“You asked for this,” Goldmoon cried, lifting her hand to touch her face, the face that had always seemed strange to her. “This is not me. It is your vision of me. . . .”
“Of course, Mother.” Mina laughed delightedly. “Aren’t you pleased? I have so much to tell you that will please you. I’ve brought the miracle of healing back into the world with the power of the One God. With the blessing of the One, I felled the shield the elves had raised over Silvanesti, and I killed the treacherous dragon Cyan Bloodbane. Another truly monstrous green dragon, Beryl, is dead by the power of the One God. The elven nations, which were corrupt and faithless, have both been destroyed. In death, the elves will find redemption. Death will lead them to the One God.”
“Ah, child!” Goldmoon gasped. Casting off Mina’s hands, which had been wrapped tightly around her own, Goldmoon stared at her in horror. “I see blood on these hands. The blood of thousands! This god you have found is a terrible god. A god of darkness and evil!”
“The One God told me you would feel this way, Mother,” Mina said patiently. “When the other gods departed and you thought you were left alone, you were angry and afraid. You felt betrayed, and that was only natural. For you had been betrayed.”
Mina’s voice hardened. “The gods in which you had so misguidedly placed your faith fled in fear . . .”
“No!” Goldmoon rose unsteadily to her feet. She fell back, away from Mina, held out her hand in warding. “No, child, I don’t believe it. I won’t listen you.”
Mina followed after her, seized hold of Goldmoon’s hand. “You will listen, Mother. You must so that you will understand. The gods fled in fear of Chaos. All except one. One god remained loyal to the people she had helped to create. One only had the courage to face the terror of the Father of All and of Nothing. The battle left her weak. Too weak for her to make manifest her presence in the world. Too weak to fight the strange dragons who came to take her place. But although she could not be with her people, she gave gifts to her people to help them. The magic that they call the wild magic. The power of healing that you know as the power of the heart... Those were her gifts. Her gifts to you.
“There is her sign.” Mina pointed to the heads of the five dragons that guarded the Portal.
Shuddering, Goldmoon turned. Dark and lifeless, the heads began to glow with an eerie radiance, one red, one blue, one green, one white, one black.
She moaned and averted her eyes.
“Mother,” said Mina, gently rebuking, “the One God does not ask you for thanks for these past gifts. Rest assured, she has more gifts to bestow on her faithful in the future. But she does require service, Mother. She wants you to serve her and to love her, as she has served you and loved you. Do this, Mother. Kneel down and offer your prayers of faith and thanksgiving to the One True God. The One God who remained faithful to her creation.”
“No! I don’t believe what you are telling me!” Goldmoon said through lips so stiff she could barely cause them to form the words. “You have been deceived, child. I know this One God. I know her of old. I know her tricks and her lies and deceits.”
Goldmoon looked back at the five-headed dragon, whose terrible radiance shone undimmed, for no other opposing force existed that could cloud it.
“I do not believe your lies, Takhisis!” Goldmoon cried defiantly. “I will never believe that the blessed Paladine and Mishakal left us to your mercy! You are what you have always been—a God of Evil who does not want worshipers but slaves. I will never bow down to you. I will never serve you.”
Fire flared from the eyes of the five dragons. The fire was white hot, and Goldmoon withered in the terrible heat. Her body shrank and shriveled. Her strength ebbed, and she collapsed to the floor. Her hands shook with palsy. The skin stretched tight over tendon and bone. Her arms grew thin and splotched with age. Her face wrinkled. Her beautiful silvergold hair was white and wispy. She was an old woman, her pulse feeble, her heartbeat slowing.
“See, Mother,” Mina said and her voice was sorrowful and afraid, “see what will happen if you continue to deny the One God what is due her?”
Kneeling beside Goldmoon, Mina took hold of the old woman’s palsied hands and pressed them again to her lips. “Please, Mother. I can restore your youth. I can bring back your beauty. You can begin life all over again. You will walk with me, and together we will rule the world in the name of the One God. All you have to do is to come to the One God in humility and ask this favor of her, and it will be done.”
Goldmoon closed her eyes. Her lips did not move.
Mina bent close. “Mother,” she begged, and she sounded fearful.
“Mother, do this for me if not for yourself. Do this for love of me!”
“I pray,” said Goldmoon. “I pray to Paladine and Mishakal that they forgive me for my lack of faith. I should have known the truth,” she said softly, her voice weakening as she spoke the words with her dying breath,
“I pray that Paladine will hear my words, and he will come . . . for love of Mina . . . For love of all. . . .”
Goldmoon sank, lifeless, to the floor.
“Mother,” said Mina, as bewildered as a lost child, “I did this for you...”
Epilogue
That night, in the small port city of Dolphin View, in northern Abanasinia, a ship set sail across the Straits of Schallsea. The ship carried a single passenger, whose identity was known only to the captain. Heavily cloaked and hooded, the passenger boarded during the night, bringing with him nothing except his horse, a wild-eyed, short-tempered beast, who was housed below deck in a specially built stall. The mysterious passenger was obviously a man of means, for he had hired the Gull Wing specially, and he had paid extra for his horse. The sailors, intensely curious about the passenger’s identity, were envious of the cabin boy, who was granted permission to take the passenger his supper. They waited eagerly for the boy to return to tell them what he had seen and heard.
The cabin boy knocked on the door. No one answered and after a few more knocks, he trepidatiously tried the lock. The door opened. A tall, slender man, wrapped in his cloak, stood staring out the porthole at the vast and glittering sea. He did not turn around, even after the cabin boy mentioned dinner several times.
Shrugging, the cabin boy was about to withdraw when the mysterious passenger spoke. He used Common, but with a heavy accent. His voice quivered with impatience.
“Tell the captain I want this ship to go faster. Do you hear? We must go faster.”
In her mountain lair, surrounded by the skulls of the dragons she had slain, the great red dragon Malystryx dreamed of water, inky black water, rising up over her red legs, her belly, her massive red tail. Rising to cover her red wings, her back. Rising to her mane. Rising to cover her head, her mouth and nostrils. She could not breathe. She fought to lift herself above the water, but her legs were pinned. She could not free herself. Her lungs were bursting. Stars exploded before her eyes. She gasped, opened her mouth. The water poured in, and she was drowning. . . .
Malystryx woke, suddenly, glared around, angry and uneasy. She had been dreaming, and she never dreamed. Never before had any dream disturbed her rest. She had heard voices in her dream, mocking, goading, and she heard them still. The voices came from the skull totem, and they sang a song about sleep. Forever sleep.