Whisper of Venom

Cera smiled. “And you can see that too.”

“I have to admit,” Gaedy

“But we won’t.” Aoth stepped past Gaedy

Something scuttled into the light.

Big as a man, it looked like a scorpion carved from black rock and possessed of a pair of luminous crimson eyes. But it was charging faster than anything made of stone should have been able to move-and, intent on his digging, Aoth plainly didn’t see it rushing forward to seize him in its serrated pincers.

“Watch out!” Gaedy

Both shafts pierced the creature’s body but failed to stop it or even slow it down. Nor was there time for a third shot. Gaedy

When Gaedy

The scorpion reached for him with its other set of pincers. He stabbed again. The claws snapped shut on his blade and yanked it from his grasp.

At the same moment, the pincerlike parts on either side of its mouth spread apart. A glowing red drop of some viscous liquid oozed out, and Gaedy

Then, behind him, Aoth growled a word of command. A flare of silvery frost shot past Gaedy

The scorpion fell down thrashing. Its pincers clattered, and Gaedy

It was still hot though. Stepping back from it, he panted, “Let me just point out that I said, ‘No guardian in the immediate vicinity.’ I never said there wasn’t one lurking around somewhere, listening for the sound of digging.”

Aoth gri

It was a gem the size and shape of an egg. Or at least Gaedy

“Is that it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Aoth answered. “Alasklerbanbastos’s spirit. His life.”

“I still say that if Tchazzar weren’t as crazy as a three-tailed dog, he would have destroyed the thing.”

Aoth shrugged, and his mail clinked. “Maybe he thought that would be letting his old enemy off easy. I mean, it would be hellish to be stuck inside a stone, alone and bodiless, for eternity, wouldn’t it? Or maybe he plans to haul out the Bone Wyrm by and by, and torture him for his amusement.”

“Except that we’re going to haul him out first,” Cera said. She drew a deep breath, opened the leather pouch on her belt, produced a gold box large enough to hold the phylactery, and dropped to one knee beside the hole. His pulse ticking in his neck, Gaedy

EPILOGUE

15 FLAMERULE THE YEAR OF THE AGELESS ONE (1479 DR)

Blind and deaf, aware of nothing but the alternating mumble and yammer of his own thoughts, Alasklerbanbastos floated in the void. Deliverance came as a sudden feeling of soaring.

For an instant, the mere fact of sensation filled him with such ecstasy that he could think of nothing else. Then he remembered that Tchazzar, Jaxanaedegor, and the rest of the traitors had destroyed his body and sent his ghost into his phylactery. So it was almost certainly the red dragon calling him forth, and not because the lunatic had decided to show him any mercy.

Well, so be it. Tchazzar would no doubt thrust him into some weak and possibly crippled form, but Alasklerbanbastos still had his spells. And with magic, many things were possible.

For a heartbeat, he felt heavy as lead, and then merely corporeal once more. But that didn’t entirely relieve him of the feeling of burdensome weight. Someone had buried the body he now occupied, a frame of rotting flesh as well as bone.

Which was strange. Tchazzar couldn’t possibly expect a mere grave to hold him.

Puzzled, Alasklerbanbastos snarled an incantation and noticed how odd it felt to have an actual tongue curling and flapping in his mouth again. Then the earth above him rumbled and split, revealing a glimpse of the stars. He heaved himself up into the open air, and dirt streamed from his wings.

When he noticed the crooked talon on his right forefoot, he realized he’d entered the corpse of Calabastasingavor, a relatively young blue Tchazzar had killed at the start of his campaign. That explained all the charred, flaking patches on his hide, not that they or the provenance of his new body mattered at the moment.

What did was that much to his amazement, neither Tchazzar nor Jaxanaedegor was anywhere to be seen. Instead, it appeared that Aoth Fezim, Gaedy

The idiots apparently thought themselves safe because they had his phylactery. They had no idea how fast and to what lethal effect he could strike, even locked in a youthful dragon’s body. He drew breath to roar a word of power, and then conjured sunlight blazed around the woman.

Agony ripped through Alasklerbanbastos’s frame. Magic was suddenly impossible. So was moving, or even standing upright. His legs buckled beneath him, dumping him back down into the pit.

Fezim came to the edge and peered down at him. “I know liches aren’t as susceptible to sunlight as, say, vampires,” the Thayan said. “But none of you undead like it, do you?”

“How are you doing this?” Alasklerbanbastos growled.

“We tampered with your phylactery,” said Fezim. “You could say we poked a hole in it to let the light in. And my friend the sunlady can make a very bright light when it suits her. She’s going to hold on to the stone for now, to guarantee your cooperation.”

“What is it you want?”

“Answers. She and I were the disembodied souls who spied on you dragons palavering atop your mountain. What was the point of that council? Why are so many of your servants trying to turn everyone against Tymanther? When wyrms talk about Precepts, what does it mean?”

Alasklerbanbastos hesitated. “I can’t tell you.”

“No, I think you probably can.”

The light spilling over the edge of the grave blazed brighter. Alasklerbanbastos screamed, and parts of his hide burst into flame. He convulsed, and his thrashing brought earth pouring down, half burying him again.

Finally the light dimmed, and the searing flames went out. “Well?” said Fezim.

Alasklerbanbastos surprised himself by laughing a grinding laugh, and he found it gratifying when the impudent mites before him flinched. “All right, human. I’ll tell you what you want to know. But I warn you. You won’t like it very much.”