3 Spawn

The warm sand felt good against the pads of the creature’s clawed feet as it plodded across the desert toward the northwest, angling away from the dawning sun.

Hours ago the creature had an urgent purpose, a reason for being in this seemingly endless desert. It was supposed to locate its mistress’s allies— the blue dragons who laired in this hot desolation, and the lesser creatures like itself which milled about. Once gathered, they would be transported to the battle that was brewing in the Abyss.

But the creature had received those instructions many hours ago, the evening before in fact, and now it had lost touch with its mistress, the Queen of Darkness— Takhisis. It could no longer feel her powerful presence. Not knowing what to do, it continued its monotonous course and enjoyed the feel of the sand.

The creature walked upright like a man, but more resembled a dragon. Its coppery-hued scales and skin proclaimed it a kapak, one of the most dull-witted of Krynn’s draconians. It had a lizardlike snout, reptilian eyes, and hunks of scraggly and matted dun-colored hair that hung from its mottled jowls. It sported leathery wings that it flapped occasionally to cool itself. The spiky ridge on its back ran from the base of its thick skull to the tip of its stubby tail, which twitched with nervous uncertainty.

What to do? it wondered. Despite its simple mind, the kapak sensed something was wrong. Perhaps the battle had begun earlier than expected and the Queen of Darkness was occupied.

Should I continue to search for the dragons? It had already discovered two empty lairs. Maybe the queen’s other draconian minions, dispatched at the same time, had found all the dragons that lived in the Wastes and the lot of them had been spirited away by the queen. Or perhaps the battle was called off and the Dark Queen had neglected to inform her loyal kapak minion.

Maybe I have been forgotten, it thought. Abandoned. The kapak paused and stared across the barren expanse, which was broken only occasionally by patches of scrub grass and piles of rocks. It scratched its scaly head, then resumed its journey, deciding to abide by its orders until it again felt the touch of Takhisis’s mind.


Khellendros continued to revel in the summer storm as he banked toward the northwest and left Nightlund behind. The rain was warm and sang to him, pattering out a soft melody against his back. It sang that it was glad to have him home.

It feels good to be home, the great blue dragon thought. He cast his eyes skyward and let the rain wash into his golden eyes. And it shall feel even better to end the loneliness, to again be joined with Kitiara.

“I made a promise to you once,” he hissed aloud, as the miles passed beneath his enormous wings. “I vowed to keep you safe. But I failed you, and your body died. Your spirit disappeared from Ansalon, though I know it lives and remembers me.”

The dragon remembered, too. He remembered what it was like to be teamed with the only human whom he believed possessed the heart of a dragon. Ambitious and crafty, Kitiara had led him on successful strikes and rode him into one glorious battle after another. Together, there was nothing they would not dare to do and no force that could stand up to them.

Khellendros felt complete in those long-ago years, always purposeful and always content in the company of his trusted, calculating partner. He remembered the overwhelming exhilaration they shared in the midst of a fight, remembered the dizzying sense of victory afterward.

And he remembered the frustration of not being able to save Kitiara one rare day when she was alone and far from his side. Even across the miles, he had felt her body die, had felt the instant of her death as if an incredible blow had been landed against his own stomach. He had flown to her then and seen the crumpled, weak human shell that once housed her remarkable mind. And through a haze of anger and tears he had watched her spirit slip free and rise above its useless shell. Her spirit still lived!

Khellendros had vowed to snare her essence and find another shell— one that he would guard more carefully— for his partner. The dragon had chased Kitiara’s spirit above Ansalon’s plains and valleys, losing touch with it from time to time, then feeling it nearby but just beyond his grasp. Years he had spent chasing, searching. At times there had been months filled with frustration, when not even a hint of her spirit crossed his path. Still, the great dragon had refused to give up, and at last found her essence again, touched her mind and called out to her.

Skie! he had heard inside his head. It was Kitiara’s voice, and his heart had pounded in triumph. The dragon reached deep inside himself, summoning the magical energies that coursed through his form. He tried to channel them, pull her to him. Skie. He had heard her voice again, little more than a whisper this time.

