King’s ancestors had dug it all out. There were plants of all shapes and sizes in the cavern and skillfully woven tapestries, some incredibly ancient, decorated most of the walls. Some Dragon King long ago had worked hard to make his lair a thing of beauty and had succeeded, but the dark-haired mage was by no means calmed by the regal setting. It was never possible to forget that this was the nest of a dragon and had been so for countless generations.
Cabe had debated on a number of ways to begin, but none of them had seemed satisfactory. Being blunt still appeared to be the best route. “My lord, I seek information concerning events in the realm of your brother, the Crystal Dragon.”
“Do you?” The Dragon King could not entirely mask his surprise. “And why do you desssire this?”
The warlock stepped closer, stopping only when he stood at the bottom of the dais. He kept his face devoid of all emotion. “I believe something is happening there. I believe it may involve the wolf raiders.”
“Aaah?” Now he truly had the drake lord’s attention. If there was a threat other than human magic that the Dragon Kings respected, it was the ever-hungry wolf packs of the Aramites. The black ships had been a scourge that even the most cunning of the Dragon Kings had been unable to put an end to. The revolt that had forced the Aramites to abandon their plundering had been a blessing. “Tell me more, friend Cabe.”
Cabe told him of the visions, leaving out nothing. The Dragon King was silent throughout. The warlock knew that his host was already considering possible meanings to the visions and what those meanings might demand of him. By the time Cabe was finished, the drake lord had already formulated some thoughts of his own on the subject.
“I have heard rumors, but this . . . It should not surprissse me that the wolf raiders have come to the Dragonrealm. They are your kind at their most tenacious. If they have chosen the lands of my brother Crystal, then I cannot possibly predict what might occur. The lord of Legar is an enigma even to his brethren.” The Dragon Kings all called one another brother, but the term referred to their supposedly equal status, not any blood relation. As far as the mage knew, none of the surviving kings were truly brothers.
“Have you no contact with him . . . in any way?”
“He is not one for conversation, human. Ever has his line kept to itself. He does not seek our company, and in truth, we have ever avoided his.”
Cabe considered this. “You have
The drake lord bared his teeth, but not because of any anger toward the mage. Rather, he appeared frustrated at himself. “I have no contact, friend warlock. No spies. Through no method have I ever succeeded in divining his purposes . . . if he has any. Do not think that I have not tried. Do not think that my brothers have not tried, too.”
“What about the rest of Legar?”
A reptilian smile briefly crossed the shadowed countenance. The Green Dragon straightened, then rose from his throne. Cabe did not step back, as many would have done, but merely crooked his neck and looked up. He knew the Green Dragon well enough to know that the monarch respected more those who stood up to him. “Of the rest of Legar, there is generally nothing of interest, friend Cabe. The land glitters, but it is devoid of a soul. One might as well observe the snow-smothered Northern Wastes, for there is just as likely something happening there as there is in the hot, dry domain my brother rules.” The smile died. The Dragon King stepped down from the dais so that he was more or less at eye level with his guest. “Yet, I trust your word and your judgment when you say that now that may have changed. You make me curious for the first time.” He paused, then hissed. “If you will join me on a short walk, perhaps there is a way to answer your questions . . . and your fears.”
“Where are we going?”
“I have been awaiting the opportunity to test a creation of mine. I see no reason why this should not be the perfect time. Come. It would be better to show it to you before I explain.”
The drake lord led him into one of the branching tunnels and through the mazelike passages that were common among the lairs of his kind. Some of the passages were huge, perfect for a full-grown dragon, but others, newer, were designed strictly for creatures the size of a man or a drake in human form. Cabe knew that many Dragon Kings, especially the line that had ruled Dagora, often had human servants, but they did not generally dig their tunnels to accommodate those servants. The smaller pathways had come into existence about the time that the drakes had begun to favor the humanoid forms.
They came at last to a pair of plain bronze doors, something rare in the depths of a dragon lair. The bronze doors indicated how valuable the contents of the chamber behind them were to the woodland monarch. Four guards, all
At a gesture from the drake lord, the guards stepped aside and the doors swung open. The reptilian ruler waved a taloned hand at the warlock, indicating he should enter first.
Cabe never knew what to expect when he was brought to the Green Dragon’s inner sanctum. Each time, something was different. The lords of Dagora had always been scholars, their prime interests tending to run either to the vast history of the continent or the workings of magic as various races used it. There was no one save perhaps the Crystal Dragon who knew as much.
To a mage, the chamber was a collection worthy of envy. Seeker medallions hung next to tapestries by a race whose face and form not even the Dragon King knew. The tapestries were older than anything else and the images always revolved around landscapes that did not exist, at least now, anywhere in the realm. There were bottles filled with specimens of both animal and vegetable origin and row upon row of great tomes, many of which the drake lord had long ago admitted he had yet to decipher.
The Dragon King turned to the guards. “You may close the doors. No one is to enter, no matter what you might hear. That includes everyone.”
“Yes, my lord,” the men chorused. Two of them took hold of the handles and pulled the bronze doors shut. The Green Dragon’s human servants were ever swift and thorough in their obedience, but unlike those who served many of the other drake lords, these obeyed out of pure loyalty. The Masters of the Dagora Forest had almost always cared for their humans as much as they did their own kind.
When they were alone, the reptilian knight turned back to his guest. “Have no concern, Massster Cabe. The warning was more for the sake of our privacy than to hint of any danger to our beings.”
“I hoped as much.” Despite the words of his host, however, Cabe was not completely at ease. Any venture that involved delving into the realm of the Crystal Dragon had to have at least a tiny element of danger inherent in it.
The Green Dragon stalked toward a small alcove in which a pedestal no higher than the warlock’s waist stood. Carved into the flat top of the marble artifact was an array of symbols that looked vaguely familiar to him. The memory was so distant and hazy, however, that he wondered if perhaps it was not one of his own but rather something left over from when he had shared the memories of Nathan.
“This is what I wished to show you. It isss far superior to anything that my brothers have . . . save perhaps the one we seek to learn more of. I have only recently completed its creation; one would almost think that your request had been foreseen by the Dragonrealm itself.”
The warlock did not like to think about that. Too often, it seemed that the Dragonrealm somehow controlled his life and the lives of those he cared for. “What does it do? How does it work?”
“An explanation now would pale against the actuality. It is best if you simply observe.”
Cabe watched as the Dragon King first passed his hand over the symbols and then touched three of them. Again, a memory of the far past teased Cabe, but he forced it down. All that he knew was that the patterns carved into the pedestal were of a language of sorts, but not the common tongue spoken by humans and drakes. However, there had been many races that had preceded the Dragon Kings and at least some of them had spoken and written in other tongues. In the Dragonrealm, there were even those kingdoms where the written form of Common was undecipherable by any save those who had grown up learning it. When time permitted, he would ask the Dragon King about the markings, but now there were more important tasks at hand.
As he completed a second arrangement of symbols, the drake lord explained some of what he was doing. “The patterns are directly tied to specific forces in the Dragonrealm, almost the way a sorcerer’s mind is when he reaches out to use power, but more precisely. There isss less chance for random failure due to a lack of concentration and a greater ability to focus on specific regions or even individualsss.” The drake’s sibilance grew as he became excited about the subject. “It alssso drains the mage usssing it less than mossst mechanisms
