The Lake of Death

3

Feril opened her eyes and saw her own reflection— smooth, unmarked face, short hair, bewildered expression. She gasped when she realized she wasn’t looking into any mirror but into the eye of the dragon. That eye was just inches away, the dragon’s head tucked into its neck at an odd angle to be able to scrutinize her closely. This near, the scent of the beast was overwhelming, and she felt weak. She rolled on her side, retching until there was nothing left in her stomach.

She told herself to be brave and accept her fate as, fighting dizziness, she struggled to her knees. Her teeth chattered. The Kagonesti couldn’t run away from the creature, she knew, and she certainly couldn’t stand and fight. She must still be alive because the creature wanted information. She knew some dragons were curious, so this one might mean her no harm at all, or it might mean to swallow her quickly after it gleaned whatever tidbit of knowledge it sought.

“Feril.” The word softly rumbled, shaking the ground. The dragon repeated her name, certain she hadn’t heard him the first time.

She wiped at her face, squared her shoulders. She thrust her chin out and adopted a proud, defiant look. She managed to keep the look of surprise off her face that the dragon somehow knew her name.

“Feril, I was wrong to come here. I should have let the past stay buried. I should have stayed in my swamp.”

There was something reassuringly familiar about the sonorous voice, and also about the dragon’s eyes, where not a touch of menace appeared to lurk. Feril searched them for a hint of the man she thought she detected earlier, but all she could see was her own reflection. She continued to tremble from the dragonfear, though not as much as before—less and less, it seemed, with each passing moment.

“How do you know my name? How can…”

Feril rose with a start when she saw a sivak draconian step into view from behind the dragon. She glanced back and forth between the two creatures, inhaled sharply, then almost retched again from the combination of horrible smells.

“It’s all right,” the dragon continued. “I won’t hurt you, Feril. I would never hurt you. I’ll be on my way. I shouldn’t have…”

The sivak cocked his head, gesturing with a crooked finger. “Is this the woman you wanted to find? A Kagonesti?”

The dragon gave a nod.

“When you mentioned an elf, I pictured some fragile creature with flowers in her hair—or with painted lips and eyelids, like your friend Rikali. Nothing dainty or painted about this one. She certainly didn’t need our help with those Knights of Neraka. Slaughtered most of them on her own, she did. Are all of your friends this tough, Dhamon?”

“Dhamon? Impossible!”

Even as Feril said this, she knew it was indeed true. The image of the man she had seen in the dragon’s eyes, and saw again now. The image of that rugged, handsome face flickered, then disappeared when she blinked and shook her head. “Impossible,” she repeated, though she knew that somehow it was him. Her chest tightened, feeling as though someone had slammed a mailed fist into her stomach. She could hardly breathe. “By all the gods, Dhamon Grimwulf!”

She reached out, shaky fingers tentatively touching the scales on his leg. She pressed her palm against one and closed her eyes, flooded by myriad emotions and questions. Her breath came ragged and fast.

“It is you, isn’t it, Dhamon? I never thought I’d see you again and certainly not like this. What strange magic did this to you, Dhamon?”

“Feril, dark magic. Terrible magic. I…” The dragon glanced behind him toward the trees where the Knights of Neraka had been hanged. He knew that Feril found him repulsive. He had long rehearsed the speech he might give to her some day, but right now his thoughts were jumbled. “Ragh, it’s time to leave. This wasn’t…”

The sivak shook his head in disagreement. “We’re not leaving, not just yet. We came all this way, and you’re not even going to introduce me?”

Dhamon looked at the sivak, then down at the Kagonesti, who was still stroking his scales. Saliva dripped from his jowls, and Feril stepped back to keep from getting splashed. After a moment, he tipped his head up, as if he were listening to something far beyond this clearing in the Qualinesti forest. A red-shouldered hawk cried shrilly and cut through the sky above them, then circled a fallen knight on the river bank, where a cloud of insects swarmed.

“Ragh, this is Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter,” Dhamon said at length, “a Kagonesti from Southern Ergoth and once a champion of Goldmoon.”

“I prefer Peril,” she said, shortening her name, as she stepped back from the dragon to study the draconian.

“Feril,” Ragh said, as he met the eyes of the Kagonesti. “Well met, Feril of Southern Ergoth.”

At first her eyes were daggers aimed at the sivak then finally they softened as she turned her face away and lifted it to the dragon again. “Dhamon, what has happened to you? How in the world did you become…”

“A dragon? It’s a long story,” Dhamon replied. The faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of his massive mouth.

“Tell me, Dhamon.”

“Short or long, let’s do it away from here,” the sivak urged, gesturing at the dead bodies. “They’re going to attract all sorts of beasties once they begin to stink— stink worse than Dhamon even, maybe attract more knights.” He waved a clawed hand in front of his face to ward off a gathering mistlike swarm of gnats.

