Kitiara managed a mildly crooked grin. "You didn't hap pen to see me on Krynn while you were perusing the future, did you? I'd like to know that I'll make it back, too."
Sturm tried to summon up an image of Kit from his mem ory. All he got for his effort was a stabbing pain in the chest.
He coughed and said, "I'm worried, Kit. Are we right to deal with this dragon? The gods and heroes of ancient times were wise — they knew men and dragons could not coexist. That's why the beasts were killed or banished."
Chill forgotten, Kitiara planted a foot in the rising bank of red soil. "You surprise me," she said. "You, who are edu cated and tolerant of most creatures, advocating hatred for all dragons, even one of good lineage, like Cupelix."
"I'm not advocating hatred. I just don't trust him. He wants something from us."
"Should he help us for nothing?"
Sturm tugged fitfully at the ends of his mustache. "You just don't see, Kit. Anyone with power, be he dragon, gob lin, gnome or human, is not going to relinquish that power merely to help others. That's the evil of power, and anyone or anything who has it is tainted by it."
'You're wrong!" she said with verve. "Wrong! A cruel man is cruel no matter what his station in life; but many dragons skilled in magic were aligned with good. It is the heart and soul that are the seats of good or evil. Power is something else. To have power is to live. To lose it is to exist as something less than you are."
He listened to this short tirade in mute astonishment.
Where was the Kit he once knew, the fun-loving, passionate woman who could laugh at danger? The Kit who carried herself with the pride of a queen, even when she had only a few coppers in her pocket?
"Where is she?" he said aloud. Kitiara asked him what he meant. "The Kit I knew in Solace. The good companion.
The friend."
Hurt and anger flowered in her eyes. "She is with you."
He could sense the anger radiating from her, like heat from a hearthstone. She turned and disappeared around the corner of the obelisk.
The gnomes forged a massive lever switch of iron and copper, and converted the rest of the scrap into huge coup lings that could be clamped over the severed cables in the
Cloudmaster and closed by great iron hooks. This work took most of the night, and when it was done, Rainspot pre cipitated a short shower inside the obelisk to quench the fire and dispel the pall of smoke that hung over everything.
Cupelix watched it all from his perch, never questioning, hardly even moving for nine and a half hours. Afterward, the tired gnomes climbed the ramp into the ship for a rest, leaving Cupelix to admire their work.
Sturm looked over the metalwork, too, as he idly ate his supper of dried spear plant and cold beans. Cupelix teased him with magically produced haunches of roast pig and pitchers of sweet cream, but Sturm stolidly ignored the proffered treats.
"You're a stubborn fellow," said the dragon, as Sturm con tinued to munch his meager fare.
"Principles are not to be cast aside whenever they become inconvenient," he replied.
"Principles don't fill empty belly".
"Nor does magic salve an empty heart."
"Very good!" exclaimed Cupelix. "Let us trade proverbs that contradict each other; that's a worthy entertainment."
"Some other time. I'm not in the mood for games," said
Sturm with a sigh.
"Ah, I see the fair face of Mistress Kitiara in this," said the dragon with a mischievous lilt in his voice. "Do you pine for her, my boy? Shall I put in a good word for you?"
"No!" Sturm snapped. "You really are quite irritating sometimes."
"Inasmuch as I've had no one to talk to for nearly three millennia, I admit my etiquette is sorely underdeveloped.
"Still," said Cupelix, "this presents you with the opportunity to inform me. I would be as polite and genteel as a knight.
Will you teach me?"
Sturm stifled a yawn. "It isn't manners or gentility taught by the fireside that makes a knight. It's long study and train ing, living by the Oath and the Measure. Such things cannot be taught in light conversation. Besides, I doubt that you genuinely want to learn anything; you're just looking for diversion."
"You're so untrusting," said Cupelix. "No, don't deny it! I can hear it in your mind before you speak. How can I con vince you of my true good will, Sir Doubter?"
"Answer me this: Why are you, a fully grown brass dragon, permanently confined to this tower, on this strange and magic-ridden moon?"
"I am Keeper of the New Lives," said Cupelix.
"What does that mean?"
The dragon darted his snaky neck from side to side, as though looking for nonexistent eavesdroppers. "I guard the repository of my race." When Sturm continued to look blank, Cupelix said loudly, "Eggs, my dear, ignorant mor tal! The eggs of dragons lie in caverns beneath this obelisk.
It is my task to watch over them and protect them from insensate brutes like yourself." His great mouth widened in a grin. "No offense intended, of course."
"None taken."
Sturm looked at the floor, light red and veined with dark wine streaks. He tried to imagine the nest of dragon eggs below, but he could not grasp it.
"How do they come to be here l The eggs, I mean," he said.
"I do not know for certain. I was born here, you see, and grew from dragonlet to maturity within these walls. Out of eggs, mine was chosen to hatch and live as guardian, as the
Keeper of the New Lives."
Sturm's mind boggled. He lowered himself to the floor.
"Who deposited the eggs and built the tower?" he asked.
"I have a theory," said Cupelix, consciously mimicking the gnomes. "Three thousand years ago, when dragons were banished from Krynn, the evil ones were driven by Paladine to the Great Nullity, the negative plane, where they were to remain until doomsday. The dragons aligned with the forces of good left the lands of man as well. Paladine made a pact with Gilean, a neutral god who was sympathetic to our plight, and arranged for a number of good dragon eggs to be collected and deposited here, to serve as sentinels for when the evil ones returned. He caused the tower to be raised and hatched me."
"How many types of dragon eggs lie below?"
"Some of the brass, bronze, and copper clans, in the num ber of 496. It is the collected spirit of these unborn dragons that provides the magic that saturates Lunitari."
"Four — " Sturm shifted on his haunches, as if he could feel the movement of so many creatures below the thick marble slab. So many!
"When will they hatch?" asked Sturm.
"Tomorrow or never." Sturm pressed for a better answer, and Cupelix said, "A veil of dormancy laid down by Gilean lies over the entire cache. It will take a god, or a mighty spell, to lift the veil and cause the eggs to hatch. Now you know all about me," added Cupelix. "Do you trust me?"
"Almost. Could I see the eggs?"
Cupelix scratched his shiny chest with one of his fore claws and Sturm winced at the screeching sound. "I don't know about that — "
"Don't you trust me?" asked Sturm.
" true touch, mortal! You shall see them then, a sight no mortal eye has ever beheld. Hmm." The dragon lifted one tree-sized leg and flexed his birdlike toes. "I'll have to warn the Micones. They live in the caverns and keep the eggs clean, turning them every day so the yolks don't settle.
They would certainly slay you if you ventured down there without my permission." Cupelix settled again and fluffed out his wings. "I will inform the Micones, but you must be sure not to touch the eggs. The protective instinct runs so deeply in them that not even my intervention would pre vent the Micones from ripping you limb from limb if you touched an egg."
"I'll keep that in mind," said Sturm. He stood to go. "May