“What is he up to?” she mused aloud. She extended a talon toward the dirt floor of the plateau and began sketching an odd-looking symbol. Dust rose around the edges of the diagram, and the air shimmered with cool, blue energy.
Khellendros, I would speak with you—here.
Chapter 1
Deaths and Beginnings
The increasing pressure of the cool blue water snapped Dhamon awake. He was floating just above the lake’s silty bottom, his long hair fluttering like the fronds around him, his chest burning for air. He ached terribly from his fight with the dragon, but somehow he managed to summon a last bit of strength, kicking hard and struggling toward the surface. As he rose, he felt his limbs grow heavy and numb. Dhamon felt himself slip toward the comforting embrace of darkness. Then his head broke the surface and he gasped, coughing up a lungful of water and greedily gulping in air.
His hair was plastered over his eyes, but through a gap in the strands he spotted Palin, Feril, and Rig walking up a hill, away from the edge of the lake.
“Feril!” He raised his arm and thrashed about to get the elf’s attention. But he wasn’t loud enough. She was too far away to hear him, and getting farther with each passing heartbeat.
“Feril!” he called again; then something brushed against him and dosed around his leg. His cries were silenced as he felt himself being pulled under. Water rushed down his throat and the darkness reached up and swallowed him.
Just before dawn, Flint’s Anvil eased away from the Palanthas docks. The green-hulled carrack glided as swiftly and silently as a wraith through the maze of fishing boats already dotting the deep bay. Palin Majere moved toward the bow, listening to the soft splash of the fishing nets hitting the water and the nearly imperceptible creaking of the Anvil’s deck beneath his sandaled feet.
The son of famed Heroes of the Lance Caramon and Tika Majere as well as one of the few survivors of the Battle of the Rift, Palm was called the most powerful sorcerer on Krynn. Yet for all his magical skills and arcane knowledge, he felt powerless against the dragons threatening his world. He cursed himself for having been unable to save Shaon of Istar and Dhamon Grimwulf when the blue had attacked yesterday.
Palin leaned against the rail and stared at a spot on the horizon where the rose-tinted sky met the waves. His gray-streaked auburn hair whipped about in the wind, and he halfheartedly brushed it away from his eyes and yawned. Sleep had escaped him last night. He had lain awake listening to the sounds of the workers repairing the Anvil’s mainmast, which the dragon had snapped in half during its assault. When the work was completed, he had listened to the water flapping against the hull and had thought about his dead friends.
“We’re far enough out!” called Rig Mer-Krel, the sea barbarian who captained the Anvil He motioned to Groller, the half-ogre standing by the rear mast. Then he raised his arm, pointed to sails, clenched his fist, and brought his hand in quickly toward his chest.
The deaf half-ogre nodded in understanding of Rig’s hand signals and started lowering the sails, stepping around Fury — the red wolf sleeping near the base of the mast. The rest of the Anvil’s complement stood amidships. The group formed a ring around a human-shaped bundle carefully wrapped in an old sail. Jasper Fireforge, nephew of the legendary Flint Fireforge, knelt next to the bundle and ran his stubby dwarven fingers over the silk cord wrapped around it. He mumbled a few words to the absent gods of the sea, stroked his short brown beard, and choked back a sob.
Behind him stood Feril. The Kagonesti closed her eyes, and tears slid down over the oak leaf tattoo on her cheek. “Shaon,” she whispered. “I will miss you, my friend.”
“I’ll miss you, too,” softly echoed Blister, a middle-aged kender. She grimaced as she fidgeted with the white gloves on her small hands; “You’re the only person I ever told about … about my — ”
“Shaon loved the sea,” Rig began, his resonant voice cutting off the kender s reflections. “I often joked that salt water, not blood, ran in her veins. She was more at home on the rolling deck of a ship than on solid ground. She was my first mate, my friend, and my …” The mariner’s big frame shuddered as he stooped to cradle the bundle. His muscles strained, for the body was weighted with ballast to help it sink. “Today we return her to that which she cherished.”
He walked toward the railing and paused, picturing Shaon’s walnut-brown face beneath the canvas. He would miss the feel of her skin against his and he would never forget her infectious smile. He dropped the first mate’s body over the side of the ship and watched it quickly sink out of view. “I will never forget you,” he said, so softly that no one else could hear.
Feril stepped to the rail beside him. The breeze fanned her curly auburn hair around her shoulders and teased the tips of her pointed ears. “Dhamon Grimwulf died, too, though we could not recover his body. He abandoned his life as a Knight of Takhisis to take on a noble cause, and he sacrificed himself to slay the blue dragon who killed Shaon.” The Kagonesti held a leather thong in her slender hand. She had found it among the scant possessions Dhamon had brought aboard the Anvil. She paused to tie the short strip of leather around an arrowhead. “Dhamon brought us together. Let us honor his memory—and Shaon’s—by staying together and reclaiming our home from the dragons.” The arrowhead and thong slipped from her fingers and plunged into the sea much as Dhamon and the blue dragon named Gale had plunged to their deaths into the nearby lake.
For a long while the only sound was the faint creaking of the ship’s masts. Finally Rig backed away from the rail and nodded to Groller. The half-ogre raised the sails, and the dark-skinned mariner made his way to the wheel.
Noon, several days later, found Rig, Palin, Blister and Feril drenched with sweat, standing in the desert of the Northern Wastes. Before them sat a foot-long curly-tailed lizard. It flicked its forked tongue and peered with special intent at the Kagonesti, who was communicating with it. The others looked on, but understood none of the unusual conversation.
“Only for a short time can I share this desert, little one,” Feril said aloud in clicks and hisses.
“Run with me across the sand. Enjoy with me my very, very beautiful home. Plenty of desert for everyone.”
“It is a most beautiful desert,” Feril admitted. “But I need to know—**
“Catch with me insects. Crunchy beetles. Sweet butterflies. Juicy hoppers. Very, very juicy hoppers. Plenty for everyone.”
“I’m not interested in insects,” Feril explained.
The lizard looked disappointed and turned away.
“Please don’t leave,” she hissed, kneeling dose to the lizard.
“What are they talking about?” The kender asked, eyeing them with typical wide-eyed curiosity. “Rig, do you know what they’re talking about? All I hear are hissing noises. Sounds like a couple of tea kettles.”
“Shh!” the mariner scolded.
“I wish I knew how to use magic like that,” Blister said huffily. “I’d be able to talk to anything… everything.” The kender crossed her arms and glared down at the ground, at least what she could see of it over her thin orange tunic that billowed about her short legs in the hot, dry wind. The tunic was another sore point. That morning, when Blister had come up from below deck wearing the large orange garment along with green gloves and a green belt, Rig had said she looked like a ripe pumpkin. The comment was enough to make her doff her matching orange boots in favor of brown sandals and to leave her green hat behind. “Palin, couldn’t you cast a spell or something so we can all understand what the lizard is—”