The Eve of the Maelstrom

2 A Gathering of Evil

The Storm Over Krynn sprawled just outside the mouth of his lair, basking in the late afternoon sun and idly studying his claw. Huma’s lance had left a crimson welt deep across his thick skin. The wound throbbed, though the blessed heat somewhat eased the pain. It had been a few weeks since the battle over the artifacts, time enough for the wound to heal—if it would ever heal. He had carried the hateful lance hundreds upon hundreds of miles to the Northern Wastes. Perhaps it had marked him eternally.

Khellendros knew he could live with the pain—a small price to pay in his quest to resurrect Kitiara’s spirit, and an unremitting memento of his easy triumph over the great Palin Majere. He smiled inwardly. It would be sweet to tell Kitiara of his victory, though even more sweet had she been there to share it with him.

“It will not be much longer. We shall be partners again,” he softly growled. “And I shall not let you die a second time.” The four artifacts were ensconced in his underground cave—along with numerous lesser magical treasures. The latter had been excavated recently as he resculpted his damaged lair. The walls in the section deepest below ground were heavily scored from lightning blasts given off by the dozens of dying spawn that were trapped when Majere and his fellows collapsed the lair. In his remodeling, the dragon had added new chambers, making room for the new spawn he was creating, and, most importantly, for Kitiara.

Kitiara would approve of this sanctuary, he decided, as he thrust his wounded claw in the sand and stared across the seemingly endless white expanse, broken only by the occasional cactus he had allowed to grow. She will approve, and together we shall...

A shadow fell across the sand, momentarily blocking the sun. Khellendros set his thoughts of Kitiara aside and glanced up to acknowledge the approach of Gale, his lieutenant. The smaller dragon glided to a landing several dozen yards from the overlord, sniffed the air to hone in on the Storm’s precise position, then slowly advanced.

“You desire my aid,” Gale hissed. The smaller blue brought his head to the ground in a show of respect.

Khellendros stared into his lieutenant’s eyes, sightless from a battle with Dhamon Grimwulf, and waited several beats to answer. “Follow me, Gale. We shall discuss things inside.”

The shadows of the overlord’s lair swallowed the massive dragons. The great chamber, barely large enough to hold the pair, was dimly lit along one wall by the light that spilled down the tunnel from the surface.

“Fissure!” Khellendros’s voice reverberated against the walls and caused the lair to vibrate. Sand filtered down through cracks in the ceiling, dusting the four artifacts laid out in the center of the chamber and covering the huldrefolk who had been gazing intently at the ancient magical items. The faerie took a few steps back.

“These treasures are not yours to trifle with,” the great dragon growled.

“I didn’t so much as touch them, O Portal Master,” the huldre answered. His form shimmered, and the sand disappeared from his features. “But I have been looking at them. Very closely. We should use them, Khellendros. Now. We shouldn’t wait and risk the chance that Malys might discover your great prizes and take them for herself. Gale is finally here, and he can watch over your realm while you and I are in The Gray. We should take them out on the sand this very night. Together we can...”

Khellendros’s rumble silenced the huldrefolk. “There remain a few things to attend to, faerie, before we dare open the portal.”

“Hmm, yes. Selecting a spawn for Kitiara.” The diminutive gray man scratched his smooth head. “Gale can do that, while you and I are visiting The Gray. You showed him how to train spawn. He can pick one out. There are more than a dozen to choose from.”

“I shall be certain a perfect spawn is ready before we leave for The Gray. I shall select the vessel.”

“Fine. And how long until you make this selection?” the huldre dared to insist.

“Gale will be training the few spawn below. He must also find more human females to serve as spawn. When the time is right, I shall select the most appropriate of them.”

The smaller blue dragon edged closer to the faerie, nostrils quivering to take in Fissure’s scent. He cocked his head and sniffed again, listening with ears that were increasingly an acute substitute for lost eyes. From farther in the cave came a skittering sound, at first no louder than the huldre’s beating heart, a definite clacking against the stone floor. Within moments the noise was loud enough to interrupt Khellendros and the huldre.

Two great scorpions, as black as night, scuttled forward out of the shadows. Their unblinking yellow eyes gleamed malevolently, and their pincers snapped open and shut.

“You wisssh sssomething,” they said in unison, their strange voices hissing like shifting sand. From their clawlike feet to the tip of their curved venomous tails, they stood a little taller than a man. Their hard, segmented bodies were long and thick, glistening like wet stone in the meager light.

“You will guard my lair while I am away,” Khellendros instructed the pair. “And you will make sure none of the spawn touch these.” He gestured at the lance, medallions, and crystal keys. “Do you understand?”

“Yesss Massster,” they replied. They skittered past the dragons, toward their post at the entrance to the lair.

“Away?” Fissure asked. “You’re going somewhere? Where?”

