The Dragon's Doom

22

The Many Uses of Dwaerindim

By the Three," Craer said thankfully, stumbling sleepily into the waiting bath, "but I could get used to being an overduke!"

Tshamarra smiled up at him from the scented waters. "Servants have their uses." She offered him a goblet from a tray beside her, shielding it with a hand against his splashings. "Warm mulled Arl-wine?"

Craer made a face, and then changed his mind and snared the goblet. "I'd better accept. The way our lives have been unfolding this last while, safe food and drink is best snatched whenever offered by opportunity-or pretty sorceresses who aren't wearing any clothes." He paused, just before reaching the dregs. "This wine is safe, isn't it?"

Tshamarra shrugged. "I'm still alive." She sat up and rolled over, dripping-a delightful sight that Craer stopped to appreciate-and cast a rather sly look back over her shoulder at him. "Seeing as you're up and you've been watered, how about washing my back?"

"Was that an artful way of asking something else, Lady?" Craer asked the ceiling, as he set his goblet down carefully.

"Lord Delnbone, surely you've learned by now that when I want something of you I ask for it-directly. My back?"

With a sigh, Craer reached for the bowl of scented lave-oil and the scraper, and set to work.

Tshamarra almost purred. "There's an itch there, just a little high-ahhh, yes. That's it. Just keep-"

"Morning," Hawkril Anharu rumbled, from above. Something in his tone made them both jerk their heads up to stare at him.

"I need you now," the armaragor told Tshamarra. "Hurry!"

Wordlessly she extended her hand, bare as she was, for him to haul her up out of the bath. Craer swiped oil from her as she went and followed hastily in her wake, snatching the warmed robes the servants had left ready to dry himself with, and stamping his feet back into his boots as he came.

"Could Aglirta just possibly arrange to need rescuing next time after we're dressed?" he asked Hawkril, as they hurried to the door and out, scattering servants and guards. The armaragor had already caught up Craer's leathers and dagger-belts and Tshamarra's boots and breeches, but the procurer hastily snatched a few more items-including something to adorn his lady's upper half besides the sharp edge of her own tongue.

" 'Tisn't Aglirta," Hawkril growled, " 'tis Embra. Em and her father."

Craer winced. "This isn't going to be one of those bad jokes, is it?"

"I don't know what it's going to be," the armaragor snarled, as they hurried down passages together. "That's why I came for you."

Craer put a robe over his lady's shoulders, and they both rubbed themselves as dry as they could as they hastened around corners, past grim-looking guards, and through archways where more guards waited.

"This is not filling me with carefree joy," Craer observed, as the crowd of courtiers and palace armsmen following them grew. They passed a room where the smells of fresh food wafted forth, and Tshamarra threw her lord a look that at once bade him firmly to behave himself, and at the same time told him that she knew what he was feeling, and felt much the same.

Flaeros Delcamper and six guards stood in front of the closed doors of Blackgult's chamber. They stepped aside wordlessly as the three overdukes strode up-and Tshamarra swept off her wet robe and unconcernedly laid it in the bard's hands.

Flaeros barely had time to stare at her bared flesh, drop his jaw, and flush furiously ere Craer took off his robe, too-and cast it over the bard's head.

"Keep these closed behind us," Hawkril told the guards, as he shouldered his way through the doors. Craer and Tshamarra followed-and halted with identical anxious gasps.

Blackgult's chamber was burn-scarred, riven, and strewn with heaped, broken furniture. The dead chambermaid's blood had dried, but she still lay sprawled and skull-headed in the wreckage. The center of the room was filled with a humming, glowing, slowly turning cage of magic, greatly grown from what Embra had Stone-spun to imprison her crazed father the night before.

Blackgult hung awake at its heart of the force-cage, the Dwaer glowing like a sleepless star to his right, and Embra-disheveled and fast asleep, her hair dangling around her-hung in a lesser cage beside her Stone. Both Blackgult and his daughter were wrapped in nightrobes that looked to have been thrown over them rather than donned. Blackgult gave them a brief, intent look as they entered, and then cast his eyes down at the floor below.

"She's been here all night," Hawkril growled, as Craer and Tshamarra hastily dressed. "Trying to heal him-'mind mend,' she called it. Yon cage has been growing all the while. At first it was thrusting out new bars at her bidding, but she fell asleep sometime in the night-after I did, for I didn't see slumber take her-and then I think he was commanding it, at least sometimes."

"You sat guard against the doors, sword in your lap, didn't you?" Tshamarra asked softly, tugging her last garment-a silk jerkin-into place.

"Of course, Lady. 'Twas needful."

There was a gentle chiming as the slowly, silently rolling cage changed again, some of its bars shifting to join other bars in brief flashes of magic, opening up some of the barriers around Blackgult and drawing him in closer… closer to the glowing Stone.

Craer's eyes narrowed. "Who's causing that?"

