Wizards Conclave

Chapter 16
A Fence around a Forest

She is a slippery one," Jenna said in a mixture of disgust and admiration. The red robe she was wearing was dusty and damp as the enchantress came wearily up to Dalamar. The dark elf was sitting on a moldy log, his head in his hands. "I thought she would be too frightened, too overwhelmed by the wilderness, to try to sneak away. Yet she has vanished utterly! Lunitari knows, we've looked everywhere up and down the trail. Where could she be? Damn it, what if something has happened to her?"

"Silly of her to run off like that," Dalamar said, shaking his head wearily. "You must have given her the scare of her life, with your heated outbursts-not to mention your invisible cone of silence."

"I'm not the one who tried to take advantage of her!" the Red Robe retorted. "Come on. She is hiding her tracks. We have to try to think like her and figure out where she went." She tugged on the lead, and the three heavily laden mules shuffled their feet with a barely perceptible shift in momentum. The enchantress cursed under her breath. "I never knew how good Coryn was with these mules. These animals are as stubborn as, well, mules!"

"We've already wasted a day searching for a trail that vanished on dry stone," Dalamar said, raising his hand to stop her momentarily. "If I were to guess, I'd say she went looking for the Tower. Why not? She heard us talk about it, over and over. She knows it's supposed to be in the vicinity. Why don't you give me access to your artifacts and see what I can find out?"

The red-robed mage narrowed her eyes. "You have nothing left of your old life? Not your spell book, not a ring, or a staff, or even a few bottles of potion? You don't have a lot of bargaining power, not much to offer me in return."

"On the contrary," Dalamar retorted. "We are partners in this quest. We are both looking for the Tower, but we both know that we will need the most powerful wizard of each of our three orders, working in concert, to restore the powers of godly magic. I know that you are the mistress of the Red, and I am the master of Black. And there is no White wizard anywhere, so far as we have been able to learn. But you and I both know that for some reason-perhaps he is losing his wits, in the wake of his return to our world-Solinari has appointed this naif, this silly wench, as his own champion. She is destined to wear the White Robes!"

"Ridiculous! First of all, she is neither naif, nor silly wench," Jenna replied tartly. "She does know some magic. True, it's mostly wild magic, but at this point I don't believe that she is destined for anything. Be careful, Dalamar, lest your arrogance lead you into another mistake."

Jenna was right: The dark elf could not afford to be wrong, but he suspected that Jenna still was not telling all that she knew or believed.

"Perhaps you are right. But have a care of your tone, Red Robe." Dalamar pushed himself to his feet and started to pace before the massive log.

The forest was gloomy and cool, even early in the afternoon of a sunny summer day. The ferns were wet, and Dalamar looked down with distaste, seeing that the hem of his black robe was repelling the water that would have soaked a mundane garment through within a few seconds. "I still think she went looking for the Tower. Where do you think she went?"

"Her trail ends at the rim of this canyon," Jenna explained.

"Yes, on smooth stone. She's a hunter-she knows how to hide a trail. But I don't think she backtracked. Let's try pushing ahead, looking for the Tower ourselves."

Jenna agreed, and for nearly an hour they followed the stone ledge along the canyon, seeking signs that anyone had passed before them.

"There," said the dark elf at last, pointing to an almost invisible scuff where a branch had been smashed against a stone. "She went this way."

Dalamar started along the faint trail, noting a few crushed ferns where hasty feet had tripped. It was not long before he came to a pine tree standing at the rim of a small ravine. The brittle branches at the base of the tree were crushed, and when he knelt, he spotted dried drops of blood on the needles strewn along the ground.

"Hmm. She was determined to keep going, to get away from us."

"Well, we weren't very pleasant company," Jenna said, drawing a raised eyebrow from Dalamar.

"This way, then," the dark elf said. There was another crushed fern, then the footprint of a small moccasin in a muddy depression, and more signs of passage through the delicate undergrowth. The game path wound faintly among the lofty birches, meandering along the ravine, deeper into the forest.

Soon they came to a massive deadfall, a thick birch lying across the path. A bristling nest of stubby branches stood like a picket fence along the top of the log.

"Here's where she went down on a knee, broke those branches on the bottom so she could pass under it."

They struggled past the fallen tree. Squatting down on the other side, Dalamar could only see a stretch of muddy patches with a few deer tracks and some prints that belonged to either a small wolf or a large dog.

"We lost her," Jenna said.

"Or rather," Dalamar suggested grimly. "This is where Wayreth Forest found her."

