Blasted full in the chest by the arcane onslaught, the dragon reared backward with a shrill cry of pain and rage. Red scales, strangely rimed in thick frost, tumbled free from the monstrous shape as the serpent writhed away from the hateful chill. Flayze tried to strike with a massive wing, to brush the wizard away, but the leathery membrane was brittle and clumsy, crippled by the attack of cold magic.

Dan was vaguely aware of the gray-robed stranger in the background. The man was still making notes, though he showed little interest in the events being enacted before him. He had turned the silver hourglass over; now sand, glowing like powdered diamonds, filtered slowly through the glass's neck.

And still, except for Danyal, no one else in the cavern had seemed to notice him.

But it was the dragon who again commanded their attention. Flayze roared, the sound like the crash of a massive thundercloud, sending the companions and Kelryn Darewind reeling back from the onslaught of sound. Only the two wizards held their ground, black robes flapping around their legs as they regarded the crouching form of the infuriated dragon.

The whiplike tail lashed around, a crimson tendril of crushing power, but the fleshly mage pointed and barked a command. A spear of crackling lightning ripped through the air, striking the dragon's tail and shattering the last half of the supple limb. With a howl, Flayze pulled the bleeding stump into a coil around his feet.

But the dragon's wings were flexing now as the slowing effects of the ice magic wore off. The great head lashed forward, jaws gaping as it snapped toward the nearest of the two black-robed shapes.

The wizard blinked out of sight just before the serpent's jaws clamped shut. Danyal whirled in surprise, seeing that the mage had transported himself to the other side of the cavern. There he raised a hand and sent another searing bolt of lightning hissing and sparking into the dragon's side.

Still roaring, Flayze whirled back, but Danyal sensed that the dragon moved purely in reaction to the attacks of the two wizards. Indeed, as the crimson jaws lashed toward the target who had just released the lightning bolt, the other magic-user pointed a finger-this one, Dan saw clearly now, as bony and thin as any skeleton's-and released a great barrage of glowing, sparking balls of magic.

The arcane missiles struck the dragon's neck, one after another searing through the layer of armored scales. The great serpent moaned, the sound curiously plaintive emerging from such a monstrous being. Flayze thrashed again, more weakly this time, and tried to extend a reaching forelimb, only to have the leg blasted by another onslaught of magic missiles.

Finally, with a shuddering groan, the massive red dragon collapsed to the floor and lay still, dead.

Third Bakukal, Reapember

"My lord Fistandantilus!" cried Kelryn, throwing himself at the feet of the nearest of the wizards. "You have appeared in answer to my prayers!" He reached out as if to wrap his arms around the figure's legs, but then hesitated, rising to his knees, staring hopefully upward.

The black-robed figure ignored the man, turning a shadowy face toward the other gaunt, shrouded form. Though the two were dressed alike and approximately the same size, the nearer sorcerer was somehow more substantial, more solid than the other.

Both, Dan realized, were equally frightening.

The second wizard drew back its hood to reveal a visage of ghastly horror. Danyal recognized the skull of Fistandantilus, except that now that bony visage was attached to a skeletal neck, extending out of a corpselike body. The arms that moved the sleeves of the robe seemed vaporous and incorporeal, while the face bore that same, teeth-baring grimace that the companions had seen on the inanimate skull. The hands were skin stretched taut over bone and seemed to float, unattached physically, at the ends of the wide sleeves.

And the eyes of the skull had changed, Dan saw with a dull throb of horror. Instead of cold shadows within the empty sockets, there glowed a spark of heat in place of each eye, a crimson spot of burning fire that seemed to penetrate Danyal's skin, to shrivel his insides with the force of hatred, violence, and cruelty. It was as if the pure evil of this creature had somehow been condensed into illumination, and that vile brightness now glittered wickedly from the dead sockets.

Only vaguely did the lad become aware that the flaming, hellish inspection was not specifically directed at himself. Indeed, though the eyes seemed to see everywhere, the posture of the skeletal body showed that the creature's attention was fixed upon the other black-robed magic-user.

"Who are you?" asked the death's-head wizard of its counterpart, the voice a rumbling growl that shivered through the bedrock of the mountain.

"I am Fistandantilus!" crowed the other, the flesh-cloaked sorcerer, his tone exultant. This archmage threw back his hood, and Danyal saw the stern face of a mature, but not old, man. His hair was long and black, and his stern features were centered around a hawklike nose. Cold, dark eyes blazed with intensity as he raised a finger and pointed at the image of death.

"Now name yourself!" he demanded.

"I am Fistandantilus! I am the lich of Skullcap, survivor of the Dark Queen's foul challenges." The cry roared from the skull as the fleshless jaws spread wide. "It is you who are the imposter-and you who are doomed!"

Danyal tore his eyes away, saw Kelryn looking wildly back and forth between the two black figures. Mirabeth and Foryth watched with awestruck expressions, while Emilo Haversack observed the conflict with a look of intrigued curiosity. Looking around, the lad saw that the gray-robed observer remained in place, scribing diligently. The dust still trickled through the hourglass, though the level of sand in the timepiece hadn't appreciably changed.

"Dispassionate." Dan suddenly remembered the word Foryth Teel had used, the ideal that he strived for-and he knew that it fit perfectly this silent, aloof figure.

"Wait!" the command came from Kelryn Darewind. The Seeker priest, still on his knees, crept around the side of the human Fistandantilus. "You have both come in answer to my plea. Both of you together are the arch-mage!"

"I have no need of together, or of any intrusive assistance!" declared the man in black robes. His eyes never left the apparition of death, which likewise maintained a tight focus on its opposite number. "I am myself, powerful and invulnerable. I have returned to Krynn, and now I am ready to commence my vengeance."

"Wow-will you have a look at that?" Emilo's voice, calmly speaking into Danyal's ear, was like a dousing of cold water on the numbed young man. Grateful for any indication of normalcy, Dan turned to see what the kender was talking about.

Emilo was pointing at the floor, where the bloodstone of Fistandantilus lay, temporarily forgotten. Danyal saw that the green gem was pulsing, radiating its sickly illumination through the darkness, the seeping, misty light apparently unnoticed by the great figures debating nearby. That vague illumination swirled in the air, slowly congealing into a flat disk, suspended perpendicular to the floor. The hourglass was below the disk, and the foggy image seemed to be centered above the silver timepiece. As he watched, Danyal saw a vaporous essence take firmer shape, whirling into an image that looked like nothing so much as a window, a view through space into a place of gray mist, like the dew-laden air of a foggy morning. The representation solidified above the hourglass, and Dan knew he was looking at an entirely different place.