Again, Feril glared at the draconian. “I am in no hurry. I intend to bury all of these men.”

“What, are you mad, elf?” The draconian furiously swiped at the gnats.

“Listen, sivak,” she started. “I’ve…”

“Ragh,” Dhamon said to the Kagonesti. “Feril, he’s a good friend of mine.”

“Dhamon, his kind…”

“I know, my kind eat elves,” Ragh finished her sentence, finally giving up on keeping the insects at bay. “Elves are a favorite food of most sivaks, you might say but it’s been a few years for me. I’ve long since acquired other tastes.”

She sucked in a breath and pointed south, where tall pines grew far apart and sheltered smaller trees. The shadows were particularly thick there. The sun had nearly set. “Dhamon, if you must go, then I’ll meet you over there when I’m finished burying the dead. We obviously have a lot of catching up to do.”

Dhamon pawed at the ground, a talon digging a deep line. “I’ll bury them, Feril.” Softer, he added, “They were once my kind.”

“So you knew him years ago when he was human, huh? Probably before he got all high-and-mighty bent on saving the world.”

Feril was settled on a carpet of lungwort that grew between the knobby roots of a golden rain tree. She stared up at the clusters of yellow flowers and didn’t answer the nearby sivak draconian.

“Certainly before he had a change of heart and fell in with thieves in ogre lands, before he hooked up with Maldred.”

Feril rubbed at the back of her neck and rolled her shoulders. She seemed oblivious to the sivak’s prattle.

“Well, I met Dhamon back when he was human, too,” Ragh continued. The sivak leaned against the trunk of an old gum as he warily regarded her. “He was a good man, for a human. Best I can recall knowing. I have a gap in my memory, but I understand that Dhamon freed me from some of Sable’s minions. Sable’s the black dragon overlord that rules this swamp,” he paused, “but I suppose you know about Sable. I suppose everyone does.” He rubbed his back against the tree. “Anyway, Sable’s minions cut off my wings. Dhamon said they were bleeding me to make spawn and abominations.”

Still no reaction from Feril. She seemed busy watching a small black bird that was searching for insects in the flowers and along the small branches. Her elf eyes picked through the darkness and noticed the bands of blue on the bird’s wings.

“In those days Dhamon had this big scale on his right leg, black as night with a silver streak in it. The thing was paining him terribly. Sometimes he’d curl into a ball and pass out, it hurt that much. We’d watch him with a knot in our stomachs—Maldred and Riki and me. I remember thinking I wouldn’t want my worst enemy to suffer so. We thought sooner or later the pain might kill him.”

Ragh talked on and on about Maldred and Riki, the ogre-mage and half-elf thief who kept company with Dhamon for a while and who worried over him and his accursed scale. He talked some about Rig and Fiona, without mentioning their deaths, since he realized Feril must have known the pair. Dhamon could deliver those somber tidings when and if he wanted to.

“Somehow the pain got worse, then he started growing more scales. Not as big as the first one—he said that first scale came from the red overlord. Malys, they called her. At first, all the smaller scales were just on his leg, black as night, and he managed to keep them hidden from us. We found out eventually, and Maldred tried to find a cure for him.” The sivak paused. “We went to Shrentak, where there was this magical woman Maldred had heard about, some old Black Robe sorceress who was said to be near as powerful as Raistlin Majere. She was powerful, all right, but she was as mad as a nest of rattled hornets.” Again he left out a vital piece of the story…that the mad woman indeed could have cured Dhamon, for a price—if Ragh had become her property. The sivak thought the cost too high and killed her when Dhamon was unconscious, hiding her body and later telling Dhamon that the woman could do nothing for him and had wandered off.

“Wasted trip. She couldn’t help him,” Ragh continued, a little louder. “We left Shrentak, and Dhamon’s scales kept spreading. I guess you knew him about the time he got that first big scale, huh? It was some years ago from what I understand. He said it was red at first, just like the overlord Malys. He also said a shadow dragon and a silver dragon broke the hold Malys had on him because of the scale, and in the process the big scale turned black. ’Course, the magic the shadow dragon worked on that scale, we didn’t know it at the time, but I figure it eventually caused all those other scales to sprout. It just took time.”

The sivak waited for Feril to say something. He scratched at his chin and let out a deep breath. He heard the hoot of an owl, and then a closer owl hooted longer at a higher pitch. The owls were waiting for it to get a little darker, then they would fly in search of mice and ground squirrels. He allowed himself a moment of envy, then brushed a beetle off his leg and resumed his tale.

