose that there might be some real affection between my mother and father?"

"It is common for dragons to mate for reasons that have nothing to do with affection," Kharendaen said. "But my impression was the same as yours, that there was real affection between them. I always wondered why the Great One brought the spirit of Arbendael into his realm to be his chief servant and advisor. I suppose that being an Immortal must be a very lonely thing."

Marthaen returned within the hour with the word that the dragon sorcerers could open a gate into the world of the Masters at any time or place required. They had already probed the structure of one of the collapsed gates and knew just what to do to open a gate of their own. Now they were waiting for word that the Dragonking was ready to give them final instructions. There were still a few unanswered questions, plus a few things they wanted Thelvyn to be aware of.

"We know already that a worldgate establishes two gateways, one in each world, which serve to anchor either end of the passage," the gold dragon explained. "In that way, even while the separate worlds might be moving through their own orbits, the gates always open in the same place in each world."

Thelvyn said nothing, since Marthaen's explanation had gone somewhat beyond his limited knowledge of astronomy. He understood the magic well enough, but the idea of worlds moving in orbits escaped him. As far as he was concerned, the world was the most stable and motionless thing in existence. Of course, he lacked the education of most civilized dragons, who spent the better part of a hundred years in school. As a human youth in the Highlands, he had been lucky to receive ten.

"For that reason, we have guessed that distances and locations in one world correspond to those in the other," Marthaen continued. "Therefore you can probably find your way around the world of the Masters by judging directions and distances from where you have entered."

"I see no reason that we should not open our own gate right here, in the core of our greatest power," Thelvyn said.

"That's what we thought," the First Speaker said. "But for the sake of your own security, we dare not leave our worldgate open a moment longer than we have to. If the Masters detect its presence, then they will know that spies have entered their world and they will be on their guard. The best suggestion I can offer is that we open the gate again for brief periods of time every few hours. If the Masters do find our gate, we can prevent them from passing through "it. How you get past them to return home, however, may be quite another matter."

Thelvyn was already well aware of how things could go wrong in the cold, dry world of the Masters. The Masters had been able to surprise him nearly every time he had to deal with them so far, and he considered it more a matter of good fortune than any cleverness on his own part that he had managed to get the best of them. He knew he would be facing an enemy

he could not fight and that the risks would be enormous.

Marthaen led Thelvyn and Kharendaen to the city park, located in a wooded, rather marshy area in the center of Braejr. The park existed mostly because the land was unsuitable for buildings, its only real virtue being that it was the location of the tomb of Jherridan Maarstan, the first king of the Flaemish realm. It was also the only part of the city where the dragons could gather in large numbers and a fair amount of privacy. Marthaen had insisted that privacy was important. Aware of the concern it might cause, he thought it best that even the dragons didn't know that the Dragonking had subjected himself to great danger. There was also a possibility there were spies in the city.

The moment that the two dragons were ready to leap through it, the worldgate was opened. It was closed again at once, to keep it from being detected by the Masters in either world. Thelvyn went through first, hurtling through the void ready to fight, his back arched and his neck held low, bounding forward on the opposite side to make room for Kharendaen just behind him. They emerged into a dark, colorless world, their legs sinking into the soft, dry sand of gray dunes. A cold wind stirred the dull gray dust into what seemed like a dense fog. They could see only that they stood in the middle of a cluster of boulders and jagged pinnacles of stone that rose like a half-submerged island from the dunes.

"This must be the sea of sand that we could see to the southwest of the stronghold when we were here earlier," Thelvyn observed.

"Either the days are very dark here or the nights are fairly bright," Kharendaen said, looking around. "I've never been sure which."

"I suspect their nights are much darker," Thelvyn said, blinking from the dust in his eyes. "Let's move away from this place, in case the Masters detected the opening of the gate."

"Where do we go?" she asked.

"I think we should scout out their main stronghold, then get away while we can."

