Dragons of Summer Flame

by Tracy Hickman

  “Went away?” Chaos sneered. “Oh, yes. I’ll be going. When this ball of dirt you consider a world is scattered like dust in the void. Don’t bother to hide yourself, Reorx. I know you’re there. I can smell you.”

  Chaos turned. His lidless eyes, which held nothing in their fathomless depths, focused on the three, seemed to suck their souls out of them. “I see a god, a human, and a thing—I don’t even know what it is.”

  “A thing!” Tas repeated, indignant. “I’m not a thing! I’m a kender! And as for being undersized, I’d rather be short than look like something that got belched out of Mount Doom.”

  “Tas, stop!” Usha cried, terrified.

  The kender, feeling considerably better, was just hitting his stride. “Is that your nose or did a volcano erupt in your face?”

  Chaos rumbled. His empty eyes began to narrow.

  “Dougan, make him stop!” Usha pleaded.

  “No, Lass, not just yet,” Dougan whispered back. “Look! Look what’s coming!”

  A flight of dragons, silver and blue, materialized in the red-orange sky. On their backs rode knights—those dedicated to darkness, those sworn to light. As they drew near Chaos, the dragonlances and swords they carried seemed to catch fire, gleamed flame red.

  Leading the knights was a blue dragon bearing a knight clad in black armor. A white-robed mage rode behind him.

  Chaos did not see them. His attention was focused on the kender.

  Desperate to keep Chaos from looking around, Dougan scrambled to his feet. “You big bully!” the dwarf shouted, shaking his fist.

  Tas eyed Dougan severely. “That’s not very original!” the kender said in an undertone.

  “It doesn’t matter, Lad,” Dougan said, mopping the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his coat. “Just keep talking. A few more seconds … that’s all …”

  Tas drew in another deep breath, but the breath and the rest of his insults got expelled in a big whoosh, as if he’d been hit in the stomach.

  Chaos held in his enormous hand the sun—a huge ball of flaming, molten rock. The three could feel the heat beating down on them, scorching their flesh.

  “A drop of my blood? Is that what you want?” Chaos said in a voice as cold and empty as the night sky. “You think that will give you control over me?”

  The Father of All and of Nothing roared again with laughter. He juggled the sun, tossing it carelessly into the air, catching it again.

  “You will never control me. You never have. You never will. Build your fortresses, your walled cities, your stone houses. Fill them with light and with music and laughter. I am accident. I am plague and pestilence. I am murder. I am intolerance. I am drought and famine, flood and gluttony. And you”—Chaos raised the flaming ball, about to hurl it down on them—“you are nothing!”

  “You are wrong!” came a clear, strong voice. “We are everything. We are hope!”

  A dragonlance, shining red and silver, arced through the air. It smote the sun and shattered. The sun burst into a thousand pieces of flaming rock, which rained down in fire to the ground, grew cold when they hit.

  Chaos turned.

  The knights faced him, drawn up in battle formation, their dragonlances leveled and ready, their swords raised, the metal glowing silver and red. In their midst sat a white-robed mage, wearing no armor, carrying no weapon.

  “Hope?” Chaos laughed again. “I see no hope! I see only despair!”

  The fragments of rock changed to daemon warriors, imps of Chaos that were formed of the terrors of every person who had ever lived. Colorless and shifting like bad dreams, the daemon warriors appeared different to each who fought them, taking on the shape of the thing each person feared the most.

  Up from the rift came fire dragons. Made in mockery of real dragons, the fire dragons were formed of magma, their scales obsidian, their wings and manes flame, their eyes blazing embers. They belched noxious gases from the bowels of the world. Sparks flew from their wings, setting ablaze anything over which they flew.

  The knights stared at these monsters in despair; their faces blanched in dismay and fear as the horrible creatures surged forward to attack. The standards slid from shaking hands, began to dip toward the ground.

  Chaos pointed at the Solamnic Knights.

  “Paladine is dead! You fight alone.”

  Chaos turned to the dark knights.

  “Takhisis has fled. You fight alone.”

  Chaos spread his enormous arms, which seemed to encompass the universe.

