Kalec nodded his bright blue head. “So we thought. They are nothing natural, Thrall. They are creations. Made things. And this one—I have never heard of him before, but he was clearly Nefarian’s success, and his greatest one. Never have I seen a beast with five heads.”
“Five heads,” mused Thrall. “Each one the color of a different flight.” It was a hideous image, one he could not seem to banish, hard as he tried.
“Five heads,” repeated Kalecgos in growing horror. “That’s it. Thrall, chromatic dragons never lived very long. But maybe that was the secret Nefarian learned: five heads, five brains. Perhaps this is what makes Chromatus so powerful, even though… even though he seemed weak.”
Now Thrall could not hide his astonishment. “Weak?”
Kalec turned and locked gazes with him. “Weak,” he repeated. “He stumbled; he faltered. Sometimes his wings would not bear him. And yet my flight was unable to stand against him and the twilight dragons. He defeated me, Thrall. I am an Aspect now, and I am not being arrogant to say that, barring other Aspects, no single dragon should be able to defeat me. But I had to order retreat, or he would have killed me and my entire dragonflight. We brought everything we had to bear against him. And he was weak.”
Kalec was, Thrall knew by now, someone who attempted to think positively. He did not give in easily to negative emotions such as anger or despair. And still Thrall noted resignation and worry and, yes, hopelessness in his mien and voice.
Thrall understood why. “He was not at full strength for some reason,” he said. “And when he is finally healed…”
Kalec’s blue eyes held a universe of pain. “It does not seem as if anything will stop him,” he said quietly.
“No,” Thrall agreed thoughtfully, “not any one thing.”
“We are scattered at a time when we most need unity,” Kalec said. “This Chromatus at the head of the twilight dragons… he will defeat—he will obliterate—both me and my flight if we approach him a second time without reinforcements.”
“Ysera and Nozdormu will come,” Thrall said confidently. “They and their flights will join you.”
“It won’t be enough,” Kalec said dully. “We need the reds. No… more than that, we need the Life-Binder herself. My flight was frightened, Thrall, and I admit it: I was too. To see such a thing, to know you cannot win…” He shook his head. “We need the hope she could bring us, but she has none even for herself. And without her, I truly believe we will fall.”
“I will speak to her again,” Thrall said.
“She did not listen to you the last time,” Kalec said, uncharacteristic bitterness poisoning his pleasant voice. “She will not listen this time. We are lost, Thrall, and… I do not know what to do. I am an Aspect. I have… new insights, new ways of understanding things. It is hard to explain. I am more than I ever was, and yet in so many ways I feel that I have not changed. I feel that I am simply Kalecgos, and I do not know what to do.”
Thrall walked over to his friend and placed a large green hand on Kalec’s shoulder. “It is that humility in your heart that turned the hearts of your flight to you. You may have all the power of the Aspect of Magic, but it has not changed who you are at your core. I know you have courage, Kalec. And I know that this seems almost impossible. But… while I was lying in the snow, halfway between living and dying…” He hesitated. “… I had a vision. One I know in my own heart is true, not the last gasp of a dying orc’s hope.”
Kalecgos nodded, believing him completely. “What was this vision?”
Thrall shook his head. “It is not to be shared with you, not yet. It is for Alexstrasza’s hearing before any others’. And this is why I think perhaps I may be able to bring her back to herself. And with the Life-Binder and her reds at your side—well, I think Chromatus might just start to feel a bit uneasy.”
And they grinned at one another.
The Twilight’s Hammer cultists were being kept busy.
Chromatus had been given the spark of life, although his body remained abhorrent and decaying. He had fought fiercely and triumphantly even while still weak and new to this life. Now he lay on the snow outside the temple, ravenous and demanding, and they brought in flesh for him to feed upon, each set of jaws feasting greedily.