Hawkril shrugged. "She's asleep, and I dare not try to wake her-so I'd say 'tis the Griffon. It's been proceeding like this since I awakened and fetched you. He was right over yonder, up nigh the wall."

Tshamarra frowned. "So unless Embra's dream-guiding this, or the Stone itself is doing it, or someone unknown is influencing the Dwaer from afar, Blackgult is bringing himself somehow closer to the Stone."

She chewed on her lip for a moment, and then added reluctandy, "There's a spell that might…"

Hawkril shot her a glance. "Do it."

Craer held up a hand in a "stay all for a moment" gesture. "What befell the Griffon? Do we know?"

The armaragor shook his head. "Plague come again to bring rage upon him, or some doing of the Dwaer or the skull-sorceress… Em knows not. She did this to hold him until she could go into his wits and find out, so as to heal."

"I heard him tell Embra about being mind-blasted in a Dwaer-battle," Tshamarra said quietly. "His memory and reason have been coming and going, all this time since. Yet just yestereve I heard an old servant here say the Lord Blackgult now seemed like his old, old self, years younger and smiling again." She shrugged and waved at the chiming, shifting cage. "So if he's doing that, what do we do?"

Craer glanced at her and then called: "Blackgult! Lord Blackgult!" The caged man did not look up, or give any other indication that he'd heard. The procurer frowned, and then shouted: "Old Slyhips!"

Hawkril gave Craer a swift, sidelong look. That had been a name none of Blackgult's troops had dared to use to his face, for fear of being personally beaten before dismissal-a beating that usually involved jaw-breaking, or the removal of teeth, or both.

Again, the Golden Griffon seemed not to have heard.

Craer, Tshamarra, and Hawkril looked at each other grimly as the cage chimed and changed again. Blackgult was definitely being brought closer to the center… where the Dwaer was.

Hawkril gazed up at his longtime lord. The Golden Griffon, for years considered the most desirable, dashing-and dangerous-man in the kingdom. For much of that time Hawkril Anharu had been his most trusted armaragor.

And now, trust was… Hawk sighed, absently tapped the pommel of his sword for a breath or two as he thought hard, and then turned to Tshamarra. "You had a spell?"

The Lady Talasorn nodded. "A way to touch your lady's mind. 'Twill make sure she's unharmed, see if Blackgult or anyone has her in spell-thrall, and wake her if we deem awakening best. It should also tell us if she's still in control of this cage. Whatever we find, the touch of my magic should do her no harm."

Hawkril waved at Embra. "Do it."

"Wake her, too?"

Hawkril eyed the cage as it contracted yet again, set his jaw, and nodded. "Aye. Do that too."

The Lady Talasorn drew the bell-cut sleeves of her jerkin back to her elbows, struck a dramatic pose designed to keep them there, and carefully cast a spell. The cage nickered, the Dwaer flashed with momentary bright fire, and something almost visible sped from it to Tshamarra's fingertips. There it winked silently in a brief, half-seen explosion of phantom sparks, and was gone.

And Tshamarra reeled, winced in pain, and sank to her knees, holding her head.

"Tash?" Craer's hands were cradling her shoulders with falcon-swift speed. She shuddered, groaned, and then sagged into his arms. The procurer shot a look of alarm up at Hawkril, who shrugged helplessly and bent over the stricken sorceress.

"Lady?" he rumbled.

Tshamarra clenched her teeth in a spasm of agony, and then direw back her head, opened her eyes again, and gasped, "Full Dwaer-thrust… my own magic, back at me… Woa-ho, that hurt!"

And then the cage sang. A high, splendid chord of bell-like tones echoed back from the cracked and scorched walls, making all three overdukes look up.

Ezendor Blackgult grinned down at them in savage triumph, dark fire in his eyes-and the Dwaer in his hands. He hung now at the heart of the cage, its glowing bars falling away from him like so many severed strands of spiderweb.

"Griffon?"

"Blackgult?"

He answered their anxious hails with a wordless snarl of triumph and waved the Dwaer as if it was a ball he intended to hurl. Echoing its movements, the cage swirled around him. Then its glowing bars of magic streamed at the slumbrous form of the Lady Silvertree like the boldly reaching tentacles of the great glistening sea-beasts who were wont to snatch and drag sailors and their ships down beneath the waves.

The bright strands fell around Embra in a tangle, a net of entwined and fused force that shocked her awake. She was still gasping and shaking her head to clear it when the Dwaer flashed again-and was gone, Blackgult with it!

Embra screamed, and reached vainly for the empty air where it had been, shaking her head now in denial.

Tshamarra peered up at her, face still twisted in pain. "Em? How can I free you from that? I… I don't know if I can work magic, just now…"

The Lady of Jewels bent her head, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then said slowly, "No. Save yourself the pain. I can… Hawk, are you there?"

"Lady," the armaragor growled, shoving forward against the collapsed cage of glowing magic until its power brought him to a halt, flaring warningly, "I am. How can I help?"

