The Ruin Page 12
Zethrindor tossed his wings in a shrug. “You’re not a dracolich.”
“And only they will reign. Except that’s Sammaster’s stipulation, not yours, and brings us back to the question of who will really make the decisions.”
“Well, I suppose that if you proved exceptionally useful, you might find a role as a king’s most trusted officer, or even the master of some small principality all your own.” But not, Zethrindor thought, if he had anything to say about it. Brimstone impressed him as far too wily and ambitious to trust in such a role. Still, why not feign willingness to consider such a concession, and find out what the vampire had to offer in return?
“Thank you, High Lord, that’s all I desire. I mentioned that my worthless companions had come to grief. In fact, their current predicament came about as a direct result of Iyraclea’s covenant with Sammaster. In exchange for your services, she promised to kill any strangers found wandering on the Great Glacier. It was the wizard’s ploy to keep his enemies away from the ruin he’d discovered, a site somewhere in the Novularond Mountains.”
Zethrindor cocked his head. “Sammaster underestimated Iyraclea if he imagined she’d keep such a pledge without trying to find out why it mattered to him.”
“How true. But as you’ve surely noticed, he is deranged, and such folk, no matter how clever, inevitably make mistakes. At any rate, instead of killing my allies, Iyraclea captured them and put them to the question. Soon enough, they broke and divulged what they knew, with the result that the Ice Queen herself now seeks Sammaster’s hidden lair in hopes of mastering the power there.
“As you can imagine, I don’t want her to control it, either. Dragons must have it, to guarantee our supremacy in the days to come. But I know my limitations. I don’t have the strength to confront Auril’s high priestess, gelugons, and frost giants all by myself. But a dracolich leading a flight of whites could do it.”
Zethrindor scowled, pondering.
He was far too wise to take everything Brimstone said at face value. The threat of a magic potent enough to grind all dracoliches into subservience seemed particularly farfetched. Yet aspects of the vampire’s story dovetailed neatly with his own suspicions of Sammaster and Iyraclea. It explained why the dead man had urged him to serve the tyrant of an under-populated wilderness, and why the Ice Queen had deemed it expedient to send every last wyrm off the glacier.
If some great power lay hidden in the Novularonds, Zethrindor wanted it, and not for the benefit of dragons in general, either, but to assure the ascendance of a single wyrm: himself.
The drawback was, his army would have to get along without its commander and the rest of the whites and ice drakes for a time, but their position was strong enough that they shouldn’t get into any calamitous trouble. Since the tundra landwyrms couldn’t fly, his troops would even have some dragons remaining to deter the enemy from attempting anything too ambitious.
“All right,” said the dracolich, “we’ll go. Rest assured, I’ll reward you if the journey proves worthwhile, and destroy you otherwise.”
“Fair enough. How soon can we depart? You understand, I can only travel by night.”
Teeth clenched, body trembling, Raryn heaved the oblong boulder over his head, and onlookers cried out in triumph, or cursed and moaned in dismay, depending on how they’d bet. Taegan, who’d arrived too late to place a wager, simply marveled. One expected such feats from Dorn, with his hulking frame and oversized iron limbs, but it seemed miraculous that the squat little dwarf could be so strong.
Raryn tossed away the stone, and it thudded down on the icy ground. Victorious human barbarians and frost giants congratulated him, clasping his hand and pounding his massive shoulders, and collected their winnings, mostly in the form of amber beads and ivory scrimshaw, from the losers.
Farther up the trail, Iyraclea, clad in her gauzy white gown, gave the order to form up. Grumbling, folk clambered to their feet, shouldered their packs, and the column tramped on up the steep, slippery path.
Like Jivex, who, scales flashing rainbows, was flitting about gobbling the insects which apparently thrived in all climes, even those as inhospitable as the Novularonds, Taegan had no need to hike. Rather to his surprise, the Ice Queen had given him permission to use his wings, with the understanding that if he tried to flee, both he and his friends would suffer for it.
