So simple. So very simple.
As Deathwing turned to retrieve the next eggs, he wondered if he had overestimated the difficulties of his
plan in the first place. He had always assumed that to have entered the mountain either as himself or in
disguise would have been more risky, especially if Alexstrasza had noticed his presence. True, there
would have been little chance of him being injured, but the eggs he had coveted might have been
destroyed. He had feared that happening, especially if one of those eggs proved to be a viable female.
Having long decided that Alexstrasza would never be his to control, Deathwing needed every egg he
could get his talons on, so as to better his chances. That, in fact, had made him hesitate more than
anything else. Now, though, it seemed that he had wasted time waiting, that nothing could have stood in
his way then, just as nothing did now.
He corrected himself. Nothing but a sickly, doddering beast well past his prime who even now flew
toward his doom.
“Tyran . . .” Deathwing would not dignify the other dragon by calling him by his full name. “You are not
dead yet?”
“Give back the eggs!” the crimson behemoth rasped.
“So that they may be raised as dogs for those orcs? I will at least make them true masters of the world!
Once more dragon flights will rule the skies and earth!”
His ailing adversary snorted. “And where is your flight, Deathwing? Aah, my pain makes me forget!
They alldiedfor your glory!”
The black leviathan hissed, spreading his wings wide. “Come to me, Tyran! I will be happy to send you
on your way to oblivion!”
“Whether by the orc's command or not, I would still hunt you down until my last breath!” Tyran snarled.
He snapped at the black's throat, barely missing.
“I shall send you back to your masters in bloody little pieces, old fool!”
The two dragons roared at one another, Tyran's cry a pale comparison to Deathwing's own.
They closed for combat.
Rhonin stared.“Krasus?”
The crimson dragon raised his head enough to nod once. “That is the name . . . I wear when . . . when
human. . . .”
“Krasus . . .” Astonishment turned to bitterness. “You betrayed me and my friends! You arranged all
this! Made me your puppet!”
“For which I will always have . . . regrets. . . .”
“You're no better than Deathwing!”
This made the leviathan cringe, but once more he nodded. “I deserve that. Perhaps that is the path . . .
the path he took long ago. S-so easy to not see what . . . what one does to others . . .”
The distant sounds of battle reverberated even here, reminding Rhonin of other, more important matters
than his pride. “Vereesa and Falstad are still back there— and those dwarves! They could all die
because of you! Why did you summon me here, Krasus?”
“B-because there is still hope of seizing v-victory out of the chaos . . . the chaos I have helped to create.
. . .” The dragon tried to rise, but managed only a sitting position. “You and I, Rhonin . . . there is a
chance. . . .”
The wizard frowned, but said nothing. His only concern now lay in seeing to it that Vereesa, Falstad, and
the hill dwarves survived this debacle.
“You . . . you do not reject me out of hand . . . good. I thank you for th-that.”
“Just tell me what you intend.”
“The orc commander w-wields an artifact . . . theDemon Soul.It has p-power over all dragons . . . save
Deathwing.”
Rhonin recalled how Nekros had tried to use it on the black leviathan with no visible effect. “Why not
Deathwing?”
Because he created it,” responded a quiet, feminine voice.
The mage whirled about. He heard a gasp from the dragon.
A beautiful yet ethereal woman wearing a flowing emerald gown stood behind the wizard, a slight smile
on her pale lips. Rhonin belatedly realized that her eyes were closed, yet she seemed to have no trouble
knowing how best to face either him or the dragon.
“Ysera . . .” the crimson giant whispered reverently.
She did not acknowledge him immediately, though, instead continuing to answer Rhonin's question.
“Deathwing it was who created theDemon Soul,and for a good cause at the time, so we believed.” She
strode toward the wizard. “Believed so much that we did as he asked, imparted to it some measure of
our power.”
“But he didn't impart his own, didn't impart his own!” snapped a male voice, strident and not completely
sane. “Tell him, Ysera! Tell him how, after the demons were defeated, he turned on us! Used our own
power on us!”
Atop a massive rock perched a skeletal, notquitehuman figure with jagged, blue hair and silver skin.
Clad in a high-collared robe of the same two colors as his form, he looked like some mad jester. His
eyes gleamed. Daggerlike fingers scratched at the rock upon which the figure squatted, gouging chasms
into it.
“He will hear what he needs to hear, Malygos. No more, no less.” She smiled slightly again. The longer
Rhonin looked at her, the more she reminded him of Vereesa—but of Vereesa as he had once dreamt of
her. “Yes, Deathwing neglected to tell us that part, and certainly pretended that he had sacrificed as we
had. Only when he decided that he represented the future of our kind did we discover the horrible truth.”
It finally occurred to Rhonin that Ysera and Malygos spoke of the black dragon as one of them. He
turned his head back to the red leviathan, silently asking the creature he had known as Krasus if his
suspicions were true.
“Yes . . .” the injured dragon replied. “They are what you believe them to be. They are two of the five
great dragons, known in legend as the Aspects of the world.” The red giant seemed to draw strength
from their arrival. “Ysera . . . She of the Dreaming. Malygos . . . the Hand of Magic . . .”
“We are wasssting time here,” muttered yet a third voice, another male. “Precioussss time . . .”
“And Nozdormu . . . Master of Time, too!” marveled the red dragon. “You have all come!”
A shrouded figure seemingly made of sand stood near Ysera. Under the hood appeared a face so
desiccated it barely had enough dry flesh to cover the bone. Gemstone eyes glared at both the dragon
and the wizard in growing impatience. “Yesss, we have come! And if thisss party takesss much longer,
perhapsss I shall go, too! I've much to gather, much to catalog—”
“Much to babble about, much to babble about!” mocked Malygos from high up.
Nozdormu raised a withered yet strong hand toward the jester, who flashed his daggerlike nails at the
hooded figure. The two looked ready to come to blows, both physical and otherwise, but the ghostly
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