The door to the Spotted Spaniel Tavern swung open to admit a tall, gaunt man on the far side of middle-aged, with a bony, careworn face and an unruly thatch of graying curls. A smallish brown satyr trotted along beside him.

No one looked up from their tankards of ale for more than a quick glance, which was just how the arcanopath liked it. He preferred not to go about dressed in the pointy hat and heavy black robes embroidered with stars, moons and other arcane symbols that was the uniform of his profession. He found that when he did, he always seemed to attract just the sort of attention he wished to avoid. Would-be adventurers would swarm him asking for help in looting tombs for ancient treasures, deposing tyrannical warlords, defending coastal cities from pirates, eradicating monster infestations, and rescuing everything from abducted princesses to missing cats. Besides, the pointy hat was always getting knocked off by low lintels or blown away by a stiff wind.

Of course, now he was deliberately seeking out adventurers, and this sort of production number always seemed to start in a tavern. Probably because any rational being would have to be puking-on-the-cat drunk before imagining they had the right stuff to take on a dragon.

House dropped gratefully into a chair by the fire and called for one of the serving wenches to bring him a mug of hard cider. James curled up on the hearth, eyeing the wench with proprietary interest. She was cross eyed, horse-hipped and frowsy, but satyrs are notoriously undiscriminating and former knight hadn't been very choosy even before his resurrection. House gave him a discreet whack with the end of his staff to remind him they weren't here to test out his new equipment. James settled back down with a sullen pout.

These three aspirant dragon-slayers were a motley group, the arcanopath observed. Kaah-dhi was really scraping the bottom of the barrel for this one. He liked his women somewhat desperate, true, but this might be stretching things.

One was a female half-elf sipping delicately from a cup of mead. Probably the group's druid, as most elves tended to specialize in nature magic. She was clad in a garment of living vines that coiled in playful, intricate designs over her body, a belt of woven grass, a cape of broad green leaves thrown over her shoulders. Fresh flowers bloomed in her dark hair. She was good looking in a childlike way, not surprising since elves developed much slower than humans, and half-breeds tended to mature physically far sooner than they did mentally.

Beside her sat a human in the humble robes of a cleric, which somehow managed to look stylishly understated on him. It wasn't clear just which of the world's many godlets and goddities he paid tribute to, but that didn't really matter. All clerics functioned in much the same manner.

The third member of the party surprised House a bit. Sitting on the floor so that he could prop his elbows on the table and be at eye level with the others was a centaur from one of the southern tribes. The upper body of a handsome, dark-skinned young man blended at the waist into the withers of a sturdy equine with vivid black and white stripes. Centaurs were renowned for their wisdom, their great natural talents in archery, astronomy, music and healing almost as much as their reputation for imbibing too heavily in wine and carrying off young maidens.

It wasn't an entirely unfounded stereotype. Centaurs inhabited the forests and plains at a distance from most human settlements. Because, like horses, they lived in family groups of one male to several females, there were always going to be roving bands of frustrated, unattached young males. These were the centaurs most likely to stray into town, and, inexperienced with strong spirits, they tended to drink more than they could handle and get rowdy. A rowdy, inebriated centaur did much more damage to person and property than a similarly drunken human, but to judge the entire species by it was like basing one's opinion of humanity in general on the actions of a few drunken university boys. Cognizant of that, this centaur was drinking tea.

Eavesdropping shamelessly, House gathered that they'd already located the beast's lair in a notoriously haunted cave in the western Shatterspines, had pooled their respective lists of spells and were preparing to set off immediately to deal with the dragon. He grabbed his staff and levered himself upright, strolling over to them. The half-elf glanced up, politely inquiring, the centaur glared at him, and the cleric merely looked puzzled.

"Couldn't help overhearing you're planning to go down into that cave," he said, leaning over their table. "Great idea, kids. Let me know where to send the flowers."

"I beg your pardon," the cleric began.

A loud feminine shriek sounded from the direction of the kitchens, and suddenly House realized he'd lost track of James. The kitchen door banged open and the satyr skittered out, chased by a serving wench wielding a broom.

They thundered around the room, knocking over tables and chairs and sending drinks flying. The wench screamed curses and imprecations at the top of her lungs as she swung at James. Luckily she wasn't an enchantress, or he would've spent the next few thousand years working off the bad karma she'd wished against him. Finally, he spotted House and dove behind his legs.

"Stay out from under my skirts, you little wretch!" The broom slammed down, narrowly missing the tip of House's boots.

