5 Nightal, the Year of Rogue Dragons Something had changed, but at first Taegan didn't know what.

Propped against a lump of rock, he'd been half sitting and half lying, attempting with only limited success to escape from hunger, cold, dirtiness, anxiety, and boredom into the trance-like state of vivid memory that was an elf's equivalent of slumber. Raryn lay snoring to one side. Kara's eyes were closed as well, but even so, it seemed likely she was awake, for she crooned under her breath. Brimstone was deeper in the cavern, out of view. Taegan had scarcely seen him for two days, and suspected he was keeping his distance in an effort to control his blood thirst.

Accordingly, when his intuition whispered that something was amiss, the avariel pivoted to see if Brimstone was slinking forth from his seclusion. But he wasn't, not even as a cloud of smoke and embers.

Taegan then realized what had actually snagged his attention: the alteration in Kara's singing. Before, the wordless melodies had sounded like lullabies and wistful ballads. The tune waxed louder, accelerated, a.s.sumed a driving tempo, warping into one of her battle anthems.

Taegan had never known her to sing such a song except in combat. Perhaps it was harmless, but he was leery of anything that might cause her to dwell on thoughts of violence.

"Kara?" he said.

She didn't answer, just kept singing. He repeated her name, louder this time. That prompted Raryn to open his eyes, but still failed to elicit any acknowledgment from the bard.

Was she asleep after all? Singing in the throes of a dream or nightmare? Taegan rose, walked to her, clasped her shoulder, and gave it a gentle shake.

Her eyes flew open, and the pupils were diamond-shaped. Her song became an incantation. Taegan reached to cover her mouth, but was an instant too slow. Something he couldn't see slammed him in the chest and hurled him across the chamber to crash into the opposite wall.

Kara surged to her feet, nails lengthening into talons, scales sprouting across her cheeks and brow, her moon-blond tresses shortening. Raryn scrambled to interpose himself between her and the elf.

"Don't!" he said. "Taegan's your friend. We're both your friends."

She crouched, and heart pounding, throat clogged with dread, Taegan waited for her to finish expanding and melting into dragon form. But Raryn's plea must finally have registered, for she straightened up instead. The claws dwindled, and the scales faded.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

Taegan rose and shook out his pinions. His feathers rustled. "It doesn't appear so."

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right."

She glared so furiously that he wondered if she might attack again. "How can you say that? Of course it isn't 'all right!'"

"It is," Raryn said, "so long as you can rein the frenzy in."

"That won't be much longer."

"It may be long enough," Taegan said. "An opportunity could present itself at any moment. We simply have to be ready."

"So we should just keep waiting," Kara said, "for something-we can't even say what-to improve our circ.u.mstances? Wait until my mind finishes crumbling, and I slaughter the both of you? No. I'm done with that."

Taegan arched an eyebrow. "I understand your dissatisfaction with such a pa.s.sive strategy, but I fail to see an alternative."

"I'm going to fight the Tarterians," she said.

"You mean, the one of you against the six of them?" Raryn said.

She nodded. "If I kill them, Brimstone can go fetch our allies. It won't matter how many maze traps he blunders into on his way through the mountains, or how long it takes him to find his way out, so long as no enemies are left to pounce on him when he reemerges."

"But you can't beat them," Raryn said.

"I fought well at the monastery, didn't I? I helped slay Malazan."

"I know," said the dwarf, "I was there, and believe me, no one respects your prowess more than I. But you didn't win your victories alone, and you can't kill six Tarterians by yourself, either. We four fighting in concert couldn't do it."

"If you're right," she said, "and I fail, the rest of you will still be safer. Because I won't be here to threaten you."

"Milady," Taegan said, "you understand your mind is under a.s.sault. So trust us when we tell you this scheme is a manifestation of the very irrationality you fear."

She smiled a nasty smile more akin to Brimstone's sneers than any expression he'd hitherto observed on her lovely face. "If my words reveal insanity, that surely proves my point."

"Singer," Raryn said, "back at the start of the year, you hired me to be your bodyguard. I still am, even if the job has become more complicated. I can't let you leave the cave until this ... bitter humor pa.s.ses."

