The Rage (27 page)

When he thought he’d balked them long enough, he reached out with his mind and took hold of the Rage festering inside them, Whispering words of power in Draconic, he commanded it to disappear.

The two wyrms froze, then scuttled back a little ways, crouched down, and glared at the cultists. They were sane but still in a foul, aggressive humor. They didn’t fully comprehend what had just happened to them, but rightly suspected that one of the “small folk” had tampered with them somehow.

Sammaster thought a show of confidence was the likeliest way to avert further hostilities. First, he dissolved his semblance of life. Some of his disciples moaned and cowered, but they were just going to have to cope. Next he waved his hand and wiped away the domes. It was a risk. With their keen senses, the wyrms surely felt the barriers fall and might

have opted to attack immediately. Still, he needed to move the encounter along, and the simple truth was that. his followers, much as he valued them, were expendable if their deaths would further the cause.

He looked up at the green and said, “Good afternoon, Needle.” He shifted his gaze to the black with his withered, rotten-looking rings of flesh around the eyes and nostrils. “Dransagalor. Do you remember me?”

“Yes, Sammaster,” Needle hissed.

The lich recalled that her nickname referred to the delicacy with which she could employ her prodigious talons to torture a smaller creature. Some of her unfortunate victims lingered for hours.

“Well,” said the wizard, “at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I thought you would. I’ve visited you on several occasions over the course of the past couple centuries. From time to time, my fellow believers have called as well, always bringing tribute, useful information, and whatever aid they had to offer. We have additional gifts today.”

He waved his skeletal hand at the sacks of treasure. Some had burst open when their panicked bearers cast them away, the better to run, and their scattered contents glittered on the ground.

“Good,” Dransagalor grunted.

“Of course,” Sammaster said, “our greatest gift is no mere bauble, but the power and immortality you’ve spurned since the day I met you.”

Needle snorted, and a leftover trace of poison gas set the lich’s disciples coughing.

“Spare us yet another regurgitation of your pleas and prophecies,” said the green. “Perhaps one day, when we near the ends of our natural spans, we’ll choose to perpetuate our existences by becoming dracoliches, but for now, we have no reason to divorce ourselves from the pleasures of the living.”

How often had Sammaster received that same rebuff. Since its inception, the Cult of the Dragon had struggled against the implacable opposition of Mystra, the Chosen,

Harpers, and pretty much every monarch, noble, and miscellaneous busybody across the length and breadth of Faerűn. Yet even so, in the wizard’s view, the greatest reason his schemes had foundered time and again was the reluctance of the wyrms themselves to embrace their destiny. For that reason, Needle and Dransagalor’s lack of interest might once have elicited a spasm of frustration, but no longer. He knew how to open the creatures’ eyes.

“A few minutes ago,” he said, “you attacked recklessly. Stupidly.”

Needle bared her fangs and hissed, “What of it? Why bother working out tactics and such when we have nothing to fear from puny creatures like men?”

“Had I wished,” said Sammaster, “I could have hurt you. Certain other spellcasters and even warriors could do the same.”

“It was the frenzy,” Dransagalor said, flicking his black wings in a shrug.

“Yes,” said the lich, “I know.”

“It’s taking hold of every dragon in the forest,” said Needle, an eager note entering her sibilant voice, “and I think in the Earthfast Mountains, too. Soon we’ll gather into flights and take to the skies to slaughter, devour, and destroy.”

“You sound as if you’re looking forward to it,” Sammaster said, “and I understand why. Humans like to go mad, too. We drink alcohol or inhale dreammist. Some of us deliberately stoke our anger until it explodes into violence. We hold festivals where, for a day or so, people are given tacit license to indulge their carnality or any other wildness they’ve kept pent up inside. But few among my folk would ever aspire to go insane and stay that way forever after, and I doubt many dragons would, either. Yet that’s the doom that threatens you.”

“What are you talking about?” Needle growled.

As you know,” Sammaster said, “I make a study of all matters pertaining to you Sacred Ones. I’ve investigated this fury that periodically overwhelms you, only to discover

something alarming. Another Rage is coming, and this one will differ from all that preceded it in that it will never end. It will reduce you to the level of rabid beasts.”

“Why?” asked Dransagalor. “Why should this episode be any more severe than the others?”

“That I don’t know,” said the lich. He disliked lying to the wyrms, but it was for their own good.

