The priest grimaced, but managed to mouth a prayer. Furlinastis heard the power in the words, though most of them were lost in a bloody gurgle as Avnon's mouth began to fill with blood. Waiting for something, .anything to occur, Furlinastis continued to tear open the priest. Avnon did not scream, just continued to pray as he was laid open. The prayer reminded Furlinastis of the words used by Kesson Rel to cast the soul spell that bound him.
When Avnon finally breathed his last, nothing happened. Nothing.
Furlinastis could hardly contain a roar of frustration.
Kesson Rel chuckled and said, "Goodbye, First Demarch."
In that instant, a moan sounded, as though from deep under the swamp, and a black fog rose from the freshly dead corpse of the priest. In that fog, Furlinastis saw shapes, faces.
Souls, he realized. The souls of the priests from the temple. Avnon had killed them all, sacrificed them perhaps, and borne their souls to the swamp in his own body.
Wide eyed, Kesson Rel backed up a step. His gaze went from the fog of souls, to the dragon.
"What have you done, dragon?"
Furlinastis heard the fear in the theurge's voice and knew that Avnon had not lied to him.
Kesson Rel began to cast a spell.
"Freed myself, theurge," Furlinastis replied, and hoped that he was right.
The soul binding still prevented him from harming the theurge, so all he could do was sit, wait, and hope.
The cloud of souls moved from the body of the priest, stretched around Furlinastis's body, and merged with the shadows that always surrounded him.
Instantly, a charge ran along his scales, a tremor of power. His scales began to burn, to crawl over his flesh. The shadows around him churned. It felt as if millions of insects were crawling beneath his scales, walking along his flesh, biting his skin.
Kesson Rel's voice trailed off before completing his spell.
"Stop, dragon," Kesson Rel screamed. "Stop."
But Furlinastis could not stop.
Furlinastis leaped into the air, writhing, twisting, roaring. The souls swarmed him, covered him. He hissed in agony as the priests burrowed into his being. He felt like daggers were being driven behind his eyes.
"Avnon Des, you betrayed me!" he screamed between roars.
Then he felt it, and knew that he had judged wrongly.
The souls of the priests, all eight of them, permeated his soul, scoured his being until they located the portion of Kesson Rel's soul with which the theurge had bound Furlinastis. A battle began within Furlinastis, an invisible war that he could sense but not see.
The two sides crashed into each other like warring armies. Furlinastis heard the conflict only dimly, as though from a great distance. Bolts of spiritual energy burst from the sheath of shadows that surrounded him. Distant shouts rang in his ears. Furlinastis felt the binding on the soul spell of the theurge loosen, as though someone was withdrawing a parasite that had wormed its way into the deepest recesses of his flesh.
He felt the chains on his will release, and he was free of the soul binding. The battle in his soul went quiet, though he still felt tension.
Furlinastis's mind turned immediately to vengeance. He ceased his aerial acrobatics and turned his eyes to the ground below, scanning the swamp for Kesson Rel, sniffing the air for the spoor of the theurge.
Nothing. Kesson Rel had fled.
It is not for you to kill him, he thought, recalling Avnon's words.
Breathing hard, Furlinastis landed atop the stone altar and took it into his claws. He beat his wings, hovered, and cast the sacrificial stone far out into the swamp. It vanished under the dark water.
He alit on a dry patch of ground. There, he pondered.
The seer had sacrificed his brethren and borne the souls to the swamp within his own body. As he died, the priest had cast his own soulspell, one to counter that of Kesson Rel, one that required the power of eight souls to loosen the binding of the theurge.
But why?
Furlinastis looked into the mirror of the still pool and examined the sheath of shadows that enshrouded him. They swirled around and in the swirls Furlinastis saw faces, forms. He realized the truth of it then, and it gave him a start: The souls of the priests were bound to him. He was their vessel. "Why?" he asked.
A face took shape in the shadows, distorted but visible in the reflection on the pool's surface: Avnon Des.
"His soul remains too, dragon," Avnon mouthed, and his voice was barely a whisper. "We hold it in check; we can no more harm it directly than he could us. We are prisoners so that you might be free."
Furlinastis digested that.
"Remember your oath to us," Avnon said. "The two who will come will free us all."
With that, the face dispersed back into the shadows around his body.
Furlinastis frowned. His will was once again his own, but he owed it to the priests. The shadows around him were a spiritual battlefield, and would remain so for…
How long?
He knew the answer as soon as he asked himself the question: Until the First and the Second of the Shadowlord find Kesson Rel and kill him.
The wait would be long.
FIRST FLIGHT
Edward Bolme
Netheril Year 3398 (-461 DR)
Serreg kneeled, picked a dead stalk of grass, and inspected it closely. It was withered, with some pale green still trapped in its blades, mocking its vanished vitality. Serreg rolled it in his fingers, then let it drop. He dug into the earth with his hand and loosened a clod. The lifeless dirt crumbled between his fingers, trailing pale dust on the thin breeze. It's happening again, he thought. Serreg stood, took a deep breath, and looked around, hands on hips, at the patch of desiccated vegetation. It was several miles across and perfectly centered beneath the city that floated a half mile over Serreg's head. Delia was Serreg's home, one of the enclaves built on inverted mountaintops that sailed majestically across the skies of Netheril.
Serreg took another deep breath in a vain effort to purge the weight in his heart, then he cast Oberon's flawless teleport to return to his chambers. After years of teleportation, instantaneous travel no longer disoriented the archwizard. He materialized in his chambers already walking across the floor to his desk. Opening one drawer, he pulled forth a small crystal sphere. He held it lightly in one hand and passed the other in front of it. It began to glow with an inner light.
"Sysquemalyn, please deliver this to Lady Polaris promptly," he said. "Thank you."
He passed his hand twice in front of the orb, and spoke again, saying, "Lady Polaris, the land beneath us is also blighted, as if the very life is sucked out of the soil. The grass withers in place. Insects and even small animals lie dead in the shadow of the city. There is no decay. The cycle of life and death is not heading back to rebirth. I shall keep you apprised of my findings."
He turned the hand holding the crystal upside down and the item rolled out of his hand. It floated-light as a soap bubble, yet purposeful of movement-directly out the window, then turned right toward the Central Keep. Serreg strode out the door.
The archwizard's chambers lay in the innermost circle of Delia, in the palace the city's founder, Lady Polaris, built nearly a thousand years before. People called it the Glade; there had been some sort of garden there originally, and short of the Central Keep where Lady Polaris and her two aides lived, it was the most prestigious neighborhood in Delia.