The Dragon's Doom

25

A Dragon Over Flowfoam

I trust," Ingryl Ambelter said mildly in the nickering firelight, "you all understand my orders? And the fate awaiting anyone who disobeys them?"

There was a moment of silence, and then the answer came as a thunderous, ragged murmur: "Yes, Great Serpent."

The snake-headed man looked down at them from his newly shaped, emerald-scaled height (Ingryl Ambelter had discovered he rather liked being head-and-shoulders taller than everyone around him) and hissed, "Good. Very good. Now, my Lords of the Serpent, heed me further. Rather than try to whelm armies and march them on Flowfoam, you are to round up all Aglirtans you've managed to infect with Blood Plague, but who you've thus far kept from beast-shape or falling into madness, and give them weapons. I shall do the rest. You shall know my question as to your readiness, when it comes, and I shall expect only one answer."

He let silence hang in the still-shattered chamber for a tightly-smiling moment, and then snapped, "Now go and do this! Hasten!"

Men in robes far more elaborate than his own streamed past the flickering braziers to the door-all but a dozen senior priests, who stepped back from the throng to stand along one wall together. When the doors had been closed behind their departing Brethren, they stepped forward in a small group to face the Great Serpent. Each had mind-heard his personal orders to remain, and so knew without a doubt that this wizard commanded the Thrael, and thereby was the rightful Serpent.

Ingryl’s eyes seemed to meet all of theirs at once. "Is everyone armed sufficiently? The doorpriests can bring you blades if you wish."

There was a general silence. Priests cast glances at each other, but no one stepped forward or spoke.

The Great Serpent nodded. "Good. You deem yourselves ready, then?"

There were nods and murmurs of "Yes, Highest."

"You know what to do, and that the Brotherhood depends on you this day. Fail us all not."

Ingryl Ambelter threw up his hands, arms spread wide dramatically, and sent them all elsewhere. The Thrael allowed him to command the Dwaer without even touching it directly. Such power…

As the glow where the dozen had stood faded, Ingryl Ambelter turned away to stroll and smile.

Well, now. Spellmaster of All Aglirta and Great Serpent of all Darsar. Not too shabby… not shabby at all. The Thrael showed him that his meal was almost ready, and that none of the priests preparing it had dared to introduce taints or poisons. He'd best get to the eating; there was a busy day ahead.

With the Dwaer he'd soon be jumping up and down the Vale, from beacon fire to beacon fire. At each blaze one of the hastening priests-teleporting each other right now to their towns and villages, in a glow of bustling magic so strong that it was almost painful, through the Thrael-would be waiting, with a whelming of armed Aglirtans.

The Dwaer would transport those groups to Flowfoam. When they appeared on the isle, the dozen priests he'd just sent ahead-into hiding in the palace gardens-would quell the magic that stopped plague-madness. The arriving Aglirtans, warriors or ploughmen, would go berserk.

"And so let king and overdukes and all be overwhelmed in loyal subjects, and hewn down," Ingryl Ambelter told the star-scattered sky above him, visible through the riven ceiling. Then he burst into laughter.

The sound brought one of the doorpriests to peer timidly in through the doors. He saw the lone, laughing man grow the beginnings of a tail and rise taller, towering to twice the height of tall armaragors and even more… But as the Great Serpent mastered his mirth, his stature diminished again, and the stump of a tail faded away.

"Cease your useless spying," he told the doorpriest without turning, "and bring me some wine. I shall be in the Hall of Coils."

There was a wink of Dwaer-flash, and the room was empty even before the frightened doorpriest could begin to stammer acknowledgment of the order.

The center of the Hall of Coils was a great pit whose sides were concentric rings of shallow steps, and its walls were adorned with huge snakes, the carved stone heads and coils standing out in some places almost ten feet from the wall. Huge gems enspelled to glow served as the gleaming eyes of those forever frozen serpents, and the tiles underfoot were painted in scenes of triumphs of the faith. Decades of dedicated work, in this room alone. No wonder this place was hidden high in the mountains, where an Aglirtan army would have to fly to come against it in strength.

