Death of the Dragon

10

The brisk, muffled tramp of a goblin company on the march rumbled up the crooked lane, and Vangerdahast snuffed the candle by which he had been studying. The goblins were chittering a cadence, slightly off the beat as usual, slapping their palms against their iron breast armor to make their numbers sound greater. They were definitely coming in his direction. The wizard closed his traveling spellbook, then let it shrink back to carrying size before slipping it back into his cloak pocket.

Without the candle, his world grew as black and tight as a crypt. The cavern’s spongy ceiling hung somewhere above, a full arm’s length away, yet as musty and pressing as a coffin lid. The single opening was the small third-story window through which he accessed his crude hammock, and even that led to a cramped little room where he could barely stretch his arms.

Vangerdahast rolled to his stomach, ready to cast a spell into the pitch darkness below. He had no reason to believe there would be need. More than a hundred patrols had passed beneath him already, and the closest thing he had heard to a goblin alarm was a goblin sneeze. He knew that would change eventually. Every time he woke, there seemed to be more Grodd living in the city. They materialized out of nowhere, simply appearing as though they had been living there all along. Twice now, Vangerdahast had been forced to move farther from the central plaza after nearby buildings became suddenly inhabited.

Despite his vow to use no more magic, Vangerdahast was occasionally forced to cast a spell after the goblins caught him stealing food or filling his waterskin. Once, while using an enchantment to eavesdrop on his pursuers, he heard the goblins refer to the command of the “Iron One” that he and his ring be captured. Though Vangerdahast felt certain they were referring to Nalavara, and that the ring she wanted was his ring of wishes, what he did not understand was why.

During their first meeting, Nalavara had tried to trick him into wishing the then empty city full of goblins-a wish she had apparently not needed his ring to fulfill. Had she merely been trying to trick him into making any wish, so she could absorb the spell’s powerful magic and be freed? Or had she been trying to keep him from wishing himself out of the city-or perhaps from wishing her out of existence? Vangerdahast had pondered the question and pondered it-he had little else to do-and still he could not decide. He was beginning to fear the matter would come down to simply trying an option and seeing what followed. This was a means of escape he was disinclined to attempt, given the high price of guessing wrong.

The tramp of the first company had barely faded before the sound of another one followed. The wizard listened carefully and heard several more companies coming in his direction. This was no simple scouting party. This sounded like an entire legion. Vangerdahast pulled an agate from his pocket and held it to his eye, whispering the incantation that would allow him to see in the dark. He did not know how close Nalavara was to freedom-every time he went to the plaza to see, he was discovered by an entire cohort of goblins and forced to use even more magic to escape-but something important was happening, and he had to find out what.

By the time Vangerdahast finished his spell, the second company of goblins had passed down the lane and vanished around a corner. He did not have to wait long for a third. By the magic of his spell, which enabled him to see via radiant heat instead of light, he beheld a file of red-glowing forms marching single file behind a bronze-armored standard bearer. Their centurion followed half a dozen steps behind, jaw snapping as he barked the cadence. Like the goblins behind him, he wore a heavy field pack on his shoulders and a short sword on his hip. Instead of the iron javelins they carried against their shoulders, however, he cradled an ivory baton in the crook of his elbow.

As the company passed by fifteen feet beneath his hammock, it was all Vangerdahast could do to remain motionless. He had been lurking on the fringe of the occupied warrens for some time now, quietly trying to follow a hunting party to wherever they killed their crows and skunks-presumably somewhere outside the city, since he had never seen signs of any such creatures in its vast darkness.

His efforts had met with no more success than his attempts to teleport, dimension door, or plane walk out of his prison. The hunting parties always seemed to disappear a thousand paces beyond the occupied portions of the city, sometimes vanishing after they rounded a corner and other times simply fading into the darkness at the other end of a long, straight corridor. Nothing Vangerdahast tried had ever enabled him to trace their route, not even magic.

This time it was no mere hunting party. This was an entire army, and armies did not vanish into thin air-not even goblin armies.

The present company had barely rounded the corner before Vangerdahast heard the next one coming. He gathered his possessions and scrambled through the window. Before descending to the bottom floor, he cast a spell to make himself invisible. Goblins seldom looked up, but they were extremely aware of matters at their own level and would certainly notice him if he did not take precautions.

