"Asaalk! Wait!"

Ignoring them, the enraged northerner turned to the opposite wall and took hold of the handle of the nearest door there. It, like the others, refused him entrance. He put his foot against the wall beside the portal and tried to use his weight.

Still nothing.

"Asaalk, it's obvious these paths are not meant for us." Wellen tried to pull the ever more furious figure from his obsession, but the blue man pushed him away with a snarl. To his surprise, the smaller man barely saved himself from flying into one of the other doors. Instead, he roiled to a stop just inches away. Asaalk's strength was so incredible that Wellen was surprised his companion had not torn the entire door from its hinges.

"Stop that!" Xabene called, stepping toward Asaalk. She, like Wellen, was ignored.

"One of thesssse must open!" He turned toward the final portal at the end of the corridor. "Sss...o...b.. it!"

Before they could stop him, Prentiss Asaalk was running toward the far doors.

"He's gone mad!" the enchantress cried, helping Bedlam to his feet.

"Mad or ensorcelled! The collar, remember?"

"Then this was all-" She had no time to finish. Prentiss Asaalk had nearly reached his goal, and showed no sign of slowing down.

The hard, ma.s.sive form of the blue man struck the twin doors where they met.

With a shriek of metal resounding through the hall, Asaalk's body continued through as the barrier before him gave way.

Wellen and Xabene rushed after the blue man. The scholar feared that all hope of peaceful contact with the gnome was lost. The citadel's master surely would not long tolerate this vandalism, this plundering.

"There!" roared Asaalk from within. The chamber was fairly well lit. With his large form blocking most of their view, however, they could not entirely make out what was in the room beyond, save that Wellen thought he saw some sort of pedestal upon which something lay.

There was an inhuman quality about the northerner now. His breathing grew heavy and fast and his stance was a bit awkward. He seemed even larger for a moment or two.

"At la.s.ssst!" he hissed. "My dragon tome!"

"Did he say . . ." Xabene hesitated at the battered doorway. " . . . the dragon tome?"

Bedlam only partly heard her. He was still staring at Asaalk. A horrible, unthinkable notion was creeping into his mind, one he tried to reject but could not.

He started to move, realizing that whatever the truth, one thing was certain. "We have to keep him from taking that book!"

It was already too late. Heedless of whatever else might wait in the chamber, the blue man rushed toward his prize. As much as Wellen both hoped and dreaded it, nothing stayed the crazed figure. The scholar had some hope that he and the enchantress might still have a chance when Asaalk suddenly slowed just before the pedestal. The northerner, though, wasted only a few seconds as he seemed to study the area before him for traps. Evidently finding none, he reached for the ma.s.sive book.

Wellen did not need any magical warning sense to tell him to stay back. He grabbed hold of Xabene's arm and pulled her to the floor.

Prentiss Asaalk lifted the dragon tome from its resting place. He laughed.

Then vanished.

With a heavy thud, the ancient tome fell to the marble floor. It bounced twice, then settled a few yards in front of the two gaping onlookers.

"Predictable in the end," commented a voice behind them. Wellen had a sense of great age and authority . . . and not a little pride. "Obsession will always do that, even to a creature like a Dragon King."

Very slowly, the two humans, still lying on the floor, turned around.

The figure towered over them, but only because they were not standing. He cannot be any taller than my chest! Bedlam decided. And that if he can straighten up. The latter seemed doubtful; the figure before them had been permanently bent by both centuries of study hunched over desks and by the centuries themselves, for though he might be immortal, this being was old.

The gnome, clad in a brown robe that nearly touched the floor, smiled at them. It was a smile reminiscent of a dragon, but without the warmth. "Rise, please."

The duo obeyed immediately. The master of the citadel glanced over Xabene, found nothing of interest, then studied Wellen. He stared longest at the scholar's eyes.

"A few flakes of crystal, I see. A throwback, no doubt. Most interesting."

His words raised questions, but nothing that Wellen would have dared ask now.

A staff was in the gnome's left hand. It had not been there the previous moment. With it, the aged figure prodded at the two humans. "Step aside."

Again, they obeyed without hesitation. The gnome moved with amazing grace to the fallen book. It lay flat with its pages fanning upward.

"Wellen," Xabene whispered. "Do you sense anything?"

He thought about it. He had not sensed danger in the corridor and he had not sensed danger in the chamber, despite the trap offered by what had to be a false book.

His ability had vanished. From the moment Bedlam had entered this place, it had ceased to be. How had he missed its sudden absence?

The answer was the squat creature before him.

She understood his silence. "It's the same with my own power. I've lost it all now," the enchantress muttered. "I think it was the moment Asaalk touched the book."

Blocking out his ability to sense danger was one thing, but the citadel's lord must have known he would give his plot away if he stole the last of Xabene's power. Unlike Wellen, she was not one to fail to notice the absence of something so important to her.

"That it was him at all was the most fascinating part of all this," the smiling gnome explained to his baffled audience. He flipped through the pages of the tome and chuckled at something he saw within. "I have always wondered just how he planned to get in even if he succeeded in capturing me."

