The Rage (15 page)

and even a couple of other song dragons—either crawling around the floor or perched on ledges along the steeply sloping walls. Together, they made a dazzling brightness, like a cauldron of molten metals all swirled together. A few other points of light shot across the sky like falling stars, all converging on the gleaming confusion below. They were latecomers like Kara, hurrying to keep the rendezvous.

As she furled her wings and dived lower, she caught the voices of her kind conversing in their own tongue. The coppers traded jests and japes, even at the start of such a solemn occasion. The bronzes and brasses were equally vocal, speculating about what was to come or complaining that it hadn’t begun already. The golds and silvers were more reserved but responded courteously to any who addressed them. To a human, it might have seemed a cacophony of bestial rumbles, hisses, and roars, but to someone capable of understanding, it was music, a symphony expressive of the wisdom and nobility of a great people.

Next, circling lower still, looking for a clear spot to land Kara caught the leathery scent of her kind. Then, to her surprise, she felt the heat. A dragon’s blood was cooler than that of men, yet even so, so many wyrms had congregated there that their bodies warmed the hollow.

Finally, after seeking in vain for a more convenient place, she lit on the rim of the bowl, then climbed cautiously down the side. It was even steeper than it had looked from the air, but her strength, combined with her keen senses of touch and balance, allowed her to negotiate it safely. Until the granite turned slippery beneath her talons.

Scrabbling for purchase, she looked down to see that a layer of translucent slime coated the stone. Fortunately, not all of it. She snatched for an outcropping outside the mess and heaved herself to safety. She doubted she looked graceful doing it, but it was better than rolling down the escarpment to smack into the dragons massed on the ground below.

A few yards underneath her and just off to the left, a copper dragon with sky-blue eyes perched on a ledge. He

grinned up at her, exposing a gap in the upper fangs at the front of his mouth. She crawled toward him.

“You conjured the grease,” she accused.

If he was afraid of retribution, he didn’t let it show.

“A little spill wouldn’t have hurt you,” said the copper. “It would just have broken up the monotony. I’ve been here for hours, and nothing’s happened.”

Her anger cooling, Kara realized she wasn’t going to attack him. A brawl under those circumstances would disgrace her more thoroughly than any awkward tumble ever could. Besides, coppers couldn’t help playing jokes any more than song dragons could refrain from making music.

“If you create any more mischief,” she said, “I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. Understood?”

“Of course, dread lady” He lowered his head to the ground in a parody of submission. “I’m Chatulio”

Kara gave her own name, and the gathering fell silent, save for the rustle of a wing, and the slap of a tail twitching on the ground. She turned to see that Chatulio’s boredom was presumably at an end. The conclave was beginning.

Along one wall, just below the rim, were two shelves of rock, with the arched mouth of a cave at the back of the upper one. As she flew in, Kara had observed that, despite the crowding in the hollow, the ledges were entirely vacant, and inferring that those who’d called the gathering had reserved them for their own use, hadn’t presumed to light there herself. One at a time, in stately procession, eight huge, ancient golds emerged from the opening in the rock. The scales on their sinuous bodies shined as if a legion of servants had polished them, while their amber eyes burned brighter still. “Beards” of tendrils dangled from their lower jaws.

Seven of the golds perched along the lower shelf. The eighth, the largest and last to emerge, remained atop the higher one, a position that also placed him above every other dragon in the bowl. Plainly, he must be Lareth, King of Justice, the sovereign the golds had chosen for themselves.

The other seven were the lords, his honor guard and the dignitaries of his court.

Golds—and to a lesser extent, silvers—were peculiar in that regard. Few other wyrms ever felt an inclination to acknowledge any authority above themselves. Certainly, song dragons didn’t. Nonetheless, anyone beholding Lareth in all his manifest might and majesty would surely feel a shiver of awe, and Kara discovered she was no exception.

Lareth gazed out over the assembly, and said, “Noble friends, I thank you for your presence here today. I know that most of you have traveled a long way”

“So would it have killed you to set out a few casks of wine and some freshly killed game?” Chatulio whispered.

Kara shot him a glare to hush him.