Ingryl Ambelter smiled again. The Great Serpent. As empty as all titles-but the Thrael, now… worth the dark weight of a fell god's attention, to taste such power. With its web, even now, he could…

"Most Holy Lord?"

He could sip wine knowing it was safe, that's what he could do. Ambelter turned with a smile, took the decanter from the trembling priest, and waved away the goblet and platter with the words, "My thanks. Begone, and keep all others from this chamber."

He did not have to turn around to know when the door opened and closed-or to know that he was alone, without anyone lurking to peer through the scores of spyholes in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the vast room. My, but he'd have slain his way to the top of the Church of the Serpent long ago if he'd known what the Thrael was truly like.

The wine was good-and Ambelter used the Thrael to snatch ready morsels from the platters in the kitchens as he strolled, not waiting for scurrying priests to let things get cold as they raced down long passages and up the many stairs. Yes, this was a life much preferable to the lurking loneliness of an archmage in hiding in a cave, surrounded by the unlovely bodies of stolen dead men held in shuffling servitude by spells.

Soon he'd be lording it in Flowfoam, at the very heart of the great garden that was Aglirta-and using his priests like poisoned daggers to seek out and slay mages in Sirlptar. When he ruled that city, it would be time to take down everyone else in Darsar whose sorcery was strong, his own most capable priests included. Oh, yes, he'd make the Dark One proud of him, and taste the flesh of every woman he fancied in all the world, along the way…

Sated and gloating, Ingryl Ambelter licked sauce from his fingers, drained the last of the decanter, and strolled onto the balcony that opened off the end of the hall.

Under the stars the Vale lay below, long and lushly green and sinuous- and Ingryl smiled down upon it as a flame flared up on a hill not far off. The first beacon fire.

He tossed the decanter over the wide stone balcony rail, and used the Thrael to enjoy every shriek of its splintering destruction on the rocks far, far below. Hefting the Dwaer in his hand, he sprang up onto the rail.

Teetering on the edge of a killing fall, Ingryl Ambelter laughed at all Darsar-and jumped. The Dwaer flashed, and he was gone.

Darkness shimmered in the Hall of Coils, just inside the archway that led onto the balcony, and parted like a veil to let a slender, darkly beautiful maid in a gown step out. Bare bone gleamed in the spell-glows as the head turned, long black hair melting away to nothingness to expose a skull floating above those black-clad shoulders.

The skull-headed sorceress moved in silence, clutching a lump of stone to her breast as she glided forward on bare feet. The splendors of the hall seemed to hold little interest for her; she went straight out onto the balcony.

In the night below, down the Vale, many fires were now rising.

"So that's your game, is it?" Gadaster Mulkyn murmured. "Well, two can play at that. Flowfoam, ho!" The Dwaer flashed-and the balcony was empty.

"Claws of the Dark One," the king gasped, "is there no end to them?"

"Raulin," Hawkril growled, "get you down! A hurled blade could take your throat out in a trice in all this. Get back to guard Orele and let us fight without having to worry about you!"

Before the king could reply, several guards took him by the shoulders and ran him toward the rear, royal doors. Embra's Dwaer flashed on the far side of the chamber, momentarily making the darkened room full of howling, hacking men as bright as noonday. The flood of berserk Aglirtans seemed endless, stretching out the doors and down the passages for as far as the eye could see-and it mattered not how much they fought among themselves, if their numbers never ended. The palace guards were growing weary and being overwhelmed, one by one, overborne and hacked viciously by foes who cared nothing for their own safety, and blundered forward rather than being wary of blades. Only in the narrowest passages were their bodies now heaped high enough to block the way-but Flowfoam Palace was a warren of grand chambers, and it would take days to choke up all of its entrances with the dead.

