The Dragons

Chapter 32

1029 PC

Flanking cliffs of white chalk rose from the mist-shrouded depths of a wilderness gorge, concealing an icy torrent of glacial melt that churned and eroded its way through the slash of deep channel. Most of the vast chasm was shrouded in nearly eternal shadows, a blanket of darkness broken only when the sun stood at high zenith. Moss draped the slick white rocks, and tributary streams flowed from constant springs and seasonal snowmelt, trickling down the steep cliffs in a myriad of splashing waterfalls, adding their contents to the raging flowage far below.

High on the north-facing wall of the deep gorge was a wide ledge, a shelf of white rock that remained exposed to sunlight throughout the day, during all seasons of the year. The chalk surface was smooth, though a number of curved indentations pocked the surface near the cliff wall. Furthermore, a steady stream of clear water trilled down the nearby cliffs, gathering in a wide, deep pool before spilling over the lip of the ledge to shower into the unseen depths of the gorge.

This perch was Lectral’s favorite place in all the High Kharolis. The flat surface was long enough for him to stretch to his full length and sufficiently wide that he could carelessly gather himself into a loose coil. The pool made for splendid drinking, and on exceptionally hot days, he could immerse himself all the way to his eyeballs in refreshing coolness.

As to the view, he was content to remain within the cool confinement of the white chalk walls. He enjoyed the sight of blue or gray skies overhead, and from within the gap of his secluded gorge, he observed the phases of the moons or watched the constellations as the stars wheeled by. He had learned to anticipate every nuance of lunar cycles, predicting when and where each of the three moons would appear along the overhead rim.

The familiar Kharolis skyline loomed to the east, and though Lectral couldn’t see the mountains from his ledge, he could call up their mental image anytime he chose. For now, he was content to let the memory suffice, to enjoy the smooth comfort and sheltered confines of his lofty ledge. Of course, he often left this place to hunt, and frequently those hunts took him over the crests of the High Kharolis. He always made a point to circle the deep mountain-guarded lake where his proud sire, the legendary Callak, was buried.

Yet it had been long since he had visited any of the two-legged folk who lived beyond those heights. He wasn’t really interested in that sort of society anymore-with the exception of the Kagonesti. And even then, his protector-ship of the wild elves had become an aloof and distant thing. Often he had observed the tribes throughout the forests of Ansalon, but he did so invisibly, or in the guise of a bird or perhaps a stag or mountain sheep. He held the ram’s horn in its sacred trust, but never had he had to use it or to answer its summons from the Kagonesti.

For long periods of time, Lectral remained on his chalk ledge, concealed within his white gorge by himself. Heart, ever his favorite companion and nestmate, had been absent from his life for many winters. He wondered if she were spending all of her time in the guise of human or elf, for even the griffons that regularly brought word of events in the world had heard nothing of the large silver female. With a flash of jealous memory, his thoughts returned to a sparkling moment: the chase of two wild elves through the forest and its untimely interruption by a band of ogres.

It was odd how, in that elven guise, he had felt a warmth of feeling, a deep affection for his nestmates that was decidedly undragonlike. He had heard about love, of course, but as it would be to any centuries-old serpent, the concept was not a thing he could understand. It seemed a silly and vulnerable weakness, useful only to enliven the existence of short-lived creatures who had no real hope of majesty in their pathetic lives.

Sometimes in the years immediately following the time when he and Heart had wandered apart, Lectral, too, had walked among men. After all, as a silver dragon it was somewhat expected. Yet he had never found the appeal in these short-lived, vibrant folk that had compelled Heart and, more recently, her younger sisters, Saytica and Silvara, to live for long stretches in the guise of a two-legs. The Kagonesti, at least, were serene and dignified and lived lives of a properly long span of years.

Lectral was thinking, with fond reminiscence, of the silver female when a cloak of darkness suddenly blotted out the stars. He jerked his head upward, popping out the top of a sphere of a magical blackness, and when he heard a musical trill of laughter, he knew he had been made the victim of a prank.

“Silvara! Come out where I can see you!”

The laughter rose, chiming in harmony with the waterfall, and a small, slender dragon of shimmering silver crept into view around the shoulder of the cliff wall.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Lectral,” she said with utter insincerity. With a blink of her great luminous eyes-eyes that seemed too large for the narrow silver wedge of her head-she stretched her wings and dipped a leisurely foreclaw into the waters of the pool.

Lectral, as always, found it impossible to be angry with the impetuous wyrmling. Still, he made a show of scowling and harrumphing, as if she should think twice about working a new spell on him the next time she paid a visit. “And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“Saytica and I were in Palanthas for the winter, but I think I was starting to get on Astinus’s nerves,” Silvara admitted, with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “At least, that’s what Regia said when she asked me to leave.”

“Maybe you were getting on Regia’s nerves as well,” Lectral proposed with a chuckle.

