Straum sighed, and smoke shot across the room. “If I had the rod, I would give it to you with my blessing and send you on your way. I would give you all of my gold, every treasure I own, if you only used the rod to release me. Do you know how bloody bored I’ve been? I tried talking to the other creatures for a while. But the ogres talk about nothing but fighting and food, and as for the trolls, they’re a bit too clever. They kept trying to steal from me, and I grew tired of disintegrating them. The smell of burned troll is, by far, one of the most nauseating scents in the world.”

Jig thought of privy duty and disagreed. The corpses at the mouth of the tunnel had been almost pleasant by comparison. But he kept his argument to himself.

“I taught myself magic from the spellbooks I collected. The trick was to kill the wizards without damaging their books. A difficult trick, since your races use such flammable materials for books. Though there was one fellow, a bright young lad, who had his spells engraved on brass plates. Heavy book, but it survived just fine.”

Another tuft of smoke floated from Straum’s nostrils, and Jig tried not to wonder what had happened to the owner of that book.

“That killed a century or two. But all too soon, I was better at magic than the wizards who approached me, and the fun began to wane. And then I created my children.”

The dragonlike creature that had captured Jig and Riana stepped forward. Head raised, it seemed to preen before Straum’s proud gaze.

“Your children?” Darnak asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a lady dragon hidden away in that lake.”

“If only there were.” Straum’s eyes glazed. “I haven’t flown a mating dance in five thousand two hundred and twelve years. While I may have forgotten most of the surface world, I still remember the scrape of scales against scales, the lashing of tails, the twining of necks.”

He shivered, and his scales puffed out, turning him a darker bronze. Jig was thankful that the lake concealed the dragon’s lower body. This adventure had given him nightmares enough already without the extra fuel of an aroused dragon.

“No, I used magic to create them. They’re fairly intelligent, stronger than anything else down here, and excellent company. Their only flaws are arrogance and a powerful loyalty to one another that tends to override their common sense. You were tracking this one back to his lair, Barius. Had your brother not diverted your party, you would have been slaughtered the moment you threatened his offspring.”

Which meant that by diverting them here, Ryslind had saved their lives. Jig glanced at Barius.