The Black wing (d-2)

by Mary Kirchoff

  Khisanth looked up with one lazy eye from her reclined position on the reed-covered plank floor. "As I recall, I saved your life. What's more, my disobedience"- she shivered at the patronizing word -"led to the demoralization of the remaining knights. The battle was over within minutes."

  Maldeev scowled. "You're being amply rewarded for that." He stopped his pacing to look squarely at the dragon. "I'm getting the distinct feeling you don't realize the honor I've bestowed upon you."

  Khisanth sighed. She knew her attitude did not reflect recent events. "It's just that I always envisioned Jahet in the position. I keep waiting for her to return." That was partly true, Khisanth reminded herself. While she had been moody since the events at Lamesh, the highlord seemed to be adjust shy;ing to his soul mate's death with the stoic detachment neces shy;sary for a truly effective highlord.

  The other part of Khisanth's unease, the part she couldn't tell her soul-mate-to-be, was that she couldn't forget her comparison of Maldeev and Tate.

  "Did it really never occur to you under what circum shy;stances you would assume the number one rank?"

  Khisanth's eyes focused; Maldeev was looking at her incredulously. "I never thought that far ahead."

  "I don't believe that." Maldeev returned to the fire to stir the coals pensively. "I think we are fated to be together."

  Khisanth propped herself up on one elbow. "What?"

  "I can tell you this, now that we are to be soul mates," he said through the mask he would continue to wear in her presence until after their union ceremony. Rocking back on his heels, the human appeared to choose his words carefully.

  "I didn't seek my position as dragon highlord. Takhisis herself selected me, from all the officers in her service, to raise the Black Wing."

  Khisanth looked suitably impressed.

  "I know that you, too, have been god-touched."

  Khisanth looked startled. She had told no one, not even Jahet.

  "Were the rumors incorrect?" Maldeev asked, though he already knew the answer. Andor, his dark cleric, had long since confirmed that a black dragon had had audience with the queen in her domain and had been sent away alive. The dragon could only have been Khisanth.

  "I spoke with our queen, yes."

  "What did she look like?" Maldeev pressed, his voice eager. "What did she say?"

  "Hideous … and breathtakingly beautiful," remembered Khisanth dreamily, giving voice for the first time to the odd contrast. "She told me-warned me, really-to pursue our common goals more intelligently." She paused, wondering if she should share the next memory with Maldeev, then plunged ahead. "She told me to take a rider, said I would know the right one when I met him, and that I would do great things in her name."

  "There you have it! She was telling you your destiny!" Mal shy;deev had begun pacing again, working himself into a lather. "How else can you account for the foresight that brought me to suggest you ride as wing dragon? What greater thing could you do in her name than unite with a dragon highlord selected by the very god who bestowed the prophecy?"

  Khisanth was beginning to see the logic in his argument. She could hardly reject the wing highlord to join with Salah Khan now anyway. She felt mildly reassured. Any reserva shy;tions she felt likely resulted from her former resolve to remain riderless.

  Still, something else plagued her, something she could not share with anyone, something she needed to do before she could move into her new role. When Salah Khan stepped into the great hall and nodded curtly to his once-intended before addressing Maldeev, Khisanth took the opportunity to slip from the room.

  * * * * *

  Three hours later, Khisanth was in the guise of an eagle. Her sharp eyes scoured the hilly landscape south of Lamesh Castle. She was looking for Jahet's body. The heat of battle distorted her memory of the location; still she thought she had to be close.

  As she flew, Khisanth told herself the intense desire to lay her friend's body to rest was simply a last gesture of respect for Jahet. They had, after all, blood-mingled. Jahet was the only dragon who had not betrayed her. Jahet had served the forces of the Dark Queen admirably, died with honor, and deserved better than to rot in the sun or provide food for timid, pointless creatures who would not have dared ap shy;proached her while she lived.

  Khisanth would have liked to sink her friend into a swampy grave, a fitting tribute for a black dragon. Unfortu shy;nately, she knew of no marshes nearby, and felt it would be even more disrespectful to magically carry Jahet's body around the countryside looking for one. Jahet's soul would have to be content with a covering of rocks.

