Pool of Twilight (34 page)

He did not have time to reply. Cold, misty branches clutched at him from behind. He whirled around, hammer blazing, and another tree was turned into flaming splinters.

With the help of Listle’s magical fire, Kern, Miltiades, and Trooper made quick work of the rest of the shadow trees. At last the grove was silent. If the remaining trees were capable of fighting, they were less willing to try now.

Kern drew in a deep breath of relief. They had survived the first test.

“This cannot be!” Sirana shrieked.

She stood upon a small spur of rock in the center of the pool of twilight. Her body was completely obscured now by the brilliant metallic flecks that swirled madly beneath her skin, but she neither noticed nor cared. She watched an image in the surface of the pool. Kern and his wretched band of friends had just slain her beautiful shadow trees.

“How dare they defy me?” she screamed once more, her voice resounding through the vast cavern.

For the first time since becoming guardian of the pool, she felt a pang of anxiety. She had believed her power to be invincible. Could it be that these fools truly presented a threat to her?

“They will not defeat me!” she snarled. “I will have my revenge. And the Hammer of Tyr. Then I will become a goddess!”

But perhaps she needed some help.

Yes, that was it. Why hadn’t she thought of getting help sooner? There was one in particular who could help her defeat the paladin-puppy and his band of idiots. In fact, he would have no choice but to aid her.

She cast her mind forth, using the power of the pool to send forth a summons. A summons that could not be refused.

When that was done, she turned her thoughts to a plan. She needed something else out of the ordinary to neutralize the invaders. But what?

Suddenly a gleaming tendril of water lifted itself from the pool, bearing a staff of dull silver. Sirana laughed.

Ah, yes, the Staff of Twilight. The pool knew her very thoughts. She reached out and grasped the throbbing staff.

Now she had everything she needed.

Dusk alighted on the high crag, spreading wide his midnight-black wings.

A thousand dragons filled the huge valley that stretched before him. For three days he had flown the length and breadth of the Moonsea, using the power Sirana had granted him from the pool to rally the evil dragons. Black, blue, red, and green, he sought them all in their lairs, deep in dank caves and perched on mountain heights. The magic of the twilight pool lent power to his words, and it had been simple to fan the spark of hatred each dragon bore in its heart for humankind.

“Hear me now, my brothers and sisters!” Dusk trumpeted, his voice thundering throughout the valley. “The second dragon-rage is nigh! We shall drive the humans from their homes. We shall slay them to the last. And then we will plunder their cities of treasure. Each of you will gain a hoard of gold such as a king only dreams of!”

And, Dusk added to himself, I will have a hundred times that many riches, a treasure such as Faerun has never known. He smiled toothily, immensely pleased. None could hold the feeblest candle to his majesty. He was the most powerful dragon in all the northlands, and the others recognized his stature. But he was more than simply the strongest of his kind. He was their ruler, the emperor of dragons.

Dusk opened his many-fanged maw, ready to send out the order that would bring the dragons soaring into the sky in a deadly rainbow of color, the order that would begin the second dragon-rage. At last, he would have his long-awaited revenge against that wretched city of Phlan, and against all humankind.

Suddenly a voice pierced his mind.

Come to me, Dusk! I have need of you.

Dusk froze. No, this could not be! He felt something clutch at his essence, as if his heart were a puppet on a string.

“I will not, Sirana!” Dusk shrieked. Flecks of twilight swirled wildly in his one good eye.

Heed my call, Dusk. You cannot resist.

“No!” he screamed. Stones all around shattered at the furious pitch of his voice. But his wings had already started to beat, lifting him from the crag. His blood burned in his veins. It was as if he were a fish caught on a fisherman’s line, slowly being reeled in. He tried to resist the pull, but it was too strong, too overpowering. The magical power he had accepted bound him inexorably to the pool.

“Curse you, Sirana! You will pay for this!”

Finally he could resist no longer. Silver sparks blazing in his eye, he soared high into the air, streaking toward the pool of twilight

Below him the evil dragons let out a roar of anger and confusion. Their leader was abandoning them. Without his influence, glorious thoughts of gold and human cities in flame evaporated from their minds. Their individual suspicious and greedy natures returned. Those that did not wheel to attack the dragons nearest to them immediately leaped into the air and sped back to their lairs to jealously guard their private hoards.