“Under other circumstances,” Lareth continued, “I’d open this conclave with all the pomp and ceremony that is your due. But time presses. Many of you know whereof I speak. The Rage is nearly upon us.”

On the other side of the bowl, a lithe silver with several vivid battle scars perched on a high ledge among her own entourage. She was Havarlan, Barb—or commander—of the Talons of Justice.

“Can we be certain of this, Your Resplendence?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lareth said. All the portents say so. Those of us with the proper gifts can see it in the shape of the clouds or hear it in the murmur of the rivers. Every divination points to it. Many of you can feel it in your restlessness and ill temper, in the vile pictures that rise unbidden in your mind. I witness it in my dreams, whenever I can bear to sleep.

“A Rage is surely coming, the greatest ever, a madness that

will overwhelm every one of us as completely as it will our

evil kindred. We must protect the small folk from our fury.”

“Well,” said the largest of the lords, “at least our ancestors

taught us how. For those of us who can shapeshift, the form

of a human or some other little, inoffensive creature armors

the mind. Others can bury themselves in their lairs so deeply

that no matter how they struggle, they won’t dig themselves out before sanity returns.”

Lareth shook his head and warned, “No, Tamarand. This time is different. What worked before is insufficient now.”

“Then what do we do?” asked an old brass, his wings and frills green at the edges.

“We sleep,” said Lareth, “more profoundly than nature allows. Otherwise, the frenzy will goad us awake.” He extended a wing to indicate a gold perched on another outcropping and continued, “Most of you know Nexus, at least by reputation. He’s the greatest mage among us.” Nexus acknowledged the praise by inclining his head. “He’s crafted an enchantment to bind us in a slumber nothing can breach.”

“Teach us,” said a bronze, his membranous wings riddled with tiny holes and the rims of his scales blue-black with age, “and we’ll spread the knowledge among our kin.”

“Unfortunately, Ulreel,” Lareth said, “that’s not the answer, either. Only the most powerful enchanters can cast this spell Moreover, it lasts until such a mage sees fit to dissolve it, so even if every drake could ensorcell himself in the solitude of his own den, he would then sleep forever. Thus, each of us needs assistance to avail himself of the protection.”

“How will we proceed then?” Tamarand asked.

“You and I,” the King of Justice answered, “will establish a sanctuary here hi the Galenas. Your fellow lords will create six similar refuges across Faerűn. As it becomes necessary, all our kind will repair to the enclaves and submit to the enchantment. Veils of illusion will keep them safe from molestation, and those of us who can alter our forms will keep watch and wake our kindred when the Rage subsides. Each such warder will perform his duties for a few hours at a time, then rouse the next and return to unconsciousness himself. That will keep the madness from overwhelming him.”

The assembled dragons gazed up at the elder gold in astonishment. Rather to Kara’s surprise, it was Tamarand who spoke next.

“Your Resplendence, nothing in my life affords me so much honor and joy as to serve you as my sovereign. But as you understand better than anyone, to golds, the King of Justice has always been a source of wisdom, an advisor and adjudicator of disputes, rather than a master who commands his vassals’ absolute obedience. While wyrms of other hues have never pledged you any fealty whatsoever”

Lareth’s eyes flared, and whiffs of smoke rose from his nostrils and mouth.

“What are you implying?” the king demanded. “That my scheme is some sort of ploy to set myself up as a tyrant over half of dragonkind?”

“I know that isn’t true… ” Tamarand said.

“That makes one of us,” Chatulio muttered.

“…but I worry that some of these others do not. Ours is a proud and independent race. To ask that they meekly permit us to chain them with magic is to ask for more than they have ever given anyone. If we could think of another way to use Nexus’s discovery…”

“I’ve already tried,” Lareth said, turning his gaze outward on the assembly. “Noble dragons, I harbor no ill intentions toward any of you, nor ambitions to a higher estate than the one I already enjoy. When disaster threatens, someone must strive to avert it, and that is my sole intent. I beg you to trust me until we weather this crisis. Afterward, I promise, we’ll go our separate ways, each as free and hale as before. If you require it, I’ll even vow to abdicate my throne on that day, and let the golds elect a new King of Justice in my place”

“No one wants you to step down,” said Ulreel, “but Tamarand is right. This scheme troubles us. We have countless foes, the evil branches of our race and lesser creatures too, who would like nothing better than to exterminate us. If they should find us lying helpless, gathered all together..

