The Lake of Death

23

Dhamon stomped ahead, his tail swiping at small trees and his heavy footfalls crushing the undergrowth. He was so angry he forgot all stealth. He lurched against a golden python wrapped around the trunk of a tree. The beautiful but deadly snake fell limp to the ground, and when Feril hurried by, trying hard to keep up with Dhamon and Ragh, the Kagonesti stared at it sadly.

The dragon paused to feast on a giant-sized crocodile he managed to pin beneath a claw, crunching it quickly, then growling when a second crocodile eluded him. He brushed against the mossy trunk of a shaggybark, coating his side with foul-smelling lichen. Then he stomped through a thick swath of mud and stagnant water, which altered his scent so that he reeked all the worse.

Eventually they reached a spot where the trees grew closer together, and in a pique Dhamon began to swat at them. The trees splintered, bent, and some were uprooted entirely, with their avian occupants taking to the sky, shrieking.

“Dhamon!” Feril screamed to be heard. “Stop this!”

A dozen trees later, he did stop. He turned to regard her, the blood from his crocodile feast still dripping from his mouth. A glimmer of remorse flickered in his dark eyes, then he folded in on himself and became a shadow, never saying anything. For a long time then, he drifted back and forth between Ragh and Feril as they wended their way toward the very heart of Sable’s swamp.

Ragh claimed to know the safest route, one that would keep them away from bakali villages and the numerous nests of spawn and abomination that were absolutely loyal to the overlord. This route was also the slowest and involved skirting quicksand bogs that stretched as far across as a lake and cutting through sections of mangrove that boasted treacherous animals. The presence of a dragon would be unusual, so Feril and Ragh urged Dhamon to keep his shadow form.

They stopped near a stagnant pond and Feril called Obelia out of his flask. The ghost was paler than before, his voice weaker, and his eyes empty sockets.

“Elf-fish. I’ve not seen you for days. I heard such a ruckus.”

Feril and Ragh huddled close to the image to hear his weak voice. Indeed, the Qualinesti spirit looked sickly. Their faces showed their concern.

“Yes, I fade,” he informed them. “I knew I would, eventually, this far away from Beryl’s corpse. I knew as much from the beginning, though I did not care to tell you. Believe me, I did not know it would happen so fast, my elf-fish. I had hoped to help you, then see my sister again, so we could be united. I wanted to tell her that she was right. In life, I never conceded anything to her. I never treated her as lovingly as I should. I wanted her to know she was right about Qualinost, that everyone should have fled. I wanted to say that to her before I faded.”

“I’m sure she must realize your good intentions,” Feril told the specter, “but it can happen still—you and I will find your sister. We near our goal for Dhamon, and when we are finished with that, all of us will look for Elalage.”

Ragh kept quiet, turning his attention to the surface of the pond, which was swirling, more slowly than previous times, with the Qualinesti ghost’s magic.

“You’ll see,” the Kagonesti continued. “We will find your sister together. We’ll use our magic to search for her, just like we’ve searched for the scales. We’ll find Qualinesti elves who fled the forest and pinpoint where she might be.”

Obelia’s image seemed to brighten, then it flickered and wavered. “My magic is ready now. Use it, my elf-fish. Let’s help your friend Dhamon.”

Together, they concentrated on images of discarded dragon scales. Ragh watched the scrying intently. Curiously, there seemed to be more scales than when they’d scryed this area before—Sable was moving recklessly through her realm, no doubt, and shedding a few. Ragh noted one not far from Dhamon’s lair.

“Damn Sable has found our hiding place,” Ragh muttered to himself. “Well, fine, fine. It was inevitable. Probably plundered our hoard already. Probably had her damnable bakali haul out every last piece of steel. All that work, all our dreams of treasure, all our pain and risk—all for nothing.”

“The air is different here than in the mountains,” Feril was telling Obelia, soothing the anxious Qualinesti spirit. “It is heavy and wet and brings so many smells to me. Flowers mostly, so much sweeter than the ones in the forest, but there is also a musky smell underneath everything, of plants rotting and of the earth. It is not…unpleasant, but it cuts the sweetness. Too, I can smell wild boar. One passed this way not long ago. Something else I can smell, but cannot name, stalks the boar. This land teems with life. This land is glorious.”

