by James Wyatt
He roared, giving vent to the frustration that had simmered in him since he felt the earth rumble and saw the darkened moon that had propelled him across the Mournland. The brooding clouds thundered in answer to his roar, and lightning danced around the floating mountain. And the wind that had blown at his back swirled in a whirlwind around his feet, lifting him into the air. Higher and higher it carried him, until he stepped forward and alighted in one of the many mouths of the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor.
“Vaskar!” he shouted, sending echoes dancing through the twisting network of caverns. He tensed, gripping his sword in both hands, expecting an attack at any instant. All that emerged from the darkness before him was his own voice in a hundred fragments.
Gaven limned his blade with a pale blue glow, lighting the cave ahead, showing him three tunnels converging on the same mouth—one leading up and to the left, one up and to the right, and one more or less straight ahead. The tunnels were like the boring of some enormous worm—round, smooth, and wide. Stretching his arms wide, he could not touch the walls on either side, and the walls curved together far above his head. He started along the right-hand passage, following it as it wound in an upward spiral. At each branch, he bore right, ensuring that he could find his way back to where he started if the need arose.
After the fourth branch, he found himself teetering at the edge of another cave mouth, his momentum almost carrying him over the brink. He threw himself backward, sending his sword clattering to the floor and sliding toward the cave mouth. He stopped it with his foot then scooted forward to grab it. He got back on his feet and turned around, continuing to follow the right wall.
The next cave opening didn’t catch him by surprise, but it did make him stop and think. He’d been blindly following the right wall, as if it would lead him to some destination. But what was his destination? He didn’t recall any mention of a specific location within the Sky Caves that might be important—a vault of knowledge or library of some sort. Finding Vaskar seemed like a hopeless endeavor, especially if the dragon were trying to avoid him—he could never hear or see the dragon before Vaskar noticed his approach. So what was he trying to do?
He moved back into the passage he’d just left. The walls were striated in broad patterns of dark and light stone, which he had noted only casually before. As he examined it more carefully, he realized that there was a definite shape to it. He couldn’t see it all at once, but as he moved farther in to the tunnel, the parts formed a whole in his mind, a Draconic character representing either a hard th sound or the sixth of some sequence. He continued slowly along, reading more characters—short “a” or a moon, a “sh” sound or a beast, or horns. Thash, meaning storm—or the horns of the sixth moon, the crescent phase of Eyre.
He stopped, retracing the tunnel he’d been following in his mind. He turned and followed it again, his eyes closed, trying to visualize the path he was walking. It, too, took shape in his mind—another Draconic character, a long e sound or the number nine. Was that part of another sequence, or an attachment to the word and phrase he’d already pieced together? The number nine could be part of a calendrical expression connected to Eyre’s crescent phase. Or thashe would turn “storm” into an adjective—he had a feeling there might be a “dragon” attached to that somewhere. Or this character could be connected to other symbols formed by the other passages of the Sky Caves.
His mind reeled, and he put a hand out to rest on the solidity of the cavern wall. He had suddenly gained a new depth of respect for the Prophecy. He had learned endless passages of it in Draconic lifetimes ago, and he’d translated them so often in his mind that they spilled out of his mouth in his own language quite naturally. But he began to appreciate what a poor vehicle language was to convey the meaning of it all, how feeble these words and phrases seemed in comparison to the layers of meaning he was experiencing.
Trailing his hand along the cavern wall, he turned and walked farther into the tunnels. He no longer cared about finding his way back. He opened his mind and explored the Prophecy.
CHAPTER
26
When Gaven was a young man, a casual hobby of collecting snippets of the Draconic Prophecy had given him the merest glimpse into its intricacies and complexities. It had made him think that perhaps there was more to life than working and sleeping, eating and getting drunk, getting married and having children—some greater purpose beyond the mundane activities of life, something unfolding behind the scenes. Many people he knew who shared his interest in the Prophecy found that it gave their lives a sense of immediacy, of urgency—life lived against the context of impending catastrophe. Some of the best-known fragments of the Prophecy did seem to concern the most earth-shattering events—the death of empires and the decline of races, natural disasters on an enormous scale, battlefields where thousands upon thousands fell. And he had understood it then as most people did: as sort of a script for the unfolding events of history, preordained and unalterable, revealed through the gods of the Sovereign Host or perhaps binding even them to its dictates.
