Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Dragons Of Chaos

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THE DRAGONS OF CHAOS
Edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
©1997 TSR, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
This PDF would not be possible without the diligent and superior OCR’ing by Alligator (croc@aha.ru).
Once again I would like to give special thanks to my old friend Keirnon Shadoweave, for he is one of the
greatest knights to ever grace the shores of Ansalon ““Est Sularus oth Mithas” - Sad Little Jesus Man
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Eyes of Chaos
Sue Weinlein Cook
2. The Noble Folly
Mark Anthony
3. Lessons of the Land
Linda P. Baker
4. The Son of Huma
Richard A. Knaak
5. Personal
Kevin T. Stein
6. The Dragon's Eye
Adam Lesh
7. Dragonfear
Teri McLaren
8. Tavern Tales
Jean Rabe
9. The Dragon's Well
Janet Pack
10. The Magnificent Two
Nick O'Donohoe
11. There Is Another Shore, You Know, Upon the Other Side - Roger E. Moore
12. The First Gully Dwarf Resistance
Chris Pierson
13. The Star-Shard
Jeff Grubb
14. Master Tall and Master Small
Margaret Weis and Don Perrin
15. Icewall
Douglas Niles
Eyes of Chaos
Sue Weinlein Cook
The last ogre hit the sun-baked ground hard, and he lay still next to the bodies of his companions. After a
moment, the dazed creature feebly struggled to crawl forward, away from the carnage.
The blue dragon drew back her claws to take another swipe at her prey, then hesitated. Her eyes
narrowed. She had grown tired of this game.
She inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp taste of the lightning breath that threatened to explode from her
mouth. The dragon eyed the ogre trying in vain to disentangle himself from the pile of corpses. She held her
breath until she could stand it no longer.
A stroke of lightning erupted from the blue monster so violently, it propelled the pitiful ogre back fifty feet
through the air, then smashed him into the wreckage of a crude wooden dwelling. He dropped heavily to the
ground, his charred body spasming with the massive electrical charges that surged through him. Sparks
twined across his blackened, terrorized face. Tendrils of acrid smoke rose from the dry wood, and in
seconds the whole structure was awash in hissing, popping flame.
The ogre did not rise again.
Her horned nose raised to the sky, the blue dragon let out a mighty roar. She loved the sound of her own
voice thundering across the stricken land. She stepped forward, digging her talons deeply into the pile of
ogre bodies, now nothing more than carrion. A few more steps, and the dragon tensed her powerful leg
muscles, then catapulted herself into the air.
The dragon beat her wings furiously, accelerating as she climbed into the late summer sky. Clamor loved
speed almost as much as she loved sound—velocity and volume consumed her. Faster and faster she flew,
fueled by a sudden rush of energy and exhilarated by the flow of cool Khalkist air across her dusky blue
hide. Urging her rider to hang on tight, the dragon banked steeply. Clamor dipped her long snout and folded
back her powerful wings, then shot toward the ground again like an elven arrow, skimming over the
blackened ogre village.
"What did you think of that, Jerne?"
Clamor was too pleased with her work to notice that her rider made no reply.
Surveying the destruction, the satisfied dragon rumbled deep in her throat—it was as close as she could
come to imitating the chuckle of her Dark Knight partner. She swept her great head back and forth, taking in
the remains of rough huts still smoking from the assault of her lightning breath, and crude stone dwellings
blasted to rubble. The smell of charred flesh curled around her nostrils and she noted the ogre remains,
scorched nearly beyond recognition, lying within the wreckage. Still more corpses were strewn about the
center of the village. But these bodies bore no marks at all. Baskets and tools lay next to them, dropped just
before their owners themselves fell. The pigs and lizards the villagers raised for food likewise had collapsed
in their pens.
"Nothing like the last time we were here, is it, Jerne?" Clamor asked coldly. Was it only a month ago that
the two of them, along with the rest of their wing of knights, had swept through the land of Blode to conscript
all able warriors for service in the Minions of Darkness? "So much has happened since then. Our invasion..."
Lost in her thoughts, the dragon circled around to overfly the village one last time. She spread her wings
wide to catch the air and coasted, reliving those weeks of triumph during the hottest summer in even a
dragon's memory. The armies of the Knights of Takhisis, made up of fearsome dark paladins and their
dragon partners, had swept across the continent in a conquest unparalleled in any of the Great Ages of
Ansalon. "Do you remember how we crushed every nation like twigs snapping beneath our feet? We taught
them the meaning of true honor—and fear! The entire land bowed before the glory of Her Dark Majesty..."
Clamor faltered, not wanting to recall the last chapter of that momentous summer. Instead, her heartbeat
pounding in her head, she pumped her wings against the sultry air and climbed again. After gaining altitude,
she craned her neck around for one last view of her handiwork. What looked like an ogre hunting party had
just entered the village. Clamor smirked as she imagined their amazement at finding their homes—
A knight must not engage in combat with an unarmed opponent.
—nothing more than smoldering wrecks.
One of the hairy creatures looked up and pointed his club at her. The other ogres cowered, looking small
standing among the ruins and the dead. "Poor creatures!" she mocked aloud, then shot into the cool
whiteness of the clouds.
Poor Clamor!
