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Douglas Niles: The Dragons

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Douglas Niles The Dragons

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“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?”

“No,” 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.”

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