"What is it . . . " The scholar took a deep breath. "What is it you're saying?"

"You know very well," the gnome admonished him. "You know that he was not your companion of old."

Xabene's eyes rounded. "Not the blue man?"

"I would say that your blue friend . . . what was his name, my young friend?"

"Prentiss Asaalk," Wellen responded. "Is the true man dead, then?"

"Probably so. If this is the kind of spell I think it is, then he died the moment our scaly friend put on this form. That he mastered even a human one is astonishing, but that he wore the shape and form of one you knew, too, is impossible."

"Who is he talking about, Wellen? You and he both seem to understand what you're saying, but I-" The enchantress broke off. "He just said scaly . . . "

"Indeed I did, young woman." The staff turned to so much smoke as the gnome made use of both hands to hold the huge tome open. He held it much the way it had lain on the floor, both covers down and the pages all displayed like a peac.o.c.k's feathers. "Allow me to show you what he looks like. .. without the spell of seeming that made him be your friend."

The spellcaster tore a page from the false tome and tossed it into the air before them. The single sheet fluttered about for several seconds, at last coming to earth roughly in the trio's midst. It did not settle, however, but rather continued to turn and turn, a top spun by an invisible hand.

The page stood on one end. Transfixed by this continuing feat of sorcery, Wellen and Xabene watched as the paper expanded, swiftly rising to a height equal to the scholar's own and then rising even higher. Bedlam estimated it ceased growing when it was a little over eight feet tall.

It was still turning, but now that its growth had ended, it began spinning faster and faster, raising a breeze that forced the two humans to turn away until they could shield their eyes.

Beyond them, beyond the whirling page, the gnome chuckled.

As Wellen, his hand above his eyes, squinted, much of the sheet started to darken. The darker the paper grew, the slower the turning became. He made out a manlike form, but one taller and more ma.s.sive than even Prentiss Asaalk.

The hairless spellcaster nodded. With a stop so jarring it made Wellen and Xabene jump, the page froze before them. There, in all its inhuman glory, stood what had truly traveled with the two humans to the citadel.

A demonic warrior clad in enshrouding scale armor. The monstrous countenance was all but hidden within a helm, but they could make out the fiery eyes and part of the flat, horrific face within nonetheless. Atop the helm was an elaborate dragon's head crest, a crest so lifelike that one expected the head to open wide its maw and snap up the onlooker. No weapon hung from the warrior's waist, but it was doubtful that any was needed. The gauntleted hands and the savage mouth looked readily able to tear apart a foe gobbet by b.l.o.o.d.y gobbet.

From head to toe, the fiendish knight was colored a very distinctive shade of purple.

"Allow me to introduce, albeit in a form much removed from his original, His Infernal Majesty, the lord of this land . . . the Purple Dragon."

The ill.u.s.tration on the page was so very lifelike that Wellen could see the evil, the power, and at the moment, the incessant frustration of the trapped drake lord.

It was the Dragon King.

Not an ill.u.s.tration. Not an image of the captured creature as he stood waiting in some hidden dungeon. The true dragon. Held prisoner on the very sheet of paper-a prison of only two dimensions-that stood before them.

The gnome shuffled toward them. It was all the humans could do to keep from stumbling back. There could be no doubting the short, squat mage's skills now, not that the scholar ever had.

"And since it seems time for introductions," the gnarled figure continued, closing the book with a finality that was all too noticeable, "you may call me Serkadion Manee."

Chapter Seventeen.

Benton Lore had not believed that the outsider Bedlam would succeed with his insane, soph.o.m.oric plan, but his lord had thought differently. Now he saw that the Green Dragon must have made a careful study of both the outsider and the gnome, for who could have predicted Bedlam's success otherwise?

From his hiding place in a copse of trees not too distant from the featureless pentagon, he watched. There was little else to do until they exited the cursed place.

If they did leave, he wanted to speak with the scholar in private. Whatever secrets or even pa.s.sing knowledge that Bedlam picked up would be useful to the major-domo's true cause. He could have cared less about the fate of the mad warlock Shade, whose chief concern, in Lore's eyes, was always his own existence. The gnome had the potential to give all humans their freedom from the Dragon Kings, make them master of their own fate. WeIlen Bedlam represented a possible bridge for Lore to that knowledge and power.

His lord knew of his desire, of that the officer was aware. The Green Dragon, however, foresaw mankind's ascendancy as a certainty, whereas Lore saw it as something attainable only if he and those like him strained to reach it. Nothing was certain as far as the black man was concerned, especially freedom.

All of that would be a moot point if the trio never departed. Benton Lore and humanity would be back where they had left off. Nowhere.

He settled down to wait, knowing that his own sorcerous abilities would warn him of any approaching threat. The forces of the Dragon King Purple, however, were very absent tonight. That could only mean that they had fallen for the diversions. Asaalk was still a problem, but not one he could not handle. After all, it was not as if the blue man, human or not, were the Dragon King himself.

