"We would not have awakened thee if we could not help thee from this pit."

"You'd be better off not to mention waking me!" growled Khisanth. Blood boiled at her temples, and she flexed her foreclaws. "There is only one thing of interest to me at this moment: getting out of this hole so I can gorge." Khisanth's leathery lips pulled back in a threatening sneer. "In fact, if I could reach either of you now, I would eat you. You'd scarcely be a mouthful," she said archly, "but if you don't cease your chatter, get away from me, and take that blasted, blinding ball with you, I'd settle for a snack."

The nyphids fluttered up and away from the angry dragon, drawing the maynus globe with them. "Yes, she is most excitable and stubborn," said the dark-haired one to his com shy;panion. "Fare-thee-well, then," he called. With a silent flut shy;tering of wings, the pair rose together through the still air, beyond Khisanth's sight. "Call and we will assist thee."

"Never!" she growled, her own throaty, guttural word nearly deafening in the confines of the cave. Instead of their departure calming her, it made Khisanth livid. She was a member of the most powerful race that ever lived, and she couldn't get away as easily as two puny pixies-nyphids. Whatever! She would die before she called for their help, as if they had any to give!

She would claw her way to the top, if she had to. Rage born of desperation made the dragon lash out wildly, wings straining upward, rocks tearing at the tough leather webbing. Her claws raked uselessly at the walls, the dirt-and-sand floor, until her own dark blood ran freely from countless cuts and abrasions.

The smell of the blood jolted Khisanth's rumbling stom shy;ach. She licked her bleeding cuticles, savoring the meaty taste. It calmed her nerves.

Think. Turn your energies from rage to survival, Khisanth told herself. If you continue as you are, you'll surely die.

Taking the smallest outcroppings of rock into her talons, the young dragon pulled herself up with her short forearms. But her appendages, grown during centuries of sleep, were as atrophied and undisciplined as the flabby, humanlike arms of her old bakali nursemaid. More often than not, her grip faltered, and she caught short her fall by digging her hind feet into the walls. She progressed by sheer force of will, two steps taken for every one secured.

Khisanth had no concept of time. Having slept under shy;ground for most of her life, she was unaware that the dim light from above waxed and waned in a regular cycle. Moments were measured in steps taken, brief rests stolen, feedings missed. She could have been dragging herself upward for as little or as much time as she'd slept, for all she knew or cared.

The dragon fed herself on the blood that oozed from her wounds; it slaked her hunger somewhat, though it gave her no energy. She bled mightily from a host of large wounds and broad scratches. Every part of her huge, unfamiliar body ached. Her massive head felt heavy, yet strangely light and dizzy at the same time.

Stopping to rest for a moment on a large, jutting rock ledge, Khisanth allowed herself to look up at last. The light from above was noticeably brighter. She could scarcely believe it. The opening had to be near, perhaps not even as far as the length of her own body, a mere thirty feet.

If only I were a bit closer, she thought blearily, I could stand on my haunches and pull myself up. But she knew there wasn't enough strength in her claw arms for that. If only I could eat. Or sleep…. Her lids-her whole cumber shy;some body-felt heavy and lifeless. Just a few moments of rest, she thought, and I'll be able to make it.

Khisanth struggled to curl her bulk up on the narrow ledge. Pressing her neck and spine into the stone wall, she tried to settle on her right side, but her long, heavy tail slipped over the edge. Its great weight dragged her down, hind feet scrabbling futilely. Suspended for a moment in midair, Khisanth flapped instinctively. She heard a snap in one of her wings as it caught on the walls.

She fell, plummeting, spiraling head over tail, every part of her scraping and slamming into the rough stone walls. In her descent, she became aware of a regular pulse of light, dim at first, then bright and hot like blue-veined lightning. Takhi-sis's evil realm would be filled with fire and lightning, the dragon thought distantly. Perhaps the Dark Queen has sum shy;moned me, and I am on my way to her side.

Khisanth could barely keep her enormous, golden eyes open. She struggled against unconsciousness, wanting to wit shy;ness her first journey into the Abyss, the plane where the evil goddess made her domain. Yet the dragon lost the battle, even as she felt the strange surge of energy pulse through her body.

Chapter 2

"The sun will energize thee, Joad," Kadagan said kindly. He brushed the silvery hair from his elder's shoulders to make way for the beloved sunshine, which cut through the canopy of trees just beyond the mouth of the pit. Truth to tell, Kadagan doubted anything but Dela's return would restore Joad's vitality.

Joad's well-being was but one of countless reasons Khi shy;santh had to help them rescue Dela. Time was running out, and Kadagan knew the dragon was their last hope. Secretly, the nyphid had grave doubts that the quick-tempered dragon would ever cooperate with them.

Kadagan and Joad stood watching the bands of blue-white lightning illuminate the darkness of the pit, lifting the uncon shy;scious dragon like a gigantic sling. Just ten more feet and the creature would be aboveground.

In anticipation of her arrival, the nyphids had cleared the passage of rock and dirt days before, when they had left the stubborn dragon below to begin her climb. The opening had been little more than a gopher hole when Joad had first sensed the strong, magical life-force far underground. At Joad's insistence, they had widened the abandoned burrow to a mere two feet to permit their own passage. It was now a crater vast enough to accommodate the dragon.

Kadagan and Joad jumped back as the sizzling, buzzing bands of electrical energy bearing the dragon rose past the mouth of the pit, then levitated her to the side. Waggling a tapered digit, Kadagan commanded the lightning to follow him and Joad as they set off into a shadowy forest. The trail was not nearly large enough to accommodate the passage of a dragon, but the white-hot energy carrying the comatose creature singed a wide swath through the undergrowth. Large trees toppled left and right, severed from their now-smoldering stumps.

A half-league from the pit, the nyphids led their burden through the last dense ring of pines in the darkened wood. The sun pounded a grassy field that stretched as far as the eye could see, the horizon broken only by the occasional cot-tonwood tree jutting skyward. Goldenrod, purple bull thistles, and lacy wild carrot swayed in the breezes above the tall grasses. Grasshoppers and yellow-breasted meadowlarks sprang from the path. Well into the grasslands, Joad and Kadagan stopped. The dragon-bearing lightning hovered momentarily, then gently lowered the body into the stiff, late-summer grass. Abruptly, the fingers of lightning disap shy;peared into the maynus globe which hung, imperceptible in daylight, at Joad's side.

"She is gravely injured," observed Kadagan, walking a path through the head-high weeds around the dragon's crumpled form. Crimson trails of blood cut the dust on Khi-santh's black scales. The pink flesh of one nostril was split all the way to her thick lips, which were pulled back in a wide grimace that exposed a broken incisor among the jagged teeth. Many of the claws on the dragon's forearms were torn off at the cuticles. Worst of all, her right wing bent backward, obviously broken.