who awoke with you?'
'We went our separate ways. I suspect most of them have joined Takhisis's armies.'
'Why haven't you? Don't you want dragons to regain con shy;trol and rebuild the world as you remember it?'
'Why haven't I?' repeated Pteros. 'For the same reason I don't fight back against Talon-I'm too old.'
Pteros snatched up a gopher that wandered too near in search of water, popping the silky creature into his mouth and chewing absently. 'Frankly, I don't see victory for the Dark Queen this time either. She's casting her fate with humans and other rot, the very same creatures who engineered her last defeat.' He spat gopher bones through the holes of his missing teeth.
'So Takhisis is personally gathering these forces? Is there somewhere I can go to see her?'
'Yes,' chortled Pteros. 'The Abyss, for the Dark Queen is trapped there again.' At Khisanth's puzzled look, Pteros searched for words to untangle the rumors he'd heard over the years.
'After opening the portal to the Abyss, Takhisis was able to walk the face of Krynn, her avatar a dark-haired young woman, though in that construct her powers were minuscule compared to her five-headed chromatic dragon form. Then, suddenly, inexplicably after ten years, the path was barred. She's sought a new one since, which is really the crux of her newest plan. She seeks to recruit humans because she wishes to control them, and through them her armies from the Abyss. She intends to reopen the portal so she can return to Krynn in her powerful dragon form.'
Pteros gave Khisanth a conspiratorial look. 'If I were Takhi-sis, I'd unite dragons of all colors and leanings, appealing to their racial heritage to persuade them to overpower humans.' Khisanth removed a stone from between the talons on her right hind leg, considering Pteros's words. 'I've heard that the humans in her army rise to power by uniting with a dragon mount.'
'Yes, I've heard that, too.'
Khisanth squeezed her eyes shut. She'd hoped Pteros would be able to deny it. 'Surely, once the superiority of a dragon's skills are demonstrated, the dragon and human in this arrangement have equal rank, if the dragon is not actually in command,' she said.
Pteros simply shook his large, many-horned head. 'I would never willingly subordinate my skills to any human,' said Khisanth firmly. 'The rules would have to change if I joined the army.'
'Ah, the arrogance of youth,' muttered the old dragon. Khisanth didn't consider it as arrogance; she simply couldn't see herself being ruled by a human. She believed there was always a way to turn a situation to her advantage. Like the situation with Talon. She knew it was just a matter of time before he struck again. She was preparing herself for it, learning new attack spells. Thoughts of the territorial dragon brought a question to mind. 'Why hasn't Talon joined the army?'
'You'd have to ask him that. We haven't exactly chatted recently.' Pteros touched the gems around his neck. 'I suspect he's too busy coveting the treasures I've acquired in my long life to volunteer his services for free.'
Khisanth admired the jewels around Pteros's neck. Her gaze clung to the pearl-and-ruby diadem around his dark head. Those two items alone were certainly worth fighting for. According to Pteros, they represented only a small por shy;tion of the treasure stored away in his lair. Khisanth had never been allowed in that hallowed place. If the gems he wore were any sampling, though, Pteros's treasure had to be beyond imagining in volume and value.
She caught the old wyrm admiring the maynus on her choker. 'That's quite an interesting piece. I can't identify the glowing gem.'
Khisanth hesitated. Her first instinct was to shield the globe and tell Pteros to mind his own treasure. She knew too little about the maynus to tell him much, anyway. Her gaze lin shy;gered on the worldly, magically advanced dragon. Struck with a thought, Khisanth made a quick decision. She told him all she knew about the maynus. Pteros's wrinkled snout pulled up into the first expression of interest Khisanth had seen.
'So it's an artifact, not a gem. You don't understand how it works?' he asked. Khisanth shook her head. Pteros reached out a claw arm. 'May I see it?'
Khisanth hesitated again, then tugged the maynus from the choker vine and, between cupped claws, handed her most pre shy;cious treasure to Pteros.
