Dragons- Worlds Afire Read online

  Then the dragon’s lamplight eyes closed, the lair fell into pitch blackness, and Kazmil-urshula-kelloakizilian, the Beast of the Bog, slept.

  “Minor damage from a meager wyrm,” said Byphast the Frozen Death. She appeared in all ways an elf, except that her hair shone silver rather than the usual golden or black, and her skin was a bit too white. Her eyes, too, did not fit the overall image, for they showed a cool shade of yellow, with a line of black centering them, like the eyes of a hunting serpent. “Palishchuk shows the scars you predicted, several years old, but they are of little consequence.”

  In the room was one other, seated at a small table before a trio of large bookcases, who slowly swiveled his head Byphast’s way. The fabric of his gray cloak was torn in strips to reveal the velvety blackness of the robe beneath. His voluminous sleeves hung below the edge of the table, but when the man turned, his fingers showed.

  Fingers of bone. A living skeleton.

  Beneath the great hood of the robe, there was only blackness, and Byphast was glad for that.

  Her relief did not hold, though, as Zhengyi lifted one of his skeletal hands and drew the hood back. The gray and white skull came into view. The pieces of rotting flesh and the inhuman, unearthly eyes—points of red and yellow fire—forced Byphast to glance away. And the smell, the essence of death itself, nearly backed her out of the room.

  Zhengyi pulled the hood back all the way to reveal the splotches of his white hair, clumped at all angles across his bony pate. If most people coifed themselves to appear more attractive, it seemed quite apparent that Zhengyi did the opposite.

  For as most people, as most creatures, reveled in life, so did Zhengyi revel in death. He had passed beyond his human form into a state of undeath. Of the many variants among the walking dead on Toril, none was more abhorrent and revolting than a lich. A vampire might charm, might even be beautiful, but a lich was not a creature of subtlety. A lich didn’t enter a bargain with Death, as did a vampire. A lich wasn’t an unwilling participant in the state of undeath, as were the minor skeletons, zombies, and ghouls. A lich was a purposeful creature, a wizard who by powerful enchantments and sheer force of will had defeated Death itself, had refused to surrender consciousness and self-awareness or to give in to some otherworldly, godly being.

  Even Byphast the Frozen Death, the greatest white dragon of the Great Glacier, shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot in the presence of Zhengyi. She wished the corridors of Castle Perilous were wider and higher so that she might face Zhengyi in her awe-inspiring dragon form.

  Realistically, though, Byphast didn’t believe the lich would be impressed by even that. Certainly Zhengyi had shown no fear when he’d traversed the icy corridors of Byphast’s lair to confront her in her very treasure room. He had passed through the remorhaz pit, where several of the mighty polar worms, minions of the white dragon, stood guard. He had so dominated the ice trolls Byphast used as sentries that they hadn’t even warned their dragon deity of Zhengyi’s approach.

  “Tell me, Byphast, what lingering damage might your own deadly breath have caused to the stone of Palishchuk?” the lich replied at last.

  Byphast’s reptilian eyes narrowed. Her breath was frost, of course, powerful enough to freeze solid the flesh and blood of living enemies but largely ineffective against stone.

  Or against a lich.

  “A black dragon’s spittle is concentrated,” Byphast replied, her teeth gritted. She felt the twinges of anger ripple through her elf form, screaming at her to revert to her natural state. “Blacks can wreak devastation indeed, but in a smaller area. The breath of a white dragon fans wider and is deadly even at the fringes. And more effective. I can kill all within without destroying the city itself. The people die, the buildings remain. Which is the wiser choice, Witch-King?”

  “You know I favor you,” Zhengyi replied, the meager flaps of dried skin at the corners of his mouth somehow turning up in a frozen smile.

  Byphast hid her disgust. “And I am possessed of potent spells, beyond the abilities of Urshula the Black, I am sure.”

  “You would not wish him as an ally?”

  Byphast leaned back at that, her surprise showing.

  “He came forth a few years ago,” Zhengyi went on, letting the question drop. “That is good. He is below that pond north of the city—of that, I am certain.”

  “When Zhengyi wishes to find a dragon…” Byphast muttered.

