The Dragon's Tomb

Prologue

He came, just as I knew he would. Just as I knew he must. Humans are that way. Predictable. Idealistic. Bound by honor and vow and silly passion. Knights of the Three Suns, particularly, are that way. It makes them easy bait, as easy to kill as horses in a corral—and I’ve killed enough of those in my time to know.

But, truth be told, Fain Flinn was different. Flinn the Mighty, they called him, and for good reason. The first time I fought him, I discovered he couldn’t be as easily slain as all the others. It was that damned great sword of his, that Wyrmblight. We could, neither of us, kill the other, and that sword mocked us all the while.

Yes, it was Flinn who shamed me—Verdilith the Great Green, scourge of Penhaligon—Flinn who shamed me into winning through subversion what I could not through battle. So I shed my lovely green scales and took human form. I insinuated myself into Baroness Penhaligon’s good graces, even seduced Flinn’s loving wife Yvaughan out from under him… . And, when all was in place, I turned a fellow knight against him, made him accuse the good Flinn of dishonor.

I brought Flinn the Mighty to his knees.

It all worked too well. Flinn was stripped of title and honor, cast out of the fellowship of knights—out even of the Castle of the Three Suns. He became Flinn the Fallen, Flinn the Fool. And I became Yvaughan’s loving husband. Thoughts of her still make my teeth itch. I’d even conceived a son by her, a glorious heir to my power.

But then that slip of a girl came along. She sought for Flinn the Mighty, and found him a hermit in a hovel. Until that time, I’d used abelaat stones to spy on him, to feed thoughts of despair and decay into his mind. I’d learned that prostrating and dominating my foe were far more enjoyable than killing him outright. But the girl, the clumsy bitch of a girl, got herself bit by an abelaat—one of Teryl Aurochs stray beasts from the infernal realms. The poison of the creature’s fangs ran in her blood, blocking my eyes from Flinn, blocking my words from reaching his despoiled brain.

And she began to change him, as women always do to men. She reminded him of his honor, his glory, his nemesis, the Great Green! I should have known she would prove even more dangerous than he—unpredictable, naive, irrational in her love of Flinn the Fool. Before I could blink, Flinn had returned to flush me from the castle, to drive the mage Auroch away, to regain his honor and title. And he once again bore Wyrmblight!

The game was up. I was done with toying. I knew Flinn the Fool would make an idiotic attempt to hunt me down, to slay me. And, poetic soul that I am, I met him in the field where first we fought.

And I killed him.

I killed him despite the fact that my magic had failed me, despite the fact that he used the girls blink-dogs tail to strike at my flanks, despite the fact that he lanced my side and slashed my wings and ruined my arm. I killed him.

My poor arm. Of all my wounds, it pains me most. I change forms from dragon to mist to man to mouse, but always the pain follows me. I feel the urging of my flesh to split apart, to cease its struggle against death and be done. I feel the urging of my mind to dissipate on the wind, or spiral into some interior hell. I am morbidly wounded, insane with agony. Only hatred gives form to my mind. Hatred and the phrase that repeats with the pounding of my heart.

Flinn is dead.

I half expected to feel some sorrow at his parting, but I do not. He was dangerous, yes, but never a truly worthy adversary, never a creature worth engaging for the witty repartee. He was human, after all.

No. It was not Flinn who was my truest foe. It was Wyrmblight, a sword forged to slay me. Even now it resonates with that desire. I feel it in my wounds. I feel it in my aching mind, my still-beating heart. The bitch has it, I know—Jo is her name, like the name of a fisherman or a joiner. The blade is taller than she is, and yet she pretends she’ll bring it against me. She and her comrades—that feeble crone mage and her brainless lackey, and the old mercenary Braddoc, one-time friend of the Fool. These dragon hunters offend me. The baroness sends greater forces against Greasetongue, the orc. In a single puff they would be gone.

Except for Wyrmblight.

Just as it shamed me the first time, it has shamed me again. Try as I might, I could not break that cursed, blessed steel, and my roiling plumes of green poison would not pass it. Worst of all, these wounds that Wyrmblight has cleaved will not heal.

So I wait in this lair of mine, wait for Jo and her pack of misfits to stumble in and kill me, as they must try to do. For they are human. If I cannot destroy them when they arrive, cannot snap the cursed Wyrmblight in two, I shall withdraw and again win by deceit what I cannot by war.

But I will kill them. They have angered me, and I will kill them. I will break the hated Wyrmblight just as I broke its bearer.