Feril was a talker. Ragh yawned. The draconian took the opportunity of taking out one of the magic scrolls and carefully unrolling it. He could speak far more languages than he could read, but he was able to make out most of these words—an old Elvish dialect from before the time of the War of the Lance. He’d studied under wizards a long time ago, long before he’d come under Sable’s command. This particular spell didn’t look terribly complicated, as it was meant to break magic, not create some spectacular effect or cause any destruction.

“Hmmm,” said Ragh, half to himself, as he continued reading. “I think I’m beginning to understand what your ghost friend has in mind. The combination of spells, along with the dragon scale—it might work. It might actually work.”

Feril and Obelia weren’t paying any attention to him. The elf was continuing to tell Obelia about the swamp, how the rich earth felt between her toes, how unpleasant the pool smelled when she leaned close. “Something rots nearby,” she said. “Something small, recently dead. I love this teeming land.”

“Perhaps you are right and we will indeed find my sister,” Obelia said in a soft voice, “but I am so tired, elf-fish. I did not know specters could grow weary.” He weakly retreated into the flask as the image on the water’s surface faded.

“Feril…” Ragh finally commanded her attention. “That ghost is worse than tired. He isn’t looking too healthy…I mean, for a dead elf.”

She glared at him.

He softened his tone. “Do you think there’s anything for us…after this?”

“After what?”

“This. After this life. I’ve heard there are places where spirits dwell, a place beyond Krynn yet close enough that we can almost touch our old haunts. When Obelia’s spirit is finally freed, will he go there? Or will he fade to nothingness, as though he never existed? Do you think there really is a place for the dead?”

“Or is this all there is?” she mused sadly. “I wish I knew, Ragh.”

He raised a scaly eyebrow. It was the first time she’d called him by his name.

“Maybe there is nothing after this life,” she said. “Maybe this…what we have here and now…is all there ever really is, but does it really matter?”

Ragh got to his feet, putting the pack on his back. He had transferred everything to the one satchel; there was plenty of room for all the items, considering that Grannaluured had destroyed so many of the magic artifacts.

“If this is all there ever is, if when we die, we die forever…what’s the point…of all our struggles, of all the…”

“Maybe it’s all pointless.” Feril walked away from the pond, stopping and staring at a massive black walnut with tangled roots. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Ragh hadn’t expected that. Such talk, coming from the Kagonesti, really worried the sivak. “Hey, don’t get downhearted,” the sivak said clumsily. “We’re doing our best. We’re doing it for Dhamon, right? If this life is all he has, he should have the chance to live it as a human—if that’s what he really wants.” Ragh took a last look at the stagnant pond. “Even if Sable has found all our treasure,” he added with forced cheerfulness, “Dhamon and I can always get more.”

Feril looked up, caught his eye, and offered a nod that said more than any words.

It was late afternoon by the time they approached the largest river in the swamp. “The blood of the swamp,” Ragh remembered Sable calling the water. He could hear the foul water sloshing and the buzz of the insects that perpetually made life unbearable around the river. “I hate this damnable, stinking swamp.”

Feril tilted her head back and stretched a hand up to touch a hanging vine. “I find it beautiful, and I find you puzzling. From what Dhamon’s told me, you and he fared well here. Since leaving the swamp and searching for me, you have been tortured by goblins, attacked by dwarves, and nearly squashed by a mountain quake. I’d think you’d be happy to be back in this glorious place. It seems safe by comparison.”

Ragh swatted at a cloud of gnats that had found him. He glowered at her. “In case you didn’t hear me the first hundred times, I don’t like this place, Feril. I don’t like the black dragon that made it, and I don’t like the foul creatures that crawl across the swamp’s earthy bosom.” He touched her on the shoulder and pointed south, past a black willow and to a tributary of the river.

Following his fingerpoint, she saw an unnaturally large alligator sunning itself. The beast had six legs and a double tail. Four eyes were perched at the top of its snout. Two other alligators lay near it, these smaller and looking normal.

