Diero shook his head. “No. I insist you release me.”
“To Baator with that,” Anton snapped. “You claim you can last under torture? I doubt it. I doubt you can take much pain at all.”
Quick as a striking snake, he grabbed Diero’s broken fingers in his own and bore down hard. The agony dropped the magician to his knees.
“All right!” he sobbed. “All right! We have a bargain.”
“Good.” Anton shifted his grip to Diero’s forearm and dragged him back to his feet. “Drink some more water then tell us what we need to know.”
‹§›SSSS-SSSSSSSS
Anton found Diero a chair. In his weakened condition, the wizard might have fainted if required to remain on his feet much longer.
After that, Tu’ala’keth brought him the enchanted articles one at a time. She didn’t permit him to touch them, and Anton hovered behind him with a dagger in hand. In his experience, magicians were always dangerous, even when placed at a disadvantage.
It was difficult to remain vigilant, though, when Diero’s explanations were so intriguing, so promising. Some of the weapons possessed virtues enabling them to strike dragons with extraordinary force and precision. Scrolls contained spells to soften their scaly armor, blind them to the presence of their foes, addle their minds, or render the caster impervious to their breath. Shields and coats of mail possessed magics to fortify them against the bite of a wyrm or a swipe of its talons.
“Checkmate’s edge,” Anton exclaimed at length. “I suppose this is what we were hoping for, but I don’t understand it. I thought you cultists served the wyrms. Why did you stockpile arms specifically intended for use against them?”
Diero smiled a crooked smile. “We didn’t. Not as such. At its higher levels, the Cult of the Dragon is a fellowship of wizards and priestswhich is to say, scholarswho venerate wyrms. When scholars take an interest in a subject, they want to study it and learn all about it, and one way to study dragons is to examine artifacts that pertain to them. So, over the decades, our cabal assembled an extensive collection of such thingsincluding dragon banes.
“In addition to those,” the mage continued, “you have the items from Eshcaz’s horde. Before we mages woke him, he slept for so many human generations that most folk have forgotten him. But prior to that, he was the terror of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Armed with the finest gear desperate princes and hierarchs could provide, heroes used to challenge him on a regular basis. Obviously, after he killed them, he added their swords and staves to his treasure.”
Anton shook his head to think he’d helped to slay not just a dragon, but a legendary one. It was the kind of thing a paladin in an epic might have done.
But of course he wasn’t a paladin, and Tu’ala’keth and the rest of the sea folk had done the bulk of the slaying. He’d just landed a couple of cuts toward the end. With a snort, he resolved to put such fancies out of his head and focus on the matter at hand.
Which was to say, on a prospect that seemed brighter than he’d imagined possible before. He grinned at Tu’ala’keth. “Well, may the gods bless madmen and dragons both for hoarding because this means you’ve succeeded. You can use the blades and such to save Seros.”
The shalarin declined to enthuse along with him. The narrow face behind the inky goggles remained as dour as before. “No. They will be useful, but by themselves, insufficient.”
“You’re joking. I realize some of the items may not work underwater. But many will.”
“You have not have seen the dragon flight. Nor have I, but I have heard it described by survivors. There are dozens of wyrms. If my people are no stand against them, we need something more.”
Anton returned his attention to Diero. “Well,” he said, “you heard her.”
“Yes,” the wearer of purple replied, “but I don’t know what else to tell you. These are the weapons and talismans that were kept here. You found them all, and now know how to use them. I suppose I could give you some pointers on wyrm anatomy and how they tend to move in combat, but that wouldn’t be sufficient either.”
Anton placed the edge of his knife against the magician’s neck. “If you can’t help Tu’ala’keth enough for it to matter, you’re not going to make it back to Turmish.”
The touch of the blade made Diero stiffen, but when he answered, his voice was steady. “Break your word, slit my throat if you want, but I’m not holding back. Haven’t you realized I’m not one of the zealots? I joined the cult to further my ambitions, and I’d gladly betray it to save my life. That’s exactly what I have been doing.”
“All right,” Anton said. “In that case you need to tell us all you can about dragons and everything related to them.” He was hoping that maybe, just maybe, the magician actually did possess the key to destroying the dragon flight but simply didn’t realize it.
“You understand it’ll take a while.”
“Then you’d better get started.”
As Diero had warned, he talked through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Anton found parts of the discoursewhere to strike to cripple a dragon’s wing, for example, or what sort of fortifications were of actual use against a gigantic reptile that could fly-fascinating. But once the cultist ventured into genuine esotericasuch as the link between wyrms and various elemental forces of the cosmoshe simply couldn’t follow it. His own petty, intuitive knack for sorcery notwithstanding, he lacked the necessary education.
He could only hope Tu’ala’keth would pluck something useful from all the babble.
In the end his mind drifted. When Diero finally said something that tugged at his attention, he didn’t even realize for a while, and wasn’t certain what he’d truly heard.
“Go back,” he said.
“How far?” Diero replied, hoarse again from so much talking.
“You were explaining how to turn dragons into dracoliches.”
“Right. The details vary from one stronghold to the next, depending on which deities the priests serve, the particular strengths and conjuring styles of the wizards, and what have you. But in its essentials, the process is always the same. Artisans craft phylacteries, amulets of precious stones and metals, which the spellcasters enchant in a series of rituals. Even I can’t recite all the incantations from memory, but you have the texts in that purple-bound volume on the table. Meanwhile, the alchemists and apothecaries distill a special libation in a process just as magical and complex. When both elements are ready, the wyrm can transform. At the climax of a final ceremony, it drinks the elixir. That frees its soul to leap from its body into the medallion, establishing a mystical bond that will safeguard its existence thereafter. Unless someone destroys the phylactery, the dragon can never truly perish. Then, having ensured its immortality, the spirit returns to its body, which rises as one of the undead.”
“So what you’re telling us,” Anton said slowly, “is that basically, the drink is a poison? It kills the wyrms, and that’s what ‘frees’ their spirits?”
“Well… yes. Though we don’t usually put it that way. It’s difficult enough to win and keep the dragons’ trust without bandying words like ‘poison’ and ‘kill’ about.”
“Despite their heartiness, it slays them every time without fail?”
“Yes. A single drop of it would kill almost anything, but the formula was especially devised to stop a dragon’s heart.”
“What if a wyrm drank some when there was no ritual going on and no amulet for its spirit to inhabit?
“Why, it would die, pure and simple.” Diero smiled like a man who’d begun to believe his captors might permit him to live after all. “Let me anticipate your next questions. Yes, we brewed a supply of the stuff here on Tan, and yes, it’s ready for use.”