He spread his pinions, then noticed how Raryn’s mask of hearty good fellowship had dropped away. The dwarf’s ruddy, white-bearded face wore a somber frown.
Taegan suspected he knew what the problem was. He refolded his wings and tramped closer to the hunter, so they could have a private conversation as they climbed. In theory, the seekers were Iyraclea’s “honored guests,” but even so, at the start of their journey, their captors would have moved to break up any such exchange, for fear the outlanders were plotting mischief.
Accordingly, the prisoners had worked to ingratiate themselves with Iyraclea’s minions and so defuse their suspicions. Kara regaled them with songs, jokes, and stories. Jivex created amusing illusions. Pavel used his prayers to conjure food and cure fevers. Dorn, Will, and Raryn helped scout, forage, and track game; or performed stunts for their fellow wayfarers to bet on.
None of it changed the attitude of the vicious gelugons, or the silent, emotionless ice wizards. But gradually, the human tribesmen and even the brutish giants relaxed their vigilance.
Though unfortunately, not enough to return the prisoners’ weapons. Will had attempted to remedy the lack by pilfering items their captors were unlikely to miss. One of the frost giants, for example, had packed an extra head for his ponderous spear. Taegan carried the double-edged length of iron tucked in his boot to serve as a makeshift dagger.
“I know how you feel,” he murmured.
“I’m all right,” Raryn said.
“I understand what it is to be ashamed of one’s own people.”
“Well, it’s new to me. I was proud to be Inugaakalakurit. Yet my own village—my own brother!—betrayed us.”
“I confess, I wasn’t entirely pleased about it, either. But I daresay they believed they had no choice. Consider the Icy Claws. You and I have overcome our share of perils, but I can’t even look at the things without my bowels turning to water. Your people had to contend with the baatezu, dragons, and Iyraclea’s magic and seizing of hostages. I’m not ready to pardon their treachery, but I do comprehend it.”
Raryn sighed. “Maybe the one I should really hate is the Ice Queen, for oppressing them and breaking their spirit, and I do. But the person I’m most disgusted with is me. I promised to keep the rest of you safe, and instead I marched you straight into disaster.”
“No one could have foreseen what happened.”
“I should have. I should have sensed that the glacier had changed since my younger days. The signs were surely there, if only I’d had the wit to notice. A ranger knows, they’re always there.”
“Nonsense. The place was a desolate slab of ice when you left, and the same when you returned. Unless we’d happened upon a troop of gelugons playing hide-the-cherry, what could possibly have alerted you?”
Half hidden behind his shaggy moustache, Raryn’s lips quirked upward. “Well … nothing, maybe. So I suppose I should stop rebuking myself and concentrate on the work that lies ahead.”
“That’s the Raryn we toast with brimming cups.” Taegan grinned. “Of course, it would help to know exactly what form said work will take. Is it actually feasible to work with Iyraclea?”
“Maybe. She truly does seem to want to thwart Sammaster. But never trust her. Do you know, she tried to turn Pavel into one of her ice men, and unlike the wizards, he wouldn’t even have been of any particular use to her afterwards. The transformation would have broken his bond to the Morninglord and cost him his magic. She attempted it out of simple cruelty, or just so her goddess could score a petty victory over the power who’s her opposite.”
“Believe it or not, I’d already discerned that she lac
ks a certain generosity of spirit. But if she shares our disinclination to see crazed dragons and dracoliches overrun the world….”
Taegan realized Raryn had stopped listening. Instead, the dwarf peered upward, his face intent. His nostrils flared as if he were a hound taking a scent.
“What is it?” Taegan asked
“The air’s getting warmer,” Raryn said, “and I can smell living plants.”
“High above the glacier amid these freezing winds? That suggests some sort of enchantment is active hereabouts.”
“I imagine so. Which means we’d better make up our minds about Iyraclea fast, because it looks like we’ve found the heart of the Rage.”
