After a time, Sir George began to approach the gateway very slowly and cautiously, extending his right arm before him as if he were feeling his way with his only remaining hand. Just as he was about to step within the darkness of the gate, some unseen force seemed to suddenly take hold of him and draw him sharply forward. He struggled against the force, only managing to break its hold with considerable effort, so that he was thrown backward into the deep grass. Once he was on the ground, he was content to remain there, rolling over quickly and covering his head. In the next instant, a great flash of flame shot out from the gateway, the edges of the fire curling upward into the branches of the broad oak. Fortunately the tree was too green to burn easily, although it would have soon gone up in a great bloom of flame if Thelvyn hadn't used a spell to suppress the fires licking at the ends of the branches.
"That appears to have been the only trap," Sir George declared, picking himself up and walking back to the center of the gateway. "It's safe to enter now."
True to his word, he stepped into the worldgate and allowed the mysterious force to draw him into the darkness.
Thelvyn muttered an oath under his breath and leaped into the gateway, fearful of what the old knight might face alone. That same force lifted him up and drew him swiftly forward. The sensation was so much like flying that he had to resist the instinct to spread his wings to steady himself. A moment later the darkness drew away, and he found himself in a place utterly different from the one he had left. He stepped aside quickly to allow Kharendaen to come through behind him before he dared to look about.
Only moments earlier he had been standing in the deep forest on a gentle spring morning. Now he stood in a land of harsh, barren stones beneath a night sky. A cold wind swept sheets of stinging desert sand along the ground. He seemed to be standing amid boulders and deep ravines near the rugged shore of some great lake surrounded by sharp, towering peaks and ridges of lifeless mountains. Farther along the rocky shore, perhaps three miles from where he stood, stood the dark, imposing bulk of a fortress of great size, a shadowy collection of high walls and towers that was nearly as large as a town. It was perched atop a high bluff overlooking the lake.
Surely this must be the stronghold of the Fire Wizards of the Flaem. And it seemed that the traitor wizards must be at home, for a few pale lights could be seen in the distant windows. Thelvyn noticed something odd about the lake below the cliffs that supported the dark walls of the fortress. The high waves seemed frozen in place, just as they were about to crest. He saw that the waves were in fact dunes of dull gray sand, partly hidden within a fog of wind-blown dust.
Kharendaen moved close to his side and rubbed her cheek lightly against the side of his long neck. She had in the past remained calm and brave in the face of many dangers they had shared, but this barren land was so hostile that even she found it disquieting. The cold wind whipped around them once again, so that they had to lift their heads above the sheets of blowing sand. Sir George had to climb back into his saddle to escape the worst of it.
"At least we won't have to worry where we left the gate," he said, looking back at the great archway of stone that framed the worldgate. Thelvyn released his will, permitting the gateway to close.
"My powers as a cleric have left me," Kharendaen warned her companions. "I am too far removed from the influence of the Great One."
"I don't feel any different," Thelvyn said, testing his own abilities just to be certain.
"Your powers do not come from the Great One," she explained. "They are your own. Of course, as a dragon, I also command the magic of a sorceress, and to a fairly high degree. Just the same, I fear that you alone might be able to defend us from hostile magic."
"Can we be done with this?" Sir George asked impatiently. "You armor-plated lizards might not mind this sand and cold wind, but I'm not having a very good time. Let's rout those wizards so that we can be back in Braejr in time for dinner."
Routing the Fire Wizards did indeed seem like a very good idea, although Thelvyn lacked his old friend's confidence that things would be so easy. The defenders of the dark fortress probably would have been alerted to anyone coming through their worldgate, especially since Sir George had sprung their trap. The two dragons could have simply flown to the fortress in a direct assault, but they agreed that it was best not to take for granted Alessa Vyledaar's assumption that the stronghold was probably poorly defended. They preferred that any battle be as much as possible on their own terms.
Rather than fly to the distant fortress, they elected to walk, keeping themselves hidden as much as possible in the deep shadows of the ravines and large boulders.
While it was obvious that Sir George cared nothing for the local climate, the wind-driven sand got in the large eyes and ears of the dragons, and they wanted to be done with their quest and leave this place. The land was barren and lifeless, and Thelvyn could hardly imagine the Flaem living in such a desolate place. He wondered if this fierce sandstorm was a rare event or an everyday occurrence.
Suddenly a crushing blow caught Thelvyn in the chest just below his neck, hurtling him over backward into the sand with tremendous force. He had barely caught a glimpse of his attacker, a dark shape that had suddenly leapt out at him from the shadows of a large boulder. Powerful claws caught his own wrists and forced apart his arms while the weight of his adversary held him to the ground. Jaws closed with crushing force on his neck, preventing him from recovering the breath that had been knocked out of him. He had been caught by the only enemy he had not expected to face in this place, for he had seen just enough to know that his attacker was a dragon.
Thelvyn was desperate, yet he was unable to defend himself. He would have surely been dead in a moment, but his opponent had apparently assumed he was alone. Having overcome her own brief moment of surprise, Kharendaen spun around quickly, and the whipping end of her tail caught the strange dragon hard in the side of the face. Alarmed and half stunned by the blow, the dragon released its hold on Thelvyn's neck and drew back, bracing its legs and arching its back as it snarled in rage. But Kharendaen was ready, having spun completely around so that she once again faced the enemy dragon. She caught it with a tremendous blast of flames.
Although he was still panting for breath, Thelvyn seized the opportunity to struggle to his feet. He turned to face their attacker. Although the strange dragon did not seem to have been harmed by Kharendaen's fiery breath, it was still shaken from the blow with her tail and decided that it had had enough. Obviously it had never expected to face two dragons. It turned and ran, leaping across the windswept stones toward the fortress. When it was sure that they were not following, it paused at the top of a hill and turned back, watching them.
"A dragon," Thelvyn panted at last. "Has someone gotten to the collar before us?"
"That is no dragon of our world," Kharendaen said firmly.
She paused and stared as three more dragons suddenly leapt over the top of the hill, and now all four stood in a line, their forms dimly outlined against the dark sky. Then they charged forward, rushing across the stony ground and scattering great clouds of sand from the drifts that had gathered in the lee of the boulders. Thelvyn and Kharendaen turned and ran as fast as they could back toward the worldgate.
"Stay in our tracks," Thelvyn warned as they ran, careful that he did not speak loud enough to be overheard by their pursuers. "If we can lose sight of them, they might follow our tracks the other way and lose us."
They ran as fast as they could, though running was far less natural to a dragon than flight. Within a minute, they came to a ravine that Thelvyn recalled passing through earlier. He stopped suddenly when he saw a deep recess in the wall of dull gray stone to his left, and Kharendaen nearly ran into him from behind. He pushed her desperately in the direction of the dark opening, although she acted confused.