Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

The scale was black as midnight, covering Grannaluured’s chest and abdomen. The scale was bigger than the one that had been branded against Dhamon’s human leg, and it was solid, not streaked with silver as Dhamon’s had been.

“It had to have come from Sable,” Ragh hissed. “No other dragon on Krynn could have…”

“We don’t know where it came from or why she’s cursed with it,” Feril cut in. She stepped close to Grannaluured, gently touching the top of the dwarf’s head, sticky with blood from Ragh’s blows. “I need to heal her.”

“No!” Dhamon bellowed, his head thrust above the canopy, his rumbling word shaking the ground and rustling the trees. “Ragh is right. She is one of Sable’s evil minions. Feril, remember Malys’s scale? This is the same kind.”

Feril shook her head as she fussed over Grannaluured. “It’s not her fault, any more than it was yours. Don’t worry, I’ll not let them hurt you, I promise Needle.”

Dhamon snorted in contempt, letting out a breath that stirred the trees and undergrowth all the way down to the saw grass. He exchanged a hard look with the sivak. “ Admirable of you, Feril. Keep your eye on the dwarf, Ragh.”

“My pleasure.” The draconian bent and grabbed up Grannaluured’s pick and tossed it several feet away. “All makes sense now, Dhamon. When I watched Feril and Obelia scry in the water, looking for Sable’s scales, we saw faces of men and dwarves. By the Dark Queen’s head, I swear now one of them was Needle’s mug. Thought nothing of it at the time, but I bet there were scales on all those puppets of Sable. Had to be. Bet ol’ Campfire, Churt, and Feldspar had scales, too. Bet their client for the dragonmetal was old Sable herself. Damnable dragon!”

Dhamon’s eyes were cloudy. “All the pain I felt from that scale. The dwarves surely have felt the same.” He glanced at Feril, busy with her healing efforts.

Ragh shot a question at Grannaluured. “Hey, how long has Sable been inside your head?” He poked her with a talon, drawing an irate look from Feril.

Grannaluured didn’t answer for several moments, as Feril continued to treat the wound on her head and prod her elsewhere to make sure she was all right.

“Yes, I serve the mistress of the swamp,” Grannaluured answered at last. “For more than two decades I have been blessed to wear her scale.”

Dhamon’s eyes widened in horror. “Needle…” His voice was a whisper, but it rumbled easily to her. “Does Sable see through your eyes?”

Pride filled Grannaluured’s face. “Yes, through my eyes,” she echoed. “She sees what I see, hears what’ I hear, feels the wind that washes across me. I am an extension of the mistress of the swamp. Glorious Sable has blessed me. She sees you…filthy, disgusting dragon-who-is-not-a-dragon. Stinking, hideous beast! She sees you!”

“She’s mad, is what I think,” Ragh said. “Driven mad by the damnable Black.” He stared at Feril, busy healing, then glanced again at Grannaluured, who was wildly casting her eyes around and muttering to herself. “Elf, she’s a lost soul, you must realize that. The dragon’s been inside her so long she hasn’t got any willpower left.”

“Feril knows,” Dhamon said sadly. He closed his great eyes, digging his talons into the wet ground. “And Sable knows we’re after one of her scales. The dwarf’s been stringing us along, hindering us, while Sable waits and watches.”

Ragh stabbed a finger at the dwarf. “We can use her scale! Rip it off her traitorous chest and use it for the spell!”

“Yes,” Dhamon said.

“No,” Feril interjected sharply, “It would kill her.”

“So what?” said Ragh. “She’s better off dead than having Sable in her head! Dhamon knows that! He prayed for death when he wore Malys’s scale.”

Feril pushed Ragh’s hand away. “Can’t use that scale anyway. The magic in it won’t be strong enough—it’s been siphoned into the dwarf for too long.”

“Dhamon, I should kill her.”

“Yes, you should,” said the dragon. Ragh and Feril both tensed. “Let her be for now, Ragh.”

Grannaluured’s eyes grew wide. Her voice was even, unsettling. “It doesn’t matter what you do to me, silly sivak and stupid Dhamon. Mistress Sable hates you, Dhamon-dragon. She will stop your plans and crush you. She’ll make certain you’re never human again. She’ll make certain you’re dead.”

Dhamon pulled back from the trees, leaving Ragh and Feril to the dwarf. He moved silently away, listening to their continued heated discussion.

“The other dwarves, Needle…were they Sable’s spies, too?” Ragh demanded.

The dwarf didn’t answer.

“We can’t just leave Needle here,” Feril said. “She’s old and still injured a little.”

“She’s a needle all right. A needle in our hearts. A needle for Sable, her eyes stabbing us.” Ragh snarled at the dwarf. “Sable can watch over her here, if she’s a mind to, heal her the rest of the way or let her rot.” The draconian squatted and began putting the few undamaged baubles back in the satchel. “You better pray you haven’t ruined Dhamon’s chances, Needle. If you’ve broken so much that the spell’s beyond us, I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself, Sable or no Sable!” To Feril, he added fiercely, “Needle—and Sable—don’t know where we’re going next. We can still make this work. Oh, she’ll be looking for us, and if we don’t hurry, some of her other ‘eyes’ will find us. Let’s get moving.”

Feril cautiously backed away from Grannaluured, picking up one magical trinket Ragh had missed. She passed him the scroll she had taken away from the dwarf. He carefully put it in the satchel.

“Dhamon’s right. I should kill her now,” Ragh said. “For her sake and ours.”

“He also told you to leave her be.”

“I should kill her first and leave her be afterwards. C’mon, let’s find Dhamon.”

Ragh left first. Feril followed after a few moments, catching up with him and handing him one more figurine that had escaped his notice.

“You can’t really feel sorry for Needle,” Ragh said.

Feril ruefully touched the tattoo the dwarf had etched on her arm. “There’s not enough ‘sorry’ in this world for what the dragons have wrought,” the Kagonesti said.

Dhamon stomped ahead, his tail swiping at small trees and his heavy footfalls crushing the undergrowth. He was so angry he forgot all stealth. He lurched against a golden python wrapped around the trunk of a tree. The beautiful but deadly snake fell limp to the ground, and when Feril hurried by, trying hard to keep up with Dhamon and Ragh, the Kagonesti stared at it sadly.

The dragon paused to feast on a giant-sized crocodile he managed to pin beneath a claw, crunching it quickly, then growling when a second crocodile eluded him. He brushed against the mossy trunk of a shaggybark, coating his side with foul-smelling lichen. Then he stomped through a thick swath of mud and stagnant water, which altered his scent so that he reeked all the worse.

Eventually they reached a spot where the trees grew closer together, and in a pique Dhamon began to swat at them. The trees splintered, bent, and some were uprooted entirely, with their avian occupants taking to the sky, shrieking.

“Dhamon!” Feril screamed to be heard. “Stop this!”

A dozen trees later, he did stop. He turned to regard her, the blood from his crocodile feast still dripping from his mouth. A glimmer of remorse flickered in his dark eyes, then he folded in on himself and became a shadow, never saying anything. For a long time then, he drifted back and forth between Ragh and Feril as they wended their way toward the very heart of Sable’s swamp.