LEGENDS OF THE DRAGONREALM

I

THE BONE-NUMBING winds of the great Northern Wastes tore at the cloaks of the two riders, seeking to remove their only real protection. One rider paid the wind no mind though it often threatened to thrust him from the back of his steed. The other rider, his form, like that of his companion, hidden by the enveloping cloak, would glance from time to time at the first one as if seeking some response. After a moment or two, he would return his gaze to the endless white world before them—and specifically to the jagged, treacherous range of ice-encrusted peaks near the horizon.

He urged his steed forward, knowing that the other would follow if he could convince his own. His urging however only succeeded in gaining a slight increase in speed; the mounts had suffered greatly and were, in fact, the last of six that he had started out with.

The slow movements of the steeds angered him, but he knew his choices had been limited. The mounts he would have desired would have been dead long before, the cold of the Northern Wastes having an even more pronounced effect on those creatures than the horses he and the other rode.

Already he felt sick of the cold, sick of the snow and ice—but what choice did he have? The others were fighting among themselves or, worse yet, were dead or turned traitor, which was the same thing in his eyes. He let loose a hiss of anger, disturbing both horses. It took him several moments to calm them down. His companion made no move despite the jumpiness of his own steed. There was no need to. His legs had been tied to his horse by the other rider.

It was a necessity.

But for a few birth markings …

The snowbank before him rose, and continued to rise.

It towered over him and his companion, blotting out the landscape before them.

The snowbank grew eyes, pale, ice-blue eyes—and tremendous claws designed for digging through frozen earth and easily tearing through soft flesh.

The first of the guardians of the one he sought.

He had now two choices, it seemed. Either kill the guardian or be killed, and neither was particularly wise.

The horses began turning and bucking. Only the rider’s skill kept his own animal from throwing him and only the rope fastened from his own animal to the other kept him from losing his companion. The other rider teetered back and forth like some toy, but his hands were also tied to his mount’s saddle, preventing him from falling too far.

The lead rider raised his hand and made a fist. He could not, of course, allow either of them to die, which meant he had to halt the guardian. He began to mutter under his breath, knowing that it would require a strong spell to turn, much less destroy, this creature.

“Halt.”

The sorcerer paused, checking but not canceling his magical assault. He peered through the snowstorm the guardian had caused in rising and finally noticed the figure to his front right. The mage blinked.

It walked stiffly toward him, one hand holding a staff which he was sure controlled the great snow beast. A blue gem pulsated on the top of the staff. The figure holding the staff was not human.

“You are in the domain of the Ice Dragon.” Its voice was emotionless and reminiscent of the whirling wind. There was something about it, something that made it difficult to see until it was practically on top of the sorcerer. “Only one thing prevents your death …and that is that you are one of the master’s kin, are you not, drake?”

“You know who I am, servant. You know your master will see me.”

“That is up to the Ice Dragon.”

The firedrake hissed. “Tell him it is Duke Toma who awaits!”

The declaration did not impress the odd-looking servant. Toma studied it with narrowed eyes—narrowed eyes that widened when he saw the thing’s true nature. His estimation of the Ice Dragon’s powers grew and the nagging fear of the Dragon King, which he had kept safely locked in the back of his mind, poured over his mental barriers.

Necromancer!

The servant turned. It was a thing of ice, a caricature of a man made all the more horrible because its binding structure, its skeleton, was a figure frozen within its core. The corpse, whether man or drake or elf or some other creature of similar form, was impossible to identify and moved within the ice man like a twisted puppet. Leg moved with leg, arm with arm, head with head. It was as if someone was wearing an all-encompassing suit—save that, in this case, the suit was wearing the someone. Toma wondered about what had occurred here in the months since his escape from the battle between the human mages, the cursed Bedlams.

Thinking of the Bedlams, Azran and Cabe, reinforced the drake’s resolve. He knew that Cabe had won and that the Dragon Kings were in disarray. Black was secluded in his domain, Lochivar, and the Gray Mists, which covered that land, were so thin that there had been talk of confronting this one particular King at last.

The servant raised its staff toward the behemoth, which had remained silent and unmoving since its initial rise. The tip of the staff was pointed at where Toma estimated the huge creature’s head might be.

The leviathan began to sink back into the snow and ice. The two drakes’ horses, only barely under control, now panicked. Duke Toma had to raise his hand and draw a pattern in the air. The horses calmed.

Turning back to the two visitors, the servant indicated Toma’s companion. “And him? He also wishes to visit my lord?”

Nearly identical to Toma in form save in height and color, the Gold Dragon stared forward mindlessly. A bit of drool flowed from the left corner of his mouth and his forked tongue darted in and out at random. He would not, or perhaps could not, return to his dragon form, and so Toma had also remained in his semi-human warrior form. They were two scale-armored knights with helms topped by intricate dragon faces, their true faces. Within the helm itself, bloodred eyes stared out. Though harder by far than any normal mail armor, what they wore was not clothing but their own skins. Long ago, their ancestors could have assumed some other form, but continual contact with humans and the realization of the advantages of a humanoid form had made this second shape something learned from the time of birth. It had become as natural to them as breathing.

The Ice Dragon’s servant bowed its head briefly in the direction of the Kings of Kings, acknowledging or mocking the mindless monarch’s sovereignty. Toma hissed loudly.

“Well? May we go on, or are we to make camp here and wait for spring?” Spring had not come to the Northern Wastes since before the rule of the Dragon Kings. Now, the land was buried under a perpetual coat of snow and ice.

The creature stepped aside and pointed the staff at the mountains toward which the drakes had been riding. “My lord knows of your presence. He is coming to meet you.” This, at last, seemed to impress the servant. “He has not come to the surface since returning from the last Council of Kings.”

The surface?

The chilling wind picked up, going from a constant annoyance to a howling, storming, chaotic whirlwind before Toma could even pull the hood back over his father’s head. The temperature, already distressingly uncomfortable for a firedrake, became truly numbing, almost threatening to lower both riders’ temperatures below a safe minimum. Visibility dropped to nothing, so that all that Toma could see was snow. He only knew his father’s horse remained near thanks to the rope.

Something very large came to rest before them. Toma reinforced the restraining spell he had laid on the horses.

“Myyyy greetingsss to you, Duke Toma, hatchling of my brother, my king. My home issss open to you and our majesty.”

The Ice Dragon loomed tall, wings spread, maw open wide. He was huge, greater in length than even Gold. This was not the Ice Dragon who had last visited the King of Kings just prior to the chaos. This was a creature in every way more frightening than either of his bizarre servants. Thin to the point of emaciation, so much so that each rib was apparent, the Ice Dragon might have been some ghoulish thing risen from the dead. Even the eyes, which never seemed to settle on dead white or icy blue, were those of something that measured life by other standards. Its head itself was long and lean and from its maw clouds of cold air erupted regularly.

A transformation had been wrought on the Lord of the Northern Wastes in the months that had passed since that last visit. This was not the Dragon King Toma had expected and almost definitely not one that he wanted, either.

It was too late to turn back and the firedrake could not have even if he had wanted to. This creature was his best hope of restoring his father and, therefore, Toma’s own dream of rule from behind the throne. The question now, however, was how similar his goals and those of the Ice Dragon actually were anymore.

The frost-covered leviathan spread its ice-encrusted wings and smiled as only a dragon can smile at his tiny relations. There seemed no real emotion behind that smile, though. Nothing.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the Ice Dragon said at last.

II

TO HIS HORROR-STRICKEN eyes, the blade seemed twice the length of a full-grown man. From the handle, two horns, much like those of a ram, curled outward, giving the sword an evil appearance. The weapon was called the Horned Blade, a creation of the mad warlock Azran Bedlam, and it was evil. Cabe knew that all too well, for not only had he wielded the demonic sword himself, but he was also Azran’s son.

“Your blood is mine,” hissed the figure now wielding Azran’s toy. He stalked without difficulty toward the young mage who, in his panic, could not seem to find his footing. Cabe stumbled away from the huge, armored figure, trying to recall a spell, trying to find a way out of the lifeless stretch of baked mud called the Barren Lands. How long he had been running, he could not say. It did not matter. In the end, his foe had stayed with him.

This was a drake, one of the creatures that ruled the lands known collectively and singly as the Dragonrealm. More so, this was one of those chief among those who ruled—and who now chose to give the human his personal attention. There were only a dozen like him and only one of the others would this one call lord.

Cabe was alone and at the mercy of a Dragon King.

Something caught him by the foot and he went crashing down onto the centuries-old, stone-hard earth. He was blinded momentarily as his face swung toward the relentless sun. When his eyes cleared moments later, he saw what had brought him down.

A hand. A huge, clawed hand that had emerged from the ground itself. Even now, it refused to relinquish its grip.

Cabe struggled and struggled and only after several seconds did he remember the greater threat. Only when the one shadow for miles draped over him did he recall and then it was almost too late.

“Your blood is mine,” the Dragon King repeated with a satisfied hiss. He was as pale a brown as the dried earth below him and this made no sense to Cabe.

The demon sword came rushing down—only to miss by inches as the young sorcerer succeeded in rolling aside despite the hand gripping his ankle.

His new point of view found him face-to-face with a long snout and narrow, savage eyes. A creature reminiscent of an armadillo—but no armadillo grew this large. The thing hooted once and then rose from beneath the ground, revealing a form taller and wider than any human and huge, clawed hands identical to the one holding Cabe by the ankle.

“Shall I let them rend you limb from limb?” the Dragon King asked sweetly. “Or would you prefer the kiss of this blade, Cabe Bedlam?”

Cabe tried to recall a spell, but, again, he failed. Something had severed his ties to his power. He was helpless and unarmed. But how?

In his mind, there suddenly came an image—an image of hate and fear. An image of his father, Azran. He was as Cabe had seen him last, handsome with a groomed beard and his hair exactly half silver, as if he had dyed one side of his head. The silver was the mark of a human mage and Cabe had such a mark in his own hair, a vast streak that seemed ready to devour the dark color of the rest of his hair.

“You would not be mine, my son; therefore, you will be theirs.” Azran smiled benevolently for no other reason than that he was very, very insane.

As if on command, the Quel who had risen from the earth took hold of his wrists. Cabe struggled, but the tremendous strength of the creature was too much.

Cabe shook his head in disbelief. He knew which of the Dragon Kings stood above him now—one that should not have been able.

“You’re dead!”

The Brown Dragon, lord of the Barren Lands, laughed—and plunged the Horned Blade into Cabe’s chest. …

“YAAAH!”

With a start, Cabe woke from the dream, only to stare straight into the inhuman eyes of another drake, which resulted in a second shout. The drake ducked down and scurried out of sight as fast as its four legs could carry it.

Light burst forth from everywhere, bathing the room in brilliance. He caught a glimpse of a green, leathery tail disappearing through a half-open doorway. A hand gripped his shoulder. He only barely succeeded in stifling yet a third shout.

Gwen leaned over, her hair a long, fire-red tangle, save for a great streak of silver. Even though it was dark, her emerald eyes captured his attention as she sought to calm him. He briefly wondered how she always managed to stay so perfect. It was not all due to her magic, which, in its own way, was greater than his and certainly better honed.

“It was one of the hatchlings, Cabe. It’s all right. The poor thing must’ve gotten loose. Probably nibbled through the grate.” She moved toward his front side and he saw that she had conjured up a robe of forest green. Lady of the Amber, she was called, because of her imprisonment within that substance generations before by Cabe’s father, but she might well have been called the Green Lady or the Lady of the Forest, such was her love for nature and the color which represented it best.

With a quick gesture, she made the door shut. This time, it would take more than a curious young dragon’s bumping to open it.

“No.” He shook his head, as much to clear it as to correct her misconceptions concerning his screams. This was not the Barren Lands, he kept telling himself. This was a room in the palace of the Gryphon who ruled Penacles, the City of Knowledge in the southeastern portion of the Drag-onrealm. He and Gwen, friends and allies of the inhuman ruler, were here as the monarch’s guests.

The Dragon Kings. He thought of the one in the dream and shuddered anew. The reptilian creatures were now trying to reclaim their once-mighty power from the human vermin. Though their power had been absolute once, there had always been few of the intelligent drakes and, therefore, they had allowed, perhaps even trained, the first humans in the duties of trade and farming. From that point on, there had been no stopping the growth of the younger race. Only after it was too late did the Dragon Kings realize that they might have trained their own successors—and the drakes had no intention of surrendering control without a fight. Were it not for the fact that they lacked numbers and even needed the humans, the reptilian lords would have started a full genocidal war long ago. The only thing that had held the humans back was the incredible, savage power of the drakes that more than made up for there being so few.