Their golden kin-dragon was widely known for her fanatical attachment to human ways of society and manners. Regia was easily flustered by a dragon who, whether in human or elven guise, lacked a proper knowledge of decorum. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the playful young silver had soon grown irritating in the eyes of the haughty gold.

“That could be. Quallathan and I were playing around the Tower of High Sorcery, and she punished him with an extra lesson and told me I should see what was happening in the High Kharolis.”

“That sounds like Regia,” Lectral admitted. Quallathan was even younger than Silvara, but he was strong and quick, with a keen intellect and sharp wit that had already drawn a great deal of attention from the elders. It was quite possible that Regia considered Silvara a bad influence on Qual, though Lectral refrained from mentioning his suspicion to the lively youngster. “I don’t suppose an extra lesson is too much of a punishment for Quallathan,” he suggested.

“No. He went right into his human form and started to read a big stack of scrolls Regia gave him.”

“Did you know that’s why the gold dragons like to use their two-legged bodies so much?” the silver male explained. “Because it’s easier to read with a human’s eyes than with a dragon’s. Also, human fingers are better than claws for turning the pages.”

“I didn’t know that. But it was all right, though,” Silvara continued breezily, trotting to the edge of the ledge and looking into the misty depths of the gorge, then turning those over-large eyes back to Lectral. “I was ready for a change of scenery.”

“Saytica stayed behind?”

“Yes,” Silvara replied. “She has an easier time putting up with all the rules.”

“Well, she’s quite a bit older and larger than you. I suppose that makes a difference,” noted Lectral.

“Everyone is,” the young female replied sourly, but then she brightened. “Anyway, it’s as Daria taught us: Dragons should be flying, not reading.”

Lectral chuckled, remembering his matriarch with fondness. Then his brow furrowed. “Have you seen Heart?” he asked, finally getting to the question that was never far from the surface of his awareness.

“No, and Regia hasn’t either. She asked me the same thing just before she sent me away.”

An eagle keened, circling the ledge, silhouetted by the rosy glow of the sun sinking toward the western horizon. Then the birdlike form shimmered and grew, and it was a gold dragon gliding through the air, curling regally and settling toward a landing on Lectral’s ledge.

The two silvers quickly changed shape, using the bodies of wild elves to conserve space, and moved against the cliff wall to leave more room on the narrow perch.

The gold, whom Lectral had already recognized as mighty Arumnus, settled in a downrush of wind and nodded a greeting of stiff-necked formality. The dragon’s rather formal manner wasn’t because he was aloof, but because he’d been spending too much time with Regia, Lectral suspected.

Smoothly Arumnus changed shape, shrinking, curling upright to stand smoothly in the body of a burly Knight of Solamnia. Shiny golden armor protected his strapping form, and a great sword was strapped to his waist.

The two wild elf bodies stepped forward. “Welcome, kin-dragon,” Lectral said, feeling a surprising rush of affection toward the mature gold. After all, Arumnus was one of the few male dragons who was as old as Lectral himself. Despite his aloof and studious nature, he had been a friend and comrade since making Lectral’s acquaintance some three centuries before.

“Have you heard the news?” Arumnus asked, urgency overcoming his traditional gold dragon reserve.

“What is it?” Silvara asked before Lectral could speak.

“War has come again to the world. It has already been waged for several winters in the east, and now it has come against the men of Solamnia. The wyrms of the Dark Queen are awakened, and they, too, have joined the onslaught against the knights.”

“Dragons of red and blue-chromatic serpents?” demanded Lectral, tingling with a sudden sense of discovery-and fear. “But where did they come from?”

“They came from the east,” Arumnus replied. “Sanction is their great city, but much of Solamnia has felt the torch of dragonfire.”

“That is no concern of ours!” Lectral blurted, surprising himself with the outburst and the sentiment. He was aware of Silvara’s look of astonishment and the gold dragon’s expression of gentle reproach.

“How can you say that?” argued the young and graceful wild elf who was the female silver dragon. “We all have friends among the humans! Think of Heart. What will she do when she learns about this?”

“No!” Lectral barked in sudden panic, knowing the affinity the silver female felt toward the knights. Indeed, Heart would no doubt take wing against the chromatic dragons by herself if need be. “That is, we have to find her!”

“It is already a dragon matter,” Arumnus continued. “Young Cymbol has gathered his copper siblings, and at least a dozen of them have flown against the evil dragons in the north. Word is that Bassal was killed, perhaps others as well.”

Lectral felt a glimmer of real menace. These were the names of dragons he knew, at least in passing. And now they were falling, slain? “Cymbol has always been an angry sort. Many times I have heard him boast that he would lead the attack against the Dark Queen’s dragons if only he had the chance.”

“And now he has that chance,” Silvara noted, her own eyes alight.