  “I will conquer Damara, my friend. The spoils will be grand, and my dragon allies will be well rewarded.”

  Byphast’s eyes narrowed again, and with the gleam of eagerness glowing behind them.

  “Do you not think Urshula worthy of our war?” asked the lich.

  “Urshula is the father of all the black dragons in the Bloodstone Lands,” Byphast replied. “Enlist him and you are assured a flight of blacks at your service. They are most effective at weakening a castle’s walls before your ground fodder advances.”

  “Oh, I will enlist him,” Zhengyi promised. “Remember, I have the greatest treasure of all.”

  Byphast’s eyes flared and narrowed yet again.

  He did indeed.

  “Urshula is not possessed of a magical repertoire?” Zhengyi asked. He tapped a skeletal finger to the bone where his lip used to be and turned back to his small desk and the crystal ball that sat atop it.

  “He is a black.”

  “And you are a white,” Zhengyi replied, glancing back. “When first I learned of Byphast, I asked the same question of Honoringast the Red.”

  Byphast’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the domineering red dragon, the greatest of Zhengyi’s allies. Few creatures in all the world disgusted Byphast as thoroughly as did a red dragon, but she was not fool enough to test her strength and cunning against Honoringast, who was mighty even measured against his red-scaled kin. And red dragons were the most formidable of all, save the thankfully elusive, rare, and haughty golds.

  “ ‘She is a white,’ was his answer, in a tone no less dismissive than your own,” Zhengyi continued. “And yet, to my great pleasure and greater gain, I later learned that you were quite skilled in the Art.”

  “In all the centuries, I have not heard of Urshula ever using a spell of any consequence,” Byphast replied. “I have encountered him only once, at the base of the Great Glacier, and as we had both just finished devouring respective camps of fodder, we did not engage.”

  “You feared him?”

  “Even the weakest of dragons is capable of inflicting great damage, Witch-King. It is a truism you would do well to remember.”

  Zhengyi’s laugh sounded more as a wheeze.

  “Shall I accompany you to visit Urshula?” Byphast asked as the Witch-King sat down facing the crystal ball and shrugged his cloak from his shoulders. Byphast wasn’t quite sure of why he was doing that. It was her understanding that they were to travel to Urshula’s lair straight away. “Or are you summoning Honoringast? Surely your arrival with a red and white at your side will intimidate Urshula more fully.”

  “I’ll not need Honoringast, nor even Byphast,” Zhengyi explained. “If Urshula is not wise enough to understand the power of spellcasting, it would not be wise to venture into his lair.”

  “If he has no spells then he is not as formidable as I,” Byphast growled.

  “True, but did you not just warn me about the weakest of dragons?”

  “Yet you did not fear me?”

  Zhengyi looked over at her, and she realized how ridiculous she must have seemed at that moment with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I did not fear you because I knew that you would understand the value of that which I had to offer,” the lich explained. “Byphast, wise enough to engage in spells of mighty magic, was of course wise enough to recognize the greatest treasure of all. And even if you had refused my offer, you would not have been fool enough to challenge my power in that place and at that time.”

  “You presumed much.”

  “The Art
requires discipline. If Urshula has not that discipline, then better that I approach him in a manner where his impetuousness can do no damage.”

  Zhengyi leaned over the table and peered into the crystal ball. He waved one hand over it, and a bluish-gray mist appeared inside, swirling and roiling. A moment later, the Witch-King nodded and slid his chair back. He stood up, reached into a pocket of his robe, and produced a small amethyst jewel, shaped in the form of a dragon’s skull.

  Byphast sucked in her breath; she knew a similar gemstone quite well.

  “You have located Urshula?”

  “Precisely where I said he would be,” Zhengyi answered. “In a lair in the peat to the side of the vernal pool.”

  “You will go to him without me?”

  “Pray watch,” Zhengyi answered. “You may be there in spirit, at least.”

  As he finished, he began waving his arms slowly before him, the wide sleeves of his robes rolling hypnotically like a pair of swaying, hooded snakes. He spoke a chant, intoning the verbal components of a spell.

