Ed Greenwood - The Dragon's Doom

Embra barely heard him. She found it hard and slow work to even understand his words, so enthralled was she with the surging power. This was far greater even than the flow of two Dwaer-Stones, which she'd never forget the feel of, and still 'twas increasing, rising, rising…

Such power is true glory to those who work sorcery. Embra moaned and drooled and shuddered, never wanting it to end. She was singing, high and heart-full and wordlessly, lost in the ecstasy…

And the woman in the center of the room burst into raging flames, whirling and clawing the air and becoming too bright to see.

Craer screamed her name and hacked at the air with his dagger, seeking somehow to cut the force holding him against the wall, and struggle to where he could reach his beloved… in vain.

Tshamarra was flying sinuously now; amid the flames he thought he could see something like a tail, and perhaps wings… she whirled, as if she was looking at him, and then whirled away again, to the window, and-out!

Blazing shutters fell away in embers to the floor, and the room was suddenly darker. Outside, something huge and awesome roared exultation at the stars.

"O, Lady, protect her," Craer prayed, and burst into tears. As if in answer to his words, the room flared into sudden brightness again-as beside him, Embra burst into flames, too.

Craer stared at the Lady of Jewels in bewildered horror as she sped toward the window, flying in a halo of fire, her clothes darkening and crumbling to ashes as she went. She was singing, still lost in pleasure, and Craer saw shimmering scales grow all over her magnificent body as she soared across the chamber. Just before she reached the window, her radiance and her flight faltered together, and she sank down to cling to the charred and smoking windowsill, gazing up into the night outside, and gasped, "Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, Tash…"

"What?" Craer sobbed, feeling the force that was holding him weakening, but still unable to move away from the wall. "What's happened to-?"

Embra sighed-and fell, her flames winking out. The Dwaer flashed, and she twisted in midair in its glow and came gliding desperately back toward Craer. At the same time, the unseen force holding him abruptly faded, and he hit the ground running.

Embra was coming at him like an arrow, arms spread wide, and Craer hastily flung his knife away and moved to meet her, just… so!

The procurer could move like a cat when he had to. His grasp was deft and precise, catching her shoulders, slowing her as he bent over backwards, and then kicking up from the ground just enough to bring them crashing to the floor together, Craer underneath. They skidded along on his leather-clad shoulders and back until they came to a gentle stop together.

Trembling, Embra sagged into his grasp. "She lives, Craer. Aglirta has a new Dragon."

Overduke Delnbone stared into her tear-filled eyes-and then shook his head in furious denial.

"No!" he snarled. "She'll be killed, slain as Sarasper was! And turned into a great beast like he was! I'll… I'll never hold her again!"

The Dwaer seemed to have become welded between Embra's breasts. She sat up as he howled, plucked it forth into her hand, touched it to Craer's forehead, and murmured something.

And the procurer was snatched from dark anguish into a sort of wondering, slightly melancholy calm.

Sitting astride him, Embra smiled down at him. Almost idly he watched the golden scales fade away, one by one, from her beautiful body. Gods above, she was right under his nose and bared to his gaze at last: soft, sleek, and… very warm.

The Lady of Jewels laid herself down into his embrace again, and wrapped her arms around him. "She'll be all right, Craer," she said soothingly. "The Dragon has always had the power to shift shape between its own former form and its dragon-body. She's more powerful than the Serpent, now-and she can't forget you. Right now, your love is everything to her."

She stroked Craer's forehead, and he suddenly became aware that her breasts were brushing against him as she moved.

Embarrassed, he shifted his hands awkwardly, and discovered he was shaking as well as blushing. "I… I always dreamed of holding you thus," he muttered, "but now… I'm almost scared."

Embra laughed fondly. "Don't be, Longfingers," she breathed, and kissed him.

Craer snapped his head back in shock, almost shoving her away. Embra's breath was hot. Sweet, spicy… and laced with tiny flames!

The Great Serpent hefted his Dwaer. "Go!" he said sternly, and let its flash send a last band of Aglirtans, Serpent-priests and all, off to Flowfoam.

He was suddenly alone with the beacon fire, here on a dark hill somewhere in Aglirta.

Ingryl Ambelter looked up at the stars, and then at dawn coming over the far mountains in the east, beyond the vast Loaurimm… the peaks that spawned the mighty Silverflow. He smiled. Soon it would all be his-every last tree, castle, gem, and lass of it. Soon…

"That should do it," he said aloud, calling on the Stone to spin himself a scrying-whorl. "There's no need to risk myself on Flowfoam-I'll watch from here."

"Oh, but there is," an old, familiar voice said coldly and firmly, as the air parted in Dwaer-shimmering. Gadaster!

Even as Ambelter stared at the skull-headed sorceress and snatched for control of his Stone, letting the whorl collapse into a crackling whirlwind of scorching flames, the slender arms that had belonged to Maelra Bowdragon lifted two Dwaerindim, one in either hand-and sent bolts racing at him.

Ambelter clawed desperately at the Thrael, calling up its full force in such frantic haste that Serpent-priests screamed and fainted up and down the Vale.

Desperately he dragged power out of his Dwaer, into the Thrael, to wrap himself in a great shield-But the bolts slammed not into the Great Serpent but into his Stone.

It flashed, ringing like a bell-and vanished from the hilltop, taking a startled Spellmaster with it.

Idiim Bowdragon clawed blindly at the Master of Bats, his eyes fixed on the saying-globes. "That's my Maelra!" he screamed. "I must go to her! I must-"

Dolmur cast a calming spell on Ithim even before their host could shake himself free of Idiim's hands.

The younger of the two old Bowdragon wizards blinked-and then suddenly seemed to remember that he was in the tower of the Master of Bats, and stood within the power of that fell sorcerer, whose bats were whirling around the chamber in a great angry cloud, even now.

"Your daughter?" Bats settled thickly on the shoulders of Arkle Huldaerus, their eyes glaring in unison at Ithim, as their master said derisively, "She holds two Dwaer-Stones in her hands. Whatever you were hoping to do, don't bother! She needs aid from no one-and there's nothing all three of us and everything in this tower can do against what she wields." He turned back to the flickering globes. 'Just watch."

The Dragon soared above the palace, vast and scaled and terrible. Whirling in the air on wings of bright flame, it clawed at the glittering stars and roared in delight.

This was power! Gods, this was… beyond belief.

Tshamarra Talasorn basked in the screams from Flowfoam beneath her, the puny Serpent-spells crackling up at her to stab too short, and fall away. She lashed her tail, exulting in her sheer might as she banked and soared and slid in rolling curves through the air…

Gods, if Craer could see her now! He-

Craer.

In a trice she turned and roared down out of the sky, claws spread, jaws opening. These fools below were endangering her beloved, menacing her friends, threatening Aglirta…

She struck savagely, smashing through bodies until she came to a ragged stop in the gardens. There she bit and tore, slashed with her tail, and spat flame until none were left but the burning, broken dead, and men who screamed as they fled. Then the Dragon bounded into the air, turned, and plunged down again, slashing out with a claw as she raced low over a garden meadow, transforming frantically running men into torn, tumbling meat.