Thelvyn spread his wings and leapt upward, trying to get above the tricky crosswinds that raced over the dunes as quickly as possible. He had expected to rise above the dust fairly quickly, since most desert sandstorms remained fairly close to the ground, but the dust was still as thick and dark as ever three hundred feet above the ground's surface. The winds were even stronger and more fitful. He had been climbing only a few seconds when a vast, dark shape suddenly loomed out of the dust just ahead of him. He almost had to stand on his tail to slow himself in time to avoid flying directly into what he now recognized as a massive wall of stone.

Kharendaen had been far enough behind him that she was able to dart to the side. The two dragons turned and began to move slowly along the edge of the wall. The clouds of dust made their gold armor nearly impossible to see. Soon they realized that they were circling around the high keep of another great fortress like the one that had seen earlier. Their caution seemed unnecessary, since the stronghold appeared to be deserted.

After a time Thelvyn, turned back to the northwest, deciding to continue on without pausing to explore this stronghold. While it appeared to be abandoned, he thought it best not to risk discovery. He climbed slowly into the air, waiting for his mate to move close beside him.

"We know the Masters were able to transport that other fortress into our world," he explained. "My guess is they prepared this one for that same purpose. Once Braejr had fallen to their control, they would have brought their forces through this fortress to enforce their domination of Braejr and the Highlands. Now that the Highlands have been secured against them, they have most likely moved their resources to another stronghold."

"It's fortunate for us that they are gone," Kharendaen agreed. "Otherwise we might have leapt through right into their claws."

"I should have thought of that," Thelvyn said. "I don't think much of our chances if I make such stupid mistakes right from the start."

Kharendaen was prepared to argue with him, but at that moment, they finally rose through the clouds of dust into the clear sky above, or at least as clear as the skies of this world ever were, since a fine dust filled the air higher than a dragon could fly, drawing a pale, thin shroud over the cold, distant sun. Thelvyn knew that they could have remained hidden if they had stayed within the thicker dust, but their large eyes could not bear the relentless assault of grit and sand. Instead, they flew low over the thicker clouds of dust, watching the skies around them for any sign of movement, trusting that their burnished gold and deep brown coloration made them hard to detect.

They flew for over an hour in the direction that, in their own world, would have brought them over the western Highlands near the village of Graez, where Thelvyn had grown up. He was not concerned about failing to see anything that might have been below them, since the very fact that the dust storm remained thick and unbroken almost certainly meant that they were still over the open desert. According to Jherdar's report, they would fly in a straight line for several hours before they approached the area where the main stronghold of the Masters was likely to be.

The hazy image of the sun was advancing steadily toward the west, and night would be falling in another hour or so. The day had still been young when they had left Braejr, indicating that the passing of day and night in this world did not correspond to their own. Thelvyn welcomed the approach of night, with its promise of deep darkness to keep the two dragons hidden as they flew farther into the lands of the enemy. He began to hope that they might be able to scout the stronghold of the Masters and withdraw from their lands by morning.

After another half hour of flight, they began to realize that what they had thought were bulges in the clouds of dust below them were in fact hills and ridges of rugged land. The final miles of open desert passed swiftly beneath them, although they never saw the windswept dunes. Now the clouds of gray dust were confined to the valleys between the barren ridges, like the sea reaching to form deep fjords. The clouds hung thick even in places that were largely sheltered from the restless winds. The rugged land, with its rocky, barren ridges and stark cliffs gave the impression that they were higher in the mountains than they were.

Now the two dragons had to be more careful than ever, hugging the deeper valleys and ravines as they moved steadily toward the northwest. They had wondered previously how such a lifeless world could support the armies of men and monsters of the Masters, but as they moved away from the sea of sand, they finally began to spot the first signs of native life. At first they saw only small patches of dry, tough grass or stunted bushes or twisted trees hidden in sheltered place among deep dells or behind huge boulders, protected from the harsh, dry wind. While their first impression was that this bleak land must never feel the soothing touch of rain, they soon saw signs of floods brought by sudden, violent storms, the raging waters ripping through the ravines.

