Chapter 23

Hith’s Cauldron

He knew they were there before he saw them, but refused to slow his pace. He simply kept walking, eyes forward, staring at the smoky horizon beneath the red-glowing sky. The heat washed over him in waves, baking his skin, singeing his hair. His throat was parched, a desert. He didn’t notice, didn’t care. Let Forlo’s body and soul bear the suffering; for Maladar, there was only the road ahead, the iron bridge stretching off into the distance.

The fire minions swarmed around him, their green eyes appearing and vanishing again among the flames. The lava sea roiled beneath the creatures, islands of black crust dissolving in the heat. Their voices hissed and crackled, wary. That was a change; unlike the last time, they seemed hesitant, almost afraid. For this time he was not alone: the Kheten Voi walked behind him, the bridge ringing beneath the tramp of their stone feet. They stretched for miles, their strength undeniable. If they took notice of the flaming creatures skulking above the Burning Sea, they gave no sign.

Cautious or not, however, the minions couldn’t stay hidden forever; the forces that bound them to the Cauldron were too strong. They had to intervene, had to stop him and question him—kill him if they must—before he got close to the Burning Sea’s heart. That was their purpose, bound into them by gods and prophecy: to keep the unworthy from reaching the Chaldar. Two leagues after he first sensed their presence—and five days since he first set out across the sea—three of the minions wafted out of the flames and onto the bridge. White-hot tongues of fire, shaped like swords, flared in their hands.

Maladar halted, smiling, and waited. He could be patient; he had the upper hand. He folded his arms across his chest. Behind him the statues stood still, their eyes locked on the minions. Shapes guttered above the magma on either side: hundreds more of the creatures, hanging back, eyeing the Kheten Voi. And above, hidden by the pall in the sky and marked only by the distant whoosh of its wings, soared the flame dragon that had threatened Maladar before. Even that great creature seemed tentative, the sweeps of its great pinions a little slower, a bit less proud.

Maladar kept waiting.

Finally, the minion in the middle stepped forward. It was identical to the one he’d spoken to on his last attempted crossing, its form ever-shifting, towering above him. There was less menace in the way it approached him, though, and while its eyes were inhuman, mere licks of fire, Maladar saw doubt in their murky green depths.

“Who are you,” rumbled the minion, “who comes to this place unbidden?”

Maladar scowled. “Do not toy with me. I am not unbidden, and you know who I am. I have been here before and was turned back.”

“And yet you return?”

More doubt was hidden in the minion’s tone. The question could have been many things—mocking, threatening, angry—but it came across as nervous, nothing more.

“I do,” Maladar said. “I have done what was required. My coming was foretold, leading a great army, according to prophecy. Before, I was alone. Now I am not.”

He gestured behind him. As one, the Kheten Voi straightened, standing erect and looming taller than even the largest of the minions. The fiery creatures shrank back, eyes flicking toward one another, not sure what to do.

Maladar stepped forward. Heated by the minions’ presence, the metal bridge scorched his feet through the soles of his boots. Inside, Barreth Forlo screamed. Maladar shut out the man’s cries.

“The time has come,” he declared. “I am risen, lord of these lands long ago… and I have come back. Aurim is mine, and I shall raise its bones.”

Still the minions hesitated. Maladar took another step. They faltered.

“Yield to me,” he said. “I am the one you have awaited, these long years. It is all mine… the Chaldar, the sea, and all that lies beneath. Yield and serve me, and I will let you live.”

“What you say has the sound of truth,” said the minions’ leader, its eyes narrowing. “Yet it is hard to believe. Trickery surrounds you. We will not give way without a challenge.”

One of Maladar’s eyebrows rose. “There is no challenge here,” he said, his voice so soft, the Cauldron’s roar nearly consumed it. “I could destroy you with a word, as you know. And my army could slaughter the lot of you.”

The minion hissed a laugh. “Could they?” it asked. “With no ground to walk on? Your stone men would melt and become one with the Cauldron if—”

Sighing, Maladar flung his arms wide. A wintry wind, cold as a white dragon’s breath, rushed outward in all directions, blowing back the fire and smoke. As it passed over the sea, the lava on the surface hardened to a dark crust, shot through with veins of gold. No sooner had it done so than a hundred of the Kheten Voi sprang from the bridge onto the newly solid ground, swords and spears pointed at the minions. The fiery creatures scattered, howling in confusion and panic, leaving their three brothers alone on the bridge.

Maladar smiled and was about to speak again when a scream tore through the air overhead. He looked up at the rolling fume and saw ruddy light moving through it like slow lightning. His lips peeled back from his teeth as he watched the flame dragon emerge from the clouds, trailing a storm of smoke and cinders.

The beast was enormous, dwarfing most wyrms that lived on land. Certainly Gloomwing, the black dragon who had served him and the Faceless, would have been little more than a wyrmling beside that monster. It must have been a hundred paces from glowing snout to fire-limned tail, with wings that could have plunged entire villages into shadow. The reek of brimstone went before it, making Maladar’s eyes water as it roared overhead. The crust of stone he had summoned cracked and dissolved beneath the dragon’s heat, and he felt Forlo’s skin blister. Robbed of solid ground, the statues that had stepped off the bridge fell into the lava and disappeared, burning. They made no sound, nor did they struggle. They simply sank.

