With those words, the spell of regret over them all was shattered. They ate and talked and laughed but did not speak of what the dawn might bring.

The first red glow of sunrise filtered through the skylight of Snaff's laboratory and shone across his two ma.s.sive golems: a twenty-foot-tall Snaff and an eighteen-foot-tall Zojja. Both stood with their c.o.c.kpit hatches open, ready for their drivers to climb in.

"Well, my dear," Snaff said, "let's take them for a spin."

Zojja gave a rare smile and clambered up the leg of her golem, into the c.o.c.kpit.

Snaff climbed up as well, pulling the c.o.c.kpit hatch closed behind him. He stepped into the spherical cage and strapped himself into the leather harness. Leaning toward a speaking tube, he shouted, "Can you hear me?" His voice rang through the metal.

A tinny reply came: "Yes."

"Make sure you fit the straps securely. We're going to get jostled. And make sure your laurel is tightly in place."

"Yes, Father," Zojja said sarcastically.

Snaff slid the laurel onto his head. The jewels on the gold band glowed to life, and the metal affixed to Snaff's skull. He blinked as his eyes lost focus in the c.o.c.kpit. They regained focus above, staring through the red pupils of the golem. "I can see! Through the golem's eyes! Well-h.e.l.lo down there, my norn friend!"

Servos whined, and Big Snaff's giant hand waved beside his giant head.

Eir waved back a little sheepishly.

"It's spooky to be so big."

"Yeah, spooky," Zojja replied in a metallic voice.

"All right! Gang's all here," Eir said as Garm loped up beside her. "Let's get this attack going." She led the way, striding up the stone steps that led from the laboratory. Garm followed at her heels, and behind him came the two Bigs.

Rata Sum had never seen such an odd procession. The norn warrior Eir Stegalkin marched down the side of the ziggurat, followed by her dire wolf, Garm, who was taller than two asura stacked. Behind came two asura who were taller than five-the wide-eyed Big Snaff and the intense, young Big Zojja.

They climbed toward the city center, the switchback stairs shaking with their footfalls.

That morning, even the geniuses who loved to sleep in rolled out of their beds to gape at the procession.

Master Klab, for one, staggered up from within his workshop and stood beside his ruined puffball, which was unceremoniously lashed to a stone curb. He blinked in annoyance at the mechanical parade, saving a particularly deep scowl for "Master" Snaff. "Bit of rubbish," Klab snarled, though he couldn't quite turn away from those strange stony heads, those carefully engineered trusses, those expertly aligned welds. Yes, Klab had recently been saved by that very golem, looking so much like Snaff's own apprentice, but no genius wants to be beholden. Zojja showed how beholden he really was-and how much of a genius Snaff really was.

"I hope you fall off the city!"

But the band navigated the bridges safely on their march to the center of town, heading for a particular asura gate.

Eir and Garm strode through, feeling the membrane of magic snap around them. The sultry air of Rata Sum gave way to the biting cold of Hoelbrak.

Of course, the asura gate had not been constructed with twenty-foot golems in mind, so Big Snaff had to crouch and nearly crawl to get through. The air rippled around him as he pa.s.sed. "I hope the Dragonsp.a.w.n has a bigger door."

"If he doesn't, you can make one," Zojja replied as she shuffled through behind him.

Then they were all in Hoelbrak, standing on a cobbled way between tents and rough-hewn lodges. The bodies of the Bigs pinged and crackled as the metal contracted from cold. Standing at their full height, the golems could peer over the thatched rooftops, past the defensive bridges that ringed the settlement, and out to snow-covered tundra and ice-choked mountains.

"Out there is where the Dragonsp.a.w.n is," Zojja said grimly.

"Not much longer," Snaff a.s.sured.

As the group marched down the lane, walls shuddered, thatch s.h.i.+vered, and norn came running out in all states of undress, bellowing and bearing weapons.

"What's happening?"

"Earthquake?"

"Invasion?"

"For the love of Wolf-!"

"We're being attacked!"

"Stop!" shouted Eir, lifting her hands to the crowd. "You are not being attacked. These magnificent creatures are fas.h.i.+oned to battle the Dragonsp.a.w.n."

A susurrus of shock moved through the crowd, and someone shouted, "Golems can't do the work of norn warriors!"

"I am a norn warrior," Eir said, "and I am doing this work. But let me ask you this-what becomes of norn who go to battle the Dragonsp.a.w.n?" am a norn warrior," Eir said, "and I am doing this work. But let me ask you this-what becomes of norn who go to battle the Dragonsp.a.w.n?"

The crowd sighed in frustration, and a nearby woman said, "The men return . . . as frozen icebrood. The women return . . . not at all."

"Exactly. But we are warded by powerstone magic that will block his aura." She tapped the gray stones that shone from the epaulets of her armor. "And these warriors of steel and stone cannot be corrupted by the Dragonsp.a.w.n's power. With these provisions, Garm and I and our metal allies will reach the inner sanctum of the Dragonsp.a.w.n.

"And we will tear him apart."

DEEP PLACES.

As Rytlock dived into the crevice, he thought, Why am I following a pollen-brained sylvari? Why am I following a pollen-brained sylvari?

A hyena nipped his heel.

