The Flaem are like a great tree, rooted in glory, the voice said, soothing her with wise and gentle words. They must not be permitted to wither from neglect. They were never meant to be the slaves of dragons; nor mere tools of the Dragonlord, serving the base whims of the Immortals; nor a small, impoverished, and forgotten folk among the barbaric nations of the alien world in which they found themselves. The Fire Wizards are the guardians of their race, and you are now their leader. Do you not have a great and noble responsibility? Who would be the champion of your people if not you?
As she listened, Alessa began to see the truth and wisdom of what she heard. Why indeed should the rule of the Flaem have rested in the hands of a misfit youth who had not even known he was a dragon? Why should the leadership of the Flaemish council belong to a barbarian war maiden, when it rightfully belonged to her? Once, before she had been deluded by the
Dragonlord and his companions, she had understood the truth. But now the power and authority to command even her own fate seemed hopelessly lost. She had no idea how to claim i he leadership of the council from Solveig, who was looked upon as a beloved defender of the kingdom, while the Fire Wizards were regarded as power-hungry traitors. Nor did she know how she could deal with the enemies of her people, enemies like the proud Thyatians and the evil Alphatians, and especially the dragons.
I can promise help in the form of secret knowledge and wise counsel, the voice continued in a low, soothing tone. More assistance, in the form of the magic and the forces needed to take war directly to the enemies of the Flaem, will be forthcoming later. But for now, you must remain patient. Byen Kalestraan was an impatient fool and refused to heed my advice. He acted too soon. You would not make the same mistakes, for you understand well the subtle games of politics rather than the brute strength of magic.
As the voice spoke to her, Alessa began to trust in her ability to do anything. Yet distant and unheard in the deepest part of her mind, the last shreds of her true will screamed in fury and frustration.
CHAPTER ONE
Thelvyn Fox-Eyes stood atop a rounded boulder amid towering pines on the steep mountainside, looking out across the dark, still expanse of forest that lay to the west. It was already nearly midmorning, although the sun was only now rising above the mountains behind him. It was cold for so late in the morning, so that he could still see the white mists of his breath when he stood with the sun at his back. But even the harsh cold of the northland winter had been of little consequence to him in the months since he had assumed his true form as a dragon. The bite of the icy air did not penetrate his thick armor.
As he watched and waited, the lean, graceful form of a gold dragon suddenly passed directly above him, hurtling down just above the treetops from the heights before rising and making a wide circle above the forest. Kharendaen was not hunting; she flew nearly every morning or evening for the joy of flight. Thelvyn was reminded of how they had flown together so many times in the past. Of course, on those flights, he had ridden in a saddle strapped to the base of her neck rather than actually flying with her. That had changed considerably in the
past few months.
Thelvyn stepped to the front of the large boulder and then leapt out into the morning sky, with only a brief glance at the steep, wooded slope that fell quickly away below him. Even ufter all this time, he could not leap out into the open air without a moment of apprehension. He felt his broad wings snapped out, and he tucked up his legs against his belly as he began to rise with long, powerful strokes of his wings, gathering speed slowly. Flying was hardly as effortless as it looked, but getting airborne was the most difficult part. Once he gained speed and caught the cold mountain winds beneath his wings, it became much easier.
Kharendaen began to circle back slowly to join him. He appreciated her beauty as a dragon would, seeing her as a creature of remarkable grace, even delicacy, with a narrow head and tapered muzzle, deep chest, and long, narrow waist, with powerful haunches and legs for leaping into the sky. As far as he was concerned, this was and always would be the true Kharendaen, although he had by now become used to having her about in her Eldar form as well. The Eldar were the ancestors of the elves, taller than men and powerfully built, copper-skinned, with black hair and large, black eyes, the same form that Thelvyn had been forced to assume by enchantment all his prior life. In the past, Kharendaen had also taken the form of the elf Sellianda, although the small, fragile elf maiden had always seemed like another person entirely to him.
