The lady Meinor gasped, and Mik felt something wriggling under one of his arms. “Tempest’s leech!” he called to Trip. “It’s at the base of her spine!”
“No!” Karista screamed. “You’ll not have it!”
“I could use some help here, Trip,” Mik said. He tumbled across the rain-drenched flagstones with her, tearing at the leech but getting no good purchase. Karista’s blouse tore at the back, revealing the writhing, slimy parasite.
Trip struggled to this feet, but a wave broke over him and swept the kender underwater once more.
Mik clung desperately to Karista. Madness reigned in the aristocrat’s steely eyes. She drew power from the key, increasing her strength. Mik tried to turn his sword on her, but she slapped it from his hand. The scimitar skidded across the landing and came to rest against a pillar.
Grappling together, Mik and Karista rolled across the water-drenched plaza. Mik’s head cracked against a pillar near the stairs, and lights burst before his eyes.
Cackling gleefully, Karista raised the faintly glowing key high to smash it down upon Mik’s unprotected skull.
Then Trip burst from the water below. His prodigious, dolphinlike leap carried him up the steps to the landing where the aristocrat sat astride the sailor. The kender’s daggers flashed, and Karista lurched away from Mik, screaming.
She landed hard on her hack, and the key to the Temple of the Sky skidded out of her hands. The Turbidus leech that had controlled her wriggled on the wet paving stones; Trip had sliced it in two. Both halves of the foul creature flopped around for a moment before finally lying still.
Trip had no time to rejoice in his victory. The kender’s momentum carried him past his foe and into the pillars at the landing’s edge. He slammed up against them, and the breath rushed out of his lungs.
Karista lay on the marble flagstones and moaned as though waking from a long nightmare.
Mik blinked the rain out of his eyes and tried to regain his bearings as the bejeweled key slid across the plaza toward the silver stairs. Just as it reached the edge, Mog leaped from below and seized it.
The dragonspawn’s baleful eyes flashed across the stunned mariner and the groggy kender. Then-without even a glance at Karista-he crossed the plaza and loped up the final stairs leading to the temple.
Mik cursed and rose to his feet. A pounding, roaring sound filled his ears, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the storm, the surf, or the blow to his head. He retrieved his scimitar and climbed after Mog just as Lord Kell staggered out of the surf behind him.
Kell spotted Karista, lying half-conscious on the flagstones, and knelt down beside her barely conscious form. “Why?” he asked.
“It was the leech,” Trip explained, getting up slowly. The kender slogged across the plaza toward the stairs, his cloak dragging behind him like a huge, clumsy tail. “The dragon was controlling her.”
As the kender plodded up the stairs to help Mik, Kell took Karista in his arms. The brass lord brushed her rain-soaked hair from her face and gazed into her eyes. She smiled weakly at him.
Mog mounted the final stair and reached the temple. The key in the dragonspawn’s hand glowed brightly. Small bolts of lightning danced from it, encircling Mog’s reptilian body and raising small puffs of smoke wherever they touched. Mog growled and hissed, but did not let go of the artifact. He turned to meet the sailor as Mik hounded up the last steps to the temple platform.
The Temple of the Sky was an elegant structure, beautiful even with driving rain bouncing off its marble surface. A circular colonnade surrounded a round hole in the temple’s floor. In the center of the hole stood a carved pillar, scribed in an ancient language that Mik could neither read nor recognize. Glowing orange light shone up from beneath the pillar through the treasure piled high in the yard-wide pit surrounding the column’s base. Diamonds, gold, silver and gems brimmed to the top of the hole-ancient offerings to the gods of Krynn.
The radiance seeping up through the treasure echoed the volcanic glow on the far side of the temple. The mountain’s great crater yawned just beyond the edge of the structure: natural destruction waiting at the edge of civilized creation. Fiery red light shone up from the lava in the heart of the mountain.
Atop the pillar, amid the glowing treasure, rested the massive blue-white diamond Mik had seen in his visions. It was twice as large as a man’s skull and cut to faceted perfection. It shone with blinding brightness as the key drew near.
Mog, key in hand, loped toward the diamond. Slender bolts of lightning danced from the key to the surface of the great gem. Mog grunted with each electrical flash.
Mik darted forward, his feet nearly skidding across the rain-slick marble, an angry scream on his lips. He aimed a deadly cut toward the back of the dragonspawn’s neck.
Mog spun and brought up his brass spear, holding the weapon with one hand. He parried the scimitar, and the sword’s blade slid down the shaft of the dragonspawn’s spear.
Mik flicked his blade to the left, off the spear, and cut a long gash in Mog’s right arm. The dragonspawn shrieked and swung his spear at the sailor’s head. Mik ducked and thrust. The point of his sword struck the bejeweled key, knocking it from Mog’s hand. The key scudded across the floor, stopping just short of the silver stairway.
Tempest’s minion roared with anger. Seizing his brass spear with both hands, he charged at Mik. The sailor stepped nimbly aside, but his boot slipped on the temple’s wet flagstones. He skidded across the chamber, nearly falling into the treasure-filled pit surrounding the great gem. His head dangled over the edge of the floor, and the light from the huge diamond dazzled his eyes. He felt the heat of the volcano on the back of his neck.
Mog stabbed at him, but Mik rolled aside just in time. He kicked the dragonspawn in the legs, and Mog toppled backward and slid toward the edge of the stairs. Trip had to dodge out of the way as he reached the top of the staircase, and the dragonspawn nearly bowled him over.
“The key, Trip!” Mik called. “Grab the key!”
The kender reached down and picked up the artifact I while Mog struggled to right himself. Before Trip’s small fingers could close around the key, though, Mog swung his bronze spear and swatted the kender’s hand.
The key flew through the air and bounced down die stairs and into the landing below the temple. It tumbled across the rain-soaked plaza toward the final stairway leading to the raging surf.
Just as it neared the precipice, Benthor Kell stabbed out his hand and seized it. Battered and bloody, Karista Meinor rose to her feet beside the brass lord. Benthor Kell held the key tight, feeling the power throbbing within. Behind his bronze helmet, a smile of triumph broke over his handsome face.
As he and Karista gazed at the key, the ocean surged, and Tempest rose from the depths once more.
Chapter Forty
As the sea dragon broke the surface, her dragonspawn troops swarmed up the sides of the volcano and into the Temple of the Sky. Though not as clever or powerful as Mog, these six creatures still possessed sharp fangs and claws, as well as cunningly crafted weapons. In each of them burned their mistress’ unquenchable thirst for blood.
Trip didn’t spot the dragonspawn until they were almost upon him. With a startled cry, he hopped away from the temple’s perimeter, keeping his daggers between himself and the new menace. The Trip didn’t notice as Mog rose behind him and aimed his spear at the kender’s back.
Mikal Vardan scrambled to his feet and raced to his friend’s side. He turned aside Mog’s thrust barely in time, then batted aside a sword-cut from a second dragonspawn that had meant to disembowel him.
Mik surged forward, slashing with his scimitar, driving the enemy back. The dragonspawn scrabbled across the wet flagstones, slipping and cursing. Mik smiled; these new dragonspawn were clumsy on land.