Realms of the Dragons vol.1

FIRST FLIGHT

Netheril Year 3398 (-461 DR)

Serreg kneeled, picked a dead stalk of grass, and inspected it closely. It was withered, with some pale green still trapped in its blades, mocking its vanished vitality. Serreg rolled it in his fingers, then let it drop. He dug into the earth with his hand and loosened a clod. The lifeless dirt crumbled between his fingers, trailing pale dust on the thin breeze. It's happening again, he thought. Serreg stood, took a deep breath, and looked around, hands on hips, at the patch of desiccated vegetation. It was several miles across and perfectly centered beneath the city that floated a half mile over Serreg's head. Delia was Serreg's home, one of the enclaves built on inverted mountaintops that sailed majestically across the skies of Netheril.

Serreg took another deep breath in a vain effort to purge the weight in his heart, then he cast Oberon's flawless teleport to return to his chambers. After years of teleportation, instantaneous travel no longer disoriented the archwizard. He materialized in his chambers already walking across the floor to his desk. Opening one drawer, he pulled forth a small crystal sphere. He held it lightly in one hand and passed the other in front of it. It began to glow with an inner light.

"Sysquemalyn, please deliver this to Lady Polaris promptly," he said. "Thank you."

He passed his hand twice in front of the orb, and spoke again, saying, "Lady Polaris, the land beneath us is also blighted, as if the very life is sucked out of the soil. The grass withers in place. Insects and even small animals lie dead in the shadow of the city. There is no decay. The cycle of life and death is not heading back to rebirth. I shall keep you apprised of my findings."

He turned the hand holding the crystal upside down and the item rolled out of his hand. It floated-light as a soap bubble, yet purposeful of movement-directly out the window, then turned right toward the Central Keep. Serreg strode out the door.

The archwizard's chambers lay in the innermost circle of Delia, in the palace the city's founder, Lady Polaris, built nearly a thousand years before. People called it the Glade; there had been some sort of garden there originally, and short of the Central Keep where Lady Polaris and her two aides lived, it was the most prestigious neighborhood in Delia.

The city had been built in concentric rings, and Serreg walked easily down one of the radial streets toward the north rim of the enclave. The archwizard had lived in Delia for over two centuries, and he no longer noted the gradual deterioration in the cityscape as he walked ever so slightly downhill from the clean, elegant lines of the Glade to the peasant's huts and farmers' markets at the rim.

There was no railing around the rim of Delia. Those citizens who ventured near the edge either knew to remain safe, or else they departed the city rather more abruptly than they had intended. But though dangerous (especially on windy days), the rim afforded a gorgeous view. It was like a view from a mountaintop,but without the rest of the mountain in the way.

Nevertheless, for all the panoramic beauty, Serreg's eye drifted to the north, and a touch east, where he knew another patch of dead earth lay, ten miles across. He fancied he could just see a part of that barren patch-and his eye saw something else. A long line started beneath his feet and lightly arced to the barren patch to the north, a trail of wilting grass and pale earth. Whatever blight had struck the land beneath their fair enclave, it had followed Delia as Lady Polaris moved the city to greener pastures.

The land was dying beneath Delia, and without the land, Delia would die as well.

For the next year, Serreg labored intensely, studying the blight. He had the resources of the Delian libraries at his disposal, as well as his decades of scholarship and magical studies. It was gratifying to put his knowledge and studies to tangible, practical use. Such a grave crisis merited the superior mind of the archwizard. He had always wanted to exercise his power in a serious pursuit like smiting the enclave of Doubloon, destroying the Lich of Buoyance, or something else of — that order. While the puzzle of the crop blight was not as immediately gratifying as combat would be, the challenge at least carried mortal stakes.

Alchemical analysis determined that the enclave had not been altered. No insidious plague lingered on the underside of Delia's granite, and the city's shadow had no strange new side effect. Of the dead creatures themselves, they could not be resurrected, which implied that whatever spark gave them life had been utterly crushed. Test animals placed anywhere within the area of the blight suffered a similar fate, despite the efforts of Serreg and the temple healers to preserve their essence. Once removed from the zone, the subjects resumed normal lives, if a bit weakened ever after.

Lady Polaris moved Delia twice during that year at Serreg's behest, and each time the blight followed the city's path exactly. The radius of the blight below expanded as Delia remained stationary over that spot. In a similar manner, the width of the blighted trail left in Delia's wake varied inversely with the speed with which the enclave moved.

Throughout his researches, Serreg assiduously recorded small anomalies in a separate tome reserved for that purpose. Minor mysteries all, and hardly worth note, except that they persisted as Serreg pursued this research.

Then Serreg began adding unrelated news into this journal. Quasimagical items that had functioned perfectly for scores of years intermittently failed. Illnesses increased in lethality, especially among the elderly. Serreg himself saw a rather dramatic failure of the enclave's longevity field take place on the streets of the Grove. One of the more revered tutors of the magical college aged from his apparent fifty years to his true age of over four hundred. Within the space of a breath he withered, died, and crumbled to dust.

The entries in the journal began to fit an insidious pattern, but Serreg could not tie together the magical failures with the death of the ground-dwelling creatures below.