The long miles passed swiftly below them, and they began to see even more signs of life. The rugged heights were too blasted by cold winds to support more than the smallest and most hearty plants, but many of the sheltered valleys began to harbor ragged stands of stunted, stiff-leaved trees and tough, dry ferns. Thelvyn had the impression that the weather was less severe and the ceaseless winds not quite as strong and relentless as they flew farther from the sea of sand. He tried to picture in his mind the place that Alessa Vyledaar had described from the visions in her dreams when she had been under the control of the Masters. Her description of a world that was always dark, hidden beneath a haze of dust, with winds that were cool even in the height of summer had proven extremely accurate so far.

Night had nearly settled when Thelvyn spotted something in the distance, dark shapes that were too regular to be natural in a broad valley ahead of them. Thelvyn's remarkable night vision, which he had possessed all his life, was even sharper in dragon form. He was certain he had seen something unusual, and Kharendaen agreed when he pointed it out to her. They paused in their flight, circling cautiously while they searched for any sign of life. There was no light to be seen, no trails of smoke rising into the night sky, nor any scent of burning wood or coal on the wind. After discussing the matter briefly, they decided to detour from their journey long enough to take a quick look. They approached with great care, aware that any

sign of iife in this world could mean danger.

As they came nearer, Thelvyn saw no hint of fields or orchards. Instead, there were wide, low dikes and ditches nearly choked with sand, running in straight lines or smooth curves of obviously artificial constructions. In places, he saw lines of tumbled stones, the tops of ancient fences protruding through the sand, and even the broken walls of old houses. Ahead, the dark, irregular shapes he had seen from the distance became the crumbling, wind-blasted remains of a large town, the dry bones of a place that must not have seen life for centuries.

The two dragons crossed the last couple of miles slowly and cautiously, flying low over the ground. Already they could see clearly, even in the gathering darkness, the crumbling remains of the buildings of a small city. The roofs had long since fallen in, and many of the walls were broken. Parts of the city were nearly buried in sand, while other parts, swept clear by some trick of the endless winds, stood open down to the stone-paved streets. There was no light anywhere, nor any sign of life.

Since there was no apparent danger, they decided to enter the city, flying slowly between the ruins of the ancient buildings. They found no signs of life except the tracks of strange animals in the sand. Since it seemed to be safe, they landed in a large paved square in the center of the ruined city, folding away their wings, then taking a few minutes to explore. The first thing they noticed was that the buildings didn't seem to have been made for men. The doorways were large and wide and the ceilings high. However, they were still too small for the dragons to enter.

Kharendaen extended her head well inside one of the doorways, but Thelvyn was more interested in something he saw on the walls. At first it appeared as a faint haze of blackness on the rough stone, so that even his sharp eyes did not detect it immediately. He stared intently, to make certain that what he saw wasn't merely paint nearly blasted away from centuries of sandstorms, although his eyes were made for distance and had difficulty focusing on anything so near. But when he began to look around, he quickly discovered that all the stone had a

similar haze of darkness, especially thick in the deep cracks.

"The Rain of Fire," he said softly.

Kharendaen swiftly drew her head back from a doorway to stare at him. "What did you say?"

He turned toward her. "This place was destroyed by flame. At some time in the distant past, this town was consumed by fire. I wonder if perhaps this entire world was enveloped in flame, changed forever into the cold, dark, dry place that it is now."

The female dragon walked over to join him, staring intently at the wall that had caught his attention. Then she turned, inspecting the walls of a nearby building. She brought her head through one of the doorways to search the interior, but it was too dark inside for even for a dragon to see. The time of fire had been so long ago that any scent of smoke had long since vanished, even for her sensitive nose.

She brought her head back out through the doorway after a moment and turned to her mate. "Could this be the home world of the Flaem?"