Gwen looked at him, the picture of concern and patience. Cabe chose to downplay the dream. It was something he must deal with alone. Instead, forcing his voice to a semblance of annoyance, he said, “I’d like to find something that will keep those lesser drakes penned up long enough for us to arrive at the Manor. They’ll escape one time too often during the journey and it’s important we don’t lose even one.”

“Another dream?” The concern in her voice was as evident as that on her face. She had had no trouble seeing through his poor attempt at deception and refused to be sidetracked by anything else.

Cabe grimaced and ran a hand through his hair where the silver which marked both him and his love as magic-users vied for dominance with the darker strands. Of late, the streak in Cabe’s hair seemed to have taken on a life of its own; it was difficult to say what pattern his hair color might take each day. Sometimes it was nearly completely silver, sometimes it tended toward the dominance of his original hair color. As entertaining and amusing as the sight might seem to some, it definitely worried the young magic-user. The shifting had begun soon after he and Gwen had married two months before. She could not explain it and he could draw no knowledge from the memories of the archmage Nathan, his grandfather, who had bequeathed to him, at birth, much of his own soul and power.

“Shade?” She arched an eyebrow, something she did quite beautifully, so Cabe thought. “That could be it. That damned no-faced warlock might have escaped from wherever the Gryphon said Darkhorse had taken him.”

“I don’t think so. Darkhorse was a powerful demon and if anyone could keep Shade trapped in the Void, it’s him.”

“You have too much faith in the monster.”

He sighed, not wanting to be drawn into the same useless argument they always had concerning the two. Both Darkhorse and Shade were unique, tragic figures to Cabe. Darkhorse was a shadowy steed, part of the Void itself. Shade was a sorcerer who had been too greedy far back in history; he had attempted to harness both the “good” and “bad” aspects of the powers, two contrary pieces of nature, but instead had become a pawn between the two forces, an immortal who served good during one lifetime and who worked hideous evil in the next. Each incarnation sought to break the curse. For that, Shade had attempted to use Cabe as a conduit in a great spell, and only Darkhorse had saved Cabe, but apparently at the cost of his own freedom. What was sad was that Shade and the demon had been the closest of friends during the former’s more pleasant lives.

“It’s not Shade,” Cabe finally decided, “and before you suggest it, I doubt this is Toma’s style, either. I think this has to do with what I am—a war-lock, mage, whatever. This is still all too new to me, that’s all. Sometimes my fears return. Do you know what it’s like to be as confident as—as Nathan, the Dragon Master, was—and then suddenly revert to my untrained self in the midst of doing something?”

There. He had said it. His self-doubts were returning and, with their return, the confidence he had gained from being the legacy of Nathan Bedlam was retreating rapidly. Cabe yearned for the days when he had simply been an innkeeper’s assistant, before the Brown Dragon had sought him out as a sacrifice to return the Barren Lands to the lush fields they had once been.

Men and women were shouting and Cabe realized they had been shouting for some time. It was not the shouting of men in battle or people under attack, but rather the curses of those seeking to herd a frightened minor drake back into its holding pen.

“Do we really have to do this?” The thought of what they would be attempting come the next day was almost as frightening as the nightmares.

Gwen gave him a look which brooked no argument. “The Gryphon made an oath with the Green Dragon and we’re the best ones to see that it holds. When we’re sure that Duke Toma and the remaining Dragon Kings can be kept at a safe distance, then we can move them elsewhere. Right now, the Manor is the best place for the Gold Dragon’s hatchlings. Besides, I think the Gryphon has other worries to deal with besides the Dragon Kings.”

The shouting died down, indicating that the wayward drake was once again under the control of its keepers. Cabe wondered how the other drakes were holding out. Among the young there were seven major drakes, the species from which the Dragon Kings had come. These were intelligent dragons, the true enemy as far as many were concerned. Wyverns, lesser drakes, and such were merely animals, albeit deadly.

He was not fond of the drakes, but neither could he abandon them. The Green Dragon, Master of the Dagora Forest and the sole Dragon King thus far to make peace with humanity, wanted them raised as human as possible. The Gryphon, Lord of Penacles, had agreed in part, but only if, in addition, the hatchlings received equal training from their own kind—a request which both astonished and pleased the reptilian monarch. The Gryphon, who seemed to have little or no background of his own, as far as Cabe knew, was determined that the drakes learn about their own heritage as well as that of mankind. It was a grand experiment, but one that had to succeed if the lands were ever to be at peace.

It fell to Cabe and Gwen to care for them for the time being. As much as the powers of the two were welcomed by the Gryphon in his struggle to raise a people that was not his own, he knew how important this long-term project was and who was best suited for the potential dangers. As long as Toma lived, the hatchlings stood the chance of falling into his hands and being subverted to his cause. The two mages would not be babysitting. If the Gold Dragon was dead or died later on, Toma’s only hope was to plant a new puppet on the Dragon Emperor’s throne. …

“Cabe?”

“Hmmm?” He had not realized he had been ignoring her.

“If nothing else, consider this a trial for the real thing.”

Puzzled, he studied her face. She was smiling devilishly. “Trial for what?”

“Silly.” She settled down next to him. “For when we have children of our own.”

Gwen laughed quietly at the look on his face. For all he appeared physically older than she, thanks to the properties of her amber prison, there were many things he was still naive about.

It was one of the things she liked best about him. One of the things that set him apart from her first love, Nathan Bedlam. The enchantress put a finger on his lips in order to still any further comment. “No more talk. Go back to sleep. You’ll have plenty of time to think about it once the caravan is on its way.”

He smiled and abruptly reached up. Taking her head in his hands, he guided her mouth to his. Even as they kissed, she dismissed the light.

PENACLES WAS PERHAPS the greatest human city in the Dragonrealm, even though its rulers had never been human themselves. From time immemorial, those drake lords who had chosen purple as their mark had ruled in a steady succession. There had always been a Purple Dragon, and so it had been believed that there would always be one. The Dragon Masters and the inhuman mercenary called the Gryphon had succeeded in at least changing that, and it was now the Gryphon who ruled here in the place known as the City of Knowledge. Through his efforts, Penacles rose to new heights, but, because of that success, he was diligently watched by the brooding, angry Dragon Kings. They had still not recovered from the Turning War with the human sorcerers—but watch they did. Waiting. Waiting until Duke Toma rekindled hostilities between the two races for his own ends. Now, even the previously untouchable merchants, they who dealt with both drake and man, were not safe.

Heads turned in the courtyard. The Gryphon was a startling figure in himself, for he was as his name implied. Clad in loose garments designed not to impede his astonishing reflexes, he almost looked human from the neck down, if one ignored the white, clawed hands so much more like talons or the boots that did not totally hide the fact that his feet and legs were more like those of a lion. The swiftness of his movements came not just from his years as a mercenary but also because, like the savage creature whose name and appearance he bore, he was a predator at heart. Every action was a challenge to those around who might dare to oppose him.

It was the head, however, that grasped all attention. Rather than a mouth, he had a great, sharp beak easily capable of tearing flesh, and instead of a normal head of hair, he had a mane like a lion that ended in feathers like that of a majestic eagle. And his eyes. They were neither the eyes of a bird of prey nor the eyes of a human being, but something in between. Something that made even the strongest of soldiers turn away in fear if the Gryphon so desired it.

Cabe and Gwen turned just before he reached them, either due to some power to sense his coming or a chance glance at the awed faces around them. The lionbird was pleased that the two mages showed no such awe. He had enough followers and all too few friends as it was. Waving the guards back, he joined the two.

“I see you have just about everything ready,” said the Gryphon, studying the long caravan.

Cabe, looking worn despite what the Gryphon would have assumed was a good night’s slumber, grimaced. “We would have been done long before now, Lord Gryphon.”

“I have told you time and again—you two need never call me lord. We are friends, I hope.” He cocked his head slightly to the side in a manner reminiscent of his avian aspect.

Gwen, a radiant contrast to her husband, smiled. Even the fierce visage of the Gryphon softened at that sight. “Of course we are your friends, Gryphon. We owe you too much for what you’ve done.”

“This is silly,” Cabe finally decided. “If we’re all such good friends, then nobody owes anybody.”

“Much better.” Even as the lionbird nodded, an unwelcome thought squirmed its way into his mind. They may be lying. They may be anxious to be away from the monstrosity that rules over their fellow humans.

“Is something wrong?” Cabe put a hand on the Gryphon’s shoulder. The monarch forced himself not to brush it away.

“Nothing. Exhaustion, I suppose.” What sort of foolish thoughts had those been, he wondered. There was no reason he should think of such things. He knew these two too well. They were honest about their emotions.

“You should rest more, Gryphon. Even you need sleep.”

“A king’s work is never done.”

“It is when he tumbles over from lack of rest.”

The Gryphon chuckled. “I won’t hold you any longer. The sun is already fairly high in the heavens and I know you want to get started.” He glanced toward the caravan. “How are your charges doing today?”

Gwen indicated the cart that was a little behind their horses. In it were several reptilian figures coiled about one another in slumber. Other than by color, it was impossible to tell where one creature ended and another began. Behind that cart was another one likewise packed. “Last night’s escapades wore them out. They should sleep for at least part of the journey today.”

“If I ever let you begin.” The Gryphon reached out and took the Lady of the Amber’s hand. His features contorted, then blurred. When they re-materialized, they were human. By most human standards, the Gryphon’s new face would have been considered quite handsome. His features were, appropriately, hawklike, the kind that young maidens dreamed their heroes had. He kissed the back of Gwen’s hand.

“Should I be jealous?” Cabe asked innocently.

The enchantress laughed lightly, a sound like tiny bells—at least to the two males near her. “If you aren’t, maybe I should find a reason you should be.”

“This is where I definitely part company with you,” the Gryphon said. He stepped away and his features returned to their normal state. Gwen smiled toward him and then had Cabe help her mount her horse. Cabe then mounted his own steed and took the reins from a well-trained page who had been waiting quietly all this time.

It will fail, he realized. The experiment will fail. The hatchlings should be back with the drakes. With their own kind.

The Gryphon swore. That was not the way it was going to be! This experiment must succeed! It had every chance of succeeding—didn’t it? He felt the uncertainty grow. Oddly, it was not restricted to this one thing. If his judgment concerning the young drakes was incorrect, then so might his judgment concerning any number of things.

He shivered, belatedly realizing it was not from his thoughts. It was cold! Bone-numbing, mind-chilling cold.

As quickly as it had come, the intense cold vanished.

“Milord!” A page, little more than a dozen years in age, perhaps, rushed over to the Gryphon. “General Toos is looking for you! He …he makes it all sound so urgent, your majesty!”

“It will wait a few minutes longer.” He would wait until the caravan was out of sight. The lionbird was astonished at how hard it was to part company with those two. Being both ruler and an outsider, even after all this time, he savored the few close companions he had—and with the Dragon-realm in such turmoil of late, there was always the chance he might not see them again.

When the caravan was out of sight, the Gryphon still stood staring, and only when he heard the messenger fidgeting next to him did he recall that one of his oldest companions, perhaps the one who knew him best, had urgent news for him.

He sighed and turned to the page. The boy was, of course, in awe of the being before him. Most likely his first time delivering a message to one so important as well.

“All right, lad,” he said in his friendliest voice, his worries forcibly pushed to one corner of his mind. “Show me where Toos is so that I can reprimand him for the hundredth time on proper chain of command. After all, he’s supposed to come to me, not the other way around.”

The page smiled and, if only for a moment, the Gryphon’s worries seemed pointless.

III

From their carts, the drake hatchlings watched with guarded expressions. Occasionally, one could tell when the hatchlings grew curious because their eyes would widen to literally twice their normal size. Excitement was the easiest emotion to read. Those of the intelligent drake race, looking like bizarre, two-legged lizards, jumped up and down in copy of the human young they had observed, while the young lesser drakes, pure animal, swayed frantically from side to side, hissing all the while.

As they were doing now.

The forest was suddenly alive with men. Masked men.

