The Radiant Dragon

unknown languages, enabled Teldin to shoot magical missiles and-most importantly-functioned as a helm powerful enough to propel a spelljamming ship at tremendous speed. It often occurred to Teldin that he still had much to learn about the cloak. He tried not to dwell on that thought any more than he had to, though; it was too much like waiting for the other boot to drop.

Teldin's stomach rumbled sharply, reminding him that it had been many hours since his last meal. He rounded a corner and looked for a likely place to eat. At the end of the street was a tavern, of the sort that he could have encountered in any small village back on his homeworld.

The tavern looked cozy, safe, and welcoming. It was long and narrow, with low eaves, a domed, thatched roof, and thick, ancient beams separating expanses of fieldstone and mortar. Teldin quickly made his way to the offered haven and pushed through the broad wooden door. An involuntary sigh of satisfaction escaped him as he took in the scene sprawled before him.

The patrons were a mixed group; merchants and travelers of many races drank alongside local fisherfolk and yeomen. To the left side of the tavern was a huge stone fireplace big enough to roast a whole boar with room to spare. A red-cheeked cook basted the sizzling roast with a fruit-scented sauce while two halflings struggled to turn the immense spit. Fat, fragrant loaves of bread baked in open ovens on either side of the fireplace. Scattered about the room were small, round tables draped with brightly colored cloths, and a long, well-stocked bar stretched almost the entire length of the back wall. A barrel-shaped dwarven barkeeper was passing out tankards of something that foamed and smelled suspiciously like Krynnish ale. Teldin inhaled deeply and followed his nose to a table near the bar.

He ordered dinner and asked for a mug of ale and a goblet of sagecoarse, the smoky liquor that Aelfred Silverhorn had favored. Teldin did not care for hard liquor, but it seemed appropriate to lift a glass in honor of his friend.

Teldin was still stunned by Aelfred's and Sylvie's deaths, even more so than by his male friend's unexpected and unwilling treachery. Teldin did not hold Aelfred responsible for his actions-Aelfred had acted under the spell of an undead neogi wizard-but his loss had shaken Teldin deeply. Betrayal was something Teldin almost had come to expect; the death of his friends was another matter altogether.

Nothing could inure him to the pain and guilt he felt over bringing danger to those around him. So many had fallen that Teldin, by nature a solitary man, had begun to distance himself still more in fear that caring for others could only result in their deaths. His hippolike friend, Gomja, was gone as well, having left to seek employment and a new life elsewhere.

As if by reflex, his hand drifted to the small bag that hung from his belt. Through the soft, worn leather he fingered the medallion that had been given to him by Gaye, the beautiful, exuberant kender whom he hadn't dared to love. Like most kender, Gaye had a talent for 'finding' things, yet she'd gone against kender nature and given up the magical trinket, thinking that Teldin could use it on his quest. Indeed, the fal had told Teldin that the medallion could be used to track the Spelljammer, and Teldin had tried several times to follow the sage's instructions. Every attempt had failed; whatever magic the ancient disk once possessed apparently had faded. He kept Gaye's gift, however, wearing the bag on his belt exactly where her delicate fingers had knotted it. Leaving Gaye hurt more than he cared to admit.

A polite chirp interrupted his ruminations. Teldin glanced down as small, feathered hands placed a dinner platter before him. He nodded his thanks to the serving wench, a penguinlike creature known as a dohwar, then he attacked his meal without giving the servant a second thought. A year earlier Teldin would have gaped at the dohwar like a farm lad at a two-headed calf, but he'd grown accustomed to encountering peculiar creatures on his travels. He was therefore startled by the involuntary shiver that ran down his spine when his gaze happened to settle on one of the tavern's other patrons.

The robed figure of a tall humanoid male paused just inside the front door. His face was deeply shadowed by the cowl of his brown cloak, but Teldin noted that the face was thin and angular and dominated by a pair of slanted, distinctively elven eyes. One side of the cowl had been pushed back slightly to display a pointed ear. To all appearances, the newcomer was an elf, but it struck Teldin that something was not quite right. The robed figure began to make his way slowly back toward the bar. He moved with elven grace, but there was something foreign and somehow brittle about his movements. It occurred to Teldin that the creature was not quite what he seemed to be: he was elflike but not elven.

