Mirabeta eyed the woman. "My time is limited. Make your demands known."

"Very well. Free rein entirely in Daerlun and Urlamspyr."

Mirabeta scoffed and countered. "Daerlun only. It is as much Cormyrean as Sembian. And the Cult is to be entirely out of Ordulin."

The young woman leaned back in her chair and regarded Mirabeta through the eyeholes of her mask. "Saerloon, Urlamspyr, and Selgaunt remain as ever they were?"

Mirabeta nodded. "If your agents are caught there, they will be punished."

The young woman considered, and said, "Done, Overmistress. Be a.s.sured that Aurgloroasa will hold you to your bargain."

"And I to hers," Mirabeta answered. "Now, where is my a.s.sistance?"

The current state of affairs flashed through the overmistress's mind. Forrin and his forces were already marching on Saerb. She had received word from Lady Merelith that the muster in Saerloon was almost complete. Merelith's mages had perfected a stratagem to bring the battle to Selgaunt quickly, and Mirabeta wanted to capitalize on it. But the Selgauntan alliance with the Shadovar concerned her. She could not afford a prolonged siege. If she could put a dragon at Saerloon's disposal, the siege of Selgaunt would be short indeed.

The young woman gestured at Vendem. "You have met your a.s.sistance. Overmistress Mirabeta Selkirk, meet Vendemniharan, birthed of Venomindhar and sired by Venominhandar. He will remain in service to you for one month."

Mirabeta stifled a gasp at the mention of Venomindhar and Venominhandar. The destruction the two greens had wreaked in Sembia generations earlier was legend. She controlled her shock and reminded herself that she she wielded power in Sembia. She spoke to the dragon as she would any underling. wielded power in Sembia. She spoke to the dragon as she would any underling.

"You will journey to Saerloon. There, you will answer to Lady Merelith and her commanders as they lay siege to Selgaunt. She will report back to me."

The dragon hefted the decanter of wine and drained it all in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth and said, "Saerloon is a long journey from here even in my natural form, woman."

"Overmistress," Mirabeta corrected him. "And I will arrange for your transport."

The howl of the wind and the screams of the d.a.m.ned fell away. Long moments pa.s.sed in darkness. Cale felt a sensation of rapid motion, then a sudden stop. The biting cold vanished, replaced by fetid warmth. The darkness of the archfiend's breath dispersed and Cale, Magadon, and Riven materialized in shadow, standing in stagnant, knee-deep water and stinking mud.

Broad-leafed trees and twisted shrubs poked out of the mire to claw their way into a shadowy sky. Malformed creatures, startled at the trio's sudden appearance, shrieked and hissed at them from the dimness of their dens. High above, ungraceful forms wheeled about on awkward wings in the black, starless sky. Periodic flashes of dim, vermillion light backlit the clouds and cast the sky in leering contrast. A thin brownish fog floated around them, ghostly and full of secrets. The moist air, rife with the stink of decay, sank into their clothes. So, too, did the shadows.

Cale recognized the location-his adopted home, the Plane of Shadow. The familiar darkness, unique to the Plane, strengthened him, and he tried to pa.s.s that strength through his arms to Magadon.

"Mags?"

"I am all right," Magadon said, and disentangled himself from Cale. The mindmage looked haggard and his clothes hung from him in tatters. Blood, his own, slicked him. The memory of horror haunted his colorless eyes. Cale remembered how the mindmage had looked moments earlier-a pile of gore steaming on Cania's ice.

"You look at me like a broken thing," Magadon said, and his voice cracked.

Cale shook his head, the movement too fast for the denial to be true. "No. I am just ... pleased to see you whole."

"I am far from that, Cale."

Magadon's words took Cale aback. "You have never called me 'Cale.'"

Magadon shrugged and looked away. "No? It seems right."

Cale and Riven shared a look and Cale noticed Riven's beard-it had grown substantially since they had left Cania.

"Your beard," Cale said.

"And yours," Riven said.

Cale ran his hand over his face and felt several days' growth on his cheeks.

"What happened?"

"Time distortion as we moved through planes," Magadon said.

"So what happened to the time?" Riven asked.

"Lost to us," Magadon said. "The same as ... other things." He kneeled into the fog and used the black water of the swamp to wash the filth and blood from his flesh. Demon scales, as red as pox, showed in irregular patches on his exposed skin. The tattoo on his bicep, the mark of his father, was stark on his otherwise pale skin. The scars that once had marred it were gone. Magadon touched his horns thoughtfully, frowning.

Riven looked across the fog at Cale. "Why here?"

