The Dragon Isles

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Everyone in the room stood silently for a moment, and all eyes fixed upon the glittering ruby.

“You do the honors,” Ula said quietly, handing her portions of the key to Mik.

Willing his hands not to tremble, Mik joined the final segment of the key to the first three. As he did, the temple shuddered and the key shone with a blue-white brilliance as intense as sunlight on a summer day.

Mik squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding glare and, when he opened them again, the light had died away. As his vision cleared, on the far side of the room he saw a set of massive silver doors that had not been there before. The portals were carved with the likenesses of sea creatures, people, and dragons. They had no doorhandles; only a single large keyhole marred the sculptures on their surface.

“The doors to the Temple of the Sky,” he said. The others nodded, too stunned to say anything-even Trip.

Finally, Karista Meinor broke the silence. “Open them,” she said, rubbing her long fingers together in anticipation.

Mik swam across the room and inserted the key into the doors’ immense lock. As he turned it, all of reality seemed to tremble. The room shook, and he felt lightning coursing up his arms and into his brain. In his mind, he saw an enormous blue-white diamond hovering in the air before him. Lights flashed inside his eyes, and thunder roared in his ears.

Slowly and without a sound, the giant metal doors parted.

At first, all any of them saw beyond the doors was the ruined temple and the craggy mountainside beyond. Then, like ice melting from a windowpane, the rocks faded away, revealing a long silver staircase.

The stair was wide enough for dragons, but its smooth treads were spaced on a more human scale. The risers supporting it were carved in the same elaborate manner as the silver doors. The stairway stretched up, out of the ocean deep to the fiery cleft in the volcano rim above. At the top of the stair, its white pillars looking as new as if it had been made yesterday, lay the Temple of the Sky.

“Wonders upon wonders,” gasped Mik.

The stairway was immensely long, but there were terraces or plazas along the way-each one surrounded by pillars, forming a kind of miniature open temple.

“Up we go,” Mik said. He tucked the key in his belt and swam through the silver doors and up to the stairway.

“Don’t forget your man outside,” Ula said to Kell, before following the sailor. Trip darted ahead of her and reached the stairway at the same time as Mik. As the kender headed for the stairs, though, he dived facedown onto the treads. “Ouch!” he cried.

Mik swam to help him, and nearly tumbled down himself. He landed on all fours, and then stood before helping Trip up.

“There’s an enchantment on the stairway,” Mik called to the rest. “Trying to swim over it is like fighting your way up a waterfall.” He took a few tentative steps up the stairway. “It seems easy enough to walk, though.”

“One does not swim up a temple stairway,” Shimmer noted.

Mik and Trip began walking upward toward the first plaza. Ula and Shimmer followed, then the female guard, then Karista and Kell. Finally, the pale guard who had been stationed outside the temple brought up the rear. He walked tentatively, glancing from side to side, peering into the deep as he came.

They reached the first terrace, and Mik bobbed quickly across. “The spell doesn’t affect the plazas,” he said. “We can swim normally here.”

The group took a moment to relax and admire the decrepit splendor of the sunken temple below. Kell’s male guard took the lead as they ascended the stairs once more, while the female brass warrior brought up the rear.

They passed beyond the thorny ceiling overarching the submerged temple and trench just before they reached the next plaza. The waters around them became less dark, and the sea life grew more numerous. Spotted dominoes swam overhead, beyond the reach of the stair’s enchantment.

“Watch out for predators,” Kell told his warriors. The brass-armored man and woman nodded their understanding.

As they reached the third platform, the surface of the sea became visible above them. A supernatural clarity surrounded the stairs themselves-and the path to the volcano’s rim appeared as lucid as gazing across the ocean on a cloud-free day.

In the area surrounding the stair, though, local conditions prevailed. The storm brewing in the sky above churned up the water, making it translucent and opaque. Thunderheads gathered over the mountain, though a tiny circle of blue sky shone through above the distant temple.

Kell’s lead guard forged ahead while the others rested. Hiking up the steps was as tedious as it would have been on land-and the stairway was far longer than the climb to the Dragonheights.

