The Rage (23 page)

Not a chance, Dorn thought. Still, somewhat to his annoyance, he discovered he agreed with Pavel and Raryn. It wasn’t time to leave, not yet, not if they could stay and learn more about the frenzy.

“So be it, then,” Brimstone said. His scarlet gaze swept over Taegan and the hunters, and though his eyes resembled huge embers, their regard was chilling. “They can stay if you

keep them on their tethers. I’ll even tell you all something about myself, so you’ll understand how it is that you can trust me.”

Pavel made a scornful face at the very suggestion.

“How much do you know about Sammaster?” Brimstone continued, settling onto a heap of gold and silver; the coins clinked and rustled beneath his weight.

Taegan said, “With your kind permission?” He closed the lid of a treasure chest and seated himself on top, right in front of the huge reptile’s demonic eyes and immense teeth and claws, with an insouciance that was either admirable or daft. All I know is that he was a mad mage persuasive enough to found a conspiracy based on his delusions.”

“He was a great wizard,” Brimstone replied, “so gifted that while he was still a young man, Mystra, goddess of magic, appointed him one of her Chosen, a champion of the arcane.”

“That,” said Kara, “suggests he was a good man, not a wicked one.”

Brimstone sneered, and Dorn picked out the two slightly elongated upper fangs that betrayed the creature’s vampirism. They’d lengthen considerably more when the drake wanted to draw blood from his prey.

“If you believe those terms mean anything, then perhaps he was,” the dragon said. “But it didn’t matter. He had too much pride, and his election to the ranks of the Chosen swelled it further. He came to imagine he himself was almost a god, and the Lady of Mysteries had selected him to be not merely her agent but her consort.”

“So he was mad even then,” said Will, pushing back his cowl to bare his head.

Brimstone flicked his wings in the draconic equivalent of a shrug and replied, “Perhaps. It could be that underneath the surface, a covert madness simmered from the start, though why a deity with all her supposed wisdom would select such a deputy is an enigma. At any rate, as you’d expect, his amorous ambitions came to nothing, and he was accordingly

disappointed. He continued to serve Mystra, but he began to resent her as well. Shrewd as he considered himself to be, he found it difficult to believe he’d simply misconstrued the goddess’s attitude toward him. Rather, he decided she’d led him on to guarantee his loyalty.”

Dorn scowled. He never would have expected to feel sympathy for any legendary dastard, particularly one who’d conceived a fondness for wyrms, yet in this one respect at least, he knew exactly how Sammaster had felt. The difference was that Kara really had tried to manipulate him. Hadn’t she?

“I don’t know exactly what happened next,” Brimstone continued, “but I’ve heard several stories that all arrive at the same point. Sammaster undertook to help some humble folk in need. Things went awry, and he accidentally slaughtered them himself with an ill-considered spell. As sensible people realize, such mishaps occur all the time in war. But despite his learning, Sammaster was a fool and fell prey to a guilt that dogged him thereafter. It first made him question his fitness to be one of the Chosen and eventually whether his service was the worthy endeavor he’d imagined it to be.

“After the debacle, he studied necromancy, perhaps in hope of restoring his innocent victims to life, and in time, he sought out Alustriel, another Chosen. He hoped that, delving together, they could uncover secrets that had eluded his solitary investigations.

“Alustriel was beautiful, gracious, and at first happy to join forces with a colleague as accomplished as herself. Since Sammaster was lonely and unhappy, the result was predictable.”

“He fell in love with her,” said Kara, pity in her voice.

“Yes,” said Brimstone, “and he wanted to make sure the new object of his affection wouldn’t refuse him as Mystra had. He tried to spend every moment with her, make every decision for her, and shape her every opinion, all with the aim, conscious or not, of turning her into his adoring chattel.”

“You’re right,” said Taegan, shaking his head, “he was an ass. No doubt the poor woman sent him packing to save her sanity.”

“Indeed,” said the drake, “and so, apparently, cost him what remained of his own. He slunk away to brood and in time decided that every frustration and heartache he’d ever endured was the result of treachery on the part of Mystra and his fellow Chosen. They wanted him to fail and suffer because they feared his potential for magical supremacy.

