Yet Brimstone too found his will constrained, by need and greed. He was parched, weak, and the Tarterian's blood, though laced with bitterness, was an intoxicating fountain of vitality. He guzzled in a frenzy as fierce as the Rage.

But he had to stop. Had to, or his prey's kindred would overwhelm him, and Sammaster would win. Finally he managed to wrench his mouth away from the gushing wounds.

At once he discerned that he might have waited too long. Ragged shadows against the stars, the other wyrms were nearly upon him.

He couldn't retreat directly away from them, farther into the mountains. It was too likely he'd blunder into another snare. He'd have to flee at a right angle to their approach and swing back into the valley, even though it meant letting them get even closer than they were already.

At least his drink of blood had mended his broken wing. He sprang into the air and flew, meanwhile whispering a charm to augment his speed.

He beat high, swooped low, and zigzagged from side to side to throw off his pursuers' aims. Even so, some attacks found him. Another blast of breath weapon bashed him, shadowy, disembodied hands clawed him, and a mesh of gummy cable materialized on his wings, binding them until, with a flap, he tore the web apart. It was only a matter of time until one a.s.sault or another would kill him, cripple him, or at least slow him down enough for the Tarterians to catch up.

Peering about for anything that could help him, he spotted the entrance to the portal up ahead. He took stock and realized that his breath had renewed itself at least to a degree. He dived to earth in front of the cave, spewed smoke and embers, then scrambled inside.

As soon as he was out of his pursuers' view, he dissolved himself into vapor and sparks, identical, or so he hoped, with the haze he'd created a moment before.

The Tarterians thudded onto the ground and charged through the two overlapping clouds without perceiving any difference between them, then hurtled on down the pa.s.sage.

Brimstone waited while his enemies vanished in the dark. Then he flowed through the smoke that was not himself, out into the open air, and onward, until he found a hiding place amid big, jumbled stones which, on closer inspection, turned out to the broken remains of a huge golem or earth elemental. Despite the erosion that had blurred its features, he could still make out eyes, an ear, and the contours of a three-fingered hand.

From that vantage point, he watched the Tarterians emerge, hissing and snarling to one another, presumably marveling at the abilities of the quarry who'd managed both to escape through the gate and to destroy it in the process.

He waited for some time after they dispersed, then skulked onward in search of his comrades. Eventually, he found Raryn sc.r.a.ping lichen from a rock. Alert as ever, the dwarf sensed his approach, pivoted in his direction, and raised his axe.

Brimstone congealed from smoke into solid form and said, "Don't be alarmed. It's me."

"I take it," Raryn said, "something kept you from stealing away."

"Magical snares seeded through the mountains."

The burly, white-bearded scout returned his attention to the lichen. His knife scritched against the stone. "Then it's good there's at least a little something to eat. I spotted bistort and coltsfoot, too."

Such provender may sustain you and the others for a time, Brimstone thought. But when my thirst becomes too keen to bear, the only things I'll have to eat are you.

13-16 Uktar, the Year of Rogue Dragons In Sossal, corpses weren't hard to find. The slain lay where they'd fallen, buried only by the premature snows. But even so, Zethrindor's instincts led him to seek out an old cemetery, where sunken graves crumbled in on themselves, and weathered markers listed, a place given over by ritual and custom to the dominion of death.

He waited for the moon to set, then, hissing and murmuring incantations, used a talon to inscribe pentacles and sigils, some in the frozen earth, others on granite headstones and the facades of mausoleums. Several of the monuments, hallowed in the name of one beneficent power or another, couldn't bear the desecration without cracking or crumbling.

Gradually the night grew even colder, though, paradoxically, the graves began to smell more strongly of decay. Neither manifestation bothered him.

He snarled a final invocation, and something-the underlying structure of the world, perhaps, on which seas, plains, and mountains lay like paint on a canvas-moaned in protest. The patch of ground before him spun and churned like a whirlpool. A hollow formed at the center, and a horror oozed and clambered out of it into the open air. Essentially, it was shapeless, though Zethrindor could make out forms within the squirming central ma.s.s: a femur, skulls, a tarnished bra.s.s coffin handle, worms, and a length of stained and filthy winding sheet.