Thelvyn shook his head. "I don't think so, for three reasons. For one thing, Sir George has taught me a few tricks about judging the age of ruins by their decay as a result of time and the elements. This destruction is far too old to have been the world of the Flaem and the Alphatians. Also, the shapes of these doors and the sizes of the buildings suggest to me that they were made to serve the needs of some creature considerably larger than a man or elf. And the histories of the Flaem all state that their world was utterly destroyed, not merely ravaged."

"Indeed?" Kharendaen cocked her head, curious. "I've never heard how they managed to destroy their world."

"Even the survivors of that time never knew exactly what spell of magic was involved," Thelvyn explained. "They describe a wall of flame that moved across the land as fast as a dragon can fly. Behind it, the land itself broke apart. Great pieces of earth, from dust and sand to fragments the size of small towns, rose into the sky and drifted toward the stars. Water turned to spray and flew off into the sky. Even the air itself grew thin and cold. Whatever the cause, their very world

shook itself apart."

"No wonder they don't like to talk about it," Kharendaen commented.

"Only the senior Fire Wizards know as much as I've told you," he said. "I only learned of it when I became their king."

"Quickly. . quickly!" a voice suddenly spoke out of the night.

The two dragons turned, realizing they were no longer alone. Some distance behind them, standing in a passageway between two large buildings where they could quickly retreat, were three tall, slender creatures that looked vaguely like wyverns. Thelvyn had already seen their like in his own world in the form of the fierce, swift warriors fighting alongside the Masters in the siege of Rockhome and again in the wild of the Highlands. They somewhat resembled the wyverns of his own world, although they were more delicate. Nevertheless, they were strong and alarmingly swift. Their greatest difference from true wyverns was that they had both wings and arms like dragons, although they walked only upright like wyverns.

Another important difference was that these slender dragon-folk were apparently intelligent, while wyverns were nothing more than wild beasts. Recalling what fierce warriors they were, Thelvyn's first thought was that he and Kharendaen were about to be attacked, or perhaps called upon to surrender. Certainly these three were a delegation of some type, although they were hardly enough to take on two gold dragons.

To Thelvyn's surprise, the three bowed their heads to him, and their leader stepped forward. When Thelvyn turned to face him, the leader cautiously came a few steps closer and bowed his once head again before looking up and speaking earnestly. "Please … we must speak. . quickly. ."

"Do you understand him?" Kharendaen asked quietly.

"Somewhat," Thelvyn answered. These dragon-folk spoke a language of their own unlike any that Thelvyn knew, but he was able to understand some of their words by the means of some latent magic of his own. Clerics often had the ability to understand unknown languages and sometimes to be understood by those who did not speak their own tongue.

"Do you know what I am saying?" Thelvyn asked, speaking slowly.

"Yes," the leader answered, although he spoke a great many words that Thelvyn didn't recognize. "Are you. are you an enemy of the Masters?"

"I am," Thelvyn replied, taking the chance that the dragon-folk were also their enemies. "I am the Dragonking, chosen by prophecy to fight and defeat the Masters."

"You have come to fight them?"

He thought he recognized a note of cautious hope, although it was difficult to be certain. "I have come to try to learn their secrets, so that I can fight them in my own world where my strength is greatest."

"I am Long Spear, leader of my clan," the speaker said, introducing himself at last. He seemed at last to have grown to trust these strangers, as if had to overcome long-held suspicions and resignation. "My people are called the Veydran. Once this world belonged to us alone. Then, in a forgotten time some five thousand years past, the Overlord came upon us."

"He is not of your own world?" Thelvyn asked.

"We do not know. If we ever knew, it has long since been forgotten. All we know now is that he came to us long ago. At first, he was our god and protector, and we prospered. Then the Overlord's heart turned to the blackness of utter evil. He told us that we lived only to serve him, that we had no life or thought of our own. But he could not control us, and so he tried to destroy us with a great Wind of Fire that swept through the world, turning the seas to sand and the sky to dust. Our land turned cold."

"But he could not control you?" Thelvyn asked.