The smaller female dragon came up slowly behind him, as if she intended to match his speed and remain close beside him. Instead, she rushed forward at the last moment with quick, powerful sweeps of her wings, darting past his nose so close that he was forced to draw back his head in alarm. The gesture was intended as a playful one, an invitation to match his skill in flight against hers, and she was no longer very forgiving of his inexperience. He turned and followed her as swiftly as he could, using his greater size and weight to overtake her while she remained in a shallow dive. She didn't allow him to draw too close, rising again to place him at a disadvantage, then making a tight turn that he was unable to duplicate.
Thelvyn had been frustrated with such games at first until
Marthaen, Kharendaen's older brother, had informed him privately that female dragons were almost always swifter than the males of the same breed, since they were leaner and lighter. And no dragon in the world was swifter in flight than a female gold. Thelvyn had to push himself to the limit just to hold his own, struggling not only with his inexperience but also with his large size. Still, he realized as he followed her twists and turns, maneuvers that had once taken a conscious effort were now beginning to feel natural.
He was beginning to feel comfortable using the small sails just behind and below his wings, attached to the base of his tail, to take all the effort of steering himself, folding and spreading the sails at need. Dropping his tail with the sails unfurled also helped to slow him quickly by cupping the wind. He was also beginning to acquire a feel for the air currents about him, knowing without deliberately searching where he would find rising or falling pockets of air, whether there was a strong wind or none at all. Learning to fly had been especially difficult for him, since he had to learn as a full-size adult, while most dragons learned to fly at a relatively young age. He still had dreams at night about falling.
Kharendaen suddenly broke off her playful antics and drifted on the morning breeze, as if she were listening to some distant voice. Thelvyn also spread his wings and glided, careful to keep his distance so he would not disturb her. After a moment she glanced over at him, then drifted as close as she dared to his side.
"I have been called," she said plainly. "The Great One wishes to give me new instructions."
"He wishes to speak with you?" Thelvyn asked, surprised. For whatever unknown reason, the Great One had had very little communication, even with his most trusted clerics, for the past twenty years.
"I half expected him to speak to me in a dream last night," she remarked. "But that is not important. We must return to Shadowmere at once."
She turned and headed northward, away from the mountains where they had been playing and out over the broad forests. Kharendaen set a brisk pace, although that was not a mutter of concern to Thelvyn. He might not be the most agile of dragons in the air, but he had grown swift and tireless in long, straight flights over open land. Shadowmere lay somewhere in the center of the great pocket of woods that lay encircled within the mountains of the great Wendarian Range. Known to both the dragons and to the elves of Wendar as the Foxwoods, this was an ancient, enchanted land blanketed in a deep, dark forest of the tallest trees in the entire world.
Shadowmere had at one time been the largest and most important sanctuary of the Great One. Thelvyn's own mother, Arbendael, had been the senior cleric and mistress of this place, before the attack of the rogue dragons had forced her to llee into the wild. Shadowmere had been abandoned since that time, until late the previo
us summer when the Great One had Kharendaen bring Thelvyn here so that the spell preventing him from becoming a dragon could be removed. They had remained here ever since, together with Sir George and nearly a score of dragon clerics who had come to serve them and restore the sanctuary to life. Elvish clerics later emerged from the forests of Wendar to join them; the half-wild northern elves looked to both Terra and the Great One as their protectors, and many had become clerics of the dragon Immortal. They had served at Shadowmere in the past, and they had been eager to return.
The sanctuary was difficult to locate from above, hidden as it was by the great trees of the Foxwoods. Fortunately, dragons were guided in flight by an unerring instinct for direction far more accurate than sight, a magical instinct that guided them even to places they knew only by description. Thelvyn's own sense of direction was still developing, so he depended upon Kharendaen to guide him. Soon she began to descend slowly in a wide circle above a deep well of darkness in the forest that was the small clearing in the center of the sanctuary.
