The Rite (42 page)

Will nodded and said, “The Cult of the Dragon has spies and assassins lurking in all sorts of places. We knew that already. But let’s hope they don’t have many as dangerous as this. A wyrm and a mighty spellcaster…. with a demon living inside him?”

“According to Jannatha Goldenshield,” Taegan said, “certain drakes augment their strength by fusing tanar’ri with their own hearts. Generally, the spirit just stays inside them afterward, quiescent, but Phourkyn—I suppose we might as well keep calling the sunwyrm that, for want of his true name—discovered new ways of using the magic. He could separate from the chasme for brief periods of time, and send it forth to kill.”

And a fine weapon it was,” Raryn said, sidestepping to avoid a running, happily squealing girl and the grinning youth pursuing her.

“Indeed,” Taegan said. “The chasme and Phourkyn had become two aspects of a single being. By merging with its

master, the demon acquired the halo of flame that echoed the pure destructive force a sunwyrm can channel through its breath and talons, as well as the ability to cast Phourkyn’s spells. What’s more, because it wasn’t purely a spirit anymore, but rather a hybrid entity, wards devised to hinder demons couldn’t hold it back, and since it spent nearly all its time hidden inside Phourkyn’s body, Jivex, Rilitar, and I couldn’t find it when we tried to track it down.”

“Also,” said Will, “while the chasme was killing people, Phourkyn could let himself be seen elsewhere, doing something innocuous. That alone wouldn’t prove he wasn’t the traitor, but it would tend to make people think he probably wasn’t.”

“But the drawback,” said Raryn, “was that, since Phourkyn and the chasme were one, if it died, so would he. I notice that after you, Maestro, proved you could hurt it—”

“After we proved we could hurt it!” Jivex cried, wheeling overhead in search of mosquitoes and moths.

The dwarf inclined his head. “Your pardon, my friend. After the two of you proved you could hurt it badly, it generally kept its distance, attacking you with spells, locusts, abishais, and the like, instead of its claws and spear of a nose. But here’s one of the things I still don’t understand. Didn’t you, Maestro, say Phourkyn drove it back when it was close to killing you?”

“That was how it seemed,” Taegan replied, “but I was close to killing the demon, too. The encounter could have gone either way. The chasme broke away of its own accord, and Phourkyn seized the opportunity to make it look as if he was responsible by conjuring an impressive but harmless flash; it was one more way to create the impression that whoever the traitor might be, it certainly wasn’t he. He had a cool, quick, cunning mind, give him that. No wonder it took so long to discover his identity.”

“How did you?” asked Will. “You said that when he held you prisoner, he appeared to you in the guise of Darvin Kordeion. Taegan smiled. He’d hoped to save that bit of explaining for last, and conclude with something that made him look clever.

“Yes,” said the avariel. “Once again, it shows how wily he truly was, how he sought to plan for every possibility. When I acted as his helpless thrall, I understood I was forbidden to hurt my master, Phourkyn One-eye. But if anyone broke my psychic bonds, as Rilitar ultimately did, I wouldn’t recall that anymore. Instead, I’d remember Darvin questioning me and laying his enchantment on me, and strike down an innocent man.

“But here’s where Phourkyn erred,” the bladesinger continued. “He’d mastered the knack of shapeshifting into an exact duplicate of the man he’d replaced. As he spent his days in the company of shrewd and powerful wizards, no other disguise would serve for any length of time. But I gather such magic is difficult and demanding, and when he spoke with me in the cellar, he didn’t think he needed to bother with it. Accordingly, he simply masked his true appearance with a lesser spell, conjuring the mere illusion of Darvin’s face and form.

“Happily, he still reeked of that fragrant pomade he used to slick his hair back. Firefingers thinks he may have used it to cover his true scent. A sunwyrm in human form with a demon bound to its heart may smell a little off. Be that as it may, he also still cocked his head sideways to peer straight at me with his single eye. I retained those details when Rilitar restored me to my right mind.”

