Even in death the overlord looked impressive. Feril wanted to swim all the way around the dragon, inspecting the items and objects scattered around it and studying the diaphanous knights and elves. The murkiness and green mist that cloaked much of the dragon and the faint glow coming from its depths was unsettling.
Not worth pursuing at the moment, she thought. Feril wasn’t sure what she was looking for and wished Dhamon would have given her some specific clue. She didn’t see anything that looked like a magical item lying around. Perhaps she ought to go back and find a sorcerer who could more aptly consult Dhamon’s crystal ball. Perhaps, after all, Dhamon was better off as a dragon.
Yes, maybe Dhamon is better off as a dragon, Feril mused as she finally turned and sped away from the dragon’s snout. She wondered if she could find happiness in such a form, but she sensed that Dhamon wasn’t very happy and that being a dragon didn’t suit him. Didn’t she prefer Dhamon as a human?
Feril suddenly realized she was disoriented. She didn’t know where she was, where to swim, or even how far out and deep down she was in this well-named Lake of Death. She swam closer to the bottom and started circling outward, passing over more decaying tree trunks and dead bodies, shattered weapons, then bigger, fallen columns and strewn rubble from homes. Beyond this—beyond all this—she could see several virtually intact buildings.
Qualinost.
She stared wide-eyed. The city beyond these first destroyed buildings appeared as though from a lost dream, artful spires rising from the lake bed, courtyards sprawling, exquisite statues attesting to the talent of the greatest of Qualinesti artisans. With her catfish eyes she could make out the colors through the water, the buildings ranging from white to pale brown, all of them with pastel trim and intricately carved doors and shutters, all of them slimed with algae and rot. She half-expected to see dozens of elves walking from place to place carrying out the routines of their lives, but nary a fish swam by, and she knew the water was as cold and tainted as it had been next to the dragon’s corpse.
She couldn’t see all of the city, suspected she was seeing only a small outer portion of it, and she felt her emotions well up, a great pang of sadness, wishing that she had visited this glorious place years ago when it was full of life.
There would have been libraries to explore and sages to greet in their homes, places where the greatest of elf sorcerers once lived and apprentices studied. Qualinost would have been a good place to spend hours researching practically any subject, she thought. It was such a magnificent city—once. Now it lay deep under the Lake of Death, smothered by the dark blue water.
Where to start? Where in all of this do I start?
She swam toward a low building with curved sides. A row of twisting tree trunks paralleled what looked to be the front of the structure. Feril imagined they were once birches, judging by the few papery white pieces of bark that clung to their bases. Nearly all the trees she saw were black and gray sticks, looking like silhouettes against the pale buildings and deep blue of the water, like charcoal slashes on a canvas. Like a winter scene, with the leaves missing.
The leaves and the life gone forever, she thought. Qualinost, one big cemetery, the buildings and trees markers attesting to the greatness of elven dead.
Sadness overwhelmed her as she wove around the twisting birch trees and followed the wall of the curved building. Perhaps this was a library, certainly a building meant to be used by citizens, its design inviting. A place to start her investigations? She wished Dhamon was here to see this and advise her. Though it was depressing to think that centuries of civilization were buried in this lake, the sunken city retained some of its former allure, and she wished to share that with him.
As she neared the building, she reached inside herself and found the familiar magical spark. She coaxed it to brighten and forced the energy into her tail and fins, regaining her legs and arms and elf size. The catfish skin became her leather tunic again, and her fingers pulled her through the water. She retained her gills, a necessity, but released her acute catfish vision and took back her own eyesight. Despite the depth, she could see well enough. The cold was still intense.
The building she approached had carvings arching above a skewed, ironbound wooden door. The carvings were tiny and precise, showing elf children playing with small catlike creatures. A stately elf matron supervised them. Other carvings running the length of the door showed children carrying runes of an Elvish dialect Feril was only passingly familiar with. “Senaril t’ Deban,” she made out. “Deban’s gifts,” she thought it meant. It would be better if it translated as “warm inside,” she thought to herself wryly.
She wrapped her fingers tightly around the door handle and pulled. The iron was rusty, the wood warped, and coupled with the water pressing against it, she couldn’t budge it open. Odd, there were no windows. She swam up to the roof, looking for a window or skylight and finding none. The Kagonesti told herself she should move on. A hundred buildings were in her line of sight, but this one had aroused her curiosity, and so she returned to the door and pressed her fingers against the wood.
Move for me, she implored. Damn my curiosity. Move!
Her energy spread from her chest and down her arms to her fingertips and into the wood. Her magic warped the panels just enough in the frame so that it burst open on its own accord. Soft yellow light spilled out, and Feril slipped in.
Amazing, she thought, again wishing Dhamon were here to see all this. The building consisted of one large room, and it was filled with a multitude of sculptures. At first glance she could tell that most of them were elves, and most of them were artworks of children caught in various poses of play. The nearest child stretched for a butterfly; another was of a young boy with a large frog in his hands. Beyond these pieces were sculptures of older children, and at the far side of the room Feril saw the adult figures. Perhaps this showcased the stages of childhood. Paintings on the walls, faded terribly by water, were of elf infants.
The other sculptures were of woodland creatures, centaurs, and small winged fey that Feril suspected lived only in the artist’s imagination. The works, so similar in style, she could tell were all created by the same individual. A lifetime of sculptures and work this room represented. There were hundreds, she realized after staring into the far corners of the room, most of them small, but many life-sized, and some double and triple the size of a natural subject. It would have taken hundreds of years to produce all of this art in such detail, Feril knew. A lifetime of work ruined with the dragon’s death and swallowed up by the lake.
She forced herself to ignore the persistent cold and wound her way through the gallery, touching the elf boy with the frog and finding the stone pleasingly smooth. Feril ran her fingers over each sculpture she passed, discovering that some were of the same individual, though captured at different stages of childhood. Occasionally she glanced up, marveling at the light that shafted in from the ceiling. It came from an enchanted crystal that hung by a gold wire and cast an even glow over the artworks. She’d seen such magical baubles before, but when she swam up to inspect this one, she discovered that it was especially meticulous—pear-shaped with silver leaves and a stem. From her ceiling vantage point, looking down over the room, she spied small crystal figurines arranged at the bases of some of the larger statues—pieces of fruit, diminutive animals, vases, and mushrooms. She stole another glance at the enchanted, pear-shaped crystal.