Beyong the Moons

Chapter One

‘Dragon!”

Teldin Moore stopped in midswing, and the hoe he held almost flew from his grasp. Liam’s excited shout, practically in Teldin’s ear, was as startling as the word itself. “Liam, by the returned gods,” Teldin snapped as he dug the hoe into the ground, “I’m right here!” The tall farmer swung around to give an icy, blue-eyed glare at his shorter, older neighbor, but a dribble of sweat, brought out by the setting sun, dripped down his forehead. Teldin blinked as it dropped into his eyelashes, ruining the reproachful glare he hoped to achieve.

The pair were standing in the middle of the melon field, which filled one small corner of Teldin’s land. The farmer’s property extended from his cabin to a wooded ridge an acre away, beyond which lay Liam’s farm. Teldin scanned the horizon as he tried to guess just what had gotten his neighbor so excited. To the west, the yellow-red glare of the setting sun burned through the thin clouds to dazzle his eyes. Blinking, Teldin let his gaze follow the cottonwoods that ran past the edge of the field. There was no sign of a dragon above the stream where the cottonwoods grew. Teldin turned almost completely about and faced northeast, where his simple cabin stood. The wavering branches of an apple orchard behind the house rose above the roofline, but even there Teldin saw no sign of anything that looked like a dragon. Neither did the chickens in the yard show any sign of alarm. Instead they lazily scratched the ground outside their coop. The young farmer threw one last glance around the small dale that enclosed his land. “Where?” Teldin skeptically demanded.

Liam Shal, with his worn, ill-fitting clothes flapping like a scarecrow’s, bobbed nervously and excused himself with a grimace of embarrassment. The scrawny old farmer practlcally hopped from foot to foot, one hand jabbing at the sky, the other balancing against his own hoe, firmly set in the broken dirt. The scrawny melon plants’ yellowing leaves scratched at Liam’s bare legs. “Teldin, look up in the sky! It must a be dragon, right? You saw them in the wars right? That’s a dragon, isn’t it?”

Teldin leaned against his hoe, dubiously scanning the horizon where Liam pointed. The older man was a good farmer, but Teldin knew his neighbor had never seen much of the real world. Even at dusk, weeding out the melon field was hot work, and the farmer wondered if his neigh bor had conjured up an imaginary dragon as an excuse for a break. Not that he really cared, for his own taut muscles suddenly motionless after a day’s worth of hoeing, ached agonizingly. Stiffly flexing his shoulders, Teldin brushed back trickles of sweat into his stubby, light brown hair, and, shading his eyes, peered into the reddish western sky. This time he took care not to gaze into the setting sun, but looked more toward the faint image of Solinari, the Moon — of Silver, as it hid behind wispy clouds.

At first there was nothing to see. Teldin looked toward his neighbor. “Liam, you’ve been in the sun too long,” he declared with a snort.

“No, look over the big oak on the ridge, just below the clouds!” Liam thrust his arm under Teldin’s nose, his finger pointing toward a distant spot in the sky.

Teldin barely noticed the rich, salty tang of sweat and dirt emanating from Liam’s grimy skin. Instead he squinted and tried to sight on Liam’s outstretched fingertip without luck. Then a sparkle, hanging over the top of the big oak that Liam had named, caught his eye. A familiar childhood landmark at the end of the field, the tree stood above most of the others. Teldin squeezed his eyes down to wrinkled slits against the glare, then saw a series of brilliant, red-gold flashes that seemed to shoot from the oak’s topmost branches. Before the two farmers could say another word, though, it was gone into the wispy tails of a glowing cloud bank.

“Dragon fire, I bet, just like you saw in the war,” Liam blurted, obviously confident in his identification. The older man nevertheless looked eagerly to Teldin for evidence that he had guessed right. Although half again Teldin’s age, Liam had the bubbling enthusiasm of a child.

“Could be,” Teldin cautiously allowed, not letting the old man influence him. With such scant evidence, Teldin reserved his judgment, pointedly avoiding the faults of his late father. Amdar’s fierce opinions had been one of the reasons Teldin had run away to become a soldier in the first place.

