The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [206]
The screaming skull slowly melted away, revealing in its place the tearful face of a frightened living woman, her long black hair swirling around her as she frantically wove a very swift spell. Her body her own once more, Maelra Bowdragon teleported herself away from the air above Flowfoam Palace, vanishing in a silent instant.
And so passed Gadaster Mulkyn, first Spellmaster of Silvertree, dead a second time, his sentience shattered. "Or is it?" Embra Silvertree whispered, still trembling in Dwaer-thrall. "Is he truly gone this time, or fled into Ambelter or somewhere else?"
The Great Serpent roared in exultation, stretching its great scaled neck up once more-and breaking the thrall that held Embra as it caused the four Dwaerindim to break their ring and whirl around its neck in a new orbit. The Koglaur fell away from them, a torn and writhing scrap of darkness, and fell wetly onto tumbled stones far below.
Amidst that rubble the freed Lady of Jewels collapsed, gasping, but scrambled to stare up again, not wanting to miss a moment of what could well be her unfolding doom.
Four Dwaer-Stones were flashing brightly as they spun about the Great Serpent's neck-and it struck, fangs gaping, at the diminished, wounded Dragon in its coils.
"Not worthy, fey?" That thunderous shout burst forth from the rent and bleeding Dragon, even as serpent-fangs bit deep. The Dwaerindim flashed and then dimmed in unison, becoming almost dark, and the snake made a wordless sound of surprise and alarm. The Dragon gasped-and glowed, its ruined body flaring to the same white brilliance that the four Stones had shared in their ring.
Ezendor Blackgult wrestled fiercely for control of the Dwaer, heedless of the pain. He was beating Ambelter, he was winning…
Calmly he drew in more mighty magic than he'd ever felt before, searing himself inside as he used not a scrap of Dwaer-force to shield himself, but forged it all into a great slaying thrust that raced back up the fangs sunk so cruelly in him, into the Spellmaster.
And the Great Serpent burned, shriveling in a trice to blackened, screaming bones. Ingryl Ambelter and all his dark dreams fell to ash so swiftly that many of the watching folk of Aglirta could scarce believe what had befallen.
Yet one tiling was clear enough: The towering bulk of the Serpent was gone from above the blackened, near-skeletal remnant of the Dragon, and four Dwaer-Stones were falling out of the sky.
Embra made a wordless sound of her own and started to run to where the plunges of at least two of them would end among the tumbled Stones- but a dark, shuddering, constantly changing shape was there before her.
The Koglaur! She clambered desperately toward it, knowing in her dazed pain and all this chaos of magic she couldn't yet weave a spell no matter what the need… and ahead of her, saw all four Dwaer, glowing faintly again, race down to strike the shapeshifter as if spell-called to it. The Faceless rose up into the shape of Ingryl Ambelter, spell-wove a gate outlined by four whirling Stones-and stepped through it.
In his wake, all four Dwaer sprang apart, fading away in midair as they raced in opposite directions… and leaving in their wake a dumbfounded silence to settle over the riven Flowfoam Palace.
"So did the real Spellmaster die," Flaeros Delcamper murmured, looking to the Lady Orele for answers, "or was it a Faceless, all along?"
"And do we have to go hunting four Dwaer-Stones now?" Craer groaned, from the shattered floor of the Throne Chamber below.
Spell-radiance flared in a darkened chamber in the tower of the Master of Bats, momentarily outshining the saying-globes. Three mages whirled around in time to see what fell out of it, into a weak, weeping, smoking sprawl on the stones. Idiim Bowdragon gasped, but Arkle Huldaerus moved as swiftly as a veteran warrior, striding forward to pluck up the young woman by the throat.
"Are you Gadaster Mulkyn?" he demanded, in a voice that shook with