The Black wing

Chapter 11

Pteros hauled his bulk from the pond and slithered onto the bank, the ground made warm and marshy by an unusually muggy late-autumn day. "Have you been practicing your spells, Khi shy;santh?" Tiny green circles of algae clung to his scaly black body from snout to tail. "How about the fireball you begged me to show you?"

A smile of joy pulled up the corners of Khisanth's leathery mouth. "Of course. I have a few bugs to work out, but I can conjure a flame and toss it, though not very far. How about you? Have you been flying to strengthen your wings?"

"Of course. Don't I look trimmer?" Pteros stood on the bank and preened, admiring his newly tightened muscles.

The black dragons were cooling their scales in the tepid pond outside Khisanth's lair. It had taken all of her skill in per shy;suasion to get the taciturn Pteros to partake of the pond's soothing waters. She had to talk him into doing anything more strenuous than sitting in his lair and counting his treasure. Pteros was proving to be fainthearted and rather joyless, as if he had already given up on his life.

Strangely, the old wyrm had opened up a whole new world for Khisanth. He knew, though seldom used, a wide range of difficult spells. The dragon shared his secrets willingly enough, but it was clear he could see little point in it. Khisanth was determined to learn everything he knew, and she hoped to renew the great old wyrm's zeal for life at the same time.

Pteros was reclining now in the webby shadows cast by the bare branches of a neighboring willow. The leaves of the tama shy;racks had turned color and tumbled from the trees since the dragons had blood-mingled. The landscape was the color of rust and mud. Brown cattails drifted apart in fuzzy white tufts. Plaintive, rhythmic honking above signaled the departure of the last of the gray-and-white geese that inhabited the summer moors.

"Your skill with magic is rather obvious," said Pteros from the shadows. "You're fortunate the skill comes so easily to you. Human spellcasters must spend years studying and memorizing words to perform even the simplest incanta shy;tions."

"Yet another sign of their inferiority," sniffed Khisanth. The hot sun beat down on the dragon as she slithered onto the bank, settling onto her haunches. She let her hind legs dangle in the stagnant water. Her jaws snapped open to catch a large dragonfly.

"I'm curious about something," said Pteros after a time. "How did you learn to shapechange? It's a very advanced spell for one so young."

Khisanth saw no danger in telling the elder dragon about the nyphids-to a point. "It's not a spell, really. It's more a mental discipline." She tried to explain qhen as best she could, assiduously avoiding any mention of Led or the nyphids' deaths.

"I'm too old to learn it myself. Just show me how you do it," invited Pteros.

Khisanth spotted a red-winged blackbird springing from a withered cattail. The dragon unconsciously hooked an eye-tooth over her lip as she concentrated. Her bones contracted painlessly, her wings shrank, and her leathery hide changed to feathers. Khisanth swooped around Pteros's head as a red-winged blackbird and settled her tiny, clawed feet onto the webbing of his folded left wing.

Pteros's face was filled with admiration. "I've heard of a few dragons who could change shape, but they could never become anything so small."

Khisanth hopped down from Pteros's wing and reassumed her dragon form. Situating herself in the shade, the dragon closed her eyes for a languorous moment and sighed with con shy;tentment. "Your turn, Pteros," she said, her voice lazy. "Tell me about the time before the Sleep. Were you at the battle where Takhisis struck down Huma?"

"You mean when she betrayed us?"

There was bitterness in his voice, which surprised Khisanth. Her eyes turned skyward anxiously. "Aren't you afraid of her retribution for such words?"

Pteros shrugged. "Thinking, speaking, if s all the same to a god." He pulled his wings tight to his body and dived into the pool headfirst, surfacing with a snort and a spray of water.

The ancient dragon slithered onto shore again. "No, I wasn't at the final battle with Huma. I was quite young. Even younger in experience than you now are."

"Yet you were good enough to fight in the Third Dragon War?"

"The geetnas pushed the young wrymlings more in my time, knowing that the queen was gearing up for war. They empha shy;sized magical ability, as well as flight." Pteros settled himself into a ball. "It was a different time then, Khisanth. Dragons roamed freely, beloved children of the gods, and humans were but links in the food chain. But that was before we were betrayed."

The dragon's eyes took on a distant look. "Prior to the Sleep, one thousand thirty years before what the humans call the Cat shy;aclysm, the Great Moors were nothing but sea. I lived my young adulthood far away from here, in a small marsh to the west. My lair was at the mouth of what is still known as the Vingaard River.