"Sorry," James peered out from behind him, grinning with unconvincing remorse. A strip of silky, lace-trimmed cloth was caught between his teeth. "Instincts, you know."

"Good to see death didn't rob you of your suave skill with the ladies," House snarled, grabbing him by a horn and giving him a good shake.

She eyed House, panting and red faced. "Get your pet out of here! And if you plan on bringing it back ever again, I advise you castrate it first."

The young wizards had quietly packed up and left during the commotion. And he still hadn't had his lunch! Keeping a death grip on James's horn, House dragged him outside.

Clear of the inn, he cast a preemptive Splendid Exorcism of Pain on himself, then began the task of drawing an intricate, nine-pointed star in the dirt with the tip of his staff.

"Shouldn't you go a little easy on the exorcisms," James asked. "Too many in too short a time and the demon just builds up a resistance. What will you do then?"

"I'll lay off the exorcisms when you learn to keep it in your pants," House said through gritted teeth. "Oh, sorry. You don't wear pants anymore."

"That's cold."

"I'll just bet." The star finished to his satisfaction, House stepped inside it and stabbed his staff down into the center. The crimson jewels embedded in its twisted length lit up with an eerie inner flame. James hastily hopped inside the star just as the teleportation spell activated.

When the three young wizards reached the top of the treacherous path along the western flank of the mountain, they were more than a little surprised to see the nosy old man from the tavern leaning against one of the boulders strewn around the entrance of the haunted cave and munching on a mutton and cheese sandwich.

"Fancy meeting you here. So this is what folks do for amusement nowadays," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "In my day, we used to bowl. But who am I to judge?"

"I don't know how you reached the cave before us, but I advise you go right back home, grandpa," the centaur said, putting a hand to the hilt of his massive broadsword. "It's not safe for you here."

He blinked, then calmly took a draught from his wine flask. "Pretty impressive sword, although you might have as much luck with a wax dagger and a glass shield."

"Are you just going to stand there and jeer?" The centaur demanded.

"No, I'm going to sit here and jeer," he replied, settling himself down on a flat topped stone and taking an apple and a small black bladed dagger from his pockets. He began to pare it industriously.

"Look at his cane." The half-elf said suddenly. "That's not a cane, or not just a cane. It's a wizard's stave. Would you happen to be a wizard?"

"Arcanopath, not wizard." He shoved a slice of apple in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then said lazily, "My name is renowned from the Hellish Realm of the Unborn across the Fourth Demesne of Salvation to the Infinite Paradises of the Lost and Forgotten Gods of Eld. I am Gregorius House, ne plus ultra of arcanopathy. Sorry, did I forget to mention that?"

There was a long silence. The elf maiden and the cleric exchanged glances, but the striped centaur snorted with laughter.

"You can't be," he protested. "The great wizard never leaves his floating tower. Not for anyone. No way, no how."

"It's true," James insisted. "He sometimes does if the challenge is worthy of him, or the sack of gold promised is big enough."

"You wouldn't lie to someone with a very big sword, would you, goat-man?" the centaur asked.

The satyr spread his arms. "Hark! I used to be Sir James. Remember me?"

"Last seen as a crispy critter flambé," House added helpfully. The looks on their faces made it clear they did indeed remember.

"House resurrected me in his own inimitable fashion." James winced. "And you know that's twelfth-order necromancy at the very least. Introductions are in order, I guess. House, meet Alaceria, a Brightleaf Elf of the Golden Hills, Brother Chasuble of the Order of the Monotremata, and the Battlemage Forelock."

House grunted and tossed James the apple core. "So, it's a dragon." He strafed them with his gaze. "What did you three plan to do about it?"

"Dragons are reptilian," Chasuble ventured. "A simple cold spell directed into the cave should slow it down."

House shook his head. "It's a reptile, sure, but it's a BIG reptile. What would you say, James, five tons or so?"

"At least."

"Then how can it fly," Alaceria interrupted. "A beast that large should be far too heavy to lift itself under its own power."

"You know mana is the energy behind magic, correct? Well good, your apprenticeships weren't totally wasted. Near as anyone can determine, mana is a property of the earth itself. Long ago, several thousand years at least, a big chunk of rock fell from the sky. Probably something to do with a battle between factions of gods. It was infused with some sort of freaky mana. Killed off most of the reptilian tribe, and fused what was left into dragons. We're lucky it did or humans might never have become ascendant. At any rate, dragons got a massive dose of mana that just never quit. Lets them fly, breathe fire, that sort of stuff. Doesn't mean they still don't have to follow some natural laws."

