The Spectral Blaze

The cleansing power of the exorcism locked on to something inside the quicksilver dragon, enabling Medrash to perceive it more clearly. That made his muscles bunch with revulsion, but it also revealed beyond question that the quicksilver wyrm bore Tiamat’s stain. It wasn’t exactly like the possession that had corrupted the dragonborn cultists, but it was close enough to bolster his confidence that he could drag it out.

He willed it forth, and slowly, twisting this way and that, five columns of vapor, each a different color but all noxious and filthy looking, boiled up out of the dragon’s body. The creature didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps Khouryn did, but if so, he was too busy fighting to comment.

The tops of the pillars of mist formed themselves into vague shapes like crested, wedge-shaped heads. As one, they swiveled in Medrash’s direction. Two points of light flowered inside each.

Meanwhile, the quicksilver dragon struck like a snake. Khouryn tried to meet the attack with a chop, but the wyrm stopped short. Its action had been a feint intended to draw just such a response, and it stretched its neck again and seized the axe in its fangs. Khouryn bellowed and somehow managed to rip the weapon free, though the effort sent him staggering off balance.

The smoky heads on their long necks arced over both their host body and Khouryn to strike at Medrash. He didn’t know exactly what would happen if one of them succeeded in touching him, but he assumed it would spoil the exorcism at the very least. Refusing to allow the threat to disrupt his soft, measured recitation, he sidestepped a surge of blue vapor, ducked the green, and retreated from the white. The white head splashed to shapelessness when it struck the surface of the ledge but reformed as the misty neck raised itself once more.

The quicksilver dragon leaped backward, unfortunately without stretching the smoky extrusions past the breaking point. Perhaps the move caught Khouryn by surprise, or maybe he was just too winded to chase the creature. He faltered for the first time, while the wyrm inhaled deeply and cocked its head back. Its breath weapon had renewed itself, and it was about to give the dwarf another blast.

“Torm says, get out!” Medrash bellowed. And one by one, writhing like parasites that a healer and his forceps were plucking from under a patient’s skin, the roots of the misty columns floated free of the quicksilver dragon’s scales.

The uprooting made the smoke-things attack more furiously than ever, and as Medrash ducked, dodged, and shifted his sword back into his dominant hand, he suspected he might pay for his success with his life. But as he cut at the black head, it and its counterparts burst into formlessness, then vanished entirely.

Perhaps unable to swallow its venom back down, the quicksilver wyrm twisted its head and spat it over the drop. That left it vulnerable, or vulnerable for a dragon, anyway. Khouryn charged with his axe raised high.

Medrash detested wyrms, but he still yelled, “Stop!”

Aoth had found a spot where the stony ground rose before dropping away in another cliff. If a fellow crawled up to the edge on his belly, as he, Mardiz-sul, and several other genasi had done, he had cover. He could look out and survey the Old Man’s Head-which did indeed vaguely resemble a head with a smear of white and gray cloud at the top to represent the hair-without too much concern that a sentry would spot him spying.

Mardiz-sul took a long breath then said, “Well, it doesn’t look too bad.”

Aoth smiled. “That’s the spirit. But actually, it’s even worse than it looks. There’s an earthmote floating near the summit. It has the clouds and some sort of enchantment to hide it, so you can’t see it, but I can.”

The resolution in the firesoul’s face twisted into dismay. “And that’s where Vairshekellabex has his lair?”

“There’s some kind of bridge co

“But doesn’t that make things… difficult?”

Aoth certainly thought so but knew he had to project confidence for the firestormers’ benefit. “It’s just a tactical problem we need to solve. Come on. Let’s all go chew it over.”

They crawled backward until it was safe to stand. Then, the more fastidious among them brushing themselves off, they rejoined the rest of the company on the saddleback where they’d left them to rest, munch the tart, wild blueberries that were ripening there, and await developments. They all gave Aoth and his companions inquiring looks of one sort or another.

They’re nervous, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. Now that it’s actually dragon time.

I can fix that.

Or make it ten times worse, the griffon replied.

“All right,” called Aoth, “listen up! Here’s the nut we have to crack.” He laid out the situation.

As he’d expected, it daunted a fair number of them. Eyes grew wide. People whispered to their neighbors. He drew a flash and a whine from the head of his spear to startle them silent and keep them from feeding one another’s fear.

“We can do this,” he said. “Remember, the griffons can fly, and so can the windsouls among us.”

“Captain Fezim is right!” Son-liin said, and Aoth didn’t doubt her support was sincere. She was eager to accomplish the mission, both for its own sake and to prove she wasn’t the liability she’d appeared to be on the first stage of the journey.

But he also suspected that, in a way, she was striking a pose for Gaedy

“I agree,” Cera said through blue-stained lips. “The Keeper of the Yellow Sun wants us to do this, to save the i

“And I revere the gods and their priestesses,” an earthsoul said. “Don’t think I don’t. But…” He spread his brown, gold-etched hands.

“But you know dragons make terrible foes,” Aoth said. “Fair enough. But remember, we’re firestormers. We’re pretty terrible ourselves. We beat the horrors the blue mist birthed. We beat the medusa and the orcs. We killed one wyrm already, even though he was hiding in our midst. We can do this.” He took a breath. “Especially since we have a weapon you don’t know about.”

Mardiz-sul frowned. Flame flowed along one of the golden lines above his right eye. “Why did you wait until now to tell us?”

“Because the creature doesn’t make a comfortable traveling companion,” Aoth replied, “and because I’m not proud of having such a being in my service even to achieve a worthy goal. But the time has come when we truly need him.” He turned to Cera. “Is he nearby?”

She nodded. “When we drew near to the Old Man’s Head, I prompted him to follow closer.”

“Then pull in the rest of the line.”

Cera removed the shadow gem from the pouch on her belt. Genasi close enough to get a good look muttered at its unca

Cera gazed into the stone. Her jaw clenched when the inside of it flickered blue. The co

For a while, nothing else happened. Among the genasi, tense expectation began to give way to puzzlement and doubt. Then the dracolich crawled through the gap between two weathered granite outcrops, and several firestormers cried out in alarm.

Aoth wasn’t alarmed, exactly, but he was surprised. The deterioration of Alasklerbanbastos’s physical form had progressed remarkably since he’d seen the undead dragon last. It appeared every bit of hide had fallen or rotted away.