Thelvyn followed her down with some misgivings. The steep, rapid descent into the clearing had always been tricky for him, and he had injured himself slightly on a couple of occasions. He preferred to go in first, so that he would not collide with Kharendaen if he lost control while landing.
He began his landing by dropping his tail and spreading his sails to slow himself until he felt he was just about to drop, cupping his vast wings to catch as much air as they could as he descended through the trees. The clearing still lay in morning shadow, so that even the night vision of a dragon could not show him the ground clearly until he was almost down. Only then was he able to select the exact place where he would land. He lowered himself with long, sharp thrusts of his wings until he struck the earth heavily on his braced legs. Kharendaen joined him a moment later, slowing herself and then landing lightly with long, graceful sweeps of her wings in the clearing several yards to his right.
She folded away her wings and walked over to join him, dipping her head to rub her nose gently against his chest, a draconic gesture of affection. Kharendaen had always been boundless in her affection, even in their first five years together when he would have never guessed that she loved him. He would have never thought that dragons, with their reputation as fierce, solitary creatures, were also capable of being deeply passionate. He had been surprised to find that dragons even kissed, although they were more fond of rubbing their faces and necks together. Their sense of touch through their leathery plates was rather different from what he had been used to as a human. Touch was more vague, yet dragons craved it all the more, apparently for that very reason.
Side by side, they walked across the clearing to a ring of rocky hills that formed the sanctuary itself. The face of the hills was lined by a great structure of stone and wood.
Thelvyn wondered about this sudden willingness of the Great One to speak. He had been expecting something like this ever since he had become a dragon, when the Great One had told him that he could be given only until the coming spring to learn the ways of his new life before his services would be needed. He and Kharendaen both had thought it best for him to remain in hiding while he became accustomed to life as a dragon. Since it hardly seemed likely that the dragons would be ready to accept him yet, he was inclined to dread the task of trying to convince them to accede to his leadership.
A couple of the younger dragons and several of the elves were busy in the inner yard of the sanctuary, attending their morning chores. Kharendaen led the way through the open doors into the main hall of the sanctuary, where she paused a moment to look about. A few dragon clerics, Sir George among them, were reclining on the massive couches, reading from large books set on stands before them. Sir George saw that his companions were staring at him and left his own chair near the fire and hurried over to join them.
"We must leave," Kharendaen explained simply. "The Great One has summoned us."
"I have no idea that what he wants," Thelvyn said, making a vague gesture when Sir George glanced up at him. "The Great One never talks to me, which is probably just as well. I dread what he might have to say."
"You may stay or go with us as you prefer," Kharendaen told the old knight. "But I warn you that we may not return here any time soon."
"Some things are easy enough to guess," Sir George said. "If the Great One thinks that the time has come for action, it will most likely involve finding the Collar of the Dragons. And you'll need me for that. Would it be fair of me to ask where we're going?"
"To Silvermist, of course," Kharendaen explained simply.
Sir George hurried away to prepare for their journey, while the two dragons went to their own chamber to collect the few things they would need. Thelvyn had a harness that he had never before needed to wear, since he had never traveled as a dragon. Although he did not carry any weapons, such as the dragon-sized sword that Marthaen usually sported, he did need the pouches for a few things such as his spellbook. One of the more difficult and unexpected adjustments he had had to make since he assumed dragon form was being naked all the time. While he had never thought of dragons as being naked, he had certainly felt that way. He was rather surprised when he saw Kharendaen pulling on the straps of her saddle, the same saddle in which he had ridden for five years as the Dragonlord.
"I can carry Sir George," he offered.
"I do not doubt that you can," she said agreeably. "But I doubt that the straps of the saddle are large enough to fit around your neck. This saddle was made specifically for me.
Do you feel ready to make such a long flight?"
