Rytlock roared, "The Destroyer of Life is destroyed!"

But there was no time to celebrate. Destroyers were pounding Big Snaff, denting his cha.s.sis and tearing away the armor around the c.o.c.kpit.

"Help Snaff!" Eir ordered as her mallets bashed a pair of destroyers away.

A moment later, Logan and Caithe and Rytlock arrived. Logan's hammer knocked the head from one destroyer, sending the pulpy thing flying. Rytlock's gauntlet ripped out the chest of another. Caithe's stiletto severed the neck joint of a third.

They were falling more easily now. The Destroyer of Life had been their conduit to the power of the dragon. With him fallen, the destroyers staggered, stunned.

Still, there were dozens to slay.

Eir and her comrades demolished the rock beasts that swarmed Big Snaff, but the golem was burning.

"Get him out!" Eir called, ripping back the heat s.h.i.+eld over the c.o.c.kpit. A great cloud of steam rose from it, but once it cleared, Eir could see Snaff lounging in his harness and grinning in triumph. "We did it!"

"Yes," Eir said, helping Snaff climb from the golem's chest. "I'm glad."

Snaff rubbed his hands together. "Time to deploy the caldera plug." He reached to one corner of the c.o.c.kpit and hoisted a bluish cl.u.s.ter of arcane crystals, dangling from a single cord.

Rytlock rolled his eyes. "You think that thing's going to work?"

"Probably not," Snaff replied with a shrug. "After all, Master Klab made it. Still, we need to give it a try."

"Let's go, then," Eir said, returning the gauntlet to Rytlock.

He slid it on, grinning, and flexed the metal gloves. "On to the caldera!"

With powerstone mallets in hand, Eir led the group in a march up the subterranean volcano. Logan followed to her right and Rytlock to her left. The two asura trundled along behind this advancing wedge, trailed by a watchful Caithe and a growling Garm. Here and there, a destroyer would rise from the smoldering wreckage of the army and charge the group, only to be frozen and bludgeoned and shattered.

Minutes later, the companions reached the crater where the Destroyer of Life had exploded. The blast had carved out a fifty-foot hole in the basalt, and chunks of the champion lay all around. A hundred feet farther on, the team reached the caldera itself, a vast pool of white-hot lava. Within it swam the figures of half-formed destroyers.

Snaff hoisted the caldera plug and stared dubiously at it. "Let's hope Klab knows what he's doing."

"We have to get the stones to the center," Eir said, "but my bow is destroyed."

Snaff took a long look up Rytlock's arm. "Looks like we've got a natural catapult."

"Heh heh. Hand me that thing." Rytlock took the crystalline bundle, sniffed it once, and said, "Stand back." Rytlock pivoted, letting the bundle swing in the air around him. He whirled around and around, gathering speed, and the bundle whistled with wind. At last, grunting, Rytlock released it.

The crystalline bundle flew through the air. It arced upward, growing small, and soared to the center of the caldera. The plug plunged like a meteor, struck the lava, and sank, leaving a black hole. A blue light erupted from the hole, and the edges cooled and hardened.

"Well, that was pretty much a bust," Snaff said.

But the caldera plug wasn't finished. The white-hot magma cooled to red-hot, and then to brown. In a wave out from the central hole, the molten rock solidified, first a mere skin, then a thick plate with cracks running through it. Steam shot up through cracks, and the plate darkened as it thickened.

"It's working," Snaff said incredulously.

Rytlock shook his head. "The crystals did nothing against the Destroyer of Life."

"It was made of elemental fire," Eir said. "Now that the Destroyer of Life is gone, the power of the dragon is cut off. This caldera has once again become natural lava."

The solidifying plate turned black as the heat below it went out. Rivulets stopped flowing from the caldera. Soon, the sea of fire would become a smooth expanse of black basalt.

"It worked!' Rytlock exulted.

"Yeah," Snaff replied emptily. "I just wish I didn't have to tell Klab."

Rytlock arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean? He'll be pleased."

"Exactly."

Whether Klab was pleased or not, the rest of Rata Sum was. It was a heroes' welcome. The walkways of the city were lined with shouting and laughing asura, and children rushed out to drape them with necklaces fas.h.i.+oned from discarded ether crystals.

The Arcane Council stood on one side of Snaff's ziggurat and cheered more loudly than even the children.

Walking in the midst of his friends, Snaff said dourly, "Oh, no."

Zojja turned to him. "What do you mean, 'Oh, no'?"

"Those are the councilors, my dear."

"Of course they are."

"What do the councilors do?"

"They run the city."

"Yes, but the other thing they do is try to rope other people into being councilors so they can go back to inventing."

Zojja laughed. "You think they'll appoint you to a position?"

"I know know they will! Just the sort of spiteful creatures they are!" they will! Just the sort of spiteful creatures they are!"

Zojja tried to look serious. "Too bad we don't have Big Snaff. You could attack."

"Too bad," he echoed darkly.

The companions came to a stop before the Arcane Council.

Councilor Thud waddled forward and lifted his hands, calling for silence. "On behalf of the Arcane Council and empowered as I am by the Arcane Council, I, Councilor Thud-"

"They're going to stick me with pest control," Snaff hissed to Zojja. "I just know it. Thud's been looking for a patsy for months."

"-do hereby welcome the genius Snaff and his apprentice, Zojja-"

"I built those c.o.c.kpits!" she whispered peevishly.

"-and their allies from lands far removed-"

"He can't find the end of this sentence," Snaff noted.