They all wore baggy traveling outfits and Cabe suspected that beneath those outfits was armor. It was obvious that this had been planned in advance. The caravan was more than a day’s journey past the borders of Penacles’ lands, and there was nothing in sight now but more and more trees.

“The fools!” Gwen hissed. “The Green Dragon will never tolerate this assault in his own domain!”

“He may not find out about it. We’re far from where you said he makes his home.”

She looked Cabe squarely in the eye. “The master of the Dagora Forest knows everything that happens anywhere in his domain.”

The apparent leader of the band urged his horse a little closer to the group, seemingly unconcerned about his safety, even with two mages present. He was a tall man and probably a veteran of many a fight, judging by his stance and the way his eyes took in everything. There was little else that could be said about him since much was covered to preserve his identity.

“We only want the damn lizards! Give them to us and the rest of you can go on your way!”

“Well?” The spokesman was growing impatient.

Gwen spoke up. “The hatchlings are under our protection and will not be turned over to the likes of you! Depart before it is too late!”

A few of the marauders chuckled, which did nothing to ease the disturbing feelings Cabe was experiencing.

“Sorcerers’ spells won’t touch us, witch, not with these.” He lifted a medallion out of his clothing. From such a long distance, Cabe could make out very little other than that it appeared to be quite worn. Gwen let out a slight gasp.

“Those things are the work of the Seekers,” she whispered. “I’ve seen one or two, battered and broken, but if they have more. …” She did not have to complete the thought. The Seekers, avian predecessors to the drakes, had left behind more than one secret which hinted of a power once far greater than the Dragon Kings at their finest.

“So you see,” began the hooded figure once more, “we don’t have to be nice. We’ve no quarrel with you unless you give us trouble. That’d be bad, considering we have you surrounded and outnumbered.”

“Are those things really that effective?” Cabe muttered.

The Lady of the Amber nodded sourly. “Try casting something and the spell will go haywire some way. I don’t know about prepared spells, but I think it works for those as well.”

“There’s only one way to find out. …”

The marauders were stirring. The leader shifted in his saddle. “You’ve had all the time you need to discuss it. We’ll take them by force if need be. …”

“Touch them and not one of you will live to sssee the morrow. Your bonesss will be picked clean by the birds of the foresssst.”

Marauders and caravan alike jumped at the commanding voice. The spokesman looked this way and that before seeing the single figure riding atop a fierce-looking lesser drake. The riding beast hissed hungrily, disturbing all the horses in the area.

“You are not wanted in or near my forest,” hissed the Green Dragon. Like his brethren, his humanoid form resembled an armored knight wearing an immense and elaborate dragonhelm. He was covered by glittering green scale armor (which was really his own skin). Gleaming red eyes stared out at the assembled examples of humanity.

“I share a common border with the lord of Penacles and I am his ally. I protect hisss side when necessary and I would expect no lessss from him. As for you, the east or the north is where you should be, human. Fight Silver or the remnants of Red’s clans. Challenge the Storm Dragon, but do not presume to hunt in or near my domain. I will not permit it. Tell your benefactor King Melicard that.”

“Melicard?” Cabe whispered to Gwen.

“A rumor, nothing more. They say he supplies them. He hates the drakes as much as they do. Remember, it was Toma’s half brother, that sadistic Kyrg, who drove Melicard’s father, Rennek, mad.”

Cabe nodded slowly, recalling the incident. “Rennek thought he was going to end up as part of Kyrg’s dinner.”

The hooded spokesman started laughing. One could almost picture the sneer hidden by his mask. “There’s nothing you can do against us. These things have put a damper on your powers. I know how to use these. You can’t even shapeshift to your dragon form.”

The Green Dragon was not put out by this news. He reached slowly into a saddle pouch and pulled something out. “Would you care, gelding, to match your bits of bird magic to mine?”

The Master of the Dagora Forest held up something in one clawed hand and muttered sounds akin to the constant call of some raven.

There was a yelp from the marauder leader and a second later the man was working desperately to take the medallion from around his neck and cast it away. It was a waste of time, though. The medallion crumbled as all watched, until all that remained was the chain. The hooded figure quickly removed the chain and tossed it as far away as he could.

“I have not kept control of this domain for so long without reasssson. Did you think my brethren approve of the freedom the people of my landsss have? Those concessionsss were hard fought—and I ussse the last word literally.” The Green Dragon returned the item to the saddle bag. “Depart now and we will forget this incident happened. You serve a purpose to me, but only to a point. Rest assured, I have other tricksss, if it comes down to it.”

“Your war isss with the Council, not hatchlingsss.” The Green Dragon took a breath. When he spoke again, his words were measured and the hiss inherent to his kind was all but unnoticeable. “Now go, or do you wish to test your trinkets against a full-grown dragon again? Be assured that I have eyes watching you even now. They will continue to watch to make certain that you do indeed depart and never return unless invited—which I doubt you would ever be.”

The spokesman hesitated, then finally nodded in defeat, and signaled to his men to retreat. Reluctantly, the marauders departed, the leader last. He seemed to spend most of his time studying the two magic-users, as if they were traitors to their own kind. When the last of his men had disappeared into the forest, he followed.

The Master of the Dagora Forest hissed, but this time it was in satisfaction. “Fools grow rampant these days. The only reason they made it this far into the border lands at all is because I was forced to reprimand one of my own for plotting to take the hatchlings from you just before you reached the Manor.”

“Your own clans?” Gwen’s surprise was evident.

“Drakes will be drakes, as humans will be humans. I have dealt with that one as I have dealt with this one. I suggest you and yours follow close behind me for the rest of your journey. We will save time if I lead you through the secret ways of the forest.”

“Milord …”

“Yes, Cabe Bedlam?” The emphasis on the last name struck hard. The Green Dragon still remembered Nathan and the Dragon Masters, the group of mages who had fought the Kings in the Turning War and reduced the power of the drakes to its present state despite losing in the end.

“That disk …”

“This?” A clawed hand brought forth the item in question. “I have had many an occasion to gather and study the artifacts of our predecessors. The Lady Gwendolyn is not the first to stake claim to the Manor. That place has housed many since it was abandoned in the waning days of the Seekers. I believe the lower levels may even predate them.

The Green Dragon nudged his lesser drake toward the front of the group. As he passed them by, Gwen whispered into Cabe’s ear. “You will find that the Seekers are a pet project of his. It was the original reason he dealt civilly with Nathan. They both wanted to know how such a powerful race could fall so rapidly.”

“Like the Quel?”

She nodded. “These lands have seen many races rule. Each has had its cycle and it appears the time for humans is close at hand. Nathan didn’t want us falling as the others had and the Green Dragon wanted to preserve as much of his people’s ways as possible. For the sake of both races, they shelved their differences.”

It was not what Cabe would have expected from the stories he had heard, but it rang true in his memories, which were partly Nathan’s as well. There was some knowledge of the Seekers back in there, he realized, but it was like trying to find one’s way through a thick fog. He could not dredge out anything specific from the past.

The hatchlings were growing extremely agitated. The presence of the Green Dragon was something new to them, having spent all of their short lives either under the watchful wings of the great dams who guarded the hatcheries or under the untrusting eyes of the humans. They had never seen a male adult of their kind so close, but they knew kin when they saw it.

One of the royal hatchlings, the one Cabe reckoned as eldest, stood confidently on its hind legs. His face seemed punched in, less like a beast and more like a man. The tail had shrunken as well.

He’s learning, the young mage realized. He’s starting to shift from dragon form to manshape. All he needed was an example to get him started.

With one to lead them, the others would soon follow suit. First the other two royal hatchlings, then their unmarked brethren—who would be the dukes or soldiers of their species—and finally the single female (Gwen had assured him it was indeed female; he had not wanted to find out close up). That the female would take longer was no fault of her own. Female drakes had a different metabolism and, while she would take much longer, her human form would be near perfect, perhaps more than perfect, Cabe remembered, having almost fallen prey to three such enchantresses who had once taken up residence in the very place they were now heading.

Cabe guided his horse as near as he could to the drake lord. “Why didn’t you destroy the raiders while you had the chance? They may choose to ignore your warning.”

The Green Dragon’s eyes narrowed to two tiny pinpoints of red. “With as many as there were, there was too much of a chance for something to happen to the hatchlings. A lucky shot by an archer might have struck down the heir to the dragon throne. I chose the best way to avoid all of that. If they try again, then they will forfeit their lives. Not this time, though.”

Satisfied, Cabe slowed his horse until he was even with Gwen. The rest of the caravan slowly trudged forward again. Despite the Dragon King’s words concerning eyes that watched over them, more than one person could not help glancing around from time to time. Regardless of their renewed vigilance, however, no one, not even the Green Dragon, who prided himself on his skill, noticed the single figure perched high in the trees. No wyvern this, but an avian creature who watched all with arrogance and something else.

The Green Dragon had been correct when he had said the Seekers designed with countermeasures already in mind. The watcher wore one such measure now and kept it quite well hidden from the mages and drakes below.

The observer waited until the caravan was lost from sight before finally moving. Then, silently and swiftly, the Seeker spread its wings and rose into the heavens, its destination to the northeast.

ALONE IN HIS chambers, the Gryphon sat quietly, his mind on a number of scattered items of interest. Like someone putting together a puzzle, he maneuvered the pieces around, trying to see if there were any relation between them. It was the way in which he ruled this city. He had learned more through this process than a hundred meetings with the various ministers that protocol demanded he pretend to listen to. He doubted any of them would be able to help him with even one of the problems he now considered.

His keen hearing detected the sound of someone walking purposefully and he turned toward the doorway. Two huge, metallic figures stood next to the doorway, one on each side. Rough conceptions of men. The Gryphon waited expectantly.

Suddenly one of the figures opened its eyes, revealing nothing but an iron-gray blankness where the pupils should have been.

“General Toos requests admittance,” it grumbled.

“Let him enter.” The golems made very effective doormen, since nothing short of the most powerful magic would stop them if they believed he was in danger.

The doors swung open of their own accord and a tall, thin, foxlike man stepped into the chamber. Most noticeable in his hair was the silver streak, a surprising thing since most people believed the general to be unable to perform magic. He was, however, noted for shrewd hunches and last-minute miracles. Though human—he also claimed a bit of elfin blood, but that was debatable—Toos was by far the Gryphon’s oldest companion. More than that, he was a close friend.

“Milord.” The man bowed in one smooth, sleek action. Age had done nothing to slow him. He was already far older than most humans ever got—almost twice as old, the Gryphon realized with a start.

“Sit, please, Toos, and forget formalities.” It was always this way. The general was of the sort who always followed protocol even when dealing with those he had known for years.

Toos took the proffered seat, somehow managing to sit without wrinkling his dress uniform. It amazed the Gryphon that his comrade should go around so unprotected—even Penacles had its assassins. Yet, though there had been attempts, Toos had survived most without a scratch.

The old soldier pulled a parchment from his belt and reluctantly handed it over to his lord.

“More concerning …what you showed me?”

“No. I suggest you read the report first.”

He started reading the portion he knew Toos had wanted him to see and ignored everything else. Two figures wearing the distinctive black armor and wolfhelms of eastern continent raiders had been spotted traveling out to the caverns which served as the aboveground entrance to the palace of Irillian’s true master. One matched the description the Gryphon had given his spies of a raider named D’Shay.

D’Shay.

A name, but one the Gryphon felt he should know, and remember. An aristocratic raider from across the Eastern Seas.

D’Shay was a wolf in human form, though not in the literal sense. Still, the Lord of Penacles would have felt safer with a pack of ravished wolves than alone with the raider. With wolves he at least understood what he was up against.

His uncertainty returned. D’Shay in contact with the Blue Dragon. The Lord of Penacles did not care for the potential that such an alliance might offer. The Master of Irillian had raiders of his own and they were a constant problem even to some of his fellow Dragon Kings, yet nothing had been done because they were too swift, too skilled. Dragon Kings did not wage true war with other Dragon Kings; that was a stated fact, though there had been rumors to the contrary occasionally.

He had not realized that he had uttered D’Shay’s name out loud until Toos spoke up. “Please reconsider this, milord. We cannot afford any new campaigns at the moment. There is no telling when the Black Dragon will recover completely. Now would be an excellent time to rid ourselves of him. His fanatics are weak and the Gray Mists are merely a wisp right now. Lochivar is visible for miles inward.”