"If it is that dependant on magic, we could use a Wizard's Wheel," she said. This was a simple wheel powered by kinetic magic, but with the caveat that the spell didn't have a time limit. The Wheel would turn faster and faster until it used up all the mana in a region, rendering it dead to magic for all of eternity. "I myself have no interest in slaughtering the poor dragon."

The other two young wizards gawped at her. "You don't?"

Her eyes widened, and she clasped her hands, the flower in her hair blooming gloriously. "Look at the gifts of nature. The clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds. Nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are foolish. We don't understand that life is a paradise. We only have to understand that, and we would be immediately fulfilled in all its beauty and in harmony with all its creatures."

"That's lovely, but a Wizard's Wheel would kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater," House said, scratching his chin with the black dagger. "Not to mention it would put us out of a job. Unless we manage to sneak in and put it directly under the dragon, we'd have to start the Wheel from a distance. The dragon would be able to sense the growing dead area and just fly away. A Wheel would have to be enormous to suck mana out of the ground fast enough to prevent the dragon from just flying away. Even if we set it up from a distance, the dragon would be able to see what we`re doing."

"If it would fly away at all," James said. "It seems unusually attached to its territory."

House cocked his head, thoughtful. "It does, doesn't it? Dragons are apex predators, they need an enormous amount of meat. Staying in one region like this isn't ecologically sound. I thought they usually just devastate an area and then move on, give the survivors time to build livestock populations up again. Strange, very strange."

"Why couldn't we use a cold-based spell, something like Savage Runes of Ice or the Frozen Invocation of Damnation?" Brother Chasuble persisted. "It's good for clearing out troglodytes from mine shafts."

With an air of strained patience, House said, "Look, son, have you ever cooked a potato on a campfire?"

"Of course. But what does that have to do with dragons?"

Ignoring the question, House continued, "And big potatoes cook slower than little ones, right?"

"Yes."

"What's your point, old man?" The centaur pawed the ground irritably.

"They also take longer to cool down. Don't bite into a big potato or you'll burn your mouth . . . " House looked up. The centaur's sword tip hovered only inches from his nose.

"We're serious here. The lives of hundreds of people may be at stake! Stop speaking in metaphors, magician."

Chasuble was still stuck on mine shafts." What about poison gas of some type? We could pump it in. Even if the cold-based spells only slow it a bit, it might be enough to give the poison gas time to work."

"You mean, what if we do exactly the same thing, but try harder?" House turned to the centaur. "Crocodiles. You had them where you came from, right, fourlegs?"

"River guardians, sons of Sobek? Yes. What of them?" Forelock shifted uneasily.

"Then you know they like to hide underwater. They can hold their breath for fifteen minutes and in cold weather, up to half a day. The effect of that cold spell is going to send the dragon into a state of hibernation and make it even easier for it to hold its breath."

"We could always try a charm spell," Chasuble said. "Alaceria, you're good with animals. Do you have anything that might be helpful?"

"Uh, I know the Working of Dragon Seduction."

"I don't think that quite does what you think it does." House cackled, slapping his knee. "Although I'd give my right leg to see you try it on the beast."

"You two can handle the spells. My sword will speak for me." The centaur drew it and looked menacingly around at the others. "And if this so-called great and powerful arcanopath has any actual suggestions, I'd like to hear them."

The other two rounded on him. "Yes, what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we need more information," he said, abruptly dropping his joking manner. "Before I left, I attempted to remotely scry that cave. It was like searching for a black cat in a cellar at midnight. That dragon's got the place completely tangled up in spells. There's nothing to do but march right in there and see what we've got. Right behind you, of course."

It was after all what they had gone there to do, and there was no more putting it off. Despite House's muttering under his breath that it takes no skill to find trees in a forest, the cleric cast the Evocation of Lost Reptiles and Alaceria worked Witchery of Wyrm Summoning. The dragon-specific location spells rose from his amulet and her fingertips, merging into a softly shimmering ball of multicolored light that floated off into the depths of the cave. Wasting no time, the three young wizards followed in its wake.

James the satyr grabbed House's sleeve and whispered, "You're not really going in there with them, are you? I mean, you plan to teleport back to the floating tower. We can light a fire, put on some cocoa. Watch some wood nymph wrestling on the magic mirror. Right?"

"I'll be fine," he said, gently unfastening the little fingers. "A dragon isn't dangerous at all unless it knows you're there, and I don't plan on letting it know I'm there."

"How do you propose to do that?"

"Simple. I'm not going to use any magic."

"What?"

