“I am no traitor to the Dark Queen. I am loyal, Majere, loyal enough to spend these past many years with you and the Master. I worked with you, ate with you, listened to your simpering stories of your wife, children, and grandchildren. Listened to your laments over poor, dead Goldmoon. Listened to your foolish hopes of beating the dragons. I won your confidence, Majere, admit it. I even helped you against lesser dragons to gain your trust. And you were such a trusting fool.
“I joined the Last Conclave and helped you discover new magic years ago because Malystryx the Red feared Beryl’s growing threat. By allowing you to challenge Malystryx’s enemies, Beryl could better be held in check.”
“Why?” Palin shouted as he barely dodged another bolt of light. “Why such an elaborate game?”
“Spying is a necessary game in war, Majere,” the Shadow Sorcerer returned. “By being one of you, I was apprised of your every move. I could report where your pitiable friends were traveling—your wild elf Ferilleeagh, the insolent mariner and his deaf lackey—all of them. Even your dear, sweet wife, and that tormented puppet Dhamon Grimwulf. All of them. All of them dead. Dead by now because you always let me know where they were. Dead because you helped me!” The sorcerer’s words ended in a wild shriek of laughter that died away in something very like a sob.
“No!” Palin’s hands shook, and he made no move to calm himself. Instead, he focused on another spell, concentrating on the ring on his finger.
“Dead. Yes,” the Shadow Sorcerer continued, recovering himself. “My reports allowed the great Red to send her spawn into the Blöde hills looking for them.”
“The spawn failed!”
“They were expected to fail, you idiot! They were merely meant to worry your friends and drive them quicker—like cattle, Majere. But the Knights of Takhisis did not fail. The knights blockaded the harbor in Khur. They were waiting for your wife and the others. The knights will kill them all.”
Palin shook his head in disbelief. “They got by the blockade. I contacted them! They ran your damn blockade!”
“The first blockade, Majere. The Red wanted them to. Don’t you see? The Red wants the Crown of Tides, just as you want it. She wants the ancient magic. She wanted your friends to fetch it. Brine had been unable to obtain it for her. But your friends. Ah, they were successful. Malystryx will be most pleased. You see, there are Dark Knights stationed all along the coast now, waiting for their return. More Knights of Takhisis than there were in the Ak-Khurman harbor. If they return at all. The Red intended to alert the sea dragon of tasty morsels headed away from Dimernesti. She can magically communicate with all the overlords, you know. Dead, your friends. All of them. And the Crown of Tides and the Fist of E’li in the Red’s clutches.” The Shadow Sorcerer’s hands glowed red as hot coals and his voice rose to a scream. “And now you will die, too, Majere.”
Light raced from the mage’s fingertips, streaks of red and white so bright and intense they shattered the rock above Palin’s head. Bits of rock rained down on Palin’s aching flesh, just as he finished his own incantation. A bright red shield formed in his hand. Made of flame and birthed by Dalamar’s ring, it reflected like a mirror.
Palin raised the shield and felt the impact as the beams of light and the shattered rock struck it. The sound of crackling flames filled his senses. He roared as loud as he imagined a dragon might roar. The heat generated by both spells made the air difficult to breathe. “Return,” Palin whispered, focusing on his fiery shield, on the ring, on the Shadow Sorcerer. “Return.”
A scream echoed shrilly in the chamber. A woman’s voice. The Shadow Sorcerer was a woman! Palin craned his aching neck around his shield, saw the gray-cloaked mage engulfed in the streaks of light that had been reflected by his shield spell.
The Shadow Sorcerer squirmed and twisted, her garments shredding, the silver mask falling away. Her face was struck by shattered bits of stone and intense light. Then she fell below the beams of light, striking dully against the cavern floor. A cloud of dirt flew up through the blazing air.
Palin released the shield, stumbling away from the wall and dropping to his knees a few feet from his former ally. The woman’s chest rose and fell slightly. Her face blistered and scarred.
“Why?” Palin whispered as he crawled toward her.
“To side with the dragons is to live,” the Shadow Sorcerer gasped. “I must serve the great Red. She will be... she will be...” Blood trickled over the woman’s cracked lips.
“No,” Palin said. He got to his feet and stumbled to the cavern wall, grabbed a rock and returned to the Shadow Sorcerer. Her eyes glowed red, and her twitching fingers clasping a medallion that hung about her neck. He raised the rock above her head and brought it down...
... on nothing.
The Shadow Sorcerer had been in the midst of a spell, had spirited herself away. Palin fell to his knees and doubled over—from the pain that still wracked his body, and from the betrayal at the hands of someone he had for years considered a trusted friend. His sobs echoed softly in the chamber, and he prayed for Usha.
One by one the torches went out. Palin closed his eyes. The vision of Dalamar’s ring swam before him, gleaming dimly. Then, beneath his back he felt cool stone paving. He had returned to the Tower of Wayreth.
19
An Evil Congregation
The final rays of the day’s sun touched the Window to the Stars, a great plateau in Khur, making the ground appear as if it were molten bronze, warm and rich. It reflected the visages of the seven great dragons who ringed it, framed by great weathered stones, bleached white as giants’ teeth, that stretched toward the sky behind them.
The dragons’ massive bodies looked like colorful mountains, each contrasting sharply with the one beside it.
Malystryx sat at the north compass point, before the most angular of the Window’s stones. Behind her rose a megalith: the Window to the Stars. The air between the twin upright monoliths churned with enchanted smoke. Occasionally a spot of light, like a distant star, was visible, but then the roiling smoke covered it.
A new lieutenant, a large female called Hollintress, lay to Malys’s right. To Malys’s left sat Khellendros, her consort, his scales shining violet and regal in the twilight, his head only slightly below hers. Gale lay in The Storm’s shadow, a position that branded him as subservient and respectful to the blue overlord. Malystryx had made it clear that a great honor had been bestowed upon Gale in allowing him to participate in the ceremony— and an even greater honor lay in store when he would inherit, this night, the Northern Wastes and Palanthas.
The other lieutenants, as well as a few reds she chose to honor, waited at the base of the plateau with troops of barbarians, hobgoblins, goblins, ogres, draconians, and talons of the Knights of Takhisis.
Gellidus the White suffered the heat wordlessly, directly across from Malystryx. His icy blue eyes were fixed on hers, watching her every move and studying her expressions.
Onysablet regarded the Red carefully, though the great black’s eyes also took in the other overlords and gauged their moods.
Beryllinthranox avoided Malystryx’s gaze.
In front of each dragon was a mound of treasure, glittering pieces of jewelry that once lined the coffers of Ansalon’s richest families, magical items that pulsed with energy, and artifacts that had been won at the price of valued pawns.
Gellidus’s prize sat atop his pile: a half-moon-shaped shield of platinum said to have been crafted by Lunitari for a favored priest. Its edge glimmered like twinkling stars, was said to be hammered bits of the goddess’s moon captured and held in die metal.
Beryl’s gift was a true sacrifice. It included a platter-sized mortar and pestle carved of amethyst and enchanted, it was said, by Chislev. The tale said the goddess many ages past gave the worked gem to a selfless Irda. When properly used it could create a cure for any malady, including age. The mortar and pestle sat atop a gleaming shield; the Shield of Dwarven Kings, it was called.