The floor was slick with gore, in some places puddled inches deep, and still they came: a howling, madly hacking flood of men and maids armed with hayforks, belt-knives, and anything else that could crush or stab or slash. They gave battle to each other and anyone else they saw, wild-eyed and reckless. Courtiers had fallen like trampled weeds before them-if any such were left, they'd fled to cower in the deepest, darkest corners of the palace cellars and dungeons. The guards had died a little more slowly-but fallen they had, one after another, and still the seemingly endless flood of Aglirtans continued. Room by room, the defenders of the palace had been forced to give way.

By the faint gray glow stealing in through the windows, it was almost dawn. Gasping and leaning on their swords, the guards saw the king hustled out of the great throne room. Three Above, that they'd been forced to retreat this far!

At least, in the wake of Embra's latest Dwaer-blast and furious grunting and hacking on all of their parts, they'd found time for a rest at last, with the room momentarily empty of madly attacking, still-living Aglirtans.

"We must bar those doors!" one of the younger guards shouted excitedly, pointing around the Throne Chamber with his sword at the many grand and gilded entrances. His blade was notched and dripping blood that was not his own.

"No, no!" Hawkril snarled at him. "This room's a deathtrap for us, with our few blades. We fall back. Up the Wyvern Stair! We'll make our stand in the Hall of Shields, that has its own kitchens and apartments behind it, and only one back door to guard: that stair down to the cellars!"

" What stair down to the cellars?" the guardsman bellowed back, even as he nodded and waved a weary arm to beckon what was left of his command to rally around.

"The secret stair you've now been told about, obviously," Hulgor Delcamper roared, wiping away enough Aglirtan blood to let the guard see his toothy grin. In the same movement he lurched around to peer through his gore-matted hair at Hawkril and shouted, "Gods, man, but you sure know how to lay on battles here! I thought I'd been reduced to tussling over pillows and gown fastenings with chambermaids for the rest of my fading days, but this, now! Ho, yes!"

"Fun for you, Lord," a guard said sourly, "but death for us-and for Aglirta."

"Hey, now," Hawkril told the man, as they watched a terrified-looking, gasping courtier run in through one of the rear royal doors, with a pair of guards. " 'Tis the Serpent-sown plague that's done this-and we've fought down the Serpents twice before, these last few seasons, as others did many times in older years… and there's still an Aglirta for the Snake-lovers to come and attack, isn't there?"

A guard chuckled. "Well said."

Others around him, however, shook their heads wearily, and one of them muttered bitterly, "Not that we'll live to see more of it."

The doors boomed open, and a blood-drenched titan of a man in full armor came staggering in. The guards whirled around and raised their weapons, but the arriving warrior thrust back the visor of his helm and grinned at them.

"Your magic worked, Daughter!" Ezendor Blackgult roared. "I'm myself once more! Now, which of you idiots let all this rabble into the palace? They've been falling off my sword all the way from the South Armory." Espying the pale-faced and trembling courtier who'd just arrived, he barked, "You! Next time, dolt, leave my armor where I can get it, instead of prettying it up to prop in some palace passage. Though seemingly hundreds of plague-crazed Vale folk are trying to violently change my health, I'm not quite dead yet!"

The courtier stammered something incoherent and tried to pluck at the Lady Silvertree's sleeve-only to spring back with a shriek, as the glittering point of a war sword stabbed at him.

The hulking armaragor on the other end of it gave the courtier a cold look and snarled, "Unhand my lady, or die!"

"Ah-uh-uh," the courtier blurted, backing away until he ran into the flat of a guard's sword, held horizontally as a none-too-friendly barrier. "I come from Overduke Craer! He needs the Lady Embra, at once!"

"Oh he does, does he?" the Lady of Jewels sighed. "What's he gotten himself into this time? A little plundering of palace vaults gone wrong? A chambermaid not quite so willing as he'd thought?"

Several of the guards chuckled, but the courtier gabbled, "W-wouldn't say, Lady. Called through his bedchamber door… something about the Lady Talasorn…"

"Hulgor, stay with Hawk," Embra snapped, striding toward the door the courtier had come in by and plucking that startled dandy by the sleeve, to drag him along with her. "Lorivar, bring two of your best and accompany us."

