Emperor of Ansalon

Chapter 25

Tombfyre carried Ariakas through a long, laboring climb. Even in the huge chamber the monstrous red dragon had to spiral constantly, striving every moment to increase their altitude. Ariakas stared above them, seeking some sign of the sky-anything that would show them a way out. Yet the higher they climbed, the more clear it became that this massive vault of stone was sealed by a solid dome of rock overhead.

"How did you get in here?" Ariakas asked, as they soared in a circle near the top of the vast space.

"I don't remember," Tombfyre replied with a rippling shrug of his powerful shoulders and sinuous neck. The serpent's tone was bitter. "The queen placed me here after the war-I have no knowledge of occurrences im shy;mediately following Huma's victory."

"It may salve your pride to know that Huma died in that battle-your army had its vengeance, at least."

"Vengeance is no substitute for victory," growled the wyrm. Abruptly, he tucked his wings, plummeting into the depths of the vast caverns, toward the smoking, smoldering reaches below. The plunge should have taken Ariakas by surprise, but a warning tingled in his mind a second before the dive-he tightened his hands in the dragon's mane, and when the serpent dived, the human clung securely to his back.

Still spiraling, Tombfyre sped through his long descent. Wind whipped Ariakas's hair back from his face, and his lips clenched into a snarling smile of tri shy;umph. The dragon's wheeling path continued down shy;ward, circling around the shaft that had held his prison for more than a thousand years.

Smoke stung Ariakas's eyes, and heat began to build oppressively. They plunged ever lower, still faster, and the human began to imagine an inevitable, fiery end to their descent. The smoldering depths became clear, as he saw eddies of cloudy smoke whisking past bright, flam shy;ing lava. He pictured an instantaneous finale, life blotted out at the very moment they smashed into the abyssal fires seething within the heart of Krynn.

The light grew brighter, forming a reddish haze of flaming illumination, burning the very air around them. Abruptly, and with a dizzying sense of expansion, the shaft they flew down opened through a hole in the ceil shy;ing of an incredibly vast, furiously burning cavern-like a plain of fire, sprawling to the horizons far below the surface of the world.

The dragon pulled out of the dive, and a huge, crim shy;son vista opened before the warrior's astonished eyes. Bubbling lava spread to the limits of vision, smoking, flaming, casting great, liquid gouts upward from the surface of a fiery sea. The shaft where he had found Tombfyre was nothing more than a tall, capped chimney leading upward from this huge, subterranean fire sea.

It seemed to Ariakas that the searing heat should kill him, but though he looked all around, at air shimmering with the scalding effects of fire, those effects did not touch his skin. He rode through the blazes of the inferno as though a bubble of cool, moist air surrounded him.

Great islands of dark stone rose into craggy peaks from the flaming surface, while stalactites funneled downward like inverted mountains from a cavern ceiling that in many places arced a full mile above the violent sea. Bub shy;bling veins of white-hot, molten rock crisscrossed back and forth among the cooler red of the lava, and many of these hot spots spewed geysers of liquid fire.

"Look-there! Smoke's escaping!" Ariakas indicated a vast crack in the cavern's ceiling. They could see shafts of smoke, sometimes accompanied by whirling blasts of flame, surging upward to disappear into the dark hole. "There has to be a vent to the surface!"

Immediately the dragon drove his wings downward, breaking from his glide and striving to gain altitude. The billowing updrafts helped carry them aloft into the crack. Soon stone walls surrounded them, leaving barely room for Tombfyre to wheel through tight circles. Fortu shy;nately the rising air gave them just enough lift to main shy;tain the climb.

With a flash of fierce, savage triumph, Ariakas caught a glimpse of the sky overhead-a pale swatch of blue that might have been sunset or dawn. Curiously, the man realized, he had no idea what the time might be on the outside world.

They reached a side cavern in the great shaft, and as the red dragon continued to labor upward Ariakas caught a strong stench of the Zhakar odor-the com shy;bination of mold and mushroom tea that had been so pervasive around the runty dwarves. With a flash of inspiration he remembered the tunnels leading into the city from the flaming, volcanic reaches below.

"There-go therel" he hissed. "Our vengeance will begin immediately!"

Without hesitating, Tombfyre ducked toward the pas shy;sage, gaining momentum in the level flight. Cave walls sped past them with dizzying speed, and the smell grew stronger.