The dragon winced sharply at a sudden pain in her right leg. The limb—blackened, withered, and
dripping with green ichor—dangled limply beneath her. She cursed the ogres far below, knowing that her
stop in Blode had aggravated the wound. The pain jerked Clamor's thoughts back to the battle in which she
had earned her injury. She felt her heartbeat quicken and her skin grew hot despite the cool southern winds
as she recalled the moment she had tried so hard to block from her memory. It seemed like yesterday—no,
it was yesterday.
*****
Clamor was fiercely proud. She and Jerne had received the rare honor of flying second to the valiant
knight Steel Brightblade, who was astride Flare. Their wing had departed from the ruins of the High Clerist's
Tower to make its way into the newly formed rift in the Turbidus Ocean. Down, down, down they flew, until
Clamor was certain they would come out on the other side of the world at any moment. Finally, they
emerged in the Abyss and beheld their foes.
Although few things frightened the great blue, the sight of the giant called Chaos sent waves of terror
rippling through her body. The enormous, brutal figure roared like an erupting volcano, laughing at those
who had come to battle him. His ugly visage was enough to make even a dragon hesitate in the attack, and
his size dwarfed even the mightiest of the reds. But worst of all were the eyes, Clamor thought. Those lidless
holes in his face seemed to suck everything they beheld into their vast nothingness. She believed those
horrible dark whirlpools could capture her very soul.
Swooping all about him were fire dragons, terrible minions of Chaos. These creatures of living magma
breathed reeking, burning sulphur at their foes as sparks flew from their obsidian scales and fiery wings to
singe the flesh of dragon and man.
Steel ordered his knights to attack the riders of these foul creatures, the daemon warriors. Clamor and
Jerne, a practiced team from many years of training together and countless battles during that summer's
invasion, launched themselves at their foes with a fury echoed by the other blues, as well as the silvers who
accompanied them into battle with Solamnic Knights. This was a fight for all the children of Krynn, the
dragon knew.
In the oppressive heat of the Abyss, the battle raged on. The shrieks of the attacking dragons mixed with
the death cries of the fallen. Clamor and her knight had already destroyed several of the nightmarish
daemon warriors when it happened.
Jerne raised his sword, which had been blessed by Her Dark Majesty on the day of his knighting, and
urged Clamor to move in just a little closer to the enemy. Though nearly exhausted after her efforts in this
endless battle, Clamor gamely acceded. The daemon warrior grinned ferociously at them as its fire dragon
mount beat its flaming wings ever nearer.
Wait! the blue thought in alarm. Jerne is not sitting properly in the saddle! She tried to veer off the
approach, but it was too late. With one final slap of affection on her flank, the knight launched himself off her
back and onto his daemon foe in a suicidal attack, screaming his battle cry and swinging his dark blade in a
vicious arc.
Suddenly off-balance, Clamor struggled to right herself. In horror, she watched Jerne topple the daemon
warrior from its mount's back, then fall with it to the ground below.
"No! Jerne!" Her cry of despair turned into a howl of pain as the now riderless fire dragon dived beneath
her to scorch her right leg. Enraged, Clamor spun in midair and locked her gaze with the fire dragon. Then
she belched forth a bolt of lightning at the chaos-spawn. The impact sent obsidian scales exploding outward
and the fire dragon speeding backward toward the lance of an attacking Solamnic Knight and his silver
mount.
The wounded Clamor had just enough strength left to slow her descent before she hit the ground.
Through her pain-clouded vision she saw Jerne lying not far away, unmoving beneath the corpse of the
daemon warrior. Wanting to see something—anything—but the lifeless sight of her beloved rider, Clamor
looked up. She spied Flare and Steel as they stabbed at Chaos and drew a single drop of blood, which fell to
the gray ground near her. Her eyes upon Flare, Clamor cheered weakly at the strike. She hardly noticed the
small, silver-haired human who scrabbled frantically with two pieces of shiny rock at the sand where the
blood had fallen, then, almost in tears, ran off.
Barely able to contain the throbbing pain of her burned leg, the crippled Clamor managed to rise. She
stumbled forward a few paces, trying to get her footing, and placed her injured foot squarely onto the bit of
ground stained red with the life-fluid of Chaos.
As the blood of the Father of All and of Nothing mingled with her own, the blue dragon felt herself
inexplicably distracted from the fight. Although she remembered Jerne telling her that the very survival of
Krynn depended on the outcome of this battle, she could not resist the voice that now commanded her to fly
up, up, and out of the Abyss. Abandoned by reason, Clamor thought she saw Chaos looking right at her with
those horrible empty holes of eyes. The last thing she heard before leaving the battle far behind her was the
giant's volcanic cackle.
Child of Chaos!
*****
Clamor shook her head, trying to clear it of such disturbing memories. "Jerne, how could you leave me?"
she whimpered.
You don't remember, do you?
"I don't want to remember!" the dragon roared at the clouds.
Almost as if in response, the pain in her leg flared up again. Clamor sucked in her breath sharply, feeling
the dark malevolence of the wound creep slowly up her leg and across her belly. She knew at that moment
she couldn't hide from the dark truth any longer. It's eating away at me, the panicked dragon thought wildly.
The wound is of Chaos himself! It's stealing my life! Jerne, what should I do? The only thing that helps is...
A sudden thought stemmed the fear welling within her. Clamor realized how to fuel the ravenous blood of
Chaos within her. If it wanted life, that's what she would give it. But not her own life.