  The black eagle was nearly blinded by a sudden, powerful flash of reflected sunlight from the ground. She waited for the spots of brightness to fade from her vision before shifting her position and squinting cautiously below again. There, covered in large part by broken branches, was the oddly twisted neck and head of Highlord Maldeev's soul mate.

  Khisanth quickly descended. She could see only flashes of Jahet's black body through all the branches that covered her. After landing, Khisanth returned to dragon form and began to clear the brush away with her claw arms. She took great care not to further desecrate Jahef s mortal form with scratches from her talons.

  Now that her view was clear, Khisanth could see that loot shy;ers had taken the saddle and Jahet's diamond nose stud. Despite that, it appeared that no creatures had ventured for shy;ward to taste their first dragon. Except for the odd twist to her neck, Jahef s body was intact, as if she were asleep.

  "Well, Jahet, you were right and I was wrong. Maldeev is still pushing me to take a rider. Unfortunately, we were both wrong about who it would be."

  Khisanth leaned in closer to whisper conspiratorially, "I think I may have to break my original vow to never take a human rider." She grimaced slightly and shook her head. "I can't shake the feeling that Maldeev is right, that this is the sign from Takhisis for which I've been waiting."

  "Thaf s right, I never told you about my meeting with our queen, did I?" The black dragon laughed without humor. "I could tell you what the Abyss is like, but you probably know more about it now than I do.

  "Takhisis told me that when I met the human worthy of my talents, I would know it," said Khisanth. "How else could I interpret the fates that placed me near you and Maldeev when you were struck down? Maldeev would have been dis shy;graced to lose his dragon, not to mention dead if I hadn't plucked him from the sky. Even I'm forced to agree that a highlord is worthy of me. This is my fate."

  Her problems seemed trivial compared to Jahef s. "You're beyond such earthly concerns now, aren't you? What's it like to die?" Khisanth recalled the physical torment she'd suf shy;fered traveling to the Abyss while alive.

  Almost without meaning to, Khisanth began to look for the killing wound. She ran her eyes over Jahef s length. The dragon could find only minor nicks and dents in the scales. There was no obvious wound here. Khisanth paused to remember her position to Jahet at the time of the dragon's death. She was certain that the side now turned skyward had been away from Khisanth, facing the knight Tate. Could Jahet have died from an earlier wound to her other side?

  Before undertaking the immense task of turning the hefty dragon over, Khisanth had another idea. She retracted her talons and lay a gentle claw onto the body to examine the vulnerable skin between scales. Startled, she pulled her claw back. Jahet felt as smooth and cold as black glass, and equally as hard. Khisanth had touched enough dead creatures to know that they did, in fact, turn ice cold-but they were soft and bloated and squishy. Stiff after many days, yes, but never hard like glass.

  The dragon's puzzlement deepened. She reached out with the intention of rolling Jahet over. Her claw again touched Jahet's glassy spine, but when she exerted the first trace of pressure, Khisanth heard a noise like the crackling, snapping sound of ice settling in winter. Without even conscious thought, she snatched back her claw, but it was too late. She had started a chain reaction that she was powerless to stop.

  Before her
stunned eyes, Khisanth watched a crack appear where she had touched Jahet. The crack raced forward and fractured into thousands of tiny lines, like the thin, silvery strands of a spiderweb. Within mere heartbeats, the entire length of Jahet's body, from snout to tail, had shattered like an impossibly large pane of glass. The fractured corpse caved

  in on itself and crumbled into a heap, sending the stunned dragon reeling back.

  The deafening sound of breaking glass rang in Khisanth's ears for many moments as she tried to make sense of what had transpired. Almost absently, she noticed slivers of pink-veined rock just beneath the layer of black glass that had been Jahet. It looked like quartz. Blood.

  Khisanth's mind turned to the obvious. Only magic could explain the odd and swift transformation of the dragon's body. Khisanth was certain she would have known before Jahet's death if there had been something inherently different about the dragon's magical abilities.

