"So it's an artifact, not a gem. You don't understand how it works?" he asked. Khisanth shook her head. Pteros reached out a claw arm. "May I see it?"

Khisanth hesitated again, then tugged the maynus from the choker vine and, between cupped claws, handed her most pre shy;cious treasure to Pteros.

Pteros held the glowing globe reverently, turning it over and over. He peered inside. "Lightning …" He looked up at Khisanth. "Do you know where if s from? An artifact" s origin can tell a lot about its function."

Khisanth did know. "Kadagan said something about its coming from the elemental plane of lightning. That fact meant nothing to me at the time."

Pteros was frowning. "It means nothing to me, either. I know of four elemental planes of existence-air, earth, fire, and water, but not lightning. Perhaps this Kadagan was con shy;fused." He continued looking into the globe closely.

"I don't know," said Khisanth. "He was very specific." She looked over his arm into the globe. "Do you think you can fig shy;ure it out?"

"There's a fairly simple spell of identification that might tell us something," Pteros said as if to himself, "but it takes forever to cast. You say you've used it several times by just telling it what you wanted?" Khisanth nodded. Pteros clutched the globe. His eyes took on a greedy gleam. "Then let's give it a try."

"Wait!" cried Khisanth. "Do you think thaf s a good idea? I mean, we don't know what it will do."

"And we never will unless we test its scope," said Pteros. He thumped his own chest. "If there's one thing I know, if s

magic."

Khisanth felt strange playing the timid dragon to Pteros's brash one. She'd hoped, however, to see some spunk in the old dragon, so she nodded her head in approval.

"Lef s see," said Pteros, his blue and orange eyes glittering with enthusiasm, "we'll try something relatively simple first." He closed his eyes and said, 'Transport us to the meadow by the hedge of sumac."

Khisanth tensed involuntarily. In the beat of a heart, she and Pteros stood exactly where he'd directed.

"Not too impressive, since we both already know how to teleport," said Pteros. "I'll try something a little more diffi shy;cult."

Khisanth looked about the wide meadow. "First, get us back home. I don't like standing out here in a field with a powerful artifact for Talon and everyone to see."

"Right you are," said Pteros. Holding the globe aloft, he intoned, "Maynus, take us home."

The sphere flashed. Fingers of light stretched out and pierced the two dragons, sawing through their bodies. There was no pain, only an intense tingling where the twitching light passed. Suddenly Khisanth felt much lighter. She didn't know what was happening and looked at Pteros for the answer. The older dragon tried to say something, but no sound reached Khisanth's ears. As more and more fingers of light wrapped around Pteros, Khisanth could see through him. The other dragon's black body dissolved into sparkling motes and was drawn, or rather flowed, into the maynus in his talons!

Khisanth's astounded mind drew up a vision of Yoshiki Toba similarly disappearing into the maynus, followed by the sight of his charred body tumbling to Led's feet. Frenzied, she raised herself on her hind legs and flapped her titanic wings to get away from the device, but no air beat against them. Her wings had no more substance than thistledown. Roaring furi shy;ously, Khisanth, too, swirled away into the globe.

Still roaring, the young dragon found herself immersed in a maelstrom of light and sound. Enormous bolts of blue-white lightning flashed all around her rematerialized body. Thun shy;derclaps buffeted her so that it was difficult to inhale. The air smelled heavily, even tasted strongly, of chlorine. She could see Pteros next to her, his jaw moving in speech, but the thun shy;der was so loud it was impossible to hear anything else. Green clouds boiled past in every direction-right, left, above, even below. There was no earth nor water beneath her, only air.

With that realization, Khisanth dropped like a rock. She instinctively clawed and scrambled and flapped her wings. Finally she rose, or at least was suspended. When she stopped the motion of her wings for a moment, she plunged again. Khi shy;santh wasn't at all sure that it mattered, since there didn't appear to be any ground to crash into. Still, she strained her wings to keep from falling.

Nearby Pteros appeared to have caught on to the same notion and was fluttering his wings, too. She saw him working his jaw again. A shimmering cone shape radiated through the air from his snout. The wide end of the cone engulfed her, and she suddenly heard Pteros all too well.

"I've cast a shout spell!" he bellowed.

Khisanth clapped her claw hands to her ear holes, certain the drums would break. "Where are we?" No cone of sound spread from her mouth.

"Your voice isn't affected by my spell!" he hollered in expla shy;nation. Khisanth winced from the ear-splitting sound of his voice. "I presume you're wondering what happened, too! Frankly, I don't know-"

Pteros's deafening words were cut off by the sound of breaking glass. Khisanth could see before Pteros that the gems in his elaborate pearl-and-ruby diadem and sapphire necklace were shattering from the vibrations of his tremendously amplified voice. She thought of her maynus. Raising a talon to her choker, she remembered in a panic that she and Pteros were now inside the globe.

Before the riled young dragon could even put voice to the realization, an unearthly sound cut through the thunder. "The

thing you call 'maynus' is here." The voice wasn't painfully loud like Pteros's.

Both dragons fluttered around to find the source of the sound. A round object, or perhaps a creature, floated about a dragon's length away, though distance was difficult to judge in the featureless ether. It was a sphere, about the size of a dragon's head, and pearly. It was lit from within by flashes of multicolored light. Spears of lightning shot and twisted out shy;ward from it as the object approached, seeming to draw itself along as if the crackling branches were legs.

The ball-like object passed near the dragons, where it spoke in an airy, reverberating tone, "Follow, Khisanth and

Pteros."

Looking at each other in question, the two dragons found themselves drifting along behind the odd creature. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar to Khisanth. It led them to a blue, egg-shaped sphere and urged them to pass inside.

Instantly the booming thunder faded to a soft, distant thumping. The air was blue and clear; the odor of chlorine dis shy;sipated. Lightning continued to arc around the blue sphere, but never penetrated it.

"There's no need to flap your wings here," said the pearly globe. "You will simply float."

Khisanth let her wings drop to her sides and bobbed with shy;out effort. "Where are we?" she demanded. "How do you know our names? And where is my maynus?"

"In your Prime Material world, I was that which you called 'maynus.' "

"This is all gibberish," growled Khisanth. "Just tell me

where on Krynn we are."

"I believe I know!" screamed Pteros. His voice blasted through the clear air, reminding him that it was still magically amplified. Blushing self-consciously, Pteros ended the spell's effect. "We're not on Krynn at all," he finished much more

softly.

Khisanth scowled at Pteros, dismissing him by turning her scowl on the glowing creature. "Just tell me where I can pick up my maynus on the way out."

"I am what the nyphids called 'maynus/ but I am no longer yours."

"You don't seem to understand what it is I'm looking for, so I'll explain it to you," Khisanth offered with mock patience. "My maynus is a little inanimate globe that glows. You're a big, 'animate' thing that, well, glows." She tried to peer through the bubble. "A tiny luminous ball would be easy enough to overlook in all this lightning."