Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

created from the stuff of dragons! They were people-shaped, but they were dragons in heart. The spirits, the ka, of the Tezerenee crossed the path of worlds to this one and claimed those bodies. Claimed their own eventual destruction.”

The sorcery-shaped bodies had worked well for the Tezerenee. Most of the other Vraad had crossed over physically, but that door had not been open at the time of the Tezerenees’ crossing. So the folk of the dragon banner truly became dragon men, which served to increase their power and presence among the other refugees.

It was not until a few years later that people, not merely the Tezerenee, began to notice some changes. Their skill in sorcery faded, but even that was not so insurmountable a situation to the Tezerenee, who had always espoused the physical even while they made use of the magical. For a time, it served to make the Vraad more reliant upon the clan. Not enough to accept the rule of Lord Barakas, however. When he sought to take his rightful place, there was resistance. Strong resistance. It was that in the end that forced Lord Barakas to seek a new kingdom overseas.

“They claimed that land.” The Dragon King did not seem to consider how the Tezerenee had made the long crossing from one continent to the other without ships and sorcery important enough to discuss. Recalling what little he had gleaned from Darkhorse over the years, the warlock wondered if this was where the eternal had fallen prey to the Vraad. It might explain the shadow steed’s bitterness and, yes, fear where things relating to Nimth and the Vraad were concerned.

Lord Barakas had evidently expected to fight the Seekers, but the avians’ civilization had collapsed in some war and only a few bands were strong enough to give them trouble. Flushed with success, they conquered the mountain stronghold of the bird folk and took its ancient secrets for their own.

Kivan Grath. Cabe recognized the place from the Dragon King’s description. Kivan Grath, the mountain whose caverns would become the citadel of the Dragon Emperor. Odd how he recalls so much but not how much time has passed. Then again, he may want to recall his humanity, but not how long it has been since he lost it.

As he spoke, the Crystal Dragon seemed to shrink a little. More and more he became a man seeing a horror ahead than a great leviathan who ruled and was feared. With great unease, the warlock noted how the multitude of faces copied the drake lord’s emotions. It was like being surrounded by a thousand tormented ghosts.

“It may be that the land was fearful of them and although it could not destroy the Tezerenee, it made them into its own. Or perhaps the bodies themselves, formed from that which was dragon, at last sought to revert to what they had been meant to be. In the end, all that matters was the changing. First one, then another. No one understood then. No one saw it was happening to all, not merely a few.”

He shuddered, blinked, then looked directly at his human guest with something approaching desperate envy. “I remember the pain that day. I remember screaming as my arms and legs stretched and bent at angles no human appendages had been meant to bend. Do you know what it feels like to sense burgeoning wings squirming beneath the flesh of your back and then having them burst fully formed through your skin? To feel and see your skull reshape itself and then realize that your eyes, too, are shifting, changing? To scream and scream again as the transformation tears through armor and sends you crashing to all fours . . .

“. . . and then to know oblivion.”

Cabe, thinking of his own fear of even the minutest shifting of form, swallowed.

The reptilian monarch looked down at the floor. “I recall vague images, the thoughts of a beast struggling to think. How long, I do not know. I only recall that one day I began to think as a man, but I was not myself. I was a creature. I was . . . a dragon. This land was supposed to be my kingdom. Years it would be before I remembered that it had been chosen for me by my father, that all of us had, despite becoming beasts, claimed our particular kingdoms.” His laugh had more than a tinge of bitterness. “I have never known whether he gave me this peninsula because he knew what wonders were here or simply because I was one of the least important of his many sons.”

It was child’s play to seize these caverns. The Quel civilization had been in worse condition than that of the Seekers, disorganized and much too busy trying to devise a method to save their kind to note the danger until it was too late. The self-proclaimed Dragon King explored his new domain and in doing so found a place that the Quel had obviously shunned. There were no signs of recent activity. Nothing but a dark passage before him, a dark passage leading to the mouth of an even darker cavern. His arrogance and curiosity got the better of him. The passage was wide enough to allow him through and so with no reason to retreat, the dragon entered.

“There was no flash of memory, no flood of recollections. I entered the chamber and stalked to the center, fascinated by the glitter. I was not yet what you see before you, although my form had already adapted to my kingdom. Turning about, I studied this place from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. When I was finished, it came to me that this would make a most proper citadel for such a magnificent leviathan as myself. This chamber, I decided, would be my sanctum.

“And then it was the truth overwhelmed me. Then I recalled who it was I had been.”

Cabe waited, but the Crystal Dragon lowered his head to his breast, as if that distant moment was still too terrible to speak of even now. The warlock suspected he knew what had happened. The images surrounding a startled dragon, images of what he had been. Memories rising from the buried portion of his mind. It would be like awakening from a long, deep slumber, but a slumber whose peace had been shattered at last by a nightmare of untold horror. Only this was a horror that would turn out to be all too real.

“I can only say, warlock,” the Dragon King began again, lifting his head just enough to eye his guest. “I can only say that it was as terrifying as the transformation, which was my last recollection. Now I saw what had become of me. I roared in anger and madness and it would not be exaggerating to say that on that day I put the fear of the Crystal Dragon into all that lived in Legar.” He scratched at the floor with his talons. “Not that I cared. My own fear was all that mattered. I tried to destroy this place, but you can see how well I did. Although it resembles other cavern chambers in this underground world, I think it lives, in a manner of speaking, lives and plots and does what it can to give it purpose. If the Dragonrealm is not a living thing, then it may be that this chamber is what guides the course of our land. Perhapssss it even viessss with the Dragonrealm for powerrrr.”

Cabe tensed, noting the change in the Crystal Dragon’s voice. The human quality in it had given way to the more reptilian sibilance that he was accustomed to from the other Dragon Kings.

Looking more and more exhausted, the drake lord slumped back. The hissing became more pronounced with each breath. “I wasss a man who wasss a beassst, but I knew who I wasss now and so I believed there wasss hope for my humanity. The others mussst have become like me. I decided to summon the other dragons, the onesss I was certain were of the Tezerenee, and bring them into the chamber one at a time. Surely, with all of usss once more knowing who we were, we could work to transform oursssselves back to what we had been.”

It was not to be. He who had once been the Vraad called Logan summoned drake after drake into the chamber, only to find that none of them recalled even the vaguest of memories. One after another disappointment. When the last had been dismissed, he again attempted to tear the place asunder and was again defeated by the power that held the chamber together. He and he alone was evidently the recipient of the crystalline chamber’s great sorcery. He had been chosen; that was the only answer that he could surmise. It would be useless to summon his brothers even assuming he could find them. They would be no different than the poor fools who were now his clan.

Humanity briefly crept back into the Dragon King’s voice. It was as if there were a constant struggle going on between the two sides of his mind. “And so through the millennia, I have remained alone, my mind a man’s and my form a monster’s. The chamber gives much: the ability to view the land all over, power that reaches beyond the borders of my domain, and, most devilish of all, life eternal.” He allowed Cabe time to think of the ramifications of that gift, then resumed, “But it does not give me the power to become the man I once was. Nothing has. If I try to transform, I risk losing control over my very thoughts. All that is left to me is my mind. After so long, that is little consolation, but I will not give it up. I have watched the others give way to generation after generation of heirs, each more of a monster than the lassst. I have watched the rise of humanity, who thinks that it, in turn, inherits from beasts and not from its own ancestors. I have