Khellendros narrowed his eyes. “Where I go is none of your concern, faerie.” The overlord turned toward Gale. “Malys desires my presence, and I would not like to give her cause to suspect my plans by refusing her. I shall be gone for some time. How long, I am not certain. But in that time...”

“I will train your spawn,” the lesser dragon finished.

Khellendros pivoted and glided up through the tunnel that lead to the desert above. Gale followed at a prudent distance.

“There are barbarian villages to the east,” Khellendros advised when they were back on the sand. “I raided them and captured their strongest warriors. It was from them that I fashioned the spawn in my lair. Take care, for the villages’ remaining warriors might come seeking their stolen brethren.”

“It will be my pleasure to slay any who come uninvited. They will pose no threat.”

“Take care that you do not underestimate them,” the Storm said. “Malystryx, who calls me, has no fear of humans. Neither, it seems, do the other overlords. But I know better.”

“As do I.” The lesser blue closed his blind eyes. “One did this to me. One I once called partner and friend. I never underestimate humans.”

He sniffed the wind and turned toward the east. “The faerie,” Gale added. “While I am training the spawn, can he be trusted with your treasure? The artifacts?”

“No,” the Storm answered. “I do not underestimate him either. He can be more formidable than a human. But he is far, far less a threat in this instance. Besides, I took steps to protect the artifacts.”

The blue overlord took to the sky, the draft from his wings sending a shower of sand across Gale and toward the immobile scorpions who stood guard at the lair.

Deep inside, Fissure shuffled toward the artifacts. “Khellendros, The Storm Over Krynn. Khellendros, the Portal Master. Khellendros, the Procrastinator, he should call himself. He wants to wait to open the portal to The Gray. Wait... wait... wait,” the huldre muttered. “Time to a dragon is... well, the mighty Khellendros will discover how waiting has cost him. I have been absent from The Gray for far too many years. And I have no desire to wait any longer. I thought I’d need his help to open the portal, was certain I did. But Huma’s lance... There is so much power contained within it. Maybe I don’t need The Procrastinator’s help after all.”

He held his small hands a foot above the medallions, sensing the magic that pulsed in them. It was a pleasing sensation. “No. Maybe I will not need Khellendros any longer, now that I have these within my grasp.” He passed his fingers over the keys, sensed the cool smoothness of the crystal, the tingle of the enchantment. His fingers lingered a few inches above the smallest key, one crafted to open any lock, and he closed his eyes to bask in the arcane aura.

“No. I certainly will not wait. I must try to go home. I will destroy these myself and open a portal to The Gray with the released energy. If I cannot do it myself, perhaps Gellidus the White or the big green can be duped into helping me. The Storm Over Krynn will be angry, but he will not be able to follow me; he has no more artifacts to destroy, nothing to empower his plans. I will be safe, safe at home. And he will be stranded. Stranded so very far from his poor, lost Kitiara afloat in The Gray.”

The gray man giggled and stretched his fingers toward Huma’s lance, felt the intense vibrations of energy the weapon loosed into the air. “I saw how the lance burned Khellendros,” he whispered. “It will not burn me. I am not so evil as the overlord. No, not evil. Not at all. I just want to return home. Pity that the humans who once wielded this magnificent weapon could not feel this power.” He edged his hands closer to the lance handle. “Pity. Such a... argh!” The surge of power scalded him as if he’d thrust his hands in boiling oil. Waves of energy crashed into his tiny form, jarring him, sending him reeling and writhing to the cavern floor.

Through a haze, the dark huldrefolk shuddered uncontrollably and glanced at his seared skin. “Khellendros... cast a spell on the items... warded them. He did not trust me.” He gasped for breath, then mercifully lost consciousness.

Overhead, Khellendros banked toward the southeast, toward Malystryx’s realm. The first rays of the setting sun painted his desert a pale red. “No,” Khellendros murmured softly. “The faerie is far less of a threat.”

The ground was cracked like a dry riverbed: flat, desolate, and warm beneath the claws of the five dragons gathered in a circle atop it.

Gellidus, the white dragon overlord, did his best to veil his discomfort at his hot surroundings and stared straight ahead at the distant mountain, the Peak of Malys, ringed by glowing volcanoes. Called Frost by men, ruler of ice-covered Southern Ergoth, he presented a stark contrast to Malystryx. Frost’s scales were small and glistening, white as snow. His crest looked like a halo of inverted icicles, and his tail was short and thick compared to the other dragons.

The red overlord was easily twice Frost’s size, with shield-shaped scales the hue of freshly drawn blood. Massive twin horns curled into the air, and twin streams of smoke spiraled from her cavernous nostrils. She glanced briefly at Frost. Then her dark eyes drifted skyward, following Khellendros. To her right was a lean red dragon, who, curled like a cat, looked slightly smaller than the white overlord.

