Master of Dragons (Dragon World Trilogy S.) - Hardcover

Weis, Margaret

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765304708 ISBN 13: 9780765304704

Verlag: Tor Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

They were both the offspring of Dragon magic, one raised in court, the other in hiding...but the link that exists between them will not be broken by mere distance, and the duality of their origin will unlock new hope for a return to peace and safety. Now two renegade dragons have hatched a plan to enslave all mankind - an act in direct contravention to all the precepts of the Dragon parliament. With an army of crazed demi-human/dragons, they threaten the world order. It is up to the two brothers (separate and together) and Draconas, the special emissary of the Parliament, to restore the status quo between Dragonkind and mankind, even if by doing so, Dragonkind seals its own eventual doom.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Margaret Weis is the co-creator of such bestselling worlds as Dragonlance, Dark Sword, and Death Gate. She lives in Williams Bay, WI.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Master of Dragons

By Margaret Weis, Brian Thomsen

Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright © 2005 Margaret Weis
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7653-0470-4

CHAPTER 1

MARCUS EXTENDED HIS HAND, POINTED BEHIND HIMSELF TO the buildings that stood at the entrance to the alley. The magic rolled out of him, rumbled through the earth. Stone walls shook and trembled, and with a roar like an avalanche, the two buildings collapsed. Marcus heard screams and cries and guessed that at least some of his pursuers had been caught in the cascade of rock and debris. He dashed out into the alley, with Evelina at his side, and it was then he felt the weakness.

It came over him suddenly, unexpectedly, a sensation of being exhausted, drained of energy. He could not catch his breath. His legs and arms and hands tingled. He stumbled and nearly fell.

Evelina caught hold of him.

"What's the matter? Are you hurt?"

He couldn't answer. He had to use his breath for breathing. Talking required more strength than he had, and he couldn't explain to her what was happening anyway. Nothing is free in this world. Everything has a price, including the magic.

Conjuring pixies from dust motes had been a little fatiguing, but the magic had never before sent him to his bed. Bringing down stone buildings and raising ice storms was apparently different. He was so exhausted, he could scarcely move.

Behind him, he could hear behind him the monks clawing their way through the rubble. He had to run or give up and die.

"Dearest Marcus, sweet love, we have to keep going!" Evelina was saying, her voice trembling with fear. "Please. Just a little ways and we are there, my heart, my own."

She tugged at him, pleaded with him. He nodded and continued on. But he could no longer run. It took all his resolve just to walk.

"It's not far now," she said, sliding her arm around him, supporting him.

He wearily raised his head to see that they had come farther than he'd hoped. The wall was directly ahead of them. They had only to cross a street and they would be standing in front of it. Fifty, a hundred steps.

And then what? He remembered entering Dragonkeep, remembered looking back at the wall through which he'd just passed and seeing no gate, no entrance, only solid stone. On and on the wall ran, without end. Around and around the city. No break. Noway out. A dragon eating its own tail ...

"Marcus!" Evelina cried sharply, frightened.

He jerked his head up, shook his head to clear it, kept moving, kept walking. He concentrated on picking up his feet and putting them down, picking them up, putting them down.

The wall came closer. Solid stone. Fused with fire.

Marcus called again, one last time. "Draconas ..."

The name echoed in the darkness of his little room. Echoed back to him.

One by one, the echoes died.

The street that ran along the wall was empty. He'd expected to find a river of brown robes. If the monks were coming, they had not yet arrived.

"Yet why should they hurry?" Marcus asked himself. "I'm not going anywhere and neither is Evelina."

He stood in front of the guard wall, staring at it, pouring his whole being into that stare, wishing it, willing it to give him some hint, some clue of the way out. He risked leaving his little room, risked roaming up and down the length of the wall, as far as he could see, risked using his magic to search for a crack, a chink in the endless stone. He stared at the wall so long that the stones began to shift and glide and he wrenched his gaze away.

He did not call to Draconas again.

Marcus reached out his hand, touched the wall, touched stone — solid and cold. He moved his hand to another part and then another, all the while telling himself that this was stupid, futile, a last desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.

"Marcus ..." said Evelina urgently. "The monks ..."

He saw them rounding the corner of the building, walking straight for him. Some held fire in their hands. Some held steel. All of it was death, so it didn't much matter.

"Tell me the truth, Marcus," said Evelina quietly. "There's no way out, is there?"

"No," he said. "There's not. I had hoped ..." He let hope hang, shook his head.

"I'm afraid," she said and put her arms around him.

"So am I," he said, and held her close.

A hand thrust through the stone wall.

Marcus stared at it. "I'm going mad," he thought. "Like the wretched monks."

He blinked his eyes. The hand vanished and Ven stood in front of him, inside the little room.

"This is the gate," said Ven.

His blue eyes were the only color in a vast expanse of white.

"The way out!" Evelina cried. "I see it! Marcus, look!" She clutched at him. "There it is! Right in front of us! Hurry! Make haste!"

The illusion was broken and, as always when we see the truth, he wondered that he had been so blind as not to penetrate the lie at once. The gate was crudely built, constructed of wood planks and held together by iron bands. The gate stood open. From the rusted look of the hinges, the gate had not been shut for centuries. Perhaps it had rusted in place.

Beyond the gate was the forest and beyond that the river. No monks blocked the way. No dragon stood at the entrance.

Marcus looked back to the little room.

"Take care of her," said Ven. He held out his hand.

Marcus touched his brother's hand.

The gate vanished, dissolved into the wall.

The wall vanished, dissolved into illusion.

Dragonkeep was gone, and it might have never existed, but for the feel of his brother's hand, firm and warm, in his own.

* * *

Marcus guided the boat he and Evelina had stolen out into the river. Evelina sat rigid and upright in the stern opposite him, holding on to the gunwales with both hands. Her face was drawn and tense. She stared fearfully into the woods that were slowly, too slowly, sliding away. When the boat dipped slightly, as Marcus wrestled with the oars, Evelina grasped the gunwales tightly.

"Sorry," said Marcus. "I haven't rowed a boat in a long time."

"I thought I saw something!" she gasped. "Oh." She relaxed. "A deer." Evelina looked at him and managed a smile. "I'm glad you're with me. You won't let anything happen to me."

Marcus smiled back at her, trying to be reassuring, but he didn't make any promises. The shoreline was receding, though not as rapidly as he would have wished. Marcus expected to see the monks come swarming out of the forest to give chase. They would have a difficult time of it. After Evelina had plundered the boats for anything useful, Marcus had pushed each boat, one by one, out into the river, where the current caught them and carried them downstream.

He would have liked to have destroyed the boats, perhaps set them ablaze, but he lacked the strength to use any more magic. He had tried staving in the bottom of one of the boats by kicking it with his foot, but the planks were too strong and wouldn't give way. The current was slow here. The boats bobbed in the water, meandering lazily downstream. Any energetic monk could plunge in and recover them.

Marcus waited for that to happen, but no monk — energetic or otherwise — appeared.

The boat tent carrying him and Evelina rounded a bend in the river and he lost sight of the shoreline and the bobbing boats. The river was narrow at this point, the shore lined with trees, whose overhanging boughs, thickly intertwined, cut off the bright sun and made it seem as if he were rowing into a green and leafy cavern. Sparse patches of sunlight slid over his knees. The...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765304708
• ISBN 13: 9780765304704
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland