Dragons of a New Age

Prologue Palin’s Descent

Palin Majere stood near a broken altar in the midst of a fire-ravaged forest. He was tall and spindly, like the handful of scorched birch trees that clung to life around him. A staff topped by a hammered silver dragon’s claw was tucked under one arm and his white robe whipped about his legs in the strong breeze. His long, chestnut-colored hair fluttered annoyingly against his neck and face and streamed into his eyes. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t remove his fingers from the book he cradled to brush away the bothersome strands.

He glanced down at the cover. The red leather binding was cracked and faded, and it nearly matched the rosy shade of Lunitari, the moon emerging overhead—the moon named for one of Krynn’s gods of magic. There was magic in the book. Palin could sense it. He could feel a tingling in his slender fingers, feel the pulse of arcane energy that seemed at first erratic but now beat in time with his heart.

The gold lettering on the tome’s cover was faint. “Magius,” was the only word Palin could make out.

Still, that word, the name of the greatest war-wizard of Krynn, revealed the importance of what he was holding. The ancient tome was the most treasured of the collection of spellbooks in the Tower of Wayreth. Palin knew the tome had never been allowed outside that august building until now, until the enchantments penned on its flaking pages were so desperately needed. Yet would they be enough against Chaos, who had been unleashed by the Graygem and who was threatening to destroy the world? And would he, little more than an apprentice, be up to the task of invoking the enchantments against the all-powerful deity who raged in the Abyss?

Raistlin, who stood nearby, had placed the book in Palin’s hands. In so doing, he had placed an immeasurable amount of trust in his young nephew’s ability to use the spells wisely. Palin considered himself a mere fledgling next to his Uncle Raistlin and the other revered and powerful sorcerers of Krynn. He had not made the sacrifices in the name of magic that they had, though the challenge before him could make up for that. It could end his young life.

“I am ready,” he told Raistlin. I am ready to make my sacrifice, he added silently.

The black-robed sorcerer nodded and backed away. Usha, a child of the Irda who was at Raistlin’s side, opened her mouth to say something but her words were lost in the quickening, howling wind. The growing magical gust overtook Palin and swept him up above the forest floor like a weightless leaf, carrying him from the land of the Irda and from Raistlin and beautiful Usha with the golden eyes.

He floated, suspended like a marionette on invisible strings, buffeted by what was now a caterwauling gale. The whites and greens of the birch trees, the blacks of the charred firs, gyrated around him and blended into a dizzying array of swirls and splotches. Then a moment later he felt himself falling, the strings cut, the wind gone. All sound ceased except for the pounding of his heart. The magic sucked him down into a silent, seemingly bottomless vortex of quivering energy that sent sparks dancing and biting across his skin like thousands of ravenous insects.

After several interminable moments, the irritating sensation lessened and became a mere tingling on his arms and face, on his fingers that still clasped the book. But the sensation of falling continued.

The colors shifted before his eyes as the rose of Lunitari, the gold of Usha’s mesmerizing eyes, and the silvery white of his Uncle Raistlin’s hair chased away the hues of the birches and the burned firs. The red, gold, and white worked themselves together like yarn on a spinning wheel, blended into one by the spell that was transporting him between dimensions and to the plane named the Abyss.

He blinked, and the colors changed again, for an instant becoming a brilliant blue that swelled and receded as if it were a thing alive, a great being inhaling and exhaling. Then the blue was gone, replaced by a foglike, wispy gray that felt damp and oppressive. Gray tendrils like spidery lengths of an old man’s hair, curled and wrapped about his wrists and ankles, circled his waist and tugged him ever onward toward his frightening destination. Above and below him there was only this grayness, this perpetual fog that filled his senses, this fog that carried him toward Chaos, and perhaps to his doom.