Zhengyi placed the skull against the center of the opened tome and whispered a few arcane words as he pressed down upon it.
The skull sank into the pages, disappearing within the depths of the tome.
Byphast sucked in her breath and stared hard at the Witch-King.
“If I do not win now, I win later,” Zhengyi explained. “With my allies beside me. Some foolish human, elf, or other mortal creature will find this tome and will seek the power contained within. In so doing he will unleash Urshula in his greater form.”
Zhengyi paused and glanced behind him, drawing Byphast’s gaze to a huge bookcase full of similar books.
“His greed, his frailty, his secret desire—nay, desperation—to grasp this great treasure that only I can offer him, will perpetuate my grand schemes, whatever the outcome of the coming battles on the fields of Damara.”
“So confident.…” Byphast said with a shake of her head and a smile that came from pity.
“Do you seek to sever your bond with the phylactery?” Zhengyi asked. “Do you wish to abandon this gift of immortality that I have offered you?”
Byphast’s smile withered.
“I thought not,” said Zhengyi. He closed the great book and lifted it into place on the shelf behind him. “My power is as eternal as a reasoning being’s fear of death, Byphast. Thus, I am eternal.” He glanced back at the newly finished tome. “Urshula was defeated in his lair, slain by the knights of the Bloodstone Army. But that only made him stronger, as King Gareth, or his descendants, will one day learn.”
Byphast stood very still for some time, soaking it all in. “I will not continue the fight,” she decided. “I will return to the Great Glacier and my distant home.”
Zhengyi shrugged as if it did not matter—and at that time, it really did not.
“But you will not sever your bond with the phylactery,” he noted.
Byphast stiffened and squared her jaw. “I will live another thousand years,” she declared.
But Zhengyi only smiled and said, “So be it. I am patient.”
About
R.A. Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. His love affair with fantasy, and with literature in general, began during his sophomore year of college when he was given a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas gift. He promptly changed his major from computer science to journalism. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications in 1981, then returned for the degree he always cherished, the Bachelor of Arts in English. He began writing seriously in 1982, penning the manuscript that would become Echoes of the Fourth Magic.
His first published novel was The Crystal Shard from TSR in 1988 and he is still best known as the creator of the dark elf Drizzt, one of fantasy’s most beloved characters.
His novel The Silent Blade won the Origins Award, and in the fall of 1997, his letters, manuscripts, and other professional papers were donated to the R. A. Salvatore Library at his alma mater, Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.
When Todd Lockwood attended his first Science Fiction and Fantasy convention in Winnipeg, Ontario, a door was opened that would lead to a staff position at TSR, the makers of the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Over the next seven years, he built an impressive body of fantasy images, and helped to redefine the look of the popular Dungeons & Dragons game for the Third Edition release.
His work has been honored with multiple appearances in Spectrum and the Communication Arts Illustration Annual twelve Chesleys, two prestigious World Fantasy Art Show awards, and numerous industry awards. Now he finds himself, his wife, and three children in Washington state, freelancing again, but doing the kind of work he enjoys, with fans all over the planet. His first art book, Transitions, from Chrysalis books (UK), was released in September of 2003. You can see more of his work at his website, www.toddlockwood.com.
Here Be Dragons { A Kender Tale }
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Tasslehoff Burrfoot was having a bad day. This was something new for the kender. Humans have bad days all the time. So do ogres and goblins and even elves, on occasion. Kender do not. Good days are a kender’s birthright, ranking right up there with lock picks (because the world would be a much friendlier place if everyone would simply share what they owned!) and wanderlust (because what’s the point of having a world if you don’t see as much of it as possible?) Thus, Tasslehoff was not prepared to handle a bad day. He simply did not know what to do. Which is what led him to the cave with the dragon.
But we’re getting ahead of the story.
The bad day started when Tasslehoff—all four-some feet of him, with his topknot of brown hair tastefully decorated with a sprightly sunflower, and wearing a green jacket and his favorite purple pants with the gold splotches—arrived at the walled city of Pigeon Falls, located west of the City of Barter near the River Swift in the foothills of the Highguard mountain range on the continent of Ansalon in the world of Krynn. The city of Pigeon Falls was small—it was noted on only one of the seven maps currently in Tasslehoff’s possession—but he paid it a visit because the name, Pigeon Falls, intrigued him.
Sitting beneath a tree outside the city walls, the kender looked the city over and thought that it was a shame Pigeon Falls wasn’t on every single one of his maps, for it deserved to be. The city was small, but prosperous. The stone wall that encircled and protected the city was tall and formidable and in good repair. Fertile farm lands surrounded the walls.
The War of the Lance (which had ended only a few years previous) and the deprivations caused by the Dark Queen’s dragons, who had devastated many cities in Abanasinia, had apparently left this small city unscathed.
Tasslehoff did not immediately enter Pigeon Falls, but sat at his ease beneath the tree, watching those who came and went. He noted that the guards at the gate stopped everyone who wanted to go inside the city walls. Tas was too far away to hear what they were saying, but he guessed from long experience that the guards were asking people in a friendly way what their business was in the city. The guards were jovial, teasing the young women who came driving geese to market, exchanging jests with the farmers on their carts, and bowing respectfully to wealthy merchants.
Tas had never seen such friendly gate guards and he thought he might try entering the city by the gate, something unusual for kender, who know from sad experience that even the friendliest guards turn immediately unfriendly when confronted by a kender. Why this was so was beyond Tasslehoff, though it had been explained to him many times by his dear old friend the dwarf, Flint Fireforge.
“It’s because yon can’t keep your hands out of other people’s pockets,” Flint told Tas grumpily.
Tas brought a picture of the old dwarf to mind. Shorter than the kender, but stockier in build, the dwarf would go all red in the face and his beard quiver and his eyes nearly disappear in the crinkles that came when he scrunched up his eyebrows to yell at the kender. Tas missed Flint a great deal.
“I never put my hand in someone else’s pocket in my life!” Tasslehoff protested indignantly.
“What’s this?” Flint held up his thumb.
“Your thumb, Flint,” said Tasslehoff, wondering why his friend was changing the subject.