The Realms of the Elves

TRAITORS

— 250,090 DR

Rhespen Ash brandished his truesilver staff and shouted words of power. The magic cast up shields of wind and light, and hurled bright, crackling thunderbolts at the foes lurking in the green shadows between the trees.

It wasn't enough. The enemy wizards shattered his defenses quick as he could conjure them, volleys of arrows moaned through the air, and Rhespen's troops and their horses died.

If he'd had a chance to prepare, it would likely have been different, but the ambuscade had caught him entirely by surprise. He'd marched a small company of his master's warriors into the forest because some of the inhabitants-elves, his own People! — had sent a message requesting help to repel an incursion of trolls. He'd had no reason to suspect the missive had actually originated with rebels seeking to lure a portion of the royal army into a trap.

He glanced about to see how many of his predominantly human men-at-arms lay dead or crippled and how many remained on their feet. It looked as if the foe had neutralized half of them already.

The battle was lost. For a moment, Rhespen considered using sorcery to whisk himself to safety. But he owed it to his men to attempt a proper surrender and so prevent the destruction of any more lives. He murmured a charm to amplify his voice, the better to cry for quarter, and an enormous shadow swept over his beleaguered force.

His soldiers looked up, and cheered. Rhespen felt the same jubilation. King Orchtrien and his get were busy fighting in the great wars far to the southeast. Yet somehow, one of them had perceived trouble in the supposedly peaceful heart of the realm, whereupon Prince Bexendral had employed a spell of teleportation to rush to his vassal's aid.

Some of the enemy shrieked, bolted, or collapsed cowering at the sight of the gold dragon on the wing. Others shot arrows, or assailed the wyrm with darts of light and blasts of frost. Hovering, leathery wings beating and flashing in the afternoon sunlight, Bexendral didn't even appear to notice the attacks. He growled a spell, and sparks rained from the empty air to the forest floor, where they exploded into prodigious blasts of flame. Twisting the horned, wedge-shaped head at the end of his serpentine neck, the prince spewed a flare of his own burning breath, decimating the rebels and plunging the survivors into disarray.

Rhespen's men, suddenly keen to avenge their fallen comrades, hefted their swords and spears and ran toward the flames. The mad rush had no tactics or order to it, but what did it matter? Bexendral had come and his warriors couldn't lose.

Rhespen used his magically enhanced voice to shout to the rebels: "Surrender now, or the dragon will kill you all!"

Huge as Bexendral was, his sire dwarfed him, and even though he'd served the king for a century, Rhespen always felt a pang of awe upon entering his presence. His heart beating a little faster, he marched the length of the vast, high-ceilinged hall, kneeled before the intricately carved cylindrical pedestal that served as a sort of throne, and laid his staff at Orchtrien's taloned feet.

Up close, the gold smelled of saffron, and his yellow eyes shined like lamps. "Rise, Milord," he rumbled. "Tell me what you've learned."

"Yes, Majesty." Rhespen drew himself to his feet. "Many of the forest folk are loyal. Only three noble Houses-Vilirith, Starfall, and Duskmere-took part in the treachery."

Someone snorted. Rhespen turned to see that, as expected, it was Maldur Breakstone. Burly and florid of face, long hair dyed a premature white to create the appearance of wisdom, the human mage gave him a glower.

"Did you wish to comment?" asked Orchtrien, beard of fleshy tendrils dangling beneath his jaw.

Grimacing, Maldur feigned reluctance. Then: "I don't mean to impugn Lord Rhespen's competence, Majesty, nor, obviously, his loyalty. But if he failed to notice that any of his fellow elves were plotting treason to begin with, are you certain you can trust his findings now?"

Rhespen stifled a surge of anger. "Do you, Milord, have any concrete reason to doubt them?"

Maldur shrugged. "Perhaps the truly important question is what to do next." He shifted his gaze again to Orchtrien, tilting his head back so he could look the reptile in the eye. "Majesty, I suggest you execute all the dastards implicated in the crime and confiscate their lands and property. If other elves are contemplating treason, perhaps the fate of the rebels will dissuade them. If not, well, the traitors still deserve the harshest punishment you can mete out, and you need wealth to prosecute your wars."

Rhespen frowned. "Majesty, I recommend a more merciful approach."

"Well, you would, wouldn't you," Maldur said, "considering that the knaves are your own race, and that it was mainly humans who paid the price for their treachery."

"I'm a servant of the crown before all else," Rhespen said, "and I grieve for the warriors who fell. I advise moderation because severity could sow unrest where none currently exists, and with war raging on our borders, that we can ill afford."

"You may be right," Orchtrien said. "Still, we must do something to deter the rebel lords from further folly. We will hold their children hostage, and you, Rhespen, will supervise their captivity."

"With respect, Majesty," Maldur said, "Lord Rhespen might find it a trial to manage prisoners of his own race. He might start feeling unduly sympathetic. Whereas I-"

"I want a sympathetic jailer," said the king. "I want the hostages to enjoy their sojourn with us, and to savor all the pleasures and wonders my court has to offer. That's the way to win their fealty, and when they one day ascend to their parents' estates, to put an end to this insane impulse to anarchy for good and all."

"Your Majesty is wise," Rhespen said. "But I hoped to journey south with you and fight at your side. Surely someone else-"

Orchtrien snorted, the exhalation hot with a hint of the fire forever smoldering inside him. "All my deputies are argumentative today. You will do as I have commanded."

Rhespen inclined his head.

Rhespen had friends among the ravens, hawks, and owls, and they kept him apprised of what occurred in the vicinity of the royal city. Thus, it was easy to intercept the hostages before they started the climb up the mountain highway.

To his surprise, the newest arrival had seen fit to travel in a coach with curtains drawn across the windows. Never had he known an elf to employ such a conveyance. It closed one off from the kiss of the wind, from the ever-changing sight and scent of verdure that was as vital to his kind as food and drink. Indeed, the mere thought of riding for days pent up in such a box made him cringe, and he wondered if the Count of Duskmere had sent an invalid to totter about Orchtrien's palace.

He kicked his gray palfrey into a canter, and his half dozen bodyguards clattered after him. Six was the smallest number protocol allowed. He meant to welcome the hostage like a cordial host, not a foe who feared hostilities.

The Duskmere retainers greeted him with glum faces but likewise with respect.

"Our mistress," said their chief, "is the Lady Winterflower."

Rhespen turned to see if, now that she had, in effect, been introduced, Winterflower would see fit to emerge from her carriage, pull back a curtain, or at least speak. She didn't.

"Is the lady ill?" he asked. "Or deep in Reverie?"

"I don't believe so," the servant replied.

Then perhaps she's hard of hearing, Rhespen thought. He swung himself down from his horse, advanced to the coach, and rapped on the door.

"Milady?" he said. "I'm Rhespen Ash, Royal Councilor and Magician, come to escort you into the Bright City and see to your comfort thereafter."

"Escort me, then," she said, still without revealing herself. Her soprano voice sounded sweet, yet cold, like a drink from a frigid spring.

"The weather is mild, and the view going up the mountain is spectacular. I recommend you ascend on horseback, or at least unshroud your windows."

"No doubt I'll have ample opportunity to observe the walk of my prison once I'm trapped behind them."

His mouth tightened. He had no wish to vex her, but likewise saw no reason to tolerate the childish discourtesy implicit in her refusal to reveal herself. If he permitted it to succeed now, it would be that much harder to eliminate later on.

"Milady," he said, "I could never forgive myself if, through inaction, I deprived you of one of the fairest sights in Faerun." He murmured a rhyme and swept a talisman through a mystic pass. Winterflower's retainers gawked and exclaimed in alarm, but the incantation was only a few words long, and he'd already finished before they could make up their minds to intervene.

He touched the talisman to the side of the carriage, and the top half of it faded from view. The startled driver appeared to be sitting on empty air, and Winterflower herself, to be riding in some sort of peculiar open wagon. Rhespen pivoted to regard her, and his eyes widened.

With their fair, clear skin and slender frames, most elves were pleasant to look upon, but even by the standards of their comely race, Winterflower was extraordinary. Her curls were soft, gleaming ebony, and her eyes, sapphires flecked with gold. Her features were fine, exquisite, yet somehow avoided the appearance of daintiness. Rather, they bespoke courage and intelligence.

She glared at him. "Had I been allowed to bring my grimoires and amulets with me into captivity, I'd wipe your feeble enchantment away, then punish you for your impudence."

He shook off his surprise at her loveliness. "Then I'm glad the king forbade you their use, and before long, you'll feel the same. Let's continue on our way." He whistled, and his horse, trained in part by magic, instantly left off cropping grass and came to him.

He rode beside Winterflower as the road switchbacked up into the mountains, past the minor bastions and watchtowers built to guard the way. He chatted about the sights they encountered, and she responded-or failed to-with a silence and an expression as stony as the crags rising around them.

Until Dawnfire came into view. For elves were famously susceptible to beauty, and despite herself, she caught her breath. Her features softened.

Orchtrien's capital was both a city and one vast castle, the whole hewn from the living rock of the mountaintop, then refined and polished like a cameo. Not an inch of it was plain, dingy, or poorly proportioned. At the crest of every spire, framing every window, and etched into every section of wall, finely wrought ornamentation delighted the eye.

"We'll ride out early one morning so you can see it at sunrise," Rhespen said. "The stonework catches the red and gold light like a mirror."

Winterflower scowled, struggling to break the spell of the vista as he himself had earlier exerted his will to cast off his astonishment at her loveliness. "I hate to think," she said, "of all the toil that went into creating that monument, simply to feed a dragon's vanity."

"It's a city. A good many folk who aren't dragons live there and enjoy it, too. By nightfall, you'll be one of us."

"I wonder how many poor slaves fell to their deaths in the carving of it."

"Orchtrien doesn't have slaves. He has subjects, the same as any king. You'll see."

She sniffed, and still half visible and half not, the coach clattered onward.

A patrol comprised of Orchtrien's personal guards recognized Rhespen and stepped to the side of the street, clearing the way for him and his companions. Clad in gilt armor, the warriors were tall, lanky men with blond hair and tawny eyes. Their skin had a golden cast as well, and in some cases, a faint patterning suggestive of scales. Winterflower studied them as her coach rolled past.

"Those," said Rhespen, "are half-dragons."

"I know what they are," she snapped. "Orchtrien's bastards, or the bastards of his dragon sons. Abominations engendered by the rape of elf and human women."

He shook his head. "Rape? Milady, I can't imagine how you come by such lurid fancies."

"Do you claim the women have a choice?"

"Yes. Though admittedly, I don't recall anyone refusing. The rewards are considerable."

"What reward could adequately compensate a woman for lying with a gigantic serpent? They accept the horror and shame because they dare not refuse."

"Gold wyrms can change their shapes. They visit their mistresses in the forms of males of their own races." He grinned. "Otherwise, I'll grant you, squashing could be a problem. But the two of us, gently born and newly acquainted, ought not to speak of such coarse matters. Your new home is just ahead."

The column passed through an arch in a wall adorned with flowers, bumblebees, and hummingbirds rendered in mosaic. On the other side, in the very heart of the city, towered a wood of oak and shadowtop. High in the branches hung dwellings constructed on multiple levels, some portions enclosed, others, simple platforms. White, blue, and amber lamps glowed in the twilight, and the scents of cooking tinged the air.

"This is the Elf Quarter," Rhespen said. "You can imagine all the hard work and potent sorcery it took to transplant these trees to the top of a mountain, just so people like us would feel at home."

"In other words," she said, "Orchtrien wounded a true forest to create this unnatural place. That doesn't surprise me. His marauders kill trees every day to clear more of his cursed farmland."

"The army must eat, Milady, the entire kingdom must, and the unfortunate truth is, forests don't yield as much food as grain fields. I assure you, the king intends to leave the greater portion of the woodlands intact."

"Every particle of soil, every leaf, every twig of our homeland is sacred, Milord. If you still possessed the soul of an elf, you'd know it, but I fear it shriveled in you long ago."

Rhespen felt a twinge of incipient headache. "We can discuss these matters later, at our leisure. For now, let me install you in your new residence, and I'll leave you to your rest."

In the evenings, Winterflower took to singing from one of the open platforms high in her shadowtop. Her repertoire, comprised of laments and dirges, was as cheerless as her conversation, but so lovely was her voice that her neighbors still made it a habit to stop and listen. Over time, word of her performances spread, and even folk who were not elves began to wander into the quarter at dusk to partake of the free entertainment.

So perhaps it shouldn't have been any great astonishment when the king himself asked for a song, but nonetheless, it caught Rhespen by surprise.

He turned from the table where he dined with the hostages and looked across the hall, to the pedestal atop which Orchtrien crouched over his own wagon-wheel-sized plate of beef and bowl of red wine. "I beg your pardon, Majesty?"

"I've heard about the nightingale of the Elf Quarter," the dragon replied. "Please, Milady, grace us with a song to celebrate my victory over the Red Triumvirate."

Inwardly, Rhespen winced. Some of the rebels' offspring were adjusting well to their soft captivity, but Winterflower remained as scornful and unyielding as ever. He feared she'd refuse Orchtrien's command, and so earn punishment. He'd never considered the gold to be especially cruel by nature, but his master still possessed a regal pride, a dragon's pride, and was little inclined to tolerate disrespect.