The few dragons Teldin had seen as a youth during the War of the Lance were always at rest and never fighting. The truth, which Teldin had never broached with Liam, was that in his years as a soldier, the young farmer had been little more than a mule skinner. The older farmer was pleased to know a “war hero” and Teldin just could not disillusion him.

The fact was that he had never been in anything but a few minor skirmishes, let alone seen a dragon fight in earnest, using its fearsome breath to scorch men to cinders. Coming after the warriors, though, he’d seen the results. At the Battle of the High Clerist ‘s Tower, Teldin had buried men-and things that weren’t men-all roasted by dragon fire, blasted by lightning, or eaten away by corrosive spittle. It was an awful memory that filled him with horror, and he quickly shut it out of his mind, but not before his neck instinctively tensed and strained already stiff muscles even more.

Liam, still prancing about from foot to foot, thought of dragons only as exciting. The grizzled neighbor finally despaired that the thing he had seen would return. The lustrous evening sky was already darkening. Both Solinari, with its smooth, silver disk, and Lunitari, Krynn’s other, blood-red, moon, were well up into the heavens. Stars were faintly visible in the east, opposite the setting sun.

“Well, it’s gone,” Liam said dejectedly, after spitting at a gob of dirt between the melon vines. Teldin blinked, trying to get the sun’s dazzle and sweat out of his eyes.

Teldin walked over beside his neighbor. “All for the best, Liam,” he consoled. “Dragons are bad business.” Taking up the hoe, the young farmer hefted it for another try at the weeds that lay thick among the melon hills at his feet. His shoulders, barely rested, ached so that Teldin let out a surprised grunt, and he let the hoe fall. “Oh, gods, that’s enough for today.”

Teldin stiffly clapped his friend on the shoulder. “No more today, Liam. You should be getting home. I can finish the field tomorrow.” The pair had worked all day and, i even if they were not done, Teldin was content with their progress.

Liam stood firm. “Teldin, these melons have got to get weeded, and you’ve been letting it slip for a week now. Those weeds are going to choke off your vines real soon. If this were my field, I’d be out here hoeing by torchlight.”

Teldin shrugged somewhat painfully, ignored the older man, and began to march off toward his cabin. “It’s not your field,” he called back upon reaching the porch. “There are more than enough melons hoed for me. Who else is going to eat them?” Teldin set the hoe against the cabin’s log wall and disappeared inside. The cabin was old and small but well cared for. Teldin’s grandfather had cut the timber back when he first had claimed the land. He had dressed out the logs and cut the joints to fit them together. Teldin’s father had replaced the thatch roof with hand- split shingles and built the stone chimney that thrust up through the center of the roof, replacing his father’s original smokehole. After returning from the war, Teldin, grateful to be home, added the porch that wrapped around the front, and whitewashed the logs until the place looked like the village houses found in other parts of Estwilde. The whitewash gave the cabin a cozy, speckled gray look that Teldin liked. The house seemed to blend in with the trunks of the few trees around it. Although he had lived alone ever since his father had died, Teldin kept the house neat and in good condition. It was home, and now he was proud of it. He had run away once, but now he was staying.

When Liam didn’t come out of the field, where he still stubbornly swung his hoe, Teldin stepped back onto the porch and held up a pair of wooden cups. “You can stay and hoe if you want, but I’ve got a fine cheese and a fat skin of wine cooling in the stream. Join me for a swim and a drink!” he yelled. “Or are you too old to remember how to do that?” Teldin grinned at his neighbor’s determination, trying to get in a few more moments of work by the last rays of the setting sun. Old Liam lived for nothing but farming, but Teldin preferred a balance of work and relaxation.

Still, the offer was enough for the old farmer. With a higgledy step, scrawny Liam picked his way through the melon hills to the house. He followed Teldin across the yard, all the while chiding in mock irritation, to where the stream ran close by the house. The pair sat on a rock and let their feet soak in the coo1 water. Not bothering to pull off his shirt, Teldin slid down into the stream and let the water play over his tortured shoulders. Liam stayed on the rock and dabbled in the water with his feet.

“Liam, thanks for helping with the melons. I know you’re busy with your own place and everything,” Teldin said sitting up, “but I’m grateful for the help.”

The older man kicked up some water in mock disgust. “Your father and I helped each other for years while you were soldiering. Just because he’s passed on doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.

