convulsions.
Her head rested on Sturm's shoulder; she draped an arm around his neck.
Above them, Cupelix perched in a shadowed corner of the tower, a shaft of amber sunlight falling across the enfolding tips of his leathery wings. Illuminated from behind, the brass dragon's skin shone like gold.
Despite his earlier protests, when Kitiara had brought
Sturm a bowl of venison stew that Cupelix had made, he ate without a second glance. There was something more; he accepted her offer to make a backres out of her fur cloak and blanket. Ordinarily, Sturm would have stoically reject ed such treatment.
The gnomes ate heartily, as usual, under the gentle glow of the four Micones who remained behind when the bulk of them went out to chase the Lunitarians away. The ants hung overhead by their forelegs like grotesque paper lanterns, the ominous barbed stingers the only threatening aspect of their otherwise benign posture.
'The new parts showed no sign of cracking or fatigue,'
Flash said, ladling gravy over his roast. 'If we can get a decent charge of lightning, I don't see why we couldn't fly home right away.' He tried to set the metal ladle back in its bowl, but it clung to his magnetic hands. Cutwood plucked it off for him.
'You know,' Sighter said, stirring his pudding idly, 'with the proper angle of flight, we could very likely fly from here to one of the other moons.' This option was greeted with thunderous silence. 'Solinari or the dark moon. What do you think?'
Birdcall answered for all of them. He put two fingers to his lips and made a very rude noise.
Sighter grumbled, 'No need to be insulting.'
'The important thing is to return to Mt. Nevermind and announce our success,' said Stutts. 'Aerial navigation is now a fact, and the gnomish people must not delay in exploring all the possibilities it presents.'
Sturm, reclining on the floor by the dinner table, spoke up: 'What possibilities do you foresee?'
'Exploring and mapping can be done easily from the air.
These would be a boon to navigation. All the heavy work of transport now done by ships could be more efficiently done in the skies. I can see a time when great aerial galleons, with six or eight pairs of wings, ply trade routes in the clouds, bringing goods to and from every corner of Krynn…'
Stutts got quite lost in the grandness of his conception.
'Then there's war,' said Sighter ominously.
'What war?' asked Kitiara.
'Any war. There's always a war someplace, isn't there?
Can you see the cavalry of the clouds, swooping down to destroy field and farm, town, temple, and castle alike? It would be easy, yes, very easy to fling down fire and stone on the heads of the foe. In the workshops of Mt. Nevermind there are stranger things still. Weapons that require no mag ic power to destroy the entire world.'
His morose vision quelled all conversation. Then, from above, Cupelix said, 'It sounds as though you gnomes are planning to create your own race of dragons — mechanical dragons, completely obedient to their master's hand. All those things Master Sighter describes happened a thousand or more years ago, when dragons served in the great wars.'
'Perhaps we shouldn't share the secret of aerial naviga tion,' Fitter said hesitantly.
'Knowledge must be shared,' Stutts declared. 'There is no evil in pure knowledge. It's how it's put to use that deter mines what good or ill comes of it.'
'Knowledge is power,' said the dragon, catching Kitiara's eye. She buried her nose in her cup. When it was empty, she set it down on the table with a loud thump.
'We're forgetting one important thing,' she said, wiping her lips on the back of her hand. 'We owe a debt here. We oughtn't leave without paying it.'
'Debt?' said Cutwood. 'To whom?'
'Our host,' Kitiara replied. 'The excellent dragon, Cupe lix.' The gnomes broke into polite applause.
'Thank you, you're very kind,' said the dragon.
'We would long ago have fallen into the hands of the
Lunitarians, had it not been for the intervention of Cupelix,'
Kitiara went on. 'Now we're safe, the flying ship is repaired, and we have a debt to pay. How shall we do it?'
'Would you care for some fresh water?' asked Rainspot.
'Kind, but unnecessary,' said the dragon. 'The Micones bring me water from the cavern depths.'
'Do you have any machines to be repaired?' asked Flash thoughtfully.
'None whatsoever.'
The remaining gnomes all tried suggestions, which the dragon politely dismissed as unneeded or inapplicable.
'What can we do?' said Wingover, frustrated.
Cupelix launched into a compressed description of his sit uation inside the obelisk, and how he very much wanted to escape it. The gnomes just looked up at him and blinked.
'Is that all?' said Roperig.
'Nothing else?' added Birdcall by translation.
'Just this one simple task,' answered the dragon.
Sturm pushed himself up to a seated position, mindful of the pressure this put on his injured leg. 'Have you consid ered, dragon, that a higher power intended for you to live out your life within these walls? Would we be committing an act of impiety by releasing you?'
'The gods raised these walls and brought these many eggs here, but in all the thousands of years I've been resident in the obelisk, no god, demigod, or spirit has deigned to reveal any such divine plan to me,' said Cupelix. He shifted from one massive foot to the other. 'You seem to think my being kept here like a rooster in a coop is a good thing; can you not see it as I do, that I am in fact a prisoner? Is it an evil deed to free an innocent captive?'
'What will happen to all the dragon eggs if you leave?' asked Roperig.
'The Micones will tend them and guard the caverns for ever. No egg will hatch without deliberate inducement. At this point, I am totally superfluous.'
'I say we help him,' said Kitiara with conviction. She leaned forward to the table and gave each gnome a piercing look. 'Who can honestly say the dragon hasn't earned our help?'
All was silent until Sturm said, 'I will agree if the dragon answers one question: What will he do once he is free?'
'Revel in my liberty, of course. I shall travel thereafter, wherever the winds of heaven carry me.'
Sturm folded his arms. 'To Krynn?' he said sharply.
'Why not? Is there a fairer land betwixt here and the stars?'
'Dragons were driven out of Krynn long ago because their power was used to scheme and control the affairs of mortals. You cannot return to Krynn,' Sturm said.
'Cupelix is not an evil dragon,' Kitiara argued. 'Do you think he could live so long on the moon of neutral magic and not be moderated by its influence?'
'And what if,' Sturm said slowly, 'Cupelix is no danger to
Krynn. He is still a dragon. My ancestors fought and died to rid our world of dragons. How can I dishonor them by aid ing a dragon — even a benign one — to return?'
Kitiara stood so suddenly that her chair fell over. 'Suffer ing gods! Who do you think you are, Sturm Brightblade?
My ancestors fought in the Dragon Wars, too. It was a dif ferent time and different circumstances.' She turned to the gnomes. 'I put it to you. Shall we repay the dragon's hospi tality with indifference? Will we fill our bellies with his food and drink, fix the ship with his help, and depart without so much as attempting to help him be free?'
She had them now. All nine little faces, paler in the short, faint days of Lunitari, were rapt with attention. Kitiara raised her hand to the silent Cupelix, who contrived to look forlorn and desolate atop his marble perch. 'Put yourself in his place,' she said grandly.