Discovering the nightshard, the Heart of Khyber, had given him a better sense of the scope of the Prophecy and of the age of the world. He had learned pieces of the Prophecy that had been fulfilled before humans or elves ever walked the earth, and phrases that could not be fulfilled for another thousand thousand years. His earlier sense of immediacy had largely washed away in a dragon’s perspective on the Prophecy: the world would not end that year, or the next, or during Gaven’s lifetime, but individual events on a smaller scale still carried enormous weight. The appearance of the Storm Dragon seemed to be a central point in the Prophecy from this perspective—possibly the most important event that any human, elf, or dragon alive would ever experience.
Walking the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor showed Gaven the Prophecy in its proper context. In some sense, Senya had been right. If the Prophecy had anything to do with destiny—the destiny of individuals or of the world—it was destiny as Senya had described it. The Prophecy was not a foreordained sequence of events but an infinity of possibilities. Most people used their limited understanding of the Prophecy to justify their action or their inaction, but Gaven came to understand it as a context for action. The Prophecy was reason to act, to watch for opportunities and seize them when they came.
But after days spent tracing the winding tunnels of the Sky Caves, a greater wisdom seemed to dance at the edges of his understanding, like the layers upon layers of meaning in the words of the Prophecy. Exactly like that—to one way of understanding, the words of the Prophecy weren’t even Draconic anymore, they were their own language. The Prophecy seemed, in his mind, like the language of creation, the words that called the world into being and spoke it through its course, the tongue in which all things were named. Then, somehow, it was no longer about fulfilling what had been predicted, but about continuing the course of creation that had been established in the beginning, acting in such a way as to become a creator in one’s own right. A co-creator alongside all the beings, mortal and divine, who had heard and understood and spoken that mystic language in the past, and all who would do so in ages yet to come.
With that greater wisdom came power, enormous power—the power of the Storm Dragon, whether he chose to accept that title or not. What he decided to do with that power, though, was up to him.
* * * * *
Gaven closed his eyes and walked a stretch of tunnel for the sixth time, trying to get a sense of its convoluted path, the meaning it tried to convey to him. He stopped. Something had changed. He felt the hair on the back of his neck standing up, his skin tingling, and his mouth had gone suddenly dry. The dragon approached.
He stood still, waiting for it. I am the lightning, he thought.
Then lightning engulfed him, flowing through his body and out through his limbs. It sank away into the tunnel floor and sputtered harmlessly out his hands.
He opened his eyes and turned to face Vaskar. The dragon filled the tunnel, wings pressed against his body, legs pull
ed in close. He crawled forward, more snake than dragon, his emerald eyes fixed on Gaven.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Gaven,” the dragon said. “The secrets of the Sky Caves belong to me, the Storm Dragon. I don’t need you anymore. The Prophecy is laid bare to me now.”
Gaven hefted his sword. If that were true, if Vaskar had learned as much from the Sky Caves as he had, the dragon would be a deadly foe.
“Did you hope to thwart me?” Vaskar said. “Would you prevent me from unlocking the secrets of this place? You pathetic creature.”
“You arrived before I did. You’ve been here for days. What have you learned?”
Vaskar roared. “Insolent hatchling. I shall tear you open and feast on your bones!”
Gaven remembered seeing those gaping jaws closing on a wyvern’s neck. Suddenly the dragon seemed like nothing more than a ravening beast. Vaskar had learned nothing. “Will you usurp the Devourer?” Gaven said. “Does the world need two gods who eat without thinking?”
“You dare mock me? Are you too dim-witted to fear me?”
“I know better than to fear you, Vaskar.”
Another roar, and another blast of lightning from the dragon’s mouth coursed across Gaven’s skin, through his bones, and harmlessly out his hands and feet. All his hair stood on end, and his dragonmark tingled, but he felt no pain. I am the storm, he thought.
