Margaret Weis - Dragons of Summer Flame

Dougan glared at him.

“Shutting up,” Tas amended meekly, and clapped his hand over his mouth, which—he had learned—was the only way to keep himself quiet... for a short time, at least. Until his hand found something more interesting to do, such as rifling through the preoccupied dwarf’s pockets.

Usha clutched the Graygem tightly. She stared up at the giant.

“What is it...” Her voice cracked, and she had to start again. “What is it I have to do?”

“Only this, Lass.” Dougan spoke so softly that Usha had to lean close to hear. “The knights and your lad, Palin, will attack Chaos. He’ll summon his legions and fight. It will be a hard battle, but they’re strong, Lass. Don’t you worry. Now, if any of them manages to wound Chaos—just nick him, mind you, that’s all we need—a single drop of blood, caught in the Graygem, will put Himself in our power. We will have captured his physical essence, don’t you see? He must either stay here—in this shape and form. Or he must leave.”

“And what if he decides to stay?” Usha demanded, dismayed. The entire idea sounded ludicrous.

Dougan stroked his beard. “He won’t, Lass.” The dwarf tried his best to sound confident. "He won’t. We’ve thought this all out, the magical children and I. Himself hates being confined, you see. That body of his represents order, though you wouldn’t think so to look at it. His troops, his legions—all of them demand orders and commands. He has to tend to them, send them here, send them there. He’s growing tired of it, Lass. It’s not fun anymore.”

“Fun...” Usha thought of her people, of the ruined houses, the charred bodies. Her eyes filled with tears. She made herself stare at Chaos, stare at him long and hard. Seen through tears, blurred and indistinct, he didn’t appear so formidable. It would be an easy task after all. Sneak up behind him when he wasn’t looking...

Chaos suddenly roared, a bellowing roar that rumbled through the ground, caused the burned branches of the pines to break and topple, shook the broken altar behind which the three hid. The Father did not roar in anger. He roared with laughter.

“Reorx! You puny, sniveling, whimpering, misshapen, undersized, sorry excuse for a god! You’re traveling in low company these days.”

Dougan put his finger over his lips, pulled Usha down behind the mound of wood. He made a grab for Tas, but missed. The kender remained standing, gazing up at the giant.

“I’m not afraid of you!” Tas said, swallowing an unaccountable and annoying lump that had suddenly jumped into his throat, a lump about the size of his heart. “I’m awfully glad I got to see something as big and as ugly as you, but now that I’ve seen you, I really do think it would be best if you went away.”

“Went away?” Chaos sneered. “Oh, yes. I’ll be going. When this ball of dirt you consider a world is scattered like dust in the void. Don’t bother to hide yourself, Reorx. I know you’re there. I can smell you.”

Chaos turned. His lidless eyes, which held nothing in their fathomless depths, focused on the three, seemed to suck their souls out of them. “I see a god, a human, and a thing—I don’t even know what it is.”

“A thing!” Tas repeated, indignant. “I’m not a thing! I’m a kender! And as for being undersized, I’d rather be short than look like something that got belched out of Mount Doom.”

“Tas, stop!” Usha cried, terrified.

The kender, feeling considerably better, was just hitting his stride. “Is that your nose or did a volcano erupt in your face?”

Chaos rumbled. His empty eyes began to narrow.

“Dougan, make him stop!” Usha pleaded.

“No, Lass, not just yet,” Dougan whispered back. “Look! Look what’s coming!”

A flight of dragons, silver and blue, materialized in the red-orange sky. On their backs rode knights—those dedicated to darkness, those sworn to light. As they drew near Chaos, the dragonlances and swords they carried seemed to catch fire, gleamed flame red.

Leading the knights was a blue dragon bearing a knight clad in black armor. A white-robed mage rode behind him.

Chaos did not see them. His attention was focused on the kender.

Desperate to keep Chaos from looking around, Dougan scrambled to his feet. “You big bully!” the dwarf shouted, shaking his fist.

Tas eyed Dougan severely. “That’s not very original!” the kender said in an undertone.

“It doesn’t matter, Lad,” Dougan said, mopping the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his coat. “Just keep talking. A few more seconds... that’s all... ”

Tas drew in another deep breath, but the breath and the rest of his insults got expelled in a big whoosh, as if he’d been hit in the stomach.

Chaos held in his enormous hand the sun—a huge ball of flaming, molten rock. The three could feel the heat beating down on them, scorching their flesh.

“A drop of my blood? Is that what you want?” Chaos said in a voice as cold and empty as the night sky. “You think that will give you control over me?”

The Father of All and of Nothing roared again with laughter. He juggled the sun, tossing it carelessly into the air, catching it again.

“You will never control me. You never have. You never will. Build your fortresses, your walled cities, your stone houses. Fill them with light and with music and laughter. I am accident. I am plague and pestilence. I am murder. I am intolerance. I am drought and famine, flood and gluttony. And you”—Chaos raised the flaming ball, about to hurl it down on them—“you are nothing!”

“You are wrong!” came a clear, strong voice. “We are everything. We are hope!”

A dragonlance, shining red and silver, arced through the air. It smote the sun and shattered. The sun burst into a thousand pieces of flaming rock, which rained down in fire to the ground, grew cold when they hit.

Chaos turned.

The knights faced him, drawn up in battle formation, their dragonlances leveled and ready, their swords raised, the metal glowing silver and red. In their midst sat a white-robed mage, wearing no armor, carrying no weapon.

“Hope?” Chaos laughed again. “I see no hope! I see only despair!”

The fragments of rock changed to daemon warriors, imps of Chaos that were formed of the terrors of every person who had ever lived. Colorless and shifting like bad dreams, the daemon warriors appeared different to each who fought them, taking on the shape of the thing each person feared the most.

Up from the rift came fire dragons. Made in mockery of real dragons, the fire dragons were formed of magma, their scales obsidian, their wings and manes flame, their eyes blazing embers. They belched noxious gases from the bowels of the world. Sparks flew from their wings, setting ablaze anything over which they flew.

The knights stared at these monsters in despair; their faces blanched in dismay and fear as the horrible creatures surged forward to attack. The standards slid from shaking hands, began to dip toward the ground.

Chaos pointed at the Solamnic Knights.

“Paladine is dead! You fight alone.”

Chaos turned to the dark knights.

“Takhisis has fled. You fight alone.”

Chaos spread his enormous arms, which seemed to encompass the universe.

“There is no hope. You have no gods. What have you left?”

Steel drew his sword and raised it in the air. The metal did not reflect the fire, but shone white, argent, like moonlight on ice.

“Each other,” he answered.

“I must set you down, Majere,” Steel said to Palin. “I cannot fight with you behind me.”