Rhespen groped for an excuse to offer on Winterflower's behalf. She rose from the table before he could think of anything. "As Your Majesty commands," she said. She walked to the patch of floor before the throne, took a breath, and began to sing.

Her song, a mournful ballad, was lovely, and cast its spell over everyone in the hall. Rhespen sat as captivated as the rest, until he realized how the lyrics might be construed.

He could only hope that no one else would so interpret them. Many of the folk in attendance didn't even speak Elvish, and others were surely content to enjoy the song without analyzing it for provocative implication. Perhaps, he thought, it would be all right.

Then a disembodied fist made of blue phosphorescence shimmered into existence. It smashed Winterflower in the face, flinging her to the floor.

Rhespen sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. He called for his staff, and the length of white shining metal appeared in his hand.

Sneering, Maldur rose as well. He didn't summon his own staff-perhaps he'd never mastered that particular knack-but light nickered and oozed inside the gems he, wore on either hand.

"You surely noticed," the human magician said, "that the song told of a mad, vainglorious king, and the calamities his misrule inflicted on his subjects."

"It's an ancient song," Rhespen replied, "dating back to a time before elves even walked this world."

"Nevertheless," Maldur said, "she surely intended it as a veiled comment on His Majesty's reign." He glared down at Winterflower. "Didn't you, Milady?"

Rhespen stared at her, silently imploring her with his gaze: For once, curb that bitter tongue. You could forfeit your life by admitting to such a thing.

She peered back at him, then lowered her eyes and said, in a meeker voice than he'd heard her use hitherto, "As Lord Rhespen said, it's simply an old song with a plaintive melody. I meant nothing by it, and apologize if it offended."

Rhespen gave her his hand and helped her up. He glared at Maldur. "It's you, Milord, who should beg forgiveness."

"Nonsense," the human said. "It's plain she intended the insult even if she now lacks the courage to admit it, and in any case, I don't apologize to rebels."

Rhespen pivoted toward Orchtrien. "Your Majesty, you placed Lady Winterflower in my charge. Thus, I'm duty-bound to defend her honor."

He actually expected the dragon to forbid any semblance of a duel, for both he and Maldur were valuable servants, and Orchtrien would find it inconvenient to lose either one of them. But the gold surprised him.

"You two have been squabbling for years," Orchtrien said. "I'm tired of it. So I give you leave to settle your quarrel. We'll have a martial entertainment to celebrate a martial triumph."

Servants cleared away the tables and chairs nearest Orchtrien's dais, creating a space sufficiently large for a pair of mages to hurl destructive energies back and forth without inadvertently blasting an innocent spectator. Rhespen and Maldur stood at opposite ends of it, and the king cried, "Begin!"

Rhespen declaimed a word of command, drawing a pulse of light from his staff and wrapping himself in a protective enchantment. At the same time, Maldur twisted a ruby ring a half-turn around its finger, and a halo of red luminescence outlined his body. The human too had activated a mystical defense. Rhespen wondered exactly which ward it was, and what sort of spell could punch through it.

Maldur rattled off an incantation. Rhespen didn't recognize the precise spell-every wizard had his own secrets and obfuscatory tricks-but he could tell the human invoked the powers of the storm. That might be all right. From past observation, Rhespen knew his opponent liked flinging thunderbolts about, and had accordingly conjured a ward that was particularly effective at blocking them.

He plucked a pair of teeth from one of his many pockets, flourished them, and recited a rhyme of his own. He and Maldur finished at the same moment.

Maldur thrust out his hands, and a dazzling streak of lightning burst from his fingertips. As Rhespen had hoped, the twisting flare terminated harmlessly several inches from his chest.

But the booming, deafening string of thunderclaps that accompanied it hammered him like a giant's war club. He reeled, fell, and still the unbearable noise pounded on, smashing his thoughts into incoherence.

At last the cacophony subsided. Dazed, he struggled to lift his head and take stock of the tactical situation. It was about as bad as could be. He'd conjured a dozen pairs of fanged, disembodied jaws to fly around Maldur and harry him, but whenever one of the manifestations tried to bite its target, the human's protective corona of scarlet light withered it from existence. Confident of the efficacy of his defenses, Maldur had simply ignored the darting, wheeling jaws to start reciting another attack spell.

Which was to say, he had gained the advantage. If Rhespen attempted an incantation of his own, the human would almost certainly finish first, and strike another potentially devastating blow. Rhespen would do better to release another of the spells stored in his staff, a process only requiring a moment.

He spoke the appropriate word, and only then realized he wasn't gripping the truesilver rod anymore. He must have dropped it when the thunder staggered him. He peered about, spotted it, reached for it, then Maldur completed his spell.

A ragged shaft of shadow leaped from the human's upraised hand. Rhespen flung himself across the floor, rolling, trying to dodge the burst of darkness. The edge of it grazed him even so. Cold pierced him to the core, and an unnatural terror howled through his mind.

He denied the fear, refused to let it overwhelm him, and Maldur started yet another spell. Shaking, half frozen, Rhespen fumbled his staff into his grasp, gritted out a word of command, and clanged the head of the weapon against the floor.

A good portion of the marble surface jolted and shattered into pieces. The upheaval couldn't knock Rhespen down. He was already on his knees. But it threw Maldur onto his back, jarring the breath out of him and making him botch his recitation.

Maldur instantly started to raise himself back up, and an ignorant observer might have concluded that Rhespen hadn't accomplished much. But in fact, he'd altered the tempo of the confrontation and deprived the human of the momentum that allowed him to attack repeatedly without fear of reprisal.

The two mages jabbered rhymes. Rings dripping sparks, Maldur punched the air, whereupon an unseen force slammed into the center of Rhespen's chest and knocked him back a step. But he refused to let it spoil his magic. On the final syllable, a tingle ran over his skin, and he was as invisible as the top half of Winterflower's carriage had been.

Praying that Maldur didn't already have some sort of enchantment in place to augment his natural senses, Rhespen dashed forward. He swung wide before charging straight at his foe. Had he stayed on the same line, the human might easily have struck him with another spell despite the handicap of casting blind. His elven boots, possessed of a virtue that stifled noise, made no sound on the jutting chunks of broken floor.

Rhespen's disappearance took Maldur by surprise. He hesitated for a precious moment, then brought his hands together and lashed them apart. The topaz rings on his thumbs flashed.

Instinct warned Rhespen that he mustn't trust invisibility to protect him from this particular magic. He threw himself down.

Blades of yellow light leaped out from Maldur's body toward the four corners of the hall, like the spokes of a radiant wheel suspended parallel to the floor. If Rhespen hadn't ducked, one of them would inevitably have pierced him.

As soon as they winked out of existence, Rhespen jumped up and scrambled onward. Three more strides carried him into striking distance, and he swung his staff at Maldur's face.

Since the human couldn't see the threat, he made no effort to parry or evade, and as Rhespen had hoped, the scarlet aura provided scant protection against a purely physical attack. Metal rang, and Maldur's knees buckled. Blood started from his gashed forehead.

Visible once more-it was a limitation of the shrouding spell that making an attack dissolved it-Rhespen kept bashing. Maldur fell, curled into a ball, and tried to cover his most sensitive parts while gasping out a rhyme. Then, abruptly, he heaved himself onto his knees. A needle-toothed mouth gaped in the palm of each of his hands, and he snatched for Rhespen's body.

Rhespen jumped back, and the fangs in his adversary's left hand ripped his doublet and shirt but not the flesh beneath. He struck another blow with the staff. Maldur collapsed and lay twitching. Rhespen raised the rod high to drive the butt end down at the human's throat like a spear.

"Stop!" Orchtrien roared, the sudden bellow nearly as overpowering as the crash of Maldur's thunderclaps.

No! By all the powers of earth and sky, Rhespen had earned this consummation. It wasn't fair to balk him. Still, drawing a deep, quivering breath, he made himself lower his weapon and pivot toward the throne.

"Majesty?" he panted.

"You've avenged the affront to your charge's honor," said the wyrm, "and in the process, you and Maldur have provided a splendid entertainment." He gazed out across the hall. "Have they not?" So prompted, the company applauded.

"I'm grateful to have pleased you," Rhespen said, trying to hold resentment out of his voice. "Yet I thought you gave Lord Maldur and me leave to seek a final resolution to our quarrel."

"And so you have," Orchtrien said. "You've tested yourselves against one another, vented your ire, and from this night forward, you'll cease your bickering and work harmoniously together."

Rhespen inclined his head. "As the king commands."

Over the decades, Rhespen had stuffed his residence full of furniture and works of art produced by a dozen races with their diverse cultures and aesthetic sensibilities. Some articles had been presents from the king, some gifts from petitioners eager to curry favor with an influential royal official, and still others treasures he'd purchased for himself as his tastes grew increasingly cosmopolitan and eclectic.

In contrast, Winterflower's residence was purely elven, the furnishings sparse, forms and lines deceptively simple, yet every item beautifully conceived and flawlessly crafted. She'd evidently tossed out everything fashioned by any other sort of artisan, and as she conducted Rhespen onto one of the open platforms, he experienced an unexpected pang of nostalgia for the small forest settlement of his birth.

She led him to a bench that afforded a clear view of the stars through a gap in the branches overhead, poured him a cup of dry white wine, and they sat quietly for a while, savoring the vintage and the glories of the night sky.

Eventually she asked, "Why do you and Lord Maldur dislike each other?"

"Rivalries are common at a royal court. People vie for the king's favor and the most lucrative appointments. Maldur and I each possess the same skill, wizardry, so we have good reason to feel we're competing with one another in particular. Beyond that, each of us has always championed his own kind. He exhorts Orchtrien to rule in a way favorable to humans, while I push for policies that would benefit us." He smiled. "So despite your low opinion of me, perhaps I'm not such a dismal excuse for an elf after all."

"Elves shouldn't have to beg a wyrm's permission to live as we please."

"You've made it painfully clear that you think so. You actually did choose that song to insult Orchtrien, didn't you?"

"Of course. You knew it from the start." She hesitated. "Why, then, did you defend me?"

"As I explained at the time, it was a question of honor."

"I believe that, but I also suspect there was more to it."

He grinned. "You're shrewd. Had I allowed Maldur's accusation to stand unchallenged, it would have made me the lax, incompetent dolt who permitted one of my charges to malign the king, and he would have been the faithful deputy who disciplined you after I neglected the task. I couldn't permit the court to come away with such an opinion."

"But what if Orchtrien comprehends that I truly intended the mockery? Isn't it conceivable you've forfeited his trust by protecting me? Mightn't it have been more prudent to abandon me to my fate, even at the cost of some humiliation?"

He sipped his wine and looked at the stars. "Well, conceivably. I considered that, too. Perhaps what tipped the scale is that for some perverse reason, I like you, Milady, despite the way you curl your lip at me."

At the periphery of his vision, she lowered her eyes. He thought she colored, too, though in the dark, it was difficult to be certain. "I know I shouldn't take out all my frustrations on you. It's just that sometimes I feel as if they'll tear me apart if I don't express them somehow. I hate the way things are!"

"There are still lands left where elves hold supreme authority. I suppose that if you and your kin find Orchtrien's rule unbearable, you could emigrate."

"It would mean forsaking forests we cherish. Abandoning them to the woodsman's axe. And suppose we could establish a new home elsewhere. How long would it be before one dragon prince or another conceived an ambition to add it to his domain?"

Rhespen sighed. "Not long, perhaps. A century, if you're lucky? Faerun is changing. The dragons are bringing the entire continent under their sway, despite all that other races can do to resist. I daresay it would be happening even faster if the wyrms didn't so often contend with one another.

"The inevitability," he continued, "leaves us elves with a clear choice. We can aspire to an honorable estate as the dragons' vassals, or defy them and suffer. I infer that you, Milady, don't truly wish the latter, or you would have owned up to insulting the king."

"I should have. Any of my brothers or sisters would have. But after Maldur's magic struck me down, and he accused me, and that huge golden horror fixed me with his gaze, I knew I didn't want to die. I fear I'm a coward."

"No," said Rhespen. "You're wise. For why should you throw your life away on an empty gesture?"

She gazed out across the city with all its myriad lights. "Perhaps if we elves could set aside a measure of our pride, we'd recognize that our lives can still be fulfilling under Orchtrien's rule. Perhaps I could learn to be happy in this place, if some kind friend would teach me of its joys."

Rhespen felt his heartbeat quicken. "Milady, that's all I've ever wanted."

Orchtrien gave Rhespen a cheerful draconic grin, which, to the uninitiated, would have seemed a terrifying display of fangs as long as swords.

"We won!" the king declared.

"I know, Majesty," Rhespen said. He no longer followed the tidings of his master's various wars as avidly as he once had. But he was a royal deputy, and still needed to stay informed. "I'm told the warriors of the green cabal fell back in total disarray."

"They did indeed," Orchtrien said, "and afterward, their lords had no choice but to cede all their holdings east of the river."

"That's splendid." It occurred to Rhespen to wonder just how many men-at-arms the gold had lost to seize the territory in question, but he decided not to inquire as yet. Let the king savor his triumph. They'd have time to assess the current state of the army later on.

"We'll go back next year, or the year after, and push the greens out entirely," Orchtrien said. "Chromatic drakes treat their subjects like cattle! Compassion demands that we bring their poor thralls the enlightened rule of a metallic."

