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“Am I different, like everybody else?” inquired Burll plaintively.

“Look at your strapping shoulders, the muscles that pulse beneath your bronze scales. Is there another of your nestmates so strong?”

“No,” concluded the bronze, with a pensive nod of his head. “I guess not.”

“He’s even got muscles inside his skull!” cackled Blayze, provoking Burll to spit a sharp spark of lightning.

Immediately the copper flew at his nestmate, spattering acid from his own jaws, until Aurican and Darlantan pulled the hissing, slashing serpents apart. Stiff-winged and growling, the two combatants settled back into their places while Patersmith cleared his throat sternly.

“What other creatures shall we meet, teacher?” asked Aurican, impatient with the diversion.

“Ogres are the oldest. They have erected mighty cities across the world. From these, they have gone forth to enslave humankind, perhaps the shortest-lived and most wretched of the two-legs.”

“Are the humankinds like bats?” asked Burll, his earlier anger forgotten as his tongue flickered across ever-hungry jaws.

“Bigger than bats,” Patersmith declared, “and more entertaining, though they are far lesser creatures than you dragons.”

“But are there other beings who dwell long lives of proper meditation and reflection?” pressed Aurican, his brow furrowed by concern.

“Ah yes. There are the elves, of course. Indeed, they are shy folk and hide in the thickest of forests. But I do not doubt you will find some common understandings with them, should you persuade one to emerge from his grove long enough to talk to you!”

“I should like that. Or perhaps I shall go into their groves instead,” Auri murmured, so quietly that only Darlantan could hear.

“But back to matters of Paladine and the dragons of metal. These eggs, here. I am afraid we shall never know what happened to the seven that remain unborn.”

“Then tell us about our mothers!” pressed Oro. “What of them and their tale?”

“Yes, a tale!” Aurican’s head rose from the scaly crowd of wyrmlings. “Will you share it with us?” The gold dragon held a large multifaceted ruby in his foreclaw. As his bright yellow eyes focused on the teacher, he unconsciously sat back and passed the bauble back and forth between his paws.

“Ah, my Auri… ever the balladeer. In the case of this tale, however, I fear it is too dark for you wee nestlings. Nay, that one shall wait until later.”

Patersmith turned back to his pupils, eyes sparkling above the cascading shower of whiskers. Pacing along the rim of the nest on his bowed legs, the tutor regarded each of the wyrmlings with a look of deep sympathy and warm understanding.

It was a look they had come to know, and to cherish, very well. Since the coming of Patersmith, the lives of the nestmates had changed significantly.

For one thing, the first tentative explorations in language had become whole volumes of words that the nestlings shared with each other and with their tutor. They had already heard of many adventures, ballads, and legends of Aurora and Argyn and their other mothers, the five matriarchs of metal dragonkind who had dwelt in peace and wisdom.

Occasionally the tales had hinted of darker realities, of wyrms named Furyion or Korrill or Corrozus. But Patersmith would turn away their questions when the wyrmlings pressed about these mysterious hints.

“Is this tale of our mothers also a tale of the chromatic dragons and the Dark One?” asked Darlantan, recognizing the tutor’s reticence.

“Yes. You see well, my son.”

“And will they come for us next?” asked Aysa, with a fearful look around the grotto.

“I should say not, for the chromatic dragons are gone… driven from the world by the heroism of your mothers. With them went the power of spell magic, and many would say the tally is fair. No, the thing that harmed these eggs is not so much the coming of an enemy as the waning of a friend.”

“And magic-that is the friend?” Auri pressed.

“Aye, and the chromatic dragons are the enemies. Though you will learn, my nestlings, that still there are many other threats, dangers and evils of which you will one day be aware.”

“What tale can you share, then, Patersmith?” asked Burll, the sturdy bronze wyrmling who was not at all shy about speaking up. Indeed, it was a good thing he was willing to question their tutor, since he often had to have things explained to him two or three times before he understood.

“Perhaps… perhaps a tale of magic.”

At his words, the brood of dragons sat as if on cue, stilling any jostling and restless shifting. For of all the tales told by Patersmith, those about magic were without fail the most entertaining.

“Aurora was your mother,” began the teacher in the ritual singsong of a proper lesson. Smith nodded to Aurican, and to his golden sisters, Mydass and Oro. “She of the golden scales and mighty power… but, too, she who had captured the wisdom and poetry of the ages within her being and her mind.

“Her magic was a wonder of the world. With a whispered word she could change her shape from dragon to eagle, soaring the skies of Krynn like a keen-eyed bird of prey.”

Darlantan had neither seen nor heard about eagles, yet the word conjured an image of a sleek, feather-winged shape gliding through air that was not black, not cloaked in shadow. It was an image that inflamed his heart and caused his fledgling wings to twitch uncontrollably.

“Ah, Dar… one day you will fly among the eagles,” murmured Smith, noticing the young dragon’s agitation. “But just as Aurican must wait for his tales of nightmare and horror, so must you spend time on the ground before you strain for the skies.”

“Aye, teacher,” Darlantan pledged, bowing respectfully. Yet his wings still stretched as he settled himself more firmly among his siblings, determined to listen. He could scarcely stand to wait-he wanted to fly right now.

One of those restless silver wings brushed against Blayze, who was still glowering at Burll through the pack of attentive wyrmlings. The copper spat, drops of acid searing into Darlantan’s wing, and the silver dragon whirled in a blur of scales and teeth. His own breath exploded, frosty ice gusting through the grotto as he hurled himself at the hot-tempered Blayze.

For several seconds, they tumbled and rolled, tails lashing, scales of copper and silver flaking into the air. Blayze was quick, but Darlantan was big and strong, and he easily pressed the copper to the ground. Silver jaws clamped over the metallic brown neck, and it was then that Patersmith stopped them with a word spoken in a hushed and soothing tone.

“Mercy,” he said, stepping down from the nest to balance on his bowed legs. He touched each of the battling dragons with his hand, and Darlantan felt the rage go out of him like an exhalation of breath.

“Mercy,” repeated the tutor. “Always show mercy to each other, and even to your enemies.”

“But does that not make me vulnerable?” asked Blayze, scowling darkly, hissing at Darlantan.

“On the contrary, mercy makes you strong, for it creates loyalty and friendship. And you will learn that he who has loyal friends has great strength.

“But I was speaking of Aurora’s magic… of her spells of fire that could raise a conflagration from a sodden forest, or hiss a small lake of water into steam.”

Again the tutor used words that the dragons had never heard, but once more their tiny minds fashioned images to the sounds and began to picture a world that was beyond the enclosure even of the Darkness Beyond.

“Aurora and her sisters used their spell magic to fashion this nest, breathing upon the most precious stones in the world, forming them into a suitable crib for their precious offspring. It was this enchantment that insured your bed was always warm, and that should have seen all of you to a birth undisturbed by dangers.

“In those days of magic, all of your mothers knew great spells. But ever was Aurora the greatest.” At the continuing words, the golden wyrmlings puffed with visible pride.