The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet
Read The Book of Air: Volume Four of the Dragon Quartet Online
Authors: Marjorie B. Kellogg
THE DRAGON QUARTET:
BOOK FOUR
THE BOOK OF AIR
Marjorie B. Kellogg
Also by Marjorie B. Kellogg:
The Dragon Quartet
THE BOOK OF EARTH
THE BOOK OF WATER
THE BOOK OF FIRE
THE BOOK OF AIR
By Marjorie B. Kellogg with William Rossow:
LEAR’S DAUGHTERS
(The Wave and the Flame | Reign of Fire)
Copyright © 2003 by Marjorie Bradley Kellogg.
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-101-66452-0
Cover art by Dan Craig.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1275.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).
All characters in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
The uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
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Version_1
For
Dorothy Koehler
, and all other friends of dragons.
And for
Jim Hansen
, who told it like it is.
As always, thanks are due to Lynne Kemen and Bill Rossow, literary critics
par excellence
, to Vicki Davis, to my agent, Joshua Bilmes, and to my oh-so-patient editor and publisher, Sheila Gilbert.
Apologies are due to all the readers of THE DRAGON QUARTET who had to wait so long for this final volume! Real life just got the better of me.
IN THE BEGINNING, AND A LITTLE AFTER . . .
PART ONE: The Summoning of the Hero
PART TWO: The Journey into Peril
PART THREE: The Call to the Quest
IN THE BEGINNING,
AND A LITTLE AFTER . . .
I
n the Beginning, four mighty dragons raised of elemental energies were put to work creating the World. They were called Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. No one of them had power greater than another, and no one of them was mighty alone.
When the work was completed and the World set in motion, the four went to ground, expecting to sleep out this World’s particular history and not rise again until World’s End.
The first to awaken was Earth.
He woke in darkness, as innocent as a babe, with only the fleeting shadows of dreams to hint at his former magnificence. But one bright flame of knowledge drove him forth: he was Called to Work again, if only he could remember what the Work was.
He found the World grown damp and chill, overrun by the puniest of creatures, Creation’s afterthought, the ones called Men. Earth soon learned that Men, too, had forgotten their Origin. They had abandoned their own intended Work in the World and thrived instead on superstition, violence, and self-righteous oppression of their fellows. They
had forgotten as well their primordial relationship with dragons—all, that is, but a few.
One in particular awaited Earth’s coming, a young girl who knew nothing of the secret duty carried down through the countless generations of her blood. Her name was Erde, and she knew her Destiny when she faced a living dragon and was not afraid.
Thereafter, Earth’s Quest became her own, and together they searched her World for answers to his questions. Some they found and slowly, along with his memory, Earth’s powers reawakened. But the girl’s World was dark and dangerous and ignorant, and the mysterious Caller who summoned Earth could not be found within it. One day, blindly following the Call, Earth took them Somewhere Else.
In that Somewhere Else, they found Earth’s sister Water, and her Companion N’Doch. N’Doch’s World was hot and crowded and full of noise, and mysterious to Erde until she understood that she had traveled to Sometime, as well as to Somewhere. It became her task to teach N’Doch about the dragons and their Quest, for he did not know his Destiny, and did not join them willingly at first.