"You heard me," House said brusquely. "I will recite speak no words of an forbidden tongue, burn no effigies, draw no effulgent runes in the air, concoct no bilious potions, tinctures, salves or unguents, beckon no elemental spirits hither from the beyond."

James scratched the base of his horns and cocked his head to one side, perplexed. "Then why is the Marchioness paying a bag of gold maximos big enough to choke a wyvern for your expertise?"

"Watch and learn."

The satyr shuffled backward. "Ah, I've already faced this monster once today. If you don't mind, I'll hold down the fort out here."

"Suit yourself."

"I think I shall. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Like survive?" House cast one last Splendid Exorcism of Pain. At this point, it couldn't hurt.

"Hah-hah. If you get to the ninth hell first, save me a corner table," James called encouragingly as the arcanopath stepped past the threshold into the cave mouth.

The outer reaches of the cavern were choked with fallen trees, boulders, animal bones and other debris carried in by avalanches and heavy rainfall. Here and there were scraps of corroded armor, all that remained of the ill-fated soldiers who'd hidden in the cave to hide from enemy troops and been sealed in by an avalanche. Starving, trapped, picked off one by one by cave dwelling carnivores, they had ultimately resorted to cannibalism to survive. Even that had not been enough. By the time the spring melt exposed the entrance they were all dead, and legends about the wailing of their ghosts had given the cave the reputation of being haunted.

The other three were obviously trying to leave him behind, but the footing was so bad that they were reduced to a speed House could handle, and he only straggled a couple hundred paces behind them. As the last feeble beams of sunlight were blocked off, a weird, faint glow became visible from the cave walls themselves, product of luminescent fungi that coated them.

The caverns were a fantastic maze of spires and steeples, turrets and minarets, oddly organic configurations all gleaming like mother-of-pearl. A warm wind from within trilled across the ribbed sides of stalactites, making a distant sound almost like human voices laughing and moaning. The twists and turns would have led them astray, but House noted astutely that the tunnels never narrowed to an aperture smaller than would allow the passage of a slender, sinuous draconian shape.

Marveling at the delicate aesthetics of the natural architecture, the wizards nonetheless did not drop their guard. They moved as quietly as possible, listening so hard they could practically hear themselves sweat. All was silence. However, there are good silences and bad silences. This was not a good silence.

"Why are our torch flames turning blue," Alaceria inquired nervously.

"We've stepped into a planar Fluctuation Matrix," House said with quiet urgency. "Quick, set up a stable Evocation Field. And whatever you do, don't step out of the harmonized area while you`re doing magic! The cross-dimensional Destabilization Cascade will warp whatever spell you try to cast."

Working together, the young wizards busied themselves following his instruction. A netting of ephemeral ley lines traced the air around them, holding back the waves of baleful draconic magic that thrummed against them, clawing and tearing at the fabric of space and time. In a shadowy niche far back in the cave, something gleaming and white stirred.

A lean white figure stalked towards them with awkward but somehow sinister movements. As it came closer, they saw it was a fleshless human skeleton dressed tattered chainmail and the dented remnants of armor. It dragged a bent, dull edged sword on the ground behind it as it staggered with mindless intent towards them, the sightless eye sockets seeming to gleam with malevolent glee.

"The undead are my field," the cleric said, drawing his amulet from inside his robes. Muttering an apotropaism, Chasuble held it up towards the skeleton. The incised runes glowed faintly blue as power flowed from the gods through him and into it.

The skeleton lunged forwards and swung its rusty sword. Chasuble dropped the amulet, and jumped back just in time to keep from being decapitated. He looked over his shoulder at the group, alarmed.

"Um, that should have worked."

"It isn't working," Alaceria pointed out rather needlessly, as they scrambled to avoid the skeleton warrior's lunge and still remain within the stable Evocation Field.

Only House didn't move. The arcanopath was lost in intense contemplation. Apotropaics were spells that turned the undead. If the skeletons did not turn, ipso facto they were not undead but moved because of an entirely different animating force. A very familiar one, in fact - the same one he'd used to create his gargoyle servant.

"It's a stone golems. Someone carved a skeleton from the rock and cast The Hundredth Enchantment of the Living Stone on it," House advised.

Forelock grinned. Despite what House had said, he'd kept that Savage Rune of Ice handy. With a sweeping gesture, he sketched a glyph in the air where it hung shining like blue flame. The skeletal stone golem stumbled into. Ice crystals formed inside it, growing rapidly and weakening its structure. It took a step. A hairline crack appeared in its femur and the ankle bones creaked alarmingly. Another step and it crumbled into a thin scattering of white dust.

