Fistanadantilus Reborn

CHAPTER 33

Second Palast, Reapember

374 AC

Flayzeranyx stared at the skull, sensing the desire there. For long years, he had felt the glare of those dead eyes, heard the hushed voice whispering into his mind, insinuating ideas, suggestions, wishes. He knew that the skull tried to use him, that it wanted to employ the dragon to slake its hideous hunger.

But the red dragon's belly rumbled with a hunger of his own.

The eyes in the fleshless skull gaped, unblinking, as they had stared for so many decades. They looked upon the fiery inferno that was the lair of Flayzeranyx, and they watched, and they waited.

For a long time, there was only the smoke, the bubbling of lava and the hissing of steam. Clouds of soot billowed, churning in angry clouds, and tongues of flame licked into the air. Nothing seemed alive here, until finally crimson scales coiled in the darkness and leathery wings expanded to fan the air, sending gusts of wind swirling through the cavern.

Bursts of yellow fire exploded upward, as if exulting in their master's arousal when the mighty serpent raised his head and neck far above the smooth, hardened lava of his perch.

The dragon studied the skull and sensed the need. He saw a pale green image and detected the sparks of crimson fire that burned there. The hunger, the lust, in the skull was an almost palpable force.

"And where is the talisman?" asked the wyrm in a silken voice. He probed, staring with his great yellow eyes, penetrating the depths within the skull.

Abruptly the serpent saw the image change, and he sensed the truth as he beheld the human lair in the mountains. "Your heart of blood and stone is there!"

The skull remained as ever, but did Flayze now detect a mocking leer in the eternally grinning teeth?

"I know the place," he whispered. "The mountaintop stronghold… I have seen it, tolerated it, for these many years."

The skull was silent, still. But the shadowy stare of those dead eyes seemed to penetrate the dragon's very being.

Instinctively Flayze hated that place, hated the powerful allure that drew the attentions of his artifact. The skull wanted the stone with a desperate, powerful longing. The red dragon, on the other hand, had many treasures. He could afford to scorn the chance to add another bauble to his collection.

Wings spreading, the dragon turned toward the world, ready to fly.

Behind him, the skull watched, silent and motionless as ever, its white teeth locked in an eternal grimace.