The Dragons

by Doug Niles

  The stick, with its flaming end trailing brightness through the air, moved up toward the being’s face. There the fire came to rest over a hooked protuberance, a curling stem that ended in a blunt, upturned bowl. Fire surged brightly again, and Dar sensed that it was being drawn into the protuberance. Moldy leaves seemed to smolder there, and vapors rose from the bowl in that tangible smell that Darlantan again realized he could see!

  Abruptly a huge cloud of that visible smell emerged from the being, and then the creature turned to regard the two serpents with eyes that were luminous in their own right—not like the fire, but possessing a certain soft brilliance that in a sense was even hotter. And in that gaze, Darlantan saw a kinship, an abiding intelligence that reached out to touch him deeply.

  Below those eyes was a snout. This was not nearly as magnificent a muzzle as a dragon’s, to be sure, but impressive enough. It hooked outward from the being’s face, curving forward to terminate in two massive, flexing nostrils. Darlantan watched in fascination as those twin apertures gave vent to additional puffs of the gray odor.

  Beneath the snout was a flexible hole where the curved, leaf-burning protuberance was attached—clearly a mouth, though the opening was pathetic and shriveled compared to a dragon’s maw. The rest of the creature’s front, so far as the silver wyrmling could see, was a cascade of wiry bristles, a shaggy mat similar to bat’s fur, only longer and bushier. This thick coating draped far down the being’s chest.

  Abruptly the smoking horn detached from the creature’s mouth, held in some sort of crude claw, a paw that lacked any talons, so far as Darlantan could see. That limb swept into a gesture, as if embracing the two dragons, drawing them forward with growing wonder.

  “Hello, little newtlings,” said the being. “I was wondering when you would get here.…”

  Chapter 2

  Patersmith

  circa 7500 PC

  “There should have been twenty of you,” Patersmith explained, his shoulders slumping in a posture of uncharacteristic sadness.

  The bewhiskered tutor stood at the rim of the jeweled nest, gazing at the seven tarnished orbs that remained within amid the litter of scraps and shells. For a moment, the sturdy, short-legged figure stood still, as if he had forgotten the attentive audience on the grotto floor.

  Darlantan and his nestmates were gathered in a circle about their tutor, who often addressed them from the height of the nest. Yet now Patersmith’s attention was turned inward, staring into the soft depression where the hatchlings had been protected for so long. The thirteen wyrmlings waiting to hear his next words might have been all but forgotten, so far as the silver male could tell. He remembered the spheres within that enchanted nest, knowing that there had been one each of gold, silver, and brass, and two of copper and of bronze. Long ago those eggs had resembled the brilliant metallic sheen of the wyrmlings’ scales. For some time, however, they had shriveled and dried, until now they were merely wrinkled balls in different shades of brown.

  “It is a sadness beyond measure that these wyrmlings never had the chance to live,” declared Patersmith.

  “But why didn’t they come out with the rest of us?” Smelt asked.

  “I cannot say for sure, but I suspect the cause is the fading of spell magic from Krynn. There was enough of your mothers’ sorcery left to protect the thirteen of you, but not the rest.”

  “But what is this magic? How did it protect us?” probed Aurican alertly.

  “You should have had your mothers here when you were born … but that was not to be. Instead, they wove this nest and cast their spells of sustenance and protection. It was all they could do.”

  “What is spell magic, and where did it go?” asked Aurican, perplexed as he tried to follow the lesson with his usual careful concentration.

  “Much of it is a mystery, vanished with the great queen dragons. Their spell magic was a thing of wonder, a power that could transcend the laws of the mortal world—until it disappeared. Perhaps this is another legacy of the Dark One’s lingering hatred.”

  “What is the Dark One?” queried Darlantan, shivering under an involuntary sense of menace.

  “She who is hated by Paladine and all goodness.”

  “Teacher, what is hate?” asked Aurican.

  “That is a good question, but not an easy one to answer. In truth, it requires another tale.”