"He cannot control us, for we know his name," Long Spear explained. "Some of us were taken away. Their children were Stolen from them and never allowed to learn his name, and so they must serve him. But they were not enough to satisfy his ambitions. He began to conquer other worlds where he could control others who do not know His name."

"Is that when the Masters came?"

Long Spear stared at the ground sadly. "The Masters came and shared with him the visions of the world they had left, the world of the dragons. The dragons had sent them away. Their black hearts were bitter, and they hated this cold, dry world just as the Overlord hates it. The Overlord could never pass through his own gates to leave this world, but now the Masters had a way to lead him into their world. They have waited a long, long time, gathering their strength so that they could defeat and control the dragons. Then the Overlord would depart, but we would still not be free."

"I will destroy the Overlord if I can," Thelvyn promised. "But it is beyond my power to make your world the way it was."

"It would be enough for us to be free." Long Spear took another step forward, cocking his head to stare up at the gold dragon. "The Masters are very busy. They fly constantly between their strongholds, but they do not have the time to bother us. They are fighting you, and you are here. Take a look at their great places, but be careful not to go too close, not unless you are ready to fight them."

The three Veydran bowed their long necks once again, then turned and disappeared quickly into the shadows. Thelvyn guessed they never dared to stay out in the open for very long, a lifetime habit that kept them alive in a hostile world that had not belonged to them in a very long time. He suspected that it would also be wise for him to avoid open places for very long.

"That was the most interesting chat I've had in some time, whatever language it was in," Thelvyn commented, then turned to look at Kharendaen. "Did you understand any of it?"

"I caught enough to understand the gist of it. The Veydran seem to consider the Overlord a god. I don't like the idea that he has enough power to completely devastate a world. You may find yourself fighting one who has powers greater than those of an Immortal."

"No wonder the Immortals themselves seem to fear him," Thelvyn said, preparing to launch himself into the air once more. "Come on. If we hurry, perhaps we can reach their main stronghold and get back again before morning."

The two dragons spread their wings and leapt into the sky, leaving behind the ruins of the ancient town. Once again they passed swiftly through the night, keeping as much as they could to the deep shadows of the valleys as they made their way steadily northwest. For a time, Thelvyn felt so distracted by his thoughts that he wasn't being as cautious as he should have been in such a strange, hostile land.

He was beginning to form a full understanding of the situation. What impressed him was not how desperate it already was but how much worse it could yet become. Perhaps the Immortals had chosen him as their champion, but he wondered now if even they had fully appreciated what they expected of him. He suspected they had not. The Great One had apparently known only that the Overlord was a being of tremendous power. Under the circumstances, Thelvyn realized he couldn't completely trust in the knowledge and the judgment of the Immortals. The fact that they had prepared him for the task of fighting and defeating the Overlord did not mean that he could assume he would win.

Like the Immortals, he needed to know just how powerful his true enemy actually was, to judge how best to fight the Overlord … if fighting him was even a real possibility. The fact that he had devastated this world with fire was intimidating on the surface and made the Overlord seem very powerful indeed. But that was not necessarily so, Thelvyn knew. Such magic could have been prepared carefully, the power behind it drawn from many sources or gathered over a long period of time. The Overlord was still a very powerful being, but as long as he was less powerful than the Immortals, then either they or their champion could still defeat him. Thelvyn needed to know just how powerful the Overlord really was, and he could think of no way to judge that except in combat.

He had already learned a few things about his enemy, but not enough to do him any good. He could guess already that the Overlord wasn't a true god, an all-powerful enemy he could never hope to defeat. So far the Overlord had acted only through his servants, channeling his magical power to the Masters and leaving the actual fighting of his wars to them. And although he had long waited for the chance to leave behind the world he had nearly destroyed, he apparendy needed the magic of the Masters to make that possible. Perhaps at the Overlord's own stronghold, Thelvyn would see evidence from which he

could infer just how powerful his true enemy really was.