“I don’t think you know anything,” Needle sneered. “I think this is a load of dung.”

“I’ve already proved I’ve acquired some understanding of the frenzy,” Sammaster said. “How else could I calm you? Do you need another demonstration? If necessary, I can make lunacy pop in and out of your head like a pendulum swinging back and forth, but you won’t find it pleasant.”

“I think,” Dransagalor rumbled, his great voice troubled, “that the dead man’s warning may actually be true. I’ve seen it in my dreams that this frenzy will be different—a sickness and a calamity. I hoped it was just a morbid fancy, but if Sammaster himself, a dragon friend whatever else is said of him, conies bearing the same tidings….”

“Then we have nothing to fear,” said Needle, “for the wizard has already given us the cure.”

“I wish that was true,” Sammaster said. “But in truth, I’ve only granted you a temporary reprieve. As the Rage intensifies, it will eventually wax strong enough to smash through any protection I can raise against it. Well, any protection except one.”

The green eyed him suspiciously and replied, “Now you’ll tell us dracoliches are immune to frenzy.”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Surely you, with all your wisdom, already know the undead are famously resistant to any magic or force that influences the mind. This is the moment, Sacred One, the crisis—no, say rather, the opportunity—that will raise your exalted race to its greatest glory. So give yourself over to growth without fear or regret. Yes, it will cost you a few base pleasures of the flesh. Who knows better than I? But it would be a small price to pay even if the only effect was to

preserve your profound and subtle minds, and in fact, you’ll achieve far more. Undeath will increase your might tenfold and make you the unchallenged masters of the world. I know. I see it as clearly as I see your august and holy selves standing before me.”

The dragons regarded him in silence for a few seconds. Finally Needle said, “How, exactly, would we undertake this transformation?”

“Well,” said Sammaster, “that’s the tricky part. You’ll need phylacteries fashioned with the finest gems, an elixir brewed of other rare and costly ingredients…. If your worshipers had prospered in recent years—perhaps, if you drakes had made as much of an effort to support us as we have to aid and nurture you—we’d already have an abundance of the requisite talismans and potions stockpiled. As it is, we’ll have to create them quickly, in sufficient quantity to succor every green, black, blue, white, and red in the world.”

“How can you possibly do that?” Dransagalor asked.

“By establishing secret havens,” Sammaster said, “where spellcasters can perform the necessary rituals safe from interference, and your kin will come to undergo the change. I’d like to locate one such stronghold hereabouts. Your servants in Lyrabar will provide the skilled workers and supplies required.” He smiled and added, “I suppose it goes without saying that the wyrms who help build and defend such a bastion will earn the gratitude of their fellows. No doubt they’ll enjoy particularly high status in the world to come.”

Needle said, “We might find it amusing to rule such an enclave.”

“Then we have our work cut out for us,” Sammaster said. “I need to find and calm as many other local drakes as I can, before they go tearing off beyond our reach. Certain lesser creatures inhabit the wood and we’ll want to press them into service. We must likewise find a suitable site, consecrate the ground, build shelters and fortifications, and fetch in our mages, priests, artisans, and supplies, preferably, all before the snows begin to fall.”

FIFTEEN

15 & 16 Ches, the Year of Rogue Dragons

I assume,” said Brimstone, his snide, insinuating whisper of a voice setting Pavel’s teeth on edge, “that after the Wearer of Purple told you this, you killed her.”

“No,” said the priest. “We set her free as promised.” “Idiots!” the gray drake snarled, his red eyes flaring.

“She’ll run,” said Will, sprawled on a heap of gold in what was surely the realization of a private fantasy, “and stay well away from other cultists hereafter. She’s too smart to do anything else.”

“You don’t know that,” Brimstone replied.

“It’s done,” growled Dorn. He was leaning against a limestone wall at the back of the chamber, as distant as possible from both Brimstone and Kara. “So let’s figure out how Cylla’s information helps us. If it does.”

“A pity she couldn’t read Sammaster’s notes, either,” Taegan drawled.

The avariel had returned to his seat atop the treasure chest, once again lounging without a hint of trepidation within easy reach of Brimstone’s fangs and talons.

“Well, she couldn’t,” said Dorn. “She’d never even seen the cipher before. So let’s work with what we have.”

