The Dragons lh-6

by Douglas Niles

  A swift reconnaissance showed her a deep valley where several caves lined the walls. Tiny beings scuttled between these caves or worked their way up and down the steep trails leading to the stream at the foot of the plunging mountainsides. Crematia wheeled into the murk of the clouds, unseen from the ground, content for now to know that ogres still dwelt in these mountains. She would make herself known to them soon enough, but first she had an even more urgent task.

  Flying above a treeless but well-watered swale, she observed several spots of whiteness on the green grass of the high tundra. She swept closer with silent, deliberate speed, and before the mountain sheep knew they were under attack, she had crushed a plump ewe to the soft ground. The blood was sweet on her tongue, the scent intoxicating in her nostrils, and she tore off the head of her prey, swallowing the morsel in one convulsive gulp. The rest of the mutton was fresh and warm in her claws, but she would not eat further at the moment.

  Instead, she clutched the carcass and took to the air again, winging with renewed purpose, a crimson arrow flying straight toward a specific destination. Crematia curved from her path only when a looming crag rose high enough to block her flight, but after each digression, she returned to the course she marked from ancient memory, reacquainting herself with the highest reaches of the Khalkists. Flying toward another great volcano, one almost massive enough to vie with Darklady for mastery of the range, she set her sights upon the lofty summit. In fact, her target was an even more specific location, a specific spot on the high cliff. Closer now, she banked slightly, making a direct line toward the magically enchanted place on the mountainside.

  She saw with satisfaction that her concealment spell remained in effect, masking the ledge as a patch of inaccessible cliff. Landing there, she found the sturdy barrier of her wall of stone spell similarly undisturbed. Though hundreds of winters had passed since her last visit, she was not surprised that her arcane protections remained unaltered. For the first time in centuries, she called up the magic to negate that spell, and the surface of stone melted smoothly away in the breath of her dispelling, revealing the mouth of her secret cave.

  Within, Crematia crept through the vast treasure chamber to the precious skull basket that was her nest. Trembling with anxiety, knowing that the future of her kind depended upon what she found, she looked over the brink of the bony container… and expelled a flicker of tender flame in an outburst of relief.

  The clutch of crimson eggs lay perfect and unspoiled within, except for an irregular pulsing she detected in one, the largest of the orbs. Before her eyes, a slit appeared in that shell, a tiny beak pressing outward, tearing down. Frantic claws emerged, tugging, trying to widen the gap-until the little wyrmling fell back, exhausted.

  For several heartbeats, Crematia watched the egg. Finally she ripped into the carcass of the sheep, raising a piece of meat over the nest. With a deliberate squeeze, she let a trickle of fresh blood splash onto the egg, aiming carefully so that the stream of red liquid spilled into the tear in the shell of the first hatchling. Immediately that leathery orb throbbed and pulsed, and then those claws were there again, tearing and slashing at the narrow gap. The little beak thrust outward, and Crematia dribbled more sweet blood, driving the wyrmling into a frenzy. Another inch of eggshell tore, and now two forefeet pushed outward, pulling, making room for the sharp-beaked head on its long, skinny neck.

  Finally, with a heaving thrust of awkward rear legs, the little creature pushed itself free of the restraining shell. It stood, wobbly, flexing two mucus-coated wings, though one of the membranes remained creased and gooey, still bound from centuries of gestation. The red tail stood stiffly upright, and an instinctive growl rumbled from the scaly chest.

  Crematia gobbled the rest of the mutton then, but only long enough to chew it thoroughly and to let the juices of her belly begin the process of digestion. Then, with a heave that rippled along the length of her supple, scarlet-scaled neck, she regurgitated the gory remains into the nest.

  Immediately the sole wyrmling threw himself at the messy food, rending and growling with instinctive fury. Several other eggs now showed signs of movement, pulses and jabs as the blood-red spheres throbbed slightly, rocking from the labors of hatchlings trapped within. Soon another slit appeared, then another. Crematia saw more snouts and claws come into view, but she paid scant attention to these flailing efforts. Her attentions remained fixed upon the firstborn of the wyrmlings, which still gnawed ravenously on the gruesome mess of the ram’s carcass.

