"It is good to see you so happy," said Lectral. "For this alone I would have come to the village."
Ashtaway didn't miss the dragon's meaning. "There is another reason that you came, then?"
"Yes. It is to make my farewells to you and Hammana, who have cared so well for me."
"Farewells? But surely you're not going anywhere? Not with the battle won, perhaps even the war! You must stay with us and celebrate the peace!"
"Alas, I cannot," sighed Lectral with genuine regret. "For, as you suspect, the war is won. But the price of that victory is the departure of me, and my kind."
"What do you mean?"
"They are winging to me, tonight. I came here to say good-bye to you and await Saytica-for the two of us will fly together."
Saytica, Ash remembered, was one of Lectral's female offspring-now a huge silver dragon in her own right. Her proud father had boasted that she was one of the foremost fighters in the dragon wing defending Palanthas.
"You're going to fly? Fly where? And how?" Ashtaway couldn't believe what he was hearing. He gestured at the scarred mass of the dragon's once-mighty wings. "Saytica may be a mighty dragon-but do you think she's going to carry you?"
Lectral smiled tolerantly, even puffing a brief snort of amusement.
"As to the where: We go to a place called the Isle of Dragons, a place beyond Ansalon. We-the dragons of silver and gold-are going there, and there we shall live out our days, and our generations."
"How do you know this?" Ashtaway challenged.
"Peace is a thing of which even the smallest birds take note-it has been the song on the wind for these past days. It is a music that spreads across the world, a tale of hope and mystery that an ear as sensitive as mine cannot help but sense."
The dragon smiled more broadly, mocking himself.
"Of course, it helped this morning that one of Saytica's children-a nestling, barely, but a fast flyer-came to my cave and told me to make ready."
"But Lectral-without wings, how will you fly?"
If the dragon had heard the question, he made no indication of the fact.
"They say that the Isle of Dragons is a splendid place, idyllic, bountiful to a dragon's needs," Lectral continued, his voice soft, dreamy. Ashtaway sensed that the great serpent did in fact relish the prospect of a pastoral life there.
The Pathfinder raised the horn to his mouth and began to play. He didn't think about the notes, but let the music rise from somewhere within his soul. Lectral half-closed his eyes, listening dreamily, while the rest of the Kagonesti sighed softly with the poignancy of the melody.
The notes of the horn, this time, were fuller and more profound than could possibly have resonated in that slender tube. Ashtaway recognized great, keening chants in the rich melody and understood that the instrument played a song of dragons. He did not, could not, know that these sounds had not rung from the horn in more than two thousand years, but he sensed their historic portent as he heard them now.
Lectral raised his own horn, and these notes joined Ash's in rising toward the sky, singing through the night. The elf had a strong feeling that Father Kagonesti himself hovered there, looking down at his people, his tribe. Ashtaway wondered what Kagonos thought about the changes in the world-and in the Pathfinder-that had come about during this portentous season.
In a flash of insight, he knew that the Elderwild was pleased.
At last, the big silver dragon lowered his horn and raised his eyes to the canopy of leaves over their heads. "They come," he said softly.
Limping awkwardly, the great serpent hobbled through the village, and made his way between the vallenwoods that stood at the top of the lakeside bluff. Emerging from the trees, he looked toward the northwest, where Lunitari had just settled below the horizon. The Kagonesti came behind, reverently gathering along the crest of the precipice, looking across the star-dappled pattern of the Blue- lake.
The tribe settled into silence as the wild elves waited, following the direction of Lectral's gaze. Ashtaway still played, and still the notes of the horn keened impossibly deep and broad, and now the song expanded to fill the night.
The dragons came into sight first as silhouettes against the starlight, but as they flew lower the metallic glow of their wings shimmered even in the night sky. Many silver dragons circled overhead, most of them wheeling tirelessly far above the lakeside camp. A few dove, however, and one of these settled toward the great vallenwoods of the bluff's top, spreading her wings to land in a gush of wind beside the gathered elves and the great, crippled serpent.
"Greetings, Honored Father." Saytica, proud and beautiful, bowed to the great silver dragon. Her body was not as huge as Lectral's, but Saytica was supple and slender in a way that suggested deep and abiding power.
"Welcome, my daughter." Lectral's voice, firm with ritual, was nevertheless warm with the depth of his love.
"I am glad to find you," she said respectfully. "The time for flying is now."
"Farewell, my friends," Lectral declared with a bow of his head. Ashtaway watched in disbelief as the dragon's body abruptly shimmered and shifted, shrinking rapidly until he stood before them as an old human man. Shaggy white eyebrows concealed his yellow eyes-though Ash could still see those eyes flash in amusement at the elves' consternation.
"A-a human?" stammered the young chieftain after he regained his voice. "Why not take the form of an elf?"
The old man's face wrinkled into a smile. "Tradition, really. You see, my grandsire favored a body such as this. There were those who believed it to be his true form. In any event, I find that these whiskers, this old and wrinkled shape, suits me well."
The old man hobbled to Saytica's side, and the sleek silver neck bent low to allow him to mount. Seated between her wings, the man gave a single, regal wave, and Ashtaway felt a brief tug of melancholy. It seemed that more than a part of his life was closing-indeed, it was the conclusion of an epoch of Krynn. A world without dragons… what would that mean?
Then Saytica took to the air in a downrush of wings and a powerful spring. The elves watched for several minutes as she and her rider climbed into the sky, until the pair merged with all the other shadowy outlines there. In a sweeping, grand formation, the serpentine shapes turned to the north, slowly winging toward the horizon.
Gradually Ashtaway become aware of Hammana's hand in his. Together they watched the dragons wing northward for many long minutes, until their shadowy forms disappeared over the distant horizon.
PART 3
Iydahoe
14 PC
Northern Silvanesti Borderlands
Chapter 22
A bit of jealousy robispcrcd in Iydahoe's ear, tbougb the emotion was far from a consuming blaze. Instead, the warrior wrestled with a sense of unfairness, spurred by the envious knowledge that his older brother, Kawllaph, was a very lucky wild elf. Trotting through the woods on this mission for his brother, Iydahoe really wished that he, himself, would soon know good fortune in equal measure.
Kawllaph had asked Berriama to marry him,and she had agreed with almost shameless eagerness. Now Iydahoe ran to fetch Washallak Pathfinder from the village of the Silvertrout tribe, so that the muted notes of the Ram's Horn could signal the solemnity, the timeless commitment, of the wedding vows.
When he thought of his brother's good fortune, Iyda- hoe felt that pang of envy, the feeling that Kawllaph had all the luck. Iydahoe himself would like to court a maiden -indeed, lovely Moxilli, of the long, silken hair, came immediately to his mind. It would be splendid to have her as a companion, a lifemate. A wife was the perfect thing to make his life complete.