The Ice Queen must have thought the same thing, because she exhorted her followers to hurry on toward the mountaintop. Before long, Taegan too could feel the slope growing warmer, until he had to start opening his heavy garments for comfort’s sake. Snow, ice, and bare, frozen earth and rock gave way to moss, grass, and shrubs. The human tribesmen gazed at the greenery in wonder alloyed with mistrust. The huge frost giants, virtually born of cold and possessed of a total affinity with it, sneered and spat.
It seemed likely Iyraclea felt the same, but if so, her eagerness for discovery masked the underlying distaste. “What are you waiting for?” she cried. “Scout ahead!”
The Icy Claws vanished, transporting themselves through space, reappearing moments later to report to their mistress in their rasping, infernal tongue.
“Pardon me,” Taegan said.
Eager to see what the ice devils had found, he lashed his pinions and leaped into the air. Silvery butterfly wings a blur, Jivex streaked upward to accompany him. They flew high to obtain a panoramic view of that which awaited them, and it made Taegan catch his breath. The mountaintop was hollow like a bowl, and inside gleamed a castle, or perhaps something more accurately described as a small walled town.
The avariel had only seen an elven city once before, in the dream Amra conjured in the Gray Forest, and the long-vanished inhabitants had shaped that glorious place from living trees. In contrast, the builders of the citadel below had worked in granite and marble, but their deceptively delicate-looking spires and battlements, simple and intricate by turns, embodied a similar aesthetic and achieved a comparable beauty. They’d shared the woodland elves’ fondness for broad, straight boulevards and had evidently loved gardens as well. With no one to tend them, the lawns and flowerbeds had surrendered to tangled brush and weeds, but grown mighty with the passing ages, the weir trees had flourished. Autumn had begun stripping them of their foliage, and their leaves blew rustling through the vacant streets.
“Curse it,” sighed Taegan, addressing the remark to all his fellow avariels, “see what splendor elves create. Everyone but us.”
Jivex wheeled past him. “Come on!” the faerie dragon said. “What are you waiting for? Let’s find the heart of the Rage and finish up.”
As they all searched the crumbling citadel, forcing warped doors, prowling through dusty, echoing rooms, climbing spiraling stairs to the tops of watchtowers and groping their way down into lightless cellars, Dorn stuck close to Kara. Sammaster had left traps at key points along his trail of discovery, and it seemed likely he’d prepared something particularly nasty at the end.
Dorn wished the bard could shift to dragon form, for she was vulnerable as any other woman in her current shape. But he understood the wisdom of concealing her true nature from Iyraclea and the priestess’s retainers, including the paunchy, saggy-bosomed, blue-haired female frost giant tramping along behind them, ostensibly to assist in their efforts but most likely to keep an eye on them as well. Iyraclea had probably decided it did no harm to slacken the prisoners’ reins while everyone stayed together, but more vigilance was required when the expedition split up.
Fortunately, the giantess’s bulk kept her from squeezing through the smaller spaces, and it was there Dorn and Kara could confer in private, so long as they kept their voices down. Standing in the dark, empty bedroom at the rear of some long-dead dignitary’s apartments, the bard shook her head.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “We’ve been searching for hours and haven’t found anything.”
Dorn shrugged. “It took days to search Northkeep.”
“Then, there were only a few of us, and we were working underwater.”
“Is it possible we don’t recognize the … contrivance that makes the Rage when we see it?”
Kara brushed a stray strand of moon-blond hair away from her face. “It is possible, but I doubt it. In magic, appearance often supports reality. An enchanter puts on an impressive display to create a powerful effect. Thus, I’d expect the source of the Rage to be imposing, awe-inspiring, not some funny little knickknack in a drawer. There’s another consideration as well.”
“What?”
“You know that even with the proper ward in place, I still feel frenzy gnawing at my mind.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I expected that in close proximity to the source of the sickness, I’d suddenly find it harder to bear, but I haven’t. It’s as bad as before, but no worse.”
“Then this is the wrong place?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. The corpse tearer was right, elves did build it, far from their usual haunts. You can see their sensibilities reflected in every line. They surely had a reason. But—”
Muffled by the walls of the building, a trumpet blared. Other horns echoed the call.