"Your Majesty is generous."

"Tell me how you've managed in my absence. I trust there have been no further acts of insurrection." "None."

"I knew securing hostages would solve the problem. How are the prisoners faring?"

Rhespen smiled. "They've adjusted well. Indeed, they've become so enamored of life in Dawnfire that, when the time comes to send them home, we might have to prod them forth at spearpoint."

Orchtrien laughed, suffusing the air with warmth. "Even the lovely Winterflower?"

Yes, Rhespen thought, to say the least. Over the course of the past two months, Winterflower had immersed herself in the life of the city and the amusements of the court with a relish that astonished him. It was as if she, a creature of passionate extremes, must either hate or love her captivity, and upon recognizing the bleak futility of the former course had committed herself heart and soul to the latter.

Or perhaps it was her affection for him and desire to share in his life that accounted for the change. For though both had tried in vain to stifle the burgeoning feeling-it was reckless for a jailer to grow overly fond of his prisoner, and her kin, still rebels at heart, would scarcely have approved-a tenderness had flowered between them. Indeed, for his part, it was a love deeper than he'd ever felt for any other woman.

But he saw no reason to discuss such intimate matters with Orchtrien, so he simply said, "Even her."

"I intend to host a revel to celebrate our conquests," said the gold. "She must attend, and sing again." His yellow eyes shined brighter. "Something less suggestive this time. I prefer to avoid the inconvenience of any more shattered floors."

As Rhespen and Winterflower approached the arched doorway with its frame of gems and precious metals, her face turned pale, and the blue, gold-flecked eyes rolled up in her head. Her knees gave way.

Rhespen caught her before she could fall. Heedless of the curious stares and questions of other nobles en route to the ball, he carried her into a velvet-curtained alcove provided to serve the requirements of overstimulated revelers desirous of a moment's quiet, or lovers in need of a trysting place.

He set her on a divan, then murmured a petty charm of enhanced vitality. It proved sufficient to rouse her, and her eyelids fluttered open.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Are you ill?"

"Afraid," she replied.

He took her hand. Her fingers were cold. "Of what?"

"Need you ask? I haven't seen Orchtrien since the night I insulted him."

"But I have, and I promise, he has no wish to punish you."

"How can you be certain? Perhaps this is a cruel game. He invites me to a dance, I enter the hall anticipating only merriment, and the torturers seize me."

Rhespen shook his head. "I've told you before, youVe listened to too many gruesome stories. I've heard them too, tales of whimsical atrocities perpetrated by dragon tyrants, and I daresay some of them are true. But true about reds, or blacks, or greens. The golds possess a nobler temperament."

"Orchtrien marches company after company off to perish in his wars. He was willing to risk your death for a moment's diversion, with never a thought that such an attitude was callous or unjust. We're lesser creatures in his eyes, to exploit as he sees fit."

He sighed. "I thought I'd weaned you away from such notions. I hope that in fact, I have, and it's just anxiety stirring up their ghosts."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, perhaps. I want to believe you. I know you wouldn't bring me to him if you thought he meant me harm."

"Of course not. So compose yourself, and we'll make our entrance. The sooner we do, the sooner you'll see that everything truly is all right."

As they descended the wide marble stairs, the rich but lively harmonies of the orchestra rose to greet them, while dancers spun and leaped on the floor below. Most wore some garment of cloth-of-gold, golden jewelry, or both in honor of the king, and in the aggregate, moving as one in time to the music, they resembled gleaming statuary sprung to joyous life.

It was a splendid sight, but Rhespen could tell Winterflower was still too frightened to appreciate it. She clenched his forearm as if to keep herself from plummeting into an abyss.

On such an occasion, etiquette didn't require newcomers to pay their respects to the king immediately, but Rhespen still thought they needed to get it over with. As soon as the music stopped, he led Winterflower to the center of the floor, where Orchtrien had stepped and whirled at the heart of the dance, and where he still stood chatting with his erstwhile partner, a youthful, auburn-haired human beauty newly arrived at court.

To participate in an amusement like the dance, the dragon had to change form, and tonight he'd chosen the semblance of a handsome elf with blond hair, golden eyes, and skin the color of bronze. When he noticed Rhespen and Winterflower approaching, he pivoted in their direction. In so doing, he turned his back on the human lass, who made a sour face at the sudden loss of his attention.

"My friends!" the dragon said.

Winterflower curtsied, and Rhespen bowed. "Good evening, Majesty," the wizard said.

"It is now that this lady has seen fit to grace us with her presence," Orchtrien said. "What will you sing for us, my dear?"

"A new ballad," said Winterflower, stammering almost imperceptibly, "to commemorate your victory over the green wyrms. I composed the tune myself-well, tweaked an old one, really-and one of the court poets helped me with the lyrics."

"It sounds splendid." He studied her features. "Yet you don't seem particularly eager to perform it, or to be here at all."

"I… I'm told that many singers feel faint before they take the stage. Your Majesty's court is an illustrious and demanding audience, and I'm not even a bard, just a girl with a habit of warbling for her own amusement."

"You're too modest," Orchtrien said. "I also worry you're less than completely forthcoming. I hope you're not afraid of me, Milady."

Winterflower hesitated. "Only to the extent that any subject fears the displeasure of the king."

"Well, stop it," said the drake. "I summoned you to Dawnfire to forge a bond of friendship between us, and so you could teach me to be a better sovereign to your people."

"Surely Lord Rhespen is well qualified to explain our needs."

"Oh, he does his best, but you possess qualities he lacks." To Rhespen's surprise, Orchtrien shot him a wink. "I'd love to hear your song now, assuming you feel up to it."

"Of course, Majesty." Though she masked it well, Rhespen could tell she was eager to embrace any excuse to distance herself from the gold.

Winterflower climbed onto the orchestra's platform to sing, and they, master musicians all, began to accompany her with the second verse. As before, the performance was fine enough to engage every listener, but this time, the sentiments expressed were so unobjectionable that not even Maldur could take them amiss.

"Delightful," murmured Orchtrien, amber eyes subtly aglow to reveal the drake within, "and the scent of treason clinging to her makes her all the more so."

Rhespen felt a twinge of uneasiness. "Majesty, I swear to you, Lady Winterflower's no traitor."

"Nonsense. All the hostages are rebels at heart, or at least they started out that way. That's why we caged them here, to subdue them. By gentler means than we usually employ, but still. You've managed the first stage admirably, and now that the wars are done until spring, I'll undertake the next."

When the song concluded, Orchtrien applauded loudest of anyone, and gave Winterflower a gold bracelet cast in the form of a coiled wyrm. He then led her to the center of the floor for several dances in succession, while various other ladies struggled to swallow their jealousy.

The dragon drew his captive close and whispered in her ear. Winterflower looked to Rhespen with trapped, frantic eyes. From across the hall, Maldur gave him a smirk.

Rhespen climbed the stairs to the archway, balked, then forced himself onward. A hundred years, he thought, I've served him faithfully for a hundred years. That surely counts for something.

Beyond the doorway was a round stone platform surrounded by a parapet, with a chill autumn wind whistling across. By nature a creature of mountain peaks and the boundless sky, Orchtrien had incorporated several such high, open perches into the city, and repaired to them whenever walls and ceilings came to seem oppressive.

Rhespen crossed the platform, kneeled, and set his staff at the gigantic reptile's feet. Despite the gray clouds sealing away the sun, Orchtrien's scales still shimmered.

The dragon snorted a wisp of smoke. "Such stiff formality when it's just the two of us! You must intend to ask for a very great boon indeed."

Rhespen rose. "Yes, Majesty."

"Petition away, then."

He wanted to, but it was difficult. Though he fancied that he didn't lack for courage, over the course of a century, he'd cultivated the habit of pleasing his master, not annoying him.

Perhaps he could ease into the matter at hand. "You frequently invite Lady Winterflower to join you in one diversion or another. You've sent her a series of costly gifts. You don't pay nearly as much attention to the other hostages."

Orchtrien chuckled. "The other hostages are nowhere near as charming. Nor is any of them the darling daughter of the Count of Duskmere, who, according to your inquiries, was the chief dragon-hater among the rebels. Imagine his vexation when he hears I've seduced Winterflower to be my mistress. Or if she bears him a halfcgold grandchild!"

"I thought you hoped to win the affection of the rebels."

"Of the young ones. I believe we must settle for compelling the obedience of their elders."

"Perhaps so, Majesty, but… Let me say it straight out.

I love Winterflower, and she reciprocates my feelings."

The dragon cocked his head. "I had no idea."

"I suspected not. You've been away, and we've done our best to keep our bond a private matter between us."

"Under the circumstances, I suppose that's fortunate."

"Majesty, do you understand what I'm trying to say? To you, Winterflower would be the diversion of a season, or a year, to put aside as soon as she starts to bore you. I aspire to spend the rest of my life with her."

"So you wish me to indulge my appetites elsewhere."

"Yes, Majesty. Indeed, I beg it. The realm is full of women who would give anything to be your mistress."

"Or yours, Royal Councilor. Perhaps that's what ails us both, for where's the sport if the quarry races eagerly toward the hunter? Whereas Lady Winterflower presented you with a challenge, just as she now flinches at the sight of me."

"Maybe that was what first stirred my interest, but at this point, my sentiments are far more profound. Thus, I implore-"

Orchtrien snorted. "Enough, my friend. I hear your plea, and will conduct myself accordingly."

By dint of magic, Rhespen could have floated from the ground up to the door of Winterflower's residence as effortlessly as smoke rising from a fire. Or shifted himself through the intervening space in the blink of an eye. Instead, he chose to trudge up the steps spiraling around the trunk of the shadowtop, because he dreaded the conversation to come.

He still found himself in Winterflower's presence before he could think of a gentle way to present his news, and the welcome in her face twisted into dismay when she registered what was no doubt the dazed, stricken look on his own.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"This morning," he said, "the king gave me a new commission. It seems he's decided it would be advantageous to make some effort to prosecute his wars through the winter months. I'm to lead a company across the eastern border to harry the dominions of the greens. To raid, burn houses and barns, and steal or destroy food."

"Leaving me behind."

"Yes. When I told Orchtrien that you and I had fallen in love, he seemed sympathetic, but apparently it isn't so."

"In fact, he's punishing you for having the audacity to ask him to leave me alone."

Rhespen shook his head. "I don't know. He may think he's buying me off. That's the common practice when the king or one of the princes wants to bed some wretch's wife. They give the cuckold a fine appointment that takes him away from court, so he needn't witness what's occurring. And the fact of the matter is, before I met you, Ibegged repeatedly for such an opportunity. With the kingdom perpetually at war, fighting is the surest way to win the highest honors and the most profitable offices."

"You're saying you couldn't refuse."

"No one may refuse a royal command."

"I can't stay here alone as the target of that creature's lust. Let's run away. Tonight."

"We could try, but he'd find us."

"You don't know that!"

"Yes, I do. Do you understand why the drakes are conquering the world? It isn't their physical prowess, mighty though they are. It's their magic. They possess arcane secrets unknown to elves or men."

She took a deep breath. "Give me one of your spellbooks, then."

"You know I can't do that. If it was discovered in your possession-"

"Don't you see, I can't let him force me! I never could have borne it, and now that you and I… He'll be vulnerable in the form of an elf, and if I catch him by surprise-"

"No! No matter what shape he wore, you wouldn't be a match for him, and in any case, it won't come to that. I told you before, he wouldn't stoop to rape."

"I fear that even now, you refuse to see him for what he is."

He took her hands in his own. "Promise me you won't do anything foolish. Rather, use all your tact and womanly wiles to put Orchtrien off without offending him, and wait for my return."

She studied his face. "Can you promise you will return?"

He forced a confident smile. "Of course. By that time, the king, bored with laying futile siege to your chastity, will have turned his attentions elsewhere, and I'll ask your father for your hand."

The eastern sky was lightening to gray, but it was still black in the west. Rhespen squinted, straining to spot a telltale flicker of motion against the stars.

Serdel, the stocky, grizzled veteran who served as his second-in-command, peered alongside him.

"See anything?" the warrior asked, evidently clinging to the hope that the keen eyes of an elf had noticed something imperceptible to human sight.

"Not yet," Rhespen said.

He supposed it was ironic. At the start of the summer, Prince Bexendral had rushed to his servants' aid without even being called. This time around, Rhespen had carried the proper spell to send a message to his distant masters ready for the casting, and had employed it as soon as calamity struck. Yet now, no one had responded.

It made him wonder if Orchtrien truly had dispatched him on this errand in the hope that he would die. Though he hadn't admitted it to Winterflower-he'd needed to calm her, not agitate her further-he had some reason to suspect so. Winter warfare was notoriously hard and dangerous. That was why civilized people generally eschewed it. The king, moreover, had sent him forth with a relatively small raiding party, ostensibly because a larger one would find it too difficult to forage sufficient food and hide from the enemy.

But despite freezing temperatures, howling blizzards, and the meager strength of his command, Rhespen had executed his commission with considerable success. Until one of the green drakes, possibly despairing of the ability of its minions ever to catch the marauders laying waste to the border marches, forsook the warmth and other amenities of its palace to address the problem itself.

The wyrm had attacked by surprise, in the middle of the night. Rhespen estimated that it had slaughtered half his men. Others, terrified, had scattered and were lost to him. He'd somehow managed to keep the rest together and to retreat with them under the cover of a conjured darkness and other sleights intended to hinder pursuit.