"The seasons had passed perhaps ninety-six times in my life. I'd fought in fewer battles in the Third Dragon War than you could count on a claw hand"- Pteros softly touched a claw to a long-faded scar — "when the dragon elders an shy;nounced our queen's defeat at the hands of the knight, Huma Dragonbane. In truth, it was the dragonlance that bested Takhisis. Huma was simply a warrior who had perhaps a bit more skill than most."

The old dragon's expression turned bitter. "The end result was the same, though. Takhisis exchanged our freedom for hers, ordering us to go underground and sleep. She was our goddess, and we had no choice but to obey, or die.

"Now I'm an old dragon," he continued bitterly. "Most of my prime years were spent in slumber." With an oddly equal measure of satisfaction and sadness, he gazed at his own reflection in the still water. "In the Sleep I did not age as I would have if awake, but those years are still lost to me."

"You have plenty of years ahead of you, if you'd only stop thinking of yourself as old and feeble," said Khisanth.

"I'm not certain I want to be useful in the world that exists today," muttered Pteros. "Nearly two hundred years ago I awoke underground without explanation, along with a hand shy;ful of other dragons who had turned old while they slept. Each of us clawed our way to the surface, only to find Krynn a much different place than we had left it. Instead of soaring above men and striking proper terror in their hearts, dragons made pacts with ogres and their ilk," Pteros spat, a droplet of green acid escaping his jaws in his disgust.

"Pacts with ogres?"

Pteros nodded. "These agreements are part of Takhisis's newest plan to rule. She appeals to the corrupt natures of all creatures in an effort to recruit them. Once she attempted to dominate the world with dragons alone as her soldiers, and she lost. Now she thinks she needs more than her own chil shy;dren to defeat her foes."

"I've had no one to ask this before, but I have wondered. How is it that she's returned now?"

"Many human years ago, Takhisis found a way to Krynn from the Abyss. She walked the land as a human, awakening the elder dragons she'd known before the Sleep and telling them of her plan."

"That could explain why I didn't awaken until recently, and why you're so much older than I," mused Khisanth. "I'd been little more than a wyrmling at the time of the banishment. What happened to the other dragons who awoke with you?"

"We went our separate ways. I suspect most of them have joined Takhisis's armies."

"Why haven't you? Don't you want dragons to regain con shy;trol and rebuild the world as you remember it?"

"Why haven't I?" repeated Pteros. "For the same reason I don't fight back against Talon-I'm too old."

Pteros snatched up a gopher that wandered too near in search of water, popping the silky creature into his mouth and chewing absently. "Frankly, I don't see victory for the Dark Queen this time either. She's casting her fate with humans and other rot, the very same creatures who engineered her last defeat." He spat gopher bones through the holes of his missing teeth.

"So Takhisis is personally gathering these forces? Is there somewhere I can go to see her?"

"Yes," chortled Pteros. "The Abyss, for the Dark Queen is trapped there again." At Khisanth's puzzled look, Pteros searched for words to untangle the rumors he'd heard over the years.

"After opening the portal to the Abyss, Takhisis was able to walk the face of Krynn, her avatar a dark-haired young woman, though in that construct her powers were minuscule compared to her five-headed chromatic dragon form. Then, suddenly, inexplicably after ten years, the path was barred. She's sought a new one since, which is really the crux of her newest plan. She seeks to recruit humans because she wishes to control them, and through them her armies from the Abyss. She intends to reopen the portal so she can return to Krynn in her powerful dragon form."

Pteros gave Khisanth a conspiratorial look. "If I were Takhi-sis, I'd unite dragons of all colors and leanings, appealing to their racial heritage to persuade them to overpower humans." Khisanth removed a stone from between the talons on her right hind leg, considering Pteros's words. "I've heard that the humans in her army rise to power by uniting with a dragon mount."

"Yes, I've heard that, too."

Khisanth squeezed her eyes shut. She'd hoped Pteros would be able to deny it. "Surely, once the superiority of a dragon's skills are demonstrated, the dragon and human in this arrangement have equal rank, if the dragon is not actually in command," she said.

Pteros simply shook his large, many-horned head. "I would never willingly subordinate my skills to any human," said Khisanth firmly. "The rules would have to change if I joined the army."