The Twilight Father stood beside him, almost giddy with victory. Deathwing surely could find no fault with what had transpired this day. Blackmoore had destroyed the disappointment that was Arygos, utilizing that dragon’s rare blood to serve the cause in a way the blue dragon had failed to do in life. Additionally, one of the twilight dragons had reported that Thrall had fallen from atop Kalecgos’s back, and Blackmoore had set after him in case he had somehow survived. The twilight dragons had rebuffed the blues, and most importantly of all, Chromatus had been given life. And even newborn, as it were, he had defeated the best the blue dragonflight, led by its new Aspect, Kalecgos, had to throw at them.
Chromatus had been largely silent for the last hour as he fed upon the carcasses of snowfall elk that had been hunted and brought to him. But now he paused and lifted his enormous black head.
“I will need more,” he said perfunctorily.
“You shall have all you need, Chromatus,” the Twilight Father assured him. “We will bring you flesh until and unless you prefer to hunt it yourself.”
“I will, soon,” the black head said in its deep voice, more felt than heard. “The closer to living it is when my jaws crunch upon it, the sweeter the taste.”
“Such a thing is always true,” the Twilight Father agreed. Chromatus dropped the black head to resume feeding, but lifted the red one. He kept the head in profile but rolled one massive eye to stare down upon the human.
“The dragons are not turning up their throats for me to crunch upon quite yet,” he said. “They will try again.”
The Twilight Father did not quite catch the warning in the voice. “They would be fools to do so, and I think them too broken even to be foolish,” he said. “Ysera is missing, and her flight is at a loss. Nozdormu might have been found, but he has yet to stir himself or his flight to come to the aid of his fellows. Alexstrasza is sobbing her heart out like some human girl, and her flight apparently cannot even perform basic functions without her. You have shown the blues how powerful you are, and their Aspect is too softhearted to lead them well. Their supposed hero Thrall is either dead in a snowbank or will soon be speared on Blackmoore’s broadsword. I think you may recover at your leisure, my friend.”
The dragon’s red head glared at him balefully with glowing purple eyes. “I am not your friend, Twilight Father,” he said softly, but with an edge that made the human’s heart stop beating for a moment. “Nor am I your child or your servant. We both serve the mighty Deathwing, whom my father made me to serve, and that is our only commonality.”
The Twilight Father did not show fear, though he suspected the dragon smelled it. He took a moment to make sure his voice did not quiver.
“Of course, Chromatus. We both serve with perfect loyalty.” The great eyes narrowed, but Chromatus did not pursue the point. “You are not a dragon. You do not understand them as I do. Scattered and despairing they may be, but they will come again. They will come until there are no more of them to come.”
“Which,” added the blue head, chuckling slightly, “might be after the next battle. Regardless, it is you who are foolish if you let down your guard. I am still recovering my full strength. I cannot be at less than that when the next attack comes.” He paused, lowering his blue head and opening its jaws wide to devour an adult female elk in one gulp. “Malygos’s daughter still lives, does she not?”
The Twilight Father was confused. “Yes, she does, but we have already used the blood of a scion of Malygos to activate the needle.”
The black head gave the human a withering look. “It is her bloodline, not her blood, that matters now.”
“Oh,” said the Twilight Father, then, as comprehension dawned: “Oh. Shall I, uh, bring her to you now, then?�
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“Time passes,” said the bronze head. “I am the only success of my father’s experimentation. Perhaps a more stable—a more… traditional—method of creating chromatic whelps will ensure that they are strong enough to survive. I the father, and the mother the last child of Malygos? Yes… our children will be stronger. But I must rest first. Bring her to me in a few hours. Do not worry about the necklace: I will free her when I am ready. Even in dragon form, she will be no match for me.”
The Twilight Father turned to one of his assistants. “In three hours, bring the blue dragon prisoner to Chromatus. I must speak with our master and inform him of our success.”
“Your command is my life,” said the assistant, and hastened away to obey. Chromatus’s green head ate another elk, crunching the bones as he watched the assistant hurry off. Then, with a great sigh of breath that reeked of raw meat, he lowered himself to the snowy earth and closed his ten eyes. But before he surrendered to a deep sleep, the black head had a final word.