“Out!” bellowed the giantess, her deep, heavily accented attempt at Common Tongue only barely intelligible. “Come out! Queen wants us!”
Dorn suspected it wasn’t for anything good. He used his fingers of flesh and bone to take Kara’s hand, then led her out under a blackening sky, where the first stars were already shining.
In the citadel, the largest thoroughfares radiated from a central hub. This nexus was a circular expanse paved with a dark green stone like malachite, each hexagonal flag inscribed with a character from an alphabet Dorn didn’t recognize, and it was there Iyraclea had decided the expedition would rendezvous. By the time Dorn, Kara, and their lumbering, malodorous escort arrived, the last purple traces of sunset had vanished from the western sky. With all the ghost-pale gelugons, giants, and ice wizards prowling about in the gloom, the plaza resembled a scene from a nightmare, or a vision of one of the Hells.
Yet despite her flawless beauty, and her diminutive stature compared to many of her monstrous servants, the most frightening entity present was Iyraclea herself. Ensconced on an elevated throne she’d evidently shaped from conjured ice, she radiated power and displeasure.
“Well?” she demanded. “Has anyone found anything?”
“Not yet, Your Majesty,” Kara said. “But we’ve been at it less than a day.”
“I have Auril’s sacred rituals to perform,” the Ice Queen replied, “a realm to rule, and a war to oversee. My time is precious, and if it turns out you’ve wasted it, you and your friends will suffer.”
“I told you the truth,” said Pavel, standing between a barbarian warrior and Will. “About Sammaster, the Rage, and all the rest of it. What would have been the point of lying?”
“I don’t know,” Iyraclea said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“August and radiant queen,” said Taegan, “the ancient elves enchanted this stronghold to keep the weather clement, and thousands of years later, the charm still holds the mountain’s chill at bay. Wise as you are, surely you understand the builders wouldn’t have lavished such powerful magic on the fortress unless the place was important. We may prove unable to unravel its secrets, but I know others who can, the learned sages who’ve pondered these mysteries for months. Please, allow me to fetch them.”
“That’s out of the question!” Iyraclea snapped. “Pavel said you and your friends possess the knowledge to solve the puzzle. That’s the reason I dealt with you mercifully. Now you’d better hope your own wits are equal to the task.”
Kara stiffened, and her fingers clamped tight on Dorn’s. She turned to him, then, evidently recalling the hostile folk standing all around, quickly masked all traces of her excitement. Apparently she’d realized something important, and for whatever reason, had decided it was something she wouldn’t divulge to the Ice Queen unless the tyrant left her no alternative.
Unfortunately, it seemed likely that was exactly what would happen. Distracted, Dorn had missed the last few words of the conversation, but he took up the thread:
“… give you tonight and tomorrow,” Iyraclea said. “But then, come midnight, and every midnight after, I’ll offer one of you to the Cold Goddess. Starting with the halfling, I believe.” She sneered. “I’ve taken your measure, Wilimac Turnstone, and I very much doubt you’re scholar enough to contribute much to our efforts.”
Kara gave Dorn’s hand another squeeze, as if to reassure him that, one way or another, Iyraclea’s threat would never come to pass. Will, meanwhile, offered the priestess a grin. “Now that’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “I’m the clever one. The charlatan’s the dolt. That’s the pox for you. It rots the brain.”
Iyraclea scowled. “All of you, resume the search!”
The gathering started to disperse. Intensely curious, Dorn looked forward to the moment when Kara could confide in him. Unfortunately, with the giantess once again slouching along in their wake, he supposed he’d have to wait a little while longer.
Enormous shadows swept across the ground, and something hissed and rustled overhead. Dorn looked up. Pale jagged shapes flapped and glided down from the heavens, as if the moon had shattered into pieces. Some of the white dragons and ice drakes—smaller than their companions but still big as a hay wagon and the team drawing it, with short, thick legs and wide, flat tails—lit on the ground. Others perched on battlements and rooftops. The reptiles’ sharp, dry odor suffused the air.