Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [160]
Liriel, meanwhile, searched for her next weapon. She knew that wand-it was one Kharza had made-and she knew what Nisstyre's next attack would be. Frantically she dug through the piled treasure. Zz'Pzora had said there was a mirror-had the treacherous dragon lied?
Now healed, Nisstyre stooped, sliding several feet down the golden pile as he scrambled for his wand. With his undamaged hand he snatched it up and pointed it at Liriel. A gout of flame, hotter than the breath of a red dragon, sped toward the dark-elven girl.
At that moment Liriel found what she sought. Her fingers closed over the gilded frame, and she snapped the mirror up before her at arm's length. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from the searing light. The dragon-breath spell struck the silvered glass and reflected back toward its sender.
The wizard's black eyes widened with pure panic as the magical fire struck the golden coins at his feet. Instantly the metal melted, and Nisstyre sank deep into the bubbling, molten mass. His shrieks, as he suffered the agony intended for Liriel, were horrible to hear.
The results of a dragon-breath weapon were spectacular but brief. In mere moments the golden pile had cooled enough to bear Liriel's weight. She climbed the treasure heap and stooped over the dying drow trapped there. The ruby eye seemed to be rising out of his forehead, and its glow was dimming in concert with the wizard's ebbing life-force. Liriel plucked out the ruby and smiled into its fading light, as if into the face of the unseen watcher.
"You lose," she said succinctly. With that, she tossed the lifeless gem into the pile.
Crawling on his belly, Fyodor crept through the tunnel that wound through solid stone toward the dragon's lair. Zz'Pzora had preceded him in the form of a huge, purple snake. It had been odd, watching the purple drow shapeshift into a serpent. Her current form would no doubt be even more unnerving. Fyodor, for all his travel and his years of fighting, had never seen a dragon. They were not so plentiful in these times as they were in the old tales. Soon he would see not one, but two of the creatures. One of them, he was pledged to kill; the other had pledged to kill him.
It was not the death most Rashemi berserkers would choose for themselves, but Fyodor was content with his fate. Although he was far from his beloved land, he would die in battle, and with honor. It was enough.
Finally he came to the end of the tortuous journey. Beyond "the tunnel was the dragon's lair, a huge cavern riven with jagged, fanglike stalactites and cluttered with the bones of Pharx's recent meals. Within the cavern were two dragons, encoiled in reptilian embrace. One of them was undoubtedly Zz'Pzora-a beautiful creature with two heads, iridescent purple scales, and enormous wings the color of amethyst. She was huge-at least fifty feet from the tip of her tail to her dual snouts, but it was Pharx who stole Fyodor*s breath. The male dragon was fully twice Zz'Pzora's size, armored with dark maroon scales and armed with teeth the size of daggers and claws like curving scimitars. This, Fyodor realized with awe, was the creature he had vowed to help slay.
A faint hiss came from the distant tunnel, and then screams of mortal anguish.