But he was certain that wasn't the end of it. The green would surely track them, and likely find them before the sun climbed into the sky.

He raked his fingers through his hair, struggling to devise a plan, then said, "We have to assume that for some reason, His Majesty didn't hear my call, which means we need to look after ourselves. Divide the men into four groups. Have them he down and bury themselves in the snow there, there, there, and there." He pointed to indicate the proper spots.

Serdel frowned. "Do you think that will fool a drake, Milord?"

"Not by itself, but it's a start. Now move! The wyrm could appear at any moment."

As soon as the men-at-arms covered themselves over, Rhespen summoned several whirlwinds to smooth away the telltale signs of their burrowing. When the spirits of the air completed their work, only the footprints the soldiers had left prior to their division into the four squads remained.

He then conjured the illusion of fifty frightened warriors scurrying along, fast as the snowdrifts and their exhaustion would allow, at the terminus of the trail. Because the insubstantial phantoms couldn't make new tracks, the display had to remain more or less stationary, with the individual figures stepping in place, but he hoped that wouldn't be a problem. Dragons flew so fast that the green might well spot and overtake the illusion before it noticed the column wasn't making any forward progress.

The object was to give the reptile safe targets on which to waste its magic and poisonous breath. Though adult, it wasn't as huge and ancient as, say, Orchtrien, which meant it didn't command as many spells, and that its lethal spew took longer to renew itself after repeated discharge. It had already been profligate in its use of those resources during the initial attack. If Rhespen could trick it into exhausting the rest He smiled bitterly. Why, in that case, it would still be a wyrm, the most fearsome creature in the world, a behemoth quick and nimble as a cat, with scales as protective as plate, and claws and fangs capable of obliterating any lesser being with a single slash. Dragons sometimes killed each other, but it was preposterous to imagine that elves and men could do it.

Still, better to try than die a coward.

He summoned a spirit of earth and bade it lie quiet inside a patch of soil near his illusion, took up a position behind a gnarled, leafless birch, and shrouded himself in invisibility. After that, there was nothing to do but wait. He wondered how Winterflower fared, and if she would ever learn how he'd met his end.

Then the green came hurtling out of the north.

Its eyes glowed yellow, it appeared more charcoal-colored than green in the wan dawn-light, and hornlets jutted like warts from its brow and chin. A drake's senses were so sharp that it was by no means certain that either the warriors' covering of snow or Rhespen's own masking spell would keep it from detecting them, and he held his breath until the creature's headlong trajectory made it clear that it was intent only on the illusion.

He made the phantom warriors shriek and cringe, and when the reptile swept over them and spat its fumes, collapse as if the lungs had rotted in their chests. The green wheeled, snarled words of power, and tendrils of filthy-looking vapor oozed into existence among the figures on the ground. Rhespen commanded more of his puppets to stumble and drop.

But not all of them. He "had to leave the green something to attack with tooth and talon, a reason to plunge to earth, and he needed the cursed reptile to do it soon, before it perceived the true nature of the targets he'd conjured to befuddle it.

It dived. It slammed down with a ground-shaking impact that would have pulverized any genuine creatures of flesh and bone caught underneath. It clawed and bit at several more of Rhespen's phantasms, at which point it unquestionably discerned their lack of substance.

He shifted the focus of his concentration to the waiting elemental, and the spirit exploded up out of the ground. A massive, almost shapeless thing compounded of rock and mud, it possessed an eyeless, featureless lump of a head, and long, flexible arms like enormous snakes with three-fingered hands at the ends. Its lower body was just a legless, undifferentiated mass linking it to the earth, but that didn't constrain its mobility. It could slide wherever it wished like a wave flowing on the surface of the sea.

It rushed the surprised green, seized hold of one of its batlike wings, and tore and twisted it, just as Rhespen had instructed. He knew his agent, mighty though it was, was no match for the dragon. But if it could deprive the green of its ability to fly before it perished, that would eliminate another of the reptile's advantages.

The green tried to wrench its wing up and out of the elementaPs hands, but the spirit of earth maintained its hold. The drake contorted itself to bring its foreclaws and fangs to bear. It ripped chunks of its attacker's substance away.

Rhespen decided he needed to help his servant. He declaimed a spell and swept his staff in a mystic pass. A mass of snow rose from the ground, congealed into a long, glittering icicle, and flew at the green.

The spear of ice pierced the base of its neck, and the shock of the injury made it stiffen and falter in its attack. The elemental, or what was left of it, heaved on the wyrm's now-tattered wing, and bone snapped. A jagged stump of it jabbed outward through the reptile's hide.

The green tore the elemental to inert clods and stones with a final rake of its talons. Then, hissing in fury, crippled pinion drooping and dragging, it rounded on Rhespen, who'd relinquished his invisibility by flinging the frozen lance.

He should have been terrified, but he realized with a pang of surprise that he wasn't. Rather, relished the success of his tricks and the green's resulting discomfiture. Perhaps the prospect of his imminent demise had unhinged his reason.

The wyrm lifted its head and cocked it back. Its neck and chest swelled repeatedly, pumping like a bellows. A foul scent suffused the air, stinging Rhespen's eyes. Evidently the creature believed it could muster one more blast of venom.

Rhespen snatched a little cube of granite from one of his pockets, brandished it, and rattled off an intricate rhyme. The green's head shot forward, its jaws gaped, and at that instant, he declaimed the final syllable of his incantation. A plug of stone appeared in the back of the dragon's mouth. Instead of jetting forth at its intended target, the wyrm's breath spurted uselessly around the sides of the obstruction.

The green's head jerked up and down as it tried to spit out the stone that choked it.

"Now!" Rhespen bellowed. "Hit it now!"

Like the elemental before them, his men-at-arms surged up from their places of concealment. As Rhespen had insured by their placement, and the positioning of his illusion, the dragon fought in the center of the four squads.

Spears and arrows flew. The majority glanced off the dragon's scales, but some penetrated. Raising his staff high, Rhespen created a mesh of sticky cables to bind the wyrm's head to the intact wing lashing atop its back. The idea was to hinder the green in its effort to retch the stone out, but its thrashing tore the web apart immediately.

The green's jaws clenched, the obstruction at the back of its mouth crunched, and it spat out the granite plug in fragments mixed with ivory shards of broken tooth. It oriented on one of the groups of warriors and took a stride, commencing its charge.

Rhespen conjured a burst of raw force, barely visible as a colorless ripple in the air. The attack jolted the green, bloodied its flank, and made it stumble.

"Over here, stupid!" he shouted. "I'm the one you want."

The maddened wyrm pivoted and ran at him. Rhespen stood his ground for as long as he dared. Every moment the drake focused on him was another moment his warriors could assail it in relative safety.

When it was several strides away, he released another of the spells bound in the truesilver rod. The enchantment of levitation shot him skyward like a cork bobbing to the surface of a pond.

The green's fangs clashed shut just below his feet. It reared up on its hind legs, snatched and narrowly missed again with its fore claws, then he rose too high for it to reach.

Meanwhile, arrows pierced the drake. When their missiles were exhausted, the men-at-arms drew swords, readied axes, screamed war cries, and charged in to cut and hack at their foe. No doubt they were afraid, but they also knew aggression was their only hope. If they didn't kill the green, it would surely slaughter them.

They instantly started dying. The dragon struck and caught two at once in its fangs. Its talons raked out the guts of a third, a flick of its tail pulped the torso of a fourth, and a swat from its wing broke the neck of a fifth. Yet the soldiers' blades gashed it in its turn, and its blood spurted to darken the snow.

Still floating above it-a position that allowed him to attack it without fear of striking his allies-Rhespen hammered it with spells of flame and blight. It kept on fighting. The elf took a chicken bone from one of his pockets, snapped it, and declaimed yet another incantation.

The green stumbled and shrieked as a number of its own bones fractured. The legs on its right side gave way, toppling it. It writhed, seemingly attempting to scramble back onto its feet, but it evidently couldn't accomplish that or anything else. Not yet. The pain of its internal injuries was simply too great.

Rhespen suspected the dragon's incapacity would only last a moment, but it provided an opportunity, and the men-at-arms took full advantage. Howling, they plunged their weapons into the green's body over and over again. Rhespen split its flank with a screech of focused noise.

The green thrashed. The warriors had to scramble back to avoid being crushed. Rhespen assumed the reptile would rise. But in fact, its convulsions gradually subsided, until at last it lay motionless, and the gleam in its yellow eyes dimmed away to nothing.

The warriors stared at the huge, gory corpse as if unable to believe what they were seeing. Then one cheered, and the others followed suit, the jubilant clamor echoing from the snowy hillsides.

Rhespen floated back down to the ground to join them, whereupon Serdel thumped his list against his chest in salute. "Hail, dragon slayer," the soldier said.

The air was blessedly mild. The trees were putting forth tender new leaves, and meltwater murmured down the mountainsides in glistening torrents. It was all lovely, but on that day, though he was an elf, Rhespen had no inclination to stand and savor the sight. He was too eager to see Winterflower.

His men were equally eager to greet their loved ones and partake of the ease and rewards they'd earned, but that still didn't mean they could ascend the road to Dawnfire at speed. Over the course of the campaign, they'd lost the hearty warhorses they'd started out with to the weapons of their foes and the hardships of the season, and replaced them with whatever mounts they could steal. Those nags had been of indifferent quality to begin with, and hard use and hunger hadn't improved them. Their riders were lucky they could make the climb at all.

Before beginning, Rhespen dispatched a messenger from the fort at the foot of the mountains to ride ahead with the report he'd written and news of his impending arrival. He had a responsibility to inform Orchtrien of the outcome of his mission as soon as possible, and besides, if Winterflower learned he was mere hours away from the Bright City, perhaps she'd ride down to meet him.

But in fact, it was Maldur, dyed silver mane gleaming in the sunlight, who met him three quarters of the way up the highway.

"Welcome home, Milord," the human wizard said.

"Thank you," said Rhespen, perplexed.

Following their duel, he and Maldur had made some effort to obey Orchtrien's command and bury their rancor, but the dislike still simmered beneath the surface. Thus, it seemed unlikely that Maldur would volunteer to escort his rival into the city, yet it would be just as odd for the king to order one of his principal deputies to perform such a trivial task.

"According to your dispatch," Maldur said, "you performed brilliantly. I bring His Majesty's congratulations, along with clean garments, freshly groomed mounts, banners, and all the other appurtenances required to make a brave show as you ride to the palace in triumph." He waved his hand, sparkling with jewels, at the string of servants, horses, and laden donkeys behind him.

"That's excellent. The men deserve some acclaim for the job they've done."

"I'm sure." Maldur twisted in the saddle as if to give an order to the lackeys hovering behind him, then turned back around. "Oh, I nearly forgot. I have one more thing to tell you. A bit of news concerning one of the elf prisoners the king placed under your governance."

Rhespen's mouth felt dry as dust. "What is it?" f "For the past two months, Lady Winterflower has been the king's mistress." Until this moment, Maldur had kept his expression bland, but now a gloating smirk showed through. "The king thought it best you learn before entering the city. He thought it might forestall some manner of awkwardness."

"I… " Rhespen's fist clenched on the reins. "I'm not sure what you mean, Milord, but of course I appreciate the information. Tomorrow, or the next day, I'll have to check and see how all the hostages are getting along. For now, though, let's attend to the business at hand."

For the rest of the ride, Rhespen felt numb and sick. He told himself Maldur had lied, but couldn't make himself believe it. The human was spiteful, but also too proud to perpetrate a falsehood that must inevitably collapse as soon as Rhespen and Winterflower came together. In the aftermath, he'd look petty and ridiculous in everyone's eyes, including his own.

Even feeling as he did, Rhespen tried to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd, for his men's sake, and because it was an obligation of his station. It was obvious heralds had carried news of his exploits throughout the city-otherwise, folk wouldn't have understood what they were supposed to celebrate-and a good many people shouted, "Dragonslayer! Long live the dragonslayer!"

He steeled himself before entering Orchtrien's great hall, but even so, faltered when he saw that the king had opted to preside over his court in the form of a bronze-skinned, topaz-eyed elf. There had to be a reason he favored that shape, and when Rhespen spotted Winterflower among the throng, it was plain what it was. She'd abandoned the clothing and jewelry she'd brought from her homeland, and likewise the love tokens he'd given her, in favor of all-new attire and ornaments agleam with gold. She smiled at him-he was, after all, the guardian who'd treated her kindly-but the expression betrayed no excitement and promised nothing. The warmth came back into her face when she returned her gaze to the dragon on his throne.

I truly have lost her, Rhespen thought. Grief and fury surged up inside him, and he strained to hold them in. Because he hadn't lost everything, no matter how it felt. He still had his position, the life he'd worked so hard to achieve, and he wouldn't throw them away with an hysterical outburst. He wouldn't give them-Maldur, Orchtrien, and Winterflower herself-the satisfaction.

He kneeled before the dais and laid his staff at his master's feet.

"Rise," Orchtrien boomed. "Rise, my friend, and let me look at you. Stone and sky, you're thin as a straw!"

"It's a pleasure to see Your Majesty again. As I hope was clear from my report, the warriors you gave me performed wonders in your service."

"As did you. You actually killed one of the greens, all by yourselves?"