Amdar was a painful subject, one that Teldin just as soon hoped didn’t come up. Memories of his stern father churned upward from the pits of Teldin’s past-the painful years of fights and criticism that finally drove a young farm boy to run away to the war. There were other memories, those of the strange silence between them when Teldin finally had come home. Neither man had spoken much of their years apart, leaving each to his peace. Even now a Teldin wanted to respect that silence.

Climbing out of the stream, Teldin clacked the wooden cups together. “Let’s have a drink.” Water dripped from the goatskin bag as he fished it from the stream. Strong, homemade purple wine sloshed into the wooden cups.

The two men sat in silence, enjoying their drinks until the sun was completely set, leaving only a faint glow on the horizon. This was complemented by the light from the twin moons, causing the trees, crops, cabin-everything- to leave twin shadows tinged in red and silver. Teldin was content, even a little bored.

Finally Liam set his cup down, “Time I headed home, Teldin. My old eyes are too weak to see that path in the dark.” Liam grinned a crooked-toothed smile. Teldin snorted at the joke, knowing perfectly well that Liam’s eyes were not nearly that bad or that old.

Standing, Liam wobbled a little, the wine apparently taking its toll. Teldin corked the wineskin and stood to see his friend off. “Now, you sure you can handle that melon field?” Liam pressed as he held out his hand.

Teldin took the smaller man’s hand and clasped it firmly. “It’ll be fine, Liam, just fine. Go home now, before Eloise starts worrying. You be sure to fetch me when its time to do your haying."

“I’ll do that, I will,” promised Liam. With one last “ swipe at the sweat on his brow, the smaller man turned and headed across the fields toward his own farm. It would be a long walk back. Teldin’s homestead was cut off from the other farms in the area by the wooded ridge to the west. Most of the other farmers lived clustered in small villages along the road from Kalaman, which ran through the main valley about two leagues away. Only a few smaller homesteads, like Teldin’s, were situated in the side valleys. Teldin’s father had liked it that way, and it suited Teldin just fine, too. Teldin, like all the Moores, had never been a particularly sociable man. The isolation did not bother him, because he never thought about it. When Teldin felt the urge for company, he visited Liam or some of the other farmers in Dargaard Valley, particularly those with pretty, young daughters.

As Liam disappeared into the woods, Teldin sighed, finally ready to give up. He was getting a crick in his neck. There were still chores to do, and milking the goat was first. Slow and stiff, he went back into the house for a bucket.

As Teldin came out the door, a small spark of light caught his eye. It left a fiery streak like a shooting star, though the fact that it flashed through the sky beneath the clouds went unnoticed by Teldin. Then the spark turned, suddenly shifting more in his direction.

Stars don’t dart about, Teldin realized, his curiosity suddenly piqued. The spark kept moving, jigging slightly this way, then that, like a tadpole in a stream, while all the time holding to an almost straight line toward Teldin. The more he watched, the larger and faster the light grew. Teldin thought he could almost hear a hissing noise, like a drop of water skittering in a hot skillet.

The imaginary sound grew louder, now more like a redhot stone cast in a pot, then changing again as deeper rumbles sounded beneath the popping hiss. Weak echoes came back to Teldin from the hills of his small valley. The spark had become a glowing coal surrounded by a fiery nimbus, almost the size of brilliant Solinari at full.

Teldin stood watching, waiting for the thing to change course again. It did not heed his wishes and instead bore downward, resolving into a great, dark shape, like a tapered oval, silhouetted by sparkling points and tongues of flame

Teldin abruptly realized that it was plunging straight toward where he stood dumbfounded, bucket in hand. The yeoman squinted at the thing that charged out of the sky, bright enough now to hurt his eyes. A great jutting beak and bulging, glowing eyes clearly marked it as some kind of maleficent beast. Gigantic wings, billowing with fire, flared out from the sides and trailed showers of fiery sparks. A roaring filled the air over the silent farm, like the teeth-grating scream of an enraged fiend.

“Paladine’s blood!” swore Teldin as his amazement wore off and he saw doom descending. Instinctively he threw up one arm to shield himself. The bucket dropped, and with his other hand he groped about for the hoe, a poor weapon at best. The flaming beast still bore down from the sky, relentless in its approach.