"Use a rope or something, and drag me down through all this, until I can touch the floor-or a wall. Then keep back. Whatever you do, don't try to charge through what's left of my cage to reach me."

The armaragor frowned for a moment, and then spun around and charged across the room, slipping and sliding over rubble, to snatch up fallen tapestries. Some of them still sported great gilded and tasseled pullcords, and he sliced these from them with grunts of satisfaction, tossing them back over his shoulder to where Craer could scurry and catch each one up, knotting them together with swift skill.

The two men returned in a surprisingly short time with the heavy rope in their hands, and tossed it up into the cage… where, despite Craer's shrewd throw, it tangled in dozens of glowing strands of force-strands that hung motionless, no matter how hard the two men tugged. Tshamarra staggered to her feet as she watched them struggle, bewilderment on her face.

"A stone," Embra called. "Knot it around a stone, and throw it over me, so it falls onto me."

"But Em-"

"After what I've been through this night, and the burning these strands are dealing me now," the Lady Silvertree said patiently, "getting hit in the face with a rock will seem like a child's caress. Truly. Now tie the grauling thing around a stone!

In sudden haste the procurer and the armaragor complied, and then Craer swallowed, swung the rope a few times-and threw, hard and high.

The stone struck a strand of glowing magic, tumbled, struck another strand and bounded sideways, ricocheted over a third-and hit Embra on the shoulder hard enough to make her gasp and shudder, but not hard enough to stop her from wrapping both hands around the rope and clinging to it. Her fellow overdukes waited until she mastered her pain enough to straighten up out of her trembling crouch, wrap the rope around herself several times, and then tuck the stone under her arm and give them a weary nod.

Then they pulled, slowly and steadily, while Embra wriggled and contorted and reached, slipping between strands and under strands and through gaps in the tangle. Once they had to let the line slack so she could climb back up two strands that met in a trench no one could have passed, but she made her wincing, struggling way through the bars of her own cage until at last she touched the floor.

There she drew in a deep breath, looked up, and cried, "Let go, and get you back!"

The three overdukes scrambled hastily to the door-and behind them, the strands of magic writhed and flared into flames, in a humming inferno that became too bright to look at in half a breath.

Heat blistered the three as they huddled against the door, and Craer murmured, "So, Hawk, how does it feel to sleep with enough fury to do that?"

The armaragor gave his old friend a look. "Probably the same as you feel, abed with as much bright magic."

The Lady Talasorn managed a smile. "My, you've the tongue of a courting bard in you, Hawk!"

"Oh? I'll make him take it back out right quickly, when I find it," was the growled reply-and Tash had to look twice before she was sure that he was joking, and dared to laugh.

The fire fied away as swiftly as it had flared. Craer spun around and grabbed Hawkril to stop him charging to Embra-but failed. As the armaragor's determined progress towed him across still-hot, creaking flagstones, he called, "So what was all that, Lady Em?"

All traces of the cage were gone. Embra Silvertree stood tall, all signs of pain fallen away. She held out her arms for Hawkril, but gave Craer a look of distaste. " 'Lady Em'? Procurer, how much longer d'you want to live?"

"Sorry," Craer replied. His voice was contrite without a trace of mockery, startling all of his companions into looking at him. "What did you do just now-the fire, and all?"

Embra smiled at him from the depths of Hawkril's embrace. "When I can touch any stone of the palace, I can call on the Living Castle enchantments. I used them to drink the magic of the cage." Her smile faded. "So now we must rob a few rooms of enchanted things to power the spells Tash and I will need-to fight without a Dwaer, and bring us back home if need be. Oh, and I must get boots and a sash, at least, for this nightrobe. Then the castle enchantments will serve again to source the best seeking spell we can manage-and we must hope by the Three that my father's crazed enough to keep his Dwaer in use, and our magic finds him. We fling ourselves to him, and…"

"Risk our necks again," Craer concluded mockingly. "My, what a change!"

In a dark, deep stone chamber, fingers longer and more sinuous than a human's slid around the edges of a stone block, and tugged.

The stone grated out, and the owner of those wormlike fingers reached into the revealed cavity behind it and drew forth a small sack. The sinuous fingers grasped four objects through the rough canvas, carefully holding them apart from each other, as if they were as fragile as eggs.

The sack was set down with great care, and the fingers lengthened and curved like snakes into its open end.

Four times they slid inside, each time emerging with something spherical and setting it gently on the floor. When the snakelike fingers withdrew for the last time, four rock crystal spheres glowed faintly on the floor. Each had one flat side, graven with a rune. Those symbols were the sources of the glows.

The wormlike fingers touched one rune as a long, convoluted, and harsh word was uttered-and from that sphere sprang a whirling, shimmering cloud of colors. The fingers turned the orb over onto its flat side-and the shimmerings instantly became a sharp, bright, three-dimensional image of a young, imperious-looking man in robes.

