That had been his sort of festival, everyone drinking, dancing, laughing, chasing members of the opposite s.e.x and catching them more often than not. In contrast, the Feast of the Moon, celebrated in recognition of the honored dead and the onset of winter, was a solemn, subdued observance. The taverns closed their doors. Storytellers recited tales in which misunderstandings led to murder and suicide, young warriors perished on the battlefield, leaving their lovers to pine away, or n.o.ble kingdoms fell to orcs and plague. Folk clad in mourning sang dirges, paraded single-file through the streets with candles in their hands, and eventually fetched up in the cemeteries, where they laid offerings of food, preserved flowers, and sentimental tokens on tombs and graves.

But from Will's perspective, the biggest difference was that four months ago, Raryn, Kara, Taegan, and yes, even Brimstone had been present, and it was their absence that actually made the festival seem so depressing. That, and the sense of desperation that had descended on the seekers who still remained.

Yet even so, it was a relief when he, Dorn, Pavel, and Jivex escaped into the countryside and left the funereal proceedings behind. As before, the Watchlord's Warders guarded the approaches to the field in which the dragons and their allies were gathering. The sentries saluted the hunters as they pa.s.sed.

The meeting site shined with a soft, sourceless silvery light one of the spellcasters had conjured. The glow glinted on the scales of the many dragons a.s.sembled there: Tamarand, who'd served as King Lareth's princ.i.p.al deputy, and challenged, dueled, and killed the mad sovereign to save his people. Nexus, yet another gold, allegedly the mightiest of all draconic wizards. Lady Havarlan, much-scarred leader of the martial fellowship of silvers known as the Talons of Justice. Azhaq, Moonwing, Llimark, Wardancer, Vingdavalac, and others, their diverse scents combining to suffuse the cool night air with a dry, complex, and rather pleasant odor.

The spellcasters of Thentia stood, unconcerned, around the feet of the colossal reptiles. There was Firefingers, a genial old grandfather of a fellow dressed in garish flame-colored garments, Scattercloak, as always m.u.f.fled so thoroughly in his mantle, robes, and shadowy cowl that not an inch of skin was visible, and plump, fussy Darvin Kordeion clad all in shades of white. Her long tresses dyed their usual silver, Sureene Aumratha, high priestess of the House of the Moon, conferred softly with her proteges Baerimel Dunnath and Jannatha Goldenshield. Pet.i.te la.s.ses who bore a familial resemblance to one another, the two sisters were mistresses of arcane magic rather than divine, but servants of the temple nonetheless.

Gareth Dragonsbane had sent his own representatives to the council. Celedon Kierney, the paladin king's foxy-faced, half-elf spymaster, welcomed Will and his companions with a smile and a wink. Scarred, hulking Drigor Bersk, probably the unlikeliest priest of mild, martyred Ilmater in all Faerun, gave them a brusque nod far more in keeping with the grim atmosphere of the a.s.sembly as a whole.

But surely, thought Will, it can't be as bad as all that. These folk are wise. They'll think of something.

Nexus shifted his golden wings. Maybe it was the dragon's equivalent of clearing one's throat, for the others abandoned their murmuring conversations to orient on him.

"This is the situation," Nexus rumbled. "Essentially, we've made no progress since we last convened here four months ago."

Havarlan grunted. "With respect, wizard, that isn't altogether true. Working in concert with a host of allies, we metallics have found and destroyed several bastions of Sammaster's cult, enclaves which, left unchecked, would have created any number of dracoliches. We've saved many otherwise defenseless folk from drakes in the throes of frenzy, or from the secondary threats the Rage has kindled across the land."

Nexus inclined his head. "True, and I don't mean to discount such victories. But in the long run, they will mean nothing if we can't end the madness gnawing at our minds, and with time running out, we're no closer than before. We've devised the counterspell-or at least believe we have-but still have no idea where we must go to cast it."