Self-preservation finally overcame inertia, and Teldin flung himself to the side, springing and stumbling to evade the creature’s charge. Leaping from the porch, his hoe in hand, Teldin hit the ground, tripped over a root, pitched forward, and rolled across the dirt yard. The goat, waiting to be milked, ran with terrified bleats as Teldin, dirt-smeared and panting, scrambled to his feet. The farmer twisted around to see if the fiery beast still pursued him.

All thoughts were shattered by a crackling screech as the monstrous, dark underbelly scraped across the field. The beast smashed into the ground, not slowing in the least for its landing. The great bulk plowed through the melons, throwing up dirt like a plow cutting a furrow. Vines and fruit were gouged away. Under its driving landing, the earth shuddered, as if the soil were struck by Reorx’s hammer itself.

The shock wave blasted Teldin with a hail of pebbles and dust. The earth heaved under his feet, throwing him head over heels. The farmer crashed backward down the stream bank until he was slammed onto his chest and sprawled headfirst down the opposite bank. The wind was driven from his gut. The hoe ricocheted out of his grasp, and his arm was numb where it had struck a stone. Gasping, Teldin sucked in half a lungful of mud and water and succeeded only in choking himself worse. Forcing himself onto his elbows, it was all he could do to weakly lift his face, gasping and spitting, out of the muck.

In the field above, the thing from the Abyss rebounded from its initial impact until it was almost airborne again. Melon vines hung from the splintered underbelly, the plants’ roots desperately clutching to the earth as if they were trying to entwine the charging beast in their grasp. The creature’s broad beak tore through the slender trees in front of the house, shattering the trunks in grinding howls that ended in cracking explosions. As one of the flaming wings passed overhead, an arc of sparks cascaded down, and hot embers singed Teldin’s back through his wet shirt. Other coals extinguished themselves with a quick hiss in the muddied stream.

From where he lay sprawled, it looked to Teldin as if the thing, beast or whatever, might get itself airborne once more. The shape’s ponderous bulk hovered over the farmhouse’s shingled roof, struggling to break the bonds of gravity.

The illusion was shattered by a rippling series of explosions, like a giant striking stones together, from somewhere deep within the thing. The great curved shape trembled. There was another single roar, and the side burst open in a gout of flame, blasting shards across the farmyard. In the brief moment that the conflagration illuminated the sky, Teldin had the image of a great ship, some winged ocean vessel, its planking shattered and broken, hovering in the air over his house. In that same second, the burning tongue

flared toward him, washing his face in roasting heat. Jagged wooden splinters lanced the bank around Teldin while flaming embers once again rained from above.

Mindful of injury, Teldin pressed back into the stream, the warm mud squeezing up around his chest, the water running over his back. Above he could hear a wood- shearing roar as the ship lurched downward, crushing the roof of his house. The fieldstone chimney, built by his father, collapsed as the old rafters gave way without a fight. Only Grandfather’s strong log walls resisted, for a moment supporting the great weight pressing down on them. From where he lay, Teldin heard a groan of wood followed by a popping crack, the way trees sometimes froze in the worst winters. After a series of thunderous booms, a relative silence-broken only by the crash of an occasional piece of debris-was all that sounded.

Though trembling and shaken by this unexpected attack, Teldin peered over the bank, his blue eyes quickly going hard as he looked at the destruction of his home. The ship, if it was one, had finally settled to a stop, crushing the house’s entire western wall. The stone-and-mortar chimney had fallen over on the chicken coop, caving in the flimsy roof. The whitewashed logs were thrust out at terrible angles and the porch he had built was buried under the remains. Teldin could barely hear the squawks of hens, now somewhere far off in the darkness. Fires swirled and crackled through the gaping holes in the hull, like beacons set to highlight the ghastly scene.

Finally, Teldin warily raised himself out of the water, ready to bolt like one of the rabbits that sometimes crouched at the edge of his fields. Muck ran down his scratched and burned body, but the farmer was too intent on the blazing scene to notice. Cautiously, he stepped up the bank and slowly began to circle the burning wreck.

