Dragons of a New Age

32 Fissure’s Grim Tidings

Khellendros stretched as comfortably as the confines of his underground lair allowed, his muscles rippling, his tail twitching like a contented cat’s. He’d slept the better part of eight days, replenishing his energies, and now was ready to devote himself to creating more blue spawn. The ingredients should be arriving soon, herded across the desert to their doom. After that, he intended to enlarge his lair—to give himself more room to relax and to provide an underground barracks for his growing army.

The dragon flexed his claws and rumbled happily, the sound growing loud enough to vibrate the cavern’s walls. The regiment of blue spawn that stood behind him looked warily toward the ceiling and at the sand that spilled down through the cracks. The floor was covered with more than an inch of fine, white sand now, for the dragon’s agitation had continually weakened the lair.

The dragon eased forward. It was time to bask a bit in the sun, luxuriate in his sparkling, pale desert. He’d lie on the hot sand while he waited for the new arrivals. Two or three days at the most, he suspected, and they’d be here. He moved ahead slowly, extended his neck and rubbed it against the ceiling to ease an itch. Then he paused. His vast nostrils quivered uncomfortably.

“Show yourself!” his voice boomed. More sand trickled down through the cracks in the ceiling.

A lone ogre shuffled into the mouth of the cave. The dragon shot a claw out, intending to smash this insolent creature who dared to defile the sanctity of his lair. Then Khellendros paused. Perhaps this was a messenger from the Strongfist Tribe, announcing the arrival of the ingredients. But even as he entertained this thought, the ogre’s form shimmered and melted away, replaced by the tiny body of the shapeshifting huldrefolk.

“I was with the ogres,” Fissure began.

“As I ordered,” the dragon returned. “My ingredients?”

The huldrefolk seemed uncharacteristically nervous, and the dragon could smell the faerie’s apprehension. Something had gone wrong, and this displeased The Storm Over Krynn.

“Well...” Fissure started over.

“Well...” Khellendros pressed, his displeasure mounting and made the worse for the bother of coaxing bad news from his ally.

“The humans the ogres captured... well, they were rescued.”

“Rescued!” The dragon’s voice filled the underground chamber, the waves of sound hurling the huldrefolk back several paces. More sand filtered down.

Fissure feigned bravery and was quick to describe the unexpected assault on the ogre camp and to recount in detail the incident—giving special attention to the gray-haired mage in the tunic and leggings who cast spells and cut down the brutes and Dark Knights.

“Palin Majere,” Khellendros hissed, fixating right away on the huldrefolk’s description of the sorcerer. “I underestimated him and his fellows. But I shall not do so again. And... I shall make them pay for this affront.”

“I guess some of the captives must have been friends of this Palin,” Fissure mumbled. “I guess he thought he had to—” “Majere.” The word rolled like thunder, a curse slipping off the dragon’s tongue. “Kitiara’s brothers. The Majeres were a bane to Kitiara. And their offspring has become a bane to me.”

“Well you still have all of your Dark Knights and brutes and I can find more ogres—”

“Silence!”

The blue spawn pressed back into a shadowy recess, avoiding the savagely flicking tail of their master.

“Palin Majere must be punished. I must hurt him,” the dragon mused. “And the best way to hurt him is to hurt those he cares about.”

“What do you want me to do?” Fissure whispered.

“I’ll tend to Palin Majere. Revenge will be mine, and it will be sweet. Kitiara will be pleased.”

The huldrefolk hurriedly vanished into the floor, a raised line in the sand the only hint of his incarnation.

“Yes, I shall tend to...”

A shimmering in the air interrupted the dragon’s retaliatory reverie. The shimmering spot grew to form a large circle that practically filled the chamber, floor to ceiling, then it sparked red and coalesced into a near-transparent visage of a red dragon—and a very angry red dragon indeed.

“Malys,” Khellendros said. His anger doubled. The Red had never contacted him here before. It was a violation of his privacy.

“Traitor!” the image ranted. “You make a creature—secretly—one sleek and powerful.” Malystryx’s apparition spat and hissed, flames writhing like serpents from its nostrils. “Blue spawn, you call it. But you don’t tell me!”

The Red’s image continued to fume and berate the Blue, and all the while Khellendros’s mind schemed. Words came to him, and he mentally rehearsed them, waiting for a break in the tirade. The apparition could do nothing to him, and he was not afraid of Malys. But he respected her power, and he knew he could not afford to have her as an enemy. Dealing with an enemy like her would keep him away from his true work.

“I demand to know why you kept this secret from me!” the Malys image hissed.