“Sable likes strange plants and animals,” he said. “When the overlords discovered the secret of making spawn—creatures like draconians, but not quite so powerful—Sable instead tried to corrupt ordinary creatures. Oh, she made some of her own spawn all right. I saw dozens of them each day in Shrentak, but she favored ones with arms so long that the creatures’ fingers dragged across the ground, wings too short for flying, heads so massive they needed thick collars to keep them upright. Takhisis, the greatest dragon of all, made me. She made all draconians by corrupting eggs. What right do dragons have to interfere so?”

“Never figured a sivak for a philosopher,” Feril said, half kidding, but now the elf stared in horror at the mutated alligator. “There is not enough sorry in this world,” she repeated. Then she moved ahead, threading her way through another mangrove and not making a sound when thorns slashed at her exposed arms.

It was nearly sunset, and the sivak called for her to stop and rest.

“I’m worn down,” he explained. “My feet ache. It’ll be dark soon, and maybe Dhamon can fly us a little then. It’s not much farther down to that scale somewhere near the river. I think we’re getting very close to it, in fact.”

She nodded. “The terrain looks familiar from my scrying, but we should be able to make it there on foot before nightfall…if we hurry. I want to keep going until it’s dark. Then, you’re right, perhaps Dhamon can fly us the rest of the way.”

He rubbed at his sore legs, marveling at her stamina. “All right. Fine, fine. Keep going, and I’ll keep following.” As he spoke, her shadow began to separate and expand. Within minutes, Dhamon had joined the discussion.

“I don’t like it here,” Dhamon said. “It’s too quiet.”

Ragh’s ears pricked up. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed. Been talking to Feril too much. Let myself get distracted.” His narrowed eyes peered into the foliage all around them. “Don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a predator of some sort.”

The flowered vines hung down so thick everywhere that they formed a curtain. Only shadows could be glimpsed through them. Moss grew dark on the vines.

“Yes, I agree,” Feril said. “Something is out there. Maybe it’s a predator. Maybe it’s something else. I don’t care to find out. That’s why we should keep moving.”

Dhamon took the lead now, passing by rows of cypress and other hardwoods that were tolerant of the steamy temperature and watery soil. A few oddities caught his attention—a water snake with two heads and an unusual scale pattern, an unusually big caiman with knobs on its back that made it look like a fallen tree. Some of the plants were aberrant, too—ferns with woody stems taller than Feril, blades of saw grass towering above the cattails, lianas and strips of moss hanging so thick from branches as to completely cover their host trees.

He stopped at a hedge of buttonwoods, cedar, and willow birch stretching more than forty feet high. A bird cried shrilly, then another. In the distance a large cat snarled. More sounds put Dhamon at ease. He could have sworn he’d been this way before, but he didn’t remember it being so lush and overgrown.

Ragh was looking at the high plant wall too, scratching his head. “Short way is through it,” the draconian said. “Easy way is around it. The best way is over it, but there is still too much light and we don’t need you spotted.”

Dhamon shoved his head through the hedge, pushing over the trunk of a buttonbush and flattening it beneath his massive body. “I vote for the short way.”

“The short, noisy way,” the sivak muttered as he gestured with an arm for Feril to follow first.

The hedge was another of Sable’s unnatural creations, they soon discovered. It was part of an ever-changing maze, the trees and bushes growing and shifting in front of their eyes. Feril was captivated, twisting her fingers in the supple branches of a shadberry and seemingly talking to the trees they passed. Rath rolled his eyes in exasperation as Dhamon continued to lead the way.

Soon they were surrounded by the green maze. Ragh felt disoriented. Dhamon grew frustrated and tossed his head back and forth, snapping trees and slashing at vines and trampling grass patches that tried to entangle him.

“Don’t hurt the plant life, Dhamon.” Feril had come up near one of his legs and was stretching up and tugging on a dewclaw. “Stop killing everything. The trees don’t threaten us. I was wrong. We can wait…wait until it’s dark and we can fly over this. When it’s dark, it will be harder for Sable’s eyes to see you.”

Dhamon twisted his head to look in her eyes. His expression was no longer angry. “It will all grow back, Feril. Don’t worry. Any damage I do today will be repaired by tomorrow. The swamp is as strong and magical as the overlord.”