  Byphast knew the spell, and she watched with interest as Zhengyi began to transform. Skin grew over the bones of his fingers and face. Hair sprouted from all the bare patches on his skull, and it was not white like the clumps that already adorned his head but rich brown in hue. The white hair, too, began to darken. The robes expanded as Zhengyi grew to considerable girth, and his white grin disappeared beneath full, red lips.

  He appeared as he had been in life, robust and rotund. A dark beard sprouted from his chin and jowls.

  “Less of a shock, you think?” he asked.

  “Urshula would try to eat either form, I am sure.”

  Zhengyi’s laugh sounded as different from his previous wheeze as his round, fleshy form appeared different from his skeletal body. The chuckle rose up from a jiggling belly and resonated deeply in the man’s thick throat.

  “Shouldn’t you have waited until you were near to the lair?” asked the dragon.

  “Near? Why I am practically inside even as we speak!”

  Byphast moved up beside him as he turned to the crystal ball and began casting another spell. Looking into the ball, the dragon could see Urshula, the Beast of the Bog, curled up in his subterranean lair on a pile of treasure. She couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the ball illuminating the stone and dirt walls of the chamber, or if there was some glowing lichen or other light source actually inside Urshula’s home.

  But it did not matter, for Byphast knew that it was no illusion. The image in the scrying ball was indeed that of Urshula and was real in time and space. Byphast turned back to regard Zhengyi just as he completed his casting.

  His large body glowed for just a heartbeat then the glow broke free of his form and came forward, a translucent, glowing likeness of the man who stood behind it. It shrunk as if it had traveled a great distance away, reaching out toward the crystal ball, then disappeared inside the glass.

  Urshula opened one sleepy eye, and his lamplight gaze illuminated a conical area before him. Like a spotlight, his roving eye probed the cavern. Gemstones glittered and gold gleamed as his eye’s beam slipped through the shadows. The dragon’s second eye popped open, and his great head snapped up when his gaze settled on a portly, bearded man, standing at ease in black velvet robes.

  “Greetings, mighty Urshula,” the man said.

  Urshula spat at him, and the floor around the man bubbled and popped. A pile of gold melted into a single lump, and a suit of plate mail armor showed its limitations, its breastplate disintegrating under the acid breath of the black dragon.

  “Impressive,” the man said, glancing around him. He was unharmed, untouched, as if the acid had gone right through him.

  Urshula narrowed his reptilian eyes and scrutinized the man—the image of a man—more closely. The dragon sensed the magic finally, and a low growl escaped through his long fangs.

  “I have not come to steal from you, mighty Urshula. Nor to attack you in any way. Perhaps you have heard of me. I am Zhengyi, the Witch-King of Vaasa.”

  The tone in his voice told the dragon that the little man thought quite highly of himself. That made one of them.

  “Ah, I see,” the man went on. “My claim of kingship means little to you, no doubt, for you perceive me as one who holds claim over humans alone. Or perhaps over humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and all the rest of the humanoid races in which you have little interest, other than to make a meal of them now and again.”

  The dragon increased the volume of his growl.

  “But you should take note this time, Urshula, for my rise holds great implications for all who call Vaasa, or anywhere in the Bloodstone Lands, their home. I have united all the creatures of Vaasa to do battle with the feeble and foolish lords of Damara. My armies swarm south through the Galenas, and soon all the land will be mine.”

  “All the creatures?” Urshula replied in a voice that was both hissing and gravelly at the same time.

  “For the most part.”

  The dragon growled.

  “I am no fool,” said Zhengyi. “Naturally I did not approach one as magnificent as you until I was certain that my plans would proceed. I would not enlist Urshula, the Beast of the Bog, to fight the initial battles, for I would not be worthy of such a creature as Urshula until the first victories were achieved.”

  “You are a fool if you think yourself worthy even then.”

  “Others do not agree.”

  “Others? Goblins and dwarves?” The dragon snorted, little puffs of black smoke popping out of his upward-facing nostrils.

  “You have heard of Byphast the Frozen Death?” Zhengyi asked. The dragon’s nostrils flared, and his eyes widened. “Or of Honoringast the Red?”

