Lemborg felt he was close to passing out. Shock was settling in, and the world took on a decidedly fluffy look. The torrent of pain receded. Dying is not half bad, he thought, if that is what this is. Even the brain eaters' nautiloid ship had a fluffy, dreamlike look about it. It floated like a cloud over the administration building. Rocks and spears showered down from it at Kalkon, who dodged some of the blows and roared back at the ship. She roared and called the ship Dark Queen. Was that the spelljammer's name? Lemborg was surprised she would know this. She was calling everything Dark Queen now, though.
The gnome fell back on one elbow. His leg felt so much better now, even if it was bent strangely here and there. He saw Kalkon seize the grinning gargoyle statue in the empty fountain in one great clawed hand (or perhaps it was a foot-he could not be sure what the proper term was for it) and tear the statue free with one motion. The dragon swung the statue back sharply and threw it spinning into the sky.
Now, what was that for? thought Lemborg. The statue hit the nautiloid with a sound as loud as Reorx's Hammer. It made a rain, a rain of splinters and boards and golden shell broke like a bad egg, a dry rain falling on the dry night sand. He knew he should write this up in his next report to the Mount Nevermind Steering Committee on Raining Things. If he could just find a pen and a fresh sheet of...
*****
There was a long time of strange dreams and fever. Pain blew against him, then was gone. He became light as a feather, wind rushing over him like water. He was cradled in a bronze bed, he dreamed, far above the world where the only sound was a slow, rhythmic thunder. He once felt himself rising to the surface of a great sea, the sun's light filtering into his eyes. Sleep, said a great, soft voice, and Lemborg slipped back into the depths of the dream.
No time passed at all, and it was night again. Blades of cool grass pressed against Lemborg's hot skin. He could barely move, but it did not seem to matter.
You are home, said the great voice. I can heal your injuries but not your fever. Your people will find you soon; they may be able to do what I cannot. You must rest until they come. You have nothing to fear now.
The voice hesitated, then went on. My mind has healed, thanks be to luck and rest, and my wing has healed, thanks be to magic, so I will now return to my people, too. It will be a long flight north, but I believe I am ready for it. There was another pause, a longer one. I owe you much, Lemborg. I ran from the past but it found me again, and now I can face it and go on. But I will miss your company and your curious style of khas. I am glad that your ship chose my city as its final port. It-and you-brought me what I needed.
There was silence. Then the wind stirred greatly for a few moments. When it subsided, it was very peaceful and still. All was right with the world.
It lasted for twenty minutes. Then the gnomes found him.
*****
"Rubbish to the twelfth power!" snorted the First Undersecretary to the Aerodynamics Guild Director. He flung the Medical Guild's report to the side, where the thick pages joined a hundred other reports in a large wooden crate beneath a carefully lettered sign that read RECYCLED BOTTLES ONLY. "I can't believe those bed-pan engineers would send me such rot. Brain eaters! Spelljammers! A dragon who can play khas! Lemborgamontgoloferpaddersonrite took a bad hit on the head, and that's all there is to it. Same thing happened to my third cousin, the one who was struck by lightning and imagined he was a dragon-fighting hero or some such." The First Undersecretary sighed heavily, looking down at his desktop. "Amazing, though, that he survived the loss of his ship. The technojammer must have gone into the sea right after liftoff. Such a promising start, too. Absolutely perfect liftoff."
"Didn't explode at all," agreed the Second Under secretary, head bobbing violently as he stood on the other side of the deck. "Always an excellent start to any aeronautical undertaking."
The First Undersecretary grunted, pulling his short white beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps it would be best to have Lemborgamontgoloferpaddersonrite pilot the next mission as well, since he has the edge in experience, delusions or not. His fever's gone, and with a refresher course or two on the next model, he could-"
"An admirable idea, I agree," said the Second Undersecretary, nodding again but with less enthusiasm. "Perfectly admirable except for the minor fact that Lemborgamontgoloferpaddersonrite checked himself out of the Primary Downslope Trauma Center this morning and submitted his vacation request. I am afraid he is already gone."