Shaking his furred head, the Gryphon rejected the suggestion. “We can’t afford such an action. Despite the weakness of both the Gray Mists and the Black Dragon, the Lochivarites and those that the raiders brought over will indeed fight. That’s all they know anymore. The Mists only enforce Black’s will even more. Most of those people have grown only knowing servitude to him. If he says fight, they will.”

“But D’Shay is …Gryphon, I know what’s forming in your mind, dammit! Don’t even consider it!”

Toos looked at him darkly. When his lord spoke like this, it meant he was about to do what most rulers would imagine unthinkable. “Who will lead while you are away? We are not speaking of some local journey. We are speaking of the realm of the Blue Dragon. Other than the Master of the Dagora Forest, he holds the greatest respect of his human subjects. You will not find so many allies there. You could be gone for months or—yes, I’ll say it, dammit—forever! Dead!”

The Gryphon was unmoved by the emotion. The idea of journeying to Irillian in order to seek out the wolf raider D’Shay was becoming more and more of a priority. Carefully, so that his growing obsession did not show, he asked a question of his own. “Who leads when I am away?”

Another unseen servant brought forth sweets, but the general irritably waved away both bowl and creature. “Damn you, I’m a soldier, an ex-mercenary. Arguing with politicians is your specialty—and what do I care about the price of wheat as long as my men and their horses get fed? You’ve ruled here so long that no one can imagine any other as lord! Only those like me still remember that there ever was a Purple Dragon!”

“Are you through?” The Gryphon’s face had reverted to that of a bird of prey, but his voice indicated amusement.

“Yes,” sighed Toos.

“You’ll take over—as usual?”

“Yes—dammit. You could have at least mentioned our other problem to the sorcerers while they were here. Then, I wouldn’t be so worried.”

“The frost incident appears to be isolated. No one else has reported any animals found frozen solid or fields of ice-encrusted oat. I’ve already contacted those with the resources to investigate more thoroughly. If I’m not here, they will find you.”

A crafty look crept over the human’s face. “Why not send these—hell, they’re elves—to Irillian?”

“Because old habits die hard and I always have this feeling you’re going to stick me with this king business and run off permanently.”

“It would serve you right, you old ogre.”

The general chuckled, then recalled what he had shown the lionbird the day before. “I still wish the Bedlams were here. They might know something. That mule was as solid as a chunk of iron, Gryphon! What could freeze a creature so?”

The Gryphon found that he no longer cared about mules, fields, and sorcerers. Now that he had decided to depart the city, he was anxious to get away as soon as possible. It was not like him to be so uncaring about such puzzles, but perhaps that was because he had never before been offered such a chance to capture the wolf raider D’Shay. At the very least, the information D’Shay could give him concerning the wolf raiders themselves would surely be more valuable. The ice was probably the error of some fledgling sorcerer or witch. Perhaps even some sort of insane joke by sprites. Yes, that made some sense, he decided. Now, there was no reason to hesitate.

Turning to his aide, the Gryphon outlined his thoughts. General Toos did not seem taken with the ideas, but he soon gave in. The lionbird knew that Toos would understand as time went on.

“Now that that’s settled,” he continued, “there is no more reason for me to hesitate. Toos, I have full faith in you and your men, but this is something I have to do myself. D’Shay once claimed a connection to me; I want to find out what that connection is or whether he spouted it purely in jest.”

“I could stop you no more now than when you led our company in battle, though, now that you are king, I would have hoped for different.” The general looked highly displeased with the situation, but knew better. “How soon will you be departing?”

“Before tomorrow morning. Have someone saddle a horse for me.”

“Before morning? You—” The soldier broke off at the look on his monarch’s face. “Aye, dammit, as you say.”

The Gryphon dismissed his oldest companion with a gesture. Toos sputtered, but said nothing. It did not matter to the Gryphon, anyway. The complaints of Toos or the ministers did not concern him. Only his journey to Irillian did. That—and the man called D’Shay.

IV

TOMA ENTERED THE frozen hall of the Ice Dragon with great trepidation. From the first, he had come to loathe this cold, dead citadel and its even more gruesome inhabitants. This was not the Dragon King he had expected. The Ice Dragon who ruled here was nearly as dead as his king-dom—but far more powerful than any of the other Kings. Something was afoot and Toma doubted he would care for the answer when he found it.

He shivered, and not just from the cold.

The Ice Dragon lay across the remains of some ancient structure. It was a thin, cadaverous creature but still larger than any of his kin. A gigantic corpse, the firedrake thought. I am dealing with a gigantic corpse.

At first, there was no acknowledgment of his presence. A lone drake warrior stood nearby. Had Toma not seen the chest rise and fall, albeit slowly and shallowly, he would have thought the drake a frozen ghoul much like the unliving thing that had first met him. The guard ignored him, instead staring straight ahead at something that, to Toma at least, was not there.

Slowly, as if rising from some grave, the Ice Dragon stirred. Massive frost-covered wings spread with a crackling sound that the firedrake realized was the breaking of thick layers of ice that had formed on the leviathan while he slept. The eyes opened, revealing a chill blue hue much like the skin color of a human long frozen. It reminded Toma all too much of some of the Dragon King’s servants. It was also wrong. When last he had visited the Dragon King in this hall, only the day before, those eyes had been white as the eternal snow outside.

The Ice Dragon studied him with a total lack of interest. “There is something you wished of me, Duke Toma?”

They were not speaking as equals, that was something the bone-white dragon had established soon after their first meeting. The Ice Dragon was one of the Kings; Toma was merely a drake whose duty was to serve.

“Yesss?” A trace of impatience escaped the Dragon King. Toma was pleased, as it meant at least some of the old Ice Dragon still remained. Where there was emotion, there was life.

“I’ve yet to ssssee any aid for him. He hasss ssslept—” Toma cursed inwardly. He was becoming unsettled. “—he has slept as you suggested, but there has been no change. I lack the knowledge and skill for what ails him, though I think a little more warmth could certainly not hurt. You, though, are a Dragon King. I came here because of your power and experience; you must know something that will aid in his recovery!”

The Ice Dragon jerked his head up and, for a brief moment, Toma thought the leviathan had remembered something that would help. Much to the firedrake’s disappointment, it was immediately apparent that his host was now concerned with something totally unconnected to the present situation.

“The sssstupid creaturessss!” hissed the Dragon King. His eyes were alive with rage. “Not now!”

Suddenly, the chamber became the center of a massive snowstorm. Toma cried out in surprise, then pulled his cape about him in a feeble attempt to protect himself from the elements. Snow blew about wildly. There was thunder and lightning. The wind whipped things around so much that the firedrake could not see. He could only hear the howling of the wind and, above it, the angry voice of his benefactor as that one roared his frustration out on some unfortunate.

As spontaneously as the storm had erupted, it ceased. He realized with surprise that it had lasted for barely a minute.

Brushing the frost and snow from his face, Toma gazed up at the Lord of the Northern Wastes. There was a momentary glow about the Ice Dragon so short that the firedrake would have missed it had he blinked. He did notice how much more energetic his host became after the glow faded.

The massive head swung back to face him and Toma could not help stepping back a few feet. He still had not reverted to his dragon form and had no desire to even now. It was too difficult to keep from losing body warmth when he was in his birth form, and if the Ice Dragon truly wanted him dead. …

“Someone invades my domain—with sorcery yet,” the great dragon suddenly told him. “My children will deal with them. It will give them a taste to savor.”

“You may rest assured, Duke Toma, that my loyalty is to the throne. Everything I do here is in his name, for what he represented. My emperor will be cared for. You will see. Now, I must rest more. …”

“If I may …” Toma began.

The Ice Dragon’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Is there something more you wanted?”

The firedrake stared into the cold, dead eyes of his host and shook his head. He knew well enough the signs of danger. Now was not the time to pursue any subject. The Ice Dragon, satisfied, laid his head back down upon the ruins. For the first time, Toma looked at them closely. The rubble had once been a temple, he decided. A temple which still housed something, for there was a pit or hole within and it was over this that the ghostly leviathan rested.

The Dragon King watched him with one baleful eye, then closed it. Toma whirled and departed the chamber, realizing that his earlier fears of something going on had been all too correct. In fact, he suspected that he had greatly underestimated how wrong things were. His whole trip here had been a waste of time and now quite possibly threatened his existence as well.

The trouble was, he doubted very much that the Ice Dragon was about to let him leave the Northern Wastes alive.

SOMEHOW, SOME WAY, the lord of the Dagora Forest led them along a hidden path that took half their travel time off. The Manor crept up on them and then seemed to spring into existence full grown. Cabe stared at the edifice and wondered how it had grown so large. His memories of this place were only months old and, while his visit had been short and hectic, he was certain that he would have noticed all of this.

The Manor was a magnificent blending of nature and construction. Much of it had been built within a great tree, yet just as much had been constructed by artisans of great skill and care. It rose several stories high. In many places it was difficult to see where exactly the two portions mixed. The latest of more than a thousand generations of vines enshrouded some portions, but most looked as if someone had been living here just yesterday.

From his right, where Gwen sat on her own steed, he heard a tiny, muffled gasp. The memories she was experiencing were not ones that Cabe cared to dwell on, for he knew too well who many of them revolved around. It did not matter that she loved him and loved him greatly; Nathan was her first love and a tragic one at that. She had gone from Nathan to Cabe with hardly any gap in between, at first drawn by the similarities, then ensnared by the differences.

Still, Cabe could not help feeling some jealousy.

The Green Dragon reined his drake to a stop and dismounted. The party came to a halt behind him and waited. It was clear that the Dragon King was in the midst of something. A few of the humans muttered uneasily, but Cabe waved them quiet.

Raising his hand and forming a fist, the Green Dragon called out something that neither Cabe nor Gwen could hear. A moment later, the forests around them were filled with drakes of the humanoid kind. Cabe, fearing that the Dragon King had lied all along about his part of the oath, readied himself for a swift but bloody conflict.

Surprisingly, it was Gwen who held him back. He turned his head and looked at her in amazement, thinking, ever so briefly, that she was another of the King’s pawns. Hurriedly, she corrected his misconceptions.

“I’m sorry, Cabe, we thought it best to wait until we arrived here.”

“We?”

“The Gryphon, the Green Dragon, and myself.”

He suddenly felt surrounded by enemies—all because his name was Bedlam.

“It is not like that!” she added quickly, evidently able to read his mind. “It was decided that we should have an equal number of drake servants. This way, both races will learn.”

“Drakes?”

The two parties eyed one another uneasily. The humans muttered to one another, not caring for the thought of sleeping in a den of dragons. The drakes, on the other hand, knew that the lord and lady of the Manor were human mages of great power and that their own lord was turning their well-being over to the grandson of the greatest of the Dragon Masters, which was akin to being turned over to their worst nightmare.

He finally nodded. The two reluctant groups began to merge as Gwen dismounted and commenced supervising the unpacking and organizing. The tension was so strong one could almost see it, but no one wanted to anger the magic-users or the Dragon King. Cabe dismounted his own animal and began to walk off into the forest. Trying somehow to come to grips with everything. He had gotten used to the hatchlings—somewhat—but an entire clan?

Somehow, the Green Dragon was suddenly standing in front of him. Cabe had not even noticed when the Dragon King had dismounted, much less how he came to be here.

“I feel, despite the differences between our races, that I understand some of your fears. That is why I place the responsibility for any actions by any of my clan members on my own shoulders, Bedlam. Whatever happens, I will share the punishment. I want you to know that.”

Cabe nodded slowly, not comforted in the least. The Green Dragon proffered a scaled, four-digited claw/hand. The human mage stared at it for some time before finally taking it. The Dragon King’s grip was strong and hard and Cabe thanked whatever deity was watching over his fingers.

“Lady Gwendolyn will not need you for the moment, I think. Please walk with me. I would like to discuss some things with you, yes?”

He tried to read the burning eyes within the dragonhelm, but they were as enigmatic as everything else concerning this firedrake. Cabe turned to look briefly for Gwen, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“The servants know what to do and both sides will keep as much apart as possible for now, so there is no worry. Your mate is altering the spells that surround the Manor. The original protective spell was decaying. When she is finished, only those with the permission of the Lord and Lady will be able to pass.” When Cabe did not apparently plan to ask one question in particular, the Master of the Dagora Forest added, “Even I will require permission. Your home will be secure.”