“And my command,” he said to the Twilight Father, “is yours.”
The Twilight Father knelt before the orb, which was filled with darkness and danger.
“My lord Deathwing,” he said humbly.
The orb cracked open, releasing night-dark smoke that formed the image of a glowing-eyed, monstrous dragon. “You had best have good news for me,” rumbled the black Dragon Aspect.
“I do,” the Twilight Father said quickly. “The best possible news. Chromatus lives!”
A low, pleased chuckle rumbled, and in either answer or echo, the Twilight Father felt the very earth rumble ever so faintly as well. “That is good news. I am delighted that you succeeded! Tell me more good news.”
The Twilight Father hesitated. There was, unfortunately, bad news along with the good, but even that had its bright spot. “Arygos failed us, but he was able to be of use to us at the end, as you predicted the female might be. His blood activated the Focusing Iris, and with the Iris we were able to harness all of the Nexus’s arcane energy! We created a surge needle to transfer all that glorious power directly into Chromatus.”
There was a stillness almost more terrible than Deathwing’s anger; for a long moment, it seemed to last for centuries.
“Arygos was not chosen as the Aspect, then. He did not deliver me the blues.” The voice was quiet, almost calm. But nothing, really, was ever truly calm about the insane Aspect.
“No, my lord. I do not understand how such things work—it seemed as though no one truly did—but somehow the powers of the Aspect were transferred to another.”
“Kalecgos,” said Deathwing, drawing out the word and infusing it with hatred.
“Yes, my lord. Arygos called in the twilight dragonflight as soon as he realized what had happened. He then fled to the Eye, where Blackmoore slew him and harnessed his blood. The blue flight, led by Kalecgos, attacked us immediately. But, my lord, Chromatus, although newly born and weak, still was able to send them fleeing! Once he is at full strength and power, nothing and no one will be able to stand against him. So you see, it doesn’t matter if Kalecgos is the new Aspect. We will triumph even so!”
He waited, sweat gathering beneath his armpits, for his master’s response. It was a long time coming.
“I was beginning to think I needed to come and get the job done myself,” said Deathwing, his voice a warning.
The Twilight Father had to make a great effort not to visibly sag in relief. “No, Great One. You see that I can serve you well.”
“It is… reassuring. I am at a delicate juncture in my current plans. It would have made me angry indeed to be called away from them. What you say has merit. But what of Thrall? Is he dead?”
“He fell to the earth from the back of Kalecgos during the battle,” the Twilight Father said. “Even if he survived the fall, which is unlikely, Blackmoore went after him.”
“You think him dead, then?”
“Certainly.”
“I do not,” said Deathwing. “I want the body. Search for as long as you must to bring it before me. I will see it before I discount him.”
“As my lord wills, it shall be done.”
“Chromatus still needs a watchful eye until he has fully recovered. No harm must befall him.”
“It shall not. In fact, Chromatus has an eye to the future. He has demanded that Kirygosa be brought to him. With the promise her eggs showed before, I believe we may have solved the problem of short-lived chromatic dragons.”
“Chromatus is wise. Good, good. She should be honored to be the mother of the future.” His grotesque metallic jaw dropped slightly in an approximation of a grin. “This pleases me. You have done well despite the setbacks you have had to face, Father. Continue to do well, and you shall be rewarded.”
The smoke that had formed Deathwing’s image once again became swirling black mist, drifting to the floor to coalesce into a black, solid orb that cleared to assume its original appearance. The Twilight Father sagged and wiped at his damp brow.
They had managed to bring a fairly complete laboratory with them. And Kirygosa had come to know it intimately. She knew every bubbling beaker, every small burner, every vial and needle and “specimen” in neatly labeled jars. She knew the scents and the sound of the place, and she knew the tools with which the apothecaries did their jobs.
Here she had known agony, and humiliation, and racking grief. But she had always known that, even as she sometimes silently wished for death, she did not truly desire it. And she had known that they would not kill her… until they no longer had need of her.