The owner of the fingers bent its head to regard the image-though its face was a featureless mask of flesh, without visible eyes. Yet it walked very slowly around the image as if studying it, stopped, and then started to move again, more slowly, almost creeping around the seeming of the robed man.

As the faceless creature moved, its body shifted and flowed, becoming more and more like the robed image. When the likeness was exact, a robed man slowly circled a bright, stationary duplicate of himself, making sure of every last detail. Then he straightened to match the pose of the image, walked a few experimental steps in a stride very unlike the sinuous, padding gait of his earlier, faceless form, and announced: "I Jhavarr Bowdragon."

The dark chamber seemed unimpressed. The Koglaur chuckled, collected the four spheres-the image promptly vanished, restoring complete darkness to the room-and returned them to their hiding place, putting the block of stone back into position.

Then the false Jhavarr Bowdragon went a little way along the wall and drew out another stone block, with appreciably more difficulty this time. Behind it was a little wooden box, from which the transformed Koglaur drew forth a lump of stone that glowed, just for a moment, at his touch.

"Everyone bent on conquering all Darsar should have a Dwaer," the false Jhavarr Bowdragon murmured, cradling the Stone almost lovingly as he carefully restored the box and its concealing wall-block.

Then he held up the Dwaer, made it flash in earnest, and left that secret place.

The man who was not Jhavarr took his next step on the cold stone floor of a different dark cavern. Only one step, ere he stopped, let the Dwaer illuminate his face, and asked the darkness calmly, "Father? Uncle Dolmur?"

His words fell into silence, but it seemed to the Koglaur that it was an intently listening silence rather than a lonely, empty one, so he announced,

"I am Jhavarr Bowdragon, son of Ithim, much changed from what I was… and I seek my kin. Father? Dolmur? Are you there?"

"You do not sound like Jhavarr," said a deep voice from directly behind the Koglaur. Despite himself, he flinched and spun around.

Dolmur Bowdragon stood facing him-or rather, floated upright, dusty-booted feet planted on empty air a few inches clear of the ground.

The false Jhavarr sighed. "I know. Much of my remembrances are gone forever. I was caught in a Dwaer spell-blast while fighting Blackgult, the Regent of Aglirta, and… it took me months to recall my own name, let alone my lineage and that I could work sorcery at all. Uncle, does my father yet live?"

"He does," Dolmur replied gravely, and lifted a hand. As it swept up, weeping could be heard: a storm of helpless sobs coming from a man behind the Bowdragon patriarch, that the darkness was yielding up at the same pace as Dolmur's rising hand.

"My son!" Ithim whispered, when he could manage words.

"Father!" Jhavarr stepped forward eagerly-but came to a swift halt when Dolmur raised his other hand in warning.

"You've sought your kin and found them," the senior Bowdragon said calmly. "What now?"

Jhavarr met Dolmur's eyes, looked away, and swallowed. "I-I need your aid, your sorcery, your wisdom. Both of you." His voice shook with sudden fury. "I crave vengeance for what was done to me, on Blackgult and all Aglirta, whoever kings it there and every last mage of power of that land. Let them all be scoured from Darsar."

"Yes, yes!" Ithim cried. "Of course!" He struggled against Dolmur's restraining magic, seeking to reach and embrace his son, until the patriarch let his hand fall and freed his brother to rush forward.

As Jhavarr rocked in his father's embrace, Dolmur smiled grimly. "I suspect this undertaking will be the death of us all. Yet let us do it. If the Bowdragons are to fall, we should take at least one kingdom with us."

He floated forward. "If our refuge is so easily found, our sorcery may be less puissant than you hope… so let us set to work crafting battle plans, and spells to go with them. I refuse to rush into my death fray unprepared to deal the worst I am capable of. I suppose one might call this Bowdragon pride."

Jhavarr smiled eagerly. "So Aglirta is doomed?"

The eldest Bowdragon's answering smile was somewhat fainter. "Well, now. Perhaps we should say rather, 'Aglirta as we know it.' "

The mists that always attended teleportation fell away from their eyes. The Band of Four crouched, weapons ready, a smooth, hard floor underfoot- and found themselves staring down the length of a palatial, lofty-ceilinged bedchamber, its walls all white plaster relief carvings and gleaming closed doors. The towering bed was unmade, its linens and overfur slumped onto the floor. A frightened feminine face stared at them for a moment around the edge of a door beside it, and then vanished.

Tshamarra raised a hand to send a spell arrowing after she who'd fled, but let it fall again without making any futile casting. Her fellow overdukes were already spreading out and trotting forward-toward a desk where a man who was neither young nor slender was sitting naked, a large decanter of drink in his hand, staring at… a hand-sized, faintly glowing rock that lay on the polished wood in front of him.

Fear and bewilderment were in that man's stare as he put the decanter to his lips and quaffed deeply. He seemed not to hear the overdukes until Craer was less than a handful of racing strides away.

