Yet, despite all of it, despite the spectacle before his eyes, an impatience began to build up as Krasus waited. And waited. And waited more, with not even the slightest hint that anyone acknowledged his presence.
His patience, already left ragged by the events of the past weeks, finally snapped.
He fixed his gaze on the stony features of a massive statue part man, part bull, whose left arm thrust forth as if demanding that the newcomer leave, and called out, “I know you are here, Nozdormu! I know it! I would speak with you!”
The moment the dragon mage finished, the wind whipped up, tossing sand all about and obscuring his vision. Krasus stayed his ground as a full-fledged sandstorm suddenly buffeted him. The wind howled around him, so loud that he had to cover his ears. The storm seemed determined to lift him up and throw him far away, but the wizard fought it, using magic as well as physical effort to remain. He would not be turned away, not without the opportunity to speak!
At last, even the sandstorm appeared to realize that he would not be deterred. It swept away from him, now focusing on a dune a short distance away. A funnel of dust arose, pushing higher and higher into the sky.
The funnel took on a shape . . . a dragon’s shape. As large as, if not larger than Malygos, this sandy creation moved, stretched dusty brown wings. Sand continued to add to the dimension of the behemoth, but sand seemingly mixed with gold, for more and more the leviathan forming before Krasus glittered in the blazing light of the desert sun.
The wind died, yet not one grain of sand or gold broke from the draconic giant. The wings flapped hard, the neck stretched. Eyelids opened, revealing gleaming gemstones the color of the sun.
“Korialstraszzzz . . .”the sandy behemoth practically spat. “You dare disturb my ressst? You dare disssturb my peace?”
“I dare because I must, o great Lord of Time!”
“Titles will not appeassse my wrath . . . would be best if you went . . .” The gemstones flared. “. . . and went now!”
“No! Not until I speak to you of a danger to all dragons! To all creatures!”
Nozdormu snorted. A cloud of sand bathed Krasus, but his spells kept it from affecting him. One could never tell what magic might dwell within each and every grain in the domain of Nozdormu. One bit of sand might be enough to ensure that the history of a dragon named Korialstrasz turned out never to have happened. Krasus might simply cease to exist, unremembered even by his beloved mistress.
“Dragonssss, you say? Of what concern isss that to you? I see only one dragon here, and it isss certainly not the mortal wizard Krasusss—not anymore! Away with you! I would return to my collection! You wassste too much of my precious time already!” One wing swept protectively over the statue of the man-bull. “Ssso much to gather, ssso much to catalog . . .”
It suddenly infuriated Krasus that this, one of the greatest of the five Aspects, he through whom Time itself coursed, this dragon cared not a whit what went on in the present or the future. Only his precious collection of the world’s past meant anything to the leviathan. He sent out his servants, his people, to gather whatever they could find—all so that their master could surround himself with what had once been and ignore both what was and what might be.
All so that he, in his own way, could ignore the passing of their kind just as Malygos did.
“Nozdormu!” he shouted, demanding the glittering sand dragon’s attention again. “Deathwing lives!”
To his horror, Nozdormu took in this terrible news with little change. The gold and brown behemoth snorted once more, sending a second cloud assailing the tinier figure. “Yesss . . . and ssso?”
Taken aback, Krasus managed to blurt, “You—know?”
“A question not at all worth anssswering. Now, if you’ve nothing more with which to further bother me, it isss time for you to depart.” The dragon reared his head, bejeweled eyes flaring.
“Wait!” Forgoing any sense of dignity, the wizard waved his arms back and forth. To his relief, Nozdormu paused, negating the spell he had been about to use to rid himself of this bothersome mite. “If you know that the dark one lives, you know what he intends! How can you ignore that?”
“Becaussse, asss with all things, even Deathwing will pass into time . . . even he will eventually be part . . . of my collection. . . .”
“But if you joined—”
“You’ve had your sssay.” The glittering sand dragon rose higher and as he did, the desert flew up, adding further to his girth and form. Torn free by the winds, some of the smaller objects in Nozdormu’s bizarre collection joined with that sand, becoming, for the moment, a very part of the dragon. “Now leave me be. . . .”
The winds now whipped up around Krasus—and only Krasus. Try as he might, this time the dragon wizard could not hold his ground. He stumbled back, shoved hard time and time again by the ferocious gusts.
“I came here for the sake of all of us!” Krasus managed to shout.
“You should not have disssturbed my ressst. You should not have come at all. . . .” The glittering gemstones flared. “In fact, that would have been bessst of all. . . .”
A column of sand shot up from the ground, engulfing the helpless wizard. Krasus could see nothing else. It grew stifling, impossible to breathe. He tried to cast a spell in order to save himself, but against the might of one of the Aspects, against the Master of Time, even his substantial powers proved minuscule.
Bereft of air, Krasus finally succumbed. Consciousness fading, he slumped forward—
—and watched, in startlement, as the petals of the Eon Rose dropped to the stone floor of his sanctum without any effect.
The spell should have worked. He should have been transported to the realm of Nozdormu, Lord of the Centuries. Just as Malygos embodied magic itself, so, too, did Nozdormu represent time and timelessness. One of the most powerful of the five Aspects, he would have proven a powerful ally, especially should Malygos suddenly choose to retreat into his madness. Without Nozdormu, Krasus’s hopes of success dwindled much.
Kneeling, the mage picked up the petals and repeated the spell. For his troubles, Krasus was rewarded only with a horrendous headache. How could that be, though? He had done everything right! The spell should have worked—unless somehow Nozdormu had caught wind of the wizard’s intention to plead with him and had cast a spell preventing Krasus from entering the sandy realm.
He swore. Without a chance to visit Nozdormu, he had no hope, however slight it might have been in the first place, of convincing the powerful dragon to join his plan. That left only She of the Dreaming . . . the most elusive of the Aspects, and the only one he had never, ever, spoken with in all his lengthy life. Krasus did not even know how to contact her, for it had oft been said that Ysera lived not wholly in the real world—that, to her, the dreams were the reality.
The dreams were the reality? A desperate plan occurred to the wizard, one that, had it been suggested to him by any of his counterparts, would have made Krasus break from his accustomed form and laugh loud. How utterly ridiculous! How utterly hopeless!
But, as with Nozdormu, what other choice did he have?
Turning back to his array of potions, artifacts, and powders, Krasus searched for a black vial. He found it quickly, despite not having touched it in more than a century. The last time he had made use of it—it had been to slay what had seemed unslayable. Now, however, he sought to only borrow one of its most vicious traits, and hope that he did not measure wrong.
Three drops on the tip of a single bolt had killed the Manta, the Behemoth of the Deep. Three drops had slain a creature ten times the size and strength of a dragon. Like Deathwing, nearly all had believed the Manta unstoppable.