Darlantan and his nestmates were gathered in a circle about their tutor, who often addressed them from the height of the nest. Yet now Patersmith’s attention was turned inward, staring into the soft depression where the hatchlings had been protected for so long. The thirteen wyrmlings waiting to hear his next words might have been all but forgotten, so far as the silver male could tell. He remembered the spheres within that enchanted nest, knowing that there had been one each of gold, silver, and brass, and two of copper and of bronze. Long ago those eggs had resembled the brilliant metallic sheen of the wyrmlings’ scales. For some time, however, they had shriveled and dried, until now they were merely wrinkled balls in different shades of brown.
“It is a sadness beyond measure that these wyrmlings never had the chance to live,” declared Patersmith.
“But why didn’t they come out with the rest of us?” Smelt asked.
“I cannot say for sure, but I suspect the cause is the fading of spell magic from Krynn. There was enough of your mothers’ sorcery left to protect the thirteen of you, but not the rest.”
“But what is this magic? How did it protect us?” probed Aurican alertly.
“You should have had your mothers here when you were born… but that was not to be. Instead, they wove this nest and cast their spells of sustenance and protection. It was all they could do.”
“What is spell magic, and where did it go?” asked Aurican, perplexed as he tried to follow the lesson with his usual careful concentration.
“Much of it is a mystery, vanished with the great queen dragons. Their spell magic was a thing of wonder, a power that could transcend the laws of the mortal world-until it disappeared. Perhaps this is another legacy of the Dark One’s lingering hatred.”
“What is the Dark One?” queried Darlantan, shivering under an involuntary sense of menace.
“She who is hated by Paladine and all goodness.”
“Teacher, what is hate?” asked Aurican.
“That is a good question, but not an easy one to answer. In truth, it requires another tale.”
“Then tell us, please!” clamored Oro and Mydass, golden sisters who, like their brother Aurican, had an apparently endless appetite for stories, ballads, and legends.
“I have a tale!” chirped Smelt. “When I was hunting a bat, it-”
“Shhhh!” hissed Dar and Auri, anxious to stop the brass dragon before his story wandered into its inevitably complex and pointless course.
Sulking, Smelt hung his head while Patersmith sighed and drew deeply on his pipe.
“You dragons are the favored ones, the sons and daughters of Paladine himself. The Platinum Father watches over you. It was he who bade me come here to teach you.”
“If we are the favored of the Platinum Father,” inquired Aurican pointedly, “that would indicate that there are those who are not so favored. Who are these others?”
“Ah, always with the questions, my golden pupil. You will learn that Krynn is peopled with a multitude of lesser creatures, slow-witted, weak, and short-lived for the most part. Still, they strive to exist on the world, and when at last you come forth into daylight, you shall share the land with them.”
“But who are these creatures?” Darlantan asked, trying to picture a being that was neither dragon nor bat nor Patersmith. At the same time, he tried to imagine what daylight was like. Patersmith had told the wyrmlings about the sun, and though Dar found the concept terribly intriguing, it was also almost impossible for him to imagine.
“Perhaps first you will meet the griffons who glide through mountain skies. Of course, you are mightier than they and could make them your prey or your slaves. But perhaps you will have the wisdom to treat them with dignity and honor and will find that their service, rendered willingly, can be far greater than anything compelled.”
“So long as the griffon doesn’t take my bats!” declared copper Blayze, with a hissing growl.
“Ah, my quick-tempered one. I suspect that, when at last you fly above Krynn, you shall find yourself amazed that you once ate bats.”
“But surely we will still need food,” growled Burll, drawing his bronze brows into deep furrows along the foreridge of his thick-boned skull.
“Surely indeed, my hungry one,” said Patersmith with a deep chuckle. “It’s just that you have, as yet, no real awareness of the incredible banquet that awaits you. And this is the source of our lesson.”
“More food?” Burll inquired hopefully.
“No… more variety. You will learn that the diversity of the world is its greatest strength, just as it is among yourselves.”
“You mean like the color of our scales?” probed Aurican, who, as usual, was a thought or two ahead of his nestmates.
“That is an example, albeit a minor one. More to the point are the things that make you different, for these are the things that make you all, as a clan, strong.”
“Like Aurican wondering about magic all the time?” Dar suggested. “He’s the only one who does that.”
“Aye-or Smelt, who talks more than all the rest of you put together. Or you yourself, Darlantan. Always you must be doing something, going somewhere, stretching your legs. I can only imagine what it will be like when you learn to fly. And Blayze, so fast. Ever do you leave your nestmates behind.” The tutor’s gentle eyes smiled at the copper male and chuckled. “And with your temper, speed can be a useful attribute, as least while you live among bigger, stronger dragons.”
“Am I different, like everybody else?” inquired Burll plaintively.
“Look at your strapping shoulders, the muscles that pulse beneath your bronze scales. Is there another of your nestmates so strong?”
“No,” concluded the bronze, with a pensive nod of his head. “I guess not.”
“He’s even got muscles inside his skull!” cackled Blayze, provoking Burll to spit a sharp spark of lightning.
Immediately the copper flew at his nestmate, spattering acid from his own jaws, until Aurican and Darlantan pulled the hissing, slashing serpents apart. Stiff-winged and growling, the two combatants settled back into their places while Patersmith cleared his throat sternly.
“What other creatures shall we meet, teacher?” asked Aurican, impatient with the diversion.
“Ogres are the oldest. They have erected mighty cities across the world. From these, they have gone forth to enslave humankind, perhaps the shortest-lived and most wretched of the two-legs.”
“Are the humankinds like bats?” asked Burll, his earlier anger forgotten as his tongue flickered across ever- hungry jaws.
“Bigger than bats,” Patersmith declared, “and more entertaining, though they are far lesser creatures than you dragons.”
“But are there other beings who dwell long lives of proper meditation and reflection?” pressed Aurican, his brow furrowed by concern.
“Ah yes. There are the elves, of course. Indeed, they are shy folk and hide in the thickest of forests. But I do not doubt you will find some common understandings with them, should you persuade one to emerge from his grove long enough to talk to you!”
“I should like that. Or perhaps I shall go into their groves instead,” Auri murmured, so quietly that only Darlantan could hear.
“But back to matters of Paladine and the dragons of metal. These eggs, here. I am afraid we shall never know what happened to the seven that remain unborn.”
“Then tell us about our mothers!” pressed Oro. “What of them and their tale?”
“Yes, a tale!” Aurican’s head rose from the scaly crowd of wyrmlings. “Will you share it with us?” The gold dragon held a large multifaceted ruby in his foreclaw. As his bright yellow eyes focused on the teacher, he unconsciously sat back and passed the bauble back and forth between his paws.
“Ah, my Auri… ever the balladeer. In the case of this tale, however, I fear it is too dark for you wee nestlings. Nay, that one shall wait until later.”
Patersmith turned back to his pupils, eyes sparkling above the cascading shower of whiskers. Pacing along the rim of the nest on his bowed legs, the tutor regarded each of the wyrmlings with a look of deep sympathy and warm understanding.
