Egred, having raged for days within the flask and maddened further by Yserth’s red breath, exploded into the world with a triumphant howl. He swelled and swelled, filling the King’s bedchamber with his looming, vaporous form. Rippling shoulders brushed the high ceiling and the heat that rose from his spirit burnt the frescos there, making them curl and blacken. The lower portion of the spirit was a cloud of frozen flame. Each of his ten curved fingers were adorned with two bejeweled rings, one of diamond and one of jade, his favorite stones in life.
Therian ignored the spirit at his flank and moved to finish Gruum. Seeker darted through the air, and Gruum had no time to parry. Egred did not allow the sword to strike home, however. He lunged with an excited screech of fury and grappled Therian, who strove with the spirit despite its translucent nature and massive size. Gruum scrambled away and rolled off the far side of the bed. He sprinted around past the struggling pair to the secret door. He flipped open the catch and the passage yawned open. It looked like a black pit inside, the opposite of the bedchamber, which now blazed with red light. Egred resembled a living flame, but his touch did not burn.
Now that his method of escape was at hand, Gruum turned to watch the battle for a moment. He did not speak to them as the spirit was making so much noise it split the ears to hear it. Therian strove with monster, twisting and straining like a wrestler. They’d locked arms, and Therian had dropped his swords as they could not cut a spirit.
Gruum consider thrusting his saber into the King’s back. He could kill him, he felt sure. Would the world not be a better place for it? This was not the first time Therian had been vulnerable to a quick strike, but Gruum hoped it would be the last time he would be forced to make this decision. In the end, after several seconds’ hesitation, he vaulted into the dark and ran. He was a rogue, a knave and a thief—but a treacherous assassin was worse than all those things combined.
He ran, and he did not stop running until he could no longer hear the rasping cries from the King’s apartments far behind. He lost his way, then gained it again and kept going. Eventually, he found himself before the secret door that gave way to the damp region that ventilated the laundry level. Not knowing where else to go, he pressed inside.
He felt, rather than saw or heard, a cool presence behind him. He glanced back. Nadja stood there. Gruum heard a crackling sound at her feet, and saw her bare toes touched a pool of water. The pool stiffened and turned to slush. Eventually, he knew, if she stood there long enough, the water that steamed and bubbled into this place would freeze over. The air itself would freeze as well, drawing every bit of moisture out of it onto the walls and the flooring in the form of frost.
“Did you see what I did?” he asked her.
“You released Egred. Can the spirit best my father?”
Gruum shook his head. “I’m not certain.”
Nadja stepped forward. She reached out her hand, and he took it, although he winced to feel the cold of her flesh.
“Let’s talk to Yserth again,” she said. “He’ll know what to do.”
Gruum nodded his head. He had little hope for aid from that quarter, but knew not what else to do. If Egred’s spirit did slay Therian, all in Corium would assume one of his sorcerous experiments had gone horribly awry. It was common knowledge that each day this King lived could very well be his last. A thrust in the back would have been much harder to explain away.
A short time later, Nadja lay beside Gruum on her mattress of straw.
“I can’t sleep,” Gruum said quietly. “It’s impossible.”
Nadja reached up her hand and touched his forehead. Her touch was so cold that it burned. He tried not to wince and shrink away.
“You’re so warm to the touch,” she said. “I have something to help you sleep.”
She produced a small pouch of moleskin and dug into it, using her fingernail as if it were a tiny spade. When her finger was revealed again, she had something on her nail—a trace of purple dust.
“Breathe this. Not too deeply—only a puff is necessary.”
“What is it?”
“Purple lotus.”
Hesitantly, Gruum sniffed. Immediately, his head filled with the heady scents of hot mead, spices and fine oils. He laid back and loosed a sigh. He was greatly relaxed. Nadja said something to him, but her voice was a distant drone. Soon, his eyelids grew heavy, and he closed them.