Flashing exultantly through the air, she blasted out a bolt of lightning that made the clouds blaze with
reflected light. A rumble filled her throat. Folding her wings tightly along her back, the blue dragon dropped
out of the clouds, surveying the lush forestland below. "I shall conquer all these lands in your name, Sir
Jerne Stormcrown!" she proclaimed for the benefit of her absent rider. "All will honor your valiant sacrifice
and know you as the greatest of knights!"
honorhonorhonorhonorhonorhonor
Clamor hurtled toward the tree line and skimmed the woods for any sign of civilization. She hadn't visited
this area of southern Ansalon in the years since the elves had turned back the Nightmare that had cursed
the Silvanesti Forest after the War of the Lance. The dragon breathed deeply of the smell of new growth.
Only elves could cultivate anything in the middle of this drought, she thought, amid a pang of homesickness
for the cold, arid isle where she and her rider had lived and trained so long.
Clamor's eyes lit on a break in the trees. As she approached, the scene of a tranquil village unfolded
beneath her. A lot like the last one, she thought, rumbling with delight as she imagined how furious the elves
who lived here would be to hear themselves compared with ogres in any fashion.
The blue dragon circled the village once, then dived. The rush of air around her was like music. "For you,
Jerne!" she roared as she unleashed a gout of lightning at the Silvanesti gathered around a small pool at the
center of the village. The blast felled half a dozen elves and knocked several others, flailing, into the pool.
Other elves scattered, screeching in terror and surprise. Clamor followed a group of the delicate, blond
creatures as they sped toward a graceful spire of a building carved from a living tree. The dragon could
smell their fear.
As they neared their supposed sanctuary, Clamor's gaze fell upon them, compelling them to turn and
face her. She hovered, pinning them with her gaze, and marveled at what happened next. Slowly, thin
silvery wisps rose from the elves' bodies to hang lightly in the air.
Strange, the dragon pondered as she willed the silver strands inexorably toward her. The ogres' were
bronze. Clamor's relentless gaze drew the elves' delicate life-energies closer and closer, until the silvery light
nearly blinded her. The dragon reveled in the infusion of vitality she felt surging through her. She was
momentarily taken aback to see on the faces of the dying Silvanesti the same horrified expression she
imagined she herself had worn when she first beheld the face of Chaos. Then the elves collapsed like
puppets to the ground, and it didn't matter anymore.
Clamor made short work of the rest of the village, alternately blasting the elves and their dwellings with
her lightning breath and devouring their souls to feed the blood of Chaos. Taking little notice of the few
Silvanesti who escaped into the woods, the dragon flapped lightly back to the central pool. Feeling positively
rejuvenated, she lay contentedly down beside the pool and peered at the water.
What she beheld in the smooth surface startled her so, she cringed from the sight. Then, slowly, the
dragon leaned closer for another look. In horror and disgust, she stared down at her reflection, at the sick,
blackened tinge her hide had taken on from the middle of her chest all the way down to her feet. The entire
discolored area was covered all over with horrid pustules and cancerous boils. Her burned right foot had
shriveled to nothing more than a misshapen stump. She hardly looked like a dragon anymore.
But worst of all were the eyes. Fixing her gaze on them, Clamor felt fear clamp around her heart. The
eyes that stared back at her from the surface of the pool looked like they belonged to a blue dragon even
less than did the rest of her hideous body. The lidless holes in her face no longer gave hint of the dragon's
intelligence and humor, nor did they offer a glimpse of the dedication and drive she had learned as Jerne's
partner. Now they held only a vast blackness. Nothingness.
Like father like daughter.
Clamor screamed and launched herself at the sky. No matter how hard she batted her wings, she could
not escape the giant, roaring laughter erupting in her ears.
After what must have been hours of flying headlong, giving no thought to anything but the continued
pumping of her great wings, an idea emerged from the frantic dragon's mind. Silvanost! she thought. She
was flying straight toward that bright capital of the elves' reclaimed forest. Her other-worldly eyes glittered at
the thought. Thousands live in Silvanost! Absorbing that many would surely satisfy this hungry Chaos blood!
But the dragon's frenzied pace had begun to take its toll on her. Her wings felt strained from the
punishment of the breakneck flight, and her whole body had begun to ache. She would never make it to the
elven capital at this rate. "Just a quick rest," she announced to her absent rider, swaying a bit with the effort
of staying aloft. "A short nap can't hurt. Then I will win you a shining jewel for the crown of your domain!"
The dragon circled, gliding ever lower in search of a proper resting place. Annoyed at the lack of dry,
open places which blue dragons favored, she found a small clearing near a stream and landed. She was
surprised at the jolt she gave herself as she roughly met the ground. "Careful, Jerne," she murmured
wearily, stretching out carefully on the mossy ground. "I wouldn't want you to fall." The exhausted dragon
closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep for the first time since the battle with Chaos.
wouldn't want you to fall fall
fall
fall
fall
fall
*****
Clamor found herself back in the Abyss, once more in the middle of the raging battle against the Father
of All and of Nothing. Once more she smelled the horrible sulphur of dragon breath, and heard the shrieks of
dragon and man alike. She heard her knight urge her closer to the grinning daemon warrior astride a fire
dragon nearby, felt herself respond to his command. She squinted against the light thrown by the flaming
wings of the enemy's dragon mount. It was so bright. Where—No!