“Eventually, he returned to confront Alustriel. I’m not sure what he intended, murder, rape, or her abject submission. Perhaps even he didn’t know. At any rate, raving, he attacked her with such puissance, cunning, and savagery that he would have overwhelmed her, except that she was able to call two of the other Chosen to her aid. Their magic transported them across Faerűn in an instant, and together the three of them killed Sammaster”

Will grinned and said, “I like a tale with a happy ending, but I take it this doesn’t qualify.”

“No,” Brimstone said. “Sammaster had made unsavory friends as he studied the darker aspects of his Art. One was the powerful priest of a malevolent god, and he managed to raise his comrade from the dead. When Sammaster woke, he found he was still one of the most formidable wizards in the world but no longer possessed the unique powers of the Chosen. Evidently the Mother of All Magic had taken them back.

“Perhaps his defeat taught him a measure of humility, for he no longer imagined that he alone could ever cast down Mystra and the Chosen and enthrone himself in their place. Yet still he yearned for the day when all those who’d ‘wronged’ and ‘betrayed’ him would meet their dooms, and he would achieve a kind of mastery. He returned to his studies and found an answer in Chronicle of Years to Come, a volume of prophecy by an oracle named Maglas. One passage therein foretold a world ruled by undead dragons, or at least that was Sammaster’s interpretation, and he decided he himself was

the force that would make it happen. It was the high destiny for which Fate had always intended him. He elaborated on the lines from Maglas to pen the first version of the Tome of the Dragon and set about recruiting followers. Shortly thereafter, I met him.”

“You actually knew him?” Kara asked.

“To my misfortune, yes. At that time, Faerűn didn’t have any undead wyrms fit to rule it. For his vision to come to pass, he needed to invent new magic to create them, and like all such efforts, it would require experimentation. He had to seek out drakes willing to submit themselves to the rituals and potions he concocted.”

“And you volunteered,” said Taegan. “Weren’t you running quite a risk?”

As you observed,” Brimstone said, “Sammaster was persuasive. Or perhaps he cast a charm to cloud my judgment. Either way, I was willing to wager my life against the opportunity to be one of the overlords of all the world, and luck was with me. Unlike the others who first offered themselves, I didn’t perish. I changed into the being you see before you, possessed of new strengths and capacities.”

“Yet I gather,” said Will, “things didn’t work out.” Brimstone bared his fangs as if he resented the halfling’s bantering tone, but held his temper in check.

“No. Sammaster eventually decided vampiric dragons weren’t the creatures of the prophecies after all. In his view, we had too many limitations to offset our advantages. He needed to make something more powerful still.”

“Dracoliches,” Kara sighed.

“Yes, but I couldn’t become one. He had no way of changing me a second time, and it soon became clear he no longer foresaw any lofty station for me. He simply intended me to serve him, to fight for a prize in which I would have no share. The ingratitude and sheer presumption of it enraged me. I escaped his custody and swore revenge. From that day to this, I’ve watched the Cult of the Dragon and hindered them in any way I could.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Pavel said. “Even if Sammaster did injure your pride, he also made you stronger.”

Brimstone glared, his red eyes flaring brighter, and said, “You consider undeath a vile condition, don’t you, son of Lathander? That’s why my very existence disgusts you. Well, rest assured, I don’t share your prejudice. Still, vampirism isn’t a state of being I would willing have embraced with centuries of vigorous life remaining before me had not Sammaster promised me a commensurate reward. As it stands, he cheated me out of countless pleasures I can never experience again, and I’ll do anything—even make common cause with posturing, sanctimonious vermin like you—to pay him back.”

“Perhaps,” Pavel said, “but you have yet to convince me we have anything to gain by cooperating with an evil, unnatural thing like you.”

“Whatever I am,” Brimstone said, “I know Sammaster’s mind. Moreover, as an undead, I’m immune to frenzy. I’ll retain my reason when Karasendrieth and the rest of her feckless circle are slipping into dementia. You need me.”

“Don’t—” Pavel began.

Dorn raised his human hand signaling him to be silent. The gods knew, he shared the priest’s instinctive revulsion, though in his case, it was more because Brimstone was a dragon. Vampirism was just the pepper in the stew. Still, verbally antagonizing the huge gray horror was pointless and possibly dangerous as well.

