A Crown Imperilled

ENTR’ACTE

Tomas sat up.

In the early morning hours he felt something rip through the fabric of this world in a way he had not known since he first donned the white-and-gold armour of the Dragon Lord. He looked around and saw that his wife was now awake, looking at him with wide eyes.

‘Beloved,’ she asked softly, ‘what is it?’

He did not have any words for a moment, then at last he said, ‘It’s Pug … he’s gone.’

She put her hand on his arm. ‘Gone?’

‘We have always had a bond and now it’s severed.’ He sat motionless a few seconds, then said, ‘And there’s something else.’

‘What?’ she asked as she saw his powerful back outlined in the faint moonlight coming in through the window of their quarters. He was moving to the chest in which he kept his armour. ‘Tomas?’

He opened the chest and stared down at his legacy of Ashen-Shugar, the Valheru whose memories he shared. ‘I feel something.’

‘What?’ she asked again.

Looking at the armour, then at his wife, he said, ‘There is another.’

Draken-Korin slumbered on his ebony throne, the last vestiges of his mortal body stripped away. He stirred and saw that all had been returned as he had ordered it. Every inch of the chamber had been cleaned by his loyal tiger-men, and the torches lit. He stood and instantly those who were in the chamber fell to the floor in abject obeisance, touching their foreheads to the stone.

‘I am hungry!’ he roared. ‘Bring me food. I must gather my strength.’ He tilted his head, as if listening. ‘There is another.’

Tanderae could feel the shift in the energy field of the planet. Something huge had just taken place. Whatever it was, it must be catastrophic to be felt at such a distance.

Then heaven tore open.

The blast knocked him off his feet as a massive pillar of ruby light exploded through the roof of the portal building and a wash of heat rolled over him. If there had been anyone inside the building when that explosion took place they were surely dead.

He got up on unsteady legs as the inhabitants of E’bar left their homes to come outside and stare at the monstrous light. Egun found the Loremaster and said, ‘What happened?’

‘An explosion from the portal building.’

‘Ancestors,’ the captain of the Sentinels whispered. ‘I was looking to find you. The Lord Regent was in there.’

‘No longer,’ said Tanderae. ‘Find who you can of the Meet and ask them to assemble. Questions will be asked and we have no answers. Find the galasmancers and have them look in the portal room if they can do so safely, for we must know what is taking place.’

‘What do you think this is?’ asked the soldier.

‘I fear it is a beacon,’ said the Loremaster.

‘A beacon?’ The captain paused, then asked, ‘For what?’

‘What all beacons are for, Egun. To guide someone here.’

‘Who?’

‘That is what I fear to find out.’

In the wilds of western Kesh sprawls a massive lake, the Dragon Erye. Home to a peaceful people of Isalani descent — fishermen, farmers and hunters — the region has remained unchanged for centuries. A ring of mountains, the Watchmen, surrounds this lake, save for a river coursing north to the sea. In spring when the ice thaws in the peaks and the snows melt, the river floods and farmers rejoice as the farmland along its banks is renewed.

The mountains, the inaccessibility of the lake, the lack of riches have left this area neglected by conquerors, migratory invaders, bandits, or rogues. It may be the single most peaceful region on the entire world of Midkemia.

A potato farmer named Li Shun pushes his small cart along the road at dawn, taking his harvest to market. Winter potatoes are in short supply this year and he anticipates good trading.

Then comes the sound.

He stops. Turning his back on his cart, he moves down the road and as he takes each step, he wills his body to change.

High above the lake, in a meadow full of sheep, two brothers, Tai and Mak, sit near their campfire watching their flock. Their dog perks up his ears, listening. Then the two brothers stand, letting their crooks fall to the ground. They leave the whining dog behind as they move away from their camp, their bodies beginning to change with each step. Their forms flow and take on a much larger appearance.

In a nest high above the meadow, a dragon matriarch lies curled around a clutch of eggs. As is the nature of her kind, she will watch over them until they hatch. She is growing hungry, for she has not eaten in a month, but she has gorged herself on enough food to last for another month until the three eggs stir and then she will hunt on behalf of her hatchlings.

Then she hears the sound. She rises up and spreads her wings, throws back her head and lends her voice to that sound, amplifying and repeating it.

Around the world, dragons let go the illusion of human form, as hunters in the mountains throw aside their bows, a fisherman at sea lets his small boat sink as he becomes too massive for it to support him; a guard on a caravan leaves camp in the middle of the night and goes into the darkness never to be seen again by his companions.

Around the world dragon voices pick up the sound and repeat it, lending their power to the note.

The time has come.

It is the song they have not heard in the memory of the oldest living dragon on in the world, but instinctively they know it.

In the darkness of western Novindus a massive black dragon launches itself into the starry night, the powerful snap of its wings cracking like thunder as it circles and climbs, seeking out a call so ancient it needs no words to know it.

In the noonday sun of Rillanon, on the highest southern peaks of that island, a massive white dragon cries out with emotions so profound it has no name for them; and it leaps into the sky, a massive cloud against the blue to a hunter who happens to look up.

Around the world the call repeats, and dragons in hiding among humans answer, and within minutes, it is echoed and answered and repeated. From distant mountains, and deep caverns, isolated beaches and lonely valleys, dragons rise.

In a vast cavern below an abandoned city, the greatest dragon of all lifts her head and listens. Around her robed figures wait, for this is the time of the nexus, the cusp of all things and now comes days of uncertainty.

Slowly she lowers her bejewelled head and closes her eyes, and her companions turn to guard the now slumbering Oracle of Aal, for she has come to the end of the future. This is when time itself will change, and even the most powerful seer in the history of the universe cannot see what tomorrow will bring.