A guard who until that moment hadn't known the Lady Silvertree even knew his name flushed with pleasure and surprise, and snapped, "At once, Lady!"

Embra thanked him with a tight smile, not slowing. Looking back at them as she made for the doors, she snapped, "Let there be no dispute: Follow the Lord Anharu's orders, and fall back to the Hall of Shields! Mind you bring the King and the Lady Orele as you go!" She held up the Dwaer, and added, "One thing this bauble tells me: The palace is still full of the plague-mad, and they're slaying everyone they meet!"

"Well, that's nothing new," one of the oldest guards growled. "The whole Vale's always been full of mad folk who kill everyone they mislike the look of. They've just brought their ways here to the palace, that's all."

"Nay," another guard muttered, "that's where ye're wrong. Such folk have never left the palace-begging your pardon, Lords-down all the years I've been alive in Aglirta."

Some of the guards glanced swiftly at Hawkril, expecting an explosion at these near-treasonous words, but the huge armaragor merely grinned and grunted, "May there be many more, loyal sword. Many more for us all."

"Not much chance of that, I'm thinking," the youngest guard whispered, leaning on his sword and watching drops of other people's blood drip from his drenched hair down into the puddle at his feet-but his words were very faint, and only he heard them, in all the gasping for air of that weary fellowship of mad slayers.

"Who comes?" snapped the voice from inside, as a blade thrust warningly forth through the gap between the double doors.

"The Lady Silvertree, Lady Overduke of Aglirta," Embra snapped. "Now open up, or I'll blast these doors down!"

"How do I know-" the guard within started to say, but a deeper, older voice beside him snarled, "Idiot! Help me with the bar!"

"But-" the guard offered, as the bar raided. Embra shook her head in weary exasperation as the courtier beside her cried, "Open up! It's dangerous out here!"

The door swung wide, and the older of the two guards within grinned at the courtier and said, "Lad, 'tis dangerous in here, too. Thank the Three you've come, Lady!"

He led them through forechamber and feasting room, into the bedchamber proper-

where a white-faced Craer met them at the door, daggers in both hands. "The Lady Embra only," he snapped. "The rest of you, close the door on us and eat and drink whatever you like here, until we call for you."

Embra sighed. "You're missing the battle, Craer."

"Oh no I'm not," the procurer retorted, thrusting aside tapestries to reveal the bed itself.

It lay bared, down to scorched straw, with the smoldering remnants of its furs and linens kicked to the floor around it-and the reason why hovering above it.

Tshamarra Talasorn lay on her back in midair, arching and writhing, stark naked and as glistening with sweat as if she'd been oiled by servants. She was staring at nothing, in obvious pain, and at her every gasping breath, wisps of fire gouted from her lips.

"Do something," Craer hissed fearfully. "I think she's dying! Could it be Serpent-magic, do you think?"

Embra frowned. "Fire isn't the way of the Serpents," she murmured. "But… Ambelter, perhaps? Or another wizard working mischief while we're beset with the plague-ridden?" She stepped forward and held up her Dwaer. "It can't be a spell-trap… not with active magic at work."

She glanced at Craer, smiling without mirth. "Breathing fire isn't something Tash usually does when you're alone together, is it?"

Craer gave her a dark look.

"Right," Embra replied brightly. "I'll try a general purging of any magic that's at work on her. There're enough of the mattress ropes left to keep her from harm if she falls, I think…"

The Dwaer flashed in her hand. The lone lamp in the bedchamber went dark, the flames spewing from Tshamarra's mouth dimmed… and then something raced out of the floating sorceress.

Something that smashed into Craer and Embra so fast that they barely had time to gasp as they were plucked off their feet and flung violently backwards. They burst through the tapestries together, their shoulders slamming into the door in thunderous, numbing unison, and did not even have time to look at each other ere something else surged after the unleashed magic that had hurled them away.

That surge broke over them, Embra's Dwaer ringing like a bell and ramming itself between her breasts, pinning her to the wall in a manner that would have been painful if she hadn't been lost in rapture.