Celedon stepped forward. "My lords and ladies, masters, I'm newly come to your deliberations. Please forgive me if I ask questions to which everyone else already knows the answers. I understand you actually have some of Sammaster's papers in your possession?"

"Written in cipher and sealed with a curse," said Scattercloak in his uninflected, androgynous, somehow artificial-sounding tenor voice. "We've managed to read a portion of them even so, but nothing that bears on the location of the elven citadel."

"We've scried for the stronghold, too," Firefingers said. "Sought its whereabouts in long-lost lore unearthed all over the continent. Dragons have flown across the northlands looking for it. All to no avail."

"Curse it," Will exclaimed, "my partners and I found the door to the place! That has to count for something."

Nexus, with his blank, luminous yellow eyes, backswept horns, and dangling barbells, gave Will a look conveying both annoyance and compa.s.sion. "I understand how hard you and your companions worked to locate that portal," he said, "and that you lost friends in the doing. But Scattercloak, Jannatha, and I have visited the site, and the gate is damaged beyond repair."

"But ... isn't there still some kind of magical trail you can follow?"

"I'm sorry, but no."

Celedon fingered his pointed chin. "I a.s.sume you tried scrying for Brimstone and the others instead of the citadel itself?"

"Naturally!" Darvin snapped. "Do you think we'd overlook something so obvious?"

"No, good sir, I don't. But I would have been remiss if I hadn't made certain."

"I don't believe," said Firefingers, "we've overlooked anything. But I'm not yet ready to surrender. Look at the company we've a.s.sembled, dozens of human and dragon mages united in a single circle. When has there been such a formidable coven? Yet we've never pooled all our strengths and skills in a single ritual. We've been too busy running hither and yon, following up on all our various leads."

High, argent frill and quicksilver eyes shining, Azhaq said, "You're proposing a grand divination. A coordinated effort to pierce the elves' concealments."

"Yes," Firefingers replied. "It seems our best remaining hope."

"I agree," said Tamarand, "so how shall we begin? We need a structure, something to guide our individual efforts and link them into a greater whole."

"I suggest," said Firefingers, "the Great Pentacle of the Hand and Stars in conjunction with the Binder's Eighth Sign."

"A sound choice," said Nexus, and contentious as the mages of Thentia generally were, with the most powerful human warlock and dragon wizard already in agreement, for once, no one pushed for an alternative.

"In that case," said Firefingers, "I'll ask everyone to move back a fair distance. I need room."

They ceded him the greater portion of the meadow, whereupon he whispered under his breath and snapped the fingers of both hands. Streaks of blue flame exploded into being to race along the ground. Will flinched, fearing an uncontrollable gra.s.s fire, but the blaze didn't spread in the usual manner. Rather, it drew straight lines and arcs, sprang over s.p.a.ces Firefingers wanted clear, defining a complex, symmetrical geometric figure further adorned with sigils and writing. Even when the design was complete, the flame, leaping no higher than the surrounding blades of gra.s.s, confined itself to the same narrow pathways, preserving the intricate form's precision.

"Now," said Firefingers, "all of you who can help, take your places."

To Will's surprise, Sureene, Drigor, and Pavel headed for the pentacle along with all the mages, two-legged and reptilian, leaving only Dorn, Jivex, and himself to wait and watch outside. Apparently even pract.i.tioners of divine magic had something to contribute to a "grand divination."

The spellcasters took care to step through gaps in the lines and curves of flame. Once everyone found the place he wanted to stand, or was supposed to, Firefingers waved his hand, and the openings sealed themselves.

"My turn," Nexus said. Instead of whispering as his human colleague had, he roared words of power at such a volume as to echo from the surrounding hills. At the end of the incantation, he spat flame.

Normally such a blast flared and died, though it might leave secondary fires burning in its wake. But Nexus's exhalation hung as a bright, seething golden cloud in the air, which gradually shaped itself into a spherical construction of arcs, lines, and glyphs somewhat resembling the design beneath it on the ground, but rendered in three dimensions instead of two.

