Fistandantilus Reborn - Douglas Niles [115]
And then the cyclones were gone, and two black-robed figures stood in their places. Their features were invisible within deep cowls of inky, velvet hoods, but Dan had little doubt as to their nature: These were wizards of black magic, drawn here by the abiding enchantments of the bloodstone, the skull of Fistandantilus, and the silver belt buckle of Paulus Thwait.
It was the dragon who reacted first. Flayze roared loudly and reared with a great flapping of his wings. A blast of air struck Dan and the companions in the face, and the lad threw up an arm to screen himself. At the same time, he saw the dragon’s jaws gape and sensed the inferno building in that massive, scarlet belly.
Mirabeth took his arm, and he dropped to the floor, pulling her down, trying to shelter her beneath his arms from the killing cloud that must inevitably follow. He remembered the charred bodies in his village and the slain bandits on the bridge at Loreloch; somehow it seemed almost a certain destiny that now he, too, would meet his death by fiery dragonbreath.
He heard another sound, an utterance of short, barking words, but that noise was quickly swallowed by the roaring blaze of an infernal furnace.
Danyal was reminded of the sound of a blacksmith’s forge, when the fire had been stoked and the bellows were pumping. This was that same hungry, crackling howl, except magnified to an impossible extent, as if he himself were watching the fire from within the chimney.
But he wasn’t getting burned!
The truth penetrated his numb sense of shock with an almost diffident appeal to his senses. Danyal blinked, feeling Mirabeth trembling underneath him. He looked up and saw a wall of fire before them. Above, oily flames crackled and raged and on both sides as well. He felt the heat against his skin, as if he was staring into a hot fireplace, but neither he nor Mirabeth was being touched by the lethal blaze.
Nor, he saw, were Foryth, Emilo, Kelryn, or the two black-robed wizards. One of the latter held up a hand that looked like a skeleton’s, clothed in sickly skin; it was the force of that gesture, Dan suddenly knew, that was parting the flames, carrying the dragon’s lethal breath to either side.
Abruptly the fire ceased, and in its absence, the cavern felt utterly cold and dark. Though the air was still baked and illuminated by the streams of fiery lava flowing throughout the vast enclosure, it might have been a winter’s night by comparison to the dragonfire.
The other wizard extended a hand toward the monster, the gesture swift and menacing. Dan had time to notice that the limb was more manlike than the first mage’s skeletal digits. The fingers that now extended were long, slender, and clearly dexterous, but they were undeniably cloaked in flesh and pink, living skin.
Another word split the air within the cavern, a barking cry that sent a shiver down the lad’s spine, and he knew that he was witness to still more powerful magic. The arcane sounds were harsh against his ears, and the feeling they left in his belly was not unlike the sensation of getting kicked very hard.
A wash of pale light expanded outward from the wizard’s hand, a growing cone that encompassed much of the dragon and cast its chilly glow onto an expanse of bubbling lava and the smoking wall of the cavern beyond. The liquid rock instantly darkened, frozen hard, cracks wrenching violently outward across the floor.
And in the eerie glow of that spell, Danyal felt a bitter, piercing chill, a coldness that seeped through his clothes and his skin, striking so deep that it seemed to ice the blood in his veins. Even as he felt that cold, the youth understood another thing: He absorbed this penetrating effect from watching the spell-the real cold was a force of powerful magic attacking everything that was caught in the wash of that pale, icy light.
Blasted full in the chest by the arcane onslaught, the dragon reared backward with a shrill cry of pain and rage. Red scales, strangely rimed in thick frost, tumbled free