  “There is no hope. You have no gods. What have you left?”

  Steel drew his sword and raised it in the air. The metal did not reflect the fire, but shone white, argent, like moonlight on ice.

  “Each other,” he answered.

  31

  The light. The thorn.

  A knife called rabbitslayer.

  must set you down, Majere,” Steel said to Palin. “I cannot fight with you behind me.”

  “And I can’t fight from dragonback,” Palin agreed.

  Flare alighted on the ground. Steel gave Palin his arm, swung the young mage off the saddle. Steel started to withdraw his grasp. Palin kept hold of the knight’s hand for one brief second.

  “You know what to do?” he asked anxiously.

  “Cast your spell, Sir Wizard,” Steel said coolly. “I stand ready.”

  Palin nodded, clasped Steel’s hand tightly.

  “Farewell, Cousin,” he said.

  Steel smiled. For an instant, the dark eyes were warm.

  “Farewell …” He paused, then said quietly, “Cousin.”

  Flare, with a shrieking battle cry, leapt into the air.

  Their own courage ignited by Steel’s words and example, the knights of darkness and of light lifted their fallen standards and flew to the attack.

  Chaos was ready for them with confusion and madness and terror and pain. Fire burned, and nightmare creatures gibbered. Wielding the dragonlances, the Solamnic Knights attacked the fire dragons. The silver dragons risked the deadly flames to carry their riders close. The knights, sweating in the awful heat, squinted against the fiery light and threw the lances. Their faith and their strong arms launched them straight and true. Several of the fire dragons fell, plunging to the ground to explode in a rush of flames. Many of the silver dragons fell, too, their faces burned, eyes blinded, their wings scorched and shriveled.

  The dark knights fought the daemon warriors, slashing at them with accursed swords. The blue dragons battled with claw and lightning. But whenever a weapon struck the heart of a daemon warrior, the cold of the dark void that had existed before the beginning of time caused the metal to shatter, froze the hand that held it. The knights bore the pain, switched the blade from the useless hand to the good, and fought on.

  Palin stood well behind the front line of knights and, for the moment, he was out of the battle. The fury of the knights’ onslaught drove the daemon warriors and the fire dragons back, put them on the defensive. They would not be on the defensive long. Chaos, with a wave of his gigantic hand, was bringing up reinforcements, not from the rear, but creating them from the bodies of the fallen.

  Palin had to cast his spell quickly. He opened the spellbook of Magius to the correct page. Holding the spellbook in his left hand, Palin took hold of the Staff of Magius in his right. He ran through the words of the spell one last time. Drawing a breath, he started to speak them, looked up and saw Usha.

  He had not noticed her before. She had been hiding behind the broken altar. But now she had risen to her feet, was watching the battle fearfully, holding the Graygem in her hands. What was she doing here?

  He longed to cry out to her, but was afraid that doing so might draw the father god’s deadly attention to her presence. Palin needed to go to her, to protect her. He needed to stay here, to cast his spell, to protect the knights.

  The magic began to writhe and crawl about in his head; the words to the spell started to slip away, to hide in the crevices of his shat
tered concentration. He could see the words on the page, but he couldn’t think how to pronounce them, how to give them the correct enunciation that was all-important. They were fast becoming meaningless gibberish.

  Love is my strength!

  Once again he was back on that terrible beach, watching panic-stricken, paralyzed with fear for his brothers’ lives, wanting to help so desperately that he had been an utter failure. It was useless to say the odds were overwhelming, that he’d been wounded, that they had never had a chance …

  He knew he had failed. And he was destined to fail again.

  We learn from our failures, Nephew, came a soft, whispering voice.

  The words to the spell suddenly made perfect sense. He knew how to pronounce them.

  He placed the staff in position, spoke the words clearly, strongly. “Abdis tukng! Kumpul-ah kepudanya kuasahan!” He waited, tensely, eagerly, for the sparkling tingle in the blood that was the beginning of the magic.

  “Burus longang degang birsih sekalilagang!”