Anxious to avoid contact with her quarry's fiery wing, the half-blind Clamor quickly wrenched herself
upward. However, the sudden shift occurred just as Jerne was readying his attack and knocked the knight
off-balance. With only a futile swipe to find some purchase, Jerne toppled from his saddle, crying "Clamor!"
He twisted his body as he fell and managed to land right atop the startled daemon warrior, sending both of
them falling from the mount to the hard ground below.
"No! Jerne!"
*****
Clamor jerked awake, panting from the exertion of the dream. "I wanted to make you a hero!" If only the
rush of words could dam the flow of unwanted memories. "I was going to tell everyone about your bold
suicide attack."
You know it was no suicide.
"You'll be known as the greatest of the knights! They will speak your name in honor! But first I have to get
to Silvanost ..." The crippled dragon tried to stand, wincing as she pulled her pustulant hide off the ground.
You remember nothing of honor, Clamor.
"I'm doing this for you, Jerne!"
Are you?
"But, don't you see, it's killing me!"
A sudden noise from the edge of the clearing made Clamor turn her head. A group of elves—and
ogres?—came charging from the undergrowth at her. Hanging back, the elves nocked their bows, while a
half dozen ogres rushed forward, clubs raised. What could make allies of such mortal enemies? she
wondered.
You.
Just as Clamor was trying to figure out how the creatures could possibly have caught up with her—she
would never be so careless as to leave a trail, would she?—the first salvo of arrows hit. The dragon roared
in pain and disbelief. Her tender scales, victim already to the cancerous blood flowing through her veins,
could not turn back the devastating elven points. She leveled her gaze at the approaching ogres, ready to
sacrifice their life-forces to the beast inside her.
When will it end, Clamor?
The blue shook her head, trying to clear her muddled mind of the familiar voice that confused her so.
First them, then Silvanost, then what? Will you make all of Ansalon your prey?
The weary dragon paused. She had grown so tired of fighting the death force within her. "I want to live!"
This is not the way. To save ourselves, we must fight Chaos, not feed it.
As the ogres drew near, Clamor laid her head down quietly and gazed into the stream before her. Out of
the clear flowing water, an image resolved itself before her eyes—the familiar face of a man with close-
cropped red hair and green eyes. Jerne smiled at her, and when she heard him chuckle, she knew she'd
been forgiven. Clamor didn't even feel the ogres' clubs come crashing down on her, didn't feel the second,
then the third round of arrows bite into her chest and head and legs. The stream washed away everything
except Jerne. "Everything's going to be fine now," he said and beckoned to her.
As though from far, far away, Clamor heard the tiny voices of her attackers rise in triumph. Then their
babbling became meaningless as the dragon dashed forward to meet her knight.
The Noble Folly
Mark Anthony
I came to Redstone seeking power.
At least, that was what I told myself. I think, in truth, that I really came seeking death. Yet it is an axiom of
life that a man never finds the one thing he seeks—or perhaps never seeks the one thing he finds—and in
those last hours I found neither power nor death on the blasted crags of Redstone. But I see now that there
is only one way to explain. Very well, then. I will tell my tale. And even at the start it is strange, for it begins
not with a beginning, but an ending.
Krynn died.
Fire, thunder, darkness. Then somehow, impossibly, a new crimson dawn. In the first, terrible days after
the Second Cataclysm, those who had survived stumbled through the smoking ruins that had been their
homes, their cities, their lives, and searched for an answer. Who? they cried out. Who had brought this
destruction upon the world? But it was a meaningless question. Through the dust, through the blood, I
laughed at them. The answer was so simple because there was no answer. Who had caused the Second
Cataclysm? We all of us did, we none of us did. It didn't matter. Everything had changed—that was all that
was important now. It was not the first time the world had died.
Before the Second Cataclysm, I had fallen in with powerful forces. Like so many others, I had not chosen
them so much as they had chosen me. But they had given me a place and a purpose, a sword for my hand
and food for my stomach, and I had believed myself safe with them, and on the path to great things. So
strong they had seemed, so glorious, so indomitable. At the end of the Chaos War, they had shattered like
so much glass.
Now I was on my own. The old ways of doing things, the old rules, were gone, burned to ashes with the
parchments they were written on. There were new rules to be made, and I knew that those who made them
would come out on top in this changed world. I intended to be one of them. That was why I had journeyed to
this place.
I was nearly upon it before I got my first view.
The scorched wind changed direction and tore a rift in gritty clouds of dust. There it stood before me,
rising five thousand feet from the barren Estwilde plain, a great heap of jagged rocks the color of dried blood.
Redstone.
I licked blistered lips with a parched tongue. "Blast me to the Abyss," I said, and I wondered if I hadn't
already been, if I wasn't already there.
I craned my neck upward, and upward still, but the summit was lost in haze, and faded into a sky stained
red with the soot of a thousand thousand fires. For a moment I staggered. I believe I almost fell to my knees.
How could I possibly climb to the top of this... this thing? How could I even think to try?
But I had come so far. I was not going to turn away, not now. I let the wave of weakness pass over me,
drew in a breath, and walked across the cracked plain toward the tumbled base of the mountain.
