The Dragon's Doom

The Great Serpent squalled and convulsed, thrashing wildly and sending palace stones flying, in a great rain that pelted down into the Silverflow.

His tail came around in a great whipping blow that slammed the trembling Dragon to the ground. Blackgult groaned, already lost in pain, and Ambelter flung coils around him just as he'd done to Tshamarra. At the same time, he burrowed his great flat serpent-head in through a gap in the rubble into some dark cellar chamber or other, and called on the Dwaer to help him shape an old, old spell. It worked, and as the Great Serpent tightened his coils around the Dragon, his forked tongue twisted into a grotesquely overlong human arm-an arm that reached out to slap the stones.

The Living Castle enchantments were strong here, and the Spellmaster used the Dwaer to make his call upon them mightier than he'd ever been able to before-and halfway across the rubble-strewn battlefield that had been the Throne Chamber before the coming of this dawn Embra Silvertree was dragged to her knees, sobbing and struggling.

The old enchantments were blood-bound to her, and as seductive as the Dark Three had been able to make them then, with full power over her young body and an almost whimsical shared ruthlessness. Embra fought those spells as best she could, but she might as well have tried to stop all winds from blowing across Darsar. She was unable to use the Dwaer, to see, even to breathe…

The king and the men and maids watching with him saw the Lady of Jewels fall on her face, senseless. Her Dwaer rolled away from her limp hand.

Hawkril was still a good dozen ru

Then the head turned almost gloatingly around to glare at the Dragon, trapped in its coils-and from it beams of ravening magic shot out from two Dwaer, lancing deep into the gold-scaled creature.

Stabbed and burned, and then stabbed and burned again, as the trembling, riven Dragon screamed in agony.

Screamed, and then started to dwindle, just as Tshamarra had done.

"Oh, gods, no," Hulgor Delcamper growled, as he stood shielding the young and white-faced King of Aglirta with a sword in either hand. "It'll not be long now. The well, everyone!"

The watchers in the shattered hall saw the Great Serpent rear its head once more in hissing triumph. A shimmering blossomed in the air behind and above that head, becoming a hole surrounded by dark fire-and out of that hole appeared a lone human woman, floating upright in midair. Her head was a skull that in turn seemed to float above her shoulders-and she held a twinkling Dwaer-Stone in each of her spread hands.

"A Sword of Spells has two edges, overbold apprentice!" Gadaster Mulkyn hissed, as the Dwaer flared in unison.

Not to strike at the Great Serpent with ravening bolts of magic, but to awaken the last traces of the mind-link Ingryl had used for years to drain Gadaster's life. With cold glee the skull-headed mage forced his will upon Ingryl Ambelter's mind.

The Spellmaster wrestled against him, a dark and furious mind-struggle that lasted an eternity but no time at all… and lost. Calmly and carefully, Gadaster forced Ambelter to work certain magics.

"You wanted the Dwaer so much, didn't you?" he said, directly into Ambelter's trapped mind. "And now, lucky lad, you at last have what you've schemed so energetically for. A pity 'twill destroy you and your precious kingdom and probably most of Flowfoam, too. Let the conjunction begin!"

And four Dwaerindim blazed up blinding white, tearing free of scaled skin and grasping hands alike to soar up into the air together in a great floating ring.

As the Stones rose, so too certain folk all over the palace were jerked upright and into full awareness: Embra Silvertree and a handful of surviving Lords of the Serpent. Wherever they were, they stared up at the stones, quivering in helpless thrall.

Many other folk within sight of Flowfoam did much the same-not ensnared by the rushing magic, but awed by the sheer power singing in the air above them, and the rushing hues and images they could now see in the blinding shared radiance of the Stones. Faces of kings and wizards and warriors dead and dust for centuries whirled before all eyes in a flashing parade that-shivered, suddenly, as something darker and more solid burst into their midst.

Something like a dark flame, leaping from Dwaer to Dwaer as it struggled, growing arms and wings and talons and biting heads that all vanished again with the passing moments, thrusting up shape after shape as it fought toward freedom. Arched, wracked, and tattered with pain in the heart of all the flowing magic, it thrust a smooth and faceless head out of the chaos to regard Gadaster Mulkyn, glaring without eyes down at the skull-headed sorceress. The rogue Koglaur!

That moment of malevolence broke the flow of leaping forces into wildly stabbing bolts of lightning that splashed down onto Flowfoam and raced along through its riven chambers like crackling snakes. Men and women screamed, bodies were hurled into the air, and the Great Serpent turned with all the speed of any swift-striking snake and spat a desperate thrust of dark power at Gadaster-not mind to mind, but as another crackling bolt of force, this one of shining black.

The skull-headed sorceress writhed in the heart of it as blackness whirled around her in a great fist, stabbing through her repeatedly-and from the skull burst forth a cold, high, wailing scream of despair, that seemed almost to plead as it rose and grew fainter and fainter, fading away as the Great Serpent shuddered in the pain echoing back across the old link between them.

The screaming skull slowly melted away, revealing in its place the tearful face of a frightened living woman, her long black hair swirling around her as she frantically wove a very swift spell. Her body her own once more, Maelra Bowdragon teleported herself away from the air above Flowfoam Palace, vanishing in a silent instant.

And so passed Gadaster Mulkyn, first Spellmaster of Silvertree, dead a second time, his sentience shattered. "Or is it?" Embra Silvertree whispered, still trembling in Dwaer-thrall. "Is he truly gone this time, or fled into Ambelter or somewhere else?"

The Great Serpent roared in exultation, stretching its great scaled neck up once more-and breaking the thrall that held Embra as it caused the four Dwaerindim to break their ring and whirl around its neck in a new orbit. The Koglaur fell away from them, a torn and writhing scrap of darkness, and fell wetly onto tumbled stones far below.

Amidst that rubble the freed Lady of Jewels collapsed, gasping, but scrambled to stare up again, not wanting to miss a moment of what could well be her unfolding doom.

Four Dwaer-Stones were flashing brightly as they spun about the Great Serpent's neck-and it struck, fangs gaping, at the diminished, wounded Dragon in its coils.

"Not worthy, fey?" That thunderous shout burst forth from the rent and bleeding Dragon, even as serpent-fangs bit deep. The Dwaerindim flashed and then dimmed in unison, becoming almost dark, and the snake made a wordless sound of surprise and alarm. The Dragon gasped-and glowed, its ruined body flaring to the same white brilliance that the four Stones had shared in their ring.

Ezendor Blackgult wrestled fiercely for control of the Dwaer, heedless of the pain. He was beating Ambelter, he was wi

Calmly he drew in more mighty magic than he'd ever felt before, searing himself inside as he used not a scrap of Dwaer-force to shield himself, but forged it all into a great slaying thrust that raced back up the fangs sunk so cruelly in him, into the Spellmaster.