  “Enjoy your feast, my son.” Crematia bent low over the savagely growling little dragon, puffing a wisp of flame around the scarlet shape. “Hear me, my proud wyrmling. Your name is Deathfyre, and you shall lead my serpents back to their mastery of Krynn.”

  The dragon paused in its feasting long enough to regard his mother with bright, hungry eyes. By the time the monstrous crimson matriarch had turned to the cave mouth, the wyrmling had already gone back to its feast.

  Once back on the mountainside, Crematia restored her spells of protection, leaving the wall of stone as a physical barrier and the other illusion as full concealment for the secret niche. Only then did she launch herself into a sky that had been cloaked by the shadows of nightfall.

  The red dragon flew with a different destination now, one that had been born in her dreams and set with the long centuries of hatred within her fiery cavern. Her targets were strangers, creatures she had never attacked before, but she felt no fear, only a growing onslaught of fresh, hot hatred. Her dreams had shown her that her newest victims possessed no magic-indeed, they abhorred sorcery in all its forms-so it was with sublime confidence that she sought out their lair.

  A black mountain, long and slender, with a ridge crest like the edge of a serrated knife, rose into the darkness before her. She swept through the clouds, her dark-sensitive eyes staring along the slopes of the massif. Soon she saw it: a small crack, narrow and lightless, plunging into the depths of the world. Masking herself with a spell of invisibility, the red dragon flew low over the aperture.

  Despite her distance from the source, she could sense the magical emanations rising from the opening, and she knew of the rare and enchanted treasures that lay within. Her inspection showed her other creatures-small, busy figures laboring at the mountain’s foot, the quarry that had been shown to her in her dreams.

  They were called dwarves, she knew, and they had come to the Khalkists during the time of her hibernation. Now they delved the stone, seeking to create great underground lairs, an entire city sculpted from the living bedrock of the mountain range. But Crematia knew there was another reason for their digging as well, and this was the key to the red dragon’s hopes.

  She settled downward beyond the gathering of dwarves. Despite the darkness, many of the little creatures labored in terraced fields, using massive horses to pull plows and till crops. Others worked with a clattering of picks and hammers on the construction of a great tower. Nearby, massive granite blocks were being dragged over smooth pathways by teams of horses and dwarves. On a stone-paved plaza nearby, another group, apparently novice warriors, worked under the tutelage of a sharp-tongued trainer, learning the use of hammer and shield in battle tactics.

  It was before this latter group that Crematia appeared, negating her invisibility as she dropped to the ground. Rearing before the startled dwarves, she spread her jaws and belched out a great cloud of fire. Flames spurted and crackled across the training field, instantly incinerating those dwarves caught in the full blast, then spreading outward like a slick of oily liquid, surrounding, dragging down the hapless victims on the periphery of the gathering who had turned, far too slowly, in an attempt to run away.

  The smoke cleared away to reveal dozens of charred, blackened bodies smoldering and sizzling in the wake of the inferno. Near the edge of the swath of darkness, a pathetic figure crawled, reaching with blackened, clawlike hands, then shuddering to the stillness of death. Only the soot and char moved, drifting away on the wind. Crematia
turned toward the great doors of the tower, sensing that hundreds of pairs of eyes regarded her with a mixture of terror and awe.

  “Here me, dwarven delvers! I am the angel of magic, and four of my eggs lurk in the bowels of your realms!”

  The words echoed through the valley, rebounding from the surrounding heights as the tiny bearded figures quaked and trembled in awe.

  “These are spheres of blue and black, of white and green. They belong to me, and they are death to any other who would steal them.”

  She snorted another cloud of flame, watched the soot scar the great doors before she continued. “You must find these orbs of magic, these baubles that are my eggs, and bring them forth. If you do not remove them from your mountain, the taint of my sorcery will spread inward to infest you all! And the fires of my breath shall be nothing compared to the awful plague wrought by my eggs!”

  She heard a groan, as if from the mountain itself, and knew that her words created real horror in the dwarves, for they hated magic above all else.