Abruptly there was a loud groan of timber, followed by a single thundering crack as the vessel’s keel split. Teldin sprang back as the shattered form lurched, then split in two, the back half settling, slightly canted on its outspread wings. The front, with its long, jutting spar, tore free and dropped onto the remains of the chicken coop, smashing it flat. Stunned hens reeled out of the wreckage and staggered throuh the rubble-strewn yard. The knifelike bow wobbled and fell over, tipping away from the wreckage of the house, and the upper decks listed toward Teldin. A short mast thrust out at him like a misguided dragonlance, wavering up and down, a tattered pennon at its tip. The few hens that remained fled, squawking in alarm. When the ship finally settled, Teldin stalked forward, his hoe clutched in both hands. He could barely make himself move, he was so tense and ready to bolt, but the need to know more drove him forward.

As he advanced slowly, weaving from side to side, Teldin studied the wreck. The main hull and most of the ship seemed to be made of wood, but sprouting from the keel of the rear section were four flaring fins, definitely not of timber. Ribbed like a trout’s fins, the strange sails were mangled badly by the crash, broken in several places when the vessel sheared through the trees. Bits of a fleshy membrane, of which only torn and burned strips remained, once joined the ribs of these wings. A similar fin rose out of the middle of the deck, its arching shape tangled in the shattered branches overhead. Trailing into the darkness at the back was something that looked like a flamboyant fish’s tail.

Teldin had never seen these things on any ship in Kalaman. He blinked, wondering if the explosion had addled his senses. The strange wings, combined with the gleaming portholes near the bow, made the vessel seem like a living creature. This was furthered by the leaping shadows of the fire, which gave the shattered hulk the image of pulsing life, as if the last breaths of the ship were being gasped away.

“By the Dark Queen of the Abyss!” Teldin swore softly under his breath, letting loose the strongest oath he had ever used. The farmer ducked down to go under the mast of the fore section when a scratching noise came from the deck. Whirling about, Teldin watched a dark, limp shape slide across the tilted foredeck, break through the railing at the edge with a wet thud, and drop behind the broken wall of the house. “A person!” Teldin blurted.

He froze in place, torn about what to do. If there were beings on board, Teldin finally realized, the gods only knew who or what they might be. Part of him suddenly wanted to flee, to get away from this monstrosity, but other parts, his curiosity and his decency, urged him forward. It was with slow steps that Teldin finally edged forward to the broken log wall. With his hoe held ready like an axe, the farmer thrust his head over.

The other side of the wall was dimly illuminated by the leaping flames that showed through the shattered porthole in the bow, but there definitely was a body crumpled atop the tumbled piles of shingles and rafters. Teldin could not tell if the body was male or female; that much it was too dark to discern. Taking up a burning brand, Teldin held the rude torch up for a closer look. The being’s frame was light and thin, like an elfs. The body was strong and muscled, though, and certainly not like the few elves he’d ever met. The face was toward the ground, but the black, tangled hair glistened wetly. Probably blood, he thought. Whoever it was, it wasn’t human, of that he was almost sure.

Teldin poked at the body with the handle of his hoe. Nothing moved. He prodded again. There was still no movement. Satisfied, Teldin scrambled over the remains of the log wall, cleared away some of the shingles and rafters, and knelt beside the body. Ignoring the fact that he had scraped his shin on a jagged bit of chimney stone, Teldin breathlessly rolled the body over, succeeding only with difficulty, since a long, purple cloak was twisted around the arms and legs. One arm was bent at an odd angle, apparently broken. The shirt was dark with bloodstains.

As he had guessed, the intruder clearly was not human. The bones were too light and long, the fingers too narrow. To his embarrassed surprise, Teldin discovered as he loosened the shirt that the stranger was female. Her breasts left no doubt about that. The almost triangular face was drawn, yet kept a compelling aspect. Everything about the face was thin-narrow lips, sharply cut nose, pointed ovals for eyes. Bands of dark makeup ran above and below the eyes and were drawn out in whorls at the outer corners. She was exotically handsome, vaguely masculine, yet clearly not, and, even unmoving, seemed endowed with more grace than any man.

A sticky, warm wetness dripped through Teldin’s fingers as he lifted her head. Dark blood matted her hair from a gash in the side of her skull and ran down Teldin’s arm as he tried to lay out the body. The cloak, coiled and tangled, again interfered, but Teldin could only fumble unsuccessfully at the silver clasp around her neck. As he did so, the painted eyelids weakly opened and the dark eyes beneath still showed a spark of life.