#
Yserth’s land was different this time. It was not a pit between looming rock walls. It was instead a high plateau. Every surface was stone, either blasted black or melted down to lava. A stiff, dry wind wrapped around him, drying every ounce of moisture from his person. Smoky vapors rose from fissures in the plateau. The smoke was carried rapidly away with the dry winds, moving like black wind-spirits caught in a gale.
Gruum saw nothing of Yserth, or Nadja. He walked to the edge of the plateau and stood looking down over the cliff. He felt a calmness inside, despite all he’d witnessed here. This strange world was beautiful, in its own way. There was no life in sight, but the world moved and shifted of its own accord. No water was in evidence, not even a boiling lake. No plants nor animals could survive here, other than the alien Dragon himself, who seemed immune to heat that could melt stone.
“You see the beauty of it, don’t you?” Nadja asked, her voice coming from behind him.
Gruum did not startle or turn. He stood on the edge of the cliff, staring down. In what he could see of the world, there was nothing but desolation and liquid fire.
“Yes,” he said. “It is a strange place, but I no longer fear it as I once did. Is that an effect of the lotus?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve come to feel the same way, and I’ve been here several times without the lotus. I think perhaps it is an effect of the world itself.”
“How is it you have come to join my dream now?” Gruum asked, looking at her. “I thought you told me you could not follow me into my dreams.”
She smiled and looked downward. He was surprised. Was that a shy expression? He could not recall having seen such a look on her face before.
“Well, we—we’re closer now. I think that is why I can follow you.”
“Ah,” he said. “Because we have lain together?”
Did she blush? He could not believe his eyes. This woman was such a strange creature. She wasn’t really a woman at all, but right now she was behaving like one.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
They stood together for a time, feeling the heat and the wind. Gruum came to enjoy her cool touch. It was the only thing in this place that did not burn and stink of brimstone.
After what seemed like an hour, a heavy thumping sound began. Gruum frowned, studying the skies overhead and the valley far below. He could not locate the source. The thumping continued, and gradually grew louder.
He walked the plateau, with Nadja following him. Both of them felt their clothes ripple and flutter around them in the hot winds. Occasionally, gusts of sand came up from a distant desert and blew into their faces, making them squint.
After their second circuit of the plateau, they met a dark figure who had not been there before. He was tall and slim, with hands gloved in black leather. He had long black hair that flew about his blue skinned face and he stood motionless as they approached. Gruum halted and urged Nadja to step behind him. She ignored his efforts and stood at his side.
Therian turned around, as if surprised to see them. “Ah, there you are,” the King said.
Nadja gasped at his appearance. His face had been slashed. One eye hung loose, dangling from its socket. Therian did not reach up and push it back in. He took no notice of it at all.
“Quite a view, isn’t it?” asked the King conversationally. “I’d call it enchanting.”
“What happened, father?” Nadja asked.
The King’s good eye moved to peer at her. He advanced slowly. Gruum wanted to retreat, but as Nadja did not, he stood fast.
“Good to have such a concerned daughter,” Therian said bitterly. “Your—
consort
happened to me, my dear. He loosed a creature in my bedchambers and although I sent it to a worse realm than this, it did manage to do me some harm first.”
“Egred?” Nadja asked. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are,” Therian said, stepping closer.
“You should not have come here, milord,” Gruum said. “This is my dream.”
Therian’s forefinger shot up, a single black point which he lifted high overhead like a spear tip aimed at the lurid sky. “Yes! Exactly,
your
dream! You have become a sorcerer. I know not how you did it. I hope I did not accidentally show you the path.”
“I suppose perhaps, that you did,” Gruum said thoughtfully.
Therian stepped closer still, then stopped. They all fell silent, but the thumping sound continued. Gruum’s eyes searched the skies and the land below the cliffs, but saw nothing. His eyes went back to Therian’s and he recoiled. There was venom there. Black hate.
“You dare stand with her, in my presence?” asked the King. His voice was low and dangerous.
