Flying beneath the dragon seemed to take forever. He passed between her first set of legs without incident, for Nalavara was still smacking her jaws and did not yet realize she had missed him. Her scales were the size of tournament shields and as thick as doors, and when Vangerdahast came to her abdomen, the heat of the fire burning in her belly was enough to sear his flesh. Had he spread his arms and held the staff out to its full length, he would not have spanned half the breadth of her body. As he passed beneath her wings, the turbulence nearly knocked him from the air, then a pair of taloned feet appeared in the light, reaching forward out of the darkness to slash at him blindly. He steered dead center between the huge claws and still had an arm’s length to each side.
Knowing better than to risk her thrashing tail, Vangerdahast plunged groundward and turned toward the narrow passage by which he and Rowen had entered the chamber. If he could lure her out of the cavern, he would send his counterfeit scepter streaking off on its own and teleport back to recover the real one.
Nalavara wheeled around, glancing off the wall and filling the cavern with an enormous crash. Knowing his light spell would draw her eye like a beacon, Vangerdahast dropped to within a foot of the iron scarecrows, making wide erratic turns in both directions. The ploy failed miserably. As he neared his goal, a stream of fire shot past overhead and filled his escape tunnel, forcing him to dodge to one side and duck into a nearby hole.
For a moment, Vangerdahast dared hope it would not matter. The passage was as narrow as the first and packed even more densely with the same iron scarecrows. He streaked twenty paces forward-then was forced to pull up short when he came to a gray dead end.
The ground rumbled, and the wizard knew Nalavara had landed behind him. He dropped down among the iron scarecrows and jerked one out of its base, then thrust it toward the entrance and began a spell.
Vangerdahast had barely started the incantation before Nalavara’s snout blocked the mouth of the passage, her nostrils already boiling with fire. He rattled off the final syllables, sighed in relief as a thick wall of iron sprang up before him-then shrank away as the dragon’s fiery breath crashed into his magic barrier.
The roar continued for what seemed like several minutes. An orange circle appeared in the middle of the wall and slowly spread outward, pouring so much heat into the tunnel Vangerdahast thought he would burst into flames. The iron began to melt and drip out, and long tongues of flame poured through the hole, licking at the tunnel’s end and turning the bauble racks white with heat. Vangerdahast pressed himself to the side of the passage and crept closer to the iron wall, where he would be more sheltered from the flames.
Finally, Nalavara’s breath gave out, leaving a huge circle of white-hot iron between the wizard and his foe. He remained pressed against the wall, confident as ever that he would survive but trying desperately to find some way to turn this to his advantage.
“Sir Magician?” rumbled Nalavara’s voice.
Vangerdahast thought about remaining silent, then decided he would be better served by confidence. He took a deep breath and stepped in front of the hole.
“Still here, Nalavarauthatoryl.” He tipped the counterfeit Scepter of Lords briefly into view. “I understand you have been looking for this? Feel free to come and get it.”
A ghastly chuckle rumbled through the cavern outside, then Nalavara tipped her head, blocking the mouth of the passage with one of her huge eyes.
“I think not, wizard. You have proven more… challenging than I thought.”
“Shall I take that as a compliment?” Vangerdahast asked. Seeing no sense in allowing his foe more of a chance than necessary, he tipped the scepter out of sight. “Or have you decided to surrender?”
Again, Nalavara chuckled. “You are not that stupid. But you are dissatisfied. I could satisfy you.”
“I trust your proposition is not a carnal one?”
“Hardly. You know what I have planned for Cormyr, so your dream of ruling that particular realm is impossible.”
“I see you have been eavesdropping.”
“More than you know, wizard.” Nalavara’s eye was replaced by a half open mouth filled with teeth as tall as men. “But there will be a realm left when I am through-a realm free of men but in need of a ruler nonetheless.”
“How very generous of you,” Vangerdahast said. “So you intend to give Cormyr to a bunch of goblins? No wonder Iliphar’s ghost rose against you.”
“The Grodd will defend the Wolf Woods!” Nalavara hissed. “They will not yield it to a band of murdering humans.” Her voice grew calmer. “And you… you will be their ruler.”
“I will?”
“If you give me the scepter.”
“And if I don’t think that’s a very good idea?” Vangerdahast asked.
“Then destroy it yourself.” The dragon lowered her eye, again blocking the passage. “It is all the same to me.”
“All I need do is pick up the iron crown?”
“It is waiting for you in the palace,” Nalavara said. “Wear it, and you are master of your own kingdom.”
“A kingdom of goblins?” Vangerdahast stepped back behind the iron wall. “I think not.”
Nalavara remained ominously silent. Vangerdahast closed his eyes and pictured himself standing beside the pit where he had left Rowen, then hissed his teleport spell. There was that instant of colorless, timeless falling, then he found himself lying on his side gasping for breath, staring up into a dark fissure between two teeth the size of wagon wheels. In his teleport afterdaze, he could not imagine how he had managed to shrink himself to the size of a rat and end up in a terrier’s mouth.
“Magic? With me here?” rumbled a deep voice. “You are not as smart as I thought.”
Finally recalling the situation, and recognizing by the scaly lip above what had happened, Vangerdahast smashed the golden scepter against the dragon’s teeth.
The staff broke in two, and Nalavara flinched, jerking her head around and flinging the wizard across the dark chamber. He crashed down among the iron scarecrows, then rolled to a painful halt and found himself staring at his hand, watching the glow fade from the stump of a broken little thigh bone. Though recovered enough from his teleport afterdaze to recall that the scepter in his hand had been counterfeit, he couldn’t think of why he should be holding a goblin’s femur.
Nalavara’s head swung in his direction, then disappeared from sight as she spat out the top half of the thigh bone. “Fraud!”
Vangerdahast rolled away before the stub could strike him, then found his escape blocked by a dozen iron scarecrows and began to think the situation more serious than he had imagined.
“Rowen?” he called. “Help?”
A bolt of lightning crackled up from the opposite side of Nalavara and silhouetted her immense snout against the black vastness. Her head swung away and disappeared into the darkness. There was a booming crack as her jaws came together, and Rowen howled in agony.
Vangerdahast knew what he had to do. “I wish Nalavara out of existence!” he cried, rubbing his ring of wishes. “I wish Nalavarauthatoryl the Red out of existence! I wish Lorelei Alavara out of existence!”
The cavern went suddenly quiet, then a familiar flickering glow began to illuminate the scarecrows fifty paces distant.
“Rowen?” Vangerdahast called.
“Aye, wizard, it’s me.” The ghazneth stood and tried to walk, then doubled over backward and collapsed. “But why in the Thousand Hells did you not make your wish before she bit me in two?”
18
“Very good progress, Your Majesty,” Warden Huntsilver confirmed. “We can judge how far we’ve come by certain trees that mark the distance along the trail. There’s one of them: Velaeror’s Oak, named for the swordcaptain buried there, after his valiant death fighting brigands, by your great, great-“