"Don't congratulate yourself yet."

More skeletons came clattering towards them, each clasping a different weapon in its bony grip - poleax, morning star, mallet, mace. They made a sound like a winter wind through the bare branches of trees and brought with them a choking charnel house scent.

Chasuble raised his amulet and called upon his transcendental being of choice, with the same lack of effect. "Now what?"

"Those are real skeletons, but they aren't undead. The One Thousand Witcheries of the Dancing Bone have been cast on them."

"What's the difference," the cleric asked somewhat petulantly. "They're moving bones either way, surely?"

"It's elementary - "

"I am familiar with that spell," Alaceria exclaimed before he could finish explaining. "They're not moving themselves, they're being puppeteered by sylphs, air elementals."

She began to speak in a soothing voice, using her elfin charms to console them. The sylphs dissipated into a light breeze that ruffled the dragon hunter's hair and clothes. The bones collapsed into a dusty heap on the floor.

"Damn!" Forelock shouted, making the others jump. "I don't believe this!"

More skeletons, a whole horde, were swarming over the walls of the cave, emitting angry chittering noises. Eschewing weapons, they leapt at the wizards and clawed at the protective ley lines of the Evocation Field with hideous fervor.

"I've seen these things before," House said, fanning a yawn. "Some kind of stick insect. You know how some species imitate twigs or leaves? These hang around graveyards and abandoned castles, waiting for some dope to stumble past thinking they're just a pile of bones."

"Blast of Accursed Shocking!" With a terrible fizzling, zapping noise and a discharge of fierce purple light, Alaceria increased the energy of the ley lines. The skeleton-mimic bugs, instantly seared to a crisp, fell on their backs with their legs and arms curled, gently smoking.

They continued onward, careful to keep the cage of protective magical energy around them.

"Do you think I can turn those," Chasuble pleaded in a small voice, pointing out a small group of skeletons that hung warily back in a side tunnel.

"Why don't you let the cavalry charge this time?" House nodded towards Forelock.

The centaur shrugged and charged, swinging his broadsword. Blood spurted, seemingly from thin air a few inches away from the bones themselves. As they died, human flesh faded back into visibility around them.

Forelock trampled them underhoof for good measure, then turned to House. "How did you know?"

"If you three were paying attention, you'd notice they left the prints of bare feet in the dust, their breaths steamed in the cold air, and their invisible flesh kept their bones just slightly separate from the ground and what they were holding. The rattling chains might have just been for atmospheric effect, but I suspected they were a form of portable charm spell, the Chains of Command."

"Do you think there might be more of them lurking around," he asked, as he polished the cruor off his sword's blade.

"Probably not. I didn't see anything resembling barracks and I doubt the dragon would be interested in fouling up its lair with kitchen and sanitary facilities for humans." House knocked one experimentally in the head with his staff, but the fallen fighter didn't spring back to unlife. "The dragon probably held them in suspended animation in a pocket universe until they were needed."

Feeling considerably more confident, they pushed forwards, entering a high ceilinged chamber. The three young adventurers groaned in unison as yet another clanking horde of skeletons approached.

"Illusions, I bet," Foreman said, sheathing his sword. "This dragon sure has some kind of weird fixation on bones."

"Puppets?" Alaceria shook her head. "No, wait. Some sort of ghost. The ghosts of those stick insects?"

"They're undead." House snapped his fingers with a dry sound, as if bone and not flesh had clicked together. "Undead. Undead. Ah . . . Brother? You might want to handle this."

But the cleric's mind was almost too blown to comprehend at once. He still stood there, frowning deeply as he tried to puzzle out what else they could be.

"Those are actual undead walking skeletons," House bellowed. "Turn them!"

Startled, Brother Chasuble raised his amulet and stepped outside of the Harmonized Area. With a rush of displaced air he vanished from the prime material plane of existence.

The cleric found himself floating in an infinite black void. He searched within himself for the blessed locus that was his link to the hermetic Pantheon, and found only a feeble flickering. How could the gods have abandoned him in his hour of greatest need? Drawing on this last reserve of power, Chasuble cast the Spears of Abyssal Light to illuminate his surroundings.

The darkness was populated by small square metal boxes with paired slots on the top, flapping with blind determination on eagle's wings toward an unknown goal. Infinite numbers of them, stretching as far into the void as human vision could perceive. Chasuble began to scream . . .

And back in the cavern, House clasped his hands, raised his eyebrows and gave his two remaining companions a sarcastic look of enthusiasm. "Well, let's not keep the dragon waiting!"