"Ah, the arrogance of youth," muttered the old dragon. Khisanth didn't consider it as arrogance; she simply couldn't see herself being ruled by a human. She believed there was always a way to turn a situation to her advantage. Like the situation with Talon. She knew it was just a matter of time before he struck again. She was preparing herself for it, learning new attack spells. Thoughts of the territorial dragon brought a question to mind. "Why hasn't Talon joined the army?"

"You'd have to ask him that. We haven't exactly chatted recently." Pteros touched the gems around his neck. "I suspect he's too busy coveting the treasures I've acquired in my long life to volunteer his services for free."

Khisanth admired the jewels around Pteros's neck. Her gaze clung to the pearl-and-ruby diadem around his dark head. Those two items alone were certainly worth fighting for. According to Pteros, they represented only a small por shy;tion of the treasure stored away in his lair. Khisanth had never been allowed in that hallowed place. If the gems he wore were any sampling, though, Pteros's treasure had to be beyond imagining in volume and value.

She caught the old wyrm admiring the maynus on her choker. "That's quite an interesting piece. I can't identify the glowing gem."

Khisanth hesitated. Her first instinct was to shield the globe and tell Pteros to mind his own treasure. She knew too little about the maynus to tell him much, anyway. Her gaze lin shy;gered on the worldly, magically advanced dragon. Struck with a thought, Khisanth made a quick decision. She told him all she knew about the maynus. Pteros's wrinkled snout pulled up into the first expression of interest Khisanth had seen.

"So it's an artifact, not a gem. You don't understand how it works?" he asked. Khisanth shook her head. Pteros reached out a claw arm. "May I see it?"

Khisanth hesitated again, then tugged the maynus from the choker vine and, between cupped claws, handed her most pre shy;cious treasure to Pteros.

Pteros held the glowing globe reverently, turning it over and over. He peered inside. "Lightning …" He looked up at Khisanth. "Do you know where if s from? An artifact" s origin can tell a lot about its function."

Khisanth did know. "Kadagan said something about its coming from the elemental plane of lightning. That fact meant nothing to me at the time."

Pteros was frowning. "It means nothing to me, either. I know of four elemental planes of existence-air, earth, fire, and water, but not lightning. Perhaps this Kadagan was con shy;fused." He continued looking into the globe closely.

"I don't know," said Khisanth. "He was very specific." She looked over his arm into the globe. "Do you think you can fig shy;ure it out?"

"There's a fairly simple spell of identification that might tell us something," Pteros said as if to himself, "but it takes forever to cast. You say you've used it several times by just telling it what you wanted?" Khisanth nodded. Pteros clutched the globe. His eyes took on a greedy gleam. "Then let's give it a try."

"Wait!" cried Khisanth. "Do you think thaf s a good idea? I mean, we don't know what it will do."

"And we never will unless we test its scope," said Pteros. He thumped his own chest. "If there's one thing I know, if s

magic."

Khisanth felt strange playing the timid dragon to Pteros's brash one. She'd hoped, however, to see some spunk in the old dragon, so she nodded her head in approval.

"Lef s see," said Pteros, his blue and orange eyes glittering with enthusiasm, "we'll try something relatively simple first." He closed his eyes and said, 'Transport us to the meadow by the hedge of sumac."

Khisanth tensed involuntarily. In the beat of a heart, she and Pteros stood exactly where he'd directed.

"Not too impressive, since we both already know how to teleport," said Pteros. "I'll try something a little more diffi shy;cult."

Khisanth looked about the wide meadow. "First, get us back home. I don't like standing out here in a field with a powerful artifact for Talon and everyone to see."

"Right you are," said Pteros. Holding the globe aloft, he intoned, "Maynus, take us home."

The sphere flashed. Fingers of light stretched out and pierced the two dragons, sawing through their bodies. There was no pain, only an intense tingling where the twitching light passed. Suddenly Khisanth felt much lighter. She didn't know what was happening and looked at Pteros for the answer. The older dragon tried to say something, but no sound reached Khisanth's ears. As more and more fingers of light wrapped around Pteros, Khisanth could see through him. The other dragon's black body dissolved into sparkling motes and was drawn, or rather flowed, into the maynus in his talons!

Khisanth's astounded mind drew up a vision of Yoshiki Toba similarly disappearing into the maynus, followed by the sight of his charred body tumbling to Led's feet. Frenzied, she raised herself on her hind legs and flapped her titanic wings to get away from the device, but no air beat against them. Her wings had no more substance than thistledown. Roaring furi shy;ously, Khisanth, too, swirled away into the globe.

