Emperor of Ansalon

Chapter 23

Ariakas desperately chopped at the monster's encrusted skin, halting the lumbering advance long enough to hoist the Hylar in his arms. Together the pair staggered down the corridor, away from the plodding horrors. The warrior cast a last look at Lyrelee's body, seeing the leading fun shy;gus creature kick the corpse aside with its huge foot. Then he ran for all he was worth, his lungs gulping air desperately, his legs pumping to carry them away from the monsters.

It seemed like hours later when he collapsed, falling against the cave wall and slumping to the ground, Ferros tumbling free beside him. The dwarf gasped, too-but not from exhaustion. The pale sheen of sweat across the dwarf's brow and the pallid cast of his skin told Ariakas that his companion was in profound pain. The Hylar scraped listlessly at his skin, which came off in great, flaking clumps.

"What about the sword-can you fry these swamp-muckers with it?" Ferros hissed through teeth clenched with agony.

"No-I can't use the blue blade!" Ariakas retorted, shaking his head in frustration.

The Hylar didn't reply, turning instead to look down the corridor they had used in their flight. Bulky forms moved in the shadows, and he didn't have to see more to know that the pursuers advanced with relentless deter shy;mination.

"Go on-without me!" gasped the Hylar. "It's the only way you'll get away!"

Ariakas remained silent, watching the nearest of the hulking monsters shamble into the fringe of light from his spell. He couldn't bring himself to look at Ferros Windchisel-perhaps because he knew the dwarf was right.

"Look, warrior-I came in search of a dwarven king shy;dom in the Khalkists," the Hylar said, his tone growing firm as he banished the pain to some distant part of his awareness. "I wanted to find this place-and now it claims me."

"Their treachery will be avenged," Ariakas promised, surprised at how dull his own voice sounded.

"That's not what I'm talking about!" snapped Ferros, before squeezing his eyes shut as a spasm of pain racked his battered body. "It's this: if you meet a Thorbardin dwarf sometime, get them this word-there are no dwarves in the Khalkists! None worthy of the name, at least-none who could ever serve as allies of Thorbar shy;din."

Again Ferros ceased talking, his breath coming in short, rapid pants. Ariakas looked at the grotesque forms of the monsters. The first had halted temporarily, allow shy;ing its companions to join it. Then, in a bunched and menacing group, they clumped steadily closer.

The Hylar opened his eyes, and stared fixedly at Aria-kas when the human met his gaze. "When Thorbardin meets Zhakar," he growled, his voice taut with fury, "it will be not as allies, but as enemies. And that's a thing I'd just as soon not live to see!"

"Come on," Ariakas said gruffly. His muscles shrieked in protest at the thought, but he rose stiffly to his feet and reached for Ferros.

"No-get going!" shouted the dwarf, holding his axe in his good hand. His smashed leg jutted awkwardly to the side, and a growing pool of blood marked the floor around him. Seated with his back against an outcrop of the cavern wall, Ferros turned to face the advancing monsters-barely a few steps away now.

"Move!" cried Ferros Windchisel, his voice shrill with agony and rage. "Don't make my death a waste, too!"

With those words ringing in his ears, Ariakas turned and sprinted away. From somewhere his heart and lungs found the energy to fuel his flight. His boots pounded the floor, not loud enough to overwhelm the recrimina shy;tion ringing in his mind.

He turned down a passageway, blindly lunging in the direction that he thought might take him back to the water warrens. Where had the Zhakar turned from here? Ariakas couldn't remember, so he guessed, still sprinting along the dank, stone-walled passages of the deep war shy;rens.

Another turn, another winding cavern. This one didn't seem familiar-Ariakas sensed that he ran down a grad shy;ually descending passage, and he didn't remember doing any climbing on the way in. Still, he couldn't arrest his flight, didn't even want to take the time to see if the monsters still pursued.

Finally he paused, leaning against the stone wall and gasping for air until his breathing rasped into mere pant shy;ing. By the time he could hear anything aside from him shy;self, the telltale noise of the fungus creatures' advance reached him down the corridor, urging him once more into flight.

Gradually, as he ran, fatigue settled into the back shy;ground. He pounded along without noticing the tearing pain in his lungs, the dry hacking of his throat. Instead, his mind focused directly, to the point of obsession, on one thing:

The Zhakar would pay. He would start with the pathetic excuse for a monarch, Rackas Ironcog, but his vengeance would continue long after that lone villain was dead. The savant, Tik Deepspeaker, deserved to die in agony. The entire people, the entire nation, he vowed, would suffer for the treachery with which they had greeted the emissaries of the Dark Queen.