Jenna looked shocked. "No, you go too far with your imaginings! Do you think… It couldn't be possible!" She pursed her lips, frowning.

"But it is possible," the dark elf said bitterly. "Give me a better explanation." He looked up at the treetops, the sky, and raised his hands.

"What about us?" demanded Dalamar, furious not with Jenna but with the forest, the Tower, the gods themselves. "Where is our entry?"

"Perhaps," she replied dryly, "the forest prefers her for some reason."

The dark elf snorted, planting his fists on his hips, and glaring at the murk of the wood. He was mocked by the mundane trees, the rotting vegetation, the utterly unremarkable surroundings. "We could look all day and never find Wayreth," he declared in disgust, "unless it chooses to let us."

"Such is the way of Wayreth," Jenna said with a shrug. "But my senses tell me that the wood is near-or at least, it was here."

"So do mine," Dalamar agreed.

"The Tower only responds to the Master's will, and to the gods."

"I remember, when I took the Test," Dalamar mused. "I learned that there were caverns deep under the Tower. Several of them extending beyond the periphery of Wayreth. It was said that Fistandantilus created them, as bolt holes and secret ways. One of them, the Nether Path, was supposed to provide a secret entrance into the forest. Do you know what they said about it?"

"I've heard of the Nether Path," Jenna acknowledged. She scowled thoughtfully. "But I always thought it was just a legend."

"Well, perhaps. But the legend claims that the Nether Path exists as a hidden cave. The mouth of the cave should be near to the path into Wayreth. When the forest opens to allow someone in, the Nether Path is always nearby. And according to the legend, the cave will always linger for some time, even after the forest has done its business and disappeared."

"Hmmm, interesting. But how does that help us? What kind of cave is it? There are hundreds of caves in these parts." She stroked her chin and looked around thoughtfully.

"Not right around here. I'd say, let's try the ravine," Dalamar said with a sudden eagerness. "Down there is where I'd look for a cave."

Both made their way over to the rocky rim. The gorge here was nearly forty feet deep, only half that distance across, giving it the look of a deep and savage wound in the surface of the world. The floor was littered with large rocks, with murky pools of water collecting on the low spots between.

Jenna quickly cast a spell, featherfall, and stepped off the rim of the gorge to float gently downward, coming to rest on a large, flat-topped boulder. Dalamar muttered a curse-that enchantment was not in the slender tome Palin had given him-and instead was forced to pick his way slowly, and carefully, down the cracked and broken slope. Halfway down, a rock broke free and he almost fell, scraping his knee as he jammed his leg.

"Careful!" Jenna snapped, looking up in annoyance and ducking out of the way of the debris.

The dark elf was in a thoroughly foul mood when, a minute later, he reached the bottom and found the Red Robe on the other side of a steeply angled fallen boulder. "See anything promising?" he asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"There's an overhang just past those rocks. I can't see all the way inside from here. And there are quite a few shadowy niches under these big boulders scattered down here-we'll have to check all of them out."

An hour later, they gave up. They had found holes, niches, and many small caves, but nothing that promised entrance to Wayreth Forest.

"Out of the gorge, then, and back into the woods?" Jenna asked. Her face was streaked with grime, and tangles of her hair clung to her cheeks and shoulders. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of mud.

"Yes, that is our only option," Dalamar agreed. "But we should hurry. Sooner or later the Nether Path-if it even exists-will vanish."

Fortunately, the ravine became a little shallower as they progressed along the bed, and they found a tumble of rocks forming a makeshift stairway leading back up to the forest floor, on the opposite rim. For the rest of the afternoon, they plodded through the pines. Darkness settled around them, deepening the gloom until Dalamar found it necessary to cast a spell of continual light on the top of a tall, straight pole he had been using as a walking stick, and with this to light the way, the two wizards continued.

The forest began to close in, becoming a vast, smothering presence, lit only by Dalamar's staff, which danced and bobbed with his long strides. Caves were harder and harder to detect, but neither wanted to give up the search. The dark elf found himself pointing his staff and staring at the light-less depths of the forest, willing some rise or depression in the ground, some limestone irregularity that might give them some hope of success.

Just when he was ready to quit, however, he was startled to hear Jenna give a cry and point toward an irregular surface ahead of them. They came to a stop between two fir trees, with the light from Dalamar's staff washing across the lichen-encrusted face of a low, broken bluff.

"We're close!" he said with certainty.

"Don't be too sure!" Jenna warned, using one arm to lean against the nearest tree trunk. "All these rocks and caves begin to look the same."