Serreg attempted detections and divinations, revelations and dispellings, but none produced any answers. Yet all the negative results pointed to something that hid itself. Eventually he came to the inescapable conclusion that Delia suffered from a vast and powerful spell, too subtle and carefully woven for even an archwizard to unveil. At least not directly.

Rather than find out the spell's purpose, Serreg turned his attention to finding out who was casting it. He began by eliminating those who weren't casting it. Through careful examination, he removed specific people as well as potential vectors, one by one. It wasn't Karsus, thankfully, for who wanted to engage in battle against the premier Netherese archwizard? It wasn't extraplanar in origin, again thankfully, for Serreg had little desire to combat creatures from other dimensions. The blight did not hail from Realmspace, nor from any of the gods. Serreg's divinations also cleared the Lich of Buoyance, to his small displeasure.

Every so often, Serreg would get close, and he'd feel the spell squirming to evade his scrying eyes. He was never sure if the spell itself took action to evade definition, or if the practitioners behind the magic made adjustments to keep it out of Serreg's hands, but every instance gave the Delian archwizard a better idea what was happening.

And at long last, he had enough information to try a field test.

Again he drew a small crystal ball from his desk drawer, and waved his hand to activate it.

"Lady Polaris, Candlemas, and Sysquemalyn"-I have narrowed the source of the blight as well as I can, and it appears to be subterranean in origin. Deeply subterranean. There is no doubt in my mind that the dwarves are innocent, because they do not delve to the depths from which the spell originates. I wager they also lack the subtlety to weave a spell of this nature.

"In any event, I cannot pursue this further from the laboratory, so I shall go and test my hypothesis in the field. I may come back empty-handed, but I think it is far more likely that I shall uncover the source of this evil magic, and show them what it means to cross a Netherese archwizard. In any event, I should be back within a few hours at most, and I shall report to you my results. Keep a supper warm for me. Good day."

He let the orb go, and by the time it reached the window, the study was empty.

Serreg arrived-magically, of course-shortly before sundown at the location he had chosen. He placed everburning lights around the area, in case his efforts required more than an hour.

He closed his eyes and clasped his hands for a few minutes to cleanse himself of the excitement and impatience that tugged at his mind. Though eager to pull aside the last veil over the spell, he knew he must be careful, lest his eagerness alert those behind the blight, and they slither away from him once again.

Once relaxed, he ensorcelled himself with Zahn's seeing and began to dig using Proctiv's earthmove incantations. As he dug, his mind's eye scouted ahead with the seeing enchantment, looking for any hollow areas under the ground wherein creatures might lair. On finding a small fissure, he widened it all the way to the surface. He picked up one of his lights and dropped it down the cleft, then used the earthmove spell and began following the fissure down, digging as he went.

Well after dark, he finally found what he was looking for-or, more precisely, what he was looking for found him.

His excavations had settled into a dreary routine, taking far longer than expected. The constant rumble of earth being moved, the continuous projection of his vision, and the endless standing as he wrought his magic all taxed Serreg's alertness, lulling him into a casual state of mind not unlike his long hours spent in one of the university laboratories.

As he had done several times before, Serreg paused briefly from his exertions, suspending his spells to slake his thirst with a sip of water. As he recorked his flask, however, he noticed that something was different.

The sound of moving earth hadn't stopped.

He looked quickly at his excavation; it sat there undisturbed. The sound came from behind him. He stepped back and turned his head toward the noise, and as he did he realized that there was more than one source. Something disturbed the earth to his right, and something else did the same on his left.

Seeing nothing, Serreg briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath to purge himself of surprise. Facing the sources of the noise, he adopted a prepared stance, feet shoulder width apart and hands in front of his abdomen with his fingertips touching lightly, all as he had been taught in the martial spellcasting courses. He stared at the empty space between the sounds. He was ready.

And frankly, he was relieved to be interrupted. It saved him the trouble of hunting the miscreants down. Once his surprise passed, Serreg didn't even think to be frightened. After all, what did a Netherese archwizard have to fear from any but his own kind? He simply prepared his mind to deal with whatever creatures might come forth. Kill all but one, and trap the last for detailed interrogation. Then, if it turned out to be something new, perform an intensive autopsy.

At the edge of the illumination from one of his stones, Serreg saw the surface tremble, crack, and heave upward. He smiled slightly and waited.

The ground rose higher, pushed from below, and as it did so it tumbled to the side, until Serreg saw the creature itself rising out of the dirt. At first, he saw a flurry of hands, perhaps three or four, pushing the earth to the side. Vile-looking hands they were, shaped in some unsettlingly inhuman fashion with long, wicked fingers that seemed to end in talons. Then dark, bulbous flesh pushed itself out of the ground, a wad of meat a good fathom wide. As it rose, Serreg saw the beast's arms retract wholly into the puckered tissue.

The creature continued to rise, though Serreg saw no obvious means of movement. It rose from the ground as a dead fish rises from a fishmonger's barrel, pulled forth by the hook through its mouth. As more of the creature's body hove into view, it narrowed toward the tail, adding to the image of a dead fish. Serreg raised one eyebrow in interest. Long, blunt spines, slightly curved, covered the majority of the shapeless body; perhaps a grotesque decoration, perhaps a defense, perhaps some kind of bizarre full-body system of legs.