Still roaring, the young dragon found herself immersed in a maelstrom of light and sound. Enormous bolts of blue-white lightning flashed all around her rematerialized body. Thun shy;derclaps buffeted her so that it was difficult to inhale. The air smelled heavily, even tasted strongly, of chlorine. She could see Pteros next to her, his jaw moving in speech, but the thun shy;der was so loud it was impossible to hear anything else. Green clouds boiled past in every direction-right, left, above, even below. There was no earth nor water beneath her, only air.

With that realization, Khisanth dropped like a rock. She instinctively clawed and scrambled and flapped her wings. Finally she rose, or at least was suspended. When she stopped the motion of her wings for a moment, she plunged again. Khi shy;santh wasn't at all sure that it mattered, since there didn't appear to be any ground to crash into. Still, she strained her wings to keep from falling.

Nearby Pteros appeared to have caught on to the same notion and was fluttering his wings, too. She saw him working his jaw again. A shimmering cone shape radiated through the air from his snout. The wide end of the cone engulfed her, and she suddenly heard Pteros all too well.

"I've cast a shout spell!" he bellowed.

Khisanth clapped her claw hands to her ear holes, certain the drums would break. "Where are we?" No cone of sound spread from her mouth.

"Your voice isn't affected by my spell!" he hollered in expla shy;nation. Khisanth winced from the ear-splitting sound of his voice. "I presume you're wondering what happened, too! Frankly, I don't know-"

Pteros's deafening words were cut off by the sound of breaking glass. Khisanth could see before Pteros that the gems in his elaborate pearl-and-ruby diadem and sapphire necklace were shattering from the vibrations of his tremendously amplified voice. She thought of her maynus. Raising a talon to her choker, she remembered in a panic that she and Pteros were now inside the globe.

Before the riled young dragon could even put voice to the realization, an unearthly sound cut through the thunder. "The

thing you call 'maynus' is here." The voice wasn't painfully loud like Pteros's.

Both dragons fluttered around to find the source of the sound. A round object, or perhaps a creature, floated about a dragon's length away, though distance was difficult to judge in the featureless ether. It was a sphere, about the size of a dragon's head, and pearly. It was lit from within by flashes of multicolored light. Spears of lightning shot and twisted out shy;ward from it as the object approached, seeming to draw itself along as if the crackling branches were legs.

The ball-like object passed near the dragons, where it spoke in an airy, reverberating tone, "Follow, Khisanth and Pteros."

Looking at each other in question, the two dragons found themselves drifting along behind the odd creature. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar to Khisanth. It led them to a blue, egg-shaped sphere and urged them to pass inside.

Instantly the booming thunder faded to a soft, distant thumping. The air was blue and clear; the odor of chlorine dis shy;sipated. Lightning continued to arc around the blue sphere, but never penetrated it.

"There's no need to flap your wings here," said the pearly globe. "You will simply float."

Khisanth let her wings drop to her sides and bobbed with shy;out effort. "Where are we?" she demanded. "How do you know our names? And where is my maynus?"

"In your Prime Material world, I was that which you called 'maynus.' "

"This is all gibberish," growled Khisanth. "Just tell me

where on Krynn we are."

"I believe I know!" screamed Pteros. His voice blasted through the clear air, reminding him that it was still magically amplified. Blushing self-consciously, Pteros ended the spell's effect. "We're not on Krynn at all," he finished much more softly.

Khisanth scowled at Pteros, dismissing him by turning her scowl on the glowing creature. "Just tell me where I can pick up my maynus on the way out."

"I am what the nyphids called 'maynus/ but I am no longer yours."

"You don't seem to understand what it is I'm looking for, so I'll explain it to you," Khisanth offered with mock patience. "My maynus is a little inanimate globe that glows. You're a big, 'animate' thing that, well, glows." She tried to peer through the bubble. "A tiny luminous ball would be easy enough to overlook in all this lightning."

The creature throbbed slightly. "I will say this one more time. The thing you called 'maynus' is me. Here in my home world, you see my true appearance at last."

"— Or perhaps Pteros dropped it by the pond when he caused us to teleport to wherever we are," Khisanth suggested as if the creature hadn't spoken.

