Summer of Flame

A/N: The characters that are in the Inn are more for comedic relief, although they will help sometimes fill out the story. And yes, I know, there are no Drow on Krynn. Well, Zi's not really from Krynn, you see, but we'll save that for another story (shameless plug for "In a Strange Land"). The two Windstars (you'll see what I mean) are not the same ones, it just happens that they had the same name.

*********************************

Interlude One

Guardians of the Greater Balance

In a place between the Planes...

None, even those called to the Guardianship, could honestly say that they could fully understand how they were chosen. Not even the one with the Great List of the Miiro could say that she fully understood. She climbed down the glacier to where she could hear the great wheezing of a great set of lungs.

She wrinkled her nose at the various smells as she climbed down. Once she set a heavily
armored foot on the entrance, she checked her list again.

Gareth Niles of Greyhawk

Marta the Brandisher of Baldur's Gate

Xiethezixezixeithetziquertxexeius (which, of all of them, she found the most amusing
considering that this bearer was a Beholder...), and also guardian of the Lost Tomb of
Menzoberranzan

Windstar Oakmyst of Athas

Sir Noran of Ravenloft

Grand Duchess Tiriel Silvertree of the Southern Elven Kingdom (which, ironically, as far as she knew was of the Palladium Multiverse... an interesting addition...)

Lady Marion Uth Maleste of Ergoth

She stopped at this last name, as it was her own, then continued down the list.

Raistlin Majere, current Guardian

Usha of Selesia... then as she watched it became Usha Majere, then back to Usha the half-irda.

Even Marion found that amusing. The confusion her successor must be having at that. If only she had enough time to see his face. It would be well worth it to just see the typical look of disdain wiped off his face to be replaced with shock or something a bit more amusing. But that was just her own perverse sense of humor coming to the fore.

Then, there was a vast blank space on the scroll and a single name and the most ironic of them all.

Icingdeath, Paragon White Dragon of Tiamat

But Marion knew better than to question when and where a Fragment showed up. After all, she was one, Raistlin was one, even the lowly Usha was one. This list was a record of who had been born with a piece of the Shattered God, Miiro. Marion sighed. Many of them were easy as the mark showed upon them and they, for some reason unknown to even themselves, followed the Path of the Greater Balance.

The white dragon was, to the native of Ergoth (when it had still been Ergoth and before the rise of Vinas Solamnus...), the white dragon having a fragment was a frightening prospect. She sighed. But, as she had passed along the Blue Star to the next Guardian it was her duty to find others and tutor them to their new found powers.

...Like a massive dragon the size of a mountain would ever notice the increase unless they housed a massive Fragment...

She walked in and instantly sensed the other power in the cavern. "What do you want? To plunder? I sense magical armor, god-touched weaponry. I will not be an easy fight."

"I did not come to fight," she began. "I came seeking Icingdeath the Paragon White Dragon of Tiamat."

"And how would you know about that?" the massive white gold eyes opened in surprise.

"Come across a danger that even you yourself did not understand, and yet still survive?" asked Marion. "I see the mark... and here I thought that it just might be possible for the Scroll of the Fragment could be mistaken..."

"What are you on about?" the White Dragon asked. "Shirak."

The cavern lit and Marion looked up at the White Dragon. Indeed, it had not been a trick of the light. The Dragon had gold eyes. Marion sighed and put one hand on her hip and looked at her list, and then nodded her head again. "Are you an unusually powerful dragon, even for one of your kind?"

"Well, yes," answered the Dragon in puzzlement. "I am a paragon, the perfect son of Tiamat."

"I meant even beyond that, beyond what you could explain?"

The Dragon thought a moment, "Sometimes I wonder. But I am a Paragon."

"Indeed," agreed Marion. "I can see where it could be that as well. Tell me, are your morals, your ethos a bit different than your brothers and sisters in the draconic species?"

The Dragon simply looked at her, "I would certainly guess so. I am talking to you instead of eating you, you know."

"That could be due to my armor and weaponry as they are heavily enchanted," she answered drily. "But you have a point. You also seem more intelligent. Yes... yes, I think the list is correct. You are far more that you even give yourself credit for, and someday I may tell you what that is exactly. Perhaps another will, another bearing a gift that is both curse and blessing, your true nature along with a heavy responsibility that will perversely also bring near endless power. My question is; will you be ready for it?"

The Dragon groaned and covered his head with his claw. "Oh, I recognize you now. You're the Miiro, a Guardian of the Blue Star. The prisoner I guard just retreated to the back of her cell. Let me tell you, my Lady, I am not the one you seek. I have enough responsibility making sure she doesn't make it back into any of the worlds out there! I don't need that added to it all."

