"Yes."

"Well, I expected that in close proximity to the source of the sickness, I'd suddenly find it harder to bear, but I haven't. It's as bad as before, but no worse."

"Then this is the wrong place?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what to think. The corpse tearer was right, elves did build it, far from their usual haunts. You can see their sensibilities reflected in every line. They surely had a reason. But-"

m.u.f.fled by the walls of the building, a trumpet blared. Other horns echoed the call.

"Out!" bellowed the giantess, her deep, heavily accented attempt at Common Tongue only barely intelligible. "Come out! Queen wants us!"

Dorn suspected it wasn't for anything good. He used his fingers of flesh and bone to take Kara's hand, then led her out under a blackening sky, where the first stars were already shining.

In the citadel, the largest thoroughfares radiated from a central hub. This nexus was a circular expanse paved with a dark green stone like malachite, each hexagonal flag inscribed with a character from an alphabet Dorn didn't recognize, and it was there Iyraclea had decided the expedition would rendezvous. By the time Dorn, Kara, and their lumbering, malodorous escort arrived, the last purple traces of sunset had vanished from the western sky. With all the ghost-pale gelugons, giants, and ice wizards prowling about in the gloom, the plaza resembled a scene from a nightmare, or a vision of one of the h.e.l.ls.

Yet despite her flawless beauty, and her diminutive stature compared to many of her monstrous servants, the most frightening ent.i.ty present was Iyraclea herself. Ensconced on an elevated throne she'd evidently shaped from conjured ice, she radiated power and displeasure.

"Well?" she demanded. "Has anyone found anything?"

"Not yet, Your Majesty," Kara said. "But we've been at it less than a day."

"I have Auril's sacred rituals to perform," the Ice Queen replied, "a realm to rule, and a war to oversee. My time is precious, and if it turns out you've wasted it, you and your friends will suffer."

"I told you the truth," said Pavel, standing between a barbarian warrior and Will. "About Sammaster, the Rage, and all the rest of it. What would have been the point of lying?"

"I don't know," Iyraclea said. "Why don't you tell me?"

"August and radiant queen," said Taegan, "the ancient elves enchanted this stronghold to keep the weather clement, and thousands of years later, the charm still holds the mountain's chill at bay. Wise as you are, surely you understand the builders wouldn't have lavished such powerful magic on the fortress unless the place was important. We may prove unable to unravel its secrets, but I know others who can, the learned sages who've pondered these mysteries for months. Please, allow me to fetch them."

"That's out of the question!" Iyraclea snapped. "Pavel said you and your friends possess the knowledge to solve the puzzle. That's the reason I dealt with you mercifully. Now you'd better hope your own wits are equal to the task."

Because, Dorn thought, the last thing she wanted was a band of magicians as powerful as the wizards of Thentia visiting the site. They quite possibly possessed the arcane strength to wrest control of the situation away from even the Frostmaiden's high priestess and her terrible servants.

Kara stiffened, and her fingers clamped tight on Dorn's. She turned to him, then, evidently recalling the hostile folk standing all around, quickly masked all traces of her excitement. Apparently she'd realized something important, and for whatever reason, had decided it was something she wouldn't divulge to the Ice Queen unless the tyrant left her no alternative.

Unfortunately, it seemed likely that was exactly what would happen. Distracted, Dorn had missed the last few words of the conversation, but he took up the thread: "... give you tonight and tomorrow," Iyraclea said. "But then, come midnight, and every midnight after, I'll offer one of you to the Cold G.o.ddess. Starting with the halfling, I believe." She sneered. "I've taken your measure, Wilimac Turnstone, and I very much doubt you're scholar enough to contribute much to our efforts."

Kara gave Dorn's hand another squeeze, as if to rea.s.sure him that, one way or another, Iyraclea's threat would never come to pa.s.s. Will, meanwhile, offered the priestess a grin. "Now that's where you're wrong," he said. "I'm the clever one. The charlatan's the dolt. That's the pox for you. It rots the brain."

Iyraclea scowled. "All of you, resume the search!"

The gathering started to disperse. Intensely curious, Dorn looked forward to the moment when Kara could confide in him. Unfortunately, with the giantess once again slouching along in their wake, he supposed he'd have to wait a little while longer.

