It was odd how, in that elven guise, he had felt a warmth of feeling, a deep affection for his nestmates that was decidedly undragonlike. He had heard about love, of course, but as it would be to any centuries-old serpent, the concept was not a thing he could understand. It seemed a silly and vulnerable weakness, useful only to enliven the existence of short-lived creatures who had no real hope of majesty in their pathetic lives.
Sometimes in the years immediately following the time when he and Heart had wandered apart, Lectral, too, had walked among men. After all, as a silver dragon it was somewhat expected. Yet he had never found the appeal in these short-lived, vibrant folk that had compelled Heart and, more recently, her younger sisters, Saytica and Silvara, to live for long stretches in the guise of a two-legs. The Kagonesti, at least, were serene and dignified and lived lives of a properly long span of years.
Lectral was thinking, with fond reminiscence, of the silver female when a cloak of darkness suddenly blotted out the stars. He jerked his head upward, popping out the top of a sphere of a magical blackness, and when he heard a musical trill of laughter, he knew he had been made the victim of a prank.
“Silvara! Come out where I can see you!”
The laughter rose, chiming in harmony with the waterfall, and a small, slender dragon of shimmering silver crept into view around the shoulder of the cliff wall.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Lectral,” she said with utter insincerity. With a blink of her great luminous eyes-eyes that seemed too large for the narrow silver wedge of her head-she stretched her wings and dipped a leisurely foreclaw into the waters of the pool.
Lectral, as always, found it impossible to be angry with the impetuous wyrmling. Still, he made a show of scowling and harrumphing, as if she should think twice about working a new spell on him the next time she paid a visit. “And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Saytica and I were in Palanthas for the winter, but I think I was starting to get on Astinus’s nerves,” Silvara admitted, with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “At least, that’s what Regia said when she asked me to leave.”
“Maybe you were getting on Regia’s nerves as well,” Lectral proposed with a chuckle.
Their golden kin-dragon was widely known for her fanatical attachment to human ways of society and manners. Regia was easily flustered by a dragon who, whether in human or elven guise, lacked a proper knowledge of decorum. It wasn’t hard to imagine that the playful young silver had soon grown irritating in the eyes of the haughty gold.
“That could be. Quallathan and I were playing around the Tower of High Sorcery, and she punished him with an extra lesson and told me I should see what was happening in the High Kharolis.”
“That sounds like Regia,” Lectral admitted. Quallathan was even younger than Silvara, but he was strong and quick, with a keen intellect and sharp wit that had already drawn a great deal of attention from the elders. It was quite possible that Regia considered Silvara a bad influence on Qual, though Lectral refrained from mentioning his suspicion to the lively youngster. “I don’t suppose an extra lesson is too much of a punishment for Quallathan,” he suggested.
“No. He went right into his human form and started to read a big stack of scrolls Regia gave him.”
“Did you know that’s why the gold dragons like to use their two-legged bodies so much?” the silver male explained. “Because it’s easier to read with a human’s eyes than with a dragon’s. Also, human fingers are better than claws for turning the pages.”
“I didn’t know that. But it was all right, though,” Silvara continued breezily, trotting to the edge of the ledge and looking into the misty depths of the gorge, then turning those over-large eyes back to Lectral. “I was ready for a change of scenery.”
“Saytica stayed behind?”
“Yes,” Silvara replied. “She has an easier time putting up with all the rules.”
“Well, she’s quite a bit older and larger than you. I suppose that makes a difference,” noted Lectral.
“Everyone is,” the young female replied sourly, but then she brightened. “Anyway, it’s as Daria taught us: Dragons should be flying, not reading.”
Lectral chuckled, remembering his matriarch with fondness. Then his brow furrowed. “Have you seen Heart?” he asked, finally getting to the question that was never far from the surface of his awareness.
“No, and Regia hasn’t either. She asked me the same thing just before she sent me away.”
An eagle keened, circling the ledge, silhouetted by the rosy glow of the sun sinking toward the western horizon. Then the birdlike form shimmered and grew, and it was a gold dragon gliding through the air, curling regally and settling toward a landing on Lectral’s ledge.
The two silvers quickly changed shape, using the bodies of wild elves to conserve space, and moved against the cliff wall to leave more room on the narrow perch.
The gold, whom Lectral had already recognized as mighty Arumnus, settled in a downrush of wind and nodded a greeting of stiff-necked formality. The dragon’s rather formal manner wasn’t because he was aloof, but because he’d been spending too much time with Regia, Lectral suspected.
Smoothly Arumnus changed shape, shrinking, curling upright to stand smoothly in the body of a burly Knight of Solamnia. Shiny golden armor protected his strapping form, and a great sword was strapped to his waist.
The two wild elf bodies stepped forward. “Welcome, kin-dragon,” Lectral said, feeling a surprising rush of affection toward the mature gold. After all, Arumnus was one of the few male dragons who was as old as Lectral himself. Despite his aloof and studious nature, he had been a friend and comrade since making Lectral’s acquaintance some three centuries before.
“Have you heard the news?” Arumnus asked, urgency overcoming his traditional gold dragon reserve.
“What is it?” Silvara asked before Lectral could speak.
“War has come again to the world. It has already been waged for several winters in the east, and now it has come against the men of Solamnia. The wyrms of the Dark Queen are awakened, and they, too, have joined the onslaught against the knights.”
“Dragons of red and blue-chromatic serpents?” demanded Lectral, tingling with a sudden sense of discovery-and fear. “But where did they come from?”
“They came from the east,” Arumnus replied. “Sanction is their great city, but much of Solamnia has felt the torch of dragonfire.”
“That is no concern of ours!” Lectral blurted, surprising himself with the outburst and the sentiment. He was aware of Silvara’s look of astonishment and the gold dragon’s expression of gentle reproach.
“How can you say that?” argued the young and graceful wild elf who was the female silver dragon. “We all have friends among the humans! Think of Heart. What will she do when she learns about this?”
“No!” Lectral barked in sudden panic, knowing the affinity the silver female felt toward the knights. Indeed, Heart would no doubt take wing against the chromatic dragons by herself if need be. “That is, we have to find her!”
“It is already a dragon matter,” Arumnus continued. “Young Cymbol has gathered his copper siblings, and at least a dozen of them have flown against the evil dragons in the north. Word is that Bassal was killed, perhaps others as well.”
Lectral felt a glimmer of real menace. These were the names of dragons he knew, at least in passing. And now they were falling, slain? “Cymbol has always been an angry sort. Many times I have heard him boast that he would lead the attack against the Dark Queen’s dragons if only he had the chance.”
“And now he has that chance,” Silvara noted, her own eyes alight.
“Regia is considering the golds’ response even as we speak.” Arumnus looked toward the sky with unseemly urgency. “Perhaps she will have arrived at a conclusion by the time I return,” he added hopefully.