"Mirabeth! It's me, Danyal!" he whispered, drawing a gasp of surprise and hope from within.
"Can you get me out of here?" she asked, rushing to the door, coming into the light of his flickering candle. He was relieved to see that she appeared unharmed. One of her ears retained its wax pointed tip, and she had combed one of her twin topknots down to cover the other, undisguised ear.
In another moment Danyal had pried open the catch, which was a very crude lock. Mirabeth gave him a big hug, and he wrapped his arms around her as best as he could while still retaining the grip on his knife and candle.
"Come on!" he urged. "We've got to get you out of here!"
"And just where do you think you'll go?" barked a sneering voice out of the darkness-a voice that Danyal clearly recognized.
It belonged to Kelryn Darewind.
CHAPTER 33
Second Palast, Reapember 374 AC
Flayzeranyx stared at the skull, sensing the desire there. For long years, he had felt the glare of those dead eyes, heard the hushed voice whispering into his mind, insinuating ideas, suggestions, wishes. He knew that the skull tried to use him, that it wanted to employ the dragon to slake its hideous hunger.
But the red dragon's belly rumbled with a hunger of his own.
The eyes in the fleshless skull gaped, unblinking, as they had stared for so many decades. They looked upon the fiery inferno that was the lair of Flayzeranyx, and they watched, and they waited.
For a long time, there was only the smoke, the bubbling of lava and the hissing of steam. Clouds of soot billowed, churning in angry clouds, and tongues of flame licked into the air. Nothing seemed alive here, until finally crimson scales coiled in the darkness and leathery wings expanded to fan the air, sending gusts of wind swirling through the cavern.
Bursts of yellow fire exploded upward, as if exulting in their master's arousal when the mighty serpent raised his head and neck far above the smooth, hardened lava of his perch.
The dragon studied the skull and sensed the need. He saw a pale green image and detected the sparks of crimson fire that burned there. The hunger, the lust, in the skull was an almost palpable force.
"And where is the talisman?" asked the wyrm in a silken voice. He probed, staring with his great yellow eyes, penetrating the depths within the skull.
Abruptly the serpent saw the image change, and he sensed the truth as he beheld the human lair in the mountains. "Your heart of blood and stone is there!"
The skull remained as ever, but did Flayze now detect a mocking leer in the eternally grinning teeth?
"I know the place," he whispered. "The mountaintop stronghold… I have seen it, tolerated it, for these many years."
The skull was silent, still. But the shadowy stare of those dead eyes seemed to penetrate the dragon's very being.
Instinctively Flayze hated that place, hated the powerful allure that drew the attentions of his artifact. The skull wanted the stone with a desperate, powerful longing. The red dragon, on the other hand, had many treasures. He could afford to scorn the chance to add another bauble to his collection.
Wings spreading, the dragon turned toward the world, ready to fly.
Behind him, the skull watched, silent and motionless as ever, its white teeth locked in an eternal grimace.
CHAPTER 34
Second Majetog, Reapember 374 AC
"I was wondering how long it would take you to come for her. I'm impressed, of course, that you seem to have dispatched Zack so handily, but I was a trifle disappointed when you hadn't broken into Loreloch by last night. I thought you were taking an awfully cavalier approach to this pretty kendermaid's rescue."
For a moment, confronted by that familiar, dangerous voice, Danyal froze. He pictured Kelryn Darewind lurking in the darkness, like a cat who had found two mice out of their hole. The candle in Danyal's hand flared weakly, and he saw Mirabeth's eyes, so hopeful an instant before, cloud with a mixture of fear and despair.
Dan, too, felt a growing measure of hopelessness. At the same time, he wondered how the man had known to wait here for him. Remembering the noise that had crashed outside the manor walls, the lad wondered if the bandit lord had been alerted by Emilo's premature diversion. In any event, he was here in the darkness, watching and laughing at them.
But then Dan's instincts took over; he tugged Mira-beth out of the cell and started down the musty corridor, away from the direction of that soft, menacing voice.
"Halt!"
Kelryn barked the word, and just like that Danyal's feet ceased to move. He tried to urge Mirabeth along but found that she, too, might as well have been glued to the floor. The two of them squirmed and strained but couldn't pull their boots free. This was magic, Danyal realized with sinking spirits, knowing that some sort of spell had acted to cloak them in this cast of immobility.
"You had no chance of really making a successful rescue, you know-no chance at all," declared the bandit lord, sauntering from the darkened recesses of the dungeon. Suddenly the two young people could see him, but not because of the candle that still flared brightly in Danyal's trembling hand.
No, the lad realized. Rather, it seemed that there was some kind of eerie light emanating from Kelryn Dare-wind himself. The man was outlined in a pale green glow, an illumination not unlike the natural phosphorescence Danyal had observed on some of the lichens that grew in shady places near Waterton.
Except that this glow was clearly, uncannily powerful, in a way that no natural glow could ever be. In fact, it seemed as though the greenish luminescence actually smelled of some sort of arcane power, some inner might that allowed it to freeze them so helplessly in their tracks. When the bandit lord came closer, he smiled, white teeth gleaming in the strange light.
"I knew tonight would be the night that you came for her. I knew it even before your friend made such an untidy racket outside the walls."
Now Dan could see that the pale light glowed from between the man's fingers, sickly beams of eerie illumination expanding from Kelryn Darewind's hand to spread through the dungeon. He held an object there, something small enough to be held within his closed fingers, but it was a thing that pulsed with frightening arcane power. Too, it was something terribly, unnaturally bright but not fiery, for clearly it was cool enough to be held.
"The bloodstone of Fistandantilus." The bandit lord held up a golden chain, allowing the pale stone pendant to dangle and sway before them. "It's too bad your friend, the historian, isn't here. I know he'd get quite a thrill out of seeing this."
Danyal stared at the bloodstone, unable to move. He felt the power of the gem in that terrible light, sensed that his eyes-and his brain-were being damaged even as he was compelled to maintain his unblinking attention. There was no doubt in his mind that it was this stone that glued him in place, that compelled his obedience to a command he would have given anything to disobey.
"It was the bloodstone that allowed me to trick him, to make him think that I was a real priest!" The bandit lord chuckled over his own cleverness.
Danyal tried to speak, worked to choke out a word or two of challenge, but he was unable to make his mouth and lips obey his will.
"Oh, very well. You may relax, but don't try to flee." Kelryn masked the stone again as he spoke, and the sudden darkness was a huge relief, like a wash of fresh air blowing away the scent of an open crypt.