Another pair of eyes, white, soulless ones, also watched the pentagon. Another watcher, just as eager as the dark man, waited for the trio, especially the scholar, to leave the safety of the citadel.

The gnome spoke his own name with such authority that Wellen supposed that he should have recognized it. He did not. Neither, he saw, did Xabene. Name or not, though, Serkadion Manee was to be respected, if only because of his power.

Something about the name did strike him, however. Wellen could not say what it was, save that it reminded him of another name . . . two, in fact. Shade had used those names, Dru Zeree for the legendary lord Bedlam had known as Drazeree, and Sharissa Zeree, the wraith who had also been the lord's ill.u.s.trious daughter. In fact, there had been another t.i.tle with the same distinctive syllable at the end, a mysterious people called the Tezerenee.

Could Serkadion Manee, like Shade, be a representative of the same ancient race?

Xabene was not so concerned with history. Her priorities surrounded the menacing figure of the Dragon King, who literally seemed to be struggling to free himself of the page. "Can he escape?"

Manee glanced back at the prisoner. A brief frown crossed his unsightly visage. "He is stronger than I imagined; I had not thought it possible for him to fight it as much as he has." The rounded shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "But struggle is all he shall do."

The bizarre, flat image did not seem to agree. The Dragon King only increased his visible efforts.

"How did he obtain such a near-human form?" the unnerved yet fascinated woman asked, ignoring the annoyed look on Serkadion Manee's visage. Wellen hoped he was not the type that used his sorcery to erase from his existence all those who irritated him, however slight the irritation might have been.

"There are ways, but it would have been a struggle. You see that while he has obtained size and the basic form, he would hardly have pa.s.sed for human without the other spell. He has tried to compensate for his ineffectiveness by masking himself in a form that, at least from a distance, might pa.s.s." A chuckle. "Although I can say without a doubt I have never seen such a beastly knight. Oh well, the helm hides his worst ugliness."

Despite her anxiousness, Xabene was fascinated by the complex and physically draining spells that the Dragon King must have utilized to achieve as much as he had. Wellen could not blame her for the way she stared at the sight. He knew that she was wondering what she might have achieved with such ability available to her.

"Now, then," started the gnome. He paused when he saw that the two were still eyeing the ensnared drake. "Whether in man form or beast, he cannot escape." Manee sighed and added, "I can see that we will not be able to speak in peace so long as he is around. No matter, this was hardly a comfortable place for conversation."

The three of them were suddenly in another chamber. Wellen's stomach rose and fell. He still detested traveling in such a manner, but it was becoming less and less disturbing to his system. Much of his pain was in his mind, anyway. The scholar knew that, but so far had not been able to convince his stomach of the fact.

Their new location was a place so very familiar to the scholar, not because he had seen it before but because he had seen its like. As with Xabene's secret domain, Wellen almost felt at home. Shelves of fascinating and mysterious objects lined the walls. The familiar desk with candles. Paper and quill pen. Notes and sketches laid here and there. It was evident that the room had been reorganized only recently, but things were already forming into random piles. It was a chamber typical of men like Wellen. Researchers and scholars.

"This should be much better." Once again, the gnome smiled and once again his guests were repulsed. "Sit."

He discovered then that Serkadion Manee's study was not so typical after all.

The floor beneath the two humans' feet swelled, throwing them off balance. Helpless, Bedlam fell backward. He envisioned the back of his skull striking the hard surface and cracking into a number of pieces. He saw Xabene's head do the same and the vision of her lying dead on the floor stirred him more than his own fate had.

Midway to his doom, something soft caught and nestled him. A gasp from the enchantress informed him that she had met with a similar experience. He looked down at what his body rested in.

A chair had formed from the very substance of the floor. Wellen rubbed a finger over what should have been a harsh surface, only to find it smooth and pliable. He looked at his companion, who was likewise studying the astonishing sight. Even shaped as it was, the floor still retained an appearance of stone.

"I trust that is comfortable." Serkadion Manee, still standing, folded a partially obscured leg under him. Bedlam expected to see him teeter, perhaps even fall, but the ungainly sorcerer somehow maintained perfect balance.

Then, he folded the other leg under him and simply floated a few feet in the middle of the air.

Summoning up his courage, Wellen said, "Master Manee, I thank you for allowing us entrance to your domain. I know that you rarely have congress with others-"

"More often than you think." The smile broadened, no pleasant change. "You are hardly the first I've allowed entrance to, my young friends."

That contradicted everything that he had heard, but Wellen tried to take it as a good sign. Certainly, the gnome would not advertise that he dealt often with others, yet how could he keep it a secret?

"That is neither here nor there," Manee continued. His fingers absently stroked the book's cover.

"Please," Xabene asked, a bit more at ease now that she knew the chair was not going to swallow her whole. "Is that the dragon tome or not?"

Another chuckle. "In a sense."

"What does that mean?"