Marion let the scroll close with a snap, "It's not my place to ask whether or not you want it. When it comes time, I simply ask if you will be ready to receive it should it come down to you. Perhaps by then the Blue Star will again be in the sky and we as Fragments will no longer walk the planes, but be Avatars as we should. But, as you are still a Fragment, this choice will still come down to you. Run if you like, but you and I are brother and sister in this. Farewell, Icingdeath."

With that Marion disappeared. The White Dragon let his head hit the ground, "Just what I needed..."

* * *

The Miiro was a God of the Greater Balance, he was brother (or sister, no one really truly knows...) of Chaos and Law, son (or daughter) of the High God of all creation. It was early in creation that these three came into being, then the High God called the other Gods and through Law and Chaos all the Gods of the Multiverse came to be. At this, the High God saw his grandchildren and withdrew. Law and Chaos took over his position, with Miiro, the Balance, as mediator.

Eventually, the other Gods all split off into their own respective families and the worlds were born. Law saw to it that everything happened in its time and where it should where Chaos set about causing everything that she had built usually went wrong after he touched it. Many worlds were nearly destroyed, one becoming a near permanent desert. Finally Law grew impatient, then angry at her sibling. In the Dome of Creation, she set about to destroy Chaos once and for all. Using surprise, she cast her most powerful spell at Chaos, set upon killing him in a murderous rage.

However, one stepped in between, knowing that without one the other could not exist. And without either, all creation could never continue.

Miiro, the Greater Balance took the brunt of the destructive spell and was shattered across the cosmos, fragments of the God born into living beings on many different worlds and planes of existence so scattered he had become. Only one Fragment, the largest and most powerful one, was able to be tracked down and sealed within a blue sapphire, the Blue Star.

Chaos took damage, but as Miiro had taken the brunt, survived albeit wounded. It was perhaps that at this point the God Reorx of Krynn trapped him in the Graygem (but there is no concrete way to know...). After seeing her siblings destroyed and imprisoned, Law also withdrew, but kept a peripheral watch on the going ons of the other Gods.

And so was the beginning even before the Gods.

* * *

Astinus looked up from the beginning entries of the first chronicle in the Tobril, then looked at the book he wrote in. "Everything that has a beginning must have an end," he whispered.

* * *

In Palanthas a small party of four people, all gathered from the four most distance places in space and time looked at each other across the inn table. One was rather normal, although according to both the Aurak draconian and the large minotaur, she didn't smell right. She appeared to be Silvanesti Elven, but they both when they had met the cleric of Habbakuk had come to the same conclusion that she was not an elf. The Aurak knew she was not of any of the draconian kind, not that his kind would take a female elven body as their form, but could not place the smell. The minotaur could not place it either. She was a graceful elf with the fair golden hair that her kind was well known for, as well as the almond shaped green eyes. She was rather pretty if how the rest of the male population, and some of the female, reacted to her presence. Her name was Windstar (which, if the draconian knew anything of elves, was not a Silvanesti name...)

The other was also elven, but none of the other three (including the Silvanesti) and ever seen her kind before. The minotaur was convinced she had taken a hard knock on her head as she claimed to be from someplace called the 'Underdark', Rilueven to be exact. Her name was Zi-Xha, a Bard of the House of Ravennae in Rilueven. Then again, considering that she had obsidian black skin, stark white hair and violet eyes, she could very well be from this other world she claimed to be from.

Then it came to the minotaur. He stood well over ten feet tall where the average minotaur was only about six or sometimes seven feet. His name was Yz, which, as the 'Qualinesti' Bard liked to point out, was pronounced 'Wise', even if he wasn't.

The Aurak, Xan, was the most recent addition to the group and besides the minotaur the most dangerous.

The four looked around as they took inventory of what they had for spending money and the Bard relayed what she had learned. Yz looked up and asked, "You didn't sing that silly ballad about Drizzitt again, did you?"

"Drizzt," she corrected. "No, I did not. I learned that lesson in Porliost when the Silvanesti ran us out. But then again, I should have expected that from mere darthiir. No offense, Windstar."

"None taken," came the quiet Silvanesti cleric's answer. "I find the tale fascinating, if far-fetched. But who can say what exists and what isn't. Only the Gods know."

"Do you think we'll see Palin again?" asked Xan.

"Likely not," said Zi-Xha. "He seemed distracted when we rescued him."

The group went back to their thinking.