The Rose and the Skull Page 21

  "They're clean!" he said triumphantly.

  Glabella tentatively sniffed Lumpo, then wrenched her face away. "You stink," she said, pinching her nose. "Smell like nothing."

  "The air hurts my skin," he complained. "Clean not healthy."

  The two set off to find some mudhole to wallow in. The others gathered their things and followed, kicking out the fire before leaving.

  A couple of hours' hard marching through the rugged pine forests of Isherwood brought them eventually to a small hill whose top was bare of trees. Across the gold and crimson autumn valley rose another hill likewise bare of trees, but this one was crowned with the crumbling walls and towers of Castle Isherwood. Through the trees on the hill's slope, they saw the trail.

  "Come along. We're almost home. There's still much to do," Nalvarre said.

  He started off down the hill, while the others followed, but Jessica lingered a moment longer, drinking in the sight. She sighed, glanced at the sky to judge the time of day. Something rising above the far end of the valley caught her eye.

  "Look," she pointed. "There's an eagle. I've never seen an eagle around here before."

  Nalvarre squinted curiously at the eagle, while Valian glanced over his shoulder in the direction Jessica was pointing. He froze.

  "Get down!" he snarled.

  "What?" Jessica asked in astonishment.

  "Get down, hide, all of you!" He grabbed the gully dwarves and pulled them behind a boulder. "That's no eagle. It's a dragon."

  "What?" she said, confused. "Here?"

  Nalvarre, who'd already fallen flat, pulled Jessica down beside him. "Lie still," he whispered. "It's too late to try to hide. He'll spot any movement."

  It was a testament to the dragon's size that they mistook it for an eagle, for it was still some distance away. It took an almost unbearable amount of time for it to draw near enough for those without elven eyes to distinguish its features. The batlike wings, spreading impossibly wide, cast a shadow on the valley floor, while the tail trailed behind it, whipping, thrashing the air with a sound not unlike claps of thunder. Its scales, red as fresh blood, glistened in the sunlight.

  What each person felt at that moment, watching the dragon glide impossibly slow upon the air, was beyond ordinary mortal fear. It was as though they were looking upon a god descending from the heavens, or more appropriately rising from the Abyss, seeing him in his true, undisguised form. His slow, deliberate flight and his tremendous size made them wonder if it was not his wings, but his indomitable and divine will, that held him aloft. They were horrified by his beauty, yet they could not look away.

  "Pyrothraxus," Nalvarre whispered in awe.

  As the dragon glided over the towers of Castle Isherwood, he began to drop. He descended upon the hilltop, the wind from his great wings ripping trees up by their roots and blasting them hundreds of feet into the valley. His tremendous bulk settled upon the fragile walls of the castle, crumbling them under his weight, and as he grasped two already ruined towers, his huge and powerful claws crushed them to dust. His tail toppled a third tower. Only the strongest tower remained, the one where Lady Jessica had her rooms.

  "No!" she cried as she struggled to rise.

  Nalvarre pinned her to the ground with his own body. "You mustn't," he said. "Be still. There is nothing you can do."

  They heard horses screaming then, and looking they saw the dragon rip the roof from the stables and fling it aside. He reached inside the stable with two of his massive claws and plucked out a writhing, screaming horse. Tilting back his horned head, he dropped the poor animal into his open jaws, then returned to the stable for another, and then a third.

  When all of the Knights' horses were devoured, the dragon turned his attention to the final tower. Again, Jessica began to struggle.

  "Waterstone!" she cried.

  "The dwarf!" Nalvarre gasped. "I'd forgotten about him."

  The dragon's jaws gaped, his throat bulged, white hot liquid fire vomited forth, enveloping the tower. The ancient stones melted like wax, bubbling and popping so loudly that they could be heard even from across the valley. In moments, Jessica's home was little more than a pool of molten rock, the rest of the castle a scattering of stones. She wept, furiously struggling against Nalvarre, until finally she grew exhausted and lay still.

  Apparently satisfied, the dragon raised its wings and leaped ponderously into the air. The great wings beat down once again, lifting the beast higher and higher as it swooped out across the valley. Jessica and Nalvarre suddenly became aware of their exposure as the dragon turned their way, but there was nowhere else to go. With nowhere to hide, they cowered together, while Valian and the gully dwarves tried to disappear behind their one, pitifully thin tree.

