"Remain perfectly still," he ordered, and Ascalagon did, though the smoky eyes seethed with anger.

Pleeancis streaked out of the trees. "Boss! Boss! You did it!" The quasit flitted crazily about him, grinning. "I thought you were a goner for sure when he spit you out."

"Pleeancis, go retrieve Jennah."

"What? Oh." The quasit's grin vanished, and his wings drooped slightly. "Sure, Boss. Just one thing first."

The quasit flew up eye to eye with the dragon.

"Pleeancis the Mighty, you lizard! Remember that."

For punctuation, Pleeancis pinched Ascalagon's nostril with his tiny hand. The dragon, of course, could make no response, but Zossimus felt him fighting against the mental bonds. He did not have much time before the spell would expire.

"Now, Pleeancis."

"Right Boss."

The quasit made an obscene gesture at the dragon and teleported away.

Zossimus spoke a single, power-laden word. The magical candle appeared in his hand. Soon he would hold Jennah in his arms once more.

Zossimus felt as light as he had in years, despite the ongoing struggle of wills with Ascalagon. Jennah's body lay on a bed of gray grass and leaves before the immobilized dragon, awaiting only the candle's light to cast her reflection on Ascalagon's chest scales. Soon he and his beloved would be together again.

Pleeancis, sulking, refused to speak to Zossimus. Instead, the quasit fluttered around the dragon's head and issued half-hearted insults.

Heart racing, Zossimus positioned himself behind Jennah's body and whispered a word. A stream of flame issued from his finger. He touched it to the candle's wick and held the lit taper before Jennah's body.

The candle flared, burned a quarter of the way down, and sent melted wax pouring over Zossimus's hand. He grimaced but endured the pain. The light of the candle reflected the light in his soul. Today, his life would start over again.

The candle's flame burned brighter still, and chased the dreariness of the plane. A doorway sized area of Ascalagon's scales glittered and shimmered in the glow. Zossimus saw his own reflection, and gave a start. He had not known how pale he looked, how ill kept. He put those thoughts aside.

The reflection of Jennah's body also took shape in the scales. The image roiled, grew brighter, flared.

A scene of beauty materialized. Zossimus gasped at the wave of colors. Colors! Tall grass, dotted with red, yellow, and purple flowers. Zossimus could actually smell their fragrance; could feel the clean breeze on his face. And the sun! The sun! He had not seen sunlight in over a decade. It looked like gold spilling from the sky. Tears welled in his eyes at the sight. The realm of the dead was not colorless! It was beautiful, rich. It was his life in this shadow realm that was colorless. He had lived in the dark so long he had forgotten that.

Men, women, and even a few children walked and played contentedly amidst the waving grass. Among them, he saw Jennah.

He had forgotten too how radiant her hair looked in the sunlight. Dressed in a white gown and smiling, she looked as beautiful as a sunset over a calm sea. Tears flowed freely down his face. He leaned forward, reached his hand through the portal, and called to her. "Jennah! Jennah!"

She gave a start, looked around in surprise. "Zoss? Is that you?"

"Yes, dearest! Yes. It's me. I'm here. Here." He waved his hand.

She looked in his direction, must have spotted him through the portal on that side, and ran toward him. She reached out to hold his hand. Her spiritual flesh passed through his hand.

"I've come to bring you home, dearest. Come through."

Her smile faded and she backed off a step.

"Zoss, I am home." She smiled and twirled about, arms above her head. "Look at the sun, Zoss. The flowers." She met his gaze through the portal, her eyes troubled but determined. "It's dark where you are. I'm not coming back."

The finality in her voice bit Zoss like a punch in the stomach. He could not breathe. He knew then that the resistance to his prior attempts to bring her back from the dead had not been the result of planar mechanics; it had been her. She had not wanted to come back.

"But…"

"I'm sorry, Zoss," she said softly, and brushed his fingers. "I miss you, but I can't live in the dark. You'll come here in your time. I love you still."

She smiled softly, but turned to leave.

Despite it all, Zossimus could not blame her. Seeing the sun, seeing the smiling faces of the spirits, the flowers, all of it reminded him of how empty his life had become. How dark, how muted, how colorless. He could not ask her to live in shadows. She belonged in the light.

As she walked away, he made up his mind. Instead of him bringing her back to life, she would bring him back.

"Wait. Jennah!"

She turned. "Zoss, I can't-"

"I know. I'm coming with you."

With a mental command, he released Ascalagon from the spell.

The dragon roared with pent up rage. Pleeancis shrieked. Ascalagon's head snapped down, jaws wide.

The instant Ascalagon's fangs began to rend his flesh, Zossimus's spirit departed his body and darted through the closing portal. When he reached the other side, the sun stung his eyes, but he smiled nevertheless. Now a spirit himself, he took Jennah in his arms and threw her into the air. She laughed like a schoolgirl.

They kissed, then ran off amidst the flowers, under the golden light of the sun.

The dragon must have heard Pleeancis's scream as it devoured the Boss. Ascalagon snapped his head in Pleeancis's direction. Bloody tatters of the Boss's body leaked from between his fangs.

Pleeancis gave the dragon one final obscene gesture and teleported away.

Back at the manor, the quasit stood in the Boss's bedroom and kicked at the ground.

"Damnable lizard. I should've stabbed you in both eyes."

But he hadn't, and now the Boss was gone. The manor felt emptier than ever. Pleeancis thought of all the good times he had once had with the Boss. The memories made his stomach feel funny. Tight. His head hurt too, and… what was this wetness on his face?

"Stupid love," he said, and curled up on the carpet to weep.

Darksword

Troy Denning

20 Flamerule, the Year of the Moat (1269DR)

Lost on the Road Across the Bottomless Bogs

Out of the fog ahead came mist-muffled voices, many of them and not far off, mothers singing, children crying, fathers shouting… oxen bellowing, hoarse and weary. Melegaunt Tanthul continued walking as before-which was to say very carefully-along the road of split logs, which bobbed on the spongy peat with every step he took. Visibility was twenty paces at best, the road a brownish ribbon zigzagging off into a cloud of pearly white. Not for the first time, he wished he had taken the other fork at the base of Deadman Pass. Surely he was still in Vaasa, but whether he was traveling toward the treasure he sought or away from it was anyone's guess.

The voices grew steadily louder and more distinct, until the hazy outline of the road ahead abruptly dissolved into nothingness. Strewn along a narrow band at the end of the road were a handful of head-shaped spheres, some perched atop a set of human shoulders with arms splayed wide to spread their weight. Farther back, two sets of nebulous oxen horns rose out of the peat, the blocky silhouette of a fog-shrouded cargo wagon sitting on the surface behind them.

Melegaunt pulled his heavy rucksack off his back and continued up the road, already fishing for the line with which he strung his rain tarp at night. As he drew nearer, the head-shaped blobs seemed to sprout beards and wild manes of unkempt hair. He began to make out hooked noses and deep-set eyes, then one of the heads shouted out, and with a terrible slurping sound, sank beneath the peat. This cry was echoed by a chorus of frightened wails deeper in the fog, prompting the nearest of the remaining heads to crane around and bark something in the guttural Vaasan dialect. The voices fell immediately silent, and the head turned back toward Melegaunt.