“We are under no monkey’s ‘control,’” Svayyah said as she slithered just close enough to make the black firedrakes nervous, but not feel as though they had to attack. “What is the meaning of this?”
Pristoleph’s eyes widened and Surero got the unmistakable feeling that the ransar recognized the naga. “There you are.”
“Here we are,” the naga returned, raising the ridge over one eye where, if she had any hair at all, an eyebrow would have been.
“This naga,” Pristoleph said, glancing from Svayyah to Devorast, “attacked me in my home. It killed a number of my guards and nearly killed me, too.”
“This naga,” Svayyah spit back, “did no such thing.”
“I have found that Svayyah is as honest as she is direct,” Devorast said.
“It was injured…” Pristoleph said, examining the water naga with narrowed eyes. “We took its right ear.”
With a wicked little smile, Svayyah turned her head so that Pristoleph could see she was uninjured.
“It wasn’t Svayyah,” Devorast said. “Our agreement with the water nagas still stands.”
Svayyah drew herself up to her full height, her chin held even higher in the air.
“These creatures,” Pristoleph said, “all look the same.”
A dark looked passed across Svayyah’s humanlike face, but passed quickly when they could all see that Pristoleph was thinkingthat he wasn’t sure, that he was beginning to think he’d been fooled.
He looked Devorast in the eye and said, “Give me your word that the water nagas will honor their agreement. Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t her.”
Devorast looked him in the eye and said, “The water nagas will honor their agreement. It wasn’t her.”
Svayyah laughed and Pristoleph shot her a dangerous look.
“Release them,” the ransar said to the firedrakes, who instantly obeyed.
Surero couldn’t help but notice a strange, knowing look pass between two of the black firedrakes, one he couldn’t hope to unravel himself. He stayed on his knees until the ransar and his black firedrakes had gone back into the thin air from whence they’d come.
42
26 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) The Land of One Hundred and Thirteen
Insithryllax turned in a tight circle, a hundred feet above the top of Marek’s tower. The wailing of the maurezhi demon tore through the dense air, and though the black dragon had heard screams before, of fear mostly but also pain, the sound of those particular cries made his heart quiver in his scaled chest. A demon shouldn’t scream like that, and no humaneven a Red Wizardshould be able to make one scream at all.
The dragon leaned into an easy descent, holding to his orbit of the tower. He dipped just below the roof line and passed the highest open window. As he flew by, the agonized screams of the demon rattled his ears and chilled his blood.
“… your failure!” Marek Rymiit hollered from the same rooma chamber that comprised the entire top level of the tower.
The demon shrieked anew.
Insithryllax wheeled around the tower, the tip of his left wing almost grazing the rough-cut stone blocks. Movement from the right caught his attentiona fury’s eel breaking the surface of the lake, one of its bulbous, fishlike eyes scanning the tower.
Even the eels can feel it, the great wyrm thought.
He passed the open window again.
“… to fail me like this?” Marek taunted.
The demon panted, and as Insithryllax turned again around the other side of the tower, it began to whimper.
The dragon was impressed on some level that the Thayan had the power to torture a tanar’ri, but the ice in his veins was something else.
Fear? the dragon thought. Could it be?
Once again he passed the window and heard the demon groveling, begging in a language Insithryllax didn’t know. He thought he heard the Red Wizard laugh.
When he pulled around the tower once more he riffled his huge, leathery wings, and in one beat of his heart Insithryllax was once again a hundred feet above the tower’s roof. He looked down on the tower when the demon started screaming again. The sound had changed once more. It was desperate, terrified.
Insithryllax looked out to the near horizon and tried to ignore the screaming creature. He’d been in the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen for more than five months. He’d spent longer than that confined to the little pocket dimension in the past, but the last months had been harder. Never had he felt so confined, and the emotions that seethed in him were as intense as they were alien. The anger he’d felt in Innarlith had been replaced by fear.
Insithryllax didn’t like fear.
The sound of the maurezhi’s screams cut off with a gurgling abruptness that could mean only one thing.
Finding it more difficult to breathe all of a sudden, Insithryllax turned, put even more distance between himself and the ground, and flew off toward the edge of the Land of One Hundred and Thirteen. The fear swelled in him and he choked it down.
He had to get out of there.
43
27 Eleint, the Year of Rogue Dragons (1373 DR) Pristal Towers, Innarlith
The chain mail was tightly woven, but the steel was dull and heavy. Rolling it between his fingers, Pristoleph tried to imagine how heavy it would be in various configurations: a sort of tunic that would protect his arms and down to his mid-thighs, or just a vest to keep blades from his heart and gut.
The door opened and he turned to watch Wenefir step in while nodding to the black firedrakes that stood guard outside. One of the guards pulled the door closed. Wenefir caught Pristoleph’s eye and dipped in a shallow bow.
Pristoleph nodded and turned his attention back to the table. He picked up a square of stout black leather onto which had been sewn a dense pattern of steel rings. It wasn’t quite as heavy as the chain mail, but likewise wouldn’t provide the same protectionand it was identical to the armor the black firedrakes wore.
“The armorer left samples behind for me to examine at my leisure,” the ransar explained, though he knew he didn’t have to.
Wenefir stepped up behind him, but not too close, and said, “Is that really necessary?”
Pristoleph shrugged, put down the patch of ring mail, but didn’t turn around.
“I think so,” he said. “I think it’s been necessary for a long time, actually.”
“People have tried to kill us before,” Wenefir said.
Pristoleph smiled, and turned to face his oldest friend. Wenefir returned his smile from a face that was pale and deeply lined. Wenefir had aged over the last few years in a way that Pristoleph, with his half-elemental blood, hadn’t.
The priest looked pale, as though his skin hadn’t seen the sun in a very long time.
“But you think this time it’s worse,” Wenefir said, the smile fading from his lips.
Pristoleph nodded and reached behind himself to take a small iron box from the tabletop. It opened and he held it out to Wenefir so his seneschal could see what was inside.
Wenefir looked into the box and raised one eyebrow. He swallowed and said, “An ear.”