Pteros held the glowing globe reverently, turning it over and over. He peered inside. 'Lightning …' He looked up at Khisanth. 'Do you know where if s from? An artifact' s origin can tell a lot about its function.'
Khisanth did know. 'Kadagan said something about its coming from the elemental plane of lightning. That fact meant nothing to me at the time.'
Pteros was frowning. 'It means nothing to me, either. I know of four elemental planes of existence-air, earth, fire, and water, but not lightning. Perhaps this Kadagan was con shy;fused.' He continued looking into the globe closely.
'I don't know,' said Khisanth. 'He was very specific.' She looked over his arm into the globe. 'Do you think you can fig shy;ure it out?'
'There's a fairly simple spell of identification that might tell us something,' Pteros said as if to himself, 'but it takes forever to cast. You say you've used it several times by just telling it what you wanted?' Khisanth nodded. Pteros clutched the globe. His eyes took on a greedy gleam. 'Then let's give it a try.'
'Wait!' cried Khisanth. 'Do you think thaf s a good idea? I mean, we don't know what it will do.'
'And we never will unless we test its scope,' said Pteros. He thumped his own chest. 'If there's one thing I know, if s
magic.'
Khisanth felt strange playing the timid dragon to Pteros's brash one. She'd hoped, however, to see some spunk in the old dragon, so she nodded her head in approval.
'Lef s see,' said Pteros, his blue and orange eyes glittering with enthusiasm, 'we'll try something relatively simple first.' He closed his eyes and said, 'Transport us to the meadow by the hedge of sumac.'
Khisanth tensed involuntarily. In the beat of a heart, she and Pteros stood exactly where he'd directed.
'Not too impressive, since we both already know how to teleport,' said Pteros. 'I'll try something a little more diffi shy;cult.'
Khisanth looked about the wide meadow. 'First, get us back home. I don't like standing out here in a field with a powerful artifact for Talon and everyone to see.'
'Right you are,' said Pteros. Holding the globe aloft, he intoned, 'Maynus, take us home.'
The sphere flashed. Fingers of light stretched out and pierced the two dragons, sawing through their bodies. There was no pain, only an intense tingling where the twitching light passed. Suddenly Khisanth felt much lighter. She didn't know what was happening and looked at Pteros for the answer. The older dragon tried to say something, but no sound reached Khisanth's ears. As more and more fingers of light wrapped around Pteros, Khisanth could see through him. The other dragon's black body dissolved into sparkling motes and was drawn, or rather flowed, into the maynus in his talons!
Khisanth's astounded mind drew up a vision of Yoshiki Toba similarly disappearing into the maynus, followed by the sight of his charred body tumbling to Led's feet. Frenzied, she raised herself on her hind legs and flapped her titanic wings to get away from the device, but no air beat against them. Her wings had no more substance than thistledown. Roaring furi shy;ously, Khisanth, too, swirled away into the globe.
Still roaring, the young dragon found herself immersed in a maelstrom of light and sound. Enormous bolts of blue-white lightning flashed all around her rematerialized body. Thun shy;derclaps buffeted her so that it was difficult to inhale. The air smelled heavily, even tasted strongly, of chlorine. She could see Pteros next to her, his jaw moving in speech, but the thun shy;der was so loud it was impossible to hear anything else. Green clouds boiled past in every direction-right, left, above, even below. There was no earth nor water beneath her, only air.
With that realization, Khisanth dropped like a rock. She instinctively clawed and scrambled and flapped her wings. Finally she rose, or at least was suspended. When she stopped the motion of her wings for a moment, she plunged again. Khi shy;santh wasn't at all sure that it mattered, since there didn't appear to be any ground to crash into. Still, she strained her wings to keep from falling.
Nearby Pteros appeared to have caught on to the same notion and was fluttering his wings, too. She saw him working his jaw again. A shimmering cone shape radiated through the air from his snout. The wide end of the cone engulfed her, and she suddenly heard Pteros all too well.
