The World of the Dragons

Introduction

The universe is misnamed, for there is not a single universe, but many, all similar, but all different. In a countless number of these so-called universes, life never arose. In them, Earth is, and always has been, a barren planet. For some, life is a new thing, the first single-celled creatures only now emerging from the primordial slime. For others, life burnt out billions of years ago, a few scattered ruins and dried bones all that remains of great civilisations.

In some, such as the one humans call home, the one from which you read this now, there is life on planet Earth. In your universe, mammals dominate life, risen over fifty million years ago, freed to do so by a mass extinction of the dinosaurs of unknown cause. These early mammals have changed, have evolved, have adapted, and at their head is you, a mammal which succeeds not through strength, nor through size, but through intelligence.

But on some, the extinction never happened. Mammals arose not to dominate over the reptiles, but to compete with them. For some of these worlds, mammals adapted faster, and overtook the reptiles. For others, mammals played no more than a minor part in the Earth's history, appearing, and then dying out again.

On one particular world, the reptiles adapted to stay ahead of the new threat to their dominance. What they lacked in intelligence, they more than made up for with their size and strength. Some became great serpents, masters of the swamps and the seas. Some became terrible lizards, ruthless and efficient hunters and killers.

And on this one world, the Pterosaurai, the winged lizards, were able to rise above even their fellow reptiles. Their ability to soar above the grassy plains, preying on the defenceless mammals grazing below them, gave them an advantage over their ground-based cousins. And as the mammals grew into their world, those that preyed upon them also grew, becoming larger, stronger, and deadlier.

Even with their superiority assured, the great winged reptiles did not stop changing. No longer competing with the world around them, they competed with each other, fighting over the food supplies, over territory, but most of all over the right to mate and reproduce. Free from other constraints, evolution adapted them to better succeed in these conflicts.

This world is my world, and these winged reptiles my race. Although once we were the Pterosaurai, we are now something greater. We have left our world to travel between the dimensions, spreading our influence far and wide. Every culture tells its tales of us, every intelligent being recognises us. And every being fears us.

We are the Dragons.

But as our sun grows large and hot within the sky, I fear our time is coming to an end. Although the heat grants us strength, it takes from us far more than it gives. It burns our eggs, so that we can produce only male offspring. It ravages the land, stealing our water from us, destroying the lush forests and grasslands, leaving only desert. We have little food, little water, and no females.

Yet we survive, just as we have already survived. We have learnt to take souls from other worlds, to once again provide our males with mates. We can move ahead of the advancing drought, to follow the food, to follow the water.

Now my time here grows short. I see my death, the end of my journey, the end of my fight against this oppressive world. And as the sun swells ever bigger, I fear how long my race shall survive, how long this land will suffer their presence.

But before I die, I shall raise one more daughter, who will take my place, who will lead my family, who will continue this fight.

And she will come from your world, from your people...