The dragons had flown steadily south for several weeks. For many days they passed over the unbroken flatness of the ocean of grass. The featureless grasslands defied navigation, and they were directed in their flight only by the position of the sun overhead. They flew mostly by day, stopping at night to rest. The oldest dragons would settle themselves in a circle, with eight dragons remaining awake to watch in every direction. Then the younger dragons would settle in the middle of them, with the smallest in the very center. As the night wore on, the watch was changed several times to allow every dragon a chance to rest. When the sun rose they would get up, form into groups of six or seven and be off.

Serali had long ago become bored of grass when at last they left the plains. They passed then over the western end of the broken lands. Here the ground was seamed with rifts and pocked with craters. Tiny streams ran at the bottoms of impossibly deep narrow canyons. But they were over those lands for little more than a single day before they left them. Now they entered a country of rolling hills. Small copses of trees spotted the land here and there. It was not as featureless as the grasslands, but it didn't take Serali long to become just as bored. After more than a week of traveling over this land at last she saw something different. A line formed on the horizon. Serali could see the tiny specks of the lead dragons descending on it. As she herself drew nearer it resolved itself into a river. On the far bank a line of cliffs rose, dotted here and there with caves. The river itself was full of dragons, laughing and splashing in the cold waters. Serali landed in the river with a splash that threatened to swamp the dragons near her. Kethro, who had followed behind her the whole way as usual, splashed down beside her, drenching her.

Serali laughed and shook her head, sending water flying. "It looks like we've arrived. I wonder what we do now?" "I think we should find Drevass or Cherval and find out," Kethro replied. Swimming strongly with sweeps of his powerful tail he crossed to the far bank and hauled himself dripping out of the water. Serali followed, moving somewhat more slowly. She had never swum as a dragon before, and the motions were different from those required in human form. Good thing dragons float, she thought, otherwise I'd be in trouble.

The bank was crowded with a veritable rainbow of dragons. Serali scanned the crowd looking for familiar faces and not finding any. Turning and looking in the other direction, she still couldn't see Cherval or Drevass, but she did spot Vulcnor and his mate only a few yards off.

"Vulcnor!" She walked over to them, waving.

"Serali! It's good to see you again." He held up the basket. "They are still warm. As soon as we pick out a good spot we'll take them out."

"Pick out a spot?"

"This is the first time you've been on a migration, isn't it? When we arrive at the winter lands, each dragon can pick a cave.

Whoever gets there first gets first choice. But there are many more caves here than are needed, so I'm in no rush."

"So I can just move in wherever I like?"

"Yes. The only cave that's reserved is a particularly large one near the middle of the cliffs that Drevass gets every year."

"Thank you. I'll go take a look around."

"It is I who should be thanking you, Serali. You have saved my hatchlings."

"Anyone would have done the same if they could, Vulcnor."

"But it was you who did."

Serali shrugged.

Vulcnor's mate interrupted them. "Go pick your cave, Serali. I know a place I would like to claim before another does." Serali waved farewell to the pair. Then she set off to inspect the available caves with Kethro trailing behind her.

She located an excellent cave of modest proportions. It consisted of two chambers, the first with a wide entrance and spacious high ceiling, the second much smaller. She had to duck to o through the entrance and Kethro needed to bend almost double to get in. It boasted one remarkable feature that made up for the difficulty of entering. A natural opening in the rock made a window to the outside, and some previous occupant ha actually installed a window or thick wavy glass.

"This is amazing. I've never heard of a dragon making glass." Kethro stuck his head in the entrance and looked around. "It's not entirely unknown. Dragons don't build windows, so they seldom need glass but there are a few dragonsmiths who can turn a claw to glass-making if they want."

"Dragonsmiths? I've never heard of such a thing."

"They aren't common, but there are a few. They say the first dragonsmith became lost in he deep caves when e explored too far and as found by a group of dwarves. He lived among them for several years and learned their ways. When he returned to the surface he taught as many other dragons as would earn the smithing art. Of course a dragonsmith doesn't do the kind of work a human smith does. They mostly make jewelry and such. Dragons don't need swords or horseshoes or plows, so there isn't much else one can make.

"Of course dragon made items will sell to humans for a good price, but few dragons need money, so there aren't many dragon made things out there."

Serali sighed. "Sometimes I feel like I ought to have stayed with my human parents. There's so much I don't understand."

"You'll learn. You belong with your own kind. You know you weren't really happy with the humans."

"That's not quite true. I was often happy there, I just didn't fell like I belonged. I didn't fit in at Land's End and I didn't fit in with the nobles at Baron City, but I don't really fit in here either."

Kethro shook his head. "That may me merely because you still are not with your own kind. These are plains dragons. Mountain dragons are quite different."