The second dragon-rage was over before it had begun.

The seven adventurers stood before the gaping entrance of the cave.

“Be ready,” Evaine warned.

“For what?” Listle asked with a gulp.

“Anything,” the sorceress replied.

Listle sighed. “I was afraid that was what you were going to say.”

Kern led the way into the dark tunnel, the others following close behind. There was no hope of catching Sirana by surprise. The attack of the shadow trees showed that she was all too aware of their presence. Their only hope was to distract her long enough so that Evaine could cast her spell to destroy the pool. How exactly they were going to do that, no one could say.

Kern held the Hammer of Tyr aloft before him. The weapon gave off a faint blue light, but the darkness seemed to smother the illumination. He could see no more than a few scant feet before him.

The tunnel wound down into the pitch darkness. The air grew stuffier. Soon Kern was sweating inside his armor. It was growing difficult to breathe.

There was no warning when the floor suddenly yawned beneath them.

Kern screamed as he plummeted through jet blackness. He heard the cries of the others around him, heard their voices echoing off stone, but he could no longer see them. Dank air whipped wildly past him. The cries of the others were cut short. Kern felt himself become tangled in a mass of something sticky and rubbery.

Then he hit the ground.

He lay stunned for long minutes. Then, dizzily, he pulled himself to his feet. A dim gray light sprang to life around him. He could see that his armor was covered with sticky blue cobwebs. That meant someone had tried to use …

His head snapped up. He stood at the edge of a dull, metallic-looking pool of water in the center of a vast cavern. He gasped when he saw his companions suspended in the air twenty feet above the pool, struggling futilely against invisible bonds that gripped them.

A form stood on a rock in the center of the pool, holding a gleaming staff. At first, the being’s outline was obscured by the bright sparks of twilight that swirled within its flesh.

Then, with a surge of fury, Kern recognized the being.

“Yes, Kern, it is I,” Sirana’s voice sneered. “Welcome to the pool of twilight.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, paladin,” Sirana’s voice leered as Kern raised the Hammer of Tyr.

He hesitated.

Sirana’s wings fluttered. She waved her silvery staff, and Kern’s friends danced in the air above the pool like puppets on strings. Daile was thrashing like a caged animal, while Trooper muttered a stream of curses. Miltiades and Gamaliel were having no better luck than the venerable paladin. The magical trap was too strong, even for those two most powerful warriors. Unable to use their hands, neither Evaine nor Listle could cast any spell. But the invisible bonds did not prevent Listle from tossing a few choice insults down at Sirana. The half-fiend ignored the elf’s imaginative taunts.

“Strike me with that precious hammer of yours, Kern, and you’re going to ruin this useful staff as well. If you destroy the Staff of Twilight your beloved friends will plunge into my pool.”

The steely waters sucked and gurgled hungrily about the rock in the pool’s center.

“And when they do, paladin, they’ll be fused with zombie corpses that wait in the pool’s depths, ready to help your friends turn into creatures of darkness.” Sirana raised her gnarled arms exultantly. “Now that would be a sight worth seeing. The lovely sorceress Evaine, sprouting from the back of a decomposing troll, recruited into my zombie army!” Sirana’s eyes flashed. “Or perhaps you’d rather see what creatures I have ready to burrow into the flesh of the pretty little elf….”

She flicked the staff, and Listle screamed as she dropped a few inches, dangling closer to the perilous surface of the pool.

With a growl, Kern lowered the Hammer of Tyr.

“There is one way you can save your precious friends,” Sirana’s all-pervasive voice cooed. “Except for the one you call Miltiades, that vile metal can of moldering bones. There will be no saving that… that heinous defiler of my father’s tower. I plan to grind that wretched skeleton to dust!” Unseen magical hands shook Miltiades violently. His skeletal body rattled inside his armor, though his ever-stoic expression did not waver. “However, I will free the others—even the treacherous sorceress, Evaine—if you will do just one tiny thing. Drop the Hammer of Tyr into the pool.”

Kern scowled, gritting his teeth. He clenched the holy relic tightly. It was his destiny to return the hammer to Phlan. He couldn’t simply cast it into the pool. Yet if he did not, it looked as if his friends would die. Slowly, he extended the hammer out over the pool’s edge.