Or maybe it was a single rune floating in the air, or a scroll without any writing on it. It flickered from one form to the next. Sometimes Will could even see multiple shapes simultaneously, a phenomenon that made a mockery of comprehensible sight and threatened to give him a headache.

"Now," said Firefingers, "let's begin."

He chanted, and one or two at a time, the other spellcasters joined in, but they didn't all recite in unison. Each had his own incantations, with their own rhythms, pitches, and peculiar inflections. The result should have been cacophony, or at least a muddled drone. Instead, all the diverse voices combined into a sort of mellifluous contrapuntal plainsong.

During the moments it was visible, the globe of fiery lines shifted. One word or symbol melted into another. A triangle, defined by radii extending through the center of the construct, vanished, and a trapezoid appeared in its place. Will could only a.s.sume the spellcasters were taking their cues from the ongoing transformations, and that was what enabled them to declaim in harmony.

Writing, dancing through changes like the structure of the sphere, began to appear on the floating scroll. The chanting grew quicker, louder, more insistent. The human spellcasters slashed their arms through mystic figures. An ivory wand in Darvin's upraised hand pulsed with radiance. Motes of shadow spun around Scattercloak like angry wasps.

A heaviness congealed in the air. Will could tell he wasn't really having difficulty breathing, but it felt like it anyway.

A fourth form appeared in the dazzling inconstancy suspended at the center of the pentacle, winking in and out of view like the globe, rune, and page. At first, it manifested so briefly and was so blurry that Will couldn't make out what it was. Gradually, though, it grew clearer.

It was a barren valley, seen from high above. Dark, snowy mountains surrounded it, and a gigantic castle stood toward one end. Dragons the color of ink, like skull wyrms but sprinkled with scales of a lighter shade, glided near the citadel.

"They've got it!" Jivex cried.

Then the illusory landscape vanished, replaced by a sphere, and despite his ignorance of magic, and difficulty discerning the details of a figure sketched in flame, Will realized that it was a different globe than before. Though he couldn't say why, it was nauseating to behold, like some heinous act of torture.

At the same instant, the feeling of weight in the air altered, too. Before, though unpleasant, it hadn't seemed especially alarming. Will had trusted that the wizards had it under control. But it was soon plain that they didn't. Even a person devoid of magical apt.i.tude could sense it tilting out of balance, like rocks on the brink of tumbling down a mountainside and crushing the travelers below. Like rocks that wanted wanted to fall. to fall.

The complex harmony of the ritual shattered as dragons howled, and humans screamed. Drigor staggered, chin dark and wet with the blood streaming from his nostrils. Baerimel doubled over vomiting. Moonwing collapsed and thrashed, argent wings and tail hammering the ground. Though stricken like everyone else, Pavel just managed to scramble clear and avoid being squashed.

The fiery orb swelled. The lines on its surface reconfigured themselves into ovals that somehow appeared to stand out from the globe, and likewise seemed larger than they should have been.

It's turned into something that's all mouths and jaws, Will thought. It's reaching out to swallow us.

Somebody needed to stop it, but the spellcasters were incapacitated. Will pulled his warsling from his belt and whipped a lead pellet at the sphere, but the missile flew right through the construct without disrupting it. He turned to Jivex, but the faerie dragon shook his head to indicate that he, too, had no notion what to do.

Then, shuddering and twitching, Nexus nonetheless manage to fix his luminous eyes on the orb. He growled a single word of power, and the sphere vanished, as did the lines of flame on the ground. The terrifying sense of malignancy enveloping the field disappeared in the same instant.

The spellcasters started shakily picking themselves up off the ground to adjust vomit-soiled and bloodstained garments, recover dropped talismans, and gingerly inspect the chewed tongues, bitten lips, and bruises sustained in their seizures and falls. All but Moonwing. The silver still lay where he'd dropped, but wasn't moving at all.