  Impulsively, Khisanth cast a spell to tell if the glass were magical. She waited impatiently for the expected answer, and was surprised to detect only a negligible amount of magical energy, which would be the last vestiges of Jahef s nature or traces of Krynn's own elemental magic.

  Poison? It was possible, considering Jahet's symptoms before death; she'd choked, then grew stiff and soundless. Khi shy;santh knew little about poisons, but she doubted any mun shy;dane poison was potent enough to instantly kill a dragon.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Khisanth saw something floating above the shards, and she looked up slowly. A misty form was coalescing. It stretched and rose like thick white smoke to hover high above the splintered glass, reminding Khisanth of the tormented creatures she had encountered in the Abyss. The twisting, gyrating cloud was vaguely dragon shaped, if only from the suggestion of a tail and snout. There were two large black gaps in the white mist above the nose and one below-eyes and a mouth-which seemed to melt and sag in steady and unrelenting anguish.

  Khisanth had seen enough in her life that she felt neither threatened nor surprised. Perhaps she had reached her capacity for amazement. "Were you Jahet?" she asked calmly.

  For an answer, the misty, swirling thing flared up high, a sharp contrast to the azure blue sky, then dropped back down to nearly Khisanth's height.

  "Your death was unnatural, and because of it, you're in torment, aren't you?" The apparition flared again.

  Khisanth closed her eyes and thought of Dela those years ago in the wagon. There would be no rocky grave for Jahet. With a cold, hard certainty forged in the fires of experience, Khisanth knew what she must do to end the suffering of Jahet's spirit. Bolts of white-hot fire surged from each of her six talons and bore into the pile of shards, with a hundred times the intensity of a glassmaker's torch.

  Khisanth held the flames to the glass beneath the appari shy;tion until the shards began to melt. The faceted splinters turned shiny, like wet, polished stones. The dragon directed her flaming talons to the liquefying glass until her claw arms ached and the flames petered out, as if determination could inspire heat enough to fire up glass. When she could hold her arms aloft no longer, Khisanth sat back on her haunches and watched the red-hot glow of molten glass slowly recede, sinking into the earth from which creatures of magic first received their powers at the beginning of time.

  As the slag dwindled, so did the ghostly apparition of Jahet's soul above it. Upon later refection, Khisanth was never quite sure if she had actually witnessed its vague expressions of torment turn to ecstasy, or if she had simply projected her own hopes onto the mists.

  The dragon flew from the small glowing pile at dusk, long after the misty phantom had dissipated. Flight was painful, for the efforts of her claw arms had affected her wing mus shy;cles. She pressed on, anxious to put distance between herself and the memory of the strange abomination Jahet had briefly become.

  Khisanth could not resist the temptation to look back at the softly glowing mound of hot glass. For one brief and explo shy;sive moment, a thin pillar of flame shot high into the twilight sky, as if trying to touch the constellations themselves. Then the flame was gone.

  Chapter 24

  The dark cleric's room in the basement of Shalimsha tower was small, cramped, and dark, just the way Andor liked it. As personal cleric to Dragon Highlord Maldeev himself, he rated a much larger space, even a room in the airy upper floors of the tower. But that would not have suited Andor's tastes, devel shy;oped as a youngster in a home carved into the base of an enormous vallenwood tree. Andor was a Qualinesti elf.

  Dark elf now, Andor reminded himself bitterly. Cast out by his own people after his study of magic had taken an evil turn, Andor had been pronounced a dark elf and forbidden to call himself a Qualinesti until his actions again reflected the good natures of his people. Unfortunately, bitterness over his banishment had only cemented Andor's affiliation with evil. The cleric always hid his delicately pointed ears beneath a dark, coarse-spun hood that also kept his hairless elven face

  in perpetual shadow. He preferred that people feared him for his skills, instead of scorned him, or worse still, pitied him for his outcast status.

  Andor was kneeling at the altar to Takhisis in Shalimsha's temple, preparing for the union ceremony he was to perform later in the day between Maldeev and Khisanth. His role was to serve as the channel between the queen and her mortal ser shy;vants, thus his mind would link with the Dragon Queen's during the ceremony. The thought brought fear to the cleric's heart.