Then her spirit had vanished once more, and Khellendros knew in his heart she was no longer on Krynn. He had turned to the stone portals, then, hoping that Kitiara’s spirit had slipped into another dimension he could access through the gateways. He mastered traveling through the mystical, ancient portals, maneuvering through the hazy dimensions where faeries dwell and men’s shades drift.

For what seemed centuries to him, he searched. In that time he grew, becoming an ancient wyrm of immense proportions and awesome power. He memorized the foggy passages and slipstreams between realms and planes, discovered races unknown to Krynn, and grasped enchantments long forgotten by mortals. When he believed there was nowhere else for him to search, no dusky dimension left to be explored, he had stumbled upon The Gray.

It was a land without land, a misty domain filled with swirling gray vapors and teeming with spirits. Few creatures of any substance seemed to dwell there— save Khellendros the Portal Master. The great blue dragon hadn’t intended to stay there very long, but he had sensed something precious and familiar to him, a hint of Kitiara. So he continued to search, perhaps for another century. Time passed differently beyond the portals, speeding by as it crawled on Krynn, and the only way the dragon knew this was his increasing growth rate. But time was irrelevant to Khellendros— only Kitiara and mending his shattered pledge mattered.

Finally he had found her, touching her spirit briefly, as if his mind were a hand caressing a loved one’s cheek. She had acknowledged his presence, had asked him to stay at her side in The Gray that had become her home. “Soon we shall be together. Always,” he had whispered. Then he had departed to return through the portal to Krynn.

“We shall be partners again,” Khellendros said as he drew his thoughts back to the present and watched his shadow pass over the twisting Vingaard River. “I shall find suitable flesh for your spirit.”

The expansive grasslands of Hinterlund spread out below him, the wind from his wings rippling the grass. A large herd of deer stopped grazing and glanced up. Panicked at the sight of the dragon, they bolted in a dozen different directions. Khellendros was hungry, and the herd was tempting, but filling his belly would have to wait. First, he would tend to Kitiara’s new form.

During his trip through the portals he had learned a powerful enchantment that would allow him to displace the spirit from a body and put a different one inside. He would choose the body of a warrior, young and healthy, well-muscled and satisfying to the eye— something Kitiara would be happy with.

An elf warrior, Khellendros decided. Elves lived much longer than humans and the other races of Krynn, and the dragon, virtually immortal himself, wanted a body for Kitiara that would weather the decades. When the elven form finally grew feeble and old, he would get her another. He would not let her die again.

The morning and Hinterlund dissolved behind him, with no sign of elves anywhere. The desolate stretches of the Northern Wastes came into view. Waves of blessed afternoon heat rose up from the ground and stroked the underside of his wings. He loved the pulsing warmth of the Wastes’ desert, and he would have enjoyed stretching out on the sand and letting the sun caress his scales. But he hadn’t the time to squander on personal pleasures, and he knew there were no elves in the Wastes.

Though elves come and go from Palanthas, he mused. I need only wait outside the city until I see an acceptable one. Perhaps I shall snare a few and experiment.

He angled his great form toward the west. The country of Palanthas lay beyond the desert, and the city of Palanthas sat on the far coast, nestled between a harbor on the Turbidus Ocean and a range of mountains. It would not take him too long to get there, probably no more than three days if he continued to push himself. Or perhaps he could find another portal and get there faster.

He would eat and rest after he found a few elves. Then he would—

Khellendros’s thoughts were interrupted by something he spied on the sand far below. The figure jumped and glided, flapped its small wings and waved its arms to get the dragon’s attention.

Khellendros focused his keen eyes on the creature. A witless kapak. What could it want? The blue dragon soared past the beckoning creature, but questions about the draconian intruded on his thoughts. Why would it dare bother me? Could it be important? Maybe I should....