When he noticed, Azhaq lunged to his comrade's side. He peered down at the other shield dragon, then said, in a bleak, flat voice, "He's dead."

"I'm sorry," Havarlan said. "We'll remove him to a place where he can lie peacefully for the time being. But then, I think, we must continue our deliberations."

"Yes," Azhaq said. "He deserves better, but I understand."

Will supposed it was just as well they were taking a break. Brandobaris knew, most of the wizards, priests, and even dragons looked as if they needed one. Still, by the time Azhaq, Havarlan, and two other silvers came back from removing Moonwing's body, they'd managed to compose themselves. The mood, however, was even more palpably glum than before.

"What's the matter?" Will asked. "I'm sorry about Moonwing, too, but at least he didn't die for nothing. We saw the old elves' fortress, right? We actually saw it."

"We glimpsed it," Firefingers said. "But not clearly or long enough to determine its location."

"But if you did that well the first time, the next attempt is sure to work."

"Alas, no," Nexus said.

"d.a.m.n it!" said Will. "I'm tired of you people telling me that."

"No more tired," the gold replied, "than we are of saying it. But the wards are too strong. We're fortunate our initial effort to penetrate them didn't kill us all. A second would only result in further casualties."

"Cowards!" Jivex shrilled. "With the future of our people, of all the world, in jeopardy, dragons and wizards worthy of the name would try anyway!"

"I would gladly hazard my life," said Tamarand, "if I thought there was the slightest chance of it helping. So, I believe, would every one of us a.s.sembled here. But we mustn't destroy ourselves in mindless pursuit of a strategy that simply can't succeed. We must do what we've done again and again over the course of past several months, whenever a plan came to nothing: Formulate a new one."

Jivex gave a scornful sniff, but held his peace thereafter.

As threatened, the mages and drakes commenced an endless discussion too full of esoteric concepts and terminology for Will to follow. But he gleaned that no one had anything to propose that others didn't disparage as a flawed and futile waste of time.

It dampened whatever hope he had left, and bored him in the process. Eventually he sat down on the cold ground, and as Selune progressed across the sky, and the spellcasters droned and bickered on, he found himself nodding off and jerking awake again.

Until Vingdavalac gave his wings, more yellowish than bronze-colored due to his relative youth, an irritable snap. "Is that it, then?" he demanded. "Are we beaten? Do we just go back to the havens, and sleep until we starve? At least that way, we won't run mad and commit atrocities."

"No!" said Tamarand. "I didn't rise up against Lareth merely to preside over our extinction!" He grimaced. "Not until I'm absolutely convinced of the necessity."

As the debate meandered on, Dorn, who'd stood mute and pretty much motionless since the conclave began, abruptly pivoted and stalked to Pavel's side. Will scrambled to his feet and hurried to join them.

"Figure it out," said Dorn.

Pavel gave him a quizzical look. "Surely you realize I would if I could. But our allies are some of the most learned wizards in all Faerun. If they can't see a way ..." He spread his hands.

"Look," said Will, "you're a fraud and an idiot, we all know that. But you claim you understand the concepts wizardry is based on, and occasionally, inexplicably, through the intercession of Lady Luck herself, I can only imagine, it's that pox-addled brain of yours that stumbles onto an idea when people far more intelligent-which is to say, most of them-are stymied. You're the one who worked out how to use Sammaster's folio, right? So don't just stand there like Blazanar's scarecrow. Earn your keep for once, and think."

"I'm trying," Pavel said. "I have been right along, and if the two of you will stop pestering me, I'll continue."

Will was sure the priest had indeed been pondering the problem. Still, after the exchange, his demeanor altered. He frowned and stared down at the ground, not at the drakes and warlocks. Will sensed that he'd stopped attending to them in order to follow where his own thoughts led.

