Douglas Niles: The Dragons

The fire, Dar could see now, was on the end of a long, thin object. As the flare of first brightness faded, he discerned that the stick was in turn connected to another thing-and that thing was a creature! It radiated an inner warmth that reminded Darlantan of a bat, though it was much, much bigger than any of the winged fliers.

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…”

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.”