She moaned as if in love-pleasure, writhing and clawing the air, and even Craer, whose mastery of magic was nonexistent, could feel the thrilling power that was making her tremble so, as they hung together in its thrall well clear of the floor.

The center of that welling force was Tshamarra, who was moaning even louder than Embra-almost singing. Her bared body was glowing, becoming as bright as fire. The whole room shook around her, the tapestries and bed falling into scraps that were whirled away to its corners.

Outside in the feasting room, guards shouted in alarm, calling Craer's name, but their voices were almost lost in the gathering, thrumming roar of whatever was rushing out of Tshamarra.

"Gods," Craer cried desperately, "let it not consume her, whatever it is. Let her live! Let her live!

Embra barely heard him. She found it hard and slow work to even understand his words, so enthralled was she with the surging power. This was far greater even than the flow of two Dwaer-Stones, which she'd never forget the feel of, and still 'twas increasing, rising, rising…

Such power is true glory to those who work sorcery. Embra moaned and drooled and shuddered, never wanting it to end. She was singing, high and heart-full and wordlessly, lost in the ecstasy…

And the woman in the center of the room burst into raging flames, whirling and clawing the air and becoming too bright to see.

Craer screamed her name and hacked at the air with his dagger, seeking somehow to cut the force holding him against the wall, and struggle to where he could reach his beloved… in vain.

Tshamarra was flying sinuously now; amid the flames he thought he could see something like a tail, and perhaps wings… she whirled, as if she was looking at him, and then whirled away again, to the window, and-out!

Blazing shutters fell away in embers to the floor, and the room was suddenly darker. Outside, something huge and awesome roared exultation at the stars.

"O, Lady, protect her," Craer prayed, and burst into tears. As if in answer to his words, the room flared into sudden brightness again-as beside him, Embra burst into flames, too.

Craer stared at the Lady of Jewels in bewildered horror as she sped toward the window, flying in a halo of fire, her clothes darkening and crumbling to ashes as she went. She was singing, still lost in pleasure, and Craer saw shimmering scales grow all over her magnificent body as she soared across the chamber. Just before she reached the window, her radiance and her flight faltered together, and she sank down to cling to the charred and smoking windowsill, gazing up into the night outside, and gasped, "Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, Tash…"

"What?" Craer sobbed, feeling the force that was holding him weakening, but still unable to move away from the wall. "What's happened to-?"

Embra sighed-and fell, her flames winking out. The Dwaer flashed, and she twisted in midair in its glow and came gliding desperately back toward Craer. At the same time, the unseen force holding him abruptly faded, and he hit the ground running.

Embra was coming at him like an arrow, arms spread wide, and Craer hastily flung his knife away and moved to meet her, just… so!

The procurer could move like a cat when he had to. His grasp was deft and precise, catching her shoulders, slowing her as he bent over backwards, and then kicking up from the ground just enough to bring them crashing to the floor together, Craer underneath. They skidded along on his leather-clad shoulders and back until they came to a gentle stop together.

Trembling, Embra sagged into his grasp. "She lives, Craer. Aglirta has a new Dragon."

Overduke Delnbone stared into her tear-filled eyes-and then shook his head in furious denial.

"No!" he snarled. "She'll be killed, slain as Sarasper was! And turned into a great beast like he was! I'll… I'll never hold her again!"

The Dwaer seemed to have become welded between Embra's breasts. She sat up as he howled, plucked it forth into her hand, touched it to Craer's forehead, and murmured something.

And the procurer was snatched from dark anguish into a sort of wondering, slightly melancholy calm.

Sitting astride him, Embra smiled down at him. Almost idly he watched the golden scales fade away, one by one, from her beautiful body. Gods above, she was right under his nose and bared to his gaze at last: soft, sleek, and… very warm.

The Lady of Jewels laid herself down into his embrace again, and wrapped her arms around him. "She'll be all right, Craer," she said soothingly. "The Dragon has always had the power to shift shape between its own former form and its dragon-body. She's more powerful than the Serpent, now-and she can't forget you. Right now, your love is everything to her."