"We had little choice. I called for help, but neither you nor any of the princes appeared to succor us." He hadn't meant to bring it up, but somehow it slipped out anyway.

Orchtrien hesitated for a heartbeat then said, "The message never reached me."

"Of course, Majesty. I assumed that for whatever reason, the magic failed."

"Be glad it did. Your victory over the green demonstrated your prowess as nothing else could. In a month or so, when we march to war in earnest, you'll be one of my chief marshals."

Rhespen reminded himself it was what he'd always wanted, and struggled to appear grateful. "Thank you, Majesty. I'll strive to be worthy of your trust."

Orchtrien smiled. "But not immediately. You've striven enough for the time being, and now I want you to relax and enjoy yourself."

Relax and enjoy himself. In its way, it was a royal command, and Rhespen endeavored to obey it like any other of Orchtrien's orders. He choked down delicacies that weighed in his stomach like stones, guzzled drink that tangled his feet and tongue but only darkened his mood, and bedded ladies and servant girls whose affections left him feeling lonely and hollow even at the moment of release. Through it all, he smiled and chattered as the court expected, and whatever the entertainment, be it banquet, hunt, ball, or play, endeavored to ignore Winterflower's presence.

But a royal favorite had no reasonable hope of avoiding proximity to the king's mistress, and besides, for all his intentions to the contrary, Rhespen often found his eyes drawn to her. He supposed it was the same impulse that prompted a person to pick at a scab, or to probe a sore tooth with his tongue.

So it was that he stared after her as Orchtrien escorted her out of a masked revel. She apparently said something flirtatious, because the transformed dragon laughed and took her in his arms. As they embraced, Rhespen could see Winterflower's face with its winged half-mask of white swan feathers over his master's shoulder. For just a moment, it was as if a second mask dissolved away behind the first, and she regarded him with the same desperate, miserable expression she'd worn the first time the king danced with her. Then her eyes sparkled once more, and her amorous smile returned. His arm around her waist, Orchtrien led her onward, no doubt to the bed they shared.

At the center of Dawnfire stood the royal palace, a sprawling hive that was home to a legion of servants, guards, and courtiers. Within that complex rose the high keep containing Orchtrien's personal apartments, and the quarters of those he wanted closest. Prowling the benighted garden adjacent to the tower's southern aspect, inhaling the fragrance of brunfelsia, Rhespen pondered how best to slip inside, and wondered too if he was mad.

Wasn't it likely that, half-drunk as he'd been, he'd imagined Winterflower's momentary change of expression? Even if he hadn't, even if she was secretly unhappy, what could he do about it? Nothing! Whereas he was all too likely to forfeit his life by probing any further into the matter.

Yet something inside him demanded to know the truth. He shifted his shoulders to work the tension out, gripped his staff, and strode to the keep's primary entrance.

At the top of the steps leading to the arched double doors, a long-legged pair of half-dragon guards saluted. "Milord," they said in unison. "The king isn't in residence tonight," the one on the right continued.

"I know," Rhespen said. He'd chosen tonight for this harebrained escapade precisely because Orchtrien had flown south to confer with barons busy recruiting and training warriors to replace those slain in last year's battles. He drew twin pulses of power from his staff. The half-dragons swayed, and their eyes opened wide, as the magic touched their minds. "But I need to retrieve an important document I left inside. So please, admit me."

Ordinarily, they might not have cooperated, his rank notwithstanding. But thanks to the charms he'd cast, they trusted him completely, and made haste to swing open the small door set in the middle of the huge, dragon-sized one on the right.

Once they closed it again, leaving him to his own devices, he took a wary glance about to make sure nobody else was watching. No one was, so he whispered the words to veil himself in invisibility, then stalked onward, his elven boots muffling the sound of his passage through the sleeping tower's hushed and shadowy chambers.

Orchtrien invariably installed his mistresses in the apartments directly above his own; it was an open secret that a concealed staircase connected one bedchamber with the other. As he approached the entrance to Winterflower's suite, Rhespen was disheartened to see that no additional sentries guarded the way. Their absence cast doubt on the forlorn hope that the king was somehow compelling the elf girl to serve as his concubine.

I could still turn back, Rhespen thought, before I humiliate myself or worse. Instead, he touched the head of his staff to the door. The lock clicked, disengaging, and the panel swung ajar.

He closed it behind him and stalked on through the darkened apartment. He found Winterflower lying on a couch in front of an open casement, immersed in Reverie or simply staring into the gloom. Whichever it was, she bolted upright as soon as he dissolved his spell of concealment.

"Milord!" she exclaimed, glaring. "Are you insane, to intrude here?"

"Probably, for I perceive that I'm unwelcome."

"Of course you are."

"From which I infer that the look you gave me meant nothing."

"I don't even know what you're talking about."

"Then I'll leave. Unless you'd care to scream for the guards." He realized he didn't much care if she did or not.

"I should. You've betrayed the king, compromised me-" Her face twisted. She snatched hold of his hand and squeezed it hard. "What am I saying? Forgive me!"

He shook his head. "To forgive, I need to understand."

Still clasping his fingers, she rose. "You're a true wizard, not a dabbler like me. I assumed you could tell. After he sent you away, Orchtrien labored tirelessly to seduce me, and always I refused him, even when he hinted that my 'ingratitude' might prompt him to hurt my kin. Until finally, weary of coaxing and threatening, he laid an enchantment on me."

"To alter your affections?" Elves possessed a degree of resistance to magic that clouded and altered thought, but of course no one was impervious to dragon sorcery.

"Yes. Most of the time, I adore him, and yearn for his touch. Only rarely do I remember myself, and my true feelings, and only for a little while." She smiled bitterly. "So you see, there's the real reason no maiden has ever declined to become his harlot."

"It's monstrous."

"I don't suppose Orchtrien sees it as any different than when a person like us trains a hound or a horse. At any rate, I'm glad you know. I wouldn't want you to believe I forsook you of my own free will. Now you truly should go, before you're discovered. Just be happy, and remember me."

"I won't abandon you to this slavery. We'll run away together."

"As you once explained to me, Orchtrien would find us, and all the more easily since I'd struggle with all my strength and wits to make my way back to him."

"I'll lift the curse."

"I know you'd try, but you also told me that neither you nor any other elf commands magic to rival Orchtrien's."

He felt queasy with helplessness, then an idea struck him. It was reckless, mad, but perhaps that was what the situation required.

"No," he said, "not yet."

"What do you mean?"

"For the time being, it's better you don't know, lest you succumb to an urge to tell Orchtrien. It's better if you don't even recall I was here." He twirled his hand through a mystic pass, touched her forehead, and caught her as she fainted. "Forget, and endure a little longer."

Like Orchtrien's personal residence, the sanctum where he and the princes practiced their sorcery was a tower with gardens growing all around. Over time, the forces leaking from behind the thick granite walls had warped the blossoms and shrubs into growths unknown to nature. As Rhespen prowled along, making his reconnaissance, a pine tree writhed, and the needles clashed softly, as if they were made of metal. Pale, fleshy flowers with lidless eyes at their centers twisted to watch as he passed.

Before the high iron door stood the semblance of a dragon shaped from the same metal. Though motionless at the moment, Rhespen was sure it would spring to life if anyone approached too close, and that when it did, it would take more than a spell of friendship and a halfway plausible excuse to make it step aside. He also suspected that a simple charm of invisibility wouldn't deceive it.

Best to avoid it entirely, then. The only way to accomplish that was to shift himself through space and into the spire blind, with no foreknowledge of exactly where he'd end up. He might appear right in front of a second sentinel. He might even materialize in a space already occupied by another solid object, and thereby injure himself.

Still, it seemed the best option, so he whispered the proper words and sketched a mystic sign. For a moment, his fingertip left a shimmering trail in the air.

The world shattered into scraps of light and dark, and the fragments leaped at him, or at least that was how it seemed. Then he stood on a stone floor in a shadowy chamber.

He turned, looking for threats, and saw nothing but walls, doorways, and the iron portal with, presumably, the dragon statue still oblivious and inert on the other side.

The absence of immediate danger was only marginally reassuring. Confident of their prowess, Orchtrien and his progeny used only warriors and walls, commonplace measures, to protect their residences and thus their persons. Indeed, one could almost surmise that the golds only bothered with bodyguards and such because they comprised part of the customary pomp and display of a royal court. But they'd taken greater care to preserve the arcane secrets of dragonkind, and Rhespen suspected the iron wyrm wasn't the only guardian-or guardian enchantment-they'd emplaced to foil intruders.

Could he cope? He supposed he'd find out soon enough.

He veiled himself in invisibility-it might help and likely wouldn't hurt-and quickened his eyes with the ability to perceive mystical forces. He'd hoped the enhancement to his vision would enable him to avoid magical snares and likewise help guide him to his goal, and so it might, but only if he peered carefully. Over the centuries, arcane power had so permeated the very substance of the keep that every surface and stone seemed to shimmer. It would be difficult to pick out particular patterns of energy from the overall glow.

He stalked onward, through a succession of conjuration chambers, where artisans or magic had inlaid complex pentacles in gold, silver, jade, onyx, agate, and lapis lazuli on the floors. Many of the forms, and the symbols inscribed along the arcs and angles, were strange to him. He could have gleaned a great deal from them, but only if he'd had the leisure to study them for months or years. As matters stood, he needed a more readily accessible source of knowledge.

It didn't appear to exist on the ground floor, but he explored the area thoroughly without discovering a ready means of ascending to the levels above. Squinting, he scrutinized the ceilings with his magesight, and finally found a hanging whirlpool of phosphorescence that indicated the presence of an illusion. Appearances to the contrary, that particular patch of ceiling didn't exist. Rather, it was an opening, the first of a series positioned one above the other. A creature as huge and agile as a wyrm could easily employ them to scramble up and down.

Rhespen used a spell of levitation to accomplish the same thing. He explored the second story, where kilns, alembics, shelves of jars and bottles, and mazes of glass tubing attested to studies in alchemy, then started floating up to the third. He was partway there when he heard a soft dragging overhead. From long experience, he recognized the whisper of a dragon's tail sweeping across a floor.

A heartbeat later, the darkness above Rhespen changed. It had shape and solidity, and it plunged at him. The gold couldn't spread its wings and fly through what were, for a creature of its immensity, relatively narrow openings, but it was too impatient to climb or float down. So, confident that it could weather the shock of impact, it had simply jumped.

That meant Rhespen had only an instant left to haul himself out of the way. No handhold was in reach, and the charm of levitation could only carry him straight up or down. He bade it jerk him upward fast as it could, until he could plant his hands on the alchemical level's ceiling and pull himself along it like a fly crawling upside down.

As soon as he cleared the opening, the dragon plummeted by, so close he could have reached out and touched it. He only saw it for an instant before it plunged on out of sight, but even so, he recognized Prince Bexendral.

The important question, of course, was whether Bexendral had noticed him. It was entirely possible, his invisibility notwithstanding. A dragon's nose was sharp enough to catch his scent, and its ears, to register the pounding of his heart. He waited motionless, scarcely daring to breathe, until he heard the iron door groan open and clang shut. Evidently the prince hadn't detected him. Perhaps Bexendral had been preoccupied, or maybe he'd simply hurtled by too quickly.

Rhespen struggled to calm his jangled nerves, then ventured onward until, nearly to the top of the keep, he found the library.

One great chamber occupied the entire floor. Some of the books and scrolls were of conventional size. Any elf or human scholar could have managed them conveniently, and Rhespen inferred that drakes capable of changing shape must have written them. Most of the volumes, however, were huge, and composed of substances more durable than parchment, ink, and leather. One wyrm had etched its lore on copper plates stitched together with a silver chain. Another had scratched glyphs onto octagons of teak, while a third had employed oblong sandstone tablets resembling the lids of sarcophagi. When Rhespen examined the collection with his magesight, it shined as though aflame.

He took an eager stride forward, and only then noticed the shifting stripes of crimson light masked by the general blaze, at the same moment that a gate between worlds yawned open. He couldn't see it, but he felt it as a gnawing, nauseating wound in the fabric of reality. Then something surged through.

For an instant, he mistook it for a dragon, simply by virtue of its size, for it was big enough that no smaller chamber could easily have contained it. But its shape was altogether different, with nothing of a drake's grace or beauty. It was a towering, bipedal mound of a thing, with a lashing prehensile tail terminating in a coal-black stinger, a dozen mismatched, many-jointed arms sporting one or more talons, and a head that was virtually all mouth lined with row upon row of tusks. Despite Rhespen's invisibility, it oriented on him immediately.

He'd never encountered such a horror before, but from his studies recognized it as a ghargatula, which was to say, a sort of devil. Evidence that Orchtrien, for all his pretensions to being nobler than the chromatic wyrms, wasn't above trafficking with infernal powers.

Frightened as Rhespen was, that insight steadied him, rekindled his anger at Orchtrien, and reminded him of the Tightness of his cause. I slew the green, he told himself, and I can kill this thing, too.

But he'd need protection. He rattled off an incantation and sketched a glyph on the air. Figures identical in every way to himself, three-dimensional reflections created without the instrumentality of mirrors, sprang into existence all around him.

The ghargatula's sting whipped around its massive body and struck one of the images, popping it like a soap bubble. Good. That meant the gigantic fiend couldn't tell the difference between the real Rhespen and the false ones.

