T21860_620_00Betrayal.

ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 1

Jean Rabe

®
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 1

CHAPTER ONE
NURA’S CHOICE

nside the cave the darkness was an impenetrable

I blanket that cloaked the creature sleeping within.
Only its breath gave it away—this raspy and un-
even, echoing hauntingly against the stone walls and
escaping as a breeze to tease the coppery curls of the child
who stood just beyond the entrance.
She was no more than five or six, cherubic and
clothed in a diaphanous dress that at first glance ap-
peared to be fashioned of pale flower petals, but on
closer inspection seemed instead to shimmer as if it were
made of magic. The fingers of her left hand were
clenched about the haft of a glaive, an axe-bladed pole-
arm more than twice her height that looked far too
unwieldy for her to manage. The fingers of her right
hand playfully stroked the giant fern leaves that helped
to conceal the cave mouth. The green of the ferns was
intense, brightened by a fiery late afternoon sun and
made slick with humidity. Droplets of water beaded
and gleamed like diamonds. 1
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 2

B E T R A Y A L

“Mumummmm-ummm,” she sang when she spotted

a furry caterpillar, striped orange and golden-brown,
standing out starkly against a diamond-dotted frond.
She stared at it for several long moments, then gently
picked it up and held it before her wide, blue eyes.
“Soft,” she pronounced. “Very pretty.” The thing slowly
wriggled, and in response she laughed in a voice that
was not at all childlike. She popped the caterpillar into
her mouth and swallowed it, just as she stepped inside
the cave and was swallowed by the darkness.
“Master?” she whispered, as she instinctively padded
forward, her bare feet slapping against the stone. It was an
enormous cave, whose depths she couldn’t guess, no
matter if dozens of torches had been merrily burning. It
was one of several the creature had in this part of Krynn,
all connected through underground tunnels that the child
was occasionally permitted to wander. This particular
cave was the most familiar to her.
Though well shielded from the sun, the interior was
stifling, the air damp and close and filled with the strong,
sweet-sour stench of decay. The child inhaled deeply,
holding and relishing the scent, then almost reluctantly
releasing it.
“Master?”
A pause, then again she repeated the word, no longer
a question now, as she effortlessly tossed the glaive to the
floor, its blade clanging against the stone. In response,
twin globes of dull yellow appeared in the middle of the
blackness. They were eyes, larger than wagon wheels
and cut through by murky catlike slits. Though there was
a thick film on them, they gave off a faint light, eerie and
just enough to illuminate the creature’s massive snout
and the child who was dwarfed by it. The girl stood on
her toes and reverently stretched a hand up to graze the
2 edge of the creature’s jaw.
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 3

J E A N R A B E

“You summoned me, O Very Old One?” Her voice was

husky now and had an edge to it, a sultry woman’s voice.
The creature’s raspy breath was broken by a rumbling
of words so sonorous and loud they caused a tremor to
ripple through the ground. “Nura Bint-Drax,” it said, each
syllable excruciatingly drawn out and returning as an
echo. “Nura. My very young servant.”
“Your chosen one.” The child smiled and shifted back
and forth on the balls of her feet, spread her arms wide.
She turned her head this way and that so the hot breeze of
the creature’s fetid breath could wash over her. “Your very
loyal servant.”
There were no more words for a time. The creature
silently regarded the child, and the child basked in the
creature’s presence. Then the great eyes blinked, and the
child haltingly stepped back, thin arms falling to her sides,
shoulders squaring, unblemished face fixed forward,
standing like a soldier at attention.
The rumbling started again. The words came so ponder-
ously slow that the child had to concentrate to understand.
“Yes, Master. I have made a selection, a most suitable
one. You will be quite pleased.”
She felt the next question as much as heard it, the
tremors shivering through the stone floor and tickling the
bottoms of her feet.
“His name is Dhamon Grimwulf, Master. A human.”
There was another silence, this one seemingly inter-
minable, as Nura’s legs and arms tingled from remaining
straight and motionless for so long. She breathed shal-
lowly and somehow managed not to blink. Finally, the
creature’s breath quickened and it raised its head, tucking
its jaw into its neck and tilting it so as to look sharply
down upon the child, eyes narrowing disapprovingly.
“A human,” the creature stated, the two words
uttered with such contempt and power that when the 3
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 4