I had heard the story first in a tavern not far from Kalaman, a filthy pub where swine rooted on the floor
for scraps, and got nearly as good as those who paid hard steel. A traveler from the south—a merchant he
called himself, a thief and a murderer I guessed—told me, for the price of a cup of sour ale, of the great rock
that had been thrust up from the bones of Krynn by the tremors of the Second Cataclysm, and of the
silhouette he had once glimpsed by moonlight perched upon its summit: a winged, saurian shape that lifted
its wedge-shaped head toward the sky.
I drank my ale, and wondered.
I heard the tale again in a village at the foot of the northern Khalkists, told by a band of pilgrims who
searched in vain for signs of the gods. Then once more, among a camp of outlaws, who pretended to take
me in as a compatriot, and would have slit my throat in my sleep had I not done the trick to them first. Again I
heard it told, in a hovel, in a village, in a town. One telling I would have discounted, two doubted. But a
dozen I believed, and so here I was.
The sun beat upon my armor. Sweat streamed down my brow, into my eyes, and stung them. A hundred
times on my journey I had been tempted to cast off the steel that encased me, to toss it into some foul pit or
to send it clattering down a cliff face, to be free of its heat and its stench. But my path had led through
dangerous and broken lands. I had kept my armor, and kept my neck.
I was picking my way among the mountain's first jumbled boulders when I saw the smoke.
A thin, dark line rose upward, from behind a large spur of stone. I froze. I had assumed the beast would
keep to the heights of the peak, but I had not been able to see the summit for the haze. Perhaps it had come
down, to prowl among the rubble for food. True, it might decide I was suitable prey before I opened my
mouth and spoke a single word to it, as I intended. But at least it would save me the climb. I scrambled over
the rocks toward the pillar of smoke.
It was no dragon I saw in the gully below.
At first I thought to slink away through the rocks, to remain undetected, then I halted. Would it not be
better to know who it was that climbed behind me? And there was still a part of me that remembered what I
had been before, and the oaths of honor I had sworn. Hollow they seemed now, empty. But what didn't in
this new world? I hesitated, then stood and walked down the steep slope.
Dust-devils danced around me. They must have blocked his view, or else he was dozing in the heat, for
he did not seem to see me until I was no more than a dozen paces from him and his small campfire. All at
once he jerked his head up, leapt to his feet, and drew his sword. He held the blade before him, turned to his
left, his right, his left again, searching. I frowned. I was plain before him. Did he not see me?
Only then did I notice the dirty rag bound around his eyes, crusted with dark blood.
No, he did not.
I approached, deliberately grinding my boot heel on the gravel. He spun to face me, sword before him.
Beneath the patina of dust, I could see the rose embossed upon his wind-scoured armor.
"Are you friend or enemy?" he called out.
"Neither," I said.
He frowned at this, and I might have turned away then, might have left this ruined knight to himself, but
for something I saw at that moment among his few things: a large goatskin in a wicker frame. I worked my
dry tongue in my mouth. It would be a long climb to the top, and I had precious little water.
He seemed to make a decision, then lowered his sword. "If you mean no evil, then I will count you a
friend in this blasted place."
I made no answer. It did not matter to me what he thought.
"I am Brinon," he said, "Knight of the Rose."
"My name is Kal," I said.
He made a stiff bow. "I cannot offer you a feast, Kal, but I have some food still, and you may share it."
He gestured for me to sit, and I did so. He searched through his gear with blind hands. I watched him as
he did. We could not have been more dissimilar, he and I, and it was not only our armor that made us so. He
was fair, and short, and powerfully built, while I have always been dark, and tall, and lean. Even wounded he
was handsome and noble of face. I never in my life have been accused of being comely. The pockmarks of
childhood took care of that.
There was little more in his pack than some hard tack and strips of dried meat, but I did not turn up my
nose at these. We ate, then I asked if I could fill my water bottle from his goatskin, and he said he would be
honored if I would.
Honored. Sometimes I think that word means the same thing as dead. I almost laughed, but there was
scant water in his goatskin, and I filled my bottle only half full.
"You will go now, won't you, Kal?"
"Yes," I said.
He nodded. "I cannot fault you. That is why I came here myself. To stand before the monster of
Redstone, and to slay it."
"Why?" I asked, although already I had guessed.
For a moment, beneath the bloody rag, his face shone. "After I perform such a glorious deed, how can
Paladine and the other gods of good possibly refuse to return to the world?"
So he was a fool then. A noble fool. But then, they were the most dangerous sort.
"Fighting a dragon is a deadly task even if one is blessed with eyes."
Brinon shrugged. "If the will is strong, one can always find a way. I convinced a merchant to bring me
here in his wagon. Now I have built this fire. Sooner or later the beast will see the smoke and will come to
investigate." He gripped the hilt of his sword. "I was trained to fight in the dark. So now the dark is always
around me—there is no difference. I will succeed no matter."
I grunted at this. He had lost his eyes, but not his arrogance.
"You can keep on waiting for the dragon to come to you," I said. "But I'm going to climb Redstone and
find the monster first."
"And will you attempt to slay it then?"
Why not tell him the truth? "No, I'm going to talk to it, forge an alliance with it."
The hauteur on his face turned to shock. "By Paladine, why would you do this?"
One word I said. "Power."
Brinon shook his head. "No, Kal. The dragon is a thing of evil. I cannot let you sell yourself to it." He
reached for me, but his boot struck a stone, and he stumbled. I caught him before he fell. He gripped my
shoulder to steady himself, and his hand found hot steel. His mouth opened in surprise.