  “Then tell us, please!” clamored Oro and Mydass, golden sisters who, like their brother Aurican, had an apparently endless appetite for stories, ballads, and legends.

  “I have a tale!” chirped Smelt. “When I was hunting a bat, it—”

  “Shhhh!” hissed Dar and Auri, anxious to stop the brass dragon before his story wandered into its inevitably complex and pointless course.

  Sulking, Smelt hung his head while Patersmith sighed and drew deeply on his pipe.

  “You dragons are the favored ones, the sons and daughters of Paladine himself. The Platinum Father watches over you. It was he who bade me come here to teach you.”

  “If we are the favored of the Platinum Father,” inquired Aurican pointedly, “that would indicate that there are those who are not so favored. Who are these others?”

  “Ah, always with the questions, my golden pupil. You will learn that Krynn is peopled with a multitude of lesser creatures, slow-witted, weak, and short-lived for the most part. Still, they strive to exist on the world, and when at last you come forth into daylight, you shall share the land with them.”

  “But who are these creatures?” Darlantan asked, trying to picture a being that was neither dragon nor bat nor Patersmith. At the same time, he tried to imagine what daylight was like. Patersmith had told the wyrmlings about the sun, and though Dar found the concept terribly intriguing, it was also almost impossible for him to imagine.

  “Perhaps first you will meet the griffons who glide through mountain skies. Of course, you are mightier than they and could make them your prey or your slaves. But perhaps you will have the wisdom to treat them with dignity and honor and will find that their service, rendered willingly, can be far greater than anything compelled.”

  “So long as the griffon doesn’t take my bats!” declared copper Blayze, with a hissing growl.

  “Ah, my quick-tempered one. I suspect that, when at last you fly above Krynn, you shall find yourself amazed that you once ate bats.”

  “But surely we will still need food,” growled Burll, drawing his bronze brows into deep furrows along the foreridge of his thick-boned skull.

  “Surely indeed, my hungry one,” said Patersmith with a deep chuckle. “It’s just that you have, as yet, no real awareness of the incredible banquet that awaits you. And this is the source of our lesson.”

  “More food?” Burll inquired hopefully.

  “No … more variety. You will learn that the diversity of the world is its greatest strength, just as it is among yourselves.”

  “You mean like the color of our scales?” probed Aurican, who, as usual, was a thought or two ahead of his nestmates.

  “That is an example, albeit a minor one. More to the point are the things that make you different, for these are the things that make you all, as a clan, strong.”

  “Like Aurican wondering about magic all the time?” Dar suggested. “He’s the only one who does that.”

  “Aye—or Smelt, who talks more than all the rest of you put together. Or you yourself, Darlantan. Always you must be doing something, going somewhere, stretching your legs. I can only imagine what it will be like when you learn to fly. And Blayze, so fast. Ever do you leave your nestmates behind.” The tutor’s gentle eyes smiled at the copper male and chuckled. “And with your temper, speed can be a useful attribute, as least while you live among bigger, stronger dragons.”

  “Am I different, like everybody else?” inquired Burll plaintively.

  “Look at your strapping shoulders, the muscles that pulse beneath your bronze scales. Is there another of your nestmates so strong?”

  “N
o,” concluded the bronze, with a pensive nod of his head. “I guess not.”

  “He’s even got muscles inside his skull!” cackled Blayze, provoking Burll to spit a sharp spark of lightning.

  Immediately the copper flew at his nestmate, spattering acid from his own jaws, until Aurican and Darlantan pulled the hissing, slashing serpents apart. Stiff-winged and growling, the two combatants settled back into their places while Patersmith cleared his throat sternly.

  “What other creatures shall we meet, teacher?” asked Aurican, impatient with the diversion.

  “Ogres are the oldest. They have erected mighty cities across the world. From these, they have gone forth to enslave humankind, perhaps the shortest-lived and most wretched of the two-legs.”

  “Are the humankinds like bats?” asked Burll, his earlier anger forgotten as his tongue flickered across ever-hungry jaws.

  “Bigger than bats,” Patersmith declared, “and more entertaining, though they are far lesser creatures than you dragons.”