Curiosity finally overcoming him, he folded his wings close to his side, reversed his course, and dropped to the desert floor. One brief interruption would not matter. He welcomed the chance to feel the hot sand—if only for a few moments.

The kapak did not fear the dragon. All draconians respected dragons, were in awe of them and their wondrous abilities. The kapak was especially impressed by Khellendros’s size. The moment Khellendros landed, the draconian rushed toward him, waving its arms about to ward off the shower of sand stirred up from the blue’s massive wings. It started chattering.

“Slower,” Khellendros ordered.

“The Dark Queen,” the kapak hoarsely barked. Its voice was scratchy, its mouth and throat dry from being in the Wastes for so long. “My mistress, our mistress, Takhisis, wants the dragons to gather.”

Khellendros raised his massive brow in an unspoken question.

The kapak pursed its cracked lips and struggled to remember its orders. “Here,” it said finally. “Takhisis wants the blue dragons to gather here... in the desert. Draconians, too, if I find any. Gather them together in the desert, the Dark Queen said. In the desert—”

“Why?” Khellendros interrupted before the kapak could continue.

“A battle in the Abyss,” it huffed. “Takhisis wants the blue dragons to gather here in the desert. Others are gathering elsewhere. She will call us all to the Abyss. There will be a glorious battle.”

Khellendros growled, and the kapak stepped back. “I haven’t the time for battles,” the dragon spat. He raised his lips in a sneer, and lightning flickered across his teeth.

“But Takhisis...”

Khellendros closed his eyes, concentrated, and stretched his thoughts outward in an effort to touch the Queen of Darkness’s mind, to verify what the fool draconian was saying. The great blue pictured his multiheaded dragon goddess as clearly as if she were before him, but he could not establish contact with her. He surmised that his goddess was preoccupied with divine concerns, and he suspected the kapak didn’t know what it was blathering about. A battle in the Abyss? Unlikely. If there was one, the all-powerful dragon goddess would not need help. What was more likely was that the heat had driven the simple kapak mad. But its body is in good condition. The blue dragon scrutinized the kapak.

“Takhisis wants the blue dragons to gather in the desert,” it repeated.

The kapak’s body had a hint of magic about it—and the essence of a dragon. Suitable for a woman with the heart of a dragon, Khellendros mused. More suitable than the body of an elf.

“There will be a battle in the Abyss,” the kapak droned, unaware that the dragon was scarcely listening. “Takhisis says the Irda broke the Graygem and released Chaos. The allfather is angry, wants to destroy Krynn. Everyone must fight Chaos in the Abyss, Takhisis says.”

Khellendros’s mind buzzed with thoughts. Draconians are immune to human diseases. They live a thousand years. Kitiara would approve. The great blue dragon knew that the kapak, and all other draconians, were created by the Queen of Darkness to serve as her minions—messengers, spies, assassins, soldiers.

From the eggs of good dragons she fashioned these sterile draconian forms and encased the essence of tanar’ri, evil spirits of the Abyss, inside them. This kapak came from the egg of a copper dragon. It was a superior form.

Khellendros edged closer until his huge snout was inches from the kapak. He snaked a paw forward, and his claws closed gingerly about the surprised draconian.

“What?” it snapped.

“You’re coming with me,” Khellendros replied.

“To the Abyss?”

“To my lair.”

“But Takhisis! Chaos! No!” With the kapak’s last word it spit a gob of saliva on the dragon’s claw and began struggling.

Venomous and caustic, the liquid hissed and popped. With a growl, Khellendros released the kapak and thrust his paw into the sand to soothe the annoying sensation.

The kapak stepped back and stared, finally realizing that the dragon was not going to follow its precious instructions. It whirled and dashed across the sand, intending to tell Takhisis, whenever she touched his mind, that this insolent blue dragon had disobeyed her. The draconian madly flapped its wings and leapt into the air, and glided about a dozen feet before it landed on the sand and leapt upward again, still flapping furiously.

A rumble started in Khellendros’s belly as he watched the draconian try to flee. Only one type of draconian could truly fly, he knew, those made from the eggs of silver dragons. The kapak’s attempts at flight were pitiful, laughable.