“Kern, don’t!” Listle managed to cry out. Invisible bonds squeezed the elf brutally, silencing her.

“Do it, paladin!”

Kern clenched his jaw, loosening his grip….

Thunder split the air.

Jagged chunks of stone crashed to the cavern’s floor as a hole burst open in the ceiling above. Something crashed through with a deafening noise.

A vast black dragon.

Kern froze in astonishment, realizing it was the beast Trooper had called Dusk.

The dragon circled menacingly.

“How have you forced me to return here, sorceress?” the dragon hissed.

The half-fiend laughed shrilly. “Just because you are guardian of the pool no longer—and I am guardian in your place—does not mean your pact with the pool is broken. When you accepted the power I granted you, you also accepted shackles that bind you to me. You cannot ignore my call, Dusk!”

“This cannot be!” the dragon shrieked. Brilliant silver sparks danced in his one good eye. “I was on the verge of sending a thousand evil dragons against the cities of the Moonsea. The dragon-rage was about to begin!”

Kern gasped as the beast whirled dangerously close to his friends. They bobbed up and down in the dragon’s wake, like leaves buffeted by the wind.

“Your petty dragon-rage means nothing to me,” Sirana’s voice snapped. “I have need of you here. These vile creatures intend to destroy the pool of twilight. Without its magic, you wouldn’t have the power of a garden snake, Dusk. Now, obey my command. Kill these intruders for me.” She pointed the staff directly at Kern. “And start with this puppy-paladin.”

“I am not your slave,” the dragon bellowed. His vast wings propelled his sinuous body toward the cavern’s ceiling.

“As long as I am guardian of the pool, you must obey me, Dusk!”

The dragon threw his head back, trumpeting his fury. “Then you will die, sorceress, and command me no more!”

Dusk barked a magical word. Suddenly a globe of impenetrable darkness sprang into being around the rock Sirana stood upon. Folding his wings back against his scaly body, the dragon dove toward the inky sphere.

At the same time, brilliant silver-gray streaks of magic from Sirana’s staff shattered the globe of darkness. Dusk accelerated his descent, extending his sicklelike claws.

Sirana waved a hand frantically, and a shimmering haze appeared around her an instant before the dragon struck.

His blow glanced off the magical shield in a spray of sparks. With a bellow, he winged back toward the cavern’s ceiling. Sirana smiled smugly, but the force of the dragon’s blow had managed to knock her off balance. She teetered on the edge of the rock, arms flailing. Then she tumbled backward into the pool. The Staff of Twilight flew from her hand.

Kern watched in horror as the staff tumbled and rolled. It stopped less than a handspan from the edge.

Daile gasped. “We’re sinking!” the ranger shouted.

Kern looked up in horror. Sure enough, his six friends were all gradually descending toward the pool’s surface.

“Can’t one of you blasted spellcasters do something?” Trooper snapped. “I’ve already had my bath this year!”

Both Evaine and Listle were powerless. Kern swore. Somehow he had to get that staff.

The waters of the pool frothed angrily. Something began to rise out of the depths, something huge. Gray foam ran from its sides as it lifted higher and higher, reaching toward the cavern’s heights.

Sirana.

The gigantic, misshapen form of the half-fiend sorceress stood a full fifty feet high. Twilight-colored specks danced beneath her skin like stars gone mad. She reached out colossal arms.

“Fight me now, wyrm!”

The dragon screamed and once again plummeted toward her. The companions could only watch in dread fascination as the two titans grappled with each other. They had their own troubles. Inch by inch, they continued to be lowered toward the surface of the pool.

Dusk’s claws raked Sirana’s body, and searing magic crackled through the dragon. The reek of burned flesh filled the cavern. Dusk ignored the pain. The dragon’s snapping jaws closed on Sirana’s throat. At the same moment, a dozen spikes of brilliant magic punched through Dusk’s body like white-hot spears. Neither monster dared to loose its hold on the other as they began to sink.

Locked in a fatal embrace, dragon and gigantic sorceress disappeared into the pool of twilight.

The torpid waters closed over them with a gurgling sound, silencing their inhuman screams. A ripple spread across the pool’s surface. Then all was still.