"Ferai!" shouted Delon, running forward, as she came dragging the silver chest out from the crevice. The bard swept her up in his embrace and kissed her soundly, as the others, grinning and laughing, stepped toward her, all but Aiko and Burel.

"The peril, my love!" said the big man, raising an eyebrow.

"Stronger than ever," replied Aiko, peering about in the long shadows of the setting sun.

"Perhaps it is the Dragonstone," he suggested.

Aiko took a prolonged breath and stared at the chest, then looked up at Burel uncertainly.

"Adon, but I'm glad to see you all," said Ferret. Then she turned to Arin and Egil. "Especially you two. I thought you both done for-slain by the Krakens."

"I take it there was no Kraken waiting for you," said Egil.

"No," replied Ferret. "It seems two were enough, or so Ordrune thought. But I was frightened, let me tell you, and almost couldn't bring myself to touch this charmed silver box. -And another thing: it was damned hard lugging that millstone up all alone… especially over the ice-I almost dropped it a dozen times. The farther I went the heavier it got, or so it seemed-it started out 'round seventy pounds but must scale a thousand by now."

"Nevertheless, love, you brought it after all," said Delon, casting Egil and Aiko a significant glance.

"Where's the Dragon?" asked Ferai, looking about.

"In the many arms of his two lovers, luv," replied Delon, gesturing toward the sea.

"Then let's see what's inside," said Ferret, her eyes glittering as she knelt beside the chest and took her lock-picks from her small belt pack. She turned to Arin. "Is it yet charmed?"

Arin looked at the chest, then said, "No. The glow is gone."

"Hmm, it probably went away when I opened the lock on the chain. And by the way, that latch was very tricksy-I had to lock it twice altogether just to get it open."

Ferret carefully examined the chest and the keyhole on its hasp. At last she inserted a pick, and a look of deep concentration fell on her features.

click!

She slid to one side and, using the pick, cautiously raised the hasp and waited. Satisfied, she edged the lid up an inch or so and again waited. Finally she opened it steadily until it lay all the way back.

Aiko gasped. "My tiger. The peril."

Again Burel said, "The Dragonstone?"

"Perhaps." Aiko looked about, sighting no one or nothing standing near, nought, that is, but enshadowed boulders and Alos beginning to stir and the open chest at hand.

Ferret looked inside, then drew out a leather bag. She set it down and untied the thong wound tightly 'round its neck. Then carefully, cautiously, she reached in and withdrew a large, egg-shaped, melon-sized, translucent, pale green stone, lustrous and faintly glowing with an inner light, and she held it up for all to see.

"Just as in my vision," breathed Arin, reaching out to take it. The Dylvana cradled the jadelike ovoid in two hands and looked at the others. "This, my friends, is the Dragonstone."

Through the bloodred sunlight hurtled a tumbling glitter, and glass shattered at their feet, and a yellow-green gas billowed upward, as from behind there came a sharp command-"Akousete me! Peisesthe moi! And move not!" Egil tried to turn but found he could not move, his body unable to respond.

"I thank you for recovering my prize," hissed a voice- followed by soft laughter.

And then stepping 'round Arin and taking the stone came stalking the Wizard Ordrune.

CHAPTER 79

Ordrune held the pale jade ovoid to the sky and laughed as the crimson sunset bathed the translucent orb, casting glints to the eye like luminous drops of blood. "At last you are mine once more," cried the Mage, then he whirled 'round in a gleeful dance.

Of a sudden he paused and looked at the ensorcelled band behind, entranced by his arcane words of binding, their resistance lowered by his vaporous concoction. Rage boiled behind their eyes, yet they could not move, for he had so commanded. "Ah, my fools, I thank you for obtaining that which was beyond my grasp. -What's that, you ask? If I hid it in the first place, could I not retrieve it? I suppose since you redeemed it for me, I owe you an explanation before you perish.

"Walk with me and I'll tell you the tale as we stride toward your doom."

Ordrune passed among the six of them, strolling slowly for the lip of the precipice. Completely enslaved and unable to help themselves, woodenly they followed, though their features were filled with fury.

"Heed: long past when Black Kalgalath and Daagor and lowly Quirm stood before me at the portals of Black Mountain, then did I know that I had to possess this most puissant token of power.

"But I knew if I took it then, I would be hounded by the fools cowering inside, hounded by the Mages who ultimately swore the oath.

"And Quirm, ineffectual Quirm, the weakest of the lot, it was he I subverted there before the very gates when the Dragonstone was revealed. It was deep in his mind that I discovered a perfect hiding place for the stone-the place from which you so neatly extracted it."

Ordrune paused in his steps and gazed into the stone, his ensorcelled captives pausing with him.

"Unlike those who were expelled from Black Mountain, I but pretended to swear to the oath of binding, and I bided my time. Then I went on a long sabbatical-to study the world, I claimed. But in truth it was to prepare my strongholt, the one you so foolishly assaulted."

Ordrune took up his stroll once again, and unable to do otherwise, the six trod after, for so their enslavement demanded, and even Aiko, with her red tiger ward, could not break the spell, though low in her chest was a rumble.

"I waited until Quirm stood sentinel here on Dragons' Roost, and I stole back into Black Mountain and took the green stone from the deep vaults within. I knew that when they ultimately discovered it was gone, the fools in that Mageholt would comb the world, and I didn't wish for them to find a trace of the stone within my tower, though the chances of any of those dolts doing so were virtually nonexistent. And for such a token, well, who can blame me?

"I brought it here in its chest of Dwarven silver and passed by Quirm to chain it in the cavern below, and I summoned Krakens as wards-binding two of the creatures so that at least one would always be on guard. It took much astral ‹fire› to do so… yet I spent it willingly, having sacrificed many prisoners to make it so."

Again Ordrune paused and held the spheroid up in the crimson rays of the bloodied sun.

"Isn't it delicious? The Dragons themselves along with their mates were unknowingly guarding that which they feared so." Ordrune turned to the six. "Who else would have been as clever as I? Those idiots in Black Mountain, or those on Rwn? Ha!"

Again he strolled toward the brim of the great ledge, his thralls in a ragged line across, plodding a pace or two behind.

"But then Quirm disappeared-slain by a rival or drowned by a mate, who knows? And with him gone, my access to the stone was eliminated. My own trap kept me from reaching that which I had so cleverly obtained, that which I had so cleverly concealed.

"Though I knew full well where it was, I had almost given up hope that I would ever see it again, that I would hold it in my hands once more… until you fools came along and I discovered that you were driven by a rede, a rede so well explained by that drool lying back there. Because of the rede, there was a chance-albeit a slim one-that you would actually succeed, and so I bound that drunkard to your cause and allowed you to escape, sent my fell beast to track you from above to make certain you didn't take the news of the scroll to my illustrious doltish brethren, those imbeciles at Rwn and Black Mountain."