She stroked Craer's forehead, and he suddenly became aware that her breasts were brushing against him as she moved.

Embarrassed, he shifted his hands awkwardly, and discovered he was shaking as well as blushing. "I… I always dreamed of holding you thus," he muttered, "but now… I'm almost scared."

Embra laughed fondly. "Don't be, Longfingers," she breathed, and kissed him.

Craer snapped his head back in shock, almost shoving her away. Embra's breath was hot. Sweet, spicy… and laced with tiny flames!

The Great Serpent hefted his Dwaer. "Go!" he said sternly, and let its flash send a last band of Aglirtans, Serpent-priests and all, off to Flowfoam.

He was suddenly alone with the beacon fire, here on a dark hill somewhere in Aglirta.

Ingryl Ambelter looked up at the stars, and then at dawn coming over the far mountains in the east, beyond the vast Loaurimm… the peaks that spawned the mighty Silverflow. He smiled. Soon it would all be his-every last tree, castle, gem, and lass of it. Soon…

"That should do it," he said aloud, calling on the Stone to spin himself a scrying-whorl. "There's no need to risk myself on Flowfoam-I'll watch from here."

"Oh, but there is," an old, familiar voice said coldly and firmly, as the air parted in Dwaer-shimmering. Gadaster!

Even as Ambelter stared at the skull-headed sorceress and snatched for control of his Stone, letting the whorl collapse into a crackling whirlwind of scorching flames, the slender arms that had belonged to Maelra Bowdragon lifted two Dwaerindim, one in either hand-and sent bolts racing at him.

Ambelter clawed desperately at the Thrael, calling up its full force in such frantic haste that Serpent-priests screamed and fainted up and down the Vale.

Desperately he dragged power out of his Dwaer, into the Thrael, to wrap himself in a great shield-But the bolts slammed not into the Great Serpent but into his Stone.

It flashed, ringing like a bell-and vanished from the hilltop, taking a startled Spellmaster with it.

Idiim Bowdragon clawed blindly at the Master of Bats, his eyes fixed on the saying-globes. "That's my Maelra!" he screamed. "I must go to her! I must-"

Dolmur cast a calming spell on Ithim even before their host could shake himself free of Idiim's hands.

The younger of the two old Bowdragon wizards blinked-and then suddenly seemed to remember that he was in the tower of the Master of Bats, and stood within the power of that fell sorcerer, whose bats were whirling around the chamber in a great angry cloud, even now.

"Your daughter?" Bats settled thickly on the shoulders of Arkle Huldaerus, their eyes glaring in unison at Ithim, as their master said derisively, "She holds two Dwaer-Stones in her hands. Whatever you were hoping to do, don't bother! She needs aid from no one-and there's nothing all three of us and everything in this tower can do against what she wields." He turned back to the flickering globes. 'Just watch."

The Dragon soared above the palace, vast and scaled and terrible. Whirling in the air on wings of bright flame, it clawed at the glittering stars and roared in delight.

This was power! Gods, this was… beyond belief.

Tshamarra Talasorn basked in the screams from Flowfoam beneath her, the puny Serpent-spells crackling up at her to stab too short, and fall away. She lashed her tail, exulting in her sheer might as she banked and soared and slid in rolling curves through the air…

Gods, if Craer could see her now! He-

Craer.

In a trice she turned and roared down out of the sky, claws spread, jaws opening. These fools below were endangering her beloved, menacing her friends, threatening Aglirta…

She struck savagely, smashing through bodies until she came to a ragged stop in the gardens. There she bit and tore, slashed with her tail, and spat flame until none were left but the burning, broken dead, and men who screamed as they fled. Then the Dragon bounded into the air, turned, and plunged down again, slashing out with a claw as she raced low over a garden meadow, transforming frantically running men into torn, tumbling meat.

Again she swooped, diving over a turret to pounce on shouting Serpent-priests, snapping with her jaws and bouncing once on her belly, grinding men beneath her. Bones snapped like twigs, screams fell silent, and she bounded aloft again.

