Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

A little farther, deeper into the maze, she pointed to other bones. “Those came from a small gold. Sable was especially pleased with this kill. The gold was agile, and its hide was thick.”

“Stop.” Ragh stared at the last pile of bones. “I keep noticing something, something that makes me want to be somewhere else. There are no skulls. Leg bones, ribs, thin bones from wings—plenty of all those. Not a single head.”

“No,” Feril admitted. “I don’t see any.”

Ragh ground the ball of his foot against the mud. “Well, that’s bad news. That tells me we’re not headed in the right direction. Yeah, this place is familiar to me, but bad familiar. I thought we were on a path toward the river.”

“Aren’t we?” Dhamon asked. “I can certainly smell the water.”

“So can I,” Feril said, “and it smells close. It has smelled close for quite some time, though. Come to think of it, the water smells unusually…”

“Bad,” Ragh finished. “Stale. Not fresh and moving like river water.” Ragh smacked his fist against his palm. “Dhamon, let’s fly! I don’t care how much light there is! Let’s make sure of this place, find out where we are. ’Cause I don’t think we’re near the river at all. I think we’ve gotten turned around somehow in this damn maze, and it’s gotten all quiet again. Notice it? Way too quiet.”

Feril tipped her head, listening. “It is quiet again,” she agreed, “hut not unduly so. I hear cranes in the distance.” A moment passed, and she nodded when she heard wings overhead. “I disagree, Ragh. We’re close— too close to stop.”

Dhamon shrugged, plunging ahead in the same direction, deeper into the maze. All discussion ended. A few minutes later, so did the maze.

Stretching before them was a large lake ringed by tall plants. In the distance to the north, they could see where the river or a large tributary fed into the lake. The surface was calm, a dark blue color speckled with gold from the setting sun. The water was stagnant along the banks and coated with a viscous slime.

“Yes, this place is familiar,” Dhamon said. “I realize now I was here years ago, with Rig and Fiona.” He looked to the south shore and saw a monstrous totem of skulls. Faint lights shone from the eye sockets—green, blue, red, gold, and more, all the colors the dragons had been in life. At the base of the statue, nearly obscured by the grass that grew tall around it, rested a black dragon scale.

“This was the last place I wanted to come looking for a scale,” Ragh grumbled. “Wonderful. And I led us here. What was I thinking?”

“You were thinking you wanted to help your friend,” Feril said. She was heading straight toward the totem, eyes fixed on the scale. “There it is.”

Ragh followed, glancing over his shoulder and noticing that Dhamon hadn’t budged. Dhamon was staring at the lake, which was nearly as large as Nalis Aren. Feril was already at the scale, kneeling in front of it and motioning to Ragh.

“I’ll need your help,” Feril called to him.

“I suppose you do. I’ve got the dead Qualinesti, after all,” Ragh said, adjusting the satchel on his back, “and all the magical baubles that Needle didn’t destroy.” He paused, adding for Dhamon’s benefit, “Dhamon, I hope with my heart this works. I hope we’ll be strolling into a tavern somewhere…some place accepting of me…and buying tall tankards of ale, the two of us. We even got some clothes in here for you. Feril got ’em in Nalis Aren. They’ve had a while to dry out.”

Dhamon said nothing, just kept staring at his reflection in the lake.

“Ragh!” Feril called, motioning. The sivak loped toward her, handing the satchel to her.

“I hope you can do this fast,” Ragh said. “This place sends shivers down my spine.”

Feril smoothed the grass away from the scale. It was large, mirror-slick, and shiny; her own expression stared back at her. This scale was loose, just waiting for them— simply shed by Sable and left here, forgotten.

Without a word, Feril began sorting through the trinkets, separating the metal beads from the carved figurines and setting aside the scroll. There were two vials of potions that Grannaluured hadn’t smashed, and these Feril snatched up and opened. She poured the contents on the ground, then tossed the vials away.

“Hey, are you supposed to do it that way…”

Before the sivak could say anything else, Feril clutched the scale with both hands, lifted it up and brought the tip of it down on one of the figurines, shattering it. She raised the scale and brought it down on another.

“What about Obelia…don’t you think you should call out the ghost of Obelia and ask for his advice? After all, he’s the sorcerer.”

She smashed a third trinket, then, to Ragh’s astonishment, raised the shield above the flask that held the Qualinesti ghost, bringing it down hard and cracking the flask. A wisp spiraled up as the water and fingerbones from Nalis Aren spilled out.

“Feril! I don’t understand…”

The Kagonesti whirled on Ragh. Her eyes were black and shiny and filled with an anger and emptiness that was uncharacteristic. She swung Sable’s scale at the sivak and he dodged at the last moment, realization dawning on his craggy face.

“By the memory of the Dark Queen, Feril…when did Sable take you?” He jumped out of her way again, noticing she wasn’t as agile as before, but then Feril wasn’t the one doing these things, Ragh knew. It was the overlord. Feril wouldn’t have destroyed the magical trinkets. Feril would have called out Obelia.

The Kagonesti’s upper lip curled back in a snarl. “In the mountains,” she said, her voice strange and hollow and flat. “When the mountain was crashing down I found her, struggling with one of my scales wedged in a crevice. I knew her as a companion of the Dhamon-dragon, so I took her as my eyes. She is my puppet.”

It was Sable’s voice. The black was speaking through Feril.

“Feril…where’s the scale, Feril?” Ragh edged away, keeping his eyes fixed on the elf, gesturing wildly to Dhamon. “Sable can’t possess you entirely. Tell me, where is the scale that the Black is using to control you?”

Feril obliged with a gloating grin, tugging up her tunic to display a black scale on her stomach. As she dropped the tunic back in place she kicked at the assortment of magical trinkets, scattering them in the tall grass and pools of water.

Ragh felt sick and weak and defeated. “Sable, you foul beast! You could have let him become a human! What does it matter to you? You could have let this magic work. As a human, Dhamon Grimwulf wouldn’t have challenged you, would have left this damnable swamp far behind. You would have won!”

“I’ll still win,” Feril said in the flat, hollow, and eerie voice of Sable, “and the victory will be all the more rewarding. The Dhamon-dragon will be utterly defeated, and his love will have helped destroy him, but I…I will deal the killing blow. I will feel his blood pulse over my talons and down my throat.”

Feril rushed at Ragh, just as the sivak heard Dhamon’s roar from behind him.

The great black dragon had risen from the lake, with at first only her huge eyes visible, like an alligator surfacing slowly in search of prey. Then the entire head, massive and midnight black, scales liquid, overlapping, and gleaming in the pale light of the waning sun, burst from the water. When Sable’s eyes locked onto Dhamon’s, they sparkled with malevolence. The black overlord snorted in derision at her hated foe, the water around her snout bubbling and hissing.

Then she breathed a gout of acid that raced across the surface of the lake toward the shore. Steam rose from the water. The lake surged as the water boiled furiously and a heavy stench like rotten eggs cascaded through the air.