“It was a little more than a year ago, I’m talking about, when the small black scales had started to sprout like fever blisters. Like I said, we had left Shrentak and were cutting through the swamp trying to help Dhamon. We took a boat across the New Sea and went north through goblin lands and into the mountains. It wasn’t an easy trip, definitely dangerous, and Dhamon was hurting more and more all the time. Dhamon wouldn’t give up, though, and we stayed with him. He was after the shadow dragon, figured it was his only chance to stop the scales from covering him entirely. Figured, I guess, that since the shadow dragon caused his problem, the shadow dragon could cure him.”

“The shadow dragon was in the mountains?”

Ragh bit his tongue in surprise that Feril finally had deigned to speak to him.

The sivak nodded. “Yes, in a lair deep in the mountains, but Dhamon was scarcely human by the time we arrived there.” Ragh slid down the trunk and sat cross-legged. “By then Dhamon looked like a draconian, biggest one I ever saw, but he was black as night, like one of Sable’s spawn, and he had wings. He started growing even bigger every step closer that we got to the shadow dragon.”

Feril was definitely listening now. She leaned forward, intent on Ragh’s story, nodding for him to continue.

“Deep, deep under the mountain we learned that the shadow dragon wanted Dhamon to turn into a dragon. The shadow dragon was dying, old and spent, and was looking for a new body—Dhamon’s. He had control of Dhamon for a while and almost had him trapped for good, but all of us fought hard to free him.”

Feril’s lips formed a thin line. “And you won?”

Ragh nodded. “If you can call it that. We killed the shadow dragon and left Maldred in ogre country when it was all over. I’m the only one who stayed with Dhamon. He’s not great company, I’ll tell you. I don’t think he cares for being a dragon.”

Neither said anything for a while. Feril rubbed at her palm and looked far into the woods, seeming to watch something the sivak couldn’t see. There was a flapping sound, wings directly overhead, a large white owl taking flight.

“You said all of that was a year ago, sivak?”

“About a year, give or take. Hard to mark time when time doesn’t matter much.”

“Rig and Fiona…where are they now?”

Ragh didn’t answer at first.

“Did they fight the shadow dragon, too?”

“Fiona did,” he said finally. He quickly changed the subject. “Dhamon and I have been living in Sable’s swamp. He’s built a lair, collected some treasure.”

She edged closer, raising an eyebrow. “Wealth never mattered that much to him.”

“When he was human, maybe,” Ragh said. Maybe when he was with you and the powerful Palin Majere, he added to himself. The sivak knew that when Dhamon traveled with the cunning Maldred, it was different; the two were always scheming to rob people or find buried riches. Treasure was at the top of their priorities. “Dhamon thinks dragons have some deep instinct to build a hoard.”

“Is his treasure around here? If not, what is he doing here?”

Ragh gave a great shrug of his broad shoulders.

“He came looking for me, isn’t that it?”

“Yes,” the sivak said. “You mean a lot to him for some reason.”

It was her turn to shrug. “Once he meant a great deal to me, too, but it feels like that was a lifetime ago.”

“When he was human.”

“Yes. I met him even before he had the scale.”

“When he was a Dark Knight?”

She shook her head as she stood up. “He was as chivalrous as a knight, though, all puffed up with notions of honor.”

It looked as though she might say something else but stopped herself. Her face became hard again and set itself in a scowl, as if she were angry for talking this much to a sivak, a monster without humanity.

“You have a problem with my kind?” he said, sensing her discomfort.

She answered swiftly, her words sounding brittle even to her ears. “Sivaks killed my father and sister. I ran away before I could see the beasts eat them, but I was a child, too small and too frightened to do anything except run.”

She brushed at her legs and then walked to the edge of the trees and looked out over the clearing. Twilight was starting to claim the sky, and the river was dark and still churning.

She stood there waiting for Dhamon, never once glancing back at Ragh.

It took him longer than she expected, but he had fished all the bodies out of the river, too, heaping them all in one mass grave, marked with shields and swords, in front of the trees from which she’d hung them.

Now he was slowly lumbering toward her, his blue and silver scales dim in the fading light, his equine snout pointed straight at her. He had put effort into suppressing his aura of dragonfear, so Peril felt not even a twinge of dread. A few yards away he stopped, letting her finally break the silence.

“The Knights of Neraka have been hunting the Qualinesti elves living in these woods,” she said.

“Thus, you’ve been hunting the knights?”

A new life, a new code of responsibilities.

“And goblins,” she said. “Tribes of goblins, hobgoblins, and worse are roaming the forest. Mostly I’ve been hunting the bandits, but I get my share of knights.”

“Bandits?” His eyes blinked questioningly. “Can’t the Qualinesti deal with bandits?”

Feril laughed lightly, and Dhamon thought it sounded like crystal wind chimes teased by a slight breeze.