  “I shall return in one hundred sunrises,” she declared with a growl. “Present these stones to me then, or face my wrath!”

  Again she took wing, a scarlet killer whispering into the night, knowing that the dwarves would work hard to do her bidding.

  Chapter 17

  Lessons

  Circa 3000 PC

  “And what is the effect of the teleport spell?” Aurican, in the guise he favored as the elven sage, scowled archly at the twisting silver form on the floor before him.

  “I–I don’t know, Master.”

  Callak was miserable, and certainly his mentor understood this-but, with equal certainty, the young silver dragon knew that misery was no excuse in his golden tutor’s eyes. Indeed, sometimes it seemed to Callak that Aurican liked his wyrmling pupils to be miserable.

  All of them except Auricus, that is, though even as he had the jealous thought, Callak felt a glimmer of guilt. In truth, his golden nestmate was more than a kin-dragon bonded by the linkage of a shared nest. He was his greatest friend, his best companion. Indeed, in the matter of magical tutoring, Aurican showed favoritism to his firstborn son only because Auricus had so clearly earned it.

  Already the young gold dragon was able to make himself invisible. He could create minor illusions that would amuse, frighten, or-most likely-irritate his numerous siblings. Arrogantly he levitated his prey, ignited fires in the grotto, disguised nuisances, like chips of ice, that he used to trip up his fellow nestmates. And his sense of magic detection was so well attuned that he was able to penetrate to the truth of just about every trick the other wyrmlings tried to play upon him.

  Still, as the largest and most aggressive of the nestlings, Callak had been able to avoid the worst of Auricus’s pranks. Indeed, with his size and quickness, there was no one who could best the silver wyrmling in any contest of physical skill, though his nestmates, and particularly copper Flash, never hesitated to try.

  “If my question is too complicated, perhaps you would like me to write it out? On your snout, perhaps?” growled Aurican, the penetrating stare of his yellow eyes quickly bringing the young dragon’s attention into focus.

  “Teleportation!” he said brightly. “I–I think I remember… It is the transportation of the caster from one point to another in the instant of casting!”

  “Very good-though it is one thing to know the effect of a spell, and another, quite more involved, to be able to cast that same enchantment. The Platinum Father alone knows when the latter studies might open themselves to you.”

  “Aye, lord.” Callak hung his head, with a sidelong glance to insure that none of the other nestlings mocked his discomfiture. But the dozens of wyrmlings-bronze, copper, brass, silver, and gold-sitting rigidly behind the silver made no gesture that could remotely be construed as rude. After all, even at the young age of three hundred winters, Callak was much larger than any of his fellow nestmates, a physical supremacy that now served to intimidate the wyrmlings from making any mocking or insulting remarks.

  Yet it was far more than his size that accounted for Callak’s aloof mastery-in matters nonmagical, at least-of the grotto. His eyes drifted to the nest and saw the curled ram’s horn suspended there on its fine silver chain. Kenta had placed it there, and none of the wyrmlings could look at it without recalling the esteemed heritage of the silver dragons.

  All the young dragons had been schooled on the tales of brave Darlantan, whose final sacrifice had brought victory to the metal dragons and their allies during the Dragon War. For one thing, the silver matriarch, Kenta, had insured that her mate’s valor was known to all the hatchlings. Aurican himself often spoke of the mighty serpent, invariably in tones both impassioned and affectionate. With great ceremony, he explained the legacy of the ram’s horn, told them that someday the greatest of the silver serpents would bear that artifact as proof of their sire’s legacy and wisdom.

  It was a collection of tales that never failed to move Darlantan’s offspring, Callak and his proud brother Arjen, and his sisters Daria, Starr, and Splendor. Even tiny Agon, crippled and malformed since emerging from his silver egg, allowed his chest to puff out when the name of their heroic sire was invoked.

  All knew, too, of Smelt and Burll and Blayze. The silvers were not the only wyrmlings who had lost their sire before hatching. But it was Callak who felt the greatest burden of that history. Natural master of all the lesser wyrms, he engaged in constant rivalry with Auricus, while at the same time striving to learn the lore of magic as taught by the wise elder.