Kara stared into the dwarf's eyes, then sighed and shook her head. "Once again," she said, "I'm ashamed. Our predicament is difficult enough without ..." She took a subtle step backward.

Taegan sensed she was widening the distance to improve her chances of casting a spell before they could do anything about it. "Get her!" he cried. "Knock her out!"

He beat his pinions and sprang at her. Raryn followed. She scurried backward and sang the opening notes of a charm.

Taegan punched at her jaw, and she slipped the blow. Raryn bulled into her legs, threw his arms around them, and bore her down in a tackle. Her body smacked hard on the floor, but not hard enough to stop her singing.

The final note boomed like thunder, jolting and staggering Taegan, jabbing pain into his ears, echoing between the granite walls. For a moment, he couldn't act or even think, and evidently, neither could Raryn, for Kara kicked free of his arms, leaped up, and darted for the mouth of the cave.

Taegan caught his balance, turned, and raced after her. Half deaf from the thunderclap, he faintly heard her start another song. Empty air gave birth to pale fog, concealing her willowy form. Even worse, when he plunged into the mist, grasping blindly, he found it possessed a degree of solidity, impeding him as if he were trying to push through a wall of snow.

He floundered in the stuff for another moment, until Brimstone snarled, in his soft, sibilant voice, "Are you all mad, making so much noise?" Taegan turned. Crimson eyes glowing, the dark-scaled vampiric wyrm was otherwise all but indistinguishable in the gloom.

"Kara's having a fit," said Raryn, on his feet once more and hastily taking up his axe, quiver, and bow. "She thinks she needs to fight the Tarterians all by herself, and we couldn't stop her from leaving."

Brimstone's eyes flared brighter, and the scent of burning that clung to him intensified. "That won't do," he whispered, then murmured a word of power that dissolved the ma.s.s of fog. "Climb onto my back, Raryn Snowstealer."

Taegan didn't wait for the dwarf and smoke drake to prepare themselves. He dashed out of the cave and scanned the benighted sky. Still singing, wings beating, Kara was headed out into the valley, but didn't have quite as much of a lead as he'd expected. He realized she'd required a moment to shapeshift before taking to the air.

He lashed his pinions and gave chase, rattling off his charm of quickness. Power burned and jolted through his limbs, and afterward, her wings appeared to flap more slowly. But she was still flying faster than he was.

"Kara!" he shouted. "Stop!"

It was madness to yell out in the open, where no wards existed to m.u.f.fle the sound, but he didn't know what else to do.

She didn't respond.

Raryn, too, called Kara's name. Taegan glanced back. The hunter and Brimstone were flying up behind him, overtaking him, though it appeared unlikely they'd catch up with the song dragon. Brimstone whispered an incantation, power whined, and Taegan felt queasy.

A cloud of gray mist swirled into existence around Kara. Even at a distance, Taegan could smell the putrid stink of it. Kara jerked as if in pain, and her anthem caught in her throat. She dived below the vapor and wheeled back around.

For a moment, Taegan hoped that Brimstone's attack-which, though apparently aversive, had inflicted no visible wounds-had shocked Kara back to sanity. But no. She answered with a musical spell of her own. Brimstone lifted one wing high and dropped the other low, veering off, dodging, but when the song dragon's darts of azure light streaked at him, they turned in flight and pierced him anyway.

Brimstone grunted and snarled another charm. A spark hurtled at Kara, and she, too, tried unsuccessfully to dodge. The point of light flared and banged into a spherical burst of flame, searing the left side of her body. She floundered, her wings ataxic, and the smoke drake drove at her.

"What are you doing?" Raryn cried. "That could have killed her!"

"As her magic could destroy me," Brimstone said, without slowing or veering off. He had the advantage of height, and was swooping down at her. "She's lost to us now. I need to kill her before she brings the Tarterians down on us, and take her blood to keep from craving yours."

Taegan realized with a stab of horror that both dragons had succ.u.mbed to their particular compulsions. The excitement of the chase and of combat, coupled with the pain of injury, had so amplified Brimstone's thirst that it clouded his reason.

