Legends of the Dragonrealm, Vol. III

a mortally wounded guardian frozen in midfall. Only one blackened hinge held it in place. The entire gate was a burnt memory of what once had been. Those who had been here before could recall how its surface had been decorated with a curious array of designs, but now the designs were gone, melted away by the terrible forces unleashed upon it by one mad power.

The one who had stalked forward suddenly faltered. The others did not move, as if waiting for something to happen. The tableau did not change for several anxious moments.

“Well?” questioned one whose tone was reminiscent of lapping waves. It had finally occurred to him how ridiculous he and his companions looked. “It isss not asss if we need to knock, now isss it?”

Abashed, the lead figure looked at the others, then turned once more to the gate and the pitch-dark abyss behind it. He then turned back to the one who had mocked them all. “A torch would be nice, eel!”

“Why not create our own light?” scoffed one of the younger ones, the same one who had thought to remove his hood during the ride. He held out a gloved hand. A glow formed in his palm.

“Not out here, you hatchling!” the young traveler’s partner snapped. He had to struggle to make himself be heard, for, as before, his voice was barely a rasping whisper. It proved sufficient for the task, however, for the glow instantly faded away.

“There are sssome . . . some things that should be observed,” added the one with the voice that spoke like the sea. He was visibly working to calm himself, an effort that the other riders immediately copied with greater or lesser results. “Some things that must be respected.”

“There should ssstill be a torch on the inssside,” gasped the whisperer. “Just beyond the gate.”

Steeling himself, the foremost walked up and reached inside, his gauntleted hand running along the wall. His fingers struck something not made of stone. “I have it.”

“Then light it and let us be done with this.”

“You would be wise not to strain your voice,” the young, impetuous one advised his compatriot, a hint of mockery flavoring his words.

Before his companion could form a retort, the others had the torch lit. The bickering figures quieted. Despite their distaste for one another, the band drew close together as they entered the battered passage. There were some fears-although none here would have admitted to such failings-that were stronger than hatred.

They walked for a short time through a tunnel that, while natural in origin, had also been improved upon by other means during the passage of time. Small shadow creatures fluttered away in vocal dismay at the intrusion of light, but the group ignored them. All other things paled in comparison to the place they had invaded.

The riders entered the main cavern.

Even in its ruined state, the cavern citadel left them in speechless awe. The interior resembled a temple, but one tossed asunder by a great upheaval. Effigies both human and otherwise lay strewn about, many shattered beyond recognition. Some still stood, frightful mourners at the funeral of their companions. Beyond them, at the focus of the chamber, was a cracked and half-buried throne atop a crumbling dais. Just before the massive stone seat, but buried by rubble from the collapsed roof of the cavern, was a wide open area where a full-grown dragon could have and had rested his massive form time and time again. The elder riders could recall the face and form of that reptilian behemoth. He had been a golden leviathan, the last of a line of scaled masters ruling the land called the Dragonrealm. The Dragon Emperor Gold.

A generation of men had grown since his death.

The one with the torch placed it in a location that would give them the necessary illumination for their undesired deed. Then the riders, forming a ragged half circle, knelt in homage: if not to the late tyrant, then to what he had represented.

A moment of silence passed before one rider, calmer than the rest, stepped forward and took the place where the Dragon Emperor, king of kings, would have stood. The others shuffled uneasily, but they knew that their companion sought only to speak, not to claim any right above them.

“Let the council convene.” His words were softly spoken, but in the huge, still cavern they were thunder.

The forms of the riders suddenly became twisted, grotesque. They grew, and as they did their bodies became quicksilver. All semblance to humanity quickly faded. From their backs burst wings-long, webbed wings- and below those, serpentine tails sprouted. Arms and legs became clawed, leathery appendages. Already each figure was many times larger than it had been, yet the growth did not slow.

The cloaks had all been thrown aside at the moment of transformation, briefly revealing to the shadows a band of tall, dread warriors, dragonhelmed knights clad in scale armor. That image quickly gave way, however, as helms and near-hidden features melded together into monstrous, reptilian visages with long, horrid snouts and toothy maws. The scaled armor became scaled hides of colors that varied from figure to figure. There were blue, red, black, green, and at least a pair more gray than anything else. Other differences were obvious, but none more than the colors.

Where but moments before the riders had been, now the Dragon Kings stood.

The dragons stretched their vast wings and eyed one another with deep-rooted suspicion. They remained in pairs as they had since the beginning of this trek, one beast in each duo obviously dominant over the other. The lesser drakes backed up a few paces, acknowledging their lower status. One or two did this with great reluctance.

From the ranks of the dominant leviathans, a dragon of the darkest black, a sly creature with a savage scar across his throat, sneered at his emerald-green counterpart, who stood in the center. When the black dragon spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. Each word seemed a torture for the ebony creature.

“I am sssurprised that you even asked us to join together, Brother Grrreeeen! It isss not asss if you could not do asss you pleased in thisss matter!”

“We are inclined to similar notions,” added a gray, preening drake, whose very tone made it clear that the “we” of his statement concerned him alone and not his companion. He plucked fastidiously at his hide, as if seeking something. In the past decade, as his interests had turned ever inward, the Dragon King Storm had begun to take on the airs of a would-be demigod. Among his brethren was a growing suspicion that he was going mad, a not uncommon affliction of drake lords. Yet, any who might have thought him a foolish sight need only listen for the iron in his voice to know that this was not a creature to be crossed. The Storm Dragon might be mad, but he was also one of the most deadly of those drake lords who remained.

The Green Dragon, master of the vast lands of the Dagora Forest, eyed them both. “I have always abided by the traditions.”

“Enough of this bickering!” snapped their blue counterpart. His breath smelled heavily of fish, which made the black one wrinkle his snout in disgust. “We have matters to discuss which have been delayed all too long!”

Reminded of their duty, the others quieted. Green nodded his gratitude to the Blue Dragon, lord of Irrilian by the Sea, and, with a withering glance at his ebony counterpart, returned to his self-chosen role of speaker. “As Brother Blue so succinctly put it, we have delayed much too long in discussing this particular matter . . . years too long.” He surveyed the group, its prominent members strikingly fewer than when last they had convened. “I refer, of courssse, to the ascension to the throne of the next Dragon Emperor.”

Among his fellows there was some shuffling and discomfort. None of them had looked forward to this day, if only because they were uncertain as to what it meant to their kind. To some, it was an opportunity to reclaim past glory; to others, it was a final turning point. In the back of all their minds was the fear that it was all for nothing: a mere joke.

Once, it would have not been so. Once, the lands known both separately and collectively as the Dragonrealm had trembled under the iron rule of the drake race. Thirteen kingdoms and thirteen kings, with the line of Gold serving as emperor over all. So it had been for centuries, with new Dragon Kings replacing their progenitors either through the process of age or, more often, through subterfuge and deceit. A drake who became king relinquished his own name and became known by the symbol his clans had chosen so long ago in the lost past. Most were colors, said to represent the various shades of the magical spectrum. A few had gone by the strongest or most regal of the metals, such as iron or silver. One clan had even chosen the violence of nature’s storms as its symbol.

The shape-shifting drakes were only the latest in a long procession of rulers who had risen to supremacy . .