The Dragon's Doom

The page nodded and ran out. Several courtiers tried to crowd in as the door opened, but the guards were watching the king and Hawkril for signals, and received the same gesture from both. Accordingly, they swept the room clear again and closed the doors, despite shrill protests.

Silence fell in the Sunchamber, and the Four became aware that they had an interested audience. Embra was already trembling in near trance, calling on the Flowfoam enchantments and the Dwaer whilst trying not to "hear" either, but the other overdukes gazed at everyone crowded into the room until Craer waved a dismissive hand and said, "Now, now, there's not really going to be much to see. This is real magic, not-"

"Craer," Tshamarra warned silkily, and the procurer shut his mouth softly, without saying another word. The guards goggled at him as if the Three themselves had appeared in glowing splendor to work a miracle before their very eyes… because, of course, that was more or less what had happened.

At which point Embra opened her eyes again and murmured, "I've found Overduke Blackgult and that Dwaer-in the Silent House."

The other overdukes looked at her, and Hawkril rumbled, "I find myself unsurprised."

Embra nodded and sighed. "Somehow I knew we'd end up back there before long."

Craer shrugged. "We should fix it up and make it our palace."

She wrinkled her nose. "Haven't you forgotten that it drives Silvertrees mad?"

Craer gri

They stuck out their tongues at each other in unison.

The Sunchamber doors crashed open. The Four whirled around, the guards swung down their glaives… and relaxed again as the red-faced, panting page and two chambermaids came trotting across the room, bearing clothes.

Embra unconcernedly undid her sash, letting her boots fall, and tossed her robe to the floor. The page stared, swallowed, and then twisted around as he skidded to a stop in front of her, so that she beheld his back, and he was facing the chambermaid who held a heap of lacy and frilly things. The page tentatively dug into them with trembling hands, mumbling, "Wasn't sure… just which…"

The Lady Silvertree patted his shoulder and then bent past him, brushing against him very distractingly. "None of these," she said, brushing aside most of the diaphanous silk. "These are for Lord Hawkril's entertainment, not rough travel."

The armaragor rumbled wordless embarrassment behind her as Embra plucked up a scrap of silk and then a pair of leather breeches, placing the former as a breechclout and sliding the latter on over them. She selected a plain cotton shirt, a broad cummerbund belt of stiff leather, and then a leather warrior's jack, good boots, gloves, and a half-cloak. "My thanks. Hawk, buckle me up, will you? And bring one of those cloaks-my liking for unadorned stone floors as beds wanes and wanes."

"Ah, I wa-" a voice hailed them, from across the chamber, but Orele and Embra snapped: "No!" in unintentional unison.

The Lady Silvertree added, "Lord Hulgor, please take no offense when I say that getting guests bloodily killed holds no attractiveness for we of Aglirta. We go now to a haunted place of much magic, where we'll face traps, poison, monsters, and perhaps a hostile madman with one of these!' She held up the Dwaer, and added softly, "Forgive me for saying this, Lord Delcamper, but you'd not last six breaths."

Hulgor sat back with a sigh. "No offense taken-graul you, Lady. Bring me back the tale of what befell, mind!"

"We will," Embra promised, and turned to survey the rest of the Four. "Ready?"

"As much as always," Tshamarra replied with a sigh. "Take us."

The Lady of Jewels smiled grimly, waved a hand, the Dwaer flashed, and the mists rose.

Mists curled and sank away, and the Band of Four blinked in the gloom of a great chamber, as Embra's Dwaer flashed and another Stone winked back in reply, from not far away.

It was whirling in an endless loop around a man lying unclad and asleep upon a robe on the dusty stone floor: Blackgult, looking much as they'd seen him last. At every flash of Dwaerindim, the air around the orbiting Stone glowed momentarily, outlining a great curving barrier like a sphere of armor.

"He's in trance, probably healing himself," Embra said quietly, "and that's a shield-spell around him, a powerful one. We'd best wait for him to awaken, and hope."

"Hope that he's healed?"

"Hope that what awakens is still Ezendor Blackgult, and not something else," the Lady Silvertree replied grimly, advancing to where she could peer all around the large chamber. "Find the doors, all of them. We'd best mount a guard."

"Embra," Craer said warningly, pointing. A snake had reared up in the dust just inside one open doorway, regarding them with glittering eyes. Unhesitatingly, Embra blasted it to oily smoke with a Dwaer-bolt. Blackgult's Stone and shielding both flared into answering light, but seemed otherwise unaffected.

'Just a snake, or Serpent-work?" Tshamarra asked, as Craer and Hawkril advanced on that door, blades ready in their hands.

"Serpent-work," the Lady of Jewels replied shortly. "That was a spy, spell-linked back to someone else; I hope I gave him a searing headache. Come, Tash, let's spell-seal these other doors."

The armaragor peered through the open archway- "No door left here, not for years. Dark and empty passage, opens out fairly soon… and we forgot torches."

"So we did," Embra said with a sigh, turning away from the door she and Tshamarra had just sealed, tracing it with glowing fingertips in unison with the Stone held between them. "We'll have to conjure up a door, then, and-"

Whatever else she was going to say was lost forever in a sudden hissing flood. Dozens of serpent-arrows came streaking along the passage and through the doorless arch in a deadly storm. They sizzled to ashes where they struck Blackgult's shielding, but otherwise broke from their racing flights in midchamber to whirl into separate strikes at the Four, darting like wasps.

The Dwaer flashed in Embra and Tshamarra's shared grasp, and from both sorceresses a gigantic cloak of flame snarled up-and fell over the hissing missiles.

Flaming snakes writhed and tumbled in all directions, falling as embers and whirling scraps of ash, but many of the rigid serpents still swooped and soared. Craer sprang high to slash one to ribbons in midair with two daggers, and Hawkril waited warily, warsword raised, to hack down any snake-shaft that darted through the pursuing claws of Dwaer-flame.

Only one did, and his slash struck it aside just enough for him to grasp its body and fling it to the floor. The armaragor stamped on its head, hard, and whirled away from the feebly wriggling remains-just as the door Embra and Tshamarra had sealed burst with a roar of dust, rubble and searing magic.

Serpent-priests came leaping through that fog. With a shout of glee Craer sprang to meet them, his blade flashing and Hawkril right behind him. A half-seen priest stopped and raised a bow. Before he could fire a serpent Embra sent a Dwaer-blast into his face-and then whirled to fire another, larger bolt at something large, bony, and bestial that was crawling slowly in through the doorway.

It quivered, seemed to shudder soundlessly… and kept coming, as large as a one-horse cart, its low body covered with angled plates of bone.

Tshamarra cursed softly and backed away from the advancing bulk. "What is it?"

"Hawk!" Embra called sharply. "Back here, please! I like not the look of-"

Another monstrous something loomed up out of the drifting dust of the felled door, gliding through the ranks of Serpent-priests, and a soft green glow of magic wafted out from it, washing over the procurer and a priest he was busily slaying.

They stiffened and groaned in unison. Then the Serpent-man toppled, trailing blood, and Craer ducked away, falling heavily amid the rubble and losing the gory dagger he'd just used. On his hands and knees he scrambled clumsily but hastily back to Embra.