In another moment they burst into a large cavern, and immediately Ariakas saw the twin rows of pillars mark shy;ing the King's Promenade of Zhakar. He heard scream shy;ing, observed with cruel glee hundreds of panicked dwarves frantically fleeing from their path. As Tombfyre flew over a group of them, the Zhakar collapsed to the ground, groveling in abject fear.

The serpent dipped a wing and curved with regal majesty, flying directly between the columns, diving straight for the twin thrones and the bestial statues at the far end of the promenade. Below, a full rank of Zhakar lizard riders struggled to control their mounts, but the scaly steeds bucked and pitched frantically, terrified by the soaring wyrm. Their powerful hind legs enabled the creatures to jump very high-perhaps twenty feet straight up-and one by one the riders were thrown roughly to the floor.

The populace scattered amid shrieks and wails of hys shy;terical fear. The bigger dwarves trampled their smaller neighbors in haste to reach the shelter of the huge cav shy;ern's corners and niches. As the crowd spread, Ariakas realized that some kind of gathering had been taking place before the great throne of Rackas Ironcog.

Tombfyre dived, skimming the floor in a last rush toward the throne and the cavern wall beyond. Now some Zhakar gaped in frozen horror, abject fear distort shy;ing their disfigured faces in clownish exaggeration.

Amid the terror-struck onlookers, Ariakas saw that Tale Splintersteel knelt before the throne of Rackas Ironcog. The Zhakar merchant was in chains, and a hulk shy;ing dwarf armed with a broad headsman's axe stood beside Splintersteel, awaiting his monarch's command. The executioner gaped upward, motionless, while Splintersteel threw himself, groveling, onto the floor.

Another prisoner stood a short distance away, and Ariakas recognized the shocked visage of Whez Lavas-tone. Rackas had apparently wasted no time in rounding up his enemies: guards flanked Lavastone, apparently in the process of clapping chains on his wrists and ankles when the approaching dragon brought activity to an abrupt halt.

Abruptly, Whez Lavastone seemed to shake off the effects of the dragonawe-at least to the point where he twisted free of the two guards holding his arms. Dis shy;abling one with a sharp kick, the sturdy Zhakar plucked a dagger from the belt of the second man-at-arms and disemboweled him in the next stroke.

"Stop them! Kill them!" cried Rackas Ironcog, king of Zhakar. The monarch jabbered and gesticulated as the horrifying form swooped straight toward him. In response to his command the royal guards threw down their weapons and fled as fast as their stubby legs could carry them-those, at least, who didn't collapse, para shy;lyzed by terror, to the floor.

Ariakas thought of the green blade on his back, of the hissing cloud of poisonous gas he could send wafting through these chambers. He quickly discarded the thought as an unnecessary extravagance.

Tombfyre spread his broad wings and came to light just before the monarch's great, stone seat. It seemed that a sneer of amusement curled the serpentine lip as the mighty creature looked around at the scene of confusion and fear.

Ariakas saw something move in the shadows behind the second of the great thrones. Several guards crouched there, paralyzed by fear, but one cloaked figure scurried away. The warrior caught a glimpse of the gold fringe on the dark robe, and recognized Tik Deepspeaker.

"Kill him!" Ariakas snarled to his mount, pointing after the fleeing savant.

Tombfyre turned his broad head. Tooth-studded jaws gaped, and a puff of preliminary smoke emerged from the dragon's black nostrils. Then a belch of hellish, oily fire erupted from that horrific maw, spurting outward to hiss and crackle around the second throne, incinerating the guards who had taken shelter there. The greedy fire billowed farther, and in another instant swept around the gold-robed figure.

Even considering the incredible, killing heat of the fiery breath, Tik Deepspeaker managed to scream for a long time. When finally the inferno faded, all that remained was a black chip of charcoal, much smaller than a Zhakar's body.

Rackas Ironcog leapt from his throne and tried to scramble into the narrow niche behind it-a niche that was only wide enough to accommodate his head and shoulders. His terror was both pathetic and gratifying, and he seemed a figure hardly worth Ariakas's or Tomb-fyre's attention.