“It seems plain,” said Kara, standing beneath one of the ever-burning torches in its tall wrought-iron stand “that Sammaster understands the frenzy even better than he’s admitting to the chromatic dragons. Actually, he’s both inducing the coming Rage and heightening it to unprecedented levels.”

• “I think so, too,” said Raryn, seated cross-legged on the floor and scraping at the edge of his ice-axe with a hone. The whetstone rasped rhythmically against the steel. “It’s the goad he’s always needed to force all the evil wyrms to change as he wants them to. If we understood exactly what it is he’s discovered, maybe we could spoil his plans.”

“Or maybe not,” said Will, “Remember, we’re talking about one of the most powerful mages the world has ever seen.”

The dwarf shrugged.

“You’re right,” said Kara, “the idea’s worth exploring. We can infer Sammaster didn’t always have the power to spur and quell frenzy. Otherwise, he would have used it before this. He must have discovered it at some point during the past century, after his last great defeat.”

“What if,” Taegan said, “the pages in the folio are the journal of his investigations?”

“They could be anything,” said Will. “A five-hundred page letter to Muffin, the puppy he doted on as a child. He is crazy, right?”

Evidently annoyed by the halfling, Brimstone showed his fangs and said, “I agree the pages may be important, but they’re useless to us if we can’t read them.”

“Maybe not,” Pavel said. “Maybe we just need to look at them in a different way.”

“What do you mean?” Kara asked.

“I studied for the priesthood in Lathander’s house in Heliogabalus and worked there for some years afterward. It’s not the largest temple in Damara—Ilmater and Silvanus are the most popular gods thereabouts—but it’s a notable seat of learning nonetheless. Reading in the scriptorium, I noticed that papers and inks manufactured in one place differ from those of another, and I picked up the knack of distinguishing between them.”

“Without so much as a glance at the content of the writing?” Dorn asked.

“Yes. The most basic distinctions are obvious. Some papers are made of wood pulp. Others are goat-, sheep-, lamb-, kid-, or calfskin. Some are even woven of reeds, and some have watermarks. Beyond that, parchments vary as to hue, thickness, coarseness of grain, and the manner in which the maker separated the sheets. It’s the same with inks. Pay attention to the precise color, and the degree to which they fade or flake away, and you can tell what they were made from, and where.”

“So what?” Brimstone hissed.

“I see it,” said Dorn. “As Sammaster wandered about trying to puzzle out the Rage, he resupplied himself with writing materials at various stops along the way, which is to say, he left tracks.”

“And if we hunters follow them,” said Raryn, holding his axe up to the light to inspect the edge, “go where he went, then maybe we can learn what he learned.”

“Preposterous,” the smoke drake said. “How does it help us to know that he spent time in, oh, say, Tantras, for example? We still won’t know what he did there.”

“Perhaps someone will remember him,” Kara said, “or he’ll have left some other indication. Or maybe we can simply guess. Suppose he’s rediscovered a secret the wise once knew and subsequently lost. He may well have found it in the same kind of place where you or I would look for ancient lore.”

Brimstone’s luminous eyes narrowed.

“Give me the notes,” Pavel said. “Let’s see if I can glean anything from them.”

Dorn pulled the scuffed leather folio out of a rucksack. Pavel took it into the circle of wavering glow shed by one of the torches, sat down on a rounded hump of stalagmite, and rested the bundle of papers in his lap. After what had befallen Brimstone, he felt a twinge of trepidation opening the cover, even though he himself had already looked at the notes without harm.

Mainly, though, he was worried not that Sammaster’s shadow would possess him, but rather that his idea would come to nothing.

Please, Lathander, he silently prayed, let me be right. We’ve fought dragons and demons to accomplish the task you set us, but none of it will mean anything if we can’t figure out what to do next.

He examined a number of sheets, peering, fingering the edges and texture, and holding them up to his nose to smell them. After a time, he nodded.

“What?” asked Will.

“By and large, I recognize what I’m looking at. These could have been papers and pigments from some faraway land we know nothing of, but they aren’t. Sammaster penned the notes here in our part of the North. They’re jumbled, though. I have vellum from Phlan intermingled with folded leaves of foolscap from Trailsend. I think somebody—Gorstag, perhaps—dropped the folio, the pages scattered, and in his haste, he stuck them back together any old way. The sheets aren’t numbered, out I’m going to try to group like with like.”