Crevan glanced at Rion as they began to skirt the small encampment in favor of the forested land to the north. "I do not intend to give Ondrea Taan my dragon."

"I didn't ask you to."

"She will." Crevan warned. "I wanted you to know. I will not be complying if she does."

"Fair enough. I don't see why she would. She is more concerned with getting as many people free of the kai so they live when the planet...." His eyes, staring back to the south above Crevan's head were suddenly wide with astonishment. "Heals itself."

Crevan whirled around expecting to see a full contingent attacking them. Instead, he saw a few people crest the dunes all staring south at the hazy skyline where Sentinel was. A huge black circular cloud was surrounding the mountain clearly delineated with its greenish glow and crackling with lightning. A ripple of wind forced the air into their lungs as they stood there, and the earth shook as it had the day Etrusia imploded.

"Crevan! To the sea!!!!" He yelled as they both began to leap rocks and shrubs in an effort to reach the shore before the toxic cloud could reach them. They could both see it widening its scope at an alarming pace. Soon it would touch them all. How long could they live once the air had been cleansed if they weren't adaptable?

The waves were close, Rion shed his outer wear and dove headlong into the crashing surf, submerging himself just seconds before the cloud reached them. He felt the ripples as the water around him shimmered with life, small strange animals appearing out of nowhere and attaching to his skin. The water above and around him teemed reddish gold with their strange small slippery bodies. He closed his eyes and hoped he could stay submerged long enough to out last the effects of the healing, toxic cloud.

"Kara!" He cried out in Zalez.

"I am here, Rion!" Her voice was strong, although far away. "Are you safe?"

"I have revoked my assimilations! I am in the sea as the cloud reaches us." He tried to believe she would also be safe, but he knew she was closer to the mountain.

"I have revoked my kai already." Her tone was fierce and determined, and he found comfort as he struggled for consciousness. "The air shimmers with its healing. I can breathe it and not die!"

"Will you come to me here?"

"As soon as we can move. Oh, Rion! I wish you could see my brother! He rides Talisman as he directs the healing of the planet! They are aloft!" She gave him a bright image, just as he witnessed from her eyes the terrible blackness of the eruption far too close to her.

"Kara! Kara!"

Rion's breath exploded from his chest in fractured pockets of crystalline air that rose as he rose to the surface, hoping the cloud had passed.

"Kara!" She did not answer, and his immediate reaction was to somehow get back to the erupting mountain and find her, she had to be saved.

He surged out of the water and in his mind cried out to Jayce and Terryn. "Come as fast as you can to the water, brothers! Come! Drop it all and run!"

"No need brother, the dragon, and its rider have explained to us the need, and we are even now dumped into the sea nearby you." Terryn's mind voice was the most welcome relief he had yet experienced.

Having just seconds before been told that Galantyne himself rode the blue dragon, Rion's eyes searched the heavens for a sign of this miracle, but he was disappointed that nothing could be seen except the greenish black cloud.

Rion trudged up the rumbled shells poking his bare feet. "When did the dragon come to you?"

"Soon after you left this morning, brother, the dragon had unleashed the healing inside the mountain and was then searching for you at the Queen's request, but found us instead."

Rion slipped, he dragged his body, unfamiliar and winded, into the dark sand of the shore and collapsed onto it near his outer shirt and bag. The darkly charged cloud was all around him. "Terryn, what Queen is this? Ondrea?"

"I don't know, Rion, but the rider asked for you by name, explaining that we had better accept the ride he offered to get to the sea as quickly as we could. He spoke in our Zalez Rion and we could easily see the outcome if we didn't revoke our assimilations. We rode the giant blue dragon, Rion!" Terryn was clearly impressed with this feat and Rion sensed the hope in him that there were more such dragons to be had.

He looked around for Crevan, wondering if he had also revoked his assimilations. Who he saw coming out of the surf was Jayce and Terryn. Flinging the water and sand out of his eyes he searched the other direction and saw a brilliant white contingency of women, a glowing green and pink miniature dragon in the palm of one of them. The white hair and sure step of Ondrea Taan filled his senses. Fascinated and awestruck he nevertheless whirled around, forcing his discomfort to harden into resolve as he struggled to find his brother.

Near the trees, above the shore line where the waves no longer wet the ground was a lone figure, sitting tall, proud, still and defiant. Rion's Zalez went winging toward him and was met with an excruciating barrier fueled by devastating abhorrence.

"Brother!" Rion's weak voice took on force as he called out in terror and scrambled up the jaggedly water-eroded incline, tapped with succulent leafy vines and watery shells no longer inhabited, but littering and obstructing his path. "Brother!"

"It is too late, Rion. Too late."

"No! The cloud is still around us. Go! Immerse yourself! It can't be too late!" Instant realization overcame him, and he stood back in immense terror, his eyes flickering to the swirling clouds. Crevan had dug in his feet.