Then he looked up with a growl, snatched a dagger from the bench beside him with surprising speed, and sprang to meet the intruders, bare as he was.

Gray-white hair covered much of that unlovely, paunchy body, below a face reddening with rage as well as drink. Its owner glared at his four unexpected visitors with no trace of fear as he brandished his blade, dodged aside from Craer's racing attack, and whirled with that same swiftness to slam himself into the speeding procurer and send Craer crashing through the bench rather than letting his outstretched hand snatch the Stone from the table.

The naked man snarled a word-and there was suddenly a dagger poised above Craer's throat, and three more knives floating point-first before the eyes of the rest of the Four.

"Who are you?" the man demanded. "Speak, or I'll start slaying!"

"We're the Overdukes of Aglirta," Hawkril rumbled. "Come here seeking yon Stone. We know you not, nor mean harm to you; please accept our apologies for this intrusion. What is this place?"

The naked man took another swig from his decanter. "This is Varandaur castle, nigh Ragalar, seat of the Delcampers, and this is my bedchamber in it. I am Hulgor Delcamper-one of the many aging wastrel uncles Flaeros has doubtless told you about. He spoke well of you Band of Four." His eyes ranged across them, and then he spun around, went back to his desk, set down the decanter, and laid a hand on the Dwaer sitting there. "You want this. Why?"

" 'Tis one of the most powerful things of magic in all Darsar, and we need it to defend the Vale against the priests of the Serpent," Embra replied. "We lost ours in a battle not long ago, and hoped to recover it. How came you by this one?"

Hulgor shrugged. "It appeared in the air, just here-not long ago, as you say." He picked up the Stone and hefted it. "I'm not one for magic-yon floating knives are a casting laid ready here by a hired mage, not any doing of mine-and have been sitting here wondering how to get rid of it before slaying mages came for me." He grinned. "Fair greeting, slaying mages. I'd like to bargain with you."

"Speak," Tshamarra said softly.

Hulgor leered at her as if she was the one standing naked and not he, and said, "I've a restlessness in me. I've wanted to go and see how young Flaeros is getting on, and visit Flowfoam-I saw it once, years back-but I hate sea voyages and spewing my guts over the rail for days, into storms that hurl it all right back over me. If you offer me no violence, and take me there with you, I'll give you this lump of rock that's so important to mages."

The Four looked at each other. Then Embra, a disbelieving smile tugging at her lips, nodded at the naked noble. "Agreed. By the realm we all serve, I swear this."

Hulgor Delcamper looked at them all, one after another, and received murmured agreements as he went. He gave Craer an extra glare, and received a sheepish smile and spread hands in return.

Hulgor grinned at that. Then he nodded to them all, strode forward as if he was a grandly robed ruler and not an aging, sagging, hairily naked man, and put the Stone carefully into Embra's hand.

Doors burst open with a sound like thunder, and liveried guards burst into the room, glaives and swords glittering, with the chambermaid who'd fled at their arrival at the head of one group. Her scream and pointing arm was ignored in the general roar of competing cries: "Hold! Surrender! Down arms!"

Embra rolled her eyes, Hulgor grinned at her, and the Dwaer flashed in her hand.

Guards sprinting across the polished floor skidded to astonished halts, and Nuelara screamed again. Hulgor Delcamper and the four armed intruders were gone, vanished as if they'd never been.

The guards stared helplessly… at a gently rocking decanter on a table, and four dark daggers floating in midair.

No one was there to stare back.

"The Three must hold this place sacred to them, for some special purpose," Ezendor Blackgult muttered, as he stood on a crumbling balcony of the sprawling ruins of the Silvertree Palace known to all Aglirta as the Silent House. The burial ground below him was an overgrown maze of trees, shrubs, and leaning tombs.

Then red and black rage rose in him again, choking-strong. Blackgult went to his knees and mindlessly clawed at the stones of a nearby stair for a few frantic breaths, ere he remembered his own name and went boiling up those same steps, to come out on the battlements.

Shuddering, he fought down the madness and stared grimly out across the Vale, to where the long green isle of Flowfoam lay in its quiet splendor out in the Silverflow.

Plague-rage, oh yes, burning strongest where he'd been bitten… poor Indalue must have been infected, and never knew it.

"So here I am at last," he told the uncaring wind bitterly. "Back in the Silent House, the haunted graveyard of half the mages and adventurers Aglirta has ever birthed-wrestling with the Blood Plague."

The rage rose again, and he started striding along the battlements, half-shouting, "If I could hold to my wits long enough, and remember a tenth of what I should be able to, I could heal myself with this!"

The rage passed like a spasm, and Blackgult held up the Dwaer he'd seized not long ago, regarded it regretfully, and whispered, "But I can't."

He walked aimlessly along the battlements, ignoring scattered human and beast bones and the black gorcraw vultures that flapped heavily away at his approach-to land again just out of reach, and watch him balefully… patiently.