Of course, at any given moment, it might still target the genuine article by chance, and even if it didn't, it wouldn't take it long to obliterate all the phantoms. As the ghargatula crouched low, compressing its ungainly form, to destroy a second illusion with its fangs, Rhespen declaimed another spell, whereupon he started shifting rapidly back and forth between the material world and a higher level of reality. During those moments when he was elsewhere, the devil shouldn't be able to touch or even see him.

Like the phantom duplicates, the trick was a useful but less than perfect defense. Rhespen could only hope that, functioning in tandem, they'd prove sufficient. He brandished his staff and hurled a blast of flame at the ghargatula.

As far as he could tell, the attack had no effect. The devil eradicated another illusion with a jab of its claws.

He battered it with conjured hailstones. That didn't appear to hurt it, either. Obviously, like many spirits, it was essentially impervious to certain forces. But he couldn't remember which ones, and could only pray to discover its vulnerabilities by trial and error before it succeeded in landing an attack.

He splashed it with steaming acid, and that was useless, too. It still squatted low, and its gaping jaws leaped at him. He smelled its fetid breath-actually felt the points of gigantic fangs as they snapped shut on his body-then he was a wraith once more, and the teeth passed harmlessly through him. He scrambled clear of the ghargatula's mouth before his body could slip back into the sphere of solid matter.

He pierced his foe with darts of force, and at last it hissed and jerked in pain. He cast such spells for as long as he could, then switched to bright, crackling flares of lightning. The thunderbolts charred it and made it convulse.

Yet when Rhespen expended the last of his lightning, the behemoth was still on its feet. Its flanks heaving, arms and stinger lashing, it lunged forward.

Rhespen retreated. Glancing about, he saw that he only had a single duplicate left. His jumps between planes were slowing as the enchantment that enabled them ran out of power.

If the gods were kind, he might have time for one more spell before the ghargatula plunged its fangs, talons, or stinger into him. But perhaps that was all right. With his weapons-the effective ones, anyway-all expended, he only had one more tactic, one final forlorn hope, to try anyway.

He raised the truesilver staff in both hands, high above his head and parallel to the floor, and declaimed the opening phrases of his spell. He tried to make the cadence and intonation precise, and to invest the words of power with all the concentration and willpower he could muster. To believe that the magic would prevail was the only way to make it perfect, and he was certain nothing less would do.

The ghargatula reared above him, and hurtled down like an avalanche, jaws spread wide. He chanted the final word of his incantation, and green light suffused the devil's form as if it were burning from the inside out. In an instant, its form dissolved, leaving only a luminous haze behind to fade gradually away.

Panting, trembling, Rhespen marveled at his luck.

Killing the ghargatula would have been a considerable feat, but as far as he was concerned, he'd accomplished something even more extraordinary by returning it to its own infernal domain. That had required breaking the enchantment that summoned and controlled it, which was to say, overcoming Orchtrien's mystical power with his own.

It shouldn't have worked. The gold was by far the superior mage. That was the point of the whole lunatic enterprise. But because of the element of chaos intrinsic to sorcery, it was theoretically possible for any magician to break the enchantment of any other, and tonight he'd proven the theory valid.

Which, he realized with a stab of alarm, didn't mean he was out of danger. He'd activated a ward that had unleashed the ghargatula on him. What if the same magic had also alerted Orchtrien that an intruder had entered the library?

Rhespen listened for sounds emanating from elsewhere in the keep, and heard nothing. With his mystical sensitivities, he examined the ether around him. It didn't appear that anyone was about to teleport into the chamber.

So apparently he was all right. He flourished his staff and shifted and molded the ambient patterns of magical force as a painter might swirl and blend paint on a palette, recreating an approximation of the red bands he'd noticed before. They were inert, but if one of the golds glanced around the room with magesight and didn't look too closely, he might think the broken ward was still intact.

Rhespen extracted a series of tiny objects from his pockets and set them on the floor. He waved his hand over them, and they swelled into normal-sized pens, bottles of ink, and blank books. He then called on certain spirits of the air, who revealed their presence by taking up the writing implements and beginning to copy the contents of several of the dragons' grimoires. The quills flew and the pages turned with supernatural rapidity.

Rhespen set his hand on Winterflower's head and whispered words of power that sent the shadows spinning around the darkened chamber. Every magician learned spells to dissolve the works and break the bindings of another, but he felt at once that this one was different. His arm burned with power straining for release.

On the final syllable, it blazed from his flesh into hers. She jerked, but afterward eyed him uncertainly.

Assailed by doubt, he asked, "Do you feel any different?"

"I… think so," she said.

"The counterspell was supposed to break Orchtrien's hold on you. I was certain-"

"By the Winsome Rose, you're right! I'm myself again! It just took a moment for me to realize." She threw herself into his embrace, and for a while, they were too busy to talk. But finally she asked, "How? How did you kill him? Did you take him in his sleep?"

He blinked in surprise. "I didn't have to kill him to liberate you. The magic cleansed you all by itself. I stole his secrets to obtain the proper counterspell. They're right there." He nodded toward the haversack containing the copybooks, shrunken again for ease of transport, where it sat on a chair with his rod leaning beside it.

Now it was her turn to seem nonplussed.

"It will be all right," he assured her. "I now possess all the lore Orchtrien does. I haven't crammed every bit of it into my head yet, but it's in that bag, available for use. That means we can run far away, and he won't be able to track us. I can block his attempts at divination."

She gave her head a little shake, as if to snap her thoughts into focus. "That's wonderful. How will you sneak the secrets-and me, of course-out of the city?"

He grinned. "That's the easy part. I have a spell of teleportation stored in my staff. Grab anything you wish to carry with you, and I'll whisk us both away."

"I only want my jewelry box." She turned to fetch it, and something banged. Rhespen realized it must be the door, flying open and smashing into the wall. Running footsteps pounded toward the bedchamber.

Startled, he hesitated. Dazzling light blazed, filling the air, blinding and disorienting him. When the glare died, his tortured eyes could just make out, through floating blobs of afterimage, Maldur, ivory wand in hand, and the several half-dragon crossbowmen he'd brought along with him.

"These fellows," the human wizard said, "are watching you closely. Start murmuring an incantation under your breath, begin an occult gesture, or ease a hand toward one of your pockets, and they'll shoot."

"How did you know?" Rhespen asked. He didn't really care how, but if he could get Maldur talking, gloating, it would give him time to try to figure a way out of his trap.

He told himself there had to be a way. It was ridiculous to think that he, who had defeated a ghargatula, might prove unable to cope with half a dozen humans. But actually, he knew such could easily prove to be the case. Wizards were mighty, but only when given a chance to bring their powers to bear. When not, they were as vulnerable as anyone else.

"When you came home," Maldur said, "and found out that this damsel had become the king's whore, it broke you. I have made a study of you and could tell, no matter how you tried to hide it. I watched with satisfaction to see you wither away, but you didn't. The iron came back into your nature, and at the same time, you started to betray signs of exhaustion. I inferred that you were visiting Lady Winterflower at times when the king was elsewhere, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch you sneaking in or out. Not until tonight."

"Because," Rhespen said, "I haven't been coming here. I spent my nights in study of new magic. Tendays ago, I sneaked into the golds' tower of magic and copied all the grimoires."

Maldur's eyes widened. "Impossible."

"No, merely difficult. The lore I stole, all the secrets of draconic sorcery, is in that pouch." He nodded at the haversack.

Rhespen was reasonably sure Maldur would turn in that direction. The white-haired man was, after all, a magician, surely avidly curious, jealous of the arcane might of the wyrms no matter how he tried to suppress such dangerous feelings. He hoped the guards would reflexively shift their eyes as well.

Because he only needed to distract them long enough to speak a single word of power. He whispered the first syllable, and crossbows clacked. Pain stabbed into his guts.

His knees buckling, he denied the agony long enough to grit out the remaining syllables. Magic chimed through the air, and his enemies dropped. The half-dragons were quite possibly dead, or failing that, unconscious. But thanks, perhaps, to some talisman or enchantment of protection, Maldur was merely stunned. Shuddering, blood streaming from his nose, teeth bared in a snarl of effort, he shook his head and managed to raise himself to his knees.

He struggled, too, to level his wand.

Rhespen attempted a second spell and immediately botched it. The excruciating fire in his midsection, the trembling of his hands, and the choked rasp of his voice, made precision impossible. But if he could get his hands on his staff, perhaps he could still shift Winterflower and himself away from here before Maldur recovered sufficiently to stop them..

He looked for Winterflower, and rejoiced to see that she'd already had the sense to pick up the staff and the haversack, too. Then she released the teleport spell he'd bound in the rod and vanished.

He goggled after her in astonishment and horror, until a blast of force from Maldur's wand slammed him into oblivion.

Rhespen woke lying on a rack, his wrists and ankles manacled to the torture apparatus and a vile-tasting leather gag in his raw, dry mouth. Such restraints were an effective way of ensuring that a magician couldn't cast spells.

He wondered if he could have cast them in any case. A healer had evidently tended the multiple puncture wounds in his guts. Otherwise, he might well have succumbed to them already, or failing that, remained unconscious or delirious. But they still throbbed so fiercely he could scarcely bear it, and he felt as weak and feverish as he was parched.

He lay alone in the dungeon for what seemed an eternity, until he wondered if a slow, agonizing, solitary death by thirst was the punishment Orchtrien had decreed for him. But finally footsteps sounded on the stairs. Rhespen turned his head to see the king himself, wearing his elf shape, descending.

Orchtrien extracted the gag from Rhespen's mouth.

"Maldur begged me to put him in charge of your interrogation and punishment," said the gold. "I'm considering it."

Rhespen tried to answer, but his voice was inaudible. Orchtrien unstoppered a leather bottle and held it to his lips.

"I'm told you must content yourself with just a swallow at first, lest it make you sick."

Despite his pain and fear, the cold water sliding down his throat gave Rhespen a moment of bliss, the last such he might ever know.

"Thank you, Majesty," he croaked.

"Thank me by answering my questions truthfully. It may go easier for you if you do. You told Maldur you copied my grimoires. I'd hoped it was simply a lie, a distraction, but I've since discovered that something broke my ghargatula's tether, so I suppose it must be true."

"Yes."

"And Winterflower absconded with the texts."

"Yes." Abandoning Rhespen in the process. He could only assume she'd been too panicked to linger long enough to dart across the floor, grab his hand, and carry him along with her.

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know. We hadn't decided on a destination."

"Curse it, anyway! Why did you betray me, Rhespen? Haven't I given you everything?"

"Everything but what I wanted most. When I begged for that, you sent me away to die."

"No!" The gold hesitated. "Well, all right, that possibility was in my mind. I wanted her, and no hunter likes it when someone tries to balk him in the pursuit of his chosen prey. I was annoyed with you, but by no means certain you'd die. I thought it more likely that your exile would simply cure you of your infatuation and your impudence. And that if you succeeded in your mission, the rewards would more than compensate you for the loss of a woman, however fetching."

"If you didn't want me dead, why didn't you respond to my call?"

"If I, or one of the princes, had crossed the river, all the greens, and all their warriors, would have turned out to fight us. I wanted winter raiding, not all-out war."

"And such strategic considerations aside, you were chastising me, even if it wasn't supposed to result in my demise."

"Just so. But when you returned victorious, your punishment was over. I wasn't angry anymore. I meant it when I lavished honors on you. Why couldn't you put the episode behind us?"

"Perhaps I would have," Rhespen said, "in time. But then I learned that Winterflower hadn't yielded to you of her own free will. You chained her mind and spirit with the foulest sort of sorcery."

Orchtrien stared at his prisoner in seeming amazement, then laughed. "My poor friend. My poor fool. Mind you, I'm not much better. She cozened me as well. She convinced me she truly had come to love me." "She… what?"

"I give you my word as a king and a gold dragon, I never cast any sort of spell on the lady, certainly not a coercion as abominable as that." Orchtrien sighed. "In retrospect, it's easy enough to see what happened. When Duskmere and his confederates lured your company into a trap, it was a useless, ill-considered tactic, born of anger rather than guile. But after Bexendral defeated them, they began to exercise their wits, and when I demanded hostages, they sent us a spy and a witch, to accomplish whatever harm she could. To that end, she established a liaison with you."

"No. That can't be. She despised me at first. I had to win her trust and affection."

"She made you think so, and me as well. She had to. Given her pedigree, we would have grown suspicious if she'd warmed to us too easily, and as I observed previously, her initial disdain made us prize her subsequent affection all the more. I wonder if she also used enchantment to make herself more appealing."

"She had no grimoire."

"That we discovered."

"If she'd cast a glamour on herself, one of us would have noticed. She had some rudimentary magical skills, but she wasn't a true wizard."

"Or so she told you. She was adept enough to snatch up your staff and use it instantly. Either way, it doesn't matter. Once you succumbed to her charms, she could attempt various ploys. She could try to wheedle secrets out of you, or subvert your loyalty and turn you into a rebel, too."

"Until you sent me away and took her for yourself."

"Yes. I daresay she had mixed feelings about being a royal mistress. It must have been difficult for her, loathing me as she did. She must have lived in constant fear that I, with my discernment and arcane powers, would unmask her. Yet she was in a still better position to spy, or even attempt regicide when I seemed most vulnerable, though she never mustered the nerve and stupidity required for the latter."