Enormous shadows swept across the ground, and something hissed and rustled overhead. Dorn looked up. Pale jagged shapes flapped and glided down from the heavens, as if the moon had shattered into pieces. Some of the white dragons and ice drakes-smaller than their companions but still big as a hay wagon and the team drawing it, with short, thick legs and wide, flat tails-lit on the ground. Others perched on battlements and rooftops. The reptiles' sharp, dry odor suffused the air.

"Your Majesty," one of the dragons rumbled, a sneer in its tone. Taegan glanced about, seeking the source of the salutation, and winced when he found it. Its pale hide mottled with rot and its sunken eyes glowing in the gloom, a dracolich crouched on the gable-and-valley roof of a once-splendid house.

Jivex snorted. "What's the matter, are you scared? We already killed one of those things."

"I remember," Taegan said. "I intend to dine out on the tale for the rest of my days. But as you may recall, Vorasaegha nearly tore it to pieces before we became involved, and even then, it was brisk work."

Still, that turn of events had one positive feature: To all appearances, the sudden advent of the dragons had startled and unsettled the rest of Iyraclea's minions. Even the Icy Claws pivoted back and forth, keeping a wary eye on the gigantic reptiles looming on every side.

The gelugon that had been following Taegan and Jivex around was as distracted as the rest. The elf looked around, spotted Dorn, pressed a finger to his lips, and skulked in the half-golem's direction. He didn't know what was about to happen, but suspected he and his comrades would fare better united. Jivex flitted after him.

Meanwhile, Iyraclea emerged from the crowd to glare up at the dracolich. Unlike her followers, she appeared not a whit dismayed, and Taegan proffered a grudging admiration.

"Zethrindor," she said. "What are you doing here?"

"That's what I was about to ask you."

"Don't be insolent! I ordered you and the rest of these wyrms to Sossal."

"The war's going well," said Zethrindor." His tail switched, breaking loose clay tiles to clatter and spill off the roof. "It'll keep for a few days. But while we condescend to conquer a kingdom for the benefit of a human, you break your pact with Sammaster."

"What do you know about it?"

"In exchange for our help, you promised to kill strangers. Instead, you plotted with them to pry into the wizard's business."

Taegan and Jivex closed the distance to Dorn-and Kara, too, the bladesinger observed. Pavel, Raryn, and Will were likewise heading toward the same spot.

"What do you care?" Iyraclea said. "You're no true friend to Sammaster or anyone else. So why should it concern you if I play him false?"

"Because of the future he promises. I can't have you stealing or tampering with a magic that will help to bring it about."

Iyraclea curled her lip, and Taegan shivered as a sudden chill permeated the air. "But you'd steal it yourself in an instant, wouldn't you, to improve your own position."

"If it embodies the destiny of dragonkind, a drake should look after it. That's obvious, and even if it isn't, I didn't come here to debate. Produce whatever it is you've discovered, and even though you broke your covenant with Sammaster, we'll keep faith with you. We'll finish the subjugation of Sossal, and leave you in peace thereafter."

"That's easily done. Behold." Iyraclea waved her dainty hand at an empty patch of dark, sigil-inscribed paving. "We found nothing, because there's nothing to discover."

"Truly? Well, in that case, you must be eager to return to your altars. Do so. Simply leave me your prisoners, as they're clearly of no use to you, and they and I will poke around this curious place a little longer."

"I think not. Go back to Sossal, complete your task, and content yourself with the plunder and feast of human flesh you win in the process. Otherwise, I'll destroy every last one of you."

The dracolich sneered. "A hollow threat, to say the least."

"Hardly," Iyraclea said. "Don't you whites and ice drakes understand your own natures? You're creatures born of cold. It infuses and sustains you, and the G.o.ddess who lends me her might is the source of it. With a mere thought, I can turn your own essences against you."

"If Auril herself were here," said Zethrindor, "perhaps I'd be afraid. Or maybe not. Sammaster proclaims the time of the G.o.ds is pa.s.sing, and the age of the dracoliches is at hand."

Without the slightest preparatory shift to warn of his intentions, the wyrm sprang.

