The icon to the east shimmered and faded away. Then the ones to the north and south disappeared, and lastly the figure in the west. The ritual had consumed them like fire ate wood.
Suddenly, Aoth felt light as air and sensed his essence trying to rise. For a moment something held him like sticky strands of spiderweb, but then the adhesion broke and he floated clear of his body. Which stood like a statue beneath him-except with the heart and lungs still working, he assumed.
Cera flowed up out of her body. Her spirit wore a semblance of her vestments and carried an analogue to the yellow book just as he still appeared to possess his mail and spear. “Do you feel disoriented?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve experienced astral travel before.” At the Dread Ring in Lapendrar-he hoped this venture would prove less dangerous and more productive than that one had.
“Then let’s get outside the walls.” She soared over the one on the east and disappeared behind it.
He willed himself after her, and simple intent was enough to launch him like an arrow from a bow. The sensation of effortless, weightless flight was as exhilarating as he remembered, for the instant before he touched down in the street.
Several boys were playing catch in the center of the thoroughfare while a black dog scampered around their feet. A man-a potter, judging from the clay stains on his hands and clothing-scowled, apparently at the momentary inconvenience of having to detour around the game.
Nobody reacted to Cera and Aoth’s arrival. Because no one had the magic or spellscarred eyes that would have allowed him to perceive disembodied spirits.
“What now?” asked Aoth.
“If I performed the ritual properly,” Cera replied, “it should work more or less on its own from here.”
The leather ball halted in midair, then flew back into the hand that had thrown it. Putting his feet exactly where he had before, the potter backed up.
At first, even though everything was regressing, it didn’t move any faster than it normally would. Aoth wondered if he and Cera would have to wait for what would feel like actual days before they reached the dragonborn attack.
But then the world sped up until all he could see was flickers and blurs in the street. Occasionally he felt a cool tingle as something streaked through his insubstantial body.
The sun dropped toward the eastern horizon, and dawn gave way to night. The darkness only lasted a few moments, and when the sun rose in the west it was racing even faster. Daylight and star-dappled blackness alternated as quickly as the beat of clapping hands.
Until he felt the rapid regression come to a sudden halt. It left them in the dark, which was a good sign. Still, he asked, “Are we where-or rather when-we need to be?”
Cera smiled. “Listen.”
He did. He could just make out the rippling music of the harpist she’d hired to play at the feast.
“When the dragonborn appear,” she continued, “I think I can back up time a little more, at its normal speed. Then we can follow the assassins back to their lair.”
“This is… impressive.”
“I certainly am. I’ll bet you’re sorry you trampled on my maidenly feelings now, aren’t you?”
He was still trying to figure out how to respond to that when his eyes throbbed. He grunted and raised a hand to them.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not in pain. But I have a strange sensation.”
“Let me see.” She came closer and peered up into his face.
“It doesn’t hurt. It’s not interfering with my vision either. It’s just-”
The sky resumed flickering from night to day and back again. Then Cera and Aoth hurtled upward like leaves in a tornado. He instinctively tried to resist, but the force that gripped them was far stronger than his ability to move or stay by force of will.
In fact, he was afraid it would rip Cera and him apart. She plainly had the same concern, for she reached out at the same instant he did. He grabbed her hand, pulled her close, and wrapped his arm around her. Caught between them, the sacred book pressed into his chest.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“In that case, maybe I’m not as impressed as I thought.”
He had a sense they were streaking along fast as lightning, and that combined with the flashing madness that was the sky made it impossible for him to judge where they were headed or how much farther in the past their destination lay. But the journey only took a moment or two, and then they were at rest again. It seemed like a relief until he took in their surroundings.
They stood on a ledge midway up one side of a sort of bowl in the ground. Crags rose all around the low place like the points of a crown. They looked natural, but not entirely so. Someone had dug and carved to make sure that the balconies were spacious and plentiful enough for all the enormous creatures that perched here under the stars, and that the openings in the rock were sufficiently high and broad to admit them to what must be a warren of tunnels within the spires.
Everything was silent. An animal odor hung in the chilly air.
“That smell,” Cera said. “Is something here?”
“Dragons,” said Aoth.
She stiffened. “What?”
“Dozens of them, perched all around. They must have some spell of concealment in place. That’s why you can’t see them.”
“What are they doing?”
“Not much. Talking, I think.”
“About what?”
“The enchantment that hides them makes them quiet too. And the Blue Fire changed my eyes, not my ears.”
“I don’t understand any of this!”
“I don’t either. But since we’re here, let me watch for a while.”
“If I call on Amaunator, maybe I can see them too.”
“Or maybe they’ll sense the use of power. I’m sure it’s frustrating, but leave the spying to me.”
For all the good it was likely to do when he couldn’t hear anything. He noted a preponderance of blues, greens, reds, and the other dragons collectively called chromatics, fewer gem wyrms, and only a couple metallics. Then all the behemoths in front of him raised their crested, wedge-shaped heads, and he turned to look where they were peering.
When he did, he felt a stab of fear, as well as incredulity that he’d only now noticed what perched on a balcony to his right. The entity was at least as huge as any of the other dragons, but made of nothing but bare bones, the sparks that danced on them, and the spectral blue light in its eye sockets. A horn jutted from its snout and bobbed a little as its jaws worked. Aoth could feel its malice and cruelty as plainly as he could see its scythelike talons, or the naked armature of its wings.
“By the Flame,” he whispered, “it’s Alasklerbanbastos.”
Up until then, he’d imagined he and Cera had a good chance of going undetected. But suddenly it seemed all too likely that an undead wyrm would notice the presence of discarnate spirits, and probably sooner rather than later.
It made Aoth glad that like every other ledge, the one he and Cera occupied had an opening to the tunnels. “We’re retreating into the caves,” he said. “And as soon as all the dragons are out of sight, you’re going to pray us back where we belong.”
She nodded. “If I can.”
They backed up. Given their status as living ghosts, they shouldn’t have needed to tiptoe or creep slowly, but they did anyway. With dragons and a dracolich only a stone’s throw away, Aoth found it impossible to do otherwise.
But even if his attempt at stealth made sense, it wasn’t good enough. On the other side of the bowl, on a shelf near the jagged top of the rim, a dragon sat up abruptly. A dull, mottled red with a black ridge on its spine-Aoth wondered exactly what sort of wyrm it was-peered at them with eyes like burning coals. Then it exhaled a cloud of vapor and cinders with a care that reminded him of a pipe smoker blowing a smoke ring.