Mik leaned against a pillar and caught his breath. The next plaza was above the waves, and the weather there looked none too pleasant. Ula swam lazy circles around the perimeter of the area, stretching her long limbs. Trip kept pace beside her, using the ancient power of his sea serpent cloak.

Kell and Karista Meinor stood close together, between Mik and the ascending stairway. Shimmer sat on a coral bench opposite, rubbing his wounded shoulder. Kell’s brass-armored woman warrior stood atop the descending steps, watching the way they’d come.

“Let’s keep moving,” Mik said. “We don’t have much daylight left.” He headed for the stairs once more, and the others followed.

A shape flashed past ahead of them, beyond the plaza’s massive columns. Mik turned and saw the tail fin of a mangier shark angle up, over the stairway. He wondered, briefly, why Kell’s advance guard hadn’t warned them about the predator.

The next instant, the brass guard shot down the stairway like a man surfing a powerful wave. Sharks and razorfish, each with a small Turbidus leech attached to its spine, followed him. The guard streaked across the terrace, his brass spear pointed at Lord Kell’s back. Kell’s other guard stepped in front of her master, and the traitor thrust his spear into the female warrior’s gut.

The woman gasped, and her weapon fell from her hand onto the coral flagstones below. The guard cursed in a guttural voice and yanked out his spear. The woman warrior hung limply in the water, dead.

Lord Kell spun, a cry on his lips. His outrage echoed through the brine as everyone in the plaza drew their weapons. The evil fish swarmed down the stairs and attacked.

Kell stood between Mik and the traitor, but a mangier shark buffeted the lord aside. It was all Kell could do to avoid being bitten in half. The renegade guard flashed by his master, headed straight toward Mik.

Mik cursed himself for not noticing the guard’s odd demeanor earlier. He brought up his sword to defend himself. The traitor batted Mik’s weapon aside and, on the back-swing, deftly knocked the Key to the Temple of the Sky from Mik’s belt.

The artifact spun through the water and landed near the renegade’s feet. The traitor stabbed at Mik, and the sailor dived back. The guard stooped to retrieve the fallen key.

Mik lunged forward and slashed at the man’s exposed spear-arm. The scimitar found its target, and the guard’s flesh ripped off in a long pale ribbon, revealing the scales beneath.

Shocked at the sight, Mik hesitated, and the imposter’s counterattack nearly impaled him. Fortunately, Ula dove in and shoved the sailor out of the way. She thrust her spear up into the brass warrior’s crystal faceplate. The helmet, and the warrior’s dead face beneath, ripped off-revealing the horrifying reptilian visage of Mog.

The dragonspawn inside the dead warrior’s skin batted aside the shaft of Ula’s spear and stabbed at her midsection. Ula parried the blow and aimed a counter thrust. Before she could deliver it, though, Mik put his shoulder into Ula’s gut and drove them both across the plaza onto the coral flagstones.

A torpedolike redtip shark flashed harmlessly over their heads. The fish had been aiming for Ula’s exposed back. “Thanks,” she said. Mik nodded.

Mog’s fishy minions circled the plaza, keeping the rest of the treasure hunters busy. Karista put her back against a pillar while Kell stood in front of her, warding off attacks. The brass lord swung his coral lance in short arcs, slashing the flanks of the sharks and razorfish pressing in around them.

Trip played a deadly game of tag with the evil fish. His sea serpent cloak gave him more speed and maneuverability, but the enchanted plaza gave him little room to move. He bobbed and twisted, shooting between the enemy, and striking them with his twin daggers.

The predators’ teeth had little effect against Shimmer’s bronze armor. Mog had counted on this, though, and directed the bulk of his forces to attack the bronze knight. Enthralled fish surrounded the human-shaped dragon like a whirlwind, battering him from all directions. Shimmer swung his sawtoothed sword at them, killing many, but more fish swarmed in from the sides to replace the dead.

Mog seized the glowing key. He shrieked as the energy of the artifact ripped through him, blowing the remnants of his hideous disguise into streamers of crimson flesh.