Oh, yeah, that's why.

Then there was no more time for thinking. Only plunging. And cursing.

Rytlock dropped through the narrow cleft and into a cavern. Below him, Logan and Caithe were tumbling into the darkness.

"Great idea!" Rytlock shouted. "Really flipping great!"

"I heard you the first time!" Caithe yelled.

Just then, there came a huge splash, and then a second, and then . . .

Ow! The water was hard. Rytlock smashed through the surface, and the flood closed over him. Bubbles chattered everywhere, but there wasn't a gulp to breathe! He lashed his claws through the water-kicked and flailed (wasn't this how humans swam?) but only sank.

Then the water above exploded again. Something else had just plunged into it, something that was now swimming toward the surface. Rytlock grabbed on to the thing and let it lift him. He reached the air and gasped.

The thing yipped and giggled. A hyena.

"A hyena," Rytlock snarled. "Who knew they floated?"

"Rytlock!" Logan shouted.

"Yeah?"

"There's hyenas in the water!" Logan warned. "Just killed one."

"Got one of my own."

"Snap its neck!"

"Do they float when they're dead?"

There was silence. "How would I know?"

"You just killed one. Did it float?"

"I didn't hold on to it hold on to it!"

Just then, a thud and a splash told of another hyena's arrival. In moments, it, too, was gasping at the surface. When it heard the struggles of its packmate, it swam toward Rytlock.

"Ah, good," Rytlock said. "This one was getting tired. . . . h.e.l.lo."

The scavenger lunged for Rytlock, but he bashed it back, grasped it around the midsection, and hauled it beside him. The hyenas paddled desperately while Rytlock leaned back. "I've got two hyenas now."

"Snap their necks!"

"Do they float?"

"You're ridiculous!"

"You're both both ridiculous," interrupted the sylvari. ridiculous," interrupted the sylvari.

"You survived?" Rytlock yelled. "d.a.m.n."

"I just saved you from the ogres!" she shouted back indignantly.

"You just dropped us into a cesspool a hundred feet below the ground."

"It's not a cesspool. It's an underground river," Caithe responded. "Can't you feel the current?"

Rytlock squeezed the hyenas into submission. "Yeah."

"That's why I led us down here," Caithe said. "I can feel the ways of water and wind, the ways of nature. I'll get us out of here. Follow my voice."

"I'd have to listen listen to it." to it."

Logan stroked toward her and shot back over his shoulder, "How're the hyenas holding out?"

The truth was, they seemed to be weakening. Rytlock whispered, "Follow the sylvari. She's young and tasty."

Whether or not the scavengers understood, they did paddle generally in Caithe's direction, carrying the charr with them. The chant of the river changed, echoes coming more quickly ahead, and then there was water-smoothed stone underfoot.

Rytlock strode up it, feeling the waters recede. "Finally," he said, dropping the hyenas into the water and kicking them sharply in the backsides. "Get off with you!" Yipping, they swam away.

"There's a cave mouth up here," Caithe called from ahead. "A slight breeze is pouring into the cave, so there must be an opening on the other side."

"I'm following," Logan said, feeling his way forward through the darkness. "Keep talking, Caithe."

"Yeah. Keep talking." Rytlock was in torment. Not the Realm of Torment, with its fire and severity. That place would've been homey. No, this was a uniquely charr torment-with churning water and buoyant hyenas and a pesky human and a starry-eyed sylvari leading a parade of fools.

They stumbled through the pa.s.sage that Caithe had found, trading the terrors of an underground river for the annoyance of stalact.i.tes. .h.i.tting their faces and stalagmites jamming their toes. And the cave wasn't entirely dry. Something scuttled on the ground and squashed wetly underfoot with each step.

Ahead, Caithe staggered to a stop. "Oh. Well, that's that's something. . . ." something. . . ."

The man and the charr came up behind her. "Whoa."

They stood at the edge of a gigantic cavern, dimly lit by fading blue stones embedded along the walls. The light of the stones revealed a ruined underground city. Cobbled streets ran between rock-walled buildings, and a crumbling palace stood on a prominence on the far side. Many buildings were missing their roofs, and many windows were marked with soot where fires had burned. Cracked columns sh.o.r.ed up the ceiling high above.

An eerie wind meandered past, like the brush of a ghost.

"What is is this place?" Rytlock asked. this place?" Rytlock asked.

"It looks dwarven," Logan said. "Who else would have a whole city that n.o.body knew about?"

"But what happened to them?"

"Destroyers," Caithe broke in. "Creatures of living lava-the minions of the dragon Primordus. I've seen other villages destroyed this way."

"Well, when you live in a hole in the ground, you've got to expect to run into things like that," Rytlock said. "The question is whether they're still here." He stepped past the other two and marched down toward the city.

"We're following her, not you," Logan called.

"When I can see, I follow no one." Rytlock paused, looking down at his foot and seeing the remains of albino frogs crushed between his claws. "I'm finding my own way out of here."

As Rytlock marched away into the gloomy ruins, Logan shook his head. "Good riddance."

"We shouldn't split up," Caithe said.

"Not much choice." He turned to her. "Where to now?"

"It's strange. I sense a presence here. Something magical."