When first he had arrived in the dwarven kingdom, Ariakas had intended to forge a treaty with the Zhakar, to work out an arrangement of trade that would be prof shy;itable to both sides. No more. Now he would bargain as master, as conqueror. He would dictate the terms of the agreement, and personally-and gleefully-kill any plague-pocked dwarf who objected to the oppressive conditions!

How he would gain this mastery was a detail that, for the moment, he did not address. It was salve to his spirit merely to make the determination that he would have vengeance! Whether it was the weapon in his hand that would smite them, or the force of an army arrayed beneath Ariakas's command, or some other agent of power and destruction, the dwarves of Zhakar would learn the folly of their betrayal.

The grim determination sustained his endurance well beyond the point of exhaustion, and when he at last slowed the frantic pace of his flight, he felt not only physically fresh, but spiritually renewed. He sensed the will of the Dark Queen in the resurgence of his strength, and took the time to pause for a moment.

His fury at Lyrelee's death had already faded; like the lady in the tower, half a lifetime ago, she had now become merely a pleasant memory from his past. At first, the rapid waning of his grief seemed cold and bru shy;tal, but soon Ariakas saw with clarity that Takhisis pro shy;tected, watched over him! Any others were extraneous, tools intended to help him work the Dark Queen's will.

Even Ferros Windchisel? Was he extraneous? The question insinuated itself into his mind. He twisted the notion this way and that for mere seconds before he knew the answer.

Yes. Even Ferros.

"My Queen, I remain your servant," Ariakas whis shy;pered, the words coming from the depths of his soul. "Your tool, your slave-but please, I beg you! Grant me the power to smite these miserable worms!"

With that prayer ringing in his mind, Ariakas became aware that the caverns of Zhakar were absolutely still and silent around him. He had long ago left the realms of the fungus warrens, and though the stone walls near him dripped with moisture, he saw no sign of mushroom or mold. He was thoroughly lost.

Now that he began to piece together the fragmented memories of his long run, Ariakas had a vague sense that he had descended far, far below the original level of the warrens. Perhaps he had chosen the speed of downhill flight, or perhaps he had instinctively fled away from the population of hideous dwarves dwelling in the subter shy;ranean city above him.

Whatever the reason, Ariakas knew that he was deeper in the bedrock of Krynn than he had ever been before. He felt a momentary surge of panic when he real shy;ized that his light spell had been burning for many hours-but then, like a soothing presence, he felt the aura of his goddess, and the knowledge that she would not let him languish in darkness. At least, not now. not when he was so close….

The knowledge struck him like a hammer blow. It was a thing that he sensed in the very air around him, sensed with a certainty that made him angry for not realizing it sooner.

In the heart of the world….

Somewhere nearby, somewhere down in these sunless depths, there was a thing Takhisis wanted him to find-a thing that would … set fire to the sky! It was she who had brought him here, not the mindless urgings of his own panic.

He felt a flood of relief, rising on a tide of determina shy;tion. She had brought him this far-he would do the rest. Grimly he grasped his sword, starting cautiously through the underground darkness, allowing the clean wash of light from his gemstone to highlight every chis shy;eled stalagmite, every slime-coated rock and mirrorlike pool.

Ariakas moved with the innate caution of the veteran warrior-but he was a warrior on the attack, unafraid to commit himself to a dangerous course. He advanced through the tunnel until he reached a narrow fissure, where erosion had created a steeply sloping channel down and to the left. Without hesitation he turned from the main corridor into this narrow crack, sliding between closely pressed walls of stone, ignoring the knowledge that every step took him farther away from sunlight and fresh air.

Rock pressed close overhead. The ravine formed a long tunnel running downward for a hundred feet. Halfway down it, Ariakas slipped on some sand and slid his battering way along. He almost spilled out the end of the niche before yawning blackness warned him of peril. His hands reached out to the walls on either side, and with his boots already extending from the gaping end of the passage, he arrested his slide.

Carefully he reversed his position, leaning his head outward and allowing the gemstone to illuminate his surroundings. He saw that the ravine terminated on the precipitous side of a vast, lightless cavern. A few pebbles tumbled outward as he shifted his grip, and he heard them bounce and rattle for a long time. Immediately below him, a crack in the wall extended straight down, creating a narrow shaft in the subterranean cliff. He thought that, just maybe, he could descend that chute without tumbling free. The rocky sides were close enough together for him to brace his arms, and numer shy;ous boulders seemed to be wedged in its base. These would serve as footholds-presuming, of course, they were wedged securely enough not to break free in a rockslide.

Nevertheless, the compulsion to descend, to move deeper into the realm of rock and fundament, left him no room for alternatives. The winding crack behind led nowhere but up, and Ariakas had no interest in time-consuming detours.

Instead, he reversed his position again, and lowered his feet out of the crack, keeping a grip with his hands until he could kick downward and stand upon one of those wedged boulders. He lowered his body and began to step carefully downward, his hands firmly braced against either side of this narrow chute.

