Douglas Niles: The Dragons

Finally his persistence was rewarded by a glimpse of shimmering golden scales, a serpentine shape coiled in a small, tree-shaded clearing. Braying a greeting, Darlantan tucked his wings and angled between lofty pines to land precisely in front of his brother. The draft of his wings drove a great cloud of dust and pine needles into Auri’s face, an effect that Darlantan found not displeasing.

“Greetings, Cousin,” declared Aurican, blinking his eyelids, then sneezing a cloud of dust back at Darlantan. The gold dragon’s head reached high above the ground, while his sinuous body curled between several trees.

The silver chuckled, wrapping his tail around a tree trunk and squatting on the loam beside the sinuous golden form. “The ground here is soft, but surely there’s more than that to bring you so far.”

“Shhh.” Auri’s inner eyelids lowered lazily, his snout subtly gesturing toward the woods.

Darlantan mimicked his brother’s air of indolence, allowing his gaze to shift far to the side in their childhood game of misdirection. He sniffed with casual curiosity, startled by a strange and intriguing smell wafting through the air. The odor was curiously sweet and complex, suggesting a variety of sources.

But nothing unusual was visible.

For a long time, the two serpents remained still. Finally Darlantan saw movement. Several figures skulked through the forest, advancing cautiously amid the shelter of the trees, drawing closer to the meadow, clearly interested in observing the dragons. The beings were quite pathetic-looking. They walked on two legs like Patersmith, but were skinny, if perhaps a little taller than the tutor. Though hair dangled from the scalps of these creatures, their faces were completely barren of whiskers. They wore skins of supple leather around their loins; their legs and arms were bare, with additional leather strapped to their feet. Darlantan could smell the skin of elk and deer.

Finally the strangers emerged into the open, and Aurican tipped his head regally toward the newcomers, then turned to regard his nestmate, an expression of gentle rebuke in the downward curl of his snout.

“You startled them rather badly, you know,” Auri explained. “I’ve spent many seasons trying to tame them. Actually, I’m rather impressed they returned so readily.”

Darlantan studied the approaching figures, realizing that, despite the uniform slenderness of their physiques, they were well muscled, wiry sinew rippling visibly beneath their pale skin. They carried curved wooden weapons in their hands, and several were girded with slender blades worn at the waist. Their eyes were bright and curious, reflecting a certain natural intelligence.

Then the silver dragon noticed the ornaments. Dar blinked in astonishment and envy as he saw a chain of golden links, the metal smooth and polished to the same sheen as Auri’s scales. The gold dragon inclined his head low, and one of the two-footed beings placed the beautiful chain over his head. Rising again, Aurican looked about proudly, letting the glimmering metal jangle down to his broad chest.

Then the gold dragon turned over his forepaw, and Darlantan saw that Auri clutched one of the gemstones he was so fond of caressing. This stone seemed to be a large, smooth-surfaced opal, and it remained floating in the air after the golden talons withdrew. Slowly, reverently, one of the two-legged creatures advanced, reaching out to stroke the opal, then finally drawing the stone to his skinny chest. With a bow at the onlooking dragons, the little being stepped backward to show the gift to his companions.

“They are called elves,” Auri explained as more and more of the pale figures emerged from the woods. “Remember? Patersmith told us about them. They are possessed of certain skills that even a dragon might find useful-and, Dar, I think they have a knowledge of magic!”

Awed and once more a little jealous, Darlantan raised his own sinuous neck, his head rising just a bit higher than Aurican’s. He looked at the gathering of Aurican’s pets-his elves-and he found himself admiring their courage. He saw that they whispered and muttered among themselves, pointing at the two dragons, clearly conversing in some sort of crude language.

“They even speak,” Auri explained, as if reading his nestmate’s mind. “In fact, they have a wealth of lore. I have met a chieftain who tells tales of my mother, Aurora!”

“That seems an unusual discovery,” Dar agreed, “for beings so small, with neither scales nor hair, to have lore of the ancients. It is strange that Patersmith did not tell us more about them.”

“Perhaps he did not know, for he believes magic to be vanished from Krynn, and yet these elves can work magic on metal.”

Darlantan watched and listened attentively as Aurican said something to one of the elves in a strange tongue. The elf then opened a satchel at his side and held up a powder of bright flakes in his hand. Darlantan stared, intrigued, as the elf let the stuff trickle back into the leather sack, a shower of miniature sparkles, each as bright as Aurican’s scales.

“They bring the gold from the rivers like this, but then they work a spell of magic, weaving the dust into these links that adorn me.”

“That is a wonder,” Darlantan agreed. “But are you certain it is magic?”

“Look.” Auri nodded toward the woods, where another elf was emerging into view. This was a tall, proud male, whose hair was dark, in contrast to the strawlike yellow of his fellows. He strode boldly up to Darlantan and raised a shimmering object in his hands, a thing so beautiful that the mighty dragon all but gasped in astonishment.

It was a necklace of links, a gently chiming chain as perfectly brilliant as Aurican’s, save that it was made out of pure, gleaming silver.

Darlantan lowered his head in imitation of Auri’s gesture of acceptance, allowing the elf to place the chain over his head. He felt the weight against his scales as he rose and allowed the chain to jangle down the length of his long neck. Now he, too, felt the adornment of the elves, and his earlier envy was replaced by a twinge of shame.

“Can you tell them I am grateful?” he asked Aurican, looking with renewed interest into the elf’s deep, emerald-colored eyes.

“I will tell them for now, but soon you will know their language as well.” The gold made a declaration in that lilting, musical tongue-it wasn’t primitive at all, Dar realized-and the elves bowed toward Darlantan. The dark-haired male who had bestowed the silver necklace made a soft, pleasant-sounding reply.

“Now they invite us to journey into the forest with them,” Aurican explained. “They were just about to take me there when you arrived, but they have extended the invitation to us both.”

Darlantan eyed the woodlands skeptically. “The trunks are close together, Cousin,” he said. “How do you intend to pass? Magic?”

Aurican smiled slyly, rearing back on his haunches and placing his foreclaws onto the golden chain. “You are closer to the truth than you might think. Of course, spell magic was lost with our mothers, but we have within us the means.”

Abruptly Darlantan wasn’t looking at Aurican, but at a tall, handsome elf who stood in the place where the gold dragon had been. The elf threw back his head and laughed, and only then did Dar recognize his nestmate.

“That is magic!” he gasped. It was strange, even incomprehensible, to try to understand that this little creature was actually the mighty Aurican!

“You must join us,” the gold dragon in the body of the elf said, bowing low and sweeping a hand before Darlantan.

“But…”

Unwilling to appear ignorant before Aurican and his pets, Darlantan reared back in the posture his golden nestmate had assumed, but nothing happened.