The thing peered back at him with several rudimentary eyes made of earth, mold, and sc.r.a.ps of rotten wood. "I wondered," it said, in a slow, slurred voice, "when you would next summon me."

"I name you G'holoq," Zethrindor said, "and I bind you by the staff, the crown, and the hexagon."

G'holoq laughed a muddy laugh, intensifying the ambient stench of rot, and a marker sculpted in the shape of the Earthmother, crowned with roses and holding a sheaf of grain, flowed and deformed like a melting candle. "Such caution between old friends! When did I ever attempt to deny you?"

"Never," Zethrindor said, "because I always constrained you properly."

"Ah, but then you were a mere wyrm. Now you're an omnipotent dracolich, predestined lord of a goodly portion of Faerun. How, then, would a humble spirit like me dare to defy you, whether you performed the ceremony properly or not?"

Zethrindor bared his fangs. "Continue to mock me and I'll show you how powerful I've become."

"No need. I watched your final spat with Iyraclea. Very impressive. Have you wondered, though, what the Frostmaiden thinks of you, now that you've killed her special servant?"

"I don't care. The time of the G.o.ds is over."

"Is it, indeed? I can't image why you bother fishing oracles out of graveyards when you're already privy to such extraordinary secrets."

"With the staff," Zethrindor said, "I strike you."

G'holoq's amorphous body burst into blue flame. The demon writhed and howled until the dragon willed the blaze to go out.

"I warned you," Zethrindor said. "I'm not in the mood for your j.a.pes."

"So I see," G'holoq croaked. "Ask your three questions, then, and we'll be free of the annoyance of one another's company."

"The portal in the Novularonds. Where did it lead?"

"I don't know."

"By the crown, I rule you."

The blue flame burned brighter, and didn't just sear G'holoq's surface. It devoured portions of the demon's body entirely. When Zethrindor extinguished it, G'holoq lay in several chunks, which sluggishly extended feelers toward one another and seeped back into a single ma.s.s.

"I've already invoked the staff and the crown," the dragon said. "If we proceed to the hexagon, you'll burn until my own existence comes to an end, and that, I a.s.sure you, means forever."

"I can't answer if I don't know the answer! A wizard as powerful as Sammaster can conceal his designs even from ent.i.ties like me."

"Then we'll turn to matters of more immediate concern. I'm having difficulty locating what remains of the Sossrim army."

"Despite all your sorcery, and all your flying scouts flapping hither and yon? It's all but impossible to imagine."

That, too, sounded like mockery, and Zethrindor felt tempted to punish G'holoq yet again. Unfortunately, though, he had, in his impatience, already run through the lesser, finite chastis.e.m.e.nts. Satisfaction would come at the cost of terminating the interview, and deprive him of the opportunity to make use of the demon in times to come.

"The surviving druids are powerful," he gritted, "and this is their country. They know every inch of it, and have a special bond with it."

"Also," G'holoq said, "the snows Auril sent to help the Ice Queen are, understandably, no friends to Iyraclea's slayer. They baffle the eyes of your observers, and likewise hinder your divinations."

"Well, for your sake, let's hope they won't hinder you. Where are the Sossrim forces?"

"I'll show you." The patch of ground in front of G'holoq heaved and twisted, configuring itself into a three-dimensional map of Sossal. Several squares of green phosph.o.r.escence appeared on hills and in valleys. Presumably, the larger the luminous rectangle, the bigger the band of soldiers.

"Good," Zethrindor said. "Now, where are they heading, or, if they aren't moving yet, where do they intend to go?"

The fiend responded by willing glowing bluish trails into being. They all converged on a single point. The Sossrim were on the verge of uniting into one force.

But they hadn't done it yet. At the moment, each of the companies was vulnerable. Zethrindor poised a claw above the representation of the largest. "I'll wager Madislak Pemsk is traveling with this force."