The creature rose further, leaving behind an open hole in the ground, somehow all the more repulsive for the sickening creature that floated placidly out of the wound. Fully eight feet of nauseating monster had risen from the cavity by the time its width had diminished to the thickness of Serreg's leg. He watched as another yard emerged from the ground, ending in a vicious barbed tail.

The beast turned itself more or less horizontal, lounging in the air, with its tail drifting slowly back and forth. It turned its rounded front toward Serreg, and he saw a puckered mouth with countless hooked teeth all gnashed together in the center. "Fascinating," said Serreg.

He would definitely have to bring the creature back. "Serreg's subterranean tubuloids," he would call them. Ah, the immortality of discovery!

He did not notice that the speed of the wind began changing unnaturally around him.

Well, best get to work, he thought, and cast Aksa's morphing upon the creature.

He intended to alter the beast into what it first reminded him of: a fish. There on the open plain, a fish could easily be caught and transported back to Delia. Once back in the safety of one of the university laboratories, he could return the thing to its natural state.

Serreg was rather affronted when the morphing failed, and the magical power frittered itself away, flickering across the thing's flesh and jumping from spine to spine.

Annoyed, Serreg cast Mavin's flesh-stone transmutation on the beast. An eleven-foot-long statue would be more tedious to transport, requiring telekinesis and all, but on the other hand stone was much less slimy than a flopping fish, and petrification afforded the stupid beast no opportunity to bite him.

That spell failed as well.

Serreg paused. Eithei' haste from the excitement of discovery ruined his spellcasting, or else the grotesque abomination was highly resistant to magic. Serreg preferred to consider the former to be the case. He began to cast Pockall's monster hex, a spell with which he was quite well versed as he practiced it regularly on laboratory animals. But as he gathered the energy and spun the incantation, the creature opened its mouth, a vile circular maw full of mismatched jagged teeth arranged around the rim in no particular order. Serreg fought to keep his mind focused on finishing the incantation..

The creature lunged. Its four arms flew out from its body, erupting from the soft flesh into which they had withdrawn. The mouth gaped open far wider than Serreg had thought possible. Ref lexively, Serreg abandoned his spell, its power dispersing harmlessly while he flopped onto his back under the speeding bulk of the monstrosity.

The thing swept almost soundlessly over him. Serreg reflected for just a moment that no matter how intensive one's combat spellcasting training might be, it was always very easy to panic in the field. That flash of realization crystallized his discipline, and Serreg drew upon the countless hours of repetitive drills he'd performed. He rolled quickly to his feet, and as he rolled, his arms also flew through the requisite gestures for General Matick's missile. It was a basic technique, but a very useful one. No sooner did Serreg finish the incantation than he pushed himself to his feet and aimed the magical strike.

The creature passed over one of his light stones and was lit repulsively from below as it turned back toward Serreg. He fired the spell, and a cluster of tiny red flares shot from his finger toward the beast. They arced in and impacted its hide, flaring as they struck the creature with their deadly energy.

The monster seemed not to notice. Even a horse will flick its hide from a horsefly's bite, but Serreg saw not even that much of an expression of annoyance from the thing.

¦ With the amazing speed born of fury, Serreg cast another, more powerful attack spell: Noanar's fireball. As the creature turned to attack him again he sent the blazing ball of flames straight into the monster's open mouth. His aim was perfect, and the creature drew up short and screamed in a strange, monotone hoot. Despite the alien sound, Serreg knew he had struck a solid blow.

The flames died out rapidly, and in the dim light of his globes, Serreg saw the beast wagging its body back and forth. He saw the blackened teeth framed by blistered skin, and spittle and ichor being slung about as the creature wagged its… its head?… to clear the pain.

Serreg started to smile in conquest. But instinct tempted him to look over his shoulder instead.

Two more of the horrid things hung stationary in the air behind him.

As he blinked in surprise, the multiple arms of the two creatures issued forth, and began making mystical passes in the air. Serreg glanced back at the wounded beast and saw that it, too, wove a spell.

They had him surrounded.

He sprinted away, not caring which direction he took. He zigged and zagged as the obscene taloned hands of the three subterranean slugs launched magical spells. A crack of raw magical power flew past him to one side. Another spell of unknown nature ripped the ground open a few yards behind him, and just as he thought himself lucky, a wave of magical frost struck him from behind. It hit like a gale, cutting through his archwizard's vestments and biting his flesh. The impact knocked Serreg off his feet, and the sudden drop in temperature made his back arch.

Too cold to shiver, Serreg stood. The three creatures studied him. One cast another spell as he rose, too quickly for Serreg to dodge or counter, and he found himself framed in flickering red light.

Enough, he thought, and pulled one of the most powerful spells he knew to the forefront of his mind, something to burn all three of these vile things: Volhm's chaining.

Serreg's eyes glowed with raw power as he quickly moved through the invocation. He watched with grim satisfaction as the three creatures gathered together and closed upon him.

He launched the spell. A thick bolt of electrical power sprang from his fingers, a bolt of lightning that struck the lead creature, then arced to the other two. For a moment, the power of Serreg's attack illuminated the entire area.

By that light, Serreg clearly saw that only one of the creatures flinched. And the one he'd already wounded, he watched as the arcing lightning bolt erased the fire's blisters, healing the monstrous being with its magical power. The lightning bolt never grounded itself out as it was supposed to. The creature had sucked in all the power Serreg had just spent trying to kill it.

