Dragons II by Forgotten Realms

Author:Forgotten Realms [Realms, Forgotten]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-04-10T15:29:23.033000+00:00

The green carpet joining stone to the nearby trees ran dark, purpling like a new bruise. It covered the tree in thick veins, blotting out the hot sun streaming behind. Cast in sudden shadow, the old woman turned on her knees to look as the first wave of magic slammed her. She overturned the bucket in her fall to the ground. At first, she thought it might be that her heart had finally failed her, a death, living alone on the mountainside, she had always assumed would be hers. She'd accepted, even welcomed that fate. It was not a bad way to die, not an undignified way. In the end, the pain would have been brief. Gods' laughter, this was none of those things, the old woman thought, gasping for air and clutching her chest reflexively, though in reality it was her head that felt as if it would burst from the pressure. Images careened through her mind: a mountain that spokeher mountainto a dragon that looked like it was made of purple stone. "Am-Amrennathed." Dry lips formed the word, and a wave of fresh agony rippled over her. The name crowded more images into the old woman's mind, of wizards being drained to husks even as she was being filled upup and over with... what? To her, it was only pain. She was drowning in it. The old woman shuddered up to her knees and crawled blindly to the side of the mountain, grabbing at roots and stone to drag her body up the slippery rock. "Please, lady," she sobbed out, as if the dragon might hear her, "I don't w-want this" Roots snapped, and she was falling again, but her ankle remained tangled with skirts and mountain. There was a second, harder crack, and the world went blessedly dark. She returned to consciousness slowly, to the sound of a voiceher own voice, pleading with the empty air as the dark trees and mountain loomed over her prone body. "Lady, be merciful. I don't know... what to do with this." She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes until stars swam. The memories were still spinning themselves out inside her head. If she concentrated hard enough, she could separate and see them. In one, there was another dragon in a very different mountain, tossing in a fevered dream of madness and death. In another, a man was on his knees before a glowing altar, screaming in agony as his life's blood spilled onto the stones. And more, so many more____ Whimpering, the old woman curled into a ball. Her quivering lips picked up her work song again. She sang, low and unintelligible at first, then louder, faster until she was screaming to drown out the memories flitting across her thoughts as if they'd always been there. Beneath the shuddering pain and the drumming of her heart, she didn't notice when the mountain began to shake. And as Amrennathed's clever mind finally slowed, joined and shaped to the grace of the mountain, the stone began to tremble.

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