“You say you’re out for vengeance on Sammaster,” the half-golem said, “and Gorstag—who’s dead, murdered by the cult—claimed he met the man. But is it possible? Didn’t the Harpers or somebody kill him about a hundred years back?”

“In a sense,” Brimstone said, “but by that time, Sammaster himself had become a lich, the better to pursue his goals. His spirit wears a body as does yours, but flesh and bone aren’t the anchor that holds him on the mortal plane. He has a talisman called a phylactery hidden somewhere for that purpose. As long it exists, it doesn’t really matter if his corporeal form

perishes. Eventually his soul will find or make another and walk abroad once more.”

“So it’s possible,” said Will, “Gorstag really did meet him and not just some faker.”

“Considering that a great Rage is corning,” said Brimstone, “and the cult is more active than it’s been in decades, I think it’s almost certain”

“We still don’t know,” said Kara, “what the one thing has to do with the other.”

“No,” said Brimstone, “we don’t. It’s what we must determine. So it’s your turn to spin a story, singer. Tell me what. my spy discovered and exactly how he came to grief.”

“I’ll let Maestro Nightwind tell it,” the slender bard replied, her long, pale hair tinged green by the torchlight. “He’s the one who was with Gorstag at the end and who’s crossed swords with the cultists since.”

Taegan related his experiences with a panache that would have done credit to Kara or any other bard. Under the circumstances, the polished phrases, flashes of wit and irony, and expressive hand gestures set. Dorn’s teeth on edge. He wished the avariel would just tell it as tersely as possible.

But Taegan reached the end eventually, whereupon Brimstone said, “You’re correct about. one thing. I’ve read the tome, and nothing in it explains what’s happening now. Show me the folio.”

“With pleasure,” Taegan said.

Pavel still didn’t look happy, nor had Dorn’s own mistrust of the smoke drake subsided. But no one objected as the winged elf lifted out the stolen notes. Brimstone jerked his snout toward the floor, directing Taegan to set the scuffed brown leather bundle down in front of him.

Dorn wondered how the reptile would manipulate the sheets of parchment with his enormous claws. It turned out he didn’t have to. He murmured a charm in his hushed, sibilant tones, and afterward, the pages floated up one at a time to hang before his eyes, as if supported by an invisible hand.

After a time, Brimstone bared his fangs in a show of pique. Dorn felt a surge of frustration, and Will said what everyone had no doubt realized: “You can’t read the wretched things, either.”

“I’ve never even seen these symbols before,” the dragon growled, “and it’s likely their meaning shifts from one page, line, or even word to the next. It may be that some of them are mere place holders, intended solely to confuse. That makes it difficult even to determine the alphabet to which they correspond, or the language Sammaster is speaking, let alone the actual content of the text.”

“I thought we guildsmen used some complicated codes back in Saerloon,” Will said, “but it sounds like this beats anything a thief ever cooked up.”

“Sammaster’s insane,” Brimstone said, “but also more brilliant than any man or even dragon I ever met. Still, I can offer one morsel of encouragement. Even for a genius, it takes considerable time and effort to devise or employ a cipher as intricate as this. If he went to this much trouble to hide his thoughts from prying eyes, they must be important.”

“Knowing that is no help,” Pavel said, “if you can’t read them.”

“Patience,” Brimstone said. “Where simple cunning fails, magic may yet succeed.”

His phantom servant, if that was the proper description, replaced the very first page before his smoldering gaze, whereupon he muttered another incantation. A momentary distortion rippled through the air, warping and blurring everything in view.

Brimstone stared intently at the paper hanging in front of his snout. His eyes widened, glowed brighter, and he hitched forward.

By the moon and stars, Dorn thought, it’s working. He’s reading it.

The drake shuddered, threw back his head, and screeched. Foul-smelling smoke jetted from his jaws to splash against the stalactites dangling from the ceiling.

Dorn didn’t understand what was happening, but it didn’t look good. As a precaution, he drew his sword. Taegan jumped up off the chest, whipped out his rapier, and backed away from the gigantic creature. Raryn, Will, and Pavel readied their own weapons.

Brimstone snarled words in a language Dorn had never heard before. His voice was louder, the hiss less pronounced, the timbre altered. Eyes flaring, he pounced at Taegan, who was still the closest person to him.