Kalkon drew back her head, then lunged forward. She covered the fifty feet to the brain eater in less time than passes between two heartbeats.
The startled brain eater shoved Lemborg at the onrushing dragon, then turned to flee. The gnome stumbled and fell. Something heavy and huge came down on his right leg and broke it in four places below the knee with a single loud snap. Wailing, Lemborg rolled on his back, grasping his crushed leg.
A flying thing thumped down on the ground beside him. He saw it, but its meaning did not register through the all-encompassing haze of pain. It was a brain eater’s arm, its four-fingered hand still twitching. The rest of the brain eater was not there.
Lemborg felt he was close to passing out. Shock was settling in, and the world took on a decidedly fluffy look. The torrent of pain receded. Dying is not half bad, he thought, if that is what this is. Even the brain eaters’ nautiloid ship had a fluffy, dreamlike look about it. It floated like a cloud over the administration building. Rocks and spears showered down from it at Kalkon, who dodged some of the blows and roared back at the ship. She roared and called the ship Dark Queen. Was that the spelljammer’s name? Lemborg was surprised she would know this. She was calling everything Dark Queen now, though.
The gnome fell back on one elbow. His leg felt so much better now, even if it was bent strangely here and there. He saw Kalkon seize the grinning gargoyle statue in the empty fountain in one great clawed hand (or perhaps it was a foot-he could not be sure what the proper term was for it) and tear the statue free with one motion. The dragon swung the statue back sharply and threw it spinning into the sky.
Now, what was that for? thought Lemborg. The statue hit the nautiloid with a sound as loud as Reorx’s Hammer. It made a rain, a rain of splinters and boards and golden shell broke like a bad egg, a dry rain falling on the dry night sand. He knew he should write this up in his next report to the Mount Nevermind Steering Committee on Raining Things. If he could just find a pen and a fresh sheet of…
*****
There was a long time of strange dreams and fever. Pain blew against him, then was gone. He became light as a feather, wind rushing over him like water. He was cradled in a bronze bed, he dreamed, far above the world where the only sound was a slow, rhythmic thunder. He once felt himself rising to the surface of a great sea, the sun’s light filtering into his eyes. Sleep, said a great, soft voice, and Lemborg slipped back into the depths of the dream.
No time passed at all, and it was night again. Blades of cool grass pressed against Lemborg’s hot skin. He could barely move, but it did not seem to matter.
You are home, said the great voice. I can heal your injuries but not your fever. Your people will find you soon; they may be able to do what I cannot. You must rest until they come. You have nothing to fear now.
The voice hesitated, then went on. My mind has healed, thanks be to luck and rest, and my wing has healed, thanks be to magic, so I will now return to my people, too. It will be a long flight north, but I believe I am ready for it. There was another pause, a longer one. I owe you much, Lemborg. I ran from the past but it found me again, and now I can face it and go on. But I will miss your company and your curious style of khas. I am glad that your ship chose my city as its final port. It-and you-brought me what I needed.
There was silence. Then the wind stirred greatly for a few moments. When it subsided, it was very peaceful and still. All was right with the world.
It lasted for twenty minutes. Then the gnomes found him.
*****
“Rubbish to the twelfth power!” snorted the First Undersecretary to the Aerodynamics Guild Director. He flung the Medical Guild’s report to the side, where the thick pages joined a hundred other reports in a large wooden crate beneath a carefully lettered sign that read RECYCLED BOTTLES ONLY. “I can’t believe those bed-pan engineers would send me such rot. Brain eaters! Spelljammers! A dragon who can play khas! Lemborgamontgoloferpaddersonrite took a bad hit on the head, and that’s all there is to it. Same thing happened to my third cousin, the one who was struck by lightning and imagined he was a dragon-fighting hero or some such.” The First Undersecretary sighed heavily, looking down at his desktop. “Amazing, though, that he survived the loss of his ship. The technojammer must have gone into the sea right after liftoff. Such a promising start, too. Absolutely perfect liftoff.”