Writhing in agony, he swam to the edge of the silver stairs and began to shamble up its wide treads.

“Give it back!” Karista shrieked. She dodged out from behind Shimmer and flung a thin-bladed dagger at the dragonspawn.

The knife pierced Mog’s left hand. He howled, staggered backward, and lost his balance on the edge of the staircase. The key dropped from his hand and tumbled down the stairs.

“Trip! Grab it!” Mik called, as he gutted another dragon-enthralled shark.

The kender dodged through the temple pillars and caught the ancient key on the fly. The gems in the artifact sparked, but it did not bum him. He gazed at it in rapt attention.

“Look out, you fool!” Kell shouted.

Trip ducked just in time to avoid the jaws of a speeding razorfish.

The enraged and bleeding Mog lunged down into the plaza and commanded his fishy allies to destroy the kender. The sharks and razorfish swarmed in on Trip, trying to surround him.

But the sea serpent cloak gave Trip greater speed and maneuverability. He raced away from his pursuers, darting in and out of the terrace’s pillars. Mik, Ula, Shimmer, and Kell tried to cover Trip’s position, but their enemies crowded between them, making it impossible for anyone to help the kender.

“Up the stairs!” Mik said. “The next plaza is above water. The fish can’t touch us there.” He and the others formed a tight group at the stairway’s base, using the pillars on each side to protect their flanks. Karista retrieved her fallen dagger, stained black with Mog’s sticky blood, but kept well back of the fray.

“Fight your way to us!” Mik called to Trip.

“Duck your head, little one!” Shimmer shouted.

The visor of the bronze knight’s helmet opened and his scintillating dragon breath blasted across the briny deep. Dragon-enthralled fish withered and died where Shimanloreth’s power struck them, cutting a path through the swirling predators. Exhausted, the bronze knight collapsed to one knee, nearly toppling off the edge of the plaza.

Trip darted through the opening toward his friends, but Mog rose up before him. The dragonspawn grabbed the kender’s cloak. His talonlike fingers raked toward Trip’s eyes. Trip struggled frantically in Mog’s grip.

Mik and Ula shot through the gap in their enemies and drove straight for Mog.

Ula thrust her spear under the dragonspawn’s arm, but , the point got caught in the armor of the dead guard that Mog had been impersonating. Mik cut at the creature’s head, but Mog ducked out of the way. He whirled in a tight circle, yanking Ula and her spear with him.

The sea elf smashed into Mik and the kender just as her spear yanked free from Mog’s stolen armor. The three of them tumbled back, limbs flailing, as a group of razorfish flashed past. The fishes’ sharp teeth missed the treasure hunters by mere inches.

The key flew from Trip’s hand and landed near the steps ascending from the plaza. Lord Kell snatched it up before anyone else could reach it. “Up the stairs!” he called, and he, Karista, and Shimmer began to climb.

“Give me the key, Kell,” Shimmer said. They’d gone a dozen steps, and the spell over the stairs was keeping the evil fish from following. The bronze knight looked pained and exhausted, but his orange eyes blazed. The bottom of his visor raised slightly, showing the scintillating energies within.

The brass lord gritted his teeth and handed Shimmer the artifact. “We’re all in this together,” he said, barely meaning it.

In a flash, Karista smashed the pommel of her dagger across Kell’s helmet. He reeled, dropping his coral lance, and tumbled down the stairs into the plaza where Mik, Ula, and Trip were still fighting for their lives. Karista picked up Kell’s fallen weapon.

“Why did you…?” Shimmer began. But he never finished his sentence.

Karista thrust the weapon between Shimanloreth’s ribs. The coral lance’s magic pierced the dragon’s bronze armor and drove deep into his side. Shimmer’s humanlike eyes went wide, and he dropped the bejeweled key. “Why… ?” he gasped.

The aristocrat gave the spear a final twist and pushed Shimmer off the side of the stairway. He disappeared into the dark waters below, Kell’s lance still protruding from his side.

Karista smiled, and spoke in a voice as much Tempest’s as her own.

“The key is mine!”