“The bugs ate too many of the good words,” she said, discarding the book and reaching for another.

  “Ah, this one should do.”

  The sivak looked over her shoulder. Despite all his years on Krynn, Ragh had never learned to read, but he was curious about what she was doing. She elbowed him away, making sure she could still see her reflection.

  “You must help Dhamon,” Ragh entreated.

  “Compassion for a human. Odd in your kind.”

  “I don’t care a wit for him,” the sivak shot back. “I just want him cured. I am certain he will help me slay the naga. Nura Bint-Drax. You will tell me about her after you are finished, yes?”

  “And if for some reason I can’t help your friend?” Maab wondered aloud.

  “I will take his sword and find her, fight her alone. Maybe that is what I should be doing now anyway. Tell me what you know about Nura Bint-Drax.”

  She shook her head. Her hair floated like a halo. “One creature against the naga that slithers through the dragon’s swamp? You haven’t a prayer, beast. No. I’ll not tell you now. Maybe I won’t tell you ever. You have nothing to pay us.”

  The sivak propped the shield against a bookcase, angled toward the old woman so she could glance at it.

  “Then I’ll die trying to find and slay her.”

  “You exist for revenge,” she cackled lightly. “My sister says life has little meaning to a sivak without wings. Is she right?”

  For the next few hours Ragh dozed lightly as Maab continued to page through the books, making notes in the air with her fingers and mumbling softly in an odd language. When he woke she was standing on one of the old sea chests, though she shouldn’t have been able to tug it from beneath the table given her size and age. Several small ceramic bowls were lined up by Dhamon’s side, each filled with a different colored powder. One was filled with what looked on first inspection, to be beads but that revealed themselves to the sivak as tiny lizard eyes. There was a small jar filled with a viscous green liquid and near it the curled foot of a raven. The draconian shook his head. Long ago he had decided that the trappings of a wizard were unfathomable.

  He watched her arrange the materials, consult a few pages that had fallen out of a book, then look over her shoulder at the shield.

  “We are ready, sister.” To the draconian, she added, “You’ll have to rip his leggings for me. I don’t have much strength in my hands any more.”

  The sivak did not reply but slid a talon along the fabric and tore it from ankle to hip, revealing Dhamon’s scales.

  “Looks black to me,” Maab said. She was looking at her reflection in the scales. “From a black dragon.”

  “It was from a red dragon.”

  “I heard you—and him—the first time,” she said. “Mad, the both of you are. Still, it doesn’t matter what color the dragon was. This should do it.” She let out a deep sigh, like fall leaves chasing each other across the dry ground.

  “Magic was so easy before. You could so easily see the energy in the air, in the ground, feel it wrap around you like a blanket at night. Not much left anymore, my dear sister, but with Raistlin’s gift we might find just enough to help this young man. Mind, we will charge him exorbitantly for our services.”

  The sivak stepped back, watching as she poured one powder after the next over Dhamon’s leg, mumbling the entire time. She paused, took a handful of the lizard eyes, and popped them in her mouth before continuing with her ritual until not an inch of skin or scale could be seen beneath the colorful mixture.

  “Exorbitantly,” she cackled, as she reached for the pages and began reading, the paper magically dissolving as she went. When there was nothing left of it, she snatched up the bone tube and thumbed the end off, tilting it so something slid into her palm.

  The sivak stared at it. The thing was a hunk of jade the size of a large plum, carved in the shape of a frog. Its eyes were holes through which a leather thong was strung. She put it over her head, and it dangled down almost to her waist. The sivak moved around to the other side of the table for a better look.

  Maab was talking again, rapidly, only a few words of which were discernible: Lunitari, Solinari, Nuitari, the moons no longer present in Krynn’s skies; Black Robes; Malys; Sable; and names that meant nothing to the sivak. As she continued to prattle, the frog on her neck pulsed as if it was breathing. As the sivak stared, he saw its legs move, its head swivel. The jade carving’s mouth opened and bit through Maab’s robe until it had made a hole. It burrowed through it and into her skin, disappearing inside of her, leaving behind only the dangling leather thong. Within seconds, the wound made by the object healed over and the fabric magically mended itself.