Another hour or so brought the two dragons near the lands where they expected to find the greatest of the strongholds of their enemy, and their progress was slowed by the need of being more cautious than ever. It was a remarkably rugged, mountainous area, and many of the larger open areas were lakes of drifting sand. But a few deep valleys offered enough protection from the harsh wind to be carefully cultivated. In these remote valleys, even the smallest bit of land was used for fields of crops or pastures for animals. The dragons had been weaving a path in and out of the valleys to keep themselves hidden from sight, but now they were forced to fly over the barren heights.

Thelvyn hoped they would be mistaken in the darkness for gemstone dragons even if they were seen. His image of the true size of dragons had changed somewhat over the last few months, so that he no longer thought of them as being as large as they had once seemed to him. All the same, he reminded himself, a dragon was a very big creature and not very easy to hide. As they traveled deeper into inhabited regions, his apprehension continued to grow. He knew that he was taking a tremendous risk, and he would have preferred to turn back at once, but that would mean his quest had ended in failure. He knew now that he could not hope to win this war until he found a way to defeat the Overlord.

The zigzag course that had helped to keep them from being seen had made the actual distance of their journey difficult to judge, but he was certain that they must be nearing their destination. They were entering an area of more hospitable land, highland plains divided by scattered ranges of low, steep mountains. As before, every small piece of reasonably level ground was neatly laid out in meticulously cultivated fields and pastures. They were even surprised to see terraces built into the eastern sides of the ridges and peaks, apparently the direction that caught what little rain might be carried on the seasonal winds.

Thelvyn had never seen anything quite like this. The fields had been laid out with absolute attention to detail for efficiency, perhaps from many long years of preparing the terraces, dikes, and the high, thick stone walls that served as windbreaks, with enclosed tubes atop the walls that apparently served as aqueducts to carry precious water. He was surprised to see no evidence of villages or towns, or even farmhouses scattered among the fields. The only buildings he saw appeared to be barns and sheds and occasional barracks, all built of heavy stone.

The dragons flew as fast as they could and as low as they dared over the fields, two dark forms passing swiftly in the dim starlight through the haze of dust. Mile after mile streaked past below them, all neatly laid out in dark squares. From time to time, they would rise quickly to pass over a ridge of low mountains, or drift to one side to fly around a lone peak of stone rising like an island out of the patterns of fields. So far they had seen no living creature except for the beasts in the pastures. At first Thelvyn found it odd that, in a nation of armies, there were no forts or guard stations to protect the fields. Indeed, it seemed that no watch whatsoever was kept over the fields. Finally he realized that since this was a land with no real enemies, there was no reason to guard the land.

He could only hope that meant the Masters held no fear of invasion or the intrusion of spies, but he knew better than to feel a false sense of security. He had invaded their world once before, and he seemed to have caught them less prepared than they would have liked, but he was surprised they hadn't taken more precautions after his previous incursion into their land.

The dragons were caught completely by surprise when they climbed steeply to pass just above an especially high ridge and found themselves almost within the main stronghold of the Overlord. Circling around sharply and dropping the sails on the bases of their tails to slow themselves, they darted back into the protection of the deep shadows among some massive boulders alongside the ridge. Only then did they dare to look around to check whether or not they had been seen and take a closer look at the fortress.

The stronghold had been built within the protection of a natural ring of stone, at a place where the three different ridges joined to form an almost complete circle around the encampment. From inside the ring, the valley vaguely resembled a vast crater, twenty miles or more across, but formed in an irregular shape that was more square than round and open on the corners facing to the southeast and southwest. The floor of the valley within the ring was perfectly flat, although there was no way to know if it had been made that way by natural processes or by deliberate design. The entire surface within the ring appeared to be either paved or occupied by some imposing structure.

The stronghold itself was actually an entire complex of great fortresses, neatly arranged in the same carefully laid grids as the fields, centered around an immense paved square that was probably nearly a mile long on each side. The fortresses were all nearly identical in form, solid, almost featureless structures built of gray stone that had been cut into vast, smooth-sided blocks. Distance was deceptive because the fortresses were so simple in design, being nothing more than massive straight-sided buildings without towers or turrets. When Thelvyn considered the size of the valley itself, he realized that each fortress was nearly the size of a small town, covering an area of nearly a square mile.

