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of caviar, worms instead of noodles. Your hammer-beamed dining hall is a drafty, stinky barn, and your
pearlescent great room is a filthy, awful cavern."
"And whose fault is that?" shrieked Olivia. I'd not expected that tack, and the shock of it shut me up. "I
have promised them the finest accommodations, and that is what I have magically provided. Yes,
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magically. And cow
pies transformed by the pearlare tenderloins. These temporary shortfalls areyour problem. The feces
laid before my guests areyour responsibility."
I was surprised, yes, but guilty? No. "So you thought that one magic rock could transform an isolated
mountain village of goblins into an opulent spa for the wealthy and powerful... ?"
"Until this morning, it had."
"And thought it powerful enough to warp goblins and cavemen into comely human servants and chefs
and maitre d's ?"
"Youwere convinced it was a hot bath and a silken bed rather than a pus pocket and a rotting slab of
meat."
"Just so that you could lure the most influential creatures of Faerun here. But why? That's the question.
What hook does this juicy worm hide? Gold, of course! You've gathered them here to get theirreal
riches in exchange for yourfalse luxuries. Perhaps you're even performing a few casual assassinations for
whomever you are leagued with!"
"Are you accusing me of murd "
"But look who got the last laugh!" I shouted, latching onto her hot little hand and dragging her
unceremoniously after me toward the bustling dining hall. "You didn't lure the rich and powerful folk of
Faerun, but only more magical charlatans such as yourself. You've traded grubs and garbage for ore flesh
and feces!"
I couldn't have timed it better. As though on cue, the magic failed again, and before my outflung hand,
we both saw the filthy, debased, rank, and horrible creatures that sat around troughs and mangers in that
barn. Scrofulous magic-users all, whose gold coins were nothing more than transmuted river stones,
whose paper notes were merely mildewed leaves, whose august nobility was only a beautiful mask cast
over their true tired, warty, awful flesh. Their powerful magics had temporarily made real what was false,
and the lie of their lives had shriveled their true selves as full-plate armor shrivels the body inside into
white, wrinkled nothing.
"And how dare you act as though the great finder,
Bolton Quaid, has not solved this mystery of yours? The reason your illusion magic is failing is that it is
surrounded by more illusion magic. One illusion piled atop another piled atop another makes for a
swaying emptiness that must and will fall. It's your worthless guests and their worthless bark and twigs, all
dressed up in magic to look like creatures of import, that has made your worthless barns and hovels and
caves show for what they truly are no great pleasure dome of the Thunder Peaks.
"How dare you hire me me! thinking a nonmagical dolt from the docks would be too stupid to see
through your schemes?"
I was so pleased with having solved the mystery that I'd missed the biggest illusion of all. Literally, the
biggest.
She lurked just behind me now. -From the green whiffs of caustic breath, I knew even before I turned
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what I would see, but still the sight shocked me into trembling numbness.
A great green wyrm. She towered over me in the toothy cavern of her lair. Not Xantrithicus, for this was
a she-lizard but perhaps his mate, Tarith the Green. Her ver-million scales gleamed like ceramic plates
across her bunched haunch, which rose easily the height of my head. Above that was the lizard's mighty
rib cage, expanding now in an in-drawn breath in preparation to poison me and all the critters clustered
fearfully in the barn behind me. Atop that bulging set of ribs were two long and wicked arms, clawing
eagerly at the air, and then a mange-scruffed neck, and then a huge red-fleshed set of jowls. The eyes
that sat atop that smoldering snout were the same green eyes with which Olivia had so enticed me when I
arrived the same, except for their size, like twin turkey platters.
This time, it was the hook that hid the wyrm.
I knew I was dead. My feet were rooted to the smooth, chill floor of the cavern, and my once-so-proud
tongue lay like a dead thing between my clattering teeth. I would not escape. I could not escape. Oh, if I
were a lucky man, the magic would return now, so that she would shrink to her human form ... but good
luck was too much to hope for.
She reared back, lungs full, and the reptilian muscles along her rib cage slid obscenely beneath her
scales. I felt the gagging green gas billow, sudden and fierce, over me, burning eyes I'd instinctively shut,
and nose and lips, though I held my breath.
No, a guy from the Dock Ward of Waterdeep can't count on good luck. Thankfully, though, he can
count on a wily scamp of a partner.
The cloud suddenly ceased, and some of the thin fumes traced backward toward the open maw of the
dragon as she gasped for air. I cracked my eyes just enough to see Filson straddling the creature's tail
and yanking one plate-sized scale up against the grain. It had to be more surprise than pain that had made
the wyrm gasp, but whatever it was, I had my opening.
Snatching a loose timber from the rotting side of the barn, I heaved the thing up toward that sucking
gullet. My aim was true, and the decaying wood lodged itself in the creature's throat. Had there been
people in the barn behind me instead of filthy, sorcerous subpeople, I might have taken a moment to
shout for them to run. As it was, it didn't matter. They were running anyway.
Instead, I repaid Filson by dashing around the struggling bulk of the beast and snatching him from the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]