“‘Keep the world,’ I said to her. ‘I have no need of it. I do not want it. Restore Kitiara to me. We will travel the roads together. Together we will find a world where glory awaits us.’ ”
“She promised me she would. In a place called the Gray, I would find Kitiara’s soul. I saw the Gray. I went there. Or thought I did.” Skie rumbled deep in his chest. “You heard the rest. You heard Mina, the Dark Queen’s new toady. You heard her tell me how I had been betrayed.”
“Yet, others saw you depart. . . .”
“Others saw what she meant them to see, just as all saw what she meant them to see at the end of the Chaos War.”
Skie fell silent, brooding over his wrongs. Mirror listened to the blue dragon’s labored breathing. Skie might live for hours or days. Mirror had no way of knowing. He could not find out where Skie was wounded, and Skie himself would not tell him. Mirror wondered if the wound was not so much heart-deep as soul-deep.
Mirror changed the subject to turn Skie’s thoughts. “Takhisis faced a new threat—the dragon overlords.”
“The overlords.” Skie grunted. “Yes, they were a problem. Takhisis had hoped that they would continue to fight and eventually slay each other, but the overlords agreed to a truce. Peace was declared. People began to grow complacent. Takhisis feared that soon people would start to worship the overlords, as some were already doing, and have no need of her. The Dark Queen was not yet strong enough to battle them. She had to find a way to increase her power. She had long recognized and lamented the waste of energy that passed out of the world with the souls of the dead. She conceived a way to imprison the dead within the world, and thus she was able to use them to steal away the wild magic and feed it to her. When she deemed she was strong enough to return, she came back, the night of the storm.”
“Yes,” said Mirror. “I heard her voice. She called to me to join her legions, to worship her as my god. I might have, but something stopped me. My heart knew that voice, if my head did not. And so I was punished. I—”
He halted. Skie had begun to stir, trying to lift his great bulk from the floor of the lair.
“What is it? What are you doing?”
“You had best hide yourself,” said Skie, struggling desperately to regain his feet. “Malys is coming.”
“Malys!” Mirror repeated, alarmed.
“She has heard I am dying. Those cowardly minions who used to serve me must have raced to her with the glad tidings. The great vulture comes to steal my totem. I should let her! Takhisis has usurped the totems for her own use. Malys takes her worst enemy to bed with her every night. Let the red monster come. I will fight her with my last breath—” Skie might be raving, as Mirror truly thought he was, but the Blue’s advice to hide was sound. Even had he not been blind, Mirror would have avoided a fight with the immense red dragon, much as he hated and loathed her. Mirror had seen too many of his kind caught and crushed in the mighty jaws, set ablaze by her horrific fire. Brute strength alone could not overcome this alien creature. The largest, strongest dragon ever to walk Krynn would be no match for Malystryx.
Not even a god had dared face her.
Mirror shifted back to human form. He felt very fragile and vulnerable in the soft skin, the thin and delicate bones, the paltry musculature. Yet, a blind human could manage in this world. Mirror began to grope his way around Skie’s massive body. Mirror planned to retreat, move deeper into the twisting maze of corridors in the Blue’s labyrinthine lair. Mirror was feeling his way about, when his hand touched something smooth and cold.
A shiver passed through his arm. Mirror could not see, but he knew immediately what he had touched—Skie’s totem, made of skulls of his victims. Shuddering, Mirror snatched his hand away and almost lost his balance in his haste. He stumbled into the wall, steadied himself, used the wall to guide his steps.
“Wait,” Skie’s voice hissed through the dark corridors. “You did me a favor, Silver. You kept me from death by her foul hands. Because of you, I can die on my own terms, with what dignity I have left. I will do you a favor in return. The others of your kind—the Golds and Silvers—you’ve searched for them, and you cannot find them. True enough?”
Mirror was reluctant to admit this, even to a dying blue dragon. He made no reply but continued groping his way along the passage.
“They did not flee in fear,” Skie continued. “They heard Takhisis’s voice the night of the storm. Some of them recognized it, understood what it meant. They left the world to try to find the gods.”
Mirror paused, turned his sightless face to the sound of Skie’s voice. Outside, he could now hear what Skie had heard long before him—the beating of enormous wings.
“It was a trap,” Skie said. “They left, and now they cannot return. Takhisis holds them prisoner, as she holds the souls of the dead prisoner.”
“What can be done to free them?” Mirror asked.
“I have told you all I know,” Skie replied. “My debt to you is paid, Silver. You had best make haste.”
Moving as fast as possible, Mirror slipped and slid down the passage. He had no notion of where he was going, but guessed that he was traveling deeper into the lair. He kept his right hand on the wall, moved with the wall, never let go. Thus, he reasoned, he would be able to find his way out. When he heard Malys’s voice, strident and high-pitched—an odd sound to come from such a massive creature—Mirror halted. Keeping his hand firmly against the wall, he hunkered down onto the smooth floor, shrouded in the lair’s cool darkness. He quieted even his breathing, fearful that she might hear him and come seeking him.
Mirror crouched in the blue dragon’s lair and awaited the outcome with dread. Skie knew he was dying. His heart lurched and shivered in his rib cage. He fought for every breath. He longed to lie down and rest, to close his eyes, to lose himself in the past. To once more spread his wings that were the color of heaven and fly up among the clouds. To hear Kitiara’s voice again, her firm commands, her mocking laughter. To feel her hands, sure and capable, on the reins, guiding him unerringly to the fiercest, hottest part of the battle. To revel again in the clash of arms and smell the blood, to feel the flesh rend beneath his talons and hear Kitiara’s exultant battle cry, challenging all comers. To return to the stables, have his wounds dressed, and wait for her to come, as she always did, to sit down beside him and relive the battle. She would come to him, leaving behind those puny humans who sought to love her. Dragon and rider, they were a team—a deadly team.
“So, Skie,” said a voice, a hated voice. Malys’s head thrust inside the entrance to the lair, blotted out the sunlight. “I was misinformed. You’re not dead yet, I see.” Skie roused himself. His dreams, his memories had been very real. This was unreality.
“No, I am not dead,” he growled. His talons dug deep into the rock, fighting against the pain, forcing himself to remain standing.
Malys insinuated more of her great bulk inside his lair—her head and shoulders, front talons and neck. Her wings remained folded at her side, her hind feet and tail dangled down the cliff face. Her small, cruel eyes swept over him disdainfully. Discounting him, she searched for the reason she had come—his totem. She found it, elevated in the center of the lair, and her eyes glistened.
“Don’t mind me,” she said coolly. “You were dying, I believe. Please continue. I don’t mean to interrupt. I just came to collect a few mementos of our time together.” Reaching out her talon, Malys began to weave a magical web around the skulls of his totem. Skie saw eyes in the skulls of the totem. He could sense his Queen’s presence. Takhisis had no care for him. Not anymore. He was of no use to her now. She had eyes only for Malys. Fine. Skie wished them joy together. They deserved each other.