So that was what Praxasalandos intended to do.
He dissolved the eye before anyone noticed it then, guided by a kind of tactile instinct as reliable as sight, streamed back the way he’d come. He seeped out of the granite in a tunnel that connected to the area he’d just surveyed but beyond a dogleg, where none of his prey could see him.
There he compressed his mass as he solidified it and simultaneously sculpted it into an unaccustomed shape. The process was more difficult than assuming his natural form, but not much, not for a dragon possessed of his breed’s singular gifts.
When he was done, he peeked around the bend. There was an Imaskari sentry stationed there, but the human with his pale, mottled skin couldn’t see him hiding in the dark.
Praxasalandos kept peering out at intervals until finally Medrash was in view. Then he undertook the final and most difficult detail of his masquerade: putting a glowing lantern in his hand. Because obviously the real Balasar wouldn’t have wandered away from his comrades without a source of light.
It took a couple of heartbeats, long enough for Praxasalandos to feel a pang of doubt.
What was he doing? Why was he setting snares for folk who’d never done him any harm, especially when, judging from their standards and insignia, some of them worshiped Bahamut? Why was he serving Gestanius, a despicable creature that, by rights, any self-respecting metallic should oppose?
But of course, the answer was obvious: the game.
At certain moments, Praxasalandos regretted that he’d ever accepted the invitation to visit Brimstone on Dracowyr. But like most quicksilver dragons, he was curious; how could he pass up an opportunity to meet a creature who, though an undead horror, was also one of the saviors of their entire race?
And from the moment the vampire explained xorvintaal in all its intricate glory, there was no turning back. Praxasalandos had no interest in building a new Draconic Age, the alleged ultimate purpose for the contest. But the play itself was fascinating in its complexity, uniquely suited to divert a dragon’s deep and subtle mind not just for a month or a year, but down the long centuries of his near immortality. A wyrm could no more withstand its allure than he could resist the desire to amass precious objects into a hoard.
And once Praxasalandos opted in, he had to address the fact that, although powerful by ordinary standards, he lacked the resources to play in the same style as the most notorious wyrms of the East. If he wanted to fare well in the opening stages, his best chance was to ally himself with one of them. And Gestanius, who laired in the same mountains as he did, seemed a sensible albeit unsavory choice.
Medrash’s voice sounded down the tunnel. “Is there light shining around the corner?”
Praxasalandos decided that the lantern with its spot of phosphorescence had fully defined itself. He stepped around the turn, beckoned urgently for Medrash to come forward, then retreated out of sight.
“Balasar?” Medrash called.
Praxasalandos didn’t answer. He held his breath as he waited to see if the dragonborn would take the bait.
It was by no means a certainty. If Medrash doubted what his eyes had told him, he might retrace his own steps far enough to see that the real Balasar was still asleep. Or his voice might wake the real one, who would then presumably answer.
But when Praxasalandos heard the scuff of approaching footsteps and caught a whiff of Medrash’s scent, he knew the trick had worked.
He melted and poured himself back inside the rock. Then he flowed to the arch that linked the passage with the chamber the dragonborn and Imaskari currently occupied. There, by the pressure of thought alone, he started activating the runes that Gestanius had long ago concealed inside the granite.
Khouryn woke to a shiver in the stone beneath him. Or at least, he thought he had. No one else had woken up, and no one who’d already been awake looked alarmed. His surroundings were steady.
Steady but wrong. A dwarf could feel it in his bones, even if the Imaskari with their claims to knowledge of the subterranean world couldn’t.
He looked around again. There were three corridors leading out of the cavern, and the sentry stationed at one of them was looking down it intently, apparently because there was something to see.
Khouryn considered pulling on the mail the Daardendriens’ armorer had made for him and decided not to take the time. He grabbed his new axe and headed for the Imaskari warrior.
By the time he reached the soldier, he knew he’d been right to hurry. The granite beyond the arch looked solid. It wasn’t shaking in any visible or audible way. But if felt precarious, like a child’s blocks piled in such an unstable fashion that the arrangement fairly screamed of imminent collapse. A couple of minute particles of rock dust drifted down from the ceiling.
That, however, was clearly not why the human was peering into the shadows and at the white light gleaming from around the bend. If he understood what was actually happening, he’d likely be yelling his head off, not that that was a good idea under the circumstances.
“What are you looking at?” Khouryn snapped. “What is that light?”
“I saw Balasar,” the human said haltingly. Mistrusted by most of their neighbors, the Imaskari were perforce a somewhat insular folk, and apparently the sentry wasn’t entirely fluent in the Common tongue that enabled Faerun’s many races and cultures to communicate one with the next.
Impatience ratcheted Khouryn’s nerves a notch tighter. “Balasar’s down there?” Could that be right? Hadn’t Khouryn just passed his friend on the way over?
“Medrash… followed,” the soldier said. “Light is from lantern and sword.”
“Herd everyone away from this passage,” Khouryn said, “quickly. But don’t shout. Understand me?”
The sentry’s eyes opened wide. “Yes!”
Khouryn trotted down the passage, and a perceptible tremor ran through the rock beneath his feet. More grit fell. With a tiny crunching sound, a hairline crack snaked through the wall on his left.
He rounded the bend. Peering about in seeming perplexity, Medrash was a few paces farther along. As the sentry had indicated, he’d set the blade of his broadsword aglow with silvery light to serve as a lamp.
“Get back here!” Khouryn said. “Now!”
Startled, Medrash jerked around. “Balasar-”
“Was never here,” Khouryn said. “This is a trap. Come on!”
Medrash ran toward him. Khouryn wheeled and sprinted but stopped when he turned the corner again.
The tunnel in front of him was vibrating. Enough grit was drifting down that not even a human could miss it. The granite rumbled softly but continuously.
Medrash rounded the dogleg and bumped into him from behind. “Keep going!” the dragonborn said.
“No,” Khouryn said. “We won’t make it. Back the other way!”
Medrash looked as if he wanted to argue, to protest that their comrades were just a few strides and a few moments away, but then he scowled and did as he’d been told.
The ceiling fell with a deafening crash and raised a blinding, choking cloud of dust. The jolt threw Khouryn off his feet. Coughing, eyes stinging, he looked around and could just make out the smudge of glow surrounding Medrash’s blade.
He drew himself to his feet and headed in that direction. Medrash met him halfway.
“Are you all right?” the dragonborn asked.
“Fine.” Noticing that the dust was settling, Khouryn turned, wiped his teary eyes, and inspected the mass of broken stone clogging the passage. For all their frantic haste, he and Medrash had just barely outdistanced the collapse, which meant the passage was blocked for twenty paces at least. “Well, we’re not going back that way.” A spasm of irritation twisted his guts. “Curse it, you’re not a dwarf. I don’t care what you think you see. Never walk down one of these tunnels by yourself.”