Even Byphast the Frozen Death, the greatest white dragon of the Great Glacier, shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot in the presence of Zhengyi. She wished the corridors of Castle Perilous were wider and higher so that she might face Zhengyi in her awe-inspiring dragon form.
Realistically, though, Byphast didn’t believe the lich would be impressed by even that. Certainly Zhengyi had shown no fear when he’d traversed the icy corridors of Byphast’s lair to confront her in her very treasure room. He had passed through the remorhaz pit, where several of the mighty polar worms, minions of the white dragon, stood guard. He had so dominated the ice trolls Byphast used as sentries that they hadn’t even warned their dragon deity of Zhengyi’s approach.
“Tell me, Byphast, what lingering damage might your own deadly breath have caused to the stone of Palishchuk?” the lich replied at last.
Byphast’s reptilian eyes narrowed. Her breath was frost, of course, powerful enough to freeze solid the flesh and blood of living enemies but largely ineffective against stone.
Or against a lich.
“A black dragon’s spittle is concentrated,” Byphast replied, her teeth gritted. She felt the twinges of anger ripple through her elf form, screaming at her to revert to her natural state. “Blacks can wreak devastation indeed, but in a smaller area. The breath of a white dragon fans wider and is deadly even at the fringes. And more effective. I can kill all within without destroying the city itself. The people die, the buildings remain. Which is the wiser choice, Witch-King?”
“You know I favor you,” Zhengyi replied, the meager flaps of dried skin at the corners of his mouth somehow turning up in a frozen smile.
Byphast hid her disgust. “And I am possessed of potent spells, beyond the abilities of Urshula the Black, I am sure.”
“You would not wish him as an ally?”
Byphast leaned back at that, her surprise showing.
“He came forth a few years ago,” Zhengyi went on, letting the question drop. “That is good. He is below that pond north of the city—of that, I am certain.”
“When Zhengyi wishes to find a dragon …” Byphast muttered.
“I will conquer Damara, my friend. The spoils will be grand, and my dragon allies will be well rewarded.”
Byphast’s eyes narrowed again, and with the gleam of eagerness glowing behind them.
“Do you not think Urshula worthy of our war?” asked the lich.
“Urshula is the father of all the black dragons in the Bloodstone Lands,” Byphast replied. “Enlist him and you are assured a flight of blacks at your service. They are most effective at weakening a castle’s walls before your ground fodder advances.”
“Oh, I will enlist him,” Zhengyi promised. “Remember, I have the greatest treasure of all.”
Byphast’s eyes flared and narrowed yet again.
He did indeed.
“Urshula is not possessed of a magical repertoire?” Zhengyi asked. He tapped a skeletal finger to the bone where his lip used to be and turned back to his small desk and the crystal ball that sat atop it.
“He is a black.”
“And you are a white,” Zhengyi replied, glancing back. “When first I learned of Byphast, I asked the same question of Honoringast the Red.”
Byphast’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the domineering red dragon, the greatest of Zhengyi’s allies. Few creatures in all the world disgusted Byphast as thoroughly as did a red dragon, but she was not fool enough to test her strength and cunning against Honoringast, who was mighty even measured against his red-scaled kin. And red dragons were the most formidable of all, save the thankfully elusive, rare, and haughty golds.
“ ‘She is a white,’ was his answer, in a tone no less dismissive than your own,” Zhengyi continued. “And yet, to my great pleasure and greater gain, I later learned that you were quite skilled in the Art.”
“In all the centuries, I have not heard of Urshula ever using a spell of any consequence,” Byphast replied. “I have encountered him only once, at the base of the Great Glacier, and as we had both just finished devouring respective camps of fodder, we did not engage.”
“You feared him?”
“Even the weakest of dragons is capable of inflicting great damage, Witch-King. It is a truism you would do well to remember.”
Zhengyi’s laugh sounded more as a wheeze.
“Shall I accompany you to visit Urshula?” Byphast asked as the Witch-King sat down facing the crystal ball and shrugged his cloak from his shoulders. Byphast wasn’t quite sure of why he was doing that. It was her understanding that they were to travel to Urshula’s lair straight away. “Or are you summoning Honoringast? Surely your arrival with a red and white at your side will intimidate Urshula more fully.”
“I’ll not need Honoringast, nor even Byphast,” Zhengyi explained. “If Urshula is not wise enough to understand the power of spellcasting, it would not be wise to venture into his lair.”
“If he has no spells then he is not as formidable as I,” Byphast growled.
“True, but did you not just warn me about the weakest of dragons?”
“Yet you did not fear me?”
Zhengyi looked over at her, and she realized how ridiculous she must have seemed at that moment with her arms crossed over her chest.
“I did not fear you because I knew that you would understand the value of that which I had to offer,” the lich explained. “Byphast, wise enough to engage in spells of mighty magic, was of course wise enough to recognize the greatest treasure of all. And even if you had refused my offer, you would not have been fool enough to challenge my power in that place and at that time.”