Vblhm's chaining. One of the best spells he knew. And still they came. Not only did they resist magic, they could absorb the raw energy to give themselves more power.

Dumbfounded, Serreg had no idea how to defeat them. Then one of them cast a spell, a maddeningly familiar one, yet one Serreg knew he had never seen before, and the light globes all dimmed and went out, leaving him in the dead of night, with those things… and a flickering red halo.

Serreg knew panic.

For his whole life, his power had been his magic, and suddenly it was utterly useless. The scaffolding of decades of training collapsed beneath him, leaving him in the terror of uncontrolled freefall, falling into a darkness filled with those hideous creatures.

He sensed them moving closer. Serreg knew he couldn't outrun them, so he desperately gambled with

Oberon's flawless teleport. East, toward the enclave, toward Delia.

Even as he cast the spell, Serreg felt one of the things try to counter it, while another clutched at him with its claws. Praying they had not interfered too greatly, Serreg submitted himself to his spell and vanished.

He reappeared several miles away, safely close to the ground. The spell collapsed around him just as he exited its effect, but that didn't matter. He'd gotten away! He exhaled explosively, free from the panic that had gripped him. The lightness in his head caused him to stagger briefly, and he almost laughed, feeling the giddy release of tension.

Then the flickering red aura around him flared into brilliant life, a beacon in the night. They had done that, to find where he'd gone. Serreg frantically summoned the most potent dispelling he could muster, cast it, and watched in relief as the flickering light vanished.

He knew he had at least a few minutes before the subterranean obscenities could reach him. They didn't look like they moved that fast. He took a few deep, panting breaths to get his heart and lungs under control, then wracked his brain for spells. To his horror, he sensed his spells fading, their power draining from his mind like the life had been drained from the soil beneath Delia.

That's how they do it! he thought in alarm. A huge spell, sucking the life and magic out of our enclave like a ghoul sucking the marrow from our bones!

Everything was clear. The intermittent failures of magical items, spells abruptly collapsing without warning, the odd side effects as he tried to pursue his investigation through magical means. They intended to drain Delia of all life and magic. The dirt and all its plants and animals just happened to be in the way.

At long last, Serreg knew who was behind the blight, and how it worked. But it was too late.

They were after him. They probably even knew he knew. They had been watching him all along, trying to prevent him from finding them, concealing their dark enchantment, interfering with his magic. And they had just tapped his very mind and drained away the arcane power of the spells he knew.

He had nothing left but himself. He had to hide. On that open plain, they'd find him easily. Frantically, he looked around, and barely visible as a shadow against the stars, he saw a ridge jutting out of the plains, about a mile east.

His only hope lay in that ridge, and somehow blending in with it, finding a cave or a large rock to crawl under or a large bush or something to use for cover. He couldn't let them find him. He had to live. He had to warn the others.

He ran.

After only a hundred yards his lungs burned within his breast. His legs protested the sudden advent of intense physical labor. His whole body complained. He started stumbling, open mouthed, with spittle dangling from his chin, but fear pushed him on.

Panting madly, he reached the foot of the ridge, which jutted like a dragon's spine out of the plains. He climbed, randomly exploring those places that were easiest to reach. After several agonizing minutes' search, he scrabbled up to a small cleft barely visible in the moonlight. He wormed his body backward into the crevice, frantically scanning the starlit sky to the west. Even with rough rock on all sides, his bruised and raw hands tried to push him even deeper into the crack. His ribs protested the strain, but he did not relent, for it seemed that the stones themselves wanted to push him back out into the night, out where they were looking for him.

He blinked the sweat out of his eyes, salty tears of fright already gone icy in the cold night air. His heart, too was chilled, and his soul felt the toll the creature's had taken, stealing his life-force itself. One of the creatures screeched in the darkness, a horrid, alien sound.

"Please," he gasped, using the word for the first time in his life. "Please… someone… anyone… help me!"

Half of his brain desperately pleaded for aid, any aid, while the other half;astigated itself for panicking. Self-control and reason were needed then, not pointless calls for help. No one was near. No one but them….

Serreg heard a clash of steel on steel, a burst of melee fighting close at hand, and his heart caved.

They've found me! he thought. But wait-they weren't carrying weapons…

No sooner did that realization cross the rational half of his brain than a flash of light winced his eyes. A star-burst of swords, axes, and spears clashed and sparked in the darkness, erupting like a vicious steel flower blooming in an instant, flowing outward with strokes and parries like a smoke ring, then vanishing as a tall, powerfully-built man stepped out of its midst.

Serreg stared in frank shock, his contorted body frozen in the crevice.

The man was a giant. He stood nine feet tall, and Serreg couldn't understand how he'd stepped out of a small ring of moving steel without cutting himself, let alone stooping over. He had the proud, easy, alert stance of the warrior. He looked askance at Serreg, keeping one ear alert while focusing most of his attention on the hapless fugitive wedged in the rock.

"Well, now," said the giant, with a deep and gravelly voice. It reminded Serreg of steel-shod boots marching over bones, or boulders catapulting into the masonry of castle walls. "A helpless archwizard. That's not something you see every day."