"We didn't teleport here at all, did we?" Pteros asked the creature. "The maynus 'gated' us to the plane of elemental air, didn't it?"

"Yes…."

"I thought so," Pteros smirked.

"And no. I brought you to the plane of lightning. If s a plane of finite scope and tremendous energy, a 'quasi-plane' your wizards call it, which lies betwixt your world and that of ele shy;mental air. This haven where we can speak, and where you are safe from the lightning, is a pocket or bubble of elemental air."

Khisanth felt her patience run threadbare. "So what about my maynus?" she blurted.

Unperturbed, the creature continued. "I am an elemental being native to this plane. Millennia ago, I and others of my kind were taken against our will to your world on the Prime Material plane by the race known as nyphids."

Finally, something Khisanth could understand. "What do you know about the nyphids?"

"Everything. The very first of that species were the off shy;spring of a lightning elemental like myself and another ele shy;mental being from the neighboring quasi-plane of radiance. Being of two worlds, they belonged neither here, nor in the radiant world, and thus became our servants. Eventually they rebelled against their servitude and escaped to find a new home for themselves. They settled on the Prime Material plane. But they didn't leave alone. With the aid of the magic we had taught them, they captured many elemental beings and took us along as the source of their magic. I was one such victim.

"In your world, I was a slave, trapped inside my own form. Like a genie in a bottle, I could use my powers only to carry out another's orders. Unsuspecting of my true nature, you were also unaware of the many traditions and prohibitions regarding maynus use among the nyphids. Your carelessly worded request allowed me, after thousands of years, to finally return here, to my home.

"Unintentional though it was, you released me from bondage. As repayment I will return you to the Prime Material plane. Prepare yourselves."

Khisanth could hardly grasp all that the elemental creature had revealed about the nyphid's nature. What she did under shy;stand was that she'd lost her most valuable treasure. "If you truly are the maynus, your freedom has cost me a very valu shy;able and powerful artifact. We need to settle on a purchase price for your liberty."

The maynus darkened. "On the contrary, I have offered you something of inestimable value-passage back to your home. Take the word of someone who knows the pain of exile. You cannot leave this place unaided." "Now, look here-"

The elemental creature's attention became distracted to something outside their calm pocket. "There's Fraz, an old nemesis I haven't seen for an eon…." The elemental globe began to slip through the edge of the bubble. "We have a score to settle." With that, the creature disappeared.

"Wait! Don't leave us here!" cried Pteros, starting to follow. "Let it go. If s not going to help us," muttered Khisanth. The old dragon whirled on her. "No thanks to you! We could have been home by now if your greed hadn't gotten in

the way."

"My greed?" Blood pounded at Khisanth's temples. "Whose was it that brought us here in the first place? Tvly, what a nice

gem that is, Khisanth/ " she whined, mimicking Pteros. " 'If there's one thing I know if s magic' "

Pteros looked more smug than chastised. "I believe I told you more than once that I'd rather you'd left me alone to pol shy;ish my gems." He looked around sadly at the empty settings in his diadem and necklace. "Now I have nothing."

"So this is my fault? — Oh, never mind," Khisanth sighed at last. She was letting her temper and frustration control her. Khisanth closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, drawing in long, slow breaths to calm herself. When the blood slipped at last from her temples and freed her mind to think, she said, "We've got to figure a way out of here." She opened her eyes and looked at Pteros. The older dragon was just short of wringing his claws, his eyes wide with apprehension. Khi shy;santh ventured, "What about teleporting?"

"Not powerful enough, I'm sure, to get us to a completely different plane of existence." Pteros scratched his wrinkled brow. "There is a gate spell, but I've never used it. I'm afraid I'm feeling a little too shaky to try it."

Khisanth knew it was hopeless to try to talk him into it. "We got in here, so there's got to be a way out. Didn't the elemental say the quasi-plane of lightning adjoins the plane of air? We'll just find that border and keep going until we find one that bumps into the Prime Material plane."

"I don't know…" hedged Pteros.

"Have you got a better plan? We can't just sit in this bubble forever." She peered anxiously around.

"I'd be willing to consider it," muttered Pteros, settling him shy;self as if for the long haul. "At least if s quiet in here, and we aren't likely to bump into Talon."

Khisanth's brow furrowed. She contemplated the ever-pre shy;sent lightning beyond the bubble. "What troubles me is that we're likely to bump into something far worse."