"The ones in the ravine were limestone," Dalamar said. "But this is older. See how the face is pocked and broken all along here? And those lichens-they suggest nothing has been disturbed here for ages."

"Well, now what?" the lady asked, squinting.

"Water," the dark elf said, thinking aloud. "We have to find where water flowed out of here-that's our best bet for finding a cave."

Resolutely he started forward, still holding the light high. The top of the bluff loomed out of sight. Huge slabs of rock had tumbled from the crest in eons past, forming an irregular surface, but the dark elf began to climb the nearest steeply canted slab, noting the thick crust of treacherous lichens underfoot.

Jenna was forced to cast her own light spell, using one of the stone pendants on her necklace as a source, before hurrying to keep up. Dalamar climbed over to the next rock, working his way around an outcrop at the base of the bluff. His next step brought him to a halt. Before him were two looming shoulders of limestone, swallowed by a black void of indeterminate depth.

"This is it!" he declared.

"Are you sure?"

"Don't you feel it?" the elf asked.

Jenna paused for a moment, her eyes closed, her nostrils flaring with a long, slow breath. "Yes," she replied. "I believe 1 do."

Overhead rose a stone mantle that revealed smooth, water-scoured walls. The ground underfoot here had been swept clean by some force that had washed rocks, brush, and any other debris out of the way.

"Careful," Jenna hissed, coming up behind to touch the dark elf on the shoulder. "Do you smell something?"

Halting, Dalamar sniffed, wincing at the acrid, distinctive scent that was heavy in the tunnel. "Yes," he said bitterly, "I do." There was no mistaking the stench: chlorine gas, a stench that had only one source on all of Krynn.

"This might be the route into Wayreth," Jenna noted. "But it seems we'll have to get past a green dragon to go there."

"The smell is strong. That suggests to me that the dragon is fairly mature. But the cavern isn't large enough to admit a truly ancient serpent," Dalamar remarked. He studied the mouth of the cave, overlooking it from a curving hillside no more than an arrow's flight away from the dark entry. He and Jenna had climbed up here to study their objective, and to hatch a plan.

"I agree-a mere newt wouldn't leave such an aura," concurred the Red Robe enchantress. "Should we explore the entrance? Maybe there is room to sneak past?"

"No," Dalamar retorted. "I'll simply kill the beast, and then we won't have to worry."

"Do you have the spells for that?" Jenna asked skeptically.

"I can burn the wyrm to a crisp," the dark elf replied. "That should take care of it. But I have to be careful, if it's tight quarters, not to burn us up at the same time."

"Good idea. I'll be right behind you… as far as possible."

"Or should we pinch this snake between fire and ice?" the dark elf offered.

"That might work better." Jenna looked into the cave thoughtfully. "I wonder how old the nuisance is?"

Dalamar shrugged. "Hundreds of years, probably."

Jenna shook her head with a grimace. "There was a time when I might have been reluctant to slay such an ancient creature-merely because it stood in my path. Now, I'm ready to cement our partnership with a kill."

"Let's not waste any more time. I will send an Eye to scout ahead, and we should follow at intervals, as silently as possible."

The elf raised an eyebrow as he studied Jenna's assortment of pouches, as well as her beaded necklace. "Silence is second nature to my people," he added. "You, on the other hand, will have to watch yourself-perhaps you might need another of your many cones of silence?"

She snorted. "Me inside a cone of silence, so you couldn't hear a thing I say? Don't forget, I'm the one using the Eye! And I know how to be quiet when I have to be."

She removed her necklace and gathered it and her pouches into a padded pocket. Jenna then removed a bit of fluff-bat fur, Dalamar recognized-from a pocket, and murmured a few soft words of magic. Immediately the Eye came into being, an orb about the size of her fist floating in the air just before her face. The pupil was a pale red, with thin lines of the same color scoring the entire surface of the grayish sphere. The Red Robe started forward, down the hill, and the Eye preceded her, floating like a wisp in the air.

When they reached the base of the slope, she made a gesture that sent the magical sensor ahead of them, disappearing into the mouth of the cave. Jenna closed her eyes and concentrated. After a few minutes she turned to Dalamar. "The first hundred yards is clear-a large passage, as you might expect. Pretty level, with a bit of a drop-off where the Eye awaits."

The two wizards entered the cave, following the slightly winding passage, feet moving soundlessly over the ground. The dark elf held his walking stick in one hand, carefully avoiding any unnecessary contact with the bedrock. They found the Eye floating at the rim of a ledge, where the floor slanted down for ten or twelve feet before it continued to a sharp bend.

