Dark Thane

"The city is that way," he said, pointing through the trees.

The other dwarves started off, fanning out through the trees to scout the way. Mog took a moment to sidle up beside his king and glance down into the water.

"Our warriors were down there," he whispered.

"I know," Tarn snapped.

He tromped off, kicking up leaves in his wake. Mog dropped behind him and warily scanned the forest for enemies.

The forest floor sloped gently downward as they traveled north toward the city. The lead dwarves stumbled and swore as they pushed their way through the woods, tripping over every root and snagging their clothes and armor on any vine or thorny creeper that crossed their paths. Tarn cringed at the noise of their passage, which seemed to echo through the eerily silent forest. He'd been to Qualinost several times in the past months, and he'd never experienced such a profound silence.

They had not gone more than a bowshot when the dwarves emerged from the forest and into the hazy yellow sunlight. They hung back in the shadow of the trees and gazed in wonder and awe at what confronted them. Tarn hurried forward, but even before he reached the edge of the trees, he saw. At first, he doubted his senses. He stumbled past the last tree and stood, gaping, from the margin of the forest.

The elven city of Qualinost was gone. In its place, a vast steaming lake hissed and bubbled with yellow vapors that reeked of chlorine gas-and something worse. Here and there, a crumbled crystal spire jabbed up through the haze hanging over the lake, proving that this was not a dream. It was a nightmare come to life. The entire city of Qualinost, wonder of the western world, was drowned in a hideous swamp of greasy black water.

The dwarves choked on the gasses rising from the lake as they stood on a forest hillock overlooking the site of the destroyed city. Water lapped along the flotsam-choked shore at the bottom of a steep bank some forty feet below. At first they wondered at what they saw. The waters were littered with debris from the shore to the edge of sight- broken bits of furniture, shattered trees tossed up by the flood, and whole rafts of leaves and twigs that looked solid enough to walk atop. There were other things that they could not at first discern-low humped shapes that rode just beneath the surface of the water. Their horror swelled as the chaotic jumble of shapes began to resolve into the recognizable outlines of elves, goblins, and dwarves, floating in the water along with the other wreckage of the city, some facedown with their backs humped in the water, others facing skyward with milky, sightless eyes. By the thousands, they had drowned in the flood of water that filled the city, and now the bodies of enemies and allies alike bumped side by side in the greasy water. With tears streaming from his eyes, Tarn wrenched his gaze away from what lay below them and turned his attention to the sky. He half expected to see Beryl's hideous, bloated form circling overhead, reveling in the destruction of the city and all its occupants.

However, the sky, though hazy, was empty of dragon shapes. It was blue, peaceful, without even a dark cloud or portent.

Tarn crept back to the relative safety of the trees while he continued to scan the skies. He couldn't bear to look anywhere else. He half hoped that a dragon would materialize to attack them so that he could die an honorable death along with all those he had sent to their doom beneath Qualinost. He doubted now that any of his dwarves could have survived. The disaster must have come upon them without warning.

The dwarf king sagged against the bole of an enormous tree and glanced around at the horrified faces of his companions. Some stood as though struck blind, no longer even seeing what was before them. Others, like Tarn, could no longer bear to look and had turned away, beards trembling with the anger, horror, fear. Only Mog continued to stare out across the lake. The dwarf captain moved slowly up to the edge of the bank and glanced warily down at the shore. With a cry, he leaped. Tarn feared Mog had been driven out of his mind by the horror of the lake. He rushed after him, but as he reached the lip of the bank, he saw that Mog had only climbed down to the water's edge. Some piece of flotsam had caught his eye, and now he was dragging it out of the greasy water.

"Mog!" Tarn hissed. Even though there was no one around to hear, he felt reluctant to shout. "Let the dead lie. Come back at once!"

The dwarf continued to struggle with his prize. Finally, he wrested it free from an entangling mass that Tarn realized had once been a fine carpet in some noble elf's home. The object that Mog dragged from the lake was nearly as big as the dwarf and a dull olive in color. Its outer surface was pitted and cracked like weathered stone, but the underside was a soft pearly pink. It took a few moments for Tarn to realize what the thing was, but Mog had known as soon as he had spotted it at the water's edge.