  “I feel the magic deep in my belly,” she murmured. “It moves to my heart.” Beneath the old woman’s hands, Dhamon began to stir.

  “I feel power in Raistlin’s gift. Already some of the dragon-poison is leaving your friend, moving far away.”

  Dhamon’s body was on the table, but his mind was far away from this underground wizard’s laboratory and far from this town. He saw himself in a forest south of Palanthas, fighting a Knight of Takhisis—and he was winning. Several Knights lay around him, slain by him and his companions. One man was the only enemy remaining. Dhamon’s heart pumped with the exhilaration of battle, and his swings were precise, honed from years in the Dark Knights and then under the tutelage of an old Solamnic-who had saved his life. A few strokes more and he severely wounded the man. A minute later and he knelt at the dying man’s side. Dhamon held his enemy’s hand and offered comfort during those last breaths of life. He was rewarded when his enemy tugged a blood-red dragon scale from his chest and thrust it on Dhamon’s thigh.

  The pain overwhelmed him, while at the same time a dragon filled his vision, red and so powerful that she took control of his mind and body. She let him think he had beaten her for a time, holding herself in the back of his mind, waiting for the right opportunity to reassert herself. That time came when he was in Goldmoon’s presence and the Red ordered him to slay the famed healer. Dhamon almost succeeded, but Rig and Jasper, Feril and others did their best to try to stop him—and succeeded.

  Other dragons flitted across his feverish mind—a mysterious shadow dragon who pinned Dhamon beneath an immense claw, and a silver dragon. Both worked to break the Red’s control. His mind drifted back to the laboratory, seeming to perch on the ceiling and survey all that was below, including himself.

  He watched the mad old woman hover over his body, drawing designs in the powders she had spread on his leg. It was an odd sensation, watching the woman, glancing across this old laboratory, spying the sivak. Dhamon felt pain, not from what she was doing, but from the alternating jolts of hot and cold that speared him. Other images superimposed themselves over Maab—the Knight of Takhisis who cursed him with the scale, Malys, and the shadow dragon, who grew larger and darker. Its body became black, its eyes a dull, glowing yellow.

  His chest felt tight, as if he were being squeezed in a vise, and his breathing became ragged. He heard a voice intrude on his pain, a hoarse whisper. The sivak.

  “Will he live? Will he be cured?”

  “Too early to tell,” Maab said. “My spell is not complete, and it has not yet broken through the magic that curses him. See, some of the smaller scales have vanished. Let us hope my sister and I are successful. Let the spell continue. We have decided on a price for our assistance.” The visions of the shadow dragon and the Red faded, the lab turned to darkness, and Dhamon felt his mind sucked back into a feverish body that could not move. All he saw through closed eyelids was a muted light from the glowing orb on the ceiling. All he heard was his heart pounding in his ears.

  Maab sat on the old sea chest next to Dhamon’s table. She stared at the draconian, who sat on the floor and stared back. The frog had returned to its place on the leather thong. Ragh held the sword in front of him, the pommel a little too small to fit comfortably in his hand. He dropped his gaze to the blade and saw part of his visage reflected back at him. “The naga, old woman,” he said. “Nura Bint-Drax. What do you know of her? Do you know where I can find her?” Several minutes passed before the old woman broke the silence. “I know Nura Bint-Drax. I met the naga years ago, when my sister did not insist that I stay at her side. I found her rude. Too bad that she is expected in town tomorrow. I am certain she is still… bad-mannered.”

  “Nura Bint-Drax,” the sivak pressed. “Where can I find her when she returns?” When Maab would not answer, the sivak made a move toward the wall, selecting a spot between two book cases, Maab sliding off the chest and shuffling after him.

  “This is where we came in. I know it.”

  “Creature, you are not going anywhere. Your human companion—”

  “Yes, I will wait for him,” Ragh said. “Hurry and finish your spell. I grow tired of this. I want his help in slaying the naga. He is surprisingly formidable for a human.” He felt about on the wall. “Finish the spell, will you?”