But you shall be able to fly, Kitiara, the blue dragon thought, as the rumble raced up his throat and he unfurled his wings. Khellendros rose from the sand as he opened his maw, and the rumble erupted as a lightning bolt that struck the ground in front of the fleeing kapak.

The startled draconian twisted to the right and pumped its legs harder, sending a shower of sand behind its stubby tail.

Another bolt landed several yards in front of it, spewing sand everywhere as the desert sky boomed with thunder. The kapak shuddered as a bolt landed behind it. The creature cringed and swung again to the right, its feet churning over the ground. But it was instantly overtaken by Khellendros’s shadow, and skidding to a stop, looked up to see the blue dragon’s belly.

Khellendros’s claw reached down, snatched the kapak by a leathery wing, and climbed high into the sky. The dragon sped to the north with its struggling, spitting prize, uninterested in its banter about the Abyss and concentrating instead on the sound of the wind whistling merrily about his blue wings.

When night brought its cooling touch to the desert, and the stars began to wink into view, Khellendros descended toward the base of a slight rocky ridge. There was a single moon in the sky, a large pale one. It was unlike any of the three moons that had revolved around Krynn since the world’s creation—the red Lunitari, the white Solinari, and the black Nuitari. But the dragon was thinking only of Kitiara and the draconian in its grasp, and the pale moon went unnoticed.

There was little fight left in the kapak, so the blue dragon tossed it on the sand and set about digging near a recess in the ridge. His long claws stabbed into the desert floor and ripped upward, pulling with them dirt, sand, and rocks. The kapak cowered, afraid the blue dragon meant to bury it alive. But as the night grew older, the hole grew bigger. The moon rose higher and its light exposed an immense cavern.

Not long after, dawn found the Northern Wastes, but the shadow created by the ridge effectively hid the entrance to the dragon’s reclaimed lair. Khellendros quickly shoved the kapak toward the opening and followed it inside.

“The Dark Queen—” the draconian started to say. Its voice was soft and cracked after each word, its leathery lips swollen from lack of moisture.

“Created you,” Khellendros finished, as he looked about his home. The blue dragon was pleased that nothing had been disturbed while he was gone, that no other dragon had discovered the huge underground cave and seized it along with its vast treasures. Piles of coins and gems feebly flickered and sparkled in the faint light that spilled in from the entrance. His hoard, covered by a faint layer of sand and dust, was intact, and soon he would share it with Kitiara.

“Takhisis—”

“Gave you a weak mind,” the blue dragon interrupted. “But she gave you a fine, strong body, and I shall use it well.”

The kapak trembled. Its lips formed pleas, but no sound came out, and its heart beat wildly in its chest. A dragon threatening one of Takhisis’s minions? It isn’t right, the kapak’s mind screamed. The creature watched in horror as Khellendros settled himself nearby. With a sharp talon, the blue dragon began to etch a pattern into the stone, his gaze drifting between his work and his kapak prisoner.

The minutes stretched by until finally Khellendros was finished, and he crooked a claw toward the draconian, beckoning it. Numbly, the kapak complied, shuffling forward until it stood in the center of the design.

“I learned spells,” Khellendros hissed, talking to himself more than to the draconian. “I learned ancient enchantments that Krynn’s pathetic human sorcerers would barter all they own for.” The dragon extended a talon until it touched the kapak’s breastbone. The draconian cringed and inhaled sharply as it was dragged downward. Blood and coppery scales spilled on the stone floor. “I learned how to displace minds.”

As Khellendros withdrew the talon, the draconian clutched at its wounded chest, forced itself not to cry out and reveal pain and weakness. The dragon began mumbling words that were foreign, rich and deep. They filled the underground cavern and added to the kapak’s fear. The blue dragon’s sonorous voice quickened, and he looked straight into the draconian’s eyes as the spell ended.