"I saw what it did to you, Rion, it surrounded the spot where you were. I hesitated, I couldn't do it!" Rion wrangled against his brother's will, strong-armed his now weakened body over his shoulder and stumbled back across the weedy sand, slipping and twisting into the shallow surf, the wind now whipping his words away from them both. Rion stripped the pack off his shoulders, the belt from his hips and waded further out.

"Submerge yourself, Crevan! Hold your breath as long as you can!"

"It is no use, Rion! The first cloud has passed."

"No!" Rion pushed his shoulders under so that his head would immerse. He felt Crevan's despondency and hoped it really wasn't too late; vestiges of the cloud were still filling the nooks and crannies of their surroundings. Surely they would fill Crevan.

On the shore, Ondrea was waiting. The cloud shimmered and shook the air around them, Rion backed away, hoping the same little red creatures would approach Crevan as they had him. He refused to turn his back as Crevan came out of the water, staring straight ahead. He looked bleakly north and then turned and they all gasped as they viewed the scars of Salimantor scales covering the other side of Crevan's body.

Crevan's hand touched the shriveled and scarred edge of his face and he saw the scales that covered his arm and hand. Shock made him begin to tremble. Rion stood firmly planted, willing Crevan to come out of the water and join him. No Zalez reached him, the barrier was firmly unbreakable as if it had no place within this new form or body, half-man half-Salimantor.

Crevan's piercing scream was torn from a throat ravaged by fear and loathing for himself and for what he had become. He whirled and flung himself in the sea once more. Jayce and Terryn, herded the spectators off the shoreline, except for Ondrea, who could not be budged.

Rion reached the spot where Crevan had submerged and diving down, reached his brother, knowing he intended to kill himself, or indeed, had passed out from the shock. It didn't matter which, Rion's clutching fingers grappled with water and weed, and swirling sand, finally attached to the firmness of flesh and pulled him to the surface unresisting, and as he laid his mangled body on the sand Ondrea staggered over to observe the damage.

Ondrea waited. Her dragon perched on her shoulder. The seriousness of the situation bombarded Rion as their combined Zalez reached out to heal Crevan.

"I can force him to keep his life." Ondrea finally cried, streaming eyes rising to meet Rion's. "But he wants to die."

"Force him to live then! He cannot die! I need him!"

"His will be a painful and tragic life if I force him. What do you want me to do! Think hard, Rion!"

"Make him live!" Rion commanded instantly. "His life is imperative to me! He is my brother!" He stood back as Ondrea and dragon now leaned once more over Crevan's prone body.

Rion felt like his breath would explode out of him, when finally Crevan's eyes opened. "Rion, you should have let me go. I am a monster."

Rion fell to his knees, as he man-handled Crevan's inert form into a sitting position and Ondrea fell back. "I couldn't let you go, Crevan. When the time came I saw no such monster, only my brother."

Crevan's hideous eye pierced Rion when with monstrous control, he ripped himself out of Rion's grasp. "I hate what I am! I hate what you have made me! You should have let me go."

"Will you hate me too?" Rion fell to the ground, rocks cutting jaggedly into his knees.

"I do." Crevan ground out pathetically, forcing his huge and disgustingly distorted twisted body to stand, adjusting to one shoulder cocked awkwardly above the other, his upper back angrily stretched and deformed. He swayed uneasily and then taking two unsteady steps he turned to Rion. "No longer brother, but an enemy will I be to you! Banished and alone will I wander and hinder you until you beg me to kill you, and kill me you will Rion Etrusia. I swear it will be. My oath to you. I will kill you, and you will kill me!"

Rion faltered, clutching his throat, as his eyes watered against the darkening dust and ash in the air. He heard those final words over and over again, as his brother weaved his way into the cover of the nearby trees. "This cannot be!"

Ondrea's compassionate features mirrored Rion's agony. With a monumental effort, she dragged herself to her feet holding her hand out to lift him. "What's done is done."

In mounting realization, Rion plunged after his brother, screaming his name wretchedly. Plants and slippery needles pierced his skin. "Let me go to him!"

Ondrea's head hung limply, her strength spent, "Where he is you cannot go."

"What have I done?"

"You have responsibilities, Rion."

"Do not pretend to lecture me on responsibilities, Mistress." He sneered. "There goes the brother I love more than my own life. Do not lecture me!"

Ondrea forced herself proudly to her feet, as she made her way up the beach toward the small encampment she had left there, as an even smaller contingency began to crest the dunes beyond them. "You gave me the life of my daughter, I gave you the life of your brother. Make of it what you will, as will I."

In Zalez, she reached out to her daughters and son, counting each alive. Time would heal Rion Etrusia. Time would distract him as well. They had a war to fight, and a future to secure.

******