Jenna sent the Eye floating ahead again. They waited. Jenna nodded, and Dalamar started forward, halting when he felt her hand on his arm. She leaned close; he lowered his head until her lips were nearly touching his ear.

"Big male, around the next bend," she breathed. "Coiled at the far wall of a large room, sleeping. To the right of where you will enter."

Dalamar smiled tersely. A large chamber around a bend meant that he could send a reliably lethal fireball spell against the wyrm, without having to worry about the two wizards being hurt by the explosion. The deadly blast would kill or incapacitate the monster, and then, if necessary, Jenna, with her follow-up tactic-ice magic-would finish the job.

The dark elf crept around the corner of the winding cavern, Jenna a few steps behind-still concentrating on the spell of the arcane Eye. The narrow confines of the cavern expanded into a vast realm of darkness. The stink of chlorine gas was powerful here, so much so that Dalamar had to restrain a sudden urge to cough.

Narrowing his eyes, the dark elf could just make out the shape of a massive green dragon, a coiled mass of serpentine scales, flanks moving ever so slightly in the steady respiration of sleep. Dalamar had seen many dragons before, but the sight always made him a little nauseated. The monster seemed simply too big, too powerful, to dwell in this world of men and elves. At least this one wouldn't be a part of that world for much longer…

Angrily Dalamar raised his finger, pointing at the creature, and muttering the command for his incendiary magic. He was vaguely relieved when that low sound provoked no visible reaction from the monster, and he watched expectantly as a tiny marble of fire appeared in the air before his finger. Soundlessly he gestured, and that spot of brightness meandered through the vast chamber, floating right up close to the coil of green scales.

The dark elf then clapped his hands and closed his eyes, stepping back to safety. Even through his lids he saw the orange brightness, felt the wash of fierce heat on his face. He listened, expecting some howl of monstrous anguish, but heard nothing beyond the billowing roar of consuming flames. A second later the brightness faded, and he opened his eyes for a look at the flaming corpse.

But there was no corpse, no serpent, nothing in the middle of those flames-the dragon was gone. Dalamar blinked, momentarily wondering if his eyes deceived him.

"Where is it!" hissed Jenna, peering over his shoulder.

"It has to be there!" he replied, even as the words rang false in his ears.

Jenna was suddenly shouting magic words, the ice spell she had prepared to follow his fiery attack. Dalamar turned questioningly-and in that movement he saw the dragon. Jenna had already spotted it.

The green serpent was crouched in a far corner, like a cat preparing to spring. Its slitted yellow eyes and smug look told Dalamar it had never been asleep. Wizards were not the only ones who could cast spells-an ancient wyrm such as this would have a great command of magic, could easily create an illusion of itself to serve as a distraction, luring overconfident intruders to their doom.

The wyrm raised its blunt, crocodilian head; spread its jaws; and opened its moist, cavernous, fang-bracketed maw.

The lethal gas that erupted in a greenish blast of mist seemed to move in slow motion-roiling and expanding as it billowed closer-but Dalamar found he was unable to move his feet, to summon any reaction. He stood there, frozen by stark horror, waiting for inevitable death.

But Jenna completed her spell and now something new shimmered before them. Not a blast of ice, which Dalamar realized would have been ineffective again the monstrous beast, if his fire spell hadn't already done some damage, but a wall of shimmering crystal frost! It stood tall and broad, a translucent barrier. But it was incomplete-the cavern was too large, so it failed to reach either the cavern's ceiling or the distant walls. Still, the enchanted frost shielded them against the onrush of killing gas.

But the massive cloud of dragon's breath couldn't be denied. It churned up and over the wall, tendrils of green poison reaching down toward the two wizards. The dark elf stumbled and ran. He gagged on the toxin, staggering and dropping his staff from suddenly nerveless fingers.

Finally he tripped over a large stone and sprawled to the floor, scrambling to his hands and knees as he looked over his shoulder. The wall of ice shattered, then, as the dragon leaped right through it, its flaring snout smashing the barrier into crystal shards. Jenna, huddled to the side of the lingering cloud of dragon breath, fell back, shrinking against the wall.

The serpent batted her with a swipe of its huge forepaw, and she tumbled across the floor. She screamed once, slumping against a stalagmite, and Dalamar heard a snap that could only be her breaking bones.

She didn't move, didn't make any sound, as the dragon continued its charge, bearing down on the dark elf. Dalamar scrambled and clawed against the hard stone of the floor, with his doom only moments away.