Cale heard an accusation behind the question. "Because what I promised him is here. Or at least the trail is. It must be."

Riven touched the holy symbol at his throat and walked to Cale's side.

"He said you had promised it to another, that Mask would be displeased. What have you done, Cale?"

Cale looked past Riven to Magadon. "What I had to. You'd have done the same."

Riven studied his face and his gaze flitted for a moment to Magadon. "Maybe."

Magadon stood. "I am here. Do not speak of me as if I am not." The mindmage, clean of blood, approached them and offered Riven the dagger the a.s.sa.s.sin had given him on Cania.

"Keep it," Riven said.

"I have a weapon," Magadon said.

"So you said," answered Riven. "Keep it anyway."

Magadon shrugged, tucked the blade into his belt. He looked up into Cale's face. "What did my father mean when he said you had promised it to another? To whom? I, at least, should know."

Cale stared into his friend's pain-haunted white eyes, more certain than ever that he had done the right thing. "You both should know. And you will. But it is a long tale and this hardly seems the place for telling it. Let's put some solid ground under our feet and get our bearings. Then I'll tell you both everything. Well enough?"

Riven looked skeptical.

"Everything," Cale emphasized.

"Well enough, then," Riven said.

Magadon turned a circle, examined the lay of the land. Stinking water, tangles of trees, and patches of jagged reeds surrounded them. The fog-shrouded air m.u.f.fled sound.

"Place feels familiar," Riven observed.

Cale had been thinking the same thing. It hit him, then, but Magadon said it first. "It appears my father is not without a sense of humor. This is the same swamp where we first encountered Furlinastis."

Cale and Riven cursed. They had faced Furlinastis the shadow dragon once before. Cale had wounded him, but they had lived only because the dragon, citing a promise made long ago, had spared them. But he had promised, too, that he would kill them should they return to the swamp.

Something thudded against Cale's boot under the water, giving him a start. He stabbed down into the murk with Weaveshear but hit nothing. Tension gripped him.

He started to speak, but an ominous hush fell. The swamp stilled. The chorus of insects ceased. The howling creatures retreated to their murky dens and fell silent. The air above them emptied of the flying creatures.

"Dark," Riven said. "Dark and empty." The a.s.sa.s.sin held his blades and turned a circle.

Cale did the same. Shadows leaked from Weaveshear.

"He is coming," Magadon said, his voice strangely flat. "Now."

Shadows poured from Cale's flesh. He molded them with his mind into shadowy duplicates of himself that mirrored his movements. The illusions would distract the dragon and, with luck, draw some of its attacks. Riven prayed to Mask under his breath and shadows from the air coiled around his blades.

"Where, Mags?" Riven asked. The a.s.sa.s.sin stood in a crouch, his breathing steady.

Magadon shook his head and looked into the darkness. "Nowhere. Everywhere. We will never see him."

Cale knew Magadon was right. Even with his shadow sight, Cale saw nothing but dark water and coils of fog. The shadow dragon was as much one with the darkness as Cale.

But they could hear him, and Cale's darkness-sharpened hearing caught a sound: a rhythmic rush of air, the beat of huge wings from somewhere above them.

"In the air," he said.

He scanned the sky but saw nothing. He felt the dragon's approach the same way he felt an approaching storm. He felt exposed. They had no cover.

"Link us, Mags," Cale said.

The mindmage could connect their minds so they could communicate silently at the speed of thought.

Magadon shook his head. "No."

Cale looked at him sharply.

Magadon said, in a softer tone, "I cannot, Cale. I am not ... I cannot."

Cale stared at the mindmage, unarmored, damaged in his soul, worn as thin as old leather. He had not even drawn his dagger.

"He's got nothing but a dagger, Cale," Riven said, his eyes on the sky, his thoughts apparently mirroring Cale's.

Cale made his decision. "We are leaving. This is not our fight."

A roar from above drenched them in sound. The dragon broke from the darkness of the sky, backlit by a vermillion flash, a mountainous form of black scales, muscle, and shadow. He dove directly at them. Another roar sent waves through the waters of the swamp.

The creature bore down on the trio. His teeth were the length of daggers. His wings stretched two bowshots across from wingtip to wingtip. His ma.s.sive form trailed a cloud of shadows the way a shooting star trails flames. Cale saw faces in the shadows, old faces, familiar faces. The dragon opened his mouth wide to breathe. The faces in the clouds opened their mouths, too, and Cale read their lips, or perhaps heard their whispers.

Free us!

"Cover!" Riven shouted, though there was nowhere to run.