Anger rose again, sudden and hot. "A weapon, yes-blast this, savage that, burn the other! Destroying's always easy… But crafting, mending, healing-why, gods, why do you make those so hard, hey? Afraid we struggling beasts will achieve something, and rob you of your entertainment?"

The wind snatched those bitter words away, but brought back no reply. Cold-faced, Ezendor Blackgult found a stair and started down. He'd seized this Stone from his own daughter.

To leave her defenseless while he died here, driven mad by the Blood Plague. Gods, to be laid low by the sneering Serpents at last! No! No!

He was roaring that aloud, he realized dimly, hammering the crumbling stonework with the Stone that could not shatter, screaming and raking the old stone blocks as if his bleeding ringers were talons that could rend…

Gasping, he found himself at the bottom of the stairs, in much pain. Evidently he'd fallen, and now had fresh bruises to add to the sickening plague-surging in his guts. He rolled over, sat up with a growl, and glared at the Dwaer.

Well, if die he must, adorned with this bauble half ambitious Darsar sought, he'd die using it, by the Horns of the Lady!

First, let it be revealed who else was in the Silent House beneath him, just now-what creatures were breathing, which ones were moving, who was making noise… and who was working magic.

Aha! Scuttling things, gliding snakes, lurching skeletons mindlessly guarding this chamber or that… an ancient, sighing awareness that was more of a seeing shadow than anything else… and a large group of frightened men in armor, busily looting an inner chamber under the snapped orders of no less than nine Serpent-priests!

Well, now. The Silent House did have a deadly reputation to maintain…

Ezendor Blackgult smiled like a prowling wolf, clutched the Dwaer to his breast in both hands as if it was a newborn babe, and set off into the darkness at a run, letting the rage build, but using the Dwaer to cling to scene after scene of the House ahead of him, and thereby hold to his wits… the Three willing…

"This, Lord Sir?" the warrior asked timidly, lifting a crumbling shoulder blade and the dangling brown bones of an upper arm. Two slim metal bracelets slid down them, green with verdigris but still displaying either runes or graven script.

"Yes! Take care, mind!" the Brother of the Serpent snapped, pointing an imperious finger into the open coffer the warriors had brought. "Wrap them twice around in those linens, so they'll directly touch nothing else we put in there!"

His glare promised the warrior death or maiming if there was any inadequacy in the wrapping, ere he spun around to shout, "You, there! Elmargh, or whatever your name is! Pry out the block just above yon carving-pry, I said, not smite!"

Ilmark of Sirlptar hid his grimace well. He'd been skilled at tapping out old mortar when this bellowing priest was spewing up mother's milk, and was doing this just as deftly now. Another two gentle taps, and an entire line of mortar fell away, allowing him to slide the flat blade of his mattock in under the wall block. Carefully he rocked it, letting the block break the rest of the mortar-and then, ever so slowly, he slid… it… out.

A large, dark space was revealed behind the block, and the priest of the Serpent fairly crowed in triumph.

"The Great Serpent rises in me!" he cried, throwing his arms wide and nearly knocking teeth from the mouths of the lesser priests on either side of him. "He has made me wise! Stand aside, warrior, and let me see what treasure awaits!"

He snatched a lantern from the nearest priest and strode forward, barely noticing the alacrity with which the warriors faded out of the way and back toward the mouth of the chamber. The other priests crowded forward behind him, murmuring, "Careful, Masterpriest Thraunt!" and, "What can you see, great Thraunt?"

Masterpriest Thraunt raised the lantern and peered carefully into the cavity in the wall, sudden wariness afflicting him. The Silent House was said to be riddled with traps, and he'd heard more than a few grisly tales of overbold treasure seekers who'd found their deaths instead of riches…

After a moment of tense peering, he could breathe again.

A few breaths later, he relaxed. There were no signs of guardian creatures, enchanted or otherwise-no spiders spell-slept to awaken when intruders disturbed their niche, nor crawling bone-things held together and given horrible unlife by spells. Nothing awaited above to slam down, or behind to fire or thrust out. Just a small statuette of an armored prince with a sword-as tall as his own head, and seemingly carved of a single, massive ruby.

There was lettering around its base, script of an archaic, elaborate flowing style little used in these more hasty days, but words he could read: Blood of Silvertree Know Better.

Hmmph. Well, they hadn't had they? They'd come to this their palace and Died, in their dozens, all struck down by the Doom of the Silvertrees! Perhaps this hidden statuette bore the anchor-spell of that ancient Silvertree curse.

He whirled around and snapped, "One of those cloths, and be quick about it!"

The priests wavered, and then one of them turned to call a warrior. Thraunt was quick to roar, "No! One of you: the Holy of the Serpent!"