For the first time since he’d started crossing the Cauldron, doubt gnawed at Maladar. What if there was something else, something he hadn’t done? Was there more to the prophecy than the army?

The minions closed in again, eyes flashing, fiery swords at the ready. Maladar gritted his teeth and raised his hand, ready to send the Kheten Voi into battle. Far ahead—the creature had covered half a mile in the time it would have taken him to walk ten steps—the flame dragon let out a roar like a foundry, belching fire high into the sky. The inferno rose like a golden pillar, stark against the gloom. Then, as the fires died away, the wyrm wheeled around in a grand arc and came rumbling back, running low, down the length of the bridge toward him.

Flee! screamed a voice inside him, a voice that, for a change, did not belong to Barreth Forlo. It will kill you! You must flee!

He came close to obeying. But before he knew what he was doing, the words to a sending spell were on his lips, his hands poised to cast. Then he pushed aside the terror, mastering the rising fear. He reshaped his hands and spoke different words, a calming spell to counter the dragonfear. Calm settled over him, driving back the urge to escape. He stood still, his stone soldiers arrayed behind him, and watched as the dragon rushed closer.

It will stop, he told himself. It will not attack. You are the one that was foretold.

He raised his head, staring straight into the smoldering white pits of the wyrm’s eyes. The fear clawed at the edges of his mind, but his magic kept it at bay—just. He extended a finger, pointing at the dragon, a mote of violet light burning at its tip. The smell of burning metal filled the air.

“Yield!” he shouted, his voice unnaturally loud, blaring across the Cauldron. “I am your master now!”

The dragon was three hundred paces away… two… one. Suddenly it fanned its wings, spreading them wide to either side to slow it down. Great claws, each talon half the length of Maladar’s body, reached down and caught hold of the bridge, screeching against the metal. The span shook, groaning as the wyrm settled to a halt behind the three minions; then it raised its head high to glower down at him.

Maladar glared back.

Their eyes met. Neither moved for what seemed like hours. Then the dragon shut its eyes and slowly lowered its head.

“It is accomplished,” it growled, its voice so deep he felt it in his stomach. “The prophecy has come to pass. The emperor of old returns.”

The fire minions glanced back at the creature, then turned to face Maladar again. The amazement in their eyes nearly made him laugh. As one, they let go of their swords, which dissipated into soot, blown away before they could strike the ground. Then they bowed before him.

Maladar smiled. He had two armies, fire and stone.

“What is your will, Great One?” the dragon asked.

Maladar held his breath, relishing the moment, the time that had been so long in coming. Then, triumphant, he exhaled. “The Chaldar,” he said. “Take me to it now.”

A dragon. He was riding a dragon.

It was enough, briefly, to make Forlo forget his predicament. The exhilaration of it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before; among his life’s experiences, it ranked below only winning his first battle as the marshal of the Sixth and making love to Essana for the first time. Gods, tell the truth, she wasn’t there—it might have been even better than that.

Just touching the great wyrm ought to have killed him: made of living fire, encased in scales of pitted pumice, the beast should have burned him to ashes before he could climb up onto its back. That it hadn’t was Maladar’s doing, of course: a quick spell and Forlo was aware of only a faint warmth beneath him as he’d settled among the stony crags of the dragon’s back.

And, like that, the beast was up in the air—no running to gain momentum, barely even a leap from the bridge. The wyrm simply spread its wings, flinging embers in all directions, and caught the hot winds that gusted above the Burning Sea. It rose like a child’s kite, higher and higher, riding the updrafts toward the choking clouds.

“Stay below the smoke,” Maladar commanded. “I want to see where we’re going.”

The dragon glanced back, one white eye ablaze. Steam billowed from its nostrils. “Do you think I will betray you?” it rumbled.

“I think everyone will betray me. I thought otherwise of my own cupbearer, and he murdered me. Why should I trust you more than I ought to have trusted him?”

The dragon inclined its head, a simple gesture, strange coming from such a massive monster. It turned back around and dipped slightly, taking them below the murk. Beneath, the bridge stretched on toward the Cauldron’s heart; from that height, Maladar’s army of Kheten Voi seemed little more than a long column of insects, like the warrior beetles that plagued the marshes of Syldar.

The fire minions swarmed around them, above the lava on either side; from there Forlo could see that there were many more than Maladar had thought—enough to have destroyed his horde of hobgoblins without much effort. And even more were flocking to join them, from all directions, small storms of flame making their way across the sea.

The dragon banked, riding the breeze. It gave its wings one great pump, then left the statues and the minions behind, following the black line of the bridge, onward across the Cauldron.

That, more than anything, was when the euphoria took hold. He was riding a dragon! The miles flew past in heartbeats; hot wind buffeted his face. It stank up high, even worse than below—char and sulfur and burning metal—but up there, well above the earth, it felt as though nothing mattered. For a time Forlo forgot about everything—his wife, his son, even Maladar, who stayed silent and still. There was only the air rushing past him, the Cauldron far below, and the dragon’s massive wings, creaking and stretching as it rode the winds.