Serreg's eyes traveled down the length of the visitor's body. He was unshaven, and his nose had been broken multiple times, but he was no less handsome for it. His broad, battle-scarred chest was bare, protected only by the cloak that covered his wide shoulders. His arms, all- all three, no, four… or five… well, all that Serreg could see… all carried weapons: a spear, a scimitar, an axe, a war flail's spiked heads dangling near his ankles, and a skull wielded like a club, gripped with fingers through the eye sockets and thumb under the teeth.

The giant cocked his head and asked, "Do you talk, boy? Or was that magic, too?"

"Wh-why-?" Serreg stammered.

"You called for help," said the giant, spreading his many arms, "and here I am."

Serreg's brow furrowed. Called for help? Yes, he supposed in his panicked state he must have. It didn't matter. Help had come.

"So… what-uh, who are you?"

"Psshht!" guffawed the giant. "You really are helpless, aren't you?"

He turned away and scanned the landscape. Serreg felt affronted that he no longer merited the giant's attention.

"But… but I don't-"

"I am Targus."

For a long time there was silence, broken only by the delicate drip-drip of droplets steadily dribbling from the hem of the giant's cloak.

"Targus," said Serreg finally.

Targus's head swiveled from side to side as he smelled the air.

"Targus," said Serreg again.

The giant ignored him. "Lord of War," added Serreg.

"Yes," replied Targus simply. He turned to face Serreg again, and snorted. "That's all right with you, isn't it?"

"Wh-what are you doing here?" asked Serreg.

"You called," answered Targus with a shrug.

"But-but you're a god!" blurted Serreg.

"So? I had a whim to answer you." There was something awfully frightful about that voice, thick with death and carnage, speaking whimsically. Serreg surmised Targus could speak of rape and slaughter with equal aplomb. "You ought to be thankful, since the only other possible help is three tired farmers a few dozen leagues from here." Targus looked pointedly at Serreg, who mutely nodded his assent. "Besides," the god added, "you have potential."

"All right…"

Targus stepped forward, put one heavy boot on a rock outcropping, and leaned over Serreg in the crevice. Serreg wasn't sure how he fit his massive bulk into that small crack, but then again, he was a god.

"So," said Targus with a conspiratorial wink, "I'm here. What do you want?"

"What do you mean?" asked Serreg.

The mere presence of a god had eclipsed all other considerations at that moment.

"You asked for help," said Targus reasonably. "What sort of help would you like?"

Serreg thought about it for a moment, and an idea struck him

But before he spoke, Targus, seeing the glint in Serreg's eye, interjected, "Understand that I will not fight your battles for you. I am the supreme general, and while I give my troops the best odds of winning, it's up to foot soldiers like you to do the fighting."

Curse the luck, thought Serreg, selfishly ignoring the amazing good fortune that had caused his frantic plea to catch the ear of a god.

He thought some more, carefully formulating his answer.

"What I would like," he said, "is a weapon. A physical weapon, because spells do no good. Something small and light, like a knife or an ice pick, because I haven't had military training. I want this weapon to inflict great damage. And I also want it to grant me powers."

Targus pursed his lips knowingly and replied, "Powers? Plural? No. Were I to grant you that, we'd be here all night listening to you prattle off your avarice. Choose one, and be quick."

"I want it to polymorph me, changing me from one creature to another, in such a manner that those things out there can't steal the magic away."

Targus grinned broadly.

"As you wish," he said. "You'll have your weapon. But be careful, because it likes to draw blood." He bowed ever so slightly. "Good evening, good luck, and I hope you live up to your potential."

The giant collapsed in on himself, leaving nothing but the echo of a thousand screams and war cries, and a cloud of droplets suspended five feet off the ground. Serreg saw a dagger hanging in the center of the mist. He grasped the handle, surprised at the warmth of the supernatural fog. As he pulled the dagger closer to inspect it, three things struck him at once.

It was a beautiful dagger, exquisitely wrought and decorated.

His hand was covered with warm blood.

The night insects started chirping again.

Until that instant, Serreg hadn't even realized they'd stopped. His intuition told him that the entire conversation had occurred outside of time, suspended on a whim by Targus. That meant the demons were close….

Serreg heard a grunting moan, and saw a dark bulk rise in the darkness, blotting out the stars behind it. He turned the dagger blade down in his hand and gripped it tightly. The thing came closer. Its four arms waved gracelessly, tracing embers of magical fire in the night. It abruptly turned toward him in a manner that indicated it had noticed him in his hiding place. The creature made a few mystic passes with its arms, spinning an incantation. A web of phosphor spread all around the monster, Serreg, and the cleft, then vanished.

Concealment, thought Serreg. It wants me all to itself.

The creature paused, swimming back and forth for a moment, and Serreg had the distinctly unpleasant sensation that it was studying not him, but his dagger.

Then without further preamble or caution, it charged straight for him. It seized Serreg's torso with two of its four arms and hauled him out of the cleft, while the other two grabbed his head to maneuver it toward the gaping, spiny-toothed maw.

Serreg desperately plunged the dagger into the creature's mouth, sinking the weapon up to the hilt into the pulpy flesh behind the teeth. The thing screamed, an unholy and utterly alien monotone cry, and suddenly the creature was eight times as large, filling the sky, and Serreg fell from its loosened grip.

How did he get so high up? He had no time to consider that, so instead he spun his tail around to land on his feet, and ran. The ridge seemed much larger than it had before. He leaped for a rock outcropping, landing nimbly on his forelegs and pushing off with the back, just in time to-

Forelegs? thought Serreg.