The kapak’s resolve melted into a single, piercing scream. It dropped to its knees, and threw its clawed hands up to the sides of its throbbing head. Its tail lashed madly about, and the muscles along its legs and arms jumped and quivered. A thin sheen of sweat formed over its scaly hide.

Khellendros waited, heedless of his captives agony, watching as the kapak fell forward. It gasped for air, twitched wildly, and retched. After several long moments, its writhing movements slowed, then stopped. Its chest heaving, it slowly picked itself up off the floor and fearfully regarded the dragon.

“Takhisis—”

“No!” Khellendros cried. He batted at the kapak, sending it careening into the cavern’s wall. The thing’s mind should have been gone, its spirit displaced. It should have been unable to think or speak. The draconian should have been nothing more than an empty husk, immobile, but living. It should’ve been awaiting Kitiara’s essence. “Takhisis’s magic is too strong!”

The dragon crawled forward as a lone tear of frustration spilled from his eye. The drop rolled down his azure cheek and dripped onto the diagram, mingling with the kapak’s blood and scales. Khellendros stared at the etching as it began to spark and shimmer with blue and pale gold.

“But my magic is strong, too,” the blue dragon said. “Perhaps a cloning enchantment might work.” Again he started mumbling, old words from another spell learned from his portal-hopping. As his voice increased in intensity, the shimmering brightened. The glow expanded and formed a column of scintillating copper and blue lights. It sputtered and sparked, then a shard of bright blue light flew from the column and struck the kapak. The draconian screamed again.

Khellendros concentrated on the column, which had begun to take on a different shape. Through the gleam of lights the dragon could see muscular limbs, a thick chest and a dragonlike head taking shape. As the lights faded, wings sprouted from the creature’s back, and a long tail grew to the floor. The creature vaguely resembled the kapak, but was sleeker, with dark blue scales the color of the sea at sunset. Its eyes were golden, like the blue dragon’s, and a spiked ridge ran from the crest of its high forehead to the tip of its tail. Miniature lightning bolts crackled about the thing’s claws, and its breath sounded like soft rain.

“My tear,” Khellendros said in a hushed tone. “It altered the spell, created something different

“Master,” the blue creation croaked.

The dragon’s eyes grew wide and he cast his glance between the cowering kapak and the new creature. The kapak, huddled like a frightened child, glanced at the dragon, then lowered its gaze.

“Spawn of Khellendros,” the dragon pronounced. He decided to call the creature a khellspawn. He was tremendously pleased with himself. His ego soared.

Then it crashed with the realization that naming the creature after himself might give away his secret prematurely. “For now, I shall just call you... spawn.” He grimaced at the meager word and looked at his creation, which resembled him so in beauty and bearing. He was swept up in his own magnificence and the words rushed from his sizeable maw, “Perhaps I shall call you blue spawn.” He figured he deserved that much credit, at least.

“Master,” the spawn said again. The word was stronger this time. The creature balled its fists, rotated its reptilian head, and crouched to test its rippling leg muscles. Its wings flapped slightly, disturbing the faint layer of sand and dust in the cavern and rising a few inches above the stone floor.

I could not displace the mind of the kapak because Takhisis’s magic is too strong, Khellendros mused. But perhaps I could displace the mind of the spawn. Kitiara’s spirit would have an exquisite form then.

“Master?” a pained expression crossed the spawn’s scaly face. The creature’s eyes dulled, and its form grew transparent. Its body quavered and rippled, like waves of heat above hot desert sand. Then it disappeared, leaving behind a faint blue glow that folded in about itself and extinguished.

Khellendros’s angry roar rocked the cavern. “I shall not be defeated!” the great dragon spat. He rose on his haunches until his head grazed the stony roof.

The kapak clung to the shadows and crept away from Khellendros, edging toward the exit from the lair.

“I shall succeed!” the blue dragon bellowed as a massive paw shot forward and trapped the kapak. “I shall experiment with you again—and again.”


Many months later Khellendros was well-rested, sated, and pleased. A quartet of blue spawn stood deep in his lair, and he had spent the past few hours admiring them.