The First Undersecretary stared at the Second in astonishment. "Gone? He's gone? Where to? Cancel his request! Bring him back at once! He's our senior technojammer pilot! This is mutiny!"
The gnome standing on the other side of the desk winced. He knew this next part wasn't going to be easy. "I agree completely that it is certainly akin to mutiny, as he didn't even wait for the vacation request to go through its normal seventy-eight-week period of approval before he left for the harbor at Xenos, where he has undoubtedly caught a ship by now." He handed his supervisor another sheet of paper, which the First Undersecretary read after locating the spectacles on top of his head. "Perhaps, though, it is for the best, as he still seems to be caught up in his, um, delusions, rather like your third cousin."
The First Undersecretary groaned and let the sheet fall from his fingers. "Off to the north to the home of the dragons, taking only six changes of clothing and a khas set. I see your point. Very well, call up the dormitory and have the students gather in the auditorium in two hours to pick a pilot for mission number twenty-nine. We'll draw straws, as usual."
The Second Undersecretary shouted, "At once!" and darted from the room. The First Undersecretary glanced at Lemborg's vacation request once more, then wadded it up and tossed it into the crate with the other papers. "We'll get this technojammer thing right eventually," he muttered, and went on with his paperwork.
Aurora's Eggs
Douglas Niles
In an age when stars were born and dreams began, the gods of light and darkness gave to the world their children, the first dragons. These regal serpents soared in the skies over Krynn, numbering but ten in all-five favored daughters of Paladine, and five more bold sons of Takhisis.
The dragons of the Platinum Father were creatures of light and goodness, formed of the metals that brightened and gave strength to the world. They were gold and silver, brass and bronze and copper. Females all, the quintet of serpentine sisters made their lairs in the west of Ansalon and dwelled there for countless eons, singing praises of Paladine among the vast swath of peaks that would one day be called Kharolis.
Arrayed against them were the five sons of the Dark Queen, wyrms of implacable evil arrayed in the colors of their matriarch: red, blue, black, green and white. They spread wickedness and destruction in the name of Takhisis, each serpent a blight of chaos and waste upon a great section of the world. Ultimately, like the daughters of Paladine, these chromatic dragons settled, making their lairs in the great mountains of central Ansalon. This smoldering, volcanic region would later be known as the Khalkist.
For the better part of an era, the number of the ten dragons remained constant. ancient beings, they did not age beyond their full maturity, but neither did they procreate. Naturally, Paladine and Takhisis each wished for wyrmlings born of their mighty offspring, that all Krynn might be populated with dragonkind.
But for the timeless millennia of prehistory these godly efforts failed, until at last the world came to a cusp of growing history, and ogres and elves came forth upon the land. Each of these folk laid claim to realms, allying with the mighty wyrms or taking them as foes. They worshiped the Platinum father and the Dark Queen, but called them by new names-Paladine was E'li to the elves, and the ogres knew Takhisis as Darklady.
Ultimately, with the aid of mortal sacrifice and cosmic sorcery, Paladine and Takhisis both discerned the secret of spawning-the creation of eggs. Each of the gods bred with the offspring dragons; their efforts brought forth a clutch from the Dark Queen herself, and a smaller nest from each of
Paladine's daughters.
At last the Dark Queen had hope for her ultimate domination-the answer to her schemes would be war! A trumpet call of fury rang through the skies of Krynn, summoning the chromatic dragons to their task. Her foe's descendants would be slain, and evil would rule the world.
In those days the ogres were mighty, and with their help the dragons of Takhisis struck with swift lethality. In short order, the wyrms of silver, bronze, brass and copper were surprised, ambushed, and slain. Knowing that but one of her enemies remained, Takhisis planned for her ultimate mastery....
*****
Everywhere black smoke spewed into the air, dozens of billowing plumes rising from a shattered landscape to form a forest of vaporous, impossibly lofty trees. Tortured, churning trunks merged into glowering overcast, an oppressive blanket shrouding the breadth of Krynn.
At least, across that portion of the world within Furyion's vision. The red dragon flew high, skimming the underside of the heavy stratus, banking easily around the pillars of ash and smoke, riding the expulsive updrafts of heat. The volcanic mountains of central Ansalon were the source of the massive black columns. From his soaring vantage Furyion could see a hundred peaks spewing their fiery guts into the sky.