There was a certainty to this notion that startled Teldin. He had the oddest sensation that he'd caught a glimpse behind appearances to the elven creature's true nature. Where had that perception come from? he wondered briefly. Was it yet another power of the cloak?

At that moment a very drunken human challenged the newcomer to a knife-throwing contest. Weaving unsteadily, the man thrust his face into the deep folds of the cowl, a show of belligerence apparently calculated to either intimidate his opponent or overcome him with fumes. As Teldin watched, the drunk recoiled in horror. Pale and shaken, he backed away, sputtering apologies. Whatever the creature was, it was dangerous, Teldin concluded. In his opinion, elves were bad enough. Any variation on the species created possibilities he did not care to contemplate.

A hard-muscled female adventurer at the table next to Teldin's let out an oath, one colorful enough to distract him momentarily from the mysterious elven creature. He followed the line of her gaze, and his jaw dropped. Hovering in the doorway like an obscenely large eyeball was one of the most feared monsters in all of wildspace: a beholder.

Teldin had heard a score of horror stories about beholders, and he'd seen one stuffed and mounted as a trophy. From time to time, he had wondered whether he might have to face such a creature in battle, but he'd never dreamed he might bump into one in such a cozy, innocuous setting. So intent was he on this new threat that he barely noticed the elven creature leave by the side door.

The beholder, levitating about four feet above the floor, floated into the tavern, leaving a spreading wake of silence behind it. As the monster glided the length of the room, firelight glistened on the brainlike folds and crevices of its circular body, and its ten eyestalks turned this way and that as it took in the local color. It made its way to a corner table and came to a stop, hovering in the air over one of the chairs.

Speaking flawless Common, it issued instructions to the suddenly servile tavern keeper. Within moments a terrified serving girl appeared, bearing a bowl of raw meat, which she tossed piece by piece into the beholder's fanged maw. As it chewed, the beast occasionally blinked the one large eye that was located on its spherical body.

'Bless me, Trivit, I believe that's a beholder. By the Dark Spider, he is a homely fellow,' piped an ingenuous voice. The remark carried to the corners of the tavern, and, although the beholder did not appear to take offense, every other patron in the room began to eye the exits.

Teldin's hand strayed to the clasp of his cloak, a habit he'd developed in moments of impending crisis. Out of the corner of his eye he cast a glance at the imprudent speaker. Surprise made him turn his head and stare openly.

Two green dracons stood at the mug-littered bar, observing the beholder with open-mouthed fascination. The reptilian equivalent of a centaur, each dracon boasted a dragon's neck and head, an upright torso with heavily muscled arms ending in clawed hands, and the thick four-legged body and powerful tail of a brontosaur. One of these two beasts had the pale green hide of a tree lizard, and its torso was covered by a shirt of fine chain mail. The other's skin was a mottled moss green, and its armor was fashioned of leather elaborately painted with a swirling pattern of lavenders and deep rose. A chunk of rose quartz hung on a chain around his neck, and an ornamental silver axe was displayed in a shoulder strap! Their open, innocent curiosity indicated that they knew nothing of a beholder's fearsome reputation, and they just as obviously were too ale-soaked to recognize the tension that filled the taproom. Dracons were big, and they were tough, and these two were heavily armed, but they still were no match for a beholder. Someone ought to tell them that, Teldin mused as he took a quick sip of ale. Someone else.

'I'm reminded of a jest, of the sort that makes the rounds of the washroom after a kickball tournament,' chirped the pale green dracon. He giggled briefly. 'For that matter, I'm reminded of the kickball.'

'A ribald jest! Oh, splendid.' The darker dracon-who somehow reminded Teldin of an effete, adolescent human- clasped his mottled green hands in anticipation. 'I'm fond of such. Say on, do.'

The pale green dracon cleared his throat with much ceremony before reciting, 'How does a beholder, er, shall