“There’s one thing I don’t see,” Dorn grumbled.

“What might that be?” Taegan asked.

“Biding here, Phourkyn was privy to all the information we brought to the wizards. That means he knew Sammaster himself brought on the frenzy that threatens all dragons, sunwyrms included. Why would he continue to help the lich after that?”

“Conceivably,” Taegan said, “he’d long ago set his heart on reigning as a dracolich in the world Sammaster envisions, and decided he didn’t care what means the madman used to bring it about. Or perhaps he feared Sammaster too much to cross him, no matter what.”

“Considering,” said Will_ strong Phonrkvn himself was, that last is not a happy thought. Here’s hoping we can wreck Sammaster’s plans without having to square off against the old bag of bones himself.”

Taegan saw they’d nearly reached the edge of town, and in consequence, the last of the open-air parties. Zigzagging in flight to the beat of the bouncy melody arising somewhere nearby, Jivex flitted away, lit on the edge of a cup of wine, lapped at the contents with his long tongue, then wheeled to rejoin the group.

The benighted countryside seemed particularly quiet after the noisy festivities in the city. In another minute, the five companions passed a guard, one of the Watchlord’s Warders, stationed on the road to keep dragon cultists, or the merely curious, from spying on the meeting Thentia’s spellcasters were convening.

The wizards had little choice but to hold it in an open field, or somewhere outdoors, anyway. Too many of the dragons in attendance either lacked the knack of shapechanging or simply preferred to remain in their natural forms for them all to fit in even Firefingers’s spacious workroom. Peering about, aided by the silvery, sourceless illumination someone had evoked, Taegan spotted Nexus, who’d supposedly worked wonders interpreting the vital documents discovered in the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, Vingdavalac, none the worse for the burns he’d sustained, and dark, ember-eyed Brimstone in his ruby collar. Most of the company were keeping their distance from the vampire, but Scattercloak apparently had no such qualms. He and the smoke drake murmured to one another.

As was generally her preference, Kara wore her human guise. Dorn smiled at the sight of her, though the unaccustomed expression looked as if it might pain his sullen, divided face.

Pavel stood at the bard’s side, handsome as ever but look-Mg a shade older and graver than when Taegan had met him in Impiltur. Around them were Firefingers, Darvin, Baerimel, Jannatha, and the rest of Thentia’s arcanists.

Kara returned Dorn’s awkward smile with a radiant one of her own, then raised her hand for silence. Taegan inferred that he and his companions were the last to arrive, so the discussion could begin.

When the drone of conversation faded, Kara said, “We’ve made considerable progress.”

“Oh, bugger!” Will whispered. “After all our chasing about, the idiots still don’t have the answer.”

He probably hadn’t meant for the assemblage as a whole to overhear, but perhaps he’d forgotten how keen a dragon’s hearing was. A dozen towering, wedge-shaped heads swiveled to glower at the interruption.

Kara smiled wearily at her friend’s impertinence and said, “I think you judge us a trifle harshly, Will. You’re right, we don’t have the whole solution. But we believe we have half of it.”

“We think we’ve reconstructed the rite the ancient wizards used to curse dragonkind,” Pavel said. “We don’t understand everything about it, including how it was possible for an undead human like Sammaster to alter elven high magic and make it serve his will. We believe we’ve gleaned enough, however, to devise a counterspell that will wipe the enchantment away. Obliterating such a thing entirely is easier than tinkering with it.”

“That sounds splendid,” Taegan said. “What, then, do we still require?”

“Thanks to Master Shemov’s discoveries in Thar,” said Firefingers, “we now know that somewhere—in the far north, probably—in territory so forbidding and remote that the primordial dragon kings had no interest in it, their enemies raised a citadel where they could pursue their plans undetected. There, they cursed the wyrms, there, the magic lives on today, and only there can the spell be lifted.”

