Jean Rabe - The Lake of Death

Dhamon had disentangled himself from the canopy and was back aloft, streaking toward Sable again. He came at her hard, lashing out with his tail, catching hers and holding it fast as he buffeted the Overlord with his huge wings.

“You can’t win, Dhamon,” Ragh whispered. “Become a shadow and run from here. Nothing can beat such a foe, my friend. You can’t do it alone, not by yourself.”

“True. It took a cunning trick and an entire army in the Qualinesti forest of Wayreth to take down the Green Peril.” This voice was thin, lacking strength. The sivak was surprised to hear it again, coming from behind him. “No, your friend cannot beat the overlord. I fear the Black is even more formidable than Beryl was.”

“Obelia? So you are still here. Well, you’ll soon die, me too,” Ragh told Obelia. “Dhamon can’t save himself, so he certainly can’t save us.”

The ghost drifted past the draconian’s shoulder, lingering there as he gazed at Feril, her attention still riveted on the battle in the sky.

“Did you know about Feril?” Ragh asked Obelia. “Feril and Sable?”

“Ah, my poor, poor elf-fish,” murmured Obelia distractedly, addressing Feril and not answering the draconian directly. “This should not be your fate. I thought you were destined for greater things than serving a vile dragon.”

Feril inhaled sharply, barely glancing at Obelia. “This elf body,” she sneered in Sable’s voice, “is destined to serve me for as long as she is useful! That is her great destiny. What is yours, dead one?” Her back rigid and her arms held out straight, she splayed her fingers and aimed at the trees on the far side of the lake.

Sable and Dhamon were locked in struggle above the canopy. The overlord’s weight slowly bore Dhamon down toward the trees. Suddenly, the branches whipped and unfurled, grabbing at his limbs and wings. Vines wrapped around him. Dhamon was caught, and Sable’s talons flashed in the light of the setting sun.

“Poor, poor elf-fish,” Obelia repeated as he stared in dismay. Ragh saw that the specter was barely visible now; he was more like a vague shimmering disturbance in the air. His form inched slowly forward until he stood just behind the unsuspecting Kagonesti, then Obelia put his arms around the elf and embraced her, merging with the elf’s body. Feril shuddered. Her lips trembled as Ragh saw Obelia’s ghostly fingers reach deep into the elf’s heart.

“Be quick, Ragh! There is little, so very little left of me.”

Momentarily, Ragh felt the vines relax around him. He tugged at them until he was free.

“The scale,” Obelia whispered. “Get the scale.”

Not entirely certain what Obelia meant, Ragh rushed toward the skull totem and snatched up the scale Feril had used to shatter some of the magical baubles. He grabbed the scroll tube and pulled the stopper off with his teeth, then raced back to the Kagonesti. He could see the wispy Obelia, inside Feril, gesturing.

“Break the magic of the scale,” Obelia whispered, his voice softer than ever.

“How? What do I…” Ragh’s eyes widened. He understood. The sivak cursed in an ancient language and quickly began to read from the scroll he had flattened on the grass. Obelia appeared over his shoulder, floating, and reading the same words along with him. Feril, Ragh saw at a glance, was in a kind of trance.

Ragh tried to bend Sable’s scale. He threw all his strength at it, straining his muscles from the effort. He was enveloped by incredible noise—Sable cursing through Feril’s lips, Sable howling in triumph during her battle with Dhamon, trees snapping, the air filled with dragon breath and beating wings.

Finally he heard a loud snap as the scale in his hands cracked. That was followed by a keening wail coming from Feril and from Sable across the lake.

Ragh looked up to see the Kagonesti fall to her knees, hands holding her stomach, her head pitched forward. Looking around, he couldn’t see Obelia.

“Feril?” Ragh sucked in air. “Obelia? Feril!”

Slowly she raised her head, tears streaming from her sweat-streaked face. Her breathing was ragged, her palms were red with her blood where she’d gouged herself. She struggled to stand as Ragh edged warily away.

Then he saw her familiar blue eyes, flecked with bits of gold and green; all the harshness and severity had left her face.

“Ragh…by Habbakuk’s grace…forgive me, I meant to kill you. I used the trees to trap. I couldn’t help myself, I…” She turned to stare across the lake.

Dhamon and Sable were high above the canopy, twisting in air, locked in a death embrace. The last of the sun’s rays caught scales from both of them, falling from the sky. Sable was raking Dhamon with her claws. He hung limply in her grasp.

“She’s killing him,” Feril cried. “By all the gods, she’s killing him!”

A determined Ragh picked up the scroll again, seeing that the words were faint but still legible. He hurried to the lakeshore, wading in, dead fish swirling all around him, reaching and searching for something. “There!” Cradling the scroll under his right arm, he pulled out a scale the size of a small shield. “Hope this is one of Sable’s,” he said to Feril, who had rushed to join him. “Don’t have time to be sure.”

Then he was out of the water and rushing to the base of the skull totem where he scooped up a few trinkets Feril hadn’t destroyed. He spread them on the scale and said a quick prayer to any god that would listen. Then, reading from the scroll, remembering everything Obelia had whispered to him before, he held the scale.

Feril knelt at his side. “Do you know what you are doing, Ragh? If he becomes human now, she’ll kill him instantly. Is that what you…”

Ragh shook his head, reading faster. Feril took Obelia’s part, adding her voice to his and directing all of her inner magic into the shield-shaped scale.

All around them the swamp roiled and shook. Sable and Dhamon plunged into the canopy then rose again. The ground shuddered. The creatures of Sable’s territory—the natural and the perversely transformed— wailed their panic.

“Now,” Ragh said, whispering urgently.

Together, he and Feril, with an effort that depleted all their remaining strength, smashed at the scale, breaking it. They looked skyward.

Dhamon slammed into Sable, giving her a jolt that sent her tumbling end over end toward the lake. She opened her wings in the last instant and hovered. Dhamon, bleeding from dozens of wounds, struck her again, diving forcefully into her from above, with all his weight slamming her down under the water.

The water exploded, steam blasted forth, and the air filled with sulfur. All the remaining creatures of the lake popped, floating and bloated, to the surface. The grass that rimmed the bank receded and turned brown, and the trees lining the shore died.

Ragh and Feril backed away from the lake as a great bubble formed, then erupted, with Dhamon and Sable soaring skyward one last time. Blood and scales dripped from the two dragons. The sky turned the color of dark blood.

It may have been hours or minutes that the two dragons fought on. Sable was the larger, but now seemingly the weaker. Her movements had become slow and jerky, and she had to exert herself merely to stay aloft.

Once, it appeared to Ragh and Feril, she tried to slip away, but Dhamon clamped his jaws on her throat and slashed at her underbelly. His tail twisted around hers to grip her tightly as his wings beat furiously to keep both of them in the air. His wings looked like battered sails, shredded in places. Still, he fought on.

Blood and scales rained down. The world was filled with horrible noise and the poisoned breath and hideous screams of dragons. Sable hissed and spat, twisting and contorting, trying every means of staving off Dhamon.