  “It is almost finished. A few minutes more, and he will be free of all of the scales—even the large one. For sorceresses of my sister’s and my ability, the dragon-magic was not so difficult to counter after all.”

  “You can send him out into the hall when it is through.” The draconian’s fingers found a seam.

  “I said you’re not going anywhere, beast.”

  The sivak turned. Maab was only a few feet away, one bony hand set against her hip, the other gesturing in the air. The nails of two of her fingers glowed a pale green.

  “I’ve decided on a price for curing the human—and that price is you. Creature, you’ll make a fine servant. Better than the ones who scurry around my castle. Strong. Smart, judging by the way you talk. The human must relinquish his well-trained pet. My sister likes you—she just told me so.

  We’ve decided that you are my price for curing Dhamon.” The glow spread to her other fingers, then her entire hand picked up a sickly green hue that edged up her arm and disappeared into her sleeve.

  “I’ll be no one’s slave ever again,” the sivak hissed.

  “Sorry, creature. You’ll be mine. It will not be so bad. You can catch my sister big, plump rats.” Ragh moved so quickly he caught the sorceress off guard, bringing the sword up and around with all of his strength behind it. The sword bit into her neck at the same time the green glow spread from her fingers and toward the sivak. Ragh dropped to a crouch, the blade slicing all the way through and lopping her head from her shoulders. A green haze hung suspended just above his own head and he crawled out from under it.

  “I hate sorcerers,” he muttered, as he wiped the blade off on her moth-eaten cloak. “So much so that I won’t take on your form, old woman. Old dead woman. You were not so powerful after all. Just mad.”

  The sivak moved to the sea chest and opened it, finding it empty. He stuffed the body and head inside and put the jade frog around his own neck. Hurriedly he cleaned “up the blood, then remembered the shield.

  “Dear sister, you might as well keep her company.”

  He laid the shield on top of the body and slid the chest beneath Dhamon’s table, then returned to the wall. He was careful not to touch the green haze but tried to find the mechanism that might open the hidden door.

  “It feels as if an elephant stepped on my head.”

  Ragh whirled to see Dhamon sitting up on the table, clothes and skin streaked with a rainbow of colors from Maab’s mixtures. His face was flushed and shiny, a reminder of his fever, and he looked gaunt from his ordeal. He took a few deep breaths and shook his head, his tangled hair flying away from his face.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Like that same elephant also sat on my chest. I’d feel better if you returned my sword.” He gingerly swung his legs over the edge of the table, knocking a few of Maab’s bowls off and wincing as they crashed loudly on the stone floor. “Still hear better than I should,” he mumbled.

  “About the scale…”

  Dhamon closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. When he opened them he looked at his leg and began brushing at the colorful powders and sand. They were wet and gritty, and it took some work to remove them.

  There was one large scale beneath. The smattering of smaller scales were gone.

  Dhamon stared at his skin and choked back a sob. “I should have known there is no cure,” he said.

  “I should have known.”

  “That is why she left… with her sister,” the sivak said. “She feared you would be angry that she could not help you. She said she was hungry for her rats.” Dhamon prodded his leg. It was tender where the smaller scales had been. “At least she managed something,” he muttered. His breath caught in his throat, and he tipped his head back. “I should have known not to have hoped. This was all wasted. I should have—”

  “I am still hoping,” the sivak interrupted, “that as long as we are here in town, we can find and slay Nura Bint-Drax.”

  Dhamon slid off the table and strode toward the sivak, hand outstretched. “I want her dead as much as you, but I’m not going after her. I need to find Mal. First we both need to get out of here.” It was with some reluctance that Ragh relinquished the sword. Dhamon was quick to sheathe it.

  “Let’s see if we can find our way up to the street. I wonder how late it is?” Dhamon looked around the room, noting a fading green haze and the globe of light on the ceiling that was becoming dimmer and freeing the shadows from their corners.

