'Not to worry, little friends,' said a voice from above.
With amazing silence, Cupelix drifted down the shaft to alight on the nearest ledge. 'Fire is what we dragons do best.'
Kitiara and the gnomes took shelter in the far corner of the obelisk, after first taking the precaution of dragging the
Cloudmaster aside as well. Cupelix raised his long, scaly neck and inhaled so sharply that the air shrieked into his nostrils. The gnomes flattened themselves against the wall.
Cupelix raked his wing claws back and forth across his brass cheeks, throwing out cascades of sparks. Then Cupelix exhaled, hard, through the fountain of sparks. His breath caught fire with a dull 'whuffing' sound, and streamed down over the kindling. Thick smoke roiled out of the hearth, fol lowed by lighter white smoke, then flame. His great convex chest almost inverted from the exhalation, Cupelix ceased his fire-making. Smoke drifted in the still air, rising to hid den heights of the tower.
'Come along,' said Stutts. With a cheer, the gnomes hur ried to their tools. They laid out all the scrap metal they'd liberated from Rapaldo's horde — copper tree nails and iron brackets, bronze chain and tin buckets. All of it was going under the hammer, to be recast and reforged into engine parts. The interior of the obelisk rang with the sound of steel and iron melding together. The firelight cast distorted, mon strous shapes on the marble walls. The monsters were the gnomes, toiling around the fire.
Kitiara slipped past the busy little men and went outside.
The cool air washed over her like a splash of fresh water.
Over the head-high wall that the Micones had built she could see the cold stars. Faint streaks of haze crossed the sky, lit by a distant light source. She walked slowly around the obelisk's massive base and found Sturm, gazing up at the blue-white splendor of Krynn.
'Rather pretty,' she said, stopping behind him.
'Yes, it is,' he said noncommittally.
'I keep wondering if we will ever get back there.'
'We will. I feel it, here.' Sturm tapped his chest. 'And it i, confirmed by these visions of mine. They seem to show the future.'
Kitiara managed a mildly crooked grin. 'You didn't hap pen to see me on Krynn while you were perusing the future, did you? I'd like to know that I'll make it back, too.'
Sturm tried to summon up an image of Kit from his mem ory. All he got for his effort was a stabbing pain in the chest.
He coughed and said, 'I'm worried, Kit. Are we right to deal with this dragon? The gods and heroes of ancient times were wise — they knew men and dragons could not coexist. That's why the beasts were killed or banished.'
Chill forgotten, Kitiara planted a foot in the rising bank of red soil. 'You surprise me,' she said. 'You, who are edu cated and tolerant of most creatures, advocating hatred for all dragons, even one of good lineage, like Cupelix.'
'I'm not advocating hatred. I just don't trust him. He wants something from us.'
'Should he help us for nothing?'
Sturm tugged fitfully at the ends of his mustache. 'You just don't see, Kit. Anyone with power, be he dragon, gob lin, gnome or human, is not going to relinquish that power merely to help others. That's the evil of power, and anyone or anything who has it is tainted by it.'
'You're wrong!' she said with verve. 'Wrong! A cruel man is cruel no matter what his station in life; but many dragons skilled in magic were aligned with good. It is the heart and soul that are the seats of good or evil. Power is something else. To have power is to live. To lose it is to exist as something less than you are.'
He listened to this short tirade in mute astonishment.
Where was the Kit he once knew, the fun-loving, passionate woman who could laugh at danger? The Kit who carried herself with the pride of a queen, even when she had only a few coppers in her pocket?
'Where is she?' he said aloud. Kitiara asked him what he meant. 'The Kit I knew in Solace. The good companion.
The friend.'
Hurt and anger flowered in her eyes. 'She is with you.'
He could sense the anger radiating from her, like heat from a hearthstone. She turned and disappeared around the corner of the obelisk.
The gnomes forged a massive lever switch of iron and copper, and converted the rest of the scrap into huge coup lings that could be clamped over the severed cables in the
Cloudmaster and closed by great iron hooks. This work took most of the night, and when it was done, Rainspot pre cipitated a short shower inside the obelisk to quench the fire and dispel the pall of smoke that hung over everything.
Cupelix watched it all from his perch, never questioning, hardly even moving for nine and a half hours. Afterward, the tired gnomes climbed the ramp into the ship for a rest, leaving Cupelix to admire their work.
Sturm looked over the metalwork, too, as he idly ate his supper of dried spear plant and cold beans. Cupelix teased him with magically produced haunches of roast pig and pitchers of sweet cream, but Sturm stolidly ignored the proffered treats.
'You're a stubborn fellow,' said the dragon, as Sturm con tinued to munch his meager fare.
'Principles are not to be cast aside whenever they become inconvenient,' he replied.
'Principles don't fill empty belly'.
'Nor does magic salve an empty heart.'
'Very good!' exclaimed Cupelix. 'Let us trade proverbs that contradict each other; that's a worthy entertainment.'
'Some other time. I'm not in the mood for games,' said
Sturm with a sigh.
'Ah, I see the fair face of Mistress Kitiara in this,' said the dragon with a mischievous lilt in his voice. 'Do you pine for her, my boy? Shall I put in a good word for you?'
'No!' Sturm snapped. 'You really are quite irritating sometimes.'
'Inasmuch as I've had no one to talk to for nearly three millennia, I admit my etiquette is sorely underdeveloped.
'Still,' said Cupelix, 'this presents you with the opportunity to inform me. I would be as polite and genteel as a knight.
Will you teach me?'
Sturm stifled a yawn. 'It isn't manners or gentility taught by the fireside that makes a knight. It's long study and train ing, living by the Oath and the Measure. Such things cannot be taught in light conversation. Besides, I doubt that you genuinely want to learn anything; you're just looking for diversion.'
'You're so untrusting,' said Cupelix. 'No, don't deny it! I can hear it in your mind before you speak. How can I con vince you of my true good will, Sir Doubter?'
'Answer me this: Why are you, a fully grown brass dragon, permanently confined to this tower, on this strange and magic-ridden moon?'
'I am Keeper of the New Lives,' said Cupelix.
'What does that mean?'
The dragon darted his snaky neck from side to side, as though looking for nonexistent eavesdroppers. 'I guard the repository of my race.' When Sturm continued to look blank, Cupelix said loudly, 'Eggs, my dear, ignorant mor tal! The eggs of dragons lie in caverns beneath this obelisk.
It is my task to watch over them and protect them from insensate brutes like yourself.' His great mouth widened in a grin. 'No offense intended, of course.'
'None taken.'
Sturm looked at the floor, light red and veined with dark wine streaks. He tried to imagine the nest of dragon eggs below, but he could not grasp it.
'How do they come to be here l The eggs, I mean,' he said.
