regular forays.
“We’ll get some food soon?” squawked Aurican in the chirping dialect in which the nestmates conversed. The golden wyrmling padded up to Darlantan’s side. Auri’s proud head was upraised as he peered irritably into the shadowy tunnel.
Darlantan looked, too, understanding exactly the sounds his brother had made. “Let’s stay here and listen,” he squawked in reply. “Bats will come.”
Woofing, Aurican indicated his impatience, and Darlantan nodded, suddenly sharing a gnawing hunger that, before his brother’s suggestion, had been nonexistent. Together the two wyrmlings crept toward the yawning shadow, the winding tunnel leading outward from the grotto. Darlantan wasn’t really that hungry-and he knew the bats would be back soon, because they always came back-but for some reason, he suddenly pounced, landing with a rattling growl in the very mouth of the dark corridor.
Aurican would not be outdone. He raced along the far wall, head and body held low against the floor, shimmering wings tight across his spiny back. Tongue flickering, tasting the air, he scuttled forward, belly low against the smooth floor while the golden wyrmling’s yellow eyes glittered brightly in the murky shadows.
Then the grotto was a fading presence behind them. As chilly darkness settled around them, Darlantan realized he could still see, but there was a cloudy vagueness to this place that was very different from the cavern of the nest. That strangeness was not so much frightening as it was exciting, enticing. Auri was still a bright snake of color, darting along the base of the wall, then freezing, sniffing and tasting with a tongue that was like a flash of golden foil.
The other side of the cavern was too far away from his brother, so Darlantan crept down the center of the passageway. Though the ceiling was high and the walls far apart, after the vaulted spaciousness of the grotto, this place seemed strangely confining. He crouched low, studying each gentle curve as they approached it, then charging forward in a clatter of claws on stone and finally halting, seeking sounds and scents.
The cavern was long, and the two dragons paced each other around numerous bends. Despite the chill, Dar’s heart pounded with increasing exhilaration, his body trembling as they alternately lunged and froze, advancing in tandem with steadily increasing confidence.
Awareness of a change grew gradually, until the pair abruptly came to a simultaneous, awe-stricken halt. Darlantan stared upward at such a gulf of shadowy space that he scarcely dared to breathe. For a brief moment, he felt dizzy, forcibly resisting an urge to spring forward, to launch himself into that void. He trembled in place for many heartbeats until, once more, curiosity allowed him to move. Again Auri hurried to keep up.
Dar’s nostril’s itched suddenly, and he sneezed with a burst of sound that brought both of them to a halt.
It was a good thing, too, because the gulf of space he had observed above also extended downward. The cavern floor ended abruptly about a half-pounce ahead of where the two dragons now crouched, once more overcome by awe.
The space around them was as dark as the cavern they had just traversed, but it was also unspeakably, infinitely huge. Darlantan knew without a moment’s questioning that they had discovered the Darkness Beyond. If there was a surface, any object out there, he couldn’t see it.
Looking up, he discerned that the connecting cavern emerged from the side of a rock surface, and the cliff arched outward, an unclimbable overhang looming into the distant shadows. To the right, the face of sheer stone curled away, bending back out of sight in a short distance. To the left, it did the same, though in that direction the shelf upon which they stood curved along the face of rock, offering a path along a wide, smooth ledge.
Once again the silver nostrils twitched, teased by a tickling sensation, but this time Darlantan ducked his neck and shook his head, stifling any outburst. At the same time, he realized that the tickling sensation was caused by a smell, although it was an odor with a tangible presence unique among the many aromas in the nest.
“Look!” Auri hissed, inclining the wedge of his head in a subtle pointing gesture.
The odor was coming from around the cliff, in the direction of the continuing ledge. Darlantan was startled by an impression that he could actually see this scent-at least, he perceived a wisp of whitish vapor trailing through the air. When he blinked and stared again, it was gone. Still, he felt certain he had seen something.
“The smell is from there,” he hissed in certainty, and Aurican nodded.
“Be quiet-and be careful,” the gold replied.
Side by side, heads low and bodies taut, the two dragons started along the ledge leading away from the cave mouth. The shelf of rock was mostly flat, though it sloped dangerously near the edge and was barely wide enough for the two to move without touching wings. Darlantan, on the outside, felt a vague sense of menace in having the Darkness Beyond so close at his side. He took care to place each foot with precision, gripping tightly with his needle-sharp claws.
The wonders of this exciting excursion were not over. Darlantan squinted suddenly as the brightest light he had ever seen flared before him. Sparks trailed downward as the spot of brilliance remained poised in the air, then began to move very slowly.
“Fire!” Auri gasped, and Darlantan knew the word was right.
Instinct dropped filmy inner lids across the dragons’ eyes, and they stared in wonder and awe, but even now, as newtlings, neither felt any glimmer of fear. Instead, Dar’s heart pounded with anticipation. He felt an urge to leap forward, to gulp down that source of flame, but he resisted.
The fire, Dar could see now, was on the end of a long, thin object. As the flare of first brightness faded, he discerned that the stick was in turn connected to another thing-and that thing was a creature! It radiated an inner warmth that reminded Darlantan of a bat, though it was much, much bigger than any of the winged fliers.
The stick, with its flaming end trailing brightness through the air, moved up toward the being’s face. There the fire came to rest over a hooked protuberance, a curling stem that ended in a blunt, upturned bowl. Fire surged brightly again, and Dar sensed that it was being drawn into the protuberance. Moldy leaves seemed to smolder there, and vapors rose from the bowl in that tangible smell that Darlantan again realized he could see!
Abruptly a huge cloud of that visible smell emerged from the being, and then the creature turned to regard the two serpents with eyes that were luminous in their own right-not like the fire, but possessing a certain soft brilliance that in a sense was even hotter. And in that gaze, Darlantan saw a kinship, an abiding intelligence that reached out to touch him deeply.
Below those eyes was a snout. This was not nearly as magnificent a muzzle as a dragon’s, to be sure, but impressive enough. It hooked outward from the being’s face, curving forward to terminate in two massive, flexing nostrils. Darlantan watched in fascination as those twin apertures gave vent to additional puffs of the gray odor.
Beneath the snout was a flexible hole where the curved, leaf-burning protuberance was attached-clearly a mouth, though the opening was pathetic and shriveled compared to a dragon’s maw. The rest of the creature’s front, so far as the silver wyrmling could see, was a cascade of wiry bristles, a shaggy mat similar to bat’s fur, only longer and bushier. This thick coating draped far down the being’s chest.
Abruptly the smoking horn detached from the creature’s mouth, held in some sort of crude claw, a paw that lacked any talons, so far as Darlantan could see. That limb swept into a gesture, as if embracing the two dragons, drawing them forward with growing wonder.
“Hello, little newtlings,” said the being. “I was wondering when you would get here…”
Chapter 2
Circa 7500 PC
“There should have been twenty of you,” Patersmith explained, his shoulders slumping in a posture of uncharacteristic sadness.
The bewhiskered tutor stood at the rim of the jeweled nest, gazing at the seven tarnished orbs that remained within amid the litter of scraps and shells. For a moment, the sturdy, short-legged figure stood still, as if he had forgotten the attentive audience on the grotto floor.