  Dhamon walked past the sivak and to a gap between bookcases. His fingers prodded the bricks until he found one that moved. The wall swung open, and he stepped into the narrow corridor beyond. He glanced back at Ragh. “Coming?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Twists and Turns

  Dhamon stared down the corridor. It looked different somehow than when they’d followed it to the laboratory, not curved, but angular and narrower in places. The air smelled different, too. There was no trace of the wildflowers as there had been when the old woman was present. Instead, the air was heavy and damp.

  Perhaps they’d exited through a different spot than they’d entered the laboratory. He turned to find the wall had closed shut behind him. Fingers working across the stone, neither he nor the sivak could locate a way to reopen the section.

  “You should have made the sorceress wait until I woke up,” he told the sivak.

  “She would not listen to me,” the sivak said sullenly.

  Dhamon let out a deep sigh and started down the corridor. They passed torch after torch, each held by a different wall-sculpture: one an elephant, the torch serving as a trunk, another a baboon. There were several creatures to which they could not put names. They walked for several hundred yards without speaking a word. Dhamon briefly wondered if each sconce was linked to a secret door that led to chambers filled with Maab’s treasures or Sable’s minions. In another lifetime he might have wanted to explore, especially if Mai had been with him. Now all he wanted was to find a way out.

  “Should’ve had Mai come in here with us,” he said to the sivak.

  They traveled, Dhamon suspected, half a mile, but did not come to any other corridor. Nor did they find a stairway that would take them back into Maab’s tower. Dhamon’s ire at the situation was growing, but he did his best to keep it in check—it wasn’t the sivak’s fault they were lost or that the old, mad woman had disappeared.

  “Here,” the sivak stated several minutes later. He stopped in front of a sconce that looked like the head of a snub-nosed alligator. “I feel air coming from a crack here.” Dhamon stared at the sculpture, then at the wall on either side of it. He spotted cracks around two of the bricks, flaws he wouldn’t have noticed before his senses became unnaturally acute.

  Concentrating, he felt the play of air across his skin. The scent was still oppressive but different. He picked up a faint odor of blood and of human waste. They’d not smelled this on their way down.

  “We can’t still be under her tower,” Dhamon mused to himself.

  “No,” the sivak answered. “We’ve traveled too far. In what direction?” He shrugged his wide shoulders.

  “West, I think,” Dhamon said, stepping forward and pressing on the bricks, watching as a narrow section of wall slid away to reveal a corridor partially filled with stagnant water. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  There were no torches in this corridor, though Dhamon suspected that at one time there had been.

  Elaborate sconces lined the wall, all bearing the visages of dwarves of various nationalities. He tugged the torch out of the alligator’s snout and curiously passed his hand near the flame. As he suspected, it did not give off heat. He brushed by the draconian and edged his foot forward. There were stairs beneath the water. He followed them until he found the corridor floor, the cool, foul water rising to his waist.

  They moved quietly, traveling for a few hundred yards before the tunnel branched to the right and left. Dhamon looked over his shoulder. There was a word scrawled in black on the brickwork to the right. “Sorrows” it read. The “s” curved round to make an arrow.

  “To the right then,” Dhamon said without hesitation. He could smell the cloying sweet odor of death in that direction, and he could smell nothing but the heavy dampness in the other. Dhamon followed this course only a short way before he climbed more submerged steps that took him into another winding corridor, this one relatively dry. Unfortunately, it dead-ended after another hundred yards.

  “Wonderful,” he growled. “We’re a pair of rats in a maze.” He made a move to retrace his steps, then thought better of it. The smell of death hung heavy here, and it had to be coming from somewhere. He passed the torch to Ragh. There were more tiny cracks around two bricks, and he could hear faint hissing voices on the other side of the wall. It sounded like a pair of spawn in the middle of a heated discussion. He drew his sword and pressed on the bricks. The wall pivoted, and he stepped through, coming face to snout with a surprised spawn. Without hesitation, Dhamon drove his sword forward and was greeted with a splash of acid that burned at his clothes and skin.