White mane streaming and tossing around his head, Raryn set the edge of his axe against Brimstone's neck. "Stop this," the ranger said, "or-"

Apparently not so stunned as she'd appeared, Kara abruptly resumed her song, beat her wings, and veered. She lifted her head, opened her jaws, and spat a sparkling, crackling flare of her breath.

The lightning infusing the vapor had little effect on Brimstone. Raryn, however, convulsed. Afterward, swaying, the dwarf continued to cling to his perch on the smoke drake's back, but that was all he could manage. He was no longer capable of threatening anyone.

Brimstone turned, compensating for Kara's attempt to dodge out from underneath him. His claws stabbed into her back, and impelled by his momentum, they plummeted together, to slam down on the floor of the valley. Old, broken bones flew up at the impact.

Raryn jumped off Brimstone and staggered away just before the two wyrms started rolling, biting, and tearing at one another. Had he been even an instant slower, they surely would have crushed him. When clear, he collapsed to his knees, and his sides heaved. Plainly, for the moment, he had nothing more to give.

Though unscathed, Taegan felt almost as helpless. He didn't want to help Kara battle Brimstone. However demonic his fundamental nature, the vampire was an ally, and even had it been otherwise, destroying him would do nothing to restore Kara's reason.

Yet he saw no other recourse, and so, sword poised, rattling off an incantation to surround himself with phantom duplicates, he dived at the tangled, writhing drakes. Then something hissed and screeched. He leveled off and wheeled to see that the Tarterians were coming.

Someone in Lyrabar had spotted the dragons winging their way through the twilight. But either the folk in the city hadn't discerned the wyrms were metallics, or else had deemed it prudent to sound the alarm even so, for all the countless temple bells were tolling, and had been for a considerable time.

But no one had rushed forth to confront the travelers. When the drakes and their riders spiraled downward toward the hill crowned with its circle of weathered menhirs, nine standing, one fallen on its side, the landscape was otherwise deserted.

Swinging himself down off Tamarand's back-arguably a position of honor, though, grieving and guilty over Lareth's death, the gold had turned out to be just as taciturn and uncongenial a companion as Dorn-Pavel noticed that Darvin and a number of the other Thentians appeared relieved to be back on the ground. Hissing and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up their faces, they rubbed their thighs and hobbled stiffly around.

Firefingers, though, despite looking twice as old as any of the others, strolled briskly around inspecting the symbols carved on the standing stones. "This place was sacred to Bane," he said.

"Yes," said Pavel, "but according to Brimstone, the decent folk of Impiltur eradicated the coven long ago. These days, the circle is simply the entrance to his lair. Or at least, I hope it still is."

"If it isn't," said Havarlan, argent, much-scarred scales shining even in the evening gloom, "we'll simply have to break it open." Like most of the drakes, she crouched on the hillside, outside the ring. The s.p.a.ce inside wasn't big enough to hold more than a couple wyrms at a time.

"Are you sure you can?" asked Will, still astride Wardancer.

Havarlan snorted, chilling the air and suffusing it with the smell of rain. "I certainly hope so. For if we can't contend with Brimstone's enchantments, we surely have no chance of countering Sammaster's magic, or that of the primordial elves."

"Well," Pavel said, "let's try it the easy way first." His bad leg aching a little-days on dragon-back had taken a toll on him as well-he strode to the center of the circle. Tamarand, Firefingers, Dorn, Scattercloak, Jivex, and Jannatha came to join him.

"Brimstone!" he shouted.

As before, for a split second, he seemed to fall, or to hurtle like an arrow through emptiness dappled with light, then the vampire's limestone cavern sprang into being around him. The cool, greenish light of the perpetual torches gleamed on coffer after overflowing coffer of coins and gems. Despite Brimstone's extended absence, the lair still smelled of smoke and sulfur.

Hovering, wings glimmering, Jivex peered about. "I'm a dragon," he said. "Why don't I have heaps of sparkly stuff?"

"I suggest," said Scattercloak, "we move. We don't want the others dropping in right on top of us."

