Lich for Hire

Ambrose wasn't driven by any particular desire to save the world. The issue was that the dragons' return stood in direct conflict with his interests.

His most profitable ventures were sunscreen and the Fountain of Youth. Sunscreen was a daily necessity for lower-income customers; the Fountain of Youth was a premium luxury that didn't exploit the poor.

Both products were intended for humanoid creatures, and humans in particular.

Dragons were different. Draconic power generally scaled with age, which meant the Fountain of Youth was practically poison to them. As for sunscreen, what dragon had ever needed it?

If the dragon clans returned and enslaved every intelligent race, who would be left to buy anything?

And dragons were congenitally prone to plunder. They produced nothing; all their possessions came from raiding others.

Under dragon rule, commerce would cease to exist. Ambrose would have no business nor income—unless he intended to start raiding himself, which was a less efficient revenue model than trade by any reasonable calculation.

Everything he had said before was genuine. He actually wanted a Lyon that governed wisely and let people live in peace and prosperity. That was the environment in which he could make the most wealth.

The ideal situation was for the dragon clans to remain overseas, unable to return, with no choice but to wait for Ambrose to supply them with goods at a comfortable markup.

Unfortunately, Gareth didn't know how the red dragons from the astral plane planned to circumvent the covenant, only that it was a lengthy process that would take years rather than months.

The dragons who had once lived alongside the bone dragons, close as family, were now snubbing their former kin the moment a possible route back to the mainland appeared. It spoke to the fundamental nature of the species. Equal partnership with dragons was simply not possible.

Having gathered this intelligence, Ambrose decided against sailing to the Isle of Dragons immediately. Tensions there were running high, and arriving as an outsider would be an invitation for someone to breathe fire at him first and ask questions later.

But he couldn't ignore the situation entirely. He asked Gareth to keep his ears open. Any detail connected to breaking the covenant was worth reporting.

Alabastra would actually have been the better choice for that kind of work. Gareth was a fighter, not a spy. Alabastra's ability to move unseen made her ideally suited for gathering information.

But she had gone silent and unresponsive to Ambrose's messages, and apparently even Gareth couldn't get her to act. There was nothing for it—he would have to ask Black Rose to have a word with her old friend.

With the visit to the Isle of Dragons postponed, Ambrose turned back to his other ventures. Before the world descended into full-scale war, his plan was to collect whatever gold he could and pay off any remaining debts.

When the chaos finally did arrive, he could always bury himself somewhere and wait out the mess, then emerge only once the dust settled.

His one outstanding debt was to the elven gods. The drow needed to be brought to heel so that Catherine could ascend as their new deity, a goddess of the drow who might lead them back into the broader family of elvenkind.

Looking back on it, Ambrose suspected the elven gods had been maneuvering against the Spider Queen from the beginning.

Only someone like Catherine, genuinely, incorruptibly good, could remain uncorrupted by the drow's cruelty and malice while serving as their deity. That kind of goddess could actually guide the drow back toward something resembling their elven heritage.

Why Catherine had always enjoyed the elven gods' favor, and why she had received their blessing even after doing something as reckless as she had, now made sense.

Ambrose left his laboratory and made his way to another section of the underground city.

The place had been extensively developed. Most of the original gigantic architecture had since been refitted for smaller occupants, the oversized proportions adjusted to something a normal person could actually use.

The southern district had been designated for Catherine and the drow. By the time Ambrose arrived, the entire neighborhood had been transformed into a sea of flowers. Countless luminescent blooms were scattered across every surface, turning the district into something resembling a river of stars.

He had to acknowledge that, whatever the elves' other failings, their sense of aesthetics was genuinely superior to most intelligent species. The soft light had been arranged with care, never overwhelming, only bringing out the architecture's natural character. The real estate value of this area had probably become astronomical.

He walked through the district. Drow were busy everywhere: some tending the flowers, some mending clothing, some sweeping. Quite a few were reading. None of this remotely resembled the reputation of a cruel and savage people. They looked more like a community of quiet recluses who had withdrawn from the wider world.

Even if the drow were faking it, Catherine's work was clearly showing results.

The drow greeted Ambrose with respectful bows as he passed, their demeanor still impeccably docile.

He came to a tall tower whose exterior was covered in climbing vines, though it showed no sign of neglect. The vines had been trained into intricate patterns along the outer walls, and a glance across the stonework revealed the full-moon emblem of Ninesha Bowmoon repeated throughout the design.

It was precisely this goddess who had granted Catherine the blessing of invincibility under the moonlight, which had allowed Ambrose to deflect the Silvermoon Knight's blade at a critical moment. Without it, his soul would long since have dispersed.

Ninesha Bowmoon held a distinctive place within the elven pantheon. She was said to be a daughter of the god-king Choralan. Some legends held that Choralan had shaped the physical forms of the elves, and that Ninesha had wept life into them.

Later, when the Spider Queen's betrayal left Choralan gravely wounded, Ninesha and two other goddesses merged their divine essences and became Angharad, the three-in-one goddess, whose combined power healed Choralan's wounds and preserved the elven pantheon.

In recognition of that sacrifice, Choralan took Angharad as his second wife and granted her the title Queen of Vandorra.

In a certain sense, Ninesha Bowmoon was simultaneously Choralan's daughter and, through her composite form, his wife. It sounded impossible to a mortal mind, but such was the nature of gods. Categories that constrained mortal life simply did not apply in the same way to deities.

Ninesha continued to exist as an independent being while simultaneously being part of Angharad.

Mystics, seers, diviners, and weavers of illusion alike favored her. However, she tended to answer only elven prayers.

When he had still been alive, Ambrose had made an attempt at worshiping her. She had found him unworthy of notice, and he had moved on without complaint.

Turning his mind from the past, he climbed the tower and found Catherine.

She hadn't changed in appearance, but something about her had shifted.

Gone was her transparent naïveté, which had once made her so easy to deceive. It had been replaced with mature clarity.

Catherine looked at him and smiled. "It's been a long time. Have you finally found a moment to come by?"

"I've been occupied," Ambrose said. "But now I'm here to settle my debts. From the looks of things, you've made real progress with the drow."

Catherine shook her head. "It is merely superficial. In the last three days alone, there have been five assassination attempts. In the past month, forty drow have tried to escape."

She produced a thick notebook and handed it to him.

Ambrose opened it. The records inside were meticulous. Every behavior was catalogued exactly as he had asked. The detail was impressive. Catherine had clearly taken the assignment seriously.

The results were tangible, too. She had become quite reliable at detecting poison in food that was brought to her, and at identifying which drow intended to put a knife in her while she slept.

But the more she recorded, the more disheartened she became. These drow showed no sign of genuine change. They were outwardly compliant but constantly looking for ways to escape.

Ambrose paged through the records. "There's something here worth noting. This one, Constance. She's the closest thing you have to success."

"Constance?" Catherine recognized the name immediately. Her expression fell. "She's attempted to kill me more times than anyone else. She's tried fifteen different methods. And you're saying she's changed?"

Ambrose smiled. "You don't believe me? Summon her, and I'll show you."