Doomraga's Revenge Read Free Page B

travelers. They had also inspired many years of speculation about what, really, were the stars of Avalon: Were they other worlds, or perhaps something more mysterious? But tonight he had no time for speculation. Trouble had erupted—once again. And this time, he felt sure, Merlin couldn’t just dismiss it as “growing pains.”
    His green-tinted tongue pushed against the gap in his teeth, souvenir of his first real battle. This time, he knew, there would be no magic-eating kreelix to fight. Who would it be, then?
    “All right,” he declared. “Time to fly.”
    Taking his bearings, he stretched his neck due east—toward Fireroot. With several powerful beats of his wings, he rose out of the valley. His long, sinewy form lifted toward the stars, as gracefully as smoke from a candle flame.

4: F OR THE G OOD OF A LL
    When you think of life as a meal, and imagine yourself as the chef in total control—that’s usually when you get cooked.
    Flying by the light of Avalon’s stars, Basilgarrad beat his wings so fast they were just a blur of motion. No creature could fly more swiftly than a dragon—and he was a dragon in a hurry. A great hurry.
    “Merlin,” he grumbled as he streaked across the sky, “for someone with such awesome powers, you certainly have a knack for getting into trouble!”
    His eyes, glowing green in the night, narrowed. Those troubles had been growing more frequent, as well as more dangerous. For both Merlin and Basilgarrad. And also for the world they loved, a place unlike any other. Avalon—the magical world within a tree, grown from a seed planted by Merlin himself.
    It was a seed, the dragon knew well, that had held something more than a new and wondrous world. Something, in its own way, even larger—and even more remarkable. An idea . That somewhere in the wide universe, there might be one place where all creatures of all kinds could find a way to live together in harmony. To share their world with mutual respect. To draw strength, rather than conflict, from their differences. And to protect the many beauties of these realms.
    The Avalon idea , Merlin liked to call it. It was a notion that stirred the heart as well as the mind. A notion that seemed increasingly at risk. Which was why, despite all his grumbling, he was glad that Merlin had called—as the wizard had recently been doing more often. So often, in fact, that Merlin was spending much more time with Basilgarrad than with his wife, Hallia.
    Basilgarrad roared, even as he flew at dragonspeed. There was only one place he wanted to be—a place that had seemed impossible for the tiny little fellow of his youth, a place that now felt more like home than anywhere on the land. By Merlin’s side .
    Looking below, his great scaled wings beating steadily, he recognized each of the seven root-realms. Soon after leaving Woodroot, whose forests smelled so fresh and sweet, he spied Waterroot—where seas gleamed, even in starlight, with all the colors of the rainbow. A few moments later: Stoneroot, whose bells he could hear chiming at any time, day or night. Now Mudroot, whose soil Merlin had enriched with the magic of life. Next came Airroot, called Y Swylarna by the sylphs, where he could see the layered clouds that were the dancing grounds of the mist maidens. In the far distance—the eternal darkness, blacker than black, that was Shadowroot. And now, just below him, the volcanic realm of Fireroot.
    He veered north, toward the mountainous terrain where the gobsken had recently built a fortress of stone so thick that even dragons’ fire could not penetrate. Despite their antipathy toward the gobsken, for whom fighting was as natural as breathing, Merlin and Basilgarrad had decided to let the fortress stand. So long as the gobsken didn’t use it as a base to conquer other peoples, no problem. And if the gobsken’s long-standing feud with the fire dragons kept those two groups busy battling each other, the fortress could be a useful