"Come, come. I see you have your own dice. Risk a throw."
Borac reached into a black velvet bag and removed his own handful of dice. He motioned for the old man to throw. Borac watched carefully, very carefully, the spin of each die, the bounce ...
"What are the stakes?" Borac asked.
"Life," said the old man.
Borac looked up, startled and wary.
The old man laughed. He held up a handful of coins.
The old man lost the first throw. And the third. Borac won five times, and twice they tied. The pain in Borac's head subsided, and he reached up, pulling the bandage away from his head. The bleeding had not quite stopped, and his vision was clouding.
"Did you see a black dragon on the field?" the old man asked, tossing a few coins to Borac.
Borac took the coins and added them to his stack. He shook his head.
"It is said that dragons are made from the essence of Krynn itself," the old man muttered, almost to himself. "I wonder if they can change from good to evil, from evil to good?"
Dice clattering on the low table, Borac let out a short breath. "I do not doubt it could happen."
Borac caught sight of a blue glow coming from a pendant that hung around the old man's throat. The sight in Borac's left eye was nearly gone.
"If you kill me now, dragon, you'll lose that eye," the old man said. "Join us! Give me your word you'll not turn back to evil and I will heal you!"
Borac's thoughts washed from one memory to the next, of the honor, courage, fairness he had seen in this army and the cowardice, mistrust, and cruelty he had witnessed in his own. With his fading sight, he peered closely at the medallion hanging from the old man's neck. It was a Medallion of Faith, with the symbol of Mishakal.
Borac stared at the medallion a long, quiet moment; the sound of the army's retreat was far in the background, but loud enough for him to hear.
His own army would have left him for dead, gladly. This one had saved him, but now they demanded something in return. That was the way of humans. Though their traits were different, they were still the same. And he, a dragon, was above them all.
Borac sighed, once tempted, now resigned. His dragon's hate bubbled slowly from his lips. He spit at the Medallion of Mishakal, burning it away from the chain.
"They'll find no trace of your body," Borac snarled.
As he pulled the old man into the tent, the sight in his eye fled forever.
Nature of the Beast
Teri McLaren
Falon, the chief scribe of Outpost Twelve, was having a very bad day.
"Pardon me for one moment, please. Blot, see to that fire! It's all smudge and no heat. My feet are freezing!" Falon shouted to the dirty-faced inkmaker, who spilled a pint of bubbling, jet black pigment across his hand in startled response.
"All right, gentlemen, shall we begin again?" The chief scribe rubbed his forehead and tried to focus his smoke-stung eyes on the two hunters before him. "I apologize. As you can see, I have a lot on my mind. Now, Kale, is it? Yes. You tell it this time. Edrin, you just be quiet until he is finished."
"But, sir-"
"I said be quiet. You have been shouting and my ears hurt. Go ahead, Kale."
"Well..." Kale began, his words barely audible. "We was up the mountain after bighorn and, uh, well, we hadn't seen nothin' all day but a half-eat carcass, and it was gettin' cold and late, so me and Edrin here said to Rilliger, let's go on back down, have a couple of pints down to the inn, ain't doin' no good anyway. But Rilliger had him a new knife, and he wanted to stay. Said it was maybe a bear got the dead sheep and we could get him instead, so we stayed, me and Kale over by a big rock and Rilliger at the edge of the clearin'. And then next thing, they was this big ol' dark shadder come over us, an' a real bad smell kinda like somethin' had died about last week, an' I hollered to Rilliger, 'Hey, Rilliger, that ain't like no bear I ever seen, take cover,' and Edrin said, 'I'm in!' but Rilliger . . . didn't answer." Kale paused, his face red from the effort of so many words and few pauses for breaths.
"And that's when you heard-" the chief scribe prompted.
"We heard something flappin' way overhead, 'bove the cloud cover, and then it got s' cold all the sudden we couldn't hardly move, but I saw an old cave 'hind us an' we run to ground there, and then it got dark, and we stayed til mornin', shivered up together, half froze with no fire, and when it got light, we hunted for sign of Rilliger, but he was..."
