The Radiant Dragon Read Free Page A

had acted under the spell of an undead neogi wizard – but his loss had shaken Teldin deeply. Betrayal was something Teldin almost had come to expect; the death of his friends was another matter altogether.
    Nothing could inure him to the pain and guilt he felt over bringing danger to those around him. So many had fallen that Teldin, by nature a solitary man, had begun to distance himself still more in fear that caring for others could only result in their deaths. His hippolike friend, Gomja, was gone as well, having left to seek employment and a new life elsewhere.
    As if by reflex, his hand drifted to the small bag that hung from his belt. Through the soft, worn leather he fingered the medallion that had been given to him by Gaye, the beautiful, exuberant kender whom he hadn’t dared to love. Like most kender, Gaye had a talent for “finding” things, yet she’d gone against kender nature and given up the magical trinket, thinking that Teldin could use it on his quest. Indeed, the fal had told Teldin that the medallion could be used to track the Spelljammer, and Teldin had tried several times to follow the sage’s instructions. Every attempt had failed; whatever magic the ancient disk once possessed apparently had faded. He kept Gaye’s gift, however, wearing the bag on his belt exactly where her delicate fingers had knotted it. Leaving Gaye hurt more than he cared to admit.
    A polite chirp interrupted his ruminations. Teldin glanced down as small, feathered hands placed a dinner platter before him. He nodded his thanks to the serving wench, a penguinlike creature known as a dohwar, then he attacked his meal without giving the servant a second thought. A year earlier Teldin would have gaped at the dohwar like a farm lad at a two-headed calf, but he’d grown accustomed to encountering peculiar creatures on his travels. He was therefore startled by the involuntary shiver that ran down his spine when his gaze happened to settle on one of the tavern’s other patrons.
    The robed figure of a tall humanoid male paused just inside the front door. His face was deeply shadowed by the cowl of his brown cloak, but Teldin noted that the face was thin and angular and dominated by a pair of slanted, distinctively elven eyes. One side of the cowl had been pushed back slightly to display a pointed ear. To all appearances, the newcomer was an elf, but it struck Teldin that something was not quite right. The robed figure began to make his way slowly back toward the bar. He moved with elven grace, but there was something foreign and somehow brittle about his movements. It occurred to Teldin that the creature was not quite what he seemed to be: he was elflike but not elven.
    There was a certainty to this notion that startled Teldin. He had the oddest sensation that he’d caught a glimpse behind appearances to the elven creature’s true nature. Where had that perception come from? he wondered briefly. Was it yet another power of the cloak?
    At that moment a very drunken human challenged the newcomer to a knife-throwing contest. Weaving unsteadily, the man thrust his face into the deep folds of the cowl, a show of belligerence apparently calculated to either intimidate his opponent or overcome him with fumes. As Teldin watched, the drunk recoiled in horror. Pale and shaken, he backed away, sputtering apologies. Whatever the creature was, it was dangerous, Teldin concluded. In his opinion, elves were bad enough. Any variation on the species created possibilities he did not care to contemplate.
    A hard-muscled female adventurer at the table next to Teldin’s let out an oath, one colorful enough to distract him momentarily from the mysterious elven creature. He followed the line of her gaze, and his jaw dropped. Hovering in the doorway like an obscenely large eyeball was one of the most feared monsters in all of wildspace: a beholder.
    Teldin had heard a score of horror stories about beholders, and he’d seen one stuffed and mounted as