But for a while, nothing came of it, just as nothing resulted from the wyrms and magicians rambling on and on. Probably, Will thought, because nothing could. Some dilemmas had no solutions, and this appeared to be one of them.

Then Pavel's head snapped up, and his body straightened. "I have an idea," he said, and everyone turned to peer at him.

"We're listening," said Azhaq, plainly skeptical that a mere human priest might have achieved an insight that eluded dragon sorcerers.

"First," Pavel said, "a.s.sume Brimstone made it through to the other side of the gate."

"Based on what we found inspecting the wreckage," said Nexus, "that's a highly optimistic a.s.sumption. But continue."

"Next," Pavel said, "consider that Brimstone is a vampiric drake. Supposedly, such creatures must stick close to their h.o.a.rds or perish. Yet he wanders freely, and I believe I know how.

"I'm sure you all noticed the jeweled choker he wears. I think he enchanted it to embody the entire h.o.a.rd. That's one of the basic principles of magic, isn't it, that a fragment maintains a fundamental ident.i.ty with the whole from which it derives?"

"Yes," said Darvin, "but so what?"

"Will, Dorn, and I have been to Brimstone's cave in Impiltur. We've seen his treasure, and it fills an entire chamber. Which is to say, the h.o.a.rd isn't merely a collection of coins and gems but virtually a place in its own right. By the laws of wizardry, the exact same place where he is now."

"By all the mysteries," said Nexus, "go there, and with the proper enchantments, we can open a new portal to translate us into Brimstone's presence. That's brilliant." He lowered his tapered, gleaming head in a gesture of respect.

"In theory," said Darvin, scowling. "But you said it yourself, my lord, the priest's speculations are wildly optimistic. You don't know for a fact that the collar has been made a.n.a.logous to the entire horde, do you, Master Shemov?"

"No," said Pavel, "but it makes sense."

"So already," said the plump little wizard, "there's one way this scheme could go awry. We might also run afoul of more of the elf wizards' wards."

"That, I doubt," said Firefingers, scraggly white brows knitted in thought. "We know they themselves used teleportation magic to travel to and from their citadel, so it seems unlikely they left defenses in place to prevent that exact thing."

"Well ... maybe," Darvin said. "But my gravest concern is the likelihood that Brimstone failed to reach the proper destination. If we fling ourselves after him, we might wind up nowhere at all, or on some plane inimical to life."

"Maybe we will," said Dorn. "But you folk have babbled most of the night away, and this is the only worthwhile idea anyone has come up with. So now each of us just has to decide whether he's willing to take the risk. I am."

"As am I," said Tamarand. "If it kills me, so be it. Better to die trying than to lose myself to the Rage, or waste away in my sleep."

Other dragons clamored, each declaring himself of the same mind.

"Our king," said Celedon, "sent Drigor and me to observe your endeavor and a.s.sist however we could. So, with your permission, we'll tag along."

That left the Thentian spellcasters, and from them, Will antic.i.p.ated less unanimity. Though each commanded formidable magic, a number were sedentary scholars, not battle wizards inured to peril and hardship. The world as they knew it might be in jeopardy, but unlike the dragons, they weren't worried about insanity overwhelming them, and in addition to all that, they'd rarely agreed on anything in all the years he'd known them.

Yet they surprised him. Starting with Firefingers and Baerimel, each, even Darvin, albeit with a petulant, grudging air, declared himself willing to make the attempt. Maybe, after laboring to foil Sammaster's schemes for the better part of a year, they simply had to see firsthand how it would all work out in the end.

"Bless you all," said Tamarand. "Whatever befalls us, it will be an honor to meet it in such a company. Now, I suggest you small folk go home to sleep. We'll fly for Impiltur in the morning."

Jivex spat, suffusing the air with a flowery scent. "Apparently everybody just takes it for granted that I'm coming along."

"Well," said Will, "aren't you?"

"Of course!" the faerie dragon replied. "Someone of sound judgment has to lead."