"Gone. Just gone! No tracks atall!" cried Edrin, unable to hold back, his booming voice cracking with pain.
Falon nodded, at last getting the story straight.
"You say there was a bad smell? And a shadow passed over you? And there was a sudden coldness? Did you notice a lot of ice in the air?"
Kale and Edrin nodded, the two big hunters shuffling uncomfortably in the tight quarters of Falon's one-room scribal outpost. Falon understood that closed-in feeling. He was a big man himself, and he had been shut up in this room for five years, day in and day out, gathering information for Astinus's Bestiary, with only Ander and Del, his assistants, and the dwarf Blot, his latest inkmaker, for company. But just one more entry complete enough for the Bestiary-something like, say, a rare white dragon-would put him in the spacious offices of the Palanthan library itself. Where they had warm rooms. And the finest inks. And the smoothest vellum. The best of everything. This was the chance of a lifetime. The day had suddenly improved.
"Sir?" Edrin stepped closer. "What d' ya suppose it was got Rilliger?"
Falon raised his bushy gray brows and did his best to look concerned. "Gentlemen, at this point, without making an observation, I just don't know. You hadn't had a spot of grog on the hunt, now had you?"
Kale's face clouded with anger as he shook his head. "Sir, Rilliger's gone. We was his friends. We come a hard day's ride out here and we're asking f' yer help. Somethin' big and bad up there on our mountain, and we need to know the nature o' that beast. If it could take Rilliger, it could take anyone."
Falon nodded sagely. "Of course. My thoughts exactly. I'll put my best man on it. You gentlemen go on home now, and stay off the mountain until you hear from us."
Kale and Edrin moved silently out of the rough-hewn doorway, each of them ducking his head under its low beam. Falon turned to the corner of the room, where Ander, his most talented assistant, had been inking in the careful drawings of a drabfowl he had made a few days earlier. The bird had shown itself to be surprisingly colorful, despite its name.
"Ander..."
"Sir?" Ander answered, his eyes never leaving his work.
"Ander, have you been listening? Of course you have; you are a trained observer. So your training should have just told you that I have a very dangerous job here."
"Yes, sir. It sounds to me like those hunters ran across a dragon, very possibly a white from the location of the attack site. Although I've never heard of one this far north, Mount Valcarsha is in the highest part of this range. It's cloaked in perpetual winter even at the halfway point," said the assistant scribe, mixing his inks to achieve the exact shade of the drabfowl's autumn crest feather.
"Well done, Ander. My conjecture precisely. You will then appreciate that I must send the man most able to complete such a difficult observation. I have chosen you," Falon replied.
Ander finally raised his head and faced the chief scribe. "Me, sir? But I just got back from the field! I still have to finish out these rough sketches. It's Del's turn to go out this time."
"He won't be back from the settlement for another week. And don't worry about your unfinished work. I'll take care of that for you. Anyway, there is a promotion in it this time for you, Ander. I thought you might like coming back from this one with the title of full scribe on your record. You are only one beast away from that, I see. Just one short," Falon observed as he ran his finger down a blank sheet of vellum.
Ander blinked at the chief scribe in disbelief, his quill poised in midair. "Do you mean that, sir? It's been so ... long.
I had almost given up hope."
Falon grinned capaciously. "Of course I mean it. Yes, I know things have moved, um, somewhat slowly for you here, but this is your big chance. Who knows, someday you could even have my job-after I've been sent up to Palanthas, of course. But that's not important right now. What is important is this white dragon. Oh, and Blot will go with you, for company and protection."
Ander remained silent for a long moment, marveling. An ice dragon . . . his contribution to Astinus's great book. It was the chance of a lifetime.
"I'll do the outpost proud, sir." Ander smiled, his face glowing as he put aside the sketch of the drabfowl and began to stuff his pack with waybread and cheese, chalks and drawing tablets.
Falon motioned to Blot, who was lurking behind the coal bin, having just showered himself with an even darker coating of dust than usual. "You will give me the regular report. .. and a bit more, this time, Blot. Include a final sentence, please. A summary. This is a special case."