"But you are a knight as well! Why did you not say so, brother? From which order do you hail?"
I said nothing. His blind hands touched my armor, froze, then groped along the metal, tracing the hard
outlines. I grinned like the death's head on my breastplate. Yes, let him touch me, let him know what I was.
At last he pulled away.
"Now I understand, Knight of Takhisis. You have your path to follow, and I have mine."
His words were not angry, but rather filled with disgust and pity. This bothered me more.
"Thank you for the water," I said.
He said nothing.
Then I left him, and I did not look back.
I started up the sheer slope. I climbed with speed and with purpose, using my hands as much as my legs
to scramble over the treacherous rocks. Hot air rose in dizzying waves from the plains below and seared my
lungs, but I ignored it. Brinon had been right about one thing—we did each have a path to fellow. Only his
path led to death, and mine—if I was right, if I was lucky—would lead to mastery. Surely I could find a way to
make myself useful to the dragon. If nothing else, I could catch far more meat for it than I would make as a
meal. And with such a powerful ally beside me, there was no telling how far I would rise in this new world.
I kept climbing.
Then it happened, so quickly I could do nothing but watch. With my hand I gripped the corner of a
boulder to pull myself up. But it was loose, and precariously balanced. It shifted under my weight, tilted, then
all at once came free. With a grating of rock on rock, the boulder slid down. There was no time to move. The
ponderous block struck my left leg and pinned it against a spur of stone behind it. The steel greave I wore
crumpled like paper. I heard more than felt the wet pop of my leg breaking.
A tingling clarity filled my mind. Injury can do that. You idiot, Kal! You allowed yourself to be distracted by
the fool knight, and now you're going to pay for it!
Then I did, with the first bright shards of pain.
I almost swooned, but I fought to hold onto my wits, and did so, though just barely. I drew my sword,
slipped it under the boulder, and wedged it against the spur of rock that crushed my leg. Then I leaned on
the hilt. A groan of rock. The boulder shifted, and I could feel the broken ends of my leg bone grind against
each other. I paused to vomit, then leaned on the sword again. The boulder lifted a finger's breadth, then
two, then three. I clenched my teeth against the pain and started to pull my dangling leg free. That was when
the blade of my sword snapped.
I flew backward. The boulder lurched to the side, rolled over, and tumbled down the slope. My fingers
clutched for a hold to stop my fall, but they found only loose stone. The boulder had set the rocks all around
me into motion. I shouted a curse to all the gods of darkness. Then with a roar like thunder a large part of
the mountain went sliding down the slope and carried my body with it. I might have screamed, but a stone
struck my head, and all went black.
I woke to the unfamiliar stars of the new night sky.
For a moment I struggled in disorientation. A shadow hovered over me. The light of the single moon—
which shone where two had shone before—glimmered off the steel outline of a rose. Then I blinked in
understanding and let the strong hands ease me back to the ground.
"I knew Paladine would bring you back," Brinon said.
I gave a bitter laugh at the conceit of his words. "Does your god often break the legs of people just to get
what he wants? He sounds more like a common thug to me."
Now anger twisted his face. "And what of your Dark Queen? Does she not use others for her gain?"
"She did, only she was honest about it, and never disguised it as anything else. But none of this matters.
The gods are gone."
"They will return, I know it."
I only grunted. I wasn't so certain I wanted them to.
With a grimace, I sat up and tried to piece together what had happened. He must have heard the
boulders fall, must have followed the sounds of my moans, must have somehow dragged me back to his
camp. I searched with my hands. He had splinted my leg, and had tucked the hilt of my broken sword into its
sheath. Why hadn't he just killed me? It didn't matter.
"I've got to go," I said.
I struggled to my feet. The pain was manageable with the splint. Then I took a step. A moment later I was
on the ground again, clutching my leg, spitting and swearing.
He knelt beside me. "You can't walk well enough, Kal."
"Yes, I can." It was a lie. I didn't care. At that moment I hated him.
"No, it's a sign." Again that utter confidence lit his sightless face. "You can see the way, Kal. And I'm
strong, I can help you up the rocks. Alone we can do nothing, but together we can make it to the top."
I fell still, gazed at him. "And what would we do once we got there, Brinon? Or have you forgotten our
differing intentions?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps it will be decided for us. Perhaps the dragon will be amenable to your talk
of alliance. Or perhaps it won't, and then I will slay it. Let us see when we get there."
It was madness. I knew it. The Solamnic Knight could only be trouble. He thought he would be able to
convert me along the way, to win me over to his cause. Blast the righteous arrogance. It made me sick. Yet
sometimes, in a mad world, madness was the only way.
"Yes," I said at last. "We will see."
*****
We began our ascent at dawn.
The sun heaved itself over the horizon, a baleful eye that glared at the land. In moments a hot wind
sprang up out of nowhere and raced over the plain. Its gritty breath stung our hands, our faces. I looked up
at Redstone, but I could not make out the crown of the peak. Instead it was sheer slopes of crimson as far
as my eyes could see.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
Brinon adjusted the rag that bound his eyes, then nodded. "I am."
"Then we'd better get moving. We'll want to make the summit before sunset if we can. Whether it's to talk
to it or fight it, better to face a dragon in the light than in the dark."
I pushed up from the ground with my arms, got my good leg beneath me, and stood, though in the
process I drew in a hissing breath of pain.