They all hurried into a side gallery, less stuffed with treasure than the first chamber, but still aglitter with a certain amount of overflow. The rest of their companions blinked into view, a few at a time. Once they perceived that they hadn't teleported themselves into danger, the gold and silver dragons shrank into human form, relieving what would otherwise have been claustrophobic congestion.

"Now, then," said Firefingers. "Those of us who understand portal magic will need to work in the center of the h.o.a.rd. Everyone else, please, give us room."

As Pavel watched the wizards, human and dragon alike, set about their labors, Sureene, clad in silvery mail that glowed like moonlight, and made her look like a handsome warrior queen, came to stand beside him.

"Well done," she murmured.

He shrugged. "Anybody could have called out Brimstone's name."

"I mean all of it. I have a gift for you." She opened the satchel hanging over her shoulder and brought out a leather scroll case. "The divine magic version of the spell to end the Rage, scribed half a dozen times over."

"I accept it gratefully, of course, but I trust it will be truly accomplished spellcasters like Firefingers, Nexus, and you who actually make the attempt to end the curse."

"So one would expect," she said, "but then we expected the warlocks would be the ones to solve the problem of reaching the citadel, too. It's best if every spellcaster in our company possesses the means to try, and from what I understand, you've been too busy roaming around gathering vital information, rescuing kings and kingdoms, and slaughtering evil wyrms to master the actual incantation."

Was she flirting with him? It felt like it, and the G.o.ds knew, even though she was ten years older than he, he'd always fancied her. He'd just never tried to do anything about it because she'd always seemed too dignified, busy, important, and generally unavailable. He started to frame a suitably glib but modest response, then glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision.

Will glanced surrept.i.tiously around. Then he eased in front of an open chest, shielding it behind his body and cloak. His hand slipped toward a gold ring set with an emerald solitaire.

"Please, pardon me just a moment," Pavel said. He advanced on Will. "Leave that, insect!"

The halfling s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand back. "What?"

"You know what. Leave the treasure alone. If you steal anything, you could change the h.o.a.rd's essential ident.i.ty, and keep the wizards from opening the gate."

"You don't know that. You just like frustrating your betters. My whole life, I've wanted to loot a dragon's lair. Now here we are, with the tenant nowhere around-"

"No one cares about your sordid predilections. Restrain yourself." Pavel turned back around, only to discover that Sureene had drifted away and stood murmuring with Baerimel and Jannatha. The moment had pa.s.sed.

As he drew breath to shower Will with invective, brightness bloomed in the air above the bulk of the h.o.a.rd, the soft radiance glinting on jewels and pieces of precious metal. The portal resembled a whirlpool standing on end, and likewise light refracting through a prism.

"If Brimstone happens to be flying," said Tamarand, currently wearing the shape of a slim youth with curly chestnut hair, "we could step through into empty air."

"Or something a thousand times worse," Darvin said.

The gold ignored the interruption. "Accordingly, we dragons will pa.s.s through in our true shapes, carrying our allies on our back. That way, no one will come to harm by falling. I'll go first."

Pavel supposed that meant he would, too. He headed for Tamarand, who swelled and dropped to all fours, clothing dissolving, wings erupting from his shoulder blades.

When the transformation was complete, Pavel climbed onto the dragon's back. Tamarand sprang at the luminous disk, and evidently recognizing that the gate was just large enough for him to pa.s.s through at the same time, Jivex opted to streak along beside him.

Taegan didn't know what to do. Probably, he thought, because there was no way to avert disaster.

But he could see that Kara and Brimstone were still ripping at one another as if they hadn't even noticed the advent of the Tarterians. If the six otherworldly wyrms descended on them while they were tangled together, they'd have no chance at all. Nor would Raryn, who'd struggled back to his feet, but was still only a few paces away from his draconic allies.

So Taegan decided to try to lead the Tarterians away from his friends, to give Raryn time to hide, and Kara and Brimstone a final chance to come to their senses. He flew higher, shouting and brandishing Rilitar's sword, then wheeled and raced zigzagging away from Sammaster's minions.