“I told you,” Lareth roared, blue and yellow flames playing around his immense fangs and on the surface of his forked tongue, “we’ll protect the sanctuaries. Is that so hard to comprehend?”

Bronzes were the most warlike of the metallic dragons, sometimes serving in human armies if the cause was just and the pay generous, and Ulreel plainly resented being interrupted as well as the implication he was a dullard. His wings spread, his legs flexed, preparing to leap, and his long neck swelled with the threat of a blast of lightning or noxious gas.

Then, however, he caught control of his temper, and simply growled, “I understand all yon have said, just as I know your reputation for wisdom. Still, no one is infallible?’

“Indeed not,” Lareth said. “Fortunately, in this bleak hour, I have something better than my own poor wits to guide me. I have the dreams the gods vouchsafed me. Visions that show Nexus’s enchantment is the only way to avert calamity. Otherwise, we’ll lay waste to the cities of men and hammer the small folk down into savagery. We’ll slaughter them until the land is red and muddy with their blood. It may be we’ll wipe them out entirely. Is that what you want? Is that what any of you want?”

Toward the end, the king’s voice rose in a howl of lamentation, as if the massacre he described had already occurred. He was famous for his calmness and dignity no less than his wisdom, and it was possible that his loss of composure impressed the assembled dragons as nothing else could. For the mistrust and resentment seemed to bleed out of them, while a mingled dread and resolve rose to take their place.

“My friend,” Havarlan said, “we’ve known each other for centuries, and I’ve never seen yon commit an ignoble act or set a foolish course. If you say this is the only way, the Talons of Justice will help you as best we can.”

“Thank you” Lareth twisted his neck to peer down at the golds below him. “I hope I can depend on the lords as well.”

If Tamarand hesitated, it was only for an instant then he said, “Of course, Your Resplendence. We await your orders.”

Chatulio snorted and whispered, “That’s it, then. If the golds and silvers are united, they can stuff it down everybody else’s throat.”

Perhaps he was right. The wyrms found it necessary to palaver on for another two hours, but in time, almost everyone, however grudgingly, agreed to Lareth’s plan.

Kara thought, I should do the same. Many of these drakes are my elders, some by a thousand years. Surely any wisdom I possess is as nothing compared to theirs. Besides, my scales don’t shine like metal. I’m an oddity here. The golds and the rest accept me as a distant cousin, but how likely is it that any of them truly cares what I think?

Yet she had to speak. Her nightmares demanded that of her, as well.

“Your Resplendence!” she called.

Perhaps suspecting what was afoot, Chatulio edged away from her.

Lareth turned in her direction and said, “Yes… forgive me, daughter of song. I know most of those gathered here, but you and I have never met before.”

“My name is Karasendrieth, and I wish to ask, what causes the frenzy? Can you tell me? Or can Nexus, who knows so many secrets?”

Lareth nodded to the dragon wizard, inviting him to answer.

“I fear,” Nexus said, “that no one has ever solved that particular riddle.”

“If we know so little about it,” Kara said, “then how can we be so confident of sleeping till it passes? What if it never does, and we slumber until we waste away of thirst and starvation?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Lareth said. “The Rage always subsides. The madness is already tainting your thoughts, prompting you to fear things that can never come to be.”

“You said yourself, this Rage promises to be different. The worst ever. Perhaps it will be the one that seizes us in its claws and never lets go”

“My dreams assure me that won’t happen.”

“I have my own nightmares,” Kara said, “and my own premonitions of disaster, but they, coupled with my reason, point to

a different path than the one you recommend. Why not attack this affliction as we would any other enemy who sought to cripple or corrupt us? Why not identify the cause, determine the cure, and rid ourselves of the frenzy once and for all?”

As she finished, she hoped someone would call out in support of her idea, but nobody did. Instead, the wyrms just stared at her.

Then Lareth said, “It’s not a disease, but simply a part of being a dragon. For as far back as anyone remembers, we’ve always suffered from the frenzy, our wicked kindred the most susceptible, but even metal and gem wyrms succumbing from time to time.”