“At times.”
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There are only a few of us out in the world, sentinels watching for creatures like Haladan. It will be difficult to repair the damage he has done. My brethren will do what they can to normalize relations between Lyrandar and Tharashk—and to prevent the fiends from destroying more ships. But our role in this cannot be known.”
“What am I supposed to believe now? Is King Boranel a dragon? Or just one of his advisors?”
“Power is not what we seek, child. There are ancient nations of my kind, hidden in the land of Argonnessen. If conquest was our goal, your people would never have spread across the land.” He let his breath out in a long hiss. “You will stand on your own, one day. But the Lord of the First Flame and the other ancient fiends will always be out there, always seeking vengeance for their defeat. They do not seek power either—just chaos and destruction. Even we are not safe from their evil, as Adaixaliantha’s murder shows. So we must work from the shadows. Strike with surprise. Secrecy is our shield and our greatest weapon.”
“So what does that mean for me?” Zaehr said.
A long hiss. “By the laws of our kind, you should be killed. You have seen my true face, and I have told you more than you should know.”
“You could have told me that part first.”
“You should not have followed me. But I have no wish to kill you, child. You… you have been a faithful friend, and I have enjoyed our time together. I am not without talents of my own. I can twist a few minutes of memory—difficult magic to work, but within my power. It is what I must do to resolve this matter with Lord Dantian.” Fire flashed in the orange eyes. “And if you wish to live, it is what I must do with you.”
Zaehr considered. “What do I need to do?”
“It will be best if I render you unconscious, I think. You will wake on the steps of the keep, with the new memories in place. You should never know what truly happened.”
Zaehr raised an eyebrow. “Is this the first time you’ve done this to me?”
“Do you truly wish to know the answer?”
“I suppose not.” Zaehr took a deep breath. “If you’re going to make all of this go away, I’ve got one more question.”
“Anything.”
“You say you’re here to protect us. But are there… bad dragons out there? Dragons with other ideas about what we need?”
The dragon stared down at her, smoke trailing from his nostrils.
And that was where the dream ended.
About
Keith Baker discovered Dungeons & dragons® in elementary school, and this was the beginning of a lifelong interest in games of all sorts. In 2002 he quit his day job to become a full-time freelance writer. Much to his surprise, in 2003 his world Eberron™ was selected as the finalist in the Wizards of the Coast Fantasy Setting Search. Keith currently lives in Boulder, Colorado with his lovely wife Ellen and a very bossy cow.
The City of Towers was his first novel. The Shattered Land is the sequel.
Michael Komarck was born in Louisiana and promptly relocated to Michigan where he has lived ever since. As the years passed, he transitioned from crayons to pencils to acrylics to oils, and in 1989 he found himself at a community college where his suspicions that he was better off self-taught in art were proven correct almost immediately. His stint there was brief in the extreme.
After several years as a projectionist at the local Cineplex, Komarck co-founded a small publishing company. However, with the exception of illustrating several children’s books, the majority of his time was spent designing business cards, ads, and eventually web related materials. It was during this period that he was introduced to Photoshop and ultimately replaced his oils with digital paint. Eventually he left to pursue a career as a full time illustrator. He spent a couple years building a portfolio while designing business/self-help book covers to pay the bills (to this day he still happily design several such covers a year).
Unnatural Predator
Scott McGough
Vaan felt his master drawing near long before there were visible signs. He had spent his entire life serving the dragon… but it wasn’t familiarity that guided the blue pixie’s eyes skyward. Duty and fear bound Vaan to his master as deeply as any magic, and he felt the great beast’s approach as a mouse feels the shadow of a hawk.
The sky throbbed as the dragon swooped down from the pre-dawn clouds. It was gigantic—over one hundred feet long—and as lean and sinuous as a serpent. Its head was as broad and sharp as an axe-blade, and its long alabaster horns jutted forward beyond the end of its tapering snout. His master was awesome—a beautiful sight even after decades of servitude, and Vaan cursed himself for being swayed by it.
And yet, what a majestic monster to be enslaved by. Its scales were an exquisite fused glass, blue-white in color and harder than steel. A small dot of light glowed in each scale’s center like a candle through a translucent ceramic jug. The dragon had wide, sweeping, batlike wings veined with subtle shades of cyan and yellow. As the great serpent flew, the colors on its wings shimmered and merged. Last night’s lingering moon glistened across the brute’s streamlined body, enveloping it in a cloud of silver sparks.
Two streams of thick smoke trailed from its nostrils, braiding together as the dragon rolled. The titan’s jagged wings carried it over the wooded countryside below, soaring east toward the rain-swollen river.
Vaan’s rush of admiration soured as he watched the dragon descend. As surely as he knew his master was approaching, Vaan also knew where the beast was going.
“It’s happening again,” the pixie whispered, surprising himself by speaking aloud. If the others heard him they gave no sign. Considering the scene that now played out before them, it was understandable how they could overlook the muttered ramblings of a small winged man hovering overhead.
Far below them all, dozens of human figures scurried across the sturdy wooden bridge that spanned the river. Four straight days of driving rain had gorged the river to the point of catastrophe, though the levees remained intact. The local farmers and villagers, wisely unwilling to risk the flood that would greet them if the levees failed, marched across the bridge and continued up the heavily wooded hills to the west. The bridge had taken three generations of hard work to complete, along with a significant chunk of the hardwood forest nearby. For decades it provided the farmers and village merchants with access to the western lands across the river. Now it provided a way for them to reach higher ground and safety.
Consumed with escaping the rising water with their families and valuables intact, the locals failed to see the even greater danger descend from above. The dragon undulated its body as it flew, swimming through thick streams of cold air and high wind, its eyes fixed on the people below.
Vaan’s tongue was a block of stone in his mouth—he could say nothing, do nothing. Nothing except stand, wait, and watch like the loyal servant he was bound to be.