"You don't need all that… decoration," he said.

"Ah, lover, but I do." She kissed the jeweled Legion of Steel ring on his hand. "It's easier to carry my baubles than a heavy sack of coins. And they're much lovelier to look at than minted pieces of steel. But some day I'll trade all of this in for a fine house far from the dragons and Knights and this insufferably hot weather. On an island, I think. One that catches the cool breezes when the summer tries to get too unbearable. One where it never snows. A perfect, beautiful island. It'll be just me and you there-and company when we invite them. And we'll have a big strawberry garden ringed with a field of daisies." She leaned close and kissed him, lingering so he could smell the sweet musky perfume she'd liberally applied. "And maybe we'll have a babe or two to cuddle and watch grow up." She shuddered and giggled. "But not for quite a while, Dhamon Grimwulf. I'm much too young for all of that, and I've too much o' the world to see first." She tugged free the scarf and kissed him again.

When she pulled back, her face was serious. "Tell me you love me, Dhamon Grimwulf."

"I love you, Riki." He said the words, but there was no ardor in them, and his eyes did not meet hers.

She smiled wistfully and teased the hair that hung over his high forehead. "Someday you'll mean it."

They settled down, nestled together, but Dhamon's mind was elsewhere. Once again he had felt the scale begin to burn. It was a slight sensation at first, a not unpleasant warmth. It always started this way, the gentle warmth, almost comforting in a way, teasing him. And after several minutes, sometimes as much as an hour, the warmth began to build.

Now he gritted his teeth, trying to focus on Rikali's sensual ramblings, but all he felt was the growing heat. Hot as a flame now, it felt like it was melting his flesh. All he heard was the pounding of his heart, so loud in his ears it was deafening. The jabs of cold started next, alternating with the burning until fire and ice pulsed outward from the scale with each breath he took. The pain was consuming him. Despite his best efforts, he started to shake. He slammed his mouth shut and felt his teeth involuntarily grind together, felt his fingers twitch and the muscles in his legs move uncontrollably.

In the back of his mind he saw the red dragon and the Dark Knight who, long ago, had cursed him with the scale. "Remove it and you'll die," the Knight had said, repeating the words in a whisper that sounded like a chorus of maddened ghosts. He saw, too, a glaive, the glaive that was now carried by Rig, though it had once been borne by Dhamon. Saw the glaive in his hands, saw it bearing down on Jasper Fireforge, cleaving into the dwarf's chest and sorely wounding him. Saw his arms raise the glaive again and strike down Goldmoon, slaying her-or so he thought. He felt something then, in a small faraway place in his mind, grief and horror and a desire to be dead in Goldmoon's stead.

As the pain mounted, he watched and watched. He saw it all happen again, watched the months melt away until a shadow dragon and he were in a cave. A silver dragon used her magic to alter the scale. Then memory vanished as the pain intensified, making it impossible for him to think of anything more.

Rikali snuggled even closer and kissed his damp forehead. Tears welled up in her eyes, her fingers closed about his arm. "It'll pass, lover," she said. "Just like always."

"No wonder you had us travel at night, Mai, so none but your ill-tempered self would know where we were goin'." Rikali was whispering, her voice biting, buzzing around Maldred's head like a cloud of annoying gnats. "Why, if I'd a clue we were comin' here, I'd have… well, I wouldn'tVe come along. And neither would've Dhamon. I'd have told him all about this place, and for a change he would've listened to me. We'd be cud-dlin' up somewhere nice, where it ain't so damnably hot and dry, and… well, I'm tempted to turn right around now and…"

"Where are we exactly?" Dhamon prompted, understanding why Maldred had kept their destination secret, but now wondering if he should have pressed his partner for some information about this mysterious mission.

They were picking their way down the side of a mountain, Dhamon and Rikali following Maldred and Fetch and trying, save for Riki's mumbled complaints, to be reasonably silent. The footing was quite precarious, with jagged rocks stretching up like crooked fingers everywhere and abundant patches of loose gravel that threatened to send them sliding to the bottom. It was dark, well past midnight. A touch of gray in the east alluded to dawn being only an hour or so away.

"By my breath," Rikali persisted in her hushed voice, "this is idiocy, Mai, worse scheme you've ever come up with. First Dhamon steals all of the treasure kept at a hospital and then makes it clear it's not to be properly split- a "door opener," he calls it. Must be some helluva door. Where's the door, I keep askin'."

"Where are we exactly?" Dhamon repeated, raising his voice.

"Shh!" Maldred and Fetch warned practically in unison.

Dhamon paused, watching the three thread their way down the mountain. It looked like they were heading into a great, black pit of the Abyss at the bottom of the vale. Through the soles of his procured boots, he could feel the summer's heat baking the land. Still, he felt better than he had in quite some time. He'd had no episodes with the scale for the past several days, and his spirits were high- too high to continue to put up with Rikali's grumbling and this mystery. "Tell me exactly where we are, Mai, or I'm not taking another step."

Maldred continued down the mountainside, oblivious to Dhamon's threat. Fetch shrugged and followed the big man. But the half-elf stopped, huffed, and put her slender hands on her hips. She cast her head over her shoulder again, her mass of silvery-white hair fluttering, and she glared up at Dhamon. "We're just south of Thoradin, in the heart of dwarf lands. Satisfied?" Then she started down again, motioning for him to follow.

"I know that much… dear."

"The Vale of Chaos," she added, still talking so softly he had to strain to hear her. "Smack in the middle of the Vale of Chaos."

When Dhamon finally caught up to them, Maldred signaled they'd made it halfway down the mountainside, and he directed them behind a massive boulder.

"Never heard of it," Dhamon muttered. "This Vale of… Chaos?"

"That's ‘cause you never lived around here," Rikali said. "That's ‘cause before your head was always filled with notions of Knights and dragons and honor and such. And with… what was that lady's name… Fiona." She spat at the ground and cut Maldred an evil look. "Gonna all die, we are. Gonna die right here in this damnable Vale of Chaos."

Fetch looked nervous, but kept silent, his small hand clutching a pouch of tobacco.

"Ruled by dwarves, this place is," she continued, her voice even lower. "It don't make sense to seek out dwarves after Ironspike."

Jasper Fireforge, Dhamon thought, meeting her gaze. That was a dwarf Dhamon had considered a friend.

"Pigs, but this place is supposedly patrolled by an army of them stubby, hairy men."

"There are patrols," Maldred finally spoke, his voice low. "But it's not an army. And they can't be everywhere. The valley's too big for that. And the dwarves don't own the land, they just claim it."

Dhamon gave him a look that said, what's the difference?

The big man sighed and glanced around, ran his fingers through his hair and considered his words. "Dhamon, Thoradin is always skirmishing with Blode…"

"The ogres," Rikali cut in.

"… over ownership of this vale. It is a struggle with a long history, made more bloody in recent decades."