Will sighed and said, “Right, and even after poring over all the information we seekers hauled out of Thar, Damara, and the rest of Faerűn, you sages still haven’t figured out where the stronghold is, have you?”

“No,” Kara said. “The elf mages almost certainly warded it against scrying, divination, and the like, to keep it hidden from their foes. Like the mythal they guard, those defenses probably still function today. Still, we must locate the fortress, and have little time to do it. Nexus believes that by the turning of the year, perhaps even sooner, the Rage will grow so virulent that the antidote we found in the monastery won’t protect us anymore.”

Taegan tried to feel resolute, as opposed to apprehensive, disappointed, and despondent. At that moment, he didn’t find it easy, and judging from the glum silence that enfolded the gathering, many of the others felt the same.

Jivex, however, made a scornful spitting sound. Are you all stupid?” the faerie dragon demanded. “Castles are big. How hard can finding one be?”

On the Great Glacier, summer seemed no more than a lunatic’s fancy. The howling wind could freeze an unprotected man to death in a matter of minutes, and the sunlight glaring from the ice could blind him just as quickly. Tramping along, staff in hand, robe and mantle flapping around him, Sammaster had reason to be grateful that his withered flesh and desiccated eyes were immune to such afflictions.

His musings, however, were distressing enough to compensate for the absence of physical discomfort. Somehow, over the course of the past few months, his grand strategy had begun to unravel. First, emissaries from Impiltur had gone forth across Faerűn, carrying tidings of the secret strongholds he’d established to spawn dracoliches, urging that the havens be found and destroyed, and a host of meddlers had answered the call. Next, the metallic wyrms had emerged from seclusion to aid the paladins, champions, and whomever in their struggle. The drakes were likewise striving to quell the chaos the Rage had spread across the continent, unrest the Cult of the Dragon depended upon to divert attention from its endeavors, and to weaken the kingdoms of men for the coming conquest.

The golds and silvers wouldn’t have dared venture among humans unless they had protection against frenzy. Their return could only mean that, against all probability, Malazan and her underlings had failed to take the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, allowing some genius of a scholar to discover the secrets buried in the archives.

Sammaster might have been inclined to blame such setbacks on the Harpers, the Chosen, or Mystra herself, formidable enemies all who’d thwarted him before. But his instincts told him that final responsibility for his troubles lay elsewhere, with the unknown foes who’d stolen his notes in Lyrabar.

In retrospect, it was obvious he should have exerted himself to identify and destroy the wretches as soon as he discovered the theft. The realization made him grind his rotting teeth in a spasm of self-loathing, the emotion that always overwhelmed him when he made a costly mistake.

Straining to compose himself, he insisted it wouldn’t matter in the long run. Knights and wizards might destroy some of the cult’s secret enclaves, but they wouldn’t get them all. The metallics could only slow the growth of the cancer that was frenzy, not excise it. Nobody else would ever find the heart of the Rage in time to spoil his plans, and even if someone could, Sammaster had an answer in place for that contingency as well. It was inevitable that at last, he’d win victory, vindication, and his heart’s desire. At last, the glorious future Maglas had prophesied would come to pass.

But still, even if his faceless foes were, at worst, a temporary inconvenience, it was past time to find and crush them. For all his power, though, it would be difficult to undertake the chore unaided. He had too many other crucial tasks to perform, calming frenzied wyrms across the length and breadth of Faerűn, convincing them to accept the transformation into dracoliches, and shepherding them to the appropriate locations.

Fortunately, he didn’t think he’d have to labor all alone, or even rely solely on his cultists. As he’d proved in Vaasa, a clever fellow could usually find someone to cozen into furthering his schemes.

He clambered to the crest of a rise and beheld his destination below him, a fortress molded of gleaming ice. With a twitch of his staff, he splashed a dragon-shaped shadow across the sky to announce his coming.

THE YEAR OF ROGUE DRAGONS00THE RITE