"Perhaps�"

Serali had settled herself comfortably in her new home and was enjoying the crisp winter weather. There was no snow here, but they had not gone far enough south to escape the winter entirely.

The wind was chill and the stands of trees that dotted the rolling hills were bare. It was a mere week after they had arrived when the real reason for moving to this location became clear.

"Serali! Come on!"

"What? Serali looked up from where she had been sunning herself just outside of her chambers. Cherval leaped out of the mouth of a cave a few dozen yards off the ground. He headed across the river to the north. All around other dragons were likewise launching themselves. Serali followed them. Catching up with Cherval she asked, "What's going on?"

"The herds are arriving! That's why we winter here, it's near where the herds winter. We leave after they've gone, but we fly much faster, so they usually get here a little after we do." "But why is everyone going? I thought you said that hunts never had more then a dozen or so?"

"At all other times, yes. But after this move, and also come spring when we move back, all dragons will hunt. Think about it. After what you've been living on these past weeks, couldn't you nearly eat an entire herd-beast yourself?"

Serali considered. She'd eaten nothing more substantial during the move than one of the mule-eared deer that could be found in the area. And after moving here the diet hadn't improved much. Dragons seemed to be designed to go long periods without food, so she hadn't really felt the lack the way she would have in human form, but Cherval was right. Right now she could have eaten a horse and had room left over.

"You're right, I'm starving!"

"If we hunted like this all the time we might damage the herd, and it would be a waste of food. But twice a year we forget the rules and let everyone that can hunt."

"What about Drevass?"

"He's a powerful dragon yet. It'll be many a century more before he can't hunt. I'd imagine that if you looked hard enough you'd spot him out here somewhere. Probably," here he grinned, "ahead of everyone else."

Serali had never seen so many dragons hunting at once. But the herd was huge and after much chasing around and stampeding, everyone managed to catch something. Serali even managed to haul hers across the river to her cave. It was far too heavy to fly with. Unlike the tales, few dragons could actually carry off a cow or horse. Many of the plains dragons couldn't even lift a child. She had carried Janus, but he was fairly light. Lifting Brock, the Land's End smith, would be nearly beyond her abilities, and carrying him any distance was out of the question.

All of which cast a different light on the tales of marauding dragons carrying off people and livestock.

Serali quickly settled into the winter rhythm of life, and time passed as it has a habit of doing. She was once again sunning herself in front of her cave when she was interrupted by Cherval who landed next to her.

"Serali! Come quick!" He was practically twitching with suppressed excitement.

"What is it?"

"Vulcnor's eggs are hatching!"

"Then what are we waiting for?" With a swift beating of wings she launched herself into the air. It took only seconds to reach the cave that Vulcnor and his mate had chosen. Serali poked her head inside. The cave was just a single hole in the rock, but it was much larger than her small cavern. It easily fit Vulcnor, his mate and the pile of eggs on the sandy floor with room left over for Serali and Cherval as well. Cherval poked her from behind.

"Go in. You make a better wall than a window. I want to see."

Serali moved into the large chamber. Vulcnor and his mate were crouched eagerly next to the pile of cream colored eggs. Of the dozen or so heaped on the floor, two had rolled out of the pile. They were rocking from side to side and small trilling noises were coming from them. A crack formed down the side of one that was slightly larger then the others. The crack spread until the whole egg was webbed with find lines. Suddenly a piece of the egg broke off and a tiny snout, tipped with a short egg horn, emerged. A moment later the hatchling had enlarged the hole enough to fit its forearms through. Then it's tiny wings, and at last the entire hatchling lay on the sand. Its mother quickly scooped it up and began licking it dry.

Serali watched curiously. She had never seen a newly hatched dragon before. It was proportioned somewhat differently from an adult dragon, with tiny wings and small arms and legs. A large head made it look as though it would tip over forward any moment. It was covered all over in soft leathery skin, the same cream color as the shell of the egg it had just left.

Her attention was torn from the hatchling by a cracking sound from the other egg. A small snout poked from a hole in the egg. A few moments later the second hatchling emerged onto the sand. The mother picked this one up as well. The two hatchlings easily fit into her hand. They were so very tiny, smaller even than human babies.

She turned to Cherval, who was standing next to her.

"Do you think they'll let me hold one?"

"Probably. But first they have to check the other eggs."

"What do you mean?"

"Just watch."

Serali looked back to the pile of eggs. Vulcnor was carefully picking them up one at a time a breaking open the shells. Most of them were full of gooey fluid, just like the whites of ordinary chicken eggs. A few had a yolk too, but no sign that it had ever started to develop into a dragon. Near the bottom of the pile however one egg was different. When Vulcnor broke the shell gently there was no leak of clear goo. Instead a tiny foot poked out. Vulcnor's face lit up. Quickly, but with great care, he broke the rest of the shell away from the tiny dragon. It moved weakly, with none of the clumsy animation of its siblings.