The boundaries were to be closed to the Dragon King? It made sense, as the spell could not possibly differentiate between one King or another and both Silver and the Storm Dragon were close neighbors. So was the Crystal Dragon, but no one knew what his intentions were.

“Pleassse, Bedlam. That is not why I came to speak to you. If we may walk and enjoy the forest.”

“There are,” the Green Dragon began abruptly, “bad feelings between the drakes and those who bear the name Bedlam. That is understating the fact, actually. There are those in my own clans who have dared almost to defy me completely because there is a Bedlam now living in the midst of my kingdom.”

It was always comforting to know that the forest was filled with friends, Cabe thought wryly.

“I had discussions on more than one occasion with the Dragon Master Nathan, you know. I suspect I have been tainted by humanity far more than any of my brethren. Even my speech patterns have degenerated.”

The Dragon King paused and turned his head toward Cabe. The fierce dragon visage atop the helm seemed ready to make a meal out of the human, but the words of its owner belied that image. “I have learned to welcome what the others call the human threat. We were never numerous, never imaginative in the ways of your kind. Our rule is one of stagnation; I suspect that nothing would have prevented our fall soon.”

Such bald truths from what was supposed to be a hereditary enemy made Cabe stumble as he tried to follow every word and, therefore, paid little attention to the path before him. The drake seemed not to notice.

“You fight among yourselves, you lie, you destroy, you run, and you steal. Despite that, you have become our superiors. You also create, look beyond the future, refuse to give in to impossible odds, and pick yourselves up when you’ve been defeated. We can only touch upon these qualities at present. That’s why I requested that the hatchlings be raised as human as possible. To give my race a second hope. To give both races a place in these lands.”

There was nothing Cabe could say that would have felt sufficient at that moment. The two continued to walk, gradually moving farther away from the boundaries of the Manor. In his days at the inn, he would have never been able to imagine himself walking side by side with one of the horrifying Dragon Kings.

He froze. The drake looked at him.

“Is something—”

He leaped over a small rise and felt a tingle through his body. It lasted barely a moment and he surmised that it must have been the barrier. From behind him, he heard an angry shout. The Green Dragon called out his name. Despite the urgency he felt, Cabe stopped and turned quickly.

The drake lord was standing behind the rise, his hands pushing against the air. Apparently, Gwen had already altered the protective spell and now the Dragon King had no way of entering the Manor grounds without help. Cabe recalled how he had once let in the demonic Darkhorse.

“Enter freely, friend!” The words were not the same he had used that last time, but the meaning was clear enough. He saw the drake stumble forward. Satisfied, he turned and began to run again. The Dragon King would either catch up or meet him there—wherever there was.

Cabe ran, passing by startled drakes and humans. He was on the right path, he realized. Gwen had once told him how close relationships between magic-users sometimes formed a link. It was not always a steady one, but there would be times when one felt the need of the other—as he had this time.

He was beyond the immediate grounds of the Manor before he realized it. The barrier had to be near. Where—

She lay crumpled in a heap on the outer edge of what Cabe would have called the garden, close, it dawned on him, to the place where her amber prison had once stood. She was alone and facedown next to a long overgrown row of bushes. Rushing over to her, Cabe gently turned her onto her back. From memory, he reached out with his mind to what he perceived as a spectrum and manipulated one of the soft, reddish bands. His spell washed over Gwen. A sigh of relief escaped his lips when he was able to determine that, at least physically, she was unharmed.

“There isss nothing here.”

Cabe shook. His thoughts buried in concern, he had not heard the Green Dragon approach. “She seems unhurt, but …”

“…we will know when she wakes,” the drake finished. “Which she appears to be doing now.”

Gwen was indeed stirring. She shivered and slowly opened her eyes. When her gaze found Cabe, the relief in her eyes was nearly overwhelming.

“I was afraid …” The enchantress paused as if unsure of what she had been afraid of.

“The spell. I completed it, didn’t I?” Suddenly, she was very much frightened again.

“Yes.” Cabe could not help glancing around. Had something slipped inside beforehand?

“Nothing lurks within that I can discern,” the Green Dragon added. “I have been searching since Cabe first felt your danger.”

“What was it, then, Gwen?”

She blinked. “The ground is untouched. The—thing—is not here. Nor is the Seeker.”

“What thing? What Seeker?”

“There is that,” the drake suggested. They followed his gaze to a statue poised near the top of the Manor. It was a Seeker in mid-flight. There were other such statues scattered around the Manor and the grounds. As with this one, they were amazingly lifelike.

Gwen frowned. “No, it couldn’t have been that—I think. That would still not explain the abomination that I saw.”

“What did it look like?” Cabe asked softly.

She shivered. “Huge. All white fur and great claws like some digging creature. I swear, it tore up the area!”

Cabe and the Green Dragon studied the area, but saw nothing. The young mage looked up at the drake lord.

“It isss possible,” the reptilian monarch began. “That, in reworking the ancient spells, you unleashed some old Seeker magic, perhaps something meant to frighten away outsiders.”

The enchantress did not seem convinced. “They were fighting one another! It was as if I felt the avian’s thoughts—even its death! It did—did succeed in killing that thing, though.”

The drake gave a very convincing copy of a human shrug. “I can think of no other reason. No one else ssseems to have noticed it.”

“Am I going mad? Is that what you’re saying?”

“By no means. I believe my theory isss—is sound. Not perfect, perhaps, but sound.”

Gwen looked off into the distance. “I was so certain it was real. …”

A few drakes and humans had gathered behind them. Curiosity—and possibly uncertainty—had drawn them together as nothing else had so far. Cabe looked at them and frowned. This was not the way to start out.

The servants slowly dispersed, but Cabe knew that they were not completely satisfied. What could he have said?

Gwen struggled to rise and both Cabe and the Dragon King aided her. She was still staring off into the distance. “I’d swear that—that at one point the Seeker actually saved my life. Not for altruistic reasons—but because it was a necessity, I think. I remember falling, being grabbed—and then blanking out.”

“Forget that for now,” Cabe suggested. “You need rest. Later, we can discuss it again.”

“I suppose so.”

The Green Dragon put a gauntleted hand on her arm. “For you, Firerose, I will send word to my servants to investigate the area. Though Seekers are cunning, there is a good chance they will discover if one has been nearby.”

She shook her head. “It’s not necessary.”

“I think it isss.”

Gwen smiled and then started to sag in Cabe’s arms. Both he and the Dragon King were forced to assist her to the Manor. She made no protest.

Had they spent even a few more moments studying the area around the spot the Lady of the Amber had fallen, it was likely they would have found nothing. It was also possible that, if they had looked a little closer at the bushes, they might have seen the two feathers that Gwen’s weight had buried deeper in the branches of those bushes. Feathers from a very large bird—or possibly something else.

V

IRILLIAN BY THE Sea was a city that thrived on fishing. War or not, the plentiful bounty its fishermen brought back was bought by all those neighboring regions too far from the Eastern Seas to do their own fishing.

While scores of boats moved outward seeking the first catch of the day, only one boat was headed in the opposite direction, to shore. Its path was one avoided by the fishermen, for that path led to the Aquias Maw, the vast caverns, partially submerged, which were the entrance to the undersea world of the one the human Marshal of Irillian called master.

In the weak light of predawn, it was barely possible to make out the three figures in the boat. One was the boatman, a figure shrouded in a soaking cloak woven from plant life taken from the seas. The passengers knew that he or she or it was not human and had probably never been, and did not really care. The boatman performed its function without complaint and that was as it should be. There was no reason to think about the being further. Both men had observed stranger things in the spans of their lifetimes.

The two passengers were like leaves on the same branch. Both were clad in furred armor, black as a moonless night, and upon their heads they wore tight-fitting helms with broad noseguards and a stylized wolfhead. A tail of fur ran from the back of the wolfhead down past the bottom of the helm and another hand’s length further. Both were veteran fighters, yet both had airs about them as only ones who were born to lead can have. One was slightly shorter than the other and clean-shaven. The other, his apparent superior, sported a small, well-trimmed beard, a goatee.

The boatman brought the craft ashore by itself, displaying amazing agility and strength yet never revealing any portion of its person, including hands or feet. The two wolf raiders disembarked and watched silently as the boatman set out once more.

D’Shay raised his helm and wiped the mist of the seas from his face. “We have been sighted, D’Laque.”

His companion followed suit while asking, “How long ago, Lord D’Shay?”

“At least a week, maybe two.”

“Could he be here already, then?” D’Laque began to eye the beach.

“It’s possible, but I think not. The animal is too good a hunter and too mistrustful of his prey to move like that. No, I think he’s near, but not quite here yet. Scouting, perhaps.”

D’Laque eyed his superior. “You make it sound as if this is some sort of game between you two. He is secondary; a permanent place for our ships is what we need most. The Pack Leaders are growing impatient, even D’Zayne, who, of all of them, should mirror your desires.”

D’Shay was unmoved by the thought. “We shall accomplish that mission, my friend, but think how well we shall be received if we bring the Gryphon’s head back with us. The news of his survival did not please the Pack Leaders. D’Morogue’s … dismissal … is proof of that. He was supposed to assure our success, if you remember.”

Eyeing D’Shay as the other replaced his helm, D’Laque could not help but wonder why that one had not risen to Pack Commander. Certainly, his unofficial authority was known to all. No Pack Commander moved if D’Shay spoke out against it, and no Pack Leader approved new front strategies unless he was assured that D’Shay would have no major objections. Here, across the seas, was a man whom even the assembled Pack Leaders respected—yet he was not one of them, despite his superiority.

“Was there something you wanted, D’Laque?” asked the aristocratic raider. He had not so much as glanced anywhere near his companion.

“No.” D’Laque quickly shook his head. “Nothing, D’Shay.”

“So. I thought you might be having second thoughts about joining me. I know how much you fear Senior Keeper D’Rak.” D’Shay turned away from the seas and faced Irillian. The city was still buried in the shadows of pre-dawn, but signs of life could already be heard. “Soon, we shall have a treasure trove with which to present the Pack Leaders. New ships, new lands, riches, allies, and the last great stumbling block in our war with the Dream Lands served on a platter. At last.”

D’Laque hid the frown that crept up onto his face. He had the distinct feeling he was in the dark about certain decisions and was not going to find out about them until it was too late to do anything about it. He suspected that D’Shay needed to capture the Gryphon, or else lose valuable influence. It would be just what D’Rak would want.

It would also leave D’Laque defenseless against the master he had secretly betrayed.

The Gryphon shook his head and then studied the map of Irillian’s— or rather the Blue Dragon’s—lands once more. Some places were just too damn far away, he decided.

He looked up. The landscape around him was chaotic. While there were fields and trees that grew as if undisturbed for generations, there were also the occasional enigmatic craters, as if something had once happened here.

To reach Irillian by land, one had to pass through the uncharted domain of the Storm Dragon. The Gryphon’s fur and feathers ruffled. The Storm Dragon was one of those Kings who revealed little about his full strength. The lionbird had never encountered him during the Turning War or the years after even though he and the leviathan were neighbors. The extent of his knowledge was a passing glimmer of Wenslis, the human city on the western edge of these lands and the nearest major human settlement to Irillian, which was not saying much. Wenslis was as far from the seaport as it was from Penacles, but, while it would have been an excellent place to stop, it would have taken him several days out of the quickest and shortest path.

I hope you’re not expecting me for dinner, D’Shay, the Gryphon thought wryly. I’m going to be late. If the charts that he had succeeded in wresting from the libraries were correct, the trip got no better. Supposedly, this land had many swamps, and the worst of those was in his path and large enough that it was pointless to try and go around it.

Lochivar had looked bad, but much of that was due to the mindnumbing Mists. These lands were soaked the deeper one wandered.

This is the kingdom of the Storm Dragon.

As if the last thought had been a cue, the skies began clouding up with unbelievable speed. The winds began to howl. He quickly rolled up the charts, returned them to their case and packed the horse. This was not the place to be caught out in a storm, not by these trees. There was an overhang off to the right, perhaps an hour’s journey. He’d be high and dry if he could make it there before the first rains fell.