Falon winked. The dwarf's dirty face split into a slow, broad smile.
"As you wish, sir. A final sentence." He chortled.
*****
Mount Valcarsha lay an arduous two days' journey from the outpost. Ander and Blot moved through the autumn-splashed countryside at a quick walk, meeting almost no one on the winding, uphill road. In fact, the only person they saw was a red-haired shepherdess who walked with them for a short time, showing them where to find fresh water and giving Ander a fairly complete visual description of the beast.
"Shiny. White. I couldn't see the head when it flew over, but its tail was long and thin, curling and looping at the end as it took the air. I'll tell you, sirs, that was the most frightened I've ever been in m' life. And the thing has got a good six of m' sheep in the last month!" she complained.
Ander drew a sketch as she spoke, adding the details as she remembered, and then showed her what her words had drawn.
"That's it! That's what I saw!" she exclaimed. "So what is it?"
"Just an educated guess, but I'd say it was a 'draco albicanus,' or a white dragon. Thanks for your excellent help," he called as they left the girl standing, awestruck, in the lane.
*****
Another night of sleeping on frost-hardened ground and a day of cold rain later, they reached the base of Mount Valcarsha. Ander crouched low to the moist ground, blew hard upon the footprint in front of him to clear it of leaves, then took out his tape to measure the odd shape. "-twenty-four inches long, and about six inches deep, claw marks at the end of each of three toes. Blot, it looks like I was right. We've got a dragon up here somewhere. Nothing else makes a print like this. Look."
The dwarf stood peering over Ander's shoulder and nodding. "Yep. Dragon. Chief's gonna like this. Say, now that you got the print, and those drawings you did of what that shepherdess saw, how much more do you need for the entry?"
"Well, we'll need to get our own sighting, to do it right. Even better than that, though, would be some verifiable piece of physical evidence," Ander replied absently, sketching the print's shape upon his tablet
"Let's go, then." said Blot, impatiently staring up the steep mountainside.
Half a day of hard climbing lay in front of them if they were to scout the territory the hunters had described. He fell in behind as Ander led the way for a long while through the bare twigs of lowland scrub. A little farther up, the scrub gave way to a thick evergreen forest, the early morning light breaking in hard shadows through its blue-green needles. Blot marked the path well. He planned to be coming back down it alone.
*****
Several hours and a few hundred feet later, they came upon a small clearing, the tall bordering pines split and shredded like kindling, the sheep's carcass still frozen in the glittering snow where it had been dropped.
Ander eased off his pack, sniffed the air, and listened. Not even the normal sounds of the winterbirds and the snow-tunneling rodents broke the eerie silence.
"This is where it happened, Blot. Look-there's where the dragon must have caught Rilliger."
Ander pointed to the scattered snow. Sure enough, only two sets of deep, hurried prints led away from the drift, while one more set stopped dead, as though the owner had simply taken flight. Blot squirmed as he eyed the dead bighorn, then looked skyward and thought about the hapless hunter.
"Hadn't we better find shelter? I mean, it's getting dark. And windy. What if the dragon comes back here?" the dwarf said nervously, his words carrying straight up the mountain.
"Yes, you're right." said Ander, looking up into the steely clouds. "I had hoped to be finished by now and back down to the valley. I don't like the look of that sky-could be more snow's on the way. The hunters mentioned a cave ..." Ander said, searching the mountain's gray, ice-rimmed face until he saw a small, darker shadow. "I think I see it."
A few minutes later, Blot struck a flint to some gathered kindling and fed a couple of larger windfallen branches into a wanning flame while Ander reviewed his notes in the mouth of the narrow, high-vaulted cavern.
"Think we'll see the dragon before nightfall?" asked Blot uneasily.
Ander smiled thoughtfully. "I don't think we'll have to worry about that. Look at these walls-see how the algae is scraped away and hangs in great wide sheets? There are no bats hibernating in here either. And that smell! Whew! It has to be coming from farther back in the cave system. Blot, I think we're camping in one of the back tunnels of the dragon's lair itself."