The priests all looked at him with fear or perhaps respect in their eyes, and then stooped and scurried and elbowed each other in a way that brought fleeting, swiftly suppressed grins onto the faces of the watching warriors. Thraunt resolved to deal with those insolent idiots later, after…

The cloth was laid into his waiting hand. He gave the priest who'd proffered it a brittle smile that warned that no praise would be forthcoming for something that should have been foreseen and done with no need for order, offering no delay to a superior-then turned and gingerly lifted the statuette, holding it only through the cloth.

It was hard, and smooth, and heavy, and did not feel as if it held hidden secrets in its innards, or bore a lurking surface enchantment. Thraunt turned it, marveling at the beautiful carving-solid ruby, all right-and then set down the lantern and with both hands reverently laid it in the coffer.

There was a murmur from the priests as they got their first proper look at it, and as the warriors started to lean for their own look, without quite daring to step forward from the edges of the room, Masterpriest Thraunt looked up at the holy men of the Serpent and said softly, "Let this not out of your sight for even a moment. Two of you must watch it at all times, for if it goes missing"-he flicked his gaze meaningfully in the direction of the warriors-"all of you shall make a very firm, perhaps final, answer for it."

They nodded, slowly, reluctantly, and silently. He kept on staring until he had seen each priest's nod-and only then did Masterpriest Thraunt flip the ends of the cloth over the ruby carving, straighten up with a satisfied sigh, and turn to see… dark wisps of vapor curling out of the niche in the wall!

He almost kicked the coffer flying in his haste to get back and away from that ancient trap-for what else could it be? -and stumbled, falling into the waiting hands of only two of the warriors, for the rest had fled in a wordless rush, and were now somewhere down the long passage they'd arrived by.

The pair of warriors roughly but skillfully thrust Thraunt upright, and he turned in time to see that fool of a novice, Ornaugh, choke, clutch his throat, and make a peculiar, desperate whimpering sound-before he fell over on his face, clawing at his neck.

He'd been unable to swallow, Thraunt realized-in his few moments of thought left before the other priests burst into and over him and out the doorway. The last two warriors sprinted in their wake, leaving the Masterpriest battered and winded on the floor, with a peculiar prickling sensation in his nose and throat…

No! By the Serpent, no! Masterpriest Thraunt was up and on his feet and through that door as fast as he could run, coughing around a tongue grown strangely thick, and trying to keep up with the bobbing lanterns of his craven fellow priests before they left him in utter darkness, here-

There was a bright burst of light from ahead, around the corner of the passage they'd just taken, and an echoing roar that sounded oddly like…

There was a second blast, and the tattered remnants of what had been Ilmark of Sirlptar, or Elmargh, or whatever his name was, came bouncing and whirling into view, all of the limbs rolling to a stop separately.

Spell-blasts! That was it! Just like those he'd seen in a courtyard in Sirlptar, when first observing a casting of the fireburst spell that the Brotherhood called "Fire of the Serpent." Someone-a traitor? a rival priest?-had blasted everyone under his command as they'd run along the narrow passage.

"Great Serpent!" Thraunt gasped, the words half a prayer and half a curse, and trotted forward warily, readying the best spell he knew: a "Wrath of the Serpent," the stinging cloud of flying, biting snakes that even anointed priests of the Serpent feared…

There was another blast, a short, choked-off scream, and more remains bounced and rolled to a dusty, grisly halt ahead. Thraunt slowed, wondering how long he should wait in silent hiding before venturing around that corner.

This was no trap, for traps do not howl and scream wild laughter, then sob and snarl and hoot and howl again. This sounded like someone gone plague-mad. Perhaps a mage, come here to loot, who'd been caught by the fangs of one of the guardian snakes he'd dropped to guard their way out of the ruins…

Well, if so, all he need do was wait, and this foe would the raving, and leave the way clear. Thraunt knew he was not a patient man, but when the clear alternative is being blown apart…

Around the corner came hissing shouts, and then snapped orders and the clang of blades-far more blades than his warriors bore, even if none of them had fallen. Wild roars followed, mixed with loudly declaimed gibberish this time.

Other priests had planned treasure-snatching expeditions into the Silent House, and although there'd been agreement to allow each foray one day before the next went in, Thraunt had known at the time just how feeble that agreement was… This must be another, larger Serpent party; he could hear spells being hissed and chanted that could only be the weavings of anointed Brothers of the Serpent. Could they have slain his command?

Yet why then all the hooting and howling? And why the sudden, fear-filled shouts? Surely they'd lurk silent, and creep forward hoping to take him or others in these haunted ruins unawares…

More blasts, rocking the ceiling and the floor beneath his feet this time, and the spell-chants suddenly ceased. Thraunt crept forward, not daring to stay where he was any longer for fear of the throat-prickling gas behind him-but he was still three long strides shy of the bend in the passage when a tall man wearing only a nightrobe stalked around the corner, leering and lurching. Tall and handsome and somehow familiar, he carried a glowing rock in his hands and was crooning to it wordlessly, as if it was a baby he was comforting.