It was almost as dark as night, now, with both moons being hidden. The horse’s hooves sloshed in the increasingly wet grass and the Gryphon knew he was coming to the outskirts of the swamp sooner than his charts had indicated. He prayed it would not be too rough going before they made it to the overhang—providing he had not read the charts wrong about its location.

The sky rumbled.

Small, half-unseen creatures flittered, darted, and loped around him. Where had all these blasted things come from? Even despite his predatory background, he had had the worst time attempting to catch food. It was as if the oncoming storm was drawing them from the earth itself.

Or something was chasing them, he realized all too belatedly as the huge, ugly head rose from the swampy fields.

The horse sought frantically for dry, speed-slowing earth, but found only slick grass and mud. The Gryphon was nearly flung from the saddle as his mount spun in nearly a complete circle.

The minor drake turned its weak gaze toward the commotion. This was an older one, the Gryphon determined. A younger drake would have been on his tail already, jaws wide, claws fully extended. The elderly dragon, though, was only just realizing that the huge thing before him was the food he sought. Much bigger and better-smelling than the tiny marsh creatures it was normally forced to eat.

The heavens were split asunder as the first bolts came home to the earth. Its prey was momentarily forgotten as the minor drake looked upward and shivered. By the brief but brilliant light, the Gryphon could see that the thing was a mottled, unhealthy green. It was very old and probably dying, but evidently it was going to live long enough to give him trouble.

He’d wanted to avoid using any magic for fear that would draw the Storm Dragon or one of his underlings to him, but now was no longer the time to worry about that. Old or not, the dragon was a threat he could not avoid. At the very least, he would probably lose his horse if be attempted to go around it. Old and infirm though it might be, the thing only needed one sweep of its claws to decorate the landscape with bits of horse and rider.

The Gryphon’s eyes brightened. He raised both hands, keeping his balance by locking his legs against the horse’s sides.

The spell was a simple one that might easily escape notice. Essentially, he was allowing the absorption of water by the soil to speed up. At least, that was what he was hoping he was doing. Generations of experience did not necessarily make a mage a master of the natural elements. All it meant was he knew how to manipulate the powers to create the end result he desired.

And this time it worked. The minor drake put its massive paw down on what it knew to be safer ground, only to have it sink even further than it had at the other spot. The beast howled with rage and the Gryphon was barely able to keep his horse from bolting into some of the muck itself.

The creature struggled in vain to release the one leg, working its remaining three into the mud as it pulled the fourth. Now, it was completely trapped. It hissed and glared balefully at the Gryphon, as if realizing that he was the cause of its misfortunes. When it opened its maw, he raised a fist in sorcerous defense against its flame, but nothing came out. The dragon was too old, too spent. Had it been younger, it might have freed itself or managed a flame stream long and intense enough to do the lionbird some damage, but such was not the case. Slowly, cautiously, the Gryphon began to urge his horse around the right of the thrashing obstacle.

The rain was starting to come down. The Gryphon shook his mane in disgust. He hated dampness and he hated rain even more. There was a place for cleanliness, but this was not it. Silently mouthing a curse at the Storm Dragon, he eyed the distant overhang. The old drake ceased thrashing, either worn out or finally realizing it was better off for the moment if it made no move. The mud was already up to the bottom of its body.

As the rain continued to come down in an ever-increasing fury and the ground threatened to suck horse and rider beneath it, the Gryphon once more began to think obsessively about the problems. Obviously, he thought morosely, it wasn’t something to keep you warm and dry at night.

The overhang did not seem any closer. If this were any indication, the Gryphon suspected he was in for a very long, very slow, and very wet journey.

MUCH TO HIS misfortune, his suspicions proved all too correct.

The weather was not his only problem, however. Twice, dragons had flown overhead, obviously on patrol and perhaps on the lookout for him in particular. He knew that the Dragon Kings had their eyes and ears in his domain. He had not expected his departure to be kept a secret. He had hoped to be nearer to the outskirts of Irillian when that happened, though.

Ahead of him lay more soggy fields of marsh grass and one more swamp. Up until now, he had been lucky. Both patrols had missed him, but now he faced the watchful eyes of the Blue Dragon’s servants as well. If he was extremely lucky, he thought sourly, maybe a patrol from each would spot him and the two would kill each other in the fight over who should claim the prize. He knew how much each of the Kings desired his death and the prestige that such a kill would bring both patrol and King.

He sighed, knowing that nothing would be accomplished until he moved on.

The horse trod carefully on the half-sunken path, aware from the past few days that even the safest-looking piece of ground was treacherous at times. The Gryphon knew the odds were that he would lose his horse at some point on this journey, most likely in Irillian if he made it that far, but he was determined to do his best to see that, if it came to that, the animal might be “accidentally” found by someone who would care for it. He realized that it was a foolish, romantic notion, but it had always been his nature to reward those who had proven themselves, be they men or whatever. A good hawk or steed was sometimes more valuable, more worthy, than a hundred soldiers.

It was clouding up again. The clouds seemed almost alive, so perfectly did they gather over his head. He contemplated the possibility that he was being stalked, but decided it was his paranoia. The rain began to fall again. The horse snorted in disgust, as did the Gryphon.

The sky thundered. There were flashes of lightning. The Gryphon had become accustomed to both. Neither had, as yet, swayed him even in the least from his goal.

The horse landed on its side with a loud splash and the Gryphon was enveloped by a muddy wave.

Another bolt struck, this time a little closer.

He was being stalked.

They were there now, flitting in and out of the cloud cover. There were at least two, maybe more; it was difficult to say since only two were visible at any one time. He did not recall much about the clans of the Storm Dragon, save that they were very protective of their lands and they were capable of producing something very much akin to an actual lightning bolt.

Why wait until now? Or had they just discovered him? Somehow, he did not think so. He was being set up for something.

His horse was struggling unsuccessfully to rise, but the mud was proving too slippery to support it. The Gryphon started toward it, then glanced up quickly when he heard a sound he recognized all too well.

One of the dragons was diving toward him, maw open in a frightening display of teeth.

The speed with which it dove was shocking. The distance between it and the earth shrank rapidly. The Lord of Penacles was forced to leap away from his steed and land once more in the marsh. He knew that nothing would save him now. There was no time to utilize a spell, no time even to pull out the tiny whistles that he kept around his neck for such life-and-death situations. He could only hope that somehow the dragon would miss. A near-miss was not sufficient; the claws of the dragon would probably take most of his backside with it.

There were shrieks from both the dragon and the horse and then waves of rank water were washing over everything, including the lionbird. Several seconds rolled by and when the Gryphon still felt nothing, he cautiously rolled over. His eyes widened as he realized that his luck had changed considerably.

The dragon had struck, but against the horse, not the rider. The gallant mount hung limply from the claws of the dragon as the latter made for the cloud cover. From the angle, the Gryphon knew the animal was dead already.

Curious.

He located the path and stood there, almost defying the dragons to return. They did not. He was going to be allowed to continue. Out of one fire and into another. The Gryphon succeeded in locating one saddlebag, but that was it. He now had no rations and only a few essential items. The idea that someone was trying to manipulate him increased. Still, if they wanted him to move on, they certainly could have planned better than this.

By all rights, it would have been more intelligent to turn back. He was expected and that could only mean trouble. Everything within screamed for him to return to Penacles …yet he found he could not. Each time the thought of going home entered his mind, the image of D’Shay in Irillian reared its head again and crushed all other ideas. Sighing, he slung the bag over one shoulder and stared in the direction of the port city. If he was lucky, he might reach the seaport by the end of his lifetime. The Storm Dragon’s domain was swampy; the Blue Dragon’s domain was dotted with countless lakes, ponds, rivers, and any other body of water one could think of. Even with a horse it would have been difficult going. On foot, it was going to be nearly impossible to make good time; most of the journey would involve going around places rather than across them.

The Blue Dragon had little reason to fear attack along his western borders. No matter how one looked, the land itself was a natural defense. Armies would become mired down. Only the skies seemed open and free, but the Gryphon suspected that they too were defended. Irillian’s master was nothing if not thorough.

Briefly, the Gryphon thought of the tiny, inconsequential wing stubs on his back and what they might have accomplished if they had been full-grown. Only a few knew they were there. Useless for flight, he saw them only as another flaw and therefore kept them hidden. It was at times like this that he truly wished he had all the attributes of the creature he so resembled. Flight out of the question, the lionbird contemplated daring a teleport, but, since he had no way of knowing what lay ahead, the risks tended to outweigh the gains. He might very well end up at the bottom of a lake or in the middle of a bog—or worse.

The Gryphon adjusted the pack on his shoulder and started walking.

DESPITE THE INCIDENTS of the first day, life at the Manor went on fairly smoothly. True, the drakes and humans there did live an uneasy peace, but that was all that could be hoped for. It was not surprising that, for the most part, the two races remained separate whenever possible. Cabe was just happy no one had tried to kill anyone yet.

There was no news concerning the vision Gwen had suffered through. The Green Dragon’s eyes in the forest reported little unusual. There were almost no traces of Seeker activity, but both Cabe and Gwen knew that meant nothing; the avians were a secretive race and quite adept at covering their trails.

However, one bit of news passed along by the monarch of the Dagora Forest interested Cabe. Here and there, portions of the forest had been found dead or dying. The apparent cause was the extreme cold—yet winter was still far away and would only barely affect the Green Dragon’s domain when it finally did arrive.

Cabe stood in the garden, his eyes on the forest, though he did not actually see it. His mind was elsewhere. Becoming a mage, he had once decided, made one paranoid. Perhaps he was overly anxious, but he could not get the freak incidents of frost out of his mind. They nagged at his memories, both the ones from his own life and those passed on to him by his grandfather, and he was fairly certain now that there was a connection between that and another brief incident not so long ago. A chill wind it had been then, one both he and Gwen had felt in the very palace of the Gryphon. The chill had not just been physical; it had struck at their very souls.

Oddly, that made him think of his dreams. He could not say why, but he felt there was a connection with them as well.

He smiled ruefully. The thought was too wild. Cabe forced the idea away and began strolling about the grounds in the hopes of clearing his mind of such irritating puzzles.

The Manor was almost livable now. The garden, the spot where Gwen’s amber prison had stood, was nearly cleared. It was the one place in the Manor where drake and human associated freely at all. There was a peacefulness to the garden that Cabe had not noticed on his prior visitation, most likely because he had been assaulted by drakes, pelted by magically flung chunks of crystal, and dropped on by Seekers. It was hard to believe that it was the same garden.

It had not originally been the Green Dragon’s news that had brought him here so early, but yet another nightmare, this one a futile flight from his ever-present father over countless mountains and through hundreds of deep, damp caverns. Each time, Azran was waiting for him. Each time, Azran slashed at him with one of his demon swords. The Horned Blade, which Cabe had even carried for a while, had been bad enough. The enigmatic thing that his father had called the Nameless …Cabe did not even want to think of that weapon. In the end, it had proven to be his father’s master. That was the way with demon swords. That was why only madmen like Azran Bedlam created them.

Cabe touched his head. He knew without looking that most of his hair was silver. It generally was after particularly strong nightmares. Again, he found himself with a connection between two events, but with no cause. Cabe scowled. It was bad enough that the nightmares had started again after having abandoned him right after the start of the journey here. It was almost as if they had tracked him down like bloodhounds.

The young mage sat down on a bench and stared up into the heavens. Again, he thought about how simple his life had been before the Dragon Kings had sought him out.

There was a sudden hiss of indrawn breath. No human was capable of making a sound like that. Cabe leaped from his seat, hands ready to cast a defensive spell—any defensive spell.

A drake stood crouched before him, preparing to be struck down by the powerful sorcerer for entering his presence.

“Who—” Cabe took a deep breath and started over. “Who are you? Why are you sneaking about?”

“Milord,” the drake hissed. “I am only one who ssserves you. I did not sssneak up on you. I did not even sssee you until I almossst fell over you.”

“Your crest,” he said, indicating the dragon’s unadorned helm. “Where is it?”

Though it was dark, he was certain the drake looked at him in curiosity. “I am permitted no crest. I am a ssservitor.”

“Servitor?”

“We perform the duties unfit for the drake lords.”

So, Cabe realized, yet another caste. First and foremost were the Dragon Kings and the royal dams. Then came the ones such as Toma or Kyrg, who belonged to drake aristocracy by virtue of having been born in a royal clutch. These made up the soldiers, the warriors.

