Dragons of a New Age

2 The Abyss

The falling sensation stopped, and the fog pulled away from Palin, leaving him on a barren rock floor in what seemed to be an immense cavern. The air was hot and fetid. Dozens upon dozens of knights mounted on dragons flew high above him, skimming just below the ceiling and streaking toward something. Palin could hear the sounds of battle, the faint screams of the dying, the roar of war cries and the whoosh of dragonbreath. Chaos was somewhere ahead.

Palin’s lungs burned. It was difficult to breathe here, and the warmth of the place surged upward from the rock, through the leather of his boots, and into the very soles of his feet. He swallowed hard and glanced down at his hands to make sure he still held the book. He’d been clutching it so fiercely his fingers had gone numb. The book was there, he noted with relief, as was his magical staff.

The next several moments were a blur to the young sorcerer. Like bits and snatches from a nightmare, events began unfolding around him. He spied Steel Brightblade, his cousin, on the back of a blue dragon overhead. He motioned to him, and within several heartbeats Palin was sitting behind the young Knight of Takhisis. The dragon’s wings closed the distance to Chaos, taking Palin and his cousin toward the father of everything and nothing.

“He need only be wounded,” Palin whispered to Steel.

Then he was on the ground again, the battle raging about him, the sea of men and dragons—of blood and flame—filling the air surrounding Chaos’s giant form.

Somehow Usha was here, on the ground at the far rim of the battle, and Tasslehoff, too. Palin saw them as he lifted his eyes from the book, spotted them at the edge of his vision. The last words of the spell tumbled from his lips and his eyes locked onto Usha’s. Chaos swatted a dragon overhead as if it were a gnat and the creature tumbled from the sky and struck Palin.

He felt the crushing weight of the creature’s tail over his chest, felt the book fall from his fingers, and the staff slip from his grasp. A sudden wave of cold washed over him. He, the knights and dragons, and the form of Chaos that reached to the cavern’s rocky ceiling were all swallowed by a sheet of impenetrable blackness.