He quickly scurried behind the outcropping and hid. The moaning creature nursed its wound on the far side of the rock, so Serreg chanced a look down at his paws.

Paws?

He had two furry forelegs ending in paws. He lifted one up, flexed the claws, and stared. His tail twitched in irritation and confusion, because he-

He looked over his shoulder to see haunches and a lashing tail, all covered in soft tabby fur.

He was a cat.

A cat? Well, he hadn't wished to be a cat, never told the dagger to change his shape, but it had anyway. Fair enough. But where was the dagger? For that matter, where were his clothes? He looked at his claws again, and sure enough, one of the claws on his right paw glinted merrily in the moonlight.

He smiled. All he had to do was change into a sparrow and dart out of there. A sparrow would be very tough to follow, and he knew he could out fly one of those things. Heck, once he got away from the immediate vicinity, he could become a falcon and really put some speed on.

He looked at his claw and gave the mental command: Change me into a sparrow.

Nothing happened.

I command you to change me into a sparrow.

Nothing. Did it have to be verbal?

"Rreeooowwf," he said as quietly as he could.

Again, he started to panic. How could he command the dagger if he could only howl like a cat? But wait-he'd never asked to be a cat in the first place, it just-

A great, cold hand with two opposable thumbs plucked him off the ground. He wriggled and writhed, knowing how hard it is to hold an uncooperative cat, but the thing held him fast. Three other arms spun spells of divination upon him to discern the cause for his change, and perhaps to try to undo it.

The vile creature gave up quickly, however, much to Serreg's dismay. Instead, the maw opened wide to swallow Serreg whole. Desperately the tabby archwizard attacked the creature's thick skin, using his pathetic little weapons of tooth and nail. It was like trying to bite a wall, or scratch stone. He looked up as the mouth drew closer, filling his vision, and amidst a new frenzy of struggle, he felt himself change again.

The world shrank around him, and the powerful hand that held him diminished in size and strength, shifting quickly from an iron band around his body to an unfriendly mitt trying to scratch at his ribs. Serreg's instincts told him he was at an awkward angle, his body too vertical and too close to the ground, so he beat his wings rapidly to get his center of gravity back under control.

The evil abomination gaped at the sudden transformation, four arms wide in shock and spiny mouth formed into a perfect ugly circle. Serreg hissed, craning his head forward. He flew upward a few dozen feet and settled upon a rocky pinnacle. The creature rotated its loathsome body to follow his movements.

Quickly, Serreg looked down to take inventory. Two reptilian claws clutched the promontory, and two leathery wings hung at either side. A wyvern?

Thus distracted, Serreg did not see the beast gather itself and lunge at him. Its massive bulk impacted Serreg's body, and the fangs bit into his exposed side. Four arms scrabbled for a grip on Serreg's scaly hide. Reflexively, Serreg thrust with his stinger tail, bones and sinews straining with the strike. As the poisoned barb flew past his head, he caught the briefest metallic glimmer, then the stinger plunged deep into the monster's body, pumping poison as it went.

The creature grew in size again, and Serreg slipped through its outstretched arms and fell. Looking down, he saw the ridge slope clearly, and he knew an impact was coming. He pinwheeled his arms to right himself, hit the ground hard, and tumbled and slid for more than thirty feet before coming to an abrupt and painful stop against a bush.

He looked up. The abyssal monstrosity writhed in the air, black blood dribbling down its side. It turned toward him, bellowing in its singular voice, and Serreg tightened his grip on the dagger. Thankfully, he hadn't lost his grip on it when he fell. The beast moved toward him, but then abruptly deflated of menace and sank a few feet toward the ground. The arms started to retract, then grew limp. Its barbed tail swished a few times back and forth, then quivered and was still.

His dagger held defensively in front of him, Serreg moved back up the rocky slope. The beast hung above the ground, dead, yet still suspended seven feet in the air. Its arms dangled and bloody drool oozed its way out of the grotesque mouth, but the tail was still raised.

Serreg inspected the creature-as much as he could without getting too close. He saw the gaping wound his stinger had left, saw the single scratch on one of the wrists from his claw. The blood from the mouth attested to his first dagger thrust.

Odd that I can see so clearly in the dark, he thought.

He looked down at his hand. It was a hand all right, but not human-rougher, more powerful. His clothes were his, somewhat the worse for wear though nonetheless the robes of an archwizard, but they no longer fit properly.

His callused fingers found a wide face with low cheekbones and a sloping forehead. Small tusks sprouted from his mouth under a snotty nose.

"An orc?" he said, his voice muddy and unrefined. "Well, at leasht I can shpeak."

He cast a subtle detection spell, and discerned that the evil creature's concealing weave still stood. Confident that the others were unaware of the monstrosity's demise, Serreg limped back down the ridge, his dagger dangling from one tired hand.

He turned westward, doubling back on his original flight, hoping that the other things would search for him farther east. He increased his speed from a stagger to a walk, then to a jog, and even a bit better than that. Trotting along, he found he rather appreciated his orc body. His eyes pierced the darkness easily. The pain in ribs and wrist impeded him less than he expected; perhaps an orc's nervous system was partially inured to pain. He loped along at a good clip without getting appreciably winded. His muscles were tireless and his piggy snout with wide, flaring nostrils was ideally suited to bring in large quantities of air. True, the constant dribble of snot affronted his cultured upbringing, but he would happily endure that disgrace to get farther away from those nightmarish beasts.