  The magic wasn’t there. He was near the end of the spell. He knew he’d spoken it correctly, knew he had made not one mistake. Only a few more words …

  “Degang kuashnya, lampar terbong kilat mati yangjahat!”

  Chaos towered over him. Fire burned him. Death surrounded him. Steel would die, Usha would die, Tas and Dougan, his parents, his two little sisters, and so many others …

  Sacrifice. Sacrifice for the magic. What have you ever sacrificed for the magic, Nephew? I gave up my health, my happiness. I gave up love—of my brother, of my friends. I gave up the only woman who might have loved me in return.

  I gave this all for the magic.

  What will you give, Nephew?

  Palin spoke the last two words of the spell. “Xts vrie.” And then he added, quietly, calmly, “I give myself.”

  The words on the page of the spellbook began to shine with a silver-white radiance. The radiance seeped through the red leather binding into Palin’s hand.

  A shivering, tingling sensation swept over him. He was filled with the ecstasy of the magic, sublime pleasure, exquisite pain. He was not afraid of anything, not of failure, not of death. The radiance flowed through Palin, gathered within him, within his heart.

  Atop the Staff of Magius, the crystal, clutched in the dragon’s claw, began to glow with a silver-white light. The glow grew stronger, brighter, until it shone more brilliantly than the flames of Chaos. The silver armor of the Solamnic Knights reflected the light, brightened it. The black armor of the dark knights absorbed the light, but did not dim it. The scales of the silver dragons glinted like diamonds in the magical light. The scales of the blue dragons were glittering sapphire.

  Where the light struck the daemon warriors, they screeched in pain and anger. The shadow-wights wafted away, like smoke sucked up into a chimney. The fire dragons swerved to try to avoid the light, and fell victim to the silver shining dragonlances.

  Chaos became aware of the light. Seen out of the corner of his eyes, the flash was annoying, irritating. He determined to get rid of it.

  Chaos shifted his attention from leading his legions, searched for the damnable light. He discovered the staff and the small and insignificant being holding it. He looked at the light, looked directly into it …

  The magic surged through Palin with a jolt that drove him to his knees. Yet he held the staff steady. The light burst out of the crystal, shot a bright, blinding beam of radiant white straight into the giant’s eyes.

  “Now, Steel!” Palin shouted. “Strike now!”

  Steel Brightblade and Flare had been hovering on the edges of the fighting, impatiently awaiting their moment. The waiting had been difficult for them both. They had been forced to watch comrades die and could do nothing to aid them or avenge them. Steel had seen Palin falter, had urged him silently to hold on. His cousin’s success brought intense satisfaction and—it must be admitted—a warm and unexpected feeling of brotherly pride.

  He did not need Palin’s yell to know when to commence his attack. The moment the light from the crystal smote Chaos full in the eyes, Steel raised his sword, dug his spurs into Flare’s sides.

  Chaos howled in rage and fury, sought to shut out the light that had stabbed into his head, blinding him and hurting him. But his lidless eyes could not close. Whirlpools of darkness, they sucked everything they looked at inside, including the debilitating light.

  Flare flew straight for Chaos. The giant wrenched and jerked his head about, trying to break the light’s hold. Steel guided the dragon, shouted words of encouragement, urged her through the roaring flames that were the giant’s hair and beard.

  Almost blinded himself by the fire, Steel shielded his eyes with his hand. He had chosen his target, aimed straight for it. The heat was horrific; it beat on the metal of his armor, made it hot to the touch and unbearable to wear. His helm was suffocating him. He yanked the helm off, flung it to the ground. The fire seared his skin. He couldn’t breathe the superheated air that burned his lungs. Still, he rode on.

  Chaos wore a breastplate of adamant and glowing hot iron, but the plate covered only his chest. His arms and hands were bare.

  “Veer off!” Steel yelled to Flare, tugged the reins to the right, to turn the dragon’s head. “Take me near his shoulder!”

  The dragon, lowering her head, soared through the fire of the father god’s beard, spat her lightning breath. Jolts of electricity struck Chaos, further irritating, further enraging him. He knew an enemy was close, began to lash out blindly, flailing with his arms. Steel ducked, protecting himself by hiding behind Flare’s neck.

