The laughter ceased. Malygos hesitated, clearly not wanting to believe, yet desperate to do so. “She
could not—couldshe?”
“I believe it may be possible. I believe enough of a chance exists that it would be worth your efforts.
Besides, what other future do you have?”
The draconic features intensified, and the wizard's host swelled incredibly. Now at last a beast five, ten,
twenty times the size of Krasus stood before him, nearly all vestiges of the macabre creature Malygos
had first been, gone. A dragon stood before Krasus, a dragon not seen since the days before humankind.
And with his return to his original form, so, apparently, returned some of Malygos's misgivings, for he
asked the one question that Krasus had both dreaded and waited for. “The orcs. How is it that the orcs
can hold her? That I have always wondered, wondered, wondered . . .”
“You know the only way they could keep her as prisoner, my friend.”
The dragon reared his gleaming silver head back and hissed. “TheDemon Soul?Those insignificant
creatures have theDemon Soul?That is why you flashed that foul image before me?”
“Yes, Malygos, they have theDemon Souland although I do not think that they know fully what they
wield, they know enough to keep Alexstrasza at bay . . . but that is not the worst of it.”
“And what could be worse?”
Krasus knew that he had nearly pulled the elder leviathan close enough to sanity to agree to help in
rescuing the Dragonqueen, but that what he told Malygos next might put to ruination those
accomplishments. Nonetheless, for the sake of more than simply his beloved mistress, the dragon who
masqueraded as one of the wizards of the Kirin Tor had to tell his one possible ally the truth. “I believe
Deathwing now knows what I do . . . and will also not stop until the cursed disk—and Alexstrasza—are
bothhis.”
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