That seemed to satisfy Feril, and indeed she began to aid their progress. She stretched out with her senses, intensely feeling the warmth and dampness of the ground beneath her feet, the roots that raced everywhere, the tangled trunks and branches, the clotted leaves. When she twirled her fingers, the branches in front of Dhamon parted. Even Ragh grinned to see that. Feril lost herself in the rhapsody of the magic. Like a musical conductor, she directed the plants and trees to bend out of their way, then spring back into place after they passed by.

This went on for some time. Dhamon happily allowed Feril to lead. Ragh fell behind the two and watched the pair with some envy.

“Legs are really tired, though,” Ragh muttered to himself. “Walking through this muck isn’t easy. Won’t need to walk through this much longer, I trust. Find that scale and get out of here. That’s my intention.” His voice dropped lower. “He’s going to have to hire some bearers to go to his lair, get all the treasure. We have to sell all those gems and jewels and buy us a mansion.”

They came upon piles of bones, colored a bright pearly white, probably because the swamp’s denizens had picked them so clean they gleamed. Feril stopped at the first pile, her fingers fluttering over a bone longer than herself.

“This was once a young green dragon,” she pronounced. “An innocent victim—it was flying over this swamp to reach its home in the Qualinesti forest.” At her gesture, the vines ebbed away from the bones so she could inspect them better.

“You can tell all that how?” Dhamon’s head loomed over her. Saliva threaded its way over his lower lip and spilled onto her tunic, instantly staining it. She coughed awkwardly and moved out from under him. He instantly edged away, knowing he had upset her.

“Somehow,” the Kagonesti said gently, “I can picture the dragon, and I can see Sable flying up toward it. I see Sable’s jaws opening then closing on the young green’s neck. I sense that it happened quite some time ago.”

“During the Dragon Purge.”

“Likely, Dhamon. This bone over here is from a different green, a little larger. It was another dragon that met the same fate.”

She rose, her magic still controlling the bushes and trees in the maze and urging them to part. They found more and more bones along the way.

“This came from a blue,” Feril said, pointing, as she passed another large bone. “Over there, that came from a bronze that presented more of a threat. Sable had some difficulty besting the bronze, and she still bears a scar from that fight. The scar gives her pride but it also displeases her.”

A little farther, deeper into the maze, she pointed to other bones. “Those came from a small gold. Sable was especially pleased with this kill. The gold was agile, and its hide was thick.”

“Stop.” Ragh stared at the last pile of bones. “I keep noticing something, something that makes me want to be somewhere else. There are no skulls. Leg bones, ribs, thin bones from wings—plenty of all those. Not a single head.”

“No,” Feril admitted. “I don’t see any.”

Ragh ground the ball of his foot against the mud. “Well, that’s bad news. That tells me we’re not headed in the right direction. Yeah, this place is familiar to me, but bad familiar. I thought we were on a path toward the river.”

“Aren’t we?” Dhamon asked. “I can certainly smell the water.”

“So can I,” Feril said, “and it smells close. It has smelled close for quite some time, though. Come to think of it, the water smells unusually…”

“Bad,” Ragh finished. “Stale. Not fresh and moving like river water.” Ragh smacked his fist against his palm. “Dhamon, let’s fly! I don’t care how much light there is! Let’s make sure of this place, find out where we are. ’Cause I don’t think we’re near the river at all. I think we’ve gotten turned around somehow in this damn maze, and it’s gotten all quiet again. Notice it? Way too quiet.”

Feril tipped her head, listening. “It is quiet again,” she agreed, “hut not unduly so. I hear cranes in the distance.” A moment passed, and she nodded when she heard wings overhead. “I disagree, Ragh. We’re close— too close to stop.”

Dhamon shrugged, plunging ahead in the same direction, deeper into the maze. All discussion ended. A few minutes later, so did the maze.

Stretching before them was a large lake ringed by tall plants. In the distance to the north, they could see where the river or a large tributary fed into the lake. The surface was calm, a dark blue color speckled with gold from the setting sun. The water was stagnant along the banks and coated with a viscous slime.

“Yes, this place is familiar,” Dhamon said. “I realize now I was here years ago, with Rig and Fiona.” He looked to the south shore and saw a monstrous totem of skulls. Faint lights shone from the eye sockets—green, blue, red, gold, and more, all the colors the dragons had been in life. At the base of the statue, nearly obscured by the grass that grew tall around it, rested a black dragon scale.