  The dragon lifted her right wing, flipped over, flew so near the glowing breastplate that the heat radiating from it scorched her wings. Steel gasped for air. His eyes watered from the heat, yet he kept them open, kept them fixed on his target.

  The dragon flew close to the giant. Steel, leaning perilously out of the saddle, lifted his sword and, with a ringing battle cry, stabbed the blade into the enormous arm.

  “He’s done it, Lass! He’s done it!” Dougan shrieked, dancing up and down. “Quickly now! Quickly!”

  Steel’s sword was embedded in the giant’s flesh. Chaos bleated and bellowed. Unable to see what had stung him, he jerked his arm back, dragged the sword from Steel’s hand.

  A drop of blood sprang, glistening, from the wound.

  “Now, Lass, now!” Dougan panted.

  “I’ll come with you!” Tas cried. “Wait a moment, though. Let me find the spoon …”

  “No time!” Dougan shoved Usha. “Go, Lass. Now!”

  “I’ll just be a second.” Tas was rummaging through his pouches. “Where is that dratted spoon? …”

  Usha cast an uncertain glance at Dougan and at Tas, searching his pouches. Dougan waved his hand.

  Usha crept forward.

  Concentrate on the objective. Don’t think about Palin, don’t think about Tas, don’t think about how frightened you are. Think about the Protector and the others. Think of how they died. I never did anything for them, never told them how grateful I was. I left without thanking them. This … is for my family, the lost Irda.

  Usha kept her eyes fixed on that drop of shining red blood welling out from beneath the sword.

  She drew closer, closer to the huge legs, the enormous feet that stamped upon and shook and cracked the ground.

  The drop of blood hung, dangled like a jewel far out of reach.

  It did not fall.

  Steel’s sword—his father’s sword—stuck like a rose thorn in Chaos’s flesh.

  In jerking his arm back, Chaos had wrenched the sword from Steel’s grasp. The blade hadn’t done much damage to the giant. It had drawn only a single drop of blood.

  Steel needed to strike again, but first he had to retrieve his sword. His strength was failing, and so was the strength of his dragon. Flare was badly burned, one eye gone, the scales of her head withered and bleeding. Her blue wings were blackened, the fine membrane torn.
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br />   Steel couldn’t seem to find air enough to fill his lungs. Every ragged breath came with excruciating pain. He was dizzy and light-headed. His skin was burned and blistered.

  He gritted his teeth, bent over Flare, patted her on the neck.

  “We have to go in again, Girl,” he said. “We have to finish this. Then we can rest.”

  The dragon nodded, too exhausted and hurting to speak. But Flare found it within her to snarl in defiance as she flew forward, forced the tattered wings to carry her and her rider back into battle.

  The dragon flew near the wounded arm, dipped her wing at the last possible moment before crashing headlong into the giant. Steel caught hold of the sword’s hilt and, with his last strength, yanked it out of the giant’s arm.

  The drop of blood fell, glittering, from the wound.

  Usha saw the blood fall. Hope lent her courage. Heedless of the trampling feet, she ran forward to catch the drop.

  But at that moment, Chaos, swearing savagely, swung his arm up and swatted at what was to him a stinging, annoying insect.

  The dragon lacked the power in her wings to carry herself and her rider clear of the flailing, crushing hand. Chaos smashed the dragon, as he might have smashed a fly.

  The dragon, her neck broken, fell from the sky, carrying her rider with her. There came a flash of silver light, and both crashed to the ground near Palin. The dragon’s wing struck the mage a glancing blow, knocked the staff and the spellbook from his hand.

  The silver-white light vanished.

  The drop of blood, won at such enormous cost, fell to the ground and was immediately soaked up by the gray, parched soil.

  Usha cried out in dismay. Going down on her hands and knees, she began scrabbling at the moist, blood-red dirt, trying desperately to recover some of the blood.

  A shadow fell over her, chilled her to the bone, froze her hands, numbed her heart.

  Chaos could see her now, bending over the spilled blood, the Graygem in her hands.

  He understood his peril.