The kapak that helped fuel their creation lay on the cavern floor, exhausted and sore. Its thirst had been quenched, and it, too, had recently eaten. The blue dragon was making sure it stayed reasonably healthy so he could use it again.

Khellendros knew his blue spawn, his children, were more powerful than the kapak, possibly more powerful than even the auraks—the greatest of the Dark Queen’s draconians. It had taken the ancient spell coupled with the kapak’s blood and scales, his own tears, and four humans gathered from a nomadic barbarian tribe north of his lair. The bodies gave substance to the spawn, kept the forms from fading. The human minds were blended with the kapak’s to create a new creature, one that was thoroughly and magically loyal to Khellendros.

“One of you shall have the honor of housing Kitiara,” the blue dragon whispered. He padded from his lair, spread his wings, and headed toward Nightlund.

Behind him and forgotten, the kapak struggled to its clawed feet. For several long moments it studied the blue-scaled spawn. They returned its stare, but said nothing, did nothing. Khellendros had not given them any orders, had not told them they could speak. Miniature lightning bolts crackled about their sharp black claws, and their eyes seemed to glow like smoldering embers.

They are beautiful, the kapak thought. It was angry and astonished that a bit of its own mind, and some of its scales, kindled the magic that birthed them. Birth. The word hung in its dense head.

“Auraks should know,” it said, referring to its brother draconians that were made from the corrupted eggs of gold dragons. “They should know about this. And the sivaks.” The kapak knew that the auraks and the sivaks were the smartest and most cunning of the draconians. Perhaps they could use this magic to make draconians procreate, to make them no longer sterile. Perhaps they would reward the kapak for this information.

The scheming kapak stumbled from Khellendros’s lair, a self-appointed mission powering its uneven steps.


The miles melted beneath Khellendros’s wings. It was dark when he reached Nightlund, and the pale moon that hung in the clear sky overhead illuminated a scene that was the same—yet different—than what he had observed many months ago. The great blue dragon skimmed over the tops of the old trees and dropped toward the ground. He glided to a stop near a small hillock, and stared at the circle of stones that sat there. The fog was gone, the ancient stones visible to anyone.

Khellendros was puzzled, but he strode forward, his footfalls sounding like muffled thunder. His body too large to fit between the stones, he pushed off with his legs and landed in their center. Catlike, he wrapped his tail about his haunches.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, pictured the misty realm of The Gray, thought about Kitiara. Khellendros saw himself floating through the haze, moving closer to his once-partner, calling out to her, being reunited, telling her about his blue spawn and her new body. But when he opened his eyes he was still inside the ring.

“No!” The blue dragon’s scream cut across the Nightlund countryside. A deep sound raced up his throat and formed a bolt of lightning that shot out from his mouth and sped far into the sky.

Khellendros slammed his eyes shut, concentrating again. He repeated the spell over and over in his head, pictured himself moving beyond Krynn, to other dimensions. Again nothing happened.

In anger, he thrashed his tail about, striking one of the stones and toppling it. “The magic!” he hissed. “The magic does not come! The portal does not open!”

He breathed another bolt of lighting, striking a stone and sending it into a shower of pebbles that harmlessly bounced off his thick hide. Then he called clouds to form, heavy black ones that quickly filled the sky and yielded a terrible storm to match his raging temper. The wind picked up and was soon howling. Rain smacked into the earth, lightning flashed, and thunder rocked the landscape.

“Another portal,” he hissed over the storm’s wailing. “I shall fly to another portal.” His legs tensed, ready to push him into the sky.

“Another portal will not work.”

The voice sounded hollow, little more than a whisper, but it froze the great dragon in place. He cast his massive head about, looking for the speaker who would dare intrude on his portal. His keen eyes saw nothing but the rain, the storm-flattened grass, and the ancient stones.

“The magic is gone from this portal, from all of the portals.”

“Who are you?” the dragon boomed in a voice that could be heard above the thunder.