“Where in all the world have you been, Dhamon Grimwulf? Beryl is dead, and most of the Qualinesti have fled from the woods. This land they’ve held since the Age of Dreams—now it’s lost to them. The stragglers don’t have enough of a force to fight the bandits or anyone else. The north country is ruled by Captain Samuval, an outlaw who’s offering land to any man who’ll serve for a time in his so-called army. Samuval’s army has been killing or driving away any Qualinesti they find.”

Dhamon lowered his head until the barbels that hung from his chin brushed against the ground. He cringed to see Feril wrinkle her nose at his odor. “What about your allies, Feril? Who is helping you fight the knights and the bandits?”

She put on a defiant look. “No one.” After a deep breath, she added, “Nature is helping me, Dhamon. You saw how many knights I managed to take down on my own. I’ve become more proficient with magic since you knew me.”

He opened his great mouth and canted his head to the side. “I shouldn’t have come here, Feril. I should have stayed in the swamp. It’s my home now. I shouldn’t have tried to reach back into the past.” He paused, glancing beyond her to the draconian. “My friend over there wanted to fly for a bit, so I obliged him.”

“How did you find me?”

He drew his head close to his neck and something sparkled in his eyes. “That wasn’t so easy,” he said. “It was mostly Ragh’s doing. Some time ago he was a spy for Sable, and he still has some old contacts in the swamp, including ones who worked for the Knights of Neraka. It took more than a month and the liberal spreading around of steel pieces and pearls that I really had no other use for anyway. Eventually, one of Ragh’s contacts told us that a wild elf was waging war in the Qualinesti forest of Wayreth. The description didn’t closely match, but Ragh wanted badly to explore, and I wanted badly to…”

She raised a hand to the side of her head. “I look different. I have cut my hair,” she said.

“And the tattoos?”

“Well, I live a different life now.” She looked over her shoulder at the sivak, who was trying to look casual while eavesdropping on their conversation. “It seems you have a remarkably different life, too.” Taking a few steps forward, she stretched out her fingers and tickled his lower jaw. “You’re an impressive-looking dragon, Dhamon Grimwulf. I’d almost say the scales suit you.”

For an instant, pain registered in his eyes. “I’ve come to appreciate being powerful, Feril. I enjoy flying. I can see and hear better than any man, and I…”

Ragh cleared his throat. “Oh, don’t listen to him. He’s not the least bit happy, elf. The scales don’t suit him at all.” The sivak came closer to the pair. “Did you bury all of them, Dhamon?”

A nod.

“All of them?”

“Yes.” There was an irritated rumble beneath the word.

“Damn.” Ragh pounded the ball of his foot against the ground. “I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t thinking at all. Did you…”

Dhamon shook his head. “No. I did not keep their coin purses.”

“Damn. Damn. Damn.” The sivak sidestepped the dragon and squinted back in the direction of the mass grave, seeing little in the growing darkness. “We don’t have a single steel piece left. We didn’t bring enough from your lair. You should have grabbed those purses. Maybe we can still find some of those swords…”

“Let them stay right where they are,” Dhamon said.

“Fine,” Ragh said. “Fine. Fine. Fine. Now we can’t even take the steel and swords we earned.” He walked away, muttering, kicking at stones.

Dhamon focused his immense eyes only on Feril. He shook his head, his shadowy horns rustling the leaves of the branches above him. “I couldn’t stop the transformation, Feril. Not even an old Black Robe sorceress in Shrentak could find a way to keep me human. Not the shadow dragon, not…”

“If it’s magic that made you a dragon…” she began. “Well, now there’s plenty of magic in Krynn again. Perhaps some of that magic can restore you, Dhamon—bring back your humanity.”

For an instant she thought she saw a flicker of hope in the dragon’s midnight eyes, then nothing.

“There isn’t enough magic in the world, Feril.”

She shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Maybe not, but you came looking for me for a reason,” she said, “and I think it was because you think there is a chance. Ragh is right. You are unhappy. You want to be human again.”

“Yes, I wish to be human.”

“I know you, Dhamon. You have some plan, don’t you?”

Ragh had come back, standing silently nearby, listening. He recalled Dhamon studying the crystal ball in his lair, asking it questions and cocking his ear for hours on end.

“Yes,” Dhamon answered, “and I need your help.”

“Why? How can I help you?” She searched hard for the human reflection in the dragon’s immense, stoic eyes but found only darkness. . “You can come with me to Nalis Aren.”

“Just who is that?” Ragh cut in, tugging on Dhamon’s dew claw.

“Not a who,” Feril supplied the answer, as Dhamon lowered his eyes. “Those are Qualinesti words for Lake of Death.”