When Artus stepped through the archway into the Hall of Champions, he was greeted by the groans of the wounded stretched out beneath the statues. Bodies almost hid the floor, and the explorer had to pick his way carefully to avoid treading on any of the unfortunates.

"Help me here!"

The plea came from a young woman at Artus's feet. She was wrestling with a boy, trying in vain to keep him still while she straightened his broken leg for splinting. The boy would have none of it. He thrashed about, shouting, "I must go back to the battle. They need me!"

When Artus kneeled to grab the boy, he saw it was the same bright young man who had led him to Ras T'fima. "You can't get back to the fight unless you let them help you," he said.

The boy calmed a bit, and when the woman pulled his leg straight, he only cried out a little. Tears of pain in his eyes, he forced a half-smile. "I'll be better by the afternoon. You'll see."

Artus hurried on, the cold eyes of the statues following his progress. A strange feeling stole over him as he glanced back at the unblinking stone faces; perhaps they really were watching him now, gathered in Ubtao's home in the sky. He heard their displeasure in the moans of the wounded, saw their disappointment in the staring eyes of a dead warrior's corpse.

I'll change their minds soon enough, Artus vowed as he pushed open the door to the plaza.

The burning fields lit up the night, and by that light Artus could see the city was in ruins. Gaping holes pockmarked some buildings in the Scholars' Quarter. Others had been reduced to nibble, only stray pillars marking the site of their glory. Goblin archers lined the roofs of the few buildings still standing. They fired flaming arrows at the human warriors and set more buildings ablaze back toward the library. Overhead, pteradons soared unopposed through the shroud of smoke, shrieking in triumph.

The line of Mezroan defenders had retreated, almost to the point where the warriors had their backs to the temple wall. Corpses littered the ground, hundreds upon hundreds of goblins and men. The fierce adversaries were often locked together, their bodies frozen in some violent pose.

The defensive line had almost collapsed completely near the Residential Quarter; even as Artus watched, the Batiri were massing for an attack on the labyrinth of buildings, last refuge for most of the city's helpless. Kwalu must have moved to that part of the battle, for a swarm of locusts seemed to be the sole thing holding the goblins at bay.

Only a few mages were scattered amongst the defenders. Even the circle of sorcerers intent on keeping Skuld hostage was nowhere to be seen. The reason for their absence quickly became clear.

From behind one of the more complete buildings bordering the plaza, Skuld backed into view. The silver-skinned giant had broken out of his magical cage, but doing so must have cost him a great deal of power. He stood just over one story high, about a third as tall as he'd been when Artus saw him last. He still had a malicious gleam in his eyes. The blood on his hands did not seem to be his own.

A dinosaur stepped from behind the building now, carefully pacing Skuld, matching each move the spirit guardian made. It was an allosaurus, one of the most vicious of Ubtao's Children. Thirty-five feet from its snout to the end of its thick tail, the creature resembled the monster from Artus's nightmare that morning in the park. As it walked upright through the wreckage on two sturdy hind legs, it clawed the air with its tiny front paws and twitched its tail nervously. Deep-throated growls rumbled from its mouth. It snarled and gnashed its rows of teeth, as sharp and as deadly as Skuld's.

"Sanda!" Artus shouted, for this could only be the work of her bara powers. The allosaurus was carefully stalking Skuld, squaring off against the giant to keep him away from the mortal troops. The bara was likely hidden somewhere safe, so she could control the beast without too much danger to herself.

The two giants rushed together then. The allosaurus bit down hard on Skuld's shoulder as they met. The attack's ferocity lifting the silver guardian off the ground. Skuld countered quickly. He dug the fingers of three hands into the dinosaur's sides, and blood gushed out to cover his forearms. Skuld had not escaped without injury, though. The thick silver ooze that passed for his own flesh coated the allosaurus's snout.

Artus shouted the bara's name again and slipped the Ring of Winter onto his finger. The battling titans, the human warriors, the entire city of Mezro vanished from his sight. A blinding, white landscape replaced the jumbled conflict. Pillars of jagged blue ice broke the horizon in places, and a vast, smooth plain stretched away forever to the right, the remains of an ocean frozen solid. The sun flashed rainbows through fist-sized snowflakes drifting on the wind. A music of sorts came to him, the soft whisper of that falling snow and the jangle of ice dropping to the ground.

There was no voice, no siren's call telling Artus to lay waste to the world, but the explorer knew he could turn the lush jungles of Chult into this beautiful, icy domain. He had that power now. The Ring of Winter had granted it to him. And if Chult was not enough, then he could bend Faerun to his will, as well. Cormyr, Sembia, the Dales-all these could be buried beneath leagues of ice and snow, so deep no explorer would ever find them again. Any who questioned his right to rule could be dealt with in just such a manner, the entire world if need be. The Realms could be his until the end of time, for the ring granted immortality, too.

Though Artus never would have believed himself tempted by this, he was. The ring promised nothing, demanded nothing. But the explorer could envision the world as he had always dreamed it might be, a place free from war and tyranny, all peoples liberated from want and ignorance. He could make it so, force the world to match his vision-or break it all to pieces in trying. He could free every country, every town or village, from evil.

But he could never free them from his own terrible reign.

With that realization, the snow-filled world began to fade from Artus's eyes just a little. All his life, he had fought for freedom. That was why he'd joined the Harpers, a band dedicated to nothing more passionately than the right of every individual to forge his own way in the world. And that was also why he'd sought the ring, to make certain it wasn't used to banish liberty from the world. If he had been too impatient to see why the Harpers favored caution and a temperate use of their influence on the world, it had been the zeal of his youth blinding him. Now that he possessed the power to change everything, he saw the necessity for that caution.

Artus looked out over the city of Mezro once more, confident and determined that he could wield the ring's power responsibly. Only an instant had passed since he'd put on the frost-flecked gold band. Skuld and the allosaurus were still locked in battle. The goblins had yet to charge the Residential Quarter. Fires raged unchecked in the fields. The Batiri horde was slowly overwhelming the tired defenders around the Temple of Ubtao.

With a graceful sweep of his hand, Artus traced a line in the air. A wall of ice a dozen feet high sprang up from the pavement. It ran the length of the plaza, cutting the goblin horde in half, breaking the advance on the temple. The battles continued closer to the sacred building, but the human warriors rallied at the sight of the wall, just as many goblins panicked at being cut off far from their fellows. The cannibals tried unsuccessfully to scramble up the slick barrier, only to be cut down by Mezroan warriors.

At the edge of the Scholars' Quarter, Skuld had driven the allosaurus back. Gory wounds scored the dinosaur's hide, and a huge piece of the silver guardian's shoulder had been torn off. But Skuld's wounds knit themselves quickly. Before the dazed and wounded dinosaur could steady itself from the last skirmish, the silver giant was completely healed and ready to charge again. Like the battle with the mages' cage, though, this cost Skuld; even as he healed, he shrank just a little.