  “But are there other beings who dwell long lives of proper meditation and reflection?” pressed Aurican, his brow furrowed by concern.

  “Ah yes. There are the elves, of course. Indeed, they are shy folk and hide in the thickest of forests. But I do not doubt you will find some common understandings with them, should you persuade one to emerge from his grove long enough to talk to you!”

  “I should like that. Or perhaps I shall go into their groves instead,” Auri murmured, so quietly that only Darlantan could hear.

  “But back to matters of Paladine and the dragons of metal. These eggs, here. I am afraid we shall never know what happened to the seven that remain unborn.”

  “Then tell us about our mothers!” pressed Oro. “What of them and their tale?”

  “Yes, a tale!” Aurican’s head rose from the scaly crowd of wyrmlings. “Will you share it with us?” The gold dragon held a large multifaceted ruby in his foreclaw. As his bright yellow eyes focused on the teacher, he unconsciously sat back and passed the bauble back and forth between his paws.

  “Ah, my Auri … ever the balladeer. In the case of this tale, however, I fear it is too dark for you wee nestlings. Nay, that one shall wait until later.”

  Patersmith turned back to his pupils, eyes sparkling above the cascading shower of whiskers. Pacing along the rim of the nest on his bowed legs, the tutor regarded each of the wyrmlings with a look of deep sympathy and warm understanding.

  It was a look they had come to know, and to cherish, very well. Since the coming of Patersmith, the lives of the nestmates had changed significantly.

  For one thing, the first tentative explorations in language had become whole volumes of words that the nestlings shared with each other and with their tutor. They had already heard of many adventures, ballads, and legends of Aurora and Argyn and their other mothers, the five matriarchs of metal dragonkind who had dwelt in peace and wisdom.

  Occasionally the tales had hinted of darker realities, of wyrms named Furyion or Korrill or Corrozus. But Patersmith would turn away their questions when the wyrmlings pressed about these mysterious hints.

  “Is this tale of our mothers also a tale of the chromatic dragons and the Dark One?” asked Darlantan, recognizing the tutor’s reticence.

  “Yes. You see well, my son.”

  “And will they come for us next?” asked Aysa, with a fearful look around the grotto.

  “I should say not, for the chromatic dragons are gone … driven from the world by the heroism of your mothers. With them went the power of spell magic, and many would say the tally is fair. No, the thing that harmed these eggs is not so much the coming of an enemy as the waning of a friend.”

  “And magic—that is the friend?” Auri pressed.

  “Aye, and the chromatic dragons are the enemies. Though you will learn, my nestlings, that still there are many other threats, dangers and evils of which you will one day be aware.”

  “What tale can you share, then, Patersmith?” asked Burll, the sturdy bronze wyrmling who was not at all shy about speaking up. Indeed, it was a good thing he was willing to question their tutor, since he often had to have things explained to him two or three times before he understood.

  “Perhaps … perhaps a tale of magic.”

  At his words, the brood of dragons sat as if on cue, stilling any jostling and restless shifting. For of all the tales told by Patersmith, those about magic were without fail the most entertaining.

  “Aurora was your mother,” began the teacher in the ritual singsong of a proper lesson. Smith nodded to Aurican, and to his golden sisters, Mydass and Oro. “She of the golden scales and mighty power … but, too, she who had captured the wisdom and poetry of the ages within her being and her mind.

  “Her magic was a wonder of the world. With a whispered word she could change her shape from dragon to eagle, soaring the skies of Krynn like a keen-eyed bird of prey.”

  Darlantan had neither seen nor heard about eagles, yet the word conjured an image of a sleek, feather-winged shape gliding through air that was not black, not cloaked in shadow. It was an image that inflamed his heart and caused his fledgling wings to twitch uncontrollably.

  “Ah, Dar … one day you will fly among the eagles,” murmured Smith, noticing the young dragon’s agitation. “But just as Aurican must wait for his tales of nightmare and horror, so must you spend time on the ground before you strain for the skies.”

