The Ruin (40 page)

He sneered, then willed his invisible, concentric spheres of protection to expand. When the outermost came into contact with the nearest silvers, it slashed them like razor-sharp claws, and, pinions lashing, they frantically retreated.

It was too bad he could only expand the bubble out to a certain point. Otherwise, he could have enlarged it until it. shredded every metallic in the valley. But. no matter. He had plenty of other ways to kill them.

Brimstone dissolved into smoke and sparks, came billowing at the summit of the tower, then recoiled as Sammaster’s wards wounded him even in that insubstantial state. Melting into dim translucency, a silver shifted the bulk of its substance to another level of reality, only to find the lich’s defenses existed there as well. A shield drake who looked as old and powerful as Havarlan herself—a long-time foe of the Cult of the Dragon named Azhaq, if Sammaster wasn’t mistaken—sought to translate himself through space, then hissed as the magic not only failed to shift him, but hurt him. Roaring words of power, Havarlan attempted a dispelling. Sammaster’s mystical fortifications softened for an instant, but then flared strong as before.

He took an onion from his pocket, recited an incantation, and tore at the vegetable’s layered surface. A silver screeched and flailed as strips of flesh peeled away from its body. He seared another wyrm with a downpour of acid, then sent a shadow-sword flying at a third. The blade was actually a mobile gap into the cancerous nothingness between the worlds, and when it slashed the reptile, it engulfed and obliterated it.

Meanwhile, the silvers struggled to reach him with their own spells, and failed utterly. He laughed in exultation.

Lying in the middle of the ancient dragon’s skeleton, Dorn watched Sammaster’s wyrms hammer his allies. It was plain that Kara and the others were losing, and he despised himself as bitterly as ever in his life for his inability to help them.

In time, however, and quite unexpectedly, a new thought came to him: He had reason to hold himself in contempt, but not for being ugly or freakish, and not because the rust dragon had crippled him anew. For surrendering to despair. After reaching the valley and finding Kara still alive, he’d vowed he’d never do it again. Yet here he slumped, wallowing in his own personal misery and self-hatred while the woman he loved, his friends, and all Faerűn were in jeopardy.

It didn’t matter that he’d lost an arm. The human one could still swing a sword. Or that his metal leg was numb and withered. Other men managed to walk on peglegs, and he was at least a little better equipped than that. Or that he no longer had impervious iron sheathing half his body. Raryn, Will, and Pavel had never enjoyed such an advantage, and it didn’t stop them from killing wyrms.

Dorn crawled out from under the arch of ribs, then tried to stand. The spindly, twisted remnants of the iron leg didn’t immediately snap or buckle beneath his weight, so that was something, anyway. He just wished the limb had more sensation in it. He hobbled a few steps, trying to get used to it and to figure out how to keep his balance with the heavy mass of his artificial arm shorn away.

All things considered, he was in a sad state, and doubted he’d last any time at all. But all he asked of the Beastlord—no, Lathander, damn it, Pavel’s god of hope—was to strike a single telling blow before some drake or other ripped him apart.

Most of the battle was still in the sky, and he couldn’t shoot arrows anymore. But periodically, one or another of Sammaster’s wyrms dived to the ground, and he watched for one to touch down.

“Hold up!” said Will, and the folk skulking along behind him came to a halt.

He stooped and verified that what he’d thought he’d seen on the floor was real. A glyph lay there, no doubt to discharge

some form of unpleasantness when somebody stepped over it. The symbol itself was essentially invisible, but Sammaster’s fingertip had smeared the dust and grime of ages when he’d written it on the sea-green marble, and the glow Pavel had conjured onto the head of his mace to light their way just barely sufficed to reveal the shape.

“Shall I dispel it?” Firefingers asked.

“No, I’ve got it.” Will wet his finger with spit, then rubbed at the edge of the glyph, blurring it. The magic leaked out of it all at once, jabbing his digit like a bee sting and filling the corridor with a rippling burst of visual distortion.

Celedon smiled. “Nicely done.”

Will shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard. Neither were the other traps. I guess we’ve finally reached the point where Sammaster ran out of inspiration.”

“Our Lady of Silver,” said Sureene, “grant that you’re right.”