Brinon must have heard me. He reached out, found my arm, lifted it to the broad slope of his shoulder.
"I will help you, Kal."
I hesitated. I did not like the idea of depending on another, not for anything. And Brinon seemed too
willing, almost too eager to help me, as if he enjoyed that I was weaker than him. But, whatever I felt, he was
right—there was no way I was going to climb the mountain alone. I clenched my teeth, then looped my arm
around Brinon's neck and allowed him to take the weight off my splinted leg.
"Now you must show me the way," he said.
His face was so calm beneath the dirty bandage, so full of pride still. Was he not disgusted with his own
deficiency? Was he not furious that he needed another to lead him like a child? But I only grunted and
limped toward the foot of the nearest slope, Brinon beside me.
What an absurd sight we must have been—two broken knights, one dark and one light, one crippled and
one blind, struggling together up the knife-edged side of a mountain. But there was no one to see us, only
the hot, unblinking eye of the sun. Nothing grew or lived on the slopes of this blasted peak. Rock and sand
and wind, that was all.
The slowness of our progress was agonizing. Every boulder, every ledge of stone was a battle. I
described what the way looked like to Brinon, used words to guide his hands and feet to the scant holds,
until he was able to leverage himself up. Then he would reach down and use his powerful arms to pull me
after him while I pushed with my good leg. More than once Brinon's blind hands missed their mark, and he
skidded back down the slope, scraping his hands and face. And every time he heaved me up, my broken leg
was jarred and buffeted, sending sharp knives of pain up through my body.
Our armor was a hot and ponderous burden, yet we were loath to cast it off, knowing we might well need
it at the top. And, too, it saved us from the worst of the scrapes and bruises. Still, by midday we were
battered, bleeding, and exhausted. We sat on a broad ledge of rough stone. The plains, flat and brown as
the skin of a drum, stretched far below us and it made me dizzy to gaze down. I still could not glimpse the
summit for the haze, but by my guess we had come at least halfway.
We ate a little food, then I pulled my bottle from Brinon's pack. The water was scalding and tasted like the
waste swill from a tanner's shop, but we drank it all the same, and it was an effort to keep from gulping. I
carefully replaced the stopper. There was still a long way to go.
For a few minutes more we rested. I gazed into the empty air before us, while Brinon gazed into I know
not where.
"Tell me, was it the Vision that led you here?" the fair-haired knight suddenly asked.
I gave him a sharp look, even though I knew he could not see it. "What do you know of the Vision, Knight
of Solamnia?"
"Only that it is something each of the Knights of Takhisis has, something that guides them, that leads
them onward to their dark purpose."
"No, not something each has. Something each had. There is no Vision anymore. It's dead, gone." My
words were harsh, but I did not care.
I would never forget that day—the day I was brought before Ariakan, the High Commander of the Dark
Queen's Army, the day he laid his hands upon me. Some said that his mother was a sea goddess, and I
believed it. To me he looked like a god should look: powerful, darkly handsome, his eyes compelling, his
voice commanding.
Some of his men had picked me up off the streets of Palanthas, which had been my home ever since the
war had taken my family and home from me. Ariakan had given me a choice: go back to the streets and live
with the thieves and murderers until I became one myself, and ended up swinging from a gibbet; or join his
army, become one of his knights, and know honor and glory. His words had made me angry, I remember.
Who was he to offer me such a choice? Who was he to tell me what my life would or would not be? But I
could not resist the power of his eyes. I had taken his hand, and he had kissed me and welcomed me, and
right there a sword was brought for me. I knelt before him, and he laid his hands on my head and spoke a
prayer to the Dark Queen, to Takhisis, and that was when the Vision came upon me.
It was like a dream, the Vision, only it was with me every time I closed my eyes, in the dark hours of the
night, and in the stillness between every thought. The true magic of the Vision was that it was different for
every knight, and revealed to him his own personal destiny, his own path to glory or death.
The strange thing was, I could no longer remember what the Vision had been to me.
When Ariakan was slain, when Takhisis fled the world, the Vision went with them, for it had come through
them, and was of them. Now I was left with a gaping hole in my mind, a gap I could not stop worrying over,
like a man who has been to the barber and searches with his tongue the empty socket where his tooth used
to be. I know that the Vision had filled me with both terror and wonder. But even the memory of it was gone
now, and I knew I would never regain it.
"I am sorry," Brinon said at last.
His words infuriated me. Was he sorry for what he had said? Or sorry for me? Even when he spoke
humble words such as these it seemed to be with the implication that he was better than I. Yet there had
been genuine remorse in his voice, and I knew I was being unfair.
"There is nothing to be sorry for," I said. "I don't need the Vision. I know my key to glory. I'll have it soon
enough, once the dragon and I are in league together. With its strength and my brains, nothing will stand
between us."
Brinon shook his head. "Enemies we would have been in another place, Kal, and enemies we still may
be, but here and now you are my companion, and so it is not my wish to offend. Yet I still say you are
misguided in your intentions. What do you have to offer a dragon? What makes you think you can convince
it to form an alliance with you?"
"And what makes you think that if you perform some bone-headed heroic deed that Paladine will come
rushing back to the world?"
He winced at my words, and I knew they had struck some sore spot deep within him. Good. We did not
have time for this. I glanced up at the sky. The sun had passed its zenith and was already starting its
descent.