Iyraclea raised her hand, and defined by a whirl of fallen leaves, a twisting cyclone howled into existence between her and her plummeting attacker. The vortex hurled Zethrindor off course to smash down on the pavement. At the same time, the Ice Queen, gown lashing around her, lifted by another tame wind, perhaps, floated backward across the plaza, distancing herself from the white, cadaverous wyrm. She shouted words of power and swept her arms through sinuous pa.s.ses. Suspended in midair like a curtain, rows of luminous blue blades appeared down the long axis of Zethrindor's body. Spinning like wheels, they hacked his rotting scales and withered muscle.

He roared, sprang clear of the effect, reared and c.o.c.ked back his head, and spewed his breath weapon. Probably, like Taegan, Iyraclea expected frost, the substance whites usually expelled, and to which she was surely impervious, for this time she made no effort to defend. A plume of dark, billowing fumes washed over and made her flail in agony. Zethrindor had evidently cast a spell to change his breath into a green's corrosive, poisonous exhalation.

The dracolich lashed his pinions, took to the air, and hurtled toward her-and that was when mayhem exploded on every side, as everyone else decided to join the fight. Some excited whites largely wasted their first attacks spewing frigid vapors that froze human barbarians but had no effect on the rest of Iyraclea's retainers. The more clever whites, and the ice drakes, conjured blazes of magic, or sprang to engage their foes with fang and claw. Javelins and arrows flew to meet them. Spears stabbed and axes hacked. A gelugon materialized half a dozen lesser devils, crouching, snaky-bearded things armed with enormous saw-toothed polearms, to fight on its behalf. Ice wizards chanted incantations in their chiming, clashing, dispa.s.sionate voices.

Wings a silvery smear, Jivex hovered uncertainly. "Do we know what side we're on?"

"Neither," Taegan said. "We need to get out of the thick of it and under cover."

"Make for that keep," Raryn said, pointing a stubby finger. They all skulked forward, skirting lunging, wheeling, stamping combatants who, by virtue of their prodigious strength and size, could have trampled and killed them without even realizing they were there. They also had to dodge blasts of frost and lightning, flame and the distilled essences of death and disease, that dueling spellcasters hurled back and forth.

Grateful that he hadn't exhausted his store of spells in the fight with the tirichiks-his captors had confiscated his grimoire and so prevented him from preparing any new ones-Taegan augmented his natural agility and shielded himself in misty vagueness. His companions likewise enhanced their defenses. Like grouping together and slipping out of the midst of the fray, the tactic made sense, but didn't really answer the question of how to extricate themselves from their current predicament. It seemed wildly optimistic to hope that Iyraclea, Zethrindor, and their sundry followers would all exterminate one another.

Abruptly the air grew hazy. Taegan smelled smoke, and a floating spark stung his cheek. He smiled, and the vapor thickened, ma.s.sing together and taking on definition. A pair of red eyes glowed from a tapered, coalescing head, and Brimstone crouched before them.

Will laughed. "I was starting to wonder if you'd abandoned us."

"The only way to rescue you," the vampire whispered, "was to fetch something capable of creating a considerable diversion. It took a little time." He turned to Kara. "Change form, singer. Together, we can fly Dorn, Raryn, Will, and Pavel out of here, and with Jivex's a.s.sistance, conjure illusions and the like to hinder pursuit."

"Sounds good," said Will. "All but the part about dragging the charlatan's useless a.r.s.e along."

Kara's body swelled and heaved, and her smooth skin sprouted glittering scales. Brimstone murmured rhyming words. Then Raryn bellowed, "Watch out!"

Taegan looked around, spotted Icy Claws and frost giants glaring back, then felt an abrupt, excruciating chill. He cried out, and his muscles clenched. He struggled to get past the shock of it, while, their magic shifting them instantaneously through s.p.a.ce, the gelugons appeared just in front of the would-be escapees. They lifted their lances high to thrust downward, and poised their ma.s.sive bladed tails to bash and slice. Behind them, the giants scrambled forward. Their footfalls shook the ground.

A white spear leaped at Taegan. He jumped, beat his wings, rose above the stroke, and kept on climbing, veering repeatedly to throw off his opponent's aim. He'd avoided taking to the air before, lest it make him too conspicuous, but that was scarcely a consideration any longer.