  The dragon passed directly overhead no more than a few feet above treetop level. They felt the heat radiating from his body. A rank odor of sulfur and burning meat gagged them, and a sickly metallic tang of hot gold and steel filled the air.

  The dragon banked and circled back toward to the north, the direction from which it had come. Nalvarre released Jessica, but she continued to lie on the cold hilltop, her tear-streaked face turned blankly to the heavens. Valian clambered up beside them.

  "Do you think the dwarf…" he began.

  Nalvarre raised a finger to his lips, glancing knowingly at Jessica. He nodded. The elf bowed his head, his white hair spilling down to hide his face. Below them, still cringing behind their tree, the gully dwarves whimpered pitifully.

  "Dragons," Jessica whispered.

  No one had the heart to look at her, to see the grief on her face.

  "Dragons," she repeated in a husky whisper. Slowly, she rose to her feet.

  "Look!" she cried. "Silver dragons!"

  Like quicksilver arrows just loosed from a bow, three silver dragons shot up from the valley. Two from the left, one from the right, they rose unerringly toward the receding form of Pyrothraxus. At the last moment, Pyrothraxus saw them and swerved. They crossed just beneath him, screaming, long plumes of white frost arcing from their mouths to strike and freeze his wings. A gout of flame from his nostrils responded to the attack, but too late and much too slowly. The smaller, quickersilver dragons rose above him and met, hanging in the air for a moment, as though conferring, while Pyrothraxus laboriously increased the beat of his wings.

  Jessica screamed with joy, a veritable battle cry that surprised the others. She drew her sword and swung it vigorously around and around as she performed some kind of mad dance. Nalvarre and even Valian drew away from her.

  "Kill him!" she yelled fiercely to the silver dragons.

  In response, the silvers dove as one at the red dragon's head. He pulled it back, and flying hunch-shouldered like an eagle pestered by magpies, made his ponderous way to the north. The silvers continued to dive and bomb his head until all four were out of sight. Jessica kept up her war dance until, with the dragons no longer visible in the darkening sky, she collapsed.

  23

  "Do you know where you are!" a voice asked suddenly from the darkness.

  Uhoh nodded, rattling his chains, then remembered that they probably couldn't see him. "Yes," he said meekly.

  "Do you know who I am?" the voice asked, echoing in the vast emptiness of the chamber where Uhoh lay.

  He was chained to a low stone slab by his ankles, wrists, neck, and waist. Occasionally he felt things scurry across his legs, but the darkness prevented his seeing them. He'd been there for days and days, it seemed.

  "Me know nothing," Uhoh replied.

  A light flared into life, revealing a small balcony with a dark alcove behind it. A creature stood there, glaring down at Uhoh with one hideous red eye. It was a draconian, but one twisted and malformed by the magic that created it. One side of its face had eerie, semi-reptilian, semi-humanoid features, but the other side of the face was melted like candle wax. In some places, bare bone showed through the distorted flesh, while in others hideous growths of bone and horn protruded in fantastic
shapes beneath the skin. The draconian looked like a nightmare brought to waking life.

  "Me know nothing!" Uhoh screamed in terror. He averted his face and closed tight his eyes, as if that simple act could make the nightmare go away.

  "They call me the Old Man," the draconian said. "They call me the Old Man because I am indeed the oldest. I am the firstborn, the first of my kind to crawl forth from the egg, in the days before the magic of our draconic transformation was perfected. The magic was flawed, and so I am flawed, but I survived where my brothers died hideously, their bodies twisted, their minds shattered by their deformity. I am also more perfect than any that have come after me. I am more powerful. I know all things. In fact, I know something about you, Uhoh Ragnap."

  "Me not Uhoh Ragnap. You got wrong gully dwarf," Uhoh shouted.

  "That's not true," the draconian laughed. "We both know it. Would you deny your own identity to save your miserable skin? But of course you would. You are a gully dwarf."

  Uhoh tried to lower his voice and sound dour. "Me not gully dwarf. Me hill dwarf. You doorknob. You got wrong dwarf."

