The Dawning of a New Age Page 2

  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 Kh
ellendros,” 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.