Once the company had passed, Vangerdahast slipped out the door and started down the alley after them. He had no trouble keeping up for the first quarter mile or so, until the goblins entered a series of low passages running beneath the tenement buildings’ second stories. He dropped to his hands and knees and quickly began to fall behind. Somewhat reluctantly, Vangerdahast cast a flying spell so he could keep up without making too much noise. It was the nineteenth spell had used since he came to realize that his magic was freeing Nalavara.

By the time the company reached its destination, the magic had been drained from all three of Vangerdahast’s spells. He cast each spell again-the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second since he had vowed to use no more magic-then followed the goblins into an open space covered by an immense domed ceiling.

With jagged boulders littering the floor and stalactites hanging from the ceiling, the area had the look of a natural cavern. In the center of the vast space, a set of crooked timber stairs ascended an equally crooked scaffold and disappeared into the darkness above. A full legion of goblins-more than a hundred companies-stood before the structure in tidy ranks. Their attention was fixed on the first landing, where a handful of high-ranking goblins in iron armor stood staring out over their growing army.

Heart pounding in excitement, Vangerdahast ducked behind a nearby boulder to plan his next move. There was a time when he would have been arrogant enough to slip invisibly through the ranks and ascend the scaffold at once, but he had long ago learned not to underestimate the Grodd goblins.

Another dozen companies entered the marshaling ground and took their places at the rear of the legion. Finally, when the last warrior had taken his place and posted his javelin in front of him, a tall goblin in a red robe stepped forward. He raised both arms, and a curt, deafening cheer rose from the legion.

Twice more the goblin raised his arms, and twice more the legion gave its cheer. The red-garbed figure pressed his fingertips together and gestured toward the legion, then stepped back. Another goblin, this one in white, took his place and began to speak.

Vangerdahast cast his twenty-third spell.

“… Iron One has spoken,” said the goblin. The voice was that of Otka, the female whom Vangerdahast had seen giving orders in the Grodd Palace. “Now is the time. To the Wolf Woods you go!”

Otka flung her arm up the stairs and stepped aside. The first company started up the stairs three abreast, leaving Vangerdahast to curse the waste of his magic. Even the dimmest of Azoun’s high nobles would not have needed magic to guess the meaning of such a short speech.

Seeing no reason to wait in line-even in the city of the Grodd, royal wizards were entitled to their privileges-Vangerdahast stepped out of his hiding place and launched himself over the heads of the goblins. He landed three-quarters of the way up the tower, on a platform fully thirty feet above the leading company, and started up the cockeyed stairs. He ascended rapidly but cautiously, being careful not to stomp or slap his soles on the stair treads or make any other noise that would alert the goblins to his invisible presence. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to keep the scaffold from shaking and swaying beneath his weight. The Grodd had many strengths-especially for goblins-but construction was not one of them.

Upon reaching the next landing, Vangerdahast looked up and saw the stairs ascending into pitch darkness. The wizard climbed to within arm’s reach of it, then looked down and decided to cast one last spell before departing the goblin city. He pulled a small handful of sulfur and bat guano from his cloak and began to roll it into a sticky ball-then saw the glowing eyes of a ghazneth watching him from the mouth of a goblin tunnel.

One pearly eye vanished and reappeared. Vangerdahast stopped rolling his fingers. The thing had winked at him. Forgetting about the spell components in his hand, the wizard bounded up the last few steps in a dead sprint-and crashed headlong into the cavern’s spongy ceiling.

The surface parted and yielded ever so slightly, then suddenly stiffened and forced his head downward, so that he found himself staring at the goblins below. The ball of sulfur slipped from his fingers half-combined and plummeted groundward. He feared for an instant that he would follow, but the ceiling held him fast, spread-eagled forty feet above the legion.

Vangerdahast lost sight of the sulfur ball, then heard a dull ping and saw a goblin centurion drop to a surprised squat. The soldier pulled his helmet off and craned his neck to look-of all directions for a goblin to look-up.