He moved throughout the hours of darkness, ever to the west, finding a good steady pace he could maintain for hours. As he trotted, he contemplated the dagger in his hand and the position it had put him in, somehow blaming the dagger for his plight more than he blamed the hulking beast it had killed for him.

That the blade was priceless went without saying. It was a gift from a god-a god! — and though no one would ever believe the tale, its powers were unquestionable. It had slain a hulking brute that his magic hadn't even singed, and it had changed his shape, what, three times already? If only he could learn how to control it, what power he would have! Soar up to Karsus Enclave on the wings of a nighthawk, sneak through the city streets as a cat, change to a gnat to penetrate a gap in any locked window-there was a thought! A gnat with the intelligence and magical powers of an archwizard! No secret would be safe. All those other archwizards, scheming and plotting against Delia, trying to destroy his enclave and his people, their secrets would be exposed, their plans foiled! But it all depended on that damnable dagger….

Serreg tried to force the weapon to change his shape for him. He tried every incantation he knew, and as many religious supplications as he could bring to mind or invent. He expressed the desire as a wish, a command, and a bargain; verbally, mentally, and to the best of his ability, kinesthetically. He tried drawing his own blood with the blade to activate the ability, as well as spitting on it, sweating on it, kissing it, and eventually, cursing at it. Nothing worked.

By daybreak, after a full night's run and endless hours spent beating his will fruitlessly against the magic blade, Serreg was ready to quit. He'd survived those monsters he had unwittingly unearthed, so why bother with this thrice-damned intractable item anymore? His tired brain could think of no reason. He'd just throw the blade, sling it hard, get it away from him, be done with it. The dagger seemed to squirm in his grasp. He clenched his fist tight, cocked his arm, took a deep breath-

And stopped.

He couldn't throw it away. He was still an orc.

His shoulders sagged, and he sat heavily on the ground, head drooping in defeat.

Until he figured out how to change himself back into a human, he had to keep the blade. So long as he was an orc, any human he met would kill him on sight. The two races had been warring for three millennia already, and they wouldn't stop just for him. He had no magic left to teleport to his laboratory, and even if he did, the other mages would roast him alive. He'd be overwhelmed. And he certainly wasn't going to stoop so low as to try to move in with an orc tribe. He had to keep the dagger until he discovered how to make it work for him, instead of just working on him.

But that would have to wait for later. He was tired, injured, and the sun was too bright. So thinking, he lay back, flung his left arm over his eyes, and fell asleep, his right hand clutching the dagger to his chest.

He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, nor why he felt the sudden need to roll, hard, but he did so, only to see the tip of a spear imbed itself firmly in the dirt a scant few inches in front of his eyes.

He heard someone yell, "You jackass! You woke it up!" and a grunt as the spear was pulled out of the ground into the too-bright sky.

Hunters, militia, a stray farmer, Serreg didn't know. He didn't even have a clear idea where in Netheril he was.

But he knew his life was in mortal danger. His orc glands fired amazing amounts of adrenaline into his system, giving his senses such sensitive clarity that his ears rang in pain. The battle frenzy was a new sensation to the normally intellectual archwizard, one he was neither mentally nor emotionally, prepared for. Forgetting his magical training, he leaped to his feet bellowing a mighty battle cry. He saw a silhouette nearby, dark against the painful blue sky, with a spear held defensively. Serreg charged. orc instinct, or perhaps an ingrained warrior's training granted by the dagger, urged Serreg to roll under the spear. He dived, tumbled forward, and his feet came back in under him. Serreg lunged upward again, the full weight of his body and force of his legs burying the dagger deep into the hapless human's abdomen. Serreg heard him grunt in pain-

And the archwizard was in an entirely different world.

A great shapeless mass moved slowly toward him, so Serreg slid gracefully aside to let it pass. His mind expanded freely, seeing everything all around, as if his entire being was a single pupil designed to take in the whole world.

This is interesting, thought Serreg, hanging effortlessly in space a great distance above the surface of the world.

A baritone thunder rolled through the air, but Serreg saw that the sky was a cloudless blue, so he flew closer to the sources to investigate.

He was tiny.

Four towering hunters stood with spears, moving slowly as though through water. One was falling, doubled over, and Serreg saw drops of blood dripping from his belly, gracefully descending to the ground. On a whim, Serreg zipped under the dying hunter, weaving his narrow body between the crimson orbs as they fell.

Serreg flew up and hovered high above the hunters as he analyzed the situation. He found that he could inspect his body without turning his head, which was good, since it appeared he could hardly turn his head at all. A rapier-thin emerald thorax extended out behind him, and six legs dangled beneath. His four wings made a steady swoosh-swoosh sound as he absentmindedly flapped them. The perspective was a hard one, actually being an insect instead of studying one impaled upon a silver pin, but it did appear that he was a dragonfly.

And the dagger? Where was it?

He scanned his feet, but saw nothing. But then, right in front of his eyes, he saw a glint of steel. One of his mandibles, of course. He still had his weapon.

