your friend.”
Behind him the dragon grunted disgustedly, “Since when do you have friends?”
“Bolas.” Tezzeret did not turn around, and his voice was mild as the ocean around them: a gentle surface beneath which lurked unimaginable threat. “Manners.”
The dragon growled low in his throat, but subsided.
“Then my friend you shall be,” piped Sharuum, “unto the end of my days, and beyond. It will be written upon my tomb, first among my titles: ‘Friend to Tezzeret the Seeker.’ ”
“Thank you,” he said, and reached up to touch the edge of her mask-shield with one hand.
The etherium that had filled her scars turned once more to liquid, draining down her face like silvery tears. “The etherium strands-the tears of my beloved-bring light to my eyes and strength to my limbs. They cannot remain?”
“From this place, one can take only what is brought from beyond,” Tezzeret said. “And memories.”
“Then let it be so. Memories are more than I’d hoped to gain.”
Tezzeret gestured, and the rippling plane of etherium-colored interplanar gate reappeared. “Give my regards to your son.”
Sharuum, Grand Hegemon of Esper, looked back at him with a smile and, astonishingly, a wink. “It will be done, my friend,” she said, then entered the gate and passed beyond the universe.
Tezzeret turned toward where Nicol Bolas sat upon the etherium sand like an obedient puppy-a sixty-foot- long, fire-breathing, horned, scaled, and impressively fanged puppy, but obedient nonetheless.
“As I promised, you are free to depart as well, Bolas,” Tezzeret said, “but my tale nears its end. I hope you might be interested enough to stay yet awhile.”
“Your tale is closer to its end than you think.” The dragon’s eyes went sleepy, and a hint of sneer curled one corner of his upper lip. “You’ve gotten so good at riddles, try this one: What’s at each end of a tale?”
“Our business doesn’t have to take very long, but if you choose to be difficult,” Tezzeret said, “it can take the rest of your life.”
“Aw, Tezzie, come on! Play along.”
“Don’t call me Tezzie,” he said. “Before you answer, recall that here and now, I can stop you. And I can promise you won’t like it.”
“Tezzeret, then. Humor me.” The dragon’s sneer spread toward a mocking grin. “What’s at each end of a tale?”
With a tiny irritated shake of his head, Tezzeret said, “Fine. I give. What’s at each end of a tale?”
“At one end, nothing at all,” the dragon said. “At the other, an asshole.”
Tezzeret made a face. “Up to your usual standard of wit.”
“You just don’t get why it’s funny. It’s a double pun,” said Nicol Bolas. “Come on, Tezzie-you called me an asshole…”
“I called you a doltish thug.”
“You’re missing the point.” Bolas dropped the playful mockery in favor of a darkly infinite certainty. “I am the end of your tale.”
Tezzeret frowned, and clouds gathered overhead, spitting jagged lightning.
He cleared his throat, and the Metal Island trembled with earthquake.
He lifted his hands, and the eldritch energies of the etherium around him supercharged his layered shields until he blazed with power, brighter than the sun itself. “Do we need to have this conversation all over again?”
The dragon bared his fangs. “Want to see a trick?”
“No.”
“One little trick. You’ll love it. I promise.”
“Watch mine instead.” Tezzeret made a fist, and from the sand shot upward girders of etherium thicker than a man’s chest that in an instant had curled around the dragon and braided themselves into an impenetrable cage that flared with every color of power. “Don’t try to draw mana, and don’t touch the bars. I tell you this for your own protection.”
The dragon shrugged carelessly. “You showed me yours. Let me show you mine.”
“Save it.”
“But it’s a really good trick. Here, watch,” Bolas said, and vanished.
Utterly and completely, as though he had never been there at all.
Instantly Tezzeret slapped his hands together in front of him, interlacing his fingers. The bars of the etherium cage became razor-sharp blades and crushed themselves into a jaggedly solid mass.
But among them he found no bloody chunks of dragon.
The dragon’s footprints were gone from the etherium sand, and no trace of even his previous presence could be detected by any magic Tezzeret could command.
He looked over his shoulder at Baltrice and Jace. The Webs of Restraint that had bound them were gone, and both of them were stirring from their magically enforced unconsciousness. Rubbing her eyes, Baltrice pushed herself dizzily up to a sitting position. “What’s going on?”
“Something bad.”
“Where’s the dragon?”
“I don’t know. That’s why it’s bad,” Tezzeret said. “Get ready to fight.”
“I’d rather not,” she said, even as she climbed to her feet and shook her shoulders loose. Flames kindled in her hair and licked down along her arms. “This is not exactly a big red-mana kind of place.”
“You’re welcome to go find one.” Tezzeret extended his arms, and the sand beneath his feet poured upward along his legs, trunk, arms, and head until he was fully encased in shining etherium armor.
Baltrice made a face. “That stuff again. Think it’s gonna work this time?”
“We’ll find out. Meanwhile, you’ll want to protect Jace.”
“Jace?” Her eyes clouded over. “Yeah, I better. Hey, boss, you awake?”
Jace groaned and rolled onto his side. “What happened?” he said faintly. “Did we make it? I was having the weirdest dream…”
Baltrice looked at Tezzeret. “This would be a really good time for you to take your doohickey out of his brain.”
“I disagree,” the mechanist replied, as Nicol Bolas flickered back into existence right in front of him.
The dragon reared, forelimbs and wings spreading wide, and brutally intense flame rained down upon the artificer. Baltrice barely managed to raise shields around her and Jace. From what she could see, Tezzeret’s armor seemed to be working just fine. He didn’t appear to notice the hellfire raging around him. He made a quick motion of his right fist, as though delivering a punch to an invisible opponent.
And the dragon exploded.
Even without flame or blast, the detonation was spectacular. Enormous chunks of dragon flesh trailing black blood sailed through the air. One great wing whirled out over the sea like a thrown dinner plate and splashed into the water. His hind legs gouged long divergent furrows through the etherium sand; his tail crashed into the trees far along the beach. His head got caught in a high juncture of the etherium spars that made up the Metal Sphinx and dangled there, his eyes still glaring balefully down upon the humans below.
“Hot festering crap!” A flash of fire burned away the thick gobbets of dragon blood that had smeared across Baltrice’s shields. “Did you really just do that?”
“Yes.”
“You just killed Nicol festering Bolas!”
“No.”
Right atop the steaming pile of internal organs, Nicol Bolas flashed back into existence. He stretched forth his talon and annihilating energy poured forth, setting the air itself on fire. The power blasted Tezzeret backward and down, sliding into a deep, steep-sided pit of white-hot etherium sand. The fringes of the back blast alone chewed into Baltrice’s shields so fast that she had to grab Jace and dodge back along the plinth to keep them both from being roasted alive.
The dragon kept pouring the blazing torrent of power into the pit as though he couldn’t be bothered with trivial things such as conserving mana. He blasted Tezzeret with levels of energy that should have killed him along with the artificer, as power of this magnitude could be maintained only by pouring his life into the assault along with