Nor was that attention necessary. Whez Lavastone, after killing the second guard, raced toward the king, ignoring the leering dragonhead looming over him. The Zhakar reached his monarch's cowering form, and Lava-stone drove his bloody dagger into Rackas Ironcog's back. Withdrawing the weapon with a hysterical cry of triumph, he plunged it downward again, stabbing the dying king through the neck.

"Rackas Ironcog is dead!" cried Lavastone, holding the gory weapon aloft.

Abruptly, Whez Lavastone's eyes met those of Aria shy;kas. The Zhakar's gaze wavered, and the warrior could see the growing fear there-but still, the dwarf did not cower before the awe-inspiring interlopers.

"Swear to me your allegiance, and you and your people will be allowed to live," declared Ariakas. "Falter, and you will join your king in death!"

"I swear!" cried Whez Lavastone, prostrating himself before the dragon and the human. The dwarf quickly rose to his feet and addressed his countrymen.

"I claim the crown of Zhakar!" he shouted. "Is there any here who would face my challenge in the arena?"

For long moments the great hall was silent. The Zhakar continued to slowly creep back toward the soot-blackened thrones, cautiously observing developments.

"Hail King Lavastone!" cried a voice-perhaps that of Tale Splintersteel.

Immediately the call was taken up, and if it wasn't a resounding thunder neither did it possess any note of dissent.

Whez Lavastone turned back to Ariakas and Tomb-fyre. "I realize you seek the mold of the fungus warrens. You shall have as much of it as you desire," he promised.

"I know," Ariakas said with a smug nod.

Tale Splintersteel, meanwhile, cocked a cautious eye upward from the floor, though he still trembled in awe of the monstrous serpent.

"Unchain him," Ariakas commanded, and several attendants crept to obey. The highlord slid down Tomb-fyre's sleek shoulder, striding forward to confront Tale Splintersteel and Whez Lavastone.

"I will take some of the dust to Sanction when I depart," Ariakas continued. Then he turned to the Zhakar merchant. "Your treachery has gone unpunished long enough. You sought to betray me in the Fireplaza of Sanction, and there I swore vengeance-now, accept your retribution."

The green sword flashed, and Tale Splintersteel's head, face locked in an expression of dawning horror, flew from his shoulders and thumped onto the floor.

"This one once served me, but I had no more need of him." Ariakas turned back to the wary figure of Whez Lavastone. "You will not outlive your usefulness, either.

"Send a caravan to Sanction in my wake. Oh, and you'll want to appoint a new merchant lord-one who meets my approval. I want a hundred barrels of the mold in the first shipment, and thaf s only the beginning."

"B-But what are the terms?" stammered Whez.

"You'll hear the terms when the mold is delivered," snapped the highlord. "Now-bring me my sample!"

"Quickly, fools!" yelped Whez Lavastone, crying out to the assembled Zhakar who stood well back from the imposing intruder. "Bring him the dust! Pack saddlebags!"

Dozens of dwarves hurried to obey. Ariakas and Tombfyre remained alert to activity around them, but felt certain that the Zhakar had been thoroughly cowed.

His mind drifted back to Lyrelee and the delights she had given him…. He felt a twinge of regret, but already he saw that there would be other women-as many as he wanted. Perhaps he would choose a young maiden this time, or a wench with a little more flesh on her bones. The problem of their inevitable deaths would only serve to provide variety.

Ariakas's thoughts turned to Ferros Windchisel, and the steadfast friendship that, in the end, had been the Hylar's greatest gift. Together they had shared a road of dangers and delights. Ferros had proven to be a true warrior's companion-a loyal ally willing to live or die as fate decreed. Of the two, he knew that Ferros would be harder to replace.

Ariakas felt a brief sadness for their loss-more so for the dwarf than the woman, he realized. Perhaps Ferros Windchisel had offered him a friendship and loyalty that would be unique in his life.

But then his thoughts turned to the future. As the dwarves carted out great saddlebags of mold dust, he imagined the wealth that treasure would generate in Sanction-for he intended to charge the temple for his services. With that money, and the power that would come to him by virtue of his new companion, the road to that smoldering city was lined with promise.

Beyond Sanction, Ariakas knew, that pathway would lead him to new heights of conquest and mastery. Legions of draconians would march under his banner! There would be a time-soon-when whole nations, when all of Ansalon, would tremble at the mention of his name … when, backed by the might of his Dark Queen, he, Highlord Ariakas, would rule the world!