Finally the ash and smoke gave way to pure fire, a blossom of blue flame shooting straight upward from the volcano’s maw. The pillar burned away the clouds, boring a passageway straight through to pale sky, sending waves of shimmering heat rising relentlessly to the heavens. The cloaking overcast surrounded the gap, like a cylinder of murk enclosing a heat-scoured chimney.
The Dark Queen’s glory cleansed with its killing heat, sweeping the ash and debris away, raising a mighty wind across the face of the mountain. Still Furyion and his brothers clung to their perches, turning faces away from the stinging gale, looking upward to witness the glory of their mighty mistress.
Only when the fire had nearly burned itself out, when the hole in the dark cloud mass began to close, did the words of the Queen become known to her children.
“Welcome, mighty sons . . . know that your actions have been pleasing to me. Your courage, your cruel and relentless violence shall be well rewarded.”
“Greetings, Mother Queen,” murmured Furyion, in cadence with the other wyrms. He felt a rush of warmth and affection for the great, chaotic goddess who had given birth to his brothers and himself.
“Our eggs, the precious orbs that each of you has given me, are nurtured in the heart of the Abyss. They thrive and prosper . . . and someday, they will yield handsome offspring. Then shall our children populate the entire face of Krynn.”
Furyion shivered in delight at this word of the spawning, and bowed his crimson head in abject worship. “We are unworthy of your grace, Mother Queen,” he rasped, spewing steam and fire from his nostrils. “The red dragons shall rule the world in your name!”
“Aye, my boldest, my mightiest son. The wyrms of blue and black, of green and white, shall aid and serve them-but it is my desire that the dragons of fire be the masters of my world!”
Crowing, Furyion raised his face to the cloudy sky, bellowing a great fireball of searing, sizzling heat.
“But know, too, my children, that there is still danger in Krynn.” The cautionary words came as the other four serpents regarded the mighty red, their expressions carefully masked to conceal the emotions of envy and displeasure that lurked in their wicked thoughts.
“But mistress-” It was Arkan, the mighty serpent with scales of turquoise blue, who spoke up next. “I myself have slain the silver dragon. See, I bear a necklace of scales, ripped from that wretched wyrm’s rotten corpse.”
“Aye, my son.”
“And I!” Green Korril was not to be outdone. “The wyrm of brass perished in the crush of my bite and the rending talons of my claws. I, too, wear a necklace of hated scales, proof that our great enemy has been slain.”
“Hear of my own trophy, Mother!” cried Corrozus, shaking his supple neck and setting the ring of copper-colored scales jangling. “I, too, have slain a wyrm of Paladine.”
Next it was Akis who boasted, brandishing his own circlet of bronze scales.
“I see your triumphs, my sons-and my pride showers you like the warmth of fire from the sky.”
Four dragons bowed, accepting the praise. Only Furyion looked on, envy and rage vying for mastery of his seething emotions.
“But still there is danger, and it is for this reason that I have gathered you.”
“We know that Aurora, the gold, still lives,” Arkan assured the Queen of Darkness. “But surely she cannot long evade us.”
“No, but there is further danger, my sons. The dragons of Paladine have worked to deceive us-even as they were slain, one by one, by my loyal sons.”
“How?” demanded Furyion, secretly encouraged by the suggestion that his brothers’ efforts might have resulted in a clumsy failure.
“As her sisters were slain, Aurora herself remained aloof-and all the time she was coiled around the future of her race.”
“Mean you that Paladine’s dragons, too, have eggs?” Corrozus hissed. The other serpents fell silent, chilled by his suggestion.
“Aye, my black one. They have eggs, and have commissioned Aurora with the task of guarding them.”
“Are the spawn in the far plane of Paladine?” Furyion asked the question, but dreaded to hear the answer. They were so close to ultimate victory, making themselves and their spawn the unchallenged masters of the world. Yet if the Platinum Father was guarding the eggs, much as Takhisis had secured the spawn of evil dragonkind in the Abyss, their plans could yet be thwarted.