Realms of Magic - Brian Thomsen King [122]
In the face of that gale, it was tough to grasp the lock. It was tougher to do so without gasping to inhale breath, which would have been instantly deadly. But I succeeded, spinning the thing, rushing through the combination I'd memorized when Olivia opened the lock.
The poison blast spent itself, and the combination was done. Still without breathing, I yanked the vault door open and dashed to the side.
There came a dragon scream from up the passage, just as I had hoped, and a huge forearm thrust its way down toward the revealed pearl. My hundred traps went off beautifully, with a sound like a thousand mosquitoes taking flight. Even the circular deadfall block came down to crush the dragon's claw, in the process cracking and peeling away my three iron boxes like layers of skin from an onion.
But it would take more than that to stop her. I clambered over her twitching wrist and onto the deadfall, finally took a breath of the fresher air, and grabbed the stone.
Touching it was enough. The contact of flesh to gem triggered its magic. The huge green dragon resumed the form of green-eyed Olivia. Her small, hot hand, crushed beneath the stone, caused her to be yanked forward into the vault as her form shrank. Down the stairs she rattled, then slid to a stop just within the doorway. I lunged at her, wanting to kill her in human form-lovely, lovable human form-before she could become a dragon again.
You see, I'd forgotten about the shiv.
She did not move. The small knife had been more than large enough to kill her, forced up through her human palette and into her brain. When I pulled her head up and back by her silken black hair, the blood gushing from her mouth told the story. The blood, and those lifeless green eyes.
Companionship. I knew it then. That was the one other hook for this wyrm. She'd killed her mate for the pearl, and then used the pearl to gain back all she'd lost- wealth, power, status, and companionship. Perhaps that's where a six-foot-three street rat from Waterdeep came in.
The poison gas was gone from the air, and I gasped a breath when I saw those emerald eyes.
So did my new partner. – •- •
The magic resumed a moment later, with explosive results, since the corpse of the dragon couldn't fit in that tiny vault. Luckily, Filson and I had expected as much, and were scampering across the cavern beyond when green chunks of dragon started flying.
We didn't even try to take the Dragon's Pearl with us. We'd had a bellyful of trouble from it, just like old Xantrithicus had. Besides, there was already plenty of false affluence and deceptive beauty in the Dock Ward of Waterdeep.
It wasn't beneath us, however, to make a quick search of the rest of the place, hoping to scrape together enough real wealth among all the bits of glitter and twine to make our troubles worthwhile. We could not. Apparently, the dragon's hoard was nothing more than fantasy built on illusion built on air.
Gone were the riches, and gone too the wretches, fled to whatever icy refuges they could find when the dragon first appeared. Most would likely die out there. I feared we would, too.
About then, I heard the greatest sound in the world- the impatient champ and whinny of a very real winged horse. Apparently, even the pearl's illusory magic could not have reached to Waterdeep, so the lady had had to send the genuine article. I tipped my hat to what was left of her corpse, thanking her for inadvertently showing me you get what you pay for.
With my new associate mounted on the stallion behind me, I urged the pegasus toward the bright, snowy daylight, and from there up into the bracing sky.
"To Waterdeep," I told the creature, patting it fondly on the shoulder. "The Dock Ward. I'd like to see some genuine squalor for a change."
GUNNE RUNNER
Roger E. Moore
It would be a grand night in Waterdeep. An old friend, the Yellow Mage, had invited me over for First Tenday dinner; he'd do all the cooking, and he was a master. I knew from experience this was also his chance