"I've already answered three questions."

The white spat a puff of frost. "And need answer no more. My course is obvious. If my army marches immediately, I can intercept the biggest Sossrim company here, before it links up with the others. With luck, I'll take it by surprise; I'll overwhelm it with superior numbers in any case. Then it will be easy to pick off the rest."

He wouldn't even need his fellow wyrms anymore, and that was just as well. They were growing restless, eager to abandon the war and undergo their own transformations into dracoliches before madness overtook them. Well, after they helped him win a final, decisive victory, they were welcome to depart. It would mean that much more plunder for their chieftain.

"It should work," G'holoq said. "I see no reason why it wouldn't. Milord ... if you do become one of the kings of Faerun, remember me kindly. If I've ever spoken to you scornfully, it's only because it's my nature. In the end, I've always served you well."

Zethrindor sneered. "If you were prudent, you'd be hoping I'll forget you." He turned, unfurled his pinions, and leaped into the air.

The smoke stung Taegan's eyes, and considering what a n.i.g.g.ardly little fire Raryn had built-fuel was all but nonexistent, and they didn't dare produce an excess of light in any case, for fear of attracting the Tarterians' attention-that hardly seemed fair. How could a blaze that scarcely warmed a person even when he was sitting right beside it foul the air throughout the entire cave?

Brimstone crouched peering into the flames and whispering. Kara and Raryn watched intently, even though Taegan a.s.sumed that, like himself, they'd pretty much abandoned hope of the smoke drake's trick ever working. Brimstone had attempted it several times already, and sure enough, eventually he scowled and shifted his smoldering gaze away from the fire.

Kara sighed. Despite meager food and the constant chill, her cuts were healing quickly, thanks to her draconic vitality and Raryn's healing charms. But she seemed strained and dispirited even so.

"I don't understand," she said. "You spoke to me when we were hundreds of miles apart. Firefingers surely has a flame burning somewhere close at hand-"

"Our current location is warded," Brimstone whispered. "You know that perfectly well, so why are you prattling?"

"I-" For an instant, anger blazed in her amethyst eyes, and a blue tinge washed across her skin, but then she mastered herself. "You're right. I didn't mean to criticize. I'm simply frustrated."

Raryn, who'd set his broad, ruddy hand on his axe when the two dragons began to quarrel, casually moved it away again. "As are we all. But even if we managed to contact Thentia, who's to say it would do any good? We couldn't tell the mages where we are, because we don't know ourselves."

Taegan grinned. "If that's your idea of providing solace, your technique needs work."

Kara stood up and adjusted the folds of her mantle. "It's time to go."

"I don't know about that," Raryn said. "My hunch is that the Tarterians are still stirred up from their brush with Brimstone. We could give them another day to settle down. The less active and alert they are, the safer we'll be wandering around in the open."

The bard smiled a twisted smile. "Trust me, my friend, you don't want to spend two more days just sitting cooped up in a hole with me. Not ... not in my present humor."

Raryn shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders. "I trust you, singer, now and tomorrow, in a cave or anyplace else. But for that same reason, I'll follow your lead."

"Whereas I," said Taegan, "have always followed where beauty led, and never regretted it yet. Well, give or take a few disgruntled husbands."

"It's time to be quiet," Brimstone said. He led his companions to the mouth of the cave.

Outside, it was night. As Taegan had discovered, the far north, at the time of year, the nights were absurdly long and the days, ridiculously short. It was one of the many unpleasant peculiarities of the place, albeit one for which eldritch sorcery bore no responsibility.

At least it made it marginally safer to sneak around. Dragons could see well in the dark, but not as far as they could by day. Or at least that was the way it worked with earthly drakes. It hadn't bolstered Taegan's morale to learn that Brimstone and Kara weren't entirely certain the same was true of wyrms hailing from the netherworld.