Deep chasms and canyons scarred the ground. In some of these raged the white ribbons marking turbulent streams, while others glowed dangerously with the crimson fire of flowing, liquid rock. Steep cones rose from lifeless bedrock to form a jagged skyline of dark-stone peaks, often clustering in a massif of six or eight well-defined summits, spewing smoke, lava, and steam from an assortment of craters. Other mountains rose far above their neighbors, pyramids of hardened magma surrounding calderas many miles across.
Furyion flew past one such massive summit, skirting the rim of the high crater. With detached interest he admired a gridwork of fiery cracks amid darkened slabs of cooler lava, the pattern that crisscrossed the floor of the vast caldera. In moments the dragon's flight carried him beyond the sight, great strokes of his scarlet wings pressing downward in a slow, measured cadence. Updrafts of scalding heat that would have seared the scales off of Akis, the white dragon, merely lifted the mighty red higher, saving him the straining of his mighty wings.
Now the greatest of mountains came into view, the massive peak dwarfing even the mightiest among the lesser summits. Rising as a cone of massive, primordial rock, this was a volcanic matriarch that could obliterate the entire range if she should unleash her might against the world. Black along the lower slopes, where cliffs plunged into shadowed gorges on all sides, the mighty peak's color merged toward a rusty red on the higher elevations. A series of jagged ledges jutted like shoulders from the massif, barren outcrops on an otherwise sweeping expanse of steep mountainside.
Despite the mountain's great size, the crater at the summit was uncharacteristically small, giving the peak the appearance of a sharp point that nearly grazed the underside of the black stratus. Unlike many of the volcanoes, the crater spewed neither ash, smoke, steam, nor fire from the deep shaft. Yet heat glowed there, the crimson glow of fundamental fire forming a circle of light against the clouds.
Once before, Furyion had actually flown above the great crater to confirm this fact. So intense had been the blistering emanations of raging heat that the ancient red dragon had been forced to veer away at the very edge of the caldera, knowing he would certainly have perished if he flew any farther into the searing updrafts. Yet even in that quick glance he had seen enough to know that this mountain plunged an unimaginable depth toward the heart of Krynn.
Furyion's eyes gleamed as he lighted on a lofty ledge, one of the highest on the cracked and barren mountainside. He spread his jaws, extending a scarlet-scaled neck to its full length before bellowing a great cloud of flame into the sky. Wisps of oily fire scorched the mountainside, hissing and burning with a sound like thunder as the mighty red made bold announcement of his arrival.
The sharp crack exploded from a nearby ledge, a perch only slightly lower than Furyion's, and a bolt of lightning speared the sky. Arkan, the ancient blue, uncoiled from his own vantage and dipped his head in acknowledgement of his red brother's arrival. Furyion bowed too, his yellow eyes bright. Jealously, the crimson wyrm eyed the necklace of silver scales gleaming on Arkan's blue neck. It was a trophy, symbol of the blue dragon's triumph over Paladine's dragon of silver.
The stink of noxious gas stung Furyion's nostrils and he looked down to see a greenish-yellow cloud drift along the sloping mountainside. Korril, the wyrm of emerald green, raised his head to regard Furyion. Leathery lids hooded the green's dark, deceptively gentle eyes, and wisps of poisonous breath still rose from the twin gaping nostrils as the green glared impassively at the two higher serpents.
Furyion was further inflamed to see brass scales dangling in a chain around Korril's neck. So the green, too, had met with success in the war against Paladine's daughters.
Turning his eyes to the sky, Furyion sought signs of other arrivals. Next to fly into sight was black Corrozus, gliding around the shoulder of the great volcano to come to rest on a well-scoured outcrop of rock. The black dragon announced his presence with a spew of dark acid, spitting a river of the burning, sizzling liquid that spilled far down the slope of the peak, until at last the churning, corrosive flowage dissolved itself into the porous rock. Even from his much higher perch, Furyion noted that a circlet of copper scales ringed Corrozus's snakelike neck.