When he looked out into the cavern, his tiny light was swallowed by an apparently infinite expanse of dark shy;ness. His footstep knocked a rock free. The stone struck somewhere close below with a sharp crack. The echo of the sound did not reach him for several seconds. Then, however, the sound was repeated for a thrumming minute or two, ricocheting back and forth through a vast and resonant space.

Abruptly the rocks beneath his feet slipped away in a clattering cascade, and Ariakas smashed onto his back, skidding madly down the chute. His hands clawed for support, finding only blunt rock. Each foot kicked at the rocks below, but these merely tumbled free and joined the landslide.

Ariakas twisted this way and that, grasping for any shy;thing to stop this uncontrolled plunge. A sharp rock jabbed him in the knee, but he managed to grab it as he slid downward. Then another large stone smashed him in the face, drawing blood from his nose and breaking the desperate grip of his fingers.

The sounds of the rockslide grew to a crescendo around him, and Ariakas sensed that the chute grew steeper. For one sickening moment he tumbled into space, free, scrambling to remain upright. Then he smashed with stunning force into a solid surface. Some shy;thing flat partially supported him, but he felt himself slipping aside. For a second he teetered at the brink of a precipice. Rocks crashed past him, smashing his hands as he tried to grab something, anything. His feet kicked free, followed by his torso, and then his fingers found a crack. Wedging them inward with bone-crushing force, Ariakas at last arrested his fall, though most of his body remained suspended in black, yawning space.

Gasping for breath, the man tried to blink the dust from his eyes. He kicked a foot upward to the side, catch shy;ing his boot on the lip he clung to by his fingertips. Then, with extreme effort, he scrambled upward to sit on a nar shy;row shelf of rock. His helmet had remained strapped to his head, and now he flashed the gem light around.

Ariakas quickly realized that he was in a very dire predicament. The ledge was narrow-perhaps three feet wide-and only a dozen paces long. Below it, the subter shy;ranean cliff plunged away, a sheer descent into darkness, while an equally precipitous wall loomed overhead. Even the chute he had descended became, in the last approach to this ledge, a plummeting chimney that offered no route for climbing back up.

In discouragement, Ariakas turned his light outward, where it was swallowed in the vastness of dark, subter shy;ranean space. He saw nothing beyond this bare cliff, a narrow perch that might let him walk a few steps in either direction. In frustration he kicked at the loose rocks on the ledges, sending them plunging into the depths, listening with awe as the sounds of their fall reached him a long time later.

Suddenly the bedrock shuddered, and the air resounded with a loud crack. The ledge shook, and Aria-kas fell to his side, madly scrambling for a handhold. Perched on the edge again, he stared downward-then blinked in surprise.

There was light down there! A great distance away, something huge seethed and glowed, casting out a dim but steadily growing illumination. The brightness was an ember-red in color, though it seemed to be filtered through some kind of haze.

Quickly he clapped his hand over the glowing gem, completely screening the light-and he could still see. In fact, with the gem light covered, he could clearly discern the somber, crimson glow, rising from the depths below. It was as though he stared into a deep well, at the bottom of which smoldered a smoky fire. Thick vapors obscured the air, writhing back and forth, disturbed by currents and updrafts. Within the dense cloud there flamed an unmistakable suggestion of great heat-heat like the Lavaflow River of Sanction, or even the molten hearts of the Lords of Doom.

In the illumination of that hellish fire, as his eyes grad shy;ually became accustomed to the vast darkness, Ariakas looked across the cavern. He felt a sense of wonder that rapidly grew into awe. He might have been sitting on the slope of some immense mountain, looking at sister peaks around the range, for all the immensity of the setting- except that these were peaks that leaned inward, coming together far above in a vast dome of rock-a false sky overhead.

Vast, rough surfaces of stone were outlined in the red shy;dish glow, underlit like great, drooping faces gathering around a dim and dying fire. The massive scope of this place made Ariakas feel like a tiny bug, an insignificant insect on the wall of a great castle.

Only after several minutes of awestruck gawking did he realize that something obstructed his view across the expanse. He saw that, midway between himself and the opposite wall of the cylindrical cavern, a shadowy grid structure seemed to float in the air.

His eyes adjusted further, and he saw long, spidery beams, extending outward from the cavern walls to reach the skeletonlike shape.

For a long time Ariakas studied the form, and gradu shy;ally he discerned that it was a cage. Something huge, impossibly vast, lay within that cage, trapped by iron bars that ringed it on all sides, above and below as well.

Then, with a great stretching of wings and tail, the thing moved. It raised a long neck, uncurled huge, talon-studded claws … and Ariakas knew beyond doubt that a dragon had returned to Krynn.