Manshoon turned his burning gaze from Phandymm- who fell back senseless in his seat, head lolling-to Chess.

The nobleman felt a sudden heaviness tearing at his mind. He gasped, then roared in fury as he felt his tongue thicken and words come unbidden into his mouth.

The first lord smiled at him as cruelly as any cat cornering his prey.

Chess glared into that mocking smile as he struggled against his own muscles. The lesser rings of protection on his fingers smoked, flared into tiny blue flames, and burned away. The searing pain cleared his senses. Desperately, Chess drove his arm up-it moved slowly, as if coming from a great distance-to stare at the one ring still on his hand. It flashed.

Sudden golden radiance swirled in the air over the central well of the High Hall. It spun ever-brighter until the stunned councilors saw it become a large black dragon, vast and scaled, its head like a gigantic horned snake. Mighty wings clapped, once.

The wind of that wingbeat smashed many men flat against their benches. The dragon hissed, loud and angry. Acid foamed and bubbled at the edges of its jaws, and the chamber was suddenly full of the eye-watering stink of its breath.

Men screamed. The dragon turned its snakelike head, terrible hunger and mirth in its eyes. With its tail, the wyrm casually smashed a councilor and his bench into a bloody heap of pulp and splinters.

That crash was answered with a ringing like angry bells as the tall windows of the chamber shattered-and true nightmare descended on the council.

The dragon whirled, gleaming scales shifting.

Three orbs, black against the bright sunlight, drifted into the chamber through the broken windows. Eyestalks writhed as each dark sphere looked down with a single unwinking, central eye. A large, many-toothed mouth split one sphere in cruel laughter.