He checked the hunters again. One tended to his fallen comrade. The others looked around nervously, wondering to where the orc had vanished. Serreg would have smirked, had he been able to with his chitinous jaws. Instead, he turned back toward the west, keeping a careful watch for any predatory swallows or tree frogs.

As a dragonfly, Serreg didn't feel like he was going particularly fast, but he dismissed that to the apparent dilation of time and the very real dilation of the world. He knew he was out flying the best speed he could have made as a human. But what bothered him as he continued on his way, was how he would eat.

He started to feel a gnawing hunger. Had it been minutes or hours that he'd been a dragonfly? Serreg had no way of knowing. The hunger felt,different as an insect than it did as a human, a simpler sensation, but hunger just the same. And he had no idea what dragonflies ate.

Insects to him were pests to be swatted, or specimens to be inspected in a gallery, or a jar full of parts in an apothecary's lab. Beyond that, he'd never bothered with them. So what did insects eat? He thought about it, then decided he'd have to test potential foods. He knew different insects ate the pollen from flowers, others ate the plants themselves, and some even ate other insects. He also knew some ate dead animals or other, more repugnant substances, but he willfully neglected to pursue those lines for the moment.

He touched down on a stalk of wild grass waving in the breeze. It didn't look appetizing, but he tried to bite it anyway.

Nothing.

He flew farther until he found a wildflower, glowing brightly to his dragonfly eyes, but again, it didn't look appealing, he had no idea how exactly to bite it, and when he did manage something, it just wasn't right.

So he turned toward attacking insects. He lunged at a grasshopper, but it was far too large to handle. A gnat was too small to catch, and a fly too fast. Finally, he managed to catch a small fluttering insect-he didn't even know what it was called-and crushed it in his jaws. The meal filled his mouth-

For a split second. He found himself sitting on his haunches, surveying the landscape from a sizeable elevation. He drew his lips into a self-satisfied sneer, smearing a small insect across one jagged fang. He swiveled his head to look at the world from this new perspective, but his eyes did not really see anything. His attention turned inward, feeling the raw power that coursed through his veins. He stretched out his great leathery wings, and gave an experimental beat. He drew a deep breath into his cavernous lungs, and exhaled a stream of pungent acid.

Oh, yes. He was a dragon.

And he was hungry.

He sniffed the air, catching the musky scent of wild oxen on the breeze. His eagle-sharp eyes saw them half a mile away. They hadn't noticed his sudden transformation. No surprise, it's not every day that a dragonfly becomes a dragon. He folded his wings, and stalked them, catlike, through the grass. The herd startled at the noise of his approach. Serreg roared and took wing, moving like a thunderclap, low, heavy, and powerful. He circled the herd once, then struck the largest of the beasts with his lethal breath, liquefying its head as it ran.

He landed with a flurry of wings and a heavy thud as the herd stampeded away, screaming in animal panic. Serreg walked up to his kill and raised one paw to rend the meat when a glint of steel caught his eye. The foreclaw on his right front leg shone in the sun, carved with elegant glyphs.

The dagger.

His superior dragon intellect immediately understood: every time heti stabbed something, the dagger changed him.

Carefully Serreg set that black-scaled foot back down, and worked on the carcass with his other leg and his formidable teeth. He'd had no idea how much he would enjoy cracking bones between his jaws. Maybe it was part of being a dragon, or maybe he'd finally tapped into a heretofore unreachable part of his soul. Whichever the case, Serreg liked it.

The ox devoured, Serreg sat for a moment and contemplated the sky. Just as the dawn had driven away the darkness, so too had the day replaced the horrors of the past night with a bright new future. Life was looking good. Let those vile creatures sap the strength of the enclaves. Serreg didn't need them anymore.

Still, archwizards were not people to be trifled with, and they did not take kindly to dragons, no matter what their lineage. Serreg took one last look toward the skies where he'd grown up, then faced west again.

Serreg eventually found a luxurious swamp in which to lair. He exulted in feeling the mud between his talons. It was far better than the remote and isolated life on Delia's rock.

But what to do with the dagger? He didn't want it on his forepaw anymore. He didn't even really want it around. It reminded him of his pathetic past, and the last gasp of his cowardice. In the end, he did as dragons do: he used it to start his hoard.

Carefully placing his right foreclaw in his mouth, he closed his teeth upon it. He clenched it tight, then flexed his paw and neck, prying the claw out of his toe. Fiery pain raced beneath his magical fingernail, his limb quivered with nerves begging for peace, but he persisted. The dagger tried to hold to his tender flesh, but then he heard a ripping sound as he disembedded it. With one final pull, one last flash of pain, it was free.

And so was he.

Serreg turned his head to the corner of the grotto that he had chosen for his stash, and let the dagger drop from his teeth. It struck the muddy floor with a ring, a keening metallic sound of frustration, and bounced far higher than physically justifiable. It bounced again, and again, and again. Eventually it landed, rocking from side to side, and the vibrations rotated the blade around until it pointed accusingly at Serreg.

With the back of his left paw, Serreg nudged the blade aside, but the push carried the blade around until it pointed at him again.

Complain if you want to, thought Serreg, I have no further need of you.

Limping slightly on his right forepaw, he moved to the entrance to his grotto.

I've studied long enough, he thought. Time to put that knowledge to use.

So thinking, he soared into the sky.