Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

Following his fingerpoint, she saw an unnaturally large alligator sunning itself. The beast had six legs and a double tail. Four eyes were perched at the top of its snout. Two other alligators lay near it, these smaller and looking normal.

“Sable likes strange plants and animals,” he said. “When the overlords discovered the secret of making spawn—creatures like draconians, but not quite so powerful—Sable instead tried to corrupt ordinary creatures. Oh, she made some of her own spawn all right. I saw dozens of them each day in Shrentak, but she favored ones with arms so long that the creatures’ fingers dragged across the ground, wings too short for flying, heads so massive they needed thick collars to keep them upright. Takhisis, the greatest dragon of all, made me. She made all draconians by corrupting eggs. What right do dragons have to interfere so?”

“Never figured a sivak for a philosopher,” Feril said, half kidding, but now the elf stared in horror at the mutated alligator. “There is not enough sorry in this world,” she repeated. Then she moved ahead, threading her way through another mangrove and not making a sound when thorns slashed at her exposed arms.

It was nearly sunset, and the sivak called for her to stop and rest.

“I’m worn down,” he explained. “My feet ache. It’ll be dark soon, and maybe Dhamon can fly us a little then. It’s not much farther down to that scale somewhere near the river. I think we’re getting very close to it, in fact.”

She nodded. “The terrain looks familiar from my scrying, but we should be able to make it there on foot before nightfall…if we hurry. I want to keep going until it’s dark. Then, you’re right, perhaps Dhamon can fly us the rest of the way.”

He rubbed at his sore legs, marveling at her stamina. “All right. Fine, fine. Keep going, and I’ll keep following.” As he spoke, her shadow began to separate and expand. Within minutes, Dhamon had joined the discussion.

“I don’t like it here,” Dhamon said. “It’s too quiet.”

Ragh’s ears pricked up. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed. Been talking to Feril too much. Let myself get distracted.” His narrowed eyes peered into the foliage all around them. “Don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a predator of some sort.”

The flowered vines hung down so thick everywhere that they formed a curtain. Only shadows could be glimpsed through them. Moss grew dark on the vines.

“Yes, I agree,” Feril said. “Something is out there. Maybe it’s a predator. Maybe it’s something else. I don’t care to find out. That’s why we should keep moving.”

Dhamon took the lead now, passing by rows of cypress and other hardwoods that were tolerant of the steamy temperature and watery soil. A few oddities caught his attention—a water snake with two heads and an unusual scale pattern, an unusually big caiman with knobs on its back that made it look like a fallen tree. Some of the plants were aberrant, too—ferns with woody stems taller than Feril, blades of saw grass towering above the cattails, lianas and strips of moss hanging so thick from branches as to completely cover their host trees.

He stopped at a hedge of buttonwoods, cedar, and willow birch stretching more than forty feet high. A bird cried shrilly, then another. In the distance a large cat snarled. More sounds put Dhamon at ease. He could have sworn he’d been this way before, but he didn’t remember it being so lush and overgrown.

Ragh was looking at the high plant wall too, scratching his head. “Short way is through it,” the draconian said. “Easy way is around it. The best way is over it, but there is still too much light and we don’t need you spotted.”

Dhamon shoved his head through the hedge, pushing over the trunk of a buttonbush and flattening it beneath his massive body. “I vote for the short way.”

“The short, noisy way,” the sivak muttered as he gestured with an arm for Feril to follow first.

The hedge was another of Sable’s unnatural creations, they soon discovered. It was part of an ever-changing maze, the trees and bushes growing and shifting in front of their eyes. Feril was captivated, twisting her fingers in the supple branches of a shadberry and seemingly talking to the trees they passed. Rath rolled his eyes in exasperation as Dhamon continued to lead the way.

Soon they were surrounded by the green maze. Ragh felt disoriented. Dhamon grew frustrated and tossed his head back and forth, snapping trees and slashing at vines and trampling grass patches that tried to entangle him.

“Don’t hurt the plant life, Dhamon.” Feril had come up near one of his legs and was stretching up and tugging on a dewclaw. “Stop killing everything. The trees don’t threaten us. I was wrong. We can wait…wait until it’s dark and we can fly over this. When it’s dark, it will be harder for Sable’s eyes to see you.”

Dhamon twisted his head to look in her eyes. His expression was no longer angry. “It will all grow back, Feril. Don’t worry. Any damage I do today will be repaired by tomorrow. The swamp is as strong and magical as the overlord.”

That seemed to satisfy Feril, and indeed she began to aid their progress. She stretched out with her senses, intensely feeling the warmth and dampness of the ground beneath her feet, the roots that raced everywhere, the tangled trunks and branches, the clotted leaves. When she twirled her fingers, the branches in front of Dhamon parted. Even Ragh grinned to see that. Feril lost herself in the rhapsody of the magic. Like a musical conductor, she directed the plants and trees to bend out of their way, then spring back into place after they passed by.

This went on for some time. Dhamon happily allowed Feril to lead. Ragh fell behind the two and watched the pair with some envy.

“Legs are really tired, though,” Ragh muttered to himself. “Walking through this muck isn’t easy. Won’t need to walk through this much longer, I trust. Find that scale and get out of here. That’s my intention.” His voice dropped lower. “He’s going to have to hire some bearers to go to his lair, get all the treasure. We have to sell all those gems and jewels and buy us a mansion.”

They came upon piles of bones, colored a bright pearly white, probably because the swamp’s denizens had picked them so clean they gleamed. Feril stopped at the first pile, her fingers fluttering over a bone longer than herself.

“This was once a young green dragon,” she pronounced. “An innocent victim—it was flying over this swamp to reach its home in the Qualinesti forest.” At her gesture, the vines ebbed away from the bones so she could inspect them better.

“You can tell all that how?” Dhamon’s head loomed over her. Saliva threaded its way over his lower lip and spilled onto her tunic, instantly staining it. She coughed awkwardly and moved out from under him. He instantly edged away, knowing he had upset her.

“Somehow,” the Kagonesti said gently, “I can picture the dragon, and I can see Sable flying up toward it. I see Sable’s jaws opening then closing on the young green’s neck. I sense that it happened quite some time ago.”

“During the Dragon Purge.”

“Likely, Dhamon. This bone over here is from a different green, a little larger. It was another dragon that met the same fate.”

She rose, her magic still controlling the bushes and trees in the maze and urging them to part. They found more and more bones along the way.

“This came from a blue,” Feril said, pointing, as she passed another large bone. “Over there, that came from a bronze that presented more of a threat. Sable had some difficulty besting the bronze, and she still bears a scar from that fight. The scar gives her pride but it also displeases her.”