Night of the Dragon

SIXTEEN

Sinestra slept.

That she might do so even when her senses warned her that there were other intruders about spoke not of her exhaustion, but of her confidence. She was certain of her impending triumph, certain that any of the vermin seeking to prevent it would soon be either eradicated or serve her in some manner or another.

She slept, as she always did, for but only a few minutes at a time. There had been periods when she had gone more than a century without slumber. This was not normal for most of her kind, but Sinestra had only contempt for the others, even those of the black flight. In her mind, the only dragons worth existing in her imagined world were herself and her new children.

Still in her mortal form and lying atop a bed of stone, she slept alone in a vast chamber deeper than any other she currently used for her experiments. Down here, there was nothing to disturb her.

Down here, she could listen to the voice in her head far more clearly.

All goes as planned, it said over and over. All goes as planned and Dargonax grows larger.... The next generation will dwarf even him...and be a thousand times more powerful...

'A thousand more times...' Sinestra murmured in her sleep. 'A thousand more times...'

A thousand more times powerful...and they will crush the other dragons... crush them all... the day of the dragon is at an end...now comes the twilight... the night...

'The night...'

But the night shall be followed by a new day... the first day of the children's rule... the first day of a new golden age of dragons... 'A new... golden age—'

Sinestra started. Her eyes flashed open and a look of intense anger spread over her face.

'Korialstrasz!' the black dragon roared. She leapt to her feet. 'But how could he—how could he—?'

And then, oddly, Lady Sinestra's expression transformed. Instead of shock, anger, and outrage... satisfaction spread across her maimed features.

'Yes... of course... how delicious... how perfectly timed! Thank you. Korialstrasz... thank you...'

With a smile, she hurried out to find Zendarin....

Another dragon stirred at that same moment, a dragon who was certain that he was dead. It was not Korialstrasz, though, but rather the blue, Kalec.

His first discovery was that he was not, after all, dead. That, though, did not explain the darkness that surrounded him, a darkness that felt... in some obscene way... almost alive.

And then Kalec recalled what had happened to him before he had blacked out. He remembered the pit where they had dumped the huge corpses and the discovery that the pit was not empty.

Not empty...

Kalec summoned his blade. The blue-tinted weapon materialized, but only as a dull shadow of what it should have been. The next moment, it simply faded away.

' Must not... must not do that...'

Each syllable literally struck a chord of fear in Kalec, even though he was not one given to that emotion. The blue dragon tried again to call for the blade, but this time there was not even a hint of its existence.

'Must not do that...' the voice repeated.'...or she will know...' She. There was no question as to whom the voice referred. It could only mean Sinestra.

'Who—who are you?' Kalec finally asked.

'I am her child....'

'Where are you? Let me see you!'

'I am here before you....' There was a deep amethyst glow and in it Kalec beheld an immense shape. It was dragon in form, yet seemed to flow as if not entirely solid. It resembled somewhat what he knew a nether dragon was supposed to look like, but was also more.

Shimmering orbs observed the blue dragon in turn. Kalec suddenly felt as if those eyes had been staring at him all the time that he had been unconscious and that notion sent new chills through him.

'What are you?' he asked.

'Her child...'

Kalec grimaced. He was not certain whether the vaguely-seen creature was as naive as he sounded or simply toying with the blue dragon.

He decided to try a new tack. 'Do you have a name?' There was a pause, then. 'I have a name.... She calls me Dargonax....'

''Dargonax?'' Kalec's wariness magnified a thousandfold. He knew the meaning of that name from the tongue of his kind. Dargonax... Devourer...

'Do you like it?' the murky form asked. 'I like it.' 'It is a...strong name.'

'It means 'Devourer'... in the dragon tongue, she says,' Dargonax added, quickly destroying any hope the blue had that the creature was ignorant of the foul meaning. 'You are a dragon....'

Kalec surreptitiously tried to summon a magic blade, anything that he could use against the creature. Now the blue knew that he was being toyed with.

'I am a dragon, too....' Dargonax moved forward, the murkiness peeling back as just enough to allow Kalec to see that the shape was definitely that of a dragon, but not one of the nether one.Dargonax was much, much more.

But the mysterious dragon did not fully reveal himself. Indeed, he pulled back, growing once more akin to a shadow. Kalec had no idea whether it was some ability of his, some spell, or some trick of the pit, for there were unsettling energies in play around them and not all were directly associated with Dargonax.. .although surely he was affected by their presence.

Kalec wondered if even Sinestra understood what she was growing in this pit.

He steeled himself for what would surely be his imminent end. 'We are both dragons, yes.'

'Then we should be friends....'

The statement took the blue dragon aback. He could fathom no reason why Dargonax would need his assistance. Surely it would do him more use to swallow Kalec whole, an easy task considering that, in addition to being unable to use his inherent powers, the blue could not even shapeshift. He had already secretly attempted to do so more than once and the only explanation for his failure had to be something that his surreal companion was doing.

It occurred to Kalec then that Dargonax was surely only days— perhaps a few weeks at best—old.

How terrible would he be as he further matured? And did he even need to mature? The beast seemed already huge.

Krasus had warned Kalec against even pretending to deal with the blood elf and surely would have counseled against doing the same here, but the blue doubted that he had any real choice. Dargonax had dragged him down here in the first place, and the only reason that he had not devoured Kalec as he had the dragonspawn—for there were no signs of the corpses anywhere— was that the behemoth did truly need him.

But exactly for what was the question.

'Yes,' the blue finally responded. 'We should be friends.'

'Good...good...and friends, they help friends, yes? Is that right?'

For a being who had likely never been out of the pit, Dargonax was already well-versed in many of the nuances of life. Sinestra had wrought something terrible.

'Friends help friends,' he agreed. 'Both help each other.'

'So they do—' Dargonax broke off. Then, much to Kalec's shock, the other's voice resonated in the blue's head. She comes! Be silent and still!

Although still recovering from his surprise at Dargonax's ability to speak to him through his mind, Kalec nevertheless managed to obey. There was no need to ask just who the creature meant. Since Anveena's sacrifice, Kalec had become very reckless where his life was concerned, but he also still held tight to his sense of duty. He would not serve Malygos well by letting Sinestra know that he had survived. The blue planted himself tight against the wall and tried to summon the shield that he had earlier created.