He tried to ascend beyond the Icy Claw's reach, but despite its lack of wings, the devil too shot up off the ground. Sweet Lady Firehair, was there anything the towering, bug-faced fiends couldn't couldn't do? do?

Taegan dodged two more spear jabs, meanwhile conjuring images of himself, reflections created without the necessity of mirrors, to baffle his a.s.sailant. The gelugon rammed its spear into one of the phantoms, popping it. At the same instant, Taegan lashed his pinions, hurling himself at the creature's head, and aimed his makeshift dirk at one of the bulging, faceted eyes.

He hit the target. But instead of driving deep into the devil's skull and brain, the giant's spearhead simply scratched the surface of the eye and glanced off, as if it were made of polished stone. The baatezu lashed its tail at him as he hurtled past. Dismayed by his failure to incapacitate it, the giant nearly missed seeing the stroke in time to evade.

He realized he shouldn't be surprised, might even have antic.i.p.ated what had happened if the irrational fear the devil inspired hadn't been gnawing at his mind. Some spirits were more or less invulnerable to weapons unless the blades bore magical enhancements. But the spearhead was the only weapon he had. All he could do was try to use it.

He drove home two more thrusts, but each merely chipped his adversary's pale, gleaming sh.e.l.l. Hoping to fly faster than the Icy Claw could pursue, he then rattled off an incantation to heighten his speed, but while that made it somewhat more difficult for the devil to target him, it didn't keep him out of its reach. It used its ability to blink through s.p.a.ce to stay with him.

Struggling to stave off outright panic, Taegan insisted to himself that somehow, he could survive this confrontation. Then he glimpsed a flash of motion from the corner of his eye. He tilted his wings, dodging, and chunks of ice shot up from the ground to strike and destroy his last remaining illusory counterpart.

He saw that one of the ice wizards had conjured the attack. He a.s.sumed the transformed magician would keep right on throwing spells at him, but didn't know what he could do about it. The gelugon was the more dangerous threat. He started to shift his attention back to the devil, then realized what was hanging at the mage's hip.

It was Rilitar's sword! Taegan had previously observed that one of the ice wizards had taken possession of it, perhaps to study the enchantments used in its manufacture, and that was the sword.

Taegan faked a shift to the right, then furled his pinions and dived at the foe on the ground. He didn't know if he'd actually succeeded in buying himself a precious second, and didn't glance back at the gelugon to find out, lest it slow his plunging descent.

The mage slashed his hands through a mystic pa.s.s. More chunks of ice exploded in all directions from a central point in midair. Taegan shielded his face with his arm, and dodged. Some of the missiles battered him even so, but he refused to let the pain balk him.

He slammed into the wizard and knocked the thing backward onto the ground. Crouched on top of it, he stabbed at the milky, rigid, impa.s.sive features, breaking the ice that was the spellcaster's altered flesh and bone.

The magician stopped moving. Taegan jerked the sword from its scabbard, felt the surge of confidence and vitality that gripping the hilt always produced, leaped up, pivoted, and the gelugon was there, looming over him, ivory spear leaping at him.

He parried the thrust, beat his wings and rose back into the air, slashed at one of the devil's chitinous forearms. The elven sword bit deep, and the Icy Claw gave a buzzing cry.

Grinning, no longer frightened, Taegan cut it twice more before it could shift the lance to threaten him anew. He hovered before it, inviting an attack, and knocked it aside when it came. That enabled him to close the distance to the gelugon's barrel-shaped torso. The Icy Claw's tail swept at him, but he twisted out the way, thrust his sword into its chest, yanked it out, and followed up with a cut to the juncture of the baatezu's head and shoulders.

The gelugon floundered backward. It glared and shuddered as if it was straining to bring one of its supernatural abilities to bear. Then it collapsed.

Taegan couldn't tell if he'd actually killed it or not. He hoped so, but wasn't willing to invest any time making sure. The sooner he rejoined his friends, the better.

But perhaps he had time for one thing. He lit on the ground, kneeled beside the ice wizard, and rummaged through the creature's pockets and satchel. The transformed spellcasters naturally had no need of warmth, and stripped of their human emotions, cared nothing for modesty. But they needed the odd robe, haversack, and such to carry their talismans and other magical gear.

