The Ruin Read online

  Iyraclea contemplated the wizard standing before her throne. His white face, composed as it was of living ice, was stiffer and less expressive than features made of flesh. Still, as he sensed the depth of her displeasure, his colorless eyes widened in dread.

  He expected punishment, and well he might. Though she’d shackled his will, his mastery of magic and a measure of his intelligence remained intact. With the troops she’d placed at his disposal, he should have proved capable of defeating a tribe of frost giants. Yet the creatures had driven him away.

  Perhaps if she had him whittled into a shape more painful and less convenient, it would incline him to try harder. She drew breath to order one of the Icy Claws to see to it, then felt mystical force pulsing through the air. The sunlight streaming through the round-arched windows dimmed.

  The members of her court—a miscellany of human tribesmen, giants, devils, transformed magicians, and others—babbled in surprise. Iyraclea rose, strode to the nearest window, and peered upward.

  A huge shadow in the shape of a dragon floated in the sky to dim the sunlight. It was already fraying at the edges, and she inferred it was simply a harmless, albeit impressive, illusion.

  It still angered her, though. In light of recent problems, she took it for a taunt. She looked around, looking for the impudent wretch responsible.

  She couldn’t see him yet. Pale, icy spires and battlements were in the way. But she could hear the cries of gelugons buzzing from the direction of the castle’s primary gate.

  She wished herself there, and the fortress obeyed. The window dilated, and the patch of floor beneath her feet swelled and thrust itself forward, carrying her out into the open air. Still lengthening, arching and twisting as necessary, the extrusion hurtled across the fortress to fuse itself with the wall-walk above the barbican.

  She stepped onto the platform atop the massive fore-gate. Then, confident her wards would protect her from any potential threat, she advanced to the battlements to view the scene below.

  Staff in hand, hooded brown cloak and robe whipping in the frigid, howling wind, a man stood on the ice. Two of the Icy Claws were down there too, and had leveled their lances to spit him. Yet he hadn’t assumed any sort of fighting stance. Something about his casual posture suggested he was simply talking to the devils, through Iyraclea couldn’t catch the words at such a distance.

  His nonchalance piqued her curiosity. Whatever he’d done to rouse the Claws’ ire—it didn’t take much—perhaps she ought to command them to hold off. But before she could give the order, the ice devils drove in.

  The hooded man vanished and reappeared in a different spot a few paces farther from the fore-gate. The gelugons’ spears stabbed through the empty space he’d just vacated.

  The Icy Claws whirled, orienting on him anew. Iyraclea had the sense he was still talking to them, still trying to avoid taking aggressive action.

  The hulking devils glared at him with their bulbous, faceted eyes. Fist-sized hailstones materialized in midair to hammer down on the stranger’s head and shoulders. The barrage staggered him and his cowl slipped back, revealing withered skin. Whoever he was, he was undead. Probably a lich, a spellcaster who’d assumed his unnatural condition to cheat the grave.

  The gelugons had their own power to translate themselves through space, and they used it to pounce at him. Probably they assumed the hailstones had hurt him, and meant to finish him off before he could shake off the shock.

  The lich brandished his staff, and two bursts of bright yellow flame flared into being to engulf the devils. The spellcaster himself stood in the space where the explosions overlapped, but evidently had no fear of them.

  Its pearly carapace blackened, one Claw collapsed. The other, though also bearing ghastly burns, managed to stay on its feet and ram its lance through the lich’s torso.

  The dead man stumbled and had to catch his balance, but otherwise the stroke scarcely seemed to affect him. He raised his staff and tapped the Icy Claw’s brow. The gentle-looking contact smashed the pallid beetle head like a melon, and the baatezu dropped. The magician then ran a skeletal fingertip along the ivory lance impaling him, and the weapon crumbled into dust.

  Iyraclea’s fists clenched. The Icy Claws were valuable servants. Even more importantly, they were emblems of her power, and the Frostmaiden’s. It was an affront for anyone to defeat even one of them, let alone two, especially with half the castle watching.

  She looked up and down the battlements, at those who’d assembled to deal with the disturbance. “Destroy that thing!” she called.