"Let's get going," I said, "if you really want to kill a dragon."
He helped me to my feet, and we started up the mountain once more.
After my fall yesterday, I should have been more wary of the treacherous slope. But as we climbed on,
exhaustion dulled our caution. It was only a matter of time before one of us made a mistake.
It was Brinon who did so first.
We stood on a slim ledge, a drop of five hundred feet below us. Perhaps he was too tired to think, or
perhaps he had grown overconfident. Either way, he started to pull himself up the rocky shelf in front of us
before I had sufficiently guided his hands to the best holds. The crack he had gripped was too shallow. His
blind fingers could not dig in deep enough to support his weight. He dropped back roughly to the narrow
ledge. His heel skidded on the edge of the precipice, his hands flew out in search of balance. They found
nothing. He toppled over backward.
No!
I don't know if I screamed the word aloud or silently. It didn't matter. Much as I hated to admit it, I needed
Brinon. I lunged for him. Pain surged up my broken leg, but I ignored it. I stretched farther than I thought
humanly possible, so far my joints popped. My fingers just brushed the hot metal of his breastplate—then
caught the top edge of the beaten steel. I threw all my weight backward.
The Solamnic Knight sprawled forward, onto the ledge where we had stood. I in turn stumbled, felt my leg
twist sickeningly, and fell to the side. Before I could stop myself, I rolled off the edge of the precipice.
I scrabbled for something, anything, to stop myself. Nothing but smooth stone. I fell. Then one hand slid
into a crack in the rock, caught, and held. Fire exploded in my shoulder as my body jerked to a halt. I twisted
in midair, suspended from the overhang by one hand. Beneath my dangling boots was five hundred feet of
emptiness and, beneath that, sharp stone.
Pain sliced at my hand, blood slicked my palm. I could not hang on for long. A shadow loomed above me.
"Brinon!"
I screamed the word. So much for pride.
The young knight groped along the edge of the precipice in search of me. He had cut his forehead when
he fell, and blood streamed down to soak the already-crusted bandage over his eyes.
"To your left!" I shouted. "Farther!"
Hot agony melted my muscles. My blood-wet fingers loosened. Another few seconds, no more. His hand
came within an inch of mine, moved away, then, as if guided by impossible instinct, slid back.
Contact.
Just as my hand slid through the crack, he grabbed my wrist, then heaved back with all his weight and
dragged me onto the ledge.
For a minute we both lay there, panting. At last he spoke.
"Are you all right, Kal?"
I cradled my battered hand. "I'll live."
The relief on his blind face was clear. Somehow, I don't know why, that eased my pain.
I was still shaken by the near fall, but I sipped some water, and Brinon tightened my splint. After that I
was as ready as I would ever be to move on.
We started back up the peak. Soon it became like a game, albeit a deadly one, and each time we
avoided a tilting rock, or survived a tumble down a short slope of scree, or dodged a falling boulder, it was
like a personal triumph, a victory that affirmed we were smarter and better than this blasted heap of stone.
Before long we were laughing as, battered but not beaten, we fought our way up the mountain.
All at once Brinon's laughter fell short. The curvature of the peak in either direction was apparent now.
We were almost there.
"I thought you were gone, you know," he said. "Back down there, after you saved me from falling."
For a moment I was silent. Then, to my own surprise, I grinned. "You'll not be rid of me so easily, Knight
of Solamnia," I said.
I don't know why, perhaps I was growing used to the pain in my leg, but at that moment I slipped my arm
off his shoulder, reached down, and gripped his hand, and we walked those last agonizing steps in this way,
together.
*****
We reached the summit just as the sun was dying in a sea of bloody clouds.
At first I could see nothing. Grit swirled around us. Then the wind shifted, tore a rent through the veil of
dust, and at that moment I caught my first glimpse of the dragon of Redstone.
It was enormous. I had seen the blue dragon mounts that the elite Knights of Takhisis had ridden into
battle in the Chaos War, and at the time they had filled me with awe and fear. But this creature was five
times larger than the greatest of them. It sprawled across the entire top of the mountain, as red as the
stones for which this place was named. A serrated ridge ran along its spine like a row of rusty knives. The
wings were folded tight against the lean, angular body. Its massive head rested on a heap of rubble, and its
maw was cocked open, large enough to swallow a man whole.
We came to a halt behind the cover of a boulder. The dragon was no more than thirty paces away. My
hand slipped from Brinon's.
"What is it?" the knight asked.
I said nothing.
He drew in a sharp breath and gripped the hilt of his sword. "You see it, don't you?"
"Yes," I whispered.
Fear slithered up my throat. I gagged and tried to swallow it back down. I think a part of me had not
believed we would really find it. But this was what I had come here for. I had not gone through the Abyss and
back just to turn around now. Besides, any moment the thing would turn its great, wedge-shaped head—any
moment it would detect us standing there. Then it would all be over, one way or the other. I took a step
forward.
摘要：

THEDRAGONSOFCHAOSEditedbyMargaretWeisandTracyHickman©1997TSR,Inc.AllRightsReserved.ThisPDFwouldnotbepossiblewithoutthediligentandsuperiorOCR’ingbyAlligator(croc@aha.ru).OnceagainIwouldliketogivespecialthankstomyoldfriendKeirnonShadoweave,forheisoneofthegreatestknightstoevergracetheshoresofAnsalon““E...

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