  She will see my guilt, Andor thought with certainty. She will know the reason for the shame I have borne since the attack. He had to explain himself first. Andor began his fer shy;vent prayers.

  "Dragon Queen," the dark cleric began, using the name by which Takhisis was known among elves, "I must humbly beg your forgiveness. I did not intend that my skills be used against one who served you. I didn't know, didn't ask the purpose. It was not my place to question …" The dark elf's voice trailed off, knowing he sounded weak willed, and very guilty. Andor had a sudden thought.

  "I know you can read my thoughts if you've a mind to, but you must realize the depth of my regret for my unwitting part in the betrayal. To prove that my allegiance to you is as steadfast as ever, I'll reveal the name of the one who has betrayed us both."

  The dark elf leaned in needlessly and whispered, "His name is-"

  Andor's voice was abruptly silenced.

  Carrying a torch in one hand, Khisanth, as the black-haired woman Onyx, rushed down the narrow, twisting staircase. Not that she liked the human form, but it had its uses. She could never have gotten to the basement of the tower in her enormous dragon form.

  The dark cleric Andor would know, if anyone in Shalimsha would, what sort of spell could have caused the hideous transformation of Jahet. Khisanth could not erase from her memory the sight of the glass dragon shattering.

  The young woman had to hurry now. The union ceremony with Maldeev was to take place at sundown, and much needed to be done beforehand. Khisanth took the last two steps as one and hastened down the corridor, which was nar shy;row as two humans side by side, though very tall. A young soldier had told her that the dark cleric's door was the second one on the right. Passing the first, she stopped before a small, solid oak door, light in color from lack of exposure to sun shy;light, with a half-oval top. To her surprise, the door was ajar; she could see dim candlelight flickering through the crack.

  Onyx knocked loudly. She heard nothing. Peering inside, she slowly pushed the heavy door open. "Andor?" The young woman stepped in tentatively and looked around. Maldeev's dark cleric was in shadow, on his knees at his shrine to Takhisis. "It's Khis-I mean Onyx." She held up her torch as she approached. "I've come to ask your counsel about a magical spell." Onyx's voice caught in her human throat.

  Andor, the dark cleric of Dragon Highlord Maldeev, was facedown on the altar, blood trailing from his mouth. A dia shy;mond-encrusted knife protruded from his back.

  "Murder within the high ranks of the wing, and on the day of our union,"
Maldeev muttered darkly. "I hope it's not an ill omen. . . . What this is is damned inconvenient, since Andor was to perform the ceremony." The highlord pushed back the sleeves of his robe and threw a log on the fire, send shy;ing sparks flying.

  "I'm sorry I had to be the bearer of such news on this day," said Khisanth.

  "What were you doing in the basement, anyway?" the highlord asked without turning.

  "I… wanted to ask Andor some questions about the ceremony," Khisanth lied, remembering Jahef s words about Maldeev's distrust of magic.

  "You could have asked me," said Maldeev.

  "I didn't wish to bother you with minor details," she said quickly. "We'll have to launch an investigation into Andor's death-"

  "Yes, of course. Tomorrow," Maldeev said. "Right now I have to arrange for that other little cleric-what's his name, Wiib?-to perform the ceremony. Wait here for me, I have something to discuss with you when I'm finished," he ordered, then strode out the door that led to the interior of the tower.

  Khisanth lay her head on her claws, her lips pulled back in a grimace of annoyance. Did he think she had nothing to do today but wait for him? She hoped to get in a quick feast and nap before the festivities. The dragon could make no sense of Maldeev's water clock, but the sunlight coming in from the courtyard told her that there was less than a quarter day left before sundown.

  She could take care of one of those tasks here, she realized. Settling in for a nap, Khisanth's head jerked up when a knock sounded at the small door through which Maldeev had just left.

  "Come," she said.

  Salah Khan's black head wrapping poked through the opening. He saw that Khisanth was alone before the fire. "Excuse me, Number One. I was told the highlord was here," he explained. "There is a problem between the baaz and kapak draconians that requires his immediate attention, and …" The human's muffled voice trailed off awkwardly.