Soon, he felt a change in Maladar: a tightening, for want of a better word, of the soul that shared his body. It was as if the Faceless Emperor were leaning forward, almost ripping free of Forlo’s flesh in its eagerness to cover the last few leagues to its goal.

Go on, Forlo urged him. Leave me. I’ll burn and die, but at least I’ll be free of you.

Of course, Maladar did no such thing. Instead, he crowed with exultation, his gaze—and therefore Forlo’s as well—fixed on the sea far below.

It was different there than back where they’d come from, in a way that awoke a new horror inside Forlo. In what he’d seen of the Burning Sea before that moment, the magma had been cool, sluggish, crusted over in many places and barely warmer than blood-heat elsewhere. Here, however, there was a definite current, running in the same direction as the bridge, and the lava had grown hotter, now the bright orange of candle flames. Miles ahead, it turned to shining gold, then fed into a maelstrom of molten rock that had to be a league across. At the whirlpool’s eye, the magma poured down into a fathomless black hole, thundering in great, blazing showers down to the heart of Krynn… or perhaps all the way to the Abyss itself.

Khot, Forlo thought.

Maladar patted the dragon’s neck, pointing to the end of the bridge. The span stopped at the maelstrom’s edge, abruptly, without even a rail. “Take me there,” Maladar said. “I must be on solid ground to work the spell.”

The spell. To raise the Chaldar.

It came to Forlo then, in one clarion moment. He had to act, and act right then; he might never get another chance. While Maladar’s attention was fixed on the maelstrom, the place where his palace had stood, the heart of Aurim-That-Was. He had to do it. Now. Now. Now.

With one great wrench, he seized control of his body. Maladar wasn’t expecting it, and his guard was down. Pushing as hard as he could, Forlo shoved the Faceless Emperor’s soul aside and willed his muscles to move. They did, but reluctantly and with a great deal of pain, shooting from one end of his body to another. Tears welling in his eyes, he heaved himself up onto his feet. The dragon twitched, glancing back, startled. Its baleful eyes met his.

Forlo jumped.

No! Maladar roared, battering Forlo’s soul as he wrested back control over his body—too late. He was already plummeting, through coils of smoke and air that shimmered with heat. The molten, amber surface of the Cauldron rushed up toward him. Desperately, Maladar began to move his hands and shout words of magic, but they both knew there wasn’t time. The lava was very close, too close for him to finish his spell before he hit it. Then it would be over.

I beat you, Forlo thought, laughing silently. You took everything from me, but in the end, I won. I beat you, you bastard, and now—

A shriek split the air, just above him, loud enough to fill his head with splitting pain. Maladar looked up—and so did Forlo—and saw the dragon’s jaws, opened just enough to show a crack of white-hot flame. Fear blossomed in his mind, then calmed again and became a dark, perverse joy.

No, Maladar thought. You didn’t.

The dragon’s jaws closed with a snap around his charred and tattered left sleeve.

The cloth tore a little but held, and the dragon pulled out of its dive and leveled out, barely thirty feet above the raging whirlpool. It whirled around in a tight arc, the tip of its right wing actually dipping into the molten stone, spraying gobbets of fire everywhere, then spread out its claws and landed on the bridge. Forlo jerked and swung, dangling from its fangs. With surprising gentleness, the dragon stretched out its neck and set him down on the iron surface.

“Do you trust me now?” it asked.

Maladar raised his eyebrows. “No.”

The wyrm chuckled again. “I will return,” it said, “when I am needed.”

With that, the dragon sprang from the bridge, leaving Maladar behind. It arrowed almost straight up and vanished into the clouds.

Forlo stood alone, at the end of the bridge, staring into the whirlpool. He felt Maladar’s attention turn inward, on him. The Faceless Emperor’s wrath was like a distant thunderstorm, boiling closer every moment. He looked for somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere.

I should destroy you now, Maladar thought.

You can’t, Forlo replied. You need me.

Maladar was silent a moment, seething. True. But what you have done cannot go unpunished.

His hands rose to hang, trembling, in front of his face. Forlo stared at them, a sick feeling settling in his gut.

Do you see these? Maladar asked.

Yes, Forlo answered. And you need them as much as I do. For your spells. To raise your precious Chaldar.

So I do. But there is something you should know, Barreth Forlo.

Forlo’s soul clenched. What is that?

And, as Forlo had already guessed he would, Maladar dropped to his knees and thrust his left hand into the magma.

The heat tore through Maladar’s protective spells like a sword through wet parchment. Forlo smelled burning meat and knew it was his own flesh, charring, melting, peeling, then burning away completely, bones and all. It took only a moment. When Maladar rose again and held his arm up before his eyes, there was nothing left at its end but a charred, smoldering stump.

Then the pain hit… and the nausea, the urge to vomit, but he had no muscles to do it with. Forlo howled, lost in suffering.

I can raise the Chaldar with one hand, Maladar thought, just as easily as two.