Chapter 1

SATURDAY 6:05 A. M. Lake Michigan Shore, Chicago, IL

The flight of three Dragons graced the early morning skies of Chicago like jewels in a diadem. The rising sun glinted off yellow, blue, and green scales like an out of control kaleidoscope, while they performed aerobatics that would have put the Blue Angels to shame.

As they passed over the Lake's Edge district, all three executed a precision wing dip salute, to the Mer Folk hunting party on the Lake surface. The returned raised trident salute was certainly appreciated, as evidenced by the berserk immelmans, figure eights and loop-to-loops this triggered.

Unfortunately for the intrepid three; Mer Folk eyes were not the only things watching their display.

Mark Pitman was one of the Chicago regions premier wildlife photographers and had set up in the pre-dawn stillness with the best telephoto lenses ever made, hoping to catch that fleeting moment when the lakeshore wildlife awoke for another day. Needless to say, he got way more than he had bargained for.

His vocabulary seemed to have shrunk to a repeating, "Holy Shi... !", but there was nothing wrong with his shutter finger and five hundred-twenty high speed frames later, he was ready to believe in anything.

Going back over the digital captures, his favorite phrase of this morning was finally joined by a heartfelt, "The Sierra Club is going to crap their collective britches, not to mention The National Geographic Society."

SUNDAY 3:30 A. M. The News Stand at E. Van Buren and Wabash Ave., Chicago, IL

As Michael Shaun Kilian - who, along with his Father, ran the news stand - retrieved the Chicago Times bundle from the sidewalk, the banner headline jumped off the page at him:

"Here, There Be Dragons"

'What in the name of Heaven did those idiots think they were doing!?!' his mind screamed. Thumbing through the edition while making his way around the Bakery building next door, he mentally called to the wayward children living on the roof, 'Would someone like to explain this to me, really slowly?' Followed by, 'What exactly, did you guys 'not' understand about the term, Keep Under The Radar?' All this was sent while shaping his Mage shield into a hand and lifting the Prima Facie evidence of their Boo-Boo into their living quarters.

The arrival of this evidence, elicited cries of delight and chagrin, as the intrepid three went back and forth with their comments. 'Just look at that wingtip. It has to be six-inches out of the plane, ' sent the male of the trio Cáel, 'Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!'

'Oh, it was a micro-burst, and you couldn't have done any better, ' returned Isli, the owner of the offending wingtip.

Mateel, the resident peacemaker then jumped in with, 'Well, she did recover nicely on the back end of that... '

'SHUT UP!!' Mike mind screamed out at the catastrophe in the making, then calming himself by force of main will, he continued with, 'Has it escaped all of your collective attentions, that you are pictured in the Sunday Morning Edition of The Chicago Sun Times, ON THE FRONT FRIGGING PAGE!! You know, the edition that ... EVERYONE ... has plenty of time ... to READ!! Oh, and let's not forget the nice glossy six page photo spread in section one, followed by ... by the whole damn paper! Even the 'religion' section has a bunch of -what does this mean? - articles.'

Rubbing at his temples, in an forlorn attempt to stave off the incipient Mother-Of-All-Headaches, he was heard to be whispering, "Gusfraba, Gusfraba, Gusfraba."

As his murmuring ground to a halt, he sent, 'OK kids, pack up whatever you want to take with you. You're headed for Elfrealm Lake's Edge for at least the next six months. Where, with any luck at all, you can't possibly make this little event any worse.'

After Mike had herded the trio through the Portal in Grant Park and sent them winging to Elnore's hold. He contacted Elnore and passed on the new information. Elnore's response was fairly predictable.