B E T R A Y A L

ground shook this time Nura had to struggle to keep

her balance.
The child bravely thrust out her chin. “Yes, Master.
Dhamon is a human, but he is the one, I believe.”
The creature growled, as bits of rock and dust fell from
overhead like the beginning of rain. “You are certain, Nura
Bint-Drax? You have no doubts?”
“He is the one.” She tipped her head, and a corner of her
mouth turned slightly upward. “I have been testing him,
O Very Old One.”
“I know.” The ground vibrated softly this time, as
though the creature was purring. It opened its eyes wide
again, giving light to the cave interior. “Tell me of this. . . .”
“Dhamon Grimwulf.” Nura’s head angled back as far as
she could manage, her wide child’s eyes meeting the crea-
ture’s steady gaze. “He was a Knight of Takhisis, Master, a
commander of men. Once he rode a great blue dragon into
battle, but he turned from the Dark Knights, anointed by
the powerful goodness of an aging Solamnic, further
touched by Goldmoon, who made him her champion. This
is proof he can be swayed.”
Nura paused, picking through the complex rumbling
that followed. “Yes, Master. Dhamon Grimwulf was that
man, the one who led a band of mortals to the Window to
the Stars to confront the five dragon overlords. He was
victorious that day, though not a single dragon died. Vic-
torious because he took a stand and lived. A pity he did
not recognize what he had achieved.”
The rumbling intensified, and Nura put all her effort into
keeping her balance and deciphering the words. When the
ground quieted, the child waved her hands in front of her
face and shook her head. “No, O Very Old One, he is Gold-
moon’s champion no longer. He no longer struggles
against the overlords. Now he has no cares beyond his own
4 pleasure. There are very few who call him friend.”
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 5

J E A N R A B E

“A fallen hero,” the creature stated.

“Yes, Master.”
“A common thief.” There was a near-painful skritching
sound, of something sharp being scraped across the stone,
then a throaty growl that encouraged her to continue.
“Master, I believe Dhamon Grimwulf’s spirit and
honor died when he decided the dragon overlords were
unstoppable. His beliefs in a better world and in himself
as a catalyst to achieve that are buried deep in his heart.
Hope does not exist for him.”
The creature canted its head and gave a nod.
“Dhamon has been battered by life . . . or rather by a
living death that seems to pursue him and instead claim the
lives of close friends and charges. To be close to Dhamon
Grimwulf is to risk corruption and death, it seems.”
She moved closer to the creature, as it lowered its great
head so she could tease the barbels that hung from its chin.
“A young green dragon slew his men in the Qualinesti
Forest,” Nura added. “Then Dhamon killed his own
second-in-command in the throes of drunken self-defense.
Though there are many things that have gone wrong in his
life, I think that act was the final blow that turned him com-
pletely inward. He has lost confidence in himself and in
Krynn. Yes, he is a fallen hero, Master. But he is the one.”
The creature closed its eyes, and the cave was plunged
into darkness. Vibrations raced through the stone, intense
and echoing. The child clamped her hands over her ears and
stepped away. The creature rested its head on the floor,
and eventually the vibrations slowed, before ceasing, to be
replaced by the raspy uneven breath of its slumber. When
it awoke several hours later, the child was patiently sitting
nearby. The eerie light of the creature’s eyes showed
Nura’s own eyes sparkling with anticipation.
“More,” the creature stated.
“Regarding Dhamon Grimwulf?” 5
T21860_620_00Betrayal.ch1 5/31/01 2:45 PM Page 6

B E T R A Y A L

“Yes. More. You must do more so that I can be certain.”

Nura digested the words and put a meaning to them.
“You wish me to test him further, Master?”
There was a harsh grating sound that the child under-
stood as affirmative.
“Indeed I shall test him more,” Nura said, the excite-
ment thick in her voice. “I shall test him to the very limits
of his existence. If he dies, I shall have been proved wrong,
and I shall search for another. If he does not die, and if he
can be thoroughly broken, swayed to our side, made
useful . . . .” She let the words hang in the foul air. “If this
Dhamon Grimwulf can survive my tests . . .”
“. . . then indeed he is the one,” the creature finished. It
turned its head, eyes looking past Nura and to a wall of
mist that was forming before the cave mouth.
The child wheeled to see what it was the creature was
observing in its magical vision. Forming across the face
of the mist were trees and ferns and gently-swaying
lianas, the varieties indicating the scene was far from this
cave. It was night in the image, but there was the faintest
hint of a flickering light.
“It must be a torch,” the child said. A moment later her
keen eyes recognized the torch-bearer, and she softly
laughed. “That human woman with the red hair,” she
stated, “and the dark man who follows her . . . they are of
no consequence to us.”
The creature snarled almost imperceptibly.
“As you wish, O Very Old One. I will attend to them. I
live to serve you.”