The moment before Furlinastis spat a cloud of viscous black vapor from his mouth, Cale caught a glimpse of Magadon, staring up at the dragon, arms limp at his sides, face impa.s.sive. Cale had no time to process the implications before the dragon's life-draining breath saturated the area in ink. The swirling cloud of shadowstuff wormed into Cale's body through his nose, ears, and eyes, pulled at his soul, drank his life force. He staggered in the muck, fell. He heard Riven groan and curse.

Furlinastis. .h.i.t the swamp with the force of a thunderbolt. His body displaced so much water that a waist-high wave of foul liquid washed over Cale. The dragon's respiration sounded like a forge bellows.

Despite the life-draining effect of the dragon's breath, Cale recovered himself enough to draw the shadows to him. He reached out his consciousness for Magadon and Riven as the shadow magic took hold.

"You were warned never to return," the dragon's sibilant voice said from out of the darkness. "For that-"

Cale heard no more. He thought of one of the only places on the Plane of Shadow fixed firmly in his memory, a place from which they could begin their pursuit of Kesson Rel-the city of Elgrin Fau the lost, once the City of Silver, but now the City of Wraiths.

The shadows engulfed them and swept them there.

Furlinastis knew the First and Second of Mask were either dead or had escaped, for he could no longer hear their hearts. The cloud of darkness dissipated and he saw only the lifeless husks of dozens of frogs, fish, snakes, and other small creatures native to the swamp floating on the surface of the water, their lives extinguished by his breath. But there was no sign of the humans. They had escaped him.

He roared in frustration, beat his wings, and took flight. Enraged, he turned a circle in the sky and swept low over the stagnant water of his domain. The force of his pa.s.sage bent reeds and small trees, and sent up a spray of water in his wake. He blew out another cloud of his life-draining breath, another, and the vapor annihilated thousands of creatures. Their deaths did little to mitigate his anger.

The shadows around him swirled as the souls of the priests trapped within his shadow shroud focused their wills. Faces formed in the shroud, all clamoring for freedom. The cacophony of voices subsided and one voice rose above the mult.i.tude. Furlinastis recognized it as that of Avnon Des the Seer.

The Chosen of the Shadowlord have returned. The First has come to claim what is his, what we have held for him these unnumbered years. The end is upon us. You will die and we will be freed to go to our rest.

"If they return again, they will die. You will never be freed, priest. You chose your prison."

And you yours, dragon. You chose Kesson Rel for your ally.

Furlinastis again howled his rage into the dark sky. "I chose nothing! I was compelled by his magic, the same soul magic that binds you to me now, that binds him to you! If I die and you are freed, so, too, will he be freed."

Yes, Avnon Des said, his tone almost sympathetic. But that doom was charted long ago. They will return and you will die. The course is set But that doom was charted long ago. They will return and you will die. The course is set.

"I will fight them. They are only men."

No. They are more.

The words sent a charge of emotion through Furlinastis, a feeling he had not experienced for centuries, not since his first encounter with Kesson Rel the Shadowtheurge. It took him a moment to recognize it as fear.

I am sorry, Avnon Des said. He made you his vessel. We had to make you ours to trap what he expended to bind you. There was no other way He made you his vessel. We had to make you ours to trap what he expended to bind you. There was no other way.

Furlinastis heard sincerity in the words, but they brought him no comfort. He told himself that Avnon Des was wrong.

Within the shroud, Furlinastis felt the stirrings of power, felt the squirming, semi-sentient thing that was a portion of Kesson Rel contending with the priests. Avnon Des's face grew pained, melded back into the shadows.

Furlinastis murmured, "It is because of you, fool theurge, that I have been bound to this swamp for these thousands of years. It is because of you that I will die."

Kesson forced enough of his will through the wall of priests to answer.

The end is near, wyrm. And I will again be whole.

Furlinastis roared into the sky and wheeled upward, toward the clouds, amongst the lightning.

Tamlin sat atop his mare and rode slowly down the city's cobblestone streets. Prince Rivalen rode beside him, man and horse wrapped in twilight. A dozen spear-armed Scepters in green weathercloaks and mail walked before and behind them and kept the streets clear. Groups of citizens cl.u.s.tered to watch them pa.s.s. Tamlin sat tall in his saddle, waved and nodded. He tried to look determined but could not maintain it for long. The huddled forms and fearful faces that stared at him out of the dark undermined his confidence.

Tamlin spoke in low tones so that none but Rivalen would hear him. "My entreaties for a negotiated resolution have gone unanswered."