“Pity you discovered it so soon,” Khellendros purred. “And pity that you felt you had to spy on me and ruin my so carefully planned surprise. I thought we trusted each other, Malys. I had intended to present the spawn to you as a gift. I’ve been working hard perfecting the creatures, wanting to make sure they were a suitable present for the most powerful dragon overlord, the dragon who perpetually occupies my waking thoughts.”

The Malys image quavered. “A gift?”

“For the dragon I most revere on this world,” he silkily continued. He was speaking the truth in that respect. He did admire Malys, her brawn and ambition, her ability to manipulate the other dragons and the humanoids in her region. “Though I am not yet satisfied with the spawn, I shall share my secret now—if that is your wish, Malys. Anything I have is yours, of course. Anything.”

The image nodded, accepting Khellendros’s flattery. The Blue knew reds basked in adulation, and Malys was not an exception. The Storm Over Krynn proceeded to explain the grisly process for creating spawn—the draconian, human, and dragon essence required. The Malys image was rapt with attention.

“You must shed a tear?” Malys’s voice was filled with curiosity. “That must be hard for you. It would be impossible for me.” The image deepened, becoming a dark haughty crimson, and the phantom flames rose higher, until they dissipated against the cavern ceiling. “I shall use blood to birth my spawn. Blood is more powerful than water. And together, we shall create armies. Then, when the time is right, and when our forces are great, we shall spill this secret to the other overlords. Though they shall never have as many spawn as us—nor ones as powerful.”

“As you wish.” Khellendros bowed, then the image of the Red disappeared.

Cursing, the Blue moved out of his lair and into the blessed sun. That Malys knew of his spawn was an unforseen complication. She would have found out eventually, he knew, when he sent his forces out to conquer something, to gather magical items. He decided her learning the secret early was better. He raised a blue snout in the approximation of a smile.

Khellendros still wished to keep a low profile in the Northern Wastes, to have others do the drudge work. Let the humans’ attentions be focused on Malys and on Beryl and Frost to the south and west, he thought.

He concentrated on a lone blue spawn, the one hungry and angry, the one trapped in a magical bottle on a green carrack. The spawn was sitting on a desk in a cramped cabin below deck. The dark-skinned woman with close-cropped hair was staring at it. Behind her, a kender paced and mumbled words he couldn’t quite pick up. The damnable glass was muffling everything.

Khellendros stared back through his creation’s eyes. He watched the pair intently, and he plotted. You may break free now, the dragon mentally told his offspring. I don’t need you as a spy any longer. I know where they are, that Palin Majere is coming back to the ship with his followers.

The blue spawn’s heart beat stronger. “Free!” it cried, in its parched voice. It beat its wings and shot upward toward the cork stopper. Its claws were extended and drove into the soft substance—and lodged there. The spawn hung, suspended, too weak from lack of food and water to go any further.

Khellendros closed his eyes and pulled back, silently and briefly grieving for the offspring he now counted as dead.

Hours later the wyverns returned, a blue dragon flying behind them.

“Do right?” The large one posed a question as it landed less than gracefully on the steamy desert floor.

The smaller sent a shower of sand into Khellendros’s face as it touched down. “Do right?” it echoed. “Done? Do now what? Do cooler place something?”

“Do darker place something?” the tall one almost begged. It shifted back and forth on its clawed feet, not wanting to keep any part of itself too long on the hateful sand.

Khellendros growled and flicked his tail toward the entrance of his lair. The wyverns stared at each other, then trundled into the darkness, thankful to be out of the heat and brightness.

The blue dragon glided toward the sand, landing several yards in front of Khellendros. He was roughly half the size of the Storm Over Krynn. Still, he was impressive, his long horns curling in an unusual spiral. He lowered his head so it was below Khellendros’s.

“Gale,” Khellendros hissed. “I am pleased you came.”

The lesser blue dragon nodded. “Yours to command,” Gale returned. “As always while I breathe.”

Khellendros knew his lieutenant was not as servile as he let on, yet he knew he had Gale’s temporary loyalty. The Storm had not destroyed the lesser dragon during the Dragon Purge, though he easily could have, and he kept the other overlords from doing the same. He had kept the smaller dragon safe. In return, Gale had vowed fealty, much as a knight would swear allegiance to a lord. Khellendros trusted Gale more than most.

“I’ve an errand for you,” Khellendros began. “One that will not take much of your time, and one that you might enjoy. Have you ever heard of Palin Majere?”

Gale nodded, a sly grin playing across his blue face.