“No one of consequence,” the voice replied.

“How do you know this?”

“I know there is little magic left on Krynn.”

“Reveal yourself!” Khellendros snapped, as his tail lashed out again and knocked over two more stones.

“Careful!” the speaker cautioned, at last showing himself.

One of the ancient stones pulled back from the circle, shimmered dully, shrank, and, like clay being worked by a skilled potter, formed itself into a small, humanlike image. The man was little more than a foot tall, naked and gray. He had no ears, only tiny holes on the sides of his head, and his eyes were large and black, without pupils. His fingers were reed thin and pointed, like his small teeth.

The dragon moved forward, raised a paw, and drove it down to squash the little man. But the speaker was fast. He darted to the side, clung to one of the stones, and made “tsk-tsk” sounds.

“Killing me will not make the portals work.”

“What are you?” Khellendros boomed.

“A huldrefolk,” the man replied.

“A faerie,” the blue dragon hissed, his eyes narrowing.

“You know of us?”

Khellendros lowered his head until his nose was mere inches from the huldrefolk’s small form. “One of Krynn’s lost races,” the dragon intoned flatly. “A shapeshifter, a master of elements. A master of earth?”

The gray man nodded his bald head.

“You live in The Gray.”

“Or wherever suits my tastes. Suited,” he quickly corrected himself.

“I want to access The Gray,” Khellendros growled.

“As do I,” the huldrefolk said. “I prefer it to other realms. But the magic is gone from this world. The battle in the Abyss saw to that.”

“The Abyss?” Khellendros’s golden eyes grew wide. The kapak had mentioned a battle in the Abyss, but the dragon had paid no attention to the creature and its ramblings.

“Weren’t you there?” the huldrefolk began. “I thought all the dragons were in the Abyss, summoned by Takhisis.”

“I was... elsewhere.” The blue dragon’s words were iced with menace. “What happened to provoke such a battle?”

“The Graygem—the stone that held the essence of Chaos, the all-father—was shattered. He was released, and he was furious he’d been imprisoned for so many centuries. He threatened to destroy Krynn as punishment to his children, who had trapped him in the gem. So his children, the lesser gods, joined together to fight him. The dragons helped, as well as many humans—plus elves, kender, and the like.”

“Takhisis?”

“She’s gone,” the small man said.

“How could she abandon her children, especially if they fought at her behest?”

“In the end all the gods abandoned their children. Chaos could not be truly bested, though somehow his essence was captured again in the Graygem. The lesser gods vowed to leave Krynn if Chaos would promise not to destroy it. And when he agreed, they left, taking the three moons and magic with them. There’s only one moon now.”

Khellendros stared up at the large orb so unlike the other moons. “All the magic is gone?”

The huldrefolk shrugged. “The magic that powers the portals—that’s gone. The magic sorcerers call on to cast their spells is gone too. There’s a little magic left here and there in the earth, in old weapons and baubles, and in creatures like you and me,” he continued. “But that’s all. They call this the Age of Mortals, but I call it the Age of Despair.”

Khellendros stared beyond the huldrefolk, through the sheets of rain that continued to drive against the ground. “Magical items still have power?”

The huldrefolk nodded.

“The tower in Palanthas,” the dragon said. “There are magical items stored there, lots of them. Kitiara told me about them once, and about a portal below the tower that leads to the Abyss.”

“The fight in the Abyss is over,” the small man interrupted. “You missed it, remember? Which was probably a good thing, because you might have died. At least half the dragons who fought are dead. The men who fought there are dead or gone. And there’s nothing you could do there now except pick over the bones.”

Khellendros seemed not to hear him. “I shall use the magical items in the tower to open the portal, and from the Abyss I can access The Gray. I shall yet succeed and save Kitiara.”

“Aren’t you listening to me?” the gray man persisted. “The gods are gone. The world is different. Doesn’t any of this matter to you?”

Only Kitiara matters, Khellendros thought. He tensed his legs, pushed off from the ground, and joined the terrible storm.

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