“This was the last place I wanted to come looking for a scale,” Ragh grumbled. “Wonderful. And I led us here. What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking you wanted to help your friend,” Feril said. She was heading straight toward the totem, eyes fixed on the scale. “There it is.”

Ragh followed, glancing over his shoulder and noticing that Dhamon hadn’t budged. Dhamon was staring at the lake, which was nearly as large as Nalis Aren. Feril was already at the scale, kneeling in front of it and motioning to Ragh.

“I’ll need your help,” Feril called to him.

“I suppose you do. I’ve got the dead Qualinesti, after all,” Ragh said, adjusting the satchel on his back, “and all the magical baubles that Needle didn’t destroy.” He paused, adding for Dhamon’s benefit, “Dhamon, I hope with my heart this works. I hope we’ll be strolling into a tavern somewhere…some place accepting of me…and buying tall tankards of ale, the two of us. We even got some clothes in here for you. Feril got ’em in Nalis Aren. They’ve had a while to dry out.”

Dhamon said nothing, just kept staring at his reflection in the lake.

“Ragh!” Feril called, motioning. The sivak loped toward her, handing the satchel to her.

“I hope you can do this fast,” Ragh said. “This place sends shivers down my spine.”

Feril smoothed the grass away from the scale. It was large, mirror-slick, and shiny; her own expression stared back at her. This scale was loose, just waiting for them— simply shed by Sable and left here, forgotten.

Without a word, Feril began sorting through the trinkets, separating the metal beads from the carved figurines and setting aside the scroll. There were two vials of potions that Grannaluured hadn’t smashed, and these Feril snatched up and opened. She poured the contents on the ground, then tossed the vials away.

“Hey, are you supposed to do it that way…”

Before the sivak could say anything else, Feril clutched the scale with both hands, lifted it up and brought the tip of it down on one of the figurines, shattering it. She raised the scale and brought it down on another.

“What about Obelia…don’t you think you should call out the ghost of Obelia and ask for his advice? After all, he’s the sorcerer.”

She smashed a third trinket, then, to Ragh’s astonishment, raised the shield above the flask that held the Qualinesti ghost, bringing it down hard and cracking the flask. A wisp spiraled up as the water and fingerbones from Nalis Aren spilled out.

“Feril! I don’t understand…”

The Kagonesti whirled on Ragh. Her eyes were black and shiny and filled with an anger and emptiness that was uncharacteristic. She swung Sable’s scale at the sivak and he dodged at the last moment, realization dawning on his craggy face.

“By the memory of the Dark Queen, Feril…when did Sable take you?” He jumped out of her way again, noticing she wasn’t as agile as before, but then Feril wasn’t the one doing these things, Ragh knew. It was the overlord. Feril wouldn’t have destroyed the magical trinkets. Feril would have called out Obelia.

The Kagonesti’s upper lip curled back in a snarl. “In the mountains,” she said, her voice strange and hollow and flat. “When the mountain was crashing down I found her, struggling with one of my scales wedged in a crevice. I knew her as a companion of the Dhamon-dragon, so I took her as my eyes. She is my puppet.”

It was Sable’s voice. The black was speaking through Feril.

“Feril…where’s the scale, Feril?” Ragh edged away, keeping his eyes fixed on the elf, gesturing wildly to Dhamon. “Sable can’t possess you entirely. Tell me, where is the scale that the Black is using to control you?”

Feril obliged with a gloating grin, tugging up her tunic to display a black scale on her stomach. As she dropped the tunic back in place she kicked at the assortment of magical trinkets, scattering them in the tall grass and pools of water.

Ragh felt sick and weak and defeated. “Sable, you foul beast! You could have let him become a human! What does it matter to you? You could have let this magic work. As a human, Dhamon Grimwulf wouldn’t have challenged you, would have left this damnable swamp far behind. You would have won!”

“I’ll still win,” Feril said in the flat, hollow, and eerie voice of Sable, “and the victory will be all the more rewarding. The Dhamon-dragon will be utterly defeated, and his love will have helped destroy him, but I…I will deal the killing blow. I will feel his blood pulse over my talons and down my throat.”

Feril rushed at Ragh, just as the sivak heard Dhamon’s roar from behind him.