  Urshula’s head moved back at the mention of that one. The black dragon, suddenly not so sure of himself, glanced around.

  “Am I now worthy?” Zhengyi asked.

  Urshula lifted up to his haunches. The movement, frighteningly fast and graceful for so large a beast, had Zhengyi stepping backward despite the fact that he was just a projected image, his physical form far from the breath and bite of the black wyrm.

  “If you are worthy, then you are worthy of naught but the title of fool, and no more, to disturb the rest of Urshula!” the dragon roared. “You have found my home and think yourself clever, but beware, ‘Witch-King,’ for none who know the home of Urshula shall live for long.”

  The thunder of his roaring was still reverberating off the cavern’s walls when the dragon came forward. His jaws opened wide and dropped over the projected image of Zhengyi. The great dragon’s teeth clamped together hard and loud right where the lich’s knees appeared. Urshula bit only insubstantial air, of course, for Zhengyi wasn’t truly in the cavern, but the dragon thrashed and flailed anyway, its forelegs slapping down at that which its mouth had not bitten. And when those clawed dragon fingers passed through the insubstantial Zhengyi and slapped at the floor, Urshula flexed his great muscles and drove his iron-strong claws into the stone, raking them across, digging deep ridges.

  The dragon finished by spreading wide his wings and crouching upright on his rear legs, his lamplight gaze fixed on the continuing image of the Witch-King.

  “The other notable dragons of the region have joined with me,” Zhengyi went on, unperturbed and apparently unimpressed. “They recognize the value and the gain of this winning campaign. When all of the Bloodstone Lands are under my command, they will be well rewarded.”

  “Urshula does not need others to reward him,” the dragon countered. “Urshula takes what Urshula wants.”

  “They find security in my ranks, mighty dragon.”

  “Urshula kills whoever threatens Urshula.”

  “You are aware of the young lord gaining strength in the southland?” Zhengyi asked. “You have heard of Gareth?”

  The dragon snorted.

  “You know his surname, of course?”

  “You have confused me with someone who would care, it seems
.”

  “ ‘Dragonsbane,’ ” Zhengyi replied. “The young leader of those who oppose me holds the surname of Dragonsbane, and it was one earned through deeds in his rich family lines. Would he be a friend to Urshula if he somehow managed to defeat me?”

  “You just claimed to lead a winning campaign,” the dragon reminded him.

  “Indeed, and that is in no small part because of the wisdom of Byphast, Honoringast, and others who see the choice clearly.”

  “Then why have you disturbed my slumber? Go and win, but leave Urshula be. And consider yourself fortunate in that, for few ever leave Urshula except scattered in piles of excrement.”

  “Magnanimity?” Zhengyi asked as much as stated. “I offer to the dragons rewards for their assistance. I would be remiss if I did not extend the courtesy to Kazmil-urshula-kelloakizilian.”

  The dragon chuckled, a sound like stones being crushed by boulders in a pool of acid, and said, “You see yourself as salvation, then, as a soon-to-be-king of all you survey. I have outlived many such fools. You see yourself as one of note, but I see a pathetic human, and a dead one at that, wearing but the guise of life. Lay down, lich. Seek your kingdom and peace in a world more befitting your rotting corporeal form. Bother me no more, or I will lay you down myself.

  “And if you do come against me, with or without your dragon companions,” Urshula went on, “then do inform Byphast the Frozen Death that she will be the first to feel the bite of my wrath.”

  “You have not yet heard my offer, grand beast,” Zhengyi said. He brought forth a small gem shaped like a dragon’s skull. “The greatest treasure of all. Do you recognize this, Urshula?”

  The dragon narrowed his eyes and issued a low growl but did not respond.

  “A phylactery,” Zhengyi explained. “Prepared for Urshula. I have beaten Death, mighty dragon. And I know how you might—”

  “Be gone from here, abomination!” the dragon roared. “You have embraced death, not defeated it, and you only did so because you are of the inferior race, the short-lived and infirm. You presume the death of Urshula, but Urshula is older than the oldest memories of your race. And Urshula will remain when the memory of you has faded from all the world!”