Khellendros landed nearly a mile away from the circle and took in the other two dragons with his stare as he approached. Beryllinthranox, the Green Peril, sat opposite Malys. She was the color of the forest she ruled—the lands once held by the proud Qualinesti. Beryl’s narrowed eyes were intent. Perhaps she was trying to gauge the others’ reactions to Khellendros. Her serpentine tail, extended straight behind her, undulated slowly. Beryl gave the blue overlord a perfunctory nod, then turned to the Black.

Between Beryl and Gellidus sprawled Onysablet. Acid dripped from the black dragon’s equine-shaped leathery jowls, forming a bubbling pond between her claws. Unblinking eyes that gleamed like twin pools of oil, so dark that irises could not be distinguished from pupils, were fixed on Malys. Her thick, glossy horns swept forward from her narrow head.

Beryl was regaling the Black with tales of her domination over the elves, but Sable showed bare interest. Malys held most of her attention.

Khellendros took a position between Beryl and the smaller Red, Malys’s lieutenant, Ferno, sitting back on his great haunches. Malys was the only dragon larger than he, and he was careful, for propriety’s sake, to keep his head lower than hers. Too, he kept his wounded claw flat against the earth, not wanting the other dragons to question him about his injury. He nodded to Malys. He was the Red’s acknowledged consort, openly favored by her. But the Red’s continued glances toward Frost hinted that Malys was sharing her ambitious affections.

Malystryx returned Khellendros’s nod. “We can begin now,” she said, her voice resonant and booming across the arid land. The noise touched the Peak of Malys and echoed hauntingly. “We are the most powerful of dragons, and none dare stand up to us.”

“We crush our opposition,” Beryl hissed. “We dominate the land—and those who live upon it.”

“None challenge us,” Sable said. She drew a talon through the pool of acid in front of her, as the liquid trailing from it sizzled and popped over the barren ground. “None dare, because none can.”

“Those few who try,” Frost added, “meet death quickly.”

Khellendros remained silent, listening to the overlords’ boasts, and watched Gellidus squirm almost imperceptibly in the heat.

“Yet our power is nothing,” Malys interrupted. She craned her neck toward the sky so that she towered above the others, who listened to her remark with wide eyes. “Our power is nothing compared to what it will be when Takhisis returns.”

“Yes, Takhisis is coming!” Frost cried.

“But when?” That was Sable.

“Before the year ends,” Malys answered. She brought her head lower, making sure that Khellendros kept his lower still.

“And how do you know this?” Beryl’s voice was laced with venom. “What great knowledge do you have of the gods?”

Malys’s immense jowls edged upward in the approximation of a smile. Ferno uncurled himself and stood, his eyes boring into the green dragon who dared ask such a question.

“Malys knows,” Frost offered. “Malys told us how to gain power, before the Dragon Purge. Malys directed us to grab territory. Because of her we are overlords. If any among us would know of Takhisis’s return, it would have to be Malystryx.”

The Green cocked her head to the side. “I am an overlord because of my own ambition and power. What power, Malystryx, do you have that I do not? What power allows you to know of Takhisis’s return?”

Malys regarded the Green for several silent moments. “Perhaps rebirth would be a better term,” the Red purred.

Khellendros remained quiet, noticing that Frost and Ferno had moved closer to the great Red and that Sable was carefully watching Beryl.

“Rebirth?” the Green hissed.

Flames flickered about Malys’s nostrils. “It is a new Takhisis who will appear on Krynn, Beryllinthranox. That Takhisis will be me.”

“Blasphemy!” Beryl shouted.

“There is no blasphemy when there are no gods,” the Red sharply returned.

The Green arched her back. “And without the gods, we bow to no one, serve no one. We are our own masters—Krynn’s masters. Only gods are worthy of our deference. And you, Malystryx, are not a god.”

“Your gods left this world. Even Takhisis vanished.” The air grew warmer as Malys continued, and the flames about her nostrils rose higher. “As you say, Beryl, we are the masters now. We are the most powerful beings on Krynn—and I am first among us.”

“You are mighty, I will grant you that. Alone, none of us could stand up to you. But you are not a god.”

“I am not yet a god.”

“Not ever.”

“No, Beryl?”

Sable moved closer to Frost. The two had broken the circle, formed a line with Malys and her lieutenant, all facing Beryl, who was looking at Khellendros out of the corner of her narrowing eye.

Beryl wants to know where I stand, the Storm mused. The Green recognizes my strength and is looking for support. Malys is also waiting. She has been devoting her time to forming alliances, with the White and the Black. She is more clever and calculating than I thought. Paired with others, she cannot be challenged.

Khellendros cast a sidelong glance at Beryl, then moved to join the line, taking up a position next to Ferno and dwarfing the smaller red dragon.

“I will ascend to godhood before the year is out,” Malys hissed at the Green. “I will ascend with the heavens—and my allies—as my witnesses. Where do you stand?”

Beryl dug her claws into the baked ground, glanced for a moment at the myriad cracks she had added to the land, then tilted her head to meet the Red’s stare. “I stand with you,” she said finally.

“Then you may live,” Malys said.