“You presumed much.”
“The Art requires discipline. If Urshula has not that discipline, then better that I approach him in a manner where his impetuousness can do no damage.”
Zhengyi leaned over the table and peered into the crystal ball. He waved one hand over it, and a bluish-gray mist appeared inside, swirling and roiling. A moment later, the Witch-King nodded and slid his chair back. He stood up, reached into a pocket of his robe, and produced a small amethyst jewel, shaped in the form of a dragon’s skull.
Byphast sucked in her breath; she knew a similar gemstone quite well.
“You have located Urshula?”
“Precisely where I said he would be,” Zhengyi answered. “In a lair in the peat to the side of the vernal pool.”
“You will go to him without me?”
“Pray watch,” Zhengyi answered. “You may be there in spirit, at least.”
As he finished, he began waving his arms slowly before him, the wide sleeves of his robes rolling hypnotically like a pair of swaying, hooded snakes. He spoke a chant, intoning the verbal components of a spell.
Byphast knew the spell, and she watched with interest as Zhengyi began to transform. Skin grew over the bones of his fingers and face. Hair sprouted from all the bare patches on his skull, and it was not white like the clumps that already adorned his head but rich brown in hue. The white hair, too, began to darken. The robes expanded as Zhengyi grew to considerable girth, and his white grin disappeared beneath full, red lips.
He appeared as he had been in life, robust and rotund. A dark beard sprouted from his chin and jowls.
“Less of a shock, you think?” he asked.
“Urshula would try to eat either form, I am sure.”
Zhengyi’s laugh sounded as different from his previous wheeze as his round, fleshy form appeared different from his skeletal body. The chuckle rose up from a jiggling belly and resonated deeply in the man’s thick throat.
“Shouldn’t you have waited until you were near to the lair?” asked the dragon.
“Near? Why I am practically inside even as we speak!”
Byphast moved up beside him as he turned to the crystal ball and began casting another spell. Looking into the ball, the dragon could see Urshula, the Beast of the Bog, curled up in his subterranean lair on a pile of treasure. She couldn’t tell if it was a trick of the ball illuminating the stone and dirt walls of the chamber, or if there was some glowing lichen or other light source actually inside Urshula’s home.
But it did not matter, for Byphast knew that it was no illusion. The image in the scrying ball was indeed that of Urshula and was real in time and space. Byphast turned back to regard Zhengyi just as he completed his casting.
His large body glowed for just a heartbeat then the glow broke free of his form and came forward, a translucent, glowing likeness of the man who stood behind it. It shrunk as if it had traveled a great distance away, reaching out toward the crystal ball, then disappeared inside the glass.
Urshula opened one sleepy eye, and his lamplight gaze illuminated a conical area before him. Like a spotlight, his roving eye probed the cavern. Gemstones glittered and gold gleamed as his eye’s beam slipped through the shadows. The dragon’s second eye popped open, and his great head snapped up when his gaze settled on a portly, bearded man, standing at ease in black velvet robes.
“Greetings, mighty Urshula,” the man said.
Urshula spat at him, and the floor around the man bubbled and popped. A pile of gold melted into a single lump, and a suit of plate mail armor showed its limitations, its breastplate disintegrating under the acid breath of the black dragon.
“Impressive,” the man said, glancing around him. He was unharmed, untouched, as if the acid had gone right through him.
Urshula narrowed his reptilian eyes and scrutinized the man—the image of a man—more closely. The dragon sensed the magic finally, and a low growl escaped through his long fangs.
“I have not come to steal from you, mighty Urshula. Nor to attack you in any way. Perhaps you have heard of me. I am Zhengyi, the Witch-King of Vaasa.”
The tone in his voice told the dragon that the little man thought quite highly of himself. That made one of them.
“Ah, I see,” the man went on. “My claim of kingship means little to you, no doubt, for you perceive me as one who holds claim over humans alone. Or perhaps over humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, and all the rest of the humanoid races in which you have little interest, other than to make a meal of them now and again.”
The dragon increased the volume of his growl.
“But you should take note this time, Urshula, for my rise holds great implications for all who call Vaasa, or anywhere in the Bloodstone Lands, their home. I have united all the creatures of Vaasa to do battle with the feeble and foolish lords of Damara. My armies swarm south through the Galenas, and soon all the land will be mine.”
“All the creatures?” Urshula replied in a voice that was both hissing and gravelly at the same time.
“For the most part.”
The dragon growled.
“I am no fool,” said Zhengyi. “Naturally I did not approach one as magnificent as you until I was certain that my plans would proceed. I would not enlist Urshula, the Beast of the Bog, to fight the initial battles, for I would not be worthy of such a creature as Urshula until the first victories were achieved.”
“You are a fool if you think yourself worthy even then.”