The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [205]
Then the head turned almost gloatingly around to glare at the Dragon, trapped in its coils-and from it beams of ravening magic shot out from two Dwaer, lancing deep into the gold-scaled creature.
Stabbed and burned, and then stabbed and burned again, as the trembling, riven Dragon screamed in agony.
Screamed, and then started to dwindle, just as Tshamarra had done.
"Oh, gods, no," Hulgor Delcamper growled, as he stood shielding the young and white-faced King of Aglirta with a sword in either hand. "It'll not be long now. The well, everyone!"
The watchers in the shattered hall saw the Great Serpent rear its head once more in hissing triumph. A shimmering blossomed in the air behind and above that head, becoming a hole surrounded by dark fire-and out of that hole appeared a lone human woman, floating upright in midair. Her head was a skull that in turn seemed to float above her shoulders-and she held a twinkling Dwaer-Stone in each of her spread hands.
"A Sword of Spells has two edges, overbold apprentice!" Gadaster Mulkyn hissed, as the Dwaer flared in unison.
Not to strike at the Great Serpent with ravening bolts of magic, but to awaken the last traces of the mind-link Ingryl had used for years to drain Gadaster's life. With cold glee the skull-headed mage forced his will upon Ingryl Ambelter's mind.
The Spellmaster wrestled against him, a dark and furious mind-struggle that lasted an eternity but no time at all… and lost. Calmly and carefully, Gadaster forced Ambelter to work certain magics.
"You wanted the Dwaer so much, didn't you?" he said, directly into Ambelter's trapped mind. "And now, lucky lad, you at last have what you've schemed so energetically for. A pity 'twill destroy you and your precious kingdom and probably most of Flowfoam, too. Let the conjunction begin!"
And four Dwaerindim blazed up blinding white, tearing free of scaled skin and grasping hands alike to soar up into the air together in a great floating ring.
As the Stones rose, so too certain folk all over the palace were jerked upright and into full awareness: Embra Silvertree and a handful of surviving Lords of the Serpent. Wherever they were, they stared up at the stones, quivering in helpless thrall.
Many other folk within sight of Flowfoam did much the same-not ensnared by the rushing magic, but awed by the sheer power singing in the air above them, and the rushing hues and images they could now see in the blinding shared radiance of the Stones. Faces of kings and wizards and warriors dead and dust for centuries whirled before all eyes in a flashing parade that-shivered, suddenly, as something darker and more solid burst into their midst.
Something like a dark flame, leaping from Dwaer to Dwaer as it struggled, growing arms and wings and talons and biting heads that all vanished again with the passing moments, thrusting up shape after shape as it fought toward freedom. Arched, wracked, and tattered with pain in the heart of all the flowing magic, it thrust a smooth and faceless head out of the chaos to regard Gadaster Mulkyn, glaring without eyes down at the skull-headed sorceress. The rogue Koglaur!
That moment of malevolence broke the flow of leaping forces into wildly stabbing bolts of lightning that splashed down onto Flowfoam and raced along through its riven chambers like crackling snakes. Men and women screamed, bodies were hurled into the air, and the Great Serpent turned with all the speed of any swift-striking snake and spat a desperate thrust of dark power at Gadaster-not mind to mind, but as another crackling bolt of force, this one of shining black.
The skull-headed sorceress writhed in the heart of it as blackness whirled around her in a great fist, stabbing through her repeatedly-and from the skull burst forth a cold, high, wailing scream of despair, that seemed almost to plead as it rose and grew fainter