  "Come, come. Enough of these foolish games," the draconian said with magnanimous patience. "You are a gully dwarf, and you are the gully dwarf whom my servants have chased halfway across Sancrist Isle. You have led them a merry chase and done me great service. I see they are in need of training."

  A door banged open. Uhoh turned his head to see two draconians enter, one bearing a lit torch, the other rolling a cart.

  "Not all my servants are hunters—assassins, as humans call them. Some have other skills. These baaz you see before you are quite talented in the arts of torture," he said.

  Uhoh looked up. "Why you torture me?" he asked. "Me only a gully dwarf."

  "Because, dear Uhoh, I want to know what Gunthar said to you before he died. We know he told you something, by the words from your own mouth," the draconian said. The balcony light dimmed. As the draconian continued to speak, the sound of his voice seemed to slowly float down the wall. While the baaz torturers busied themselves setting up their implements, Uhoh eyed these fearfully even though he didn't know their uses. "You were with Lord Gunthar when he died. I am quite certain, shameless thespian that he was, he saved some dire secret to import to you with his last, gargling breath."

  "What?" Uhoh said, utterly baffled.

  The draconian's twisted face appeared from the shadows as he stepped into the light of the torturers' torch. "What did Gunthar whisper in your ear, you miserable wretch? Don't try to deny it. What did he tell you?"

  The door banged open again, and a man dressed in a crisp blue captain's uniform entered the room. He strode to the table, his bootheels clicking on the stone floor. He doffed his tall, plumed hat and bowed.

  "Well, General Zen?" the draconian leader asked.

  "The ship and its cargo are intact. As we speak, it is being unloaded, and the prisoners removed to dungeon cells," the man said.

  "Unfortunate for them that they sailed too close to this shore. You have done well," the draconian said.

  "Thank you, Grand Master Iulus," the man said as he bowed again.

  "This is an interesting form you wear," Iulus commented, indicating Zen's appearance.

  "Ah, yes. The captain was a bit of a dandy," Zen said. "I flew out to the ship as it passed, and in the usual manner, killed a member of the watch, thus taking his form and disposing of his body overboard. I then proceeded to the captain's cabin, where I killed him and took his shape. Once this was done, it was a simple enough matter to order the helm to steer to the castle's harbor, where our soldiers were waiting. We took them without a fight."

  "General Zen, your efficiency is a model to us all. Reward the wyvern watches with a few of the prisoners from the ship. Make sure the master of the dungeons chooses lively ones. The wyverns do so love to play with their supper," Iulus commanded.

  "Yes, my master," Zen said, bowing as though to leave.

  "Not yet, my friend," Iulus purred. "It can wait. First shed that hideous human form. It's making the baaz nervous."

  General Zen stepped back and closed his eyes, folding his arms before his chest. His body began to change shape, his nose lengthening into a snout, his fingers narrowing into claws. His smooth human skin erupted with silver reptilian scales, while from his shoulders and back spread large, powerful wings. In mere moments, he had resumed his natural shape, that of a sivak draconian. Uhoh's mouth fell open.

  "Ah, that's better," Zen said in a deep powerful voice. He shook out his wings and stretched like a cat awakening from a nap.

  "Now, allow me to introduce to you our long-awaited guest. General Zen, meet Uhoh Ragnap, esquire," Iulus said. The sivak stared down at the prostrate gully dwarf.

  "Hello," Uhoh said.

  Iulus laughed. "Oh, he is a good sport, don't you think?" he said. "Uhoh was brought in by Harj and that sanctimonious idiot, Shaeder. Harj has once again proved himself valuable in this little affair, but I think Shaeder's blatant disregard for subtlety needs addressing."

  "I agree, my lord," Zen said.

  "In the meanwhile, Uhoh was just about to impart to me the dire nature of his master's last words. He also needs to tell us who else shares his little secret," Iulus said. "We know that, at the very least, he spoke to that onetime priest of Chislev, Nalvarre Ringbow."

  "I blame myself, my lord," General Zen said. "I had him right across the campfire from me. He suspected nothing because I'd take the form of the ranger I'd killed just after dark. If I had known of the priest's involvement, I'd have silenced him then."