Finally Akis, the massive white, came into view, soaring as far as possible from the flaming peaks. As he approached his own ledge, farther down on the mountainside, Akis blew a great cloud across the rocks, leaving them frost-lined and cool. Only then did the colorless serpent settle to his perch. Raising the wedge of his head, Akis blasted another cloud of frost into the air, let the sweep of the breeze carry the chill back across himself.
Bitterly Furyion saw that even the swift-flying Akis, whose discomfort in these hot regions was well known to his cousins, bore a symbol of triumph. His throat was surrounded by an array of bronze scales, proof of another kill.
"Be comfortable, my brother," urged Furyion, more than a hint of mockery in his voice as he addressed the drooping white.
"Bah!" sneered Akis. "The heart of the Khalkists lies too far from realms of ice and snow. You would not speak so-"
"Silence!" barked Arkan, the command echoing across the mountainside. Furyion whirled upon the insolent blue, enraged by the interruption, but the azure wyrm hissed a more compelling warning. "Our mistress speaks!"
The mighty red fell silent, poised to listen and heed as rumbling within the mountain grew to a palpable shuddering in the bedrock. The vibration forced Furyion to grip the outcrop of his perch with powerful talons lest he be shaken from the ledge. Rocks broke free, tumbling from the summit and slopes, but the thrones of the five dragons had been chosen with care. Landslides spilled and roared past each, but none of the rubble flew far enough outward to strike any of the five sons of the Queen.
Smoke and ash abruptly exploded from the crater, billowing into the sky, swirling downward to encircle the serpents nearest the summit. Tongues of fire lashed through the enclosing murk, and bits of fiery lava spattered onto the rocks, hissing and spitting with infernal fire. Again pale Akis spewed his cloud of frost, miserably trying to hold the heat at bay. The other dragons simply squinted against the mild assaults, knowing by the size of the eruption that the summons of their mistress Queen was of tremendous importance.
For a long time Furyion huddled in the haze of ash and smoke, feeling the stinging burn in his nostrils, blinking his leathery eyelids over flakes of powdered rock. He thought with amusement of Akis, knowing that the white must be suffering tremendously-despite the fact that his low perch marked his lesser status, but also allowed him to avoid the worst of the Queen's vented fury.
Finally the ash and smoke gave way to pure fire, a blossom of blue flame shooting straight upward from the volcano's maw. The pillar burned away the clouds, boring a passageway str
aight through to pale sky, sending waves of shimmering heat rising relentlessly to the heavens. The cloaking overcast surrounded the gap, like a cylinder of murk enclosing a heat-scoured chimney.
The Dark Queen's glory cleansed with its killing heat, sweeping the ash and debris away, raising a mighty wind across the face of the mountain. Still Furyion and his brothers clung to their perches, turning faces away from the stinging gale, looking upward to witness the glory of their mighty mistress.
Only when the fire had nearly burned itself out, when the hole in the dark cloud mass began to close, did the words of the Queen become known to her children.
"Welcome, mighty sons . . . know that your actions have been pleasing to me. Your courage, your cruel and relentless violence shall be well rewarded."
"Greetings, Mother Queen," murmured Furyion, in cadence with the other wyrms. He felt a rush of warmth and affection for the great, chaotic goddess who had given birth to his brothers and himself.
"Our eggs, the precious orbs that each of you has given me, are nurtured in the heart of the Abyss. They thrive and prosper . . . and someday, they will yield handsome offspring. Then shall our children populate the entire face of Krynn."
Furyion shivered in delight at this word of the spawning, and bowed his crimson head in abject worship. "We are unworthy of your grace, Mother Queen," he rasped, spewing steam and fire from his nostrils. "The red dragons shall rule the world in your name!"
"Aye, my boldest, my mightiest son. The wyrms of blue and black, of green and white, shall aid and serve them-but it is my desire that the dragons of fire be the masters of my world!"
Crowing, Furyion raised his face to the cloudy sky, bellowing a great fireball of searing, sizzling heat.
"But know, too, my children, that there is still danger in Krynn." The cautionary words came as the other four serpents regarded the mighty red, their expressions carefully masked to conceal the emotions of envy and displeasure that lurked in their wicked thoughts.
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