No one had ever told him of servitors, and the memories he had inherited from Nathan only hinted that his grandfather had known of such things.

The drake was waiting, no doubt a bit annoyed at the human’s curiosity, Cabe assumed. “What’re you doing out here?”

“I will depart if my presssence disturbs you, milord.” The servitor began to turn away.

Cabe surprised himself by putting a hand on the drake’s shoulder to halt him. When the creature whirled, Cabe fully expected to lose that hand and therefore jerked it back quickly.

The drake merely looked at him questioningly. “Was there something else, milord?”

“I didn’t say you had to leave. I only asked why you were out here.”

The other looked uncomfortable. “It is easier to think here.”

Cabe nodded. “About what?”

“What is to be expected of us? Only the royal drakes have had any true contact with your kind, milord. You are—forgive me—odd, weak creatures that we are superior to—so it is said, milord.” The last, Cabe noticed with some wry amusement, was added swiftly when the drake realized he was insulting his new master.

“What’s your—do you have a name?”

Now it was the drake who was insulted. “Of course! I am no minor drake. I am Ssarekai Disama-il T—”

Cabe held up a hand to quiet him. “How long are full drake names?”

Considering how long the Dragon Kings had ruled, Cabe suspected the drake was not joking about the length of time it would take to repeat his name. Another tiny fact he had never known about his new servants. “Ssarekai is what I shall call you.”

“Sssatisfactory, milord. That isss how I am called by my own kind.”

“What is your function?”

“I train and care for those minor drakes utilized for riding—though”—the drake hesitated—”horsesss have been of interessst to me of late.”

Cabe grimaced, misunderstanding at first. “You are not to touch the horses. They’re not meant for food.”

“They are sssaid to be somewhat coarssse, milord, but I meant asss—as riding animals. A swift horse has great advantage over a riding drake, milord.”

An idea was beginning to form in Cabe’s head. One that might warm relations between the two groups and ease his own worries. “Have you approached the human who trains the horses?”

The drake shook his head.

Smiling more to himself and feeling at least a little brilliant for once, Cabe said, “See me in the afternoon. We’ll go together. I want you two to meet.”

Ssarekai shuddered. “Mussst I, milord?”

“Yes.” Cabe hoped it sounded blunt enough.

“As you wish. If I may be excusssed, milord, I have duties to perform. The day ssseems suddenly busy.”

“Then go.”

Cabe watched him depart, pleased with himself for a change. Perhaps he was finally coming around to this. Perhaps the nightmares would finally stop if he came to grips with his own abilities.

He made a mental note to remember his appointment with the drake. He also made a note to request that the staff as a whole cease calling him “milord” so much. It smelled of hypocrisy.

Something moved near the garden gateway. At first, Cabe thought that Ssarekai had returned, but then he saw that the figure was too small and not quite right for a drake.

An elf? There was more than one type—some tall as men, some short like dwarves—and the Dagora woods was home to a great many.

There was a slight intake of breath and then the figure was darting through the shrubbery. Cabe swore and followed. He remembered Gwen’s fear that whatever she had seen might have gotten in before she was able to complete the spell. If something had indeed gotten in then everyone might be in danger.

He caught a glimpse of the figure again. A child? The glimmers of sun-light were now peeking through the trees. It could not be a child; the shape was distorted, too narrow and hunched over oddly.

There were still two Dragon Kings whose borders touched those of the Green Dragon. One of their minions, perhaps …

He was close to the edge of the spell when the tiny intruder suddenly veered back in his direction. Momentum kept Cabe going and suddenly he was tumbling over the figure.

There was a whining hiss, a jumble of limbs as the two of them became tangled together, and then Cabe’s world spun madly. He spouted a stream of phrases enriched by his years at the inn.

When the world had at last stopped rolling, Cabe was staring upward, and into the face of—a drake?

It squirmed in his arms, but his grip, despite his astonishment, held fast. It was a drake—and it was not. The face was pushed in and more human than any other male. The dragonhelm was missing; there was no false helm at all. The head was like an incomplete and ugly doll, a doll that hissed and whined its fear.

One of the hatchlings. The eldest. A royal hatchling, but shifting like no drake he had ever seen. It was more like the females of its species, so much better was it at mimicking the human appearance than its adults.

“You,” he finally managed to say, “are going to be a problem.”

“Prrroblemmmm,” it hissed back at him.

He almost lost his grip then and there. He knew from the Green Dragon that drakes grew rapidly and had to learn certain essentials before those few years were over with. Shifting was the most important of those essentials. Speech was another, and one he had forgotten.

A four-digited hand swatted his face and he forgot for a moment that it was a firedrake he held. The hatchling was losing its fear. Cabe knew he was considered clan leader by the young—at least as far as they understood the term. He was in charge, despite his alien appearance.

“That’s all the playing for now,” he muttered. Cabe rolled over and, clasping the squirming drake to his chest—at the expense of his robe— stood. …

And noticed the irregular mound beyond the trees.

“Hold still,” he absently mumbled to the hatchling. Cabe moved toward the mound and felt a tingle. He had passed the barrier. His grip on the young drake tightened, which only made it squirm more.

This, he thought ruefully, is not going to be a good day.

The mound, unidentifiable beyond that for the moment, stretched far beyond the boundaries of the spell. Any other time, Cabe would have not noticed it or would have thought it a part of the landscape. Close up, though, he could see that something—something huge—was buried here. Cabe continued to stand there, the hatchling still squirming—and occasionally mumbling something that sounded like “prrrobllmmm”—and debated whether he should go and get help or not.

“Cabe?”

Gwen’s voice, soft but still commanding, came from the direction of the garden. “Cabe, where are you?”

That settled it for him. He tucked the annoyed drake under his arm and made his way back to the Manor. The way seemed slower, trickier than before, but that was probably due to the fact that he had been too busy chasing “the evil minion” under his arm to notice.

Gwen, clad in an emerald hunting outfit, was waiting for him in the garden and she was not alone. There was another female with her as well, one with the incomparable look of beauty that a few years of maturity can bring and dressed in a shimmering gown. Cabe was sure he would have recalled such a woman in the party and then realized why he could not. This was a drake. He swallowed uncomfortably.

“Looking for this?” he asked casually and held up the yawning hatchling. Let them think he had risen with this in mind.

The drake let out a gasp of relief and took the hatchling, which instantly clasped itself to her. Gwen smiled in relief and some pride, making Cabe feel more like the schoolboy who had pleased his favorite teacher than a master mage.

Fortunately, Gwen was speaking. “The dams stepped away only briefly to check on some of the other young. He was gone in that instant.” She looked with interest at the hatchling’s humanoid form. “Now I see how. Remarkable.”

“More than remarkable. Look at the face.”

Both women did and Cabe was pleased to see the knowing look vanish, albeit briefly, from the dam’s face.

“Have you ever seen that before?” he asked her.

She used his question to give him a look which had nothing to do with the present situation but rather hinted at other possibilities. When Cabe’s face remained frozen she finally replied, “Never, milord. I’ve heard it once in a while. Only old stories. They say Duke Toma did something similar to that, but I know of no one else.”

“Toma. It figures he would be special.”

Gwen nodded. “We’re going to have to watch this one closer. All of us. This is a royal hatchling with amazing potential if its shapeshifting is already better than an adult’s.”

No male drake could assume more than one shape other than its true dragon form and that shape was always of an armored warrior, possibly because it had been the one first chosen by earlier Dragon Kings. The females could become several women of human appearance, but they would always retain certain physical features, making them look like sisters of their former forms. That was the extent of shapeshifting save for one such as Toma. Toma, it had been discovered, was capable of not only assuming his warrior form, but he had on more than one occasion copied the form of one Dragon King or another and had secretly joined in council meetings. Toma confessed to not being able to retain such a form permanently; still, it was far more than even the Dragon Kings were capable of.

The two women were beginning to turn back to the Manor when Cabe remembered the mound. He allowed the dam to depart with her charge, but asked Gwen to stay. When they were alone, he led her back toward where he remembered seeing the thing.

“What is it?”

“I think—it’s only a hunch—I think I found something you should see.”

She glanced around them. “If we go much further, we’ll be out of the protection of the spell, Cabe. What is it you have to show me?”

Gwen followed silently. It took longer to reach the mound than it should have, for Cabe was suddenly having trouble remembering exactly where he had last seen it. That should not have been possible. Then he happened to look down and saw the spot where the plant life had been crushed by the combination of his body and that of the hatchling. He looked out into the woods and, after some scanning, finally noticed the mound again. That he still had only barely noticed it unnerved him even further.

“There.” He pointed toward it and, unmindful of the barrier, walked through. Gwen, after some initial hesitation, followed after, swearing to herself that, love or not, she was going to take Cabe to task if this proved to be nothing.

As they moved nearer, Cabe felt the ghost of a chill that even touched his soul. It made him pause momentarily, but curiosity proved stronger in the end. Gwen, too, paused, but for another reason. The mound was striking at some memories of her own. Terrible, recent memories.

“Cabe.” Her voice was tinged with growing apprehension.

He looked at her, worried.

“Stand back.” As he obeyed, she raised her hands and gestured. Earth began to fly away from the mound, as if invisible diggers were at work.

Cabe frowned. Gwen waited nervously, biting her lip as the first traces of—something—were uncovered. She immediately cut off the spell and, to Cabe’s surprise, rushed over to examine the find. Gwen moved near it, but did not touch it. He could not blame her. There was a feeling so unreal about the thing that he almost wanted to shrink away from it.

After a few moments, she rose. The expression on her face frightened him.

“What is it?”

She did not answer at first, merely stood there shaking her head, both frightened and repulsed by what lay beneath the soil.

“Gwen?”

“It’s my vision, Cabe,” the enchantress finally whispered. “It—it’s that abomination from my vision. I know it is!”

When she then collapsed, he was so surprised he only barely succeeded in catching her before she would have struck the ground. He stared over her prostrate body at the deathly white form that his wife’s spell had partially uncovered.

He shivered again.

CABE TORE HIS gaze away from the mound and looked down at Gwen. Her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze. The fear was still there, but she was trying to cope with it.

“Help me up, Cabe. I—I have to stand.”

He aided her to her feet. The moment she had her balance, she pulled away from him and stumbled back toward the object of her fright. Gwen paused an arm’s length from it and stared. Cabe remained where he was, but readied himself should she faint again.

Gwen continued to stare at the mound, her eyes wide and red and one hand covering her mouth. She began whispering, “It’s real! It’s real!”

Cabe stepped up behind her, trying to soothe her as he, too, studied the mound. “Whatever it is, it’s dead. There’s nothing to fear. Nothing at all.”

It would have helped if he could have felt that way. Regardless of the absence of life, the creature continued to fill him with an uneasy fear. He knew what that fear was now. It was the feeling that the abomination would suck him dry of everything he was. An irrational fear, yes, but a powerful one.

“No dream,” the sorceress muttered to herself. “No dream after all.”

“Dream?” Cabe recalled suddenly the entire vision that Gwen had described. The attack by the digging creature and the rescue by the Seeker. This was the thing from that dream? He shuddered, thankful that most of it was still buried beneath the ground. How long had it been roaming around the Manor? Had it actually been within the boundaries of the old spell? Why had it been so difficult to find?

There were shouts from behind them. One of the servants had evidently seen the Lady of the Amber collapse and now several figures, both drake and human, stumbled uneasily toward the two mages. Cabe made them halt out of sight of the creature. He wanted as few as possible to know about this. He spotted the drake known as Ssarekai and summoned him.

Ssarekai eyed the unmoving mound with great trepidation as he hurried over to Cabe. “Milord, what is—”

Cabe cut him off. “You can handle riding drakes well, I suppose—or would you be faster in your true form?”

“Riding drakes are riding drakes because they are swifter than personal flight, milord. We lack the stamina for long, sustained flights and tire quickly. Patrols are fine, but—”

“Milord, the forest—” Ssarekai sighed and shut his mouth as he noticed Cabe preparing to cut him off again.

“Will the news move faster than you can ride—and as accurately? How many will know about this by the time it reaches him?”

The drake shook his head, but he understood. “I will depart immediately.”

“Thank you.” As Ssarekai departed, Cabe gazed at the others and grimaced. He was getting too excited over what might not be anything. All he had so far was a dead creature and Gwen’s too-real dream.