“It appears I underestimated your magic,” Vaskar growled. “But will your spells ward you from my teeth?” He lunged, faster than Gaven would have thought possible in such a tight passage.
Gaven stumbled backward, surprised. The dragon’s snout knocked him to the floor, the teeth slashing his shoulder. Vaskar pressed his advantage, pinning him to the ground with one massive claw. The dragon brought his mouth close to Gaven’s face.
“Now the Storm Dragon will feed.” Vaskar hissed.
Gaven grimaced. The dragon’s claw was tearing at the wound in his chest, and fear seized his gut. He saw death in the dragon’s jaws, and pictured his own neck severed like the wyvern’s had been. Then his eyes fell on the ceiling behind Vaskar, its bands of light and dark, and he perceived what he had missed before—a new word in the language of creation.
“No,” he said, and a clap of thunder exploded in Vaskar’s face, knocking his head back and shaking the tunnel around him. The dragon growled and pulled back, but he found himself stuck in the tunnel.
Gaven scrambled to his feet and drove his sword into the dragon’s mouth, cutting a deep gash.
Vaskar pulled his head back as much as he was able, spitting blood that sizzled and hissed where it splattered on the rock. He narrowed his eyes at Gaven. “What has happened? These are not your spells or even your dragonmark at work. What power do you wield against me?”
“If the Prophecy had opened itself to you, you wouldn’t need to ask.”
Vaskar lunged again, his head lowered this time. Gaven’s sword glanced off the armored plates on top of the dragon’s head, which hit him full on. He managed to dodge out of the way of the two curving horns, but the force of Vaskar’s charge carried him off his feet and backward. With no ground under his feet, nothing solid in his reach, there was nothing he could do but ride it out.
The tunnel fell away behind them. Vaskar emerged into the open air and spread his wings. Only then did he let Gaven fall.
Days had dawned and passed since Gaven had entered the Sky Caves, and the sun was somewhere high overhead, hiding behind a towering mass of thunderclouds. Storm winds swirled around them, and Gaven couldn’t see the ground through a cloud of dust. It was enough to note that the dust was a long way down.
Gaven’s stomach lurched as he fell, but he closed his eyes and calmed his mind, calling upon the power of his dragonmark. The wind tugged at him, slowing his descent, and he spread his arms and legs wide to catch it. Power surged through him, and he harnessed it, summoning wind and storm and bending them to his will. He stopped, cradled in the palm of the wind, and he exulted as it lifted him. He looked up to where Vaskar wheeled in triumph, and he gripped his sword tightly in both hands as he soared toward the dragon.
Seeing him, Vaskar recoiled in surprise. Then Gaven was on him, swinging his sword back and forth. The heavy blade clanged against Vaskar’s bronze scales, catching flesh behind and between them. The dragon’s claws batted at him, almost as though Vaskar hoped to knock him from the air. Gaven rewarded his efforts by cutting another bleeding gash between two of the dragon’s claws.
The clouds rumbled with thunder, and the wind howled as though it echoed Vaskar’s pain. The dragon gave a mighty flap of his wings and pulled away from Gaven’s assault, but the wind snatched him and dashed him against the side of the Sky Caves. For a moment his claws scrabbled at the sheer rock face, then he pushed off and into the air again, swooping directly at Gaven, his enormous teeth bared, his wings folded to cut through the gusting wind.
Again, power surged through Gaven’s dragonmark, and he funneled it outward. A cyclone lifted Gaven up and out of Vaskar’s path. When the dragon hit the whirlwind, he veered hard to the left, rolling over on his back as he swerved, stretching his wings out wide to bring his flight back under control. As he rolled, he spat a bolt of lightning at Gaven, but it flowed through Gaven’s body to dance in the clouds, touching off a cascade of light and thunder.
I am the storm, Gaven thought. He stretched his arms out then brought his palms together in a great clap. Winds buffeted Vaskar from either side, crumpling his wings, and another blast sent him reeling backward. The dragon was clearly working hard to stay aloft, and one of his wings looked oddly bent, perhaps broken. He beat his way through the wind to perch in one of the cave openings. Snaking his neck around, he let out a roar that drowned out the dying thunder.