  "I know, my friend. I don't blame you," Iulus said. He turned and knelt beside the gully dwarf, his reptilian snout almost in Uhoh's ear. "Torture is so messy," he hissed, "but we have to be sure you are telling the truth. Now tell me, what was Gunthar's last shuddering whisper that fateful afternoon?"

  "What afternoon?" Uhoh asked.

  "Don't play stupid with me. You know which afternoon," the draconian Grand Master snarled.

  "Yes," Uhoh squeaked.

  "What did he say?"

  "The book… Kalabash… in bell room," Uhoh began.

  "Stop blabbering, you fool! You are only making it worse for yourself," Iulus warned, pointing one long, goldish claw at the terrified gully dwarf.

  "Tell him Liam tell no one," Uhoh continued.

  "Master, this is useless," Zen said. "Just kill him and be done with it. That way, no matter what the secret, he can never tell it to another soul."

  "But if Gunthar suspected anything, said as much to this creature before he died," Iulus said with a disdainful gesture at Uhoh, "then he might have told others. Our plans could be thwarted. What this gully dwarf tells will help us decide whether we can proceed with caution or confidence."

  "I see, my master," Zen said, his voice betraying a shade of uncertainty.

  "It is fruitless to resist. We have ways, painful ways of making you talk," Iulus said as he returned his monocular gaze upon Uhoh.

  "I talk already. I go now?" Uhoh asked.

  Suddenly, Iulus chuckled. Rising to his full seven-foot height, he motioned to the baaz torturers. "I must say, he is a good sport. Don't go too hard on him, but make sure he isn't hiding anything," he ordered.

  Turning, he took Zen by the arm and led the sivak from the torture chamber. As the door closed, a shrill scream shattered the night.

  Aurak Grand Master of Assassins Iulus set down his silver goblet and gripped the edge of the table with his clawed hands. His one good eye rolled up in his head.

  "This wine is superb!" he groaned in ecstasy. "Zen, you really have outdone yourself with tonight's catch."

  "It is quite good," Zen agreed, though not with the emotion displayed by his master.

  Iulus picked up the goblet in one clawed hand and swirled its contents thoughtfully. Human servants wearing iron collars scurried about the chamber, lighting tapers, trimming wicks, and clearing away the plates from supper. The Grand Master tossed back the remainder
in his glass, all the while eyeing the sivak. General Zen merely toyed with his cup, sipping lightly and infrequently.

  "Something bothering you, my friend?" Iulus asked. "Would you like a little music with your wine?"

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned in his chair and lifted a bronze cap from a metal tube protruding from the wall. Faint echoes of tortured screams welled from the tube.

  "No, my master," Zen sighed.

  "Is your cup dirty? I'll have the dishwasher flogged," Iulus said.

  "The wine is fine," Zen said. "That's the problem. We drink the finest wines of Palanthas while our warriors have to content themselves with watered ale or whatever they can brew themselves. It doesn't seem right. I remember the days when you and I ate boot leather and hobgoblins just to keep alive. That's what made us what we are today—hard living. It made us strong."

  Iulus nodded in agreement.

  "Do you remember when we pillaged Que-shu and burned Solace to the ground?" Zen asked. "Do you remember how we laughed at how fat those lands were, and how much they deserved destroying. That is what I fear, that now we are grown fat and deserve destroying. This unsettling affair with the gully dwarf only justifies my fears."

  "The gully dwarf is nothing. We'll soon learn what we need from him, then we can mop up those he told and be done with it," Iulus said.

  "But the Knights…" Zen protested.

  "Soon the Knights of Solamnia will not be a concern. Matters are coming to a head there. The Knights are finished, and they don't even know it," Iulus said.

  A servant entered the room and approached the Grand Master. He knelt beside the table and whispered something that Zen was unable to hear.

  Iulus nodded, then looked up at Zen. "Speaking of Knights, we have a visitor." The servant hurried away.

  After a few moments, the door reopened and an armored Knight entered the room. The Knight wore a full helm with the visor pulled down hiding the face.

  "What is the word?" Iulus asked.

  "Pyrothraxus has retreated to Mount Nevermind," the Knight answered in a voice muffled by the helm.