He barked with laughter when he saw Thraunt, and the stone flashed-and Masterpriest Thraunt, in the last few seconds of life as a Dwaer-blast raced toward him, understood that what the man held was not merely an enchanted lump of stone but one of the Stones.

And then he experienced his first Dwaer-blast, and his last-and all Darsar went away, just like that.

Blackgult laughed loud and long, holding the Stone high in triumph and letting it spew little stinging lightnings down his arm, cascading snarling sparks across the floor. With these fires he'd slain at least four dozen Serpent-spawn-three different bands of them, by the Horned Lady!

Well, they'd come seeking treasure… and unfortunately for them, they'd found it!

Ezendor Blackgult chuckled gleefully as he strode into a dusty, long-ruined chamber of lofty size, somewhere in the westerly wings and turrets of the Silent House. Ah, but at least he'd not be dying alone. He'd butchered a respectable host of Snake-lovers this day! Why, ther-

Light flashed in the gloom before him, three bright and expanding spheres of radiance. Out of each stepped a tall, slender, robed man-two strangers, and a younger companion one he'd seen before. Seen, and thought dead forever, in the skies above a batdefield here in Aglirta: Jhavarr Bowdragon… and judging by the faces of the elder pair, he'd brought his kin.

"Ezendor Blackgult," the oldest wizard greeted him coldly, as the other two launched without hesitation into complicated spellweavings-bindings to keep him in this chamber, by the sounds of their incantations. "I am Dolmur Bowdragon. This is my brother Ithim-and I believe you've already met Jhavarr. Bowdragons never forget… and Bowdragons pay all debts."

The Golden Griffon threw back his head and cackled. "So," he added joyfully, completing Dolmur's direat, "prepare to die! Aha-ha-ha-ha!"

And with that laughter still echoing off the ceiling above him, Blackgult blasted it with the Dwaer and brought that end of the room crashing down atop his three newfound foes.

Two of them ran, desperately, breaking off their spellcasting. But the one who'd called himself Dolmur calmly spread his hands, and the great chunks of ceiling thundered down onto… something unseen, that sent them tumbling and rolling aside.

And then bursting apart, into powder, under a Dwaer-blast! One of the three-Jhavarr, it must be, for it had come from his side-had a Dwaer!

Blackgult roared out his rage and excitement. There was a way of forcing a blast from one Dwaer to another, now… yes!

Exultantly he did what he'd read in a dusty old tome in the palace library. It hurt the wielder, aye, but what cared he for that? He was dead anyway! Let a richer harvest be reaped, and old Blackgult go down to greet the Three with three dead Bowdragons to his credit.Yes!

The blast, when it came, swept away Dolmur's spell and took all three Bowdragons by surprise. Ithim screamed as the two older Bowdragons were flung away like rags, bones splintering audibly. Jhavarr, holding his Dwaer, was caught in the blast-glow, frozen in pain and rooted to the spot by the sheer power racing through him, his face twisted in dismay… and as the magic roared on, his slender body slowly changed, melting away from the likeness of Jhavarr Bowdragon into… bony facelessness. A Koglaur!

The two torn and bleeding Bowdragons saw the transformation too.

"Duped!" Dolmur snarled. "We've been tricked to our dooms!"

Ithim screamed again in fear and despair-and he was still screaming when Dolmur did something that abruptly snatched them elsewhere, leaving the Koglaur alone to shudder as Blackgult sent another Dwaer-blast through him.

"Skill and savagery, that's the way!" the Golden Griffon called jovially. "You faceless, sneaking rogue, you!"

The Koglaur turned his smooth, eyeless face toward Blackgult, and the Griffon felt the weight of coldly seething scrutiny. Then, abruptly, the Faceless One vanished, leaving the chamber dark and lonely once more. Inconsiderately, he'd neglected to leave his Dwaer behind him.

"Ah, well," Blackgult told the walls around him, "Victorious, the Golden Griffon can get on with dying in peace, then."

Or perhaps… just perhaps… He held up the Dwaer and cast a careful shielding-spell, three-layered and intricate. Blackgult was shaking with weariness when he was done, and dark anger was rising in his belly again, so he made haste to work a last, healing magic, and let go of the Dwaer.

It drifted away from his upflung arm, and gathered speed as it went,

curving along the inside of his shield-spell. Blackgult tore off his robe and laid it out as a bed as near to the center of the shield-sphere as he could quickly judge. He laid himself down hastily, closed his eyes, and pictured the Dwaer whirling around above him in a steady orbit, clinging to images of its speeding glow as the anger surged.

If he was to live, he had to rest. In trance, if he'd recalled Sarasper's instructions aright, the Dwaer just might be able to purge the Blood Plague from his body. "Well, now," he muttered, sinking down into the dark warmth where the rage rolled and snarled, "to be rid of the plague and healed hearty again… wouldn't that enrage a few Serpent-priests? They might even do something foolish and violent… But then again, how would the rest of us tell?"

Chuckling, he let the darkness take him.