Dragon Rigger by Jeffrey A. Carver

defeat it once and forever? It was a dizzying thought. Enough wisdom remained in him to let it spin harmless into the night air—but the intoxication was still growing. And something else was happening . . .
    A voice, somewhere, was calling out to him. It was a silent voice, and yet it reminded him of a dracona singing to him as of old, singing out a story, a vision of the realm as it was, or as it might be. Someone calling to him . . . but who?
    Even in the euphoric glow, he recognized that something extraordinary was happening. This was not the usual lumenis intoxication. A power was coursing in his veins that he did not understand. Through the dizziness and strangeness, he felt a connection opening in the underrealm, and it was not under his control.
    The realm was changing.
    The darkness of the night grew deeper, and the points of light in the sky gleamed with a strangely cold intensity. They looked very far away. And yet, as he watched them, it seemed that they were being transformed into something different—not warm, distant lights, but rather tiny points of ice. And they were not isolated from each other, but were joined together by a pale, gossamer web that somehow stretched out of the underrealm into the outer world, and encircled the sky.
    Windrush was so astonished that he stilled his wings and glided in the thin, high air, staring at the web. He could still see the dark outline of the mountain range, but the strands of the web were growing brighter, and the mountains were receding. What was this? He felt that he was seeing illusion, and yet not illusion. He smelled the power of an enchantment, but could not discern its nature, whether good or evil, nor could he tell its source. Perhaps if he flew higher . . .
    He was far above the other dragons already, but still he beat the air, climbing toward the roof of the sky. The valley, with its popping lumenis, dwindled below. He was in danger of climbing out of the spells of protection; but still he climbed, hoping to make the vision come clear.
    The web grew stark against the night sky. It seemed a peculiarly geometric thing—like the underrealm with its strands and connections, and yet hard and cool; and he thought suddenly that it was a vision of the realm bound together in power, and he felt an electric excitement. Was this a vision of dragon power—of the dragons' final victory, of the realm restored to unity?
    No . . .
    He smelled a tang of steel—and the web suddenly began to shrink, its points of light growing inward like daggers of sharpened ice. He felt his breath hissing, his link with the underrealm being choked off. This was no weaving of beauty; it was a thing of malice, of imprisonment.
    And yet he sensed movement beyond the web. He heard the sound of chimes, the sounds of draconae, the sounds of the dreaming ones. For an instant he thought he glimpsed the Dream Mountain itself, rosy and translucent, and hope sprang into his heart. But it was locked far out of reach, beyond the web of ice.
    Closer, in the web, he saw dragons caught, struggling; and the harder they struggled, the harder the ice became. Some fought with each other, and that made the ice grow thicker. It filled half the sky, closing around him. And now, beyond the web, the sky began to shiver and crack . . . and beyond that he glimpsed a different sky, the sky of another world. The ice crystals stretched, like clawed fingers, out of this realm to take hold in the next.
    He shuddered, circling helplessly in the center of the vision. He glimpsed a new figure, not dragon yet glowing with dragon magic, climbing its way up the web. And he heard words drifting through the air:
     
    From beyond hope
will come one . . .
     
    Innocent of our ways
will come one . . .
     
    The sound of the words faded, but not his memory of them. They were the Words of the ancient prophecy, passed on through his father from his mother, the dracona Skytouch.
    As Windrush pondered the Words,