Taegan heaved a sigh of grat.i.tude when he pulled a familiar blue-bound volume from the wizard's satchel. Of course, it made sense that the same mage who'd taken possession of his sword had likewise appropriated his book of spells.

The avariel also retrieved his scabbard, then lashed his wings and climbed high enough to oversee a significant portion of the frenzied, chaotic battlefield. His heart sank at what he found. The a.s.sault on his comrades and himself had thoroughly scattered their little band. On first inspection, he failed even to spot the majority of his friends.

But he did at least see Brimstone shrouded in a cloud of his smoky breath. The drake pivoted back and forth, ripping with fang and claw at the frost giants who hacked at him in turn with their pole-axes. Pinions sweeping up and down, Taegan rushed to help the vampire fend them off.

Kara charred a gelugon's white carapace black with a bright, crackling flare of her breath. The baatezu collapsed twitching, its body smoking. At the same instant, however, hailstones hammered down from the empty air to bruise and b.l.o.o.d.y her scales.

She pivoted and saw another ice devil glaring at her. Resuming her battle anthem, she beat her wings and leaped at the thing. It braced its spear to impale her as she plunged down at it, but she broke the lance with a swat, pierced and felled the Icy Claw with the talons on her other forefoot, and reached to grip its head in her jaws.

Chitin crunched between her fangs. The dense flesh inside was unpleasantly cold, and had a foul, bitter taste. She didn't let that deter her from biting the beetle-like head in two.

She spat out the vileness in her mouth and lifted her foot away from the mangled body beneath. No longer pinned, the Icy Claw's thick, bladed tail whipped up at her. By some dark miracle, the creature still lived.

The blow sliced the side of Kara's face, and a ghastly chill stabbed through her entire body. It couldn't quite keep her from stamping down and grinding the gelugon's midsection to paste, but she shuddered through the process, and went right on shaking. The spasms made her slow and clumsy.

This will pa.s.s, she told herself. I just need a few seconds. Then frost blasted down on her, encrusting her dorsal surface with rime and turning her pain to utter anguish.

She hissed at the shock and looked up. One of the larger whites, old and powerful enough that a sprinkle of pale blue and gray scales showed among the ivory ones, was diving at her. She tried to spring out from underneath, but didn't make it. The chromatic's claws rammed deep into her back and slammed her to the ground.

The same giantess who'd guarded Dorn throughout the day chased him, sagging b.r.e.a.s.t.s and rolls of fat bouncing, driving him before her with sweeps of a long-handled, stone-headed warhammer. He backed and jumped away, looking for an opening to lunge inside her prodigious reach and make an attack of his own.

But she wouldn't give him the chance. Despite her bulk, she wielded her weapon adroitly, just as she advanced and when necessary, retreated with considerable agility. She always remained close enough to threaten her smaller foe, yet maintained enough distance to keep him from striking back.

In time she'd likely make an error, but Dorn wasn't willing to wait. He didn't know what had become of his comrades, and didn't dare look away from the giantess to find out. But his instincts yammered that he had to finish with her fast, so he could help the others. Otherwise, something terrible was going to happen.

The giantess feinted a backhand blow. Pretending the move had fooled him, he shifted in the direction she wanted him to go. She whirled her weapon over his head and struck from the other side. He lifted his iron arm to shield himself and twisted.

The hammer clanged against his metal parts. It couldn't break them, but it was likewise true that the iron couldn't stop the human half of his body from suffering a portion of the jolt. He cried out, and the blow flung him down on his side.

He lay still, pretending to be crippled. The giantess leered down at him, then swung the hammer over her head to administer the death blow. At last the weapon was out of his way, and she was standing still. He scrambled up and at her.

She struck, and the hammer crashed down on the cobbles at his back. She tried to skip backward, but not quickly enough. He lunged behind her and ripped at her hamstrings with his claws.

Blood gushed, her knee gave way, and she fell backward. At once she let go of the hammer, rolled, and reached for him with her bloated, filthy fingers. He swept his iron arm back and forth, slicing her hands, until she s.n.a.t.c.hed them back. He jumped in to rip at the artery in the side of her neck.

More blood sprayed, spattering him from head to knees, the coppery smell mingling with the sour stink of the giantess's flesh. She flopped down on her face. He spat gore from his mouth, wiped it from his eyes, cast about, and faltered in horror.