Jean Rabe - Redemption

His body was still changing, growing larger perhaps. He thrust a hand in front of his face but saw nothing except the darkness. He heard a popping sound and felt his chest broadening and swelling, but this time he felt no pain. Where was the pain and heat?

He didn’t actually feel anything now, he realized with a start. An unwilling participant, he waited as he sensed his body double in size, then double again.

“Fiona!” Somewhere in the darkness Maldred was calling to the Solamnic Knight.

So Maldred was still here. Why was he calling Fiona? Was she here, too? Dhamon wondered. How did she get here, so far below the earth? The darkness was finally receding. The depths of the cave come into focus. He could see himself.

My eyes, Dhamon heard a voice inside his head say. You are seeing with my eyes now, Dhamon Grimwulf, but soon you will see and sense nothing ever again.

The shadow dragon’s consciousness was thoroughly embedded in his mind—two beings sharing one body.

What vile magic could take away someone’s soul? he thought.

“Ragh! Fiona! Hurry!” Again he heard Maldred’s voice.

So the draconian and Fiona were here, somehow had managed to follow him. Had they gotten Riki and the baby away from the hobgoblins? Was his child safe? He tried to call out to them, but he couldn’t work his voice. He wasn’t even able to open his mouth.

“Fiona!” Maldred’s voice echoed and echoed.

It didn’t matter if they were here, Dhamon thought. They should leave. Maldred should tell them to flee while there was still time for them to save themselves. Again he tried to shout to them, warn them to run. He centered his thoughts on opening his great mouth and shouting for them to run away as fast as they possibly could.

What about the dragonfear? Dhamon wondered. They should be running away. The aura of dragonfear exuded by the shadow dragon should be repulsing them. But it wasn’t, nor, come to think of it, had the dragonfear been present when he entered the chamber. In fact, he realized, he’d felt not even a twinge. Had the shadow dragon become so weak it couldn’t generate its magic? Had it thrown everything into its spell to control Dhamon?

“That’s Dhamon? Is that really Dhamon?” This was the draconian’s familiar hoarse whisper. “By the first eggs! He’s not turning into a spawn. He’s turning into a dragon!”

All of a sudden Dhamon knew that was true. He could sense his size—legs as thick as ancient, sturdy oaks, claws massive, talons long and deadly. The nubs on his shoulderblades were gone, replaced by wings that were tucked close to his sides, unable to stretch very far because Nura’s magical barrier was still in place. His neck was long and serpentine, his head wide and his eyes large—now they saw everything with great clarity.

The shadow dragon turned its head, and Dhamon saw Maldred, fists still pounding against the invisible wall. Fiona slashed against it with her accursed sword, crying out something… something about being cheated? She screamed her ire, and this time Dhamon heard her clearly through the rumbling cavern and his forcefully beating heart.

“Damn you, dragon!” Fiona cried shrilly. “It’s my destiny to kill Dhamon Grimwulf! Me! I want to make him pay for Rig! To pay for all of them!”

“Ragh! Help me with the barrier!” Maldred shouted as he pounded.

Curiously, Ragh did nothing. Instead he spoke so softly to the ogre-mage that Dhamon couldn’t hear what was said—despite his dragon-sharp hearing. The ground was rumbling too loudly, Fiona was shouting wildly and Nura Bint-Drax was talking too, speaking more of her arcane words. Another spell!

She must be working to keep up her invisible barrier, Dhamon guessed, working to keep his companions from breaking through and saving him and fighting the shadow dragon.

If Nura was so intent on her spell, that meant the shadow dragon’s magic was not yet final, that the monster did not yet have full control over Dhamon’s dragon body.

And if you don’t have full control, I might yet be able to stop you, Dhamon thought. My companions and I will stop you.

It is far too late for that, Dhamon Grimwulf, the shadow dragon mentally taunted him. My enchantment is finished. I own this body now. I should have never sent you after Sable. I should have kept you close. I didn’t need Sable’s death energy after all. I just needed the magic from all of these wondrously enchanted items… and your inner magic. I needed you. Nura was right all along, Maldred too. You are the one I will live through.

You lie, dragon. Your spell isn’t done, but your puppet Nura is trying to buy you the little time you need to finish it, Dhamon raged. All those weeks he’d thought the shadow dragon was turning him into a simple spawn or abomination—baiting him, threatening the ultimate transformation if he didn’t kill Sable, promising a cure if he did, throwing in a threat to Riki and Varek and Dhamon’s child for good measure.

All those weeks he was slowly being turned into a vessel for the dragon’s essence, for a dragon crafted by the god Chaos.

“No!” Dhamon shouted, startling everyone by the roar that erupted from his dragon’s mouth. “I will not let you win!”

He tried to say other words, but the shadow dragon came into his mind like a storm and overwhelmed his consciousness. In Dhamon’s shrinking mind’s eye he saw the image of Chaos pluck his god-shadow from the cavern floor in the Abyss and give it life and the form of a dragon. He saw it all again: the newly birthed dragon—the shadow dragon—slaying Knights of Takhisis and Solamnic Knights. The shadow dragon fighting and killing blue dragons and drinking in their energy.

As I killed all of them, I will kill your spirit. I will fly again in my new, perfect form, the shadow dragon hissed in Dhamon’s mind. I will banish your very soul.

Dhamon felt his awareness slipping away, his life’s blood spilling away. The dragon was winning.

Everything around him dimmed—Nura’s continued incantation, Fiona’s shouts. He heard what sounded like thunder, perhaps the beating of the dragon-body’s massive heart invading his body, then he heard nothing. He sensed a blackness, welcoming and frightening. His end beckoned, and he felt himself gradually drawn toward it.

“You did it!” Ragh shouted. “You did it, ogre! The barrier’s down!”

At Ragh’s suggestion Maldred had grabbed some of the carved magical figurines in the pouch and lobbed them against the enchanted barrier. The explosion was small but enough to shatter Nura’s spell, as well as collapse part of the cavern’s ceiling.

Fiona rushed forward, dodging falling rocks.

“In the name of Vinus Solamnus!” she cried. “For the memory of my Rig!”

Ragh hesitated, eyes shifting from the Dhamon-dragon to the husk of the shadow dragon. Maldred was staring at Dhamon.

“By my father,” the ogre-mage said in a low voice. “By all that’s sacred. Just look at him, Ragh. Look at what he’s become.”

Dhamon in dragon form was not quite like any other dragon that had ever been seen on Krynn. His scales were black mirrors, reflecting the cavern and everyone in it. His scales were mostly shimmering silver. In a few places the scales were glossy.

The dragon-Dhamon was an impressive creature, not so large as the shadow dragon, yet far more elegant-looking. It was as if a great artist had sculpted the creature, stealing the best traits from Krynn’s various dragons and creating a unique composite.

The shadow dragon had borrowed the shadowy black horns from a young Red he slew in the purge.

The magnificent wings were from first Blue he killed in the Abyss. The claws were copied from a white dragon, webbed and deadly as a well-worked blade.