"Amazing," said Cherval with a shake of his head. "A third hatchling is very rare in a clutch of this size."

Vulcnor handed the tiny hatchling, even smaller than its siblings, to his mate. All three of them were making little sounds of contentment, halfway between a birdlike trill and a purr. Vulcnor went back to the eggs and broke open the last few, all empty.

Serali and Cherval left the proud parents with the hatchlings and sat outside.

"Cherval, are hatchlings always that color?"

"Yes. In a month or so they'll shed the egg skin and the egg horn, but until then there's no way of knowing what color they'll be when they get older."

"What about gold dragons?"

"Well, a newborn gold is golden from the start, but a gold mother can also lay a clutch of ordinary eggs, which will hatch with an egg skin just like these did."

Serali shook her head. "There's so much I still don't know."

"But you're learning."

"Yes, I'm learning."

By the time three months had passed, they were beginning to stand up to walk and had discovered that Serali was a wonderful toy to climb all over. They were quite a handful, as her mother would have said. Wonder what the dragon's word for that is?

So occupied, the time passed swiftly for Serali and before she knew it, spring was coming. The herd had begun its migration north, and the dragons were preparing to follow.

"This year isn't like most years," said Cherval with evident excitement as the first wing of dragons took off into the air. "This year only a few, those with hatchlings mostly, will stop at dragon stone. The rest of us will continue north until we reach the dragons' moot."

"I remember Drevass mentioned it. When does it begin, and how long will it last?"

"Yes. The moot begins on sundown of the spring equinox. Depending on the events, it will probably be over by sunrise, but moots have been known to last for weeks."

"Weeks? What do they do there?"

"They discuss a great many things. Young dragons, of course, look for other young dragons for mates. Older dragons socialize. And the king's scribe takes down anything presented in the Book of Thoughts. Sometimes someone will present an entry for the Book of Knowledge. That can take a long time because every dragon needs to either agree that it is a fact, or choose to abstain from giving an opinion. You can imagine some of the arguments that causes.

"And very rarely there will be an addition for the Book of Truth presented. That almost never happens. To be added to the Book of Truth, it must be inspired by the Creator himself. Not many dragons would claim to be so inspired, and of those that do, many are mad, one way or another. I think the human's have a word for it. "Prophet," or something like that."

"Yes. I've heard prophets spoken of. Self-proclaimed prophets are not uncommon, but as for true prophets, I don't know. I'm not sure I could judge."

"I doubt there will be a prophet this decade, but you never know." He grinned. "You'll just have to go and see for yourself."

"I'm going to."

As they crossed the second river, Serali thought she saw a smudge of cloud on the horizon. As they flew on it resolved itself into a low lying range of mountains. Serali judged they would reach them the next day. But the next day the mountains merely grew taller. They remined in the distance. Two day later they reached the foothills. Serali could see the moutains beyond, almost impossibly tall. Their tops were coated with snow that never melted, their feet carpeed in a dense forest of pine and aspen. At the feet of the mountains the dragons turned west.

They flew for another three weeks before arriving at a peak that was unlike its neighbors. Where the surrounding mountains were sharp and pointed, this one appeared rounded. As they flew above it and cirled for a landing Serali saw that the top held a bowl-like depression.

The whole bowl was filled with the bright specks of dragons. A veritabe rainbow of colors dotted the bowl's floor. As Serali landed she could make out individual dragons. Here eyes were drawn to a pair of dragons staning near the center of the bowl. Behind them rose four immense pillars of stone. Staning just in front of the pillars was a golden dragon. He was quite possibly the largest dragon present. He had an elaborate crest of horns and spikes, with a triple ridge of spikes running down his spine. The tips of them were worn down and blunt. His wings were tattered to the point wher flying must be nearly impossile and his sides were a criss-cross maze of old scars.

Standing just in front of him was a dragon that, tough slightly smaller in size, was much nore impressive in appearance. His scales were a vivid blood red flecked with bright metallic gold. His cresting was jet black, also flecked with gold, and there was no sign of the blunting of old age. The pair were surrounded by a crowd of smaller dragons, mostly metallic bronzes and bright reds, but with a scattering of other colors as well. Serali landed near the edge of the bowl.

The plains dragons milled around on the outskirts of the crowd, but Serali was curious. She made her way through the rainbow gleaming crowd to a spot where she could observe the two dragons that had caught her eye. She was unaware of the riple of surprise that followed her passage.