They trekked on through echoing courtyards, chambers, and hallways still resplendent with the consummate artistry and craftsmanship of the elves, but cold, dusty, and draped in thick shrouds of spider silk. Will wondered if the builders had unwittingly imported the arachnids and the bugs to feed them when they’d come to this remote and desolate place.

As Pavel had conjectured, the foes of the dragon kings seemed to have laid out the stronghold to make it difficult for wyrms to move around. Mostly, it was spacious and airy, but at certain key points, the way forward led through choke points: cramped doorways, narrow corridors, and multiple hairpin turns.

Alas, the precaution hadn’t kept the dragon lords out, for here, as on the floor of the valley outside, bones lay strewn around, crunching beneath the seekers’ feet if they stepped carelessly. Will could only assume the besieging force had fought its way almost to the very heart of the Rage before the last surviving elves finally stopped them.

The complex was so big, he wondered how the invaders had known which way to head. Probably they’d had magicians

of Scattercloak’s caliber to guide them. The faceless warlock in his shadowy cowl and layers of robe had cast a spell which, he claimed, enabled him to discern a source of extraordinary power toward the center the citadel.

So they headed where his gloved hand pointed them, with Will in the lead to look for snares, until two enormous shapes loomed out of the gloom, at which point he caught his breath and stopped short.

Ahead lay a sizable room with a high, arched ceiling. A pair of wyrms, or wyrm-like things, crouched there motionless. They were small compared to true dragons, but still huge compared to men, or, Brandobaris knew, a halfling, and they were more or less barring the way to the doorway in the far wall. Somewhere beyond that opening, light seethed and flickered, first red, then green, then violet, changing color from one heartbeat to the next.

“They aren’t moving,” said Jivex, hovering near Taegan, “and I don’t smell them, or hear them breathing. Maybe they’re dead.”

“l suspect not,” the avariel said. “My guess is that if the guardians are living creatures, the elves—or, conceivably, Sammaster—made them proof against the depredations of time by placing them in a state of hibernation. If they’re automatons of some sort, they’ve no need to move around at times when nothing threatens their charge. But either way, they’re likely to rouse as soon as we approach too near. Do you concur, Master Firefingers?”

“Yes,” the old man said. “So let’s not ‘approach.’ Instead, I’ll teleport the lot of us right past them.”

“Onto that narrow strip of floor between them and the lights?” asked Darvin, frowning.

“Since we don’t know what lies beyond it, and thus have nothing better to aim for, yes.”

“What if—”

“The only way to make sure we don’t misstep,” said Scattercloak, “is never to move at all. Wouldn’t you agree?” Darvin sighed. “I suppose.”

“Then everyone gather close,” said Firefingers.

He recited an incantation, and the vista in front of Will, dragon shapes included, seemed to leap at him. Then it all disintegrated into dots and blobs of light, streaking past and harmlessly through him. Then, as abruptly as it had lurched and fallen to pieces, the world remade itself, and the mysterious doorway—filled with blue radiance—yawned before him.

That close, he could feel that the flickering, inconstant light embodied a fundamental wrongness, like the unholiness infusing a pyroclastic’s breath or Brimstone’s very essence. It made his eyes smart, and his guts cramp. Yet he still stepped closer.

Pavel grabbed him by the shoulder. “Don’t go in there, cretin. Or rather, come to think of it, do.”

“Get your filthy paw off me,” said Will, pushing his comrade’s hand away. “I can feel it’s dangerous, but after hunting for it all these months, I’m at least going to take a look at it before the counterspell blasts it to bits, or whatever it’s going to do.”

Apparently, everyone felt the same, for all ten of them moved forward, crowding together, leaning sideways, and craning to peer through the opening. Jivex clung upside down to the lintel to look over the heads of his larger companions.

The vault beyond the threshold was as spacious as its antechamber. The builders had inlaid an intricate pentacle in gold on the black marble floor, and used true silver and gems to create an image of the night sky on the walls and ceiling. An enormous ruby with a streaming carnelian tail represented the King-Killer, the comet that, in times past, had served as the harbinger of the Rage.

But jewels and a mithral moon weren’t the only things on the walls. Bright, fist-sized holes that Will had learned to recognize as portals pocked the ebon surfaces at irregular intervals. From the miniature gates blazed flares of power,

the source of the noisome, everchanging light shining

through the door. The ragged, luminous tendrils arced and whipped back and forth, burning through one section of the room, then another, but always terminating at the same point: a black amulet floating above the very center of the pentagram with a loop of chain dangling below.

“Glories of the dawn,” Pavel breathed, “now I know how Sammaster did it.”

“Whereas l,” Taegan said, “am primarily interested in seeing you wise folk undo it. So, if you wouldn’t mind—”

Something scraped on stone. The seekers spun around, to see that the wyrm-things in the antechamber were turning, too.

Dorn watched as Tamarand blasted a chaos dragon with his fiery breath. The flame withered the hell wyrm’s wings, and it plummeted. Tamarand turned as if he meant to dive after it. But then a howling dragon hurtled down at him, and he lashed his wings and twisted himself around to meet that threat instead.

The chaos dragon dropped halfway down the sky, then managed to spread its blackened, shriveled wings. Maybe, despite all the holes Tamarand had burned through them, they served to slow its fall. The wyrm still smashed down, hard, but then rolled to its feet and rushed foes on the ground: Raryn, Baerimel, and Jannatha.

Fast as he was able—and it didn’t feel fast at all—Dorn ran to help them.

Baerimel and Jannatha shot chunks of ice and darts of light from their wands into the dragon’s squirming, everchanging countenance. Raryn threw his harpoon into the reptile’s shoulder.

The chaos dragon’s scales turned green where Tamarand hadn’t charred them a permanent suppurating black, and hornlets sprouted over the eyes. It cocked back its head and spat poisonous vapor.

Raryn and the temple mages tried to scramble out of the way. Most likely, they all had defensive wards in place. Yet they still doubled over coughing, and the chaos dragon pounced and landed right in front of them.

For the moment, the sisters were helpless, and Dorn was still too far away. His ruddy face blistered, blue eyes bloodshot and streaming tears, Raryn straightened up, gripped his ice-axe, and attacked the chaos wyrm so savagely that it had little choice but to focus its attention on him while Jannatha and Baerimel stumbled away from it.

Raryn chopped into its forefoot. It raised the wounded leg, the scales rippling back and forth between red and blue, and stamped_ The dwarf sidestepped out from underneath and hacked at the limb again. The drake lurched off balance, and he struck it a third time, like a woodsman striving to fell a tree.

But the leg wouldn’t give way. The wyrm pivoted, bit, clawed, and Raryn jumped away. The chaos dragon lunged after him and drove him back.

Bellowing a war cry, Dorn raced into the distance and struck at the creature’s flank. His sword plunged deep into a raw spot where Tamarand had burned away the scaly hide. The chaos dragon faltered, then whirled in his direction.

He jumped back. Sidestepped when the wyrm clawed at him. Cut, and dodged once more, fighting his own trained habits every step of the way.

He couldn’t lead with the iron arm. It wasn’t there anymore. He had to keep the sword in front, to threaten the drake and to parry.

Nor could he plant himself in front of the creature, trusting his armor to protect him. That wasn’t there anymore, either. He had to fight like Raryn and the others: Hit the wyrm when it was striking at somebody else, and do everything possible to protect himself whenever it paid attention to him.

Maybe it was because Raryn fought superbly. Or because the chaos dragon was already hurt. But somehow, working together, the hunters both stayed alive and cut the reptile up a little more. Until one of the sisters—with his eyes on the

wyrm, Dorn didn’t see who—conjured a deafening shriek that tore most of the flesh from creature’s skull and the top half of its neck. It flopped over onto its side to kick and flail in its death throes.

Raryn trotted around the corpse to Dorn. “Are you planning to go on fighting?” asked the dwarf.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ve got something for you.” Raryn took hold of Dorn’s wrist and rattled off an incantation. For a moment, a scent of earth and greenery filled the air, and power tingled up the human’s arm. Afterwards, he felt more agile, and more certain of his balance.

“Now let’s kill dragons,” Raryn said.

Havarlan watched in fury and grief as, one by one, Sammaster ripped and smashed her silvers out of the air. It was quite possibly the end of the Talons of Justice. She hadn’t led all her followers into this terrible place, but she’d brought the best of them, the heart of the fellowship, and already the majority lay crumpled and dead on the ground.