And once they had done to her what they had brought her here to do, they would, indeed, no longer have need of her.
Her heart was racing. They were watching her closely. In the past she had fought them tooth and nail, extracting what little satisfaction she could by harming them before they began tormenting her. They were no doubt expecting an even fiercer struggle. Instead she put on a bleak face. Exhausted as she was, it was not difficult to even coax tears into her eyes.
“The blue dragoness no longer protests?” said one, half goading her and half surprised.
“What point is there?” Kirygosa said dully. “It has availed me nothing before. And before, I had the hope of rescue.” She lifted her tear-filled eyes to his. “But this time I will not be dragged off and forgotten until you need me again, will I?”
The other one, a female troll named Zuuzuu, shook her head and cackled wildly. “I guess nobody told you where you going dis time.”
Horror coiled coldly in Kirygosa’s belly. “I… thought you were taking me to the laboratory again.”
The two cultists exchanged cruel smiles. “No, you cute little dragon girl,” said Zuuzuu. “You be catchin’ da eye of Chromatus.”
“Wh-what?” Kiry stammered. Surely they couldn’t mean what she thought they meant… not with that five-headed, decaying monster. …
“He figures that you two might produce stable chromatic offspring,” said Josah, a large, stockily built human with reddish blond hair. “A word of warning: Don’t expect a nice candlelit dinner beforehand.”
The two of them laughed, Zuuzuu with her awful cackling and Josah with his smug, hearty bellow.
Kirygosa wanted to kill them. She wanted to shred them to pieces, to flee, to fly, to be killed by the twilight dragons, to be tortured to death, to endure any fate other than the one they were leading her to.
At the same moment, she realized that this was a chance that had never before come her way. Stifling the gorge that rose in her throat, forcing herself not to tremble with fury and horror, she frowned as if thinking.
“If we did produce offspring,” she said, “I would have value.”
“Dat you would,” Zuuzuu said. “With your bloodline, you jest might be da only one who can give Chromatus the kind of babies he wants.”
Kiry forced herself not to cringe at the thought of other females of all flights being subjected to Chromatus’s desire. Instead, she nodded.
“I could be queen.”
“For a time, maybe,” said Josah. He had moved ahead of Kiry and Zuuzuu a little as they walked. “But the end of all things will come. Even for you.”
Zuuzuu was holding the silver chain, but Kirygosa had noticed that as she spoke, the troll had loosened her grip. She made note of their weapons: two daggers in sheaths at their hips. They were approaching a circular stairway, which would take them to the ground level. And Chromatus. Josah had already started to descend, and they would soon need to go single file.
Now.
With her right hand, Kiry yanked the chain out of the troll’s careless grasp. Her left arm came up to wrap around Zuuzuu’s neck. Zuuzuu’s fingers flew up to pry the choking arm off, scratching long furrows in Kiry’s arm. The dragon ignored the pain, squeezing tightly and quickly, until the troll’s eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp. Kiry lowered the body to the floor and seized Zuuzuu’s dagger in the same quick motion.
She had been silent. Josah had noticed nothing and was still carrying on his now one-sided conversation. “I hope I live long enough to see it,” he was saying, almost wistfully. “The end, you know. Though it is our fate to die as the Twilight Father commands. Perhaps he would be pleased if—”
His words ended in a confused gurgle as Kirygosa plunged Zuuzuu’s blade into his throat. She covered his mouth so that the ugly sounds would not carry, then lowered him to the floor as she had done with Zuuzuu.
Her hands came away covered with blood. Her heart was racing and her breath came swiftly. She wiped them and the dagger on Josah’s robes as best she could, her ears straining for any sign that she had been discovered. All was still.
One hand closed briefly on the chain. It still held her prisoner in this weaker human form, but at least no enemy was clutching the other end.
There was no place to drag the bodies and hide them; the temple was open and airy, with very few nooks or compartmentalized places. Very soon, when she did not show up as she was supposed to, they would come looking for her and find the bodies on the ramp.
Thrall Twilight of the Aspects Page 20
