“No. Skalnaedyr taught me a ritual.”

“Then it’s time to perform it. In one of the larger caves, where we’ll both fit comfortably. I believe there’s one over there.” He jerked his head to the right. “After you.”

She felt ashamed, allowing him to order her around. It seemed like a betrayal of Skalnaedyr’s trust. But it would be suicide to continue resisting without the staff.

So she built a little fire in a depression on the cavern floor, then cast the sharp-smelling incense into the blue and yellow flames. She chanted the incantation, invoking the Binder, god of knowledge. The first line was the same as the last, and she repeated the spell over and over without a break, meanwhile visualizing Skalnaedyr.

Until suddenly she saw him, as clearly as she could see her burned and battered vanquisher or the shadows dancing on the walls. An immense blue dragon with the horned snout and big frilled ears characteristic of his kind, Skalnaedyr was soaring above the dark waters of the Rauthenflow.

My prince, she said, speaking not aloud but mind to mind, an intruder has come. He seems deranged, but he defeated me in battle. He wants to see you. She wished she could go into more detail, but the magic only allowed for brief messages.

I’m coming, Skalnaedyr said, and with that the contact ended.

“I spoke to him,” she told the stranger. “He’s coming. But he was flying over the river, probably near his city-”

“So it might take him a while to reach an earthmote floating five miles above the Great Wild Wood. I understand.”

“Understand that it gives you time to run away. You’re strong, and you bested me. I acknowledge it. But you’re not strong enough to best the mightiest wyrm in Murghom.”

“Then we’ll hope it doesn’t come to that.”

With that, they settled themselves to wait, and the dragon set about sliding the protruding ends of broken bones back under his hide. The process looked painful enough to make Ananta wince.

But the stranger never flinched, and it soon became apparent that his efforts were simply facilitating an extraordinary recovery. His body made popping and scraping sounds as his bones knit back together. His twisted limbs straightened. New flesh seethed forth to seal his wounds, and new scales grew to cover it. A new eye glowed in the socket her breath had emptied.

By then her little fire had burned down to embers, and the mouth of the cave was gray with dawn light. The dragon retreated several yards deeper into the chamber, and then Ananta was all but certain what manner of creature he was.

Not long afterward, a familiar voice deeper than any dragonborn’s called from the ledge outside. “Ananta! Are you in there?”

“Yes, my prince! Be careful! The stranger is a vampire!”

“Yes, I am,” her captor said. “So it would be inconvenient for me to come out into the daylight. Will you come inside instead? Your servant can attest that I haven’t set a trap.”

“I wouldn’t care if you had,” Skalnaedyr answered. “I don’t fear anything you could do.”

Head lowered and wings furled tightly to fit through the opening, the dragon prince stalked into the chamber. The smell of thunderstorms surrounded him as the stench of burning clung to the intruder, and he crackled as he moved. Sparks danced on his blue and indigo scales. Together, he and the vampire all but filled the cave, spacious though it was.

Skalnaedyr stopped short when he took a good look at the other reptile. Not out of alarm, Ananta was certain, but in surprise. “You’re not even a true dragon!” her master exclaimed.

“Now, that’s unfair,” the vampire said, a trace of humor in his low, insinuating voice. “I may have started out as a lowly smoke drake, but I’ve earned the right to call myself a dragon many times over, if not the veritable savior of our race. Karasendrieth never liked me, but surely she told the story even so.”

Skalnaedyr blinked. “You claim to be Capnolithyl?”

“Brimstone, to my friends.”

“The songs and stories say you perished in the final battle.”

“Killing the undead and making it stick is a notoriously tricky business.”

“Well…” To Ananta’s surprise, Skalnaedyr seemed flummoxed. “If you are who you say, naturally I honor you. Still, Dracowyr belongs to me, and Murghom has no room for another dragon prince.”

Brimstone snorted. “I don’t aspire to rule one of your little city-states, and I wouldn’t seek to make my home in your territory without a good reason. After my allies and I destroyed Sammaster, I embarked on a search for long-lost secrets. I found one.”

“What was it?”

“The answer to every dragon’s prayers.”

The short man had simply knotted a red kerchief around his neck. The woman beside him wore a white tabard with the shape of a scarlet sword stitched to it. The youth on the other side of her sported the most elaborate costume of all, a vermilion robe with voluminous scalloped sleeves to suggest wings and a stiffened cowl shaped to represent a horned, beaked head with amber beads for eyes.

All three marchers smiled and beckoned, urging Daardendrien Medrash to join their procession. And he hesitated.

Because the celebrants with their torches, banners, drums, and martial hymns belonged to the cult known as the Church of Tchazzar. They worshiped the red dragon who had once ruled Chessenta and allegedly presided over an era of pride and plenty. Now that times were hard, they prayed for his return.

But like most of the dragonborn of Tymanther, Medrash hated wyrms. Well, more or less; he himself had never actually seen one. But the creatures had oppressed his people for centuries, until his ancestors finally won their freedom by force of arms. To say the least, it would feel peculiar to participate in the veneration of any dragon’s memory.

Yet Medrash was one of the ambassador’s retainers. It was his duty to win friends for Tymanther, not give offense. And besides, since coming to Luthcheq, he’d discovered that human culture interested him. Here was a chance to experience another facet of it.

So why not? He nodded and stepped forward, and-slightly to his dismay-his new friends grabbed him by the hands and conducted him to the front of the march. He hadn’t expected to take such a prominent position, but perhaps he should have. With his russet scales and reptilian features, he was as potent a symbol of Tchazzar as any of the placards and badges. It was what had attracted the marchers to him in the first place.

“Draw your sword,” urged the woman in the tabard.

Again, why not? He pulled the blade from its scabbard and flourished, tossed, and caught it in time with the beat of the drums and songs. For a warrior who’d studied sword play ever since he was old enough to stand, such tricks were easy enough.

They were fun too, as was the procession as a whole. The attitude of the onlookers helped. Some cheered or sang along with the hymns. Others watched with tolerant amusement. Only a few scowled, shouted insults, or turned away.

When Medrash took a break from brandishing his sword, the woman in the tabard wrapped an arm around him, squeezed him tight, and held on thereafter. He wondered if she could possibly be excited enough-or have such exotic tastes-as to want what she seemed to want, and how to decline gracefully if she did. Then a sudden sense of vileness knifed through his feelings of bemused good cheer and well-being. It was like a spasm of nausea, except that his guts had nothing to do with it. He only felt it in his mind.

He faltered, and his companion peered up at him. “What’s wrong?” she asked, raising her voice against the clatter of the drums.

“I don’t know,” he replied. But maybe he did.

For he wasn’t simply a warrior. He was a paladin, pledged to virtue and granted certain abilities by Torm, his god, and the esoteric disciplines he practiced. And there were old stories of paladins sensing the presence of extraordinary evil, although it had never happened to him or any of his comrades.