"The lair itself?" Blot's face turned pale beneath the dirt and his scruffy beard.
"From the way the signs read, I'd say all we have to do is explore a little farther here while we wait out the storm. Then we can go back down."
"Explore?" Blot swallowed hard. "You mean, actually go into its nest?"
"Relax, my friend. You can stay here by the fire if you like while I have a look about the back of the cave. There's waybread in the pack; help yourself," said Ander, clapping Blot companionably on the back. "You know, this is my big chance for a promotion; I can't let Falon down. He's been helping advance my career in this little nowhere place, and I owe him the very best entry I can make. And, Blot, you know-I imagine that he will do something nice for you, too. Before you came, I used to be inkmaker, and then I got to be assistant scribe after Del. Perhaps you'll advance when I do- Falon will need another assistant scribe then. There would be two more coins a week in it for you, too. And it's a much better job-you won't have to do all the dirty work!" Ander laughed, taking one of the smaller branches from the fire. He shook the thin coating of ash away to reveal its glowing heart, tucked his collecting bag into his belt, and started into the cave system.
Blot said nothing as he huddled closer to the small fire. But as Ander disappeared through the narrow crevice, he quietly unsheathed his long knife and followed, his face set into a dark scowl. The dwarf had business to conclude, and the sooner the better; just passing through a place where a dragon had been gave Blot the shakes.
He moved as quietly as he could behind the assistant scribe, the red glow of Ander's dim torch bobbing several feet ahead. Blot followed that glow through several ever-narrowing turns, the air in the cave growing more and more foul with the odor of decay, the walls and floor more slippery with unseen ice. A few yards into a suddenly wider tunnel, Ander's smoking branch threw its flickering light up the high vault of the passage, showing thirty-foot-high ice columns and row upon row of frozen stalactites, glittering like thousands of needle-sharp teeth, ready to rain down on them at the slightest disturbance.
And then the torch revealed something else.
Blot's stomach lurched as the faint light fell upon the source of the stench. The third hunter, or what was left of him, lay in a heap in the bottom of a great sinkhole, the most recent of many unfortunate victims. Blot could make out the bones of a moose, the skull of a bear, the jutting, crossed incisors of an ogre, all covered with the shed of large white scales.
Ander stood for a moment at the edge of the dark p
it, unwilling to disturb the dead man. At last he knelt over the foul oubliette, and tenderly covered Rilliger's ruined face with a fold of the man's cloak. Ander reclaimed for Rilliger's friends the new knife that his stiffened hand yet clutched, and then gingerly picked a bright, diamond-shaped scale from the heap and placed it in a collecting bag.
This was the moment Blot had waited for-Ander had his physical evidence. Now Blot could finish his own work. He carefully raised his dagger, preparing to carry out Falon's orders. The final sentence. As long as Ander kept his back turned, it would be easy, he reminded himself. Just walk over and do it, push him into the pit with the hunter, blame it all on the dragon, and get out of there with the bag and the measurements. It would be easy.
It would be easy if he weren't so scared.
As Blot clutched at the wall to keep from fainting, he dislodged one of the long icicles. Its slight clatter was followed by a threatening chorus of eerie crystalline music. Ander lifted his head sharply at the sound, but did not look Blot's way as he tried to locate its source. Instead his eyes were fixed on the cave's north wall, as if he had heard something else. Then Blot heard it, too.
The click and scrape of claws, dragging something heavy.
Suddenly the cavern filled with a smell so foul that Blot's eyes watered uncontrollably and the hair inside his nostrils seemed to singe with every breath he took. He faltered, wiping his face, but had no time to recover before a noise shook the mountain and brought some of the shining crystalline ice daggers raining down upon their unprotected heads. His eyes tightly shut, Blot flattened himself against the wall while Ander dove for cover under a jutting rock. In a moment or two, the shaking stopped.
Fighting the dragonfear, holding the collecting bag over his head, Ander stood up, turned on his heel to leave. He stopped dead in his tracks in surprise. Blot stood a foot or two away from him, knife raised, a look of pure terror frozen upon his face.
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