"-to Rata Sum and confer upon such genius the highest honor-"

"Wait just a moment!" shouted Master Klab, inventor of the flying puffball and, most recently, the caldera plug. "What did Snaff do to deserve this honor?"

Councilor Thud's eyebrows fluttered like moths. "He . . . well, he designed a golem and marched it out to defeat the Destroyer of Life before his destroyers could attack Rata Sum."

"Yes, yes, all that. But in a matter of weeks, perhaps days, another army would have spilled from that hole in the ground. Whose invention stopped that? Whose invention ensured peace for years to come?" When Councilor Thud mistook this for a rhetorical question, Master Klab exasperatedly said, "Mine! That's whose!" That's whose!"

"I thought you were working on a magic icebox," Snaff offered innocently.

Master Klab whirled on him. "Not the icebox, but the cold-stone crystals that drive it-the bundle of cold-stone crystals that I gave you to solidify the volcano-the the icebox, but the cold-stone crystals that drive it-the bundle of cold-stone crystals that I gave you to solidify the volcano-the caldera plug caldera plug!"

"Oh, that, that," Snaff averred. He turned to a nonplussed Councilor Thud and said, "He's quite right. His volcano stopper-"

"Caldera plug!"

"Yes, that thing-it really did save the day. Whatever honor you were about to bestow on me should instead go to genius Klab."

Master Klab shot a look of astonished suspicion at Snaff.

A moment later, the suspicion was vindicated when Councilor Thud reached up to the mantle that draped his shoulders, lifted it, and said, "On behalf of the Arcane Council, I hereby appoint Master Klab to the role of director of pest control."

"And iceboxes," added Snaff.

"No. That would just be silly." Thud said as he lowered the mantle around Master Klab's neck.

Klab's red face went green, and he suddenly realized he'd been had-a fact made obvious when Thud and Snaff heartily shook hands, congratulating each other.

The new director of pest control swayed unsteadily.

But the one who actually swooned was Caithe. She grabbed her heart and fell to the ground.

Logan knelt down, seeing that her face looked as white as paper. A cold sweat dappled her skin. "Heat exhaustion! We need water!"

As asura scrambled to get water, Caithe blinked at Logan and shook her head. "No. It's not the heat. It's Faolain. She's poisoned me."

"What?"

"She serves the Nightmare Court, and her touch has poisoned me." She reached to her collar and pulled down, showing that a hand-shaped tumor had formed above her heart. Tendrils of rot reached out from it across her skin. "As I fight the Nightmare, the poison spreads. I must join her, or die." And with that, she collapsed in Logan's arms.

DRAWING THE POISON.

While the rest of Rata Sum celebrated across the bridges and walkways of the city, Eir and her companions gathered down below in the quiet darkness of Snaff's workshop.

Caithe was not doing well. She lay on one of the smaller workbenches, a pillow cradling her now feverish head and woolen blankets piled on her s.h.i.+vering form.

Eir was cleaning the infection, using work rags and a bottle of spirits she had hijacked from Councilor Klab's victory table. "She kept this illness secret from us for so long. I only hope it's not too late." Eir tossed an infection-laced rag in a nearby brazier, where it flashed and burned away.

"Don't give up hope," Zojja offered. "They're sending for the chirurgeon-Madame Dort."

Snaff shook his head miserably.

Just then, a clatter at the head of the stairs announced the arrival of Madame Dort, genius of malaises and melancholia. She trundled down the steps, her metal toolbox rattling against each one as she came. "Never fear! Madame Dort is here."

The companions looked at each other, eyes tinged with dread.

Madame Dort waddled over to the workbench, clanked her toolbox down beside it, flipped the heavy metal latches, and flung the thing open. The box held an a.s.sortment of bone saws and cranial drills, and what must have been an artificial hip. Madame Dort stared avidly at Caithe. "What can I amputate?"

"Get out!" Snaff growled.

Madame Dort stared at him in shock. "But I'm a genius of malaises and melancholia-"

"And misery."

"Well, now-"

"Get out!" Snaff raged, his face turning red. "You'll not lay a finger-let alone a saw-on our friend."

Madame Dort huffed, slamming the lid of her toolbox. "Pray that you you never need my services." never need my services."

"Excellent advice, madame," Snaff said, eyes blazing. He hoisted the toolbox and nodded toward the stairs. "Most excellent."

Madame Dort took her toolbox and stomped away.

As the woman ascended the stairs, Eir stared down at Caithe's feverish form. "What do we do now?"

"It's all right," Caithe murmured. "She's coming."

"You're awake!" Eir said, kneeling beside her. "Who's coming?"

"The one who did this to me. The one who can undo it."

"Who?" Eir said as she brushed silver hair back from Caithe's face.

"The Grand d.u.c.h.ess Faolain of the Nightmare Court."

It was midnight before Faolain came, and she was so silent that she stood among them before any of them realized it.

Garm was the first, leaping up from his blanket and standing with fangs bared and a low growl in his throat. At the sound of it, Eir startled awake and grabbed her mallet. Next moment, Rytlock and Logan were at the ready, too, weapons surrounding the stranger.

Despite the heat, Faolain wore a thick, black hood and cloak that covered all but her long, thin face. Her eyes were black, reflecting the fires of Sohothin, and her voice was unnerving. "One dear to my heart is here." Attenuated fingers emerged from the cuffs of the woman's cloak and reached up to pull her hood back. A shock of black hair spilled out. "I am the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Faolain."

"Of the Nightmare Court," Eir supplied.