“Thief! Betrayer!” he cried. “I freed you from your prison, and this is the gratitude you show? You stole my prize! Usurper!”
“The prize is not yet won,” Gaven said, his voice echoing in the thunder. He stretched out a hand, pointing at the characters formed by the gaping cave mouths. “The Crystal Spire has not yet risen, bridging the realm of mortals and that of the gods.”
“What?” The dragon drew his head back, evidently surprised at Gaven’s words. “But the Sky Caves—’The Storm Dragon walks in the paths of the first of sixteen!’ What have I not fulfilled?”
“Have you learned nothing? Are you blind? The Prophecy is written plain before you, and you have no eyes to see it. On a field of battle where dragons clash in the skies, the earth opens and the Crystal Spire emerges.”
As he spoke, the characters of the Prophecy danced in his mind, the layers of meaning that language couldn’t capture weaving themselves behind his words.
“A ray of Khyber’s burning sun forms a bridge to Siberys’s heights.”
Images flashed in Gaven’s mind from the tortured dreams of his last night in Dreadhold. Gibbering hordes rising up, following the brilliant light up from the depths of the earth. The hordes of the Soul Reaver.
“I will cross that bridge, Gaven! Not you!” Vaskar’s rage was all the more unsettling because the dragon’s face lacked any human expression. “I am the Storm Dragon!”
The bronze wyrm leaped into the air, lurching toward Gaven on his bent and broken wing.
The wind swelled into a hurricane with Gaven at its eye. Lightning flashed all around him, engulfing Vaskar and limning his scales in brilliant light. The winds battered the dragon and swept him off his path, carrying him around Gaven in a wide arc. Vaskar flailed his wings helplessly. The wind grew, howling through the cave tunnels, sending tremors through the whole mountain. Vaskar whipped around in the wind until he crashed into the side of the Sky Caves, sending a shower of rock in a whirling cascade to the ground.
Vaskar clung weakly to the rock face for a moment, then he let himself fall. He folded his wings and plummeted through the whirlwind, disappearing into the blooming dust cloud below. Gaven lifted his arms to the lightning-scarred sky.
“The Bronze Serpent has fallen,” he said, his words disappearing into the wind. “Must I then be the Storm Dragon?”
The wind carried him higher and higher, until he looked down on the top of the Sky Caves. At the same time, the wind lifted the dust and ash from the ground below into a whirling sandstorm that grew to engulf the floating rock.
Gaven lowered his hands, and the wind began to die. The whirling column of air that held Gaven aloft carried him down. As he sank, the sandstorm lost its fury—but even as it settled, it pulled the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor back down to earth with it.
Gaven came to rest on a level, featureless plain of dust. Somewhere beneath his feet, the Sky Caves slumbered again.
PART
III
The cauldron of the thirteen dragons boils
until one of the five beasts fighting over a single bone
becomes a thing of desolation.
Desolation spreads over that land like wildfire, like plague,
and Eberron bears the scar of it for thirteen cycles of the Battleground.
Life ceases within its bounds,
and ash covers the earth.
CHAPTER
27
Darraun stayed in camp, staring into the fire. It was easier that way. Earlier, he had made the mistake of wandering out to look at the dragons.
On every ledge jutting out from the cliff they perched or wheeled through the air like seagulls. More huddled in circles on the ground outside the camp. Great four-legged lizards—some squat and strong, others long and sinuous—with wings folded alongside their scaled sides or fanning out above and behind them. Long tails lashed along the ground, and teeth like swords tore the flesh of the game and fish they caught. And these monsters, these dragons … they spoke.
It was the speech that really unnerved him. It was one thing to see a score of dragons as something like a flock of birds, riding the wind and roosting on the cliffs as if they jockeyed for the best roosting places and squabbled over fish. It was something very different to recognize them as a collection of intelligent creatures, gathered in this place for a purpose—a purpose they took very seriously. It made them less like a flock of animals and more like an army.