“It was my choice to lay with him,” Nadja said.
Therian ignored her. He continued staring at Gruum. Now that he was closer, Gruum could see the dead eye that rested upon his left cheekbone more clearly. It had been punctured, and had deflated like a polyp brought up from the bottom of the sea. A trail of blood and ichors led down to the King’s mouth and dribbled unheeded from his pale chin.
“What is it to you who she lies with?” Gruum asked. “You planned to slaughter her and chant an ode to Anduin while doing so. What possible concerns can you have for her welfare?”
“Dishonor is a thousand times worse than death,” Therian said.
“He means to slay us both, Gruum,” Nadja said.
“Naturally,” Gruum said. “Let us be about it, then.” He drew his blades and Therian drew his.
The King’s face split apart into a smile. “You know little of fighting in a place like this, knave.”
“But
I
do, father,” hissed Nadja. She had vanished from Gruum’s side and appeared behind the King. Her small, curved blade flashed. Therian was forced to release Seeker, which clattered upon the stones at his feet. His hand lashed out and grabbed the girl’s wrist, stopping her knife from driving into his back.
Gruum leapt forward, his saber fully extended, aiming a thrust for the chest. Succor flickered and parried Gruum’s blade.
The three disengaged for a moment, and Therian made a cut at Nadja. She fell back, stumbling. Gruum jumped forward with an oath.
Therian snatched up Seeker again, and switched his momentum. He turned to meet Gruum. The two closed and bound their blades up against one another. They stood grunting upon the stones for a moment, face-to-face.
“You should not have come here,” Gruum said. “There was no need. Let us go.”
“So quickly you abandoned our quest.”
“I no longer believed you were on a true path.”
“Perhaps you would prefer living in a hovel with my daughter on some fisherman’s dock?”
The two split apart and traded blows. Nadja made as if to approach again. Gruum cautioned her with an upraised hand.
“Hold,” Gruum said to Nadja. “He seeks to bait you in close.”
The thumping sound had paused now, but Gruum had no time to search the landscape. He thought hard—how could he use Therian’s lost eye to his advantage? The King did not seem pained nor otherwise discomfited by the injury.
“
He
is here,” Nadja said.
“Who is here?” asked Gruum. He lifted his blade higher. His sides heaved and sweat loosened his grip on the hilt of his saber.
“Do you not know?” Therian asked with a sneer. “Did you not hear that thumping? Who do you think has been beating the air with his great wings all this time?”
Gruum took a spare moment to flick his eyes this way and that. What he saw caused him to pause. A huge head, bigger than any boulder in sight, peeked over the edge of the plateau. It was Yserth’s head. The eyes flashed with curiosity and malice.
Therian pressed an attack in Gruum’s moment of distraction. Gruum’s saber was beaten aside and almost knocked from his hand. Scrambling desperately, he retreated on shuffling boots.
“You make it too easy,” complained Yserth in his impossibly bass voice. “What sport is there in a slaughter?”
“Aid me then, Dragon!” shouted Gruum.
The Dragon huffed, and smoke shot out in a cloud, obscuring Therian for a moment. Coughing, the King staggered away from the vapor and slashed wildly, but Gruum had escaped.
“Thank you, lord,” Gruum said.
“Only a foolish dinner thanks the diner!” the Dragon said, puffing out fresh smoke. To Gruum, it appeared as if he was laughing.
“Hold,” said Gruum, lifting his hand to Therian. “This creature sees us as a joke. Are we here only to amuse it so it may devour the winner? What difference does it make who wins here in any case? Whoever dies will only return to their bed in Corium.”
Therian stood tensely, considering Gruum. At last, he nodded. “Well said. You have words for me?”
Gruum glanced at Nadja, who looked ready to pop in behind Therian again and try another stab, but he waved her off. Therian snorted with amusement. “My daughter’s faithlessness is exceeded only by your own.”