Even then, Vangerdahast thought he might remain undetected. He was, after all, forty feet in the air, invisible, and camouflaged in a black weathercloak, but the goblin’s eyes grew round and white… and vanished into pitch darkness.

The wizard dared to hope he was being drawn through the ceiling into the Wolf Woods-known in his own day as Cormyr-when a high little voice began to chitter far below, and the scaffold began to groan and sway beneath the trammeling of little boots. Vangerdahast realized that the spongy barrier holding him fast was also drawing the magic from his spells. He could no longer see in the dark, nor-in all likelihood-fly.

Vangerdahast glanced toward the tunnel where he had seen the pearly eyes and found nothing but darkness. Having no doubts about what the thing would do next, he reached for his weathercloak’s escape pocket and found his arm stuck fast to the ceiling. Shrill goblin voices began to chitter below, not more than ten feet away.

Knowing he could never teleport out of the cavern-he had tried it a dozen times before and never found himself anywhere but the immense goblin city-Vangerdahast elected to try something simpler. He closed his eyes and spoke the incantation of a blink spell.

There was a fizzle and a hiss, then a dozen tiny hands clutching him from below, tugging at his lapels and jerking the throat clasp from his collar, fishing through his pockets and pulling out wands, potions, and rings, little bundles of dried toad tongue and chopped rock lichen and powdered newt eye of no use to anyone but him.

A pair of shining pearl eyes appeared in the darkness below, more or less where Vangerdahast remembered the corner of the scaffold to be. The goblins began to shriek and yammer madly. The eyes grew steadily, rapidly larger. The ghazneth was coming.

Finally, a goblin leaped up and caught hold of Vangerdahast’s sleeve, then began to work its way hand-over-hand toward his wrist. The wizard’s heart rose into his throat. He closed his eyes and tried one more time to decide whether Nalavara needed his ring of wishes or was frightened of it.

When the goblin grabbed hold of his wrist, he still had not decided. He closed his eyes and began, “I wish-“

A deafening clap of thunder interrupted the command. Vangerdahast’s eyes were pained by a brilliant flash of light, and the goblin’s weight vanished from his arm. A smell like scorched rabbit permeated the air.

“Do not!” growled a raspy voice. “As it is, you have nearly freed her!”

After squeezing his eyes open and shut several times, Vangerdahast was finally able to see a small cascade of flames licking the scaffold below him. The goblin leaders were chittering angrily and pointing at the flames. A moment later, several brave goblin warriors hurled themselves into the conflagration, using their own bodies and bare hands to beat out the fire.

Vangerdahast ignored their selfless display and stared into the ghazneth’s gray eyes. “Do I… know you?”

“No,” came the answer. The ghazneth pulled his shadowy body onto the landing beneath Vangerdahast, then plucked a pair of wands from a squealing goblin’s wrist and began to absorb the magic. “Nobody knows me.”

“You’re lying,” Vangerdahast said. Though the voice was far raspier than any he knew intimately, there was something familiar in its dry huskiness and crisp northern accent. “Where have we met?”

“Nowhere but here in this hell.”

The ghazneth spun away and began to knock goblins off the scaffold, crying out when one little warrior managed to thrust an iron javelin through his abdomen. Vangerdahast watched in astonishment, at first confused as to why the phantom had come to his aid, then growing more frightened as the obvious answer occurred to him. He was a magician, and ghazneths needed magic the way vultures needed death.

After clearing the immediate area of goblins, the ghazneth spun around to point down the stairs. As the phantom turned, Vangerdahast glimpsed a dark but handsome face with reasonably human features and a grotesquely cleft chin. Before the wizard could see more, a torrent of water shot from the ghazneth’s hand and blasted twenty goblins off the scaffold. The spray doused the fire they had been fighting and plunged the cavern back into darkness.

A powerful hand reached up and pulled Vangerdahast out of his wizard’s cloak, then turned to throw him off the tower.

“Wait!” Vangerdahast cried, finally putting the chiseled face and northern accent together. “I do know you!”

“No longer,” said the voice. “Now, go back to your nest and do not make me sorry I saved you.”

The ghazneth pitched him into the darkness, and Vangerdahast barely had time to picture his snug little hammock before he heard himself shout the syllables of his teleport spell.