  “Aye, teacher,” Darlantan pledged, bowing respectfully. Yet his wings still stretched as he settled himself more firmly among his siblings, determined to listen. He could scarcely stand to wait—he wanted to fly right now.

  One of those restless silver wings brushed against Blayze, who was still glowering at Burll through the pack of attentive wyrmlings. The copper spat, drops of acid searing into Darlantan’s wing, and the silver dragon whirled in a blur of scales and teeth. His own breath exploded, frosty ice gusting through the grotto as he hurled himself at the hot-tempered Blayze.

  For several seconds, they tumbled and rolled, tails lashing, scales of copper and silver flaking into the air. Blayze was quick, but Darlantan was big and strong, and he easily pressed the copper to the ground. Silver jaws clamped over the metallic brown neck, and it was then that Patersmith stopped them with a word spoken in a hushed and soothing tone.

  “Mercy,” he said, stepping down from the nest to balance on his bowed legs. He touched each of the battling dragons with his hand, and Darlantan felt the rage go out of him like an exhalation of breath.

  “Mercy,” repeated the tutor. “Always show mercy to each other, and even to your enemies.”

  “But does that not make me vulnerable?” asked Blayze, scowling darkly, hissing at Darlantan.

  “On the contrary, mercy makes you strong, for it creates loyalty and friendship. And you will learn that he who has loyal friends has great strength.

  “But I was speaking of Aurora’s magic … of her spells of fire that could raise a conflagration from a sodden forest, or hiss a small lake of water into steam.”

  Again the tutor used words that the dragons had never heard, but once more their tiny minds fashioned images to the sounds and began to picture a world that was beyond the enclosure even of the Darkness Beyond.

  “Aurora and her sisters used their spell magic to fashion this nest, breathing upon the most precious stones in the world, forming them into a suitable crib for their precious offspring. It was this enchantment that insured your bed was always warm, and that should have seen all of you to a birth undisturbed by dangers.

  “In those days of magic, all of your mothers knew great spells. But ever was Aurora the greatest.” At the continuing words, the golden wyrmlings puffed with visible pride.

  “It is said that she even caused a mountain to disappear once, bringing to death one of her mortal enemies when that dragon of white flew directly into an immovable cliff.”

  “Was that a dragon of our enemies?” asked Aysa.

  “Yes, my da
ughter. You should know that those were days of violence, for the Queen of Darkness was ever jealous of your beautiful mothers, of their metal scales and keen wisdom and, perhaps most of all, of their eternal patience.”

  “And that jealousy brought war?” stated Darlantan, who had deduced many facts about the past from things that Patersmith did not say.

  “That was the birth of war as such. The sons of the queen were so treacherous that even your mothers’ magic was barely enough to prevent their ultimate success.”

  “But spell magic let our mothers win!” Oro asserted, glaring about with a golden glint, challenging any of her nestmates to dispute her claim.

  “In the end, it did, though that struggle cost Aurora her life. Still, her spells were mighty. With them she could fly without wings, could at one time battle enemies in two different places.”

  “Master, you told us that you speak of ‘those days of magic.’ ” The questioner was Kenta, one of Darlantan’s silver sisters. “By that do you mean those days are over?”

  “Aye, my gleaming daughter. In that age of evil and dreams, when your mothers battled the five sons of the Dark Queen, sorcery was a power held by all dragons. It was inherent might that only served to prove your ancestors’ status as masters of all the world.”

  “But what happened to the magic?” asked Aurican, frowning, thrashing his golden tail. He glared about the grotto, as if he would fix with his sharp stare the culprit who had worked that audacious theft. In his hands, the ruby bauble had begun to glow faintly, casting a soft, fiery light between the wyrmling’s clutching golden claws.

  “Spell magic passed from Krynn with the death of Aurora,” declared Smith, with a sad shake of his whiskers and his head. “The only sorcery in the world now is that embodied by creatures such as yourselves—in the breath weapons that you spit at each other like petulant children, and in the might that will enable some of you to assume different shapes, to walk among the elves and men of the world as one of them.”