More Aglirtans were hastening from the other end of the isle, howling and hacking mindlessly at each other as they came, running before the whips of Serpent-priests. Tshamarra crashed down into them, pouncing ruthlessly, and savaged everyone she could reach with claws and flame. Strange burning sensations slid down her throat-the plague, she realized dimly, twisting and fading under her own powers… and then she was alone with the dead again, and her bloodlust was fading.

Gods, what power! Yet she'd been slaying helpless commoners. The Dragon shook herself, licked her talons clean, and then peered about, seeking Serpent-priests.

There-robed men, weaving spells against her through a palace window! She thrust talons through the casements, clawing away the stone pillars between windows when some of the men ducked back out of reach, and tore open the outer wall of the room. One slash of her scaled arm crushed the rest of the screaming Serpent-priests against the walls, and they fell and lay still.

Horns of the Lady, she could slay snake-mages almost by looking at them!

Tshamarra went in search of more, prowling around the palace like a great scaled cat, peering and thrusting aside greenery. Dozens of men bolted from such cowering cover when she exposed them. Most she let run, but those who wore Serpent-robes she bit or cooked with the fire she could spew.

When no Snake-worshippers remained alive on the docks and terraces, and in the wooded gardens, the Dragon turned again to the palace, looking in every window. Many times she spat fire into its inner rooms, and heard men shriek and sizzle as they died.

As her slaying went on and the dawn sky brightened upriver, a jangling began to sing and echo in Tshamarra's head-strange high discord that she heard in her mind, its echoes rolling as if across vast distances, but not in her ears. With every death she dealt it grew louder, its tones more frantic. It sounded like a knife sawing through taut harpstrings of metal-a sound she'd heard once when a drunken bard had taken out his fury on a rival's prized instrument-and it grew wilder as her blood-toll mounted.

Then there came a time when the flash of a spell rocked a tower of the palace-and the Dragon peered in at its windows and found five Serpent-priests striding through the smoking bodies of the guards they'd slain, and studying the door of a small, secure chamber. Tshamarra Talasorn recognized that door. Behind it lay a room where some of Embra's enchanted gowns hung, girt about with small magics that kept off the dust.

She snarled fire in at the men-and at the same time thrust one claw in through another window, not caring if she shattered the wall around it, only that her scales blocked the door they'd come in by.

The Priests of the Serpent cursed and wailed and shaped spells in a desperate frenzy-and the Dragon breathed fire in at them until there was nothing left outside that charred wardrobe door but ashes.

And as they died, the jangling sound rose to a sudden shriek-and something snapped. With a wailing of many despairing voices, it all rushed away into nothingness…

And the Thrael was no more.

All over the Vale, Priests of the Serpent stiffened, screamed, and their heads burst into flame. Most froze where they stood, and burned like torches.

Fangbrother Maurivan was one of them, crumpling to his knees on a hill above Stornbridge with the throat of a vainly struggling Mistress of the Pantry Klaedra clutched in one clawlike hand-while he wrenched at her string of coins with the other. Blazing, he toppled over onto her, and they both burned.

Up and down the Silverflow folk of Aglirta cried out, fell to their knees in soaking sweats, and starting sobbing and trembling as the Blood Plague left them forever, leaving behind only the memories of what the Serpent-priests had done to them… and the revulsion.

In the sky above Flowfoam the jangling, singing sound burst forth, audible to all, and bringing with it a great gash in the air-a rift of dark fire and a bright shimmering flash rising out of it… a flood of short-lived radiance that vomited forth the whirling body of a man.

That spreadeagled form spun wildly, trailing black flames, and grew with horrible speed, welling up into something serpentine and monstrous, with a great flat many-fanged head… and the Great Serpent reared up, hissing, behind the Dragon as it glided around a tower of the palace-and pounced.

Long, dark fangs struck deep into a golden-scaled tail. Tshamarra whirled around in startled pain, and with a hiss of triumph, the dark, looming snake threw coils of its great body around her wings.