It was a look they had come to know, and to cherish, very well. Since the coming of Patersmith, the lives of the nestmates had changed significantly.
For one thing, the first tentative explorations in language had become whole volumes of words that the nestlings shared with each other and with their tutor. They had already heard of many adventures, ballads, and legends of Aurora and Argyn and their other mothers, the five matriarchs of metal dragonkind who had dwelt in peace and wisdom.
Occasionally the tales had hinted of darker realities, of wyrms named Furyion or Korrill or Corrozus. But Patersmith would turn away their questions when the wyrmlings pressed about these mysterious hints.
“Is this tale of our mothers also a tale of the chromatic dragons and the Dark One?” asked Darlantan, recognizing the tutor’s reticence.
“Yes. You see well, my son.”
“And will they come for us next?” asked Aysa, with a fearful look around the grotto.
“I should say not, for the chromatic dragons are gone… driven from the world by the heroism of your mothers. With them went the power of spell magic, and many would say the tally is fair. No, the thing that harmed these eggs is not so much the coming of an enemy as the waning of a friend.”
“And magic-that is the friend?” Auri pressed.
“Aye, and the chromatic dragons are the enemies. Though you will learn, my nestlings, that still there are many other threats, dangers and evils of which you will one day be aware.”
“What tale can you share, then, Patersmith?” asked Burll, the sturdy bronze wyrmling who was not at all shy about speaking up. Indeed, it was a good thing he was willing to question their tutor, since he often had to have things explained to him two or three times before he understood.
“Perhaps… perhaps a tale of magic.”
At his words, the brood of dragons sat as if on cue, stilling any jostling and restless shifting. For of all the tales told by Patersmith, those about magic were without fail the most entertaining.
“Aurora was your mother,” began the teacher in the ritual singsong of a proper lesson. Smith nodded to Aurican, and to his golden sisters, Mydass and Oro. “She of the golden scales and mighty power… but, too, she who had captured the wisdom and poetry of the ages within her being and her mind.
“Her magic was a wonder of the world. With a whispered word she could change her shape from dragon to eagle, soaring the skies of Krynn like a keen-eyed bird of prey.”
Darlantan had neither seen nor heard about eagles, yet the word conjured an image of a sleek, feather- winged shape gliding through air that was not black, not cloaked in shadow. It was an image that inflamed his heart and caused his fledgling wings to twitch uncontrollably.
“Ah, Dar… one day you will fly among the eagles,” murmured Smith, noticing the young dragon’s agitation. “But just as Aurican must wait for his tales of nightmare and horror, so must you spend time on the ground before you strain for the skies.”
“Aye, teacher,” Darlantan pledged, bowing respectfully. Yet his wings still stretched as he settled himself more firmly among his siblings, determined to listen. He could scarcely stand to wait-he wanted to fly right now.
One of those restless silver wings brushed against Blayze, who was still glowering at Burll through the pack of attentive wyrmlings. The copper spat, drops of acid searing into Darlantan’s wing, and the silver dragon whirled in a blur of scales and teeth. His own breath exploded, frosty ice gusting through the grotto as he hurled himself at the hot-tempered Blayze.
For several seconds, they tumbled and rolled, tails lashing, scales of copper and silver flaking into the air. Blayze was quick, but Darlantan was big and strong, and he easily pressed the copper to the ground. Silver jaws clamped over the metallic brown neck, and it was then that Patersmith stopped them with a word spoken in a hushed and soothing tone.
“Mercy,” he said, stepping down from the nest to balance on his bowed legs. He touched each of the battling dragons with his hand, and Darlantan felt the rage go out of him like an exhalation of breath.
“Mercy,” repeated the tutor. “Always show mercy to each other, and even to your enemies.”
“But does that not make me vulnerable?” asked Blayze, scowling darkly, hissing at Darlantan.
“On the contrary, mercy makes you strong, for it creates loyalty and friendship. And you will learn that he who has loyal friends has great strength.
“But I was speaking of Aurora’s magic… of her spells of fire that could raise a conflagration from a sodden forest, or hiss a small lake of water into steam.”
Again the tutor used words that the dragons had never heard, but once more their tiny minds fashioned images to the sounds and began to picture a world that was beyond the enclosure even of the Darkness Beyond.
“Aurora and her sisters used their spell magic to fashion this nest, breathing upon the most precious stones in the world, forming them into a suitable crib for their precious offspring. It was this enchantment that insured your bed was always warm, and that should have seen all of you to a birth undisturbed by dangers.
“In those days of magic, all of your mothers knew great spells. But ever was Aurora the greatest.” At the continuing words, the golden wyrmlings puffed with visible pride.
“It is said that she even caused a mountain to disappear once, bringing to death one of her mortal enemies when that dragon of white flew directly into an immovable cliff.”
“Was that a dragon of our enemies?” asked Aysa.
“Yes, my daughter. You should know that those were days of violence, for the Queen of Darkness was ever jealous of your beautiful mothers, of their metal scales and keen wisdom and, perhaps most of all, of their eternal patience.”
“And that jealousy brought war?” stated Darlantan, who had deduced many facts about the past from things that Patersmith did not say.
“That was the birth of war as such. The sons of the queen were so treacherous that even your mothers’ magic was barely enough to prevent their ultimate success.”
“But spell magic let our mothers win!” Oro asserted, glaring about with a golden glint, challenging any of her nestmates to dispute her claim.
“In the end, it did, though that struggle cost Aurora her life. Still, her spells were mighty. With them she could fly without wings, could at one time battle enemies in two different places.”
“Master, you told us that you speak of ‘those days of magic.’ ” The questioner was Kenta, one of Darlantan’s silver sisters. “By that do you mean those days are over?”
“Aye, my gleaming daughter. In that age of evil and dreams, when your mothers battled the five sons of the Dark Queen, sorcery was a power held by all dragons. It was inherent might that only served to prove your ancestors’ status as masters of all the world.”
“But what happened to the magic?” asked Aurican, frowning, thrashing his golden tail. He glared about the grotto, as if he would fix with his sharp stare the culprit who had worked that audacious theft. In his hands, the ruby bauble had begun to glow faintly, casting a soft, fiery light between the wyrmling’s clutching golden claws.
“Spell magic passed from Krynn with the death of Aurora,” declared Smith, with a sad shake of his whiskers and his head. “The only sorcery in the world now is that embodied by creatures such as yourselves-in the breath weapons that you spit at each other like petulant children, and in the might that will enable some of you to assume different shapes, to walk among the elves and men of the world as one of them.”
“But there are no spells?” Aurican asked again.
“No. Except, perhaps, in the tiniest vestiges-such as you yourself have brought to that piece of rock.”
Aurican looked down in surprise, blinking at the soft illumination that radiated from the stone.
“A nice trick, that-pretty to see, simple to work. But that is the extent of magic that remains in the world. There is no use in searching nor in seeking. The power of true, world-shaking sorcery has vanished, never to return. It faded with the passing of your mothers, leaving Krynn a colder, darker place.”
“Perhaps I will bring it back,” Auri mused, so softly that only Darlantan could hear, though Patersmith looked at the golden wyrm sharply as Aurican spoke more firmly.
“I will. I say this now, to my tutor and my nestmates: Spell magic will again belong to our world.”