But it was the activity in the central square that caught his attention. A great arch of black stone stood in the very middle of the square, an oval that was large enough for both Kharendaen and he to have flown through side by side. The archway opened into a pit of utter darkness. Thelvyn could make out little detail because he could see the arch of stone almost directly from one side, but he had no doubt that this was a worldgate of tremendous size. Whole armies had gathered in the square, neatiy arranged in silent companies as each awaited its turn to advance to the gate. Scores of gemstone dragons were stationed between the companies scattered about the square, or stood about the gate itself. The gate was so large that, even as he watched, three of the Masters came through one after the other, passing on the wing just above a line of freight wagons passing through in the opposite direction.

As he watched from his place of hiding, Thelvyn began to despair of ever being able to fight the army of the Masters, even if he had every dragon alive under his command. The Masters had already lost perhaps a hundred thousand warriors and fighting beasts in their sieges of Rockhome and the Highlands. Ten times that number were gathered in the square below and in hundreds of companies waiting in lines miles long on the roads leading through the two main passes of the ring of mountains. Thelvyn counted at least a score of the immense metal warriors like the one that he had tried to fight outside Braejr. One of the warriors advanced slowly toward the worldgate, following closely behind a line of freight wagons. As impossibly vast as that walking mountain of steel was, the gate was large enough that the metal monster could simply step through the passage.

Thelvyn could not even begin to guess how many fighters and weapons and how many supplies had already been sent through the gate. Companies of warriors and lines of wagons continued along both of the approaching roads for as far as he could see in the dusty darkness. Nor did he have any idea of the true numbers and strength of the Masters themselves. He knew that his own world could not hope to put together an army large enough to face this one, certainly not in the short time available.

"Now I know how they've been able to conquer whole worlds," Thelvyn whispered in awe.

"Remember, they've never had to fight dragons before," Kharendaen remarked, trying to be encouraging. "Or Immortals, for that matter."

"I know now why the Great One thought we were wasting our time trying to fight a defensive war," he said, sitting up. "We can't hope to fight such an awesome army. But if we can defeat the Overlord, all the rest should simply fall apart."

"As easily as all that, Little One?" a strange, deep voice asked, speaking to them as if from the air.

The dragons started, alarmed to realize they had been discovered. In the first instant, they obeyed their fierce instincts, arching their backs and necks as they prepared to fight their unseen enemy. Then Thelvyn's heart sank into despair as he realized he had heard that same voice once before. It was the voice of the Overlord.

Already he realized his mistake. He had underestimated his enemy. The Overlord was said to have the powers of an

Immortal, and here, in his own world, his powers would be at their greatest. Here he was secure, a being of magic rather than mortal form, his mind and will able to be anywhere and everywhere in an instant. In this place, he was indeed almost a god, and Thelvyn's powers as both Dragonlord and Dragonking were very slight in comparison.

In the next moment, Thelvyn and Kharendaen felt almost as if some great, unseen hand had reached out to take them up, drawing them in an instant into the very heart of the Overlord's innermost stronghold. The ridge where they had been hiding was left behind; suddenly they found themselves standing on the smooth stone floor of what seemed to be some vast chamber. The walls and ceiling of the chamber were hidden from them, lost behind the cold, dark mists that surrounded them. But they knew that they were not alone. Standing back to back, they guarded each other as best they could, their heads darting back and forth as they watched the creeping mists. After a moment, they became aware of the large, glittering eyes of the gemstone dragons peering at them out of the darkness.

A portion of the dark mists began to move and take form, slowly becoming the long, horrible face of the Overlord glaring down at them, still mostly hidden in the mists. He gloated over the easy defeat of his greatest enemy, captured with little more effort than a thought.