"Until I came home."

"Yes, whereupon she tried to manipulate you into serving as her assassin. Without suggesting it directly, of course. She knew you almost certainly wouldn't succeed, but even if I killed you, the realm would be the weaker for it, and perhaps she imagined that the ensuing commotion would provide her an opportunity to escape with whatever secrets she'd discovered.

"Unfortunately," Orchtrien continued, "her dupe succumbed to her blandishments as usual, but didn't behave precisely as she'd expected. You too went digging for secrets, in a place where she herself would never have dared to intrude. Now she's carried all that lore away, and I'll have to put off marching against the reds to recover it."

"Majesty," Rhespen said, "if what you're saying is true-"

"Of course it's true! Why would I bother lying to a creature in your situation?"

"Then I've wronged you, my benefactor, my liege lord, in thought and deed, and I beg for the chance to atone. Let me help retrieve the books."

"Traitors," Orchtrien said, "don't get second chances."

He jammed the gag back into Rhespen's mouth.

After Orchtrien's departure, Rhespen lay struggling to disbelieve the dragon's assertions. He couldn't. They made too much sense.

Winterflower had made him her pawn, led him into treason and stripped him of his honor and everything else he possessed, then abandoned him as soon as it became expedient. The shame and humiliation of it were unbearable.

But he had to not only endure but transcend them.

Otherwise, he'd rot and suffer in his cell until the king's servants either killed him there or led him forth to the scaffold.

That might happen anyway, because Orchtrien had every right to think him helpless. But in point of fact, Rhespen had long ago bound himself to his staff. The link was what enabled him to call the rod into his hands.

He'd always spoken a word of command to facilitate the process. His captors no doubt assumed it was a necessity, and it was entirely possible they were right. Rhespen hoped, however, that if he exerted all his willpower, and simply articulated the word in his thoughts, it might suffice.

He made the attempt repeatedly, while spasms wracked his guts, and shame, fury, and dread gnawed at his concentration. For what seemed a long while, nothing happened. Then the cool, rounded rod materialized in his left hand.

Its sudden appearance startled him, and for an instant, he was terrified that he'd fumble and drop it, whereupon the clang would summon a guard, or else he'd lack the mystical strength to draw it back into his grasp a second time, even though it was just a pace or two away. He gripped it with all his meager strength and succeeded in holding on to it.

In addition to the temporary spells he stored in it based on his anticipation of his needs, the rod possessed a few permanent virtues. One was the power that had unlocked the door to Winterflower's suite. He invoked the same attribute, and his shackles flew open. So did the buckle securing the gag.

He stood up. The dungeon spun, pain stabbed through his belly, and he had to clutch at the rack to keep from falling. He whispered his charm of renewed vitality. It steadied him and blunted the agony, but he was still weak. Truly potent healing magic was the province of the gods and their priests, and thus beyond the reach of even the ablest wizard.

Such being the case, he was in no shape for a fight, or even to cast spells of any complexity. Fortunately, he still had several enchantments of stealth and disguise stored in his staff, where he'd placed them in case he needed them to sneak into Winterflower's apartments.

He veiled himself in invisibility. Then, employing his staff as if it were a crutch, he hobbled up the stairs, unlocked the door at the top with a touch of his prop, and passed on into the dank, torchlit corridor beyond.

Working on the reasonable assumption that Winterflower had fled back to her kin and the rest of the rebels, Orchtrien had marched his army into the forest where they dwelled, only to find their treetop towns and fortresses deserted. The Count of Duskmere had led his allies to some hidden stronghold deeper in the wood, and if the king wished to retrieve his stolen secrets, he had no choice but to pursue and attempt to track his enemies down.

As the trees and brush grew thicker, and the way more difficult, the royal army had to stop more and more often to rest and regroup. Whenever it did, Rhespen, cloaked in the image of a human spearman, slipped away by himself. His comrades thought nothing of it. They'd grown used to what they took to be his odd and solitary disposition.

The reality, of course, was otherwise. He needed solitude to perform his divinations. It would hardly do for the other warriors to catch him engaging in occult ritual.

With the tip of his staff, which now appeared to be a common lance, he scratched a mystical figure in the loam then stared at the round empty space at the center. It was a window, through which he hoped to glimpse the objects of his search. But nothing appeared, and when it became apparent that nothing would, his mouth tightened in frustration.

After carrying the copybooks away from Orchtrien's keep, he'd placed a ward on the forbidden texts that would warn him if anyone else found and touched them.

Winterflower, or one of her fellow rebels, had discharged the enchantment while Rhespen lay insensible in the dungeon. But he'd hoped that a trace of the link connecting the volumes to himself remained, and that the connection might enable him to scry for them where even the dragon monarch had failed.

But evidently not. He rubbed out the magical figure with the toe of his boot, looked up, and discovered a raven, head cocked, beady eyes bright, perched on a branch above his head. He caught his breath.

Anticipating that his divinations might fail, he'd convinced some of his friends among the birds to scout for him. The most difficult part had been making them understand that they needed to keep their distance until such time as they actually made a discovery. He couldn't let his fellow soldiers observe him conversing with ravens, either.

"What is it, Thorn?" he asked. After so many years of practice, the croaks and chirps were fairly easy.

"What do you think?" the raven snapped. "I found them!"

In his excitement, Rhespen nearly asked where, but caught himself in time. Thorn wouldn't be able to tell him, because he had no conception of the units of measurement elves and humans used, and Rhespen lacked any familiarity with the landmarks in this portion of the forest.

He glanced around, making sure once again that no one watched, then whispered an incantation, brandished a talisman, and dwindled into a creature virtually identical to the black bird overhead.

He beat his wings, rose into the air, and rasped, "Show

As it turned out, the rebel stronghold was nearby. But it was well hidden, and Rhespen suspected that without the aid of sorcery and flying scouts, the royal army could blunder about for a long while before discovering it.

It was a crude place compared to the settlements the elves had abandoned. Their former habitations were works of art, conceived for beauty as much as utility, constructed with painstaking care, and polished and perfected through the centuries. In contrast, it was plain that they'd fashioned their new treetop bastions in haste, and that concealment and defense had been their sole considerations.

Wearing his true body, and a shroud of invisibility, once more, Rhespen scrutinized the fortress, forming an impression of the general layout, then inscribed another scrying pentacle in the dirt. Because he was so close to the copybooks, a vision appeared where none had manifested before.

He beheld a number of elf mages absorbed in study of the pilfered texts, in a room where golden sunlight spilled through tall, narrow windows. The magic likewise gave him a sense of the chamber's location high in a shadowtop. At first glance, the gigantic tree, like its companions, resembled a pure manifestation of nature, untouched by artifice. But if a knowledgeable observer peered for a while, he began to notice the ramparts, the stairs, the places where the shadowtop had obediently hollowed itself to make halls and galleries, until he discerned that it was in fact the equivalent of a mighty keep, and the hub of a network of fortifications.

I know everything now, Rhespen thought. I can lead Orchtrien straight to the books. I should go back, reveal myself, and tell him so.

Yet he wasn't certain of that. The king had expressly refused him the opportunity to attempt to atone for his crimes, and if he simply offered information, might continue to treat him as a traitor. Orchtrien might believe that his own magic or aerial reconnaissance would have led him to the elves' stronghold in another day or so, and indeed, that was entirely possible.

But if I present him with the books themselves, Rhespen reasoned, surely that will constitute such an impressive act of restitution that he'll have no choice but to forgive me.

It would, moreover, afford him an opportunity to strike at some of the cursed rebels directly, not just slink about and spy on them. Since Winterflower had forsaken him, he'd had no opportunity to avenge himself on anyone, and his anger was a clenched, choking weight inside him.

He murmured an incantation. The world shattered, restored itself in a different configuration, and he stood in one corner of the elf wizards' sanctum. Thus far, he was still invisible, and despite the puff of displaced air, no one noticed his arrival. Thank the gods for open windows, and the breezes that blew through them.

He whispered words of power, brandished his rod, and power blazed from the end. The force was psychic in nature, incapable of disturbing physical reality but devastating to the ethereal substance of the mind. Some of the assembled scholars immediately fell unconsciousness. Others thrashed in the throes of epileptic seizures.

Either way, they no longer posed a threat, and he felt tempted to slaughter them all while they lay helpless. But perhaps that would be dishonorable, and in any case, it would be reckless to linger here any longer than necessary.

Instead, visible once more, he scurried about collecting the copybooks, making sure he found them all, shrunk them, and stuffed them in his backpack. Then he chanted the opening words of the spell that would whisk him back to the royal army.

During a necessary pause, he heard another voice whispering an incantation of its own. Alarmed, he tried to pick up the tempo and finish first, but the other spellcaster had too much of a lead.

She bobbed up from behind a table on the far side of the chamber, thrust out her hand, and a shaft of green light leaped from her fingertips. Rhespen tried to dodge, but was too slow. The beam struck him, and he experienced a momentary feeling of crushing weight, as well as a fleeting sensation that his feet had taken root in the floor.

He recognized what had happened. His foe had laid an enchantment on him, and while it lasted, it would keep him from fleeing the scene by magical means.

He lifted his staff to blast the female mage and so prevent her from hindering him any further. But before he could act, she flopped backward and sprawled motionless on the floor. Evidently, in the wake of the psychic assault, she'd needed a supreme effort just to cast the one spell.

Still, unlike her colleagues, she'd clung to consciousness, which suggested that she possessed more willpower and sorcerous ability than any of the rest. It seemed a bad idea to allow her to gather her strength a second time, and in any case, he was furious with her for complicating his escape. Still intending to smite her as soon as he had a clear line of sight, he stalked closer.

Then he froze, because the wizard was Winterflower. He hadn't noticed her presence hitherto because she hadn't been in current possession of one of the forbidden books.

Her sapphire eyes fluttered open. "When the staff disappeared," she whispered, "I feared you might try to find me. But I hoped that the wards from the dragon grimoires would keep anyone from scrying for us, as you promised they could."

"They did," he said. "I found you by another means, and now you're going to wish I hadn't."

"I didn't want to abandon you. It was just that the books were more important than anyone's life, yours or mine, and if I'd delayed for even another moment, Maldur might well have stopped me from taking them."

Rhespen laughed, though it made it feel as if something were grinding inside his chest. "You can't stop lying even when you know there's no longer any point."

"I'm not lying. After you fought Maldur to protect me, and I realized you were trying to help our people in your own way, I came to care for you, even though it was a mad, stupid thing for a spy to do. If we'd managed to flee together, I wouldn't have let any of my comrades hurt you. I would have done my utmost to convince you to stay with me and join our cause." "I don't believe you."

"Kill me then, if that's your desire. I don't have the strength to stop you."

He leveled his staff, but for whatever reason, found himself too squeamish. "You won't escape so lightly. I'll take you with me when I leave, and turn you over to Orchtrien. Now hold your tongue, or I'll hurt you."

He recited a counterspell, but the anchoring enchantment she'd laid on him remained in place. The great charm of unbinding he'd discovered in Orchtrien's grimoires might well have dissolved it, but after the loss of the copybooks, he hadn't had a chance to prepare another such for the casting.

Well, no matter. Winterflower's binding would fade away on its own in a little while. Until then, he simply needed to avoid detection. Wary that his erstwhile lover might not be as helpless as she pretended, and that it might be a bad idea to let her beyond his reach, he hauled her to her feet and dragged her along with him to the door. A word and a touch of his staff sealed the panel as securely as the sturdiest lock.

"Now," he said, "we wait."

"Punish me however you want," Winterflower said. "I deserve it. But don't go back to Orchtrien. By his lights, your treachery was too grave a matter ever to forgive. Hell kill you whether you give him the books or not."

"You just don't want him to have them. You think that as long as they're in someone else's possession, even mine, a chance exists that somehow, someday, the lore will wind up serving the cause of insurrection."

"I'm trying to protect both you and the texts, you, because I love you, and the books, because they're vital. We rebel wizards devoted ourselves to mastering the wards against divination first of all, in the hope of shaking Orchtrien off our trail. Beyond that, we've scarcely begun to decipher the lore-I suppose that, after a century spent in the company of wyrms, you had an advantage in that regard. But we can already tell that here, finally, is our chance to oppose the dragons' might with a comparable strength of our own."

Rhespen made a spitting sound. "Nonsense. But suppose you could succeed, and establish an independent realm of your own. What makes you assume that kingdom, won by lies, theft, and seduction, would prove any better than what exists now?"

"Perhaps it wouldn't. But at least we elves would rule ourselves, according to our own philosophies and traditions. The forest would be sacred, and if our archers died in war, it would be to protect their own people and homeland, not to further a conqueror's dream of empire."

Rhespen felt doubt, and a sorrowing softness, ache inside him. Scowling, he struggled to extinguish them. "I told you to be silent. Another word, and I truly will smite you."

She sighed, bowed her head in submission, and they simply waited until cries of alarm sounded beyond the windows. He hauled Winterflower to the nearest one.

The opening was narrow, and the wooden wall was as thick as Rhespen's arm was long. But by virtue of an enchantment, the window provided a broad field of vision even so, albeit stretched and distorted around the edges. Beyond it, sentries scurried along the ramparts, or raised their weapons to the sky. A shadow flowed over them, and something immense and golden flashed above the treetops.