"Yes, I believe so," he answered. "At least, I had better be. I seem to be running out of the time I was given to learn to be a dragon."
Kharendaen seemed very calm and businesslike about the upcoming journey and the purpose behind it, as if she considered it a matter of no great importance. Thelvyn was grateful that she took such an easygoing attitude, since it helped to calm his own apprehensions. Soon he might discover the answers to many of the mysteries that had surrounded him since he had learned that he was a dragon, particularly the remaining secrets of his origin and the part he was expected to play in the destiny of his race. He could only hope that those secrets were something that he would be pleased to discover.
The matter of his assuming the role of the Dragonking remained the greatest enigma to him. The dragons had awaited the coming of the Dragonking since the time of the first Dragonlord, when, according to prophecy, he would take up the Collar of the Dragons and become the first true king of their race. But the prophecy did not explain why the Dragonking was needed, or what he would do for the benefit of his people. As far as Thelvyn could tell, the troubles that the dragons had faced for the past three decades were more or less at an end. Their war with Alphatia had concluded in their favor, and their uncertain relationship with the Dragonlord was resolved. Everything should return to normal once the Collar of the Dragons was found, and the Great One had already told him that the recovery of the collar would be Thelvyn's task.
Thelvyn found dragons much more daunting, rather than less so, since he had become one himself. Perhaps, he thought, that was because both his own role and the methods he could use to carry out his policies had changed. Being the Dragonlord had been a relatively simple matter; if a dragon was a problem, he had the power and the invulnerability as the Dragonlord to enforce his will. As the Dragonking, he was hardly any more powerful than other dragons; in fact, he was disadvantaged by his own inexperience and possessed no special invulnerabilities. He suspected that, as the king of the dragons, he would be expected to enforce his will not by force
or threat of violence but by more subtle and complex means.
The two dragons needed only a few minutes to prepare themselves for their journey, so they returned to the yard to wait for Sir George. Kharendaen spoke briefly with the senior clerics who would remain at Shadowmere, agreeing that the sanctuary should remain occupied unless the clerics were called away to
serve elsewhere. Thelvyn was reminded again that it was probably his place to be making the decisions, if he was truly worthy of being the Dragonking, but he was reluctant to because he knew so little of the affairs of dragons. While he was most likely a cleric of the Great One himself, he preferred to stay out the business of the true clerics.
Sir George came out a short time later, tying his own travel bags to the straps before climbing up into Kharendaen's saddle. The two dragons crouched low and then leapt into the air as their broad wings snapped out, calling upon all the strength they commanded to lift themselves upward in a tight spiral through the narrow opening in the trees. Thelvyn felt better once they had risen above the forest and settled into their long flight. Their plan was to remain in the remote and uninhabited lands of the mountains for nearly the entire journey, traveling eastward along the Wendarian Range, southward over the Colossus Mountains, over the Broken Lands and then eastward again over the Altan Tepes between Rock-home and Alfheim.
Sir George had flown in Kharendaen's saddle before, and thus he took the long journey in stride. Of course, he had also known dragon flight from a more intimate perspective than that of a mere passenger, but not for some years now. Sir George was secretly a mandrake, one of the smaller dragon-kin, and his inclusion in the greater Nation of Dragons had allowed him to claim the right to remain in Thelvyn's company. Unfortunately, Sir George had lost his left hand in combat years earlier, and his wing was damaged correspondingly when he took mandrake form, leaving him incapable of flight.
It was an advantage for the dragons to remain in the mountains as much as possible on such long journeys, since they could conserve their strength by riding the winds. Thelvyn wondered how long this flight would take. In the past,
Kharendaen had always made the trip from Braejr to Thyatis, as far apart as any two cities in the civilized eastern region of the continent, in a single day. The distance from Shadowmere to the sanctuary of Silvermist in Alfheim was considerably less. Kharendaen could easily reach their destination that same day. The only real question, he realized, was whether or not he could remain in flight for that long.
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