Douglas Niles: The Dragons

Lectral whirled about, his tail cracking like a whip as he pictured the High Kharolis and smoking Khalkists, Silvanesti and Solamnia, all darkened by the same scourge he had observed more than a dozen centuries before. He thought of the cities of men in which he had dwelt, more than fourteen hundred years earlier, and the pastoral forests of the elves.

Of course, rumors had come to the dragons on their remote isles, tales of a great Cataclysm, a darkness descending over the face of Krynn that had brutally changed the face of the world. Indeed, the gold dragons, and Regia in particular, had held this vast destruction to blame for the hundred winters of rainy weather that had beset the isles before the time of Saytica’s death.

“What is the word of other dragons?” Lectral asked.

“Harkiel, who brought us the oath, is in Sanction. Word is that he has become horribly corrupt, sickened. And another great red has appeared… one you will know.”

“Tombfyre?” growled the ancient silver.

“Aye. He leads the Red Wing and carries their emperor on his back. He seems to be little more than a flying horse,” Dargent declared contemptuously. “Albeit, his rider is the greatest warrior in the Dark Queen’s legion. That one, the Highlord Ariakas, has fashioned himself Emperor of Ansalon, and the griffons claim that he has hundreds of thousands of troops under his command. Indeed, he is known to have won many battles.”

“It’s like ancient times-Huma’s war, being waged all over again! But this time the queen keeps us out, by virtue of that accursed oath!”

“Regia counsels patience, as always,” Dargent said wryly. “She reminds us that the queen is bound by her pledge to return our eggs safely, when at last the course of her destruction is done.”

The eggs! For the thousandth time, Lectral pictured the precious spheres of gleaming metal. His guts churned at the thought of the clutch in the hands of the queen’s horrible minions. Would they even know to keep the silver eggs cool, or would the wyrmlings wither and suffocate in the midst of oppressive, ultimately lethal heat?

“Does Regia, or any of the golds, even know the meaning of concern, of genuine worry?” Lectral didn’t want to scorn his kin-dragon, but his deep exasperation further sharpened the elder’s tone.

“There is one bold one-you remember Quallathan. I have heard him counsel his elders that we must at least confirm the Dark Queen’s compliance. But they demur, claiming that the oath must stand in its original words, that anything less would be unfitting of us!”

“I remember Quallathan,” Lectral noted. “A strong flyer. He’s even a little bigger than you, isn’t he?”

“Perhaps I’m shorter by a scale or two,” the prideful scion replied. “Of course, he was born on Ansalon, before the exile. He flew during Huma’s campaign.”

“Aye, you’re right,” recalled the ancient. He reflected, and not for the first time, on the sad fact that his offspring had never seen the wonders of the High Kharolis.

Dargentan continued. “Still, you’re right about his strength. And, too, he’s one who’s not afraid to let his wings show.”

Lectral chuckled sharply at Dargentan’s phrase, which meant that Quallathan spent much of his life in his actual dragon body, rather than the two-legged forms favored by so many of the golden serpents.

Except for Quallathan, who shared Lectral’s and his scions’ anguish, the other good dragons seemed to have talked themselves into an air of acceptance and complacency. Regia and Arumnus had retreated to their lofty libraries and serene gardens to discuss matters that Lectral didn’t even want to guess about.

Of course, there were other exceptions as well. Cymbol’s rage and frustration were well known, and he had whipped a number of the younger coppers into a similar frenzy. Kirsah, a good-sized dragon of brass, was another young firebrand. He had even threatened to fly to Ansalon to seek the eggs himself, until Regia, together with Kirsah’s venerable sire, Kord, forbade him forcefully from making the trip. The council of elders, which was a casual board centered around Regia and grim Arumnus, had threatened the young brass with magical confinement if he should dare to disobey.

And so the dragons on their islands had returned to a life of stasis, though it was a life that continued without the eggs that were their promise of a future. Indeed, the earlier lethargy that had possessed the metal clans seemed to have lifted, to be replaced by a nervous energy. It was a place where the dragons didn’t do much of anything, but they were taut and nervous in their inactivity.

Until the day that Silvara returned.

Lectral was in his usual post, occupying the mouth of his cave, eyes turned southward. The silver female flew from that direction, waves splashing brine against her belly, so low over the ocean that Lectral didn’t see her until she had nearly reached the shore.

And with that first sight, he knew that this was Silvara. He leapt to his feet and bugled a greeting, a long and sonorous trumpet cry that allowed the female to pinpoint his location on the high mountainside. Immediately she swept upward, wings stroking for height.

Then Lectral saw the rider upon her back, and he was struck by a staggering moment of recognition-but how could this be Heart? And certainly that wasn’t the human knight, Huma, who rode astride the beautiful silver neck! He shook his head, once again reminding himself of the present time and place.

No, the dragonrider was an elf, a golden-haired male who rode mighty Silvara with serene grace, though his face was locked in an expression of haunting sorrow.

“Fly with me to the Silver Summit!” cried Silvara as she glided past Lectral’s ledge. “I–I have news that must be shared with all!”

Propelling himself into the air, the ancient male strained to catch up to the younger female’s swift flight. He felt a deadly chill, terrified by the sounds behind Silvara’s words. For, despite the maturity and patience and wisdom that was her due as a dragon of more than a thousand winters of life, she had been unable to keep an edge of raw, hysterical fear out of her voice.

Lectral still trailed behind as Silvara came to rest in the valley below the gleaming massif. Regia and Arumnus were already here, and somehow Lectral wasn’t surprised by the fact. He settled to the ground beside Silvara as the lean elf who had ridden her across the ocean slid down from her silver serpentine neck and stood stiffly with a hand on the female dragon’s shoulder.

Silvara changed shape before Lectral or any of the others could speak, and the ancient silver found himself looking at a beautiful silver-haired wild elf. He gasped, once again moved by the powerful resemblance to Heart. The maid stepped forward and gestured to the sylvan warrior she had carried to the isle.

“This is Gilthanas, an elven prince of Qualinesti,” she said, her words spilling out in a tremulous rush, a display of emotion so strong that Lectral felt the disturbing intensity all the way to his core.

“I have traveled with Silvara, and I, too, know of that which she speaks. If it were not for the need, neither of us could bear to relate the tale.”

Silvara looked at Lectral, and the elder was struck by the age and weariness in her gaze. She seemed like an ancient herself, wracked by a grief greater than anyone should have to bear.

The elfmaid tried to speak, forced out a stammering word, then buried her face in her hands.

“Take a moment, child,” Regia soothed, bobbing her head before the body of the wild elf female. “Let the words come from beyond. Allow yourself to be their filter, but not their creator.”

Slowly, tremulously, Silvara began to speak. Her words brought forth a tale of horror and corruption, relating a journey that she and Gilthanas had made into the bowels of the Dark Queen’s temples. It had been a long search, which she had conducted always in her elven guise. There, below the festering city of Sanction, she had found the eggs-and at this point in her story, she broke down into tears.