promise anything. Opening such a gate is one thing, but knowing where to send the other end is quite another matter. Perhaps one of the sealed gates at Braastar can show us how to create one of our own.'
Marthaen went out into the yard and leapt into the air, flying quickly across the city to join the dragon sorcerers at the Academy. Once he was gone, Thelvyn retreated into the lair. He sat for a time staring down at a platter of roasted elk that had been brought for him. Dragons did not commonly eat more than once a day; he had dined late the previous night after his return from battle, and he wasn't particularly hungry yet. But ahead of him was a long journey, during which he may not be able to hunt for his fare, so it was best to eat while he could. Kharendaen sat on the other side of the table nibbling quietly at her own breakfast, also without great interest.
After a long moment, Kharendaen looked up at him. 'What are you thinking about? Are you worried about the task ahead?'
'I suppose I should be,' Thelvyn answered, 'but actually I was thinking about last night-about my mother and the Great One.'
'Your mother and your father,' she corrected him.
Thelvyn shook his head slowly. 'In these last few weeks, I've found it difficult to think of the Great One as my father. It seems presumptuous somehow, although I admit I find it easier after last night. Do you suppose that there might be some real affection between my mother and father?'
'It is common for dragons to mate for reasons that have nothing to do with affection,' Kharendaen said. 'But my impression was the same as yours, that there was real affection between them. I always wondered why the Great One brought the spirit of Arbendael into his realm to be his chief servant and advisor. I suppose that being an Immortal must be a very lonely thing.'
Marthaen returned within the hour with the word that the dragon sorcerers could open a gate into the world of the Masters at any time or place required. They had already probed the structure of one of the collapsed gates and knew just what to do to open a gate of their own. Now they were waiting for word that the Dragonking was ready to give them final instructions. There were still a few unanswered questions, plus a few things they wanted Thelvyn to be aware of.
'We know already that a worldgate establishes two gateways, one in each world, which serve to anchor either end of the passage,' the gold dragon explained. 'In that way, even while the separate worlds might be moving through their own orbits, the gates always open in the same place in each world.'
Thelvyn said nothing, since Marthaen's explanation had gone somewhat beyond his limited knowledge of astronomy. He understood the magic well enough, but the idea of worlds moving in orbits escaped him. As far as he was concerned, the world was the most stable and motionless thing in existence. Of course, he lacked the education of most civilized dragons, who spent the better part of a hundred years in school. As a human youth in the Highlands, he had been lucky to receive ten.
'For that reason, we have guessed that distances and locations in one world correspond to those in the other,' Marthaen continued. 'Therefore you can probably find your way around the world of the Masters by judging directions and distances from where you have entered.'
'I see no reason that we should not open our own gate right here, in the core of our greatest power,' Thelvyn said.
'That's what we thought,' the First Speaker said. 'But for the sake of your own security, we dare not leave our worldgate open a moment longer than we have to. If the Masters detect its presence, then they will know that spies have entered their world and they will be on their guard. The best suggestion I can offer is that we open the gate again for brief periods of time every few hours. If the Masters do find our gate, we can prevent them from passing through 'it. How you get past them to return home, however, may be quite another matter.'
Thelvyn was already well aware of how things could go wrong in the cold, dry world of the Masters. The Masters had been able to surprise him nearly every time he had to deal with them so far, and he considered it more a matter of good fortune than any cleverness on his own part that he had managed to get the best of them. He knew he would be facing an enemy
he could not fight and that the risks would be enormous.
Marthaen led Thelvyn and Kharendaen to the city park, located in a wooded, rather marshy area in the center of Braejr. The park existed mostly because the land was unsuitable for buildings, its only real virtue being that it was the location of the tomb of Jherridan Maarstan, the first king of the Flaemish realm. It was also the only part of the city where the dragons could gather in large numbers and a fair amount of privacy. Marthaen had insisted that privacy was important. Aware of the concern it might cause, he thought it best that even the dragons didn't know that the Dragonking had subjected himself to great danger. There was also a possibility there were spies in the city.
The moment that the two dragons were ready to leap through it, the worldgate was opened. It was closed again at once, to keep it from being detected by the Masters in either world. Thelvyn went through first, hurtling through the void ready to fight, his back arched and his neck held low, bounding forward on the opposite side to make room for Kharendaen just behind him. They emerged into a dark, colorless world, their legs sinking into the soft, dry sand of gray dunes. A cold wind stirred the dull gray dust into what seemed like a dense fog. They could see only that they stood in the middle of a cluster of boulders and jagged pinnacles of stone that rose like a half- submerged island from the dunes.
'This must be the sea of sand that we could see to the southwest of the stronghold when we were here earlier,' Thelvyn observed.
'Either the days are very dark here or the nights are fairly bright,' Kharendaen said, looking around. 'I've never been sure which.'
'I suspect their nights are much darker,' Thelvyn said, blinking from the dust in his eyes. 'Let's move away from this place, in case the Masters detected the opening of the gate.'
'Where do we go?' she asked.
'I think we should scout out their main stronghold, then get away while we can.'
Thelvyn spread his wings and leapt upward, trying to get above the tricky crosswinds that raced over the dunes as quickly as possible. He had expected to rise above the dust fairly quickly, since most desert sandstorms remained fairly close to the ground, but the dust was still as thick and dark as ever three hundred feet above the ground's surface. The winds were even stronger and more fitful. He had been climbing only a few seconds when a vast, dark shape suddenly loomed out of the dust just ahead of him. He almost had to stand on his tail to slow himself in time to avoid flying directly into what he now recognized as a massive wall of stone.
Kharendaen had been far enough behind him that she was able to dart to the side. The two dragons turned and began to move slowly along the edge of the wall. The clouds of dust made their gold armor nearly impossible to see. Soon they realized that they were circling around the high keep of another great fortress like the one that had seen earlier. Their caution seemed unnecessary, since the stronghold appeared to be deserted.
After a time Thelvyn, turned back to the northwest, deciding to continue on without pausing to explore this stronghold. While it appeared to be abandoned, he thought it best not to risk discovery. He climbed slowly into the air, waiting for his mate to move close beside him.
'We know the Masters were able to transport that other fortress into our world,' he explained. 'My guess is they prepared this one for that same purpose. Once Braejr had fallen to their control, they would have brought their forces through this fortress to enforce their domination of Braejr and the Highlands. Now that the Highlands have been secured against them, they have most likely moved their resources to another stronghold.'
'It's fortunate for us that they are gone,' Kharendaen agreed. 'Otherwise we might have leapt through right into their claws.'
'I should have thought of that,' Thelvyn said. 'I don't think much of our chances if I make such stupid mistakes right from the start.'
Kharendaen was prepared to argue with him, but at that moment, they finally rose through the clouds of dust into the clear sky above, or at least as clear as the skies of this world ever were, since a fine dust filled the air higher than a dragon could fly, drawing a pale, thin shroud over the cold, distant sun. Thelvyn knew that they could have remained hidden if they had stayed within the thicker dust, but their large eyes could not bear the relentless assault of grit and sand. Instead, they flew low over the thicker clouds of dust, watching the skies around them for any sign of movement, trusting that their burnished gold and deep brown coloration made them hard to detect.
