Lemborg moved his white queen immediately afterward. The word “check” was on his lips, but the dragon had turned her head away to look at a distant wall.
“Obviously it must be,” said the dragon. “Obviously.”
Perhaps it was best to change the subject, Lemborg sensed. Home and family were usually safe topics, at least with humans. He looked at the board, coughed, and said “Check” under his breath. Then, more strongly: “Are there any young ones who come here now and then to visit? Any hatchlings happy to see the old home and mother’s wings?”
The huge dragon did not respond, but continued to stare at the wall and the darkness.
Lemborg waited until he began to fidget again. He coughed but got no response. Had this game been played in the Mount Nevermind Academy for the Endless Study of Khas and Nothing Else, Kalkon by now would have had to forfeit the ga-
“I do not know where my children are,” said the dragon in a remarkably quiet voice. “They are probably dead, and I can only hope that they are.”
No adequate reply came to the stunned gnome’s mind. He stared at the dragon. A little time passed.
“I had a clutch of eggs,” said Kalkon softly. “Four little eggs. A little less than a hundred years ago, the Dark Queen took them with all the other eggs of our kind, promising their return after the coming war. We feared for our children and swore our neutrality. Then she secretly poured foulness into the eggs with magic. They hatched into draconians, stunted mockeries of their parents. My four children were turned into Baaz, destroyed in body and spirit, corrupted and broken. If there is mercy in the world, they are long dead now. If any of them survive, they would not know me, nor know anything of what I or our kind know. They would be evil and lost to me forever, and if I saw them I would have to kill them, my own children.”
Lemborg stared down at the khas board. It suddenly meant nothing to him.
“Forgive my sudden leaving, but I will return in the morning,” said Kalkon, getting to her feet. Her great wings unfurled and stretched. “I feel the need for a long flight and a drink from the ocean. My congratulations on your style of play. I must resign the game.”
The great dragon left quickly. After a long wait, Lemborg slowly put the game pieces back in their starting places, feeling miserable. It was all his fault for asking about her children. He wished he had been born mute. He slowly unrolled the carpet Kalkon had found for him, wrapped himself in it, and blew out the oil lamp that had provided light for the game. He lay down but found no comfort in the silence and darkness.
*****
Faint red light fell over the plaza. Lunitari was full, the other two moons out of sight, and the sky above full of glittering stars. Kalkon lifted her head toward them and wondered what she had done to deserve this life. She went through the motions of living with nothing behind them. Fleeing to a deserted ruin did not insulate her from the guilt and pain, so she slept and flew and ate and kept her mind as empty as she could. In the end, it did not help. Her children were destroyed, and she was in part responsible.
She swiftly crouched and threw herself into the air, wings unfurling and thundering down in great pumping motions that lifted her into the red moonlight. Her gaze fell upon the great empty city of darkness below. Nothing moved but windblown sand. The city was hollow like her life, dead like her children. Her eyes lifted and listlessly skimmed the rooftops and spires.
An object floated into view from behind the one remaining tower of the Great Temple. Moonlight gleamed from the tall golden shell and the polished wooden tentacles aimed at her.
Kalkon blinked. How did that get here?
They shot her five times in as many seconds.
White-hot blows hit her in the neck, right foreleg, and right side of her great scaled chest. She inhaled sharply; shattered ribs and ballista-launched spears stabbed into her lungs. A sharp blow from a catapulted weight broke the main bone in her right wing. The entire wing folded up as she shut her eyes and roared in agony, rolling to the left and falling toward the abandoned military stables one hundred feet below.