  Her barbarians flung spears and shot arrows, and frost giants hurled their own gigantic weapons. The lich planted the butt of his staff on the ice, stood still, and suffered them to do their worst. The missiles broke against, or rebounded from, some invisible barrier in the air.

  But when the three ice wizards started conjuring, the lich swept one hand through a mystic pass. A high, chiming sound split the air, loud enough that folk made of flesh winced or covered their ears. The transformed mages cracked and shattered into pieces.

  On the Great Glacier, the warlocks Iyraclea captured, altered, and enslaved were even harder to come by than gelugons. Truly furious, she chanted in a voice like a shrieking blizzard, then thrust out her hand.

  A blue-white beam streaked from her fingertips to strike the lich in the breastbone. It should have frozen him solid, but he simply shrugged, as if to convey that it hadn’t discomfited him in the slightest.

  She howled words of power, sketched glowing sigils with slashes of her hands. A bright, ragged rift opened in midair and spewed an immense, streaming wave of snow, an artificial avalanche to crush and bury the cloaked, cadaverous figure in its path. But he raised his hand and the onrushing mass divided, rumbling past to either side but leaving him untouched.

  Iyraclea silently spoke to the castle. The barbican heaved itself up, tearing away from the rest of the fortress and reshaping itself into a colossal and vaguely humanoid form. Most of the folk who’d been standing in their mistress’s vicinity hunkered down and hung on desperately. A few slipped off and fell screaming.

  Iyraclea sent the giant lumbering at the lich. The fused, oversized fists at the ends of its long arms swung up and smashed down, jolting and breaking the surface of the glacier, and surely annihilating the spindly figure of old brittle bone and decay caught in between.

  Finally she bade the giant stop the attack, so she could verify the results. But on first inspection, she couldn’t see anyone lying amid the broken chunks of rime.

  “I’m about to reveal myself,” whispered a calm, oddly accented baritone voice. “When I do, have the construct pick me up.”

  Startled, Iyraclea cast about. No one had sidled up next to her, and it was plain from the oblivious attitudes of her retainers that they didn’t hear the voice.

  “I didn’t want to fight,” the whisperer continued, “but the gelugons insisted—vicious brutes, aren’t they?—I was obliged to defend myself, and the situation deteriorated from there. I realize that at this point, with your vassals watching, the confrontation can’t end unless you win it. Any other outcome might undermine your authority. So win it you will, but by capture, not slaughter, then we’ll palaver. Agreed?”

  She hesitated. His condescension rankled, but thus far, his confidence appeared justified, and as a practical matter, it might indeed be wise to bring this public spectacle to an expeditious conclusion. Besides, she was still curious about who he was and what he wanted.

  Accordingly, she’d take him into the castle, which was likewise her temple, the sacred ground where she was strongest. Then, if she didn’t care for what he had to say, she’d destroy him there.

  “Show yourself,” she whispered. She separated the giant’s right fist into three fingers and a thumb.

  The lich shimmered into view at the construct’s feet. Iyraclea instructed the colossus to scoop him up.

  “I yield,” the dead man said. “I plead for mercy.”r />
  Iyraclea had him, and she felt tempted to tell the giant to squeeze and squash him in its grip. But she had the unpleasant feeling that might not incapacitate him, either, or else he likely wouldn’t have risked such a betrayal.

  “First we’ll speak,” she declared. “Once I take your measure, I’ll deal with you as you deserve.”

  It took a little while to relieve the lich of his staff, conjure chains of ice to secure his wrists and ankles, turn the giant back into a barbican, and conduct the prisoner to the roof of the highest keep, where they could converse in private. The undead wizard endured it all patiently, but as soon as the guards withdrew, he gave his arms a little shake, and the frozen manacles shattered.

  “This has all been more trouble than I anticipated,” he said, “but I trust that when we’re done, we’ll both feel it was worth it. I’m told folk call you ‘the Ice Queen,’ so I assume I should address you as Your Majesty.”

  “And who are you?” she asked, trying to remain impassive. Up close, his shriveled, crumbling features and faint stink of dry rot were disgusting, even disquieting. She might serve one of the so-called powers of darkness, might even create undead herself when it suited her purposes, but she still shared the common human loathing for the things.

  “Sammaster,” he said, “First-Speaker of the Cult of the Dragon.”

  She hesitated. “Sammaster’s been dead a long time.”

  Much of the flesh had rotted from his face, and what remained had dried to something akin to strips of thin, crumbling leather. It was essentially impossible for such a countenance to show a change of expression, but nonetheless, she had the feeling his stained grin stretched wider.

  “Well, obviously,” said the lich. “But if you recognize my name and are familiar with my history, you know death has never prevented me from resuming my sacred task.”

  Iyraclea realized she believed him, for if legend spoke true, Sammaster had indeed fallen only to rise once more, and certainly, the stranger’s wizardry was formidable enough to lend credence to his claim. For an instant, she wondered if she’d made an error by agreeing to confer with him in private, with no guards at hand, then scowled away her misgivings. Her own magic and the favor of Auril would protect her against any menace, even this one.

  “What’s your business in my realm?” she asked.

  “That will take a bit of explaining. Before, I alluded to my work. Do you understand its purpose?”

  “According to the stories, you and your cult seek to create dracoliches, which will then conquer Faerûn and rule forever-more. A truly demented dream, which you’ve failed to realize time and again.”

  He glowered at her with his dry, sunken eyes. “I’ve seen the future, Majesty. It will take the shape I’ve predicted, and sooner rather than later. We stand on the very threshold.”

  “I understand why you think so,” she said. “I have ways of gathering news from distant lands, and I know you and your followers have seized on the current Rage of Dragons as an opportunity. Hoping to produce dracoliches in unprecedented numbers, you’re trying to convince chromatic wyrms to turn undead with the promise it will render them immune to frenzy. Some are heeding you, and you’re laboring frantically to accomplish their transformations before they run amok and kill their own worshipers. Rest assured, the plan, like all your others, will come to nothing in the end. Somehow, the paladins, Harpers, gold dragons, and their ilk have learned of your efforts. One by one, they’re finding and destroying your fellowship’s hidden strongholds.”

  “Not all of them.”

  “Enough, I suspect, and in any case, the Rage must surely end soon. Then most of the chromatics will lose interest in becoming liches. I’m actually surprised they’re interested now. In times past, they’ve embraced frenzy as a natural phase of their existence.”

  “Rest assured, Majesty, you don’t truly comprehend the grand design transforming the world, nor am I free to enlighten you. But I am prepared to strike a bargain.”

  “What sort of bargain?”

  “You’ve jeered at my defeats, but your own career has been less than completely successful. Oh, it started out auspiciously enough. A child in Halruaa—”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Like you, Majesty, I try to stay informed. A child in Halruaa discovers a love of the cold, even though, in those southerly climes, it virtually never is cold. She senses—and adores—the entity who lives behind frigid downpours and chill winds.” Sammaster’s voice took on a bitter edge, as if he was recalling some comparable epiphany from his own life, but one that ultimately led to misery. “She runs away to the mountains to dwell at the highest elevations, but even they aren’t cold enough. So, heeding Auril’s call, she treks north, from one end of Faerûn to the other. The journey takes considerably more than a lifetime, but the Frostmaiden’s generosity preserves her youth like a frozen blossom. Obviously, the goddess has chosen her to accomplish some vital task.

  “When the child—now a child no longer, but a woman three hundred years old, though still vital and fair in appearance—matures into a mighty priestess, Auril reveals the nature of this chore. Our heroine is to establish herself as the tyrant of the Great Glacier, and rule in her deity’s name. In time, she’s also supposed to extend her dominion, and the ice itself, to neighboring lands. To every land, ultimately, if she can manage it. Because that’s Auril’s ‘truly demented dream,’ isn’t it? To me, raising up dracolich kings seems a modest scheme by comparison.”

  “Be warned: You mock the Frostmaiden at your peril.”

  The lich shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Auril is a small goddess in the scheme of things. I’ve spat at bigger ones in my time. But to continue the tale: You set out to conquer the people of the glacier, and enjoyed some initial success. You forced some of the human and frost giant tribes to bow to your authority. But other folk resisted you, and your campaign stalled well short of total victory.”

  Iyraclea scowled. “I’ve only been here a few years. I simply need more time.”

  “Perhaps, but I wonder if Auril is content with your progress. She invested centuries teaching you powerful magic, gave you gelugons to fight on your behalf, and still, it takes you more than a decade to seize control of a sparsely settled wasteland? In her place, I’d be waxing impatient.”

  “Auril loves me!”

  “Interesting. I thought it an axiom of your faith that she doesn’t truly love anyone.”

  Iyraclea had to clamp down on her anger to keep from lashing out at him. “If there’s a point to this prattle, I suggest you make it quickly.”

  “Very well. I’m prepared to loan you a weapon that will bring all your defiant ice dwarves and what-have-you to heel: Dragons.”

  She made a spitting sound. “No, thank you. I already had a pair of wyrms in my service, until they went mad, killed and devoured a number of my finest warriors, and flew off to parts unknown.”

  “But I propose to lend you a whole company of wyrms, guaranteed impervious to frenzy, with a dracolich at their head. They’ll serve you until the Feast of the Moon. Direct them intelligently and that should be plenty of time. In addition, I’ll give you my word that in the Faerûn to come, the undead drakes will leave you and your dominions alone. They’ll have the rest of the world for their empire. They can get along without this one dreary patch of ice.”

  “An interesting offer,” Iyraclea said. “What do you ask in return?”

  “One small service,” said the lich. “Sometime over the course of the next several months, strangers may venture onto the Great Glacier.”

  “What sort of strangers?”

  “I wish I knew. They could be metallic dragons, humans, or almost anything, really. But whatever they are, I need them found and killed.”

  “Why? What’s it all about?”

  “It’s about dragons, Majesty. About you possessing the means to finally satisfy your ambitions and your goddess’s requirements. Do you really need to know more?”


  It only took her a moment to consider. Then: “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

  Over the years, Iyraclea had learned to her cost that ice dwarves were a brave and stubborn folk. Thus, watching from the battlements, she rather relished the sight of the wyrms herding the small, squat, ruddy-skinned prisoners through the gate and into the courtyard. Some of the defeated Inugaakalakurit marched with heads high, clinging to pride even then. Many, however, overwhelmed by the terror wyrms inspired in lesser creatures, cowered and cringed. Likewise enjoying their fear, the whites with their beaked snouts and spiky dewlaps repeatedly executed short, sudden lunges or lifted their claws to make the captives jump.

  But Iyraclea’s amusement turned to anger when one of the wyrms snatched up a screaming dwarf in its jaws, chewed him, and swallowed him down.

  “Stop that!” she shouted. At the same time, she commanded the castle, and a portion of the wall flowed into a moving ramp to deposit her on the ground.

  The dragons loomed over her as they did everyone else, even the gelugons, and their dry, astringent odor pricked her nose. She glared up at Zethrindor.

  If the whites were frightening, their dracolich commander was a stalking nightmare. He was larger than any of the others, and despite the hide hanging loosely in some spots and withered drumhead-tight in others, revealing his gauntness either way, and the slimy rot mottling the ivory, gray, and pale blue scales, his every move bespoke prodigious strength. His scent mingled the harsh smell of a living white with the carrion stink of decay, and his sunken silvery eyes glittered with a scalpel-sharp intelligence his subordinates generally lacked. Those eyes peered back at her with unconcealed dislike.

  “Control your underlings,” she said. “Unless the prisoners resist, they’re not to be harmed.”

  Zethrindor sneered. “We’ve stuffed your castle full of hostages. What’s one dwarf more or less? His kin back in his village won’t know Ssalangan had him for a snack.”

  “You’ll do it,” Iyraclea said, “because I tell you to.” She commanded the walls surrounding the courtyards, and they groaned and grated, shifting slightly, dropping pellets of rime, reminding Zethrindor of their ability to reconfigure themselves into any deadly shape required. Some of the younger whites glanced about uneasily.