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PART FOUR:
THE BATTLE

Prologue

Standing watch over the Forge of Dreams, the draconae crafted their guarding spells ceaselessly, wrapping threads of the underrealm around that one place that was everywhere and nowhere, a part of the realm and yet not a part of it. No fewer than seven draconae watched over the fires at all times, weaving their spells of protection, of creation, of preservation . . . and one other spell, held carefully in reserve.

The draconae were ever aware of the Enemy's desire to control the dreamfires, the powers from beyond the realm that nourished and sustained life and creation in all the realm. It was the one thing that might grant him final mastery, and it was the one thing that the draconae were utterly determined to deny him. The Enemy might imprison the Mountain, and he might bring an end to all dragon life and all iffling life in the realm; but he could not make the dreamfires do his bidding. Not yet, anyway. Not without the help of the draconae.

But what if, against all hope, he learned to use the fires himself? They could not forget the haunting Words:

 

. . . To tear from its midst
The fires of being,
That dragons may die,
Unknowing, unseeing.

 

If Tar-skel seized the dreamfires, did they have any remaining defense? Perhaps just one. They held in reserve a difficult and terrifying spell, woven in the sinews of the underrealm, to be used only in direst of need—a crafting that would release the bindings that held the dreamfires, a catastrophic release of all the bindings and all the power they contained. It would almost certainly destroy the realm—and with it the lives, not just of those in the realm now, but perhaps even those departed, those who lived beyond the realm in the soulfire of the Final Dream Mountain. That spell could sacrifice, not just the realm's future, but its living past, as well.

But if the alternative was Tar-skel's victory? Better to lose the realm.

And yet . . .

 

A word names the nameless
And light dawns from dread
To the heart of the darkness
Are the fearful ones led . . .

 

Even now, the draconae were not without hope. Those working at the Forge of Dreams wrapped their songs and words of protection not just around the fires, but around all the unborn dragons, the unhatched eggs that remained alive, but frozen in time, on the outer slopes of the Dream Mountain . . . just as the once-vibrant groves and streams where the draconae raised their young were now frozen, static, chrysalized in layer upon layer of binding energy. Those eggs, and those groves of life, were as much captive of Tar-skel's sorcery as the draconae on the inside of the mountain.

Light dawns from dread.

More than anything, they held hope for a release into life for those unhatched draconae and draconi of the future.

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Framed