A small silver dragon approached the pair. With a bow she presented the golden dragon with a small object. As she handed it over, Serali saw that it was one of the metal books that dragons used. The golden dragon opend it and paged throught is qickly. Then he noded, ssaid somehing that Serali couldn't hear and placed the book on top of a small pile of similar books behind him.

It was already late afternoon when Serli and the plains dragons arrived Now the sun was sinkin below the horizon. As the light faded, the stones that stood in the center of the bowl began to hum. Soft shifing melodies filled the bowl.

All of the dagons turned toward the center, toward the stones, toward the red and gold dragon. The golden dragon had vanished into the crowd, but the red dragon was rearing up to stand upright, towering over the dragons nearby. As the last rays of the sun vanished behind the mountains, he began to sing. His voice was deep and strong, echoing over the bowl. One by one the other draogns joined in, singing harmony with him. Serali lifter her head and added her voice to the swelling song.

As the night waxed he dragons harmonized, but Serali felt a sense of wrongness. There was something missing, somthing not right.

When a silver dragon standing a few yards away lifted her voice in a different melody, a kind of counterpoint, she realized what it was. All of the dragons were singing a harmony to the melody that the red dragon had begun. None of them wre singing their own meldies. That wasn't how it ought to be! The knowledge of how things should have been was almost instinctive for her, she knew that there ought to be a counterpoint, and ther wasn't.

Then the wrongness suddenly became so acute that Serali nearly felt it as a physical sensation. For even as the silver dragon sung counerpoint with all her heart, the red dragon raised his oice, changed his melody and the others followed him. Even he song of the stones shifted to match his. For moment before the silver dragon gave up and was silent, dissonance rent the air. Serali stopped singing. A few dragons arond her glanced at her in surprise as she fell silent.

She listened for a long moment, then came back in. She was singing a counterpoint. He san strongly, with a voice that she had trained to fill a rom while in human form. That training added to the prodigious lungs of her dragon form allowed her to be heard across tehwhole bowl, over the other dragons. With all her might and with all her energy she sang.

The red dragon heard her. He immediately shifted his singing. Serali shifted her counterpoint with him, avoiding the jarring of dissonance. He shifted again, and again Serali moved with him. But now other dragons were falling out of the harmony, unable to follow the shifts. Many fell silent, other lingered for a moment in dissonance before shfting into harmony. But several began to follow Serali. Voices swelled in harmony to her song, leaving the sameness of the red dragon's singing to improvise around her tune. Then the silver dragon again sang, finding a third meloy to weave in and out around the tunes taht Serali and the red dragon sang.

A few dragons harmonized with her, and suddenly the bowl was filled with a complex song, branching into dozens of ifferent parts that wove in a round each other. Serali smiled as she sang, knowing that now the wrongess was gone and things were as they should be.

The red dagon stopped singing and gared at her. The song faltered fo a moment in shock as all the dagons realized that he had stopped. Then it picked up again without him. The dragons sang until the first rays of sunrise began to light up the sky. One y one they dropped out again until Serali was singing alone. Then she stopped, letting the last note ring out and echo back from the distant peaks.

The dagons began to leave in onees and twos, launching themselves into the sky and scattering n all directions. A few of the plains dragons made their way to here Serali stood.

"That was wonderful! I haven't been to a moot where there was proper singing in decades." Drevass stood next to Serali and beamed. Cherval, Kethro and Trillor trailed behind him, talking excitedly. Suddnly Trillor froze, baring his teeth in an expression of utter hatred.

"He's here!"

Serali followed his line of sight to one of the metallic dragons that had crowded around the red dragon. A brass of moderate size, he was chatting with a pair of smaller bronzes. Recalling how she and Trillor had met, Serali had no doubt who the brass dragon was. With a roar Trillor launched himself at the brass. The other plains dragons dashed after him. By the time Serali reached the conflict the brass dragon had Trillor pinned to the ground. Suddenly the red dragon pushed through the crowd and picked up the much smaller brass by the back of his neck.

"What's going on here?"

Trillor picked himself up off the ground. "That dragon killed my hatchling daughter!"

"Is this true?" He shook the bronze a few times.

"Yes I killed that brat. She deserved it!" There was a light of madness in his eyes as he snarled those words.

The red dragon snarled back, a wordless animal sound, and Serali noticed an expression on his face that was every bit as mad. Without even bothering to say a word he tore the brass dragon's throat out. Then he turned and looked at Serali with blood dripping from his teeth. His epression seemed to say "I could do the same to you if I wnated to." She shuddered.

He carelessly tossed the bronze dragon's body to the ground and walked away, leaving a stunned crowd of plains dragons behind him.

The Credits:

All the buttons, bars, and other doodads on this page are courtesy of

This page hosted by Get your ownFree Home Page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws