by Jean Rabe
The half-ogre struggled to his feet, grasped the lance more tightly, and slogged forward. Then his mouth fell open as he noticed Silvara, several paces ahead of him, launch into an extraordinary transformation.
The elf’s armor flowed outward across her limbs until her skin was sparkling silver. Her hair also became silver, grew down her back and changed into a jagged, imposing ridge edged in pale blue. A tail grew and her arms elongated and spread to her sides. Wings sprouted from her underside. Her neck snaked forward and her head enlarged, the tips of her ears shooting up to become twin horns the color of burnished platinum. Silvara’s mouth pushed outward until it was filled with sharp teeth, and her eyes became great oval pools of gleaming sapphire.
She was a most impressive silver dragon, more than double the size of Sunrise. She had immense wings that swept away from her sides. Her muscular legs pushed off from the ground and Silvara leapt into the air.
The sorcerer was in the midst of casting a spell. The magical lance tingled in his hands. He was drawing some of its power into himself, using it to channel his enchantment. Even as Ulin finished the last arcane phrase and pointed his finger at Frost’s head, the White opened its maw, and the sorcerer felt an icy blast of wind and saw ice crystals speeding toward him. At the same time, a ball of fire raced from his fingertips toward the dragon. The ball of flame struck the ice missiles. Steam filled the air outside Huma’s Tomb, and then the fireball struck its intended target and erupted inside the dragon’s mouth.
The White Wyrm howled as the heat exploded inside him, and Groller darted in, angling Huma’s lance upward.
Wield me! the lance cried inside Groller’s head. For such was I forged!
So massive was the great dragon that the half-ogre could only hope to reach the tip of Frost’s belly. The lance struck the white plates and easily passed through them into the soft flesh beneath. Cold dragon’s blood rained down on the half-ogre. He withdrew the lance and stabbed upward again, eliciting another chill shower of red. A third time he tried, but the White was no longer within his reach. Gellidus was winging upward, away from the annoying little man who’d hurt him so terribly.
The silver dragon darted after Frost, lashing out with her claws. But the overlord was faster and larger, easily eluding her, and slamming his tail against her side as he dodged. He sent her catapulting through the sky.
“Silvara, no!” Gilthanas cried.
“We can’t help her!” a Solamnic cried. “Our weapons are useless against Frost!”
The White Dragon searched the ground below for the spreading pool of his blood, the half-breed mortal, and the ancient lance. Malys had assured him that men could not stand up to dragons any longer, promised him that they posed no significant threat and could not challenge the overlords. But Malys was not here, facing gold and silver dragons who had allied themselves with a little man who wielded a weapon of power.
The dragons had hurt him, but the man had drawn blood. Gellidus had not felt such pain since the Dragon Purge, when he battled the good dragons who once lived in Southern Ergoth. He sensed the magical energy in the lance, felt the pain in his belly where it had pricked him, and he roared in anger. His ice-blue eyes glared at the small form of the half-ogre, and his mind reached out to the wind. Colder, quicker, harder, he urged it. The snow came in a driving, icy sheet now, nearly obliterating the sky. The White beat his wings fester, aiding the frigid wind and knocking the little man to his knees.
The hateful half-breed was now an easy target, Gellidus decided, as he opened his maw and breathed. But a streak of silver cut in front of him. Silvara had returned and took the brunt of his frosty attack. The extreme cold wracked her massive form, but she mastered the pain and managed to keep herself aloft. She flew past him, then banked around and dove toward him, claws outstretched.
“Sorcerer!” Sunrise hissed. “To me! We can work together.” The gold dragon pulled himself from the deep bank as Ulin slogged through the snow toward him. With considerable effort the sorcerer climbed onto the dragon’s back, sitting at the base of his neck and clasping Rig’s lance.
“I’ve never used this before!” Ulin shouted over the wind. “And I’m crazy to be doing this*he added so softly the gold couldn’t hear him. “Riding a dragon.”
“The lance is for warriors, not wizards,” Sunrise said as he pushed off from the ground. “But you’ll not need it, Ulin Majere.” His small wings beat furiously, propelling him toward the overlord as he opened his mouth and let loose another roar. Ulin flung his hands about, trying to find purchase, and he watched in horror as Rig’s dragonlance fell from his grasp. His gloved fingers grabbed onto a scale, and he felt the sharp edge cut through the material and his skin beneath. He winced and tried to hold on.
Below, Gilthanas rushed for the falling lance. Fury raced at his side, nipping at the White Dragon’s shadow along the ground.
Frost steeled himself against the sonic pain, and plunged toward the younger dragon, a malevolent grin splayed across his massive visage.
“Draw from me!” Sunrise called to Ulin. “Feel the magic in me. Use it! Hurry!”
The sorcerer began an incantation. The words tumbled from his lips, then were interrupted as Frost struck, and Gellidus’s claws dug into Sunrise’s side. Blood and gold scales fell to the snow and were lost in the blinding blizzard.
“Hurry!” Sunrise hissed, as he banked away from the white monster and closed again.
Ulin forced the words, feeling an energy grow beneath his fingers. The energy flowed into him, invigorating him. As the last word of the enchantment fell from his tongue, the wind gusted wildly outward and curled about the White’s wings, folding them at odd angles. The overlord was tossed off balance. That was all the distraction Sunrise needed. The young gold closed, raking his claws against the White’s belly. Then he bit down on the white overlord’s neck. More blood spattered the ground, coloring the snow crimson.
Frost screamed, the mournful wail sounding like the howling wind. He unleashed another blast of his icy breath that struck Ulin. A wave of numbness spread from his heart to his limbs. He couldn’t feel his legs or his fingers, couldn’t feel the dragon’s scale he’d been clinging to. Instead he felt himself falling, the wind rushing around his body as he toppled from the gold dragon’s back.
Ulin plummeted, flailing and screaming as he fell nearly one hundred feet to the ground. Above, the White Dragon pushed his front legs against the younger dragon, propelling the gold away.
At that instant, Silvara slammed into Frost’s back, throwing Frost off balance and knocking him toward the ground, where Gilthanas and Groller waited with their lances.
Gilthanas hoisted his lance and stared up, squinting his eyes so he could see through the blowing snow. “Silvara!” he shouted.
Gellidus spun about in midair and unleashed his icy breath once more. It struck the charging silver dragon in the snout, icicles finding their way into her nostrils and mouth, and temporarily choking her.
“I give you this battle, Silvara!” Gellidus cried. “But only because you caught me off guard. I will return – rested and ready. Enjoy your sweet, brief victory. You’ll not have another.”
“You will not win!” Sunrise called, streaking toward the White. “We will find more of our kind, band together and fight you!”
“Foolish youth!” Frost threw back his head and laughed. He rose higher into the sky and beat his wings faster, stirring the wind into a frenzy. “It matters not how many of your kind you find!” he called above the noise. “You will lose in the end. Takhisis is returning!” He banked away, his laughter trailing after him and echoing off the nearby mountains. “Malystryx is bringing back the Dark Queen. And she will rule Krynn!”
The wind howled and the mountains shook, threatening to cause an avalanche.
“Takhisis!” Ulin breathed, as he clawed his way out of the snow. He was alive, miraculously, and sensation was already returning to his tortured limbs. The gold dragon landed near him.
> “I must hurry back to the ship, and tell my father,” Ulin said. He stumbled toward Sunrise. “Takhisis. I heard the White say the Dark Queen will return.”
“Back inside!” Silvara shouted. As she lowered to the ground, her form shifted again, and within a heartbeat she had resumed the appearance of the female Solamnic. “Hurry!”
Sunrise glided toward the tomb, his form shimmering and changing as he went. In a moment, he too was back in the form of the young man with shiny blond hair and bright green eyes.
Ulin took one last look into the sky, then motioned to Groller and Gilthanas, who were quick to enter the tomb. The Knights of Solamnia, herding their prisoners, followed. The rest of the group rushed inside the tomb, the brass doors swinging shut behind them.
“To reveal ourselves is to risk destruction by the overlords,” Silvara said, gasping for breath. “And now that Gellidus knows I am in his land as well, he will try to take action. Maybe he didn’t consider Sunrise much of a threat. But two dragons...” She turned and looked at Sunrise. “Fortunately, he cannot enter here, nor can he damage the powerful exterior of Huma’s Tomb.”
“Though he can choose to bury it with snow,” Sunrise explained. “He does that often enough”
Silvara nodded. “There is something about the magic that was used to construct this place that keeps evil at bay. The tomb is stronger than even the White.”
“But the Knights of Takhisis?” Gilthanas pointed to their bound prisoners. “They came in here, and they are evil.”
“You brought them in here. They didn’t enter of their own volition. Too, their evil is not so great as the White’s. There must be a spark of good within their hearts.”
Ulin tried to collect his thoughts; this news about Takhisis returning was amazing.
“Goldmoon believes the gods are merely away, watching mortals,” he said. “She believes they will someday return. But Takhisis...” He sagged against the smooth wall, sliding to the floor. “If the Dark Queen comes back, all is lost.”
“She will come back. It has been prophesied,” said one of the Dark Knights, standing up a bit taller.
Sunrise shot a glare at the prisoner. “Palin Majere must be told of Frost’s words,” Sunrise said. “He can warn others, including the other sorcerers he knows. But it is not Ulin who must do the telling.” The dragon-youth’s eyes sparkled.
Ulin returned the dragon’s gaze, remembering how he had called upon Sunrise’s magical aura to power his spell. “Gilthanas, I’m staying here, too.”
Chapter 19
BERYL’S FOREST
The dragon skimmed just above the lush canopy. Black as night, it stood out in the pale morning sky. The shadow dragon craned its featureless neck this way and that so it could better see through gaps in the branches. Not spotting what it was looking for, it reached out with its magical mind, searching for the lesser dragons in Beryl’s forest. The Green Feril, the great overlord who claimed the Qualinesti lands, had minion green dragons living in her realm.
It growled softly, a noise sounding like the wind blowing through a crack in a window, and clenched and unclenched its jet-black claws. It had planned to slay a green dragon this day, though by now it would settle for a black. And so it had confined its search to the rich forest and swampland where those types of dragons were more likely to be found.
“Perhaps to the northeast,” the shadow dragon growled, sounding like a gusting wind now. “A small black in Onysablet’s swamp. Or to the...” The words hung in the air. Something had caught its attention. It opened its black eyes wide and peered at two humans, an elf, and a dwarf who were working their way through the dense undergrowth.
“Palin Majere,” the shadow dragon observed. “And his wife, Usha.” It followed them, hovering so close to the canopy that its claws touched the topmost branches, listening to the sorcerer and his friends’ unnecessary banter and guessing at their purpose. “The elf. She has magic about her, too. Fascinating. And foolish. They have no clue they are being watched.”
The dragon had the patience to watch and wait – until it picked up the scent of a more interesting quarry only a few miles away. Its midnight nostrils quivered, and its eyes narrowed. “A black,” it breathed. It sniffed again. “A young one. Another time, Palin Majere.”
The shadow dragon banked to the north and let its magical mind lead it to its prey.
*
There was too much green as far as the dwarf was concerned. So much green he could barely see the sky or the ground. Of course, there was considerable variety in the shades – light green, dark green, drab green that matched Usha’s tunic and leggings, emerald green, olive green, green so dark it looked nearly black, and green so pale it looked practically white.
If the dwarf looked closely at the ground, between the swatches of thick grass and spreading ivy, he could also see dark brown – the mud left behind from the torrential rain that had washed over them just before dawn. They’d been put ashore a few days ago – when the sky was a brilliant blue and there were no hints of clouds. That quickly changed, however, and it had been raining every day since. The dampness made the green colors seem more vivid.
But if Jasper stared at the trees, he could see the lighter browns and grays of the trunks between the large patches of lime green moss and the thick veil of vines. There were bits of blue and purple here and there too, and splotches of red – flowers. But they were essentially beneath his notice next to all of the green. All that green made him sneeze and made his eyes water. “Gilthanas thought I’d slow them down in Southern Ergoth,” he chuckled as he wiped his runny nose on his sleeve. “Oh, nuts.” He felt his foot step on something soft, and at first he figured it was a patch of moss. But a quick glance revealed that in his effort to avoid a mud puddle, he’d just stepped into a moss-covered, rotting log. “Nuts. Nuts. Nuts.” He struggled to yank his foot free.