Raryn took the lead, prowling several yards ahead of his companions. In theory, he'd spot any danger first. But after a while, Kara, in a low but urgent voice, called to him to stop and back up. The hunter retreated a few steps, and a reddish shimmer danced through the air as another vestige of ancient magic manifested. It nauseated Taegan to look at it, and though it didn't throw off any perceptible heat, stones on the ground beneath it cracked apart, or melted and bubbled into liquid.

The display ended after a few heartbeats, but the seekers still swung wide around that particular spot. Then they crept onward, while disembodied voices whispered, and the landscape periodically seemed to alter, though afterward, Taegan could never say exactly how it had changed. He picked his way through bones-avariel bones, as often as not-and the cold wind moaned and plucked at his garments. Those things, at least, didn't change.

Something vast-vague as mist, but projecting a terrifying sense of power and malice nonetheless-floated upward from the ground on the procession's right flank. As it spread its bat-like wings and opened its reptilian jaws, Taegan realized it had actually oozed through and risen out of the earth. It was a ghost dragon they'd seen before, taking advantage of its insubstantial nature to sneak up on them.

Until then, the seekers had only observed the wraith stalking around one particular area in the northern part of the valley, a spot well removed from their present course. They hadn't expected to encounter it here, and it looked as if that miscalculation might cost them dearly.

Taegan raised Rilitar's blade, unfurled his pinions, and rattled off the first line of a defensive charm. Swelling from woman into drake, Kara started singing a spell of her own. Raryn lifted his axe.

"No!" Brimstone snarled. "Don't attack it!" With a bound and a snap of his charcoal-colored wings, he interposed himself between his companions and the ghost.

For what seemed a long while, he and the specter simply stared into one another's eyes. Then the ghost turned and crawled away.

"Nicely done," Raryn said. "I take it that one undead recognizes another."

"Tonight it did," Brimstone whispered. "Its mind is faded and broken, and I can't vouch for what it might do in the future. Let's hope we can avoid it from now on."

Kara dwindled back into human form.

They wanted to get inside the castle as quickly as possible, to make sure the Tarterians wouldn't spot them. Still, as they drew near, Taegan had to pause for a heartbeat or two to marvel at the place. Towering and ma.s.sive as it was, the stronghold simultaneously, paradoxically, gave an impression of exquisite grace surpa.s.sing the loveliest temple in Lyrabar. He supposed the builders' mastery of proportion was responsible.

"The ancient wizards raised this place for a fell purpose," he said, "in desperate times, in the most remote, inhospitable place they could reach. Yet it's beautiful."

Kara smiled. "Your people," she said, "rarely build anything that isn't."

Brimstone spoke a word of power. The immense gates at the end of the barbican groaned open, and behind them, a rattling portcullis rose. The tunnel-like pa.s.sageway into the castle lay open before them. The vampire stalked to the threshold, took a look around, then stepped inside.

He vanished.

Taegan rounded on Kara. "What just happened?" he asked. "Did he blunder into another maze trap?"

"I don't think so," she said. "Not exactly."

"Then what did happen?"

"I'll try to find out." She crooned spells, and power tingled over Taegan's skin. He and Raryn looked around, watching for Tarterians and other menaces.

A dark, winged shape wheeled and set down in front of them. Taegan felt a jolt of alarm, then perceived that the wyrm's eyes shined crimson, not green, and that it smelled of burning.

He lowered his sword. "I trust that wasn't your idea of a jest," he said. "Otherwise, your timing is exceptionally poor."

Brimstone showed his misshapen fangs. "I ran afoul of another ward. Fortunately, not a lethal one. A single stride carried me beyond the far wall of the citadel, as if it, and the ground it sits on, don't truly exist."

"Someone twisted s.p.a.ce," Kara said.

"Who," Taegan asked, "the builders, or Sammaster? I ask because it occurs to me that a barrier erected by elves might not keep out an avariel."

"A reasonable conjecture," Brimstone whispered. "But I suspect it was Sammaster. I recognize the taste of his power."

"Whoever did it," Raryn said, still watching their surroundings instead of his companions, "maybe he only put the enchantment on the doors. The three of you can fly over walls."