She set the bottle back in its place on the shelf. Di An's tongue was numb where the potion had touched it. The numbness spread down her throat and across her jaws. Her eyes watered. A ringing started in her ears. Medicine wasn't supposed to hurt you-merciful gods, she'd poisoned herself!

“No, no!” Krago burst out. “Put the ore in the mortar!”

The elf girl staggered to her feet. Water-she had to have water. She wandered down the length of the bookshelf, searching through tearing eyes for a life-saving drink. The books and shelf swam before her eyes. Heat seemed to roar through her. She gasped for air.

A stick of wood stuck out of the shelf, right at Di An's face level. She grasped the stick blindly to keep herself from falling. It swung down. With a clank, a section of bookcase swung inward. Oddly patterned light flooded over her. Without thinking, Di An had opened a secret door into a hidden portion of the chamber. Hoping that there was water in there, she entered. Dimly, Di An heard Krago shout behind her as she walked through the portal.

It was very bright, this place, but the heat was less intense. Di An stumbled over a rise in the floor and went down on her hands and knees. She must have remained like this for a while, for the next thing she knew, Krago was there, pulling her to her feet.

“What are you doing in here?” he was shouting at her. He peered closely at her white, strained face. “Did you take the potion?” Di An nodded dazedly. “Stupid girl! The time was not quite right. Who knows what the effect on you might be?”

The glare lessened, and Di An realized it was an effect of the potion rather than the inner room itself. She was leaning against the inside of the wooden bookcase. Stomach cramps sliced through her slight body. She gasped and bent over. Then, Krago's hand was on her shoulder.

“Drink this,” he said.

She straightened and found he was holding a slim glass vial out to her. She didn't care what it was, as long as it made her feel better.

It did. It halted her pain. The details of the room leaped into clarity, and the ringing in her head stopped. Di An looked past Krago and saw that the room was filled with all sorts of strange apparatus. Magic circles were drawn on the wall; sigils and glyphs of obscure purpose covered the stone floor. A double row of alembics, pelicans, and distilling retorts lined the walls. And in the center of it all was a great vat, cast in solid glass and braced with metal straps. Now that the torment of her body had eased, she took in the contents of the strange room. She had no idea what purpose all these things could serve.

“What? What is it?” she said hoarsely.

“You might as well know,” he said, folding his arms. With an exasperated sigh, Krago took the elf girl's hand. “Come and see the crowning achievement of my work.”

The vat, eight feet in diameter, was filled to the rim with quicksilver. Floating half-submerged in the silver bath was a still-unformed thing. At least the details were unformed; the general shape was clear enough. Two arms, two legs, a head-the thing was red and glistening, like fresh, raw meat. A mouth split the unfeatured face. Needlelike teeth protruded from the thing's bloodless gums.

“What is it?” Di An asked, afraid to get any closer.

“My creation,” Krago said. “I call her Lyrexis.”

“Her?”

“Yes, she is female, make no mistake. She will be a worthy mate for Thouriss.”

Thouriss's mate! Di An took a step closer to the vat. The outline of scales was visible in the translucent skin. The creature's face was flatter and more normally proportioned than a lizard man's, yet still it was not human. The cheekbones were high and wide, the skull massive but well-shaped.

Ribs showed like dark shadows under the skin. Deeper still, the double fist that was the creature's heart throbbed quickly, sending a current of blood through its tender, visible veins. Muscles lay like coiled ropes around the creature's limbs. As Di An's shadow fell across Lyrexis's face, the thing in the vat seemed to twitch and turn its sightless gaze toward her. Di An yelped and cowered back.

“It's alive! It can see me!” she gasped.

“Of course it's alive. There would be very little reason to have it here if it weren't. And it can't really see you; it's merely reacting to light and shadow, warmth or cold.”

Di An backed away. “It's-it's horrible,” she murmured.

“Horrible? Horrible?” Krago slipped the cowl off his head and regarded the elf girl with disdain. “Here is a feat no alchemist on the whole of Krynn ever dared attempt, and I have succeeded. I have created life. It is a triumph, you silly little girl. A complete and utter triumph!”

“But why? Why create such a thing?”

Krago gazed at the unfinished creature with pride and fascination. “It was a challenge,” he said. “To create a race of beings so powerful no one could stand against them.”

Di An began to look for the way out. “What about your own people? Won't your lizard folk wage war on humans, too?”

Krago was regarding the thing in the vat with admiration when a voice boomed, “Krago has no loyalty except to his art. Isn't that right, Krago?”

Thouriss filled the secret doorway in the bookshelves. Behind him, Di An could see the hulking outlines of goblin guards.

“Eh? Oh, it's you. What do you want, Thouriss?” the young cleric said distractedly.

“What is that creature doing here?” asked Thouriss, pointing at Di An.

“Oh, I called her here to discuss her aging problem. She stupidly took some of my purifying potion and wandered in here.”

“So you told her about us? About Lyrexisss?” he finished the last syllable with a hiss. Thouriss strode into the room and seized Di An by the arm.

“Let me go! I don't know anything!” she cried. Struggling against his grip was like fighting the hold of a vise.

“I hardly think any harm can come of it,” Krago said dismissively.

Thouriss seemed to consider that for a moment, and then he laughed. “True. Perhaps she should know. Tell her the story, Krago. Tell her everything.”

Krago couldn't resist the opportunity to boast. He summoned one of the mute gully dwarves. “Bring a stool,” he said. The chair was brought, and Krago motioned Di An to it. “Sit,” he told her. He made himself comfortable in a chair and began his tale.

“The draconians, what you call lizard men, are produced by the action of a magic spell on the eggs of dragons aligned with Good,” Krago said. “The first to be used were eggs of brass dragons, from which the Baaz draconians were made. Next came the Kapak, or copper draconians, and the Bozak, whom you have seen here in Xak Tsaroth. They stem from bronze dragon eggs. Each race has its own peculiar strengths and weaknesses. Tails and wings, for example, are not uniform among the draconians. This makes it hard to fit them with armor, or to make cavalry soldiers out of them.”

Di An knew nothing of the wars to rid Krynn of dragons, and she didn't know that dragons had become creatures of myth to most surface-dwellers. Less still did she know about draconians, but she tried to pay attention.

“But why do you do this at all?” Di An asked, confused by this new knowledge.

Thouriss said, “It is the will of Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness. She intends to build an army of draconians with which to conquer all of Krynn.”

“And you do this evil thing willingly?” she said to Krago.

“Don't be impertinent,” Thouriss warned. Di An shrank away from him.

“As I was saying,” Krago continued blandly, “the variation in the draconians made one problem. Another was the fact that there were only so many dragon eggs available, and in order to build and maintain a standing army, the Dark Queen needs a more ready source of warriors.”

“A task assigned to the ruler of Xak Tsaroth,” Thouriss said. “The Great One, called Khisanth.”