“Jasper, what’s wrong?” Usha asked.
“It’s not the green,” he muttered in answer. “It’s this place. I should’ve gone with Gilthanas. How are he and Ulin gonna be able to talk to Groller anyway? Should’ve argued with them.”
“Jasper?” It was Feril’s voice. The Kagonesti and Palin had been walking a few yards ahead, discussing Dhamon and the problem of the scale on his leg. They had noticed the sudden silence – the absence of the dwarf’s thrashing through the brush behind them.
“There was mud surrounding the log,” Jasper said. “I was just trying to keep my boots clean.” Usha and the Kagonesti softly laughed. “There’s no way Jasper will truly appreciate these surroundings,” Feril told Palin’s wife.
“I’m having a little trouble appreciating them myself,” Usha softly returned, as she backed away from the struggling dwarf. “Maybe I shouldn’t have insisted on coming along. I’m just tired of hearing about all of Palin’s exploits secondhand. I like to be part of them myself every now and then.”
Palin fell to freeing the dwarf. The rotting log was filled with mud, moss and insects. When the dwarf’s foot finally came loose, he hopped about on the other and looked for a relatively dry spot of ground. He found one at the base of a massive oak. The dwarf tugged off the offending boot, and water and mud spilled out. A cloud of gnats instantly formed around him.
Palin was patient enough to wait, gazing at his wife while he did so. He hadn’t protested too loudly when she said she had wanted to come along. He knew it might be dangerous, but Usha was right – no place on Krynn was truly safe anymore. He offered her a slight smile. Her eyes twinkled merrily. He thought she looked beautiful with all of the greenery around her.
“Didn’t mean to slow things,” the dwarf apologized. Until now he hadn’t slowed them down much, despite his short legs. He tugged his dagger free and ran the blade around the inside of the boot to get out as much of the mud as possible. Next he loosened his sash and used it to dry out the inside. Afterward Jasper stuffed the muddy sash in his pocket.
Usha offered him a kind word here and there, while Pali
n swatted at a foglike swarm of mosquitoes that had augmented the gnats. The Kagonesti stepped a few feet away, and listened to the peaceful woods.
“I could live in this place oh so easily,” she said.
“Bet Dhamon wouldn’t like it” Jasper cut in. “Too many bugs.” Satisfied with his cleaning effort, he thrust his foot inside the boot and grimaced. “Still a little wet,” he mumbled. “Well, it could’ve been worse. Could’ve stuck both feet in.”
Palin helped the dwarf to his feet. “Feril, decades ago this was a temperate forest, vastly different from this... jungle. I visited here then.”
“Beryl has changed it,” Feril said, frowning and glancing upward.
The largest trees stretched well more than a hundred feet into the air with trunks wider than a house, forming a dense canopy through which only the brightest light filtered down. Dozens of heady scents assailed her – rotting wood; the wet, rich earth; a profusion of wildflowers, most of them hidden behind giant fern leaves; the thick moss that spread across the ground and over stones and
up the trunks of the trees. There were the scents of animals, too. The Kagonesti recognized fox, bear, raccoon, squirrel. There were other odors, musky ones she couldn’t quite identify, and these intrigued her.
The elf thrust to the back of her mind the fact that the forest was a corruption of nature, an abomination, and an affront to the absent gods who once helped fashion this world. It was such a wondrous abomination. The Kagonesti needed to explore it for just a brief while. She’d been on Flint’s Anvil for so long that it was almost as if she’d forgotten how exciting a forest was.
“I wish we had the time to explore Beryl’s forest,” she said, adding to herself that she wished Dhamon were here to explore it with her. “I’d like to discover what animals are responsible for some of these smells.”
“To talk to this place,” she mused aloud. The rustling leaves seemed to be talking to her. Join us, she imagined them saying. Perhaps if she and her companions were successful in obtaining the four artifacts, she would come back here and do just that – with Dhamon in tow. The Kagonesti hoped if the Green was eventually vanquished, the forest would not revert quickly to its original form. “This is so beautiful.”