“Regia is considering the golds’ response even as we speak.” Arumnus looked toward the sky with unseemly urgency. “Perhaps she will have arrived at a conclusion by the time I return,” he added hopefully.

“Don’t just consider. Do something!” Silvara insisted.

Lectral, too, sensed the rising compulsion of a martial summons. “Yes. We silvers shall fight as well. This is the fight that our ancestors waged… that drove our fathers and mothers from the grotto.”

His mind flashed to a thought of the Kagonesti forest in the realm south of Sanction, and he tried to picture the horror if the scourge of dragonfire and waste should spread there. Guilt surged as he realized that it had been many winters since he had flown over the wild elf realms.

“What now? Who’s this?” Arumnus pointed toward the sky, where a silver-winged shape glided across the faces of the rising moons, then settled toward the ledge.

“Heart!” cried Silvara, frantically waving a slender hand.

The elder female silver dragon settled to the ledge, and then she, too, became an elfmaid, as beautiful as Silvara, though with the fullness of a mature woman. Lectral remembered that shape, and again the memories of a forest chase came back. He felt a dizzying sense of emotion, all but staggering as he stepped toward his silver nestmate. He embraced her, felt her arms tight around him.

“Hello, my Heart,” he said thickly, taking her elven hands in his own. “It is good to know that you are safe and well.”

“And you, my nestmate,” she replied, the pressure of her fingers sending ripples of agony through his heart until she broke free of his touch.

“Hello, Sister,” said Silvara, going to Heart and quickly hugging her.

“Greetings, Little Sister. And to you, my friends.”

Lectral’s heart pounded, and he felt a rush of blood in his ears. A raging storm of memories returned to him, and he recalled every detail of the time he had chased her through the woods, had almost captured her.

And, looking at the distant focus of her eyes, he understood that she had, at last, eluded him forever.

“Do you know of the war?” asked Silvara.

“Indeed. The dragons of the Dark Queen have taken to the skies,” Heart declared grimly. “Already some of the brown metal dragons have joined the knights, but we silvers should go as well! The humans are brave and fight valiantly, but they need our help. Saytica has already flown to join them.”

“Of course!” Silvara said. “And what of Huma?”

Lectral looked at Heart sharply, jolted by the question. She returned his look with an expression of frankness and a plea for understanding. “There is one man in particular… the knight called Huma,” she explained. “He has moved me with his courage, his goodness. In part, it is for him that I come to you to beg your help for the knights.”

“The knights… or this one knight?” asked Lectral, his tone a soft growl.

Heart’s head whipped back as if she had been slapped. Then she raised her chin and met her nestmate’s gaze. “I cherish him very much. And I believe that he may lead the knights to victory.”

Lectral suppressed a surge of jealousy. A very strong part of him wanted to find and squash this human who dared to enthrall his nestmate, and he worked very hard to restrain an impulse toward violence.

“What about the wild elves, the Kagonesti in the east?” he asked anxiously. “Who knows whether or not they are suffering under the dragons as well?”

“Who can know?” countered Heart. “But there is more. You all remember the Spear of Paladine, the prophecy as foretold by our honored mother, Daria, at the time the grotto was abandoned.”

“Yes!” cried Silvara excitedly. “The weapon of the gods that would give us means to strike at the Dark Queen.”

“It is a lance!” the elfmaid dragon explained. “A Dragonlance, formed by the hammer of Kharas and wielded by knights from the backs of dragons.”

“And you have these lances?” asked Arumnus.

“We have twenty lances,” she said. “Many are the knights who have volunteered to wield them. We need nineteen dragons to fly with me. I have already heard from Saytica and Cymbol and Bolt, and Arkas as well.”

“And I shall fly at your side!” pledged Arumnus.

“And I!” Silvara cried.

Heart turned her firm expression to the younger female. “You are too small, Little Sister. The lance-wielder must be an armored knight, and I fear the burden would be more than you could carry.”

Silvara slumped, but then turned her expression to Lectral. “You can go, too, can’t you?”

The silver dragon took a deep breath, for the first time his elven chest feeling like a constricting vessel. He shook his head, still fighting against an explosion of temper.

“By the time you fly to Palanthas you will have your twenty, and many more,” he said, with a penetrating look at Heart. “As for me, I must fly to my Kagonesti.”

She came to him and placed an elven hand upon his taut arm. “I understand. But know, Lectral, that this man Huma is a good man. And I love him.”

“Love?” The Kagonesti eyes flashed scorn. “Have you forgotten you are a dragon?”

“No, I haven’t. But perhaps I’ve learned that even dragons can know love. Perhaps that’s a gift we silvers can teach to our kin-dragons. We can love.”

“ You can love, perhaps.” Lectral’s voice was as tight as a Kagonesti bowstring. “As for me, I choose to fight.”