  Now, however, as Aurican lectured sternly, the wyrms of the brown metals were content to let the silver absorb the browbeating. Bronze Bolt and brass Dazzall carefully averted their eyes as Callak mutely looked for support.

  Copper-scaled Tharn, meanwhile, merely smirked and flexed his wings, no doubt still seething because of a recent trick the silver male had played. Indeed, Callak couldn’t suppress a smile as he remembered his deception. The copper had eagerly pounced upon an object that looked like the plump carcass of a newly slain deer, only to discover that the silver dragon had used a minor illusion to create that appearance over a muckhole of brackish water and quicksand. The prank had resulted in a week of careful watching, as Callak had spent each waking moment since in wary anticipation of Tharn’s revenge.

  “The teleport spell works like this!” declared Auricus, suddenly appearing in the midst of the gathered wyrmlings. The golden dragon was poised in the air a good high jump off the ground, and before he could start flying, he plunged to the floor, sending several of the coppers tumbling and scrambling to get out of his way.

  “And it’s a good thing you can teleport!” Callak jabbed with a delighted sneer. “That way you won’t have to learn how to use your wings!”

  “I can fly!” Auricus insisted, sitting up and flexing the shimmering flaps of brilliant gold. “It’s just that it’s not as much fun as magic.”

  Callak knew his kin-dragon spoke the truth-at least, the truth as it appeared from Auric’s perception-but just the same, the whole notion seemed crazy to the young silver. After all, he had learned that flying was simply the best thing there could possibly be, and no mastery of magic would ever make him feel any different.

  “I think that’s enough of our lessons for now,” declared the tutor, with a stern glare between Auricus and Callak. “I suggest you fly to the valley, perhaps paying visits to your mothers.”

  In the moment of the suggestion, the wyrmlings were off, flashes of metal gleaming down the corridor and into the cavern of the great lake. The race evolved as always, with Callak in the lead, head and neck arrow-straight, wings all but buzzing from the strain of his flight. The others trailed behind, darts of metal hurtling through the air. Wind whistled over their scales, and the darkness passed in a blur.

  The flash of gold went by him so quickly that the silver dragon wobbled in the air, almost losing control. In disbelief, he strained even harder, but could only watch as the golden t
ail pulled away. Within moments, Auricus had disappeared into the distance.

  By the time Callak had led the rest of the brood into the sunlight warming the Valley of Paladine, Auricus had assumed a position of casual ease on the lordly rock that dominated the valley floor. Licking traces of rabbit fur from his jowls, the golden dragon regarded his approaching nestmates with an affected air of great boredom.

  “Whatever in Krynn is the reason for your delay?” he asked, golden eyebrows rising in a mask of perplexity.

  “You’ve learned another spell, I see,” replied Callak sourly, having figured out by now that his nestmate had employed some kind of enchantment that greatly increased his speed. “What do you call this one?”

  “It’s the haste spell-quite a simple casting, really. Would you like me to teach you?” Auricus asked, innocently lowering his translucent inner eyelids.

  “No, I would not!” huffed the silver wyrmling, lashing his tail in frustration. “I’m still trying to learn what each spell is called, while it seems that you’re casting them one right after the other.”

  Auricus frowned. “Well, sometimes I have to. It’s the only way I have to keep you from beating me all the time. After all, you’re faster and stronger, and you can fly for days at a time, while I need to land for rest after each sunset.”

  It intrigued Callak to think that his golden nestmate actually felt he was getting the poor end of the competition. After all, the gold’s sire was their collective tutor, and Auricus’s intelligence often made the rest of his nestmates feel slighted and inferior. Still, if even Auricus could feel like this, Callak decided that life, perhaps, was not so unfair after all.

  As to the other males, Bolt and Tharn had already shown tendencies toward the solitary life that had occupied the later years of their fathers. Each had discovered his patriarch’s secret hoard and returned with tales of mystery and wonder, aggressively guarding against any hint that would lead to the location of their ancestral treasures. Dazzall, in the meantime, had made many friends among the humans who populated Krynn in ever-increasing numbers.