The others waited expectantly, murmuring among themselves on what might possibly be the cause of the lady’s collapse. Some thought to question Ssarekai, and Cabe realized he had not exactly ordered the drake to remain silent. Ssarekai apparently took such a command for granted, for he ignored all questions and continued running.

“A Seeker.”

“What?” Cabe spun around, expecting to see the avian leaping at him from atop some tree. There was nothing to see, though, only Gwen kneeling near the great corpse, studying it without touching it.

“A Seeker.” Gwen’s voice was low. Even distressed as she was, she did not want to spread further panic among the others. “There was a Seeker in my—vision. I wonder what happened to it? Why did it save me?”

A point that Cabe had not even considered. If the mound creature was real, why not the Seeker? And why had it rescued Gwen and fought the monstrosity that now lay before them?

“It had to be real, Cabe. There had to be a Seeker here.” She stood up, her eyes never leaving the corpse, her body never touching it.

“What makes you say that?”

“The vision. It must have been an involuntary transmission from the Seeker. Distorted, since it neither sees nor thinks as we do. You remember.”

“I’m still certain the Seeker died killing this thing, Cabe. I think that’s what made me black out in the end.”

“Why you? Why would it speak to you?”

She still had not looked away from the creature. Her arms were wrapped about her, as if she were freezing. “I was trained to feel the land, Cabe, even better than those that live their lives here. I feel things you don’t. I suspect the Seeker was projecting randomly, possibly to any of its ilk that might be near. Perhaps the ‘rescue’ was never real. It may have actually been only how I perceived the Seeker’s thoughts. I do know that its actions saved me, intentionally or not. I—I’m guessing all of this.”

Cabe nodded. The noises of the gathering were growing stronger and closer and he turned back to the assembled group. “Go back to whatever you were doing. You and you.” He pointed at a human he knew to be a soldier and one of the drakes who wore a crest. “This area is forbidden to everyone until the Master of Dagora arrives. See to it.”

What sort of mind was he developing, he wondered belatedly, that even during this chaos he was still striving to improve relations between his people and the drakes? Choosing one human and one drake to guard an area he could have thrown a spell around smelled more of foolishness than anything else, but he stuck to the idea. Use the potential for danger to draw them together, something had whispered from the back of his mind.

Advice from Nathan?

Something else was nagging at him. Something about the creature. He had not really come in contact with it yet, but, unlike Gwen, the desire was starting to grow within him. He felt he should know something about it. Touching it, though …

It would take the Green Dragon some time to return here. Even at top speed tomorrow was the soonest. He might have asked Gwen to question the inhabitants of the Dagora Forest, but he suspected they knew little save perhaps the path the creature had taken. That no one had sought to warn them before led credence to that. This creature had been a mole, a digger, and probably had passed unseen for the most part.

“We should destroy it,” he heard Gwen say.

“Not until the Green Dragon has a chance to see it.”

Drain her. That was the feeling Cabe had had. This was not an ordinary creature. This was something that had been perverted by some power. This creature was an abomination to nature, to life itself.

Was this Toma’s doing?

Cabe shook his head. A possibility, but no more. There were other threats than that one drake. Far too many other threats.

If I could touch it, I would know.

His hand was nearly upon it before he had realized what was happening. With a start, he jerked it back. Gwen, who had turned away, looked back and gasped.

“Cabe! Don’t touch it!”

For a brief time, the old Cabe returned, unsure and unwilling to commit himself to such a potentially dangerous task. Then his face hardened, resembling another more and more, a face that Gwen knew well, for she had once loved that person as much as she now loved his grandson.

He muttered something under his breath and the sorceress felt the tug on the powers. The tug became a wrenching, threatening to cut her off from them. Whatever spell was being cast, its potential was far more than any she had ever cast.

The palm of his hand touched the snow-white fur of the creature.

To Cabe it was as if someone had opened up a book to the past and he was watching a story unfold. He was in the Barren Lands, but they were lush, much like they were today. This was long ago, though.

This was the Turning War and he was Nathan Bedlam.

There were others with him. Yalak, who disliked what was about to occur, but had abstained in the voting. Tall Tyr, cloaked like a priest; he heartily approved this measure. Somber Salicia, a tiny woman of tremendous power. Basil, the true warrior of the group. It was up to him to keep the enemy away if they should come before the spell was cast.

There were others, too, but they lurked beneath the ground. Horrible things, twisted from what they had originally been. A spell that Nathan and his companions would never forget; their greatest shame and sin.

They were a tired and tattered band now. Salicia was dead, torn apart by the hunger as she sought to halt it on her own. Cabe/Nathan felt the revulsion within him as he realized that he had grown stronger with her death, with the …the …

The revelation refused to come.

Then, the Dragon Masters were combining their might, seeking to turn the flow back upon the creatures that they had twisted. Only with the cessation of hunger could they hope to destroy them all. Yalak had tears in his eyes; he had foreseen all but the death of Salicia—that hurt him the most. Basil was supporting Tyr, ever the faithful companion.

Cabe/Nathan stood with his back before them, haggard, guilt-ridden. If he had known what it was he had unleashed, he would have never suggested it. Better that the spell remain locked forever in the darkest recesses of his subconscious. Better that they lose the war with the Dragon Kings than ever let loose the hunger again.

The mounds of earth were moving toward them, some as great as the dust-covered hills of this region. The Dragon Masters prepared themselves.

Great digging claws broke through the surface and a mountain of white death rose.

Cabe shook violently as that which had been Nathan wrenched him from the horrors of the far past to the terrors of the present. These new memories, however, were drawn from a creature only remotely intelligent, though far older than the ones unleashed by the Masters. The memories were fragmented pictures, much like the communications of the Seekers—not a surprise, considering that the first of this monstrosity’s kind had probably been brought forth by the avians themselves. A last-ditch effort to defeat some foe—but the Seekers came to realize that the abominations they were about to unleash were far more of a threat. Better to bury them within the cold, frozen earth and hope there would never be a need. Better to let the lands become the domains of …the Draka? The Seekers would wait centuries, if need be.

A few had been given freedom. They had only to obey the cold ones, the dead ones of the master.

Disobedience! The hunger had been too strong and there was life to the south—but the One They Served had known and punished most of those who had disobeyed! It was not yet time, He had cried angrily at them! Better to flee to the horrid warmth than face the punishment inflicted by that one. There was life there. Life to feed the hunger …

Cabe fell back as if lightning had coursed through his form.

Gwen was at his side before he realized it. Her hands passed over his body, seeking any damage. He knew he was unharmed …merely drained, exhausted. As if the memory of the creature alone had been enough to pull his life from his body. It had not been Cabe’s choice to break contact; he had become engrossed in the images.

It had been Nathan who had broken the link. Almost too late. It had been that part of Cabe which was also a part of his grandfather that had realized that the beast was a conduit and, even dead, it retained some of that facility.

Given a little more time, it would have drained him of everything—all for the one it still sought to serve in death.

Death, cold, and magic of the highest, most dangerous caliber. The images explained much to him. This creature, Cabe knew, had been unleashed by the Ice Dragon to feed a greater spell—but what?

Then, he recalled the frost again.

TOMA WOKE TO find a somber, bone-white figure standing near his chamber. One of the few of Ice’s clan that he had seen. Like his lord, the warrior was as thin as a cadaver long dead. The eyes, bright ice blue, were those of a fanatic, a reflection of the Ice Dragon himself. Toma would find no allies with his cousins here. They seemed little more than extensions of their lord.

“What is it? What do you want?” Toma bared his teeth to show that he had no fear, only disdain for this poor excuse for a drake. The warrior ignored the look. Outsiders were to be tolerated as long as the Ice Dragon desired that. Other than that, they were nothing. Even Toma knew that.

“My lord wishes to speak with you.” The drake’s voice was flat, dead. The ice servants had more life in them.

Madness! I am surrounded by a sickness, he realized. A sickness more dangerous than a hundred Dragon Masters.

He looked to his parent, but there was no change. The Gold Dragon lay still, his humanoid form stretched across a furred couch with more furs wrapped around the body itself.

Toma rose silently and followed the other drake. He was led along the same corridors he had traversed countless times before and knew now as well as his own mind. He was forbidden to travel them alone now and that was another change that disturbed him. Whatever the Ice Dragon sought to accomplish, it was coming to a head. Already it might be too late for Toma to escape—if escape was what he should do. It was possible that there still might be some way of twisting his host’s plans to his own needs. Toma had not become a power behind his father’s throne for nothing. What he lacked in a few silly markings he more than made up for in all else.

At last, the two entered the central chamber. For once, the great levia-than was not perched atop the ruins. Toma now saw what had been hidden. There were the remains of the building—a temple, yes—and there was a hole. A vast hole. Far more vast than Toma had imagined. The entire temple must have covered that hole.

He felt a chill run through him the longer he stared at the hole. It was the chill which ran through the soul and so he quickly turned his eyes away, only to find his gaze ensnared by that of his host.

“You have been wondering for some time about that, haven’t you?” There was no curiosity in that voice, no emotion whatsoever. The Ice Dragon might very well have been asking Toma if he was enjoying the weather.

Here was another change. The Ice Dragon had transformed to his human-oid form, looking like a drake warrior left frozen in the ice for centuries. The dragon crest had taken on a haunting quality and Toma could not make out any of the features within the false helm. Ice clung to the white drake’s form, so much that he looked almost like one of the unliving servants.

Toma finally found his voice. “Yes, I admit to some curiosity. I admit to being curious about a number of things, though by this time I no longer expect to get answers concerning them.”

“Spoken like the Toma I know. Still, I can answer some of your questions now, for the time has come for the Final Winter.”

“The what?”

“The Final Winter—the answer to the human problem. The cold that will sweep them from the Dragonrealm forever.”

Glancing around, Toma noticed suddenly that his guide had been joined by five other drakes, all of whom were positioned strategically near their master’s guest. Toma was no fool; he knew his odds of surviving a battle. Best to continue playing the part of audience.

“I admit my ignorance, milord. Tell me of your Final Winter.”

It was a mistake. He had asked the very thing that the Ice Dragon had wanted him to ask. He had not played the fool after all. He had been a fool.

“I will do better than that, Toma. I will show you.”

Strong, cold claws gripped him. He thought to shift to his true form, to take the battle to them, but something held him back. Something prevented him from changing his form.

He was trapped.

“Rest easy, nephew. My warriors only hold you in the extreme possibility that you might lose courage before you look down. I want you to see what it is that I have discovered. I want you to see what I have wrought for the glory of the Dragonrealm!”

Insanity! Toma’s mind cried out. He did not want to go near that pit. He did not want to see what was down there, but he seemed to have no strength. The Ice Dragon’s warriors dragged him forward much the same way Azran had toted him around after defeating him in the Tyber Mountains. There, Toma had only felt anger and shame at his defeat. Here, he now felt fear for what the humans called the soul.

The steps of the temple were nearly as ruined as the building itself. Bits crumbled as the drakes moved upward. Toma found himself counting each stone step, as if he were heading to his own execution—which was a possibility. Yet, the Ice Dragon had no reason to lie to him. Perhaps, his host merely wanted him to see what lay at the bottom of the pit. The thought did not soothe the firedrake; he had no desire to see the contents of the hole. Not when each step nearer made the chill more numbing.

They stood at the edge of the pit and it was then that the Ice Dragon spoke. “Lean over, Duke Toma. The hole is deep and only by being directly over can you see my surprise. Rest assured, my servants will prevent you from falling in.”

Had he a choice, Toma would have refused. As it was, two of the unliving creatures bent him forward until the upper half of his body was stretched out over the hole. The firedrake’s eyes were sealed tightly shut.

When he was not thrown in immediately, he dared to open his eyes a crack. From a crack, they widened, then shut quickly again. One glimpse was all he needed. One glimpse, even from this height, was more than he wanted.

Toma knew things were far worse than even this portended, for then the Ice Dragon was speaking again and his words were nearly as chilling as what the firedrake felt from the thing below.

“She is my queen, hatchling of my brother! She is the future of the furred vermin that have risen to defy our rule! A very short future and a very definitive one! Through her and the children, I will bring a winter down upon the Dragonrealm such as no being has ever seen! A final winter! One that shall forever cover this land!”

As Toma was dragged back from the pit, he noted with nervousness that, for once, the Ice Dragon spoke with true emotion.