"Neogi bly zam no insson…." the woman-thing whispered, her sibilant voice growing softer with each word until only the lips moved without speaking. The eyes dimmed; the lids almost closed. Whatever she had said clearly had taken great effort.

“What?” Teldin pressed, astonished to find the stranger still alive. So startled was he that he almost dropped her head, which he held cradled in his arms. Finally he drew closer, almost pressing his face to hers. “Who are you?”

“El za.m neogi,” the stranger falteringly tried again. Her delicate lips barely moved as each word was whispered.

“What? I don’t understand,” Teldin answered with excessive slowness, as if that would make him understood. He fumbled again with the clasp of the cloak, trying to remove it.

With her good arm the woman-thing weakly tried to push Teldin’s hands away. “Ton! Ton!” she hissed at him. Teldin let go of the clasp and shook his head in frustration. The flames beyond the porthole lit his face, and she seemed to understand. Slowly reaching up, she touched her fingers to his lips. They tasted slightly of ash and salt, mingled with the sweeter flavor of blood. Her own lips moved, silently forming words. When she finished, she let her hand fall.

“Now we may speak,” she whispered, somehow in words Teldin could understand. Her voice was more musical than any he had heard. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Teldin quickly answered, taken aback by this sudden transformation. “What-who are you?”

“I am dying, I think,” the woman-thing continued, ignoring the human’s question. “Are all my crew dead?”

Teldin, who had not seen a living soul since the crash, nodded.

The alien closed her eyes. “Then I am resigned to die.”

“Who are you? What happened? Where did you come from?” Teldin demanded. The ability to communicate uncorked a stream of questions in the farmer’s mind. He let them flood out, trying to get all his answers before it was too late. As her eyes dimmed, Teldin patted her cheeks, hoping to keep her conscious.

“The …the neogi did this,” was her weak reply. Her eyes barely opened. The color was fast draining from her already pale cheeks and her eyes were growing duller. “They want the-” She stopped abruptly, her eyes suddenly opening. “You must take this. Take this!” the woman- thing said with a forcefulness greater than before. With her good hand she tore at the clasp to her cloak. What he could not open, she sprang free easily. “Take the cloak. Keep it from the neogi.” The alien pulled Teldin’s hand onto the fabric. “Take it to the creators."

“The who? The what?” Teldin queried. None of this made any sense and he wasn’t getting any answers. He easily shook off her grip. “Why? What are the neogi?” he practically shouted.

“Wear it. Now,” the stranger insisted. With her one hand, she tried to place the cloak around his neck, wincing in pain to roll free of the purple fabric.

“What are you doing?” Teldin was more puzzled than frightened by her determination.

“Take it,” she demanded even more urgently.

“Why-no, explain why,” Teldin said, refusing her, as his prudent nature asserted itself.

“Take the cloak!” the woman-thing said more fiercely than before. She bared her teeth with a certain savage fury, but the fire in her eyes grew even weaker.

The effort was killing her, Teldin realized in dismay. “Stop. I’ll take it,” he assured her. Taking the silver chains, Teldin laid the cloak around his shoulders, though he did not fasten the clasp. The purple gleamed richly in the leaping firelight. “I have it. Now what’s going on here?”

The female gave a rattling sigh. “No more questions. I am dead.” Her hand dropped limply and the light went finally from her eyes.

“What? You can’t just die now!” Teldin blurted, even though he knew it was futile. He had seen enough dead to know it was too late for her. He sat amid the wreckage of his house, the dead female in his arms, and felt indignant, used, and mystified. The creature had no right to die now, he fumed. He had only accepted the cloak to keep her alive. “What, by the gods, is going on?” he asked aloud to no one. He held up an edge of the cloak, looking for mystical symbols or anything. He saw nothing but dark purple cloth. “Why kill yourself to give it to me? It can’t be worth much.” Teldin looked down at the female as if expecting an answer. "And just who are the neogi? By the Abyss, who are you?” He paused, as if to hear her reply.

“Stand, assassin, so I may kill you!” boomed a voice behind him.