"Orchtrien," Winterflower groaned.

"Yes," Rhespen said. "I knew that if I could find you, he could, too, but I hoped it wouldn't happen as fast as this."

Arrows flew up at the gold. Most failed to pierce his scales, and he seemed to take no notice of the ones that did. He cocked back his head, snapped it forward, and spewed flame in such abundance that he must have an enchantment augmenting the quantity.

The rebels had surely laid wards to keep their stronghold from burning. Still, the sweeping column of fire reduced mighty branches and sections of trunk to charcoal and ash in an instant. Warriors leaped from their stations to escape the onrushing flame, and for the most part, achieved only a death by falling. Smoke billowed through the air, though not thickly enough to hide the brightness of Orchtrien's exhalation. It carried the odor of seared flesh.

But not everything burned. Some portions of the fortress, including most of the central shadowtop, proved resistant. After trying and failing to ignite them a second time, Orchtrien roared an incantation.

Rhespen experienced the same fleeting sensation of heaviness, of being stuck to the floor, with which Winterflower had previously afflicted him. He could tell from the way she grunted and swayed that she felt it, too. No doubt everyone in the stronghold had.

Orchtrien snarled another rhyme, whereupon a gigantic dome of rippling rainbows shimmered into existence over the fire-ravaged stronghold. The gold then wheeled and flew away.

"Curse it!" Rhespen cried. Orchtrien had made certain that no one could flee with the stolen texts again, either by translating himself through space or eloping in a more conventional fashion.

"It's the end," said Winterflower. She sounded almost matter-of-fact, but Rhespen could sense the anguish burning just below the surface. "All the lives we sacrificed. My degradation. My deceit and betrayal of you. All of it for nothing."

Rhespen drew a deep, steadying breath. "I wonder… Orchtrien brought an army into the forest. He's gone to fetch it, and that gives us a little time. Let's see if we can put it to good use."

Just before dusk, the shell of rainbows vanished.

Orchtrien had to dispel it to bring his warriors close enough to threaten what remained of the rebel stronghold. His colossal form glided over the charred, spindly remnants of the trees.

It was time. Rhespen looked at Winterflower, and she at him. The moment stretched on until it became clear that neither knew what to say. He settled for giving her a smile, then exited the library, walked down a little corridor, and stepped out onto a small platform in the open air, still foul with drifting, eye-stinging smoke and stench. He cast a series of enchantments on himself, raised his staff, and flew up above the treetops, where Orchtrien was.

Some dragons, like Bexendral, could hover in place with a certain amount of difficulty. Orchtrien had mastered the trick of halting and floating effortlessly in midair, as if he were weightless as a cloud. He did so as he regarded Rhespen with his burning yellow stare.

"I assumed," the dragon said, "that, having escaped your cell, you'd run as far from me as possible."

Rhespen grinned. He felt as he had when he'd battled the green wyrm. He knew he should be terrified, but experienced a sort of crazy elation instead. It was exhilarating to defy one of the masters of the world.

"That might have been prudent," he replied, "but as you can see, you were mistaken. You often are, whether you realize it or not."

"I was certainly mistaken about you. Have you always been a traitor, then, in collusion with Winterflower from the start?"

"No. She had to trick me into it, and after you explained the ruse to me, I was appalled at my folly. As recently as this morning, my one desire was to win your forgiveness."

"Yet now it's plain, from your tone and manner as much as the place where I find you, that you mean to oppose me. Why?"

"This may amuse you: I'm not certain myself. The sacrifice of all those warriors, year after year? The injuries to the woodlands? Your pet devil? The humiliation of my people, obliged to grovel to an overlord of another race? The humans who cheered me specifically as a 'dragonslayer,' a hint that they too chafe under your rule? Or perhaps I simply resent the way you treated me in particular. In any case, you're correct. I do stand with the rebellion."

"So be it, then." Orchtrien spat a stream of flame.

Rhespen brandished his staff, and the bright, crackling jet forked to pass him by on either side.

"It won't be that easy," he said, "While you were bringing up your troops, I passed the time preparing spells I stole from your library."

Unfortunately, even the great charm of unbinding hadn't eradicated the enchantment preventing teleportation, or obliterated the mystical barrier around the stronghold. But his afternoon of study had equipped him for arcane combat as never before.

Orchtrien lashed his wings and hurtled forward. Luckily, the enchantment of flight Rhespen had cast on himself made him just as quick and considerably more nimble in the air, and he whirled out of the way. At the same time, he rattled off an incantation and brandished a talisman shaped like a silver snowflake.

Enormous, sparkling, floating ice crystals leaped into existence directly in front of Orchtrien. As he streaked through them, their razor edges gashed his scales and ripped his leathery wings.

The dragon wheeled, roared words of power, and spat. The exhalation leaped forth in the form of dozens of winged serpents composed of living flame. Flying as fast as arrows, they spread out with the obvious intent of encircling Rhespen and attacking from all sides.

Recognizing that he had no hope of evading them all, Rhespen called to the spirits of the air. Whirlwinds sprang into existence all around him then leaped to intercept the snakes. The vortices engulfed, shredded, and extinguished the creatures of fire.

Rhespen experienced an instant of satisfaction, which gave way to fear when he perceived that, while he was busy dealing with the serpents, Orchtrien had taken advantage of his preoccupation to attempt to close with him. The wyrm had climbed above him then furled his wings and plummeted, talons poised to seize and rend.

Rhespen whipped himself to the side. One of the dragon's claws caught a fold of his cloak and tore the garment from his shoulders, giving his neck a painful jerk. The scalloped edge of a colossal pinion swept past, nearly bashing him. Then Orchtrien was below him, turning, lashing his wings to gain altitude once more.

Lower still, all the way down on the ground, the royal army began its assault on what was left of the rebel stronghold. Tiny with distance, but the unnatural white of his long hair conspicuous even so, Maldur waved a line of warriors forward. Rhespen could only hope that one of his fellow elves would succeed in killing his longtime rival, because, the Black Archer knew, he was unlikely to find an opportunity himself.

Indeed, orienting on him anew, Orchtrien already required his attention. He hammered the dragon with a downpour of acid that seemed to do him little harm. Orchtrien riposted with a charm that turned a portion of his adversary's blood to fire and poison in his veins. Rhespen convulsed in agony, and rather to his surprise, the pain abated. The spell had injured him, perhaps grievously, but not enough to kill him instantly. Most likely one of his defensive enchantments had shielded him from the full effect.

As twilight faded into night, he and Orchtrien fought on, assailing one another with all the powers at their disposal, fire, cold, lightning, terror, blight, transformation, and madness. Meanwhile, warriors battled on the ground, and in each case, the struggle proceeded about as Rhespen had anticipated.

The stolen texts had augmented his powers considerably, but Orchtrien, who'd had centuries to master the secrets contained therein, was still the better mage, and in addition, possessed an overwhelming superiority in toughness and stamina that enabled him to weather attack after attack. Despite the damage to his wings, the dragon still flew as fast and maneuvered as ably as ever, still hammered his opponent with spell after spell. Blistered and frostbitten, his whole body aching, Rhespen was running low on magic, and questioned his ability to cast much more of it in any case. Pain and fatigue eroded his concentration.

The defenders in the trees were in just as desperate a condition. From the little that Rhespen had been able to observe, they'd fought well, but they needed more than valor to withstand their foes. Orchtrien had simply killed too many of them, and burned too much of their system of fortifications, before the present battle even started.

Sadly, there was nothing to be done about it. Nothing but keep resisting for as long as they could.

Rhespen conjured an animate blade seemingly made of inky shadow. It was all but invisible against the night sky, and as he sent it flying at Orchtrien, he dared to hope that even a dragon might not see it coming.

Orchtrien disappointed him by snarling a rhyme. White flame outlined the dark blade, and it crumpled in on itself and disappeared. The milky blaze, however, remained. It floated in the air for another heartbeat then flung itself at Rhespen.

He tried to dodge, and the streak of white fire twisted to compensate. It splashed against his chest.

The impact didn't hurt, indeed, he didn't even feel it, and wondered if somehow, miraculously, the spell hadn't affected him. Then he realized he was falling. The flame had burned away his charm of flight, and most likely, all his defensive enchantments as well.

With the aid of his staff, he could at least float and so keep from plummeting to his death. He could only move straight up and down, and had little hope of dodging his foe's subsequent attacks. He began to conjure the phantom duplicates that had confused the ghargatula. Then something slammed into his back, and he passed out.

When he woke, his various pains had given way to numbness. Yet he still had a feeling that something was hideously wrong, and when he looked down at himself, he found out what it was. Dark with blood, one of Orchtrien's talons stuck out of his chest. The dragon had gotten behind him somehow, struck, and driven the claw completely through his torso.

"Poor fool," Orchtrien said, actually sounding a shade regretful. "Did you really imagine that, because you killed a green, you could defeat me?"

"I did defeat you," Rhespen croaked, praying it was so.

Winterflower spent a month in the hut by the sea before accepting the grim truth that no one else was coming to keep the rendezvous.

After Orchtrien's initial assault, everyone had known the rebellion was doomed. But they'd dared to hope they could save the stolen texts, so other elves could employ them another day.

The question was, how? Orchtrien's first enchantment precluded the use of sending spells, and the shimmering, multicolored cage he'd dropped over the stronghold would prevent anyone from fleeing on foot until such time as his army surrounded the place.

At that point, however, the shell would come down. Accordingly, the rebels had entrusted one of the copybooks to each of a number of runners, who would employ magic, guile, and their knowledge of the terrain to try to slip past the advancing royal troops and vanish into the forest.

It might work-but not if Orchtrien oversaw events on the ground. His wizardry was too powerful, his senses too acute, and he'd be too intent on divesting his foes of their plundered lore. Therefore, Rhespen had volunteered to engage the dragon high in the air and keep him occupied long enough for his newfound allies to attempt their escape.

He'd managed it, too, even though it had surely cost him his life. The problem was that even so, none of the other runners had made it through the enemy lines. Maldur and his ilk had killed or captured them all.

So everyone else had died to salvage a single text-and what a text it was! Winterflower and the other runners had divided up the copybooks in haste, without paying any particular attention to who was getting what. Later on, when she'd had the leisure to examine the tome in her possession, she'd discovered it wasn't really a spellbook at all, but rather an abstract metaphysical treatise on the fundamental nature of dragons and their links to the forces of creation, to the elements of nature and the stars.

Thus, it couldn't teach her how to strip hundreds of people at once of the ability to employ teleportation, or how to imprison an entire stronghold in a bubble of force. It couldn't provide her with any sort of weapon or tool at all. Her mouth twisting, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her vision, she lifted it to fling it onto her mean little fire.

But she couldn't bring herself to do it, couldn't bear to concede finally and completely that all the sacrifice had been in vain. Orchtrien had kept the book locked away in his tower of wizardry, hadn't he? Surely that suggested it could serve some practical purpose.

She conjured a floating orb of soft white light, opened the volume, and started to read it again.

Eighty-nine years later, late in the spring, Orchtrien and his court repaired to the gardens to enjoy the balmy night air and the spectacle of the comet. Burning a fiery red, its tail spanning much of the heavens, it was a fascinating sight. Indeed, the dragon could hardly tear his eyes away from it.

Though everyone wanted him to-all the tiny, scurrying folk wheedling and whining for his attention. He reminded himself that it was part of being the king, and a part he usually enjoyed, but at the moment, that didn't make it any easier to tolerate.

In his present humor, the jabbering, blathering mites seemed as contemptible as gnats, and when he felt obliged to glance down at them, he discovered the light of the new star still colored his vision, as if he saw them through a haze of blood.

Something about that made him feel excited and uneasy at the same time. He shifted his gaze back to the sky, and a hand stroked his foreleg, startling him.

"Let's go to my chambers," a husky voice purred. He looked down at a human woman, and after a moment remembered she was his current mistress, though even then, her name escaped him. "I can show you better sport than this."

He picked up his foot and stamped her to paste.

For an instant, he was appalled at himself, then a wave of elation swept the previous feeling away. He licked up what remained of an arm and gobbled it, tasting human flesh for the first time. It was savory enough to make him shudder with pleasure.

But even so, it couldn't long distract from the even greater ecstasy of slaughter. He killed another human, and another, until he lost count.

Indeed, he lost nearly all sense of himself. He only vaguely comprehended and cared not at all that he was laying waste to his own palace. And once he ran out of prey there, he went on destroying his way across his own city.

Nor did he consider the implications when he smashed his way into the fortress where he'd quartered much of his army. Or register the pain of the wounds he suffered when the men-at-arms and war wizards, trapped and desperate, started fighting back.

Until the strength spilled out of him all at once, and he flopped forward onto his belly. Then a measure of clarity returned.

He tried and failed to stand. Struggled to muster another blast of flame and couldn't manage that, either. His sight dimmed.

Meanwhile, warriors stabbed and chopped at him. It shouldn't be happening. If he'd fought as he was accustomed to, using his intellect and magic, he could have crushed a dozen armies. But he'd engaged them like a rabid beast, and here was the result.

"The red star murdered me," he whispered.

Conceivably, someone heard. For in the days that followed, as all the wyrms in Faerun ran mad at once, slaughtering those closest to them, their loyal lieutenants and warlords, first of all, destroying all that they themselves had built, people began to name the comet the King-Killer.