The Gully Dwarves

In her mind the knowledge had come-it was over, the Dark Queen had turned away. With a disdainful blast, Verden had parted company with her allied mages. Two of them, two who had angered her especially, she left sundered, literally torn to shreds. Their companions choked about them, strangling on their own tongues, blind and dying from her parting gift-a cloud of thick chlorine vapor. A few of them had escaped her fury, but only a few. Among them was a cowering little magic-thief with an ivory fang totem, the two had become so interlinked by their magic that neither could function without the other. There were maybe one or two more survivors. But they did not matter.

She had gone then, heading for the mountains to the west. It was the last place she had known Flame Searclaw to be. If the Dark Queen’s business was at an end, then Verden Leaf glow had business of her own, unfinished business that she had not forgotten. She had a revenge of her own to be taken now, and she spread great emerald wings and went hunting.

Flame Searclaw! Verden spread her keen senses, searching. Great eyes glittered with hatred as she remembered the day she had paved the way for the destruction of the human city of Chaldis. She remembered the injury she had sustained there and the cold humor in the voice of Flame Searclaw when he sensed her there, sorely wounded and buried beneath the rubble of a ravaged city. He had known that she was there, had told her so. He had known she needed help, but her plight amused him. He passed her by.

Verden Leafglow had not forgotten. She had been betrayed and abandoned. There was a score to settle.

With all of her senses at peak pitch, she climbed the sky and beat westward, where the mighty peaks of the Kharolis Mountains etched the horizon. Flame Searclaw was out there, somewhere.

Would mindcall still function, now that the war of conquest was ended? Verden didn’t know. The distance- calling was a magical power, granted by the Dark Queen to some of her agents, to serve her purposes. Pitching her mind as she had learned, she pulsed a message into the distance. “Flame Searclaw! I know you are there! Once I needed your aid and you deserted me! Once I called out to you, and you responded with torment! You even taunted me, commanded me to come to you when you knew I could not. Well, I am coming now, Flame Searclaw! I am coming for you, and I will find you!”

Moments passed, and then an answer grew in her mind, tiny with distance, but clear. He had perceived the challenge. Cruel laughter echoed in the soundless response. Green snake! It is you! I am here, green snake. You dare to challenge me, pathetic thing? How wonderful! I am ready for you! Don’t worry about finding me, green snake, I will make it easy for you. I will find you! And when I do, I will-

Abruptly the voice in her mind was stilled, along with all other perceptions. As though a cold, impenetrable curtain were drawn around her, Verden Leafglow’s world went silent, and into the silence came a vision-an image clear and brilliant, shutting everything else out of her mind. In eerie silence she saw a small green globe, and knew what it was.

Her egg! Her own, single egg, hidden away long ago in a place only she knew … Yet now she saw it in her mind, and it was not where it should be. Something was very wrong.

She concentrated on her egg, turned toward its distant hiding place, and wavered in confusion. Always, wherever she was, she could sense her egg. But now she could find no sense of it. The curtain of mind silence parted slightly, and she could see-with distant vision-the place where it should be. But there was no sense of her egg in that place. It was not there.

And now, deep in her mind, a different voice grew, an immense, resonating, vengeful voice. It was a voice that was far more than a voice, and echoed in every fiber of her.

Your egg? The voice seemed to sneer. You want your egg?

“Goddess queen,” Verden responded, shaken. “You speak to me.”

You failed me, Verden Leafglow. The huge, quiet voice rippled and pulsed within her, dominating her. There was a moment when I needed you, and you were not there. When you should have been within the mountains, you were elsewhere. You were dawdling, Verden Leafglow. Dawdling with the least of the least. You failed me.

Verden remembered, the memory brilliant and tormenting in her mind. There had been a time-only once- when she was distracted. Because of Flame Searclaw’s betrayal, she had found herself hostage to those despicable little creatures, the Aghar. Wounded and weak, and with her self-stone lodged within the body of one of the creatures, she had been forced to guide them to Xak Tsaroth-to their Promised Place.

Aghar. Gully dwarves! The least of the least. The humiliating memory burned within her, haunting her.

“Goddess, I had no choice,” she protested. “I was saving myself from death.”

Your loyalties belonged to me, the voice of Takhisis thundered within.

“I would have died without my self-stone,” she tried to explain.

You were answerable to me, Verden Leafglow. Not to them, to me!

“I could not help-”

You failed me, the voice rasped. Now you must pay for your failure.

In her mind again came a vision of her egg, her own single egg, deep within some shadowy, cavernous place where small things moved in the shadows.

Your egg, the voice said. You want your egg, Verden Leafglow? So it shall be, though not in this life. Your life-this life-is forfeit. But you shall live again. See your egg, Verden Leafglow. This egg’s hatchling will be you. You shall die and be reborn through your own egg.

“Reborn …”

Reborn. You shall be your own hatchling, Verden Leafglow. It will be a new life for you, but not a free life. You shall serve those who bring you forth from your egg. You shall be their chattel. Serve them, Verden Leafglow, and be powerless against them. Be completely at their mercy! This geas I give to you, Verden Leafglow.

This is your damnation! Once you kept your word to gully dwarves. To them, but not to me! Therefore I reject you. You are no longer mine. You will be theirs, Verden Leafglow. Let them do with you as they will.

“Them?” in her mind she screamed it. “Them? They are nothing. Only gully dwarves. Detestable, unspeakable beings.”

Theirs, Verden Leafglow. And at their mercy, for as long as they want you.

“No! Dark Queen, oh mightiest, I plead-”

Theirs, the voice said, as though relishing the word.

Horror grew in Verden’s mind. “Goddess, have mercy! I beg-”

You are mine no longer. The voice seemed to turn away, cold and indifferent. If you want mercy, ask it of them. Die, Verden Leafglow. Die now, and seek mercy in rebirth from the gully dwarves who will own you.

The voice faded and only the vision was left in her mind: the egg. Her own egg was deep within a dark place, unguarded and vulnerable. Beating powerful wings, Verden Leafglow turned in the direction of the vision and sped toward it.…

Sped toward it, and began to die.

Ahead, mountains rose to meet her, and beyond the mountains was a dimness that grew by the moment. There-just beyond there, yet so far away-was the place. She knew it then. She recognized the place, knew where it was, and fresh horror rose in her dimming mind. Xak Tsaroth. The Pitt.

Aghar and vermin. Gully dwarves and rats.

The mountains rose before her, and her sight dimmed to darkness. Her wings faltered, flapped erratically and failed. The mountains were below her now and they rose to meet her, great jagged peaks reaching for her as she spiraled downward, unseeing. In her last moment of life only one thing remained for her to see-a vision of her egg, lost in a place of shadows where small things moved.

PART 1